by George Moore
He was a tall, well-built man, with a handsome, wicked, implacable face. He was bald over both temples, and a square-cut brown beard hid the lower part of his face. The eyes were set close together, and were overshadowed by the prominent but narrow forehead and strongly marked eyebrows. His fur overcoat was open, his shirt-front glared in the grey light, and he put on his gloves as if he were vaguely thinking of going.
“My dear Lucy, I wish you would not cry in that way,” he said, after a pause; “you must know that tears have no effect on me. Besides, you are delaying me — I have to talk to you about business.”
The cold intonations of his voice fell into her soul like drops of iced water, and froze her passion into calm hatred.
“If you have insulted me as much as you intend to, perhaps you will tell me what you want with me?” she said, brushing her tears from off her face.
“I was about to tell you when you stopped me, and I assure you that I only asked you whether you found Mr. Seymour’s friendship expensive, because I wished to lead delicately up to the subject I have come to speak to you on. It is curious,” he added, as if carried away by his thoughts, “that not only are husbands more compromising but more costly than lovers in this advanced age; for, according to your own confession, you have spent a good deal of money on this young man, and since the last — well, we won’t say how many years — I haven’t cost you a farthing.”
“Ah! so you have come to beg, have you?” said Mrs. Bentham, with the air of one who plays a trump card.
“My dear child, when will you leave off thinking me so childish?” he answered, getting up and looking at her with his hands in his pockets. “I knew it would not succeed, or I should have tried it long ago.”
“Then why try it now?”
“Because now it will succeed.”
“I beg your pardon, but I would sooner die than give you a penny.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m sure I don’t; but I warn you I shall have to apply for a divorce. But, by-the-way, I have not told you about it. It is the greatest joke in the world. There is a rich widow who loves me. Je n’en puis te donner aucune idée. Elle me trouve gentil, sentimental, nous parlais toujours de choses étherées, elle veut cueillir la petite fleur bleue, et c’est moi qu’elle a choisi pour l’aider a la chercher. Ma parole d’honneur c’est à crever de rire, tout bonnement à crever de rire; mais voyons, ne me regarde pas comme cela, je me rappelle que toi aussi tu m’as trouvé très-sentimental, autrefois. Tu ne te souviens pas quand tu me faisais la cour sur le balcon, au clair de lune.”
Mrs. Bentham shuddered a little, and looked with a kind of mingled horror and curiosity at her husband. He seemed to live in a world beyond the atmosphere of human sentiment. “But you will not be able to obtain a divorce,” she said, coldly, catching a little of his manner; “you cannot prove anything against me.”
“That I don’t know; I haven’t gone into the question; but I can establish the fact that you picked a young man out of the gutter; that you took him down to paint pictures for you; that you kept him there six months; and that you are now running about Paris with him, dining and even supping alone with him in cafés. I don’t know whether you would like to have all this gone into, sifted and argued backwards and forwards; but if not, we had better come to some arrangement; for if we don’t, I assure you I shall have to marry the widow, and to do that I must have a divorce.”
“What arrangement do you propose?”
“Now, my dear Lucy, I knew we should very soon agree; we should have always agreed if it hadn’t been—”
“For goodness sake, spare me your homilies!” exclaimed Mrs. Bentham.
“I am sure I don’t wish to prevent you living the life that pleases you. Really, I don’t see that there is any harm, so long as appearances are kept up.”
“I don’t care to hear your theories on the goodness and badness of things. Let me know in the fewest possible words what I can do for you.”
Now that he had shown his cards, Mrs. Bentham recovered her presence of mind, and for the moment she had the advantage of him. He was obviously trying to reconcile two contradictions — to occupy a dignified position, and to demand hush money.
“Well, since you put it so plainly,” he said, resorting to swaggering as a last resource, “I should like to have a thousand pounds.”
“I regret to say that, for the moment, I have not so much money at the bank. Besides, I should like to know what you will do in return if I give you the sum you demand.”
