AT HOME.
The people of Lowbar, lusty citizens with suburban residences--lawyers,
proctors, and merchants, all warm people in money matters--did
not think much of the advent into their midst of a man following
an unrecognised profession, which had no ledger-and-day-book
responsibility, employed no clerks, and ministered to no absolute want.
It was not the first time indeed that they had heard of an artist being
encamped among them; for in the summer several brethren of the brush
were tempted to make a temporary sojourn in the immediate vicinity
of the broad meadows and suburban prettinesses. But these were mere
birds of passage, who took lodgings over some shop in the High Street,
and who were never seen save by marauding schoolboys or wandering
lovers, who would come suddenly upon a bearded man smoking a pipe, and
sketching away under the shade of a big white umbrella. To wear a beard
and, in addition to that enormity, to smoke a pipe, were in themselves
sufficient, in the eyes of the worthy inhabitants of Lowbar, to prove
that a man was on the high-road to destruction; but they consoled
themselves with the reflection that the evil-doer was but a sojourner
amongst them. Now, however, had arrived a man in the person of Geoffrey
Ludlow, who not merely wore a beard and smoked a pipe, but further flew
in the face of all decently-constituted society by having a beautiful
wife. And this man had not come into lodgings, but had regularly
established himself in poor Mrs. Pierce's house, which he had had all
done up and painted and papered and furnished in a manner--so at least
Mr. Brandram the doctor said--that might be described as gorgeous.
Now, as the pretty suburb of Lowbar is still a good score of years
behind the world, its inhabitants could not understand this at all,
and the majority of them were rather scandalised than otherwise, when
they found that the vicar and his wife had called on the newcomers.
Mr. Brandram the doctor had called too; but that was natural. He was
a pushing man was Brandram, and a worldly man, so unlike Priestley,
the other doctor, who was a retiring gentleman. So at least said
Priestley's friends and Brandram's enemies. Brandram was a little man
of between fifty and sixty, neat, and a little horsy in his dress,
cheerful in his manner, fond of recommending good living, and fond of
taking his own prescription. He was a little "fast" for Lowbar, going
to the theatre once or twice in the year, and insisting upon having
novels for the Book-Society; whereas Priestley's greatest dissipation
was attending a "humorous lecture" at the Mechanics' Institute, and his
lightest reading a book of Antipodean travel. Brandram called at Elm
Lodge, of course, and saw both Geoff and Margaret, and talked of the
Academy pictures,--which he had carefully got up from the catalogue
and the newspaper-notices,--and on going away, left Mrs. Brandram's
card. For three weeks afterwards, that visit supplied the doctor
with interesting discourse for his patients: he described all the
alterations which had been made in the house since Mrs. Pierce's death;
he knew the patterns of the carpets, the colours of the curtains, the
style of the furniture. Finally, he pronounced upon the newcomers;
described Geoff as a healthy man of a sanguineous temperament, not much
cut out for the Lowbar folk; and his wife as a beautiful woman, but
lymphatic.
