by George Moore
I do not see what that has to do with his death by slow poisoning.
Those who retire from these societies usually die.
But why Ellen Gibbs?
She was a member of the same society; it was she who got him to join. When he resigned, it was her duty to —
Kill him! What a terrible story. I wonder if you’re right.
I know I’m right. At the end of the pause Morton said: I wonder if you like me as much as you liked Ralph.
It is quite different. He was very good to me.
And do you think that I shall not be good to you?
Yes, I think you will, she said, looking up and taking the hand which pressed against her waist.
You say he was a very clever artist. Do you like his work better than mine?
It was as different as you yourselves are.
I wonder if I should like it.
He would have liked that; and she pointed with her parasol towards an oak glade, golden-hearted and hushed.
A sort of Diaz, then?
No, not in the least like that. No; his wasn’t the Rousseau palette.
How the motive could be treated except as Rousseau or Diaz would have treated it, I cannot imagine. And it does not matter. What matters now is that I can kiss you. If you loved me you would not kiss me dryly.
I don’t know how to kiss otherwise. This is the first time we have been out together. I have never been out so late with a man before. It is almost night under these trees. You cannot love me. The other day you saw me for the first time.
But I am going to love you. Let me kiss you; there is no other way.
I’d like a man to love me before I kiss him.
Then you will never be loved, for it is through the lips that love steals into the blood, and you keep them closed.
But can I complete the conquest with my lips?
Not with the lips alone.
And for how long shall I have to wait for your love, sir?
It is a poor compliment to a woman to love her at first sight, or at second or third. In six months a man’s love is at height. Is it not the same with you?
I know nothing of love, but I can see that you have made love a great deal.
How can you tell that?
Etta did not answer, and Morton, fearing his question to be a stupid one, began to struggle with her. I will kiss you, Morton, but you must take your hand from my knee. I do not like to be kissed like that and will not go out driving with you again. I see that I cannot trust you. Morton pleaded, but it was a long time before he could woo her out of a silence that seemed to him sullen. At last she said, as if she had come to a sudden resolve: No, I will not do what you ask me. But I’ll marry you?
Let it be so, then. But marriage is far away. You will have to go to England, and —
If you loved me you could wait a little. We have known each other only a few days. In a month I may be a different woman in your eyes. I beg of you to desist, else I shall not be able to keep my promise to you. A month, two, three, is not long to wait and during that time respect your betrothed. You will not regret the waiting. Love has come to you in the past too easily. A change is good for us all.
XI
Every day a carriage came from Melun or Fontainebleau, and Morton and Etta drove away from Lunions through Barbizon, to the general admiration of the village, returning at evening with recommendations of the inns they had visited and the routes they had passed through, everybody thinking how much more interesting a narrative would be of what they said and did rather than what their eyes saw. In the forest, among its rocks and glades, when the painters visited each other’s easels, Etta as a protagonist of unamiable virtue was much discussed, different views being held regarding Morton’s chances of success, some holding that Etta held him fawning in a leash of hope, whilst others, speaking out of the pride of sex, shook their heads, saying that such a leash could not hold a man from his art; only the leash of the flesh could do that, they averred, without, however, much conviction.
