The Old Maids' Club

by Israel Zangwill

  CHAPTER X.

  THE GOOD YOUNG MEN WHO LIVED.

  "It is, indeed, a happy solution," said Lord Silverdale enviously. "Tospend your life in the service of other men, yet to save it foryourself! It reconciles all ideals."

  "Well, you can very easily try it," said Lillie. "I have just heard fromthe Princess of Portman Square--she is reorganizing her household inview of her nuptials. Shall I write you a recommendation?"

  "No, but I will read you an Address to an Egyptian Tipcat," replied hislordship, with the irrelevancy which was growing upon him. "You know therecent excavations have shown that the little Egyptians used to play'pussy-cat' five thousand years ago."

  ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN TIP-CAT.

  And thou has flown about--how strange a story-- Full five and forty centuries ago, Ere Fayoum, fired with military glory, Received from Gurod, with purpureal show, The sea-born captives of the spear and bow; And thou has blacked, perhaps, the very finest eye That sparkled in the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty.

  The sight of thee brings visions panoramic Of manlier games, as _Faro_, _Pyramids_. What hands, now tinct with substances balsamic, Have set thee leaping like the sportive kids, What time the passers-by did close their lids? Did the stern Priesthood strive thy cult to smother, Or wast thou worshipped, like thy purring brother?

  Where is the youth by whom thou wast created And tipped profusely? Doth he frisk in glee In Aahlu, or lives he, transmigrated, The lower life Osiris did decree, Of fowl, or fly, or fish, or fox, or flea? Or, fallen deeper, is he politician, Stumping the land, his country's quack physician?

  Thou Sphynx in wood, unchanged, serene, immortal, How many States and Temples have decayed And generations passed the mystic portal Whilst thou, still young, hast gone on being played? Say, when thy popularity shall fade? And art thou--here's my last, if not my stiffest-- As good a bouncer as the hieroglyphist?

  "Why, did the hieroglyphists use to brag?" asked Lillie.

  "Shamefully. You can no more believe in their statements than inepitaphs. There seems something peculiarly mendacious about stone as arecording medium. Only it must be admitted on behalf of thehieroglyphists that it may be the Egyptologists who are the braggers.There never was an ancient inscription which is not capable of beingtaken in a dozen different ways, like a party-leader's speech. Everyword has six possible meanings and half a dozen probable ones. The_savants_ only pretend to understand the stones."

  So saying Lord Silverdale took his departure. On the doorstep he met ayoung lady carrying a brown paper parcel. She smiled so sweetly at himthat he raised his hat and wondered where he had met her.

  But it was only another candidate. She faced Turple the magnificent andsmiled on, unawed. Turple ended by relaxing his muscles a whit, thenashamed of himself he announced gruffly, "Miss Mary Friscoe."

  After the preliminary formalities, and after having duly assured herselfthat there was no male ear within earshot, Miss Friscoe deliveredherself of the following candid confession.

  "I am a pretty girl, as you can see. I wear sweet frocks and smiles, andmy eyes are of Heaven's own blue. Men are fond of gazing into them. Menare so artistic. They admire the beautiful and tell her so. Women are sodifferent. I have overheard my girl friends call me 'that silly littleflirt.'

  "I hold that any woman can twist any man round her little finger or hisarm round her waist, therefore I consider it no conceit to say I haveattracted considerable attention. If I had accepted all the offers Ireceived, my marriages could easily have filled a column of _The Times_.I know there are women who think that men are coarse, unsentimentalcreatures, given over to slang, tobacco, billiards, betting, brandiesand sodas, smoking-room stories, flirtations with barmaids, dress andgeneral depravity. But the women who say or write that are souredcreatures, who have never been loved, have never fathomed the depth andpurity of men's souls.

  "I have been loved. I have been loved much and often, and I speak as onewho knows. Man is the most maligned animal in creation. He is the leastgross and carnal of creatures, the most exquisitely pure and refined inthought and deed; the most capable of disinterested devotion,self-sacrifice, chivalry, tenderness. Every man is his own Bayard.

  "If men had their deserts we women--heartless, frivolous, venalcreatures that we are--would go down on our knees to them, and beg themto marry us. I am a woman and again I speak as one who knows. For I amnot a bad specimen of my sex. Even my best friends admit I am onlysilly. I am really a very generous and kind-hearted little thing. Inever keep my tailor waiting longer than a year, I have made quite anumber of penwipers for the poor, and I have never told an unnecessarylie in my life. I give a great deal of affection to my mother and even alittle assistance in the household. I do not smoke scented cigarettes. Iread travels and biographies as well as novels, play the guitar ratherwell, attend a Drawing Class, rise long before noon, am good-tempered,wear my ball-dresses more than once, turn winter dresses into springfrocks by stripping off the fur and putting on galon, and diversify mygowns by changing the sleeves. In short, I am a superior, thoroughlydomesticated girl. And yet I have never met a man who has not had theadvantage of me in all the virtues.

