by George Moore
And the girl, sat listening, her long thin hand (so like Percy’s, Hugh thought) laid upon the open book, her eyes awake like Percy’s when a thought flashed into her mind. Her thoughts do not move so quickly as his, he said to himself, but they move; and he continued to praise the drawings that Percy had made, taking note of the intellectual stir upon her face, a flushed face, shadowed with bright brown hair. A prettier face than Percy’s not so thin, but of the same cast of countenance, he thought during a pause that had fallen upon them. You have seen him draw then? Beatrice asked. Seen him draw, Hugh answered. Whilst we were away he did nothing else but draw. You left here at daybreak, didn’t you? she said, and Hugh burst into loud laughter. Yes, he answered, leaving a letter for mother that must have made her very angry, for a number of people were coming down for the week-end, and mother’s visitors are — He stopped, his wits overturned by the thought that he could not with propriety discuss his mother’s visitors with Beatrice, whom he hardly knew. But what to say next he did not know, and to complete the confusion of the moment he asked Beatrice if she thought that Percy would become a priest. Percy must adopt some profession, she answered. Father wanted him to go into the Army, but he is not strong enough to live in a regiment, nor is his mind such a one as would find sympathy among soldiers. He would indeed be an exile among the commonplace that goes to the making of our excellent soldiers, whereas I can imagine him easily as an eighteenth-century Abbé. But we are not in the eighteenth century, Hugh said, and she continued as if she had not noticed the reproof, saying that she could see Percy chaplain in the mansion of a great French noble — a mansion in which there was an organ — and that perhaps he had as much talent for music as for drawing, Hugh taking a different view. In his mind there could be no doubt in what direction Percy’s talent lay, and for him to put aside his drawing and take up music merely because a living would come to him more easily as a priest than as an artist, would be a great misfortune, one that he (Hugh) could not bring himself even to consider. I look forward, he said, to an exhibition of his drawings in London. I shall, of course, be a large purchaser of Ferabras, the book which we were going to do together. I’m sure it’s very good of you, Beatrice murmured, and they stood looking at each other, thinking of Percy but not daring to speak the thoughts that were in their minds, for they both knew that it was not certain if Percy’s health would allow him to live in England. After a few seconds it was necessary to say something, and because he could not think of anything else Hugh said: So mother told you that we went away at daybreak, leaving a letter? Anything else? No, Beatrice answered, she just said that. I only arrived this morning and have had very little talk with her, for which she apologised. But I told Mrs. Monfert that she could rely upon me to find plenty of things to interest me; I am always happy with a book in the library. She said that she expected you back in a day or two, that was all. My mother, as I told you, was expecting visitors when we went away, Hugh said, and relied upon us to entertain them. I don’t mind telling you that it was to escape her visitors, a somewhat scratch lot, you know, that we left; and taking pleasure in the story, Hugh told her how they had jumped into a train not knowing whither they were going, paying the ticket collector for the tickets and begging him to say nothing as to the destination of the train. We hopped out of the train when we were tired of it and hopped into another. And who was it, Beatrice asked laughing, who started this eccentric journey? Why, Percy of course, but you mustn’t tell my mother so. And what happened then?
He told her of the walking tour through the dry autumn weather, one sunny day leading into another, their bourne the next inn. We never allowed ourselves to make plans, he said; and then his face suddenly changing from gay to grave, he began the story of the strange adventure that had befallen them at The Merry Fiddlers and the doctor’s diagnosis. He said that Percy should live as much as possible in the open air, Hugh added, and that was why we slept every night on Ramsey Island wrapped up in blankets among the bracken under the stars.
