DISINTEGRATION BY DEGREES
WE must now advance a little more rapidly. It was in the beginning of
1815 that Zachariah found himself settled in Manchester. That eventful
year passed without any external change, so far as he was concerned. He
became a member of the Hampden Club, to which Ogden and Bamford belonged;
but he heard nothing of Maitland nor of Caillaud. He had a letter now
and then from Mr. Bradshaw and it was a sore trial to him that nobody
could be found in Manchester to take the place of that worthy man of God.
He could not attach himself definitely to any church in the town, and the
habit grew upon him of wandering into this or the other chapel as his
fancy led him. His comrades often met on Sunday evenings. At first he
would not go; but he was afterwards persuaded to do so. The reasons
which induced him to alter his mind were, in the first place, the piety,
methodistic most of it, which was then mixed up with politics; and
secondly, a growing fierceness of temper, which made the cause of the
people a religion. From 1816 downwards it may be questioned whether he
would not have felt himself more akin with any of his democratic friends,
who were really in earnest over the great struggle, than with a sleek
half Tory professor of the gospel, however orthodox he might have been.
In 1816 the situation of the working classes had become almost
intolerable. Towards the end of the year wheat rose to a quarter, and
incendiarism was common all over England. A sense of insecurity and
terror took possession of everybody. Secret outrages, especially fires
by night, chill the courage of the bravest, as those know well enough who
have lived in an agricultural county, when, just before going to bed,
great lights are seen on the horizon; when men and women collect on
bridges or on hill tops, asking “Where is it?” and when fire-engines
tearing through the streets arrive useless at their journey’s end because
the hose has been cut. One evening in November 1816, Zachariah was
walking home to his lodgings. A special meeting of the club had been
called for the following Sunday to consider a proposal made for a march
of the unemployed upon London. Three persons passed him—two men and a
woman—who turned round and looked at him and then went on. He did not
recognise them, but he noticed that they stopped opposite a window, and
as he came up they looked at him again. He could not be mistaken; they
were the Major, Caillaud, and his daughter. The most joyous recognition
followed, and Zachariah insisted on their going home with him. It often
happens that we become increasingly intimate with one another even when
we are shut out from all intercourse. Zachariah had not seen the Major
nor Caillaud nor Pauline for two years, and not a single thought had been
interchanged. Nevertheless he was much nearer and dearer to them than he
was before. He had unconsciously moved on a line rapidly sweeping round
into parallelism with theirs. The relationship between himself and his
wife during those two years had become, not openly hostile, it is true,
but it was neutral. Long ago he had given up the habit of talking to her
about politics, the thing which lay nearest to his heart just then. The
pumping effort of bringing out a single sentence in her presence on any
abstract topic was incredible, and so he learned at last to come home,
though his heart and mind were full to bursting, and say nothing more to
her than that he had seen her friend Mrs. Sykes, or bought his tea at a
different shop. On the other hand, the revolutionary literature of the
time, and more particularly Byron, increasingly interested him. The very
wildness and remoteness of Byron’s romance was just what suited him. It
is all very well for the happy and well-to-do to talk scornfully of
poetic sentimentality. Those to whom a natural outlet for their
affection is denied know better. They instinctively turn to books which
are the farthest removed from commonplace and are in a sense unreal. Not
to the prosperous man, a dweller in beautiful scenery, well married to an
intelligent wife, is Byron precious, but to the poor wretch, say some
City clerk, with an aspiration beyond his desk, who has two rooms in
Camberwell and who before he knew what he was doing made a
marriage—well—which was a mistake, but who is able to turn to that island
in the summer sea, where dwells Kaled, his mistress—Kaled, the Dark Page
disguised as a man, who watches her beloved dying:
“Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor sees,
Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,
Held all the light that shone on earth for him.”
When they came indoors, and Mrs. Zachariah heard on the stairs the tramp
of other feet besides those of her husband, she prepared herself to be
put out of temper. Not that she could ever be really surprised. She was
not one of those persons who keep a house orderly for the sake of
appearances. She would have been just the same if she had been living
alone, shipwrecked on a solitary island in the Pacific. She was the born
natural enemy of dirt, dust, untidiness, and of every kind of
irregularity, as the cat is the born natural enemy of the mouse. The
sight of dirt, in fact, gave her a quiet kind of delight, because she
foresaw the pleasure of annihilating it. Irregularity was just as
hateful to her. She could not sit still if one ornament on the
mantelpiece looked one way and the other another way, and she would have
risen from her deathbed, if she could have done so, to put a chair
straight. She was not, therefore, aggrieved in expectancy because she
was not fit to be seen. It was rather because she resented any
interruption of domestic order of which she had not been previously
forewarned. As it happened, however the Major came first, and striding
into the room, he shook her hand with considerable fervour and kissed it
gallantly. Her gathering ill-temper disappeared with the promptitude of
a flash. It was a muddy night; the Major had not carefully wiped his
boots, and the footmarks were all over the floor. She saw them, but they
were nothing.
