Nettie Collins, Gwendolen’s social guide, declared she had nothing more
to teach her pupil now she had made such progress in the art of
observation, recognised her lover, and just lately known her father
again. This last event had been curious. One day, Gwen was walking
through the rooms of the National Gallery, enjoying the beauty of art
that had been hidden from her for so many years; as she stood in front
of Pinturicchio’s “Story of Griselda,” wondering at the past generations
who not only allowed, but insisted on women turning themselves into
beasts of burden, she noticed a middle-aged man of commanding stature,
close to her, gazing at the same picture. She looked up and her eyes met
his; her present surroundings vanished, and she lived in an evoked
dream, which brought back past scenes and long-buried joys. As she
stared at him, she little by little reconstructed the scenes of her
childhood, and as in a trance her lovely lips faintly murmured the word
“Father.”
“What a magician is love,” thought Gwendolen, when she retired that
night to her bedroom, after long hours of conversation with her father.
What could Nettie teach her now? Still she kept the sprightly little
guide by her, to help her in working out the problems of social reforms.
The two reformers put their clever heads together, and assisted by Eva
Carey—Gwendolen’s bosom friend—they organised several guilds for the
purpose of bringing together the East-End factory girls and the West-End
fair damsels. They came to the conclusion that the West-Enders had been
often enough in the dark continent of Stepney, Hackney, and Bow, to
amuse, sing or recite, read and teach the poor isolated classes, who,
after all, knew no more of their instructors and entertainers than if
they had come down from the planet Mars. The three friends thought this
time they would have the East-End on a visit to the West-End, and on
their own ground would make them acquainted with that world which they
had only read about in penny shockers. Since the disappearance of
clothes, misery had lost a good deal of its sting, and envy and rancour
were things of the past civilisation. Hitherto the craving for money had
robbed our world of the one virtue which opens every heart to sympathy:
Pity. How could a factory girl, who struggled on five shillings a week,
ever imagine that the owner of a West-End mansion needed sympathy? Money
was the great soother, and in the eyes of those who did not eat enough,
it granted one the privileges of eating more than your fill, of lying in
bed when having a headache, of taking a holiday when run down in health;
it even went so far, in their ignorant minds, as to pad the aching
throbs of a broken heart. The East-Ender knew no limit to what money
could do, because he had none himself and was convinced that to possess
in abundance the things which he sorely lacked must doubtless be the
cause of all happiness. He was so grossly one-sided and ignorant that he
was inclined to believe that even the laws of nature could be altered by
the power of riches; but however foolish he may have been, he was not
alone in judging in this dogmatic manner. The West-Ender was equally
uninformed as to what lay beneath the sordid rags of the classes of
which he knew nothing; he endowed the poorer classes with a callousness
of feeling which at first sight seemed in keeping with their reeky
clothes and shabby environments, and denied them any particle of that
romance which he believed could only be the privilege of the
well-dressed. And thus the two antipodes of London lived in a baneful
ignorance of one another. But now that the vanishing of toggery had laid
bare the two hearts of our social world, Gwen was determined to put the
picture of humanity in proper perspective, and to soften the crudity of
light and darkness that had been so offensive to both parties. Over and
over again Gwen gathered her friends and her friends’ friends in the
various parks of London. They played and laughed under the trees, they
listened to Nettie’s amusing recitals of her adventurous life, which
were varied—for she made her _début_ at Hackney’s Music Hall, and ended
her career at the Alhambra! She greatly diverted her audience, for her
ideas of the world at large were always flavoured with a grain of
good-humoured satire and gentle humour. She was fresh and impulsive,
human and perceptive, and possessed the invaluable gift of developing in
the East-Ender girls the precious sense of humour and discrimination
which lightens every burden, and seems to filter through opaque dulness
like a ray of sunlight.
How much more pleasant were those pastoral entertainments than the
old-fashioned At Home, or even than the attractive garden parties!
Tournaments were organised to promote the love of beauty, and to develop
the imaginative power that lies more or less dormant in everyone, but
more particularly so amongst the London poorer classes. The first one
was a floral tournament. Every girl of the East-End and the West-End was
to appear in the prettiest, and most original floral accoutrement; they
were granted full permission to use their imagination to conceive
wonderful designs and combination of colours; Gwen hoped in this way to
instil in the Anglo-Saxon race an æsthetic knowledge of decoration which
was sorely lacking. Another time she aimed at a more ambitious
entertainment, and started a series of historical tournaments. A group
of girls were selected amongst the West and East-End maidens, and to
each of them an historical character was given to impersonate.
