by George Moore
‘I’ve come to see Mr. Hoskin.’ Feeling that her speech was too abrupt she added, ‘I hope he is better to-day.’
‘Yes, I’m thankful to say he’s a little better.’
Mildred stopped in the passage, and Ellen said:
‘Mr. Hoskin isn’t in his bedroom. We’ve put him into the studio.’
‘I hope she doesn’t think that I’ve been in his bedroom,’ thought Mildred. Ralph lay in a small iron bed, hardly more than a foot from the floor, and his large features, wasted by illness, seemed larger than ever. But a glow appeared in his dying eyes at the sight of Mildred. Ellen placed a chair by his bedside and said:
‘I will go out for a short walk. I shan’t be away more than half an hour.’
Their eyes said, ‘We shall be alone for half an hour,’ and she took the thin hand he extended to her.
‘Oh, Ralph, I’m sorry to find you ill…. But you’re better to-day, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I feel a little better to-day. It was good of you to come.’
‘I came at once.’
‘How did you hear I was ill? We’ve not written to each other for a long while.’
‘I heard it in the National. Miss Brand told me.’
‘You know her?’
‘I remember, she wrote about the new pictures for an American paper.’
‘Yes. How familiar it sounds, those dear days in the National.’
Ralph’s eyes were fixed upon her. She could not bear their wistfulness, and she lowered hers.
‘She told me you were ill.’
‘But when did you return from France? Tell me.’
‘About six weeks ago. I fell ill the moment I got back.’
‘What was the matter?’
‘I had overdone it. I had overworked myself. I had let myself run down. The doctor said that I didn’t eat enough meat. You know I never did care for meat.’
‘I remember.’
‘When I got better I was ordered to the seaside, then I went on a visit to some friends and didn’t get back to Sutton till Christmas. We had a lot of stupid people staying with us. I couldn’t do any work while they were in the house. When they left I began a picture, but I tried too difficult subjects and got into trouble with my drawing. You said I’d never succeed. I often thought of what you said. Well, then, I went to the National. Nellie Brand told me you were ill, that you had been ill for some time, at least a month.’
A thin smile curled Ralph’s red lips and his eyes seemed to grow more wistful. ‘I’ve been ill more than a month,’ he said. ‘But no matter, Nellie Brand told you and—’
‘Of course I could not stay at the National. I felt I must see you. I didn’t know how. … My feet turned towards St. James’ Park. I stood on the little bridge thinking. You know I was very fond of you, Ralph, only it was in my way and you weren’t satisfied.’ She looked at him sideways, so that her bright brown eyes might have all their charm; his pale eyes, wistful and dying, were fixed on her, not intently as a few moments before, but vaguely, and the thought stirred in her that he might die before her eyes. In that case what was she to do? ‘Are you listening?’ she said.
‘Oh yes, I’m listening,’ he answered, his smile was reassuring, and she said:
‘Suddenly I felt that — that I must see you. I felt I must know what was the matter, so I took a cab and came straight here. Your servant—’
‘You mean Ellen.’
‘I thought she was your servant, she said that you were lying down and could not be disturbed. She did not seem to wish me to see you or to know what was the matter.’
‘I was asleep when you called yesterday, but when I heard of your visit I told her to write the letter which you received this morning. It was kind of you to come.’
‘Kind of me to come! You must think badly of me if you think I could have stayed away. … But now tell me, Ralph, what is the matter, what does the doctor say? Have you had the best medical advice, are you in want of anything? Can I do anything? Pray, don’t hesitate. You know that I was, that I am, very fond of you, that I would do anything. You have been ill a long while now — what is the matter?’
‘Thank you, dear. Things must take their course. What that course is it is impossible to say. I’ve had excellent medical advice and Ellen takes care of me.’
‘But what is your illness? Nellie Brand told me that you caught a bad cold about a month ago. Perhaps a specialist—’
‘Yes, I had a bad attack of influenza about a month or six weeks ago and I hadn’t strength, the doctor said, to recover from it. I have been in bad health for some time. I’ve been disappointed. My painting hasn’t gone very well lately. That was a disappointment. Disappointment, I think, is as often the cause of a man’s death as anything else. The doctors give it a name: influenza, or paralysis of the brain, failure of the heart’s action, but these are the superficial causes of death. There is often a deeper reason: one which medical science is unable to take into account.’
‘Oh, Ralph, you mean me. Don’t say that I am the cause. It was not my fault. If I broke my engagement it was because I knew I could not have made you happy. There’s no reason to be jealous, it wasn’t for any other man. There never will be another man. I was really very fond of you. … It wasn’t my fault.’
‘No, dear, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any one’s fault, it was the fault of luck.’
Mildred longed for tears, but her eyes remained dry, and they wandered round the studio examining and wondering at the various canvases. A woman who had just left her bath passed her arms into the sleeves of a long white wrapper. There was something peculiarly attractive in the picture. The picture said something that had not been said before, and Mildred admired its naturalness. But she was still more interested in the fact that the picture had been painted from the woman who had opened the door to her.
‘She sits for the figure and attends on him when he is ill, she must be his mistress. Since when I wonder?’
