He walked up Park Lane, staring now and then at the quaint balconies
from a mere habit of admiration. But all were indifferent to him, even
the one supported by the four Empire figures. It did not seem that
anything in the world could interest him again, and he wondered how he
would get through the years that remained to him to live. He was tired
of hunting and shooting; he had seen everything there was to be seen; he
had been round the world twice; it did not seem to him that he would
ever care for another woman, and he reflected with pride that he had
been faithful to Evelyn for six years. "But I shall never see her
again," his heart wailed; "in three months she'll be a different woman;
she won't want to see me, she'll find some excuse. That infernal priest
will refuse his absolution if--" Owen stopped suddenly. Far away a
little pink cloud dissolved mysteriously. "In another second," he
thought, "it will be no more." In the Green Park the trees rocked in the
soft autumn air, and he noticed that now and then a leaf broke from its
twig, fluttered across the path, and fell by the iron railings.
"Well, Asher, how is it that you are in town at this time of year?"
It was a club acquaintance, one of the ordinary conventional men that
Owen met by the dozen in every one of his clubs, a man whose next
question would surely be, "How are your two-year-olds?"
"I should like to hear that they had all broken their legs," Owen
answered through his teeth, and the colour mounted in his cheeks.
"Asher always was mad ... now he seems madder than ever. What did he
mean by saying he wished his two-year-olds had all broken their legs?"
Owen lingered on the kerb, inveighing against the stupidity of his set.
He had thought of dining at the Turf Club, but after this irritating
incident he felt that he dared not risk it; if anyone were to speak to
him again of his two-year-olds, he felt he would not be able to control
himself. Suddenly he thought of a friend. He must speak to someone....
He need mention no names. He put up his stick and stopped a hansom. A
few minutes took him to Harding's rooms.
The unexpectedness of the visit, and the manner in which Owen strode
about the room, trying to talk of the things that he generally talked
about, while clearly thinking of something quite different, struck
Harding as unusual, and a suspicion of the truth had just begun to dawn
upon him, when, breaking off suddenly, Owen said--
"Swear you'll never speak of what I am going to say--and don't ask for
names."
"I'll tell no one," said Harding, "and the name does not interest me."
"It's this: a woman whom I have known many years--a friendship that I
thought would go on to the end of the chapter--told me to-day that it
was all finished, that she never wanted to see me again."
"A friendship! Were you her lover?"
"What does it matter? Suffice it to say that she was my dearest friend,
and now I have lost her. She has been taken from me," he said, throwing
his arms into the air. It was a superb gesture of despair, and Harding
could not help smiling.
"So Evelyn has left him. I wonder for whom?" Then, with as much sympathy
as he could call into his voice, he asked if the lady had given any
reason for this sudden dismissal.
"Only that she thinks it wrong; we've been discussing it all the
afternoon. It has made me quite ill;" and he dropped into a chair.
Harding knew perfectly well of whom they were speaking, and Owen knew
that he knew, but it seemed more decorous to refrain from mentioning
names, and Evelyn's soul was discussed as if it were an abstract
quantity, and all indication of the individual incarnation was avoided.
Owen admitted that, notwithstanding many seeming contradictory
appearances, Evelyn had always thought it wrong to live with him, and
yet, notwithstanding her being very fond of him, she had never shown any
eagerness to be married. "Of course it is very wrong," she would say in
her own enchanting way, "but a lover is very exciting, and a husband
always seems dull. I don't think you'd be half as nice as a husband as
you are as a lover." The recital of the Florence episode interested
Harding, but it was the opposition of the priest and the musician that
made the story from his point of view one of the most fascinating he had
ever heard in his life.
They dined together in an old-fashioned club, in a room lighted by wax
candles in silver candlesticks. Tall mirrors in gold frames reflected
the black mahogany furniture. In answer to Owen, who lamented that
Evelyn was sacrificing everything for an idea, Harding spoke, and with
his usual conscious exaltation, of the Christian martyrs, the Spanish
Inquisition, and then Robespierre seemed to him the most striking
example of what men will do for an idea. He mentioned a portrait by
Greuze in which Robespierre appears as a beautiful young man. "Such a
face," he said, "as we might imagine for a lover or a poet, a sort of
Lucien de Rubempré, but in his brain there was a cell containing the
pedantic idea, and for this idea he cut off a thousand heads, and would
have cut off a million. The world must conform to his idea, or it was a
lost world."