  "There was George Holly,--I regret I cannot mention my lovers inchronological order, but my memories are so vague, they all seem tofuse into one another. Perhaps it is because there is a lack ofdistinctiveness about men--a monotonous goodness which has its charm butis extremely confusing. One thing I do remember though, about George--atleast, I think it was George. His moustache was rather bristly, and thelittle curled tips used to tickle one's nose comically. I was verydisappointed in George, I had heard such a lot of talk about him; butwhen I got to really know him I found he was not a bit like it. How Icame to really know him was like this. 'Mary,' he said, as we sat on thestairs, high up, so as not to be in the way of the waiters. 'Won't yousay "yes" and make me the happiest man alive? Never man loved as I lovenow. Answer me. Do not torture me with suspense.' I was silent;speechless with happiness to think that I had won this true manly heart.I looked down at my fan. My lips were forming the affirmativemonosyllable, when George continued passionately,

  "'Ah, Mary, speak! Mary, the only woman I ever loved.'

  "I turned pale with emotion. Tears came into my eyes.

  "'Is this true?' I articulated. 'Am I really the only woman you everloved?'

  "'By my hopes of a hereafter, yes!' George was a bit slangy in hisgeneral conversation. The shallow world never knew the poetry he couldrise to. 'This is the first time I have known what it is to love, Mary,my sweet, my own.'

  "'No, not your own,' I interrupted coldly, for my heart was like icewithin me. 'I belong to myself, and I intend to. Will you give me yourarm into the ballroom--Mr. Daythorpe must be looking for me everywhere.'

  "It sounds very wicked to say it, I know, but I cannot delay myconfession longer. I love, I adore, I doat on wicked men, men who lovenot wisely but too well. When I learnt history at school I could alwaysanswer questions about the reign of Charles II., it was such adeliciously wicked period. I love Burns, Lord Byron, De Musset,Lovelace--all the nice naughty men of history or fiction. I like Ouida'sguardsman, whose love is a tornado, and Charlotte Bronte's Rochester,and Byron's Don Juan. I hate, I detest milksops. And a good man alwaysseems to me a milksop. It is a flaw--a terrible flaw in my composition,I know--but I cannot help it. It makes me miserable, but what can I do?Nature will out.

  "That was how I came to find George out, to discover he was not theterrible cavalier, the abandoned squire of dames the world said he was.His reputation was purely bogus. The gossips might buzz, but I had it onthe highest authority. I was the first woman he had ever loved. Whatpleasure is there in such a conquest? It grieved me to break his heart,but I had no option.

  "Daythorpe was another fellow who taught me the same lesson of thepurity and high emotions
of his cruelly libelled sex. He, too, whendriven into a corner (far from the madding crowd) confessed that I wasthe only woman he had ever loved. I have tried them all--poets andmusicians, barristers and business-men. They all had suffered from thesame incapacity for affection till they met me. It was quite pathetic todiscover how truly all men were brothers. The only difference was thatwhile some added I was the only woman they ever could love, othersinsisted that never man had loved before as they did now. The latterlovers always remind me of advertisers offering a superior article toanything in the trade. Nowhere could I meet the man I longed for--theman who had lived and loved. Once I felt stirrings towards a handsomeyoung widower, but he went out of his way to assure me he had nevercared for his first wife. After that, of course, he had no chance.

  _Platonic Love._]

