A Life's Morning

by George Gissing

  This was doing injustice to Beatrice, and Wilfrid felt it; but it was thus he regarded her as in distinction from the woman who should have been his wife. She typified his chosen career; that other path which had lain open to him, the path of intellectual endeavour, of idealism incompatible with loud talk, of a worship which knew no taint of time-serving, that for ever was represented by the image of the woman he had lost. Her memory was encompassed with holiness. He never heard the name she bore without a thrill of high emotion, the touch of exalted enthusiasm; ‘Emily’ was written in starlight. Those aspects of her face which had answered to the purest moments of his rapturous youth were as present as if she had been his daily companion. He needed no picture to recall her countenance; often he had longed for the skill of an artist, that he might portray that grave sweetness, that impassioned faith, to be his soul’s altar-piece. Lost, lost! and, with her, lost the uncompromising zeal of his earliest manhood. Only too consciously he had descended to a lower level; politics tempted him because they offered a field in which he could exercise his most questionable faculty, and earn with it a speedy return of the praise to which he was so susceptible. It marks his position to state that, when politics began seriously to hold his thoughts, he was with difficulty able to decide to which party he should attach himself. To be sure, if names could be taken as sufficient, he was a Liberal, a Radical; but how different his interpretation of such titles from that they bore to men of affairs! Respect for the masses he had none; interest in their affairs he had none either. On the other hand, the tone of uninstructed Conservatism—that is to say, of the party so stamped—he altogether despised. The motive which ultimately decided him to declare himself a Liberal was purely of sentiment; he remembered what Mrs. Baxendale had said about the hardships of poor Hood, and consequently allied himself with those who profess to be the special friends of the toiling multitude.

  From the first he talked freely with Beatrice of his projects; he even exaggerated to her the cynicism with which he framed and pursued them. He could never have talked in this way to Emily. With Beatrice the tone did not injure him in the least, partly because she did not take it altogether seriously, yet more owing to the habit of mind whereby women in general subordinate principle to the practical welfare of the individual. If Wilfrid found a sphere for the display of his talents, Beatrice eared nothing to dwell upon abstract points. Politics were a recognised profession for gentlemen, and offered brilliant prizes; that was enough. She was pleased, on the whole, that his line should be one of moderation; it was socially advantageous; it made things pleasant with friends of the most various opinions. That Wilfrid took her into his confidence was to her a great happiness. In secret she felt it would be the beginning of closer intimacy, of things which women—heaven be praised!—esteem of vastly more importance than intellectual convictions or the interest of party.

  But it was long, very long, before Wilfrid could bring himself to pass the line which separates friendship from lovemaking. Of passion his nature had no lack, but it seemed to be absorbed in memory; he shrank from the thought of using to another those words he had spoken to Emily. One of the points of intense secret sympathy between Emily and himself was this chastity of temperament. Constitutionally incapable of vice, he held in repugnance even that degree of materialism in the view of sexual relations which is common to men who have grown their beards. Not only had a coarse word never passed his lips; he intensely disliked the frivolous way of discussing subjects which to him were more sacred than any other. When he had decided with himself that it was his destiny to wed Beatrice, he had a positive fear of taking this step from which there would be no return. Before he could do so, he must have utterly broken with the past, and how could that ever be I He had not even moments of coldness in his thought of Emily; it was beyond his power to foresee the day when she would have become to him a mere symbol of something that was. Suppose that some day, when married, he again met her? In spite of everything, he did not believe that she had ceased to love him; somewhere she still kept her faith, martyred by the incomprehensible fate which had torn her from his arms. To meet her again would be to forget every tie save that holiest which made one of his spirit and of hers.

  One day—it was during the second season which Mrs. Baxendale passed in London—he went to his friend and asked her where Emily was. Mrs. Baxendale was too quick for him; Wilfrid thought he had put his question unexpectedly, but the lady was ready for such a question at any moment, and she replied, with appearance of absolute sincerity, that she had no knowledge of Emily’s place of abode.

