Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  She examined two engravings after portraits painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. One represented an admiral in his cocked hat, the other a bishop in his white lawn sleeves. Neither however interested her, and her eyes wandered until they were arrested by two volumes, entitled ‘Travels in Sweden and Norway’. She would have liked to have taken the books down. They recalled her mind a season she had spent amid pine forests in the north. A journey through Barbary and scenes in Spain affected her in the same way and for similar reasons.

  She asked herself, had this man visited all these places, or had he stayed at home and only read about them? Possibly he had dreamed his life; she had lived hers! Which was the better plan? With a sigh she crossed the room to regain her chair; but, as she did so, her attention was attracted by the photograph of the lady in the small gilt frame that stood on the mantelpiece. At first she looked at it languidly, but suddenly her face opened in an expression of great surprise, and the portrait slipped out of her hands. She was evidently reasoning with herself, and, as if ashamed of the emotion she had been betrayed into, she picked up the photograph and examined it a second time and more closely. But there could be no mistaking it. Although much faded, the outlines were still distinct enough. It was a picture of herself taken thirty years ago, when she was young and a beautiful English girl.

  If so, where was she? To whom had she given the picture? Out of the past three or four faces instantly detached themselves, but she repulsed them petulantly. It was none of these she wanted. Then, striving to recall her admirers of the time when this carte de visite was taken, she looked through the pages of her life. She racked her brain, skipped from reminiscence to reminiscence, missing the right person now as she had done before. She looked back to the officer she had married when she was the belle of the London season, whom, after three years of miserable life, she was obliged to leave. Then came another face! and she remembered a duel, years of pleasure and amusement; debts and much misery; she remembered seasons spent in Paris, Nice, and Vienna; travels undertaken on the plea of acquiring knowledge in different countries. And so ten, fifteen years had passed like irritating dreams, until worn out she had fallen into the arms of an old man whom she had consented to marry for the sake of acquiring a little peace - a little rest. All this she remembered; she had only forgotten the awkwardly worded proposal of marriage made to her by a timid young man on a Sussex lawn. Such was her fate, such was his. The life sorrows of men and women are inherent in themselves, and the fashionable woman is not to blame because she passes a John Barnwell without seeing he is there! Nor is it John Barnwell’s fault that he is ever powerless to express, in equivalent words, the lasting and noble affection that he, and he alone, is capable of giving. In the rough the greatest love is worthless, the diamond must be cut, polished, and befittingly set; the simplest woman demands a little charlatanism of the truest man.

  And now, the excitement of finding this old photograph, taken thirty years ago, made this withered cosmopolitan beauty almost look young again; it was new to her, to whom all else was old, to find that at least one admirer had remained faithful. For he must be an admirer - she would not admit that he was not — and, as she considered the question, her curiosity went to her head like wine; and with a flush in her thin cheeks she determined she felt she must find out who was the occupant of the rooms. But how? Surely there must be some letters about - an envelope addressed to him! No sooner had her brain conceived the idea, than, without thinking a second time, she commenced searching amid the papers on the table. But there was nothing there except manuscripts bearing philosophical headings. She removed them, at first carefully, but, as her impatience got the better of her, she threw them petulantly on one side, one on the top of the other. Her nerves were working; and in a few moments she was opening drawers and shutting them with a series of bangs; pulling down books, creating, in a word, a frightful disorder. And quite regardless of danger, she proceeded with her reckless search until suddenly startled from her dreams by the grating of the latch-key in the street door. The brief interval passed as the hat-stand gave her time to get back to her chair, and, immediately after, without knocking, an old man entered the room. His short, fat neck was encased in a high collar, and a blue cravat was passed twice round, after the fashion of old time. He was about the medium height - five feet seven or eight - and his movements were slow, like those of studious people. On seeing his visitor, his face betokened so much amazement that she had no difficulty in concluding he was the owner of the apartment. With the calm indifference of the woman of the world, she explained that she had been asked to wait in the study until Mrs Lewis, who was expected back every minute, returned. Mr Barnwell asked her to sit down. A still further expression of distress passed over his face when he noticed the disorder of his table; but attributing it to a mistaken display of zeal in the cause of dusting, he strove to recall the polite phrases with which social chasms are successfully bridged. His very visible anxiety forced the woman of the world to smile, and it suggested to her a way out of her difficulty. In a moment she had decided to face the matter boldly, and looking him straight through with her slate-coloured eyes, she said:

  ‘You will be astonished when I confess that I have been searching amid your papers.’

