XIV

I WENT. I enjoyed myself. I went again. When the autumn came and I

returned to London for the winter session at St. Luke’s I got into the

habit of going every Saturday. It was my introduction into the world of

art and letters; I kept it a profound secret that in the privacy of my

lodgings I was busily writing; I was excited to meet people who were

writing also and I listened entranced to their conversation. All sorts

of persons came to these parties: at that time week-ends were rare, golf

was still a subject for ridicule, and few had much to do on Saturday

afternoons. I do not think anyone came who was of any great importance;

at all events, of all the painters, writers, and musicians I met at the

Driffields’ I cannot remember one whose reputation has endured; but the

effect was cultured and animated. You found young actors who were

looking for parts and middle-aged singers who deplored the fact that the

English were not a musical race, composers who played their compositions

on the Driffields’ cottage piano and complained in a whispered aside

that they sounded nothing except on a concert grand, poets who on

pressure consented to read a little thing that they had just written,

and painters who were looking for commissions. Now and then a person of

title added a certain glamour; seldom, however, for in those days the

aristocracy had not yet become bohemian and if a person of quality

cultivated the society of artists it was generally because a notorious

divorce or a little difficulty over cards had made life in his own

station (or hers) a bit awkward. We have changed all that. One of the

greatest benefits that compulsory education has conferred upon the world

is the wide diffusion among the nobility and gentry of the practice of

writing. Horace Walpole once wrote a _Catalogue of Royal and Noble

Authors_; such a work now would have the dimensions of an encyclopædia.

A title, even a courtesy one, can make a well known author of almost

anyone and it may be safely asserted that there is no better passport to

the world of letters than rank.

I have indeed sometimes thought that now that the House of Lords must

inevitably in a short while be abolished, it would be a very good plan

if the profession of literature were by law confined to its members and

their wives and children. It would be a graceful compensation that the

British people might offer the peers in return for the surrender of

their hereditary privileges. It would be a means of support for those

(too many) whom devotion to the public cause in keeping chorus girls and

race horses and playing _chemin de fer_ has impoverished, and a pleasant

occupation for the rest who by the process of natural selection have in

the course of time become unfit to do anything but govern the British

Empire. But this is an age of specialization and if my plan is adopted

it is obvious that it cannot but be to the greater glory of English

literature that its various provinces should be apportioned among the

various ranks of the nobility. I would suggest, therefore, that the

humbler branches of literature should be practised by the lower orders

of the peerage and that the barons and viscounts should devote

themselves exclusively to journalism and the drama. Fiction might be the

privileged demesne of the earls. They have already shown their aptitude

for this difficult art and their numbers are so great that they would

very competently supply the demand. To the marquises might safely be

left the production of that part of literature which is known (I have

never quite seen why) as _belles lettres_. It is perhaps not very

profitable from a pecuniary standpoint, but it has a distinction that

very well suits the holders of this romantic title.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the

sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes; he makes

the best of us look like a piece of cheese. It is evident then that the

writing of poetry should be left to the dukes, and I should like to see

their rights protected by the most severe pains and penalties, for it is

intolerable that the noblest of arts should be practised by any but the

noblest of men. And since here, too, specialization must prevail, I

foresee that the dukes (like the successors of Alexander) will divide

the realm of poetry between them, each confining himself to that aspect

with which hereditary influence and natural bent have rendered him

competent to deal: thus I see the dukes of Manchester writing poems of a

didactic and moral character, the dukes of Westminster composing

stirring odes on Duty and the Responsibilities of Empire; whereas I

imagine that the dukes of Devonshire would be more likely to write love

lyrics and elegies in the Propertian manner, while it is almost

inevitable that the dukes of Marlborough should pipe in an idyllic

strain on such subjects as domestic bliss, conscription, and content

with modest station.

