by George Moore
‘Yes,’ said Harding; ‘I did.’ And he continued his search for acquaintances amid white rows of female backs, necks, and half-seen profiles — amid the black cloth shoulders cut sharply upon the illumined curtain.
‘And what do you think of it? Do you think it will succeed this time?’
‘Ford will create an impression in the part; but I don’t think the piece will run.’
‘And why? Because the public is too stupid?’
‘Partly, and partly because Price is only an intentionist. He cannot carry an idea quite through.’
‘Are you going to write about it?’
‘I may.’
‘And what will you say?’
‘Oh, most interesting things to be said. Let’s take the case of Hubert Price ... Ah, there, the curtain is going up.’
The curtain rolled slowly up, and in a small country drawing-room, in very simple but very pointedly written dialogue, the story of Mrs. Holmes’ domestic misfortunes was gradually unfolded. It appeared that she had flirted with Captain Grey; he had written her some compromising letters, and she had once been to his rooms alone. So the Court had pronounced a decree nisi. But Mrs. Holmes had not been unfaithful to her husband. She had flirted with Captain Grey because her husband’s attentions to a certain Mrs. Barrington had maddened her, and in her jealous rage had written foolish letters, and been to see Captain Grey.
Hubert noticed that folk were still asking for their seats, and pushing down the very rows in which the most influential critics were sitting. They exchanged a salutation with their friends in the dress-circle, and, when they were seated, looked around, making observations regarding the appearance of the house; and all the while the actors were speaking. Hubert trembled with fear and rage. Would these people never give their attention to the stage? If they had been sitting by him, he could have struck them. Then a line turned into nonsense by the actress who played Mrs. Holmes was a lancinating pain; and the actor who played Captain Grey, played so slowly that Hubert could hardly refrain from calling from his box. He looked round the theatre, noticing the indifferent faces of the critics, and the women’s shoulders seemed to him especially vacuous and imbecile.
The principal scene of the second act was between Mrs. Holmes and the man who had divorced her. He has-been driven to drink by the vile behaviour of his second wife; he is ruined in health and in pocket, and has come to the woman he wronged to beg forgiveness; he knows she has learnt to love Captain Grey, but will not marry him, because she believes that once married always married. There is only one thing he can do to repair the wrong he has done — he will commit suicide, and so enable her to marry the man she loves. He tells her that he has bought the pistol to do it with, and the words, ‘Not here! not here!’ escape from her; and he answers, ‘No, not here, but in a cab. I’ve got one at the door.’ He goes out; Captain Grey enters, and Mrs. Holmes begs him to save her husband. While they are discussing how this is to be done, he re-enters, saying that his conscience smote him as he was going to pull the trigger. Will she forgive him? If she won’t, he must make an end of himself. She says she will.
In the third act Hubert had attempted to paint Mr. Holmes’ vain efforts to reform his life. But the constant presence of Captain Grey in the household, his attempts to win Mrs. Holmes from her husband, and the drunken husband’s amours with the servant-maid disgusted rather than horrified. In the fourth act the wretched husband admits that his reformation is impossible, and that, although he has no courage to commit suicide and set his wife free, he will return to his evil courses; they will sooner or later make an end of him. The slowness and deadly gravity with which Ford took this scene rendered it intolerable; and, notwithstanding the beauty of the conclusion, when the deserted wife, in the silence of her drawing-room, reads again Captain Grey’s letter, telling her that he has left England for ever, and with another, the success of the play was left in doubt, and the audience filed out, talking, chattering, arguing, wondering what the public verdict would be.
