The preparations for my marriage now went on apace,--shoals of presents
began to arrive for Sibyl as well as for myself, and I was introduced to
an hitherto undemonstrated phase (as far as I personally was concerned)
of the vulgarity and hypocrisy of fashionable society. Everyone knew the
extent of my wealth, and how little real necessity there was for
offering me or my bride-elect costly gifts; nevertheless, all our
so-called 'friends' and acquaintances, strove to outvie each other in
the gross cash-value, if not in the good taste, of their various
donations. Had we been a young couple bravely beginning the world on
true love, in more or less uncertainty as to our prospects and future
income, we should have received nothing either useful or
valuable,--everyone would have tried to do the present-giving in as
cheap and mean a way as possible. Instead of handsome services of solid
silver, we should have had a meagre collection of plated teaspoons;
instead of costly editions of books sumptuously enriched with fine steel
engravings, we might possibly have had to express our gratitude for a
ten-shilling Family Bible. Of course I fully realized the actual nature
and object of the lavish extravagance displayed on this occasion by our
social 'set,'--their gifts were merely so many bribes, sent with a
purpose which was easy enough to fathom. The donors wished to be invited
to the wedding in the first place,--after that, they sought to be
included in our visiting-list, and foresaw invitations to our dinners
and house-parties;--and more than this they calculated on our influence
in society, and the possible chance there might be in the dim future of
our lending some of them money should pressing occasion require it. In
the scant thankfulness and suppressed contempt their adulatory offerings
excited, Sibyl and I were completely at one. She looked upon her array
of glittering valuables with the utmost weariness and indifference, and
flattered my self-love by assuring me that the only things she cared at
all for were the riviére of sapphires and diamonds I had given her as a
betrothal-pledge, together with an engagement-ring of the same lustrous
gems. Yet I noticed she also had a great liking for Lucio's present,
which was a truly magnificent masterpiece of the jeweller's art. It was
a girdle in the form of a serpent, the body entirely composed of the
finest emeralds, and the head of rubies and diamonds. Flexible as a
reed, when Sibyl put it on, it appeared to spring and coil round her
waist like a living thing, and breathe with her breathing. I did not
much care for it myself as an ornament for a young bride,--it seemed to
me quite unsuitable,--but as everyone else admired it and envied the
possessor of such superb jewels, I said nothing of my own distaste.
Diana Chesney had shown a certain amount of delicate sentiment and
refinement in her offering,--it was a very exquisite marble statue of
Psyche, mounted on a pedestal of solid silver and ebony. Sibyl thanked
her, smiling coldly.
"You have given me an emblem of the Soul,"--she said; "No doubt you
remembered I have no soul of my own!"
And her airy laugh had chilled poor Diana 'to the marrow,' as the
warm-hearted little American herself, with tears, assured me.
At this period I saw very little of Rimânez. I was much occupied with my
lawyers on the question of 'settlements.' Messrs Bentham and Ellis
rather objected to the arrangement by which I gave the half of my
fortune to my intended wife unconditionally; but I would brook no
interference, and the deed was drawn up, signed, sealed and witnessed.
The Earl of Elton could not sufficiently praise my 'unexampled
generosity'--my 'noble character;'--and walked about, eulogising me
everywhere, till he almost turned himself into a public advertisement of
the virtues of his future son-in-law. He seemed to have taken a new
lease of life,--he flirted with Diana Chesney openly,--and of his
paralysed spouse with the fixed stare and deathly grin, he never spoke,
and, I imagine, never thought. Sibyl herself was always in the hands of
dressmakers and milliners,--and we only saw each other every day for a
few minutes' hurried chat. On these occasions she was always
charming,--even affectionate; and yet,--though I was full of passionate
admiration and love for her, I felt that she was mine merely as a slave
might be mine; that she gave me her lips to kiss as if she considered I
had a right to kiss them because I had bought them, and for no other
reason,--that her pretty caresses were studied, and her whole behaviour
the result of careful forethought and not natural impulsiveness. I tried
to shake off this impression, but it still remained persistently, and
clouded the sweetness of my brief courtship.