What a spirited pair! Beatrice remarked. Well, it was all Percy’s invention; and seeing that it pleased Beatrice to hear the story of their sojourn on the island, he told her of the fishing, the bathing, the wild goats, the great caverns into which they penetrated, the breeding place of hundreds of seals, and of the baby seal they had taken away in their boat. Poor little chap, he cried bitterly, the parent seals following us all the way, for they knew that the baby was in the boat and the baby knew that his parents were coming behind. And what did you do with him? Beatrice asked. Well, you know, seals become very tame, but as I was not going to buy the island we put him down on the shore; his father and mother flapped their way up to him and nosed him into the water. But he couldn’t cross the terrible Sound, could he? There was no need that he should; the seals keep under the rocks where there is very little current. They got him back safe enough. And Percy was well all that time? Yes, quite well. I think when you see the drawings that he did among the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace and the cliffs of Ramsey Island you will agree with me that he is more an artist than a musician. He cannot be as much one as the other; there’s always a bias. And then he spoke of the sketches Percy had made whilst listening to the story of Ferabras. Wonderful, wonderful! Something all his own, a magical touch. A purfled coat drawn by Percy is more beautiful than the original; his pencil adds beauty to the most beautiful things. But he is impatient; his last words to me were that I was to hurry on with the translation, quite forgetting that I don’t know the language. But men of genius are endowed with an instinct, and I suppose he knew that you were coming here, knew instinctively, I mean, a premonition. However, there it is. We have to do this, Miss Knight. May I call you Beatrice? Of course you may, she answered. And Percy is now at Stanislaus College? Going to be a priest, Hugh answered, and they talked for a long time of Stanislaus College and Dr. Knight, Hugh telling that her father was the friend who had brightened his schooldays, and Beatrice asking many questions about her father that Hugh answered as best he could, and of these questions he remembered nothing; as soon as he had answered them, they passed out of his head, question and answer. But he remembered always one thing that Beatrice said: Father is intelligent and so was mother, but quite different from us, and I don’t think they ever understood how it was that they had managed to bring into the world two such beings, for they looked upon us as quite wonderful even when we were little children. As a hen thinks of two little ducklings that have just broken their shells and made their way straight into the water, to her great fear and dismay, Hugh said.
Beatrice smiled and sat thinking, for this image seemed to convey perfectly to her the minds of her parents as she remembered them. A gong sounded through the house, and a few minutes afterwards Hugh’s valet came into the Barn, a can of hot water in his hand. Dinner will be ready a little earlier to-night than usual, sir.
X
At the end of a fortnight Hugh and Beatrice began to speak of having broken through the first line of defences. We are not in the citadel, far from it, Hugh said, but we have gained a footing, I think; and they fell to talking of the translation they would make of Ferabras, if Percy did not choose the adventures of Gérard de Rousillon. Whichever story appealed to him they would translate freely — a free translation was what was needed, not a pedantic rendering; but to accomplish even a free rendering of the story they must at least capture a little more of the language; for this end an old gentleman was discovered who would come down from London to teach them, and one evening as they were talking together of to-morrow’s lesson Mrs. Monfert warned them that they would have to telegraph to their teacher to postpone his coming, for she had asked several people to luncheon the next day. More visitors! Hugh whispered to Beatrice. The habit has gained upon her. We seldom have two consecutive days to ourselves. Next morning Hugh said: Now, what would Percy do on an occasion like this? Would he endure the tedium of many hours of small talk? I think he’d run away into the woods, Beatrice answered. Well, let us do the same,
said Hugh. Bringing our luncheon with us, Beatrice interjected, books, pencils, and writing paper; we can work as well in the woods as in the Barn. Mother will be very angry, Hugh replied, but it can’t be helped.
