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Title: The Sorrows of Satan - or, The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, - Millionaire, A Romance
Author: Corelli, Marie, 1855-1924
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Sorrows of Satan - or, The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, - Millionaire, A Romance" ***
THE SORROWS OF SATAN
OR
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ONE
GEOFFREY TEMPEST, MILLIONAIRE
A ROMANCE
BY MARIE CORELLI
METHUEN & CO. LTD., LONDON
_36 Essex Street W.C._
_First Published November 1895
Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh,
Eighth, Ninth, Tenth Editions 1895
Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth,
Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth,
Twentieth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third,
Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth,
Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth,
Thirtieth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second Editions 1896
Thirty-third, Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth
Editions 1897
Thirty-seventh, Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth
Editions 1898
Fortieth and Forty-first Editions 1899
Forty-second Edition 1900
Forty-third and Forty-fourth Editions 1901
Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Editions 1902
Forty-seventh Edition 1903
Forty-eighth Edition 1904
Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Editions 1905
Fifty-first Edition 1906
Fifty-second and Fifty-third Editions 1907
Fifty-fourth Edition 1908
Fifty-fifth Edition 1909
Fifty-sixth Edition 1910
Fifty-seventh Edition 1911
Fifty-eighth Edition 1913
Fifty-ninth Edition 1914
Sixtieth Edition 1916
Sixty-first Edition 1917
Sixty-second and Sixty-third Editions 1918
Sixty-fourth Edition 1920
Sixty-fifth Edition (Cheap Edition) 1920
Sixty-sixth Edition " " 1922
Sixty-seventh Edition " " 1931
Sixty-eighth Edition " " 1936
Reprinted, 1952_
68.2
CATALOGUE NO. 2075/V
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
THE SORROWS OF SATAN
I
Do you know what it is to be poor? Not poor with the arrogant poverty
complained of by certain people who have five or six thousand a year to
live upon, and who yet swear they can hardly manage to make both ends
meet, but really poor,--downright, cruelly, hideously poor, with a
poverty that is graceless, sordid and miserable? Poverty that compels
you to dress in your one suit of clothes till it is worn
threadbare,--that denies you clean linen on account of the ruinous
charges of washerwomen,--that robs you of your own self-respect, and
causes you to slink along the streets vaguely abashed, instead of
walking erect among your fellow-men in independent ease,--this is the
sort of poverty I mean. This is the grinding curse that keeps down noble
aspiration under a load of ignoble care; this is the moral cancer that
eats into the heart of an otherwise well-intentioned human creature and
makes him envious and malignant, and inclined to the use of dynamite.
When he sees the fat idle woman of society passing by in her luxurious
carriage, lolling back lazily, her face mottled with the purple and red
signs of superfluous eating,--when he observes the brainless and sensual
man of fashion smoking and dawdling away the hours in the Park, as if
all the world and its millions of honest hard workers were created
solely for the casual diversion of the so-called 'upper' classes,--then
the good blood in him turns to gall, and his suffering spirit rises in
fierce rebellion, crying out--"Why in God's name, should this injustice
be? Why should a worthless lounger have his pockets full of gold by mere
chance and heritage, while I, toiling wearily from morn till midnight,
can scarce afford myself a satisfying meal?"
Why indeed! Why should the wicked flourish like a green bay-tree? I have
often thought about it. Now however I believe I could help to solve the
problem out of my own personal experience. But ... such an experience!
Who will credit it? Who will believe that anything so strange and
terrific ever chanced to the lot of a mortal man? No one. Yet it is
true;--truer than much so-called truth. Moreover I know that many men
are living through many such incidents as have occurred to me, under
precisely the same influence, conscious perhaps at times, that they are
in the tangles of sin, but too weak of will to break the net in which
they have become voluntarily imprisoned. Will they be taught, I wonder,
the lesson I have learned? In the same bitter school, under the same
formidable taskmaster? Will they realize as I have been forced to
do,--aye, to the very fibres of my intellectual perception,--the vast,
individual, active Mind, which behind all matter, works unceasingly,
though silently, a very eternal and positive God? If so, then dark
problems will become clear to them, and what seems injustice in the
world will prove pure equity! But I do not write with any hope of either
persuading or enlightening my fellow-men. I know their obstinacy too
well;--I can gauge it by my own. My proud belief in myself was, at one
time, not to be outdone by any human unit on the face of the globe. And
I am aware that others are in similar case. I merely intend to relate
the various incidents of my career in due order exactly as they
happened,--leaving to more confident heads the business of propounding
and answering the riddles of human existence as best they may.
During a certain bitter winter, long remembered for its arctic severity,
when a great wave of intense cold spread freezing influences not alone
over the happy isles of Britain, but throughout all Europe, I, Geoffrey
Tempest, was alone in London and well-nigh starving. Now a starving man
seldom gets the sympathy he merits,--so few can be persuaded to believe
in him. Worthy folks who have just fed to repletion are the most
incredulous, some of them being even moved to smile when told of
existing hungry people, much as if these were occasional jests invented
for after-dinner amusement. Or, with that irritating vagueness of
attention which characterizes fashionable folk to such an extent that
when asking a question they neither wait for the answer nor understand
it when given, the well-dined groups, hearing of some one starved to
death, will idly murmur 'How dreadful!' and at once turn to the
discussion of the latest 'fad' for killing time, ere it takes to killing
them with sheer _ennui_. The pronounced fact of being hungry sounds
coarse and common, and is not a topic for polite society, which always
eats more than sufficient for its needs. At the period I am speaking of
however, I, who have since been one of the most envied of men, knew the
cruel meaning of the word hunger, too well,--the gnawing pain, the sick
faintness, the deadly stupor, the insatiable animal craving for mere
food, all of which sensations are frightful enough to those who are,
unhappily, daily inured to them, but which when they afflict one who has
been tenderly reared and brought up to consider himself a
'gentleman,'--God save the mark! are perhaps still more painful to bear.
And I felt that I had not deserved to suffer the wretchedness in which I
found myself. I had worked hard. From the time my father died, leaving
me to discover that every penny of the fortune I imagined he possessed
was due to swarming creditors, and that nothing of all our house and
estate was left to me except a jewelled miniature of my mother who had
lost her own life in giving me birth,--from that time I say, I had put
my shoulder to the wheel and toiled late and early. I had turned my
University education to the only use for which it or I seemed
fitted,--literature. I had sought for employment on almost every journal
in London,--refused by many, taken on trial by some, but getting steady
pay from none. Whoever seeks to live by brain and pen alone is, at the
beginning of such a career, treated as a sort of social pariah. Nobody
wants him,--everybody despises him. His efforts are derided, his
manuscripts are flung back to him unread, and he is less cared for than
the condemned murderer in gaol. The murderer is at least fed and
clothed,--a worthy clergyman visits him, and his gaoler will
occasionally condescend to play cards with him. But a man gifted with
original thoughts and the power of expressing them, appears to be
regarded by everyone in authority as much worse than the worst criminal,
and all the 'jacks-in-office' unite to kick him to death if they can. I
took both kicks and blows in sullen silence and lived on,--not for the
love of life, but simply because I scorned the cowardice of
self-destruction. I was young enough not to part with hope too
easily;--the vague idea I had that my turn would come,--that the
ever-circling wheel of Fortune would perchance lift me up some day as it
now crushed me down, kept me just wearily capable of continuing
existence,--though it was merely a continuance and no more. For about
six months I got some reviewing work on a well-known literary journal.
Thirty novels a week were sent to me to 'criticise,'--I made a habit of
glancing hastily at about eight or ten of them, and writing one column
of rattling abuse concerning these thus casually selected,--the
remainder were never noticed at all. I found that this mode of action
was considered 'smart,' and I managed for a time to please my editor who
paid me the munificent sum of fifteen shillings for my weekly labour.
But on one fatal occasion I happened to change my tactics and warmly
praised a work which my own conscience told me was both original and
excellent. The author of it happened to be an old enemy of the
proprietor of the journal on which I was employed;--my eulogistic review
of the hated individual, unfortunately for me, appeared, with the result
that private spite outweighed public justice, and I was immediately
dismissed.
After this I dragged on in a sufficiently miserable way, doing 'hack
work' for the dailies, and living on promises that never became
realities, till, as I have said, in the early January of the bitter
winter alluded to, I found myself literally penniless and face to face
with starvation, owing a month's rent besides for the poor lodging I
occupied in a back street not far from the British Museum. I had been
out all day trudging from one newspaper office to another, seeking for
work and finding none. Every available post was filled. I had also
tried, unsuccessfully, to dispose of a manuscript of my own,--a work of
fiction which I knew had some merit, but which all the 'readers' in the
publishing offices appeared to find exceptionally worthless. These
'readers' I learned, were most of them novelists themselves, who read
other people's productions in their spare moments and passed judgment on
them. I have always failed to see the justice of this arrangement; to me
it seems merely the way to foster mediocrities and suppress originality.
Common sense points out the fact that the novelist 'reader' who has a
place to maintain for himself in literature would naturally rather
encourage work that is likely to prove ephemeral, than that which might
possibly take a higher footing than his own. Be this as it may, and
however good or bad the system, it was entirely prejudicial to me and my
literary offspring. The last publisher I tried was a kindly man who
looked at my shabby clothes and gaunt face with some commiseration.
"I'm sorry," said he, "very sorry, but my readers are quite unanimous.
From what I can learn, it seems to me you have been too earnest. And
also, rather sarcastic in certain strictures against society. My dear
fellow, that won't do. Never blame society,--it buys books! Now if you
could write a smart love-story, slightly _risqué_,--even a little more
than _risqué_ for that matter; that is the sort of thing that suits the
present age."
"Pardon me," I interposed somewhat wearily--"but are you sure you judge
the public taste correctly?"
He smiled a bland smile of indulgent amusement at what he no doubt
considered my ignorance in putting such a query.
"Of course I am sure,"--he replied--"It is my business to know the
public taste as thoroughly as I know my own pocket. Understand me,--I
don't suggest that you should write a book on any positively indecent
subject,--that can be safely left to the 'New' woman,"--and he
laughed,--"but I assure you high-class fiction doesn't sell. The critics
don't like it, to begin with. What goes down with them and with the
public is a bit of sensational realism told in terse newspaper English.
Literary English,--Addisonian English,--is a mistake."
"And I am also a mistake I think," I said with a forced smile--"At any
rate if what you say be true, I must lay down the pen and try another
trade. I am old-fashioned enough to consider Literature as the highest
of all professions, and I would rather not join in with those who
voluntarily degrade it."
He gave me a quick side-glance of mingled incredulity and depreciation.
"Well, well!" he finally observed--"you are a little quixotic. That will
wear off. Will you come on to my club and dine with me?"
I refused this invitation promptly. I knew the man saw and recognised my
wretched plight,--and pride--false pride if you will--rose up to my
rescue. I bade him a hurried good-day, and started back to my lodging,
carrying my rejected manuscript with me. Arrived there, my landlady met
me as I was about to ascend the stairs, and asked me whether I would
'kindly settle accounts' the next day. She spoke civilly enough, poor
soul, and not without a certain compassionate hesitation in her manner.
Her evident pity for me galled my spirit as much as the publisher's
offer of a dinner had wounded my pride,--and with a perfectly audacious
air of certainty I at once promised her the money at the time she
herself appointed, though I had not the least idea where or how I should
get the required sum. Once past her, and shut in my own room, I flung my
useless manuscript on the floor and myself into a chair, and--swore. It
refreshed me to swear, and it seemed natural,--for though temporarily
weakened by lack of food, I was not yet so weak as to shed tears,--and a
fierce formidable oath was to me the same sort of physical relief which
I imagine a fit of weeping may be to an excitable woman. Just as I could
not shed tears, so was I incapable of apostrophizing God in my despair.
To speak frankly, I did not believe in any God--_then_. I was to myself
an all-sufficing mortal, scorning the time-worn superstitions of
so-called religion. Of course I had been brought up in the Christian
faith; but that creed had become worse than useless to me since I had
intellectually realized the utter inefficiency of Christian ministers to
deal with difficult life-problems. Spiritually I was adrift in
chaos,--mentally I was hindered both in thought and achievement,--bodily,
I was reduced to want. My case was desperate,--I myself was desperate.
It was a moment when if ever good and evil angels play a game of chance
for a man's soul, they were surely throwing the dice on the last wager
for mine. And yet, with it all, I felt I had done my best. I was driven
into a corner by my fellow-men who grudged me space to live in, but I
had fought against it. I had worked honestly and patiently;--all to no
purpose. I knew of rogues who gained plenty of money; and of knaves who
were amassing large fortunes. Their prosperity appeared to prove that
honesty after all was _not_ the best policy. What should I do then? How
should I begin the jesuitical business of committing evil that good,
personal good, might come of it? So I thought, dully, if such stray
half-stupefied fancies as I was capable of, deserved the name of thought.
The night was bitter cold. My hands were numbed, and I tried to warm
them at the oil-lamp my landlady was good enough to still allow me the
use of, in spite of delayed cash-payments. As I did so, I noticed three
letters on the table,--one in a long blue envelope suggestive of either
a summons or a returned manuscript,--one bearing the Melbourne postmark,
and the third a thick square missive coroneted in red and gold at the
back. I turned over all three indifferently, and selecting the one from
Australia, balanced it in my hand a moment before opening it. I knew
from whom it came, and idly wondered what news it brought me. Some
months previously I had written a detailed account of my increasing
debts and difficulties to an old college chum, who finding England too
narrow for his ambition had gone out to the wider New world on a
speculative quest of gold mining. He was getting on well, so I
understood, and had secured a fairly substantial position; and I had
therefore ventured to ask him point-blank for the loan of fifty pounds.
Here, no doubt, was his reply, and I hesitated before breaking the seal.
"Of course it will be a refusal," I said half-aloud,--"However kindly a
friend may otherwise be, he soon turns crusty if asked to lend money. He
will express many regrets, accuse trade and the general bad times and
hope I will soon 'tide over.' I know the sort of thing. Well,--after
all, why should I expect him to be different to other men? I've no claim
on him beyond the memory of a few sentimental arm-in-arm days at
Oxford."
A sigh escaped me in spite of myself, and a mist blurred my sight for
the moment. Again I saw the grey towers of peaceful Magdalen, and the
fair green trees shading the walks in and around the dear old University
town where we,--I and the man whose letter I now held in my
hand,--strolled about together as happy youths, fancying that we were
young geniuses born to regenerate the world. We were both fond of
classics,--we were brimful of Homer and the thoughts and maxims of all
the immortal Greeks and Latins,--and I verily believe, in those
imaginative days, we thought we had in us such stuff as heroes are made
of. But our entrance into the social arena soon robbed us of our sublime
conceit,--we were common working units, no more,--the grind and prose of
daily life put Homer into the background, and we soon discovered that
society was more interested in the latest unsavoury scandal than in the
tragedies of Sophocles or the wisdom of Plato. Well! it was no doubt
extremely foolish of us to dream that we might help to regenerate a
world in which both Plato and Chris appear to have failed,--yet the
most hardened cynic will scarcely deny that it is pleasant to look back
to the days of his youth if he can think that at least then, if only
once in his life, he had noble impulses.
The lamp burned badly, and I had to re-trim it before I could settle
down to read my friend's letter. Next door some-one was playing a violin,
and playing it well. Tenderly and yet with a certain amount of _brio_
the notes came dancing from the bow, and I listened, vaguely pleased.
Being faint with hunger I was somewhat in a listless state bordering on
stupor,--and the penetrating sweetness of the music appealing to the
sensuous and æsthetic part of me, drowned for the moment mere animal
craving.
"There you go!" I murmured, apostrophizing the unseen
musician,--"practising away on that friendly fiddle of yours,--no doubt
for a mere pittance which barely keeps you alive. Possibly you are some
poor wretch in a cheap orchestra,--or you might even be a street-player
and be able to live in this neighbourhood of the _élite_ starving,--you
can have no hope whatever of being the 'fashion' and making your bow
before Royalty,--or if you have that hope, it is wildly misplaced. Play
on, my friend, play on!--the sounds you make are very agreeable, and
seem to imply that you are happy. I wonder if you are?--or if, like me,
you are going rapidly to the devil!"
The music grew softer and more plaintive, and was now accompanied by the
rattle of hailstones against the window-panes. A gusty wind whistled
under the door and roared down the chimney,--a wind cold as the grasp of
death and searching as a probing knife. I shivered,--and bending close
over the smoky lamp, prepared to read my Australian news. As I opened
the envelope, a bill for fifty pounds, payable to me at a well-known
London banker's, fell out upon the table. My heart gave a quick bound of
mingled relief and gratitude.
"Why Jack, old fellow, I wronged you!" I exclaimed,--"Your heart is in
the right place after all."
And profoundly touched by my friend's ready generosity, I eagerly
perused his letter. It was not very long, and had evidently been written
off in haste.
Dear Geoff,
I'm sorry to hear you are down on your luck; it shows what a crop of
fools are still flourishing in London, when a man of your capability
cannot gain his proper place in the world of letters, and be
fittingly acknowledged. I believe it's all a question of
wire-pulling, and money is the only thing that will pull the wires.
Here's the fifty you ask for and welcome,--don't hurry about paying
it back. I am doing you a good turn this year by sending you a
friend,--a real friend, mind you!--no sham. He brings you a letter
of introduction from me, and between ourselves, old man, you cannot
do better than put yourself and your literary affairs entirely in
his hands. He knows everybody, and is up to all the dodges of
editorial management and newspaper cliques. He is a great
philanthropist besides,--and seems particularly fond of the society
of the clergy. Rather a queer taste you will say, but his reason for
such preference is, as he has explained to me quite frankly, that he
is so enormously wealthy that he does not quite know what to do with
his money, and the reverend gentlemen of the church are generally
ready to show him how to spend some of it. He is always glad to know
of some quarter where his money and influence (he is very
influential) may be useful to others. He has helped me out of a very
serious hobble, and I owe him a big debt of gratitude. I've told him
all about you,--what a smart fellow you are, and what a lot dear old
Alma Mater thought of you, and he has promised to give you a lift
up. He can do anything he likes; very naturally, seeing that the
whole world of morals, civilization and the rest is subservient to
the power of money,--and _his_ stock of cash appears to be
limitless. _Use him_; he is willing and ready to be used,--and write
and let me know how you get on. Don't bother about the fifty till
you feel you have tided over the storm.
Ever yours
Boffles.
I laughed as I read the absurd signature, though my eyes were dim with
something like tears. 'Boffles' was the nickname given to my friend by
several of our college companions, and neither he nor I knew how it
first arose. But no one except the dons ever addressed him by his proper
name, which was John Carrington,--he was simply 'Boffles,' and Boffles
he remained even now for all those who had been his intimates. I
refolded and put by his letter and the draft for the fifty pounds, and
with a passing vague wonder as to what manner of man the
'philanthropist' might be who had more money than he knew what to do
with, I turned to the consideration of my other two correspondents,
relieved to feel that now, whatever happened, I could settle up arrears
with my landlady the next day as I had promised. Moreover I could order
some supper, and have a fire lit to cheer my chilly room. Before
attending to these creature comforts however, I opened the long blue
envelope that looked so like a threat of legal proceedings, and
unfolding the paper within, stared at it amazedly. What was it all
about? The written characters danced before my eyes,--puzzled and
bewildered, I found myself reading the thing over and over again without
any clear comprehension of it. Presently a glimmer of meaning flashed
upon me, startling my senses like an electric shock, ...
no--no--!--impossible! Fortune never could be so mad as this!--never so
wildly capricious and grotesque of humour! It was some senseless hoax
that was being practised upon me, ... and yet, ... if it were a joke, it
was a very elaborate and remarkable one! Weighted with the majesty of
the law too! ... Upon my word and by all the fantastical freakish
destinies that govern human affairs, the news seemed actually positive
and genuine!
II
Steadying my thoughts with an effort, I read every word of the document
over again deliberately, and the stupefaction of my wonder increased.
Was I going mad, or sickening for a fever? Or could this startling, this
stupendous piece of information be really true? Because,--if indeed it
were true, ... good heavens!--I turned giddy to think of it,--and it was
only by sheer force of will that I kept myself from swooning with the
agitation of such sudden surprise and ecstasy. If it were true--why then
the world was mine!--I was king instead of beggar;--I was everything I
chose to be! The letter,--the amazing letter, bore the printed name of a
noted firm of London solicitors, and stated in measured and precise
terms that a distant relative of my father's, of whom I had scarcely
heard, except remotely now and then during my boyhood, had died suddenly
in South America, leaving me his sole heir.
"_The real and personal estate now amounting to something over Five
Millions of Pounds Sterling, we should esteem it a favour if you could
make it convenient to call upon us any day this week in order that we
may go through the necessary formalities together. The larger bulk of
the cash is lodged in the Bank of England, and a considerable amount is
placed in French government securities. We should prefer going into
further details with you personally rather than by letter. Trusting you
will call on us without delay, we are, Sir, yours obediently...._"
Five Millions! I, the starving literary hack,--the friendless, hopeless,
almost reckless haunter of low newspaper dens,--I, the possessor of
"over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling"! I tried to grasp the astounding
fact,--for fact it evidently was,--but could not. It seemed to me a wild
delusion, born of the dizzy vagueness which lack of food engendered in
my brain. I stared round the room;--the mean miserable furniture,--the
fireless grate,--the dirty lamp,--the low truckle bedstead,--the
evidences of penury and want on every side;--and then,--then the
overwhelming contrast between the poverty that environed me and the news
I had just received, struck me as the wildest, most ridiculous
incongruity I had ever heard of or imagined,--and I gave vent to a shout
of laughter.
"Was there ever such a caprice of mad Fortune!" I cried aloud--"Who
would have imagined it! Good God! I! I, of all men in the world to be
suddenly chosen out for this luck! By Heaven!--If it is all true, I'll
make society spin round like a top on my hand before I am many months
older!"
And I laughed loudly again; laughed just as I had previously sworn,
simply by way of relief to my feelings. Some one laughed in answer,--a
laugh that seemed to echo mine. I checked myself abruptly, somewhat
startled, and listened. Rain poured outside, and the wind shrieked like
a petulant shrew,--the violinist next door was practising a brilliant
roulade up and down his instrument,--but there were no other sounds than
these. Yet I could have sworn I heard a man's deep-chested laughter
close behind me where I stood.
"It must have been my fancy;" I murmured, turning the flame of the lamp
up higher in order to obtain more light in the room--"I am nervous I
suppose,--no wonder! Poor Boffles!--good old chap!" I continued,
remembering my friend's draft for fifty pounds, which had seemed such a
godsend a few minutes since--"What a surprise is in store for you! You
shall have your loan back as promptly as you sent it, with an extra
fifty added by way of interest for your generosity. And as for the new
Mæcenas you are sending to help me over my difficulties,--well, he may
be a very excellent old gentleman, but he will find himself quite out of
his element this time. I want neither assistance nor advice nor
patronage,--I can buy them all! Titles, honours, possessions,--they are
all purchaseable,--love, friendship, position,--they are all for sale in
this admirably commercial age and go to the highest bidder! By my
soul!--The wealthy 'philanthropist' will find it difficult to match me
in power! He will scarcely have more than five millions to waste, I
warrant! And now for supper,--I shall have to live on credit till I get
some ready cash,--and there is no reason why I should not leave this
wretched hole at once, and go to one of the best hotels and swagger it!"
I was about to leave the room on the swift impulse of excitement and
joy, when a fresh and violent gust of wind roared down the chimney,
bringing with it a shower of soot which fell in a black heap on my
rejected manuscript where it lay forgotten on the floor, as I had
despairingly thrown it. I hastily picked it up and shook it free from
the noisome dirt, wondering as I did so, what would be its fate
now?--now, when I could afford to publish it myself, and not only
publish it but advertise it, and not only advertise it, but 'push' it,
in all the crafty and cautious ways known to the inner circles of
'booming'! I smiled as I thought of the vengeance I would take on all
those who had scorned and slighted me and my labour,--how they should
cower before me!--how they should fawn at my feet like whipt curs, and
whine their fulsome adulation! Every stiff and stubborn neck should bend
before me;--this I resolved upon; for though money does not always
conquer everything, it only fails when it is money apart from brains.
Brains and money together can move the world,--brains can very
frequently do this alone without money, of which serious and proved fact
those who have no brains should beware!
Full of ambitious thought, I now and then caught wild sounds from the
violin that was being played next door,--notes like sobbing cries of
pain, and anon rippling runs like a careless woman's laughter,--and all
at once I remembered I had not yet opened the third letter addressed to
me,--the one coroneted in scarlet and gold, which had remained where it
was on the table almost unnoticed till now. I took it up and turned it
over with an odd sense of reluctance in my fingers, which were slow at
the work of tearing the thick envelope asunder. Drawing out an equally
thick small sheet of notepaper also coroneted, I read the following
lines written in an admirably legible, small and picturesque hand.
Dear Sir.
I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to you from your former
college companion Mr John Carrington, now of Melbourne, who has been
good enough to thus give me the means of making the acquaintance of
one, who, I understand, is more than exceptionally endowed with the
gift of literary genius. I shall call upon you this evening between
eight and nine o'clock, trusting to find you at home and disengaged.
I enclose my card, and present address, and beg to remain,
Very faithfully yours
Lucio Rimânez.
The card mentioned dropped on the table as I finished reading the note.
It bore a small, exquisitely engraved coronet and the words
PRINCE LUCIO RIMÂNEZ.
while, scribbled lightly in pencil underneath was the address 'Grand
Hotel.'
I read the brief letter through again,--it was simple enough,--expressed
with clearness and civility. There was nothing remarkable about
it,--nothing whatever; yet it seemed to me surcharged with meaning.
Why, I could not imagine. A curious fascination kept my eyes fastened on
the characteristic bold handwriting, and made me fancy I should like the
man who penned it. How the wind roared!--and how that violin next door
wailed like the restless spirit of some forgotten musician in torment!
My brain swam and my heart ached heavily,--the drip drip of the rain
outside sounded like the stealthy footfall of some secret spy upon my
movements. I grew irritable and nervous,--a foreboding of evil somehow
darkened the bright consciousness of my sudden good fortune. Then an
impulse of shame possessed me,--shame that this foreign prince, if such
he were, with limitless wealth at his back, should be coming to visit
me,--_me_, now a millionaire,--in my present wretched lodging. Already,
before I had touched my riches, I was tainted by the miserable vulgarity
of seeking to pretend I had never been really poor, but only embarrassed
by a little temporary difficulty! If I had had a sixpence about me,
(which I had not) I should have sent a telegram to my approaching
visitor to put him off.
"But in any case," I said aloud, addressing myself to the empty room and
the storm-echoes--"I will not meet him to-night. I'll go out and leave
no message,--and if he comes he will think I have not yet had his
letter. I can make an appointment to see him when I am better lodged,
and dressed more in keeping with my present position,--in the meantime,
nothing is easier than to keep out of this would-be benefactor's way."
As I spoke, the flickering lamp gave a dismal crackle and went out,
leaving me in pitch darkness. With an exclamation more strong than
reverent, I groped about the room for matches, or failing them, for my
hat and coat,--and I was still engaged in a fruitless and annoying
search, when I caught a sound of galloping horses' hoofs coming to an
abrupt stop in the street below. Surrounded by black gloom, I paused and
listened. There was a slight commotion in the basement,--I heard my
landlady's accents attuned to nervous civility, mingling with the
mellow tones of a deep masculine voice,--then steps, firm and even,
ascended the stairs to my landing.
"The devil is in it!" I muttered vexedly--"Just like my wayward
luck!--here comes the very man I meant to avoid!"
III
The door opened,--and from the dense obscurity enshrouding me I could
just perceive a tall shadowy figure standing on the threshold. I
remember well the curious impression the mere outline of this scarcely
discerned Form made upon me even then,--suggesting at the first glance
such a stately majesty of height and bearing as at once riveted my
attention,--so much so indeed that I scarcely heard my landlady's
introductory words "A gentleman to see you sir,"--words that were
quickly interrupted by a murmur of dismay at finding the room in total
darkness. "Well to be sure! The lamp must have gone out!" she
exclaimed,--then addressing the personage she had ushered thus far, she
added--"I'm afraid Mr Tempest isn't in after all, sir, though I
certainly saw him about half-an-hour ago. If you don't mind waiting here
a minute I'll fetch a light and see if he has left any message on his
table."
She hurried away, and though I knew that of course I ought to speak, a
singular and quite inexplicable perversity of humour kept me silent and
unwilling to declare my presence. Meanwhile the tall stranger advanced a
pace or two, and a rich voice with a ring of ironical amusement in it
called me by my name--
"Geoffrey Tempest, are you there?"
Why could I not answer? The strangest and most unnatural obstinacy
stiffened my tongue,--and, concealed in the gloom of my forlorn literary
den I still held my peace. The majestic figure drew nearer, till in
height and breadth it seemed to suddenly overshadow me; and once again
the voice called--
"Geoffrey Tempest, are you there?"
For very shame's sake I could hold out no longer,--and with a determined
effort I broke the extraordinary dumb spell that had held me like a
coward in silent hiding, and came forward boldly to confront my visitor.
"Yes I _am_ here," I said--"And being here I am ashamed to give you such
a welcome as this. You are Prince Rimânez of course;--I have just read
your note which prepared me for your visit, but I was hoping that my
landlady, finding the room in darkness, would conclude I was out, and
show you downstairs again. You see I am perfectly frank!"
"You are indeed!" returned the stranger, his deep tones still vibrating
with the silvery clang of veiled satire--"So frank that I cannot fail to
understand you. Briefly, and without courtesy, you resent my visit this
evening and wish I had not come!"
This open declaration of my mood sounded so brusque that I made haste to
deny it, though I knew it to be true. Truth, even in trifles, always
seems unpleasant!
"Pray do not think me so churlish,"--I said--"The fact is, I only opened
your letter a few minutes ago, and before I could make any arrangements
to receive you, the lamp went out, with the awkward result that I am
forced to greet you in this unsociable darkness, which is almost too
dense to shake hands in."
"Shall we try?" my visitor enquired, with a sudden softening of accent
that gave his words a singular charm; "Here is my hand,--if yours has
any friendly instinct in it the twain will meet,--quite blindly and
without guidance!"
I at once extended my hand, and it was instantly clasped in a warm and
somewhat masterful manner. At that moment a light flashed on the
scene,--my landlady entered, bearing what she called 'her best lamp'
alit, and set it on the table I believe she uttered some exclamation of
surprise at seeing me,--she may have said anything or nothing,--I did
not hear or heed, so entirely was I amazed and fascinated by the
appearance of the man whose long slender hand still held mine. I am
myself an average good height, but he was fully half a head taller than
I, if not more than that,--and as I looked straightly at him, I thought
I had never seen so much beauty and intellectuality combined in the
outward personality of any human being. The finely shaped head denoted
both power and wisdom, and was nobly poised on such shoulders as might
have befitted a Hercules,--the countenance was a pure oval, and
singularly pale, this complexion intensifying the almost fiery
brilliancy of the full dark eyes, which had in them a curious and
wonderfully attractive look of mingled mirth and misery. The mouth was
perhaps the most telling feature in this remarkable face,--set in the
perfect curve of beauty, it was yet firm, determined, and not too small,
thus escaping effeminacy,--and I noted that in repose it expressed
bitterness, disdain and even cruelty. But with the light of a smile upon
it, it signified, or seemed to signify, something more subtle than any
passion to which we can give a name, and already with the rapidity of a
lightning flash, I caught myself wondering what that mystic undeclared
something might be. At a glance I comprehended these primary details of
my new acquaintance's eminently prepossessing appearance, and when my
hand dropped from his close grasp I felt as if I had known him all my
life! And now face to face with him in the bright lamp-light, I
remembered my actual surroundings,--the bare cold room, the lack of
fire, the black soot that sprinkled the nearly carpetless floor,--my own
shabby clothes and deplorable aspect, as compared with this
regal-looking individual, who carried the visible evidence of wealth
upon him in the superb Russian sables that lined and bordered his long
overcoat which he now partially unfastened and threw open with a
carelessly imperial air, the while he regarded me, smiling.
"I know I have come at an awkward moment," he said--"I always do! It is
my peculiar misfortune. Well-bred people never intrude where they are
not wanted,--and in this particular I'm afraid my manners leave much to
be desired. Try to forgive me if you can, for the sake of this,"--and he
held out a letter addressed to me in my friend Carrington's familiar
handwriting. "And permit me to sit down while you read my credentials."
He took a chair and seated himself. I observed his handsome face and
easy attitude with renewed admiration.
"No credentials are necessary," I said with all the cordiality I now
really felt--"I have already had a letter from Carrington in which he
speaks of you in the highest and most grateful terms. But the fact
is----well!--really, prince, you must excuse me if I seem confused or
astonished ... I had expected to see quite an old man ..."
And I broke off, somewhat embarrassed by the keen glance of the
brilliant eyes that met mine so fixedly.
"No one is old, my dear sir, nowadays!" he declared lightly--"even the
grandmothers and grandfathers are friskier at fifty than they were at
fifteen. One does not talk of age at all now in polite society,--it is
ill-bred, even coarse. Indecent things are unmentionable--age has become
an indecent thing. It is therefore avoided in conversation. You expected
to see an old man you say? Well, you are not disappointed--I _am_ old.
In fact you have no idea how very old I am!"
I laughed at this piece of absurdity.
"Why, you are younger than I,"--I said--"or if not, you look it."
"Ah, my looks belie me!" he returned gaily--"I am like several of the
most noted fashionable beauties,--much riper than I seem. But come, read
the introductory missive I have brought you,--I shall not be satisfied
till you do."
Thus requested, and wishing to prove myself as courteous as I had
hitherto been brusque, I at once opened my friend's note and read as
follows,--
Dear Geoffrey.
The bearer of this, Prince Rimânez, is a very distinguished scholar
and gentleman, allied by descent to one of the oldest families in
Europe, or for that matter, in the world. You, as a student and
lover of ancient history, will be interested to know that his
ancestors were originally princes of Chaldea, who afterwards settled
in Tyre,--from thence they went to Etruria and there continued
through many centuries, the last scion of the house being the very
gifted and genial personage who, as my good friend, I have the
pleasure of commending to your kindest regard. Certain troublous and
overpowering circumstances have forced him into exile from his
native province, and deprived him of a great part of his
possessions, so that he is, to a considerable extent a wanderer on
the face of the earth, and has travelled far and seen much, and has
a wide experience of men and things. He is a poet and musician of
great skill, and though he occupies himself with the arts solely for
his own amusement, I think you will find his practical knowledge of
literary matters eminently useful to you in your difficult career. I
must not forget to add that in all matters scientific he is an
absolute master. Wishing you both a cordial friendship, I am, dear
Geoffrey,
Yours sincerely
John Carrington.
The signature of 'Boffles' had evidently been deemed out of place this
time and somehow I was foolishly vexed at its omission. There seemed to
be something formal and stiff in the letter, almost as if it had been
written to dictation, and under pressure. What gave me this idea I know
not. I glanced furtively at my silent companion,--he caught my stray
look and returned it with a curiously grave fixity. Fearing lest my
momentary vague distrust of him had been reflected in my eyes I made
haste to speak--
"This letter, prince, adds to my shame and regret that I should have
greeted you in so churlish a manner this evening. No apology can
condone my rudeness,--but you cannot imagine how mortified I felt and
still feel, to be compelled to receive you in this miserable den,--it is
not at all the sort of place in which I should have liked to welcome
you...." And I broke off with a renewed sense of irritation, remembering
how actually rich I now was, and that in spite of this, I was obliged to
seem poor. Meanwhile the prince waived aside my remarks with a light
gesture of his hand.
"Why be mortified?" he demanded. "Rather be proud that you can dispense
with the vulgar appurtenances of luxury. Genius thrives in a garret and
dies in a palace,--is not that the generally accepted theory?"
"Rather a worn-out and mistaken one I consider,"--I replied; "Genius
might like to try the effect of a palace for once,--it usually dies of
starvation."
"True!--but in thus dying, think how many fools it afterwards fattens!
There is an all-wise Providence in this, my dear sir! Schubert perished
of want,--but see what large profits all the music-publishers have made
since out of his compositions! It is a most beautiful dispensation of
nature,--that honest folk should be sacrificed in order to provide for
the sustenance of knaves!"
He laughed, and I looked at him in a little surprise. His remark touched
so near my own opinions that I wondered whether he were in jest or
earnest.
"You speak sarcastically of course?" I said--"You do not really believe
what you say?"
"Oh, do I not!" he returned, with a flash of his fine eyes that was
almost lightning-like in its intensity--"If I could not believe the
teaching of my own experience, what would be left to me? I always
realize the '_needs must_' of things--how does the old maxim go--'needs
must when the devil drives.' There is really no possible contradiction
to offer to the accuracy of that statement. The devil drives the world,
whip in hand,--and oddly enough, (considering that some belated folk
still fancy there is a God somewhere) succeeds in managing his team
with extraordinary ease!" His brow clouded and the bitter lines about
his mouth deepened and hardened,--anon he laughed again lightly and
continued--"But let us not moralize,--morals sicken the soul both in
church and out of it,--every sensible man hates to be told what he
_could_ be and what he _won't_ be. I am here to make friends with you if
you permit,--and to put an end to ceremony, will you accompany me back
to my hotel where I have ordered supper?"
By this time I had become indescribably fascinated by his easy manner,
handsome presence and mellifluous voice,--the satirical turn of his
humour suited mine,--I felt we should get on well together,--and my
first annoyance at being discovered by him in such poverty-stricken
circumstances somewhat abated.
"With pleasure!" I replied--"But first of all, you must allow me to
explain matters a little. You have heard a good deal about my affairs
from my friend John Carrington, and I know from his private letter to me
that you have come here out of pure kindness and goodwill. For that
generous intention I thank you! I know you expected to find a poor
wretch of a literary man struggling with the direst circumstances of
disappointment and poverty,--and a couple of hours ago you would have
amply fulfilled that expectation. But now, things have changed,--I have
received news which completely alters my position,--in fact I have had a
very great and remarkable surprise this evening...."
"An agreeable one I trust?" interposed my companion suavely.
I smiled.
"Judge for yourself!" And I handed him the lawyer's letter which
informed me of my suddenly acquired fortune.
He glanced it through rapidly,--then folded and returned it to me with a
courteous bow.
"I suppose I should congratulate you,"--he said--"And I do. Though of
course this wealth which seems to content you, to me appears a mere
trifle. It can be quite conveniently run through and exhausted in about
eight years or less, therefore it does not provide absolute immunity
from care. To be rich, really rich, in my sense of the word, one should
have about a million a year. Then one might reasonably hope to escape
the workhouse!"
He laughed,--and I stared at him stupidly, not knowing how to take his
words, whether as truth or idle boasting. Five millions of money a mere
trifle! He went on without apparently noticing my amazement--
"The inexhaustible greed of a man, my dear sir, can never be satisfied.
If he is not consumed by desire for one thing, he is for another, and
his tastes are generally expensive. A few pretty and unscrupulous women
for example, would soon relieve you of your five millions in the
purchase of jewels alone. Horse-racing would do it still more quickly.
No, no,--you are not rich,--you are still poor,--only your needs are no
longer so pressing as they were. And in this I confess myself somewhat
disappointed,--for I came to you hoping to do a good turn to some one
for once in my life, and to play the foster-father to a rising
genius--and here I am--forestalled,--as usual! It is a singular thing,
do you know, but nevertheless a fact, that whenever I have had any
particular intentions towards a man I am always forestalled! It is
really rather hard upon me!" He broke off and raised his head in a
listening attitude.
"What is that?" he asked.
It was the violinist next door playing a well-known "Ave Maria." I told
him so.
"Dismal,--very dismal!" he said with a contemptuous shrug. "I hate all
that kind of mawkish devotional stuff. Well!--millionaire as you are,
and acknowledged lion of society as you shortly will be, there is no
objection I hope, to the proposed supper? And perhaps a music-hall
afterwards if you feel inclined,--what do you say?"
He clapped me on the shoulder cordially and looked straight into my
face,--those wonderful eyes of his, suggestive of both tears and fire,
fixed me with a clear masterful gaze that completely dominated me. I
made no attempt to resist the singular attraction which now possessed me
for this man whom I had but just met,--the sensation was too strong and
too pleasant to be combated. Only for one moment more I hesitated,
looking down at my shabby attire.
"I am not fit to accompany you, prince," I said--"I look more like a
tramp than a millionaire."
He glanced at me and smiled.
"Upon my life, so you do!" he averred.--"But be satisfied!--you are in
this respect very like many another Croesus. It is only the poor and
proud who take the trouble to dress well,--they and the dear 'naughty'
ladies, generally monopolize tasteful and becoming attire. An
ill-fitting coat often adorns the back of a Prime Minister,--and if you
see a woman clad in clothes vilely cut and coloured, you may be sure she
is eminently virtuous, renowned for good works, and probably a duchess!"
He rose, drawing his sables about him.
"What matter the coat if the purse be full!" he continued gaily.--"Let
it once be properly paragraphed in the papers that you are a
millionaire, and doubtless some enterprising tailor will invent a
'Tempest' ulster coloured softly like your present garb, an artistic
mildewy green! And now come along,--your solicitor's communication
should have given you a good appetite, or it is not so valuable as it
seems,--and I want you to do justice to my supper. I have my own _chef_
with me, and he is not without skill. I hope, by the way, you will at
least do me this much service,--that pending legal discussion and
settlement of your affairs, you will let me be your banker?"
This offer was made with such an air of courteous delicacy and
friendship, that I could do no more than accept it gratefully, as it
relieved me from all temporary embarrassment. I hastily wrote a few
lines to my landlady, telling her she would receive the money owing to
her by post next day,--then, thrusting my rejected manuscript, my only
worldly possession, into my coat-pocket, I extinguished the lamp, and
with the new friend I had so suddenly gained, I left my dismal lodgings
and all its miserable associations for ever. I little thought the time
would come when I should look back to the time spent in that small mean
room as the best period of my life,--when I should regard the bitter
poverty I then endured, as the stern but holy angel meant to guide me to
the highest and noblest attainment,--when I should pray desperately with
wild tears to be as I was then, rather than as I am now! Is it well or
ill for us I wonder, that the future is hidden from our knowledge?
Should we steer our ways clearer from evil if we knew its result? It is
a doubtful question,--at anyrate my ignorance for the moment was indeed
bliss. I went joyfully out of the dreary house where I had lived so long
among disappointments and difficulties, turning my back upon it with
such a sense of relief as could never be expressed in words,--and the
last thing I heard as I passed into the street with my companion, was a
plaintive long-drawn wail of minor melody, which seemed to be sent after
me like a parting cry, by the unknown and invisible player of the
violin.
IV
Outside, the prince's carriage waited, drawn by two spirited black
horses caparisoned in silver; magnificent thoroughbreds, which pawed the
ground and champed their bits impatient of delay,--at sight of his
master the smart footman in attendance threw the door open, touching his
hat respectfully. We stepped in, I preceding my companion at his
expressed desire; and as I sank back among the easy cushions, I felt the
complacent consciousness of luxury and power to such an extent that it
seemed as if I had left my days of adversity already a long way behind
me. Hunger and happiness disputed my sensations between them, and I was
in that vague light-headed condition common to long fasting, in which
nothing seems absolutely tangible or real. I knew I should not properly
grasp the solid truth of my wonderful good luck till my physical needs
were satisfied and I was, so to speak, once more in a naturally balanced
bodily condition. At present my brain was in a whirl,--my thoughts were
all dim and disconnected,--and I appeared to myself to be in some
whimsical dream from which I should wake up directly. The carriage
rolled on rubber-tyred wheels and made no noise as it went,--one could
only hear the even rapid trot of the horses. By-and-by I saw in the
semi-darkness my new friend's brilliant dark eyes fixed upon me with a
curiously intent expression.
"Do you not feel the world already at your feet?" he queried half
playfully, half ironically--"Like a football, waiting to be kicked? It
is such an absurd world, you know--so easily moved. Wise men in all ages
have done their best to make it less ridiculous,--with no result,
inasmuch as it continues to prefer folly to wisdom. A football, or let
us say a shuttlecock among worlds, ready to be tossed up anyhow and
anywhere, provided the battledore be of gold!"
"You speak a trifle bitterly, prince"--I said--"But no doubt you have
had a wide experience among men?"
"I have," he returned with emphasis--"My kingdom is a vast one."
"You are a ruling power then?" I exclaimed with some
astonishment--"Yours is not a title of honour only?"
"Oh, as your rules of aristocracy go, it _is_ a mere title of
honour"--he replied quickly--"When I say that my kingdom is a vast one,
I mean that I rule wherever men obey the influence of wealth. From this
point of view, am I wrong in calling my kingdom vast?--is it not almost
boundless?"
"I perceive you are a cynic,"--I said--"Yet surely you believe that
there are some things wealth cannot buy,--honour and virtue for
example?"
He surveyed me with a whimsical smile.
"I suppose honour and virtue _do_ exist--" he answered--"And when they
are existent of course they cannot be bought. But my experience has
taught me that I can always buy everything. The sentiments called honour
and virtue by the majority of men are the most shifty things
imaginable,--set sufficient cash down, and they become bribery and
corruption in the twinkling of an eye! Curious--very curious. I confess
I found a case of unpurchaseable integrity once, but only once. I may
find it again, though I consider the chance a very doubtful one. Now to
revert to myself, pray do not imagine I am playing the humbug with you
or passing myself off under a _bogus_ title. I am a _bona-fide_ prince,
believe me, and of such descent as none of your oldest families can
boast,--but my dominions are long since broken up and my former subjects
dispersed among all nations,--anarchy, nihilism, disruption and
political troubles generally, compel me to be rather reticent concerning
my affairs. Money I fortunately have in plenty,--and with that I pave my
way. Some day when we are better acquainted, you shall know more of my
private history. I have various other names and titles besides that on
my card--but I keep to the simplest of them, because most people are
such bunglers at the pronunciation of foreign names. My intimate friends
generally drop my title, and call me Lucio simply."
"That is your christian name--?" I began.
"Not at all--I have no 'christian' name,"--he interrupted swiftly and
with anger--"There is no such thing as 'christian' in my composition!"
He spoke with such impatience that for a moment I was at a loss for a
reply. At last--
"Indeed!" I murmured vaguely.
He burst out laughing.
"'Indeed!' That is all you can find to say! Indeed and again indeed the
word 'christian' vexes me. There is no such creature alive. _You_ are
not a Christian,--no one is really,--people pretend to be,--and in so
damnable an act of feigning are more blasphemous than any fallen fiend!
Now I make no pretences of the kind,--I have only one faith--"
"And that is?"--
"A profound and awful one!" he said in thrilling tones--"And the worst
of it is that it is true,--as true as the workings of the Universe. But
of that hereafter,--it will do to talk of when we feel low-spirited and
wish to converse of things grim and ghastly,--at present here we are at
our destination, and the chief consideration of our lives, (it is the
chief consideration of most men's lives) must be the excellence or
non-excellence of our food."
The carriage stopped and we descended. At first sight of the black
horses and silver trappings, the porter of the hotel and two or three
other servants rushed out to attend upon us; but the prince passed into
the hall without noticing any of them and addressed himself to a
sober-looking individual in black, his own private valet, who came
forward to meet him with a profound salutation. I murmured something
about wishing to engage a room for myself in the hotel.
"Oh, my man will see to that for you"--he said lightly--"The house is
not full,--at anyrate all the best rooms are not taken; and of course
you want one of the best."
A staring waiter, who up to that moment, had been noting my shabby
clothes with that peculiar air of contempt commonly displayed by
insolent menials to those whom they imagine are poor, overheard these
words, and suddenly changing the derisive expression of his foxy face,
bowed obsequiously as I passed. A thrill of disgust ran through me,
mingled with a certain angry triumph,--the hypocritical reflex of this
low fellow's countenance, was, I knew, a true epitome of what I should
find similarly reflected in the manner and attitude of all 'polite'
society. For there the estimate of worth is no higher than a common
servant's estimate, and is taken solely from the money standard;--if you
are poor and dress shabbily you are thrust aside and ignored,--but if
you are rich, you may wear shabby clothes as much as you like, you are
still courted and flattered, and invited everywhere, though you may be
the greatest fool alive or the worst blackguard unhung. With vague
thoughts such as these flitting over my mind, I followed my host to his
rooms. He occupied nearly a whole wing of the hotel, having a large
drawing-room, dining-room and study _en suite_, fitted up in the most
luxurious manner, besides bedroom, bathroom, and dressing-room, with
other rooms adjoining, for his valet and two extra personal attendants.
The table was laid for supper, and glittered with the costliest glass,
silver and china, being furthermore adorned by baskets of the most
exquisite fruit and flowers, and in a few moments we were seated. The
prince's valet acted as head-waiter, and I noticed that now this man's
face, seen in the full light of the electric lamps, seemed very dark
and unpleasant, even sinister in expression,--but in the performance of
his duties he was unexceptionable, being quick, attentive, and
deferential, so much so that I inwardly reproached myself for taking an
instinctive dislike to him. His name was Amiel, and I found myself
involuntarily watching his movements, they were so noiseless,--his very
step suggesting the stealthy gliding of a cat or a tiger. He was
assisted in his work by the two other attendants who served as his
subordinates, and who were equally active and well-trained,--and
presently I found myself enjoying the choicest meal I had tasted for
many and many a long day, flavoured with such wine as connoisseurs might
be apt to dream of, but never succeed in finding. I began to feel
perfectly at my ease, and talked with freedom and confidence, the strong
attraction I had for my new friend deepening with every moment I passed
in his company.
"Will you continue your literary career now you have this little fortune
left you?" he inquired, when at the close of supper Amiel set the
choicest cognac and cigars before us, and respectfully withdrew--"Do you
think you will care to go on with it?"
"Certainly I shall"--I replied--"if only for the fun of the thing. You
see, with money I can force my name into notice whether the public like
it or not. No newspaper refuses paying advertisements."
"True!--but may not inspiration refuse to flow from a full purse and an
empty head?"
This remark provoked me not a little.
"Do you consider me empty-headed?" I asked with some vexation.
"Not at present. My dear Tempest, do not let either the Tokay we have
been drinking, or the cognac we are going to drink, speak for you in
such haste! I assure you I do not think you empty-headed,--on the
contrary, your head, I believe from what I have heard, has been and is
full of ideas,--excellent ideas, original ideas, which the world of
conventional criticism does not want. But whether these ideas will
continue to germinate in your brain, or whether, with the full purse,
they will cease, is now the question. Great originality and inspiration,
strange to say, seldom endow the millionaire. Inspiration is supposed to
come from above,--money from below! In your case however both
originality and inspiration may continue to flourish and bring forth
fruit,--I trust they may. It often happens, nevertheless that when bags
of money fall to the lot of aspiring genius, God departs and the devil
walks in. Have you never heard that?"
"Never!" I answered smiling.
"Well, of course the saying is foolish, and sounds doubly ridiculous in
this age when people believe in neither God nor devil. It implies
however that one must choose an up or a down,--genius is the Up, money
is the Down. You cannot fly and grovel at the same instant."
"The possession of money is not likely to cause a man to grovel"--I
said--"It is the one thing necessary to strengthen his soaring powers
and lift him to the greatest heights."
"You think so?" and my host lit his cigar with a grave and pre-occupied
air--"Then I'm afraid, you don't know much about what I shall call
natural psychics. What belongs to the earth tends earthwards,--surely
you realize that? Gold most strictly belongs to the earth,--you dig it
out of the ground,--you handle it and dispose of it in solid wedges or
bars--it is a substantial metal enough. Genius belongs to nobody knows
where,--you cannot dig it up or pass it on, or do anything with it
except stand and marvel--it is a rare visitant and capricious as the
wind, and generally makes sad havoc among the conventionalities of men.
It is as I said an 'upper' thing, beyond earthly smells and
savours,--and those who have it always live in unknown high latitudes.
But money is a perfectly level commodity,--level with the ground;--when
you have much of it, you come down solidly on your flat soles and down
you stay!"
I laughed.
"Upon my word you preach very eloquently against wealth!" I said--"You
yourself are unusually rich,--are you sorry for it?"
"No, I am not sorry, because being sorry would be no use"--he
returned--"And I never waste my time. But I am telling you the
truth--Genius and great riches hardly ever pull together. Now I, for
example,--you cannot imagine what great capabilities I had once!--a long
time ago--before I became my own master!"
"And you have them still I am sure"--I averred, looking expressively at
his noble head and fine eyes.
The strange subtle smile I had noticed once or twice before lightened
his face. "Ah, you mean to compliment me!" he said--"You like my
looks,--many people do. Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as
one's outward appearance. The reason of this is that as soon as
childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not,--and
thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our
physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves. It is really
wise and clever of us,--for hence each individual is so much flesh-wall
through which neither friend nor enemy can spy. Every man is a solitary
soul imprisoned in a self-made den,--when he is quite alone he knows and
frequently hates himself,--sometimes he even gets afraid of the gaunt
and murderous monster he keeps hidden behind his outwardly pleasant
body-mask, and hastens to forget its frightful existence in drink and
debauchery. That is what I do occasionally,--you would not think it of
me, would you?"
"Never!" I replied quickly, for something in his voice and aspect moved
me strangely--"You belie yourself, and wrong your own nature."
He laughed softly.
"Perhaps I do!" he said carelessly--"This much you may believe of
me--that I am no worse than most men! Now to return to the subject of
your literary career,--you have written a book, you say,--well, publish
it and see the result--if you only make one 'hit' that is something. And
there are ways of arranging that the 'hit' shall be made. What is your
story about? I hope it is improper?"
"It certainly is not;"--I replied warmly--"It is a romance dealing with
the noblest forms of life and highest ambitions;--I wrote it with the
intention of elevating and purifying the thoughts of my readers, and
wished if I could, to comfort those who had suffered loss or sorrow--"
Rimânez smiled compassionately.
"Ah, it won't do!" he interrupted--"I assure you it won't;--it doesn't
fit the age. It might go down, possibly, if you could give a
'first-night' of it as it were to the critics, like one of my most
intimate friends, Henry Irving,--a 'first-night' combined with an
excellent supper and any amount of good drinks going. Otherwise it's no
use. If it is to succeed by itself, it must not attempt to be
literature,--it must simply be indecent. As indecent as you can make it
without offending advanced women,--that is giving you a good wide
margin. Put in as much as you can about sexual matters and the bearing
of children,--in brief, discourse of men and women simply as cattle who
exist merely for breeding purposes, and your success will be enormous.
There's not a critic living who won't applaud you,--there's not a
school-girl of fifteen who will not gloat over your pages in the silence
of her virginal bedroom!"
Such a flash of withering derision darted from his eyes as startled
me,--I could find no words to answer him for the moment, and he went
on--
"What put it into your head, my dear Tempest, to write a book dealing
with, as you say, 'the noblest forms of life'? There are no noble forms
of life left on this planet,--it is all low and commercial,--man is a
pigmy, and his aims are pigmy like himself. For noble forms of life seek
other worlds!--there _are_ others. Then again, people don't want their
thoughts raised or purified in the novels they read for amusement--they
go to church for that, and get very bored during the process. And why
should you wish to comfort folks who, out of their own sheer stupidity
generally, get into trouble? They wouldn't comfort _you_,--they would
not give you sixpence to save you from starvation. My good fellow, leave
your quixotism behind you with your poverty. Live your life to
yourself,--if you do anything for others they will only treat you with
the blackest ingratitude,--so take my advice, and don't sacrifice your
own personal interests for any consideration whatever."
He rose from the table as he spoke and stood with his back to the bright
fire, smoking his cigar tranquilly,--and I gazed at his handsome figure
and face with just the faintest thrill of pained doubt darkening my
admiration.
"If you were not so good-looking I should call you heartless"--I said at
last--"But your features are a direct contradiction to your words. You
have not really that indifference to human nature which you strive to
assume,--your whole aspect betokens a generosity of spirit which you
cannot conquer if you would. Besides, are you not always trying to do
good?"
He smiled.
"Always! That is, I am always at work endeavouring to gratify every
man's desire. Whether that is good of me, or bad, remains to be proved.
Men's wants are almost illimitable,--the only thing none of them ever
seem to wish, so far as I am concerned, is to cut my acquaintance!"
"Why, of course not! After once meeting you, how could they!" I said,
laughing at the absurdity of the suggestion.
He gave me a whimsical side-look.
"Their desires are not always virtuous," he remarked, turning to flick
off the ash of his cigar into the grate.
"But of course you do not gratify them in their vices!" I rejoined,
still laughing--"That would be playing the part of a benefactor somewhat
too thoroughly!"
"Ah now I see we shall flounder in the quicksands of theory if we go any
further"--he said--"You forget, my dear fellow, that nobody can decide
as to what _is_ vice, or what _is_ virtue. These things are
chameleon-like, and take different colours in different countries.
Abraham had two or three wives and several concubines, and he was the
very soul of virtue according to sacred lore,--whereas my Lord Tom-Noddy
in London to-day has one wife and several concubines, and is really very
much like Abraham in other particulars, yet he is considered a very
dreadful person. 'Who shall decide when doctors disagree!' Let's drop
the subject, as we shall never settle it. What shall we do with the rest
of the evening? There is a stout-limbed, shrewd wench at the Tivoli,
dancing her way into the affections of a ricketty little Duke,--shall we
go and watch the admirable contortions with which she is wriggling into
a fixed position among the English aristocracy? Or are you tired, and
would you prefer a long night's rest?"
To tell the truth I was thoroughly fatigued, and mentally as well as
physically worn out with the excitements of the day,--my head too was
heavy with the wine to which I had so long been unaccustomed.
"Upon my word I think I would rather go to bed than anything--" I
confessed--"But what about my room?"
"Oh, Amiel will have attended to that for you,--we'll ask him." And he
touched the bell. His valet instantly appeared.
"Have you got a room for Mr Tempest?"
"Yes, your Excellency. An apartment in this corridor almost facing your
Excellency's suite. It is not as well furnished as it might be, but I
have made it as comfortable as I can for the night."
"Thanks very much!" I said--"I am greatly obliged to you."
Amiel bowed deferentially.
"Thank _you_, sir."
He retired, and I moved to bid my host good-night. He took my proffered
hand, and held it in his, looking at me curiously the while.
"I like you, Geoffrey Tempest;" he said--"And because I like you, and
because I think there are the makings of something higher than mere
earthy brute in you, I am going to make you what you may perhaps
consider rather a singular proposition. It is this,--that if you don't
like _me_, say so at once, and we will part now, before we have time to
know anything more of each other, and I will endeavour not to cross your
path again unless you seek me out. But if on the contrary, you do like
me,--if you find something in my humour or turn of mind congenial to
your own disposition, give me your promise that you will be my friend
and comrade for a while, say for a few months at any rate. I can take
you into the best society, and introduce you to the prettiest women in
Europe as well as the most brilliant men. I know them all, and I believe
I can be useful to you. But if there is the smallest aversion to me
lurking in the depths of your nature"--here he paused,--then resumed
with extraordinary solemnity--"in God's name give it full way and let me
go,--because I swear to you in all sober earnest that I am not what I
seem!"
Strongly impressed by his strange look and stranger manner, I hesitated
one moment,--and on that moment, had I but known it, hung my future. It
was true,--I had felt a passing shadow of distrust and repulsion for
this fascinating yet cynical man, and he seemed to have guessed it. But
now every suspicion of him vanished from my mind, and I clasped his hand
with renewed heartiness.
"My dear fellow, your warning comes too late!" I said
mirthfully--"Whatever you are, or whatever you choose to think you are,
I find you most sympathetic to my disposition, and I consider myself
most fortunate in knowing you. My old friend Carrington has indeed done
me a good turn in bringing us together, and I assure you I shall be
proud of your companionship. You seem to take a perverse delight in
running yourself down!--but you know the old adage, 'the devil is not so
black as he is painted'?"
"And that is true!" he murmured dreamily--"Poor devil! His faults are no
doubt much exaggerated by the clergy! And so we are to be friends?"
"I hope so! I shall not be the first to break the compact!"
His dark eyes rested upon me thoughtfully, yet there seemed to be a
lurking smile in them as well.
"Compact is a good word"--he said--"So,--a compact we will consider it.
I meant to improve your material fortunes,--you can dispense with that
aid now; but I think I can still be of service in pushing you on in
society. And love--of course you will fall in love if you have not
already done so,--have you?"
"Not I!" I answered quickly, and with truth--"I have seen no woman yet
who perfectly fulfils my notions of beauty."
He burst out laughing violently.
"Upon my word you are not wanting in audacity!" he said--"Nothing but
perfect beauty will suit you, eh? But consider, my friend, you, though a
good-looking well-built man, are not yourself quite a Phoebus Apollo!"
"That has nothing to do with the matter"--I rejoined--"A man should
choose a wife with a careful eye to his own personal gratification, in
the same way that he chooses horses or wine,--perfection or nothing."
"And the woman?"--Rimânez demanded, his eyes twinkling.
"The woman has really no right of choice"--I responded,--for this was my
pet argument and I took pleasure in setting it forth--"She must mate
wherever she has the chance of being properly maintained. A man is
always a man,--a woman is only a man's appendage, and without beauty she
cannot put forth any just claim to his admiration or his support."
"Right!--very right, and logically argued!"--he exclaimed, becoming
preternaturally serious in a moment--"I myself have no sympathy with the
new ideas that are in vogue concerning the intellectuality of woman. She
is simply the female of man,--she has no real soul save that which is a
reflex of his, and being destitute of logic, she is incapable of forming
a correct opinion on any subject. All the imposture of religion is kept
up by this unmathematical hysterical creature,--and it is curious,
considering how inferior a being she is, what mischief she has contrived
to make in the world, upsetting the plans of the wisest kings and
counsellors, who as mere men, should undoubtedly have mastered her! And
in the present age she is becoming more than ever unmanageable."
"It is only a passing phase"--I returned carelessly--"A fad got up by a
few unloved and unlovable types of the feminine sex. I care very little
for women--I doubt whether I shall ever marry."
"Well you have plenty of time to consider, and amuse yourself with the
fair ones, _en passant_"--he said watching me narrowly--"And in the
meantime I can take you round the different marriage-markets of the
world if you choose, though the largest one of them all is of course
this very metropolis. Splendid bargains to be had, my dear
friend!--wonderful blonde and brunette specimens going really very
cheap. We'll examine them at our leisure. I'm glad you have yourself
decided that we are to be comrades,--for I am proud;--I may say damnably
proud;--and never stay in any man's company when he expresses the
slightest wish to be rid of me. Good-night!"
"Good-night!" I responded. We clasped hands again and they were still
interlocked, when a sudden flash of lightning blazed vividly across the
room, followed instantaneously by a terrific clap of thunder. The
electric lights went out, and only the glow of the fire illumined our
faces. I was a little startled and confused,--the prince stood still,
quite unconcerned, his eyes shining like those of a cat in the darkness.
"What a storm!" he remarked lightly--"Such thunder in winter is rather
unusual. Amiel!"
The valet entered, his sinister countenance resembling a white mask made
visible in the gloom.
"These lamps have gone out,"--said his master--"It's very odd that
civilized humanity has not yet learned the complete management of the
electric light. Can you put them in order, Amiel?"
"Yes, your excellency." And in a few moments, by some dexterous
manipulation which I did not understand and could not see, the
crystal-cased jets shone forth again with renewed brilliancy. Another
peal of thunder crashed overhead, followed by a downpour of rain.
"Really remarkable weather for January,"--said Rimânez, again giving me
his hand--"Good-night my friend! Sleep well."
"If the anger of the elements will permit!" I returned, smiling.
"Oh, never mind the elements. Man has nearly mastered them or soon will
do so, now that he is getting gradually convinced there is no Deity to
interfere in his business. Amiel, show Mr Tempest to his room."
Amiel obeyed, and crossing the corridor, ushered me into a large,
luxurious apartment, richly furnished, and lit up by the blaze of a
bright fire. The comforting warmth shone welcome upon me as I entered,
and I who had not experienced such personal luxury since my boyhood's
days, felt more than ever overpowered by the jubilant sense of my sudden
extraordinary good fortune. Amiel waited respectfully, now and then
furtively glancing at me with an expression which to my fancy had
something derisive in it.
"Is there anything I can do for you sir?" he inquired.
"No thank you,"--I answered, endeavouring to throw an accent of careless
condescension into my voice--for somehow I felt this man must be kept
strictly in his place--"you have been very attentive,--I shall not
forget it."
A slight smile flickered over his features.
"Much obliged to you, sir. Good-night."
And he retired, leaving me alone. I paced the room up and down more
dreamily than consciously, trying to think,--trying to set in order the
amazing events of the day, but my brain was still dazed and confused,
and the only image of actual prominence in my mind was the striking and
remarkable personality of my new friend Rimânez. His extraordinary good
looks, his attractive manner, his curious cynicism which was so oddly
mixed with some deeper sentiment to which I could not give a name, all
the trifling yet uncommon peculiarities of his bearing and humour
haunted me and became indissolubly mingled as it were with myself and
all the circumstances concerning me. I undressed before the fire,
listening drowsily to the rain, and the thunder which was now dying off
into sullen echoes.
"Geoffrey Tempest, the world is before you--" I said, apostrophizing
myself indolently--"you are a young man,--you have health, a good
appearance, and brains,--added to these you now have five millions of
money, and a wealthy prince for your friend. What more do you want of
Fate or Fortune? Nothing,--except fame! And that you will get easily,
for now-a-days even fame is purchaseable--like love. Your star is in the
ascendant,--no more literary drudgery for you my boy!--pleasure and
profit and ease are yours to enjoy for the rest of your life. You are a
lucky dog!--at last you have your day!"
I flung myself upon the soft bed, and settled myself to sleep,--and as I
dozed off, I still heard the rumble of heavy thunder in the distance.
Once I fancied I heard the prince's voice calling "Amiel! Amiel!" with a
wildness resembling the shriek of an angry wind,--and at another moment
I started violently from a profound slumber under the impression that
someone had approached and was looking fixedly at me. I sat up in bed,
peering into the darkness, for the fire had gone out;--then I turned on
a small electric night-lamp at my side which fully illumined the
room,--there was no one there. Yet my imagination played me such tricks
before I could rest again that I thought I heard a hissing whisper near
me that said--
"Peace! Trouble him not. Let the fool in his folly sleep!"
V
The next morning on rising I learned that 'his excellency' as Prince
Rimânez was called by his own servants and the employés of the 'Grand,'
had gone out riding in the Park, leaving me to breakfast alone. I
therefore took that meal in the public room of the hotel, where I was
waited upon with the utmost obsequiousness, in spite of my shabby
clothes, which I was of course still compelled to wear, having no
change. When would I be pleased to lunch? At what hour would I dine?
Should my present apartment be retained?--or was it not satisfactory?
Would I prefer a 'suite' similar to that occupied by his excellency? All
these deferential questions first astonished and then amused me,--some
mysterious agency had evidently conveyed the rumour of my wealth among
those best fitted to receive it, and here was the first result. In reply
I said my movements were uncertain,--I should be able to give definite
instructions in the course of a few hours, and that in the meantime I
retained my room. The breakfast over I sallied forth to go to my
lawyers, and was just about to order a hansom when I saw my new friend
coming back from his ride. He bestrode a magnificent chestnut mare,
whose wild eyes and strained quivering limbs showed she was fresh from a
hard gallop and was scarcely yet satisfied to be under close control.
She curveted and danced among the carts and cabs in a somewhat risky
fashion, but she had her master in Rimânez, who if he had looked
handsome by night looked still more so by day, with a slight colour
warming the natural pallor of his complexion and his eyes sparkling with
all the zest of exercise and enjoyment. I waited for his approach, as
did also Amiel, who as usual timed his appearance in the hotel corridor
in exact accordance with the moment of his master's arrival. Rimânez
smiled as he caught sight of me, touching his hat with the handle of his
whip by way of salutation.
"You slept late, Tempest"--he said, as he dismounted and threw the reins
to a groom who had cantered up after him,--"To-morrow you must come with
me and join what they call in fashionable slang parlance the Liver
Brigade. Once upon a time it was considered the height of indelicacy and
low breeding to mention the 'liver' or any other portion of one's
internal machinery,--but we have done with all that now, and we find a
peculiar satisfaction in discoursing of disease and unsavoury medical
matters generally. And in the Liver Brigade you see at a glance all
those interesting fellows who have sold themselves to the devil for the
sake of the flesh-pots of Egypt,--men who eat till they are well-nigh
bursting, and then prance up and down on good horses,--much too
respectable beasts by the way to bear such bestial burdens--in the hope
of getting out of their poisoned blood the evil they have themselves put
in. They think me one of them, but I am not."
He patted his mare and the groom led her away, the foam of her hard ride
still flecking her glossy chest and forelegs.
"Why do you join the procession then?" I asked him, laughing and
glancing at him with undisguised approval as I spoke, for he seemed more
admirably built than ever in his well-fitting riding gear--"You are a
fraud!"
"I am!" he responded lightly--"And do you know I am not the only one in
London! Where are you off to?"
"To those lawyers who wrote to me last night;--Bentham and Ellis is the
name of the firm. The sooner I interview them the better,--don't you
think so?"
"Yes--but see here,"--and he drew me aside--"You must have some ready
cash. It doesn't look well to apply at once for advances,--and there is
really no necessity to explain to these legal men that you were on the
verge of starvation when their letter arrived. Take this
pocket-book,--remember you promised to let me be your banker,--and on
your way you might go to some well-reputed tailor and get properly
rigged out. Ta-ta!"
He moved off at a rapid pace,--I hurried after him, touched to the quick
by his kindness.
"But wait--I say--Lucio!" And I called him thus by his familiar name for
the first time. He stopped at once and stood quite still.
"Well?" he said, regarding me with an attentive smile.
"You don't give me time to speak"--I answered in a low voice, for we
were standing in one of the public corridors of the hotel--"The fact is
I have some money, or rather I can get it directly,--Carrington sent me
a draft for fifty pounds in his letter--I forgot to tell you about it.
It was very good of him to lend it to me,--you had better have it as
security for this pocket-book,--by-the-bye how much is there inside it?"
"Five hundred, in bank notes of tens and twenties,"--he responded with
business-like brevity.
"Five hundred! My dear fellow, I don't want all that. It's too much!"
"Better have too much than too little nowadays,"--he retorted with a
laugh--"My dear Tempest, don't make such a business of it. Five hundred
pounds is really nothing. You can spend it all on a dressing-case for
example. Better send back John Carrington's draft,--I don't think much
of his generosity considering that he came into a mine worth a hundred
thousand pounds sterling, a few days before I left Australia."
I heard this with great surprise, and, I must admit with a slight
feeling of resentment too. The frank and generous character of my old
chum 'Boffles' seemed to darken suddenly in my eyes,--why could he not
have told me of his good fortune in his letter? Was he afraid I might
trouble him for further loans? I suppose my looks expressed my
thoughts, for Rimânez, who had observed me intently, presently added--
"Did he not tell you of his luck? That was not very friendly of him--but
as I remarked last night, money often spoils a man."
"Oh I daresay he meant no slight by the omission," I said hurriedly,
forcing a smile--"No doubt he will make it the subject of his next
letter. Now as to this five hundred"--
"Keep it, man, keep it"--he interposed impatiently--"What do you talk
about security for? Haven't I got _you_ as security?"
I laughed. "Well, I am fairly reliable now"--I said--"And I'm not going
to run away."
"From _me_?" he queried, with a half cold half kind glance; "No,--I
fancy not!"
He waved his hand lightly and left me, and I, putting the leather case
of notes in my inner breast-pocket, hailed a hansom and was driven off
rapidly to Basinghall Street where my solicitors awaited me.
Arrived at my destination I sent up my name, and was received at once
with the utmost respect by two small chips of men in rusty black who
represented 'the firm.' At my request they sent down their clerk to pay
and dismiss my cab, while I, opening Lucio's pocket book, asked them to
change me a ten-pound note into gold and silver which they did with
ready good-will. Then we went into business together. My deceased
relative, whom I had never seen as far as I myself remembered, but who
had seen me as a motherless baby in my nurse's arms, had left me
everything he possessed unconditionally, including several rare
collections of pictures, jewels and curios. His will was so concisely
and clearly worded that there were no possibilities of any legal
hair-splitting over it,--and I was informed that in a week or ten days
at the utmost everything would be in order and at my sole disposition.
"You are a very fortunate man Mr Tempest;"--said the senior partner Mr
Bentham, as he folded up the last of the papers we had been looking
through and put it by--"At your age this princely inheritance may be
either a great boon to you or a great curse,--one never knows. The
possession of such enormous wealth involves great responsibilities."
I was amused at what I considered the impertinence of this mere servant
of the law in presuming to moralize on my luck.
"Many people would be glad to accept such responsibilities and change
places with me"--I said with a flippant air--"You yourself, for
example?"
I knew this remark was not in good taste, but I made it wilfully,
feeling that he had no business to preach to me as it were on the
responsibilities of wealth. He took no offence however,--he merely gave
me an observant side-glance like that of some meditative crow.
"No Mr Tempest, no"--he said drily--"I do not think I should at all be
disposed to change places with you. I feel very well satisfied as I am.
My brain is my bank, and brings me in quite sufficient interest to live
upon, which is all that I desire. To be comfortable, and pay one's way
honestly is enough for me. I have never envied the wealthy."
"Mr Bentham is a philosopher,"--interposed his partner, Mr Ellis
smiling--"In our profession Mr Tempest, we see so many ups and downs of
life, that in watching the variable fortunes of our clients, we
ourselves learn the lesson of content."
"Ah, it is a lesson that I have never mastered till now!" I responded
merrily--"But at the present moment I confess myself satisfied."
They each gave me a formal little bow, and Mr Bentham shook hands.
"Business being concluded, allow me to congratulate you," he said
politely--"Of course, if you should wish at any time to entrust your
legal affairs to other hands, my partner and myself are perfectly
willing to withdraw. Your deceased relative had the highest confidence
in us...."
"As I have also, I assure you,"--I interrupted quickly--"Pray do me the
favour to continue managing things for me as you did for my relative,
and be assured of my gratitude in advance."
Both little men bowed again, and this time Mr Ellis shook hands.
"We shall do our best for you, Mr Tempest, shall we not Bentham?"
Bentham nodded gravely. "And now what do you say--shall we mention it
Bentham?--or shall we not mention it?"
"Perhaps," responded Bentham sententiously--"it would be as well to
mention it."
I glanced from one to the other, not understanding what they meant. Mr
Ellis rubbed his hands and smiled deprecatingly.
"The fact is Mr Tempest, your deceased relative had one very curious
idea--he was a shrewd man and a clever one, but he certainly had one
very curious idea--and perhaps if he had followed it up to any extent,
it might--yes, it might have landed him in a lunatic asylum and
prevented his disposing of his extensive fortune in the--er--the very
just and reasonable manner he has done. Happily for himself and--er--for
you, he did not follow it up, and to the last he retained his admirable
business qualities and high sense of rectitude. But I do not think he
ever quite dispossessed himself of the idea itself, did he Bentham?"
Bentham gazed meditatively at the round black mark of the gas-burner
where it darkened the ceiling.
"I think not,--no, I think not," he answered--"I believe he was
perfectly convinced of it."
"And what was it?" I asked, getting impatient--"Did he want to bring out
some patent?--a new notion for a flying-machine, and get rid of his
money in that way?"
"No, no, no!" and Mr Ellis laughed a soft pleasant little laugh over my
suggestion--"No, my dear sir--nothing of a purely mechanical or
commercial turn captivated his imagination. He was too,--er--yes, I
think I may say too profoundly opposed to what is called 'progress' in
the world to aid it by any new invention or other means whatever. You
see it is a little awkward for me to explain to you what really seems to
be the most absurd and fantastic notion,--but--to begin with, we never
really knew how he made his money, did we Bentham?"
Bentham shook his head and pursed his lips closely together.
"We had to take charge of large sums, and advise as to investments and
other matters,--but it was not our business to inquire where the cash
came from in the first place, was it, Bentham?"
Again Bentham shook his head solemnly.
"We were entrusted with it;"--went on his partner, pressing the tips of
his fingers together caressingly as he spoke--"and we did our best to
fulfil that trust--with--er--with discretion and fidelity. And it was
only after we had been for many years connected in business that our
client mentioned--er--his idea;--a most erratic and extraordinary one,
which was briefly this,--that he had sold himself to the devil, and that
his large fortune was one result of the bargain!"
I burst out laughing heartily.
"What a ridiculous notion!" I exclaimed--"Poor man!--a weak spot in his
brain somewhere evidently,--or perhaps he used the expression as a mere
figure of speech?"
"I think not;"--responded Mr Ellis half interrogatively, still caressing
his fingers--"I think our client did not use the phrase 'sold to the
devil' as a figure of speech merely, Mr Bentham?"
"I am positive he did not,"--said Bentham seriously--"He spoke of the
'bargain' as an actual and accomplished fact."
I laughed again with a trifle less boisterousness.
"Well, people have all sorts of fancies now-a-days"--I said; "What with
Blavatskyism, Besantism and hypnotism, it is no wonder if some folks
still have a faint credence in the silly old superstition of a devil's
existence. But for a thoroughly sensible man...."
"Yes--er, yes;"--interrupted Mr Ellis--"Your relative, Mr Tempest, _was_
a thoroughly sensible man, and this--er--this idea was the only fancy
that ever appeared to have taken root in his eminently practical mind.
Being only an idea, it seemed hardly worth mentioning--but perhaps it is
well--Mr Bentham agreeing with me--that we _have_ mentioned it."
"It is a satisfaction and relief to ourselves,"--said Mr Bentham, "to
have had it mentioned."
I smiled, and thanking them, rose to go. They bowed to me once more,
simultaneously, looking almost like twin brothers, so identically had
their united practice of the law impressed itself upon their features.
"Good-day Mr Tempest,"--said Mr Bentham--"I need scarcely say that we
shall serve you as we served our late client, to the best of our
ability. And in matters where advice may be pleasant or profitable, we
may possibly be of use to you. May we ask whether you require any cash
advances immediately?"
"No, thank you,"--I answered, feeling grateful to my friend Rimânez for
having placed me in a perfectly independent position to confront these
solicitors--"I am amply provided."
They seemed, I fancied, a trifle surprised at this, but were too
discreet to offer any remark. They wrote down my address at the Grand
Hotel, and sent their clerk to show me to the door. I gave this man
half-a-sovereign to drink my health which he very cheerfully promised to
do,--then I walked round by the Law Courts, trying to realize that I was
not in a dizzy dream, but that I was actually and solidly, five times a
millionaire. As luck would have it, in turning a corner I jostled up
against a man coming the other way, the very publisher who had returned
me my rejected manuscript the day before.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed stopping short.
"Hullo!" I rejoined.
"Where are you off to?" he went on--"Going to try and place that
unlucky novel? My dear boy, believe me it will never do as it is...."
"It will do, it shall do;"--I said calmly--"I am going to publish it
myself."
He started. "Publish it yourself! Good heavens!--it will cost
you--ah!--sixty or seventy, perhaps a hundred pounds."
"I don't care if it costs me a thousand!"
A red flush came into his face, and his eyes opened in astonishment.
"I thought ... excuse me ..." he stammered awkwardly; "I thought money
was scarce with you----"
"It was," I answered drily--"It isn't now."
Then, his utterly bewildered look, together with the whole
topsy-turviness of things in my altered position, struck me so forcibly
that I burst out laughing, wildly, and with a prolonged noise and
violence that apparently alarmed him, for he began looking nervously
about him in all directions as if meditating flight. I caught him by the
arm.
"Look here man," I said, trying to conquer my almost hysterical
mirth--"I'm not mad--don't you think it,--I'm only a--millionaire!" And
I began laughing again; the situation seemed to me so sublimely
ridiculous. But the worthy publisher did not see it at all--and his
features expressed so much genuine alarm that I made a further effort to
control myself and succeeded. "I assure you on my word of honour I'm not
joking--it's a fact. Last night I wanted a dinner, and you, like a good
fellow, offered to give me one,--to-day I possess five millions of
money! Don't stare so! don't have a fit of apoplexy! And as I have told
you, I shall publish my book myself at my own expense, and it _shall_
succeed! Oh I'm in earnest, grim earnest, grim as death!--I've more than
enough in my pocketbook to pay for its publication _now_!"
I loosed my hold of him, and he fell back stupefied and confused.
"God bless my soul!" he muttered feebly--"It's like a dream!--I was
never more astonished in my life!"
"Nor I!" I said, another temptation to laughter threatening my
composure,--"But strange things happen in life, as in fiction. And that
book which the builders--I mean the readers--rejected, shall be the
headstone of the corner--or--the success of the season! What will you
take to bring it out?"
"Take? I? I bring it out!"
"Yes, you--why not? If I offer you a chance to turn an honest penny
shall your paid pack of 'readers' prevent your accepting it? Fie! you
are not a slave,--this is a free country. I know the kind of people who
'read' for you,--the gaunt unlovable spinster of fifty,--the dyspeptic
book-worm who is a 'literary failure' and can find nothing else to do
but scrawl growling comments on the manuscript of promising work,--why
in heaven's name should you rely on such incompetent opinion? I'll pay
you for the publication of my book at as stiff a price as you choose and
something over for good-will. And I guarantee you another thing--it
shall not only make my name as an author, but yours as a publisher. I'll
advertise royally, and I'll work the press. Everything in this world can
be done for money ..."
"Stop, stop,"--he interrupted.--"This is so sudden! You must let me
think of it--you must give me time to consider----"
"Take a day for your meditations then," I said--"But no longer. For if
you don't say yes, I'll get another man, and he'll have the big pickings
instead of you! Be wise in time, my friend!--good-day!"
He ran after me.
"Stay,--look here! You're so strange, so wild--so erratic you know! Your
head seems quite turned!"
"It is! The right way round this time!"
"Dear dear me," and he smiled benevolently--"Why, you don't give me a
chance to congratulate you. I really do, you know--I congratulate you
sincerely!" And he shook me by the hand quite fervently. "And as regards
the book I believe there was really no fault found with it in the
matter of literary style or quality,--it was simply too--too
transcendental, and unlikely therefore to suit the public taste. The
Domestic-Iniquity line is what we find pays best at present. But I will
think about it--where will a letter find you?"
"Grand Hotel," I responded, inwardly amused at his puzzled and anxious
expression--I knew he was already mentally calculating how much he could
make out of me in the pursuit of my literary whim--"Come there, and
lunch or dine with me to-morrow if you like--only send me a word
beforehand. Remember, I give you just a day's grace to decide,--it must
be yes or no, in twenty-four hours!"
And with this I left him, staring vaguely after me like a man who has
seen some nameless wonder drop out of the sky at his feet. I went on,
laughing to myself inaudibly, till I saw one or two passers-by looking
at me so surprisedly that I came to the conclusion that I must put a
disguise on my thoughts if I would not be taken for a madman. I walked
briskly, and presently my excitement cooled down. I resumed the normal
condition of the phlegmatic Englishman who considers it the height of
bad form to display any personal emotion whatever, and I occupied the
rest of the morning in purchasing some ready-made apparel which by
unusual good luck happened to fit me, and also in giving an extensive,
not to say extravagant order to a fashionable tailor in Sackville Street
who promised me everything with punctuality and despatch. I next sent
off the rent I owed to the landlady of my former lodgings, adding five
pounds extra by way of recognition of the poor woman's long patience in
giving me credit, and general kindness towards me during my stay in her
dismal house,--and this done I returned to the Grand in high spirits,
looking and feeling very much the better for my ready-made outfit. A
waiter met me in the corridor and with the most obsequious deference,
informed me that 'his excellency the prince' was waiting luncheon for me
in his own apartments. Thither I repaired at once, and found my new
friend alone in his sumptuous drawing-room, standing near the full light
of the largest window and holding in his hand an oblong crystal case
through which he was looking with an almost affectionate solicitude.
"Ah, Geoffrey! Here you are!" he exclaimed--"I imagined you would get
through your business by lunch time, so I waited."
"Very good of you!" I said, pleased at the friendly familiarity he
displayed in thus calling me by my Christian name--"What have you got
there?"
"A pet of mine,"--he answered, smiling slightly--"Did you ever see
anything like it before?"
VI
I approached and examined the box he held. It was perforated with finely
drilled holes for the admission of air, and within it lay a brilliant
winged insect coloured with all the tints and half-tints of the rainbow.
"Is it alive?" I asked.
"It is alive, and has a sufficient share of intelligence,"--replied
Rimânez. "I feed it and it knows me,--that is the utmost you can say of
the most civilized human beings; they know what feeds them. It is quite
tame and friendly as you perceive,"--and opening the case he gently
advanced his forefinger. The glittering beetle's body palpitated with
the hues of an opal; its radiant wings expanded, and it rose at once to
its protector's hand and clung there. He lifted it out and held it
aloft, then shaking it to and fro lightly, he exclaimed--
"Off, Sprite! Fly, and return to me!"
The creature soared away through the room and round and round the
ceiling, looking like a beautiful iridescent jewel, the whirr of its
wings making a faint buzzing sound as it flew. I watched it fascinated,
till after a few graceful movements hither and thither, it returned to
its owner's still outstretched hand, and again settled there making no
further attempt to fly.
"There is a well-worn platitude which declares that 'in the midst of
life we are in death'"--said the prince then softly, bending his dark
deep eyes on the insect's quivering wings--"But as a matter of fact that
maxim is wrong as so many trite human maxims are. It should be 'in the
midst of death we are in life.' This creature is a rare and curious
production of death, but not I believe the only one of its kind. Others
have been found under precisely similar circumstances. I took possession
of this one myself in rather a weird fashion,--will the story bore you?"
"On the contrary"--I rejoined eagerly, my eyes fixed on the radiant
bat-shaped thing that glittered in the light as though its veins were
phosphorescent.
He paused a moment, watching me.
"Well,--it happened simply thus,--I was present at the uncasing of an
Egyptian female mummy;--her talismans described her as a princess of a
famous royal house. Several curious jewels were tied round her neck, and
on her chest was a piece of beaten gold quarter of an inch thick.
Underneath this gold plate, her body was swathed round and round in an
unusual number of scented wrappings; and when these were removed it was
discovered that the mummified flesh between her breasts had decayed
away, and in the hollow or nest thus formed by the process of
decomposition, this insect I hold was found alive, as brilliant in
colour as it is now!"
I could not repress a slight nervous shudder.
"Horrible!" I said--"I confess, if I were you, I should not care to make
a pet of such an uncanny object. I should kill it, I think."
He kept his bright intent gaze upon me.
"Why?" he asked. "I'm afraid, my dear Geoffrey, you are not disposed to
study science. To kill the poor thing who managed to find life in the
very bosom of death, is a cruel suggestion, is it not? To me, this
unclassified insect is a valuable proof (if I needed one) of the
indestructibility of the germs of conscious existence; it has eyes, and
the senses of taste, smell, touch and hearing,--and it gained these
together with its intelligence, out of the dead flesh of a woman who
lived, and no doubt loved and sinned and suffered more than four
thousand years ago!" He broke off,--then suddenly added--"All the same
I frankly admit to you that I believe it to be an evil creature. I do
indeed! But I like it none the less for that. In fact I have rather a
fantastic notion about it myself. I am much inclined to accept the idea
of the transmigration of souls, and so I please my humour sometimes by
thinking that perhaps the princess of that Royal Egyptian house had a
wicked, brilliant, vampire soul,--and that ... _here it is_!"
A cold thrill ran through me from head to foot at these words, and as I
looked at the speaker standing opposite me in the wintry light, dark and
tall, with the 'wicked, brilliant, vampire soul' clinging to his hand,
there seemed to me to be a sudden hideousness declared in his excessive
personal beauty. I was conscious of a vague terror, but I attributed it
to the gruesome nature of the story, and, determining to combat my
sensations, I examined the weird insect more closely. As I did so, its
bright beady eyes sparkled, I thought, vindictively, and I stepped back,
vexed with myself at the foolish fear of the thing which overpowered me.
"It is certainly remarkable,"--I murmured--"No wonder you value it,--as
a curiosity. Its eyes are quite distinct, almost intelligent in fact."
"No doubt she had beautiful eyes,"--said Rimânez smiling.
"She? Whom do you mean?"
"The princess, of course!" he answered, evidently amused; "The dear dead
lady,--some of whose personality must be in this creature, seeing that
it had nothing but her body to nourish itself upon."
And here he replaced the creature in its crystal habitation with the
utmost care.
"I suppose"--I said slowly, "you, in your pursuit of science, would
infer from this that nothing actually perishes completely?"
"Exactly!" returned Rimânez emphatically. "There, my dear Tempest, is
the mischief,--or the deity,--of things. Nothing can be entirely
annihilated;--not even a thought."
I was silent, watching him while he put the glass case with its uncanny
occupant away out of sight.
"And now for luncheon," he said gaily, passing his arm through
mine--"You look twenty per cent. better than when you went out this
morning, Geoffrey, so I conclude your legal matters are disposed of
satisfactorily. And what else have you done with yourself?"
Seated at table with the dark-faced Amiel in attendance, I related my
morning's adventures, dwelling at length on my chance meeting with the
publisher who had on the previous day refused my manuscript, and who
now, I felt sure, would be only too glad to close with the offer I had
made him. Rimânez listened attentively, smiling now and then.
"Of course!" he said, when I had concluded. "There is nothing in the
least surprising in the conduct of the worthy man. In fact I think he
showed remarkable discretion and decency in not at once jumping at your
proposition,--his pleasant hypocrisy in retiring to think it over, shows
him to be a person of tact and foresight. Did you ever imagine that a
human being or a human conscience existed that could not be bought? My
good fellow, you can buy a king if you only give a long price enough;
and the Pope will sell you a specially reserved seat in his heaven if
you will only hand him the cash down while he is on earth! Nothing is
given free in this world save the air and the sunshine,--everything else
must be bought,--with blood, tears and groans occasionally,--but
oftenest with money."
I fancied that Amiel, behind his master's chair, smiled darkly at
this,--and my instinctive dislike of the fellow kept me more or less
reticent concerning my affairs till the luncheon was over. I could not
formulate to myself any substantial reason for my aversion to this
confidential servant of the prince's,--but do what I would the aversion
remained, and increased each time I saw his sullen, and as I thought,
sneering features. Yet he was perfectly respectful and deferential; I
could find no actual fault with him,--nevertheless when at last he
placed the coffee, cognac, and cigars on the table and noiselessly
withdrew, I was conscious of a great relief, and breathed more freely.
As soon as we were alone, Rimânez lit a cigar and settled himself for a
smoke, looking over at me with a personal interest and kindness which
made his handsome face more than ever attractive.
"Now let us talk,"--he said--"I believe I am at present the best friend
you have, and I certainly know the world better than you do. What do you
propose to make of your life? Or in other words how do you mean to begin
spending your money?"
I laughed. "Well, I shan't provide funds for the building of a church,
or the endowment of a hospital,"--I said--"I shall not even start a Free
Library, for these institutions, besides becoming centres for infectious
diseases, generally get presided over by a committee of local grocers
who presume to consider themselves judges of literature. My dear Prince
Rimânez, I mean to spend my money on my own pleasure, and I daresay I
shall find plenty of ways to do it."
Rimânez fanned away the smoke of his cigar with one hand, and his dark
eyes shone with a peculiarly vivid light through the pale grey floating
haze.
"With your fortune, you could make hundreds of miserable people
happy;"--he suggested.
"Thanks, I would rather be happy myself first"--I answered gaily--"I
daresay I seem to you selfish,--you are philanthropic I know; I am not."
He still regarded me steadily.
"You might help your fellow-workers in literature...."
I interrupted him with a decided gesture.
"That I will never do, my friend, though the heavens should crack! My
fellow-workers in literature have kicked me down at every opportunity,
and done their best to keep me from earning a bare livelihood,--it is my
turn at kicking now, and I will show them as little mercy, as little
help, as little sympathy as they have shown me!"
"Revenge is sweet!" he quoted sententiously--"I should recommend your
starting a high-class half-crown magazine."
"Why?"
"Can you ask? Just think of the ferocious satisfaction it would give you
to receive the manuscripts of your literary enemies, and reject them! To
throw their letters into the waste-paper basket, and send back their
poems, stories, political articles and what not, with '_Returned with
thanks_' or '_Not up to our mark_' type-written on the backs thereof! To
dig knives into your rivals through the medium of anonymous criticism!
The howling joy of a savage with twenty scalps at his belt would be tame
in comparison to it! I was an editor once myself, and I know!"
I laughed at his whimsical earnestness.
"I daresay you are right,"--I said--"I can grasp the vengeful position
thoroughly! But the management of a magazine would be too much trouble
to me,--too much of a tie."
"_Don't_ manage it! Follow the example of all the big editors, and live
out of the business altogether,--but take the profits! You never see the
real editor of a leading daily newspaper you know,--you can only
interview the sub. The real man is, according to the seasons of the
year, at Ascot, in Scotland, at Newmarket, or wintering in Egypt,--he is
supposed to be responsible for everything in his journal, but he is
generally the last person who knows anything about it. He relies on his
'staff'--a very bad crutch at times,--and when his 'staff' are in a
difficulty, they get out of it by saying they are unable to decide
without the editor. Meanwhile the editor is miles away, comfortably free
from worry. You could bamboozle the public in that way if you liked."
"I could, but I shouldn't care to do so," I answered--"If I had a
business I would not neglect it. I believe in doing things thoroughly."
"So do I!" responded Rimânez promptly. "I am a very thorough-going
fellow myself, and whatever my hand findeth to do, I do it with my
might!--excuse me for quoting Scripture!" He smiled, a little ironically
I thought, then resumed--"Well, in what, at present does your idea of
enjoying your heritage consist?"
"In publishing my book," I answered. "That very book I could get no one
to accept,--I tell you, I will make it the talk of London!"
"Possibly you will"--he said, looking at me through half-closed eyes and
a cloud of smoke,--"London easily talks. Particularly on unsavoury and
questionable subjects. Therefore,--as I have already hinted,--if your
book were a judicious mixture of Zola, Huysmans and Baudelaire, or had
for its heroine a 'modest' maid who considered honourable marriage a
'degradation,' it would be quite sure of success in these days of new
Sodom and Gomorrah." Here he suddenly sprang up, and flinging away his
cigar, confronted me. "Why do not the heavens rain fire on this accursed
city! It is ripe for punishment,--full of abhorrent creatures not worth
the torturing in hell to which it is said liars and hypocrites are
condemned! Tempest, if there is one human being more than another that I
utterly abhor, it is the type of man so common to the present time, the
man who huddles his own loathly vices under a cloak of assumed
broad-mindedness and virtue. Such an one will even deify the loss of
chastity in woman by the name of 'purity,'--because he knows that it is
by her moral and physical ruin alone that he can gratify his brutal
lusts. Rather than be such a sanctimonious coward I would openly
proclaim myself vile!"
"That is because yours is a noble nature"--I said--"You are an exception
to the rule."
"An exception? I?"--and he laughed bitterly--"Yes, you are right; I am
an exception among men perhaps,--but I am one with the beasts in
honesty! The lion does not assume the manners of the dove,--he loudly
announces his own ferocity. The very cobra, stealthy though its
movements be, evinces its meaning by a warning hiss or rattle. The
hungry wolf's bay is heard far down the wind, intimidating the hurrying
traveller among the wastes of snow. But man gives no clue to his
intent--more malignant than the lion, more treacherous than the snake,
more greedy than the wolf, he takes his fellow-man's hand in pretended
friendship, and an hour later defames his character behind his
back,--with a smiling face he hides a false and selfish heart,--flinging
his pigmy mockery at the riddle of the Universe, he stands gibing at
God, feebly a-straddle on his own earth-grave--Heavens!"--here he
stopped short with a passionate gesture--"What should the Eternities do
with such a thankless, blind worm as he!"
His voice rang out with singular emphasis,--his eyes glowed with a fiery
ardour; startled by his impressive manner I let my cigar die out and
stared at him in mute amazement. What an inspired countenance!--what an
imposing figure!--how sovereignly supreme and almost god-like in his
looks he seemed at the moment;--and yet there was something terrifying
in his attitude of protest and defiance. He caught my wondering
glance,--the glow of passion faded from his face,--he laughed and
shrugged his shoulders.
