by George Moore
No one else was in the long gallery save the waiters, who dozed far away in the mean twilight of the glass-roofing.
“How jolly it is,” said Mike, “to order your own dinner! Let’s have some oysters — three dozen. We’ll have a Chateaubriand — what do you say? And an omelette soufflée — what do you think? And a bottle of champagne. Waiter, bring me the wine-list.”
Frank had spoken to Mike because he felt lonely; the world had turned a harsh face on him. Lord Mount Rorke had married, and the paper was losing its circulation.
“And how is the paper going?”
“Pretty well; just the same as usual. Do you ever see it? What do you think of my articles?”
“Your continuation of my series, Lions of the Season? Very good; I only saw one or two. I have been living in the country, and have hardly seen a paper for the last year and a half. You can’t imagine the life I have been leading. Nice kind people ’tis true; I love them, but they never open a book. That is all very nice for a time — for three months, for six, for a year — but after that you feel a sense of alienation stealing over you.”
Mike saw that Frank had only met with failure; so he was tempted to brandish his successes. He gave a humorous description of his friends — how he had picked them up; how they had supplied him with horses to ride and guns to shoot with.
“And what about the young ladies? Were they included in the hospitality?”
“They included themselves. How delicious love in a country house is! — and how different from other love it is, to follow a girl dressed for dinner into the drawing-room or library, and to take her by the waist, to feel a head leaning towards you and a mouth closing upon yours! Above all, when the room is in darkness — better still in the firelight — the light of the fire on her neck…. How good these oysters are! Have some more champagne.”
Then, in a sudden silence, a music-hall gent was heard to say that some one was a splendid woman, beautifully developed.
“Now then, Lubi, old man, I toss you for a sovereign,” cried a lord, who looked like a sandwich-man in his ample driving-coat.
“You no more toss with me, I have done with you; you too sharp for me.”
“What! are you going to cut me? Are you going to warn me off your restaurant?”
Roars of laughter followed, and the lions of song gazed in admiration on the lord.
“I may be hard up,” cried the lord; “but I’m damned if I ever look hard up; do I, Lubi?”
“Since you turn up head when you like, why should you look hard up?”
“You want us to believe you are a ‘mug,’ Lubi, that’s about it, but it won’t do. ‘Mugs’ are rare nowadays. I don’t know where to go and look for them…. I say, Lubi,” and he whispered something in the restaurateur’s ear, “if you know of any knocking about, bring them down to my place; you shall stand in.”
“Damn me! You take me for a pump, do you? You get out!”
The genial lord roared the more, and assured Lubi he meant “mugs,” and offered to toss him for a sovereign.
“How jolly this is!” said Mike. “I’m dying for a gamble; I feel as if I could play as I never played before. I have all the cards in my mind’s eye. By George! I wish I could get hold of a ‘mug,’ I’d fleece him to the tune of five hundred before he knew where he was. But look at that woman! She’s not bad.”
“A great coarse creature like that! I never could understand you…. Have you heard of Lily Young lately?”
Mike’s face fell.
“No,” he said, “I have not. She is the only woman I ever loved. I would sooner see her than the green cloth. I really believe I love that girl. Somehow I cannot forget her.”
“Well, come and see her to-day. Take your eyes off that disgusting harlot.”
“No, not to-day,” he replied, without removing his eyes. Five minutes after he said, “Very well, I will go. I must see her.”
The waiter was called, the bill was paid, a hansom was hailed, and they were rolling westward. In the pleasure of this little expedition, Mike’s rankling animosity was almost forgotten. He said —
“I love this drive west; I love to see London opening up, as it were, before the wheels of the hansom — Trafalgar Square, the Clubs, Pall Mall, St. James’ Street, Piccadilly, the descent, and then the gracious ascent beneath the trees. You see how I anticipate it all.”
“Do you remember that morning when Lady Helen committed suicide? What did you think of my article?”
“I didn’t see it. I should have liked to have written about it; but you said that I wouldn’t write feelingly.”
