THE DANCING FAUN
_Copyrighted in the United States_
_All rights reserved_
The
Dancing
Faun
by
Florence
Farr
London
Elkin Mathews
and John Lane
Roberts Brothers
Boston
1894
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
_Prefatory Note_
_Owing to circumstances which have arisen since this story was written
in the summer of 1893, it seems necessary to state that it is purely a
work of the imagination, and that none of the characters or events are
taken from real life._
_Florence Farr._
[Illustration]
THE DANCING FAUN
‘Yes, Lady Geraldine, the only beauty in modern life is its falsehood.
Its reality is ridiculous.’
‘Truth always was undignified, Mr. Travers.’
‘Just so; that is why the art of life consists in not realising the
truth,’ replied the man, with charming languor.
‘You are the first person I have met who has dared put these things
into words,’ murmured the woman.
‘Your life has been a dream hitherto.’
‘According to you, I had better not awake.’
‘One wants experience to give a wider scope to one’s dreams,’ said he
paternally.
‘A woman’s imagination has no such needs.’
‘That depends. What are your favourite books?’
‘I dislike reading. In novels, people always do what you expect. The
only tolerable people are those who do what you do not expect.’
‘And this is your first season!’
‘I have four elder sisters.’
‘Ah!--’ he paused, then he added, ‘one never realises how much women
tell each other.’
‘No, in men’s eyes, women are always at daggers drawn, fighting for the
exclusive possession of a masculine heart.’
‘Geraldine,’ cried her mother, from the other end of the drawing-room,
‘come and sing to us, my dear. Mr. Clausen has not heard your voice
since your return from Paris.’
‘Have you made a serious study of singing, Lady Geraldine?’ asked
Travers.
‘I had a course of lessons from Sautussi in the winter.’
‘Oh yes, Mr. Travers, indeed she has,’ broke in Lady Kirkdale as
she crossed the room; ‘and I insisted on her singing at Sautussi’s
reception, just the same as the other pupils. I think it is the
greatest mistake to make distinctions of rank in matters of art. In art
all are equal. There is something so beautiful in that thought.’ Lady
Kirkdale pulled up the rose-coloured blind. ‘Will you open the piano,
Mr. Travers? I am sure you are devoted to music, you have the musical
physiognomy.’
‘Then I fear I have a very foolish physiognomy.’
‘Now, now, don’t be severe. Kirkdale tells me you are most delightfully
severe, and say such witty things.’
‘Then Lord Kirkdale has done me an infinite wrong: to have the
reputation of a wit precede him is the ruin of a man.’
‘I assure you, you are mistaken; most people are much too stupid to
distinguish the qualities of wit; once establish a reputation, half the
world takes you on trust, and considers the other half criticises you
because it envies you.’
‘You give me hope, Lady Kirkdale.’
‘Mr. Travers, I am afraid you are a very, very bad man. Come, let us go
to the piano.’
The Marchioness of Kirkdale had always been enterprising. She had
the experience of life only given to those ladies whose husbands are
thoroughly and brutally immoral: voluptuaries who have no foresight,
who do not realise that it is sometimes amusing to talk to an innocent
woman, when one is thoroughly bored by those who are not innocent.
Lady Kirkdale’s suspicions had been aroused by the violent friendship
her young son had conceived for George Travers; and having her own
theories about the education of young men, she at once invited her
son’s crony to afternoon tea at the little house they occupied in
Davies Street, Berkeley Square. ‘A man’s behaviour in a drawing-room is
one of the tests you should always apply before you allow him to enjoy
your confidence, Stephen,’ she had said.
‘A drawing-room is such an inconceivably uninteresting place,’ sighed
Stephen.
‘That is the reason why, as a test, it is so invaluable; any commonly
brilliant man can amuse men in a club, or women at the Continental;
but it requires the most subtle quintessence of wit to penetrate the
brain of the great world without shocking its susceptibilities; neither
radical paradoxes nor coarse allusions can be brought into play there,
without social ruin.’
‘Is social ruin possible nowadays?’
‘My dear Kirkdale!’
‘I gauge the public feeling of society by its attitude in public,
and when I sit in a box at the theatre and see the stalls greet the
passionate utterances of a ruined woman with a contemptuous smile,
as if that sort of sentiment were quite out of date, I come to the
conclusion that social ruin means nothing now.’
‘My poor Kirkdale, if you think society is represented in the stalls at
a theatre, you are still more unsophisticated than I had dared hope.
But you and Geraldine are always puzzling me. There is a persistence of
innocence, I might almost say ignorance, of life about you both, which
I cannot understand.’
Kirkdale laughed gaily. ‘The rule of contraries always does surprise
people.’
Lady Kirkdale looked hard at her son; he smiled pleasantly; then she
said, ‘You will never appreciate the difficulties of my position,
Kirkdale.’
‘Yes, I do, mother, although I may be stupid about obvious truths
everybody else appreciates at once; I have a sort of brain of my own
concealed in my skull. Geraldine and I were both born old, and we’re
growing young by degrees, don’t you see?’
‘My dear boy, what nonsense you talk!’
‘Every one must have a childhood some time or other on their own
account. In our old home, when my father was alive, childhood was
impossible. Let us enjoy it now.’
‘Enjoy it, certainly. But bring this new man to see me.’ Kirkdale
agreed, and Lady Kirkdale sent a note to her old friend John Clausen
asking him to come and meet Mr. Travers. John Clausen was a man of
vast experience. He had never married, and romantic people told a
romantic story of an early love ending tragically in eternal fidelity.
