“I suppose I ought to enjoy the joke of what’s going on here,” I wrote,
“but somehow it doesn’t amuse me. Pessimism on the contrary possesses me
and cynicism deeply engages. I positively feel my own flesh sore from
the brass nails in Neil Paraday’s social harness. The house is full of
people who like him, as they mention, awfully, and with whom his talent
for talking nonsense has prodigious success. I delight in his nonsense
myself; why is it therefore that I grudge these happy folk their artless
satisfaction? Mystery of the human heart—abyss of the critical spirit!
Mrs. Wimbush thinks she can answer that question, and as my want of
gaiety has at last worn out her patience she has given me a glimpse of
her shrewd guess. I’m made restless by the selfishness of the insincere
friend—I want to monopolise Paraday in order that he may push me on. To
be intimate with him is a feather in my cap; it gives me an importance
that I couldn’t naturally pretend to, and I seek to deprive him of social
refreshment because I fear that meeting more disinterested people may
enlighten him as to my real motive. All the disinterested people here
are his particular admirers and have been carefully selected as such.
There’s supposed to be a copy of his last book in the house, and in the
hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes, bending gracefully over the first
volume. I discreetly avert my eyes, and when I next look round the
precarious joy has been superseded by the book of life. There’s a
sociable circle or a confidential couple, and the relinquished volume
lies open on its face and as dropped under extreme coercion. Somebody
else presently finds it and transfers it, with its air of momentary
desolation, to another piece of furniture. Every one’s asking every one
about it all day, and every one’s telling every one where they put it
last. I’m sure it’s rather smudgy about the twentieth page. I’ve a
strong impression, too, that the second volume is lost—has been packed in
the bag of some departing guest; and yet everybody has the impression
that somebody else has read to the end. You see therefore that the
beautiful book plays a great part in our existence. Why should I take
the occasion of such distinguished honours to say that I begin to see
deeper into Gustave Flaubert’s doleful refrain about the hatred of
literature? I refer you again to the perverse constitution of man.
“The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete and
the confusion of tongues of a valet de place. She contrives to commit
herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages, and is
entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays, like an
institution which goes on from generation to generation or a big building
contracted for under a forfeit. She can’t have a personal taste any more
than, when her husband succeeds, she can have a personal crown, and her
opinion on any matter is rusty and heavy and plain—made, in the night of
ages, to last and be transmitted. I feel as if I ought to ‘tip’ some
custode for my glimpse of it. She has been told everything in the world
and has never perceived anything, and the echoes of her education respond
awfully to the rash footfall—I mean the casual remark—in the cold
Valhalla of her memory. Mrs. Wimbush delights in her wit and says
there’s nothing so charming as to hear Mr. Paraday draw it out. He’s
perpetually detailed for this job, and he tells me it has a peculiarly
exhausting effect. Every one’s beginning—at the end of two days—to sidle
obsequiously away from her, and Mrs. Wimbush pushes him again and again
into the breach. None of the uses I have yet seen him put to infuriate
me quite so much. He looks very fagged and has at last confessed to me
that his condition makes him uneasy—has even promised me he’ll go
straight home instead of returning to his final engagements in town.
Last night I had some talk with him about going to-day, cutting his visit
short; so sure am I that he’ll be better as soon as he’s shut up in his
lighthouse. He told me that this is what he would like to do; reminding
me, however, that the first lesson of his greatness has been precisely
that he can’t do what he likes. Mrs. Wimbush would never forgive him if
he should leave her before the Princess has received the last hand. When
I hint that a violent rupture with our hostess would be the best thing in
the world for him he gives me to understand that if his reason assents to
the proposition his courage hangs woefully back. He makes no secret of
being mortally afraid of her, and when I ask what harm she can do him
that she hasn’t already done he simply repeats: ‘I’m afraid, I’m afraid!
Don’t enquire too closely,’ he said last night; ‘only believe that I feel
a sort of terror. It’s strange, when she’s so kind! At any rate, I’d as
soon overturn that piece of priceless Sèvres as tell her I must go before
my date.’ It sounds dreadfully weak, but he has some reason, and he pays
for his imagination, which puts him (I should hate it) in the place of
others and makes him feel, even against himself, their feelings, their
appetites, their motives. It’s indeed inveterately against himself that
he makes his imagination act. What a pity he has such a lot of it! He’s
too beastly intelligent. Besides, the famous reading’s still to come
off, and it has been postponed a day to allow Guy Walsingham to arrive.
