CHAPTER VII.
THE IDYL OF TREPOLPEN.
"No, we can't have Diana," the President said, when Lord Silverdalereported the matter. "That is, not if the _Moon_-man breaks off theengagement. According to the rules, the candidate must have herselfdiscarded an advantageous marriage, and that Miss Diana will give up Mr.Wilkins is extremely questionable."
"Like everything connected with the _Moon_-man's bride. However, myaerial expedition has not been fruitless; if I have not brought you amember from the clouds, at least we know how right I was to pluckClorinda Bell."
"Yes, and how right I was to appoint you Honorary Trier!" said Lillie."I have several more candidates for you, chosen from my last batch ofapplications. While you were in the clouds, I was working. I havealready interviewed them. They fulfil all the conditions. It onlyremains for you to do your part."
"Have they given good reasons for their refusal to marry their lovers?"
"Excellent reasons. Reasons so strange as to bear the stamp of truth.Here is the first reduced to writing. It is compounded of what MissEllaline Rand said to me and of what she left unsaid. Read it, while Iput another of these love stories into shape. I am so glad I founded theOld Maids' Club. It has enlarged my experience incalculably."
Lord Silverdale took the manuscript and read.
* * * * *
When John Beveridge went to nurse his misanthropy in the obscure fishingvillage of Trepolpen, he had not bargained for the presence of EllalineRand. And yet there she was, living in a queer little cottage on thevery top of the steep hill which constituted Trepolpen, and sloped downto a pebbly beach where the dark nets dried and the trawl boats weredrawn up. The people she was staying with were children of the soil andthe sea--the man, a rugged old fish-dealer who had been a smuggler inhis time; the woman, a chirpy grandame whose eyes were still good enoughto allow her to weave lace by lamplight. The season was early June, andthe glittering smile on the broad face of the Atlantic made the roar ofthe breakers sound like stentorian laughter. There was always a whiff offish--a blend of mackerel and crabs and mullet--striking up from thebeach, but the salt in the air kept the odoriferous atoms fairly fresh.Everything in Trepolpen was delightfully archaic, and even the far-awaysuggestions of antiquity about the prevailing piscine flavor seemed inpoetic keeping with the spirit of the primitive little spot.
In a village of one street it is impossible not to live in it, unlessyou are a coastguard, and then you don't live in the village. This waswhy John Beveridge was a neighbor of Ellaline's. He lived much lowerdown, where the laugh of the Atlantic was louder and the scent of thefish was stronger, and before he knew of Ellaline's existence he used togo down hill (which is easy), smoke his pipe and chat with the trawlers,and lie on his back in the sun. After they had met, he grew less lazyand used to take exercise by walking up to the top of the hill. Probablyby this time the sea-breezes had given him strength. Sometimes he metEllaline coming down; which was accident. Then he would turn and walkdown with her; which was design. The manner of their first meeting wasnovel, but in such a place it could not be long delayed. Beveridge hadobeyed a call from the boatmen to come and help them drag in the seine.He was tugging with all his might at the section of the netting, for thefishers seemed to be in luck and the fish unfortunate. Suddenly he heardthe pit-pat of light feet running down the hill, and the next moment twolittle white hands peeping out of white cuffs were gripping the net atthe side of his own fleshy brown ones. For some thirty seconds he wascontent to divine the apparition from the hands. There was a flutter ofsweet expectation about his heart, a stirring of the sense of romance.
The day was divine. The sky was a brooding blue; the sea was a ripplingplay of light on which the seine-boat danced lightly. One little brownsail was visible far out in the bay, the sea-gulls hovering about it. Itseemed to Beveridge that the scene had only been waiting for thosegentle little hands, whose assistance in the operation of landing thespoil was such a delicious farce. They could be no native lass's, thesesoft fingers with their pink little nails like pretty sea-pearls. Theywere fingers that spoke (in their mute digital dialect) of the crayonand the violin-bow, rather than of the local harmonium. There wassomething, too, about the coquettish cuffs, irresistibly at variancewith the village Wesleyanism. Gradually, as the net came in, Beveridgelet his eyes steal towards her face. The prevision of romance became acertainty. It was a charming little face, as symmetrically proportionedto the hands as the face of a watch is. The nose was retrousse andpiquant, but the eyes contradicted it, being demure and dreamy. Therewas a little Cupid's bow of a mouth, and between the half-parted rosylips a gleam of white teeth clenched with the exertion of hauling in theseine. A simple sailor's hat crowned a fluff of flaxen hair, and herdress was of airy muslin.