He was a walking peerage and encyclopedia; he could tell you the cast
of every theatrical success, and the scandals about all the ephemeral
celebrities, that have come under the notice of society, and passed
thence into the darkness of the outer world during the last forty
years. As Lady Maisy Potter, one of Lady Kirkdale’s married daughters,
said--
‘He is one of those charming observant people, who always listen to
what you say, and notice what you wear.’
As he sat in Lady Kirkdale’s drawing-room on this particular hot June
afternoon, he was both listening and observing. Lady Geraldine looked
like a fair and sweet flower as she sang Gounod’s passionate love-song,
_Ce que je suis sans toi_. She was a blonde, with tiny hands which
melted in the touch as it were; they appeared to have no strength,
no bone, they were so soft, so delicate. Yet now she was playing,
you could see they were full of nervous tension; and her style had a
certain vigour and distinction surprising to those who had only seen
her in her idle moments. Mr. Clausen’s eyes wandered from her to the
figure of George Travers: he was of light build, his face was clean
shaven save for a moustache several shades lighter than his hair, his
eyes were brown and rather close together, his nostrils delicate, and
his chin well cut. There was a suggestion of cat-like agility about
him, and good solid muscle at the corners of his mouth gave evidence
that he was a man of endless resource. He stood behind Lady Geraldine,
his hand resting on her brother’s shoulder. When the song was over,
Travers said, ‘I should like to hear you singing to a mandolin on
the lawn, down at my place at Old Windsor. Can you not persuade Lady
Kirkdale to bring you down there one day? It is a charming old place,
filled with quaint things I have collected from all parts of the world.
I am sure it would interest you. What do you say, Stephen, will your
mother and sister come with you and see me in my Arcadia?’
‘Certainly, old fellow. I didn’t know you had a place in the country.’
‘Oh, it is not a property, I simply lease it; but it is convenient to
have a house of a certain size in which to store one’s collections. I
am such a wanderer that I often forget I possess even this little _pied
à terre_.’
‘I hear you have such exquisite taste in furnishing,’ said Lady
Geraldine. ‘Lord Foreshot was telling me you had superintended the
decoration of his chambers in the Albany, and that they are a perfect
dream.’
‘I fear Lord Foreshot had some ulterior object in view.’
‘I don’t understand you, Mr. Travers.’
‘I am sure of that, quite sure of that,’ and Mr. Travers bestowed
upon her a fatherly and forgiving smile. Then he advanced to Lady
Kirkdale to bid her good-bye and invite her to make arrangements for
the expedition to Old Windsor. A minute or two later they were joined
by Kirkdale, who had remained behind talking to Geraldine. The details
were arranged, and the expedition fixed for the following Wednesday by
Mr. Travers, who said, ‘The middle of the week is always best; one can
enjoy one’s-self in one’s own way without being disgusted by seeing too
many other people enjoying themselves in theirs.’
He and Kirkdale left the house together.
‘My sister does not like you,’ said Kirkdale.
‘I am most fortunate.’
‘How so?’
‘The degrees in a woman’s favour are, interest, dislike; interest,
hate; interest--well, I suppose I may say more interest.’
‘Why do you hesitate, old fellow?’
‘Lady Geraldine is a woman who wants a special language to express her.
Unfortunately for me, I have not learned it yet.’
‘It would please her to hear that.’
‘Would it? Then tell her,’ and Travers gently stroked his moustache as
they turned into Piccadilly.
Lady Geraldine left the drawing-room by one door as her brother and
George Travers quitted it by the other. So that Lady Kirkdale and Mr.
Clausen were left _tête-a-tête_. She turned to him and said, ‘What is
your opinion of this man?’
‘He is the sort of danger Stephen is bound to encounter sooner or
later. The sooner it is over the better; young men must be initiated
personally into the mysteries of life, no mother can bear the tests for
them.’
‘You are quite right there; but I could have wished the serpent of
Stephen’s choice had taken another form.’
‘There I disagree with you; if you had had a free hand in the matter I
don’t think you could have chosen better.’
Lady Geraldine re-entered; her mother made room for her beside her on
the sofa, and said, ‘We were talking of Mr. Travers; what do you think
of him?’
‘I dislike him, and told Stephen I did so; there is an uncomfortable
feeling that you are walking on very thin ice when you are talking to
him. I wish we had not arranged this visit to Old Windsor.’
‘Shall we write and put him off? We had other engagements for the day;
I can easily make excuses.’
‘Oh no, we had better go. The country air will be pleasant in any case.’
‘And how are you getting through your first season, Lady Geraldine?’
said Mr. Clausen.
‘I feel as if I had been through it again and again before. It
interested me at first; it was amusing to see my sisters’ old
experiences renewing themselves as my turn came. But it is terrible to
think that whether you are in it or not, the world goes on just the
same: in another season, girls now in the schoolroom will be going
through the mill exactly in the same way as I am doing. How one longs
for something different!’
‘Yes we all have felt that. I believe it is the strongest passion of
the human race to get at “something different”; it is the secret of all
sin, the secret of all progress.’
‘And it is the function of society to suppress this tendency,’ said
Lady Kirkdale. ‘It crystallises, I may say sanctifies, the present
state of things. “Whatever is, is right” must be the ostensible motto
of those who would retain their places in it. It is the solid edifice
round which an empire is gathered.’
