by George Moore
“Yes, sir, just come in, about five minutes,” said the man as he opened the door. Willy waited until the train had stopped dead, he got out carefully, and, looking through the confusion of luggage and bookstall trade, he saw Escott questioning a porter and hailing a carriage. “By Jove! I shall miss him,” cried Willy, and he hastened his steps and broke into a sharp trot. “Frank! Frank!” he cried.
“Oh, there you are!” cried Frank, and he lifted his stick, and called sharply to a large black and white bull-dog that paddled about on its bow legs, saliva dripping from its huge jaws, looking in its hideousness like something rare and exquisite from Japan. He dismissed the porter and the carriage, which he had hailed with an arrogant wave of his stick. He was tall and he was thin. His trousers were extremely elegant, a light cloth, black and white check, hung on his legs in graceful lines, and he wore tiny boots with light brown cloth tops. The jacket and waistcoat were in dark brown cloth, and the odour of the gardenia in his buttonhole contrasted with that of the sachet-scented silk pocket-handkerchief which lay in his side pocket. His throat showed white and healthy in the high collar tied with a white silk cravat in a sailor’s knot, fastened with a small diamond. His hands were coarse and brown; he wore two rings, and a bracelet fell out of his cuff when he dropped his arm. His chest was broad and full, but the shoulders were too square; the coat was padded. There was little that could be called Celtic in his face or voice, the admixture of race was manifested in that dim blue stare, at once vague and wild, which the eyes of the Celt so often exhibit. The nose was long, low, and straight, the nostrils were cleanly marked, the mouth was uncertain, the chin was uncertain, the face was long, deadly pale, rather large, the forehead was high, receding at the temples. The hair (now he removes his hat, for the air is heavy and hot, and the sun falls fiercely on the pavement) is pale brown, and it waves thinly over the high forehead, so expressive of a vague and ill-considered idealism. Frank Escott was of Saxon origin on his father’s side, but the family had been in Ireland for the last two hundred years, and had married into many Irish families that had at different times received direct contributions of Celtic blood. Long residence in England had removed all Irish accent and modes of speech; but in hook, and book, and cook he lengthened the vowel sound. Occasionally a something strange grated on the ear, and declared him not of the south of England, suggested the north, and insinuated Cumberland; an actor could not reproduce these trifling differences with caricaturing them. He was absolutely good-looking, and he was too well dressed. He laughed a good deal, and his conversation was sprinkled with cynical remarks and cutting observations.
“You don’t seem to go in for dress now as you used to.”
“I haven’t the money to spend on it; but tell me, don’t you like this suit?”
“Well, pretty well; whose is it? Did Walpole make it? Do you deal with him still?”
“Yes, it is one of Walpole’s, but I have had it turned.”
“Had it turned? I have heard of turning an overcoat, but a morning coat! I did not know it could be done; that’s what makes it look so shaky.”
“Now don’t you get laughing at my coat, it looks very well indeed. I suppose you think I am not fit to walk with you. I daresay it doesn’t look as smart as yours, which has just come out of Walpole’s shop.”
The young men had so much to say, and were so genuinely glad to see each other, that their thoughts hesitated and they were embarrassed.
“I suppose you enjoyed your trip abroad very much,” Willy said drily and punctiliously; “you were more than a year away — nearly eighteen months, I think.”
“About that. I enjoyed myself. I think I liked Italy best; it has been more painted and described than any country, and yet it is quite different from what one imagines; it is grey and dim and green and dusty. It looks — how shall I put it? — it looks worn out and faded.”
“The women aren’t worn out and faded if all one hears is true,” said Willy, with a short laugh.
“The women are right enough. I must tell you about them one of these days, lots of stories. There was a little Italian girl I met at Milan. It was a job to get away from her; she followed me, ‘pon my word, she did; she declared she would commit suicide. I was awfully frightened. Naples is really too shocking. I’m not a prude, but Naples is really—”
“I suppose it is the same all over the Continent. One of these days I must go abroad and have a look round. You were a long time in Rome?”