You will not be late for luncheon? Mrs. Monfert cried after them from one of the windows, and the truants waved their hands in evasive reply; and delighting in their truancy they turned from the long reach of avenue into a quiet wood and followed a path of green twilight into which the sun’s rays never entered, a delicious little path, twisting through great hornbeams, and putting into the mind the thought that to walk in it was a gain and happiness. It struggled at last out of its seclusion into a glade, and hard-by was a gate leading into the high road, ascending abruptly and overhung with the park trees, through which it was pleasant to look; and Beatrice wondered why it was that Hugh should like better a seascape than these bosky corners of a park full of withering grasses and flowering willow weed. We agree in many things, she said, but I like Essex, its sluggish streams followed always by willow trees, and I like to look down into these dingles, and wonder why we do not spend more of our time amongst them. We spend too much of our time in houses, Hugh answered; happiness is found in the open air, under trees or upon cliffs, I am not certain which. And conscious that happiness was leading them, they turned off the high road, and passing by the cottages in which the Hall servants lived they entered another wood traversed by deeply rutted roads, ruts dating back to the time when a great many trees were felled for timber. In winter, Hugh said, these roads are filled with muddy pools. Now it is like walking over rubble heaps. The shooters station themselves along these roads (if they can be called roads), and crumple up the pheasants as they pass over the tops of the trees, if they be good marksmen. A great many trees had been taken away; the wood was thin and at every few yards were the stumps of the felled trees. My mother sold a great deal of timber, too much, Hugh said, during my minority, for her hope was to save a good deal of money for me so that I might be able to rebuild Wotton Hall without feeling it. I can see that a good many trees are gone, but it is still a pleasant wood, Beatrice answered, with enough shelter from the sun. And having followed the brick-hard road for several hundred yards, they came in sight of a clearing with a house in it. The keeper’s, Hugh said, and they had not gone much further when three or four long-bodied, white-haired terriers started barking. My mother’s dogs! And Beatrice began to wonder if Hugh begrudged his mother a dog. But if she mentioned the subject, he would only answer: One dog, two dogs, but why so many dogs? so she let the matter go by without putting any questions, certain that it was well to restrain her curiosity and keep in mind the old adage, not to put your fingers between the bark and the tree; so she had not been much troubled with Mrs. Monfert’s grievances, only a little whining lament occasionally when they were alone, and a few grunts from Hugh when she found herself alone with him.
There’s grass and shade a little way down the hillside under the larches, Hugh said, interrupting her thoughts; some rain has fallen lately and the grass has sprung again. And they lay down to talk, their thoughts beguiled by the view of a bare, open country that showed through the screening trees, fading into blue woods and distances. Like a tapestry, said Hugh, almost as empty of life. You don’t like tapestry? Beatrice asked. Yes, I do, he answered, in a way. But only in a way, she said, as you like women. Hugh said that he could hear his mother in that remark, and Beatrice was sorry for having made it. You mustn’t judge me by what my mother tells you about me. I would sooner that you take me just as you find me, as Percy did. She had no talk with Percy, so I had a fair chance. But we always take ideas from one another; nobody is unprejudiced, Beatrice answered. You came to me prejudiced in my favour; we shouldn’t have got on so well as we did, at least not so quickly, if you hadn’t known Percy first, or if you had not found a great deal of Percy in me. But that is not extraordinary, replied Hugh; it is a compliment, I think, for it shows that I am true to type. I like a certain style. Why should I like Percy and then like you if you were absolutely different from Percy! If I did, I should be among those who have no taste at all. A man’s course must be guided by some fixed principle; it shouldn’t be zig-zag; he must have a style, in other words, preferences. I know that if Dante had not met Beatrice he would have found another who would have suited his purpose equally. We bring our characters into the world, and it would seem that character is Fate; yet our lives depend upon circumstances; from the moment we come into the world we are being moulded, and the more we think about it the less we understand. In all we see and hear and think we find ourselves beset by contradictions. Beatrice answered to all this that things are led up to, adducing the famous example of Romeo who was in love with Rosalind for three acts, saying that we love those in whose company we are thrown, a view which Hugh could not accept, replying that we love those we are drawn to by a similarity of ideas and tastes. Were it not so, he continued, we should be as animals, whose love is merely seasonal; but in man love is not altogether physical. Not in woman, Beatrice answered, but it is in man, for whereas there are many instances of women having married men who had lost a limb in war, not loving them less because they had but one arm to clasp them with, there are no stories of men who married one-legged women for their intelligence. The highest love of all, Hugh said, his face becoming suddenly grave, is man’s love of God. And it is woman, Beatrice answered, who says: Thy people shall be my people, thy God shall be my God, proving that woman is more absorbed in her love than man is in his, for she can renounce her religion so that she may unite herself more completely to the man she loves. To a man it matters little if he goes to one church and she goes to another, but it matters a great deal to a woman. It may be that a woman is too much absorbed in her love and makes herself wearisome by it. A certain clash is necessary, Hugh answered, and it may be better for them to go to different churches. But the words had barely passed his lips when he began to fear that he was guilty of a heresy, and withdrew them, saying: The Church holds a different view, and as I have accepted the Church as my guide my opinions change accordingly. What about zig-zag? asked Beatrice. There’s no zig-zag, he answered; I accept the Church. At which Beatrice laughed and began to speak of a letter she had received that morning from Percy.
