by George Moore
And now, maturing her plans for getting her boy back, she stood by the black mantelpiece, her head leaning on her hand. She uttered an exclamation when Mr. Hare entered.
‘What,’ she said, ‘you haven’t changed your things, and I told you you would find a suit of John’s clothes. I must insist—’
‘My dear Lizzie, no amount of insistence would get me into a pair of John’s trousers. I am thirteen stone and a half, and he is not much over ten.’
‘Ah! I had forgotten; but what are you to do? Something must be done; you will catch your death of cold if you remain in your wet clothes…. You are wringing wet.’
‘No, I assure you, I am not. My feet were a little wet, but I have changed my stockings and shoes. And now, tell me, Lizzie, what there is for lunch,’ he said, speaking rapidly to silence Mrs. Norton, who he saw was going to protest again.
‘There is chicken and some curried rabbit, but I am afraid you will suffer for it if you remain the whole of the afternoon in those wet clothes; I really cannot, I will not allow it.’
‘My dear Lizzie, my dear Lizzie,’ cried the parson, laughing all over his rosy-skinned and sandy-whiskered face, ‘I must beg of you not to excite yourself. Give me a wing of that chicken. James, I’ll take a glass of sherry… and while I am eating you shall explain the matter you are minded to consult me on, and I will advise you to the best of my power, and then start on my walk across the hills.’
‘What! you mean to say you are going to walk home? … We shall have another downpour presently.’
‘I cannot come to much harm so long as I am walking, whereas if I drove home in your carriage I might catch a chill…. It is at least ten miles to Shoreham by the road, while across the hills it is not more than six.’
‘Six! it is eight if it is a yard!’
‘Well, perhaps it is; but tell me, I am curious to hear what you want to talk to me about…. Something about John, is it not?’
‘Of course it is; what else have I to think about? what else concerns middle-aged people like you and me but our children? Of course I want to talk to you about John. Something must be done; things cannot go on as they are. Why, it is nearly two years since he has been home. Why does he not come and live at his own beautiful place? Why does he not take up his position in the county? He is not a magistrate. Why does he not marry? … he is the last; there is no one to follow him.’
‘Do you think he’ll never marry?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Does he give any reason?’
‘He says that he’s afraid that a woman might prove a disturbing influence in his life.’
‘And what did you say to that?’
‘I told him that he was the last, and that it was his duty to marry.’
‘I don’t think that women present any attraction to him. In a way that is a matter of congratulation.’
‘I would much sooner he were wild, like other young men. Young men get over those kind of faults, but he’ll never get over his.’
Mr. Hare looked as if he thought these opinions were of a doubtful orthodoxy.
‘He is quite different,’ he said, ‘from other young men. I never remember having seen him pay any woman the least attention. When he speaks of women it is only to sneer.’
‘He does that to annoy me.’
‘Do you think so? I was afraid it was owing to a natural dislike.’ The conversation paused for a moment, and then Mr. Hare said:
‘Have you had any news of him lately?’
‘Yes, he wrote yesterday, but he did not speak of coming home.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he was meditating a book on the works of bishops and monks who wrote Latin in the early centuries. He has put up a thirteenth century window in the chapel, and he wants me to go up to London to make inquiries about organs. He is prepared to go as far as a thousand pounds. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Those Jesuits are encouraging him. Of course it would just suit them if he became a priest — nothing would suit them better; the whole property would fall into their hands. Now, what I want you to do, my dear friend, is to go to Stanton College to-morrow, or next day, as soon as you possibly can, and to talk to John. You must tell him how unwise it is to spend fifteen hundred pounds in one year building organs and putting up windows. His intentions are excellent, but his estate won’t bear such extravagances; and everybody here thinks he is such a miser. I want you to tell him that he should marry. Just fancy what a terrible thing it would be if the estate passed away to distant relatives — to those terrible cousins of ours.’
‘This is very serious.’
‘Yes, it is very serious. If it weren’t very serious I should not have put you to the trouble of coming over here to-day.’
‘There was no trouble; I was glad of the walk. But I don’t see how I am to advise you in this matter.’