  ‘Where was she last—when you last heard from her?’ Wilfrid asked, in surprise at an answer so unanticipated.

  Mrs. Baxendale named a town in Yorkshire. She had begun with a calculated falsehood, and had no scruple in backing it up by others.

  ‘What can it concern you, Wilfrid?’ she continued. ‘Shall I confess my weakness? I mentioned your name in a letter to her; the result was this complete ending of our correspondence. Now, will not even that satisfy you?’

  He did not doubt what he was told; Mrs. Baxendale’s character for veracity stood high. It was solely out of regard for Wilfrid that she allowed herself to mislead him, for by this time it seemed obvious that Beatrice was drawing near to her reward, and Mrs. Baxendale, with pardonable error, took this last inquiry about Emily for a piece of conscientiousness, which, once satisfied, Wilfrid would hold on his course to a happy haven. ‘She has given him up,’ was her self-justification. ‘Beatrice now would suffer no less than she has done.’

  ‘Then tell me one thing more,’ Wilfrid pursued. ‘What has become of that man Dagworthy?’

  ‘That I can easily do. Long ago he married a young lady of Dunfield.’

  ‘Then what did it mean? what did it mean?’

  Mrs. Baxendale merely shook her head.

  A few months later, Beatrice astonished everyone by her first appearance as a public singer. Wilfrid had as little anticipated such a step as any other of Beatrice’s friends. What was about to happen only became known a day or two in advance. Mrs. Ashley Birks was paralysed with horror; she implored, she reasoned, she put on her face of cold anger. Mr. Athel cried ‘What the deuce!’ and forthwith held a serious colloquy with his son. Wilfrid experienced a certain joy, only tempered with anxiety as to the result of the experiment. If it proved a success, he felt that the effect upon himself would be to draw him nearer to Beatrice; but it must be a great success. He calculated on imaginative influences as other men do on practical issues. Beatrice, acknowledged as more than an amateur, perchance publicly recognised as really a great singer, would impress him in a new way; he might overcome his impartial way of regarding her. The result, outwardly, answered his fullest hopes. Beatrice had not idly risked what would have been a deplorable fiasco; she had the encouragement of those who did not speak in vain, and her ambition had fired itself as she perceived the results of her conscientious labour. Her nervousness throughout the day of the concert was terrible, but little less than her life depended on the result, and at the hour of trial she was strong to conquer. Very far behind her, as she stepped out to that large audience, were the dilettante successes of drawing-room and charitable concerts; she smiled at all that flow; since then she had unlearnt so much and wrought with such humility. But what she strove for was won; she knew it in the grasp of Wilfrid’s hand when he led her to her carriage. Her veil was down; behind it she was sobbing.

  ‘Am I nothing more than a frivolous woman now?’ she said, leaning to him from the carriage.

  Wilfrid could make no answer, and she was whirled away from him.

  He went to her the next day, and asked her to be his wife. Beatrice looked him in the face long and steadily. Then she asked:

  ‘Do you love me, Wilfrid?’

  ‘I love you.’

  Another word trembled on her tongue, but the temptation of her bliss was too great; the contained ardour of long years had its way, sweeping doubt and memory before it.


  ‘For your sake I have done it all. What do I care for a whole world’s praise, compared with one word of recognition from you! You remember the morning when you told me of my faults, when we all but seemed to quarrel? Ah! I have faults in abundance still, but have I not done one thing worth doing, done it thoroughly, as net everyone could? I am not only a woman of the world, of society and fashion? Do I not know how contemptible that is? But only you could raise me above it.’

  He left her, in a bewildered state; she had excited, impassioned him; but how strange it all was after those other scenes of love! It seemed so of the earth; the words he had spoken rang over again in his ears, and stirred his blood to shame. He could not say whether in truth he loved her or not; was it enough to feel that he could cherish her with much tenderness, and intoxicate himself in gazing on her perfect face? Women are so different! Emily had scarcely spoken when he made known to her his love; could he ever forget that awe-struck face, dimly seen in the moonlight? Her words to the end had been few; it was her eyes that spoke. Beatrice was noble, and had a heart of gold; was there not heaven in that ardour of hers, if only it had been his soul’s desire? Henceforth it must be; she loved him, and he must not wrong her. Alas! the old name, the old name alone, was still star-written….

