by George Moore
‘Sometimes the critic’s phrases seemed wet with tears; sometimes, abandoning his tone of commiseration, he would assume one of scientific indifference. The phenomenon was the commonest. There were dozens of Hubert Prices in London. The universities and the newspapers, working singly and in collaboration, turned them out by the dozen. And the mission of these men of intelligent culture seemed to be to poser des lapins sur la jeune presse. Each one came in turn with his little volume of poems, his little play, his little picture; all were men of “advanced ideas”; in other words, they were all dans le mouvement. There was the rough Hubert Price, who made mild consternation in the drawing-room, and there was the sophisticated Hubert Price, who cajoled the drawing-room; there was the sincere and the insincere, and the Price that suffered and the Price that didn’t. Each one brought a different nuance, a thousand infinitesimal variations of the type, but, considered merely in its relation to art, the species may be said to be divided into two distinct categories. In the first category are those who rise almost at the first bound to a certain level, who produce quickly, never reaching again the original standard, dropping a little lower at each successive effort until their work becomes indistinguishable from the ordinary artistic commercialism of the time. The fate of those in the second category is more pathetic; they gradually wither and die away like flowers planted in a thin soil. Among these men many noble souls are to be found, men who have surrendered all things for love of their art, and who seemed at starting to be the best equipped to win, but who failed, impossible to tell how or why. Sometimes their failure turns to comedy, sometimes to tragedy. They may become refined, delicate, elderly bachelors, the ornaments of drawing-rooms, professional diners-out — men with brilliant careers behind them. But if fate has not willed that they should retire into brilliant shells; if chance does not allow them to retreat, to separate themselves from their kind, but arbitrarily joins them to others, linking their fate to the fate of others’ unhappiness, disaster may and must accrue from the alliance; honesty of purpose, trueness of heart, deep love, every great, good, and gracious quality to be found in nature, will not suffice to save them.’
The paper dropped from his hands, and he recollected all his failures.
‘Once I could do good work; now I can do neither good work nor bad. Were I a rich man, I should collect my scattered papers and write songs to be sung in drawing-rooms; but being a poor one, I must — I suppose I must get out. Positively, there is no hope, — debts on every side. Fate has willed me to go as went Haydon, Gerard de Nerval, and Maréchal. The first cut his throat, the second hanged himself, and the third blew out his brains. Clearly the time has come to consider how I shall make my exit. It is a little startling to be called upon so peremptorily to go.’
In this moment of extreme dejection it seemed to Hubert that the writer of the article had told him the exact truth. He refused to admit the plea of poverty. It was of course hard to write when one is being harassed by creditors. But if he had had it in him, it would have come out. The critic had very probably told him the truth. He could not hope to make a living out of literature. He had not the strength to write the masterpiece which the perverse cruelty of nature had permitted him only to see, and he was hopelessly unfit for journalism. But in his simple, wholesome mind there was no bent towards suicide; and he scanned every horizon. Once again he thought of his uncle. Five years ago he had written, asking him for the loan of a hundred pounds. He had received ten. And how vain it would be to write a second time! A few pounds would only serve to prolong his misery. No; he would not drift from degradation to degradation.
He only glanced at the letter which Annie had brought up with the copy of The Modern Review. It was clearly a lawyer’s letter. Should he open it? Why not spare himself the pain? He could alter nothing; and in these last days —— Leaving the thought unfinished, he sought for his keys; he went to his box, unlocked it, and took out a small paper package. Of the fifty pounds he had received from Ford about twenty remained: he had been poorer before, but hardly quite so hopeless. He scanned every horizon — all were barred. The thought of suicide, and with it the instinctive shrinking from it, came into his mind again. Suppose he took, that very night, an overdose of chloral? He tried to put the thought from him, and returned, a little dazed and helpless, to his chair. Had the critic in The Modern Review told him the truth? Was he incapable of earning a living? It seemed so. Above all, was he incapable of finishing The Gipsy as he intended? No; that he felt was a lie. Give him six months’ quiet, free from worry and all anxiety, and he would do it. Many a year had passed since he had enjoyed a month of quiet; and glancing again at the letter on the table, he thought that perhaps at that very moment a score of gallery boys were hissing his play. Perhaps at that very moment Ford was making up his mind to announce the last six nights of Divorce. At a quarter to twelve he heard Rose’s foot on the stairs. He opened the door.
