by George Moore
‘I can’t see anything wrong in it. Of course you can read meanings into it that I don’t intend if you like.’
‘I am afraid that your articles must give people a very false idea of you.’
‘Every one who knows me knows that I would not do anything wrong, that I am not that kind of woman. You need not be afraid, I shall not disgrace you.’
‘I’m not thinking of myself, Mildred. I am sure you would not do anything wrong, that you would not disgrace yourself; I was merely wondering what people would think. Do the priests approve of this kind of writing?’
‘I don’t submit my writings to my Confessor,’ Mildred answered laughing.
‘And your position in this house. Your intimacy with M. Delacour. I found you sitting side by side on this sofa.’
‘I never heard before that there was any harm in sitting on a sofa with a man. But there are people who see immorality in every piece of furniture in a drawing-room.’
‘You seemed very intimate, that’s all. What does Madame Delacour say? Does she approve of this intimacy?’
‘I don’t know what you mean. What intimacy? Madame Delacour does not see any harm in my sitting on a sofa with her husband. She knows me very well. She knows that I wouldn’t do anything wrong. She’s my most intimate friend; she is quite satisfied, I can assure you. I’ll introduce you to her as you go out.’
‘I see you are anxious to join your company, I must not keep you from your guests any longer. I suppose I shall not see you again, I return to-morrow.’
‘Then it is good-bye.’
‘I suppose so, unless you return with me.’
‘Return to Sutton to look after your house!’
‘I don’t want you to look after my house; you can have a housekeeper. I’m sorry you think that is why I want you to return. Perhaps you think that is why I came over. Oh, Mildred!’
‘Harold, I’m sorry. I did not think such a thing. It was good of you to come to Paris. Harold, you’re not angry?’
‘No, Mildred, I’m not angry. But all this seems strange to me: this house, these people, this paper.’
‘I know, I know. But we cannot all think alike. We never did think alike. But that should not interfere in our affection for one another. We should love each other. We are alone in the world, father and mother both gone, only a few aunts and cousins that we don’t care about.’ ‘Do you ever think of what father and mother would say if they knew? What would they think of your choosing to leave home to live with these people?’
‘Do not let us argue these things, we shall never agree.’
The affection which had suddenly warmed her had departed, and her heart had grown cold as stone again.
‘Each must be free to choose his or her life.’
‘You surely don’t intend always to live here?’
‘Always? I don’t know about always, for the present certainly.’
‘Then there is nothing but to say good-bye.’
XIX.
One evening in spring Mildred returned home. Harold had not long returned from the city, the candles were lighted. He was sitting in the drawing-room thinking, thinking of her.
‘Mildred! is that you?’
‘Yes, how do you do, Harold?’
‘Come and sit near the fire, you’ve had a cold journey. When did you return?’
‘Last night. We had a dreadful crossing, I stayed in bed all the morning. That was why I didn’t come to see you in the city.’
Harold sat for some moments without speaking, looking into the fire.
Reticence was natural to him; he refrained from questioning her, and thought instead of some harmless subject of conversation. Her painting? But she had abandoned painting. Her money? she had lost it! … that was the trouble she was in. He had warned her against putting her money into that paper…. But there was no use worrying her, she would tell him presently. Besides, there was not time to talk about it now, dinner would soon be ready.
‘It is now half-past six, don’t you think you’d better go upstairs and get ready?’
‘Oh, don’t bother me about the dinner, Harold. What does it matter if it is a few minutes late. I can’t go upstairs yet. I want to sit here.’
She looked round the room and remembered how her father used to sit in the chair Harold was sitting in. He was getting bald just like father. He looked just like father, his head seen against the book-cases, the light catching the ends of his bristly hair. But who was she like? she didn’t know, not like poor dear mother who thought of nothing but her husband and her children. From whom had she got her tastes, her taste for painting — her ideas, God knows. She wished she were like other people. Like Harold. Yet she didn’t know that she would like to be quite so simple, so matter of fact. They were only like in one thing, neither had married. She had never thought of that before, and wondered why. But he would marry one of these days. He wasn’t forty yet. Then she would have to leave Sutton, she couldn’t live there with a step-sister.
