by George Moore
As Hugh spoke these words he foresaw a cheek-by-jowl dinner with Dr. Knight, a breakfast with him in the morning, and a starting out for a three hours’ journey to London in the same railway carriage, alone perhaps in it, each rapt in his own thoughts, the silences broken by casual conversation. When will this torture be over? he asked himself, and cursed the untimely meeting with Father Lambert and his own weakness in allowing himself to be led into the parlour and tea to be ordered for him. If he had only had the courage to shake off Father Lambert, he would be half-way to Birmingham by this time and free for ever from Stanislaus College, the very name of which was disagreeable to him; and henceforth Stanislaus College would be more hateful, for his one pleasant memory of it, Dr. Knight, would be associated in his mind with the most painful moments of his life. Of course this should not be so, for none could have been kinder than Dr. Knight; his kindness had exceeded anything that Hugh expected, yet he never would meet Dr. Knight again with pleasure. He had lost his friend. On looking through his life he could see nothing that he could call his own, nothing to look forward to — Except the moment, perhaps, when I shall bid him good-bye in London. And during the journey to London this moment was never out of his mind — when he and Dr. Knight would drive out of the station yard in different cabs, bidding each other goodbye.
But on arriving in London it seemed to Hugh that he could not do else but accompany Dr. Knight to Charing Cross. It would not look well to leave him, since he had been so kind and sympathetic, till the last moment. But he did not foresee that they would arrive at Charing Cross half an hour before the train started; had he foreseen this, he would not have gone, for the walking up and down the platform was very irksome, Dr. Knight speaking very kindly — he could not do otherwise. It was sometimes in Hugh’s thoughts that the prelate might change his mind again and say: I cannot leave you, Hugh. My daughter is with your mother, who will take care of her. My duty is towards you. He did say something of the kind, and Hugh answered: But nothing can happen to me, sir, nothing. I shall think over the advice you have given me to go for a trip round the world, to come back in a year or two years when the memory has faded. He could see that his words did not altogether convince Dr. Knight, and the prelate seemed to hesitate before the door of the railway carriage; but at last he stepped in and was carried away. To meet his daughter, my wife, Hugh said (for she will be that till she gets a nullity), and to meet my mother, it being his business to tell her as much of the truth about me as he can bring himself to tell, as he knows how to tell. He will, of course, make it plain to her that there can be no question of my returning to Beatrice or marrying another woman if — The driver of the omnibus only just managed to pull up his horses in time, and heedless of the scorn and jeers that flowed down from the box, Hugh continued his way up the Strand, stirred now and then by an obtuse curiosity in a passing face, a hat or bonnet, or brought to a full-stop at the corner of a street to watch a cloud unfolding above the chimney-pots, his uplifted eyes gathering a crowd, each passenger asking the next one where he was to look and what it was all about; and Hugh, not daring to draw attention to the beauty of the cloud or spire, moved on, walking any whither, no whither, coming at last upon a passage leading out of Oxford Street into a courtyard, at the back of which was an inn; and the inn striking him as one in which he might live unobserved, he ascended the sloping staircase, followed by a waiter in a seedy suit of black that seemed as old as the house itself. What about your luggage, sir? My luggage, Hugh answered, is in the cloakroom at Charing Cross; here is the ticket. Let your messenger go for it at once.
A fire was burning, and in the warmth of it Hugh began to doze and between sleeping and waking he caught glimpses of Dr. Knight in the railway carriage, and was amused at the spectacle of the prelate reading his newspaper, laying it down to wipe the dust from his glasses, and then, after searching it through and through for something that might interest him, throwing it aside in despair to take refuge in his own thoughts. A fly, however, distracted his attention from them, and Hugh laughed in his dream, for the insect visitor annoyed the prelate very much. A long, brown, skinny hand battled in the air; and then, to Hugh’s disappointment, for he would have liked the fight to continue, the whimsical fly seemed to lose interest in the nose that had attracted him so persistently. He has fallen asleep, Hugh said, but he’ll not sleep for long; the fly will return to awake him. The prelate awoke, but it was not the fly that awoke him, and Hugh watched his father-in-law searching his pockets, and so frantically that he began to fear Dr. Knight had forgotten to take his ticket at Charing Cross. The door of the carriage opened; the inspector appeared; and the ticket was discovered and punched. It’s all right, he’ll reach Dover, Hugh said to himself. Dover! Dover! he repeated, the word rousing in his mind a sense of something oracular. Dover! The word took on a strange, occult significance, and he pondered it whilst the wayside stations fled by, fields, hills and trees. All this passing, he said, is bringing the prelate nearer to Dover, where he’ll take the boat for Calais; or may he be tempted by some project to go on board the Ostend boat? But I’ll not be outwitted once more by a priest. And he fell to examining the luggage piled on the rack, and discovering a suitcase plastered with labels, he read: Tunis, Tangiers, Morocco, towns well known to him by name. But he had never heard of L-a-g-h —
The end of the word was missing, and he could not tell how long he had been away seeking among Arab terminations when suddenly the letters o-u-a-t came up in his mind. Laghouat! But what brought the prelate to Laghouat? What instinct had tempted Dr. Knight into the desert? Hugh raised his eyes to assure himself that he had not misread the first letters. The suitcase was no longer in the rack and Dr. Knight had left the carriage, and was not to be discovered among the jostling crowd that covered the station from end to end on its way to the boat. If I do not find him, I shall have to go back, Hugh cried in despair, but the faces of the passengers showed little commiseration, and at that moment the rustle of the door as it passed over the pile carpet caused him to open his eyes. Words escaped his lips; the waiter retired; and Hugh sank back into a dream in which he saw Dr. Knight going towards the hotel where Mrs. Monfert and Beatrice were awaiting his arrival.
