THE DOCTOR'S DINNER.
The secret of success is like the elixir of life, inasmuch as
that precious balsam used to be eagerly sought after by countless
thousands; and because, also like the elixir, it continually eludes
the pursuer. One man succeeds. How? He does not know, and he does
not inquire. A thousand others, who think they are as good, fail.
Why? They cannot discover. But each of the thousand failures is
ready to show you a thousand reasons why this one man has succeeded.
First of all, he has really not succeeded; secondly, his success is
grossly exaggerated; thirdly, it is a cheap success--the unsuccessful
are especially contemptuous of a cheap success--they would not,
themselves, condescend to a cheap success; fourthly, it is a
success arrived at by tortuous, winding, crooked arts, which make
the unsuccessful sick and sorry to contemplate--who would desire a
success achieved by climbing up the back stairs? If a man writes, and
succeeds in his writings, so that ordinary people flock to read him,
he succeeds by his vulgarity. Or, he succeeds by his low tastes--who,
that respects himself, would pander to the multitude? Or, he succeeds
by vacuity, fatuity, futility, stupidity--what self-respecting writer
would sink to the level of the fatuous and vacuous? He succeeds with
an A, because he is Asinine; with a B, because he is Bestial; with a
C, because he is Contemptible; and so on through the alphabet. Similar
reasons are assigned when a man succeeds as a Painter, a Sculptor,
a Preacher, a Lawyer. Now, Sir Robert Steele is one of the most
successful physicians of the day. His success is easily understood and
readily accounted for, on the principles just laid down, by those of
his profession who have not by any means achieved the same popularity.
He humours his patients--every one knows that; he has a soft voice and
a warm hand--he makes ignoble profit out of both. Above all, he asks
his patients--some of them--to the most delightful dinners possible.
The latter charge has a foundation in fact: he does ask a few of his
more fortunate patients to dinner. More than this, he gives them a
dinner much too artistic for most of them to understand. To bring Art
into a menu, to invent and build up a dinner which shall be completely
artistic in every part, a harmonious whole; one course leading
naturally to the next; a dinner of one colour in many tints; the wine
gurgling like part of an orchestra, is a gift within the powers of
very few. Sir Robert's reputation as a physician is justly, at least,
assisted by his reputation as a great poetic creator of the harmonious
dinner.
I think, having myself none of the _gourmet's_ gifts, that the
possession of them must cause continual and poignant unhappiness. It
is like the endowment of the critical faculty at its highest. Nothing
pleases wholly. When the critic of the menu dines out, alas, what
false notes, what discords, what bad time, what feeble rendering, what
platitude of conception, he must endure! Let us not envy his gifts,
let us rather continue to enjoy, unheeding, dinners which would be
only a prolonged torture to the sensitive soul of the perfect critic.
The doctor made his selections carefully from his patients and
friends. He knew all the amusing people about town, especially
those benefactors to their kind who consent to play and sing for
after-dinner amusement; he knew all the actors, especially those who
do not take themselves too seriously; he knew the men who can tell
stories, sing songs, and are always in good temper. He loved them as
King William loved the red deer; he esteemed them higher than princes;
more excellent company than poets; more clubable than painters. Among
his friends of the profession was Mr. Richard Woodroffe, whom the
doctor esteemed even above his fellows for his unvarying cheerfulness
and his great gifts and graces in music and in song. Him he invited
to dinner on a certain evening, partly on account of these gifts
and partly for another reason--the other guests were the Haverils,
who would be useless in conversation; Miss Molly Pennefather, their
cousin, who would not probably prove a leader in talk; Sir Humphrey
Woodroffe, whom he invited for reasons which you know--and others, yet
conscious beforehand that the young man would be out of his element
and perhaps sulky; and two _umbræ_, persons of no account--mere
patients--to make up the number of eight, the only number, unless it
is four, which is permissible for a dinner-party. For the menu there
was only one person to be considered; Dick, for instance, would eat
tough steak with as much willingness as a Chateaubriand; Mr. Haveril
knew not one dish from another; Humphrey, whom he had met at his
mother's table, would be the only guest capable of understanding a
dinner. Moreover, Humphrey would have to be conciliated by the dinner
itself, to make up for the company. The doctor therefore prepared
a dinner of a few _plats_ harmonized with the desire of pleasing a
young man who was most easily approached, he had already discovered,
by means of any one, or any group, of the senses. Dinner, as every
artistic soul knows, appeals to a group of the senses, which is the
reason why civilized man decorates his tables. Those unhappy persons
to whom dinner is but feeding might as well serve up a single dish on
one wine-case and sit down to it on another.