“My dear Mrs. Coleman, how are you? What a blessing to be here again in
your comfortable quarters.”
“Really, Major Maitland, it is very good of you to say so. I am very
glad to see you again. Where have you been? I thought we had lost you
for ever.”
Caillaud and his daughter had followed. They bowed to her formally, and
she begged them to be seated.
“Then, my dear madam,” continued the Major, laughing, “you must have
thought me dead. You might have known that if I had not been dead I must
have come back.”
She coloured just a trifle, but made no reply further than to invite all
the company to have supper.
Zachariah was somewhat surprised. He did not know what sort of a supper
it could be; but he was silent. She asked Pauline to take off her
bonnet, and then proceeded to lay the cloth. For five minutes, or
perhaps ten minutes, she disappeared, and then there came, not only bread
and cheese, but cold ham, a plentiful supply of beer, and, more wonderful
still, a small cold beefsteak pie. Everything was produced as easily as
if it had been the ordinary fare, and Zachariah was astonished at his
wife’s equality to the emergency. Whence she obtained the ham and
beefsteak pie he could not conjecture. She apologised for having nothing
hot; would have had something better if she had known, etc., etc., and
then sat down at the head of the table. The Major sat on her right,
Pauline next to him, and opposite to Pauline, Caillaud and Zachariah.
Their hostess immediately began to ask questions about the events of that
fatal night when they all left London.
The Major, however, interposed, and said that it would perhaps be better
if nothing was said upon that subject.
“A dismal topic,” he observed; “talking about it can do no good, and I
for one don’t want to be upset by thinking about it just before I go to
bed.”
“At least,” said Zachariah, “you can tell us why you are in Manchester?”
“Certainly,” replied the Major. “In the first place, Paris is not quite
so pleasant as it used to be; London, too, is not attractive; and we
thought that, on the whole, Manchester was to be preferred. Moreover, a
good deal will have to be done during the next twelvemonth, and
Manchester will do it. You will hear all about it when your club meets
next time.”
“You’ve been in Paris?” said Mrs. Zachariah. “Isn’t it very wicked?”
“Well, that depends on what you call wicked.”
“Surely there cannot be two opinions on that point.”
“It does seem so; and yet when you live abroad you find that things which
are made a great deal of here are not thought so much of there; and, what
is very curious, they think other things very wrong there of which we
take no account here.”
“Is that because they are not Christians?”
“Oh dear no; I am speaking of good Christian people; at least so I take
them to be. And really, when you come to consider it, we all of us make
a great fuss about our own little bit of virtue, and undervalue the
rest—I cannot tell upon whose authority.”
“But are they not, Major, dreadfully immoral in France?”
Pauline leaned over her plate and looked Mrs. Coleman straight in the
face.
“Mrs. Coleman, you are English; you—”
Her father put up his hand; he foresaw what was coming, and that upon
this subject Pauline would have defied all the rules of hospitality. So
he replied calmly, but with the calm of suppressed force:
“Mrs. Coleman, as my daughter says, you are English; you are excusable.
I will not dispute with you, but I will tell you a little story.”
“Will you not take some more beer, Mr. Caillaud, before you begin?”
“No, thank you, madam, I have finished.”
Caillaud pushed away his plate, on which three parts of what was given
him, including all the ham, remained untouched, and began—his Gallicisms
and broken English have been corrected in the version now before the
reader:
“In 1790 a young man named Dupin was living in Paris, in the house of his
father, who was a banker there. The Dupins were rich, and the son kept a
mistress, a girl named Victorine. Dupin the younger had developed into
one of the worst of men. He was strictly correct in all his dealings,
sober, guilty of none of the riotous excesses which often distinguish
youth at that age, and most attentive to business; but he was utterly
self-regarding, hard, and emotionless. What could have induced Victorine
to love him I do not know; but love him she did, and her love instead of
being a folly, was her glory. If love were always to be in proportion to
desert, measured out in strictest and justest huckstering conformity
therewith, what a poor thing it would be! The love at least of a woman
is as the love of the Supreme Himself, and just as magnificent.
Victorine was faithful to Dupin; and poor and handsome as she was, never
wronged him by a loose look. Well, Dupin’s father said his son must
marry, and the son saw how reasonable and how necessary the proposal was.
He did marry, and he cut himself adrift from Victorine without the least
compunction, allowing her a small sum weekly, insufficient to keep her.
There was no scene when they parted, for his determination was
communicated to her by letter. Three months afterwards she had a child
of whom he was the father. Did she quietly take the money and say
nothing? Did she tear up the letter in a frenzy and return him the
fragments? She did neither. She wrote to him and told him that she
would not touch his gold. She would never forget him, but she could not
be beholden to him now for a crust of bread. She had done no wrong
hitherto—so she said, Mrs. Coleman; I only repeat her words—they are not
mine. But to live on him after he had left her would be a mortal crime.
