by George Moore
Remarks such as these are very impressive; and every word the lady said seemed to go straight to his heart, to be treasured therein. His round magnetic eyes were always fixed upon her, and in this way he unravelled intrigue after intrigue. Every post brought him letters from women, and as the years went on his failures became fewer and fewer. He recognised mistakes in the past, and whenever he fell to meditating them a tall girl, who had walked with him by a river, under trees, rose up in his memory, so strangely distinct that he felt that all his conquests were worthless, having lost this one. He had attracted her once, but that was years ago, and if they were to meet, he asked himself, would she pass him by? He had not been passed by unnoticed when he was a poor lad seeking a livelihood — why should she pass him by now? His success would astonish and win her, but he was older, and she was a girl, perhaps, who liked men in the twenties. He was only in the beginning of the thirties, but they might not meet till he was forty, and then it would be too late. “All the others were but shadows of this one,” he said one morning, and put out his hand to gather up some letters. The first came from a woman whom he had met at a party a couple of nights before. “An uninteresting female,” he said, and a moment after, his heart began to beat, for the letter brought the welcome news that Lord and Lady Granderville and Lady Helen Trevor had returned from St. Petersburg, and were in London for the season.
The next letter he opened was from Lucy, and it came to remind him that he was engaged to dine with her on the 12th of June, the night of her ball. “And it will be at that ball I shall meet Lady Helen,” he said. “She will be there for certain. Good heavens! I shall see her in how many days? In thirteen days! I wonder if she will know me again. And how strange that I should have been thinking of her, and that Lucy should be giving a ball to which she has invited all her friends. She cannot have omitted the Grandervilles.” And in his imagination he could see Lady Helen rising out of white silk; her blonde hair like a crown of gold. She was a girl when he saw her. She had liked him that day, but she had seen many a man since. Was she still a virgin? He turned over in bed and lay thinking.
He made many calls that afternoon with a view to picking up news of the Grandervilles, but the days went by without his meeting them, and on the night of Lucy’s ball he experienced a strange exaltation of the senses as he walked through Eaton Square, saying: “A great artist, perhaps — a successful artist, certainly — is going to meet the beautifullest woman of a great period,” and the thought gladdened him that never in the old monarchical days had so many crowned heads passed along the banks of the Thames. “Never,” he said to himself, as he came into view of the trees showing above the high walls that enclose the gardens of Buckingham Palace, “have the daughters of cotton-spinners been so anxious to exchange their wealth for the owner of the escutcheon. A wonderful moment,” he continued, “a sort of intoxication, a desire of love and of art; and how much pleasanter it is now that women have ceased to take the trouble to conceal their intrigues.” He laughed to himself, for his thoughts had gone back to the night when Lucy told him that in 1750 a certain French Marquis wrote to Louis XV., saying: “It is true that my daughter is sixteen years of age, but she is as innocent of what a man is as a babe unborn.”
“The reign of Louis XV. is again upon London”; and he remembered the professional beauties, the wives of unknown gentlemen, who had become celebrated in the space of a single night, and the people standing upon the chairs in the Park, so that they might see them better as they went by. “On every table,” he said, “are photographs of Frank Miles’s drawings of our courtesans, and the presents they receive are discussed in every drawing-room; and yet there are those who do not believe in progress.”
He had read somewhere that every age is remembered by a word; to organise represents the fugitive Empire founded by Napoleon, “And the professional beauty,” he reflected, “represents Lord Beaconsfield’s Government. But we’re doing better in a way than the Court of Louis XV., for in the eighteenth century young girls — except those especially reserved for the King — were exempt from the general profligacy; but, great Scott! to-day the young girls compete with the married women, and very often are successful.” A moment after he was asking himself if Lady Helen had remained a virtuous young girl in the Court of St. Petersburg, or taken her first lessons in love from some splendid Russian nobleman on the staircase. He would have liked to have been that young man, and — But here he was at Carlton House Terrace, and he went up the great stairway with a faint hope in his heart that he might be asked to take Lady Helen down to dinner. But there wasn’t much chance of that. Lucy would remember the incipient flirtation years ago, and would arrange her table accordingly. For this he admitted he could not blame her, and the long dinner went by drearily by the side of a dowager, whose mottled shoulders set him thinking of the snowy shoulders he would see ascending the stairs. “Under snowy shoulders we may seek a volcano, and find one,” he said to himself, and continued to find conversation to amuse the dowager, who had been confided to his charge, till the people began to arrive for the ball.
