Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  Mr. Carver reflected. Remembering he had noticed the influence of “The moderns” in Lewis’s latter work, he poured forth his wrath upon them, and, as a personal favour, he begged Mrs. Bentham to do all she could to get Lewis out of their influence. He declared, with sorrow in his voice, that if he had not latterly bought pictures from Mr. Seymour, it was not because he did not believe in his talent, but because he had noticed the ruining influence of these people in his work. He, Mr. Carver, loved the beautiful, the pure; Mr. Seymour’s feelings for the old Greek filled him with emotion, and it was with despair that he noticed how the young man was allowing himself to be influenced by that man Thompson, a man of talent, certainly, but quite without good taste.

  Next day Mrs. Bentham asked Lewis on a visit to Claremont House. She feared it would provoke much gossip in the county, but she had made up her mind to let nothing prevent her working for his advancement. His success should be her excuse; her very life, if required, must be sacrificed; everything else was nothing in comparison; and she felt that she would not have lived in vain if she succeeded in presenting a genius to the world.

  Lewis offered no opposition; he was delighted to get out of London. It had no more attractions for him; he was weary of his studio; he was sick of painting, and sighed for idleness. Even Mr. Carver’s letter consenting to take his two pictures in payment of the debt, did not inspire him to persevere; and he thought of the green terrace and the leafy alleys by the river as a weary desert wanderer longs for the palms of a smiling oasis.

  Mrs. Bentham told him of her scruples: she suggested he should say he had come to re-touch the decorations. Lewis, however, was of opinion that the best way to avoid suspicion would be to say that he had come to make landscape studies for his academy pictures.

  A week after, when he got into the dog-cart sent to meet him at Shoreham, he ordered the servant about with a good deal of swagger. As he shouted to the gamekeeper and whipped the horse, he remembered that it was just a year since he, a poor artist that chance had saved from starvation, had come to Claremont House for the first time. He remembered how he had looked out at the park, wondering where he was going, feeling like one entering into an unknown country; now, he knew every turn; he felt as confident as if he were the owner of the estate. In his over-weening vanity he lost sight of the truth, forgot his miserable failures in painting, asked the coachman questions, and felt proud he knew the names of the horses in the stables.

  Mrs. Thorpe was delighted to see him. She said he was looking very thin and worn: she reproved him for working so hard, and declared that the country air would soon put some colour into his cheeks. Mrs. Bentham had told her about “The moderns,” how Mr. Carver had said that Lewis would be ruined if he were not taken out of the influence of this new school. Mrs. Thorpe listened without understanding, but she entirely agreed with Mrs. Bentham that the best and nicest possible thing to do would be to have Lewis down to stay with them.

  “What does it matter what people think, when we know in our hearts we are innocent?” said the old lady, in answer to her friend’s apprehensions that the county people might think it rather odd.

  At this time the beauty of the country was endless, and, with a sense of infinite lassitude, Lewis sank into the arms of idleness. His struggle with his intelligence had worn him out.

  There was absolutely nothing to do but to rest, to live without knowing that you were living; and the days passed like long sweet dreams. After a delicate breakfast, in a room warm with sunlight, he smoked, strolling about the grounds talking to the gardeners, asking them the most useless questions, or he followed Mrs. Bentham, teasing her with interruptions while she spoke to the housekeeper: and when ordered away, he took a book and walked in the shade of the trees by the river. There was one place he preferred above all others. A great elm lay in the water, over a bed of water-lilies, and here and there drops of sunlight fell on the brown-coloured ground. He used to «it in the branches of the tree and imagine, sometimes groups of muslin dresses, girls pic-nicing with a lot of rowing men with bare arms and throats; then, forgetting “The moderns,” he thought of women bathing, some sitting in the tree talking to others in the water; then, remembering the Mediævalists, he saw a mythical arrangement, purporting to be the seduction of life by death.