‘The solid centre of a very wobbling circumference,’ interrupted Mr.
Clausen.
‘Mr. Travers was saying that the beautiful was only a veil to cover
the ridiculous. It seems to me that in the same way the stupidity of
society is concealed by hiding it behind very high walls,’ murmured
Geraldine, as she leaned her head on the broad back of the Chesterfield
sofa.
‘There you are wrong; those high walls contain everything. There is
nothing without that is not within; the only difference is that people
in society keep within bounds, others do not.’
‘That is a great deal to be thankful for,’ said Lady Kirkdale. ‘I once
had to go down to Richmond by the last underground train from Hampstead
on a Saturday night. I have had a good deal of experience, but never
have I witnessed such a pandemonium. I would not enter one of those
underground stations, when the rabble is at large, to save a hundred
pounds.’
‘All vice loses its attraction when it is seen from the outside,’ said
Mr. Clausen.
‘Has vice any attraction?’ asked Geraldine.
‘Not to the refined or cultivated pleasure-seeker, but the crude
youngster often finds himself thoroughly enjoying the most vulgar
vices: it is only after being repeatedly shocked at the appearance
of other people when they are enjoying similar ecstasies that our
cultivated perceptions render us incapable of revelling in the
ridiculous.’
‘Ah, how true! nothing excites virtue so much as the spectacle of other
people’s vices,’ said Lady Kirkdale.
‘It is the last rope thrown out by Providence to save us from our
sins,’ replied Mr. Clausen.
‘How curious it would be,’ said Geraldine, ‘if the next Saviour of the
world should be one who would bestow a universal sense of humour!’
‘But nobody is so ridiculous as a humorist,’ cried Lady Kirkdale.
‘One can forgive anything when it is done with deliberate intent,’ was
Mr. Clausen’s rejoinder, ‘but other people’s instinctive emotions can
never be forgiven, unless we happen to share them.’
‘So you think we might be redeemed by a humorist.’
‘He certainly should have a trial. Lady Geraldine, here is a chance
for you--start in life as the high priestess of humour.’
‘I am not old enough, Mr. Clausen; I am afraid I have not worn out my
instinctive emotions yet.’
‘Ah, well! when you have, you will know where to fly for refuge.’
Lady Kirkdale sighed, and said, ‘I suppose our most lasting delusion is
that our experiences can be of service to others.’
‘It is not a delusion,’ replied Mr. Clausen warmly. ‘Experience teaches
us through our own agony to sympathise with others. When they have
passed through a like experience, we can help to heal their wounds;
but we cannot prevent them fighting out the battle for themselves.’
He stopped suddenly, walked to the window, looked out, and said in a
lighter tone to Geraldine, ‘And how are all your sisters?’
‘They are very well. Mary has just taken the new baby into the country,
where her husband joins her as soon as the session is over. Emily
is still working in the East End; she lectures at Toynbee Hall on
Temperance next Friday. Gladys writes from the Embassy at Vienna that
her life is wasted in writing official notes; and Maisy and her husband
seem to have disappeared altogether ever since they were married;
they were most ridiculously attached to each other, as no doubt you
remember. All the while they were engaged, I was afraid of stirring
about the house, and got into a habit of humming, coughing, and
rattling door handles, which I have not overcome yet.’
‘And where were they when you last heard of them?’
‘Well, they remained in Egypt on their honeymoon, until it became too
hot to hold them, and now they’ve taken refuge in a yacht.’
‘Dear! dear! dear! who would have thought so much romance was left in
the world? How long have they been married?’
‘Six months.’
‘The other day I heard it said that the first six months of married
life were the most miserable in a woman’s existence. Maisy would not
agree with that.’
‘I suppose not; they utterly refused to return to London for the
season, although mamma begged Maisy to come and take me about. Poor
mamma, how tired you must be of chaperoning us!’
‘No, I am not. As age comes over one, one begins to take an interest in
details quite incomprehensible to the young.’
The door opened, and the footman announced in a loud voice, ‘Mr. Potter
and Lady Maisy Potter.’
‘Mamma!’
‘Maisy!’
‘Robert! Where have you come from?’
‘Landed at Portsmouth this morning. Thought we would take you by
surprise.’
The reunited family settled itself into groups, more tea was ordered,
and confidences exchanged.
Maisy, pert, pretty, and blooming with health, sat between her mother
and sister on the sofa. Mr. Clausen and Robert foregathered at the
other end of the room. Geraldine said, ‘Last time you wrote, you said
nothing would induce you to return to England yet.’
‘That was all poor dear Robert; he begged and prayed me to stay out
there with him, until I really had to threaten him.’
‘My dear Maisy!’
‘Yes, mamma, I positively had to threaten him that, if he persisted in
staying I should come home alone.’
‘And that brought him round at once, of course,’ said Geraldine.
‘Oh yes, he can’t bear me to be out of his sight for a moment. People
tell me his devotion positively makes him ridiculous.’
‘You don’t mind that, I suppose.’
‘Geraldine, what has come over you? What is the matter with her, mamma?
Has she been crossed in love?’
‘My dear Maisy, why should you think so?’
‘There’s something so nasty, and hard, and cynical about
her--positively there is, mamma; one always notices these changes when
one first comes home more than people who are living in the house.’
‘I don’t expect you noticed me at all before you went away.’
