Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  “I have been a fool — one always is a fool, and acts wrongly, when one acts unselfishly. Self is our one guide — when we abandon self, we abandon the rudder.”

  He would have just been content to keep Evelyn as his friend, and she would have been willing to remain friends with him if he did not talk against religion, or annoy her by making love to her. “There is a time for everything,” and he thought of his age. Passionate love should melt into friendship, and her friendship he might have had if he had thought only of himself; it would have been a worthy crown for the love he had borne for her during so many years. Now there was nothing left for him but a nasty sour rind of life to chew to the end — it was under his teeth, and it was sour enough, and it never would grow less sour. His sadness grew so deep that he forgot himself in it, and was awakened by the sound of wheels.

  “Somebody coming to call. I won’t see anybody,” and he rang the bell. “I am not at home to anybody.”

  “But, Sir Owen, Mr. Dean—”

  “Mr. Dean!” And Owen stood aghast, wondering what could have brought Ulick back again.

  “Are you at home to Mr. Dean, sir?”

  “Yes, yes,” and at the same moment he caught sight of Ulick coming across the hall. “What has happened?” he said as soon as the door was closed.

  “She tried to poison herself last night.”

  “Tried to poison herself! But she is not dead?”

  “No, she’s not dead, and will recover.”

  “Tried to poison herself!”

  “Yes, that is what I came back to tell you. We were to have met at the station, but she didn’t turn up; and, after waiting for a quarter of an hour, I felt something must have happened, and drove to Ayrdale Mansions.”

  “Tried to kill herself!”

  “I’m afraid I have no time to tell you the story. Mérat will be able to tell it to you better than I. I must get away by the next train. There is no danger; she will recover.”

  “You say she will recover?” and Owen drew his hands across his eyes. “I’m afraid I can hardly understand.”

  “But if you will just take a cab and go up to Ayrdale Mansions, you will find Mérat, who will tell you everything.”

  “Yes, yes. You are sure she will recover?”

  “Quite.”

  “But you — you are going away?”

  “I have to, unless I give up my appointment. Of course, I should like to stay behind; but there is no danger, absolutely none, only an overdose of chloral.”

  “She suffered a great deal from sleeplessness. Perhaps it was an accident.”

  Ulick did not answer, and the elder man drove in one direction and the younger in another.

  “Mérat, this is terrible!”

  “Won’t you come into the drawing-room, Sir Owen?”

  “She is in no danger?”

  “No, Sir Owen.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Yes, of course, Sir Owen; but she is still asleep, and the doctor says she will not be able to understand or recognise anybody for some hours. You will see her if you call later.”

  “Yes, I’ll call later; but first of all, tell me, Mérat, when was the discovery made?”

  “She left a letter for me to say she was not to be called, and knowing she had gone out for many hours, and finding her clothes and her boots wet through, I thought it better not to disturb her. Of course, I never suspected anything until Mr. Dean came.”

  “Yes, she was to meet him at the station.” And as he said these words he remembered that Mérat must know of Evelyn’s intimacy with Ulick. She must have been watching it for the last month, and no doubt already connected Evelyn’s attempted suicide in some way with Mr. Dean, but the fact that they had arranged to meet at the railway station did not point to a betrayal.

  “There was no quarrel between them, then, Sir Owen?”

  “None; oh, none, Mérat.”

  “It is very strange.”

  “Yes, it is very strange, Mérat; we might talk of it for hours without getting nearer to the truth. So Mr. Dean came here?”

  “Yes. When I opened the door he said, ‘Where is mademoiselle?’ and I said, ‘Asleep; she left a note that she was not to be called.’ ‘Then, Mérat, something must have happened, for she was to meet me at the railway station. We must see to this at once.’ Her door was locked, but Mr. Dean put his shoulder against it. In spite of the noise, she did not awake — a very few more grains would have killed her.”

  “Grains of what?”

