Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE WAS ALONE in the music-room reading a piece of music, and her back was to the door when he entered. She hardly recognised him, tired and tossed as he was by long journeying, and his grey travelling suit was like a disguise.

  “Is that you, Sir Owen?... You’ve come back?”

  “Come back, yes, I have come back. I travelled straight through from Marseilles, a pretty stiff journey.... We were nearly shipwrecked off Marseilles.”

  “I thought it was off the coast of Asia Minor?”

  “That was another storm. We have had rough weather lately.”

  The music dropped from her hand, and she stood looking at him, for he stood before her like an ancient seafarer. His grey tweed suit buttoned tightly about him set off every line of his spare figure. His light brown hair was tossed all over his head, and she could not reconcile this rough traveller with the elegant fribble whom she had hitherto known as Sir Owen. But she liked him in this grey suit, dusty after long travel. He was picturesque and remote as a legend. A smile was on his lips; it showed through the frizzled moustache, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure at sight of her.

  “But why did you travel straight through? You might have slept at Marseilles or Paris.”

  “One of these days I will tell you about the gale. I wonder I am not at the bottom of that treacherous sea; it did blow my poor old yacht about — I thought it was her last cruise; and when we got to the hotel I was handed your father’s letter. As I did not want to miss the concert, I came straight through.”

  “You must be very fond of music.”

  “Yes, I am.... Music can be heard anywhere, but your voice can only be heard at Dulwich.”

  “Was it to hear me sing that you came back?”

  She had spoken unawares, and felt that the question was a foolish one, and was trembling lest he should be inwardly laughing at her. But the earnest expression into which his little grey eyes concentrated reassured her. She seemed to lose herself a little, to drift into a sort of dream in which even he seemed to recede, and so intense and personal was her sensation that she could not follow his tale of adventure. It was an effort to listen to it at that moment, and she said —

  “But you must be tired, you’ve not had a proper night’s sleep ... for a week.”

  “I’m not very tired, I slept in the train, but I’m hungry. I’ve not had anything since ten o’clock this morning. There was no time to get anything at Victoria. I was told that the next train for Dulwich started in five minutes. I left my valet to take my trunks home; he will bring my evening clothes on here for the concert. Can you let me have a room to dress in?”

  “Of course; but you must have something to eat.”

  “I thought of going round to the inn and having a chop.”

  “We had a beefsteak pudding for dinner; I wonder if you could eat beefsteak pudding?”

  “There’s nothing better.”

  “Warmed up?”

  “Yes, warmed up.”

  “Then I may run and tell Margaret?”

  “I shall be much obliged if you will.”

  She liked to wait upon him, and her pleasure quickened when she handed him bread or poured out ale, making it foam in the glass, for refreshment after his long journey; and when she sat opposite, her eyes fixed on him, and he told her his tale of adventure, her happy flushed face reminded him of that exquisite promise, the pink almond blossom showing through the wintry wood.

  “So you didn’t believe me when I said that it was to hear you sing that I came back?”

  “That you renounced your trip round the world?”

  “Yes, I renounced my trip round the world to hear you sing.”

  She did not answer, and he put the question again.

  “I can understand that there might be sufficient reason for your giving up your trip round the world. I thought that perhaps — no, I cannot say—”

  They had been thinking of each other, and had taken up their interest in each other at their last thoughts rather than at their last words. She was more conscious of the reason of their sudden intimacy than he was, but he too felt that they had advanced a long way in their knowledge of each other, and their intuition was so much in advance of facts that they sat looking at each other embarrassed, their words unable to keep pace with their perceptions.

  Evelyn suddenly felt as if she were being borne forward, but at that moment her father entered.

  “Father, Sir Owen was famishing when he arrived. He wanted to go to the inn and eat a chop, but I persuaded him to stop and have some beefsteak pudding.”

  “I am so glad ... you’ve arrived just in time, Sir Owen. The concert is to-night.”

  “He came straight through without stopping; he has not been home. So, father, you will never be able to say again that your concerts are not appreciated.”

  “Well, I don’t think that you will be disappointed, Sir Owen. This is one of the most interesting programmes we have had. You remember Ferrabosco’s pavane which you liked so much—”

  Margaret announced the arrival of Sir Owen’s valet, and while Mr. Innes begged of Sir Owen not to put himself to the trouble of dressing, Owen wondered at his own folly in yielding to a sudden caprice to see the girl. However, he did not regret; she was a prettier girl than he had thought, and her welcome was the pleasantest thing that had happened to him for many a day.