“The Grandervilles will not be here before midnight,” he said. “And perhaps some indisposition may keep Helen at home.”
At last he heard their names called in the hall, and looking over the banisters saw Helen as he had seen her in many an imaginary portrait — an extraordinary whiteness rising out of white silk. “She wears her golden hair like a crown, just as I have seen her in dreams. Her bosom, too, is exquisite,” he said; “almost as a boy’s — just a turn, no more.”
“Lord and Lady Granderville!” the prime butler shouted. “Lady Helen Trevor!” he added, in a slightly lower tone, and the men above leaning over the banisters looked down into Helen’s bosom seeing her shoulders rising out of the scanty bodice, stiffly boned, held in its place by two narrow ribbons: the one her father had forbidden her to wear. “But she is wearing it!” No one spoke the words, but they were in the air; and all eyes rejoiced to see that the only concession she had made to her dressmaker’s fears and her father’s sense of propriety was a cluster of Aimée Vibert roses on her left breast. With a string of pearls about her neck, she ascended the stairs slowly, the gold of her hair coiled into a high knot, into which her maid had pinned a single flower. Her father followed her, muttering: “She might as well have come without a bodice at all”; and he kept his eyes for shame’s sake averted from his daughter’s back, affecting great care not to tread on the heavy train of white silk that flowed over the pompous bustle.
Lucy, at the head of the stairs, received the Grandervilles, and Lewis compared the mistress that had been and was still his with the girl he hoped would soon become his mistress... or his wife!
Lucy was in pink tulle and was still a young woman though she would never see forty-five again....
“Did you ever see such a skin?” Day said, speaking of Lady Helen. “She is like milk.”
“I would rather compare Lady Helen’s whiteness to a lily’s,” Ripple replied in a reproving tone. “She looks as if she had stepped out of Gautier’s poem, Symphonie en Blanc Majeur.
‘De quel mica de neige vierge,
De quelle moëlle de roseau,
De quelle hostie et de quel cierge
A-t-on fait le blanc de sa peau.’”
“You may quote French as much as you like,” Day answered, “but you won’t change me, and though my French may be limited, I understand some words. A grain of virgin snow, isn’t that it? Well, it won’t do, Ripple. You must try something else. She is crème de la crème to look at and I should think crème de menthe in the mouth.”
“A vulgar little cur,” Ripple said to himself as he turned away suddenly and went towards the Misses Davidson: the oldest was in blue, the youngest in white, and the litter was chaperoned by Lady Archer. Next to them were Mrs. Ormrod and her three daughters, for Lucy never forgot to send invitations to her Sussex neighbours — they came or stayed away as they liked, but they got invitations; there they wer
e sitting in symmetrical rows, the same people who were at the tennis party ten years ago at Claremont House, making quite a little party led by Mrs. Swannell, the wife of the member for the county.
Most of the guests had arrived; occasionally the servant shouted out a name, and if Lucy caught sight of the newcomers she advanced to meet them, but her duties as hostess were now practically over, and she regarded herself as free to enter the dance with her beaux.
“Mrs. Campbell Ward,” shouted the servant, and Lucy held out her hand to a tall, large woman with brown hair, dyed sufficiently to give it a golden tinge. A young man was waiting for her and she took his arm, and Lucy said to the man whose arm she had accepted, “A game that will never go out of fashion.” At the same moment the blare of the cornet came through the soft sound of the fiddles; the clarinet repeated the principal theme, soon to be lost in the clash of cymbals; then string, wood and brass brought the waltz to a close. And as soon as the music ceased a crowd of black coats and white shoulders moved forwards and words “ices” and “heat” were heard constantly. Every time Mrs. Campbell Ward came into view a hush fell, and instinctively the men withdrew to let beauty pass, the men with envious eyes, the women with cold indifference verging on contempt. Once she was followed and closely by Lady Helen, and this was the great moment of the ball, the moment in which everybody asked himself and herself which was the most beautiful woman. A strange look passed between the women, and then, forgetful of Lady Helen, Mrs. Campbell Ward took Lord Senton’s arm and went towards the ballroom. Lady Helen tapped Lewis’s arm with a smile that seemed to say “Presently,” and taking the arm of the gentleman who had come to claim the dance she disappeared.