She was so absorbed in the glee of hauling in the fish that it was somemoments before she seemed to notice that her neighbor's eyes were fixedupon her, and that they were not set in the rugged tan of the localmasculine face. A little blush leapt into the rather pale cheeks andwent out again like a tiny spurt of rosy flame. Then she strained moredesperately than ever at the net. It was soon ashore, with its wild andwhirling mixture of mackerel, soles, dabs, squids, turbot--JohnBeveridge was not certain but what his heart was already among thethings fluttering there in the net at her feet.
While the trawlers were sorting out the fish, spreading some on thebeach and packing the mackerel in baskets, Ellaline looked on, patentlyinterested in everything but her fellow amateur. After all, despite hisshaggy coat and the clay pipe in his mouth, he was of the town, towny;some solicitor, artist, stockbroker, doctor, on a holiday; perhaps,considering the time of year, only a clerk. What she had come toTrepolpen for was something more primitive. And he! Surely he had seenand loved pretty women enough, not to stir an inch nearer this daintyvision. For what but to forget the wiles and treacheries of women of thetown had he buried himself here? And yet was it the unexpectedness, wasit that while bringing back the atmosphere of great cities she yetseemed a creature of the woods and waters, he felt himself drawn to her?He wanted to talk to her, to learn who she was and what she was doinghere, but he did not know how to begin, though he had the gift of manytongues. Not that he deemed an introduction necessary--in Trepolpen,where not to give everybody you met "good-morning" was to court areputation for surliness. And it would have been easy enough to open onthe weather, or the marine harvest they had both helped to gather in.But somehow John Beveridge learnt embarrassment in the presence of thismuslined mermaiden, who seemed half of the world and half of the sea.And so, amid the bustle of the beach, the minutes slipped away, andBeveridge spoke no word but leaned against the cliff, content to drowsein the light of the sun and Ellaline.
The dealers came down to the beach--men and women--among them a hale,grizzly old fellow who clasped Ellaline's hand in his huge, gnarledfist. The auction began. John Beveridge joined the crowd at a pointbehind the strangely assorted couple. Of a sudden Ellaline turned to himwith her great limpid eyes looking candidly into his, and said, "Some ofthose poor mackerel are not quite dead yet--I wonder if they suffer."John Beveridge was taken aback. The last vestiges of his wontedassurance were swept away before her sweet simplicity.
"I--I--really--I don't know--I've never thought about it," he stammered.
"Men never do," said Ellaline with a gentle reproachful look. "Theythink only of their own pain. I do hope fish have no feelings."
"They are cold-blooded," he reminded her, beginning to recover himself.
"Ah!" she said musingly. "But what right have we to take away theirlives? They must be--oh so happy!--in the beautiful wide ocean! I amsorry I had a hand in destroying them. I shall never do it again."
"You have very little to reproach yourself with," he said, smiling.
"Ah! now you are laughing at me. I know I'm not big and strong, and thatmy muscles could have been dispensed with. But the will was there, t
heintention was there," she said with her serious air.
"Oh, of course, you are a piscicide in intention," he admitted. "But youwill enjoy the mackerel all the same."
"No, I won't," she said with a charming little shake of the head, "Iwon't eat any."
"What! you will nevermore eat fish?"
"Never," she said emphatically. "I love fish, but I won't eat 'em! onlytinned things, like sardines. Oh, what a little stupid I am! Don't laughat me again, please. I forgot the sardines must be caught first, beforethey are tinned, mustn't they?"
"Not necessarily," he said. "It often suffices if sprats are caught."
She laughed. Her laugh was a low musical ripple, like one of the littlesunlit waves translated into sound.
"Twenty-two shillings!" cried the owner of a lot.
"I'll give 'ee eleven!" said Ellaline's companion, and the girl turnedher head to listen to the violent chaffering that ensued, and when shewent away she only gave John Beveridge a nod and a smile. But hefollowed her with his eyes as she toiled up the hill, growing eversmaller and daintier against the horizon. The second time he met her wasat the Cove, a little way from the village, where great foliage-crownedcliffs came crescent-wise round a space of shining sand, girdled at itsouter margin by tumbling green, foam-crested surges. Huge mammoth-likeboulders stood about, bathing their feet in the incoming tide, thecormorants perching cautiously down the precipitous half-worn path thatled to the sands. There was a point at which the landward margin of theshore beneath first revealed itself to the descending pedestrian, and itwas a point so slippery that it was thoughtless of Fate to have includedEllaline in the area of vision. She was lying, sheltered by a bluesunshade, on the golden sand, with her head on the base of the cliff,abstractedly tearing a long serpentine weed to dark green ribbons, andgazing out dreamily into the throbbing depths of sea and sky. There wasan open book before her, but she did not seem to be reading. JohnBeveridge saved himself by grasping a stinging bush, and he stole downgently towards her, forgetting to swear.
