There was no other place except the picture gallery where they could see
each other alone. But the dignity of Velasquez and the opulence of
Rubens distracted their thoughts, and they were ill at ease on a
backless seat in front of a masterpiece. Owen regretted the Hobbema; it
was less aggressive than the colonnade. A sun-lit clearing in a wood and
a water mill raised no moral question. He turned his eyes from the
dancers, but however he resisted them, their frivolous life found its
way into the conversation. They were the wise ones, he said. They lived
for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few
operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to
come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only
insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he
did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at
the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural a
fortnight ago, he would have lied, but within the last week his feelings
for Evelyn had changed. If she had broken with him a week ago, he would
have found easy consolation in the list, but now it was not women, but a
woman that he desired. A mere sexual curiosity, and the artistic desire
to save a beautiful voice from being wasted, had given way to a more
personal emotion in which affection was beginning. Looking at him,
thinking over what he had just said, unable to stifle the hope that
those women in the picture were the wise ones, she heard life calling
her. The art call and the love call, subtly interwoven, were modulated
now on the violins now on the flutes of an invisible orchestra. At the
same moment his immeshed senses, like greedy fish, swam hither and
thither, perplexed and terrified, finding no way of escape, and he
dreaded lest he had lost his balance and fallen into the net he had cast
so often. He had begun to see that she was afraid of the sin, and not at
all of him. She had never asked him if he would always love her--that
she seemed to take for granted--and he had, or fancied he had, begun to
feel that he would never cease to love her. He looked into the future
far enough to see that it would be she who would tire of him, and that
another would appear two or three years hence who would appeal to her
sensual imagination just as he did to-day. She would strive to resist
it, she would argue with herself, but the enticing illusion would draw
her as in a silken net. He was now engaged in the destruction of her
moral scruples--in other words, making the way easy for his successor.
They were in the gallery alone, and, taking her hand, he considered in
detail the trouble this _liaison_ would bring in its train. He no longer
doubted that she would go abroad with him sooner or later. He hoped it
would be sooner, for he had begun to perceive the absurdity of his
visits to Dulwich. The question was whether she was worth an exile in a
foreign country. He would have to devote himself to her and to her
interests. She would have a chaperon. There would be no use in their
openly living together--that he could not stand. But at that moment the
exquisite happiness of seeing her every day, coming into the room where
she was reading or singing, and kissing her as he leaned over her chair
affectionately, as a matter of course, deriving his enjoyment from the
prescriptive right to do so, and then talking to her about ordinary
affairs of life, came upon him suddenly like a vision; and this imagined
life was so intense that for one moment it was equivalent to the
reality. He saw himself taking her home from the theatre at night in the
brougham. In the next instant they were in the train going to Bayreuth.
In the next he saw her as Kundry rush on to the stage. He felt that,
whatever it cost him, that was the life he must obtain. He felt that he
could not live if he did not acquire it, and so intense was the vision
that, unable to endure its torment, he got up and proposed they should
go into the garden and sit under the cedar.
They were alone in the garden as they were in the gallery, but lovers
are averse to open spaces, and Owen felt that their appearance coincided
too closely with that of lovers in many popular engravings. He hoped he
was not observed, and regretted he had often spoken of the picture
gallery to his friends. An unlucky chance might bring one of them down.
It was in this garden, amid the scent and colour of May, that the most
beautiful part of their love story was woven. It was in this garden that
they talked about love and happiness, and the mystery of the attraction
of one person to another, and whilst listening to him, a poignant memory
of the afternoon when he had first kissed her often crossed her mind.
Little faintnesses took her in the eyes and heart. Their voices broke,
and it seemed that they could not continue to talk any longer of life
and art. It was in this garden that they forgot each other. Their
thoughts wandered far away, and then, when one called the other's
attention, he or she relinquished scenes and sensations and came back
appearing suddenly like someone out of a mist. Each asked the other what
he or she had been dreaming. Once he told her his dream. It was of a
villa in the middle of a large garden surrounded by chestnut trees and
planted with rhododendrons. In this villa there dwelt a great singer
whose name was a glory in the world, and to this villa there came very
often a tall, thin, ugly man, and, seeing the beautiful singer walking
with him, the folk wondered how she could love him.
It was a sort of delicious death, a swooning ecstasy, an absorption of
her individuality in his. Just as the spring gradually displaced the
winter by a new branch of blossom, and in that corner of the garden by
the winsome mauve of a lilac bush, without her knowing it his ideas
caught root in her. New thoughts and perceptions were in growth within
her, and every day she discovered the new where she had been accustomed
to meet the familiar idea. She seemed to be slipping out of herself as
out of a soft, white garment, unconsciously, without any effort on her
part.