Lewis was now free, and he joined the group of artists, anxious to hear their opinion of his full-length portrait of Lucy, hanging at the other end of the room conspicuously draped—” A little too conspicuously,” Lewis said, “but of course we artists have no choice in such matters as this.”
“Now, Hilton, should I he presuming too much on your kindness to ask you for a candid opinion?”
“By no means, my dear Seymour. If I understand your picture correctly, you wished to decorate a surface, and you have done it, and admirably.”
“But a portrait,” Holt interjected, “is something more than a mere decorated surface. A portrait without character is not a portrait. You must not understand by this, my dear Seymour, that I am of opinion that you have omitted any essential characteristic: I like your portrait and would not have it different, except, perhaps, the shoulders. Now, if you look at the shoulders of those young girls you will see what I mean. Life has accents that many of us fear to include in our pictures. We’re afraid of life; we deem life a vulgarity and think that we must attenuate and omit, whereas vulgarity, to my thinking, though I don’t expect you or Hilton to think with me in this matter, is lack of personality. I don’t see how any man’s art, if it be personal, can be said to be vulgar: to be vulgar is to be like other people, whereas if you are not like anybody but yourself, it cannot be said you are vulgar.”
Hilton broke in here: “Gustave Doré is like nobody but himself, but he’s vulgar. No, I cannot agree that originality and personality are convertible terms.” The Academicians continued their argument till the waltz was over and Lady Helen reappeared, fanning a white face into which had risen some delicate shades of rose.
“Those tints could only be got by a glaze, Holt.”
Lewis was much interested in Holt’s criticism, but he was now thinking of Lady Helen, and so intensely that he forgot his interest in painting and rushed off to ask her for another dance, leaving Holt to explain to a young man who was engaged for a dance with one of the Misses Davidson, that a glaze did not mean a return to archaic painting. The young man deemed it to be politeness to listen, and his partner, seeing her dance diminishing, said: “I wish Mr. Holt would leave off talking to Freddy; I shall lose half my dance. Hostesses would do well not to ask men to their balls who want to talk painting.”
“And I think it is unfair to ask girls to balls and not introduce them,” the sister answered; “bringing us up from Sussex to watch others dancing — I was never so bored in my life.”
Mr. Campbell Ward came from the card-tables, and his relations with his wife set the girls talking. “I wonder,” said Miss Davidson, “if he walks out of the drawing-room when Lord Worthing calls.”
“I’m not sure I don’t admire a husband who walks out of the drawing-room, leaving his wife alone with her lover,” Miss Ormrod said, causing her friends to look at her askance; and she regretted her words as soon as they had passed her lips, feeling that she had, in the expression of the popular idiom, given herself away.
“I don’t know that it would matter, for one never feels safe in a drawing-room. Servants are always coming in and out,” Miss Davidson remarked, and she too regretted her observation, feeling that perhaps she had given rise to suspicion regarding the propriety of her conduct on all occasions.
The group watched Mr. Campbell Ward pass his arm through Lord Worthing’s and walk away.
“I hear that Mr. Campbell Ward plays heavily; perhaps he is asking Lord Worthing for a cheque. But here comes Mr. Seymour, with his old love on his arm and the girls began to speak of the days long ago when they were introduced to Mr. Seymour.
“He didn’t look half so well as he does to-day; a dapper little man came down to do the drawing-room decorations, when Miss Fanshawe won the tennis match, do you remember?”
And the appearance of Mrs. Bentham on her lover’s arm set the painters again talking of Lewis’s portrait.