So they separated, a victim she—both victims, I may say—to this cursed
thing we call Society. One of the conditions on which the money was to
have been given was, that she should never again recognise him in any way
whatever. This half of the bargain she faithfully observed. For some
months she was alone, trying to keep herself and her child, but at last
she was taken up by a working stone-mason named Legouvé. In 1793 came
the Terror, and the Dupins were denounced and thrown into the Luxembourg.
Legouvé was one of the Committee of Public Safety. It came to the
recollection of the younger Dupin as he lay expecting death that he had
heard that the girl Victorine had gone to live with Legouvé, and a ray of
light dawned on him in his dungeon. He commissioned his wife to call on
Victorine and implore her to help them. She did so. Ah, that was a
wonderful sight—so like the Revolution! Madame Dupin, in her silks and
satins, had often passed the ragged Victorine in the streets, and, of
course, had never taken the slightest notice of her. Now Madame was
kneeling to her! Respectability was in the dust before that which was
not by any means respectable; the legitimate before the illegitimate!
Oh, it was, I say, a wonderful sight in Victorine’s wretched garret! She
was touched with pity, and, furthermore, the memory of her old days with
Dupin and her love for him revived. Legouvé was frightfully jealous, and
she knew that if she pleaded Dupin’s cause before him she would make
matters worse. A sudden thought struck her. She went to Couthon and
demanded an audience.
“‘Couthon,’ she said, ‘are the Dupins to die?’
“‘Yes, to-morrow.’
“‘Dupin the younger is the father of my child.’
“‘And he has deserted you, and you hate him. He shall die.’
“‘Pardon me, I do not hate him.’
“‘Ah, you love him still; but that is no reason why he should be spared,
my pretty one. We must do our duty. They are plotters against the
Republic, and must go.’
“‘Couthon, they must live. Consider; shall that man ascend the scaffold
with the thought in his heart that I could have rescued him, and that I
did not; that I have had my revenge? Besides, what will be said?—that
the Republic uses justice to satisfy private vengeance. All the women in
my quarter know who I am.’
“‘That is a fancy.’
“‘Fancy! Is it a fancy to murder Dupin’s wife—murder all that is good in
her—murder the belief in her for ever that there is such a thing as
generosity? You do not wish to kill the soul? That is the way with
tyrants, but not with the Republic.’
“Thus Victorine strove with Couthon, and he at last yielded. Dupin and
his father were released that night, and before daybreak they were all
out of Paris and safe. In the morning Legouvé found that they were
liberated, and on asking Couthon the reason, was answered with a smile
that they had an eloquent advocate. Victorine had warned Couthon not to
mention her name, and he kept his promise; but Legouvé conjectured but
too truly. He went home, and in a furious rage taxed Victorine with
infidelity to him, in favour of the man who had abandoned her. He would
not listen to her, and thrust her from him with curses. I say nothing
more about her history. I will only say this, that Pauline is that child
who was born to her after Dupin left her. I say it because I am so proud
that Pauline has had such a mother!”
“Pauline her daughter!” said Zachariah. “I thought she was your
daughter.”
“She is my daughter: I became her father.”
Everybody was silent.
“Ah, you say nothing,” said Caillaud; “I am not surprised. You are
astonished. Well may you be so that such a creature should ever have
lived. What would Jesus Christ have said to her?”
The company soon afterwards rose to go.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Coleman,” said the Major in his careless way; “I am glad
to find Manchester does not disagree with you. At least, I should think
it does not.”
“Oh no, Major Maitland, I like it quite as well as London. Mind, you
promise to come again _soon_—very soon.”
The Major had gone downstairs first. She had followed him to the first
landing, and then returned to bid Pauline and Caillaud good-bye. She
stood like a statue while Pauline put on her hat.
“Good-night, madam,” said Caillaud, slightly bowing.
“Good-night, madam,” said Pauline, not bowing in the least.
“Good-night,” she replied, without relaxing her rigidity.
As soon as they were in the street Pauline said, “Father, I abhor that
woman. If she lives she will kill her husband.”
Mrs. Coleman, on the other hand, at the same moment said, “Zachariah,
Pauline and Caillaud cannot come to this house again.”
“Why not?”
“Why not, Zachariah? I am astonished at you! The child of a woman who
lived in open sin!”
He made no reply. Years ago not a doubt would have crossed his mind.
That a member of Mr. Bradshaw’s church could receive such people as
Caillaud and Pauline would have seemed impossible. Nevertheless, neither
Caillaud nor Pauline were now repugnant to him; nor did he feel that any
soundless gulf separated them from him, although, so far as he knew his
opinions had undergone no change.
Mrs. Coleman forbore to pursue the subject, for her thoughts went off
upon another theme, and she was inwardly wondering whether the Major
would ever invite her to the theatre again. Just as she was going to
sleep, the figure of the Major hovering before her eyes, she suddenly
bethought herself that Pauline, if not handsome, was attractive. She
started, and lay awake for an hour. When she rose in the morning the
same thought again presented itself, to dwell with her hence forwards,
and to gnaw her continually like vitriol.