It appears this eminent lady’s staying at a house a few miles off, which
means of course that Mrs. Wimbush has forcibly annexed her. She’s to
come over in a day or two—Mrs. Wimbush wants her to hear Mr. Paraday.
“To-day’s wet and cold, and several of the company, at the invitation of
the Duke, have driven over to luncheon at Bigwood. I saw poor Paraday
wedge himself, by command, into the little supplementary seat of a
brougham in which the Princess and our hostess were already ensconced.
If the front glass isn’t open on his dear old back perhaps he’ll survive.
Bigwood, I believe, is very grand and frigid, all marble and precedence,
and I wish him well out of the adventure. I can’t tell you how much more
and more your attitude to him, in the midst of all this, shines out by
contrast. I never willingly talk to these people about him, but see what
a comfort I find it to scribble to you! I appreciate it—it keeps me
warm; there are no fires in the house. Mrs. Wimbush goes by the
calendar, the temperature goes by the weather, the weather goes by God
knows what, and the Princess is easily heated. I’ve nothing but my
acrimony to warm me, and have been out under an umbrella to restore my
circulation. Coming in an hour ago I found Lady Augusta Minch rummaging
about the hall. When I asked her what she was looking for she said she
had mislaid something that Mr. Paraday had lent her. I ascertained in a
moment that the article in question is a manuscript, and I’ve a
foreboding that it’s the noble morsel he read me six weeks ago. When I
expressed my surprise that he should have bandied about anything so
precious (I happen to know it’s his only copy—in the most beautiful hand
in all the world) Lady Augusta confessed to me that she hadn’t had it
from himself, but from Mrs. Wimbush, who had wished to give her a glimpse
of it as a salve for her not being able to stay and hear it read.
“‘Is that the piece he’s to read,’ I asked, ‘when Guy Walsingham
arrives?’
“‘It’s not for Guy Walsingham they’re waiting now, it’s for Dora Forbes,’
Lady Augusta said. ‘She’s coming, I believe, early to-morrow. Meanwhile
Mrs. Wimbush has found out about him, and is actively wiring to him. She
says he also must hear him.’
“‘You bewilder me a little,’ I replied; ‘in the age we live in one gets
lost among the genders and the pronouns. The clear thing is that Mrs.
Wimbush doesn’t guard such a treasure so jealously as she might.’
“‘Poor dear, she has the Princess to guard! Mr. Paraday lent her the
manuscript to look over.’
“‘She spoke, you mean, as if it were the morning paper?’
“Lady Augusta stared—my irony was lost on her. ‘She didn’t have time, so
she gave me a chance first; because unfortunately I go to-morrow to
Bigwood.’
“‘And your chance has only proved a chance to lose it?’
“‘I haven’t lost it. I remember now—it was very stupid of me to have
forgotten. I told my maid to give it to Lord Dorimont—or at least to his
man.’
“‘And Lord Dorimont went away directly after luncheon.’
“‘Of course he gave it back to my maid—or else his man did,’ said Lady
Augusta. ‘I dare say it’s all right.’
“The conscience of these people is like a summer sea. They haven’t time
to look over a priceless composition; they’ve only time to kick it about
the house. I suggested that the ‘man,’ fired with a noble emulation, had
perhaps kept the work for his own perusal; and her ladyship wanted to
know whether, if the thing shouldn’t reappear for the grand occasion
appointed by our hostess, the author wouldn’t have something else to read
that would do just as well. Their questions are too delightful! I
declared to Lady Augusta briefly that nothing in the world can ever do so
well as the thing that does best; and at this she looked a little
disconcerted. But I added that if the manuscript had gone astray our
little circle would have the less of an effort of attention to make. The
piece in question was very long—it would keep them three hours.
“‘Three hours! Oh the Princess will get up!’ said Lady Augusta.
“‘I thought she was Mr. Paraday’s greatest admirer.’
“‘I dare say she is—she’s so awfully clever. But what’s the use of being
a Princess—’
“‘If you can’t dissemble your love?’ I asked as Lady Augusta was vague.
She said at any rate she’d question her maid; and I’m hoping that when I
go down to dinner I shall find the manuscript has been recovered.”