by George Moore
“But you don’t want to go back to him? You love me as much as your father?”
They pressed each other’s hands, and, striving to see through the blue hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving? She had thought that her life in Dulwich must endure for ever, but it had passed from her like a dream; it had snapped suddenly, and she floated on another voyage, and still the same mystery encircled her as before. She knew that Owen loved her. This was the little circle of life in which she lived, and beyond it she might imagine any story she pleased.
Her thoughts reverted to the Eastern dreamer, and she realised that she was living through the tragedy which he had written about a thousand years ago in his rose garden. She might imagine what she pleased — that she was going to become a great singer, that artistic success was the harbour whither she steered, but in truth she did not know. She could not believe such an end to be her destiny. Then what was her destiny? All she had ever known was behind her, had floated into the darkness as easily as those spectral ships; her religion, her father, her home, all had vanished, and all she knew was that she was sailing through the darkness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the high moon, and then in shrouded blue light, a great ship came and went, and Evelyn clung to the arm of her lover. He folded the rough shawl he had bought at Charing Cross about her shoulders. The lights of Calais harbour grew larger, the foghorn snorted, the vessel veered, and there was preparation on board; the crowd thickened, and as the night grew fainter they saw between the dawn and the silvery moon the long low sandhills of the French coast. The vessel veered and entered the harbour, and as she churned alongside the windy piers, the mystery with which a moonlit sea had filled their hearts passed, and they were taken in an access of happiness; and they cried to each other for sheer joy as they struggled up the gangway.
They were in France! their life of love was before them! He could hardly take his eyes off the delicious girl; and soon two or three waiters attended at her first meal, her first acquaintance with French food and wine! Owen was known on the line, and the obsequiousness shown to him flattered her, and it was thrilling to read his name on the window of their carriage. Her foot was on the footboard, and seeing the empty carriage the thought struck her, “We shall be alone; he’ll be able to kiss me.” And, her heart beating with fear and delight, she got in and sat speechless in a corner.
As the train moved out of the station he took her hand, and said that he hoped they would be very happy together. She looked at him, and in her eyes there was a little questioning, almost cynical look, which perplexed him. The part he had to play was a difficult one, and on board the boat, in the pauses of their conversation, he had felt that his future influence over Evelyn depended upon his conduct during the forthcoming week. This foresight had its origin in his temperament. It was his temperament to suggest and to lead, and as he talked to her of Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and Lady Duckle, a lady whom he hoped to induce to come to Paris to chaperon her, he saw the hotel sitting-room at the moment when the waiter, having brought in the coffee, and delayed his departure as long as he possibly could, would finally close the door. Nervousness dilated her eyes, and his thoughts were often far from his words. He often had to catch his breath, and he quailed before the dread interrogation which often looked out of her eyes. They had passed Boulogne, and through the dawn, vague as an opal, appeared a low range of hills, and as these receded, the landscape flattened out into a bleak, morose plain.
What lives were lived yonder in that low grange, crouching under the five melancholy poplars? An hour later father and son would go forth in that treacherous quaking boat, lying amid the sedge, and cast their net into one of those black pools. But these pictures of primeval simplicities which the landscape evoked were not in accord with a journey toward love and pleasure. Evelyn and Owen did not dare to contrast their lives with those of the Picardy peasants, and that they should see not roses and sunshine, but a broken and abandoned boat amid the sedge, and mournful hills faintly outlined against the heavy, lowering sky seemed to them significant. They watched the filmy, diffused, opal light of the dawn, and they were filled with nervous expectation. The man who appeared at the end of the plain in his primitive guise of a shepherd driving his flock towards the hard thin grass of the uplands seemed menacing and hostile. His tall felt hat seemed like a helmet in the dusk, his crook like a lance, and Owen understood that the dawn was the end of the truce, that the battle with Nature was about to begin again. At that moment she was thinking that if she had done wrong in leaving home, the sin was worth all the scruples she might endure, and she rejoiced that she endured none. He folded her in his rug. The train seemed to stop, and the names of the stations sounded dim in her ears. Her perceptions rose and sank, and, as they sank, the villa engarlanded, of which Owen had spoken, seemed there. Its gates, though unbarred, were impassable. She thought she was shaking them, but when she opened her eyes it was Owen telling her that they had passed the fortifications, that they were in Paris.
He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained at the Customs. His valet was following with the rest of his luggage, and as soon as she had had a few hours’ sleep, he would take her to different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early café, nor the humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built about a courtyard. She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.
But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her, and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high bed, and she had no clothes — not even a nightgown. The chambermaid brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.
It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was like a rag — all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she brushed out her hair with Owen’s brush, she wondered what he could see to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room. But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the gloomy plain of Picardy.
She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they went to breakfast at Voisin’s. The rest of the day was spent getting in and out of cabs.