“You mean what will I not do,” he replied, jeeringly.
“There is nothing to prevent your coming to-morrow and trying to extract another. No, your plan is not a good one,” said Mrs. Bentham, feeling that now she had got on equal terms with him. “No; I will not give you a thousand pounds and have a sword hanging over my head; but I will give you five thousand if you will give me new reason to apply for, and will not oppose my petition for, a divorce, and then you will be free to marry whom you like.”
“Oh, très-bien, très-bien, alors tu veux te débarrasser de cette grosse bête pour prendre un petit mari qui t’aimerait toute la journée. Oh, que c’est vilain, que c’est vilain Mrs. Bentham’s heart sank within her; she had hoped that he would not see through her intention. But her whole hope was in the project, and affecting indifference as well as she could, she tried to persuade him to accept her proposal.
Husband and wife stood looking at each other; they had not met for more than ten years. She was standing with one hand laid on the yellow armchair, her large pale shoulders floating as it were out of her white, cloud-like dress. Her husband looked at her steadfastly; but although his face never changed its cold, metallic expression, with a woman’s instinct she guessed what was passing in his mind, and to turn the current of his thoughts, she said:
“Well, is it to be a bargain? We have no time to lose; for I do not want people to see you coming out of my house, as I cannot say you are my husband.”
“You have improved,” he murmured, staring at her with his glassy, fixed look. “I retract what I said just now about your personal appearance; for, ‘pon my word, I am not sure that you are not a handsomer woman now — if it were not for some wrinkles round the eyes and a little puffiness about the cheeks.”
“Come to the point,” she answered, stamping her foot, resolved that he should not again succeed in making her lose her temper. “Will you accept my offer?”
“Well, no, I think not,” he said, twirling his moustache, and trying to answer as if he were asked whether he would take port or sherry. “You see it is against my principles; I am like the virtuous woman of the nineteenth century, I never compromise myself. No, I think I would sooner stick to my first proposition — a thousand pounds.”
“Well, then, I shall not give you a penny piece,” she said, furious at seeing her last chance of happiness in life slipping out of her reach.
“Then it will be I who will apply for the divorce. But you had better give in, Lucy,” he said, moving towards the door. “Give in,” she ground her teeth at the words; but when she thought of how every fact would be distorted, of the infamous accusations he would make against her, she felt that she would have to accede to his terms.
Then, with a resolute effort to keep her temper, she said:
“And what security have I, if I give you this thousand pounds, that to-morrow you will not come and ask for another!”
“This: I’ll give you my word of honour that I will in no way interfere with you say till this day twelvemonths; we shall both then be free to enter into another engagement.”
Mrs. Bentham looked at her husband at a loss to understand. He read her thoughts with a sensation of pleasure.
He was thoroughly satisfied with himself; he felt he occupied an almost unique position, that he was experiencing a rare and curious sensation, one above all the conventionalities of society, something monstrously fantastic, which not one person in a million would ever understand. He felt he had
found an occasion of being more than ordinarily wicked, and he was determined not to lose it; the money was almost a secondary consideration. He looked at his wife: her ball-room beauty attracted him, and for a moment he thought it would be an end worthy of the commencement to finish up with a love scene. But on second thoughts be remembered, with regret, that he would never be able to get his wife to view it in the same light as he did, and that a quarrel would spoil the dignity of an interview which, thanks to him, had till now been strictly maintained.
“Well, my dear Lucy, then we are agreed,” he said, taking up his opera hat.
“Be it so,” she replied, awaking for a moment from a reverie into which she had fallen. “But you said just now that we would have to enter into another arrangement next yea r; how shall we meet? You cannot come to my house.”
“Quite so, my dear, you did well to remind me. We are now in the beginning of March, the fifth, is it not? Yes, it is the fifth. Well, this day next year you will see an advertisement in the Times, which will tell you to travel by a certain train on a certain day; do so, and I will meet you farther down the line, et nous arrangerons nos affaires en chemin de fer. But I hear a noise in the street; I must be off; will you show me the way?”
