"I don't say we have never had a suicide here before, sir," said the
porter in reply to Harding as they descended the steps of the hotel;
"but I don't see how we are to help it. Whenever the upper classes
want to do away with themselves they chose one of the big hotels--the
Grosvenor, the Langham, or ourselves. Indeed they say more has done
the trick in the Langham than 'ere, I suppose because it is more
central; but you can't get behind the motives of such people. They
never think of the trouble and the harm they do us; they only think
of themselves."
London was now awake; the streets were a-clatter with cabs; the pick
of the navvy resounded; night loiterers were disappearing and giving
place to hurrying early risers. In the resonant morning the young men
walked together to the Corner. There they stopped to bid each other
good-bye. John called a cab, and returned home in intense mental
agitation.
"It really is terrible," said Mike. "It isn't like life at all, but
some shocking nightmare. What could have induced her to do it?"
"That we shall probably never know," said Thompson; "and she seemed
brimming over with life and fun. How she did dance! ..."
"That was nerves. I had a long talk with her, and I assure you she
quite frightened me. She spoke about the weariness of living;--no,
not as we talk of it, philosophically; there was a special accent of
truth in what she said. You remember the porter mentioned that she
asked if No. 57 was occupied. I believe that is the room where she
used to meet her lover. I believe they had had a quarrel, and that
she went there intent on reconciliation, and finding him gone
determined to kill herself. She told me she had had a lover for the
last four years. I don't know why she told me--it was the first time
I ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover; but she was in an
awful state of nerve excitement, and I think hardly knew what she was
saying. She took the letter out of her bosom and read it slowly. I
couldn't help seeing it was in a man's handwriting; it began, '_Ma
chère amie!_' I heard her tell her husband to take the brougham; that
she would come home in a cab. However, if my supposition is correct,
I hope she burnt the letter."
"Perhaps that's what she lit the fire for. Did you notice if the
writing materials had been used?"
"No, I didn't notice," said Mike. "And all so elaborately planned!
Just fancy--shooting herself in a nice warm bed! She was determined
to do it effectually. And she must have had the revolver in her
pocket the whole time. I remember now, I had gone out of the room for
a moment, and when I came back she was leaning over the
chimney-piece, looking at something."
"I have often thought," said Harding, "that suicide is the
culminating point of a state of mind long preparing. I think that the
mind of the modern suicide is generally filled, saturated with the
idea. I believe that he or she has been given for a long time
preceding the act to considering, sometimes facetiously, sometimes
sentimentally, the advantages of oblivion. For a long time an
infiltration of desire of oblivion, and acute realization of the
folly of living, precedes suicide, and, when the mind is thoroughly
prepared, a slight shock or interruption in the course of life
produces it, just as an odorous wind, a sight of the sea, results in
the poem which has been collecting in the mind."
"I think you might have the good feeling to forbear," said Frank;
"the present is hardly, I think, a time for epigrams or philosophy. I
wonder how you can talk so...."
"I think Frank is quite right. What right have we to analyse her
motives?"
"Her motives were simple enough; sad enough too, in all conscience.
Why make her ridiculous by forcing her heart into the groove of your
philosophy? The poor woman was miserably deceived; abominably
deceived. You do not know what anguish of mind she suffered."
"There is nothing to show that she went to the Alexandra to meet a
lover beyond the fact of a statement made to Mike in a moment of
acute nervous excitement. We have no reason to think that she ever
had a lover. I never heard her name mentioned in any such way. Did
you, Escott?"
"Yes; I have heard that you were her lover."
"I assure you I never was; we have not even been on good terms for a
long time past."
"You said just now that the act was generally preceded by a state of
feeling long preparing. It was you who taught her to read
Schopenhauer."
"I am not going to listen to nonsense at this hour of the morning. I
never take nonsense on an empty stomach. Come, Thompson, you are
going my way."
Mike and Frank walked home together. The clocks had struck six, and
the milkmen were calling their ware; soon the shop-shutters would be
coming down, and in this first flush of the day's enterprise, a last
belated vegetable-cart jolted towards the market. Mike's thoughts
flitted from the man who lay a-top taking his ease, his cap pulled
over his eyes, to the scene that was now taking place in the twilight
bedroom. What would Seymour say? Would he throw himself on his knees?
Frank spoke from time to time; his thoughts growled like a savage
dog, and his words bit at his friend. For Mike had incautiously given
an account in particular detail of his _tête-à-tête_ with Lady Helen.
"Then you are in a measure answerable for her death."
"You said just now that Harding was answerable; we can't both be
culpable."
Frank did not reply. He brooded in silence, losing all perception of
the truth in a stupid and harsh hatred of those whom he termed the
villains that ruined women. When they reached Leicester Square, to
escape from the obsession of the suicide, Mike said--
"I do not think that I told you that I have sketched out a trilogy on
the life of Christ. The first play _John_, the second _Christ_, the
third _Peter_. Of course I introduce Christ into the third play. You
know the legend. When Peter is flying from Rome to escape
crucifixion, he meets Christ carrying His cross."
