by George Moore
But, partly because he wished to spite her for what he, in his secret mind, termed her intense selfishness, and partly because he had a vague notion that all he had to do to become a great artist was to go to Paris; he remained firm in his original purpose of going abroad as soon as the ball-room was finished.
The subject was discussed over and over again, sometimes à deux, sometimes before Mrs. Thorpe, to whom they both appealed as to a presiding judge.
Eventually it was agreed that he should proceed to Paris at the end of February, get admitted as a student to the “Beaux-Arts,” and that after the London season, Mrs. Bentham and Mrs. Thorpe should come and see him. Before, it was impossible, for as she explained when alone to him that it would compromise her too much not to be seen in London during the season, but that once it was over, she could do as she liked.
Paris brought back a crowd of remembrances to Mrs. Bentham. It was there she had spent the first months of her married life. Mr. Bentham was of that horrible race, the Parisian English, which race seems to have the virtues of neither country and the vices of both.
She rarely heard of him now; when the court had granted her her judicial separation, he had left England for his favourite city. Sometimes curious stories about him reached her ears, fantastic duels, in which actresses’ names were mentioned, but that was all. She gradually had learned to forgive him. In her heart she believed him mad, but when talking of him she could not always repress a shudder.
CHAPTER XIII.
ENFIN.
WHEN THE DECORATIONS were finished, Mrs. Bentham gave a ball. The whole county was asked, aristocracy, gentry, and hangers-on; a great many guests came from London, and for a week the house was full of people.
A dazzling white lustre hung from the middle of the ceiling; and, in the clear flames of its twenty-five wax candles, the vast straw-coloured walls took the appearance of a gigantic ball-dress — a dress embroidered with joyous cupids, and sleeping, singing, and revelling nymphs. Up and down the glittering parqueted floor, full of reflected skirts, and patent leather shoes, groups and couples walked and discussed the designs.
Sometimes they would form into masses before a particular panel, and then the pale tints of the women’s shoulders were curious to compare with the rose skins of the nymphs.
Lewis was enchanted; the workmen had only that day finished hanging the chandelier, and it was therefore the first time he had seen his room lighted up.
What particularly pleased him was the way in which the long tendrils and delicate leaves encircled the pictures, and how their dead green harmonised with the mauve frames. His triumph was complete. A rippling sound of complimentary words came from wherever he went. When these reached Lord Senton’s ears, he started; and, with a pained expression of face, strove to get out of hearing.
Everybody looked at Lewis, and was anxious to be introduced to him. Lady Marion talked with him, and gave him much advice about Paris, where he was going next week.
The artistic element was, however, wanting. Its sole representative was Mr. Ripple, a young man who wrote paragraphs in the society papers. He had made great friends with Lewis, and was now explaining to a group of ladies the signification of some of the allegories, and at the same time threatening them that he would mention their names in the world, an announcement which caused them to flutter with excitement.
No ball ever passed off more satisfactorily; everybody ate, drank, danced as much as they liked, and some had afterwards the ineffable pleasure of reading an account of their dresses, with their names appended, in omnibus language of a society print.
But it was Lewis who came out beautifully. He was described both physically and morally, and his decorations were declared to have been conceived in the best spirit of the seventeenth century. It was the first time he had ever seen his name in type: he shook Rippled hand, and vowed friendship.
But the young man, who had this time contributed nearly half a column, declared that he lived by literature, and was only too glad to make known to the world any new talent it was his good fortune to meet with.
A fortnight afterwards Lewis started for Paris with twenty-five pounds in his pocket, and three hundred and fifty to his credit at the bank; for not only had Mrs. Bentham insisted on paying a hundred more than was agreed on for the decorations, but she had, as an excuse for giving him money, sat to him for a full-length portrait, which, alas! he had not been able to complete.
First, the drawing did not come right, then he had not been able to get it like; eventually he found himself obliged to put it aside, and say he would go on with it next year. The failure mortified his vanity; but it proved to him conclusively that he had much to learn, and he went to Paris burning with enthusiasm for work. But when he was gone, Mrs. Bentham became so restless that her life was a burden to her. The long, solitary evenings were intolerable, and even Mrs. Thorpe had to admit that the house was very lonely in his absence.