Mrs. Bentham conducted him to the door; he bowed ceremoniously, saying that the legend of the Wandering Jew and the woman would henceforth have “une signification tout-à fait moderne,”
When the door closed, Mrs. Bentham stood staring like one in a dream. Then she traversed the drawing-room, gained her bedroom and undressed in broad day-light She drew the curtains close, but the light came in in spite of them, and sleepless she tossed, or lay, looking blankly into the coming day.
CHAPTER XV.
JEALOUSY.
THAT MORNING MRS. Bentham did not appear at breakfast; and when, late in the afternoon, she got up, it was only to lie, pale and haggard, on the sofa in her boudoir.
Mrs. Thorpe pestered her with questions, and wearied her with offers of remedies. She longed to be left alone, and refused to see anyone.
Lewis, however, insisted; and for an hour they talked together. He was very kind, very sympathetic; but, not being able to tell him what had occurred, his company irritated her, and she sent him away, on the plea that it fatigued her to talk. Fortunately she had no’ engagement for that evening; but, two days after, she was obliged to go to a large ball, where she had promised Lewis the cotillon.
The same people were there as at the Marquise de Maure’s; everybody enjoyed themselves but she.
As the weeks went by, this feeling of dejection grew stronger instead of weaker, and she found she could not get rid of the gloom that had settled over her life. The flaring windows of the cafés, as she passed along the boulevards, now repelled instead of attracting her. She grew too tired to dress in the evening.
Even the Bois ceased to interest her, and after one turn she would tell her coachman to drive home.
At the operettas she only smiled painfully.
She had always been a little bourgeois in her tastes, and now, once awakened from her dream, all her natural instincts asserted themselves with redoubled force; the elegance and fashion around her wearied as much as it had before fascinated her. The eternal perfume of pleasure which seemed to hang round the city sickened and irritated her, and she could but long piteously for the peace and tranquillity of Claremont House.
The interview with her husband had produced a change in her feelings; had robbed her of her taste for pleasure. But this was not her only grief.
A woman is never really unhappy so long as she is sure of her lover; and Mrs. Bentham now perceived the friendship and intimacy which had existed between her and Lewis to be fast fading away. He no longer seemed to care to spend an evening alone with her, in the twilight of the spring fire-side; be now only spoke of the Marquise’s portrait, which he had a commission to paint; of balls, parties, theatres, of everything except herself — all seemed changed.
She often cried bitterly, harassed by a thousand regrets and desires. In turn she impeached and defended her conduct, and, certain of nothing, suffered from a sense of discouragement, even to the point of wishing to throw herself at her husband’s feet and demand forgiveness. In all sincerity, and with an earnest desire to know the truth, she would ask herself if it were her fault? If she were really to blame? Had not her desire always been to do her duty? Had she not married her husband because she loved him? Had she not gone to the altar, hoping to be a good wife to him, to make his home happy, and be a good mother to his children? And she would have done all this, she was convinced, if he had not mocked at her love and innocence, destroyed her illusions, falsified her ideas of truth and virtue, and driven her, stripped of everything, to face the world alone.
Then her thoughts turned seriously to consider the question of divorce; and she wondered if she were to offer ten thousand, instead of five, would her husband come to terms with her? But she knew very well that such hopes were vain; it was not money he wanted; it was an implacable desire to do evil that made him act as he did. Passionately she thought, by means of a divorce, of taking the world into her confidence, and explaining what her motives really were. But a moment’s reflection showed her the impossibility of this; and thinking, in terror, of the brutal examination her life would be subjected to, of how those sentiments which she held the dearest would be branded not only as shameful but as ridiculous, she renounced the idea with horror.
