“To thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Byron was represented, — also Keats; but it would have taken more than a day to examine the various suggestive quaintnesses and individual charms of this ‘workshop’ as its owner called it, though the hour was to come when I should know every corner of it by heart, and look upon it as a haunted outlaw of bygone ages looked upon ‘sanctuary.’ But now time gave us little pause, — and when we had sufficiently expressed our pleasure and gratitude for the kindness with which we had been received, Lucio, glancing at his watch, suggested departure.
“We could stay on here for an indefinite period Miss Clare,” — he said with an unwonted softness in his dark eyes; “It is a place for peace and happy meditation, — a restful corner for a tired soul.” He checked a slight sigh, — then went on— “But trains wait for no man, and we are returning to town to-night.”
“Then I will not detain you any longer,” said our young hostess, leading the way at once by a side-door, through a passage filled with flowering plants, into the drawing-room where she had first entertained us— “I hope, Mr Tempest,” she added, smiling at me,— “that now we have met, you will no longer desire to qualify as one of my pigeons! It is scarcely worth while!”
“Miss Clare,” I said, now speaking with unaffected sincerity— “I assure you, on my honour, I am very sorry I wrote that article against you. If I had only known you as you are—”
“Oh, that should make no difference to a critic!” she answered merrily.
“It would have made a great difference to me” — I declared; “You are so unlike the objectionable ‘literary woman,’—” I paused, and she regarded me smilingly with her bright clear candid eyes, — then I added— “I must tell you that Sibyl, — Lady Sibyl Elton — is one of your most ardent admirers.”
“I am very pleased to hear that,” — she said simply— “I am always glad when I succeed in winning somebody’s approval and liking.”
“Does not everyone approve and admire you?” asked Lucio.
“Oh no! By no means! The ‘Saturday’ says I only win the applause of shop-girls!” and she laughed— “Poor old ‘Saturday’! — the writers on its staff are so jealous of any successful author. I told the Prince of Wales what it said the other day, and he was very much amused.”
“You know the Prince?” I asked, in a little surprise.
“Well, it would be more correct to say that he knows me,” she replied— “He has been very amiable in taking some little interest in my books. He knows a good deal about literature too, — much more than people give him credit for. He has been here more than once, — and has seen me feed my reviewers — the pigeons, you know! He rather enjoyed the fun I think!”
And this was all the result of the ‘slating’ the press gave to Mavis Clare! Simply that she named her doves after her critics, and fed them in the presence of whatever royal or distinguished visitors she might have (and I afterwards learned she had many) amid, no doubt, much laughter from those who saw the ‘Spectator’-pigeon fighting for grains of corn, or the ‘Saturday Review’ pigeon quarrelling over peas! Evidently no reviewer, spiteful or otherwise, could affect the vivacious nature of such a mischievous elf as she was.
“How different you are — how widely different — to the ordinary run of literary people!” I said involuntarily.
“I am glad you find me so,” — she answered— “I hope I am different. As a rule literary people take themselves far too seriously, and attach too much importance to what they do. That is why they become such bores. I don’t believe anyone ever did thoroughly good work who was not perfectly happy over it, and totally indifferent to opinion. I should be quite content to write on, if I only had a garret to live in. I was once very poor, — shockingly poor; and even now I am not rich, but I’ve got just enough to keep me working steadily, which is as it should be. If I had more, I might get lazy and neglect my work, — then you know Satan might step into my life, and it would be a question of idle hands and mischief to follow, according to the adage.”
“I think you would have strength enough to resist Satan,—” said Lucio, looking at her stedfastly, with sombre scrutiny in his expressive eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, — I could not be sure of myself!” and she smiled— “I should imagine he must be a dangerously fascinating personage. I never picture him as the possessor of hoofs and a tail, — common-sense assures me that no creature presenting himself under such an aspect would have the slightest power to attract. Milton’s conception of Satan is the finest” — and her eyes darkened swiftly with the intensity of her thoughts— “A mighty Angel fallen! — one cannot but be sorry for such a fall, if the legend were true!”
There was a sudden silence. A bird sang outside, and a little breeze swayed the lilies in the window to and fro.
“Good-bye, Mavis Clare!” said Lucio very softly, almost tenderly. His voice was low and tremulous — his face grave and pale. She looked up at him in a little surprise.
“Good-bye!” she rejoined, extending her small hand. He held it a moment, — then, to my secret astonishment, knowing his aversion to women, stooped and kissed it. She flushed rosily as she withdrew it from his clasp.
“Be always as you are Mavis Clare!” — he said gently— “Let nothing change you! Keep that bright nature of yours, — that unruffled spirit of quiet contentment, and you may wear the bitter laurel of fame as sweetly as a rose! I have seen the world; I have travelled far, and have met many famous men and women, — kings and queens, senators, poets and philosophers, — my experience has been wide and varied, so that I am not altogether without authority for what I say, — and I assure you that the Satan of whom you are able to speak with compassion, can never trouble the peace of a pure and contented soul. Like consorts with like, — a fallen angel seeks the equally fallen, — and the devil, — if there be one, — becomes the companion of those only who take pleasure in his teaching and society. Legends say he is afraid of a crucifix, — but if he is afraid of anything I should say it must be of that ‘sweet content’ concerning which your country’s Shakespeare sings, and which is a better defence against evil than the church or the prayers of the clergy! I speak as one having the right of age to speak, — I am so many many years older than you! —— you must forgive me if I have said too much!”