Very often they discussed whether sacrifice of self is not the first of
the sins against life. "That is the sin," he said, "that cries loudest
to Nature for vengeance. To discover our best gift from Nature, and to
cultivate that gift, is the first law of life." If she could not accept
this theory of life as valid and justifiable, she had at least begun to
consider it. Another of Owen's ideas that interested her was his theory
of beauty. He said that he could not accept the ordinary statement that
a woman was beautiful and stupid. Beauty and stupidity could not exist
in the same face, stupidity being the ugliest thing on earth; and he
contended that two-thirds of human beauty were the illumination of
matter by the intelligence, and but one-third proportion and delicacy of
line. After some hesitation, he admitted that at first he had been
disappointed in her, but now everything about her was an enchantment,
and when she was not present, he lived in memories of her. He spoke
without emphasis, almost as if he were speaking to himself, and she
could not answer for delight.
Her father was vaguely conscious of some change in his daughter, and
when one day he heard her singing "Faust," he was perplexed; and when
she argued that it was a beautiful and human aspiration, he looked at
her as if he had never seen her before. He asked her how she had come to
think such a thing, and was perplexed by her embarrassments. She was
sorry for her liking for Gounod's melodies. It seemed to alienate them;
they seemed to have drifted apart. She saw a silently widening distance,
as if two ships were moving away. One day he asked her if she were going
to communion next Sunday. She answered that she did not think so, and
sat thinking a long while, for she had become suddenly aware that she
was not as pious as she used to be. She did not think that Owen's
arguments had touched her faith, but she no longer felt the same
interest in religion; and in thinking over this change, which seemed so
independent of her own will, she grew pensive and perplexed. Her
melancholy was a sort of voluptuous meditation. She was conscious all
the while of Owen's presence. It was as if he were standing by her, and
she felt that he must be thinking of her.
He had often spoken of going away with her; she had smiled plaintively,
never regarding an elopement as possible. But one evening her father had
gone to dine with a certain Roman prelate who believed in the advantage
to the Catholic Church of a musical reformation. And she had gone to
meet Owen, who had driven from London. They had walked two hours in the
lanes, and when she got home she ran to her room and undressed
hurriedly, thinking how delightful it would be to lie awake in the dark
and remember it all. And feeling the cool sheets about her she folded
her arms and abandoned herself to every recollection. Her imagination,
heightened as by a drug, enabled her to see the white, dusty road and
the sickly, yellow moon rising through the branches. Again she was
standing by him, her arms were on his neck; again they stood looking
into the vague distance, seeing the broken paling in the moonlight.
There were his eyes and hands and lips to think about, and when she had
exhausted these memories, others sprang upon her. It was in the very
centre of her being that she was thinking of the moment when she had
spied his horse's head over the hill top. She had recognised his
silhouette against the sky. He had whipped up the horse, he had thrown
the reins to the groom, he had sprung from the step. The evening was
then lighted by the sunset, and as the sky darkened, their love had
seemed to grow brighter. In comparison with this last meeting, all past
meetings seemed shadowy and unreal. She had never loved him before, and
if her smile had dwindled when he asked her to come away with him, she
had liked to hear him say the dogcart was waiting at the inn. But when
they stood by the stile where cattle were breathing softly, and the moon
shone over the sheepfold like a shepherd's lantern, her love had grown
wilful, and she had liked to say that she would go away with him. She
knew not whether she could fulfil her promise, but it had been a joy to
give it. They had walked slowly towards Dulwich, the groom had brought
round the dog-cart; Owen had asked her once more to get in. Oh, to drive
away with him through the night! "Owen, it is impossible," she said; "I
cannot, at least not now. But I will one day very soon, sooner perhaps
than you think."
He had driven away, and, standing on the moon-whitened road, she had
watched the white dust whirl about the wheels.
One of the difficulties in the indulgence of these voluptuous
meditations was that they necessitated the omission of her evening
prayers. She could not kneel by her bedside and pray to God to deliver
her from evil, all the while nourishing in her heart the intention of
abandoning herself to the thought of Owen the moment she got into bed.
Nor did the omission of her evening prayers quite solve the difficulty,
for when she could think no more of Owen, the fear of God returned. She
dared not go to sleep, and lay terrified, dreading the devil in every
corner of the room. Lest she might die in her sleep and be summoned
before the judgment seat, she lay awake as long as she could.