‘I don’t want advice. It is John who wants advice. Will you go to Stanton College and talk to him?’
‘What am I to say?’
‘Tell him it is his duty to return home, to settle down and marry.’
‘I don’t think John would listen to me — it would not be prudent to speak to him in that way. He is not the sort of man who allows himself to be driven. But I might suggest that he should come home.’
‘He certainly should come home for Christmas—’
‘Very well, Lizzie, that’s what I’ll say. I have not seen him for five years. The last time he was here I was away. I don’t think it would be a bad notion to suggest that the Jesuits are after his money — that they are endeavouring to inveigle him into the priesthood in order that they may get hold of his property.’
‘No, no; you must not say such a thing. I will not have you say anything against his religion. I was very wrong to suggest such a thing. I am sure no such idea ever entered the Jesuits’ heads. Perhaps I am wrong to send you…. But I want you to try to get him to come home. Try to get him to come home for Christmas.’
II.
In large serpentine curves the road wound through a wood of small beech trees — so small that in the November dishevelment the plantations were like brushwood; and lying behind the wind-swept opening were gravel walks, and the green spaces of the cricket field with a solitary divine reading his breviary. The drive turned and turned again in great sloping curves; more divines were passed, and then there came a terrace with a balustrade and a view of the open country. The high red walls of the college faced bleak terraces: a square tower squatted in the middle of the building, and out of it rose the octagon of the bell-tower, and in the tower wall was the great oak door studded with great nails.
‘How Birmingham the whole place does look,’ thought Mr. Hare, as he laid his hand on an imitation mediaeval bell-pull.
‘Is Mr. John Norton at home?’ he asked when the servant came. ‘Will you give him my card, and say that I should like to see him.’
On entering, Mr. Hare found himself in a tiled hall, around which was built a staircase in varnished oak. There was a quadrangle, and from three sides latticed windows looked on greensward; on the fourth there was an open corridor, with arches to imitate a cloister. All was strong and barren, and only about the varnished staircase was there any sign of comfort. There the ceiling was panelled in oak; and the banisters, the cocoa-nut matting, the bit of stained glass, and the religious prints, suggested a mock air of hieratic dignity. And the room Mr. Hare was shown into continued this impression. Cabinets in carved oak harmonised with high-backed chairs glowing with red Utrecht velvet, and a massive table, on which lay a folio edition of St. Augustine’s City of God and the Epistolae Consolitoriae of St. Jerome.
The bell continued to clang, and through the latticed windows Mr. Hare watched the divines hurrying along the windy terrace, and the tramp of the boys going to their class-rooms could be heard in passages below. Then a young man entered. He was thin, and he was dressed in black. His face was Roman, the profile especially was what you might expect to find on a R
oman coin — a high nose, a high cheekbone, a strong chin, and a large ear. The eyes were prominent and luminous, and the lower part of the face was expressive of resolution and intelligence, but the temples retreated rapidly to the brown hair which grew luxuriantly on the top of the head. The mouth was large, the lips were thick, dim in colour, undefined in shape. The hands were large, powerful, and grasping; they were earthly hands; they were hands that could take and could hold, and their materialism was curiously opposed to the ideality of the eyes — an ideality that touched the confines of frenzy. The shoulders were square and carried well back, the head was round, with close-cut hair, the straight falling coat was buttoned high, and the fashionable collar, with a black satin cravat, beautifully tied and relieved with a rich pearl pin, set another unexpected detail to an aggregate of apparently irreconcilable characteristics.
‘And how do you do, my dear Mr. Hare? Who would have expected to see you here? I am so glad.’
These words were spoken frankly and cordially, and there was a note of mundane cheerfulness in the voice which did not quite correspond with the sacerdotal elegance of this young man. Then he added quickly, as if to save himself from asking the reason of this very unexpected visit:
‘You’ll stay and dine? I’ll show you over the college: you have never been here before…. Now I come to reckon it up, I find I have not seen you for nearly five years.’
‘It must be very nearly that; I missed you the last time you were at Thornby Place, and that was three years ago.’