“No, only a few weeks, but I was too taken up with the pictures to think of anything else. The Michael Angelos are beyond anything any one can imagine. He is the only one who can compare with the Greeks, and I don’t see why one shouldn’t say he is as great. Of course there are things, the daughters of — I forget the name — the group of two women leaning back in each other’s arms in the British Museum. But I don’t know, Michael Angelo is quite different, and I can’t see that anything can be said to be finer than the figures of Day and Night — how often I have drawn them — the figure of Night, the heavy breasts to show that she has suckled the Day.”
“But which way are we going? I must go to Truefitt’s to have my hair cut.”
“You haven’t forgotten the old place, I see. Do you still keep up your subscription?”
“I suppose mine has run out, I have been abroad so long. Nothing like a good shampoo; for a guinea a year you can have it done as often as you like.”
“I haven’t subscribed lately. There used to be such a pretty girl at the counter. Do you remember?”
“You dog, always thinking of them,” and laughing loudly they passed through the shop, and it was Frank that stared most at the young lady. They read Punch aloud to each other; they cracked jokes with the hairdressers; they snorted and laughed through the soap and jets of hot and cold water. Frank allowed scent and ivories to be pressed upon him by the young lady at the counter; Willy declined to be led into such extravagances.
As he stepped out into the shine of the street, and took step from his friend, he said: “By George! it makes me feel young again. It is just like old times.”
“Yes, it does make one feel jollier, doesn’t it?”
“How jolly it is here; not too warm, just nice. What shall we do? Sit down on that bench in front of the pier?”
“I’m agreeable. How jolly it is. Just look at those boats! One could make a picture of that.”
Over the sea hung a white veil of mist, but the sun glowed through and melted into it, and harmonised it with the water green and translucent. The sea sucked about the shingle with little sudden sighs; the sails of the pleasure boat waved in the fairy-like depths, and all the little brown fishing-boats lay becalmed, heaving tremulously like tired butterflies upon the breast of a blue flower. The nursemaids lay together on the shingle, and their novels slipped down the stones to their feet. The children played with the tide and the sand. There were crowds of women — Jewesses with loud dresses: and the strange world of bath chairs! Ladies so old that they seem certain to fall to pieces when they are taken out; ladies with chestnut curls soft and fresh — why were they in bath chairs? General officers, mounted on white Arabs; acrobats and songs.
The young men sat facing the sea. Frank called, “Triss, Triss. Splendid dog that is. If I were to let him he would guzzle the other dog in about two minutes.”
“He looks a ferocious brute.”
“You don’t like dogs? You couldn’t see a handsomer dog than that; unfortunately, he’s the wrong colour; if he were brindle or white, he’d take a first prize. Come here, you brute.”
Amid some little excitement and anxious looks, Triss came up, growling and showing his teeth. Frank explained that it was only his manner. Frank took the paw that was extended to him, but Triss’s friendliness seemed somewhat dubious, for he still further uncovered his formidable fangs.
“I really don’t care to sit here with that ferocious brute.”
“I assure you he won’t bite, it is only his manner. Isn’t it, T
riss? Kiss me, kiss me at once,” and amid many growls of almost subterranean awfulness, the dog licked his master’s face.
“I wish you would tie him up — to oblige me.”
Highly pleased at the fear and wonder his dog had struck in the gaudy Jewesses and the shaky generals, Frank threatened and finally forced the dog to lie down. He continued to expatiate on the dog’s points — the number of wrinkles, the bandiness of the legs, etc. The conversation dropped in heat and glare, and the picturesqueness of the sea.
“How horribly out of tune you do whistle — you go into a different key; this is more like it.”
“Yes, how sweetly she used to sing it. Do you remember the night we went to see her, the last time the piece was played? I threw her a bouquet, a splendid one it was, too, cost me three guineas in Covent Garden. We went afterwards and had supper at Scott’s in the Haymarket. How jolly those days were. I don’t seem to be able to enjoy myself now as I used to then.”
