It was a house on the north side of Hyde Park, between ten and eleven in
the evening, and several intelligent and courteous people had assembled
there to enjoy themselves as far as it was possible to do so in a neutral
way--all carefully keeping every variety of feeling in a state of
solution, in spite of any attempt such feelings made from time to time to
crystallize on interesting subjects in hand.
'Neigh, who is that charming woman with her head built up in a novel way
even for hair architecture--the one with her back towards us?' said a man
whose coat fitted doubtfully to a friend whose coat fitted well.
'Just going to ask for the same information,' said Mr. Neigh, determining
the very longest hair in his beard to an infinitesimal nicety by drawing
its lower portion through his fingers. 'I have quite forgotten--cannot
keep people's names in my head at all; nor could my father either--nor
any of my family--a very odd thing. But my old friend Mrs. Napper knows
for certain.' And he turned to one of a small group of middle-aged
persons near, who, instead of skimming the surface of things in general,
like the rest of the company, were going into the very depths of them.
'O--that is the celebrated Mrs. Petherwin, the woman who makes rhymes and
prints 'em,' said Mrs. Napper, in a detached sentence, and then continued
talking again to those on the other side of her.
The two loungers went on with their observations of Ethelberta's
headdress, which, though not extraordinary or eccentric, did certainly
convey an idea of indefinable novelty. Observers were sometimes half
inclined to think that her cuts and modes were acquired by some secret
communication with the mysterious clique which orders the livery of the
fashionable world, for--and it affords a parallel to cases in which
clever thinkers in other spheres arrive independently at one and the same
conclusion--Ethelberta's fashion often turned out to be the coming one.
'O, is that the woman at last?' said Neigh, diminishing his broad general
gaze at the room to a close criticism of Ethelberta.
'"The rhymes," as Mrs. Napper calls them, are not to be despised,' said
his companion. 'They are not quite virginibus puerisque, and the
writer's opinions of life and society differ very materially from mine,
but I cannot help admiring her in the more reflective pieces; the songs I
don't care for. The method in which she handles curious subjects, and at
the same time impresses us with a full conviction of her modesty, is very
adroit, and somewhat blinds us to the fact that no such poems were
demanded of her at all.'
'I have not read them,' said Neigh, secretly wrestling with his jaw, to
prevent a yawn; 'but I suppose I must. The truth is, that I never care
much for reading what one ought to read; I wish I did, but I cannot help
it. And, no doubt, you admire the lady immensely for writing them: I
don't. Everybody is so talented now-a-days that the only people I care
to honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain in
obscurity. I am myself hoping for a corner in some biographical
dictionary when the time comes for those works only to contain lists of
the exceptional individuals of whom nothing is known but that they lived
and died.'
'Ah--listen. They are going to sing one of her songs,' said his friend,
looking towards a bustling movement in the neighbourhood of the piano. 'I
believe that song, "When tapers tall," has been set to music by three or
four composers already.'
'Men of any note?' said Neigh, at last beaten by his yawn, which courtesy
nevertheless confined within his person to such an extent that only a few
unimportant symptoms, such as reduced eyes and a certain rectangular
manner of mouth in speaking, were visible.
'Scarcely,' replied the other man. 'Established writers of music do not
expend their energies upon new verse until they find that such verse is
likely to endure; for should the poet be soon forgotten, their labour is
in some degree lost.'
'Artful dogs--who would have thought it?' said Neigh, just as an exercise
in words; and they drew nearer to the piano, less to become listeners to
the singing than to be spectators of the scene in that quarter. But
among some others the interest in the songs seemed to be very great; and
it was unanimously wished that the young lady who had practised the
different pieces of music privately would sing some of them now in the
order of their composers' reputations. The musical persons in the room
unconsciously resolved themselves into a committee of taste.
One and another had been tried, when, at the end of the third, a lady
spoke to Ethelberta.
'Now, Mrs. Petherwin,' she said, gracefully throwing back her face, 'your
opinion is by far the most valuable. In which of the cases do you
consider the marriage of verse and tune to have been most successful?'
Ethelberta, finding these and other unexpected calls made upon herself,
came to the front without flinching.
'The sweetest and the best that I like by far,' she said, 'is none of
these. It is one which reached me by post only this morning from a place
in Wessex, and is written by an unheard-of man who lives somewhere down
there--a man who will be, nevertheless, heard a great deal of some day, I
hope--think. I have only practised it this afternoon; but, if one's own
judgment is worth anything, it is the best.'
'Let us have your favourite, by all means,' said another friend of
Ethelberta's who was present--Mrs. Doncastle.
'I am so sorry that I cannot oblige you, since you wish to hear it,'
replied the poetess regretfully; 'but the music is at home. I had not
received it when I lent the others to Miss Belmaine, and it is only in
manuscript like the rest.'
'Could it not be sent for?' suggested an enthusiast who knew that
Ethelberta lived only in the next street, appealing by a look to her, and
then to the mistress of the house.
