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BY
LUCAS MALET.
KENSINGTON, W., August 1896.
"We are no other than a moving
row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and
go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern
held
In Midnight by the Master of the
Show;
But helpless Pieces of the Game He
plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and
Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and
slays,
And one by one back in the Closet
lays."OMAR KHAYYAM.
Hammond recounts very well when he is in the vein. He also possesses the
gift of pronouncing a larger number of words in a limited space of time
than any other person of my acquaintance. We had talked of many things.
Discussed that chief
wonder of the age, the modern young woman; who differs as much from all bygone types of womanhood as our modern modes of locomotion do from those obtaining in the days of Abraham.
"For," said Hammond, "broadly speaking, is she not to
her mother, as is the Orient Express to a string of camels?"
He added that, compared with even a superficial comprehension of the
intricacies of her thought and conduct, the mastery of the Chinese language
would supply an airy pastime, the study of the higher mathematics a gentle
sedative.
"You may take her," he declared, "as a single or, in
conjunction with man as a double, acrostic. In either case she is past
finding out."
Then the conversation wandered on to the heroines of modern fiction; and
brought up, by chance, against the lady to whom is given the
title-rôle in that penetrating little
tale of Daudet's, La menteuse.
Here Hammond became didactic.
I met Leversedge in London once in a way. Then he would disappear for an
indefinite period, to return--very long and lean and
brown--furnished with a vocabulary floridly rich in abusive epithets
applicable to South African society. He
had business, as I understood, in those savage regions. And it must have proved remunerative, for he gave an increasing impression of prosperity each time I saw him. But whether it consisted in exploiting the aborigines, digging for diamonds, pulling the tail feathers out of live ostriches, or undertaking dental operations on dead elephants, I never exactly knew. He grew rich, voilà tout; and he really was a charming fellow, though his appearance always seemed to imply the near neighbourhood of a horse--a thing which I, personally, find slightly irritating. For I have no drop of the blood of the Centaurs in me. I gravitate naturally, as you may say, to my own feet or to wheels. So that a being half equine, as are so many of the members of our great race, produces in me an annoying sense of the limitations of my opportunities.
This, however, is a digression.--It remains that this man
Leversedge had just that hint of a stoop about the shoulders, indolent
fashion of moving, and slightly distracted look across the eyes and brow
which riding-men so frequently have. He had more legs, too, than are
absolutely requisite in civilised society. I may mention, in passing, that
he was delightfully clean; that his almost black beard was neatly trimmed,
while his moustache, which was a quite bright brown, stood rather gallantly
away from it. Had you
arrayed him in white ruff and trunk-hose he would have made an admirable Elizabethan adventurer. Pardon these details, since it is necessary to the appreciation of what follows that you should see the creature "in his habit as he lived."
The last time I met Leversedge was at a large summer hotel on the Lake
of Geneva. It is a very commendable dwelling-place,--according to the
style of such things,--situated in several acres of garden that
stretch down to and along the lake shore. I abstain from localising it more
particularly, for Leversedge's is not a name to conjure with there.
Quite unintentionally he spoilt the manager's season for him. Even the
British and American tourist, matter-of-fact animal though it is, has its
superstitions. My friend's eccentric action aroused them, aroused them
to the extent of making the owners of them run away. For he caused life
suddenly to dip to the tragic level--a thoughtless thing to do at any
time, an almost criminal one at a summer hotel.
But I am getting the cart before the horse. All that came later.
Immediately, Leversedge appeared to be in the very heyday of success. He
had attained. He had made his pile. The elephants and ostriches and South
Africans, white or black, had receded into the Great Inane. The diamonds
had receded also, saving and excepting the considerable store of those
delightful stones that he had brought along with him, and destined for the delectation and adornment of his bride. For Leversedge's tastes were innocent, innocent to the point of matrimony. He was engaged to a young lady, by name Miss Charlotte Perry,--playfully addressed by her father in moments of expansion as "carissima Carlotta mia,"--had been so engaged for quite a number of years. Now he was about to marry her, a proceeding which, subject to the fact of a protracted engagement, really touches the high-water mark of innocence, doesn't it?
The Perry parents, I regret to say, struck me as leaving something to be
desired. Leversedge had offered to take the best suite of rooms in the
house for them; and they had, perhaps consequently, shown considerable
alacrity in coming this far to meet him on his homeward journey.
They were a rather dusty-looking couple. He a voracious, adhesive little
rat of a man, with a lop-sided way of walking, a coat-collar insufficiently
brushed at all times, and a waistcoat to match after meals. He smiled upon
one ravenously; and told many stock stories of witty bishops and
Conservative politicians, giving his audience to understand he had himself
invariably acted Horatio to the Hamlet of these good and great men. Mrs.
Perry was in another style. Dusty too, but round-about and kindly; of an
expansive, middle-class figure, and a countenance resembling a moon on a clock-face. A suburban moon, be it added, of the very honestest sort, wholly unsymbolic of the worship of Artemis or Astarte, without phases, standing ever at a guileless full. But if in outward aspect this worthy pair was divided, in sentiment they were one--in as far, at least, as sentiment related to their fair daughter; for they reverenced her as the supreme expression of their highest selves. And there was something genuinely touching in the whole-heartedness of that reverence, in their whispered confidences regarding the effect of her beauty, the widespread recognition of her talents, the brilliancy of her social successes. If one might accept the witness of these good parents, the life of London, intellectual and artistic, pulsed with profounder colour and thrilled into more vigorous effort when Charlotte Perry passed along. According to them, Walter Creighton extolled her pastels, and even that harshest of critics, James Colthurst, praised her draughtsmanship; while Zeltingen had been heard, more than once, to protest that if she played in public his reputation as a pianist would be completely gone. At Adolphus Carr's Wednesday afternoons she was a more than welcome guest; and Mrs. Septimus Mertyns, the wife of the distinguished Q.C., whose drawing-rooms in Portland Place so perpetually
reverberate to the roarings of lions young and old, could not be happy without her. Given dearest Lotta to help, she is reported to have declared herself equal to entertaining the Immortals of all ages--without distinction of race, creed, or sex--and, what is more, of making a success of the affair.
From all of which it may assuredly be gathered that this accomplished
young lady had been designed by nature to fill some notable niche in
contemporary history. And that provoked a little inward questioning as to
whether she was equally designed by nature to be the contented wife of
Constantine Leversedge, with his distracted brow, and long legs, and
probably very ordinary, primitive view of the marital relation.
The thermometer, I remember, stood rather persistently at 90° in the
shade that summer,--a condition of the atmosphere which disposes one
to the exclusive observation of objects in the immediate foreground, easily
within the range of vision, that can be contemplated without the breaking
of a decent repose, without the unlovely heatings of physical exertion. And
therefore, I suppose, I began to observe the Perry-Leversedge drama rather
closely. It was under my hand. Daily it was round about me. At first the
action was languid. Suddenly unexpected elements introduced themselves into
the piece.
The Perrys had gone out to luncheon. Mrs. Septimus Mertyns had just
announced her advent at a popular hostelry in the neighbouring little
town--half a mile away down a scorching boulevard, very inadequately
shaded by rows of small, round-headed mountain-ash trees. You may reach the
place--the Perrys had done so--by means of an electric tram of
phenomenal joltiness, the whirrings and hootings of which distract the
sensitive ear from 7 A.M. to 9.30 at night.
Mrs. Mertyns, like the highland chieftain of legend or heroic story, had
brought her tail along
with her. A truly resplendent tail, socially and intellectually considered; dazzling to the eyes of Perry père et mère, and even, in a degree, to the more experienced orbs of the Carissima also. For it counted a clever peeress who does not get on well with her stupid peer; pretty Mrs. Neville St. John, some time Miss Hattie White, an American. (She gets on equally well with St. John or without him, so there is no indiscretion in naming names. Upon the present occasion, I may remark, she was getting on quite capitally without him.) Walter Creighton, A.R.A., was also of the party; and Percy Gerrard, the well-known editor of the Present Day. Lastly, Septimus Mertyns himself, looking bleak and slightly harried. When his wife clearly is enjoying herself, it is reprehensibly weak of a husband to look harried. Bleak he must look, I suppose, poor dear, if nature has fashioned him that way,--but let that pass. The Perrys were bidden to meet the resplendent tail, and the Perrys went.
Leversedge did not go. Being a very true gentleman, he assumed that he
had not cared to go. "It was too hot,"--too hot, forsooth,
for this sun-grilled being just home from the tropics! Whether he had not
been included in the invitation, or whether Miss Perry had desired him to
refuse it, offered food for speculation. I could not determine. But I
observed that he was a trifle
low in his mind as he sat in that cool hall, among the palms and indiarubber plants, smoking the cigarette of peace and drinking black coffee. His talk ran on serious subjects.
The irruption of some lively children from out of the lift, accompanied
by French bonnes and English governesses
galore, caused a pause in our conversation. Leversedge was very fond of
children, a wholesome trait in any man's character. He watched them,
and as their cries and chatter died away out of doors in the garden he
asked me--
"Do you believe in devils?"
Now, this, if you like, was serious. It almost amounted to being
fundamental; and I own to an inherent distaste for formulating opinions
upon fundamentals.
"A devil, Leversedge," I therefore playfully protested.
"Don't let us approach the question in the plural number. It
becomes too complicated, too crowded. One devil,--one surely is enough
for all practical purposes? In the singular he is precious, though archaic;
and, if only for dramatic and literary reasons, I don't think we can
afford to abolish him. He supplies the dash of absolute black, you see,
which brings out all the delicate lights and shades of the moral picture.
Without him the nuances would lose their
values. No, we must keep one. He may be of any size you like,--quite a
small one if you wish it, a veritable little
ewe-lamb of a devil. But for the sake of his colour,--I am getting slightly mixed as to sex, I fancy, but my knowledge of the sheepfold is scarcely professional,--well, of its colour, which is black, you understand, uncompromising black, I implore that one, just one, may be spared to us."
Leversedge smiled upon me, but in a spirit of gentle endurance. His
pensiveness remained, unabated.
"I was not talking of property devils," he answered;
"and they would hardly serve your purpose anyhow; for they seem to
make them red nowadays, mostly, not black. I saw Faust last
time I was home, at the Lyceum; but I didn't think the scarlet variety
patronised there amounted to very much. They were altogether too solid. You
know, at a push you could do for them,--shoot, or stick, or strangle
them. You must be an uncommonly poor lot if you find things frightening
that you could strangle."
He smoked reflectively for a little.
"No," he went on; "I--I mean you--I mean
nobody's afraid of what they can strangle. Even when I was home last,
I could have supplied the management with the ground-plan of a much nastier
species of fiend than those hairy, pudding-bodied creatures. And
now--"
Leversedge's voice caught with a click in his throat. He sprang to
his feet, making a violent
movement of both hands, as though forcing something heavy and clinging off his lap.
"Get down," he cried, "you brute,--you hideous
brute."
This was startling. But there are incidents which, while provoking
curiosity almost to bursting-point, have about them a gravity--a
gravity born of their very absurdity sometimes--which would
effectually prevent any but a double-soled idiot making comments or asking
questions. I did neither. Leversedge had just spoken of people being
frightened; and that more sympathetically than I should have expected, for
he was himself certainly no poltroon. He was a quiet, steady, sensible
fellow, the kind of man to whom women turn instinctively, as to a life-belt
or lightning-conductor, in an emergency. Yet at this moment his face
expressed fear, and more than fear. It expressed downright terror and
uncontrollable disgust.
Really he presented a very distressing spectacle. His mouth was slightly
open, while his lips curled back queerly from his teeth. It may sound
ridiculous, but I could almost swear that his hair bristled. His action had
been too rapid for premeditation. I never doubted it was wholly spontaneous
and honest. Still, I knew--knew as positively as I have ever known
anything in my life--that nothing, animate or inanimate, had been
reposing upon his
excellently white, flannel trousers. Knew, equally well, that nothing had slipped from off them on to the inlaid marble floor as, beating his knees, he lunged up out of the chair beside me.
We had only just finished our coffee. The tray and a
flacon of cognac still stood on the table
before me. After about a minute Leversedge laid hold of the
flacon, and emptied half its contents into
one of the dirty coffee-cups. He gulped down the brandy, and wiped his
moustache and beard--as well as he could, for his teeth were
chattering and his hands shaking, like those of a person in the cold fit of
a fever. Then he walked up and down the length of the hall once or twice,
fished a cane stool out from under one of the seats, came back and sat down
beside me again.
He had entered into possession of himself. But he was still shaking.
Very carefully he placed the stool on his knees, wrong way about, so that
the four legs of it stuck up into the air, took out his cigarette case, and
lighted another cigarette.
"I beg your pardon, Hammond," he said, as he did so.
"This has not happened to me for some time, and it took me by
surprise. I don't make such a fool of myself when I am in
training--when I'm habitually hag-ridden. But I've been
pretty free of all that lately."
He looked round, doing his best to smile, though his lips twitched
oddly.
"Now, do you believe in devils?" he asked. "Real ones,
I mean,--not property devils."
"I believe in liver, my dear friend," I asserted. "And
still more sincerely do I believe in nerves, which are superior in the
production of torments to all the Satans generated by the unhealthy
imaginations of all ascetics, Oriental and mediæval, put
together."
"And still more readily do you believe in drink, I suppose,"
he said quietly. "Only let me remind you, the monsters that haunt
drunkards do it openly in broad day. You can see them, so they tell me, as
plain as your hand. Now, I only see this beast at night, when the lights
are out and there's no moon. And even then only--only part of it.
By day I only feel it."
Leversedge shook again all over, while he slowly slid the cane stool up
and down his lap.
"When I begin to see it in the light, I shall have sense enough
left to look for the nearest lunatic asylum, I hope. Or put an end to the
business in an even more effectual manner."
What did I do? Naturally I did what everyone does, except a very few
women--on whom may heaven rain all blessings, they richly deserve
such, faithful souls!--what everyone, I say, does when a
fellow-creature is in anly vital need of help, or advice, or encouragement.
I expended myself in ineptitudes, in palpable platitudes, in sieve-like
commonplaces of consolation, through which the comfort ran with the silliest little tinkle imaginable.
Poor Leversedge listened in commendable patience.
"You're extremely kind," he said; "but this is
nothing new. It's been going on for ever so long. I've tried
drugs, and dieting, and doctors--they make no difference. I hoped
perhaps coming back to Europe and the old life--"
He paused, still sliding the stool backwards and forwards in that
unpleasantly suggestive manner.
"Smoke, please," he said. "Do you mind my telling you?
I've never told anybody before. The best and the worst things that
happen to you, you keep to yourself as a rule, you know.
But--but--I'm rather knocked about by what's just
occurred. I should be glad to have you know."
Again the stool travelled backwards and forwards. Then Leversedge said
slowly--
"It began like this--I had been riding for a couple of days
expecting to strike a mining camp where I had business. But I'd fever
on me, and got out of my course. Do you know the Veldt, Hammond? Of course
you don't--the endless roll of the treeless land, under the dome
of the thick, tropic sky, both alike grey with the heavy, deadly heat. It
gets you with a sort of despair. You look at it as you might look at a
sentence of penal
servitude for life. The monotony takes the heart out of you--that, and the heat, the killing heat. At last the hazy warming-pan of a sun went down, and the dark came quick, and I muddled on pretty well done. And, from the top of one of those everlasting bare ridges, I saw the white tilts of a couple of waggons showing up about half a mile away. It wasn't my camp, but it meant something in the way of rest and help. At least, I thought so at first, though there was no smoke, and the whole place seemed unaccountably quiet, save for the yapping of a dog."
Leversedge looked round at me, and spoke as though forcing himself.
"I needn't go into details, Hammond," he said.
"That camp was dead. Even in the night, which decently hides a good
deal, it was a ghastly place. I suppose they'd all died of thirst,
they and the oxen. And I had fever on me. I shall never know quite all I
did see. But in one of the waggons I made out a dead woman. Underneath it a
dog was tied, a small, yellowish cur, the only thing left alive, and it
yapped. And--and--there had been a child in the waggon, a little
baby-child--and I suppose it had lived longer than the rest. And it
must have crawled out over the tail of the waggon, and fallen close to the
dog. It lay there, a white bundle of a thing in the gloom. And the dog
squatted with its forepaws out across the
child's chest, its eyes showing green, straining at the rope which tied it. And bending down from the saddle--I was too weak with fever to get off--my horse, too, would have scared, it was half mad at--well--at the death all round it, and the stench--I saw that the brute had torn the child's throat--for--for the blood."
He paused a moment. And when he continued, it struck me through all the
absorbing terror of his story that Leversedge was one of those persons who,
even under severest stress of adverse circumstance, try to be just.
"I know it was starving," he said, "and--which is
worse--it was parched. Men have done as bad things before now at
sea,--only, I tell you, Hammond, I had to kill that dog. I could not
afford to squander cartridges, but I could spare a couple. Twice I tried
it, but my revolver was heavy, and I was altogether played out, so that my
hand shook. The bullets only cut the rope. And then--then--I was
taken with a sort of panic, Hammond. I cleared out of that awful place; and
the dog came too."
His voice sank; and while one hand still held the upturned legs of the
stool, he leant sideways, and with the other made a slow level motion as of
something passing across the floor.
"It kept pace with my horse. Those dreadful eyes looking up at
me--two yellowish-green discs
galloping beside me, dropping behind for a minute or two, coming up with me again, mile after mile, all through the night. And the night seemed years and years long--"
I am afraid it is true, even with the most civilised of us, that the
appetite for horror grows with what it feeds on. I am naturally a soft man,
a dweller in tents, of the Jacob rather than the Esau order of mind. I
detest adventures, save of the drawing-room and five-o'clock-tea sort.
Yet, as Leversedge ceased speaking, I was sensible of an unholy craving for
more of these horrors. And, when his silence grew somewhat prolonged, I
found myself--to my shame--saying greedily--
"Well, my dear fellow, well? That's not the end?"
Leversedge turned to me with that pathetically patient smile of his. Did
I perceive, though, the faintest flavour of contempt behind it? The
contempt of Esau, the fighter and hunter, the dealer in primitive passions,
for the smooth-handed Jacob of the club, and the pavement, and the silver
teapot?
"No, that's not the end," he answered at last;
"that's only the beginning.--I need not bother you with the
whole set out. I was pretty bad for some time; though I stumbled across my
own people next day, and we struck a vein of luck at our mining place, and
the money was rolling in
hand over hand. It seemed as if the curse and the gold had come together.--As soon as I could move I went down to the coast and got away to sea. And I thought it was all right. We were a couple of degrees south of the equator, and there had been a bad electric storm which had made us all feel pretty jumpy; but the rain had come down and the weather was mending. Everyone else had gone under cover--some music and singing was going on in the saloon--and I was standing forward against the bulwarks with the doctor. He was a nice little chap--tremendously keen on travel and on natural history. He died of fever a year and a half afterwards, I heard, exploring somewhere up the Congo. I've always been sorry he dropped out. There was good stuff in him.--But about this affair of mine. It must have been about half-past eight, and it was very close notwithstanding the rain; and very dark, but for the glimmer through the slats of the saloon shutters. And right along the length of the promenade deck, straight at us, came a dog, just as hard as it could lick. I only saw its eyes,--two glowing green discs a trifle bigger than a sixpence,--but there was no mistaking what they were. They travelled along about nine inches above the level of the deck, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, as the thing galloped. It turned, just short of us, round the end of the saloon, and went, as I supposed, down the other
side of the deck. I spoke to the doctor about it--I hoped there might be a dog on board I did not know of--but he hadn't observed anything. Then the eyes came racing up our side of the deck again. I pointed them out to him, still he didn't see. Still I had a sort of hope about me, so I knelt down and whistled the brute to come to me."
Leversedge grasped the up-turned legs of the stool, and leaned forward,
looking across to where the great glass doors of the hall opened on to the
buff of the carriage-drive, and the dancing green of the garden in blaze of
sunshine beyond.
"It came," he said. "The eyes were close to
me,--quite close. People are sentimental on board ship, you know. A
girl was singing 'Annie Laurie' in the saloon. She'd an
uncommonly pretty voice. I heard the words of the song quite distinctly;
that and the swish of the water against the side, and the steady pounding
of the engines, as I put out my hand to pat the beast's head. And my
hand went down, clean down, within a couple of inches of those eyes, where
its neck should have been--where its neck was--I swear it
was--clean down on to the wet planks of the deck.--Then I knew
something very evil was upon me. In that dead camp I had seen the
Thing-too-Much.--For there is a Thing-too-Much, you know, in nature,
in men and women, in what happens. And you may tell by the look in a
person's face whether they've
seen it. They mayn't be cowards; most fairly healthy people have really plenty of pluck. Only, I tell you what takes it out of the bravest. They have seen Fear,--Fear itself, that there's no getting over or arguing about. They've been 'to the end of the world and looked over the wall,'--they got to the place from which there's no way out.--Oh! I say," he cried suddenly, "here comes Charlotte--Miss Perry--and the others."
Then Leversedge, "the man who had gone to the end of the world and
looked over the wall," glanced at the
flacon of cognac; thought better of it, got
up and went across the hall to meet the returning revellers.
I am fond of contrasts. At that moment I had reason to congratulate
myself. Here promised to be contrasts of a high order of interest.
Miss Perry looked warm, which was a pity, for it was not her
rôle to look warm. It was her
rôle to remind you of sunrise rather
than sunset, to be virginal, flower-like, I might say dewy. She was tall;
and our grandmothers, I think, would have described her appearance as
elegant, the more so that her shoulders sloped and that her features were
somewhat indefinite. For truly, in her the paternal rat and the maternal
clock-moon had mixed themselves to the point of uncertainty, the roundness
of the one putting a perpetual check upon the sharpness of the other, and
vice versâ--two affirmatives going
to make a negative, if one may reverse the rule laid down in our English
grammar. Her colouring, on the other hand, was
quite definite. It was red and brown. I have heard it called Italian, or gipsy-like. A budding poet once asserted, in dedicatory verse, that her complexion reminded him of split pomegranates. But then, poets pay odd compliments--specially young ones. Miss Perry's hair was brown, and abundant. Her eyes were also brown, and the whites of them very white. They were extremely pretty eyes; not large and placed flatly in her head, but dewy, almost always dewy, and full of appeal.
In short, she was unquestionably an uncommonly attractive young lady,
particularly at a little distance. She needed to be focussed--but
nearly every pretty woman, like every good picture, needs that! And she
dressed well, though her clothes needed focussing too. At close quarters
they had an unhappy knack of looking new without looking quite fresh. On
the day in case, I remember, she wore a brown linen suit with a wealth of
primrose silk vest to it. Both were smart, but slightly tired--perhaps
from long sojourn in her boxes. The yellow roses in her large, black-lace
hat were tired also. But I own to a sense of shame in having noticed these
defects. I felt it was unhandsome of me, since she advanced upon her lover
with a really captivating air of appeal and anxiety.
A pathetic note had intruded itself into my
friendship for Constantine Leversedge during the last half-hour. If any pleasure was going, he had a prescriptive right to it. He was owed compensation. Solitude à deux is, of course, the very seat of bliss in matters of the affections; I therefore did my possible to procure him a tête-à-tête with the fair Charlotte by concentrating the attention of her parents upon myself. I succeeded. Mrs. Perry, dear good woman, had subsided on to the settee in the centre of the hall, too extenuated by the heat to be otherwise than perfectly docile. Mr. Perry was active, I might almost say rampageous; he was thirsting to communicate impressions, triumphs. In the capacity of an audience I was therefore acceptable to him.
"Well, well, good afternoon to you, Mr. Hammond," he cried.
"You see, we have returned. Not all the darts of the
sun-god--torrid sunshine to-day, I'm sure, really
torrid--could detain us any longer. Even in the gayest scenes, the
most intellectually stimulating society, the heart of the true
woman"--Mr. Perry nodded playfully over his shoulder in the
direction of Miss Charlotte and Leversedge--"draws her back to
'the kindred points of heaven and home.' Hotel and heaven and
home, as I may say in this case; which is accurate in fact, and pleasing to
the ear as alliteration, eh, Mr. Hammond? Yes, thank you,
we have had a charming party, really a delightful party,--haven't we, Mamma?"
This to Mrs. Perry, flushed as a moon in the early stages of an eclipse,
vainly courting coolness by untying her bonnet strings and spreading out
her fingers upon her knees, as she sat upon the settee.
"Delightful," he continued, without waiting for an answer;
"and most gratifying to us as--as the authors of her days, as I
may say--wasn't it, Mamma?--to witness the high estimation
in which our dear Charlotte is held by really superior persons. Nothing
new, of course,"--Mr. Perry said this with a smile which came as
near being haughty as the fashion of a rat permitted;--"but
testimony to an old truth, if that truth be pleasing, is always welcome.
And she sustained her part in the conversation victoriously. I do not
exaggerate when I employ the word victorious. Really there are moments when
my daughter's knowledge of all subjects that come under discussion
almost staggers me. It is encyclopædic, I'm
sure,--positively encyclopædic. I listen and admire and--
Still the wonder grows
How one small head can carry
all she knows."
(For under excitement it was Mr. Perry's habit thus to gather in
the British poets by some more or less hybrid quotation. I have heard with
trembling, that he has been known to recite whole poems of a patriotic character--"The Charge of the Light Brigade," for instance, or "God bless the Prince of Wales"--during the lapses of active interest--these are not infrequent, I understand--at local meetings of the Primrose League.)
"Mamma, I am sure, will endorse my statement," he added.
"My daughter in congenial society, among her intellectual equals, is
surprising, really surprising."
"Oh yes," Mrs. Perry said, thus appealed to--"of
course everybody was very clever. Mrs. Mertyns' friends always are.
And it seemed to me Charlotte talked as cleverly as any of them; at least I
understood quite as little of what she meant. And it always shows people
are saying what is clever when you can't make out what they mean;
don't you think so, Mr. Hammond?"
"Unquestionably, my dear lady," I replied. "An
infallible test!"
Mr. Perry glanced at me sharply, and then again addressed that
unconscious satirist his wife.
"You would like to have the lift, my love, and go up to our
apartment and rest.--Here, ascenseur,
ascenseur!"
"I think I will sit still a little first," Mrs. Perry
replied, throwing back her bonnet strings. "Heat is very confusing.
Don't you find it so, Mr. Hammond? It quite upsets me. Once or twice
at luncheon I turned so faint and giddy I wondered if I could remain at table, which was very awkward for me."--Mrs. Perry sighed.--"It seems to me clever people, like Charlotte's friends, are so strong," she said. "They often look delicate, and yet somehow they always seem ready to go anywhere, and do anything, and talk. They never seem overcome with the heat, or the cold either, for that matter. I'm sure it must be very nice to feel like--"
"Habit," broke in Mr. Perry,--"habit--there
is a vast amount in that. I declare I hesitate to limit the power of habit.
But I wish you had been with us, Mr. Hammond. You would have appreciated
the conversation, and no doubt increased its charms--no doubt
increased them. One brief passage of arms between my daughter and Mr. Percy
Gerrard, upon the place of the imagination in modern realistic fiction, was
brilliant, positively brilliant.
And so the wordy battle grew, swelling almost to
dissonance;
Then broke in laughter, and, with courteous
phrase,
Sunk back to sweet agreement--this the end.
And Mertyns told some very good stories towards the conclusion of lunch.
One of the late Earl of Beaconsfield, which was new to me. A first-rate
story--not more so than some of my own, but still first-rate. Just
remind me, after dinner,
my dear, and I'll tell it to Mr. Hammond. It will amuse him."
"Yes, but it seems a pity you couldn't have heard Mr. Mertyns
tell it himself; for it seemed to me everybody would have been so glad to
see you, Mr. Hammond," Mrs. Perry said. "They all seemed so
surprised to hear you were at this hotel with us. Mrs. St. John said she
wondered what on earth you could be doing here, and that she wished so much
you would come and tell her."
"Mrs. St. John is a delightful woman, and if she is very good
perhaps I will tell her," I replied.
Perplexity obscured Mrs. Perry's countenance as a passing cloud,
then she beamed out harvest-moon-wise at me.
"Oh," she said, "I see. Now you're being
clever."
"Heaven forbid!" I cried. "I am guilty of much, but,
believe me, of that never."
"My dear, I really think we may as well be
moving."--This from Mr. Perry, not without a hint of
asperity.--"Ascenseur! Where is
that lazy lad? Asleep, I suppose, as usual.--Yes, most kind inquiries
after you, I'm sure, Mr. Hammond. The ladies begged you would call
upon them. In fact, I suspected,"--he here became very
arch,--"I may have been wrong, but I suspected it was thought
you were a little remiss in not having done so already. Come, ascenseur, ascenseur, I tell you; don't you
hear?"
And, receiving no response, he chased away in and out of all probable
and improbable doors voraciously seeking the lift-boy.
"Mr. Hammond, a legend obtains that you are a lawyer. I hope that
it is true, for I stand in great need of an advocate. Constantine is
obdurate, he is grasping. Plead my cause with him, pray."
Miss Perry was at my elbow, Leversedge's long, lean, white and grey
figure a couple of paces from her to the left. He was watching her, adoring
her; and the terror had not yet quite passed out of his face. This was
dramatic.
Meanwhile Miss Perry's bright and dewy eyes were, I will not say
raised to mine, for truth compels me to own our eyes were pretty nearly on
a level. I trust I shall not be considered indiscreet if I mention that her
lips had a trick of tremulously collecting themselves into what may be
described as the sketch of a conceivable kiss before and after speaking.
Her voice was of a gentle, toneless quality; while her speech, glib in fact
yet apparently full of modest hesitation, caressed one's ear with a
delicate hint of deference. For Charlotte Perry had the excellent gift of a
deprecatory manner, such as flatters the natural vanity of the masculine
heart. You felt she reckoned it a matter of gratitude so fine a creature as
your manly self allowed her to look on you and live. Ah! if
women knew! Perhaps some of them do, though--worse luck!
Anyhow, at that moment, Leversedge's matrimonial intentions
appeared to me as little misplaced as such foolish intentions often can be.
For even at close quarters Miss Perry was very distinctly engaging. It must
be remembered I had just suffered a heavy dose of her parents, and from
them she came a sensible relief. Poor young lady! I asked myself of what
crimes she could possibly have been guilty in a former state of existence
to deserve such parents?
"You see this bunch of roses," she continued; "it is
very lovely, isn't it? The scheme of colour is perfect--you feel
colour, don't you, Mr. Hammond? These gradations are delicious, from
white through those faint flesh tones, rose-saffron, and rose to this heart
of passionate crimson. Do not let Constantine coerce me into marring its
perfection. Plead for it. You are a poet. Save it, for is it not a
poem?"
"Is it?" Leversedge said. "Well, then, give me a verse
to stick in my buttonhole."
"Ah!" Miss Perry murmured, drawing back.
She shut her eyes for an instant and shook her head, putting up one hand
with a very pretty gesture of repudiation.
"A verse! but the context, Constantine; don't you perceive
you would annihilate the context?"
"Annihilate the what?" Leversedge asked, in bewilderment.
"I only want one of your roses."
Charlotte Perry looked piteously at me.
"I cannot comprehend a willingness to mar what is perfect in order
to gratify personal desire," she said. "It is distressing. Is
it not almost immoral?"
"According to many high authorities all desire, alas! is immoral,
my dear young lady," I replied. "Therefore your wish to
preserve your charming nosegay intact may be--I do not assert that it
is, I only suggest that it may be--every bit as culpable as
Leversedge's very natural wish to convert a portion of it into a
favour for his unregenerate buttonhole."
"Do you really mean that? I should have thought harmony was always
dearer than discord, preservation than destruction. To me that scheme of
colour represents the birth and growth"--Miss Perry's voice
sank away, became almost inaudible in refinements of
hesitation--"and the eventual, the splendid consummation of some
great romance. I told Mr.Gerrard so when he gave me the flowers--"
"Oh! Percy Gerrard gave you the flowers?" I cried.
The girl did not speak, she only gazed at me, while her lips tremulously
formed themselves into that peculiar sketch of a kiss. I don't know
how she did it, but undoubtedly she made me feel I
had behaved grossly, that I had been amazingly crude and coarse. Then she turned languidly to Leversedge.
"Do you still want them, Constantine? You may have them all
now," she said.
"Oh, my dear, you're never going to give away your sweet
bookay!" Mrs. Perry protested from her post on the settee.
And Leversedge stood holding the flowers, bewildered, looking as nearly
awkward, indeed, as I had ever seen him look. I am not usually either
impulsive or irritable, but I could not quite contain myself.
"Ah, you were right, pre-eminently right," I remarked to
Mrs. Perry. "Your daughter is among the very clever persons. She says
things of which it is wholly difficult to arrive at the meaning."
"Ascenseur--I have him at last.
Run him to earth," cried Mr. Perry, emerging from a side door, in
what may be described as a jovial, sporting, fine old English mood.
"Ah ha! run him to earth at last. Now, my ladies, to horse, to horse,
boot and saddle, up and away!--eh, Mamma?--up and
away!"
Leversedge followed the family party, and leaned his long arms on the
gilded gates of the lift.
"Mayn't I come up with you, Charlotte?" he asked.
"I've hardly seen you all day."
Miss Perry's expression was still that of one
who has been pained, mistaken, really very much pained.
"I am so tired," she answered gently. "And yet I must
practise. I--I am distressed, Constantine, but I think perhaps--I
must practise, you see--I had better be alone."
The sleepy boy was working the steel rope, and with a click the painted
cage began to move up on its greased steel pillar.
"I won't be in the way. I'll sit quite still. I swear I
won't try to make you talk," Leversedge pleaded.
But Charlotte Perry sank upon the narrow red velvet seat beside her
mother, shaking her head.
"Not just now, dear Constantine--please not just now,"
she plaintively said.
Leversedge sauntered back across the hall thoughtfully, dropped the
discarded roses on a little round table, rubbing his hands together as
though he wished to get the feeling of their stems out of his fingers.
"I think I want exercise, perhaps," he said to
me.--Leversedge had a very well-bred instinct of always trying to
carry things off.--"One leads an abominably lazy life here, you
know. I think I'll go out for a good stretch. By the way, Hammond, I
suppose I ought to know, but I've been so little at home lately, you
see--who's this fellow Percy Gerrard, who you're all talking
about?"
"A scavenger of genius," I replied.
"A what?"
"The editor of an extremely successful weekly paper of the social
variety. In his youth he produced a witty and improper novel, which
everybody said it was impossible to read, and everybody promptly read. It
affected to be autobiographical. Now he has ceased to be immoral--at
all events in print--having laid to heart the golden maxim that public
confession of the sins of others is, on the whole, an even more paying
speculation than public confession of sins of your own. I am afraid he has
also ceased to be witty. That is a matter for regret."
Leversedge looked hard at me.
"Sounds a bit of a skunk, I think," he said. "But very
likely I'm wrong. I see I don't catch on to a whole heap of
subjects you are all talking about. I have stayed out of England too long,
and your ideas at home have run clean away from me. You are all speaking a
language I don't know half the time."
He stared absently at the stool, still lying wrong way up on the marble
floor, and then kicked it aside with a sudden savageness.
"Why the dickens didn't I come home six years ago for
good?" he said. "I was worth a tidy lot even then. I was
younger, everyone was younger--one was more in touch. And then,
perhaps, too,
I should never have seen that ungodly brute of a--Oh, well, I beg your pardon, Hammond. I must have bored you enough and to spare with my own affairs already. Meet you at dinner? All right--I'm going for my walk."
Yet if you could detach your mind from the vileness of surrounding
humanity, the aspect of nature was very enjoyable. Rain had fallen in the
early morning, and the fresh-washed landscape wore a delightfully clean and
youthful look. The hotels and villas on the north shore of the lake shone
out among their rich orchards and gardens; while the lake itself, a
"heavenly floor," showing all shades from indigo to azure, was
turned up with the most delectable bottle-green at the edges. The Savoy
Alps were azure likewise, shot with pinkish lights upon their topmost
crags, and with a
bloom of sunlit woods about their feet. The Swiss are nothing but a nation of "marchands de soupe." Granted; but it must be conceded they have the merit of selling the contents of their stock-pots in an admirably pretty country.
On disembarking, the first person I saw--barring the heavy porter
in peg-top trousers, who managed the gang-plank--was Mr. Perry. He
appeared worried. He scuttled up and down over the black timbers of the
pier and clung to the rusty side-rails, scanning the lovely levels of the
lake with irritable eyes. At intervals he hailed some--to
me--imperceptible object in the far distance, and signalled with a
bulky white umbrella. Catching sight of me, he saluted me with wavings of
this instrument.
"Ah! you are back again, Mr. Hammond," he cried. "And
all our little society will be most happy to welcome you
back--I'm sure, most happy. Even in so purely fortuitous an
association of our fellow-creatures, even in the passing relations of an
hotel, we miss the accustomed face, the vacant place at table raises a
regret."