They took the shops as they came. The first was a boot and shoe maker, and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been spent. This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance. Tea-gowns at five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a delicacy to touch. The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs seriously alarmed her. They visited the bonnet shop later in the afternoon. By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat. Two of her dresses were bought ready made. A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk, which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands. Some were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a pair. It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders or by garters. Owen’s taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment. In the next shop — it was a glove shop — as she
was about to consult him regarding the number of buttons, she remembered, in a sudden moment of painful realisation, the end for which they had met. She turned pale, and the words caught in her throat. Fortunately, his eyes were turned from her, and he perceived nothing of the nervous agitation which consumed her; but on leaving the shop, a little way down the street, when she had recovered herself sufficiently to observe him, she perceived that he was suffering from the same agitation. He seemed unable to fix his attention upon the present moment. He seemed to have wandered far afield, and when with an effort he returned from the ever nearing future, he seemed like a man coming out of another atmosphere — out of a mist!
At six they were back at their hotel, surveying the sitting-rooms, already littered with cardboard boxes. But he hurried her off to the Rue de la Paix, saying that she must have some jewels. Trays of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls were presented to her for choice.
“You’re not looking,” he said, feigning surprise. “You take no interest in jewels; aren’t you well?”
“Yes, dearest; but I’m bewildered.”
When they returned to the hotel, the gown she was to wear that night at the opera had arrived.
“It must have cost twenty pounds, and I usen’t to spend much more than that in a whole year on my clothes.”
Neither cared to go to the opera; but half-past ten seemed to him quite a proper time for them to return home, and for this makeshift propriety he was so bored with “Lohengrin” that he never saw it afterwards with the old pleasure; and Evelyn’s glances told of the wasted hours. While Elsa sang her dream, he realised the depth of his folly. If something were to happen? If they were to find Mr. Innes waiting at the door of the hotel? If he were robbed of her, it would serve him right. The aria in the second act was beautifully sung, and it helped them to forget; but with the rather rough chorus of men in the second half of the second act, their nervous boredom began again, and Evelyn’s face was explicit.
“You’re tired, Evelyn; you’re too tired to listen.”
“Yes, I’m tired, let’s go; give me my cloak.”
“I don’t care much for the nuptial music,” he remarked accidentally; and then, feeling obliged to take advantage of the slip of the tongue, he said, “Lohengrin and Elsa are in the bridal chamber in the next act.”
He felt her hand tremble on his arm.
“In two years hence you’ll be singing here.... But you don’t answer.”
“Owen, dear, I’m thinking of you now.”
Her answer was a delicious flattery, and he hurried her to the carriage. The moment his arm was about her she leaned over him, and when their lips parted he uttered a little cry. But in the middle of the sitting-room she stopped and faced him, barring the way. He took her cloak from her shoulders.
“Owen, dear, if anything should happen.”
But it was not till the third night that they entered into the full possession of their delight. Every night after seemed more exquisite than the last, like sunset skies, as beautiful and as unrememberable. She could recall only the moment when from the threshold he looked back, nodded a good-night, and then told her he would call her when it was time to get up. Then in a happy weariness she closed her eyes; and when they opened she closed them quickly, and curled herself into dreams and thoughts of Owen.
They were going to the races, and he would come and tell her when it was time to get up. She hoped this would not be till she had dreamed to the end of her dream. But her eyes opened, and she saw him in his dressing gown with blue facings standing in the middle of the room watching her. His little smile was in his eyes; they seemed to say, So there you are; I haven’t lost you.
“You’re the loveliest thing,” he said, “in God’s earth.”
“Dearest Owen, I’m very fond of you;” and there was a plaintive and amorous cry in her voice which found echo in the movement with which she threw herself into her lover’s arms, and laid her head upon his shoulder.
“I’ve never seen such a hand, it is like a spray of fern; and those eyes — look at me, Eve.”
“Why do you call me Eve? No one ever called me Eve before.”
“Sometimes they are as green as sea water, at other times they are grey or nearly grey, most often they are hazel green. And your feet are like hands, and your ankle — see, I can span it between forefinger and thumb.... Your hair is faint, like flowers. Your throat is too thick, you have the real singer’s throat; thousands of pounds lie hidden in that whiteness, which is mine — the whiteness, not the gold.”
“How you know how to praise, Owen!”
“I love that sweet indecision of chin.”
“A retreating chin means want of character.”
“You have not what I call a retreating chin, the line merely deflects. Nothing more unlovable than a firm chin. It means a hard, unimaginative nature. Eve, you’re adorable. Where should I find a sweetheart equal to you?”
“That isn’t the way I want you to love me.”
“Isn’t it? Are you sure of that?”
“I don’t know — perhaps not. But why do you make me say these things?”
She held his face between her hands, and moved aside his moustache with her lips.... Suddenly freeing herself from his embraces, she said, “I don’t want to kiss you any more. Let’s talk.”
“Dearest, do you know what time is it? You must get up and dress yourself. It is past nine o’clock. We are going to the races. I’ll send you the chambermaid. You promise me to get up?”