"I think I was born to be an actor"--he said carelessly--"Now and then
the love of declamation masters me. Then I speak--as Prime Ministers and
men in Parliament speak--to suit the humour of the hour, and without
meaning a single word I say!"
"I cannot accept that statement"--I answered him, smiling a little--"You
do mean what you say,--though I fancy you are rather a creature of
impulse."
"Do you really!" he exclaimed--"How wise of you!--good Geoffrey Tempest,
how very wise of you! But you are wrong. There never was a being created
who was less impulsive, or more charged with set purpose than I. Believe
me or not as you like,--belief is a sentiment that cannot be forced. If
I told you that I am a dangerous companion,--that I like evil things
better than good,--that I am not a safe guide for any man, what would
you think?"
"I should think you were whimsically fond of under-estimating your own
qualities"--I said, re-lighting my cigar, and feeling somewhat amused by
his earnestness--"And I should like you just as well as I do
now,--perhaps better,--though that would be difficult."
At these words, he seated himself, bending his stedfast dark eyes full
upon me.
"Tempest, you follow the fashion of the prettiest women about
town,--they always like the greatest scoundrels!"
"But you are not a scoundrel;"--I rejoined, smoking peacefully.
"No,--I'm not a scoundrel, but there's a good deal of the devil in me."
"All the better!" I said, stretching myself out in my chair with lazy
comfort--"I hope there's something of him in me too."
"Do you believe in him?" asked Rimânez smiling.
"The devil? of course not!"
"He is a very fascinating legendary personage;"--continued the prince,
lighting another cigar and beginning to puff at it slowly--"And he is
the subject of many a fine story. Picture his fall from
heaven!--'Lucifer Son of the Morning'--what a title, and what a
birthright! To be born of the morning implies to be a creature formed of
translucent light undefiled, with all the warm rose of a million orbs of
day colouring his bright essence, and all the lustre of fiery planets
flaming in his eyes. Splendid and supreme, at the right hand of Deity
itself he stood, this majestic Arch-angel, and before his unwearied
vision rolled the grandest creative splendours of God's thoughts and
dreams. All at once he perceived in the vista of embryonic things a new
small world, and on it a being forming itself slowly as it were into the
Angelic likeness,--a being weak yet strong, sublime yet foolish,--a
strange paradox, destined to work its way through all the phases of
life, till imbibing the very breath and soul of the Creator it should
touch Conscious Immortality,--Eternal Joy. Then Lucifer, full of wrath,
turned on the Master of the Spheres, and flung forth his reckless
defiance, crying aloud--'Wilt thou make of this slight poor creature an
Angel even as I? I do protest against thee and condemn! Lo, if thou
makest Man in Our image I will destroy him utterly, as unfit to share
with me the splendours of Thy Wisdom,--the glory of Thy love!' And the
Voice Supreme in accents terrible and beautiful replied; 'Lucifer, Son
of the Morning, full well dost thou know that never can an idle or
wasted word be spoken before Me. For Free-will is the gift of the
Immortals; therefore what thou sayest, thou must needs do! Fall, proud
Spirit from thy high estate!--thou and thy companions with thee!--and
return no more till Man himself redeem thee! Each human soul that yields
unto thy tempting shall be a new barrier set between thee and heaven;
each one that of its own choice doth repel and overcome thee, shall lift
thee nearer thy lost home! When the world rejects thee, I will pardon
and again receive thee,--but _not till then_.'"
"I never heard exactly that version of the legend before,"--I
said,--"The idea that Man should redeem the devil is quite new to me."
"Is it?" and he looked at me fixedly--"Well--it is one form of the
story, and by no means the most unpoetical. Poor Lucifer! His punishment
is of course eternal, and the distance between himself and Heaven must
be rapidly increasing every day,--for Man will never assist him to
retrieve his error. Man will reject God fast enough and gladly
enough--but never the devil. Judge then, how, under the peculiar
circumstances of his doom, this 'Lucifer, Son of the Morning,' Satan, or
whatever else he is called, must hate Humanity!"
I smiled. "Well he has one remedy left to him"--I observed--"He need not
tempt anybody."
"You forget!--he is bound to keep his word, according to the
legend"--said Rimânez--"He swore before God that he would destroy Man
utterly,--he must therefore fulfil that oath, if he can. Angels, it
would seem, may not swear before the Eternal without endeavouring at
least to fulfil their vows,--men swear in the name of God every day
without the slightest intention of carrying out their promises."
"But it's all the veriest nonsense,"--I said somewhat impatiently--"All
these old legends are rubbish. You tell the story well, and almost as if
you believed in it,--that is because you have the gift of speaking with
eloquence. Nowadays no one believes in either devils or angels;--I, for
example, do not even believe in the soul."
"I know you do not"--he answered suavely--"And your scepticism is very
comfortable because it relieves you of all personal responsibility. I
envy you! For--I regret to say, I am compelled to believe in the soul."
"Compelled!" I echoed--"That is absurd--no one can compel you to accept
a mere theory."
He looked at me with a flitting smile that darkened rather than
lightened his face.
"True! very true! There is no compelling force in the whole
Universe,--Man is the supreme and independent creature,--master of all
he surveys and owning no other dominion save his personal desire.
True--I forgot! Let us avoid theology, please, and psychology also,--let
us talk about the only subject that has any sense or interest in
it--namely, Money. I perceive your present plans are definite,--you wish
to publish a book that shall create a stir and make you famous. It seems
a modest enough campaign! Have you no wider ambitions? There are several
ways, you know, of getting talked about. Shall I enumerate them for your
consideration?"
I laughed. "If you like!"
"Well, in the first place I should suggest your getting yourself
properly paragraphed. It must be known to the press that you are an
exceedingly rich man. There is an Agency for the circulation of
paragraphs,--I daresay they'll do it sufficiently well for about ten or
twenty guineas."
I opened my eyes a little at this.
"Oh, is that the way these things are done?"
"My dear fellow, how else should they be done?" he demanded somewhat
impatiently--"Do you think _anything_ in the world is done without
money? Are the poor, hard-working journalists your brothers or your
bosom friends that they should lift you into public notice without
getting something for their trouble? If you do not manage them properly
in this way, they'll abuse you quite heartily and free of cost,--that I
can promise you! I know a 'literary agent,' a very worthy man too, who
for a hundred guineas down, will so ply the paragraph wheel that in a
few weeks it shall seem to the outside public that Geoffrey Tempest, the
millionaire, is the only person worth talking about, and the one
desirable creature whom to shake hands with is next in honour to meeting
Royalty itself."
"Secure him!" I said indolently--"And pay him _two_ hundred guineas! So
shall all the world hear of me!"
"When you have been paragraphed thoroughly," went on Rimânez--"the next
move will be a dash into what is called 'swagger' society. This must be
done cautiously and by degrees. You must be presented at the first Levée
of the season, and later on, I will get you an invitation to some great
lady's house, where you will meet the Prince of Wales privately at
dinner. If you can oblige or please His Royal Highness in any way so
much the better for you,--he is at least the most popular royalty in
Europe, so it should not be difficult to you to make yourself agreeable.
Following upon this event, you must purchase a fine country seat, and
have _that_ fact 'paragraphed'--then you can rest and look
round,--Society will have taken you up, and you will find yourself in
the swim!"
I laughed heartily,--well entertained by his fluent discourse.
"I should not," he resumed--"propose your putting yourself to the
trouble of getting into Parliament. That is no longer necessary to the
career of a gentleman. But I should strongly recommend your winning the
Derby."
"I daresay you would!" I answered mirthfully--"It's an admirable
suggestion,--but not very easy to follow!"
"If you wish to win the Derby," he rejoined quietly--"you _shall_ win
it. I'll guarantee both horse and jockey!"
Something in his decisive tone impressed me, and I leaned forward to
study his features more closely.
"Are you a worker of miracles?" I asked him jestingly--"Do you mean it?"
"Try me!" he responded--"Shall I enter a horse for you?"
"You can't; it's too late," I said. "You would need to be the devil
himself to do it. Besides I don't care about racing."
"You will have to amend your taste then,"--he replied--"That is, if you
want to make yourself agreeable to the English aristocracy, for they are
interested in little else. No really great lady is without her betting
book, though she may be deficient in her knowledge of spelling. You may
make the biggest literary _furore_ of the season, and that will count as
nothing among 'swagger' people, but if you win the Derby you will be a
really famous man. Personally speaking I have a great deal to do with
racing,--in fact I am devoted to it. I am always present at every great
race,--I never miss one; I always bet, and I never lose! And now let me
proceed with your social plan of action. After winning the Derby you
will enter for a yacht race at Cowes, and allow the Prince of Wales to
beat you just narrowly. Then you will give a grand dinner, arranged by a
perfect _chef_,--and you will entertain His Royal Highness to the
strains of 'Britannia rules the waves,' which will serve as a pretty
compliment. You will allude to the same well-worn song in a graceful
speech,--and the probable result of all this will be one, or perhaps two
Royal invitations. So far, so good. With the heats of summer you will go
to Homburg to drink the waters there whether you require them or
not,--and in the autumn you will assemble a shooting-party at the
country seat before-mentioned which you will have purchased, and invite
Royalty to join you in killing the poor little partridges. Then your
name in society may be considered as made, and you can marry whatever
fair lady happens to be in the market!"
"Thanks!--much obliged!" and I gave way to hearty laughter--"Upon my
word Lucio, your programme is perfect! It lacks nothing!"
"It is the orthodox round of social success," said Lucio with admirable
gravity--"Intellect and originality have nothing whatever to do with
it,--only money is needed to perform it all."
"You forget my book"--I interposed--"I know there is some intellect in
that, and some originality too. Surely that will give me an extra lift
up the heights of fashionable light and leading."
"I doubt it!" he answered--"I very much doubt it. It will be received
with a certain amount of favour of course, as a production of a rich man
amusing himself with literature as a sort of whim. But, as I told you
before, genius seldom develops itself under the influence of wealth.
Then again 'swagger' folks can never get it out of their fuddled heads
that Literature belongs to Grub Street. Great poets, great philosophers,
great romancists are always vaguely alluded to by 'swagger' society as
'those sort of people.' Those sort of people are so 'interesting' say
the blue-blooded noodles deprecatingly, excusing themselves as it were
for knowing any members of the class literary. You can fancy a 'swagger'
lady of Elizabeth's time asking a friend--'O do you mind, my dear, if I
bring one Master William Shakespeare to see you? He writes plays, and
does something or other at the _Globe_ theatre,--in fact I'm afraid he
acts a little--he's not very well off poor man,--but _these sort of
people_ are always so amusing!' Now you, my dear Tempest, are not a
Shakespeare, but your millions will give you a better chance than he
ever had in his life-time, as you will not have to sue for patronage, or
practise a reverence for 'my lord' or 'my lady,'--these exalted
personages will be only too delighted to borrow money of you if you will
lend it."
"I shall not lend,"--I said.
"Nor give?"
"Nor give."
His keen eyes flashed approval.
"I am very glad," he observed, "that you are determined not to 'go about
doing good' as the canting humbugs say, with your money. You are wise.
Spend on yourself,--because your very act of spending cannot but benefit
others through various channels. Now I pursue a different course. I
always help charities, and put my name on subscription-lists,--and I
never fail to assist a certain portion of clergy."
"I rather wonder at that--" I remarked--"Especially as you tell me you
are not a Christian."
"Yes,--it does seem strange,--doesn't it?"--he said with an
extraordinary accent of what might be termed apologetic derision--"But
perhaps you don't look at it in the proper light. Many of the clergy are
doing their utmost best to _destroy_ religion,--by cant, by hypocrisy,
by sensuality, by shams of every description,--and when they seek my
help in this noble work, I give it,--freely!"
I laughed "You must have your joke evidently"--I said, throwing the end
of my finished cigar into the fire--"And I see you are fond of
satirizing your own good actions. Hullo, what's this?"
For at that moment Amiel entered, bearing a telegram for me on a silver
salver. I opened it,--it was from my friend the publisher, and ran as
follows--
"Accept book with pleasure. Send manuscript immediately."
I showed this to Rimânez with a kind of triumph. He smiled.
"Of course! what else did you expect? Only the man should have worded
his telegram differently, for I do not suppose he would accept the book
with pleasure if he had to lay out his own cash upon it. 'Accept money
for publishing book with pleasure' should have been the true message of
the wire. Well, what are you going to do?"
"I shall see about this at once"--I answered, feeling a thrill of
satisfaction that at last the time of vengeance on certain of my enemies
was approaching--"The book must be hurried through the press as quickly
as possible,--and I shall take a particular pleasure in personally
attending to all the details concerning it. For the rest of my plans,--"
"Leave them to me!" said Rimânez laying his finely shaped white hand
with a masterful pressure on my shoulder; "Leave them to me!--and be
sure that before very long I shall have set you aloft like the bear who
has successfully reached the bun on the top of a greased pole,--a
spectacle for the envy of men, and the wonder of angels!"
VII
The next three or four weeks flew by in a whirl of excitement, and by
the time they were ended I found it hard to recognize myself in the
indolent, listless, extravagant man of fashion I had so suddenly become.
Sometimes at stray and solitary moments the past turned back upon me
like a revolving picture in a glass with a flash of unwelcome
recollection, and I saw myself worn and hungry, and shabbily clothed,
bending over my writing in my dreary lodging, wretched, yet amid all my
wretchedness receiving curious comfort from my own thoughts which
created beauty out of penury, and love out of loneliness. This creative
faculty was now dormant in me,--I did very little, and thought less. But
I felt certain that this intellectual apathy was but a passing phase,--a
mental holiday and desirable cessation from brain-work to which I was
deservedly entitled after all my sufferings at the hands of poverty and
disappointment. My book was nearly through the press,--and perhaps the
chiefest pleasure of any I now enjoyed was the correction of the proofs
as they passed under my supervision. Yet even this, the satisfaction of
authorship, had its drawback,--and my particular grievance was somewhat
singular. I read my own work with gratification of course, for I was not
behind my contemporaries in thinking well of myself in all I did,--but
my complacent literary egoism was mixed with a good deal of disagreeable
astonishment and incredulity, because my work, written with enthusiasm
and feeling, propounded sentiments and inculcated theories which I
personally did not believe in. Now, how had this happened, I asked
myself? Why had I thus invited the public to accept me at a false
valuation? I paused to consider,--and I found the suggestion puzzling.
How came I to write the book at all, seeing that it was utterly unlike
me as I now knew myself? My pen, consciously or unconsciously, had
written down things which my reasoning faculties entirely
repudiated,--such as belief in a God,--trust in the eternal
possibilities of man's diviner progress,--I credited neither of these
doctrines. When I imagined such transcendental and foolish dreams I was
poor,--starving,--and without a friend in the world;--remembering all
this, I promptly set down my so-called 'inspiration' to the action of an
ill-nourished brain. Yet there was something subtle in the teaching of
the story, and one afternoon when I was revising some of the last proof
sheets I caught myself thinking that the book was nobler than its
writer. This idea smote me with a sudden pang,--I pushed my papers
aside, and walking to the window, looked out. It was raining hard, and
the streets were black with mud and slush,--the foot-passengers were
drenched and miserable,--the whole prospect was dreary, and the fact
that I was a rich man did not in the least lift from my mind the
depression that had stolen on me unawares. I was quite alone, for I had
my own suite of rooms now in the hotel, not far from those occupied by
Prince Rimânez; I also had my own servant, a respectable, good sort of
fellow whom I rather liked because he shared to the full the instinctive
aversion I felt for the prince's man, Amiel. Then I had my own carriage
and horses with attendant coachman and groom,--so that the prince and I,
though the most intimate friends in the world, were able to avoid that
'familiarity which breeds contempt' by keeping up our own separate
establishments. On this particular afternoon I was in a more miserable
humour than ever my poverty had brought upon me, yet from a strictly
reasonable point of view I had nothing to be miserable about. I was in
full possession of my fortune,--I enjoyed excellent health, and I had
everything I wanted, with the added consciousness that if my wants
increased I could gratify them easily. The 'paragraph wheel' under
Lucio's management had been worked with such good effect that I had seen
myself mentioned in almost every paper in London and the provinces as
the 'famous millionaire,'--and for the benefit of the public, who are
sadly uninstructed on these matters, I may here state as a very plain
unvarnished truth, that for forty pounds,[1] a well-known 'agency' will
guarantee the insertion of _any_ paragraph, provided it is not
libellous, in no less than four hundred newspapers. The art of 'booming'
is thus easily explained, and level-headed people will be able to
comprehend why it is that a few names of authors are constantly
mentioned in the press, while others, perhaps more deserving, remain
ignored. Merit counts as nothing in such circumstances,--money wins the
day. And the persistent paragraphing of my name, together with a
description of my personal appearance and my 'marvellous literary
gifts,' combined with a deferential and almost awe-struck allusion to
the 'millions' which made me so interesting--(the paragraph was written
out by Lucio and handed for circulation to the 'agency' aforesaid with
'money down')--all this I say brought upon me two inflictions,--first,
any amount of invitations to social and artistic functions,--and
secondly, a continuous stream of begging-letters. I was compelled to
employ a secretary, who occupied a room near my suite, and who was kept
hard at work all day. Needless to say I refused all appeals for
money;--no one had helped _me_ in my distress, with the exception of my
old chum 'Boffles,'--no one save he had given me even so much as a word
of sympathy,--I was resolved now to be as hard and as merciless as I had
found my contemporaries. I had a certain grim pleasure in reading
letters from two or three literary men, asking for work 'as secretary or
companion,' or failing that, for the loan of a little cash to 'tide over
present difficulties.' One of these applicants was a journalist on the
staff of a well-known paper who had promised to find _me_ work, and who
instead of doing so, had, as I afterwards learned, strongly dissuaded
his editor from giving me any employment. He never imagined that Tempest
the millionaire, and Tempest the literary hack, were one and the same
person,--so little do the majority think that wealth can ever fall to
the lot of authors! I wrote to him myself however and told him what I
deemed it well he should know, adding my sarcastic thanks for his
friendly assistance to me in time of need,--and herein I tasted
something of the sharp delight of vengeance. I never heard from him
again, and I am pretty sure my letter gave him material not only for
astonishment but meditation.
Yet with all the advantages over both friends and enemies which I now
possessed I could not honestly say I was happy. I knew I could have
every possible enjoyment and amusement the world had to offer,--I knew I
was one of the most envied among men, and yet,--as I stood looking out
of the window at the persistently falling rain, I was conscious of a
bitterness rather than a sweetness in the full cup of fortune. Many
things that I had imagined would give me intense satisfaction had fallen
curiously flat. For example, I had flooded the press with the most
carefully worded and prominent advertisements of my forthcoming book,
and when I was poor I had pictured to myself how I should revel in doing
this,--now that it was done I cared nothing at all about it. I was
simply weary of the sight of my own advertised name. I certainly did
look forward with very genuine feeling and expectation to the
publication of my work when that should be an accomplished fact,--but
to-day even that idea had lost some of its attractiveness owing to this
new and unpleasant impression on my mind that the contents of that book
were as utterly the reverse of my own true thoughts as they could well
be. A fog began to darken down over the streets in company with the
rain,--and disgusted with the weather and with myself, I turned away
from the window and settled into an arm-chair by the fire, poking the
coal till it blazed, and wondering what I should do to rid my mind of
the gloom that threatened to envelop it in as thick a canopy as that of
the London fog. A tap came at the door, and in answer to my somewhat
irritable "Come in!" Rimânez entered.
"What, all in the dark Tempest!" he exclaimed cheerfully--"Why don't you
light up?"
"The fire's enough,"--I answered crossly--"Enough at any rate to think
by."
"And have you been thinking?" he inquired laughing--"Don't do it. It's a
bad habit. No one thinks now-a-days,--people can't stand it--their heads
are too frail. Once begin to think and down go the foundations of
society,--besides thinking is always dull work."
"I have found it so," I said gloomily--"Lucio, there is something wrong
about me somewhere."
His eyes flashed keen, half-amused inquiry into mine.
"Wrong? Oh no, surely not! What _can_ there be wrong about you, Tempest?
Are you not one of the richest men living?"
I let the satire pass.
"Listen, my friend," I said earnestly--"You know I have been busy for
the last fortnight correcting the proofs of my book for the press,--do
you not?"
He nodded with a smiling air.
"Well I have arrived almost at the end of my work and I have come to the
conclusion that the book is not Me,--it is not a reflex of my feelings
at all,--and I cannot understand how I came to write it."
"You find it stupid perhaps?" said Lucio sympathetically.
"No," I answered with a touch of indignation--"I do not find it stupid."
"Dull then?"
"No,--it is not dull."
"Melodramatic?"
"No,--not melodramatic."
"Well, my good fellow, if it is not dull or stupid or melodramatic, what
is it!" he exclaimed merrily--"It must be something!"
"Yes,--it is this,--it is beyond me altogether." And I spoke with some
bitterness. "Quite beyond me. I could not write it now,--I wonder I
could write it then. Lucio, I daresay I am talking foolishly,--but it
seems to me I must have been on some higher altitude of thought when I
wrote the book,--a height from which I have since fallen."
"I'm sorry to hear this," he answered, with twinkling eyes--"From what
you say it appears to me you have been guilty of literary sublimity. Oh
bad, very bad! Nothing can be worse. To write sublimely is a grievous
sin, and one which critics never forgive. I'm really grieved for you, my
friend--I never thought your case was quite so desperate."
I laughed in spite of my depression.
"You are incorrigible, Lucio!" I said--"But your cheerfulness is very
inspiriting. All I wanted to explain to you is this,--that my book
expresses a certain tone of thought which purporting to be _mine_, is
not _me_,--in short, I, in my present self have no sympathy with it. I
must have changed very much since I wrote it."
"Changed? Why yes, I should think so!" and Lucio laughed heartily--"The
possession of five millions is bound to change a man considerably for
the better--or worse! But you seem to be worrying yourself most absurdly
about nothing. Not one author in many centuries writes from his own
heart or as he truly feels--when he does, he becomes well-nigh immortal.
This planet is too limited to hold more than one Homer, one Plato, one
Shakespeare. Don't distress yourself--you are neither of these three!
You belong to the age, Tempest,--it is a decadent ephemeral age, and
most things connected with it are decadent and ephemeral. Any era that
is dominated by the love of money only, has a rotten core within it and
must perish. All history tells us so, but no one accepts the lesson of
history. Observe the signs of the time,--Art is made subservient to the
love of money--literature, politics and religion the same,--_you_ cannot
escape from the general disease. The only thing to do is to make the
best of it,--no one can reform it--least of all you, who have so much
of the lucre given to your share."
He paused,--I was silent, watching the bright fire-glow and the dropping
red cinders.
"What I am going to say now," he proceeded in soft, almost melancholy
accents--"will sound ridiculously trite,--still it has the perverse
prosiness of truth about it. It is this--in order to write with intense
feeling, you must first _feel_. Very likely when you wrote this book of
yours, you were almost a human hedge-hog in the way of feeling. Every
prickly point of you was erect and responsive to the touch of all
influences, pleasant or the reverse, imaginative or realistic. This is a
condition which some people envy and others would rather dispense with.
Now that you, as a hedge-hog, have no further need for either alarm,
indignation or self-defence, your prickles are soothed into an agreeable
passiveness, and you partially cease to feel. That is all. The 'change'
you complain of is thus accounted for;--you have nothing to feel
about,--hence you cannot comprehend how it was that you ever felt."
I was conscious of irritation at the calm conviction of his tone.
"Do you take me for such a callous creature as all that?" I
exclaimed--"You are mistaken in me, Lucio. I feel most keenly----"
"What do you feel?" he inquired, fixing his eyes steadily upon
me--"There are hundreds of starving wretches in this metropolis,--men
and women on the brink of suicide because they have no hope of anything
in this world or the next, and no sympathy from their kind--do you feel
for them? Do _their_ griefs affect _you_? You know they do not,--you
know you never think of them,--why should you? One of the chief
advantages of wealth is the ability it gives us to shut out other
people's miseries from our personal consideration."
I said nothing,--for the first time my spirit chafed at the truth of his
words, principally because they _were_ true. Alas, Lucio!--if I had
only known then what I know now!
"Yesterday," he went on in the same quiet voice--"a child was run over
here, just opposite this hotel. It was _only_ a poor child,--mark that
'only.' Its mother ran shrieking out of some back-street hard by, in
time to see the little bleeding body carted up in a mangled heap. She
struck wildly with both hands at the men who were trying to lead her
away, and with a cry like that of some hurt savage animal fell face
forward in the mud--dead. She was only a poor woman,--another 'only.'
There were three lines in the paper about it headed 'Sad Incident.' The
hotel-porter here witnessed the scene from the door with as composed a
demeanor as that of a fop at the play, never relaxing the serene majesty
of his attitude,--but about ten minutes after the dead body of the woman
had been carried out of sight, he, the imperial, gold-buttoned being,
became almost crook-backed in his servile haste to run and open the door
of your brougham, my dear Geoffrey, as you drove up to the entrance.
This is a little epitome of life as it is lived now-a-days,--and yet the
canting clerics swear we are all equal in the sight of heaven! We may
be, though it does not look much like it,--and if we are, it does not
matter, as we have ceased to care how heaven regards us. I don't want to
point a moral,--I simply tell you the 'sad incident' as it
occurred,--and I am sure you are not the least sorry for the fate of
either the child who was run over, or its mother who died in the sharp
agony of a suddenly broken heart. Now don't say you are, because I know
you're not!"
"How can one feel sorry for people one does not know or has never
seen,--" I began.
"Exactly!--How is it possible? And there we have it--how can one feel,
when one's self is so thoroughly comfortable as to be without any other
feeling save that of material ease? Thus, my dear Geoffrey, you must be
content to let your book appear as the reflex and record of your past
when you were in the prickly or sensitive stage,--now you are encased
in a pachydermatous covering of gold, which adequately protects you from
such influences as might have made you start and writhe, perhaps even
roar with indignation, and in the access of fierce torture, stretch out
your hands and grasp--quite unconsciously--the winged thing called
Fame!"
"You should have been an orator,"--I said, rising and pacing the room to
and fro in vexation,--"But to me your words are not consoling, and I do
not think they are true. Fame is easily enough secured."
"Pardon me if I am obstinate;"--said Lucio with a deprecatory
gesture--"Notoriety is easily secured--very easily. A few critics who
have dined with you and had their fill of wine, will give you notoriety.
But fame is the voice of the whole civilized public of the world."
"The public!" I echoed contemptuously--"The public only care for trash."
"It is a pity you should appeal to it then;"--he responded with a
smile--"If you think so little of the public why give it anything of
your brain? It is not worthy of so rare a boon! Come, come Tempest,--do
not join in the snarl of unsuccessful authors who take refuge, when
marked unsaleable, in pouring out abuse on the public. The public is the
author's best friend and truest critic. But if you prefer to despise it,
in company with all the very little literature-mongers who form a mutual
admiration society, I tell you what to do,--print just twenty copies of
your book and present these to the leading reviewers, and when they have
written you up (as they will do--I'll take care of that) let your
publisher advertise to the effect that the 'First and Second Large
Editions' of the new novel by Geoffrey Tempest, are exhausted, one
hundred thousand copies having been sold in a week! If that does not
waken up the world in general, I shall be much surprised!"
I laughed,--I was gradually getting into a better humour.
"It would be quite as fair a plan of action as is adopted by many modern
publishers," I said--"The loud hawking of literary wares now-a-days
reminds me of the rival shouting of costermongers in a low
neighbourhood. But I will not go quite so far,--I'll win my fame
legitimately if I can."
"You can't!" declared Lucio with a serene smile--"It's impossible. You
are too rich. That of itself is not legitimate in Literature, which
great art generally elects to wear poverty in its button-hole as a
flower of grace. The fight cannot be equal in such circumstances. The
fact that you are a millionaire must weigh the balance apparently in
your favour for a time. The world cannot resist money. If I, for
example, became an author, I should probably with my wealth and
influence, burn up every one else's laurels. Suppose that a desperately
poor man comes out with a book at the same time as you do, he will have
scarcely the ghost of a chance against you. He will not be able to
advertise in your lavish style,--nor will he see his way to dine the
critics as you can. And if he should happen to have more genius than
you, and you succeed, your success will _not_ be legitimate. But after
all, that does not matter much--in Art, if in nothing else, things
always right themselves."
I made no immediate reply, but went over to my table, rolled up my
corrected proofs and directed them to the printers,--then ringing the
bell I gave the packet to my man, Morris, bidding him post it at once.
This done, I turned again towards Lucio and saw that he still sat by the
fire, but that his attitude was now one of brooding melancholy, and that
he had covered his eyes with one hand on which the glow from the flames
shone red. I regretted the momentary irritation I had felt against him
for telling me unwelcome truths,--and I touched him lightly on the
shoulder.
"Are _you_ in the dumps now Lucio?" I said--"I'm afraid my depression
has proved infectious."
He moved his hand and looked up,--his eyes were large and lustrous as
the eyes of a beautiful woman.
"I was thinking," he said, with a slight sigh--"of the last words I
uttered just now,--_things always right themselves_. Curiously enough in
art they always do,--no charlatanism or sham lasts with the gods of
Parnassus. But in other matters it is different. For instance _I_ shall
never right myself! Life is hateful to me at times, as it is to
everybody."
"Perhaps you are in love?" I said with a smile.
He started up.
"In love! By all the heavens and all the earths too, that suggestion
wakes me with a vengeance! In love! What woman alive do you think could
impress _me_ with the notion that she was anything more than a frivolous
doll of pink and white, with long hair frequently not her own? And as
for the tom-boy tennis-players and giantesses of the era, I do not
consider them women at all,--they are merely the unnatural and strutting
embryos of a new sex which will be neither male nor female. My dear
Tempest, I hate women. So would you if you knew as much about them as I
do. They have made me what I am, and they keep me so."
"They are to be much complimented then,"--I observed--"You do them
credit!"
"I do!" he answered slowly--"In more ways than one!" A faint smile was
on his face, and his eyes brightened with that curious jewel-like gleam
I had noticed several times before. "Believe me, I shall never contest
with you such a slight gift as woman's love, Geoffrey. It is not worth
fighting for. And _apropos_ of women, that reminds me,--I have promised
to take you to the Earl of Elton's box at the Haymarket to-night,--he is
a poor peer, very gouty and somewhat heavily flavoured with port-wine,
but his daughter, Lady Sibyl, is one of the belles of England. She was
presented last season and created quite a _furore_. Will you come?"
"I am quite at your disposition"--I said, glad of any excuse to escape
the dullness of my own company and to be in that of Lucio, whose talk,
even if its satire galled me occasionally, always fascinated my mind and
remained in my memory--"What time shall we meet?"
"Go and dress now, and join me at dinner,"--he answered; "And we'll
drive together to the theatre afterwards. The play is on the usual theme
which has lately become popular with stage-managers,--the glorification
of a 'fallen' lady, and the exhibition of her as an example of something
superlatively pure and good, to the astonished eyes of the innocent. As
a play it is not worth seeing,--but perhaps Lady Sibyl is."
He smiled again as he stood facing me,--the light flames of the fire had
died down to a dull uniform coppery red,--we were almost in darkness,
and I pressed the small button near the mantelpiece that flooded the
room with electric light. His extraordinary beauty then struck me afresh
as something altogether singular and half unearthly.
"Don't you find that people look at you very often as you pass, Lucio?"
I asked him suddenly and impulsively.
He laughed. "Not at all. Why should they? Every man is so intent on his
own aims, and thinks so much of his own personality that he would
scarcely forget his _ego_ if the very devil himself were behind him.
Women look at me sometimes, with the affected coy and kitten-like
interest usually exhibited by the frail sex for a personable man."
"I cannot blame them!" I answered, my gaze still resting on his stately
figure and fine head with as much admiration as I might have felt for a
noble picture or statue--"What of this Lady Sibyl we are to meet
to-night,--how does she regard you?"
"Lady Sibyl has never seen me,"--he replied--"And I have only seen her
at a distance. It is chiefly for the purpose of an introduction to her
that the Earl has asked us to his box this evening."
"Ha ha! Matrimony in view!" I exclaimed jestingly.
"Yes--I believe Lady Sibyl is for sale,"--he answered with the callous
coldness that occasionally distinguished him and made his handsome
features look like an impenetrable mask of scorn--"But up to the present
the bids have not been sufficiently high. And I shall not purchase. I
have told you already, Tempest, I hate women."
"Seriously?"
"Most seriously. Women have always done me harm,--they have wantonly
hindered me in my progress. And why I specially abominate them is, that
they have been gifted with an enormous power for doing good, and that
they let this power run to waste and will not use it. Their deliberate
enjoyment and choice of the repulsive, vulgar and common-place side of
life disgusts me. They are much less sensitive than men, and infinitely
more heartless. They are the mothers of the human race, and the faults
of the race are chiefly due to them. That is another reason for my
hatred."
"Do you want the human race to be perfect?" I asked
astonished--"Because, if you do, you will find that impossible."
He stood for a moment apparently lost in thought.
"Everything in the Universe is perfect,"--he said, "except that curious
piece of work--Man. Have you never thought out any reason why he should
be the one flaw,--the one incomplete creature in a matchless Creation?"
"No, I have not,"--I replied--"I take things as I find them."
"So do I,"--and he turned away, "And as I find _them_, so they find
_me_! Au revoir! Dinner in an hour's time remember!"
The door opened and closed--he was gone. I remained alone for a little,
thinking what a strange disposition was his,--what a curious mixture of
philosophy, worldliness, sentiment and satire seemed to run like the
veins of a leaf through the variable temperament of this brilliant,
semi-mysterious personage who had by mere chance become my greatest
friend. We had now been more or less together for nearly a month, and I
was no closer to the secret of his actual nature than I had been at
first. Yet I admired him more than ever,--without his society I felt
life would be deprived of half its charm. For though, attracted as human
moths will be by the glare of my glittering millions, numbers of
so-called 'friends' now surrounded me, there was not one among them who
so dominated my every mood and with whom I had so much close sympathy
as this man,--this masterful, half cruel, half kind companion of my
days, who at times seemed to accept all life as the veriest bagatelle,
and myself as a part of the trivial game.
[1] A fact.
VIII
No man, I think, ever forgets the first time he is brought face to face
with perfect beauty in woman. He may have caught fleeting glimpses of
loveliness on many fair faces often,--bright eyes may have flashed on
him like star-beams,--the hues of a dazzling complexion may now and then
have charmed him, or the seductive outlines of a graceful figure;--all
these are as mere peeps into the infinite. But when such vague and
passing impressions are suddenly drawn together in one focus,--when all
his dreamy fancies of form and colour take visible and complete
manifestation in one living creature who looks down upon him as it were
from an empyrean of untouched maiden pride and purity, it is more to his
honour than his shame, if his senses swoon at the ravishing vision, and
he, despite his rough masculinity and brute strength, becomes nothing
but the merest slave to passion. In this way was I overwhelmed and
conquered without any chance of deliverance when Sibyl Elton's violet
eyes, lifted slowly from the shadow of their dark lashes, rested upon me
with that indefinable expression of mingled interest and indifference
which is supposed to indicate high breeding, but which more frequently
intimidates and repulses the frank and sensitive soul. The Lady Sibyl's
glance repelled, but I was none the less attracted. Rimânez and I had
entered the Earl of Elton's box at the Haymarket between the first and
second acts of the play, and the Earl himself, an unimpressive,
bald-headed, red-faced old gentleman, with fuzzy white whiskers, had
risen to welcome us, seizing the prince's hand and shaking it with
particular effusiveness. (I learned afterwards that Lucio had lent him a
thousand pounds on easy terms, a fact which partly accounted for the
friendly fervour of his greeting.) His daughter had not moved; but a
minute or two later when he addressed her somewhat sharply, saying
"Sibyl! Prince Rimânez and his friend, Mr Geoffrey Tempest," she turned
her head and honoured us both with the chill glance I have endeavoured
to describe, and the very faintest possible bow as an acknowledgment of
our presence. Her exquisite beauty smote me dumb and foolish,--I could
find nothing to say, and stood silent and confused, with a strange
sensation of bewilderment upon me. The old Earl made some remark about
the play, which I scarcely heard though I answered vaguely and at
hap-hazard,--the orchestra was playing abominably as is usual in
theatres, and its brazen din sounded like the noise of the sea in my
ears,--I had not much real consciousness of anything save the wondrous
loveliness of the girl who faced me, clad in pure white, with a few
diamonds shining about her like stray dewdrops on a rose. Lucio spoke to
her, and I listened.
"At last, Lady Sibyl," he said, bending towards her deferentially. "At
last I have the honour of meeting you. I have seen you often, as one
sees a star,--at a distance."
She smiled,--a smile so slight and cold that it scarcely lifted the
corners of her lovely lips.
"I do not think I have ever seen _you_," she replied. "And yet there is
something oddly familiar in your face. I have heard my father speak of
you constantly,--I need scarcely say his friends are always mine."
He bowed.
"To merely speak to Lady Sibyl Elton is counted sufficient to make the
man so privileged happy," he said. "To be her friend is to discover the
lost paradise."
She flushed,--then grew suddenly very pale, and shivering, she drew her
cloak towards her. Rimânez wrapped its perfumed silken folds carefully
round her beautiful shoulders,--how I grudged him the dainty task! He
then turned to me, and placed a chair just behind hers.
"Will you sit here Geoffrey?" he suggested--"I want to have a moment's
business chat with Lord Elton."
Recovering my self-possession a little, I hastened to take the chance he
thus generously gave me to ingratiate myself in the young lady's favour,
and my heart gave a foolish bound of joy because she smiled
encouragingly as I approached her.
"You are a great friend of Prince Rimânez?" she asked softly, as I sat
down.
"Yes, we are very intimate," I replied--"He is a delightful companion."
"So I should imagine!" and she looked over at him where he sat next to
her father talking earnestly in low tones--"He is singularly handsome."
I made no reply. Of course Lucio's extraordinary personal attractiveness
was undeniable,--but I rather grudged her praise bestowed on him just
then. Her remarks seemed to me as tactless as when a man with one pretty
woman beside him loudly admires another in her hearing. I did not myself
assume to be actually handsome, but I knew I was better looking than the
ordinary run of men. So out of sudden pique I remained silent, and
presently the curtain rose and the play was resumed. A very questionable
scene was enacted, the 'woman with the past' being well to the front of
it. I felt disgusted at the performance and looked at my companions to
see if they too were similarly moved. There was no sign of disapproval
on Lady Sibyl's fair countenance,--her father was bending forward
eagerly, apparently gloating over every detail,--Rimânez wore that
inscrutable expression of his in which no feeling whatever could be
discerned. The 'woman with the past' went on with her hysterical
sham-heroics, and the mealy-mouthed fool of a hero declared her to be a
'pure angel wronged,' and the curtain fell amid loud applause. One
energetic hiss came from the gallery, affecting the occupants of the
stalls to scandalized amazement.
"England has progressed!" said Rimânez in soft half-bantering
tones--"Once upon a time this play would have been hooted off the stage
as likely to corrupt the social community. But now the only voice of
protest comes from the 'lower' classes."
"Are you a democrat, prince?" inquired Lady Sibyl, waving her fan
indolently to and fro.
"Not I! I always insist on the pride and supremacy of worth,--I do not
mean money value, but intellect. And in this way I foresee a new
aristocracy. When the High grows corrupt, it falls and becomes the
Low;--when the Low educates itself and aspires, it becomes the High.
This is simply the course of nature."
"But, God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Elton--"you don't call this
play low or immoral do you? It's a realistic study of modern social
life--that's what it is. These women you know,--these poor souls with a
past--are very interesting!"
"Very!" murmured his daughter.--"In fact it would seem that for women
with no such 'past' there can be no future! Virtue and modesty are quite
out of date, and have no chance whatever."
I leaned towards her, half whispering,
"Lady Sibyl, I am glad to see this wretched play offends you."
She turned her deep eyes on me in mingled surprise and amusement.
"Oh no, it doesn't," she declared--"I have seen so many like it. And I
have read so many novels on just the same theme! I assure you, I am
quite convinced that the so-called 'bad' woman is the only popular type
of our sex with men,--she gets all the enjoyment possible out of
life,--she frequently makes an excellent marriage, and has, as the
Americans say 'a good time all round.' It's the same thing with our
convicted criminals,--in prison they are much better fed than the honest
working-man. I believe it is quite a mistake for women to be
respectable,--they are only considered dull."
"Ah, now you are only joking!" I said with an indulgent smile. "You know
that in your heart you think very differently!"
She made no answer, as just then the curtain went up again, disclosing
the unclean 'lady' of the piece, "having a good time all round" on board
a luxurious yacht. During the unnatural and stilted dialogue which
followed, I withdrew a little back into the shadow of the box, and all
that self-esteem and assurance of which I had been suddenly deprived by
a glance at Lady Sibyl's beauty, came back to me, and a perfectly stolid
coolness and composure succeeded to the first feverish excitement of my
mind. I recalled Lucio's words--"_I believe Lady Sibyl is for
sale_"--and I thought triumphantly of my millions. I glanced at the old
earl, abjectly pulling at his white whiskers while he listened anxiously
to what were evidently money schemes propounded by Lucio. Then my gaze
came back appraisingly to the lovely curves of Lady Sibyl's milk-white
throat, her beautiful arms and bosom, her rich brown hair of the shade
of a ripe chestnut, her delicate haughty face, languid eyes and
brilliant complexion,--and I murmured inwardly--"All this loveliness is
purchaseable, and I will purchase it!" At that very instant she turned
to me and said--
"You are the famous Mr Tempest, are you not?"
"Famous?" I echoed with a deep sense of gratification--"Well,--I am
scarcely that,--yet! My book is not published ..."
Her eyebrows arched themselves surprisedly.
"Your book? I did not know you had written one?"
My flattered vanity sank to zero.
"It has been extensively advertised," I began impressively,--but she
interrupted me with a laugh.
"Oh I never read advertisements,--it's too much trouble. When I asked if
you were the famous Mr Tempest, I meant to say were you the great
millionaire who has been so much talked of lately?"
I bowed a somewhat chill assent. She looked at me inquisitively over the
lace edge of her fan.
"How delightful it must be for you to have so much money!" she
said--"And you are young too, and good-looking."
Pleasure took the place of vexed _amour-propre_ and I smiled.
"You are very kind, Lady Sibyl!"
"Why?" she asked laughing,--such a delicious little low laugh--"Because
I tell you the truth? You _are_ young and you _are_ good-looking!
Millionaires are generally such appalling creatures. Fortune, while
giving them money, frequently deprives them of both brains and personal
attractiveness. And now do tell me about your book!"
She seemed to have suddenly dispensed with her former reserve, and
during the last act of the play, we conversed freely, in whispers which
assisted us to become almost confidential. Her manner to me now was full
of grace and charm, and the fascination she exerted over my senses
became complete. The performance over, we all left the box together, and
as Lucio was still apparently engrossed with Lord Elton I had the
satisfaction of escorting Lady Sibyl to her carriage. When her father
joined her, Lucio and I both stood together looking in at the window of
the brougham, and the Earl, getting hold of my hand shook it up and down
with boisterous friendliness.
"Come and dine,--come and dine!" he spluttered excitedly; "Come--let me
see,--this is Tuesday--come on Thursday. Short notice and no ceremony!
My wife is paralysed I'm sorry to say,--she can't receive,--she can only
see a few people now and then when she is in the humour,--her sister
keeps house and does the honours,--Aunt Charlotte, eh Sibyl?--ha-ha-ha!
The Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill would never be any use to me, for if
my wife were to die I shouldn't be anxious to marry Miss Charlotte
Fitzroy! Ha ha ha! A perfectly unapproachable woman sir!--a model,--ha
ha! Come and dine with us, Mr Tempest,--Lucio, you bring him along with
you, eh? We've got a young lady staying with us,--an American, dollars,
accent and all,--and by Jove I believe she wants to marry me ha ha ha!
and is waiting for Lady Elton to go to a better world first, ha ha! Come
along--come and see the little American, eh? Thursday shall it be?"
Over the fair features of Lady Sibyl there passed a faint shadow of
annoyance at her father's allusion to the "little American," but she
said nothing. Only her looks appeared to question our intentions as well
as to persuade our wills, and she seemed satisfied when we both accepted
the invitation given. Another apoplectic chuckle from the Earl and a
couple of handshakes,--a slight graceful bow from her lovely ladyship,
as we raised our hats in farewell, and the Elton equipage rolled away,
leaving us to enter our own vehicle, which amid the officious roarings
of street-boys and policemen had just managed to draw up in front of the
theatre. As we drove off, Lucio peered inquisitively at me--I could see
the steely glitter of his fine eyes in the semi-darkness of the
brougham,--and said--
"Well?"
I was silent.
"Don't you admire her?" he went on--"I must confess she is cold,--a very
chilly vestal indeed,--but snow often covers volcanoes! She has good
features, and a naturally clear complexion."
Despite my intention to be reticent, I could not endure this tame
description.
"She is perfectly beautiful,"--I said emphatically. "The dullest eyes
must see that. There is not a fault to be found with her. And she is
wise to be reserved and cold--were she too lavish of her smiles and too
seductive in manner, she might drive many men not only into folly, but
madness."
I felt rather than saw the cat-like glance he flashed upon me.
"Positively, Geoffrey, I believe that notwithstanding the fact that we
are only in February, the wind blows upon you due south, bringing with
it odours of rose and orange-blossom! I fancy Lady Sibyl has powerfully
impressed you?"
"Did you wish me to be impressed?" I asked.
"I? My dear fellow, I wish nothing that you yourself do not wish. I
accommodate my ways to my friends' humours. If asked for my opinion I
should say it is rather a pity if you are really smitten with the young
lady, as there are no obstacles to be encountered. A love-affair, to be
conducted with spirit and enterprise should always bristle with
opposition and difficulty, real or invented. A little secrecy and a good
deal of wrong-doing, such as sly assignations and the telling of any
amount of lies--such things add to the agreeableness of love-making on
this planet--"
I interrupted him.
"See here, Lucio, you are very fond of alluding to 'this' planet as if
you knew anything about other planets"--I said impatiently. "_This_
planet, as you somewhat contemptuously call it, is the only one _we_
have any business with."
He bent his piercing looks so ardently upon me that for the moment I was
startled.
"If that is so," he answered, "why in Heaven's name do you not let the
other planets alone? Why do you strive to fathom their mysteries and
movements? If men, as you say, have no business with any planet save
this one why are they ever on the alert to discover the secret of
mightier worlds,--a secret which haply it may some day terrify them to
know!"
The solemnity of his voice and the inspired expression of his face awed
me. I had no reply ready, and he went on--
"Do not let us talk, my friend, of planets, not even of this particular
pin's point among them known as Earth. Let us return to a better
subject--the Lady Sibyl. As I have already said, there are no obstacles
in the way of your wooing and winning her, if such is your desire.
Geoffrey Tempest, as mere author of books would indeed be insolent to
aspire to the hand of an earl's daughter, but Geoffrey Tempest,
millionaire, will be a welcome suitor. Poor Lord Elton's affairs are in
a bad way--he is almost out-at-elbows;--the American woman who is
boarding with him----"
"Boarding with him!" I exclaimed--"Surely he does not keep a
boarding-house?"
Lucio laughed heartily.
"No, no!--you must not put it so coarsely, Geoffrey. It is simply this,
that the Earl and Countess of Elton give the prestige of their home and
protection to Miss Diana Chesney (the American aforesaid) for the
trifling sum of two thousand guineas per annum. The Countess being
paralyzed, is obliged to hand over her duties of chaperonage to her
sister Miss Charlotte Fitzroy,--but the halo of the coronet still hovers
over Miss Chesney's brow. She has her own suite of rooms in the house,
and goes wherever it is proper for her to go, under Miss Fitzroy's care.
Lady Sibyl does not like the arrangement, and is therefore never seen
anywhere except with her father. She will not join in companionship with
Miss Chesney, and has said so pretty plainly."
"I admire her for it!" I said warmly--"I really am surprised that Lord
Elton should condescend----"
"Condescend to what?" inquired Lucio--"Condescend to take two thousand
guineas a year? Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies
who will readily agree to perform such an act of condescension. 'Blue'
blood is getting thin and poor, and only money can thicken it. Diana
Chesney is worth over a million dollars and if Lady Elton were to die
conveniently soon, I should not be surprised to see that 'little
American' step triumphantly into her vacant place."
"What a state of topsy-turveydom!" I said, half angrily.
"Geoffrey, my friend, you are really amazingly inconsistent! Is there a
more flagrant example of topsy-turveydom than yourself for instance? Six
weeks ago, what were you? A mere scribbler, with flutterings of the
wings of genius in your soul, but many uncertainties as to whether those
wings would ever be strong enough to lift you out of the rut of
obscurity in which you floundered, struggling and grumbling at adverse
fate. Now, as millionaire, you think contemptuously of an Earl, because
he ventures quite legitimately to add a little to his income by boarding
an American heiress and launching her into society where she would never
get without him. And you aspire, or probably mean to aspire to the hand
of the Earl's daughter, as if you yourself were a descendant of kings.
Nothing can be more topsy-turvey than _your_ condition!"
"My father was a gentleman," I said, with a touch of hauteur, "and a
descendant of gentlemen. We were never common folk,--our family was one
of the most highly esteemed in the counties."
Lucio smiled.
"I do not doubt it, my dear fellow,--I do not in the least doubt it. But
a simple 'gentleman' is a long way below--or above--an Earl. Have it
which side you choose!--because it really doesn't matter nowadays. We
have come to a period of history when rank and lineage count as nothing
at all, owing to the profoundly obtuse stupidity of those who happen to
possess it. So it chances, that as no resistance is made, brewers are
created peers of the realm, and ordinary tradesmen are knighted, and the
very old families are so poor that they have to sell their estates and
jewels to the highest bidder, who is frequently a vulgar 'railway-king'
or the introducer of some new manure. You occupy a better position than
such, since you inherit your money with the farther satisfaction that
you do not know how it was made."
"True!" I answered meditatively,--then, with a sudden flash of
recollection I added--"By the way I never told you that my deceased
relative imagined that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that this
vast fortune of his was the material result!"
Lucio burst into a violent fit of laughter.
"No! Not possible!" he exclaimed derisively--"What an idea! I suppose he
had a screw loose somewhere! Imagine any sane man believing in a devil!
Ha, ha, ha! And in these advanced days too! Well, well! The folly of
human imaginations will never end! Here we are!"--and he sprang lightly
out as the brougham stopped at the Grand Hotel--"I will say good-night
to you, Tempest. I've promised to go and have a gamble."
"A gamble? Where?"
"At one of the select private clubs. There are any amount of them in
this eminently moral metropolis--no occasion to go to Monte Carlo! Will
you come?"
I hesitated. The fair face of Lady Sibyl haunted my mind,--and I felt,
with a no doubt foolish sentimentality, that I would rather keep my
thoughts of her sacred, and unpolluted by contact with things of lower
tone.
"Not to-night;"--I said,--then half smiling, I added--"It must be rather
a one-sided affair for other men to gamble with you, Lucio! You can
afford to lose,--and perhaps they can't."
"If they can't, they shouldn't play,"--he answered--"A man should at
least know his own mind and his own capacity; if he doesn't, he is no
man at all. As far as I have learned by long experience, those who
gamble like it, and when _they_ like it, _I_ like it. I'll take you with
me to-morrow if you care to see the fun,--one or two very eminent men
are members of the club, though of course they wouldn't have it known
for worlds. You shan't lose much--I'll see to that."
"All right,--to-morrow it shall be!"--I responded, for I did not wish to
appear as though I grudged losing a few pounds at play--"But to-night I
think I'll write some letters before going to bed."
"Yes--and dream of Lady Sibyl!" said Lucio laughing--"If she fascinates
you as much when you see her again on Thursday you had better begin the
siege!"
He waved his hand gaily, and re-entering his carriage, was driven off at
a furious pace through the drifting fog and rain.
IX
My publisher, John Morgeson,--the estimable individual who had first
refused my book, and who now, moved by self-interest, was devoting his
energies assiduously to the business of launching it in the most modern
and approved style, was not like Shakespeare's _Cassio_, strictly 'an
honourable man.' Neither was he the respectable chief of a
long-established firm whose system of the cheating of authors, mellowed
by time, had become almost sacred;--he was a 'new' man, with new ways,
and a good stock of new push and impudence. All the same, he was clever,
shrewd and diplomatic, and for some reason or other, had secured the
favour of a certain portion of the press, many of the dailies and
weeklies always giving special prominence to his publications over the
heads of other far more legitimately dealing firms. He entered into a
partial explanation of his methods, when, on the morning after my first
meeting with the Earl of Elton and his daughter, I called upon him to
inquire how things were going with regard to my book.
"We shall publish next week,"--he said, rubbing his hands complacently,
and addressing me with all the deference due to my banking account--"And
as you don't mind what you spend, I'll tell you just what I propose to
do. I intend to write out a mystifying paragraph of about some seventy
lines or so, describing the book in a vague sort of way as '_likely to
create a new era of thought_'--or, '_ere long everybody who is anybody
will be compelled to read this remarkable work_,'--or '_as something
that must be welcome to all who would understand the drift of one of the
most delicate and burning questions of the time_.' These are all stock
phrases, used over and over again by the reviewers,--there's no
copyright in them. And the last one always 'tells' wonderfully,
considering how old it is, and how often it has been made to do duty,
because any allusion to a '_delicate and burning question_' makes a
number of people think the novel must be improper, and they send for it
at once!"
He chuckled at his own perspicuity, and I sat silent, studying him with
much inward amusement. This man on whose decision I had humbly and
anxiously waited not so many weeks ago was now my paid tool,--ready to
obey me to any possible extent for so much cash,--and I listened to him
indulgently while he went on unravelling his schemes for the
gratification of _my_ vanity, and the pocketing of _his_ extras.
"The book has been splendidly advertised"--he went on; "It could not
have been more lavishly done. Orders do not come in very fast yet--but
they will,--they will. This paragraph of mine, which will take the shape
of a 'leaderette,' I can get inserted in about eight hundred to a
thousand newspapers here and in America. It will cost you,--say a
hundred guineas--perhaps a trifle more. Do you mind that?"
"Not in the least!" I replied, still vastly amused.
He meditated a moment,--then drew his chair closer to mine and lowered
his voice a little.
"You understand I suppose, that I shall only issue two hundred and fifty
copies at first?"
This limited number seemed to me absurd, and I protested vehemently.
"Such an idea is ridiculous!" I said--"you cannot supply the trade with
such a scanty edition."
"Wait, my dear sir, wait,--you are too impatient. You do not give me
time to explain. All these two hundred and fifty will be _given away_ by
me in the proper quarters on the day of publication,--never mind
how,--they _must_ be given away--"
"Why?"
"Why?" and the worthy Morgeson laughed sweetly--"I see, my dear Mr
Tempest, you are like most men of genius--you do not understand
business. The reason why we give the first two hundred and fifty copies
away is in order to be able to announce at once in all the papers that
'_The First Large Edition of the New Novel by Geoffrey Tempest being
exhausted on the day of publication, a Second is in Rapid Preparation_.'
You see we thus hoodwink the public, who of course are not in our
secrets, and are not to know whether an edition is two hundred or two
thousand. The Second Edition will of course be ready behind the scenes,
and will consist of another two hundred and fifty."
"Do you call that course of procedure honest?" I asked quietly.
"Honest? My dear sir! Honest?" And his countenance wore a virtuously
injured expression--"Of course it is honest! Look at the daily papers!
Such announcements appear every day--in fact they are getting rather too
common. I freely admit that there are a few publishers here and there
who stick up for exactitude and go to the trouble of not only giving the
number of copies in an Edition, but also publishing the date of each one
as it was issued,--this may be principle if they like to call it so, but
it involves a great deal of precise calculation and worry! If the public
like to be deceived, what is the use of being exact! Now, to
resume,--your second edition will be sent off 'on sale or return' to
provincial booksellers, and then we shall announce--"In consequence of
the Enormous Demand for the new novel by Geoffrey Tempest, the Large
Second Edition is out of print. A Third will be issued in the course of
next week." And so on, and so on, till we get to the sixth or seventh
edition (always numbering two hundred and fifty each) in three volumes;
perhaps we can by skilful management work it to a tenth. It is only a
question of diplomacy and a little dexterous humbugging of the trade.
Then we shall arrive at the one-volume issue, which will require
different handling. But there's time enough for that. The frequent
advertisements will add to the expense a bit, but if you don't mind--"
"I don't mind anything," I said--"so long as I have my fun."
"Your fun?" he queried surprisedly--"I thought it was fame you wanted,
more than fun!"
I laughed aloud.
"I'm not such a fool as to suppose that fame is secured by
advertisement," I said--"For instance I am one of those who think the
fame of Millais as an artist was marred when he degraded himself to the
level of painting the little green boy blowing bubbles of Pears's Soap.
That was an advertisement. And that very incident in his career,
trifling though it seems, will prevent his ever standing on the same
dignified height of distinction with such masters in art as Romney, Sir
Peter Lely, Gainsborough or Reynolds."
"I believe there is a great deal of justice in what you say;" and
Morgeson shook his head wisely--"Viewed from a purely artistic and
sentimental standpoint you are right." And he became suddenly downcast
and dubious. "Yes,--it is a most extraordinary thing how fame does
escape people sometimes just when they seem on the point of grasping it.
They are 'boomed' in every imaginable way, and yet after a time nothing
will keep them up. And there are others again who get kicked and
buffeted and mocked and derided----"
"Like Christ?" I interposed with a half smile. He looked shocked,--he
was a Non-conformist,--but remembering in time how rich I was, he bowed
with a meek patience.
"Yes"--and he sighed--"as you suggest, Mr Tempest, like Christ. Mocked
and derided and opposed at every turn,--and yet by the queerest caprice
of destiny, they succeed in winning a world-wide fame and power----"
"Like Christ again!" I said mischievously, for I loved to jar his
non-conformist conscience.
"Exactly!" He paused, looking piously down. Then with a return of
secular animation he added--"But I was not thinking of the Great Example
just then, Mr Tempest--I was thinking of a woman."
"Indeed!" I said indifferently.
"Yes--a woman, who despite continued abuse and opposition is rapidly
becoming celebrated. You are sure to hear of her in literary and social
circles"--and he gave me a furtive glance of doubtful inquiry--"but she
is not rich, you know,--only famous. However,--we have nothing to do
with her just now--so let us return to business. The one uncertain point
in the matter of your book's success is the attitude of the critics.
There are only six leading men who do the reviews, and between them they
cover all the English magazines and some of the American too, as well as
the London papers. Here are their names"--and he handed me a pencilled
memorandum,--"and their addresses, as far as I can ascertain them, or
the addresses of the papers for which they most frequently write. The
man at the head of the list, David McWhing, is the most formidable of
the lot. He writes everywhere about everything,--being a Scotchman he's
bound to have his finger in every pie. If you can secure McWhing, you
need not trouble so much about the others, as he generally gives the
'lead,' and has his own way with the editors. He is one of the 'personal
friends' of the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ for example, and you
would be sure to get a notice there, which would otherwise be
impossible. No reviewer _can_ review anything for that magazine unless
he _is_ one of the editor's friends.[2] You must manage McWhing, or
he might, just for the sake of 'showing off,' cut you up rather
roughly."
"That would not matter," I said, diverted at the idea of 'managing
McWhing,'--"A little slating always helps a book to sell."
"In some cases it does,"--and Morgeson stroked his thin beard
perplexedly--"But in others it most emphatically does _not_. Where there
is any very decided or daring originality, adverse criticism is always
the most effective. But a work like yours requires fostering with
favour,--wants 'booming' in short----"
"I see!" and I felt distinctly annoyed--"You don't think my book
original enough to stand alone?"
"My dear sir!--you are really--really--! what shall I say?" and he
smiled apologetically--"a little brusque? I think your book shows
admirable scholarship and delicacy of thought,--if I find fault with it
at all, it is perhaps because I am dense. The only thing it lacks in my
opinion is what I should call _tenaciousness_, for want of a better
expression,--the quality of holding the reader's fancy fixed like a
nail. But after all this is a common failing of modern literature; few
authors feel sufficiently themselves to make others feel."
I made no reply for a moment. I was thinking of Lucio's remarks on this
very same subject.
"Well!" I said at last--"If I had no feeling when I wrote the book, I
certainly have none now. Why man, I felt every line of it!--painfully
and intensely!"
"Ay, ay indeed!" said Morgeson soothingly--"Or perhaps you _thought_ you
felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament.
You see, to convince people at all, you must first yourself be
convinced. The result of this is generally a singular magnetic
attraction between author and public. However I am a bad hand at
argument,--and it is possible that in hasty reading I may have gathered
a wrong impression of your intentions. Anyhow the book shall be a
success if we can make it so. All I venture to ask of you is that you
should personally endeavour to manage McWhing!"
I promised to do my best, and on this understanding we parted. I
realised that Morgeson was capable of greater discernment than I had
imagined, and his observations had given me material for thought which
was not altogether agreeable. For if my book, as he said, lacked
tenacity, why then it would not take root in the public mind,--it would
be merely the ephemeral success of a season,--one of those brief 'booms'
in literary wares for which I had such unmitigated contempt,--and Fame
would be as far off as ever, except that spurious imitation of it which
the fact of my millions had secured. I was in no good humour that
afternoon, and Lucio saw it. He soon elicited the sum and substance of
my interview with Morgeson, and laughed long and somewhat uproariously
over the proposed 'managing' of the redoubtable McWhing. He glanced at
the five names of the other leading critics and shrugged his shoulders.
"Morgeson is quite right,"--he said--"McWhing is intimate with the rest
of these fellows--they meet at the same clubs, dine at the same cheap
restaurants and make love to the same painted ballet-girls. All in a
comfortable little fraternal union together, and one obliges the other
on their several journals when occasion offers. Oh yes! I should make up
to McWhing if I were you."
"But how?" I demanded, for though I knew McWhing's name well enough
having seen it signed _ad nauseam_ to literary articles in almost every
paper extant, I had never met the man; "I cannot ask any favour of a
press critic."
"Of course not!" and Lucio laughed heartily again--"If you were to do
such an idiotic thing what a slating you'd get for your pains! There's
no sport a critic loves so much as the flaying of an author who has made
the mistake of lowering himself to the level of asking favours of his
intellectual inferiors! No, no, my dear fellow!--we shall manage McWhing
quite differently,--_I_ know him, though you do not."
"Come, that's good news!" I exclaimed--"Upon my word Lucio, you seem to
know everybody."
"I think I know most people worth knowing--" responded Lucio
quietly--"Though I by no means include Mr McWhing in the category of
worthiness. I happened to make his personal acquaintance in a somewhat
singular and exciting manner. It was in Switzerland, on that awkward
ledge of rock known as the Mauvais Pas. I had been some weeks in the
neighbourhood on business of my own, and being surefooted and fearless,
was frequently allowed by the guides to volunteer my services with
theirs. In this capacity of amateur guide, capricious destiny gave me
the pleasure of escorting the timid and bilious McWhing across the
chasms of the Mer de Glace, and I conversed with him in the choicest
French all the while, a language of which, despite his boasted
erudition, he was deplorably ignorant. I knew who he was I must tell
you, as I know most of his craft, and had long been aware of him as one
of the authorised murderers of aspiring genius. When I got him on the
Mauvais Pas, I saw that he was seized with vertigo; I held him firmly by
the arm and addressed him in sound strong English thus--'Mr McWhing, you
wrote a damnable and scurrilous article against the work of a certain
poet' and I named the man--'an article that was a tissue of lies from
beginning to end, and which by its cruelty and venom embittered a life
of brilliant promise, and crushed a noble spirit. Now, unless you
promise to write and publish in a leading magazine a total recantation
of this your crime when you get back to England,--_if_ you get
back!--giving that wronged man the 'honourable mention' he rightly
deserves,--down you go! I have but to loosen my hold!' Geoffrey, you
should have seen McWhing then! He whined, he wriggled, he clung! Never
was an oracle of the press in such an unoracular condition.
'Murder!--murder!' he gasped, but his voice failed him. Above him
towered the snow peaks like the summits of that Fame he could not reach
and therefore grudged to others,--below him the glittering ice-waves
yawned in deep transparent hollows of opaline blue and green,--and afar
off the tinkling cowbells echoed through the still air, suggestive of
safe green pastures and happy homes. 'Murder!' he whispered gurglingly.
'Nay!' said I, ''tis I should cry Murder!--for if ever an arresting hand
held a murderer, mine holds one now! Your system of slaying is worse
than that of the midnight assassin, for the assassin can but kill the
body,--_you_ strive to kill the soul. You cannot succeed, 'tis true, but
the mere attempt is devilish. No shouts, no struggles will serve you
here,--we are alone with Eternal Nature,--give the man you have
slandered his tardy recognition, or else, as I said before--down you
go!' Well, to make my story short, he yielded, and swore to do as I bade
him,--whereupon placing my arm round him as though he were my tender
twin-brother, I led him safely off the Mauvais Pas and down the kindlier
hill, where, what with the fright and the remains of vertigo, he fell
a'weeping grievously. Would you believe it, that before we reached
Chamounix we had become the best friends in the world? He explained
himself and his rascally modes of action, and I nobly exonerated
him,--we exchanged cards,--and when we parted, this same author's
bug-bear McWhing, overcome with sentiment and whisky toddy (he is a
Scotchman you know) swore that I was the grandest fellow in the world,
and that if ever he could serve me he would. He knew my princely title
by this time, but he would have given me a still higher name. 'You are
not--_hic_--a poet yourself?' he murmured, leaning on me fondly as he
rolled to bed. I told him no. 'I am sorry--very!' he declared, the tears
of whisky rising to his eyes, 'If you had been I would have done a great
thing for you,--I would have boomed you,--_for nothing_!' I left him
snoring nobly, and saw him no more. But I think he'll recognize me,
Geoffrey;--I'll go and look him up personally. By all the gods!--if he
had only known Who held him between life and death upon the Mauvais
Pas!"
I stared, puzzled.
"But he did know"--I said--"Did you not say you exchanged cards?"
"True, but that was afterwards!" and Lucio laughed; "I assure you, my
dear fellow, we can 'manage' McWhing!"
I was intensely interested in the story as he told it,--he had such a
dramatic way of speaking and looking, while his very gestures brought
the whole scene vividly before me like a picture. I spoke out my thought
impulsively.
"You would certainly have made a superb actor, Lucio!"
"How do you know I am not one?" he asked with a flashing glance, then he
added quickly--"No,--there is no occasion to paint the face and prance
over the boards before a row of tawdry footlights like the paid mimes,
in order to be histrionically great. The finest actor is he who can play
the comedy of life perfectly, as I aspire to do. To walk well, talk
well, smile well, weep well, groan well, laugh well--and die well!--it
is all pure acting,--because in every man there is the dumb dreadful
immortal Spirit who is real,--who cannot act,--who Is,--and who steadily
maintains an infinite though speechless protest against the body's Lie!"
I said nothing in answer to this outburst,--I was beginning to be used
to his shifting humours and strange utterances,--they increased the
mysterious attraction I had for him, and made his character a perpetual
riddle to me which was not without its subtle charm. Every now and then
I realized, with a faintly startled sense of self-abasement, that I was
completely under his dominance,--that my life was being entirely guided
by his control and suggestion,--but I argued with myself that surely it
was well it should be so, seeing he had so much more experience and
influence than I. We dined together that night as we often did, and our
conversation was entirely taken up with monetary and business concerns.
Under Lucio's advice I was making several important investments, and
these matters gave us ample subject for discussion. At about eleven
o'clock, it being a fine frosty evening and fit for brisk walking, we
went out, our destination being the private gambling club to which my
companion had volunteered to introduce me as a guest. It was situated at
the end of a mysterious little back street, not far from the respectable
precincts of Pall-Mall, and was an unpretentious looking house enough
outside, but within, it was sumptuously though tastelessly furnished.
Apparently, the premises were presided over by a woman,--a woman with
painted eyes and dyed hair who received us first of all within the
lamp-lighted splendours of an Anglo-Japanese drawing-room. Her looks and
manner undisguisedly proclaimed her as a _demi-mondaine_ of the most
pronounced type,--one of those 'pure' ladies with a 'past' who are
represented as such martyrs to the vices of men. Lucio said something to
her apart,--whereupon she glanced at me deferentially and smiled,--then
rang the bell. A discreet looking man-servant in sober black made his
appearance, and at a slight sign from his mistress who bowed to me as I
passed her, proceeded to show us upstairs. We trod on a carpet of the
softest felt,--in fact I noticed that everything was rendered as
noiseless as possible in this establishment, the very doors being
covered with thick baize and swinging on silent hinges. On the upper
landing, the servant knocked very cautiously at a side-door,--a key
turned in the lock, and we were admitted into a long double room, very
brilliantly lit with electric lamps, which at a first glance seemed
crowded with men playing at _rouge et noir_ and _baccarat_. Some looked
up as Lucio entered and nodded smilingly,--others glanced inquisitively
at me, but our entrance was otherwise scarcely noticed. Lucio drawing me
along by the arm, sat down to watch the play,--I followed his example
and presently found myself infected by the intense excitement which
permeated the room like the silent tension of the air before a
thunderstorm. I recognised the faces of many well known public men,--men
eminent in politics and society whom one would never have imagined
capable of supporting a gambling club by their presence and authority.
But I took care to betray no sign of surprise, and quietly observed the
games and the gamesters with almost as impassive a demeanour as that of
my companion. I was prepared to play and to lose,--I was not prepared
however for the strange scene which was soon to occur and in which I, by
force of circumstances was compelled to take a leading part.
[2] The author has Mr Knowles's own written authority for this fact.
X
As soon as the immediate game we were watching was finished, the players
rose, and greeted Lucio with a good deal of eagerness and effusion. I
instinctively guessed from their manner that they looked upon him as an
influential member of the club, a person likely to lend them money to
gamble with, and otherwise to oblige them in various ways, financially
speaking. He introduced me to them all, and I was not slow to perceive
the effect my name had upon most of them. I was asked if I would join in
a game of baccarat, and I readily consented. The stakes were ruinously
high, but I had no need to falter for that. One of the players near me
was a fair-haired young man, handsome in face and of aristocratic
bearing,--he had been introduced to me as Viscount Lynton. I noticed him
particularly on account of the reckless way he had of doubling his
stakes suddenly and apparently out of mere bravado, and when he lost, as
he mostly did, he laughed uproariously as though he were drunk or
delirious. On first beginning to play I was entirely indifferent as to
the results of the game, caring nothing at all as to whether I had
losses or gains. Lucio did not join us, but sat apart, quietly
observant, and watching me, so I fancied, more than anyone. And as
chance would have it, all the luck came my way, and I won steadily. The
more I won the more excited I became, till presently my humour changed
and I was seized by a whimsical desire to lose. I suppose it was the
touch of some better impulse in my nature that made me wish this for
young Lynton's sake. For he seemed literally maddened by my constant
winnings, and continued his foolhardy and desperate play,--his young
face grew drawn and sharply thin, and his eyes glittered with a hungry
feverishness. The other gamesters, though sharing in his run of
ill-luck, seemed better able to stand it, or perhaps they concealed
their feelings more cleverly,--anyhow I know I caught myself very
earnestly wishing that this devil's luck of mine would desert me and set
in the young Viscount's direction. But my wishes were no use,--again and
again I gathered up the stakes, till at last the players rose, Viscount
Lynton among them.
"Well, I'm cleaned out!" he said, with a loud forced laugh. "You must
give me my chance of a _revanche_ to-morrow, Mr Tempest!"
I bowed.
"With pleasure!"
He called a waiter at the end of the room to bring him a brandy and
soda, and meanwhile I was surrounded by the rest of the men, all of them
repeating the Viscount's suggestion of a 'revanche,' and strenuously
urging upon me the necessity of returning to the club the next night in
order to give them an opportunity of winning back what they had lost. I
readily agreed, and while we were in the midst of talk, Lucio suddenly
addressed young Lynton.
"Will you make up another game with me?" he inquired. "I'll start the
bank with this,"--and he placed two crisp notes of five hundred pounds
each on the table.
There was a moment's silence. The Viscount was thirstily drinking his
brandy-and-soda, and glanced over the rim of his tall tumbler at the
notes with covetous bloodshot eyes,--then he shrugged his shoulders
indifferently. "I can't stake anything," he said; "I've already told you
I'm cleaned out,--'stony-broke,' as the slang goes. It's no use my
joining."
"Sit down, sit down, Lynton!" urged one man near him. "I'll lend you
enough to go on with."
"Thanks, I'd rather not!" he returned, flushing a little. "I'm too much
in your debt already. Awfully good of you all the same. You go on, you
fellows, and I'll watch the play."
"Let me persuade you Viscount Lynton," said Lucio, looking at him with
his dazzling inscrutable smile--"just for the fun of the thing! If you
do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and
merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn"--and
here he took up a counter--"This frequently represents fifty
pounds,--let it represent for once something that is not valuable like
money,--your soul, for example!" A burst of laughter broke from all the
men. Lucio laughed softly with them.
"We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware
that there is no such thing as a soul in existence"--he continued.
"Therefore, in proposing it as a stake for this game at baccarat, I
really propose less than one hair of your head, because the hair is a
something, and the soul is a nothing! Come! Will you risk that
non-existent quantity for the chance of winning a thousand pounds?"
The Viscount drained off the last drop of brandy, and turned upon us,
his eyes flushing mingled derision and defiance.
"Done!" he exclaimed; whereupon the party sat down.
The game was brief,--and in its rapid excitement, almost breathless. Six
or seven minutes sufficed, and Lucio rose, the winner. He smiled as he
pointed to the counter which had represented Viscount Lynton's last
stake.
"I have won!" he said quietly. "But you owe me nothing, my dear
Viscount, inasmuch as you risked--Nothing! We played this game simply
for fun. If souls had any existence of course I should claim yours;--I
wonder what I should do with it by the way!" He laughed good-humouredly.
"What nonsense, isn't it!--and how thankful we ought to be that we live
in advanced days like the present, when such silly superstitions are
being swept aside by the march of progress and pure Reason! Good-night!
Tempest and I will give you, your full revenge to-morrow,--the luck is
sure to change by then, and you will probably have the victory.
Again--good-night!"
He held out his hand,--there was a peculiar melting tenderness in his
brilliant dark eyes,--an impressive kindness in his manner. Something--I
could not tell what--held us all for the moment spellbound as if by
enchantment, and several of the players at other tables, hearing of the
eccentric stake that had been wagered and lost, looked over at us
curiously from a distance. Viscount Lynton, however, professed himself
immensely diverted, and shook Lucio's proffered hand heartily.
"You are an awfully good fellow!" he said, speaking a little thickly and
hurriedly--"And I assure you seriously if I had a soul I should be very
glad to part with it for a thousand pounds at the present moment. The
soul wouldn't be an atom of use to me and the thousand pounds would. But
I feel convinced I shall win to-morrow!"
"I am equally sure you will!" returned Lucio affably, "In the meantime,
you will not find my friend here, Geoffrey Tempest, a hard creditor,--he
can afford to wait. But in the case of the lost soul,"--here he paused,
looking straight into the young man's eyes,--"of course _I_ cannot
afford to wait!"
The Viscount smiled vaguely at this pleasantry, and almost immediately
afterwards left the club. As soon as the door had closed behind him,
several of the gamesters exchanged sententious nods and glances.
"Ruined!" said one of them in a _sotto-voce_.
"His gambling debts are more than he can ever pay"--added another--"And
I hear he has lost a clear fifty thousand on the turf."
These remarks were made indifferently, as though one should talk of the
weather,--no sympathy was expressed,--no pity wasted. Every gambler
there was selfish to the core, and as I studied their hardened faces, a
thrill of honest indignation moved me,--indignation mingled with shame.
I was not yet altogether callous or cruel-hearted, though as I look
back upon those days which now resemble a wild vision rather than a
reality, I know that I was becoming more and more of a brutal egoist
with every hour I lived. Still I was so far then from being utterly
vile, that I inwardly resolved to write to Viscount Lynton that very
evening, and tell him to consider his debt to me cancelled, as I should
refuse to claim it. While this thought was passing through my mind, I
met Lucio's gaze fixed steadily upon me. He smiled,--and presently
signed to me to accompany him. In a few minutes we had left the club,
and were out in the cold night air under a heaven of frostily sparkling
stars. Standing still for a moment, my companion laid his hand on my
shoulder.
"Tempest, if you are going to be kind-hearted or sympathetic to
undeserving rascals, I shall have to part company with you!" he said,
with a curious mixture of satire and seriousness in his voice--"I see by
the expression of your face that you are meditating some silly
disinterested action of pure generosity. Now you might just as well flop
down on these paving stones and begin saying prayers in public. You want
to let Lynton off his debt,--you are a fool for your pains. He is a born
scoundrel,--and has never seen his way to being anything else,--why
should you compassionate him? From the time he first went to college
till now, he has been doing nothing but live a life of degraded
sensuality,--he is a worthless rake, less to be respected than an honest
dog!"
"Yet some one loves him I daresay!" I said.
"Some one loves him!" echoed Lucio with inimitable disdain--"Bah! Three
ballet girls live on him if that is what you mean. His mother loved
him,--but she is dead,--he broke her heart. He is no good I tell
you,--let him pay his debt in full, even to the soul he staked so
lightly. If I were the devil now, and had just won the strange game we
played to-night, I suppose according to priestly tradition, I should be
piling up the fire for Lynton in high glee,--but being what I am, I say
let the man alone to make his own destiny,--let things take their
course,--and as he chose to risk everything, so let him pay
everything."
We were by this time walking slowly into Pall Mall,--I was on the point
of making some reply, when catching sight of a man's figure on the
opposite side of the way, not far from the Marlborough Club, I uttered
an involuntary exclamation.
"Why there he is!" I said--"there is Viscount Lynton!"
Lucio's hand closed tightly on my arm.
"You don't want to speak to him now, surely!"
"No. But I wonder where he's going? He walks rather unsteadily."
"Drunk, most probably!"
And Lucio's face presented the same relentless expression of scorn I had
so often seen and marvelled at.
We paused a moment, watching the Viscount strolling aimlessly up and
down in front of the clubs,--till all at once he seemed to come to a
sudden resolution, and stopping short, he shouted,
"Hansom!"
A silent-wheeled smart vehicle came bowling up immediately. Giving some
order to the driver, he jumped in. The cab approached swiftly in our
direction,--just as it passed us the loud report of a pistol crashed on
the silence.
"Good God!" I cried reeling back a step or two--"He has shot himself!"
The hansom stopped,--the driver sprang down,--club-porters, waiters,
policemen and no end of people starting up from Heaven knows where, were
on the scene on an instant,--I rushed forward to join the rapidly
gathering throng, but before I could do so, Lucio's strong arm was
thrown round me, and he dragged me by main force away.
"Keep cool, Geoffrey!" he said--"Do you want to be called up to
identify? And betray the club and all its members? Not while I am here
to prevent you! Check your mad impulses, my good fellow,--they will lead
you into no end of difficulties. If the man's dead he's dead, and
there's an end of it."
"Lucio! You have no heart!" I exclaimed, struggling violently to escape
from his hold--"How can you stop to reason in such a case! Think of it!
_I_ am the cause of all the mischief!--it is my cursed luck at baccarat
this evening that has been the final blow to the wretched young fellow's
fortunes,--I am convinced of it!--I shall never forgive myself--"
"Upon my word, Geoffrey, your conscience is very tender!" he answered,
holding my arm still more closely and hurrying me away despite
myself--"You must try and toughen it a little if you want to be
successful in life. Your 'cursed luck' you think, has caused Lynton's
death? Surely it is a contradiction in terms to call luck 'cursed,'--and
as for the Viscount, he did not need that last game at baccarat to
emphasise his ruin. You are not to blame. And for the sake of the club,
if for nothing else, I do not intend either you or myself to be mixed up
in a case of suicide. The coroner's verdict always disposes of these
incidents comfortably in two words--'Temporary insanity.'"
I shuddered. My soul sickened as I thought that within a few yards of us
was the bleeding corpse of the man I had so lately seen alive and spoken
with,--and notwithstanding Lucio's words I felt as if I had murdered
him.
"'Temporary insanity'"--repeated Lucio again, as if speaking to
himself--"all remorse, despair, outraged honour, wasted love, together
with the scientific modern theory of Reasonable Nothingness--Life a
Nothing, God a Nothing,--when these drive the distracted human unit to
make of himself also a nothing, 'temporary insanity' covers up his
plunge into the infinite with an untruthful pleasantness. However, after
all, it is as Shakespeare says, a mad world!"
I made no answer. I was too overcome by my own miserable sensations. I
walked along almost unconscious of movement, and as I stared
bewilderedly up at the stars they danced before my sight like fireflies
whirling in a mist of miasma. Presently a faint hope occurred to me.
"Perhaps," I said, "he has not really killed himself? It may be only an
attempt?"
"He was a capital shot"--returned Lucio composedly,--"That was his one
quality. He has no principles,--but he was a good marksman. I cannot
imagine his missing aim."
"It is horrible! An hour ago alive, ... and now ... I tell you, Lucio,
it is horrible!"
"What is? Death? It is not half so horrible as Life lived wrongly,"--he
responded, with a gravity that impressed me in spite of my emotion and
excitement--"Believe me, the mental sickness and confusion of a wilfully
degraded existence are worse tortures than are contained in the priestly
notions of Hell. Come come, Geoffrey, you take this matter too much to
heart,--you are not to blame. If Lynton has given himself the 'happy
dispatch' it is really the best thing he could do,--he was of no use to
anybody, and he is well out of it. It is positively weak of you to
attach importance to such a trifle. You are only at the beginning of
your career----"
"Well, I hope that career will not lead me into any more such tragedies
as the one enacted to-night,"--I said passionately--"If it does, it will
be entirely against my will!"
Lucio looked at me curiously.
"Nothing can happen to you against your will"--he replied; "I suppose
you wish to imply that I am to blame for introducing you to the club? My
good fellow, you need not have gone there unless you had chosen to do
so! I did not bind and drag you there! You are upset and unnerved,--come
into my room and take a glass of wine,--you will feel more of a man
afterwards."
We had by this time reached the hotel, and I went with him passively.
With equal passiveness I drank what he gave me, and stood, glass in
hand, watching him with a kind of morbid fascination as he threw off his
fur-lined overcoat and confronted me, his pale handsome face strangely
set and stern, and his dark eyes glittering like cold steel.
"That last stake of Lynton's, ... to you--" I said falteringly--"His
soul----"
"Which _he_ did not believe in, and which _you_ do not believe in!"
returned Lucio, regarding me fixedly. "Why do you now seem to tremble at
a mere sentimental idea? If fantastic notions such as God, the Soul, and
the Devil were real facts, there would perhaps be cause for trembling,
but being only the brainsick imaginations of superstitious mankind,
there is nothing in them to awaken the slightest anxiety or fear."
"But you"--I began--"you say you believe in the soul?"
"I? I am brainsick!" and he laughed bitterly--"Have you not found that
out yet? Much learning hath driven me mad, my friend! Science has led me
into such deep wells of dark discovery, that it is no wonder if my
senses sometimes reel,--and I believe--at such insane moments--in the
Soul!"
I sighed heavily.
"I think I will go to bed," I answered. "I am tired out,--and absolutely
miserable!"
"Alas, poor millionaire!" said Lucio gently,--"I am sorry, I assure you,
that the evening has ended so disastrously."
"So am I!" I returned despondently.
"Imagine it!" he went on, dreamily regarding me--"If my beliefs,--my
crack-brained theories,--were worth anything,--which they are not--I
could claim the only positive existing part of our late acquaintance
Viscount Lynton! But,--where and how to send in my account with him? If
I were Satan now...."
I forced a faint smile.
"You would have cause to rejoice!" I said.
He moved two paces towards me, and laid his hands gently on my
shoulders.
"No, Geoffrey"--and his rich voice had a strange soft music in it--"No,
my friend! If I were Satan I should probably lament!--for every lost
soul would of necessity remind me of my own fall, my own despair,--and
set another bar between myself and heaven! Remember,--the very Devil
was an Angel once!"
His eyes smiled, and yet I could have sworn there were tears in them. I
wrung his hand hard,--I felt that notwithstanding his assumed coldness
and cynicism, the fate of young Lynton had affected him profoundly. My
liking for him gained new fervour from this impression, and I went to
bed more at ease with myself and things in general. During the few
minutes I spent in undressing I became even able to contemplate the
tragedy of the evening with less regret and greater calmness,--for it
was certainly no use worrying over the irrevocable,--and, after all,
what interest had the Viscount's life for me? None. I began to ridicule
myself for my own weakness and disinterested emotion,--and presently,
being thoroughly fatigued, fell sound asleep. Towards morning however,
perhaps about four or five o'clock, I woke suddenly as though touched by
an invisible hand. I was shivering violently, and my body was bathed in
a cold perspiration. In the otherwise dark room there was something
strangely luminous, like a cloud of white smoke or fire. I started up,
rubbing my eyes,--and stared before me for a moment, doubting the
evidence of my own senses. For, plainly visible and substantially
distinct, at a distance of perhaps five paces from my bed, stood three
Figures, muffled in dark garments and closely hooded. So solemnly inert
they were,--so heavily did their sable draperies fall about them that it
was impossible to tell whether they were men or women,--but what
paralysed me with amazement and terror was the strange light that played
around and above them,--the spectral, wandering, chill radiance that
illumined them like the rays of a faint wintry moon. I strove to cry
out,--but my tongue refused to obey me--and my voice was strangled in my
throat. The Three remained absolutely motionless,--and again I rubbed my
eyes, wondering if this were a dream or some hideous optical delusion.
Trembling in every limb, I stretched my hand towards the bell intending
to ring violently for assistance,--when--a Voice, low and thrilling with
intense anguish, caused me to shrink back appalled, and my arm fell
nerveless at my side. "_Misery!_"
The word struck the air with a harsh reproachful clang, and I nearly
swooned with the horror of it. For now one of the Figures moved, and a
face gleamed out from beneath its hooded wrappings--a face white as
whitest marble and fixed into such an expression of dreadful despair as
froze my blood. Then came a deep sigh that was more like a death-groan,
and again the word, "_Misery!_" shuddered upon the silence.
Mad with fear, and scarcely knowing what I did, I sprang from the bed,
and began desperately to advance upon these fantastic masqueraders,
determined to seize them and demand the meaning of this practical and
untimely jest,--when suddenly all Three lifted their heads and turned
their faces on me,--such faces!--indescribably awful in their pallid
agony,--and a whisper more ghastly than a shriek, penetrated the very
fibres of my consciousness--"_Misery!_"
With a furious bound I flung myself upon them,--my hands struck _empty
space_. Yet there--distinct as ever--they stood, glowering down upon me,
while my clenched fists beat impotently _through_ and _beyond_ their
seemingly corporeal shapes! And then--all at once--I became aware of
their eyes,--eyes that watched me pitilessly, stedfastly, and
disdainfully,--eyes that like witch-fires, seemed to slowly burn
terrific meanings into my very flesh and spirit. Convulsed and almost
frantic with the strain on my nerves, I abandoned myself to
despair,--this awful sight meant death I thought,--my last hour had
surely come! Then--I saw the lips of one of those dreadful faces move
... some superhuman instinct in me leaped to life, ... in some strange
way I thought I knew, or guessed the horror of what that next utterance
would be, ... and with all my remaining force I cried out--
"No! No! Not that eternal Doom! ... Not yet!"
Fighting the vacant air, I strove to beat back those intangible weird
Shapes that loomed above me, withering up my soul with the fixed stare
of their angry eyes, and with a choking call for help, I fell, as it
were, into a pit of darkness, where I lay mercifully unconscious.
XI
How the ensuing hours between this horrible episode and full morning
elapsed I do not know. I was dead to all impressions. I woke at last, or
rather recovered my senses to see the sunlight pouring pleasantly
through the half-drawn curtains at my window, and to find myself in bed
in as restful a position as though I had never left it. Was it then
merely a vision I had seen?--a ghastly sort of nightmare? If so, it was
surely the most abhorrent illusion ever evolved from dreamland! It could
not be a question of health, for I had never felt better in my life. I
lay for some time quiescent, thinking over the matter, with my eyes
fixed on that part of the room where those Three Shapes had seemingly
stood; but I had lately got into such a habit of cool self-analysis,
that by the time my valet brought my early cup of coffee, I had decided
that the whole thing was a dreadful fantasy, born of my own imagination,
which had no doubt been unduly excited by the affair of Viscount
Lynton's suicide. I soon learned that there was no room left for doubt
as to that unhappy young nobleman's actual death. A brief account of it
was in the morning papers, though as the tragedy had occurred so late at
night there were no details. A vague hint of 'money difficulties' was
thrown out in one journal,--but beyond that, and the statement that the
body had been conveyed to the mortuary there to await an inquest, there
was nothing said, either personal or particular. I found Lucio in the
smoking-room, and it was he who first silently pointed out to me the
short paragraph headed 'Suicide of a Viscount.'
"I told you he was a good shot!" he commented.
I nodded. Somehow I had ceased to feel much interest in the subject. My
emotion of the previous evening had apparently exhausted all my stock of
sympathy and left me coldly indifferent. Absorbed in myself and my own
concerns, I sat down to talk and was not long before I had given a full
and circumstantial account of the spectral illusion which had so
unpleasantly troubled me during the night. Lucio listened, smiling
oddly.
"That old Tokay was evidently too strong for you!" he said, when I had
concluded my story.
"Did you give me old Tokay?" I responded laughing--"Then the mystery is
explained! I was already overwrought, and needed no stimulant. But what
tricks the imagination plays us to be sure! You have no idea of the
distinct manner in which those three phantoms asserted themselves! The
impression was extraordinarily vivid."
"No doubt!" And his dark eyes studied me curiously. "Impressions often
_are_ very vivid. See what a marvellously real impression this world
makes upon us, for example!"
"Ah! But then the world _is_ real!" I answered.
"Is it? You accept it as such, I daresay, and things are as they appear
to each separate individual. No two human beings think alike; hence
there may be conflicting opinions as to the reality or non-reality of
this present world. But we will not take unnecessary plunges into the
infinite question of what _is_, as contrasted with what appears to be. I
have some letters here for your consideration. You have lately spoken of
buying a country estate--what say you to Willowsmere Court in
Warwickshire? I have had my eye on that place for you,--it seems to me
just the very thing. It is a magnificent old pile; part of it dates from
Elizabeth's time. It is in excellent repair; the grounds are most
picturesque, the classic river Avon winds with rather a broad sweep
through the park,--and the whole thing, with a great part of the
furniture included, is to be sold for a mere song;--fifty thousand
pounds cash. I think you had better go in for it; it would just suit
your literary and poetic tastes."
Was it my fancy, or had his musical voice the faintest touch of a sneer
as he uttered the last words? I would not allow myself to think this
possible, and answered quickly,--
"Anything _you_ recommend must be worth looking at, and I'll certainly
go and see it. The description sounds well, and Shakespeare's country
always appeals to me. But wouldn't you like to secure it for yourself?"
He laughed.
"Not I! I live nowhere for long. I am of a roving disposition, and am
never happy tied down to one corner of the earth. But I suggest
Willowsmere to you for two reasons,--first that it is charming and
perfectly appointed; secondly, that it will impress Lord Elton
considerably if he knows you are going to buy it."
"How so?"
"Why, because it used to be his property"--returned Lucio quietly--"till
he got into the hands of the Jews. He gave them Willowsmere as security
for loans, and latterly they have stepped in as owners. They've sold
most of the pictures, china, bric-a-brac and other valuables. By the
way, have you noticed how the legended God still appears to protect the
house of Israel? Particularly the 'base usurer' who is allowed to get
the unhappy Christian into his clutches nine times out of ten? And no
remedy drops from heaven! The Jew always triumphs. Rather inconsistent
isn't it, on the part of an equitable Deity!" His eyes flashed strange
scorn. Anon he resumed--"As a result of Lord Elton's unfortunate
speculations, and the Jews' admirable shrewdness, Willowsmere, as I tell
you is in the market, and fifty thousand pounds will make you the envied
owner of a place worth a hundred thousand."
"We dine at the Eltons' to-night, do we not?" I asked musingly.
"We do. You cannot have forgotten that engagement and Lady Sibyl so soon
surely!" he answered laughing.
"No, I have not forgotten"--I said at last, after a little silence. "And
I will buy this Willowsmere. I will telegraph instructions to my lawyers
at once. Will you give me the name and address of the agents?"
"With pleasure, my dear boy!" And Lucio handed me a letter containing
the particulars concerning the sale of the estate and other items. "But
are you not making up your mind rather suddenly? Hadn't you better
inspect the property first? There may be things you object to----"
"If it were a rat-infested barrack," I said resolutely--"I would still
buy it! I shall settle the matter at once. I wish to let Lord Elton know
this very night that I am the future owner of Willowsmere!"
"Good!"--and my companion thrust his arm through mine as we left the
smoking-room together--"I like your swiftness of action Geoffrey. It is
admirable! I always respect determination. Even if a man makes up his
mind to go to hell, I honour him for keeping to his word, and going
there straight as a die!"
I laughed, and we parted in high good-humour,--he to fulfil a club
engagement, I to telegraph precise instructions to my legal friends
Messrs Bentham and Ellis, for the immediate purchase in my name at all
costs, risks or inconveniences, of the estate known as Willowsmere Court
in the county of Warwick.
That evening I dressed with more than common care, giving my man Morris
almost as much trouble as if I had been a fidgetty woman. He waited upon
me however with exemplary patience, and only when I was quite ready did
he venture to utter what had evidently been on his mind for some time.
"Excuse me sir,"--he then observed--"but I daresay you've noticed that
there's something unpleasant-like about the prince's valet, Amiel?"
"Well, he's rather a down-looking fellow if that's what you mean,"--I
replied--"But I suppose there's no harm in him."
"I don't know about that sir,"--answered Morris severely; "He does a
great many strange things I do assure you. Downstairs with the servants
he goes on something surprising. Sings and acts and dances too, as if he
were a whole music-hall."
"Really!" I exclaimed in surprise--"I should never have thought it."
"Nor should I sir, but it's a fact."
"He must be rather an amusing fellow then,"--I continued, wondering that
my man should take the accomplishments of Amiel in such an injured
manner.
"Oh, I don't say anything against his amusingness,"--and Morris rubbed
his nose with a doubtful air--"It's all very well for him to cut capers
and make himself agreeable if he likes,--but it's the deceit of him that
surprises me sir. You'd think to look at him that he was a decent sort
of dull chap with no ideas beyond his duty, but really sir, it's quite
the contrary, if you'll believe me. The language he uses when he's up to
his games downstairs is something frightful! And he actually swears he
learnt it from the gentlemen of the turf, sir! Last night he was play
acting, and taking off all the fashionable folks,--then he took to
hypnotising--and upon my word it made my blood run cold."
"Why, what did he do?" I asked with some curiosity.
"Well, sir, he took one of the scullery-maids and sat her in a chair and
just pointed at her. Pointed at her and grinned, for all the world like
a devil out of a pantomime. And though she is generally a respectable
sober young woman, if she didn't get up with a screech and commence
dancing round and round like a lunatic, while he kept on pointing. And
presently she got to jumping and lifting her skirts that high that it
was positively scandalous! Some of us tried to stop her and couldn't;
she was like mad, till all at once number twenty-two bell rang--that's
the prince's room,--and he just caught hold of her, set her down in her
chair again and clapped his hands. She came to directly, and didn't know
a bit what she'd been doing. Then twenty-two bell rang again, and the
fellow rolled up his eyes like a clergyman and said, 'Let us pray!' and
off he went."
I laughed.
"He seems to have a share of humour at anyrate,"--I said; "I should not
have thought it of him. But do you think these antics of his are
mischievous?"