I expressed my sense of indebtedness for these polite observations. But
Mr. Perry bad returned to his agitated survey of the lake.
"Excuse me," he exclaimed. "I think I perceive
them."
He climbed upon the cross-bar ironwork of
rails with surprising agility, and gave forth a really portentous howl.
"Coming in that direction you must have seen them in passing, Mr.
Hammond, in the steamer," he said, turning suddenly and almost
angrily upon me, after waiting vainly for some response to this terrible
noise. "Did you not recognise them?"
"Who and what are they?" I ventured to inquire.
"Constantine Leversedge has taken my daughter out
boating."--Mr. Perry descended dejectedly from his
perch.--"No, I was in error. I did not perceive them, nor
evidently did you."
He removed his hat and wiped his forehead. I may mention that Mr. Perry
invariably wore a tall hat at this period, and black clothes. After which
ceremony he somewhat recovered his equanimity.
"No, no," he cried, "we must school ourselves, we must
school ourselves--
To wait and hope, and still to hope and wait,
Last lesson
learned by man of heaven directed fate.
But I am not among the pessimists, Mr. Hammond. I can look forward, I am
thankful to say, and look up."
All of which unquestionably was very praiseworthy on the part of Mr.
Perry; but a little too large, so it struck me, for the immediate
situation. I pointed out that the young people were in no
danger, that disaster was wholly improbable, the sky being absolutely clear, the water as smooth as a millpond.
"Ah, you misconceive me," Mr. Perry rejoined.--He
carried his head on one side, and nodded sagely, looking up from under his
eyebrows.--"You misconceive me. I fear other dangers than
material ones just now,--a father's anxieties, natural and not I
think condemnable where the future of so dear an object as an only daughter
is concerned. Frankly, then,--for in speaking to you I speak to a man
of the world, Mr. Hammond,--our charming friends, Mrs. Septimus
Mertyns and Mr. Gerrard, have called. They are actually here, they are
indoors with Mamma. And it annoys me," he said, "I cannot
disguise from myself that it annoys me profoundly, my daughter should not
be at home to receive them. Constantine shows himself inconsiderate in
detaining her so long. I thought it probable our friends would visit us
this afternoon, and I gave him a pretty broad hint on the subject. I regret
to say so--but you must have observed it yourself, Mr.
Hammond--Constantine Leversedge is obtuse, unhappily obtuse; he is
insufficiently sensible of his social privileges. Having been deprived of
intellectual advantages, and the enjoyment of intercourse with persons of
superior gifts and position for so long, I should have expected him to
prize these things highly.
But unfortunately it is not so. He displays, is displaying at this moment, in my opinion, a lamentable indifference to an opportunity of cultivating a most valuable acquaintance. I hoped he had taken my hint. He assured me he would return soon after five. Unless I am very much mistaken, six will be striking almost immediately."
Evidently this was serious. So I tried to appease Mr. Perry by remarking
that, considering how exquisite a companion he possessed, Leversedge's
conduct was more than comprehensible, excusable, almost justifiable. For is
not unpunctuality, as I pointed out, the natural prerogative of happy
lovers? For them time has ceased. Eternity enfolds them. How, then, can
they be expected to remember that wholly mechanical contrivance, the clock?
And, to pass from the general to the particular, was it altogether
inconceivable that even Mrs. Mertyns might, at a push, recall faint
memories of a period when to linger with the great Septimus beyond the
appointed time had been bliss? Was Perry himself, indeed, entirely
guiltless under this head? For had he never, in the dear dead past, toyed
with Mrs. Perry,--pretty, pretty picture!--oblivious of the
fleet-footed hours, which, as the poets so insistently remind us,
"will not stay"?
"Ah yes, the young will be young, will be young, Mr.
Hammond," he admitted. "It therefore is
incumbent upon those who, like Mamma and myself, have reached what I may term the watershed of our terrestrial existence, to watch attentively and prevent the commission of thoughtless indiscretion on the part of our youthful relatives. Keep a sharp look-out on our green apples, our green apples, ah ha!--eh? And society is not to be trifled with. Not--but, excuse me, this time I do perceive them."
A rowing-boat, containing two persons, rounded the nose of the stone
breakwater which protects the bathing-place and little harbour on the right
of the garden. And my companion, uttering ejaculations of uncontrollable
satisfaction, chased off the steamboat pier and trotted along the path at
the bottom of the hotel grounds to meet it.
The breakwater, I may mention, runs back in a low, broad-topped stone
wall, enclosing two sides of a triangular piece of ground planted with
close rows of plane trees. The hotel boatman's house stands at one
corner. The men dry their nets here, and the boats are hauled up for
repairs. It is a nice, moist, shady place, commanding an entrancing view,
where the gnat trumpets by day and by night, and the midge actively
investigates all pasturage afforded by the human loiterer.
As for me, I never run; should not, I imagine, were it even to clasp to
my heart a potentially
eloping daughter--which thing, heaven, in its mercy, eternally forbid! So I followed Mr. Perry, in all the calm dignity of the non-parental mind, along the lake path under quivering balsam-poplars and charmingly pendent willows, arriving at the place of gnats only in time to see his lop-sided, little, black figure and the tall, cream-coloured one of the fair Charlotte speeding away, through sunshine and shadow, in the direction of the hotel and social distinction.
Verily, the ways of Providence are not equal! I had returned from Evian
in a depressed frame of mind, as I have already recorded. I had started for
that agreeably mundane little watering-place in a somewhat Byronic humour,
determined to do a trifle of living on my own account. But the humour had
not lasted. With me it rarely does. Once on the spot, a spirit of pallid
Platonism invaded me, chilling to death all possibility of drama. It really
was rather provoking, for I love drama; and the position had been worthy of
one of those French comedies from which the heart must be extracted, during
the process of adaptation for the English stage, if young maidens are to be
spared anxiety when taking members of the elder generation to the theatre.
I had planned it all so nicely, yet nothing had come of it. And now,
directly I returned to this innocent locality, to these commonplace, not to
say rather common, people, I found that, in full play which I had vainly sought across the water.
Mr. Perry's conversation had given me food for thought. While one
glance at Leversedge assured me that for him the wheels had been going
round during my absence, going round to some purpose.
A good many of us, I suppose, as we get on in life, have a face our
friends do not know, though our looking-glasses do, when doors are shut and
the room is empty. That is the face of our naked self, and therefore it is
somewhat indecent for any but ourselves to behold it. Leversedge believed
himself to be alone, he had let
slip appearances, and I beheld the face of his naked self. It was very interesting; but, as things naked often will, it gave me a shock.
Not that there was anything evil in it. It held no revelation of
cleverly veiled iniquities, no trace either of fox or satyr. The man's
self bare was, like the man's self clothed, cleanly, sober,
and--on its own lines--not undignified. If sin was about, one
judged him more likely to be sinned against than sinning; which, so the
authorities assure us, "is far better." But, in his case, even
the farthest better was still but a poor best. For Leversedge looked
hunted, looked tormented; looked as people will look after a disaster at
sea, or a heavy shock of earthquake; looked as those are reported to look
who have seen a ghost.
Of course we all join in denying the existence of the supernatural and
relegating it to the, at present somewhat over-populated, country of
Exploded Ideas; or only in permitting its existence in the form of some
derangement of nerve ganglia or of the intestines. The pill, to put it
concisely, has superseded the prayer--to the great advantage of the
vender of patent medicines, whose advertisement-boards have so gracefully
usurped the station of the wayside cross in modern English landscape.
I mention this in self-defence. For Leversedge
certainly did look as though, in pre-scientific phrase, he had seen a ghost; and no one knows better than I do, I need hardly say, that ghosts, like miracles, "do not happen." Therefore Leversedge's body must clearly have been playing some fool's trick on Leversedge's brain; and Leversedge, in being taken in and so harassed by such trickery was clearly guilty of a grave scientific misdemeanour. Demonstrably it was my place to be angry with him, to convince him of foolishness. But I did none of these things. I own to it with contrition, I was horribly sorry for him--that was all. And only the more sorry, when, suddenly awakening to the fact of my presence, he gripped himself, left off contemplating the swans, accosted me with as much nonchalance as he could muster (not being a very accomplished actor); while an almost defiant inquiry as to how much of the face of his naked self I had beheld haunted his eyes.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Hammond; I didn't see you," he
said. "We've been having a very jolly time out on the water. It
really is a glorious afternoon. But the sunshine's rather dazzling. It
strikes right up in your face off the surface of the lake in a blinding
sort of way. Well, what have you been doing? Been amusing yourself over
there?"
"With the wisest moderation," I replied. "My joys
during the last two days have had nothing bacchanalian about them. I have
lost a little
money, I have gained a little experience, since we parted. And so have you, I fancy, my dear fellow."
"Why? I've lost no money," Leversedge said rather
quickly.
"No, but you have lost flesh, which always implies a deepening of
experience."
Leversedge seemed startled. Then, after a moment's pause, he
exclaimed inconsequently--
"Why, you don't mean to say it shows as much as
that!"
"I only mean to say that you are looking a good deal out of
sorts."
"You see too much, Hammond." He spoke shortly, but recovered
himself almost at once. "I'm hardly the person to accuse others
of seeing too much, though."
"So I feared," I said.
"I have had a hell of a time with--with that blasted
dog"--Leversedge flung away from me savagely. "Oh,
it's humiliating!" he cried. "I tell you I'm ashamed,
downright ashamed of myself. I can't hold my tongue--I want to
talk about it. I want to tell somebody. I am as full of my own symptoms and
sensations as some hysterical girl. I can't keep them to myself. Oh!
it's humiliating; I tell you it's degrading to one's
manhood."
He turned and stood quietly by me again, and again I beheld the face of
his naked self.
"I don't know what to do for the best," he said.
"I want advice--advice; I, who have never asked advice of any living soul, but just shoved along by myself and kept my own counsel, ever since--when I was a little chap of eleven, after my mother died--my father chucked me into the rough and tumble of Harrow to sink or swim as I could. And I have swum after a fashion--that's just why it's so rough on one. If you're going to smash up, upon my word I believe it's best to do it early, before you have grown to believe in yourself. You haven't so far to fall, so it hurts less. But I beg your pardon, Hammond," he added civilly, changing his tone. "I have no earthly claim on your patience and kindness, and I must be boring you frightfully."
"Boring me?" I cried. "Ye gods! is one bored watching
in the operating theatre? Is one bored when seeing a man hanged?"
Leversedge smiled grimly. Perhaps my words evoked some recollection.
"No," he replied. "There are nicer occupations; but I
grant you you are not much bored, as a rule, when a man's being
hung."
We moved away and sat down on the top of the wall together, and I
confessed Leversedge--smoking all the while, which I fear was far from
the orthodox attitude of a confessor. But it was agitating work, and I
needed support of some kind.
"You see, the thing's growing worse," he said,--
"not merely more frequent in coming, but different; it is developing--that's what knocks me about so. It doesn't stop where it did. The brute is materialising itself--that's the word, isn't it?--more and more."--He drew his heels up on to the coping, and bowed himself together, clasping his bands round his knees.--"When I was sitting with the Perrys the other evening, it curled itself up on my lap. And I could not play the fool before them, you know, by blaspheming at it and making a scene. I had to sit still."--He leant forward, resting his chin upon his knees, and spoke very steadily.--"And I tell you I felt all the shape of it--its shoulder, the crinkled turn of its ribs--it must be horribly thin--and its left fore and hind leg pressing down on me as it lay on them, as plain as I feel my fingers holding each other just now. It was all cold and damp, and--and it smelt, Hammond, and that was unspeakably filthy. You know how a mangy cur can smell."
"This is bad," I said.
Leversedge raised his head slowly and looked at me.
"I believe you. It is bad--just as bad as bad can be."
He rested his chin on his knees again.--"And the beast has taken
a fancy to my bedroom, unfortunately. Last night, as soon as I put the
candles out, I saw the eyes down by the side of the bed and they made a
rush. I heaved
a book at them which I had been reading. It was Vanity Fair. I'm awfully fond of Vanity Fair. Poor little Becky, I always want to give her her five thousand a year to 'be good on.' Oh dear me!--Well, they wriggled down again; the beast was knocked backwards on to the floor, you understand. But in a minute it made another rush, and came up across the counterpane, and settled itself against the pillow, those eyes staring bang into mine."
Leversedge put his feet to the ground and, turning away, leaned his
elbows on the low wall. His hat was off, and he held his head back. I saw,
against the wide heavenly blue expanse of the lake, his face in profile,
his pointed beard, and the rather long line of his bare throat--in
which the apple moved sharply as he swallowed once or twice. He was
fine-looking, but too colourless and worn for health--the Elizabethan
adventurer still, but the adventurer who has touched the limit of success,
who is beginning to make acquaintance with the side of adventure which
deals in sickness, in prison, in the failure of hope, in foreknowledge of
death.
"I swore at it, but it did not move. I could not bring myself to
touch it, so we stayed like that some time."--He paused and
swallowed again.--"At last I turned over on the other side, and
it came and scratched at my back, between the
shoulders, as if it was digging out a rabbit. And then--why, then I began to pray, Hammond. If there's a devil, there must be a God somewhere too, I suppose, if it's only to balance things; and I thought perhaps He might happen to hear. It did leave off scratching, but it turned round and round, and snuggled into the small of my back and lay there against me like a lump of ice. It chilled me clean through. I couldn't stand it, so I lighted the candles again, and walked up and down till that blessed sun arose and it was day."
For a minute or two I smoked in silence, and Leversedge stared across
the lake. The grisly night of which he told me and this radiant evening
were in curious contrast. At last he said--"Hammond, what on
earth am I to do?"
"About about?" I asked, for I knew he had not finished his
confession yet.
"About my engagement--about Charlotte Perry," he
answered rather hoarsely.
"Ah! That comes into it."
He looked up at me.--"Of course that comes into it. Why,
that's the heart of it. Do you suppose I should care a twopenny-damn
about it but for that?"
"I am afraid I should care a very immense amount, my dear
fellow," I said, "quite entirely apart from that."
Leversedge straightened himself up.
"No, you wouldn't, though, not if you were in my place. You
see, this engagement of mine is an old story. It's worked right into
the very stuff of my life. And,it may sound queer,"--he smiled
rather sadly,-"but perhaps you are never really more dependent upon a
woman than when you are a few thousand miles away from her. You see, when
you are knocking about in countries where there is not much public opinion
to reckon with you are liable to be tempted to live a bit loosely; and then
her face comes before you at all sorts of odd times, and her letters come.
And you spend hours planning what you and she will do together when the
parting is over and you get back. The thought of her is the sweetness of
your life, and the salt of it too--it's what makes the work worth
while. You see other women, nice women some of them,--dear women, for
a lot of women are nice and dear,--and they're good to you
sometimes; but they aren't in it, they don't count one bit. You
want her, just her and no one else; and you're ambitious for her, you
slave and pile up money for her, you want to give her just all there is to
have. And--and, in fact," Leversedge said, looking full at me,
"I love her, Hammond. I love her. I suppose I'm a selfish
coward, but it's worse than death--oh! my God, it's
unutterable misery to think of giving her up."
His voice had grown thick. He did not wait for my answer, but walked
away beside the break-
water--his figure long and white under the coo green shade of the plane trees.
I like lovers. Their antics rarely irritate me. Even at their worst they
are idiots to whom I offer myself quite willingly as an asylum, and invite,
with open arms, to drivel on my breast; while, at their best, they ravish
my soul with satisfaction. In spirit I build temples to them, and worship
prostrate, my frivolous head in the dust. I had erected a quite imposing
temple to Leversedge by the time he returned; for it appeared to me that,
in him, Providence granted me acquaintance with a lover of a rather heroic
type. If the Beloved was as fine as the Lover, I had hope. In that case I
snapped my fingers at the diabolic dog. For if Charlotte Perry was what her
lover imagined her, if she was worthy of his love, I did not fear but that
she could stay the plague under which he suffered. But was she worthy? Was
it probable the paternal rat and maternal clock-moon could between them
produce offspring of an heroic stamp? To believe they could was, I own, a
tax on my faith. But, as in law the accused is held innocent till proved
guilty, so I would assume Miss Perry to be a heroine till she was clearly
proved to be otherwise, and therefore I said to Leversedge--
"Has it occurred to you, my good friend, that you are treating
this matter rather high-handedly, and that the young lady in question might
be any-
thing but grateful to you for--as you put it--giving her up?"
"I only want to spare her."
"Quite so. But as we may, I suppose, take for granted a degree of
affection on her side, it remains an open question whether you will spare
her by retiring from the situation."
"Ah! if I thought she cared like that," Leversedge said
softly.
"Of course," I cried, "she cares like that."
Nothing is sweeter than assurance on the part of others, when one's
own confidence grows somewhat weak. Leversedge threw back his bead and
smiled. Without doubt he was very much in love.
"And yet, I don't know," he said after a moment.
"For the more she cares the more likely I should be to bring my curse
on her. It is too hideous to contemplate. Think, Hammond, if later, if
afterwards, as the reward of her faithfulness, as the payment of her great
goodness in giving herself to me--she--she came to see and feel
that loathsome beast herself?"
But here cries from the direction of the hotel broke in upon the
solemnity of our interview, and Mr. Perry bore down upon us at a
double.
"Make a clean breast of it," I said hurriedly. "Trust
her--tell her. That is my advice, since you have done me the kindness
to ask it. Tell her everything. Let her decide."
Now, I am, I trust, the last person in the world to be guilty of an
impertinence towards my elders; but, as Mr. Perry pursued his active way
towards us, the word pecky rose unbidden to my lips. His
expression denoted desire for some object on which to wreak a measure of
vengeance. A cherry, perhaps, would do; perhaps a worm or fly;
possibly--for have not even doves, under stress of emotion, been known
to use their tender beaks upon their fellow-doves?--possibly he
coveted a human victim. At sight of me, however, I observed him make an
effort to summon a more genial aspect, and overlay his evident irascibility
with a varnish of playfulness. He shook his finger waggishly at me; and my
heart fell. Could this, indeed, be a father of heroic children?
"Ah ha! I see, I see!" he exclaimed. "The mystery
touches on explanation. 'This is the cause, the cause, my
soul.' Hence Constantine
plays truant. When you two young gentlemen get together there is no hope of you."
He turned to Leversedge, and as he did so the spirit of peckiness
resumed full sway.
"We have been expecting you," he cried. "Charlotte has
been visibly disturbed by your absence."
"Oh, has she? I'm sure I am very sorry," Leversedge
said. "I understood some friends of yours were there,
and--"
"Precisely," returned Mr. Perry quite excitedly. "That
is the point. Friends of ours are here. Mr. Percy Gerrard and Mrs. Septimus
Mertyns are kindly calling upon us. Most talented person, I am sure, Mrs.
Mertyns,--an advantage, Constantine, as I was saying recently to Mr.
Hammond, a positive advantage for one whom, like yourself, I may call a
débutant in the London world, to have
the entrée of her charming
house."
During the progress of this somewhat confused exordium,
Leversedge's vaguely-distracted brow had gathered into a quite
definite frown. He was bothered, annoyed, and, for once, did not try to
conceal the fact.
"I have not the honour of knowing Mrs. Mertyns," he
said.
"Precisely," cried Mr. Perry again. "That, as I
remark, is the point. Charlotte perceived this was a most favourable
opportunity for effecting the
introduction. She is very thoughtful, very--dear
girl,"--here he smiled in a really kingly
manner,--"very wise; she notes, and never undervalues, a social
opportunity. For which I commend her. Indifference in social matters is,
rightly understood, but the mask of ignorance--
Ignorance, that churlish sin,
Which, seeking to cloak
others, shows itself
Still basest born of all."
"Dear me!" murmured Leversedge, lifting his shoulders, as he
drew a long breath.
"Charlotte took for granted you would follow us up from the boat
immediately. When she found you did not do so, she was disappointed, I had
almost said pained; for she recognised your mistake. Mamma, remarking her
disappointment--affection lends wings to perception, Mr.
Hammond--interrupting me in the midst of a most interesting
conversation with Mr. Gerrard upon the deepening of the conservative
sentiment among the educated artisans of our great commercial centres,
whispered to me to come and tell you. And here I am;--me voilà, as I may say, Mr. Hammond, here I
am."
"Yes, you are very sensibly here, Mr. Perry: and it is, as always,
a happiness to be in your company," I replied, with effusion.
I had an idea Leversedge intended revolt. I
wanted to give him time to mature that excellent intention.
Mr. Perry glanced at me sharply; then he again addressed our
companion.
"Well, Constantine, I have delivered myself of my mission. Why
this delay?"
"Because"--Leversedge spoke very slowly--"I
will explain why to Charlotte later, and she will
understand,"--he paused,--"yes, she'll
understand; because I don't, to tell the truth, feel very much
inclined to go and see these people just now. I--I am not in the
humour."
"But--but--this is unheard of," cried Mr. Perry.
"Not inclined,--this is incredible. Not inclined,--this is
insanity."
"Oh no, it isn't; it is disinclination," Leversedge
replied, pushing his hands down into the pockets of his boating coat and
smiling wearily. "Nothing worse than disinclination. Not insanity,
not just yet,--at least, I believe not."
"I fail to grasp your meaning." Mr. Perry looked
vicious.
"Oh, it's very simple. As I say, I will explain to Charlotte;
she'll understand."--Leversedge repeated the phrase more as
one who needs, than as one who has, a conviction of the truth of that which
he asserts.--"We will leave it all in her hands. It may be
better in the longrun for me not to know these people at all."
At this rejoinder Perry père lost
himself utterly for the moment, and, in the excess of his irritation,
literally danced round his future son-in-law.
"Not to know them? But don't you recognise that it is
absolutely incumbent upon you to know my daughter's very cultivated
and interesting circle of friends? It is your duty, and I may add your
privilege, to pay them all possible attention. What are you thinking of?
Pray, who have you to look to but them? Who have you to push you socially?
Why, yours and my daughter's future happiness is wholly dependent upon
their attitude towards you--upon their receiving you, taking you up,
and putting you through, in short."
I ought to have gone away and left the combatants. I admit that I ought.
But the natural man is strong in me, and curiosity is strong in the natural
man. I was tempted, and I fell; that is, I stayed--stayed to see
Leversedge clasp his hands behind him, and bow slightly from the waist.
"So our happiness is dependent upon Charlotte's friends
taking us up and putting us through, is it?" he answered calmly.
"Well, I own the matter had not occurred to me in that light. I hoped
our happiness drew a little more water than that. But I may be wrong, of
course, Mr. Perry, and you may be right. I shall know more about it when I
have explained things to Charlotte; and if I find a strict observance of
social duties will secure our happiness,
you may be very certain I shall do my best to observe them.--Ah!" he added, "here she is."
His face went very pale, but his eyes were clear and steady and his jaw
set. Morally, the small battle had braced him.
Miss Perry's cheeks appeared charmingly flushed, her abundant hair
slightly disordered. The drawing together of her lips suggested a sense of
injury, an inclination to tears. She was extremely pretty, as she halted at
the edge of the shadow thrown by the plane trees, a radiant perspective of
wooded shore bathed in golden sunshine and the fair expanse of the azure
lake behind her, the white swans floating motionless, the gaily-painted
boats.
"Ah, Constantine," she exclaimed in tones of plaintive
reproach, "what cause you have given me for vexation!"
Leversedge stepped out into the sunshine towards her.
"No," she said, raising her hands, "repentance comes
too late. They have gone. It is useless now, and I wanted you so greatly to
see them."
"Look here, my dearest child, I am glad they are gone, for I want
greatly to see you."
There was a certain air of mastery about Leversedge just then, which was
not to be gainsaid. Without the smallest apology, he put his arm round the
young lady's shoulders and drew her aside. Miss Perry looked startled.
She was
I imagine, unaccustomed to such practical declarations of affection in public.
"Never mind your friends; they won't break their hearts at
not seeing me. They'll keep. Let's sit down on the wall over
there. I've a whole lot to tell you. I ought to have told you before,
but I shirked it."
"Constantine!" the girl murmured. Her expression was
strange. The dewy eyes were frightened, the rest of her face sharpened into
resemblance of the paternal rat.
Leversedge must have seen the fright, for I heard him speak soothingly.
I trusted he did not see the rat.
"Come, come, my dear sir," I cried, "in this
delightful idyll you and I clearly have no part. Let us remove ourselves
with all possible despatch."
I ventured to let my hand rest upon the sleeve of Mr. Perry's
ill-brushed coat.
"I am amazed at the events of the last quarter of an hour,"
he said severely as he walked away. "I may go further,--I may
employ the term dumfoundered. The anxieties of a parent are cruel, Mr.
Hammond. The pelican strips from her breast feathers wherewith to line the
nest for her young; and then the young, in the most unexpected
manner--I am sure sometimes most unexpected--get out of the nest
and fly away. That is how Mamma and myself feel just now, Mr. Hammond, I
assure you we do."
Mr. Perry drew up suddenly, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his
head well round.
"I am at sea," he cried. "I give you my word, Mr.
Hammond, I am completely at sea."
"Never fear," I returned cheerfully; "if I have the
honour of knowing you truly, you are one of those elect souls who are very
safe to come into port at last."
Mr. Perry eyed me shrewdly, and then decided to take the speech in good
part; so told me it reminded him of a capital story of the late Earl of
Beaconsfield and a deputation of shipowners from Cardiff, which story he
proceeded to tell me, as we strolled towards the hotel, at the fullest of
full length.
I hold there is but one irremediable evil in life, that of growing tired
of oneself. I therefore avoid it with great care, and, to that end,
entirely refuse to grow accustomed to my own idiosyncrasies. I let my
characteristics take me by surprise. I am
journalier to myself, scorning stereotyped
habits as I would scorn to wear a livery. I dread to be consistent as I
would dread paralysis. Quite the last person of my acquaintance with whom I
would ever risk being familiar is myself; and so I study earnestly to
cultivate a various mind, and give my good qualities the slip equally with
my bad ones.
To take a minor example. I am naturally gregarious. The manners and
customs of my fellow-mortals afford me permanent entertainment.
Consequently I woo solitude, and often seek a hermit hour. I sought one, unsuccessfully, on the evening in question.
It was damp out of doors, and the more lively members of the community
had gathered in the hall, the more serious in the salle
de conversation, after dinner. A mixed multitude in both cases,
splitting itself up, as such multitudes invariably do, into cliques and
coteries, that jealously guard their own frontiers, while casting glances
of mingled desire and distrust upon those of their neighbours. At one end
of the hall, a would-be prima-donna, of
transatlantic extraction, reigned over the American section of the
community, supported by an elegant and obedient mother who had kept her
figure, a good-tempered and obedient French composer who had lost his, and
a disobedient French poodle who had followed suit. At the other end, a
venerable Russian poet, blessed with fine head and silvery beard, a man of
really apostolic aspect--he, for cause unknown, by the way, invariably
wore brown kid, cut-fingered gloves--presided over a court of three
beautiful daughters; a fierce, spare young woman in a scarlet silk
blouse--her wardrobe appeared limited--whose black hair hung in a
thick pigtail, tied with scarlet ribbons, down her back to below her knees;
and two young men, also Russian, of debilitated physique and excited
bearing. The interspaces were filled in by English
--English, prickly or patronising, nervously dumb or nervously boisterous; few, if any of them, quite at their ease. For it must be conceded that the number of our dear country-men and women who possess the gentle art of living gracefully in public is lamentably small. Persons who, in the security of their moist island homes, are well-bred and really quite delightful, become as awkward as chased hens in an hotel. Most English are born with their feet glued to little round green stands, like the ladies and gentlemen of Noah's Ark. To see them unglued--as in foreign travel--is to see them at a disadvantage. For the stand is as necessary to their self-respect as their decent petticoats and irreproachable trousers.
In the hall everyone talked. The debilitated Russian young men did more.
They waved their arms and shouted; while the spare young woman alternately
hissed and purred at them, and waved, not her arms only, but her whole
lithe body. This displeased the poodle--it was very
disquieting--and caused him to bark, which caused his mistress to slap
him. During the process she explained exactly why she slapped him to her
mother and all her friends; who on their part continued chattering volubly
to her and her mother, and the poodle, and each other, and the French
composer. The latter laughed good-temperedly, with raised eyebrows, puffed
at his cigar, furtively consoled the poodle,
and tapped out airs from his coming opera upon the floor with the heel of his boot.
In the salon the style was different. A
retired Deputy Surgeon-General of the Madras Army, seated upon a gilded
lounge upholstered in crimson and yellow (the furniture of the
salon was slightly loud), held forth to an
elderly and respectable audience upon the clear connection between Mr.
Gladstone and the "little horn" in the Book of the Prophet
Daniel, the iniquities of the Opium Traffic, and the unfulfilled
predictions in Revelations.
Good Mrs. Perry was a member of his congregation. She sat under the full
glare of the gas chandelier. She was rubicund. She was beaming. Yet she
appeared to me worried. Presumably Mr. Gladstone and the "little
horn" were too much for her. In that she surely did not stand alone.
Mr. Gladstone and the "little horn," whether taken singly or in
connection, have been too much for many persons before now. Realising this,
I ventured to disregard the signs the kind creature made to me--her
pointings to and pattings of a vacant golden seat in the immediate vicinity
of the exegetical Deputy Surgeon-General. I hurriedly crossed the room, and
let myself out by one of the glass doors on to the long wide verandah.
The change from the heat and noise and glare within was rather
startling.
A wet wind lashed through the balsam poplars
bordering the lake, swept over the garden, and tormented the banks of shrubbery on either side the large lawn. The leaves of the pyramidal magnolias upon the terrace slapped together, and the great odorous blossoms swayed ghostly in the half light. Flights of ragged cloud, fringed with watery yellow where they crossed the moon, fled across the sky. Gleams of white foam and a hoarseness of breaking waves came from the shore. In a spirit of economy the lamps upon the terrace and the verandah had been left unlighted. Only a tawny brightness from the doors and windows of the salon lay in broad stripes along the marble pavement, and touched the edges of the descending steps.
We writers of little verses are addicted to exaggerating the moral and
emotional significance of Nature's moods, no doubt. The night struck
me as full of inarticulate complaint, turbulent and distressed--a
night to make one think of lost youth, and dead loves; and of that most
inconveniently haunting of beings, the still living woman whom--almost
certainly--one ought to have married.--I often think of her, for
I have a tender heart, and she was really very charming.--I thought of
her now as I stood on the wind-swept verandah. A long trail of scarlet,
trumpet-flowered honeysuckle had torn away from its fastenings, and beat
against the ironwork just above my head.
And here observe the advantages of cultivating a various mind! In a few seconds I was enjoying all the pensive satisfactions of self-reproach. For I ought to have married her. Unquestionably I ought. It is true when I proposed she refused me. But that is a detail. I had delayed; I had shilly-shallied. I had been seen in equivocal company, and a considerate friend had not been wanting to report that damaging incident. And then I had been too ready to take "No" for an answer. Decline to take "No," oh my brothers, wholly decline to take it, and in the end the woman will invariably say "Yes."--Here modesty intervened, inquiring, "What, invariably?" And I replied, "Yes, always, invariably," refusing to permit officious modesty thus to put out the purifying fires of self-reproach.
Charlotte Perry had approached from somewhere in the surrounding
dimness. She stood on my right, between me and the steps, and her
appearance was arresting. She had swathed herself in an Indian shawl, which
framed her face, was drawn closely about her shoulders and folded arms,
draping her whole figure and almost concealing even the skirt of her dress.
This shawl was an exquisite thing--one of Leversedge's many
costly gifts. In colour violet, it was stiffened at the border with
delicate gold and silver threads and arabesques worked in many-coloured
silks. The warm light from the windows behind us touched these rich colours
in places, touched the girl's profile and the soft brown hair about
her forehead. The result was eminently picturesque.
Charlotte Perry looked quite delightfully pretty; and had Leversedge not possessed prior claims, I really could have found it in my heart--but then fortunately Leversedge did possess them. I remembered this; yet I hold a man a fool who, be his sentiments ever so honourable, omits to let a woman know when he finds her pleasant to look upon.
"Hesitate no longer, my dear young lady," I therefore
answered. "Interruptions, when they appear in so charming a form,
believe me, are never unwelcome."
Miss Perry gazed at me for a moment, and her dewy eyes were very
bright.--"I wonder," she said softly, "are you ever
in earnest? Are you ever serious?"
"I am profoundly serious in my welcome of this particular
interruption."
The girl drew her breath with a little sob. "Can--can one
trust you, I wonder?" she said.
"Try me," I cried,--"try me. Such as I am you
shall not, I warrant you, find me wanting."
Still Miss Perry drew her breath somewhat sobbingly. She leaned her
shrouded head against the iron pillar of the verandah. The leaves and
scarlet flowers of the honeysuckle clustered around it. I regretted the
half dark, for I merely received an impression, and the picture must have
been worthy to be seen clearly. Just then I heard a
distinct grunt. Various animals grunt; my knowledge of natural history, though by no means profound, carries me as far as that. But only one human being of my acquaintance produces--whether voluntarily or involuntarily I know not--that unengaging sound. A rather squat black person passed slowly down the farther side of the marble steps.
"Percy Gerrard!" I exclaimed. "Where has the great man
been hiding the light of his countenance? I did not know he was
here."
"I am in trouble," Miss Perry murmured, disregarding my
remark.--"I am in great trouble." She clasped her hands,
and the shawl fell in loose folds about her.--"You know my
parents, Mr. Hammond. You know their devotion to me? Of course you know it,
and have probably smiled at it."
"Heaven forbid!" I murmured.
"Ah, but you have. For is it not obviously exaggerated--an
affection blinding to the critical faculty? They have no measure. No one
realises more keenly than I do that their misplaced admiration makes both
me and themselves absurd."--Miss Perry's tone expressed the
tenderest apology, the most appeasing humility.--"They cannot
help it, I suppose," she said gently. "But their attitude does
not fail to distress and embarrass me greatly, all the same. Do not imagine
that I undervalue
their goodness to me. It is beautiful, but, alas! it is impeding. I cannot be quite frank with them. I cannot dare to risk causing them pain."
She swung aside with a really fine movement. As she did so the light
from the salon window fell full on her face;
I saw that her eyes overflowed with tears.
"And I am in pain," she cried softly. "I suffer, ah! I
suffer. I am cruelly perplexed. For I fail to see where duty--the high
duty which compels acquiescence, and dignifies self-surrender--truly
lies."
I am very alive to sentiment. This was touching and I was touched. Yet
in the girl's speech and action was there not just a hint, a remote
hint, of Perry père in his noblest
manner? I therefore hardened my heart slightly, determining to test the
fair sufferer and bring her to book.
"Leversedge has spoken to you," I said.
"Yes, that is part of the pain; but not in the way you no doubt
imagine, Mr. Hammond. If my parents knew all that he has told me, they
would certainly require us to part. They would think only of me. Therefore
they must not know."
And I, hearing this, repented of my late suspicion in mental sackcloth
and ashes. "That is well," I said,--"very
well."
"Is it?"--Miss Perry smiled upon me. I divined more
than saw the working of her singularly
captivating mouth.--"How little men know of women, after all! How easily they mistake that which will attract and that which will repulse us! I should have expected Constantine to mistake; but you, Mr. Hammond, are different. From you I should have hoped for a more subtle judgment. Understand, this strange story of Constantine's has no terror for me."
"The gods be praised for that," I murmured.
"Leversedge is not born under so very unlucky a star, after
all."
The girl leaned her head against the iron pillar, clustered with
honeysuckle, again. The wind took her hair, blowing it back over the
embroidered edge of the shawl. Her eyes were astonishingly bright.
"No, it has no terror for me," she repeated. "If this
curse is laid upon him, it is clearly my office to share it, to shield him,
to sustain him in these dark seasons and places of his existence. And so,
far from repulsing, it attracts me. It supplies the touch of mystery which
was lacking. It dignifies what was otherwise commonplace. It wraps
us--him and me--about with a peculiar atmosphere."
As she spoke, she pressed her head in among the leaves and flowers and
drew the folds of her shawl tighter about her with an odd action as of
physical enjoyment. Charlotte Perry had never
appeared to me so perfectly natural as at this moment. Her deprecatory manner had vanished. She glowed, so to speak. She was positively seductive, but she was also a little displeasing.
"If Constantine knew how to use it," she continued,
"it might be tremendous and splendid. He might make an immense
success, an immense reputation. He would be received anywhere on the
strength of it. Ah! what a superb opportunity some men would find in this!
To have your legend thus ready to hand, and, if properly treated, such a
legend! You might dominate society."
The girl let her hands fall at her sides dejectedly.
"But he has no idea how to use it--no more idea than a child.