It was these little authoritative airs that enchanted her remembrance of him; and while the chambermaid poured out her bath she thought of the gown she was going to wear. She knew that she had some pink silk stockings to match it, but it took her a long while to find them. She opened all the wrong boxes. “It’s extraordinary,” she thought, “how long it takes one to dress sometimes; all one’s things get wrong.” And when hooking the skirt she suddenly remembered she had no parasol suitable to the gown. It was Sunday; it would be impossible to buy one. There was nothing for it but to send for Owen. If there was anything wrong with her gown he would give her no peace. He wished her to wear a flower-embroidered dress, but her fancy was set on a pale yellow muslin, and it amused her to get cross with him and to send him out of the room; but when the door closed she was moved to run after him. The grave question as to what she would wear dispelled other thoughts. She must be serious; and to please him she decided she would wear the gown he liked, and as she fixed the hat that went with it she admired the contrast of its purple with her rich hair. Owen was always right. She had never thought that she could look so well, and it was a happy moment when he took her by both hands and said —
“Dearest, you are delicious — quite delicious. You’ll be the prettiest woman at Longchamps to-day.”
She asked for tea, but he said they were in France, and must conform to French taste. When Marie Antoinette was informed that the people wanted bread, etc., Evelyn thought Marie Antoinette must have been a cruel woman. But she liked chocolate and the brioche, and henceforth they were brought to her bedside, and in a Sèvres service, a present from Owen.
“When they had finished the little meal he rang for writing material, and said —
“Now, my dear Evelyn, you must write to your father.”
“Must I? What shall I say? Oh, Owen, I cannot write. If I did, father would come over here, and then—”
“I’ll tell you what to say. I’ll dictate the letter you ought to write. You need not give him any address, but you must let him know you’re well, and why you intend to remain abroad. It is by relieving his mind on these subjects that you’ll save yourself from the vexation of his hunting you up here.... Come, now,” he said, noticing the agonised and bewildered look on Evelyn’s face, “this is the only disagreeable hour in the day — you must put up with it. Here is the pen. Now write —
“‘My DEAR FATHER, — I should be happy in Paris, very happy, if it were not for the knowledge of the grief that my fl
ight must have occasioned you. Of course I have acted very wrongly, very wickedly—’”
“But,” said Evelyn, “you told me I was acting rightly, that to do otherwise would be madness.”
“Yes, and I only told you the truth. But in writing to your father you must adopt the conventional tone. There’s no use in trying to persuade your father you did right.... I don’t know, though. Scratch out ‘I have acted wrongly and very wickedly,’ and write —
“‘I will not ask you to think that I have acted otherwise than wrongly, for, of course, as a father you can hold no other opinion, but being also a clever man, an artist, you will perhaps be inclined to admit that my wrong-doing is not so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been in other and easily imagined circumstances.’” Full stop.
“You’ve got that— ‘so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been in other and easily imagined circumstances’?”
“Yes.”
“‘Father dear, you know that if I had remained in Dulwich my voice would have been wasted, not through my fault or yours, but through the fault of circumstances.’
“You have got circumstances a few lines higher up, so put ‘through the fault of fate.’”
“Father will never believe that I wrote this letter.”
“That doesn’t matter — the truth is the truth from whoever it comes.”
“‘We should have gone on deceiving ourselves, or trying to deceive ourselves, hoping as soon as the concerts paid that I should go abroad with a proper chaperon. You know, father dear, how we used to talk, both knowing well that no such thing could be. The years would have slipped by, and at five-and-thirty, when it would have been too late, I should have found myself exactly where I was when mother died. You would have reproached yourself, you would have suffered remorse, we should have both been miserable; whereas now I hope that we shall both be happy. You will bring about a revival of Palestrina, and I shall sing opera. Be reasonable, father, and remember that it had to be. Write to me if you can; to hear from you will make me very happy. But do not try to seek me out and endeavour to induce me to return home. Any meeting between us now would merely mean intolerable suffering to both of us, and it would serve no purpose whatever. A little later, when I have succeeded, when I am a great singer, I will come and see you, that is to say if you will see me. Meanwhile; for a year or two we had better not meet, but I’ll write constantly, and shall look forward to your letters. Again, my dear father, I beseech you to be reasonable; everything will come right in the end. I will not conceal from you the fact that Sir Owen Asher advised me to this step. He is very fond of me, and is determined to help me in every way. When he brings me back to England a great singer, he hopes you will try to look on his fault with as much leniency as may be. He asks me to warn you against speaking of him in connection with me, for any accusation brought against him will injure me. He intends to provide me with a proper chaperon. I need not mention her name; suffice it to say that she is a very grand lady, so appearances will be preserved. No one need know anything for certain if you do not tell them. If you will promise to do this, I will send the name of the lady with whom I am going to live. You can say that I am living with her; her name will be a sufficient cloak — everyone will be satisfied. Interference can be productive of no good, remember that; let things take their natural course, and they will come right in the end. If you decide to do as I ask you, write at once to me, and address your letter to 31 Rue Faubourg St Honore, care of Monsieur Blanco. — Always, dear father, Your affectionate daughter, — EVELYN INNES.’”