by George Moore
The years between his father’s and his mother’s deaths were living years. His father’s death had given him life; but the houses he was invited to and the pleasant things he heard said about himself were not more pleasant than his evenings sitting by the fireside with his mother relating his adventures to her: a pleasant and amiable springtide were these two years, and when his mother fell ill and died he remembered that he learnt what grief is. It was only natural that it should be so, for his mother’s character was in harmony with his; a pretty mother, truly, a kind mother, a winsome mother, and he recalled the tenderness with which they used to bid each other good-night at the foot of the staircase. She was a bit of an artist; and he fell to thinking of a certain water-colour she had done. It used to hang in the parlour on the right of the fireplace — a view of the green, with an old house, since pulled down, in the foreground. Her love of art was another tie that bound them, added to which was the sense that in losing her he was losing everything. If she had lived she might have discovered that the corn business in Santry was not prospering, and have saved something out of the wreckage, but he had no taste for business, and, believing that uncles would not cheat their nephews, did not trouble to inquire into his affairs, and the first he heard of his uncle’s failure was from the lawyer. A terrible reverse to hear of, that one is penniless at the outset of one’s career — penniless all but three hundred and fifty pounds, all that remained of a comfortable competence. But his pictures had been bought by the entire countryside. The Essex Telegraph had said he was a promising young artist, and, knowing nothing whatsoever of life, he had come to believe that London would fall at the first sound of his clarion. The head master of the Training School at Santry had not altogether shared this belief, and Lewis smiled over his memory of the letter that his first instructor in the art of drawing and painting had given him to Thompson, a painter who the head master said seemed to be coming along. He had not seen anything of Thompson for many years, but his name was often in the papers. He was being talked of, and “The Moderns,” too, were being talked about — the new school, the training master explained, and Thompson, his old schoolmate, was at the head of it. He did not know what his work was like, but Thompson was a clever fellow, “and you’d do well to look him up.” Lewis could hear himself saying “The Moderns” all the way up to London, and he had gone to see Thompson the morning after his arrival, expecting to find nymphs bathing in his studio, or fleeing from fauns, or maybe a single figure loosening her girdle. He hoped she would be loosening it for the pleasure of the ardent youth fallen on his knees behind her; but instead of nymphs he had been shown a picture of a housemaid cleaning steps, her end turned towards him. And the next picture that Thompson produced was of two acrobats in pink hose about to knit themselves into some strange device or perhaps to spring from a trapeze. Thompson had enjoyed his surprise, and Lewis remembered with some acrimony Thompson’s remark: “You expected to see nymphs; well, all painters begin with nymphs and a few end with housemaids.”
“How can housemaids be turned into art?” was his innocent question; and Thompson answered it:
“To Apollo all things are possible” — a saying that seemed to savour of the Bible. It had left him asking himself what Thompson meant, and afraid to untie the parcel. But Thompson’s bark was worse than his bite.
“Your drawings,” he said, “are what we call skilful, and I’ve no doubt that any one of them will open the doors of the Academy to you.”
“But would you advise me to enter the Academy schools?”
“If your bias be for nymphs and satyrs, certainly; if for housemaids, no.” And this remark had confounded him again.
He had never been able to bring himself to admire Thompson’s work, yet had never doubted that Thompson was a clever man — a misdirected one, if you like, but still a clever man, who, if he had applied himself to any other art but painting, would have done well in it; for, after all, his art is a search for the beautiful rather than the curious. “But beauty is merely a convention, and art is always seeking new conventions. A convention wears out like a coat; and before it begins to look threadbare, one must look out for a new garment. A jacket is better than an old coat,” Thompson would say; and, of course, everything can be argued. A truthful story is a well-told story, a lying story is an ill-told story; but he had heard enough of that kind of thing, and was not to be taken in by it any more. And he fell to thinking that it was partly through listening to Thompson and that idiot Frazer that he had been brought to the Waterloo Road, and very nearly to suicide. He would have come to suicide long ago if it hadn’t been for old Bendish. Bendish had, however, failed him at last, and if it hadn’t been for Gwynnie he would have had to take the plunge. If it had not been for Gwynnie he would be now at the bottom of the river, but corpses float and some waterman would have fished him up. He would be lying now in the mortuary with a trickle of water flowing over his face: a horrid face presented itself before his imagination, and to rid himself of the spectacle he began to argue that Thompson might very well choose such a subject for his next Academy picture. Well; he preferred nymphs, and was going to paint them — satyrs and nymphs and Cupids and garlands, masks and arrows, while Gwynnie’s fate was to remain in London striving after fifteen shillings or a pound a week. He was sorry, but he couldn’t hold himself in any way responsible. Why had she run away? All the same, it seemed hard to think that she who had done so much should be left behind. But if she hadn’t run away he would not be going to Claremont House, and to marry her might condemn him to the Waterloo Road for all the days of his life. Perhaps all had happened for the best, and he watched the rich landscape fleeting by till a stately mansion appeared among the trees. He was going to some such mansion. The landscape in his dreams unfolded like a scroll. The footman who met him at the station confronted him like a dream, and the brougham into which he was invited to enter was another dream. And he sat on the blue cushions like one in a dream, afraid to think lest thought might disperse his dream. But he was wide awake and was sitting in her brougham! Her skirts had rustled in it and her feet had rested on the footstool before him, and in a sudden divination of her body, the intoxicating odour of his future life rose to his head like the perfume of a flower crushed and smelt in the hollow of the hand.