  The effect produced was equal to the intention; the old gentleman looked positively thunderstruck. Had she given him time to recover himself, he might have rushed to the door, thinking he was closeted with a mad woman; but smiling blandly, she continued: -

  ‘I have known Julia Gaythorn all my life. I knew her thirty years ago, when that photograph was taken, when she lived down in Sussex; therefore, you will understand my curiosity to know your name, and even daring to look amid your papers for an envelope, for a card, for something that would reveal it to me.’

  Mr Barnwell did not answer her. At the mention of Julia Gaythorn he had turned pale, and staring like a dead man, he sat grasping with both hands the arms of his chair.

  Fearing he was going to have a fit, Mrs Woodville rose to her feet; but, with a sign, he motioned her to be seated again. Then he walked up and down the room twice without speaking. She followed him with her eyes, every feminine fibre in her nature strained to the utmost. Why, she asked herself feverishly, was this man so deeply moved at the mere mention of her name. He did not recognize her! Was it credible that he had remained faithful to her memory through all these years. Then real truth and affection did exist in the world! There was much mingled sweetness and bitterness in the doubt that had so suddenly presented itself to her mind. She waited for him to speak, until the silence became intolerable to her.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, her voice trembling a little, ‘I was wrong to speak to you of her, but I have known all her friends; my life was intimately bound up with hers, and, as the existence of that photograph proves that you value her memory, I was curious to learn your name: you will forgive a woman her curiosity.’

  ‘You are right,’ he said, speaking as if out of a dream. ‘I do cherish her memory; but it is now more than thirty years since I have seen her. My name is John Barnwell. Did you ever hear her speak of me? I suppose not, it is not probable,’ he added, as he resumed his walk up and across the room.

  Julia Gaythorn - now Mrs Woodville - hesitated. The name did not enable her to see, through the old man, the youth who had loved her; and wishing to learn more concerning him, and the love affair she had forgotten, before admitting her identity, she said:

  ‘Yes, I think I have heard her speak of you.’

  Like a wintry gleam of sunlight in an autumn forest, a flush of pleasure for a moment animated his withered cheeks.

  ‘Did you?’ he said, stopping in his walk, and looking fixedly at his visitor. ‘I knew Julia when that photograph was taken. I used to see her at Molesworth Manor; I met her there once at an archery meeting. Do you know the place?’

  Then she recalled everything. She remembered the young man who had taken her by surprise, by suddenly telling her that he loved her. She s
aw the shrubberies, and heard the cawing of the rooks in the tall and spreading evergreens.

  ‘I would not have... but since you have spoken of Julia Gaythorn - you may - I shall be glad if you will tell me something about her. Mine is no idle curiosity, and although not given to speaking of my sentiments, I may tell you that she was the only woman I ever loved: but she did not love me. It may have been my fault, or perhaps she may have been to blame. To some men such slights make no difference; I do not mean to reproach her, I am merely telling you a fact when I say that her refusal to marry me spoilt my whole life.

  I never got over it.’

  Mrs Woodville bent her head. The truth came upon her now, as it comes upon us all sooner or later, that we, to put it colloquially, have muddled away our lives. What had she striven for? What had she achieved? Nothing! Where were the lovers who had sworn to love her for ever? As well might she ask where were last year’s roses. What had the vows she had made, the vows she had listened to, brought her? Nothing. All had forgotten her but this poor old man; and in a poignant moment of retrospect she felt her life would have been a satisfaction, a joy to have looked back upon, had she chosen the quiet felicities of home, the certain friendship of such a man as now stood before her, rather than the nervous delights of fashionable life, the excitements of admiration. It seemed to her that she had never lived at all. But thank heaven this old man - this terrible evidence of her folly - did not recognize her. Thank heaven, she was spared at least that.

