They had separated from the rest of the picnickers, and were walking up
and down that little orchard or field--rows of brown maize distaffs and
tangles of reddening half trodden-down maize leaves, and patches of tall
grass powdered with hemlock under the now rather battered vine garlands,
the pomegranate branches weighed down by their vermilion fruit, the
peach branches making a Japanese pattern of narrow crimson leaves
against the blue sky--that odd cultivated corner in the God-forsaken
little marsh island, given up to sea-gulls and picnickers, of Torcello.
"Poor little Clarence," mused Lady Tal, alluding to the rather
feeble-minded young millionaire, who had brought them there, five
gondolas full of women in lilac and pink and straw-coloured frocks,
and men in white coats, three guitars, a banjo, and two mandolins, and
the corresponding proportion of table linen, knives and forks, pies,
bottles, and sweetmeats with crinkled papers round them. "Poor little
Clarence, he isn't a bad little thing, is he? He wouldn't be bad to a
woman who married him, would he?"
"He would adore her," answered Jervase Marion, walking up and down that
orchard by Lady Tal's side. "He would give her everything the heart of
woman could desire; carriages, horses, and diamonds, and frocks from
Worth, and portraits by Lenbach and Sargent, and bric-a-brac, and--ever
so much money for charities, hospitals, that sort of thing----and----and
complete leisure and freedom and opportunities for enjoying the company
of men not quite so well off as himself."
Marion stopped short, his hands thrust in his pockets, and with that
frown which made people think that his boots pinched. He was looking
down at his boots at this moment, though he was really thinking of that
famous novel, his, not Lady Tal's; so Lady Tal may have perhaps thought
it was the boots that made him frown, and speak in a short, cross little
way. Apparently she thought so, for she took no notice of his looks, his
intonation, or his speech.
"Yes," she continued musing, striking the ground with her umbrella,
"he's a good little thing. It's good to bring us all to Torcello, with
all that food and those guitars, and banjos and things, particularly as
we none of us throw a word at him in return. And he seems so pleased. It
shows a very amiable, self-effacing disposition, and that's, after all,
the chief thing in marriage. But, Lord! how dreary it would be to see
that man at breakfast, and lunch, and dinner! or if one didn't, merely
to know that there he must be, having breakfast, lunch and dinner
somewhere--for I suppose he would have to have them--that man existing
somewhere on the face of the globe, and speaking of one as 'my wife.'
Fancy knowing the creature was always smiling, whatever one did, and
never more jealous than my umbrella. Wouldn't it feel like being one of
the fish in that tank we saw? Wouldn't living with the Bishop--is he a
bishop?--of Torcello, in that musty little house with all the lichen
stains and mosquito nests, and nothing but Attila's throne to call
upon--be fun compared with that? Yes, I suppose it's wise to marry
Clarence. I suppose I shall do right in making him marry my cousin. You
know"--she added, speaking all these words slowly--"I could make him
marry anybody, because he wants to marry me."
Marion gave a little start as Lady Tal had slowly pronounced those two
words, "my cousin." Lady Tal noticed it.
"You thought I had contemplated having Clarence myself?" she said,
looking at the novelist with a whimsical, amused look. "Well, so I have.
I have contemplated a great many things, and not had the courage to do
them. I've contemplated going off to Germany, and studying nursing; and
going off to France, and studying painting; I've contemplated turning
Catholic, and going into a convent. I've contemplated--well--I'm
contemplating at present--becoming a _great_ novelist, as you know. I've
contemplated marrying poor men, and becoming their amateur charwoman;
and I've contemplated marrying rich men, and becoming--well, whatever a
penniless woman does become when she marries a rich man; but I've done
that once before, and once is enough of any experience in life, at least
for a person of philosophic cast of mind, don't you think? I confess I
have been contemplating the possibility of marrying Clarence, though I
don't see my way to it. You see, it's not exactly a pleasant position to
be a widow and not to be one, as I am, in a certain sense. Also, I'm
bored with living on my poor husband's money, particularly as I know he
wished me to find it as inconvenient as possible to do so. I'm bored
with keeping the capital from that wretched boy and his mother, who
would get it all as soon as I was safely married again. That's it. As a
matter of fact I'm bored with all life, as I daresay most people are;
but to marry this particular Clarence, or any other Clarence that may be
disporting himself about, wouldn't somehow diminish the boringness of
things. Do you see?"