The opportunity will be wasted. He does not rise to it in the very least. I
have tried to inspire him, tried to show him how unique and therefore
precious a fate has befallen him; but I cannot develop any enthusiasm in
him. I cannot, cannot make him see."
"No," I agreed; "that, I am afraid, is a point of view
which will never commend itself to Leversedge. I fear you will never make
him see."
Miss Perry looked at me sharply--as her father might have looked.
Then she bent her head, put her hands over her eyes, moved a couple of
paces to the right hurriedly, while the wind--lending itself
sympathetically to the situation--caught her
shawl and blew it up and outward into a great arc of dusky colour, against which her light dress, her slightly bowed figure, her arms bare to the elbow, were revealed.
"Ah!" she cried, "I am very unfortunate. I have given
you a wrong impression--you, Antony Hammond, the last person I would
have misjudge my motives."
The hypercritical might have called all this artificial and theatrical
perhaps. I can never find it in my heart to be hypercritical where a thing
is really well done; and, without question, this was beautifully done. The
personal note, too, in the young lady's outcry I found comforting to
my little sprig of private vanity. So, naturally I protested vehemently
against all possibility of misjudging her motives. But Miss Perry refused
to listen. She stood before me clutching one corner of her shawl, letting
the rest of it lie heaped about her feet on the wet marble pavement, while
she addressed me with lips trembling from emotion.
"I know it," she said, "and of course you know
it--who better, seeing who you are and what you are? But I cannot help
it. I am not well-bred--my poor, dear parents are altogether mistaken
about me; how should they, alas! of all people, perceive just that? I am
not well-bred, and the knowledge I am not haunts me and poisons my
happiness; for I am conscious that to you, and such as you, Mr. Hammond, I must seem lacking in delicacy at times, lacking in innate refinement. I am conscious that in what I said just now I have seemed thus lacking. I misled you by my inherent inability to express myself, to put things as a high-bred woman would put them."
Distress impeded the girl's utterance.
"I seemed guilty of proposing to trade upon Constantine's
strange hallucination. I seemed oh! it is too dreadful--like the
unnatural mother who makes capital out of the deformity of her child. And I
am incapable of entertaining such an idea. Surely you must feel I am
incapable of it? Indeed, you cruelly misread me. It was not of myself I was
thinking, not of any advantage I could gain, but of him, of
Constantine--exclusively, solely of him."
This was abundantly moving. I would have spoken, but Miss Perry paused
only an instant for breath, and then continued in the most charmingly
pleading tones.
"You know--as a poet, who should know better?--that we
none of us can live without our romance, without an ideal, without some
secret, hidden place in which the soul finds and maintains the completeness
of its individuality. We must have not only this passive support; we must
have an active one too--we must have some
realm to conquer. A strange fate has overtaken Constantine. He must either sink under it or find his romance in it. I thought it conceivable he might do that last. I dreamed he might be saved, that I might save him that way--but--but you say it cannot be."
I tried to point out to Miss Perry that a far less recondite way of
salvation was open to Leversedge through her instrumentality. She had only
to stand by him, to be good to him, to--if I might put it
crudely--love him. Why are homely, honest things such as these always
the most difficult to say? I feared I was playing a somewhat bearish part,
and most unromantically drowning fine fancifulness in the cold waters of
common-sense. I protest the position was hard on me, for I should greatly
have preferred meeting my fair companion's utterances in a more
sympathetic spirit. I found her abundantly captivating. But friendship
demanded I should not yield too freely to such finding. I therefore strove
to quench our little possible flames--both hers and mine--in this
douche of cold water.
But I am only a man after all. Miss Perry was far more than man, namely,
woman--which means that she was a past-master in the art of strategy.
I had advanced upon her lumberingly along the plain. She suddenly opened
fire upon me from heights I had never even reconnoitred.
"Forgive me if I have spoken too plainly," I said,
"and preached you a desolatingly dull sermon. You will be within your
rights if you are offended; still, my dear young lady, if you can possibly
avoid it, don't be offended. Clemency is a great virtue, specially
when extended to that vilest of bores--the giver of sound practical
advice. Remember, our object is the same; the straightening out, the
reconstructing, of Constantine Leversedge.
Miss Perry's face was in the light again. Her charming lips were
quivering.--"I am not offended," she said gently; "I
am a little hurt--that is inevitable."--She put up her
hands and held both sides of her head with a sort of
distraction.--"If I was only sure, only sure," she
repeated, "that I could only trust you--that you would not
misunderstand again, would not think me
indelicate--unmaidenly."
She gazed first questioningly at me, then out into the wild night.
"I will trust you," she said finally. "Come down into
the garden. The neighbourhood of all these people in the
salon paralyses me. Here I cannot speak, and
I must speak, I must."
Now clearly it was indiscreet to accede to Miss Perry's
proposition. Moreover, the gravel was wet and the soles of my evening shoes
thin. Still, I went down with her into the garden.
Charlotte Perry moved down the dusky alley beside me in silence. We
reached the path running along the shore before she spoke.
The moon had sailed out from behind the floats of cloud, and her light
made a wide pale stain right across the lake, in which the broken crests of
the waves leapt up like tongues of silver flame. The wind swept
tumultuously through the thick foliage of the trees above us. Away on the
Savoy side, under the shadowy mass of the mountains, clusters of twinkling
lights marked the site of the villages of St. Gingolph and Meillerie. The
scene
was a wholly appropriate setting to a romantic tête-à-tête. It might have really been enchanting but for the intruding claims of the inevitable third person.
Miss Perry paced along slowly, swathed closely in her shawl, her head
bent. She addressed me in broken sentences. Her voice was so low that, what
with the swishing wind and breaking waves, at times I could barely catch
her words.
"The root of my suffering is this," she murmured, "I
am sensible of a change in myself, which makes me doubt whether the voice
of supreme duty counsels self-emancipation or self-abnegation. Now that we
have met again, I cannot disguise from myself that I have developed, and
that Constantine--you care for him, you are his friend, therefore I
can say it,--that Constantine has not developed. There was a time when
what he had to offer me seemed enough--wealth and all the advantages
it brings with it, a very respectable social position and--"
"And very sincere affection," I put in.
The girl stopped abruptly and faced me, wringing, literally wringing,
her hands.
"Ah! what will you think of me?" she cried.
"That you are entirely charming," I answered.
"Be serious, pray, pray be serious," Miss Perry
implored.
She stood gazing up at the moon, trying apparently to control some
overmastering emotion,
pressing her hands upon her bosom; while her shawl, once more yielding to the wind blew hither and thither, forming all manner of fantastic evolutions. Sometimes it sailed out in a streaming pennon, sometimes it clung closely, shrouding her figure as that of a nun.
"Constantine has much, very much to give. But, but in the last
year--is it faithless, is it wrong of me?--I have come to dream
of a love very different from his. And I cannot decide whether that is a
temptation or a revelation. A love occult, profound, mysterious--a
love which should be a religion, an illumination, which should realise all
the richest, deepest aspirations of one's soul. I think, from what I
read, they knew this love in Italy during the Renaissance--some, a
few, a very few, have known it since--"
Her voice sank away into an awestricken whisper.
"Only a few, a very few," she repeated, "have known it
since. Constantine could never know it; he could not grasp the idea. And
therefore I tremble lest I should do violence to the light that is in me by
contracting a marriage in which this element must of necessity be
absent--this hidden mutual adoration of elect hearts."
There was a momentary silence. The sound of the lake was hoarse along
the shore, the trees bent, reeled under the force of the warm wind.
The girl's shawl suddenly sprung up in flapping bat-like wings from her shoulders, giving her lightly clad figure the strangest appearance. It affected me. I became resolutely practical.
"You wish to break off your engagement," I said.
"No, no--not unless, unless--"
And Charlotte Perry's lips gathered into that fascinating sketch of
a kiss, while she looked full at me in the most astonishing manner.
I grew hot. I grew cold. I rallied my friendship for Leversedge. I
wished I was not a man of honour. I wished a cloud would pass over the
moon. I thanked God I was a man of honour. I blew up the embers of my
affection for the woman I ought to have married. I wished I knew what on
earth to say. I craved for the presence of Perry
père; I should have hailed him as my
deliverer from one of the worst moments of my life. I wondered if I was
making a contemptible mistake. I wished sweet Lydia Castern had never
refused me. I wondered if I was a fatuous ass. I wished Leversedge would
rush out of the nearest bush and seize me by the throat. I wished anything
and everything, in short, but that this marvellously pretty girl, with the
dewy eyes and bewitching mouth, should continue to stand looking thus at
me.
"My dear, young lady--" I began, with a courage born of
desperation.
But Miss Perry moved back a step or two, extending one hand in a
movement of entreaty and protest, covering her eyes with the other.
"Oh! spare me the crowning humiliation of an explanation,"
she cried. "It is uncalled for. It is almost unchivalrous. Can you
doubt that I see my error--that, with a scathing clearness, I
comprehend."
"I will go--I will leave here to-night. I will leave by the
first train in the morning," I exclaimed distractedly.
The girl made no immediate response. Her attitude stiffened, like that
of a person who listens and thinks acutely. Was it conceivable that behind
the screen of her uplifted hand Charlotte Perry was thinking acutely? I
detested myself for entertaining so cold-blooded a supposition; yet as the
seconds passed I could not avoid entertaining it.
"I will go," I repeated.
Miss Perry lowered her hand, and gathered her shawl languidly about her.
Never had she looked more flower-like, more adorably virginal.
"No!" she said, and there was not any trace of resentment in
her gentle tones; "indeed, you must not go. For after all you owe me
something--a little, just a very little, Mr. Hammond--" her
charming eyes dwelt momentarily upon my most unworthy face.
"It is almost intolerable to think how much I owe you," I
replied. "Dispose of me as you please."
The girl's mouth quivered, her eyelids drooped. "Then I lay
it upon you to remain here," she said. "You will still be my
friend. Have I not bought your friendship at a rather bitter
price--the price of my woman's pride? You will remain. You will
teach me where my highest duty lies. I think perhaps you have begun to
teach me that already. You will help me to save Constantine," she
sighed.--"You will help me to conceal this double pain from my
poor, dear, doting parents. For they must absolutely know nothing of
Constantine's strange hallucination,--they must know nothing
of--"
The girl's voice died down into a sobbing whisper. She held out her
hand to me. I kissed it in silence, and Miss Perry turned
away.--"Do not come with me, please," she murmured.
"It is far kinder to let me find my way back through this troubled
wind-vexed night alone."
I permitted a decent time to elapse before I returned to the hotel. I am
human. Consequently, I was moved; I was flattered; I was
attendri--specially at first. Then the
blighting habit of analysis, the one habit with which, alas! I utterly fail
to play fast and loose, laid its chill influence upon my feelings. I began
to ask my-
self whether the Carissima was--just possibly--among the greatest actresses of the world? I recalled that odious grunt. I began to ask myself, where the devil Mr. Percy Gerrard could possibly come in?
At this particular period of his development; Gerrard had lately passed
from the expansive and aggressive to the reserved style. He moved as one
anointed by profound experiences, as one hallowed by an esoteric wisdom of
the heart.--Had Miss Perry, by chance, acquired some of her curious
little theories on the subject of the affections from this source? I could
not say.--In bearing, Gerrard was withdrawn, augustly apart. He had
religious scruples too, or, to be quite accurate, religious persons had,
according to his own report, scruples concerning him. He hinted at
diplomacies on the part of Eminences sent forth from the Eternal City. Both
in speech and in print he gave one to understand that, not only many a
member of the Sacred College, but even the Holy Father himself, was engaged
in efforts to
gather this wandering sheep--in whom mystic and worldling were so subtlely mixed--into the great central Catholic fold. The honest man commits himself hastily. The truly wise man commits himself very, very slowly. For is not the possible convert precious, alike to those whose communion he is on the edge of joining, and those whose communion he is on the edge of leaving? Gerrard knew this. He remained on the edge, wooed by both parties. I believe, for I don't see him often in these days, he remains there still.
In person he was not beautiful. I have heard that plain but vivacious
lady, Madame Jacobini, describe him as "a cross between a second-rate
Parisian petit crevé and a Methodist
parson gone wrong." There is an element of excess in this statement,
yet truly he was not beautiful. For he was short, sallow, and inclined to
stoutness; in moments of asperity I could have found it in my heart to call
him greasy-looking. His hair was black, rather long, and of an
uncomfortable thinness and smoothness. What of moustache he owned was black
also. He dressed soberly, as in mourning for lost illusions. He had
political aspirations of the grand seigneur
type,--he dwelt on pictures of the stately, conscientious noble, of
the lowly and contented serf. As far as I know, he never owned a rod, pole,
or perch--let alone acre--of his native or any other soil. But
that is
a base detail. As rank would not marry him--I speak from hearsay--he had decided to marry money. Meanwhile a lady possessed of neither, according to contemporary scandal, solaced the leisures of this truly remarkable mind.
In the days immediately succeeding my surprising interview with Miss
Perry, I observed that Gerrard treated us to an increasing amount of his
society. He came in to luncheon; he came in to dinner. He, if I may employ
so common an expression in speaking of so uncommon a person, was
perpetually hanging about.
I was hanging about too. For I soon discovered Miss Perry's demand
that I should help her in the present crisis of her affairs was no empty
one. I had begged her to dispose of me. She took me at my word. She did
dispose of me. I am far from complaining, for our fair Charlotte did
everything (almost everything) well, and she disposed of me admirably. She
held me with a silken chain; held me so gently, so deferentially, yet with
so delicate a flavour of chastened sadness, of just conceivable reproach,
that I came near hugging that same chain. It became natural I should be
constantly at hand. Gerrard, as I have said, was also constantly at hand.
So, of course, was Leversedge. It was not her object, I entirely acquit the
young lady of any so paltry a scheme, but in point of fact she did thus
establish a rival
court to those of the American prima donna and the Russian poet--a court which not only rivalled, but came near eclipsing theirs. For while they merely herded indiscriminately with their kind, Miss Perry throned it alone in her maidenly sweetness, always attended by one, sometimes by two, more frequently by three still youngish and entirely eligible English gentlemen. Such things give me pleasure!--Let it be added, that her worthy parents were constantly, though unobtrusively, within hail; their office, like that of the chorus in a Greek play, to direct the eyes of the spectators upon the chief actors in the piece by praising these last, lauding their talents, virtues, and beauty, reciting their titles, and the innumerable noble deeds they had performed, or might, in the hopeful opinion of the chorus, almost certainly be expected to perform very shortly.
But we were not always in public. The suite of apartments retained by
Leversedge for the Perry family included a smart little sitting-room. And
it was here, as far as my memory serves me, that the next serious scene of
the Perry-Leversedge drama enacted itself.
The devotion of Miss Perry's parents to their offspring reached the
point of self-effacement. And further than that no devotion, surely, can
go? As my intimacy with this interesting family increased, I could not fail
to remark the young
lady, on more than one occasion, tenderly but firmly suggest that her mother might stand in need of repose. Sometimes the dear good woman took the hint gratefully. Sometimes she appeared slightly perplexed, and did not display entire docility; or, and that was embarrassing, bungled in speech and required explanation. She was guilty of this last, I grieve to report, on the evening in question.
We were gathered in the sitting-room, and Charlotte had been playing to
us. Mrs. Perry, supported by a wealth of puce silk cushions, was seated on
a sofa, at right angles to the large French-window opening on to the
balcony. A disposition to slumber after the last and heaviest meal of the
day, in which hereditary middle-class habit triumphed for a brief space
over a somewhat late developed social sense, held Mrs. Perry in its
ponderous grasp. Her knitting fell on to her lap. She recovered it. Soon it
fell again, and this time with a distinct tinkle of the steel needles. Our
active Perry, seated beside her (the sound of whose own breathing had, more
than once, quite audibly filled up the pauses in his daughter's really
magnificent rendering of the ill-omened Kreutzer Sonata), recalled her to a
fitting sense of her dignified surroundings by gently fanning her with the
half-completed woollen sock, while murmuring in tones of playful
severity--
"Mrs. Perry, my love, do not give way! Awake, my life--rouse
yourself, pray rouse yourself, Mamma!"
In consequence, I suppose, of overhearing these admonitions, Miss Perry,
her progress accompanied by the soft rustlings of what I believe is
technically known as a "silk foundation," crossed the room and
laid her hand caressingly upon her mother's shoulder.
"Dearest"--she began in her charmingly hesitating
voice.
Mrs. Perry sat bolt upright.
"Gracious, Lottie, how you did make me jump!" she cried.
Leversedge had been standing at the open window; he stepped rather
quickly out on to the balcony. Gerrard had been turning over some music
lying on the top of the piano. He emitted the peculiar sound I have
characterised as a grunt. I had been standing by Leversedge; I remained
where I was, and Charlotte Perry, still bending very prettily above her
mother, raised her eyes to mine in pleading, in pathetic apology for the
shortcomings of one so near and dear to her. Then, visibly making an effort
over herself, she went on gently:--"Dearest, I see that you are
weary. The day has been so hot. We must not let you over-tire yourself. You
need rest. You must not let me keep you up."
"Well, it has been very hot, my dear," Mrs. Perry assented.
"And the heat often does turn me a little giddy, as I think I told
you, Mr. Hammond. And the music's very nice and pretty, but you see I
never can keep awake long under it."
"A lullaby," broke in Mr. Perry gaily,--"a
lullaby! Delightful compliment, I'm sure, really delightful compliment
to the soothing qualities of my daughter's playing--
And tired eyes in sweet repose,
et cetera.--Line from a hymn that, I
fancy. But, as I maintain whenever the subject comes up for discussion, our
hymnology is not to be despised, numbering, as it does, Cowper, Addison,
and the late venerable, though mistaken, Cardinal Newman among its
producers. Sweet verses, I give you my word for it, most exceedingly sweet
verses, I have often been constrained to recall to my wife's
memory--haven't I, Mamma?--on our return from our church
services."
Again Charlotte Perry raised her dewy eyes to mine. Poor young lady, I
really felt for her. Her parents were somewhat unspeakable.
"Listen, dearest mother, you acknowledge that you are
tired," she repeated. "I know our guests will excuse you. So do
not attempt to sit up any longer"--here she glanced at Mr.
Perry, and once again it struck me that at moments there was a
singular similarity between the expression of the father and daughter.--"Persuade her to go,--they have kindly asked for a little more music,--but persuade her to go. It will be much better."
An air of bewilderment pervaded Mrs. Perry's kindly countenance.
She looked questioningly from one to the other.
"But, my dear," she said,--"of course you know
best, and I wouldn't interfere with your arrangements on any account,
you know; but isn't it rather odd--it is so awkward to say like
this--but you know, my dear, how nervous I am at night, and if Papa
goes to bed too you'll be left alone with these three
gen--"
A quantity of loose music fell with a slither and thump from the piano
on to the floor, and Gerrard stooped, murmuring excuses for his stupidity,
to pick it up. Leversedge, who was standing near the window again, called
to me--
"Come out here, Hammond. The lake is looking awfully pretty
to-night."
To-night the garden was very sufficiently illuminated. Earlier in the
evening the local orchestra had discoursed music of a questionable
sweetness upon the verandah; and the whole of our company, reinforced by a
contingent from the town, still lingered in the balmy night air, taking
little drinks around the tables upon the terrace, or strolling about the
paths and shadowy alleys. A gang of children, clothed in white garments,
chased each other, with cries, across the broad lawns and in and out of the
shrubberies. Far out on the lake, someone was singing to a thrumming banjo
accompaniment.
This was the first time I had seen Leversedge, save in the presence of
witnesses, for several days. I had fancied, probably quite erroneously,
that I detected a slight unwillingness on the part of the fair Charlotte to
leave us together. I was the more glad, therefore, to note a very distinct
im-
provement in my companion's looks and bearing. He seemed less harassed, steadier, more solid; he bore himself as a man contented and at ease. I even thought that just now I perceived a smile at the back of his eyes, so to speak, indicating that the late incident--though he so gallantly came to the rescue--had appealed to his sense of humour.
"It's a glorious night, isn't it?" he said.
Leversedge's shoulders shook slightly.
"I really am awfully fond of Mrs. Perry, though," he added.
"And that fellow Gerrard actually came in at the right moment for
once in his life."
"Are you revising your first opinion?" I asked; for I was
rather curious as to the relation of the two men. "Are you growing to
relish the society of our celebrated Percy?"
"Oh, I think him more or less of a skunk, which is exactly what I
always have thought him," Leversedge answered in tones of cheerful
contempt. "And we see a lot more of him than I personally in the
least care to see; but when a man's clear that he has the game in his
own hands, he is an ass if he worries about trifles. I can put up with Mr.
Percy Gerrard well enough for the next week or two. And if he fools about
too much after we are married, I'll just let him know his place by
kicking him." Leversedge quietly chuckled.--"I walked
downstairs behind
him the other day, and I've an idea nature specially constructed him with a view to a kicking."
Clearly Leversedge was in excellent spirits.
"The course of true love runs smooth, then?" I remarked.
"The marriage takes place?"
Leversedge stood up and stretched himself, opening his chest and
bringing his clenched fists up to the level of his shoulders.
"Yes, the marriage takes place--takes place--takes
place," he said, smiling.
Then he leaned his elbows on the top of the balustrade again, and for a
minute or two we were silent. The man was evidently happy, and when a man
is happy I hold he may very safely be left to his own thoughts. For, next
to slapping an infant to make it cease crying, or beating a cripple with
his own crutches to make him hurry, I know no more brutal stupidity than
awakening the happy from their dream of bliss by talking to them. Happiness
is not so common that one cares to risk interfering with it. Let them speak
first. After a time Leversedge did speak.
"You were perfectly right, Hammond," he said, "and I
was a miserably faithless idiot of a creature. Of course the right way was
to trust her. I'm immensely grateful to you. You've been a
wonderfully good friend to us both. She told me you had had a little talk
with her the other day, and, I
think, if possible, she's been sweeter to me than ever since then."
Leversedge turned his face to me. It was radiant.
"Dear God," he said very softly, "it's the
loveliest thing on earth to be certain at last that the woman you love
really loves you."
"And of that you are certain?" I asked.
"Yes, haven't I had proof? She has been tried in the fire and
shown what she is made of--pure gold. I've left off cursing the
dog, Hammond--for three whole days I've forgotten to curse him.
Ah! there's Charlotte playing again. She does play divinely,
doesn't she? Let's come to the window and listen."
And it really was worth while to listen; for if not exactly divine, Miss
Perry's playing was remarkably good. Her technique was
admirable--so admirable, that you could afford to forget all about it,
and give yourself to the emotional element crying through and superseding
the mechanical one.
Gerrard had subsided into an arm-chair close to the grand piano. He was
not a large man, yet he had the iniquitous habit of slightly overflowing
every chair in which he sat. To-night he overflowed more than usual,
changing his position frequently, shading his eyes with a music score,
glancing about him restlessly, grunting, then
shading them again. As Miss Perry concluded the nocturne she had been playing, he rose with a sloth-like slowness to his small square feet; and, as the girl, turning her head, looked at him, said--
"No, my craving for music is not yet satisfied, far from it. But
before I ask you to steep my jaded senses once more in this purifying ocean
of sound, I must implore that the room may be darkened somewhat. You have
done your best to mitigate the glaring abominations of colour and form in
this terrible hotel salon, I am sure, Miss
Perry; but yet much, much of necessity remains which causes anguish to a
cultivated eye. And the garish light of these candles and lamps brings all
unlovely details into fullest relief."
"Really I didn't think the room half bad," Leversedge
said in an aside.
"May we not have some of them extinguished, Miss Perry?--thus
letting the stars, there, through the open window, the fragrance of the
garden borne upon the night wind, and the perilous rapture of
Chopin--think of the Majorcan episode, that exquisite exile
à deux, the eternal sough of the
breeze in the pine trees, and George Sand (the woman of the sphinx-like and
unfathomable eyes) sitting by drinking in the insatiable passion of the
master's music,--let these, I say, even here, amid the bare
commonplaces of a modern hotel, for one beneficent hour have it all their
own way."
"Ah! I love the half light too," the girl answered.
"It is sympathetic. Partially to conceal is to suggest, isn't
it? And to suggest is often really to reveal the deeper, the everlasting
meaning, don't you think so?"
She got up.
"Yes--yes--let us extinguish them," she said, with
a sort of fervour. Then checking herself suddenly, she
added,--"Ah! I forgot."
Charlotte Perry paused; she appeared to hesitate. Then she came swiftly
across the room, straight to Leversedge--her head thrown back, her
hands slightly extended as though in entreaty, and that conceivable kiss
deliciously sketched upon her lips.
"But if you in the least mind, Constantine?" she said, just
audibly, and waited.
He had been a little disturbed by Gerrard's strictures upon the
sitting-room, but Leversedge's moment of ecstasy was not wholly past
yet. His face was still radiant.
"My dearest child, do whatever you like," he said, taking
her extended hands for an instant. "Thanks to you, I am growing
royally indifferent to the dark."
Charlotte Perry lingered, gazing in a really enchanting manner
questioningly at her lover. Suddenly her chin quivered, and her bright eyes
were suffused by tears. This was wonderfully pretty--too pretty for
Leversedge.
"Go and play, go and play," he said huskily. "Go, or I
shall make a fool of myself. Go--I'll put out your candles and
things--put out the sun itself in heaven, I believe if you asked me
to."
The girl turned, gave me one glance in passing--stabbing me as with
a dewy dagger--and moved swiftly back to the piano; while Leversedge
followed her, quenching light and sowing darkness in his path with an
almost savage ardour; and Gerrard spread himself over the surface of his
arm-chair again, with a grunt.
"Thanks, thanks, that is better. You are really very amiable, Mr.
Leversedge," he murmured, in tones of lofty patronage. "Nothing
now, I trust, will mar the sentiment--a sentiment at once so chaste
and so voluptuous--of these god-given nocturnes."
And then, the darkened room unquestionably wore a somewhat sinister
aspect, by no means calculated to dispel uncomfortable suspicions, however
foolish and unfounded such suspicions might be. The electric lights on the
terrace threw a vague, stark sort of brightness, crossed by equally vague
bluish shadows, upon the ceiling, upon portions of the wall above the
piano, and upon the edges of the furniture near the window. The shadow of
the ironwork of the balcony lay along the floor, twisted and contorted by
the opposing
angles of the lamps below. Otherwise the room and its contents were colourless and indistinct.
As Miss Perry's fingers touched the keys again, I placed myself on
the sofa left vacant by her mother's departure to the connubial
chamber. The silk-covered pillows, that had supported that good lady's
back and promoted her unaristocratic tendency towards slumber, had now
slipped down on to the seat. The crumpled surface of the upper one and the
frill of it caught the light. Leversedge stepped back on to the balcony. He
stood there, his left shoulder resting against the woodwork of the
window-frame. His face was turned towards the darkened room; but I had a
sense it bore an expression of exaltation, the exaltation of something
successfully dared and won. The man was generous to a fault. Generosity
communicates a pleasant glow to the whole person. I have been generous
myself just often enough to know that one's first sensation is
delicious, as is the first moment after jumping out of a cold bath. I have,
also, observed you need subsequently to rub yourself very hard if you would
retain either the moral or spiritual sensation of warmth. The tonic has
been a trifle too strong, a reaction follows. These thoughts passed through
my mind as I looked up at Leversedge, and in doing so became aware that his
lean, well-made figure--showing black against the purple depth of
the night sky--was surrounded, like the cushions and carved woodwork of the sofa immediately below him, by a pale luminous outline.
Charlotte Perry played that nocturne--I stupidly forget the number
of it--with a tenderness beyond all praise. I murmured something of my
very genuine admiration, the most rudimentary taste forbidding, to my
thinking, at all pronounced applause. Gerrard, however, uplifted his voice
without hesitation. He belongs to a set--the Mrs. Septimus Mertyns
set--in which endless discussion is fashionable, and a hundred and one
wise reasons are offered in justification of even the most trivial personal
opinion. He spoke languidly, yet loud. He intended us to hear.
"Thanks," he said, "you have surpassed yourself. I
fancy that unconsciously you have done more. We were speaking of
self-revelation just now. Surely, in your rendering of that delicious
thing, you permitted yourself to draw away a veil from your own soul, and,
for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, in a measure revealed your
deepest self!"
Leversedge moved slightly.
"The spiritual element in that nocturne is definite, it speaks
directly to my religious instinct," he continued. "But the
spiritual element is not the only one, for the sentiment as a whole is
marvellously complex. That is what renders
it so profoundly interesting. The religious emotion in its simple expression is always joyous, isn't it?"
"I think so," the girl answered softly.
"I am sure that it is," Gerrard asserted. "Recalling
the hours when I have been most deeply conscious of the magnetism of the
Divine Idea, I recognise that they were hours of unalloyed
joyousness."
I hugged myself silently at the thought of Gerrard of all men on earth,
Percy Gerrard, author of Leda's Lover, and editor of
the Present Day, with his lethargic temperament and gift of
heavy feeding, in a condition of unalloyed joyousness, thanks to the
magnetism of the Divine Idea!
"But here, notwithstanding the presence of true spirituality, I
find little gladness. I am aware, indeed, throughout of a tremor of intense
and vital melancholy. You were aware of that also, Miss Perry; and you
intended to convey it to your hearer?"
"Ah yes!" she answered, again softly.
Leversedge shifted his position.
"I knew it!" exclaimed Gerrard. "Your dramatic
instinct, of course, is strong, since you possess in so remarkable a degree
the artistic temperament. But, knowing you as well as I am learning to know
you, I can rapidly detect where
you draw upon the comparative shallows of the dramatic instinct, and where upon the deeps of living personal experience."
"The deuce you can!" said Leversedge, under his breath.
"May I try, will you grant me permission to try, to construe your
thought?"
Gerrard still addressed himself with rather ostentatious exclusiveness
to Miss Perry; but he still spoke quite loud, his voice cracking up now and
again into the shrillest and most unengaging treble. It had the effect of a
challenge as delivered by a cockerel, none too certain of his own prowess
or of his footing, from the top of a wall. His manner and the subject of
his discourse, in short, were quite ironically at variance.
"To me it seems you found in that nocturne, and gave in your
rendering of it, the melancholy, not of a rejected soul--far from
that--but rather of one who, after long struggle, has sacrificed the
consummation of terrestrial happiness in obedience to the compelling
dominion of some moral idea; and who, looking back, momentarily gauges the
immensity, I had almost said, the enormity of such a
sacrifice."--He paused, trying, as I imagined, to gain more
mastery over his wandering voice.--"Yes, your reading was richly
subtle, richly pathetic. I too can figure that broken melody,
those searching harmonies, which seem to vibrate through the secret places of one's most innermost being, as the utterance of some exquisite woman, artist by nature, saint through the constraining power of adverse circumstance, as she realises for some brief but hideous instants the eternal anguish, the glory of her own self-dedication."
"It's all very fine, I daresay," Leversedge said;
"but, upon my honour, if this sort of thing goes on the kicking will
have to take place sooner than I expected."
Gerrard turned towards us, his face projecting itself as a livid
platelike object from the encompassing obscurity.
"I beg your pardon, I did not quite catch what you were saying,
Mr. Leversedge; you were good enough to remark?"
"Oh! my remark will keep until a more convenient season,"
the other answered. "When that season arrives I shall have the
greatest pleasure, I assure you, in repeating it with appropriate
action."
But here Charlotte Perry's hands most opportunely descended with a
crash upon the piano.
The young lady's melting mood seemed to have passed, giving place
to a very different humour. What she played during the ensuing ten to
fifteen minutes I do not know. I never heard it before; I am more than
willing never to
hear it again. I suppose it must have been a tarantella, but a tarantella conceived in a madhouse. It gave me a nightmarish impression of innumerable tormented, shrieking, human figures whirling in a desperate and formless dance--driven hither and thither in purposeless fashion, like desert sand by an evil wind. It was exciting, for it took one into the region of utter lawlessness; and that region is always exciting, however undesirable. This was decidedly exciting, but it was not quite nice.
Miss Perry lent herself whole-heartedly to the spirit of the music. I
trust I am far from being a prude, but there are limits, and she passed
them. Her playing was not quite nice. Perhaps, therefore,--I have
confessed to a dislike of the man,--it stirred Gerrard's somewhat
sluggish blood. I watched him rise, and move slowly close to the side of
the grand piano, facing the girl as she played--his squat person a
blot of deeper darkness against the dark.
Leversedge made a movement also. I fancied he did not relish the
performance, and was going out on to the balcony to escape somewhat from
it; but he merely stepped into the middle of the window, while his shadow,
crossing that of the iron balustrade, lay right along the carpet of the
room almost to where the skirt of Miss Perry's light dress trailed
back from the music stool.
The music grew in vehemence and force, in violence of discordant sounds;
while the human figures it conjured up before me seemed to become more
wanton in the passion of their dance.
The thing was unpleasant. I wished it would stop. It affected me
uncomfortably, it agitated me. I could not remain quite still. I began
fidgetting with the scalloped frills of good Mrs. Perry's puce silk
pillows, while I meditated upon the extraordinary divergence of nature
exhibited by the mother and daug hter. Kindly and estimable clock-moon! by
what strange workings of heredity had she contrived to produce this young
creature, possessed as she just now appeared to be, by the spirit of a
fin de siècle Bacchante?
Just then Leversedge spoke. He was close to me. His voice was
hoarse.--"Hammond," he said, "would you mind keeping
your hand away from that cushion?"
I looked up at him in some surprise. He had turned sideways and the
light took his profile. His face had changed notably in the last few
minutes. It had grown thin, and, as once before, his lips stood away from
his teeth.
"By all means, my dear fellow," I answered, "if you
wish it. But why? Is anything the matter?"
"The dog's the matter," Leversedge said quietly.
"It's sitting on that cushion. It's just jumped
up."
I glanced at the cushion and then back at Leversedge. For an instant I
doubted whether he was chaffing; though, considering our former discourses
upon this subject, it occurred to me as improbable he should indulge in so
grim a joke at his own expense. But that one glance assured me very
completely he was very far from chaffing. I debated inwardly what could be
done--whether it was possible to demonstrate convincingly to
Leversedge, once and for all, that he laboured under an hallucination. But
the wicked spirit which infected Miss Perry's playing, and expressed
itself in that chaotic clamour, still agitated me and rendered it difficult
to me to think clearly. I am afraid I made a disastrous mistake. If I did
so, let it be put down, in part at all events, to the Witches' Sabbath
of sound assailing my ears and plaguing my brain, and not exclusively to my
inborn stupidity.
"Believe me, you are dreaming," I said. "I give you my
word there is nothing whatever upon that cushion."
"I am not lying, anyhow," Leversedge answered rather
hastily. "You are behind it, so of course you can't see. Come
round--stand here--now look."
So, to humour him I got up and stood beside him, while Charlotte Perry
played, still played.
"There now," he went on,--"now you can see its
eyes. You must see them; they're plain enough, I'm sure. And look how the silk of the cushion gives under the beast's haunches and under its forefeet."
And I stared obediently,--at what? Merely the little crumples left
by the impress of good Mrs. Perry's solid shoulders--little
wandering lines of light, that appeared to me as abundantly pathetic,
abundantly absurd, taken in connection with the supernatural horror whose
presence they were declared to indicate.
"Heaven forbid I should seem to call your veracity in
question," I exclaimed; "but, indeed, I see nothing. My dear
friend, you are the victim of an optical or cerebral delusion--I
suppose the two mean much the same thing--as I have told you all
along. No dog, no nothing, is there, and I can prove it to you."
Certainly Leversedge never showed to better advantage than under extreme
pressure. If his courtesy failed for an instant, he recovered speedily and
very gracefully. Now his lips gave, and he smiled at me in that singularly
longsuffering way of his.
"I am afraid not, though I wish to goodness you could," he
said. "No, no; for mercy's sake don't touch it!" His
voice dropped.--"It smells--the brute--to-night it
smells--your hands will never feel clean again."
I own it required a little nerve, for I was shaken by that violent and
ceaseless music, and Leversedge's tone and manner were calculated to
produce faith in the most sceptical mind; still, I did sweep my hand down
slowly over the surface of the cushion. And, of course, it encountered no
resistance. How could it, since, as I had affirmed, nothing, absolutely
nothing, was there?
"You see," I said.
He shook his head.
"It got away; it jumped down," he replied. "Anyhow, I
am thankful you did not touch it."
Argument is wasted upon a man in this frame of mind. Yet I was pushed by
the desire to convince him. I paused, asking myself what on earth I could
do or say next. Meanwhile Miss Perry's playing became slower, more
broken, full of wailing; as though the dance had changed to a
Danse Macabre, and Death was breaking their
ranks, bearing away or beating down those lawless dancers. Gerrard moved a
little nearer, he bent over and talked to the girl, the occasionally shrill
tones of his voice, which still appeared to be under insufficient control,
mingling oddly with her playing.
