by George Moore
Picking up her novel, and deaf to all explanations, May walked haughtily out of the room. Alice would have given much to help; and, her heart filled with gentle disappointment, she returned home. The evening was spent in packing; and next morning at dawn, looking tired, their eyes still heavy with sleep, the Bartons breakfasted for the last time in Mount Street.
At the Broadstone they met Lord Dungory. Then, their feet and knees cosily wrapped up in furs, with copies of the Freeman’s Journal lying on the top, they deplored the ineffectiveness of Mr. Forster’s Coercion Act. Eight hundred people were in prison, and still the red shadow of murder pointed across the land. Milord read from the newspaper:
“A dastardly outrage was committed last night in the neighbourhood of Mullingar. A woman named Mary — had some differences with her sister Bridget —— — . One day, after some angry words, it appears that she left the house, and seeing a man working in a potato-field, she asked him if he could do anything to help her. He scratched his head, and, after a moment’s reflection, he said he was going to meet a ‘party,’ and he would see what could be done: on the following day he suggested that Bridget might be removed for the sum of one pound. Mary — could not, however, procure more than fifteen shillings, and a bargain was struck. On the night arranged for the assassination Mary wished to leave the house, not caring to see her sister shot in her presence, but Pat declared that her absence would excite suspicion. In the words of one of the murderers, the deed was accomplished ‘nately and without unnecessary fuss.’”
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Barton, “what those wretches will have to do before the Government will consent to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and place the country in the hands of the military. Do they never think of how wickedly they are behaving, and of how God will punish them when they die? Do they never think of their immortal souls?”
“L’âme du paysan se vautre dans la boue comme la mienne se plaît dans la soie.”
“Dans la soie! dans la soie! oh, ce milord, ce milord!”
“Oui, madame,” he added, lowering his voice, “dans le blanc paradis de ton corsage.”
Three days after life at Brookfield had resumed its ordinary course. Once breakfast was over, Arthur retired to the consideration of the pectoral muscles of the ancient Briton; Milord drank his glass of sherry at half-past one, and Mrs. Barton devoted herself to the double task of amusing him and encouraging Olive with visions of future fame. Alice was therefore left definitely to herself, and without hindrance or comment was allowed to set up her writing-table, and spend as much time as she pleased in her bedroom.
She had already begun work. Several sheets of foolscap paper covered with large open handwriting lay upon the table. Upon the first page, with a line ruled beneath it, stood the title: “The Diary of a Plain Girl — Notes and Sensations.” She had just laid aside her pen and was waiting for Cecilia. Suddenly footsteps were heard in the corridor.
“Oh, Alice darling, how are you? I am delighted — I am so delighted to see you. Let me kiss you, let me see you; I have been longing for you for weeks — for months.”
Alice bent her face down, and Cecilia lay sobbing with joy upon her shoulder for some moments. Then, holding each other’s hands, the girls stood looking through a deep and expressive silence into each other’s eyes. Cecilia’s eyes! — large, mellow depths of light, vague and melancholy with the yearning of the soul. You see the high shoulders; the chin and neck how curiously advanced. But little is seen but the eyes! the eyes of the deformed, deep, dreamy depths of brown, luminous with a strange weariness, that we who are normal, straight, and strong, can neither feel nor understand. The brown is now liquescent; it burns, and becomes golden with passion; it melts and softens to strange tenderness. The eyes of the deformed! — deep enigmatic eyes, never will your secret be revealed; there is a trouble that words cannot speak, but that eyes may sometimes suggest: — the melting questioning grief of the spaniel that would tell his master of his love. There was something dog-like in the lavish affection with which Cecilia welcomed her friend; and, like the dumb animal, she seemed to suffer from her inability to express her joy in words.
“I wish, Alice, I could tell you how glad I am to have you back: it seems like heaven to see you again. You look so nice, so true, so sweet, so perfect. There never was anyone so nice as you, Alice.”
“Cecilia, dear, you shouldn’t talk to me like that; it is absurd. Indeed, I don’t think it is quite right.”
“Not quite right,” replied the cripple, sadly; “what do you mean? Why is it wrong — why should it he wrong for me to love you?”