But if you say that this is somewhat formidable and remind me that the

muse does not only stalk with majestic tread, but on occasion trips on a

light fantastic toe; if, recalling the wise person who said that he did

not care who made a nation’s laws so long as he wrote its songs, you ask

me (thinking rightly that it would ill become the dukes to do so) who

shall twang those measures on the lyre that the diverse and inconstant

soul of man occasionally hankers after—I answer (obviously enough, I

should have thought) the duchesses. I recognize that the day is past

when the amorous peasants of the Romagna sang to their sweethearts the

verses of Torquato Tasso and Mrs. Humphry Ward crooned over young

Arnold’s cradle the choruses of Œdipus in Colonus. The age demands

something more up-to-date. I suggest, therefore, that the more domestic

duchesses should write our hymns and our nursery rhymes; while the

skittish ones, those who incline to mingle vine leaves with the

strawberry, should write the lyrics for musical comedies, humorous verse

for the comic papers, and mottoes for Christmas cards and crackers. Thus

would they retain in the hearts of the British public that place which

they have held hitherto only on account of their exalted station.

It was at these parties on Saturday afternoon that I discovered very

much to my surprise that Edward Driffield was a distinguished person. He

had written something like twenty books, and though he had never made

more than a pittance out of them his reputation was considerable. The

best judges admired them and the friends who came to his house were

agreed that one of these days he would be recognized. They rated the

public because it would not see that here was a great writer, and since

the easiest way to exalt one man is to kick another in the pants, they

reviled freely all the novelists whose contemporary fame obscured his.

If, indeed, I had known as much of literary circles as I learned later I

should have guessed by the not infrequent visits of Mrs. Barton Trafford

that the time was approaching when Edward Driffield, like a runner in a

long-distance race breaking away suddenly from the little knot of

plodding athletes, must forge ahead. I admit that when first I was

introduced to this lady her name meant nothing to me. Driffield

presented me as a young neighbour of his in the country and told her

that I was a medical student. She gave me a mellifluous smile, murmured

in a soft voice something about Tom Sawyer, and, accepting the bread and

butter I offered her, went on talking with her host. But I noticed that

her arrival had made an impression and the conversation, which had been

noisy and hilarious, was hushed. When in an undertone I asked who she

was, I found that my ignorance was amazing; I was told that she had

“made” So and So and So and So. After half an hour she rose, shook hands

very graciously with such of the people as she was acquainted with, and

with a sort of lithe sweetness sidled out of the room. Driffield

accompanied her to the door and put her in a hansom.

Mrs. Barton Trafford was then a woman of about fifty; she was small and

slight, but with rather large features, which made her head look a

little too big for her body; she had crisp white hair which she wore

like the Venus of Milo, and she was supposed in her youth to have been

very comely. She dressed discreetly in black silk, and wore round her

neck jangling chains of beads and shells. She was said to have been

unhappily married in early life, but now for many years had been

congenially united to Barton Trafford, a clerk in the Home Office and a

well known authority on prehistoric man. She gave you the curious

impression of having no bones in her body and you felt that if you

pinched her shin (which of course my respect for her sex as well as

something of quiet dignity in her appearance would have never allowed me

to do) your fingers would meet. When you took her hand it was like

taking a fillet of sole. Her face, notwithstanding its large features,

had something fluid about it. When she sat it was as though she had no

backbone and were stuffed, like an expensive cushion, with swansdown.

Everything was soft about her, her voice, her smile, her laugh; her

eyes, which were small and pale, had the softness of flowers; her manner

was as soft as the summer rain. It was this extraordinary, and charming,

characteristic that made her the wonderful friend she was. It was this

that had gained her the celebrity that she now enjoyed. The whole world

was aware of her friendship with the great novelist whose death a few

years back had come as such a shock to the English-speaking peoples.

