She sat in the music-room thinking, asking herself what use it would be
to meet him in Berkeley Square unless to go away with him to Paris. She
sat engrossed in her emotion; it was like looking into water where weeds
are carried by a current out of the dim depths into the light of day. In
a pensive atmosphere, a quiet daylight, his motives were revealed to
her. She was in the humour to look at things sympathetically, and she
understood that for him to run away with her entailed as much sacrifice
on his part as on hers. It meant a giving up of his friends, pursuits
and habits of life. There were sacrifices to be made by him as well as
by her, and she smiled a little sadly as she thought of the differences
of their several renunciations. She was asked to surrender her peace of
mind, he his worldly pleasure. Often the sensation was almost physical;
it rose up like a hand and seemed to sweep her heart clear, and at the
same moment a voice said--It is not right. Owen had argued with her, but
she could not quench the feeling that it was not right, and yet, when he
asked her to explain, she could give no other reason except that it was
forbidden by the Church.
Each thought that very little was asked from the other. To him her
conscience seemed a slight forfeit, and worldly pleasure seemed very
little to her. She thought that she would readily forfeit this world for
him.... But eternity was her forfeit; even that she might sacrifice if
she were sure her conscience would not trouble her in this world. She
followed her conscience like a river; it fluttered along full of
unexpected eddies and picturesque shallows, and there were pools so deep
that she could not see to the bottom.
Suddenly the vision changed. She was no longer in Dulwich with her
father. She saw railway trains and steamboats, and then the faint
outline of the coast of France. Her foreboding was so clear and distinct
that she could not doubt that Owen was the future that awaited her. The
presentiment filled her with delight and fear, and both sensations were
mingled at the same moment in her heart as she rose from her chair. She
stood rigid as a visionary; then, hoping she would not be disturbed, she
sank back into her chair and allowed her thoughts their will. She
followed the course of the journey to France, and at every moment the
sensation grew more exquisite. She heard him say what she wished him to
say, and she saw the white villa in its garden planted with
rhododendrons and chestnut trees in flower. The mild spring air, faint
with perfume, dilated her nostrils, and her eyes drank in the soft
colour of the light shadows passing over the delicate grass and the
light shadows moving among the trees. She lay back in her chair, her
eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room, and her life went by, clear
and surprising as pictures seen in a crystal. When she grew weary of the
villa, she saw herself on the stage, and heard her own voice singing as
she wished to sing. Nor did she forsee any break in the lulling
enchantment of her life of music and love. She knew that Owen did not
love her at present, but she never doubted that she could get him to
love her, and once he loved her it seemed to her that he must always
love her. What she had heard and read in books concerning the treachery
of men, she remembered, but she was not influenced, for it did not seem
to her that any such things were to happen to her. She closed her eyes
so that she might drink more deeply of the vision, so that she might
bring it more clearly before her. Like aspects seen on a misty river, it
was as beautiful shadows of things rather than the things themselves.
The meditation grew voluptuous, and as she saw him come into her room
and take her in his arms, her conscience warned her that she should
cease to indulge in these thoughts; but it was impossible to check them,
and she dreamed on and on in kisses and tendernesses of speech.
That afternoon she was going to have tea with some friends, and as she
paused to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were
right, and that there was no future life, the only life that she was
sure of would be wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for
naught; she would not have attained its recompense; the calamity would
be irreparable; it would be just as if she had not lived at all. Thought
succeeded thought in instantaneous succession, contradicting and
refuting each other. No, her life would not be wasted, it would be an
example to others, it was in renunciation that we rose above the animal
and attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that
she could renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But
her art was not a merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her
art she was denying a great gift that had been given to her by Nature,
that had come she knew not whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and
for the admiration of the world. It therefore could not have been given
to her to hide or to waste; she would be held responsible for it. Her
voice was one of her responsibilities; not to cultivate her voice would
be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she reflected,
and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred duties toward
herself. Right and wrong, as Owen said, was a question of time and
place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one
certain thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of
herself.... She wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she
knew that she was not living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The
nuns! Strange were their renunciations! For they yielded the present
moment, which Owen and a Persian poet called our one possession. She
seemed to see them fading in a pathetic decadence, falling like
etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed merely pathetic.
And in the exaltation of her resolution to live, her soul melted again
into Owen's kisses, and she drew herself together, and the spasm was so
intense and penetrating that to overcome it she walked across the room
stretching her arms. It seemed to her more than impossible that she
could endure Dulwich any longer. The life of love and art tore at her
heart; always she saw Owen offering her love, fame, wealth; his hands
were full of gifts; he seemed to drop them at her feet, and taking her
in his arms, his lips closed upon hers, and her life seemed to run down
like the last struggling sand in a glass.
Besides this personal desire there was in her brain a strange
alienation. Paris rose up before her, and Italy, and they were so vague
that she hardly knew whether they were remembrances or dreams, and she
was compelled by a force so exterior to herself that she looked round
frightened, as if she believed she would find someone at her elbow. She
did not seem to be alone, there seemed to be others in the room,
presences from which she could not escape; she could not see them, but
she felt them about her, and as she sought them with fearing eyes,
voices seemed speaking inside her, and it was with extreme terror that
she heard the proposal that she was to be one of God's virgins. The hell
which opened on the other side of Owen ceased to frighten her. The
devils waiting there for her soul grew less substantial, and thoughts
and things seemed to converge more and more, to draw together and become
one. She was aware of the hallucination in her brain, but could not
repress it, nor all sorts of rapid questions and arguments. Suddenly a
voice reminded her that if she were going to abandon the life of the
soul for the life of the flesh, that she should accept the flesh wholly,
and not subvert its intentions. She should become the mother of
children. Life was concerned more intimately with children than with her
art. But somehow it did not seem the same renunciation, and she stood
perplexed before the enigma of her conscience.
