by George Moore
Mr Bryant was touched.
‘I won’t have you go down into that kitchen any more, Clara. There’s no reason why you should. It is all the same to me if I pay the porter for your food or if I put you on board wages. There’s a kitchen here, you’ll have coal and gas free. I’ll give you ten shillings a week board wages.’
‘Oh, Sir, you’re really too kind!’
‘But you’ll still have to sleep with Lizzie.’
‘That doesn’t matter, Sir, so long as I haven’t to go much to that kitchen. I was always there, Sir, except when I was attending on you, Sir, and that was so seldom.’
‘You prefer to sit in these rooms?’
‘Oh, Sir!’
‘You can sit in the back room and do your sewing when I’m here, and when I’m not here you can sit in this room. I’m afraid you’ll find it lonely.’
‘I shan’t be lonely for their company. You’re very good to me. I don’t know how to thank you.’
When he returned from France he brought her back a shawl - a knitted silk shawl. The shawl meant that he had thought of her when he was away. She could hardly speak for happiness, and she spent hours thinking, wondering. It was such a pretty shawl... no other man would have chosen such a pretty shawl. There was no one like him. Her hands dropped on her knees, and she raised her eyes, now dim with dreams, and listened. He was singing, accompanying himself on the piano.
The days that he dined in the inn were red-letter days in her life, for he detained her during the meal with whatever conversation he thought would interest her, and she listened as a dog listens to its master, unmindful of the great love that consumed her or his indifference. One day there came a sharp double rap at the door which made them both start.
‘That’s the post,’ she exclaimed.
‘No; it is not the post,’ she said, coming back, ‘a messenger boy brought this letter, and he says there’s an answer.’
Mr Bryant tore open the envelope, and Clara watched the eager expression on his face. He went to his desk and wrote a long letter. When he had fastened it she held out her hand, but he said he would speak to the boy himself.
Next morning there were several letters in the post-box: one was on perfumed paper, and she noticed that it bore the same perfume as the letter which the boy had brought yesterday.
‘Any letters?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Clara pulled up the blinds and prepared his bath. As she was leaving the room she looked back. He lay on his side, reading his letter, unconscious of everything but it. After breakfast he said -
‘I want you to take a letter for me.’
‘Do you want me to go at once, Sir?’
‘I want the letter to get there before twelve. There’s plenty of time.’
‘Is the letter finished, Sir?’
‘No, but it will be when you have done up my room.’ Mr Bryant was sitting in an attitude habitual to him when she came for the letter - with his left hand he held his chin, his right arm was thrown forward over the edge of the desk. ‘Is the letter ready, Sir?’
‘Yes, here it is. Mrs Alexander, 37, Cadogan Gardens. You know how to get there?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘You take the train to Sloane Square, and it is within a few minutes’ walk of the station.’
She had often wondered if he were in love with any woman. None ever came to his chambers. But this Mrs Alexander, who was she? He had not told her not to leave the letter if she were out... Then why had he told the boy last night not to leave the letter? Mrs Alexander might be a widow. The thought frightened her; Mr Bryant might marry, give up his chambers in the inn, and send her away. Perhaps this was the very woman who would bring ruin upon her. She stopped, overcome by a sudden faintness, and when she raised her eyes she saw that a lady was watching her from a drawing-room window. Was this the number? Yes, this was 37. Before she had time to ring, the door was opened, and a lady said -
‘I’m Mrs Alexander - is that letter for me?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
Mrs Alexander was a small woman, dressed in a black woollen gown, well cut to her slight figure. The pallor of her face was heightened by the blackness of her hair. She stood reading the letter avidly, the black bow of a tiny slipper advanced beyond the skirt, her hand clasping the hand of a little child of four, who stood staring at Clara.
‘She opened the door herself, so that the servants might not know that she received a letter,’ Clara thought, as she sat in the train studying the handwriting so that she might know it again.
