I
The publishers told you he behaved badly, did they? They didn't know
the truth about the "Wrackham Memoirs."
You may well wonder how Grevill Burton got mixed up with them, how
he ever could have known Charles Wrackham.
Well, he did know him, pretty intimately, too, but it was through
Antigone, and because of Antigone, and for Antigone's adorable sake.
We never called her anything but Antigone, though Angelette was the
name that Wrackham, with that peculiar shortsightedness of his, had
given to the splendid creature.
Why Antigone? You'll see why.
No, I don't mean that Wrackham murdered his father and married his
mother; but he wouldn't have stuck at either if it could have helped
him to his literary ambition. And every time he sat down to write a
book he must have been disgusting to the immortal gods. And Antigone
protected him.
She was the only living child he'd had, or, as Burton once savagely
said, was ever likely to have. And I can tell you that if poor
Wrackham's other works had been one half as fine as Antigone it
would have been glory enough for Burton to have edited him. For he
_did_ edit him.
They met first, if you'll believe it, at Ford Lankester's funeral.
I'd gone to Chenies early with young Furnival, who was "doing" the
funeral for his paper, and with Burton, who knew the Lankesters, as
I did, slightly. I'd had a horrible misgiving that I should see
Wrackham there; and there he was, in the intense mourning of that
black cloak and slouch hat he used to wear. The cloak was a fine
thing as far as it went, and with a few more inches he really might
have carried it off; but those few more inches were just what had
been denied him. Still, you couldn't miss him or mistake him. He was
exactly like his portraits in the papers; you know the haggard,
bilious face that would have been handsome if he'd given it a
chance; the dark, straggling, and struggling beard, the tempestuous,
disheveled look he had, and the immortal Attitude. He was standing
in it under a yew tree looking down into Lankester's grave. It was a
small white chamber about two feet square--enough for his ashes. The
earth at the top of it was edged with branches of pine and laurel.
Furnival said afterward you could see what poor Wrackham was
thinking of. _He_ would have pine branches. Pine would be
appropriate for the stormy Child of Nature that he was. And
laurel--there would have to be lots of laurel. He was at the height
of his great vogue, the brief popular fury for him that was absurd
then and seems still more absurd to-day, now that we can measure
him. He takes no room, no room at all, even in the popular
imagination; less room than Lankester's ashes took--or his own, for
that matter.
Yes, I know it's sad in all conscience. But Furnival seemed to think
it funny then, for he called my attention to him. I mustn't miss
him, he said.
Perhaps I might have thought it funny too if it hadn't been for
Antigone. I was not prepared for Antigone. I hadn't realized her.
She was there beside her father, not looking into the grave, but
looking at him as if she knew what he was thinking and found it, as
we find it now, pathetic. But unbearably pathetic.
Somehow there seemed nothing incongruous in _her_ being there. No, I
can't tell you what she was like to look at, except that she was
like a great sacred, sacrificial figure; she might have come there
to pray, or to offer something, or to pour out a libation. She was
tall and grave, and gave the effect of something white and golden.
In her black gown and against the yew trees she literally shone.
It was because of Antigone that I went up and spoke to him, and did
it (I like to think I did it now) with reverence. He seemed, in
spite of the reverence, to be a little dashed at seeing _me_ there.
His idea, evidently, was that if so obscure a person as I could be
present, it diminished _his_ splendor and significance.
He inquired (for hope was immortal in him) whether I was there for
the papers? I said no, I wasn't there for anything. I had come down
with Burton, because we---- But he interrupted me.
"What's _he_ doing here?" he said. There was the funniest air of
resentment and suspicion about him.
I reminded him that Burton's "Essay on Ford Lankester" had given him
a certain claim. Besides, Mrs. Lankester had asked him. He was one
of the few she had asked. I really couldn't tell him she had asked
me.
His gloom was awful enough when he heard that Burton had been asked.
You see, the fact glared, and even he must have felt it--that he,
with his tremendous, his horrific vogue, had not achieved what
Grevill Burton had by his young talent. He had never known Ford
Lankester. Goodness knows I didn't mean to rub it into him; but
there it was.
We had moved away from the edge of the grave (I think he didn't like
to be seen standing there with me) and I begged him to introduce me
to his daughter. He did so with an alacrity which I have since seen
was anything but flattering to me, and left me with her while he
made what you might call a dead set at Furnival. He had had his eye
on him and on the other representatives of the press all the time he
had been talking to me. Now he made straight for him; when Furnival
edged off he followed; when Furnival dodged he doubled; he was so
afraid that Furnival might miss him. As if Furnival could have
missed him, as if in the face of Wrackham's vogue his paper would
have let him miss him. It would have been as much as Furny's place
on it was worth.
Of course that showed that Wrackham ought never to have been there;
but there he was; and when you think of the unspeakable solemnity
and poignancy of the occasion it really is rather awful that the one
vivid impression I have left of it is of Charles Wrackham; Charles
Wrackham under the yew tree; Charles Wrackham leaning up against a
pillar (he remained standing during the whole of the service in the
church) with his arm raised and his face hidden in his cloak. The
attitude this time was immense. Furnival (Furny was really dreadful)
said it was "Brother mourning Brother." But I caught him--I caught
him three times--just raising his near eyelid above his drooped arm
and peeping at Furnival and the other pressmen to see that they
weren't missing him.