CHAP. IX.
A LONG, NARROW, grey building, pierced with many windows, a sort of Noah’s ark; and at the end of a long terrace two ladies leaning over the balustrade. The sun was setting, and the carriage drew up at the front door: a small, unpretending entrance, unapproached by steps, and opening into a passage rather than a hall. The footman took down Lewis’s portmanteau, and the butler unpacked it for him, putting his morning suits, shirts, collars, and pocket-handkerchiefs away in a large mahogany wardrobe, and laying out his evening clothes with wonderful precision on the clear-curtained iron bed. While he did so, Lewis sat at the window watching the ladies walking across the terrace towards the house. The evening had grown chilly, and they had drawn their shawls more tightly round their shoulders.
Then the servant brought him some hot water, and told him that dinner would be ready in half an hour. If he would like a bath, he would find the bathroom next door, the first door on the left; and, determined to enjoy himself, he washed, dried, powdered, and scented himself with care, and, full of misgiving, tried on the evening clothes. His trousers seemed to him too wide, the waistcoat seemed to him vulgar, but he could only hope that no one would suspect they were ready-made; and it was with a sense of delight that he drew on his silk socks, tied his white necktie, and brushed — standing before the tall glass — his rich brown hair.
At last he was dressed; the footman led him into the drawing-room, and there he found Mrs. Bentham, who received him with a smile, and who introduced him to Mrs. Thorpe, her cousin....
Dinner was announced, and Mrs. Bentham asked him to take in Mrs. Thorpe. He had never been anywhere except to a few luncheon parties in Essex, and was conscious of Mrs. Thorpe’s eyes, and fa
ncied she would make use of any little slip to his disadvantage; so he did not take the bread out of his napkin till he had seen Mrs. Bentham take hers, and during the whole meal he ate and drank after first observing one of the ladies.
When the moment came for the ladies to rise from the table, Lewis did not know how to act; he had heard that gentlemen stopped behind, but was not sure if the rule applied when there was but one. Mrs. Bentham, as if she guessed his embarrassment, asked him to follow them into the drawing-room, unless he wished to smoke. “My cousin doesn’t like the smell of tobacco, but you can smoke in the library.” He did want to smoke, but was delighted to say he didn’t, for he dreaded the eye of the butler, knowing that that splendid man would read him like a hook.
Mrs. Thorpe sat silent in her wicker-work chair behind a screen, which protected her from the draught; and once more Lewis felt that she was at least a potential enemy, and that he must win her over to his side. But he was wrong in supposing that Mrs. Thorpe was his enemy. The old lady was merely a little alarmed at what she could not but consider eccentric behaviour on the part of her cousin, and could not accept Mr. Vicome’s desire to have the decorations finished as a very valid reason for picking up a young man and bringing him down to stay with them. She thought the decorations of the ballroom should have been put into the hands of a respectable firm, who would send down a man who would find a lodging in the inn. What did the poor old gentleman want with decorations? she asked herself. He could not even come and see them when they were done. But there was no use thinking of that now the young man was here, and her hope was that his appearance, which was startling, would not create any scandal. He seemed innocent enough; and if he did not stay too long all might be well.
Mrs. Thorpe was dressed entirely in black cashmere, which fell loosely about her spare figure. She wore a white cap, under which appeared some thin white hair, suggestive of baldness. The arms were long and bony, and the brown hands were contracted and crooked — in fact, they seemed like a knitting-machine perpetually in motion; it was the exception to see them still.
As she took from time to time a needle out of her cap, she would look from Lewis to her cousin, and then her eyes would return to her stocking. But at last her curiosity to know who Lewis was, tempted her out of her silence, and as an opportunity presented itself, she asked him some questions about his early life, and, knowing it would be dangerous to tell lies, he gave a pleasant version of the truth, telling of the straits his father’s improvidence had reduced them to, and how he, Lewis, had lived all alone with his mother till she died. His uncle had failed at the same time, and then there was nothing for it but to go to London with three hundred and fifty pounds and “earn my living.”
The picture he gave of how he had lived with his mother recalled to Mrs. Thorpe her son’s childhood and early manhood, and her eyes filled with tears of pity for Lewis’s loneliness.
And Mrs. Bentham, too, listened to the story, interrupting it to ask a question from time to time, her attitude growing more abandoned as she remembered her own life: a husband whose vices had forced her in the third year after their marriage to ask for a separation. She might have had a divorce, for her husband had on more than one occasion used violence towards her, but as she never expected to wish to marry again, and as separation was more favourably viewed by society at large, she had accepted the equivocal position of living apart from her husband; and she remembered how she had persuaded Susan Thorpe to come and live with her.
And, believing that she was asked to share, not relinquish, the quietude she cherished, Mrs. Thorpe had consented to come and live with her cousin, whom she believed to be broken-hearted.