"Damn your trilogy--who cares! You have behaved abominably. I want
you to understand that I cannot--that I do not hold with your
practice of making love to every woman you meet. In the first place
it is beastly, in the second it is not gentlemanly. Look at the
result!"
"But I assure you I am in no wise to blame in this affair. I never
was her lover."
"But you made love to her."
"No, I didn't; we talked of love, that was all. I could see she was
excited, and hardly knew what she was saying. You are most unjust. I
think it quite as horrible as you do; it preys upon my mind, and if I
talk of other things it is because I would save myself the pain of
thinking of it. Can't you understand that?"
The conversation fell, and Mike thrust both hands into the pockets of
his overcoat.
At the end of a long silence, Frank said--
"We must have an article on this--or, I don't know--I think I should
like a poem. Could you write a poem on her death?"
"I think so. A prose poem. I was penetrated with the modern
picturesqueness of the room--the Venetian blinds."
"If that's the way you are going to treat it, I would sooner not have
it--the face in the glass, a lot of repetitions of words, sentences
beginning with 'And,' then a mention of shoes and silk stockings. If
you can't write feelingly about her, you had better not write at
all."
"I don't see that a string of colloquialisms constitute feelings,"
said Mike.
Mike kept his temper; he did not intend to allow it to imperil his
residence in Temple Gardens, or his position in the newspaper; but he
couldn't control his vanity, and ostentatiously threw Lady Helen's
handkerchief upon the table, and admitted to having picked it up in
the hotel.
"What am I to do with it? I suppose I must keep it as a relic," he
added with a laugh, as he opened his wardrobe.
There were there ladies' shoes, scarves, and neckties; there were
there sachets and pincushions; there were there garters, necklaces,
cotillion favours, and a tea-gown.
Again Frank boiled over with indignation, and having vented his sense
of rectitude, he left the room without even bidding his friend
good-night or good-morning. The next day he spent the entire
afternoon with Lizzie, for Lady Helen's suicide had set his nature in
active ferment.
In the story of every soul there are times of dissolution and
reconstruction in which only the generic forms are preserved. A new
force had been introduced, and it was disintegrating that mass of
social fibre which is modern man, and the decomposition teemed with
ideas of duty, virtue, and love. He interrupted Lizzie's chit-chat
constantly with reflections concerning the necessity of religious
belief in women.
About seven they went to eat in a restaurant close by. It was an old
Italian chop-house that had been enlarged and modernized, but the
original marble tables where customers ate chops and steaks at low
prices were retained in a remote and distant corner. Lizzie proposed
to sit there. They were just seated when a golden-haired girl of
theatrical mien entered.
"That's Lottie Rily," exclaimed Lizzie. Then lowering her voice she
whispered quickly, "She was in love with Mike once; he was the fellow
she left her 'ome for. She's on the stage now, and gets four pounds a
week. I haven't seen her for the last couple of years. Lottie, come
and sit down here."
The girl turned hastily. "What, Lizzie, old pal, I have not seen you
for ages."
"Not for more than two years. Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.
Escott--Miss Lottie Rily of the Strand Theatre."
"Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir; the editor of the
_Pilgrim_, I presume?"
Frank smiled with pleasure, and the waiter interposed with the bill
of fare. Lottie ordered a plate of roast beef, and leaned across the
table to talk to her friend.
"Have you seen Mike lately?" asked Lizzie.
"Swine!" she answered, tossing her head. "No; and don't want to. You
know how he treated me. He left me three months after my baby was
born."
"Have you had a baby?"
"What, didn't you know that? It is seven months old; 'tis a boy,
that's one good job. And he hasn't paid me one penny piece. I have
been up to Barber and Barber's, but they advised me to do nothing.
They said that he owed them money, and that they couldn't get what he
owed them--a poor look-out for me. They said that if I cared to
summons him for the support of the child, that the magistrate would
grant me an order at once."
"And why don't you?" said Frank; "you don't like the _exposé_ in the
newspapers."
"That's it."
"Do you care for him still?"
"I don't know whether I do, or don't. I shall never love another man,
I know that. I saw him in front about a month ago. He was in the
stalls, and he fixed his eyes upon me; I didn't take the least
notice, he was so cross. He came behind after the first act. He said,
'How old you are looking!' I said, 'What do you mean?' I was very
nicely made up too, and he said, 'Under the eyes.' I said, 'What do
you mean?' and he said, 'You are all wrinkles.' I said, 'What do you
mean?' and he went down-stairs.... Swine!"
"He isn't good-looking," said Frank, reflectively, "a broken nose, a
chin thrust forward, and a mop of brown curls twisted over his
forehead. Give me a pencil, and I'll do his caricature."
"Every one says the same thing. The girls in the theatre all say,
'What in the world do you see in him?' I tell them that if he
chose--if he were to make up to them a bit, they'd go after him just
the same as I did. There's a little girl in the chorus, and she trots
about after him; she can't help it. There are times when I don't care
for him. What riles me is to see other women messing him about."
"I suppose it is some sort of magnetism, electro-biology, and he
can't help exercising it any more than you women can resist it. Tell
me, how did he leave you?"
