Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  The fire at last commenced to burn, and the ladies took off their wraps, and began to talk of the new piece and the probable distribution of parts. A slight tiff had arisen between Miss St Vincent and Mdlle Oscalia for possession of the music-stool, both ladies being now anxious to entertain the company with a little music. Their slight wrangle was, however, cut short by the arrival of Dick. He had a large sack over his shoulder, and was bending beneath its weight, and he was followed by a pot-boy carrying an immense hamper. In the language of the theatrical critic, Dick’s entrance was a great success; it aroused the house at once to a pitch of enthusiasm.

  ‘Now then, you lazy beggars,’ he cried, ‘give me a hand - my back is broken. Here are twenty-four dozen of oysters. It is one o’clock. I had a devil of a job to get them.’

  ‘But where are we going to sup?’ asked half a dozen voices.

  ‘Why, here, of course,’ he said, wiping his forehead. ‘Where do you think? Don’t you know what a picnic is? Come, Wedmore, do you know how to open oysters? If you don’t, Jack will show you. The supper is communistic. Everyone must bring his brick.’

  All laughed at the sally, and the company seemed to wake up like birds in the bushes when the rain is over and the sun shines out. Miss St Vincent held up one of Wedmore’s long, white, weak-looking hands, and asked if they thought that paw had ever opened an oyster. They were now beginning to think that the supper on the floor, which at first had so horrified them, was rather fun; and they jostled each other and crowded round to see Wedmore help the pot-boy to open the oysters. Dick and his aide-de-camp, De Bridet, in the mean time unpacked the hamper, spread the table-cloth on the bare boards, and covered it with knives, forks, plates, lobsters, cold chickens, and salad, which later Mdlle Oscalia seized on, and began to mix a dressing in a very learned way. Centreboard took the wrappers off the champagne, assisted by the Miss Westerns, who chaffed and flirted with the gay old gentleman to his evident delight; and Miss Powell accompanied Mr Semper, who sang a comic song with much gravity.

  In half an hour twenty dozen of oysters had been opened, the salad was ready, the chickens were carved, and everybody was now in high good-humour. Miss St Vincent sat next Lord Wedmore, and even gave him her handkerchief to wipe his oyster-dirtied hands, his own not being now in a state fit to be touched. Old Centreboard sat between the two Miss Westerns; Mdlle Oscalia next to Dick, for whom she did not disguise her admiration; and De Bridet tried to make love to Miss Powell (a tall thin girl, with a lot of wavy flaxen hair, and a high aquiline nose), much to her disgust and Mr Semper’s amusement, who aggravated the situation by pleading De Bridet’s love-case in a low drawling voice.

  ‘You don’t love me at all now - in France it was so different,’ said Mdlle Oscalia, looking tenderly at Dick.

  A sudden silence had made her declaration audible, and a titter went round the cloth. As manager, Dick had to appear to be of austere virtue; so, to break the thread of Mdlle Oscalia’s attentions and partly to create a laugh, he shouted brutally at Wedmore, ‘Well, Wedmore, what about the little woman in black? I guess if she saw you now there would be a row.’

  Wedmore at this moment was lost in admiration of Miss St Vincent. As she sat on the floor, with her legs tucked under her, sucking the oysters out of their shells with her coral lips, she appeared to him the realization of all that was charming. He had forgotten all about the afternoon in the shady drawing-room, and the little dinner in the oak-panelled dining-room; all was forgotten in the delight of the supper on the bare boards. Dick’s question embarrassed him not a little. He tried to look annoyed, but inwardly he was pleased; it tickled his vanity and he hoped that the suspicion would make Miss St Vincent jealous.

  ‘O yes, 1 saw him; he was flirting with her as hard as he could, and he pretends to like me,’ returned the actress, trying to pout and trying to turn her back on her lover, a matter of no small difficulty, as she was sitting on the ground. With a shriek she tried to get up, but fell into Wedmore’s arms.

  ‘What is it?’ he cried, assisting her to rise.

  ‘O, I have the pins and needles!’

  At this there was a roar of laughter, mingled with cries of pain, for more than one lady suddenly found she was a victim to the same affliction. For some time they had been vainly trying to hide their ankles, and enduring tortures in so doing.

  ‘It is dreadful this sitting on the floor,’ cried Miss Powell, recklessly changing her position. ‘I am not going to bother any more about my skirts.’

  Mdlle Oscalia followed her example, and took a stretch still more conspicuously.

  ‘Qu’est-ce que cela fait?’ she said; ‘on voit à davantage quand nous sommes sur la scène.’

  After Miss St Vincent had walked about a bit and stamped her circulation into order, she was induced to sit down again, and persuaded to finish her glass of champagne and the wing of a chicken she was eating when the little accident took place.

