After that last scene the days dragged more intolerably than ever; but happily for Beth there were not many more of them without a break, for just as it seemed that endurance must end in some desperate act, Mrs. Kilroy sent her a pressing invitation to go and pay her a long visit in London; and Beth accepted it, and went with such a sense of relief as an invalid feels who, after long suffering, finds herself well, and out in the free fresh air once more.
CHAPTER XLVII
When Beth went to stay with the Kilroys in London, it was a question whether she might not end by joining the valiant army of those who are in opposition to everything; but before she had been there a week, she had practically recovered her balance, and began to look out upon life once more with dispassionate attention. Her depression when she first arrived was evident, and the Kilroys were concerned to see her looking so thin and ill; but, by degrees, she expanded in that genial atmosphere, and although she said little as a rule, she had begun to listen and to observe again with her usual vivid interest. She could not have been better situated for the purpose, for people of all kinds came to the Kilroys; and in moving among them merely as an onlooker, she was bound to see and hear enough to take her out of herself. Her own personality was too distinct, however, for her to remain for long an onlooker merely. That mesmeric quality in her which, whether it fascinates or displeases, attracts or repels, marks a distinct personality which is not to be overlooked, made people ask at once who she was, in the hope that her acquaintance might be worth cultivating. For there was a certain air of distinction about her which made her look like a person with some sort of prestige, whom it might be useful to know – don't you know.
One afternoon soon after Beth's arrival, Mrs. Kilroy being at home to visitors, and the rooms already pretty full, Beth noticed among the callers an old-looking young man whose face seemed familiar to her. He wore a pointed beard upon his chin, and a small moustache cut away from his upper lip, and waxed and turned up at the ends. His face was thin and narrow, his forehead high and bald; what hair he had grew in a fringe at the back of his head, and was curly, and of a nondescript brown colour. Had he worn the dress of the Elizabethan period, he might have passed for a bad attempt to look like Shakespeare; and Beth thought that that perhaps might be the resemblance which puzzled her. While she was looking at him a lady was announced, a most demure-looking little person in a grey costume, and a small, close-fitting princess bonnet, tied under her chin, and trimmed with a big Alsatian bow in front. She entered smiling slightly, and she continued to smile, as if she had set the smile on her lips as she put the bonnet on her head, to complete her costume. After she had shaken hands with Angelica, she looked round as if in search of some one else, and seemed satisfied when she discovered the old-looking young man of Shakesperian aspect. He was watching her, and their eyes met with a momentary significance, but they took no further notice of each other. Most people would have perceived no more in the glance than showed on the surface: – a lady and gentleman who looked at each other and then looked away, like indifferent acquaintances or casual strangers; but Beth's infallible intuition revealed to her an elaborate precaution in this seeming unconcern. It was clear to her that the two had expected to meet each other there, and their apparent insensibility to each other's presence was a pose, which, however, betrayed to her the intimacy it was affected to conceal. She hated herself for seeing so much, and burned with blame of Dan for opening her eyes to behold the inward wickedness beneath the conventional propriety of the outward demeanour; but therein she was unjust to Dan. He had opened her eyes sooner than they should have been opened, but in any case she must have seen for herself eventually. Nothing in life can be concealed from such a mind. What books could not teach her, she discovered from people by sympathy, by insight, by intuition; but she did not come into full possession of her faculties all at once. The conditions of her life had tended rather to retard than to develop the best that was in her, and the wonder was that her vision had not been permanently distorted, so that she could see nothing but evil in all things – see it, too, till her eyes were accustomed and her soul corrupted, so that she not only ceased to resent it, but finally accepted it as the inevitable order to which it is best to accommodate oneself if one is to get any good out of life. This is the fate of most young wives situated as Beth had been, the fate she had only narrowly escaped by help of the strength that came of the brave self-contained habits she had cultivated in her life of seclusion and thought. It was the result of this training, and her constancy in pursuing it, that her further faculty, hitherto so fitful, at last shot up a bright and steady light which made manifest to her the thoughts of others that they were not all evil, and helped her by the grace in her own heart to perceive hidden processes of love at work in other hearts, all tending to purification, and by the goodness of her own soul to search out the goodness in other souls as the elements find their constituent parts in the atmosphere.