“I don’t mean to say that it is wrong; you misunderstand me; but — but... well, I don’t know how to explain myself, but...
“I know, I know, I know,” said Cecilia; and her nervous sensitivity revealed thoughts in Alice’s mind — thoughts of which Alice herself was not distinctly conscious, just as a photograph exposes irregularities in the texture of a leaf that the naked eye would not perceive.
“If Harding were to speak to you so, you would not think it wrong.”’
Alice coloured deeply, and she said, with a certain resoluteness in her voice, “Cecilia, I wish you would not talk to me in this way. You give me great pain.”
“I am sorry if I do, but I cannot help it. I am jealous of the words that are spoken to you, of the air you breathe, of the ground you walk upon. How, then, can I help hating that man?”
The teeth gnawed at the lips, and the eyes were shot with strange flames. Alice trembled: she was obscurely troubled. At last she said:
“I do not wish to argue this point with you, Cecilia, nor am I sure that I understand it. There is no one I like better than you, dear, but that we should be jealous of each other is absurd.”
“For you perhaps, but not for me.” Cecilia looked at Alice reproachfully, and at the end of a long and morose silence she said:
“You received the long letter I wrote to you about him?”
“Yes, Cecilia, and I answered it. It seems to me very foolish to pronounce condemnatory opinion on the whole world; and particularly for you who have seen so little of it.”
“That doesn’t matter. People are blinded by their passions; but when these have worn themselves out they see the truth in all its horrible nakedness. One of these days you’ll tell me that I am right. You have been a good deal in the world lately; tell me if you have found it beautiful. You did not believe me when I told you that men were vile and abominable; you said there were good men in the world... that you were sure of it... Have you found them?... Was Mr. Harding so very perfect?”
Alice coloured; she hesitated, and in the silence Cecilia again divined her friend’s thoughts.
“I do not know that I found the world very different from what I expected to find it. Of course there is evil — and a great deal of evil; and if you will fix your eyes upon it, and brood over it, of course life seems to you only a black and hideous thing; but there is much good — yes, there is good even in things evil; and if we only think of the goodness we become happier even if we do not become better; and I cannot but think that the best and the most feasible mode of life is to try to live up to the ordinary and simple laws of nature of which we are but a part.” Here Alice paused, and she sought vainly to define her ideas. She was conscious of the truth that conscience is no more than the indirect laws — the essence of the laws transmitted by heredity; and had she been able to formulate her thought she would have said, “and the ideal life should, it seems to me, lie in the reconciliation — no, reconciliation is not the word I want; I scarcely know how to express myself — well, in making the two ends meet — in making the ends of nature the ends also of what we call our conscience.”
How often do we find — nay, do we not always find — that the æsthetic and philosophic aspirations of an epoch — ideas which we believe to have been the invention of individuals, are but the intellectual atmosphere of that epoch breathed in greater or less quantities by all? Nor does the phen
omenon cease here; for the sensitivity of some is so great that they anticipate — obeying an unknown law of attraction — ideas not yet in existence, but which are quickening in the womb of the world. Wordsworth is an example of this foreseeing, forefeeling, forehearing. For at the time of wilting the “Excursion” the influence of the German pessimists had not penetrated into England; Schopenhauer was an unknown name; and yet poet and philosopher seem but the expansion of a single mind.
Is it therefore unnatural or even extraordinary that Alice Barton, who is if anything a representative woman of 1885, should have, in an obscure and formless way, divined the doctrines of Eduard van Hartman, the entire and unconditional resignation of personal existence into the arms of the cosmic process? Cecilia, as has been shown, with her black hatred of life concentrated upon a loathing of the origin of existence, was but another manifestation of the same stratum of thought.
“A very poor ideal indeed, it seems to me that you set yourself — to make the best of this wretched world.”
“I cannot understand what good can come of craving after the unattainable,” said Alice, looking earnestly out of her grey sharp eyes.
“True beauty lies only in the unattainable,” said Cecilia, lifting her eyes with that curious movement of the eyeball by which painters represent faith and mysticism. At the end of a long silence, Alice said:
“But you’ll have some tea, will you not, Cecilia?”
“Yes; but do not let us go downstairs.”
“Oh, no; we’ll have it up here; Barnes will bring it up.”
