The remains of Henrietta Trefusis were interred in Highgate Cemetery
the day before Christmas Eve. Three noblemen sent their carriages to
the funeral, and the friends and clients of Mr. Jansenius, to a large
number, attended in person. The bier was covered with a profusion of
costly Bowers. The undertaker, instructed to spare no expense, provided
long-tailed black horses, with black palls on their backs and black
plumes upon their foreheads; coachmen decorated with scarves and
jack-boots, black hammercloths, cloaks, and gloves, with many hired
mourners, who, however, would have been instantly discharged had they
presumed to betray emotion, or in any way overstep their function of
walking beside the hearse with brass-tipped batons in their hands.
Among the genuine mourners were Mr. Jansenius, who burst into tears
at the ceremony of casting earth on the coffin; the boy Arthur, who,
preoccupied by the novelty of appearing in a long cloak at the head of a
public procession, felt that he was not so sorry as he ought to be when
he saw his papa cry; and a cousin who had once asked Henrietta to marry
him, and who now, full of tragic reflections, was enjoying his despair
intensely.
The rest whispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a strange
omission in the arrangements. The husband of the deceased was absent.
Members of the family and intimate friends were told by Daniel Jansenius
that the widower had acted in a blackguard way, and that the Janseniuses
did not care two-pence whether he came or stayed at home; that, but for
the indecency of the thing, they were just as glad that he was keeping
away. Others, who had no claim to be privately informed, made inquiries
of the undertaker’s foreman, who said he understood the gentleman
objected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it was on the
ground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr. Trefusis was very
wealthy, he added that he had been told so, but believed the money
had not come from the lady; that people seldom cared to go to a great
expense for a funeral unless they came into something good by the death;
and that some parties the more they had the more they grudged. Before
the funeral guests dispersed, the report spread by Mr. Jansenius’s
brother had got mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given rise
to a story of Trefusis expressing joy at his wife’s death with frightful
oaths in her father’s house whilst she lay dead there, and refusing to
pay a farthing of her debts or funeral expenses.
Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a fresh
scandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr. Jansenius’s helped him
to compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of pretty and touching
stanzas, setting forth that Henrietta’s character had been one of rare
sweetness and virtue, and that her friends would never cease to sorrow
for her loss. A tradesman who described himself as a “monumental mason”
furnished a book of tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highly
ornamental one, and proposed to defray half the cost of its erection.
Trefusis objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did not
see why tombstones should be privileged to publish false statements. It
was reported that he had followed up his former misconduct by calling
his father-in-law a liar, and that he had ordered a common tombstone
from some cheap-jack at the East-end. He had, in fact, spoken
contemptuously of the monumental tradesman as an “exploiter” of labor,
and had asked a young working mason, a member of the International
Association, to design a monument for the gratification of Jansenius.
The mason, with much pains and misgiving, produced an original design.
Trefusis approved of it, and resolved to have it executed by the hands
of the designer. He hired a sculptor’s studio, purchased blocks of
marble of the dimensions and quality described to him by the mason, and
invited him to set to work forthwith.
Trefusis now encountered a difficulty. He wished to pay the mason the
just value of his work, no more and no less. But this he could not
ascertain. The only available standard was the market price, and this he
rejected as being fixed by competition among capitalists who could only
secure profit by obtaining from their workmen more products than they
paid them for, and could only tempt customers by offering a share of the
unpaid-for part of the products as a reduction in price. Thus he
found that the system of withholding the indispensable materials for
production and subsistence from the laborers, except on condition of
their supporting an idle class whilst accepting a lower standard
of comfort for themselves than for that idle class, rendered the
determination of just ratios of exchange, and consequently the practice
of honest dealing, impossible. He had at last to ask the mason what he
would consider fair payment for the execution of the design, though he
knew that the man could no more solve the problem than he, and that,
though he would certainly ask as much as he thought he could get, his
demand must be limited by his poverty and by the competition of the
monumental tradesman. Trefusis settled the matter by giving double what
was asked, only imposing such conditions as were necessary to compel the
mason to execute the work himself, and not make a profit by hiring other
men at the market rate of wages to do it.
But the design was, to its author’s astonishment, to be paid
for separately. The mason, after hesitating a long time between
two-pounds-ten and five pounds, was emboldened by a fellow-workman,
who treated him to some hot whiskey and water, to name the larger sum.