He came to her with footsteps muffled by the soft sand, and stoodlooking down at her, admiring the beauty of the delicate flushed youngface and the flaxen hair against the sober background of the aged cliffwith its mellow subtly-fused tints.
"Thinking of the little fishes--or of the gods?" he said at last in aloud pleasant voice.
Ellaline gave a little shriek.
"Oh, where did you spring from?" she said, half raising herself.
"Not from the clouds," he said.
"Of course not. I was _not_ thinking of the gods," said Ellaline.
He laughed. "I am not even a Perseus," he said, "for the tide thoughcoming in is not yet dangerous enough to be likened to the sea-monster,though you might very well pass for Andromeda."
Ellaline blushed and rose to her feet, adjusting a wrap round hershoulders. "I do not know," she said with dignity, "what I have done toencourage such a comparison."
John Beveridge saw he had slipped. This time there was not even astinging bush to cling to.
"You are beautiful, that is all I meant," he said apologetically.
"Is it worth while saying such commonplace things?" she said a littlemollified.
It was an ambiguous remark. From her it could only mean that he had beenguilty of compliment.
"I am very sorry. A thousand pardons. But, pray, do not let me drive youaway. You seemed so happy here. I will go back." He made a half turn.
"Yes, I was happy," she said simply. "In my foolish little way I thoughtI had discovered this spot--as if anything so beautiful could haveescaped the attention of those who have been near it all their lives."
Her words caused him a sudden pang of anxious jealousy. Must they not betrue of herself?
"And you, too, seemed to have discovered it," she went on. "Doubtlessyou know all the coast well, for you were here before me. Do you know,"she said, looking up at his face with her candid gray eyes, "this is thefirst time in my life I have seen the sea, so you must not laugh if Iseem ignorant, but oh! how I love to lie and hear it roar, tossing itsmane like some great wild animal that I have tamed and that will notharm me."
"There are other wild animals that you may tame, here by the sea," hesaid.
She considered for a moment gravely.
"That is rather pretty," she announced. "I shall re-remember that. Butplease do not tell me again I am beautiful." She sat down on the sand,with her back to the cliff, re-adjusting her parasol.
"Very well. I sit reproved," he replied, taking up his position by herside. "What book is that you are reading?"
She handed him the little paper-covered, airily-printed volume,suggesting summer in every leaf.
"Ah, it is _The Cherub That Sits Up Aloft_!" he said, with a shade ofsuperciliousness blent with amusement.
"Yes, have you read it?" she asked.
"No," he said, "I have heard of it. It's by that new woman who came outlast year and calls herself Andrew Dibdin, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Ellaline. "It's made an enormous hit, don't you know."
"Oh, yes, I know," he said, laughing. "It's a lot of sentimental rot,isn't it? Do you like it?"
"I think it is sweetly pretty," she said, a teardrop of vexationgathering on her eyelid. "If you haven't read it, why should you abuseit?"
"Oh, one can't read everything," he said. "But one gets to pick upenough about a book to know whether he cares to read it. Of course, I amaware it is about a little baby on board a ship that makes charminginarticulate orations and is worshipped by everybody, from the captainto the little stowaway, and is regarded by the sailors as the sweetlittle cherub that sits up aloft, etc., and that there is a sensationaldescription of a storm at sea--which is Clarke Russell and water, orrather Clarke Russell and more water."
"Ah, I see you're a cynic," said Ellaline. "I don't like cynics."
"No, indeed, I am not," he pleaded. "It is false, not true, sentiment Iobject to."
"And how do you know this is false sentiment?" she asked in honestindignation. "When you haven't read it?"
"What does it matter?" he murmured, overwhelmed by her sense of duty.She was evidently unaccustomed to the light flippancies of elegantconversation.
"Oh, nothing. To some people nothing matters. Will you promise to readthe book if I lend it you?"
"Of course I will," he said, delighted at the establishment of sopermanent a link. "Only I don't want to deprive you of it--I can waittill you have finished with it."
