Paul and I made our call one fine Sunday afternoon. The Josephs were
French people, who were not entirely Anglicised, and they received
every Sunday.
My first impression of Muriel was a disappointment. She was a striking,
unusual type, most attractive in her way; but at first she failed to
realise the mental picture I had drawn of her; and did not strike me as
I had expected she would. After too keen an anticipation of pleasure,
the actual realisation is often a disappointment. Muriel, as I remember
her the first time we met, was a most uncommon looking girl. Although
small, she would have been remarked anywhere for the wonder of her
eyes and colour. They were large, round, wide-open, prominent; and
of a brownness and brilliance most rare. These wonderful eyes were
set wide apart, and when she looked at you a leading question was put
to your very soul. Evil-minded persons were always disconcerted by a
look from Muriel, a thief or a liar, I am sure, never looked her in
the eye. To say that her colour was a pale, transparent white is only
an attempt to describe what was a curious and amazingly beautiful
phenomenon. Her skin was the whitest thing I ever saw; it was like
semi-transparent light; new-fallen, downy snow; and when she smiled a
deep dimple appeared in one cheek and produced a dark shadow. Nobility
sat upon her brow and a most human kindness was promised by her lips.
Her hair was a dark, red-brown, showing many shades. Her manner was
frank and easy, but behind it a keen observer could detect a sort
of disdain for things in general, including humanity. When I say I
was disappointed in her, it is hardly an adequate expression of my
feelings—hopelessness—more truly expresses it than disappointment. She
had a ready wit, and could make one perfectly at ease or glad to escape
from her presence.
“Well, Jack, what do you think of her?” asked Paul, as we walked home
after our call.
“So, so,” I replied. “She is nice, she is bright, she is uncommon,
but——”
“Ah, _but_, of course, _but_,” exclaimed Paul. “You cannot know in
a look; you cannot feel all the charm of a unique personality in a
few minutes spent in a drawing-room full of people. And then she is
young—only sixteen.”
“She looks twenty,” I said.
“Of course she does to a simpleton like you, who does not understand
girls who have been about. She is the loved and spoiled child of a
great man, who knows everything except how to bring up his numerous
family. She has been abroad, she is out in society, and intends to stay
out. She does what she likes, a woman of the world, and refuses to go
back to a convent where, some may think, she should be.”
“These things make a difference, I suppose,” I said. “But look at her
father. The doctor is an old man. She _must_ be over twenty.”
“I have no patience with you,” said Paul. “She looks twenty because
she is wonderful. You are blind. You cannot see. It is because her
father is an old man that she is so spoiled and so wonderful. Doctor
Joseph is twenty years older than his wife and consequently Muriel is
precocious.”
“Doctor Joseph is about a thousand years older than his wife in
brains,” I said, laughing. “I do not fancy Mrs. Joseph. She is a hard
woman.”
Thus we discussed people who looked upon us as the silly goslings that
we certainly were—fluffy, callow birds, not half-fledged.
The eve of the dance arrived at last. I thought it never would come,
and half-hoped it would not, or that I had not been invited. I wished
to get it over. I hated to go, yet could not stay away.
I wore my first evening clothes that night. I had only worn them a very
few times before and knew exactly how green and gawky I was. I feared
that my shyness and simplicity would make her smile, which did not
increase my confidence in myself.
I went to the dance in a high fever and when she greeted me I blushed.
She looked at me with kind eyes—eyes that understood. How I love people
who understand and can let you know without words. The understanding
eye is one thing, the knowing eye is another. Muriel had the former,
with no gleam of the latter.
We call the mounting of a jewel a setting, and the word “setting”
seems to me the only fitting word to use regarding Muriel’s dress, it
so completed her. She was set in a severely plain but beautiful gown
of bluish or purplish gauzy brocaded stuff which appeared to me more
like an artistic drapery than a mere woman’s dress. I know the tint
intensified her pallor. I noticed this time, too, that a delicate pink
flush flitted beneath her skin when she became animated. This colour
was not a blush and could hardly be called colour; it was the shadow
of a shade of pink which came and went like magic. She was entirely
without ornament of any kind except a small diamond star she wore in
her hair, which was done plainly, a large artistic knot resting low
down upon the nape of her neck.
I knew, after the dance, that everything Paul had said of Muriel was
true. It was even far short of the truth. There were many, many things
which he had not said of her, that I could have told him, for, of
course, I saw everything—everything that was there, along with many
attributes that were not there. I was in love with a woman, not this
time with the detail of a woman, but with every dear part of her. I
believe she saw it at once. I was a new experience to her. Her men
friends and admirers had all been of the sophisticated world. I had
the charm of freshness for her. I was frank, I blushed easily and
frequently, I could not dance—really I was a most rare and uncommon boy.