Trefusis paid the money at once, and then set himself to find out how
much a similar design would have cost from the hands of an eminent
Royal Academician. Happening to know a gentleman in this position, he
consulted him, and was informed that the probable cost would be from
five hundred to one thousand pounds. Trefusis expressed his opinion that
the mason’s charge was the more reasonable, somewhat to the indignation
of his artist friend, who reminded him of the years which a Royal
Academician has to spend in acquiring his skill. Trefusis mentioned that
the apprenticeship of a mason was quite as long, twice as laborious,
and not half so pleasant. The artist now began to find Trefusis’s
Socialistic views, with which he had previously fancied himself in
sympathy, both odious and dangerous. He demanded whether nothing was
to be allowed for genius. Trefusis warmly replied that genius cost
its possessor nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole race
incidentally vested in a single individual, and that if that individual
employed his monopoly of it to extort money from others, he deserved
nothing better than hanging. The artist lost his temper, and suggested
that if Trefusis could not feel that the prerogative of art was divine,
perhaps he could understand that a painter was not such a fool as to
design a tomb for five pounds when he might be painting a portrait for
a thousand. Trefusis retorted that the fact of a man paying a thousand
pounds for a portrait proved that he had not earned the money, and was
therefore either a thief or a beggar. The common workman who sacrificed
sixpence from his week’s wages for a cheap photograph to present to his
sweetheart, or a shilling for a pair of chromolithographic pictures
or delft figures to place on his mantelboard, suffered greater privation
for the sake of possessing a work of art than the great landlord or
shareholder who paid a thousand pounds, which he was too rich to miss,
for a portrait that, like Hogarth’s Jack Sheppard, was only interesting
to students of criminal physiognomy. A lively quarrel ensued, Trefusis
denouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a priestly caste
when they were obviously only the parasites and favored slaves of
the moneyed classes, and his friend (temporarily his enemy) sneering
bitterly at levellers who were for levelling down instead of levelling
up. Finally, tired of disputing, and remorseful for their acrimony, they
dined amicably together.
The monument was placed in Highgate Cemetery by a small band of
workmen whom Trefusis found out of employment. It bore the following
inscription:
THIS IS THE MONUMENT OF HENRIETTA JANSENIUS WHO WAS BORN ON THE 26TH
JULY, 1856, MARRIED TO SIDNEY TREFUSIS ON THE 23RD AUGUST, 1875, AND WHO
DIED ON THE 21ST DECEMBER IN THE SAME YEAR.
Mr. Jansenius took this as an insult to his daughter’s memory, and,
as the tomb was much smaller than many which had been erected in the
cemetery by families to whom the Janseniuses claimed superiority, cited
it as an example of the widower’s meanness. But by other persons it was
so much admired that Trefusis hoped it would ensure the prosperity of
its designer. The contrary happened. When the mason attempted to return
to his ordinary work he was informed that he had contravened trade
usage, and that his former employers would have nothing more to say to
him. On applying for advice and assistance to the trades-union of which
he was a member he received the same reply, and was further reproached
for treachery to his fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to say
that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an
argumentative letter to the “Times,” which was not inserted, a sarcastic
one to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the
employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content
himself with setting the man to work again on mantelpieces and other
decorative stone-work for use in house property on the Trefusis
estate. In a year or two his liberal payments enabled the mason to save
sufficient to start as an employer, in which capacity he soon began to
grow rich, as he knew by experience exactly how much his workmen could
be forced to do, and how little they could be forced to take. Shortly
after this change in his circumstances he became an advocate of
thrift, temperance, and steady industry, and quitted the International
Association, of which he had been an enthusiastic supporter when
dependent on his own skill and taste as a working mason.
During these occurrences Agatha’s school-life ended. Her resolution to
study hard during another term at the college had been formed, not for
the sake of becoming learned, but that she might become more worthy of
Smilash; and when she learned the truth about him from his own lips, the
idea of returning to the scene of that humiliation became intolerable
to her. She left under the impression that her heart was broken, for
her smarting vanity, by the law of its own existence, would not perceive
that it was the seat of the injury. So she bade Miss Wilson adieu; and
the bee on the window pane was heard no more at Alton College.
The intelligence of Henrietta’s death shocked her the more because she
could not help being glad that the only other person who knew of
her folly with regard to Smilash (himself excepted) was now silenced
forever. This seemed to her a terrible discovery of her own depravity.
Under its influence she became almost religious, and caused some
anxiety about her health to her mother, who was puzzled by her unwonted
seriousness, and, in particular, by her determination not to speak
of the misconduct of Trefusis, which was now the prevailing topic
of conversation in the family. She listened in silence to gossiping
discussions of his desertion of his wife, his heartless indifference
to her decease, his violence and bad language by her deathbed, his
parsimony, his malicious opposition to the wishes of the Janseniuses,
his cheap tombstone with the insulting epitaph, his association with
common workmen and low demagogues, his suspected connection with a
secret society for the assassination of the royal family and blowing
up of the army, his atheistic denial, in a pamphlet addressed to the
clergy, of a statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury that spiritual
aid alone could improve the condition of the poor in the East-end of
London, and the crowning disgrace of his trial for seditious libel at
the Old Bailey, where he was condemned to six months’ imprisonment; a
penalty from which he was rescued by the ingenuity of his counsel, who
discovered a flaw in the indictment, and succeeded, at great cost to
Trefusis, in getting the sentence quashed. Agatha at last got tired of
hearing of his misdeeds. She believed him to be heartless, selfish, and
misguided, but she knew that he was not the loud, coarse, sensual, and
ignorant brawler most of her mother’s gossips supposed him to be. She
even felt, in spite of herself, an emotion of gratitude to the few who
ventured to defend him.