Everyone had read the innumerable letters which he had written to her

and which she was induced to publish shortly after his demise. Every

page revealed his admiration for her beauty and his respect for her

judgment; he could never say often enough how much he owed to her

encouragement, her ready sympathy, her tact, her taste; and if certain

of his expressions of passion were such as some persons might think

would not be read by Mr. Barton Trafford with unmixed feelings, that

only added to the human interest of the work. But Mr. Barton Trafford

was above the prejudices of vulgar men (his misfortune, if such it was,

was one that the greatest personages in history have endured with

philosophy) and, abandoning his studies of aurignacian flints and

neolithic ax heads he consented to write a Life of the deceased novelist

in which he showed quite definitely how great a part of the writer’s

genius was due to his wife’s influence.

But Mrs. Barton Trafford’s interest in literature, her passion for art,

were not dead because the friend for whom she had done so much had

become part, with her far from negligible assistance, of posterity. She

was a great reader. Little that was noteworthy escaped her attention and

she was quick to establish personal relations with any young writer who

showed promise. Her fame, especially since the Life, was now such that

she was sure that no one would hesitate to accept the sympathy she was

prepared to offer. It was inevitable that Mrs. Barton Trafford’s genius

for friendship should in due course find an outlet. When she read

something that struck her, Mr. Barton Trafford, himself no mean critic,

wrote a warm letter of appreciation to the author and asked him to

luncheon. After luncheon, having to get back to the Home Office, he left

him to have a chat with Mrs. Barton Trafford. Many were called. They all

had _something_, but that was not enough. Mrs. Barton Trafford had a

_flair_, and she trusted her _flair_; her _flair_ bade her wait.

She was so cautious indeed that with Jasper Gibbons she almost missed

the bus. The records of the past tell us of writers who grew famous in a

night, but in our more prudent day this is unheard of. The critics want

to see which way the cat will jump, and the public has been sold a pup

too often to take unnecessary chances. But in the case of Jasper Gibbons

it is almost the exact truth that he did thus jump into celebrity. Now

that he is so completely forgotten and the critics who praised him would

willingly eat their words if they were not carefully guarded in the

files of innumerable newspaper offices, the sensation he made with his

first volume of poems is almost unbelievable. The most important papers

gave to reviews of them as much space as they would have to the report

of a prize fight; the most influential critics fell over one another in

their eagerness to welcome him. They likened him to Milton (for the

sonority of his blank verse), to Keats (for the opulence of his sensuous

imagery), and to Shelley (for his airy fantasy); and, using him as a

stick to beat idols of whom they were weary, they gave in his name many

a resounding whack on the emaciated buttocks of Lord Tennyson and a few

good husky smacks on the bald pate of Robert Browning. The public fell

like the walls of Jericho. Edition after edition was sold, and you saw

Jasper Gibbons’s handsome volume in the boudoirs of countesses in

Mayfair, in vicarage drawing rooms from Land’s End to John o’ Groats,

and in the parlours of many an honest but cultured merchant in Glasgow,

Aberdeen, and Belfast. When it became known that Queen Victoria had

accepted a specially bound copy of the book from the hands of the loyal

publisher, and had given him (not the poet, the publisher) a copy of

_Leaves from a Journal in the Highlands_ in exchange, the national

enthusiasm knew no bounds.

And all this happened as it were in the twinkling of an eye. Seven

cities in Greece disputed the honour of having given birth to Homer, and

though Jasper Gibbons’s birthplace (Walsall) was well known, twice seven

critics claimed the honour of having discovered him; eminent judges of

literature who for twenty years had written eulogies of one another’s

works in the weekly papers quarrelled so bitterly over this matter that

one cut the other dead in the Athenæum. Nor was the great world remiss

in giving him its recognition. Jasper Gibbons was asked to luncheon and

invited to tea by dowager duchesses, the wives of cabinet ministers, and

the widows of bishops. It is said that Harrison Ainsworth was the first

English man of letters to move in English society on terms of equality

(and I have sometimes wondered that an enterprising publisher on this

account has not thought of bringing out a complete edition of his

works); but I believe that Jasper Gibbons was the first poet to have his

name engraved at the bottom of an At Home card as a draw as enticing as

an opera singer or a ventriloquist.