Towards the end of dinner, the head waiter interrupted their
conversation. He lingered about the table, anxious to hear something of
Lord Ascott's two-year-olds; but, in the smoking-room over their coffee,
they returned to the more vital question--the sentimental affections.
They were agreed that the pleasure of love is in loving, not in being
loved, and their reasons were incontrovertible.
"It is the letters," said Harding, "that we write at three in the
morning to tell her how enchanting she was; it is the flowers we send,
the words of love that we speak in her ear, that are our undoing. So
long as we are indifferent, they love us."
"Quite true. At first I did not care for her as much as she did for me,
and I noticed that as soon as I began to fall in love--"
"To aspire, to suffer. Maybe there is no deep pleasure in contentment.
In casting you out she has given you a more intense life."
Owen did not seem to understand. His eye wandered, then returning to
Harding, he said--
"We cannot worship and be worshipped; is that what you mean? If so, I
agree with you. But I'd sooner lose her as I have done than not have
told her that I loved her.... There never was anyone like her. Sympathy,
understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm! it was like living in a
dream. Good God! to think that that priest should have got her; that,
after all my teaching, she should think it wrong to have a lover! I
don't know if you know of whom we are speaking. If you suspect, I can't
help it, but don't ask me. I shouldn't speak of her at all; it is wrong
to speak of her, even though I don't mention her name, but it is
impossible to help it. If you are proud of a woman you must speak of
her--and I was so proud of her. It is very easy to be discreet when you
are ashamed of them," he added, with a laugh. "When I had nothing to do,
I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if
I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better. But
it is all over now."
"Well, you've had six years, the very prime of her life."
"That's true; you're very sympathetic, Harding. Have another cigarette.
I was faithful to her for six years--you can't understand that, but it
is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think
of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best."
At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.
The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as
marble. But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she
closed the window and stood looking across the room. Then walking
towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself
upon it and buried her face among the cushions. She lay there weeping,
and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming
cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate
outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue
relief. She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she
that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy,
she went upstairs, eager for sleep. And closing her eyes she felt a
delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....
But in her waking there was a consciousness, a foreboding of a nameless
dread, of a heavy weight upon her, and when the foreboding in her ears
grew louder, she seemed to know that an irreparable calamity had
happened, and trying to fathom it, she saw the wall-paper, and it told
her she was in her own room. She seemed to be trying to read something
on it, but what she was trying to read and understand seemed to move
away, and her brain laboured in anxious pursuit. Her eyes opened, and
she remembered her interview with Owen. She had sent him away, she
understood it all now, she had sent Owen away! She had told him that
Ulick was her lover, so even if he were to come back it never could be
the same as it was. Why had she told him about Ulick? It was bad enough
to send him away, but she had degraded his memory of her, and the
thought that she had not deceived him, but had told him what he
otherwise might never have known, did not console her just then. She lay
quite still, face to face with, seeing as it were into the eyes of the
Irreparable. Never again would a man hold her in his arms, saying,
"Darling, I am very fond of you!" Take love out of her life, and what
barrenness, what weariness! After all, she was only seven-and-twenty,
and the thought came upon her that she might have waited until she was a
little older. The word "never" rang in her ears, and she realised as she
had not done before all that a lover meant to her--romance, adventure,
the brilliancy and sparkle of life. What was life without the delightful
excitement of the chase, the delicious doubts regarding the hidden
significance of every look and word, then the rapture of the final
abandonment? She tried to think that the life she proposed to relinquish
had not brought her happiness, but she could not put back memory of the
enchanting days she had spent with her lovers. Oh, the intense hours of
anticipation! and the wonderful recollections! rich and red as the
heart of a flower! Such rapture seemed to her to be worth the remorse
that came after, and the peace of mind that a chaste life would secure,
a poor recompense for dreary days and months. She realised the length
and the colour of the time--grey week after grey week, blank month after
blank month, void year after void year! And she always getting a little
older, getting older in a drab, lifeless time, in a lifeless life, a
weary life filled with intolerable craving! She had endured it once, a
feeling as if she wanted to go mad.... She picked up her letters.
