Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  A man’s struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her, but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life; all threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to bear him out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love suggests the spider’s web, and when he is seeking to escape from a woman that will degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes and perfects the comparison. A man’s love for a common woman is as a fire in his vitals; sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn out by angry hands, but always some spark remains; it contrives to unite about its victim, and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous disease, but it cannot be cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it is inexplicable. All good things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for it; long years of toil, trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly accepted; on one side all the sweetness of the world, on the other nothing of worth, often vice, meanness, ill-temper, all that go to make life a madness and a terror; twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty years lie a head of him and her, but the years and their burdens are not for his eyes any more than the flowers he elects to disdain. Love is blind, but sometimes there is no love. How then shall we explain this inexplicable mystery; wonderful riddle that none shall explain and that every generation propounds?

  Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with him when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer was nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a couple of hunters — Willy had calculated it out — for two and twenty shillings a week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the studio it was to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie, and all knew of Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would not forgive her, but the obscurity of the story of this point and the delight felt in her misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank in the popular mind, and when he played Gounod in the still evenings the young ladies would steal from the villas and wander sentimentally through the shadows about the green. He got up late in the morning, he lingered over breakfast, and until it was time to go to Brighton he lay on the sofa watching the cricketers and the children playing, shaping resolutions, and striving with himself and deceiving himself. A dozen times, a hundred times, he had concluded he must see Maggie; he had decided he would write to Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to Mr. Brookes and settle the matter off-hand. But, somehow, he did nothing. His mind was absorbed in a novel, which he narrated when Willy came to see him. It concerned the accident that led a man not to marry the woman he loved, and was in the main an incoherent version of his own life at Southwick.

  “I don’t think I told you,” said Willy, “that they are removing the furniture to-day.”

  “You don’t say so — to-day? And where is your father?”

  “He is in London, at the ‘Metropole.’”

  The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: “It is very sad to see all the things you have known since you were a child sold by auction.”

  “Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already? Those beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down, and stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very sad.”

  “My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in for the county families.”

  “How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time — fourteen, I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, through that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they were then only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind’s eye, quite distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and now she is a mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden — oh! the moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don’t feel as I feel.”

  “Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I don’t talk so much about it.”

  “I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie’s window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome face, and I shall never look again.”

  “You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.”

  “No, no, it won’t be the same. Why should all I feel and love be forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I hate that man.”

  “So do I.”

  “If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be other gardens, and other girls, but that doesn’t make it the least less sad to see this garden pass into bricks and mortar.”

  Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him to take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon loudly ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the Friths from the walls.

  “Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this end of the picture. There, that’s better! That’s the way to do it!”

  “That’s what he said when he shot my bird,” Willy whispered; and they tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and heard the voices of the work-people.

  “How very sad it is,” said Frank; then, after a long silence: “How beautiful a scene like this would be in a book — a young girl leaving her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall write it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you would tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it were, epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a child. You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of furniture, your toys — I suppose they are gone long ago; but something must stand out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell me.”

  Willy stroked his moustache. “Of course it is very sad, but it is difficult to put one’s feelings into words. I should have to think about it; I don’t think I could say off-hand.”

  At that moment there came a great crash.

  “What the devil is that?” cried Frank.

  “I hope they haven’t broken the statue of Flora,” said Willy, and a look of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the case he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs. The workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue they had let it fall, and it strewed the floor — an arm here, a fragment of drapery there.

  “I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are in marble.”

  “Come away, I can’t listen to that cad. I wouldn’t have had Flora broken for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and look at her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always wanted to look inside. If you’d like to know what I feel most sorry for, it is Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as long as I can remember.”

  They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the paddocks and enclosures situated along th
e road in the valley, and the private house so trim and middle-class. “Splendid paddocks and first-rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a glass I could show you Blue Mantle’s stable. Do you see two horses in the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner — Apple Blossom and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell out of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue Gown out of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to that?”

  “I see you have been looking up the Stud Book.”

  “Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint me some landscapes for my dining-room.”

  XVIII

  “THE PAIN IS always here — just over the heart. You know what I mean? Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. I know I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn’t be wholly glad; but glad or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be complete. You have felt all this.”

  “Never mind how I felt, you know I don’t like talking about it. I am sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I’ve had nothing else; I often think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release.”

  “If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she’ll never find a husband better than she’d have found in me, I don’t believe if they were to be made that you could make a better husband than I should be — I feel it.”

