IN THE AVENUE.
According to the classic story, the Sphinx demanded of all who visited
her the solution of an enigma—and that enigma was _Man_.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, on a quiet ordinary Sunday morning, Arminell, a
young girl without experience, had been confronted with the Sphinx, and
set the same enigma, an enigma involving others, like the perforated
Chinese puzzle-balls, an enigma that has been essayed and answered
repeatedly, yet always remains insoluble, that, as it has assumed fresh
aspects, has developed new perplexities. Arminell had been wearied with
the routine and restraint of social life, its commonplace duties and
conventionalities, and had been fired with that generous though mistaken
dislike to the insincerities and formalities of civilisation, so often
found among the young—generous, because bred of truth; mistaken, because
it ignores the fact that the insincerities impose on no one, and the
formalities are made of mutual compromises, such as render life, social
life, possible.
Arminell was in this rebellious mood, when she was brought face to face
with a problem beyond her powers to unravel. She might as well, with a
rudimentary knowledge of algebraic symbols, have been set to work out
Euler’s proof of the Binomial Theorem. She was like Fatima when she
opened Blue-Beard’s secret chamber, and saw in it an array of victims.
Of these victims disclosed to her, one was Jingles, another Patience
Kite; then came Captain Saltren and his wife; and next hung in the
dismal cabinet of horrors, Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish. The world was
indeed a Blue-Beard’s room. If you but turned the key you saw an array
of misery and tearful faces, and hearts with blood distilling from them.
It was more than that—it was a box with a Jack in it. She had touched
the spring, and a monster had flown up in her face, not to be compressed
and buttoned down again.
How could the facts of existence be reconciled with the idea of Divine
Justice? On one side were men and women born to wealth and position and
happiness; on the other, men and women denied the least of the blessings
of life. Why were some of God’s creatures petted and pampered, and
others kicked about and maltreated? Was the world of men so made from
the beginning, or had things so come about through man’s mismanagement,
and if so, where was the over-ruling Providence which governed the
world? When the Noah’s Ark arrived new from the great toy-shop whence
issue the planets and spheres, were all the figures round and fitted
together, only afterwards in the rearrangement to impinge on and
mutilate each other? Or had they been all alike in the beginning and had
developed their horns and proboscises, their tusks and broad-brimmed
hats? Life is a sort of pantomime, that begins with a fairy tale, leads
to a transformation scene, and ends, perhaps, with low comedy. In a
moment when we least expect it, ensues a blaze of light, a spectacular
arrangement of performers, and then, away fall the trappings of
splendour, and forth, from under them, leap out harlequin, clown, and
pantaloon. The knights cast off their silver armour, the fairies shed
their gauzy wings, kings and queens depose their crowns and sceptres,
and there are revealed to us ordinary men and women, with streaks of
paint on their faces, and patches of powder in their hair, perpetrating
dismal jokes, the point of which we fancy is levelled at ourselves.
To some men and women the transformation scene arrives late in life, but
to all inevitably at some time; and then when the scene on the stage
before us is changed, a greater transformation ensues within.
When we were children we believed that everything glittering was gold,
that men were disinterested and women sincere. The transformation scene
came on us, perhaps with coruscations of light and grouping of colours
and actors, perhaps without, and went by, leaving us mistrustful of
every person, doubtful of everything, sceptical, cynical, disenchanted.
Is not—to take a crucial case—marriage itself a grand transformation
scene that closes the idyl of youth, and opens the drama of middle age?
We live for a while in a fairy world, the flowers blaze with the most
brilliant colours, the air is spiced as the breezes of Ceylon, angels
converse with men, and sing æthereal music, manna floats down from
heaven, containing in itself all sweetness; sun and moon stand still
o’er us, over against each other, not to witness a conflict, as of old
in Ajalon, but to brighten and prolong the day of glamour. Then the
bride appears before us, as Eve appeared to Adam, unutterably beautiful
and perfect and innocent, and we kneel in a rapture, and dare not
breathe, dare not speak, nor stir; and swoon in an ecstasy of wonder and
adoration.
Then tingle the marriage bells. The transformation scene is well set
with bridesmaids and orange-blossoms, and a wedding breakfast, postboys
with favours, and a shower of rice, and then—?
The fairy tale is over. The first part of the pantomime is over. The
colours have lost their brilliancy, the flowers shrivel, the scents are
resolved into smells of everyday life, broiled bacon, cabbage water, and
the light is eclipsed as by a November fog. The men for the way-rate,
the water-rate, and the gas-rate are urgent to have a word with us.