Among the letters she received that morning was one from Ulick. He was
still in Paris, and would not be back for another week or ten days. He
had been lonely, he had missed her, and looked forward to their meeting.
He told her about the opera, the people he had met, and what they had
said about his music. But the tender affection of his letter was not to
her mind. Why did he not say that he longed to take her in his arms and
kiss her on the lips? Knitting her brows, she tried to think that if he
had written more passionately she would have taken the train and gone to
him. She had sent Owen away on account of scruples of conscience, and a
life of chastity extended indefinitely before her. But who was this
woman to whom Ulick had shown his music, and who had said that if
anything happened to prevent Evelyn Innes from singing the part, she
hoped that Ulick would give it to her? Why should she have thought that
something would happen to prevent Evelyn Innes from creating Grania? Had
Ulick suggested it to her? But how could Ulick know? She tried to think
if she had ever told him she was tired of the stage. Perhaps he had
consulted the stars and had divined her future. This woman seemed to
know that something might happen, and something was happening, there
could be no doubt about that.
There was no doubt that she was tired of the stage, but perhaps that was
on account of hard work, perhaps she required a rest; in two or three
months she might return eagerly to the study of Grania; for the sake of
Ulick, she might remain on the stage till she had established the
success of his opera. This might be if she and Ulick were not lovers.
She had promised Owen that she would not keep him for her lover, but
that did not mean that she would not sing his opera. If she didn't,
another woman would, some wretched singer who did not understand the
music, and it would be a failure. Ulick would hate her; he would believe
that her refusal to sing his opera was a vile plan to do him an injury.
He did not know what conscience meant--he only understood the legends
and the Gods! She laughed, and a moment afterwards was submerged in
difficulties. Her conduct would seem more incomprehensible to him than
it did to Owen; she did not wish him to hate her, but he would hate her,
and to avoid seeing her he would not go to Dowlands, and so she would
rob her father of his friend--the friend who had kept him company when
she deserted him. There was another alternative. If she liked him well
enough to be his mistress, she should like him well enough to be his
wife. But knowing that she would not marry him, she took up her other
letters and began reading them.
Lady Duckle liked Homburg; everyone was there, and she hoped Evelyn
would not be detained in London much longer. The Duke of Berwick had
proposed to Miss Beale, and Lady Mersey was always about with young Mr.
So-and-So. Evelyn didn't read it all. She lay back thinking, for this
letter, about things that interested her no longer, had led her thoughts
back to self, and she inquired why in the midst of all her enjoyments
she had felt that her real life was elsewhere, why she had always known
that sooner or later the hour would come when she would leave the things
which she enjoyed so intensely. The idea of departure had never quite
died down in her, and she had always known that she would be one day
quite a different woman. She had often had glimpses of her future self
and of her future life, but the moment she tried to distinguish what was
there, the vision faded. Even now she knew that she would not marry
Ulick, and this not because she would refuse her father anything, but
merely because it was not to be. Her eyes went to the piano, but on the
way there she stopped to ask herself a question. Why was she in London
at this time of year? She knew why she did not care to go to
Homburg--because she was tired of society. But why did she not go to
some quiet seaside place where she could enjoy the summer weather? She
would like to sit on the beach and hear the sea. Her soul threatened to
give back a direct answer, and she dismissed the question.
She paced the empty alley facing the Bayswater Road. No one was there
except a nursemaid and a small child, and she and they shared the
solitude. She could see the omnibuses passing, and hear the clank of the
heavy harness, and seated on one of the seats she drew diagrams on the
gravel with her parasol. Owen said there was no meaning in life, that it
was no more than an unfortunate accident between two eternal sleeps. But
she had never been able to believe that this was so; and if she had
sought to disbelieve in God, it was as Monsignor had said, because she
wished to lead a sinful life. And if she could not believe in
annihilation, there could be no annihilation for her, that was Ulick's
theory. The name of her lover brought up the faded Bloomsbury Square,
the litter of manuscript and the books on magic! She had tried to
believe in readings of the stars. But such vague beliefs had not helped
her. In spite of all her efforts, the world was slipping behind her;
Owen and Ulick and her stage career seemed very little compared with the
certainty within her that she was leading a sinful life, and she was
only really certain of that. The omnibuses in the road outside, the
railways beyond the town, the ships upon the sea, what were these things
to her--or yet the singing of operas? The only thing that really
mattered was her conscience.