  He passed with her the afternoon of each Sunday. Mrs. Birks’ house was a large one, and Beatrice had abundance of room to herself. Thither Wilfrid took his way on the Sunday which we have reached, the day following his drawing-room triumph. Already he was a little ashamed of himself; he was experiencing again the feeling which had come over him after his first speech to a political meeting. As he went home that night, a demon in his head kept crying ‘Clap-trap! clap-trap!’ and there was no silencing the voice. He had talked to the intelligence of the mob. Now his talk had been addressed to—the representatives of the mob; if the demon did not cry so loudly, it was only because he was weary of his thankless task.

  Beatrice was a superb coquette—but only for the man she loved. For these Sunday afternoons she attired herself divinely; Wilfrid had learnt to expect a new marvel at each of his comings. To-day she wore her favourite colour, a dark-blue. Her rising to meet him was that of a queen who bath an honoured guest. The jewels beneath her long dark lashes were as radiant as when first she heard him say, ‘I love you.’ All the impulses of her impetuous character had centred on this one end of her life. Her eccentricities had tamed themselves in the long discipline of frustrated desire. The breath of her body was love. About her stole a barely perceptible perfume, which invaded the senses, which wrapped the heart in luxury.

  Wilfrid dropped on one knee before her and kissed her hand.

  ‘You are in a happy mood,’ Beatrice said. ‘Who has been telling you the last flattery?’

  ‘I have seen no one to-day. If I look happy—should I not?’

  She drew her finger along the line of his eyebrow.

  ‘How does your picture get on?’

  ‘I have to give two sittings next week. Thank goodness they are the last.’

  ‘Oh! why wasn’t it in time for the Academy! But it must go next year.’

  Wilfrid laughed as he seated himself opposite to her.

  ‘I am not sure, after all, that you are happy,’ she said, leaning her head a little aside as she gazed at him. ‘Now you are thoughtful. I suppose you will be more and more thoughtful.’

  ‘Deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat, and public care—’

  quoted Wilfrid, with a little wrying of the lips. ‘This, you know, is one of the penalties of greatness.’

  She seemed about to rise, but it was only to slip forward and sink upon her knees by his side, her arms embracing him. It was like the fall of fair waters, so gracefully impulsive, so self-abandoning.

  ‘Not one kiss to-day?’ she murmured, her voice like the dying of a flute.

  And she raised to him a face lit from the inmost sanctuary of love.

  ‘You are as beautiful,’ he said, ‘as any woman of whom fable ever told. Your beauty frightens me. It is sometimes more than human—as though the loveliest Greek goddess suddenly found breath and colour and the light of eyes.’

  Beatrice threw her head far back, laughing silently; he saw the laughter dance upon her throat.

  ‘My love! my own!’ she whispered. ‘Say you love me!’

  ‘Dearest, I love you!’

  ‘Ah! the words make my heart flutter so! I am glad, glad that I have beauty; but for that you would never have loved me. Let me hide my face as I tell you. I used to ask myself whether I was not really fairer than other women—I thought—I hoped! But you were so indifferent. Wilfrid, how long, how long I have loved you! I was quite a young girl when I loved you first. That, I said, shall be my husband, or I will never have one. And I knew so little how to win your thought. How ashamed it makes me to think of things I said and did in those days!’

  She was silent, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  ‘Do you ever think of me as I was at Dunfield?’ she asked presently, with timid utterance, hardly above her breath, risking what she had never yet dared.

  ‘No,’ he answered, ‘I think of the present.’

  His voice was a little hard, from the necessity of commanding it.

  ‘You did not know that I loved you then? Think of me! Pity me!’

  He made no answer. Beatrice spoke again, her face veiled against him, her arms pressing closer.

  ‘You love me with perfect love? I have your whole heart?’