"I see," answered Marion. Good Heavens, what a thing it is to be a
psychological novelist! and how exactly he had guessed at the reality of
Lady Atalanta's character and situation. He would scarcely venture to
write that novel of his; he might as well call it _Lady Tal_ at once. It
was doubtless this discovery which made him grow suddenly very red and
feel an intolerable desire to say he knew not what.
They continued walking up and down that little orchard, the brown
maize leaves all around, the bright green and vermilion enamel of the
pomegranate trees, the Japanese pattern, red and yellow, of the peach
branches, against the blue sky above.
"My dear Lady Tal," began Marion, "my dear young lady, will you
allow--an elderly student of human nature to say--how--I fear it must
seem very impertinent--how thoroughly--taking your whole situation as if
it were that of a third person--he understanding its difficulties--and,
taking the situation no longer quite as that of a third person, how
earnestly he hopes that----"
Marion was going to say "you will not derogate from the real nobility
of your nature." But only a fool could say such a thing; besides, of
course, Lady Tal _must_ derogate. So he finished off:
"That events will bring some day a perfectly satisfactory, though
perhaps unforeseen, conclusion for you."
Lady Tal was paying no attention. She plucked one of the long withered
peach leaves, delicate, and red, and transparent, like a Chinese visiting
card, and began to pull it through her fingers.
"You see," she said, "of the income my husband left me, I've been taking
only as much as seemed necessary--about two thousand a year. I mean
necessary that people shouldn't see that I'm doing this sort of thing;
because, after all, I suppose a woman could live on less, though I am
an expensive woman.--The rest, of course, I've been letting accumulate
for the heir; I couldn't give it him, for that would have been going
against my husband's will. But it's rather boring to feel one's keeping
that boy,--such a nasty young brute as he is--and his horrid mother out
of all that money, merely by being there. It's rather humiliating, but
it would be more humiliating to marry another man for his money. And I
don't suppose a poor man would have me; and perhaps I wouldn't have a
poor man. Now, suppose I were the heroine of your novel--you know you
_are_ writing a novel about me, that's what makes you so patient with
me and _Christina_, you're just walking round, and looking at me----"
"Oh, my dear Lady Tal--how--how can you think such a thing!" gobbled out
Marion indignantly. And really, at the moment of speaking, he did feel a
perfectly unprofessional interest in this young lady, and was
considerably aggrieved at this accusation.
"Aren't you? Well, I thought you were. You see I have novel on the
brain. Well, just suppose you _were_ writing that novel, with me for
a heroine, what would you advise me? One has got accustomed to having
certain things--a certain amount of clothes, and bric-a-brac and horses,
and so forth, and to consider them necessary. And yet, I think if one
were to lose them all to-morrow, it wouldn't make much difference. One
would merely say: 'Dear me, what's become of it all?' And yet I suppose
one does require them--other people have them, so I suppose it's right
one should have them also. Other people like to come to Torcello in five
gondolas with three guitars, a banjo, and lunch, and to spend two hours
feeding and littering the grass with paper bags; so I suppose one ought
to like it too. If it's right, I like it. I always conform, you know;
only it's rather dull work, don't you think, considered as an interest
in life? Everything is dull work, for the matter of that, except dear
old _Christina_. What do you think one might do to make things a little
less dull? But perhaps everything is equally dull----"
Lady Tal raised one of those delicately-pencilled, immensely arched
eyebrows of hers, with a sceptical little sigh, and looked in front of
her, where they were standing.