Beth was looking her best that afternoon, although she had taken no pains with herself. She seemed well dressed by dint of looking well in her clothes; but she had not chosen to make herself look well. In the exasperated phase of revolt through which she was passing, she could not have been persuaded to dress so as to heighten the effect of her appearance, and so make of herself a trap to catch admiring glances. To be neat and fresh was all her care; but that was enough. The young man with the pointed beard, who had been looking about the room uneasily, seemed to have found what he wanted when he noticed her. He asked an elderly man standing near him who the young lady of distinguished appearance might be. "A friend of Mrs. Kilroy's, I believe," the gentleman answered, and moved off as if he resented the question.
But Pointed Beard was persistent. He asked two or three other people, strangers, who did not know either, and then he made his way to Mrs. Kilroy, but she was so surrounded he could not get near her. At last he bethought him of the servants who were handing tea about, and learnt Beth's name from one of them.
When Beth next noticed him, he was making his way towards her with a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of cakes in the other.
"I have ventured to bring you some tea," he said, "but I do not know if it is as you like it. I can easily get you some more, however, if it is not."
"Thank you; I do not want any," Beth answered somewhat coldly.
"I'll put it here, then, on this console," he rejoined. "If I move away I shall not be able to get near you again in this crowd. I wonder why Mrs. Kilroy has so many people. Now, I like just a few, eight or ten for a dinner, you know, and twenty or so on these sort of occasions. And they must all be interesting people, worth talking to. I am exceedingly fastidious about the kind of people I know. Even as a boy I was fastidious."
As he uttered that last sentence, Beth was again aware of something familiar in his appearance, and she felt sure she had heard him make that same remark more than once before – but when? but where?
"That is Lord Fitzkillingham," he continued, "that tall man who has just come in – see, there! – shaking hands with Mrs. Kilroy. He looks like a duke, don't you know. I admire people of distinguished appearance much more than good-looking people – people who are merely good-looking, I mean, of course. I saw you directly I came into the room, and was determined to find out who you were; and I asked I can't tell you how many people, whether I knew them or not. What do you think of that for perseverance?"
"You certainly seem to be persistent," Beth answered with a smile.
"Oh, I'm nothing if not persistent," he rejoined complacently. "I'll undertake to find out anything I want to know. Do you see that lady there in black? I wanted to know her age, so I went to Somerset House and looked it up."
"What did you do that for?" Beth asked.
"I wanted to know."
"But did she want you to know?"
"Well, naturally not, or she would have told me. But it is no use trying to conceal things from me. I am not to be deceived."
"You must be quite a loss to Scotland Yard," Beth ventured. "You would have been admirably fitted for that – er – delicate kind of work."
"Well, I think I should," he rejoined. "You see I found you out, and it was not so easy, for – er – no one seemed to know you. However, that does not matter. We'll soon introduce you."
Beth smiled. "Thank you," she said drily, "that will be very nice."
"I'll bring Fitzkillingham presently; he'll do anything for me. He was one of our set at the 'Varsity. That's the best of going to the 'Varsity. You meet the right kind of people there, people who can help you, you know, if you can get in with them as I did. You'll like Fitzkillingham. He's a very good fellow."
"Indeed!" said Beth. "What has he done?"
"Done!" he echoed. "Oh, nothing that I know of. Consider his position! The Earl of Fitzkillingham, with a rent-roll of fifty thousand a year, has no need to do; he has only to be. There, he's caught my eye. I'll go and fetch him."
"Pray do nothing of the kind," said Beth emphatically. "I have no wish to know him."
The young man, disconcerted, turned and looked her full in the face. "Why not?" he gasped.
"First of all, because you were going to present him without asking my permission," Beth said, "which is a liberty I should have had to resent in any case by refusing to know him; and secondly, because a man worth fifty thousand a year who has done no good in the world is not worth knowing. I don't think he should be allowed to be unless he can be made to do. Pray excuse me if I shock your prejudices," she added, smiling. "You do not know, perhaps, that in our set, knowing people for position rather than for character is quite out of date?"