  Getting up to go, she strove to think of what she would say to him.

  ‘There is little to tell,’ she said, speaking rapidly as she moved towards the door, ‘about Julia. She left her husband, and was divorced; she married again, and is now a widow; her life was neither successful nor happy.’

  Mrs Woodville tried to draw down her veil as she spoke, but the sunlight came streaming through the dusty window, defining every line of her features. She felt Mr Barnwell’s eyes were upon her; nervously she tried to pass him; but, laying his hand on her arm, he stayed her firmly, yet gently - ‘I think I can recognize now her whom I have been speaking to. Julia! Yes, you are Julia Gaythorn.’

  ‘Yes; I was once Julia Gaythorn; now an old woman fills the place of the lighthearted girl you loved. But we must not speak of the past; I did not know you loved me better than the rest. If we had met again: but now we are too old.’

  ‘I never loved but you, and I have remained faithful to the memory; but, as you say, our time is past.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she answered, ‘our time is past’ - words to pause on. ‘But we shall be friends I hope; we shall be sincere, loyal friends.’

  He held out his hand to her, and, to conceal his emotion, turned his face aside. We may spread our joys over a series of years, or they may be concentrated within the limit of a moment, and John Barnwell’s life was lived, and lived completely, in a single touching of hands.

  The soft May sunlight came streaming into the room, the embers died out in the grate. The silence was deep and intense; it was not broken until Emma’s dirty face was suddenly thrust in at the door; and, in a hard, jarring voice, she announced that Missus had come in, and the lady could come up stairs and see the rooms if she liked. The ‘if she liked’ was an addition suggested by the sight of Mr Barnwell, whom she had supposed to be still out walking. Seeing what was going to happen he cut short the apologies ‘for having come in without knocking’, which it was clear that Emma was desirous of giving expression to. He explained curtly, so that Mrs Lewis, who was probably outside, might hear, that ‘the lady’ was a very old friend of his, and that no excuses were necessary for having asked her to wait in his room. For this display of tact Mrs Woodville thanked him with a look, and thus encouraged, he resolved to decide the situation by introducing her himself to Mrs Lewis.

  ‘This lady,’ he said, ’is a very old friend of mine. We had not seen each other for many years, but accident, you see, has brought us again together. I do not think you will find a more satisfactory occupant for your rooms; and you,’ he added, turning to Mrs Woodville, ‘I do not think will have any fault to find with Mrs Lewis; and I can speak authoritatively on the subject, having lived twenty years in her house.’

  After so distinguished an introduction, Mrs Lewis could but say that she would feel highly honoured, and looking from Mrs Woodville to Mr Barnwell, as if trying to read the secret on their faces, she showed them over the drawingrooms. They were pronounced to be perfectly satisfactory, and were engaged for the season. But this assumption of indifference was only maintained by a supreme effort of will: and it was a relief to the old couple, after promising that the morrow should again bring them together, to wish each other good-bye. To escape from Mrs Lewis, whom he knew would follow him into his study and question him, Mr Barnwell went out for a long walk, and did not return home until late.

  Such irregularities did not pass unnoticed in West Street; very significant indeed were such proceedings considered to be; and that evening, at a tea-party given for the occasion in Mrs Lewis’s parlour, all the side issues and attendant circumstances of this adventure were thoroughly sifted and discussed. The most different opinions were advanced. Mrs Wilson invidiously hinted that they ought to have been married long ago, until Mrs Lewis, indignant at hearing the morality of her lodgers called into question, alluded to keeping up the respectability of the street, and the letting of rooms to young ladies wearing straw-coloured hair. The quarrel was beginning to wax warm, but Mrs Smith smoothed the troubled waters by suggesting that they were married, and that after years of separation had again agreed to live together. For a moment the ingenuity of this idea almost obtained its acceptance, but Mrs Lewis, being romantically inclined, insisted that the banns would soon be published, and that there would be a wedding breakfast at her house. She, however, seemed disposed to modify her view of the case when Mrs Wilson maliciously insinuated that ‘if so, the ‘appy pair would go off on a ‘oneymoon.’

