by George Moore
“Does it really seem to you an utterly unimportant matter?”
“Not nearly so important as losing the woman one loves.” And looking into her face as he might into a book, written in a language only a few words of which he understood, he continued: “And the idea seems to have absorbed you, to have made its own of you; it isn’t religion, I don’t think you are a religious woman. You usen’t to be like this when I took you away to Paris. You were in love with me, but not half so much in love with me as you are now with this idea, not so subjugated. Evelyn, that is what it is, you are subjugated, enslaved, and you can think of nothing else.”
“Well, if that is so, Owen — and I won’t say you are utterly wrong — why can’t you accept things as they are?”
“But it isn’t true, Evelyn? You will outlive this idea. You will be cured.”
“I hope not.”
“You hope not? Well, if you don’t wish to be cured it will be difficult to cure you. But now, here in this house, where everything is different, do you not feel the love of life coming back upon you? And can you accept negation willingly as your fate?”
Evelyn asked Owen what he meant and he said:
“Well, your creed is a negative one — that no man shall ever take you in his arms again, saying, ‘Darling, I am so fond of you!’ You would have me believe that you will be true to this creed? But don’t I know how dear that moment is to you? No, you will not always think as you do now; you will wake up as from a nightmare, you will wake up.”
“Do you think I shall?” Soon after their talk drifted to Lady Ascott and to her guests, and Owen narrated the latest intrigues and the mistake Lady Ascott had been guilty of by putting So-and-so and So-and-so to sleep in the same corridor, not knowing that their liaison had been broken off at least three months before.
“Jim is now in love with Constance.”
“How very horrible!”
“Horrible? It is that fellow Mostyn who has put these ideas into your head!”
“He has put nothing into my head, Owen.”
“Upon my word I believe you’re right. It is none of his doing. But he has got the harvesting; ah, yes, and the nuns, too. You never loved me as you love this idea, Evelyn?”
“Do you think not?”
“When you were studying music in Paris you were quite willing I should go away for a year.”
“But I repaid you for it afterwards; you can’t say I didn’t. There were ten years in which I loved you. How is it you have never reproached me before?”
“Why should I? But now I’ve come to the end of the street; there is a blank wall in front of me.”
“You make me very miserable by talking like this.”
They sat without speaking, and Lady Ascott’s interruption was welcome.
“Now, my dear Sir Owen, will you forgive me if I ask Evelyn to sing for us? You’d like to hear her sing — wouldn’t you?”
Owen sprang to his feet.
“Of course, of course. Come, Miss Innes, you will sing for us. I have been boring you long enough, haven’t I? And you’ll be glad to get to the piano. Who will accompany you?”
“You, Sir Owen, if you will be kind enough.”
The card-players were glad to lay down their cards and the women to cease talking of their friends’ love affairs. All the world over it is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests; soprano or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less. Many came forward to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her success, she began to talk to some of her women friends, thinking it unwise to go back into a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself the subject of remark; for though her love story with Owen Asher had long ceased to be talked about, a new interest in it had suddenly sprung up, owing to the fact that she had sent Owen away, and was thinking of becoming a nun — even to such an extent her visit to the convent had been exaggerated; and as the women lagging round her had begun to try to draw from her an account of the motives which had induced her to leave the stage, and the moment not seeming opportune, even if it were not ridiculous at any moment to discuss spiritual endeavour with these women, she determined to draw a red herring across the trail. She told them that the public were wearying of Wagner’s operas, taste was changing, light opera was coming into fashion.
“And in light opera I should have no success whatever, so I was obliged to turn from the stage to the concert-room.”
“We thought it was the religious element in Wagner.”
A card party had come from a distant drawing-room and joined in the discussion regarding the decline of art, and it was agreed that motor-cars had done a great deal to contribute — perhaps they had nothing to do with the decline of Wagner — but they had contributed to the decline of interest in things artistic. This was the opinion of two or three agreeable, good-looking young men; and Evelyn forgot the women whom she had previously been talking to; and turning to the men, she engaged in conversation and talked on and on until the clock struck eleven. Then the disposition of every one was for bed. Whispers went round, and Lady Ascott trotted upstairs with Evelyn, hoping she would find her room comfortable.
It was indeed a pleasant room, wearing an air of youthfulness, thanks to its chintz curtains. The sofa was winning and the armchairs desirable, and there were books and a reading-lamp if Evelyn should feel disposed to draw the armchair by the fire and read for an hour before going to bed. The writing-table itself, with its pens and its blotting-book, and notepaper so prettily stamped, seemed intended to inveigle the occupant of the room into correspondence with every friend she had in the world; and Evelyn began to wonder to whom she might write a letter as soon as Lady Ascott left the room.