It must have been then that Burton saw, though he says now he
didn't. He won't own up to having seen him. We had hidden ourselves
behind the mourners in the chancel and he swears that he didn't see
anybody but Antigone, and that he only saw her because, in spite of
her efforts to hide too, she stood out so; she was so tall, so white
and golden. Her head was bowed with--well, with grief, I think, but
also with what I've no doubt now was a sort of shame. I wondered:
Did she share her father's illusion? Or had she seen through it? Did
she see the awful absurdity of the draped figure at her side? Did
she realize the gulf that separated him from the undying dead? Did
she know that we couldn't have stood his being there but for our
certainty that somewhere above us and yet with us, from his high
seat among the Undying, Ford Lankester was looking on and enjoying
more than we could enjoy--with a divine, immortal mirth--the rich,
amazing comedy of him. Charles Wrackham there--at _his_ funeral!
But it wasn't till it was all over that he came out really strong.
We were sitting together in the parlor of the village inn, he and
Antigone, and Grevill Burton and Furnival and I, with an hour on our
hands before our train left. I had ordered tea on Antigone's
account, for I saw that she was famished. They had come down from
Devonshire that day. They had got up at five to catch the early
train from Seaton Junction, and then they'd made a dash across
London for the 12.30 from Marylebone; and somehow they'd either
failed or forgotten to lunch. Antigone said she hadn't cared about
it. Anyhow, there she was with us. We were all feeling that relief
from nervous tension which comes after a funeral. Furnival had his
stylo out and was jotting down a few impressions. Wrackham had edged
up to him and was sitting, you may say, in Furny's pocket while he
explained to us that his weak health would have prevented him from
coming, but that _he had to come_. He evidently thought that the
funeral couldn't have taken place without him--not with any decency,
you know. And then Antigone said a thing for which I loved her
instantly.
"_I_ oughtn't to have come," she said. "I felt all the time I
oughtn't. I hadn't any right."
That drew him.
"You had your right," he said. "You are your father's daughter."
He brooded somberly.
"It was not," he said, "what I had expected--that meager following.
Who _were_ there? Not two--not three--and there should have been an
army of us."
He squared himself and faced the invisible as if he led the van.
That and his attitude drew Burton down on to him.
"Was there ever an army," he asked dangerously, "of 'us'?"
Wrackham looked at Burton (it was the first time he'd taken the
smallest notice of him) with distinct approval, as if the young man
had suddenly shown more ability than he had given him credit for.
But you don't suppose he'd seen the irony in him. Not he!
"You're right," he said. "Very right. All the same, there ought to
have been more there besides Myself."
There was a perfectly horrible silence, and then Antigone's voice
came through it, pure and fine and rather slow.
"There couldn't be. There couldn't really be anybody--there--_at
all_. He stood alone."
And with her wonderful voice there went a look, a look of
intelligence, as wonderful, as fine and pure. It went straight to
Burton. It was humble, and yet there was a sort of splendid pride
about it. And there was no revolt, mind you, no disloyalty in it;
the beauty of the thing was that it didn't set her father down; it
left him where he was, as high as you please, as high as his vogue
could lift him. Ford Lankester was beyond him only because he was
beyond them all.
And yet we wondered how he'd take it.
He took it as if Antigone had been guilty of a social blunder; as if
her behavior had been in some way painful and improper. That's to
say he took no notice of it at all beyond shifting his seat a little
so as to screen her. And then he spoke--exclusively to us.
"I came," he said, "partly because I felt that, for all Lankester's
greatness, _this_--" (his gesture indicated us all sitting there in
our mourning)--"_this_ was the last of him. It's a question whether
he'll ever mean much to the next generation. There's no doubt that
he limited his public--wilfully. He alienated the many. And, say
what you like, the judgment of posterity is not the judgment of the
few." There was a faint murmur of dissent (from Furnival), but
Wrackham's voice, which had gathered volume, rolled over it. "Not
for the novelist. Not for the painter of contemporary life."
He would have kept it up interminably on those lines and on that
scale, but that Antigone created a diversion (I think she did it on
purpose to screen him) by getting up and going out softly into the
porch of the inn.
Burton followed her there.
You forgive many things to Burton. I have had to forgive his cutting
me out with Antigone. He _says_ that they talked about nothing but
Ford Lankester out there, and certainly as I joined them I heard
Antigone saying again, "I oughtn't to have come. I only came because
I adored him." I heard Burton say, "And you never knew him?" and
Antigone, "No, how _could_ I?"
And then I saw him give it back to her with his young radiance.
"It's a pity. He would have adored _you_."
He always says it was Ford Lankester that did it.
The next thing Furnival's article came out. Charles Wrackham's name
was in it all right, and poor Antigone's. I'm sure it made her sick
to see it there. Furny had been very solemn and decorous in his
article; but in private his profanity was awful. He said it only
remained now for Charles Wrackham to die.