‘Three years! It sounds very shocking, doesn’t it, to have a beautiful place in Sussex and not to live there?’
The conversation paused a moment, and then John said:
‘But you did not travel two hundred miles to see Stanton College. You have, I fear, messages for me from my mother.’
‘It is at her request I am here.’
‘Quite so. You’re here to advise me to return home and accept the marriage state.’
‘It is only natural that your mother should wish you to marry.’
‘Her determination to get me married is one of the reasons why I am here. My mother will not recognise my right to live my life in my own fashion. When she learns to respect my opinions I will return home. I wish you would impress that upon her. I wish you would try to get her to understand that.’
‘I will tell your mother what you say. It would be well for her to know why you choose to live here. I agree with you that no one but ourselves can determine what duties we should accept.’
‘Ah! if you would only explain that to my mother. You have expressed my feelings exactly. I have no pity for those who take up burdens and then say they are not fitted to carry them. And now that disagreeable matter is settled, come and I will show you over the college.’
The two men descended the staircase into the long stony corridor. There were pictures along the walls of the corridor — pictures of upturned faces and clasped hands — and these drew words of commiseration for the artistic ignorance of the college authorities from John’s lips.
‘And they actually believe that that dreadful monk with the skull is a real Ribera…. The chapel is on the right, the refectory on the left. Come, let us see the chapel; I am anxious to hear what you think of my window.’
‘It ought to be very handsome; it cost five hundred, did it not?’
‘No, not quite so much as that,’ John answered abruptly; and then, passing through the communion rails, they stood under the multi- coloured glory of three bishops. Mr. Hare felt that a good deal of rapture was expected of him; but in his efforts to praise he felt that he was exposing his ignorance. John called his attention to the transparency of the green-watered skies; and turning their backs on the bishops, the blue ceiling with the gold stars was declared, all things considered, to be in excellent taste. The benches in the body of the church were for the boys; the carved chairs set along both walls, between the communion rails and the first steps of the altar, were for the divines. The president and vice-president knelt facing each other. The priests, deacons, and sub-deacons followed, according to their rank. There were slenderer benches, and these were for the choir; and from the great gold lectern the leader conducted the singing.
The side altar, with the Turkey carpet spread over the steps, was St. George’s, and further on, in an addition made lately, there were two more altars, dedicated respectively to the Virgin and St. Joseph,
‘The maid-servants kneel in that corner. I have often suggested that they should be moved out of sight.’
‘Why would you remove them out of sight? You will not deny their right to hear Mass?’
‘Of course not. But it seems to me that they would be better away. They present a temptation where there are a number of young men about. I have noticed that some of the young men look round when the maid- servants come into church. I have overheard remarks too…. I know not what attraction they can find in such ugliness. It is beastly.’
‘Maid-servants are not attractive; but if they were princesses you would dislike them equally. The severest moralists are those who have never known the pain of temptation.’
‘Perhaps the severest moralists are those who have conquered their temptations.’
‘Then you have been tempted!’
John’s face assumed a thoughtful expression, and he said:
‘I’m not going to tell you my inmost soul. This I can say, if I have had temptations I have conquered them. They have passed away.’
The conversation paused, and, in a silence which was pregnant with suggestion, they went up to the organ-loft, and he depreciated the present instrument and enlarged upon some technical details anent the latest modern improvements in keys and stops. He would play his setting of St. Ambrose’s hymn, ‘Veni redemptor gentium,’ if Mr. Hare would go to the bellows; and feeling as if he were being turned into ridicule, Mr. Hare took his place at the handle.
In the sacristy the consideration of the censers, candle-sticks, chalices, and albs took some time, and John was a little aggressive in his explanation of Catholic ceremonial, and its grace and comeliness compared with the stiffness and materialism of the Protestant service. Handsome lads of sixteen were chosen for acolytes; the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by himself, and he was also the chief sacristan, and had charge of the altar plate and linen and the vestments.