Mrs. Young hardly rose from her sofa; but she welcomed them in plaintive accents. Lily showed less astonishment and pleasure at seeing him than Mike expected. She was talking to a lady, who was subsequently discovered to be the wife of a strange fat man, who, in his character of Orientalist, squatted upon the lowest seat in the room, and wore a velvet turban on his head, a voluminous overcoat circulating about him.
“As I said to Lady Hazeldean last night — I hope Mr. Gladstone did not hear me, he was talking to Lady Engleton Dixon about divorce, I really hope he did not hear me — but I really couldn’t help saying that I thought it would be better if he believed less in the divorce of nations, even if I may not add that he might with advantage believe more in the divorce of persons not suited to each other.”
When the conversation turned on Arabi, which it never failed to do in this house, the perfume-burners that had been presented to her and Mr. Young on their triumphal tour were pointed out.
“I telegraphed to Dilke,” said Sir Joseph, “‘You must not hang that man.’ And when Mrs. Young accused him of not taking sufficient interest in Africa, he said— ‘My dear Mrs. Young, I not interested in Africa! You forget what I have done for Africa; how I have laboured for Africa. I shall not believe in the synthesis of humanity, nor will it be complete, till we get the black votes.’”
“Mr. Young and Lord Granville used to have such long discussions about Buddhism, and it always used to end in Mr. Young sending a copy of your book to Lord Granville.”
“A very great distinction for me — a very great distinction for me,” murmured Buddha; and allowing Mrs. Young to relieve him of his tea-cup, he said— “and now, Mrs. Young, I want to ask for your support and co-operation in a little scheme — a little scheme which I have been nourishing like a rose in my bosom for some years.”
Sir Joseph raised his voice; and it was not until he had imposed silence on his wife that he consented to unfold his little scheme.
Then the fat man explained that in a certain province in Cylone (a name of six syllables) there was a temple, and this temple had belonged in the sixth century to a tribe of Buddhists (a name of seven syllables), and this temple had in the eighth century been taken from the Buddhists by a tribe of Brahmins (a name of eight syllables).
“And not being Mr. Gladstone,” said Sir Joseph, “I do not propose to dispossess the Brahmins without compensation. I am merely desirous that the Brahmins should be bought out by the Indian Government at a cost of a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand. If this were done the number of pilgrims to this holy shrine would be doubled, and the best results would follow.”
“Oh, Mrs. Jellaby, where art thou?” thought Mike, and he boldly took advantage of the elaborate preparations that were being made for Sir Joseph to write his name on a fan, to move round the table and take a seat by Lily.
But Frank’s patience was exhausted, and he rose to leave.
“People wonder at the genius of Shakespeare! I must say the stupidity of the ordinary man surprises me far more,” said Mike.
“I’m a poor man to-day,” said Frank, “but I would give £25 to have had Dickens with us — fancy walking up Piccadilly with him afterwards!
“Now I must go,” he said. “Lizzie is waiting for me. I’ll see you to-morrow,” he cried, and drove away.
“Just fancy having to look after her, having to attend to her wants, ha
ving to leave a friend and return home to dine with her in a small room! How devilish pleasant it is to be free! — to say, ‘Where shall I dine?’ and to be able to answer, ‘Anywhere.’ But it is too early to dine, and too late to play whist. Damn it! I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Mike watched the elegantly-dressed men who passed hurriedly to their clubs, or drove west to dinner parties. Red clouds and dark clouds collected and rolled overhead, and in a chill wintry breeze the leaves of the tall trees shivered, fell, and were blown along the pavement with sharp harsh sound. London shrouded like a widow in long crape.
“What is there to do? Five o’clock! After that lunch I cannot dine before eight — three hours! Whom shall I go and see?”
A vision of women passed through his mind, but he turned from them all, and he said —
“I will go and see her.”