The young man smiled superciliously. "That is rather a bourgeois sentiment, is it not?" he said.
"On the contrary," said Beth, "it is the other that is the huckster spirit. What is called knowing the right people is only the commercial principle of seeking some advantage. Certain people make a man's acquaintance, and pay him flattering attentions, not because their hearts are good and they wish to give him pleasure, but because there is some percentage of advantage to be gained by knowing him. That is to be bourgeois in the vulgar sense, if you like! And that is the trade-mark stamped upon most of us – selfishness! snobbishness! One sees it in the conventional society manners, which are superficially veneered, fundamentally bad; the outcome of self-interest, not of good feeling; one knows exactly how, where, and when they will break down."
"What are you holding forth about, Beth?" said Mrs. Kilroy, coming up behind her.
"The best people," Beth answered, smiling.
"You mean the people who call themselves the best people – Society, that is to say," said Mrs. Kilroy cheerfully. "Society is the scum that comes to the surface because of its lightness, and does not count, except in sets where ladies' papers circulate."
"I am surprised to hear you talk so, Mrs. Kilroy," said Pointed Beard in an offended tone, as if society had been insulted in his person.
"I am sorry if I disappoint you," said Mrs. Kilroy. "And I confess I like my own set and their pretty manners; but I know their weaknesses. There is no snob so snobbish as a snob of good birth. The upper classes will be the last to learn that it is sterling qualities which are wanted to rule the world, – head and heart."
"This gentleman will tell you that all that is bourgeois," said Beth.
"I believe that at heart the bourgeois are sound," said Angelica. "Bourgeois signifies good, sound, self-respecting qualities to me, and steady principles."
"But scarcely 'pretty manners,' I should suppose," said Pointed Beard superciliously.
"Why not?" said Angelica. "Sincerity and refinement make good manners, and principle is the parent of both."
"Don't you think that for the most part Englishwomen are singularly lacking in charms of manner?" he asked precisely.
"Just as Englishmen are, and for the same reason," said Angelica; "because they only try to be agreeable when it suits themselves. A good manner is a decoration that must be kept on always if it is to be worn with ease. Good manners are rare because good feeling is rare, for good manners are the outcome of good feeling. Manners are not the mere society show of politeness, but the inward kindly sympathy of which politeness is the natural outward manifestation; given these, grace and charm of manner come of themselves."
She moved off as she spoke to attend to other guests.
"Mrs. Kilroy is obvious," said Pointed Beard, in a tone that suggested sympathy with Beth for being bored. "I wonder she did not give us 'For manners are not idle,' et cetera, or something equally banal – the kind of thing we are taught in our infancy – "
"And fail to apply ever after," said Beth.
"I see you are ready," he observed fatuously, striking the personal note again, which she resented.
"I dislike that cant of the obvious which there is so much of here in town," she rejoined. "It savours of preciosity. All that is finest in thought is obvious. A great truth, well put, when heard for the first time, is so crystal clear to the mind, one seems to have known it always. No one fears to be obvious who has anything good to say."
He stroked his beard in silence for some seconds. "I suppose you go in for politics, and all that sort of thing," he said at last.
"Why?" Beth asked in her disconcerting way.
"Oh, judging by your friends."
"Not a safe guide," she assured him. "My friends have the most varied interests; and even if they had not, it would be somewhat monotonous for them to associate exclusively with people of the same pursuits."
"Then you do not take an interest in politics?" he jerked out, almost irritably, as if he had a right to know.
For a moment Beth had a mind to baffle him for his tasteless persistency, but her natural directness saved her from such small-mindedness. "If I must answer your catechism," she said, smiling, "social subjects interest me more. I find generalisations bald and misleading, and politics are a generalisation of events. I rarely read a political speech through, and remember very little of what it is all about when I do. Details, individuals, and actions fascinate me, but the circumstances of a people as a state rarely interest me much."
"Ah, I fear that is – er – a feminine point of view, rather – is it not?" he rejoined patronisingly.
"Yes," she said, "and a scientific method. We go from the particular to the general, and only draw broad conclusions when we have collected our facts in detail. But excuse me, I see a friend," she broke off hastily, seizing the chance to escape.
