by George Moore
Agnes sat in the back of the box and wondered why Lilian’s refusal to marry St. Clare had made no difference in his affection, nor in hers; they seemed as intimate as ever, and Agnes could hear them planning a rendezvous. Lilian was going south, but St. Clare was to meet her in Paris. Agnes wondered — a thought she did not like crossed her mind; she put it instantly aside and bent her attention on the play.
There was a great deal in it that she did not understand, or that she only understood vaguely. She did seem to wish to understand it. But the others listened greedily, as well they might, for the conversation on the stage was like the conversation in the Grosvenor Street drawing-room, as like as if a phonograph was repeating it.
‘I should not make such a fuss if I heard that my dear Major had—’
Agnes did not hear the rest of the sentence.
‘If I were to revenge myself on you, Lilian.’
‘You had better not…. Besides, there is nothing to revenge.’
‘Isn’t there,’ said St. Clare, and his face grew suddenly grave.
‘You are my first and you’ll be my last,’ Agnes heard her whisper, and she saw St. Clare look at her incredulously.
‘You don’t believe me. Well, I don’t care what you believe,’ and she turned her back on him and listened to the play.
And when the play was done Agnes went home in a hansom, sitting between her mother and Lord Chadwick. St. Clare and Lilian followed in another hansom, and the two hansoms drew up together in Grosvenor Street. After the theatre there was always supper, and Agnes knew that they would sit talking till one or two in the morning. She was not hungry; she was tired; she asked if she might go to her room; they were all glad to excuse her; and she ran up to her room and closed the door. She threw off her opera cloak hastily, and then stood looking into the fire. Suddenly her brain filled with thoughts which she could not repress, and involuntary sensation crowded upon her. There was the vivid sensation of her mother’s painted face; there was the sensation of her father — his strange clothes, his shy, pathetic face…. She preferred to think of her father, and she asked herself why he did not go to the theatre with them; why he did not appear oftener at meals. His food was generally taken to him. Where did he live? Up that narrow flight of stairs? She had seen him run up those stairs in strange haste, as if he didn’t wish to be seen, like a servant — an under servant whose presence in the front of the house is discrepant.
Suddenly Agnes felt that she was very unhappy, and she unlaced her bodice quickly. The action of unlacing distracted her thoughts. She would not go to bed yet. She took a chair, and sat down in front of the fire, thinking. The convent appeared to her clear and distinct in all its quiet life of happy devotion and innocent recreation. She remembered the pleasure she used to take in the work of the sacristy, in laying out the vestments for the priest, for Father White; and in the games at ball in the garden with those dear nuns. She remembered them all; and, seen through the tender atmosphere of sorrow, they seemed dearer than ever they had done before. How happy she had been with them; she did not expect ever to be so happy again. The world was so lonely, so indifferent. She was very unhappy…. And her life seemed so fragile that the least touch would break it. Her tears flowed as from a crystal, and they did not cease until the silence in the street allowed her to hear her father’s quick steps pacing it. She could hear his steps coming from Grosvenor Square. Her poor father! Every night it was the same ceaseless pacing to and fro. She had heard her mother say that he sometimes walked till three in the morning. She had watched him a night or two ago out of her window. It was freezing hard, and he had on only an old grey suit of clothes buttoned tightly, and a comforter round his neck. Her father’s subordination in the house was one of the mysteries which confronted Agnes. She did not understand, but she knew by instinct that her father was not happy, and her unhappiness went out to his. She pitied him, she longed to make him happier. Others might think him strange, but she understood him. Their talk was strange to her, not his. Last Sunday he had taken her to mass, and they had walked in the park afterwards, and he had been happy until they met Mr. Moulton. A little later they had met her mother and Lord Chadwick. Mr. St. Clare and Miss Lilian Dare had come to lunch. She had seen no more of her father that day. She had hoped that Father White would come and see her, but he had not come; she had sat in her room alone, and after dinner her mother had scolded her because she did not talk to Lord Chiselhurst, an old man who had talked to her in a loud rasping voice. He was overpowering; her strength had given way, she had fainted, and she had been carried out of the room. When she opened her eyes St. Clare was standing by her…. She was glad it was he and not Lord Chiselhurst who had carried her out.
But they would not let her back to the convent before six months. She had been a week at home, and it had seemed a century. The time would never pass. She did not think she would be able to endure it for six months. Her father did not like her to go back. Was it not her duty to remain by him? He was as unhappy as she, and she was very unhappy. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she cried until her tears were interrupted by the sound of her father’s latchkey.
She listened to his footsteps as he came upstairs. When he arrived on her landing, instead of going to the end of the passage, and up the staircase, he stopped; it seemed as if he were hesitating about something. Agnes wondered, and hoped he was coming to see her. A moment after he knocked.
‘Is that you, father?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then wait a moment.’
She slipped her arms into her dressing-gown and opened the door to him.