‘How do you like it?’ he asked.
‘Very much. It is beautifully drawn, so natural and so original. How did you think of that movement? That is just how a woman passes her arms into her wrapper when she get out of her bath. How did you think of it?’
‘I don’t know. She took the pose. I think the movement is all right.’
‘Yes; it is a movement that happens every morning, yet no one thought of it before. How did you think of it?’
‘I don’t know, I asked her to take some poses and it came like that. I think it is good. I’m glad you like it.’
‘It is very different from the stupid things we draw in the studio.’
‘I told you that you’d do no good by going to France.’ ‘I learnt a good deal there. Every one cannot learn by themselves as you did. Only genius can do that.’
‘Genius! A few little pictures … I think I might have done something if I had got the chance. I should have liked to have finished that picture. It is a good beginning. I never did better.’
‘Dearest, you will live to paint your picture. I want you to finish it. I want you to: live for my sake. … I will buy that picture.’
‘There’s only one thing I should care to live for.’
‘And that you shall have.’ ‘Then I’ll try to live.’ He raised himself a little in bed. His eyes were fixed on her and he tried hard to believe. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘it’s too late now.’ She watched him with the eyes she knew he loved, and though ashamed of the question, she could not put it back, and it slipped through her lips.
‘Would you sooner live for me than for that picture?’
‘One never knows what one would choose,’ he said. ‘Such speculations are always vain, and never were they vainer than now. … But I’m glad you like that movement. It doesn’t matter even if I never finish it, I don’t think it looks bad in its present state, does it?’
‘It is a sketch, one of those things that could not be finished. … I recognise the model. She sat for it, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘You seem very intimate. … She seems very devoted.’
‘She has been very good to me. … Don’t say anything against her. I’ve nothing to conceal, Mildred. It is an old story. It began long before I knew you.’
‘And continued while you knew me?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you never told me. Oh, Ralph, while you were telling me you loved me you were living with this woman.’
‘It happened so. Things don’t come out as straight or as nice as we’d like them to — that’s the way things come out in life — a bit crooked, tangled, cracked. I only know that I loved you, I couldn’t have done otherwise. That’s the way things happened to come out. There’s no other explanation.’
‘And if I had consented to marry you, you’d have put her away.’
‘Mildred, don’t scold me. Things happened that way.’
Mildred did not answer and Ralph said:
‘What are you thinking of?’
‘Of the cruelty, of the wretchedness of it all.’
‘Why look at that side of it? If I did wrong, I’ve been punished. She knows all. She has forgiven me. You can do as much? Forgive me, kiss me. I’ve never kissed you.’
‘I cannot kiss you now. I hear her coming. Wipe those tears away. The doctor said that you were to be kept quiet.’
‘Shall I see you again?’
‘I don’t think I can come again. She’ll be here.’
‘Mildred! What difference can it make?’
‘We shall see. …’
The door opened. Ellen came in, and Mildred got up to go.
‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your walk, Miss Gibbs.’
‘Yes, thank you. I haven’t been out for some days.’
‘Nursing is very fatiguing. … Good-bye, Mr. Hoskin. I hope I shall soon hear that you’re better. Perhaps Miss Gibbs will write.’
‘Yes, I’ll write, but I’m afraid Mr. Hoskin has been talking too much. … Let me open the door for you.’
XII.
When she got home she went to her room. She took off her dress and put on an old wrapper, and then lay on the floor and cried. She could not cry in a pair of stays. To abandon herself wholly to grief she must have her figure free.
And all that evening she hardly spoke; she lay back in her chair, her soul lost in one of her most miserable of moods. Harold spoke a few words from time to time so that she should not perceive that he was aware of her depression.
Her novel lay on her knees unread, and she sat, her eyes fixed, staring into the heart of life. She had never seen so far into life before; she was looking into the heart of life, which is death. He was about to die — he had loved her even unto death; he had loved her even while he was living with another woman. As she sat thinking, her novel on her knees, she could see that other woman sitting by his death-bed. Two candles were burning in the vast studio, and by their dim light she saw the shadow of the profile on the pillow. She thought of him as a man yearning for an ideal which he could never attain, and dying of his yearning in the end! And that so beautiful and so holy an aspiration should proceed from the common concubinage of a studio! Suddenly she decided that Ralph was not worthy of her. Her instinct had told her from the first that something was wrong. She had never known why she had refused him. Now she knew.
But in the morning she was, as she put it herself, better able to see things from a man’s point of view, and she found some excuses for Ralph’s life. This connection had been contracted long ago. … Ralph had had to earn his living since he was sixteen — he had never been in society; he had never known nice women: the only women he had known were his models; what was he to do? A lonely life in a studio, his meals brought in from the public-house, no society but those women. … She could understand. … Nevertheless, it was a miserable thing to think that all the time he had been making love to her he had been living with that woman. ‘He used to leave her to come to meet me in the park.’