  But the days came and went without Mr Barnwell and Mrs Woodville announcing their intentions of entering the holy bonds, and after having gossiped longer than it had done before on any one subject, West Street relapsed into its normal state of indifference, absorbed by its own little affairs and troubles. Sometimes when Mrs Smith and Mrs Wilson went out shopping in the morning, they would stop to look into the square, and, watching the old couple, would again discuss the possibility of a marriage, and enviously expatiate on Mrs Lewis’s luck with her lodgers.

  But the old people never married; they knew they felt their time for love was over, and, contented with friendship, they were seen constantly sitting together in the shade out of the warm August sun. Nor did they often speak of what might have been; they rarely alluded to the past. They were glad to dream, letting life glide gently away to the end, amused the while with the thousand and one little incidents of suburban existence. For the interests of life, Mrs Woodville had still to look to her sons and Mr Barnwell to his books; and the only change the neighbours could make note of was, that a few autumn flowers, taken from the balcony overhead, now bloomed cheerfully in the philosopher’s window.

  TWO MEN

  A Railway Story

  THE STOKER, JAMES Hall, gave the brake a last twist, and the engine stopped. John Nixon, the driver, took up an oil-can, and made his way along the boiler. Hall watched him hungrily, counting his movements as he passed underneath, in front of the wheels, to oil an axle. Hall trembled, he struggled with himself, but temptation stole through his veins, and, like gravitation, the regulator drew his hand to it. Now, he knew that, with a touch, he could crush his rival for ever out of all interference in his aims and desires. The thought was imperious, but the hand slipped slowly from the steel bar; he could will the deed, but he was powerless to execute it. He saw the crowd rushing to seize him; he heard the judge condemn him to be hanged by the neck till he was dead; he saw the hangman coming to meet him at the end of the long passage, with the fatal straps. Then he recalled the many opportunities tha
t had presented themselves during the day, all of which, yielding to an uncontrollable weakness, he had let pass. He remembered how, descending the incline, at the rate of fifty miles an hour, to the lonely, marshy land, Nixon was standing with his back towards him, and one determined push would have precipitated him from the engine. He remembered how, in the tunnel, red in the glare of the furnace, Nixon had looked over the side: in that moment he might have sown the seeds of a new life. Now, from reveries of what might have been, Hall was roughly awakened by the voice of his mate, crying -

  ‘Now then, leave off dreaming, mate; look to your fire.’ For Nixon had returned from beneath the engine, and with the oil-can in his hand he said, ‘What are you dreaming after? Wake up, wake up; I wouldn’t mind betting sixpence you have forgotten to take your brake off. I believe you’re in love,’ he added, with a coarse laugh.

  ‘Am I? And what’s that to you if I am? You can’t say as much, leastways regarding your own wife.’

  The train was backed out of the station, the pointsman let the carriages into a siding, and the engine was sent into the engine-house. The day’s work was over, and driver and stoker made their way to the station, where they would see in their room, marked on a card, the hour they would be expected to commence work to-morrow. ‘Two o’clock, London Bridge, Tunbridge Wells, and Dover train. We shall not be finished before one o’clock to-morrow. I do like getting done early, and having the evening to myself.’

  ‘Are you going down to the Stag and Hounds this evening?’

  ‘I don’t think so, my wife is too ill; I don’t think I can leave her.’

  The stoker fell into the trap; his face grew glad; his fair, innocent, rosy face - an oval face, with a weak chin covered with a fair, thin beard; a slight moustache shadowed, but did not hide, the red lips. His eyes were light blue, the glance was winning; he was not more than five feet seven in height, but was stoutly built. The driver offered a marked contrast. A dark, handsome man, about five feet nine; a square and almost intellectual face. The black eyes were piercing and bold, the black hair curled over the broad forehead, a scanty, but well-shaped beard set off the lower part of the face, which was prominent and massive; and it was not difficult to see that there was cruelty and much pure and defiant animalism in this man’s nature. Now he watched, and with a good deal of amusement, the artless expression of satisfaction into which Hall had been so easily betrayed.