  The supper had now reached its height; cigars and cigarettes had been lighted, and jokes, which would not have been dared before, became general.

  Shaking off Mdlle Oscalia, whose black eyes were now melting with tenderness, and who was too desirous to talk about some long-past time in France, Dick determined to have his joke out about the lady in black; so, holding up a glass of fizz in one hand, he begged for silence. When this was obtained, he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in the absence of a chairman -’ the joke was received with shouts of laughter, and Mr Semper proposed to give him the piano-stool, which he, however, declined. ‘I do not rise,’ he continued, ‘to propose Lord Wedmore’s health, because there is no table before me.’ (‘Hear, hear.’) Everybody looked at the young lord, who began to feel uneasy, and wondered what was coming. ‘I propose Lord Wedmore’s health, and that of the lady he loves best.’ (‘Hear, hear.’) ‘Now, as, according to an old proverb, present company is always excepted, I do not refer to anyone here, although I notice that one lady is beginning to look guilty.’ Clamorous applause followed this sally, and Lord Wedmore’s face beamed with delight. ‘Now,’ continued the manager, ‘as I am not acquainted with the lady whose health I wish to drink, and as I do not know her name, she shall be nameless.’ (Laughter.) ‘I will only refer to her as the lady in black; whom you all saw in the stage-box tonight, and who was so appreciative of talent as to throw a bouquet to Miss St Vincent.’

  Mrs Wallington White’s health was drunk with much noise and applause; but Miss St Vincent could not conceal her annoyance, and Dick, not knowing the real cause, for a moment began to suspect that she were really in love with Lord Wedmore. Lord Wedmore noticed it too and the discovery raised his spirits to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. He felt that it was necessary to explain. So, to Miss St Vincent’s vexation, who saw how her face had betrayed her, and how it had been misinterpreted, he got up, and, in a long-winded and contradictory speech, solemnly declared he had no intention of marrying Mrs White, which denial evoked peals of laughter; and when he finally stated that the lady in black was his aunt, the merriment of the company knew no bounds; and, amid roars of laughter and sarcastic allusions, Wedmore sat down, bitterly cursing Dick’s want of tact and insufferable impertinence. The joke of relationship having been started, Mr Slaughter applied it successfully to old Centreboard, who, he declared he had satisfactory proof, was the Miss Westerns’ uncle. Centreboard looked up embarrassed. He had been enjoying himself highly between the two, and he evidently thought it cruel to have his age flung in his face. Mr Semper was sullen and silent; he seemed to have a difficulty in sitting upright, and he lolled against Miss Powell, who resented the familiarity, and complained bitterly to Miss Mure that three o’clock never saw him steady.

  ‘I cannot understand what you find to like in him,’ answered Miss Mure confidentially.

  ‘He is not always so cold,’ returned Miss Powell, who did not allow anyone but herself to find fault with Mr Semper.

  ‘But he is so cynical. He is always laughing at love and sentiment.’


  ‘Do you say in English, “We will dining on the grass”, or, “We will going to dinner on the grass”?’ asked De Bridet, who was deep in the agonies of composition, intensified by an imperfect knowledge of the English language. After having informed herself, with difficulty, of which tense he wished to use, Miss Mure, whom the champagne had rendered sentimental, turned to her friend, interested in her love-story. But De Bridet, having at last satisfied himself on the idiomatic construction of his phrases, rose to his feet, and, with a full glass of champagne, half of which he spilled down Miss Mure’s back, said:

  ‘Gentlemens and Madams, this supper having been so grand a success, I propose that next week we do all repeat it over again on the grass in the country, and in this order: Lord Wedmore with Miss St Vincent; Mr Dick with Mdlle Oscalia; Mr Centreboard with the two Miss Westerns.’

  Old Centreboard, who was pleading, in low tones, so as not to attract attention, mercy of the younger Miss Western, who, pulling him over by the whisker, was making him beg pardon for some past offence, evoked peals of laughter. The old gentleman only maintained his equilibrium by clinging to the other sister, who was angrily trying to disengage herself from his grasp. He declared that he could be quite satisfied with either. Upon which the elder sister took hold of the other whisker, and would not release him until he sang the song, from the beginning to the end, ‘How happy could I be with either, were other fair sister away!’ De Bridet, elated at the success of his joke, paired himself off with Miss Mure, and assigned a bottle to Mr Semper at the proposed picnic next Sunday.

  The hilarity was here unfortunately cut short by Mr Semper struggling to his feet, with the aid of the piano, and declaring he was going for the Frenchman. A disagreeable scene might have ensued, had it not been for the timely intervention of Dick, who precipitately left Mdlle Oscalia, and placed himself between the combatants.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ he argued, ‘he can’t pronounce English, you know. He meant Powell, and not bottle.’