Suddenly a cry--it was exceedingly dreadful, it turned me cold and
sick--broke in through the rhythm of the music, and Leversedge rushed
past me across the room. The train of Charlotte
Perry's dress lay out pale over the floor; and he kicked it, stamped on it, trampled it under foot. The music stopped with a harsh discord, and, without rising, the girl turned half round on the music stool, stretching out her hands as though to save herself and push him from her.
"Constantine, Constantine, what has happened? Pray calm yourself.
What are you doing?" she demanded.
For all answer he took her up bodily in his arms,--I had no
conception the man was so strong,--shook her, as you might shake out a
handkerchief on which a spider or some other noxious insect was crawling;
carried her right out on to the balcony into the full glare of the electric
light; and stood there holding her close against him as he might have held
a child.
"My sweet," I heard him say, his voice broken by emotion;
"my sweet, forgive me. I am so rough, I must seem to you such a
brute. But that vile thing took refuge beside you. It was upon your
gown,--it was upon your knees. I saw its eyes here--oh! my God,
my God, the unspeakable desecration of it--its hateful head was
against your dear bosom."
Leversedge's voice sank away into a whisper. He kissed the
girl's eyes, her throat, as she lay in his arms. And then suddenly, as
it seemed, recollecting himself, he set her down very gently
on her feet, and turned round with a terrible face upon Percy Gerrard, who stood nearest the window.
"Go," he said, "you are not wanted here. We have had
too much of you all along."
The distinguished journalist retired in some haste; he was not by nature
a fire-eater--save on paper. I followed him. The girl was safe, and,
for the rest, I wanted neither to hear nor see more. Indeed, I had heard
and seen too much already. It is hardly decent to witness the outcry of a
fellow-creature in such awful straits. The joys of the Puritan, in heaven,
are multiplied sevenfold by listening to the cries of the damned which
reach him from across the Great Gulf; but I am not made of such iron stuff
that my personal comfort is enchanced by articulate misery on the part of
others. I am afraid I advanced rather unceremoniously upon Percy
Gerrard.
"Here are matches," I said; "for pity's sake help
me light the candles, and then disappear as soon as possible."
Gerrard's nerves appeared to have suffered. His squat hands fumbled
awkwardly with the box of matches as he tried to strike them, and his
smooth hair looked positively dank.
"The man is insane," he quavered. "I told her so. I
knew it."
"Mr. Hammond!"--Charlotte Perry clutched my arm.
During the extraordinary scene we had just assisted at she had behaved
with really magnificent composure, neither calling out nor struggling. I
could not but admire her courage. She was composed still; but she gripped
me like a vice, the points of her fingers digging themselves into my arm,
while her pretty face was blanched and sharpened. The maternal element was
wholly banished. The rat had it all his own way; and what a
rat--strong, astute, almost alarming!
"Remember you are bound to obey me," she said; "you
have promised, and I hold you to your promise."
Gerrard came close to her.
"I was not mistaken, you see," he murmured.
Charlotte Perry looked at him for a moment with the strangest
expression.
"Good-night," she said. Then she addressed me again.
"My parents must know nothing of what has just taken place. You must
be silent; you understand--absolutely silent. And you must leave us,
please. You cannot help now except by being silent. Later,
perhaps,--good-night."
As I have remarked already, I adore drama. It is among the best of the
several good things of life; but it is, I must add, among the good things
of which it is quite possible to have enough. And I had really had about
enough of it on the previous evening. I hailed a pause. I did more. I took
an early boat to Evian, and refreshed my soul by a Platonic
luncheon--in a delightfully cool atmosphere both physical and
sentimental--in company with the friend who does not enter into this
history, and whom,
therefore, I have already expressed a desire to leave out of it. Coming back, since the afternoon was very charming, instead of crossing directly to Ouchy, I took the boat to the head of the lake. The chestnut woods above St. Gingolph held the sunshine in an enchanting manner, I remember. I wished to think about these woods, about the humours of my fellow-passengers, about the gossip of the fair friend from whom I had just parted; but, unfortunately, I found it impossible wholly to banish memories of, and speculations concerning, the Perry-Leversedge situation from my mind. The occasions upon which one witnesses strong emotion in real life are rare, and that which one does witness on such rare occasions is haunting. It was borne in upon me how very much more effective and penetrating strong emotion is off, than on, the stage; how nature, notwithstanding her obvious crudities, strikes home, as art, I deeply regret to allow it, never can.
Last night Leversedge had been fine. Charlotte Perry had been
fine--with a difference. Even Gerrard had played a telling part, in
his own objectionable way. And there I paused. For my own action appeared
to me wholly insipid. I had occupied the inglorious position of the
"buffer state." Only once had I taken the initiative, and then
with what disastrous results!
I could not, moreover, acquit myself of a certain pusillanimity in leaving Miss Perry, though she did, I own, appear perfectly equal to managing her own affairs. No, I was not proud of myself. And then little incidents began to recur to me which were somewhat incomprehensible. In that matter of putting out the lights, now, was it a plant?--had there been any collusion between Percy Gerrard and Miss Perry?
I was busy with this difficult and not very pleasing problem when, on
trans-shipping at Villeneuve, Mr. Perry himself hailed my advent upon the
upper deck of the lake-boat.
"Well met!" he cried. "As ever the truly welcome
friend."
There was, if I may put it so, an air of high-class-bank-holiday about
Mr. Perry. It is an air calculated to render a hearty reception by the
possessor of it peculiarly gratifying to one, specially when the said
reception happens to take place in public. The occupants of the benches
under the awning--the lean and active Americans; the large and
affectionate Germans; the English clergy in mufti, surrounded by their
harems; even those very superior persons, the schoolmasters in
knickerbockers, bearing the impressive effect of universal proprietorship
which covers them immediately upon crossing the channel, and remains so
engagingly by them until they
regain their native shore,--even these turned to gaze at Mr. Perry and my all too greatly honoured self. Mr. Perry had a courier bag slung across his shoulders; under one arm he carried a bulky white umbrella. He had field-glasses in his hand. To-day, alas! he wore a new hat. It was high, made of soft grey felt, and had a deep cleft, an absolute ravine, down the middle of the crown. Of all European countries known to me, Switzerland undoubtedly produces the most unholy headgear, both male and female. Mr. Perry's hat was of local manufacture. It was surrounded, moreover, by a black and white pugaree that had seen service, the stringy ends of it streaming afar upon the breeze as the little man perambulated the deck.
Mr. Perry was full of conversation.
"I am here with my daughter," he told me. "She is
unstrung, Mr. Hammond,--slightly unstrung. Perfect health, really
perfect, I assure you; but a delicate, a highly nervous organisation. And
marriage is a serious step; it is, I think I may even say, an arduous
undertaking--for some of us, I am sure, very arduous. To leave home
and kindred, to quit the dear old family roof"--(at
Château Perry, one wondered, did they
habitually camp out, catlike, among the chimney-pots?),--"must
of necessity cause a pang,--aye, more than one--quite a number
of pangs in fact, to any highly sensitive heart."
I expressed my regret for Miss Perry's indisposition, and added a
hope it was but of a passing, character.
"I trust so," he replied. "But I cannot disguise from
myself that my daughter appears depressed. These delicate young creatures
are so full of feeling--
Fair English girl, whose mantling cheek
Forbids the words her
lips would speak.
Yes, yes--so I invited her to come out with me. And Mamma approved the
plan, I am happy to state,--entirely approved it. The aspect of
outward nature upon this truly glorious summer afternoon would, I felt
convinced, prove an antidote to gloomy thoughts. And hence you find us
here, Mr. Hammond,--hence you find us; and very happy indeed we are to
be found, I can assure you."
While making these pleasing remarks, Mr. Perry pursued his course along
the deck towards the stern of the boat. The wooded precipices behind
Chillon fled away upon our left. Before us stretched out the immense, blue
perspective of the Rhone Valley. Vast shadows lay across it, soft and
misty; while here and there the flanks of the great hills, a row of balsam
poplars on the
flat, or the windows of a châlet caught the mellow brightness of the western sun. Everybody knows the view very well; still it remains delicious--delicious even though Perry père, in the tones of one returning thanks for the bridesmaids at a suburban wedding-breakfast, prattles at one's side.
"I am myself aware," he continued, "how when harassed
by the calls of business and by those anxieties which the fluctuations of
the money market necessarily produce in the breast even of the most
sanguine and the most solvent,--I am aware how a few hours, spent in
one of the sequestered country spots, of which our dear sea-girt land
supplies so many charming examples, will restore a measure of energy to the
jaded nervous system, and promote a healthy, hopeful outlook upon our
present form of existence. For though," cried Mr. Perry, drawing
himself up in a bold and reckless manner, and slipping his disengaged hand
in between the buttons of his insufficiently brushed
waistcoat,--"though through circumstances I occupy the position
of a peaceful citizen, I am by nature a roamer. These snowy summits seem to
call me--"
Here he waved his field-glasses dramatically towards the circle of
mountains closing in the head of the valley.
"I envy the agile chamois leaping from rock
to rock with dilated nostril. I long to inhale the invigorating atmosphere
of those amazing altitudes. And the ocean, again," added Mr. Perry;
"the sound of it is, as I may say, positively in my blood. Often in
my boyhood--
Dear bygone time when youth's enchanted hand
Smoothed the
light curl, caressed the candid brow--"
Here he smiled with a kind of a noble coyness.--"Often in my
boyhood, when pacing the arid London pavement, have I paused and picked up
a whelk dropped from the barrow of the itinerant coster; and, holding the
home of the humble mollusc to my ear, have found solace and sweet
suggestion of liberty in the murmur of the shell. Poetry, my dear Mr.
Hammond, believe me, in the end we must all come back to that,--and a
very wholesome thing it is to come back to, I'm sure, very
wholesome."
We turned, and I perceived the daughter of my eloquent companion in the
open space at the far end of the deck, beyond the shadow of the awning. She
was seated upon a low camp-stool, at a distance from all the other
passengers, a study in brown-holland, under a large black and yellow
parasol. Nobody was in attendance. Miss Perry for once was alone.
"Mamma, now, is different," resumed Mr. Perry. "Travel
for her has few attractions. A home-loving
nature, the fireside, the bright flower border, the prolific vegetable garden,--these content the heart of Mamma, as does the round of her domestic duties.--'A wet sheet and a flowing sail'--fine old song that, Mr. Hammond, and full of the true British nautical spirit--exercise no fascination over her. And so we left her at the hotel this afternoon; we did not bring her with us. Indeed," he added, lowering his voice, "I may tell you, in confidence, Mr. Hammond,--you, are a man of the world, which is equivalent to saying that you know something of the feminine nature,--I was not altogether sorry to part my two ladies for a little while to-day, not altogether sorry to part them. A passing cloud, no more,--I am sure quite passing,--crossed the face, as I may say, of our family happiness. Just a momentary lack of unanimity of sentiment between the child and her maternal parent. Mamma had heard rumours--the confused indiscretion of an officious chambermaid--the sex will gossip, as you know--of something that happened last night."
Mr. Perry looked sharply at me.
"Last night?--Indeed?" I said.
"A--in short--a scene--" repeated Mr.
Perry.
"A scene?" I inquired.
"You were there, I believe, Mr. Hammond."
"Certainly, I was there all the time. Your
daughter played to us as--well, as I really think only your daughter can play."
The boat slowed up at the
debarcadère of Territet-Chillon, just
below the extensive constructions of the Grand
Hôtel des Alpes. Mr. Perry held on to the starboard
railings and scrutinised the on-coming passengers. Among them chanced to be
the retired Deputy Surgeon-General of the Madras Army, his face showing
leaden under his white solar topee. Mr. Perry leaned out over the starboard
railing and signalled to him with his umbrella. Then he addressed me
again.
"You relieve me of anxiety," he said,--"greatly
relieve me. Mrs. Perry is slightly wanting in diplomacy at times; and she
has, perhaps, views of the duties of a chaperon belonging to less advanced
and cultivated social conditions than those in which it is the habit of our
daughter to move. She questioned Charlotte."
Again Mr. Perry looked very sharply at me.
"A mistake," he added, "and one which I myself should
have been incapable of committing--though not perhaps an unnatural one
in an anxious mother. And--ah! here is our good friend the doctor.
Botanising I see, as usual. No naughty poppies, I trust, annoying your eye
in those delightful Alpine solitudes--ah! ha--eh, no naughty
poppies?"
woman who had bidden me, so peremptorily, leave her to manage her own affairs, was a heavy tax on my imagination. If change is essential to charm in woman, then Miss Perry was triumphantly charming, for her capacity of change was Protean.
As the steamer-bell ceased ringing and the decks began to vibrate with
the working of the engines, Miss Perry turned her head. She gazed at me
mutely. Her eyes were full of tears, her dark eyelashes were gathered into
little points by those she had already shed.
"You do not care to talk," I said. "Your father tells
me you are over-tired. You would rather have me go away."
"No," she replied. "There are things of which I must
speak to you. I should not myself perhaps have chosen to-day, for I have
hardly arranged my thought as yet. I can hardly see my trouble, or my
action, still less my future"--the girl paused, and two tears
rolled slowly down over her pretty red-brown cheeks--"in
perspective. It is all too close to me as yet. Still, perhaps this
opportunity is given me purposely; I dare not reject it. It is improbable
we shall often see each other alone again."
I had not been feeling altogether friendly towards Charlotte Perry. I
had doubted her, and that on rather ugly grounds. And I had not the least
proposed that our interview should be of a
sentimental character. But listening to her modest hesitating speech, seeing her evident distress, of course I softened towards her and was moved to sympathy. I am not a stock or a stone, so, how the devil could I help it?
"Whatever course events may take," I protested, "it
will not be my fault if we do not meet often hereafter."
"You are hopeful because to you it is a light matter," said
Miss Perry.
"On the contrary, I am hopeful because I am in a normal condition,
and am therefore qualified to judge of the probabilities of things. You are
somewhat over-tired."
"Yes, I am cruelly tired," the girl assented.
"Then be advised, my dear young lady, and do not overtax yourself
with the discussion of burning questions just now. Tell me whether you
slept--no? Well, I almost feared as much,--and then let me do my
poor best to entertain you. Let me talk to you about the weather; about our
compagnons de voyage, whose voices
reverberate so pleasingly under that truly beautiful tin awning; about our
friend Clement Bartlett's new play, of which Carr writes me word that
it is to be a brilliant success.--Picture that! The foolish things of
this world do indeed confound the wise at times! Your memory happily cannot
carry you back to that prehistoric period, but I well remember
Clement's first appearance. Like the man in 'The Egoist,' he 'had a leg,' but this appeared to me to constitute the whole of his dramatic outfit. And now we are called upon to hail him as the coming play-wright!"
"Is it quite kind always to--to scoff?" Charlotte Perry
asked very softly.
"Poor dear Bartlett has survived so many smiles that one more will
not greatly affect him--specially as he will remain serenely unaware
of it. Moreover, I am past the appeals of friendship at this moment; I
would ruthlessly offer up the reputation of my nearest and dearest to
afford you a little amusement."
Whereat to my extreme embarrassment the girl bowed her head, dragged her
handkerchief out of the bosom of her blouse, and fell to weeping in a
perfectly audible manner.
"Pray, pray don't, my dear Miss Perry, this is too
distressing; pray control yourself," I feebly entreated.
"It is always the same," she moaned--really my position
was rather frightful!--"I had hoped that for once you would
understand, and treat me seriously--after last night. But it is
useless. Nothing makes any difference. You always play with
me--because, at heart, you always despise me."
"Despise you?--good heavens! of what imbecility have I been
guilty now, that you should imagine I despise you?"
"When I saw you coming," she sobbed, "I knew it would
be very painful--I could not speak at first--but I thought that
the opportunity had been given me, and that I should gain strength, and
tell you; and that you would approve for once--just for once-and that
would be my compensation--but--"
As fate would have it, there was a vacant camp-stool near by. I fetched
it. I sat down beside Charlotte Perry. I took her parasol and held it over
her. All of which was radically unwise; but under the circumstances what
man of feeling could be a slave to discretion, that possibly better, but
certainly very cold-blooded, part of valour? The sun was scorching, so that
the Americans and Germans, the clergy with their feminine appendages, and
even the possessive schoolmasters, preferred the shelter of the awning to
the glare of the open deck. For this I returned heartfelt thanks. Close
scrutiny would have been intolerably disconcerting just then.
"Now tell me anything and everything you like," I said
recklessly. "I have been an idiot in trying to divert your attention
to indifferent matters."
Charlotte Perry turned to me with streaming eyes. She was among the very
few women I have ever known who are not spoiled by crying. I instinctively
tilted the parasol so as to shelter us
both, not so much from the rays of the sun, as from the remark of possible observers.
"I asked bread of you, and you seemed to give me a stone. It was
too hard. I lost myself--"
"No wonder, you are over-wrought," I answered. "You
went through a most agitating experience last night, and behaved--you
will not think me guilty of impertinence in referring to this?--with a
courage beyond all praise."
The girl's mouth gathered into that strangely seductive sketch of a
kiss.
"Ah! how precious it is to hear you say that!" she--I
don't like the word, it has a suspicion of vulgarity about it,
nevertheless I must employ it--she whispered.
I began to speak, I was on the edge of committing myself to statements
of a vastly foolish description, but Miss Perry stopped me by raising her
hand.
"Be silent, I implore you,--be silent. That was a slip. It
would be unworthy of you to notice it, knowing that I am, as you said just
now, over-wrought. Put it down to my sleepless night, and overlook
it."
She paused, and I feared the tears would again break forth. But in a
moment she continued, with really angelic gentleness--
"All that is closed, finished. After the events of last night,
finished for ever. Only sometimes,
for an instant, one forgets. If you have once dreamed very vividly of a great good, the dream comes back upon you, even in your most cruelly wakeful hours; don't you think so?"
"How can I answer you?" I inquired, feeling rather like a
knave and most completely like a fool.
"Don't attempt to answer," she said. "Truly, it
is kinder not to do so. Listen, that is all I ask, and if you can,
encourage and approve. The hope"--her voice sank away again in a
caressing cadence--"the hope of your approval has, I am
afraid,--for it is very weak of me,--been the mainspring of my
action."
"You humiliate me," I protested.
The girl smiled at me through her tears in the most beguiling
manner.
"Had the circumstances of our meeting been different," I
said desperately,--"had you been free to listen to proposals,
which I was equally and honourably free to make, the result of our
acquaintance--"
"Don't," she cried, shutting her eyes, and pressing her
hands to either side of her charming head. "This is a superfluous
torture. Again I entreat you to be silent. I am bound irrevocably. I bound
myself last night, after you went. Constantine was in a terrible condition.
Upon his frenzy--which you witnessed--there followed an alarming
prostration. In one and the same breath he told me--is it indelicate to tell you this?--that he should die without me, and implored me to break with him. He said it was wicked to marry me, and yet declared that without me he would die. Indeed, I feared he would destroy himself."
She waited, shuddering, closing her eyes, again pressing her hands
against her head.
"I realised clearly, for the first time, what a frightful future
must inevitably lie before me," she continued, speaking slowly and in
hesitating accents, while she gazed into the vague, over the glittering
expanse of the great lake.--"I felt, and for the first time
dreaded, the gloom which must for ever envelop us--I and he. We shall
travel through life with this malign and supernatural companion; and what
repose, what security, what possibility of spontaneous and fearless
gladness can there be in such a life? For I shall be for ever face to face
with the probability of a dark and swift catastrophe."
"Catastrophe?" I said.
"Assuredly," Miss Perry answered. "My nerves are not
of ircn, though I am strong. Eventually they will give under the strain put
upon them. Even the most reasonable mind must be affected by constant
contact with unreason. At last I may--I shall--be infected by the
terror which haunts my husband. To me, also, it will take
on bodily form, and then Constantine will kill--kill--either me or himself."
I was stricken by sudden compunction. After all, one human being is as
good as another in a certain sense; each life is of supreme value to its
possessor; all have equal rights. Why, in the eternal justice of things,
should this pretty and clever girl be required to pay the price of her
lover's singular misfortune? He adored her, I know; but did that
create so tremendous an obligation on her side? It might be very fairly
argued that he adored her to please himself.
"Leversedge is right. You must not marry him," I cried, with
conviction. "Poor, dear fellow, it is tragic for him, horribly
tragic; but you are in no degree responsible for that. You must not marry
him; the risk is too great. You must cancel your engagement."
"No, no," she answered. "I must not cancel my
engagement. It must stand. I must marry him--and at once."
In the excitement of the conversation we had both risen to our feet. We
stood near each other, and for a perceptible space of time looked full at
each other. The girl's cheeks were flushed; her eyes were swimming in
tears, yet they danced. Charlotte Perry was brilliant just then,--the
wind ruffling her abundant hair, while her hands plucked almost fiercely at
the drooping buttercups in her belt.
"Are you afraid of your handiwork," she asked me;
"afraid of it at last?"
"My handiwork?--I am very honestly afraid of your happiness
being wrecked."
"Ah! that is wrecked already," she answered softly.
"Now I am only trying to save what poor remnant is possible of saving
from the wreck.--I do not reproach you, though it is your doing.
No--don't protest; you told me you would listen. Keep your
promise, that is only just. Listen--I perceive only one way to gain
your respect, perhaps your admiration. It is a bitter way--flesh and
blood can hardly endure it--yet I take it. Constantine is your friend,
not I. I am interesting to you, have been so from the first, merely on
account of the relation in which I stand to him."
Miss Perry lowered her eyes; she picked the buttercups to pieces one by
one, scattering their green stems and shining yellow petals upon the
grey-drab planks of the deck.
"You think lightly of me--do not deny it. I know I speak the
truth. You criticise me at every turn; you consider my breeding doubtful,
my taste doubtful. You question my sincerity. You cheapen my
talents--in your own mind--I do not say you do all this openly,
you are too gentleman-like to fall into that error. But being idle, you
amuse your leisure by casting me up and dividing
me out. For Constantine you really care, so you do not sacrifice him to your rage for analysis; I understand that.--No--do not interrupt me. I must say it all, all this once. You think me worldly, scheming, a mere actress. By marrying Constantine, by yielding myself up unreservedly to the horror which encircles him, I can vindicate myself; I can prove to you that you have misjudged me, and that I am very far from being the cheap, artificial, half-hearted adventuress you have supposed me to be."
I do not often lose my temper; but now a certain exasperation seized on
me. For was it not really a little too bad that this charming person should
thus lock the door on me and set her back against it? It is disgusting to
me to be compelled to handle a woman other than courteously. Yet, unless I
exercised something of brutal masculine force in removing her, how on earth
was I to get the door open and make good my escape?
"My dear young lady,--my dear young lady, you cover me with
shame and confusion!" I cried. "You appear to do me the unhappy
compliment of attaching an importance to my possible, or rather impossible,
opinion--for the opinion with which you accredit me is positively
preposterous--quite deliriously above its value."
The girl pressed her hands to the sides of her head again.
"I am so tired," she said. "It is all finished, as I
told you. I have burnt my ships, I have accepted my lot. Why then try to
juggle with me? Why, above all, why be ungenerous and beg the
question?"
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "it is not I who beg the
question. It is you, dear Miss Perry, who beg it, while I am trying to
introduce a trifle of common sense into the consideration of it."
She turned away, letting her arms drop at her sides, and stared over the
bows of the lake-boat, now heading in towards the row of great Lombardy
poplars which line the gay little quay and marketplace of Montreux.
"I implore you, in the name of reason, to leave all thought of me
out of the business."
For an instant Miss Perry looked at me.
"But how can I?"--I cannot actually assert that I heard
those words, but her quivering lips appeared to form them.
"Granting, for the sake of argument, even," I went on,
"that I have been idiot enough to think, in any degree, any one of
the stupidities of which you accuse me, what does that signify as against
the very real and serious matter of your marriage? You are--pardon my
saying so--straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel with a
vengeance. Bear with me if I speak plainly.--Marry Constantine
Leversedge because he loves you, if you wish to do an heroic act of
kindness. Still better, marry him because you love him, and pity carries
the day over fear."
"Ah! how little you understand," murmured Miss Perry.
Really, I believe at times I have the right to congratulate myself on
possessing miraculous strength of character. Or is it only the strength of
alarm, not of character--the daring of the proverbial turning-worm,
the valour of the proverbial mouse in a corner? I can't decide.
Anyhow, I finished my address.
"But to marry him as proof to me that you are not the kind of
person you imagine I imagine you possibly may be, is absurd and grotesque,
an unspeakable and impossible folly. You cannot be guilty of it. I refuse
to permit you to be guilty of it."
"And how will you prevent my being guilty of it?" the fair
Charlotte asked, with rather astonishing composure.
The flower-like, the dewy, the early, early morning and exquisitely
virginal effect seemed suddenly to have passed away from Miss Perry. The
change in her was unseizable--to roughly translate an untranslatable
Gallicism--but I was keenly aware of its presence.
"Tell my poor dear parents what you have just told me. At first
they will neither believe nor understand you. You will involve yourself in
a series of silly wordy scenes, which will make our party the comedy of the
whole hotel. Tell Constantine--that will be very simple--he will
destroy himself."
She paused.
"And, meanwhile, you will have the inward satisfaction of
continuing to think of me just what you have always thought. I do not
propose to give you that satisfaction."
"Are you not slightly vindictive?" I inquired. "It was
not nice of me. It was a lapse of good manners. But, upon my honour, I
could not help it."
Miss Perry put one hand over her eyes, and threw back her head. Her
throat was round, firm, the colour of it a warm, delicate
brown--delicious in the sunshine, which--for I am afraid I was
shamefully neglecting my office of umbrella bearer--enveloped her
graceful figure from head to heel.
"You are certainly ungenerous," she retorted.
"But all men are that, I believe, if an unhappy woman so far forgets conventionality as to obey the dictates of-- No, pass that by. Forget what I was nearly betrayed into saying. I should be thankful to forget it myself. Let us reason together coldly and sensibly, since that is your pleasure; and I will show you why you cannot and must not seek to alter my resolution."
Again Charlotte Perry's bright eyes filled, again she spoke in
modest, hesitating accents.
"You know how hard society is, how basely commonplace in its
judgments, how blind to high purposes, how sceptical of pure and elevated
motives. You know how it hates to have its imagination taxed by action that
is touched by ideality. You are a poet, you must have suffered from all
this at times, and so you must have seen how, if a woman--it is very
painful to me to speak on this subject--if a woman leaves her home
because the demands made upon her are degrading, or because her husband is
wicked, or because, like the heroine of Ibsen's wonderful drama, she
revolts against the narrow conditions and paltry occupations of domestic
life, society looks doubtfully upon her, other women flout her and draw
aside their skirts. Even should she give herself to philanthropy or enter a
religious house, she is still suspect. But if she leaves her home because
she pleases some other man, society looks
not so very hardly on her fault; often, in a little while, quite condones it. In the eyes of the great, coarse, everyday world we are your slaves yet. Success with a man, that a man should desire us, in a measure justifies even the most scandalous conduct."
Pausing in the midst of this surprising essay upon contemporary morals,
Miss Perry stooped and picked up her hat. She straightened herself up
again, and languidly drew the long pins out of the crown of it. Where was
she coming to? I felt very nervous. The door of escape was by no means open
yet.
"It is very much the same with a girl's engagement,"
she went on. "If she cancels it because she discovers that she and
the man whom she has promised to marry are not calculated to realise what
marriage might be--has sometimes been--in all its exquisite
completeness, in its profound though hidden poetry; if she dreads to do
violence to her own ideal of love, she is accused of cruelty and caprice.
Women treat her with a mixture of pity and contempt. Men are familiar or
surly with her. She is a failure, and society has no mercy for failure. But
if she breaks it off because someone else cares for her, in obedience to
his will, she is justified in the opinion of the world, of her friends, of
her parents--in that even of her rejected admirer."
When Charlotte raised her eyes to mine again they were as stars of
morning. No wonder poor Leversedge worshipped her if, at times, she looked
at him thus! She was, indeed, of a quality to turn the steadiest head! At
this moment, in the wind and sunshine, the blue lake behind her, the pale
deck before, the gay little Swiss town--its quaintly carved gables and
balconies, its rows of emerald-green shutters and bright awnings, its line
of magnificent, quivering, whispering poplars,--sliding by on our
right as the steamer slowed up at the pier, Charlotte Perry had her moment
of triumph, she was absolutely and distractingly lovely.
"She is a success. Society smiles on her,
fêtes and applauds her. For has she not
upon her the hall-mark which all will acknowledge? It is well to be loved
by one man. It is just doubly well to be loved by two.
And--"
The girl stretched out her hands. Thank heaven there was a movement on
board, passengers acquiring hand-bags, umbrellas, impedimenta in general,
prior to disembarking, so nobody, I believed,--with relief, I believe
so still,--specially noticed our proceedings.
"And she is very, very grateful, Mr. Hammond. Her happiness is
secured. It is completed instead of being wrecked."
These are things to turn one's hair grey, even
contemplating them after a lapse of years. Let me take breath!
So very much comes into this question of marriage that one's brain
fairly reels under it. For a woman it is probably, as Perry
père remarked, "an arduous
undertaking"; but for one of us, oh my brothers, it is--well,
what is it not? Personally, I am unfitted for a primitive state of society,
I know that. Were you to take off my clothes and send me up a tree to pick
nuts, I should go very hungry myself; while those dependent upon me would
almost certainly starve. Yet I look back, not without yearning, to the
epoch of primal innocence, when man and woman mated gaily, parted gaily,
even as those most delectable of living creatures, the birds, do. For the
bond of wedlock, as understood for many hundred years now by the more
civilised nations--specially those of the Anglo-Saxon race--adds
a terror to life. To pass two or three days in the Divorce Court would be
about as much to my taste as passing them in the Old Fleet Ditch; yet how
can a man of average sensibility be expected, at a given moment, to know
and make up his mind finally and irrevocably in respect of womanhood and
the affections? Aphrodite is a mighty and marvellous goddess. Who that has
once, in ever so small a degree, beheld her glory, shall dare worship her
under a single aspect only, or in a single place?
Of course there is the ancient theory--does it not at least date
from the days of Aristophanes?--of the One Man--the One Woman;
and I have laboured valiantly to cherish it, since it appeared to offer a
practical solution to my moral and emotional difficulties. Like the hero of
a certain evil and exquisite romance, the title of which I refrain from
mentioning, I set out early in quest of the One Woman who should satisfy
all my aspirations, all my tastes, all--if you will have it--my
latent masculine sensuality; who should dominate me at first sight, who
should hold me then and ever after. I have sought her diligently,
and--I admit it reluctantly, for it must sound most impertinently
fastidious--I am seeking her yet. This quest, indeed, has become a
fixed idea with me. It presents itself, as a matter of course, at sight of
each new and charming face--and the number of new and charming faces
which offer themselves for inspection is really delightfully great. It
presents itself even in respect of faces already fairly well known to me,
under circumstances of a peculiar or provocative character.
It presented itself very distinctly to me now, on the sunny deck of the
lake-boat, as Miss Perry's soft voice faltered, and she stretched out
her hands in that most moving action of appeal. She was so varied, so
captivating, so uncommonly clever, at times so deliciously pretty; her
prospects were
of so dubiously hopeful and encouraging a sort. And then, had she by chance spoken the truth, not only in respect of my reading, but of my misreading, of her? Might not, by chance, her picture of herself be a more faithful one than that which I--with my wretched little habit of being too sharp by half in the ungracious business of picking my neighbours to pieces--had drawn of her? Surely it was very generous, after all my silent detraction and, at moments, my outspoken disagreement, thus to give me another chance! And then the coercive, the well-nigh irresistible, flattery of thus finding oneself the object of a young and lovely person's affection! Is there anything on earth quite so agreeable?--(For a little while, at all events. After the first blush of the affair one usually becomes inconveniently sensible of make-weights and conceivable complications)--No! I protest there is not.
And so it came about that, for the space of at least twenty seconds, I
asked myself quite seriously whether it was not possible that here, here in
the daughter of Perry père et
mère, of the lively rat and excellent clock-moon,
improbable as it might appear at first sight, I had found that which I had
sought so long and vainly--the complement of my nature, the
comprehensively and perpetually seductive being, the, for me, One
Woman?
Those twenty seconds were immensely pleasant,
I would willingly have extended them indefinitely. But, alas! for that at once so consolatory and so detestable doctrine--the Doctrine of Perpetual Flux--twenty seconds were the limit; and then the delectable equilibrium in which my mind had hung was rudely disturbed. It went on working--I mean that eternal see-saw, which I call my mind, did. It suffered a barbarian invasion of rough doubts, tumultuous questions, inartistic moralities, which beat upon it as with heavy clubs. For, after all, when I came to consider it, no miraculous change had passed over Charlotte Perry, or her parents, or my friend Leversedge, or myself, or our mutual relations, or our prospects, or our antecedents, or our surroundings. All these stood precisely where they had stood. That which we had been, both in regard of ourselves and each other, that we still essentially and indubitably were. There was no squaring the circle. It was all, not otherwise, but just exactly so.
For how was I, who had never yet given myself away, of all men to give
myself away thus recklessly? Bless my soul, contemplate the inevitable
consequences! How was I, who had always plumed myself on maintaining a nice
standard of taste in friendship, of all men to steal his
fiancée, and play the part of a
Bowdlerised King David to the Uriah of poor dear Leversedge? No, no; it was
really a trifle tiresome, but, in truth, I had
neither moral courage nor was I scoundrel enough for all this.
And then, with a blush of shame I remember it, for it reflects small
credit on either my head or heart, one of those trivial incidents occurred
which so completely and immediately quench the fires of my not perhaps very
strikingly volcanic nature.
Miss Perry, I apprehend, had found these twenty seconds longer than I
did. She became restless; she grew--it was very
excusable--somewhat impatient of my silence. The grey deck planks,
where the hem of her brown holland skirt touched them, were strewn with the
remnants of her bouquet of buttercups. She put out her right foot, and in a
nervous, and--I am compelled to add--somewhat awkward, manner
pushed the green stems aside and crushed the shining petals. Those women
who are possessed of well-shaped feet, kindly permit one, in the present
day, to be fully aware of that agreeable fact; and it occurred to me that,
considering her pretensions to fashion, the opportunities afforded me of
beholding the fair Charlotte's feet had been distinctly limited. Now I
understood why. Whether Nature or her bootmaker was in fault, I cannot, of
course, pretend to determine. I charitably trust the former. For with
Nature clearly there is no arguing; whereas any human being, possessed of
the powers of speech and volition, can remonstrate with and, in extreme
cases, change their bootmaker. Miss Perry's boots or shoes--I think they were shoes--were wide, easy, trodden over, their square toes turned badly heavenward. I could write a pamphlet on the subject of boots--they are an awful revelation of personal character. Vulgarities otherwise skilfully concealed come out in the shape of a heel; sloth leaves indelible tracks across upper leathers. In moments of illumination I have detected gluttony in a lace and profligacy in a button. The Carissima's shoes did not betray the presence of any mortal sin, let me hasten to add. But since, judging by the rest of her costume, I could be in no doubt as to the sufficiency of her purse, they disclosed a vein of indolence, of insufficient pride, of lack of perception; they were the shoes of one whose promise is better than her performance, of one capable of alarming lapses--briefly, they didn't do.
And in the theory of the One Woman it is imperatively necessary that the
whole should please in detail, as well as in its completeness.
And--what a relief (yes! I had reached that stage already!) to be able
to pack the manifold pros and cons into the compass of a
syllogism--here was a detail which radically displeased, therefore
Miss Perry was not the One Woman.
It was undoubtedly soothing to have the matter thus definitely settled;
but it was anything but a
graceful pastime to convey the assurance of that settlement to my companion. Is it conceivable that women really enjoy refusing their admirers? If so, they are amazingly strong-minded, judging by my own--but I abstain from further comment. Suffice it to say, I am conscious that a certain ardour which must have been perceptible in my attitude and manner--though I am not endowed with a superfluity of what is technically known as "facial expression"--flickered and died. And Miss Perry--I was unspeakably ashamed, yet how, oh! how I blessed her--must have been aware of that waning of a fine flame.
"Please give me my parasol, Mr. Hammond," she said,
suddenly, hastily. "The sun is very hot."
She sat down, drooped down, upon the camp stool again. I was horribly
afraid she was crying, as I handed her her umbrella--but I am not
sure. I avoided looking at her. I really had not the face to do so, for I
knew I must appear utterly despicable to her. I appeared so to myself. In
spirit I poured forth volumes of scathing invectives against myself, vials
of contemptuous wrath upon my own devoted head. I found it in my heart to
wish the lake-boat might incontinently strike upon a rock and founder, and
that I might magnanimously sacrifice my life--I am a singularly poor
swimmer--in saving that of Miss Perry. This was
a cheap wish, since I was aware the Lake of Geneva is deep beyond all possibility of shipwreck from the above cause.