  As he thus regaled himself with fancies that came and went with the smoke of his havannah, he listened for steps; and when he looked up, he often saw Mrs. Bentham coming down the pathway. Sometimes she would read to him, but more often they talked; they had a thousand confidences to make, a thousand projects to discuss, and daily the secret of their love became dearer to them. They chatted of anything and nothing; things that did not interest them; of their friends, of a thousand trifles. One day she spoke of her age, and, with an apologetic air, admitted she was thirty; and at different times she related to him details of her early life, until suddenly she told him how she had met her husband in Paris. The tears started to his eyes; and Mrs. Bentham asked him if it were her fault that she had not been able to live with such a man. Then they relapsed into silence; and it often seemed to them that their happiness must last for ever, so inherent was it in themselves. The silence and calm of the wood gained upon them; their thoughts passed as quietly and as lucidly as the river; and when they raised their heads they could see the blue of the sky between the tops of the trees.

  He had almost forgotten, but Mrs. Bentham remembered well, that where they were passing these imperishable hours was where she had seen him talking to Lady Helen, where she had recognised for the first time that she loved him. Then, what was bitter became sweet, and she grew to love the place better for the recollection.

  In the afternoons they often went out to drive, and in the evenings Lewis sat talking to the two ladies, so quiet and contented that it seemed almost impossible to believe him to be the same man whose ambition, no later than a few months ago, had seemed to be only to outdo the Parisians in frivolity.

  The successes he had achieved in that siren city had for a time turned his head, and made him commit follies which had very nearly lost him Mrs. Bentham — in other words, everything he possessed in the world. His blood now ran cold when he thought of his mad acts, of the risks he had run during those last few months of Parisian life. He remembered how in those early days he was so proud of his intimacy with her that it was with the greatest difficulty he prevented himself from getting up in the middle of a ball-room before everybody and kissing her. It was only that acute sense of his own interests, which rarely left him, that had saved him from doing something of the kind. But when the Marquise de Maur took him up, he went, as it were, crazed; and had Mrs. Bentham’s love not been almost as much a mother’s as it was a mistress’s, she would most assuredly have left him to his fate. But now all was different. He had somehow grown conscious of the golden rule, that a man who would succeed with women must of necessity be discreet Also his recent failures in painting had, for a while at least, killed in him all ambitions, and he now only desired peace, and the continual gratification of his appetites. And Claremont House enabled him to gratify them to the top of his bent. He had become Mrs. Bentham’s lover and Mrs. Thorpe’s spoiled child. He could ask for nothing that was not immediately accorded to him. From morning to night, from night to morning, he was petted and adored by these two women.

  Easily, and without remorse, he had accepted the position Providence had pushed him into. Besides, it appeared to him the most natural thing in the world, and he thought of the matter in this way: Mrs. Bentham loved him and he loved Mrs. Bentham; to love her he had to live her life, or give her up, and as it could not occur to him to do anything so romantic, he consented to remain the family friend. Nothing could have been more perfect than this friendship. So sure was he of his calmness, of his prudence, that he kept no watch over either his actions or his words. In the drawing-room, Mrs. Bentham was to him a woman whom he could not kiss, but to whom he owed much, whose friendship was the thing he most valued in the world, but no
more.

  She, on the contrary, was constantly obliged to play a part to conceal the truth from Mrs. Thorpe. Her whole soul was bound up in Lewis. Whenever he moved her eyes followed him, her voice grew softer when she spoke to him, her manner more abandoned when he was near her. He was hers now wholly and perfectly. She possessed him beyond fear or hope. There was no one to dispute her right, she could hold his hands and kiss him, and draw him towards her in loving embraces that seemed to know no end. Lewis was her present and her future — for she had thoughts that were buried deep down in her heart — dreams that no one knew of, that no one ever looked at save herself; and, miserlike, she used to think of these dreams. They were her projects for Lewis’s welfare, for Lewis’s glory; and, oh, how she caressed these projects! When she was alone in the drawing-room the book would fall from her hand, and she would let her mind wander far away, allowing visions of renown and praise to rise before her. Like a fairy she would watch him, none would see her; but she would see everything, and enjoy the unutterable satisfaction of her work.

