by George Moore
He was, however, careful not to enter into conversation with Emma, for he was aware that in Mrs. Plowden’s eyes he was a big, fine-looking man; and he had also learnt by experience that women are jealous, and that the pleasure Mrs. Plowden took in coming upstairs for little private talks with him would be embittered if more than three words at a time were exchanged between him and Emma, and of all if he were to entertain Emma to an air on the flute; so he never played to her, and, by reticence, tact, and courtesy, and by never playing the flute late at night or when other lodgers were in the house, he had managed to obtain a position in No. 31 Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush, that seemed unassailable. But tact and reticence and courtesy give way sometimes under sudden stress of circumstance, and one day Wilfrid discovered the score of a French operette that he had sought vainly for years, in a rag-and-bone shop, and, bringing it home, he spent a great part of the night playing it over softly, so softly that he believed no one could hear him. In this he was mistaken, however, for next morning the landlady, when she came to do his room, wore a look of weariness upon her face, and not many words were exchanged between them before she told him that his room would be wanted at the end of the week. He begged her not to be so brief with him, and his promise not to play again after twelve o’clock, and never to play, morning or evening, till the lady on the drawing-room floor had left the house, softened Mrs. Plowden’s resolution. You see, Mrs. Plowden, I had been trying for years to get the score of Hervé’s La Reine de Navarre, and came upon it by chance in an old rag-and-bone shop, the only score in existence, perhaps, certainly one of the very few, for the opera was only played three times — it was a complete failure in Paris. I have been seeking it for years. I shouldn’t have played last night, I know, but, Mrs. Plowden, I assure you I played so softly that I did not think anyone in the house could have heard. I will call upon the lady on the drawing-room floor, and if you would not like me to do that, I will apologise to her when I meet her on the stairs. I can assure her that, so far as I am concerned, she will never know another troubled night.
Mrs. Plowden’s face darkened, and as she tossed the bedclothes hither and thither she muttered that she was not sure that the drawing-room floor piano was not much more noisy in the house than Mr. Holmes’s flute, words that encouraged Wilfrid to believe that he had only to propitiate the lady on the drawing-room floor. And, meeting her on the staircase some five minutes after his interview with Mrs. Plowden, he told her how sorry he was his flute-playing had disturbed her rest, speaking with such courtesy that she regretted having made the complaint, and to make amends for it she invited him to her piano, saying that she would like to run through the score with him. Wilfrid accepted her invitation, and, when the slight interest of La Reine de Navarre was exhausted, their talk turned on composition, Wilfrid admitting that he had been engaged on an opera for some time. The lady urged him to run upstairs and fetch it, saying that it would interest her to play the accompaniments. But they are not written, he answered, only the top line.
For a moment this seemed a serious difficulty, but the lady offered to improvise; and Wilfrid came in in such excellent time and tune that she began to foresee a possible combination — Wilfrid supplying the melodies and she the accompaniments, in this way writing an opera between them, a hope that might have been fulfilled had not an unexpected and cruel accident caused Wilfrid to seek another lodging, and one as far as possible from Shepherd’s Bush. He went to Notting Hill overcome with shame, unable to understand how it was that Mrs. Plowden had declined to accept his word or Edith’s, her daughter, who had returned to Shepherd’s Bush unexpectedly. He had intended to ask Mrs. Plowden for another blanket, but forgot to do so (the slight misunderstanding that had occurred between him and Mrs. Plowden on account of his flute put everything else out of his mind), and, finding sleep impossible, he had bethought himself of a blanket from the spare room, never dreaming that Miss Plowden had returned home. To make matters worse, it so happened that Mrs. Plowden was pressing her daughter to tell the whole story of her betrayal when Wilfrid appeared in his nightshirt on the threshold.
Good God, who would have thought it! cried Mrs. Plowden.
Mother, he’s not the one, Edith answered without hesitation.
Mrs. Plowden, I beg you to believe that I came here for an extra blanket, interjected Wilfrid, and knew nothing of your daughter’s return.
Mother, you are wronging an innocent man, Edith implored.
But their assurances did not deflect Mrs. Plowden from her purpose, and for many months Wilfrid heard in his thoughts the unfortunate voices still raging — Mrs. Plowden asking intermittently if it wasn’t he who was it, and Edith always refusing to give up the name of her betrayer. The last words that passed between Wilfrid and Edith were: Mother would have believed you if it had not been — Wilfrid had not heard the end of the sentence, Mrs. Plowden having hustled him off her doorstep. And now Wilfrid rose from his chair, asking himself what purpose might be served by recalling unpleasant memories. But memories are often very insistent and will not be repelled, and he sat terrified at the thought of his escape. If Edith had not been an honourable girl Mrs. Plowden might have taken him into court, and the magistrate might have made out a maintenance order against him — five shillings a week, which he could not have paid. And his aunt! He had stood on the brink of ruin, but had escaped the worst. All the same, he had lost his very comfortable lodging. For the house in Notting Hill was not nearly so well suited to his needs as the house in Shepherd’s Bush. He missed the hobs and the oven, Mrs. Plowden’s attendance, and the accompaniments, which threw light on his melodies, inspiring new versions. If Edith had only told the name of the blackguard who —— —— But she hadn’t. Such is life, he muttered, and continued to work at his opera, The Mulberry Tree, till the story he was illustrating began to seem disjointed, broken-backed. Any one of the professional librettists could put it right in a minute by a trick, he said, but I should like to have it undisfigured by artifices, and only time will be able to do that for me.
