1
Nearly all the roses were half-opened buds; firm and stiff. Larger ones
put in here and there gave the effect of mass. Closest contemplation
enhanced the beauty of the whole. Each rose was perfect. The radiant
mass was lovely throughout. The body of the basket curved firmly away to
its slender hidden base; the smooth sweep of the rim and the delicate
high arch of the handle held the roses perfectly framed. It was a
perfect gift.... It had been quite enough to have the opportunity of
doing little things for Mrs. Berwick ... the surprise of the roses. The
_surprise_ of them. Roses, roses, roses ... all the morning they had
stood, making the morning's work happy; visible all over the room.
Everyone in the house had had the beautiful shock of them. And they were
still as they had been when they had been gathered in the dew. If they
were in water by the end of the afternoon the buds would revive and
expand ... even after the hours in the Lyceum. If they were thrown now
into the waste-paper basket it would not matter. They would go on being
perfect--to the end of life. "And as long; as my heart is bea-ting; as
long; as my eyes; have; tears."
* * * * *
Winthrop came up punctually at one o'clock as he had promised. "It would
save you comin' down if I was to ph-come up." It would go on then. He
had thought about it and meant to do it. She opened the cash box quickly
and deftly in her gratitude and handed him his four sovereigns and the
money for the second mechanic and the apprentices. He waited gently
while she counted it out. Next Saturday she would have it ready for him.
"Thank you Miss----; ph--ph _Good_ afternoon" he said cheerfully. "Good
afternoon Mr. Winthrop" she responded busily with all her heart and
listened as he clattered away downstairs. A load was lifted from
Saturday mornings, for good. No more going down to run the gauntlet of
the row of eyes and get herself along the bench, depositing the various
sums. Nothing in future but the letters, the overhauling of Mr.
Hancock's empty surgery, the easy lunch with Mr. Leyton, and the
week-end. She entered the sums in the petty cash book. There was that.
They would always be that week after week. But to-day the worrying
challenge of it disappeared in the joy of the last entry. "Self" she
wrote, the light across the outspread prospect of her life steadying and
deepening as she wrote, "one pound, five." The five, written down, sent
a thrill from the contemplated page. Taking the customary sovereign from
the cash-box she placed it carefully in the middle pocket of her purse
and closed the clip. The five shillings she distributed about the
side-pockets; half a crown, a shilling, two sixpenny bits and six
coppers. The purse was full of money. By September she would have about
four pounds five in hand and two pounds ten of her month's holiday money
still unspent; six pounds fifteen; she could go to a matinée every week
and still have about half the four pounds five; about four pounds
fifteen altogether; enough to hire a bicycle for the month and buy some
summer blouses for the holiday.... She pocketed the heavy purse. Why was
there always a feeling of guilt about a salary? It was the same every
week. The life at Wimpole Street was so full and so interesting; she was
learning so much and seeing so much. Salary was out of place--a payment
for leading a glorious life, half of which was entirely her own. The
extra five shillings was a present from the Orlys and Mr. Hancock. She
could manage on the pound. The new sum was wealth, superfluity. They
would expect more of her in future. Surely it would be possible to give
more; with so much money; to find the spirit to come punctually at nine;
always to have everything in complete readiness in all three surgeries;
to keep all the books up to date.... But they would not have given her
the rise at the end of five months if they had not felt she was worth
it.... It would make all the difference to the summer. Hopefully she
took a loose sheet of paper and made two lists of the four pages of the
week's entries--dissecting them under the heads of workshop and surgery.
About fifteen pounds had been spent. Again and again with heating head
she added her pages of small sums, getting each time slightly different
results, until at last they balanced with the dissected lists--twice in
succession. The hall clock struck one and Mr. Leyton came downstairs
rattling and rattled into her room. "How d'you like this get up?" The
general effect of the blue grey uniform and brown leather belt and
bandolier was pleasing. "Oh, _jolly_" she said abstractedly to his
waiting figure. He clattered downstairs to lunch. _Everybody_ had
outside interests. Mr. Hancock would be on the Broads by now. Her
afternoon beckoned, easy with the superfluity of money. Anxiously she
counted over the balance in the cash box. It was two and ninepence
short. Damnation. Damnation. "Put it down to stamps--or miscellanea; not
accounted for." She looked back through her entries. Stamps, one pound,
at the beginning of the week. Stamps, ten shillings yesterday. It could
not be that. It was some carelessness--something not entered--or a
miscalculation. Something she had paid out to the workshop in the middle
of a rush and forgotten to put down. She went back through her entries
one by one with flaring cheeks; recovering the history of the week and
recalling incidents. Nothing came that would account for the
discrepancy. It was simply a mistake. Something had been put down wrong.