It was out of the question then for Mrs. Barton Trafford to get in on

the ground floor. She could only buy in the open market. I do not know

what prodigious strategy she employed, what miracles of tact, what

tenderness, what exquisite sympathy, what demure blandishments; I can

only surmise and admire; she nobbled Jasper Gibbons. In a little while

he was eating out of her soft hand. She was admirable. She had him to

lunch to meet the right people; she gave At Homes where he recited his

poems before the most distinguished persons in England; she introduced

him to eminent actors who gave him commissions to write plays; she saw

that his poems should only appear in the proper places; she dealt with

the publishers and made contracts for him that would have staggered even

a cabinet minister; she took care that he should accept only the

invitations of which she approved; she even went so far as to separate

him from the wife with whom he had lived happily for ten years, since

she felt that a poet to be true to himself and his art must not be

encumbered with domestic ties. When the crash came Mrs. Barton Trafford,

had she chosen, might have said that she had done everything for him

that it was humanly possible to do.

For there was a crash. Jasper Gibbons brought out another volume of

poetry; it was neither better nor worse than the first; it was very much

like the first; it was treated with respect, but the critics made

reservations; some of them even carped. The book was a disappointment.

Its sale also. And unfortunately Jasper Gibbons was inclined to tipple.

He had never been accustomed to having money to spend, he was quite

unused to the lavish entertainments that were offered him, perhaps he

missed his homely, common little wife; once or twice he came to dinner

at Mrs. Barton Trafford’s in a condition that anyone less worldly, less

simple-minded than she, would have described as blind to the world. She

told her guests gently that the bard was not quite himself that evening.

His third book was a failure. The critics tore him limb from limb, they

knocked him down and stamped on him, and, to quote one of Edward

Driffield’s favourite songs, then they lugged him round the room and

then they jumped upon his face: they were quite naturally annoyed that

they had mistaken a fluent versifier for a deathless poet and were

determined that he should suffer for their error. Then Jasper Gibbons

was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in Piccadilly and Mr. Barton

Trafford had to go to Vine Street at midnight to bail him out.

Mrs. Barton Trafford at this juncture was perfect. She did not repine.

No harsh word escaped her lips. She might have been excused if she had

felt a certain bitterness because this man for whom she had done so much

had let her down. She remained tender, gentle, and sympathetic. She was

the woman who understood. She dropped him, but not like a hot brick, or

a hot potato. She dropped him with infinite gentleness, as softly as the

tear that she doubtless shed when she made up her mind to do something

so repugnant to her nature; she dropped him with so much tact, with such

sensibility, that Jasper Gibbons perhaps hardly knew he was dropped. But

there was no doubt about it. She would say nothing against him, indeed

she would not discuss him at all, and when mention was made of him she

merely smiled, a little sadly, and sighed. But her smile was the _coup

de grâce_, and her sigh buried him deep.

Mrs. Barton Trafford had a passion for literature too sincere to allow a

setback of this character long to discourage her; and however great her

disappointment she was a woman of too disinterested a nature to let the

gifts of tact, sympathy, and understanding with which she was blessed by

nature lie fallow. She continued to move in literary circles, going to

tea parties here and there, to soirées, and to At Homes, charming always

and gentle, listening intelligently, but watchful, critical, and

determined (if I may put it crudely) next time to back a winner. It was

then that she met Edward Driffield and formed a favourable opinion of

his gifts. It is true that he was not young, but then he was unlikely

like Jasper Gibbons to go to pieces. She offered him her friendship. He

could not fail to be moved when, in that gentle way of hers, she told

him that it was a scandal that his exquisite work remained known only in

a narrow circle. He was pleased and flattered. It is always pleasant to

be assured that you are a genius. She told him that Barton Trafford was

reflecting on the possibility of writing an important article on him for

the _Quarterly Review_. She asked him to luncheon to meet people who

might be useful to him. She wanted him to know his intellectual equals.

