The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance

by Richard Le Gallienne

  Now, books are simply professional liars about life, and the books thatare best worth reading are those which lie the most beautifully. Yet,in fairness, we must add that they are liars, not with intent tomislead, but merely with the tenderest purpose to console. They arethe good Samaritans that find us robbed of all our dreams by theroadside of life, bleeding and weeping and desolate; and such is theirskill and wealth and goodness of heart, that they not only heal up ourwounds, but restore to us the lost property of our dreams, on onecondition,--that we never travel with them again in the daylight.

  A library is a better world, built by the brains and hearts of poetsand dreamers, as a refuge from the real world outside; and in it aloneis to be found the land of milk and honey which it promises.

  "Milk and honey" would have been an appropriate inscription for thedelicious little library which parents who, I surmised, doted onNicolete in vain, had allowed her to build in a wild woodland corner ofher ancestral park, half a mile away from the great house, where, forall its corridors and galleries, she could never feel, at all events,spiritually alone. All that was most sugared and musical and generallydelusive in the old library of her fathers had been brought out to thislittle woodland library, and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poetsand romancers, long since dead, yet as alive and singing on theirshelves as any bird on the sunny boughs outside, my young lady'sprivate purse had added all that was most sugared and musical andgenerally delusive in the vellum bound Japanese-paper literature of ourown luxurious day. Nor were poets and romancers from over sea--intheir seeming simple paper covers, but with, oh, such complicated andsubtle insides!--absent from the court which Nicolete held here in thegreenwood. Never was such a nest of singing-birds. All day long, tothe ear of the spirit, there was in this little library a sound ofharping and singing and the telling of tales,--songs and tales of aworld that never was, yet shall ever be. Here day by day Nicolete fedher young soul on the nightingale's-tongues of literature, and put downher book only to listen to the nightingale's-tongues outside. Yea,sun, moon, and stars were all in the conspiracy to lie to her of theloveliness of the world and the good intentions of life. And now, thusunexpectedly, I found myself joining the nefarious conspiracy. Ah,well! was I not twenty myself, and full of dreams!

  CHAPTER V

  'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE

  Thus it was that we lunched together amid the books and birds, in anexquisite solitude a deux; for the ringer of the silver bell haddisappeared, having left a dainty meal in readiness--for two.

  "You see you were expected," said Nicolete, with her pretty laugh. "Idreamed I should have a visitor to-day, and told Susan to lay the lunchfor two. You mustn't be surprised at that," she added mischievously;"it has often happened before. I dream that dream every other night,and Susan lays for two every day. She knows my whims,--knows that theextra knife and fork are for the fairy knight that may turn up anyafternoon, as I tell her--"

  "To find the sleepless princess," I added, thinking at the same timeone of those irrelevant asides that will go through the brain ofthirty, that the woman who would get her share of kisses nowadays mustneither slumber nor sleep.

  A certain great poet, I think it was Byron, objected to seeing women inthe act of eating. He thought their eating should be done in private.What a curiously perverse opinion! For surely woman never shows tobetter advantage than in the dainty exercises of a dainty repast, andthere is nothing more thrilling to man than a meal alone with a womanhe loves or is about to love. Perhaps, deep down, the reason is thatthere still vibrates in the masculine blood the thrilling surprise ofthe moment when man first realised that the angel woman was built uponthe same carnivorous principles as his grosser self.

  That is one of the first heart-beating surprises that come upon the boyColumbus, as he sets out to discover the New World of woman; and indeedhis surprise has not seldom deepened into admiration, as he has foundthat not only does woman eat, but frequently eats a lot.

  This privilege of seeing woman eat is the earliest granted of thosedelicate animal intimacies, the fuller and fuller confiding of whichplays not the least important part, and ever such a sweet one, even ina highly transcendental affection. It is this gradual humanising ofthe divine female that brings about the spiritualising of theunregenerate male.