During these twenty seconds--and more, for the silence
lasted--I certainly paid a heavy price for those other twenty seconds
of delightful mental equilibrium. To speak was of necessity to apologise;
and to apologise was little short of an insult. I might have gone away; but
to go away seemed to me a course of action at once uncourteous and
inconclusive. So, in rich discomfort, I waited. The bell had rung, we were
steaming westward once more, while Montreux and its poplars receded in the
distance.
"The civil marriage will take place on Thursday, at Geneva,"
Charlotte Perry said, at last. "Constantine has gone there to-day to
see the Consul and make all necessary arrangements. He has been resident in
the district for a sufficient length of time, there will be no difficulty
or--or delay. The religious ceremony will take place here on
Friday."
The girl looked up. Our eyes met.
"You will be present?" she added softly.
"Unfortunately I cannot be," I replied. "I leave by
the mail to-night. I shall be in Paris, on my way to England."
"No, no!" Miss Perry cried.
She rose to her feet and faced me imperiously.
Her tearful mood had wholly vanished. She became that which she had been the night before, almost alarming, almost tremendous, notwithstanding her youth and remarkable good looks.
"You shall not escape so easily," she said. "I have
borne much from you, but I refuse to bear that. You shall not slip away
comfortably and amuse yourself--perhaps with some other
friend--friend?"--her voice took a most disconcerting
inflection of sarcasm--"elsewhere, while you leave me to lift
the great burden which you--yes, you--have helped to force upon
me, unaided and alone. I have a claim on you--we need not discuss the
exact nature of it, since you, I think, hardly dare deny its
existence--and I require you to meet that claim to the full. This is
not revenge, this is justice--bare justice. You shall be witness of
this business to the very end. You shall see what I do, hear what I
say--I will leave you no loophole for disbelief, for doubt. You shall
recognise my worth--you shall admire my conduct--I will compel
you to admire it."
Suddenly Charlotte Perry's eyes filled and her mouth gathered into
that really delicious suggestion of a kiss. I was carried away in spite of
myself.
"I admire you already," I exclaimed. "You are
extraordinary, you are enchanting."
Again, for a moment, the girl's appearance grew absolutely
dazzling.
"Ah!" she cried, "I have wrung that out of you at
last--no, pray say no more. Do not spoil your admission either by
exaggeration or by explanation. Leave it as it stands. Submit to be
spontaneous for once!"--
Her tone changed, became pensive, modest, full of hesitation.
"You will remain, Mr. Hammond, and take part in the--the
sad--for some of us it must be sad--ceremony of Friday.
Constantine will ask you to be his best man, and you will accept. Meanwhile
you will help me--I think you will? This is Tuesday, so after all the
time is short--you will help me to prevent my poor dear parents
arriving at any premature knowledge of the truth. They must think that
I--am happy--that--that I am glad. And I fear they are
growing suspicious. To-day Mamma--but I will not trouble you with all
that. You must help me lull their fears to rest."
Miss Perry raised her hand, laid it upon her eyes.
"I am very tired," she said. "We have talked
enough."
She turned her back upon me, so disposing her yellow and black parasol
that it offered an insuperable barrier to further conversation.
And I strolled away to the stern of the boat, there lighting upon Perry
père and the Deputy
Surgeon-General in full session, discussing the enormities of the Opium Traffic and the still greater ones of our venerable, late Radical premier. While listening to their artless, though wordy conversation, I bowed low before the genius of Charlotte Perry. I could not fathom her, she was beyond me; consequently--for masculine vanity recoils instinctively from the feminine creature it has not the wit to fathom--she was not, and never could be for me, the One Woman. Yet she was, I owned it, a woman of ten thousand, for she could play a losing game, she could show herself great in the hour of defeat.
distracted lover of all ages--I discovered next morning that, in truth, the question still retained the very strongest disposition to dispose, if not of me, still of my time and thought.
I loitered on the verandah after breakfast. The morning was positively
divine, the air having just that hint of an edge to it which agreeably
convinced you, notwithstanding the heat haze dancing over the brilliant
landscape, that glaciers and snow-fields were after all within easy reach.
And that edge to the air, far from soothing a slightly heated fancy, is
liable to produce des éblouissements
and provoke a feverish restlessness. Across the startlingly green lawn,
just below, the lithe young Russian lady of the scarlet silk blouse and
black pigtail wandered bare-headed. She was innocently employed in picking
ox-eyed daisies and clover heads from among the grass; and as she plucked
them she indulged in snatches of song--sad with the sorrow of long
northern winters, as it seemed to me, and the endless monotony of the
Steppe.
I do not attempt to trace out the association of ideas. It may have been
a revolt against the melancholy of the folk-song; it may have been an
effect of colour--vivid scarlet against vivid green, the strong note
of black--heaven forgive me if I begin to talk like an art
critic!--in skirt and hair, affecting my brain as a dram might; it may
have
been a certain fierceness in the action of the fine-made, angular figure, stooping and pulling at the flowers--I can't pretend to say. Suffice it that my soul was invaded by a crazy longing to live, to give myself away, to be dangerous. I went back upon the position of yesterday; and it was borne in upon me--it has often been so before--that I am but a paltry creature, the decadent product of a decadent age. I know so well what to avoid, I know so very ill what to do. I fell to envying Leversedge his diabolic dog; Charlotte Perry the courage of her perversions--that perhaps is the best way of stating it; even Perry père his enthusiasm for the Primrose League and rich enjoyment of the enunciation of platitudes; even Percy Gerrard his inherent grossness. Oh! to be positive for once, instead of tentative merely, or negative! When candid persons tell me so, I wish, of course, to beat them; but, in the privacy of that evil quarter of an hour, I accused myself of being thin; and Myself answered that in truth I was, morally emotionally, and in respect of all action, thin, very lamentably thin indeed.
And just when I was touching the lowest deep of this unpleasant, but, no
doubt, salutary depth of self-abasement, when I was becoming literally
flattened out by the heavy weight of my own inadequacies, enter unto me
Mrs. Perry. She
emerged from the glass doors of the salon rotund and beaming.
"Dear me now, Mr. Hammond," she exclaimed, "this is
what I really do call a piece of luck. I have been so wishing all the
morning I had some lady-friend to talk it all over with; and you see I have
nothing but acquaintances here, and I never can get over the feeling it
isn't very suitable to be intimate with the people you just meet
travelling. You see, you don't really know anything about them, nor
how they live, and how many servants they keep, and how they behave at
home. It's so easy for anybody to look respectable on the Continent.
And you're so afraid, if you take to them, it may make awkwardnesses
afterwards,aren't you?"
All of which certainly did not come very much under the head of
adventurous and vigorous living! Failing other female acquaintances, of
well-accredited position, good Mrs. Perry took me. I was relegated to the
modest position of the safe she-gossip, to that of the maiden aunt. For a
moment the Eternal Masculine in me--for the Eternal Masculine does
exist just as actually as the Eternal Feminine, though it happens at the
present time not to have so fashionable a notoriety as the
latter--arose in revolt. But in my present condition of
self-abasement, it rebelled only for a moment. I had fallen very low in my
own estimation. I was almost willing to regard myself as
nothing better than an example of infructuous and hoary spinsterhood.
"You have always taken such a kind interest in our dear young
people," she continued, "that I know you will be pleased to
hear everything is so comfortably settled."
She confronted me bridling, her worthy moon-face suffused with smiles.
But, unfortunately, the searching morning light did not suit my present
companion as well as the scarlet-bloused figure that had been my late
inspiration, and torment.
Mrs. Perry's matutinal appearance invariably suggested the thought
that she was wearing out her last year's Sunday gown. The present
example of that economical habit was green; enriched by steel and bugle
ornaments, notably in the region of the waist, where they took the form of
strings of pendants bearing an affinity to Papuan full dress. Her grey
hair, smoothly banded on the brow, was greenish in hue from the too lavish
application of some adhesive unguent. It was, moreover, surmounted by a
lace and ribbon cap, in form and colour curiously resembling a poached egg.
What remained to her of her eyebrow, raised to a permanently surprised
height, pushed her forehead up into innumerable horizontal lines. I found
it impossible to dislike Mrs. Perry, she was too perfectly simple and
genuine a being. Yet to me, just now, she proved confusing, for the tone of
her profoundly
insular voice, her comfortable and somewhat uncontrolled figure, even the last few words she had spoken, recalled irresistibly to my mind that mysterious functionary, the monthly nurse, whom, to my terror, I meet at the recurrent christening festivals which enliven the house of my excellent little married sister. Unable to divest my mind of this association of ideas, I answered Mrs. Perry slightly at random.
"I am delighted to hear it. I am to understand you, then, that
they are both doing very well?"
"Oh, very well," Mrs. Perry replied with unction.
"Indeed, Mr. Hammond, between ourselves, I think Charlotte's a
very fortunate girl, for Constantine Leversedge has really being doing
better than could have been expected."
The phrase was a little astonishing; but I retained my presence of
mind.
"Good news upon good news!" I exclaimed. "This is
capital."
"So it is; and I am sure I feel very thankful, and so does Mr.
Perry."
Her eyebrows aspired still higher.
"For, of course, we've had our misgivings at times, Mr.
Hammond. You see, we lost our dear little boy as an infant. So she's
our only child."
The tenderness of the maternal passion found quite moving expression in
Mrs. Perry's homely countenance.
"And being so remarkable and gifted as she is, we have sometimes
wondered whether we ought to let things go on. Often and often, since
we've been here, Mr. Perry's woke me in the night to talk about
it--specially since Mrs. Mertyns came, and we couldn't help
seeing what an interest Mr. Gerrard took in Lottie. Mr. Perry's a
dreadfully poor sleeper when he has anything on his mind. I am sure if
I've asked him once, I've asked him a dozen
times,--'My dear, what does make you so restless?' And he
always answers,--'Charlotte's marriage, Mamma,
Charlotte's marriage. It's not too late yet to interfere. She
must not be permitted to throw herself away.'"
"A most proper sentiment on the part of your husband," I
said.
"I am so pleased to know you think that, for sometimes I have been
afraid Mr. Perry was inclined to place his hopes too high, and that it
wouldn't bring a blessing. You see, there's a great deal said
about not taking too much thought in the Bible, and--I daresay it is
because I don't understand very quickly--these new translations
do explain a great many of those difficulties in the Gospels, they tell
me--but sometimes I was frightened lest we should be asking too much
for Lottie."
Here Mrs. Perry placed herself in a chair. Hers was not the style of
figure which can be described
as gracefully permitting its possessor to sit down. I cannot pretend that Mrs. Perry was classic in her attitudes. She invariably sat up. Her smiles had waned rather beneath the disturbing influences of biblical criticism--now they shone forth again.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how pleasant it is to have
a little chat! Though I don't know that I ought to be so confidential
with you, Mr. Hammond. Only, as I say, you've always taken such a warm
interest in our young people that I can't help feeling as if you were
quite one of ourselves now. And then I always do think you can say things
to a bachelor like you, you couldn't say to another gentleman. And
you're older, you see," she added, heaping Pelion on Ossa in the
matter of compliment. "I'm sure I don't know how I should
have felt about leaving Charlotte alone the other night--particularly
after what they told me afterwards--if I had not known you were there,
Mr. Hammond."
Mrs. Perry beamed upon me while thus stabbing me. I seem to remember as
a small boy discerning just such an air of complete and candid satisfaction
upon the face of the hall clock, in our house at Brighton, when about to
strike the dinner hour. I fear I was a greedy child, and may therefore have
transferred the sensation of satisfaction resident in my own breast to the
face of the clock. I am sadder and wiser now. When satisfactions
come I don't transfer them. They are too rare; I keep them for myself. Therefore I was very sure it was no reflected glory which now illuminated Mrs. Perry's countenance. And, repressing a recurring revolt of the Eternal Masculine in favour of the gratification of curiosity,--for a change had very evidently come over the spirit of the Perry-Leversedge dream since yesterday afternoon,--I sat down beside Mrs. Perry and tried by gentle arts to induce her to reveal more clearly the cause of jubilation.
Mrs. Perry sighed.
"You are not alone. The pace is hot, and the Time-Spirit leaves
many of us somewhat breathless," I remarked.
My companion probably knew as much about the Zeitgeist as about the
theory of Palingenesis; but Mrs. Perry had a gracious habit of taking the
will for the deed. She comprehended that my intention was consolation, she
was therefore--in a measure, at all events--consoled.
"Yes, to be sure," she replied; "and Mr. Perry
has kept on saying to me, 'We owe it to ourselves, Susan, and we owe it to Charlotte's very charming and cultivated circle of acquaintance, to show a really solid reason, to show sufficient cause--'"
(Ah! shade of M. de Voltaire!)
"For Mr. Perry always pointed out--though I never could quite
understand why being clever should make so much difference--that in
the case of such a talented girl as Charlotte, her friends wouldn't
recognise affection as very much of a reason. It seems a pity, doesn't
it?"
"So it does. Ten thousand pities," I rejoined very
cordially.
The good woman beamed again.
"Dear me, with all your nice feelings--if it isn't too
intimate to mention it--it does seem a loss you ain't married,
Mr. Hammond. There must be plenty of young ladies who would be so very
willing, you know--indeed, I've more than once thought--if
it hadn't been decided long ago--Mr. Perry and I--for
there's no one I've seen for a long while I've taken so
to--but then it is all decided, you see--and--"
I laid my hand on the arm of my companion's chair. I regarded her,
as I believe, with an air of delicately mingled gratitude and restraint,
for this was the very last road I wished to travel down with Mrs.
Perry.
"It is all decided," I repeated. "And so, as to these
settlements?"
"Ah yes,--I'm sure I shall always remember you as a very
kind friend after to-day, Mr. Hammond. Well, when he'd seen the will,
Mr. Perry said to me directly--and I was rather nervous Constantine
overheard, but then he's very sensible, I don't think he's
at all sensitive like some young men might be,--he said to me,
'It all lies here, Mamma, it all lies here! Everyone will admit this
really fine income explains Charlotte's choice.'"
"Unquestionably wealth explains much to the mind of the modern
world," I remarked.
"I am very pleased you agree with Mr. Perry," she said, with
great cheerfulness. "I'll tell him you think Charlotte's
friends will be satisfied; and I can't help hoping that may make him
less excited than he has been lately. He is so very tenacious about her
friends being satisfied."
After all, what is truth that we should be so desperately anxious to
speak it? Absolute truth became unattainable, in all probability, many
thousand centuries ago. Very distantly approximate truth is the utmost we
can hope to arrive at in our present state of lamentable over-development,
when the mist of unnumbered opinions has obscured every conceivable
question of human conduct and of human relation. Is not the mere
attempt to speak it, perhaps, a refined form of spiritual pride and self-seeking? Better, I think, rub a little emollient ointment of passing peace upon the soul of the brother or sister who happens to be nearest you, by endeavouring to take whatever view of things--not actually criminal--you perceive will yield them solace, however fleeting. So I begged Mrs. Perry to regard me as the mouthpiece of the social gods; and bade her rest assured those high and holy divinities would unanimously applaud the wisdom of her daughter's choice, if the fortune Leversedge possessed, and the settlements he made, were really handsome.
"And they really are handsome?" I inquired.
"They seem so to me," she answered. "But then, Mr.
Perry and I hadn't much to begin on at first, Mr. Hammond. We were in
a very small way. He used to repeat beautiful lines about love in a
cottage, which afforded the greatest pleasure to dear mother and father.
I'm sure I can hear her kiss me now, upon my wedding-morning, just
when she had done lacing my dress--it was very becoming to the figure,
but a very inconvenient fashion, those day-dresses lacing up
behind--and say to me,--'Thank God, Susie, you will have
that in your husband which is better than riches, for Joseph has a truly
good heart.'"
She paused, blushed a little, and her bosom
heaved ominously. Ah, well, happy is the woman who has had her romance, even if it take the rat-like form of a Joseph Perry! I respectfully averted my eyes until such time as my companion should have recovered from too acute memories of those early enchantments, and they lighted upon the wearer of the scarlet blouse, reclining on the grass at the foot of a grey-green stemmed tulip tree. One of the debilitated young Russians stood before her haranguing her with impassioned gestures. Evidently she disagreed with him; and disagreement, so far, took the form of a silence quite hugely provoking. I watched them, I turned back to Mrs. Perry. That man, at least, touched something very like absolute truth who declared "it takes all sorts to make a world."
"But of course I was very different to Charlotte," my
innocent companion continued. "I had not her requirements. I
didn't mind makeshifts--"
She laughed a little apologetically.
"Between ourselves, I don't mind them much now. They make me
feel easy. But they don't make Charlotte easy; they seem to mortify
her, and she points things out to me--her standard of taste is very
high. And I should be the last person to undervalue that, still sometimes I
do find it a little tiring. You see, you never do quite get over the way
you were brought up, Mr. Hammond. And I do seem to have so many
things to remember, people never troubled about when I was young, that when I have got hold of one I am pretty sure to forget some other; and, of course, I know that must be mortifying to Charlotte and her father."
"Alas! we must all pay the penalties of progress, my dear
lady," I said, I trust not too abominably sententiously.
"I suppose we must"--Mrs. Perry sighed. "Still,
it's a very troubling thing to feel what you do is a subject of
mortification to others. Sometimes it makes me dreadfully low-spirited. I
do try to feel it's just the cross that is laid upon me, Mr. Hammond;
and to count the many undeserved blessings I have to set against
it."
Simplicity is disarming.
"I am sure you do," I replied in tones of the sincerest
conviction. "And among the blessings we are evidently to count these
same settlements. Tell me about them, if it is not indiscreet to do so. I
am profoundly curious in the matter."
"Well, yes, I'm sure you are; and I don't think it is
indiscreet with you--at least, if it is, I believe I can trust you not
to mention it, because I think you are one of those who really do like to
give pleasure, and naturally you see it's a great pleasure to me to
have a little chat over it all. And, you know, I wouldn't say a single
word for anything, but I had been told
something, and, the consequence was, dear Charlotte and I did fall out a little yesterday. Mr. Perry took her away on the lake afterwards. I daresay he acted all for the best, but I felt rather hurt, you know. I daresay I had been over anxious. But she keeps it up--Charlotte does keep things up a little sometimes. She's been distant with me this morning even, so that I haven't been able to have a nice comfortable gossip with her over it all as it would seem suitable I should have."
"All that will come later, dear Mrs. Perry," I asserted.
"Just now your daughter is of necessity slightly self-absorbed,
slightly distraite. Surely you can recall a
kindred state of mind under kindred circumstances--on the eve of your
own marriage?"
"I'm sure I don't know. I am afraid I cried a great deal
at leaving mother--though I wouldn't have given up
Joseph--Mr. Perry, I mean--on any account. Charlotte doesn't
ever cry--she never has been given to crying since she was a child,
you know. And I suppose I oughtn't to want her to. But then Charlotte
and I are very different. My tears always came easily."
"Self-control is the order of the day," I rejoined.
"And as to these settlements, if you will pardon my
importunity?"
"I am afraid I do wander," Mrs. Perry said
humbly. "They often tell me so. But, you see, I have had so much on my mind, and Mr. Perry has been very excitable,--really at times--let me see, he gives her--I mean Constantine does--a thousand a year for her separate use; that does seem to me very handsome. I'm sure I don't know what she can find to spend it on. I said to her she ought to put away more than half against a rainy day. But Constantine laughed--he has a very free, pleasant laugh has Constantine. But I don't feel quite easy about him. He looks very pulled and worn to me. I shouldn't like to think he'd anything on his mind, Mr. Hammond; but in those foreign places young men do lead very wild lives sometimes, I'm afraid."
"Take my word for it, Leversedge is a jewel of gold, Mrs.
Perry," I asserted warmly.
"Well, I am sure I have often wished to ask you, only it
didn't seem a proper thing to do. But just now it popped out before I
could help it. And, of course, one does hear very sad stories now and then.
But I suppose it's just his health then, the change, coming away from
those very hot climates and everything. I think he wants care, and I am
sure I should be very pleased to give it him. I often wish to make him nice
little things to take, and look after his linen. If there's anything
that goes to my heart it's that a young man should have to sew on his
own tapes and buttons.
But I am always afraid he might resent anything like that as a liberty. Of course, there's so much a person of my age can do for a gentleman that wouldn't be suitable from a younger person. Perhaps when Charlotte's married I may seem to get nearer to him."
Mrs. Perry clasped and unclasped her hands nervously, upon that which
had been her waist.
"It was a dreadful thing to lose our baby, Mr. Hammond," she
said. "I always wished for a son, and though I did pray to be kept
from being rebellious, I am afraid I have been envious of other women when
I saw them with nice little boys of their own. His dying seemed to leave me
with a sort of emptiness; and I have felt lately as if Constantine--or
any husband Charlotte had, because, of course, she might have married
otherwise--might come to fill it, if I could only get near him, you
know."
The lady of the scarlet silk blouse had arisen from her couch upon the
grass. She came slowly from under the dancing shade of the tulip-tree, and,
passing with her companion along the sunny path, paused at the foot of the
flight of steps below us. On either hand were wide beds of dwarf
roses--pink, yellow, and red. Behind lay the long, downward slope of
the great lawn to the alley by the shore--in which sauntered some
ladies of our company, clothed in light summer dresses--
overshadowed by poplars, chestnuts, and willows, between whose stems glittered the intense blue of the lake. The young woman had taken up her parable now, and the purrings and spittings of her curiously agitating Russian speech were as arresting to the attention as her vigorous angular gestures. My thoughts, I am ashamed to say, wandered. I did not hear the beginning of good Mrs. Perry's next remarks.
"--in case of his death--and I know it's wicked,
Mr. Hammond, but I do so dislike death;--'I leave to my wife
Charlotte, absolutely, all I die possessed of,' it said,--I
mean, the will said."
"Yes! that is liberal," I exclaimed, half involuntarily.
Poor Leversedge, there were no reservations, no half measures in his
dealing, anyhow. Such as his life was, he lived it to the full.
"So it is," Mrs. Perry agreed; "I really don't
see how it could be more so. And there seems to be a great deal to leave in
stocks and shares, and railways and land and mines, and so on. I
didn't attempt to tot it up, for I felt a little overcome, you know;
but Mr. Perry ran through it all in no time--Joseph always has been
very noted for rapid calculation--and, of course, I know his face so
well, after all these years, I could tell in an instant. Too, he did say to
me, 'princely, positively princely,' under his breath, so I
knew it must be something quite above the average, and
that we all had reason to be very thankful. Still, I do wish nothing had been said about death, Mr. Hammond."
I pointed out at some length, and with, I trust, the utmost mildness,
that the question of death has a frequent habit of entering into the
question of a will.
"I suppose it has," Mrs. Perry said. "All the same, it
does seem a very shocking thing for a young man like Constantine to be
occupied about just when he's going to be married. Of course, it was
very foolish, but it gave me a dreadful turn. It seemed somehow to bring
back these last days when we lost our dear little boy; I am sure I
don't know why, for Constantine is a grown man, and he was an infant.
But I seemed to feel as if poor Charlotte was a widow before she was a
wife, for the minute, if it isn't too familiar to say so, and
that's enough to give anybody a turn, Mr Hammond, don't you think
so?"
All this was borne in upon me forcibly during the ensuing five
minutes.
"Mamma!--where is Mrs. Perry? Mamma!"
And, as so frequently, in urgent pursuit of a missing member of his
family, Perry père chased along the
terrace below. Regardless of the evident fervour of their conversation, I
beheld him draw up before the two Russians, raise the grey felt hat with
its streaming pugaree, and inquire--Mr. Perry invariably appeared to
entertain the idea that all foreigners are afflicted with deafness, so he
bawled the said inquiry, smiling the while with a sort of voracious
intensity--
avez vous vu Madame Perry? Savez vous où elle est, où est,
enfin, ma femme?
"Pardon, mademoiselle, pray excuse
me--mais
Page 175
The young lady looked round in very evident surprise. Then her eyes
lighted on me. And their expression was not without malice, as she extended
her hand in the direction of the verandah with a sweeping gesture, which
had the effect of enclosing Mrs. Perry and myself, of framing us for ever
side by side.
"Mais la voilà,
monsieur," she said. "La
voilà avèc monsieur son ámi."
"Ah! ha! I see," cried Mr. Perry gaily.
"Mille fois merci,
mademoiselle."
And, dragging on a pair of purplish-brown kid gloves, he hurried up the
steps.
"I see," he cried, shaking his two fingers archly, "I
see. A sly flirtation with mamma. Naughty, very naughty,--
Billing and cooing together they sat,
Quite unaware they were
watched by the cat."
I am not naturally of a bloodthirsty disposition, but there are hours
when the mildest men become as furies. I could have massacred Perry
père just then. An application of the
wheel, the rack, the boot, or the thumb-screw would have given me rapture.
I could have roasted him at a slow fire without a movement of compassion.
All the more so, that I perceived her knowledge of the
English language was quite sufficient to give the lady of the red silk blouse a strong sense of the inglorious comedy of my position. To kill is well. To be offended is often undignified, and always silly. It is not in my power to kill, so I smiled benignly upon Mr. Perry, and did my possible to meet him in a Christian spirit.
"Yes," I said, "Mrs. Perry has been more than kind,
and we have had a, to me, delightful little talk. I congratulate you. I
have been hearing capital news."
"Ah! ha! I understand," he replied. "She could not
keep it to herself--
The brimming pitcher sure will overflow,
And spill the ruby
liquor on the thirsty soil below.
Well, well, I own there are excuses for a tendency to garrulity on the part
of some of us this morning! A difficult chapter in our family annals is
happily concluded; a period of anxiety is past; a shadow is, as one may
say, lifted from our parental hearts. But I trust, my love, you have not
exaggerated?" he added, in sterner and more judicial accents.
"I would not have a false impression created. We must not make too
much of it, Mr. Hammond."
"Indeed, there appears to be a most agreeably heavy amount to make
much of," I remarked.
"An elegant competence," Mr. Perry said
airily,--"an elegant competence. Our daughter will be in a
position to gratify her literary and artistic tastes, to entertain her
circle of friends in becoming style, and take that place in London society
for which, as I at once proudly and gratefully asseverate, her talents so
eminently fit her. This is the reward of my fostering care. I recognise it.
Yes, yes, I own to-day you see in me a happy father, and a very nice thing
that is to see, I'm sure. But now to business--my love, I am on
my way to the boat. I mentioned to Charlotte, and she agreed with me, that
after the flattering sympathy--really most flattering to all of us as
a family--which she has exhibited, it was only due to Mrs. Mertyns
that she should be early acquainted with the rosy hue which now, as I may
say, flushes our daughter's future. There have been moments,"
said Mr. Perry darkly, drawing himself up and addressing
me,--"as our charming friend Mrs. Mertyns well knows--only
yesterday--but let that pass. I will not dwell on fears once
entertained. Hope has now taken their place.--Yes, Mr. Hammond, our
dear children will enjoy a very pretty little fortune--
Gold, much red gold, shall grace these nuptials
And cement the
basis of domestic joys."
"Well, I am very willing Mrs. Mertyns should know," Mrs.
Perry responded. "I thought of writing home myself to my cousins, and
dear Aunt
Trumbull at Brixton. They've always been very true to me, and--"
"Quite so, quite so, my dear--and therefore Charlotte has
penned a brief note, and has commissioned me to be the bearer of it. I have
it here"--he tapped the breast-pocket of his coat. "Yes,
Mr. Hammond, without seeking to obtrude myself, I may just hint that
practical experience has given me a not contemptible knowledge of such
matters, and I have much pleasure in testifying to the excellent business
capacity of our future son-in-law. Leversedge has done well, remarkably
well, considering his age and opportunities. I could wish he had displayed
less reticence regarding the amount of his income. Clear information under
that head would have spared us many anxious hours,--wouldn't it,
Mamma?"
"Leversedge is admirably modest," I said
parenthetically.
This remark produced a really extraordinary expression of reflective
wisdom on the part of Mr. Perry. He meditated visibly, as visibly roused
himself from meditation.
"Most true," he replied. "I yield to no one in my
appreciation of our dear boy Constantine--Mamma will bear me out in
that. But, as one of our greatest poets observes,--
Let not your modesty outrun discretion
Lest, falling from fair
favour to contempt,
You mask a greater by a lesser good.
And there has been a touch of secretiveness, a hint, perhaps,--though far be it from me to be harsh,--of that pride which apes humility in Constantine's attitude."
"To be sure, I never thought of him as proud now,"
interposed Mrs. Perry.
"Ah! ah! my love, public life, the rub of the world--eh, Mr.
Hammond?--teaches us men to read men--yes, very shrewdly indeed,
to read them."
"It doesn't prevent most of you making mistakes over women,
though, sometimes," the good creature said quite sharply. Then she
repented, and looked very mildly at her husband.--"So
you're going up by the boat then, Joseph," she added.
The fashion of a rat had become very apparent in Mr. Perry, but he
controlled himself. Perhaps he meant to speak to Mrs. Perry quietly alone
afterwards. This is one of the advantages of matrimony; let us be fair to
that much-canvassed institution;--it gives excellent opportunities for
the private, unwitnessed adjustment of small differences.
"Yes, yes," he cried,--
"With thee, my bark, I swiftly
speed
Across the foaming brine--
call on Mrs. Mertyns; communicate the information, which I am convinced she
will cordially
welcome, and return here in time for the midday meal, unless she should ask me to remain. I do not think I could very well refuse, you know. I think we owe it to Mrs. Mertyns to accept any invitation of hers. You will not therefore feel anxious, my love, should my return be delayed. Make my apologies to our end of the table."
Here Mr. Perry struggled violently, almost showily, for all his
playfulness had returned, with the fingers of his kid gloves.
"Oblige me by holding my umbrella, Mamma, while I reduce these
offenders to order. New? Yes, Mr. Hammond; and they are a little wayward, a
little, as I may say, recalcitrant. Patience, always patience--even
the trivialities of existence call that godlike virtue into exercise at
times.--Which reminds me of what I was saying to Constantine just now,
and I am convinced you will endorse it. A fortune must not only be made, it
must be guarded, be increased. Is there, indeed, any reason why it should
not be doubled? A wife, as I pointed out to him (for it is only prudent to
reckon with these little possible accidents beforehand), not infrequently
implies a family. It is therefore his duty not to relax his efforts.
Children are costly commodities in these days, extremely costly. Let him
therefore look forward, and continue to apply himself to business. As I
told him, neither Mrs. Perry nor myself would ever stand in his way,
if the state of his affairs pointed to the desirability of his taking a three or six months' trip to the southern confines of the Dark Continent. During his absence, his home should be ours. With perfect security he could leave his Charlotte under the protection of her natural guardians. Mamma and I would join her at her house in town at any moment. Ah, and that reminds me, we must consult you upon a knotty point,--a knotty point, Mr. Hammond! In favour of which locality is your vote given? Where shall they reside? Mamma inclines to the north side of the park; eh, my love? But I maintain she is in error. A young ménage should be en evidence. So give me Mayfair or Belgravia," exclaimed Mr. Perry daringly, "for preference, Belgravia."
"Well, I always shall say people are much more neighbourly in the
suburbs or out Bayswater way than down in the squares," Mrs. Perry
asserted, with a certain mild obstinacy.
"Neighbourly!" cried her husband, as he might have cried
'murder.' "My dear, there are social distinctions which I
fear your mind will never--here, give me, if you please, my
umbrella."
The chunking sound of the engines of the approaching lake-boat claimed
the speaker's attention and restored his good humour.
"Farewell," he added--"I must away. Remember, I
may be detained. I may be unable to join
you at déjeûner. Your kindest regards, I am sure, to our charming friends, Mr. Hammond."
And, with flying pugaree and waving umbrella, he fled down the steps and
across the sunny lawn in the direction of the panting steamer. In even the
best trained wives, the most thoroughly domesticated--as the
advertisements put it--of women, domesticity will wear a trifle
thread-bare now and again. Mrs. Perry adjusted her cap, around the lace and
ribbons of which the wind had frolicked somewhat too freely, with
dignity.
"You see, Mr. Perry is rather excited," she said. "I
suppose everybody forgets themselves sometimes under excitement, and of
course he has been very troubled about Charlotte's future, and now
that everything's so comfortably settled he feels
the--"
She so evidently searched about for a word that I suggested
"reaction."
"Yes, reaction. That's just it, and thank you. And I am sure
I shall always be grateful to you for our pleasant chat, and for letting me
be so confidential."
She executed a movement as of rising from her chair.
"Permit me," I said, offering my hand as a pulley.
I experienced a sensation of dead weight, followed--Mrs. Perry
being on her feet--by one of
the most affectionate pressure. She had a motherly hand, and a motherly hand is still among the dearest things of experience, by whoever possessed, even when one acknowledges to the fatal age of forty.
"My dear lady," I repeated, "the gratitude should be
mine. I am honoured by your confidence in me."
She smiled, blinked, choked a little.
"I suppose when you're getting on in life, like I am, you
always feel a little lonely. And then, kindness, and somebody who'll
listen, does go to your heart somehow."
She arranged herself, smoothed down the Papuan full dress.
"Well, I'll go up and write to Aunt Trumbull," she
said. "The post's at twelve, and, I'm sorry to say, I never
was very quick over letters."
In the days of my youth and my vanity, I thought I knew a great deal
about human nature; I fancied myself an adept in the reading of character.
But as I grow older I grow less and less confident of my own astuteness. My
slowness in "catching on" indeed appears to me positively
abysmal. The comprehension--in the true sense of that word--of
even the most fatuous of one's fellow-mortals demands, not only a
patience almost superhuman, but a lifetime of observation. One thing among
all the
perplexities, however,was quite certain, namely, that I had not got to the end of Charlotte Perry yet.
Meanwhile, I own, I kept a look-out for the scarlet silk blouse. Not
only did I need a change from the Perry atmosphere to a less depressing
climate and wider horizon, but I owed the owner of that brilliant garment
one, to put it vulgarly. "Discipline must be maintained," as
observed the immortal Sergeant Bagnet. She had been malicious. She must pay
for her malice--somehow--were it only indirectly by acting as an
antidote to the insularity of good Mrs. Perry. But the offender had become
invisible. I searched for her, but I searched vainly. She and her dyspeptic
cavalier had disappeared. Finally, hearing a sound of voices from the place
of gnats, I turned my footsteps thither.
Alas! under the sharp-edged shadow of the plane-trees only two English
nurses and their charges were visible.--A small boy and
girl,--two wildly active blue and white little beings, apparently in
imminent risk of immersion, jumping from gunwale to gunwale of the pack of
rowing-boats that were drawn up half out of the water on the paved slope at
the near end of the little harbour. And a lusty infant of tender age, armed
with a wooden spade, and suffering permanent eclipse, as to its face, from
the vast proportions of a flapping white linen hat, who made staggering
rushes in
unexpected directions; indulging, meanwhile, in that wordless and wholly unrelated description of vocalisation, which should delight the heart of the evolutionary philologist, since it points so distinctly to the conclusion that the utterances of the primæval savage are heard over again in the earliest notes of the contemporary Christian child.
It was uncommonly warm under the plane-trees. Owing to the turn of the
coast-line the whole of the little bay was sheltered from the breeze; so
that the gay-coloured flags of the rowing-boats, among which the stars and
stripes predominated, hung limp and flaccid from the white stern-posts. The
length of the stone pier lay in a blaze of sunshine. And at the extreme end
of it, raised high above the quay by a flight of steep steps, stood, not
the accentuated black and red figure of my coveted young Russian, but
Leversedge,--tall, gaunt, curiously unsubstantial looking, in a pale
brown shooting-coat and white trousers.
His back was towards me, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders
rounded, as he gazed down into the blue water ridged with slow, smooth
undulations from the wash of the lately passed steamer. He was absolutely
still--a modern St. Simeon Stylites upon his lonely
pillar--victim, even as this last was, allowing for the difference of
outlook brought about by the lapse of fifteen centuries, of the strange
torments of a fixed idea.
I walked nearly the length of the pier before hailing him (the stones, I
remember, struck quite hot even through the soles of my boots), and when,
in response to my greeting, he turned round, it was in the slow, dazed
manner of a man half asleep.
"My dear fellow," I said, "the effect of you up there
is finely statuesque, and most appropriately so. I have been holding
converse with Mrs. Perry--who, by the same token, is as dear and kind
a soul as ever stepped--and I find you are very much the hero of the
hour. But I have had no speech of you for two days. Descend, therefore, oh
great man, from your pedestal, and account for yourself. Tell me how you
are."
Thus admonished, Leversedge stepped down to the level of the quay.
"She told you about it all, and they're pleased?" he
said. "That's a good thing, anyhow. I'm immensely
glad."