‘Oh yes, I did; you were always most interested about my affairs, and
anxious to know how Robert had behaved, and what he had said. And I
know very well you never spoke in that tone then. You hurt my feelings,
Geraldine. I’m not used to cynicism. Robert is so straightforward and
manly, he never makes fun of me.’
‘I wasn’t making fun, I assure you; I think you the most enviable
woman in the world; really I do.’
Maisy aggrievedly allowed herself to be kissed, and peace was restored.
In the meantime, Mr. Clausen was discussing the subject of his return
with Mr. Robert Potter. Clausen began by making the remark, that the
last news had led him to believe that they had not proposed returning
to England yet. Mr. Potter led Mr. Clausen into the recess of the
window and said: ‘The truth is, my wife was most anxious to remain out
there. Personally, I hate missing a season; it is like losing sight of
a generation in the evolution of the race, one is always looking for
the missing link; and the next year one is horribly out of it. However,
I got my wife to believe that this was her own feeling, and after two
months of delicate manœuvring, I induced her to persuade me to return
to England.’
‘I congratulate you on your patience.’
‘A capacity for patience is the bulwark alike of the solid Englishman
and of the British Constitution. The principle of the Government has
always been to acknowledge such and such a move to be a good one, but
to take no step in the matter until it is forced upon it from the
outside. It endures. I shall endure. What is the use of having such a
splendid public constitution if you do not model your own constitution
upon it?’
Mr. Clausen laughed; Mr. Potter smiled. They turned away from the
window and joined the ladies.
* * * * *
In a miserable little garret in a small street off the Strand, a young
woman lay tossing and turning in her bed; sometimes a little moan
escaped her, then she would bury her face in her pillow and break
into passionate sobs. As it became light she got up and looked out
of the window; she could see a wide expanse of roofs, and in the
distant sky the thin lines of white light through the grey river mist.
She shuddered at the cold, and crept into bed again. Just as she was
falling asleep, a man in evening dress and a loose overcoat of the
latest fashion softly entered the room, and she sprang up, saying--
‘O my George, my dear one, where have you been? I was terrified.’
‘My poor little child, all is well, don’t cry: there, there! I have
done great things to-night, and if you are very careful our fortune’s
made. To-morrow we go down to the place on the river Guaschaci has lent
us; but my little wife will have to be very obedient, and do exactly
what her husband tells her. Does she promise not to cry any more, and
not to spoil her pretty eyes?’ He held her face between his hands, and
kissed her on the mouth.
‘Yes, yes, George, anything. I will do anything you tell me, only
promise me never to leave me again like this. It makes me so unhappy.’
‘My darling, I never will; but you should trust me.’
She threw her arms round his neck passionately, ‘I do, George, I do.
God knows what will become of me if I ever lose that trust.’
‘My sweet love!’ and he sat down on the bed. ‘Now tell me. Do you
remember the simple little cotton dress you wore when I first saw you
on the stage, and when you stole my heart from me all at once, before I
had time to realise my danger? Do you remember it?’
‘Yes, George, of course I do, of course I do.’
‘Well, what do you think I have in my head?’
‘I can’t think. O George! are you going to let me go back on the stage,
and earn money to keep you out of this miserable poverty?’
‘Pooh! child, what would five pounds a week be to a man like me? That’s
no good. No, now listen. In this world the only way to make money is
to be supposed to have money. If I can really get the position which is
mine by right, and from which my cursed ill-luck cut me off six years
ago, when that affair about the duel with Prince Blank, I told you
about, came out, the world will be at my feet: I shall be in a position
which will be unassailable, because it will be founded on a rock. My
exile has been useful to me in this way, it has enabled me to find out
secrets which will be invaluable to me; secrets which will make me
feared by the leaders of society.’
‘O George, but that sounds dreadful!’
‘My Gracie knows her husband would disdain to use the knowledge in his
possession. Of all blackguards the blackmailer is the lowest. But there
are certainly delicate means of working things, called wire-pulling in
diplomatic circles, which have a certain charm--a sensation between
that of a spider weaving its web and the pleasure of exercising skill
experienced by the consummate chess-player. This is a feeling not
ignoble; it is one shared by all great statesmen. It is the exercise
of this power that evolved the Conqueror of Europe from the Corsican
soldier. My wife must learn that all success is the result of carefully
adjusted combinations. She must learn to know that to help her husband,
and herself, she must exercise inviolable secrecy and enduring
self-control.’
‘O George, can I help you? Will you trust me? Oh, how happy, how happy
you make me!’
‘You can and shall; but at first secretly, and in a way which would
make an ordinary woman quail.’
‘I can endure anything, anything for you. Only tell me, you shall see.
I seemed so useless in your real life; it seemed as if I wasn’t really
necessary to you; now I shall be the happiest woman in the world.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you my plan. When I go down to Windsor, I want you
to live in the little cottage belonging to The Oaks, and to save you
from scandal you must pretend to be a poor relation of Guaschaci’s. You
shall have a little girl to wait on you; no real hard work. Then at
night, when the house is locked up and the servants are gone to bed, I
shall steal down to you and we will adorn you with silks and jewels and
lace, and you shall be my beautiful transformed bride.’
‘But, dearest, why?’