To avoid commiseration of heartless friends and the triumphant glances of literary enemies, Hubert passed through the door leading on to the stage. Scene-shifters were brutally pushing away what remained of his play; and the presence of Hamilton Brown, the dramatic author, talking to Ford, was at that moment particularly disagreeable. On catching sight of Hubert, Brown ran to him, shook him by the hand, and murmured some discreet congratulations. He preferred the piece, however, as it had been originally written, and suggested to Ford the advisability of returning to the first text. Then Ford went upstairs to take his paint off, and Hubert walked about the stage with Brown. Brown’s insincerity was sufficiently transparent; but men in Hubert’s position catch at straws, and he soon began to believe that the attitude of the public towards his play was not so unfavourable as he had imagined.
Hubert tried to summon up a smile for the stage-door keeper, who, he feared, had heard that the piece had failed, and then the moment they got outside he begged Rose to tell him the exact truth. She assured him that Ford had said that he had always counted on a certain amount of opposition; but that he believed that the general public, being more free of prejudice and less sophisticated, would be impressed by the simple humanity of the play. The conversation paused, and at the end of an irritating silence he said, ‘You were excellent, as good as any one could be in a part that did not suit them. Ah, if he had cast you for the adventuress, how you would have played it!...’
‘I’m so glad you are pleased. I hope my notices will be good. Do you think they will?’
‘Yes, your notices will be all right,’ he answered, with a sigh.
‘And your notices will be all right too. No one can say what is going to succeed. There was a call after each of the last three acts.... I don’t see how a piece could go better. It is the suspense....’
‘Ah, yes, the suspense!’
They lingered on the landing, and Hubert said, ‘Won’t you come in for a moment?’ She followed him into the room. His calm face, usually a perfect picture of repose and self-possession, betrayed his emotion by a certain blankness in the eyes, certain contractions in the skin of the forehead. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘there’s no hope.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t say that!’ she replied. ‘I think it went very well indeed.... I know I did nothing with the young girl. I oughtn’t to have undertaken the part.’
‘You were excellent. If we only get some good notices. If we don’t, I shall never get another play of mine acted.’ He looked at her imploringly, thirsting for a woman’s sympathy. But the little girl was thinking of certain effects which she would have made, and which the actress who had played the adventuress had failed to make.
‘I watched her all the time,’ she said, ‘following every line, saying all the time, “Oh yes, that’s all very nice and very proper, my young woman; but it’s not it; no, not at all — not within a hundred miles of it.” I don’t think she ever really touched the part — do you?’ Hubert did not answer, and a quiver of distraction ran through the muscles of her face.
‘Why don’t you answer me?’
‘I can’t answer you,’ he said abruptly. Then remembering, he added, ‘Forgive me; I can think of nothing now.’ He hid his face in his hands, and sobbed twice — two heavy, choking sobs, pregnant with the weight of anguish lying on his heart.
Seeing how much he suffered, she laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘I am very sorry; I wish I could help you. I know how it tears the heart when one cannot get out what one has in one’s brain.’
Her artistic appreciation of his suffering only jarred him the more. What he longed for was some kind, simple-hearted woman who would say, ‘Never mind, dear; the play was perfectly right, only they did not understand it; I love you better than ever.’ But Rose could not give him the sympathy he wanted; and to be alone was almost a relief. He dared not go to bed; he sat looking into space. The roar of London hushed till it was no more than a faint murmur, the hissing of the gas grew louder, and still
Hubert sat thinking, the same thoughts battling in his brain. He looked into the future, but could see nothing but suicide. His uncle? He had applied to him before for help; there was no hope there. Then he tramped up and down, maddened by the infernal hissing of the gas; and then threw himself into his arm-chair. And so a terrible night wore away; and it was not until long after the early carts had begun to rattle in the streets that exhaustion brought an end to his sufferings, and he rolled into bed.
VI
‘WHAT WILL YE ‘ave to eat? Eggs and bacon?’
‘No, no!’
‘Well, then, ‘ave a chop?’
‘No, no!’
‘Ye must ‘ave something.’
‘A cup of tea, a slice of toast. I’m not hungry.’
‘Well, ye are worse than a young lady for a happetite. Miss Massey ‘as sent you down these ’ere papers.’