"Without a word or a penny. One night he didn't come home, and I sat
up for him, and I don't know how many nights after. I used to doze
off and awake up with a start, thinking I heard his footstep on the
landing. I went down to Waterloo Bridge to drown myself. I don't know
why I didn't; I almost wish I had, although I have got on pretty well
since, and get a pretty tidy weekly screw."
"What do you get?"
"Three ten. Mine's a singing part. Waiter, some cheese and celery."
"What a blackguard he is! I'll never speak to him again; he shall
edit my paper no more. To-night I'll give him the dirty kick-out."
Mike remained the topic of conversation until Lottie said--
"Good Lord, I must be 'getting'--it is past seven o'clock."
Frank paid her modest bill, and still discussing Mike, they walked to
the stage-door. Quick with desire to possess Lizzie wholly beyond
recall, and obfuscated with notions concerning the necessity of
placing women in surroundings in harmony with their natural goodness,
Frank walked by his mistress's side. At the end of a long silence,
she said--
"That's the way you'll desert me one of these days. All men are
brutes."
"No, darling, they are not. If you'll act fairly by me, I will by
you--I'll never desert you."
Lizzie did not answer.
"You don't think me a brute like that fellow Fletcher, do you?"
"I don't think there's much difference between any of you."
Frank ground his teeth, and at that moment he only desired one
thing--to prove to Lizzie that men were not all vile and worthless.
They had turned into the Temple; the old places seemed dozing in the
murmuring quietude of the evening. Mike was coming up the pathway,
his dress-clothes distinct in the delicate gray light, his light-gray
overcoat hanging over his arm.
"What a toff he is!" said Lizzie. His appearance and what it
symbolized--an evening in a boudoir or at the gaming-table--jarred on
Frank, suggesting as it did a difference in condition from that of
the wretched girl he had abandoned; and as Mike prided himself that
scandalous stories never followed upon his loves, the unearthing of
this mean and obscure liaison annoyed him exceedingly. Above all, the
accusation of paternity was disagreeable; but determined to avoid a
quarrel, he was about to pass by, when Frank noticed Lady Helen's
pocket-handkerchief sticking out of his pocket.
"You blackguard," he said, "you are taking that handkerchief to a
gambling hell."
Then realizing that the game was up, he turned and would have struck
his friend had not Lizzie interposed. She threw herself between the
men, and called a policeman, and the quarrel ended in Mike's
dismissal from the staff of the _Pilgrim_.
Frank had therefore to sit up writing till one o'clock, for the whole
task of bringing out the paper was thrown upon him. Lizzie sat by him
sewing. Noticing how pale and tired he looked, she got up, and
putting her arm about his neck, said--
"Poor old man, you are tired; you had better come to bed."
He took her in his arms affectionately, and talked to her.
"If you were always as kind and as nice as you are to-night ...
I could love you."
"I thought you did love me."
"So I do; you will never know how much." They were close together,
and the pure darkness seemed to separate them from all worldly
influences.
"If you would be a good girl, and think only of him who loves you
very dearly."
"Ah, if I only had met you first!"
"It would have made no difference, you'd have only been saying this
to some one else."
"Oh, no; if you had known me before I went wrong."
"Was he the first?"
"Yes; I would have been an honest little girl, trying to make you
comfortable."
Throwing himself on his back, Frank argued prosaically--
"Then you mean to say you really care about me more than any one
else?"
She assured him that she did; and again and again the temptations of
women were discussed. He could not sleep, and stretched at length on
his back, he held Lizzie's hand.
She was in a communicative humour, and told him the story of the
waiter, whom she described as being "a fellow like Mike, who made
love to every woman." She told him of three or four other fellows,
whose rooms she used to go to. They made her drink; she didn't like
the beastly stuff; and then she didn't know what she did. There were
stories of the landlady in whose house she lodged, and the woman who
lived up-stairs. She had two fellows; one she called Squeaker--she
didn't care for him; and another called Harry, and she did care for
him; but the landlady's daughter called him a s----, because he
seldom gave her anything, and always had a bath in the morning.
"How can a girl be respectable under such circumstances?" Lizzie
asked, pathetically. "The landlady used to tell me to go out and get
my living!"
"Yes; but I never let you want. You never wrote to me for money that
I didn't send it."
"Yes; I know you did, but sometimes I think she stopped the letters.
Besides, a girl cannot be respectable if she isn't married. Where's
the use?"
He strove to think, and failing to think, he said--
"If you really mean what you say, I will marry you." He heard each
word; then a sob sounded in the dark, and turning impulsively he took
Lizzie in his arms.
"No, no," she cried, "it would never do at all. Your family--what
would they say? They would not receive me."
"What do I care for my family? What has my family ever done for me?"
For an hour they argued, Lizzie refusing, declaring it was useless,
insisting that she would then belong to no set; Frank assuring her
that hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart they would together, with united
strength and love, win a place for themselves in the world. They
dozed in each other's arms.
Rousing himself, Frank said--
"Kiss me once more, little wifie; good-night, little wife ..."
"Good-night, dear."
"Call me little husband; I shan't go to sleep until you do."
"Good-night, little husband."