The only relief in Mrs. Bentham’s life was when she got a letter from him; he was a good correspondent, and every week he wrote, telling her how he was getting on — how he would owe it all to her if he ever became a great artist.
She loved these letters, and the mornings they came she was always late for breakfast: she remained dreaming over them in bed.
With him her life seemed to have ended; nothing amused, nothing interested her, and she spent her days bitterly watching the spring rain dripping on the saturated terraces, until, weary as a Mariana, she determined to seek relief in the excitement of the London season. She went to many balls, but they, too, bored her, and the men who tried to make love to her only annoyed her. She thought this time of waiting would never come to an end.
At last, however, the 12th of July came, and, dusty and travel-stained, Mrs. Bentham and Mrs. Thorpe stepped out of the sea-sick smelling railway carriage on to the dark grey and desolate Gare du Nord.
Next morning, in the gaudy hotel sitting-room of the Hotel Meurice, Mrs. Thorpe sat knitting next the fire-place; Mrs. Bentham, on the red sofa, tried to read the Figaro. The breakfast was laid for three. Both women waited impatiently. At last a footstep was heard, and Lewis rushed into the room, his bright face beaming with smiles.
Mrs. Bentham said little, but from time to time she raised her eyes and looked at him earnestly. Mrs. Thorpe wanted to hear the details of his daily life.
They were delighted to see each other, but the afternoon passed by full of uneasy silences, until the servant announced that the carriage was at the door, and Mrs. Bentham asked him if he would like to come with her for a drive. Lewis was delighted. He was dying to talk with her alone; and as they drove round the fashionable lake, leaning back on the comfortable cushions of the victoria, he spoke to her of their long separation, and passionately pressed her to say that she had regretted him.
She equivocated and they quarrelled, but were reconciled on her finally admitting that the London season had bored her dreadfully, and that she was perfectly happy now.
It was sweet to her to find that Lewis knew nothing of Paris; but he explained that he had done nothing but work; and when he told her he had only spent a hundred pounds, she pressed his hands in recognition. They appeared to have grown more intimate. With lazy little laughs, and whispered words, they talked of the past, and looked dreamily into the future. Every now and then Mrs. Bentham fell into reveries. She gazed distrustfully on the cafés, theatres, and gardens: a vision of a new life seemed to float seductively out of the soft evening air, and the beautiful city wore the pale sunset skies like a garment befitting her light pleasures and ephemeral loves.
About half-past six they got home. Both were in high spirits, and Mrs. Bentham insisted that they should dine at a restaurant. Mrs. Thorpe consented.
But it took a long time to decide which café to go to. Lewis could of course offer no suggestion; he knew of nothing but a quantity of “estaminets.” At last they settled on the “Doyen;” but it was with difficulty they persuaded Mrs. Thorpe to dine out in
the open air. She declared she had never heard of such a thing; and it was only on seeing how disappointed they would be if she refused, that she consented to take a seat, as she put it, out in the middle of a field. But once there it was all right; and, before she had finished her soup, she was forced to admit that she was very comfortable, although a little bewildered. Everything seemed to her so strange.
But Lewis, who loved the fantastic, was enchanted with the little white tables scattered over the green sward, encircled with bright foliage, that came out like lace-work upon the pale sky. The hurry of the quick waiters, the fresh faces, the endless novelty, amused him beyond measure. The “sole à la Normande,” and the “caille aux feuilles de vigne,” tasted a thousand times better than they had ever done in England, and the “Pommard” had in it some of the sunlight which glowed in their faces. Lewis and Mrs. Bentham laughed at Mrs. Thorpe’s astonishment, for when the long garlands of lamps, which filled the foliage, began to light up, she said that it appeared to her like fairy land. As they sipped their coffee they heard the rollicking strains of a quadrille played in a neighbouring “café-chantant.” Lewis proposed to take them there; but Mrs. Thorpe was a little tired, and they drove back to the hotel. When he left the ladies for the night, he stood on the Pont-Neuf. The city seemed to him like some voluptuous siren, dreaming to the strains of amorous music, and, following the simile out, he longed to place his hand on hers and lay his head a while to rest on the beautiful bosom she held to him.