“Oh, that will be so nice.”
The girls drew closer to the fire, and in its uniting warmth they looked into the ardent face of their friendship. These moments were inexpressibly delicious. They talked, at first, conscious of the appropriateness of their conversation; but soon forgetful of the more serious themes they had been discussing, questions were asked and answered, and comments passed, upon the presentations, the dresses, the crowds, upon all their acquaintances.
“It is given out, Alice dear, that Lord Kilcarney is coming down to stay at Brookfield. Is it true?”
“I have heard nothing of it. Whom did you hear it from?”
“Well, the Duffys wrote it to my sisters. The Duffys, you know, have all the Dublin news.”
“What dreadful gossips they are! And the wonderful part of it is that they often tell you that things have happened long before they do happen.”
“Yes; I have noticed that. They anticipate the news.” The girls laughed lightly, and Cecilia continued:— “But tell me, which do you think he admires most, Olive or Violet? The rumour goes that he pays Violet great attentions. The family is, of course, wild about it. She hasn’t a penny piece, and... and Olive, they say, has a good deal of money.”
“I do not know.”
“But you, Alice dear, I suppose you were immensely admired. You must have been... You must show me the dress you wore.... You described it beautifully in your letter.... You must have looked very sweet.... Did everybody say so?”
“I am not sure that they did.... Men, you know, do not always admire what women do.”
“I should think not. Men only admire beastliness.”
“Cecilia, dear, you should not talk like that; it is not nice.” Cecilia looked at Alice wistfully, and she said:
“But tell me about the presentations. I suppose there were an immense number of people present?”
“Yes, and particularly débutantes; there were a great number presented this year. It was considered a large Drawing-room.”
“And how are you presented? I’ve heard my sister speak about it, but I never quite understood.”
“The Lord Lieutenant is standing under his throne, and all his Court are about him — your name is called out by the Chamberlain — a couple of A.D.C.s take your train from your arm, spread it along the floor, and you walk up to his Excellency, and he kisses you on both cheeks.”
“Oh, how beastly! You mean to say, Alice, that that man kissed you?”
“Yes, he did. But it is only a fashion, a ceremony — a stupid one I grant you — but I can’t say...”
“You mean to say it did not disgust you?” Then after a pause she added, “Perhaps you wished it were Mr. Harding.” Had Cecilia not been Cecilia, Alice would have answered differently, but disarmed by the love reflected in the luminous eyes she said:
“I believe you do not wish to give me pain, but you can hardly be blind to the fact that such observations are almost meant to wound my feelings.”
“Oh, Alice; no, indeed! I do not wish to give you pain but....”
At that moment Barnes brought in the tea. She set it on a little table used for the purpose. “There is a letter for you, miss, on the tray,’ she said as she left the room; “it came by the afternoon post.”
Without answering, Alice continued to pour out the tea, but when she handed Ceeilia her cup, she said, surprised at the dull sullen stare fixed upon her:
“What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that?”
“That letter, I am sure, is from Harding; it is a man’s handwriting.”
Like a lamp Alice’s face was illumined. She had been expecting that letter for days.
“Oh! give it me,” she said impulsively.
“There it is; I wouldn’t touch it. I knew you liked that man; but I did not expect to find you corresponding with him. It is shameful; it is not worthy of you. You might have left such things to May Gould.”
“Cecilia, you have no right to speak to me in that way; you are presuming too much on our friendship.”
“Oh, yes, yes; but before you met him I could not have presumed too much upon our friendship.”
“If you want to know why I wrote to Mr. Harding, I’ll tell you.”
“It was you who wrote to him, then?”