"I have finished. I have read it over and over again. Take it." Shehanded it to him. Their finger-tips met.
"I recant already," he said. "It must have something pure and good in itto take captive a soul like yours."
And indeed the glamour of Ellaline was over every page of it. As heread, he found tears of tenderness in his eyes, when otherwise theymight have sprung from laughter. He adored the little cherub who sat upaloft on the officers' table and softened these crusty sea-dogs whosehearts were become as ship's-biscuits. He could not tell what had comeover himself, that his own sere heart should be so quick again to thebeauties of homely virtue and duty, to the engaging simplicity andpathos of childhood, to the purity of womanhood. Was it that Ellalinewas all these things incarnate?
He avowed his error and his conversion, and gradually they came to meetoften in the solitary creek, as was but right for the only twointellectual people in Trepolpen. Sometimes, too, they wandered furtherafield, amid the ferny lanes. But the Cove was their favorite trystingplace, and there lying with his head in her lap, he would talk to her ofbooks and men and one woman.
Talked to her of books and men and one woman.]
He found her tastes were not limited to _The Cherub That Sits Up Aloft_,for she liked Meredith. "Really," he said, "if you had not beenyourself, I should have doubted whether your admiration was genuine."
"Yes, his women are so real. But I do not pretend to care for thestyle."
"Style!" he said, "I call it a five-barred fence. To me style iseverything
. Style alone is literature, whether it be the man or not."
"Oh, then you are of the school of Addiper?"
"Ah, have you heard of that? I am. I admire Addiper and agree with him.Form is everything--literature is only a matter of form. And a book isonly a form of matter."
"I see," she said, smiling. "But I adore Addiper myself, though I regretthe future seems likely to be his. I have read all he has written. Everyline is so lucid. The form is exquisite. But as for the matter----!"
"No matter!" summed up John Beveridge, laughing heartily.
"I am so glad you agree with me sometimes," said Ellaline. "Because itshows you don't think I am so very stupid after all."
"Of course I don't--except when you get so enthusiastic about literarypeople and rave about Dibdin and Addiper and Blackwin and the rest. Ifyou mixed with them, my little girl, as I have done, you would soon loseyour rosy illusions. Although perhaps you are better with them."
"Ah, then you're not a novelist yourself?" she said anxiously.
"No, I am not. What makes you ask?"
"Nothing. Only sometimes, from your conversation, I suspected you mightbe."
"Thank you, Ellaline," he said, "for a very dubious compliment. No, I amafraid I must forego that claim upon your admiration. Unless I tell alie and become a novelist by doing so. But then wouldn't it be thetruth?"
"Are you, then, a painter or a musician?"
He shook his head. "No, I do not get my living by art."
"Not of any kind?"
"Not of any kind."
"How _do_ you get it?" she asked simply, a candid light shining in thegreat gray eyes.
"My father was a successful saddle-maker. He is dead."
"Oh!" she said.
"Leather has made me, from childhood up--it has chastised, supported,educated me, and given me the _entree_ everywhere. So you see I cannothold a candle to your demigods."
"Ah, but there is nothing like leather," said Ellaline, and stroked thehead in her lap reassuringly.
The assurance permeated John Beveridge's frame like a pleasant cordial.All that was hard and leathery in him seemed to be soaked soft. Here, atlast, was a woman who loved him for himself--an innocent, trusting womanin whose weakness a man might find strength. Her pure lips were like thewayside well at which the wearied wanderer from great stony cities mightdrink and be refreshed. And yet, delightful as her love would be in hisdroughty life, he felt that his could not prove less delightful to her.That he, John Beveridge, with the roses thrusting themselves into hiseyes, should stoop to pick the simple little daisy at his feet, couldnot fail to fill her with an admiring gratitude that would add the lastcharm to her passion for him.
But it was not till a week afterwards that the formal proposal, so longimpending, broke. They were resting in a lane and discussing everythingthey didn't want to discuss, the unspoken playing with subtle sweetnessabout the spoken.
"Have you read Mr. Gladstone's latest?" she asked at last.
"No," he said; "has Mr. Gladstone ever a latest?"
"Oh, yes, take him day by day, like an evening paper. I'm referring tohis article on 'Ancient Beliefs in a Future State.'"
"What's that--the belief of old maids that they'll get married?"
"Now you are blasphemous," she cried with a pretty pout.
"How? Are old maids a sacred subject?"
"Everything old should be sacred to us," she said simply. "But you knowthat is not what I mean."
"Then why do you say it?" he asked.