As he spoke, I took a steady look at Leversedge, and that which I saw,
upon my word, I should not be sorry to forget. His eyes were sunk in his
head, and circled by a bluish-black stain. His face was very thin and
positively grey in colour, causing his close brown beard to seem
unnaturally dark and bright. And this had a ghastly effect somehow, as
though the man's hair alone was alive, the rest of him, though he
moved and spoke, already dead.
His appearance was so startling that I could not help commenting on it.
"You're not well," I said.
Leversedge raised his eyebrows, and smiled at me in his curiously
patient way.
"I'm sure I don't know. On the whole I imagine
not," he replied. "But really I begin to forget. Was I ever
well? Is anybody ever well? Isn't it all a matter of degrees, after
all? Some cheerful old johnny once declared the beginning of living was,
rightly understood, merely the beginning of dying, didn't he? And as
you get older the process of dissolution merely gets more way on, I
suppose. The pace quickens when you're nearing the post."
"But, my dear friend, at your age one by no means necessarily
nears the post. There are ways and means. Something can and must be done to
prevent it."
"Make me warm, then," said Leversedge. "I am so
dismally and infernally cold. I don't believe I am more cowardly than
most men, but the cold frightens me. I am always seeing a picture, I once
came across somewhere, of men and women frozen into a great sea of ice. I
fancy it was an illustration of Dante,--mean, spiteful sort of thing
it always struck me, to stick all the people who annoyed you into the wrong
place like that, in a poem, for themselves and everybody else to read.
I came down here," he added, "to try to bake the shivers out of me. But it's no good. This European sun of yours is a miserably one-horse concern. It gives out about as much heat as a square foot of looking-glass."
I was greatly concerned for Leversedge.--"Is it the old
story?" I asked.
He nodded.
"I've been spending a happy night with my faithful
dog," he said. "Nine hours of uninterrupted
enjoyment."
And then, as by mutual consent, we looked very hard at each other; while
the lusty infant under the plane-trees, filled by the sense of its own
well-being, upraised its voice in still louder shoutings, and the empty
boats bumped against one another, with soft gurglings and suckings of
water, as the little boy and girl skirmished about them playing some game
of wild adventure.
"No, Hammond, I am not mad. Appearances are frightfully against
me; but, before God, I don't believe I am mad," Leversedge said
solemnly. "What it all is, and why it all is, I don't know. I
have gone back through everything, as far as I can remember, and my
record,--it isn't perfectly clean; whose is, after all, you
know?--but it is not worse than most men's. So I can't make
out that I have done anything to bring this upon myself. I suppose
it's folly ever to try to go behind the fact.
What is, is; and there's the beginning and end of it. And, as I told you, in that dead camp I saw the Thing-too-Much. Still, one would always like to know why. It occurs to one Somebody must be accountable, and one would be obliged if They'd kindly explain,--that's all."
Leversedge's dead face smiled pathetically upon me.
"But They don't explain," he added. "I don't
want to be blasphemous, but it occurs to one sometimes that perhaps
They're not so very much to blame,--perhaps They can't
explain."
"Ah! there you touch bottom," I said. "You can get no
lower. You have reached the land of Outer Darkness, where reigns the
Everlasting Despair. Come out of that. It, anyhow, is absolutely no good.
Put it away from you. If it had been proved up to the hilt,--which,
remember, it never yet has been, or, as far as I can see, ever can
be,--still it would be the part of the wise man to deny it, to ignore
it, to refuse utterly to think of it."
"Since when have you turned preacher, Hammond?" Leversedge
asked. Then he added almost immediately,--"I beg your pardon. I
am an ass. One may be in a pretty bad way, but it is superfluous to be
uncivil."
"Perpetrate incivilities of the most aggravated character, and I
will endure them like a lamb, like a sucking-dove, like that
unpardonably-irritating
creature, 'patient Grizel' herself, only, don't lose heart."
There was a silence. Leversedge's eyes rested on the children
playing in the sunshine in the gaily painted boats.
"That must be awfully jolly," he said presently. "One
would be glad to go back. And yet one would merely have to do it all over
again, which would be--"
He shivered.
"I drove it away four or five times last night," he added.
"But it only went round and curled itself into my back. That was the
finish. I was so absurdly tired,--that little bit of business with the
Consul yesterday regularly knocked me up--I don't know what I am
coming to,--but I hadn't the energy to get up and move about, so
I lay still and let it lie. And it chilled me clean through."
Not my worst enemy has ever accused me of an intemperate passion for
physical exercise; but there are times when one must do violence even to
one's highest virtues.
"Come and drink," I said, "and then come and walk.
Even a salamander might find some of the vineyard paths on the hillside
agreeably sultry. You may get warm there in time--heaven knows, I
shall get so soon enough. We can but try."
Under the plane-trees the lusty infant, backing
away from its own spadeful of pebbles, came into violent collision with my companion's long legs. Involuntarily it assumed a sitting position with, to itself, unexpected rapidity and force. Leversedge stooped down and picked up the baby, which, by no means disconcerted by its sudden elevation, continued to send forth prehistoric cries of unalloyed cheerfulness.
"You're a nice, promising little chap," Leversedge
remarked.
Whereat the baby ceased its calling, contemplated him from under its
flapping sun-hat with owl-like solemnity, decided in his favour, and pouted
out a round moist mouth for a kiss. I own to a movement of accentuated
embarrassment in the face of such frank infantile advances. Not so
Leversedge. He planted a very square kiss on the pouting lips.
"Dear little chap, kind little chap," he murmured.
The nurse advanced flurried and apologetic.
"Master So-and-so," for this creature, a span long, already
apparently possessed both a name and rank of its own--"never
minded where he was going."
"Oh! well, he went most uncommonly right this time, anyhow,"
Leversedge answered, as he gave the child carefully back into her arms.
He walked on at rather a breathless pace.
"Hammond," he said presently, "you know
we're to be married to-morrow. That is, half-married--before the Consul at Geneva. I'm almost ashamed to ask you; it will be a long way there and back, and I am afraid you'll be awfully bored, but, look here, I should be tremendously grateful to you if you'd come."
"Of course," I replied, "I will come."
"That's very good of you," he said. "I know
Charlotte will be immensely pleased at your coming. She told me she'd
spoken to you about it. She had a little talk with you
yesterday."
"So she did, so she had," I answered. And, good gracious,
about how many surprisingly other matters had she not spoken in the course
of that same little talk? Amazing Charlotte Perry, who from her childhood,
as her mother reported, had "never cried"! In spirit I yearned
over Leversedge. How, in the name of fortune, would it all turn out?
We went for our walk. The paths between the vineyard walls were basting.
I have reason to believe that I lost many pounds during that walk. And
Leversedge talked of South Africa; of elephants, ostriches, and diamond
fields; of Imperial Federation; of the very nasty habits of the noble
savage. He was really amusing upon the latter subject. Of all practical
jokers the savage, upon his showing, is the most professional, the most
advanced. During the whole time he mentioned
(putting, as I fancied, a pretty strong force upon himself) neither his approaching marriage nor his diabolic dog.
To luncheon, Perry père--who,
it may be noted in passing, had, by the exercise of some diplomacy, secured
to himself the seat at the head of the long
table-d'hôte--did not return;
and Leversedge, in obedience of a gentle command on the part of the
Carissima, occupied his place. The spaces between the windows of the great,
cool dining-room, and the inside wall of it, were freely incrusted with
plaques of looking-glass. From my station halfway down the room--I
invariably indulge myself with a separate table when staying in
hotels--I could see Leversedge's bright dark head and beard and
somewhat deathly profile reflected back and forth, apparently endlessly, to
right and left; on one side of him the charming face and brilliant
colouring of his
fiancée, on the other the worthy
clock-moon countenance of his future mother-in-law.
Miss Perry talked softly to him; her manner was delicious, most
engaging, winning, and modest; and he listened to her, watched her, with a
sort of rapture. He also, I believe, drank a whole bottle of champagne;
but, so far as I could discover, he ate nothing, and I knew he was still
cold, cold as a corpse.
In honour of impending events he was clothed distinctly as a citizen, in
a shiny black-cloth frock coat and a tall hat--which last he put on
and took off again with rather feverish uncertainty. This might be jocund,
yet I am bound to confess I found his appearance highly suggestive of that
of a successful undertaker. In manner he was varied, spry in the main, but
lapsing into reticence, self-recollection, even austerity.
"My ladies will be with us directly. At least, if they're not
I'll just run up in the lift and fetch them. The fair sex is too often
a little, just a little deficient in that strict observance of the virtue
of punctuality, Mr. Hammond, which the sterner public duties falling to our
lot compel us so
rigidly to practise. Well, well, we must pardon them--
'Tis theirs to note the passing of the
hour,
Reclined at ease upon the low divan,
But
by the sunshine's waxing, waning power,
But by the opening,
closing of the flower,
The lute's faint echo
and the faltering fan
As sleep invades the drooping
eyelids' delicate span,"
recited Mr. Perry, suddenly becoming quite voluptuous and
eastern.--"And on an auspicious occasion such as this, we all
know how it is," he added indulgently,--"a bow of ribbon
here, a trinket there; just those supplementary, those fancy touches, which
the mirror provokes and from the multiplication of which every true woman
finds it so hard to tear herself away. Even Mamma is vain. I am happy to
say so--upon my word, I am proud to say so. For, that a woman should
continue to desire to please after three decades of married
life--though 'tis hardly fair on Mamma to let cats out of bags as
to the lapse of time in this way, eh?--shows a marvellous freshness of
sentiment, of what I may call a wholesomeness of disposition, doesn't
it, Mr. Hammond?"
"Mrs. Perry increasingly claims my respectful admiration," I
replied, with perfect sincerity.
"Good," he murmured, "good, good. Occasions such as
that which brings us together this morning--and most happy I am,
I'm sure, to be brought
together--inevitably carry us back in thought and unseal the fount of tender memories. Yes, I am glad to record my hearty conviction that I was not in error when I invited her, whom you now know as Susan Perry, to become the partner of my mortal course. And it's not every husband who can say as much as that at the end of thirty years, Mr. Hammond. Little ups and downs," he added archly,--"little ups and downs, as a matter of course; but on the whole the ups have it."
Here the arrival of the hotel omnibus at the wide-open door of the
portico, with much grating of the brake and the jingling of the fat
horses' collar bells, claimed Mr. Perry's attention. He glanced
at his watch in an important, high-official sort of manner, then relaxed
genially.
"Time yet--time yet," he said. "We can still
afford our ladies five more minutes in which to complete the mysteries of
the toilette.--Constantine has preceded us on foot to the station. I
have had a word with him this morning. He appears serious; but that is as
it should be. I, for one, would not have it otherwise. For, indeed, I have
not abstained from pressing home upon him frequently, in familiar
conversation, the very heavy responsibility which he undertakes in
undertaking my daughter's future happiness.--But our fair
companions tarry. I must see to it.--A
moment to fetch Charlotte and Mamma and I will be with you again, Mr. Hammond. Au revoir--a bientôt."
And, humming strange melodies, which I imagine were intended to
represent Mendelssohn's time-honoured Wedding March, Mr. Perry
bestowed himself within the painted cage of the lift, and was borne aloft,
vanishing god-like in the upper regions of the atmosphere.
Yet, after all, was it jocund? I asked myself this question many times
as we set forth, a self-conscious and ill-assorted little band, upon the
morning of that particularly grilling September day. For clearly, to my
thinking, it would have been far better had we proceeded in
detachments--Leversedge and myself by boat and the others by train, or
vice versâ. I cannot think it fair to
keep a man constantly under inspection when he is just about to condemn
himself to that form of life-sentence commonly known as marriage. And the
disadvantages of the bridegroom's position were aggravated, in the
present instance, by the fact that this was but a dress rehearsal, the
production of the piece not really taking place until to-morrow. I had
ventured to submit that it would be a more merciful arrangement did the
religious marriage follow hard on the heels of the civil one; and did
we--Perry père et mère and
myself--say farewell to the happy pair at Geneva,
leaving them to set forth promptly upon their wedding journey.
But the wisdom of the Perry family decided otherwise, and I fancy the
proprietor of the Grand Hôtel,
foreseeing custom, fortified them in their decision. It was to be a
fête, a gala. The little grey English
Church, which stands in such agitatingly close proximity to the railway
that passing trains take a very active part in the service, was to be
turned into St. George's, Hanover Square, for the event. All would be
there, friends and enemies alike--for what pretty and popular woman
but is bound to number a few of the latter among her acquaintance,
specially in the restricted society of a summer hotel?
"I could have wished to give my daughter away," Mr. Perry
had said to me, "within the hallowed precincts of one of our fine,
old, historic piles. But, since that pious satisfaction is denied me, we
must make the most we can of what we have,--make the most of it. A
foreign land, an alien tongue, but still a rally of warm English hearts
about our blushing bride. This our sojourn at the Grand
Hôtel will have secured us. We can count on it, I am happy
to say,--count on it."
So we set forth for Geneva, a self-conscious and ill-assorted little
band, as I have already stated; and should doubtless have returned thence
in
the same order, or disorder, save for an unexpected turn of feeling on the part of Charlotte Perry.
And here let me pause to render a tribute to a lady of whom I have so
far, I am afraid, spoken with but moderate enthusiasm, viz., Mrs. Mertyns,
who, on this memorable day, certainly did her possible to mitigate the
embarrassments of the situation.
It fell to my lot to convey Mrs. Perry across the many lines of metals
intervening between the platform and the train for Geneva. Have you ever
happened to drive a tender-hearted stray sheep and a loitering lamb? I
never have; yet after my experience with Mrs. Perry I seem to possess a
quite professional knowledge of such driving. For it required all the
authority, let alone all the persuasive arts, of which I am master to
compel the dear, good woman--glorious in a purple poplin costume,
plentifully "relieved" with gold sequins--across those
many lines of rails. With the greatest activity I had to head her off to
right and left, as she turned and doubled, greatly flustered, afraid of
non-existent trains, afraid of possible disaster to Mr. Perry, supremely
afraid of parting with her lamb, the Carissima; afraid that innocent
creature would be left behind, lost, never bestowed safely within the
matrimonial fold after all. And it was with sincere relief, after
prolonged struggles, that I beheld the grim form and cast-iron countenance of the great Septimus Mertyns advancing upon us. Two might attain where one had failed. To begin with, he assured my agitated charge that there was plenty of time; to go on with, that he had secured seats for us all in a first-class carriage. He proceeded, with my assistance, kindly but firmly to hoist the panting lady up the narrow iron steps on to the back platform of the said carriage, promising that he would go and find the other members of the party and bring them to her.
In the doorway Mrs. Mertyns met us. Forgive me if I fall into the style
of contemporary fiction--for truly Mrs. Mertyns is nothing if not
contemporary--and describe her as a long, diaphanous dream of a woman,
clothed in slightly faded mauve and white. Her head was crowned by a large
white chip hat, embowered in shaded mauve carnations, and smothered in a
vast white net veil tied in a bow high at the back. Her rather thin throat
was surrounded by several rows of very good pearls. I understand that
pearls, like germinating seeds or hatching chickens, need a tender and
steady warmth to bring them to perfection. To secure this, Mrs. Mertyns
invariably wore her pearls. My imagination fails to picture her without
them.
As of course you know, her looks, in certain
circles, have afforded a perennial subject of controversy. Some persons assert that she is washed out, sandy, her features meaningless, her figure quite uncomfortably attenuated, her arms of a length and leanness almost distressing. They amiably add, as a rule, that she is unpardonably self-conscious both in speech and bearing; while other, and no doubt more enlightened, critics find in each of the above peculiarities an added note of beauty. Not the robust flesh-and-blood beauty, well understood, which the mistaken Greek loved to sculpture or the mistaken Venetian to paint; but a beauty altogether refined and spiritual--a joy to the imagination rather than the eye, a sentiment rather than a sight, a flavour rather than a feeling, a face and form, in short, redolent of infinite suggestion. These critics usually wind up their discourse with a reference to Septimus Q.C., and murmur--"But, how could she?"--in faltering voices.
For my own part, I have always held Mrs. Mertyns to be a very clever
person; clever to the point of possessing all the effect of a pretty woman,
while being, in point of fact, a plain one. This is among the very highest
of social arts. The successful professor of it commands my applause. The
more so, probably, that our own well-beloved country-women are somewhat
incapable in the exercise of it. They need to be really quite pretty before
they know how to appear so. Such
conduct is weakly realistic. Neither their French nor American sisters are much handicapped by such obviously false modesties.
Mrs. Mertyns, standing just inside the railway carriage, took good
flustered Mrs. Perry's thick warm hand tenderly in her long thin
one.
"I am so truly glad you are the first to come," she said,
with gentle haste, "because if you object, or if you think darling
Charlotte would object, you can tell me so at once--we are old enough
friends, dear Mrs. Perry, to dare to be truthful, are we not?--and I
will disappear immediately."
She crossed her left hand over her right, and, with raised elbow and
drooping wrist, took my left hand and held it.
"Ah! so you are admitted," she added brightly. "That
is delightful. It gives me hope that I am not intrusive, after all, in thus
coming."
Then she swayed over Mrs. Perry with renewed tenderness.
"You know how close Charlotte's and my intercourse has been,
and how deeply I value her friendship--"
"I'm sure you've always tried to behave most kindly by
her," put in Mrs. Perry.
"Kindly?--no, dear Mrs. Perry, the word, the idea, is out of
place between your Charlotte and myself. I shall always feel it has been
one of the truest privileges of my life to be so much with
her, to watch her growing powers. Her charm is very, very great--you feel it so, don't you, Mr. Hammond?"
"It is unique," I replied.
Mrs. Perry stared at me.
"Well, I suppose I never shall understand you clever
people," she remarked in tones of slight dejection. "As I said,
I'm sure there's no one--though I'm sure
Charlotte's a very fortunate girl in having Mr. Leversedge care so
much about her--that Mr. Perry and I would sooner
have--"
I cast an agonised glance upon Mrs. Mertyns. If she possessed tact, in
heaven's name let her use it!
"Ah yes," she said, rising nobly to the occasion, "Mr.
Leversedge is so good and unaffected--so honest, and English. Everyone
must see that. But he is very, very fortunate too, dear Mrs. Perry.
Charlotte's friends, of course, cannot help dwelling very much in
thought on that. To be her constant companion would be so truly elevating
for any man. Think of the delight of her brightness and depth of character!
The combination is extraordinary--"
Mrs. Mertyns paused, looking up, smiling at the roof of the railway
carriage, her shoulders slightly raised and her long wrists crossed just
below her bosom. Then she swayed over Mrs. Perry again in sudden
anxiety.
"But you are sure you do not think my coming to-day an
intrusion?" she said. "I felt so strongly about it. I felt I
really must come. And yet I was diffident. We discussed the question
yesterday evening all through dinner. I think all my people would have
liked to come. But I could not allow that. I know your Charlotte so well. I
know and respect her instinctive shrinking from publicity. And so I said I
would just slip away quietly with my husband. We would take a little Darby
and Joan day's holiday. We could efface ourselves immediately if it
seemed better to do so. But I thought it possible Septimus might be useful,
for I gathered from what Mr. Perry told me there were papers to be
witnessed, and my husband is so utterly dependable and so
accustomed--ah! dear friend," she cried, making a little
rustling rush forward with both arms outstretched.
"Well, then, here's Lottie at last! And I'm sure
I'm as thankful as possible, Mr. Hammond, for I was as nervous as
could be something would happen to some of them."
This parenthetically from Mrs. Perry.
Charlotte looked exceedingly pretty, standing there framed by the dark
lines of the doorway. She wore a biscuit-coloured dress with very large
pink sleeves to it; and a hat to match, garlanded with pink roses, the
broad brim of which, turning
up, formed a pale straw-coloured nimbus about her head. The girl's mouth gathered, quivered; her eyes were adorably dewy. She and Mrs. Mertyns held each other's hands, looked at each other, sighed, kissed with a sort of chastened rapture, murmuring simultaneously--
"Dear, dear friend!"
"I have not done wrong in coming?"
It seemed as if Charlotte Perry could not answer. She threw back her
head, smiled, bit her lip. Then suddenly she seemed to become aware of my
presence. Her breath caught, as though in pain. This appeared to me a quite
uncalled-for demonstration, for had we not come down together inside the
omnibus to the station?
Mrs. Mertyns took the place by the window--drew Miss Perry down on
the one next to her. I think it had been her intention I should occupy the
vacant place opposite,--upon the seat of the other she had piled
parasols, dust cloaks, and a large basket of fruit and flowers,--but
if such was her intention it was frustrated by the advent of our active
Perry, who whipped into the empty place, rubbing his hands.
"Delightful surprise!" he cried. "I am sure, most
delightful. A display of sympathy, of spontaneous solicitude, altogether
flattering to myself and my family; adding one more to an already long list
of charming acts of courtesy.
We are in your debt, and how to pay," said Mr. Perry, with sudden
solemnity, "passes me. I ransack the chambers of my brain, but they
are empty of any suggestion of a possible means of payment. Yet," he
continued, brightening, "who knows, a time may come, an opportunity
may be granted me, and then--
The faithful heart bound fast to thine by gracious friendly
deeds,
Will rouse to stalwart action interpreting thy
needs."
Charlotte Perry looked hard at the speaker. Then she addressed her
friend in low and hurried accents.
"Oh, here you all are," he said. "How d'ye do,
Mrs. Mertyns? No, pray, don't anybody move. I see you're all
settled."--Mrs. Perry and Septimus, it may be remarked, occupied
the single seats the other side of the gangway.--"I can just as
well find a place farther up the carriage."
All the same he loitered, gazing at Charlotte Perry; hoping, as I
thought, that she would make some sign. But she made none. Leversedge
turned away. I followed him. And so it happened that we journeyed towards
Geneva, sitting opposite to each other, rather cut off from the rest of the
company. It was extremely hot, and we had to pull down the canvas blinds
and half close the windows to keep out sun and dust. The train roared
along; the vineyards reeling past on one
hand, the rocks, white with fluttering mouettes and lapped by clear little green waves, on the other. It need hardly be stated that the two athletic Englishwomen had left all windows down and blinds up in their compartment, thus supplying us with a liberal measure of glare, cinders, and engine smoke. Above the noise of the train, from time to time, I heard Mrs. Mertyns' somewhat senseless and soulless laugh. Like many women in society, she had a tendency to laugh, not in proportion as she was amused, but in proportion as she was bored. I could well believe Perry père's style was finely irritating in all this heat. The more excellent of her, then, to have come! I have never entertained a better opinion of Mrs. Mertyns.
Leversedge, meanwhile, sat silent, his long legs outstretched beneath
the little iron table between us, his head bent, his mind busy, judging by
his expression, with rather gloomy thoughts.
"Sometimes it strikes me we men are awful brutes when it comes to
marriage," he said suddenly. "We want so much. We must have
everything. Nothing less than the whole will satisfy us."
"Upon my word, I think we give a good deal in return," I
replied. "The counter-demand is considerable, a matter by no means to
be sneezed at--so considerable, in my estimation, that, as you see, I
have never yet found myself equal to meeting it, and so remain, to the
present hour, at once
hugging and deploring my state of single blessedness. Oh, I'm all on the man's side, believe me, in marriage. In my eyes the bridegroom, the husband, is the leader of a forlorn hope--at once a noodle and a hero."
"Thank you," Leversedge said; "you are encouraging.
But the truth is, you don't understand, you're out of
it."
I am afraid I made use of an expletive which had better not be repeated.
Leversedge regarded me with an expression both humorous and dogged.
"Yes, you're out of it," he repeated. "It's
not that you are unequal to meeting the demand. You've never felt the
thing. You've never been knocked out of time by a woman. Bless me, you
don't stop to calculate the amount of giving and taking then; you
don't weigh things; you don't speculate. When a man meets his
fate, he meets it. The whole matter is outside argument. It is just
so,--he may be a noodle, but he doesn't stop to care about
that."
Leversedge paused a moment, shifted his position, laid hold with both
hands of the woodwork of the back of the seat high above his head.
"No, the man doesn't give much in proportion to the woman, to
the girl, to the good woman," he said. "For the man knows the
ropes, after all; he has a precious clear idea of what he is driving at. He
knows what he wants quite well, shame-
lessly well, in too many cases. But hers is an act of faith almost divine. God in heaven! it seems to me there is no limit to the gratitude, to the reverence, Hammond, with which we should regard an innocent girl who is willing to marry any one of us."
He smiled at me.
"I beg your pardon for prosing like this. But it's borne in
upon me to-day that I am a wretchedly selfish animal. And I suppose
something of the cheap old superstition clings to me that in confessing
your sins you rid yourself of them, to a certain extent at all events. A
better man than I, under all the circumstances, would have talked less and
done something practical. Old Perry's income, such as it is, pretty
well dies with him. And she ought to have money, she can use it--it is
necessary to a woman with her gifts, and it is miserable to think of her
wanting it, now or any when. A better man than I would have seen to all
that, provided against any bother that way--and then set her free,
given her up, whether she would or not."
Leversedge threw himself forward, and for once the blood rushed into his
face.
"But I can't," he said huskily,--"I
can't. Before God, I have tried; but I have not the pluck. I want her.
I must have her--for a little while--just for a little
while--and then--"
At that moment I perceived Mrs. Mertyns standing up and waving to me,
across the backs of the intervening seats. It was as well. Leversedge had
given himself away rather completely. The conversation could not continue
at that level of emotion; and one always has a sense of bathos in
struggling towards the surface after such a plunge into the deep sea of
feeling. Women hold hands, and kiss each other, and cry a little, on the
way up to the surface, which must be a great help. But to us, to whom these
tender modifications of the situation are denied, the ascent is extremely
embarrassing. So I, not unwillingly, obeyed Mrs. Mertyns' summons,
leaving that dear fool, Leversedge, to recover his equanimity in
private.
Mrs. Mertyns looked slightly distracted.
"Do come, Mr. Hammond," she exclaimed as I approached.
"See, there is a place for you. Mr. Perry will kindly put my odds and
ends on to the table. Yes--thanks, so.--I am just starting that
delightful thinking game dear Hattie St. John taught us the other day after
luncheon. And we want a sixth--we really must have you."
Mrs. Mertyns leaned her elbow upon the table; she flapped at me with her
long narrow hand. Her eyes expressed a more direct sentiment than was at
all their wont. They intimated that something really had to be done, they
took me into their confidence.
"Mr. Perry quite surpassed himself, quite excelled in it,"
she continued. "He gave us the most interesting examples. And
Charlotte must learn it. I am devoted to thinking games; they fill in so
many stray minutes when otherwise"--she laughed. "It will
prevent our feeling this oppressive heat. Now, Mr. Hammond, you shall give
us a subject--an event or a character in history or fiction (really it
is an excellent exercise of memory)--while I count twelve, do you see?
Then in twelve words describe it; and then we have twelve guesses between
us, in turn, you understand. And you answer in numbers as we get more or
less near it. Twelve, of course, means game. Now, remember, we all have to
speak as quick as possible."
And we played that thinking game. Oh yes, indeed we played it, as the
train rushed on, past Rolle, past Nyon, past Coppet. We had the burning of
Jeanne d'Arc in twelve words; and the Relief of Lucknow in twelve
words; and the battle of Cannæ, and the interviewing of the Sphinx by
OEdipus, and the Reform Bill of '32--this last naturally
from Septimus Mertyns.
"A bloodstained deck," said Mr. Perry.
"One, two, three, four," counted Mrs. Mertyns.
"No--no, three, but three," he cried.
"Blood-stained is one, only one, joined by the ever-welcome
hyphen.--Torn canvas."
"Dear me," put in Mrs. Perry, "I always have disliked
shipwrecks. I suppose it's the Princess Alice pleasure
steamer--poor creatures, an acquaintance of Aunt Trumbull had
relatives on board--going down in the river. I wish Mr. Perry
wouldn't allude to such things, on a wedding-day, too."
"Four, five," cried Mrs. Mertyns.
"Noble commander laid low,--my love, you are entirely
mistaken,--in victory."
"Coppet--trois minutes
d'arrêt," this from the platform as the train
slowed up.
I rose, leaving Nelson extended upon the gory deck, with Perry
père, so to speak, waving the British
flag over his honoured and prostrate form, and went to look after
Leversedge. He lay back in his place fast asleep. His face was singularly
peaceful, almost childlike in its simple serenity. But he held his hard
brown hat stiffly with both hands, and worked it slowly up and down his
knees even in sleeping. And that was not at all pleasant to see,
somehow.
Perry père et mère clung to
each other through that dreadful walk, clung to the Carissima, clung to the
rest of us. Escape was impossible. Like Wordsworth's cloud, "we
moved together, if we moved at all." It was hot and dusty, and the
horror of being "out for the day" was most sensibly upon us.
Returning from the farther shore of the Rhone by the broad
Pont des Bergues,--to the middle of
which Rousseau's Island is moored by a little iron suspension
bridge,--good Mrs. Perry made a sudden diversion. There was yet a
weary hour before our train started. She begged plaintively to be taken on
to the island. Not that she was filled by the spirit of pilgrimage, by
memories of the delightful pages of the Confessions, or the
disintegrating ones of the Social Contract. She saw trees,
and green benches whereon she might rest a while, and seek relief from the
fatigues and trampings of this very peripatetic day.
Leversedge took care of her, found her a cool spot, sat by her saying, I
am sure, an infinity of nice kind things. Mr. Perry and Mr. Mertyns drifted
into a ponderous conversation on the affairs of the nation at home and
abroad. While I found myself standing under the narrow shimmering shade of
the great poplars with the fair Charlotte,--the sapphire waters of the
Rhone rushing down between the white piers of the bridges at the pace of a
galloping horse; the façades of the solid square houses, fronting
the quay and its rows of round-headed plane trees, lying in strong sunshine
and blue shadow; the city piled up behind to the stern mass of the
Romanesque cathedral, the two
squat towers of which showed hard and dark against the pale lilac limestone terraces of the Grand Salève.
The girl's pretty eyes had been reproachful whenever they chanced
to meet mine during that deadly day. They were reproachful still. I
perceived that the atmosphere was electric, I feared we were on the verge
of an explanation, and I cordially detest explanations. So I talked, I did
more, I chattered. I gave my companion a really rather witty description of
a sentimental journey I had once made--in company with the friend who
shall be nameless-from Geneva, via Aix les
Bains, to Annecy, for the purpose of visiting Les
Charmettes--sacred to the memory of that most charming
victim of every conceivable false philosophy, Madame de Warens.
Suddenly the girl stopped me.
"You go too far," she said, "for I cannot believe you
are utterly heartless, and so you must be aware, in a measure, of all I am
feeling.--Oh! I know you are talking well--you usually do that.
But, just now, that you should be agreeable is of very slight moment to
me."
She raised her hand and pointed to the dark high-shouldered
cathedral.
"You remember they burnt people up there, once upon a time,"
she said. "Well, I feel towards your talk much as those people must
have felt
towards the grasshoppers--listen to them now--singing gaily in the sunshine while the flames leapt up that--"
"No, no, no, pardon me," I cried. "It is you who go
very much too far. For goodness' sake don't souse us thus
suddenly in a sea of tragedy right up to the neck. Forgive my remarking
that your illustration is a wild exaggeration, altogether beyond the facts
of the case."
"You know what I have done, you know why I have done it, and you
make agreeable conversation. You have no word of recognition, of admission.
Does not your sense of justice compel you to own my sincerity at
last?"
"Oh, quarrel with me as much as you like," I said.
"That is healthy enough. But don't lose sight of the proportion
of things, and indulge in distorted comparisons. It is unworthy of your
intelligence to do so, to go thus madly beyond the facts of the
case."
The girl clasped her hands and moved a couple of steps aside, with one
of those swift movements which would look so excellently upon the
stage.
"But can anything really go beyond the facts of the case?"
she asked in tones of sharp, thin distress.
Upon my word, I was very much provoked with the Carissima, provoked to
the point of being
greatly minded to tell her, once and for all, that she was a goose.
"Yes, most emphatically many things can," I answered.
"Does a man's love carry so little weight with you that you dare
speak as though to be the sole and supreme object of it was a dire
misfortune? Moreover, Leversedge comes to you with his hands by no means
empty. He does not merely offer you the trivial matter of his whole heart,
but the exceedingly substantial matter of his whole fortune."
The girl's colour had faded. She regarded me with some amazement.
She had often surprised me; now I proposed to have my turn.
"You cannot suppose money matters to me?" she faltered.
"Indeed," I returned, "I can very readily suppose it.
Money matters vitally to every one of us who is in his, or her, sober
senses. Miseries come whether one is rich or whether one is poor; but, I
own, I never encountered any form of misery yet which money could not do a
good deal to alleviate. But that is not the main point; the main point is
your very limited appreciation of the affection of the man you are
marrying."
"Are you aware that you are simply scolding me?" my
companion inquired sweetly.
"Yes, I am perfectly well aware of it, my dear young lady,"
I replied genially. "And unless you
actually run away from me, or call for help, I am fully prepared to continue the process. I am not nearly through with the business yet; and it is all for your good--all, believe me. See now, you have done me the honour to be very confidential with me. You have confided to me dreams of an ideal affection."
The colour rushed into the fair Charlotte's face again. She closed
her charming eyes, and raised her hand as though to ward off a blow. But
the vision of Leversedge was upon me; Leversedge in that basting railway
carriage, and the broken passion of his utterance. I would not relent.
"Bear with me while I point out to you that those dreams are but
pale and ghostly fictions, beside the real, the very full-blooded, romance
of Leversedge's affection. All that you have vaguely imagined yourself
feeling regarding some possible, conceivable, but non-existent being, he
positively and actually feels regarding you. Don't you understand, you
are the last word of poetry, of art, of religion--even--to him.
And is that nothing? Is it a slight matter to be to a man the incarnation,
the ultimate expression, of all enchantments, all delights--that in
you he finds the realisation of his highest aspirations--finds it
there or nowhere?"
I paused, somewhat out of breath from my own--most
unusual--flight of eloquence. I am not
often thus loudly didactic. To be so is to be crude, and I shudder at crudity. Even now I dared not pause long, lest a quite opposite side of the case should present itself to me, and I should begin to fear not only that my enthusiasm was slightly ridiculous, but that I might, after all, be presenting my hearer with a garbled edition. Garbled or not, it appeared to work upon her. She stood silent; and her pretty face, set in the aureole of her wide-brimmed, rose-garlanded hat, wore a questioning expression somewhat--so I flattered myself--new to it. And this encouraged me. I held a brief for Leversedge--well, then, I would strike while the iron was hot, I would go on, I would plead his cause yet further.
"My dear young lady, you have been bewitched by much talk, by much
reading, by all manner of ingenious hair-splittings regarding the emotions,
regarding the relation of men and women. Do come back out of all that, all
those misleading generalisations and fanciful interpretations, and deal
with the matter in hand. You have just married a man who adores you, to
whom you--briefly--represent rapture; well, lend yourself a
little to the situation. It is not a contemptible one. For, to how many
women do you suppose it happens, in their whole lifetime, ever to represent
that to any member of our sex?"
The Carissima's lips quivered. She looked very young just then;
and, queerly enough, I saw in her a strong likeness to her mother--to
a clock-moon of long ago, paradisaic rather than suburban. I had an angelic
moment, wherein my spirit yearned in purest and most praiseworthy pity and
hope over Charlotte Perry. A little more and I could have prayed--to
"whatever gods there be"--for the salvation of her.
"Constantine should tell me all this himself," she said.
"Wait," I replied, the angelic humour strong in me.
"He will do more than tell you--only give him time. Remember,
Leversedge is one of those who live ballads, not one of those who merely
sit at home and write them. Only don't frighten him by narrow
criticism, and quarrel with him because he does not conform altogether to
fashionable standards. Give him room. Then he will not disappoint you. He
has rather magnificent stuff in him. And he is yours to make or to break.
Make him--believe me, he's worth it--make him, and for you,
also, life shall be sweet."
The girl came close to me.--"And that hideous
hallucination?" she whispered.
"Will vanish into the nothingness out of which it came," I
answered.
The narrow shadow of the poplars had shifted, so that Charlotte,
pink-sleeved and rose-crowned,
stood in the full gaiety of the sunshine, above the rushing blue river.
"If I make him, will you believe in me, at last?" she
asked.
"Down to the ground. I will hail you as the dearest and most
sacred thing on earth,--a clever and beautiful woman who is not above
giving happiness, who is not ashamed of being something of an angel into
the bargain--"
Ah! Lydia Castern, why does the remembrance of you invariably return
upon me in moments of exaltation such as these, when--for a little
while--I harbour the notion that the practice of certain old-fashioned
virtues, so patiently and faithfully practised by you, may, after all, be
the surest way of pleasantness and directest path of peace?
But here the voice of Perry père,
raised in playful admonition, put a stop to further conversation.