The servant-girl laid the papers on the bed, and Hubert lay back on his pillow, so that he might collect his thoughts. Stretching forth his hands, he selected the inevitable paper.
‘For those who do not believe that our English home life is composed mainly, if not entirely, of lying, drunkenness, and conjugal infidelity, and its sequel divorce, yester evening at the Queen’s Theatre must have been a sad and dismal experience. That men and women who have vowed to love each other do sometimes prove false to their troth no reasonable man will deny. With the divorce court before our eyes, even the most enthusiastic believer in the natural goodness and ultimate perfectibility of human nature must admit that men and women are frail. But drunkenness and infidelity are happily not characteristic of our English homes. Then why, we ask, should a dramatist select such a theme, and by every artifice of dialogue force into prominence all that is mean and painful in an unfortunate woman’s life? Always the same relentless method; the cold, passionless curiosity of the vivisector; the scalpel is placed under the nerve, and we are called upon to watch the quivering flesh. Never the kind word, the tears, the effusion, which is man’s highest prerogative, and which separates him from the brute and signifies the immortal end for which he was created. We hold that it is a pity to see so much talent wasted, and it was indeed a melancholy sight to see so many capable actors and actresses labouring to — —’
‘This is even worse than usual,’ said Hubert; and glancing through half a column of hysterical commonplace, he came upon the following: —
‘But if this woman had succeeded in reclaiming from vice the man who unjustly divorced her, and who in his misery goes back to ask her forgiveness for pity’s sake, what a lesson we should have had! And, with lightened and not with heavier hearts, we should have left the theatre comforted, better and happier men and women. But turning his back on the goodness, truth, and love whither he had induced us to believe he was leading us, the author flagrantly makes the woman contradict her whole nature in the last act; and, because her husband falls again, she, instead of raising him with all the tender mercies and humanities of wifehood, declares that her life has been one long mistake, and that she accepts the divorce which the Court had unjustly granted. The moral, if such a word may be applied to such a piece is this: “The law may be bad, but human nature is worse.”’
The other morning papers took the same view, — a great deal of talent wasted on a subject that could please no one. Hubert threw the papers aside, lay back, and in the lucid idleness of the bed his thoughts grew darker. It was hardly possible that the piece could survive such notices; and if it did not? Well, he would have to go. But until the piece was taken out of the bills it would be a weakness to harbour the ugly thought.
There were, however, the evening papers to look forward to, and soon after midday Annie was sent to buy all that had appeared. Hubert expected to find in these papers a more delicate appreciation of his work. Many of the critics of the evening press were his personal friends, and nearly all were young men in full sympathy with the new school of dramatic thought. He read paper after paper with avidity; and Annie was sent in a cab to buy one that had not yet found its way so far north as Fitzroy Street. The opinion of this paper was of all importance, and Hubert tore it open with trembling fingers. Although more temperately written than the others, it was clearly favourable, and Hubert sighed a sweet sigh of relief. A weight was lifted from him; the world suddenly seemed to grow brighter; and he went to the theatre that evening, and, half doubting and half confidently, presented himself at the door of Montague Ford’s dressing-room. The actor had not yet begun to dress, and was busy writing letters. He stretched his hand hurriedly to Hubert.
‘Excuse me, my dear fellow; I have a couple of letters to finish.’
Hubert sat down, glancing nervously from the actor to the morning papers with which the table was strewn. There was not an evening paper there. Had he not seen them? At the end of about ten minutes the actor said, —
‘Well, this is a bad business; they are terribly down on us — aren’t they? What do you think?’
‘Have you seen the evening papers — The Telephone, for instance?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve seen them all; but the evening papers don’t amount to much. Stiggins’s article was terrible. I am afraid he has killed the piece.’
‘Don’t you think it will run, then?’
‘Well, that depends upon the public, of course. If they like it, I’ll keep it on.’