These last were scarcely the details which the Lowbar folk wanted to
know. They wanted to know all about the _ménage_; in what style the
newcomers lived; whether they kept much or any company; whether they
agreed well together. This last was a point of special curiosity; for,
in common with numberless other worthy, commonplace, stupid people, the
Lowbar folk imagined that the private lives of "odd persons"--under
which heading they included all professors of literature and art of any
kind--were passed in dissipation and wrangling. How the information was
to be obtained was the great point, for they knew that nothing would
be extracted from the vicar, even if he had been brimful of remarks
upon his new parishioners, which, indeed, he was not, as they neither
of them happened to be at home when he called. It would be something
to be well assured about their personal appearance, especially _her_
personal appearance; to see whether there were really any grounds for
this boast of beauty which Dr. Brandram went talking about in such a
ridiculous way. The church was the first happy hunting-ground pitched
upon; and during the first Sunday after Geoff's and Margaret's arrival
the excitement during divine service was intense; the worshippers in
the middle and side aisles, whose pews all faced the pulpit, and whose
backs were consequently turned to the entrance-door, regarding with
intense envy their friends whose pews confronted each other between
the pulpit and the altar, and who, consequently, while chanting the
responses or listening to the lesson, could steal furtive glances on
every occasion of the door's opening, without outraging propriety. But
when it was found that the newcomers did not attend either morning
or evening service,--and unquestionably a great many members of the
congregation had their dinner of cold meat and salad (it was considered
sinful in Lowbar to have hot dinners on Sunday) at an abnormally early
hour for the purpose of attending evening service on the chance of
seeing the new arrivals,--it was considered necessary to take more
urgent measures; and so the little Misses Coverdale--two dried-up
little chips of spinsters with corkscrew ringlets and black-lace
mittens, who kept house for their brother, old Coverdale, the
red-faced, white-headed proctor, Geoffrey's next-door neighbour--had
quite a little gathering the next day, the supposed object of which
was to take tea and walk in the garden, but the real object to peep
furtively over the wall and try and catch a glimpse of her who was
already sarcastically known as "Dr. Brandram's beauty." Some of the
visitors, acquainted with the peculiarities of the garden, knowing
what mound to stand on and what position to take up, were successful
in catching a glimpse of the top of Margaret's hair--"all taken off
her face like a schoolgirl's, and leaving her cheeks as bare as bare,"
as they afterwards reported--as she wandered listlessly round the
garden, stooping now and then to smell or gather a flower. One or
two others were also rewarded by the sight of Geoffrey in his velvet
painting-coat; among them, Letty Coverdale, who pronounced him a
splendid man, and, O, so romantic-looking! for all ideas of matrimony
had not yet left Miss Letty Coverdale, and the noun-substantive Man
yet caused her heart to beat with an extra throb in her flat little
chest; whereas Miss Matty Coverdale, who had a face like a horse, and
who loudly boasted that she had never had an offer of marriage in her
life, snorted out her wonder that Geoff did not wear a surtout like a
Christian and her belief that he'd be all the cleaner after a visit to
Mr. Ball, who was the Lowbar barber.
But bit by bit the personal appearance of both of them grew
sufficiently familiar to many of the inhabitants, some of the most
courageous of whom had actually screwed themselves up to that pitch of
boldness necessary for the accomplishment of calling and leaving cards
on strangers pursuing a profession unnamed in the _Directory_, and
certainly not one of the three described in _Mangnall's Questions_. The
calls were returned, and in some cases were succeeded by invitations
to dinner. But Geoffrey cared little for these, and Margaret earnestly
begged they might be declined. If she found her life insupportably
dull and slow, this was not the kind of relief for which she prayed.
A suburban dinner-party would be but a dull parody on what she had
known; would give her trouble to dress for, without the smallest
compensating amusement; would leave her at the mercy of stupid people,
among whom she would probably be the only stranger, the only resource
for staring eyes and questioning tongues. That they would have stared
and questioned, there is little doubt; but they certainly intended
hospitality. The "odd" feeling about the Ludlows prevalent on their
first coming had worn off, and now the tide seemed setting the other
way. Whether it was that the tradesmen's books were regularly paid,
that the lights at Elm Lodge were seldom or never burning after eleven
o'clock, that Geoffrey's name had been seen in the _Times_, as having
been present at a dinner given by Lord Everton, a very grand dinner,
where he was the only untitled man among the company, or for whatever
other reason, there was a decided disposition to be civil to them.
No doubt Margaret's beauty had a great deal to do with it, so far as
the men were concerned. Old Mr. Coverdale, who had been portentously
respectable for half a century, but concerning whom there was a
floating legend of "Jolly dog-ism" In his youth, declared he had seen
nothing like her since the Princess Charlotte; and Abbott, known as
Captain Abbott, from having once been in the Commissariat, who always
wore a chin-tip and a tightly-buttoned blue frock-coat and pipe-clayed
buckskin gloves, made an especial point of walking past Elm Lodge
every afternoon, and bestowing on Margaret, whenever he saw her, a
peculiar leer which had done frightful execution amongst the nursemaids
of Islington. Mrs. Abbott, a mild meek little woman, who practised
potichomanie, delcomanie the art of making wax-flowers, any thing
whereby to make money to pay the tradespeople and supply varnish for
her husband's boots and pocket-money for his _menus plaisirs_, was not,
it is needless to say, informed of these vagaries on the captain's part.