  “I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself. He never went in for the country people; he never would have people at the Manor House. You can’t shut up young girls as if they were in a convent, and if they don’t get the right people they’ll have the wrong people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can’t understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds, shillings, and pence with him — not likely. My sisters might have married very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my father brings all his troubles on himself.”

  “So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now.”

  “But you couldn’t have really loved her; if you had you would never—”

  “Yes, I did love her.”

  “I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a very delicate question, but we have been friends so long — would you like me to see if — if this matter could be arranged? I don’t like, as you know, to meddle in other people’s affairs, I have quite enough to do to look after my own; but if you would like — You, of course, do not think of marrying Lizzie Baker?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would you like to marry Maggie?”

  “Yes, of course I should.”

  “I don’t say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best thing you could do.”

  They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle’s box. The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel, and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands.

  The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow, and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace.

  Their dinner awaited them — a little dinner, simple and humble. After dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank’s knee, and he told her stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank’s life. There were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he waited unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; and in such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, and was sucked down in his passion.

  The little village — a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and Berkins — how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical — his eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling, the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of the walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of which he could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved, but he was leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as children, as girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful garden where he had played and passioned in all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived the past; and leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and cried out: “Alas, those were Spring Days.”

  THE END

  Mike Fletcher

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  The first edition’s title page

  TO MY BROTHER AUGUSTUS,

  IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF MUTUAL

  ASPIRATION AND LABOUR

  CHAPTER I

  OATHS, VOCIFERATIONS, AND the slamming of cab-doors. The darkness was decorated by the pink of a silk skirt, the crimson of an opera-cloak vivid in the light of a carriage-lamp, with women’s faces, necks, and hair. The women sprang gaily from hansoms and pushed through the swing-doors. It was Lubini’s famous restaurant. Within the din was deafening.

  “What cheer, ‘Ria!

  ‘Ria’s on the job,”

  roared thirty throats, all faultlessly clothed in the purest linen. They stood round a small bar, and two women and a boy endeavoured to execute their constant orders for brandies-and-sodas. They were shoulder to shoulder, and had to hold their liquor almost in each other’s faces. A man whose hat had been broken addressed reproaches to a friend, who cursed him for interrupting his howling.

  Issued from this saloon a long narrow gallery set with a single line of tables, now all occupied by reproaches to a friend, who cursed him for interrupting his howling.

  Issued from this saloon a long narrow gallery set with a single line of tables, now all occupied by supping courtesans and their men. An odour of savouries, burnt cheese and vinegar met the nostrils, also the sharp smell of a patchouli
-scented handkerchief drawn quickly from a bodice; and a young man protested energetically against a wild duck which had been kept a few days over its time. Lubini, or Lubi, as he was called by his pals, signed to the waiter, and deciding the case in favour of the young man, he pulled a handful of silver out of his pocket and offered to toss three lords, with whom he was conversing, for drinks all round.

  “Feeling awfully bad, dear boy; haven’t been what I could call sober since Monday. Would you mind holding my liquor for me? I must go and speak to that chappie.”

  Since John Norton had come to live in London, his idea had been to put his theory of life, which he had defined in his aphorism, “Let the world be my monastery,” into active practice. He did not therefore refuse to accompany Mike Fletcher to restaurants and music-halls, and was satisfied so long as he was allowed to disassociate and isolate himself from the various women who clustered about Mike. But this evening he viewed the courtesans with more than the usual liberalism of mind, had even laughed loudly when one fainted and was upheld by anxious friends, the most zealous and the most intimate of whom bathed her white tragic face and listened in alarm to her incoherent murmurings of “Mike darling, oh, Mike!” John had uttered no word of protest until dear old Laura, who had never, as Mike said, behaved badly to anybody, and had been loved by everybody, sat down at their table, and the discussion turned on who was likely to be Bessie’s first sweetheart, Bessie being her youngest sister whom she was “bringing out.” Then he rose from the table and wished Mike good-night; but Mike’s liking for John was sincere, and preferring his company to Laura’s, he paid the bill and followed his friend out of the restaurant; and as they walked home together he listened to his grave and dignified admonitions, and though John could not touch Mike’s conscience, he always moved his sympathies. It is the shallow and the insincere that inspire ridicule and contempt, and even in the dissipations of the Temple, where he had come to live, he had not failed to enforce respect for his convictions and ideals.