I must not lose sight of him again, for though he may promise my mother and Beatrice to go to Rome and bring all his influence to bear to get a nullity, he may at the last moment turn aside, tempted by memories of Laghouat.... Here is a clutch of eggs, he heard the prelate say, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen; the eighteenth and the nineteenth have just been laid; take them. Hugh stretched out his hands, but as he did so Dr. Knight cried: We must run for our lives. I forgot to tell you that the eggs are a crocodile’s. Mother crocodile has been watching her eggs hatching in the warm mud, and is now Tunning towards us; we haven’t a moment to lose. The great lizard could run faster than either, but could not turn as quickly as they, and by dodging her they managed to escape into an Arab town of streets so narrow that a camel could not turn in the broadest of them. I think the appointment was made in this café, said Dr. Knight.
And remarking that it was without windows, they entered a door that stood ajar, finding themselves in a vast gloom, with here and there groups and single figures sitting at tables and drinking sherbet. Are you seeking Osman Tahar, the Kurd’s mignon? an attendant asked them. Before the prelate could reply a young Arab rose, graceful and indolent, out of the gloom in which he was seated and began to tell them of the difficulties he had had to overcome and the danger of coming to the café. He spoke French fluently, and stopping suddenly in his narrative he took Hugh’s hand, saying: Amnez moi à Paris, je serai votre domestique et je vous aimerai bien. As Hugh was about to reply his ear was caught by the sound of a voice well known to him — his mother’s voice, and escaping from the infatuation gathering about him, he wandered in search of three figures whom he could discern in the gloom of the pillars passing up and down, along and across the building. He heard the word Rome, the word train, the word
journey, and the word tunnel left no doubt in his mind that the prelate was on his way to Italy. But is he going to procure an annulment of my marriage? Hugh asked himself, and to find out the priest’s intentions he followed the three from pillar to pillar, asking himself for what other purpose his father-in-law could be going to Rome. And yet... and yet...
At last the three stopped by the pillar in whose shadow Hugh was hiding: Where the marriage has not been consummated, Dr. Knight said, Rome never hesitates to grant an annulment; the gravest reasons will have to be advanced, for instance that the Catholic cause in England — If ten thousand pounds will prevent the annulment of the marriage, I am prepared to give it. Ten thousand pounds is an argument that will be appreciated, Mrs. Monfert, and if you are of my opinion that the marriage will be advantageous to the Catholic cause in England — The moral reason to plead against the annulment of the marriage is that we are full of hope that Hugh and Beatrice may still come together, not to-morrow or the day after, but in two or three years. I shall find my son awaiting me at Wotton Hall. I shall not speak to him of Beatrice but shall try to interest him in the estate, mayhap in the building of a church. The pressure I shall exercise will be so light that he will not perceive it. Beatrice will come to stay at Wotton Hall, and my hope is that instinct will do the rest.
The door opened. Your luggage has arrived, sir, and you’ll find your things laid out in your room if you wish to dress for dinner. Hugh’s eyes opened and he stared like a man awakened from the dead, frightened, for he did not recognise the room about him and he seemed to have even forgotten himself; and then memory returning to him, he rose to his feet. A strange dream truly, he said to himself, one that cannot be dismissed as accidental and unimportant, for her mind is apparent in the words that I heard her say in my dream. She said she would willingly pay ten thousand pounds, and she spoke the truth; she would pay ten thousand pounds to save the idea to which she has given her life. She will give ten thousand for an heir! It seemed to Hugh at that moment that all his life was concentrated into one clear vision. My life against her life! You’ll find your dress clothes, sir — The waiter’s voice barely awoke him from his dream. I shall not dine, he answered, I am too tired; and when the door closed he stood asking himself who had sent this dream, so precise, so explicit, and so opportune. Even if I wished to ignore it, I couldn’t.
His mind seemed to fade into nothingness, and when his thoughts returned to him he was thinking that he had been given to his mother as an animal is to a trainer. Ideas, principles, beliefs, he said, are lashed into us by our mothers, our fathers, by priests, schoolmasters, and our lives are spent going through our tricks, our antics, in fear and trembling, till the original wild instinct breaks out in us and we fall upon our trainers and rend them. She’ll not find me waiting for her at Wotton Hall, to be subdued once more by a pressure so slight that I shall not feel it, my estate affording me sufficient occupation, and remembering my interest in art did she not speak of the building of a church? I shall gather ideas for windows and tessellated pavements in Italy, and go on to Greece, and if Percy takes Orders her punishment may be to see him officiate in my church. And his thoughts returning suddenly to Laghouat, he recalled the tone of the Arab voice, which he would know again. He felt sure that the words had been spoken but when they were spoken and where they were spoken and by whom they were spoken, he would never know, nor by what magic they had come into his dream.
