by George Moore
Sometimes, when moved by the novel he was reading, he would discuss its merits and demerits with the two women who sat by him in the quiet of the dim drawing-room, their work on their knees, thinking of him. In the excitement of criticism his thoughts wandered to his own work, and the women’s eyes filled with reveries, and their hands folded languidly over their knees. He spoke without emphasis, his words seeming to drop from the thick obsession of his dream. At ten the ladies gathered up their work, bade him good-night; and nightly these good-nights grew tenderer, and nightly they went up-stairs more deeply penetrated with a sense of their happiness. But at heart he was a man’s man. He hardly perceived life from a woman’s point of view; and in the long evenings which he spent with these women he sometimes had to force himself to appear interested in their conversation. He was as far removed from one as from the other. Emily’s wilfulness puzzled him, and he did not seem to have anything further to talk about to Mrs. Bentley.
He missed the bachelor evenings of former days — the whisky and water, the pipes, and the literary discussion; and as the days went by he began to think of London; his thoughts turned affectionately towards the friends he had not seen for so long, and at the end of July he announced his intention of running up to town for a few days. So one morning breakfast was hurried through; Emily was sure there was plenty of time; Hubert looked at the clock and said he must be off; Julia ran after him with parcels which he had forgotten; farewell signs were waved; the dog-cart passed out of sight, and, after lingering a moment, the women returned to the drawing-room thoughtfully.
‘I wonder if he’ll catch the train,’ said Emily, without taking her face from the window.
‘I hope so; it will be very tiresome for him if he has to come back. There isn’t another train before three o’clock.’
‘If he missed this train he wouldn’t go until to-morrow morning.... I wonder how long he’ll stay away. Supposing something happened, and he never came back!’ Emily turned round and looked at Julia in dreamy wonderment.
‘Not come back at all? What nonsense you are talking, Emily! He won’t be away more than a fortnight or three weeks.’
‘Three weeks! that seems a very long while. How shall we get through our evenings?’
Emily had again turned towards the window. Julia did not trouble to reply. She smiled a little, as she paused on the threshold, for she remembered that no more than a few weeks ago Emily had addressed to her passionate speeches declaring her to be her only friend, and that they would like to live together, content in each other’s companionship, always ignoring the rest of the world. Although she had not mistaken these speeches for anything more than the nervous passion of a moment, the suddenness of the recantation surprised her a little. Three or four days after, the girl was in a different mood, and when they came into the drawing-room after dinner she threw her arms about Julia’s neck, saying, ‘Isn’t this like old times? Here we are, living all alone together, and I’m not boring myself a bit. I never shall have another friend like you, Julia.’
‘But you’ll be very glad when Hubert comes back.’
‘There’s no harm in that, is there? I should be very ungrateful if I wasn’t. Think how good he has been to us.... I’m afraid you don’t like him, Julia.’
‘Oh, yes, I do, Emily.’
‘Not so much as I do.’ And raising herself — she was sitting on Julia’s knees — Emily looked at Julia.
‘Perhaps not,’ Julia replied, smiling; ‘but then I never hated him as much as you did.’
A cloud came over Emily’s face. ‘I did hate him, didn’t I? You remember that first evening? You remember when you came up-stairs and found me trembling in the passage — I was afraid to go to bed. ... I begged you to allow me to sleep with you. You remember how we listened for his footstep in the passage, as he went up to bed, and how I clung to you? Then the dreams of that night. I never told you what my dreams were, but you remember how I woke up with a cry, and you asked me what was the matter?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I dreamt I was with him in a garden, and was trying to get away; but he held me by a single hair, and the hair would not break. How absurd dreams are! And the garden was full of flowers, but every time I tried to gather them, he pulled me back by that single hair. I don’t remember any more, only something about running wildly away from him, and losing myself in a dark forest, and there the ground was soft like a bog, and it seemed as if I were going to be swallowed up every moment. It was a terrible sensation. All of a sudden I woke with a cry. The room was grey with dawn, and you said: “Emily dear, what have you been dreaming, to cry out like that?” I was too tired and frightened to tell you much about my dream, and next morning I had forgotten it. I did not remember it for a long time after, but all the same some of it came true. Don’t you remember how I met Hubert next morning on the lawn? We went into the garden and spent the best part of the morning walking about the lake.... I don’t know if I told you — I ran away when I heard him coming, and should have got away had it not been for this tiresome dog. He called after me, using my Christian name. I was so angry I think I hated him then more than ever. We walked a little way, and the next thing I remember was thinking how nice he was. I don’t know how it all happened. Now I think of it, it seems like magic. It was the day that my old donkey ran away with the mowing machine and broke the flower-vase, the dear old thing; we had a long talk about “Jack.” And then I took Hubert into the garden and showed him the flowers. I don’t think he cares much about flowers; he pretended, but I could see it was only to please me. Then I knew that he liked me, for when I told him I was going to feed the swans, he said he loved swans and begged to be allowed to come too. I don’t think a man would say that if he didn’t like you, do you?’