In September Elsie and Cissy were painting on a steep hillside overlooking the high road, Elsie’s subject almost a sinister one; rocks with great clefts, a den a passer-by might think it to be of some wild animal, wolf or boar. And feeling that it would not be wise to touch again the overhanging branches, having gotten as much effect as her means allowed, and not certain whether she could persuade Cissy to come up the hillside to criticise the lair on the easel, Elsie descended the hillside with the picture in her hand and set it before Cissy. Cissy liked it, but did not think that rocks made so interesting a subject as three yellowing birch trees bending across a lustral autumn sky. It is strange, Elsie said, how people always disagree about pictures. Etta thought mine the better subject, and the only fault she found was that I hadn’t introduced a wild boar. My rocks, she said, were suitable for a sow to have her litter among. Sow isn’t the word she used; what did she say? Une laie! She liked your rocks, Elsie, so that she might bring that word into her talk. No doubt she had just learnt it from the Comte de Malmédy. What a copycat she is; none was ever slyer. How she has turned Morton to her purpose. It was he who introduced her to the Comte. And the girls began to talk about the beautiful Renaissance house that Henri quatre had built for la belle Gabrielle. Who was la belle Gabrielle? Cissy asked, and Elsie answered that she thought la belle Gabrielle was the mistress of Henry the fourth — she was sure her lover was one of the Henrys. Cissy asked if the Xing had wearied of her and put her in prison, or if he had ordered her head to be struck off, as Henry the eighth treated his wives on more than one occasion. Elsie could not call to mind that any great disaster had befallen to la belle Gabrielle, for whom Henry the fourth had built a palace in view of the Seine, a palace now held on lease from the State by the Comte, who, they heard at Lunions that night, had been appointed to the Governorship of Algeria, an appointment that might oblige him to ask the State to relieve him of the lease, for, although he was a rich man, it was hardly possible that he could bear the expense of the Government House in Algiers and a palace at Fontainebleau. It was not thought, however, that the State would relieve him of his lease, and in that case the Comte might decline to accept the appointment, great an honour as it was, for few men care to ruin themselves for a vanity, though the vanity be a beautiful one, as the house in view of the Seine was certainly.
The words: in view of the Seine, called forth the story of the great injustice that had been committed by the railway company, who had built an embankment thirty feet high (over which twenty or twenty-five trains passed daily) between the house and the river. The only concession the railway company had made was the building of a bridge, an archway through which the Comte could find his way to his yacht. He had offered the company five hundred thousand francs to bore a tunnel under the hill, but they would not accept this offer, and the Comte had gone to law; and the Court had only allowed him sixty thousand francs for damages done to his grounds. That is how things are managed in France! somebody said, and the remark provoked an answer: that it was by disregarding the aesthetic value of gardens and points of view that France possessed the advantage of cheap railways. In England railway companies had had to pay ten times the value of the grounds they appropriated, and that was why the cost of living was higher in England than in France, despite the advantages of free trade. Whereupon a tedious discussion began, free trade versus tariffs, which set Cissy and Elsie whispering together. If the Comtesse cannot accompany her husband to Algiers, Elsie said, I am afraid Etta will be cut out of her visit. You think, asked Cissy, that she was not lying when she told us that the Comtesse had invited her to the Government House at Algiers? She would hardly dare to tell us that if it were not true, Elsie answered. Besides, there’s nothing unlikely in it. She is now one of the house party. And maybe Morton will be asked too. I wonder, said Cissy, looking up, for the talk showed signs of returning from economics to the Comte and his household. But somebody intervened with a new argument in favour of tariffs, and the girls listened
wearily till it was mooted that the Comte de Malmédy might let the palace. But to whom? France could not supply a tenant, that was certain, and it was difficult to suppose that an Englishman or an American would pay a large rent for a house, a historic monument, that would have to be preserved intact by the tenant, no additions or alterations being allowed.