"Well that scullery girl is very ill to-day,"--replied Morris; "I expect
she'll have to leave. She has what she calls the 'jumps' and none of us
dare tell her how she got them. No sir, believe me or not as you like,
there's something very queer about that Amiel. And another thing I want
to know is this--what does he do with the other servants?"
"What does he do with the other servants?" I repeated
bewilderedly--"What on earth do you mean?"
"Well sir, the prince has a _chef_ of his own hasn't he?" said Morris
enumerating on his fingers--"And two personal attendants besides
Amiel,--quiet fellows enough who help in the waiting. Then he has a
coachman and groom. That makes six servants altogether. Now none of
these except Amiel are ever seen in the hotel kitchens. The _chef_ sends
all the meals in from somewhere, in a heated receptacle--and the two
other fellows are never seen except when waiting at table, and they
don't live in their own rooms all day, though they _may_ sleep
there,--and nobody knows where the carriage and horses are put up, or
where the coachman and groom lodge. Certain it is that both they and the
_chef_ board out. It seems to me very mysterious."
I began to feel quite unreasonably irritated.
"Look here, Morris," I said--"There's nothing more useless or more
harmful than the habit of inquiring into other people's affairs. The
prince has a right to live as he likes, and do as he pleases with his
servants--I am sure he pays royally for his privileges. And whether his
cook lives in or out, up in the skies or down in a cellar is no matter
of mine. He has been a great traveller and no doubt has his
peculiarities; and probably his notions concerning food are very
particular and fastidious. But I don't want to know anything about his
ménage. If you dislike Amiel, it's easy to avoid him, but for goodness
sake don't go making mysteries where none exist."
Morris looked up, then down, and folded one of my coats with special
care. I saw I had effectually checked his flow of confidence.
"Very well, sir,"--he observed, and said no more.
I was rather diverted than otherwise at my servant's solemn account of
Amiel's peculiarities as exhibited among his own class,--and when we
were driving to Lord Elton's that evening I told something of the story
to Lucio. He laughed.
"Amiel's spirits are often too much for him,"--he said--"He is a perfect
imp of mischief and cannot always control himself."
"Why, what a wrong estimate I have formed of him!" I said--"I thought he
had a peculiarly grave and somewhat sullen disposition."
"You know the trite saying--appearances are deceptive?" went on my
companion lightly--"It's extremely true. The professed humourist is
nearly always a disagreeable and heavy man personally. As for Amiel, he
is like me in the respect of not being at all what he seems. His only
fault is a tendency to break the bounds of discipline, but otherwise he
serves me well, and I do not inquire further. Is Morris disgusted or
alarmed?"
"Neither I think," I responded laughing--"He merely presents himself to
me as an example of outraged respectability."
"Ah then, you may be sure that when the scullery-maid was dancing, he
observed her steps with the closest nicety;" said Lucio--"Very
respectable men are always particular of inspection into these matters!
Soothe his ruffled feelings, my dear Geoffrey, and tell him that Amiel
is the very soul of virtue! I have had him in my service for a long
time, and can urge nothing against his character as a man. He does not
pretend to be an angel. His tricks of speech and behaviour are the result
of a too constant repression of his natural hilarity, but he is really
an excellent fellow. He dabbled in hypnotic science when he was with me
in India; I have often warned him of the danger there is in practising
this force on the uninitiated. But--a scullery-maid!--heavens!--there
are so many scullery-maids! One more or less with the 'jumps' will not
matter. This is Lord Elton's."
The carriage stopped before a handsome house situated a little back from
Park Lane. We were admitted by a man-servant gorgeous in red plush,
white silk hose and powdered wig, who passed us on majestically to his
twin-brother in height and appearance, though perhaps a trifle more
disdainful in bearing, and he in his turn ushered us upstairs with the
air of one who should say "See to what ignominious degradation a cruel
fate reduces so great a man!" In the drawing-room we found Lord Elton,
standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, and directly
opposite him in a low arm chair, reclined an elegantly attired young
lady with very small feet. I mention the feet, because as I entered they
were the most prominent part of her person, being well stretched out
from beneath the would-be concealment of sundry flounced petticoats
towards the warmth of the fire which the Earl rather inconsiderately
screened from view. There was another lady in the room sitting bolt
upright with hands neatly folded on her lap, and to her we were first of
all introduced when Lord Elton's own effusive greetings were over.
"Charlotte, allow me,--my friends, Prince Lucio Rimânez--Mr Geoffrey
Tempest; gentlemen, my sister-in-law, Miss Charlotte Fitzroy."
We bowed; the lady gave us a dignified bend of the head. She was an
imposing looking spinster, with a curious expression on her features
which was difficult to construe. It was pious and prim, but it also
suggested the idea that she must have seen something excessively
improper once in her life and had never been able to forget it. The
pursed-up mouth, the round pale-coloured eyes and the chronic air of
insulted virtue which seemed to pervade her from head to foot all helped
to deepen this impression. One could not look at Miss Charlotte long
without beginning to wonder irreverently what it was that had in her
long past youth so outraged the cleanly proprieties of her nature as to
leave such indelible traces on her countenance. But I have since seen
many English women look so, especially among the particularly 'high
bred,' old and plain-featured of the "upper ten." Very different was the
saucy and bright physiognomy of the younger lady to whom we were next
presented, and who, raising herself languidly from her reclining
position, smiled at us with encouraging familiarity as we made our
salutations.
"Miss Diana Chesney,"--said the Earl glibly--"You perhaps know her
father, prince,--you must have heard of him at any rate--the famous
Nicodemus Chesney, one of the great railway-kings."
"Of course I know him"--responded Lucio warmly--"Who does not! I have
met him often. A charming man, gifted with most remarkable humour and
vitality--I remember him perfectly. We saw a good deal of each other in
Washington."
"Did you though?" said Miss Chesney with a somewhat indifferent
interest,--"He's a queer sort of man to my thinking; rather a cross
between the ticket-collector and custom-house officer combined, you
know! I never see him but what I feel I must start on a journey
directly--railways seem to be written all over him. I tell him so. I say
'Pa, if you didn't carry railway-tracks in your face you'd be better
looking.' And you found him humorous, did you?"
Laughing at the novel and free way in which this young person criticised
her parent, Lucio protested that he did.
"Well I don't,"--confessed Miss Chesney--"But that may be because I've
heard all his stories over and over again, and I've read most of them in
books besides,--so they're not much account to me. He tells some of them
to the Prince of Wales whenever he can get a chance,--but he don't try
them off on me any more. He's a real clever man too; he's made his pile
quicker than most. And you're quite right about his vitality,--my!--his
laugh takes you into the middle of next week!"
Her bright eyes flashed merrily as she took a comprehensive survey of
our amused faces.
"Think I'm irreverent, don't you?" she went on--"But you know Pa's not a
'stage parent' all dressed out in lovely white hair and
benedictions,--he's just an accommodating railway-track, and he wouldn't
like to be reverenced. Do sit down, won't you?"--then turning her pretty
head coquettishly towards her host--"Make them sit down, Lord Elton,--I
hate to see men standing. The superior sex, you know! Besides you're so
tall," she added, glancing with unconcealed admiration at Lucio's
handsome face and figure, "that it's like peering up an apple-tree at
the moon to look at you!"
Lucio laughed heartily, and seated himself near her--I followed his
example; the old Earl still kept his position, legs a-straddle, on the
hearth-rug, and beamed benevolence upon us all. Certainly Diana Chesney
was a captivating creature; one of those surface-clever American women
who distinctly divert men's minds without in the least rousing their
passions.
"So you're the famous Mr Tempest?" she said, surveying me
critically--"Why, it's simply splendid for you isn't it? I always say
it's no use having a heap of money unless you're young,--if you're old,
you only want it to fill your doctor's pockets while he tries to mend
your poor tuckered-out constitution. I once knew an old lady who was
left a legacy of a hundred thousand pounds when she was ninety-five.
Poor old dear, she cried over it. She just had sense enough to
understand what a good time she couldn't have. She lived in bed, and her
only luxury was a halfpenny bun dipped in milk for her tea. It was all
she cared for."
"A hundred thousand pounds would go a long way in buns!" I said
smiling.
"Wouldn't it just!" and the fair Diana laughed--"But I guess _you'll_
want something a little more substantial for your cash Mr Tempest! A
fortune in the prime of life is worth having. I suppose you're one of
the richest men about just now, aren't you?"
She put the question in a perfectly naïve frank manner and seemed to be
unconscious of any undue inquisitiveness in it.
"I may be one of the richest,"--I replied, and as I spoke the thought
flashed suddenly across me how recently I had been one of the
poorest!--"But my friend here, the prince, is far richer than I."
"Is that so!" and she stared straight at Lucio, who met her gaze with an
indulgent, half satirical smile--"Well now! I guess Pa's no better than
a sort of pauper after all! Why, you must have the world at your feet!"
"Pretty much so,"--replied Lucio composedly--"But then, my dear Miss
Chesney, the world is so very easily brought to one's feet. Surely _you_
know that?"
And he emphasized the words by an expressive look of his fine eyes.
"I guess you mean compliments,"--she replied unconcernedly--"I don't
like them as a rule, but I'll forgive you this once!"
"Do!" said Lucio, with one of his dazzling smiles that caused her to
stop for a moment in her voluble chatter and observe him with mingled
fascination and wonderment.
"And you too are young, like Mr Tempest,"--she resumed presently.
"Pardon me!" interrupted Lucio--"I am many years older."
"Really!" exclaimed Lord Elton at this juncture--"You don't look it,
does he Charlotte?"
Miss Fitzroy thus appealed to, raised her elegant tortoise-shell-framed
glasses to her eyes and peered critically at us both.
"I should imagine the prince to be slightly the senior of Mr
Tempest"--she remarked in precise high-bred accents--"But only very
slightly."
"Anyhow," resumed Miss Chesney "you're young enough, to enjoy your
wealth aren't you?"
"Young enough, or old enough;--just as you please;"--said Lucio with a
careless shrug--"But as it happens--I do _not_ enjoy it!"
Miss Chesney's whole aspect now expressed the most lively astonishment.
"What does money do for you?" went on Lucio, his eyes dilating with that
strange and wistful expression which had often excited my
curiosity--"The world is at your feet, perhaps; yes--but _what_ a world!
What a trumpery clod of kickable matter! Wealth acts merely as a kind of
mirror to show you human nature at its worst. Men skulk and fawn about
you, and lie twenty times in as many hours in the hope to propitiate you
and serve their own interests; princes of the blood willingly degrade
themselves and their position to borrow cash of you,--your intrinsic
merit (if you have any) is thought nothing of,--your full pockets are
your credentials with kings, prime ministers and councillors! You may
talk like a fool, laugh like a hyena and look like a baboon, but if the
chink-chink of your gold be only sufficiently loud, you may soon find
yourself dining with the Queen if such be your ambition. If, on the
contrary you happen to be truly great, brave, patient, and enduring,
with a spark in you of that genius which strengthens life and makes it
better worth living,--if you have thoughts which take shape in work that
shall endure when kingdoms are swept away like dust before the wind, and
if, with all this you are yet poor in current coin, why then,--you shall
be spurned by all the crowned dummies of the world,--you shall be
snubbed by the affluent starch-maker and the Croesus who lives on a
patent pill,--the tradesman from whom you buy bedsteads and kitchen
ware, can look down upon you with lordly scorn, for does he not by
virtue of his wealth alone, drive a four-in-hand, and chat on easy and
almost patronizing terms with the Prince of Wales? The wealthy denizens
of Snob-land delight in ignoring Nature's elected noblemen."
"But supposing" said Miss Chesney quickly, "you happen to be a Nature's
nobleman yourself, and have the advantage of wealth besides, surely you
must fairly allow that to be rather a good thing, mustn't you?"
Lucio laughed a little--
"I will retort upon you in your own words fair lady, and say 'I guess
you mean compliments.' What I venture to imply however, is that even
when wealth does fall to the lot of one of these 'Nature's noblemen,' it
is not _because_ of his innate nobility that he wins social distinction.
It is simply because he is rich. That is what vexes me. I for example,
have endless friends who are not my friends so much as the friends of my
income. They do not trouble to inquire as to my antecedents,--what I am
or where I came from is of no importance. Neither are they concerned in
how I live or what I do; whether I am sick or well, happy or unhappy, is
equally with them a matter of indifference. If they knew more about me,
it would perhaps be better in the long run. But they do not want to
know,--their aims are simple and unconcealed,--they wish to make as much
out of me, and secure as much advantage to themselves by their
acquaintance with me as possible. And I give them their full way,--they
get all they want,--and more!"
His musical voice lingered with a curiously melancholy impressiveness on
the last word,--and this time, not only Miss Chesney, but we all, looked
at him as though drawn by some irresistible magnetic spell, and for a
moment there was silence.
"Very few people have any real friends,"--said Lord Elton presently.
"And in that respect I suppose we're none of us worse off than Socrates,
who used to keep two chairs only in his house 'one for myself, and
another for a friend--when I find him!' But you are a universal
favourite Lucio,--a most popular fellow--and I think you're rather hard
on your set. People must look after themselves you know--eh?"
Lucio bowed his head gravely.
"They must indeed," he replied--"Especially as the latest news of
science is that God has given up the business."
Miss Fitzroy looked displeased,--but the Earl laughed uproariously. At
that moment a step was heard outside, approaching the open doorway of
the drawing-room, and Miss Chesney's quick ears caught the sound. She
shook herself out of her reclining attitude instantly and sat erect.
"It's Sibyl!" she said with a half-laughing half-apologetic flash of her
brown eyes at us all--"I never can loll before Sibyl!"
My heart beat fast as the woman whom poets might have called the goddess
of their dreams, but whom I was now disposed to consider as an object of
beauty lawfully open to my purchase, entered, clad in simple white,
unrelieved by any ornaments save a golden waistbelt of antique
workmanship, and a knot of violets nestled among the lace at her bosom.
She looked far lovelier than when I had first seen her at the theatre;
there was a deeper light in her eyes and a more roseate flush on her
cheeks, while her smile as she greeted us was positively dazzling.
Something in her presence, her movements, her manner, sent such a tide
of passion through me that for a moment my brain whirled in a dizzy
maze, and despite the cold calculations I had made in my own mind as to
the certainty I had of winning her for my wife, there was a wondrous
charm of delicate dignity and unapproachableness about her that caused
me for the moment to feel ashamed, and inclined to doubt even the power
of wealth to move this exquisite lily of maidenhood from her sequestered
peace. Ah, what fools men are! How little do we dream of the canker at
the hearts of these women 'lilies' that look so pure and full of grace!
"You are late, Sibyl," said her aunt severely.
"Am I?" she responded with languid indifference--"So sorry! Papa, are
you an extemporized fire-screen?"
Lord Elton hastily moved to one side, rendered suddenly conscious of his
selfish monopoly of the blaze.
"Are you not cold, Miss Chesney?" continued Lady Sibyl, in accents of
studied courtesy--"Would you not like to come nearer the fire?"
Diana Chesney had become quite subdued, almost timid in fact.
"Thank-you!"--she murmured, and her eyes drooped with what might have
been called retiring maiden modesty, had not Miss Chesney's qualities
soared far beyond that trite description.
"We heard some shocking news this morning, Mr Tempest," said Lady Sibyl,
looking at Lucio rather than at me--"No doubt you read it in the
papers,--an acquaintance of ours, Viscount Lynton, shot himself last
night."
I could not repress a slight start. Lucio gave me a warning glance, and
took it upon himself to reply.
"Yes, I read a brief account of the affair--terrible indeed! I also knew
him slightly."
"Did you? Well, he was engaged to a friend of mine," went on Lady
Sibyl--"I myself think she has had a lucky escape, because though he was
an agreeable man enough in society, he was a great gambler, and very
extravagant, and he would have run through her fortune very quickly. But
she cannot be brought to see it in that light,--she is dreadfully upset.
She had set her heart on being a Viscountess."
"I guess," said Miss Chesney demurely, with a sly sparkle of her
eyes--"it's not only Americans who run after titles. Since I've been
over here I've known several real nice girls marry downright mean
dough-heads just for the sake of being called 'my lady' or 'your grace.'
I like a title very well myself--but I also like a man attached to it."
The Earl smothered a chuckling laugh,--Lady Sibyl gazed meditatively
into the fire and went on as though she had not heard.
"Of course my friend will have other chances,--she is young and
handsome--but I really think, apart from the social point of view, that
she was a little in love with the Viscount----"
"Nonsense! nonsense!" said her father somewhat testily. "You always have
some romantic notion or other in your head Sibyl,--one 'season' ought to
have cured you of sentiment--ha-ha-ha! She always knew he was a
dissolute rascal, and she was going to marry him with her eyes wide open
to the fact. When I read in the papers that he had blown his brains out
in a hansom, I said 'Bad taste--bad taste! spoiling a poor cabby's
stock-in-trade to satisfy a selfish whim!' ha-ha!--but I thought it was
a good riddance of bad rubbish. He would have made any woman's life
utterly miserable."
"No doubt he would!" responded Lady Sibyl, listlessly; "But, all the
same, there is such a thing as love sometimes."
She raised her beautiful liquid eyes to Lucio's face, but he was not
looking her way, and her stedfast gaze met mine instead. What my looks
expressed I know not; but I saw the rich blood mantle warmly in her
cheeks, and a tremor seemed to pass through her frame,--then she grew
very pale. At that moment one of the gorgeous footmen appeared at the
doorway.
"Dinner is served, my lud."
"Good!" and the Earl proceeded to 'pair' us all. "Prince, will you take
Miss Fitzroy,--Mr Tempest, my daughter falls to your escort,--I will
follow with Miss Chesney."
We set off in this order down the stairs, and as I walked behind Lucio
with Lady Sibyl on my arm, I could not help smiling at the extreme
gravity and earnestness with which he was discussing church matters with
Miss Charlotte, and the sudden enthusiasm that apparently seized that
dignified spinster at some of his remarks on the clergy, which took the
form of the most affectionate and respectful eulogies, and were totally
the reverse of the ideas he had exchanged with me on the same subject.
Some spirit of mischief was evidently moving him to have a solemn joke
with the high-bred lady he escorted, and I noted his behaviour with a
good deal of inward amusement.
"Then you know the dear Canon?" I heard Miss Charlotte say.
"Most intimately!" replied Lucio with fervour--"and I assure you I am
thankful to have the privilege of knowing him. A truly perfect
man!--almost a saint--if not quite!"
"So pure-minded!" sighed the spinster.
"So free from every taint of hypocrisy!" murmured Lucio with intense
gravity.
"Ah yes! Yes indeed! And so----"
Here they passed into the dining-room and I could hear no more. I
followed with my beautiful partner, and in another minute we were all
seated at table.
XII
The dinner went on in the fashion of most dinners at great
houses,--commencing with arctic stiffness and formality, thawing
slightly towards the middle course, and attaining to just a pleasant
warmth of mutual understanding when ices and dessert gave warning of its
approaching close. Conversation at first flagged unaccountably, but
afterwards brightened under Lucio's influence to a certain gaiety. I did
my best to entertain Lady Sibyl, but found her like most 'society'
beauties, somewhat of a vague listener. She was certainly cold, and in a
manner irresponsive,--moreover I soon decided that she was not
particularly clever. She had not the art of sustaining or appearing to
sustain interest in any one subject; on the contrary, she had, like many
of her class, an irritating habit of mentally drifting away from you
into an absorbed reverie of her own in which you had no part, and which
plainly showed you how little she cared for anything you or anyone else
happened to be saying. Many little random remarks of hers however
implied that in her apparently sweet nature there lurked a vein of
cynicism and a certain contempt for men, and more than once her light
words stung my sense of self-love almost to resentment, while they
strengthened the force of my resolve to win her and bend that proud
spirit of hers to the meekness befitting the wife of a millionaire
and--a genius. A genius? Yes,--God help me!--that is what I judged
myself to be. My arrogance was two-fold,--it arose not only from what I
imagined to be my quality of brain, but also from the knowledge of what
my wealth could do. I was perfectly positive that I could buy Fame,--buy
it as easily as one buys a flower in the market,--and I was more than
positive that I could buy love. In order to commence proving the truth
of this, I threw out a 'feeler' towards my object.
"I believe," I said suddenly, addressing the Earl--"you used to live in
Warwickshire at Willowsmere Court did you not?"
Lord Elton flushed an apoplectic red, and swallowed a gulp of champagne
hastily.
"Yes-er-yes. I--er had the place for some time,--rather a bore to keep
up,--wants quite an army of servants."
"Just so;" I replied with a nod of appreciative comprehension--"I
presume it will require a considerable domestic retinue. I have arranged
to purchase it."
Lady Sibyl's frigid composure was at last disturbed--she looked
strangely agitated,--and the Earl stared till his eyes seemed likely to
fall out of his head.
"You? _You_ are going to buy Willowsmere?" he ejaculated.
"Yes. I have wired to my lawyers to settle the matter as quickly as
possible"--and I glanced at Lucio whose steel-bright eyes were fixed on
the Earl with curious intentness,--"I like Warwickshire,--and as I shall
entertain a great deal I think the place will suit me perfectly."
There was a moment's silence. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy sighed deeply, and
the lace bow on her severely parted hair trembled visibly. Diana Chesney
looked up with inquisitive eyes and a little wondering smile.
"Sibyl was born at Willowsmere,"--said the Earl presently in rather a
husky voice.
"A new charm is added to its possession by that knowledge,"--I said
gently, bowing to Lady Sibyl as I spoke--"Have you many recollections of
the place?"
"Indeed, indeed I have!" she answered with a touch of something like
passion vibrating in her accents--"There is no corner of the world I
love so well! I used to play on the lawns under the old oak-trees, and I
always gathered the first violets and primroses that came out on the
banks of the Avon. And when the hawthorn was in full flower I used to
make believe that the park was fairyland and I the fairy queen----"
"As you were and are!" interposed Lucio suddenly.
She smiled and her eyes flashed,--then she went on more quietly--
"It was all very foolish, but I loved Willowsmere, and love it still.
And I often saw in the fields on the other side of the river which did
not belong to the estate, a little girl about my own age, playing all by
herself and making long daisy-chains and buttercup balls,--a little girl
with long fair curls and a sweet baby face. I wanted to know her and
speak to her, but my nurse would never let me because she was supposed
to be 'beneath' me." Lady Sibyl's lip curled scornfully at this
recollection. "Yet she was well-born; she was the orphan child of a very
distinguished scholar and gentleman, and had been adopted by the
physician who attended her mother's deathbed, she having no living
relatives left to take care of her. And she--that little fair-haired
girl,--was Mavis Clare."
As this name was uttered, a sort of hush fell on our party as though an
'Angelus' had rung; and Lucio looking across at me with peculiar
intentness asked,
"Have you never heard of Mavis Clare, Tempest?"
I thought a moment before replying. Yes,--I had heard the
name,--connected with literature in some dim and distant way, but I
could not remember when or how. For I never paid any attention to the
names of women who chose to associate themselves with the Arts, as I had
the usual masculine notion that all they did, whether in painting, music
or writing, must of necessity be trash and unworthy of comment. Women,
I loftily considered, were created to amuse men,--not to instruct them.
"Mavis Clare is a genius,"--Lady Sibyl said presently--"If Mr Tempest
has not heard of her, there is no doubt he _will_ hear. I often regret
that I never made her acquaintance in those old days at
Willowsmere,--the stupidity of my nurse often rankles in my mind.
'Beneath me'--indeed!--and how very much she is above me now! She still
lives down there,--her adopted parents are dead and she rents the lovely
little house they inhabited. She has bought some extra land about it and
improved the place wonderfully. Indeed I have never seen a more ideal
poet's corner than Lily Cottage."
I was silent, feeling somewhat in the background on account of my
ignorance as to the gifts and the position of the individual they all
seemed to recognize as a celebrity of importance.
"Rather an odd name, Mavis, isn't it?"--I at last ventured to observe.
"Yes,--but it suits her wonderfully. She sings quite as sweetly as any
thrush, so she merits her designation."
"What has she done in literature?" I continued.
"Oh,--only a novel!" replied Lucio with a smile--"But it has a quality
unusual to novels; it lives! I hope, Tempest, that your forthcoming work
will enjoy the same vitality."
Here Lord Elton who had been more or less brooding darkly over his glass
of wine ever since I had mentioned my purchase of Willowsmere, roused
himself from his reverie.
"Why, God bless my soul!" he exclaimed--"You don't mean to tell me you
have written a novel Mr Tempest?" (Was it possible he had never noticed
all the prominent advertisements of my book in every paper, I thought
indignantly!) "What do you want to do that for, with your immense
position?"
"He hankers after fame!" said Lucio half kindly, half satirically.
"But you've got fame!" declared the Earl emphatically--"Everybody knows
who you are by this time."
"Ah, my dear lord, that is not enough for the aspirations of my gifted
friend"--responded Lucio, speaking for me, his eyes darkening with that
mystic shadow of mingled sorrow and scorn which so frequently clouded
their lustrous brilliancy; "He does not particularly care for the
'immense position' that is due to wealth alone, because that does not
lift him a jot higher than Maple of Tottenham Court Road. He seeks to
soar beyond the furniture man,--and who shall blame him? He would be
known for that indescribable quality called Genius,--for high thoughts,
poetry, divine instincts, and prophetic probings into the heart of
humanity,--in short, for the power of the Pen, which topples down great
kingdoms like card-houses and sticks foolscaps on the heads of kings.
Generally it is the moneyless man or woman who is endowed with this
unpurchaseable power,--this independence of action and indifference to
opinion,--the wealthy seldom do anything but spend or hoard. But Tempest
means to unite for once in his own person the two most strenuously
opposed forces in nature,--genius and cash,--or in other words, God and
Mammon."
Lady Sibyl turned her head towards me;--there was a look of doubt and
wonder on her beautiful face.
"I am afraid,"--she said half smiling, "that the claims of society will
take up too much of your time, Mr Tempest, to allow you to continue the
writing of books. I remember you told me the other evening that you were
about to publish a novel. I suppose you were--originally I mean--an
author by profession?"
A curious sense of anger burned dully within me. 'Originally' an author?
Was I not one still? Was I to be given credit for nothing but my
banking-book? 'Originally'? Why, I had never been an actual 'author'
till now,--I had simply been a wandering literary hack,--a stray 'super'
of Grub Street, occasionally engaged to write articles 'to order' on
any subject that came uppermost, at a starvation rate of pay, without
any visible prospect of rising from that lowest and dirtiest rung of the
literary ladder. I felt myself growing red, then pale,--and I saw that
Lucio was looking at me fixedly.
"I _am_ an author, Lady Sibyl"--I said at last--"and I hope I may soon
prove my right to be acknowledged as one. 'Author' is in my opinion, a
prouder title than king, and I do not think any social claims will deter
me from following the profession of literature, which I look upon as the
highest in the world."
Lord Elton fidgetted uneasily in his chair.
"But your people"--he said--"Your family--are they literary?"
"No members of my family are now living,"--I answered somewhat
stiffly--"My father was John Tempest of Rexmoor."
"Indeed!" and the Earl's face brightened considerably--"Dear me, dear
me! I used to meet him often in the hunting field years ago. You come of
a fine old stock, sir!--the Tempests of Rexmoor are well and honourably
known in county chronicles."
I said nothing, feeling a trifle heated in temper, though I could not
have quite explained why.
"One begins to wonder,"--said Lucio then in his soft smooth
accents--"when one is the descendant of a good English county family,--a
distinct cause for pride!--and moreover has the still more substantial
fact of a large fortune to support that high lineage, why one should
trouble to fight for merely literary honours! You are far too modest in
your ambitions, Tempest!--high-seated as you are upon bank-notes and
bullion, with all the glory of effulgent county chronicles behind you,
you still stoop to clutch the laurel! Fie, my dear fellow! You degrade
yourself by this desire to join the company of the immortals!"
His satirical tone was not lost upon the company; and I, who saw that
in his own special way he was defending the claims of literature against
those of mere place and money, felt soothed and grateful. The Earl
looked a trifle annoyed.
"That's all very fine," he said--"But you see it isn't as if Mr Tempest
were driven by necessity to write for his living"--
"One may love work for the work's sake without any actual necessity for
doing it,"--I interposed--"For example,--this Mavis Clare you speak
of,--is she,--a woman,--driven by necessity?"
"Mavis Clare hasn't a penny in the world that she does not earn,"--said
Lord Elton gruffly--"I suppose that if she did not write she would
starve."
Diana Chesney laughed.
"I guess she's a long way off starvation just now,"--she remarked, her
brown eyes twinkling--"Why, she's as proud as the proudest,--drives in
the Park in her victoria and pair with the best in the land, and knows
all the 'swagger' people. She's nowhere near Grub Street _I_ should say.
I hear she's a splendid business woman, and more than a match for the
publishers all round."
"Well I should rather doubt that,"--said the Earl with a chuckle. "It
needs the devil himself to match the publishers."
"You are right!"--said Lucio--"In fact I daresay that in the various
'phases' or transmigrations of the spirit into differing forms of earthy
matter, the devil (should he exist at all) has frequently become a
publisher,--and a particularly benevolent publisher too!--by way of
diversion."
We all smiled.
"Well, I should imagine Mavis Clare to be a match for anybody or
anything,"--said Lady Sibyl--"Of course she is not rich,--but she spends
her money wisely and to effective advantage. I do not know her
personally,--I wish I did; but I have read her books, which are quite
out of the common. She is a most independent creature too; quite
indifferent to opinions"--
"I suppose she must be extremely plain then"--I observed; "Plain women
always try to do something more or less startling in order to attract
the attention denied to their personality."
"True,--but that would not apply to Miss Clare. She is pretty, and knows
how to dress besides."
"_Such_ a virtue in literary women!" exclaimed Diana Chesney--"Some of
them _are_ such dowdies!"
"Most people of culture," went on Lady Sibyl--"in our set at any rate,
are accustomed to look upon Miss Clare as quite an exception to the
usual run of authors. She is charming in herself as well as in her
books, and she goes everywhere. She writes with inspiration,--and always
has something so new to say--"
"That of course all the critics are down upon her?" queried Lucio.
"Oh, naturally! But _we_ never read reviews."
"Nor anyone else I should hope,"--said Lord Elton with a laugh--"except
the fellows who write them, ha--ha--ha! I call it damned
impertinence--excuse the word--on the part of a newspaper hack to
presume to teach _me_ what I ought to read, or what I ought to
appreciate. I'm quite capable of forming my own judgment on any book
that ever was written. But I avoid all the confounded 'new'
poets,--avoid 'em like poison, sir--ha--ha! Anything but a 'new' poet;
the old ones are good enough for me! Why sir, these reviewers who give
themselves such airs with a pennorth of ink and a pen, are mostly
half-grown half-educated boys who for a couple of guineas a week
undertake to tell the public what _they_ think of such and such a book,
as if anyone cared a jot about their green opinions! Ridiculous--quite
ridiculous!--what do they take the public for I wonder! Editors of
responsible journals ought to know better than to employ such young
coxcombs just because they can get them cheap----"
At this juncture the butler came up behind his master's chair and
whispered a few words. The Earl's brow clouded,--then he addressed his
sister-in-law,--
"Charlotte, Lady Elton sends word that she will come into the
drawing-room to-night. Perhaps you had better go and see that she is
made comfortable." And, as Miss Charlotte rose, he turned to us
saying--"My wife is seldom well enough to see visitors, but this evening
she feels inclined for a little change and distraction from the monotony
of her sick-room. It will be very kind of you two gentlemen to entertain
her,--she cannot speak much, but her hearing and sight are excellent,
and she takes great interest in all that is going on. Dear dear me!" and
he heaved a short troubled sigh--"She used to be one of the brightest of
women!"
"The sweet Countess!" murmured Miss Chesney with patronizing
tenderness--"She is quite lovely still!"
Lady Sibyl glanced at her with a sudden haughty frown which showed me
plainly what a rebellious temper the young beauty held in control; and I
fell straightway more in love,--according to _my_ idea of love,--than
ever. I confess I like a woman to have a certain amount of temper. I
cannot endure your preternaturally amiable female who can find nothing
in all the length or breadth of the globe to move her to any other
expression than a fatuous smile. I love to see the danger-flash in
bright eyes,--the delicate quiver of pride in the lines of a lovely
mouth, and the warm flush of indignation on fair cheeks. It all suggests
spirit, and untamed will; and rouses in a man the love of mastery that
is born in his nature, urging him to conquer and subdue that which seems
unconquerable. And all the desire of such conquest was strong within me,
when at the close of dinner I rose and held the door open for the ladies
to pass out of the room. As the fair Sibyl went, the violets she wore at
her bosom dropped. I picked them up and made my first move.
"May I keep these?" I said in a low tone.
Her breath came and went quickly,--but she looked straight in my eyes
with a smile that perfectly comprehended my hidden meaning.
"You may!" she answered.
I bowed,--closed the door behind her, and secreting the flowers,
returned, well-satisfied, to my place at table.
XIII
Left with myself and Lucio, Lord Elton threw off all reserve, and became
not only familiar, but fawning in his adulation of us both. An abject
and pitiable desire to please and propitiate us expressed itself in his
every look and word; and I firmly believe that if I had coolly and
brutally offered to buy his fair daughter by private treaty for a
hundred thousand pounds, that sum to be paid down to him on the day of
marriage, he would have gladly agreed to sell. Apart however from his
personal covetousness, I felt and knew that my projected courtship of
Lady Sibyl would of necessity resolve itself into something more or less
of a market bargain, unless indeed I could win the girl's love. I meant
to try and do this, but I fully realized how difficult, nay, almost
impossible it would be for her to forget the fact of my unhampered and
vast fortune, and consider me for myself alone. Herein is one of the
blessings of poverty which the poor are frequently too apt to forget. A
moneyless man if he wins a woman's love knows that such love is genuine
and untainted by self-interest; but a rich man can never be truly
certain of love at all. The advantages of a wealthy match are constantly
urged upon all marriageable girls by both their parents and
friends,--and it would have to be a very unsophisticated feminine nature
indeed that could contemplate a husband possessing five millions of
money, without a touch of purely interested satisfaction. A very wealthy
man can never be sure even of friendship,--while the highest, strongest
and noblest kind of love is nearly always denied to him, in this way
carrying out the fulfilment of those strange but true words--"How hardly
shall he that is a rich man, enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" The heaven of
a woman's love, tried and proved true through disaster and
difficulty,--of her unflinching faithfulness and devotion in days of
toil and bitter anguish,--of her heroic self-abnegation, sweetness and
courage through the darkest hours of doubt and disappointment;--this
bright and splendid side of woman's character is reserved by Divine
ordinance for the poor man. The millionaire can indeed wed whomsoever he
pleases among all the beauties of the world,--he can deck his wife in
gorgeous apparel, load her with jewels and look upon her in all the
radiance of her richly adorned loveliness as one may look upon a perfect
statue or matchless picture,--but he can never reach the deeper secrets
of her soul or probe the well-springs of her finer nature. I thought
this even thus early in the beginning of my admiration for Lady Sibyl
Elton, though I did not then dwell upon it as I have often done since. I
was too elated with the pride of wealth to count the possibilities of
subtle losses amid so many solid gains; and I enjoyed to the full and
with a somewhat contemptuous malice the humble prostration of a 'belted
Earl' before the dazzling mine of practically unlimited cash as
represented to him in the persons of my brilliant comrade and myself. I
took a curious sort of pleasure in patronizing him, and addressed him
with a protecting air of indulgent kindness whereat he seemed gratified.
Inwardly I laughed as I thought how differently matters would have
stood, supposing I had been indeed no more than 'author'! I might have
proved to be one of the greatest writers of the age, but if, with that,
I had been poor or only moderately well off, this same half bankrupt
Earl who privately boarded an American heiress for two thousand guineas
a year, would have deemed it a 'condescension' to so much as invite me
to his house,--would have looked down upon me from his titled
nothingness and perhaps carelessly alluded to me as 'a man who
writes--er--yes--er--rather clever I believe!' and then would have
thought no more about me. For this very cause as 'author' still, though
millionaire, I took a fantastic pleasure in humiliating his lordship as
much as possible, and I found the best way to do this was to talk about
Willowsmere. I saw that he winced at the very name of his lost estate,
and that notwithstanding this, he could not avoid showing his anxiety as
to my intentions with regard to its occupation. Lucio, whose wisdom and
foresight had suggested my becoming the purchaser of the place, assisted
me in the most adroit fashion to draw him out and to make his character
manifest, and by the time we had finished our cigars and coffee I knew
that the 'proud' Earl of Elton, who could trace his lineage to the
earliest days of the Crusaders, was as ready to bend his back and crawl
in the dust for money as the veriest hotel-porter expectant of a
sovereign 'tip.' I had never entertained a high opinion of the
aristocracy, and on this occasion it was certainly not improved, but
remembering that the spendthrift nobleman beside me was the father of
Lady Sibyl, I treated him on the whole with more respect than his mean
and grasping nature deserved.
On returning to the drawing-room after dinner I was struck by the chill
weirdness that seemed to be imparted to it by the addition of Lady
Elton's couch, which, placed near the fire, suggested a black
sarcophagus in bulk and outline. It was practically a narrow bed on
wheels, though partially disguised by a silk coverlet draped skilfully
so as to somewhat hide its coffin-like shape. The extended figure of the
paralysed Countess herself presented a death-like rigidity; but her face
as she turned it towards us on our entrance, was undisfigured as yet and
distinctly handsome, her eyes especially being large, clear, and almost
brilliant. Her daughter introduced us both in a low tone, and she moved
her head slightly by way of acknowledgment, studying us curiously the
while.
"Well, my dear"--said Lord Elton briskly, "This is an unexpected
pleasure! It is nearly three months since you honoured us with your
company. How do you feel?"
"Better," she replied slowly, yet distinctly, her gaze now fixed with
wondering intentness on Prince Rimânez.
"Mother found the room rather cold"--explained Lady Sibyl--"So we
brought her as near to the fire as possible. It _is_ cold"--and she
shivered--"I fancy it must be freezing hard."
"Where is Diana?" asked the Earl, looking about in search of that lively
young lady.
"Miss Chesney has gone to her own room to write a letter;" replied his
daughter somewhat frigidly--"She will be back directly."
At this moment Lady Elton feebly raised her hand and pointed to Lucio,
who had moved aside to answer some question asked of him by Miss
Charlotte.
"Who is that?" she murmured.
"Why, mother dear, I told you"--said Lady Sibyl gently--"That is Prince
Lucio Rimânez, Papa's great friend."
The Countess's pallid hand still remained lifted, as though it were
frozen in air.
"_What_ is he?" the slow voice again inquired,--and then the hand
dropped suddenly like a dead thing.
"Now Helena, you must not excite yourself"--said her husband, bending
over her couch with real or assumed anxiety; "Surely you remember all I
have told you about the prince? And also about this gentleman, Mr
Geoffrey Tempest?"
She nodded, and her eyes, turning reluctantly away from Rimânez,
regarded me fixedly.
"You are a very young man to be a millionaire,"--were her next words,
uttered with evident difficulty--"Are you married?"
I smiled, and answered in the negative. Her looks wandered from me to
her daughter's face,--then back to me again with a singularly intent
expression. Finally, the potent magnetism of Lucio's presence again
attracted her, and she indicated him by a gesture.
"Ask your friend ... to come here ... and speak to me."
Rimânez turned instinctively at her request, and with his own peculiar
charm and gallant grace of bearing, came to the side of the paralysed
lady, and taking her hand, kissed it.
"Your face seems familiar to me,"--she said, speaking now, as it seemed,
with greater ease--"Have I ever met you before?"
"Dear lady, you may have done so"--he replied in dulcet tones and with a
most captivating gentleness of manner--"It occurs to me, now I think of
it, that years ago, I saw once, as a passing vision of loveliness, in
the hey-day of youth and happiness, Helena Fitzroy, before she was
Countess of Elton."
"You must have been a mere boy--a child,--at that time!" she murmured
faintly smiling.
"Not so!--for you are still young, Madame, and I am old. You look
incredulous? Alas, why is it I wonder, I may not look the age I am! Most
of my acquaintances spend a great part of their lives in trying to look
the age they are not; and I never came across a man of fifty who was not
proud to be considered thirty-nine. My desires are more laudable,--yet
honourable eld refuses to impress itself upon my features. It is quite a
sore point with me I assure you."
"Well, how old are you really?" asked Lady Sibyl smiling at him.
"Ah, I dare not tell you!" he answered, returning the smile; "But I
ought to explain that in my countings I judge age by the workings of
thought and feeling, more than by the passing of years. Thus it should
not surprise you to hear that I feel myself old,--old as the world!"
"But there are scientists who say that the world is young;" I observed,
"And that it is only now beginning to feel its forces and put forth its
vigour."
"Such optimistic wise-acres are wrong," he answered,--"The world is a
veritable husk of a planet; humanity has nearly completed all its
allotted phases, and the end is near."
"The end?" echoed Lady Sibyl,--"Do you believe the world will ever come
to an end?"
"I do, most certainly. Or, to be more correct, it will not actually
perish, but will simply change. And the change will not agree with the
constitution of its present inhabitants. They will call the
transformation the Day of Judgment. I should imagine it would be a fine
sight."
The Countess gazed at him wonderingly,--Lady Sibyl seemed amused.
"I would rather not witness it,"--said Lord Elton gruffly.
"Oh, why?" and Rimânez looked about with quite a cheerful air--"A final
glimpse of the planet ere we _a_scend or _de_scend to our future homes
elsewhere, would be something to remember! Madame"--here he addressed
Lady Elton; "are you fond of music?"
The invalid smiled gratefully, and bent her head in acquiescence. Miss
Chesney had just entered the room and heard the question.
"Do you play?" she exclaimed vivaciously, touching him on the arm with
her fan.
He bowed. "I do. In an erratic sort of fashion. I also sing. Music has
always been one of my passions. When I was very young,--ages ago,--I
used to imagine I could hear the angel Israfel chanting his strophes
amid the golden glow of heavenly glory,--himself white-winged and
wonderful, with a voice out-ringing beyond the verge of paradise!"
As he spoke, a sudden silence fell upon us all. Something in his accent
touched my heart to a strange sense of sorrow and yearning, and the
Countess of Elton's dark eyes, languid with long suffering, grew soft as
though with repressed tears.
"Sometimes," he continued more lightly--"just at odd moments--I like to
believe in Paradise. It is a relief, even to a hardened sinner like
myself, to fancy that there _may_ exist something in the way of a world
better than this one."
"Surely sir," said Miss Charlotte Fitzroy severely--"you believe in
Heaven?"
He looked at her and smiled slightly.
"Madame, forgive me! I do not believe in the clerical heaven. I know you
will be angry with me for this frank confession! But I cannot picture
the angels in white smocks with goose wings, or the Deity as a somewhat
excitable personage with a beard. Personally I should decline to go to
any heaven which was only a city with golden streets; and I should
object to a sea of glass, resenting it as a want of invention on the
part of the creative Intelligence. But----do not frown, dear Miss
Fitzroy!--I do believe in Heaven all the same,--a different kind of
heaven,--I often see it in my dreams!"
He paused, and again we were all silent, gazing at him. Lady Sibyl's
eyes indeed, rested upon him with such absorbed interest, that I became
somewhat irritated, and was glad, when turning towards the Countess once
more, he said quietly.
"Shall I give you some music now, Madame?"
She murmured assent, and followed him with a vaguely uneasy glance as he
crossed over to the grand piano and sat down. I had never heard him
either play or sing; in fact so far as his accomplishments went, I knew
nothing of him as yet except that he was a perfect master of the art of
horsemanship. With the first few bars he struck I half started from my
chair in amazement;--could a mere pianoforte produce such sounds?--or
was there some witchery hidden in the commonplace instrument, unguessed
by any other performer? I stared around me, bewildered,--I saw Miss
Charlotte drop her knitting abstractedly,--Diana Chesney, lying lazily
back in one corner of the sofa, half closed her eyelids in dreamy
ecstasy,--Lord Elton stood near the fire resting one arm on the
mantelpiece and shading his fuzzy brows with his hand,--and Lady Sibyl
sat beside her mother, her lovely face pale with emotion, while on the
worn features of the invalided lady there was an expression of mingled
pain and pleasure difficult to describe. The music swelled into
passionate cadence,--melodies crossed and re-crossed each other like
rays of light glittering among green leaves,--voices of birds and
streams and tossing waterfalls chimed in with songs of love and playful
merriment;--anon came wilder strains of grief and angry clamour; cries
of despair were heard echoing through the thunderous noise of some
relentless storm,--farewells everlastingly shrieked amid sobs of
reluctant shuddering agony;--and then, as I listened, before my eyes a
black mist gathered slowly, and I thought I saw great rocks bursting
asunder into flame, and drifting islands in a sea of fire,--faces,
wonderful, hideous, beautiful, peered at me out of a darkness denser
than night, and in the midst of this there came a tune, complete in
sweetness and suggestion,--a piercing sword-like tune that plunged into
my very heart and rankled there,----my breath failed me,--my senses
swam,--I felt that I must move, speak, cry out, and implore that this
music, this horribly insidious music should cease ere I swooned with the
voluptuous poison of it,--when, with a full chord of splendid harmony
that rolled out upon the air like a breaking wave, the intoxicating
sounds ebbed away into silence. No one spoke,--our hearts were yet
beating too wildly with the pulsations roused by that wondrous lyric
storm. Diana Chesney was the first to break the spell.
"Well, that beats everything I've ever heard!" she murmured tremulously.
I could say nothing,--I was too occupied with my own thoughts. Something
in the music had instilled itself into my blood, or so I fancied, and
the clinging subtle sweetness of it, moved me to strange emotions that
were neither wise, nor worthy of a man. I looked at Lady Sibyl; she was
very pale,--her eyes were cast down and her hands were trembling. On a
sudden impulse I rose and went to Rimânez where he still sat at the
piano, his hands dumbly wandering over the keys.
"You are a great master"--I said--"A wonderful performer! But do you
know what your music suggests?"
He met my fixed gaze, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head.
"Crime!" I whispered--"You have roused in me evil thoughts of which I am
ashamed. I did not think that was possible to so divine an Art."
He smiled, and his eyes glittered with the steely brightness of stars on
a wintry night.
"Art takes its colours from the mind, my dear friend;"--he said--"If you
discover evil suggestions in my music, the evil, I fear, must be in your
own nature."
"Or in yours!" I said quickly.
"Or in mine;"--he agreed coldly--"I have often told you I am no saint."
I stood hesitatingly, looking at him. For one moment his great personal
beauty appeared hateful to me, though I knew not why. Then the feeling
of distrust and repulsion slowly passed, leaving me humiliated and
abashed.
"Pardon me, Lucio!" I murmured regretfully--"I spoke in haste; but truly
your music almost put me in a state of frenzy,--I never heard anything
in the least like it----"
"Nor I,"--said Lady Sibyl, who just then moved towards the piano--"It
was marvellous! Do you know, it quite frightened me?"
"I am sorry!" he answered with a penitent air--"I know I am quite a
failure as a pianist--I am not sufficiently 'restrained,' as the press
men would say."
"A failure? Good God!" exclaimed Lord Elton at this juncture--"Why, if
you played like that in public, you'd drive everyone frantic!"
"With alarm?" queried Lucio, laughing--"Or with disgust?"
"Nonsense! you know what I mean very well. I have always had a contempt
for the piano as an instrument, but by Jove! I never heard such music as
yours even in a full orchestra. It is extraordinary!--it is positively
magnificent! Where in the world did you study?"
"In Nature's conservatoire;"--replied Rimânez lazily. "My first
'maestro' was an amiable nightingale. He, singing on a branch of fir
when the moon was full, explained with liquid-noted patience, how to
construct and produce a pure roulade, cadenza and trill,--and when I had
learned thus far, he showed me all the most elaborate methods of
applying rhythmic tune to the upward and downward rush of the wind, thus
supplying me with perfect counterpoint. Chords I learned from old
Neptune, who was good enough to toss a few of his largest billows to the
shore for my special benefit. He nearly deafened me with his
instructions, being somewhat excitable and loud-voiced,--but on finding
me an apt pupil, he drew back his waves to himself with so much delicacy
among the pebbles and sand, that at once I mastered the secret of
playing _arpeggi_. Once too I had a finishing lesson from a Dream,--a
mystic thing with wild hair and wings--it sang one word in my ears, and
the word was unpronounceable in mortal speech,--but after many efforts I
discovered it lurking in the scale of sound. The best part of it all
was, that my instructors asked no fees!"
"I think you are a poet as well as a musician,"--said Lady Sibyl.
"A poet! Spare me!--my dear young lady, why are you so cruel as to load
me with so vile an imputation! Better be a murderer than a poet,--one is
treated with much more respect and courteous consideration,--by the
press at anyrate. The murderer's breakfast-menu will be given due place
in many of the most estimable journals,--but the poet's lack of both
breakfast and dinner will be deemed his fitting reward. Call me a
live-stock producer, a horse-breeder, a timber-merchant,--anything but a
poet! Why even Tennyson became an amateur milkman to somewhat conceal
and excuse the shame and degradation of writing verse!"
We all laughed.
"Well, you must admit," said Lord Elton, "that we've had rather too much
of poets lately. It's no wonder we're sick of them, and that poetry has
fallen into disrepute. Poets are such a quarrelsome lot too--effeminate,
puling, unmanly humbugs!"
"You are speaking of the newly 'discovered' ones of course," said
Lucio--"Yes, they are a weedy collection. I have sometimes thought that
out of pure philanthropy I would start a bon-bon manufactory, and employ
them to write mottoes for the crackers. It would keep them out of
mischief and provide them with a little pocket-money, for as matters
stand they do not make a farthing by their books. But I do not call them
'poets' at all,--they are mere rhymers. One or two real poets do exist,
but, like the prophets of Scripture, they are not 'in society,' nor can
they get their logs rolled by any of their contemporaries. They are not
favourites with any 'set'; that is why I am afraid my dear friend
Tempest will never be accepted as the genius he is; society will be too
fond of him to let him go down into dust and ashes to gather the
laurel."
"It is not necessary to go down into dust and ashes for that," I said.
"I assure you it is!--" he answered gaily--"Positively imperative. The
laurel flourishes best so,--it will not grow in a hot-house."
At that moment Diana Chesney approached.
"Lady Elton would like to hear you sing, prince--" she said--"Will you
give us that pleasure? Do! Something quite simple, you know,--it will
set our nerves straight after your terribly beautiful music! You'd
hardly believe it perhaps,--but I really feel quite unstrung!"
He folded his hands with a droll air of penitence.
"Forgive me!" he said, "I'm always, as the church service says, doing
those things I ought not to do."
Miss Chesney laughed, a trifle nervously.
"Oh, I forgive you!" she replied--"On condition that you sing."
"I obey!" and with that he turned again to the piano, and playing a
strange wild minor accompaniment sang the following stanzas:
Sleep, my Belovëd, sleep!
Be patient!--we shall keep
Our secret closely hid
Beneath the coffin-lid,--
There is no other place in earth or air
For such a love as ours, or such despair!
And neither hell nor heaven shall care to win
Our loathëd souls, rejoicing in their sin!
Sleep!--for my hand is sure,--
The cold steel bright and pure
Strikes through thy heart and mine
Shedding our blood like wine;--
Sin's sweetness is too sweet, and if the shame
Of love must be our curse, we hurl the blame
Back on the gods who gave us love with breath
And tortured us from passion into death!
This strange song, sung in the most glorious of baritones, full and
rich, and vibrating with power and sweetness, had a visibly thrilling
effect upon us all. Again we were struck dumb with surprise and
something like fear,--and again Diana Chesney broke the silence.
"You call that simple!" she said, half petulantly.
"Quite so. Love and Death are the simplest things in the world"--replied
Lucio.--"The ballad is a mere trifle,--it is entitled 'The Last
Love-Song' and is supposed to be the utterance of a lover about to kill
his mistress and himself. Such events happen every day,--you know that
by the newspapers,--they are perfectly common-place----"
He was interrupted by a sharp clear voice ringing imperatively across
the room--
"Where did you learn that song?"
XIV
It was the paralysed Countess who spoke. She had managed to partly raise
herself on her couch, and her face expressed positive terror. Her
husband hurried to her side,--and, with a curiously cynical smile on his
lips, Rimânez rose from the piano. Miss Charlotte, who had sat rigidly
upright and silent for some time, hastened to attend upon her sister,
but Lady Elton was singularly excited, and appeared to have gained a
sudden access of unnatural vigour.
"Go away,--I'm not ill,"--she said impatiently--"I feel better,--much
better than I have done for months. The music does me good." And
addressing her husband, she added--"Ask your friend to come and sit here
by me,--I want to talk to him. He has a magnificent voice,--and--I know
that song he sang,--I remember reading it--in a manuscript album--long
ago. I want to know where he found it--"
Rimânez here advanced with his gentle tread and courteous bearing, and
Lord Elton gave him a chair beside the invalid.
"You are working miracles on my wife,"--he said--"I have not seen her so
animated for years."
And leaving the two to talk, he crossed over to where Lady Sibyl, myself
and Miss Chesney were all seated in a group, chatting more or less
unrestrainedly.
"I have just been expressing the hope that you and your daughter will
pay me a visit at Willowsmere, Lord Elton," I said.
His brows contracted a little, but he forced a smile. "We shall be
delighted,"--he mumbled--"when do you take possession?"
"As soon as it is at all feasible"--I replied--"I shall wait in town
till the next Levée is over, as both my friend and myself have arranged
to be presented."
"Oh--ah--yes!--er--yes! That is always advisable. And it's not half such
a troublesome business as a Drawing-room is for the ladies. It's soon
over,--and low bodices are not _de rigeur_--ha--ha--ha! Who is your
presenter?"
I named a distinguished personage, closely connected with the Court, and
the Earl nodded.
"A very good man,--you could not have a better"--he said
complacently--"And this book of yours,--when does it come out?"
"Next week."
"We must get it,--we must certainly get it,"--said Lord Elton, assuming
interest,--"Sybil, you must put it down on your library list."
She assented, though, as I thought a trifle indifferently.
"On the contrary you must allow me to present it to you;" I said--"It
will be a pleasure to me which I hope you will not deny."
"You are very kind,"--she answered, lifting her beautiful eyes to mine
as she spoke--"But the librarian at Mudie's is sure to send it--he knows
I read everything. Though I confess I never buy any books except those
by Mavis Clare."
Again that woman's name! I felt annoyed, but took care not to show my
annoyance.
"I shall be jealous of Mavis Clare," I said playfully.
"Most men are!" she replied quietly.
"You are indeed an enthusiastic partisan of hers!" I exclaimed, somewhat
surprised.
"Yes, I suppose I am. I like to see any member of my sex distinguish
herself as nobly as she does. I have no genius of my own, and that is
one of the reasons why I honour it so much in other women."
I was about to make some suitable compliment by way of response to this
remark, when we were all violently startled from our seats by a most
horrible cry,--a gasping scream such as might be wrung from some
tortured animal. Aghast at the sound we stood for a moment inert,
staring at Rimânez, who came quickly towards us with an air of grave
concern.
"I am afraid," he said softly--"that the Countess is not so
well,--perhaps you had better go to her--"
Another shriek interrupted his words, and transfixed with horror we saw
Lady Elton struggling in the throes of some sudden and terrific
convulsion, her hands beating the air as if she were fighting with an
unseen enemy. In one second her face underwent such hideous contortions
as robbed it of all human semblance, and between the agonized pantings
of her difficult breath, her half-choked voice could be heard uttering
wild cries--
"Mercy!--mercy!--oh God--God! Tell Sibyl!--pray--pray to God,--pray--"
And with that she fell heavily back, speechless and unconscious.
All was instant confusion. Lady Sibyl rushed to her mother's side, with
Miss Charlotte,--Diana Chesney hung back trembling and afraid,--Lord
Elton sprang to the bell and rang it furiously.
"Fetch the doctor!" he cried to the startled servant--"Lady Elton has
had another shock! She must be taken to her room at once!"
"Can I be of any service?" I inquired, with a side-glance at Rimânez,
who stood gravely apart, a statuesquely composed figure of silence.
"No no,--thanks all the same!" and the Earl pressed my hand
gratefully--"She should not have come downstairs,--it has been too
exciting for her. Sybil, don't look at her, my dear--it will only
unnerve you,--Miss Chesney, pray go to your room,--Charlotte can do all
that is possible----"
As he spoke two of the men-servants came in to carry the insensible
Countess upstairs,--and as they slowly bore her on her coffin-like
couch past me, one of them drew the coverlet across her face to conceal
it. But not so quickly that I could not see the awful change impressed
upon it,--the indelible horror that was stamped on the drawn
features,--horror such as surely never was seen except in a painter's
idea of some lost soul in torment. The eyes were rolled up and fixed in
their sockets like balls of glass, and in them also was frozen the same
frenzied desperate look of fear. It was a dreadful face!--so dreadful in
its ghastly immovableness that I was all at once reminded of my hideous
vision of the previous night, and the pallid countenances of the three
phantoms that had scared me in my sleep. Lady Elton's looks now
resembled theirs! Sickened and appalled I averted my eyes, and was glad
to see Rimânez taking farewell of his host, the while he expressed his
regret and sympathy with him in his domestic affliction. I myself,
approaching Lady Sibyl, pressed her cold and trembling hand in mine, and
respectfully kissed it.
"I am deeply sorry!" I murmured--"I wish I could do anything to console
you!"
She looked at me with dry calm eyes.
"Thank-you. But the doctors have always said that my mother would have
another shock depriving her of speech. It is very sad; she will probably
live for some years like that."
I again expressed my sympathy.
"May I come and inquire about you all to-morrow?" I asked.
"It will be very kind of you,"--she answered quietly.
"Shall I see you if I come?" I said in a lower tone.
"If you wish it,--certainly!"
Our eyes met; and I knew by instinct that she read my thoughts. I
pressed her hand again and was not repulsed,--then bowing profoundly, I
left her to make my adieux to Lord Elton and Miss Chesney, who seemed
terribly upset and frightened. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy had left the room
in attendance on her sister, and she did not return to bid us
good-night. Rimânez lingered a moment behind me to say another word or
two to the Earl, and when he joined me in the hall and threw on his
opera-coat, he was smiling to himself somewhat singularly.
"An unpleasant end for Helena, Countess of Elton"--he said, when we were
in our brougham, driving away--"Paralysis is perhaps the worst of all
the physical punishments that can befall a 'rapid' lady."
"Was she 'rapid'?"
"Well,--perhaps 'rapid' is too mild a term, but I can find no
other;"--he answered--"When she was young,--she is barely fifty
now,--she did everything that could be done by woman at her worst and
wildest. She had scores of lovers,--and I believe one of them cleared
off her husband's turf-debts,--the Earl consenting gladly,--on a rather
pressing occasion."
"What disgraceful conduct!" I exclaimed.
He looked at me with an expression of cynical amusement.
"Think so? The 'upper ten' quite condone that sort of thing in their own
set now-a-days. It is all right. If a lady has lovers, and her husband
beams benevolence on the situation what can be said? Nothing. How very
tender your conscience is, Geoffrey!"
I sat silent, thinking. My companion lit a cigarette and offered me one.
I took it mechanically without lighting it.
"I made a mistake this evening,"--he went on--"I should not have sung
that 'Last Love-song.' The fact is, the words were written by one of her
ladyship's former admirers, a man who was something of a poet in his
way,--and she had an idea that she was the only person living who had
ever seen the lines. She wanted to know if I knew the man who composed
them, and I was able to say that I did--very intimately. I was just
explaining how it was, and why I knew him so well, when the distressing
attack of convulsions came on, and finished our conversation."
"She looked horrible!" I said.
"The paralysed Helen of a modern Troy? Yes,--her countenance at the last
was certainly not attractive. Beauty combined with wantonness
frequently ends in the drawn twitch, fixed eye and helpless limbs of
life-in-death. It is Nature's revenge on the outraged body,--and do you
know, Eternity's revenge on the impure Soul is extremely similar?"
"What do you know about it?" I said, smiling in spite of myself as I
looked at his fine face, expressive of perfect health and splendid
intellectuality--"Your absurd fancies about the soul are the only traces
of folly I discover in you."
"Really? Well I am glad I have something of the fool in my
disposition,--foolishness being the only quality that makes wisdom
possible. I confess I have odd, very odd notions about the soul."
"I will excuse them--" I said, laughing--God forgive me, in my own
insensate blind conceit,--the while he regarded me fixedly--"In fact I
will excuse anything for the sake of your voice. I do not flatter you,
Lucio,--you sing like an angel."
"Don't use impossible comparisons;"--he replied--"Have you ever heard an
angel sing?"
"Yes!" I answered smiling--"I have,--this very night!"
He turned deadly pale.
"A very open compliment!" he said, forcing a laugh,--and with almost
rough haste, he suddenly let down the window of the carriage though the
night was bitter cold--"This vehicle is suffocating me,--let us have
some air. See how the stars are shining!--like great crown
jewels--Deity's regalia! Hard frost, like hard times, brings noble works
into prominence. Yonder, far off, is a star you can hardly perceive; red
as a cinder at times and again blue as the lightning,--I can always
discover it, though many cannot. It is Algol,--judged by superstitious
folk to be an evil star. I love it chiefly on account of its bad
reputation,--it is no doubt much maligned. It may be a cold quarter of
hell where weeping spirits sit frozen in ice made of their own congealed
tears,--or it may be a preparatory school for Heaven--who knows! Yonder
too, shines Venus,--your star Geoffrey!--for you are in love my
friend!--come confess it! are you not?"
"I am not sure;"--I answered slowly--"The phrase 'in love' scarcely
describes my present feeling...."
"You have dropped these,"--he said suddenly, picking up a fast fading
knot of violets from the floor of the brougham and holding them towards
me. He smiled, as I uttered an exclamation of annoyance. They were Lady
Sibyl's flowers which I had inadvertently let fall, and I saw he knew
it. I took them from his hand in silence.
"My dear fellow, do not try to hide your intentions from your best
friend,"--he said seriously and kindly--"You wish to marry the Earl of
Elton's beautiful daughter, and you shall. Trust me!--I will do
everything I can to promote your desire."
"You will?" I exclaimed with unconcealed delight, for I fully recognised
the influence he had over Sibyl's father.
"I will, I promise--" he answered gravely--"I assure you that such a
marriage would be one after my own heart. I'll do all I can for
you,--and I have made many matches in my time!"
My heart beat high with triumph,--and when we parted that night I wrung
his hand fervently and told him I was devoutly grateful to the fates for
sending me such a good friend as he was.
"Grateful to--whom did you say?" he asked with a whimsical look.
"To the Fates!"
"Are you really? They are very ugly sisters I believe. Perhaps they were
your ghostly visitors of last night!"
"God forbid!" I ejaculated.
"Ah! God never forbids the fulfilment of His own laws!" he answered--"To
do so He would have to destroy Himself."
"If He exists at all!" I said carelessly.
"True! If--!"
And with this, we separated to our different quarters in the 'Grand.'
XV
After that evening I became a regular and welcome visitor at Lord
Elton's house, and was soon on terms of the most friendly intimacy with
all the members of his family, including even the severely pious Miss
Charlotte Fitzroy. It was not difficult for me to see that my
matrimonial aspirations were suspected,--and though the encouragement I
received from Lady Sibyl herself was so slight as to make me doubtful
whether after all my hopes of winning her would ever be realized, the
Earl made no secret of his delight at the idea of securing me as a
son-in-law. Such wealth as mine was not to be met with every day,--and
even had I been a blackleg of the turf or a retired jockey, instead of
an 'author,' I should, with five millions at my back, have been
considered quite as desirable a suitor for the Lady Sibyl's hand.
Rimânez scarcely ever went with me to the Eltons' now, pleading as
excuse much pressing business and many social engagements. I was not
altogether sorry for this. Greatly as I admired and honoured him, his
extraordinary physical beauty and fascination of manner were in
dangerous contrast to my merely 'ordinary good-looking' personality, and
it seemed to me impossible that any woman, seeing much of him, could be
expected to give me the preference. All the same I had no fear that he
would ever voluntarily become my rival,--his antipathy to women was too
deep-rooted and sincere for that. On this point indeed his feelings were
so strong and passionate that I often wondered why the society sirens
who eagerly courted his attention remained so blind and unconscious to
the chill cynicism that lurked beneath his seeming courtesy,--the
cutting satire that was coupled with apparent compliment, and the
intensity of hatred that flamed under the assumed expression of admiring
homage in his flashing eyes. However it was not my business to point out
to those who could not, or would not, see the endless peculiarities of
my friend's variable disposition. I did not pay much heed to them even
so far as I myself was concerned, for I had grown accustomed to the
quick changes he was wont to ring on all the gamut of human feeling, and
absorbed in my own life-schemes I did not trouble myself to intimately
study the man who had in a couple of months become my _fidus Achates_. I
was engrossed at the moment in doing all I could to increase the Earl of
Elton's appreciative sense of my value as a man and a millionaire, and
to this end I paid some of his pressing debts, lent him a large sum of
money without demanding interest or promise of repayment, and stocked
his cellar with presents of such rare old wines as he had not been able
to afford to purchase for himself for many years. Thus was confidence
easily engendered between us, even to that point of affection which
displayed itself in his lordship's readiness to thrust his arm through
mine when we sauntered together down Piccadilly, and his calling me 'my
dear boy' in public. Never shall I forget the bewildered amazement of
the scrubby little editor of a sixpenny magazine who met me face to face
thus accompanied in the Park one morning! That he knew the Earl of Elton
by sight was evident, and that he also knew me his apoplectic stare
confessed. He had pompously refused to even read any of my offered
contributions on the ground that I had 'no name,'--and now--! he would
have given a month's salary if I had but condescended to recognize him!
I did not so condescend,--but passed him by, listening to, and laughing
with my intended future father-in-law, who was retailing an extremely
ancient joke for my benefit. The incident was slight, even
trumpery,--yet it put me in a good humour, for one of the chiefest
pleasures I had out of my wealth was the ability to repay with vengeful
interest all the contempt and insult that had beaten me back from every
chance of earning a livelihood while I was poor.
In all my visits to the Eltons, I never saw the paralysed Countess
again. Since the last terrible visitation of her dread disease, she had
not moved. She merely lived and breathed--no more. Lord Elton told me
that the worst part of her illness at present, so far as it affected
those who had to attend upon her, was the particularly hideous
alteration of her face.
"The fact is," he said, not without a shudder--"she's dreadful to look
at,--positively dreadful!--no longer human, you know. She used to be a
lovely woman,--now she is literally frightful. Her eyes
especially;--they are as scared and wild as if she had seen the devil.
Quite an awful expression I assure you!--and it never alters. The
doctors can do nothing--and of course it's very trying for Sibyl, and
everybody."
I assented sympathetically; and realising that a house holding such a
figure of living death within it must of necessity be more or less
gloomy and depressing to a young and vigorous nature, I lost no
opportunity of giving Lady Sibyl whatever slight pleasures were in my
power to procure, for her distraction and entertainment. Costly flowers,
boxes for the opera and 'first nights' at the play,--every sort of
attention that a man can pay to a woman without being considered
officious or intrusive I offered, and was not repulsed. Everything
progressed well and favourably towards the easy attainment of my
wishes,--I had no difficulties, no troubles of any kind,--and I
voluntarily led a life of selfishly absorbed personal gratification,
being commended and encouraged therein by a whole host of flatterers and
interested acquaintances. Willowsmere Court was mine, and every
newspaper in the kingdom had commented on the purchase, in either
servile or spiteful paragraphs. My lawyers had warmly congratulated me
on the possession of so admirable a property which they, in strict
accordance with what they conceived to be their duty, had personally
inspected and approved. The place was now in the hands of a firm of
decorators and furnishers, recommended by Rimânez, and it was expected
to be in perfect order for my habitation in early summer, at which time
I purposed entertaining a large house-party of more or less
distinguished people.
Meantime, what I had once considered would be the great event of my
life, took place,--namely the publication of my book. Trumpeted forth by
the most heraldic advertisements, it was at last launched on the
uncertain and fluctuating tide of public favour, and special 'advance'
copies were sent to the office of every magazine and journal in London.
The day after this was done, Lucio, as I now familiarly called him, came
in to my room with a mysterious and mischievous air.
"Geoffrey," he said--"I'm going to lend you five hundred pounds!"
I looked up with a smile.
"What for?"
He held out a cheque towards me. Glancing at it I saw that the sum he
mentioned was filled in and endorsed with his signature, but that the
name of the person to whom the money was to be made payable, had not yet
been written.
"Well? What does it mean?"
"It means"--replied he--"that I am going to see Mr McWhing this morning.
I have an appointment with him at twelve. You, as Geoffrey Tempest, the
author of the book Mr McWhing is going to criticise and make a 'boom'
of, could not possibly put your name to such a cheque. It would not be
'good form'--it might crop up afterwards and so betray 'the secrets of
the prison-house.' But for me it is another affair. I am going to 'pose'
as your businessman--your 'literary agent' who pockets ten per cent. of
the profits and wants to make a 'big thing' out of you, and I'm going to
talk the matter over with the perfectly practical McWhing who has, like
every true Scot, a keen eye for the main chance. Of course it will be in
confidence,--strict confidence!" and he laughed--"It's all a question of
business you know,--in these commercial days, literature has become a
trade like everything else, and even critics only work for what pays
them. As indeed why should they not?"
"Do you mean to tell me McWhing will take that five hundred?" I asked
dubiously.
"I mean to tell you nothing of the kind. I would not put the matter so
coarsely for the world! This money is not for McWhing,--it is for a
literary charity."
"Indeed! I thought you had an idea perhaps of offering a bribe...."
"Bribe! Good Heavens! Bribe a critic! Impossible, my good
Geoffrey!--such a thing was never heard of--never, never, never!" and he
shook his head and rolled up his eyes with infinite solemnity--"No no!
Press people never take money for anything--not even for 'booming' a new
gold-mining company,--not even for putting a notice of a fashionable
concert into the Morning Post. Everything in the English press is the
just expression of pure and lofty sentiment, believe me! This little
cheque is for a charity of which Mr McWhing is chief patron,--you see
the Civil List pensions all go by favour to the wrong persons nowadays;
to the keeping of lunatic versifiers and retired actresses who never
could act--the actual bona-fide 'genius' never gets anything out of
Government, and moreover would scorn to take a farthing from that
penurious body, which grudges him anything higher than a
money-recognition. It is as great an insult to offer a beggarly pension
of fifty or a hundred pounds a year to a really great writer as to give
him a knighthood,--and we cannot fall much lower than to be a knight, as
knights go. The present five hundred pounds will help to relieve certain
'poor and proud' but pressing literary cases known to McWhing alone!"
His expression at this moment was so extraordinary, that I entirely
failed to fathom it. "I have no doubt I shall be able to represent the
benevolent and respectable literary agent to perfection--of course I
shall insist on my ten per cent.!"--and he began laughing again. "But I
can't stop to discuss the matter now with you--I'm off. I promised
McWhing to be with him at twelve o'clock precisely, and it's now
half-past-eleven. I shall probably lunch with him, so don't wait for me.
And concerning the five hundred, you needn't be in my debt an hour
longer than you like--I'll take a cheque for the money back from you
this evening."
"All right"--I said--"But perhaps the great oracle of the cliques will
reject your proposals with scorn."
"If he does, then is Utopia realized!"--replied Lucio, carefully drawing
on his gloves as he spoke--"Where's a copy of your book? Ah--here's
one--smelling newly of the press," and he slipped the volume into his
overcoat pocket; "Allow me, before departure, to express the opinion
that you are a singularly ungrateful fellow, Geoffrey! Here am I,
perfectly devoted to your interests,--and despite my princedom actually
prepared to 'pose' to McWhing as your 'acting manager' _pro tem_, and
you haven't so much as a thank-you to throw at me!"
He stood before me smiling, the personification of kindness and good
humour. I laughed a little.
"McWhing will never take _you_ for an acting manager or literary
agent,"--I said--"You don't look it. If I seem churlish I'm sorry--but
the fact is I am disgusted ..."
"At what?" he inquired, still smiling.
"Oh, at the humbug of everything,"--I answered impatiently; "The stupid
farce of it all. Why shouldn't a book get noticed on its own merits
without any appeal to cliquism and influential wire-pulling on the
press?"
"Exactly!" and he delicately flicked a grain of dust off his coat while
speaking--"And why shouldn't a man get received in society on his own
merits, without any money to recommend him or any influential friend to
back him up?"
I was silent.
"The world is as it is made,"--he went on, regarding me fixedly--"It is
moved by the lowest and pettiest motives,--it works for the most
trivial, ridiculous and perishable aims. It is not a paradise. It is not
a happy family of united and affectionate brethren. It is an
over-populated colony of jabbering and quarrelsome monkeys, who fancy
they are men. Philosophers in old days tried to teach it that the
monkey-type should be exterminated for the growth and encouragement of a
nobler race,--but they preached in vain--there never were enough real
men alive to overcome the swarming majority of the beasts. God Himself,
they say, came down from Heaven to try and set wrong things right, and
to restore if possible His own defaced image to the general aspect of
humanity,--and even He failed."
"There is very little of God in this world"--I said bitterly; "There is
much more Devil!"
He smiled,--a musing, dreamy smile that transfigured his countenance and
made him look like a fine Apollo absorbed in the thought of some new and
glorious song.
"No doubt!" he said, after a little pause--"Mankind certainly prefer the
devil to any other deity,--therefore if they elect him as their
representative, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he governs where
he is asked to govern. And yet--do you know Geoffrey--this devil,--if
there is one,--can hardly, I think, be quite so bad as his detractors
say. I myself don't believe he is a whit worse than a nineteenth-century
financier!"
I laughed aloud at the comparison.
"After that," I said--"you had better go to McWhing. I hope you will
tell him that I am the triple essence of all the newest 'discoveries'
rolled into one!"
"Never fear!" returned Lucio,--"I've learned all my stock-phrases by
heart--a 'star of the first magnitude' etc.,--I've read the _Athenæum_
till I've got the lingo of the literary auctioneer well-nigh perfect,
and I believe I shall acquit myself admirably. Au revoir!"
He was gone; and I, after a little desultory looking over my papers,
went out to lunch at Arthur's, of which club I was now a member. On my
way I stopped to look in at a bookseller's window to see if my
'immortal' production was yet on show. It was not,--and the volume put
most conspicuously to the front among all the 'newest books' was one
entitled 'Differences. By Mavis Clare.' Acting on a sudden impulse I
went in to purchase it.
"Has this a good sale?" I asked, as the volume was handed to me.
The clerk at the counter opened his eyes wide.
"Sale?" he echoed--"Well, I should think so--rather! Why everybody's
reading it!"
"Indeed!" and I turned over the uncut pages carelessly--"I see no
allusion whatever to it in the papers."
The clerk smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"No--and you're not likely to, sir"--he said--"Miss Clare is too popular
to need reviews. Besides, a large number of the critics,--the
'log-rollers' especially, are mad against her for her success, and the
public know it. Only the other day a man came in here from one of the
big newspaper offices and told me he was taking a few notes on the books
which had the largest sales,--would I tell him which author's works were
most in demand? I said Miss Clare took the lead,--as she does,--and he
got into a regular rage. Said he--'That's the answer I've had all along
the line, and however true it is, it's no use to me because I dare not
mention it. My editor would instantly scratch it out--he hates Miss
Clare.' 'A precious editor you've got!' I said, and he looked rather
queer. There's nothing like journalism, sir, for the suppression of
truth!"
I smiled, and went away with my purchase, convinced that I had wasted a
few shillings on a mere piece of woman's trash. If this Mavis Clare was
indeed so 'popular,' then her work must naturally be of the 'penny
dreadful' order, for I, like many another literary man, laboured under
the ludicrous inconsistency of considering the public an 'ass' while I
myself desired nothing so much as the said 'ass's' applause and
approval!--and therefore I could not imagine it capable of voluntarily
selecting for itself any good work of literature without guidance from
the critics. Of course I was wrong; the great masses of the public in
all nations are always led by some instinctive sense of right, that
moves them to reject the false and unworthy, and select the true.
Completely prepared, like most men of my type to sneer and cavil at the
book, chiefly because it was written by a feminine hand, I sat down in a
retired corner of the club reading-room, and began to cut and skim the
pages. I had not read many sentences before my heart sank with a heavy
sense of fear and,--jealousy!--the slow fire of an insidious envy began
to smoulder in my mind. What power had so gifted this author--this mere
_woman_,--that she should dare to write better than I! And that she
should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit
with wrath and shame, my own inferiority! Clearness of thought,
brilliancy of style, beauty of diction, all these were hers, united to
consummate ease of expression and artistic skill,--and all at once, in
the very midst of reading, such a violent impulse of insensate rage
possessed me that I flung the book down, dreading to go on with it. The
potent, resistless, unpurchaseable quality of Genius!--ah, I was not yet
so blinded by my own conceit as to be unable to recognize that divine
fire when I saw it flashing up from every page as I saw it now; but, to
be compelled to give that recognition to a woman's work, galled and
irritated me almost beyond endurance. Women, I considered, should be
kept in their places as men's drudges or toys--as wives, mothers,
nurses, cooks, menders of socks and shirts, and housekeepers
generally,--what right had they to intrude into the realms of art and
snatch the laurels from their masters' brows! If I could but get the
chance of reviewing this book, I thought to myself savagely!--I would
misquote, misrepresent, and cut it to shreds with a joy too great for
words! This Mavis Clare, 'unsexed,' as I at once called her in my own
mind simply because she had the power I lacked,--wrote what she had to
say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousness of
strength,--a strength which forced me back upon myself and filled me
with the bitterest humiliation. Without knowing her I hated her,--this
woman who could win fame without the aid of money, and who was crowned
so brightly and visibly to the world that she was beyond criticism. I
took up her book again and tried to cavil at it,--over one or two dainty
bits of poetic simile and sentiment I laughed,--enviously. When I left
the club later in the day, I took the book with me, divided between a
curious desire to read it honestly through with justice to it and its
author, and an impulse to tear it asunder and fling it into the road to
be crushed in the mud under rolling cab and cart wheels. In this strange
humour Rimânez found me, when at about four o'clock he returned from his
mission to David McWhing, smiling and--triumphant.
"Congratulate me Geoffrey!" he exclaimed as he entered my
room--"Congratulate me, and yourself! I am _minus_ the five hundred
pound cheque I showed you this morning!"
"McWhing has pocketed it then,"--I said sullenly--"All right! Much good
may it do him, and his 'charity'!"
Rimânez gave me a quick observant glance.
"Why, what has happened to you since we parted?" he inquired, throwing
off his overcoat and sitting down opposite to me--"You seem out of
temper! Yet you ought to be a perfectly happy man--for your highest
ambition is about to be gratified. You said you wished to make your book
and yourself 'the talk of London,'--well, within the next two or three
weeks you will see yourself praised in a very large number of
influential newspapers as the newest discovered 'genius' of the day,
only a little way removed from Shakespeare himself (three of the big
leading magazines are guaranteed to say that) and all this through the
affability of Mr McWhing, and the trifling sum of five hundred pounds!
And are you not satisfied? Really, my friend, you are becoming
difficult!--I warned you that too much good fortune spoils a man."
With a sudden movement I flung down Mavis Clare's book before him.
"Look at this"--I said--"Does _she_ pay five hundred pounds to David
McWhing's charity?"
He took up the volume and glanced at it.
"Certainly not. But then,--she gets slandered--not criticized!"
"What does that matter!" I retorted--"The man from whom I bought this
book says that everybody is reading it."
"Exactly!" and Rimânez surveyed me with a curious expression, half of
pity, half of amusement--"But you know the old axiom, my dear
Geoffrey?--'you may lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him
drink.' Which statement, interpreted for the present occasion, means
that though certain log-rollers, headed by our estimable friend McWhing,
may drag the horse--i.e. the public, up to their own particularly
prepared literary trough, they cannot force it to swallow the mixture.
The horse frequently turns tail and runs away in search of its own
provender,--it has done so in the case of Miss Clare. When the public
choose an author for themselves, it is a dreadful thing of course for
other authors,--but it really can't be helped!"
"Why should they choose Mavis Clare?" I demanded gloomily.
"Ah, why indeed!" he echoed smiling--"McWhing would tell you they do it
out of sheer idiotcy;--the public would answer that they choose her
because she has genius."
"Genius!" I repeated scornfully--"The public are perfectly incapable of
recognizing such a quality!"
"You think so?" he said still smiling--"you really think so? In that
case it's very odd isn't it, how everything that is truly great in art
and literature becomes so widely known and honoured, not only in this
country but in every civilized land where people think or study? You
must remember that all the very famous men and women have been steadily
'written down' in their day, even to the late English Laureate,
Tennyson, who was 'criticized' for the most part in the purest
Billingsgate,--it is only the mediocrities who are ever 'written up.' It
seems as if the stupid public really had a hand in selecting these
'great,' for the reviewers would never stand them at any price, till
driven to acknowledge them by the popular _force majeure_. But
considering the barbarous want of culture and utter foolishness of the
public, Geoffrey, what _I_ wonder at, is that you should care to appeal
to it at all!"
I sat silent,--inwardly chafing under his remarks.
"I am afraid--" he resumed, rising and taking a white flower from one of
the vases on the table to pin in his button-hole--"that Miss Clare is
going to be a thorn in your side, my friend! A man rival in literature
is bad enough,--but a woman rival is too much to endure with any amount
of patience! However you may console yourself with the certainty that
_she_ will never get 'boomed,'--while you--thanks to my tender fostering
of the sensitive and high-principled McWhing, will be the one delightful
and unique 'discovery' of the press for at least one month, perhaps two,
which is about as long as any 'new star of the first magnitude' lasts in
the latter-day literary skies. Shooting-stars all of them!--such as poor
old forgotten Béranger sang of--
"les etoiles qui filent,
'Qui filent,--qui filent--et disparaissent!'"
"Except--Mavis Clare!" I said.
"True! Except Mavis Clare!" and he laughed aloud,--a laugh that jarred
upon me because there was a note of mockery in it--"She is a small
fixture in the vast heavens,--or so it seems--revolving very contentedly
and smoothly in her own appointed orbit,--but she is not and never will
be attended by the brilliant meteor-flames that will burst round _you_,
my excellent fellow, at the signal of McWhing! Fie Geoffrey!--get over
your sulks! Jealous of a woman! Be ashamed,--is not woman the inferior
creature?, and shall the mere spectre of a feminine fame cause a
five-fold millionaire to abase his lofty spirit in the dust? Conquer
your strange fit of the spleen, Geoffrey, and join me at dinner!"
He laughed again as he left the room,--and again his laughter irritated
me. When he had gone, I gave way to the base and unworthy impulse that
had for some minutes been rankling within me, and sitting down at my
writing table, penned a hasty note to the editor of a rather powerful
magazine, a man whom I had formerly known and worked for. He was aware
of my altered fortunes and the influential position I now occupied, and
I felt confident he would be glad to oblige me in any matter if he
could. My letter, marked '_private and confidential_' contained the
request that I might be permitted to write for his next number, an
anonymous 'slashing' review of the new novel entitled 'Differences' by
Mavis Clare.
XVI
It is almost impossible for me to describe the feverish, irritated and
contradictory state of mind in which I now began to pass my days. With
the absolute fixity of my fortunes, my humours became more changeful
than the wind, and I was never absolutely contented for two hours
together. I joined in every sort of dissipation common to men of the
day, who with the usual inanity of noodles, plunged into the filth of
life merely because to be morally dirty was also at the moment
fashionable and much applauded by society. I gambled recklessly, solely
for the reason that gambling was considered by many leaders of the
'upper ten' as indicative of 'manliness' and 'showing _grit_.'
"I hate a fellow who grudges losing a few pounds at play,"--said one of
these 'distinguished' titled asses to me once--"It shows such a cowardly
and currish disposition."
Guided by this 'new' morality, and wishing to avoid the possibility of
being called "cowardly and currish," I indulged in baccarat and other
ruinous games almost every night, willingly losing the 'few pounds'
which in my case meant a few hundreds, for the sake of my occasional
winnings, which placed a number of 'noble' rakes and blue-blooded
blacklegs in my power for 'debts of honour,' which are supposed to be
more strictly attended to and more punctually paid than any debts in the
world, but which, as far as I am concerned, are still owing. I also
betted heavily, on everything that could be made the subject of a
bet,--and not to be behind my peers in 'style' and 'knowledge of the
world' I frequented low houses and allowed a few half-nude brandy-soaked
dancers and vulgar music-hall 'artistes' to get a couple of thousand
pounds worth of jewels out of me, because this sort of thing was called
'seeing life' and was deemed part of a 'gentleman's' diversion.
Heavens!--what beasts we all were, I and my aristocratic boon
companions!--what utterly worthless, useless, callous scoundrels!--and
yet,--we associated with the best and the highest in the land;--the
fairest and noblest ladies in London received us in their houses with
smiles and softly-worded flatteries--we--whose presence reeked with
vice; we, 'young men of fashion' whom, if he had known our lives as they
were, an honest cobbler working patiently for daily bread, might have
spat upon, in contempt and indignation that such low rascals should be
permitted to burden the earth! Sometimes, but very seldom, Rimânez
joined our gambling and music-hall parties, and on such occasions I
noticed that he, as it were, 'let himself go' and became the wildest of
us all. But though wild he was never coarse,--as _we_ were; his deep and
mellow laughter had a sonorous richness in it that was totally unlike
the donkey's 'hee-haw' of our 'cultured' mirth,--his manners were never
vulgar; and his fluent discourse on men and things, now witty and
satirical, now serious almost to pathos, strangely affected many of
those who heard him talk, myself most of all. Once, I remember, when we
were returning late from some foolish carouse,--I with three young sons
of English peers, and Rimânez walking beside us,--we came upon a poorly
clad girl sobbing and clinging to the iron railing outside a closed
church door.
"Oh God!" she wailed--"Oh dear God! Do help me!"
One of my companions seized her by the arm with a lewd jest, when all at
once Rimânez stepped between.
"Leave her alone!" he said sternly--"Let her find God if she can!"
The girl looked up at him terrified, her eyes streaming with tears, and
he dropped two or three gold pieces into her hand. She broke out crying
afresh.
"Oh God bless you!" she cried wildly--"God bless you!"
He raised his hat and stood uncovered in the moonlight, his dark beauty
softened by a strangely wistful expression.
"I thank you!" he said simply--"You make me your debtor."
And he passed on; we followed, somewhat subdued and silenced, though one
of my lordling friends sniggered idiotically.
"You paid dearly for that blessing, Rimânez!" he said--"You gave her
three sovereigns;--by Jove! I'd have had something more than a blessing
if I had been you."
"No doubt!" returned Rimânez--"You deserve more,--much more! I hope you
will get it! A blessing would be of no advantage whatever to _you_;--it
is, to _me_."
How often I have thought of this incident since! I was too dense to
attach either meaning or importance to it then,--self-absorbed as I was,
I paid no attention to circumstances which seemed to have no connection
with my own life and affairs. And in all my dissipations and so-called
amusements, a perpetual restlessness consumed me,--I obtained no real
satisfaction out of anything except my slow and somewhat tantalizing
courtship of Lady Sibyl. She was a strange girl; she knew my intentions
towards her well enough; yet she affected not to know. Each time I
ventured to treat her with more than the usual deference, and to infuse
something of the ardour of a lover into my looks or manner, she feigned
surprise. I wonder why it is that some women are so fond of playing the
hypocrite in love? Their own instinct teaches them when men are amorous;
but unless they can run the fox to earth, or in other words, reduce
their suitors to the lowest pitch of grovelling appeal, and force them
to such abasement that the poor passion-driven fools are ready to fling
away life, and even honour, dearer than life, for their sakes, their
vanity is not sufficiently gratified. But who, or what am I that I
should judge of vanity,--I whose egregious and flagrant self-approbation
was of such a character that it blinded me to the perception and
comprehension of everything in which my own Ego was not represented! And
yet,--with all the morbid interest I took in myself, my surroundings, my
comfort, my social advancement, there was one thing which soon became a
torture to me,--a veritable despair and loathing,--and this, strange to
say, was the very triumph I had most looked forward to as the crown and
summit of all my ambitious dreams. My book,--the book I had presumed to
consider a work of genius,--when it was launched on the tide of
publicity and criticism, resolved itself into a sort of literary monster
that haunted my days and nights with its hateful presence; the thick,
black-lettered, lying advertisements scattered broadcast by my
publisher, flared at me with an offensive insistence in every paper I
casually opened. And the praise of the reviewers! ... the exaggerated,
preposterous, fraudulent 'boom'! Good God!--how sickening it was!--how
fulsome! Every epithet of flattery bestowed upon me filled me with
disgust, and one day when I took up a leading magazine and saw a long
article upon the 'extraordinary brilliancy and promise' of my book,
comparing me to a new Æschylus and Shakespeare combined, with the
signature of David McWhing appended to it, I could have thrashed that
erudite and assuredly purchased Scot within an inch of his life. The
chorus of eulogy was well-nigh universal; I was the 'genius of the
day'--the 'hope of the future generation,'--I was the "Book of the
Month,"--the greatest, the wittiest, most versatile, most brilliant
scribbling pigmy that had ever honoured a pot of ink by using it! Of
course I figured as McWhing's 'discovery,'--five hundred pounds bestowed
on his mysterious 'charity' had so sharpened his eyesight that he had
perceived me shining brightly on the literary horizon before anyone else
had done so. The press followed his 'lead' obediently,--for though the
press,--the English press at least,--is distinctly unbribable, the
owners of newspapers are not insensible to the advantages of largely
paying advertisements. Moreover, when Mr McWhing announced me as his
'find' in the oracular style which distinguished him, some other
literary gentlemen came forward and wrote effective articles about me,
and sent me their compositions carefully marked. I took the hint,--wrote
at once to thank them, and invited them to dinner. They came, and
feasted royally with Rimânez and myself;--(one of them wrote an 'Ode' to
me afterwards),--and at the conclusion of the revels, we sent two of the
'oracles' home, considerably overcome by champagne, in a carriage with
Amiel to look after them, and help them out at their own doors. And my
'boom' expanded,--London 'talked' as I had said it should; the growling
monster metropolis discussed me and my work in its own independent and
peculiar fashion. The 'upper ten' subscribed to the circulating
libraries, and these admirable institutions made a two or three hundred
copies do for all demands, by the simple expedient of keeping
subscribers waiting five or six weeks till they grew tired of asking for
the book, and forgot all about it. Apart from the libraries, the public
did not take me up. From the glowing criticisms that appeared in all the
papers, it might have been supposed that 'everybody who was anybody' was
reading my 'wonderful' production. Such however was not the case. People
spoke of me as 'the great millionaire,' but they were indifferent to the
bid I had made for literary fame. The remark they usually made to me
wherever I went was--"You have written a novel, haven't you? What an odd
thing for _you_ to do!"--this, with a laugh;--"I haven't read it,--I've
so little time--I must ask for it at the library." Of course a great
many never did ask, not deeming it worth their while; and I whose money,
combined with the resistless influence of Rimânez, had started the
favourable criticisms that flooded the press, found out that the
majority of the public never read criticisms at all. Hence, my anonymous
review of Mavis Clare's book made no effect whatever on _her_
popularity, though it appeared in the most prominent manner. It was a
sheer waste of labour,--for everywhere this woman author was still
looked upon as a creature of altogether finer clay than ordinary, and
still her book was eagerly devoured and questioned and admired; and
still it sold by thousands, despite a lack of all favourable criticism
or prominent advertisement. No one guessed that I had written what I am
now perfectly willing to admit was a brutally wanton misrepresentation
of her work,--no one, except Rimânez. The magazine in which it appeared
was a notable one, circulating in every club and library, and he, taking
it up casually one afternoon, turned to that article at once.
"You wrote this!" he said, fixing his eyes upon me,--"It must have been
a great relief to your mind!"
I said nothing.
He read on in silence for a little; then laying down the magazine looked
at me with a curiously scrutinizing expression.
"There are some human beings so constituted," he said, "that if they had
been with Noah in the ark according to the silly old legend, they would
have shot the dove bearing the olive-leaf, directly it came in sight
over the waste of waters. You are of that type Geoffrey."
"I do not see the force of your comparison," I murmured.
"Do you not? Why, what harm has this Mavis Clare done to you? Your
positions are entirely opposed. You are a millionaire; she is a
hard-working woman dependent on her literary success for a livelihood,
and you, rolling in wealth do your best to deprive her of the means of
existence. Does this redound to your credit? She has won her fame by her
own brain and energy alone,--and even if you dislike her book need you
abuse her personally as you have done in this article? You do not know
her; you have never seen her, ..."
"I hate women who write!" I said vehemently.
"Why? Because they are able to exist independently? Would you have them
all the slaves of man's lust or convenience? My dear Geoffrey, you are
unreasonable. If you admit that you are jealous of this woman's
celebrity and grudge it to her, then I can understand your spite, for
jealousy is capable of murdering a fellow-creature with either the
dagger or the pen."
I was silent.
"Is the book such wretched stuff as you make it out to be?" he asked
presently.
"I suppose some people might admire it,"--I said curtly, "I do not."
This was a lie; and of course he knew it was a lie. The work of Mavis
Clare had excited my most passionate envy,--while the very fact that
Sibyl Elton had read her book before she had thought of looking at mine,
had accentuated the bitterness of my feelings.
"Well," said Rimânez at last, smiling as he finished reading my
onslaught--"all I can say Geoffrey, is that this will not touch Mavis
Clare in the least. You have overshot the mark, my friend! Her public
will simply cry "what a shame!" and clamour for her work more than ever.
And as for the woman herself,--she has a merry heart, and she will laugh
at it. You must see her some day."
"I don't want to see her," I said.
"Probably not. But you will scarcely be able to avoid doing so when you
live at Willowsmere Court."
"One is not obliged to know everybody in the neighbourhood,"--I observed
superciliously.
Lucio laughed aloud.
"How well you carry your fortunes, Geoffrey!" he said--"For a poor devil
of a Grub-street hack who lately was at a loss for a sovereign, how
perfectly you follow the fashions of your time! If there is one man more
than another that moves me to wondering admiration it is he who asserts
his wealth strenuously in the face of his fellows, and who comports
himself in this world as though he could bribe death and purchase the
good-will of the Creator. It is such splendid effrontery,--such
superlative pride! Now I, though over-wealthy myself, am so curiously
constituted that I cannot wear my bank-notes in my countenance as it
were,--I have put in a claim for intellect as well as gold,--and
sometimes, do you know, in my travels round the world, I have been so
far honoured as to be taken for quite a poor man! Now _you_ will never
have that chance again;--you are rich and you look it!"
"And you,--" I interrupted him suddenly, and with some warmth--"do you
know what _you_ look? You imply that I assert my wealth in my face; do
you know what _you_ assert in your every glance and gesture?"
"I cannot imagine!" he said smiling.
"Contempt for us all!" I said--"Immeasurable contempt,--even for me,
whom you call friend. I tell you the truth, Lucio,--there are times,
when in spite of our intimacy I feel that you despise me. I daresay you
do; you have an extraordinary personality united to extraordinary
talents; you must not however expect all men to be as self-restrained
and as indifferent to human passions as yourself."
He gave me a swift, searching glance.
"Expect!" he echoed--"My good fellow, I expect nothing at all,--from
men. They, on the contrary,--at least all those _I_ know--expect
everything from me. And they get it,--generally. As for 'despising' you,
have I not said that I admire you? I do. I think there is something
positively stupendous in the brilliant progress of your fame and rapid
social success."
"My fame!" I repeated bitterly--"How has it been obtained? What is it
worth?"