‘It is nice and snug here,’ he said, coming towards the fire—’ nice and snug. But bitterly cold in the street; I could not keep warm, yet I walked at the rate of five miles an hour. I ran round Grosvenor Square, but the moment I stopped running I began to get cold again. I couldn’t keep up the circulation anyhow.’
‘Then sit down and warm yourself, father.’
‘No thank you, I like standing up best. I’ll just stop a minute. I hope I am not in the way; tell me if I am.’
‘In the way, father; what do you mean?’
‘Nothing, dear, I only thought. Well, I’ll just get the cold out of my bones before I go up to my room. It is cold up there, I can tell you.’
The girl’s keen, passionate eyes looking out of a grief-worn face, and a figure so thin that she looked tall, contrasted with the little fat man dressed in the yellow tweed suit buttoned across his rounding stomach. To see them together by the fire in the bedroom made a strange and moving picture. For the figures seemed united by mysterious analogies and the fragments of bread and cheese which the Major held in his old blued fingers were significant.
‘I could hear them singing in the drawing-room,’ he said, ‘when I came in, so I stepped into the dining-room. One feels a bit hungry after walking. How did you like the play, dear?’
‘Pretty well, father,’ she answered, and she strove to check the tears which rose to her eyes.
‘You’ve been grieving, Agnes. What have you been grieving for — for your convent; tell me, dear? I can’t bear to see you unhappy.’
‘No, father; don’t think of me.’
‘Not think of you, Agnes! Of whom should I think, then? Tell me all, everything. If you’re not happy here you shall go back. I won’t see you unhappy. It is my fault; only I thought that you had better come home and see the world first. I had thought that we might have altered things here, just for your sake.’
‘But you, father, you’re not happy here; you would be still more unhappy if I went back to the convent. That is true, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that is true, dear; but you must not think about me. There’s no use thinking about me; I’m not worth thinking about.’
‘Don’t say that, father, you mustn’t speak like that;’ and unable to control her feelings any longer, Agnes threw herself into her father’s arms. And she did not speak until she perceived that her father was weeping with h
er.
‘What are you weeping for, father?’
‘For you, dear, because you’re not happy.’
‘There are other reasons,’ she said, looking inquiringly and tenderly.
‘No, dear, there’s nothing else now in the world for me to grieve for. You must go back to the convent if you’re not happy.’
‘But you, father?’
‘It will be hard to lose you… things may change. You must have patience; wait a little while, will you?’
‘Of course, father, as long as you like, but you’ll come down and talk to me here?’
‘Yes; I should have come oftener, but I know that I’m not clever, my conversation isn’t amusing, so I stick at my work up there.’
‘You live up there?’
‘Yes; you’ve not seen my room — a little room under the slates — something like a monk’s cell. I’ve often thought of going into a monastery. I daresay it is from me that you get the taste.’
‘You live up there, father; your room is up there. May I go up and see you sometimes; I shan’t be disturbing you at your work, shall I?’
‘No; I should think not: just fancy you wishing to come to see me, and up there too!’
‘When may I come, father? When are you least busy?’
‘You can come now.’
‘May I?’
‘We mustn’t make any noise; all the servants are asleep,’ and he held the candle higher for her to see the last steps, and he pushed open a door. ‘It is here.’
It was a little loft under the roof, and the roof slanted so rapidly that it was possible to stand upright only in one part of the room. There was in one corner a truckle bed, which Agnes could hardly believe her father slept in, and in the midst of the uncarpeted floor stood the type-writing machine, the working of which the Major at once explained to Agnes. He told her how much he had already earned, and entered into a calculation of the number of hours he would have to work before he could pay off the debt he had incurred in buying the machine. His wife had advanced him the money to buy it — she must be paid back. When that was done, he would be able to see ahead, and he looked forward to the time when he would be independent. There were other debts, but the first debt was the heaviest. His wife had advanced the money for the clothes he had worn at the luncheon party, and there was the furniture of his room. But that could not be much — the bed, well that little iron framework, he had borrowed it; it had come from the kitchen-maid’s room. She had wanted a larger bed. ‘But, father, dear, you’ve hardly any bedclothes.’ ‘Yes, I have, dear. I have that overcoat, and I sleep very well under it too. I bought it from the butler, I paid him ten shillings for it, and I made the ten shillings by copying. The money ought to have gone to your mother, but I had to have something to cover me; it is very cold up here, and I thought I had better keep her waiting than contract a new debt.’
‘But what is mother’s is yours, father.’
‘Ah, I’ve heard people say that, but it isn’t true.’
‘How did you lose your money, father?’ The Major told her how he had been robbed.
‘Then it was not your fault, father. And the man who robbed you you say is now—’
‘A great swell, and very highly thought of.’
Agnes saw the coarse clothes, the common boots, and the rough comforter. And her eyes wandered round the room-the bare, miserable little attic garret in which he lived. ‘And with that type-writing machine,’ she thought, ‘he is trying to redeem himself from the disrespect he has fallen into because he was robbed of his money.’