‘How did the piece go to-night?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘Only pretty well? Won’t you come in for a few minutes?... So the piece didn’t go very well to-night?’
‘Oh yes, it did. I’ve seen it go better; but — —’
‘Did you get a call?’
‘Yes, after the second act.’
‘Not after the third?’
‘No. That act never goes well. Harding came behind; I was speaking to him, and he said something which struck me as being very true. Ford, he said, plays the part a great deal too seriously. When the piece was first produced, it was played more good-humouredly by indifferent actors, who let the thing run without trying to bring out every point. Ford makes it as hard as nails. I think those were his exact words.’
Hubert did not answer. At the end of a long silence he said, —
‘Did you hear anything about the last night’s?’
‘No,’ she said; ‘I heard nothing of that.’
‘Ford appeared quite satisfied then?’
‘Yes, quite,’ she answered, with difficulty; for his eyes were fixed on her, and she felt he knew she was not telling the truth. The conversation paused again, and to turn it into another channel she said, ‘Why, you have not opened your letter!’
‘I can see it is a lawyer’s letter, on account of some unpaid bill. If I could pay it, I would; but as I can’t — —’
‘You are afraid to open it,’ said Rose.
Ashamed of his weakness, Hubert opened the letter, and began to read. Rose saw that the letter was not such an one as he had expected, and a moment after his face told her that fortunate news had come to him. The signs of the tumult within were represented by the passing of the hand across the brow, as if to brush aside some strange hallucination, and the sudden coming of a vague look of surprise and fear into the eyes. He said, —
‘Read it! Read it!’
Relieved of much detail and much cumbersome legal circumlocution, it was to the following effect: — That about three months ago Mr. Burnett had come up from his place in Sussex, and at the offices of Messrs. Grandly & Co. had made a will, in which he had disinherited his adopted daughter, Miss Emily Watson, and left everything to Mr. Hubert Price. There was no question as to the validity of the will; but Messrs. Grandly deemed it their duty to inform Mr. Hubert Price of the circumstances under which it had been made, and also of the fact that a few weeks before his death Mr. Burnett had told Mr. John Grandly, who was then staying with Mr. Burnett at Ashwood, that he intended adding a codicil, leaving some two or three hundred a year to Miss Watson. It was unfortunate that Mr. Burnett had not had time to do this; for Miss Watson was an orphan, eighteen years of age, and entirely unprovided for. Messrs. Grandly begged to submit these facts to the consideration of Mr. Hubert Price. Miss Watson was now residing at Ashwood. She was there with a friend of hers, Mrs. Bentley; and should Mr. Hubert Price feel inclined to do what Mr. Burnett had left undone, Messrs. Grandly would have very great pleasure in carrying his wishes into effect.
‘I’m not dreaming, am I?’
‘No, you are not. It is quite true. Your uncle has left his money to you. I am so glad; indeed I am. You will be able to finish your play, and take a theatre and produce it yourself if you like. I hope you won’t forget me. I do want to play that part. You can’t quite know what I shall do with it. One can’t explain oneself in a scene here and there.... What are you thinking of?’
‘I’m thinking of that poor girl, Emily Watson. It comes very hard upon her.’
‘Who is she?’
‘The girl my uncle disinherited.’
‘Oh, she! Well, you can marry her if you like. That would not be a bad notion. But if you do, you’ll forget all about me and Lady Hayward.’
‘No; I shall never forget you, Rose.’ He stretched his hand to her; but, irrespective of his will, the gesture seemed full of farewell.
‘I’m so much obliged to you,’ he said; ‘had it not been for you, I might never have opened that letter.’
‘Even if you hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered; you would have heard of your good fortune some other way. But it is getting very late. I must say good-night. I hope you will have a pleasant time in the country, and will finish your play. Good-night.’