"Come, come," he cried, "'tis time to move,
though I regret to quit this interesting spot--to the student of
literature, I'm sure, most interesting. Not that the writings of the
'self-torturing sophist' have ever greatly appealed to me. No,
no, as an Englishman, as a husband and father, I say--and must always
say--give me something manly, give me something sound, give me, in
short, sentiments which, without the most fugitive movement of apology, I
can permit to lie open upon my wife's drawing-room table."
Leversedge had sauntered up to us. He stood near Charlotte.
"Tired?" I heard him ask her quietly.
"I own it," continued Mr. Perry, with lofty humility,
"for 'tis, no doubt, a reflection on my culture; yet I own that
the genius of the French, as a nation, is foreign to me. A want of grit,
Mr. Hammond, a lack of the substantial. Too many kickshaws, eh? just a
trifle too many kickshaws and sauces."
The girl hesitated a moment, then she looked very charmingly at
Leversedge.
"Yes," she said, "I am rather tired. To tell the
truth, I dread the noise and dust of the train."
She glanced at me, her eyes swam in possible tears, her lips sketched a
possible and all-seductive kiss. Then she turned swiftly to Leversedge
again.
"Shall we desert the others?" she asked him. "Shall we
leave them to encounter the miseries of the railway without us? Will you go
back with me--alone--by boat?"
Leversedge's head went up with a sudden jerk. His breath caught in
his throat. I fancy he did not see anything very distinctly for a second or
two, though there was an immense gladness in his face. It was rather
moving; and I addressed myself to Perry
père, in haste, regarding the flimsy,
the gilt-gingerbread character of the literature of the French nation--the lack of humour of Molière, general cheapness of M. de Voltaire, and, to come down to our own day, the deplorable want of style in such men as Flaubert and Gautier. I took my examples, perhaps, slightly at random. Meanwhile I heard Leversedge laugh a little--almost as a child laughs.
" Will I?" he said. "Do you really mean it?--Will
I--will I not?"
Mrs. Perry talked to me all the way to the station, along the flaming
Rue du Mont Blanc.
"I suppose there's no objection to their going off alone
together like that, Mr. Hammond," she said. "Mr. Perry made no
objection, and, of course, we all know Joseph is very tenacious of
appearances. But it does seem to me strange, only half married as they are.
But then everything does seem strange to-day somehow; and, you see, it is
so very warm, and I get such giddy turns. Dear me, I'm sure up at the
Consul's, when all those papers were signing, the room turned right
round with me, and I thought I should have fallen, which made me dreadfully
nervous, because, of course, it would have been most mortifying for
Charlotte and Mr. Perry. But, you see, I can't help feeling a little
upset somehow, with all the marrying twice over. I'm sure none of my
relations were ever married like that, nor any of Mr.
Perry's either. And I really don't feel I know who Charlotte is for the rest of to-day. I've been worrying about whether she is Mrs. Leversedge yet, or only our daughter, just as usual; and I can't make out anyhow. I've been thinking if anything was to happen before to-morrow--which I'm sure I hope it won't--to make her name appear in the papers, whatever would they call her? I don't know. And it makes me quite nervous. It seems almost a scandalous thing not to be sure about your own daughter's name, now doesn't it, Mr. Hammond."
à-manger. The rooms were really crowded. We were nothing, indeed, if not gay that evening.
On our return from Geneva, I had dined with Leversedge and the Perry
family in the restaurant. Dined? rather say feasted! And Perry
père had been horribly profuse in
anecdote; but I capped his vilest quotations, I applauded his stalest
stories. For the Carissima was gentle, natural, wholly captivating; while
Leversedge held himself gallantly, and had a light in his eyes good to see.
And these things produced in me an amiability little short of divine. I so
very seldom am overtaken with charitable activities in respect of my
fellow-men, I so seldom do anything--in the least burdensome to
myself--to promote their welfare, that I was really quite overcome by
my own successful altruism. If, thanks to me--for had I not,
overruling the distaste of the one, and scruples of the other, pushed these
two into each other's arms, thus finally and irrevocably?--if, I
say, the half marriage went so merrily, might not the whole marriage go to
perfection? For the time I enjoyed all the proud pleasures of the preacher,
the evangelist, the director. I comprehended the fascinations of the
sacerdotal position. I had "played with souls" for their good,
temporal and eternal; and had won them, though the odds against such
winning were extremely heavy. I had saved Leversedge's reason,
probably his life
into the bargain. I had converted the Carissima. And, for the time, I own it, my conceit of myself was colossal--rampantly, gloriously blatant.
It was in this spirit of profound self-congratulation that I beheld
Leversedge and his bride pass out into the dusky brightness of the garden,
and that I conducted Mrs. Perry to a gilded chair in the
salon, whence she could witness the humours
of the dance; while Mr. Perry, full of dinner, hilarity, and parental
pride, instituted himself Leader of the Revels, encouraging the musicians,
and inducing the wildest confusion by introducing young ladies, of whose
names and nationalities he was quite uncertain, to gentlemen, whom he did
not in the very least know.
Then the sweet influences of accomplished duty pervaded me--a
large, digestive calm, subtly mingled with the blissful serenity of one
upon whose undertakings the gods have smiled, so that he finds himself both
a better and abler man than he had ever imagined himself to be. I retired
into the hall, to a secluded corner behind one of the groups of pillars
supporting the first-floor gallery. There I sat and smoked, and
thought--as I invariably do think when I am feeling very good--of
the white rectory house away in slumberous Midlandshire, of the old
ecclesiastical historian (his living interest in things long dead, his
deadly indifference regarding things still living), and of the
woman I ought to have married, the only woman, as I firmly believe (when I am feeling very good), that I ever really loved, the woman I never make the slightest effort to see--sweet Lydia Castern.--And meanwhile I watched the passing crowd, and, since the double doors of the salon, facing me, stood wide open, caught passing glimpses of the dancers, my senses pleasantly dulled by the sound of many footsteps, many voices, the rustle of women's garments, across all which, advantageously tempered by distance, came the strains of the band.
Surely I might take my ease. Was not everything going to admiration? Out
there, under the stars, amid the magic of the fair September night, was not
Constantine Leversedge making love, his soul delivered from the grotesque
and ghastly dream of the diabolic dog? And was not Charlotte,
née Perry, listening, her soul
delivered from dreams hardly less grotesque and ghastly--from false
standards of taste, of fashion, from false refinements, false
intellectualities, from a silly pursuit of decadent eccentricities? Was she
not beginning to comprehend what an exquisite, yet very simple
solution--notwithstanding the prurient purities of contemporary
feminine novelists and reformers--true-love offers to the much-vexed
question of the sexes? Beginning to comprehend how deep-rooted and
terrible, yet how exceedingly
pretty a pastime, is the love of an honest man--and many men are honest, after all, you know--for an honest woman?
My soul expanded under these charming meditations. For was I not the
deus ex machina, was not this good work
mainly of my making? Had I yielded to the Carissima's thoughtless
coquetries, and involved myself in any intimate relation to her, how
different the result! It was the cut of her shoes that saved me? Perish the
thought!--it was my own high-mindedness, my own self-forgetting
appreciation of the justice of the situation. Had I counselled Leversedge
weakly to withdraw, instead of bravely to remain, again how different the
result! I beheld the vision of two wasted lives. The Carissima, moreover,
let loose upon society, possibly to entangle me--yes, me, after all,
in the end. Instead of which, here I sat, replete with the perfect peace of
conscious impeccability. Verily, how delightful are the leisures of the
righteous, how inspiring the repose of him who seeks the advantage of
others rather than advantage of his own! Five minutes more, and I might
have added a hundred and fifty-first to the hundred and fifty Psalms of
King David, with a difference--a difference possibly somewhat in the
direction of M. Tartufe. But I was saved from any such
disaster by the sound of a low grunt.
As I have already stated, I am--I thankfully
affirm--acquainted with but one human being who testifies to the fact of his presence in this primitive manner. It is a little introductory habit of Mr. Percy Gerrard; and he often employs it as a preface to observations the reverse of agreeable--so I fancy, but then I own to a prejudice against Percy Gerrard.
On the present occasion he had "stolen upon me softly"; and
his manner struck me as less intolerably superior than usual. He really
seemed to wish to make himself agreeable.
"'Evening, Hammond," he murmured affably, as he dropped
into a neighbouring chair. "Dancing? How superfluous! You are very
right to remain out here. The modern bourgeois ballroom--and this, I imagine, is
pre-eminently
bourgeois--is a revolting spectacle. Few
sights, indeed, can be more repulsive than a herd of both sexes, underbred
and perspiring, clasping each other's waists, and revolving, with
prolonged and boisterous fatuity, in time to some wholly imbecile tune such
as offends my ear at the present moment."
Nevertheless, Gerrard pushed his chair farther to the left, with the
evident desire to gain a clearer view of the festivities going forward in
the salon. But a good many persons stood
about the doorway, and it was only at intervals that one obtained full
sight of the dancers.
"An exhibition of untamed animality!" he
mur-
mured in tones of disgust. "I hold it proof of the skin-deep quality of our vaunted civilisation that performances of this description are countenanced, nay, encouraged--it is humiliating to think of--by really very decently educated people."
"From the Perfectly Ordered State, then, dancing is
excluded?" I inquired.
For I was still at peace with all mankind, and even Gerrard's
unlovely humours failed to ruffle me. I even played up to him, indulged
him. In the columns of The Present Day he had lately been
sketching Arcadias and Utopias according to his graceful fancy. He was not
slow to observe the allusion, and turned to me with a gleam of gratified
vanity in his dull eyes.
"Ah! you read those little things of mine!" he said.
"They had merit--I knew it."
"Of course you knew it. It is the most abject of exploded fictions
that a man can write a masterpiece without knowing it."
He directed his slow glance upon the crowd round the door of the
salon again.
"Yes; I agree with you. I knew those articles had merit, and the
best critics confirmed my judgment. I have been asked to reprint
them."
"Do so," I said. "The world will be the
gainer."
Gerrard gathered himself up in his chair--planting his small square
feet on the top rung of it
--into a sort of spiderlike blob. What an immensely displeasing creature he was!
"Yes, I think I shall reprint them," he said. "That is
the worst of journalism--really beautiful things are too often lost,
forgotten along with the day that gave them birth. But, since you are
interested in my visions, in the Perfectly Ordered State, which, as I
devoutly trust, is equivalent to saying, in the Coming Civilisation, woman
will resume her natural position, that from which the moral and
intellectual barbarism of the last few centuries has ousted her with such
deplorable results. In the Coming Civilisation there will be a very
hard-and-fast line drawn between the public and the private life. For we
have ceased most lamentably to appreciate the decencies of the high wall,
the heavy curtain, the locked door. The Democratic Spirit, rightly
understood, is disgustingly immodest. It has done its best to murder
secrecy and concealment, which are necessary elements in all really
exquisite living."
The crowd opened to give passage to the American
prima-donna, her well-preserved mother, and
her stout poodle; and, for the moment, the glistening floor of the ballroom
and its racing couples were disclosed to observation.
"And so I take it," Gerrard continued, "in the Perfect
State, woman will again dance with all the grace of richly developed
suggestion--behind
closed doors--for the delectation of man, who will sit still and just watch her, lending her the emotional support of a profoundly sympathetic admiration, not the brutally material one of an encircling arm."
"The coming civilisation has a little Oriental turn to it
then?" I remarked.
"How should it be otherwise?" he replied. "In many
matters the Oriental has always continued true to the light that was in
him. His mind has remained unconfused by those weak notions of abstract
justice, which war against the life of sense and of society."
Gerrard drew his hand over his moist, uncomfortably smooth hair. I may
add that it partially concealed his ears. Why does one instinctively
distrust a man whose ears are partially concealed by his hair?
"The pendulum has swung far enough now, in all conscience, in the
western 'Hail Columbia!' direction; with unalloyed gladness I
hail indications of the return, the eastern beat.--And that reminds
me--talking of dancing, of course you know that most exquisite place,
Palewell Friars? I was down there at Whitsuntide this year. They like to
have me. You remember the view from the cedar drawing-room? That delightful
Italian garden and the river flowing just below it, the lime avenues, and
the broken ground in the deer-park
studded with the old Spanish chestnuts, composes as entirely a lovely home scene as--"
He stopped. Again the crowd had broken up about the door, disclosing a
view of the ballroom.
"A civil marriage is perfectly valid, perfectly sound in
law?" Gerrard asked, with curious abruptness, his voice cracking up
queerly at the end of the sentence.
"Unquestionably," I said.
"Precisely--of course," he spread himself in his
chair.--"I know most of our fine English country houses, from
the inside, I am happy to say. But Palewell always strikes me as unique,
nothing jars, nothing obtrudes itself. Its charm is a solicitation, not a
demand; while there is the inimitable flavour of an intensely aristocratic
atmosphere pervading the whole scene, the whole life."
"Which exactly suits you?" I suggested. Gerrard turned his
head, and I perceived a singularly insolent gleam in his eyes.
"It does," he replied; "you are perfectly right, it
certainly does. I draw breath there with the emotion of perfect and natural
well-being, with which, as I conceive, the Blest draw breath in the
translucent air of Paradise--I am at home."
He paused and sighed.
"We all have intimations, at times, of that which is utterly in
harmony with the best of our own being--a delicious satisfaction of
both the religious
and artistic instincts. I had attended mass one morning in that little gem of a chapel; and later, in the richly toned and shadowed cedar drawing-room, while the sunlight yet caressed the grey stone mullions of that range of vast windows, Lady Clare danced to us.--You know her? Petite but svelte, sherry-coloured eyes and hair, with a dark pencilling of eyelash and eyebrow. A skin like cream--yet that illustration hardly gratifies me. It is a little disgustingly suggestive of the cow, and the farm-girl, and a rude first-hand relation to nature."
Gerrard lounged sideways in his chair, and flattened down his hair
again.
"Think, therefore, I beseech you, only of cream in some delectable
golden jug of Renaissance workmanship, about the delicately turned body of
which fauns and naïads toy amorously, in a wonder of subtly
interlacing lines. Yes, I think that fairly renders the immediate sentiment
of her appearance. It was all very beautiful. The magnificent room, the
high-bred woman, her bare neck and arms braving the sunlight, on which
those historic rubies--you know them?--glowed and shone as she
passed from the voluptuous monotony of the Nautch to the frank
gaminerie of the
Café Chantant."
"Innocent alike of the intention of either?" I remarked.
"I really can't tell," he said, with an effort at
candour. "But I hope so; of course I hope so, for
it would go far to carry out my cherished theory of woman.--And there were contrasts in the setting of the scene which, emotionally speaking, were wonderfully helpful. The other women present wore shirts and sailor hats, the men were in breeches and dirty shooting-boots. Pour comble de bonheur little Freddy Hellard lighted cigarettes, and no one chid him. Ah, I shall long remember that morning, it was big with--"
Gerrard rose to his feet, peering in the direction of the ballroom.
Again the crowd had opened, drifting to right and left, while Leversedge
and the Carissima were revealed standing in the doorway. Evidently they had
been valsing. The girl's abundant hair was slightly disordered; she
carried the train of her soft peach-bloom coloured muslin dress over her
arm. Leversedge faced her. He was laughing a little, fanning her, talking
to her. Things went well, then? Verily, they went most exceedingly well. I
thanked the gods. I approved my own conduct in this business afresh. Yet I
almost regretted to see these lovers in the commonplace hurley-burley of a
ball. I could not find it in my heart to think it the very best taste in
the world that they should thus appear so conspicuously in public.
Moreover, I wished earnestly to believe them in that state of mind in which
solitude, and the repetition of certain sweet nothings, are so adorably
full of high illumination,
high delight. That they should tolerate the close contact of their fellow-creatures, that they should have any desire for activity, disappointed me. Or, might I trust this pointed to the light-heartedness that comes of complete happiness, the exuberant gaiety which is born of fulness of content? There is a stage of mental as well as physical well-being which, in all living things, expresses itself in playfulness, skittishness, a disposition, as you may say frankly, to jump about. Could it be--but oh, dear me, for that were indeed a notable conversion!--that Charlotte, née Perry, had reached the stage of innocent rapture in which all young and wholesome creatures develop this disposition to jump about? Yet the peace of the--to themselves, unexpectedly--virtuous being still upon me, I was disposed to press a point in the direction of cheerfulness; to endure all things, in the shape of that most unsavoury animal, Gerrard; to hope all things for the salvation of Leversedge's mind; to believe all things, concerning its purification from fashionable frivolities, of the Carissima's spirit. And as to a questionableness of taste in thus appearing in public, well, after all, what is Taste? The hedge from behind which the feeble shoot at the strong; the refuge of the unproductive; the cloak under which the unsuccessful try to cover the blackness of their envy; the spangles with which talent tries so to dazzle the eyes of the
commonplace multitude, that it shall fail to see the stars of true genius shining on quietly very far above its head. My metaphors might be confused, but my determination of conviction was great. Constantine and Charlotte were right to dance, it meant everything most promising that they should dance. Taste?--who in the moment of honest gladness, or honest misery, ever stops to think about taste?
Thus did I reason with myself, while Gerrard paused beside me, curiously
spiderlike. I quite thought he intended advancing upon the couple in the
doorway. But the crowd, to my relief, speedily closed up again, and he sank
back into his chair with a grunt.
"Poor girl," he murmured, "I have a regard for her. It
is painful. She was worthy of a better fate than the embraces of that
--. But let us turn to something pleasanter, Hammond. I felt very
thankful during that scene at Palewell; for I recognised that my prayers
had been answered, and that I had not misread the signs of the times. I
recognised that the reaction has set in, in very truth; that the degrading
fiction of the equality of the sexes is already exploded; that education,
doing its worst, has still failed to do any abiding injury, since the
fin de siècle woman, true in instinct,
though false in idea, mistakes the badge of her servitude for the brevet of
her emancipation,
and, to prove the completeness of her liberty, dances, like any slave-girl of the harem, for the entertainment of her hereditary masters. A cynic might sneer at this, as a last and crowning example of the illogic of the feminine mind. I cannot sneer. To me the matter is solemnly glad from the bigness of its promise. 'Woman never civilises,'--thank God for that."
I loathed Gerrard. But what was the good of relieving my feelings by
being rude to him, and telling him so? I had a growing conviction that he
was here for a set purpose, that he harboured designs of some sort against
the peace of mind of Leversedge and the Carissima. If I was rude to him, he
would go away and carry out his purpose--perhaps--all the sooner.
Let them dance--let them dance; meanwhile I would, greatly enduring,
continue the conversation.
"How about the suffrage, then," I asked, as one greedy of
information, "to which, as a good Conservative, your organ--that
is the technical term, I believe--your organ, has devoted so many
eloquent pages?"
"Assuredly, Hammond, you are not taken in by that little
blague?" he said, turning his head
slowly and looking at me. "We need it for the protection of our own
property, of course, menaced as it is by the rapacity of the masses. Not
one woman in a million is public-spirited--the vast
majority have a savage rage for their own little possessions. We give it as the rope, the enough of rope, which will enable these dear foolish female creatures very effectually to hang themselves. Don't you see?"
"Most emphatically I do see," I said.
Something in my tone, I suppose, conveyed to my hearer that I had had
about enough. Ah! how stupid is it ever to lose one's temper, even in
a good cause! Gerrard grunted, again rose to his feet. He stood, smoothing
down his hair, and looking intently at the open door of the ballroom.
"By the way," he said, "you know, I suppose, whether
this story of Mrs. Mertyns' is true about that lunatic
Leversedge's money?"
"What story?" I asked.
"Oh! that there is really a great deal of it, and that he has left
it unconditionally to his wife?"
I got up too, and pushed my chair aside to let the apostolic-looking
Russian poet and his daughters pass. They stopped a moment; we talked. I
hoped Gerrard would go. But he remained at my elbow.
"You signed the will, I understand," he said. "Of
course you know all about it."
"Upon my word," I replied, "I do not see--if you
will excuse my saying so--that whatever
I do know or don't know is any particular concern of yours."
Percy Gerrard is not constitutionally brave. I was delighted to note
that he backed away from me a little, that he was distinctly uncomfortable
and embarrassed.
"Oh! of course I don't want details," he said hastily.
"Pray, don't misunderstand my motives in asking. I have, as I
told you just now, a regard for the poor girl. She is clever; in good hands
something might be made of her. I am aware, just as you are aware, and
everybody else is aware, that the man she is marrying is insane. And I own,
I should be glad to know that when her husband retires into the enforced
seclusion which is already, in my humble opinion, so desirable for the
comfort and safety of other people, she, poor thing, will at least be
decently provided for."
"Make your charitable mind easy," I replied. "Mrs.
Leversedge will be by no means destitute."
"So I understood. It is a relief to have you confirm the
report."
Gerrard gazed meditatively at me. He had regained all his habitual
insolence of demeanour.
"Thanks, Hammond," he said. "You are really very
obliging. That is all I wanted to know."
And he pushed his way through the crowd into the brilliantly-lighted
salon.
watering-place or hotel population always contains figures of this sort. Women of uncertain nationality, in strange garments, whose purses are light, whose eyes are hungry for social or any other sort of recognition, and whose day, such as it may have been, is very clearly over. Men of more than middle age, who once no doubt held distinguished positions in distant lands; but who now grumble away a purposeless existence on a pension or annuity, play a fractious game of whist, and air imaginary grievances of gigantic proportions.
Within the last half-hour these melancholy figures seemed to have
multiplied exceedingly in the hall of the Grand
Hôtel. And their near neighbourhood was depressing. For is
it not more or less thus that we all, every one of us, end, alas!
Platitudes regarding the brevity of things gay and pleasant, the certainty
of the ultimate arrival of things altogether the reverse, began to form
themselves on my lips. I recognised that I needed change of air, and that
speedily.
Just within the great door of the portico I paused. The night was clear
and sweet. In the basin of the little dribbling fountain, frogs were
croaking--not the sonorous, full-throated chant of the southern frogs,
but a modest tinkling note as of tiny bells. Great bats were hawking over
the shrubberies in the dim garden.
The stars were very large and keen. While from the wine-shop of some hamlet, far up among the vineyards, came the sound of a rude chorus of men's voices and the thumping of a drum. Figures passed along the wide carriage-drive, slipping out of the half darkness on the one hand and vanishing into it again on the other, as figures pass across the stage in some interlude of a play. First the lady of the scarlet silk blouse went swiftly by, talking excitedly to her two companions, the debilitated Russian young men. She had a white lace handkerchief thrown over her head, and it gleamed far down the avenue of pollarded chestnuts long after her figure, and those of her cavaliers, had been swallowed up in the shadow of the thick trees. Then a cheery lad in evening dress, a typical British subaltern, with the shortest of red hair and honestest of sunburnt faces, went by. He escorted a trim American maiden, to whom, in the last week, he had very obviously and completely lost his heart. The two were laughing, evidently the joke was a first-rate one. Almost immediately after, Perry père fled across the scene, a lopsided stripe of hurrying blackness.
I let him get to a safe distance, then I went out and followed the path
along the left of the big hotel, under the long row of dining-room windows.
All the chandeliers were lighted within,
and a confused noise of talk and of feasting reached me. Who paid, I wondered--not those who ate and drank, not the hotel proprietor, very certainly, nor yet Mr. Perry. Leversedge, I supposed; that was his rôle.--Yes, Percy Gerrard's dirty fingers had decidedly spoilt the evening for me! Leversedge, I feared, was doomed to pay for most things, whoever happened to consume them.
And just as I had reached this somewhat disheartening conclusion, at the
turn of the terrace, in the full glare of the great cluster of electric
lights fixed flowerlike against the corner of the huge building, I came
upon Leversedge himself.
He lounged, with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the soft
night-moths, that fluttered around the bulbs of hard white light. I felt
troubled, I therefore became weakly vapid--in speech.
"You here? The gay and giddy dance is over then," I
said.
Leversedge's eyes met mine in vague inquiry for an instant.
"Oh! we've had some splendid turns," he said.
"Charlotte dances divinely."
"Does she not do all things divinely?"
"Pretty nearly," he answered, smiling.
All went well still, then; my soul received
comfort, my faith in my own gospel revived. Yea, these lovers should yet find complete salvation and--sustaining thought--through me.
Leversedge was staring at the upward flying night-moths again.
"Poor, silly fools," he said slowly, "they're a
little too much of a parable."
But my cheerfulness had returned.
"My dear fellow," I replied, "they 'needs must
love the highest when they see it,' like the rest of us. But the
highest is perfectly safe in this case, and will not do them any injury.
They can't singe themselves. The globes are sealed."
Leversedge's mildly distracted brow gathered into a frown for a
moment, and he raised his shoulders the least bit in the world.
"No, they can't singe themselves," he said, "but
they can bash their silly heads in, which will answer much the same
purpose." Then he added, quickly and courteously--"I beg
your pardon, Hammond; I am an ass, and like an ass I am a little bit out of
temper."
Just then, somewhere down in the direction of the little harbour, a dog
yelped. I saw Leversedge start.
"What's that?" he said, under his breath.
His face straightened. He listened. I listened too, somehow. It was
exceedingly stupid of me, for I ought to have talked; but I could not help
myself. I had to listen. The sounds of revelry from the dining-room had grown faint; a breath of air had stirred the surface of the bank of shrubs on our right. And again, down by the harbour, a dog, evidently a small dog, yelped and whimpered.
"Let us come round to the front of the house," Leversedge
said, rather hurriedly. "That set of Lancers must be over by now, I
should think, and she told me to meet her at the steps."
As we went along the terrace, he added--
"That greasy animal, Gerrard, has turned up again to-night. He
insisted upon Charlotte's sitting out this square dance with him,
which bored her, and annoyed me rather. Of course I know, I'm rather
out of it, Hammond, from having been away so long; but if that
fellow's not a bad lot, I never saw any man that was."
"Briefly, he is a beast!" I exclaimed.
Leversedge chuckled audibly.
"Thanks, I feel better," he said. "Charlotte
doesn't fancy him either, I know; but she's seen a good deal of
him at Mrs. Mertyns', and she can't be uncivil, you see. As to
this dance, she couldn't civilly get out of it."
As we moved forward the air became positively heavy with the rich,
aromatic scent of the magnolia blossoms, while the sound of the band came
upon us with a sudden gush, in the light tuneful music of La
Cigale.
"We shall get away from all these people tomorrow,"
Leversedge said. "Till then I strive to possess my soul in
patience."
He smiled very charmingly, looked half proudly, half shyly at me.
"I'm awfully grateful to you, Hammond," he said.
"But for you I might not have dared go on. Thanks to you, the supreme
good is near, is very near."
Just then we reached the foot of the marble steps, crossed by broad
spaces of golden brightness from the windows of the
salon--against which last the band,
fiddling and blowing under the vine-embowered verandah, showed as a company
of grotesque silhouettes. Halfway down the flight stood the Deputy
Surgeon-General discoursing earnestly to Perry
père et mère.
"Oh! hang it, they've not done yet," Leversedge
said.
At the sound of his voice Mr. Perry turned, and perceiving us, ran
playfully down to join us.
"Ah, ha!" he cried; "I see, I see. Damon and Pythias,
David and Jonathan--as usual, inseparable companions--
Divorced for a brief space
And then together flowing,
impelled by friendship,
As severed drops upon the petals of the dewy
rose.
Upon my word, I begin to suspect Charlotte has a rival in that naughty
boy's affections, eh, Mr. Ham-
mond? Ladies have been known before now to grow jealous of their husband's friends. You must be nice to Charlotte, very, very nice to Charlotte, or who can tell--eh?"
"It's a beautiful night," Leversedge remarked, with a
certain irritation in his tone; "all the same, I don't care to
stand still here. Shall we take a turn, Hammond, and come back?"
"By all means," I said.
Was Leversedge only restless, anxious to shake off Perry
père, or was he cold? Really I was
becoming very sentimental over Leversedge. I would sacrifice myself to an
almost unlimited extent in the way of pedestrianism to prevent his feeling
cold.--But if his intention was to shake off his father-in-law, that
end was not to be attained by such simple methods.
"Yes, by all means," echoed Mr. Perry; "I am with
you."
And he trotted gaily beside us.
"A beautiful night, as you observe, Constantine, truly a beautiful
night. Really, I may say, without exaggeration, a sublime night. I have
just been calling my wife's and our good friend, the doctor's,
attention to the expanse of the starry heavens as presented to us this
evening--
Worlds upon worlds displayed
To awe the human
eye,
In majesty arrayed,
Go slowly rolling
by."
Here Mr. Perry became extremely noble.
"If my youth had not been necessarily devoted to pursuits of a
practical character, and if the virtue of patriotism had not become the
master passion of my maturer years, I should certainly have been an
astronomer. Most elevating branch of science, Mr. Hammond, I am
sure,--most elevating. The silent night, the lonely observatory, the
burnished brass tube turned in humble inquiry upon unnumbered universes! Ah
yes, 'the undevout astronomer is mad,'--must be, you know,
'tis perfectly obvious. Yet, as I often remind myself, the busy bee
has its place in nature, its little duty to fulfil, as well as the soaring
eagle. And I trust I do not neglect my own honey cells, as we may say, do
not neglect them. I am proud to think our local branch of the Primrose
League, for instance, owes much to my efforts and to those of
Mamma--for we must never forget the gentle hand of women, which
rocking the cradle still rules the world--ah ha! rules us, and,
therefore, of necessity, the world."
We had walked the length of the terrace. Before us lay the garden,
blotted by trees and masses of shrubbery, spreading away to a flat stretch
of vineyards intersected by the pale gleam of a long straight road. Then
the scattered lights of the little town--points of silver clustered
along the edge of a blue-purple abyss of lake and mountain.
Mr. Perry drew himself up. He was quite detestably full-blown just then.
He carried his head on one side, and shook his finger waggishly at the
constellations--which, again, were points of silver clustered in that
other blue-purple abyss of the night sky.
"Yes, yes," he cried, "you heavenly bodies must indeed
pursue your immemorial way without me! Hearth and home, wife and child, man
and brother, Church and State, our revered Queen, our glorious
Constitution,--these, after all, Mr. Hammond, twine themselves more
closely about the heart-strings of the true Briton than even the most
august of scientific studies. he affections must be satisfied, must be so,
'tis absolutely necessary. Constantine is in a position to bear
witness to that truth just now; eh, Constantine?--
He left his books
For ladies'
looks.
Account-books, in the case of Constantine. Ledgers, yes, ledgers--and
very well-kept ones, too, as I can testify. Most creditable entries in
those ledgers.--Dear me, what's this--what's this? Amid
all our charming conversation and light musical gaiety the plaint of some
inferior animal in pain!"
The dog was yelping again. The sound had shifted, was nearer. It seemed
to come from the chestnut avenue, into the dark shadow of which
the scarlet-bloused Russian and her companions had disappeared.
Leversedge touched me on the shoulder, speaking quickly.
"Let's turn, Hammond. That dance must be over by now, and I
don't want to keep her waiting."
"Right, right!" cried Mr. Perry genially. "I approve
the sentiment. The Fair may sometimes delay us, but let us never delay the
Fair. For 'tis the little foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the
grapes. And how often the surface of domestic happiness is ruffled, and the
peace of its depths endangered, I'm sure I may say positively
endangered, by the omission of small courtesies--
Those trifling, trivial tributes of our
love,
Which still the heart's complete devotion
prove.
These are too often ignored by us members of the sterner sex; yet they are
foundational, I protest foundational, as the basis of sweet agreement in
the matrimonial state."
At the foot of the steps stood Mrs. Perry.
"Dear me!" she said as we approached, "I'm sure
it's a very shocking thing we should be benefiting so by those poor
black people's bad habits, and I really don't see how we
do,--and I'm sure it ought all to be put a stop to at once by the
Queen, or the Parliament, or anybody in a position to do it.--Oh,
well, here you all are; the doctor here's
been explaining to me all about those poor Indians and the opium, and it does seem all very dreadful. And there's been a dog howling so; I've just been asking him to go and see what is the matter with it. It always upsets me,--doesn't it you, Mr. Hammond?--to hear anything crying about like that when you don't know what's wrong with it."
The set of Lancers were clearly over, for the band was well away with a
valse again. The Carissima, in her trailing peach-bloom skirts, stood just
outside the central window of the ballroom. Gerrard's squat figure was
behind her. He was talking to her, insisting upon something. The girl moved
forward impatiently, as though wishing to escape from him. But he followed
her to the head of the steps. He was very close to her, still speaking,
still insisting. I saw him, to emphasise his words--whatever they
might be--touch her arm with his hand.
Leversedge saw it too. His mouth opened a little, and a dangerous light
came into his eyes.
"Damn your impudence! I should like to settle with you once and
for all," he said under his breath.
"Yes, to be sure, there it is howling again," Mrs. Perry
chimed in. "But, dear me, I don't want the poor thing done away
with altogether, if that's what you mean, Constantine. I only want it
turned out of the garden, you know, or taken back where it
belongs."
Charlotte came swiftly down the marble steps. She pressed her left hand
against the side of her charming head; and the up-draught, as she moved,
taking the lace of her open sleeve blew it back, showing her arm almost to
the shoulder. The great diamonds, which Leversedge had brought her,
glittered upon her third finger and upraised wrist. And the band played
softly, I remember, a die-away passage of the valse,--it was one
arranged from that pretty, silly song of Caminada's, "Ashes of
love are as ashes of roses,"--and, down by the lake shore, once
more a dog whimpered and yelped.
In speaking, Mr. Perry waved us towards a table, by one of the large
magnolias, at the farther side of the terrace. The rough zinc top of the
table, I remember, caught the light, as did the white balustrade parallel
to which it stood, over which pink climbing roses, set in the flower-border
below, had thrown long trails of leaf and blossom. Beyond lay a quarter of
an acre of lawn sloping away into a darkness of trees, bordering the lake
shore.
The Carissima passed us without speaking. She went quickly across the
wide gravel terrace, and dropped into a chair at the head of the table. It
appeared to me the young lady's whole manner and bearing was curiously
concentrated; it held no hint of hesitancy now, or of deprecating mildness.
She swept by, indeed, with a certain violence; and, as I followed with Mrs.
Perry, the effect of her struck me as really impressive--her head and
bare throat, her slim figure to the waist, in its pale draperies, standing
out in profile, clean cut, from the multitudinous background of glossy
magnolia leaves. And, thereupon, a suspicion overtook me, that, even now,
for good or evil, I had not come to the end of Charlotte
née Perry. I took my place at the
little table in a spirit of expectation; a rather weariful sense upon
me--really this day was an unconscionably long one!--that, in
respect of drama, there might even now be a considerable amount ahead.
As for the rest of the party--Mr. Perry had skirmished off in
search of supper; Percy Gerrard still lingered, wrapped in august
abstraction, under the verandah; while Leversedge, passing round, perched
himself on the balustrade near his bride--his back towards the dimness
of the garden, his face towards the illuminated
façade of the great hotel. He bent
down and spoke in a low voice to the girl.
Mrs. Perry sat next me, and proceeded to engage my attention by artless
discourse. She was gorgeously attired this evening in a rich silk gown of
sanguine hue. Moreover, I distinctly recall her cap. It was of the usual
respectable upper-housemaid order, so much affected by elderly ladies of
our modest nation; but, as sign of full dress, curious little golden acorns
depended from the lower lace frill of it, as wind-bells from the roofs of a
pagoda. They waggled as she moved her head, and the affect was amusing,
somehow.
"I'm sure this is all very pleasant," she said, looking
round with evident satisfaction. "And no doubt it's very right
and proper of Dr. Moorcock to be so busy about the bad habits of those poor
blacks. But hearing him talk seems to make you very anxious, you know. Of
course I was always brought up to believe those in
authority--governors and generals and Members of Parliament, and all
those sort of gentlemen, did know best, so that one wasn't called upon
to trouble. And then, of course, when somebody like Dr. Moorcock comes and
explains to you they're always making dreadful mistakes, why, you
can't help being very upset and uneasy, you know--you really
don't feel as if anything was safe anywhere."
"My dear child," I heard Leversedge saying,
very gently, "if you'd only tell me what's gone wrong--half an hour ago everything seemed as right as--"
"And then it's so beautiful sitting out of doors like
this," Mrs. Perry continued, folding her hands contentedly over the
centre of her person. "Of course that was all very different, quite
in a small private sort of way, you know; but still it does remind me of
the first year Mr. Perry and I were married. We had a house at
Brixton--semi-detached, and a nice bow-window to the
sitting-room,--I know Aunt Trumbull gave me red rep curtains for it
and they never would quite meet, there was a mistake about half a breadth,
somewhere--it was a disappointment, but I tried never to let them be
drawn when she came in, for fear it should mortify her,--well, and
there was a garden at the back. It had walls all round, and, of course, it
wasn't very much; but there was a black-plum tree in one corner, and
when Joseph used to come back from the office early, we would take our
chairs out there and sit."