They were discussed every where: at the Ladies' Clothing-Club, where
one need scarcely say that the opinions concerning Margaret's beauty
were a little less fervid in expression; and at the Gentlemen's
Book-Society, where a proposition to invite Geoff to be of their
number, started by the vicar and seconded by old Mr. Coverdale, was
opposed by Mr. Bryant (of Bryant and Martin, coach-builders, Long
Acre), On the ground that the first Of the rules stated that this
should be an association of gentlemen; and who could I say what would
be done next if artists was to be received? The discussion on this
point waxed very warm, and during it Mr. Cremer the curate incurred Mr.
Bryant's deepest hatred for calling out to him, on his again attempting
to address the meeting, "Spoke, spoke!" which Mr. Bryant looked upon
as a sneer at his trade, and remembered bitterly when the subscription
was got up in the parish for presenting Mr. Cremer with the silver
teapot and two hundred sovereigns, with which (the teapot at least)
he proceeded to the rectory of Steeple Bumstead, in a distant part of
the country. They were discussed by the regulars in the nine-o'clock
omnibus, most of whom, as they passed by Elm Lodge and saw Geoff
through the big window just commencing to set his palette, pitied him
for having to work at home, and rejoiced in their own freedom from the
possibility of conjugal inroad; or, catching a glimpse of Margaret,
poked each other in the ribs and told each other what a fine woman
she was. They were discussed by the schoolboys going to school, who
had a low opinion of art, and for the most part confined the remarks
about Geoffrey to his having a "stunnin' beard," and about Margaret
to her being a "regular carrots," the youthful taste being strongly
anti-pre-Raffaellitic, and worshipping the raven tresses and straight
noses so dear to the old romancers.
And while all these discussions and speculations were rife, the persons
speculated on and discussed were leading their lives without a thought
of what people were saying of them. Geoff knew that he was doing good
work; he felt that intuitively as every man does feel it, quite as
intuitively as when he is producing rubbish; and he knew it further
from the not-too-laudatorily-inclined Mr. Stompff, who came up from
time to time, and could not refuse his commendation to the progress
of the pictures. And then Geoff was happy--at least, well, Margaret
might have been a little more lively perhaps; but then--O, no; he was
thoroughly happy! and Margaret--existed! The curtain had dropped on her
wedding-day, and she had been groping in darkness ever since.
Time went on, as he does to all of us, whatever our appreciation of
him may be, according to the mood we may happen to be in: swiftly to
the happy and the old, slowly to the young and the wearied. There is
that blessed compensation which pervades all human things, even in the
flight of time. No matter how pleasant, how varied, how completely
filled is the time of the young, it hangs on them somehow; they do
not feel it rush past them nor melt away, the hours swallowed up in
days, the days in years, as do the elder people, who have no special
excitement, no particular delight. The fact still remains that the
young want time to fly, the old want him to crawl; and that, fulfilling
the wishes of neither, he speeds on _aquo pale_, grumbled at by both.
The time went on. So Margaret knew by the rising and setting of the
sun, by the usual meals, her own getting up and going to bed, and all
the usual domestic routine. But by what else? Nothing. She had been
married now nearly six months, and from that experience she thought
she might deduce something like an epitome of her life. What was it?
She had a husband who doated on her; who lavished on her comforts,
superfluities, luxuries; who seemed never so happy as when toiling at
his easel, and who brought the products of his work to her to dispose
of as she pleased. A husband who up to that hour of her thought had
never in the smallest degree failed to fulfil her earliest expectations
of him,--generous to a degree, kind-hearted, weak, and easily led.