Returning from the door, he stopped to think. ‘We have been very good friends — that is all. How strangely determined she is!... More so than I am. She is bound to succeed. There is in her just that note of individual passion.... Perhaps some one will find her out before I have finished, — that would be a pity. I wonder which of us will succeed first?’
Then the madness of good fortune came upon him suddenly; he could think no more of Rose, and had to go for a long walk in the streets.
VII
‘DEAREST EMILY, YOU must prepare yourself for the worst.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes; he passed away quite quietly. To look at him one would say he was asleep; he does not appear to have suffered at all.’
‘Oh, Julia, Julia, do you think he forgave me? I could not do what he asked me.... I loved him very dearly as a father, but I could not have married him.’
‘No, dear, you could not. Such a marriage would have been most unnatural; he was more than forty years older than you.’
‘I do not think he ever thought of such a thing until about a month or six weeks ago. You remember how I ran to you? I was as white as a ghost, and I trembled like a leaf. I could hardly speak.... You remember?’
‘Yes, I remember; and some hours after, when I came into this room, he was standing there, just there, on the hearth-rug; there was a fearful look of pain and despair on his face — he looked as if he was going mad. I never saw such a look before, and I never wish to see such a look again. And the effort he made to appear unconcerned when he saw me was perhaps the worst part of it. I pretended to see nothing, and walked away towards the window and looked out. But all the while I could feel that some terrible drama was passing behind me. At last I had to look round. He was sitting in that chair, his elbows on his knees, clasping his head with both hands, the old, gnarled fingers twined in the iron-grey hair. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed out of the room, out of the house, and across the park.’
‘You say that he passed away quietly; he did not seem to suffer at all?’
‘No, he never recovered consciousness.’
‘But do you think that my refusal to marry him had anything to do with his death?’
‘Oh no, Emily; a fit of apoplexy, with a man of his age, generally ends fatally.’
‘Even if I had known it all beforehand I don’t think I could have acted differently. I could not have married him. Indeed I couldn’t, Julia, not even if I knew I should save his life by doing so. I daresay it is very wicked of me, but — —’
‘Dearest Emily, you must not give way to such thoughts; you did quite right in refusing to marry Mr. Burnett. It was very wrong of him even to think of asking you, and if he had lived he would have seen how wrong it was of him to desire such a thing.’
‘If he had lived! But then he didn’t live, not even long enough to forgive me, and when we think of how much he suffered — I don’t mean in dying, you say he passed away quietly, but all this last month how heart-broken he looked! You remember when he sat at the head of the table, never speaking to us, and how frightened I was lest I should meet him on the stairs; I used to stand at the door of my room, afraid to move. I know he suffered, poor old man. I was very, very sorry for him. Indeed I was, Julia, for I’m not selfish, and when I think now that he died without forgiving me, I feel, I feel — oh, I feel as if I should like to die myself. Why do such things happen to me? I feel just as miserable now as I used to when I lived with father and mother, who could not agree. I have often told you how miserable I was then, but I don’t think you ever quite understood. I feel just the same now, just as if I never wanted to see any one or anything again. I was so unhappy when I was a child, they thought I would die, and I should have died if I had remained listening to father and mother any longer. ... Every one thought I was so lucky when Mr. Burnett decided to adopt me and leave me all his money, and he has done that, poor old man, so I suppose I should be happy; but I’m not.’
The girl’s eyes turned instinctively towards the window and rested for a moment on the fair, green prospects of the park.
‘I hated to listen to father and mother quarrelling, but I loved them, and I had not been here a year before father died, and darling mother was not long following him — only six months. Then I had no one: a few distant relatives, whom I knew nothing of, whom I did not care for, so I gave all my love to Mr. Burnett. He was so good to me; he never denied me anything; he gave me everything, even you, dearest Julia. When he thought I wanted a companion, he found you for me. I learnt to love you. You became my best and dearest friend. Then things seemed to brighten up, and I thought I was happy, when all this dreadful trouble came upon us. Don’t let’s speak of it more than we can help. I often wished myself dead. Didn’t you, Julia?’