But it is only age that can enjoy solitude — youth can but coquette with it; and as the memories of her past life faded, Mrs. Bentham commenced to weary of Claremont House. She was grateful to her cousin for the sacrifice she made in coming to live with her, but she felt that she must see people: the world drew her like a magnet, and her desire to return to the world was hastened by outward events. Her father gave over to her the control of the Claremont House property, and on her uncle’s death, which occurred about the same time, she inherited five thousand a year, strictly tied up, and independent of her husband’s control. She could not spend her income living alone with Mrs. Thorpe and giving tea to an occasional visitor. She had taken a house in London, but after half a dozen seasons she began to weary of acquaintances, and friendship was impossible. Love she had not dared, and had sent all the men away as soon as they began to speak of love.
Lewis continued to tell how he had come to London to seek his fortune, drawing a poetic picture of the work he had done, hinting at the straits he had found himself in. He had very often not known where the next meal was to come from. At these words Mrs. Thorpe stopped knitting, her hands fell on her knees, and she looked at him, carried away by his story. Mrs. Bentham thought she had never heard anybody talk so attractively. He was a man of genius who required protection, and she felt an immense desire rise up in her mind to protect, to help, to watch, and to guide him towards that success of which he spoke so simply; it would be part of herself, part of her work, and if she lived to see him a great man she would not have lived in vain. She did not reflect that she was a young and handsome woman and that even if she could content herself with this quasi-maternal feeling, he, who was only ten or eleven years her junior, would not accept what must seem to him either too much or too little.
Mrs. Thorpe, who had understood little of Lewis’s talk of “The Moderns,” returned with interest to the story of his early life, and asked him to tell her more about his mother; but Mrs. Bentham was too much oppressed with her thoughts to listen very attentively to the details of the story, which she already knew in outline, so she let them talk as they would, and every now and then the curtains blew out, filled with a hawthorn imperfumed breeze.
She thought of her childhood — of the time when she used to cry for loneliness as she played with her toys in the echoing stone passages. She considered the difference it must make in a girl’s existence to have a mother to consult and to confide in. She recalled a hundred details of her early life: her governesses, her aunt’s reprimands and her visits to the melancholy room where her father sat in his wheel-chair. Her thoughts drifted, and she passed on to the time when she was taken to her first ball. How different it had been from what she had expected it would be! They had but few friends, and her relations were all old people, at whose dinner-parties her frocks and smiles had often seemed strangely out of place. And it was at one of these dismal dinner-parties that she had met Mr. Bentham — a good reason for remembering that dinner-party — and mistaking him for an incarnation of all that is noble and brilliant, she had married him — married him, dreaming a girl’s gay dream of lifelong purity and love.
Her thoughts turned from the memory of her married life, and as she sat staring into the shadows, which struggled for mastery with the moonlight, she felt herself falling into a delicious torpor. An immense temptation seemed to float about the purple gloaming; a thousand little wishes came into the twilight, but they disappeared into the darkness as she tried to define them. At last the sound of Lewis’s voice addressing her broke the current of her thoughts, and though she knew he had talked to Mrs. Thorpe till he could talk no more, she did not gratify him with her attention, but asked him if he could sing. He did not wish to sing, but he had a light tenor of which he was proud, though not unduly, and Mrs.
Bentham played his accompaniments, till Mrs. Thorpe put away her knitting. Mrs. Bentham had to accompany her cousin, but when she bade Lewis good-night, a mutual emotion interlocked their fingers for an instant.
“Breakfast will be at nine,” she said, “and after breakfast I’ll explain my idea of the decorations, and you’ll tell me if I’m wrong.”
CHAP. X.
HE ENTERED HIS pleasant bedroom, and, remembering he had never been in so pleasant a room before, he stopped, for the chintz curtains rustled in the breeze
that came and went, filled with the scent of lilies. A moment after it was the fragrant tobacco plant that enchanted him, and after it came a mingling of scents so sweet and so overpowering that he sank into a chair, asking himself if he were sure that he was not enchanted. And for a long while he sat, afraid to go to bed, for he could not put aside altogether the dread that he might awake in the Waterloo Road. If that were to happen he would walk straight down to the river and drown, for after the dream he was still dreaming he would not be able to endure common life. But where was she? Lying awake, perhaps, under a tester thinking of him, the brocaded curtains falling in great folds over carved wreaths and Cupids; or was she dreaming of him, her thick hair flung over the pillow in disorder? If the mood were to take her to come into his room, love would be wonderful indeed in the warmth of the fine scented linen; and since so many wonderful things had befallen, why not this last miracle? He lay expectant for a while, and in a few minutes was talking to a chamber-maid in Mrs. Bentham’s house, and she tempting him to leave Claremont House and return with her to London to the shop in Waterloo Road; a faint dream from which he awoke suddenly, and, seeing the harmonious room about him, with the moonlight coming through the flowered curtains, he said: “It was only a dream after all — it was only a dream! But isn’t Claremont House a dream?” he asked himself, and then fell asleep again among the smooth white linen that lay in profusion about him, and did not awake again till the door passing smoothly over the carpet awoke him.