  “Chloral, Sir Owen. We thought she was dead. Mr. Dean went for the doctor. He looked very grave when he saw her; I could see he thought she was dead; but after examining her he said, ‘She has a young heart, and will get over it.’”

  “So that is your story, Mérat?”

  “Yes, Sir Owen, that is the story. There is no doubt about it she tried to kill herself, the doctor says.”

  “So, Mérat, you think it was for Mr. Dean. Don’t you know mademoiselle has taken a religious turn?”

  “I know it, Sir Owen.”

  And he attributed the present misfortune to Monsignor, who had destroyed Evelyn’s mind with ceremonies and sacraments.

  “Good God! these people should be prosecuted.” And he railed against the prelate and against religion, stopping only now and again when Mérat went to her mistress’s door, thinking she heard her call. “You say it was between eleven and twelve she came back?”

  “It was after twelve, Sir Owen.”

  “Now where could she have been all that time, and in the rain, thinking how she might kill herself?”

  “It couldn’t have been anything else, Sir Owen. Her boots were soaked through as if she had been in the water, not caring where she went.”

  Owen wondered if it were possible she had ventured into the Serpentine.

  “The park closes at nine, doesn’t it, Sir Owen?” They talked of the possibility of hiding in the park and the keepers not discovering Evelyn in their rounds; it was quite possible for her to have escaped their notice if she hid in the bushes about the Long Water.

  “You think, Sir Owen, that she intended to drown herself?”

  “I don’t know. You say her boots were wet through. Perhaps she went out to buy the chloral — perhaps she hadn’t enough.”

  “Well, Sir Owen, she must have been doubtful if she had enough chloral to kill herself, for this is what I found.” And the maid took out of her pocket several pairs of garters tied together.

  “You think she tied these together so that she might hang herself?”

  “There is no place she could hang herself except over the banisters. I thought that perhaps she feared the garters were not strong enough and she might fall and break her legs.”

  “Poor woman! Poor woman!” So if the garters had proved stronger, she would have strangled there minute by minute. Nothing but religious mania — that is what drove her to it.”

  “I am inclined to think, Sir Owen, it must have been something of that kind, for of course there were no money difficulties.”

  “The agony of mind she must have suffered! The agony of the suicide! And her agony, the worst of all, for she is a religious woman.” Owen talked of how strange and mysterious are the motives which determine the lives of human beings. “You see, all her life was in disorder — leaving the stage and giving me up. Mérat, there is no use in disguising it from you. You know all about it. Do you remember when we met for the first time?”

  “Yes, Sir Owen; indeed I do.” And the two stood looking at each other, thinking of the changes that time had made in themselves. Sir Owen’s figure was thinner, if anything, than before; his face seemed shrunken, but there were only a few grey hairs, and the maid thought him still a very distinguished-looking man — old, of course; but still, nobody would think of him as an old man. Mérat’s shoulders seemed to be higher than they were when he last saw her; she had developed a bust, and her black dress showed off her hips. Her hair seemed a little thinner, so she was still
typically French; France looked out of her eyes. “Isn’t it strange? The day we first met we little thought that we would come to know each other so well; and you have known her always, travelled all over Europe with her. How I have loved that woman, Mérat! And here you are together, come from Park Lane to this poor little flat in Bayswater. It is wonderful, Mérat, after all these years, to be sitting here, talking together about her whom we both love, you have been very good to her, and have looked after her well; I shall never forget it to you.”

  “I have done my best, Sir Owen; and you know mademoiselle is one of those whom one cannot help liking.”

  “But living in this flat with her, Mérat, you must feel lonely. Do you never wish for your own country?”

  “But I am with mademoiselle, Sir Owen; and if I were to leave her, no one else could look after her — at least, not as I can. You see, we know each other so well, and everything belonging to her interests me. Perhaps you would like to see her, Sir Owen?”