My admiration must have been very apparent. Paul saw it and did not
resent it. He thought it was _only_ admiration. He could not imagine
such audacity in me as love for the incomparable Muriel. Even if he
could have imagined it, he would have laughed the idea to scorn; for
did not Muriel know him, admire him, love him? Did he not dance with
grace and sing to command admiration?
“Jack Wesblock? Bah! A mere gawk!” he would have said, without
hesitation.
I did not confide to Paul the actual condition of my mind in regard
to Muriel, in fact I was hardly ingenuous. I could not be, as I was
sure he would not have understood. I confided in John, who took me
seriously, and we sat several sessions late into the night on the
subject.
I made my party call at the Joseph house, alone, one Sunday. I was very
nervous going alone, but could not bear to go with Paul. I was received
as dozens of others, made my share of polite remarks, drank tea and
retired in good order, after being asked to call again by Muriel. This
invitation was not seconded by Mrs. Joseph, who had a way of looking
down on a tall man which was very remarkable in a short woman.
Things happened during this, my last year at college, in such quick
succession that it is nearly impossible to set them down in any kind of
order. It passed as no year has passed before or since. I met Muriel
frequently at the Skating Rink. She did not skate, but the rink was
the regular winter rendezvous of hundreds of young people, skaters and
non-skaters, who met and chatted, and flirted and had tea. Skating was
a secondary thing with many, and it became so with me.
I became a regular visitor at the Joseph house, and formed a friendship
with the Doctor, who liked young people. My talent for mimicry and
comic songs amused the old man, and I became perfectly at home with
him. He enjoyed yarns with a point, and I industriously worked to
provide him with well-told whimsical and amusing tales. Also I wanted
to know things, and had always many questions to put to him, which he
always seemed happy to answer. Thereby I acquired many useful bits of
knowledge in various directions.
My cultivation of the Doctor was not premeditated cunning, for in fact
I was strongly drawn to him. Many evenings I spent most of the time
with him, not with Muriel. I preferred that to being forced to take my
share of her amongst a crowd of young chaps, and Paul always at her
side.
Mrs. Joseph disliked me at sight, and her hawk-like eye watched me. She
knew I was in love with Muriel long before any one else was aware of
it. She thought my cultivation of the Doctor was cunning, and knew I
was dangerous.
The few opportunities that came to me of seeing Muriel alone, I made
the most of in my own way, and she knew my mind long before I blurted
out the truth, which happened one moonlit night, when we were returning
from a tobogganing party. She was not coy or coquettish, but frankly
admitted that her love was mine.
“But what of Paul?” I asked her.
“Paul?” she exclaimed laughing. “Why Paul, any more than one of the
others?”
“Because he loves you, and you have loved him,” I answered. “Did you
not tell him so?”
“Love Paul!” said Muriel. “It is too ridiculous. I never loved him. Not
a word of love has ever passed between us.”
I was so hurt I could not speak. Either Paul had woefully lied, or
Muriel was deceiving me or trying to. I hated to entertain either
thought. I was silent.
“What is the matter, Jack?” asked Muriel. “One of the things I have
admired in you is that you were not small. I knew you loved me long
ago, and I loved you, and particularly admired you because you left me
so free with other men. Surely I have not been mistaken? You are not
jealous of Paul?”
“If you love me, Muriel, it is enough; I am satisfied; but Paul is my
friend, and he has told me things that are evidently not so.”
“Oh, Jack,” exclaimed Muriel, “about me? What has he said? Tell me.”
“That you loved him. That you slept with his picture under your pillow.
That you wrote him letters daily, although you saw him so frequently,
and that for months you have bullied him and made him toe the line of
your wishes.”
Muriel was at first very much inclined to be angry, but changed her
mind and decided to be amused.
“Paul must have been telling you his dreams,” she said, and laughed.
“There is not one word of truth in these things you tell me. Paul and
I have only been chums. I like him and enjoy his music, but love there
has never been between us, believe me!”
“I do believe you,” I said, “I am glad to believe you, but can you
explain why Paul should lie so tremendously?”
“You do not understand Paul,” said Muriel. “He is just a poetic and
shallow thing. I do not believe he ever made love to a girl in his
life. He has told me of many of his conquests, which I see now could
never have happened. You must allow me the pleasure of telling him how
matters are between you and me.”
So Paul was disposed of. He never forgave me, and said I had cruelly
and treacherously robbed him of his love. As it pleased him to
think so, I never enlightened him. During this year I grew in many
directions. I was a man engaged to be married. My growth, in what is
known as common sense, was slow. The great thing was that Muriel loved
me and I loved her. That seemed to me to be everything; nothing else
mattered.
My studies were neglected and a wild year passed in dances, theatre
parties, musical orgies, drives, skating and every kind of pleasure
which makes time of so little value to the young.