"Oh, what a tease you are!" she cried. "I shan't be sorry to be quit ofyou. Your flippancy is quite dreadful."
"Why, do you believe in a future state?" he said.
"Of course I do. If we had only one life, it would not be worth living."
"But nine times one life _would_ be worth living. Is that the logic? Ifso, happy cats! I wonder," he added irrelevantly, "why the number ninealways goes with cats--nine lives, nine tails, nine muses?"
Ellaline made a _moue_ and shrank petulantly away from him. "I will notdiscuss our future state, unless you are prepared to do it seriously,"she said.
"I am," he replied with sudden determination. "Let us enter it together.I am tired of the life I've been leading, and I love you."
"What!" she said in a little horrified whisper. "You want us to commitsuicide together?"
"No, no--matrimony. I cannot do it alone--I have never had the courageto do it at all. With you at my side, I should go forward, facing thehereafter cheerfully, with faith and trust."
"I--I--am--afraid--I----" she stammered.
"Why should you be afraid?" he interrupted. "Have you no faith and trustin me?"
"Oh, yes," she said with a frank smile, "if I had not confidence in you,I should not be here with you."
"You angel!" he said, his eyes growing wet under her clear, limpid gaze."But you love me a little, too?"
"I do not," she said, shaking her head demurely.
John Beveridge groaned. After so decisive an avowal from the essence ofcandor, what remained to be said? Nothing but to bid her and his hopesfarewell--the latter at once, the former as soon as she was escortedback to Trepolpen. His affection had grown so ripe, he could notexchange it for the green fruit of friendship. And yet, was this to bethe end of all that sweet idyllic interlude, a jarring note and thensilence for evermore?
"But could you never learn to love me?"
She laughed her girlish, ringing laugh.
"I am not so backward as all that," she said. "I mastered it in a dozenlessons."
He stared at her, a wild hope kindling in his eyes. "Did I hear aright?"he asked in a horse tone.
She nodded, still smiling.
"Then I did not hear aright before?"
"Oh, yes, you did. I said I did not love you a little. I love you agreat deal."
There were tears in the gray eyes now, but they smiled on. He caught herin his arms and the Devonshire lane was transformed to Eden. Howexquisite this angelic frankness, when the words pleased! How deliciousthe frankness of her caress when words were _de trop_!
But at last she spoke again. "And now that I know you love me formyself, I will tell you a secret." The little hands that had firstclasped his attention were laid on his shoulders, the dreamy face lookedup tenderly and proudly into his. "They say a woman cannot keep asecret," she said. "But you will never believe that again, when I tellyou mine?"
"I never believed it," he said earnestly. "Consider how every womankeeps the great secret of her age."
"Ah, that is not what I am going to tell you," she said archly. "It isanother of the great secrets of my age. You remember that book you likedso much--_The Cherub That Sits Up Aloft_?"
"Yes!" he said wonderingly.
"Well, I wrote it!"
"You!" he exclaimed, startled. His image of her seemed a pillar of sandupon which the simoom had burst. This fresh, simple maiden a complexliterary being, a slave of the midnight lamp.
"Yes, I--I am Andrew Dibdin--the authoress who drew tears from youreyes."
"You, Andrew Dibdin!" he repeated mechanically.
She nodded her head with a proud and happy smile. "I knew you would bepleased--but I wanted you to love me, not my book."
"I love both," he exclaimed. The new conceptions had fitted themselvesinto the old. He saw now what the charm of the little novel was--thebook was Ellaline between covers. He wondered he had not seen it before.The grace, the purity, the pathos, the sweet candor, the recollectionsof a childhood spent on the great waters in the company of kindlymariners--all had flowed out at the point of her pen. She had putherself into her work. He felt a subtle jealousy of the people whobought her on the bookstalls for a shilling--or even for ninepence atthe booksellers'. He wanted to have her all to himself. He experienced amad desire to buy up the edition. But there would be a new one. Herealized the feelings of Othello. Oh, if he could but arrest hercirculation!
"If you knew how happy it made me to hear you say you love my book!" shereplied. "At
first I hated you because you sneered at it. All my friendslove my books--and I wanted you to be a friend of mine."
"I am more than that," he said exultantly. "And I want to love all yourbooks. What else have you written?"
"Only two others," she said apologetically. "You see I have only been inliterature six months and I only write straight from the heart."
"Yes, indeed!" he said. "You wear your heart upon your leaves."