  The assurance somewhat pacified Mr Semper; but he, nevertheless, demanded an apology. Nothing would appease him but this, till suddenly he felt that a little fresh air would be a still greater boon. The room was full of smoke. They had been breathing the same atmosphere for hours. The ladies put on their cloaks, and declared they were suffocating. When the blinds were drawn a cry of amazement broke from all. Heavy snow had fallen during the night, and the clear rose-coloured sunrise shone against the glittering house-tops. A wind, as cold and as piercing as steel, blew briskly, and the ladies drew their shawls and cloaks round their shoulders, and shivering, spoke unanimously of getting home.

  The supper was over now; everyone was tired and pale; and the bare room, covered with oyster-shells and empty bottles, looked horrible in the yellow flaring gaslight and the bright morning air. Heedful that the early bird catches the worm, Miss St Vincent told Lord Wedmore to go and see if he could find a cab. He stole away unperceived, and ran, shivering in his thin dress-slippers, through the cold snow towards the Haymarket. He was lucky enough to find a four-wheeler coming from the Strand; and, bribed with a sovereign, the half-frozen cabman consented to take them to Kennington Oval. When Miss St Vincent heard the cab was at the door she took a hasty adieu of her friends, and hoped that they might be equally lucky in getting cabs.

  Lord Wedmore and Miss St Vincent drove away together.

  It was piercingly cold, their feet were like ice, and they drew together, instinctively seeking warmth. Miss St Vincent was a little sleepy; the champagne had gone to her head, but the cold kept her well awake. She had long studied the man by her side, and she now felt sure that, before they reached Kennington, she would have to decide if she would or would not be Lady Wedmore.

  To any third person hesitation would seem impossible; yet Miss St Vincent’s reluctance was rational enough, when you knew what was passing in her mind.

  Twenty thousand a year, a title, and a possibility of being received later on by the élite of Vanity Fair, was doubtless a wonderful dream; but it was not her dream - that was its only fault. Hers was more simple, but not less dear to her. She had dreamed of marrying Mr Shirley, and playing high-class business with him on the boards of a first-class London house, where she would make love to him from eight till half-past eleven, and be called before the curtain at the end of each act; and none of these things could she do with Lord Wedmore. Miss St Vincent was not a girl who thought that to eat, drink, be beautifully dressed, and rush from one amusement to another, was the sole aim and purpose of living. She loved her profession, and was devoured with ambition. She disliked Lord Wedmore as much as she liked Mr Shirley. Looks had nothing to do with it. Lord Wedmore was not ugly. He was stupid; but he might have been clever enough to have filled the office of Prime Minister, and she would not have loved him any better. She disliked him because he knew nothing of the life she lived; her thoughts and prospects were not his. She found in him no echo of her own desires and sentiments. The greatest and most enduring love is self-love; the next best is in proportion to the similarity between the being on whom we have bestowed our affections and ourselves, mentally and physically. It is true that we may love, for a time, some person who is the direct opposite to ourselves; but this is only a caprice, and cannot last: love that endures is based on similarity of colour, form, taste, and education.

  Miss St Vincent drew her cloak round her, and leaned back against the boards of the clattering cab. Lord Wedmore spoke but little. He was determined to come to the point, and was waiting for an occasion to speak the fatal phrase.

  He had offered horses, carriages, country and town houses, spoken as rapturously as his meagre elocution would allow him of a cruise in the Mediterranean, and vaunted the delights of love pure and free, untrammelled by social laws, and found, if a slang phrase be permissible, that it was not good enough. Lord Wedmore’s love for the pretty actress originated in idleness, chance, and vanity. It was stimulated by the difficulties which lay between him and its attainment. His love for Mrs Wallington White was of precisely the same character, with the slight difference that the widow imposed herself upon him by sheer strength of will - forced him, as it were, to admire her; whereas he was really a little attracted by Miss St Vincent’s beauty, independent of other people’s opinion.

  The cab plodded slowly through the snow. The windows were frozen over, but through the blurred panes Lord Wedmore could see the outlines of the Houses of Parliament, the long wharfs and quays. They were passing over Waterloo Bridge. For the hundredth time since they left Pall Mall he asked her if she were cold. Apparently there was no need to ask, for poor Miss St Vincent’s little nose was red, her teeth chattered, and she beat her feet on the cab-floor, trying to warm them.

  She had drawn her fur-trimmed cloak around her tiny ears, and looked like the fantastic figures of Winter seen upon Christmas-cards. She had forgotten her muff, and complained bitterly of Lord Wedmore’s negligence in leaving it behind. He took her hand in his; she did not withdraw her frozen fingers, and, not guessing the real reason, he ventured to put his other arm round her waist. She could not resist, for the warmth of his arm was so grateful in her half-frozen condition that she had not the courage to consider proprieties.