‘For two reasons. One is that, to work my present plans, I must not be
supposed to be married, least of all must I be supposed to have married
an actress; and the second is, that that foolish boy whom you met me
walking with the other day has never forgotten you. He is constantly
asking who you were. I said you came from the country, so that he
will not be surprised to find you down at Windsor when he comes next
week. He is quite a boy, and very easy to manage. It will lead to no
unpleasantness for you, my dearest, or you know I should not propose
it. He is the Marquis of Kirkdale, only twenty-one, and by means of his
family, who are in the best set, I propose to get really into the swim;
once there, the rest is easy.’
‘I thought we should have such a lovely time down there, boating and
lying about on the lawn; and all the servants to wait on us.’
‘It would have been ideal, but, under the circumstances, what am I
to do? I must either make my fortune in society, or out of it. I am
not born to be poor; I have no talent for it. In society all things
are possible, out of it all things are possible; but out of society
diplomacy is called lying; statesmanship, cheating; gallantry,
seduction; a fine taste in champagne, drunkenness. No, Gracie, you
must not ask me to give up society. I am made for it, and it for me.
Besides, am I not providing you with the means of gratifying your taste
for acting?’
‘But what will the servants think?’
‘A gentleman’s servants know that their first duty is not to think,’
said Travers, kissing her.
‘Dear George,’ she murmured, ‘I am a nasty, bad-tempered creature. I
have always been teasing you to let me go back to the stage, and after
all this will be great fun, and I shall have the leading part at last!’
‘Yes, the leading part, Gracie. The other women will only be walking
ladies. They will come on, speak a few words to explain the plot, and
be seen no more.’
‘Who are the other ladies, George?’
‘Only Kirkdale’s mother and sister, Lady Kirkdale and Lady Geraldine
Fitzjustin. They are coming down with him on Wednesday; but if you play
your cards properly he will find The Oaks sufficiently attractive to
come down without them in future.’
‘George, do you think it is quite right, all this deception? Wouldn’t
it be better to say you were married, but your wife would never, never
interfere with you?’
‘Dear little baby-wife, no. Don’t you see what fun we’re all going to
have? Women never have scruples about anything on their own account,
but they are always full of them when they think their husbands are
risking the purity of their moral characters.’
‘Now you are laughing at me, George, but really----’
‘No more buts. I’m dead tired,’ and he yawned as he turned out the
light.
* * * * *
‘He is a delightful man,’ said Lady Kirkdale, as she leaned back in the
corner of the railway carriage after making a charming bow to George
Travers, who stood on the platform watching their departure from
Datchet station. ‘And the house is a perfect gem of exquisite taste.’
‘He is much nicer than I thought at first,’ said Geraldine. ‘It was
too bad of you, Stephen, to stay behind, and let him do all the work.
Punting two women about must be most wearisome.’
‘I fancy Travers likes punting; he knows he has a good figure. I didn’t
want to spoil the effect,’ rejoined Stephen.
‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you speak a word against him,’ said
Lady Kirkdale.
‘One stands up for a fellow as long as he’s being abused by one’s
people, of course, but when they begin to appreciate him one can slack
off a little.’
‘What is the matter with you, Stephen?’
‘Oh, nothing--I’m tired, that’s all.’
In the meantime George Travers rebalanced the dogcart, fondled the
horse, lighted a cigar, and drove slowly back to The Oaks. It
certainly had been a successful day for him. His was one of those
natures which delighted in gorgeous dreams. He felt realities to be
most inadequate, he hated them. Just as he had mounted the winged steed
of his imagination, some dirty little fact was always seizing the
reins, and dragging him down to earth; but to-day everything had gone
smoothly.
His father had been a successful actor in the ’sixties, named Swanwick.
Now there are two kinds of bad parents: the parent who looks upon a
child as a machine capable of perfect rectitude if its moral principles
are manufactured on a certain plan, and the parent whose only notion
of a child is that it is a sort of toy sent by Providence for his
amusement. Now it amused old Swanwick to see his little son imitating
the manners behind the footlights, lounging at bars, patronising pretty
girls, advising them as to their costumes, for the actresses soon
discovered that it pleased his father to see him taken notice of, and
pleasing old Swanwick went a long way towards success. It made all the
difference between the smooth and the seamy side of theatrical life.
Blind admiration for him, and his, was all that was necessary; but woe
to any one who suggested an alteration in his arrangements. He would
turn on his most favoured fair one the moment she overstepped the
bounds with which his vanity entrenched him, saying, ‘Am I the stage
manager of this theatre or are you, madam?’ This outburst would be
followed by language unfit for publication, and days of sullen anger,
the clouds only departing after the most complete self-humiliation of
the offending one. Now old Swanwick loved his profession; he loved
trotting along the Strand and turning in to ‘have a drink’ with all
the cronies he met in his progress. He also loved racing. Whenever,
by hook or by crook, he could escape rehearsals, which were much less
intermittent in those days than now, off he would go with his friend
Travers, to Newmarket, Epsom, Sandown, anywhere. Driving for choice,
and making a day of it, getting back to the theatre in a state of
robust hilarity, putting his head in a basin of cold water, and coming
out ‘fresh as a daisy,’ as he put it--at any rate capable of giving a
capital performance of the tender, good-hearted fellow he delighted
in portraying. When he died, his friend Travers adopted the little
orphan boy. He was a man of old family, and felt the necessity, which
old Swanwick had ignored, of doing something more for the boy than
sending him to a day-school. Accordingly he talked seriously to the
small precocious person whom he had taken under his protection; told
him he intended to make him his heir, and that to learn to keep up his
position he must acquire some knowledge of the life led in the world
on this side of the footlights. He spoke in a way which appealed to
the lively imagination of the boy; and when he had stayed for a few
months with Travers in his house in Piccadilly, and had been taken
down to the place in Gloucestershire for the shooting season, he was
completely prepared to ignore his previous experiences; and could treat
them lightly as the excursions of a gentleman’s son into Bohemia.