"Say little hussy."
"Good-night, little hussy."
Next morning, however, found Lizzie violently opposed to all idea of
marriage. She said he didn't mean it; he said he did mean it, and he
caught up a Bible and swore he was speaking the truth. He put his
back against the door, and declared she should not leave until she
had promised him--until she gave him her solemn oath that she would
become his wife. He was not going to see her go to the dogs--no, not
if he could help it; then she lost her temper and tried to push past
him. He restrained her, urging again and again, and with theatrical
emphasis, that he thought it right, and would do his duty. Then they
argued, they kissed, and argued again.
That night he walked up and down the pavement in front of her door;
but the servant-girl caught sight of him through the kitchen-window
and the area-railings, and ran up-stairs to warn Miss Baker, who was
taking tea with two girl friends.
"He is a-walking up and down, Miss, 'is great-coat flying behind
him."
Lizzie slapped his face when he burst into her room; and scenes of
recrimination, love, and rage were transferred to and fro between
Temple Gardens and Winchester Street. Her girl friends advised her to
marry, and the landlady when appealed to said, "What could you want
better than a fine gentleman like that?"
Frank was conscious of nothing but her, and every vision of Mount
Rorke that had risen in his mind he had unhesitatingly swept away.
All prospects were engulfed in his desire; he saw nothing but the
white face, which like a star led and allured him.
One morning the marriage was settled, and like a knight going to the
crusade, Frank set forth to find out when it could be. They must be
married at once. The formalities of a religious marriage appalled
him. Lizzie might again change her mind; and a registrar's office
fixed itself in his thought.
It was a hot day in July when he set forth on his quest. He addressed
the policeman at the corner, and was given the name of the street and
the number. He hurried through the heat, irritated by the
sluggishness of the passers-by, and at last found himself in front of
a red building. The windows were full of such general announcements
as--Working Men's Peace Preservation, Limited Liability Company, New
Zealand, etc. The marriage office looked like a miniature bank; there
were desks, and a brass railing a foot high preserved the
inviolability of the documents. A fat man with watery eyes rose from
the leather arm-chair in which he had been dozing, and Frank
intimated his desire to be married as soon as possible; that
afternoon if it could be managed. It took the weak-eyed clerk some
little time to order and grasp the many various notions which Frank
urged upon him; but he eventually roused a little (Frank had begun to
shout at him), and explained that no marriage could take place after
two o'clock, and later on it transpired that due notice would have to
be given.
Very much disappointed, Frank asked him to inscribe his name. The
clerk opened a book, and then it suddenly cropped up that this was
the registry office, not for Pimlico, but for Kensington.
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Frank, "and where is the registry
office for Pimlico in Kensington?"
"That I cannot tell you; it may be anywhere; you will have to find
out."
"How am I to find out, damn it?"
"I really can't tell you, but I must beg of you to remember where you
are, sir, and to moderate your language," said the clerk, with some
faint show of hieratic dignity. "And now, ma'am, what can I do for
you?" he said, turning to a woman who smelt strongly of the kitchen.
Frank was furious; he appealed again to the casual policeman, who,
although reluctantly admitting he could give him no information,
sympathized with him in his diatribe against the stupidities of the
authorities. The policeman had himself been married by the registrar,
and some time was lost in vain reminiscences; he at last suggested
that inquiry could be made at a neighbouring church.
Frank hurried away, and had a long talk with a charwoman whom he
discovered in the desert of the chairs. She thought the office was
situated somewhere in a region unknown to Frank, which she called St.
George-of-the-Fields; her daughter, who had been shamefully deserted,
had been married there. The parson, she thought, would know, and she
gave him his address.
The heat was intolerable! There were few people in the streets. The
perspiration collected under his hat, and his feet ached so in his
patent leather shoes that he was tempted to walk after the water-cart
and bathe them in the sparkling shower. Several hansoms passed, but
they were engaged. Nor was the parson at home. The maid-servant
sniggered, but having some sympathy with what she discovered was his
mission, summoned the housekeeper, who eyed him askance, and directed
him to Bloomsbury; and after a descent into a grocer's shop, and an
adventure which ended in an angry altercation in a servants' registry
office, he was driven to a large building which adjoined the parish
infirmary and workhouse.
Even there he was forced to make inquiries, so numerous and various
were the offices. At last an old man in gray clothes declared himself
the registrar's attendant, and offered to show him the way; but
seeing himself now within range of his desire, he distanced the old
chap up the four flights of stairs, and arrived wholly out of breath
before the brass railing which guarded the hymeneal documents. A
clerk as slow of intellect as the first, and even more somnolent,
approached and leaned over the counter.
Feeling now quite familiar with a registrar's office, Frank explained
his business successfully. The fat clerk, whose red nose had sprouted
into many knobs, balanced himself leisurely, evidently giving little
heed to what was said; but the broadness of the brogue saved Frank
from losing his temper.
"What part of Oireland do ye come from? Is it Tipperary?"
"Yes."
"I thought so; Cashel, I'm thinking."
"Yes; do you come from there?"
"To be sure I do. I knew you when you were a boy; and is his lordship
in good health?"