Jealous as he was of her readers, he felt that there was balm in Gilead.She was not a hack-writer, turning out books for the market of maliceaforethought; not the complex being he had figured in the first momentof consternation, the literary quack with finger on the pulse of thepublic. She did but write as the birds carolled--not the slave, but thegenius of the midnight lamp.
"But I must not wear my heart out," she replied, laughingly. "So I camedown here for a month to get fresh material. I am writing a novel ofCornish peasant life--I want to photograph the people with all theirlights and shades, all their faiths and superstitions, all their ways ofspeech and thought--the first thorough study ever made of a fast-fadingphase of Old English life. You see, I didn't know what to do; I fearedthe public would be tired of my sailor-stories and I thought I'd locatemy next story on land. Accident determined its environment. I learnt, bychance, that we had some poor relatives in Trepolpen, whom my people haddropped, and so I thought I'd pick them up again, and turn them into'copy,' and I welcomed the opportunity of making at the same time theacquaintance of the sea, which, as I think I told you, I have never seenbefore. You see I was poor myself till _The Cherub That Sits Up Aloft_showered down the gold, and, being a Cockney, had never been able toafford a trip to the seaside."
"My poor Ellaline!" he said, kissing her candid lips. She was such aninveterate truth-teller that he could only respect and admire andadore--though she fell from heaven. Her candor infected him. He felt anoverwhelming paroxysm of veracity.
The mask could be dropped now. Did she not love John Beveridge?
"Now I see why you rave so over literary people!" he said. "You aredipped in ink yourself."
"Yes," she said with a happy smile, "there is nobody I admire so much asour great writers."
"But you would not love me more, if I were a great writer?" he saidanxiously.
"No, certainly not. I couldn't," she said decisively.
He stooped and kissed her gratefully. "Thank you for that, my sweetEllaline. And now I think I can safely confess that I am Addiper."
She gave a little shriek. Her face turned white. "Addiper!" shebreathed.
"Yes, dearest, it is my _nom de guerre_. I am Addiper, the writer youadmire so much, the man with whose school, you were pleased to say, thefuture lies."
"Addiper!" she said again. "Impossible! why you said you did not getyour living by art of any kind."
"Of course I don't!" he said. "Books like mine--all style, no sentiment,morals or theology--never pay. Fortunately I am able to publish them atmy own expense. I write only for writers. That is why you like me.Successful writers are those who write for readers, just as popularpainters are those who paint for spectators."
The poor little face was ashen gray now. The surprise was too much forthe fragile little beauty. "Then you really are Addiper!" she said inlow, slow tones.
"Yes, dearest," he said not without a touch of pride. "I am Addiper--andin you, love, I have found a fresh fount of inspiration. You shall bethe guiding star of my work, my rare Ellaline, my pearl, my beryl. Ah,this is a great turning-point in my life. To-day I enter into my thirdmanner."
"This is not one of your teasing jokes?" she said appealingly, herpiteous eyes looking up into his.
"No, my Ellaline. Do you think I would hoax you thus--to dash you toearth again?"
"Then," she said slowly and painfully, "then I can never marry you. Wemust say 'good-bye.'"
Her lover gazed at her in dazed silence. The butterflies floated in thesummer air, a bee buzzed about a wayside flower, from afar came thetinkle of a brook. A deep peace was on all things--only in the hearts ofthe two litterateurs was pain and consternation.
_The Confession of Ellaline._]
"You can never marry me!" repeated John Beveridge at last. "And whynot?"
"I have told you. Because you are Addiper."
"But that is no reason."
"Is it not?" she said. "I thought Addiper would have a subtlerapprehension."
"But what is it you object to in me?"
"To your genius, of course."
"To my genius!"
"Yes, no mock modesty. Between augurs it won't do. Every author mustknow very well he stands apart from the world, or he would not sethimself to paint it. I know quite well I am not as other women. What isthe use of paltering with one's consciousness!"
Still the same delicious candor shone in the gray eyes. John Beveridge,not at all grasping his dismissal, felt an unreasoning impulse to kissthem.
"Well, supposing I am a genius," he said instead. "Where's the harm?"
"No harm till you propose to yoke me with it! I never will marry agenius."