HENRIETTA MARR
I
IT HAPPENED THAT Etta’s carriage stopped within a few yards of where her brother was standing, and she went to him, saying: I thought the train journey would never end. The train is not late, he answered. If you had been in it, Harold, you would have thought it was; and now it seems that we shall never get away. A bad crossing? Harold interjected. My head is still full of it. We were packed like sardines, and a great tinful we should have been for the fishes if we had gone down. But shall we ever get away? Look at the luggage and see how it accumulates!
A barrier was formed, and trunks of all shapes and kinds began to appear, round leather trunks, bound with straps, testifying to trousers, coats, greatcoats, boots, perchance a dressing gown on top; great basket trunks went by, bespeaking dinner dresses, bodices, skirts, blouses, underlinen, shoes, everything except hats. A porter passed staggering under the weight of a long, shallow trunk, built to withstand the racket of travel to India and back, and he was followed by another porter carrying a suitcase and a Gladstone bag; leather hat-boxes were rare, men preferring to take them into the carriages with them, fearing the crush in the vans. Oh, the multitudinous hills of luggage! cried Etta. The boxes and the bags! It will take hours to examine them all. We shall miss the connection and not get to Sutton until midnight. What is the matter, Etta? Harold asked. Only nerves, she replied, but I’m making every effort to control myself. I will tell you about the boat train presently. Do you think we shall catch a train to Sutton this evening? You’ve been overworking, Etta, I’m certain of that. The train that comes up from Dover is one of our best trains. Now here is the Customs House officer. But will he let my trunks through, or shall I have to open them? If you talk like that in his hearing, he’ll ask you to open them all. Answer his questions calmly, indifferently, and he may let your trunks through without an examination.
Harold was right, for the Customs House officer, after overlooking Etta carefully, and judging her not to be a smuggler, marked her trunks with a piece of chalk. A porter put them on a barrow, and half an hour later they were in a slow train for Sutton. You’ve been overworking, Harold said, looking into his sister’s face with a view to descrying any change that may have befallen her during the months she had passed in Paris, and she answered that she had spent a great many hours every day in the studio and had come home on account of the heat. Harold asked her why she had not come home before, and she repeated that the heat was unbearable, the sun pouring through the skylight like a flame in July, driving the students out of Paris into the country’ to paint landscapes. A week before she left there was a great exodus, Renouf going away to Honfleur, his native town, to paint fishermen, Doucet leaving for his honeymoon (he was marrying an American girl who had been courting him flagrantly all through the session), and Jamain was on his way to Rome, having won the prize. Only a few unworthy ones, she said, remained to continue their grimy drawings. I really couldn’t watch them blackening paper any longer, and feeling worn out I came back. I wonder you didn’t come back before, Harold said, and inwardly he congratulated himself that Etta had not brought back with her Renouf, Doucet or Jamain He was always a little nervous as to the class of man Fate would give him for a brother-in-law.
Cissy Clive and Elsie Lawrence have gone to Fontainebleau with their young men to paint birches and oaks, Etta said, and at the words: Gone with their young men, Harold’s face deepened a little, for he remembered these girls as very middle-class; and despite Etta’s admiration for Ralph Hoskin’s talent, he still bore a grudge against the painter for the advice he had given Etta. If you want to learn painting, he had said to her, you must go where painting is being done, and it’s being done in Paris. And Harold’s old aversions against Etta’s National Gallery acquaintances returned to him on the journey to Sutton. Gone to Fontainebleau with their young men to paint birches and oaks did not harmonize with his view of the acquaintances that Etta should choose for herself. But since she had decided to go to Paris, it was better that she went with Cissy Clive and Elsie Lawrence than alone. If he had been able to procure a chaperon for her, she would have flaunted his choice, so to some extent he was indebted to both of these girls, and would have to ask them to the Manor House when they returned to England. Gone to Fontainebleau with their young men might only be Etta’s way of talking, and as it seemed to him useless to express any disapproval of her friends, he began to ask her questions about her life in Paris, the hotel she and her friends lived in, and the eating-house they frequented. She had mentioned Duval in one of her letters, and he confused
Duval with Durand, to Etta’s great amusement. Durand, she said, is a great restaurant in Paris; the Duvals are eating-houses. But is it reasonable to expect me to know the names of the restaurants and the eating-houses in a city that I have never visited? And now that she had explained to him what the Duval really was, he began to wonder why his sister had chosen to live in such discomfort; for his sister, as far as he knew her, was more averse from squalor than another. He had always thought her one who preferred to look up rather than down, and it was on his lips to put some enquiries to her; but seeing that she was weary and tired, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he thought it would be safer to ask her about her journey.