“Talent! Good heavens!” broke in Mr. Holt. “Is his picture in cardboard or linoleum — which surface?”
“But surface isn’t everything in a picture,” Hippie remarked.
“Yes,” Holt replied, “it is. Touch is art”; and he began to develop the theory that touch was essential in all the arts.
“In literature?” Ripple interjected.
“Yes, in literature,” Holt continued, “and that is why women neither paint, nor write, nor play the piano as well as men — they lack touch. In love only is their touch exquisite.”
“Our friend,” Hilton remarked, “invites us to follow him down a dangerous incline — primrose paths leading to a bonfire.” And the Academician’s remark put everybody in good humour, but the humour of the moment was broken suddenly by the arrival of Lord Senton with his little mongrel secretary, Day, who had been down in the supper-room, and had come up rather tipsy.
“Now, what are you learned gentlemen talking about? Which woman would make the best model for Venus is the subject of your talk. Which — Lady Helen or Mrs. Campbell Ward? Lord Senton thinks Mrs. Campbell Ward the nobler.”
“I didn’t say nobler, Day. When you quote, quote correctly.”
“Well, well, what did your lordship say? That the girls this year” — Day steadied himself on his legs— “are randier than last year’s lot? Was that it?”
“Day, you’re tipsy!” Senton replied angrily.
“I’ll—” He clenched his decayed teeth, and, afraid of an uproar, some friends led Day away and came between them. Lord Senton went forth to meet Lady Helen, muttering: “I’ll give the fellow the sack to-morrow.”
CHAP. XXVIII.
“LET US SIT here,” Lucy said, and noticing Lewis’s hesitation, “if you’re not engaged for this waltz. Are you?”
“Yes,” Lewis replied, some colour mounting his cheeks.
“To whom?”
Afraid that she would object to his dancing with Lady Helen, he answered that he was engaged to Miss Davidson.
“Very well, then, we will dance together later on,” Lucy said.
“I’ll put Miss Davidson off, if you like.”
“On no account. Those girls haven’t had too many partners. I want them to enjoy themselves.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not in the least. What right have I to mind? You are your own master.”
“Lucy, dear, don’t answer so crossly. If you don’t like me to, I won’t dance with her.”
At this moment the band began to play again, and Mrs. Campbell Ward and Lord Worthing came forward to speak to Lucy. “You’re not thinking of going?” she said; and seeing that Lucy would be engaged in talk for some time with her departing guests, he hurried away to find Lady Helen waiting for him, and went off to dance, completely under the charm of her beauty.
It seemed to him that he had never desired anything but faintly, and that this was the first time he had ever been able to particularise a passion. He remembered Lady Helen as something extraordinarily white with corn-coloured hair, and the slight change that the years had wrought in her inflamed his passion to possess her. The young girl whom he remembered had passed away into a young woman, hardly less beautiful, he thought, and more urgently desired by him, for now he felt himself capable of a deeper passion than in the days when he had just come out of poverty. Claremont House had not been able altogether to efface the privations of the Waterloo Road. He admired Lady Helen as much as his strength allowed him to admire her in those starveling days, but now life appeared more brilliant, more distinct, and as he glided over the floor with her he compared her, and to her advantage, with every other woman. The touch of her limbs as they waltzed together quickened the blood in his veins till Lucy was forgotten, and nothing seemed to matter but the moment. But Lucy, who did not believe Lewis when he said he was going to dance with Miss Davidson, determined to go in search of them as soon as she could shake herself free from Mrs. Campbell Ward and Lord Worthing. The twain, however, delayed her; other couples came up at the same time. The supper-rooms were open; guests were flocking on the staircase. Lucy found herself obliged to ascend the stairs with them. She was detained again and again; and when at last, wearied out, she got back to the ballroom, the waltz was over. She was stopped by young men who thought it their duty to ask her for a dance, and by women, who talked commonplaces to her. The necessity of answering them politely provoked her beyond endurance. She got rid of one with a “Yes” and another with a “No,” and a third with an occasional smile. She pressed through a group of black coats into the card-room. Lewis was not there. A whist party that had just risen detained her again. She again got caught in a crowd of dancers.