A letter from Percy! May I read it? Of course you may; and after glancing through it, Hugh said: I can see that Pater’s argument still rankles in him. It was I who told him that Pater looked upon the love the troubadours bestowed on women they had never seen as but an off-shoot of the cloister; for the cloister, Pater says, had never tried to suppress love, rather to increase it by the substitution of the invisible for the visible. From women to saints and angels, Beatrice interjected. Yes, Hugh replied, from earth to heaven; and what had been fostered in the cloister was transferred to the castle. But, Hugh, said Beatrice, do you think that mankind will ever he satisfied with a love that is wholly spiritual? Is it not true that many troubadours — Sudden fallings away from the ideal matter nothing, Hugh interposed, so long as the ideal is not lost sight of, and I maintain against Percy that Pater is right. Pater’s argument is so ingenious, Beatrice answered, that I wonder Percy doesn’t accept it. In his allusion to it there is a hostility. Hostile he certainly is, said Hugh, to the remoulding of our beliefs regarding the troubadours. The movement is so picturesque and so intimately concerned with himself, his artistic self, I mean; you see, Percy is composed of two different people; he is going to be a priest —
Do you think so? interjected Beatrice. One never knows what will happen until it has happened, Hugh answered. Percy’s objection to Pater’s theory is instinctive; he would not have the troubadours owe anything to the Church. Beatrice suggested that such stubbornness almost presupposed an alternative theory. Oh yes, there’s an alternative theory, Hugh replied. He does not deny that a great many troubadours loved women they had never seen, and that the idealism which certainly prevailed — How did he explain it? Beatrice asked. He would connect it with the philosophy of the t
ime. Plato was much read in the twelfth century and so was Aristotle, and from these two philosophers the Middle Ages developed two distinct currents of thought — Realism and Nominalism. The Realists derived from Plato, for they held that humanity had a separate existence apart from men and women, that it was an essence which was distributed, each individual getting his and her share of it. But the Nominalists were of opinion that humanity was merely a word, a mode of speech, a mouthful of breath (that was the expression they used about generic terms), and that we should know nothing about humanity if there were no men and women. The extreme Realists argued that humanity would exist independently of men and women. Another example will perhaps help you to understand: the Nominalists said that it was impossible to think of white except in connection with an object. And did men waste much time over such subtleties? she asked. For two centuries at least Nominalism and Realism interested men more than anything else. Percy would say that all modern thought was born of these discussions and that the modern world owes everything to the twelfth century. But how did the rival philosophies explain the troubadours? The troubadours, you see, Beatrice, were the Realists. They sought women in the abstract, the ideal woman, not the individual. And Hugh began to cite instances, and when he had come to the end of all the known examples, Beatrice said: Well, Percy’s explanation seems as good as another. But how does Percy think of all these things? she added. Was there ever before, or will there ever be again, another boy like Percy? He seems to know life at eighteen, how it is made. We observe; he knows. Percy is very wonderful, no doubt, Hugh replied, my admiration for his genius never ceases; but his knowledge of the Realists and the Nominalists could be derived from any textbook. He has read philosophy at Stanislaus, some at any rate, and he is very quick. The troubadours he picked up from me; I don’t think he knew anything about them three weeks ago. Now they are all his own; to hear him talk one would think that he had been one in some anterior existence.