Frank replied that Lord Mount Rorke was in excellent health, and
feeling himself obliged to be civil, he asked the clerk his name, and
how long it was since he had been in Ireland.
"Well, this is odd," the clerk began, and then in an irritating
undertone Mr. Scanlon proceeded to tell how he and four others were
driving through Portarlington to take the train to Dublin, when one
of them, Michael Carey he thought it was, proposed to stop the car
and have some refreshment at the Royal Hotel.
Frank tried several times to return to the question of the license,
but the imperturbable clerk was not to be checked.
"I was just telling you," he interposed.
It seemed hard luck that he should find a native of Cashel in the
Pimlico registrar's office. He had intended to keep his marriage a
secret, as did Willy Brookes, and for a moment the new danger
thrilled him. It was intolerable to have to put up with this
creature's idle loquacity, but not wishing to offend him he endured
it a little longer.
When the clerk paused in his narrative of the four gentlemen who had
stopped the car to have some refreshment, Frank made a resolute stand
against any fresh developments of the story, and succeeded in
extracting some particulars concerning the marriage laws. And within
the next few days all formalities were completed, and Frank's
marriage fixed for the end of the week--for Friday, at a quarter to
eleven. He slept lightly that night, was out of bed before eight, and
mistaking the time, arrived at the office a few minutes before ten.
He met the old man in gray clothes in the passage, and this time he
was not to be evaded.
"Are you the gentleman who's come to be married by special license,
sir?"
"Yes."
"Neither Mr. Southey--that is the Registrar--nor Mr. Freeman--that's
the Assistant-Registrar--has yet arrived, sir."
"It is very extraordinary they should be late. Do they never keep
their appointments?"
"They rarely arrives before ten, sir."
"Before ten! What time is it now?"
"Only just ten. I am the regular attendant. I'll see yer through it;
no necessity to hagitate yerself. It will be done quietly in a
private room--a very nice room too, fourteen feet by ten high--them's
the regulations; all the chairs covered with leather; a very nice
comfortable room. Would yer like to see the room? Would yer like to
sit down there and wait? There's a party to be married before you.
But they won't mind you. He's a butcher by trade."
"And what is she?"
"I think she's a tailoress; they lives close by here, they do."
"And who are you, and where do you live?"
"I'm the regular attendant; I lives close by here."
"Where close by?"
"In the work'us; they gives me this work to do."
"Oh, you are a pauper, then?"
"Yease; but I works here; I'm the regular attendant. No need to be
afraid, sir; it's all done in a private room; no one will see you.
This way, sir; this way."
The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was
vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to
turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story
for the _Pilgrim_. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it
he volunteered to act as witness to the butcher's marriage, one being
wanted. The effects of a jovial night, fortified by some matutinal
potations, were still visible in the small black eyes of the rubicund
butcher--a huge man, apparently of cheery disposition; he swung to
and fro before the shiny oak table as might one of his own carcasses.
His bride, a small-featured woman, wrapped in a plaid shawl,
evidently fearing that his state, if perceived by the Registrar,
might cause a postponement of her wishes, strove to shield him. His
pal and a stout girl, with the air of the coffee-shop about her,
exchanged winks and grins, and at the critical moment, when the
Registrar was about to read the declaration, the pal slipped behind
some friends and, catching the bridegroom by the collar, whispered,
"Now then, old man, pull yourself together." The Registrar
looked up, but his spectacles did not appear to help him; the
Assistant-Registrar, a tall, languid young man, who wore a carnation
in his button-hole, yawned and called for order. The room was lighted
by a skylight, and the light fell diffused on the hands and faces;
and alternately and in combination the whiskied breath and the
carnation's scent assailed the nostrils. Suddenly the silence was
broken by the Registrar, who began to read the declarations. "I
hereby declare that I, James Hicks, know of no impediment whereby I
may not be joined in matrimony with Matilde, Matilde--is it Matilde
or Matilda?"
"I calls her Tilly when I am a-cuddling of her; when she riles me,
and gets my dander up, I says, 'Tilder, come here!'" and the butcher
raised his voice till it seemed like an ox's bellow.
"I really must beg," exclaimed the Registrar, "that the sanctity
of--the gravity of this ceremony is not disturbed by any foolish
frivolity. You must remember ..." But at that moment the glassy look
of the butcher's eyes reached the old gentleman's vision, and a heavy
hiccup fell upon his ears. "I really think, Mr. Freeman, that that
gentleman, one of the contracting parties I mean, is not in a fit
state--is in a state bordering on inebriation. Will you tell me if
this is so?"
"I didn't notice it before," said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, "but
now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly
in a fit ..."
"I ne--ver was more jolly, jolly dog in my life (hiccup)--when you
gentlemen have made it (hiccup) all squ--square between me and my
Tilly" (a violent hiccup),--then suddenly taking her round the waist,
he hugged her so violently that Matilda could not forbear a
scream,--"I fancy I shall be, just be a trifle more jolly still....
If any of you ge--gen'men would care to join us--most 'appy, Tilly
and me."