Since he had been in Paris he had worked very hard. He had lived an abstemious life, and had not missed a morning at the “Beaux-Arts.” In these four months of steady application he had made much progress. His fingers were clever, and learned easily what can be taught. But he now felt that he had earned his right to a holiday, and without a regret he shut up his paint box, and resolved to amuse himself.
Never, he thought, would so opportune an occasion present itself. He was in Paris, the city of pleasure, with a beautiful and fashionable woman for his friend. The word friend caused a feeling of regret and disappointment to rise through the current of his thoughts; but he consoled himself with the reflection that nobody but he knew the truth, and that the world would be more likely to take the most uncharitable view of Mrs. Bentham’s conduct. The possibility of her motives being thus wrongly interpreted profoundly interested him, for the suspicion constantly haunted him, that many people fancied that he was the screen used to shelter an unknown and more favoured lover. Such false shame was essentially a part of his nature; he forgot all his benefactress had done for him, and railed against her, as deceitful, cruel, and weak minded, until at last his rambling thoughts would knock against some pleasant memory, and he would regret his baseness. Then the veil of ingratitude in which he had enveloped himself would fall from him, his eyes would fill with tears, his mind with tender souvenirs, and he would helplessly abandon himself to the poetry of his dreams.
These naturally were of the time when Mrs. Bentham would love him with a love that would be more than love, and having no work now to distract his attention, his desire took the possession of his life that water does of a sponge. It rendered him weak and inert; and, when not with her, his sole enjoyment was to wander listless about the streets, finding solitude in the most crowded places. For hours he would lean over the parapet of the Pont-Neuf watching the long line of boats slowly being hauled up with the chain, or under the green foliage, full of cooing pigeons, of the Tuileries Gardens, watch the children playing with the gravel, and the white-cuffed nurserymaids passing to and fro.
But although the past extensively occupied his thoughts, and he recalled with a sense of exquisite delight each tender word he had spoken, every kiss he had snatched, the possibility of her giving him a love more perfect, more complete, opened on his way a vision of a Paradise as infinite and delightful as ever soothed the sleep of a voluptuous lotus-eater. And the ruses he would have to employ, the pleadings he would have to make, absorbed him in an indefinite calculation where pleasure verms weariness, love versus virtue, prejudice versus truth, were successively pitted and loquaciously argued from their respective stand points.
They had been now just a week in Paris, but the seven days had appeared to him as seven centuries. It was not what he had expected. He had not yet found an occasion to tell Mrs. Bentham that he loved her. The word chance exasperated him, and he inwardly cursed Mrs. Thorpe — she always appeared to be with them, and asked himself feverishly, what was the use of Mrs. Bentham coming to see him in Paris if they were never to be alone. The intimacies of the first day, the drive round the lake, an involuntary pressure of hands, and a certain unconscious freedom and tenderness in the conversation, had frightened Mrs. Bentham, and while Lewis had been dreaming of his love, she had been making good resolutions and arranging a line of conduct to be pursued during the rest of their stay in Paris.
The first idea that occurred to her was to keep well behind Mrs. Thorpe, and give Lewis no opportunity of speaking with her alone. She did not reflect that this was now impossible, that three people could not spend their days together without some chance occurring which would divide them. Mrs. Bentham thought merely of saving herself, and grasped at Mrs. Thorpe’s presence as the exhausted swimmer will at an overhanging willow twig. She had not been able to resist coming to Paris, but she was determined to frustrate all further temptations. It was a game of cat and mouse, and at last the turn of the latter came.
