by George Moore
“Oh! you are a writer then? “said Alice with girlish impulsiveness.
“Yes, but I write as little as I can about politics.”
“What are your favourite subjects?”
“I write principally novels.”
“Really!” said the girl, trembling with admiration and wonder.
During the last six months her sole companions had been books; and when, forgetful of the written pages, her fancy floated above them through pale-coloured reveries, dying light, and dusky waters, shuddering beneath scintillating skies of vanishing thought — how often, in a sweet pulsing vision, the authors: shadow-shapen forms, trailing their garments of dream: had passed before her. How often had she not longed to approach nearer, to linger within sound of their voices!
But as jet she had not thought of any of her heroes — and she had many — as living men: she had seen them only in the clear mirrors of their words; and therefore, to this imaginative girl, the sensation of hearing suddenly that the young stranger, in whom she was already interested, was a writer of novels, was at once a little blinding and bewildering; and she was conscious of a sort of mental overbalancing. It did not occur to her to think whether he wrote good novels or bad novels; she was merely carried along upon a rushing sense of curiosity, of wonder. He looked strange, he spoke differently from anyone she had ever known before, she felt her being quickening.
“I suppose,” he said, “you do a great deal of novel-reading in the country?”
It astonished her to hear him speak so lightly of what she held so sacred: “Oh! yes,” she answered, with almost an accent of voluptuousness in her voice, “I spent the winter reading.”
“Because there was no hunting?” replied Harding, with a smile full of cynical weariness.
“No, I assure you, no, I do not think I should have gone out hunting even if it hadn’t been stopped,” said Alice, hastily; for it vexed her not a little to see that she was considered incapable of loving a book for its own sake.
“And what do you read?”
The tone of indifference with which the question was put was not lost upon Alice, but she was too much interested in the conversation to pay heed to it. She said:
“I read nearly all Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and Browning.... I think I like him better than all the poets! Do you know the scene at St. Praxed’s? Is it not lovely?”
“Yes, of course, there’s no doubt but that it is very fine; but I don’t know that I ever cared much for Browning. Not only the verse, but the whole mind of the man is uncouth — yes, uncouth is the word I want. He is the Carlyle of poetry.”
In Alice, whose judgments had been dictated by the heart rather than the intelligence, and who knew nothing of the contrasting of ideas to make mental pictures, nor of the gleam of paradox that makes daylight in a sentence, Mr. Harding’s remarks produced nearly a pained sense of losing grip; such a feeling of inability to follow as is created by the sudden rush of horsemen, by the soaring of a bird or balloon. Presently be said:
“Have you ever read Carlyle?”
“Oh, yes, I have read his ‘French Revolution,’ and his “Life of Schiller,” but that’s all. I only came home from school last summer, and at school we never read anything. But I wonder if I have read anything of yours?”
“I should not think so; my books are not supposed to be fit reading for young ladies.”
“Oh! really,” and Alice looked into the fire dreadfully disconcerted. Poor Alice! after six months of loneliness and misery in the country, amid people whom she did not understand, who did not understand her, this man was a light that she felt she must follow, must know. But at every step she took forward, he pushed her back. Oh! it was cruel of him. Never had she met the author of a book before; and an invincible curiosity burned within her. She wanted him to tell her how he thought, dreamed, and felt towards life, men, and things; but he gave her no encouragement. At last she screwed up courage to make one more attempt.
“I couldn’t get many new books down in Galway. There were, of course, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, in the library, but that was all. I once got a beautiful book from Dungory Castle. I wonder if you ever read it — it is called Madame Gervaisais. From the descriptions of Rome it almost seems to me that I have been there.”
“I know the book perfectly, but I did not know that a Catholic girl could admire it — and you are a Catholic, I presume?”
“I was brought up a Catholic.”
“It is one thing to be brought up a Catholic, and another to avoid doubting.”
“There can surely be no harm in doubting?”
“Not the least; but toward which side are you? Have you fallen into the thorny ditch of agnosticism, or the soft feather-bed of belief?”