‘It must be getting very late, father; I had better go to my room. But, father, you are not comfortable here; sleep in my room; let me sleep here.’
‘Let you sleep here, my daughter — sleep up here among the servants!’
He stayed a few minutes in her room, and while warming his hands, he said:
‘Everything in the world is dependent on money. We can preserve neither our own nor the respect of others if we have nothing. I have tried. It wasn’t to be done.’
IV.
‘I’m not disturbing you, father?’
‘No, dear: you never disturb me,’ he said, getting up from the type- writer and giving her his chair. ‘But what is the matter?’
‘Nothing, at least nothing in particular. I got tired of the drawing- room, and thought I’d like to come and sit with you. But I’ve taken your chair.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can stand, I’ve been sitting so long.’
‘But no, father, I can’t take your chair. I don’t want to stop you from working. I thought I’d like to sit and watch you. Here, take your chair.’
‘I can get another. I can get one out of the butler’s room. He won’t mind just for once. He’s a very particular man. But I’ll tell him I took it for you.’
The Major returned a moment after with a chair. He gave it to Agnes and resumed his place at the machine.
‘I shan’t be many minutes before I finish this lot,’ he said; ‘then we shall be able to talk. I promised to get them finished this evening.’
She had never seen a type-writing machine at work before, and admired the nimbleness with which his fingers struck the letters, and the dexterity with which he passed fresh sheets of paper under the roller. When he had finished and was gathering the sheets together, she said, —
‘How clever you are.’
‘I think I picked it up pretty quickly. I can do seventy words a minute. Some typists can do eighty, but my fingers are too old for that. Still, seventy is a good average, and I have hardly any corrections to make. They are very pleased with my work…. I’ll teach you — you’d soon pick it up.’
‘Will you, father? Then I should be able to assist you. We could sit together, you in that corner, I in this. I wonder if mother would buy me a machine. I could pay her back out of the money I earned, just like you.’
‘Your mother would say you were wasting your time. You’ve come home, she’d say, to go into society, and not to learn type-writing.’
‘I’m afraid she would. But father, there is no use my going into society. I shall never get on in society. Last night at Lord Chiselhurst’s — —’
‘Yes; tell me about it. You must have enjoyed yourself there.’
Agnes did not answer for a long while, at last she said, —
‘There’s something, father, dear, that I must speak to you about…. Mother thinks I ought to marry Lord Chiselhurst, that I ought to make up to him and catch him if I can. She says that he likes very young girls, and that she could see that he liked me. But, father, I cannot marry him. He is — no, I cannot marry him. I do not like him, I’m only sixteen, and he’s forty or fifty. But that isn’t the reason, at least not the only reason. I don’t want to marry any one, and mother doesn’t seem to understand that. She said if that were so, she really didn’t see why I left the convent.’
She was too intent on what she was saying to notice the light which flashed in the Major’s eyes.
‘I said, “Mother, I never wanted to leave the convent, it was you who wanted me home.” “No,” she said, “it was not I, it was your father. But now that you are here I should like you to make a good marriage.” Then she turned and kissed me…. I don’t want to say anything against mother; she loves me, I’m sure: but we’re so different, I shall never understand mother, I shall never get on in society. I cannot, father, dear, I cannot, I feel so far away; I do not know what to say to the people I meet. I do not feel that I understand them when they speak to me; I am far away, that is what I feel; I shall never get over that feeling; I shall not succeed, and then mother will get to hate me…. I am so unhappy, father, I’m so unhappy.’
Agnes dropped on her knees, and throwing her arms on her father’s shoulder, she said:
‘But, father, you’re not listening. Listen to me, I’ve only you.’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of many things.’
‘Poor father
, you have a great deal to think of, and I come interrupting your work. How selfish I am.’
‘No, dear, you’re not selfish…. I’m very glad you told me. So you think you’ll never get on in society.’
‘I don’t think I’m suited for society.’
‘I’m afraid you think that all society is like our drawing-room?’
‘How was it, father, that our drawing-room came to be what it is?’
‘A great deal of it is my fault, dear. When I lost my money I got disheartened, and little by little I lost control. One day I was told that as I paid for nothing I had no right to grumble. Your mother said, in reply to some question about me, that I was “merely an expense.” I believe the phrase was considered very clever, it went the round of society, and eventually was put into a play. And that is why I told you that money is everything, that it is difficult to be truthful, honourable, or respectable if you have no money, a little will do, but you must have a little, if you haven’t you aren’t respectable, you’re nothing, you become like me, a mere expense…. I’ve borne it for your sake, dearest.’
‘For my sake, father, what do you mean?’
‘Never mind, best not to ask…. My dearest daughter, I would bear it all over again for your sake. But it is maddening work, it goes to the head at last. It makes one feel as if something was giving way there,’ he said, touching his forehead, ‘it does indeed.’
‘But, father, you mustn’t bear this any longer, not for my sake, father, no, not for my sake; you must find some way out of it.’