The reason, apart from his social qualities, why Sir Robert invited
Richard Woodroffe to the dinner was not unconnected with a little
conversation held at a smoking concert a few nights before. It was a
very good smoking concert; a highly distinguished company was present;
and the performers were all professionals.
Richard did his "turn," and then took a seat beside Sir Robert.
"I haven't seen you since last June, Dick, have I?"
"I've been on tramp."
"What do you go on tramp for?"
"Because I must when the summer comes. I can't stay in town--I take
the fiddle and sling a hand-bag over my shoulders and go off."
"Where do you go?"
"Anywhere. First by train twenty miles or so out of London, and then
plunge into the country at random."
"You tramp along the road. And then?"
"Well--you see--the real point is that I take no money with me--only
enough for the first day or two--five shillings or so. The fiddle pays
my way. I play for bed and supper in a roadside inn. The people of the
village come to hear; sometimes I play and sing; sometimes I play for
them to dance; then I collect the coppers; next day I go on."
"It sounds delightful for your audience. For me, listening to you is
sufficient; as for the rest----"
"It's more delightful than you can believe. Why, I know all the
gipsies and their language; sometimes I camp with them. And I know
most of the tramps. Some excellent fellows among the tramps. And
there's no dress-coat and no dinner-parties."
"What do you mean by saying that you must go?"
"Well, I don't know. It's something in the blood. It's heredity, I
suppose. My father was a vagabond before me----"
"Did he also go on the tramp?"
"Well, he was always moving on. He was an actor--of sorts. Some of
them still remember him over here, though he went to America five and
twenty years ago."
"Do I remember him? Was his name Woodroffe?"
"His stage name was Anthony--John Anthony. His real name was
Woodroffe."
"Anthony!" The doctor sat up. "Anthony? I have heard that name. Oh
yes; I remember. Anthony! Strange! Only the other day----" he broke
off.
"Did you hear that name coupled with any--creditable incident?"
"No--no, not very; it was in connection with a--a former wife.... How
old are you, Dick?"
"I am two and twenty."
"Yes. I remember the case now--it was four and twenty years ago. One
is always getting reminders. Dick, there's a young fellow of your
name--a baronet--son of an Anglo-Indian; are you any relation to him?"
"I've met him. We are very distant cousins, I believe. The more
distant the better."
"You don't like him? Well, he isn't quite your sort, is he? All the
same, Dick, come and dine with me next Tuesday. You will meet him;
but that won't matter. I expect some American people as well--rich
people--_nouveaux riches_--the woman is interesting, the man is plain.
They bring a girl with them--a girl, Miss Molly Pennefather. What's
the matter?" For Dick jumped.
"Molly? I know Molly!--bless her! I'll come, doctor, even if there
were twenty Sir Humphreys coming too. And after dinner I'll sing for
you, if you like."
Now you understand why this selection was made. For the first time
in his life, Sir Robert invited a company which could not possibly
harmonize. There would be no talk worth having, his wine would be
wasted, his _cuisine_ would meet with no appreciation. But he would
have them all before him--mother, son, stepson--if Richard could be
called a stepson--half-brothers; and the master of the situation would
study on the spot an illustration of heredity, unsuspected by the
patients themselves.
Mrs. Haveril arrived, clothed chiefly in diamonds. Why not? Her
husband liked her to wear those glittering things which help to make
wealth attractive, otherwise we might all be contented with poverty.
But the pale lady's delicate, nun-like face would have looked better
without them. With her came Molly, now her daily companion. The girl
was dressed, for the first time in her life, as in a dream--a dream
of paradise; she wore such a frock, with such trimmings, as makes a
maiden, if by happy chance she sees it in a window, gasp and yearn for
the unattainable, yet go home thankful for having seen it; and humbled
by the sense of personal unworthiness. Yet, what says the poet?
"Ah! but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Else what's a heaven for?"
The girl wore the dress with as little self-consciousness as one would
expect. It was such a dress as she had seen upon the stage--elaborate,
dainty, decorated; perhaps a little too old for her; but, then, an
actress must be excused for a little exaggeration. Her _rôle_ this
evening was not a speaking part; she was only a lady of the court;
meanwhile, she was on the stage, and it pleased her to find that her
audience admired, though they could not applaud.