Lizzie, who had discovered a relation or two--a disreputable father
and a nondescript brother--now appeared on the threshold. Her
presence reminded Frank of his responsibility, so forthwith he
proceeded to bully the Registrar and allude menacingly to his
newspaper.
"I'm sure, sir, I am very sorry you should have witnessed such a
scene. Never, really, in the whole course of my life ..."
"There is positively no excuse for allowing such people ..."
"I will not go on with the marriage," roared the Registrar; "really,
Mr. Freeman, you ought to have seen. You know how short-sighted I am.
I will not proceed with this marriage."
"Oh, please, sir, Mr. Registrar, don't say that," exclaimed Matilda.
"If you don't go on now, he'll never marry me; I'll never be able to
bring 'im to the scratch again. Indeed, sir, 'e's not so drunk as he
looks. 'Tis mostly the effect of the morning hair upon him."
"I shall not proceed with the marriage," said the Registrar, sternly.
"I have never seen anything more disgraceful in my life. You come
here to enter into a most solemn, I may say a sacred, contract, and
you are not able to answer to your names; it is disgraceful."
"Indeed I am, sir; my name is Matilda, that's the English of it, but
my poor mother kept company with a Frenchman, and he would have me
christened Matilde; but it is all the same, it is the same name,
indeed it is, sir. Do marry us; I shan't be able to get him to the
scratch again. For the last five years ..."
"Potter, Potter, show these people out; how dare you admit people who
were in a state of inebriation?"
"I didn't 'ear what you said, sir."
"Show these people out, and if you ever do it again, you'll have to
remain in the workhouse."
"This way, ladies and gentlemen, this way. I'm the regular
attendant."
"Come along, Tilly dear, you'll have to wait another night afore we
are churched. Come, Tilly; do you hear me? Come, Tilda."
Frightened as she was, the words "another night" suggested an idea to
poor Matilde, and turning with supplicating eyes to the Registrar,
she implored that they might make an appointment for the morrow.
After some demur the Registrar consented, and she went away tearful,
but in hope that she would be able to bring him on the morrow, as he
put it, "fit to the post." This matter having been settled, the
Registrar turned to Frank. Never in the course of his experience had
the like occurred. He was extremely sorry that he (Mr. Escott) had
been present. True, they were not situated in a fashionable
neighbourhood, the people were ignorant, and it was often difficult
to get them to sign their names correctly; but he was bound to admit
that they were orderly, and seemed to realize, he would say, the
seriousness of the transaction.
"It is," said the Registrar, "our object to maintain the strictly
legal character of the ceremony--the contract, I should say--and to
avoid any affectation of ritual whatsoever. I regret that you, sir, a
representative of the press ..."
"The nephew and heir to Lord Mount Rorke," suggested the clerk.
The Registrar bowed, and murmured that he did not know he had that
honour. Then he spoke for some time of the moral good the registry
offices had effected among the working classes; how they had allowed
the poor--for instance, the person who has been known for years in
the neighbourhood as Mrs. Thompson, to legalize her cohabitation
without scandal.
But Frank thought only of his wife, when he should clasp her hand,
saying, "Dearest wife!" He had brought his dramatic and musical
critics with him. The dramatic critic--a genial soul, well known to
the shop-girls in Oxford Street, without social prejudices--was deep
in conversation with the father and brother of the bride; the musical
critic, a mild-faced man, adjusted his spectacles, and awaking from
his dream reminded them of an afternoon concert that began unusually
early, and where his presence was indispensable. When the
declarations were over, Frank asked when he should put the ring on.
"Some like to use the ring, some don't; it isn't necessary; all the
best people of course do," said the Assistant-Registrar, who had not
yawned once since he had heard that Frank's uncle was Lord Mount
Rorke.
"I am much obliged to you for the information; but I should like to
have my question answered--When am I to put on the ring?"
The dramatic critic tittered, and Frank authoritatively expostulated.
But the Registrar interposed, saying--
"It is usual to put the ring on when the bride has answered to the
declarations."
"Now all of ye can kiss the bride," exclaimed the clerk from Cashel.
Frank was indignant; the Registrar explained that the kissing of the
bride was an old custom still retained among the lower classes, but
Frank was not to be mollified, and the unhappy clerk was ordered to
leave the room.
The wedding party drove to the Temple, where champagne was awaiting
them; and when health and happiness had been drunk the critics left,
and the party became a family one.
Mike was in his bedroom; he was too indolent to move out of Escott's
rooms, and by avoiding him he hoped to avert expulsion and angry
altercations. The night he spent in gambling, the evening in dining;
and some hours of each afternoon were devoted to the composition of
his trilogy. Now he lay in his arm-chair smoking cigarettes, drinking
lemonade, and thinking. He was especially attracted by the picture he
hoped to paint in the first play of John and Jesus; and from time to
time his mind filled with a picture of Herod's daughter. Closing his
eyes slightly he saw her breasts, scarce hidden beneath jewels, and
precious scarves floated from her waist as she advanced in a vaulted
hall of pale blue architecture, slender fluted columns, and pointed
arches. He sipped his lemonade, enjoying his soft, changing, and
vague dream. But now he heard voices in the next room, and listening
attentively he could distinguish the conversation.