Before them rose the feathery brown and lilac of the little marsh at the
end of the orchard, long seeding reeds, sere grasses, sea lavender, and
Michaelmas daisy; and above that delicate bloom, on an unseen strip of
lagoon, moved a big yellow and brown sail, slowly flapping against the
blue sky. From the orchard behind, rose at intervals the whirr of a
belated cicala; they heard the dry maize leaves crack beneath their
feet.
"It's all very lovely," remarked Lady Tal pensively; "but it doesn't
somehow fit in properly. It's silly for people like me to come to such a
place. As a rule, since Gerald's death, I only go for walks in civilized
places: they're more in harmony with my frocks."
Jervase Marion did not answer. He leaned against the bole of a peach
tree, looking out at the lilac and brown sea marsh and the yellow sail,
seeing them with that merely physical intentness which accompanies great
mental preoccupation. He was greatly moved. He was aware of a fearful
responsibility. Yet neither the emotion nor the responsibility made him
wretched, as he always fancied that all emotion or responsibility must.
He seemed suddenly to be in this young woman's place, to feel the
already begun, and rapid increasing withering-up of this woman's soul,
the dropping away from it of all real, honest, vital interests. She
seemed to him in horrible danger, the danger of something like death.
And there was but one salvation: to give up that money, to make herself
free----Yes, yes, there was nothing for it but that. Lady Tal, who
usually struck him as so oppressively grown up, powerful, able to cope
with everything, affected him at this moment as a something very young,
helpless, almost childish; he understood so well that during all those
years this big woman in her stiff clothes, with her inexpressive face,
had been a mere child in the hands of her brother, that she had never
thought, or acted, or felt for herself; that she had not lived.
Give up that money; give up that money; marry some nice young fellow
who will care for you; become the mother of a lot of nice little
children----The words went on and on in Marion's mind, close to his
lips; but they could not cross them. He almost saw those children of
hers, the cut of their pinafores and sailor clothes, the bend of their
blond and pink necks; and that nice young husband, blond of course, tall
of course, with vague, regular features, a little dull perhaps, but
awfully good. It was so obvious, so right. At the same time it seemed
rather tame; and Marion, he didn't know why, while perceiving its
extreme rightness and delightfulness, couldn't help wincing a little bit
at the prospect----
Lady Tal must have been engaged simultaneously in some similar
contemplation, for she suddenly turned round, and said:
"But after all, anything else might perhaps be just as boring as all
this. And fancy having given up that money all for nothing; one would
feel such a fool. On the whole, my one interest in life is evidently
destined to be _Christina_, and the solution of all my doubts will be
the appearance of the 'New George Eliot of fashionable life'; don't you
think that sounds like the heading in one of your American papers, the
Buffalo _Independent_, or Milwaukee _Republican_?"
Marion gave a little mental start.
"Just so, just so," he answered hurriedly: "I think it would be a fatal
thing--a very fatal thing for you to--well--to do anything rash, my dear
Lady Tal. After all, we must remember that there is such a thing as
habit; a woman accustomed to the life you lead, although I don't deny it
may sometimes seem dull, would be committing a mistake, in my opinion a
great mistake, in depriving herself, for however excellent reasons, of
her fortune. Life is dull, but, on the whole, the life we happen to live
is usually the one which suits us best. My own life, for instance,
strikes me at moments, I must confess, as a trifle dull. Yet I should be
most unwise to change it, most unwise. I think you are quite right in
supposing that novel-writing, if you persevere in it, will afford you
a--very--well--a--considerable interest in life."
Lady Tal yawned under her parasol.
"Don't you think it's time for us to go back to the rest of our rabble?"
she asked. "It must be quite three-quarters of an hour since we finished
lunch, so I suppose it's time for tea, or food of some sort. Have you
ever reflected, Mr. Marion, how little there would be in picnics, and in
life in general, if one couldn't eat a fresh meal every three-quarters
of an hour?"