Emily Watson told the story of her misfortunes in a low, musical voice, heedless of two or three interruptions, hardly conscious of her listener, impressed and interested by the fatality of circumstances which she believed in design against her. She was a small, slender girl of about eighteen. Her abundant chestnut hair — exquisite, soft, and silky — was looped picturesquely, and fastened with a thin tortoiseshell comb. The tiny mouth trembled, and the large, prominent eyes reflected a strange, yearning soul. She was dressed in white muslin, and the fantastically small waist was confined with a white band. Her friend and companion, Julia Bentley, was a woman of about thirty, well above the medium height, full-bosomed and small-waisted. The type was Anglo-Saxon even to commonplace. The face was long, with a look of instinctive kindness upon it. She was given to staring, and as she looked at Emily, her blue eyes filled with an expression which told of a nature at once affectionate and intelligent. She was dressed in yellow linen, and wore a gold bracelet on a well-turned arm.
The room was a long, old-fashioned drawing-room. It had three windows, and all three were filled with views of the park, now growing pale in the evening air. The flower-gardens were drawn symmetrically about the house and were set with blue flower-vases in which there were red geraniums. It was a very large room, nearly forty feet long, with old portraits on the walls — ugly things and ill done; and where there were no portraits the walls were decorated with vine leaves and mountains. The parqueted floor was partially covered with skins, and the furniture seemed to have known many a generation; some of it was heavy and cumbersome, some of it was modern. There was a grand piano, and above it two full-length portraits — a lady in a blue dress and a man in black velvet knee-breeches. At the end of a long silence, Emily suddenly threw herself weeping into Julia’s arms.
‘Oh, you are my only friend; you will not leave me now.... We shall always love one another, shall we not? If anything ever came between us it would kill me.... That poor old man lying dead up-stairs! He loved me very dearly, an
d I loved him, too. Yet I said just now I could not have married him even if I had known it would save his life. I was wrong; yes, I would have married him if I had known.... You don’t believe me?’
‘My dearest girl, you must try to forget that Mr. Burnett ever entertained so foolish a thought. He was a very good man, and loved you for a long time as he should have loved you — as a daughter. We shall respect his memory best by forgetting the events of the last six weeks. And now, Emily, dinner will be ready at seven o’clock, and it is now six. What are you going to do?’
‘I shall go out for a little walk. I shall go down and see the swans.’
‘Shall I come with you?’
‘No, thank you, dear; I think I’d sooner be alone. I want to think.’
Julia looked a moment anxiously at this fragile girl, whose tiny head was poised on a long, delicate neck like a fruit on its stem.
‘Yes, go for a walk, dear,’ said Julia; ‘it will do you good. Shall I go and fetch your hat and jacket?’
‘No, thank you, I will not trouble you; I’ll go myself.’
‘No, Emily, I think you had better let me go.’
‘Oh, no; I am not afraid.’
And she went up the wide oak staircase, thinking of the man who lay dead in the room at the end of the passage. She was conscious of a sense of dread; the house seemed to wear a strange air, and her dog, Dandy, was conscious of it, too; he was more silent, less joyful than usual. And when she came from her room, dressed to go out, instead of rushing down-stairs, barking with joy, he dropped his tail and lingered at the end of the passage. She called him; he still hesitated, and then, yielding to a sudden desire, she went down the passage and knocked at the door of the room. The nurse answered her knock.
‘Oh, don’t come in, miss.’
‘Why not? I want to see him before he goes away for ever.’
Upon the limp, white curtains of an old four-posted bed she saw the memorable profile — stern, unrelenting. How still he lay! Never would that face speak or laugh or see again. Although sixty-five, his head was covered with short, thick, iron-grey hair; the beard, too, was short and thick, and iron-grey. The face was rugged, and when Emily touched the coarse hand, telling of a life of toil, she started — it was singularly cold. Fear and sorrow in like measure choked her, and her soul awoke, and tremblingly she walked out of the house, glad to breathe the sweet evening air.