  In the earliest stages of love the services are small that we areprivileged to do for the loved one. But if we are allowed to sit atmeat with her,--ever a royal condescension,--it is ours at least topass her the salt, to see that she is never kept waiting a moment forthe mustard or the pepper, to cut the bread for her with geometricalprecision, and to lean as near her warm shoulder as we dare to pour outfor her the sacred wine.

  Yes! for sure I was twenty again, for the performance of these simpleservices for Nicolete gave me a thrill of pure boyish pleasure such asI had never expected to feel again. And did she not make a knight ofme by gently asking if I would be so kind as to carve the chicken, andhow she laughed quite disproportionally at my school-boy story of theman who, being asked to carve a pigeon, said he thought they had bettersend for a wood-carver, as it seemed to be a wood pigeon.

  And while we ate and drank and laughed and chatted, the books around uswere weaving their spells. Even before the invention of printing bookswere "love's purveyors." Was it not a book that sent Paolo andFrancesca for ever wandering on that stormy wind of passion and ofdeath? And nowadays the part played by books in human drama is greaterthan we perhaps realise. Apart from their serious influence asdetermining destinies of the character, what endless opportunities theyafford to lovers, who perhaps are denied all other meeting-places thanmay be found on the tell-tale pages of a marked volume. The method isso easy and so unsuspect. You have only to put faint pencil-marksagainst the tenderest passages in your favourite new poet, and lend thevolume to Her, and She has only to leave here and there the droppedviolet of a timid confirmatory initial, for you to know your fate. Andwhat a touchstone books thus become! Indeed they simplify love-making,from every point of view. With books so inexpensive and accessible toall as they are to-day, no one need run any risks of marrying the wrongwoman. He has only to put her through an unconscious examination bygetting her to read and mark a few of his favourite authors, and he isthus in possession of the master clues of her character. With a listof her month's reading and a photograph, a man ought to be able to makeup his mind about any given woman, even though he has never spoken toher. "Name your favourite writer" should be one of the first questionsin the Engagement Catechism.

  There is, indeed, no such short cut to knowledge of each other as atalk about books. One short afternoon is enough for any twobook-lovers, though they may have met for the first time in themorning, to make up their minds whether or not they have been born foreach other. If you are agreed, say, in admiring Meredith, Hardy, OmarKhayyam, and Maeterlinck,--to take four particularlytest-authors,--there is nothing to prevent your marrying at once.Indeed, a love for any one of these significant writers will be enough,not to speak of an admiration for "Aucassin and Nicolete."

  Now, Nicolete and I soon found that we had all these and many anotherwriter in common, and before our lunch was ended we were nearer to eachother than many old friends. The heart does not more love the heartthat loves it than the brain loves the brain that comprehends it; and,whatever else was to befall us, Nicolete and I were already in lovewith each other's brains. Whether or not the malady would spread tillit reached the heart is the secret of some future chapter.

  CHAPTER VI

  A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS

  As this is not a realistic novel, I do not hold myself bound, as I havesaid before, to account reasonably for everything that is done--leastof all, said--within its pages. I simply say, So it happened, or So itis, and expect the reader to take my word. If he be uncivil enough todoubt it, we may as well stop playing this game of fancy. It is one ofthe first conditions of enjoying a book, as it is of all successfulhypnotism, that the reader surrenders u
p his will to the writer, who,of course, guarantees to return it to him at the close of the volume.If you say that no young lady would have behaved as I have presently torelate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating in theworld of reality, I reply,--No doubt you are right, but none the lesswhat I have to tell is true and really did happen, for all that. Andnot only did it happen, but to the whimsically minded, to the truechildren of fancy, it will seem the most natural thing in the world.No doubt they will wonder why I have made such a preamble about it, asindeed, now I think of it, so do I.