The burning wood shed a pleasant odour which mingled pleasantly with that of the dressing-table; and she wandered about the room, her mind filled with vague meditations, studying the old engravings, principally pictures of dogs and horses, hounds and men, going out to shoot in bygone costumes, with long-eared spaniels to find the game for them. There was a multitude of these pictures on the walls, and Evelyn wondered who was her next-door neighbour. Was it Owen? Or was he down at the end of the passage? In a house like Thornton Grange the name of every one was put on his or her door, so that visitors should not wander into the wrong room by accident, creating dismay and provoking scandal. Owen, where was he? A prayer was offered up that he might be at the other end of the house. It would not be right if Lady Ascott had placed him in the adjoining room, it really would not be right, and she regretted her visit. What evil thing had tempted her into this house, where everything was an appeal to the senses, everything she had seen since she had entered the house — food, wine, gowns? There was, however, a bolt to her door, and she drew it, forgetful that sin visits us in solitude, and more insidiously than when we are in the midst of crowds; and as she dozed in the scented room, amid the fine linen, silk, and laces, the sins which for generations had been committed in this house seemed to gather substance, and even shape; a strange phantasmata trooped past her, some seeming to bewail their sins, while others indulged themselves with each other, or turned to her, inciting her to sin with them, until one of them whispered in her ear that Owen was coming to her room, and then she knew that at his knock her strength would fail her, and she would let him in.
Her temptations disappeared and then returned to her; at last she saw Owen coming towards her. He leaned over the bed, and she saw his lips, and his voice sounded in her ears. It told her that he had been waiting for her; why hadn’t she come to his room? And why had he found her door bolted? Then like one bereft of reason, she slipped out of bed and went towards the door, seeing him in the lucidity of her dream clearly at the end of the passage; it was not until her hand rested on the handle of his door that a singing began in the night. The first voice was joined by another, and then by another, and she recognised the hymn, for it was one, the Veni Creator, and the singers were nuns. The singing grew more distinct, the singers were approaching her, and she retreated befo
re them to her room; the room filled with plain chant, and then the voices seemed to die or to be borne away on the wind which moaned about the eaves and aloft in the chimneys. Turning in her bed, she saw the dying embers. She was in her room — only a dream, no more. Was that all? she asked as she lay in her bed singing herself to sleep, into a sleep so deep that she did not wake from it until her maid came to ask her if she would have breakfast in her room or if she were going down to breakfast.
“I will get up at once, Mérat, and do you look out a train, or ask the butler to look out one for you; we are going to Glasgow by the first quick train.”
“But I thought Mademoiselle was going to stay here till Monday.”
“Yes, Mérat, I know, so did I; but I have changed my mind. You had better begin to pack at once, for there is certain to be a train about twelve.”
Evelyn saw that the devoted Mérat was annoyed; as well she might be, for Thornton Grange was a pleasant house for valets and lady’s maids. “Some new valet,” Evelyn thought, and she was sorry to drag Mérat away from him, for Mérat’s sins were her own — no one was answerable for another; there was always that in her mind; and what applied to her did not apply to anybody else.
“Dear Lady Ascott, you’ll forgive me?” she said during breakfast, “but I have to go to Glasgow this afternoon. I am obliged to leave by an early train.”
“Sir Owen, will you try to persuade her? Get her some omelette, and I will pour out some coffee. Which will you have, dear? Tea or coffee? Everybody will be so disappointed; we have all been looking forward to some singing to-night.”
Expostulations and suggestions went round the table, and Evelyn was glad when breakfast was over; and to escape from all this company, she accepted Owen’s proposal to go for a walk.
“You haven’t seen my garden, or the cliffs? Sir Owen, I count upon you to persuade her to stay until to-morrow, and you will show her the glen, won’t you? And you’ll tell me how many trees we have lost in last night’s storm.”
Owen and Evelyn left the other guests talking of how they had lain awake last night listening to the wind.
“Shall we go this way, round by the lake, towards the glen? Lady Ascott is very disappointed; she said so to me just now.”
“You mean about my leaving?”
“Yes, of course, after all she had done for you, the trouble she had taken about the Edinburgh concert. Of course they all like to hear you sing; they may not understand very well, still they like it, everybody likes to hear a soprano. You might stay.”
“I’m very sorry, Owen, I’m sorry to disappoint Lady Ascott, who is a kindly soul, but — well, it raises the whole question up again. When one has made up one’s mind to live a certain kind of life—”
“But, Evelyn, who is preventing you from living up to your ideal? The people here don’t interfere with you? Nobody came knocking at your door last night?”
“No.”
“I didn’t come, and I was next door to you. Didn’t it seem strange to you, Evelyn, that I should sleep so near and not come to say good-night? But I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I resisted the temptation.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“What do you mean?”
“Of course, I know you wouldn’t do anything that would displease me; you’ve been very kind, more kind than I deserve, but—”
“But what?”
“Well, it’s hard to express it. Nothing happened to prevent you?”
“Prevent me?”
“I don’t mean that you were actually prevented, but was there another reason?”
“You mean a sudden scruple of conscience? My conscience is quite healthy.”
“Then what stayed you was no more than a fear of displeasing me? And you wanted to come to see me, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. Well, perhaps there was another reason… only… no, there was no other reason.”