The money had been spent. But was it a workshop or a surgery expense
that had gone wrong? "Postage etc.: two and nine," would make it all
right--but the account would not be right. Either the workshop or the
surgery account must suffer. It would be another of those little
inaccurate spots that came every few weeks; that she would always have
to remember ... her mind toiled, goaded and hot.... Mr. Orly had
borrowed five pounds to buy tools at Buck and Hickman's and come back
with the money spent and some of the tools to be handed to the practice.
Perhaps it was in balancing that up that the mistake had occurred ... or
the electric lamp account; some for the house, some for the practice and
some for the workshop. Thoroughly miserable she made a provisional entry
of the sum against surgery in pencil and left the account unbalanced.
Perhaps on Monday it would come right. When the ledgers were all in
place and the safe and drawers locked she stretched her limbs and forced
away her misery. The roses reproached her, but only for a moment. They
understood, in detail, as clearly as she did, all the difficulties. They
took her part. Standing there waiting, they too felt that there was
nothing now but lunch and Irving.
2
With the basket of roses over her arm she walked as rapidly as possible
down to Oxford Circus taking the first turning out of Wimpole Street to
hurry the more secretly and conveniently. A 'bus took her to Charing
Cross where she jumped off as soon as it began pulling up and ran down
the Strand. As soon as she felt herself flying towards her bourne the
fears that last week's magic would have disappeared left her altogether.
Last week had been wonderful, an adventure her first deliberate piece of
daring in London. Inside the theatre the scruples and the daring had
been forgotten. To-day again everything would be forgotten, everything;
to-day's happiness was more secure; it would not mean going almost
foodless over the week-end and without an egg for supper all next week;
there was no anticipation of disapproving eyes in the theatre this week;
the sense of the impropriety of going alone had gone; it would never
return; the feeling of selfishness in spending money on a theatre alone
was still there, but a voice within answered that--saying that there was
no one at hand to go and no one she knew who would find at the Lyceum
performance just what she found, no one to whom it would mean much more
than a theatre; like any other theatre and a play, amongst other plays,
with a celebrated actor taking the chief part ... except Mag. Mag had
been with her as she gazed. Mag was with her now. Mag, fulfilling one or
other of her exciting Saturday afternoon engagements would sit at her
side.
Easy and happy she fled along ... her heart greeting each passenger in
the scattered throng she threaded, her eyes upon the traffic in the
roadway. A horseless brougham went by, moving smoothly and silently
amongst the noisy traffic--the driver looked as though he were fastened
to the front of the vehicle, a little tin driver on a clockwork toy;
there was nothing between him and the road but the platform of the
little tank on which his feet were set. He looked as if he were falling
off. If anything ran into him there was nothing to protect him. It left
an uncomfortable memory ... it would only be for carriages; the
well-loved horse omnibuses would go on ... it must be somewhere near
here ... "Lyceum Pit," there it was, just ahead, easily discernible.
Last week when she had had to ask, she had not noticed the words printed
on the side of the passage that showed as you came down the Strand. The
pavement was clear for a moment and she rounded the near angle and ran
home down the passage without slackening her pace, her half-crown ready
in her hand, a Lyceum pittite.
3
The dark pit seemed very full as she entered the door at the left hand
corner; dim forms standing at the back told her there were no seats
left; but she made her way across to the right and down the incline
hoping for a neglected place somewhere on the extreme right. Her vain
search brought her down to the barrier and the end of her inspection of
the serried ranks of seated forms to her left swept her eyes forward.