Meanwhile, slowly and almost imperceptibly, my 'boomed' book dropped out
of notice. Morgeson presented a heavy bill of publishing costs which I
paid without a murmur; now and then an allusion to my 'literary
triumphs' cropped up in one or other of the newspapers, but otherwise no
one spoke of my 'famous' work, and few read it. I enjoyed the same sort
of cliquey reputation and public failure attending a certain novel
entitled 'Marius the Epicurean.' The journalists with whom I had come in
contact began to drift away like flotsam and jetsam; I think they saw I
was not likely to give many more 'reviewing' dinners or suppers, and
that my marriage with the Earl of Elton's daughter would lift me into an
atmosphere where Grub-street could not breathe comfortably or stretch
its legs at ease. The heap of gold on which I sat as on a throne,
divided me gradually from even the back courts and lower passages
leading to the Temple of Fame,--and almost unconsciously to myself I
retreated step by step, shading my eyes as it were from the sun, and
seeing the glittering turrets in the distance, with a woman's slight
figure entering the lofty portico, turning back her laurelled head to
smile sorrowfully and with divinest pity upon me, ere passing in to
salute the gods. Yet, if asked about it, everyone on the press would
have said that I had had a great success. I--only I--realized the
bitterness and truth of my failure. I had not touched the heart of the
public;--I had not succeeded in so waking my readers out of the torpor
of their dull and commonplace every-day lives, that they should turn
towards me with outstretched hands, exclaiming--"More,--more of these
thoughts which comfort and inspire us!--which make us hear God's voice
proclaiming 'All's well!' above the storms of life!" I had not done
it,--I could not do it. And the worst part of my feeling on this point
was the idea that possibly I might have done it had I remained poor! The
strongest and healthiest pulse in the composition of a man,--the
necessity for hard work,--had been killed in me. I knew I need not work;
that the society in which I now moved thought it ridiculous if I did
work; that I was expected to spend money and 'enjoy' myself in the
idiotic fashion of what the 'upper ten' term enjoyment. My acquaintances
were not slow in suggesting plans for the dissipation of my surplus
cash,--why did I not build for myself a marble palace on the
Riviera?--or a yacht to completely outshine the Prince of Wales's
'Britannia'? Why did I not start a theatre? Or found a newspaper? Not
one of my social advisers once proposed my doing any private personal
good with my fortune. When some terrible case of distress was published,
and subscriptions were raised to relieve the object or objects of
suffering, I invariably gave Ten Guineas, and allowed myself to be
thanked for my 'generous assistance.' I might as well have given ten
pence, for the guineas were no more to me in comparison than the pence.
When funds were started to erect a statue to some great man who had, in
the usual way of the world, been a victim of misrepresentation till his
death, I produced my Ten Guineas again, when I could easily have
defrayed the whole cost of the memorial, with honour to myself, and been
none the poorer. With all my wealth I did nothing noteworthy; I
showered no unexpected luck in the way of the patient, struggling
workers in the hard schools of literature and art; I gave no 'largesse'
among the poor;--and when a thin, eager-eyed curate, with a strong
earnest face called upon me one day, to represent, with much nervous
diffidence, the hideous sufferings of some of the sick and starving in
his district down by the docks, and suggested that I might possibly care
to alleviate a few of these direful sorrows as a satisfaction to myself,
as well as for the sake of human brotherhood, I am ashamed to say I let
him go with a sovereign, for which he heaped coals of fire on my head by
his simple 'God bless you, and thank you.' I could see he was himself in
the grip of poverty,--I could have made him and his poor district
gloriously happy by a few strokes of my pen on a cheque for an amount I
should never have missed,--and yet--I gave him nothing but that one
piece of gold, and so allowed him to depart. He invited me, with earnest
good-will, to go and see his starving flock,--"for, believe me Mr
Tempest," said he--"I should be sorry if you thought, as some of the
wealthy are unhappily apt to do, that I seek money simply to apply it to
my own personal uses. If you would visit the district yourself, and
distribute whatever you pleased with your own hand, it would be
infinitely more gratifying to me, and would have a far better effect on
the minds of the people. For, sir, the poor will not always be patient
under the cruel burdens they have to bear."
I smiled indulgently, and assured him, not without a touch of satire in
my tone, that I was convinced all clergymen were honest and
unselfish,--and then I sent my servant to bow him out with all possible
politeness. And that very day I remember, I drank at my luncheon Chateau
Yquem at twenty-five shillings a bottle.
I enter into these apparently trifling details because they all help to
make up the sum and substance of the deadly consequences to follow,--and
also because I wish to emphasize the fact that in my actions I only
imitated the example of my compeers. Most rich men to-day follow the
same course as I did,--and active personal good to the community is
wrought by very few of them. No great deed of generosity illumines our
annals. Royalty itself leads no fashion in this,--the royal gifts of
game and cast-off clothing sent to our hospitals are too slight and
conventional to carry weight. The 'entertainments for the poor' got up
by some of the aristocrats at the East end, are nothing, and less than
nothing. They are weak sops to our tame 'lion couchant' offered in
doubtful fear and trembling. For our lion is wakeful and somewhat
restive,--there is no knowing what may happen if the original ferocity
of the beast is roused. A few of our over-rich men might considerably
ease the load of cruel poverty in many quarters of the metropolis if
they united themselves with a noble unselfishness in the strong and
determined effort to do so, and eschewed red-tapeism and wordy argument.