A little later Beth saw that the demure-looking little person in the princess bonnet was taking her leave. She passed down the room with her set little smile on her lips, looking about her, but apparently without seeing any one in particular till she got to the door, when her eye lighted on the young man of Shakesperian mien, and her smile flickered a moment, and went out. The young man turned and looked at a picture with an elaborately casual air, then sauntered across the room to Mrs. Kilroy, shook hands with her, spoke to one or two other people, and finally reached the door and opened it with the same solemn affectation of not being in a hurry, and disappeared. Beth wondered if he kept his caution up before the footmen in the hall, or if he made an undignified bolt of it the moment he was out of sight of society.
At dinner that evening she asked Mrs. Kilroy who and what that thin-nosed man, that sort of reminiscence of Shakespeare, was.
"He is by way of being a literary man, I believe," Angelica answered. "He is not a friend of ours, and I cannot think why he comes here. I never ask him. He got himself introduced to me somehow, and then came and called, which I thought an impertinence. Did you notice that woman with an Alsatian bow in her bonnet, that made her look like a horse with its ears laid back? Her pose is to improve young men. She improves them away from their wives, and I object to the method; and I do not ask her here either. Yet she comes. His wife I have much sympathy with; but he keeps her in the country, out of the way, so I see very little of her."
"What is his name?" Beth asked.
"Alfred Cayley Pounce."
"Why!" Beth exclaimed. "He must be a youth I knew long ago, when I was a child. I was sure I had seen him before. But what a falling off! I wondered if he were an old young man, or a young old man when I first saw him. He was refined as a boy and had artistic leanings; I should have thought he might have developed something less banal in the time than a bald forehead."
"That kind of man spends most of his time in cultivating acquaintances," said Mr. Kilroy. "When he hasn't birth, his pose is usually brains. But Pounce took a fair degree at the University. And he's not such a bad fellow, really. He's precious, of course, and by way of being literary – that is to say, he is literary to the extent of having written some little things of no consequence, upon which he assumes the right to give his opinion, with appalling assurance, of the works of other people, which are of consequence. There is a perfect epidemic of that kind of assurance among the clever young men of the day, and it's wrecking half of them. A man who begins by having no doubt of the worth of his own opinion gets no further for want of room to move in."
Next day Beth was alone in a sunny sitting-room at the back of the house, looking out into grounds common to the whole square. It was about tea-time. The windows were wide open, the sunblinds were drawn down outside, and the warm air, fragrant with mignonette, streamed in over the window boxes. Angelica had given this room up to Beth, and here she worked or rested; read, wrote, or reflected, as she felt inclined; soothed rather than disturbed by the far-off sounds of the city, and eased in mind by the grace and beauty of her surroundings. For the room was a work of art in itself, an Adams room, with carved white panels, framing spaces of rich brocade, delicately tinted, on the walls; with furniture chosen for comfort as well as elegance, and no more of it than was absolutely necessary, no crowding of chairs and tables, no congestion of useless ornaments, no plethora of pictures, putting each other out – only two, in fact, one a summer seascape, with tiny waves bursting on shining sands; the other a corner of a beautiful old garden, shady with trees, glowing with flowers, whence two young lovers, sitting on an old stone seat, looked out with dreamy eyes on a bright glimpse, framed in foliage, of the peaceful country beyond. Angelica had thought that room out carefully for Beth, every detail being considered, so that the whole should make for rest and refreshment, and she had succeeded perfectly. Nothing could have eased Beth's mind of the effect of her late experiences, or strengthened it again more certainly, than the harmony, the quiet, and the convenience of everything about her – books on the shelves, needlework on the work-table, writing materials in abundance on the bureau, exquisite forms of flowers, and prevailing tints of apple-blossom, white, and pink, and green; music when she chose to play; comfort of couch and chairs when she wished to repose; and, above all, freedom from intrusion, the right to do as she liked gladly conceded, the respect which adds to the dignity of self-respect, and altogether the kind of independence that makes most for pleasure and peace. Before she had been there three weeks she was happily released from herself by the recovery of her power to work. She began to revise the book she had thought so little of when it was first written. She had brought it to town because it was not very bulky, rather than because she had any hope of it; but when she took it out and read it here alone in peace, it seized upon her with power, and, in her surprise, like Galileo, she exclaimed: "But it does turn round!" The book was already "radiant with inborn genius," but it still lacked the "acquired art," and feeling this, she sat down to it regularly, and rewrote it from beginning to end, greatly enriching it. She had no amateur impatience to appear in print and become known; the thought of production induced her to delay and do her utmost rather than to make indiscreet haste; her delight was in the doing essentially; she was not one to glory in public successes, however great, or find anything but a tepid satisfaction therein compared to the warm delight that came when her thoughts flowed, and the material world melted out of mind.