  “I’d like to see her, but what good would it do me or her? I’ll see her in the evening, when I can speak to her. To see her lying there unconscious, Mérat — no, it would only put thoughts of death into my mind; and she will have to die, though she didn’t die last night, just as we all shall have to die — you and I, in a few years we shall be dead.”

  “Your thoughts are very gloomy, Sir Owen.”

  “You don’t expect me to have gay thoughts to-day, do you, Mérat? So here is where you live, you and she; and that is her writing-table?”

  “Yes; she sits there in the evening, quite contented, writing letters.”

  “To whom?” Owen asked. “To no one but priests and nuns?”

  “Yes, she is very interested in her poor people, and she has to write a great many letters on their behalf.”

  “I know — to get them work.” And they walked round the room. “Well, Mérat, this isn’t what we are accustomed to — this isn’t like Park Lane.”

  “Mademoiselle only cares for plain things now; if she had the money she would spend it all upon her poor people. It was a long time before I could persuade her to buy the sofa you have been sitting on just now; she has not had it above two months.”

  “And all these clothes, Mérat — what are they?”

  “Oh, I have forgotten to take them away.” And Mérat told him that these were clothes that Evelyn was making for her poor people — for little boys who were going upon a school-treat, mostly poor Irish; and Owen picked up a cap from the floor, and a little crooked smile came into his face when he heard it was intended for Paddy Sullivan.

  “All the same, it is better she should think about poor people than about religion.”

  “Far better, Sir Owen, far better. Sometimes I’m afraid she will bring back things upon her. She comes back tired and sleeps; but when she spends her time in churches thinking of her sins, or what she imagines to be sins, Sir Owen, I hear her walking about her room at night, and in the morning she tells me she hasn’t slept at all.”

  “What you tell me is very serious, Mérat. All the same, all the same — jackets and coats for Paddy Sullivan’s children. Well, it is very touching. There never was anybody quite so good, do you think there was, Mérat?”

  “That is the reason why we all love her; and you do, too, Sir Owen, though you pretend to hate goodness and to despise—”

  “No, Mérat, no. Tell mademoiselle, if she wakes, that I am coming back to see her this evening late — the later the better, I suppose, for she is not likely to fall asleep again once she awakes.”

  Mérat mentioned between nine and ten o’clock, and, to distract his thoughts, Owen went to the theatre that evening, and was glad to leave it at ten, before the play was over.

  “Is she awake?”

  “She has been awake some time. I think you will be able to have a little talk with her.” And Owen stole into the room with so little noise that Evelyn did not hear him, and all the room was seen and understood before she turned: the crucifix above the bedstead, the pious prints, engravings which they had bought in Italy — Botticelli and Filippo Lippi. She lay in a narrow iron bed, and all the form that he knew so well covered in a plain nightgown such as he had never seen before, but in keeping, he thought, with the rest of the room, and in conformity — such was his impression, there was no time for thinking — with her present opinions. The smallness of the chest of drawers surprised him. Where did she keep her clothes? It might be doubted if she possessed more than two or three gowns. Where were they hanging? The few chairs and the dressing-table, on which he caught sight of some ivory brushes he had given her, seemed the only furniture in the room.

  “Evelyn!”

  “Oh, it is you, Owen. So you have come to see me. You are always kind.”

  “My dear Evelyn, there never can be any question of kindness between you and me. You will always be Evelyn, and I am only thinking now of how glad I am to have found you again.”

  “Found me again!” And her thoughts seemed to float away, her mind not being strong enough yet to think connectedly. “How did you hear about me?” Before he could answer she said, “I suppose Ulick—” And then, with an effort to remember, she added, “Yes, Mérat told me he had come here,” and the effort seemed to fatigue her.

  “Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t talk.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, taking his hand, detaining it for a moment and then losing it; “tell me.”

  And he told her, speaking very gently so that his voice might not tire her, that Ulick had called at Berkeley Square.

  “He told me you weren’t going away with him.”