So he turned to the second interest in his life, the legend of Tristan and Isolde, which, in his opinion, had never yet been traced to its source. His researches brought him so often to the British Museum that he felt it would be a saving for him to live in Bloomsbury; and he went thither, hoping to find a grate with an oven like the one in Shepherd’s Bush. But the hob grate seemed to have disappeared from the neighbourhood, old though it was, and in his search he did not come upon one of those small mending tailors who can turn an old suit of clothes into what looks like a new one. These were grave disadvantages, but he was nearer his work, and he had been much encouraged lately by the discovery that he could work out Isolde’s history by means of place-names. Nothing is more lasting than the names of places; in the course of ages a letter or two may be omitted or transposed, but the name remains practically the same. And the art of the imaginative historian lies in the divination of missing letters; the moment they are restored light breaks, and very soon Wilfrid was in possession of the names of certain minor chiefs who had accepted Isolde’s father as Overlord. Another week, another month at most, he said, rising from his desk one day, and my case will be complete. And so absorbed was he in his conjectures that he did not hear one of the librarians ask him if he had succeeded in carrying Isolde’s family history further back than the fifth century. The librarian had to repeat his question, and, awaking from his reverie, Wilfrid answered: I think the facts show that the family history can be traced back to Tara. One of her ancestors ruled there, I believe. In another month I shall be able to tell you for certain. Well, the reason I spoke, said the librarian, is that there is some talk now that the story came to the French chronicler, Chrétien de Troyes, from Brittany, and that the Bretons got it from the Celts of Cornwall, who in turn got it from the Welsh. It is being pointed out that the old Welsh pedigrees tell of an Arthur, a king of the district round Chester, who had a cousin, King March, a minor king, who married a lady called Eisylt. As
you can see the Irish coast easily, Lleyn — The librarian did not finish his sentence, so busy was he gathering in the books that readers were thrusting upon him. A hurried time, not one for prolonged talk, and while Wilfrid stood among the jostling crowd, dumbfounded, the bell rang, and the last readers were roused from their books by weary attendants.
A small rain was falling; umbrellas were opened in the pillared portico; and this crowd, comprising a thousand different interests and intellects, always brought the same thought into his mind — that it was strange that so many people should have a small sum of money in their pockets; and he never failed to think that if these trickles of the world’s wealth stopped for a week the world would split and fall to pieces — a ship wrenched apart by waves, each carrying a spar, a mast, a part of the hull away. But today as he stood admiring the crowd he remembered suddenly that his aunt’s fifty pounds had failed to trickle into his pocket that morning. For the first time there had been a delay, and it seemed to him ominous that the delay should have coincided with the news that a new theory regarding the legend of Tristan and Isolde was being considered. He had looked forward to receiving his aunt’s cheque, but that morning his head was so full of his work at the British Museum that he had hardly given the matter a thought; and he might not have done so now if the librarian had not mentioned the possible Welsh origin of the story. Two misfortunes on the same day seemed to predict trouble for him, mayhap a break in his life. His aunt had never failed before. But has she even failed to-day? he said, almost angry with himself. A letter is often delayed in the post, and on my return home I shall find hers. Has any letter come for me? he asked.
No letter has come this afternoon, sir. Were you expecting one?
Yes, he answered, and ran upstairs. Now what would happen to him, and what would happen to the Isolde legend, if his aunt failed to send her fifty pounds?
At that moment he heard a knock far away in the street, and as the postman approached the house that Wilfrid lived in each knock became louder, clearer. The knocking stopped at last, and Wilfrid asked himself what the cause of the delay might be. He had never known the postman loiter as he loitered this evening. Was there an undue number of registered letters to be signed for? Were they all out at 54? The knocking began again; once more it stopped, and this time the man was kept waiting on the opposite side of the street not many doors away. He knocked again and again, but nobody came to the door, and it was all Wilfrid could do to keep himself from running across to ask him if he had a letter for No. 45. As he was about to start the man moved away from the door to come over to deliver letters. He passed 45, and Wilfrid was driven to consider how it was that his aunt’s cheque had failed to arrive on the appointed day. He was on the last flight of stairs in his nightshirt and trousers in the morning when the landlady opened the door. No, Mr. Holmes, there’s nothing for you this morning.