Emily’s mind seemed to contain nothing but memories of Hubert. What he had said on this occasion, how he had looked at her on another. The conversation paused and Emily sunned herself in the enchantment of recollection, until at last breaking forth again, she said —
‘Have you noticed how Ethel Eastwick goes after him? And the odd part of it is, that she can’t see that he dislikes her. He thinks nothing of her singing; he remained talking to me in the conservatory the whole time. I asked him to come into the drawing-room, but he pretended to misunderstand me, and asked me if I felt a draught. He said, “Let me get you a shawl.” I said, “I assure you, Hubert, I don’t feel any draught.” But he would not believe me, and said he could not allow me to sit there without something on my shoulders. I begged of him not to move, for I knew that Ethel would never forgive me if I interrupted her singing; but he said he could get me a wrap without interrupting any one. He opened the conservatory door, ran across the lawn round to the front door, and came back with — what do you think? With two wraps instead of one; one was mine, and the other belonged to — I don’t know who it belonged to. So I said, “Oh, what ever shall we do? I cannot let you go back again. If any one was to come in and find me alone, what ever would they think!” Hubert said, “Will you come with me? A walk in the garden will be pleasanter than sitting in the conservatory.” I didn’t like going at first, but I thought there couldn’t be much harm.’
It seemed to Emily very terrible and very wonderful, and she experienced throughout her numbed sense a strange, thrilling pain, akin to joy, and she sat, her little fragile form lost in the arm-chair, her great eyes fixed in ecstasy, seeing still the dark garden with the great star risen like a phantom above the trees. That evening had been to her a wonder and an enchantment, and her pausing thoughts dwelt on the moment when the distant sound of a bell reached their ears, and the bell came nearer, clanging fiercely in the sonorous garden. Then they saw a light — some one had come for them with a lantern — a joke, a suitable pleasantry, and amid joyous laughter, watching the setting moon, they had gone back to the tiled house, where dancers still passed the white-curtained windows. Hubert had sat by her at supper, serving her with meat and drink. In the sway of memory she
trembled and started, looking in the great arm-chair like a little bird that the moon keeps awake in its soft nest. She no longer wished to tell Julia of that night in the garden; her sensation of it lay far beyond words; it was her secret, and it shone through her dreamy youth even as the star had shone through the heavens that night. Suddenly she said —
‘I wonder what Hubert is doing in London? I wonder where he is now?’
‘Now? It is just nine. I suppose he’s in some theatre.’
‘I suppose he goes a great deal to the theatre. I wonder who he goes with. He has lots of friends in London — actresses, I suppose; he knows them who play in his plays. He dines at his club — —’
‘Or at a restaurant.’
‘I wonder what a restaurant is like; ladies dine at restaurants, don’t they?’
As Julia was about to make reply, the servant brought her a letter. She opened the envelope, and took out a long, closely-written letter; she turned it over to see the signature, and then looking toward Emily, she said, with a pleasant smile —
‘Now I shall be able to answer your questions better; this letter is from Mr. Price.’
‘Oh, what does he say? Read it.’
‘Wait a moment, let me glance through it first; it is very difficult to read.’ A few moments after, Julia said, ‘There’s not much that would interest you in the letter, Emily; it is all about his play. He says he would have written before if he had not been so busy looking out for a theatre, and engaging actors and actresses. He hopes to start rehearsing next week.
“I say I hope, because there are still some parts of the play which do not satisfy me, particularly the third act. I intend to work steadily on the play till, next Thursday, five or six hours every day; I am in perfect health and spirits, and ought to be able to get the thing right. Should I fail to satisfy myself, or should any further faults appear when we begin to rehearse the piece, I shall dismiss my people, pack up my traps, and return to Ashwood. There I shall have quiet; here, people are continually knocking at my door, and I cannot deny my friends the pleasure of seeing me, if that is a pleasure. But at Ashwood, as I say, I shall be sure of quiet, and can easily finish the play this autumn, and February is a better time than September to produce a play.”’
‘Then he goes on,’ said Julia, ‘to explain the alterations he contemplates making. There’s no use reading you all that.’
‘I suppose you think I should not understand.’
‘My dear Emily, if you want to read the letter, there it is.’
‘I don’t want to see your letter.’
‘What do you mean, Emily?’
‘Nothing, only I think it rather strange that he didn’t write to me.’
Some days after, Emily took up the book that Julia had laid down. ‘“Shakespeare’s Plays.” I suppose you are reading them so that you’ll be able to talk to him better.’
‘I never thought of such a thing, Emily.’ At the end of a long silence Emily said —
‘Do you think clever men like clever women?’
‘I don’t know. Some say they do, some say they don’t. I believe that really clever men, men of genius, don’t.’
‘I wonder if Hubert is a man of genius. What do you think?’
‘I really am not capable of expressing an opinion on the matter.’
Another week passed away, and Emily began to assume an air of languor and timid yearning. One day she said —
‘I wonder he doesn’t write. He hasn’t answered my letter yet. Has he answered yours?’
‘He has not written to me again. He hasn’t time for letter-writing. He is working night and day at his play.’
‘I suppose he’d never think of coming down by the morning train. He’d be sure to come by the five o’clock.’
‘He won’t come without writing. He’d be sure to write for the dog-cart.’