Weak! weak as water.--Yes, and O yes! What you, like, my dear! What
you think best, my child! That is for your decision, Margaret. I--I
don't know; I scarcely like to give an opinion. Don't you think you had
better settle it? I'll leave it all to you, please, dearest.--Good God!
if he would only say _something_--as opposed to her ideas as possible,
the more opposed the better--some assertion of self, some trumpet-note
of argument, some sign of his having a will of his own, or at least
an idea from which a will might spring. Here was the man who in his
own art was working out the most admirable genius, showing that he had
within him more of the divine afflatus than is given to nine hundred
and ninety-nine in every thousand amongst us--a man who was rapidly
lifting his name for the wonder and the envy of the best portion of
the civilised world, incapable of saying "no" even to a proposition of
hashed mutton for dinner, shirking the responsibility of a decision on
the question of the proper place for a chair.
Indeed, I fear that, so far as I have stated, the sympathies of women
will go against old Geoff, who must, I fancy, have been what they are
in the habit of calling "very trying." You see he brought with him to
the altar a big generous old heart, full of love and adoration of his
intended wife, full of resolution, in his old blunt way, to stand by
her through evil and good report, and to do his duty by her in all
honour and affection. He was any thing but a self-reliant man; but he
knew that his love was sterling coin, truly unalloyed; and he thought
that it might be taken as compensation for numerous deficiencies, the
existence of which he readily allowed. You see he discovered his power
of loving simultaneously almost with his power of painting; and I think
that this may perhaps account for a kind of feeling that, as the latter
was accepted by the world, so would the former be by the person to whom
it was addressed. When he sent out the picture which first attracted
Mr. Stompff's attention, he had no idea that it was better than a
score others which he had painted, during the course of his life; when
he first saw Margaret Dacre, he could not tell that the instinctive
admiration would lead to any thing more than the admiration which he
had already silently paid to half-a-hundred pretty faces. But both had
come to a successful issue; and he was only to paint his pictures with
all the talent of his head and hand, and to love his wife with all the
affection of his heart, to discharge his duty in life.
He did this; he worshipped her with all his heart. Whatever she did
was right, whatever ought to have been discussed she was called upon
to settle. They were very small affairs, as I have said,--of hashed
mutton and jams of the colour of a ribbon, or the fashion of a bonnet.
Was there never to be any thing further than this? Was life to consist
in her getting up and struggling through the day and going to bed at
Elm Lodge? The short breakfast, when Geoff was evidently dying to be
off into the painting-room; the long, long day,--composed of servants
instruction, newspaper, lunch, sleep, little walk, toilette, dinner,
utterly feeble conversation, yawns and head-droppings, and finally
bed. She had pictured to herself something quiet, tranquil, without
excitement, without much change; but nothing like this.
Friends?--relations? O yes! old Mrs. Ludlow came to see her now and
then; and she had been several times to Brompton. The old lady was
very kind in her pottering stupid way, and her daughter Matilda was
kind also, but as once gushing and prudish; so Margaret thought.
And they both treated her as if she were a girl; the old lady
perpetually haranguing her with good advice and feeble suggestion, and
Matilda--who, of course, like all girls, had, it was perfectly evident,
some silly love-affair on with some youth who had not as yet declared
himself--wanting to make her half-confidences, and half-asking for
advice, which she never intended to take. A girl? O yes, of course, she
must play out that farce, and support that terribly vague story which
old Geoff; pushed into a corner on a sudden, and without any one to
help him at the instant, had fabricated concerning her parentage and
belongings. And she must listen to the old lady's praises of Geoff,
and how she thought it not improbable, if things went on as they were
going, that the happiest dream of her life would be fulfilled--that she
should ride in her son's carriage. "It would be yours, of course, my
dear; I know that well enough; but you'd let me ride in it sometimes,
just for the honour and glory of the thing." And they talked like
this to her: the old lady of the glory of a carriage; Matilda of some
hawbuck wretch for whom she had a liking;--to her! who had sat on the
box-seat of a drag a score of times, with half-a-score of the best men
in England sitting behind her, all eager for a word or a smile.