It was said, and with truth, that it was difficult to find in these modern times anybody rich enough to live in a palace; only a few soap boilers and sugar refiners could afford palaces, and to live in la maison de la belle Gabrielle under three hundred thousand francs a year was impossible. The Comte spent at least five hundred thousand; his expenditure could not be less, so it was related. The hunting cost him a great deal, and the scale upon which he lived was almost princely — retinues of servants, huntsmen, coachmen, grooms, kennel folk of all kinds and sorts. Five hundred thousand francs, it was said, would not clear the Comte, who was spending at least a million francs a year at Fontainebleau, and as Governor of Algeria the pittance he would receive from the Government would not make up the deficit. His expenses at Fontainebleau would have to be reduced, and maybe the hunt that would encircle Barbizon on the morrow would be the last. On hearing that the hounds would be laid on the slot of a boar and not a deer, Elsie and Cissy hoped the boar would not choose their hillside for a line of retreat. We have no wish to be ripped up by tusks, the girls said, and they thought of remaining at home, but were assured that a hunted boar had other things to think of than to attack stray painters. And so in their courage they went forth on the morrow to their hillside to put the finishing hand to their rocks and birches, and it was whilst engaged in cleaning up some odd corners that their attention was drawn from their work by the sound of wheels, and going to an opening in the trees they spied a carriage. Madame de Malmédy’s carriage, Elsie whispered. Etta and Morton are in it. Morton sits opposite and settles the rugs across the ladies’ knees. I wonder what the meaning of all this is, said Cissy, Morton selling his pictures to the Comte, and Etta becoming the Comtesse’s friend. Suspicious, isn’t it? She has dined with them once, Elsie. Where Etta dines once, she dines again. One dinner doesn’t make a mistress, Elsie replied. The girls hearkened to the horns in the forest. The carriage moved on, and all the afternoon they gave occasional ear to the hunting, sometimes hearing it from afar, sometimes the chase passing close by. Once three huntsmen came crashing through the brushwood, wound the long horns they wore about their shoulders, and dashed on again. Once a strayed hound came very near, so near that Elsie threw the dog a piece of bread; but he did not see it, and trotted away in search of the pack. I think that hound must have followed a deer by himself until he lost him, said Elsie. I hear it’s very hard to keep hounds on the scent of a boar; they don’t like it. It’s almost as disagreeable to them as the scent of an otter, which they cannot abide; whereas we like the smell. Wherever did you learn all that from, Elsie? Were you ever in love with a huntsman. The girls screamed. Did you see the boar, Elsie? Elsie didn’t think that anything like a boar had come into the wood, but Cissy was sure she was not mistaken. The boar must have turned at the bottom of the hill, she said, and gathering up their paint-boxes, brushes, and pictures, the girls started to walk back to Barbizon, to be overtaken when about half-way by Morton and Etta, who bade Madame de Malmédy good-bye and walked home with them, telling that the quarry had been taken close to the central carrefour; but the huntsmen did not come up in time, and several hounds were disabled before Comte Gaston de Malmédy managed to give the coup de grâce. Whereupon the eatable value of boar’s head was discussed till Etta mentioned that the Comtesse was going to give a ball. Going to give a ball! cried Cissy and Elsie, and if the words: Shall we be asked? were not on their lips, they were plainly written in the girls’ eyes, sending a smile curling round Etta’s thin lips. Etta is a little beast, who would like to have the whole ball to herself, Cissy said to Elsie as soon as Etta was out of hearing, a judgment that was unjust, for when the Comte and Comtesse came to Barbizon to lunch at Limions (the horses, the carriage, the liveries, the dresses, and the great title making a fine stir in the village), Etta introduced Elsie and Cissy to the Comtesse, saying that the Comte must see Elsie’s rocks and Cissy’s birch trees. She isn’t such a bad sort after all, said Cissy afterwards. Her triumph wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t attend the ball, Elsie answered. Etta must have an audience always. She’ll get her dress from Paris, and a fine sum her brother Harold will have to pay for it. She is determined to outshine us. What shall we look like in our poor little frocks?
Why always try to see the black side of everything, Elsie? She will get her pleasure out of the ball, and we will get ours. Live and let live, that’s my maxim.
But did you see that Etta paid very little attention to Morton? She never left the Comte’s side.
Yes; I noticed that she seemed a good deal occupied with the Comte. But after all, she is the Comte’s guest. The Comte is the great man and she must do him homage.
And did you notice how poorly the Comtesse looked? It is said that she is in the very worst health and is not expected to live very long.
Oh, Elsie, you don’t mean to say that Etta is already thinking of dropping Morton in the hope of stepping into the Comtesse’s shoes later on? That really would be too far-fetched!
Far-fetched it may be, but Etta is always far-fetched. I can’t make her out. She is always talking about her virtue; but I hardly think that Morton would be as devoted to her as he is if he weren’t her lover. She tells a lot of lies — of that I’m certain.
Elsie’s face changed expression suddenly, becoming so grave that Cissy knew she was thinking of what she should wear at the ball; and Cissy’s thoughts taking flight from Etta, settled upon pale blue for herself. She looked well in blue; but she had worn the colour so often that it seemed to her she would do well to try her luck in pink on so historic an occasion as a ball given by the Comte and Comtesse de Malmédy in the palace that Henri quatre had built for la belle Gabrielle.