There descend on our table at every quarter most bitter bills—those of
the butcher and the green-grocer, the milliner’s little account, and the
heavy itemless bill from the doctor. What shall we say about our Eve,
the beautiful, the all-but divine, the ideal woman? The all-but divine
turns out to have a touchy temper and a twanging tongue, falls out with
her cook, dismisses her, and consequently serves you cold mutton and
underboiled potatoes.
The transformation is complete, and how does it leave us? In a rage at
our folly? Cursing our idealism? Rasped and irritable? Withdrawing more
and more from the society of our Eve, and our Eden turned to an espalier
garden, to our club? So it is in many cases. The transformation scene is
a trial, and certain ones there are that never recover the shock of
disenchantment; but there are others, on the other hand, who endure, and
to them comes in the end a reward. These continue to sit in their box,
listless, paring their nails, turning the programme face downwards. Half
contemptuously, wholly void of interest, they lend a dull ear to what
follows, and look on with a wondering eye, convinced that the rest is
farce and buffoonery and a vexation of spirit, which must however be sat
through; then, little by little fresh interests arise, tiny new actors
invade the stage, with sweet but feeble voices, saying nothing of point,
yet full of poetry. The magic begins to work once more, the little
fingers weave a spell that lays hold of heart and brain, and conjures up
a new world of fantasy. The flowers re-open and flush with colour, the
balmy air fans our jaded faces, again the songs of angels reach our
ears, the clouds dispel, the manna falls, Eve resumes her beauty, not
the old beauty of childlike innocence and freshness, but that of ripened
womanhood, of sweet maternity, of self-command and self-devotion.
We sit hushed with our head in our hands, and look with intense eye, and
listen with sharpened ear, and the tears rise and run down our cheeks.
We have forgotten the old Eden with its fantastic imaginations, in the
more matured, the richer, the fuller, and above all the more real
paradise that is now revealed.
In the case of Arminell Inglett there was no enchantment of colour, no
setting of tableau, for the transformation scene; it came on her
suddenly but also quietly. In one day, on a quiet country Sunday, when
she walked out of the dull and stuffy school, she passed, as it were,
through a veil, out of childland into the realm of Sphinx.
In the evening, after a dull dinner, instead of remaining in the
drawing-room with my lady, who had taken up a magazine, Arminell put a
shawl over her head and shoulders, went forth into the garden, and
thence to the avenue.
The evening was pleasantly warm, the weather beautiful; beneath the
trees the dew did not fall heavily. A new moon was shining. The girl
thought over what she had heard and seen that day—over the troubles and
wrongs of Captain Saltren, driven from his occupation, and yet chained
to the house that was his own, and with which he would not part; over
the defiant scepticism of Patience Kite, at war in heart with God and
man; over the suffering lives of Samuel and Joan, united in heart, yet
severed by fate, looking to a common grave as the marriage bed, and
Arminell felt almost contempt for these latter, because they accepted
their lot without resentment. She thought over what young Mr. Saltren
had said about his own position, and she was able to understand that it
was one of difficulty and discomfort.
Then she turned her mind to the Sunday-school, where, whilst outside of
it, within the narrow confines of Orleigh parish, there was so much of
trouble and perplexity, my lady was placidly teaching the children to
recite as parrots the names of the books of the Apocrypha, which they
were not to read for the establishment of doctrine, and Captain Tubb was
enunciating arrant nonsense about the names of the Sundays preceding
Lent.
The avenue was composed of ancient oaks. It was reached from the garden,
which intervened between the house and it. The avenue was not perfectly
in line, because the lay of the land did not admit of its being carried
at great length without a curve, following the slope of the hill that
rose above it, and fell away below in park-land to the river.
The walk was gravelled with white spar. It commanded an exquisite view
down the valley of the Ore, over rich meadow-land and pasture, dotted
with clumps of trees, beech, chestnut, and Scotch pine. A line of alders
marked the course of the river, to where, by means of a dam, it had been
widened into a lake. On the further side of the river, the ground gently
rose in grassy sweeps to the wooded hills. To the south-west the river
wound away about shoulders of richly-clothed hills, closing in on each
other, fold on fold. The avenue was most delightful in the evening when
the setting sun gilded the valley with its slant beams, turned the
trunks of the pines scarlet, and cast the shadows of the park trees a
purple blue on the illuminated grass.
Oaks do not readily accommodate themselves to form avenues, they are
contorted, gnarled, consequently oak avenues are rarely met with. That
at Orleigh had the charm of being uncommon.