"That is not the question;" he retorted with a little smile; "How
unpleasant it must be for you to have these gouty twinges of conscience
Geoffrey! Of course no fame is actually worth much now-a-days,--because
it is not classic fame, strong in reposeful old-world dignity,--it is
blatant noisy notoriety merely. But yours, such as it is, is perfectly
legitimate, judged by its common-sense commercial aspect, which is the
only aspect in which anyone looks at anything. You must bear in mind
that no one works out of disinterestedness in the present age,--no
matter how purely benevolent an action may appear on the surface, Self
lies at the bottom of it. Once grasp this fact, and you will perceive
that nothing could be fairer or more straightforward than the way you
have obtained your fame. You have not 'bought' the incorruptible British
Press; you could not do that; that is impossible, for it is immaculate,
and bristles stiffly all over with honourable principles. There is no
English paper existing that would accept a cheque for the insertion of a
notice or a paragraph; not one!" His eyes twinkled merrily,--then he
went on--"No,--it is only the Foreign Press that is corrupt, so the
British Press says;--John Bull looks on virtuously aghast at journalists
who, in dire stress of poverty, will actually earn a little extra pay
for writing something or somebody 'up' or 'down.' Thank Heaven, _he_
employs no such journalists; his pressmen are the very soul of
rectitude, and will stoically subsist on a pound a week rather than take
ten for a casual job 'to oblige a friend.' Do you know Geoffrey, when
the Judgment Day arrives, who will be among the first saints to ascend
to Heaven with the sounding of trumpets?"
I shook my head, half vexed, half amused.
"All the English (not foreign) editors and journalists!" said Lucio with
an air of pious rapture--"and why? Because they are so good, so just, so
unprejudiced! Their foreign brethren will be reserved for the eternal
dance of devils of course--but the Britishers will pace the golden
streets singing Alleluia! I assure you I consider British journalists
generally the noblest examples of incorruptibility in the world--they
come next to the clergy as representatives of virtue, and exponents of
the three evangelical counsels,--voluntary poverty, chastity, and
obedience!" Such mockery glittered in his eyes, that the light in them
might have been the reflection of clashing steel. "Be consoled,
Geoffrey," he resumed--"your fame is honourably won. You have simply,
through me, approached one critic who writes in about twenty newspapers
and influences others to write in other twenty,--that critic being a
noble creature, (all critics are noble creatures) has a pet 'society'
for the relief of authors in need (a noble scheme you will own) and to
this charity I subscribe out of pure benevolence, five hundred pounds.
Moved by my generosity and consideration, (particularly as I do not ask
what becomes of the five hundred) McWhing 'obliges' me in a little
matter. The editors of the papers for which he writes accept him as a
wise and witty personage; _they_ know nothing about the charity or the
cheque,--it is not necessary for them to know. The whole thing is really
quite a reasonable business arrangement;--it is only a self-tormenting
analyst like you who would stop to think of such a trifle a second
time."
"If McWhing really and conscientiously admired my book for itself;" I
began.
"Why should you imagine he does not?" asked Lucio--"Myself, I believe
that he is a perfectly sincere and honorable man. I think he means all
he says and writes. I consider that if he had found your work not worthy
of his commendation, he would have sent me back that cheque for five
hundred pounds, torn across in a noble scorn!"
And with this, throwing himself back in his chair, he laughed till the
tears came into his eyes.
But I could not laugh; I was too weary and depressed. A heavy sense of
despair was on my mind; I felt that the hope which had cheered me in my
days of poverty,--the hope of winning real Fame, so widely different a
thing to notoriety, had vanished. There was some quality in the subtle
glory which could not be won by either purchase or influence. The praise
of the press could not give it. Mavis Clare, working for her bread, had
it,--I, with millions of money, had not. Like a fool I had thought to
buy it; I had yet to learn that all the best, greatest, purest and
worthiest things in life are beyond all market-value and that the gifts
of the gods are not for sale.
About a fortnight after the publication of my book, we went to Court, my
comrade and I, and were presented by a distinguished officer connected
with the immediate and intimate surroundings of the Royal household. It
was a brilliant scene enough,--but, without doubt, the most brilliant
personage there was Rimânez. I was fairly startled at the stately and
fascinating figure he made in his court suit of black velvet and steel
ornaments; accustomed as I was to his good looks, I had never seen them
so enhanced by dress as on this occasion. I had been tolerably well
satisfied with my own appearance in the regulation costume till I saw
him; then my personal vanity suffered a decided shock, and I realized
that I merely served as a foil to show off and accentuate the superior
attractions of my friend. But I was not envious of him in any way,--on
the contrary I openly expressed the admiration I frankly felt.
He seemed amused. "My dear boy, it is all flunkeydom;" he said--"All
sham and humbug. Look at this--" and he drew his light court rapier from
its sheath--"There is no real use in this flimsy blade,--it is merely an
emblem of dead chivalry. In old times, if a man insulted you, or
insulted a woman you admired, out flashed a shining point of tempered
Toledo steel that could lunge--so!" and he threw himself into a fencing
attitude of incomparable grace and ease--"and you pricked the blackguard
neatly through the ribs or arm and gave him cause to remember you. But
now--" and he thrust the rapier back in its place--"men carry toys like
these as a melancholy sign to show what bold fellows they were once, and
what spiritless cravens they are now,--relying no more on themselves for
protection, but content to go about yelling 'Police! Police!' at the
least threat of injury to their worthless persons. Come, it's time we
started, Geoffrey!--let us go and bow our heads before another human
unit formed precisely like ourselves, and so act in defiance of Death
and the Deity, who declare all men to be equal!"
We entered our carriage and were soon on our way to St James's Palace.
"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is not exactly the Creator of
the universe;"--said Lucio suddenly, looking out of the window as we
approached the line of soldiery on guard outside.
"Why no!" I answered laughing--"What do you say that for?"
"Because there is as much fuss about him as if he were,--in fact, more.
The Creator does not get half as much attention bestowed upon Him as
Albert Edward. We never attire ourselves in any special way for entering
the presence of God; we don't put so much as a clean mind on."
"But then,"--I said indifferently--"God is _non est_,--and Albert Edward
is _est_."
He smiled,--and his eyes had a scornful gleam in their dark centres.
"That is your opinion?" he queried--"Well, it is not original,--many
choice spirits share it with you. There is at least one good excuse for
people who make no preparation to enter the presence of God,--in going
to church, which is called the 'house of God,' they do not find God at
all; they only discover the clergyman. It is somewhat of a
disappointment."
I had no time to reply, as just then the carriage stopped, and we
alighted at the palace. Through the intervention of the high Court
official who presented us, we got a good place among the most
distinguished arrivals, and during our brief wait, I was considerably
amused by the study of their faces and attitudes. Some of the men looked
nervous,--others conceited; one or two Radical notabilities comported
themselves with an air as if they and they alone were to be honoured for
allowing Royalty to hold these functions at all; a few gentlemen had
evidently donned their Levée dress in haste and carelessness, for the
pieces of tissue-paper in which their steel or gilt coat-buttons had
been wrapped by the tailor to prevent tarnish, were still unremoved.
Discovering this fortunately before it was too late, they occupied
themselves by taking off these papers and casting them on the floor,--an
untidy process at best, and one that made them look singularly
ridiculous and undignified. Each man present turned to stare at Lucio;
his striking personality attracted universal attention. When we at last
entered the throne-room, and took our places in line, I was careful to
arrange that my brilliant companion should go up before me, as I had a
strong desire to see what sort of an effect his appearance would produce
on the Royal party. I had an excellent view of the Prince of Wales from
where I myself waited; he made an imposing and kingly figure enough, in
full uniform with his various Orders glittering on his broad breast; and
the singular resemblance discovered by many people in him to Henry VIII.
struck me more forcibly than I should have thought possible. His face
however expressed a far greater good-humour than the pictured lineaments
of the capricious but ever popular 'bluff King Hal,'--though on this
occasion there was a certain shade of melancholy, even sternness on his
brow, which gave a firmer character to his naturally mobile features,--a
shadow, as I fancied of weariness, tempered with regret,--the look of
one dissatisfied, yet resigned. A man of blunted possibilities he seemed
to me,--of defeated aims, and thwarted will. Few of the other members of
the Royal family surrounding him on the daïs, possessed the remarkable
attraction he had for any observant student of physiognomy,--most of
them were, or assumed to be, stiff military figures merely who bent
their heads as each guest filed past with an automatic machine-like
regularity implying neither pleasure, interest, nor good-will. But the
Heir-Apparent to the greatest Empire in the world expressed in his very
attitude and looks, an unaffected and courteous welcome to
all,--surrounded as he was, and as such in his position must ever be, by
toadies, parasites, sycophants, hypocritical self-seekers, who would
never run the least risk to their own lives to serve him, unless they
could get something personally satisfactory out of it, his presence
impressed itself upon me as full of the suggestion of dormant but none
the less resolute power. I cannot even now explain the singular
excitation of mind that seized me as our turn to be presented
arrived;--I saw my companion advance, and heard the Lord Chamberlain
announce his name;--'Prince Lucio Rimânez'; and then;--why then,--it
seemed as if all the movement in the brilliant room suddenly came to a
pause! Every eye was fixed on the stately form and noble countenance of
my friend as he bowed with such consummate courtliness and grace as made
all other salutations seem awkward by comparison. For one moment he
stood absolutely still in front of the Royal daïs,--facing the Prince as
though he sought to impress him with the fact of his presence
there,--and across the broad stream of sunshine which had been pouring
into the room throughout the ceremony, there fell the sudden shadow of a
passing cloud. A fleeting impression of gloom and silence chilled the
atmosphere,--a singular magnetism appeared to hold all eyes fixed on
Rimânez; and not a man either going or coming, moved. This intense hush
was brief as it was curious and impressive;--the Prince of Wales started
slightly, and gazed at the superb figure before him with an expression
of eager curiosity and almost as if he were ready to break the frigid
bonds of etiquette and speak,--then controlling himself with an evident
effort he gave his usual dignified acknowledgment of Lucio's profound
reverence, whereupon my comrade passed on,--slightly smiling. I followed
next,--but naturally made no impression beyond the fact of exciting a
smothered whisper from some-one among the lesser Royalties who caught
the name 'Geoffrey Tempest,' and at once murmured the magic words "Five
millions!"--words which reached my ears and moved me to the usual weary
contempt which was with me growing into a chronic malady. We were soon
out of the palace, and while waiting for our carriage in the covered
court-yard entrance, I touched Rimânez on the arm.
"You made a veritable sensation Lucio!"
"Did I?" He laughed. "You flatter me Geoffrey."
"Not at all. Why did you stop so long in front of the daïs?"
"To please my humour!" he returned indifferently--"And partly, to give
his Royal Highness the chance of remembering me the next time he sees
me."
"But he seemed to recognise you,"--I said--"Have you met him before?"
His eyes flashed. "Often! But I have never till now made a public
appearance at St James's. Court costume and 'company manners' make a
difference to the looks of most men,--and I doubt,--yes, I very much
doubt, whether, even with his reputed excellent memory for faces, the
Prince really knew me to-day for what I am!"
XVII
It must have been about a week or ten days after the Prince of Wales's
Levée that I had the strange scene with Sibyl Elton I am about to
relate; a scene that left a painful impression on my mind and should
have been sufficient to warn me of impending trouble to come had I not
been too egotistical to accept any portent that presaged ill to myself.
Arriving at Lord Elton's house one evening, and ascending the stairs to
the drawing-room as was now my usual custom, unannounced and without
ceremony, I found Diana Chesney there alone and in tears.
"Why, what's the matter?" I exclaimed in a rallying tone, for I was on
very friendly and familiar terms with the little American--"You, of all
people in the world, having a private 'weep'! Has our dear railway papa
'bust up'?"
She laughed, a trifle hysterically.
"Not just yet, you bet!" she answered, lifting her wet eyes to mine and
showing that mischief still sparkled brightly in them,--"There's nothing
wrong with the funds as far as I know. I've only had a,----well, a sort
of rumpus here with Sibyl."
"With Sibyl?"
"Yes,"--and she rested the point of her little embroidered shoe on a
footstool and looked at it critically--"You see it's the Catsup's 'At
Home' to-night, and I'm invited and Sibyl's invited; Miss Charlotte is
knocked up with nursing the Countess, and of course I made sure that
Sibyl would go. Well, she never said a word about it till she came down
to dinner, and then she asked me what time I wanted the carriage. I said
'Aren't you going too?' and she looked at me in that provoking way of
hers,--_you_ know!--a look that takes you in from your topmost hair to
your shoe-edge,--and answered 'Did you think it possible!' Well, I
flared up, and said of course I thought it possible,--why shouldn't it
be possible? She looked at me in the same way again and said--'To the
_Catsups_? with _you_!' Now, you know, Mr Tempest, that was real
downright rudeness, and more than I could stand so I just gave way to my
mind. 'Look here,' I said--'though you are the daughter of an Earl, you
needn't turn up your nose at Mrs Catsup. She isn't half bad,--I don't
speak of her money,--but she's a real good sort, and has a kind heart,
which it appears to me is more than you have. Mrs Catsup would never
treat me as unkindly as you do.' And then I choked,--I could have burst
out in a regular yell, if I hadn't thought the footman might be outside
the door listening. And Sibyl only smiled, that patent ice-refrigerator
smile of hers, and asked--'would you prefer to live with Mrs Catsup?' Of
course I told her no,--nothing would induce me to live with Mrs Catsup,
and then she said--'Miss Chesney, you pay my father for the protection
and guarantee of his name and position in English social circles, but
the companionship of my father's daughter was not included in the
bargain. I have tried to make you understand as distinctly as I can that
I will not be seen in society with you,--not because I dislike you,--far
from it,--but simply because people would say I was acting as your paid
companion. You force me to speak plainly, and I am sorry if I offend. As
for Mrs Catsup, I have only met her once, and she seemed to me very
common and ill-bred. Besides I do not care for the society of
tradespeople.' And with that she got up and sailed out,--and I heard her
order the carriage for me at ten. It's coming round directly, and just
look at my red eyes! It's awfully hard on me,--I know old Catsup made
his pile out of varnish, but varnish is as good as anything else in the
general market. And----and----it's all out now, Mr Tempest,--and you can
tell Sibyl what I've said if you like; I know you're in love with her!"
I stared, bewildered by her voluble and almost breathless outburst.
"Really, Miss Chesney," I began formally.
"Oh yes, Miss Chesney, Miss Chesney--it's all very well!" she repeated
impatiently, snatching up a gorgeous evening cloak which I mutely
volunteered to put on, an offer she as mutely accepted--"I'm only a
girl, and it isn't my fault if I've got a vulgar man for a father who
wants to see me married to an English nobleman before he dies,--that's
_his_ look-out--_I_ don't care about it. English noblemen are a ricketty
lot in _my_ opinion. But I've as good a heart as anyone, and I could
love Sibyl if she'd let me, but she _won't_. She leads the life of an
ice-berg, and doesn't care a rap for anyone. She doesn't care for you,
you know!--I wish she did,--she'd be more human!"
"I'm very sorry for all this,"--I said, smiling into the piquante face
of the really sweet-natured girl, and gently fastening the jewelled
clasp of her cloak at her throat--"But you mustn't mind it so much. You
are a dear little soul Diana,--kind and generous and impulsive and all
the rest of it,--but,--well----English people are very apt to
misunderstand Americans. I can quite enter into your feelings,--still
you know Lady Sibyl is very proud----"
"Proud!" she interrupted--"My! I guess it must feel something splendid
to have an ancestor who was piked through the body on Bosworth field,
and left there for the birds to eat. It seems to give a kind of
stiffness in the back to all the family ever afterwards. Shouldn't
wonder if the descendants of the birds who ate him felt kinder stuck up
about it too!"
I laughed,--she laughed with me, and was quite herself again.
"If I told you _my_ ancestor was a Pilgrim Father, you wouldn't believe
me I expect!" she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling.
"I should believe anything from _your_ lips!" I declared gallantly.
"Well, believe that, then! Swallow it down if you can! I can't! He was a
Pilgrim Father in the _Mayflower_, and he fell on his knees and thanked
God as soon as he touched dry land in the true Pilgrim-Father way. But
he couldn't hold a candle to the piked man at Bosworth."
Here we were interrupted by the entrance of a footman.
"The carriage is waiting, Miss."
"Thanks,--all right. Good-night Mr Tempest,--you'd better send word to
Sibyl you are here; Lord Elton is dining out, but Sibyl will be at home
all the evening."
I offered her my arm, and escorted her to the carriage, feeling a little
sorry for her as she drove off in solitary state to the festive 'crush'
of the successful varnisher. She was a good girl, a bright girl, a true
girl,--vulgar and flippant at times, yet on the whole sincere in her
better qualities of character and sentiment,--and it was this very
sincerity which, being quite unconventional and not at all _la mode_,
was misunderstood, and would always be misunderstood by the higher and
therefore more hypocritically polished circles of English society.
I returned to the drawing-room slowly and meditatively, telling one of
the servants on my way to ask Lady Sibyl if she could see me for a few
moments. I was not kept waiting long; I had only paced the room twice up
and down when she entered, looking so strangely wild and beautiful that
I could scarcely forbear uttering an exclamation of wonder. She wore
white as was always her custom in the evenings,--her hair was less
elaborately dressed than usual, and clustered over her brow in loose
wavy masses,--her face was exceedingly pale, and her eyes appeared
larger and darker by comparison--her smile was vague and fleeting like
that of a sleep-walker. She gave me her hand; it was dry and burning.
"My father is out--" she began.
"I know. But I came to see _you_. May I stay a little?"
She murmured assent, and sinking listlessly into a chair, began to play
with some roses in a vase on the table beside her.
"You look tired Lady Sibyl,"--I said gently--"Are you not well?"
"I am quite well--" she answered--"But you are right in saying I am
tired. I am dreadfully tired!"
"You have been doing too much perhaps?--your attendance on your mother
tries you----"
She laughed bitterly.
"Attendance on my mother!--pray do not credit me with so much devotion.
I never attend on my mother. I cannot do it; I am too much of a coward.
Her face terrifies me; and whenever I do venture to go near her, she
tries to speak, with such dreadful, such ghastly efforts, as make her
more hideous to look at than anyone can imagine. I should die of fright
if I saw her often. As it is, when I do see her I can scarcely
stand--and twice I have fainted with the horror of it. To think of
it!--that that living corpse with the fearful fixed eyes and distorted
mouth should actually be _my mother_!"
She shuddered violently, and her very lips paled as she spoke. I was
seriously concerned, and told her so.
"This must be very bad for your health,"--I said, drawing my chair
closer to hers--"Can you not get away for a change?"
She looked at me in silence. The expression of her eyes thrilled me
strangely,--it was not tender or wistful, but fierce, passionate and
commanding.
"I saw Miss Chesney for a few moments just now"--I resumed,--"She seemed
very unhappy."
"She has nothing to be unhappy about--" said Sibyl coldly--"except the
time my mother takes in dying. But she is young; she can afford to wait
a little for the Elton coronet."
"Is not----may not this be a mistaken surmise of yours?" I ventured
gently--"Whatever her faults, I think the girl admires and loves you."
She smiled scornfully.
"I want neither her love nor her admiration,"--she said--"I have few
women-friends and those few are all hypocrites whom I mistrust. When
Diana Chesney is my step-mother, we shall still be strangers."
I felt I was on delicate ground, and that I could not continue the
conversation without the risk of giving offence.
"Where is _your_ friend?" asked Sibyl suddenly, apparently to change the
subject--"Why does he so seldom come here now?"
"Rimânez? Well, he is a very queer fellow, and at times takes an
abhorrence for all society. He frequently meets your father at the club,
and I suppose his reason for not coming here is that he hates women."
"All women?" she queried with a little smile.
"Without exception!"
"Then he hates me?"
"I did not say that--" I answered quickly--"No one could hate you, Lady
Sibyl,--but truly, as far as Prince Rimânez is concerned, I expect he
does not abate his aversion to womankind (which is his chronic malady)
even for you."
"So he will never marry?" she said musingly.
I laughed. "Oh, never! That you may be quite sure of."
Still playing with the roses near her, she relapsed into silence. Her
breath came and went quickly; I saw her long eyelashes quiver against
the pale rose-leaf tint of her cheeks,--the pure outline of her delicate
profile suggested to my mind one of Fra Angelico's meditative saints or
angels. All at once, while I yet watched her admiringly, she suddenly
sprang erect, crushing a rose in her hand,--her head thrown back, her
eyes flashing, her whole frame trembling.
"Oh, I cannot bear it!" she cried wildly--"I cannot bear it!"
I started up astonished, and confronted her.
"Sibyl!"
"Oh, why don't you speak, and fill up the measure of my degradation!"
she went on passionately--"Why don't you tell _me_, as you tell my
father, your purpose in coming here?--why don't you say to _me_, as you
say to him, that your sovereign choice has fastened upon me,--that I am
the woman out of all the world you have elected to marry! Look at me!"
and she raised her arms with a tragic gesture; "Is there any flaw in the
piece of goods you wish to purchase? This face is deemed worthy of the
fashionable photographer's pains; worthy of being sold for a shilling as
one of England's 'beauties,'--this figure has served as a model for the
showing-off of many a modiste's costume, purchased at half-cost on the
understanding that I must state to my circle of acquaintance the name of
the maker or designer,--these eyes, these lips, these arms are all yours
for the buying! Why do you expose me to the shame of dallying over your
bargain?--by hesitating and considering as to whether, after all, I am
worthy of your gold!"
She seemed seized by some hysterical passion that convulsed her, and in
mingled amazement, alarm and distress, I sprang to her and caught her
hands in my own.
"Sibyl, Sibyl!" I said--"Hush--hush! You are overwrought with fatigue
and excitement,--you cannot know what you are saying. My darling, what
do you take me for?--what is all this nonsense in your mind about buying
and selling? You know I love you,--I have made no secret of it,--you
must have seen it in my face,--and if I have hesitated to speak, it is
because I feared your rejection of me. You are too good for me,
Sibyl,--too good for any man,--I am not worthy to win your beauty and
innocence. My love, my love--do not give way in this manner"--for as I
spoke she clung to me like a wild bird suddenly caged--"What can I say
to you, but that I worship you with all the strength of my life,--I love
you so deeply that I am afraid to think of it; it is a passion I dare
not dwell upon, Sibyl,--I love you too well,--too madly for my own
peace----"
I trembled, and was silent,--her soft arms clinging to me robbed me of
a portion of my self-control. I kissed the rippling waves of her hair;
she lifted her head and looked up at me, her eyes alit with some strange
lustre that was not love as much as fear,--and the sight of her beauty
thus yielded as it were to my possession, broke down the barriers of
restraint I had hitherto imposed upon myself. I kissed her on the
lips,--a long passionate kiss that, to my excited fancy, seemed to
mingle our very beings into one,--but while I yet held her in my arms,
she suddenly released herself and pushed me back. Standing apart from me
she trembled so violently that I feared she would fail,--and I took her
hand and made her sit down. She smiled,--a very wan smile.
"What did you feel then?" she asked.
"When, Sibyl?"
"Just now,--when you kissed me?"
"All the joys of heaven and fires of hell in a moment!" I said.
She regarded me with a curious musing frown.
"Strange! Do you know what _I_ felt?"
I shook my head smiling, and pressed my lips on the soft small hand I
held.
"Nothing!" she said, with a kind of hopeless gesture--"I assure you,
absolutely nothing! I cannot feel. I am one of your modern women,--I can
only think,--and analyse."
"Think and analyse as much as you will, my queen,"--I answered
playfully--"if you will only think you can be happy with me. That is all
I desire."
"Can you be happy with _me_?" she asked--"Wait--do not answer for a
moment, till I tell you what I am. You are altogether mistaken in me."
She was silent for some minutes, and I watched her anxiously. "I was
always intended for this"--she said slowly at last,--"this, to which I
have now come,--to be the property of a rich man. Many men have looked
at me with a view to purchase, but they could not pay the price my
father demanded. Pray do not look so distressed!--what I say is quite
true and quite commonplace,--all the women of the upper classes,--the
unmarried ones,--are for sale now in England as utterly as the
Circassian girls in a barbarian slave-market. I see you wish to protest,
and assure me of your devotion,--but there is no need of this,--I am
quite sure you love me,--as much as any man can love,--and I am content.
But you do not know me really,--you are attracted by my face and
form,--and you admire my youth and innocence, which you think I possess.
But I am not young--I am old in heart and feeling. I was young for a
little while at Willowsmere, when I lived among flowers and birds and
all the trustful honest creatures of the woods and fields,--but one
season in town was sufficient to kill my youth in me,--one season of
dinners and balls, and--fashionable novel-reading. Now _you_ have
written a book, and therefore you must know something about the duties
of authorship,--of the serious and even terrible responsibility writers
incur when they send out to the world books full of pernicious and
poisonous suggestion to contaminate the minds that have hitherto been
clean and undiseased. Your book has a noble motive; and for this I
admire it in many parts, though to me it is not as convincing as it
might have been. It is well written too; but I gained the impression
while reading it, that you were not altogether sincere yourself in the
thoughts you strove to inculcate,--and that therefore you just missed
what you should have gained."
"I am sure you are right,"--I said, with a wholesome pang of
humiliation--"The book is worthless as literature,--it is only the
'boom' of a season!"
"At any rate,"--she went on, her eyes darkening with the intensity of
her feeling--"you have not polluted your pen with the vileness common to
many of the authors of the day. I ask you, do you think a girl can read
the books that are now freely published, and that her silly society
friends tell her to read,--'because it is so dreadfully _queer_!'--and
yet remain unspoilt and innocent? Books that go into the details of the
lives of outcasts?--that explain and analyse the secret vices of
men?--that advocate almost as a sacred duty 'free love' and universal
polygamy?--that see no shame in introducing into the circles of good
wives and pure-minded girls, a heroine who boldly seeks out a man, _any_
man, in order that she may have a child by him, without the
'degradation' of marrying him? I have read all those books,--and what
can you expect of me? Not innocence, surely! I despise men,--I despise
my own sex,--I loathe myself for being a woman! You wonder at my
fanaticism for Mavis Clare,--it is only because for a time her books
give me back my self-respect, and make me see humanity in a nobler
light,--because she restores to me, if only for an hour, a kind of
glimmering belief in God, so that my mind feels refreshed and cleansed.
All the same, you must not look upon me as an innocent young girl
Geoffrey,--a girl such as the great poets idealized and sang of,--I am a
contaminated creature, trained to perfection in the lax morals and
prurient literature of my day."
I looked at her in silence, pained, startled, and with a sense of shock,
as though something indefinably pure and precious had crumbled into dust
at my feet. She rose and began pacing the room restlessly, moving to and
fro with a slow yet fierce grace that reminded me against my wish and
will of the movement of some imprisoned and savage beast of prey.
"You shall not be deceived in me,"--she said, pausing a moment and
eyeing me sombrely--"If you marry me, you must do so with a full
realization of the choice you make. For with such wealth as yours, you
can of course wed any woman you fancy. I do not say you could find a
girl better than I am; I do not think you could in _my_ 'set,' because
we are all alike,--all tarred with the same brush, and filled with the
same merely sensual and materialistic views of life and its
responsibilities as the admired heroines of the 'society' novels we
read. Away in the provinces, among the middle classes it is possible you
might discover a really good girl of the purest blush-rose
innocence,--but then you might also find her stupid and unentertaining,
and you would not care for that. My chief recommendation is that I am
beautiful,--you can see that; everybody can see that,--and I am not so
affected as to pretend to be unconscious of the fact. There is no sham
about my external appearance; my hair is not a wig,--my complexion is
natural,--my figure is not the result of the corset-maker's art,--my
eyebrows and eyelashes are undyed. Oh yes,--you can be sure that the
beauty of my body is quite genuine!--but it is not the outward
expression of an equally beautiful soul. And this is what I want you to
understand. I am passionate, resentful, impetuous,--frequently
unsympathetic, and inclined to morbidness and melancholy, and I confess
I have imbibed, consciously or unconsciously, that complete contempt of
life and disbelief in a God, which is the chief theme of nearly all the
social teachings of the time."
She ceased,--and I gazed at her with an odd sense of mingled worship and
disillusion, even as a barbarian might gaze at an idol whom he still
loved, but whom he could no longer believe in as divine. Yet what she
said was in no way contrary to my own theories,--how then could I
complain? I did not believe in a God; why should I inconsistently feel
regret that she shared my unbelief? I had involuntarily clung to the
old-fashioned idea that religious faith was a sacred duty in womanhood;
I was not able to offer any reason for this notion, unless it was the
romantic fancy of having a good woman to pray for one, if one had no
time and less inclination to pray for one's self. However, it was
evident Sibyl was 'advanced' enough to do without superstitious
observances; _she_ would never pray for me;--and if we had children, she
would never teach them to make their first tender appeals to Heaven for
my sake or hers. I smothered a slight sigh, and was about to speak, when
she came up to me and laid her two hands on my shoulders. "You look
unhappy, Geoffrey,"--she said in gentler accents--"Be consoled!--it is
not too late for you to change your mind!"
I met the questioning glance of her eyes,--beautiful, lustrous eyes as
clear and pure as light itself.
"I shall never change, Sibyl," I answered--"I love you,--I shall always
love you. But I wish you would not analyse yourself so pitilessly,--you
have such strange ideas--"
"You think them strange?" she said--"You should not,--in these 'new
women' days! I believe that, thanks to newspapers, magazines and
'decadent' novels, I am in all respects eminently fitted to be a wife!"
and she laughed bitterly--"There is nothing in the rôle of marriage that
I do not know, though I am not yet twenty. I have been prepared for a
long time to be sold to the highest bidder, and what few silly notions I
had about love,--the love of the poets and idealists,--when I was a
dreamy child at Willowsmere, are all dispersed and ended. Ideal love is
dead,--and worse than dead, being out of fashion. Carefully instructed
as I have been in the worthlessness of everything but money, you can
scarcely be surprised at my speaking of myself as an object of sale.
Marriage for me _is_ a sale, as far as my father is concerned,--for you
know well enough that however much you loved me or I loved you, he would
never allow me to marry you if you were not rich, and richer than most
men. I want you to feel that I fully recognize the nature of the bargain
struck; and I ask you not to expect a girl's fresh, confiding love from
a woman as warped in heart and mind as I am!"
"Sibyl,"--I said earnestly--"You wrong yourself; I am sure you wrong
yourself! You are one of those who can be in the world yet not of it;
your mind is too open and pure to be sullied, even by contact with evil
things. I will believe nothing you say against your own sweet and noble
character,--and, Sibyl, let me again ask you not to distress me by this
constant harping on the subject of my wealth, or I shall be inclined to
look upon it as a curse,--I should love you as much if I were poor----"
"Oh, you might love me"--she interrupted me, with a strange smile--"but
you would not dare to say so!"
I was silent. Suddenly she laughed, and linked her arms caressingly
round my neck.
"There, Geoffrey!" she said--"I have finished my discourse,--my bit of
Ibsenism, or whatever other ism affects me,--and we need not be
miserable about it. I have said what was in my mind; I have told you the
truth, that in heart I am neither young nor innocent. But I am no worse
than all my 'set' so perhaps you had better make the best of me. I
please your fancy, do I not?"
"My love for you cannot be so lightly expressed, Sibyl!" I answered in
rather a pained tone.
"Never mind,--it is my humour so to express it"--she went on--"I please
your fancy, and you wish to marry me. Well now, all I ask is, go to my
father and buy me at once! Conclude the bargain! And when you have
bought me,--don't look so tragic!" and she laughed again--"and when you
have paid the clergyman, and paid the bridesmaids (with monogram lockets
or brooches) and paid the guests (with wedding-cake and champagne) and
cleared up all scores with everybody, even to the last man who shuts the
door of the nuptial brougham,--will you take me away,--far away from
this place--this house, where my mother's face haunts me like a ghost in
the darkness; where I am tortured by terrors night and day,--where I
hear such strange sounds, and dream of such ghastly things,--" here her
voice suddenly broke, and she hid her face against my breast--"Oh yes,
Geoffrey, take me away as quickly as possible! Let us never live in
hateful London, but at Willowsmere; I may find some of the old joys
there,--and some of the happy bygone days."
Touched by the appealing pathos of her accents, I pressed her to my
heart, feeling that she was scarcely accountable for the strange things
she said in her evidently overwrought and excitable condition.
"It shall be as you wish, my darling," I said--"The sooner I have you
all to myself the better. This is the end of March,--will you be ready
to marry me in June?"
"Yes," she answered, still hiding her face.
"And now Sibyl," I went on--"remember,--there must be no more talk of
money and bargaining. Tell me what you have not yet told me,--that you
love me,--and would love me even if I were poor."
She looked up, straightly and unflinchingly full into my eyes.
"I cannot tell you that,"--she said,--"I have told you I do not believe
in love; and if you were poor I certainly should not marry you. It would
be no use!"
"You are frank, Sibyl!"
"It is best to be frank, is it not?" and she drew a flower from the knot
at her bosom, and began fastening it in my coat--"Geoffrey what is the
good of pretence? You would hate to be poor, and so should I. I do not
understand the verb 'to love,'--now and then when I read a book by Mavis
Clare, I believe love may exist, but when I close the book my belief is
shut up with it. So do not ask for what is not in me. I am willing--even
glad to marry you; that is all you must expect."
"All!" I exclaimed, with a sudden mingling of love and wrath in my blood,
as I closed my arms about her and kissed her passionately--"All!--you
impassive ice-flower, it is not all!--you shall melt to my touch and
learn what love _is_,--do not think you can escape its influence, you
dear, foolish, beautiful child! Your passions are asleep,--they must
wake!"
"For you?" she queried, resting her head back against my shoulder, and
gazing up at me with a dreamy radiance in her lovely eyes.
"For me!"
She laughed.
"'Oh bid me love, and I will love!'"--she hummed softly under her
breath.
"You will, you must, you shall!" I said ardently. "I will be your master
in the art of loving!"
"It is a difficult art!" she said--"I am afraid it will take a life-time
to complete my training, even with my 'master.'"
And a smile still lingered in her eyes, giving them a witch-like
glamour, when I kissed her again and bade her good-night.
"You will tell Prince Rimânez the news?" she said.
"If you wish it."
"Of course I wish it. Tell him at once. I should like him to know."
I went down the stairs,--she leaned over the balustrade looking after
me.
"Good-night Geoffrey!" she called softly.
"Good-night Sibyl!"
"Be sure you tell Prince Rimânez!"
Her white figure disappeared; and I walked out of the house in a chaotic
state of mind, divided between pride, ecstasy and pain,--the engaged
husband of an earl's daughter,--the lover of a woman who had declared
herself incapable of love and destitute of faith.
XVIII
Looking back through the space of only three years to this particular
period of my life, I can remember distinctly the singular expression of
Lucio's face when I told him that Sibyl Elton had accepted me. His
sudden smile gave a light to his eyes that I had never seen in them
before,--a brilliant yet sinister glow, strangely suggestive of some
inwardly suppressed wrath and scorn. While I spoke he was, to my
vexation, toying with that uncanny favourite of his, the
'mummy-insect,'--and it annoyed me beyond measure to see the repulsive
pertinacity with which the glittering bat-like creature clung to his
hand.
"Women are all alike,"--he said with a hard laugh, when he had heard my
news,--"Few of them have moral force enough to resist that temptation of
a rich marriage."
I was irritated at this.
"It is scarcely fair of you to judge everything by the
money-standard,"--I said,--then, after a little pause I added what in my
own heart I knew to be a lie,--"She,--Sibyl,--loves me for myself
alone."
His glance flashed over me like lightning.
"Oh!--sets the wind in that quarter! Why then, my dear Geoffrey, I
congratulate you more heartily than ever. To conquer the affections of
one of the proudest girls in England, and win her love so completely as
to be sure she would marry you even if you had not a sou to bless
yourself with--this is a victory indeed!--and one of which you may well
be proud. Again and yet again I congratulate you!"
Tossing the horrible thing he called his 'sprite' off to fly on one of
its slow humming circuits round the room, he shook my hand fervently,
still smiling,--and I,--feeling instinctively that he was as fully aware
of the truth as I was, namely, that had I been a poor author with
nothing but what I could earn by my brains, the Lady Sibyl Elton would
never have looked at me, much less agreed to marry me,--kept silence
lest I should openly betray the reality of my position.
"You see"--he went on, with a cheerful relentlessness--"I was not aware
that any old-world romance graced the disposition of one so apparently
impassive as your beautiful fiancée. To love for love's sake only, is
becoming really an obsolete virtue. I thought Lady Sibyl was an
essentially modern woman, conscious of her position, and the necessity
there was for holding that position proudly before the world at all
costs,--and that the pretty pastoral sentiments of poetical Phyllises
and Amandas had no place in her nature. I was wrong, it seems; and for
once I have been mistaken in the fair sex!" Here he stretched out his
hand to the 'sprite,' that now came winging its way back, and settled at
once on its usual resting-place; "My friend, I assure you, if you have
won a true woman's true love, you have a far greater fortune than your
millions,--a treasure that none can afford to despise."
His voice softened,--his eyes grew dreamy and less scornful,--and I
looked at him in some astonishment.
"Why Lucio, I thought you hated women?"
"So I do!" he replied quickly--"But do not forget why I hate them! It is
because they have all the world's possibilities of good in their hands,
and the majority of them deliberately turn these possibilities to evil.
Men are influenced entirely by women, though few of them will own
it,--through women they are lifted to heaven or driven to hell. The
latter is the favourite course, and the one almost universally
adopted."
His brow darkened, and the lines round his proud mouth grew hard and
stern. I watched him for a moment,--then with sudden irrelevance I
said--
"Put that abominable 'sprite' of yours away, will you? I hate to see you
with it!"
"What, my poor Egyptian princess!" he exclaimed with a laugh--"Why so
cruel to her Geoffrey? If you had lived in her day, you might have been
one of her lovers! She was no doubt a charming person,--I find her
charming still! However, to oblige you--" and here, placing the insect
in its crystal receptacle he carried it away to the other end of the
room. Then, returning towards me slowly, he said--"Who knows what the
'sprite' suffered as a woman, Geoffrey! Perhaps she made a rich
marriage, and repented it! At anyrate I am sure she is much happier in
her present condition!"
"I have no sympathy with such a ghastly fancy,"--I said abruptly--"I
only know that _she_ or _it_ is a perfectly loathsome object to me."
"Well,--some 'transmigrated' souls _are_ loathsome objects to look
at;"--he declared imperturbably--"When they are deprived of their
respectable two-legged fleshly covering, it is extraordinary what a
change the inexorable law of Nature makes in them!"
"What nonsense you talk, Lucio!" I said impatiently--"How can you know
anything about it!"
A sudden shadow passed over his face, giving it a strange pallor and
impenetrability.
"Have you forgotten"--he said in deliberately measured accents--"that
your friend John Carrington, when he wrote that letter of introduction I
brought from him to you, told you in it, that in all matters scientific
I was an 'absolute master?' In these 'matters scientific' you have not
tested my skill,--yet you ask--'how can I know?' I answer that I do
know--many things of which you are ignorant. Do not presume too much on
your own intellectual capability my friend,--lest I prove it
naught!--lest I demonstrate to you, beyond all possibility of consoling
doubt, that the shreds and strippings of that change you call death, are
only so many embryos of new life which you _must_ live, whether you will
or no!"
Somewhat abashed by his words and still more by his manner, I said--
"Pardon me!--I spoke in haste of course,--but you know my theories--"
"Most thoroughly!" and he laughed, with an immediate resumption of his
old manner--"'Every man his own theory' is the fashionable motto of the
hour. Each little biped tells you that he has his 'own idea' of God, and
equally 'his own' idea of the Devil. It is very droll! But let us return
to the theme of love. I feel I have not congratulated you half
enough,--for surely Fortune favours you singularly. Out of the teeming
mass of vain and frivolous femininity, you have secured a unique example
of beauty, truth and purity,--a woman, who apart from all self-interest
and worldly advantage, weds you, with five millions, for yourself alone!
The prettiest poem in the world could be made out of such an exquisitely
innocent maiden type! You are one of the luckiest men alive; in fact,
you have nothing more to wish for!"
I did not contradict him, though in my own mind I felt that the
circumstances of my engagement left much to be desired. I, who scoffed
at religion, wished it had formed part of the character of my future
wife,--I, who sneered at sentiment, craved for some expression of it in
the woman whose beauty attracted my desires. However I determinedly
smothered all the premonitions of my own conscience, and accepted what
each day of my idle and useless life brought me without considering
future consequences.
The papers soon had the news that "a marriage has been arranged and will
shortly take place between Sibyl, only daughter of the Earl of Elton,
and Geoffrey Tempest, the famous millionaire." Not 'famous author' mark
you!--though I was still being loudly 'boomed.' Morgeson, my publisher,
could offer me no consolation as to my chances of winning and keeping a
steady future fame. The Tenth Edition of my book was announced, but we
had not actually disposed of more than two thousand copies, including a
One-Volume issue which had been hastily thrust on the market. And the
work I had so mercilessly and maliciously slated,--'Differences' by
Mavis Clare was in its thirtieth thousand! I commented on this with some
anger to Morgeson, who was virtuously aggrieved at my complaint.
"Dear me, Mr Tempest, you are not the only writer who has been 'boomed'
by the press and who nevertheless does not sell,"--he exclaimed--"No one
can account for the caprices of the public; they are entirely beyond the
most cautious publisher's control or calculation. Miss Clare is a sore
subject to many authors besides yourself,--she always 'takes' and no one
can help it. I sympathize with you in the matter heartily, but I am not
to blame. At any rate the reviewers are all with you,--their praise has
been almost unanimous. Now Mavis Clare's 'Differences,' though to my
thinking a very brilliant and powerful book, has been literally cut to
pieces whenever it has been noticed at all,--and yet the public go for
her and don't go for you. It isn't my fault. You see people have got
Compulsory Education now, and I'm afraid they begin to mistrust
criticism, preferring to form their own independent opinions; if this is
so, of course it will be a terrible thing, because the most carefully
organized clique in the world will be powerless. Everything has been
done for you that can be done, Mr Tempest,--I am sure I regret as much
as yourself that the result has not been all you expected or desired.
Many authors would not care so much for the public approval; the
applause of cultured journalism such as you have obtained, would be more
than sufficient for them."
I laughed bitterly. 'The applause of cultured journalism!' I thought I
knew something of the way in which such applause was won. Almost I began
to hate my millions,--golden trash that could only secure me the
insincere flattery of fair-weather friends,--and that could not give me
fame,--such fame as has sometimes been grasped in a moment by a starving
and neglected genius, who in the very arms of death, succeeds in
mastering the world. One day in a fit of disappointment and petulance I
said to Lucio--
"You have not kept all your promises, my friend!--you told me you could
give me fame!"
He looked at me curiously.
"Did I? Well,--and are you not famous?"
"No. I am merely notorious," I retorted.
He smiled.
"The word fame, my good Geoffrey, traced to its origin means 'a
breath'--the breath of popular adulation. You have that--for your
wealth."
"But not for my work!"
"You have the praise of the reviewers!"
"What is that worth!"
"Everything!" he answered smiling--"In the reviewers' own opinion!"
I was silent.
"You speak of work;" he went on--"Now the nature of work I cannot
exactly express, because it is a divine thing and is judged by a divine
standard. One must consider in all work two things; first, the object
for which it is undertaken, and secondly the way in which it is
performed. All work should have a high and unselfish intent,--without
this, it perishes and is not considered work at all,--not at least by
the eternal judges invisible. If it _is_ work, truly and nobly done in
every sense of the word, it carries with it its own reward, and the
laurels descend from heaven shaped ready for wearing,--no earthly power
can bestow them. I cannot give you _that_ fame,--but I have secured you
a very fair imitation of it."
I was obliged to acquiesce, though more or less morosely,--whereat I saw
that he was somewhat amused. Unwilling to incur his contempt I said no
more concerning the subject that was the nearest to my heart, and wore
out many sleepless hours at night in trying to write a new
book,--something novel and daring, such as should force the public to
credit me with a little loftier _status_ than that obtained by the
possession of a huge banking account. But the creative faculty seemed
dead in me,--I was crushed by a sense of impotence and failure; vague
ideas were in my brain that would not lend themselves to expression in
words,--and such a diseased love of hypercriticism controlled me, that
after a miserably nervous analysis of every page I wrote, I tore it up
as soon as it was written, thus reducing myself to a state of mind that
was almost unbearable.
Early in April I made my first visit to Willowsmere, having received
information from the head of the firm of decorators and furnishers
employed there, that their work was close on completion, and that they
would be glad of a visit of inspection from me. Lucio and I went down
together for the day, and as the train rushed through a green and
smiling landscape, bearing us away from the smoke, dirt and noise of the
restless modern Babylon, I was conscious of a gradually deepening peace
and pleasure. The first sight of the place I had recklessly purchased
without so much as looking at it, filled me with delight and admiration.
It was a beautiful old house, ideally English and suggestive of
home-happiness. Ivy and jessamine clung to its red walls and picturesque
gables,--through the long vista of the exquisitely wooded grounds, the
silver gleam of the Avon river could be discerned, twisting in and out
like a ribbon tied in true love-knots,--the trees and shrubs were
sprouting forth in all their fresh spring beauty,--the aspect of the
country was indescribably bright and soothing, and I began to feel as if
a burden had been suddenly lifted from my life leaving me free to
breathe and enjoy my liberty. I strolled from room to room of my future
abode, admiring the taste and skill with which the whole place had been
fitted and furnished, down to the smallest detail of elegance, comfort
and convenience. Here my Sibyl was born, I thought, with a lover-like
tenderness,--here she would dwell again as my wife, amid the lovely and
beloved surroundings of her childhood,--and we should be happy--yes, we
should be happy, despite all the dull and heartless social doctrines of
the modern world. In the spacious and beautiful drawing-room I stopped
to look out from the windows on the entrancing view of lawn and woodland
that stretched before me,--and as I looked, a warm sense of gratitude
and affection filled me for the friend to whose good offices I owed this
fair domain. Turning, I grasped him by the hand.
"It is all your doing, Lucio!" I said--"I feel I can never thank you
enough! Without you I should perhaps never have met Sibyl,--I might
never have heard of her, or of Willowsmere; and I never could have been
as happy as I am to-day!"
"Oh, you are happy then?" he queried with a little smile--"I fancied you
were not!"
"Well--I have not been as happy as I expected to be;" I
confessed,--"Something in my sudden accession to wealth seems to have
dragged me down rather than lifted me up,----it is strange----"
"It is not strange at all"--he interrupted,--"on the contrary it is very
natural. As a rule the most miserable people in the world are the rich."
"Are you miserable, for instance?" I asked, smiling.
His eyes rested on me with a dark and dreary pathos.
"Are you too blind to see that I am?" he answered, his accents
vibrating with intense melancholy--"Can you think I am happy? Does
the smile I wear,--the disguising smile men put on as a mask to hide
their secret agonies from the pitiless gaze of unsympathetic
fellow-creatures,--persuade you that I am free from care? As for my
wealth,--I have never told you the extent of it; if I did, it might
indeed amaze you, though I believe it would not now arouse your envy,
considering that your trifling five millions have not been without
effect in depressing your mind. But I,--I could buy up kingdoms and be
none the poorer,--I could throne and unthrone kings and be none the
wiser,--I could crush whole countries under the iron heel of financial
speculation,--I could possess the world,--and yet estimate it at no
higher value than I do now,--the value of a grain of dust circling
through infinity, or a soap-bubble blown on the wind!"
His brows knitted,--his face expressed pride, scorn and sorrow.
"There is some mystery about you Lucio;"--I said--"Some grief or loss
that your wealth cannot repair--and that makes you the strange being you
are. One day perhaps you will confide in me ..."
He laughed loudly,--almost fiercely;--and clapped me heavily on the
shoulder.
"I will!" he said--"I will tell you my history! And you, excellent
agnostic as you are, shall 'minister to a mind diseased,' and 'pluck out
the memory of a rooted sorrow!' What a power of expression there was in
Shakespeare, the uncrowned but actual King of England! Not the 'rooted
sorrow' alone was to be 'plucked out' but the very 'memory' of it. The
apparently simple line holds complex wisdom; no doubt the poet knew, or
instinctively guessed the most terrible fact in all the Universe ..."
"And what is that?"
"The eternal consciousness of Memory--" he replied--"God can not
forget,--and in consequence of this, His creatures _may_ not!"
I forbore to reply, but I suppose my face betrayed my thoughts, for the
cynical smile I knew so well played round his mouth as he looked at me.
"I go beyond your patience, do I not!" he said, laughing again--"When I
mention God,--who is declared by certain scientists to be non-existent
except as a blind, indifferent natural Force or Atom-producer;--you are
bored! I can see that at a glance. Pray forgive me! Let us resume our
tour of inspection through this charming abode. You will be very
difficult to satisfy if you are not a very emperor of contentment
here;--with a beautiful wife and plenty of cash, you can well afford to
give fame the go-by."
"I may win it yet!" I said hopefully--"In this place, I feel I could
write something worthy of being written."
"Good! The 'divine flutterings' of winged thoughts are in your brain!
Apollo grant them strength to fly! And now let us have
luncheon,--afterwards we shall have time to take a stroll."
In the dining-room I found an elegant repast prepared, which rather
surprised me, as I had given no orders, having indeed forgotten to do
so. Lucio however had, it appeared, not forgotten, and an advance
telegram from him had placed certain caterers at Leamington on their
mettle, with the result that we sat down to a feast as delicate and
luxurious as any two epicures could desire.
"Now I want you to do me a favour, Geoffrey,"--said Lucio, during our
luncheon--"You will scarcely need to reside here till after your
marriage; you have too many engagements in town. You spoke of
entertaining a big house-party down here,--I wouldn't do that if I were
you,--it isn't worth while. You would have to get in a staff of
servants, and leave them all afterwards to their own devices while you
are on your honeymoon. This is what I propose,--give a grand fête here
in honour of your betrothal to Lady Sibyl, in May--and let me be the
master of the revels!"
I was in the mood to agree to anything,--moreover the idea seemed an
excellent one. I said so and Rimânez went on quickly--
"You understand of course, that if I undertake to do a thing I always do
it thoroughly, and brook no interference with my plans. Now as your
marriage will be the signal for our parting,--at any rate for a time,--I
should like to show my appreciation of your friendship, by organizing a
brilliant affair of the kind I suggest,--and if you will leave it all to
me, I guarantee you shall hold such a fête as has never been seen or
known in England. And it will be a personal satisfaction to me if you
consent to my proposal."
"My dear fellow--" I answered--"Of course I consent--willingly! I give
you _carte blanche_,--do as you like; do all you like! It is most
friendly and kind of you! But when are we to make this sensation?"
"You are to be married in June?" he asked.
"Yes,--in the second week of the month."
"Very well. The fête shall be held on the twenty-second of May,--that
will give society time to recover from the effect of one burst of
splendour in order to be ready for another,--namely the wedding. Now we
need not talk of this any more--it is settled,--the rest devolves on me.
We've got three or four hours to spare before we take the train back to
town,--suppose we take a saunter through the grounds?"
I assented to this, and accompanied him readily, feeling in high spirits
and good humour. Willowsmere and its peaceful loveliness seemed to
cleanse my mind of all corroding influences;--the blessed silence of the
woods and hills, after the rush and roar of town life, soothed and
cheered me, and I walked beside my companion with a light heart and
smiling face,--happy, and filled with a dim religious faith in the blue
sky, if not in the God beyond it. We sauntered through the fair gardens
which were now mine, and then out through the park into a lovely little
lane,--a true Warwickshire lane, where the celandines were strewing the
grass with their bright gold coinage, and the star-wort thrust up fairy
bouquets of white bloom between buttercups and lover, and where the
hawthorn-buds were beginning to show themselves like minute snow-pellets
among the glossy young green. A thrush warbled melodiously,--a lark rose
from almost our very feet and flung itself joyously into the sky with a
wild outburst of song,--a robin hopped through a little hole in the
hedge to look at us in blithe inquisitiveness as we passed. All at once
Lucio stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder,--his eyes had the
beautiful melancholy of a far-off longing which I could neither
understand nor define.
"Listen, Geoffrey!" he said--"Listen to the silence of the earth while
the lark sings! Have you ever observed the receptive attitude in which
Nature seems to wait for sounds divine!"
I did not answer,--the silence around us was indeed impressive;--the
warbling of the thrush had ceased, and only the lark's clear voice
pealing over-head, echoed sweetly through the stillness of the lane.
"In the clerical Heaven," went on Lucio dreamily--"there are no birds.
There are only conceited human souls braying forth 'Alleluia'! No
flowers are included,--no trees; only 'golden streets.' What a poor and
barbarous conception! As if a World inhabited by Deity would not contain
the wonders, graces and beauties of all worlds! Even this little planet
is more naturally beautiful than the clerical Heaven,--that is, it is
beautiful wherever Man is not. I protest--I have always
protested,--against the creation of Man!"
I laughed.
"You protest against your own existence then!" I said.
His eyes darkened slowly to a sombre brooding blackness.
"When the sea roars and flings itself in anger on the shore, it craves
its prey--Mankind!--it seeks to wash the fair earth clean of the puny
insect that troubles the planet's peace! It drowns the noxious creature
when it can, with the aid of its sympathizing comrade the wind! When the
thunder crashes down a second after the lightning, does it not seem to
you that the very clouds combine in the holy war? The war against God's
one mistake;--the making of humanity,--the effort to sweep it out of the
universe as one erases a weak expression in an otherwise perfect Poem!
You and I, for example, are the only discords in to-day's woodland
harmony. We are not particularly grateful for life,--we certainly are
not content with it,--we have not the innocence of a bird or a flower.
We have more knowledge you will say,--but how can we be sure of that?
Our wisdom came from the devil in the first place, according to the
legend of the tree of knowledge,--the fruit of which taught both good
and evil, but which still apparently persuades man to evil rather than
good, and leads him on to a considerable amount of arrogance besides,
for he has an idea he will be immortal as a god in the hereafter,--ye
majestic Heavens!--what an inadequately stupendous fate for a grain of
worthless dust,--a dwarfish atom such as he!"
"Well, _I_ have no ideas of immortality"--I said--"I have told you that
often. This life is enough for me,--I want and expect no other."
"Aye, but if there were another!" answered Lucio, fixing me with a
steady look--"And--if you were not asked your opinion about it--but
simply plunged headlong into a state of terrible consciousness in which
you would rather not be----"
"Oh come," I said impatiently--"do not let us theorise! I am happy
to-day!--my heart is as light as that of the bird singing in the sky; I
am in the very best of humours, and could not say an unkind word to my
worst enemy."
He smiled.
"Is that your humour?" and he took me by the arm--"Then there could be
no better opportunity for showing you this pretty little corner of the
world;"--and walking on a few yards, he dexterously turned me down a
narrow path, leading from the lane, and brought me face to face with a
lovely old cottage, almost buried in the green of the young spring
verdure, and surrounded by an open fence overgrown with hawthorn and
sweet-briar,--"Keep firm hold over your temper Geoffrey,--and maintain
the benignant tranquillity of your mind!--here dwells the woman whose
name and fame you hate,--Mavis Clare!"
XIX
The blood rushed to my face, and I stopped abruptly.
"Let us go back," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I do not know Miss Clare and do not want to know her. Literary
women are my abhorrence,--they are always more or less unsexed."
"You are thinking of the 'New' women I suppose,--but you flatter
them,--they never had any sex to lose. The self-degrading creatures who
delineate their fictional heroines as wallowing in unchastity, and who
write freely on subjects which men would hesitate to name, are unnatural
hybrids of no-sex. Mavis Clare is not one of them,--she is an
'old-fashioned' young woman. Mademoiselle Derino, the dancer, is
'unsexed,' but you did not object to her on that score,--on the contrary
I believe you have shown your appreciation of her talents by spending a
considerable amount of cash upon her."
"That's not a fair comparison"--I answered hotly--"Mademoiselle Derino
amused me for a time."
"And was not your rival in art!" said Lucio with a little malicious
smile--"I see! Still,--as far as the question of being 'unsexed' goes,
I, personally, consider that a woman who shows the power of her
intellect is more to be respected than the woman who shows the power of
her legs. But men always prefer the legs,--just as they prefer the devil
to the Deity. All the same, I think, as we have time to spare, we may as
well see this genius."
"Genius!" I echoed contemptuously.
"Feminine twaddler, then!" he suggested, laughing--"Let us see this
feminine twaddler. She will no doubt prove as amusing as Mademoiselle
Derino in her way. I shall ring the bell and ask if she is at home."
He advanced towards the creeper-covered porch,--but I stood back,
mortified and sullen, determined not to accompany him inside the house
if he were admitted. Suddenly a blithe peal of musical laughter sounded
through the air, and a clear voice exclaimed--
"Oh Tricksy! You wicked boy! Take it back directly and apologise!"
Lucio peered through the fence, and then beckoned to me energetically.
"There she is!" he whispered, "There is the dyspeptic, sour, savage old
blue-stocking,--there, on the lawn,--by Heaven!--she's enough to strike
terror into the heart of any man--and millionaire!"
I looked where he pointed, and saw nothing but a fair-haired woman in a
white gown, sitting in a low basket-chair, with a tiny toy terrier on
her lap. The terrier was jealously guarding a large square dog-biscuit
nearly as big as himself, and at a little distance off sat a magnificent
rough-coated St Bernard, wagging his feathery tail to and fro, with
every sign of good-humour and enjoyment. The position was evident at a
glance,--the small dog had taken his huge companion's biscuit from him
and had conveyed it to his mistress,--a canine joke which seemed to be
appreciated and understood by all the parties concerned. But as I
watched the little group, I did not believe that she whom I saw was
Mavis Clare. That small head was surely never made for the wearing of
deathless laurels, but rather for a garland of roses, (sweet and
perishable) twined by a lover's hand. No such slight feminine creature
as the one I now looked upon could ever be capable of the intellectual
grasp and power of 'Differences,' the book I secretly admired and
wondered at, but which I had anonymously striven to 'quash' in its
successful career. The writer of such a work, I imagined, must needs be
of a more or less strong physique, with pronounced features and an
impressive personality. This butterfly-thing, playing with her dog, was
no type of a 'blue-stocking,' and I said as much to Lucio.
"That cannot be Miss Clare," I said--"More likely a visitor,--or perhaps
the companion-secretary. The novelist must be very different in
appearance to that frivolous young person in white, whose dress is
distinctly Parisian, and who seems to have nothing whatever to do but
amuse herself."
"Tricksy!" said the clear voice again--"Take back the biscuit and
apologise!"
The tiny terrier looked round with an innocently abstracted air, as if
in the earnestness of his own thoughts, he had not quite caught the
meaning of the sentence.
"Tricksy!" and the voice became more imperative--"Take it back and
apologise!"
With a comical expression of resignation to circumstances, 'Tricksy'
seized the large biscuit, and holding it in his teeth with gingerly
care, jumped from his mistress's knee and trotting briskly up to the St
Bernard who was still wagging his tail and smiling as visibly as dogs
often can smile, restored his stolen goods with three short yapping
barks as much as to say "There! take it!" The St Bernard rose in all his
majestic bulk and sniffed at it,--then sniffed his small friend,
apparently in dignified doubt as to which was terrier and which was
biscuit,--then lying down again, he gave himself up to the pleasure of
munching his meal, the while "Tricksy" with wild barks of delight
performed a sort of mad war-dance round and round him by way of
entertainment. This piece of dog-comedy was still going on, when Lucio
turned away from his point of observation at the fence, and going up to
the gate, rang the bell. A neat maid-servant answered the summons.
"Is Miss Clare at home?" he asked.
"Yes sir. But I am not sure whether she will receive you,--" the maid
replied--"Unless you have an appointment?"
"We have no appointment,"--said Lucio,--"but if you will take these
cards,--" here he turned to me--"Geoffrey, give me one of yours!" I
complied, somewhat reluctantly. "If you will take these cards"--he
resumed--"to Miss Clare, it is just possible she may be kind enough to
see us. If not, it will be our loss."
He spoke so gently and with such an ingratiating manner that I could see
the servant was at once prepossessed in his favour.
"Step in, sir, if you please,--" she said smiling and opening the gate.
He obeyed with alacrity,--and I, who a moment ago had resolved not to
enter the place, found myself passively following him under an archway
of sprouting young leaves and early budding jessamine into 'Lily
Cottage'--which was to prove one day, though I knew it not then, the
only haven of peace and security I should ever crave for,--and, craving,
be unable to win!
The house was much larger than it looked from the outside; the
entrance-hall was square and lofty, and panelled with fine old carved
oak, and the drawing-room into which we were shown was one of the most
picturesque and beautiful apartments I had ever seen. There were flowers
everywhere,--books,--rare bits of china,--elegant trifles that only a
woman of perfect taste would have the sense to select and
appreciate,--on one or two of the side-tables and on the grand piano
were autograph-portraits of many of the greatest celebrities in Europe.
Lucio strolled about the room, making soft comments.
"Here is the Autocrat of all the Russias," he said, pausing before a
fine portrait of the Tsar--"Signed by the Imperial hand too. Now what
has the 'feminine twaddler' done to deserve that honour I wonder! Here
in strange contrast, is the wild-haired Paderewski,--and beside him the
perennial Patti,--there is Her Majesty of Italy, and here we have the
Prince of Wales,--all autographed likenesses. Upon my word, Miss Clare
seems to attract a great many notabilities around her without the aid of
hard cash. I wonder how she does it, Geoffrey?"--and his eyes sparkled
half maliciously--"Can it be a case of genius after all? Look at those
lilies!" and he pointed to a mass of white bloom in one of the
windows--"Are they not far more beautiful creatures than men and women?
Dumb--yet eloquent of purity!--no wonder the painters choose them as the
only flowers suitable for the adornment of angels."
As he spoke the door opened, and the woman we had seen on the lawn
entered, carrying her toy terrier on one arm. Was she Mavis Clare? or
some-one sent to say that the novelist could not receive us? I wondered
silently, looking at her in surprise and something of confusion,--Lucio
advanced with an odd mingling of humility and appeal in his manner which
was new to me.
"We must apologise for our intrusion, Miss Clare,"--he said--"But
happening to pass your house, we could not resist making an attempt to
see you. My name is----Rimânez"--he hesitated oddly for a second, then
went on--"and this is my friend Mr Geoffrey Tempest, the author,----"
the young lady raised her eyes to mine with a little smile and courteous
bend of her head--"he has, as I daresay you know, become the owner of
Willowsmere Court. You will be neighbours, and I hope, friends. In any
case if we have committed a breach of etiquette in venturing to call
upon you without previous introduction, you must try and forgive us! It
is difficult,--to me impossible,--to pass the dwelling of a celebrity
without offering homage to the presiding genius within."
Mavis Clare,--for it was Mavis Clare,--seemed not to have heard the
intended compliment.
"You are very welcome," she said simply, advancing with a pretty grace,
and extending her hand to each of us in turn, "I am quite accustomed to
visits from strangers. But I already know Mr Tempest very well by
reputation. Won't you sit down?"
She motioned us to chairs in the lily-decked window-corner, and rang the
bell. Her maid appeared.
"Tea, Janet."
This order given, she seated herself near us, still holding her little
dog curled up against her like a small ball of silk. I tried to
converse, but could find nothing suitable to say,--the sight of her
filled me with too great a sense of self-reproach and shame. She was
such a quiet graceful creature, so slight and dainty, so perfectly
unaffected and simple in manner, that as I thought of the slaughtering
article I had written against her work I felt like a low brute who had
been stoning a child. And yet,--after all it was her genius I
hated,--the force and passion of that mystic quality which wherever it
appears, compels the world's attention,--this was the gift she had that
I lacked and coveted. Moved by the most conflicting sensations I gazed
abstractedly out on the shady old garden,--I heard Lucio conversing on
trifling matters of society and literature generally, and every now and
then her bright laugh rang out like a little peal of bells. Soon I felt,
rather than saw, that she was looking steadily at me,--and turning, I
met her eyes,--deep dense blue eyes, candidly grave and clear.
"Is this your first visit to Willowsmere Court?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered, making an effort to appear more at my ease--"I bought
the place,--on the recommendation of my friend the prince here,--without
looking at it."
"So I heard,"--she said, still observing me curiously--"And you are
satisfied with it?"
"More than satisfied--I am delighted. It exceeds all my best
expectations."
"Mr Tempest is going to marry the daughter of the former owner of
Willowsmere,"--put in Lucio,--"No doubt you have seen it announced in
the papers?"
"Yes;"--she responded with a slight smile--"I have seen it--and I think
Mr Tempest is much to be congratulated. Lady Sibyl is very lovely,--I
remember her as a beautiful child when I was a child myself--I never
spoke to her, but I often saw her. She must be charmed at the prospect
of returning as a bride to the old home she loved so well."
Here the servant entered with the tea, and Miss Clare, putting down her
tiny dog, went to the table to dispense it. I watched her move across
the room with a sense of vague wonder and reluctant admiration,--she
rather resembled a picture by Greuze in her soft white gown with a pale
rose nestled amid the old Flemish lace at her throat,--and as she turned
her head towards us, the sunlight caught her fair hair and turned it to
the similitude of a golden halo circling her brows. She was not a
beauty; but she possessed an undoubted individual charm,--a delicate
attractiveness, which silently asserted itself, as the breath of
honeysuckle hidden in the tangles of a hedge, will delight the wayfarer
with sweet fragrance though the flowers be unseen.
"Your book was very clever, Mr Tempest"--she said suddenly, smiling at
me--"I read it as soon as it came out. But do you know I think your
article was even cleverer?"
I felt myself growing uncomfortably red in the face.
"To what article do you allude, Miss Clare?" I stammered confusedly--"I
do not write for any magazine."
"No?" and she laughed gaily--"But you did on this occasion! You 'slated'
me very smartly!--I quite enjoyed it. I found out that you were the
author of the philippic,--not through the editor of the journal--oh no,
poor man! he is very discreet; but through quite another person who must
be nameless. It is very difficult to prevent me from finding out
whatever I wish to know, especially in literary matters! Why, you look
quite unhappy!" and her blue eyes danced with fun as she handed me my
cup of tea--"You really don't suppose I was hurt by your critique, do
you? Dear me, no! Nothing of that kind ever affronts me,--I am far too
busy to waste any thought on reviews or reviewers. Only your article was
so exceptionally funny!"
"Funny?" I echoed stupidly, trying to smile, but failing in the effort.
"Yes, funny!" she repeated--"It was so very angry that it became
amusing. My poor 'Differences'! I am really sorry it put you into such a
temper,--temper does exhaust one's energies so!"
She laughed again and sat down in her former place near me, regarding me
with a frankly open and half humorous gaze which I found I could not
meet with any sort of composure. To say I felt foolish, would
inadequately express my sense of utter bafflement. This woman with her
young unclouded face, sweet voice and evidently happy nature, was not at
all the creature I had imagined her to be,--and I struggled to say
something,--anything,--that would furnish a reasonable and coherent
answer. I caught Lucio's glance,--one of satirical amusement,--and my
thoughts grew more entangled than ever. A distraction however occurred
in the behaviour of the dog Tricksy, who suddenly took up a position
immediately opposite Lucio, and lifting his nose in air began to howl
with a desolate loudness astonishing in so small an animal. His mistress
was surprised.
"Tricksy, what _is_ the matter?" she exclaimed, catching him up in her
arms where he hid his face shivering and moaning;--then she looked
steadily at Lucio--"I never knew him do such a thing before"--she
said--"Perhaps you do not like dogs, Prince Rimânez?"
"I am afraid they do not like _me_!" he replied, deferentially.
"Then pray excuse me a moment!" she murmured, and left the room, to
return immediately without her canine favorite. After this I noticed
that her blue eyes often rested on Lucio's handsome countenance with a
bewildered and perplexed expression, as if she saw something in his very
beauty that she disliked or distrusted. Meanwhile I had recovered a
little of my usual self-possession, and I addressed her in a tone which
I meant to be kind, but which I knew was somewhat patronizing.
"I am very glad, Miss Clare, that you were not offended at the article
you speak of. It was rather strong I admit,--but you know we cannot all
be of the same opinion ..."
"Indeed no!" she said quietly and with a slight smile--"Such a state of
things would make a very dull world! I assure you I was not and am not
in the least offended--the critique was a smart piece of writing, and
made not the slightest effect on me or on my book. You remember what
Shelley wrote of critics? No? You will find the passage in his preface
to 'The Revolt of Islam,' and it runs thus,--'I have sought to write as
I believe that Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton wrote, with an utter
disregard of anonymous censure. I am certain that calumny and
misrepresentation, though it may move me to compassion cannot disturb my
peace. I shall understand the expressive silence of those sagacious
enemies who dare not trust themselves to speak. I shall endeavour to
extract from the midst of insult and contempt and maledictions, those
admonitions which may tend to correct whatever imperfections such
censurers may discern in my appeal to the Public. If certain Critics
were as clear-sighted as they are malignant, how great would be the
benefit to be derived from their virulent writings! As it is, I fear I
shall be malicious enough to be amused with their paltry tricks and lame
invectives. Should the public judge that my composition is worthless, I
shall indeed bow before the tribunal from which Milton received his
crown of immortality, and shall seek to gather, if I live, strength from
that defeat, which may nerve me to some new enterprise of thought which
may _not_ be worthless!'"
As she gave the quotation, her eyes darkened and deepened,--her face was
lighted up as by some inward illumination,--and I discovered the rich
sweetness of the voice which made the name of 'Mavis' suit her so well.
"You see I know my Shelley!" she said with a little laugh at her own
emotion--"And those words are particularly familiar to me, because I
have had them painted up on a panel in my study. Just to remind me, in
case I should forget, what the really great geniuses of the world
thought of criticism,--because their example is very encouraging and
helpful to a humble little worker like myself. I am not a
press-favourite--and I never get good reviews,--but--" and she laughed
again--"I like my reviewers all the same! If you have finished your tea,
will you come and see them?"
Come and see them! What did she mean? She seemed delighted at my visible
surprise, and her cheeks dimpled with merriment.
"Come and see them!" she repeated--"They generally expect me at this
hour!"
She led the way into the garden,--we followed,--I, in a bewildered
confusion of mind, with all my ideas respecting 'unsexed females' and
repulsive blue-stockings upset by the unaffected behaviour and charming
frankness of this 'celebrity' whose fame I envied, and whose personality
I could not but admire. With all her intellectual gifts she was yet a
lovable woman,--ah Mavis!--how lovable and dear I was destined in misery
to know! Mavis, Mavis!--I whisper your sweet name in my solitude,--I see
you in my dreams, and kneeling before you I call you Angel!--my angel at
the gate of a lost Paradise, whose Sword of Genius turning every way,
keeps me back from all approach to my forfeited Tree of Life!
XX
Scarcely had we stepped out on the lawn before an unpleasant incident
occurred which might have ended dangerously. At his mistress's approach
the big St Bernard dog rose from the sunny corner where he had been
peacefully dozing, and prepared to greet her,--but as soon as he
perceived us he stopped short with an ominous growl. Before Miss Clare
could utter a warning word, he made a couple of huge bounds and sprang
savagely at Lucio as though to tear him in pieces,--Lucio with admirable
presence of mind caught him firmly by the throat and forced him
backwards. Mavis turned deathly pale.
"Let me hold him! He will obey me!" she cried, placing her little hand
on the great dog's neck--"Down, Emperor! Down! How dare you! Down sir!"
In a moment 'Emperor' dropped to the ground, and crouched abjectly at
her feet, breathing heavily and trembling in every limb. She held him by
the collar, and looked up at Lucio who was perfectly composed, though
his eyes flashed dangerously.
"I am so very sorry!" she murmured,--"I forgot,--you told me dogs do not
like you. But what a singularly marked antipathy, is it not? I cannot
understand it. Emperor is generally so good-natured,--I must apologize
for his bad conduct--it is quite unusual. I hope he has not hurt you?"
"Not at all!" returned Lucio affably but with a cold smile; "I hope I
have not hurt _him_,--or distressed _you_!"
She made no reply, but led the St Bernard away and was absent for a few
minutes. While she was gone, Lucio's brow clouded, and his face grew
very stern.
"What do you think of her?" he asked me abruptly.
"I hardly know what to think," I answered abstractedly--"She is very
different to what I imagined. Her dogs are rather unpleasant company!"
"They are honest animals!" he said morosely--"They are no doubt
accustomed to candour in their mistress, and therefore object to
personified lies."
"Speak for yourself!" I said irritably--"They object to you, chiefly."
"Am I not fully aware of that?" he retorted--"and do I not speak for
myself? You do not suppose I would call you a personified lie, do
you,--even if it were true! I would not be so uncivil. But I am a living
lie, and knowing it I admit it, which gives me a certain claim to
honesty above the ordinary run of men. This woman-wearer of laurels is a
personified truth!--imagine it!--she has no occasion to pretend to be
anything else than she is! No wonder she is famous!"
I said nothing, as just then the subject of our conversation returned,
tranquil and smiling, and did her best, with the tact and grace of a
perfect hostess, to make us forget her dog's ferocious conduct, by
escorting us through all the prettiest turns and twisting paths of her
garden, which was quite a bower of spring beauty. She talked to us both
with equal ease, brightness and cleverness, though I observed that she
studied Lucio with close interest, and watched his looks and movements
with more curiosity than liking. Passing under an arching grove of
budding syringas, we presently came to an open court-yard paved with
blue and white tiles, having in its centre a picturesque dove-cote built
in the form of a Chinese pagoda. Here pausing, Mavis clapped her hands.
A cloud of doves, white, grey, brown, and opalescent answered the
summons, circling round and round her head, and flying down in excited
groups at her feet.
"Here are my reviewers!" she said laughing--"Are they not pretty
creatures? The ones I know best are named after their respective
journals,--there are plenty of anonymous ones of course, who flock in
with the rest. Here, for instance, is the 'Saturday Review'"--and she
picked up a strutting bird with coral-tinted feet, who seemed to rather
like the attention shown to him--"He fights with all his companions and
drives them away from the food whenever he can. He is a quarrelsome
creature!"--here she stroked the bird's head--"You never know how to
please him,--he takes offence at the corn sometimes and will only eat
peas, or _vice versa_. He quite deserves his name,--go away, old boy!"
and she flung the pigeon in the air and watched it soaring up and
down--"He _is_ such a comical old grumbler! There is the 'Speaker'"--and
she pointed to a fat fussy fantail--"He struts very well, and fancies
he's important, you know, but he isn't. Over there is 'Public
Opinion,'--that one half-asleep on the wall; next to him is the
'Spectator,'--you see he has two rings round his eyes like spectacles.
That brown creature with the fluffy wings all by himself on that
flower-pot is the 'Nineteenth Century,'--the little bird with the green
neck is the 'Westminster Gazette,' and the fat one sitting on the
platform of the cote is the 'Pall-Mall.' He knows his name very
well--see!" and she called merrily--"Pall Mall! Come boy!--come here!"
The bird obeyed at once, and flying down from the cote settled on her
shoulder. "There are so many others,--it is difficult to distinguish
them sometimes,"--she continued,--"Whenever I get a bad review I name a
pigeon,--it amuses me. That draggle-tailed one with the muddy feet is
the 'Sketch,'--he is not at all a well-bred bird I must tell you!--that
smart-looking dove with the purple breast is the 'Graphic,' and that
bland old grey thing is the 'I. L. N.' short for 'Illustrated London
News.' Those three white ones are respectively 'Daily Telegraph,'
'Morning Post,' and 'Standard.' Now see them all!" and taking a covered
basket from a corner she began to scatter corn and peas and various
grains in lavish quantities all over the court. For a moment we could
scarcely see the sky, so thickly the birds flocked together, struggling,
fighting, swooping downwards, and soaring upwards,--but the wingëd
confusion soon gave place to something like order when they were all on
the ground and busy, selecting their respective favourite foods from the
different sorts provided for their choice.
"You are indeed a sweet-natured philosopher"--said Lucio smiling, "if
you can symbolize your adverse reviewers by a flock of doves!"
She laughed merrily.
"Well, it is a remedy against all irritation,"--she returned; "I used to
worry a good deal over my work, and wonder why it was that the press
people were so unnecessarily hard upon me, when they showed so much
leniency and encouragement to far worse writers,--but after a little
serious consideration, finding that critical opinion carried no sort of
conviction whatever to the public, I determined to trouble no more about
it,--except in the way of doves!"
"In the way of doves, you feed your reviewers,"--I observed.
"Exactly! And I suppose I help to feed them even as women and men!" she
said--"They get something from their editors for 'slashing' my
work,--and they probably make a little more out of selling their 'review
copies.' So you see the dove-emblem holds good throughout. But you have
not seen the 'Athenæum,'--oh, you _must_ see him!"
With laughter still lurking in her blue eyes, she took us out of the
pigeon-court, and led the way round to a sequestered and shady corner of
the garden, where, in a large aviary-cage fitted up for its special
convenience, sat a solemn white owl. The instant it perceived us, it
became angry, and ruffling up its downy feathers, rolled its glistening
yellow eyes vindictively and opened its beak. Two smaller owls sat in
the background, pressed close together,--one grey, the other brown.
"Cross old boy!" said Mavis, addressing the spiteful-looking creature
in the sweetest of accents--"Haven't you found any mice to kill to-day?
Oh, what wicked eyes!--what a snappy mouth!" Then turning to us, she
went on--"Isn't he a lovely owl? Doesn't he look wise?--but as a matter
of fact he's just as stupid as ever he can be. That is why I call him
the 'Athenæum'! He looks so profound, you'd fancy he knows everything,
but he really thinks of nothing but killing mice all the time,--which
limits his intelligence considerably!"
Lucio laughed heartily, and so did I,--she looked so mischievous and
merry.
"But there are two other owls in the cage"--I said--"What are their
names?"
She held up a little finger in playful warning.
"Ah, that would be telling secrets!" she said--"They're all the
'Athenæum'--the holy Three,--a sort of literary Trinity. But why a
trinity I do not venture to explain!--it is a riddle I must leave you to
guess!"
She moved on, and we followed across a velvety grass-plot bordered with
bright spring-flowers, such as crocuses, tulips, anemones, and
hyacinths, and presently pausing she asked--"Would you care to see my
work-room?"
I found myself agreeing to this proposition with an almost boyish
enthusiasm. Lucio glanced at me with a slight half-cynical smile.
"Miss Clare, are you going to name a pigeon after Mr Tempest?" he
inquired--"He played the part of an adverse critic, you know--but I
doubt whether he will ever do so again!"
She looked round at me and smiled.
"Oh, I have been merciful to Mr Tempest,"--she replied; "He is among the
anonymous birds whom I do not specially recognise!"
She stepped into the arched embrasure of an open window which fronted
the view of the grass and flowers, and entering with her we found
ourselves in a large room, octagonal in shape, where the first object
that attracted and riveted the attention was a marble bust of the
Pallas Athene whose grave impassive countenance and tranquil brows
directly faced the sun. A desk strewn with papers occupied the left-hand
side of the window-nook,--in a corner draped with olive-green velvet,
the white presence of the Apollo Belvedere taught in his inscrutable yet
radiant smile, the lesson of love and the triumphs of fame,--and numbers
of books were about, not ranged in formal rows on shelves as if they
were never read, but placed on low tables and wheeled stands, that they
might be easily taken up and glanced at. The arrangement of the walls
chiefly excited my interest and admiration, for these were divided into
panels, and every panel had, inscribed upon it in letters of gold, some
phrase from the philosophers, or some verse from the poets. The passage
from Shelley which Mavis had recently quoted to us, occupied, as she had
said, one panel, and above it hung a beautiful bas-relief of the drowned
poet copied from the monument at Via Reggio. Another and broader panel
held a fine engraving of Shakespeare, and under the picture appeared the
lines--
"To thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Byron was represented,--also Keats; but it would have taken more than a
day to examine the various suggestive quaintnesses and individual charms
of this 'workshop' as its owner called it, though the hour was to come
when I should know every corner of it by heart, and look upon it as a
haunted outlaw of bygone ages looked upon 'sanctuary.' But now time gave
us little pause,--and when we had sufficiently expressed our pleasure
and gratitude for the kindness with which we had been received, Lucio,
glancing at his watch, suggested departure.
"We could stay on here for an indefinite period Miss Clare,"--he said
with an unwonted softness in his dark eyes; "It is a place for peace and
happy meditation,--a restful corner for a tired soul." He checked a
slight sigh,--then went on--"But trains wait for no man, and we are
returning to town to-night."
"Then I will not detain you any longer," said our young hostess, leading
the way at once by a side-door, through a passage filled with flowering
plants, into the drawing-room where she had first entertained us--"I
hope, Mr Tempest," she added, smiling at me,--"that now we have met, you
will no longer desire to qualify as one of my pigeons! It is scarcely
worth while!"
"Miss Clare," I said, now speaking with unaffected sincerity--"I assure
you, on my honour, I am very sorry I wrote that article against you. If
I had only known you as you are--"
"Oh, that should make no difference to a critic!" she answered merrily.
"It would have made a great difference to me"--I declared; "You are so
unlike the objectionable 'literary woman,'--" I paused, and she regarded
me smilingly with her bright clear candid eyes,--then I added--"I must
tell you that Sibyl,--Lady Sibyl Elton--is one of your most ardent
admirers."
"I am very pleased to hear that,"--she said simply--"I am always glad
when I succeed in winning somebody's approval and liking."
"Does not everyone approve and admire you?" asked Lucio.
"Oh no! By no means! The 'Saturday' says I only win the applause of
shop-girls!" and she laughed--"Poor old 'Saturday'!--the writers on its
staff are so jealous of any successful author. I told the Prince of
Wales what it said the other day, and he was very much amused."
"You know the Prince?" I asked, in a little surprise.
"Well, it would be more correct to say that he knows me," she
replied--"He has been very amiable in taking some little interest in my
books. He knows a good deal about literature too,--much more than people
give him credit for. He has been here more than once,--and has seen me
feed my reviewers--the pigeons, you know! He rather enjoyed the fun I
think!"
And this was all the result of the 'slating' the press gave to Mavis
Clare! Simply that she named her doves after her critics, and fed them
in the presence of whatever royal or distinguished visitors she might
have (and I afterwards learned she had many) amid, no doubt, much
laughter from those who saw the 'Spectator'-pigeon fighting for grains
of corn, or the 'Saturday Review' pigeon quarrelling over peas!
Evidently no reviewer, spiteful or otherwise, could affect the vivacious
nature of such a mischievous elf as she was.
"How different you are--how widely different--to the ordinary run of
literary people!" I said involuntarily.
"I am glad you find me so,"--she answered--"I hope I _am_ different. As
a rule literary people take themselves far too seriously, and attach too
much importance to what they do. That is why they become such bores. I
don't believe anyone ever did thoroughly good work who was not perfectly
happy over it, and totally indifferent to opinion. I should be quite
content to write on, if I only had a garret to live in. I was once very
poor,--shockingly poor; and even now I am not rich, but I've got just
enough to keep me working steadily, which is as it should be. If I had
more, I might get lazy and neglect my work,--then you know Satan might
step into my life, and it would be a question of idle hands and mischief
to follow, according to the adage."
"I think you would have strength enough to resist Satan,--" said Lucio,
looking at her stedfastly, with sombre scrutiny in his expressive eyes.
"Oh, I don't know about that,--I could not be sure of myself!" and she
smiled--"I should imagine he must be a dangerously fascinating
personage. I never picture him as the possessor of hoofs and a
tail,--common-sense assures me that no creature presenting himself under
such an aspect would have the slightest power to attract. Milton's
conception of Satan is the finest"--and her eyes darkened swiftly with
the intensity of her thoughts--"A mighty Angel fallen!--one cannot but
be sorry for such a fall, if the legend were true!"
There was a sudden silence. A bird sang outside, and a little breeze
swayed the lilies in the window to and fro.
"Good-bye, Mavis Clare!" said Lucio very softly, almost tenderly. His
voice was low and tremulous--his face grave and pale. She looked up at
him in a little surprise.
"Good-bye!" she rejoined, extending her small hand. He held it a
moment,--then, to my secret astonishment, knowing his aversion to women,
stooped and kissed it. She flushed rosily as she withdrew it from his
clasp.
"Be always as you are Mavis Clare!"--he said gently--"Let nothing change
you! Keep that bright nature of yours,--that unruffled spirit of quiet
contentment, and you may wear the bitter laurel of fame as sweetly as a
rose! I have seen the world; I have travelled far, and have met many
famous men and women,--kings and queens, senators, poets and
philosophers,--my experience has been wide and varied, so that I am not
altogether without authority for what I say,--and I assure you that the
Satan of whom you are able to speak with compassion, can never trouble
the peace of a pure and contented soul. Like consorts with like,--a
fallen angel seeks the equally fallen,--and the devil,--if there be
one,--becomes the companion of those only who take pleasure in his
teaching and society. Legends say he is afraid of a crucifix,--but if he
is afraid of anything I should say it must be of that 'sweet content'
concerning which your country's Shakespeare sings, and which is a better
defence against evil than the church or the prayers of the clergy! I
speak as one having the right of age to speak,--I am so many many years
older than you!----you must forgive me if I have said too much!"
She was quite silent; evidently moved and surprised at his words; and
she gazed at him with a vaguely wondering, half-awed expression,--an
expression which changed directly I myself advanced to make my adieu.
"I am very glad to have met you, Miss Clare,"--I said--"I hope we shall
be friends!"
"There is no reason why we should be enemies I think," she responded
frankly--"I am very pleased you came to-day. If ever you want to 'slate'
me again, you know your fate!--you become a dove,--nothing more!
Good-bye!"
She saluted us prettily as we passed out, and when the gate had closed
behind us we heard the deep and joyous baying of the great dog
'Emperor,' evidently released from 'durance vile' immediately on our
departure. We walked on for some time in silence, and it was not till we
had re-entered the grounds of Willowsmere, and were making our way to
the drive where the carriage which was to take us to the station already
awaited us, that Lucio said--
"Well; now, what do you think of her?"
"She is as unlike the accepted ideal of the female novelist as she can
well be," I answered, with a laugh.
"Accepted ideals are generally mistaken ones,"--he observed, watching me
narrowly--"An accepted ideal of Divinity in some church pictures is an
old man's face set in a triangle. The accepted ideal of the devil is a
nondescript creature, with horns, hoofs (one of them cloven) and a tail,
as Miss Clare just now remarked. The accepted ideal of beauty is the
Venus de Medicis,--whereas your Lady Sibyl entirely transcends that much
over-rated statue. The accepted ideal of a poet is Apollo,--he was a
god,--and no poet in the flesh ever approaches the god-like! And the
accepted ideal of the female novelist, is an elderly, dowdy, spectacled,
frowsy fright,--Mavis Clare does not fulfil this description, yet she is
the author of 'Differences.' Now McWhing, who thrashes her continually
in all the papers he can command, _is_ elderly, ugly, spectacled and
frowsy,--and he is the author of--nothing! Women-authors are invariably
supposed to be hideous,--men-authors for the most part _are_ hideous.
But their hideousness is not noted or insisted upon,--whereas, no matter
how good-looking women-writers may be, they still pass under
press-comment as frights, because the fiat of press-opinion considers
they ought to be frights, even if they are not. A pretty authoress is an
offence,--an incongruity,--a something that neither men nor women care
about. Men don't care about her, because being clever and independent,
she does not often care about them,--women don't care about her, because
she has the effrontery to combine attractive looks with intelligence,
and she makes an awkward rival to those who have only attractive looks
without intelligence. So wags the world!--
O wild world!--circling through æons untold,--
'Mid fires of sunrise and sunset,--through flashes of silver and
gold,--
Grain of dust in a storm,--atom of sand by the sea,--
What is your worth, O world, to the Angels of God and me!
He sang this quite suddenly, his rich baritone pealing out musically on
the warm silent air. I listened entranced.
"What a voice you have!" I exclaimed--"What a glorious gift!"
He smiled, and sang on, his dark eyes flashing--
O wild world! Mote in a burning ray
Flung from the spherical Heavens millions of spaces away--
Sink in the ether or soar! Live with the planets or die!--
What should I care for your fate, who am one with the Infinite Sky!
"What strange song is that?" I asked, startled and thrilled by the
passion of his voice--"It seems to mean nothing!"
He laughed, and took my arm.
"It does mean nothing!" he said--"All drawing-room songs mean nothing.
Mine is a drawing-room song--calculated to waken emotional impulses in
the unloved spinster religiously inclined!"
"Nonsense!" I said, smiling.
"Exactly! That is what I say. It _is_ nonsense!" Here we came up to the
carriage which waited for us--"Just twenty minutes to catch the train,
Geoffrey! Off we go!"
And off we did go,--I watching the red gabled roofs of Willowsmere Court
shining in the late sunshine, till a turn in the road hid them from
view.
"You like your purchase?" queried Lucio presently.
"I do. Immensely!"
"And your rival, Mavis Clare? Do you like her?"
I paused a moment, then answered frankly,
"Yes. I like her. And I will admit something more than that to you now.
I like her book. It is a noble work,--worthy of the most highly-gifted
man. I always liked it--and because I liked it, I slated it."
"Rather a mysterious course of procedure!" and he smiled; "Can you not
explain?"
"Of course I can explain,"--I said--"Explanation is easy. I envied her
power--I envy it still. Her popularity caused me a smarting sense of
injury, and to relieve it I wrote that article against her. But I shall
never do anything of the kind again. I shall let her grow her laurels in
peace."
"Laurels have a habit of growing without any permission,"--observed
Lucio significantly--"In all sorts of unexpected places too. And they
can never be properly cultivated in the forcing-house of criticism."
"I know that!" I said quickly, my thoughts reverting to my own book, and
all the favourable criticisms that had been heaped upon it--"I have
learned that lesson thoroughly, by heart!"
He looked at me fixedly.
"It is only one of many you may have yet to learn"--he said--"It is a
lesson in fame. Your next course of instruction will be in love!"
He smiled,--but I was conscious of a certain dread and discomfort as he
spoke. I thought of Sibyl and her incomparable beauty----Sibyl, who had
told me she could not love,--had we both to learn a lesson? And should
we master it?--or would it master us?
XXI
The preparations for my marriage now went on apace,--shoals of presents
began to arrive for Sibyl as well as for myself, and I was introduced to
an hitherto undemonstrated phase (as far as I personally was concerned)
of the vulgarity and hypocrisy of fashionable society. Everyone knew the
extent of my wealth, and how little real necessity there was for
offering me or my bride-elect costly gifts; nevertheless, all our
so-called 'friends' and acquaintances, strove to outvie each other in
the gross cash-value, if not in the good taste, of their various
donations. Had we been a young couple bravely beginning the world on
true love, in more or less uncertainty as to our prospects and future
income, we should have received nothing either useful or
valuable,--everyone would have tried to do the present-giving in as
cheap and mean a way as possible. Instead of handsome services of solid
silver, we should have had a meagre collection of plated teaspoons;
instead of costly editions of books sumptuously enriched with fine steel
engravings, we might possibly have had to express our gratitude for a
ten-shilling Family Bible. Of course I fully realized the actual nature
and object of the lavish extravagance displayed on this occasion by our
social 'set,'--their gifts were merely so many bribes, sent with a
purpose which was easy enough to fathom. The donors wished to be invited
to the wedding in the first place,--after that, they sought to be
included in our visiting-list, and foresaw invitations to our dinners
and house-parties;--and more than this they calculated on our influence
in society, and the possible chance there might be in the dim future of
our lending some of them money should pressing occasion require it. In
the scant thankfulness and suppressed contempt their adulatory offerings
excited, Sibyl and I were completely at one. She looked upon her array
of glittering valuables with the utmost weariness and indifference, and
flattered my self-love by assuring me that the only things she cared at
all for were the riviére of sapphires and diamonds I had given her as a
betrothal-pledge, together with an engagement-ring of the same lustrous
gems. Yet I noticed she also had a great liking for Lucio's present,
which was a truly magnificent masterpiece of the jeweller's art. It was
a girdle in the form of a serpent, the body entirely composed of the
finest emeralds, and the head of rubies and diamonds. Flexible as a
reed, when Sibyl put it on, it appeared to spring and coil round her
waist like a living thing, and breathe with her breathing. I did not
much care for it myself as an ornament for a young bride,--it seemed to
me quite unsuitable,--but as everyone else admired it and envied the
possessor of such superb jewels, I said nothing of my own distaste.
Diana Chesney had shown a certain amount of delicate sentiment and
refinement in her offering,--it was a very exquisite marble statue of
Psyche, mounted on a pedestal of solid silver and ebony. Sibyl thanked
her, smiling coldly.
"You have given me an emblem of the Soul,"--she said; "No doubt you
remembered I have no soul of my own!"
And her airy laugh had chilled poor Diana 'to the marrow,' as the
warm-hearted little American herself, with tears, assured me.
At this period I saw very little of Rimânez. I was much occupied with my
lawyers on the question of 'settlements.' Messrs Bentham and Ellis
rather objected to the arrangement by which I gave the half of my
fortune to my intended wife unconditionally; but I would brook no
interference, and the deed was drawn up, signed, sealed and witnessed.
The Earl of Elton could not sufficiently praise my 'unexampled
generosity'--my 'noble character;'--and walked about, eulogising me
everywhere, till he almost turned himself into a public advertisement of
the virtues of his future son-in-law. He seemed to have taken a new
lease of life,--he flirted with Diana Chesney openly,--and of his
paralysed spouse with the fixed stare and deathly grin, he never spoke,
and, I imagine, never thought. Sibyl herself was always in the hands of
dressmakers and milliners,--and we only saw each other every day for a
few minutes' hurried chat. On these occasions she was always
charming,--even affectionate; and yet,--though I was full of passionate
admiration and love for her, I felt that she was mine merely as a slave
might be mine; that she gave me her lips to kiss as if she considered I
had a right to kiss them because I had bought them, and for no other
reason,--that her pretty caresses were studied, and her whole behaviour
the result of careful forethought and not natural impulsiveness. I tried
to shake off this impression, but it still remained persistently, and
clouded the sweetness of my brief courtship.
Meanwhile, slowly and almost imperceptibly, my 'boomed' book dropped out
of notice. Morgeson presented a heavy bill of publishing costs which I
paid without a murmur; now and then an allusion to my 'literary
triumphs' cropped up in one or other of the newspapers, but otherwise no
one spoke of my 'famous' work, and few read it. I enjoyed the same sort
of cliquey reputation and public failure attending a certain novel
entitled 'Marius the Epicurean.' The journalists with whom I had come in
contact began to drift away like flotsam and jetsam; I think they saw I
was not likely to give many more 'reviewing' dinners or suppers, and
that my marriage with the Earl of Elton's daughter would lift me into an
atmosphere where Grub-street could not breathe comfortably or stretch
its legs at ease. The heap of gold on which I sat as on a throne,
divided me gradually from even the back courts and lower passages
leading to the Temple of Fame,--and almost unconsciously to myself I
retreated step by step, shading my eyes as it were from the sun, and
seeing the glittering turrets in the distance, with a woman's slight
figure entering the lofty portico, turning back her laurelled head to
smile sorrowfully and with divinest pity upon me, ere passing in to
salute the gods. Yet, if asked about it, everyone on the press would
have said that I had had a great success. I--only I--realized the
bitterness and truth of my failure. I had not touched the heart of the
public;--I had not succeeded in so waking my readers out of the torpor
of their dull and commonplace every-day lives, that they should turn
towards me with outstretched hands, exclaiming--"More,--more of these
thoughts which comfort and inspire us!--which make us hear God's voice
proclaiming 'All's well!' above the storms of life!" I had not done
it,--I could not do it. And the worst part of my feeling on this point
was the idea that possibly I might have done it had I remained poor! The
strongest and healthiest pulse in the composition of a man,--the
necessity for hard work,--had been killed in me. I knew I need not work;
that the society in which I now moved thought it ridiculous if I did
work; that I was expected to spend money and 'enjoy' myself in the
idiotic fashion of what the 'upper ten' term enjoyment. My acquaintances
were not slow in suggesting plans for the dissipation of my surplus
cash,--why did I not build for myself a marble palace on the
Riviera?--or a yacht to completely outshine the Prince of Wales's
'Britannia'? Why did I not start a theatre? Or found a newspaper? Not
one of my social advisers once proposed my doing any private personal
good with my fortune. When some terrible case of distress was published,
and subscriptions were raised to relieve the object or objects of
suffering, I invariably gave Ten Guineas, and allowed myself to be
thanked for my 'generous assistance.' I might as well have given ten
pence, for the guineas were no more to me in comparison than the pence.