XII
The hairdresser had come from Fontainebleau, and while he tested his tongs, which were not yet hot enough, Elsie said: I think Morton is beginning to regret that he introduced her to the Malmédys, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he were beginning to feel that it’s as likely as not she will throw him over for one of the grand people she is now living with. If Mademoiselle is now ready, said the hairdresser. Cissy abandoned her hair to his hands and irons, and Elsie continued to dress and undress. I asked him, Elsie said, for some dances, but he told me that he never engaged himself beforehand. Perhaps she has thrown him over and will not dance with him. Or it may be, Cissy replied, that Morton has not engaged himself for dances because he wished to see if she would keep any for him.
Cissy’s was the better guess, it being Morton’s plan not to engage himself for any dances so that he might watch Etta. Clever as she is, he said to himself as he walked up the staircase to the ballroom, she’ll not be able to hide from me the number of dances she has with the Comte and the number she sits out with him. And having shaken hands with his hostess, he sought a corner; and what he saw from his corner was all his heart’s desire — a brown, merry face and soft, fluffy hair. An Etta, he said, in white tulle laid upon white silk, in a bodice of silver fish scale, shimmering like a moonbeam when she lays her hand upon her partner’s shoulder, moving forward with a motion that permeates her whole body.... A silver shoe appeared, and Morton thought: What a vanity! Only a vanity, but what a delicious and beautiful vanity! The waltz ended, some dancers passed out of the ballroom, and Etta was surrounded. It looked as if her card would be filled before Morton could get near her. But she stood on tiptoe and, looking over the surrounding shoulders, cried that she would keep the fourteenth for him. Why did you not come before? she asked smiling, and went out of the room on the arm of a young man. At that moment Comte Gaston de Malmédy took Morton’s arm and asked when the picture he had ordered would be finished. Morton hoped by the end of next week, and the m
en walked through the room talking of pictures. On the way back they met Etta, who told Morton she had promised the Comte the next dance, and that he must now go and talk to Madame de Malmédy.
Madame de Malmédy sat in a high chair within the doorway, out of reach of any draught that might happen on the staircase, her blonde hair drawn up and elaborately curled, her head-dress recalling a cameo or an old coin. She spoke in a high, clear voice, and Morton began to wonder on what terms she lived with her husband; and to find out, he spoke of Etta as the prettiest woman in the room. Madame de Malmédy did not contest the point, but said: Les deux belles Anglaises, when Cissy and Elsie came whirling by, Cissy white, large and bare, Elsie small and brown. Morton regretted that he would have to ask them to dance, but he could not do else; and when he had danced with them, and the three young ladies to whom Madame de Malmédy introduced him, and had taken a Comtesse into supper, he found that the fourteenth waltz was over. But Etta bade him not to look so depressed — she had kept the cotillion for him. It was going to begin very soon; he had better look for chairs. He did as he was told, tying his handkerchief round a couple, and the cotillion proved as unsatisfactory as he expected it would. Etta was always dancing, but rarely with him. Dancers retired from the dancing-room, to return in masks and dominoes; a paper imitation of a sixteenth-century house was brought in, ladies showed themselves at the lattice and were serenaded; and when at the end of his inventions the leader fell back on the hand-glass and the cushion, Etta refused dance after dance. At last the leader called to Morton, who came up certain of triumph; but Etta passed the handkerchief over the glass and drew the cushion from his knee. She danced both figures with the Comte de Malmédy, and was covered with flowers and ribbons at the end of the cotillion; and though a little woman, she looked very handsome in a triumph that Morton hated. But he hid his jealousy as he would his hand in a game of cards, and when the last guests were going, he bade her good-night with a calm face. Madame de Malmédy had gone to her room; she had felt so tired that she could sit up no longer, and had begged her husband to excuse her. And as Etta went upstairs, three or four steps in front of the Comte, Morton saw her so clearly that the thought struck him that he had never seen her before. She appeared in that instant as a toy, a trivial toy made of coloured glass, and he wondered why he had been attracted by this bit of coloured glass.