  Such were Mrs. Bentham’s thoughts during the summer of ‘73. It was the only year of happiness she had ever known. Until then her life had been full of bitter resignation; despair at being ever unable to know the world as she felt that it existed. For she had never despised the world; she had, on the contrary, longed for it with her whole heart; until now she had seen it only as a beautiful thing that some fate had ruthlessly caricatured. But now every dream had become a reality, and for the moment that reality outshone the pale reflections she had long been watching. Now there was no happiness that was not hers. Indeed, often she had to clasp her face with her hands, for her brain swam with a joy so intense that she could not but believe that she was going mad. And if the days passed softly as fairy tales in the telling, the evenings brought delights acuter and more intense. These were the times when she waited for Lewis, when she heard his step in the passages. A hurried entrance, a kiss, and then they did not separate till the window grew grey in the dawn. These were hours of sensuality, if you will; but by Mrs. Bentham, at least, they were purified by many noble aspirations, by many imperishable confidences.

  But for these hours she endured excruciating anxieties and fears. Often she said to Lewis:

  “If Mrs. Thorpe should find us out, what should I do ? I would sooner die than look her in the face after having so shamefully deceived her.”

  At these protestations Lewis used to laugh gaily. The idea of deceiving the old lady afforded him a sort of acrid satisfaction, and during the long evenings, as he watched her knitting patiently in the wicker chair, he used to experience a ferocious desire to go and whisper in her old ears: “I am going to kiss Lucy to-night when you are fast asleep in bed;” and he would try to imagine what would be the effect of the announcement upon her. It amused him to think how she would start, how she would scream.

  But this was crying “wolf” when no wolf was nigh. When the danger came he did not show himself so very brave. It happened in this way. One night as he was brushing out Mrs.

  Bentham’s hair, a step was heard in the passage. Unfortunately they had left the door ajar.

  “It is Mrs. Thorpe,” Mrs. Bentham whispered, turning pale.

  “What shall I do?” said Lewis, looking frantically round the room. “I’ll hide in the cabinet de toilette.”

  There was no time for consideration, in an instant he had disappeared; and almost at the same time Mrs. Thorpe entered.

  “Oh, you are not in bed yet, Lucy?” said the old woman walking through the room.

  “No; I have been reading, and — and I was now brushing my hair.”

  “Why, it is past twelve, my dear.”

  Mrs. Bentham asked herself what could have brought Mrs. Thorpe to wander about the house at that hour. “Surely,” she thought, “she can’t have taken the trouble to get out of her bed to tell me what o’clock it is?”

  During the passing of these remarks, Mrs. Thorpe had strayed between Mrs. Bentham and the door of the cabinet de toilette.

  “Do you know, my dear, that that stupid housemaid did not leave a drop of water in my room, and I, of course, got so thirsty — the first time in my life it ever happened to me — that I couldn’t go to sleep. I have come to get a drink.”

  With that speech she opened the door of the cabinet de toilette.

  “Oh, don’t!” cried Mrs. Bentham.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll get you something from the dining-room.”

  “Oh, it isn’t worth while, I’d sooner have a drink of water.”

  There were then about five-and-twenty seconds of intolerable pain. Mrs. Bentham felt as if a wheel were turning in her brain. She heard the water being poured out. There was another pause, and rigid with fear she turned to look away. But to her astonishment, Mrs. Thorpe continued speaking in her usual tone of voice. Has she then seen nothing? Mrs. Bentham asked herself; and with an effort of will she turned and said over her shoulder, “I hope you have got what you want.”

  “Oh, yes; but the water isn’t very good. Still when you are thirsty—” A few forced remarks were interchanged, and then Mrs. Thorpe bade her friend good-night, and went away apologising. When the door was closed. Lewis entered, looking very frightened, and trailed a blue dressing-gown after him.

  “She didn’t see you then?” said Mrs. Bentham, almost fainting.

  “No, I got into a corner and held this up before me.”

