by George Moore
In the centre of the floor was an oak table — a table made of sharp slabs of oak laid upon a frame that was evidently of ancient design, probably early German, a great, gold screen sheltered a high canonical chair with elaborate carvings, and on a reading-stand close by lay the manuscript of a Latin poem.
The parson looked round for a seat, but the chairs were like cottage stools on high legs, and the angular backs looked terribly knife-like.
‘Shall I get you a pillow from the next room? Personally I cannot bear upholstery. I cannot conceive anything more hideous than a padded armchair. All design is lost in that infamous stuffing. Stuffing is a vicious excuse for the absence of design. If upholstery were forbidden by law to-morrow, in ten years we should have a school of design. Then the necessity of composition would be imperative.’
‘I daresay there is a good deal in what you say; but tell me, don’t you find these chairs very uncomfortable? Don’t you think that you would find a good comfortable arm-chair very useful for reading purposes?’
‘No, I should feel far more uncomfortable on a cushion than I do on this bit of hard oak. Our ancestors had an innate sense of form that we have not. Look at these chairs, nothing can be plainer; a cottage stool is hardly more simple, and yet they are not offensive to the eye. I had them made from a picture by Albert Durer.’
Mr. Hare smoked in silence, uncertain how far John was in earnest, how far he was assuming an attitude of mind. Presently he walked over to the book-cases. There were two: one was filled with learned-looking volumes bearing the names of Latin authors; and the parson, who prided himself on his Latinity, was surprised, and a little nettled, to find so much ignorance proved upon him. With Tertullian, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, he was acquainted, but of Lactantius Hibernicus Exul, Angilbert, he was obliged to admit he knew nothing — even the names were unknown to him.
In the book-case on the opposite side of the room there were complete editions of Landor and Swift, then came two large volumes on Leonardo da Vinci. Raising his eyes, the parson read through the titles: Browning’s works; Tennyson in a cheap seven-and-six edition; Swinburne, Pater, Rossetti, Morris, two novels by Rhoda Broughton, Dickens, Thackeray, Fielding, and Smollett; the complete works of Balzac, Gautier’s Emaux et Camees, Salammbo, L’Assommoir; Carlyle, Newman, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the dramatists of the Restoration.
At the end of a long silence Mr. Hare said glancing once again at the Latin authors, and walking towards the fire:
“Tell me, John, are those the books you are writing about? Supposing you explain to me, in a few words, the line you are taking. Your mother tells me that you intend to call your book the History of Christian Latin.”
“Yes, I had thought of using that title, but I am afraid it is a little too ambitious. To write the history of a literature extending over at least eight centuries would entail an appalling amount of reading; and besides, only a few, say a couple of dozen writers out of some hundreds, are of the slightest literary interest, and very few indeed of any real aesthetic value.
“Ah!” he said, as his eye lighted on a certain name, ‘here is Marbodius, a great poet; how well he understood women! Listen to this:
‘“Femina, dulce malum, pariter favus atque venenum,
Melle linens gladium cor confodit et sapientum.
Quis suasit primo vetitum gustare parenti?
Femina. Quis partem natas vitiare coegit?
Femina. Quis fortem spoliatum crine peremit?
Femina. Quis justi sacrum caput ense recidit?
Femina, quae matris cumulavit crimine crimen,
Incestum gravem graviori caede notavit….
“Chimeram
Cui non immerito fertur data forma triformis,
Nam pars prima leo, pars ultima cauda draconis,
Et mediae partes nil sunt nisi fervidus ignis.”’
‘Well, of course, that quite carries out your views of women. And now tell me what I am to say to your mother. Will you come home for Christmas?’
‘I suppose I must. I suppose it would seem unkind if I didn’t. I wonder why I dislike the place? I cannot think of it without a revulsion of feeling.’
‘I won’t argue that point with you, but I think you ought to come home.’
‘Why come home? Come home and marry my neighbour’s daughter — one of those Austin girls, for instance? Fancy my settling down to live with one them, and undertaking to look after her all my life; walking after her carrying a parasol and a shawl. Don’t you see the ludicrous side? I always see a married man carrying a parasol and a shawl — a parasol and a shawl, the symbols of his office.’ John laughed loudly.
‘The swinging of a censer and the chanting of Latin responses are equally absurd if—’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Ritual is surely not the whole of religion?’
‘No. But we were speaking of several rituals, and Catholic ritual seems to me more dignified than that of the shawl and parasol. The social life of the nineteenth century, that is to say, drawing-rooms, filled with half-dressed women, present no attraction for me. You and my mother think because I do not wish to marry and spend some small part of my time in this college that I intend to become a priest. Marry and bring up children, or enter the Church! There is nothing between, so you say, having regard for my Catholicism. But there is an intermediate state, the onlooker. However strange it may seem to you, I do assure you that no man in the world has less vocation for the priesthood than I. I am merely an onlooker, the world is my monastery. I am an onlooker.’