  “My poor valet, I am afraid, is quite hors de combat. He was dreadfully ill while we were beating up against that gale, and the long train journey has about finished him. At Victoria he looked more dead than alive.”

  Evelyn went out to see this pale victim of sea sickness and expedition. She offered him dinner and then tea, but he said he had had all he could eat at the refreshment bars, and struggled upstairs with the portmanteau of his too exigent master.

  A few of her guests had already arrived, and Evelyn was talking to Father Railston when Sir Owen came into the room.

  “I shall not want you again to-night,” he said, turning towards the door to speak to his valet. “Don’t sit up for me, and don’t call me to-morrow before ten.”

  She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested. She had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea. But Owen, when he came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a seafarer. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened the perfectly-fitting shirt. She was a little disappointed, and thought that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed, just come out of his travelling cap. Now it was brushed about his ears, and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other toilet essence. Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just snatched from his head. It was then she should have told him her dream. All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it passed, almost without her being aware of it, in the background of her mind. But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere coincidence. In the first place, he hadn’t been shipwrecked, and that she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her brain. She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no more than a merely physiological phenomenon. But just at that moment Mr. Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.

  He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single artistic ancestor, Henry VIII. Up to the present time none of his numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor, was kn
own; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two, maybe three hundred years. Encouraged by Sir Owen’s sympathy, he referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor’s work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage could give it.

  “I must go,” she said; “they are waiting for me.”

  She took her place among the viol players and began playing; but she had forgotten to tune her instrument, and her father stopped the performance. She looked at him, a little frightened, and laughed at her mistake. The piece they were playing was by Henry VIII., a masterpiece, Mr. Innes had declared it to be, so, to stop the performance on account of Evelyn’s viola da gamba, and then to hear her play worse than he had ever heard her play before, was very disappointing.

  “What is the matter? Aren’t you well? I never heard you play so badly.”

  He hoped that she would play better in the next piece, and he besought her with a look before he signed to the players to begin. She resolved not to think of Owen, and she played so well that the next piece was applauded. Except for her father’s sake she cared very little how she played; she tried to play well to please him, but she was anxious to sing well — she was singing for herself and for Owen, which was the same thing — and she sang beautifully in the King’s madrigal and the two songs accompanied by the lute— “I loathe what I did love,” and “My lytell pretty one,” both anonymous, composed in 1520, and discovered by Mr. Innes in the British Museum. The musical interest of these two songs was slight, and Owen reflected that all Mr. Innes’s discoveries at the British Museum were not of equal importance. But she had sung divinely, and he thought how he should praise her at the end of the concert.

  Evelyn hoped he would tell her that she had sung better than she had sung on the fatal night of the party in Berkeley Square. This was what she wished him to say, and she wished it partly because she knew that that was what he would say. That party had not yet been spoken of, but she felt sure it would be, for it seemed a decisive point in their lives.

  She was not playing in the next two pieces — fantasies for treble and tenor viols — and she sat in the background, catching glimpses of Owen between the hands and the heads of the viol players, and over the rims of their, instruments. She sat apart, not hearing a note of the music, absorbed in herself, a little exaltation afloat in her brain, her flesh glowing as in the warmth of an inward fire, her whole instinct telling her that Owen had not come back for the red-haired woman; he had gone away for her, perhaps, but he had not come back for her — of that she was sure In spite of herself, the conviction was forced upon her that the future was for her. The red-haired lady was a past which he would tell her some day, and that day she knew to be not very far distant.

  The programme was divided into two parts, and after the first, there was a little interval during which tea and cake were handed round. Evelyn helped to hand them round, and when she held the cake tray to Owen, she raised her eyes and they looked at each other, and in that interval it almost seemed as if they kissed each other.

  They met again at the end of the concert, and she waited anxiously for him to speak. He told her, as she expected he would, that she had sung to-night much better than she had sung at his party. But they were surrounded by people seeking their coats and umbrellas; it was impossible to speak without being overheard; he had told her that she had sung to his satisfaction; that was sufficient, and they felt that all had been said, and that they understood each other perfectly.

  As she lay in bed, the thought came that he might write to her a letter asking her to meet him, to keep an appointment. But she would have to refuse, it would be wrong; but it was not wrong to think about it. He would be there before her; the moment he saw her coming his eyes would light up in a smile, and they would walk on together some little way without speaking. Then he would say, “Dearest, there will be a carriage waiting at the corner of the road” — and then? She could see his face and his tall, thin figure, she could picture it all so distinctly that it was almost the same as if it were happening. All he said, as well as all she said, kept pouring in upon her brain without a missing word, and she hugged herself in the delight of these imaginings, and the hours went by without weariness for her. She lay, her arms folded, thinking, thinking, seeing him through the darkness.

