A step on the staircase brought an end to the yielding to emotion. She closed her book, and pushed the lamp to the middle of the table. There was a sound as though of groping at the door; and the playwright entered, wearing his working garb—a ragged coat of some fabric that looked like canvas,—and bearing a pile of papers in his hands.
“Is Soulsby coming to-night?” he said, as he set the manuscript down.
“To supper at eight o’clock. It is the hour now,” said his mother, in guttural aged tones, which a German accent made curious.
Claverhouse took the seat that was nearest, and rested his elbows on the table, pushing his hands through his hair, and glancing at the clock.
“It is finished,” he said. “I can read it to him to-night. He is long, is he not? I am in the vein for reading. He is very long.”
“He is coming to supper,” said Janet, resting her eyes on the disordering of the table, but taking no further heed. “We must have supper first, Sigismund. You have eaten nothing since midday.”
“I want nothing,” said Claverhouse, rising and moving excitedly. “I need nothing. Is he not coming? The last scene—it has lived so long with me. He is very late.”
“Well, but what of your old mother, Sigismund? There are not so many suppers before a woman of ninety, that she should waste the chance of one,” said Janet, with a laugh that was deep but pleasant-toned.
“Ah! we will have supper, my little mother,” said the son, with a smile that brought a sudden difference to his face. “But Soulsby is long. He prevents our beginning.”
Mrs Claverhouse laid her hand on the worn little volume at her side.
“I have been reading again the play, which I call my own play,” she said. “I wept again over it, my son. You have given the father you never saw, to me again, if not to the world. It needs something to bring tears at ninety—at the fiftieth reading.”
“Ah! it is a good play,” said Claverhouse. “But I was a boy when I wrote it. It is different now. There is the knocker!”
He hastened from the room and went to the outer door; but on reaching it paused and fumbled.
“The door will not open,” he called. “It is fastened.”
“Turn the key,” said the guttural tones from within. “It is locked on the inside. It does not keep together else; it needs to be mended. You have only to turn the key.”
“The key?” said Claverhouse, stooping and fumbling, and finally clutching it, as though his hands had found it, and not his eyes. “Ah, Soulsby! you are late. Come in, come in.”
A rapid, nervous utterance responded, as a tall figure stepped into the passage.
“I am sorry—I am sorry; I had no idea—no idea at all that I was late. I hope—I hope it is of no matter.”
“No matter, no matter,” said Claverhouse, standing aside, and not heeding that his friend was at trouble in the discarding of his outer garment. “You are good to come. The play is written to the end. I wrote the last scene to-night. It is different from all the rest. You shall hear it in a moment. Come in.”
As the guest entered the lamp-lit sitting-room, he was a contrast to the figure he followed. Tall and well-moulded, with large, sensitive features, tended waves of glossy grey hair, and a manner marked by the nervousness of over-culture, he looked what he was, a type of the university don. He was the tutor of one of the colleges—a large - hearted pedant, to his finger - tips gently academic; with the tastes and talents rather of the scholar than the man. of letters; but an instinctive knowledge of the genius that lived unsought, amid the many grey walls that stood in the sanctity of genius dead. The bonds that bound him alone of men to the dramatist, were too subtle for disentwining. They were not less strong that they were subtle.
“I am afraid—I am afraid I have kept you waiting,” he said in his quick, hesitating manner, as he greeted Janet. “Pray—pray do not rise—pray do not. I had no idea—no idea I was behind the time.”
“You are very little behind the time,” said Janet, as she lifted the manuscript from the spread table, and placed it elsewhere. “And for Sigismund to take any one to task on exactness in time, is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Sit down, Sigismund; and let William have his meal in peace.”
It was a habit of Janet’s to address Soulsby, though she had not known him till his youth was past, by his baptismal name. It was one of her few evincements of greatness of age; and Soulsby accepted it with the unnoticing courtesy, with which he accepted all that was unwonted in the genius’ home.
The three now seated themselves at the table. A dish was brought in by a bent old servant, and set before Janet; who dispensed it with perfect precision of movement; paying covert heed to the fancies of her son, and attending to Soulsby with pretty courtliness. The servant knew her duties well. She was ready to the moment with a supporting touch, if Janet’s hands showed signs of faltering; the extras of the meal were set with unobtrusive closeness under her master’s dim-sighted eyes; some wonted attentions, with which Janet and her son dispensed, were paid to the guest; and all was done with a silent evenness of movement, which covered the actions. It was clear to which member of the household her devotion was given. She watched her master through every unoccupied moment; lingered over the supplying of his needs; and observed the extent of his justice to her culinary skill, with eyes that were almost jealous. He had spoken truth when he disclaimed desire for food; but when he was brought to settle to a meal, other things, as Julia knew with rejoicing, had their turn of being forgotten.
When he had finished, he threw himself back in his seat, pushed his hands through his hair, and looked at her with a smile.
“That was good, Julia,” he said.