  ‘I love you only, Beatrice.’

  ‘And with love as great as you ever knew? Say that to me—Wilfrid, say that!’ She clung to him with passion which was almost terrible. ‘Forgive me! Only remember that you are my life, my soul! I cannot have less than that.’

  He would have been cased in triple brass if music such as this had not melted into his being. He gave her the assurance she yearned for, and, in giving it, all but persuaded himself that he spoke the very truth. The need of affirming his belief drew from him such words as he had the secret of; Beatrice sighed in an anguish of bliss.

  ‘Oh, let me die now! It is only for this that I have lived.’

  Wilfrid had foreseen and dreaded this questioning. From any woman it was sooner or later to be expected, and Beatrice was as exacting as she was passionate. She knew herself, and strove hard to subdue these characteristics which might be displeasing to Wilfrid; her years of hopelessness, of perpetual self-restraint, were of aid to her now; three months had passed without a word from her which directly revived the old sorrows. Her own fear of trenching on indiscretion found an ally in Wilfrid’s habitual gravity; her remark, at their meeting, on his mood was in allusion to a standing pleasantry between them; she had complained that he seldom looked really happy in her presence. It was true; his bearing as a rule was more than sober. Beatrice tormented herself to explain this. He was not in ordinary intercourse so persistently serious, though far more so than he had been in earlier years, the change dating, as Beatrice too well had marked, from the time of his supreme misery. With the natural and becoming gravity of mature age there mingled a very perceptible strain of melancholy. You felt it in his laugh, which was seldom hearty; it made his sprightliness in social hours more self-conscious than it might have been. Beatrice had always felt towards him a very real humility, even when the goading of her unrequited love drove her into a show of scornful opposition. Herself conscious of but average intelligence, and without studious inclinations, she endowed him with acquisitions as vast as they were vague to her discernment; she knew that it would always lie beyond her power to be his intellectual companion. Therefore she desired to be before everything womanly in his eyes, to make the note of pure sentiment predominate in their private relations to each other. She had but won him by her artistic faculty; she could not depend upon that to retain and deepen his affection. Her constant apprehension was lest familiarity should diminish her charm in his eyes. Wilfrid was no less critical than he had ever been; she suspected
that he required much of her. Did he seek more than she would eventually be able to give? Was she exhausting the resources of her personal charm? Such thoughts as these made curious alternations in her manner towards him; one day she would endeavour to support a reserve which should surpass his own, another she lost herself in bursts of emotion. The very care which she bestowed upon her personal appearance was a result of her anxiety on this point; in the last resort she knew herself to be beautiful, and to her beauty he was anything but insensible. Yet such an influence was wretchedly insufficient; she must have his uttermost love, and never yet had she attained full assurance of possessing it.

  Little did Wilfrid suspect the extent to which her thoughts were occupied with that faint, far-off figure of Emily Hood. It was her despair that she had known Emily so slightly; she would have desired to study to the depths the woman who had possessed such a secret of power. In personal charm Emily could not compare with her; and yet—the distinction struck her hard—that was perhaps only true if personal charm merely meant charm of person, for she herself had experienced something of the strange impressiveness which men—men of imagination—submitted to in Emily’s presence. Where did it lie, this magic? It was indefinite, indefinable; perhaps a tone of the voice represented it, perhaps a smile—which meant, of course, that it was inseparable from her being, from her womanhood. Could one attribute to Emily, even after the briefest acquaintance, a thought, an instinct, which conflicted with the ideal of womanly purity? Was not her loveliness of the soul? Moreover, she was intellectual beyond ordinary women; for Wilfrid that must have been a rich source of attraction. Scarcely less than the image of Wilfrid himself was that of Emily a haunting presence in Beatrice’s life. Recently she had spoken of her both with Mrs. Birks and Mrs. Baxendale; it cost her something to do so, but both of these had known Emily with intimacy, and might perhaps tell her more than she herself remembered or could divine. Mrs. Birks was disposed to treat Emily with little seriousness.