“What has become of her? One never hears of her.”
“She died soon after.”
“I am sorry I spoke of her; I didn’t know.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Then after a long silence, Willy said: “I hear your engagement is broken off.”
“Yes.” Frank drew a long and expressive breath, and, with melodramatic movements of the shoulders, he sighed. “I have not seen you since. Oh, I had terrible scenes with the father. They had a house up the river. I followed them, and put up at the Angler’s Hotel. She told her father that I must be allowed to come to the house, and he had to give way. You don’t know the river? Well, it is wonderful to awake at Maidenhead in the morning and hear the sparrows twittering in a piece of tangled vine; to see that great piece of water flowing so mildly in all the pretty summer weather. We used to live in flannels, and spent long afternoons together in the boat — we had such a spiffing boat, as light and as clean in the water as a fish — and we used to linger in the bulrushes, and come back when the moon was rising with our hands full of flowers.”
“But why was it broken off?”
“My uncle, old Mount Rorke, wants me to marry an heiress, and I have nothing except what he allows me, or scarcely anything. She used to wear a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the shadow fell over her face. I made a lot of sketches. I must show them to you one of these days when you come up to town, and I filled an album with verses. I used to write them at night. My window was right in front of the river, and the moon used to sail past, and in the morning I used to read her the poems I made overnight beneath the branches of the cedar, where we used to run the boat. But the father was a brute. I got the best of him once though. It was a private view day at the Academy, and he had forbidden Nellie to speak to me — even to notice me. I went straight up to her, and took her away under his very nose before he could stop us. We walked about all day. Oh! he was mad.”
“If she was willing to brave her father in that way, why was your engagement broken off?”
“My uncle was so very difficult to deal with. I didn’t see her for some time.” Frank did not say — perhaps, he did not know — that his engagement had been broken off through his own instability and weakness of character. The young lady, whom he called Nellie, had told him she would wait if he would elect a profession and work for a place in it. But Frank had not been able to forego late hours and restaurants, and Nellie had married some one who could. “You know I converted her. Doesn’t her father hate me for that! We used to go to high mass at the oratory. I explained to her the whole of the Catholic religion.”
“But I thought you didn’t believe in it yourself?”
“I am talking of some time ago; besides, a woman, it isn’t quite the same thing; and if I have saved her soul! I don’t know if I told you that I was writing a novel; I don’t think I did. The idea of it is this: A young man has loved three women. The first charmed him by her exceeding beauty; he lives with her for a time. The second captivates him, or rather holds him through his senses; his love for her is merely a sensuality; then he falls in love with a fair young girl as pure as falling snow of any stain in deed or in thought; he is engaged to marry her — or, I don’t know, I haven’t made up my mind on that point, perhaps it would be better if he did marry her. Well, the woman whom he has loved with a merely sensual passion comes back, and to revenge herself she tries to tempt the good girl to go wrong; she talks to her of men and pleasures; this is a good idea, I think, for I feel sure it is women far more than men who lead women astray. Then the first woman whom he has loved for her beauty merely, comes along and continues the diabolical work of the first, by suggesting — I don’t know, anything — that the young girl should go in for dress; the young man finds out the scheme, and to save the girl he murders her, he is thrown into prison, he is tried, and in the crowded Court he makes a great speech — he tells how he murdered her to save her from sin, he tells the judge that on the Judgment Day a pure white soul will plead for him. What an opportunity for a piece of splendid writing! The Court would be filled with fashionable women, that weep and sob, they cannot contain themselves, the judge would wish to stop the young man, but he cannot. What a splendid scene to describe! And the young man goes to execution confident, and assured that he has done well. What do you think of it?”
“It is really difficult for me to say; I never like giving an opinion on a subject I don’t understand.”
“I know; but what do you think?”