‘She’s no widow, for if she was she’d not take the trouble to watch from the window.’ Clara was shocked at Mrs Alexander’s wickedness. ‘Living in that fine house, a good husband, no doubt, and that dear little girl to think of. But these sort of women don’t think of anything but themselves.’ One morning she found a small lace handkerchief on one of the armchairs. Had Mrs Alexander given it to him, or had she been to his rooms late and forgotten it? It had been her pleasure not to allow a speck of dust to lie on the eighteenth-century tables, china vases, and the pictures in white frames. But another woman had been there, and all her pleasure in the room was destroyed. Mrs Alexander had sat on that chair; she had played on the piano; she had stood by the bookcase; she had taken down the books and leant over Mr Bryant’s shoulder.
A month later the tea table wore a beautiful white cloth, worked over with red poppies, a bottle of smelling-salts appeared on his table, and, though it was winter, there were generally flowers in the vases. Clara noticed that the stamps on Mrs Alexander’s letters were different from ordinary English stamps, and when the ordinary stamp reappeared on sweet-scented envelopes she knew that Mrs Alexander had come back.
‘Clara, I should like you to dust and tidy up the place as much as possible.’
‘Aren’t the rooms clean, then, Sir?’
‘Well, I fancied they were getting rather dusty. I don’t mean that it is your fault; the amount of smuts that come in from the chimney-pots opposite is something dreadful. I shall be going out in the afternoon; you’ll have time for a thorough clean. You can get Lizzie to help you, and not only this room, but all the rooms. We are getting on into spring. I don’t see why we should not have fresh curtains up in the bed-room, and don’t forget to wash my brushes and to put a new toilet cover on the table. You might go to Covent Garden and order in some flowers - some bunches of lilac; they’ll freshen up the place. I shall want some hyacinths, too, for the windows.’
Next morning the servants stopped as they went up the inn with their trays to admire Mr Bryant’s windows. He called to Clara for the watering-pot, and sent her to the restaurant for the bill of fare. At one o’clock the white-aproned cook-boys came up the inn with the trays on their heads. The oysters, the bread and butter, and the Chablis were on the table. Everything was ready. The church clock had struck the half-hour, and Mr Bryant was beginning to complain - to express fear that the lady might have mistaken the day, when a slight interrogative knock was heard at the door. In a moment Mr Bryant was out of the sitting-room; he thrust his servant back into the kitchen, and she heard the swishing sound of a silk dress. A few moments after, the sitting-room door opened, and Mr Bryant called her.
‘Is the lunch all ready, Clara? Is everything in the kitchen?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Then I’ll get the things out myself. I shan’t want you all the afternoon. You can go out for a walk if you like; but be back between five and six, in time to clear away.’
It was the sharp, peremptory tone of a master speaking to a servant, a tone which she had never heard from him before, and it made her feel that she was something below him, something that he was kind to because it was his nature to be kind.
Clara realized this with a distinctness which she was unaccustomed to, and in a sick paralysis of mind she took the dish of cutlets and placed it in the warmth, and was glad to leave the chambers; and meeting Lizzie as she went up the inn she told her she was feeling very bad,
and was going to lie down. Would she kindly answer Mr Bryant if he called, and get him what he wanted? Lizzie promised that she would, and Clara went upstairs.
About five o’clock Lizzie came to her with the news that Mr Bryant was very sorry to hear she was unwell. Could he do anything for her? Was there anything he could send her? Would she see the doctor?
No, no, she wanted nothing, only to be alone. She caught the pillow, rolled herself over, and Lizzie heard her crying in the darkness, and when the coarse girl put her arms about her Clara turned round and sobbed upon her shoulder. Bessie was breathing hard, Fanny snored intermittently, and, speaking vey low, Lizzie said —
‘I suppose it is that you care for him?’
‘I don’t know; I don’t know. He don’t care to talk to me as he used. I feel that miserable - I can’t stop here - I can’t -’
‘Yer ain’t going to chuck your situation for him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’ll be better to-morrow - them fancies wears off. Ah, that’s why you wouldn’t go out with Mr Stokes’s nephew. Well, he was a low lot.’