But they remain inert;--spending solely on their own personal
gratification and amusement,--and meanwhile there are dark signs of
trouble brooding. The poor, as the lean and anxious curate said, will
not always be patient!
I must not here forget to mention, that through some secret management
of Rimânez, my name, much to my own surprise, appeared on the list of
competitors for the Derby. How, at so late an hour, this had been
effected, I knew no more than where my horse 'Phosphor' came from. It
was a superb animal, but Rimânez, whose gift to me it was, warned me to
be careful as to the character of the persons admitted into the stables
to view it, and to allow no one but the horse's own two attendants to
linger near it long on any pretext. Speculation was very rife as to what
'Phosphor's' capabilities really were; the grooms never showed him off
to advantage during exercise. I was amazed when Lucio told me his man
Amiel would be the jockey.
"Good heavens!--not possible!" I exclaimed. "Can he ride?"
"Like the very devil!"--responded my friend with a smile: "He will ride
'Phosphor' to the winning-post."
I was very doubtful in my own mind of this; a horse of the Prime
Minister's was to run, and all the betting was on that side. Few had
seen 'Phosphor,' and those few, though keen admirers of the animal's
appearance, had little opportunity of judging its actual qualities,
thanks to the careful management of its two attendants, who were
dark-faced, reticent-looking men, somewhat after Amiel's character and
complexion. I myself was quite indifferent as to the result of the
contest. I did not really care whether 'Phosphor' lost or won the race.
I could afford to lose; and it would be little to me if I won, save a
momentary passing triumph. There was nothing lasting, intellectual or
honourable in the victory,--there _is_ nothing lasting, intellectual or
honourable in anything connected with racing. However, because it was
'fashionable' to be interested in this particular mode of wasting time
and money, I followed the general 'lead,' for the sake of 'being
talked about,' and nothing more. Meanwhile, Lucio, saying little to me
concerning it, was busy planning the betrothal-fête at Willowsmere, and
designing all sorts of 'surprise' entertainments for the guests. Eight
hundred invitations were sent out; and society soon began to chatter
volubly and excitedly on the probable magnificence of the forthcoming
festival. Eager acceptances poured in; only a few of those asked were
hindered from attending by illness, family deaths or previous
engagements, and among these latter, to my regret, was Mavis Clare. She
was going to the sea-coast to stay with some old friends, and in a
prettily-worded letter explained this, and expressed her thanks for my
invitation, though she found herself unable to accept it. How curious it
was that when I read her little note of refusal I should experience such
a keen sense of disappointment! She was nothing to me,--nothing but a
'literary' woman who, by strange chance, happened to be sweeter than
most women _un_literary; and yet I felt that the fête at Willowsmere
would lose something in brightness lacking her presence. I had wanted to
introduce her to Sibyl, as I knew I should thus give a special pleasure
to my betrothed,--however, it was not to be, and I was conscious of an
inexplicable personal vexation. In strict accordance with the promise
made, I let Rimânez have his own way entirely with regard to all the
arrangements for what was to be the _ne plus ultra_ of everything ever
designed for the distraction, amusement and wonderment of listless and
fastidious 'swagger' people, and I neither interfered, nor asked any
questions, content to rely on my friend's taste, imagination and
ingenuity. I only understood that all the plans were being carried out
by foreign artists and caterers,--and that no English firms would be
employed. I did venture once to inquire the reason of this, and got one
of Lucio's own enigmatical replies:--
"Nothing English is good enough for the English,"--he said--"Things have
to be imported from France to please the people whom the French
themselves angrily designate as 'perfide Albion.' You must not have a
'Bill of Fare'; you must have a 'Menu'; and all your dishes must bear
French titles, otherwise they will not be in good form. You must have
French 'comediennes' and 'danseuses' to please the British taste, and
your silken draperies must be woven on French looms. Lately too, it has
been deemed necessary to import Parisian morality as well as Parisian
fashions. It does not suit stalwart Great Britain at all, you
know,--stalwart Great Britain, aping the manners of Paris, looks like a
jolly open-faced, sturdy-limbed Giant, with a doll's bonnet stuck on his
leonine head. But the doll's bonnet is just now _la mode_. Some day I
believe the Giant will discover it looks ridiculous, and cast it off
with a burst of genuine laughter at his own temporary folly. And without
it, he will resume his original dignity;--the dignity that best becomes
a privileged conqueror who has the sea for his standing-army."