Sometimes she took him for a walk on the Chelsea Embankment and they

talked of poets dead and gone and love and friendship, and had tea in an

A.B.C. shop. When Mrs. Barton Trafford came to Limpus Street on Saturday

afternoon she had the air of the queen bee preparing herself for the

nuptial flight.

Her manner with Mrs. Driffield was perfect. It was affable, but not

condescending. She always thanked her very prettily for having allowed

her to come and see her and complimented her on her appearance. If she

praised Edward Driffield to her, telling her with a little envy in her

tone what a privilege it was to enjoy the companionship of such a great

man, it was certainly from pure kindness, and not because she knew that

there is nothing that exasperates the wife of a literary man more than

to have another woman tell her flattering things about him. She talked

to Mrs. Driffield of the simple things her simple nature might be

supposed to be interested in, of cooking and servants and Edward’s

health and how careful she must be with him. Mrs. Barton Trafford

treated her exactly as you would expect a woman of very good Scotch

family, which she was, to treat an ex-barmaid with whom a distinguished

man of letters had made an unfortunate marriage. She was cordial,

playful, and gently determined to put her at her ease.

It was strange that Rosie could not bear her; indeed, Mrs. Barton

Trafford was the only person that I ever knew her dislike. In those days

even barmaids did not habitually use the “bitches” and “bloodys” that

are part and parcel of the current vocabulary of the best-brought-up

young ladies, and I never heard Rosie use a word that would have shocked

my Aunt Sophie. When anyone told a story that was a little near the

knuckle she would blush to the roots of her hair. But she referred to

Mrs. Barton Trafford as “that damned old cat.” It needed the most urgent

persuasions of her more intimate friends to induce her to be civil to

her.

“Don’t be a fool, Rosie,” they said. They all called her Rosie and

presently I, though very shyly, got in the habit of doing so too. “If

she wants to she can make him. He must play up to her. She can work the

trick if anyone can.”

Though most of the Driffields’ visitors were occasional, appearing every

other Saturday, say, or every third, there was a little band that, like

myself, came almost every week. We were the stand-bys; we arrived early

and stayed late. Of these the most faithful were Quentin Forde, Harry

Retford, and Lionel Hillier.

Quentin Forde was a stocky little man with a fine head of the type that

was afterward for a time much admired in the moving pictures, a straight

nose and handsome eyes, neatly cropped gray hair, and a black moustache;

if he had been four or five inches taller he would have been the perfect

type of the villain of melodrama. He was known to be very “well

connected,” and he was affluent; his only occupation was to cultivate

the arts. He went to all the first nights and all the private views. He

had the amateur’s severity, and cherished for the productions of his

contemporaries a polite but sweeping contempt. I discovered that he did

not come to the Driffields’ because Edward was a genius, but because

Rosie was beautiful.

Now that I look back I cannot get over my surprise that I should have

had to be told what was surely so obvious. When I first knew her it

never occurred to me to ask myself whether she was pretty or plain, and

when, seeing her again after five years, I noticed for the first time

that she was very pretty, I was interested but did not trouble to think

much about it. I took it as part of the natural order of things, just as

I took the sun setting over the North Sea or the towers of Tercanbury

Cathedral. I was quite startled when I heard people speak of Rosie’s

beauty, and when they complimented Edward on her looks and his eyes

rested on her for a moment, mine followed his. Lionel Hillier was a

painter and he asked her to sit for him. When he talked of the picture

he wanted to paint and told me what he saw in her, I listened to him

stupidly. I was puzzled and confused. Harry Retford knew one of the

fashionable photographers of the period and, arranging special terms, he

took Rosie to be photographed. A Saturday or two later the proofs were

there and we all looked at them. I had never seen Rosie in evening

dress. She was wearing a dress of white satin, with a long train and

puffy sleeves, and it was cut low; her hair was more elaborately done

than usual. She looked very different from the strapping young woman I

had first met in Joy Lane in a boater and a starched shirt. But Lionel

Hillier tossed the photographs aside impatiently.