She looked round the room, dreading and half believing in some diabolic
influence at her elbow, but perceiving nothing, an ungovernable impulse
took her, and her steps strayed to the door, in the desire and almost in
the intention of going to London. But if she went there, how would she
explain her visit?... Owen would understand; but if he were not in, she
could not wait until he came in. She paused to consider the look of
pleasure that would come upon his face when he came in and found her
there. There would be just one look, and they would throw themselves
into each other's arms. She was about to rush away, having forgotten all
else but him, when she remembered her father. If she were to go now she
must leave a letter for him explaining--telling him the story. And who
would play the viola da gamba at his concerts? and there would be no one
to see that he had his meals.
Was she or was she not going away with Owen to Paris on Thursday night?
The agonising question continued at every moment to present itself.
Whatever she was doing or saying, she was always conscious of it, and as
the time drew near, with every hour, it seemed to approach and menace
her. She seemed to feel it beating like a neuralgic pain behind her
eyes; and though she laughed and talked a great deal, her father noticed
that her animation was strained and nervous, and he noticed, too, that
in no part of their conversation was she ever entirely with him, and he
wondered what were the sights and scenes he faintly discerned in her
changing eyes.
On getting up on Wednesday morning, she remembered that the best train
from Dulwich was at three o'clock, and she asked herself why she had
thought of this train, and that she should have thought of it seemed to
her like an omen. Her father sat opposite, looking at her across the
table. It was all so clear in her mind that she was ashamed to sit
thinking these things, for thinking as clearly as she was thinking
seemed equivalent to accomplishment; and the difference between what she
thought and what she said was so repulsive to her that she was on the
point of flinging herself at his feet several times.
There were times when the temptation seemed to have left her, when she
smiled at her own weakness and folly; and having reproved herself
sufficiently, she thought of other things. It seemed to her
extraordinary why she should argue and trouble about a thing which she
really had no intention of doing. But at that moment her heart told her
that this was not so, that she would go to meet Owen in Berkeley Square,
and she was again taken with an extraordinary inward trembling.
Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which does
not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to
ourselves that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in
preference to another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do
not act as we intended, and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we
think and what we do to a deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit
that he acts according to his instincts, that his instincts are his
destiny.
We make up our mind to change our conduct in certain matters, but we go
on acting just the same; and in spite of every reason, Evelyn was still
undecided whether she should go to meet Sir Owen. It was quite clear
that it was wrong for her to go, and it seemed all settled in her mind;
but at the bottom of her heart something over which she had no kind of
control told her that in the end nothing could prevent her from going to
meet him. She stopped, amazed and terrified, asking herself why she was
going to do a thing which she seemed no longer even to desire.
In the afternoon some girl friends came to see her. She played and sang
and talked to them, but they, too, noticed that she was never really
with them, and her friends could see that she saw and heard things
invisible and inaudible to them. In the middle of some trifling
chatter--whether one colour or another was likely to be fashionable in
the coming season--she had to put her hand in her pocket for her
handkerchief, and happened to meet the key of the square, and it brought
back to her in a moment the entire drama of her destiny. Was she going
to take the three o'clock train to London, or to remain in Dulwich with
her father? She thought that she would not mind whatever happened, if
she only knew what would happen. Either lot seemed better to her than
the uncertainty. She rattled on, talking with fictitious gaiety about
the colour of bonnets and a party at which Julia had sung, not even
hearing what she was saying. Wednesday evening passed with an inward
vision so intense that all the outer world had receded from her, she was
like one alone in a desert, and she ate without tasting, saw without
seeing what she looked at, spoke without knowing what she was saying,
heard without hearing what was said to her, and moved without knowing
where she was going.
On Thursday morning the obsession of her destiny took all colour from
her cheek, and her eyes were nervous.
"What is it, my girl?" Her father said, taking her hand, and the music
he was tying up dropped on the floor. "Tell me, Evelyn; something, I can
see, is the matter."
It was like the breaking of a spring. Something seemed to give way
within her, and slipping on her knees, she threw her arms about him.
"I am very unhappy. I wish I were dead."
He strove to raise her from her knees, but the attitude expressed her
feelings, and she remained, leaning her face against him. Nor could he
coax any information from her. At last she said, raising her tearful
eyes--
"If I were to leave you, father, you would never forgive me? But I am
your only daughter, and you would forgive me; whatever happened, we
should always love one another?"
"But why should you leave me?"
"But if I loved someone? I don't mean as I love you. I could never love
anyone so tenderly; I mean quite differently. Don't make me say more. I
am so ashamed of myself."
"You are in love with him?"
"Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him." And as she answered, she
wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was
Owen. He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted
from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and
she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to
him.
"If I don't go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad. It
is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I
must. I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember. It was
nothing but love of him."
"Did he not ask you to marry him?"
"No, he will never marry anyone."
"And that made no difference to you?"
"Oh, father, don't be angry, don't think me horrid. You are looking at
me as if you never saw me before. I know I ought to have been angry when
he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn't. I don't know that
I even wanted him to marry me. I want to go away and be a great singer,
and he is not more to blame than I am. I can't tell lies. What is the
use of telling lies? If I were to tell you anything else, it would be
untrue."
"But are you going away with him?"
"I don't know. Not if I can help it;" and at that moment her eyes went
to the portrait of her mother.
"You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you. She ought to
be here to protect you."
"No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do."
"So you are glad that she is not here?"