'Certainly, let us send for it,' said that lady. A footman was at once
quietly despatched with precise directions as to where Christopher's
sweet production might be found.
'What--is there going to be something interesting?' asked a young married
friend of Mrs. Napper, who had returned to her original spot.
'Yes--the best song she has written is to be sung in the best manner to
the best air that has been composed for it. I should not wonder if she
were going to sing it herself.'
'Did you know anything of Mrs. Petherwin until her name leaked out in
connection with these ballads?'
'No; but I think I recollect seeing her once before. She is one of those
people who are known, as one may say, by subscription: everybody knows a
little, till she is astonishingly well known altogether; but nobody knows
her entirely. She was the orphan child of some clergyman, I believe.
Lady Petherwin, her mother-in-law, has been taking her about a great deal
latterly.'
'She has apparently a very good prospect.'
'Yes; and it is through her being of that curious undefined character
which interprets itself to each admirer as whatever he would like to have
it. Old men like her because she is so girlish; youths because she is
womanly; wicked men because she is good in their eyes; good men because
she is wicked in theirs.'
'She must be a very anomalous sort of woman, at that rate.'
'Yes. Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to
her inconsistencies in principle.'
'These poems must have set her up. She appears to be quite the correct
spectacle. Happy Mrs. Petherwin!'
The subject of their dialogue was engaged in a conversation with Mrs.
Belmaine upon the management of households--a theme provoked by a
discussion that was in progress in the pages of some periodical of the
time. Mrs. Belmaine was very full of the argument, and went on from
point to point till she came to servants.
The face of Ethelberta showed caution at once.
'I consider that Lady Plamby pets her servants by far too much,' said
Mrs. Belmaine. 'O, you do not know her? Well, she is a woman with
theories; and she lends her maids and men books of the wrong kind for
their station, and sends them to picture exhibitions which they don't in
the least understand--all for the improvement of their taste, and morals,
and nobody knows what besides. It only makes them dissatisfied.'
The face of Ethelberta showed venturesomeness. 'Yes, and dreadfully
ambitious!' she said.
'Yes, indeed. What a turn the times have taken! People of that sort
push on, and get into business, and get great warehouses, until at last,
without ancestors, or family, or name, or estate--'
'Or the merest scrap of heirloom or family jewel.'
'Or heirlooms, or family jewels, they are thought as much of as if their
forefathers had glided unobtrusively through the peerage--'
'Ever since the first edition.'
'Yes.' Mrs. Belmaine, who really sprang from a good old family, had been
going to say, 'for the last seven hundred years,' but fancying from
Ethelberta's addendum that she might not date back more than a trifling
century or so, adopted the suggestion with her usual well-known courtesy,
and blushed down to her locket at the thought of the mistake that she
might have made. This sensitiveness was a trait in her character which
gave great gratification to her husband, and, indeed, to all who knew
her.
'And have you any theory on the vexed question of servant-government?'
continued Mrs. Belmaine, smiling. 'But no--the subject is of far too
practical a nature for one of your bent, of course.'
'O no--it is not at all too practical. I have thought of the matter
often,' said Ethelberta. 'I think the best plan would be for somebody to
write a pamphlet, "The Shortest Way with the Servants," just as there was
once written a terribly stinging one, "The Shortest Way with the
Dissenters," which had a great effect.'
'I have always understood that that was written by a dissenter as a
satire upon the Church?'
'Ah--so it was: but the example will do to illustrate my meaning.'
'Quite so--I understand--so it will,' said Mrs. Belmaine, with clouded
faculties.
Meanwhile Christopher's music had arrived. An accomplished gentleman who
had every musical talent except that of creation, scanned the notes
carefully from top to bottom, and sat down to accompany the singer. There
was no lady present of sufficient confidence or skill to venture into a
song she had never seen before, and the only one who had seen it was
Ethelberta herself; she did not deny having practised it the greater part
of the afternoon, and was very willing to sing it now if anybody would
derive pleasure from the performance. Then she began, and the sweetness
of her singing was such that even the most unsympathetic honoured her by
looking as if they would be willing to listen to every note the song
contained if it were not quite so much trouble to do so. Some were so
interested that, instead of continuing their conversation, they remained
in silent consideration of how they would continue it when she had
finished; while the particularly civil people arranged their countenances
into every attentive form that the mind could devise. One emotional
gentleman looked at the corner of a chair as if, till that moment, such
an object had never crossed his vision before; the movement of his finger
to the imagined tune was, for a deaf old clergyman, a perfect mine of
interest; whilst a young man from the country was powerless to put an end
to an enchanted gaze at nothing at all in the exact middle of the room
before him. Neigh, and the general phalanx of cool men and celebrated
club yawners, were so much affected that they raised their chronic look
of great objection to things, to an expression of scarcely any objection
at all.