She had been busy with her book that afternoon, and very happy, until tea came. Then, being somewhat tired, she got up from the bureau at which she worked, and went to the tea-table, leaving her papers all scattered about; and she was in the act of pouring herself out a cup of tea, when the door opened, and the footman announced, "Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce."
Very much surprised, she put the teapot down deliberately and looked at him. He held his hat to his breast, and bowed with exaggerated deference, in an affected, foreign way.
"I insisted on seeing you," he began, as if that were something to boast of. "Perhaps I ought to apologise."
Beth, not knowing what to say, asked him to sit down. Then there was a little pause. He looked at the tea-table.
"I see that you do take tea," he observed. "Why did you refuse it when I offered you some yesterday?"
"I am afraid I am not prepared to give you a reason," Beth answered stiffly.
"Would it be out of place if I were to ask for some tea?" he said.
Beth silently poured him out a cup, and he got up, took what he wanted in the way of sugar and cream and cake, and sat down again, making himself very much at home.
"Do take some yourself," he pleaded. "You are making me feel such an outsider."
"I beg your pardon," said Beth, helping herself.
She did not know whether to be annoyed or amused by his assurance. Had she not known who he was she would certainly have been annoyed; but the recollection of their days together, when the world was young and life was all pure poetry, came upon her suddenly as she found something of the boy in the face and voice of the man before her, making it impossible for her to treat him as a stranger, and melting her into a smile.
"Confess that you were surprised to see me," he said.
"I was," she answered.
"And not glad, perhaps," he pursued.
"Surprised means neither glad nor sorry," she observed.
"D'you know, the moment I saw you – " he began sentimentally; "but never mind that now," he broke off. "Let me give you my reason for coming, which is also my excuse. I hope you will accept it."
Beth waited quietly.
"I told you I could always find out anything I wanted to know about anybody," he pursued, "and last night I happened to sit next a lady at a dinner-party who turned out to be a great friend of yours. I always talk to strange ladies about what I've been doing; that kind of thing interests them, you know; and I described the party here yesterday afternoon, and said I only met one lady in the whole assembly worth looking at and worth speaking to, and that was Mrs. Maclure, who was staying in the house. 'Oh, I know her quite well,' the lady said. 'She's a neighbour of mine at Slane. Her husband is a doctor, but I hear she is connected with some of the best county people in the north. She's very clever, I believe, and by way of being literary and all that sort of thing, don't you know. But I don't think she has any one to advise her.'"
"Oh," said Beth, enlightened, "I know who my great friend is then – Mrs. Carne!"
"Yes," said Mr. Pounce, "and when I heard you were literary, I felt a further affinity, for, as I daresay you have heard, I am a literary man myself."
"Yes; I heard you were 'by way of being literary,' too," Beth rejoined.
"Who told you so?" he demanded quickly, his whole thought instantly concentrated on the interesting subject when it concerned himself.
"I do not feel at liberty to tell you," she replied.
"Was it Mrs. Kilroy?"
Beth made no sign.
"Was it Mr. Kilroy?" he persisted.
"I have already said that I shall not tell you, Mr. Pounce," she answered frigidly.
He sat in silence for a little, looking extremely annoyed. Beth, to relieve the tension, offered him some more tea, which he refused curtly; but as she only smiled at the discourtesy and helped herself, he saw fit to change his mind, and then resumed the conversation.
"When Mrs. Carne heard that I was a literary man," he said with importance, "she begged me to do what I could to help you. She said it would be a great kindness; so I promised I would, and here I am."