  “Good heavens! what an escape! Oh, what should I have done — what should I have said? And she is so good, so unsuspecting; it is shameful to deceive her as I do.”

  Lewis, who had now recovered his presence of mind, laughed at Lucy for her scruples, and gave a jocular account of his impressions behind the dressing-gown.

  So the days passed until the first of September, and then the house filled with visitors for the shooting. All the principal county people were there. Sir John Archer, Lord Senton, Mr. Swannell (now member for the county), Lady Marion, Miss Vyner, still on the look-out for Sir John, Mr. Vyner, the Misses Davidson, Mr. Ripple, Mr. Day.

  Then the routine of English country life began. At half past nine everybody met at breakfast, and the meal once over, the ladies and gentlemen separated for the day; the latter to go to the stubble-fields, the former to the drawing-room, where they sat and talked of servants, dresses, criticised the gentlemen, listening from time to time to the dull report of the guns which rang through the sultry weather. In the afternoons, the ladies walked in groups about the terraces, or, if any visitors called, strove to make up some tennis matches. Among all these petticoats Lewis spent his time very pleasantly. Fearing to make himself ridiculous, he had declined to go out shooting, much to Lord Senton’s vexation, and preferred to make himself agreeable to the ladies. He was the centre of attraction. He flirted with them, wormed himself into their confidences, and had trivial little secrets and rendezvous with them all. The eldest Miss Davidson, who was more determined than ever to get married, begged of him to give her drawing lessons, and they used to go off on sketching excursions.

  There was also much jealousy about Mr. Day, who invariably made the biggest bag; and, when not present, that gentleman was bitterly criticised on all sides, and his faults afforded an endless subject of conversation both in drawing and diningroom. But Mr. Day had little care for what was said about him. His mind was filled with graver considerations. He had suffered considerable losses. The Crow’s Oak, a fifteen acre field, on which he had spent a hundred pounds in manure, had not yielded the crop of turnips he had expected; two or three young horses had gone wrong; and he owed Lord Senton something like five hundred pounds; consequently, his life was no longer his own. The young lord was now more than ever madly in love with Mrs. Bentham, and it was all Day could do to prevent him from being rude to Lewis. One afternoon, oppressed with jealousy, he left the shooting party and returned to see what was really happening. On entering the drawing-room, he found Lewis seated amid a circle of ladies, who were pen
sively listening to him discoursing on love. It so happened that Lord Senton had lately bought a picture of Boccaccio reading to a crowd of dreamy-looking women, and the resemblance between his rival and the hero of his thoughts caused him such pain that he had to leave the room.

  In the evening, when the gentlemen came up from the diningroom, there was a general movement among the ladies, an almost imperceptible settling of skirts, and a dropping of previous conversations.

  By general consent, a place next Miss Vyner was always left empty, and Sir John Archer never failed to take it. He sat, the whole evening, talking to her, trying to slide in a compliment or a sentimental speech between two good slices of information anent the favourites for the Leger.

  Mr. Ripple and Lewis talked art with Lady Marion. The former had now, for length of hair, completely cut Lewis out, and, as he had two “pars” in the World, describing the shooting at Claremont House, he spoke of himself as the Sussex correspondent of the paper. He affected much pity for the county people, who, he considered, were terribly behindhand. Lady Marion and Lewis were the only two he deemed it worth his while to exchange ideas with. The Misses Davidson talked to the two young men who had come down from London, and thought it a shame Lady Marion, an old woman, should occupy the attention of Lewis and Ripple evening after evening. Mrs. Thorpe knitted in her corner, hidden between the Japanese screen and the fireplace, and listened to Mr. Swannell, who talked politics with Mr. Vyner. At another end of the room, Mrs. Bentham encouraged Lord Senton, even to the extent of walking to the window with him and discussing the moonlight.

  So the evenings were spent at Claremont, until the partridges were slain. Then the party dispersed, all but Lady Marion and Ripple. Mrs. Bentham had asked them to stay, thinking that their society would be advantageous to Lewis. He had grown tired of idleness, and was busy painting a new picture in a new style.