"Evidently you like England!" I said smiling.
He laughed.
"Not in the very least! I do not like England any more than any other
country on the globe. I do not like the globe itself; and England comes
in for a share of my aversion as one of the spots on the trumpery ball.
If I could have my way, I should like to throne myself on a convenient
star for the purpose and kick out at Earth as she whirls by in space,
hoping by that act of just violence to do away with her for ever!"
"But why?" I asked, amused--"Why do you hate the Earth? What has the
poor little planet done to merit your abhorrence?"
He looked at me very strangely.
"Shall I tell you? You will never believe me!"
"No matter for that!" I answered smiling--"Say on!"
"What has the poor little planet done?" he repeated slowly--"The poor
little planet has done--nothing. But it is what the gods have done with
this same poor little planet, that awakens my anger and scorn. They have
made it a living sphere of wonders,--endowed it with beauty borrowed
from the fairest corners of highest Heaven,--decked it with flowers and
foliage,--taught it music,--the music of birds and torrents and rolling
waves and falling rains,--rocked it gently in clear ether, among such
light as blinds the eyes of mortals,--guided it out of chaos, through
clouds of thunder and barbëd shafts of lightning, to circle peacefully
in its appointed orbit, lit on the one hand by the vivid splendours of
the sun, and on the other by the sleepy radiance of the moon;--and more
than all this, they have invested it with a Divine Soul in man! Oh, you
may disbelieve as you will,--but notwithstanding the pigmy peeps earth
takes at the vast and eternal ocean of Science, the Soul is here, and
all the immortal forces with it and around it! Nay, the gods--I speak in
the plural, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks--for to my thinking
there are many gods emanating from the Supreme Deity,--the gods, I say,
have so insisted on this fact, that One of them has walked the earth in
human guise, solely for the sake of emphasizing the truth of Immortality
to these frail creatures of seemingly perishable clay! For this I hate
the planet;--were there not, and are there not, other and far grander
worlds that a God should have chosen to dwell on than this one!"
For a moment I was silent, out of sheer surprise.
"You amaze me!" I said at last--"You allude to Christ, I suppose; but
everybody is convinced by this time that He was a mere man like the rest
of us; there was nothing divine about Him. What a contradiction you are!
Why, I remember you indignantly denied the accusation of being a
Christian."
"Of course,--and I deny it still"--he answered quickly--"I have not a
fat living in the church that I should tell a lie on such a subject. I
am not a Christian; nor is anyone living a Christian. To quote a very
old saying 'There never was a Christian save One, and He was crucified.'
But though I am not a Christian I never said I doubted the existence of
Christ. That knowledge was forced upon me,--with considerable pressure
too!"
"By a reliable authority?" I inquired with a slight sneer.
He made no immediate reply. His flashing eyes looked, as it were,
through me and beyond me at something far away. The curious pallor that
at times gave his face the set look of an impenetrable mask, came upon
him then, and he smiled,--an awful smile. So might a man smile out of
deadly bravado, when told of some dim and dreadful torture awaiting him.
"You touch me on a sore point,"--he said at last, slowly, and in a harsh
tone--"My convictions respecting certain religious phases of man's
development and progress, are founded on the arduous study of some very
unpleasant truths to which humanity generally shuts its eyes, burying
its head in the desert-sands of its own delusions. These truths I will
not enter upon now. Some other time I will initiate you into a few of my
mysteries."
The tortured smile passed from his face, leaving it intellectually
composed and calm as usual,--and I hastily changed the subject, for I
had made up my mind by this time that my brilliant friend had, like many
exceptionally gifted persons, a 'craze' on one topic, and that topic a
particularly difficult one to discuss as it touched on the superhuman
and therefore (to my thinking) the impossible. My own temperament, which
had, in the days of my poverty, fluctuated between spiritual striving
and material gain, had, with my sudden access to fortune, rapidly
hardened into the character of a man of the world worldly, for whom all
speculations as to the unseen forces working in and around us, were the
merest folly, not worth a moment's waste of thought. I should have
laughed to scorn anyone who had then presumed to talk to me about the
law of Eternal Justice, which with individuals as well as nations,
works, not for a passing 'phase,' but for all time towards good, and not
evil,--for no matter how much a man may strive to blind himself to the
fact, he has a portion of the Divine within him, which if he wilfully
corrupts by his own wickedness, he must be forced to cleanse again and
yet again, in the fierce flames of such remorse and such despair as are
rightly termed the quenchless fires of Hell!