‘Is not that a very selfish attitude?’
‘My attitude is this. There is a mystery. No one denies that. An explanation is necessary, and I accept the explanation offered by the Roman Catholic Church. I obey Her in all her instruction for the regulation of life; I shirk nothing, I omit nothing, I allow nothing to come between me and my religion. Whatever the Church says I believe, and so all responsibility is removed from me. But this is an attitude of mind which you as a Protestant cannot sympathise with.’
‘I know, my dear John, I know your life is not a dissolute one; but your mother is very anxious — remember you are the last. Is there no chance of your ever marrying?’
‘I fear I am not suited to married life. There is a better and a purer life to lead… an inner life, coloured and permeated with feelings and tones that are intensely our own. He who may live this life shrinks from any adventitious presence that might jar it.’
‘Maybe, it certainly would take too long to discuss — I should miss my train. But tell me, are you coming home for Christmas?’
‘Yes, yes; I have some estate business to see to. I shall be home for Christmas. As for your train … will find out all about your train presently… you must stay to dinner.’
III.
‘I was very much alarmed, my dear John, about your not sleeping. Mr. Hare told me you said that you went two or three nights without closing your eyes, and that you had to have recourse to sleeping draughts.’
‘Not at all, mother, I never took a sleeping draught but twice in my life.’
‘Well, you don’t sleep well, and I am sure it is those college beds. But you will be far more comfortable here. You are in the best bedroom in the house, the one in front of the staircase, the bridal chamber; and I have selected the largest and softest feather-bed in the house.’
‘My dear mother, if there is one thing more than another I dislike, it is a feather-bed. I should not be able to close my eyes; I beg of you to have it taken away.’
Mrs. Norton’s face flushed. ‘I cannot understand, John; it is absurd to say that you cannot sleep on a feather-bed. Mr. Hare told me you complained of insomnia, and there is no surer way of losing your health. It is owing to the hardness of those college mattresses, whereas in a feather-bed—’
‘There is no use in our arguing that point, mother. I say I cannot sleep on a feather-bed—’
‘But you have not tried one; I don’t believe you ever slept on a
feather-bed in your life.’
‘Well, I am not going to begin now.’
‘We haven’t another bed aired, and it is really too late to ask the servants to change your room.’
‘Well, then, I shall be obliged to sleep at the hotel in Henfield.’
‘You should not speak to your mother in that way; I will not have it.’
‘There! you see we are quarrelling already; I did wrong to come home.’
‘It was not to please me that you came home. You were afraid if you didn’t you mightn’t find another tenant for the Beeding farm. You were afraid you might have it on your hands. It was self-interest that brought you home. Don’t try to make me believe it wasn’t.’
Then the conversation drifted into angry discussion.
‘You are not even a J. P., but there will be no difficulty about that; you must make application to the Lord-Lieutenant…. You have not seen any of the county people for years. We’ll have the carriage out some day this week, and we’ll pay a round of visits.’
‘We’ll do nothing of the kind. I have no time for visiting; I must get on with my book. I hope to finish my study of St. Augustine before I leave here. I have my books to unpack, and a great deal of reading to get through. I have done no more than glance at the Anglo-Latin. Literature died in France with Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth century; with St. Gregory the Great, in Italy, at the commencement of the seventh century; in Spain about the same time. And then the Anglo-Saxons became the representatives of the universal literature. All this is most important. I must re-read St. Aldhelm.’
‘Now, sir, we have had quite enough of that, and I would advise you not to go on with any of that nonsense here; you will be turned into dreadful ridicule.’
‘That’s just why I wish to avoid them. Just fancy my having to listen to them! What is the use of growing wheat when we are only getting eight pounds ten a load? … But we must grow something, and there is nothing else but wheat. We must procure a certain amount of straw, or we’d have no manure. I don’t believe in the fish manure. But there is market gardening, and if we kept shops at Brighton, we could grow our own stuff and sell it at retail price…. And then there is a great deal to be done with flowers.’
‘Now, sir, that will do, that will do…. How dare you speak to me so! I will not allow it.’ And then relapsing into an angry silence, Mrs. Norton drew her shawl about her shoulders.
‘Why will she continue to impose her will upon mine? Why has she not found out by this time the uselessness of her effort? She hopes at last to wear me down. She wants me to live the life she has marked out for me to live — to take up my position in the county, and, above all, to marry and give her an heir to the property. I see it all; that is why she wanted me to spend Christmas with her; that is why she has Kitty Hare here to meet me. How cunning, how mean women are! a man would not do that. Had I known it…. I have a mind to leave to- morrow. I wonder if the girl is in the little conspiracy.’ And turning his head he looked at her.