Still, so great was her discouragement, that if Lewis had not shown himself so utterly foolish, so trivial, she would have probably made even this sacrifice for him. But, unable to restrain himself any longer, he had abandoned himself to the temptations of Parisian life, and was enjoying himself prodigiously. He got up late, breakfasted in a restaurant on the boulevards, painted in the afternoon, or paid visits, and generally had a ball or dinner party, which enabled him to pass the evening. The sparkle and effervescence of Parisian life suited him exactly. And to serve as a peg whereon to hang all manner of tinsel and firework sentiments now seemed to be his only ambition. And he realized it. He afforded the excitement of a rendezvous, of a letter to be written, of the difficulty of getting rid of someone else, of the thousand little surprises and disappointments which are as dear to the Parisians as bon-bons to children.
As he could always dine and breakfast with Mrs. Bentham and Mrs. Thorpe, he had no expenses but his room at the Hôtel Voltaire. But his money seemed to burn a hole in his pocket; he bought clothes he didn’t want, particularly dressing gowns; knick-knacks in ivory, brushes, scent-bottles, and all kinds of slippers; his room was so littered with such things that the coats seemed out of place. He squandered also a great deal of money in his menus plaisirs, and when he got into full swing of Parisian life, it pleased him immensely to drive about in a voiture de remise, imitating, the petits crevés of Grévin. He rarely knew a lady a few days without sending her a bouquet, or a loge at some theatre, and in this way he got through, on an average, comfortably, forty francs a day. In a word, Paris had completely demoralized him, and he no longer knew nor cared to think where folly was leading him.
Mrs. Bentham suffered agony; but mere selfishness was not the whole cause of her grief. She determined that Lewis was to be a great artist, that she should be his protector; and that this would be her excuse, her glory, her consolation. It was therefore with anger as well as jealousy she watched the evil influence of the Marquise undermining what had been done.
She begged of him to remember that he had to work his way in life, that it was wicked of him to throw everything aside. All the arguments which people use on such occasions were without avail. He reasoned with her, told her that the Marquise had given him a commission, and that it would be absurd for him not to accept the work that was offered him, etc. The discussion was carried on day after day, until at last Mrs. Bentham saw that the only way to save him was to tell him plainly that she was leaving Paris, and leave him to decide whether he would stay, or go with them.
&n
bsp; Lewis received the announcement with consternation, and tried vainly to persuade Mrs. Bentham to change her mind; and the giving up of all the little dinner parties that had been arranged, seemed to him too utterly cruel.
But as it had been decided that Mrs. Bentham should lend him the money to get a studio in London, his instinct of self-preservation forbade his throwing her over for the Marquise de Maure. Never had he displayed, never had he felt so much sentiment; his heart felt like bursting, when, one still night, he stood on the deck and bid good-bye to La Belle France. He couldn’t think of another phrase, and it seemed to him inexpressibly beautiful. He murmured it over and over again until Mrs. Bentham came up and spoke to him. Then he helped her to wrap a woollen shawl round her shoulders.
She told him of the magnificent artistic future he had before him; and they sat on deck till they arrived at Dover, watching the dark, wide circle of rolling waters.
CHAPTER XVI.
SCANDAL.
THE BUSTLE AND excitement of looking for a studio was quite to Lewis’s taste, and there was scarcely a corner of London he did not visit. But nothing pleased him. Some were too far away; some were too barn-like; some were not sufficiently private; he did not want the whole neighbourhood to know who came to see him. It seemed almost impossible to find what he wanted, and he was beginning to doubt its existence, when one day he lighted on something with which he could scarcely find a fault. It was at the end of Fulham, a cottage with a garden that an accident, in the nick of time, had preserved from the advancing ocean of brick and mortar. Like a little island it stood waiting to be swept away by the next wave of a hesitating flood. Nothing could exceed the bourgeois appearance of the surrounding neighbourhood. There were the usual plate glass windows, the commodious areas, the balconies supported with grey stone pillars. Orchard Cottage was its only bit of romance.