She saw them now, frequently, whenever she came over to Brompton,--all
the actors in that bygone drama of her life, save the hero himself.
It was the play of _Hamlet_ with Hamlet left out, indeed. But what
vast proportions did she then assume compared to what she had been
lately! There were Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,--the one in his
mail-phaeton, the other on his matchless hack; there was old Polonius
in the high-collared bottle-green coat of thirty years back, guiding
his clever cob in and out among the courtiers; there was the Honourable
Osric, simpering and fooling among the fops. She hurried across the
Drive or the Row on her way to or from Brompton, and stood up, a little
distance off, gazing at these comrades of old times. She would press
her hands to her head, and wonder whether it was all true or a dream
whether she was going back to the dull solemnity of Elm Lodge, when a
dozen words would put her into that mail-phaeton--on to that horse!
How often had Rosencrantz ogled! and was it not Guildenstern's billet
that, after reading, she tore up and threw in his face? It was an awful
temptation; and she was obliged, as an antidote, to picture to herself
the tortures she had suffered from cold and want and starvation, to
bring her round at all to a sensible line of thought.
Some one else had called upon her two or three times. O yes, a Miss
Maurice, who came in a coroneted carriage, and to whom she had taken a
peculiar detestation; not from any airs she had given herself--O no;
there was nothing of that kind about her. She was one of those persons,
don't you know, who have known your husband before his marriage, and
take an interest in him, and must like you for his sake; one of those
persons who are so open and honest and above-board, that you take an
immediate distrust of them at first sight, which you never get over. O
no, Margaret was perfectly certain she should never like Annie Maurice.
Music she had, and books; but she was not very fond of the first,
and only played desultorily. Geoff was most passionately fond of
music; and sometimes after dinner he would ask for "a tune," and then
Margaret would sit down at the piano and let her fingers wander over
the keys, gradually finding them straying into some of the brilliant
dance-music of Auber and Musard, of Jullien and Koenig, with which
she had been familiarised during her Continental experience. And
as she played, the forms familiarly associated with the music came
trooping out of the mist--Henri, so grand in the _Cavalier seul_, Jules
and Eulalie, so unapproachable in the _En avant deux_. There they
whirled in the hot summer evenings; the _parterre_, illuminated with
a thousand lamps glittering like fireflies, the sensuous strains of
the orchestra soaring up to the great yellow-faced moon looking down
upon it; and then the cosy little supper, the sparkling iced drink,
the--"Time for bed, eh, dear?" from old Geoff, already nodding with
premature sleep; and away flew the bright vision at the rattle of the
chamber-candlestick.
Books! yes, no lack of them. Geoff subscribed for her to the library,
and every week came the due supply of novels. These Margasightret read,
some in wonder, some in scorn. There was a great run upon the Magdalen
just then in that style of literature; writers were beginning to be
what is called "outspoken;" and young ladies familiarised with the
outward life of the species, as exhibited in the Park and at the Opera,
read with avidity of their diamonds and their ponies, of the interior
of the _ménage_, and of their spirited conversations with the cream
of the male aristocracy. A deference to British virtue, and a desire
to stand well with the librarian's subscribers, compelled an amount
of repentance in the third volume which Margaret scarcely believed
to be in accordance with truth. The remembrance of childhood's days,
which made the ponies pall, and rendered the diamonds disgusting,--the
inherent natural goodness, which took to eschewing of crinoline
and the adoption of serge, which swamped the colonel in a storm of
virtuous indignation, and brought the curate safely riding over the
billows,--were agreeable incidents, but scarcely, she thought, founded
on fact. Her own experience at least had taught her otherwise; but it
might be so after all.
So her life wore drearily on. Would there never be any change in it?
Yes, one change at least Time brought in his flight. Dr. Brandram's
visits were now regular; and one morning a shrill cry resounded through
the house, and the doctor placed in its father's arms a strong healthy
boy.