Tall and slight, a grey dress, pale as the wet sky, fell from her waist outward in the manner of a child’s frock. There was a lightness, there was brightness in the clear eyes. The intense youth of her heart was evanescent; it seemed constantly rising upwards like the breath of a spring morning. The face sharpened to a tiny chin, and the face was pale, although there was bloom on the cheeks. The forehead was shadowed by a sparkling cloud of brown hair, the nose was straight, and each little nostril was pink tinted. The ears were like shells. There was a rigidity in her attitude. She laughed abruptly, perhaps a little nervously, and the abrupt laugh revealed the line of tiny white teeth. Thin arms fell straight to the translucent hands, and there was a recollection of Puritan England in look and in gesture. Her picturesqueness calmed John’s ebullient discontent; he decided that she knew nothing of, and was not an accomplice in, his mother’s scheme. And, for the sake of his guest, he strove to make himself agreeable during dinner, but it was clear that he missed the hierarchy of the college table. The conversation fell repeatedly. Mrs. Norton and Kitty spoke of making syrup for bees; and their discussion of the illness of poor Dr. — , who would no longer be able to get through the work of the parish single-handed, and would require a curate, was continued till the ladies rose from the table. Nor did matters mend in the library. The room seemed to him intolerably uncomfortable and ugly, and he went to the billiard-room to smoke a cigar. It was not clear to him that he would be able to spend two months in Thornby Place. If every evening passed like the present, it were a modern martyrdom…. But had they removed the feather-bed? He went upstairs. The feather-bed had been removed. But the room was draped with many curtains — pale curtains covered with walking birds and falling petals, a sort of Indian pattern. There was a sofa at the foot of the bed, and a toilet table hung out its skirts in the light of the fire. He thought of his ascetic college bed, of the great Christ upon the wall, of the prie-dieu with the great rosary hanging. To lie in this great bed seemed ignoble; and he could not rid his mind of the distasteful feminine influences which had filled the day, and which now haunted the night.
After breakfast next morning Mrs. Norton stopped John as he was going upstairs to unpack his books. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you must go out for a walk with Kitty Hare, and I hope you will make yourself agreeable. I want you to see the new greenhouse I have put up; she’ll show it to you. And I told the bailiff to meet you in the yard. I thought you would like to see him.’
‘I wish, mother, you would not interfere in my business; had I wanted to see Burns I should have sent for him.’
‘If you don’t want to see him, he wants to see you. There are some cottages on the farm that must be put into repair at once. As for interfering in your business, I don’t know how you can talk like that; were it not for me the whole place would be falling to pieces.’
‘Quite true; I know you save me a great deal of expense; but really—’
‘Really what? You won’t go out to walk with Kitty Hare?’
‘I did not say I wouldn’t, but I must say that I am very busy just now. I had thought of doing a little reading, for I have an appointment with my solicitor in the afternoon.’
‘That man charges you 200 pounds a year for collecting the rents; now, if you were to do it yourself, you would save the money, and it would give you something to do.’
‘Something to do! I have too much to do as it is…. But if I am going out with Kitty I may as well go at once. Where is she?’
‘I saw her go into the library a moment ago.’
It was preferable to go for a walk with Kitty than to continue the interview with his mother. John seized his hat and called Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! Presently she appeared, and they walked towards the garden, talking. She told him she had been at Thornby Place the whole time the greenhouse was being built, and when they opened the door they were greeted by Sammy, He sprang instantly on her shoulder.
‘This is my cat,’ she said. ‘I’ve fed him since he was a little kitten; isn’t he sweet?’
The girl’s beauty appeared on the brilliant flower background; and the boyish slightness of her figure led John to think of a statuette done in a period of Greek decadence. ‘Others,’ he thought, ‘would only see her as a somewhat too thin example of English maidenhood. I see her quite differently.’ And when her two tame rooks alighted at her feet, he said:
‘I wonder how you can let them come near you.’
‘Why not; don’t you like birds?’
‘No, they frighten me; there’s something electric about birds.’
‘Poor little things, they fell out of the nest before they could fly, and I brought them up. You don’t care for pets?’
‘I don’t like birds. I couldn’t sit in a room with a large bird. There’s something in the sensation of feathers I can’t bear.’
‘Don’t like birds! Why, that seems as if you said that you didn’t like flowers.’
And while the young squire talked to his bailiff Kitty fed her rooks.
They cawed, and flew to her hand for the scraps of meat. The coachman came to speak about oats and straw. They went to the stables. Kitty adored horses, and it amused John to see her pat them, and her vivacity and light-heartedness rather pleased him than otherwise.
Nevertheless, during the whole of the following week the ladies held little communication with John. In the morning he went out with his bailiffs to inspect farms and consult about possible improvement and necessary repairs. He had appointments with his solicitor. There were accounts to be gone through. He never paid a bill without verifying every item. At four o’clock he came in to tea, his head full of calculations of such complex character that even his mother could not follow the different statements to his satisfaction. When she disagreed with him he took up the Epistles of St. Columban of Bangor the Epistola ad Sethum, or the celebrated poem, Epistola ad Fedolium, written when the saint was seventy-two, and continued his reading, making copious notes in a pocket-book.