‘How’s the booking?’
‘Not good.’ Montague Ford moved his papers absent-mindedly. At the end of a long silence he said, ‘Even if the piece did catch on, it would take a lot of working up to undo the mischief of those articles. Of course you can rely on me to give it every chance. I shan’t take it out of the bills if I can possibly help.’
‘There is my Gipsy.’
‘I have another piece ready to put into rehearsal; it was arranged for six months ago. I only consented to produce your play because — well, because there has been such an outcry lately about art.... Tremendous part for me in the new piece... I’m sure you’ll like it.’
The business did improve, but so very slowly that Hubert was afraid Ford would lose patience and take the play out of the bills. But while the fate of the play hung in the balance, Hubert’s life was being rendered unbearable by duns. They had found him out, one and all; to escape being served was an impossibility; and now his table was covered with summonses to appear at the County Court. This would not matter if the piece once took the public taste. Then he would be able to pay every one, and have some time to rest and think. And there seemed every prospect of its catching on. Discussions regarding the morality of the play had arisen in the newspapers, and the eternal question whether men and women are happier married or unmarried had reached its height. Hubert spent the afternoon addressing letters to the papers, striving to fan the flame of controversy. Every evening he listened for Rose’s footstep on the stairs. — How did the piece go? — Was there a better house? Money or paper? — Have you seen the notice in the —— ? — First-rate, wasn’t it? — That ought to do some good. — I’ve heard there was a notice in the —— , but I haven’t seen it. Have you? — No; but So-and-so saw the paper, and said there was nothing in it. And, do you know, I hear there’s going to be a notice in The Modern Review, and that So-and-so is writing it.
Every post brought newspapers; the room was filled with newspapers — all kinds of newspapers — papers one has never heard of, — French papers, Welsh papers, North of England papers, Scotch and Irish papers. Hubert read columns about himself, anecdotes of all kinds, — where he was born, who were his parents, and what first induced him to attempt writing for the stage; his personal appearance, mode of life, the cut of his clothes; his religious, moral, and political views. Had he been the plaintiff in an action for criminal libel, greater industry in the collection and the fabrication of personal details could hardly have been displayed.
But at these articles Hubert only glanced; he was interested in his piece, not in himself, and when Annie brought up The Modern Review he tore it open, knowing
he would find there criticism more fundamental, more searching. But as he read, the expression of hope which his face wore changed to one of pain pitiful to look upon. The article began with a sketch of the general situation, and in a tone of commiseration, of benevolent malice, the writer pointed out how inevitable it was that the critics should have taken Mr. Price, when Divorce was first produced, for the new dramatic genius they were waiting for. ‘There comes a moment,’ said this caustic writer, ‘in the affairs of men when the new is not only eagerly accepted, but when it is confounded with the original. Wearied by the old stereotyped form of drama, the critics had been astonished by a novelty of subject, more apparent than real, and by certain surface qualities in the execution; they had hailed the work as being original both in form and in matter, whereas all that was good in the play had been borrowed from France and Scandinavia. Divorce was the inevitable product of the time. It had been written by Mr. Price, but it might have been written by a dozen other young men — granting intelligence, youth, leisure, a university education, and three or four years of London life — any one of a dozen clever young men who frequent West End drawing-rooms and dabble in literature might have written it. All that could be said was that the play was, or rather had been, dans le mouvement; and original work never is dans le mouvement. Divorce was nothing more than the product of certain surroundings, and remembering Mr. Price’s other plays, there seemed to be no reason to believe that he would do better. Mr. Price had tried his hand at criticism, and that was a sure sign that the creative faculty had begun to wither. His critical essays were not rich nor abundant in thought, they were not the skirmishing of a man fighting for his ideas, they were not preliminary to a great battle; they were at once vague and pedantic, somewhat futile, les ébats d’un esprit en peine, and seemed to announce a talent in progress of disintegration rather than of reconstruction.