‘He was quite different.’
That was all the explanation Clara could give, but it seemed enough for, as one animal understands another’s inarticulate cry, so did Lizzie’s common mind seem to divine the meaning of the words: it was quite different.
‘A gentleman’s nice soft speech and his beautiful clothes get on one somehow. I know what you means, yet Fanny says she likes Harry best when he’s dirty.’
Next morning, when Clara went up with Mr Bryant’s hot water, she saw that a letter from Mrs Alexander was in the post-box; he read it in bed, and he re-read it at breakfast - he did not seem even to know that she was in the room. She lingered, hoping that he would speak to her. She only wanted him to speak to her just as he used to - about herself, about himself. She did not wish to be wholly forgotten. But he was always reading letters from Mrs Alexander or writing letters to her. She hated having to take letters to Cadogan Gardens, and Mrs Alexander seemed to come more and more frequently to Norman’s Inn. And every day she grew paler and thinner. She lost her strength, and at last could not accomplish her work. Mr Bryant complained of dust and untidiness. She listened to his reproofs like a sick person who has not strength to answer. One morning she said, as she was clearing the breakfast things -
‘I’m thinking of leaving, Sir.’
‘Of leaving, Clara!’ and, raising his eyes from the letter he was writing, Mr Bryant looked at her in blank astonishment. Then a smile began to appear on his face. ‘Are you going to be married?’ he said.
‘No, Sir.’
‘Then why do you want to leave?’
‘I think I’d like to go, Sir,’
‘You can get more wages elsewhere?’
‘No, Sir; it isn’t that.’
‘Then what is it? Haven’t I been kind enough? Can I do anything? Do you want more money?’
‘No, Sir; it’s nothing to do with money.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I think I’d like to leave, Sir.’
‘When?’
‘I should like to go at once.’
‘At once! You don’t think of the annoyance and trouble you’re putting me to. I shall have to look out for another servant. Really, I think - of course, if you are going to get married, or if you had an offer of a better situation, I should say nothing: but to leave me in the lurch - some whim. I suppose you’d like a change?’
‘I don’t think that the inn agrees with me, Sir.’
‘You are looking poorly. If you’d like to go for a holiday -’
‘No, Sir; I think I’d like to leave.’
Mr Bryant’s face grew suddenly overcast, and he muttered something about ingratitude. The word cut her to the heart; but there was no help for it - she had to go.
Her idol was taken from her - the idol that represented all that she could understand of grace, light, and beauty, and, losing it, the whole world became for her a squalid kitchen, where coarse girls romped to a tune played on a concertina by a shoe-boy sitting on the dresser.
AN EPISODE IN MARRIED LIFE
ON 15 MAY, 1885, Madame de Beausac was dining with her cousin, a well-known writer and Academician, who lived in an old street in the Faubourg St Germain. As she drove there through the clear and fine twilight of the Champs Elysées, she thought of the novel she was reading in the Revue des Deux Mondes. She had read the first instalment, and was interested in the story. The second instalment was just published, and she regretted she had not had time to glance through it, for she was going to meet the author, Mr James Mason, at dinner.
The roadway was full of carriages, and Madame de Beausac’s thoughts grew vaguer and more dream-like as she lay back on the blue cushions of her coupé and admired the chestnut trees, now full of white bloom. She had never felt happier in spirit or in flesh. As the coupé passed round the Place de la Concorde life seemed a perfect gift: the tumult of the fountains was loud in the still air and every line of roof was sharp and delicate in the elusive light. And thinking of Mr Mason and his heroine, a woman of thirty, who reminded her of herself. Madame de Beausac noticed as the coupé passed over the Pont Neuf that the Seine seemed a little river in comparison with the wide flowing Thames. She had spent her honeymoon in London, and she wondered if she had really loved her husband. All that was a long while ago, and young men who would declare their passion if she held out ever so little encouragement did not interest her at all. She supposed that she was different from other women. All the women she knew had lovers; she was the only virtuous woman in her set; she was the only one against whom no one could say anything. That was, at least, something.