"So it seems," said Beth.
He stared at her. "I mean it," he said.
"I don't doubt it," Beth answered. "You and Mrs. Carne are extremely kind."
"Oh, not at all!" he assured her blandly. "To me, at all events, it will be a great pleasure to help and advise you."
"How do you propose to do it?" Beth asked, relaxing. Such obtuseness was not to be taken seriously.
He glanced over his shoulder at the bureau where her papers were spread. "I shall get you to let me see some of your work," he said, "and then I can judge of its worth."
"What have you done yourself?" she asked.
"I – well, I write regularly for the Patriarch," he said, with the complacency of one who thinks that he need say no more. "The editor himself came to stay with us last week, and that means something. Just now, however, I am contemplating a work of fiction, an important work, if I may venture to say so myself. It has been on my mind for years."
"Indeed," said Beth. "What is its purpose?"
"Purpose!" he ejaculated. "Had you said pur-port instead of pur-pose, it would have been a sensible question. It is hardly likely I shall write a novel with a purpose. I leave that to the ladies."
"I have read somewhere that Milton said the poet's mission was 'to allay the perturbation of the mind and set the affections in right tune,' – is not that a purpose?" Beth asked. "And one in our own day has talked of 'that great social duty to impart what we believe and what we think we have learned. Among the few things of which we can pronounce ourselves certain is the obligation of inquirers after truth to communicate what they obtain.'"
"But not in the form of fiction," Alfred Cayley Pounce put in dogmatically.
"Yet there is always purpose in the best work of the great writers of fiction," Beth maintained.
Not being able to deny this, he supposed sarcastically that she had read all the works to which she alluded.
"I see you suspect that I have not," she answered, smiling.
"I suspect you did not find that passage you quoted just now from Milton in his works," he rejoined.
"I said as much," she reminded him.
"Well, but you ought to know better than to quote an author you have not read," he informed her.
"Do you mean that I should read all a man's works before I presume to quote a single passage?"
"I do," he replied. "Women never understand thoroughness," he observed, largely.
"Some of us see a difference between thoroughness and niggling," Beth answered. "I should say, beware of endless preparation! We have heard of Mr. Casaubon and The Key to all Mythologies."
"I understand now what your friend Mrs. Carne meant about the manner in which you take advice," Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce informed her, in a slightly offended tone.
Beth, wondering inwardly why so many people assume they are competent to advise, prayed that she herself might always be modest enough to wait at least until her advice was asked.
"I hope I have not discussed your opinion impolitely," she said. "Pray excuse me if you think I have."
Mollified, he turned his attention once more to the littered bureau.
"You have a goodly pile of manuscript there," he remarked; "may I ask what it is?"
"It is a little book into which I am putting all my ignorance," she said.
"I hope you are not going to be diffident about letting me see it?" he answered encouragingly. "I could certainly give you some useful hints."
"You are too kind," she said; and he accepted the assertion without a suspicion of sarcasm. She rose when she had spoken, drew the lid of the bureau down over her papers, and locked it deliberately; but the precaution rather flattered him than otherwise.
"You need not be afraid," he said. "I promise to be lenient. And if we are as fast friends when the book appears as I trust we shall be, the Patriarch itself shall proclaim its merits; if not – "
"I suppose it will discover my faults," Beth put in demurely. "I wonder, by the way," she added, "who told you you are so much cleverer than I am?"
But fortunately Mrs. Kilroy came in and interrupted them before he had had time to grasp the remark, for which Beth, from whom it had slipped unawares, was devoutly thankful.
When he had gone, she sat and wondered if she had really understood him aright with regard to the Patriarch. Certainly he had seemed to threaten her, but it was hard to believe that he had sunk so low as to be capable of criticising her work, not on its own merits, but with regard to the terms he should be on with its author. She was too upright herself, however, to think such dishonest meanness possible, so she put the suspicion far from her, and tried to find some charitable explanation of the several signs of paltriness she had already detected, and to think of him as he had seemed to her in the old days, when she had endowed him with all the qualities she herself had brought into their acquaintance to make it pleasant and of good effect.