Travers got very fond of the boy as time went on, and by the time he
was thirteen made up his mind to do his very best for him. He sent him
to Harrow and afterwards to Oxford, but the City of Spires was rather
too much for young Travers, as he was everywhere called now, and he was
sent down after one term.
However, he had got all he thought necessary out of the university.
He could talk about it, and that was all _he_ wanted. He then was
put in a crack regiment; but unfortunately for him, he had not been
there a year before his patron unexpectedly died, having made no will,
and George Travers was thrown on the world with very little but a
thorough knowledge of the ropes, some talent for backing the right
horse, and a very considerable talent for winning at poker; and it was
not a duel but a card scandal that brought his early career in London
society to an untimely end. He was obliged to leave England, although
circumstances necessitated the hushing up of the scandal. He joined a
theatrical company in America, and made a somewhat substantial success
out there. He returned to England with some money and the intention
of continuing his stage career under his father’s name. While waiting
for a chance, unaccountably to himself, he fell in love with Grace
Lovell; we all have our moments of weakness, and in one of these he
married this child, who was full of dreams, full of ambition, full of
hopes, wild as only those of a young actress who has made her first
success can be. She had been engaged as understudy for one of London’s
favourite soubrettes, had been called upon to play the part at a
moment’s notice. She had done so with such dainty freshness, and had
made her points with such innocent piquancy, that she had attracted
public notice to a very considerable extent. She played the part three
weeks, and during those weeks George Travers came to the theatre,
saw, and conquered. When her engagement was over she married him at a
registry office, and disappeared from the stage.
As fate would have it, almost the moment he had taken this step George
Travers made the acquaintance of Lord Kirkdale at the Junior Carlton,
whither he had been taken by Charles Melton, an owner of racehorses.
The two got on very well; the next day they lunched together, and,
strolling along Pall Mall afterwards, encountered Mrs. George Travers.
She looked at them expectantly; George smiled, nodded, and gave her a
little sign to pass on without speaking. She did so, but not before
Kirkdale’s curiosity had been vividly aroused. However, Travers
vouchsafed no information, but that she lived in the country and he
supposed she was up in town shopping for the day.
A week or two later, just as he was changing his last fiver, he
encountered an Italian, Count Guaschaci, whose life he had saved in a
tap-room free fight, out in the Western States. Guaschaci listened to
his troubles sympathetically, and as he was leaving England for six
months, told him he should be really obliged if he would look after his
establishment at Old Windsor; all he asked of him was to keep things
going until his return.
Then Travers saw his opportunity had come. Ten years had passed since
the old scandal. A new generation ruled; all was forgotten, or could be
explained away. The trustful Count gave him a cheque for two hundred
pounds, and left all his affairs in his hands. It must be noted here
that Travers had many most endearing qualities. He could not bear to
see animals suffer; he got on splendidly with children. He treated
women as if he was their father, and men as if he was their redeemer.
He took a favour as if he were bestowing a benediction. He had
discovered the art of living upon other people with as much grace as if
he belonged to the highest circles; none of the bourgeois arrogance of
the parvenu or the middleman was perceptible; he took other people’s
money, their property, and their affections, with equal grace and
admirable cordiality.
Grace peeped timidly out of her cottage door as he drove by. He
whispered, ‘All right, little woman, I will be over directly.’ Then he
drove the cart into the stable-yard, threw the reins to the groom, and
strolled into the house through the back way, calling out as he passed
the kitchen, ‘Just bring me a whisky and Seltzer in the grey-room; I
shall want nothing more to-night.’
He lighted another cigar and threw himself full length on the white
bear-skin which covered the canopied divan at the upper end of the
room. The walls were hung with dull grey material, and decorated with
strips and borders of faded Eastern embroidery. Guaschaci certainly
knew how to do things well. There was not another man in England for
whose decorations Travers felt he could have brought himself to take
the responsibility. Certainly this place positively did even him
credit; he felt no hesitation whatever in saying that it was his own. A
middle-aged woman brought in the whisky, then courtesying gravely she
asked if the master would speak to her little boy, he cried to see the
master before he went to bed.
‘Bring him in, certainly, bring him in.’
‘I put him to bed, sir; but I can’t get him to sleep; perhaps you will
excuse me bringing him down in his little dressing-gown.’
‘Certainly, I’ll put him to sleep in no time; don’t you trouble, Madame
Kudner.’
The housekeeper went and fetched her little boy. As she carried him
in he held out his arms to Travers, who lay back on the white divan
laughing gaily.
‘Want a romp, little man?’ he cried. ‘All right, you shall have one. It
is a shame. I haven’t seen him all day. Come and look in the cupboard,
and see if we can find anything nice there.’
And the boy, who was a miracle of baby prettiness, with little brown
curls dancing round his rosy cheeks, and bright eyes, was carried off
in triumph to the old oak chest in which the stores were kept.