The day passed in watching for the postman, and every time he went by without delivering a letter, or delivered letters for the other lodgers, Wilfrid pondered anew the fact that for the last twenty years his cheque had arrived to the very day. Was his aunt dead? The thought was a terrible one, and it was followed by a hardly less terrible thought — that her last cheque was the end of her bounty! But that could not be — she would have written to tell him. He began to count her years, and, giving up the count in despair, he remembered that in the case of her death (which must come sooner or later) he would have to apply to another relation, to his brother in India, who would give him his choice between Bushfield Park and the workhouse, and with hard words, saying: You have never earned five shillings in your life. You shall go to Bushfield as caretaker at three pounds a week. What answer would he make? All the world would side with his brother. Nobody would understand why he could not live at Bushfield; nobody would understand that he could not earn his living. Nobody had ever understood this except his mother, and nobody ever would. He laid no blame on anybody; he did not understand it himself. He was healthy, strong, educated, and more intelligent than many of the men he met at the museum. But he could not earn his living, and, worst of all, he could not tell why. There seemed to be no excuse for refusing to live at Bushfield. Nobody would understand — he did not understand. A frightened look came into his face, for he saw in that instant a lonely figure, a confessed failure, amid sad shrubberies and dismal woods. I have always lived in London, he said, and will die in London, come what may. But he could not live in London without some money, and only one sovereign remained to him. A sovereign between me and the streets, he said to himself, and fell to thinking how much life for him it represented if he restricted his diet to bread-and-margarine. Three weeks, quite that; a month, perhaps, he continued, with bread at its present rate. But his rent — six shillings a week! His landlady would give him a week’s credit, no doubt, but she might not. And in his dire necessity he wrote to one of his brothers for five pounds, a thing he had never done, it being his pride to live apart and to owe them nothing. He did not hate them, but —
His thoughts melted into memories of his youth, memories of slights received from them all. Some were kinder than others, but he knew he was looked upon as the family fool, and his pride had been to show them that he did not need their help. But this last barrier of self-respect was broken down. He had had to write to his brother for five pounds! The five pounds came by the next post, and now he would be able to live for quite a long while, with care. As he sat working out how much he might spend daily he stopped to think what his aunt’s death would mean to him when she died. He did not believe she was dead; but she would have to die sooner or later. He might die before her; life is good in this, that it provides us with a way out of our difficulties; and he fell to thinking that he had not been feeling very well lately — his doctor had even spoken to him of the possible necessity of an operation, for which he would have to go into a hospital. If his aunt were to live, she might pay for the operation, but he would not like to ask her for any more money than she gave him; so it behoved him to strive for some employment that would bring him in two pounds a week. If he could find some editorial work that would bring him in two-pounds-ten a week!
The thought of an extra ten shillings a week and what it would buy for him awoke him from the dazed stupor into which he had fallen, the consequence of an empty stomach; for he had lived on bread-and-margarine and drunk only water for more than a week, and was beginning to feel that if this diet were to continue uninterrupted his strength to resist his ill might leave him. So with his stomach turned resolutely against his daily fare he went out to buy himself a couple of ounces of tea and an egg, and as he sat stirring his tea he bethought himself of his many attempts to earn a little money by journalism. He had once paid a provincial newspaper a part of his small inheritance for permission to write leading articles, and when he had written fifty-one he had cut his contributions from the different numbers of the paper in which they had appeared. After correction they were sent to a printer to be reset, and the proofs were forwarded to a London editor with a letter requesting the latter to read the articles, and, if he approved of them, to invite Mr. Holmes to join the staff of the London daily. He enclosed stamps for the return of these samples, and they came back to him with a printed form saying that owing to lack of space the editor was unable to avail himself of the contributions, which he returned with thanks. But after a little while he forgot to enclose the postage-stamps, and his articles were not returned to him; and in answer to questions addressed to the editor he received a printed form telling him that the editor could not undertake to correspond with the authors of rejected manuscripts. As an earnest of his will to work, several sets of proofs were sent to his brothers, who did not return them; others were lost in his transits from one lodging to another. One set remained, however, but Wilfrid was loath to send forth these articles again. If an editor had written him a personal letter containing a word of encouragement he might have — A thought breaking into his memories of his past attempts to find employment broug
ht him to his feet. He knew a little French, and there must be a newspaper whose staff was depleted by the war. And it was in this hope that he went forth every day to seek his fortune in the Strand and Fleet Street. Occasionally he was invited upstairs and allowed to plead with elderly men in armchairs, who gave him sometimes a few minutes of their attention, but before he arrived at the end of his patter he had begun to read in their eyes that he was not wanted. Some of the less important newspapers asked him if he had had any experience, and he answered them that he had edited the East Anglian Advertiser for some time, offering some of the articles that he contributed to that newspaper to be reprinted. Some, he said, I feel sure, are as topical to-day as on the day they were written; and he offered to send these for the editor’s consideration, but the editor said he would prefer to read something that had not yet been published. Wilfrid promised to send an article, and returned to his lodgings trying to think of a subject that would appeal to the editor, his thoughts reverting to the belief that Isolde must have been an Irish Princess, for the French chronicler had so written it, and there was no other evidence; so —