She was quite silent; evidently moved and surprised at his words; and she gazed at him with a vaguely wondering, half-awed expression, — an expression which changed directly I myself advanced to make my adieu.
240”I am very glad to have met you, Miss Clare,” — I said— “I hope we shall be friends!”
“There is no reason why we should be enemies I think,” she responded frankly— “I am very pleased you came to-day. If ever you want to ‘slate’ me again, you know your fate! — you become a dove, — nothing more! Good-bye!”
She saluted us prettily as we passed out, and when the gate had closed behind us we heard the deep and joyous baying of the great dog ‘Emperor,’ evidently released from ‘durance vile’ immediately on our departure. We walked on for some time in silence, and it was not till we had re-entered the grounds of Willowsmere, and were making our way to the drive where the carriage which was to take us to the station already awaited us, that Lucio said —
“Well; now, what do you think of her?”
“She is as unlike the accepted ideal of the female novelist as she can well be,” I answered, with a laugh.
“Accepted ideals are generally mistaken ones,” — he observed, watching me narrowly— “An accepted ideal of Divinity in some church pictures is an old man’s face set in a triangle. The accepted ideal of the devil is a nondescript creature, with horns, hoofs (one of them cloven) and a tail, as Miss Clare just now remarked. The accepted ideal of beauty is the Venus de Medicis, — whereas your Lady Sibyl entirely transcends that much over-rated stat
ue. The accepted ideal of a poet is Apollo, — he was a god, — and no poet in the flesh ever approaches the god-like! And the accepted ideal of the female novelist, is an elderly, dowdy, spectacled, frowsy fright, — Mavis Clare does not fulfil this description, yet she is the author of ‘Differences.’ Now McWhing, who thrashes her continually in all the papers he can command, is elderly, ugly, spectacled and frowsy, — and he is the author of — nothing! Women-authors are invariably supposed to be hideous, — men-authors for the most part are hideous. But their hideousness is not noted or insisted upon, — whereas, no matter how good-looking women-writers may be, they still pass under press-comment as frights, because the fiat of press-opinion considers they ought to be frights, even if they are not. A pretty authoress is an offence, — an incongruity, — a something that neither men nor women care about. Men don’t care about her, because being clever and independent, she does not often care about them, — women don’t care about her, because she has the effrontery to combine attractive looks with intelligence, and she makes an awkward rival to those who have only attractive looks without intelligence. So wags the world! —
O wild world! — circling through æons untold, —
‘Mid fires of sunrise and sunset, — through flashes of silver and gold, —
Grain of dust in a storm, — atom of sand by the sea, —
What is your worth, O world, to the Angels of God and me!
He sang this quite suddenly, his rich baritone pealing out musically on the warm silent air. I listened entranced.
“What a voice you have!” I exclaimed— “What a glorious gift!”
He smiled, and sang on, his dark eyes flashing —
O wild world! Mote in a burning ray
Flung from the spherical Heavens millions of spaces away —
Sink in the ether or soar! Live with the planets or die! —
What should I care for your fate, who am one with the Infinite Sky!
“What strange song is that?” I asked, startled and thrilled by the passion of his voice— “It seems to mean nothing!”
He laughed, and took my arm.
“It does mean nothing!” he said— “All drawing-room songs mean nothing. Mine is a drawing-room song — calculated to waken emotional impulses in the unloved spinster religiously inclined!”
“Nonsense!” I said, smiling.
“Exactly! That is what I say. It is nonsense!” Here we came up to the carriage which waited for us— “Just twenty minutes to catch the train, Geoffrey! Off we go!”
And off we did go, — I watching the red gabled roofs of Willowsmere Court shining in the late sunshine, till a turn in the road hid them from view.
“You like your purchase?” queried Lucio presently.
“I do. Immensely!”
“And your rival, Mavis Clare? Do you like her?”
I paused a moment, then answered frankly,
“Yes. I like her. And I will admit something more than that to you now. I like her book. It is a noble work, — worthy of the most highly-gifted man. I always liked it — and because I liked it, I slated it.”
“Rather a mysterious course of procedure!” and he smiled; “Can you not explain?”
“Of course I can explain,” — I said— “Explanation is easy. I envied her power — I envy it still. Her popularity caused me a smarting sense of injury, and to relieve it I wrote that article against her. But I shall never do anything of the kind again. I shall let her grow her laurels in peace.”
“Laurels have a habit of growing without any permission,” — observed Lucio significantly— “In all sorts of unexpected places too. And they can never be properly cultivated in the forcing-house of criticism.”
“I know that!” I said quickly, my thoughts reverting to my own book, and all the favourable criticisms that had been heaped upon it— “I have learned that lesson thoroughly, by heart!”
He looked at me fixedly.
“It is only one of many you may have yet to learn” — he said— “It is a lesson in fame. Your next course of instruction will be in love!”
He smiled, — but I was conscious of a certain dread and discomfort as he spoke. I thought of Sibyl and her incomparable beauty —— Sibyl, who had told me she could not love, — had we both to learn a lesson? And should we master it? — or would it master us?
XXI
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 paralys
ed 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.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 348