Fortunately for Willy’s peace, the conversation was at this moment violently interrupted by Triss. He rushed forth, and Frank was only in time to prevent a pitched battle. He returned leading the dog by his silk handkerchief, amid the murmur of nurse-maids and Jewesses.
“That’s the worst of him; he never can see a big dog without wanting to go for him. Down, sir, down — I won’t have you growl at me.”
“I can’t see what pleasure you can find in a brute like that.”
“I assure you he’s very good-tempered; he has a habit of growling, but he does not mean anything by it. What were we talking about?”
“I think we were talking about the ladies. Have you seen anything nice lately? What’s the present Mrs. Escott like, dark or fair?”
“There isn’t one, I assure you. I met rather a nice woman at my uncle’s, about two months ago, a Lady Seely. I don’t know that you would call her a pretty woman; rather a turned-up nose, a pinched-in waist, beautiful shoulders. Hair of a golden tinge, diamonds, and dresses covered with beads. She flirted a great deal. We talked about love, and we laughed at husbands, and she asked me to come and see her in rather a pointed way. It is rather difficult to explain these things, but I think that if I were to go in for her—”
“That you would pull it off?”
The young men laughed loudly, and then Frank said: “But somehow I don’t much care about her. I met such a pretty girl the other day at the theatre. There were no stalls, and as I wanted to see the piece very much, I went into the dress circle. There was only one seat in the back row. I struggled past a lot of people, dropped into my place, and watched the piece without troubling myself to see who was sitting next to me. It was not until the entr’acte that I looked round. I felt my neighbour’s eyes were fixed upon me. She was one of the prettiest girls you ever saw in your life — a blonde face, pale brown hair, and such wonderful teeth — her laughter, I assure you, was beautiful. I asked her what she thought of the piece. She looked away and didn’t answer. It was rather a slap in the face for me, but I am not easily done. I immediately said: ‘I should have apologised before for the way I inconvenienced you in crushing into my seat, but, really, the place is so narrow that you don’t know how to get by.’ This rather stumped her, she was obliged to say something. The girl on the other side (not half a bad looking girl, short brown curly hair, rather a roguish face) was the most civil at first. She wasn’t as pretty as the one next to me, but she spoke the more willingly; the one next to me tried to prevent her. However, I got on with them, one thing led to ano
ther, and when the piece was over, I fetched their hats and coats and we walked a little way up the street together. I tried to get them to come to supper; they couldn’t do that, for they had to be in at a certain time, so we went to Gatti’s and had some coffee. I couldn’t make out for a long time what they were; they were evidently not prostitutes, and they did not seem to me to be quite ladies. What do you think they were?”
“I haven’t an idea — actresses?”
“No. They wouldn’t tell me for a long time. I got it out of them at last; they’re at the bar in the Gaiety Restaurant.”
“Bar girls?”
“Yes.”
“Some of those bar girls are very pretty; rather dangerous, though, I should think.”
“They seemed to me to be very nice girls; you would be surprised if you heard them talk. I assure you the one that sat next to me spoke just like a lady. You know in these hard times people must do something. Lots of ladies have to buckle to and work for their bread.”
Frank lapsed into silence. Willy sat apparently watching the blue and green spectacle of the sea. Frank knew that it interested him not the least, and he wondered if his friend had heard what he had been saying. Triss, seeing that smelling and fighting were equally vain endeavours, had laid himself out in the sun, and he returned his master’s caresses by deep growls. One more menacing than the others woke Willy from his meditation, and he said: “What’s the time? It ought to be getting on to lunch time.”
“I daresay it is.”
“Where shall we go? Do you know of a good place? What about that restaurant opposite the pier?”
“Well,” said Willy, with a short, abrupt laugh, “the fact is, I must lunch at my office; but I shall be very glad if you will come.”
“I didn’t know you had an office — an office for what?”
“I started an agency at the beginning of the year for artificial manure, but I think I shall drop it. I am arranging to go on the Stock Exchange. The difficulty is whether I shall be able to get my father to allow me to take enough money out of the business.”