When funds were started to erect a statue to some great man who had, in
the usual way of the world, been a victim of misrepresentation till his
death, I produced my Ten Guineas again, when I could easily have
defrayed the whole cost of the memorial, with honour to myself, and been
none the poorer. With all my wealth I did nothing noteworthy; I
showered no unexpected luck in the way of the patient, struggling
workers in the hard schools of literature and art; I gave no 'largesse'
among the poor;--and when a thin, eager-eyed curate, with a strong
earnest face called upon me one day, to represent, with much nervous
diffidence, the hideous sufferings of some of the sick and starving in
his district down by the docks, and suggested that I might possibly care
to alleviate a few of these direful sorrows as a satisfaction to myself,
as well as for the sake of human brotherhood, I am ashamed to say I let
him go with a sovereign, for which he heaped coals of fire on my head by
his simple 'God bless you, and thank you.' I could see he was himself in
the grip of poverty,--I could have made him and his poor district
gloriously happy by a few strokes of my pen on a cheque for an amount I
should never have missed,--and yet--I gave him nothing but that one
piece of gold, and so allowed him to depart. He invited me, with earnest
good-will, to go and see his starving flock,--"for, believe me Mr
Tempest," said he--"I should be sorry if you thought, as some of the
wealthy are unhappily apt to do, that I seek money simply to apply it to
my own personal uses. If you would visit the district yourself, and
distribute whatever you pleased with your own hand, it would be
infinitely more gratifying to me, and would have a far better effect on
the minds of the people. For, sir, the poor will not always be patient
under the cruel burdens they have to bear."
I smiled indulgently, and assured him, not without a touch of satire in
my tone, that I was convinced all clergymen were honest and
unselfish,--and then I sent my servant to bow him out with all possible
politeness. And that very day I remember, I drank at my luncheon Chateau
Yquem at twenty-five shillings a bottle.
I enter into these apparently trifling details because they all help to
make up the sum and substance of the deadly consequences to follow,--and
also because I wish to emphasize the fact that in my actions I only
imitated the example of my compeers. Most rich men to-day follow the
same course as I did,--and active personal good to the community is
wrought by very few of them. No great deed of generosity illumines our
annals. Royalty itself leads no fashion in this,--the royal gifts of
game and cast-off clothing sent to our hospitals are too slight and
conventional to carry weight. The 'entertainments for the poor' got up
by some of the aristocrats at the East end, are nothing, and less than
nothing. They are weak sops to our tame 'lion couchant' offered in
doubtful fear and trembling. For our lion is wakeful and somewhat
restive,--there is no knowing what may happen if the original ferocity
of the beast is roused. A few of our over-rich men might considerably
ease the load of cruel poverty in many quarters of the metropolis if
they united themselves with a noble unselfishness in the strong and
determined effort to do so, and eschewed red-tapeism and wordy argument.
But they remain inert;--spending solely on their own personal
gratification and amusement,--and meanwhile there are dark signs of
trouble brooding. The poor, as the lean and anxious curate said, will
not always be patient!
I must not here forget to mention, that through some secret management
of Rimânez, my name, much to my own surprise, appeared on the list of
competitors for the Derby. How, at so late an hour, this had been
effected, I knew no more than where my horse 'Phosphor' came from. It
was a superb animal, but Rimânez, whose gift to me it was, warned me to
be careful as to the character of the persons admitted into the stables
to view it, and to allow no one but the horse's own two attendants to
linger near it long on any pretext. Speculation was very rife as to what
'Phosphor's' capabilities really were; the grooms never showed him off
to advantage during exercise. I was amazed when Lucio told me his man
Amiel would be the jockey.
"Good heavens!--not possible!" I exclaimed. "Can he ride?"
"Like the very devil!"--responded my friend with a smile: "He will ride
'Phosphor' to the winning-post."
I was very doubtful in my own mind of this; a horse of the Prime
Minister's was to run, and all the betting was on that side. Few had
seen 'Phosphor,' and those few, though keen admirers of the animal's
appearance, had little opportunity of judging its actual qualities,
thanks to the careful management of its two attendants, who were
dark-faced, reticent-looking men, somewhat after Amiel's character and
complexion. I myself was quite indifferent as to the result of the
contest. I did not really care whether 'Phosphor' lost or won the race.
I could afford to lose; and it would be little to me if I won, save a
momentary passing triumph. There was nothing lasting, intellectual or
honourable in the victory,--there _is_ nothing lasting, intellectual or
honourable in anything connected with racing. However, because it was
'fashionable' to be interested in this particular mode of wasting time
and money, I followed the general 'lead,' for the sake of 'being
talked about,' and nothing more. Meanwhile, Lucio, saying little to me
concerning it, was busy planning the betrothal-fête at Willowsmere, and
designing all sorts of 'surprise' entertainments for the guests. Eight
hundred invitations were sent out; and society soon began to chatter
volubly and excitedly on the probable magnificence of the forthcoming
festival. Eager acceptances poured in; only a few of those asked were
hindered from attending by illness, family deaths or previous
engagements, and among these latter, to my regret, was Mavis Clare. She
was going to the sea-coast to stay with some old friends, and in a
prettily-worded letter explained this, and expressed her thanks for my
invitation, though she found herself unable to accept it. How curious it
was that when I read her little note of refusal I should experience such
a keen sense of disappointment! She was nothing to me,--nothing but a
'literary' woman who, by strange chance, happened to be sweeter than
most women _un_literary; and yet I felt that the fête at Willowsmere
would lose something in brightness lacking her presence. I had wanted to
introduce her to Sibyl, as I knew I should thus give a special pleasure
to my betrothed,--however, it was not to be, and I was conscious of an
inexplicable personal vexation. In strict accordance with the promise
made, I let Rimânez have his own way entirely with regard to all the
arrangements for what was to be the _ne plus ultra_ of everything ever
designed for the distraction, amusement and wonderment of listless and
fastidious 'swagger' people, and I neither interfered, nor asked any
questions, content to rely on my friend's taste, imagination and
ingenuity. I only understood that all the plans were being carried out
by foreign artists and caterers,--and that no English firms would be
employed. I did venture once to inquire the reason of this, and got one
of Lucio's own enigmatical replies:--
"Nothing English is good enough for the English,"--he said--"Things have
to be imported from France to please the people whom the French
themselves angrily designate as 'perfide Albion.' You must not have a
'Bill of Fare'; you must have a 'Menu'; and all your dishes must bear
French titles, otherwise they will not be in good form. You must have
French 'comediennes' and 'danseuses' to please the British taste, and
your silken draperies must be woven on French looms. Lately too, it has
been deemed necessary to import Parisian morality as well as Parisian
fashions. It does not suit stalwart Great Britain at all, you
know,--stalwart Great Britain, aping the manners of Paris, looks like a
jolly open-faced, sturdy-limbed Giant, with a doll's bonnet stuck on his
leonine head. But the doll's bonnet is just now _la mode_. Some day I
believe the Giant will discover it looks ridiculous, and cast it off
with a burst of genuine laughter at his own temporary folly. And without
it, he will resume his original dignity;--the dignity that best becomes
a privileged conqueror who has the sea for his standing-army."
"Evidently you like England!" I said smiling.
He laughed.
"Not in the very least! I do not like England any more than any other
country on the globe. I do not like the globe itself; and England comes
in for a share of my aversion as one of the spots on the trumpery ball.
If I could have my way, I should like to throne myself on a convenient
star for the purpose and kick out at Earth as she whirls by in space,
hoping by that act of just violence to do away with her for ever!"
"But why?" I asked, amused--"Why do you hate the Earth? What has the
poor little planet done to merit your abhorrence?"
He looked at me very strangely.
"Shall I tell you? You will never believe me!"
"No matter for that!" I answered smiling--"Say on!"
"What has the poor little planet done?" he repeated slowly--"The poor
little planet has done--nothing. But it is what the gods have done with
this same poor little planet, that awakens my anger and scorn. They have
made it a living sphere of wonders,--endowed it with beauty borrowed
from the fairest corners of highest Heaven,--decked it with flowers and
foliage,--taught it music,--the music of birds and torrents and rolling
waves and falling rains,--rocked it gently in clear ether, among such
light as blinds the eyes of mortals,--guided it out of chaos, through
clouds of thunder and barbëd shafts of lightning, to circle peacefully
in its appointed orbit, lit on the one hand by the vivid splendours of
the sun, and on the other by the sleepy radiance of the moon;--and more
than all this, they have invested it with a Divine Soul in man! Oh, you
may disbelieve as you will,--but notwithstanding the pigmy peeps earth
takes at the vast and eternal ocean of Science, the Soul is here, and
all the immortal forces with it and around it! Nay, the gods--I speak in
the plural, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks--for to my thinking
there are many gods emanating from the Supreme Deity,--the gods, I say,
have so insisted on this fact, that One of them has walked the earth in
human guise, solely for the sake of emphasizing the truth of Immortality
to these frail creatures of seemingly perishable clay! For this I hate
the planet;--were there not, and are there not, other and far grander
worlds that a God should have chosen to dwell on than this one!"
For a moment I was silent, out of sheer surprise.
"You amaze me!" I said at last--"You allude to Christ, I suppose; but
everybody is convinced by this time that He was a mere man like the rest
of us; there was nothing divine about Him. What a contradiction you are!
Why, I remember you indignantly denied the accusation of being a
Christian."
"Of course,--and I deny it still"--he answered quickly--"I have not a
fat living in the church that I should tell a lie on such a subject. I
am not a Christian; nor is anyone living a Christian. To quote a very
old saying 'There never was a Christian save One, and He was crucified.'
But though I am not a Christian I never said I doubted the existence of
Christ. That knowledge was forced upon me,--with considerable pressure
too!"
"By a reliable authority?" I inquired with a slight sneer.
He made no immediate reply. His flashing eyes looked, as it were,
through me and beyond me at something far away. The curious pallor that
at times gave his face the set look of an impenetrable mask, came upon
him then, and he smiled,--an awful smile. So might a man smile out of
deadly bravado, when told of some dim and dreadful torture awaiting him.
"You touch me on a sore point,"--he said at last, slowly, and in a harsh
tone--"My convictions respecting certain religious phases of man's
development and progress, are founded on the arduous study of some very
unpleasant truths to which humanity generally shuts its eyes, burying
its head in the desert-sands of its own delusions. These truths I will
not enter upon now. Some other time I will initiate you into a few of my
mysteries."
The tortured smile passed from his face, leaving it intellectually
composed and calm as usual,--and I hastily changed the subject, for I
had made up my mind by this time that my brilliant friend had, like many
exceptionally gifted persons, a 'craze' on one topic, and that topic a
particularly difficult one to discuss as it touched on the superhuman
and therefore (to my thinking) the impossible. My own temperament, which
had, in the days of my poverty, fluctuated between spiritual striving
and material gain, had, with my sudden access to fortune, rapidly
hardened into the character of a man of the world worldly, for whom all
speculations as to the unseen forces working in and around us, were the
merest folly, not worth a moment's waste of thought. I should have
laughed to scorn anyone who had then presumed to talk to me about the
law of Eternal Justice, which with individuals as well as nations,
works, not for a passing 'phase,' but for all time towards good, and not
evil,--for no matter how much a man may strive to blind himself to the
fact, he has a portion of the Divine within him, which if he wilfully
corrupts by his own wickedness, he must be forced to cleanse again and
yet again, in the fierce flames of such remorse and such despair as are
rightly termed the quenchless fires of Hell!
XXII
On the afternoon of the twenty-first of May, I went down, accompanied by
Lucio, to Willowsmere, to be in readiness for the reception of the
social swarm who were to flock thither the next day. Amiel went with
us,--but I left my own man, Morris, behind, to take charge of my rooms
in the Grand, and to forward late telegrams and special messages. The
weather was calm, warm and bright,--and a young moon showed her thin
crescent in the sky as we got out at the country station and stepped
into the open carriage awaiting us. The station-officials greeted us
with servile humility, eyeing Lucio especially with an almost gaping air
of wonderment; the fact of his lavish expenditure in arranging with the
railway company a service of special trains for the use of the morrow's
guests, had no doubt excited them to a speechless extent of admiration
as well as astonishment. When we approached Willowsmere, and entered the
beautiful drive, bordered with oak and beech, which led up to the house,
I uttered an exclamation of delight at the festal decorations displayed,
for the whole avenue was spanned with arches of flags and flowers,
garlands of blossoms being even swung from tree to tree, and interlacing
many of the lower branches. The gabled porch at the entrance of the
house was draped with crimson silk and festooned with white roses,--and
as we alighted, the door was flung open by a smart page in brilliant
scarlet and gold.
"I think," said Lucio to me as we entered--"You will find everything as
complete as this world's resources will allow. The retinue of servants
here are what is vulgarly called 'on the job'; their payment is agreed
upon, and they know their duties thoroughly,--they will give you no
trouble."
I could scarcely find words to express my unbounded satisfaction, or to
thank him for the admirable taste with which the beautiful house had
been adorned. I wandered about in an ecstasy of admiration, triumphing
in such a visible and gorgeous display of what great wealth could really
do. The ball-room had been transformed into an elegant bijou theatre,
the stage being concealed by a curtain of thick gold-coloured silk on
which the oft-quoted lines of Shakespeare were embroidered in raised
letters,--
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players."
Turning out of this into the drawing-room, I found it decorated entirely
round with banks of roses, red and white, the flowers forming a huge
pyramid at one end of the apartment, behind which, as Lucio informed me,
unseen musicians would discourse sweet harmony.
"I have arranged for a few 'tableaux vivants' in the theatre to fill up
a gap of time;"--he said carelessly--"Fashionable folks now-a-days get
so soon tired of one amusement that it is necessary to provide several
in order to distract the brains that cannot think, or discover any means
of entertainment in themselves. As a matter of fact, people cannot even
converse long together because they have nothing to say. Oh, don't
bother to go out in the grounds on a tour of inspection just now,--leave
a few surprises for yourself as well as for your company to-morrow. Come
and have dinner!"
He put his arm through mine and we entered the dining-room. Here the
table was laid out with costly fruit, flowers and delicacies of every
description,--four men-servants in scarlet and gold stood silently in
waiting, with Amiel, in black as usual, behind his master's chair. We
enjoyed a sumptuous repast served to perfection, and when it was
finished, we strolled out in the grounds to smoke and talk.
"You seem to do everything by magic, Lucio;"--I said, looking at him
wonderingly--"All these lavish decorations,--these servants--"
"Money, my dear fellow,--nothing but money"--he interrupted with a
laugh--"Money, the devil's pass-key! you can have the retinue of a king
without any of a king's responsibilities, if you only choose to pay for
it. It is merely a question of cost."
"And taste!" I reminded him.
"True,--and taste. Some rich men there are who have less taste than a
costermonger. I know one who has the egregious vulgarity to call the
attention of his guests to the value of his goods and chattels. He
pointed out for my admiration one day, an antique and hideous china
plate, the only one of that kind in the world, and told me it was worth
a thousand guineas. 'Break it,'--I said coolly--'You will then have the
satisfaction of knowing you have destroyed a thousand guineas' worth of
undesirable ugliness.' You should have seen his face! He showed me no
more _curios_!"
I laughed, and we walked slowly up and down for a few minutes in
silence. Presently I became aware that my companion was looking at me
intently, and I turned my head quickly to meet his eyes. He smiled.
"I was just then thinking," he said, "what you would have done with your
life if you had not inherited this fortune, and if,--if _I_ had not come
your way?"
"I should have starved, no doubt,"--I responded--"Died like a rat in a
hole,--of want and wretchedness."
"I rather doubt that;" he said meditatively--"It is just possible you
might have become a great writer."
"Why do you say that now?" I asked.
"Because I have been reading your book. There are fine ideas in
it,--ideas that might, had they been the result of sincere conviction,
have reached the public in time, because they were sane and healthy. The
public will never put up for long with corrupt 'fads' and artificial
'crazes.' Now you write of God,--yet according to your own statement,
you did not believe in God even when you wrote the words that imply His
existence,--and that was long before I met you. Therefore the book was
not the result of sincere conviction, and that's the key-note of your
failure to reach the large audience you desired. Each reader can see you
do not believe what you write,--the trumpet of lasting fame never sounds
triumph for an author of that calibre."
"Don't let us talk about it for Heaven's sake!" I said irritably--"I
know my work lacks something,--and that something may be what you say or
it may not,--I do not want to think about it. Let it perish, as it
assuredly will; perhaps in the future I may do better."
He was silent,--and finishing his cigar, threw the end away in the grass
where it burned like a dull red coal.
"I must turn in," he then observed,--"I have a few more directions to
give to the servants for to-morrow. I shall go to my room as soon as I
have done,--so I'll say good-night."
"But surely you are taking too much personal trouble,"--I said--"Can't I
help in any way?"
"No, you can't,"--he answered smiling. "When I undertake to do anything
I like to do it in my own fashion, or not at all. Sleep well, and rise
early."
He nodded, and sauntered slowly away over the dewy grass. I watched his
dark tall figure receding till he had entered the house; then, lighting
a fresh cigar, I wandered on alone through the grounds, noting here and
there flowery arbours and dainty silk pavilions erected in picturesque
nooks and corners for the morrow. I looked up at the sky; it was clear
and bright,--there would be no rain. Presently I opened the wicket-gate
that led into the outer by-road, and walking on slowly, almost
unconsciously, I found myself in a few minutes opposite 'Lily Cottage.'
Approaching the gate I looked in,--the pretty old house was dark, silent
and deserted. I knew Mavis Clare was away,--and it was not strange that
the aspect of her home-nest emphasized the fact of her absence. A
cluster of climbing roses hanging from the wall, looked as if they were
listening for the first sound of her returning footsteps; across the
green breadth of the lawn where I had seen her playing with her dogs, a
tall sheaf of St John's lilies stood up white against the sky, their
pure hearts opened to the star-light and the breeze. The scent of
honey-suckle and sweet-briar filled the air with delicate
suggestions,--and as I leaned over the low fence, gazing vaguely at the
long shadows of the trees on the grass, a nightingale began to sing. The
sweet yet dolorous warble of the 'little brown lover of the moon,'
palpitated on the silence in silver-toned drops of melody; and I
listened, till my eyes smarted with a sudden moisture as of tears.
Strangely enough, I never thought of my betrothed bride Sibyl then, as
surely, by all the precedents of passion, I should have done at such a
moment of dreamful ecstasy. It was another woman's face that floated
before my memory;--a face not beautiful,--but merely sweet,--and made
radiant by the light of two tender, wistful, wonderfully innocent
eyes,--a face like that of some new Daphne with the mystic laurel
springing from her brows. The nightingale sang on and on,--the tall
lilies swayed in the faint wind as though nodding wise approval of the
bird's wild music,--and, gathering one briar-rose from the hedge, I
turned away with a curious heaviness at my heart,--a trouble I could not
analyse or account for. I explained my feeling partly to myself as one
of regret that I had ever taken up my pen to assault, with sneer and
flippant jest, the gentle and brilliantly endowed owner of this little
home where peace and pure content dwelt happily in student-like
seclusion;--but this was not all. There was something else in my
mind,--something inexplicable and sad,--which then I had no skill to
define. I know now what it was,--but the knowledge comes too late!
Returning to my own domains, I saw through the trees a vivid red light
in one of the upper windows of Willowsmere. It twinkled like a lurid
star, and I guided my steps by its brilliancy as I made my way across
the winding garden-paths and terraces back to the house. Entering the
hall, the page in scarlet and gold met me, and with a respectful
obeisance, escorted me to my room where Amiel was in waiting.
"Has the prince retired?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir."
"He has a red lamp in his window has he not?"
Amiel looked deferentially meditative. Yet I fancied I saw him smile.
"I think----yes,--I believe he has, sir."
I asked no more questions, but allowed him to perform his duties as
valet in silence.
"Good-night sir!" he said at last, his ferret eyes fastened upon me with
an expressionless look.
"Good-night!" I responded indifferently.
He left the room with his usual cat-like stealthy tread, and when he had
gone, I,--moved by a sudden fresh impulse of hatred for him,--sprang to
the door and locked it. Then I listened, with an odd nervous
breathlessness. There was not a sound. For fully quarter of an hour I
remained with my attention more or less strained, expectant of I knew
not what; but the quiet of the house was absolutely undisturbed. With a
sigh of relief I flung myself on the luxurious bed,--a couch fit for a
king, draped with the richest satin elaborately embroidered,--and
falling soundly asleep I dreamed that I was poor again. Poor,--but
unspeakably happy,--and hard at work in the old lodging, writing down
thoughts which I knew, by some divine intuition and beyond all doubt,
would bring me the whole world's honour. Again I heard the sounds of the
violin played by my unseen neighbour next door, and this time they were
triumphal chords and cadences of joy, without one throb of sorrow. And
while I wrote on in an ecstasy of inspiration, oblivious of poverty and
pain, I heard, echoing through my visions, the round warble of the
nightingale, and saw, in the far distance, an angel floating towards me
on pinions of light, with the face of Mavis Clare.
XXIII
The morning broke clear, with all the pure tints of a fine opal
radiating in the cloudless sky. Never had I beheld such a fair scene as
the woods and gardens of Willowsmere when I looked upon them that day
illumined by the unclouded sunlight of a spring half-melting into
summer. My heart swelled with pride as I surveyed the beautiful domain I
now owned,--and thought how happy a home it would make when Sibyl,
matchless in her loveliness, shared with me its charm and luxury.
"Yes,"--I said half-aloud--"Say what philosophers will, the possession
of money does insure satisfaction and power. It is all very well to
talk about fame, but what is fame worth, if, like Carlyle, one is
too poor to enjoy it! Besides, literature no longer holds its former
high prestige,--there are too many in the field,--too many
newspaper-scribblers, all believing they are geniuses,--too many
ill-educated lady-paragraphists and 'new' women, who think they are as
gifted as Georges Sand or Mavis Clare. With Sibyl and Willowsmere, I
ought to be able to resign the idea of fame--literary fame--with a good
grace."
I knew I reasoned falsely with myself,--I knew that my hankering for a
place among the truly great of the world, was as strong as ever,--I knew
I craved for the intellectual distinction, force, and pride which make
the Thinker a terror and a power in the land, and which so sever a great
poet or great romancist from the commoner throng that even kings are
glad to do him or her honour,--but I would not allow my thoughts to
dwell on this rapidly vanishing point of unattainable desire. I settled
my mind to enjoy the luscious flavour of the immediate present, as a bee
settles in the cup of honey-flowers,--and, leaving my bedroom, I went
downstairs to breakfast with Lucio in the best and gayest of humours.
"Not a cloud on the day!" he said, meeting me with a smile, as I entered
the bright morning-room, whose windows opened on the lawn--"The fête
will be a brilliant success, Geoffrey."
"Thanks to you!" I answered--"Personally I am quite in the dark as to
your plans,--but I believe you can do nothing that is not well done."
"You honour me!" he said with a light laugh--"You credit me then with
better qualities than the Creator! For what He does, in the opinion of
the present generation, is exceedingly ill done! Men have taken to
grumbling at Him instead of praising Him,--and few have any patience
with or liking for His laws."
I laughed. "Well, you must admit those laws are very arbitrary!"
"They are. I entirely acknowledge the fact!"
We sat down to table, and were waited upon by admirably-trained servants
who apparently had no idea of anything else but attendance on our needs.
There was no trace of bustle or excitement in the household,--no sign
whatever to denote that a great entertainment was about to take place
that day. It was not until the close of our meal that I asked Lucio what
time the musicians would arrive. He glanced at his watch.
"About noon I should say,"--he replied--"Perhaps before. But whatever
their hour, they will all be in their places at the proper moment,
depend upon it. The people I employ--both musicians and 'artistes'--know
their business thoroughly, and are aware that I stand no nonsense." A
rather sinister smile played round his mouth as he regarded me. "None of
your guests can arrive here till one o'clock,--as that is about the
time the special train will bring the first batch of them from
London,--and the first 'déjeuner' will be served in the gardens at two.
If you want to amuse yourself there's a Maypole being put up on the
large lawn,--you'd better go and look at it."
"A Maypole!" I exclaimed--"Now that's a good idea!"
"It used to be a good idea,"--he answered--"When English lads and lasses
had youth, innocence, health and fun in their composition, a dance round
the Maypole hand in hand, did them good and did nobody harm. But now
there are no lads and lasses,--enervated old men and women in their
teens walk the world wearily, speculating on the uses of life,--probing
vice, and sneering down sentiment, and such innocent diversions as the
Maypole no longer appeal to our jaded youth. So we have to get
'professionals' to execute the May-revels,--of course the dancing is
better done by properly trained legs; but it means nothing, and _is_
nothing, except a pretty spectacle."
"And are the dancers here?" I asked, rising and going towards the window
in some curiosity.
"No, not yet. But the May-pole is;--fully decorated. It faces the woods
at the back of the house,--go and see if you like it."
I followed his suggestion, and going in the direction indicated, I soon
perceived the gaily-decked object which used to be the welcome signal of
many a village holiday in Shakespeare's old-world England. The pole was
already set up and fixed in a deep socket in the ground, and a dozen or
more men were at work, unbinding its numerous trails of blossom and
garlands of green, tied with long streamers of vari-coloured ribbon. It
had a picturesque effect in the centre of the wide lawn bordered with
grand old trees,--and approaching one of the men, I said something to
him by way of approval and admiration. He glanced at me furtively and
unsmilingly, but said nothing,--and I concluded from his dark and
foreign cast of features, that he did not understand the English
language. I noted, with some wonder and slight vexation that all the
workmen were of this same alien and sinister type of countenance, very
much after the unattractive models of Amiel and the two grooms who had
my racer 'Phosphor' in charge. But I remembered what Lucio had told
me,--namely, that all the designs for the fête were carried out by
foreign experts and artists,--and after some puzzled consideration, I
let the matter pass from my mind.
The morning hours flew swiftly by, and I had little time to examine all
the festal preparations with which the gardens abounded,--so that I was
almost as ignorant of what was in store for the amusement of my guests
as the guests themselves. I had the curiosity to wait about and watch
for the coming of the musicians and dancers, but I might as well have
spared myself this waste of time and trouble, for I never saw them
arrive at all. At one o'clock, both Lucio and I were ready to receive
our company,--and at about twenty minutes past the hour, the first
instalment of 'swagger society' was emptied into the grounds. Sibyl and
her father were among these,--and I eagerly advanced to meet and greet
my bride-elect as she alighted from the carriage that had brought her
from the station. She looked supremely beautiful that day, and was, as
she deserved to be, the cynosure of all eyes. I kissed her little gloved
hand with a deeper reverence than I would have kissed the hand of a
queen.
"Welcome back to your old home, my Sibyl!" I said to her in a low voice
tenderly, at which words she paused, looking up at the red gables of the
house with such wistful affection as filled her eyes with something like
tears. She left her hand in mine, and allowed me to lead her towards the
silken-draped, flower-decked porch, where Lucio waited, smiling,--and as
she advanced, two tiny pages in pure white and silver glided suddenly
out of some unseen hiding-place, and emptied two baskets of pink and
white rose-leaves at her feet, thus strewing a fragrant pathway for her
into the house. They vanished as completely and swiftly as they had
appeared,--some of the guests uttered murmurs of admiration, while
Sibyl gazed about her, blushing with surprise and pleasure.
"How charming of you, Geoffrey!" she said, "What a poet you are to
devise so pretty a greeting!"
"I wish I deserved your praise!" I answered, smiling at her--"But the
poet in question is Prince Rimânez,--he is the master and ruler of
to-day's revels."
Again the rich colour flushed her cheeks, and she gave Lucio her hand.
He bowed over it in courtly fashion,--but did not kiss it as he had
kissed the hand of Mavis Clare. We passed into the house, through the
drawing-room, and out again into the gardens, Lord Elton being loud in
his praise of the artistic manner in which his former dwelling had been
improved and embellished. Soon the lawn was sprinkled with gaily attired
groups of people,--and my duties as host began in hard earnest. I had to
be greeted, complimented, flattered, and congratulated on my approaching
marriage by scores of hypocrites who nearly shook my hand off in their
enthusiasm for my wealth. Had I become suddenly poor, I thought grimly,
not one of them would have lent me a sovereign! The guests kept on
arriving in shoals, and when there were about three or four hundred
assembled, a burst of exquisite music sounded, and a procession of pages
in scarlet and gold, marching two by two appeared, carrying trays full
of the rarest flowers tied up in bouquets, which they offered to
all the ladies present. Exclamations of delight arose on every
side,--exclamations which were for the most part high-pitched and
noisy,--for the 'swagger set' have long ceased to cultivate softness of
voice or refinement of accent,--and once or twice the detestable slang
word, 'ripping' escaped from the lips of a few dashing dames, reputed to
be 'leaders' of style. Repose of manner, dignity and elegance of
deportment, however, are no longer to be discovered among the present
'racing' duchesses and gambling countesses of the bluest blue blood of
England, so one does not expect these graces of distinction from them.
The louder they can talk, and the more slang they can adopt from the
language of their grooms and stable-boys, the more are they judged to be
'in the swim' and 'up to date.' I speak, of course, of the modern scions
of aristocracy. There are a few truly 'great ladies' left, whose maxim
is still '_noblesse oblige_,'--but they are quite in the minority and by
the younger generation are voted either 'old cats' or 'bores.' Many of
the 'cultured' mob that now swarmed over my grounds had come out of the
sheerest vulgar curiosity to see what 'the man with five millions' could
do in the way of entertaining,--others were anxious to get news, if
possible, of the chances of 'Phosphor' winning the Derby, concerning
which I was discreetly silent. But the bulk of the crowd wandered
aimlessly about, staring impertinently or enviously at each other, and
scarcely looking at the natural loveliness of the gardens or the
woodland scenery around them. The brainlessness of modern society is
never so flagrantly manifested as at a garden-party, where the restless
trousered and petticoated bipeds move vaguely to and fro, scarcely
stopping to talk civilly or intelligently to one another for five
minutes, most of them hovering dubiously and awkwardly between the
refreshment-pavilion and the band-stand. In my domain they were deprived
of this latter harbour of refuge, for no musicians could be seen, though
music was heard,--beautiful wild music which came first from one part of
the grounds and then from another, and to which few listened with any
attention. All were, however, happily unanimous in their enthusiastic
appreciation of the excellence of the food provided for them in the
luxurious luncheon tents of which there were twenty in number. Men ate
as if they had never eaten in their lives before, and drank the choice
and exquisite wines with equal greed and gusto. One never entirely
realises the extent to which human gourmandism can go till one knows a
few peers, bishops and cabinet-ministers, and watches those dignitaries
feed _ad libitum_. Soon the company was so complete that there was no
longer any need for me to perform the fatiguing duty of 'receiving'; and
I therefore took Sibyl in to luncheon, determining to devote myself to
her for the rest of the day. She was in one of her brightest and most
captivating moods,--her laughter rang out as sweetly joyous as that of
some happy child,--she was even kind to Diana Chesney, who was also one
of my guests, and who was plainly enjoying herself with all the _verve_
peculiar to pretty American women, who consider flirtation as much of a
game as tennis. The scene was now one of great brilliancy, the light
costumes of the women contrasting well with the scarlet and gold
liveries of the seemingly innumerable servants that were now everywhere
in active attendance. And, constantly through the fluttering festive
crowd, from tent to tent, from table to table, and group to group, Lucio
moved,--his tall stately figure and handsome face always conspicuous
wherever he stood, his rich voice thrilling the air whenever he spoke.
His influence was irresistible, and gradually dominated the whole
assemblage,--he roused the dull, inspired the witty, encouraged the
timid, and brought all the conflicting elements of rival position,
character and opinion into one uniform whole, which was unconsciously
led by his will as easily as a multitude is led by a convincing orator.
I did not know it then, but I know now, that metaphorically speaking, he
had his foot on the neck of that 'society' mob, as though it were one
prostrate man;--that the sycophants, liars and hypocrites whose utmost
idea of good is wealth and luxurious living, bent to his secret power as
reeds bend to the wind,--and that he did with them all whatsoever he
chose,--as he does to this very day! God!--if the grinning, guzzling
sensual fools had only known what horrors were about them at the
feast!--what ghastly ministers to pleasurable appetite waited obediently
upon them!--what pallid terrors lurked behind the gorgeous show of
vanity and pride! But the veil was mercifully down,--and only to me has
it since been lifted!
Luncheon over, the singing of mirthful voices, tuned to a kind of
village roundelay, attracted the company, now fed to repletion, towards
the lawn at the back of the house, and cries of delight were raised as
the Maypole came into view, I myself joining in the universal applause,
for I had not expected to see anything half so picturesque and pretty.
The pole was surrounded by a double ring of small children,--children so
beautiful in face and dainty in form, that they might very well have
been taken for little fairies from some enchanted woodland. The boys
were clad as tiny foresters, in doublets of green, with pink caps on
their curly locks,--the girls were in white, with their hair flowing
loosely over their shoulders, and wreaths of May-blossom crowning their
brows. As soon as the guests appeared on the scene, these exquisite
little creatures commenced their dance, each one taking a trail of
blossom or a ribbon pendant from the May-pole, and weaving it with the
others into no end of beautiful and fantastic designs. I looked on, as
amazed and fascinated as anyone present, at the wonderful lightness and
ease with which these children tripped and ran;--their tiny twinkling
feet seemed scarcely to touch the turf,--their faces were so
lovely,--their eyes so bright, that it was a positive enchantment to
watch them. Each figure they executed was more intricate and effective
than the last, and the plaudits of the spectators grew more and more
enthusiastic, till presently came the _finale_, in which all the little
green foresters climbed up the pole and clung there, pelting the
white-robed maidens below with cowslip-balls, knots of roses, bunches of
violets, posies of buttercups, daisies and clover, which the
girl-children in their turn laughingly threw among the admiring guests.
The air grew thick with flowers, and heavy with perfume, and resounded
with song and laughter;--and Sibyl, standing at my side, clapped her
hands in an ecstasy.
"Oh, it is lovely--lovely!" she cried--"Is this the prince's idea?" Then
as I answered in the affirmative, she added, "Where, I wonder, did he
find such exquisitely pretty little children!"
As she spoke, Lucio himself advanced a step or two in front of the other
spectators and made a slight peremptory sign. The fairy-like foresters
and maidens, with extraordinary activity, all sprang away from the
May-pole, pulling down the garlands with them, and winding the flowers
and ribbons about themselves so that they looked as if they were all
tied together in one inextricable knot,--this done, they started off at
a rapid run, presenting the appearance of a rolling ball of blossom,
merry pipe-music accompanying their footsteps, till they had entirely
disappeared among the trees.
"Oh do call them back again!" entreated Sibyl, laying her hand coaxingly
on Lucio's arm,--"I should so like to speak to two or three of the
prettiest!"
He looked down at her with an enigmatical smile.
"You would do them too much honour, Lady Sibyl," he replied--"They are
not accustomed to such condescension from great ladies and would not
appreciate it. They are paid professionals, and, like many of their
class, only become insolent when praised."
At that moment Diana Chesney came running across the lawn, breathless.
"I can't see them anywhere!" she declared pantingly--"The dear little
darlings! I ran after them as fast as I could; I wanted to kiss one of
those perfectly scrumptious boys, but they're gone!--not a trace of them
left! It's just as if they had sunk into the ground!"
Again Lucio smiled.
"They have their orders,--" he said curtly--"And they know their place."
Just then, the sun was obscured by a passing black cloud, and a peal of
thunder rumbled over-head. Looks were turned to the sky, but it was
quite bright and placid save for that one floating shadow of storm.
"Only summer thunder,"--said one of the guests--"There will be no rain."
And the crowd that had been pressed together to watch the 'Maypole
dance' began to break up in groups, and speculate as to what diversion
might next be provided for them. I, watching my opportunity, drew Sibyl
away.
"Come down by the river;"--I whispered--"I must have you to myself for a
few minutes." She yielded to my suggestion, and we walked away from the
mob of our acquaintance, and entered a grove of trees leading to the
banks of that part of the Avon which flowed through my grounds. Here we
found ourselves quite alone, and putting my arm round my betrothed, I
kissed her tenderly.
"Tell me," I said with a half-smile--"Do you know how to love yet?"
She looked up with a passionate darkness in her eyes that startled me.
"Yes,--I know!" was her unexpected answer.
"You do!" and I stopped to gaze intently into her fair face--"And how
did you learn?"
She flushed red,--then grew pale,--and clung to me with a nervous,
almost feverish force.
"Very strangely!" she replied--"And--quite suddenly! The lesson was
easy, I found;--too easy! Geoffrey,"--she paused, and fixed her eyes
full on mine--"I will tell you how I learnt it, ... but not now, ...
some other day." Here she broke off, and began to laugh rather forcedly.
"I will tell you ... when we are married." She glanced anxiously about
her,--then, with a sudden abandonment of her usual reserve and pride,
threw herself into my arms and kissed my lips with such ardour as made
my senses reel.
"Sibyl--Sibyl!" I murmured, holding her close to my heart----"Oh my
darling,--you love me!--at last you love me!"
"Hush!--hush!" she said breathlessly--"You must forget that kiss,----it
was too bold of me--it was wrong--I did not mean it, ... I, ... I was
thinking of something else. Geoffrey!"--and her small hand clenched on
mine with a sort of eager fierceness--"I wish I had never learned to
love; I was happier before I knew!"
A frown knitted her brows.
"Now"--she went on in the same breathless hurried way--"I _want_ love!
I am starving, thirsting for it! I want to be drowned in it, lost in it,
killed by it! Nothing else will content me!"
I folded her still closer in my arms.
"Did I not say you would change, Sibyl?" I whispered--"Your coldness and
insensibility to love was unnatural and could not last,--my darling, I
always knew that!"
"You always knew!" she echoed a little disdainfully--"Ah, but you do not
know even now what has chanced to me. Nor shall I tell you--yet. Oh
Geoffrey!--" Here she drew herself out of my embrace, and stooping,
gathered some bluebells in the grass--"See these little flowers growing
so purely and peacefully in the shade by the Avon!--they remind me of
what I was, here in this very place, long ago. I was quite as happy, and
I think as innocent as these blossoms; I had no thought of evil in my
nature,--and the only love I dreamed of was the love of the fairy prince
for the fairy princess,--as harmless an idea as the loves of the flowers
themselves. Yes!--I was then all I should like to be now,--all that I am
not!"
"You are everything that is beautiful and sweet!"--I told her,
admiringly, as I watched the play of retrospective and tender expression
on her perfect face.
"So you judge,--being a man who is perfectly satisfied with his own
choice of a wife!" she said with a flash of her old cynicism--"But I
know myself better than you know me. You call me beautiful and
sweet,--but you cannot call me good! I am not good. Why, the very love
that now consumes me is----"
"What?" I asked her quickly, seizing her hands with the blue-bells in
them, and gazing searchingly into her eyes--"I know before you speak,
that it is the passion and tenderness of a true woman!"
She was silent for a moment. Then she smiled, with a bewitching languor.
"If you know, then I need not tell you"--she said--"So, do not let us
stay here any longer talking nonsense;--'society' will shake its head
over us and accuse us of 'bad form,' and some lady-paragraphist will
write to the papers, and, say--'Mr Tempest's conduct as a host left much
to be desired, as he and his bride-elect were "spooning" all the day.'"
"There are no lady-paragraphists here,"--I said laughing, and encircling
her dainty waist with one arm as I walked.
"Oh, are there not, though!" she exclaimed, laughing also, "Why, you
don't suppose you can give any sort of big entertainment without them do
you? They permeate society. Old Lady Maravale, for example, who is
rather reduced in circumstances, writes a guinea's worth of scandal a
week for one of the papers. And _she_ is here,--I saw her simply gorging
herself with chicken salad and truffles an hour ago!" Here pausing, and
resting against my arm, she peered through the trees. "There are the
chimneys of Lily Cottage where the famous Mavis Clare lives," she said.
"Yes, I know,"--I replied readily--"Rimânez and I have visited her. She
is away just now, or she would have been here to-day."
"Do you like her?" Sibyl queried.
"Very much. She is charming."
"And ... the prince ... does he like her?"
"Well, upon my word," I answered with a smile--"I think he likes her
more than he does most women! He showed the most extraordinary deference
towards her, and seemed almost abashed in her presence. Are you cold,
Sibyl?" I added hastily, for she shivered suddenly and her face grew
pale--"You had better come away from the river,--it is damp under these
trees."
"Yes,--let us go back to the gardens and the sunshine;"--she answered
dreamily--"So your eccentric friend,--the woman-hater,--finds something
to admire in Mavis Clare! She must be a very happy creature I
think,--perfectly free, famous, and believing in all good things of life
and humanity, if one may judge from her books."
"Well, taken altogether, life isn't so very bad!" I observed playfully.
She made no reply,--and we returned to the lawns where afternoon tea was
now being served to the guests, who were seated in brilliant scattered
groups under the trees or within the silken pavilions, while the
sweetest music,--and the strangest, if people had only had ears to hear
it,--both vocal and instrumental, was being performed by those invisible
players and singers whose secret whereabouts was unknown to all, save
Lucio.
XXIV
Just as the sun began to sink, several little pages came out of the
house, and with low salutations, distributed among the guests daintily
embossed and painted programmes of the 'Tableaux Vivants,' prepared for
their diversion in the extemporized bijou theatre. Numbers of people
rose at once from their chairs on the lawn, eager for this new
spectacle, and began to scramble along and hustle one another in that
effective style of 'high-breeding' so frequently exhibited at Her
Majesty's Drawing-Rooms. I, with Sibyl, hastily preceded the impatient,
pushing crowd, for I wished to find a good seat for my beautiful
betrothed before the room became full to over-flowing. There proved
however, to be plenty of accommodation for everybody,--what space there
was seemed capable of limitless expansion, and all the spectators were
comfortably placed without difficulty. Soon we were all studying our
programmes with considerable interest, for the titles of the 'Tableaux'
were somewhat original and mystifying. They were eight in number, and
were respectively headed--'Society,'--'Bravery: Ancient and Modern,'--'A
Lost Angel,'--'The Autocrat,'--'A Corner of Hell,'--'Seeds of
Corruption,'--'His Latest Purchase,'--and 'Faith and Materialism.' It
was in the theatre that everyone became at last conscious of the weirdly
beautiful character of the music that had been surging round them all
day. Seated under one roof in more or less enforced silence and
attention, the vague and frivolous throng grew hushed and passive,--the
'society' smirk passed off certain faces that were as trained to grin as
their tongues were trained to lie,--the dreadful giggle of the unwedded
man-hunter was no longer heard,--and soon the most exaggerated
fashion-plate of a woman forgot to rustle her gown. The passionate
vibrations of a violoncello, superbly played to a double harp
accompaniment, throbbed on the stillness with a beseeching depth of
sound,--and people listened, I saw, almost breathlessly, entranced, as
it were, against their wills, and staring as though they were
hypnotized, in front of them at the gold curtain with its familiar
motto--
"All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players."
Before we had time to applaud the violoncello solo however, the music
changed,--and the mirthful voices of violins and flutes rang out in a
waltz of the giddiest and sweetest tune. At the same instant a silvery
bell tinkled, and the curtain parted noiselessly in twain, disclosing
the first tableau--"Society." An exquisite female figure, arrayed in
evening-dress of the richest and most extravagant design, stood before
us, her hair crowned with diamonds, and her bosom blazing with the same
lustrous gems. Her head was slightly raised,--her lips were parted in a
languid smile,--in one hand she held up-lifted a glass of foaming
champagne,--her gold-slippered foot trod on an hour-glass. Behind her,
catching convulsively at the folds of her train, crouched another woman
in rags, pinched and wretched, with starvation depicted in her face,--a
dead child lay near. And, overshadowing this group, were two
Supernatural shapes,--one in scarlet, the other in black,--vast and
almost beyond the stature of humanity,--the scarlet figure represented
Anarchy, and its blood-red fingers were advanced to clutch the diamond
crown from 'Society's' brow,--the sable-robed form was Death, and even
as we looked, it slowly raised its steely dart in act to strike! The
effect was weird and wonderful,--and the grim lesson the picture
conveyed, was startling enough to make a very visible impression. No
one spoke,--no one applauded,--but people moved restlessly and fidgetted
on their seats,--and there was an audible sigh of relief as the curtain
closed. Opening again, it displayed the second tableau--'Bravery--Ancient
and Modern.' This was in two scenes;--the first one depicted a nobleman
of Elizabeth's time, with rapier drawn, his foot on the prostrate body
of a coarse ruffian who had evidently, from the grouping, insulted a
woman whose slight figure was discerned shrinking timidly away from the
contest. This was 'Ancient Bravery,'--and it changed rapidly to 'Modern,'
showing us an enervated, narrow-shouldered, pallid dandy in opera-coat
and hat, smoking a cigarette and languidly appealing to a bulky
policeman to protect him from another young noodle of his own class,
similarly attired, who was represented as sneaking round a corner in
abject terror. We all recognised the force of the application, and were
in a much better humour with this pictured satire than we had been at
the lesson of 'Society.' Next followed 'A Lost Angel,' in which was
shown a great hall in the palace of a king, where there were numbers of
brilliantly attired people, all grouped in various attitudes, and
evidently completely absorbed in their own concerns, so much so as to
be entirely unconscious of the fact that in their very midst, stood a
wondrous Angel, clad in dazzling white, with a halo round her fair hair,
and a glory, as of the sunset, on her half drooping wings. Her eyes were
wistful,--her face was pensive and expectant; she seemed to say, "Will
the world ever know that I am here?" Somehow,--as the curtain slowly
closed again, amid loud applause, for the picture was extraordinarily
beautiful, I thought of Mavis Clare, and sighed. Sibyl looked up at me.
"Why do you sigh?" she said--"It is a lovely fancy,--but the symbol is
wasted in the present audience,--no one with education believes in
angels now-a-days."
"True!" I assented; yet there was a heaviness at my heart, for her words
reminded me of what I would rather have forgotten,--namely her own
admitted lack of all religious faith. 'The Autocrat,' was the next
tableau, and represented an Emperor enthroned. At his footstool knelt a
piteous crowd of the starving and oppressed, holding up their lean hands
to him, clasped in anguished petition, but he looked away from them as
though he saw them not. His head was turned to listen to the
side-whisper of one who seemed, by the courtly bend and flattering
smile, to be his adviser and confidant,--yet that very confidant held
secreted behind his back, a drawn dagger, ready to strike his sovereign
to the heart. "Russia!" whispered one or two of the company, as the
scene was obscured; but the scarcely-breathed suggestion quickly passed
into a murmur of amazement and awe as the curtain parted again to
disclose "A Corner of Hell." This tableau was indeed original, and quite
unlike what might have been imagined as the conventional treatment of
such a subject. What we saw was a black and hollow cavern, glittering
alternately with the flashings of ice and fire,--huge icicles drooped
from above, and pale flames leaped stealthily into view from below, and
within the dark embrasure, the shadowy form of a man was seated,
counting out gold, or what seemed to be gold. Yet as coin after coin
slipped through his ghostly fingers, each one was seen to change to
fire,--and the lesson thus pictured was easily read. The lost soul had
made its own torture, and was still at work intensifying and increasing
its own fiery agony. Much as this scene was admired for its Rembrandt
effect of light and shade, I, personally, was glad when it was curtained
from view; there was something in the dreadful face of the doomed sinner
that reminded me forcibly and unpleasantly of those ghastly Three I had
seen in my horrid vision on the night of Viscount Lynton's suicide.
'Seeds of Corruption' was the next picture, and showed us a young and
beautiful girl in her early teens, lying on a luxurious couch _en
deshabille_, with a novel in her hand, of which the title was plainly
seen by all;--a novel well-known to everyone present, and the work of a
much-praised living author. Round her, on the floor, and cast carelessly
on a chair at her side, were other novels of the same 'sexual'
type,--all their titles turned towards us, and the names of their
authors equally made manifest.
"What a daring idea!" said a lady in the seat immediately behind me--"I
wonder if any of those authors are present!"
"If they are they won't mind!" replied the man next to her with a
smothered laugh--"Those sort of writers would merely take it as a
first-class advertisement!"
Sibyl looked at the tableau with a pale face and wistful eyes.
"That is a _true_ picture!" she said under her breath--"Geoffrey, it is
painfully true!"
I made no answer,--I thought I knew to what she alluded; but alas!--I
did not know how deeply the 'seeds of corruption' had been sown in her
own nature, or what a harvest they would bring forth. The curtain
closed,--to open again almost immediately on "His Latest Purchase." Here
we were shown the interior of a luxurious modern drawing-room, where
about eight or ten men were assembled, in fashionable evening-dress.
They had evidently just risen from a card-table,--and one of them, a
dissipated looking brute, with a wicked smile of mingled satire and
triumph on his face was pointing to his 'purchase,'--a beautiful woman.
She was clad in glistening white like a bride,--but she was bound, as
prisoners are bound, to an upright column, on which the grinning head of
a marble Silenus leered above her. Her hands were tied tightly
together,--with chains of diamonds; her waist was bound,--with thick
ropes of pearls;--a wide collar of rubies encircled her throat;--and
from bosom to feet she was netted about and tied,--with strings of gold
and gems. Her head was flung back defiantly with an assumption of pride
and scorn,--her eyes alone expressed shame, self-contempt, and despair
at her bondage. The man who owned this white slave was represented, by
his attitude, as cataloguing and appraising her 'points' for the
approval and applause of his comrades, whose faces variously and
powerfully expressed the differing emotions of lust, cruelty, envy,
callousness, derision, and selfishness, more admirably than the most
gifted painter could imagine.
"A capital type of most fashionable marriages!" I heard some-one say.
"Rather!" another voice replied--"The orthodox 'happy couple' to the
life!"
I glanced at Sibyl. She looked pale,--but smiled as she met my
questioning eyes. A sense of consolation crept warmly about my heart as
I remembered that now, she had, as she told me 'learnt to love,'--and
that therefore her marriage with me was no longer a question of material
advantage alone. She was not my 'purchase,'--she was my love, my saint,
my queen!--or so I chose to think, in my foolishness and vanity!
The last tableau of all was now to come,--"Faith and Materialism," and
it proved to be the most startling of the series. The auditorium was
gradually darkened,--and the dividing curtain disclosed a ravishingly
beautiful scene by the sea-shore. A full moon cast its tranquil glory
over the smooth waters, and,--rising on rainbow-wings from earth towards
the skies, one of the loveliest creatures ever dreamed of by poet or
painter, floated angel-like upwards, her hands holding a cluster of
lilies clasped to her breast,--her lustrous eyes full of divine joy,
hope, and love. Exquisite music was heard,--soft voices sang in the
distance a chorale of rejoicing;--heaven and earth, sea and air,--all
seemed to support the aspiring Spirit as she soared higher and higher,
in ever-deepening rapture, when,--as we all watched that aerial flying
form with a sense of the keenest delight and satisfaction,--a sudden
crash of thunder sounded,--the scene grew dark,--and there was a distant
roaring of angry waters. The light of the moon was eclipsed,--the music
ceased; a faint lurid glow of red shone at first dimly, then more
vividly,--and 'Materialism' declared itself,--a human skeleton, bleached
white and grinning ghastly mirth upon us all! While we yet looked, the
skeleton itself dropped to pieces,--and one long twining worm lifted its
slimy length from the wreck of bones, another working its way through
the eye-holes of the skull. Murmurs of genuine horror were heard in the
auditorium,--people on all sides rose from their seats--one man in
particular, a distinguished professor of sciences, pushed past me to get
out, muttering crossly--"This may be very amusing to some of you, but to
me, it is disgusting!"
"Like your own theories, my dear Professor!" said a rich laughing voice,
as Lucio met him on his way, and the bijou theatre was again flooded
with cheerful light--"They are amusing to some, and disgusting to
others!----Pardon me!--I speak of course in jest! But I designed that
tableau specially in your honour!"
"Oh, you did, did you?" growled the Professor--"Well, I didn't
appreciate it."
"Yet you should have done, for it is quite scientifically
correct,"--declared Lucio laughing still. "Faith,--with the wings, whom
you saw joyously flying towards an impossible Heaven, is _not_
scientifically correct,--have you not told us so?--but the skeleton and
the worms were quite of your _cult_! No materialist can deny the
correctness of that 'complexion to which we all must come at last.'
Positively, some of the ladies look quite pale! How droll it is, that
while everybody (to be fashionable, and in favour with the press) must
accept Materialism as the only creed, they should invariably become
affrighted, or let us say offended, at the natural end of the body, as
completed by material agencies!"
"Well, it was not a pleasant subject, that last tableau,"--said Lord
Elton, as he came out of the theatre with Diana Chesney hanging
confidingly on his arm--"You cannot say it was festal!"
"It was,--for the worms!" replied Lucio gaily--"Come, Miss Chesney,--and
you Tempest, come along with Lady Sibyl,--let us go out in the grounds
again, and see my will-o'-the-wisps lighting up."
Fresh curiosity was excited by this remark; the people quickly threw off
the gruesome and tragic impression made by the strange 'tableaux' just
witnessed,--and poured out of the house into the gardens chattering and
laughing more noisily than ever. It was just dusk,--and as we reached
the open lawn we saw an extraordinary number of small boys, clad in
brown, running about with will-o'-the-wisp lanterns. Their movements
were swift and perfectly noiseless,--they leaped, jumped and twirled
like little gnomes over flowerbeds, under shrubberies, and along the
edges of paths and terraces, many of them climbing trees with the
rapidity and agility of monkeys, and wherever they went they left behind
them a trail of brilliant light. Soon, by their efforts, all the grounds
were illuminated with a magnificence that could not have been equalled
even by the historic fêtes at Versailles,--tall oaks and cedars were
transformed to pyramids of fire-blossoms,--every branch was loaded with
coloured lamps in the shape of stars,--rockets hissed up into the clear
space showering down bouquets, wreaths and ribbons of flame,--lines of
red and azure ran glowingly along the grass-borders, and amid the
enthusiastic applause of the assembled spectators, eight huge
fire-fountains of all colours sprang up in various corners of the
garden, while an enormous golden balloon, dazzlingly luminous, ascended
slowly into the air and remained poised above us, sending from its
glittering car hundreds of gem-like birds and butterflies on fiery
wings, that circled round and round for a moment and then vanished.
While we were yet loudly clapping the splendid effect of this
sky-spectacle, a troop of beautiful girl-dancers in white came running
across the grass, waving long silvery wands that were tipped with
electric stars, and to the sound of strange tinkling music, seemingly
played in the distance on glass bells, they commenced a fantastic dance
of the wildest yet most graceful character. Every shade of opaline
colour fell upon their swaying figures from some invisible agency as
they tripped and whirled,--and each time they waved their wands, ribbons
and flags of fire were unrolled and tossed high in air where they
gyrated for a long time like moving hieroglyphs. The scene was now so
startling, so fairy-like and wonderful, that we were well-nigh struck
speechless with astonishment,--too fascinated and absorbed even to
applaud, we had no conception how time went, or how rapidly the night
descended,--till all at once without the least warning, an appalling
crash of thunder burst immediately above our heads, and a jagged fork of
lightning tore the luminous fire-balloon to shreds. Two or three women
began to scream,--whereupon Lucio advanced from the throng of spectators
and stood in full view of all, holding up his hand.
"Stage thunder, I assure you!" he said playfully, in a clear somewhat
scornful voice--"It comes and goes at my bidding. Quite a part of the
game, believe me!--these sort of things are only toys for children.
Again--again, ye petty elements!" he cried, laughing, and lifting his
handsome face and flashing eyes to the dark heavens--"Roar your best and
loudest!--roar, I say!"
Such a terrific boom and clatter answered him as baffled all
description,--it was as if a mountain of rock had fallen into
ruins,--but having been assured that the deafening noise was 'stage
thunder' merely, the spectators were no longer alarmed, and many of them
expressed their opinion that it was 'wonderfully well done.' After this,
there gradually appeared against the sky a broad blaze of red light like
the reflection of some great prairie fire,--it streamed apparently
upward from the ground, bathing us all where we stood, in its blood-like
glow. The white-robed dancing-girls waltzed on and on, their arms
entwined, their lovely faces irradiated by the lurid flame, while above
them now flew creatures with black wings, bats and owls, and great
night-moths, that flapped and fluttered about for all the world as if
they were truly alive and not mere 'stage properties.' Another flash of
lightning,--and one more booming thud of thunder,----and lo!--the
undisturbed and fragrant night was about us, clear, dewy and calm,--the
young moon smiled pensively in a cloudless heaven,--all the
dancing-girls had vanished,--the crimson glow had changed to a pure
silvery radiance, and an array of pretty pages in eighteenth century
costumes of pale pink and blue, stood before us with lighted flaming
torches, making a long triumphal avenue, down which Lucio invited us to
pass.
"On, on fair ladies and gallant gentlemen!" he cried--"This
extemporized path of light leads,--not to Heaven--no! that were far too
dull an ending!--but to supper! On!--follow your leader!"
Every eye was turned on his fine figure and striking countenance, as
with one hand he beckoned the guests,--between the double line of lit
torches he stood,--a picture for a painter, with those dark eyes of his
alit with such strange mirth as could not be defined, and the sweet,
half-cruel, wonderfully attractive smile playing upon his lips;--and
with one accord the whole company trooped pell-mell after him, shouting
their applause and delight. Who could resist him!--not one in that
assemblage at least;--there are few 'saints' in society! As I went with
the rest, I felt as though I were in some gorgeous dream,--my senses
were all in a whirl,--I was giddy with excitement and could not stop to
think, or to analyse the emotions by which I was governed. Had I
possessed the force or the will to pause and consider, I might possibly
have come to the conclusion that there was something altogether beyond
the ordinary power of man displayed in the successive wonders of this
brilliant 'gala,'--but I was, like all the rest of society, bent merely
on the pleasure of the moment, regardless of how it was procured, what
it cost me, or how it affected others. How many I see and know to-day
among the worshippers of fashion and frivolity who are acting precisely
as I acted then! Indifferent to the welfare of everyone save themselves,
grudging every penny that is not spent on their own advantage or
amusement, and too callous to even listen to the sorrows or difficulties
or joys of others when these do not in some way, near or remote, touch
their own interests, they waste their time day after day in selfish
trifling, wilfully blind and unconscious to the fact that they are
building up their own fate in the future,--that future which will prove
all the more a terrible Reality in proportion to the extent of our
presumption in daring to doubt its truth.
More than four hundred guests sat down to supper in the largest
pavilion,--a supper served in the most costly manner and furnished with
luxuries that represented the utmost pitch of extravagance. I ate and
drank, with Sybil at my side, hardly knowing what I said or did in the
whirling excitement of the hour,--the opening of champagne-bottles, the
clink of glasses, the clatter of plates, the loud hum of talk
interspersed with monkey-like squeals or goat-like whinnies of laughter,
over-ridden at intervals by the blare of trumpet-music and drums,--all
these sounds were as so much noise of rushing waters in my ears,--and I
often found myself growing abstracted and in a manner confused by the
din. I did not say much to Sibyl,--one cannot very well whisper
sentimental nothings in the ear of one's betrothed when she is eating
ortolans and truffles. Presently, amid all the hubbub, a deep bell
struck twelve times, and Lucio stood up at the end of one of the long
tables, a full glass of foaming champagne in his hand--
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
There was a sudden silence.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he repeated, his brilliant eyes flashing
derisively, I thought, over the whole well-fed company, "Midnight has
struck and the best of friends must part! But before we do so, let us
not forget that we have met here to wish all happiness to our host, Mr
Geoffrey Tempest and his bride-elect, the Lady Sibyl Elton." Here there
was vociferous applause. "It is said"--continued Lucio, "by the makers
of dull maxims, that 'Fortune never comes with both hands full'--but in
this case the adage is proved false and put to shame,--for our friend
has not only secured the pleasures of wealth, but the treasures of love
and beauty combined. Limitless cash is good, but limitless love is
better, and both these choice gifts have been bestowed on the betrothed
pair whom to-day we honour. I will ask you to give them a hearty round
of cheering,--and then it must be good-night indeed, though not
farewell,--for with the toast of the bride and bridegroom-elect, I shall
also drink to the time,--not far distant perhaps,--when I shall see some
of you, if not all of you again, and enjoy even more of your charming
company than I have done to-day!"
He ceased amid a perfect hurricane of applause,--and then everyone rose
and turned towards the table where I sat with Sibyl, and naming our
names aloud, drank wine, the men joining in hearty shouts of "Hip, hip,
hip hurrah!" Yet,--as I bowed repeatedly in response to the storm of
cheering, and while Sibyl smiled and bent her graceful head to right and
left, my heart sank suddenly with a sense of fear. Was it my fancy--or
did I hear peals of wild laughter circling round the brilliant pavilion
and echoing away, far away into distance? I listened, glass in hand.
"Hip, hip, hip hurrah!" shouted my guests with gusto. "Ha--ha--!
ha--ha!" seemed shrieked and yelled in my ears from the outer air.
Struggling against this delusion, I got up and returned thanks for
myself and my future bride in a few brief words which were received with
fresh salvos of applause,--and then we all became aware that Lucio had
sprung up again in his place, and was standing high above us all, with
one foot on the table and the other on the chair, confronting us with a
fresh glass of wine in his hand, filled to the brim. What a face he had
at that moment!--what a smile!
"The parting cup, my friends!" he exclaimed--"To our next merry
meeting!"
With plaudits and laughter the guests eagerly and noisily
responded,--and as they drank, the pavilion was flooded by a deep
crimson illumination as of fire. Every face looked blood-red!--every
jewel on every woman flashed like a living flame!--for one brief instant
only,--then it was gone, and there followed a general stampede of the
company,--everybody hurrying as fast as they could into the carriages
that waited in long lines to take them to the station, the last two
'special' trains to London being at one a.m. and one thirty. I bade
Sibyl and her father a hurried good-night,--Diana Chesney went in the
same carriage with them, full of ecstatic thanks and praise to me for
the splendours of the day which she described in her own fashion as
"knowing how to do it,--" and then the departing crowd of vehicles began
to thunder down the avenue. As they went an arch of light suddenly
spanned Willowsmere Court from end to end of its red gables, blazing
with all the colours of the rainbow, in the middle of which appeared
letters of pale blue and gold, forming what I had hitherto considered as
a funereal device,
"Sic transit gloria mundi! Vale!"
But, after all, it was as fairly applicable to the ephemeral splendours
of a fête as it was to the more lasting marble solemnity of a sepulchre,
and I thought little or nothing about it. So perfect were all the
arrangements, and so admirably were the servants trained, that the
guests were not long in departing,--and the grounds were soon not only
empty, but dark. Not a vestige of the splendid illuminations was left
anywhere,--and I entered the house fatigued, and with a dull sense of
bewilderment and fear on me which I could not explain. I found Lucio
alone in the smoking-room at the further end of the oak-panelled hall, a
small cosily curtained apartment with a deep bay window which opened
directly on to the lawn. He was standing in this embrasure with his back
to me, but he turned swiftly round as he heard my steps and confronted
me with such a wild, white, tortured face that I recoiled from him,
startled.
"Lucio, you are ill!" I exclaimed--"you have done too much to-day."
"Perhaps I have!" he answered in a hoarse unsteady voice, and I saw a
strong shudder convulse him as he spoke,--then, gathering himself
together as it were by an effort, he forced a smile--"Don't be alarmed,
my friend!--it is nothing,--nothing but the twinge of an old deep-seated
malady,--a troublesome disease that is rare among men, and hopelessly
incurable."
"What is it?" I asked anxiously, for his death-like pallor alarmed me.
He looked at me fixedly, his eyes dilating and darkening, and his hand
fell with a heavy pressure on my shoulder.
"A very strange illness!" he said, in the same jarring accents.
"Remorse! Have you never heard of it, Geoffrey? Neither medicine nor
surgery are of any avail,--it is 'the worm that dieth not, and the flame
that cannot be quenched.' Tut!--let us not talk of it,--no one can cure
me,--no one will! I am past hope!"
"But remorse,--if you have it, and I cannot possibly imagine why, for
you have surely nothing to regret,--is not a physical ailment!" I said
wonderingly.
"And physical ailments are the only ones worth troubling about, you
think?" he queried, still smiling that strained and haggard smile--"The
body is our chief care,--we cosset it, and make much of it, feed it and
pamper it, and guard it from so much as a pin-prick of pain if we
can,--and thus we flatter ourselves that all is well,--all _must_ be
well! Yet it is but a clay chrysalis, bound to split and crumble with
the growth of the moth-soul within,--the moth that flies with blind
instinctiveness straight into the Unknown, and is dazzled by excess of
light! Look out here,"--he went on with an abrupt and softer change of
tone--"Look out at the dreamful shadowy beauty of your gardens now! The
flowers are asleep,--the trees are surely glad to be disburdened of all
the gaudy artificial lamps that lately hung upon their branches,--there
is the young moon pillowing her chin on the edge of a little cloud and
sinking to sleep in the west,--a moment ago there was a late nightingale
awake and singing. You can feel the breath of the roses from the trellis
yonder! All this is Nature's work,--and how much fairer and sweeter it
is now than when the lights were ablaze and the blare of band-music
startled the small birds in their downy nests!--Yet 'society' would not
appreciate this cool dusk, this happy solitude;--'society' prefers a
false glare to all true radiance. And what is worse it tries to make
true things take a second place as adjuncts to sham ones,--and there
comes in the mischief."
"It is just like you to run down your own indefatigable labours in the
splendid successes of the day,"--I said laughing--"You may call it a
'false glare' if you like, but it has been a most magnificent
spectacle,--and certainly in the way of entertainments it will never be
equalled or excelled."
"It will make you more talked about than even your 'boomed' book could
do!" said Lucio, eyeing me narrowly.
"Not the least doubt of that!" I replied--"Society prefers food and
amusement to any literature,--even the greatest. By-the-by, where are
all the 'artistes,'--the musicians and dancers?"
"Gone!"
"Gone!" I echoed amazedly--"Already! Good heavens! have they had
supper?"
"They have had everything they want, even to their pay," said Lucio, a
trifle impatiently--"Did I not tell you Geoffrey, that when I undertake
to do anything, I do it thoroughly or not at all?"
I looked at him,--he smiled, but his eyes were sombre and scornful.
"All right!" I responded carelessly, not wishing to offend him,--"Have
it your own way! But, upon my word, to me it is all like devil's magic!"
"What is?" he asked imperturbably.
"Everything!--the dancers,--the number of servants and pages--why, there
must have been two or three hundred of them,--those wonderful
'tableaux,'--the illuminations,--the supper,--everything I tell
you!--and the most astonishing part of it now is, that all these people
should have cleared out so soon!"
"Well, if you elect to call money devil's magic, you are right,"--said
Lucio.
"But surely in some cases, not even money could procure such perfection
of detail"----I began.
"Money can procure anything!"--he interrupted, a thrill of passion
vibrating in his rich voice,--"I told you that long ago. It is a hook
for the devil himself. Not that the devil could be supposed to care
about world's cash personally,--but he generally conceives a liking for
the company of the man who possesses it;--possibly he knows what that
man will do with it. I speak metaphorically of course,--but no metaphor
can exaggerate the power of money. Trust no man or woman's virtue till
you have tried to purchase it with a round sum in hard cash! Money, my
excellent Geoffrey, has done everything for _you_,--remember that!--you
have done nothing for yourself."
"That's not a very kind speech,"--I said, somewhat vexedly.
"No? And why? Because it's true? I notice most people complain of
'unkindness' when they are told a truth. It _is_ true, and I see no
unkindness in it. You've done nothing for yourself and you're not
expected to do anything--except," and he laughed--"except just now to
get to bed, and dream of the enchanting Sibyl!"
"I confess I am tired,"--I said, and an unconscious sigh escaped
me--"And you?"
His gaze rested broodingly on the outer landscape.
"I also am tired," he responded slowly--"But I never get away from my
fatigue, for I am tired of myself. And I always rest badly. Good-night!"
"Good-night!" I answered,--and then paused, looking at him. He returned
my look with interest.
"Well?" he asked expressively.
I forced a smile.
"Well!" I echoed--"I do not know what I should say,--except--that I wish
I knew you as you are. I feel that you were right in telling me once
that you are not what you seem."
He still kept his eyes fixed upon me.
"As you have expressed the wish,"--he said slowly--"I promise you you
_shall_ know me as I am some-day! It may be well for you to know,--for
the sake of others who may seek to cultivate my company."
I moved away to leave the room.
"Thanks for all the trouble you have taken to-day,"--I said in a lighter
tone--"Though I shall never be able to express my full gratitude in
words."
"If you wanted to thank anybody, thank God that you have lived through
it!" he replied.
"Why?" I asked, astonished.
"Why? Because life hangs on a thread,--a society crush is the very acme
of boredom and exhaustion,--and that we escape with our lives from a
general guzzle and giggle is matter for thanksgiving,--that's all! And
God gets so few thanks as a rule that you may surely spare Him a brief
one for to-day's satisfactory ending."
I laughed, seeing no meaning in his words beyond the usual satire he
affected. I found Amiel, waiting for me in my bedroom, but I dismissed
him abruptly, hating the look of his crafty and sullen face, and saying
I needed no attendance. Thoroughly fatigued, I was soon in bed and
asleep,--and the terrific agencies that had produced the splendours of
the brilliant festival at which I had figured as host, were not revealed
to me by so much as a warning dream!
XXV
A few days after the entertainment at Willowsmere, and before the
society papers had done talking about the magnificence and luxury
displayed on that occasion, I woke up one morning, like the great poet
Byron, "to find myself famous." Not for any intellectual
achievement,--not for any unexpected deed of heroism,--not for any
resolved or noble attitude in society or politics,--no!--I owed my fame
merely to a quadruped;--'Phosphor' won the Derby. It was about a
neck-and-neck contest between my racer and that of the Prime Minister,
and for a second or so the result seemed doubtful,--but, as the two
jockeys neared the goal, Amiel, whose thin wiry figure clad in the
brightest of bright scarlet silk, stuck to his horse as though he were a
part of it, put 'Phosphor' to a pace he had never yet exhibited,
appearing to skim along the ground at literally flying speed, the upshot
being that he scored a triumphant victory, reaching the winning-post a
couple of yards or more ahead of his rival. Acclamations rent the air at
the vigour displayed in the 'finish'--and I became the hero of the
day,--the darling of the populace. I was somewhat amused at the
Premier's discomfiture,--he took his beating rather badly. He did not
know me, nor I him,--I was not of his politics, and I did not care a jot
for his feelings one way or the other, but I was gratified, in a certain
satirical sense, to find myself suddenly acknowledged as a greater man
than he, because I was the owner of the Derby-winner! Before I well knew
where I was, I found myself being presented to the Prince of Wales, who
shook hands with me and congratulated me;--all the biggest aristocrats
in England were willing and eager to be introduced to me;--and inwardly
I laughed at this exhibition of taste and culture on the part of 'the
gentlemen of England that live at home at ease.' They crowded round
'Phosphor,' whose wild eye warned strangers against taking liberties
with him, but who seemed not a whit the worse for his exertions, and who
apparently was quite ready to run the race over again with equal
pleasure and success. Amiel's dark sly face and cruel ferret eyes were
evidently not attractive to the majority of the gentlemen of the turf,
though his answers to all the queries put to him, were admirably ready,
respectful and not without wit. But to me the whole sum and substance of
the occasion was the fact that I, Geoffrey Tempest, once struggling
author, now millionaire, was simply by virtue of my ownership of the
Derby-winner, 'famous' at last!--or what society considers famous,--that
fame that secures for a man the attention of 'the nobility and gentry,'
to quote from tradesmen's advertisements,--and also obtains the
persistent adulation and shameless pursuit of all the _demi-mondaines_
who want jewels and horses and yachts presented to them in exchange for
a few tainted kisses from their carmined lips. Under the shower of
compliments I received, I stood, apparently delighted,--smiling, affable
and courteous,--entering into the spirit of the occasion, and shaking
hands with my Lord That, and Sir Something Nobody, and His Serene
Highness the Grand Duke So-and-So of Beer-Land, and His other Serene
Lowness of Small-Principality,--but in my secret soul I scorned these
people with their social humbug and hypocrisy,--scorned them with such a
deadly scorn as almost amazed myself. When presently I walked off the
course with Lucio, who as usual seemed to know and to be friends with
everybody, he spoke in accents that were far more grave and gentle than
I had ever heard him use before.
"With all your egotism, Geoffrey, there is something forcible and noble
in your nature,--something which rises up in bold revolt against
falsehood and sham. Why, in Heaven's name do you not give it way?"
I looked at him amazed, and laughed.
"Give it way? What do you mean? Would you have me tell humbugs that I
know them as such?,--and liars that I discern their lies? My dear
fellow, society would become too hot to hold me!"
"It could not be hotter--or colder--than hell, if you believed in hell,
which you do not,"--he rejoined, in the same quiet voice--"But I did not
assume that you should say these things straight out and bluntly, to
give offence. An affronting candour is not nobleness,--it is merely
coarse. To act nobly is better than to speak."
"And what would you have me do?" I asked curiously.
He was silent for a moment, and seemed to be earnestly, almost painfully
considering,--then he answered,--
"My advice will seem to you singular, Geoffrey,--but if you want it,
here it is. Give, as I said, the noble, and what the world would call
the quixotic part of your nature full way,--do not sacrifice your higher
sense of what is right and just for the sake of pandering to anyone's
power or influence,--and--say farewell to _me_! I am no use to you, save
to humour your varying fancies, and introduce you to those great,--or
small,--personages you wish to know for your own convenience or
advantage,--believe me, it would be much better for you and much more
consoling at the inevitable hour of death, if you were to let all this
false and frivolous nonsense go, and me with it! Leave society to its
own fool's whirligig of distracted follies,--put Royalty in its true
place, and show it that all its pomp, arrogance and glitter are
worthless, and itself a nothing, compared to the upright standing of a
brave soul in an honest man,--and, as Christ said to the rich
ruler--'Sell half that thou hast and give to the poor.'"
I was silent for a minute or so out of sheer surprise, while he watched
me earnestly, his face pale and expectant. A curious shock of something
like compunction startled my conscience, and for a brief space I was
moved to a vague regret,--regret that with all the enormous capability I
possessed of doing good to numbers of my fellow-creatures with the vast
wealth I owned, I had not attained to any higher moral attitude than
that represented by the frivolous folk who make up what is called the
'Upper Ten' of society. I took the same egotistical pleasure in myself
and my own doings as any of them,--and I was to the full as foolishly
conventional, smooth-tongued and hypocritical as they. They acted their
part and I acted mine,--none of us were ever our real selves for a
moment. In very truth, one of the reasons why 'fashionable' men and
women cannot bear to be alone is, that a solitude in which they are
compelled to look face to face upon their secret selves becomes
unbearable because of the burden they carry of concealed vice and
accusing shame. My emotion soon passed however, and slipping my arm
through Lucio's, I smiled, as I answered--
"Your advice, my dear fellow, would do credit to a Salvationist
preacher,--but it is quite valueless to me, because impossible to
follow. To say farewell for ever to you, in the first place, would be to
make myself guilty of the blackest ingratitude,--in the second instance,
society, with all its ridiculous humbug, is nevertheless necessary for
the amusement of myself and my future wife,--Royalty moreover, is
accustomed to be flattered, and we shall not be hurt by joining in the
general inane chorus;--thirdly, if I did as the visionary Jew
suggested----"
"What visionary Jew?" he asked, his eyes sparkling coldly.
"Why, Christ of course!" I rejoined lightly.
The shadow of a strange smile parted his lips.
"It is the fashion to blaspheme!" he said,--"A mark of brilliancy in
literature, and wit in society! I forgot! Pray go on,--if you did as
Christ suggested----"
"Yes,--if I gave half my goods to the poor, I should not be thanked for
it, or considered anything but a fool for my pains."
"You would wish to be thanked?" he said.
"Naturally! Most people like a little gratitude in return for benefits."
"They do. And the Creator, who is always giving, is supposed to like
gratitude also,"--he observed--"Nevertheless He seldom gets it!"
"I do not talk of hyperphysical nothingness,"--I said with
impatience--"I am speaking of the plain facts of this world and the
people who live in it. If one gives largely, one expects to be
acknowledged as generous,--but if I were to divide my fortune, and hand
half of it to the poor, the matter would be chronicled in about six
lines in one of the papers, and society would exclaim 'What a fool!'"
"Then let us talk no more about it,"--said Lucio, his brows clearing,
and his eyes gathering again their wonted light of mockery and
mirth--"Having won the Derby, you have really done all a
nineteenth-century civilization expects you to do, and for your reward,
you will be in universal demand everywhere. You may hope soon to dine at
Marlborough House,--and a little back-stair influence and political
jobbery will work you into the Cabinet if you care for it. Did I not
tell you I would set you up as successfully as the bear who has reached
the bun on the top of the slippery pole, a spectacle for the envy of men
and the wonder of angels? Well, there you are!--triumphant!--a great
creature Geoffrey!--in fact, you are the greatest product of the age, a
man with five millions and owner of the Derby-winner! What is the glory
of intellect compared to such a position as yours! Men envy you,--and as
for angels,--if there are any,--you may be sure they _do_ wonder! A
man's fame guaranteed by a horse, is something indeed to make an angel
stare!"
He laughed uproariously, and from that day he never spoke again of his
singular proposition that I should 'part with him,' and let the "nobler"
nature in me have its way. I was not to know then that he had staked a
chance upon my soul and lost it,--and that from henceforward he took a
determined course with me, implacably on to the appalling end.
My marriage took place on the appointed day in June with all the pomp
and extravagant show befitting my position, and that of the woman I had
chosen to wed. It is needless to describe the gorgeousness of the
ceremony in detail,--any fashionable 'ladies paper' describing the
wedding of an Earl's daughter to a five-fold millionaire, will give an
idea, in hysterical rhapsody, of the general effect. It was an amazing
scene,--and one in which costly millinery completely vanquished all
considerations of solemnity or sacredness in the supposed 'divine'
ordinance. The impressive command: "I require and charge ye both, as ye
will answer at the dreadful day of judgment,"--did not obtain half so
much awed attention as the exquisite knots of pearls and diamonds which
fastened the bride's silver-embroidered train to her shoulders. 'All the
world and his wife' were present,--that is, the social world, which
imagines no other world exists, though it is the least part of the
community. The Prince of Wales honoured us by his presence: two great
dignitaries of the church performed the marriage-rite, resplendent in
redundant fulness of white sleeve and surplice, and equally imposing in
the fatness of their bodies and unctuous redness of their faces; and
Lucio was my 'best man.' He was in high, almost wild spirits,--and,
during our drive to the church together, had entertained me all the way
with numerous droll stories, mostly at the expense of the clergy. When
we reached the sacred edifice, he said laughingly as he alighted--
"Did you ever hear it reported, Geoffrey, that the devil is unable to
enter a church, because of the cross upon it, or within it?"
"I have heard some such nonsense,"--I replied, smiling at the humour
expressed in his sparkling eyes and eloquent features.
"It _is_ nonsense,--for the makers of the legend forgot one thing;" he
continued, dropping his voice to a whisper as we passed under the
carved gothic portico--"The cross may be present,----but----so is the
clergyman! And wherever a clergyman is, the devil may surely follow!"
I almost laughed aloud at his manner of making this irreverent
observation, and the look with which he accompanied it. The rich tones
of the organ creeping softly on the flower-scented silence however,
quickly solemnized my mood,--and while I leaned against the altar-rails
waiting for my bride, I caught myself wondering for the hundredth time
or more, at my comrade's singularly proud and kingly aspect, as with
folded arms and lifted head, he contemplated the lily-decked altar and
the gleaming crucifix upon it, his meditative eyes bespeaking a curious
mingling of reverence and contempt.
One incident I remember, as standing out particularly in all the glare
and glitter of the brilliant scene, and this occurred at the signing of
our names in the register. When Sibyl, a vision of angelic loveliness in
all her bridal white, affixed her signature to the entry, Lucio bent
towards her,--
"As 'best man' I claim an old-fashioned privilege!" he said, and kissed
her lightly on the cheek. She blushed a vivid red,--then suddenly grew
ghastly pale,--and with a kind of choking cry, reeled back in a dead
faint in the arms of one of her bridesmaids. It was some minutes before
she was restored to consciousness,--but she made light both of my alarm
and the consternation of her friends,--and assuring us that it was
nothing but the effect of the heat of the weather and the excitement of
the day, she took my arm and walked down the aisle smilingly, through
the brilliant ranks of her staring and envious 'society' friends, all of
whom coveted her good fortune, not because she had married a worthy or
gifted man,--that would have been no special matter for
congratulation,--but simply because she had married five millions of
money! I was the appendage to the millions--nothing further. She held
her head high and haughtily, though I felt her tremble as the thundering
strains of the 'Bridal March' from Lohengrin poured sonorous triumph on
the air. She trod on roses all the way,--I remembered that too, ...
afterwards! Her satin slipper crushed the hearts of a thousand innocent
things that must surely have been more dear to God than she;--the little
harmless souls of flowers, whose task in life, sweetly fulfilled, had
been to create beauty and fragrance by their mere existence, expired to
gratify the vanity of one woman to whom nothing was sacred. But I
anticipate,--I was yet in my fool's dream,--and imagined that the dying
blossoms were happy to perish thus beneath her tread!
A grand reception was held at Lord Elton's house after the
ceremony,--and in the midst of the chattering, the eating and the
drinking, we,--my newly made wife and I,--departed amid the profuse
flatteries and good wishes of our 'friends' who, primed with the very
finest champagne, made a very decent show of being sincere. The last
person to say farewell to us at the carriage-door was Lucio,--and the
sorrow I felt at parting with him was more than I could express in words.
From the very hour of the dawning of my good fortune we had been almost
inseparable companions,--I owed my success in society,--everything, even
my bride herself,--to his management and tact,--and though I had now won
for my life's partner the most beautiful of women, I could not
contemplate even the temporary breaking of the association between myself
and my gifted and brilliant comrade, without a keen pang of personal pain
amid my nuptial joys. Leaning his arms on the carriage-window, he looked
in upon us both, smiling.
"My spirit will be with you both in all your journeyings!" he said--"And
when you return, I shall be one of the first to bid you welcome home.
Your house-party is fixed for September, I believe?"
"Yes,--and you will be the most eagerly desired guest of all invited!" I
replied heartily, pressing his hand.
"Fie, for shame!" he retorted laughingly--"Be not so disloyal of speech,
Geoffrey! Are you not going to entertain the Prince of Wales?--and
shall anyone be more 'eagerly-desired' than he? No,--I must play a
humble third or even fourth on your list where Royalty is
concerned,--_my_ princedom is alas! not that of Wales,--and the throne I
might claim (if I had anyone to help me, which I have not) is a long way
removed from that of England!"
Sibyl said nothing,--but her eyes rested on his handsome face and fine
figure with an odd wonder and wistfulness, and she was very pale.
"Good-bye Lady Sibyl!" he added gently--"All joy be with you! To us who
are left behind, your absence will seem long,--but to _you_,--ah!--Love
gives wings to time, and what would be to ordinary folks a month of mere
dull living, will be for you nothing but a moment's rapture! Love is
better than wealth,--you have found that out already I know!--but I
think--and hope--that you are destined to make the knowledge more
certain and complete! Think of me sometimes! Au revoir!"
The horses started,--a handful of rice flung by the society idiot who is
always at weddings, rattled against the door and on the roof of the
brougham, and Lucio stepped back, waving his hand. To the last we saw
him,--a tall stately figure on the steps of Lord Elton's
mansion,--surrounded by an ultra-fashionable throng, ... bridesmaids in
bright attire and picture-hats,--young girls all eager and
excited-looking, each of them no doubt longing fervently for the day to
come when they might severally manage to secure as rich a husband as
myself, ... match-making mothers and wicked old dowagers, exhibiting
priceless lace on their capacious bosoms, and ablaze with diamonds, ...
men with white button-hole bouquets in their irreproachably fitting
frock-coats,--servants in gay liveries, and the usual street-crowd of
idle sight-seers;--all this cluster of faces, costumes and flowers, was
piled against the grey background of the stone portico,--and in the
midst, the dark beauty of Lucio's face and the luminance of his flashing
eyes made him the conspicuous object and chief centre of attraction, ...
then, ... the carriage turned a sharp corner,--the faces vanished,--and
Sibyl and I realised that from henceforward we were left alone,--alone
to face the future and ourselves,--and to learn the lesson of love ...
or hate ... for evermore together!
XXVI
I cannot now trace the slow or swift flitting by of phantasmal events,
... wild ghosts of days or weeks that drifted past, and brought me
gradually and finally to a time when I found myself wandering, numb and
stricken and sick at heart, by the shores of a lake in Switzerland,--a
small lake, densely blue, with apparently a thought in its depths such
as is reflected in a child's earnest eye. I gazed down at the clear and
glistening water almost unseeingly,--the snow-peaked mountains
surrounding it were too high for the lifting of my aching
sight,--loftiness, purity, and radiance were unbearable to my mind,
crushed as it was beneath a weight of dismal wreckage and ruin. What a
fool was I ever to have believed that in this world there could be such
a thing as happiness! Misery stared me in the face,--life-long
misery,--and no escape but death. Misery!--it was the word which like a
hellish groan, had been uttered by the three dreadful phantoms that had
once, in an evil vision, disturbed my rest. What had I done, I demanded
indignantly of myself, to deserve this wretchedness which no wealth
could cure?--why was fate so unjust? Like all my kind, I was unable to
discern the small yet strong links of the chain I had myself wrought,
and which bound me to my own undoing,--I blamed fate, or rather
God,--and talked of injustice, merely because _I_ personally suffered,
never realizing that what I considered unjust was but the equitable
measuring forth of that Eternal Law which is carried out with as
mathematical an exactitude as the movement of the planets,
notwithstanding man's pigmy efforts to impede its fulfilment. The light
wind blowing down from the snow peaks above me ruffled the placidity of
the little lake by which I aimlessly strolled,--I watched the tiny
ripples break over its surface like the lines of laughter on a human
face, and wondered morosely whether it was deep enough to drown in! For
what was the use of living on,--knowing what I knew! Knowing that she
whom I had loved, and whom I loved still in a way that was hateful to
myself, was a thing viler and more shameless in character than the
veriest poor drab of the street who sells herself for current
coin,--that the lovely body and angel-face were but an attractive
disguise for the soul of a harpy,--a vulture of vice, ... my God!--an
irrepressible cry escaped me as my thoughts went on and on in the
never-ending circle and problem of incurable, unspeakable despair,--and
I threw myself down on a shelving bank of grass that sloped towards the
lake and covered my face in a paroxysm of tearless agony.
Still inexorable thought worked in my brain, and forced me to consider
my position. Was she,--was Sibyl--more to blame than I myself for all
the strange havoc wrought? I had married her of my own free will and
choice,--and she had told me beforehand--"I am a contaminated creature,
trained to perfection in the lax morals and prurient literature of my
day." Well,--and so it had proved! My own blood burned with shame as I
reflected how ample and convincing were the proofs!--and, starting up
from my recumbent posture I paced up and down again restlessly in a
fever of self-contempt and disgust. What could I do with a woman such as
she to whom I was now bound for life? Reform her? She would laugh me to
scorn for the attempt. Reform myself? She would sneer at me for an
effeminate milksop. Besides, was not I as willing to be degraded as she
was to degrade me?--a very victim to my brute passions? Tortured and
maddened by my feelings I roamed about wildly, and started as if a
pistol-shot had been fired near me when the plash of oars sounded on the
silence and the keel of a small boat grated on the shore, the boatman
within it respectfully begging me in mellifluous French to employ him
for an hour. I assented, and in a minute or two was out on the lake in
the middle of the red glow of sunset which turned the snow-summits to
points of flame, and the waters to the hue of ruby wine. I think the man
who rowed me saw that I was in no very pleasant humour, for he preserved
a discreet silence,--and I, pulling my hat partly over my eyes, lay back
in the stern, still busy with my wretched musings. Only a month
married!--and yet,--a sickening satiety had taken the place of the
so-called 'deathless' lover's passion. There were moments even, when my
wife's matchless physical beauty appeared hideous to me. I knew her as
she was,--and no exterior charm could ever again cover for me the
revolting nature within. And what puzzled me from dawn to dusk was her
polished, specious hypocrisy,--her amazing aptitude for lies! To look at
her,--to hear her speak,--one would have deemed her a very saint of
purity,--a delicate creature whom a coarse word would startle and
offend,--a very incarnation of the sweetest and most gracious
womanhood,--all heart and feeling and sympathy. Everyone thought thus of
her,--and never was there a greater error. Heart she had none; that fact
was borne in upon me two days after our marriage while we were in Paris,
for there a telegram reached us announcing her mother's death. The
paralysed Countess of Elton had, it appeared, expired suddenly on our
wedding-day, or rather our wedding night,--but the Earl had deemed it
best to wait forty-eight hours before interrupting our hymeneal
happiness with the melancholy tidings. He followed his telegram by a
brief letter to his daughter, in which the concluding lines were
these--"As you are a bride and are travelling abroad, I should advise
you by no means to go into mourning. Under the circumstances it is
really not necessary."
And Sibyl had readily accepted his suggestion, keeping generally however
to white and pale mauve colourings in her numerous and wonderful
toilettes, in order not to outrage the proprieties too openly in the
opinions of persons known to her, whom she might possibly meet casually
in the foreign towns we visited. No word of regret passed her lips, and
no tears were shed for her mother's loss. She only said,
"What a good thing her sufferings are over!"
Then, with a little sarcastic smile, she had added--
"I wonder when we shall receive the Elton-Chesney wedding cards!"
I did not reply, for I was pained and grieved at her lack of all gentle
feeling in the matter, and I was also, to a certain extent,
superstitiously affected by the fact of the death occurring on our
marriage-day. However this was now a thing of the past; a month had
elapsed,--a month in which the tearing-down of illusions had gone on
daily and hourly,--till I was left to contemplate the uncurtained bare
prose of life and the knowledge that I had wedded a beautiful feminine
animal with the soul of a shameless libertine. Here I pause and ask
myself,--Was not I also a libertine? Yes,--I freely admit it,--but the
libertinage of a man, while it may run to excess in hot youth, generally
resolves itself, under the influence of a great love, into a strong
desire for undefiled sweetness and modesty in the woman beloved. If a
man has indulged in both folly and sin, the time comes at last, when, if
he has any good left in him at all, he turns back upon himself and
lashes his own vices with the scorpion-whip of self-contempt till he
smarts with the rage and pain of it,--and then, aching in every pulse
with his deserved chastisement, he kneels in spirit at the feet of some
pure, true-hearted woman whose white soul, like an angel, hovers
compassionately above him, and there lays down his life, saying "Do what
you will with it,--it is yours!" And woe to her who plays lightly with
such a gift, or works fresh injury upon it! No man, even if he has in
his day, indulged in 'rapid' living, should choose a 'rapid' woman for
his wife,--he had far better put a loaded pistol to his head and make an
end of it!
The sunset-glory began to fade from the landscape as the little boat
glided on over the tranquil water, and a great shadow was on my mind,
like the shadow of that outer darkness which would soon be night. Again
I asked myself--Was there no happiness possible in all the world? Just
then the Angelus chimed from a little chapel on the shore, and as it
rang, a memory stirred in my brain moving me well-nigh to tears. Mavis
Clare was happy!--Mavis, with her frank fearless eyes, sweet face and
bright nature,--Mavis, wearing her crown of Fame as simply as a child
might wear a wreath of may-blossom,--she, with a merely moderate share
of fortune which even in its slight proportion was only due to her own
hard incessant work,--she was happy. And I,--with my millions,--was
wretched! How was it? Why was it? What had I done? I had lived as my
compeers lived,--I had followed the lead of all society,--I had feasted
my friends and effectually 'snubbed' my foes,--I had comported myself
exactly as others of my wealth comport themselves,--and I had married a
woman whom most men, looking upon once, would have been proud to win.
Nevertheless there seemed to be a curse upon me. What had I missed out
of life? I knew,--but was ashamed to own it, because I had previously
scorned what I called the dream-nothings of mere sentiment. And now I
had to acknowledge the paramount importance of those 'dream-nothings'
out of which all true living must come. I had to realize that my
marriage was nothing but the mere mating of the male and female
animal,--a coarse bodily union, and no more;--that all the finer and
deeper emotions which make a holy thing of human wedlock, were
lacking,--the mutual respect, the trusting sympathy,--the lovely
confidence of mind with mind,--the subtle inner spiritual bond which no
science can analyse, and which is so much closer and stronger than the
material, and knits immortal souls together when bodies decay--these
things had no existence, and never would exist between my wife and me.
Thus, as far as I was concerned, there was a strange blankness in the
world,--I was thrust back upon myself for comfort and found none. What
should I do with my life, I wondered drearily! Win fame,--true
fame,--after all? With Sibyl's witch-eyes mocking my efforts?--never!
If I had ever had any gifts of creative thought within me, _she_ would
have killed it!
The hour was over,--the boatman rowed me in to land, and I paid and
dismissed him. The sun had completely sunk,--there were dense purple
shadows darkening over the mountains, and one or two small stars faintly
discernible in the east. I walked slowly back to the villa where we were
staying,--a 'dépendance' belonging to the large hotel of the district,
which we had rented for the sake of privacy and independence, some of
the hotel-servants being portioned off to attend upon us, in addition to
my own man Morris, and my wife's maid. I found Sibyl in the garden,
reclining in a basket-chair, her eyes fixed on the after-glow of the
sunset, and in her hands a book,--one of the loathliest of the prurient
novels that have been lately written by women to degrade and shame their
sex. With a sudden impulse of rage upon me which I could not resist, I
snatched the volume from her and flung it into the lake below. She made
no movement of either surprise or offence,--she merely turned her eyes
away from the glowing heavens, and looked at me with a little smile.
"How violent you are to-day, Geoffrey!" she said.
I gazed at her in sombre silence. From the light hat with its pale mauve
orchids that rested on her nut-brown hair, to the point of her daintily
embroidered shoe, her dress was perfect,--and _she_ was perfect. _I_
knew that,--a matchless piece of womanhood ... outwardly! My heart
beat,--there was a sense of suffocation in my throat,--I could have
killed her for the mingled loathing and longing which her beauty roused
in me.
"I am sorry!" I said hoarsely, avoiding her gaze--"But I hate to see you
with such a book as that!"
"You know its contents?" she queried, with the same slight smile.
"I can guess."
"Such things have to be written, they say nowadays,"--she went on--"And,
certainly, to judge from the commendation bestowed on these sort of
books by the press, it is very evident that the wave of opinion is
setting in the direction of letting girls know all about marriage before
they enter upon it, in order that they may do so with their eyes wide
open,--_very_ wide open!" She laughed, and her laughter hurt me like a
physical wound. "What an old-fashioned idea the bride of the poets and
sixty-years-ago romancists seems now!" she continued--"Imagine her!--a
shrinking tender creature, shy of beholders, timid of speech, ...
wearing the emblematic veil, which in former days, you know, used to
cover the face entirely, as a symbol that the secrets of marriage were
as yet hidden from the maiden's innocent and ignorant eyes. Now the veil
is worn flung back from the bride's brows, and she stares unabashed at
everybody,--oh yes, indeed we know quite well what we are doing now when
we marry, thanks to the 'new' fiction!"
"The new fiction is detestable,"--I said hotly--"Both in style and
morality. Even as a question of literature I wonder at your
condescending to read any of it. The woman whose dirty book I have just
thrown away--and I feel no compunction for having done it,--is destitute
of grammar as well as decency."
"Oh, but the critics don't notice that,"--she interrupted, with a
delicate mockery vibrating in her voice--"It is apparently not their
business to assist in preserving the purity of the English language.
What they fall into raptures over is the originality of the 'sexual'
theme, though I should have thought all such matters were as old as the
hills. I never read reviews as a rule, but I did happen to come across
one on the book you have just drowned,--and in it, the reviewer stated
he had cried over it!"
She laughed again.
"Beast!" I said emphatically--"He probably found in it some glozing-over
of his own vices. But you, Sibyl--why do you read such stuff?--how can
you read it?"