She was just under the overhanging balcony of the dress-circle; the well
of the theatre opened clear before her as she stood against the barrier,
the stalls half full and filling with dim forms gliding in right and
left, the upward sweep of the theatre walls covered with boxes from
which white faces shone in the gloom, a soft pervading saffron light,
bright light heavily screened. There was space all round her, the empty
gangway behind, the gangway behind the stalls just in front of the
barrier, the view clear away to the stage over the heads of the people
sitting in the stalls.... Why not stay here? If people stood at the back
of the pit they might stand in front. She retreated into the angle made
by the out-curving wall of the pit and the pit barrier. Putting down the
basket of roses on the floor at her side she leaned against the barrier
with her elbows on its rim.
4
He was there before he appeared ... in the orchestra, in the audience,
all over the house. Presently, in a few moments he was going to appear,
moving and speaking on the stage. Someone might come forward and
announce that he was ill or dead. He would die; perhaps only years
hence; but long before one was old ... death of Henry Irving. No more
thoughts of that; he is there--perhaps for twenty years; coming and
going, having seasons at the Lyceum. He knew he must die; he did not
think about it. He could turn with a smile and go straight up, in a rosy
chariot ... well done thou good and faithful and happy servant. He would
go, closing his eyes upon the vision that was always in them, something
they saw, something they gave out every moment. Whom the gods love die
young ... not always young in years, but young always; trailing clouds
of glory. It is always the unexpected that happens. Things you dread
never happen. That is Weber--or Meyerbeer. Who chooses the music?
Perhaps he does.
* * * * *
The orchestration brought back last week's performance. It was all
there; behind the curtain. Shylock, swinging across the stage with his
halting dragging stride; halting, standing with bent head; shut-in,
lonely sweetness. She looked boldly now, untrammelled in her dark corner
at the pictures which had formed part of her distant view all last week
in the far-away life at Wimpole Street; the great scenes ... beautifully
staged; "Irving always _stages_ everything perfectly"--and battled no
longer against her sympathy for Shylock. It no longer shocked her to
find herself sharing something of his longing for the blood of the
Christians. It was wrong; but were not they too wrong? They must be;
there must be some reason for this certainty of sympathy with Shylock
and aversion from Bassanio. It might be a wrong reason, but it was there
in her. Mag said "that's his genius; he makes you sympathise even with
Shylock...." He shows you that you _do_ sympathise with Shylock; Mag
thinks that is something to admit shamefacedly. Because those other
people were to her just "people." Bassanio--was it not just as wrong to
get into debt and raise money from the Jews as to let money out on
usury? But it was his friend. He was innocent. Never mind. They were
all, all, smug and complacent in their sunshine. Polished lustful man,
with his coarse lustful men friends. Portia and Nerissa were companions
in affliction. Beautiful first of all; as lovely and wandering and full
of visions as Shylock until their lovers came. Hearn was right. English
lovers would shock any Japanese. Not that the Japanese were prudish.
According to him they were anything but ... they would not talk as
Englishmen did among themselves and in mixed society in a sort of code;
thinking themselves so clever; anyone could talk a code who chose to
descend to a mechanical trick.
How much more real was the relation between Portia and Nerissa than
between either of the sadly jesting women and their complacently jesting
lovers. Did a man _ever_ speak in a natural voice--neither blustering,
nor displaying his cleverness, nor being simply a lustful slave? Women
always despise men under the influence of passion or fatigue. What
horrible old men those two would be--still speaking in put on voices to
hide their shame, pompous and philosophising.... "Man's love is of man's
life a thing apart ..." so much the worse for man; there must be
something very wrong with his life. But it would go on until men saw and
admitted this.... Portia was right when she preached her sermon--it made
everyone feel sorry for all harshness--then one ought not to be harsh to
the blindness of men ... somebody had said men would lose all their
charm if they lost their vanity and childish cocksureness about their
superiority--to force and brow-beat them into seeing themselves would
not help--but that is what I want to do. I am like a man in that,
overbearing, bullying, blustering. I am something between a man and a
woman; looking both ways. But to pretend one did not see through a man's
voice would be treachery. Nearly all men will hate me--because I can't
play up for long. Harshness must go; perhaps that was what Christ meant.
But Portia only wanted to save Bassanio's life; and did it by a trick.