When she fell asleep she dreamed of the stage when the world was won,
and when it seemed she had only to stretch her hands to the sky to take
the stars. But in the midst of her triumph she perceived that she could
no longer sing the music the world required; a new music was drumming in
her ears, drowning the old music, a music written in a melancholy mode,
and played on invisible harps. Owen told her it was madness to listen,
and she strove to close her ears against it. In great trouble of mind
she awoke; it was only a dream, and she had not lost her voice. She lay
back upon the pillow and tried to recall the music which she had heard
on the invisible harps, but already it was forgotten; it faded from her
brain like mist from the surface of a mere. But the humour that the
dream had created endured after the dream was dead. She felt no longer
as she had felt over night, and lay in a sort of obtuse sensibility of
conscience. She got up and dressed, her mind still clouded and sullen,
and her prayers were said in a sort of middle state between fervour and
indifference. Her father attributed her mood to the old cause; several
times he was on the point of speaking, and she held him for the moment
by the lappet of his coat and looked affectionately into his face. But
something told her that if she were to confide her trouble to anyone,
she would lose the power she had acquired over herself. Something told
her that all the strength on her side was reposed in the secrecy of the
combat. If it were known, she could imagine herself saying--
"Well, nothing matters now; let us go away, Owen."
He was coming to see her between eleven and twelve--at the very time he
knew her father would be away from home, and this very fact stimulated
her ethical perception. Her manner was in accordance with her mood, and
the moment he entered he saw that something had happened, that she was
no longer the same Evelyn from whom he had parted a couple of nights
before.
"Well, I can see you have changed your mind; so we are not going away
together. Evelyn, dear, is it not so? Tell me."
He was a little ashamed of his hypocrisy, for, as he had driven home in
the dogcart, the adventure he was engaged in had appeared to him under
every disagreeable aspect. He could not but think that the truth of the
story would leak out, and he could hear all the women he knew speaking
of Evelyn as a girl he had picked up in the suburbs--an organist's
daughter. He had thought again of the responsibility that going away
with this girl imposed upon him, and he had come to the conclusion that
it would be wiser to drop the whole thing and get out of it while there
was time. That night, as he lay in bed, he saw himself telling people
how many operas she knew; and the tales of her successes in Vienna and
Naples.... But he need not always be with her, she would have a
chaperon; and he had fallen asleep thinking which among his friends
would undertake the task for him. In the morning he had awakened in the
same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich disheartened, provoked
at his own folly. It therefore happened that her refusal to go away with
him coincided exactly with his humour. So all that was necessary was a
mere polite attempt to persuade her that she was sacrificing her career,
but without too much insistence on the point; a promise to call again
soon; then a letter saying he was unwell, or was going to Paris or to
Riversdale. A month after they could meet at a concert, but he must be
careful not to be alone with her, and very soon the incident--after all,
he had only kissed her--would be forgotten. But as he sat face to face
with her, all his carefully considered plans seemed to drop behind him
in ruins, and he doubted if he would be able to deny himself the
pleasure of taking her away. That is to say, if he could induce her to
go, which no longer seemed very sure. She might be one of those women in
whom the sense of sin was so obdurate that they could not but remain
virtuous.
But of what was she thinking? he asked himself; and he scanned the
yielding face, reading the struggle in a sudden suppressed look or
nervous twitching of the lips.
"Dearest Evelyn, I love you. Life would be nothing without you."
"Owen, I am very fond of you, but there would be no use in my going away
with you. I should be miserable. I know I am not the kind of woman who
would play the part."
Her words roused new doubts. It would be useless to go away with her if
she were to be miserable all the while. He did not want to make anyone
miserable; he wanted to make people happy. He indulged in a moment of
complacent self-admiration, and then reflected that this adventure would
cost a great deal of time and money, and if he were really to get
nothing out of it but tears and repentance, he had better take her at
her word, bid her good-bye, and write to-morrow saying he was called
away to Riversdale on business.
"But you are not cross with me? You will come to see me all the same?"
He wondered if she were tortured with as many different and opposing
desires as he was. Perhaps not, and he watched her tender, truthful
eyes. In her truthful nature, filled full of passion and conscience,
there was no place for any slightest calculation. But he was
mistrustful, and asked himself if all this resistance was a blind to
induce him to marry her. If he thought that, he would drop her at once.
This suspicion was lost sight of in a sudden lighting of her hair,
caused by a slight turning of her head. Beyond doubt she was a fresh and
delicious thing, and if he did not take her, someone else would, and
then he would curse his indecision; and if she had a great voice, he
would for ever regret he had not taken her when he could get her. If he
did not take her now, the chance was gone for ever. She was the
adventure he had dreamed all his life. At last it had come to him,
perhaps through the sheer force of his desire, and now, should he
refrain from the dream, or should he dream it? He saw the exquisite
sensual life that awaited him and her in Paris. He saw her, pale and
pathetic, and thought of her eager eyes and lips.