  A slight shudder passed through Evelyn’s face, and she asked, “Where is Ulick?”

  “He has gone away. If he had stayed he would have lost his post as secretary to the opera company.”

  Evelyn did not appear to hear the explanation, and it was some time before she said:

  “He has gone away. I don’t think we shall see much of him again, either you or I, Owen.”

  Owen did not resist asking if she regretted this, and she answered that she did not regret it at all. “And now you understand, Owen, what kind of woman I am; how hopeless everything is.” In spite of herself, a little trace of her old wit returning to her, she added, “You see what an unfortunate man you are in your choice of a mistress.”

  Owen could not answer; and a moment after he remembered that it is only those who feel as deeply as Evelyn who can speak as lightly, otherwise they would not be able to resist the strain; and the strain was a very terrible one, he could see that, for she turned over in bed, and a little later he perceived that she had been crying. Turning suddenly, she exclaimed:

  “Owen, Owen, I am very frightened!”

  “Frightened of what, dear one?”

  “I don’t know, Owen, I can’t tell you; but I am very frightened, for he seems not to be very far away and may come again.”

  “And who is ‘he’?”

  “It is impossible to tell you — a darkness, a shadow that seems always by me, and who was very near me last night. A little more chloral and I should not be here talking to you!”

  “It is terrible, Evelyn, terrible! And how should I have lived?”

  “You lived before me and you will live after me. Suicide is a mortal sin, so Monsignor would tell me. We are forbidden to kill ourselves even to escape sin, and that seems strange; for how shall I ever believe that God would not have forgiven me, that he would not have preferred me to kill myself than to have — ?” And her voice died away, Owen wondered whether for lack of strength or unwillingness to express herself in words.

  “My dear Evelyn! my dear Evelyn!”

  “You don’t understand, Owen; I am so different from what I was once. I know it, I feel it, the difference, and it can’t be helped.”

  “But it can be helped, Evelyn. You’ve been living by yourself, spending whole days and nights alone, and you’ve been suffering from want of sleep — something had to happen; but now that
it has happened you will get quite well, and if you had only done what I asked you before — if we had been married — I”

  “Don’t let us talk about it, Owen; you don’t understand how different I am, how impossible — I — don’t want to be unkind, you have been very good to me always; and, understanding you as I seem to understand you now, I am sorry you should have made such a bad choice, and that I was not more satisfactory.”

  “But you are perfectly satisfactory, Evelyn. If I am satisfied, who should have the right to grumble? The pain of losing you is better than the pleasure of winning anybody else…. So you think, Evelyn, you will never return to the stage?”

  She did not answer, and, with dilated eyes, she looked through the room till Owen turned, wondering if he should see anything; and he was about to ask her if she saw the shadow again which she had spoken of a while ago, but refrained from speaking, seeing that the time was not one for questions.

  “Evelyn,” he said, “I will come to see you to-morrow. You are tired to-night.”

  XV

  “SHE WILL FALL asleep again, and to-morrow will be quite well. But what a near escape!” And he lingered with Mérat, feeling it were better she should know everything, yet loth to tell her that he had known all the while that Ulick was trying to persuade Evelyn to go away with him. But Mérat must know that Ulick had been staying at Berkeley Square.

  “I suppose Monsignor comes here to see her?”

  “He has been here, Sir Owen.”

  Owen would have liked to question her, but it did not seem honourable to do so, and after a little talk about the danger of yielding to religious impulses, he noticed that Mérat was drifting from him, evidently thinking such discussions useless.

  On the landing he told her that Ulick had gone away with the opera company, and that it was not likely that he and mademoiselle would see each other again.

  “But when Mr. Dean comes back to London?” Mérat answered.

  “Well, hardly even then; after a crisis like this she will not be anxious to see him. You know, Mérat, he was staying with me at Berkeley Square; and I knew of his visits here, only it seemed to me the only way to save her from religion was by getting her to go back to the stage.”