‘So you’re not married yet, Harold.’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Not even engaged?’
‘No, not even engaged.’
‘I suppose you will one of these days.’
‘Perhaps, one of these days, but I’m in no hurry. And you, are you as much set against marriage as ever? Alfred Stanby has never married, I don’t think he ever will. I think you broke his heart.’
‘I don’t believe in breaking men’s hearts.’
‘You are just the kind of woman who does break men’s hearts.’
‘Why do you say that? You think me heartless.’
‘No, Mildred, I don’t think you heartless — only you’re not like other girls.’
No, I’m not. I’ve too much heart, that’s been my misfortune, I should have got on better if I had less.’
Harold had no aptitude or taste of philosophical reflections, so he merely mentioned that Alfred was living in Sutton, and hoped that Mildred would not mind meeting him.
‘No, I don’t mind meeting him, but he may not like to meet me. Does he ever speak of me?’
‘Yes, he does sometimes…. I never knew why you threw him over. He’s really a very good fellow. He has worked hard and is now making a fair income.’
‘I’m glad of that…. I suppose I did treat him badly. But no worse than men treat women every day.’
‘Why did you throw him over?’
‘I don’t know. It’s so long ago. He didn’t understand me. I thought I should find some one who did…. I know the world better now.’
‘Would you marry him if he were to propose again?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know…. I don’t know what I should do now. Don’t question me, Harold.’
At that moment the gong sounded for dinner. Harold refrained from saying ‘I knew you’d be late.’ An hour after, brother and sister were sitting by the library fire. At last Harold said:
‘I’m glad you’re going to stop here for the present, that you’re not going back to Paris. Do you never intend to live there again?’
‘There’s no reason why I should go back, certainly none that I should live there again, my life in Paris is ended.’
She did not recount her misfortunes in plain straightforward narrative, her story fluctuated and transpired in inflections of voice and picturesque glances. She was always aware of the effect of herself on others, and she forgot a great deal of her disappointment in the pleasure of astonishing Harold. The story unwound itself like spun silk. The principal spool was the Panama scandals…. But around it there were little spools full of various thread, a little of which Mildred unwound from time to time.
When the first accusations against the Deputies were made, I warned him. I told him that the matter would not stop there, but he was over confident. Moreover, I warned him against Darres.’
‘Who’s Darres?’
‘Oh, he was the secretaire de la redaction and a sort of partner. But I never liked him. I gave him one look�
�. I told M. Delacour not to trust him. … And he knew that I suspected him. He admired me, I could see that, but he wasn’t my kind of man: a tall, bullet — headed fellow, shoulders thrown well back, the type of the sous officier, le beau soudard, smelling of the cafe and a cigarette. A plain sensualist. I can tell them at once, and when he saw that I was not that kind of person, he went and made love to Madame Delacour. She was only too glad to listen to him.’
‘Is Madame Delacour good-looking?’
‘I daresay she’s what some people would call good-looking. But she has wretched health, she never got over the birth of her last child.’
Madame Delacour’s health was the subject of many disparaging remarks, in the course of which Mildred called into question the legitimacy of one of her children, and the honourability of Darres as a card-player. The conversation at last turned on Panama. M. Delacour had, of course, denied the charge of blackmail and bribery. Neither had been proved against him. Nevertheless, his constituency had refused to re-elect him. That, of course, had ruined him politically. Nothing had been proved against him, but he had merely failed to explain how he had lived at the rate of twelve thousand a year for the last three years.
‘But the paper?’
‘The paper never was a pecuniary success.’
‘The money you put into it, I suppose, is lost.’
‘For the present at all events. Things may right themselves, Delacour may come up to the top of the wheel again.’
‘He must have cheated you, he swindled you.’
‘I suppose he did, but he was very hard pressed at the time. He didn’t know where to turn for money.’