“Why do you say ‘the thorns of agnosticism Harding laughed:—” Well, I don’t know that they ever tormented me very much, but writing gets you into an antithetical way of speaking.”
Alice did not understand; and being more anxious to hear something of him than to talk about herself — not because she was afraid to speak her opinions, but merely because his personality seemed to her of such paramount importance compared with her own — she said:
“And do you never doubt?”
“No, I can’t say I am given much to doubting, nor do I think the subject is any longer worthy of thought. The world’s mind after much anxiety arrives at a conclusion, and what sages cannot determine in one age, a child is certain about in the next. Thomas Aquinas was harassed with doubts regarding the possibility of old women flying through the air on broomsticks; nowadays were a man thus afflicted he would be surely a fit subject for Hanwell. The world has lived through Christianity, as it has through a score of other things; and Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the Dove have already been bequeathed to the vaudevillists of the future. But I am afraid I shock you?”
“No, I don’t think you do; only I never heard anyone speak in that way before — that is all.”
Here the conversation came to a pause, and soon after the presence of some ladies rendered its revival impossible. Their evening toilettes suggested the dinner-hour, and reminded Alice she had to prepare for table d’hôte; and she went upstairs, her heart filled with Mr. Harding. His fearless speech was what the sea-wind and the blue and white aspects of a distant mountain range are to the convict. Her life seemed suddenly to have grown larger, clearer; she felt as if the breathing of the dawn were on her face.
All the Galway people, excepting the Honourable Misses Gore and the Scullys — who had taken houses in town for the season — dined at table d’hôte. The Miss Duffys were, with the famous Bertha, the terror of the débutantes. The Brennans and the Goulds sat at the same table. May, thinking of Fred, who had promised to come during the evening, leaned back in her chair, looking unutterably bored. Under a window Sir Richard and Sir Charles were immersed in wine and discussion. In earnest tones the latter deprecated the folly of indulging in country love; the former, his hand on the champagne bottle, hiccoughed, “Mu — ch better come up — up Dub — lin, yer know, my boy. But look, look here; I know such a nice—” a glance round, to make sure that no lady was within earshot; and the conversation lapsed into a still more confidential whisper.
Mr. Ryan and Mr. Lynch ate their dinner in sullen silence, and at the other end of the long table Mr. Adair — whom it was now confidently stated Mr. Gladstone could not possibly get on without — talked incessantly to Mr. Harding. He explained the statistics he had collected concerning the peasant proprietors of France and Belgium; he unfolded his plans for the draining of Ireland, and those for the creation of national sawmills, the reclaiming of the bogs, the crushing of the Land League, the planting of beetroot, and the establishment of sugar-refineries. According to Mr. Adair, these schemes should be put forward simultaneously; and he did not allow Harding to talk to the young lady on his right until he had obtained a promise from him to read the pamphlet on the amalgamation of the unions.
When dinner was over, and the
few dried oranges and tough grapes that constituted dessert had been tasted, the ladies got up, and in twos and threes retired to the ladies’ sitting room. They were followed by Lord Dungory, Mr. Adair, and Mr. Harding: the other gentlemen — the baronets and Messrs. Ryan and Lynch — preferring smoke and drink, to chatter and oblique glances in the direction of ankle-concealing skirts, went up to the billiard-room. And the skirts, what an importance they took in the great sitting-room full of easy-chairs and Swiss scenery: chalets, lakes, cascades, and chamois, painted on the light-coloured walls. The big ottoman was swollen with bustled skirts; the little low seats around the fire disappeared under skirts; skirts were tucked away to hide the slippered feet, skirts were laid out along the sofas to show the elegance of the cut. Then woolwork and circulating novels were produced, and the conversation turned on marriage. Bertha being the only Dublin girl present, all were anxious to hear her speak; after a few introductory remarks, she began: —
“Oh! so you have all come up to the Castle and are going to be presented. Well, you’ll find the rooms very grand, and the suppers very good, and if you know a lot of people — particularly the officers quartered here — you will find the Castle balls very amusing. The best way to do is to come to town a month before the drawing-room, and give a ball; and in that way you get to know all the men. If you haven’t done that, I am afraid you won’t get many partners. Even if you do get introduced, they’ll only ask you to dance, and you’ll never see them again. Dublin is like a racecourse, men come and speak to you and pass on. ’Tis pleasant enough if you know people, but as for marriages, there are none. I assure you I know lots of girls — and very nice girls too — who have been going out these six or seven seasons, and who have not been able to pull it off.”