Then Leversedge's voice reached me again.
"Oh," he was saying, "if you would like the plans
altered any way, there's nothing easier."
He plucked off the head of a rose absently, and pulled the petals
apart.
"The world's before us where to choose, after all, you see.
We'll go where you like, and stay
where you like. Whatever you like, I like--down to the ground, I like it."
"It was very close that summer," Mrs. Perry went on;
"and--perhaps it's not quite a thing to mention before a
gentleman, but, you see, you do seem to be such an old friend now, Mr.
Hammond--I felt the heat very much just then, not being quite
strong--"
What the girl had answered him I do not know, but I saw Leversedge turn
away rather hastily. Then something must have arrested his attention, for
he paused, leaning sideways over the balustrade, one arm outstretched
towards the trailing roses, looking out over the great lawn. He was very
still for a moment; and a dog howled again, down in the direction of the
harbour.
"Poor thing, the doctor hasn't caught it, then," Mrs.
Perry put in parenthetically.
Leversedge pulled off another rose with rather laboured indifference,
and, facing round, threw back his head with a jerk. The content had died
out of his face. His brow was distracted, and the hunted look had come once
again into his eyes. He bent very tenderly over Charlotte.
"Whatever you please and wherever you please, my sweet," he
said softly,--"if only you will be pleased. Surely you know, you
know, I just live for that?"
"You see, it was just a few months before dear Lottie's
birth," continued my excellent com-
panion. "We weren't very well off at that time, Mr. Hammond, and I made all my own baby-linen. It's very pretty work baby-linen, I always have thought that. And I used to sew as long as it was light, and then sometimes Mr. Perry would play to me. I am afraid the people next door objected rather, which seemed to me very illiberal, for I am sure I always found it sweetly pretty--Joseph used to practise quite a number of nice tunes, at that time, upon the flute."
Meanwhile Leversedge went on speaking, pleading, as it appeared to me;
but he spoke very low, I did not hear what he said.
"You know, Mr. Perry doesn't quite care to hear me refer to
that time; he gets rather excited when I do, and says it's not fair
upon Charlotte to recall our early married life. And perhaps it isn't.
Of course, it all was very obscure. But I never knew how obscure it was
then; and, you see, I was very happy somehow--"
Mrs. Perry sighed.
"I know it's all much better now, and that Charlotte and Mr.
Perry move in society much more suitable to them both; but a woman's
thoughts will go back to the time she was very happy, even if she sees
afterwards that it was all a mistake and that she oughtn't to have
been so, you know, Mr. Hammond."
Here the Carissima made a sudden movement--
threw up her hands, clasped them before her face. She stayed so a minute, showing like a cameo against the screen of foliage.
"Wait,--pray, pray, wait," she said. "Presently,
when my parents are gone--not now--I can't explain before
them. Indeed, I hardly know my own thought yet. Wait--I implore you,
wait."
"The last thing I wish is to distress you, God knows,"
Leversedge said slowly and sadly.
Hearing which, the remnants of my lately recovered cheerfulness began to
vanish, smokelike, in deepening disquiet. For I recognised that I had
gloried without sufficient cause, that this conversion remained distinctly
incomplete.
Leversedge stared away across the lawn again, and as I watched him his
figure gradually stiffened and straightened. He, too, was watching
anxiously, unwillingly, yet with a sort of fascination
something--something which I did not see. I suppose I really was very
tired, for his attitude affected me strangely. The feeling returned upon me
which had oppressed me earlier in the evening, as I worked my way out of
the crowded hall, namely, that there was an abnormal, a malign element in
my surroundings. It was absurd, of course, yet increasingly the Spirit of
Fear--fear of I know not quite what--whether a perception of
something supernatural, or merely a heightened perception of the
ever-present possibility of tragedy in mortal existence, seemed to
haunt the whispering trees and dusky garden, to diffuse itself through the blue-purple abyss of the lake and mountains, and the clear, impassive, starlit night.
Just then arrived to us Mr. Perry, followed by a waiter carrying a tray,
shoulder high. If there was any abnormal influence abroad, it had not
affected Perry père as yet, save in
the way of an astonishing and altogether disproportionate hilarity.
"Ah ha!" he cried, "I bring you varied cates--
Each to his taste, enough alike for all.
Coffee and ices for the slighter appetites; champagne for the more solid,
accompanied by a lobster mayonnaise. Mamma was ever partial to a salad
composed of that somewhat deleterious crustacean --weren't you,
Mamma?--Ici, put the things on the
table, don't you see, comme ça,
garçon. Et maintenant ôtez le plateau, and you can
go,
allez,--vous comprenez."
This to the waiter.
Whether attracted by the sight of food, or impelled by some more subtle
form of desire, I know not, but here Percy Gerrard descended the steps and
joined us. He drew up at the corner of the table, between Charlotte and
myself; and the girl looked up at him with a strange expression, half
dependence, half disgust--as it seemed to me. As once before, I
suspected collusion between these
two persons, and I didn't in the least like it. At all events, it was a satisfaction to note that, along with dependence, Charlotte Perry's extremely pretty and mobile face did express disgust.
"Lobster?--no, thank you. Champagne?--yes," he
said, in response to an invitation on the part of Mr.
Perry,--"that is, if it is dry; I take for granted it's
dry."
Gerrard's voice was not under complete control; it came hard and
sudden. He emptied his glass, and then, setting it down, rested his hand on
the table, bending forward over the girl.
"Have you remarked the glow-worms to-night?" he asked her.
"Out there, upon the grass, they are really very
wonderful."
He raised his hand and pointed down over the lawn. And that hand must
have been disagreeably damp; for it left, dark on the grey zinc table-top,
a distinct impression of a flat palm, four squat fingers and a thumb to
match.
"Fairylike?--yes, I'm sure, positively fairylike,"
broke in Perry père enthusiastically.
"Titania and her frisky train are all abroad this evening. I have
called my wife's attention to their merry manoeuvres
already--haven't I, Mamma?"
Leversedge, at the mention of the glow-worms, glanced sharply at the
speaker. Then he seemed to gather himself together, with a certain
determination, and sat, his head bent, his back to the
garden and his face to the light, laying hold, very hard--so I fancied--of the edge of the stone balustrade on either side of him.
Gerrard went on speaking, his voice cracking up and down queerly.
"You see them? There must be some peculiar atmospheric conditions
to account for the extreme brilliancy of those delicate jewels."
He paused, apparently trying to steady his unruly voice. The dance was
over; the bandsmen were putting up their instruments. The
concierge turned out the clusters of electric
lights one by one, leaving but a gas-jet here and there, in compliment to
the few guests who still loitered in the grounds. The lady of the red silk
blouse passed us with her attendants, as usual deep in excited talk. The
fresh-faced subaltern and his trim partner lingered, bidding each other a
protracted farewell at the foot of the steps.
"Ah! how extraordinary!" cried Gerrard suddenly.
"Look--look at those in the centre of the lawn, two discs of
lambent living green. Singular! They move together rapidly, and towards
us."
The Carissima pushed her chair violently back making the stiff leaves of
the magnolia shatter together behind her.
"No, no, not that way!" she cried,--"not that
way! I dare not. It is too wicked. I cannot."
Leversedge had taken one glance over his
shoulder into the dimness. Then he wrenched himself round, wrenched himself on to his feet. And once again I could have sworn his hair bristled, while his lips stood away from his teeth.
"You lie," he said, "and you know it. You
lie,--so help me God."
A silence followed; even Perry
père, for once, amazed out of all
articulate expression. And a dog yelped and howled, quite near us this
time, on the left. While one of the bandsmen, a tow-headed young German,
mocked it, howling an echo; whereupon all his companions laughed rather
boisterously, as they moved away into the darkness, round the corner of the
huge house.
When Gerrard answered, his voice rose into a positive scream.
"You are insolent, Mr. Leversedge, and your language is gross; but
let that pass. I appeal to Miss Perry--to your wife. Ask her what she
saw just now."
The girl stood up between the two men--Leversedge on her right,
Gerrard on her left. But she looked at neither of them. She looked full at
me--for a most disintegrating, delectable, detestable minute. Her
expression was of supreme appeal. Her lips gathered, quivered, with that
delicious sketch of a kiss. I knew--don't write me down an
unpardonably fatuous ass--I knew she was mine, to have if I would. I
had only to speak
five words to claim her, and she would come, regardless of all obstacles, joyfully, nay, triumphantly. And, dear me, was she not seductive just then, radiant with an amazing mingling of demand and of innocence? She asked me silently, yet with dominating force, she knew not what--for Charlotte Perry's passion was (pray, let us never forget that), as is the passion of so many modern young women, rightly considered, a matter of the head, of the imagination only, and not really one bit of the heart. And I answered her, whether as a man of honour, whether merely as a selfish craven, I shall never know. To the end of my foolish days, here on this foolish earth, the problem will haunt me, will remain unsolved by me. Did I behave as a perfect gentleman, or merely as a very thorough-paced poltroon? I cannot tell. Anyhow, silently, I did answer. Whereupon the girl threw herself down in her chair, and flung her arms out across the table, scattering the ice-plates and coffee-cups to right and left, making a swamp of Perry père's poor little supper.
"Oh dear!" moaned Mrs. Perry,--"oh dear! whatever
is the matter? Everything seems to have turned off so very dreadful all of
a sudden. And,I'm sure I can't tell what it's all
about--can you, Mr. Hammond?"
"About death and damnation!" I exclaimed under my
breath.
Leversedge bent forward across the corner of the table.
"Charlotte," he said hoarsely, yet authoritatively,
"tell me, did you see anything? What did you see?"
There was a breathless pause; and a dog whimpered close to us, quite
close, down among the rose bushes, just below the balustrade. Then the
Carissima raised her head, and her face was sharp, astute, terrible.
"Yes," she said, "I did see something."
She looked at Gerrard, she looked at me again, she turned straight to
Leversedge.
"I did see something. I saw it."
Percy Gerrard slapped his hands together and moved back a couple of
steps from the table, making an ugly noise in his throat, between a cough
and a grunt; while good Mrs. Perry broke into an hysterical sobbing.
"Oh dear me! I don't understand,--won't anybody
tell me?--I don't understand," she said.
And Leversedge remained quite still, his back to the wide dusky garden;
his face and figure seeming to grow thinner, more corpse-like, as the
concierge, passing the length of the terrace,
extinguished another and yet another of the lights. When at last he spoke,
he was fine, he was admirable--he had, indeed, risen to something of
majesty. For he was master of himself,
perfectly self-restrained, and calm--with the bitter self-restraint, the cruel calm, of one whose feet are set in the Valley of Tribulation, journeying through which a man's spirit is too deeply laden for him to strive or cry, but who moves forward, with the stoicism which, in strong and simple natures, utter desolation is--thank heaven--almost sure to give.
"This is not the end," he said,--"not quite the
end,--and with the end the rest of you have nothing to do. Go, you
cur," he added, addressing Gerrard. "Just how much I owe you I
don't yet know, but be very sure I'll do my best to pay you all I
do owe."
He came round the table and stood by Mrs. Perry's chair.
"Go away too, my dear good woman," he said very gently.
"You have always been very kind to me; but I am beyond the point now
where kindness like yours is of much avail."
"I am at a loss," broke in Perry
père suddenly; "I protest, I am
altogether at a loss--I am at sea, positively at sea. The wordy scene,
the untasted refreshments--really, Constantine--"
"There, there, there," answered Leversedge. "You shall
know the result all in good time, and that must be enough for
you."
"But my daughter," protested Mr. Perry.
Charlotte had sat rigid, her arms still out-
stretched upon the table, her face hard and set. Now she turned, almost contemptuously, upon her father.
"Go, Papa," she said. "I do not want you; you
can't help me, and you may make me ridiculous. I can play my own game.
And," she added,--"and--you needn't be afraid.
There will be a witness--Mr. Hammond shall stay."
Percy Gerrard, whose courage was never of the militant order, had fled
hurriedly up the marble stairway into the hotel. And now Perry
père et mère followed him quite
meekly--she weeping in a broken-spirited manner piteous to hear.
"I don't understand," she said, "and I was just
growing so fond of Constantine, too. He seemed to recall our dear little
boy to me so--though as he died quite an infant and Constantine's
a grown man, I'm sure I don't know why."
And for once in his life Mr. Perry was too cowed to scold her; he merely
gave her his arm, and led her humbly away.
Leversedge came on along the side of the table, and dropped into the
chair which I, in the moment of the catastrophe, had vacated. The girl did
not look at him; she continued in the same rigid attitude, her arms still
flung out across the table amid the wreck of the supper; her fingers
doubling and undoubling convulsively--the only sign she gave of her
agitation. And Leversedge laid his hand on her bare arm just below the
elbow. It was rather ghastly to think how her muscles working like that,
right under his fingers, must have affected him. For a little space he sat
silent, trying to force back a rising tide of very vital
emotion--while, I remember, the coffee from an overturned cup dripped
slowly, slowly from the farther edge of the table on to the gravel below.
At last he said--
"My sweet, this is bad--very bad. This is the one thing I
have implored mightn't happen; that I have prayed against--by day
when I was free, by night when I was cursed. I have fought against the
terror of its happening as one fights for life itself. I could not think it
could be allowed to be--I trusted God--whatever God is--to
be more just than that."
His voice broke. Again he was silent, trying to recover himself.
"As for that brute Gerrard," he went on presently, "I
believe, as I told him, that he lied. But you--you--you,"
cried Leversedge,--"you couldn't lie."
He bent his head and kissed the hollow of the girl's arm again and
again.
All this was indescribably painful; and I most genuinely detest what is
painful--at close quarters. I wanted to go away, I wanted desperately
to go away. But the Carissima raised her eyes to mine. Her pretty face was
still set and fierce; but, as far as I could judge in the dim light, it was
fierce with alarm now, rather than with resolve. Her eyes entreated me,
commanded me not to desert her. I obeyed.
"See," Leversedge said, "I have no words in which to
tell you of my shame, of my self-loathing in having brought this horror on
you. I have been hideously, damnably selfish in tying up
your life to mine, with the possibility of that happening which has happened. But--but--oh! I am a scoundrel to have let it come to this pass--you see, we've gone too far to turn back--you see, we belong to each other now."
Leversedge paused, a perfect agony of prayer, of love in his expression.
It became almost unbearable. If she would only give some sign! But she
continued absolutely impassive, save for the doubling and undoubling of her
fingers as they rested on the table.
"You see--it's a vile thing to remind you of like
this--but we are married. We can't cancel that except by death.
And don't, don't want me to die," he
cried,--"not yet, not just yet. I have cared so long, dreamed so
long, waited so long for this--for our marriage--for what
to-morrow brings. Oh! my sweet, my sweet, try to put it out of your mind,
try to forget what you saw. You may never see it again, it may never come
back. Only be merciful, and try, just try. Give me a week, a month, just a
little while, in which to be happy. And the torment will cease, the cloud
will pass. I know it will. It must. I will compel it to--it must. And,
listen--I will love you as never yet woman was loved; for you will
have done for me more than any woman ever yet did for any man."
Leversedge's head sank down upon his hand on
the girl's arm, and I saw that his whole frame was shaken with great sobs.
"Forgive me," he said, just audibly. "Forgive
me,--try to forget."
Then for a minute, I confess, I lost my head and called out loud to
her--
"Speak to him! Say something, anything. God in heaven! what are
you made of? Speak to him, I say."
The girl straightened herself up, with a long shuddering sigh--a
ghostly image of desperation against the dark multitudinous background of
magnolia leaves.
"You--you of all people in the world, Antony Hammond!"
she said very bitterly.
And Leversedge repeated his prayer, just audibly again.
"Forgive me--and for a little while, try, only
try."
"I have tried," she answered at last.
"You have been to me as an angel."
"I have tried," she repeated, addressing me, not Leversedge.
"You can bear witness to that--who better?"
She dragged her arm away from under his hand.
"And I have failed, failed miserably and contemptibly. Just in the
very moment of success I break down--"
She rose to her feet, speaking violently,
passion-
ately, pelting me with words, as she might have with stones.
"No, I don't care what I admit. I have been mad to convince
you, to prove to you that I was what I desire to be and am not. I thought I
was sufficiently strong to carry it through long enough, at all events, to
disprove your suspicions, to master you. I didn't care what came
later. I should have won that which I wanted. But I am not sufficiently
strong. You triumph, after all. You were right in your estimate of me. I am
cheap, flimsy, insincere--an actress. My learning is mere cram, my
talents mere imitation. I am a sham--colourless, characterless, a mere
reflection of other people's thoughts, fashions, affectations. Yes,
you are right, you have been right all along. I am a fraud. But I hoped
against hope. I thought if I played at being something else long enough, I
might deceive even myself, and really become that which I simulated. And,
remember, I gave you the chance to help me, not once, not twice. But you
were relentless; you forced me back on myself; you dragged aside the veil
with which I tried to conceal my nothingness. I gave you the chance to
help, and you were too lazy, too selfish, too fine, to trouble to take it.
Then I turned to someone else. Ah! I am grateful to you--in very truth
we have all cause to be grateful to you."
Leversedge was standing up too. He looked
utterly amazed and bewildered. More than once he had tried to stay the torrent of her speech, unsuccessfully; but, to my immense relief, I perceived that he was far too much absorbed in his own side of the drama to comprehend the purport of the girl's words. He supposed--poor dear Leversedge--it was the terror of the diabolic dog which had thus unhinged her mind; and he, of course, was responsible for that also!
"Charlotte, my poor child, my poor darling," he implored,
"don't go on like this, pray don't. You'll break my
heart. I don't know what to do for you."
He held out his arms to her, tried to take hold of her, to draw her to
him; but she backed away, violently, round the corner of the table. A
trailing spray of roses caught the folds of her dress and dragged them
sideways.
"No," she cried, "I will not come. It is useless to
ask me. Don't you understand, I break with you? Ah! how thick-witted
you are! Don't you understand, what you offer me isn't enough,
since--since--you yourself go with it?"
Leversedge stared at her, for a minute, across the table, and still the
coffee from the overturned cup dripped slowly, very slowly, upon the
gravel. Then languor and tenderness alike passed away from him. He drew
himself up, and it struck me what a big man--notwithstanding his spare
make--Leversedge was.
"Isn't it a trifle late to think of that?" he asked her
very quietly.
There was a silence, while a dog yelped and whimpered again, close to
us, down among the roses below the balustrade.
"I do not love you," the girl said.
Leversedge looked at her and laughed harshly, and for an instant the
devil of desire leapt into his eyes.
"That is rather unfortunate," he replied, "for I love
you--very much."
I turned away. Really they must settle the matter themselves. The
presence of a third person had ceased to be admissible. But the girl called
to me imperiously to remain.
"Stay," she cried, "stay--you're a poor
enough creature, Mr. Hammond, but you shall stay. I demand that you do so.
I refuse to be left alone here, unprotected, with this madman."
Leversedge staggered--then steadied himself, resting his hands on
the table.
"But--you--you saw it yourself," he said, with a
sort of indignation.
Then Charlotte née Perry, that
unheroic daughter of unheroic parents, played her last card. It was a very
foul card, unfortunately.
"I saw nothing, just now. Listen, attend to that which I tell you,
I saw nothing but what I should see this moment, if I turned my
head--nothing but the glow-worms in the grass."
"But--but--" Leversedge murmured wildly.
"It was a plan," she went on, "a plot to rid myself of
you--do you not understand?--to get rid of you."
She made a strange downward and outward movement of her hands, as though
stripping away some garment, some covering.
"Wake up," she cried, "Constantine Leversedge; see
things as they are, clearly, at last, though too late; for I am utterly
weary of this long comedy. You have worshipped a delusion. Know me at last
as I am. Mr. Hammond will be delighted to draw out the points of the
lesson. Learn of what I am capable. I lied to you--do you hear
me?--I lied."
Then she slipped round the end of the table--while the rose spray,
catching her dress, rent the muslin and tore at the silk of it with a sort
of lingering shriek; and a small whitish dog, a mangy, half-starved,
quivering little wretch, his tail between his legs, and a dirty tag of rope
round his neck, crawled out from between the pillars of the balustrade, and
ran, limping and yapping, behind her, across the terrace, as she fled up
the marble steps into the vast hotel.
"Thanks," he said. "There's nothing that I know
of to wait for now. Perhaps we may as well go in, Hammond; don't you
think so?"
But on the threshold of the glass door of the
salon he paused, shaking too violently to go
farther. The ballroom was dark, silent, empty--only lights, as one saw
through the open doors, beyond in the hall.
"I think I must have got a bit of a chill," Leversedge
remarked. "I expect there's a lot of damp at night off the lake,
and if you've once had a touch of fever it's likely to lay hold
of you."
Then we went on across the salon into the
hall, and up the great staircase, slowly, waiting now and then, because he
shook so badly, to Lever-
sedge's room on the first floor. I remember the impression made on me as I opened the door of it. The effect within was striking; for there were candles everywhere,--on the chimneypiece, the writing-table, the chest of drawers, by the bedside,--a positive blaze of light, turning this bachelor bedchamber into something curiously suggestive of a chapelle ardente.
I suppose Leversedge noticed my surprise.
"Candles? Oh yes," he said; "I always tell them to
light a good many like that, now--it's pleasanter, you know, at
night."
He gazed round the room in a dazed, vacant kind of way. Upon the
writing-table stood a folding, leather photograph frame, somewhat worn and
travel-stained with much packing. It contained a series of pictures of
Charlotte Perry, covering quite a number of years, judging by the changing
fashion of her costume. The last photograph was of very recent date; the
girl's charming face set in the aureole of the wide-brimmed,
rose-garlanded hat which she had worn that morning. Leversedge's
wandering glance lighted on these pictures; and a terrible emotion gripped
his very vitals.
"My love!" he cried out loud,--"my
love!"
His apathy passed away, and in a moment he had turned and spoke to me
courteously, and with a certain stateliness.
"You're extremely kind, Hammond," he said, "and I
believe you have always done your very best for me. Most likely I shall
make use of your kindness again later; but just now, for the present, I
should be glad to be alone. I feel I am rather a poor companion, I have not
much talk in me, and I have two or three little matters to attend to.
I'm awfully obliged to you--thanks--goodnight."
I leaned for a long while out of the window of my bedroom, downstairs,
on the ground floor, filled with a vast pity and discontent. The air was
very still, an impalpable gloom covered the garden, the stars were very
large, very many, very bright. The miserable little dog still yelped and
howled. The Spirit of Fear was still abroad; it agitated, it distressed me.
I had seen two people wrecked; had contributed, precisely how far I knew
not, myself, to their wrecking. And in so doing had I, too, seen that
Thing-too-Much, of which Leversedge had once spoken? Had I, too, been
"to the end of the world and looked over the wall," got to the
place from which there is no way out? These were not agreeable reflections.
The hopeless diversity of human character, the hopeless complexity of human
relations staggered me. Is there absolutely no limit to our
misunderstanding of each other, to our torturing of each other, to our
boring
of each other? Is there absolutely no safety? Is every connection, every friendship, every love, liable to reel away, thus, into disaster?
And then, besides these abstract and general fears, very concrete and
close ones oppressed me. What would the issue of this business be between
Leversedge and the Carissima? What would to-morrow bring--what, even,
to-night? Suddenly I was overtaken by a certain very definite alarm for
Leversedge, which forced me to leave my room, and go forth, down long
passages, across the vacant hall, and up the wide staircase once more.
Strange vague noises and vague odours saluted me, the clinging quiet of the
great house wrapped me about. And a penetrating sense possessed me of the
common things, the pitiful things, the base things, the delicious
things--the unholy revelations, the mystic initiations--which
must be taking place, to-night, as every night, behind these ranges of
closely closed doors. The Spirit of Fear was abroad here too, with a
suggestion of secrets which might not lawfully be looked into. The crowd
had broken up into units. Darkness and silence shrouded all. Yet the
tragedy, the comedy, the ecstasy, of human life went forward just the same;
all the more strongly and directly, indeed, because now it was hidden and
concentrated, because each individual had, practically, the whole stage to
himself.
I waited outside Leversedge's room, but there was no sound within.
The candles were still burning brightly, for a line of vivid light showed
beneath the door. Perhaps, worn-out with emotion and fatigue, he slept. I
could but hope so. To wake him, if he slept, would be cruel; to intrude
upon him unasked, if he waked, would be impertinent. I realised that my
journey had been a piece of folly. I was an idiot to have come.
Refreshingly conscious of that fact, I turned about and went back.
Where were the proud pleasures now, of preacher, director, evangelist,
which had but so lately puffed up my silly soul? On my own lines I too had
failed--failed as completely as broken-hearted Leversedge on his, as
the heartless Carissima on hers. We had all played, and we had all lost.
Destiny had swept our stakes into her lap, as is Destiny's habit; and
left us, each in our several ways, penniless. We had each, in our several
ways, asked the impossible of the other, with this inevitable, this very
gratifying result! And I--I, at least, from my detached standpoint
ought to have known better, seen clearer. For, what the devil is the use of
standing aside from the battle of life, unless by so doing you keep a
steady enough head and lively enough perceptions, to see how the battle is
going, and to be able to foresee the result? My conceit of myself was
wounded to the death.
It is an humiliating confession to make, since I perceive it brings my
habitual light-mindedness into rather lurid prominence, but I don't
think I had ever felt actively and personally miserable, until now, as I
shut the great casements of my window together, and reflected that there
was no help to be given either to the sinned against or the sinning; that
there was positively nothing more to be done save to wait the event.
Ah! is it not a pity, after all, we have grown so wise, in these latter
days, that we regard religion merely as a subject of interesting
speculation; that we have ceased to have faith in the demigods, who were
agreeably accessible, comfortably near to us; and have retained only a
barren, because only a controversial, belief in the Great God who sits
behind the Creeds? For the adept, no doubt, He represents the final rest,
the final beatitude; but, for the rank and file of us, He is chillingly far
away, too unthinkably great to be of much immediate use in poor little
twopenny-halfpenny human extremity. I would so thankfully have said a
prayer, for my unworthy and futile self; for my poor dear friend
Leversedge; even for Charlotte née
Perry, that most unheroic daughter of a voracious rat and excellent
suburban clock-moon, in this her hour of self-knowledge, conscious
nakedness and nothingness. But how could I, in reason, do so? Who was I
that I should be heard?
What my petitions, that they should obtain to change the course of history? What would be, would be. My pitiful wishes weighed as a feather against the push of Fate.
No doubt such meditations are healthful for the soul, rich with
wholesome discipline; but, ye powers! they are quite detestably unpleasant
all the same.
And so, realising the futility of myself and my endeavours, I declined
upon bathos. I went to bed. Still worse, I, being most abominably tired,
went to sleep.
I suppose I slept heavily, yet I remember the yapping and howling of a
dog mingling with my dreams, now taking on an almost human sound of appeal
and reproachful lamentation, now passing into a cry of mere animal
distress. I was roused at last by a very real and definite outcry under my
window, emphasised by a shower of little pebbles against the shutters.
The dawn had just warmed into sunrise. The lawns were drenched with dew.
The whole panorama of lake and mountain was softened, etherealised by a
veil of silver mist. And immediately below, on the terrace, stood the
red-headed subaltern, arrayed in the most surprising suit of
pink-and-yellow-checked pyjamas, a roll of bathing-towels under his arm and
his honest face blanched, for all its freckles and sunburn, by emotion.
"Mr. Hammond," he stammered apologetically, "I'm
awfully sorry to disturb you, but I can't very well help it. Something
awful's happened, and people ought to know. But I did not want to
raise an alarm and frighten the ladies. And you and he were friends, I
thought I'd best let you know first."
"Quite right," I said. "And what has
happened?"
The boy looked very sick. He also looked absurdly young.
"Why--Mr. Leversedge," he stammered again. "I was
going down to bathe, you see--and I came upon him suddenly."
He pointed over his shoulder.
"Just against the pier, in the water--dead."
His eyes filled with tears.
"It's awfully foolish, but I never saw anyone dead before,
and I felt as if I didn't want it to be him. He was such a ripping
good sort."
By the time I reached the little harbour the sun had cleared the top of
the vineyard-covered hills behind the hotel. Long shafts of delicate light
pierced the silvery mist. The pale shadow of the great building lay
obliquely across the garden. The pale shadow of the trees, along the shore,
lay obliquely across the surface of the water of the harbour. With raised
wings and ruffled plumage the two swans sailed in, in stateliest fashion,
round
the head of the grey pier; while, along the top of the wide stone wall of it, dark against the vast gleaming steel-coloured levels of the lake, limped the wretched little dog, its tail between its legs, and a tag of dirty rope still dangling from its scraggy neck.
The boy went on ahead. The concierge and
the boatman, whom, in passing, we had called from the cottage in the corner
under the pollarded plane trees, followed me. About a third of the distance
along the pier the boy stopped.
"Come here, Mr. Hammond," he said in an awe-stricken voice.
"Look, you can see him."
And there, beneath some eight feet of divinely clear water, lay
Leversedge, flat on his back. Fluffy green water-weed rising around him,
swayed by the force of some otherwise imperceptible current, blurred the
outline of his body. He was still in evening dress, and his shirt-front
showed a wide heart-shaped patch of white; across which, at the top of the
water, swam a shoal of very small fishes, all their heads one
way--lambent green--as the fatal glow-worms, or the eyes of the
non-existent yet truly diabolic dog, which had combined to cause the
martyrdom of the man dead, there, among the weed below--when they
moved away towards the farther shore, and blood-red--when they turned,
altogether, rapidly, making
a tiny ripple on the surface of the water, and swam back towards the little pier.
The matter was to raise the body at once, before the hotel was awake,
and either curiosity or alarm were aroused.
Some Savoy sailors, off one of the lateen-sailed lake-boats, helped us.
It was a rather hideous business, such as I sincerely hope it may never
fall to my lot to take part in again. I spare you the details. Suffice it
to say that we carried that which had been Leversedge up through the sunny
garden. The waiters had neglected to clear away the remains of Mr.
Perry's supper, and a flight of sparrows and chaffinches rose,
squeaking and chirruping, off the table from among the wet ice-plates and
remnants of lobster salad, as we passed by. The spare young Russian woman,
very much en déshabille, her
magnificent hair all over her angular shoulders, hung out of a fourth-floor
window, crooning one of those infinitely pathetic folk-songs which seem so
full of the sadness of long snow-bound winters and the hopeless monotony of
the Steppe. Otherwise we happily met no one, saw no one--save the
yawning lift-boy--till we reached Leversedge's room and laid him
on his bed.
Some of the many candles were still burning. They flared low in the
socket. The window had been left partly open behind the wooden shutters,
and the draught had taken them, so that they had
guttered from the edge of the candlesticks into great shrouds. The air was heavy--notwithstanding the partly open window--with an acrid smell of burnt paper, burnt leather. As we opened the door I observed a whirl of tinder fly up from the hearthstone, and settle back slowly, in black hovering flakes, on the furniture and the white counterpane of the bed. The folding-screen and all the photographs of the Carissima had disappeared.
On the writing-table a copy of Vanity Fair lay open at
that pathetic page of the last chapter of the book, wherein Major
Dobbin--after long waiting--at last has his desire, and leanness
withal, as one fears, in his soul. And upon the page was a half-sheet of
notepaper, with a few lines on it in Leversedge's rather laboured
business hand.
"I HAVE thought it all out, and this is the only way to
meet the difficulty, so I take it. I do not blame her. She was pressed
beyond endurance, and she was badly advised. She is safe against the
future, moreover, so my main end is secured. Also, I am delivered, at last,
and for ever, from the power of the dog."
It was signed, and in the left-hand corner was written
carefully--
"To Antony Hammond, Esq.," and the date.
"Take it," he said; "and, exercising a sufficient
amount of discretion to prevent its being positively libellous, make what
use of it you like. Add to the sum of human despair--as is the amiable
habit of all you writers of fiction at the present time--by drawing
out the underlying agony of it at full length, by crossing all the
t's very plainly, and dotting all the
i's. The fate of most men is tame enough. Actually they
grow and ripen and decay,--die even, with a good-tempered dulness
quite soothing to contemplate. Extreme wretchedness in an Anglo-Saxon
community is as rare as extreme rapture. But, since extremes make for
drama, and drama is--if you will pardon my stating the matter thus
baldly--your means of livelihood, you writers ignore this capital
fact."
Happy is the people that has no history! But, as I pointed out to
Hammond in self-defence, how shall one write the history of those that have
none?
"I know, I know," he replied genially; "and you poor
dear novelists, like the rest of us, must contrive to live somehow, I
suppose. Only, I protest it is just this which, in one's puritanic
moments, when--to one's own immense discomfort--the
conscience of earlier and mere morally-strenuous generations awakens in
one,--it is just this which renders Art so radically suspect. For,
there is no denying, Art does fix the mind, unwholesomely,
unscientifically, upon extremes, upon all that which lies outside ordinary
experience. It runs alternately to the Golden Houses of the Gods and the
Newgate Calendar, to the lives of the saints and the chronique scandaleuse for its subject-matter; and with
none of these things, when you come soberly to think of it, have we, most
of us, anything more than a bowing acquaintance. It accentuates every side
of the great human problem almost to the verge of lunacy. It persistently
exalts the abnormal as against the normal, the individual as against the
race, the variation as against the type. At times, I own, it seems to me
all wrong, utterly pernicious and misleading. And yet," added
Hammond, "I ask you, how on earth are we to do without it? For it
sends just that draught of fresh air through the stagnant atmosphere
breathed by the commonplace majority which makes romance still possible. It
and Religion,--which, I take it, is merely Art in a higher
manifestation--alone keep the ideal alive, and so prevent humanity from becoming altogether sordid and bestial. Still I doubt if it, any more than religion, makes for happiness. For contentment I am very sure it does not make.--But let us descend from the contemplation of these high matters," he went on. "I become heated, therefore I inevitably speak foolishness. You want to know something more about the Carissima? Why, surely you remember that little affair of Percy Gerrard's, how he retired from the editorship of the Present Day on the strength of his engagement to a rich and pretty widow? How he prepared to realise all his noble visions of seigneurial splendour, and ransacked England from the Channel to the Tweed to find some fair demesne, some feudal castle, Elizabethan mansion, or eighteenth-century pseudo-Italian villa, costly enough to be a not wholly unworthy setting to so unique a jewel as himself? Gerrard's head was slightly turned by his approaching glories. He gave himself away rather too freely on the subject of his coming magnificence. And then, at the eleventh hour, the lady jilted him, causing him to cut a most exceedingly sorry figure; while the world, before which he had bragged so noisily, put its tongue in its cheek. Gerrard is not a brave man, and it takes a very great deal of courage to survive being made a fool of. Socially speaking, Gerrard has not survived. He has tried
various things since then, but his efforts have not prospered very brilliantly. Last time I saw him he was giving itinerant lectures, in continental towns, to companies of specially selected British and American tourists. I met him on the immense crumbling steps of St. John Lateran, fat and greasy, looking like a particularly undesirable valet de place. A troupe of anxious and dowdy sightseers crowded around him; it was not a pretty or cheerful spectacle. And then, after a time, last year, in fact, the Carissima married Sylvester--you must have often met him--the painter who was Director of the Connop Trust School before the brief and brilliant reign of that strangely lurid being, James Colthurst."
"And the Sylvesters come here to-morrow!" I exclaimed.
"Precisely," Hammond said. "The fair Charlotte is
making a great reputation in country-houses just now, I understand. Well,
she was charming, she was clever--no one should know that better than
I. Only, when she comes, I go. Relations are likely to be somewhat strained
between us even yet. We have, neither of us, any great craving after that
re-living of the past which must needs take place did we meet. When you
have once looked on the face of the naked self of either man or woman, you
will be wise carefully to avoid ever seeing them again,
unless--"
Hammond paused, and the rain drifted rather drearily against the
window.
"Unless, and that happens but rarely in a lifetime, you are lucky
enough to love them very much indeed."
And then, thinking over the story of Leversedge and the power of the
Thing-too-Much, over all that he had told me, I asked Hammond what he made
of it all?--what he took it to mean? Whereon he smiled very benignly
upon me, and whirled the silver string of his eye-glass round his
forefinger.
"Ah, my dear friend," he cried, "are you still in that
embryonic stage of thought wherein you still feel about after a reason,
still have the youthful hopefulness to ask 'Why?'--Cease
to do so. It will only make you irritable, for you will receive no answer.
In nine hundred and ninety cases out of every thousand, if there is a
'why' at all, it is among the secret things, absolutely beyond
the range of the understanding of purblind man. Therefore lay to heart that
profound saying of a great artist and great
novelist--'ineptie consiste à vouloir
conclure.'--There is the dressing-bell,--we must
go.--A modest acquiescence in the actual,--that, in my humble
opinion, is the only workable philosophy of life."