He had met Miss Dudley in Brighton, in a house where he had been asked to tea. She was a small, elderly spinster with sharp features and gray curls. She had expected him to address to her a few commonplace remarks for politeness’ sake, and then to leave her for some attractive girl. But he had showed no wish to leave her, and when they met again he walked by her bath-chair the entire length of the Cliff. Miss Dudley was a cripple. She had fallen from some rocks when a child playing on the beach, and had injured herself irremediably. She lived with her maid in a small lodging, and being often confined to her room for days, nearly every visitor was welcome. Mike liked this pallid and forgotten little woman. He found in her a strange sweetness — a wistfulness. There was poetry in her loneliness and her ruined health. Strength, health, and beauty had been crushed by a chance fall. But the accident had not affected the mind, unless perhaps it had raised it into more intense sympathy with life. And in all his various passions and neglected correspondence he never forgot for long to answer her letters, nor did he allow a month to pass without seeing her. And now he bought for her a great packet of roses and a novel; and with some misgivings he chose Zola’s Page d’Amour.
“I think this is all right. She’ll be delighted with it, if she’ll read it.”
She would have read anything he gave, and seen no harm since it came from him. The ailing caged bird cannot but delight in the thrilling of the wild bird that comes to it with the freedom of the sky and fields in its wings and song. She listened to all his stories, even to his stories of pigeon-shooting. She knew not how to reproach him. Her eyes fixed upon him, her gentle hand laid on the rail of her chair, she listened while he told her of the friends he had made, and his life in the country; its seascape and downlands, the furze where he had shot the rabbits, the lane where he had jumped the gate. Her pleasures had passed in thought — his in action; the world was for him — this room for her.
There is the long chair in which she lies nearly always; there is the cushion on which the tired head is leaned, a small beautifully-shaped head, and the sharp features are distinct on the dark velvet, for the lamp is on the mantelpiece, and the light falls full on the profile. The curtains are drawn, and the eyes animate with gratitude when Mike enters with his roses, and after asking kindly questions he takes a vase, and filling it with water, places the flowers therein, and sets it on the table beside her. There is her fire — (few indeed are the days in summer when she is without it) — the singing kettle suggests the homely tea, and the saucepan on the hearth the invalid. There is her bookcase, set with poetry and religion, and in one corner are the yellow-backed French novels that Mike has given her. They are the touches the most conclusive of reality in her life; and she often smiles, thinking how her friends will strive to explain how they came into her life when she is gone.
“How good of you to come and see me! Tell me about yourself, what you have been doing. I want to hear you talk.”
“Well, I’ve brought you this book; it is a lovely book — you can read it — I think you can read it, otherwise I should not have given it to you.”
He remained with her till seven, talking to her about hunting, shooting, literature, and card-playing.
“Now I must go,” he said, glancing at the clock.
“Oh, so soon,” exclaimed Miss Dudley, waking from her dream; “must you go?”
“I’m afraid I must; I haven’t dined yet.”
“And what are you going to do after dinner? You are going to play cards.”
“How did you guess that?”
“I can’t say,” she said, laughing; “I think I can often guess your thoughts.”
And during the long drive to Piccadilly, and as he eat his sole and drank his Pomard, he dreamed of the hands he should hold, and of the risks he should run when the cards were bad. His brain glowed with subtle combinations and surprises, and he longed to measure his strength against redoubtable antagonists. The two great whist players, Longley and Lovegrove, were there. He always felt jealous of Lovegrove’s play. Lovegrove played an admirable game, always making the most of his cards. But there was none of that dash, and almost miraculous flashes of imagination and decision which characterized Mike, and Mike felt that if he had the money on, and with Longley for a partner, he could play as he had never played before; and ignoring a young man whom he might have rooked at écarté, and avoiding a rich old gentleman who loved his game of piquet, and on whom Mike was used to rely in the old days for his Sunday dinner (he used to say the old gentleman gave the best dinners in London; they always ran into a tenner), he sat down at the whist-table. His partner played wretchedly, and though he had Longley and Lovegrove against him, he could not refrain from betting ten pounds on every rubber. He played till the club closed, he played till he had reduced his balance at the bank to nineteen pounds.