‘There, figs won’t hurt him, will they, Madame Kudner? Now, we’ll take
in the dish; come along. Why, you’ve got no shoes on! Well, jump upon
my back,’ and he raced round the room with the child, carrying the
piece of massive church plate which did duty for a dessert dish in
their curious establishment.
Little Pierre sat gravely in the corner of the divan with his feet
stretched out straight in front of him, munching the green figs and
gazing with rapture at the purple lusciousness which each fresh bite
discovered. Travers promised to bring him upstairs when he appeared
sleepy, and soon the whole house was still.
The two had a long serious conversation, and Pierre was instructed in
full detail how to make himself a little paper punt, which he was to
float down the river next evening with a wax taper in it; it was to be
saturated with oil, so that when the taper had burnt down the whole
boat would flare up splendidly and go down the stream like a real
burning ship. Just as this exciting point was reached, a gentle tap was
heard outside the window.
Travers listened for a moment, then he hurried off his _protégé_,
popped him down on his bed, told him he must go to sleep at once,
kissed him on both cheeks, and ran downstairs. He opened the verandah
windows, at which the taps had become more and more persistent.
Grace entered in a loose white dress.
‘Why have you come here? I told you not to on any account.’
Grace stopped short, it was the first time he had spoken to her in that
hard voice.
‘You said you were coming down to the cottage. I saw all the servants’
lights put out here. I was tired of waiting.’
‘I was playing with Pierre.’
‘Pierre, at this time of night! You prefer anything to me; even a
child.’
‘Even a child! That’s good. Children are the only perfectly
satisfactory companions in the world. They never seriously reproach
you, and as for beauty, no woman can touch them.’
‘George, let me go away. Let me go back to London, to my old life.’
‘I tell you once for all, I can’t allow my wife to go on the stage.’
‘It is too hard, too hard. You make life a perfect torture to me. Why
won’t you let me try to forget you, and my love, my unhappy love for
you?’ she sobbed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous; and for Heaven’s sake don’t make such a row. How
do I make you miserable?’
‘I wouldn’t mind if I never saw you at all. When you were quite away
at Boulogne the other day, I could set to work at things I wanted to
do quite happily; but when I know you are near me, and I am hoping to
see you come in at any moment, my hope tortures me. They say hope is a
pleasant feeling, I think it is the keenest form of torture the devil
ever dressed up as an angel. I sit there in that cottage and wait, and
as time goes on all my love turns sick; I get to hate you for causing
me such pain. I feel as if I could kill you sometimes, to put an end to
it, once for all.’
‘Oh dear! oh dear! How absurd, how absolutely ridiculous all this is!
If you had just come out of the schoolroom I could have understood it,
but any woman who has led the life you have must surely have grasped
a few of the elementary realities of life. You appear to think what
people say on the stage is real life, and what you see behind the
scenes is play-acting.’
‘So it is. Behind the scenes of a theatre nobody is the same as they
are in their own homes; we all play our parts there, but we put all the
reality we have in us into our acting.’
‘Silly child! I am saying the absurd notions you have about love appear
to have come out of plays. Of course, people always say beforehand that
eternity will not be long enough for their raptures. The curtain falls
on this situation; if it was to rise again, they would have to own
ignominiously that half an hour had been found ample.’
‘My God! and I believed you when you told me you could not live without
me. In six weeks I see you flirting with another woman.’
‘Oh, is that it? Well, I suppose if I had cared to play the spy, I
should have seen you flirting with another man.’
‘How dare you! how dare you speak like that, when you know you asked
me to be your decoy! You needn’t deny it; that is the long and short
of it, and I refuse, I will not submit to this. I will go away, and
you can get a divorce if you like. The whole thing is a miserable,
degrading, horrible dream. Now I am awake, and will escape.’ She rushed
to the door; he reached it first, and caught her in his arms.
‘I never saw you look so beautiful.’ He covered her face with kisses.
She struggled; he murmured, ‘My own dear love, I was only teasing;
don’t let us remember a word we have said.’
‘But you were flirting with that Lady Geraldine!’
‘Never mind her; she is the sort of woman men always imagine they are
in love with, except when they are alone with her.’
‘When were you alone with her?’
‘I haven’t been alone with her, but I can read women like books; you
needn’t be afraid that curiosity about the sex will lead me astray.’
‘And you really meant it when you said I was the only woman you ever
really loved?’
‘You know it well enough, my darling. When a man like me marries, he
has been shot straight through the heart.’
After a pause, she said, ‘Well, shall we go back to the cottage?’
‘No, we’ll stay here and have a little feast. Come along, we will
forage about and get up a bottle of champagne. You get the things out
of this cupboard, while I go down to the cellar.’
* * * * *
The next morning Grace Travers woke up rather earlier than usual.
The scene of the previous evening had left a distinct memory behind,
although it had ended in a reconciliation. She had exchanged a few
sentences with Lord Kirkdale, and there was an air of truth, candour,
and unsophistication that appealed strongly to her imagination, as a
contrast to her husband’s somewhat brutal analysis of sexual relations.
A civilised woman has very little taste for what may be termed pure
passion; it pleases her instinct perhaps, but it revolts her intellect,
her imagination, her delicacy, her pride. To an intellectual person
the whole business of love-making is ridiculous, and without dignity.
Dreams and fancies are invoked to give it an adventitious interest,
and so a sort of mesmerism is exercised, and blissful dreams of eternal
happiness come into existence, depending for their duration very
much upon the sympathy between the imaginations of the lovers, which
sometimes is powerful enough to build up a reality from a vision.