It was not a Daniel come to judgment; it showed the folly of law;
pettifogging; the abuse of the letter of the law. She was harsh to
Shylock. Which is most cruel, to take life or to torture the living? The
Christians were so self-satisfied; going off to their love-making; that
spoiled the play, their future was much more dark and miserable than the
struggle between the sensual Englishman and the wily Jew. The play ought
to have ended there, with the woman in the cap and gown pleading,
showing something that could not be denied--ye are all together in one
condemnation. In that moment Portia was great, her red robe shone and
lit the world. She ought to have left them all and gone through all the
law courts of the world; showing up the law. Wit. Woman's wit. Men at
least bowed down to that; though they did not know what it was. 'Wit'
used to mean knowledge--"in-wit," conscience. The knowledge of woman is
larger, bigger, deeper, less wordy and clever than that of men.
Certainly. But why do not men acknowledge this? They talk about
mother-love and mother-wit and instinct, as if they were mysterious
tricks. They have no real knowledge, but of things; a sort of
superiority they get by being free to be out in the world amongst
things; they do not understand people. If a woman is good it is all
right; if she is bad it is all wrong. Cherchez la femme. Then everything
in life depends upon women? "A civilisation can never rise above the
level of its women." Perhaps if women became lawyers they would change
things. Women do not respect law. No wonder, since it is folly, an
endless play on words. Portia? She had been quite complacent about being
unkind to the Jew. She had been invented by a man. There was no reality
in any of Shakespeare's women. They please men because they show women
as men see them. All the other things are invisible; nothing but their
thoughts and feelings about men and bothers. Shakespeare did not know
the meaning of the words and actions of Nerissa and Portia when they
were alone together, the beauty they knew and felt and saw, holy beauty
everywhere. Shakespeare's plays are 'universal' because they are about
the things that everybody knows and hands about, and they do not trouble
anybody. They make everyone feel wise. It isn't what he says it's the
way he says all these things that don't matter and leave everything out.
It's all a sublime fuss.
Italians! Of course. Well--Europeans. It is the difference between the
Europeans and the Japanese that Hearn had meant.
5
Then there _is_ tragedy! Things are not simple right and wrong. There
are a million sides to every question; as many sides as there are people
to see and feel them and in all big national struggles two clear sides,
both right and both wrong. The man who wrote "The Struggle against
Absolute Monarchy" was a Roundhead; and he made me a Roundhead; Green's
History is Roundhead. I never saw Charles' point of view or thought
about it; but only of the unjust levies and the dissolution of
Parliament and the dissoluteness of the Court. If I had seen Irving then
it would have made a difference. He could never have been Cromwell. He
is Charles. Things happen. People tell him things and he cannot
understand. He believes in divine right ... sweet and gentle, with
perfect manners for all ... perfect in private life ... the first
gentleman in the land, the only person free to have perfect manners; the
representative of God on earth. "Decaying feudalism." But they ought not
to have killed him. He cannot _understand_. He is the scapegoat. Freedom
looks so fine in your mind. Parliaments and Trial by Jury and the
abolition of the Star Chamber and the triumph of Cromwell's visionaries.
But it means this gentle velvet-coated figure with its delicate ruffled
hands, its sweetness and courtesy, going with bandaged eyes--to death.
Was there no way out? Must one either be a Royalist or a Roundhead. Must
monarchies decay? Then why did the Restoration come? What do English
people want? "A limited Monarchy"; a King controlled by Parliament. As
well not have a King at all. Who would not rather live with Charles than
with Cromwell? Charles would have entertained a beggar royally. Cromwell
was too busy with "affairs of State" to entertain beggars. Charles dying
for his faith was more beautiful than Cromwell fighting for his reason.
Yet the people must be free; there must be justice. Kings ought to be
taught differently. He did not understand. No one believing in divine
right can understand. Was the idea of divine right a mistake? Can no one
be trusted? Cromwell's son was a weak fool. How can a country be ruled?
People will never agree. What ought one to be if one can neither be
quite a Roundhead nor quite a Cavalier? They worshipped two gods. Are
there two Gods?... Irving ... walking gently about inside Charles
feeling as he felt the beauty of the sunlit garden, the delicate
clothes, the refinement of fine living, the charm of perfect
association, the rich beauty of each day as it passed.... Charles died
with all that in his eyes, _knowing_ it _good_. Cromwell was a farmer.
Christ was a carpenter. Christ did not bother about kings. "Render unto
Cæsar."