  "Unable to discover any but good young men, I resigned myself perforceto spinsterhood. I resolved to cultivate only Platonic relations. I toldyoung men to come to me and tell me their troubles. I encouraged them tosit at my feet and confide in me while I held their hands to give themcourage. But even so they would never confess anything worth hearing,and if they did love anybody it invariably turned out to be me and meonly. Yes, I grieve to say these Platonic young men were just as good asthe others; leaving out the audacity of their proposing to me when I hadgiven them no encouragement. Here again I found men distressingly alike.They are constitutionally unable to be girls' chums, they are alwayshankering to convert the friendship into love. Time after timeanticipations of a genuine comradeship were rudely dispelled by fatuousphilandering. Yet I never ceased to be surprised, and I never lost hope.Such, I suppose, is the simple trustfulness of a girl's nature. In timeI got to know when the explosion was coming, and this deadened theshock. I found it was usually preceded by suicidal remarks of aretrospective character. My comrades would tell me of their past lives,of the days when the world's oyster was yet unopened by them. In thosedark days (tears of self-pity came into their eyes as they spoke ofthem) they were on the point of suicide--to a man. Only, one littlething always came to save them--their first brief, the acceptance oftheir first article, poem or song, the opportune deaths of aunts, thechance hearing of an organ-note rolling through the portal of a villagechurch on a Sunday afternoon, a letter from an old schoolmaster. Theobvious survival of the narrators rather spoiled the sensational thrillfor me, but they themselves were always keenly touched by the story. Andfrom suicide in the past to suicide in the future was an easytransition. Alas, I was the connecting link. They loved me--and unless Ireturned their love, that early suicide would prove to have been merelypostponed. In the course of conversation it transpired that I was thefirst woman they had ever loved. I remember once rejecting on thisaccount two such Platonic failures, within ten minutes of each other.One was a well-known caricaturist, and the other was the editor of alady's paper. Each left me, declaring his heart was broken, that I hadled him on shamelessly, that I was a heartless jilt and that he would goand kill himself. My brother Tom accidentally told me he saw themtogether about an hour afterwards at a bar in the Strand, asking eachother what was their poison. So I learnt that they had spoken thetruth. I had driven them to drink. And according to Tom the drink atthis particular bar is superior to strychnine. He says men always takeit in preference."

  _Driven to Drink._]

  "And have you then finally decided to abandon Platonics?" asked Lillie,when the flow of words came to an end.

  "Finally."

  "And you have decided to enroll in our ranks?"

  Miss Mary Friscoe hesitated.

  "Well about that part I'm not quite so certain. To tell the truth, thereis one young man of my acquaintance who has never yet proposed. When Istarted for here in disgust at the goodness of mankind I forgot him, butin talking he has come back to my mind. I have a strong suspicion he isquite wicked. He is always painting actresses. Don't you think it wouldbe unfair to him to take my vows without giving him a chance?"

  "Well, yes," said Lillie musingly, "perhaps it would. You would feeleasier afterwards. Otherwise you might always reproach yourself with thethought that you had perhaps turned away from a bad man's love. Youmight feel that the world was not so good as you had imagined in yourgirlish cynicism, and then you might regret having joined us."

  "Quite so," said Miss Friscoe eagerly. "But he shall be the very lastman I will listen to."

  "When do you propose to be proposed to by him?"

  "The sooner the better. This very day, if you like. I am going straightfrom here to my Drawing Class."

  "Very well. Then you will come to-morrow and tell me your finaldecision?"

  "To-morrow."

  * * * * *

  Miss Mary Friscoe arrived at the Drawing Class late. Her fellow studentsof both sexes were already at their easels and her entry distractedeverybody. It was a motley gathering, working in motley media--charcoal,chalk, pencil, oil, water-color. One girl was modelling in clay, and oneyoung gentleman, opera-glass in hand, was making enlarged colored copiesof photographs. It was this young gentleman that Mary came out for tosee. His name was Bertie Smythe. He was rich, but he would always be apoor artist. His ambition was to paint the nude.

  There were lilies of the valley in the bosom of Mary's art-gown, andwhen she arrived she unfolded the brown paper parcel she carried andtook therefrom a cardboard box containing a snow-white collar andspotless cuffs, which she proceeded to adjust upon her person. She thenwent to the drawing-board rack and stood helpless, unable to reach downher board, which was quite two inches above her head. There was a rushof embryo R.A.'S. Those who failed to hand her the board got down thecast and dusted it for her and fixed it up according to her minute anddetailed directions, and adjusted her easel, and brought her a trestle,and lent her lead-pencils, and cut them for her, and gave her chunks ofstale bread, for all which services she rewarded them with bewitchingsmiles and profuse thanks and a thousand apologies. It took her a longtime getting to work on the charcoal cluster of plums which had occupiedher ever since the commencement of the term, because she never venturedto commence without holding long confabulations with her fellow-studentsas to whether the light was falling in exactly the same way as lasttime. She got them to cock their heads on one side and survey thesketch, to retreat and look at it knowingly, to measure the visual anglewith a stick of charcoal, or even to manipulate delicately the greatwork itself. Meantime she fluttered about it, chattering, alternatelyenraptured and dissatisfied, and when at last she started, it was byrubbing everything out.

  The best position for drawing happened to be next to Bertie Smythe.That artist was now engaged in copying the portrait of an actress.

  "Oh, Mr. Smythe," said Mary suddenly, in a confidential whisper. "I'vegot such a beautiful face for you to paint."

  "I know you have!" flashed Bertie, in the same intimate tone.