Then, almost without thinking at all, in a sort of stupor, she walked
over the hill and descended the slope, and leaning over the balustrade
she looked at the fountains. But the splashing water explained nothing,
and she turned to resume her walk; and she reflected that to send away
her lovers would avail her nothing, unless she subsequently confessed
her sins and obtained the priest's absolution. Monsignor would tell her
that to send away her lovers was not sufficient, and he would refuse his
absolution unless she promised him not to see them any more. That
promise she could not give, for she had promised Ulick that she would
sing Grania, and she had promised Owen to see him in three months. It
seemed to her both weak and shameful to break either of these promises.
The spire of Kensington Church showed sharp as a needle on a calm sky,
and it was in a sudden anguish of mind that she determined that her
repentance must be postponed. She had considered the question from every
point of view, and could not at once reverse her life; the change must
come gradually. She had sent Owen away; that was enough for the present.
The numerous pea-fowls had gathered in a bare roosting tree on an
opposite hillside, and the immense tails of the cock-birds swept the
evening sky. Owen would have certainly compared it to a picture by
Honderhoker. The ducks clambered out of the water, keeping their cunning
black eyes fixed on the loitering children whom the nursemaid was urging
to return home. In Kensington Gardens, the glades were green and gold,
and for some little while Evelyn watched the delicate spectacle of the
fading light, and insensibly she began to feel that a life of spiritual
endeavour was the only life possible to her, and that, however much it
might cost her, she must make the effort to attain it. Even to feel that
she was capable of desiring this ideal life was a delicious happiness,
and her thoughts flowed on for a long while, unmindful of practical
difficulties. Suddenly it came upon her like a sudden illumination, that
sooner or later she would have to make all the sacrifices that this
ideal demanded, that she would not have any peace of mind until she had
made them. But even at the same moment the insuperable difficulties of
the task before her appeared, and she despaired. The last obstacle was
money. As she crossed the road dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde
Park, she understood that the simple fact of owing a few thousand pounds
rendered her immediate retirement from the stage impossible. She had
insisted that the money she required to live in Paris and study with
Madame Savelli should be considered as a debt, which she would repay out
of her first earnings. But Owen had laughed at her. He had refused to
accept it, and he would never tell her the rent of the house in the Rue
Balzac; he had urged that as he had made use of the house he could not
allow her to pay for it. In the rough, she supposed that a thousand
pounds would settle her debt for the year they had spent in Paris.
Since then she had, however, insisted on keeping herself, but now that
she came to think it out, it did not seem that she had done much more
than pay her dressmaker's bills. She grew alarmed at the amount of her
debt, which seemed in her excited imagination so large that all her
savings, amounting to about six or seven thousand pounds, would not
suffice to pay it off. Most of her jewellery had been given to her by
Owen; there was the furniture, the pictures and the china in Park Lane!
She would have to return all these, and the horses, too, if she wished
to pay everything, and the net result would be that she would mortally
offend the man who had done everything for her. She knew he would not
forgive her if she sent back the presents he had made her, nor could she
blame him, and she decided that such complete restitution was
impossible. But, for all she knew, Monsignor might insist upon it. If he
did? She felt that she would go mad if she did not put aside these
scruples, which she knew to be in a measure fictitious, but which she
was nevertheless unable to shake off. And she could not help thinking,
though she knew that such thoughts were both foolish and unjust, that
Owen had purposely contrived this thraldom. Then there was only one
thing for her to do, to go to Paris after Ulick.... A moment after there
came a sinking feeling. She knew that she could not. But what was she to
do? All this uncertainty was loosening her brain.... She might go to
Monsignor and lay the whole matter before him and take his advice. But
she knew if she went to him she must confess. Better that, she thought,
than that the intolerable present should endure.
Mental depression and sleepless nights had produced nervous pains in her
neck and arms. She could hardly drag herself along for very weariness.
The very substance of her being seemed to waste away; that amount of
unconsciousness without which life is an agony had been abstracted,
leaving nothing but a fierce mentality.
She slept a little after dinner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw
another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued,
tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence
it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of
sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be
useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of
"Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it
fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired,
she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw
her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the
weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her
in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect
in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being.