However this may be, when love comes in at the door intellect flies out
of the window or sleeps the sleep of the disgusted. When it returns to
its habitation it delivers stern judgment on the follies that have been
committed in its absence. Now a lovers’ quarrel interferes considerably
with the glamour of the situation, it disturbs the harmony which is
essential to the conditions described, and the intellect takes the
chance to slip in and give an opinion. So it happened to Grace. She was
clever, and before the madness came over her (for in her case it was
not a sympathetic imagination which attracted her) was considered witty
and brilliant. But the first effect of her love was to make her take
life very, very seriously; she became quite incapable, for a time, of
seeing the humour of any situation. She had hitherto led a wild roving
life, and her ideal had been to settle down in a little nest of her
own and play Joan to George Travers’s Darby for the rest of her life.
Now Travers did not particularly object to her playing Joan, but he
did find himself unequal to the combined _rôles_ of Romeo and Darby.
Romance and domesticity are not a very suitable combination, and poor
Travers may perhaps be forgiven for falling short of the ideal set
before him.
As has been said by a lady who has made some study of the female heart:
‘What is really necessary to a woman’s happiness is two husbands,
one for everyday and one for Sundays.’ She really meant that she
has discovered that Romeo and Darby cannot be combined in one poor
mortal man, so is willing to take them separately. Grace was not so
reasonable. The romantic attachment she had formed for Romeo, in the
person of Travers, prevented her enduring the presence of Darby, in
the person of Kirkdale. She did not object to Darby’s homage, but it
was certainly not worth thinking of, and would certainly meet with no
reward from her hands.
All the same, she was conscious that a potential Darby was looming in
the horizon, that she was not the woman to waste her life at the beck
and call of a man who could talk to her as Romeo had last night. As all
this was passing through her mind her eyes fell on an old bookshelf,
on which various dusty old volumes were heaped. She walked over to the
corner, wondering she had not noticed them before, and took one down:
it was a book of plays. She stood reading to herself and laughed, then
she replaced the volume and opened a book of Shelley’s poetry. She
opened it at the last pages of a play and softly murmured the words to
herself. By degrees she read louder, something about her voice struck
her. She listened, it sounded different, a new beauty had come into it.
She read on and on, wondering at the pathos of the tones she uttered,
almost crying with sympathy. As she listened to the laments of Beatrice
di Cenci, it seemed to her some inspired spirit had entered her body
and was making use of her voice to reveal to her what life, and love,
and divine sorrow meant.
From that day she settled down to hard work. She heard that some of the
words, as she spoke them, sounded round and full, and moved her to the
depths of her heart; others sounded little and thin, and she resolved
to work away until she had got all alike resonantly beautiful. Often
she caught an ugly jarring sound in her voice when calling out to her
little maid, and at once corrected herself. However she was occupied,
she kept the one idea before her of making every sound she uttered
beautiful.
On Saturday night Travers brought down Lord Kirkdale to stay till
Monday. Grace went to church, and was listening to the curate’s reading
with a severely critical ear when she became aware that Kirkdale had
entered the building. He overtook her as she was crossing the fields on
her way home. He raised his hat, and said--
‘So you are still here? I thought you would have left long ago, you
seemed so terribly bored last time I had the pleasure of seeing you.’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘And still bored?’
‘No; I’m not bored now.’
‘How is that?’
‘I am studying something.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I suppose you’d laugh at a country girl like me if I told you,
but I’m studying because I want to go back--I mean--I want to go on
the stage.’
‘I think it would be a very good idea.’
‘Do you really? Oh, how nice it is to hear some one say that!’
‘Why, don’t you get any encouragement from your people?’
‘No, I don’t’
‘Look here! can I help you in any way? I might perhaps be able to; I
sometimes meet actors and fellows who know a lot about the stage.’
‘Oh, thanks. I don’t think I want help--yet. But it is most kind of you
to offer. I dare say I shall get a chance some day.’
‘But I’ve always heard you can’t learn acting off the stage. You can’t
do much by yourself down here surely?’
‘You can’t learn to _act_, but you can learn to _speak_ beautifully;
life teaches you that, more than all the theatres in the world.’
He looked at her in surprise.
‘I don’t know, of course, but that’s my idea of things,’ she said
smiling.
‘And how do you study?’
‘I learn parts, and say them over and over again to myself until I get
just the sound I want into my voice.’
‘What parts? Juliet?’
‘Well, Beatrice in _The Cenci_ is the one I like best. I don’t like
Juliet; all that sort of sentiment is such a delusion, you know. I
can’t pretend to believe in it; but there is a real, terrible tragedy
in Beatrice, you can’t help feeling it; it takes hold of you, you can’t
escape it.’
‘_The Cenci_ is very improper, isn’t it?’
‘I dare say; I just read the play through once to understand the part
of Beatrice, I forget about the details. I only know the fact that she
has a real, terrible wrong done her, which makes her loathe herself and
lose her wits for a while, that she revenges it, and is beheaded for
her crime just as life had become possible for her, when the father
that had poisoned the very air in which she grew up had ceased to live.
It seems to me that is the only really tragic part ever written for a
woman. Lady Macbeth was a fiend, Juliet a baby.’
‘Will you read some of it to me?’
‘No. I can’t bear reading in a room, it is so amateurish.’