The evening was still, the sky was full of light, so much so that the
stars hardly showed. The light spread as a veil from the north, from
behind the Orleigh woods, and reflected itself in the dew that bathed
the grass. Arminell was attached to this walk, in great measure because
she could at almost all times saunter in it undisturbed.
She had not, however, on this occasion, been in it half an hour, before
she saw her father coming to her. He had left his wine; there were, as
it happened, no guests in the house, and he and the tutor had not many
topics in common.
“Well, Armie!” he said, “I have come out to have a cigar, and lean on
you. My lady told me I should find you here.”
“And, papa, I am so glad you have come, for I want to have a word with
you.”
“About what, child?” Lord Lamerton was a direct man—a man in his
position must be direct to get through all the business that falls to
him, business which he cannot escape from, however much he may desire
it.
“Papa,” said Arminell, “it is about the Saltrens.”
“What about them?”
“If you give up the manganese—what is Captain Saltren to do?”
“Stephen will find work somewhere, never fear.”
“But he cannot leave his house.”
“That he will have to sell; the railway company want to cross
Chillacombe at that point. He will get a good price, far beyond the
value of the house and plot of land.”
“Papa—must the manganese be given up?”
“Of course it must. I have no intention of allowing myself to be
undermined.”
“But it is so cruel to the men who worked on it.”
“Manganese no longer pays for working. There has been a loss on the mine
for the last five years. We are driven out of the market by the Eiffel
manganese. The Germans work at less wage, and our men refuse to have
their wage reduced.”
“But what are the miners to do?”
“They were given warning that the mine would be closed, as long as five
years ago; and the warning has been renewed every year since. They have
known that they must seek employment elsewhere. They will have to go
after work, work will not come to them—it is the same in every trade.
All businesses are liable to fluctuations, some to extinction. When the
detonating cap was invented, the old trade of flint chipping on the
Sussex downs began to languish; with the discovery of the lucifer match
it expired altogether. When adhesive envelopes were introduced, the
wafer-makers and sealing-wax makers were thrown out of work, and the
former trade was killed outright. I was wont to harvest oak-bark
annually, and put many hundreds of pounds in my pocket. Now the
Americans have superseded tan by some chemical composition, and there is
no further sale for bark. I am so many hundreds of pounds the poorer.”
“Yes, papa, that is true enough, but you have a resisting power in you
that others have not. You have your rents and other sources of income to
fall back on; these poor tradesmen and miners and artizans have none. I
have read that in Manitoba the secret of the magnificent corn crops is
found in this, that the ground is frozen in winter many feet deep, and
remains frozen in the depths all summer, but gradually thaws and sends
up from below the released water to nourish the roots of the wheat,
which are thus fed by an unfailing subterranean fountain. It is so with
you, you are always heavy in purse and flush in pocket, because you also
have your sources always oozing up under your roots.”
“My dear Armie, my subterranean source—the manganese—is exhausted; for
five years instead of being a source it has been a sink.”
“Whereas,” continued Arminell, “the poor and the artizan lie on shelfy
rock, with shallow soil above it. A drought—a week of sun—and they are
parched up and perish.”
“My dear girl, the analogy is false. The difference between us is
between the rooted and the movable creature. Do not they live on us, eat
us, consume our superfluity? We are vegetables—that root in the soil,
and the tradesmen and artizans nibble and browse on us. The richer our
leaf, the more succulent our juices, the more nutriment we supply to
them. When they have eaten us down to the soil, they move off to other
pastures and nibble and browse there. When we have recovered, and send
up fresh shoots, back they come, munch, munch, munch. If one supply
fails, others open. There is equipoise—I dare say there are twice as
many hands employed in making matches and adhesive envelopes now, as
there were of old chipping flints and making wafers.”
“That may be, but the drying up of one spring before another opens must
cause distress. Where is that other one, that the necessitous may drink
of it? Ishmael was dying of thirst in the desert on his mother Hagar’s
lap, within a stone’s throw of a well of which neither knew till it was
shown them by an angel.”
“Of course there is momentary distress, but the means of locomotion are
now so great that every man can go about in quest of work. Things always
right themselves in the end.”
“They do not right themselves without the crushing and killing of some
in the process. Tell me, papa, how is this to be explained? I have
to-day encountered two poor creatures who have loved each other for
twenty years, and are too abject in their poverty to be able even now to
marry. No fault of either accounts for this. Accident, misfortune,
divide them—such things ought not to be.”
“But they are—they cannot be helped.”