Julia’s face illumined, and relapsed at once into its usual neutral alertness.
“Ah, Julia,” went on Claverhouse, who always had a word with his old dependent once in the day; “you are a clever housewoman. You will make a good wife some time.”
Julia’s face assumed the conscious smile of sixty-three years of unwooed maidenhood. The jest was an old friend; and as such she loved and welcomed it.
“Ah, Julia!” continued Claverhouse, “you are coy, I am afraid; you are coy. Where did you learn those naughty proud airs? It is time you grew out of them. Is it not, Soulsby?”
Soulsby looked up in some uneasiness. Supper in the playwright’s household was an old experience; but it was a case where custom had wrought little. He had sat, as was his wont, in apparent discomfiture—though no eyes saw it but Julia’s,—fidgeting with his nervous hands; and glancing from his hostess to her son, as if reluctant to thrust his voice on the silence. He was grateful that the talkative spirit had come on his friend; but this appeal to himself was not of a kind he would have chosen.
“Ah—yes—yes, yes,” he replied; “yes, very possibly.”
“You talk too much nonsense, Sigismund,” said Janet, in her deep tones. “Let us move from the table, so that Julia may clear it.”
“Ah, my little mother? Yes, you are right; you are right. You are always right to me,” said Claverhouse, perceiving that Janet’s jealousy was touched.
“How about the reading of the play, my son? “said the mother. “It is growing late; and William will be leaving us.”
“Ah!” said Claverhouse, with a world of remembrance and emotion. “Late, is it? It is of no matter. Take some seat, Soulsby—no, no; not there, not there. There—where I can see your face. Sit here, little mother—here; so that the ear that is not deaf is turned to me. Quiet, Julia; or go, go. Now, Soulsby, find what you think.”
He sat in a low chair, with the manuscript set on his knees, and his eyes nearly touching its pages. The friend sat opposite, his fine frame in repose, the grey waves of his hair glossy in the firelight, his large, shapely hands twining and untwining at his breast.
Claverhouse plunged at once into the play. The harshness of his voice and his eruptive utterance at first gave colour to what he read: but as the drama unfolded, Soulsby leant
forward in his seat, ceasing his nervous movements, and rivetting his eyes on his face; and Janet almost crouched in her chair, her strange eyes gazing before her, and gathering tears or fire as the deep tones fell. The reader’s voice, under the veil of its own qualities, became the voice of each character. At one time he sprang to his feet, and read for minutes standing. His tones swelled, sank, and carried trembling or tears. At the end he neither raised his eyes nor moved his limbs. He sat unseeing and silent, living yet in his self-created world. Neither Soulsby nor Janet broke the silence. The hours had passed; but neither had heeded them. The silence lingered, and seemed to be deepening, when suddenly Claverhouse turned, and looked at Janet.
The aged woman was exhausted. She was lying back in her chair, with features and limbs relaxed. Crouching thus, with her eyes closed, and energy and motion gone, she looked what she was—a fragile, aged creature. The playwright rose; and stooping over her, raised her to her feet with an easiness which showed the service familiar; his face betraying some depth of feeling, but his voice abrupt and harshly toned.
“Let me have that lamp, Soulsby. Push that chair aside, and open the door. My mother is worn out. I will be down in a moment.”
The strange-looking couple passed from the room, and mounted the staircase; the son walking close to the mother, slackening his pace to hers, and keeping the hand not hampered with the lamp on her arm, in readiness to tighten its grasp. The scene was a daily one on the steep little staircase. He was as mindful of Janet’s years in the matter of bodily danger, as forgetful of them in the dealings of their daily life. He feared to trust her on the stairs of the narrow old dwelling; and never forgot to help her to her door at night, or to wait in the morning to support or carry her down. He knew nothing of her many unattended journeys to the door of his working-chamber; for Janet loved the tender service, and shrank from robbing of their value the many times of its fulfilment. She had spoken no word on the matter to Julia; but the faithful old servant watched and was wise, rejoicing in the trust she had earned; and when her master’s eyes were safe, paid no heed to the disobedience, but otherwise guarded the forbidden ground from unaided steps.
This evening Julia’s doings told much of herself and her place in the household. Through the reading of the play she knelt with her ear at the keyhole; though her face betrayed that her pleasure was rather in her master’s voice than in what he read. When the silence came, she rose to her feet, but remained in a posture of listening; and when Claverhouse and Janet appeared, neither started nor stepped aside, but stood in quiet waiting. When the former returned, she watched him out of sight with venerating eyes, and then made haste to the tending of her mistress.
Claverhouse made his appeal to his friend almost before the door was open.
“Well?” he said; “well?”
Soulsby was sitting in the firelight, his hands passing up and down before each other, and his eyes fixed on the glowing coals. He had been moved to strong emotion, and his nervousness had left him.
“It is wonderful,” he said in grave, musical tones, turning his large grey eyes to Claverhouse. “It is wonderful. It is great—there is no doubt it is great.”