"I have invited to meet you," said the doctor, "two distant cousins;
they bear the same name, and are of the same descent, but their
families have gone off in different channels, I understand, for some
hundreds of years. It is not often that people can claim cousinship
after so long a separation. One of them is the only son of the late
Sir Humphrey Woodroffe, a distinguished Anglo-Indian----"
"Woodroffe?" Alice asked. "It was my first husband's name."
"Very possibly he, too, was a cousin. The other is a young fellow
called Richard Woodroffe."
"Again the name," said Alice.
"Yes; the distant cousin. He is a musician and a dramatist in a small
and clever way."
"Dick is my oldest friend," said Molly.
"I am very glad, then, that he is coming to-night."
Sir Robert considered this young lady more attentively, because a girl
who was Dick Woodroffe's oldest friend must be a young lady out of
the common. There was, he observed, something certainly uncommon in
her appearance, something which might suggest the footlights. Any old
friend of Dick Woodroffe must suggest the footlights.
"It is strange," said the doctor, "to have three of our small party
belonging to the same name."
The other guests arrived. The last was Humphrey. He looked round
the room with that expression of cold and insolent curiosity which
made him so much beloved by everybody. "Outsiders all," that look
expressed. He greeted Dick with a brief nod of astonished recognition,
as if he had not expected to meet him in a drawing-room. He stared at
Mrs. Haveril's diamonds, and he smiled with some astonishment, but yet
graciously, on Molly.
"You are properly dressed to-night," he whispered. "I have never seen
you looking so well."
"Doctor," said Mrs. Haveril, as he led her down the stairs, "I wish I
could go and sit in a corner."
"Why? You are trembling! What is the matter?"
"I feel as if I was in a dream. It is the sight of these two young
men. One is the young man I saw at the theatre--the young man I
told you of--so like my husband; the other is like him, too, but
differently. I am haunted to-night with my husband's face."
"It is imagination. You have been thinking too much about certain
things. Their name is the same as your husband's. Probably he, too, if
you knew, was a distant cousin."
"It's not imagination; it is the fact."
"I am sorry you are so disturbed; but, above all, do not agitate
yourself," he whispered, as they entered the dining-room.
"I will keep up, doctor; but it's dreadful to sit with two living
images of your first husband."
From the ordinary point of view, the dinner was not so great a success
as some of those given at this house. The conversation flagged. Yet,
below the surface, everybody was interested. Humphrey took in Molly,
but Dick sat on the other side of her, and told her stories about his
last tramp; Humphrey, therefore, became sulky, and absorbed wine in
quantities. Alice gazed at the two young men--her husband's eyes,
her husband's mouth, her husband's voice, her husband's hair, in both
of them--both like unto her first husband, yet both unlike; they were
also like unto each other, yet unlike. She heard nothing that was
said; she listened to the voice, she saw the eyes, and she was back
again, after all those years, with that vagrant man, that vagabond
in morals, as well as in ways, the man who so cruelly used her, the
comedian and stroller.
The doctor also watched the two young men. They had, to begin with,
many points of resemblance; they were alike, however, as brothers
who often differ in disposition as much as strangers. The elder of
the two--the doctor considered Mrs. Haveril--took after his mother,
and was serious, at least. He thought of Lady Woodroffe's remarks
about him: "Selfish." Yes; there was a way of eating his food and
absorbing his wine that betokened a selfish pleasure in the food
above the delights of society and conversation. He did not converse;
he sat glum. "Ill-conditioned and bad-tempered," Lady Woodroffe
said. The selfishness, and probably the bad temper, he inherited
from the father. From his education he obtained, of course, the air
of superiority, which, like the Order of the Garter, has nothing to
do with intellect or achievement, or distinction. From his education
also his features had probably acquired a certain manner which we call
aristocratic.
He kept his guest in something like good temper by asking his opinion,
pointedly, as if he valued his judgment, on the champagne. He had
little talks with him on vintages and years and brands, in which
the young man was as wide as most youths at the club where champagne
flows. And he asked Sir Humphrey's opinion on the _plats_, and let the
others feel that his opinion carried weight, so that his guest forgot
something of Molly's perverseness in listening to her neighbour's
stories, and of the intolerable nuisance of sitting down to dinner
with such a company.