This was a great bitterness. She thought that she hated him. But hatred was inconsistent with her present mood, and she reflected that, after all, Ralph was dying for love of her, that was a fact, and behind that fact it were not wise to look. No man could do more than die for the woman he loved, no man could prove his love more completely. … But it was so sad to think he was dying. Could nothing be done to save him? Would he recover if she were to promise to be his wife? She need not carry out her promise; she didn’t know if she could. But if a promise would cure him, she would promise. She would go as far as that. … But for what good? To get him well so that he might continue living with that woman. …
If he hadn’t confessed, if she hadn’t known of this shameful connection, if it hadn’t been dragged under her eyes! Ralph might have spared her that. If he had spared her that she felt that she could promise to be his wife, and perhaps to keep her promise, for in the end she supposed she would have to marry some one. She didn’t see how she was going to escape. … Yes, if he had not told her, or better still, if he had not proved himself unworthy of her, she felt she would have been capable of the sacrifice.
She had been to see him! She knew that she ought not to have gone. Her instinct had told her not to go. But she had conquered her feeling. If she had known that she was going to meet that woman she would not have gone. Whenever we allow ourselves to be led by our better feelings we come to grief. That woman hated her; she knew she did. She could see it in her look. She wouldn’t put herself in such a false position again. … A moment after she was considering if she should go to Ellen and propose that she, Mildred, should offer to marry Ralph, but not seriously, only just to help him to get well. If the plan succeeded she would persuade Ralph that his duty was to marry Ellen. And intoxicated with her own altruism, Mildred’s thoughts passed on and she imagined a dozen different dramas, in every one of which she appeared in the character of a heroine.
‘Mildred, what is the matter?’
‘Nothing, dear, I’ve only forgotten my pocket-handkerchief.’
How irritating were Harold’s stupid interruptions. She had to ask him if he would take another cup of tea. He said that he thought he would just have time. He had still five minutes. She poured out the tea, thinking all the while of the sick man lying on his poor narrow bed in the corner of the great studio. It was shameful that he should die; tears rose to her eyes, and she had to walk across the room to hide them. It was a pitiful story. He was dying for her, and she wasn’t worth it. She hadn’t much heart; she knew it, perhaps one of these days she would meet some one who would make her feel. She hoped so, she wanted to feel. She wanted to love; if her brother were to die to- morrow, she didn’t believe she would really care. It was terrible; if people only knew what she was like they would look the other way when she passed down the street…. But, no, all this was morbid nonsense; she was overwrought, and nervous, and that proved that she had a heart. Perhaps too much heart.
In the next few days Ralph died a hundred times, and had been rescued from death at least a dozen times by Mildred; she had watched by his bedside, she had even visited his grave. And at the end of each dream came the question: ‘Would he live, would he die?’ At last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, she went to the National Gallery to obtain news of him. But Miss Brand had little news of him. She was leaving the gallery, and the two girls went for a little walk. Mildred was glad of company, anything to save her from thinking of Ralph, and she laughed and talked with Nellie on the bridge in St. James’ Park, until she began to feel that the girl must think her very heartless.
‘How pale and ill you’re looking, Mildred.’
‘Am I? I feel all right.’
Nellie’s remark delighted Mildred, ‘Then I have a heart,’ she thought, ‘I’m not so unfeeling as I thought.’
The girls separated at Buckingham Palace. Mildred walked a little way, and then suddenly called a hansom and told the man to drive to Chelsea. But he had not driven far before thoughts of the woman he was li
ving with obtruded upon her pity, and she decided that it would be unwise for her to venture on a second visit. The emotion of seeing her again might make him worse, might kill him. So she poked her parasol through the trap, and told the cabby to drive to Victoria Station. There she bought some violets, she kept a little bunch for herself, and sent him a large bouquet. ‘They’ll look nice in the studio,’ she said, ‘I think that will be best.’
Two days after she received a letter from Ellen Gibbs.
‘MADAM, — It is my sad duty to inform you that Mr. Ralph Hoskin died this afternoon at two o’clock. He begged me to write and thank you for the violets you sent him, and he expressed a hope that you would come and see him when he was dead.
‘The funeral will take place on Monday. If you come here to-morrow, you will see him before he is put into his coffin. — I am, yours truly,
‘ELLEN GIBBS.’
The desire to see her dead lover was an instinct, and the journey from Sutton to Chelsea was unperceived by her, and she did not recover from the febrile obedience her desire imposed until Ellen opened the studio door.
‘I received a letter from you….’
‘Yes, I know, come in.’
Mildred hated the plain middle-class appearance and dress of this girl. She hated the tone of her voice. She walked straight into the studio. There was a sensation of judgment in the white profile, cold, calm, severe, and Mildred drew back affrighted. But she recovered a little when she saw that her violets lay under the dead hand. ‘He thought of me to the end. I forgive him everything.’
As she stood watching the dead man, she could hear Ellen moving in the passage. She did not know what Ellen knew of her relations with Ralph. But there could be no doubt that Ellen was aware that they were of an intimate nature. She hoped, hurriedly, that Ellen did not suspect her of being Ralph’s mistress, and listened again, wondering if Ellen would come into the studio. Or would she have the tact to leave her alone with the dead? If she did come in it would be rather awkward. She did not wish to appear heartless before Ellen, but tears might lead Ellen to suspect. As Mildred knelt down, Ellen entered. Mildred turned round.