Historians were invited to lecture on historical subjects so as to
acquaint the girls with the character they wished to personify. This new
mode of inoculating the taste for history was as instructive as it was
dramatic; besides, it developed memory, for there was no doubt that the
East-Ender’s ignorance, as related to past and present history, was not
more appalling than that of the Mayfair belle. Nettie decided that the
first three tournaments ought to be consecrated to personages of our own
times, or at least the Victorian age; for uncultured minds could not be
supposed to interest themselves in historical characters so far removed
from the present period as Charles II., Henry VIII., or Alfred. It was
gradually that the dramatic study of history was to take them backwards,
instead of making them leap into a far-distant abyss, expecting the
bewildered brain to grope its way back to our throbbing present.
Lionel frequently came to surprise Gwendolen in Kensington Gardens,
where she rehearsed with the girls. He came in through the gates facing
the Memorial Monument. By the way, the statue had been, with due
respect, removed to a private niche in the In Memoriam Museum of
discarded monuments, where only members of the Royal Family were
admitted to see it, on applying first to the Lord Chamberlain. Already
the younger members of the family showed a distinct repulsion to seeing
their ancestor robed in such abnormal garments, and one of the royal
infants had been seized with a fit in the arms of his nurse at the sight
of it.
Lionel, one lovely day in June, walked down the Long Avenue of
Kensington Palace Gardens; at a distance he could perceive the groups of
lissome nymphs surrounding Gwen, some scattered under the trees, others
lying on the grass; and his Greek appreciation of art made him hail this
pastoral scene as a great success. Those who had visited the Wallace
Collection would no doubt compare the picture to a Boucher; but Lionel,
who had more discrimination, thought it put him in mind of a Corot.
Perhaps he was right.
“Here you are, Lionel,” and Gwen walked up to him as he came near. “We
are having a final rehearsal of our passion tournament. I have already
told you of it. Bella will represent Love; Violet has chosen Anger;
Flora begs to be Dignity, and so on. They are quite excited about it,
the more so as no reading up can help them in this; they will have to
work out their own ideas about the passions they wish to personify. You
see, Lionel, we have had enough of external excitement, we must now look
inwardly for all our pleasures. It is a step higher than historical
impersonation, though we intend to make the two studies work
together.—Nettie, I shall leave you in charge of them, for you are sure
to give them useful hints about their parts and to develop a little more
subtlety into their monodrama.—Come, Lion, my Lion, let us stroll under
the trees; I have so much to say to you.” And she looked into his eyes,
and caressingly held his hand close to her cheek, as they walked away.
His heart was full, and he thought deeply and analysed minutely his
emotions, trying to define the newly-acquired standard of morals that
was slowly transforming their old rotten Society into a rational
sociality. One feature of the old world had certainly disappeared since
the storm—lascivious curiosity. How could morbid erotism find any place
in our reformed republic? Eve-like nakedness robbed a woman of all
impure suggestiveness. It was the half-clad, half-disrobed, that had
made man run amok in the race for brutal enjoyment; for the goods laid
out in the shop windows are not by far so alluring as what peeps behind
the counter.
“Gwen, how lovely you are! Your face is a crystal reflecting every
beautiful emotion in your heart. Even Raphael would have despaired of
fixing your expression.”
“You will make me vain, Lionel. There are many things that I cannot yet
grasp, although we have so many hours on hand since the loss of our
furbelows. You do not realise what difference it makes in a woman’s
life.—But I shall be happy when my small mission has succeeded and when
I have imparted to women the love of study.”
“A man’s days were pretty much employed in the same senseless pursuits.
Some feel it intensely—Lord Mowbray, for instance, who does not know
what to do with his costly jewels, now he cannot stick them all over his
Oriental costumes and appear as a twentieth-century Aroun-al-Raschid.”
“Ah! he will develop with the rest, and easily find out the unmarketable
value of his luxury; or if he does not evolve, he will be swept away by
the great wave of reform which waits for no man. But I am more concerned
about Ronald Sinclair;—of course, you guess the reason.”
“Does Eva still care for him?”
“Eva is not a girl likely to change. She loved him formerly for his wit,
his irony, and I am sorry to say, for his disdainful manner towards her.
But her love has now acquired a new stimulus—pity, which she feels for
all his deficiencies. She may in time bring him round to see life from a
wider and more humane point of view, but for the present he laughs at
our meetings, and vows the mixing of classes cannot succeed. He pretends
that nothing but the pursuits of fastidious æstheticism can save this
state of ours from vulgarity. Somehow, I feel that he is not right,
though I cannot tell in what his teaching is lacking.”
“We shall do a great deal for them when we are married,” softly said
Lionel.
“Ah! my dearest Lion, this is one of the serious questions that has
troubled me. Nettie cannot, or will not help me in this matter; she says
I have to find that out alone, and that later on she will work out the
details for me. The first stumbling-block is—the wedding. What kind of a
wedding could it be?”
“Well, I suppose—the church, the ceremony, and all the rest that
precedes and follows such functions. It is not that I care for the whole
show, dearest; I personally think it a terrible ordeal to have to
exhibit oneself on such an occasion.”