Haunted by the five of clubs, which on one occasion he should have played and did not, he walked till he came to the Haymarket. Then he stopped. What could he do? All the life of idleness and luxury which he had so long enjoyed faded like a dream, and the spectre of cheap lodgings and daily journalism rose painfully distinct. He pitied the street-sweepers, and wondered if it were possible for him to slip down into the gutter. “When I have paid my hotel bill, I shan’t have a tenner.” He thought of Mrs. Byril, but the idea did not please him, and he remembered Frank had told him he had a cottage on the river. He would go there. He might put up for a night or two at Hall’s.
“I will start a series of articles to-morrow. What shall it be?” An unfortunate still stood at the corner of the street. “‘Letters to a Light o’ Love!’ Frank must advance me something upon them…. Those stupid women! if they were not so witless they could rise to any height. If I had only been a woman! … If I had been a woman I should have liked to have been Ninon de Lanclos.”
CHAPTER VIII
WHEN MIKE HAD paid his hotel bill, very few pounds were left for the card-room, and judging it was not an hour in which he might tempt fortune, he “rooked” a young man remorselessly. Having thus replenished his pockets he turned to the whist-table for amusement. Luck was against him; he played, defying luck, and left the club owing eighty pounds, five of which he had borrowed from Longley.
Next morning as he dozed, he wondered if, had he played the ten of diamonds instead of the seven of clubs, it would have materially altered his fortune; and from cards his thoughts wandered, till they took root in the articles he was to write for the Pilgrim. He was in Hall’s spare bed-room — a large, square room, empty of all furniture except a camp bedstead. His portmanteau lay wide open in the middle of the floor, and a gaunt fireplace yawned amid some yellow marbles.
“‘Darling, like a rose you hold the whole world between your lips, and you shed its leaves in little kisses.’ That will do for the opening sentences.” Then as words slipped from him he considered the component parts of his subject.
“The first letter is of course introductory, and I must establish certain facts, truths which have become distorted and falsified, or lost sight of. Addressing an ideal courtesan, I shall say, ‘You must understand that the opening sentence of this letter doe
s not include any part of the old reproach which has been levelled against you since man began to love you, and that was when he ceased to be an ape and became man.
“‘If you were ever sphinx-like and bloodthirsty, which I very much doubt, you have changed flesh and skin, even the marrow of your bones. In these modern days you are a kind-hearted little woman who, to pursue an ancient metaphor, sheds the world rosewise in little kisses; but if you did not so shed it, the world would shed itself in tears. Your smiles and laughter are the last lights that play around the white hairs of an aged duke; your winsome tendernesses are the dreams of a young man who writes “pars” about you on Friday, and dines with you on Sunday; you are an ideal in many lives which without you would certainly be ideal-less.’ Deuced good that; I wish I had a pencil to make a note; but I shall remember it. Then will come my historical paragraph. I shall show that it is only by confounding courtesans with queens, and love with ambition, that any sort of case can be made out against the former. Third paragraph— ‘Courtesans are a factor in the great problem of the circulation of wealth, etc.’ It will be said that the money thus spent is unproductive…. So much the better! For if it were given to the poor it would merely enable them to bring more children into the world, thereby increasing immensely the general misery of the race. Schopenhauer will not be left out in the cold after all. Quote Lecky,— ‘The courtesan is the guardian angel of our hearths and homes, the protector of our wives and sisters.’”
“Will you have a bath this morning, sir?” cried the laundress, through the door.
“Yes, and get me a chop for breakfast.”
“I shall tell her (the courtesan, not the laundress) how she may organize the various forces latent in her and culminate in a power which shall contain in essence the united responsibilities of church, music-hall, and picture gallery.” Mike turned over on his back and roared with laughter. “Frank will be delighted. It will make the fortune of the paper. Then I shall attack my subject in detail. Dress, house, education, friends, female and male. Then the money question. She must make a provision for the future. Charming chapter there is to be written on the old age of the courtesan — charities — ostentatious charities — charitable bazaars, reception into the Roman Catholic faith.”