"Oh, don't be so absurd, Ellaline!" he said. "You've been reading thefoolish nonsense about the geniuses necessarily making bad husbands. Nodoubt in some prominent instances geniuses have not been working modelsof the domestic virtues, but on the other hand there are scores ofinstances to the contrary. And blockheads make quite as bad husbands asyour Shelleys and your Byrons. Besides it was only in the past thatgeniuses were blackguards; to-day it is the correct thing to be correct.Respectability nowadays adds chastity to the studies from the nude;marital fidelity enhances the force of poems of passion: andphilanthropy adds the last touch to tragic acting. So why should Isuffer for the sins of my predecessors? If I may judge myself by mypresent sensations, what I am gifted with is a genius for domesticity.Do not sacrifice me, dearest, to an unproved and unscientificgeneralization."
"It is not of that I am thinking," Ellaline replied, shaking her headsadly. "In my opinion the woman who refused Shakespeare merely on theground that he wrote Shakespeare's works, should be sent to Coventry asa coward. No, do not fancy I am that. I may not be strong, but I havecourage enough to marry you if that were all. It is not because I amafraid you would make me unhappy."
"Ah, there is something you are hiding from me," he said anxiously,impressed by the gravity and sincerity of her tones.
"No, there is nothing. I cannot marry you, because you are a genius."
He saw what she meant now. She had been reading the modern works ongenius and insanity.
"Ah, you think me mad!" he cried.
"Mad--when you love me?" she said, with a melancholy smile.
"You know what I mean. You think that 'great wits to madness nearly areallied,' that sane as I appear, there is in me a hidden vein of madness.And yet, if anything, the generalization connecting genius with insanityis more unsound than that connecting it with domestic infelicity. Itwould require a genius to really prove such a connection, and as hewould, on his own theory, be a lunatic, what becomes of his theory?"
"Your argument involves a fallacy," replied Ellaline quietly. "It doesnot follow that if a man is a lunatic everything he says or does has thetaint of madness. A genius who held that genius meant insanity might besane just on this one point."
"Or insane just on the one point. Seriously, Ellaline," said JohnBeveridge, beginning to lose his temper, "you don't mean to say that youbelieve that genius is really 'a psychical neurosis of the epileptoidorder.' If you do you must be mad yourself, that's all I can say."
"Of course I should have to admit I am mad myself if I held the theorythat genius meant insanity. But I don't."
"You don't!" he said, staring blankly at her. "You don't believe I'minsane, and you don't believe I'll make a bad husband--I should beinsane if I did, my sweet little Ellaline. And you still wish to cryoff?"
"I must."
"Then you no longer love me!"
"Oh, I beg of you, do not say that!
You do not know how hard it is forme to give you up--do not make our parting harder."
"Ellaline, in heaven's name vex me no further. What is this terriblemystery? Why can you no longer think of me?"
"If you only thought of me a little you would guess. But men are soselfish. If it were only you that had genius the thing would be simple.But you forget that I, too----" She paused; a little modest blushcompleted the sentence.
"Yes, I know you are a genius, my rare Ellaline. But what then?" hecried. "I only love you the more for it."
"Yes, but if we marry," said Ellaline, "we two geniuses, look what willhappen."
He stared at her afresh--she met his gaze unflinchingly. "What newscientific bogie have you been conjuring up." he murmured.
"Oh, I wish you would drive science out of your head," she repliedpettishly. "What have I to do with science? Really, if you go on sostupidly I shall believe you're not a genius after all."
"And then you will marry me?" he said eagerly.
"Don't be so stupid! To speak plainly, for you seem as dull as aclod-hopper to-day, I cannot afford to marry a genius, and a recognizedgenius to boot. I am only a struggling young authoress, with aconsiderable following, it is true, but still without an unquestionedposition. The high-class organs that review you all to yourself stilltake me as one of a batch and are not always as complimentary as theymight be. The moment I marry you and my rushlight is hidden in yourbushel, out it goes. I become absorbed simply in you, a little satellitecircling round your planetary glory. I shall have no independentexistence--the fame I have toiled and struggled for will be eclipsed inyours. 'Mrs. Addiper--the wife of the celebrated writer, scribbles alittle herself, don't you know! Wonder what he could see in her!' That'show people will talk of me. When I go into a room we shall be announced,'Mr. and Mrs. Addiper'--and everybody will rush round you and hang onyour words, and I shall be talked to only by the way of getting you atsecond-hand, as a medium through which your personality is partiallyradiated. And parties will be given 'To meet Mr. Addiper,' and I shallaccompany you for the same reason that your dress-coat will--because itis the etiquette."
"But, Ellaline----" he protested.