“Think of it, Lionel; it means walking to the altar just as we are—no
wedding dress, no bridesmaids; the congregation likewise, and the priest
no better attired than the verger or bridegroom. Where would be the
show? Where the customary apotheosis of smartness? Even the thunderous
organ striking up Mendelssohn’s march would be an inadequate
accompaniment to a procession of Adamites.”
“To tell you the truth, Gwen, I had never thought of it. The important
thing was our love; the ceremony appeared to me as a thing not worth
giving a thought; but now, it does seem to me an utter impossibility to
go through such an incongruous function; and for the first time I see
how indecent public functions are.—There have been no weddings since the
storm, now I think of it.”
“No; Nettie told me that Society had put off all the forthcoming
weddings until this freak of nature had passed—how silly of Society! _I
do not wish to wait, for the very good reason_ that I believe this state
of affairs will continue.”
“And I hope it may last for ever, for I owe to it your love, Gwen. Let
us dispense with the public function.”
“Then no wedding?”
“No, at least, no bridesmaids, no wedding cake, no invitations above
all.”
“No.” Gwen absently gazed in front of her, murmuring softly, “My uncle,
the Bishop of Warren, would officiate at our small chapel at Harewood,
and father would give me away. It would be very strange. No stole, no
Bishop’s sleeves, none of the canonical vestments that form part of the
religious rites. All this had not struck me, so engrossed was I with our
own appearance; but when once you knock down part of the ceremony, the
other must inevitably disappear in the downfall; and in the total
destruction of outward signs, it seems as if the principle of religion
had also received a fatal blow.”
“Then no wedding march, no benediction?”
“No, Lionel. Do not the triumphant chords vibrate more sonorously in our
two exultant hearts, than in any organ?” and she lifted her beautiful
eyes high above the tops of the trees. Lionel bent his head, and touched
her softly-luxuriant hair with his lips.
Nettie, who at a distance caught sight of his movement, could not help
smiling and thinking that the British race was becoming less
self-conscious.
“Gwen,” murmured her lover, “listen to the two linnets on that branch.
Have they invited their friends and relations to come and witness their
betrothal? Happiness is timorous, and shuns the world. Those who truly
love, fly from the crowd, to murmur their loving vows uninterrupted by
comments and gossip.”
“My Lion, you have put into words what my heart has felt for days.
Surely marriage is an action which only concerns those who are
interested. Besides, the social laws of morality which governed our old
world cannot any longer apply to our own. Let us return to Nettie; she
is sure to furnish us with useful suggestions for carrying out our
plan.” They turned back, and very soon were met by Nettie and Eva; the
former, with her sprightly physiognomy, brought their wandering minds
back to practical life and to bare facts.
“Have you discovered some new laws of life since you left us?”
Gwen proceeded to relate to her friends what they had arrived at
concerning weddings in general; and she asked Nettie to find some means
of realising their project.
“I should suggest a drive in your chariot to some isolated spot in the
country. Stay in some labourer’s cottage, and on the day which would
have been the one appointed by you in our past Society for the wedding,
I should advise you to spend it in the fields and to have a mutual
confession;—what I would call a complete reckoning of your two inner
lives; for that ought really to be the true meaning of marriage, which
was so rarely understood in our past Society.”
“This sounds very like Ibsen, dear Nettie,” remarked Eva.
“But what do you suggest after that?” asked Gwen.
“Stay away as long as you can; then return to your occupations here, for
you know we cannot spare you for a very long time; there are so many
things we want to launch before the season is over. Of course, no
announcement of your marriage is required, you will tell your friends
when you come back, and as to the rest of the world, it is immaterial
whether they know it or not.”
“It certainly seems simple enough, and in that way we escape all foolish
questions.”
“My dear Lord Somerville, I think that you will find that no one will
take the slightest notice of your escapade. In London, what is past is
seldom interesting,” added the little buffoon, who had for some time put
this axiom to the test when she was on the Music Halls.
“I believe you are right,” answered Lionel, “and the saddest tragedy of
last week has no chance against the daily scandals.”
“Society lives greatly on its own imagination”—the sententious humourist
was taking a flight into speculative land. “Society is the biggest
romancer you ever came across; it hates truth and _bona-fide_ dramas;
despises the scandals that have not been spun at their own fireside; and
follows to the letter the well-known maxim, that truth makes the worst
fiction.”
“Do you not think, Nettie, now marriage has become a grave reality, that
the least said about it at large, the better?”
“By all means; and the less seen of it the better still. Do not forget
that this evening we go to the Circus to witness the first
representation given by the Society of new stagers. You have no idea, my
lord, what a bevy of young actors are coming to the fore to outshine the
old ones.”
“We were in sore need of real dramatic artists, owing to the utter
inability of impersonating characters without wardrobe paraphernalia.
Perhaps we shall be able in time to form a school of dramatic
psychologists. But here comes Danford; he will tell us what is going
on.”