'What makes it so interesting,' said Mrs. Doncastle to Ethelberta, when
the song was over and she had retired from the focus of the company, 'is,
that it is played from the composer's own copy, which has never met the
public eye, or any other than his own before to-day. And I see that he
has actually sketched in the lines by hand, instead of having ruled
paper--just as the great old composers used to do. You must have been as
pleased to get it fresh from the stocks like that as he probably was
pleased to get your thanks.'
Ethelberta became reflective. She had not thanked Christopher; moreover,
she had decided, after some consideration, that she ought not to thank
him. What new thoughts were suggested by that remark of Mrs.
Doncastle's, and what new inclination resulted from the public
presentation of his tune and her words as parts of one organic whole, are
best explained by describing her doings at a later hour, when, having
left her friends somewhat early, she had reached home and retired from
public view for that evening.
Ethelberta went to her room, sent away the maid who did double duty for
herself and Lady Petherwin, walked in circles about the carpet till the
fire had grown haggard and cavernous, sighed, took a sheet of paper and
wrote:--
'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--I have said I would not write: I have said it
twice; but discretion, under some circumstances, is only another name
for unkindness. Before thanking you for your sweet gift, let me tell
you in a few words of something which may materially change an aspect
of affairs under which I appear to you to deserve it.
'With regard to my history and origin you are altogether mistaken; and
how can I tell whether your bitterness at my previous silence on those
points may not cause you to withdraw your act of courtesy now? But
the gratification of having at last been honest with you may
compensate even for the loss of your respect.
'The matter is a small one to tell, after all. What will you say on
learning that I am not the trodden-down "lady by birth" that you have
supposed me? That my father is not dead, as you probably imagine;
that he is working for his living as one among a peculiarly
stigmatized and ridiculed multitude?
'Had he been a brawny cottager, carpenter, mason, blacksmith, well-
digger, navvy, tree-feller--any effective and manly trade, in short, a
worker in which can stand up in the face of the noblest and daintiest,
and bare his gnarled arms and say, with a consciousness of superior
power, "Look at a real man!" I should have been able to show you
antecedents which, if not intensely romantic, are not altogether
antagonistic to romance. But the present fashion of associating with
one particular class everything that is ludicrous and bombastic
overpowers me when I think of it in relation to myself and your known
sensitiveness. When the well-born poetess of good report melts into.
. .'
Having got thus far, a faint-hearted look, which had begun to show itself
several sentences earlier, became pronounced. She threw the writing into
the dull fire, poked and stirred it till a red inflammation crept over
the sheet, and then started anew:--
'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--Not knowing your present rank as composer--whether
on the very brink of fame, or as yet a long way off--I cannot decide
what form of expression my earnest acknowledgments should take. Let
me simply say in one short phrase, I thank you infinitely!
'I am no musician, and my opinion on music may not be worth much: yet
I know what I like (as everybody says, but I do not use the words as a
form to cover a hopeless blank on all connected with the subject), and
this sweet air I love. You must have glided like a breeze about
me--seen into a heart not worthy of scrutiny, jotted down words that
cannot justify attention--before you could have apotheosized the song
in so exquisite a manner. My gratitude took the form of wretchedness
when, on hearing the effect of the ballad in public this evening, I
thought that I had not power to withhold a reply which might do us
both more harm than good. Then I said, "Away with all emotion--I wish
the world was drained dry of it--I will take no notice," when a lady
whispered at my elbow to the effect that of course I had expressed my
gratification to you. I ought first to have mentioned that your
creation has been played to-night to full drawing-rooms, and the
original tones cooled the artificial air like a fountain almost.
'I prophesy great things of you. Perhaps, at the time when we are
each but a row of bones in our individual graves, your genius will be
remembered, while my mere cleverness will have been long forgotten.
'But--you must allow a woman of experience to say this--the undoubted
power that you possess will do you socially no good unless you mix
with it the ingredient of ambition--a quality in which I fear you are
very deficient. It is in the hope of stimulating you to a better
opinion of yourself that I write this letter.
'Probably I shall never meet you again. Not that I think
circumstances to be particularly powerful to prevent such a meeting,
rather it is that I shall energetically avoid it. There can be no
such thing as strong friendship between a man and a woman not of one
family.
'More than that there must not be, and this is why we will not meet.
You see that I do not mince matters at all; but it is hypocrisy to
avoid touching upon a subject which all men and women in our position
inevitably think of, no matter what they say. Some women might have
written distantly, and wept at the repression of their real feeling;
but it is better to be more frank, and keep a dry eye.--Yours,
ETHELBERTA.'
Her feet felt cold and her heart weak as she directed the letter, and she
was overpowered with weariness. But murmuring, 'If I let it stay till
the morning I shall not send it, and a man may be lost to fame because of
a woman's squeamishness--it shall go,' she partially dressed herself,
wrapped a large cloak around her, descended the stairs, and went out to
the pillar-box at the corner, leaving the door not quite close. No gust
of wind had realized her misgivings that it might be blown shut on her
return, and she re-entered as softly as she had emerged.
It will be seen that Ethelberta had said nothing about her family after
all.