"Let me finish. I could not even afford to marry you, if my literaryposition were equal to yours. Such a union would do nothing to enhancemy reputation. No woman of genius should marry a man of genius--were sheeven the greater of the two she would become merged in him, even as shewould take his name. The man I must marry, the man I have been waitingto fall in love with and be loved by, is a plain honest gentleman,unknown to fame and innocent of all aspiration but that of making mehappy. He must devote his life to mine, sink himself in me, sacrificehimself on the altar of my fame, live only for the enhancement of myreputation. Such a man I thought I had found in you--but you deceivedme. I thought here is a man who loves me only for myself, but whose lovewill increase tenfold when he learns that I stand on a pedestal ofglory, and who will rejoice at the privilege of passing the rest of hisdays uplifting that pedestal to the gaze of the world, a man who willsay of me what I can hardly say of myself, who will drive the bargainswith my publishers, wrap me up against the knowledge of maliciouscriticisms, conduct my correspondence, receive inconvenient callers,arrange my interviews, and send incessant paragraphs to the papers aboutme, commencing Mrs. John Beveridge (Andrew Dibdin), varied by AndrewDibdin (Mrs. John Beveridge). Here is a man who will be a livinggratuitous advertisement, inserted daily in the great sheets of thetimes, a steadfast column of eulogy, a pillar of praise. Here is a manwho will be as much a halo as a husband. When I enter a drawing-roomwith him (so ran my innocent, maiden dream) there will be a thrill ofexcitement, everybody will cluster round me, he will efface himself orbe effaced, and, even if he finds anybody to talk to, it is about me hewill talk. Invitations to our own 'At Homes' will be eagerly soughtfor--not for his sake, but for mine. All that is famous in literatureand art will crowd our salon--not for his sake, but for mine. And whileI shall be the cynosure of every eye, it will be his to note down thenames of the illustrious gazers in society paragraphs beginning Mrs.John Beveridge (Andrew Dibdin), alternating with Andrew Dibdin (Mrs.John Beveridge). And am I to give up all this, merely because I loveyou?"
_So ran my Innocent Maiden Dream._]
"Yes, why not!" he said passionately. "What is fame, reputation, weighedagainst love? What is it to be on the World's lips, if the lips we loveare to be taken away?"
"How pretty!" she said with simple admiration. "If you will not claimthe phrase, I should like to give it to my next heroine."
"Claim it!" he said bitterly. "I do not want any phrases. I want you."
"Do you not see it is impossible? If you could become obscure again, itmight be. You say fame is nothing weighed against love. Come now, wouldyou give up your genius, your reputation, just to marry me?"
He was silent.
"Come!" she repeated. "I have been frank with you, have I not!"
"You have," he admitted, with a melancholy grimace.
"Well, be equally frank with me. Would you sacrifice these things toyour love for me?"
"I could not if I would."
"But would you, if you could?"
He did not answer.
"Of course you wouldn't," she said. "I know you as I know myself."
"What is the use of thinking of what can never be!" he said impatiently.
"Just so. That is what I say. I can never give you my hand; so give meyours and we'll turn homewards."
He gave her his hand and she jumped lightly to her feet. Then he got upand shook himself, and looked still in a sort of daze, at the gentleface and the dainty figure.
He seized her passionately by the arms.
"And must this be the end?" he cried hoarsely.
"Finis," she said decisively, though the renewed pallor of her faceshowed what it cost her to complete the idyl.
"An unhappy ending?" he said in hopeless interrogation.
"It is not my style," she said simply, "but, after all, this is onlyreal life."
He burst forth in a torrent of half reproachful regrets--he, Addiper,the chaste, the severe, the self-contained.
"And you the sweet, innocent girl who won the heart I no longer hoped tofeel living, you would coldly abandon the love for whose existence youare responsible! You, who were to be so fresh and pure an influence onmy work, are content to deprive literature of those masterpieces ourunion would have called into being! Oh, but you cannot unshackleyourself thus from my life--for good or evil your meeting with medetermined my third manner. Hitherto I thought it was for good; now Ifear it will be for evil."
"You seem to have forgotten _all_ your manners," she said, annoyed. "Andif our meeting was for evil, at least our parting shall be for good."
John Beveridge and Ellaline Rand spake no more, but walked home insilence through the country lanes on which the sunlight seemed to liecold. The past was put a dream--not for these two the simple emotionswhich cross with joy or sorrow the web of common life. At the cottagenear the top of the hill, where the sounds and scents of the sea werefaintest, they parted. The idyl of Trepolpen was ended.
And John Beveridge went downhill.
The Old Maids' Club Page 7