  Again I claim exemption in this wandering history from all suchdescriptive drudgery upon second, third, and fourth dramatispersonsonae as your thorough-going novelist must undertake with a goodgrace. Like a host and hostess at a reception, the poor novelist hasto pretend to be interested in everybody,--in the dull as in thebrilliant, in the bore as in the beauty. I'm afraid I should never doas a novelist, for I should waste all my time with the heroine; whereasthe true novelist is expected to pay as much attention to the heroine'sparents as though he were a suitor for her hand. Indeed, there is norelative of hero or heroine too humble or stupid for such a novelist asthe great Balzac. He will invite the dullest of them to stay with himfor quite prolonged visits, and without a murmur set apart a suite ofchapters for their accommodation. I'm not sure that the humanity ofthe reader in these cases is of such comprehensive sympathy as thenovelist's, and it may well be that the novelist undertakes all suchhard labour under a misapprehension of the desires of the reader, who,as a rule, I fancy, is as anxious to join the ladies as the novelisthimself. Indeed, I believe that there is an opportunity for a new formof novel, in which the novelist, as well as the reader, will skip allthe dull people, and merely indicate such of them as are necessary tothe action by an outline or a symbol, compressing their familiarpsychology, and necessary plot-interferences with the main characters,into recognised formulae. For the benefit of readers voracious foreverything about everybody, schedule chapters might be provided byinferior novelists, good at painting say tiresome bourgeois fathers,gouty uncles and brothers in the army, as sometimes in great pictureswe read that the sheep in the foreground have been painted by Mr.So-and-so, R.A.

  The Major-General and his Lady were taking the waters at Wiesbaden.That was all I knew of Nicolete's parents, and all I needed to know;with the exception of one good action,--at her urgent entreaty they hadleft Nicolete behind them, with no other safeguard than a charmingyoung lady companion, whose fitness for her sacred duties consisted ina temperament hardly less romantic and whimsical than Nicolete's own.She was too charming to deserve the name of obstacle; and as there wasno other--

  But I admit that the cart has got a little in front of the horse, and Igrow suddenly alarmed lest the reader should be suspecting me of anelopement, or some such romantic vulgarity. If he will only put anysuch thoughts from his mind, I promise to proceed with the story in abrief and business-like manner forthwith.

  We are back once more at the close of the last chapter, in Nicolete'sbook-bower in the wildwood. It is an hour or two later, and theafternoon sun is flooding with a searching glory all the secret placesof the woodland. Hidden nooks and corners, unused to observation,suddenly gleam and blush in effulgent exposure,--like lovers whom theunexpected turning on of a light has revealed kissing in the dark,--andare as suddenly, unlike the lovers, left in their native shade again.It was that rich afternoon sunlight that loves to flash into teacups asthough they were crocuses, that loves to run a golden finger along thebeautiful wrinkles of old faces and light up the noble hollows ofage-worn eyes; the sunlight that loves to fall with transfiguring beamon the once dear book we never read, or, with maliciousinquisitiveness, expose to undreamed-of detection the undusted picture,or the gold-dusted legs of remote chairs, which the poor housemaid hasforgotten.

  So in Nicolete's bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the daintydisorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the wine-glasses,painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, and flooded thecavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a pathetic yellowtorchlight.

  Leaving that melancholy relic of carnivorous appetite, it turned itsbold gold gaze on Nicolete. No need to transfigure her! But, heavens!how grandly her young face took the great kiss of the god! Then itfell for a tender moment on the jaundiced page of my old Boccaccio,--arare edition, which I had taken from my knapsack to indulge myself withthe appreciation of a connoisseur. Next minute "the unobstructed beam"was shining right into the knapsack itself, for all the world like oneof those little demon electric lights with which the dentist makes amomentary treasure-cave of your distended jaws, flashing with startledstalactite. At the same moment Nicolete's starry eyes took the samedirection; then there broke from her her lovely laughter, merry andinextinguishable.