He turned to the other cousin--Dick. This fellow, like unto Humphrey,
was yet so much unlike him that, to begin with, his face was as
undistinguished as was his cousin's mind. Yet a clever face, capable
of many emotions. He was full of life and talk, he was interested in
everything, he could listen as well as talk--a young man of sympathy.
The artistic side of him came from his father, as did also the nomad
side of him; the sympathy and kindliness and honesty came to him from
his unknown mother--one supposed.
As for John Haveril, he was chiefly engaged in considering the girl
who had thus unexpectedly come into his life to cheer it with her
brightness and her grace. I have never found any man so old or so
self-made as to be insensible to the charms of sprightly maidenhood
and youthful beauty. John Haveril was quite a homely person; he had
not been brought up to think of beauty, and lovely dress, and charming
airs and graces as belonging to himself in any way. It is this sense
of being outside the circle which makes working men apparently deaf
and blind to beauty adorned and cultivated. Why admire or think upon
the unattainable? They might as well yearn after the possession of an
ancient castle and noble name as after beauty decorated and set off.
And now this girl belonged to them. He himself and his wife were only
happy when this girl was with them; she came every day to see them;
she drove out with them, took them to see things, taught them what
to admire and what to buy, dined with them, consented graciously to
accept their gifts, but refused their money.
At all events, she refused to take any. Yet she liked the things that
money can buy--lovely frocks, gloves, hats, ribbons, laces, gold
chains, and bracelets, and necklaces. To him contempt for money,
combined with love of what only money can buy, seemed incongruous. The
contempt was only a phrase. Molly had been taught that Art ought to
despise wealth; she had not been taught to despise the things artistic
that money can buy. The rich man chuckled to think how much money can
be spent upon a girl who despises it. He was pleased to make the girl
happy by heaping unaccustomed treasures on her gratified shoulders.
It was pleasant to be generous to a bright, happy, smiling girl, who
kept him alive, and made him forget the burden of his riches. And as
he thought of these things he fell into his third manner--that of the
gardener--and his eyes went off into space.
After dinner Molly sat down to the piano and began to sing, in a full,
flexible contralto, an old ditty about love and flowers, taught her
by Dick himself, who possessed a treasure-house full of such songs,
new and old, and of all countries, and in all languages. There is but
one theme fit for a song--the theme of youth and love, and the sweet
season of roses.
Humphrey stood listening. To this young man, perhaps to others, the
effect of Molly's singing, as of her presence and of her voice and of
her eyes, was to fill his mind with visions. They came to him in the
shape of dancing-girls with tambourines and castanets. When a girl is
endowed with the real faculty of singing, she may create in the minds
of those who hear, those visions which best fit their inclinations
and their natures. To this young man came the troop of dancing-girls,
because his disposition inclined him that way: they sang as they
danced, and they threw up white arms to a music of wild and reckless
joy; they filled him with the longing, the yearning, for the delirium
of youth and rapture which seizes every young man from time to time,
and sometimes possesses him all the days of his youth, and casts
him out long before his youth is over to the husks among the swine.
Others, more fortunate, feel the yearning, too, but they make of it a
stimulus and an incentive. There is no such rapture beneath the sky
as young men dream of; yet the vision may make them poets, and may
strengthen them for endeavour; and it may fill them with the worship
of woman, which is the one thing needful for a man. Humphrey, wholly
filled and possessed by this rapture, would not be cast forth to the
husks, because--oh! sordid reason--his mother would pay his debts.
Alas! poor Molly! and she so ignorant. She had no such vision--girls
never do. When young men reel and tremble with the vision of rapture
inconceivable, girls have to be contented with a mild happiness. To
them there comes no dream of gleaming arms--no imagined magic of voice
and eyes and face. There is no such thing as a Prodigal daughter;
the humble _rôle_ of the Prodigal Girl is to minister, as with the
white arms and the castanets, to the service of the Prodigal Son; for
which she, too, has to go out presently to sit with the swine, and to
maintain a precarious existence on the husks.
Molly had no such vision: yet by the mere power of her voice she could
awaken this vision in the mind of a listener. It is a power which
makes an actress; makes a queen; makes a lady of authority; whom all
obey to whom that power appeals.