“They ought not to be—there must be fault somewhere. Either Providence
in ruling destinies rules them crooked, or the social arrangements
brought about by civilization are to blame.”
“Here, Armie, I cannot follow you. I am content with the providential
ordering of the world.”
“Of course you are, papa, on fifty thousand a year.”
“You interrupt me. I say I am content with the social structure as built
up by civilization.”
“I have no doubt about it—you are a peer. But what I want to know is,
how do the providential and social arrangements look to the Fredericks
with the Empty Pockets, not what aspect they wear to Maximilian and Le
Grand Monarque. Do you suppose that Captain Saltren is content that his
livelihood should be snatched from him; or Patience Kite that her father
and mother should have died, leaving her in infancy a waif; or Samuel
Ceely, that he should have blown off his hand and blown away his life’s
happiness with it, and dislocated his hip and put his fortunes for ever
out of joint thereby, so as to be for ever incapacitated from making
himself a home, and having a wife and little children to cling about his
neck and call him father?”
“Old Sam was not all he ought to have been before he met with his
accidents.”
“Nor are any of us all we ought to be. Papa, why should it have fallen
to your lot to have two wives, and Samuel Ceely be denied even one?”
“Upon my word, Armie, I cannot tell.”
“I do not suppose you can see how those are who live on the north side
of the hill always in shade and covered with mildew, when you bask on
the south side always in sun, where the strawberries ripen early, and
the roses bloom to Christmas.”
“I beg your pardon, child, I have had my privations. We cannot afford to
go to town this season. I have had to make a reduction in my rents of
twenty per cent. I get nothing from my Irish property, cannot sell my
bark, lose by my manganese. Are you satisfied?”
“No, papa, your privations are loss of luxuries, not of necessaries.
Those who have been exposed to buffets of fortune, been scourged by the
cynical and cruel caprice which rules civilized life, will rise up and
exact their portions of life’s pleasures and comforts. They will say,—we
will not be exposed to the chance of being full to-day and empty
to-morrow, of working without hope—like Samuel and Joan.”
“Sam does not work.”
“That is the fault of Providence which blew off his hand and distorted
his leg. I say, the needy and the workers will ask why we should be
well-dressed, well-housed, well-fed, hear good music, buy good pictures,
ride good horses——” her thoughts moved faster than her words; she broke
off her sentence without finishing it. “Papa! why, at a meet, should
Giles have his pony and little Cribbage run on his feet?”
“Upon my soul,” answered Lord Lamerton, “I can’t answer in any other way
than this—because I keep a pony and the rector does not for his little
boy.”
“But, papa, I think the time must come when you will have to justify
your riding a good hunter and wearing a red coat; and I for wearing a
tailor-made habit, whilst Miss Jones has but a skirt.”
“Look here, Armie,” said her father, “how dense, how like snow the fog
is lying on the pasture by the water.”
“Yes, papa, but——”
“There is no fog here, on the higher land.”
“No, papa.”
“There is frost below when there is none here.”
“Yes, papa.”
“Why so?”
“Because that lies low, and this high.”
“But why should that lie low, and this high?”
“Of course, because—it is the configuration of the land.”
“But how unreasonable, how unjust, that there should be such
configuration of the land, as you call it. There should be no elevations
and no depressions anywhere—a universal flat is the landscape for you.”
Arminell winced. She saw the drift of her father’s remarks.
“My dear,” he said, “there must be inequalities in the social level, but
I am not sure that these very inequalities do not give charm and
richness to the social picture. Each level has its special flora. The
marigold and the milkmaid and the forget-me-not love the low moist
bottom where the fog and frost hang, and will not thrive here. Those ups
and downs, those hills and valleys which so shock your sense of fitness,
are the secret of richness, are the secret of fertility. In equatorial
Africa, Dr. Schweinfurth found a dead level and perennial swamp. In
Mid-Asia, Huc traversed an Alpine plateau absolutely sterile. It is a
very unreasonable thing to some that our moors should contain so many
acres of unprofitable bog, that they should be sponges receiving, and
growing nothing. They say that we, the wealthy, are these absorbing
sponges, unprofitable bogs of capital. But, my dear child, if the bogs
were all drained, all the water would run off as fast as it fell. They
retain the water and gradually discharge it on the thirsty lowlands. And
so is it with us. We spend what we receive and enrich therewith those
beneath. But come—I shall go in. I am feeling chilled.”
“I will take another turn first,” said Arminell.
“Don’t fret yourself, my dear,” said her father, “about these matters.
Take the world as it is.”
“Papa—that advice comes too late. I cannot.”