  He came to see them the following day. Her father was there all the time, but to hear and see him was almost enough for her. She seemed to lose sight of everything and to be engulfed in her own joy. When he had gone away she remembered the smile which had lit up some pretty thought of her; her ears were full of his voice, and she heard the lilt that charmed her whenever she pleased. Then she asked herself the meaning of some casual remark, and her mind repeated all he had said like a phonograph. She already knew his habitual turns of speech; they had begun to appear in her own conversation, and all that was not connected with him lost interest for her. Once or twice during the week she went to bed early so that she might not fancy her father was looking at her while she thought of Owen.

  Owen called at the end of the week — the Wagnerian Review always supplied him with sufficient excuse for a visit — but he had to spend his visit in discussing the text of a Greek hymn which he had seen disinterred in Greece. She was sorry for him, sorrier than she was for herself, for she could always find him in her thoughts.... She wondered if he could find her as vividly in his thoughts as she settled herself (the next day was Sunday) in the corner of her pew, resolved from the beginning not to hear a word of the sermon, but to think of Owen the whole time. She wanted to hear why he had left England so suddenly, and why he had returned so suddenly. She was sure that she and the red-haired lady were the cause of one or the other, and that neither was the cause of both. These two facts served for a warp upon which she could weave endless mental embroideries, tales as real as the tales of old tapestry, tales of love and jealousy, and unexpected meetings, in which she and Owen and the red-haired lady met and re-met. Whilst Father Railston was preaching, these tales flowed on and on, subtle as silk, illusive as evening tinted clouds; and it was not until she had exhausted her fancy, and Owen had made one more fruitless visit to Dulwich, that she began to scheme how she might see him alone. There was so much that they could only talk about if they were alone; and then she wanted so much to hear the story of the red-haired lady. If she did not contrive an opportunity for being with him alone, she might never hear why he had left England for a trip round the world, and had returned suddenly from the Mediterranean. She felt that, however difficult and however wrong it might be, she must find this opportunity. She thought of asking him the hour of the train by which he generally came to Dulwich, so that she might meet him in the station. Other schemes came into her mind, but she could think of nothing that was just right.

  But one day, as she was running to post a letter, she saw Owen, more beautifully dressed than ever, coming toward her. Her feet and her heart stood still, for she wore her old morning gown and a pair of old house slippers. But he had already seen her and was lifting his hat, and with easy effrontery he told her that he had come to Dulwich to consult her father about the Greek hymn.

  “But father is at St. Joseph’s,” she said, and then she stopped; and then, before she saw his smile, she knew why he had come to Dulwich so early.

  The shadows of the leaves on the pavement drew pretty pattern for their feet, and they strolled meditatively through the subdued sunlight.

  “Why did you stop and look so startled when you saw me?”

  “Because I am so badly dressed; my old house slippers and this—”

  “You look very well — dress matters nothing.”

  “No one would gather your opinions from your appearance.”

  Owen laughe
d, and admired the girl’s wit.

  “Do you want to see father very much about the Greek hymn?”

  “Well,” he said, and he looked at her questioningly, and not liking to tell her in so many words that he had come to Dulwich to see her, he entered into the question of the text of the hymn, which was imperfect. Many notes were missing, and had been conjecturely added by a French musician, and he had wished to consult Mr. Innes about them. So a good deal of time was wasted in conversation in which neither was interested. Before they were aware, they were at Dowlands, and with an accent of regret in her voice, which Owen noticed with pleasure, she held out her hand and said good-bye.

  “Are you very busy, then, are you expecting a pupil?”

  “No, I have nothing to do.”

  “Then why should we say good-bye? It is hardly worth while getting up so early in the morning to discuss the text of an ancient Greek hymn.”

  His frankness was unexpected, and it pleased her.

  “No, I don’t suppose it is; Greek music at eleven o’clock in the morning would be a little trying.”

  A delicious sense of humour lit up in her eyes, and he felt his interest in her advance a further stage.

  “If you have nothing to do we might go to the picture gallery. There is a wonderful Watteau—”

  “Watteau at eleven, Greek hymn at one.”

  But she felt, all the same, that she would give everything to go to the picture gallery with him.

  “But I am not dressed, this is an old thing I wear in the morning; not that there would be many people there, only the curator and a girl copying at eleven in the morning.”

  “But is your father coming back at one?”