Mrs. Thorpe was confined to her room with a cold, which she declared she had caught the evening they had dined out on the grass. Mrs. Bentham had been attending to her all the afternoon, and had just come down to the drawing-room to fetch a book. She stood with it in her hand by the window. The beauty of the evening attracted her. In clear black outlines, as sharp as a dry point etching, the trees of the Orangerie and those of the Champs-Elysées were drawn upon a lemon-coloured sky, the highest points only indicated, the lower parts filled in with masses of violet shadow: the foreground of the picture was made of the grey spaces of the Place de la Concorde.
Mrs. Bentham yielded herself up to the persuasiveness of the scene, and its loveliness brought to her vague thoughts of love. Before many minutes she was thinking of Lewis: she then suddenly remembered that if she wished to act up to her resolutions, she would have to write to him at once, saying that Mrs. Thorpe was ill, and that they would not be able to dine together that day. As she was hesitating how to act, Lewis entered. Their eyes met, and not catching sight of Mrs. Thorpe, he looked round the room to assure himself of his good fortune. With a slight hesitation in his voice he asked after the old lady. Mrs. Bentham, in answer to his question, replied that Mrs. Thorpe was laid up with a cold; then the conversation awkwardly fell to the ground. After a long pause, Mrs. Bentham added:
“So you see we shall have to put up this evening with each other’s company.” The phrase fell from her involuntarily, although before the words had passed her lips she had an instantaneous and instinctive presentiment that she herself was leading up to the point which for the last three or four days she had been so carefully trying to avoid. But it was not her fault. For suddenly — so suddenly that she was unprepared to resist it — an immense feeling of fatigue of all things, mixed with an infinite yearning for sympathy came upon her. Lewis was not slow to avail himself of what he termed “his chance,” and, putting his arm round her waist, he begged of her to kiss him. The way the request was put and a certain awkwardness in the movement recalled her to herself, and, turning, she half coldly, half laughingly answered him.
“I wonder you dare ask me such a thing; I am not in the habit of kissing people.”
Lewis felt a chill rise up through him, but he said as firmly as he could:
“Why do you speak like that? You kissed me before in Claremont House, I don’t see why you shouldn’t do so again.”
This answer somewhat embarrassed Mrs. Bentham, but she got out of her difficulty by telling him that a man should never reproach a woman with what sh
e has done; and this led up to an interminable argument in which all sorts of questions were discussed, particularly the morality of women. On this subject Lewis held the most liberal views, and in the hope of converting Mrs. Bentham to his opinions cited many fashionable liaisons, and darkly hinted that if she did not care for him he could do nothing better than drown himself at once in the Seine.
Mrs. Bentham listened frightened to this part of the conversation, but she grew more interested when he spoke of the pleasant life they would have together in Paris, “If she would only love him just a little.” His manner both charmed and softened her: she allowed him to hold her hand, and standing on the balcony in the warm twilight, they watched the sky fade, and saw the carriages pass out of the green avenue and roll swiftly across La Place de la Concorde towards the Rue Royal. Then, towards seven, the servant came to lay the cloth for dinner; but the sitting-room, with its tasteless hotel furniture, ennuied them, and Lewis proposed they should dine downstairs in the salle-à-manger. There the brilliantly-lighted room and the small white table, which only separated their faces by a few feet, amused them beyond measure. It was their first tete-d-tete dinner. Lewis forgot for the moment to tease her “as to when she would really love him,” and they chattered of light things: of Paris; of the people about them; of the salon; referring, en passant, to how happy they were, and how nice it was to be together.
Never had Lewis appeared to her so graceful, so delightful; she forgot her doubts and fears again, and abandoned herself joyously to the pleasure of the moment. It was not until they rose from table that a shade of uncertainty crossed her thoughts. How were they, she asked herself, to pass the evening? Not surely alone up in that sitting-room? Yet she could not send him away. That was impossible. His presence at once fascinated and oppressed her like the dream that the dreamer would willingly, but cannot for some unexplained reason, throw aside. She had told him twenty times that she thought she would have to go and sit with Mrs. Thorpe, but he had pleaded so piteously to be allowed to stay with her, that she remained uncertain. At last, ashamed of her resolution, she decided she would go out to drive. The night was fine, and the evening air would be infinitely preferable to a hot, stuffy hotel sitting-room.