“It is true, is it not?” said Claverhouse. “It is that, that I strove for. Have I got it, Soulsby? Ah, but I have.”
“The play is wonderful,” repeated Soulsby. “It is marvellously deep.”
“Deep?” said Claverhouse. “Yes, it is deep. There is no great play that is not deep. But there are great plays that are not true. Mine is true, if you could but know it.”
“If I could but know it?” said the other with a return of his nervous manner. “Yes, yes—you are right. I hardly follow you.”
“You do not follow me?” said Claverhouse, leaning forwards, and speaking low. “Listen! When Althea hears that her father is dead, she utters no sound, no word—that is true. The madman in his lucid days thinks more of the life he shares for the time with his kind, than of the certain madness before him—that is true. When the teacher is enfeebled beyond the toil of his years, his thoughts are of the pupils whom he taught in his prime, rather than of those he is yielding up with their present gratitude. When old Jannetta is failing, she is cold to the friends who tend her age, and yearns towards her kin of blood.”
“Yes, yes, I follow,” said Soulsby. “I see that it is true—that all—that all your plays are true.”
“No, no, that is not what I said,” said Claverhouse, rising to his feet. “In all of them there is truth; but the two last are all true; this one, and the one that lies unread in the closet.” Then with a change of tone, “Ah, well! Well, Soulsby, what is there in this, that offends your scholar’s judgment?”
“There—there was—there seemed to me—amongst other things,” said Soulsby, “a slight—a slight discrepancy between the opening speech, and the reference to it later in the play. I—I think, if you consider it, you will agree with me.”
“Soulsby, you are a pedant—a quibbling schoolman,” said Claverhouse, moving his limbs impatiently. “You love the letter; and the spirit escapes you.”
“No, no, believe me, it does—it does not,” said Soulsby. “I was only—only answering the question you put. And I think you will see—will see I am right. A superficial inelegance remains—remains an inelegance.”
“Inelegance!” said Claverhouse, fuming in contempt for the expression, and then changing his tone. “Soulsby, you are a friend and helper I value greatly. You understand it, is it not so? I knew it; and too well to be showing it so overmuch. So there are other ‘inelegances’? Well, let us see to them. Tell me them. I will be grateful.”
The friends talked earnestly over the manuscript; Soulsby showing his points with nervous insistence; and Claverhouse alternately fuming and complying. He chafed less as the talk proceeded, and he felt the spirit of the drama tighten its hold. He read on rapidly, often losing sight of the task of revision; and at last became utterly lost in it. He rose to his feet, holding it closely to his eyes, and read on aloud, in forgetfulness of Soulsby’s presence. It was one o’clock in the morning. Soulsby noiselessly rose to his feet, crept to the door, stood for a moment watching the stooping form, and then slipped from the house. Julia came from the kitchen, fastened the outer door, and went up to bed. An hour later her master followed her, walking wearily, and carrying the manuscript under his arm.
Day began late in the playwright’s strange little household. The many clocks of the university were striking the hour of nine, when Julia entered the living-room to clear the day’s disorder; and the sun was strong, when Claverhouse and Janet sat at their silent morning meal. Janet had recovered from the previous night’s exhaustion. She was one of those aged people who sleep readily and long; and thus put on their waning energy the minimum daily drain. The daylight had neither injustice nor mercy for the seamed, dark-coloured skin, the strong, sunken jaw, and the hair’s dead whiteness. When the meal was over she rose; and seating herself on a covered stool by an ottoman that was wont to serve her as a table, spoke her first words of the day to her son.
“Sigismund, I will read the play to myself.”
Claverhouse nodded, as though half-gratified; and going from the room, returned with the manuscript. He set it by his mother, after holding it closely to his eyes, to ensure his placing it the right way up before her; and left her without a word. In the narrow little hall he came to a pause, and pushed his fingers through his hair, as though he were schooling himself for a task that was distasteful. After a moment he made his way to his attic study, to await the pupils whose teaching was the trial of his days, and the means of his sustenance through them. The room seemed to fit its owner. It was bare of board, and of sparse furnishing; disorderly and paper - scattered. The table was hacked and scored; a pile of used quill pens flanked a broken inkstand; a smaller table, clearly profaned by any touch but his own, was littered with crumpled papers and grey with dust. He seated himself at the larger table, and drew towards him a pile of papers, scored
and overwritten in his own hand. Till late in the afternoon, with the respite of an hour for food, he laboured at his irksome toil. His pupils came and went—strong - limbed striplings, rejoicing in their youth, ignorant or heedless of their contact with genius, ready to hail any carelessness of duty as a pedagogic favour. He laboured with a simple conscientiousness; recognising the prostitution of his powers, and giving of them fully. When the last had left him, he rose and stretched his limbs; and then went at once to a wooden cabinet, and drew out a pile of manuscript. He held it for a long moment, almost dandling it in his arms; and then replaced it with a lingering touch. “Ah!” he muttered. “There is another now.”
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