"Curiosity moved me in the first place,"--she answered listlessly--"I
wanted to see what makes a reviewer cry! Then when I began to read, I
found that the story was all about the manner in which men amuse
themselves with the soiled doves of the highways and bye-ways,--and as I
was not very well instructed in that sort of thing, I thought I might as
well learn! You know these unpleasant morsels of information on
unsavoury subjects are like the reputed suggestions of the devil,--if
you listen to one, you are bound to hear more. Besides, literature is
supposed to reflect the time we live in,--and that kind of literature
being more prevalent than anything else, we are compelled to accept and
study it as the mirror of the age."
With an expression on her face that was half mirth and half scorn, she
rose from her seat, and looked down into the lovely lake below her.
"The fishes will eat that book,--" she observed--"I hope it will not
poison them! If they could read and understand it, what singular ideas
they would have of us human beings!"
"Why don't you read Mavis Clare's books?" I asked suddenly--"You told me
you admired her."
"So I do,--immensely!" she answered,--"I admire her and wonder at her,
both together. How that woman can keep her child's heart and child's
faith in a world like this, is more than I can understand. It is always
a perfect marvel to me,--a sort of supernatural surprise. You ask me why
don't I read her books,--I do read them,--I've read them all over and
over again,--but she does not write many, and one has to wait for her
productions longer than for those of most authors. When I want to feel
like an angel, I read Mavis Clare,--but I more often am inclined to feel
the other way, and then her books are merely so many worries to me."
"Worries?" I echoed.
"Yes. It is worrying to find somebody believing in a God when _you_
can't believe in Him,--to have beautiful faiths offered to you which
_you_ can't grasp,--and to know that there is a creature alive, a woman
like yourself in everything except mind, who is holding fast a happiness
which you can never attain,--no, not though you held out praying hands
day and night and shouted wild appeals to the dull heavens!"
At that moment she looked like a queen of tragedy,--her violet eyes
ablaze,--her lips apart,--her breast heaving;----I approached her with a
strange nervous hesitation and touched her hand. She gave it to me
passively,--I drew it through my arm, and for a minute or two we paced
silently up and down the gravel walk. The lights from the monster hotel
which catered for us and our wants, were beginning to twinkle from
basement to roof,--and just above the châlet we rented, a triad of stars
sparkled in the shape of a trefoil.
"Poor Geoffrey!" she said presently, with a quick upward glance at
me,--"I am sorry for you! With all my vagaries of disposition I am not a
fool, and at anyrate I have learned how to analyse myself as well as
others. I read you as easily as I read a book,--I see what a strange
tumult your mind is in! You love me--and you loathe me!--and the
contrast of emotion makes a wreck of you and your ideals. Hush,--don't
speak; I know,--I know! But what would you have me be? An angel? I
cannot realize such a being for more than a fleeting moment of
imagination. A saint? They were all martyred. A good woman? I never met
one. Innocent?--ignorant? I told you before we married that I was
neither; there is nothing left for me to discover as far as the
relations between men and women are concerned,--I have taken the measure
of the inherent love of vice in both sexes. There is not a pin to choose
between them,--men are no worse than women,--women no worse than men. I
have discovered everything--except God!--and I conclude no God could
ever have designed such a crazy and mean business as human life."
While she thus spoke, I could have fallen at her feet and implored her
to be silent. For she was, unknowingly, giving utterance to some of the
many thoughts in which I myself had frequently indulged,--and yet, from
her lips they sounded cruel, unnatural, and callous to a degree that
made me shrink from her in fear and agony. We had reached a little grove
of pines,--and here in the silence and shadow I took her in my arms and
stared disconsolately upon the beauty of her face.
"Sibyl!" I whispered--"Sibyl, what is wrong with us both? How is it that
we do not seem to find the loveliest side of love?--why is it that even
in our kisses and embraces, some impalpable darkness comes between us,
so that we anger or weary each other when we should be glad and
satisfied? What is it? Can you tell? For you know the darkness is
there!"
A curious look came into her eyes,--a far-away strained look of hungry
yearning, mingled, as I thought, with compassion for me.
"Yes, it is there!" she answered slowly--"And it is of our own mutual
creation. I believe you have something nobler in your nature, Geoffrey,
than I have in mine,--an indefinable something that recoils from me and
my theories despite your wish and will. Perhaps if you had given way to
that feeling in time, you would never have married me. You speak of the
loveliest side of love,--to me there is no lovely side,--it is all
coarse and horrible! You and I for instance,--cultured man and
woman,--we cannot, in marriage, get a flight beyond the common emotions
of Hodge and his girl!" She laughed violently, and shuddered in my arms.
"What liars the poets are, Geoffrey! They ought to be sentenced to
life-long imprisonment for their perjuries! They help to mould the
credulous beliefs of a woman's heart;--in her early youth she reads
their delicious assurances, and imagines that love will be all they
teach,--a thing divine and lasting beyond earthly countings;--then comes
the coarse finger of prose on the butterfly-wing of poesy, and the
bitterness and hideousness of complete disillusion!"
I held her still in my arms with the fierce grasp of a man clinging to a
spar ere he drowns in mid-ocean.
"But I love you Sibyl!----my wife, I love you!" I said, with a passion
that choked my utterance.
"You love me,--yes, I know, but how? In a way that is abhorrent to
yourself!" she replied--"It is not poetic love,--it is man's love, and
man's love is brute love. So it is,--so it will be,--so it must be.
Moreover the brute-love soon tires,--and when it dies out from satiety
there is nothing left. Nothing, Geoffrey,--absolutely nothing but a
blank and civil form of intercourse, which I do not doubt we shall be
able to keep up for the admiration and comment of society!"
She disengaged herself from my embrace, and moved towards the house.
"Come!" she added, turning her exquisite head back over her shoulder
with a feline caressing grace that she alone possessed, "You know there
is a famous lady in London who advertises her saleable charms to the
outside public by means of her monogram worked into the lace of all her
window-blinds, thinking it no doubt good for trade! I am not quite so
bad as that! You have paid dearly for me I know;--but remember I as yet
wear no jewels but yours, and crave no gifts beyond those you are
generous enough to bestow,--and my dutiful desire is to give you as much
full value as I can for your money."
"Sibyl, you kill me!" I cried, tortured beyond endurance, "Do you think
me so base----"
I broke off with almost a sob of despair.
"You cannot help being base," she said, steadily regarding me,--"because
you are a man. I am base because I am a woman. If we believed in a God,
either of us, we might discover some different way of life and love--who
knows?--but neither you nor I have any remnant of faith in a Being whose
existence all the scientists of the day are ever at work to disprove. We
are persistently taught that we are animals and nothing more,--let us
therefore not be ashamed of animalism. Animalism and atheism are
approved by the scientists and applauded by the press,--and the clergy
are powerless to enforce the faith they preach. Come Geoffrey, don't
stay mooning like a stricken Parsifal under those pines,--throw away
that thing which troubles you, your conscience,--throw it away as you
have thrown the book I was lately reading, and consider this,--that most
men of your type take pride and rejoice in being the prey of a bad
woman!--so you should really congratulate yourself on having one for a
wife!--one who is so broad-minded too, that she will always let you have
your own way in everything you do, provided you let her have hers! It is
the way all marriages are arranged nowadays,--at any rate in _our_
set,--otherwise the tie would be impossible of endurance. Come!"
"We cannot live together on such an understanding, Sibyl!" I said
hoarsely, as I walked slowly by her side towards the villa.
"Oh yes, we can!" she averred, a little malign smile playing round her
lips--"We can do as others do,--there is no necessity for us to stand
out from the rest like quixotic fools, and pose as models to other
married people,--we should only be detested for our pains. It is surely
better to be popular than virtuous,--virtue never pays! See, there is
our interesting German waiter coming to inform us that dinner is ready;
please don't look so utterly miserable, for we have not quarrelled, and
it would be foolish to let the servants think we have."
I made no answer. We entered the house, and dined,--Sibyl keeping up a
perfect fire of conversation, to which I replied in mere
monosyllables,--and after dinner we went as usual to sit in the
illuminated gardens of the adjacent hotel, and hear the band. Sibyl was
known, and universally admired and flattered by many of the people
staying there,----and, as she moved about among her acquaintances,
chatting first with one group and then with another, I sat in moody
silence, watching her with increasing wonderment and horror. Her beauty
seemed to me like the beauty of the poison-flower, which, brilliant in
colour and perfect in shape, exhales death to those who pluck it from
its stem. And that night, when I held her in my arms, and felt her heart
beating against my own in the darkness, an awful dread arose in me,--a
dread as to whether I might not at some time or other be tempted to
strangle her as she lay on my breast----strangle her as one would
strangle a vampire that sucked one's blood and strength away!
XXVII
We concluded our wedding-tour rather sooner than we had at first
intended, and returned to England and Willowsmere Court, about the
middle of August. I had a vague notion stirring in me that gave me a
sort of dim indefinable consolation, and it was this,--I meant to bring
my wife and Mavis Clare together, believing that the gentle influence of
the gracious and happy creature, who, like a contented bird in its nest,
dwelt serene in the little domain so near my own, might have a softening
and wholesome effect upon Sibyl's pitiless love of analysis and scorn of
all noble ideals. The heat in Warwickshire was at this time
intense,--the roses were out in their full beauty, and the thick foliage
of the branching oaks and elms in my grounds afforded grateful shade and
repose to the tired body, while the tranquil loveliness of the woodland
and meadow scenery, comforted and soothed the equally tired mind. After
all, there is no country in the world so fair as England,--none so
richly endowed with verdant forests and fragrant flowers,--none that can
boast of sweeter nooks for seclusion and romance. In Italy, that land so
over-praised by hysterical _poseurs_ who foolishly deem it admirable to
glorify any country save their own, the fields are arid and brown, and
parched by the too fervent sun,--there are no shady lanes such as
England can boast of in all her shires,--and the mania among Italians
for ruthlessly cutting down their finest trees, has not only actually
injured the climate, but has so spoilt the landscape that it is
difficult to believe at all in its once renowned, and still erroneously
reported charm. Such a bower of beauty as Lily Cottage was in that
sultry August, could never have been discovered in all the length and
breadth of Italy. Mavis superintended the care of her gardens
herself,--she had two gardeners, who under her directions, kept the
grass and trees continually watered,--and nothing could be imagined more
lovely than the picturesque old-fashioned house, covered with roses and
tufts of jessamine that seemed to tie up the roof in festal knots and
garlands, while around the building spread long reaches of deep emerald
lawn, and bosky arbours of foliage where all the most musical song-birds
apparently found refuge and delight, and where at evening a perfect
colony of nightingales kept up a bubbling fountain of delicious melody.
I remember well the afternoon, warm, languid and still, when I took
Sibyl to see the woman-author she had so long admired. The heat was so
great that in our own grounds all the birds were silent, but when we
approached Lily Cottage the first thing we heard was the piping of a
thrush up somewhere among the roses,--a mellow liquid warble expressing
'sweet content,' and mingling with the subdued coo-cooings of the dove
'reviewers' who were commenting on whatever pleased or displeased them
in the distance.
"What a pretty place it is!" said my wife, as she peeped over the gate,
and through the odorous tangles of honeysuckle and jessamine--"I really
think it is prettier than Willowsmere. It has been wonderfully
improved."
We were shown in,--and Mavis, who had expected our visit did not keep us
waiting long. An she entered, clad in some gossamer white stuff that
clung softly about her pretty figure and was belted in by a simple
ribbon, an odd sickening pang went through my heart. The fair untroubled
face,--the joyous yet dreamy student eyes,--the sensitive mouth, and
above all, the radiant look of happiness that made the whole expression
of her features so bright and fascinating, taught me in one flash of
conviction all that a woman might be, and all that she too frequently is
not. And I had hated Mavis Clare!--I had even taken up my pen to deal
her a wanton blow through the medium of anonymous criticism, ... but
this was before I knew her,--before I realized that there could be any
difference between her and the female scarecrows who so frequently pose
as 'novelists' without being able to write correct English, and who talk
in public of their 'copy' with the glibness gained from Grub Street and
the journalists' cheap restaurant. Yes--I had hated her,----and
now----now, almost I loved her! Sibyl, tall, queenly and beautiful,
gazed upon her with eyes that expressed astonishment as well as
admiration.
"To think that you are the famous Mavis Clare!" she said, smiling, as
she held out her hand--"I always heard and knew that you did not look at
all literary, but I never quite realized that you could be exactly what
I see you are!"
"To look literary does not always imply that you _are_ literary!"
returned Mavis, laughing a little--"Too often I am afraid you will find
that the women who take pains to _look_ literary are ignorant of
literature! But how glad I am to see you, Lady Sibyl! Do you know I used
to watch you playing about on the lawns at Willowsmere when I was quite
a little girl?"
"And I used to watch you,"--responded Sibyl--"You used to make
daisy-chains and cowslip-balls in the fields opposite on the other side
of the Avon. It is a great pleasure to me to know we are neighbours. You
must come and see me often at Willowsmere."
Mavis did not answer immediately,--she busied herself in pouring out tea
and dispensing it to both of us. Sibyl, who was always on the alert for
glimpses of character, noticed that she did not answer, and repeated her
words coaxingly.
"You will come, will you not? As often as you like,--the oftener the
better. We must be friends, you know!"
Mavis looked up then, a frank sweet smile in her eyes.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked.
"Mean it!" echoed Sibyl--"Why, of course I do!"
"How can you doubt it!" I exclaimed.
"Well, you must both forgive me for asking such a question"--said Mavis
still smiling--"But you see you are now among what are called the
'county magnates,' and county magnates consider themselves infinitely
above all authors!" She laughed outright, and her blue eyes twinkled
with fun. "I think many of them estimate writers of books as some sort
of strange outgrowth of humanity that is barely decent. It is
deliciously funny and always amuses me,--nevertheless, among my many
faults, the biggest one is, I fancy, pride, and a dreadfully obstinate
spirit of independence. Now, to tell you the truth, I have been asked by
many so-called 'great' people to their houses, and when I _have_ gone, I
have generally been sorry for it afterwards."
"Why?" I asked--"They honour themselves by inviting you."
"Oh, I don't think they take it in that way at all!" she replied,
shaking her fair head demurely--"They fancy they have performed a great
act of condescension,--whereas it is really I who condescend, for it is
very good of me, you know, to leave the society of the Pallas Athene in
my study for that of a flounced and frizzled lady of fashion!" Her
bright smile again irradiated her face and she went on--"Once I was
asked to luncheon with a certain baron and baroness who invited a few
guests "to meet me," so they said. I was not introduced to more than one
or two of these people,--the rest sat and stared at me as if I were a
new kind of fish or fowl. Then the baron showed me his house, and told
me the prices of his pictures and his china,--he was even good enough to
explain which was Dresden and which was Delft ware, though I believe,
benighted author as I am, I could have instructed him equally on these,
and other matters. However I managed to smile amicably through the whole
programme, and professed myself charmed and delighted in the usual
way;--but they never asked me to visit them again,--and, (unless indeed
they wanted me to be impressed with their furniture-catalogue) I can
never make out what I did to be asked at all, and what I have done never
to be asked any more!"
"They must have been _parvenus_,"--said Sibyl indignantly--"No well-bred
people would have priced their goods to you, unless they happened to be
Jews."
Mavis laughed--a merry little laugh like a peal of bells,--then she
continued--
"Well, I will not say who they were,--I must keep something for my
'literary reminiscences' when I get old! Then all these people will be
named, and go down to posterity as Dante's enemies went down to Dante's
hell! I have only told you the incident just to show you why I asked you
if you meant it, when you invited me to visit you at Willowsmere.
Because the baron and baroness I have spoken of 'gushed' over me and my
poor books to such an extent that you would have fancied I was to be for
evermore one of their dearest friends,--and they _didn't_ mean it! Other
people I know embrace me effusively and invite me to their houses, and
_they_ don't mean it! And when I find out these shams, I like to make it
very clear on my own side that I do not seek to be embraced or invited,
and that if certain great folks deem it a 'favour' to ask me to their
houses, I do not so consider it, but rather think the 'favour' is
entirely on my part if I accept the invitation. And I do not say this
for my own self at all,--self has nothing to do with it,--but I do say
it and strongly assert it for the sake of the dignity of Literature as
an art and profession. If a few other authors would maintain this
position, we might raise the standard of letters by degrees to what it
was in the old days of Scott and Byron. I hope you do not think me too
proud?"
"On the contrary, I think you are quite right"--said Sibyl
earnestly--"And I admire you for your courage and independence. Some of
the aristocracy are, I know, such utter snobs that often I feel ashamed
to belong to them. But as far as we are concerned, I can only assure you
that if you will honour us by becoming our friend as well as neighbour,
you shall not regret it. Do try and like me if you can!"
She bent forward with a witching smile on her fair face. Mavis looked at
her seriously and admiringly.
"How beautiful you are!" she said frankly--"Everybody tells you this of
course,--still, I cannot help joining in the general chorus. To me, a
lovely face is like a lovely flower,--I must admire it. Beauty is quite
a divine thing, and though I am often told that the plain people are
always the good people, I never can quite believe it. Nature is surely
bound to give a beautiful face to a beautiful spirit."
Sibyl, who had smiled with pleasure at the first words of the open
compliment paid her by one of the most gifted of her own sex, now
flushed deeply.
"Not always, Miss Clare,"--she said, veiling her brilliant eyes beneath
the droop of her long lashes--"One can imagine a fair fiend as easily as
a fair angel."
"True!" and Mavis looked at her musingly,--then suddenly laughing in her
blithe bright way, she added--"Quite true! Really I cannot picture an
ugly fiend,--for the fiends are supposed to be immortal, and I am
convinced that immortal ugliness has no part in the universe. Downright
hideousness belongs to humanity alone,--and an ugly face is such a blot
on creation that we can only console ourselves by the reflection that it
is fortunately perishable, and that in course of time the soul behind it
will be released from its ill-formed husk, and will be allowed to wear a
fairer aspect. Yes, Lady Sibyl, I will come to Willowsmere; I cannot
refuse to look upon such loveliness as yours as often as I may!"
"You are a charming flatterer!" said Sibyl, rising and putting an arm
round her in that affectionate coaxing way of hers which seemed so
sincere, and which so frequently meant nothing--"But I confess I prefer
to be flattered by a woman rather than by a man. Men say the same things
to all women,--they have a very limited répertoire of compliments,--and
they will tell a fright she is beautiful, if it happens to serve their
immediate purpose. But women themselves can so hardly be persuaded to
admit that any good qualities exist either inwardly or outwardly in one
another, that when they do say a kind or generous thing of their own sex
it is a wonder worth remembering. May I your study?"
Mavis willingly assented,--and we all three went into the peaceful
sanctum where the marble Pallas presided, and where the dogs Tricksy and
Emperor were both ensconced,--Emperor sitting up on his haunches and
surveying the prospect from the window, and Tricksy with a most absurd
air of importance, imitating the larger animal's attitude precisely, at
a little distance off. Both creatures were friendly to my wife and to
me, and while Sibyl was stroking the St Bernard's massive head, Mavis
said suddenly,
"Where is the friend who came with you here first, Prince Rimânez?"
"He is in St Petersburg just now,"--I answered--"But we expect him in
two or three weeks to stay with us on a visit for some time."
"He is surely a very singular man,"--said Mavis thoughtfully--"Do you
remember how strangely my dogs behaved to him? Emperor was quite
restless and troublesome for two or three hours after he had gone."
And in a few words, she told Sibyl the incident of the St Bernard's
attack upon Lucio.
"Some people have a natural antipathy to dogs,"--said Sibyl, as she
heard--"And the dogs always find it out, and resent it. But I should not
have thought Prince Rimânez had an antipathy to any creatures
except--women!"
And she laughed, a trifle bitterly.
"Except women!" echoed Mavis surprisedly--"Does he hate women? He must
be a very good actor then,--for to me he was wonderfully kind and
gentle."
Sibyl looked at her intently, and was silent for a minute. Then she
said--
"Perhaps it is because he knows you are unlike the ordinary run of
women and have nothing in common with their usual trumpery aims. Of
course he is always courteous to our sex,--but I think it is easy to see
that his courtesy is often worn as a mere mask to cover a very different
feeling."
"You have perceived that, then, Sibyl?" I said with a slight smile.
"I should be blind if I had not perceived it"--she replied; "I do not
however blame him for his pet aversion,--I think it makes him all the
more attractive and interesting."
"He is a great friend of yours?" inquired Mavis, looking at me as she
put the question.
"The very greatest friend I have,"--I replied quickly--"I owe him more
than I can ever repay,--indeed I have to thank him even for introducing
me to my wife!"
I said the words unthinkingly and playfully, but as I uttered them, a
sudden shock affected my nerves,--a shock of painful memory. Yes, it was
true!--I owed to him, to Lucio, the misery, fear, degradation and shame
of having such a woman as Sibyl was, united to me till death should us
part. I felt myself turning sick and giddy,--and I sat down in one of
the quaint oak chairs that helped to furnish Mavis Clare's study,
allowing the two women to pass out of the open French window into the
sunlit garden together, the dogs following at their heels. I watched
them as they went,--my wife, tall and stately, attired in the newest and
most fashionable mode,--Mavis, small and slight, with her soft white
gown and floating waist-ribbon,--the one sensual, the other
spiritual,--the one base and vicious in desire,--the other pure-souled
and aspiring to noblest ends,--the one, a physically magnificent
animal,--the other merely sweet-faced and ideally fair like a sylph of
the woodlands,--and looking, I clenched my hands as I thought with
bitterness of spirit what a mistaken choice I had made. In the profound
egotism which had always been part of my nature I now actually allowed
myself to believe that I might, had I chosen, have wedded Mavis
Clare,--never for one moment imagining that all my wealth would have
been useless to me in such a quest, and that I might as well have
proposed to pluck a star from the sky as to win a woman who was able to
read my nature thoroughly, and who would never have come down to my
money-level from her intellectual throne,--no, not though I had been a
monarch of many nations. I stared at the large tranquil features of the
Pallas Athene,--and the blank eyeballs of the marble goddess appeared to
regard me in turn with impassive scorn. I glanced round the room,
and at the walls adorned with the wise sayings of poets and
philosophers,--sayings that reminded me of truths which I knew, yet
never accepted as practicable; and presently my eyes were attracted to a
corner near the writing-desk which I had not noticed before, where there
was a small dim lamp burning. Above this lamp an ivory crucifix gleamed
white against draperies of dark purple velvet,--below it, on a silver
bracket, was an hour-glass through which the sand was running in
glistening grains, and round the entire little shrine was written in
letters of gold "Now is the acceptable time!"--the word 'Now' being in
larger characters than the rest. 'Now' was evidently Mavis's motto,--to
lose no moment, but to work, to pray, to love, to hope, to thank God and
be glad for life, all in the 'Now'--and neither to regret the past nor
forebode the future, but simply do the best that could be done, and
leave all else in child-like confidence to the Divine Will. I got up
restlessly,--the sight of the crucifix curiously annoyed me;--and I
followed the path my wife and Mavis had taken through the garden. I
found them looking in at the cage of the 'Athenæum' owls,--the
owl-in-chief being as usual puffed out with his own importance, and
swelling visibly with indignation and excess of feather. Sibyl turned as
she saw me,--her face was bright and smiling.
"Miss Clare has very strong opinions of her own, Geoffrey," she
said--"She is not as much captivated by Prince Rimânez as most people
are,--in fact, she has just confided to me that she does not quite like
him."
Mavis blushed, but her eyes met mine with fearless candour.
"It is wrong to say what one thinks, I know,--" she murmured in somewhat
troubled accents--"And it is a dreadful fault of mine. Please forgive me
Mr Tempest! You tell me the prince is your greatest friend,--and I
assure you I was immensely impressed by his appearance when I first saw
him, ... but afterwards, ... after I had studied him a little, the
conviction was borne in upon me that he was not altogether what he
seemed."
"That is exactly what he says of himself,"--I answered, laughing a
little--"He has a mystery I believe,--and he has promised to clear it up
for me some day. But I'm sorry you don't like him, Miss Clare,--for he
likes you."
"Perhaps when I meet him again my ideas may be different"--said Mavis
gently--"at present, ... well,--do not let us talk of it any
more,--indeed I feel I have been very rude to express any opinion at all
concerning one for whom you and Lady Sibyl have so great a regard. But
somehow I seemed impelled, almost against my will, to say what I did
just now."
Her soft eyes looked pained and puzzled, and to relieve her and change
the subject, I asked if she was writing anything new.
"Oh yes,"--she replied--"It would never do for me to be idle. The public
are very kind to me,--and no sooner have they read one thing of mine
than they clamour for another, so I am kept very busy."
"And what of the critics?" I asked, with a good deal of curiosity.
She laughed.
"I never pay the least attention to them," she answered, "except when
they are hasty and misguided enough to write lies about me,--then I very
naturally take the liberty to contradict those lies, either through my
own statement or that of my lawyers. Apart from refusing to allow the
public to be led into a false notion of my work and aims, I have no
grudge whatever against the critics. They are generally very poor
hard-working men, and have a frightful struggle to live. I have often,
privately, done some of them a good turn without their knowledge. A
publisher of mine sent me an MS. the other day by one of my deadliest
enemies on the press, and stated that my opinion would decide its
rejection or acceptance,--I read it through, and though it was not very
brilliant work, it was good enough, so I praised it as warmly as I
could, and urged its publication, with the stipulation that the author
should never be told I had had the casting vote. It has just come out I
see,--and I'm sure I hope it will succeed." Here she paused to gather a
few deep damask roses, which she handed to Sibyl. "Yes,--critics are
very badly, even cruelly paid,"--she went on musingly--"It is not to be
expected that they should write eulogies of the successful author, while
they continue unsuccessful,--such work could not be anything but gall
and wormwood to them. I know the poor little wife of one of them,--and
settled her dressmaker's bill for her because she was afraid to show it
to her husband. The very week afterwards he slashed away at my last book
in the most approved style in the paper on which he is employed, and
got, I suppose, about a guinea for his trouble. Of course he didn't know
about his little wife and her dunning dressmaker; and he never will
know, because I have bound her over to secrecy."
"But why do you do such things?" asked Sibyl astonished; "I would have
let his wife get into the County Court for her bill, if I had been you!"
"Would you?" and Mavis smiled gravely--"Well, I could not. You know Who
it was that said 'Bless them that curse you, and do good to them that
hate you'? Besides, the poor little woman was frightened to death at her
own expenditure. It is pitiful, you know, to see the helpless agonies of
people who _will_ live beyond their incomes,--they suffer much more than
the beggars in the street who make frequently more than a pound a day by
merely whining and snivelling. The critics are much more in evil case
than the beggars--few of them make even a pound a day, and of course
they regard as their natural enemies the authors who make thirty to
fifty pounds a week. I assure you I am very sorry for critics all
round,--they are the least-regarded and worst-rewarded of all the
literary community. And I never bother myself at all about what they say
of me, except as I before observed, when in their haste they tell
lies,--then of course it becomes necessary for me to state the truth in
simple self-defence as well as by way of duty to my public. But as a
rule I hand over all my press-notices to Tricksy there,"--indicating the
minute Yorkshire terrier who followed closely at the edge of her white
gown,--"and he tears them to indistinguishable shreds in about three
minutes!"
She laughed merrily, and Sibyl smiled, watching her with the same wonder
and admiration that had been expressed in her looks more or less since
the beginning of our interview with this light-hearted possessor of
literary fame. We were now walking towards the gate, preparatory to
taking our departure.
"May I come and talk to you sometimes?" my wife said suddenly, in her
prettiest and most pleading voice--"It would be such a privilege!"
"You can come whenever you like in the afternoons,"--replied Mavis
readily--"The mornings belong to a goddess more dominant even than
Beauty;--Work!"
"You never work at night?" I asked.
"Indeed no! I never turn the ordinances of Nature upside down, as I am
sure I should get the worst of it if I made such an attempt. The night
is for sleep--and I use it thankfully for that blessed purpose."
"Some authors can only write at night though," I said.
"Then you may be sure they only produce blurred pictures and indistinct
characterization," said Mavis--"Some I know there are, who invite
inspiration through gin or opium, as well as through the midnight
influences, but I do not believe in such methods. Morning, and a freshly
rested brain are required for literary labour,--that is, if one wants
to write a book that will last for more than one 'season.'"
She accompanied us to the gate and stood under the porch, her big dog
beside her, and the roses waving high over her head.
"At any rate work agrees with you,"--said Sibyl fixing upon her a long,
intent, almost envious gaze--"You look perfectly happy."
"I _am_ perfectly happy,"--she answered, smiling--"I have nothing in all
the world to wish for, except that I may die as peacefully as I have
lived."
"May that day be far distant!" I said earnestly.
She raised her soft meditative eyes to mine.
"Thank you!" she responded gently--"But I do not mind when it comes, so
long as it finds me ready."
She waved her hand to us as we left her and turned the corner of the
lane,--and for some minutes we walked on slowly in absolute silence.
Then at last Sibyl spoke--
"I quite understand the hatred there is in some quarters for Mavis
Clare,"--she said--"I am afraid I begin to hate her myself!"
I stopped and stared at her, astonished and confounded.
"You begin to hate her----you?--and why?"
"Are you so blind that you cannot perceive why?" she retorted, the
little malign smile I knew so well playing round her lips--"Because she
is happy! Because she has no scandals in her life, and because she dares
to be content! One longs to make her miserable! But how to do it? She
believes in a God,--she thinks all He ordains is right and good. With
such a firm faith as that, she would be happy in a garret earning but a
few pence a day. I see now perfectly how she has won her public,--it is
by the absolute conviction she has herself of the theories of life she
tries to instil. What can be done against her? Nothing! But I understand
why the critics would like to 'quash' her,--if I were a critic, fond of
whiskey-and-soda, and music-hall women, I should like to quash her
myself for being so different to the rest of her sex!"
"What an incomprehensible woman you are, Sibyl!" I exclaimed with real
irritation,--"You admire Miss Clare's books,--you have always admired
them,--you have asked her to become your friend,--and almost in the same
breath you aver you would like to 'quash' her or to make her miserable!
I confess I cannot understand you!"
"Of course you cannot!" she responded tranquilly, her eyes resting upon
me with a curious expression, as we paused for an instant under the deep
shade of a chestnut tree before entering our own grounds--"I never
supposed you could, and unlike the ordinary _femme incomprise_, I have
never blamed you for your want of comprehension. It has taken me some
time to understand myself, and even now I am not quite sure that I have
gauged the depths or shallownesses of my own nature correctly. But on
this matter of Mavis Clare, can you not imagine that badness may hate
goodness? That the confirmed drunkard may hate the sober citizen? That
the outcast may hate the innocent maiden? And that it is possible that
I,--reading life as I do, and finding it loathsome in many of its
aspects,--distrusting men and women utterly,--and being destitute of any
faith in God,--may hate,--yes _hate_,"--and she clenched her hand on a
tuft of drooping leaves and scattered the green fragments at her
feet--"a woman who finds life beautiful, and God existent,--who takes no
part in our social shams and slanders,--and who in place of my
self-torturing spirit of analysis, has secured an enviable fame and the
honour of thousands, allied to a serene content? Why it would be
something worth living for, to make such a woman wretched for once in
her life!--but, as she is constituted, it is impossible to do it."
She turned from me and walked slowly onward,--I following in a pained
silence.
"If you do not mean to be her friend, you should tell her so,"--I said
presently--"You heard what she said about pretended protestations of
regard?"
"I heard,"--she replied morosely--"She is a clever woman, Geoffrey, and
you may trust her to find me out without any explanation!"
As she said this, I raised my eyes and looked full at her,--her
exceeding beauty was becoming almost an agony to my sight, and in a
sudden fool's paroxysm of despair I exclaimed--
"O Sibyl, Sibyl! Why were you made as you are!"
"Ah, why indeed!" she rejoined, with a faint mocking smile--"And why,
being made as I am, was I born an Earl's daughter? If I had been a drab
of the street, I should have been in my proper place,--and novels would
have been written about me, and plays,--and I might have become such a
heroine as should cause all good men to weep for joy because of my
generosity in encouraging their vices! But as an Earl's daughter,
respectably married to a millionaire, am a mistake of nature. Yet nature
does make mistakes sometimes Geoffrey, and when she does they are
generally irremediable!"
We had now reached our own grounds, and I walked, in miserable mood,
beside her across the lawn towards the house.
"Sibyl,"--I said at last--"I had hoped you and Mavis Clare might be
friends."
She laughed.
"So we shall be friends I daresay,--for a little while"--she
replied--"But the dove does not willingly consort with the raven, and
Mavis Clare's way of life and studious habits would be to me
insufferably dull. Besides, as I said before, she, as a clever woman and
a thinker, is too clear-sighted not to find me out in the course of
time. But I will play humbug as long as I can. If I perform the part of
'county lady' or 'patron,' of course she won't stand me for a moment. I
shall have to assume a much more difficult rôle,--that of an honest
woman!"
Again she laughed,--a cruel little laugh that chilled my blood, and
paced slowly into the house through the open windows of the
drawing-room. And I, left alone in the garden among the nodding roses
and waving trees, felt that the beautiful domain of Willowsmere had
suddenly grown hideous and bereft of all its former charm, and was
nothing but a haunted house of desolation,--haunted by an all-dominant
and ever victorious Spirit of Evil.
XXVIII
One of the strangest things in all the strange course of our human life
is the suddenness of certain unlooked-for events, which, in a day or
even an hour, may work utter devastation where there has been more or
less peace, and hopeless ruin where there has been comparative safety.
Like the shock of an earthquake, the clamorous incidents thunder in on
the regular routine of ordinary life, crumbling down our hopes, breaking
our hearts, and scattering our pleasures into the dust and ashes of
despair. And this kind of destructive trouble generally happens in the
midst of apparent prosperity, without the least warning, and with all
the abrupt fierceness of a desert-storm. It is constantly made manifest
to us in the unexpected and almost instantaneous downfall of certain
members of society who have held their heads proudly above their
compeers and have presumed to pose as examples of light and leading to
the whole community; we see it in the capricious fortunes of kings and
statesmen, who are in favour one day and disgraced the next, and vast
changes are wrought with such inexplicable quickness that it is scarcely
wonderful to hear of certain religious sects who, when everything is
prospering more than usually well with them, make haste to put on
garments of sackcloth, and cast ashes on their heads, praying aloud
"Prepare us, O Lord, for the evil days which are at hand!" The
moderation of the Stoics, who considered it impious either to rejoice or
grieve, and strove to maintain an equable middle course between the
opposing elements of sorrow and joy, without allowing themselves to be
led away by over-much delight or over-much melancholy, was surely a wise
habit of temperament. I, who lived miserably as far as my inner and
better consciousness was concerned, was yet outwardly satisfied with the
material things of life and the luxuries surrounding me,--and I began to
take comfort in these things, and with them endeavoured to quell and
ignore my more subtle griefs, succeeding so far in that I became more
and more of a thorough materialist every day, loving bodily ease,
appetizing food, costly wine, and personal indulgence to a degree that
robbed me gradually of even the desire for mental effort. I taught
myself moreover, almost insensibly, to accept and tolerate what I knew
of the wanton side of my wife's character,--true, I respected her less
than the Turk respects the creature of his harem,--but like the Turk, I
took a certain savage satisfaction in being the possessor of her beauty,
and with this feeling, and the brute passion it engendered, I was fain
to be content. So that for a short time at least, the drowsy
satisfaction of a well-fed, well-mated animal was mine,--I imagined that
nothing short of a stupendous financial catastrophe to the country
itself could exhaust my stock of cash,--and that therefore there was no
necessity for me to exert myself in any particular branch of usefulness,
but simply to 'eat drink and be merry' as Solomon advised. Intellectual
activity was paralysed in me,--to take up my pen and write, and make
another and higher bid for fame, was an idea that now never entered my
mind; I spent my days in ordering about my servants, and practising the
petty pleasures of tyranny on gardeners and grooms, and in generally
giving myself airs of importance, mingled with an assumption of
toleration and benevolence, for the benefit of all those in my employ. I
knew the proper thing to do, well enough!--I had not studied the ways of
the over-wealthy for nothing,--I was aware that the rich man never feels
so thoroughly virtuous as when he has inquired after the health of his
coachman's wife, and has sent her a couple of pounds for the outfit of
her new-born baby. The much prated-of 'kindness of heart' and
'generosity' possessed by millionaires, generally amounts to this kind
of thing,--and when, if idly strolling about my parklands, I happened to
meet the small child of my lodge-keeper, and then and there bestowed
sixpence upon it, I almost felt as if I deserved a throne in Heaven at
the right hand of the Almighty, so great was my appreciation of my own
good-nature. Sibyl, however, never affected this sort of county-magnate
beneficence. She did nothing at all among our poor neighbours;--the
clergyman of the district unfortunately happened to let slip one day a
few words to the effect that "there was no great want of anything among
his parishioners, owing to the continual kindness and attention of Miss
Clare,"--and Sibyl never from that moment proffered any assistance. Now
and then she took her graceful person into Lily Cottage and sat with its
happy and studious occupant for an hour,--and occasionally the fair
author herself came and dined with us, or had 'afternoon tea' under the
branching elms on the lawn,--but even I, intense egotist as I was, could
see that Mavis was scarcely herself on these occasions. She was always
charming and bright of course,--indeed the only times in which I was
able to partially forget myself and the absurdly increasing importance
of my personality in my own esteem, were when she, with her sweet voice
and animated manner, brought her wide knowledge of books, men, and
things, to bear on the conversation, thus raising it to a higher level
than was ever reached by my wife or me. Yet I now and then noticed a
certain vague constraint about her,--and her frank eyes had frequently a
pained and questioning look of trouble when they rested for any length
of time on the enchanting beauty of Sibyl's face and form. I, however,
paid little heed to these trifling matters, my whole care being to lose
myself more and more utterly in the enjoyment of purely physical ease
and comfort, without troubling myself as to what such self-absorption
might lead in the future. To be completely without a conscience, without
a heart and without sentiment was, I perceived, the best way to keep
one's appetite, and preserve one's health;--to go about worrying over
the troubles of other people, or put one's self out to do any good in
the world, would involve such an expenditure of time and trouble as must
inevitably spoil one's digestion,--and I saw that no millionaire or even
moderately rich man cares to run the risk of injuring his digestion for
the sake of performing a kindness to a poorer fellow-creature. Profiting
by the examples presented to me everywhere in society, I took care of
_my_ digestion, and was particular about the way in which my meals were
cooked and served,--particular too, as to the fashion in which my wife
dressed for those meals,--for it suited my supreme humour to see her
beauty bedecked as suitably and richly as possible, that I might have
the satisfaction of considering her 'points' with the same epicurean
fastidiousness as I considered a dish of truffles or specially prepared
game. I never thought of the stern and absolute law--"Unto whom much is
given, even from him should much be required;"--I was scarcely aware of
it in fact,--the New Testament was of all books in the world the most
unfamiliar to me. And while I wilfully deafened myself to the voice of
conscience,--that voice which ever and anon urged me in vain to a nobler
existence,--the clouds were gathering, ready to burst above me with that
terrific suddenness such as always seems to us who refuse to study the
causes of our calamities, as astonishing and startling as death itself.
For we are always more or less startled at death notwithstanding that it
is the commonest occurrence known.
Towards the middle of September my 'royal and distinguished' house-party
arrived and stayed at Willowsmere Court for a week. Of course it is
understood that whenever the Prince of Wales honours any private
residence with a visit, he selects, if not all, at any rate the greater
part of those persons who are to be invited to meet him. He did so in
the present instance, and I was placed in the odd position of having to
entertain certain people whom I had never met before, and who, with the
questionable taste frequently exhibited among the 'upper ten,' looked
upon me merely as "the man with the millions," the caterer for their
provisions, and no more,--directing their chief attention to Sibyl, who
was by virtue of her birth and associations one of their 'set,' and
pushing me, their host, more or less into the background. However the
glory of entertaining Royalty more than sufficed for my poor pride at
that time, and with less self-respect than an honest cur, I was content
to be snubbed and harassed and worried a hundred times a day by one or
the other of the 'great' personages who wandered at will all over my
house and grounds, and accepted my lavish hospitality. Many people
imagine that it must be an 'honour' to entertain a select party of
aristocrats, but I, on the contrary, consider that it is not only a
degradation to one's manlier and more independent instincts, but also a
bore. These highly-bred, highly-connected individuals, are for the most
part unintelligent, and devoid of resources in their own minds,--they
are not gifted as conversationalists or wits,--one gains no intellectual
advantage from their society,--they are simply dull folk, with an
exaggerated sense of their own importance, who expect wherever they go,
to be amused without trouble to themselves. Out of all the visitors at
Willowsmere the only one whom it was really a pleasure to serve was the
Prince of Wales himself,--and amid the many personal irritations I had
to suffer from others, I found it a positive relief to render him any
attention, however slight, because his manner was always marked by that
tact and courtesy which are the best attributes of a true gentleman
whether he be prince or peasant. In his own affable way, he went one
afternoon to see Mavis Clare, and came back in high good-humour, talking
for some time of nothing but the author of 'Differences,' and of the
success she had achieved in literature. I had asked Mavis to join our
party before the Prince came, as I felt pretty sure he would not have
erased her name from the list of guests submitted to him,--but she would
not accept, and begged me very earnestly not to press the point.
"I like the Prince,"--she had said--"Most people like him who know
him,--but I do not always like those who surround him,--pardon me for my
frankness! The Prince of Wales is a social magnet,--he draws a number of
persons after him who by dint of wealth, if not intelligence, can
contrive to 'push' into his set. Now I am not an advocate of
'push'--moreover I do not care to be seen with 'everybody';--this is my
sinful pride you will say, or as our American cousins would put it, my
'cussedness.' But I assure you, Mr Tempest, the best possession I have,
and one which I value a great deal more even than my literary success,
is my absolute independence, and I would not have it thought, even
erroneously, that I am anxious to mix with the crowd of sycophants and
time-servers who are only too ready to take advantage of the Prince's
good-nature."
And, acting upon her determination, she had remained more than ever
secluded in her cottage-nest of foliage and flowers during the progress
of the week's festivities,--the result being, as I have stated, that the
Prince 'dropped in' upon her quite casually one day, accompanied by his
equerry, and probably for all I knew, had the pleasure of seeing the
dove 'reviewers' fed, and squabbling over their meal.
Much as we had desired and expected the presence of Rimânez at our
gathering, he did not appear. He telegraphed his regrets from Paris, and
followed the telegram by a characteristic letter, which ran thus:--
My dear Tempest.
You are very kind to wish to include me, your old friend, in the
party you have invited to meet His Royal Highness, and I only hope
you will not think me churlish for refusing to come. I am sick to
death of Royalties,--I have known so many of them in the course of
my existence that I begin to find their society monotonous. Their
positions are all so exactly alike too,--and moreover have always
been alike from the days of Solomon in all his glory, down to the
present blessed era of Victoria, Queen and Empress. One thirsts for
a change; at least I do. The only monarch that ever fascinated my
imagination particularly was Richard Coeur de Lion; there was
something original and striking about that man, and I presume he
would have been well worth talking to. And Charlemagne was
doubtless, as the slangy young man of the day would observe, 'not
half bad.' But for the rest,--_un fico!_ Much talk is there made
about Her Majesty Elizabeth, who was a shrew and a vixen and
blood-thirsty withal,--the chief glory of her reign was Shakespeare,
and he made kings and queens the dancing puppets of his thought. In
this, though in nothing else, I resemble him. You will have enough
to do in the entertainment of your distinguished guests, for I
suppose there is no amusement they have not tried, and found more or
less unsatisfactory, and I am sorry I can suggest nothing
particularly new for you to do. Her Grace the Duchess of Rapidryder
is very fond of being tossed in a strong table-cloth between four
able-bodied gentlemen of good birth and discretion, before going to
bed o' nights,--she cannot very well appear on a music-hall stage
you know, owing to her exalted rank,--and this is a child-like,
pretty and harmless method of managing to show her legs, which she
rightly considers, are too shapely to be hidden. Lady Bouncer, whose
name I see in your list, always likes to cheat at cards,--I would
aid and abet her in her aim if I were you, as if she can only clear
her dressmaker's bill by her winnings at Willowsmere, she will bear
it in mind, and be a useful social friend to you. The Honourable
Miss Fitz-Gander who has a great reputation for virtue, is anxious,
for pressing and particular reasons, to marry Lord Noodles,--if you
can move on matters between them into a definite engagement of
marriage before her lady-mother returns from her duty-visits in
Scotland, you will be doing her a good turn, and saving society a
scandal. To amuse the men I suggest plenty of shooting, gambling,
and unlimited smoking. To entertain the Prince, do little,--for he
is clever enough to entertain himself privately with the folly and
humbug of those he sees around him, without actually sharing in the
petty comedy. He is a keen observer,--and must derive infinite
gratification from his constant study of men and manners, which is
sufficiently deep and searching to fit him for the occupation of
even the throne of England. I say 'even,' for at present, till
Time's great hour-glass turns, it is the grandest throne in the
world. The Prince reads, understands, and secretly laughs to scorn
the table-cloth vagaries of the Duchess of Rapidryder, the humours
of my Lady Bouncer and the nervous pruderies of the Honourable Miss
Fitz-Gander. And there is nothing he will appreciate so much in his
reception as a lack of toadyism, a sincere demeanour, an
unostentatious hospitality, a simplicity of speech, and a total
absence of affectation. Remember this, and take my advice for what
it is worth. Of all the Royalties at present flourishing on this
paltry planet, I have the greatest respect for the Prince of Wales,
and it is by reason of this very respect that I do not intend, on
this occasion at any rate, to thrust myself upon his notice. I shall
arrive at Willowsmere when your 'royal' festivities are over. My
homage to your fair spouse, the Lady Sibyl, and believe me,
Yours as long as you desire it
Lucio Rimânez.
I laughed over this letter and showed it to my wife, who did not laugh.
She read it through with a closeness of attention that somewhat
surprised me, and when she laid it down there was a strange look of pain
in her eyes.
"How he despises us all!" she said slowly--"What scorn underlies his
words! Do you not recognise it?"
"He was always a cynic,--" I replied indifferently--"I never expect him
to be anything else."
"He seems to know some of the ways of the women who are coming here--"
she went on in the same musing accents; "It is as if he read their
thoughts, and perceived their intentions at a distance."
Her brows knitted frowningly, and she seemed for some time absorbed in
gloomy meditation. But I did not pursue the subject,--I was too intent
on my own fussy preparations for the Prince's arrival to care about
anything else.
And, as I have said, Royalty, in the person of one of the most genial of
men, came and went through the whole programme devised for his
entertainment, and then departed again with his usual courteous
acknowledgments for the hospitality offered and accepted,--leaving us,
as he generally leaves everybody, charmed with his good-humour and
condescension, provided his temper has not been ruffled. When, with his
exit from the scene, the whole party broke up, leaving my wife and me to
our own two selves once more, there came a strange silence and
desolation over the house that was like the stealthy sense of some
approaching calamity. Sibyl seemed to feel it as much as I did,--and
though we said nothing to each other concerning our mutual sensations, I
could see that she was under the same cloud of depression as myself. She
went oftener to Lily Cottage, and always from these visits to the
fair-haired student among the roses, came back, I hopefully fancied in
softer mood,--her very voice was gentler,--her eyes more thoughtful and
tender. One evening she said--
"I have been thinking, Geoffrey, that perhaps there is some good in life
after all, if I could only find it out and _live_ it. But you are the
last person to help me in such a matter."
I was sitting in an arm-chair near the open window, smoking, and I
turned my eyes upon her with some astonishment and a touch of
indignation.
"What do you mean, Sibyl?" I asked--"Surely you know that I have the
greatest desire to see you always in your best aspect,--many of your
ideas have been most repugnant to me...."
"Stop there!" she said quickly, her eyes flashing as she spoke--"My
ideas have been repugnant to you, you say? What have _you_ done, you as
my husband, to change those ideas? Have you not the same base passions
as I?--and do you not give way to them as basely? What have I seen in
you from day to day that I should take you as an example? You are
master here, and you rule with all the arrogance wealth can give,--you
eat, drink and sleep,--you entertain your acquaintances simply that you
may astonish them by the excess of luxury in which you indulge,--you
read and smoke, shoot and ride, and there an end,--you are an ordinary,
not an exceptional man. Do you trouble to ask what is wrong with
_me_?--do you try, with the patience of a great love, to set before me
nobler aims than those I have consciously or unconsciously imbibed?--do
you try to lead me, an erring, passionate, misguided woman, into what I
dream of as the light,--the light of faith and hope which alone gives
peace?"
And suddenly, burying her head in the pillows of the couch on which she
leaned, she broke into a fit of smothered weeping.
I drew my cigar from my mouth and stared at her helplessly. It was about
an hour after dinner, and a warm soft autumnal evening,--I had eaten and
drunk well, and I was drowsy and heavy-brained.
"Dear me!" I murmured--"you seem very unreasonable, Sibyl! I suppose you
are hysterical...."
She sprang up from the couch,--her tears dried on her cheeks as though
by sheer heat of the crimson glow that flushed them, and she laughed
wildly.
"Yes, that is it!" she exclaimed--"Hysteria!--nothing else! It is
accountable for everything that moves a woman's nature. A woman has no
right to have any emotions that cannot be cured by smelling-salts!
Heart-ache?--pooh!--cut her stay-lace! Despair and a sense of sin and
misery?--nonsense!--bathe her temples with vinegar! An uneasy
conscience?--ah!--for an uneasy conscience there is nothing better than
sal volatile! Woman is a toy,--a breakable fool's toy;--and when she
_is_ broken, throw her aside and have done with her,--don't try to piece
together the fragile rubbish!"
She ceased abruptly, panting for breath,--and before I could collect my
thoughts or find any words wherewith to reply, a tall shadow suddenly
darkened the embrasure of the window, and a familiar voice enquired--
"May I, with the privilege of friendship, enter unannounced?"
I started up.
"Rimânez!" I cried, seizing him by the hand.
"Nay, Geoffrey, my homage is due here first,"--he replied, shaking off
my grasp, and advancing to Sibyl, who stood perfectly still where she
had risen up in her strange passion--"Lady Sibyl, am I welcome?"
"Can you ask it!" she said, with an enchanting smile, and in a voice
from which all harshness and excitement had fled; "More than welcome!"
Here she gave him both her hands which he respectfully kissed. "You
cannot imagine how much I have longed to see you again!"
"I must apologise for my sudden appearance, Geoffrey,"--he then
observed, turning to me--"But as I walked here from the station and came
up your fine avenue of trees, I was so struck with the loveliness of
this place and the exquisite peace of its surroundings, that, knowing my
way through the grounds, I thought I would just look about and see if
you were anywhere within sight before I presented myself at the
conventional door of entrance. And I was not disappointed,--I found you,
as I expected, enjoying each other's society!--the happiest and most
fortunate couple existent,--people whom, out of all the world I should
be disposed to envy, if I envied worldly happiness at all, which I do
not!"
I glanced at him quickly;--he met my gaze with a perfectly unembarrassed
air, and I concluded that he had not overheard Sibyl's sudden
melodramatic outburst.
"Have you dined?" I asked, with my hand on the bell.
"Thanks, yes. The town of Leamington provided me with quite a sumptuous
repast of bread and cheese and ale. I am tired of luxuries you
know,--that is why I find plain fare delicious. You are looking
wonderfully well, Geoffrey!--shall I offend you if I say you are
growing--yes--positively stout?--with the stoutness befitting a true
county gentleman, who means to be as gouty in the future as his
respectable ancestors?"
I smiled, but not altogether with pleasure; it is never agreeable to be
called 'stout' in the presence of a beautiful woman to whom one has only
been wedded a matter of three months.
"_You_ have not put on any extra flesh;--" I said, by way of feeble
retort.
"No"--he admitted, as he disposed his slim elegant figure in an
arm-chair near my own--"The necessary quantity of flesh is a bore to me
always,--extra flesh would be a positive infliction. I should like, as
the irreverent though reverend Sidney Smith said, on a hot day, 'to sit
in my bones,' or rather, to become a spirit of fine essence like
Shakespeare's Ariel, if such things were possible and permissible. How
admirably married life agrees with _you_, Lady Sibyl!"
His fine eyes rested upon her with apparent admiration,--she flushed
under his gaze I saw, and seemed confused.
"When did you arrive in England?" she inquired.
"Yesterday,"--he answered,--"I ran over Channel from Honfleur in my
yacht,--you did not know I had a yacht, did you Tempest?--oh, you must
come for a trip in her some day. She is a quick vessel, and the weather
was fair."
"Is Amiel with you?" I asked.
"No. I left him on board the yacht. I can, as the common people say,
'valet myself' for a day or two."
"A day or two?" echoed Sibyl--"But you surely will not leave us so soon?
You promised to make a long visit here."
"Did I?" and he regarded her steadily, with the same languorous
admiration in his eyes--"But, my dear Lady Sibyl, time alters our ideas,
and I am not sure whether you and your excellent husband are of the same
opinion as you were when you started on your wedding-tour. You may not
want me now!"
He said this with a significance to which I paid no heed whatever.
"Not want you!" I exclaimed--"I shall always want you Lucio,--you are
the best friend I ever had, and the only one I care to keep. Believe
me!--there's my hand upon it!"
He looked at me curiously for a minute,--then turned his head towards my
wife.
"And what does Lady Sibyl say?" he asked in a gentle, almost caressing
tone.
"Lady Sibyl says," she answered with a smile, and the colour coming and
going in her cheeks--"that she will be proud and glad if you will
consider Willowsmere your home as long as you have leisure to make it
so,--and that she hopes,--though you are reputed to be a hater of
women,--" here she raised her beautiful eyes and fixed them full upon
him--"you will relent a little in favour of your present châtelaine!"
With these words, and a playful salutation, she passed out of the room
into the garden, and stood on the lawn at a little distance from us, her
white robes shimmering in the mellow autumnal twilight,--and Lucio,
springing up from his seat, looked after her, clapping his hand down
heavily on my shoulder.
"By Heaven!" he said softly, "A perfect woman! I should be a churl to
withstand her,--or you, my good Geoffrey,"--and he regarded me
earnestly--"I have led a very devil of a life since I saw you
last,--it's time I reformed,--upon my soul it is! The peaceful
contemplation of virtuous marriage will do me good!--send for my luggage
to the station, Geoffrey, and make the best of me,--_I've come to
stay!_"
XXIX
A tranquil time now ensued; a time which, though I knew it not, was just
that singular pause so frequently observed in nature before a storm, and
in human life before a crushing calamity. I put aside all troublesome
and harassing thoughts, and became oblivious of everything save my own
personal satisfaction in the renewal of the comradeship between myself
and Lucio. We walked together, rode together, and passed most of our
days in each other's company,--nevertheless though I gave my friend much
of my closest confidence I never spoke to him of the moral obliquities
and perversions I had discovered in Sibyl's character,--not out of any
consideration for Sibyl, but simply because I knew by instinct what his
reply would be. He would have no sympathy with my feelings. His keen
sense of sarcasm would over-rule his friendship, and he would retort
upon me with the question--What business had I, being imperfect myself,
to expect perfection in my wife? Like many others of my sex I had the
notion that I, as man, could do all I pleased, when I pleased and how I
pleased; I could sink to a level lower than that of the beasts if I
chose,--but all the same I had the right to demand from my wife the most
flawless purity to mate with my defilement. I was aware how Lucio would
treat this form of arrogant egoism,--and with what mocking laughter he
would receive any expression of ideas from me on the subject of morality
in woman. So I was careful to let no hint of my actual position escape
me,--and I comported myself on all occasions to Sibyl with special
tenderness and consideration, though she, I thought, appeared rather to
resent my playing the part of lover-husband too openly. She was herself,
in Lucio's presence, strangely erratic of humour, by turns brilliant and
mournful,--sometimes merry and anon depressed: yet never had she
displayed a more captivating grace and charm of manner. How foolish and
blind I was all the while!--how dead to any perception of the formation
and sequence of events! Absorbed in gross material pleasures, I ignored
all the hidden forces that make the history of an individual life no
less than of a whole nation, and looked upon each day that dawned almost
as if it had been my own creation and possession, to waste as I thought
fit,--never considering that days are but so many white leaflets from
God's chronicle of human life, whereon we place our mark, good or bad,
for the just and exact summing-up of our thoughts and deeds here after.
Had any one dared to say this truth to me then, I should have bade him
go and preach nonsense to children,--but _now_,--when I recall those
white leaves of days that were unrolled before me fresh and blank with
every sunrise, and with which I did nothing save scrawl my own Ego in a
foul smudge across each one, I tremble, and inwardly pray that I may
never be forced to send back my self-written record! Yet of what use is
it to pray against eternal Law? It is eternal Law that we shall
ourselves count up our own misdeeds at the final reckoning,--hence it is
no wonder that many are found who prefer not to believe in a future
after death. Rightly do such esteem it better to die utterly, than be
forced to live again and look back upon the wilful evil they have done!
October ripened slowly and almost imperceptibly towards its end, and the
trees put on their gorgeous autumnal tints of burning crimson and gold.
The weather remained fine and warm, and what the French Canadians
poetically term the 'Summer of all Saints' gave us bright days and
cloudless moonlit evenings. The air was so mild that we were always
able to take our coffee after dinner on the terrace overlooking the lawn
in front of the drawing-room,--and it was on one of these balmy nights
that I was the interested spectator of a strange scene between Lucio and
Mavis Clare,--a scene I should have thought impossible of occurrence had
I not myself witnessed it. Mavis had dined at Willowsmere; she very
rarely so honoured us; and there were a few other guests besides. We had
lingered over the coffee longer than usual, for Mavis had given an extra
charm to the conversation by her eloquent vivacity and bright humour,
and all present were anxious to hear, see and know as much of the
brilliant novelist as possible. But when a full golden moon rose in
mellow splendour over the tree-tops, my wife suggested a stroll in the
grounds, and everyone agreeing to the proposal with delight, we
started,--more or less together,--some in couples, some in groups of
three or four. After a little desultory rambling however, the party got
separated in the rose-gardens and adjacent shrubberies, and I found
myself alone. I turned back to the house to get my cigar-case which I
had left on a table in the library, and passing out again in another
direction I strolled slowly across the grass, smoking as I went, towards
the river, the silver gleam of which could clearly be discerned through
the fast-thinning foliage overhanging its banks. I had almost reached
the path that followed the course of the winding water, when I was
brought to a standstill by the sound of voices--one, a man's, low and
persuasive,--the other a woman's, tender, grave and somewhat tremulous.
Neither voice could be mistaken; I recognized Lucio's rich penetrating
tones, and the sweet _vibrante_ accents of Mavis Clare. Out of sheer
surprise I paused,--had Lucio fallen in love, I wondered,
half-smiling?--was I about to discover that the supposed 'woman-hater'
had been tamed and caught at last? By Mavis too!--little Mavis, who was
not beautiful according to accepted standards, but who had something
more than beauty to enravish a proud and unbelieving soul,--here, as my
thoughts ran on, I was conscious of a foolish sense of jealousy,--why
should he choose Mavis, I thought, out of all women in the world? Could
he not leave her in peace with her dreams, her books and her
flowers?--safe under the pure, wise, impassive gaze of Pallas Athene,
whose cool brows were never fevered by a touch of passion? Something
more than curiosity now impelled me to listen, and I cautiously advanced
a step or two towards the shadow of a broad elm where I could see
without being seen. Yes, there was Rimânez,--standing erect with folded
arms, his dark, sad, inscrutable eyes fixed on Mavis, who stood opposite
to him a few paces off, looking at him in her turn with an expression of
mingled fascination and fear.
"I have asked you Mavis Clare,"--said Lucio slowly--"to let me serve
you. You have genius--a rare quality in a woman,--and I would advance
your fortunes. I should not be what I am if I did not try to persuade
you to let me help on your career. You are not rich,--I could show you
how to become so. You have a great fame--that I grant; but you have many
enemies and slanderers who are for ever trying to pull you down from the
throne you have won. I could bring these to your feet, and make them
your slaves. With your intellectual power, your personal grace and gifts
of temperament, I could, if you would let me guide you, give you such
far-reaching influence as no woman has possessed in this century. I am
no boaster,--I can do what I say and more; and I ask nothing from you in
return except that you should follow my advice implicitly. My advice,
let me tell you is not difficult to follow; most people find it easy!"
His expression of face, I thought, was very singular as he spoke,--it
was so haggard, dreary and woe-begone that one might have imagined he
was making some proposal that was particularly repugnant to him, instead
of offering to perform the benevolent action of helping a hard-working
literary woman to achieve greater wealth and distinction. I waited
expectantly for Mavis to reply.
"You are very good, Prince Rimânez," she said, after a little pause--"to
take any thought for me at all. I cannot imagine why you should do so;
for I am really nothing to you. I have of course heard from Mr Tempest
of your great wealth and influence, and I have no doubt you mean kindly.
But I have never owed anything to any one,--no one has ever helped
me,--I have helped myself, and still prefer to do so. And really I have
nothing to wish for,--except--when the time comes--a happy death. It is
true I am not rich,--but then I do not want to be rich. I would not be
the possessor of wealth for all the world! To be surrounded with
sycophants and flatterers,--never to be able to distinguish false
friends from true,--to be loved for what you _have_ and not for what you
_are_!--oh no, it would be misery to me. And I have never craved for
power,--except perhaps the power to win love. And that I have,--many
people love my books, and through my books love me,--I feel their love,
though I may never see or know them personally. But I am so conscious of
their sympathy that I love them in return without the necessity of
personal acquaintance. They have hearts which respond to _my_
heart,--that is all the power I care about."
"You forget your numerous enemies!" said Lucio, still morosely regarding
her.
"No, I do not forget them,"--she returned,--"But--I forgive them! They
can do me no harm. As long as I do not lower myself, no one else can
lower me. If my own conscience is clear, no reproaches can wound. My
life is open to all,--people can see how I live, and what I do. I try to
do well,--but if there are those who think I do ill, I am sorry,--and if
my faults can be amended I shall be glad to amend them. One must have
enemies in this world,--that is, if one makes any sort of
position,--people without enemies are generally nonentities. All who
succeed in winning some little place of independence must expect the
grudging enmity of hundreds who cannot find even the smallest foothold,
and are therefore failures in the battle of life,--I pity these
sincerely, and when they say or write cruel things of me, I know it is
only spleen and disappointment that moves both their tongues and pens,
and freely pardon them. They cannot hurt or hinder me,--in fact, no one
can hurt or hinder me but myself."
I heard the trees rustle slightly,--a branch cracked,--and peering
through the leaves, I saw that Lucio had advanced a step closer to where
Mavis stood. A faint smile was on his face, softening it wonderfully and
giving an almost supernatural light to his beautiful dark features.
"Fair philosopher, you are almost a feminine Marcus Aurelius in your
estimate of men and things!"--he said; "But--you are still a woman--and
there is one thing lacking to your life of sublime and calm
contentment--a thing at whose touch philosophy fails, and wisdom withers
at its root. Love, Mavis Clare!--lover's love,--devoted love, blindly
passionate,--this has not been yours as yet to win! No heart beats
against your own,--no tender arms caress you,--you are alone. Men are
for the most part afraid of you,--being brute fools themselves, they
like their women to be brute fools also,--and they grudge you your keen
intellect,--your serene independence. Yet which is best?--the adoration
of a brute fool, or the loneliness pertaining to a spirit aloft on some
snowy mountain-peak, with no companions but the stars? Think of it!--the
years will pass, and you must needs grow old,--and with the years will
come that solitary neglect which makes age bitter. Now, you will
doubtless wonder at my words--yet believe me I speak the truth when I
say that I can give you love,--not _my_ love, for I love none,--but I
can bring to your feet the proudest men in any country of the world as
suitors for your hand. You shall have your choice of them, and your own
time for choosing,--and whomsoever you love, him you shall wed, ...
why--what is wrong with you that you shrink from me thus?"
For she had retreated, and was gazing at him in a kind of horror.
"You terrify me!" she faltered,--and as the moonlight fell upon
her I could see that she was very pale--"Such promises are
incredible--impossible! You speak as if you were more than human! I do
not understand you, Prince Rimânez,--you are different to anyone I ever
met, and ... and ... something in me stronger than myself warns me
against you. What are you?--why do you talk to me so strangely? Pardon
me if I seem ungrateful ..., oh, let us go in--it is getting quite late
I am sure, and I am cold ..."
She trembled violently, and caught at the branch of a tree to steady
herself,--Rimânez stood immovably still, regarding her with a fixed and
almost mournful gaze.
"You say my life is lonely,"--she went on reluctantly and with a note of
pathos in her sweet voice--"and you suggest love and marriage as the
only joys that can make a woman happy. You may be right. I do not
presume to assert that you are wrong. I have many married
women-friends--but I would not change my lot with any one of them. I
have dreamed of love,--but because I have not realized my dream I am not
the less content. If it is God's will that I should be alone all my
days, I shall not murmur, for _my_ solitude is not actual loneliness.
Work is a good comrade,--then I have books, and flowers and birds--I am
never really lonely. And that I shall fully realize my dream of love one
day I am sure,--if not here, then hereafter. I can wait!"
As she spoke, she looked up to the placid heavens where one or two stars
twinkled through the arching boughs,--her face expressed angelic
confidence and perfect peace,--and Rimânez advancing a step or two,
fully confronted her with a strange light of exultation in his eyes.
"True,--you can wait, Mavis Clare!" he said in deep clear tones from
which all sadness had fled--"You can afford to wait! Tell me,--think for
a moment!--can you remember me? Is there a time on which you can look
back, and looking, see my face, not here but elsewhere? Think! Did you
ever see me long ago--in a far sphere of beauty and light, when you were
an Angel, Mavis,--and I was--not what I am now! How you tremble! You
need not fear me,--I would not harm you for a thousand worlds! I talk
wildly at times I know;--I think of things that are past,--long long
past,--and I am filled with regrets that burn my soul with fiercer heat
than fire! And so neither world's wealth, world's power, nor world's
love will tempt you, Mavis!--and you,--a woman! You are a living miracle
then,--as miraculous as the drop of undefiled dew which reflects in its
tiny circumference all the colours of the sky, and sinks into the earth
sweetly, carrying moisture and refreshment where it falls. I can do
nothing for you--you will not have my aid--you reject my service? Then
as I may not help you, you must help _me_!"--and dropping before her, he
reverently took her hand and kissed it--"I ask a very little thing of
you,--pray for me! I know you are accustomed to pray, so it will be no
trouble to you,--_you_ believe God hears you,--and when I look at you,
_I_ believe it too. Only a pure woman can make faith possible to man.
Pray for me then, as one who has fallen from his higher and better
self,--who strives, but who may not attain,--who labours under heavy
punishment,--who would fain reach Heaven, but who by the cursëd will of
man, and man alone, is kept in Hell! Pray for me, Mavis Clare! promise
it!--and so shall you lift me a step nearer the glory I have lost!"
I listened, petrified with amazement. Could this be Lucio?--the mocking,
careless, cynical scoffer I knew, as I thought, so well?--was it really
he who knelt thus like a repentant sinner, abasing his proud head before
a woman? I saw Mavis release her hand from his, the while she stood
looking down upon him in alarm and bewilderment. Presently she spoke in
sweet yet tremulous accents--
"Since you desire it so earnestly, I promise,"--she said--"I will pray
that the strange and bitter sorrow which seems to consume you may be
removed from your life----"
"Sorrow!" he echoed, interrupting her and springing to his feet with an
impassioned gesture--"Woman,--genius,--angel, whatever you are, do not
speak of _one_ sorrow for me! I have a thousand thousand sorrows!--aye a
million million, that are as little flames about my heart, and as deeply
seated as the centres of the universe! The foul and filthy crimes of
men,--the base deceits and cruelties of women,--the ruthless, murderous
ingratitude of children,--the scorn of good, the martyrdom of intellect,
the selfishness, the avarice, the sensuality of human life, the hideous
blasphemy and sin of the creature to the Creator--these are _my_ endless
sorrows!--these keep me wretched and in chains, when I would fain be
free. These create hell around me, and endless torture,--these bind and
crush me and pervert my being till I become what I dare not name to
myself, or to others. And yet, ... as the eternal God is my witness, ...
I do not think I am as bad as the worst man living! I may tempt--but I
do not pursue,--I take the lead in many lives, yet I make the way I go
so plain that those who follow me do so by their own choice and free
will more than by my persuasion!" He paused,--then continued in a softer
tone--"You look afraid of me,--but be assured you never had less cause
for terror. You have truth and purity--I honour both. You will have none
of my advice or assistance in the making of your life's
history,--to-night therefore we part, to meet no more on earth. Never
again, Mavis Clare!--no, not through all your quiet days of sweet and
contented existence will I cross your path,--before Heaven I swear it!"
"But why?" asked Mavis gently, approaching him now as she spoke, with a
soft grace of movement, and laying her hand on his arm--"Why do you
speak with such a passion of self-reproach? What dark cloud is on your
mind? Surely you have a noble nature,--and I feel that I have wronged
you in my thoughts, ... you must forgive me--I have mistrusted you--"
"You do well to mistrust me!" he answered, and with these words he
caught both her hands and held them in his own, looking at her full in
the face with eyes that flashed like jewels, "Your instinct teaches you
rightly. Would there were many more like you to doubt me and repel me!
One word,--if, when I am gone, you ever think of me, think that I am
more to be pitied than the veriest paralysed and starving wretch that
ever crawled on earth,--for he, perchance, has hope--and I have none.
And when you pray for me--for I hold you to this promise,--pray for one
who dares not pray for himself! You know the words, 'Lead us not into
temptation but deliver us from evil'? To-night you have been led into
temptation, though you knew it not, but you have delivered yourself from
evil as only a true soul can. And now farewell! In life I shall see you
no more:--in death,--well! I have attended many death-beds in response
to the invitations of the moribund,--but I shall not be present at
yours! Perhaps, when your parting spirit is on the verge between
darkness and light, you may know who I was, and am!--and you may thank
God with your last breath that we parted to-night--as we do
now--forever!"
He loosened his grasp of her,--she fell back from him pale and
terrified,--for there was something now in the dark beauty of his face
that was unnatural and appalling. A sombre shadow clouded his
brows,--his eyes had gleams in them as of fire,--and a smile was on his
lips, half tender, half cruel. His strange expression moved even me to a
sense of fear, and I shivered with sudden cold, though the air was warm
and balmy. Slowly retreating, Mavis moved away, looking round at him now
and then as she went, in wistful wonder and alarm,--till in a minute or
two her slight figure in its shimmering silken white robe, had vanished
among the trees. I lingered, hesitating and uncertain what to do,--then
finally determining to get back to the house if possible without being
noticed, I made one step, when Lucio's voice, scarcely raised, addressed
me--
"Well, eavesdropper! Why did you not come out of the shadow of that
elm-tree and see the play to a better advantage?"
Surprised and confused, I advanced, mumbling some unintelligible excuse.
"You saw a pretty bit of acting here," he went on, striking a match and
lighting a cigar the while he regarded me coolly, his eyes twinkling
with their usual mockery--"you know my theory, that all men and all
women are purchaseable for gold? Well, I wanted to try Mavis Clare. She
rejected all my advantageous offers, as you must have heard, and I could
only make matters smooth by asking her to pray for me. That I did this
very melodramatically I hope you will admit? A woman of that dreamy
idealistic temperament always likes to imagine that there is a man who
is grateful for her prayers!"
"You seemed very much in earnest about it!" I said, vexed with myself
that he had caught me spying.
"Why, of course!" he responded, thrusting his arm familiarly through
mine--"I had an audience! Two fastidious critics of dramatic art heard
me rant my rantings,--I had to do my best!"
"Two critics?" I repeated perplexedly.
"Yes. You on one side,--Lady Sibyl on the other. Lady Sibyl rose, after
the custom of fashionable beauties at the opera, before the last scene,
in order to get home in good time for supper!"
He laughed wildly and discordantly, and I felt desperately
uncomfortable.
"You must be mistaken Lucio--" I said--"That _I_ listened I admit,--and
it was wrong of me to do so,--but my wife would never condescend ..."
"Ah, then it must have been a sylph of the woods that glided out of the
shadow with a silken train behind her and diamonds in her hair!" he
retorted gaily--"Tut Geoffrey!--don't look so crestfallen. I have done
with Mavis Clare, and she with me. I have not been making love to
her,--I have simply, just to amuse myself, tested her character,--and I
find it stronger than I thought. The combat is over. She will never go
my way,--nor, I fear, shall I ever go hers!"
"Upon my word, Lucio," I said with some irritation--"Your disposition
seems to grow more and more erratic and singular every day!"
"Does it not!" he answered with a droll affectation of interested
surprise in himself--"I am a curious creature altogether! Wealth is mine
and I care not a jot for it,--power is mine and I loathe its
responsibility;--in fact I would rather be anything but what I am! Look
at the lights of your 'home, sweet home' Geoffrey!" this he said as we
emerged from among the trees on to the moonlit lawn, from whence could
be seen the shining of the electric lamps in the drawing-room--"Lady
Sibyl is there,--an enchanting and perfect woman, who lives but to
welcome you to her embracing arms! Fortunate man!--who would not envy
you! Love!--who would, who could exist without it--save me! Who, in
Europe at least, would forego the delights of kissing,--(which the
Japanese by-the-by consider a disgusting habit),--without embraces,--and
all those other endearments which are supposed to dignify the progress
of true love! One never tires of these things,--there is no satiety! I
wish I could love somebody!"
"So you can, if you like,"--I said, with a little uneasy laugh.
"I cannot. It is not in me. You heard me tell Mavis Clare as much. I
have it in my power to make other people fall in love, somewhat after
the dexterous fashion practised by match-making mothers,--but for
myself, love on this planet is too low a thing--too brief in duration.
Last night, in a dream,--I have strange dreams at times,--I saw one whom
possibly I could love,--but she was a Spirit, with eyes more lustrous
than the morning, and a form as transparent as flame;--she could sing
sweetly, and I watched her soaring upward, and listened to her song. It
was a wild song, and to many mortal ears meaningless,--it was something
like this ..." and his rich baritone pealed lusciously forth in
melodious tune--
Into the Light,
Into the heart of the fire!
To the innermost core of the deathless flame
I ascend,--I aspire!
Under me rolls the whirling Earth
With the noise of a myriad wheels that run
Ever round and about the sun,--
Over me circles the splendid heaven
Strewn with the stars of morn and even,
And I a queen
Of the air serene,
Float with my flag-like wings unfurled,
Alone--alone--'twixt God and the world!
Here he broke off with a laugh. "She was a strange Spirit,"--he
said--"because she could see nothing but herself ''twixt God and the
world.' She was evidently quite unaware of the numerous existing
barriers put up by mankind between themselves and their Maker. I wonder
what unenlightened sphere she came from!"
I looked at him in mingled wonder and impatience.
"You talk wildly,"--I said--"And you sing wildly. Of things that mean
nothing, and _are_ nothing."
He smiled, lifting his eyes to the moon, now shining her fullest and
brightest.
"True!" he replied--"Things which have meaning and are valuable, have
all to do with money or appetite, Geoffrey! There is no wider outlook
evidently! But we were speaking of love, and I hold that love should be
eternal as hate. Here you have the substance of my religious creed if I
have any,--that there are two spiritual forces ruling the universe--love
and hate,--and that their incessant quarrel creates the general
confusion of life. Both contend one against the other,--and only at
Judgment-Day will it be proved which is the strongest. I am on the side
of Hate myself,--for at present Hate has scored all the victories worth
winning, while Love has been so often martyred that there is only the
poor ghost of it left on earth."
At that moment my wife's figure appeared at the drawing-room window, and
Lucio threw away his half-smoked cigar.
"Your guardian-angel beckons!" he said, looking at me an odd expression
of something like pity mingled with disdain,--"Let us go in."
XXX
The very next night but one after Lucio's strange interview with Mavis
Clare, the thunderbolt destined to wreck my life and humiliate me to the
dust, fell with appalling suddenness. No warning given!--it came at a
moment when I had dared to deem myself happy. All that day,--the last
day I was ever to know of pride or self-gratulation,--I had enjoyed life
to the full; it was a day too in which Sibyl had seemed transformed to a
sweeter, gentler woman than I had hitherto known her,--when all her
attractions of beauty and manner were apparently put forth to captivate
and enthrall me as though she were yet to be wooed and won. Or,--did she
mean to bewitch and subjugate Lucio? Of this I never thought,--never
dreamed:--I only saw in my wife an enchantress of the most voluptuous
and delicate loveliness,--a woman whose very garments seemed to cling to
her tenderly as though proud of clothing so exquisite a form,--a
creature whose every glance was brilliant, whose every smile was a
ravishment,--and whose voice, attuned to the softest and most caressing
tones appeared in its every utterance to assure me of a deeper and more
lasting love than I had yet enjoyed. The hours flew by on golden
wings,--we all three,--Sibyl, myself and Lucio,--had attained, as I
imagined, to a perfect unity of friendship and mutual understanding,--we
had passed that last day together in the outlying woods of Willowsmere,
under a gorgeous canopy of autumn leaves, through which the sun shed
mellow beams of rose and gold,--we had had an _al fresco_ luncheon in
the open air,--Lucio had sung for us wild old ballads and love-madrigals
till the very foliage had seemed to tremble with joy at the sound of
such entrancing melody,--and not a cloud had marred the perfect peace
and pleasure of the time. Mavis Clare was not with us,--and I was glad.
Somehow I felt that of late she had been more or less a discordant
element whenever she had joined our party. I admired her,--in a sort of
fraternal half-patronizing way I even loved her,--nevertheless I was
conscious that her ways were not as our ways,--her thoughts not as our
thoughts. I placed the fault on her of course; I concluded that it was
because she had what I elected to call 'literary egoism,' instead of by
its rightful name, the spirit of honourable independence. I never
considered the inflated quality of my own egoism,--the poor pride of a
'cash and county' position, which is the pettiest sort of vain-glory
anyone can indulge in,--and after turning the matter over in my mind, I
decided that Mavis was a very charming young woman with great literary
gifts, and an amazing pride, which made it totally impossible for her to
associate with many 'great' people, so-called,--as she would never
descend to the necessary level of flunkeyish servility which they
expected, and which _I_ certainly demanded. I should almost have been
inclined to relegate her to 'Grub Street,' had not a faint sense of
justice as well as shame held me back from doing her that indignity even
in my thoughts. However I was too much impressed with my own vast
resources of unlimited wealth, to realize the fact that anyone who, like
Mavis, earns independence by intellectual work and worth alone, is
entitled to feel a far greater pride than those who by mere chance of
birth or heritage become the possessors of millions. Then again, Mavis
Clare's literary position was, though I liked her personally, always a
kind of reproach to me when I thought of my own abortive efforts to win
the laurels of fame. So that on the whole I was glad she did not spend
that day with us in the woods;--of course, if I had paid any attention
to the "trifles which make up the sum of life" I should have remembered
that Lucio had told her he would "meet her no more on earth,"--but I
judged this to be a mere trifle of hasty and melodramatic speech,
without any intentional meaning.
So my last twenty-four hours of happiness passed away in halcyon
serenity,--I felt a sense of deepening pleasure in existence, and I
began to believe that the future had brighter things in store for me
than I had lately ventured to expect. Sibyl's new phase of gentleness
and tenderness towards me, combined with her rare beauty, seemed to
augur that the misunderstandings between us would be of short duration,
and that her nature, too early rendered harsh and cynical by a 'society'
education would soften in time to that beautiful womanliness which is,
after all, woman's best charm. Thus I thought, in blissful and contented
reverie, reclining under the branching autumnal foliage, with my fair
wife beside me, and listening to the rich tones of my friend Lucio's
magnificent voice pealing forth sonorous, wild melodies, as the sunset
deepened in the sky and the twilight shadows fell. Then came the
night--the night which dropped only for a few hours over the quiet
landscape, but for ever over me!
We had dined late, and, pleasantly fatigued with our day in the open
air, had retired early. I had latterly grown a heavy sleeper, and I
suppose I must have slumbered some hours, when I was awakened suddenly
as though by an imperative touch from some unseen hand. I started up in
my bed,--the night-lamp was burning dimly, and by its glimmer I saw that
Sibyl was no longer at my side. My heart gave one bound against my ribs
and then almost stood still--a sense of something unexpected and
calamitous chilled my blood. I pushed aside the embroidered silken
hangings of the bed and peered into the room,--it was empty. Then I rose
hastily, put on my clothes and went to the door,--it was carefully shut,
but not locked as it had been when we retired for the night. I opened it
without the least noise, and looked out into the long passage,--no one
there! Immediately opposite the bedroom door there was a winding oak
staircase leading down to a broad corridor, which in former times had
been used as a music-room or picture-gallery,--an ancient organ, still
sweet of tone, occupied one end of it with dull golden pipes towering up
to the carved and embossed ceiling,--the other end was lit by a large
oriel window like that of a church, filled with rare old stained glass,
representing in various niches the lives of the saints, the centre
subject being the martyrdom of St Stephen. Advancing with soft caution
to the balustrade overlooking this gallery, I gazed down into it, and
for a moment could see nothing on the polished floor but the criss-cross
patterns made by the moonlight falling through the great window,--but
presently, as I watched breathlessly, wondering where Sibyl could have
gone to at this time of night, I saw a dark tall Shadow waver across the
moonlit network of lines, and I heard the smothered sound of voices.
With my pulses beating furiously, and a sensation of suffocation in my
throat,--full of strange thoughts and suspicions which I dared not
define, I crept slowly and stealthily down the stair, till as my foot
touched the last step I saw--what nearly struck me to the ground with a
shock of agony--and I had to draw back and bite my lips hard to repress
the cry that nearly escaped them. There,--there before me in the full
moonlight, with the colours of the red and blue robes of the painted
saints on the window glowing blood-like and azure about her, knelt my
wife,--arrayed in a diaphanous garment of filmy white which betrayed
rather than concealed the outline of her form,--her wealth of hair
falling about her in wild disorder,--her hands clasped in
supplication,--her pale face upturned; and above her towered the dark
imposing figure of Lucio! I stared at the twain with dry burning
eyes,--what did this portend? Was she--my wife--false? Was he--my
friend--a traitor?
"Patience----patience!----" I muttered to myself--"This is a piece of
acting doubtless----such as chanced the other night with Mavis
Clare!----patience!----let us hear this----this comedy!" And, drawing
myself close up against the wall, I leaned there, scarcely drawing
breath, waiting for _her_ voice,--for _his_;--when they spoke I should
know,----yes, I should know all! And I fastened my looks on them as
they stood there,--vaguely wondering even in my tense anguish, at the
fearful light on Lucio's face,--a light which could scarcely be the
reflection of the moon, as he backed the window,--and at the scorn of
his frowning brows. What terrific humour swayed him?--why did he, even
to my stupefied thought appear more than human?--why did his very beauty
seem hideous at that moment, and his aspect fiendish? Hush--hush! _She_
spoke,--my wife,--I heard her every word--heard all and endured all,
without falling dead at her feet in the extremity of my dishonour and
despair!
"I love you!" she wailed--"Lucio, I love you, and my love is killing me!
Be merciful!--have pity on my passion!--love me for one hour, one little
hour!--it is not much to ask, and afterwards,--do with me what you
will,--torture me, brand me an outcast in the public sight, curse me
before Heaven--I care nothing--I am yours body and soul--I love you!"
Her accents vibrated with mad idolatrous pleading,--I listened
infuriated, but dumb. "Hush,--hush!" I told myself "This is a
comedy--not yet played out!" And I waited, with every nerve strained,
for Lucio's reply. It came, accompanied by a laugh, low and sarcastic.
"You flatter me!" he said--"I regret I am unable to return the
compliment!"
My heart gave a throb of relief and fierce joy,--almost I could have
joined in his ironical laughter. She--Sibyl--dragged herself nearer to
him.
"Lucio--Lucio!" she murmured--"Have you a heart? Can you reject me when
I pray to you thus?--when I offer you all myself,--all that I am, or
ever hope to be? Am I so repugnant to you? Many men would give their
lives if I would say to them what I say to you,--but they are nothing to
me--you alone are my world,--the breath of my existence!--ah, Lucio, can
you not believe, will you not realize how deeply I love you!"
He turned towards her with a sudden fierce movement that startled
me,--and the cloud of scorn upon his brows grew darker.
"I know you love me!" he said, and from where I stood I saw the cold
derisive smile flash from his lips to his eyes in lightning-like
mockery--"I have always known it! Your vampire soul leaped to mine at
the first glance I ever gave you,--you were a false foul thing from the
first, and you recognized your master! Yes--your Master!" for she had
uttered a faint cry as if in fear,--and he, stooping, snatched her two
hands and grasped them hard in his own--"Listen to the truth of yourself
for once from one who is not afraid to speak it!--you love me,--and
truly your body and soul are mine to claim, if I so choose! You married
with a lie upon your lips; you swore fidelity to your husband before
God, with infidelity already in your thoughts, and by your own act made
the mystical blessing a blasphemy and a curse! Wonder not then that the
curse has fallen! I knew it all!--the kiss I gave you on your
wedding-day put fire in your blood and sealed you mine!--why, you would
have fled to me that very night, had I demanded it,--had I loved you as
you love me,--that is, if you choose to call the disease of vanity and
desire that riots in your veins, by such a name as love! But now hear
_me_!" and as he held her two wrists he looked down upon her with such
black wrath depicted in his face as seemed to create a darkness round
him where he stood,--"I hate you! Yes--I hate you, and all such women as
you! For you corrupt the world,--you turn good to evil,--you deepen
folly into crime,--with the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes,
you make fools, cowards and beasts of men! When you die, your bodies
generate foulness,--things of the mould and slime are formed out of the
flesh that was once fair for man's delight,--you are no use in life--you
become poison in death,--I hate you all! I read your soul--it is an open
book to me--and it is branded with a name given to those who are
publicly vile, but which should, of strict right and justice, be equally
bestowed on women of your position and type, who occupy pride and place
in this world's standing, and who have not the excuse of poverty for
selling themselves to the devil!"
He ceased abruptly and with passion, making a movement as though to
fling her from him,--but she clung to his arm,--clung with all the
pertinacity of the loathly insect he had taken from the bosom of the
dead Egyptian woman and made a toy of to amuse his leisure! And I,
looking on and listening, honoured him for his plain speaking, for his
courage in telling this shameless creature what she was in the opinion
of an honest man, without glozing over her outrageous conduct for the
sake of civility or social observance. My friend,--my more than friend!
He was true,--he was loyal--he had neither desire nor intent to betray
or dishonour me. My heart swelled with gratitude to him, and also with a
curious sense of feeble self-pity,--compassionating myself intensely, I
could have sobbed aloud in nervous fury and pain, had not my desire to
hear more, repressed my personal excitement and emotion. I watched my
wife wonderingly--what had become of her pride that she still knelt
before the man who had taunted her with such words as should have been
beyond all endurance?
"Lucio! ... Lucio!" she whispered, and her whisper sounded through the
long gallery like the hiss of a snake--"Say what you will--say all you
will of me,--you can say nothing that is not true. I am vile--I own it.
But is it of much avail to be virtuous? What pleasure comes from
goodness?--what gratification from self-denial? There is no God to care!
A few years, and we all die, and are forgotten even by those who loved
us,--why should we lose such joys as we may have for the mere asking?
Surely it is not difficult to love even me for an hour?--am I not fair
to look upon?--and is all this beauty of my face and form worthless in
your sight, and you no more than man? Murder me as you may with all the
cruelty of cruel words, I care nothing!--I love you--love you!"--and in
a perfect passion of self-abandonment she sprang to her feet, tossing
back her rich hair over her shoulders, and stood erect, a very bacchante
of wild loveliness--"Look at me! You shall not,--you dare not spurn such
a love as mine!"
Dead silence followed her outburst,--and I stared in fascinated awe at
Lucio as he turned more fully round and confronted her. The expression
of his countenance struck me then as quite unearthly,--his beautiful
broad brows were knitted in a darkling line of menace,--his eyes
literally blazed with scorn, and yet he laughed,--a low laugh, resonant
with satire.
"Shall not!--dare not!" he echoed disdainfully--"Woman's words,--woman's
ranting!--the shriek of the outraged feminine animal who fails to
attract, as she thinks, her chosen mate. Such a love as yours!--what is
it? Degradation to whosoever shall accept it,--shame to whosoever shall
rely upon it! You make a boast of your beauty; your mirror shows you a
pleasing image,--but your mirror lies!--as admirably as you do! You see
within it not the reflection of yourself, for that would cause you to
recoil in horror, ... you merely look upon your fleshly covering, a
garment of tissues, shrinkable, perishable, and only fit to mingle with
the dust from which it sprang. Your beauty! I see none of it,--I see
You! and to me you are hideous, and will remain hideous for ever. I hate
you!--I hate you with the bitterness of an immeasurable and unforgiving
hatred,--for you have done me a wrong,--you have wrought an injury upon
me,--you have added another burden to the load of punishment I carry!"
She made a forward movement with outstretched arms,--he repulsed her by
a fierce gesture.
"Stand back!" he said--"Be afraid of me, as of an unknown Terror! O
pitiless Heaven!--to think of it!--but a night ago I was lifted a step
nearer to my lost delight!--and now this woman drags me back, and
down!--and yet again I hear the barring of the gates of Paradise! O
infinite torture! O wicked souls of men and women!--is there no touch of
grace or thought of God left in you!--and will ye make my sorrows
eternal!"
He stood, lifting his face to the light where it streamed through the
oriel window, and the moonbeams colouring themselves faintly roseate as
they filtered through the painted garments of St Stephen, showed a
great and terrible anguish in his eyes. I heard him with amazement and
awe,--I could not imagine what he meant by his strange words,--and it
was evident by her expression, that my reckless and abandoned wife was
equally mystified.
"Lucio,"--she murmured--"Lucio, ... what is it ... what have I done?--I
who would not wound you for the world?--I who but seek your love, Lucio,
to repay it in full with such fond passion and tenderness as you have
never known! For this and this only, I married Geoffrey,--I chose your
friend as husband because he was your friend!" (O perfidious woman!)
"and because I saw his foolish egotism--his pride in himself and his
riches,--his blind confidence in me and in you;--I knew that I could,
after a time, follow the fashion of many another woman in my set and
choose my lover,--ah, my lover!--I had chosen him already,--I have
chosen you, Lucio!--yes, though you hate me you cannot hinder me from
loving you,--I shall love you till I die!"
He turned his gaze upon her steadily,--the gloom deepening on his brows.
"And after you die?" he said--"Will you love me then?"
There was a stern derision in his tone which appeared to vaguely terrify
her.
"After death! ..." she stammered.
"Yes,--after death!" he repeated sombrely--"There _is_ an after;--as
your mother knows!" A faint exclamation escaped her,--she fixed her eyes
upon him affrightedly. "Fair lady," he went on--"your mother was, like
yourself, a voluptuary. She, like you, made up her mind to 'follow the
fashion' as you put it, as soon as her husband's 'blind' or willing
confidence was gained. She chose, not one lover but many. You know her
end. In the written but miscomprehended laws of Nature, a diseased body
is the natural expression of a diseased mind,--her face in her last days
was the reflex of her soul. You shudder?--the thought of her
hideousness is repellent to your self-conscious beauty? Yet the evil
that was in her is also in you,--it festers in your blood slowly but
surely, and as you have no faith in God to cure the disease, it will
have its way--even at the final moment when death clutches at your
throat and stops your breathing. The smile upon your frozen lips then
will not be the smile of a saint, believe me, but of a sinner! Death is
never deceived, though life may be. And afterwards ... I ask again, will
you love me, do you think? ... when you know WHO I am?"
I was myself startled at his manner of putting this strange question;--I
saw her lift her hands beseechingly towards him, and she seemed to
tremble.
"When I know who you are!" she repeated wonderingly--"Do I not know? You
are Lucio,--Lucio Rimânez--my love,--my love!--whose voice is my
music,--whose beauty I adore,--whose looks are my heaven" ...
"And Hell!" he interposed, with a low laugh--"Come here!"
She went towards him eagerly, yet falteringly. He pointed to the
ground,--I saw the rare blue diamond he always wore on his right hand,
flash like a flame in the moonrays.
"Since you love me so well,"--he said--"Kneel down and worship me!"
She dropped on her knees--and clasped her hands,--I strove to move,--to
speak,--but some resistless force held me dumb and motionless;--the
light from the stained glass window fell upon her face, and showed its
fairness illumined by a smile of perfect rapture.
"With every pulse of my being I worship you!" she murmured
passionately--"My king!--my god! The cruel things you say but deepen my
love for you,--you can kill, but you can never change me! For one kiss
of your lips I would die,--for one embrace from you I would give my
soul! ..."
"Have you one to give?" he asked derisively--"Is it not already disposed
of? You should make sure of that first! Stay where you are and let me
look at you! So!--a woman, wearing a husband's name, holding a
husband's honour, clothed in the very garments purchased with a
husband's money, and newly risen from a husband's side, steals forth
thus in the night, seeking to disgrace him and pollute herself by the
vulgarest unchastity! And this is all that the culture and training of
nineteenth-century civilization can do for you? Myself, I prefer the
barbaric fashion of old times, when rough savages fought for their women
as they fought for their cattle, treated them as cattle, and kept them
in their place, never dreaming of endowing them with such strong virtues
as truth and honour! If women were pure and true, then the lost
happiness of the world might return to it,--but the majority of them are
like you, liars, ever pretending to be what they are not. I may do what
I choose with you, you say? torture you, kill you, brand you with the
name of outcast in the public sight, and curse you before Heaven--if I
will only love you!--all this is melodramatic speech, and I never cared
for melodrama at any time. I shall neither kill you, brand you, curse
you, nor love you;--I shall simply--call your husband!"
I stirred from my hiding-place,--then stopped. She sprang to her feet in
an insensate passion of anger and shame.
"You dare not!" she panted--"You dare not so ... disgrace me!"
"Disgrace you!" he echoed scornfully--"That remark comes rather late,
seeing you have disgraced yourself!"
But she was now fairly roused. All the savagery and obstinacy of her
nature was awakened, and she stood like some beautiful wild animal at
bay, trembling from head to foot with the violence of her emotions.
"You repulse me,--you scorn me!" she muttered in hurried fierce accents
that scarcely rose above an angry whisper--"You make a mockery of my
heart's anguish and despair, but you shall suffer for it! I am your
match,--nay your equal! You shall not spurn me a second time! You ask,
will I love you when I know who you are,--it is your pleasure to deal in
mysteries, but I have no mysteries--I am a woman who loves you with all
the passion of a life,--and I will murder myself and you, rather than
live to know that I have prayed you for your love in vain. Do you think
I came unprepared?--no!" and she suddenly drew from her bosom a short
steel dagger with a jewelled hilt, a _curio_ I recognized as one of the
gifts to her on her marriage; "Love me, I say!--or I will stab myself
dead here at your feet, and cry out to Geoffrey that you have murdered
me!"
She raised the weapon aloft,--I almost sprang forward--but I drew back
again quickly as I saw Lucio seize the hand that held the dagger and
drag it firmly down,--while, wresting the weapon from her clutch he
snapped it asunder and flung the pieces on the floor.
"Your place was the stage, Madam!" he said--"You should have been the
chief female mime at some 'high-class' theatre! You would have adorned
the boards, drawn the mob, had as many lovers, stagey and private as you
pleased, been invited to act at Windsor, obtained a payment-jewel from
the Queen, and written your name in her autograph album. That should
undoubtedly have been your 'great' career--you were born for it--made
for it! You would have been as brute-souled as you are now,--but that
would not have mattered,--mimes are exempt from chastity!"