“And ah!” said a girl, speaking with a terrible brogue, “the worst of it is that the stock is for iver increasing, every year we are growing more and more numerous, an th’ men, oh! th’ men seem to be gettin’ fewer. Nowadays a man won’t look at you unless you have at least two thousand a year.”
The crudity of this speech seemed to startle the company; and Mrs. Barton, who did not wish her daughters to be discouraged from the first, settled her skirts with a movement of disdain. Mrs. Gould pathetically declared she did not believe love to be dead in the world yet, and maintained her opinion that a nice girl could always get on. But Bertha was not easily silenced, and, being perfectly conversant with her subject, she disposed of Dublin’s claims as a marriage-mart, and she continued to comment on the disappointments of girls until the appearance of Lord Dungory and Mr. Harding brought the conversation to a sudden close.
“Une causerie de femme! que dites-vous? — je le sais — l’amour n’existe plus, et l’âme de l’homme est plus près des sens que l’âme de la femme” said Milord. Everyone laughed; and, with a charming movement of her skirts, Mrs. Barton made room for him to sit beside her. He introduced the novelist to Mrs. Barton, and, after a few words, he was passed on to Olive.
Alice watched with pleading eyes; but she scarcely dared to hope that Harding would speak to her again. He would he drawn, like the rest, into that vortex of blonde beauty, light laughter, gay smiles, caprice, desire of change, vain words. And why not? How could he care for a girl without much figure, and not an attractive feature in her face.... And yet, and yet. — . — . And in the ending phases and passages of her thought she lost consciousness of the scene enacted around her until she suddenly heard Harding’s voice addressing her. He had at first spoken eagerly to Olive, but her white and red grimacing did not interest him, and he had taken the earliest opportunity of slipping away. Perplexed, Olive looked at her mother, and Mrs. Barton cast a glance of disdain on Harding’s back. The moment was tense with feminine passion. All eyes — but above all those of the girl in red — then brightened with pleasure. The throwing of this small pebble against the omnipotence of beauty afforded much delight.
In Alice, however, the tenderness of hope tempered the more acrid sweets of triumph; and she lost herself in the individuality of the man before her. Putting aside his usual sneer, he sympathised with her, talked of life, and the meaning it seemed to him to bear; he spoke to her of the hooks she had read, and he told of his own; he described pictures, poems, statues in a few words; anecdotes, bitter criticisms, and serene aspirations passed, lingered, disappeared, and passed again. In a word, over the intellectual counter he flaunted samples of everything he had in stock; and the girl saw God in the literary shopboy.
He was, however, obviously interested in her; and when Milord took him away to smoke a cigar, May, who had been vainly expecting Fred the whole evening, said:
“Well, Alice, I hope you have had a nice flirtation?”
Alice blushed to the roots of her hair; but she turned pale a moment after when Mrs. Barton said, with a ripple of laughter:
“Alice’s flirtations are harmless enough; they never go further than talking of a lot of books, or old newspapers.”