“Yes, I wrote to him. Mr. Harding is, as you have heard, a literary man; he is known to all the newspaper editors and publishers in London. He was very kind when I met him in Dublin; he not only advised and encouraged me to write, but he offered to take anything I might send him to the editors, and try and get it accepted. I see no reason why I should not avail myself of the helping hand he extends to me.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes; avail yourself of his assistance; do what you like. I see it all now,” cried Cecilia, and she walked wildly to and fro, her eye tinged with a strange glare. “Yes, I see it all. This room, that was once a girl’s room, is now Harding’s room. He is the atmosphere of the place. I was conscious of it when I entered, but now it is visible to me — that manuscript, that writing-table, that letter. Oh yes, it is Harding, all is Harding! All I loved is gone!... The whiteness, the purity, the feminacy, all is gone I. — . — . The shadow of a man has fallen across our friendship; it is blackened, it is worthless. Cruel, cruel! Why am I thus tortured? why do I suffer? The one thing I thought pure is soiled. There is neither purity nor peace in the world; the same blackness, always the same blackness. The same horrible passion that degrades, that disgraces, that makes animals of us! There is no escaping from it — it is everywhere, it is eternal, it is omnipotent. We are hemmed in on every side by vileness; there is no escape; no, no, no; — . — . — . my last hope is gone, and I am alone in this horrible, this ignominious world. Oh that I might die, for I can hear with it no longer! And we all come, we all spring from the same abomination — vile, loathsome, detestable. Take pity, oh, take pity! let me die! Oh, God, take pity!”
“Cecilia, Ceilia, think, I beg of you, of what you are saying.” But when Alice approached and strove to raise the deformed girl from the pillow upon which she had thrown herself, she started up and savagely confronted her.
“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” she cried; “I cannot bear it. What are you to me, what am I to you? It is not with me you would care to he, but with him. It is not my kiss of friendship that would console you, but his kiss of passion that would charm you.. — . — . Go to him, and leave me to die.”
“Was this
insanity?” and then, forgetful of the abuse that was being showered upon her, Alice said:
“Cecilia dear, listen; I’ll forgive the language you have used toward me, for I know you do not know what you are saying. You must be ill... you cannot be in your right senses to-day, or you would not speak like that.”
“Right senses!” replied the girl bitterly; “you would soothe me, but you little dream of the poison you are dropping on my wounds. Bight senses! the words show me how much too much I expected of you. You never understood, you are too far removed from me in thought and feeling ever to understand — no, your spirituality is only a delusion; you are no better at heart than May Gould. It is the same thing: one seeks a husband, another gratifies herself with a lover. It is the same thing, where’s the difference? It is animal passion all the same. And that letter is full of it... it must be... I am sure it is.”
“You are very insulting, Cecilia. Where have you thrown my letter to?”
The letter had fallen beneath the table. Alice made a movement towards it, but, overcome by mad rage, Cecilia caught it up and threw it into the fire. Alice rescued her letter, and then, her face full of stern indignation, she said:
“I think, Cecilia, you had better leave my room, and before you come to see me again, I shall expect to receive a written apology for the outrageous way you have behaved.”
In a few days came a humble and penitent letter; Cecilia returned, her eyes full of tears, and begged to be forgiven: the girls resumed their friendship, but both were conscious that it was neither so bright nor so communicative as in the olden days. They love best to whom all is impossible but love. It was so with Cecilia, and Alice had much to live for now. Every morning she went up to her room to write, and in the evenings, deaf to silly chatter and laughter, she read thoughtfully and industriously. She read the books she had heard Harding speak of. The remembrance of the man endeared them to her, and she believed they would help to educate her better than others she might choose for herself. Her mind being simple, logical, direct — so unblinded by sidelights that it often touched, if it did not merge in, the commonplace — found, without difficulty, words that were at least the appropriate equivalents of the thoughts she wished to express: not being possessed of that supreme power of seeing more than one aspect of her subject, which is genius, her execution was facile and sure as the conception was moderate and well balanced. Her choice of subject was always healthy and practical, and she wrote short stories and a newspaper article unfalteringly: her work as it unfolded itself was an image of the writer’s own integrity and good sense. And if her writings excited neither nervous surprise nor any subtle emotion, they did not provoke contempt by stupidity or vulgarity. She saw life from a normal and sensible standpoint, and her merit lay not in the peculiarity or the keenness of her vision, but in the clearness and the common sense she infused into the writing, as she would have done into any other business she might have undertaken. Au fond, the artistic question troubled her little, but when the first cheque came, when it fell out of the envelope into her lap, her fingers trembled, and, clutching the piece of paper, she went down to breakfast. Joy bubbled in her brain. To know that she could do something, that she would not prove a drag, a hindrance upon the wheel of life, was an effervescent delight.