“But there was; you have admitted that there was. Do tell me.”
And Owen told her that something seemed to have held him back when the thought came of going to her room. “It was really very strange. The thought was put into my mind suddenly that it would be better for me not to go to your room.”
“No more than a sudden thought? But the thought was very clear and distinct?”
“Yes; but between waking and sleeping thoughts are unusually distinct.”
“You don’t believe in miracles, Owen?” And she told him of her dream and her sudden awaking, and the voices heard in her ears at first, then in the room, and then about the house. “So you see the nuns kept us apart.”
“And you believe in these things?”
“How can I do otherwise?”
Owen sighed, and they walked on a few paces. The last leaves were dancing; the woods were cold and wet, the heavy branches of the fir-trees dripping with cold rain, and in the walks a litter of chestnut-leaves.
“Not a space of blue in the sky, only grey. It will be drearier still in Glasgow; you had better stay here,” he said, as they walked round the little lake, watching the water-fowl moving in and out of the reeds, and they talked for some time of Riversdale, of the lake there, and the ducks which rose in great numbers and flew round and round the park, dropping one by one into the water. “You will never see Riversdale again, perhaps?”
“Perhaps not,” she answered; and hearing her say it, his future life seemed to him as forlorn as the landscape.
“What will you do? What will become of you? What strange transformation has taken place in you?”
“If — But what is the use of going over it again?”
“If what?”
“What would you have me do? Marriage would only ruin you, Owen, make you very unhappy. Why do you want me to enter on a life which I feel isn’t mine, and which could only end in disaster for both of us.” He asked her why it would end in disaster, and she answered, “It is impossible to lay bare one’s whole heart. When one changes one’s ideas one changes one’s friends.”
“Because one’s friends are only the embodiment of one’s ideas. But I cannot admit that you would be unhappy as my wife.”
“Everybody is unhappy when they are not doing what Nature intended them to do.”
“And what did Nature intend you to do? Only to sing operas?”
“I should be sorry to think Nature intended me for nothing else. Would you have me go on singing operas? I don’t want to appear unreasonable, but how could I go on singing even if I wished to go on? The taste has changed; you will admit that light opera is the fashion, and I shouldn’t succeed in light opera. Whatever I do you praise, but you know in the bottom of your heart there are only a few parts which I play well. You may deceive yourself, you do so because you wish to do so, but I have no wish to deceive myself and I know that I was never a great singer; a good singer, an interesting singer in certain parts if you like, but no more. You will admit that?”
“No, I don’t admit anything of the kind. If you leave the stage what will you do with your time? Your art, your friends—”
“No one can figure anybody else’s life: everybody has interests and occupations, not things that interest one’s neighbour, but things that interest herself.”
“So it is because light opera has come into fashion again that you are going to give up singing? Such a thing never happened before: a woman who succeeded on the stage, who has not yet failed, whose voice is still fresh, who is in full possession of her art, to say suddenly, ‘Money and applause are nothing to me, I prefer a few simple nuns to art and society.’ Nothing seems to happen in life, life is always the same; rien ne change mais pourtant tout arrive, even the rare event of a successful actress relinquishing the stage.”
“It is odd,” she said as they followed the path through the wintry wood, startled now and again by a rabbit at the end of the alley, by a cock pheasant rising up suddenly out of the yew hedges, and, beguiled by the beauty of the trees, they passed on slowly, pausing to think what a splendid sight a
certain wild cherry must be in the spring-time. At the end of the wood Owen returned to the subject of their conversation.
“Yes, it is strange that an actress should give up her art.”
“But, Owen, it isn’t so strange in my case as in any other; for you know I was always a hothouse flower. You took me away to Paris and had me trained regardless of expense, and with your money it was easy to get an engagement.”
“My money had nothing to do with your engagements.”
“Perhaps not; but I only sang when it pleased me; I could always say, ‘Well, my good man, go to So-and-so, she will sing for you any parts you please’; but I can only sing the parts I like.”
“You think, then, that if you had lived the life of a real actress, working your way up from the bottom, what has happened wouldn’t have happened; is that what you mean?”
“It is impossible for me to answer you. One would have to live one’s life over again.”
“I suppose no one will ever know how much depends upon the gift we bring into the world with us, and how much upon circumstances,” and Owen compared the gift to the father’s seed and circumstances to the mother’s womb.
“So you are quite determined?” And they philosophised as they went, on life and its meaning, on death and love, admiring the temples which an eighteenth-century generation had built on the hillsides. “Here are eight pillars on either side and four at either end, serving no purpose whatever, not even shelter from the rain. Never again in this world will people build things for mere beauty,” Owen said, and they passed into the depths of the wood, discovering another temple, and in it a lad and lass.
“You see these temples do serve for something. Why are we not lovers?” And they passed on again, Owen’s heart filled with his sorrow and Evelyn’s with her determination.
She was leaving by the one train, and when they got back to the house the carriage was waiting for her.