Muriel was a pleasing combination of wisdom and foolishness. She had a
tremendous influence upon me, which she might have used wisely. What
we both knew together would not have covered any great area to any
considerable depth. We were young, spoiled, thoughtless, shallow. She
appeared far more sophisticated than I did, which was produced by her
absolute confidence in herself, an element sadly wanting in me.
And now I took to herding with the wild boys at college, and thereby
fell considerably in my own estimation. I did not drink, but I became
familiar with those ladies of the demi-monde who lived for and by
students of a type. I was shocked in my better self, but lacked control.
These days were full of failings to live up to my own standard. I fell
and repented, and fell again. Periods came regularly upon me when I
had to cut loose, and go back to first principles. The painted siren
called me and I went. It seems nearly like a sacrilege to mention these
things while telling of my love for the woman who became my wife, but
it is not. My love for Muriel was at once the cause of my falling and
the reason of my being able to go through a difficult period without
much harm. My love was one thing, the call of my body coming late into
health and strength was another thing quite apart, and I treated them
as such. I was not really brutal or a _roué_, but was cutting my wisdom
teeth a little later than most boys.
We foolishly and unwisely despise the demi-mondaine, and hypocritically
pretend that she is altogether vile, shutting our eyes to the plain
truth that she is much more a part of our system than the nun. Or we
refuse to admit her existence altogether. We make her, and we are
responsible for her. She is a necessary part of things sexual. The
churches are responsible for the hypocritical attitude towards this
unfortunate type. Religions always go to extremes. Time was when the
prostitute was a sacred person, consecrated to the gods. Now we go to
the other extreme and make her an outcast, and consecrate her to the
devil.
Jess was a celebrity among college students of my time. She was young,
beautiful and witty. She was well-educated and talented, and a woman of
a high type in some respects. If the word can be used towards a woman
of her profession, she was even modest. I admired Jess while I loved
Muriel. I was much ashamed of this affair at the time, but see it with
very different eyes now. I was of a very pliant character, and my life,
like most lives, followed the path of least resistance. It was easier
to make Jess part of my life than to resist her.
How Jess came to be what she was need be no part of this tale. Hers was
a free life. Although still a young woman, her experience of the world
had been wide, and had made her very wise. She was four years older
than I, and she looked upon me nearly as a naughty child, and was sorry
for me. While our intimacy may not perhaps be considered nice, it was
an eminently useful one to me. She was a tower of strength to me, saved
me from much harm, and enlightened me on many vital things of which
I was wholly ignorant. She was one of the curious anomalies of human
society in this country, a refined and cultured demi-mondaine.
Considering the debit and credit between good and evil, of my few
months’ experience with Jess, I see the balance was on the side of good.
I do not pretend that such things are defensible or ever have been,
but say what you will and do what you may, young men will give way to
animal spirits till the millenium. Woman in some respects presents an
exceedingly serious problem in connection with college life. The matter
cannot be met with “thou shalt not” or the ordinary moral punishments.
All that can be safely done is to warn the young in a fatherly and
kindly manner of the real dangers of the way; after that, the issue
rests with the individual. Some come through the fires refined and
sublimated, better fitted for larger usefulness in every way, others
are scorched and warped; the weak are utterly destroyed. As for myself,
I came to no particular harm. This was due, no doubt, to my natural
disposition.
A professional man of strong opinions and with the courage of his
convictions married Jess, and very nearly succeeded in forcing her on
his social set, but she died nine months after her marriage day while
the fight was still going on. Had she lived she would probably have
been stoned. To me she is a very pleasant memory; a very unfortunate
woman with a great character.
It seems to me that a great deal of our boasted virtue is nothing but
very dangerous ignorance. Many marriages turn out very unhappily for
no cause but the want of necessary knowledge of the affairs of sex. If
men entered the state of marriage in the condition of blind ignorance
in which most women enter, there would be a far greater percentage of
unhappy marriages than there are.
I was cast for one of the end men in a large amateur minstrel show
this winter. Muriel was greatly pleased, and was sure my comic songs
would make a great hit. I bought a beautiful tambourine and thumped
it diligently in the cellar daily. But alas! After three rehearsals I
was asked to resign my chair to a fellow who had the nerve I lacked. I
was quite confident that I could do it, and have done it many times
since, but at the time I still blushed like a girl, although I was
nearly twenty, and a chap who blushes is hardly fit for an end man in a
minstrel show.
It took years of struggle before I conquered the characteristic
something in my mental make-up which caused me to lack confidence in
myself, and made me shy, shrinking and fearful.
If you take the doings of this very eventful year into consideration
you will not think it surprising that at the Christmas examinations I
was handicapped with three supplementaries, or that in the following
spring I was plucked once more. This time I expected it, and was not
cast down. I realised that getting an education in the college way was
not for me. Father and mother were, of course, somewhat discouraged,
but they had seen it coming.