But Alice and Harding were instantly forgotten when Bertha Duffy declared that, very possibly, there would be no Drawing-room held that year. Murder was more common in Dublin than in the country; and the Lord Lieutenant dared not stir a yard without an escort of soldiers. Consolation was, however, found in Mrs. Gould’s remark, that if the Castle were blown up with dynamite the conspirators would probably choose the day of the Levée rather than that on which the Drawing-room was held, but to this the girl in red answered that that would be only out of the frying-pan into the fire, for all possibilities of marriage would then be for ever at an end. The conversation, however, languished; eyes were raised from wool-work and novel in gentle consideration, and said, as plainly as eyes could, “There’s no use wasting our time talking here; no more men will come in to-night.” And about half-past ten a movement of retiring was made; but the entrance of a tall young man, in evening dress, arrested it. Bowing to the girl in red, he went to the piano and sang two love songs. Then she who had been shunned on the plea of vulgarity became at once an object of interest, and was eagerly questioned concerning the young singer. He had spoken a few words to her yesterday afternoon. He had come from London to sing at Lady So-and-so’s concert, and had achieved so great a success there that he had been persuaded to stay on for another concert. From a distant sofa an old lady declared him to be Signor Parisina, the composer of the lovely songs that everybody had heard of. The girl in red preferred his high, Bertha Duffy liked his low notes, and both agreed he had no middle notes at all. Then his compositions were passionately discussed. Gladys Brennan allowed that his melodies were pretty, but insisted that they were inadequately harmonised — an opinion she attempted to modify on hearing that he had taken the prize for harmony at Milan. The old lady on the distant sofa gave some details of the young man’s life. He was going to marry a lady much older than himself, and one who sang excruciatingly out of tune.
“In tune, or out of tune, I should like to know who will care for him or his songs once he’s married,” said Mrs. Barton; and this conclave of ladies bowed their heads in silent acquiescence.
CHAPTER II.
“NOW, MY DEAR Alice, do make haste; it is most important that we should arrive early. Lord Kilcarney is going to be there; and the moment he comes into the room he’ll be surrounded. That old cat, Lady Georgina, will introduce every girl in the place to him; nothing would please her so much as to prevent him from getting near Olive.”
Lady Georgina Stapleton was Lord Dungory’s sister. She too, hated Mrs. Barton, but being poor — Milord used to call himself the milch cow — she found herself, like the Ladies Cullen, occasionally obliged to smile upon and extend a welcoming hand to the family enemy. When Mrs. Barton came for the Castle season a little pressure was put upon Lady Georgina to obtain invitations from the Chamberlain; the ladies exchanged visits and there the matter ended. Nor had Mrs. Barton ever taken the trouble to conceal her abhorrence of the house in Merrion Square — and some of the hard things she had said when standing on a box-s
eat of a drag at the Punchestown races, pouring silvery laughter into Milord’s infatuated ears, had travelled back and found a lasting resting-place in his sister’s wrathful memory.
But a woman is never vulnerable until she is bringing out her daughters; and in these days when girls are a drug in the market, the struggle for existence becomes terribly intense for her. She fears every look, she trembles under every word; she finds herself cringing before the weakest. Until then the usual shafts directed against her virtue fall harmlessly on either side, but now they glance from the marriage buckler and strike the daughter in full heart. In the ball-room as in the forest, the female is most easily assailed when guarding her young, and nowhere in the whole animal kingdom is this fact so well exemplified as in Dublin Castle.
Mrs. Barton was too clever not to feel conscious of her weakness; and as much as she could regret anything, she now regretted the persistency with which she had roused the enmity of women. For the first time she began to recognise their power, and she remembered that there were not ten, not seven, not five upon whom she could count for one single word of sympathy or defence. All, for spite and self-interest, would strive to separate Olive from Lord Kilcarney. The quarry was a ten-antlered stag; but even now, before the beast had broken cover, she felt that the terrible huntswomen, with a loud cracking of whips, would drive her from the trail. Her own marriage had been decided quickly: an unexpected opportunity had presented itself, and she had seized it. But in the great matrimonial hunts women have to hunt in packs. At the death they may fight among themselves, and the slyest will carry off the prey; but to ensure a kill at the commencement of the chase a certain esprit de corps is necessary, or in the coverts and hidden turns of fashionable life the quarry will slip away unperceived. And now whether she should, or should not enter into the army of the elite, Mrs. Barton was still undecided. It was a difficult question. Personally she believed in individual effort; but, it being the girls’ first season, she feared it might be “remarked” if they were seen nowhere but at the Castle. It would be as well to show Olive off in some few drawing-rooms; and if the odious women made themselves too disagreeable, well, she could withdraw and give dinnerparties in a private room at the Shelbourne. There they would have Lord Kilcarney all to themselves, and he was what they wanted.