‘I suppose so. There’s no use in looking out for him.’
But, notwithstanding her certitude on the point, Emily could not help choosing five o’clock as the time for a walk, and Julia noticed that the girl’s feet seemed to turn instinctively towards the lodge. Often she would leave the flowers she was tending on the terrace, and stand looking through the dim, sun-smitten landscape toward the red-brown spot, which was Southwater, in the middle of the long plain.
XIII
HUBERT FELT CALLED upon to entertain his friends, and one evening they all sat dining at Hurlingham in the long room. The conversation, as usual, had been about books and pictures.
It was the moment when strings of lanterns were hoisted from tree to tree. In front of a large space of sky the coloured globes were crude and trivial; but in the shadows of the trees by the river, where the mist rose into the branches, they had begun to awaken the first impression of melancholy and the sadness of fête. It was the moment when the great trees hung heavy and motionless, strangely green and solemn beneath a slate-coloured sky; and the plaintive waltz cried on Hungarian fiddle-strings, till it seemed the soul of this feminine evening. The fashionable crowd had moved out upon the lawn; the white dresses were phantom blue, and the men’s coats faded into obscure masses, darkening the gathering shadows. It was the moment when voices soften, and every heart, overpowered with yearning, is impelled to tell of grief and disillusion; and every moment the wail of the fiddles grew more unbearable, tearing the heart to its very depths.
Author and actor-manager walked up the lawn puffing at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing that the opportunity had come for criticism of their friend.
‘He does not change much,’ said Harding. ‘Circumstances haven’t affected him. A year ago he lived in a garret re-writing his play Divorce. He now rewrites Divorce in a handsome house in Sussex.’
‘I thought he had finished his play,’ said Thompson. ‘I heard that he was going to take a theatre and produce it himself.’
‘But did you not hear him say at dinner that he was re-writing as he rehearsed? I met one of the actors yesterday. He doesn’t know what to make of it. He gets a new part every week to learn.’
‘Do you think he’ll ever produce it?’
‘I doubt it. At the last moment he’ll find that the third act doesn’t satisfy him, and will postpone the production till the spring.’
‘What do you think of his work?’
‘Very intelligent, but a little insipid — like himself. Look at him. Il est bien l’homme de ses ouvres. There is something dry about him, and his writings are like himself — hard, dry and wanting in personal passion.’
‘Yet he talks charmingly, with vivacity and intelligence, and he is so full of appreciation of Shakespeare, Goethe, and such genuine love for antiquity.’
‘I’ve heard him talk Shakespeare, Goethe, and Ibsen,’ said Harding, ‘but I never heard him say anything new, anything personal. It seems to me that you mistake quotation for perception. He assimilates, but he originates nothing. He has read a great deal; he is covered with literature like a rock with moss and lichen. He’s appreciative, I will say that for him. He would make a capital editor, or a tutor, or a don, an Oxford don. He would be perfectly happy as a don; he could read up the German critics and expound Sophocles. He would be perfectly happy as a don. As it is, he is perfectly miserable.’
‘There was a fellow who had a studio over mine,’ said Thompson. ‘He had been in the army and used to paint a bit. The academy by chance hung a portrait, so he left the army and turned portrait-painter. One day he saw a picture by Velasquez, and he understood how horrid were the red things he used to send to the academy. He used to come down to see me; he used to say, “I wish I had never seen a picture, by Gad, it is driving me out of my mind.” Poor chap, I wanted him to go back to the army. I said, Why paint? no one forces you to; it makes you miserable; don’t do so any more. When you have anything to say, art is a joy; when you haven’t, it is a curse to yourself and to others.’
Philipps, the editor of The Cosmopolitan, turned towards Harding, and he said —
‘I cannot follow you in your estimate of Hubert Price. I don’t see him either mentally or physically as you do. It seems to me that you distort the facts to make them fit in with your theory. He is tall and thin, but I do not think that his nature is hard and dry. I should, on the contrary, say that he was of a soft rather than a hard nature. The expression of his face is mild and melancholy. I do not detect the dry, hard, rocky basis of which you speak. I should say that Price was a sentimental man.’
‘I have never heard of him being in love,’ said Harding. ‘I should say that he had been entirely uninfluenced by women.’
‘But love of women is only one form of sentimentality and not the highest, nor the deepest,’ said Philipps. ‘I can imagine a man being exceedingly sentimental and not caring about women at all.’
‘What you say is true,’ said Harding. His face showed that he felt the observation to be true and was interested in it. ‘But I think I described him truly when I said he was like a rock overgrown with moss and lichen. There is not sufficient root-hold for any idea to grow in him, it withers and dies. Examine his literature, and you’ll see it is as I say. He has written some remarkable plays, I don’t say he hasn’t. But they seem to be better than they are. He gets a picturesque situation, but there is always something mechanical about it. There’s a human emotion somewhere, but it’s never really there; it might have been, but it is not.... It is very well done, it is very intelligent; but it does not seem to live, to palpitate.... In like manner there are men who have read everything, who understand everything, who can theorise; they can tell you all about the masterpiece, but when it comes to producing one, well, they’re not on in that scene.’