In answer to Mr. Hare, who asked him if he did not weary of the narrowness of ecclesiastical life, John said that when the desire of travel came upon him, he had to consult no one’s taste or convenience but his own, merely to pack his portmanteau. Last year he had been through Russia, and had enjoyed his stay in Constantinople. And while speaking of the mosques he said that he had had an ancestor who had fought in the crusades. Perhaps it was from him he had inherited his love and comprehension of Byzantine art — he did not say so, but it might be so; one of the mysteries of atavism! Who shall say where they end?
‘You would have liked to have fought in the crusades?’
‘Yes, I think that I should have made a good knight. The hardships they underwent were no doubt quite extraordinary. But I am strong; my bones are heavy; my chest is deep; I can bear a great deal of fatigue.’
Then laughing lightly he said:
‘You can’t imagine me as a knight on the way to the Grail.’
‘Why not? I think you would have acquitted yourself very well.’
‘The crusades were once as real in life as tennis parties are to-day; and I think infinitely more beautiful.’
‘You would not have fought in the tournaments for a lady love?’
‘Perhaps not; I should have fought for the Grail, like Parsifal. I was at Bayreuth last year. But Bayreuth is no longer what it was. Popular innovations have been introduced into the performances. Would you believe it, the lovely music in the cupola, written by Wagner for boys’ voices, is now sung by women.’
‘Surely a woman’s voice is finer than a boy’s.’
‘How closely you do run your hobby.’
‘No; in art I have no prejudices; I recognise the beauty of a woman’s voice in its proper place — in opera. It is as inappropriate to have Palestrina sung by women as it would be to have Brunnhilde and Isolde sung by boys — at least so it seems to me. I was at Cologne last year — that is the only place where you can hear Palestrina. I was very lucky — I heard the great Mass, the Mass of Pope Marcellus. Wagner’s music in the cupola is very lovely, but it does not compare with Palestrina.’
From the sacristy they went to the boys’ library, and while affecting to take an interest in the books Mr. Hare continued to encourage John to talk of himself. Did he never feel lonely?
‘No, I do not know what it is to feel lonely. In the morning I write; I ride in the afternoon; I read in the evening. I read a great deal — literature and music.’
‘But when you go abroad you go alone — do you feel no need of a companion? Do you never make acquaintances when you go abroad?’
‘People don’t interest me. I am interested in things much more than in people — in pictures, in music, in sculpture. When I’m abroad I like the streets, I like to see people moving about, I like to watch the spectacle of life, but I do not care to make acquaintances. As I grow older it seems to me that a process of alienation is going on between me and others.’
They stopped on the landings of the staircases; they lingered in the passages, and, speaking of his admiration of the pagan world, John said: ‘It knew how to idealise, it delighted in the outward form, but it raised it, invested it with a sense of aloofness…. You know what I mean.’ He looked inquiringly at Mr. Hare, and, gesticulating with his fingers, said, ‘You know what I mean.’ ‘A beyond?’
‘Yes; that’s the word — a beyond. There must be a beyond. In Wagner there is none. That is his weakness. He is too perfect. Never since the world began did an artist realise himself so completely. He achieved all he desired, therefore something is wanting. A beyond is wanting…. I do not say that I have changed my opinion regarding Wagner, I still admire him: but I no longer accept his astonishing ingenuities for inspiration. No, I’m not afraid to say it, I bar nearly the whole first act of Parsifal. For instance, Gurnemanz’s long narrative, into which is introduced all the motives of the opera — is merely beautiful musical handicraft, and I cannot accept handicraft, however beautiful, for inspiration. I rank much higher the entrance of Kundry — her evocation of Arabia…. That is a real inspiration! The over-praised choruses are beautiful, but again I have to make reservations. These choruses are, you know, divided into three parts. The chorus of the knights is ordinary enough, the chorus of the young men I like better, but I can only give my unqualified admiration to the chorus of the children. Again, the chorus of the young girls in the second act is merely beautiful writing, and there is no real inspiration until we get to the great duet between Kundry and Parsifal. The moment Kundry calls to Parsifal, “Parsifal… Remain!” those are the words, I think, Wagner inspiration begins, then he is profound, then he says interesting things.’ John opened the door of his room.