  "What a tease you are, twisting my words like that," said Mary, rappinghim playfully on the knuckles with her mahl-stick. "You know what I meanquite well. It's a cousin of mine in the country."

  "I see--it runs in the family," said Bertie.

  "What runs in the family?" asked Mary.

  "Beautiful faces, of course."

  "Oh, that's too bad of you," said Mary pouting. "You know I don't likecompliments." She rubbed a pellet of bread fretfully into her drawing.

  "I don't pay compliments. I tell the truth," said Bertie, meeting hergaze unflinchingly.

  "Oh, look at that funny little curl Miss Roberts is wearing to-night!"

  "Bother Miss Roberts. When are you going to let me have _your_ face topaint?"

  "My cousin's, you mean," said Mary, rubbing away harder than ever.

  "No, I don't. I mean yours."

  "I never give away photographs to gentlemen."

  "Well, sit to me then."

  "Sit to you! Where?"

  "In my studio."

  "Good gracious! What are you talking about?"
/>
  "You."

  "Oh, you are too tiresome. I shall never get this finished," grumbledMary, concentrating herself so vigorously on the drawing that sheabsent-mindedly erased the last vestiges of it. She took up herplumb-line and held it in front of her cast and became absorbed incontemplating it.

  "You haven't answered my question, Miss Friscoe," whispered Bertiepertinaciously.

  "What question?"

  "When are you going to lend me your face?"

  "Look, there's Mr. Biskett going home already!"

  "Hang Mr. Biskett! I say, Mary----" he began passionately.

  "How are you getting on, Mr. Smythe?" came the creaking voice of Potts,the drawing-master, behind him.

  "Pretty well, thank you; how's yourself?" mechanically replied Bertie,greatly flustered by his inopportune arrival.

  Potts stared and Mary burst into a ringing laugh.

  "Look at _my_ drawing, Mr. Potts," she said. "It _will_ come so funny."

  "Why, there's nothing there," said Potts.

  "Dear me, no more there is," said Mary. "I--I was entirely dissatisfiedwith it. You might just sketch it in for me."

  Potts was accustomed to doing the work of most of the lady students.They used to let him do a little bit on each of his rounds till thething was completed. He set to work on Mary's drawing, leaving her tofinish being proposed to.

  "And you really love me?" Mary was saying, while Potts was sketching thesecond plum.

  "Can you doubt it?" Bertie whispered tremulously.

  "Yes, I do doubt it. You have loved so many girls, you know. Oh, I haveheard all about your conquests."

  She thought it was best to take the bull by the horns, and her breathcame thick and fast as she waited for the reply that would make or marher life.

  Bertie's face lit up with pleasure.

  "Oh, but----" he began.

  "Ah, yes, I know," she interrupted triumphantly. "What about thatactress you are painting now?"

  "Oh, well," said Bertie. "If you say 'yes,' I promise never to speak toher again."

  "And you will give up your bad habits?" she continued joyfully.

  "Every one. Even my cigarettes, if you say the word. My whole life shallbe devoted to making you happy. You shall never hear a cross word frommy lips."

  Mary's face fell, her lip twitched. What was the use of marrying amilksop like that? Where would be the fun of a union without mutualrecriminations and sweet reconciliations? She even began to doubtwhether he was wicked after all.

  "Did you ever really love that actress?" she whispered anxiously.

  "No, of course I didn't," said Bertie soothingly. "To tell the truth, Ihave never spoken to her in my life. I bought her photo in theBurlington arcade and I only talk with the fellows about ballet girls inorder, not to be behind the times. I never knew what love was till I metyou. You are the only----"

  Crash! bang! went his three-legged easel, upset by Mary's irrepressiblemovement of pique. The eyes of the class were on them in a moment, butonly Mary knew that in that crash her last hope of happiness had fallen,too.

  * * * * *

  "I do trust Miss Friscoe's last chance will not prove a blank again,"said Lord Silverdale, when Lillie had told him of the poor girl'sdisappointments.

  "Why?" asked the President.

  "Because I shrink from the _viva voce_ examination."

  "Why?" asked the President.

  "I am afraid I should be so dangerous."

  "Why?" asked the President.

  "Because _I have_ loved before. I shall be desperately in love withanother woman all through the interview."

  "Oh, I am so sorry, but you are inadmissible," said Lillie, when MissFriscoe came to announce her willingness to join the Club.

  "Why?" asked the candidate.

  "Because you belong to an art-class. It is forbidden by our by-laws. Howstupid of me not to think of it yesterday!"

  "But I am ready to give it up."

  "Oh, I couldn't dream of allowing that on any account," said thePresident. "I hear you draw so well."

  So Mary never went before the Honorary Trier.