“Rotten,” he said. “What can a photograph give of Rosie? The thing about

her is her colour.” He turned to her. “Rosie, don’t you know that your

colour is _the_ great miracle of the age?”

She looked at him without answering, but her full red lips broke into

their childlike, mischievous smile.

“If I can only get a suggestion of it I’m made for life,” he said. “All

the rich stockbrokers’ wives will come on their bended knees and beg me

to paint them like you.”

Presently I learned that Rosie was sitting to him, but when, never

having been in a painter’s studio and looking upon it as the gateway of

romance, I asked if I might not come one day and see how the picture was

getting on, Hillier said that he did not want anyone to see it yet. He

was a man of five and thirty and of a flamboyant appearance. He looked

like a portrait of Van Dyck in which the distinction had been replaced

by good humour. He was slightly above the middle height, slim; and he

had a fine mane of black hair and flowing moustaches and a pointed

beard. He favoured broad-brimmed sombreros and Spanish capes. He had

lived a long time in Paris and talked admiringly of painters, Monet,

Sisley, Renoir, of whom we had never heard, and with contempt of Sir

Frederick Leighton and Mr. Alma-Tadema and Mr. G. F. Watts, whom in our

heart of hearts we very much admired. I have often wondered what became

of him. He spent a few years in London trying to make his way, failed, I

suppose, and then drifted to Florence. I was told that he had a drawing

school there, but when, years later, chancing to be in that city, I

asked about him, I could find no one who had ever heard of him. I think

he must have had some talent, for I have even now a very vivid

recollection of the portrait he painted of Rosie Driffield. I wonder

what has happened to it. Has it been destroyed or is it hidden away, its

face to the wall, in the attic of a junk shop in Chelsea? I should like

to think that it has at least found a place on the walls of some

provincial gallery.

When I was at last allowed to come and see it, I put my foot in it fine

and proper. Hillier’s studio was in the Fulham Road, one of a group at

the back of a row of shops, and you went in through a dark and smelly

passage. It was a Sunday afternoon in March, a fine blue day, and I

walked from Vincent Square through deserted streets. Hillier lived in

his studio; there was a large divan on which he slept, and a tiny little

room at the back where he cooked his breakfast, washed his brushes, and,

I suppose, himself.

When I arrived Rosie still wore the dress in which she had been sitting

and they were having a cup of tea. Hillier opened the door for me, and

still holding my hand led me up to the large canvas.

“There she is,” he said.

He had painted Rosie full length, just a little less than life-size, in

an evening dress of white silk. It was not at all like the academy

portraits I was accustomed to. I did not know what to say, so I said the

first thing that came into my head.

“When will it be finished?”

“It is finished,” he answered.

I blushed furiously. I felt a perfect fool. I had not then acquired the

technique that I flatter myself now enables me to deal competently with

the works of modern artists. If this were the place I could write a very

neat little guide to enable the amateur of pictures to deal to the

satisfaction of their painters with the most diverse manifestations of

the creative instinct. There is the intense “By God” that acknowledges

the power of the ruthless realist, the “It’s so awfully sincere” that

covers your embarrassment when you are shown the coloured photograph of

an alderman’s widow, the low whistle that exhibits your admiration for

the post-impressionist, the “Terribly amusing” that expresses what you

feel about the cubist, the “Oh!” of one who is overcome, the “Ah!” of

him whose breath is taken away.

“It’s awfully like,” was all that then I could lamely say.

“It’s not chocolate-boxy enough for you,” said Hillier.

“I think it’s awfully good,” I answered quickly, defending myself. “Are

you going to send it to the Academy?”

“Good God, no! I might send it to the Grosvenor.”