Harold was surprised by the gentleness of Mildred’s tone.
‘You must give me the particulars, and I’ll do all that can be done to get back your money. Now tell me how—’
‘Yes, you shall have all the particulars,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid that you’ll not be able to do much.’
‘What were the conditions?’
‘I cannot talk about them now, I’m too tired.’
There was a petulant note in her voice which told Harold that it would be useless to question her. He smoked his pipe and listened, and, in her low musical and so well-modulated voice, she continued her tale about herself, M. Delacour, La Voix du Peuple, and M. Darres. Her conversation was full of names and allusions to matters of which Harold knew nothing. He failed to follow her tale, and his thoughts reverted to the loss of three thousand pounds in the shocking Voix du Peuple and two thousand in scandalous Panama. Every now and then something surprising in her tale caught his ear, he asked for precise information, but Mildred answered evasively and turned the conversation. She was much more interested in the influence M. Delacour had exercised over her. She admitted that she had liked him very much, and attributed the influence he had exercised to hypnotism and subordination of will. She had, however, refused to run away with him when he had asked her.
‘You mean to say that he asked you to run away with him — a married man?’
‘Yes; but I said no. I knew that it would ruin him to run away with me. I told him that he must not go away either with me or alone, that he must face his enemies and overcome them. I was a true friend.’
‘It is most extraordinary. You must have been very intimate for him to propose such a thing.’
‘Yes; we were very intimate, but, when it came to the point, I felt that I couldn’t.’
‘Came to the point!’
It was impossible to lead Mildred into further explanation, and she spoke of the loss of the paper. It had passed into the hands of M. Darres; he had changed the staff; he had refused her articles, that was the extraordinary part; explained the unwisdom Darres had showed in his editorship. The paper was now a wreck. He had changed its policy, and the circulation had sunk from sixty to twenty-five thousand. Harold cared nothing whether La Voix du Peuple was well or badly edited, except so far as its prosperity promised hope of the recovery of the money Mildred had invested in it; and he had begun to feel that the paper was not responsible for M. Delacour’s debts, and that Mildred’s money was lost irretrievably. He was thinking of M. Delacour and the proposal he had made to Mildred, that they should go away together. M. Delacour, a married man! But his wife must have been aware of her husband’s intimacy, of his love for Mildred.
‘But wasn’t Madame Delacour jealous of you, of your intimacy with her husband?’
‘She knew there was nothing wrong…. But she accused me of kissing her husband; that was spite.’
‘But it wasn’t true?’
‘No; certainly it wasn’t true. I wonder you can ask me. But, after that, it was impossible for me to stay any longer in the house.’
‘Where is Madame Delacour, is she with her husband?’
‘No; she’s separated from him. She’s gone back to her own people. She lives with them somewhere in the south near Pau, I think.’
‘She’s not with Darres?’
Mildred hesitated.
‘No; she’s not living with him; but I daresay they see each other occasionally.’
‘They can’t see each other very often if she’s living near Pau, and he’s editing a paper in Paris.’
XX.
One morning after breakfast Harold said as he rose from table, ‘You must be very lonely here. Don’t you think you would like some one to keep you company? Mrs. Fargus is in London; we might ask her, she’d be glad to come; you used to like her.’
‘That’s a long while ago. I don’t think she’d amuse me now.’
‘She’d talk about art, about things that interest you. I’m away all day, and when I come home in the evening I’m tired. I’m no society for you, I know that.’
‘No, Harold, I assure you I’m all right; don’t worry about me. I shouldn’t care to have Mrs. Fargus here. If I did I’d say so. I know that you’re anxious to please me. I like you better than any one else.’
‘But I don’t understand you, Mildred. We never did understand each other. Our tastes are so different,’ he added hastily, lest his words might be construed into a reproach.
‘Oh yes, we understand each other very well. I used to think we didn’t…. I don’t think there’s anything in me that any one could not understand. I am afraid I’m a very ordinary person.’