Molly, I say, had no respect at all for the flowery way; she could
not understand, nor did she ask, why young men should want to dance
hand-in-hand with the girls; nor why they like to crown their heads
with roses; nor why they drink huge draughts of the wine that fizzeth
in the cup, to make their heads as light as their feet.
She created, however, quite a different vision in the mind of the
other young man. Dick knew all about the flowery way, and, in fact,
despised it. You see, he belonged to the "service;" he played the
fiddle for the dancers; like those who gather the roses, polish the
floor, lay the cloth, open the champagne, cook the dishes, decorate
the rooms, and write the songs; he belonged to the Show. The flowery
way was nothing to him but a Show; the white arms amused him not; the
soft cheeks he knew were painted; the smiles and the laughing looks
were practised at rehearsals. As for Molly, she was his companion and
a helpmeet; one to whom he would impart and give with all that he had,
and who would in return love and cherish him. What is the Flowery way
compared with the way of Love? This, and nothing else, is the real
reason why the Show folk are so different from the other folk; there
is no illusion to them; they are the paid dancers, makers of rosy
wreaths, musicians and singers of the Flowery way.
Molly's song, therefore, opened another kind of vision to Master
Richard. All he saw was a long road shaded with hills, and Molly in
the middle of it marching along with him, singing as she went, and
carrying the fiddle.
When the song was finished, Molly got up.
"May I sing you one of my own songs?" Humphrey asked her, paying no
attention to the rest.
He sat down and struck a note and began a song. It had no melody;
it was without a beginning and without an end; the words told
nothing, neither a story nor a sentiment; like the music to which
they were set, they began in the middle of a sentence and ended with
a semicolon. His voice was good enough, but uncultivated. When he
finished, he closed the piano, as if there was to be no more music
after him.
"It is music," he said coldly, "of the advanced school. I am proud to
belong to the music of the future--the true expression of Art in song."
"I will show you"--Richard opened the piano and took his place--"I
will show you something of the music of the present."
With vigorous and practised fingers he ran up and down the notes; then
he struck into an air--light, easy, catching, and began to sing the
"Song of the Tramp"--one of his vagabond songs.
Mrs. Haveril sat watching the two young men. When Dick began, the
other one turned away sullenly, and began to look into a portfolio of
etchings, with the air of one who will not listen.
"Doctor," she whispered, "that young man sings and plays exactly like
my husband. It might be the same. He would sit down and sing just
that same way, as if nothing ever happened and nothing mattered. I
wonder how men can go on like that, with age and sickness and the end
before them. Women never can. Oh, how like my husband he is! The other
is not like him in manner; not a bit; yet in face--oh, in face--and
voice--and eyes--and hair! It is wonderful!"
"One can hardly expect the son of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe to be
altogether like a comedian."
"Yet," she repeated, "so like him in face and everything; I cannot get
over it."
Just then Humphrey looked up. There was just a moment--what was it?--a
turn of the face; a look in the eyes, that made the doctor start.
"Heavens!" he thought. "He's exactly like his mother!"
Dick finished. John Haveril walked over to the piano before he got up.
"Mister," he said, "I like it. I find it cheerful. If you could see
your way, now, to look in upon us of an evening, I think you might do
good to my wife, who's apt to let her spirits go down. Come and sing
to us."
"I will, with pleasure. When shall I come?"
"Come to-morrow evening. Come every evening, if you like, young
gentleman. My wife doesn't care for the theatres much. If we could sit
quiet at home, with a little lively talk and a little singing, she
would like it ever so much better. You and Molly know each other, it
appears. Come to dinner to-morrow, and see how you like us."
The party broke up. Sir Humphrey was left alone with the doctor.
"Stay for a cigarette." Sir Robert rang the bell. "I hope you liked
the dinner and the wine."
"Both, Sir Robert, were beyond and above all praise. An artistic
dinner is so rare!"
"It was thrown away upon some of my guests. However, if you will
come another day, you shall meet a more distinguished company. I did
not understand, Sir Humphrey, until this evening, the very strong
resemblance you bear to your mother."
"Indeed! It is my father whom I am generally thought to resemble."
"Yes. You have, no doubt, a strong resemblance to him; but it is your
mother of whom you remind me from time to time most strongly. It
came out oddly this evening. The inheritance of face and figure and
qualities interests me, and your own case, Sir Humphrey; the son of
such a father and such a mother is extremely interesting." He took a
cigarette. "Extremely interesting, I assure you."