Preparation for her first season helped her to forget her misadventure.
She “came out” in due time, and an extremely dull season she found it.
So much so, that she sometimes asked herself whether she should ever be
happy again. At the college there had been good fellowship, fun, rules,
and duties which were a source of strength when observed and a source
of delicious excitement when violated, freedom from ceremony, toffee
making, flights on the banisters, and appreciative audiences for the
soldier in the chimney.
In society there were silly conversations lasting half a minute, cool
acquaintanceships founded on such half-minutes, general reciprocity
of suspicion, overcrowding, insufficient ventilation, bad music badly
executed, late hours, unwholesome food, intoxicating liquors, jealous
competition in useless expenditure, husband-hunting, flirting, dancing,
theatres, and concerts. The last three, which Agatha liked, helped to
make the contrast between Alton and London tolerable to her, but
they had their drawbacks, for good partners at the dances, and good
performances at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointingly
scarce. Flirting she could not endure; she drove men away when they
became tender, seeing in them the falsehood of Smilash without his wit.
She was considered rude by the younger gentlemen of her circle. They
discussed her bad manners among themselves, and agreed to punish her by
not asking her to dance. She thus got rid, without knowing why, of
the attentions she cared for least (she retained a schoolgirl’s cruel
contempt for “boys”), and enjoyed herself as best she could with such of
the older or more sensible men as were not intolerant of girls.
At best the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She repeatedly
alarmed her mother by broaching projects of becoming a hospital nurse,
a public singer, or an actress. These projects led to some desultory
studies. In order to qualify herself as a nurse she read a handbook of
physiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought so improper a subject for a young
lady that she went in tears to beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate with
her unruly girl. Mrs. Jansenius, better advised, was of opinion that the
more a woman knew the more wisely she was likely to act, and that Agatha
would soon drop the physiology of her own accord. This proved true.
Agatha, having finished her book by dint of extensive skipping,
proceeded to study pathology from a volume of clinical lectures. Finding
her own sensations exactly like those described in the book as symptoms
of the direst diseases, she put it by in alarm, and took up a novel,
which was free from the fault she had found in the lectures, inasmuch
as none of the emotions it described in the least resembled any she had
ever experienced.
After a brief interval, she consulted a fashionable teacher of singing
as to whether her voice was strong enough for the operatic stage. He
recommended her to study with him for six years, assuring her that at
the end of that period--if she followed his directions--she should be
the greatest singer in the world. To this there was, in her mind, the
conclusive objection that in six years she should be an old woman. So
she resolved to try privately whether she could not get on more quickly
by herself. Meanwhile, with a view to the drama in case her operatic
scheme should fail, she took lessons in elocution and gymnastics.
Practice in these improved her health and spirits so much that her
previous aspirations seemed too limited. She tried her hand at all the
arts in succession, but was too discouraged by the weakness of her first
attempts to persevere. She knew that as a general rule there are feeble
and ridiculous beginnings to all excellence, but she never applied
general rules to her own case, still thinking of herself as an exception
to them, just as she had done when she romanced about Smilash. The
illusions of adolescence were thick upon her.
Meanwhile her progress was creating anxieties in which she had no share.
Her paroxysms of exhilaration, followed by a gnawing sense of failure
and uselessness, were known to her mother only as “wildness” and “low
spirits,” to be combated by needlework as a sedative, or beef tea as a
stimulant. Mrs. Wylie had learnt by rote that the whole duty of a lady
is to be graceful, charitable, helpful, modest, and disinterested whilst
awaiting passively whatever lot these virtues may induce. But she
had learnt by experience that a lady’s business in society is to get
married, and that virtues and accomplishments alike are important only
as attractions to eligible bachelors. As this truth is shameful, young
ladies are left for a year or two to find it out for themselves; it is
seldom explicitly conveyed to them at their entry into society. Hence
they often throw away capital bargains in their first season, and
are compelled to offer themselves at greatly reduced prices
subsequently, when their attractions begin to stale. This was the fate
which Mrs. Wylie, warned by Mrs. Jansenius, feared for Agatha, who, time
after time when a callow gentleman of wealth and position was introduced
to her, drove him brusquely away as soon as he ventured to hint that his
affections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The anxious mother
had to console herself with the fact that her daughter drove away the
ineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible, formed no unworldly
attachments, was still very young, and would grow less coy as she
advanced in years and in what Mrs. Jansenius called sense.
But as the seasons went by it remained questionable whether Agatha was
the more to be congratulated on having begun life after leaving school
or Henrietta on having finished it.