"The drivelling idiot!" he thought. "So he's gone and married
her--that slut of a barmaid! Mount Rorke will never forgive him. I
wouldn't be surprised if he married again. The idiot!"
The reprobate father declared he had not hoped to see such a day, so
let bygones be bygones, that was his feeling. She had always been a
good daughter; they had had differences of opinion, but let bygones
be bygones. He had lived to see his daughter married to a gentleman,
if ever there was one; and his only desire was that God might spare
him to see her Lady Mount Rorke. Why should she not be Lady Mount
Rorke? She was as pretty a girl as there was in London, and a good
girl too; and now that she was married to a gentleman, he hoped they
would both remember to let bygones be bygones.
"Great Scott!" thought Mike; "and he'll have to live with her for the
next thirty years, watching her growing fat, old, and foolish. And
that father!--won't he give trouble! What a pig-sty the fellow has
made of his life!"
Lizzie asked her father not to cry. Then came a slight altercation
between Lizzie and her husband, in which it was passionately debated
whether Harry, the brother, was fitted to succeed Mike on the paper.
"How the fellow has done for himself! A nice sort of paper they'll
bring out."
A cloud passed over Mike's face when he thought it would probably be
this young gentleman who would continue his articles--_Lions of the
Season_.
"You have quarrelled with Mike," said Lizzie, "and you say you aren't
going to make it up again. You'll want some one, and Harry writes
very nicely indeed. When he was at school his master always praised
his writing. When he is in love he writes off page after page. I
should like you to see the letters he wrote to ..."
"Now, Liz, I really--I wish you wouldn't ..."
"I am sure he would soon get into it."
"Quite so, quite so; I hope he will; I'm sure Harry will get into
it--and the way to get into it is for him to send me some paragraphs.
I will look over his 'copy,' making the alterations I think
necessary. But for the moment, until he has learned the trick of
writing paragraphs, he would be of no use to me in the office. I
should never get the paper out. I must have an experienced writer by
me."
Then he dropped his voice, and Mike heard nothing till Frank said--
"That cad Fletcher is still here; we don't speak, of course; we
passed each other on the staircase the other night. If he doesn't
clear out soon I'll have to turn him out. You know who he is--a
farmer's son, and used to live in a little house about a mile from
Mount Rorke Castle, on the side of the road."
Mike thrilled with rage and hatred.
"You brute! you fool! you husband of a bar-girl!--you'll never be
Lord Mount Rorke! He that came from the palace shall go to the
garret; he that came from the little house on the roadside shall go
to the castle, you brute!"
And Mike vowed that he would conquer sloth and lasciviousness, and
outrageously triumph in the gaudy, foolish world, and insult his
rival with riches and even honour. Then he heard Lizzie reproach
Frank for refusing her first request, and the foolish fellow's
expostulations suscitated feelings in Mike of intense satisfaction.
He smiled triumphantly when he heard the old man's talents as
accountant referred to.
"Father never told you about his failure," said Lizzie. Then the
story with all its knots was laboriously unravelled.
"But," said the old man, "my books were declared to be perfect; I was
complimented on my books; I was proud of them books."
"Great Scott! the brother as sub-editor, the father as book-keeper,
the sister as wife--it would be difficult to imagine anything more
complete. I'm sorry for the paper, though;--and my series, what a
hash they'll make of it!" Taking the room in a glance, and imagining
the others with every piece of furniture and every picture, he
thought--"I give him a year, and then these rooms will be for sale. I
shall get them; but I must clear out."
He had won four hundred pounds within the last week, and this and his
share in a play which was doing fairly well in the provinces, had run
up his balance at the bank higher than it had ever stood--to nearly a
thousand pounds.
As he considered his good fortune, a sudden desire of change of scene
suddenly sprang upon him, and in full revulsion of feeling his mind
turned from the long hours in the yellow glare of lamp-light, the
staring faces, the heaps of gold and notes, and the cards flying
silently around the empty space of green baize; from the long hours
spent correcting and manipulating sentences; from the heat and
turmoil and dirt of London; from Frank Escott and his family; from
stinking, steamy restaurants; from the high flights of stairs, and
the prostitution of the Temple. And like butterflies above two
flowers, his thoughts hovered in uncertain desire between the
sanctity of a honeymoon with Lily Young in a fair enchanted pavilion
on a terrace by the sea, near, but not too near, white villas, in a
place as fairylike as a town etched by Whistler, and some months of
pensive and abstracted life, full to overflowing with the joy and
eagerness of incessant cerebration; a summer spent in a quiet
country-side, full of field-paths, and hedge-rows, and shadowy
woodland lanes--rich with red gables, surprises of woodbine and great
sunflowers--where he would walk meditatively in the sunsetting,
seeing the village lads and lassies pass, interested in their homely
life, so resting his brain after the day's labour; then in his study
he would find the candles already lighted, the kettle singing, his
books and his manuscripts ready for three excellent hours; upon his
face the night would breathe the rustling of leaves and the rich
odour of the stocks and tall lilies, until he closed the window at
midnight, casting one long sad and regretful look upon the gold
mysteries of the heavens.