  Once more, need I say, my petticoat had played me false--or should Inot say true? For there was its luxurious lace border, a thing for thesoft light of the boudoir, or the secret moonlight of love's permittedeyes, alone to see, shamelessly brazening it out in this terriblesunlight. Obviously there was but one way out of the dilemma, toconfess my pilgrimage to Nicolete, and reveal to her all the fancifulabsurdity to which, after all, I owed the sight of her.

  "So that is why you pleaded so hard for that poor trout," she said,when I had finished. "Well, you are a fairy prince indeed! Now, do youknow what the punishment of your nonsense is to be?"

  "Is it very severe and humiliating?" I asked.

  "You must judge of that. It is--to take me with you!"

  "You,--what do you mean?"

  "Yes,--not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a fortnight,just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then to deliver me safehome again where you found me--"

  "But it is impossible," I almost gasped in surprise. "Of course youare not serious?"

  "I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?" she continuedpleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those wonderfulwalking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or Stevenson. We arenot allowed to move without a nurse or a footman. From the day we areborn to the day we die, we are never left a moment to ourselves. Butyou--you can go out into the world, the mysterious world, do as youwill, go where you will, wander here, wander there, follow any bye-waythat takes your fancy, put up at old inns, make strange acquaintances,have all kinds of romantic experiences-- Oh, to be a man for afortnight, your younger brother for a fortnight!"

  "It is impossible!" I repeated.

  "It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will onlybe nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have onlyto write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit ofclothes,--with a little managing yours would just fit me, you're not somuch taller,--and then we could start, like two comrades, seekingadventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!"

  It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to bearupon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain.

  I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents.

  Weren't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and weren't they to goon drinking them for another three weeks? My fancy made a picture ofthem distended with three weeks' absorption of mineral springs. Thenthere was her companion. Nicolete was confident of her assistance.Then I tried vilifying myself. How could she run the risk of trustingherself to such intimate companionship with a man whom she hadn't knownhalf a dozen hours? This she laughed to scorn. Presently I was silentfrom sheer lack of further objections; and need I say that all thewhile there had been a traitor impulse in my heart, a weak sweetnessurging me on to accept the pretty chance which the good genius of mypilgrimage had so evidently put in my way,--for, after all, what harmcould it do? With me Nicolete was, indeed, safe,--that, of course, Iknew,--and safely she should come back home again after her littlefrolic. All that was true enough. And how charming it would be tohave such a dainty companion! then the fun, the fancy, the whim of itall. What was t
he use of setting out to seek adventures if I didn'tpursue them when found.

  Well, the long and short of it was that I agreed to undertake theadventure, provided that Nicolete could win over the lady whom at thebeginning of the chapter I declared too charming to be described as anobstacle.

  By nine o'clock the following morning the fairy tailors, as Nicoletecalled them, were at work on the fairy clothes, and, at the end ofthree days, there came by parcel-post a bulky unromantic-lookingbrown-paper parcel, which it was my business to convey to Nicoleteunder cover of the dark.

  CHAPTER VII

  FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON

  I quite realise that this book is written perhaps only just in time forthe motive of these two or three chapters to be appreciated in itsancient piquancy. Very soon, alas! the sexes will be robbed of one ofthe first and most thrilling motives of romance, the motive of As YouLike It, the romance of wearing each other's clothes. Alas, that everyadvance of reason should mean a corresponding retreat of romance! Itis only reasonable that woman, being--have you yet realised thefact?--a biped like her brothers, should, when she takes to herbrothers' recreations, dress as those recreations demand; and yet thedeath of Rosalind is a heavy price to pay for the lady bicyclist. Sosoon as the two sexes wear the same clothes, they may as well wearnothing; the game of sex is up. In this matter, as in others, wecannot both have our cake and eat it. All romance, like alltemptation, is founded on the Fascination of the Exception. So soon asthe exception becomes, instead of merely proving, the rule, thatparticular avenue of romance is closed. The New Woman of the futurewill be the woman with the petticoats, she who shall restore theancient Eleusinian mysteries of the silk skirt and the tea-gown.