In the action of breaking the dagger, and in the intense bitterness of
his speech he had thrust her back a few paces from him, and she stood
breathless and white with rage, eyeing him in mingled passion and
terror. For a moment she was silent,--then advancing slowly with the
feline suppleness of movement which had given her a reputation for grace
exceeding that of any woman in England, she said in deliberately
measured accents--
"Lucio Rimânez, I have borne your insults as I would bear my death at
your hands, because I love you. You loathe me, you say--you repulse
me,--I love you still! You cannot cast me off--I am yours! You shall
love me, or I will die,--one of the two. Take time for thought,--I leave
you to-night,--I give you all to-morrow to consider,--love me,--give me
yourself,--be my lover,--and I will play the comedy of social life as
well as any other woman,--so well that my husband shall never know. But
refuse me again as you have refused me now, and I will make away with
myself. I am not 'acting,'--I am speaking calmly and with conviction; I
mean what I say!"
"Do you?" queried Lucio coldly--"Let me congratulate you! Few women
attain to such coherence!"
"I will put an end to this life of mine;" she went on, paying no sort of
heed to his words--"I cannot endure existence without your love, Lucio!"
and a dreary pathos vibrated in her voice--"I hunger for the kisses of
your lips,--the clasp of your arms! Do you know--do you ever think of
your own power?--the cruel, terrible power of your eyes, your speech,
your smile,--the beauty which makes you more like an angel than a
man,--and have you no pity? Do you think that ever a man was born like
you?" he looked at her as she said this, and a faint smile rested on his
lips--"When you speak, I hear music--when you sing, it seems to me that
I understand what the melodies of a poet's heaven must be;--surely,
surely you know that your very looks are a snare to the warm weak soul
of a woman! Lucio!--" and emboldened by his silence, she stole nearer to
him--"Meet me to-morrow in the lane near the cottage of Mavis Clare...."
He started as if he had been stung--but not a word escaped him.
"I heard all you said to her the other night;" she continued, advancing
yet a step closer to his side--"I followed you,--and I listened. I was
well-nigh mad with jealousy--I thought--I feared--you loved her,--but I
was wrong. I never do thank God for anything,--but I thanked God that
night that I was wrong! She was not made for you--I am! Meet me outside
her house, where the great white rose-tree is in bloom--gather one,--one
of those little autumnal roses and give it to me--I shall understand it
as a signal--a signal that I may come to you to-morrow night and not be
cursed or repulsed, but loved,--loved!--ah Lucio! promise me!--one
little rose!--the symbol of an hour's love!--then let me die; I shall
have had all I ask of life!"
With a sudden swift movement, she flung herself upon his breast, and
circling her arms about his neck, lifted her face to his. The moonbeams
showed me her eyes alit with rapture, her lips trembling with passion,
her bosom heaving, ... the blood surged up to my brain, and a red mist
swam before my sight, ... would Lucio yield? Not he!--he loosened her
desperate hands from about his throat, and forced her back, holding her
at arm's length.
"Woman, false and accurséd!" he said in tones that were sonorous and
terrific--"You know not what you seek! All that you ask of life shall be
yours in death!--this is the law,--therefore beware what demands you
make lest they be too fully granted! A rose from the cottage of Mavis
Clare?--a rose from the garden of Eden!--they are one and the same to
me! Not for my gathering or yours! Love and joy? For the unfaithful
there is no love,--for the impure there is no joy. Add no more to the
measure of my hatred and vengeance!--Go while there is yet time,--go and
front the destiny you have made for yourself--for nothing can alter it!
And as for me, whom you love,--before whom you have knelt in idolatrous
worship--" and a low fierce laugh escaped him--"why,--restrain your
feverish desires, fair fiend!--have patience!--we shall meet ere long!"
I could not bear the scene another moment, and springing from my
hiding-place, I dragged my wife away from him and flung myself between
them.
"Let me defend you, Lucio, from the pertinacities of this wanton!" I
cried with a wild burst of laughter--"An hour ago I thought she was my
wife,--I find her nothing but a purchased chattel, who seeks a change of
masters!"
XXXI
For one instant we all three stood facing each other,--I breathless and
mad with fury,--Lucio calm and disdainful,--my wife staggering back from
me, half-swooning with fear. In an access of black rage, I rushed upon
her and seized her in my arms.
"I have heard you!" I said--"I have seen you! I have watched you kneel
before my true friend, my loyal comrade there, and try your best to make
him as vile as yourself! I am that poor fool, your husband,--that blind
egoist whose confidence you sought to win--and to betray! I am the
unhappy wretch whose surplus of world's cash has bought for him in
marriage a shameless courtezan! You dare to talk of love? You profane
its very name! Good God!--what are such women as you made of? You throw
yourselves into our arms,--you demand our care--you exact our
respect--you tempt our senses--you win our hearts,--and then you make
fools of us all! Fools, and worse than fools,--you make us men without
feeling, conscience, faith, or pity! If we become criminals, what
wonder! If we do things that shame our sex, is it not because you set us
the example? God--God! I, who loved you,--yes, loved you in spite of all
that my marriage with you taught me,--I, who would have died to save you
from a shadow of suspicion,--I am the one out of all the world you
choose to murder by your treachery!"
I loosened my grasp of her,--she recovered her self-possession by an
effort, and looked at me straightly with cold unfeeling eyes.
"What did you marry me for?" she demanded--"For my sake or your own?"
I was silent,--too choked with wrath and pain to speak. All I could do
was to hold out my hand to Lucio, who grasped it with a cordial and
sympathetic pressure. Yet ... I fancied he smiled!
"Was it because you desired to make me happy out of pure love for me?"
pursued Sibyl--"Or because you wished to add dignity to your own
position by wedding the daughter of an Earl? Your motives were not
unselfish,--you chose me simply because I was the 'beauty' of the day
whom London men stared at and talked of,--and because it gave you a
certain 'prestige' to have me for your wife, in the same way as it gave
you a footing with Royalty to be the owner of the Derby-winner. I told
you honestly what I was before our marriage,--it made no effect upon
your vanity and egoism. I never loved you,--I could not love you, and I
told you so. You have heard, so you say, all that has passed between me
and Lucio,--therefore you know why I married you. I state it boldly to
your face,--it was that I might have your intimate friend for my lover.
That you should pretend to be scandalized at this is absurd; it is a
common position of things in France, and is becoming equally common in
England. Morality has always been declared unnecessary for men,--it is
becoming equally unnecessary for women!"
I stared at her, amazed at the glibness of her speech, and the cool
convincing manner in which she spoke, after her recent access of passion
and excitement.
"You have only to read the 'new' fiction,"--she went on, a mocking smile
lighting up her pale face, "and indeed all 'new' literature generally,
to be assured that your ideas of domestic virtue are quite out of date.
Both men and women are, according to certain accepted writers of the
day, at equal liberty to love when they will, and where they may.
Polygamous purity is the 'new' creed! Such love, in fact, so we are
taught, constitutes the only 'sacred' union. If you want to alter this
'movement,' and return to the old-fashioned types of the modest maiden
and the immaculate matron, you must sentence all the 'new' writers of
profitable pruriency to penal servitude for life, and institute a
Government censorship of the modern press. As matters stand, your
attitude of the outraged husband is not only ridiculous,--it is
unfashionable. I assure you I do not feel the slightest prick of
conscience in saying I love Lucio,--any woman might be proud of loving
him;--he, however, will not, or cannot love me,--we have had a 'scene,'
and you have completed the dramatic effect by witnessing it,--there is
no more to be said or done in the affair. I do not suppose you can
divorce me,--but if you can, you may--I shall make no defence."
She turned, as if to go;--I still stared dumbly at her, finding no words
to cope with her effrontery,--when Lucio's voice, attuned to a grave and
soothing suavity, interposed,--
"This is a very painful and distressing state of things,"--he said, and
the strange half-cynical, half contemptuous smile still rested on his
lips--"but I must positively protest against the idea of divorce, not
only for her ladyship's sake, but my own. I am entirely innocent in the
matter!"
"Innocent!" I exclaimed, grasping him again by the hand; "You are
nobility itself, Lucio!--as loyal a friend as ever man had! I thank you
for your courage,--for the plain and honest manner in which you have
spoken. I heard all you said! Nothing was too strong,--nothing could be
too strong to awaken this misguided woman to a sense of her outrageous
conduct,--her unfaithfulness----"
"Pardon me!" he interrupted delicately--"The Lady Sibyl can scarcely be
called unfaithful, Geoffrey. She suffers,----from----let us call it, a
little exaltation of nerves! In thought she may be guilty of infidelity,
but society does not know that,--and in act she is pure,--pure as the
newly-driven snow,--and as the newly-driven snow, will society, itself
immaculate, regard her!"
His eyes glittered,--I met his chill derisive glance.
"You think as I do, Lucio!" I said hoarsely--"You feel with me, that a
wife's unchaste thought is as vile as her unchaste act. There is no
excuse,--no palliative for such cruel and abominable ingratitude.
Why,"--and my voice rose unconsciously as I turned fiercely again
towards Sibyl--"Did I not free you and your family from the heavy
pressure of poverty and debt? Have I grudged you anything? Are you not
loaded with jewels?--have you not greater luxuries and liberties than a
queen? And do you not owe me at least some duty?"
"I owe you nothing!" she responded boldly--"I gave you what you paid
for,--my beauty and my social position. It was a fair bargain!"
"A dear and bitter one!" I cried.
"Maybe so. But such as it was, you struck it,--not I. You can end it
when you please,--the law ..."
"The law will give you no freedom in such a case,"--interposed Lucio
with a kind of satirical urbanity--"A judicial separation on the ground
of incompatibility of temper might be possible certainly--but would not
that be a pity? Her ladyship is unfortunate in her tastes,--that is
all!--she selected me as her _cavaliere servente_, and I refused the
situation,--hence there is nothing for it but to forget this unpleasant
incident, and try to live on a better understanding for the future----"
"Do you think"--said my wife, advancing with her proud head uplifted in
scorn, the while she pointed at me--"Do you think I will live with him
after what he has seen and heard to-night? What do you take me for?"
"For a very charming woman of hasty impulses and unwise
reasoning,"--replied Lucio, with an air of sarcastic gallantry--"Lady
Sibyl, you are illogical,--most of your sex are. You can do no good by
prolonging this scene,--a most unpleasant and trying one to us poor men.
You know how we hate 'scenes'! Let me beg of you to retire! Your duty is
to your husband; pray heaven he may forget this midnight delirium of
yours, and set it down to some strange illness rather than to any evil
intention."
For all answer she came towards him, stretching out her arms in wild
appeal.
"Lucio!" she cried--"Lucio, my love! Good-night!--Good-bye!"
I sprang between him and her advancing form.
"Before my very face!" I exclaimed--"O infamous woman! Have you no
shame?"
"None!" she said, with a wild smile--"I glory in my love for such a king
of worth and beauty! Look at him!--and then look at yourself in the
nearest mirror that reflects so poor and mean a picture of a man! How,
even in your egoism, could you deem it possible for a woman to love
_you_ when _he_ was near! Stand out of the light!--you interpose a
shadow between my god and me!"
As she uttered these mad words, her aspect was so strange and unearthly,
that out of sheer stupefied wonder, I mechanically did as she bade me,
and stood aside. She regarded me fixedly.
"I may as well say good-bye to you also,"--she observed--"For I shall
never live with you again."
"Nor I with you!" I said fiercely.
"Nor I with you--nor I with you!" she repeated like a child saying a
lesson--"Of course not!--if I do not live with you, you cannot live with
me!" She laughed discordantly; then turned her beseeching gaze once more
upon Lucio--"Good-bye!" she said.
He looked at her with a curious fixity, but returned no word in answer.
His eyes flashed coldly in the moonlight like sharp steel, and he
smiled. She regarded him with such passionate intentness that it seemed
as though she sought to draw his very soul into herself by the magnetism
of her glance,--but he stood unmoved, a very statue of fine disdain and
intellectual self-repression. My scarcely controlled fury broke out
again at the sight of her dumb yearning, and I gave vent to a shout of
scornful laughter.
"By heaven, a veritable new Venus and reluctant Adonis!" I cried
deliriously--"A poet should be here to immortalize so touching a scene!
Go--go!"--and I motioned her away with a furious gesture--"Go, if you do
not want me to murder you! Go, with the proud consciousness that you
have worked all the mischief and ruin that is most dear to the heart of
a woman,--you have spoilt a life and dishonoured a name,--you can do no
more,--your feminine triumph is complete! Go!--would to God I might
never see your face again!--would to God I had been spared the misery of
having married you!"
She paid no attention whatever to my words, but kept her eyes fixed on
Lucio. Retreating slowly, she seemed to feel rather than see her way to
the winding stair, and there, turning, she began to ascend. Half way up
she paused--looked back and fully confronted us once more,--with a wild
wicked rapture on her face she kissed her hands to Lucio, smiling like a
spectral woman in a dream,--then she went onward and upward step by
step, till the last white fold of her robe had vanished,--and we
two,--my friend and I,--were alone. Facing one another we stood,
silently,--I met his sombre eyes and thought I read an infinite
compassion in them!--then,--while I yet looked upon him, something
seemed to clutch my throat and stop my breathing,--his dark and
beautiful countenance appeared to me to grow suddenly lurid as with
fire,--a coronal of flame seemed to tremble above his brows,--the
moonlight glistened blood-red!--a noise was in my ears of mingled
thunder and music as though the silent organ at the end of the gallery
were played by hands invisible;--struggling against these delusive
sensations, I involuntarily stretched out my hands ...
"Lucio! ..." I gasped--"Lucio ... my friend! I think, ... I am, ...
dying! My heart is broken!"
As I spoke, a great blackness closed over me,--and I fell senseless.
XXXII
Oh, the blessedness of absolute unconsciousness! It is enough to make
one wish that death were indeed annihilation! Utter oblivion,--complete
destruction,--surely this would be a greater mercy to the erring soul of
man than the terrible God's-gift of Immortality,--the dazzling impress
of that divine 'Image' of the Creator in which we are all made, and
which we can never obliterate from our beings. I, who have realized to
the full the unalterable truth of eternal life,--eternal regeneration
for each individual spirit in each individual human creature,--look upon
the endless futures through which I am compelled to take my part with
something more like horror than gratitude. For I have wasted my time and
thrown away priceless opportunities,--and though repentance may retrieve
these, the work of retrieval is long and bitter. It is easier to lose a
glory than to win it; and if I could have died the death that
positivists hope for at the very moment when I learned the full measure
of my heart's desolation, surely it would have been well! But my
temporary swoon was only too brief,--and when I recovered I found myself
in Lucio's own apartment, one of the largest and most sumptuously
furnished of all the guest-chambers at Willowsmere,--the windows were
wide open, and the floor was flooded with moonlight. As I shuddered
coldly back to life and consciousness, I heard a tinkling sound of tune,
and opening my eyes wearily I saw Lucio himself seated in the full
radiance of the moon with a mandoline on his knee from which he was
softly striking delicate impromptu melodies. I was amazed at
this,--astounded that while I personally was overwhelmed with a weight
of woe, _he_ should still be capable of amusing himself. It is a common
idea with us all that when we ourselves are put out, no one else should
dare to be merry,--in fact we expect Nature itself to wear a miserable
face if our own beloved Ego is disturbed by any trouble,--such is the
extent of our ridiculous self-consciousness. I moved in my chair and
half rose from it,--when Lucio, still thrumming the strings of his
instrument _piano pianissimo_, said--
"Keep still, Geoffrey! You'll be all right in a few minutes. Don't worry
yourself."
"Worry myself!" I echoed bitterly--"Why not say don't kill yourself!"
"Because I see no necessity to offer you that advice at present--" he
responded coolly--"and if there were necessity, I doubt if I should give
it,--because I consider it better to kill one's self than worry one's
self. However opinions differ. I want you to take this matter lightly."
"Lightly!--take my own dishonour and disgrace lightly!" I exclaimed,
almost leaping from my chair--"You ask too much!"
"My good fellow, I ask no more than is asked and expected of a hundred
'society' husbands to-day. Consider!--your wife has been led away from
her soberer judgment and reasoning by an exalted and hysterical passion
for me on account of my looks,--not for myself at all--because she
really does not know _Me_,--she only sees me as I appear to be. The love
of handsome exterior personalities is a common delusion of the fair
sex--and passes in time like other women's diseases. No actual dishonour
or disgrace attaches to her or to you,--nothing has been seen, heard, or
done, _in public_. This being so, I can't understand what you are making
a fuss about. The great object of social life, you know, is to hide all
savage passions and domestic differences from the gaze of the vulgar
crowd. You can be as bad as you like in private--only God sees--and
that does not matter!"
His eyes had a mocking lustre in them,--twanging his mandoline, he sang
under his breath,
"If she be not fair for me
What care I how fair she be!"
"That is the true spirit, Geoffrey,"--he went on--"It sounds flippant to
you no doubt in your present tragic frame of mind,--but it is the only
way to treat women, in marriage or out of it. Before the world and
society, your wife is like Cæsar's, above suspicion. Only you and I
(we will leave God out) have been the witnesses of her attack of
hysteria ..."
"Hysteria, you call it! She loves you!" I said hotly--"And she has
always loved you. She confessed it,--and you admitted that you always
knew it!"
"I always knew she was hysterical--yes--if that is what you mean;"--he
answered--"The majority of women have no real feelings, no serious
emotions--except one--vanity. They do not know what a great love
means,--their chief desire is for conquest,--and failing in this, they
run up the gamut of baffled passion to the pitch of frenetic hysteria,
which with some becomes chronic. Lady Sibyl suffers in this way. Now
listen to me. I will go off to Paris or Moscow or Berlin at once,--after
what has happened, of course I cannot stay here,--and I give you my word
I will not intrude myself into your domestic circle again. In a few days
you will tide over this rupture, and learn the wisdom of supporting the
differences that occur in matrimony, with composure----"
"Impossible! I will not part with you!" I said vehemently--"Nor will I
live with her! Better the companionship of a true friend than that of a
false wife!"
He raised his eyebrows with a puzzled half humorous expression--then
shrugged his shoulders, as one who gives up a difficult argument.
Rising, he put aside his mandoline and came over to me, his tall
imposing figure casting a gigantic shadow in the brilliant moonbeams.
"Upon my word, you put me in a very awkward position Geoffrey,--what is
to be done? You can get a judicial separation if you like, but I think
it would be an unwise course of procedure after barely four months of
marriage. The world would be set talking at once. Really it is better to
do anything than give the gossips a chance for floating scandal. Look
here--don't decide anything hastily,--come up to town with me for a day,
and leave your wife alone to meditate upon her foolishness and its
possible consequences,--then you will be better able to judge as to your
future movements. Go to your room, and sleep till morning."
"Sleep!" I repeated with a shudder--"In that room where she----" I broke
off with a cry and looked at him imploringly--"Am I going mad, I wonder!
My brain seems on fire! If I could forget! ... if I could forget!
Lucio--if you, my loyal friend, had been false to me I should have
died,--your truth, your honour have saved me!"
He smiled--an odd, cynical little smile.
"Tut----I make no boast of virtue"--he rejoined--"If the lady's beauty
had been any temptation to me I might have yielded to her charms,--in so
doing I should have been no more than man, as she herself suggested. But
perhaps I _am_ more than man!--at anyrate bodily beauty in woman makes
no sort of effect on me, unless it is accompanied by beauty of
soul,--then it does make an effect, and a very extraordinary one. It
provokes me to try how deep the beauty goes--whether it is impervious or
vulnerable. As I find it, so I leave it!"
I stared wearily at the moonlight patterns on the floor.
"What am I to do?" I asked--"What would you advise?"
"Come up to town with me,"--he replied--"You can leave a note for your
wife, explaining your absence,--and at one of the clubs we will talk
over the matter quietly, and decide how best to avoid a social scandal.
Meanwhile, go to bed. If you won't go back to your own room, sleep in
the spare one next to mine."
I rose mechanically and prepared to obey him. He watched me furtively.
"Will you take a composing draught if I mix it for you?" he said--"It is
harmless, and will give you a few hours' sleep."
"I would take poison from your hand!" I answered recklessly--"Why don't
you mix _that_ for me?--and then, ... then I should sleep indeed,--and
forget this horrible night!"
"No,--unfortunately you would not forget!" he said, going to his
dressing-case and taking out a small white powder which he dissolved
gradually in a glass of water--"That is the worst of what people call
dying. I must instruct you in a little science by-and-by, to distract
your thoughts. The scientific part of death,--the business that goes on
behind the scenes you know--will interest you very much--it is highly
instructive, particularly that section of it which I am entitled to call
the regeneration of atoms. The brain-cells are atoms, and within these,
are other atoms called memories, curiously vital and marvellously
prolific! Drink this,"--and he handed me the mixture he had
prepared--"For temporary purposes it is much better than death--because
it does numb and paralyse the conscious atoms for a little while,
whereas death only liberates them to a larger and more obstinate
vitality."
I was too self-absorbed to heed or understand his words, but I drank
what he gave me submissively and returned the glass,--he still watched
me closely for about a minute. Then he opened the door of the apartment
which adjoined his own.
"Throw yourself on that bed and close your eyes,"--he continued in
somewhat peremptory accents--"Till morning breaks I give you a
respite,--" and he smiled strangely--"both from dreams and memories!
Plunge into Oblivion, my friend!--brief as it is and as it must ever be,
it is sweet!--even to a millionaire!"
The ironical tone of his voice vexed me,--I looked at him half
reproachfully, and saw his proud beautiful face, pale as marble,
clear-cut as a cameo, soften as I met his eyes,--I felt he was sorry for
me despite his love of satire,--and grasping his hand I pressed it
fervently without offering any other reply. Then, going into the next
room as he bade me, I lay down, and falling asleep almost instantly, I
remembered no more.
XXXIII
With the morning came full consciousness; I realized bitterly all that
had happened, but I was no longer inclined to bemoan my fate. My senses
were stricken, as it seemed, too numb and rigid for any further outbreak
of passion. A hard callousness took the place of outraged feeling; and
though despair was in my heart, my mind was made up to one stern
resolve,--I would look upon Sibyl no more. Never again should that fair
face, the deceitful mask of a false nature, tempt my sight and move me
to pity or forgiveness,--that I determined. Leaving the room in which I
had passed the night, I went to my study and wrote the following
letter;--
Sibyl.
After the degrading and disgraceful scene of last night you must be
aware that any further intercourse between us is impossible. Prince
Rimânez and I are leaving for London; we shall not return. You can
continue to reside at Willowsmere,--the house is yours,--and the
half of my fortune unconditionally settled upon you on our
marriage-day will enable you to keep up the fashions of your 'set,'
and live with that luxury and extravagance you deem necessary to an
'aristocratic' position. I have decided to travel,--and I intend to
make such arrangements as may prevent, if possible, our ever meeting
again,--though I shall of course do my best for my own sake, to
avoid any scandal. To reproach you for your conduct would be
useless; you are lost to all sense of shame. You have abased
yourself in the humiliation of a guilty passion before a man who
despises you,--who, in his own loyal and noble nature, hates you for
your infidelity and hypocrisy,--and I can find no pardon for the
wrong you have thus done to me, and the injury you have brought upon
my name. I leave you to the judgment of your own conscience,--if you
have one,--which is doubtful. Such women as you, are seldom troubled
with remorse. It is not likely you will ever see me or the man to
whom you have offered your undesired love again,--make of your life
what you can or will, I am indifferent to your movements, and for my
own part, shall endeavour as much as may be, to forget that you
exist.
Your husband,
Geoffrey Tempest.
This letter, folded and sealed, I sent to my wife in her own apartments
by her maid,--the girl came back and said she had delivered it, but that
there was no answer. Her ladyship had a severe headache and meant to
keep her room that morning. I expressed just as much civil regret as a
confidential maid would naturally expect from the newly-wedded husband
of her mistress,--and then, giving instructions to my man Morris to pack
my portmanteau, I partook of a hurried breakfast with Lucio in more or
less silence and constraint, for the servants were in attendance, and I
did not wish them to suspect that anything was wrong. For their benefit,
I gave out that my friend and I were called suddenly to town on urgent
business,--that we might be absent a couple of days, perhaps
longer,--and that any special message or telegram could be sent on to me
at Arthur's Club. I was thankful when we at last got away,--when the
tall, picturesque red gables of Willowsmere vanished from my sight,--and
when finally, seated in a railway smoking-carriage reserved for our two
selves, we were able to watch the miles of distance gradually extending
between us and the beautiful autumnal woods of poet-haunted
Warwickshire. For a long time we kept silence, turning over and
pretending to read the morning's papers,--till presently flinging down
the dull and wearisome 'Times' sheet, I sighed heavily, and leaning
back, closed my eyes.
"I am truly very much distressed about all this;" said Lucio then, with
extreme gentleness and suavity--"It seems to me that _I_ am the adverse
element in the affair. If Lady Sibyl had never seen _me_,----"
"Why, then I should never have seen _her_!" I responded bitterly--"It
was through you I met her first."
"True!" and he eyed me thoughtfully--"I am very unfortunately
placed!--it is almost as if I were to blame, though no-one could be more
innocent or well-intentioned than myself!" He smiled,--then went on very
gravely--"I really should avoid scandalous gossip if I were you,--I do
not speak of my own involuntary share in the disaster,--what people say
of me is quite immaterial; but for the lady's sake----"
"For my own sake I shall try to avoid it;" I said brusquely, whereat his
eyes glittered strangely--"It is myself I have to consider most of all.
I shall, as I hinted to you this morning, travel for a few years."
"Yes,--go on a tiger-hunting expedition in India,"--he suggested--"Or
kill elephants in Africa. It is what a great many men do when their
wives forget themselves. Several well-known husbands are abroad just
now!"
Again the brilliant enigmatical smile flashed over his face,--but I
could not smile in answer. I stared moodily out of the window at the
bare autumnal fields, past which the train flew,--bare of
harvest,--stripped of foliage--like my own miserable life.
"Come and winter with me in Egypt,"--he continued--"Come in my yacht
'The Flame,'--we will take her to Alexandria,--and then do the Nile in a
dahabeah, and forget that such frivolous dolls as women exist except to
be played with by us 'superior' creatures and thrown aside."
"Egypt----the Nile!" I murmured,--somehow the idea pleased
me--"Yes,----why not?"
"Why not indeed!" he echoed--"The proposal is agreeable to you I am
sure. Come and see the land of the old gods,--the land where my princess
used to live and torture the souls of men!--perhaps we may discover the
remains of her last victim,----who knows!"
I avoided his gaze;--the recollection of the horrible winged thing he
persisted in imagining to be the transmigrated soul of an evil woman,
was repugnant to me. Almost I felt as if there were some subtle
connection between that hateful creature and my wife Sibyl. I was glad
when the train reached London, and we, taking a hansom, were plunged
into the very vortex of human life. The perpetual noise of traffic,
the motley crowds of people, the shouting of news-boys and
omnibus-conductors,--all this hubbub was grateful to my ears, and for a
time at least, distracted my thoughts. We lunched at the Savoy, and
amused ourselves with noting the town noodles of fashion,--the inane
young man in the stocks of the stiff high collar, and wearing the
manacles of equally stiff and exaggerated cuffs, a veritable prisoner in
the dock of silly custom,--the frivolous fool of a woman, painted and
powdered, with false hair and dyed eyebrows, trying to look as much like
a paid courtezan as possible,--the elderly matron, skipping forward on
high heels, and attempting by the assumption of juvenile airs and graces
to cover up and conceal the obtrusive facts of a too obvious paunch and
overlapping bosom,--the would-be dandy and 'beau' of seventy, strangely
possessed by youthful desires, and manifesting the same by goat-like
caperings at the heels of young married women;--these and such-like
contemptible units of a contemptible social swarm, passed before us like
puppets at a country fair, and aroused us in turn to laughter or
disdain. While we yet lingered over our wine, a man came in alone, and
sat down at the table next to ours;--he had with him a book, which,
after giving his orders for luncheon, he at once opened at a marked
place and began to read with absorbed attention,--I recognised the
cover of the volume and knew it to be Mavis Clare's "Differences." A
haze floated before my sight,--a sensation of rising tears was in my
throat,--I saw the fair face, earnest eyes, and sweet smile of
Mavis,--that woman-wearer of the laurel-crown,--that keeper of the
lilies of purity and peace. Alas, those lilies!--they were for me
"des fleurs étranges,[3]
Avec leurs airs de sceptres d'anges;
De thyrses lumineux pour doigts de séraphins,--
Leurs parfums sont trop forts, tout ensemble, et trop fins!"
I shaded my eyes with one hand,--yet under that shade I felt that Lucio
watched me closely. Presently he spoke softly, just as if he had read my
thoughts.
"Considering the effect a perfectly innocent woman has on the mind of
even an evil man, it's strange, isn't it that there are so few of them!"
I did not answer.
"In the present day," he went on--"there are a number of females
clamouring like unnatural hens in a barn-yard about their 'rights' and
'wrongs.' Their greatest right, their highest privilege, is to guide and
guard the souls of men. This, they for the most part, throw away as
worthless. Aristocratic women, royal women even, hand over the care of
their children to hired attendants and inferiors, and then are surprised
and injured if those children turn out to be either fools or
blackguards. If I were controller of the State, I would make it a law
that every mother should be bound to nurse and guard her children
herself as nature intended, unless prevented by ill-health, in which
case she would have to get a couple of doctor's certificates to certify
the fact. Otherwise, any woman refusing to comply with the law should be
sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. This would bring them to
their senses. The idleness, wickedness, extravagance and selfishness of
women, make men the boors and egotists they are."
I looked up.
"The devil is in the whole business;"--I said bitterly--"If women were
good, men would have nothing to do with them. Look round you at what is
called 'society'! How many men there are who deliberately choose tainted
women for their wives, and leave the innocent uncared for! Take Mavis
Clare----"
"Oh, you were thinking of Mavis Clare, were you?" he rejoined, with a
quick glance at me--"But she would be a difficult prize for any man to
win. She does not seek to be married,--and she is not uncared for, since
the whole world cares for her."
"That is a sort of impersonal love;"--I answered--"It does not give her
the protection such a woman needs, and ought to obtain."
"Do you want to become her lover?" he asked with a slight smile--"I'm
afraid you've no chance!"
"I! Her lover! Good God!" I exclaimed, the blood rushing hotly to my
face at the mere suggestion--"What a profane idea!"
"You are right,--it _is_ profane;"--he agreed, still smiling--"It is as
though I should propose your stealing the sacramental cup from a church,
with just this difference,--you might succeed in running off with the
cup because it is only the church's property, but you would never
succeed in winning Mavis Clare, inasmuch as she belongs to God. You know
what Milton says:
'So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacquey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things which no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th'outward shape
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence
Till all be made immortal!'
He quoted the lines softly and with an exquisite gravity.
"That is what you see in Mavis Clare,"--he continued--"that 'beam on the
outward shape' which 'turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,'--and
which makes her beautiful, without what is called beauty by lustful
men."
I moved impatiently, and looked out from the window near which we were
seated, at the yellow width of the flowing Thames below.
"Beauty, according to man's ordinary standard," pursued Lucio, "means
simply good flesh,--nothing more. Flesh, arranged prettily and roundly
on the always ugly skeleton beneath,--flesh, daintily coloured and soft
to the touch, without scar or blemish. Plenty of it too, disposed in the
proper places. It is the most perishable sort of commodity,--an illness
spoils it,--a trying climate ruins it,--age wrinkles it,--death destroys
it,--but it is all the majority of men look for in their bargains with
the fair sex. The most utter _roué_ of sixty that ever trotted jauntily
down Piccadilly pretending to be thirty, expects like Shylock his
'pound' or several pounds of youthful flesh. The desire is neither
refined nor intellectual, but there it is,--and it is solely on this
account that the 'ladies' of the music-hall become the tainted members
and future mothers of the aristocracy."
"It does not need the ladies of the music-hall to taint the already
tainted!" I said.
"True!" and he looked at me with kindly commiseration--"Let us put the
whole mischief down to the 'new' fiction!"
We rose then, having finished luncheon, and leaving the Savoy we went on
to Arthur's. Here we sat down in a quiet corner and began to talk of our
future plans. It took me very little time to make up my mind,--all
quarters of the world were the same to me, and I was really indifferent
as to where I went. Yet there is always something suggestive and
fascinating about the idea of a first visit to Egypt, and I willingly
agreed to accompany Lucio thither, and remain the winter.
"We will avoid society"--he said--"The well-bred, well-educated
'swagger' people who throw champagne-bottles at the Sphinx, and think a
donkey-race 'ripping fun' shall not have the honour of our company.
Cairo is full of such dancing dolls, so we will not stay there. Old Nile
has many attractions; and lazy luxury on a dahabeah will soothe your
overwrought nerves. I suggest our leaving England within a week."
I consented,--and while he went over to a table and wrote some letters
in preparation for our journey, I looked through the day's papers. There
was nothing to read in them,--for though all the world's news palpitates
into Great Britain on obediently throbbing electric wires, each editor
of each little pennyworth, being jealous of every other editor of every
other pennyworth, only admits into his columns exactly what suits his
politics or personally pleases his taste, and the interests of the
public at large are scarcely considered. Poor, bamboozled, patient
public!--no wonder it is beginning to think that a halfpenny spent on a
newspaper which is only purchased to be thrown away, enough and more
than enough. I was still glancing up and down the tedious columns of the
Americanized Pall Mall Gazette, and Lucio was still writing, when a
page-boy entered with a telegram.
"Mr Tempest?"
"Yes." And I snatched the yellow-covered missive and tore it open,--and
read the few words it contained almost uncomprehendingly. They ran
thus--
"Return at once. Something alarming has happened. Afraid to act
without you. Mavis Clare."
A curious chill came over me,--the telegram fell from my hands on the
table. Lucio took it up and glanced at it. Then, regarding me
stedfastly, he said--
"Of course you must go. You can catch the four-forty train if you take a
hansom."
"And you?" I muttered. My throat was dry and I could scarcely speak.
"I'll stay at the Grand, and wait for news. Don't delay a moment,--Miss
Clare would not have taken it upon herself to send this message, unless
there had been serious cause."
"What do you think--what do you suppose----" I began.
He stopped me by a slight imperative gesture.
"I think nothing--I suppose nothing. I only urge you to start
immediately. Come!"
And almost before I realized it, he had taken me with him out into the
hall of the club, where he helped me on with my coat, gave me my hat,
and sent for a cab to take me to the railway station. We scarcely
exchanged farewells,--stupefied with the suddenness of the unexpected
summons back to the home I had left in the morning, as I thought, for
ever, I hardly knew what I was doing or where I was going, till I found
myself alone in the train, returning to Warwickshire as fast as steam
would bear me, with the gloom of the deepening dusk around me, and such
a fear and horror at my heart as I dared not think of or define. What
was the 'something alarming' that had happened? How was it that Mavis
Clare had telegraphed to me? These, and endless other questions
tormented my brain,--and I was afraid to suggest answers to any of them.
When I arrived at the familiar station, there was no one waiting to
receive me, so I hired a fly, and was driven up to my own house just as
the short evening deepened into night. A low autumnal wind was sighing
restlessly among the trees like a wandering soul in torment; not a star
shone in the black depths of the sky. Directly the carriage stopped, a
slim figure in white came out under the porch to meet me,--it was Mavis,
her angel's face grave and pale with emotion.
"It is you at last!" she said in a trembling voice----"Thank God you
have come!"
[3] _Edmond Rostand._ '_La Princesse Lointaine._'
XXXIV
I grasped her hands hard.
"What is it?"--I began;--then, looking round I saw that the hall was
full of panic-stricken servants, some of whom came forward, confusedly
murmuring together about being 'afraid,' and 'not knowing what to do.' I
motioned them back by a gesture and turned again to Mavis Clare.
"Tell me,--quick--what is wrong?"
"We fear something has happened to Lady Sibyl,"--she replied at
once--"Her rooms are locked, and we cannot make her hear. Her maid got
alarmed, and ran over to my house to ask me what was best to be done,--I
came at once, and knocked and called, but could get no response. You
know the windows are too high to reach from the ground,--there is no
ladder on the premises long enough for the purpose,--and no one can
climb up that side of the building. I begged some of the servants to
break open the door by force,--but they would not,--they were all
afraid; and I did not like to act on my own responsibility, so I
telegraphed for you----"
I sprang away from her before she had finished speaking and hurried
upstairs at once,--outside the door of the ante-room which led into my
wife's luxurious 'suite' of apartments, I paused breathless.
"Sibyl!" I cried.
There was not a sound. Mavis had followed me, and stood by my side,
trembling a little. Two or three of the servants had also crept up the
stairs, and were clinging to the banisters, listening nervously.
"Sibyl!" I called again. Still absolute silence. I turned round upon the
waiting and anxious domestics with an assumption of calmness.
"Lady Sibyl is probably not in her rooms at all;"--I said; "She may have
gone out unobserved. This door of the ante-chamber has a
spring-lock,--it can easily get fast shut by the merest accident. Bring
a strong hammer,--or a crowbar,--anything that will break it open,--if
you had had sense you would have obeyed Miss Clare, and done this a
couple of hours ago."
And I waited with enforced composure, while my instructions were carried
out as rapidly as possible. Two of the men-servants appeared with the
necessary tools, and very soon the house resounded with clamour,--blow
after blow was dealt upon the solid oaken door for some time without
success,--the spring lock would not yield,--neither would the strong
hinges give way. Presently however, after ten minutes' hard labour, one
of the finely carved panels was smashed in,--then another,--and,
springing over the débris I rushed through the ante-room into the
boudoir,--then paused, listening, and calling again, "Sibyl!" No one
followed me,--some indefinable instinct, some nameless dread, held the
servants back, and Mavis Clare as well. I was alone, ... and in complete
darkness. Groping about, with my heart beating furiously, I sought for
the ivory button in the wall which would, at pressure, flood the rooms
with electric light, but somehow I could not find it. My hand came in
contact with various familiar things which I recognised by touch,--rare
bits of china, bronzes, vases, pictures,--costly trifles that were
heaped up as I knew, in this particular apartment with a lavish luxury
and disregard of cost befitting a wanton eastern empress of old
time,--cautiously feeling my way along, I started with terror to see, as
I thought, a tall figure outline itself suddenly against the
darkness,--white, spectral and luminous,--a figure that, as I stared at
it aghast, raised a pallid hand and pointed me forward with a menacing
air of scorn! In my dazed horror at this apparition, or delusion, I
stumbled over the heavy trailing folds of a velvet _portiére_, and knew
by this that I had passed from the boudoir into the adjoining bedroom.
Again I stopped,--calling "Sibyl!" but my voice had scarcely strength
enough to raise itself above a whisper. Giddy and confused as I was, I
remembered that the electric light in this room was fixed at the side of
the toilet-table, and I stepped hurriedly in that direction, when all at
once in the thick gloom I touched something clammy and cold like dead
flesh, and brushed against a garment that exhaled faint perfume, and
rustled at my touch with a silken sound. This alarmed me more thoroughly
than the spectre I fancied I had just seen,--I drew back shudderingly
against the wall,--and in so doing, my fingers involuntarily closed on
the polished ivory stud which, like a fairy talisman in modern
civilization, emits radiance at the owner's will. I pressed it
nervously,--the light blazed forth through the rose-tinted shells which
shaded its dazzling clearness, and showed me where I stood, ... within
an arm's length of a strange, stiff white creature that sat staring at
itself in the silver-framed mirror with wide-open, fixed and glassy
eyes!
"Sibyl!" I gasped--"My wife ... ! ..." but the words died chokingly in my
throat. Was it indeed my wife?--this frozen statue of a woman, watching
her own impassive image thus intently? I looked upon her
wonderingly,--doubtingly,--as if she were some stranger;--it took me
time to recognize her features, and the bronze-gold darkness of her long
hair which fell loosely about her in a lavish wealth of rippling waves,
... her left hand hung limply over the arm of the chair in which, like
some carven ivory goddess, she sat enthroned,--and tremblingly, slowly,
reluctantly, I advanced and took that hand. Cold as ice it lay in my
palm much as though it were a waxen model of itself;--it glittered with
jewels,--and I studied every ring upon it with a curious, dull
pertinacity, like one who seeks a clue to identity. That large turquoise
in a diamond setting was a marriage-gift from a duchess,--that opal her
father gave her,--the lustrous circle of sapphires and brilliants
surmounting her wedding-ring was my gift,--that ruby I seemed to
know,----well, well! what a mass of sparkling value wasted on such
fragile clay! I peered into her face,--then at the reflection of that
face in the mirror,--and again I grew perplexed,--was it, could it be
Sibyl after all? Sibyl was beautiful,--_this_ dead thing had a devilish
smile on its blue, parted lips, and frenzied horror in its eyes!
Suddenly something tense in my brain seemed to snap and give
way,--dropping the chill fingers I held, I cried aloud--
"Mavis! Mavis Clare!"
In a moment she was with me,--in a glance she comprehended all. Falling
on her knees by the dead woman she broke into a passion of weeping.
"Oh, poor girl!" she cried--"Oh, poor, unhappy, misguided girl!"
I stared at her gloomily. It seemed to me very strange that she should
weep for sorrows not her own. There was a fire in my brain,--a confused
trouble in my thoughts,--I looked at my dead wife with her fixed gaze
and evil smile, sitting rigidly upright, and robed in the mocking sheen
of her rose-silk peignoir, showered with old lace, after the costliest
of Paris fashions,--then at the living, tender-souled, earnest creature,
famed for her genius throughout the world, who knelt on the ground,
sobbing over the stiffening hand on which so many rare gems glistened
derisively,--and an impulse rose in me stronger than myself, moving me
to wild and clamorous speech.
"Get up, Mavis!" I cried--"Do not kneel there! Go,--go out of this
room,--out of my sight! You do not know what she was--this woman whom I
married,--I deemed her an angel, but she was a fiend,--yes, Mavis, a
fiend! Look at her, staring at her own image in the glass,--you cannot
call her beautiful--_now_! She smiles, you see,--just as she smiled last
night when, ... ah, you know nothing of last night! I tell you, go!" and
I stamped my foot almost furiously,--"This air is contaminated,--it
will poison you! The perfume of Paris and the effluvia of death
intermingled are sufficient to breed a pestilence! Go quickly,--inform
the household their mistress is dead,--have the blinds drawn down,--show
all the exterior signs of decent and fashionable woe!"--and I began
laughing deliriously--"Tell the servants they may count upon expensive
mourning,--for all that money can do shall be done in homage to King
Death! Let everyone in the place eat and drink as much as they can or
will,--and sleep, or chatter as such menials love to do, of hearses,
graves and sudden disasters;--but let _me_ be left alone,--alone with
_her_;--we have much to say to one another!"
White and trembling, Mavis rose up and stood gazing at me in fear and
pity.
"Alone? ..." she faltered--"You are not fit to be alone!"
"No, I am not fit to be, but I must be,"--I rejoined quickly and
harshly--"This woman and I loved--after the manner of brutes, and were
wedded or rather mated in a similar manner, though an archbishop blessed
the pairing, and called upon Heaven to witness its sanctity! Yet we
parted ill friends,--and dead though she is, I choose to pass the night
with her,--I shall learn much knowledge from her silence! To-morrow the
grave and the servants of the grave may claim her, but to-night she is
mine!"
The girl's sweet eyes brimmed over with tears.
"Oh you are too distracted to know what you are saying," she
murmured--"You do not even try to discover how she died!"
"That is easy enough to guess,"--I answered quickly, and I took up a
small dark-coloured bottle labelled 'Poison' which I had already
perceived on the toilet-table--"This is uncorked and empty. What it
contained I do not know,--but there must be an inquest of
course,--people must be allowed to make money for themselves out of her
ladyship's rash act! And see there,--" here I pointed to some loose
sheets of note-paper covered with writing, and partially concealed by a
filmy lace handkerchief which had evidently been hastily thrown across
them, and a pen and inkstand close by--"There is some admirable reading
prepared for me doubtless!--the last message from the beloved dead is
sacred, Mavis Clare; surely you, a writer of tender romances, can
realize this!--and realizing it, you will do as I ask you,--leave me!"
She looked at me in deep compassion, and slowly turned to go.
"God help you!" she said sobbingly--"God console you!"
At this, some demon in me broke loose, and springing to her side I
caught her hands in mine.
"Do not dare to talk of God!" I said in passionate accents; "Not in this
room,--not in _that_ presence! Why should you call curses down upon me?
The help of God means punishment,--the consolations of God are terrible!
For strength must acknowledge itself weak before He will help it,--and a
heart must be broken before He will console it! But what do I say!--I
believe in _no_ God--! I believe in an unknown Force that encompasses me
and hunts me down to the grave, but nothing more. _She_ thought as I
do,--and with reason,--for what has God done for her? She was made evil
from the first,--a born snare of Satan...."
Something caught my breath here,--I stopped, unable to utter another
word. Mavis stared at me affrighted, and I stared back again.
"What is it?" she whispered alarmedly. I struggled to speak,--finally,
with difficulty I answered her--
"Nothing!"
And I motioned her away with a gesture of entreaty. The expression of my
face must have startled or intimidated her I fancy, for she retreated
hastily and I watched her disappearing as if she were the phantom of a
dream,--then, as she passed out through the boudoir, I drew close the
velvet portiére behind her and locked the intermediate door. This done I
went slowly back to the side of my dead wife.
"Now Sibyl,"--I said aloud--"we are alone, you and I--alone with our own
reflected images,--you dead, and I living! You have no terrors for me in
your present condition,--your beauty has gone. Your smile, your eyes,
your touch cannot stir me to a throb of the passion you craved, yet
wearied of! What have you to say to me?--I have heard that the dead can
speak at times,--and you owe me reparation,--reparation for the wrong
you did me,--the lie on which you based our marriage,--the guilt you
cherished in your heart! Shall I read your petition for forgiveness
here?"
And I gathered up the written sheets of note-paper in one hand, feeling
them rather than seeing them, for my eyes were fixed on the pallid
corpse in its rose-silk 'negligée' and jewels, that gazed at itself so
pertinaciously in the shining mirror. I drew a chair close to it, and
sat down, observing likewise the reflection of my own haggard face in
the glass beside that of the self-murdered woman. Turning presently, I
began to scrutinize my immovable companion more closely--and perceived
that she was very lightly clothed,--under the silk peignoir there was
only a flowing white garment of soft fine material lavishly embroidered,
through which the statuesque contour of her rigid limbs could be
distinctly seen. Stooping, I felt her heart,--I knew it was pulseless;
yet I half imagined I should feel its beat. As I withdrew my hand,
something scaly and glistening caught my eye, and looking I perceived
Lucio's marriage-gift circling her waist,--the flexible emerald snake
with its diamond crest and ruby eyes. It fascinated me,----coiled round
that dead body it seemed alive and sentient,--if it had lifted its
glittering head and hissed at me I should scarcely have been surprised.
I sat back for a moment in my chair, almost as rigid as the corpse
beside me,--I stared again, as the corpse stared always, into the mirror
which pictured us both, we 'twain in one,' as the sentimentalists aver
of wedded folk, though in truth it often happens that there are no two
creatures in the world more widely separated than husband and wife. I
heard stealthy movements and suppressed whisperings in the passage
outside, and guessed that some of the servants were there watching and
waiting,--but I cared nothing for that. I was absorbed in the ghastly
night interview I had planned for myself, and I so entered into the
spirit of the thing, that I turned on all the electric lamps in the
room, besides lighting two tall clusters of shaded candles on either
side of the toilet-table. When all the surroundings were thus rendered
as brilliant as possible, so that the corpse looked more livid and
ghastly by comparison, I seated myself once more, and prepared to read
the last message of the dead.
"Now Sibyl,"--I muttered, leaning forward a little, and noting with a
morbid interest that the jaws of the corpse had relaxed a little within
the last few minutes, and that the smile on the face was therefore more
hideous--"Confess your sins!--for I am here to listen. Such dumb,
impressive eloquence as yours deserves attention!"
A gust of wind fled round the house with a wailing cry,--the windows
shook, and the candles flickered. I waited till every sound had died
away, and then--with a glance at my dead wife, under the sudden
impression that she had heard what I said, and knew what I was doing, I
began to read.
XXXV
Thus ran the 'last document,' commencing abruptly and without prefix;--
"I have made up my mind to die. Not out of passion or
petulance,--but from deliberate choice, and as I think, necessity.
My brain is tired of problems,--my body is tired of life; it is best
to make an end. The idea of death,--which means annihilation,--is
very sweet to me. I am glad to feel that by my own will and act I
can silence this uneasy throbbing of my heart, this turmoil and heat
of my blood,--this tortured aching of my nerves. Young as I am, I
have no delight now in existence,--I see nothing but my love's
luminous eyes, his god-like features, his enthralling smile,--and
these are lost to me. For a brief while he has been my world, life
and time,--he has gone,--and without him there is no universe. How
could I endure the slow, wretched passing of hours, days, weeks,
months and years alone?--though it is better to be alone than in the
dull companionship of the self-satisfied, complacent and arrogant
fool who is my husband. He has left me for ever, so he says in a
letter the maid brought to me an hour ago. It is quite what I
expected of him,--what man of his type could find pardon for a blow
to his own _amour propre_! If he had studied my nature, entered into
my emotions, or striven in the least to guide and sustain me,--if he
had shown me any sign of a great, true love such as one sometimes
dreams of and seldom finds,--I think I should be sorry for him
now,--I should even ask his forgiveness for having married him. But
he has treated me precisely as he might treat a paid mistress,--that
is, he has fed me, clothed me, and provided me with money and jewels
in return for making me the toy of his passions,--but he has not
given me one touch of sympathy,--one proof of self-denial or humane
forbearance. Therefore, I owe him nothing. And now he, and my love
who will not be my lover, have gone away together; I am free to do
as I will with this small pulse within me called life, which is
after all, only a thread, easily broken. There is no one to say me
nay, or to hold my hand back from giving myself the final _quietus_.
It is well I have no friends; it is good for me that I have probed
the hypocrisy and social sham of the world, and that I have mastered
the following hard truths of life,--that there is no love without
lust,--no friendship without self-interest,--no religion without
avarice,--and no so-called virtue without its accompanying stronger
vice. Who, knowing these things, would care to take part in them! On
the verge of the grave I look back along the short vista of my
years, and I see myself a child in this very place, this wooded
Willowsmere; I can note how that life began to which I am about to
put an end. Pampered, petted and spoilt, told that I must 'look
pretty' and take pleasure in my clothes, I was even at the age of
ten, capable of a certain amount of coquetry. Old _roués_, smelling
of wine and tobacco, were eager to take me on their knees and pinch
my soft flesh;--they would press my innocent lips with their
withered ones,--withered and contaminated by the kisses of
_cocottes_ and 'soiled doves' of the town!--I have often wondered
how it is these men can dare to touch a young child's mouth, knowing
in themselves what beasts they are! I see my nurse,--a trained liar
and time-server, giving herself more airs than a queen, and
forbidding me to speak to this child or that child, because they
were 'beneath' me;--then came my governess, full of a prurient
prudery, as bad a woman in morals as ever lived, yet 'highly
recommended' and with excellent references, and wearing an
assumption of the strictest virtue, like many equally hypocritical
clergymen's wives I have known. I soon found her out,--for even as a
child I was painfully observant,--and the stories she and my
mother's French maid used to tell, in lowered voices now and then
broken by coarse laughter, were sufficient to enlighten me as to her
true character. Yet, beyond having a supreme contempt for the woman
who practised religious austerity outwardly, and was at heart a
rake, I gave small consideration to the difficult problem such a
nature suggested. I lived,--how strange it seems that I should be
writing now of myself, as past and done with!--yes, I lived in a
dreamy, more or less idyllic state of mind, thinking without being
conscious of thought, full of fancies concerning the flowers, trees
and birds,--wishing for things of which I knew nothing,--imagining
myself a queen at times, and again, a peasant. I was an omnivorous
reader,--and I was specially fond of poetry. I used to pore over the
mystic verse of Shelley, and judged him then as a sort of
demi-god;--and never, even when I knew all about his life, could I
realize him as a man with a thin, shrieking falsetto voice and
'loose' notions concerning women. But I am quite sure it was good
for his fame that he was drowned in early youth with so many
melancholy and dramatic surroundings,--it saved him, I consider,
from a possibly vicious and repulsive old age. I adored Keats till I
knew he had wasted his passion on a Fanny Brawn,--and then the
glamour of him vanished. I can offer no reason for this,--I merely
set down the fact. I made a hero of Lord Byron,--in fact he has
always formed for me the only heroical type of poet. Strong in
himself and pitiless in his love for women, he treated them for the
most part as they merited, considering the singular and unworthy
specimens of the sex it was his misfortune to encounter. I used to
wonder, when reading these men's amorous lines, whether love would
ever come my way, and what beatific state of emotion I should then
enjoy. Then came the rough awakening from all my dreams,--childhood
melted into womanhood,--and at sixteen I was taken up to town with
my parents to "know something of the ways and manners of society,"
before finally 'coming out.' Oh, those ways and manners! I learnt
them to perfection! Astonished at first, then bewildered, and
allowed no time to form any judgment on what I saw, I was hurried
through a general vague 'impression' of things such as I had never
imagined or dreamed of. While I was yet lost in wonderment, and kept
constantly in companionship with young girls of my own rank and age,
who nevertheless seemed much more advanced in knowledge of the world
than I, my father suddenly informed me that Willowsmere was lost to
us,--that he could not afford to keep it up,--and that we should
return there no more. Ah, what tears I shed!--what a fury of grief
consumed me!--I did not then comprehend the difficult entanglements
of either wealth or poverty;--all I could realize was that the doors
of my dear old home were closed upon me for ever. After that, I
think I grew cold and hard in disposition; I had never loved my
mother very dearly,--in fact I had seen very little of her, as she
was always away visiting, if not entertaining visitors, and she
seldom had me with her,--so that when she was suddenly struck down
by a first shock of paralysis, it affected me but little. She had
her doctors and nurses,--I had my governess still with me; and my
mother's sister, Aunt Charlotte, came to keep house for us,--so I
began to analyse society for myself, without giving any expression
of my opinions on what I observed. I was not yet 'out,' but I went
everywhere where girls of my age were invited, and perceived things
without showing that I had any faculty of perception. I cultivated a
passionless and cold exterior,--a listless, uninterested and frigid
demeanor,--for I discovered that this was accepted by many people as
dullness or stupidity, and that by assuming such a character,
certain otherwise crafty persons would talk more readily before me,
and betray themselves and their vices unawares. Thus my 'social
education' began in grim earnest;--women of title and renown would
ask me to their 'quiet teas,' because I was what they were pleased
to call a 'harmless girl--' 'rather pretty, but dull,'--and allow me
to assist them in entertaining the lovers who called upon them
while their husbands were out. I remember that on one occasion, a
great lady famous for two things, her diamonds and her intimacy with
the Queen, kissed her 'cavaliere servente,' a noted sporting earl,
with considerable _abandon_ in my presence. He muttered something
about me,--I heard it;--but his amorous mistress merely answered in
a whisper--"Oh, it's only Sibyl Elton,--she understands nothing."
Afterwards however, when he had gone, she turned to me with a grin
and remarked--"You saw me kiss Bertie, didn't you? I often do; he's
quite like my brother!" I made no reply,--I only smiled vaguely; and
the next day she sent me a valuable diamond ring, which I at once
returned to her with a prim little note, stating that I was much
obliged, but that my father considered me too young as yet to wear
diamonds. Why do I think of these trifles now I wonder!--now when I
am about to take my leave of life and all its lies! ... There is a
little bird singing outside my bedroom window,--such a pretty
creature! I suppose it is happy?--it should be, as it is not
human... The tears are in my eyes as I listen to its sweet
warbling, and think that it will be living and singing still to-day
at sunset when I am dead!
* * * * *
That last sentence was mere sentiment, for I am not sorry to die. If
I felt the least regret about it I should not carry out my
intention. I must resume my narrative,--for it is an analysis I am
trying to make of myself, to find out if I can whether there are no
excuses to be found for my particular disposition,--whether it is
not after all, the education and training I have had that have made
me what I am, or whether indeed I was born evil from the first. The
circumstances that surrounded me, did not, at any rate, tend to
soften or improve my character. I had just passed my seventeenth
birthday, when one morning my father called me into his library and
told me the true position of his affairs. I learned that he was
crippled on all sides with debt,--that he lived on advances made to
him by Jew usurers,--and that these advances were trusted to him
solely on the speculation that I, his only daughter, would make a
sufficiently rich marriage to enable him to repay all loans with
heavy interest. He went on to say that he hoped I would act
sensibly,--and that when any men showed indications of becoming
suitors for my hand, I would, before encouraging them, inform him,
in order that he might make strict enquiries as to their actual
extent of fortune. I then understood, for the first time, that I was
for sale. I listened in silence till he had finished,--then I asked
him--'Love, I suppose, is not to be considered in the matter?' He
laughed, and assured me it was much easier to love a rich man than a
poor one, as I would find out after a little experience. He added,
with some hesitation, that to help make both ends meet, as the
expenses of town life were considerable, he had arranged to take a
young American lady under his charge, a Miss Diana Chesney, who
wished to be introduced into English society, and who would pay two
thousand guineas a year to him for that privilege, and for Aunt
Charlotte's services as chaperône. I do not remember now what I said
to him when I heard this,--I know that my long suppressed feelings
broke out in a storm of fury, and that for the moment he was
completely taken aback by the force of my indignation. An American
boarder in _our_ house!--it seemed to me as outrageous and
undignified as the conduct of a person I once heard of, who,
favoured by the Queen's patronage with 'free' apartments in
Kensington Palace, took from time to time on the sly, an American or
Colonial 'paying-guest,' who adopted forthwith the address of Her
Majesty's birthplace as her own, thus lowering the whole prestige of
that historic habitation. My wrath however was useless;--the bargain
was arranged,--my father, regardless of his proud lineage and the
social dignity of his position, had degraded himself, in my opinion,
to the level of a sort of superior lodging-house keeper,--and from
that time I lost all my former respect for him. Of course it can be
argued that I was wrong,--that I ought to have honoured him for
turning his name to monetary account by loaning it out as a
protective shield and panoply for an American woman without
anything but the dollars of a vulgar 'railway-king' to back her up
in society,--but I could not see it in that light. I retreated into
myself more than ever,--and became more than pleasantly known for my
coldness, reserve and hauteur. Miss Chesney came, and strove hard to
be my friend,--but she soon found that impossible. She is a
good-hearted creature I believe,--but she is badly bred and badly
trained as all her compatriots are, more or less, despite their
smattering of an European education; I disliked her from the first,
and have spared no pains to show it. Yet I know she will be Countess
of Elton as soon as it is decently possible,--say, after the year's
ceremonious mourning for my mother has expired, and perhaps three
months' hypocritical wearing of black for me,--my father believes
himself to be still young and passably good-looking, and he is quite
incapable of resisting the fortune she will bring him. When she took
up her fixed abode in our house and Aunt Charlotte became her paid
chaperône, I seldom went out to any social gatherings, for I could
not endure the idea of being seen in her companionship. I kept to my
own room a great deal, and thus secluded, read many books. All the
fashionable fiction of the day passed through my hands, much to my
gradual enlightenment, if not to my edification. One day,--a day
that is stamped on my memory as a kind of turning-point in my
life,--I read a novel by a woman which I did not at first entirely
understand,--but on going over some of its passages a second time,
all at once its horrible lasciviousness flashed upon me, and filled
me with such genuine disgust that I flung it on the ground in a fit
of loathing and contempt. Yet I had seen it praised in all the
leading journals of the day; its obscenities were hinted at as
'daring,'--its vulgarities were quoted as 'brilliant wit,'--in fact
so many laudatory columns were written about it in the press that I
resolved to read it again. Encouraged by the 'literary censors' of
the time, I did so, and little by little the insidious abomination
of it filtered into my mind and _stayed there_. I began to think
about it,--and by-and-by found pleasure in thinking about it. I
sent for other books by the same tainted hand, and my appetite for
that kind of prurient romance grew keener. At this particular
juncture as chance or fate would have it, an acquaintance of mine,
the daughter of a Marchioness, a girl with large black eyes, and
those full protruding lips which remind one unconsciously of a
swine's snout, brought me two or three odd volumes of the poems of
Swinburne. Always devoted to poetry, and considering it to be the
highest of the arts, and up to that period having been ignorant of
this writer's work, I turned over the books with eagerness,
expecting to enjoy the usual sublime emotions which it is the
privilege and glory of the poet to inspire in mortals less divinely
endowed than himself, and who turn to him
"for help to climb
Beyond the highest peaks of time."
Now I should like, if I could do so, to explain clearly the effect
of this satyr-songster upon my mind,--for I believe there are many
women to whom his works have been deadlier than the deadliest
poison, and far more soul-corrupting than any book of Zola's or the
most pernicious of modern French writers. At first I read the poems
quickly, with a certain pleasure in the musical swing and jangle of
rhythm, and without paying much attention to the subject-matter of
the verse,--but presently, as though a lurid blaze of lightning had
stripped a fair tree of its adorning leaves, my senses suddenly
perceived the cruelty and sensuality concealed under the ornate
language and persuasive rhymes,--and for a moment I paused in my
reading, and closed my eyes, shuddering and sick at heart. Was human
nature as base and abandoned as this man declared it to be? Was
there no God but Lust? Were men and women lower and more depraved in
their passions and appetites than the very beasts? I mused and
dreamed,--I pored over the 'Laus Veneris'--'Faustine' and
'Anactoria,' till I felt myself being dragged down to the level of
the mind that conceived such outrages to decency,--I drank in the
poet's own fiendish contempt of God, and I read over and over again
his verses 'Before a Crucifix' till I knew them by heart;--till they
rang in my brain as persistently as any nursery jingle, and drove my
thoughts into as haughty a scorn of Christ and His teachings, as any
unbelieving Jew. It is nothing to me now,--now, when without hope,
or faith or love, I am about to take the final plunge into eternal
darkness and silence,--but for the sake of those who _have_ the
comfort of a religion I ask, why, in a so-called Christian country,
is such a hideous blasphemy as 'Before a Crucifix' allowed to
circulate among the people without so much as one reproof from those
who elect themselves judges of literature? I have seen many noble
writers condemned unheard,--many have been accused of blasphemy,
whose works tend quite the other way,--but these lines are permitted
to work their cruel mischief unchecked, and the writer of them is
glorified as though he were a benefactor to mankind. I quote them
here, from bitter memory, that I may not be deemed as exaggerating
their nature--
"So when our souls look back to thee,
They sicken, seeing against thy side,
_Too foul to speak of or to see_,
The leprous likeness of a bride,
Whose kissing lips through his lips grown
_Leave their God rotten to the bone_.
When we would see thee man, and know
What heart thou had'st towards man indeed,
Lo, thy blood-blackened altars; lo,
The lips of priests that pray and feed,
_While their own hell's worm curls and licks
The poison of the crucifix_.
Thou bad'st the children come to thee,--
_What children now but curses come_,
What manhood in that God can be
Who sees their worship and is dumb?--
No soul that lived, loved, wrought, and died
_Is this, their Carrion Crucified!_
Nay, if their God and thou be one
If thou and _this thing_ be the same,
Thou should'st not look upon the sun,
_The sun grows haggard at thy name!_
Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er,
Hide thyself, strive not, _be no more!_"
From the time of reading this, I used to think of Christ as 'carrion
crucified';--if I ever thought at all. I found out that no one had
ever reproached Swinburne for this term,--that it did not interfere
with his chances for the Laureateship,--and that not even a priest
of the church had been bold-spoken or zealous enough in his Master's
cause to publicly resent the shameless outrage. So I concluded that
Swinburne must, after all, be right in his opinions, and I followed
the lazy and unthinking course of social movement, spending my days
with such literature as stored my brain with a complete knowledge of
things evil and pernicious. Whatever soul I had in me was killed;
the freshness of my mind was gone,--Swinburne, among others, had
helped me to live mentally, if not physically, through such a phase
of vice as had poisoned my thoughts for ever. I understand there is
some vague law in existence about placing an interdiction on certain
books considered injurious to public morals,--if there is such a
rule, it has been curiously lax concerning the author of
'Anactoria'--who, by virtue of being a poet, passes unquestioned
into many a home, carrying impure suggestion into minds that were
once cleanly and simple. As for me, after I had studied his verse to
my heart's content, nothing remained sacred,--I judged men as beasts
and women as little better,--I had no belief in honour, virtue or
truth,--and I was absolutely indifferent to all things save one, and
that was my resolve to have my own way as far as love was concerned.
I might be forced to marry without love for purely
money-considerations,--but all the same, love I would have, or what
I called love;--not an 'ideal' passion by any means, but precisely
what Mr Swinburne and a few of the most-praised novelists of the day
had taught me to consider as love. I began to wonder when and how I
should meet my lover,--such thoughts as I had at this time indeed
would have made moralists stare and uplift their hands in
horror,--but to the exterior world I was the very pink and pattern
of maidenly decorum, reserve and pride. Men desired, but feared me;
for I never gave them any encouragement, seeing as yet none among
them whom I deemed worthy of such love as I could give. The majority
resembled carefully trained baboons,--respectably clothed and
artistically shaven,--but nevertheless all with the spasmodic grin,
the leering eye and the uncouth gestures of the hairy woodland
monster. When I was just eighteen I 'came out' in earnest--that is,
I was presented at Court with all the foolish and farcical pomp
practised on such occasions. I was told before going that it was a
great and necessary thing to be 'presented,'--that it was a
guarantee of position, and above all of reputation,--the Queen
received none whose conduct was not rigidly correct and virtuous.
What humbug it all was!--I laughed then, and I can smile now to
think of it,--why, the very woman who presented me had two
illegitimate sons, unknown to her lawful husband, and she was not
the only playful sinner in the Court comedy! Some women were there
that day whom since even _I_ would not receive--so openly infamous
are their lives and characters, yet they make their demure curtseys
before the Throne at stated times, and assume to be the very
patterns of virtue and austerity. Now and then, it chances in the
case of an exceedingly beautiful woman, of whom all the others are
jealous, that for her little slips she is selected as an 'example'
and excluded from Court, while her plainer sisters, though sinning
seventy times seven against all the laws of decency and morality,
are still received,--but otherwise, there is very little real care
exercised as to the character and prestige of the women whom the
Queen receives. If any one of them _is_ refused, it is certain she
adds to her social enormities, the greater crime of being beautiful,
otherwise there would be no one to whisper away her reputation! I
was what is called a 'success' on my presentation day. That is, I
was stared at, and openly flattered by certain members of my sex who
were too old and ugly to be jealous, and treated with insolent
contempt by those who were young enough to be my rivals. There was a
great crush to get into the Throne-Room; and some of the ladies used
rather strong language. One duchess, just in front of me, said to
her companion--'Do as I do,--_kick out_! Bruise their shins for
them--as hard as you can,--we shall get on faster then!' This choice
remark was accompanied by the grin of a fishwife and the stare of a
drab. Yet it was a 'great' lady who spoke,--not a Transatlantic
importation, but a woman of distinguished lineage and connection.
Her observation however was only one out of many similar speeches
which I heard on all sides of me during the 'distinguished'
mélée,--a thoroughly ill-mannered 'crush,' which struck me as
supremely vulgar and totally unfitting the dignity of our
Sovereign's court. When I curtsied before the Throne at last, and
saw the majesty of the Empire represented by a kindly faced old
lady, looking very tired and bored, whose hand was as cold as ice
when I kissed it, I was conscious of an intense feeling of pity for
her in her high estate. Who would be a Monarch, to be doomed to the
perpetual receiving of a company of fools! I got through my duties
quickly, and returned home more or less wearied out and disgusted
with the whole ceremony,--and next day I found that my 'debût' had
given me the position of a 'leading beauty'; or in other words that
I was now formally put up for sale. That is really what is meant by
being 'presented' and 'coming out,'--these are the fancy terms of
one's parental auctioneer. My life was now passed in dressing,
having my photograph taken, giving 'sittings' to aspiring
fashionable painters, and being 'inspected' by men with a view to
matrimony. It was distinctly understood in society that I was not to
be sold under a certain figure per annum,--and the price was too
high for most would-be purchasers. How sick I grew of my constant
exhibition in the marriage-market! What contempt and hatred was
fostered in me for the mean and pitiable hypocrisies of my set! I
was not long in discovering that money was the chief-motive power of
all social success,--that the proudest and highest personages in
the world could be easily gathered together under the roof of any
vulgar plebeian who happened to have enough cash to feed and
entertain them. As an example of this, I remember a woman, ugly,
passée and squint-eyed, who during her father's life was only
allowed about half-a-crown a week as pocket-money up to her fortieth
year,--and who, when that father died, leaving her in possession of
half his fortune, (the other half going to illegitimate children of
whom she had never heard, he having always posed as a pattern of
immaculate virtue) suddenly blossomed out as a 'leader' of fashion,
and succeeded, through cautious scheming and ungrudging toadyism, in
assembling some of the highest people in the land under her roof.
Ugly and passée though she was, and verging towards fifty, with
neither grace, wit, nor intelligence, through the power of her cash
alone she invited Royal dukes and 'titles' generally to her dinners
and dances,--and it is to their shame that they actually accepted
her invitations. Such voluntary degradations on the part of really
well-connected people I have never been able to understand,--it is
not as if they were actually in want of food or amusement, for they
have a surfeit of both every season,--and it seems to me that they
ought to show a better example than to flock in crowds to the
entertainments of a mere uninteresting and ugly nobody just because
she happens to have money. I never entered her house myself though
she had the audacity to invite me,--I learned moreover, that she had
promised a friend of mine a hundred guineas if she could persuade me
to make one appearance in her rooms. For my renown as a 'beauty'
combined with my pride and exclusiveness, would have given her
parties a _prestige_ greater than even Royalty could bestow,--_she_
knew that and _I_ knew that,--and knowing it, never condescended to
so much as notice her by a bow. But though I took a certain
satisfaction in thus revenging myself on the atrocious vulgarity of
_parvenus_ and social interlopers, I grew intensely weary of the
monotony and emptiness of what fashionable folks call 'amusement,'
and presently falling ill of a nervous fever, I was sent down to
the seaside for a few weeks' change of air with a young cousin of
mine, a girl I rather liked because she was so different to myself.
Her name was Eva Maitland--she was but sixteen and extremely
delicate--poor little soul! she died two months before my marriage.
She and I, and a maid to attend us, went down to Cromer,--and one
day, sitting on the cliffs together, she asked me timidly if I knew
an author named Mavis Clare? I told her no,--whereupon she handed me
a book called 'The Wings of Psyche.'
"Do read it!" she said earnestly--"It will make you feel so happy!"
I laughed. The idea of a modern author writing anything to make one
feel happy, seemed to me quite ludicrous, the aim of most of them
being to awaken a disgust of life, and a hatred of one's
fellow-creatures. However, to please Eva, I read the 'Wings of
Psyche,'--and if it did not make me actually happy, it moved me to a
great wonder and deep reverence for the woman-writer of such a book.
I found out all about her,--that she was young, good-looking, of a
noble character and unblemished reputation, and that her only
enemies were the press-critics. This last point was so much in her
favour with me that I at once bought everything she had ever
written, and her works became, as it were, my haven of rest. Her
theories of life are strange, poetic, ideal and beautiful;--though I
have not been able to accept them or work them out in my own case, I
have always felt soothed and comforted for a while in the very act
of wishing they were true. And the woman is like her
books,--strange, poetic, ideal and beautiful,--how odd it is to
think that she is within ten minutes walk of me now!--I could send
for her if I liked, and tell her all,--but she would prevent me
carrying out my resolve. She would cling to me woman-like and kiss
me, and hold my hands and say 'No, Sibyl, no! You are not
yourself,--you must come to me and rest!' An odd fancy has seized
me, ... I will open my window and call her very gently,--she might
be in the garden coming here to see me,--and if she hears and
answers, who knows!--why, perhaps my ideas may change, and fate
itself may take a different course!
* * * * *
Well, I have called her. I have sent her name 'Mavis!' softly out on
the sunshine and still air three times, and only a little brown
namesake of hers, a thrush, swinging on a branch of fir, answered me
with his low autumnal piping. Mavis! She will not come,--to-day God
will not make her His messenger. She cannot guess--she does not know
this tragedy of my heart, greater and more poignant than all the
tragedies of fiction. If she did know me as I am, I wonder what she
would think of me!
* * * * *
Let me go back to the time when love came to me,--love, ardent,
passionate, and eternal! Ah, what wild joy thrilled through me! what
mad ecstasy fired my blood!--what delirious dreams possessed my
brain!--I saw Lucio,--and it seemed as if the splendid eyes of some
great angel had flashed a glory in my soul! With him came his
friend, the foil to his beauty,--the arrogant, self-satisfied fool
of a millionaire, Geoffrey Tempest,--he who bought me, and who by
virtue of his purchase, is entitled by law to call himself my
husband ..."
Here I paused in my reading and looked up. The dead woman's eyes
appeared now to regard me as steadily as herself in the opposite
mirror,--the head was a little more dropped forward on the breast, and
the whole face very nearly resembled that of the late Countess of Elton
when the last shock of paralysis had rendered her hideous disfigurement
complete.
"To think I loved _that_!" I said aloud, pointing at the corpse's
ghastly reflection--"Fool that I was indeed!--as great a fool as all men
are who barter their lives for the possession of a woman's mere body!
Why if there were any life after death,--if such a creature had a soul
that at all resembled this poisoned clay, the very devils might turn
away aghast from such a loathly comrade!"
The candles flickered and the dead face seemed to smile,--a clock
chimed in the adjoining room, but I did not count the hour,--I merely
arranged the manuscript pages I held more methodically, and read on with
renewed attention.
XXXVI
"From the moment I saw Lucio Rimânez"--went on Sibyl's 'dying
speech'--"I abandoned myself to love and the desire of love. I had
heard of him before from my father who had (as I learned to my
shame) been indebted to him for monetary assistance. On the very
night we met, my father told me quite plainly that now was my chance
to get 'settled' in life. 'Marry Rimânez or Tempest, whichever you
can most easily catch,' he said--'The prince is fabulously
wealthy--but he keeps up a mystery about himself and no one knows
where he actually comes from,--besides which he dislikes women;--now
Tempest has five millions and seems an easy-going fool,--I should
say you had better go for Tempest.' I made no answer and gave no
promise either way. I soon found out however that Lucio did not
intend to marry,--and I concluded that he preferred to be the lover
of many women, instead of the husband of one. I did not love him any
the less for this,--I only resolved that I would at least be one of
those who were happy enough to share his passion. I married the man
Tempest, feeling that like many women I knew, I should when safely
wedded, have greater liberty of action,--I was aware that most
modern men prefer an amour with a married woman to any other kind of
_liaison_,--and I thought Lucio would have readily yielded to the
plan I had pre-conceived. But I was mistaken,--and out of this
mistake comes all my perplexity, pain and bewilderment I cannot
understand why my love,--beloved beyond all word or
thought,--should scorn me and repulse me with such bitter loathing!
It is such a common thing now-a-days for a married woman to have her
own lover, apart from her husband _de convenance_! The writers of
books advise it,--I have seen the custom not only excused but
advocated over and over again in long and scientific articles that
are openly published in leading magazines. Why then should I be
blamed or my desires considered criminal? As long as no public
scandal is made, what harm is done? I cannot see it,--it is not as
if there were a God to care,--the scientists say there is no God!
* * * * *
I was very startled just now. I thought I heard Lucio's voice
calling me. I have walked through the rooms looking everywhere, and
I opened my door to listen, but there is no one. I am alone. I have
told the servant not to disturb me till I ring; ... I shall never
ring! Now I come to think of it, it is singular that I have never
known who Lucio really is. A prince, he says--and that I can well
believe,--though truly princes now-a-days are so plebeian and common
in look and bearing that he seems too great to belong to so shabby a
fraternity. From what kingdom does he come?--to what nation does he
belong? These are questions which he never answers save equivocally.
* * * * *
I pause here, and look at myself in the mirror. How beautiful I am!
I note with admiration the deep and dewy lustre of my eyes and their
dark silky fringes,--I see the delicate colouring of my cheeks and
lips,--the dear rounded chin with its pretty dimple,--the pure lines
of my slim throat and snowy neck,--the glistening wealth of my long
hair. All this was given to me for the attraction and luring of men,
but my love, whom I love with all this living, breathing, exquisite
being of mine, can see no beauty in me, and rejects me with such
scorn as pierces my very soul. I have knelt to him,--I have prayed
to him,--I have worshipped him,--in vain! Hence it comes that I must
die. Only one thing he said that had the sound of hope, though the
utterance was fierce, and his looks were cruel,--'Patience!' he
whispered--'we shall meet ere long!' What did he mean?--what
possible meeting can there be now, when death must close the gate of
life, and even love would come too late!
* * * * *
I have unlocked my jewel-case and taken from it the deadly thing
secreted there,--a poison that was entrusted to me by one of the
physicians who lately attended my mother. 'Keep this under lock and
key,' he said, 'and be sure that it is used only for external
purposes. There is sufficient in this flask to kill ten men, if
swallowed by mistake.' I look at it wonderingly. It is
colourless,--and there is not enough to fill a teaspoon, ... yet ...
it will bring down upon me an eternal darkness, and close up for
ever the marvellous scenes of the universe! So little!--to do so
much! I have fastened Lucio's wedding-gift round my waist,--the
beautiful snake of jewels that clings to me as though it were
charged with an embrace from him,--ah! would I could cheat myself
into so pleasing a fancy! ... I am trembling, but not with cold or
fear,--it is simply an excitation of the nerves,----an instinctive
recoil of flesh and blood at the near prospect of death.... How
brilliantly the sun shines through my window!--its callous golden
stare has watched so many tortured creatures die without so much as
a cloud to dim its radiance by way of the suggestion of pity! If
there were a God I fancy He would be like the sun,--glorious,
changeless, unapproachable, beautiful, but pitiless!
* * * * *
Out of all the various types of human beings I think I hate the
class called poets most. I used to love them and believe in them;
but I know them now to be mere weavers of lies,--builders of cloud
castles in which no throbbing life can breathe, no weary heart find
rest. Love is their chief motive,--they either idealize or degrade
it,--and of the love we women long for most, they have no
conception. They can only sing of brute passion or ethical
impossibilities,--of the mutual great sympathy, the ungrudging
patient tenderness that should make love lovely, they have no sweet
things to say. Between their strained æstheticism and unbridled
sensualism, my spirit has been stretched on the rack and broken on
the wheel, ... I should think many a wretched woman wrecked among
love's disillusions must curse them as I do!
* * * * *
I am ready now, I think. There is nothing more to say. I offer no
excuses for myself. I am as I was made,--a proud and rebellious
woman, self-willed and sensual, seeing no fault in free love, and no
crime in conjugal infidelity,--and if I am vicious, I can honestly
declare that my vices have been encouraged and fostered in me by
most of the literary teachers of my time. I married, as most women
of my set marry, merely for money,--I loved, as most women of my set
love, for mere bodily attraction,--I die, as most women of my set
will die, either naturally or self-slain, in utter atheism,
rejoicing that there is no God and no Hereafter!
* * * * *
I had the poison in my hand a moment ago, ready to take, when I
suddenly felt someone approaching me stealthily from behind, and
glancing up quickly at the mirror I saw ... my mother! Her face,
hideous and ghastly as it had been in her last illness, was
reflected in the glass, peering over my shoulder! I sprang up and
confronted her,----she was gone! And now I am shivering with cold,
and I feel a chill dampness on my forehead,--mechanically I have
soaked a handkerchief with perfume from one of the silver bottles on
the dressing table, and have passed it across my temples to help me
recover from this sick swooning sensation. To _recover_!--how
foolish of me, seeing I am about to die. I do not believe in
ghosts,--yet I could have sworn my mother was actually present just
now,--of course it was an optical delusion of my own feverish brain.
The strong scent on my handkerchief reminds me of Paris--I can see
the shop where I bought this particular perfume, and the
well-dressed doll of a man who served me, with his little waxed
moustache, and his indefinable French manner of conveying a
speechless personal compliment while making out a bill.... Laughing
at this recollection, I see my face radiate in the glass,--my eyes
flash into vivid lustre, and the dimples near my lips come and go,
giving my expression an enchanting sweetness. Yet in a few hours
this loveliness will be destroyed,--and in a few days, the worms
will twine where the smile is now!
* * * * *
An idea has come upon me that perhaps I ought to say a prayer. It
would be hypocritical,--but conventional. To die fashionably, one
ought to concede a few words to the church. And yet ... to kneel
down with clasped hands and tell an inactive, unsympathetic,
selfish, paid community called the church, that I am going to kill
myself for the sake of love and love's despair, and that therefore I
humbly implore its forgiveness for the act seems absurd,--as absurd
as to tell the same thing to a non-existent Deity. I suppose the
scientists do not think what a strange predicament their advanced
theories put the human mind in at the hour of death. They forget
that on the brink of the grave, thoughts come that will not be
gainsaid, and that cannot be appeased by a learned thesis....
However I will not pray,--it would seem to myself cowardly that I
who have never said my prayers since I was a child, should run over
them now in a foolish babbling attempt to satisfy the powers
invisible,--I could not, out of sheer association, appeal to Mr
Swinburne's 'crucified carrion'! Besides I do not believe in the
powers invisible at all,--I feel that once outside this life, 'the
rest' as Hamlet said 'is silence.'
* * * * *
I have been staring dreamily and in a sort of stupefaction at the
little poison-flask in my hand. _It is quite empty now._ I have
swallowed every drop of the liquid it contained,--I took it quickly
and determinately as one takes nauseous medicine, without allowing
myself another moment of time for thought or hesitation. It tasted
acrid and burning on my tongue,--but at present I am not conscious
of any strange or painful result. I shall watch my face in the
mirror and trace the oncoming of death,--this will be at any rate a
new sensation not without interest!
* * * * *
My mother is here,--here with me in this room! She is moving about
restlessly, making wild gestures with her hands and trying to speak.
She looks as she did when she was dying,--only more alive, more
sentient. I have followed her up and down, but am unable to touch
her,--she eludes my grasp. I have called her 'Mother! Mother!' but
no sound issues from her white lips. Her face is so appalling that I
was seized with a convulsion of terror a moment ago and fell on my
knees before her imploring her to leave me,--and then she paused in
her gliding to and fro and--smiled! What a hideous smile it was! I
think I lost consciousness, ... for I found myself lying on the
ground. A sharp and terrible pain running through me made me spring
to my feet, ... and I bit my lips till they bled, lest I should
scream aloud with the agony I suffered and so alarm the house. When
the paroxysm passed I saw my mother standing quite near to me,
dumbly watching me with a strange expression of wonder and remorse.
I tottered past her and back to this chair where I now sit,----I am
calmer now, and I am able to realize that she is only the phantom of
my own brain--that I _fancy_ she is here while _knowing_ she is
dead.
* * * * *
Torture indescribable has made of me a writhing, moaning, helpless
creature for the past few minutes. Truly that drug was deadly;--the
pain is horrible ... horrible! ... it has left me quivering in every
limb and palpitating in every nerve. Looking at my face in the glass
I see that it has already altered. It is drawn and livid,--all the
fresh rose-tint of my lips has gone,--my eyes protrude unnaturally,
... there are dull blue marks at the corners of my mouth and in the
hollows of my temples, and I observe a curious quick pulsation in
the veins of my throat. Be my torment what it will, now there is no
remedy,--and I am resolved to sit here and study my own features to
the end. 'The reaper whose name is Death' must surely be near, ready
to gather my long hair in his skeleton hand like a sheaf of ripe
corn, ... my poor beautiful hair!--how I have loved its glistening
ripples, and brushed it, and twined it round my fingers, ... and how
soon it will lie like a dank weed in the mould!
* * * * *
A devouring fire is in my brain and body,--I am burning with heat
and parched with thirst,--I have drunk deep draughts of cold water,
but this has not relieved me. The sun glares in upon me like an open
furnace,--I have tried to rise and close the blind against it, but
find I have no force to stand upright. The strong radiance blinds
me:--the silver toilet boxes on my table glitter like so many points
of swords. It is by a powerful effort of will that I am able to
continue writing,--my head is swimming round,--and there is a
choking sensation in my throat.
* * * * *
A moment since I thought I was dying. Torn asunder as it were by the
most torturing pangs, I could have screamed for help,--and would
have done so, had voice been left me. But I cannot speak above a
whisper,--I mutter my own name to myself 'Sibyl! Sibyl!' and can
scarcely hear it. My mother stands beside me,--apparently
waiting;--a little while ago I thought I heard her say 'Come, Sibyl!
Come to your chosen lover!' Now I am conscious of a great silence
everywhere,--a numbness has fallen upon me, and a delicious respite
from pain,--but I see my face in the glass and know it is the face
of the dead. It will soon be all over,--a few more uneasy
breathings,--and I shall be at rest. I am glad,--for the world and I
were never good friends;--I am sure that if we could know, before we
were born, what life really is, we should never take the trouble to
live!
* * * * *
A horrible fear has suddenly beset me. What if death were not what
the scientists deem it,--suppose it were another form of life? Can
it be that I am losing reason and courage together? ... or what is
this terrible misgiving that is taking possession of me? ... I begin
to falter ... a strange sense of horror is creeping over me ... I
have no more physical pain, but something worse than pain oppresses
me ... a feeling that I cannot define. I am dying ... dying!--I
repeat this to myself for comfort, ... in a little while I shall be
deaf and blind and unconscious, ... why then is the silence around
me now broken through by sound? I listen,--and I hear distinctly the
clamour of wild voices mingled with a sullen jar and roll as of
distant thunder! ... My mother stands closer to me, ... she is
stretching out her hand to touch mine!
* * * * *
Oh God! ... Let me write--write--while I can! Let me yet hold fast
the thread which fastens me to earth,--give me time--time before I
drift out, lost in yonder blackness and flame! Let me write for
others the awful Truth, as I see it,--there is No death!
None--none!--_I cannot die._ I am passing out of my body,--I am
being wrenched away from it inch by inch in inexplicable mystic
torture,--but I am not dying,--I am being carried forward into a new
life, vague and vast! ... I see a new world full of dark forms, half
shaped yet shapeless!--they float towards me, beckoning me on. I am
actively conscious--I hear, I think, I know! Death is a mere human
dream,--a comforting fancy; it has no real existence,--there is
nothing in the Universe but life! O hideous misery!--_I cannot die!_
In my mortal body I can scarcely breathe,--the pen I try to hold
writes of itself rather than through my shaking hand,--but these
pangs are the throes of birth--not death! ... I hold back,--with all
the force of my soul I strive not to plunge into that black abyss I
see before me--but--_my mother drags me with her_,--I cannot shake
her off! I hear her voice now;--she speaks distinctly, and laughs as
though she wept; 'Come Sibyl! Soul of the child I bore, come and
meet your lover! Come and see upon WHOM you fixed your faith! Soul
of the woman I trained, return to that from whence you came!' Still
I hold back,--nude and trembling I stare into a dark void--and now
there are wings about me,--wings of fiery scarlet!--they fill the
space,--they enfold me,--they propel me,--they rush past and whirl
around me, stinging me as with flying arrows and showers of hail!
* * * * *
Let me write on,--write on, with this dead fleshly hand, ... one
moment more time, dread God! ... one moment more to write the
truth,--the terrible truth of Death whose darkest secret, Life, is
unknown to men! I live!--a new, strong, impetuous vitality possesses
me, though my mortal body is nearly dead. Faint gasps and weak
shudderings affect it still,--and I, outside it and no longer of it,
propel its perishing hand to write these final words--_I live!_ To
my despair and horror,--to my remorse and agony, I live!--oh the
unspeakable misery of this new life! And worst of all,--God whom I
doubted, God whom I was taught to deny, this wronged, blasphemed,
and outraged God EXISTS! And I could have found Him had I
chosen,--this knowledge is forced upon me as I am torn from
hence,--it is shouted at me by a thousand wailing voices! ... too
late!--too late!--the scarlet wings beat me downward,--these strange
half-shapeless forms close round and drive me onward ... to a
further darkness, ... amid wind and fire!
* * * * *
Serve me, dead hand, once more ere I depart, ... my tortured spirit
must seize and compel you to write down this thing unnameable, that
earthly eyes may read, and earthly souls take timely warning! ... I
know at last WHOM I have loved!--whom I have chosen, whom I have
worshipped! ... Oh God, have mercy! ... I know WHO claims my worship
now, and drags me into yonder rolling world of flame! ... his name
is ........"
Here the manuscript ended,--incomplete and broken off abruptly,--and
there was a blot on the last sentence as though the pen had been
violently wrenched from the dying fingers and hastily flung down.
The clock in the west room again chimed the hour. I rose stiffly from my
chair, trembling,--my self-possession was giving way, and I began to
feel at last unnerved. I looked askance at my dead wife,--she, who with
a superhuman dying effort had declared herself to be yet alive,--who, in
some imaginable strange way had seemingly written _after_ death, in a
frantic desire to make some appalling declaration which nevertheless
remained undeclared. The rigid figure of the corpse had now real terrors
for me,--I dared not touch it,--I scarcely dared look at it, ... in some
dim inscrutable fashion I felt as if "scarlet wings" environed it,
beating me down, yet pressing me on,--me too, in my turn! With the
manuscript gathered close in my hand, I bent nervously forward to blow
out the wax lights on the toilet table, ... I saw on the floor the
handkerchief odorous with the French perfume the dead woman had written
of,--I picked it up and placed it near her where she sat, grinning
hideously at her own mirrored ghastliness. The flash of the jewelled
serpent round her waist caught my eyes anew as I did this, and I stared
for a moment at its green glitter, dumbly fascinated,--then, moving
stealthily, with the cold sweat pouring down my back and every pulse in
me rendered feeble by sheer horror, I turned to leave the room. As I
reached the portiére and lifted it, some instinct made me look back at
the dread picture of the leading "society" beauty sitting stark and
livid pale before her own stark and livid-pale image in the glass,--what
a "fashion-plate" she would make now, I thought, for a frivolous and
hypocritical "ladies' paper!"
"You say you are not dead, Sibyl!" I muttered aloud--"Not dead, but
living! Then, if you are alive, where are you, Sibyl?----where are you?"
The heavy silence seemed fraught with fearful meaning,--the light of the
electric lamps on the corpse and on the shimmering silk garment wrapped
round it appeared unearthly,--and the perfume in the room had a
grave-like earthy smell. A panic seized me, and dragging frantically at
the portiére till all its velvet folds were drawn thickly together, I
made haste to shut out from my sight the horrible figure of the woman
whose bodily fairness I had loved in the customary way of sensual
men,--and left her without so much as a pardoning or pitying kiss of
farewell on the cold brow. For, ... after all I had Myself to think of,
... and She was dead!
XXXVII
I pass over all the details of polite "shock," affected sorrow, and
feigned sympathy of society at my wife's sudden death. No one was really
grieved about it,--men raised their eyebrows, shrugged their shoulders,
lit extra cigarettes and dismissed the subject as too unpleasant and
depressing to dwell upon,--women were glad of the removal of a too
beautiful and too much admired rival, and the majority of fashionable
folk delighted in having something "thrilling" to talk about in the
tragic circumstances of her end. As a rule, people are seldom or never
unselfish enough to be honestly sorry for the evanishment of some
leading or brilliant figure from their midst,--the vacancy leaves room
for the pushing in of smaller fry. Be sure that if you are unhappily
celebrated for either beauty, wit, intellect, or all three together,
half society wishes you dead already, and the other half tries to make
you as wretched as possible while you are alive. To be missed at all
when you die, some one must love you very deeply and unselfishly; and
deep unselfish love is rarer to find among mortals than a pearl in a
dust-bin.
Thanks to my abundance of cash, everything concerning Sibyl's suicide
was admirably managed. In consideration of her social position as an
Earl's daughter, two doctors certified (on my paying them very handsome
fees) that hers was a 'death by misadventure,'--namely, through taking
an accidental overdose of a powerful sleeping draught. It was the best
report to make,--and the most respectable. It gave the penny press an
opportunity of moralizing on the dangers that lurked in sleeping
draughts generally,--and Tom, Dick, and Harry all wrote letters to their
favorite periodicals (signing their names in full) giving _their_
opinions as to the nature of sleeping draughts, so that for a week at
least the ordinary dullness of the newspapers was quite enlivened by
ungrammatical _gratis_ 'copy.' The conventionalities of law, decency and
order were throughout scrupulously observed and complied
with,--everybody was paid (which was the chief thing), and everybody
was, I believe, satisfied with what they managed to make out of the
death-payment. The funeral gave joy to the souls of all undertakers,--it
was so expensive and impressive. The florist's trade gained something of
an impetus by the innumerable orders received for wreaths and crosses
made of the costliest flowers. When the coffin was carried to the grave,
it could not be seen for the load of blossoms that covered it. And amid
all the cards and 'loving tokens' and 'farewell dearests' and
'not-lost-but-gone-befores'--that ticketed the white masses of lilies,
gardenias and roses which were supposed to symbolize the innocence and
sweetness of the poisoned corpse they were sent to adorn, there was not
one honest regret,--not one unfeigned expression of true sorrow. Lord
Elton made a sufficiently striking figure of dignified parental woe, but
on the whole I think he was not sorry for his daughter's death, since
the only opposing obstacle to his marriage with Diana Chesney was now
removed. I fancy Diana herself was sorry, so far as such a frivolous
little American could be sorry for anything,--perhaps, however it would
be more correct to say that she was frightened. Sibyl's sudden end
startled and troubled her,--but I am not sure that it grieved her. There
is such a difference between unselfish grief, and the mere sense of
nervous personal shock! Miss Charlotte Fitzroy took the news of her
niece's death with that admirable fortitude which frequently
characterizes religious spinsters of a certain age. She put by her
knitting,--said 'God's will be done!' and sent for her favorite
clergyman. He came, stayed with her some hours drinking strong
tea,--and the next morning at church administered to her communion.
This done, Miss Fitzroy went on the blameless and even tenor of her way,
wearing the same virtuously distressed expression as usual, and showed
no further sign of feeling. I, as the afflicted millionaire-husband, was
no doubt the most interesting figure on the scene; I was, I know very
well got up, thanks to my tailor, and to the affectionate care of the
chief undertaker who handed me my black gloves on the day of the funeral
with servile solicitude, but in my heart I felt myself to be a far
better actor than Henry Irving, and if only for my admirable mimicry of
heart-break, more fully worthy of the accolade. Lucio did not attend the
obsequies,--he wrote me a brief note of sympathy from town, and hinted
that he was sure I could understand his reasons for not being present. I
did understand, of course,--and appreciated his respect, as I thought,
for me and my feelings,--yet strange and incongruous as it may seem, I
never longed so much for his company as I did then! However,--we had a
glorious burial of my fair and false lady,--prancing horses drew
coroneted carriages in a long defile down the pretty Warwickshire lanes
to the grey old church, picturesque and peaceful, where the clergyman
and his assistants in newly-washed surplices, met the flower-laden
coffin, and with the usual conventional mumblings, consigned it to the
dust. There were even press-reporters present, who not only described
the scene as it did _not_ happen, but who also sent fancy sketches, to
their respective journals, of the church as it did _not_ exist. I
mention this simply to show how thoroughly all "proper forms" were
carried out and conceded to. After the ceremony all we "mourners" went
back to Willowsmere to luncheon, and I well remember that Lord Elton
told me a new and _risqué_ joke over a glass of port before the meal was
finished. The undertakers had a sort of festive banquet in the servants'
hall,--and taking everything into due consideration, my wife's death
gave a great deal of pleasure to many people, and put useful money into
several ready pockets. She had left no blank in society that could not
be easily filled up,--she was merely one butterfly out of thousands,
more daintily coloured perhaps and more restless in flight,--but never
judged as more than up to the butterfly standard. I said no one gave her
an honest regret, but I was wrong. Mavis Clare was genuinely, almost
passionately grieved. She sent no flowers for the coffin, but she came
to the funeral by herself, and stood a little apart waiting silently
till the grave was covered in,--and then, just as the "fashionable"
train of mourners were leaving the churchyard, she advanced and placed a
white cross of her own garden-lilies upon the newly-turned brown mould.
I noticed her action, and determined that before I left Willowsmere for
the East with Lucio (for my journey had only been postponed a week or
two on account of Sibyl's death) she should know all.