So his reverie ran, interrupted by the conversation in the next room.
He heard his name mentioned frequently. The situation was
embarrassing, for he could not open a door without being heard. At
last he tramped boldly out, slamming the doors after him, leaving a
note for Frank on the table in the passage. It ran as follows--"I am
leaving town in a few days. I shall remove my things probably on
Monday. Much obliged to you for your hospitality; and now, good-bye."
"That will look," he thought, "as if I had not overheard his remarks.
How glad I shall be to get away! Oh, for new scenes, new faces! 'How
pleasant it is to have money!--heigh-ho!--how pleasant it is to have
money!' Whither shall I go? Whither? To Italy, and write my poem? To
Paris or Norway? I feel as if I should never care to see this filthy
Temple again." Even the old dining-hall, with its flights of steps
and balustrades, seemed to have lost all accent of romance; but he
stayed to watch the long flight of the pigeons as they came on
straightened wings from the gables. "What familiar birds they are!
Nothing is so like a woman as a pigeon; perhaps that's the reason
Norton does not like them. Norton! I haven't seen him for ages--since
that morning...." He turned into Pump Court. The doors were wide
open; and there was luggage and some packing-cases on the landing.
The floor-matting was rolled, and the screen which protected from
draughts the high canonical chair in which Norton read and wrote was
overthrown. John was packing his portmanteau, and on either side of
him there was a Buddha and Indian warrior which he had lately
purchased.
"What, leaving? Giving up your rooms?"
"Yes; I'm going down to Sussex. I do not think it is worth while
keeping these rooms on."
Mike expressed his regret. Mike said, "No one understands you as I
do." Herein lay the strength of Mike's nature; he won himself through
all reserve, and soon John was telling him his state of soul: that he
felt it would not be right for him to countenance with his presence
any longer the atheism and immorality of the Temple. Lady Helen's
death had come for a warning. "After the burning of my poems, after
having sacrificed so much, it was indeed a pitiful thing to find
myself one of that shocking revel which had culminated in the death
of that woman."
"There he goes again," thought Mike, "running after his conscience
like a dog after his tail--a performing dog, too; one that likes an
audience." And to stimulate the mental antics in which he was so much
interested, he said, "Do you believe she is in hell?"
"I refrain from judging her. She may have repented in the moment of
death. God is her judge. But I shall never forget that morning; and I
feel that my presence at your party imposes on me some measure of
responsibility. As for you, Mike, I really think you ought to
consider her fate as an omen. It was you ..."
"For goodness' sake, don't. It was Frank who invented the notion that
she killed herself because I had been flirting with her. I never
heard of anything so ridiculous. I protest. You know the absurdly
sentimental view he takes. It is grossly unfair."
Knowing well how to interest John, Mike defended himself
passionately, as if he were really concerned to place his soul in a
true light; and twenty minutes were agreeably spent in sampling,
classifying, and judging of motives. Then the conversation turned on
the morality of women, and Mike judiciously selected some instances
from his stock of experiences whereby John might judge of their
animalism. Like us all, John loved to talk sensuality; but it was
imperative that the discussion should be carried forward with gravity
and reserve. Seated in his high canonical chair, wrapped in his
dressing-gown, John would bend forward listening, as if from the
Bench or the pulpit, awaking to a more intense interest when some
more than usually bitter vial of satire was emptied upon the fair
sex. He had once amused Harding very much by his admonishment of a
Palais Royal farce.
"It was not," he said, "so much the questionableness of the play;
what shocked me most was the horrible levity of the audience, the
laughter with which every indecent allusion was greeted."
The conversation had fallen, and Mike said--
"So you are going away? Well, we shall all miss you very much. But
you don't intend to bury yourself in the country; you'll come up to
town sometimes."
"I feel I must not stay here; the place has grown unbearable." A look
of horror passed over John's face. "Hall has the rooms opposite. His
life is a disgrace; he hurries through his writing, and rushes out to
beat up the Strand, as he puts it, for shop-girls. I could not live
here any longer."
Mike could not but laugh a little; and offended, John rose and
continued the packing of his Indian gods. Allusion was made to
Byzantine art; and Mike told the story of Frank's marriage; and John
laughed prodigiously at the account he gave of the conversation
overheard. Regarding the quarrel John was undecided. He found himself
forced to admit that Mike's conduct deserved rebuke; but at the same
time, Frank's sentimental views were wholly distasteful to him. Then
in reply to a question as to where he was going, Mike said he didn't
know. John invited him to come and stay at Thornby Place.
"It is half-past three now. Do you think you could get your things
packed in time to catch the six o'clock?"
"I think so. I can instruct Southwood; she will forward the rest of
my things."
"Then be off at once; I have a lot to do. Hall is going to take my
furniture off my hands. I have made rather a good bargain with him."
Nothing could suit Mike better. He had never stayed in a country
house; and now as he hurried down the Temple, remembrances of Mount
Rorke Castle rose in his mind--the parade of dresses on the summer
lawns, and the picturesqueness of the shooting parties about the
long, withering woods.