‘But I can see that you’re bored. I don’t mean that you show it. But it would be impossible otherwise, all alone in this house all day by yourself. You used to read a great deal. You never read now. Are there any books I can bring you from London? Do you want any paints, canvases? You haven’t touched your paints since you’ve been back. You might have your drawing master here, you might go out painting with him. This is just the time of year.’
‘I’ve given up painting. No, Harold, thank you all the same. I know I’m dull, cheerless; you mustn’t mind me, it is only a fit of the blues; it will wear off. One of these days I shall be all right.’
‘But do you mind my asking people to the house?’
‘Not if it pleases you. But don’t do so for me.’
Harold looked at his watch. ‘I must say good-bye now. I’ve only just time to catch the train.’
That same evening brother and sister sat together in the library; neither had spoken for some time, and, coming at the end of a long silence, Mildred’s voice sounded clear and distinct.
‘Alfred Stanby called here to-day.’
‘I wonder he did not call before.’ There was a note of surprise in his voice which did not quite correspond with his words.
‘Did he stay long?’
‘He stayed for tea.’
‘Did you find him changed? It must be five years since you met.’
‘He has grown stouter.’
‘What did he talk about?’
‘Ordinary things. He was very formal.’
‘He was very much cut up when you broke off your engagement.’
‘You never approved of it.’
No, but it was not for me that you b
roke it off.’
‘No, it wasn’t on account of you.’
The conversation paused. At last Harold said:
‘Are you as indisposed as ever towards marriage? If Alfred were to propose again would you have him?’
‘I really don’t know. Do you want me to marry? I’m not very pleasant company, I’m well aware of that.’
‘You know that I didn’t mean that, Mildred. I don’t want to press you into any marriage. I’ve always wished you to do what you like.’
‘And I have done so.’
‘I still want you to do what you like. But I can’t forget that if I were to die to-morrow you would be practically alone in the world — a few cousins — —’
‘But what makes you think of dying? You’re in as good health as ever.’
‘I’m forty-three, and father died when he was forty-eight. He died of heart disease; I have suffered from my heart, so it is not probable that I shall make very old bones. If I were to die, you would inherit everything. What would become of this place — of this business? Isn’t it natural that I should wish to see you settled in life?’
‘You think that Alfred would be a suitable match? Would you like to see me marry him?’
‘There’s nothing against him; he’s not very well off. But he’s got on while you’ve been away. He’s making, I should say now, at least 500 pounds a year. That isn’t much, but to have increased his income from three to five hundred a year in five years proves that he is a steady man.’
‘No one ever doubted Alfred’s steadiness.’
‘Mildred, it is time to have done with those sneers.’
‘I suppose it is. I suppose what you say is right. I’ve been from pillar to post and nothing has come of it. Perhaps I was only fitted for marriage after all.’
‘And for what better purpose could a woman be fitted?’
‘We won’t discuss that subject,’ Mildred answered. ‘If I’m to marry any one, as well Alfred as another.’
It was the deeper question that perplexed: Could she accept marriage at all? And in despair she decided that things must take their chance. If she couldn’t marry when it came to the point, why, she couldn’t; if she married and found marriage impossible, they would have to separate. The experience might be an unpleasant one, but it could not be more unpleasant than her present life which was driving her to suicide. Marriage seemed a thing that every one must get through; one of the penalties of existence. Why it should be so she couldn’t think! but it was so. Marriage was supposed to be for ever, but nothing was for ever. Even if she did marry, she felt that it would not be for ever. No; it would not be for ever. Further into the future she could not see, nor did she care to look. She remembered that she was not acting fairly towards Alfred. But instead of considering that question, she repelled it. She had suffered enough, suffering had made her what she was; she must now think of herself. She must get out of her present life; marriage might be worse, but it would be a change, and change she must have. Things must take their course, she did not know whether she would accept or refuse: but she was sure she would like him to propose. He had loved her, and, as he had not married, it was probable that he still loved her, anyway she would like to find out.