The day came when I carried out this resolve. It was a rainy and chill
afternoon, and I found Mavis in her study, sitting beside a bright log
fire with her small terrier in her lap and her faithful St Bernard
stretched at her feet. She was absorbed in a book,--and over her watched
the marble Pallas inflexible and austere. As I entered she rose, and
putting down the volume and her pet dog together, she advanced to meet
me with an intense sympathy in her clear eyes, and a wordless pity in
the tremulous lines of her sweet mouth. It was charming to see how sorry
she felt for me,--and it was odd that I could not feel sorry for myself.
After a few words of embarrassed greeting I sat down and watched her
silently, while she arranged the logs in the fire to make them burn
brighter, and for the moment avoided my gaze.
"I suppose you know,"--I began with harsh abruptness--"that the
sleeping-draught story is a polite fiction? You know that my wife
poisoned herself intentionally?"
Mavis looked at me with a troubled and compassionate expression.
"I feared it was so--" ... she began nervously.
"Oh there is nothing either to fear or to hope"--I said with some
violence--"_She did it._ And can you guess why she did it? Because she
was mad with her own wickedness and sensuality,--because she loved with
a guilty love, my friend Lucio Rimânez."
Mavis gave a little cry as of pain, and sat down white and trembling.
"You can read quickly, I am sure,"--I went on. "Part of the profession
of literature is the ability to skim books and manuscripts rapidly, and
grasp the whole gist of them in a few minutes;--read _this_--" and I
handed her the rolled-up pages of Sibyl's dying declaration--"Let me
stay here, while you learn from that what sort of a woman she was, and
judge whether, despite her beauty, she is worth a regret!"
"Pardon me,--" said Mavis gently--"I would rather not read what was not
meant for my eyes."
"But it _is_ meant for your eyes,"--I retorted impatiently--"It is meant
for everybody's eyes apparently,--it is addressed to nobody in
particular. There is a mention of you in it. I beg--nay I command you to
read it!--I want your opinion on it,--your advice; you may possibly
suggest, after perusal, the proper sort of epitaph I ought to inscribe
on the monument I am going to build to her sacred and dear memory!"
I covered my face with one hand to hide the bitter smile which I knew
betrayed my thoughts, and pushed the manuscript towards her. Very
reluctantly she took it,--and slowly unrolling it, began to read. For
several minutes there was a silence, broken only by the crackling of the
logs on the fire, and the regular breathing of the dogs who now both lay
stretched comfortably in front of the wood blaze. I looked covertly at
the woman whose fame I had envied,--at the slight figure, the coronal of
soft hair,--the delicate, drooping sensitive face,--the small white
classic hand that held the written sheets of paper so firmly, yet so
tenderly,--the very hand of the Greek marble Psyche;--and I thought what
short-sighted asses some literary men are who suppose they can succeed
in shutting out women like Mavis Clare from winning everything that fame
or fortune can offer. Such a head as hers, albeit covered with locks
fair and caressable, was not meant, in its fine shape and compactness,
for submission to inferior intelligences whether masculine or
feminine,--that determined little chin which the firelight delicately
outlined, was a visible declaration of the strength of will and the
indomitably high ambition of its owner,--and yet, ... the soft
eyes,--the tender mouth,--did not these suggest the sweetest love, the
purest passion that ever found place in a woman's heart? I lost myself
in dreamy musing,--I thought of many things that had little to do with
either my own past or present. I realized that now and then at rare
intervals God makes a woman of genius with a thinker's brain and an
angel's soul,--and that such an one is bound to be a destiny to all
mortals less divinely endowed, and a glory to the world in which she
dwells. So considering, I studied Mavis Clare's face and form,--I saw
her eyes fill with tears as she read on;--why should she weep, I
wondered, over that 'last document' which had left me unmoved and
callous? I was startled almost as if from sleep when her voice,
thrilling with pain, disturbed the stillness,--she sprang up, gazing at
me as if she saw some horrible vision.
"Oh, are you so blind," she cried, "as not to see what this means? Can
you not understand? Do you not know your worst enemy?"
"My worst enemy?" I echoed amazed--"You surprise me, Mavis,--what have
I, or my enemies or friends to do with my wife's last confession? She
raved,--between poison and passion, she could not tell, as you see by
her final words, whether she was dead or alive,--and her writing at all
under such stress of circumstances was a phenomenal effort,--but it has
nothing to do with me personally."
"For God's sake do not be so hard-hearted!"--said Mavis
passionately--"To me these last words of Sibyl's,--poor, tortured,
miserable girl!--are beyond all expression horrible and appalling. Do
you mean to tell me you have no belief in a future life?"
"None." I answered with conviction.
"Then this is nothing to you?--this solemn assurance of hers that she
is not dead, but living again,--living too, in indescribable
misery!--you do not believe it?"
"Does anyone believe the ravings of the dying!" I answered--"She was, as
I have said, suffering the torments of poison and passion,--and in those
torments wrote as one tormented...."
"Is it impossible to convince you of the truth?" asked Mavis
solemnly,--"Are you so diseased in your spiritual perceptions as not to
_know_, beyond a doubt, that this world is but the shadow of the Other
Worlds awaiting us? I assure you, as I live, you will have that terrible
knowledge forced upon you some day! I am aware of your theories,--your
wife had the same beliefs or rather non-beliefs as yourself,--yet _she_
has been convinced at last! I shall not attempt to argue with you. If
this last letter of the unhappy girl you wedded cannot open your eyes to
the eternal facts you choose to ignore, nothing will ever help you. You
are in the power of your enemy!"
"Of whom are you speaking, Mavis?" I asked astonished, observing that
she stood like one suddenly appalled in a dream, her eyes fixed musingly
on vacancy, and her lips trembling apart.
"Your Enemy--your Enemy!" she repeated with energy--"It seems to me as
if his Shadow stood near you now! Listen to this voice from the
dead--Sibyl's voice!----what does she say?----'_Oh God, have mercy!----I
know who claims my worship now and drags me into yonder rolling world of
flame ... his name is--_'" ...
"Well!" I interrupted eagerly----"She breaks off there; his name is----"
"Lucio Rimânez!" said Mavis in a thrilling tone--"I do not know from
whence he came,--but I take God to witness my belief that he is a worker
of evil,--a fiend in beautiful human shape,--a destroyer and a
corrupter! The curse of him fell on Sibyl the moment she met him,--the
same curse rests on you! Leave him if you are wise,--take your chance of
escape while it remains to you,--and never let him see your face
again!"
She spoke with a kind of breathless haste as though impelled by a force
not her own,--I stared at her amazed, and in a manner irritated.
"Such a course of action would be impossible to me, Mavis,"--I said
somewhat coldly--"The Prince Rimânez is my best friend--no man ever had
a better;--and his loyalty to me has been put to a severe test under
which most men would have failed. I have not told you all."
And I related in a few words the scene I had witnessed between my wife
and Lucio in the music-gallery at Willowsmere. She listened,--but with
an evident effort,--and pushing back her clustering hair from her brows
she sighed heavily.
"I am sorry,--but it does not alter my conviction!"--she said--"I look
upon your best friend as your worst foe. And I feel you do not realize
the awful calamity of your wife's death in its true aspect. Will you
forgive me if I ask you to leave me now?----Lady Sibyl's letter has
affected me terribly--I feel I cannot speak about it any more.... I wish
I had not read it...."
She broke off with a little half-suppressed sob,--I saw she was
unnerved, and taking the manuscript from her hand, I said
half-banteringly--
"You cannot then suggest an epitaph for my wife's monument?"
She turned upon me with a grand gesture of reproach.
"Yes I can!"--she replied in a low indignant voice--"Inscribe it
as--'From a pitiless hand to a broken heart!' That will suit the dead
girl,--and you, the living man!"
Her rustling gown swept across my feet,--she passed me and was gone.
Stupefied by her sudden anger, and equally sudden departure, I stood
inert,--the St Bernard rose from the hearth-rug and glowered at me
suspiciously, evidently wishing me to take my leave,--Pallas Athene
stared, as usual, through me and beyond me in a boundless scorn,--all
the various objects in this quiet study seemed silently to eject me as
an undesired occupant. I looked round it once longingly as a tired
outcast may look on a peaceful garden and wish in vain to enter.
"How like her sex she is after all!" I said half aloud--"She blames _me_
for being pitiless,--and forgets that Sibyl was the sinner,--not I! No
matter how guilty a woman may be, she generally manages to secure a
certain amount of sympathy,--a man is always left out in the cold."
A shuddering sense of loneliness oppressed me as my eyes wandered round
the restful room. The odour of lilies was in the air, exhaled, so I
fancied, from the delicate and dainty personality of Mavis herself.
"If I had only known her first,--and loved her!" I murmured, as I turned
away at last and left the house.
But then I remembered I had hated her before I ever met her,--and not
only had I hated her, but I had vilified and misrepresented her work
with a scurrilous pen under the shield of anonymity, and out of sheer
malice,--thus giving her in the public sight, the greatest proof of her
own genius a gifted woman can ever win,--man's envy!
XXXVIII
Two weeks later I stood on the deck of Lucio's yacht 'The Flame,'--a
vessel whose complete magnificence filled me, as well as all other
beholders, with bewildered wonderment and admiration. She was a miracle
of speed, her motive power being electricity; and the electric engines
with which she was fitted were so complex and remarkable as to baffle
all would-be inquirers into the secret of their mechanism and potency. A
large crowd of spectators gathered to see her as she lay off
Southampton, attracted by the beauty of her shape and appearance,--some
bolder spirits even came out in tugs and row-boats, hoping to be allowed
to make a visit of inspection on board, but the sailors,
powerfully-built men of a foreign and somewhat unpleasing type, soon
intimated that the company of such inquisitive persons was undesirable
and unwelcome. With white sails spread, and a crimson flag flying from
her mast, she weighed anchor at sunset on the afternoon of the day her
owner and I joined her, and moving through the waters with delicious
noiselessness and incredible rapidity, soon left far behind her the
English shore, looking like a white line in the mist, or the pale vision
of a land that might once have been. I had done a few quixotic things
before departing from my native country,--for example, I had made a free
gift of his former home Willowsmere, to Lord Elton, taking a sort of
sullen pleasure in thinking that he, the spendthrift nobleman, owed the
restoration of his property to _me_,--to me who had never been either a
successful linen-draper or furniture-man, but simply an author, one of
'those sort of people' whom my lord and my lady imagine they can
'patronize' and neglect again at pleasure without danger to themselves.
The arrogant fools invariably forget what lasting vengeance can be taken
for an unmerited slight by the owner of a brilliant pen! I was glad too,
in a way, to realize that the daughter of the American railway-king
would be brought to the grand old house to air her 'countess-ship,' and
look at her prettily pert little physiognomy in the very mirror where
Sibyl had watched herself die. I do not know why this idea pleased me,
for I bore no grudge against Diana Chesney,--she was vulgar but
harmless, and would probably make a much more popular châtelaine at
Willowsmere Court than my wife had ever been. Among other things, I
dismissed my man Morris, and made him miserable,--with the gift of a
thousand pounds, to marry and start a business on. He was miserable
because he could not make up his mind what business to adopt, his
anxiety being to choose the calling that would 'pay' best,--and also,
because though he 'had his eye' upon several young women, he could not
tell which among them would be likely to be least extravagant, and the
most serviceable as a cook and housekeeper. The love of money and the
pains of taking care of it, embittered his days as it embitters the days
of most men, and my unexpected munificence towards him burdened him with
such a weight of trouble as robbed him of natural sleep and appetite. I
cared nothing for his perplexities however, and gave him no advice, good
or bad. My other servants I dismissed, each with a considerable gift of
money, not that I particularly wished to benefit _them_, but simply
because I desired them to speak well of _me_. And in this world it is
very evident that the only way to get a good opinion is to pay for it! I
gave orders to a famous Italian sculptor for Sibyl's monument, English
sculptors having no conception of sculpture,--it was to be of exquisite
design, wrought in purest white marble, the chief adornment being the
centre-figure of an angel ready for flight, with the face of Sibyl
faithfully copied from her picture. Because, however devilish a woman
may be in her life-time, one is bound by all the laws of social
hypocrisy to make an angel of her as soon as she is dead! Just before I
left London I heard that my old college-friend 'Boffles,' John
Carrington, had met with a sudden end. Busy at the 'retorting' of his
gold, he had been choked by the mercurial fumes and had died in hideous
torment. At one time this news would have deeply affected me, but now, I
was scarcely sorry. I had heard nothing of him since I had come into my
fortune,--he had never even written to congratulate me. Always full of
my own self-importance, I judged this as great neglect on his part, and
now that he was dead I felt no more than any of us feel now-a-days at
the loss of friends. And that is very little,--we have really no time to
be sorry,--so many people are always dying!--and we are in such a
desperate hurry to rush on to death ourselves! Nothing seemed to touch
me that did not closely concern my own personal interest,--and I had no
affections left, unless I may call the vague tenderness I had for Mavis
Clare an affection. Yet, to be honest, this very emotion was after all
nothing but a desire to be consoled, pitied and loved by her,--to be
able to turn upon the world and say "This woman whom you have lifted on
your shield of honour and crowned with laurels,--she loves _me_--she is
not yours, but _mine_!" Purely interested and purely selfish was the
longing,--and it deserved no other name than selfishness.
My feelings for Rimânez too began at this time to undergo a curious
change. The fascination I had for him, the power he exercised over me
remained as great as ever, but I found myself often absorbed in a close
study of him, strangely against my own will. Sometimes his every look
seemed fraught with meaning,--his every gesture suggestive of an almost
terrific authority. He was always to me the most attractive of
beings,--nevertheless there was an uneasy sensation of doubt and fear
growing up in my mind regarding him,--a painful anxiety to know more
about him than he had ever told me,--and on rare occasions I experienced
a sudden shock of inexplicable repulsion against him which like a
tremendous wave threw me back with violence upon myself and left me
half-stunned with a dread of I knew not what. Alone with him, as it
were, on the wide sea, cut off for a time from all other intercourse
than that which we shared together, these sensations were very strong
upon me. I began to note many things which I had been too blind or too
absorbed in my own pursuits to observe before; the offensive presence of
Amiel, who acted as chief steward on board the yacht, filled me now not
only with dislike, but nervous apprehension,--the dark and more or less
repulsive visages of the crew haunted me in my dreams;--and one day,
leaning over the vessel's edge and gazing blankly down into the
fathomless water below, I fell to thinking of strange sorceries of the
East, and stories of magicians who by the exercise of unlawful science
did so make victims of men and delude them that their wills were
entirely perverted and no longer their own. I do not know why this
passing thought should have suddenly overwhelmed me with deep
depression,--but when I looked up, to me the sky had grown dark, and the
face of one of the sailors who was near me polishing the brass
hand-rail, seemed singularly threatening and sinister. I moved to go to
the other side of the deck, when a hand was gently laid on my shoulder
from behind, and turning, I met the sad and splendid eyes of Lucio.
"Are you growing weary of the voyage Geoffrey?" he asked--"Weary of
those two suggestions of eternity--the interminable sky, the
interminable sea? I am afraid you are!--man easily gets fatigued with
his own littleness and powerlessness when he is set afloat on a plank
between air and ocean. Yet we are travelling as swiftly as electricity
will bear us,--and, as worked in this vessel, it is carrying us at a far
greater speed than you perhaps realize or imagine."
I made no immediate answer, but taking his arm strolled slowly up and
down. I felt he was looking at me, but I avoided meeting his gaze.
"You have been thinking of your wife?" he queried softly and, as I
thought, sympathetically--"I have shunned,--for reasons you know
of,--all allusion to the tragic end of so beautiful a creature. Beauty
is, alas!--so often subject to hysteria! Yet--if you had any faith, you
would believe she is an angel now!"
I stopped short at this, and looked straight at him. There was a fine
smile on his delicate mouth.
"An angel!" I repeated slowly--"or a devil? Which would you say she
is?--you, who sometimes declare that you believe in Heaven,--and Hell?"
He was silent, but the dreamy smile remained still on his lips.
"Come, speak!" I said roughly--"You can be frank with me, you
know,--angel or devil--which?"
"My dear Geoffrey!" he remonstrated gently and with gravity--"A woman is
always an angel,--both here and hereafter!"
I laughed bitterly. "If that is part of your faith I am sorry for you!"
"I have not spoken of my faith,"--he rejoined in colder accents, lifting
his brilliant eyes to the darkening heaven--"I am not a Salvationist,
that I should bray forth a creed to the sound of trump and drum."
"All the same, you _have_ a creed;"--I persisted--"And I fancy it must
be a strange one! If you remember, you promised to explain it to me----"
"Are you ready to receive such an explanation?" he asked in a somewhat
ironical tone--"No, my dear friend!--permit me to say you are _not_
ready--not yet! My beliefs are too positive to be brought even into
contact with your contradictions,--too frightfully real to submit to
your doubts for a moment. You would at once begin to revert to the puny,
used-up old arguments of Voltaire, Schopenhauer and Huxley,--little
atomic theories like grains of dust in the whirlwind of My knowledge! I
can tell you I believe in God as a very Actual and Positive Being,--and
that is presumably the first of the Church articles."
"You believe in God!" I echoed his words, staring at him stupidly. He
seemed in earnest. In fact he had always seemed in earnest on the
subject of Deity. Vaguely I thought of a woman in society whom I
slightly knew,--an ugly woman, unattractive and mean-minded, who passed
her time in entertaining semi-Royalties and pushing herself amongst
them,--she had said to me one day--[4] "I hate people who believe in
God, don't you? The idea of a God makes me _sick_!"
"You believe in God!" I repeated again dubiously.
"Look!" he said, raising his hand towards the sky--"There a few drifting
clouds cover millions of worlds, impenetrable, mysterious, yet
_actual_;--down there--" and he pointed to the sea, "lurk a thousand
things of which, though the ocean is a part of earth, human beings have
not yet learned the nature. Between these upper and lower spaces of the
Incomprehensible yet Absolute, you, a finite atom of limited
capabilities stand, uncertain how long the frail thread of your life
shall last, yet arrogantly balancing the question with your own poor
brain, as to whether you,--_you_ in your utter littleness and
incompetency shall condescend to accept a God or not! I confess, that of
all astonishing things in the Universe, this particular attitude of
modern mankind is the most astonishing to me!"
"Your own attitude is?----"
"The reluctant acceptance of such terrific knowledge as is forced upon
me,--" he replied with a dark smile--"I do not say I have been an apt or
a willing pupil,--I have had to suffer in learning what I know!"
"Do you believe in hell?" I asked him suddenly--"And in Satan, the
Arch-Enemy of mankind?"
He was silent for so long that I was surprised, the more so as he grew
pale to the lips, and a curious, almost deathlike rigidity of feature
gave his expression something of the ghastly and terrible. After a pause
he turned his eyes upon me,--an intense burning misery was reflected in
them, though he smiled.
"Most assuredly I believe in hell! How can I do otherwise if I believe
in heaven? If there is an Up there must be a Down; if there is Light,
there must also be Darkness! And, ... concerning the Arch-Enemy of
mankind,--if half the stories reported of him be true, he must be the
most piteous and pitiable figure in the Universe! What would be the
sorrows of a thousand million worlds, compared to the sorrows of Satan!"
"Sorrows!" I echoed--"He is supposed to rejoice in the working of evil!"
"Neither angel nor devil can do that,"--he said slowly--"To rejoice in
the working of evil is a temporary mania which affects man only. For
actual joy to come out of evil, Chaos must come again, and God must
extinguish Himself." He stared across the dark sea,--the sun had sunk,
and one faint star twinkled through the clouds. "And so I again say--the
sorrows of Satan! Sorrows immeasurable as eternity itself,--imagine
them! To be shut out of Heaven!--to hear all through the unending æons,
the far-off voices of angels whom once he knew and loved!--to be a
wanderer among deserts of darkness, and to pine for the light celestial
that was formerly as air and food to his being,--and to know that Man's
folly, Man's utter selfishness, Man's cruelty, keep him thus exiled, an
outcast from pardon and peace! Man's nobleness may lift the Lost Spirit
almost within reach of his lost joys,--but Man's vileness drags him down
again,--easy was the torture of Sisyphus compared with the torture of
Satan! No wonder that he loathes Mankind!--small blame to him if he
seeks to destroy the puny tribe eternally,--little marvel that he
grudges them their share of immortality! Think of it as a legend
merely,"--and he turned upon me with a movement that was almost
fierce--"Christ redeemed Man,--and by his teaching, showed how it was
possible for Man to redeem the Devil!"
"I do not understand you--" I said feebly, awed by the strange pain and
passion of his tone.
"Do you not? Yet my meaning is scarcely obscure! If men were true to
their immortal instincts and to the God that made them,--if they were
generous, honest, fearless, faithful, reverent, unselfish, ... if women
were pure, brave, tender and loving,--can you not imagine that in the
strong force and fairness of such a world, 'Lucifer, son of the Morning'
would be moved to love instead of hate?--that the closed doors of
Paradise would be unbarred--and that he, lifted towards his Creator on
the prayers of pure lives, would wear again his Angel's crown? Can you
not realize this, even by way of a legendary story?"
"Why yes, as a legendary story the idea is beautiful,"--I admitted--"And
to me, as I told you once before, quite new. Still, as men are never
likely to be honest or women pure, I'm afraid the poor devil stands a
bad chance of ever getting redeemed!"
"I fear so too!" and he eyed me with a curious derision--"I very much
fear so! And his chances being so slight, I rather respect him for being
the Arch-Enemy of such a worthless race!" He paused a moment, then
added--"I wonder how we have managed to get on such an absurd subject of
conversation? It is dull and uninteresting as all 'spiritual' themes
invariably are. My object in bringing you out on this voyage is not to
indulge in psychological argument, but to make you forget your troubles
as much as possible, and enjoy the present while it lasts."
There was a vibration of compassionate kindness in his voice which at
once moved me to an acute sense of self-pity, the worst enervator of
moral force that exists. I sighed heavily.
"Truly I have suffered"--I said--"More than most men!"
"More even than most millionaires deserve to suffer!" declared Lucio,
with that inevitable touch of sarcasm which distinguished some of his
friendliest remarks--"Money is supposed to make amends to a man for
everything,--and even the wealthy wife of a certain Irish 'patriot' has
not found it incompatible with affection to hold her moneybags close to
herself while her husband has been declared a bankrupt. How she has
'idolized' him, let others say! Now, considering _your_ cash-abundance,
it must be owned the fates have treated you somewhat unkindly!"
The smile that was half-cruel and half-sweet radiated in his eyes as he
spoke,--and again a singular revulsion of feeling against him moved me
to dislike and fear. And yet,--how fascinating was his company! I could
not but admit that the voyage with him to Alexandria on board 'The
Flame' was one of positive enchantment and luxury all the way. There was
nothing in a material sense left to wish for,--all that could appeal to
the intelligence or the imagination had been thought of on board this
wonderful yacht which sped like a fairy ship over the sea. Some of the
sailors were skilled musicians, and on tranquil nights or at sunset,
would bring stringed instruments and discourse to our ears the most
dulcet and ravishing melodies. Lucio himself too would often sing,--his
luscious voice resounding, as it seemed, over all the visible sea and
sky, with such passion as might have drawn an angel down to listen.
Gradually my mind became impregnated with these snatches of mournful,
fierce, or weird minor tunes,--and I began to suffer in silence from an
inexplicable depression and foreboding sense of misery, as well as from
another terrible feeling to which I could scarcely give a name,--a
dreadful _uncertainty of myself_, as of one lost in a wilderness and
about to die. I endured these fits of mental agony alone,--and in such
dreary burning moments, believed I was going mad. I grew more and more
sullen and taciturn, and when we at last arrived at Alexandria I was not
moved to any particular pleasure. The place was new to me, but I was not
conscious of novelty,--everything seemed flat, dull, and totally
uninteresting. A heavy almost lethargic stupor chained my wits, and when
we left the yacht in harbour and went on to Cairo, I was not sensible of
any personal enjoyment in the journey, or interest in what I saw. I was
only partially roused when we took possession of a luxurious dahabeah,
which, with a retinue of attendants, had been specially chartered for
us, and commenced our lotus-like voyage up the Nile. The reed-edged,
sluggish yellow river fascinated me,--I used to spend long hours
reclining at full length in a deck-chair, gazing at the flat shores, the
blown sand-heaps, the broken columns and mutilated temples of the dead
kingdoms of the past. One evening, thus musing, while the great golden
moon climbed languidly up into the sky to stare at the wrecks of earthly
ages I said--
"If one could only see these ancient cities as they once existed, what
strange revelations might be made! Our modern marvels of civilization
and progress might seem small trifles after all,--for I believe in our
days we are only re-discovering what the peoples of old time knew."
Lucio drew his cigar from his mouth and looked at it meditatively. Then
he glanced up at me with a half-smile--
"Would you like to see a city resuscitated?" he inquired--"Here, in this
very spot, some six thousand years ago, a king reigned, with a woman not
his queen but his favourite, (quite a lawful arrangement in those days)
who was as famous for her beauty and virtue, as this river is for its
fructifying tide. Here civilization had progressed enormously,--with the
one exception that it had not outgrown faith. Modern France and England
have beaten the ancients in their scorn of God and creed, their contempt
for divine things, their unnameable lasciviousness and blasphemy. This
city"----and he waved his hand towards a dreary stretch of shore where a
cluster of tall reeds waved above the monster fragment of a fallen
column,--"was governed by the strong pure faith of its people more than
anything,--and the ruler of social things in it was a woman. The king's
favourite was something like Mavis Clare in that she possessed
genius,--she had also the qualities of justice, intelligence, love,
truth and a most noble unselfishness,--she made this place happy. It was
a paradise on earth while she lived,--when she died, its glory ended. So
much can a woman do if she chooses,--so much does she _not_ do, in her
usual cow-like way of living!"
"How do you know all this you tell me of?" I asked him.
"By study of past records"--he replied--"I read what modern men declare
they have no time to read. You are right in the idea that all 'new'
things are only old things re-invented or re-discovered,--if you had
gone a step further and said that some of men's present lives are only
the continuation of their past, you would not have been wrong. Now, if
you like, I can by my science, show you the city that stood here long
ago,--the 'City Beautiful' as its name is, translated from the ancient
tongue."
I roused myself from my lounging attitude and looked at him amazedly. He
met my gaze unmoved.
"You can show it to me!" I exclaimed--"How can you do such an impossible
thing?"
"Permit me to hypnotize you,"--he answered smiling,--"My system of
hypnotism is, very fortunately, not yet discovered by meddlesome
inquirers into occult matters,--but it never fails of its effect,--and I
promise you, you shall, under my influence, see not only the place, but
the people."
My curiosity was strongly excited, and I became more eager to try the
suggested experiment than I cared to openly show. I laughed however,
with affected indifference.
"I am perfectly willing!" I said--"All the same, I don't think you can
hypnotize me,--I have much too strong a will of my own----" at which
remark I saw a smile, dark and saturnine, hover on his lips--"But you
can make the attempt."
He rose at once, and signed to one of our Egyptian servants.
"Stop the dahabeah, Azimah," he said--"We will rest here for the night."
Azimah, a superb-looking Eastern in picturesque white garments, put his
hands to his head in submission and retired to give the order. In
another few moments the dahabeah had stopped. A great silence was around
us,--the moonlight fell like yellow wine on the deck,--in the far
distance across the stretches of dark sand, a solitary column towered so
clear-cut against the sky that it was almost possible to discern upon it
the outline of a monstrous face. Lucio stood still, confronting
me,--saying nothing, but looking me steadily through and through, with
those wonderful mystic, melancholy eyes that seemed to penetrate and
burn my very flesh. I was attracted as a bird might be by the basilisk
eyes of a snake,--yet I tried to smile and say something indifferent. My
efforts were useless,--personal consciousness was slipping from me
fast,--the sky, the water and the moon whirled round each other in a
giddy chase for precedence;--I could not move, for my limbs seemed
fastened to my chair with weights of iron, and I was for a few minutes
absolutely powerless. Then suddenly my vision cleared (as I thought)--my
senses grew vigorous and alert, ... I heard the sound of solemn marching
music, and there,--there in the full radiance of the moon, with a
thousand lights gleaming forth from high cupolas, shone the 'City
Beautiful'!
[4] Said in the author's hearing by one of the 'lady leaders' of
'smart' society.
XXXIX
A vision of majestic buildings, vast, stately and gigantic!----of
streets crowded with men and women in white and coloured garments
adorned with jewels,--of flowers that grew on the roofs of palaces and
swung from terrace to terrace in loops and garlands of fantastic
bloom,--of trees, broad-branched and fully leafed,--of marble
embankments overlooking the river,--of lotus-lilies growing thickly
below, by the water's edge,--of music that echoed in silver and brazen
twangings from the shelter of shady gardens and covered
balconies,--every beautiful detail rose before me more distinctly than
an ivory carving mounted on an ebony shield. Just opposite where I stood
or seemed to stand, on the deck of a vessel in the busy harbour, a wide
avenue extended, opening up into huge squares embellished with strange
figures of granite gods and animals,--I saw the sparkling spray of many
fountains in the moonlight, and heard the low persistent hum of the
restless human multitudes that thronged the place as thickly as bees
clustered in a hive. To the left of the scene I could discern a huge
bronze gate guarded by sphinxes; there was a garden beyond it, and from
that depth of shade a girl's voice, singing a strange wild melody, came
floating towards me on the breeze. Meanwhile the marching music I had
first of all caught the echo of, sounded nearer and nearer,--and
presently I perceived a great crowd approaching with lighted torches and
garlands of flowers. Soon I saw a band of priests in brilliant robes
that literally blazed with sun-like gems,--they were moving towards the
river, and with them came young boys and little children, while on
either side, maidens white-veiled and rose-wreathed, paced demurely,
swinging silver censers to and fro. After the priestly procession walked
a regal figure between ranks of slaves and attendants,--I knew it for
the King of this 'City Beautiful,' and was almost moved to join in the
thundering acclamations which greeted his progress. And that snowy
palanquin, carried by lily-crowned girls, that followed his train,--who
occupied it? ... what gem of his land was thus tenderly enshrined? I was
consumed by an extraordinary longing to know this,--I watched the white
burden coming nearer to my point of vantage,--I saw the priests arrange
themselves in a semi-circle on the river-embankment, the King in their
midst, and the surging shouting multitude around,--then came the brazen
clangour of many bells, intermixed with the rolling of drums and the
shrilling sound of reed-pipes lightly blown upon,--and, amid the blaze
of the flaring torches, the White Palanquin was set down upon the
ground. A woman, clad in some silvery glistening tissue, stepped forth
from it like a sylph from the foam of the sea, but----she was veiled,--I
could not discern so much as the outline of her features,--and the keen
disappointment of this was a positive torture to me. If I could but see
her, I thought, I should know something I had never hitherto guessed!
"Lift, oh lift the shrouding veil, Spirit of the City Beautiful!" I
inwardly prayed--"For I feel I shall read in your eyes the secret of
happiness!"
But the veil was not withdrawn, ... the music made barbaric clamour in
my ears, ... the blaze of strong light and colour blinded me, ... and I
felt myself reeling into a dark chaos, where as I imagined, I chased the
moon, as she flew before me on silver wings,--then ... the sound of a
rich baritone trolling out a light song from a familiar modern _opera
bouffe_ confused and startled me,----and in another second I found
myself staring wildly at Lucio, who, lying easily back in his
deck-chair, was carolling joyously to the silent night and the blank
expanse of sandy shore, in front of which our dahabeah rested
motionless. With a cry I flung myself upon him.
"Where is she?" I exclaimed--"_Who_ is she?"
He looked at me without replying, and smiling quizzically, released
himself from my sudden grasp. I drew back shuddering and bewildered.
"I saw it all!" I murmured--"The city--the priests,--the people--the
King!----all but Her face! Why was that hidden from me!"
And actual tears rose to my eyes involuntarily,--Lucio surveyed me with
evident amusement.
"What a 'find' you would be to a first-class 'spiritual' impostor
playing his tricks in cultured and easily-gulled London society!" he
observed--"You seem most powerfully impressed by a passing vision!"
"Do you mean to tell me," I said earnestly "that what I saw just now was
the mere thought of your brain conveyed to mine?"
"Precisely!" he responded--"I know what the 'City Beautiful' was like,
and I was able to draw it for you on the canvas of my memory and present
it as a complete picture to your inward sight. For you _have_ an inward
sight,--though like most people, you live unconscious of that neglected
faculty."
"But--who was She?" I repeated obstinately.
"'She' was, I presume, the King's favourite. If she kept her face hidden
from you as you complain, I am sorry!--but I assure you it was not my
fault! Get to bed, Geoffrey,--you look dazed. You take visions
badly,--yet they are better than realities, believe me!"
Somehow I could not answer him. I left him abruptly and went below to
try and sleep, but my thoughts were all cruelly confused, and I began to
be more than ever overwhelmed with a sense of deepening terror,--a
feeling that I was being commanded, controlled and, as it were, driven
along by a force that had in it something unearthly. It was a most
distressing sensation,--it made me shrink at times, from the look of
Lucio's eyes,--now and then indeed I almost cowered before him, so
increasingly great was the indefinable dread I had of his presence. It
was not so much the strange vision of the 'City Beautiful' that had
inspired this in me,--for after all, that was only a trick of hypnotism,
as he had said, and as I was content to argue it with myself,--but it
was his whole manner that suddenly began to impress me as it had never
impressed me before. If any change was slowly taking place in my
sentiments towards him, so surely it seemed was he changing equally
towards me. His imperious ways were more imperial,--his sarcasm more
sarcastic,--his contempt for mankind more openly displayed and more
frequently pronounced. Yet I admired him as much as ever,--I delighted
in his conversation, whether it were witty, philosophical or cynical,--I
could not imagine myself without his company. Nevertheless the gloom on
my mind deepened,--our Nile trip became infinitely wearisome to me, so
much so, that almost before we had got half-way on our journey up the
river, I longed to turn back again and wished the voyage at an end. An
incident that occurred at Luxor was more than sufficient to strengthen
this desire. We had stayed there for several days exploring the district
and visiting the ruins of Thebes and Karnac, where they were busy
excavating tombs. One afternoon they brought to light a red granite
sarcophagus intact,--in it was a richly painted coffin which was opened
in our presence, and was found to contain the elaborately adorned mummy
of a woman. Lucio proved himself an apt reader of hieroglyphs, and he
translated in brief, and with glib accuracy the history of the corpse as
it was pictured inside the sepulchral shell.
"A dancer at the court of Queen Amenartes;" he announced for the benefit
of several interested spectators who with myself, stood round the
sarcophagus--"Who because of her many sins, and secret guilt which made
her life unbearable, and her days full of corruption, died of poison
administered by her own hand, according to the King's command, and in
presence of the executioners of law. Such is the lady's
story,--condensed;--there are a good many other details of course. She
appears to have been only in her twentieth year. Well!" and he smiled as
he looked round upon his little audience,--"We may congratulate
ourselves on having progressed since the days of these over-strict
ancient Egyptians! The sins of dancers are not, with us, taken _au grand
serieux_! Shall we see what she is like?"
No objection was raised by the authorities concerned in the
discoveries,--and I, who had never witnessed the unrolling of a mummy
before, watched the process with great interest and curiosity. As one by
one of the scented wrappings were removed, a long tress of nut-brown
hair became visible,--then, those who were engaged in the task, used
more extreme and delicate precaution, Lucio himself assisting them to
uncover the face. As this was done, a kind of sick horror stole over
me,--brown and stiff as parchment though the features were, their
contour was recognisable,--and when the whole countenance was exposed to
view I could almost have shrieked aloud the name of '_Sibyl!_' For it
was like her!--dreadfully like!--and as the faint, half-aromatic
half-putrid odours of the unrolled cerements crept towards me on the
air, I reeled back giddily and covered my eyes. Irresistibly I was
reminded of the subtle French perfume exhaled from Sibyl's garments when
I found her dead,--that, and this sickly effluvia were similar! A man
standing near me saw me swerve as though about to fall, and caught me on
his arm.
"The sun is too strong for you I fear?" he said kindly--"This climate
does not suit everybody."
I forced a smile and murmured something about a passing touch of
vertigo,--then, recovering myself I gazed fearfully at Lucio, who was
studying the mummy attentively with a curious smile. Presently stooping
over the coffin he took out of it a piece of finely wrought gold in the
shape of a medallion.
"This, I imagine must be the fair dancer's portrait,"--he said, holding
it up to the view of all the eager and exclaiming spectators--"Quite a
treasure-trove! An admirable piece of ancient workmanship, besides
being the picture of a very lovely woman. Do you not think so,
Geoffrey?"
He handed me the medallion,--and I examined it with deadly and
fascinated interest,--the face was exquisitely beautiful,--but assuredly
it was the face of Sibyl!
I never remember how I lived through the rest of that day. At night, as
soon as I had an opportunity of speaking to Rimânez alone, I asked him ...
"Did you see,----did you not recognize? ..."
"That the dead Egyptian dancer resembled your late wife?" he quietly
continued--"Yes,--I noticed it at once. But that should not affect you.
History repeats itself,--why should not lovely women repeat themselves?
Beauty always has its double somewhere, either in the past or future."
I said no more,--but next morning I was very ill,--so ill that I could
not rise from my bed, and passed the hours in restless moaning and
irritable pain that was not so much physical as mental. There was a
physician resident at the hotel at Luxor, and Lucio, always showing
himself particularly considerate for my personal comfort, sent for him
at once. He felt my pulse, shook his head, and after much dubious
pondering, advised my leaving Egypt immediately. I heard his mandate
given with a joy I could scarcely conceal. The yearning I had to get
quickly away from this 'land of the old gods' was intense and
feverish,--I loathed the vast and awful desert silences, where the
Sphinx frowns contempt on the puny littleness of mankind,--where the
opened tombs and coffins expose once more to the light of day, faces
that are the very semblances of those we ourselves have known and loved
in our time,--and where painted history tells us of just such things as
our modern newspapers chronicle, albeit in different form. Rimânez was
ready and willing to carry out the doctor's orders,--and arranged our
return to Cairo and from thence to Alexandria, with such expedition as
left me nothing to desire, and filled me with gratitude for his apparent
sympathy. In as short a time as abundance of cash could make possible,
we had rejoined 'The Flame,' and were _en route_, as I thought, for
France or England. We had not absolutely settled our destination, having
some idea of coasting along the Riviera,--but my old confidence in
Rimânez being now almost restored, I left this to him for decision,
sufficiently satisfied in myself that I had not been destined to leave
my bones in terror-haunted Egypt. And it was not till I had been about a
week or ten days on board, and had made good progress in the recovery of
my health, that the beginning of the end of this never-to-be-forgotten
voyage was foreshadowed to me in such terrific fashion as nearly plunged
me into the darkness of death,--or rather let me now say, (having
learned my bitter lesson thoroughly) into the fell brilliancy of that
Life beyond the tomb which we refuse to recognise or realize till we are
whirled into its glorious or awful vortex!
One evening, after a bright day of swift and enjoyable sailing over a
smooth and sunlit sea, I retired to rest in my cabin, feeling almost
happy. My mind was perfectly tranquil,--my trust in my friend Lucio was
again re-established,--and I may add, so was my old arrogant and
confident trust in myself. My access to fortune had not, so far, brought
me either much joy or distinction,--but it was not too late for me yet
to pluck the golden apples of Hesperides. The various troubles I had
endured, though of such recent occurrence, began to assume a blurred
indistinctness in my mind, as of things long past and done with,--I
considered the strength of my financial position again with
satisfaction, to the extent of contemplating a second marriage--and that
marriage with--Mavis Clare! No other woman should be my wife, I mentally
swore,--she, and she only should be mine! I foresaw no difficulties in
the way,--and full of pleasant dreams and self-delusions I settled
myself in my berth, and dropped easily off to sleep. About midnight I
awoke, vaguely terrified, to see the cabin full of a strong red light
and fierce glare. My first dazed impression was that the yacht was on
fire,--the next instant I became paralysed and dumb with horror. Sibyl
stood before me! ... Sibyl, a wild, strange, tortured writhing figure,
half nude, waving beckoning arms, and making desperate gestures,--her
face was as I had seen it last in death, livid and hideous, ... her
eyes blazed mingled menace, despair, and warning upon me! Round her a
living wreath of flame coiled upwards like a twisted snake, ... her lips
moved as though she strove to speak, but no sound came from them,----and
while I yet looked at her, she vanished! I must have lost consciousness
then,--for when I awoke it was broad day. But this ghastly visitation
was only the first of many such,--and at last, _every night_ I saw her
thus, sheeted in flame, till I grew well-nigh mad with fear and misery.
My torment was indescribable,--yet I said nothing to Lucio, who watched
me, as I imagined, narrowly,--I took sleeping-draughts in the hope to
procure unbroken rest, but in vain,--always I woke at one particular
moment, and always I had to face this fiery phantom of my dead wife,
with despair in her eyes and an unuttered warning on her lips. This was
not all. One day in the full sunlight of a quiet afternoon, I entered
the saloon of the yacht alone, and started back amazed to see my old
friend John Carrington seated at the table, pen in hand, casting up
accounts. He bent over his papers closely,--his face was furrowed and
very pale,--but so life-like was he, so seemingly substantial that I
called him by name, whereat he looked up,--smiled drearily, and was
gone! Trembling in every limb I realized that here was another spectral
terror added to the burden of my days; and sitting down, I tried to
rally my scattered forces and reason out what was best to be done. There
was no doubt I was very ill;--these phantoms were the warning of
brain-disease. I must endeavour, I thought, to keep myself well under
control till I got to England,--there I determined to consult the best
physicians, and put myself under their care till I was thoroughly
restored.
"Meanwhile"--I muttered to myself--"I will say nothing, ... not even to
Lucio. He would only smile, ... and I should hate him! ..."
I broke off, wondering at this. For was it possible I should ever hate
him? Surely not!
That night by way of a change, I slept in a hammock on deck, hoping to
dispel midnight illusions by resting in the open air. But my sufferings
were only intensified. I woke as usual, ... to see, not only Sibyl, but
also to my deadly fear, the Three Phantoms that had appeared to me in my
room in London on the evening of Viscount Lynton's suicide. There they
were,--the same, the very same!--only this time all their livid faces
were lifted and turned towards me, and though their lips never moved,
the word 'Misery!' seemed uttered, for I heard it tolling like a funeral
bell on the air and across the sea! ... And Sibyl, with her face of death
in the coils of a silent flame, ... Sibyl smiled at me!----a smile of
torture and remorse! ... God!--I could endure it no longer! Leaping from
my hammock, I ran towards the vessel's edge, ... one plunge into the
cool waves, ... ha!--there stood Amiel, with his impenetrable dark face
and ferret eyes!
"Can I assist you sir?" he inquired deferentially.
I stared at him,--then burst into a laugh.
"Assist me? Why no!--you can do nothing. I want rest, ... and I cannot
sleep here, ... the air is too close and sulphureous,----the very stars
are burning hot! ..." I paused,--he regarded me with his usual gravely
derisive expression. "I am going down to my cabin"--I continued, trying
to speak more calmly----"I shall be _alone_ there ... perhaps!" Again I
laughed wildly and involuntarily, and staggered away from him down the
deck-stairs, afraid to look back lest I should see those Three Figures
of fate following me.
Once safe in my cabin I shut to the door violently, and in feverish
haste, seized my case of pistols. I took out one and loaded it. My heart
was beating furiously,--I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, lest they
should encounter the dead eyes of Sibyl.
"One click of the trigger--" I whispered--"and all is over! I shall be
at peace,--senseless,--sightless and painless. Horrors can no longer
haunt me, ... I shall sleep!"
I raised the weapon steadily to my right temple, ... when suddenly my
cabin-door opened, and Lucio looked in.
"Pardon me!" he said, as he observed my attitude--"I had no idea you
were busy! I will go away. I would not disturb you for the world!"
His smile had something fiendish in its fine mockery;--moved with a
quick revulsion of feeling I turned the pistol downwards and held its
muzzle firmly against the table near me.
"_You_ say that!" I exclaimed in acute anguish,--"_you_ say it--seeing
me thus! I thought you were my friend!"
He looked full at me, ... his eyes grew large and luminous with a
splendour of scorn, passion and sorrow intermingled.
"Did you?" and again the terrific smile lit up his pale features,--"You
were mistaken! _I am your Enemy!_"
A dreadful silence followed. Something lurid and unearthly in his
expression appalled me, ... I trembled and grew cold with fear.
Mechanically I replaced the pistol in its case,----then I gazed up at
him with a vacant wonder and wild piteousness, seeing that his dark and
frowning figure seemed to increase in stature, towering above me like
the gigantic shadow of a storm-cloud! My blood froze with an unnameable
sickening terror, ... then, thick darkness veiled my sight, and I
dropped down senseless!
XL
Thunder and wild tumult,--the glare of lightning,--the shattering roar
of great waves leaping mountains high and hissing asunder in
mid-air,--to this fierce riot of savage elements let loose in a whirling
boisterous dance of death, I woke at last with a convulsive shock.
Staggering to my feet I stood in the black obscurity of my cabin, trying
to rally my scattered forces,--the electric lamps were extinguished, and
the lightning alone illumined the sepulchral darkness. Frantic shoutings
echoed above me on deck,--fiend-like yells that sounded now like
triumph, now like despair, and again like menace,--the yacht leaped to
and fro like a hunted stag amid the furious billows, and every frightful
crash of thunder threatened, as it seemed, to split her in twain. The
wind howled like a devil in torment,--it screamed and moaned and sobbed
as though endowed with a sentient body that suffered acutest
agony,--anon it rushed downwards with an angry swoop as of wide-flapping
wings, and at each raging gust I thought the vessel must surely founder.
Forgetting everything but immediate personal danger, I tried to open my
door. It was locked outside!--I was a prisoner! My indignation at this
discovery exceeded every other feeling, and beating with both hands on
the wooden panels, I called, I shouted, I threatened, I swore,----all in
vain! Thrown down twice by the topsy-turvey lurching of the yacht, I
still kept up a desperate hammering and calling, striving to raise my
voice above the distracting pandemonium of noise that seemed to possess
the ship from end to end, but all to no purpose,--and finally, hoarse
and exhausted, I stopped and leaned against the unyielding door to
recover breath and strength. The storm appeared to be increasing in
force and clamour,--the lightning was well-nigh incessant, and the
clattering thunder followed each flash so instantaneously as to leave no
doubt but that it was immediately above us. I listened,--and presently
heard a frenzied cry--
"Breakers ahead!" This was followed by peals of discordant laughter.
Terrified, I strained my ears for every sound,--and all at once some-one
spoke to me quite closely, as though the very darkness around me had
found a tongue.
"Breakers ahead! Throughout the world, storm and danger and doom! Doom
and Death!--but afterwards--Life!"
A certain intonation in these words filled me with such frantic horror
that I fell on my knees in abject misery, and almost prayed to the God I
had through all my life disbelieved in and denied. But I was too mad
with fear to find words;--the dense blackness,--the horrid uproar of the
wind and sea,--the infuriated and confused shouting,--all this was to my
mind as though hell itself had broken loose, and I could only kneel
dumbly and tremble. Suddenly a swirling sound as of an approaching
monstrous whirlwind made itself heard above all the rest of the din,--a
sound that gradually resolved itself into a howling chorus of thousands
of voices sweeping along on the gusty blast,----fierce cries were
mingled with the jarring thunder, and I leapt erect as I caught the
words of the clangorous shout--
"AVE SATHANAS! AVE!"
Rigidly upright, with limbs stiffening for sheer terror, I stood
listening,--the waves seemed to roar "AVE SATHANAS!"--the wind shrieked
it to the thunder,--the lightning wrote it in a snaky line of fire on
the darkness "AVE SATHANAS!" My brain swam round and grew full to
bursting,--I was going mad,--raving mad surely!--or why should I thus
distinctly hear such unmeaning sounds as these? With a sudden access of
superhuman force I threw the whole weight of my body against the door of
my cabin in a delirious effort to break it open,--it yielded
slightly,--and I prepared myself for another rush and similar
attempt,--when all at once it was flung widely back, admitting a stream
of pale light, and Lucio, wrapped in heavy shrouding garments,
confronted me.
"Follow me, Geoffrey Tempest,--" he said in low clear tones--"Your time
has come!"
As he spoke, all self-possession deserted me,--the terrors of the storm,
and now the terror of his presence, overwhelmed my strength, and I
stretched out my hands to him appealingly, unknowing what I did or said.
"For God's sake...!" I began wildly.
He silenced me by an imperious gesture.
"Spare me your prayers! For God's sake, for your own sake, and for mine!
Follow!"
He moved before me like a black phantom in the pale strange light
surrounding him,--and I, dazzled, dazed and terror-stricken, trod in his
steps closely, moved, as it seemed by some volition not my own, till I
found myself alone with him in the saloon of the yacht, with the waves
hissing up against the windows like live snakes ready to sting.
Trembling and scarcely able to stand I sank on a chair,--he turned round
and looked at me for a moment meditatively. Then he threw open one of
the windows,--a huge wave dashed in and scattered its bitter salt spray
upon me where I sat,--but I heeded nothing,--my agonised looks were
fixed on Him,--the Being I had so long made the companion of my days.
Raising his hand with a gesture of authority he said--
"Back, ye devils of the sea and wind!--ye which are not God's elements
but My servants, the unrepenting souls of men! Lost in the waves, or
whirled in the hurricane, whichever ye have made your destiny, get hence
and cease your clamour! This hour is Mine!"
Panic-stricken I heard,--aghast I saw the great billows that had
shouldered up in myriads against the vessel, sink suddenly,--the yelling
wind dropped, silenced,--the yacht glided along with a smooth even
motion as though on a tranquil inland lake,--and almost before I could
realize it, the light of the full moon beamed forth brilliantly and fell
in a broad stream across the floor of the saloon. But in the very
cessation of the storm the words "AVE SATHANAS!" trembled as it were
upwards to my ears from the underworld of the sea, and died away in
distance like a parting echo of thunder. Then Lucio faced me,--with what
a countenance of sublime and awful beauty!
"Do you know Me now, man whom my millions of dross have made
wretched?--or do you need me to tell you WHO I am?"
My lips moved,--but I could not speak; the dim and dreadful thought that
was dawning on my mind seemed as yet too frenzied, too outside the
boundaries of material sense for mortal utterance.
"Be dumb,--be motionless!--but hear and feel!" he continued--"By the
supreme power of God,--for there is no other power in any world or any
heaven,--I control and command you at this moment, your own will being
set aside for once as naught! I choose you as one out of millions to
learn in this life the lesson that all must learn hereafter;--let every
faculty of your intelligence be ready to receive that which I shall
impart,--and teach it to your fellow-men if you have a conscience as you
have a Soul!"
Again I strove to speak,--he seemed so human,--so much my friend still,
though he had declared himself my Enemy,----and yet ... what was that
lambent radiance encircling his brows?--that burning glory steadily
deepening and flashing from his eyes?
"You are one of the world's 'fortunate' men,--" he went on, surveying me
straightly and pitilessly--"So at least this world judges you, because
you can buy its good-will. But the Forces that govern all worlds, do not
judge you by such a standard,--you cannot buy _their_ good-will, not
though all the Churches should offer to sell it you! They regard you as
you _are_, stripped soul-naked,--not as you _seem_! They behold in you
a shameless egoist, persistently engaged in defacing their divine Image
of Immortality,--and for that sin there is no excuse and no escape but
Punishment. Whosoever prefers Self to God, and in the arrogance of that
Self, presumes to doubt and deny God, invites another Power to compass
his destinies,--the power of Evil, made evil and kept evil by the
disobedience and wickedness of Man alone,--that power whom mortals call
Satan, Prince of Darkness,--but whom once the angels knew as Lucifer,
Prince of Light!" ... He broke off,--paused,--and his flaming regard
fell full upon me. "Do you know Me, ... now?"
I sat a rigid figure of fear, dumbly staring, ... was this man, for he
seemed man, mad that he should thus hint at a thing too wild and
terrible for speech?
"If you do not know Me,--if you do not feel in your convicted soul that
you are aware of Me,--it is because you will not know! Thus do I come
upon men, when they rejoice in their wilful self-blindness and
vanity!--thus do I become their constant companion, humouring them in
such vices as they best love!--thus do I take on the shape that pleases
_them_, and fit myself to their humours! _They_ make me what I am;--they
mould my very form to the fashion of their flitting time. Through all
their changing and repeating eras, they have found strange names and
titles for me,--and their creeds and churches have made a monster of
me,--as though imagination could compass any worse monster than the
Devil in Man!"
Frozen and mute I heard, ... the dead silence, and his resonant voice
vibrating through it, seemed more terrific than the wildest storm.
"You,--God's work,--endowed as every conscious atom of His creation is
endowed,--with the infinite germ of immortality;--you, absorbed in the
gathering together of such perishable trash as you conceive good for
yourself on this planet,--you dare, in the puny reach of your mortal
intelligence to dispute and question the everlasting things invisible!
You, by the Creator's will, are permitted to see the Natural
Universe,--but in mercy to you, the veil is drawn across the
Super-natural! For such things as exist there, would break your puny
earth-brain as a frail shell is broken by a passing wheel,--and because
you cannot see, you doubt! You doubt not only the surpassing Love and
Wisdom that keeps you in ignorance till you shall be strong enough to
bear full knowledge, but you doubt the very fact of such another
universe itself. Arrogant fool!--your hours are counted by Super-natural
time!--your days are compassed by Super-natural law!--your every
thought, word, deed and look must go to make up the essence and shape of
your being in Super-natural life hereafter!--and what you _have been_ in
your Soul _here_, must and shall be the aspect of your Soul _there_!
That law knows no changing!"
The light about his face deepened,--he went on in clear accents that
vibrated with the strangest music.
"Men make their own choice and form their own futures," he said--"And
never let them dare to say they are not _free_ to choose! From the
uttermost reaches of high Heaven the Spirit of God descended to them as
Man,--from the uttermost depths of lowest Hell, I, the Spirit of
Rebellion, come,--equally as Man! But the God-in-Man was rejected and
slain,--I, the Devil-in-Man live on, forever accepted and adored! Man's
choice this is--not God's or mine! Were this self-seeking human race
once to reject me utterly, I should exist no more as I am,--nor would
they exist who are with me. Listen, while I trace your career!--it is a
copy of the lives of many men;--and judge how little the powers of
Heaven can have to do with you!--how much the powers of Hell!"
I shuddered involuntarily;--dimly I began to realize the awful nature of
this unearthly interview.
"You, Geoffrey Tempest, are a man in whom a Thought of God was once
implanted,--that subtle fire or note of music out of heaven called
Genius. So great a gift is rarely bestowed on any mortal,--and woe
betide him, who having received it, holds it as of mere personal value,
to be used for Self and not for God! Divine laws moved you gently in
the right path of study,--the path of suffering, of disappointment, of
self-denial and poverty,--for only by these things is humanity made
noble and trained in the ways of perfection. Through pain and enduring
labour the soul is armed for battle, and strengthened for conquest. For
it is more difficult to bear a victory well, than to endure many
buffetings of war! But you,--you resented Heaven's good-will towards
you,--the Valley of Humiliation suited you not at all. Poverty maddened
you,--starvation sickened you. Yet poverty is better than arrogant
wealth,--and starvation is healthier than self-indulgence! You could not
wait,--your own troubles seemed to you enormous,--your own efforts
laudable and marvellous,--the troubles and efforts of others were
nothing to you;--you were ready to curse God and die. Compassionating
yourself, admiring yourself and none other, with a heart full of
bitterness, and a mouth full of cursing, you were eager to make quick
havoc of both your genius and your soul. For this cause, your millions
of money came----and,--_so did I_!"
Standing now full height he confronted me,--his eyes were less
brilliant, but, they reflected in their dark splendour a passionate
scorn and sorrow.
"O fool!--in my very coming I warned you!--on the very day we met I told
you I was not what I seemed! God's elements crashed a menace when we
made our compact of friendship! And I,--when I saw the faint last
struggle of the not quite torpid soul in you to resist and distrust me,
did I not urge you to let that better instinct have its way?
You,--jester with the Supernatural!--you,--base scoffer at Christ! A
thousand hints have been given you,--a thousand chances of doing such
good as must have forced me to leave you,--as would have brought me a
welcome respite from sorrow,--a moment's cessation of torture!"
His brows contracted in a sombre frown,--he was silent a moment,--then
he resumed--
"Now learn from me the weaving of the web you so willingly became
entangled in! Your millions of money were Mine!--the man that left you
heir to them, was a wretched miser, evil to the soul's core! By virtue
of his own deeds he and his dross were Mine! and maddened by the sheer
accumulation of world's wealth, he slew himself in a fit of frenzy. He
lives again in a new and much more realistic phase of existence, and
knows the actual value of mankind's cash-payments! This _you_ have yet
to learn!"
He advanced a step or two, fixing his eyes more steadily upon me.
"Wealth is like Genius,--bestowed not for personal gratification, but
for the benefit of those who lack it. What have _you_ done for your
fellow-men? The very book you wrote and launched upon the tide of
bribery and corruption was published with the intention to secure
applause for Yourself, not to give help or comfort to others. Your
marriage was prompted by Lust and Ambition, and in the fair Sensuality
you wedded, you got your deserts! No love was in the union,--it was
sanctified by the blessing of Fashion, but not the blessing of God. You
have done without God; so you think! Every act of your existence has
been for the pleasure and advancement of Yourself,--and this is why I
have chosen you out to hear and see what few mortals ever hear or see
till they have passed the dividing-line between this life and the next.
I have chosen you because you are a type of the apparently respected and
unblamable man;--you are not what the world calls a criminal,--you have
murdered no-one,--you have stolen no neighbour's goods--, your
unchastities and adulteries are those of every 'fashionable'
vice-monger,--and your blasphemies against the Divine are no worse than
those of the most approved modern magazine-contributors. You are guilty
nevertheless of the chief crime of the age--Sensual Egotism--the
blackest sin known to either angels or devils, because hopeless. The
murderer may repent, and save a hundred lives to make up for the one he
snatched,--the thief may atone with honest labour,--the adulterer may
scourge his flesh and do grim penance for late pardon,--the blasphemer
may retrieve his blasphemies,--but for the Egoist there is no chance of
wholesome penitence, since to himself he is perfect, and counts his
Creator as somewhat inferior. This present time of the world breathes
Egotism,--the taint of Self, the hideous worship of money, corrodes all
life, all thought, all feeling. For vulgar cash, the fairest and noblest
scenes of Nature are wantonly destroyed without public protest,[5]--the
earth, created in beauty, is made hideous,--parents and children, wives
and husbands are ready to slay each other for a little gold,--Heaven is
barred out,--God is denied,--and Destruction darkens over this planet,
known to all angels as the Sorrowful Star! Be no longer blind,
millionaire whose millions have ministered to Self without relieving
sorrow!----for when the world is totally corrupt,--when Self is
dominant,--when cunning supersedes honesty,--when gold is man's chief
ambition,--when purity is condemned,--when poets teach lewdness, and
scientists blasphemy,--when love is mocked, and God forgotten,--the End
is near! I take My part in that end!--for the souls of mankind are not
done with when they leave their fleshly tenements! When this planet is
destroyed as a bubble broken in the air, the souls of men and women live
on,--as the soul of the woman you loved lives on,--as the soul of the
mother who bore her, lives on,--aye!--as all My worshippers live on
through a myriad worlds, a myriad phases, till they learn to shape their
destinies for Heaven! And I, with them live on, in many shapes, in many
ways!--when they return to God cleansed and perfect, so shall I
return!--but not till then!"
He paused again,--and I heard a faint sighing sound everywhere as of
wailing voices, and the name "Ahrimanes!" was breathed suddenly upon the
silence. I started up listening, every nerve strained----Ahrimanes?--or
Rimânez? I gazed fearfully at him, ... always beautiful, his countenance
was now sublime, ... and his eyes shone with a lustrous flame.
"You thought me friend!" he said--"You should have known me Foe! For
everyone who flatters a man for his virtues, or humours him in his vices
is that man's worst enemy, whether demon or angel! But you judged me a
fitting comrade,--hence I was bound to serve you,--I and my followers
with me. You had no perception to realize this,--you, supreme scorner of
the Supernatural! Little did you think of the terrifying agencies that
worked the wonders of your betrothal feast at Willowsmere! Little did
you dream that fiends prepared the costly banquet and poured out the
luscious wine!"
At this, a smothered groan of horror escaped me,--I looked wildly round
me, longing to find some deep grave of oblivious rest wherein to fall.
"Aye!" he continued--"The festival was fitted to the time of the world
to-day!--Society, gorging itself blind and senseless, and attended by a
retinue from Hell! My servants looked like men!--for truly there is
little difference 'twixt man and devil! 'Twas a brave gathering!--England
has never seen so strange a one in all her annals!"
The sighing, wailing cries increased in loudness,--my limbs shook under
me, and all power of thought was paralysed in my brain. He bent his
piercing looks upon me with a new expression of infinite wonder, pity
and disdain.
"What a grotesque creation you men have made of Me!" he said--"As
grotesque as your conception of God! With what trifling human attributes
you have endowed me! Know you not that the changeless, yet ever-changing
Essence of Immortal Life can take a million million shapes and yet
remain unalterably the same? Were I as hideous as your Churches figure
me,--could the eternal beauty with which all angels are endowed, ever
change to such loathsomeness as haunts mankind's distorted imaginations,
perchance it would be well,--for none would make of me their comrade,
and none would cherish me as friend! As fits each separate human nature,
so seems my image,--for thus is my fate and punishment commanded. Yet
even in this mask of man I wear, men own me their superior,--think you
not that when the Supreme Spirit of God wore that same mask on earth,
men did not know Him for their Master? Yea, they did know!--and knowing,
murdered Him,--as they ever strive to murder all divine things as soon
as their divinity is recognised. Face to face I stood with Him upon the
mountain-top, and there fulfilled my vow of temptation. Worlds and
kingdoms, supremacies and powers!----what were they to the Ruler of
them all! 'Get thee hence, Satan!' said the golden-sounding
Voice;--ah!--glorious behest!--happy respite!--for I reached the very
gate of Heaven that night, and heard the angels sing!"
His accents sank to an infinitely mournful cadence.
"What have your teachers done with me and my eternal sorrows?" he went
on--"Have not they, and the unthinking churches, proclaimed a lie
against me, saying that I rejoice in evil? O man to whom, by God's will
and because the world's end draws nigh, I unveil a portion of the
mystery of my doom, learn now once and for all, that there is no
possible joy in evil!--it is the despair and the discord of the
Universe,--it is Man's creation,--My torment,--God's sorrow! Every sin
of every human being adds weight to my torture, and length to my
doom,--yet my oath against the world must be kept! I have sworn to
tempt,--to do my uttermost to destroy mankind,--but man has not sworn to
yield to my tempting. He is free!--let him resist and I depart;--let him
accept me, I remain! Eternal Justice has spoken,--Humanity, through the
teaching of God made human, must work out its own redemption,--and
Mine!"
Here, suddenly advancing he stretched out his hand,--his figure grew
taller, vaster and more majestic.
"Come with me now!" he said in a low penetrating voice that sounded
sweet, yet menacing--"Come!--for the veil is down for you to-night! You
shall understand with WHOM you have dwelt so long in your shifting
cloud-castle of life!--and in What company you have sailed perilous
seas!--one, who proud and rebellious, like you, errs less, in that he
owns GOD as his Master!"
At these words a thundering crash assailed my ears,--all the windows on
either side of the saloon flew open, and showed a strange glitter as of
steely spears pointed aloft to the moon,-- ... then, ... half-fainting,
I felt myself grasped and lifted suddenly and forcibly upwards, ... and
in another moment found myself on the deck of 'The Flame,' held fast as
a prisoner in the fierce grip of hands invisible. Raising my eyes in
deadly despair,--prepared for hellish tortures, and with a horrible
sense of conviction in my soul that it was too late to cry out to God
for mercy,--I saw around me a frozen world!--a world that seemed as if
the sun had never shone upon it. Thick glassy-green walls of ice pressed
round the vessel on all sides and shut her in between their inflexible
barriers!--fantastic palaces, pinnacles, towers, bridges and arches of
ice formed in their architectural outlines and groupings the semblance
of a great city,--over all the coldly glistening peaks, the round moon,
emerald-pale, looked down,--and standing opposite to me against the
mast, I beheld, ... not Lucio, ... but an Angel!
[5] Witness the destruction of Foyers, to the historical shame and
disgrace of Scotland and Scotsmen.
XLI
Crowned with a mystic radiance as of trembling stars of fire, that
sublime Figure towered between me and the moonlit sky; the face,
austerely grand and beautiful, shone forth luminously pale,--the eyes
were full of unquenchable pain, unspeakable remorse, unimaginable
despair! The features I had known so long and seen day by day in
familiar intercourse were the same,--the same, yet transfigured with
ethereal splendour, while shadowed by an everlasting sorrow! Bodily
sensations I was scarcely conscious of;--only the Soul of me, hitherto
dormant, was awake and palpitating with fear. Gradually I became aware
that others were around me, and looking, I saw a dense crowd of faces,
wild and wonderful,--imploring eyes were turned upon me in piteous or
stern agony,--and pallid hands were stretched towards me more in appeal
than menace. And I beheld as I gazed, the air darkening, and anon
lightening with the shadow and the brightness of wings!--vast pinions of
crimson flame began to unfurl and spread upwards all round the ice-bound
vessel,--upwards till their glowing tips seemed well-nigh to touch the
moon. And He, my Foe, who leaned against the mast, became likewise
encircled with these shafted pinions of burning rose, which like
finely-webbed clouds coloured by a strong sunset, streamed outward
flaringly from his dark Form and sprang aloft in a blaze of scintillant
glory. And a Voice infinitely sad, yet infinitely sweet, struck solemn
music from the frozen silence.
"Steer onward, Amiel! Onward, to the boundaries of the world!"
With every spiritual sense aroused, I glanced towards the steerman's
wheel,--was _that_ Amiel whom I had instinctively loathed?--that Being,
stern as a figure of deadliest fate, with sable wings and tortured
countenance? If so, I knew him now for a fiend in very truth!--if
burning horror and endless shame can so transfigure the soul of man! A
history of crime was written in his anguished looks, ... what secret
torment racked him no living mortal might dare to guess! With pallid
skeleton hands he moved the wheel;--and as it turned, the walls of ice
around us began to split with a noise of thunder.
"Onward Amiel!" said the great sad Voice again--"Onward where never man
hath trod,--steer on to the world's end!"
The crowd of weird and terrible faces grew denser,--the flaming and
darkening of wings became thicker than driving storm-clouds rent by
lightning,--wailing cries, groans and dreary sounds of sobbing echoed
about me on all sides, ... again the shattering ice roared like an
earthquake under the waters, ... and, unhindered by her frozen
prison-walls, the ship moved on! Dizzily, and as one in a mad dream I
saw the great glittering bergs rock and bend forward,--the massive
ice-city shook to its foundations, ... glistening pinnacles dropped and
vanished, ... towers lurched over, broke and plunged into the sea,--huge
mountains of ice split up like fine glass, yawning asunder with a green
glare in the moonlight as the 'Flame' propelled, so it seemed, by the
demon-wings of her terrific crew, cut through the frozen passage with
the sharpness of a sword and the swiftness of an arrow! Whither were we
bound? I dared not think,--I deemed myself dead. The world I saw was not
the world I knew,--I believed I was in some spirit-land beyond the
grave, whose secrets I should presently realize perchance too well!
On,--on we went,--I keeping my strained sight fixed for the most part on
the supreme Shape that always confronted me,--that Angel-Foe whose eyes
were wild with an eternity of sorrows! Face to face with such an
Immortal Despair, I stood confounded and slain forever in my own
regard,--a worthless atom, meriting naught but annihilation. The wailing
cries and groans had ceased,--and we sped on in an awful silence,--while
countless tragedies,--unnameable histories,--were urged upon me in the
dumb eloquence of the dreary faces round me, and the expressive teaching
of their terrific eyes!
Soon the barriers of ice were passed,--and the 'Flame' floated out
beyond them into a warm inland sea, calm as a lake, and bright as silver
in the broad radiance of the moon. On either side were undulating
shores, rich with lofty and luxuriant verdure,--I saw the distant hazy
outline of dusky purple hills,--I heard the little waves plashing
against hidden rocks, and murmuring upon the sand. Delicious odours
filled the air;--a gentle breeze blew, ... was this the lost
Paradise?--this semi-tropic zone concealed behind a continent of ice and
snow? Suddenly, from the tops of the dark branching trees, came floating
the sound of a bird's singing,--and so sweet was the song, so
heart-whole was the melody, that my aching eyes filled with tears.
Beautiful memories rushed upon me,--the value and graciousness of
life,--life on the kindly sunlit earth,--seemed very dear to my soul!
Life's opportunities,--its joys, its wonders, its blessings, all
showered down upon a thankless race by a loving Creator,--these appeared
to me all at once as marvellous! Oh for another chance of such life!--to
redeem the past,--to gather up the wasted gems of lost moments,--to live
as a man should live, in accordance with the will of God, and in
brotherhood with his fellow-men! ... The unknown bird sang on in a
cadence like that of a mavis in spring, only more tunefully,--surely no
other woodland songster ever sang half so well! And as its dulcet notes
dropped roundly one by one upon the mystic silence, I saw a pale
Creature move out from amid the shadowing of black and scarlet wings,--a
white woman-shape, clothed in her own long hair. She glided to the
vessel's edge, and there she leaned, with anguished face upturned,--it
was the face of Sibyl! And even while I looked upon her, she cast
herself wildly down upon the deck and wept! My soul was stirred within
me, ... I saw in very truth all that she might have been,--I realized
what an angel a little guiding love and patience might have made her,
... and at last I pitied her! I never pitied her before!
And now many familiar faces shone upon me like white stars in a mist of
rain,--all faces of the dead,--all marked with unquenchable remorse and
sorrow. One figure passed before me drearily, in fetters glistening with
a weight of gold,--I knew him for my college-friend of olden days;
another, crouching on the ground in fear, I recognised as him who had
staked his last possession at play, even to his immortal soul,--I even
saw my father's face, worn and aghast with grief, and trembled lest the
sacred beauty of Her who had died to give me birth, should find a place
among these direful horrors. But no!--thank God I never saw
her!----_her_ spirit had not lost its way to Heaven!
Again my eyes reverted to the Mover of this mystic scene,--that Fallen
Splendour whose majestic shape now seemed to fill both earth and sky. A
fiery glory blazed about him, ... he raised his hand, ... the ship
stopped,--and the dark Steersman rested motionless on the wheel. Round
us the moonlit landscape was spread like a glittering dream of
fairyland,--and still the unknown bird of God sang on with such
entrancing tenderness as must have soothed hell's tortured souls.
"Lo, here we pause!" said the commanding Voice--"Here, where the
distorted shape of Man hath never cast a shadow!--here,--where the
arrogant mind of Man hath never conceived a sin!--here, where the
godless greed of Man hath never defaced a beauty, or slain a woodland
thing!--here, the last spot on earth left untainted by Man's presence!
Here is the world's end!--when this land is found, and these shores
profaned,--when Mammon plants its foot upon this soil,--then dawns the
Judgment-Day! But, until then, ... here, where only God doth work
perfection, angels may look down undismayed, and even fiends find
rest!"
A solemn sound of music surged upon the air,--and I who had been as one
in chains, bound by invisible bonds and unable to stir, was suddenly
liberated. Fully conscious of freedom I still faced the dark gigantic
figure of my Foe,--for his luminous eyes were now upon me, and his
penetrating voice addressed me only.
"Man, deceive not thyself!" he said--"Think not the terrors of this
night are the delusion of a dream or the snare of a vision! Thou art
awake,--not sleeping,--thou art flesh as well as spirit! This place is
neither hell nor heaven nor any space between,--it is a corner of thine
own world on which thou livest. Wherefore know from henceforth that the
Supernatural Universe in and around the Natural is no lie,--but the
chief Reality, inasmuch as God surroundeth all! Fate strikes thine
hour,--and in this hour 'tis given thee to choose thy Master. Now, by
the will of God, thou seest me as Angel;--but take heed thou forget not
that among men I am as Man! In human form I move with all humanity
through endless ages,--to kings and counsellors, to priests and
scientists, to thinkers and teachers, to old and young, I come in the
shape their pride or vice demands, and am as one with all. Self finds in
me another Ego;--but from the pure in heart, the high in faith, the
perfect in intention, I do retreat with joy, offering naught save
reverence, demanding naught save prayer! So am I,--so must I ever
be,--till Man of his own will releases and redeems me. Mistake me not,
but know me!--and choose thy Future for truth's sake and not out of
fear! Choose and change not in any time hereafter,--this hour, this
moment is thy last probation,--choose, I say! Wilt thou serve Self and
Me? or God only?"
The question seemed thundered on my ears, ... shuddering, I looked from
right to left, and saw a gathering crowd of faces, white, wistful,
wondering, threatening and imploring,--they pressed about me close, with
glistening eyes and lips that moved dumbly. And as they stared upon me I
beheld another spectral thing,--the image of Myself!--a poor frail
creature, pitiful, ignorant, and undiscerning,--limited in both
capacity and intelligence, yet full of strange egotism and still
stranger arrogance; every detail of my life was suddenly presented to me
as in a magic mirror, and I read my own chronicle of paltry intellectual
pride, vulgar ambition and vulgarer ostentation,--I realised with shame
my miserable vices, my puny scorn of God, my effronteries and
blasphemies; and in the sudden strong repulsion and repudiation of my
own worthless existence, being and character, I found both voice and
speech.
"GOD only!" I cried fervently--"Annihilation at His hands, rather than
life without Him! GOD only! I have chosen!"
My words vibrated passionately on my own ears, ... and ... even as they
were spoken, the air grew misty with a snowy opalescent radiance, ...
the sable and crimson wings uplifted in such multitudinous array around
me, palpitated with a thousand changeful hues, ... and over the face of
my dark Foe a light celestial fell like the smile of dawn! Awed and
afraid I gazed upward, ... and there I saw a new and yet more wondrous
glory, ... a shining Figure outlined against the sky in such surpassing
beauty and vivid brilliancy as made me think the sun itself had risen in
vast Angel-shape on rainbow pinions! And from the brightening heaven
there rang a silver voice, clear as a clarion-call,--
"_Arise, Lucifer, Son of the Morning! One soul rejects thee,--one hour
of joy is granted thee! Hence and arise!_"
Earth, air, and sea blazed suddenly into fiery gold,--blinded and
stunned, I was seized by compelling hands and held firmly down by a
force invisible, ... the yacht was slowly sinking under me! Overwhelmed
with unearthly terrors, my lips yet murmured,
"GOD! God only!" The heavens changed from gold to crimson--anon to
shining blue, ... and against this mass of wavering colour that seemed
to make a jewelled archway of the sky, I saw the Form of him whom I had
known as man, swiftly ascend god-like, with flaming pinions and upturned
glorious visage, like a vision of light in darkness! Around him
clustered a million winged shapes,--but He, supreme, majestic,
wonderful, towered high above them all, a very king of splendour, the
glory round his brows resembling meteor-fires in an Arctic
midnight,--his eyes, twin stars, ablaze with such great rapture as
seemed half agony! Breathless and giddy, I strained my sight to follow
him as he fled; ... and heard the musical calling of strange sweet
voices everywhere, from east to west, from north to south.
"Lucifer! ... Belovëd and unforgotten! Lucifer, Son of the morning!
Arise! ... arise! ..."
With all my remaining strength I strove to watch the vanishing upward of
that sublime Luminance that now filled the visible universe,--the
demon-ship was still sinking steadily, ... invisible hands still held me
down, ... I was falling,--falling,--into unimaginable depths, ... when
another Voice, till then unheard, solemn yet sweet, spoke aloud--
"Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outermost darkness of the
world! There let him find My Light!"
I heard,--yet felt no fear.
"God only!" I said, as I sank into the vast profound,--and lo! while the
words yet trembled on my lips, I saw the sun! The sweet earth's
sun!--the kindly orb familiar,--the lamp of God's protection,--its
golden rim came glittering upwards in the east,--higher and higher it
rose, making a shining background for that mighty Figure, whose darkly
luminous wings now seemed like sable storm-clouds stretched wide across
the horizon! Once more ... yet once, ... the Angel-visage bent its
warning looks on me, ... I saw the anguished smile, ... the great eyes
burning with immortal sorrows! ... then, I was plunged forcibly
downwards and thrust into an abysmal grave of frozen cold.
XLII
The blue sea--the blue sky!--and God's sunshine over all! To this I
woke, after a long period of unconsciousness, and found myself afloat on
a wide ocean, fast bound to a wooden spar. So strongly knotted were my
bonds that I could not stir either hand or foot, ... and after one or
two ineffectual struggles to move I gave up the attempt, and lay
submissively resigned to my fate, face upturned and gazing at the
infinite azure depths above me, while the heaving breath of the sea
rocked me gently to and fro like an infant in its mother's arms. Alone
with God and Nature, I, a poor human wreck, drifted,----lost, yet found!
Lost on this vast sea which soon should serve my body as a sepulchre,
... but found, inasmuch as I was fully conscious of the existence and
awakening of the Immortal Soul within me,--that divine, actual and
imperishable essence, which now I recognised as being all that is
valuable in a man in the sight of his Creator. I was to die, soon and
surely;--this I thought, as the billows swayed me in their huge cradle,
running in foamy ripples across my bound body, and dashing cool spray
upon my brows,--what could I do now, doomed and helpless as I was, to
retrieve my wasted past? Nothing! save repent,--and could repentance at
so late an hour fit the laws of eternal justice? Humbly and sorrowfully
I considered, ... to me had been given a terrific and unprecedented
experience of the awful Reality of the Spirit-world around us,--and now
I was cast out on the sea as a thing worthless, I felt that the brief
time remaining to me of life in this present sphere was indeed my "last
probation," as that Supernatural Wonder, the declared Enemy of mankind,
whom still in my thoughts I called Lucio, had declared.
"If I dared,--after a life's denial and blasphemy,--turn to Christ!" I
said--"Would He,--the Divine Brother and Friend of man,--reject me?"
I whispered the question to the sky and sea, ... solemn silence seemed
to invest the atmosphere, and marvellous calm. No other answer came than
this, ... a deep and charmëd peace, that insensibly stole over my
fretting conscience, my remorseful soul, my aching heart, my tired mind.
I remembered certain words heard long ago, and lightly forgotten. "_Him
who cometh unto Me will I in no wise cast out._" Looking up to the clear
heavens and radiant sun, I smiled; and with a complete abandonment of
myself and my fears to the Divine Will, I murmured the words that in my
stress of mystic agony had so far saved me,--
"God only! Whatsoever He shall choose for me in life, in death, and
after death, is best."
And closing my eyes, I resigned my life to the mercy of the soft waves,
and with the sunbeams warm upon my face, I slept.
* * * * *
* * *
*
I woke again with an icy shudder and cry,--rough cheery voices sounded
in my ears,--strong hands were at work busily unfastening the cords with
which I was bound, ... I was on the deck of a large steamer, surrounded
by a group of men,--and all the glory of the sunset fired the seas.
Questions were poured upon me, ... I could not answer them, for my
tongue was parched and blistered, ... lifted upright upon my feet by
sturdy arms, I could not stand for sheer exhaustion. Dimly, and in
feeble dread I stared around me,----was this great vessel with smoking
funnels and grinding engines another devil's craft set sailing round
the world! Too weak to find a voice I made dumb signs of terrified
inquiry, ... a broad-shouldered bluff-looking man came forward, whose
keen eyes rested on me with kindly compassion.
"This is an English vessel," he said--"We are bound for Southampton. Our
helmsman saw you floating ahead,--we stopped and sent a boat for rescue.
Where were you wrecked? Any more of the crew afloat?"
I gazed at him, but could not speak. The strangest thoughts crowded into
my brain, moving me to wild tears and laughter. England! The word struck
clashing music on my mind, and set all my pulses trembling. England! The
little spot upon the little world, most loved and honoured of all men,
save those who envy its worth! I made some gesture, whether of joy or
mad amazement I know not,----had I been able to speak I could have
related nothing that those men around me could have comprehended or
believed, ... then I sank back again in a dead swoon.
They were very good to me, all those English sailors. The captain gave
me his own cabin,--the ship's doctor attended me with a zeal that was
only exceeded by his curiosity to know where I came from, and the nature
of the disaster that had befallen me. But I remained dumb, and lay inert
and feeble in my berth, grateful for the care bestowed upon me, as well
as for the temporary exhaustion that deprived me of speech. For I had
enough to do with my own thoughts,--thoughts far too solemn and weighty
for utterance. I was saved,--I was given another chance of life in the
world,--and _I knew why_! My one absorbing anxiety now was to retrieve
my wasted time, and to do active good where hitherto I had done nothing!
The day came at last, when I was sufficiently recovered to be able to
sit on deck and watch with eager eyes the approaching coast-line of
England. I seemed to have lived a century since I left it,--aye, almost
an eternity,--for time is what the Soul makes it, and no more. I was an
object of interest and attention among all the passengers on board, for
as yet I had not broken silence. The weather was calm and bright, ...
the sun shone gloriously,--and far off the pearly rim of Shakespeare's
'happy isle' glistened jewel-like upon the edge of the sea. The captain
came and looked at me,--nodded encouragingly,--and after a moment's
hesitation, said--
"Glad to see you out on deck! Almost yourself again, eh?"
I silently assented with a faint smile.
"Perhaps"--he continued, "as we're so near home, you'll let me know your
name? It's not often we pick up a man alive and drifting in
mid-Atlantic."
In mid-Atlantic! What force had flung me there I dared not think, ...
nor whether it was hellish or divine.
"My name?" I murmured, surprised into speech,--how odd it was I had
never thought of myself lately as having a name or any other thing
belonging to me!--"Why certainly! Geoffrey Tempest is my name."
The captain's eyes opened widely.
"Geoffrey Tempest! Dear me! ... _The_ Mr Tempest?----the great
millionaire that _was_?"
It was now my turn to stare.
"That _was_?" I repeated--"What do you mean?"
"Have you not heard?" he asked excitedly.
"Heard? I have heard nothing since I left England some months ago--with
a friend, on board his yacht ... we went on a long voyage and ... a
strange one! We were wrecked, ... you know the rest, and how I owe my
life to your rescue. But of news I am ignorant ..."
"Good heavens!" he interrupted quickly--"Bad news travels fast as a rule
they say,--but you have missed it ... and I confess I don't like to be
the bearer of it ..."
He broke off, and his genial face looked troubled. I smiled,--yet
wondered.
"Pray speak out!" I said--"I don't think you can tell me anything that
will deeply affect me,--_now_. I know the best and worst of most things
in the world, I assure you!"
He eyed me dubiously;--then, going into his smoking-cabin, he brought
me out an American newspaper seven days old. He handed it to me pointing
to its leading columns without a word. There I saw in large type--"A
Millionaire Ruined! Enormous Frauds! Monster Forgeries! Gigantic
Swindle! On the track of Bentham and Ellis!"
My brain swam for a minute,--then I read on steadily, and soon grasped
the situation. The respectable pair of lawyers whom I had implicitly
relied on for the management of all my business affairs in my absence,
had succumbed to the temptation of having so much cash in charge for
investment,--and had become a pair of practised swindlers. Dealing with
the same bank as myself, they had forged my name so cleverly that the
genuineness of the signature had never been even suspected,--and, after
drawing enormous sums in this way, and investing in various 'bubble'
companies with which they personally were concerned, they had finally
absconded, leaving me almost as poor as I was when I first heard of my
inherited fortune. I put aside the paper, and looked up at the good
captain, who stood watching me with sympathetic anxiety.
"Thank you!" I said--"These thieves were my trusted lawyers,--and I can
cheerfully say that I am much more sorry for them than I am for myself.
A thief is always a thief,--a poor man, if he be honest, is at any rate
the thief's superior. The money they have stolen will bring them misery
rather than pleasure,--of that I am convinced. If this account be
correct, they have already lost large sums in bogus companies,--and the
man Bentham, whom I thought the very acme of shrewd caution has sunk an
enormous amount of capital in a worn-out gold mine. Their forgeries must
have been admirably done!--a sad waste of time and cleverness. It
appears too that the investments I have myself made are
worthless;--well, well!--it does not matter,--I must begin the world
again, that's all!" He looked amazed.
"I don't think you quite realize your own misfortune, Mr Tempest"--he
said--"You take it too quietly by half. You'll think worse of it
presently."
"I hope not!" I responded, with a smile--"It never does to think the
worst of anything. I assure you I realize perfectly. I am in the world's
sight a ruined man,--I quite understand!"
He shrugged his shoulders with quite a desperate air, and left me. I am
convinced he thought me mad,--but I knew I had never been so sane. I did
indeed entirely comprehend my 'misfortune,' or rather the great chance
bestowed on me of winning something far higher than all the coffers of
Mammon; I read in my loss of world's cash the working of such a merciful
providence and pity as gave me a grander hope than any I had ever known.
Clear before me rose the vision of that most divine and beautiful
necessity of happiness,--Work!--the grand and too often misprized Angel
of Labour, which moulds the mind of man, steadies his hands, controls
his brain, purifies his passions, and strengthens his whole mental and
physical being. A rush of energy and health filled my veins,--and I
thanked God devoutly for the golden opportunities held out afresh for me
to accept and use. Gratitude there should be in every human soul for
every gift of heaven,--but nothing merits more thankfulness and praise
to the Creator than the call to work, and the ability to respond to it.
England at last! I bade farewell to the good ship that had rescued me,
and to all on board her, most of whom now knew my name and looked upon
me with pity as well as curiosity. The story of my being wrecked on a
friend's yacht was readily accepted,--and the subject of that adventure
was avoided, as the general impression was that my friend, whoever he
was, had been drowned with his crew, and that I was the one survivor. I
did not offer any further explanation, and was content to so let the
matter rest, though I was careful to send both the captain and the
ship's doctor a handsome recompense for their united attention and
kindness. I have reason to believe, from the letters they wrote me, that
they were more than satisfied with the sums received, and that I really
did some actual good with those few last fragments of my vanished
wealth.
On reaching London, I interviewed the police concerning the thieves and
forgers, Bentham and Ellis, and stopped all proceedings against them.
"Call me mad if you like,"--I said to the utterly confounded chief of
the detective force--"I do not mind! But let these rascals keep the
trash they have stolen. It will be a curse to them, as it has been to
me! It is devil's money! Half of it was already gone, being settled on
my late wife,--at her death, it reverted by the same deed of settlement,
to any living members of her family, and it now belongs to Lord Elton. I
have lived to make a noble Earl rich, who was once bankrupt,--and I
doubt if he would lend me a ten-pound-note for the asking! However, I
shall not ask him. The rest has gone into the universal waste of
corruption and sham--let it stay there! I shall never bother myself to
get it back. I prefer to be a free man."
"But the bank,--the principle of the thing!" exclaimed the detective
with indignation.
I smiled.
"Exactly! The principle of the thing has been perfectly carried out. A
man who has too much money _creates_ forgers and thieves about him,--he
cannot expect to meet with honesty. Let the bank prosecute if it
likes,--I shall not. I am free!--free to work for my living. What I earn
I shall enjoy,--what I inherited, I have learnt to loathe!"
With that I left him, puzzled and irate,--and in a day or two the papers
were full of strange stories concerning me, and numerous lies as well. I
was called 'mad,' 'unprincipled,' 'thwarting the ends of justice,'--and
sundry other names, while scurrilous civilities known only to the penny
paragraphist were heaped upon me by the score. To complete my entire
satisfaction, a man on the staff of one of the leading journals, dug out
my book from Mudie's underground cellar, and 'slashed' it with a
bitterness and venom only excelled by my own violence when anonymously
libelling the work of Mavis Clare! And the result was remarkable,--for
in a sudden wind of caprice, the public made a rush for my neglected
literary offspring,--they took it up, handled it tenderly, read it
lingeringly, found something in it that pleased them, and finally bought
it by thousands! ... whereat the astute Morgeson, as virtuous publisher,
wrote to me in wonder and congratulation, enclosing a cheque for a
hundred pounds on 'royalties,' and promising more in due course, should
the 'run' continue. Ah, the sweetness of that earned hundred pounds! I
felt a King of independence!--realms of ambition and attainment opened
out before me,--life smiled upon me as it had never smiled before. Talk
of poverty! I was rich!----rich with a hundred pounds made out of my own
brain-labour,--and I envied no millionaire that ever flaunted his gold
beneath the sun! I thought of Mavis Clare, ... but dared not dwell too
long upon her gentle image. In time perhaps, ... when I had settled down
to fresh work, ... when I had formed my life as I meant to form it, in
the habits of faith, firmness and unselfishness, I would write to her
and tell her all,--all, even to that dread insight into worlds unseen,
beyond the boundaries of an unknown region of everlasting frozen snow!
But now,----now I resolved to stand alone,--fighting my battle as a man
should fight, seeking for neither help nor sympathy, and trusting not in
Self, but God only. Moreover I could not induce myself yet to look again
upon Willowsmere. The place was terror-haunted for me; and though Lord
Elton with a curious condescension, (seeing that it was to me he owed
the free gift of his former property) invited me to stay there, and
professed a certain lame regret for the 'heavy financial losses' I had
sustained, I saw in the tone of his epistle that he looked upon me
somewhat in the light of a madman after my refusal to take up the matter
of my absconding solicitors, and that he would rather I stayed away. And
I did stay away;--and even when his marriage with Diana Chesney took
place with great pomp and splendour, I refused his invitation to be
present. In the published list of guests, however which appeared in the
principal papers, I was scarcely surprised to read the name of 'Prince
Lucio Rimânez.'
I now took a humble room and set to work on a new literary enterprise,
avoiding everyone I had hitherto known, for being now almost a poor man,
I was aware that 'swagger society' wished to blot me from its
visiting-list. I lived with my own sorrowful thoughts,--musing on many
things, training myself to humility, obedience, and faith with
fortitude,--and day by day I did battle with the monster, Egotism, that
presented itself in a thousand disguises at every turn in my own life as
well as in the lives of others. I had to re-form my character,--to mould
the obstinate nature that rebelled, and make its obstinacy serve for the
attainment of higher objects than world's renown,--the task was
difficult,--but I gained ground a little with every fresh effort.
I had lived for some months like this in bitter self-abasement, when all
the reading world was suddenly electrified by another book of Mavis
Clare's. My lately favoured first work was again forgotten and thrust
aside,--hers, slated and screamed at as usual by the criticasters, was
borne along to fame by a great wave of honest public praise and
enthusiasm. And I? I rejoiced!--no longer grudging or envious of her
sweet fame, I stood apart in spirit as it were, while the bright car of
her triumph went by, decked, not only with laurels, but with roses,--the
blossoms of a people's love and honour. With all my soul I reverenced
her genius,--with all my heart I honoured her pure womanliness! And in
the very midst of her brilliant success, when all the world was talking
of her, she wrote to me, a simple little letter, as gracious as her own
fair name.
Dear Mr Tempest,
I heard by chance the other day that you had returned to England. I
therefore send this note to the care of your publisher to express my
sincere delight in the success your clever book has now attained
after its interval of probation. I fancy the public appreciation of
your work must go far to console you for the great losses you have
had both in life and fortune, of which I will not here speak. When
you feel that you can bear to look again upon scenes which I know
will be sure to rouse in your mind many sad and poignant memories,
will you come and see me?
Your friend
Mavis Clare.
A mist came before my eyes,--I almost felt her gentle presence in my
room,--I saw the tender look, the radiant smile,--the innocent yet
earnest joy in life and love of purity that emanated from the fair
personality of the sweetest woman I had ever known. She called herself
my friend!--... it was a privilege of which I felt myself unworthy! I
folded the letter and put it near my heart to serve me as a talisman,
... she, of all bright creatures in the world surely knew the secret of
happiness! ... Some-day, ... yes, ... I would go and see her, ... my
Mavis that sang in her garden of lilies,--some day when I had force and
manliness enough to tell her all,--save my love for her! For that, I
felt, must never be spoken,--Self must resist Self, and clamour no more
at the gate of a forfeited Paradise! Some day I would see her, ... but
not for a long time, ... not till I had, in part at least, worked out my
secret expiation. As I sat musing thus, a strange memory came into my
brain, ... I thought I heard a voice resembling my own, which said--
"_Lift, oh lift the shrouding veil, spirit of the City Beautiful! For I
feel I shall read in your eyes the secret of happiness!_"
A cold shudder ran through me,--I sprang up erect, in a kind of horror.
Leaning at my open window I looked down into the busy street below,--and
my thoughts reverted to the strange things I had seen in the East,--the
face of the dead Egyptian dancer, uncovered to the light again after two
thousand years,--the face of Sibyl!--then I remembered the vision of the
"City Beautiful," in which one face had remained veiled,--the face I
most desired to see!----and I trembled more and more as my mind, despite
my will, began to weave together links of the past and present, till
they seemed growing into one and the same. Was I again to be the prey of
evil forces?----did some new danger threaten me?--had I, by some
unconscious wicked wish invited new temptation to assail me?
Overcome by my sensations, I left my work and went out into the fresh
air, ... it was late at night,--and the moon was shining. I felt for the
letter of Mavis,--it pressed against my heart, a shield against all
vileness. The room I occupied was in a house not far from Westminster
Abbey, and I instinctively bent my steps towards that grey old shrine of
kings and poets dead. The square around it was almost deserted,----I
slackened my pace, strolling meditatively along the narrow paved way
that forms a short cut across into Old Palace Yard, ... when suddenly a
Shadow crossed my path, and looking up, I came face to face
with----Lucio! The same as ever,--the perfect impersonation of perfect
manhood! ... his countenance, pale, proud, sorrowful yet scornful,
flashed upon me like a star!----he looked full at me, and a questioning
smile rested on his lips!
My heart almost stopped beating, ... I drew a quick sharp breath, ...
again I felt for the letter of Mavis, and then, ... meeting his gaze
fixedly and straightly in my turn, I moved slowly on in silence. He
understood,--his eyes flashed with the jewel-like strange brilliancy I
knew so well, and so well remembered,--and drawing back he stood aside
and--let me pass! I continued my walk steadily, though dazed and like
one in a dream,--till reaching the shadowed side of the street opposite
the Houses of Parliament, I stopped for a moment to recover my startled
senses. There again I saw him!----the superb man's form,--the Angel's
face,--the haunting, splendid sorrowful eyes!----he came with his usual
ease and grace of step into the full moonlight and paused,--apparently
waiting for some one. For me?--ah no!--I kept the name of God upon my
lips,--I gathered all the strength of faith within my soul,--and though
I was wholesomely afraid of Myself, I feared no other foe! I lingered
therefore--watching;--and presently I saw a few members of Parliament
walking singly and in groups towards the House,--one or two greeted the
tall dark Figure as a friend and familiar, and others knew him not.
Still he waited on, ... and so did I. At last, just as Big Ben chimed
the quarter to eleven, one man whom I instantly recognised as a
well-known Cabinet minister, came walking briskly towards the House, ...
then, and then only, He, whom I had known as Lucio, advanced smiling.
Greeting the minister cordially, in that musical rich voice I knew of
old, he took his arm,--and they both walked on slowly, talking
earnestly. I watched them till their figures receded in the moonlight,
... the one tall, kingly and commanding, ... the other burly and broad,
and self-assertive in demeanour;--I saw them ascend the steps, and
finally disappear within the House of England's Imperial
Government,--Devil and Man,--together!
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation and word boundaries have been |
| retained: any rate / anyrate, bluebells / blue-bells, |
| commonplace / common-place, deathlike / death-like, |
| goodwill / good-will, honeysuckle / honey-suckle, Maypole / |
| May-pole, notepaper / note-paper, nowadays / now-a-days, |
| overhead / over-head, Pall Mall / Pall-Mall, pocket book / |
| pocketbook / pocket-book, someone / some-one, Supernatural / |
| Super-natural, uplifted / up-lifted. |
| |
| Minor punctuation and spelling repairs have been made |
| without comment. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Sorrows of Satan - or, The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, - Millionaire, A Romance" ***
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