Evelyn sat crestfallen and repentant, but her melancholy was a pretty,
smiling melancholy, and her voice had not quite lost the sparkle and
savour of wit. She regretted her sin, admitted her culpability, and he
was forced to admit that sorrow and virtue sat becomingly upon her. Her
mood was in a measure contagious, and he talked gently and gaily about
herself, and the day when the world would listen to her with delight and
approbation. But while he talked, he was like a man on the rack. He was
dragged from different sides, and the questioner was at his ear.
Hitherto he had never compromised himself in his relations with women.
As he had often said of himself, he had inspired no great passion, but a
multitude of caprices. But now he had begun to feel that it is one love
and not twenty that makes a life memorable, he wished to redeem his life
from intrigues, and here was the very chance he was waiting for. But
habit had rendered him cowardly, and this seduction frightened him
almost as much as marriage had done. To go away with her, he felt, was
equivalent to marrying her. His life would never be the same again. The
list would be lost to him for ever, no more lists for him; he would be
known as the man who lived with--lived with whom? A girl picked up in
the suburbs, and sang rather prettily. If she were a great singer he
would not mind, but he could not stand a mediocre singer about whom he
would have to talk continual nonsense: conspiracies that were in
continual progress against her at Covent Garden, etc. He had heard all
that sort of thing before.... What should he do? He must make up his
mind. It might be as well if he were to ask her to come to his house;
then in some three or four months he would be able to see if she were
worth the great sacrifice he was going to make for her.
Her hand lay on her knees. He knew that he should not take it, but it
lay on her knees so plaintively, that in spite of all his resistance he
took it and examined it. It did not strike him as a particularly
beautiful hand. It was long and white, and exceedingly flexible. It was
large, and the finger-tips were pointed. The palms curved voluptuously,
but the slender fingers closed and opened with a virile movement which
suggested active and spontaneous impulses. In taking her hand and
caressing it, he knew he was prejudicing his chances of escape, and
fearing the hand he held in his might never let him go again, he said--
"If your destiny should be to play the viola da gamba in Dulwich, and
mine to set forth again on my trip round the world."
In an instant, in a rapid succession of scenes, the horrible winter she
had spent in Dulwich passed before her eyes. She saw herself stopping at
the corner of a street, and looking at a certain tree and the slope of a
certain house, and asking herself if her life would go on for ever, if
there would be no change. She saw herself star-gazing, with daffodils
for offerings in her hands; and the memory of the hungry hours when she
waited for her father to come home to dinner was so vivid, that she
thought she felt the same wearying pain and the exhausting yearning
behind her eyes, and that feeling as if she wanted to go mad. No; she
could not endure it again, and she cried plaintively, falling slightly
forward--
"Owen, don't make things more difficult than they are. Why is it wrong
for me to go away with you? I don't do any harm to anyone. God is
merciful after all."
"If I were to marry you, you could not go on the stage; you would have
to live at Riversdale and look after your children."
"But I don't want children. I want to sing."
"And I want you to sing. No one but husbands have children, exception
the stage and in novels."
"It would be much more exciting to run away together, than to be married
by the Vicar. It is very wicked to say these things. It is you who make
me wicked."
A mist blinded her eyes, and a sickness seemed instilled in her very
blood, and in a dubious faintness she was conscious of his lips. He
hardly heard the words he uttered, so loud was the clatter of his
thoughts, and he seemed to see the trail of his destiny unwinding itself
from the distaff in the hands of Fate. He was frightened, and an impulse
strove to force him to his feet, and hence, with a rapid good-bye, to
the door. But instead, he leaned forth his hands, he sought her, but she
shrank away, and turning her face from him, she said--
"Owen, you must not kiss me."
Again he might choose between sailing the _Medusa_ in search of
adventure, or crossing the Channel in the mail packet in search of art.
"Will you come away with me?" he said. His heart sank, and he thought
of the Rubicon.
"You don't mean this very instant? I could not go away without seeing
father."
"Why not? You don't intend to tell him you are going away with me?"
"No; it is not the sort of thing one generally tells one's father,
but--I cannot go away with you now--"
"When will you come?"
"Owen, don't press me for an answer. I don't know."
"The way of escape is still open to me," he thought; but he could not
resist the temptation that this girl's face and voice presented to his
imagination.