The coupé entered the Rue de Varennes and stopped at a large corner house. As the coachman turned his horse into the porte cochère Mr James Mason slipped aside to let the carriage pass.
He was thin, tall, fair - a typical young Englishman. This was his first visit to M. Renoir; the publication of the translation of his novel in the Revue had procured for him the invitation. He waited on the pavement’s edge, for the coupé was standing in the passage in front of the glass door opening on to the staircase. The door of the coupé opened, and, all pink, Madame de Beausac stepped out. ‘There is entertainment in that waist,’ thought Mason; and a love story - a vision of blue-black hair and pink dress - passed through his mind. He smiled at the idea that a passing appearance had inspired in him. But, truly, she seemed to mean more than the others; she seemed significant of something, and he regretted that he would never see her again. He heard the hollow sound of her horses’ hoofs on the asphalt of the courtyard as he ran, hoping to catch a last glimpse of her on the staircase: but she had already stopped, and, looking up, he saw the entertaining waist disappearing through a door. ‘I shall never see her again,’ he thought. He sighed, and remembered that he had forgotten to ask on which floor M. Renoir lived, and when the concierge said ‘Au premier he was genuinely taken aback. Then he would meet the lady of his sudden admiration in M. Renoir’s drawing-room; they were going to dine together!
Mason had spent the larger part of his thirty-three years talking to women, thinking about women, observing women, and formulating his impressions of women. He could, therefore, divine their thoughts through their slightest actions. He had already noticed that Madame de Beausac was looking thin. But he had to speak to his hostess. When the conversation paused and he looked up, he found to his pleasure and surprise that Madame de Beausac’s eyes were still fixed upon him.
‘Upon my word, it would seem as if - it may be no more than curiosity. However, I shall soon know. If she looks at me again in that way before the entrée, I shall know it is all right.’ Mason talked to his hostess about indifferent things until the servants came in with the entrée. Then he looked up. Madame de Beausac’s eyes were fixed upon him.
‘That’s all right,’ he thought. And so sure did he now feel of her love that he had begun to fear the indiscretion of her eyes
before the entremet was handed round. ‘She must take me for a fool if she thinks I do not understand.’ And he tried to compose a look which could be interpreted. ‘We’ll settle all that in the drawing-room after dinner.’
He had expected to find her waiting for him, but, very much to his surprise, she sat down at the card-table and played whist for an hour, and Mason talked to various people, looking at her from time to time, but she sat, her eyes fixed on her cards. ‘Most strange,’ he thought. ‘I could have sworn it; I’m not often mistaken.’ Soon after he heard that she was going to a ball at half-past ten. ‘I shan’t have an opportunity of even speaking to her,’ he thought, and his eyes went to the clock. Madame de Beausac’s eyes had also gone to the clock, and, seeing how late it was, she got up from the card-table, and came towards him, pulling her fingers into the long mauve kid.
They sat down together, as far from the others as possible. She told him she had often heard of him, that she had read the first part of his book, and would read the second to-morrow. She had liked the story very much indeed. If he could come and see her to-morrow, she would tell him what she thought of the second part of his novel.
‘Unfortunately,’ she said, raising her eyes, ‘it is my “At Home” day.’
‘That is unfortunate. You’re going now to a ball: cannot you send some excuse?’ he said, looking round to assure himself that no one was within earshot.
‘Impossible,’ she said; ‘I have to meet my husband there,’ and her black eyes seemed to look down in his very soul. ‘You will come, won’t you? I want to see you.’
Madame de Beausac seemed to be quite beside herself. Conversation was impossible under the circumstances.
Mason was afraid that they would be noticed. The moment was full of peril, and he was glad when she said ‘I must go now, so little suffices to upset these kind of things,’ and he watched her dark, thin shoulders disappear through the doorway, and wondered what developments to-morrow’s visit would bring forth. Never in all his experience had he provoked so extravagant a passion, a passion so utterly uncontrollable. He wondered; he was really curious to see how it would turn out.
