by George Moore
“Because I can’t think of anything else.”
“Well, you must think of something else. We’re going to the factory where they make perfume, and I’m going to buy a great many bottles of scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper.”
“Don’t you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a church here.”
On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she always used it.
“And you like it, don’t you dear?”
“Yes, but what does it matter what I like?”
“Now, don’t be cross. Don’t look so sad.”
“I don’t mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase of heliotrope is really too cynical.”
“Cynical! Why is it cynical?”
“Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?”
“But, dear one — —”
I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said:
“You don’t mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a visit to pay.”
In the three weeks’ time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who lived in the different hotels en pension, and who would go away as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another “resort” where the season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once.
“But as we’re going to spend the evening with them, I don’t see the necessity — —”
“Of course not, dear, but don’t you remember you promised to go to see the Formans with me?”
Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to dinner, “One of the family is enough.” What her mother’s age could be I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see from Miss Forman’s appearance that no new idea had entered into her life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living with their mothers on small incomes. “The daughter’s tragedy is written all over her face,” I said, and while speaking to her I scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are heroines — the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked old-fashioned — why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking of books, she would break in with her mother’s opinions, thinking it wonderful that her mother had read — shall we say, “The Three Musketeers?” three times. She was interested in all her mother’s characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be forgiven. “The daughter’s tragedy,” I muttered, and considering it, philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to this visit. “After all,” I said, “I am on my own business, therefore I have no right to grumble.”
I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who accepts her daughter’s sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter that has been sacrificed. From the daughter’s appearance I had imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a more subtle rhythm. But though Nature’s rhythm is irregular, its irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and that Nature’s combination was more harmonious than mine. The first thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma — that short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face — forgetful of her daughter’s sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their shins over the fire:
“Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn’t marry Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well.”
My interest in these two women who had liv
ed side by side all their lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house by her mother’s side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, “Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go home again”; and they had come home after six days in the hill village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: “I always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come down to mamma’s balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. I don’t think mamma was ever afraid of anything.” Her voice seemed to me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, “I don’t think mamma was ever afraid of anything,” and I said, “She is proud of her ideal, and it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not for her at least,” and noticing that the three women were talking together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived.
On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits — two engravings — and I did not need to look at the date to know that they had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little.
Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please them. “They don’t know anything about singing,” she whispered to me; “but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for them to hear me sing,” and she went to the piano and sang song after song.
“It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a middle-aged woman,” Mrs. Forman said, “and I hope you will come to see us again, both of you.”
“What should bring me to see them again?” I asked myself as I tried to get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to Plessy again she would rush to see them. “Why should she go on like that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this world?” I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. “No,” she said, “I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this evening to try on mamma’s dress, and mamma is very particular about her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown had to go back — you must excuse me.”
“Good-bye, dear, good-bye,” I heard Doris crying, and I said to myself, “How kind she is!”
“Now, my dear, aren’t you glad that you came to see them? Aren’t they nice? Isn’t she good? And you like goodness.”
“Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. Don’t you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become of the two blind women you used to help?”
“So you haven’t forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful that a blind woman should be able to get her living.”
“Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any one should be able to earn his living.”
“You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs.”
“But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the dark.”
“Do you remember her story?”
“I think so. She was once rich, wasn’t she? In fairly easy circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don’t understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who led her about?
“How well you remember, dear.”
“Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind woman’s life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman’s life. Now don’t tell me; it’s all coming back to me. Something about a student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?”
“No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference.”
“You’re quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn’t he?”
Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. “No sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a long time. The friend upstairs didn’t dare to come dow
n to tell her. But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It’s extraordinary how tragedy follows some.”
“Isn’t it?”
“And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money’s worth. I only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything from her!”
“Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?”
“Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn’t she?” Doris nodded. “And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet.”
“I don’t think I said like red velvet, dear.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like a woman’s description of another woman, but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn’t realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love than anybody else. She wouldn’t know if he were a man of forty or one of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?”
“Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are.”
“Perhaps.”
“I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man and a middle-aged. There was little she didn’t know.”
“I daresay you’re quite right. But still everything must have been more intense and vague. When the blind woman’s lover is not speaking to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. She doesn’t know what eyes are, but she imagines them like — what? anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a difficult thing to do in any circumstances — but in hers! And when her voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn’t know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?”
