III
For
days Lucian lay in a swoon of pleasure, smiling when he was addressed,
sauntering happily in the sunlight, hugging recollection warm to his heart.
Annie had told him that she was going on a visit to her married sister, and
said, with a caress, that he must be patient. He protested against her absence,
but she fondled him, whispering her charms in his ear till he gave in and then
they said good-bye, Lucian adoring on his knees. The parting was as strange as
the meeting, and that night when he laid his work aside, and let himself sink
deep into the joys of memory, all the encounter seemed as wonderful and
impossible as magic.
"And
you really don't mean to do anything about those rascals?" said his
father.
"Rascals?
Which rascals? Oh, you mean Beit. I had forgotten all about it. No; I don't
think I shall trouble. They're not worth powder and shot."
And
he returned to his dream, pacing slowly from the medlar to the quince and back
again. It seemed trivial to be interrupted by such questions; he had not even
time to think of the book he had recommenced so eagerly, much less of this
labor of long ago. He recollected without interest that it cost him many pains,
that it was pretty good here and there, and that it had been stolen, and it
seemed that there was nothing more to be said on the matter. He wished to think
of the darkness in the lane, of the kind voice that spoke to him, of the kind
hand that sought his own, as he stumbled on the rough way. So far, it was
wonderful. Since he had left school and lost the company of the worthy
barbarians who had befriended him there, he had almost lost the sense of
kinship with humanity; he had come to dread the human form as men dread the
hood of the cobra. To Lucian a man or a woman meant something that stung, that
spoke words that rankled, and poisoned his life with scorn. At first such
malignity shocked him: he would ponder over words and glances and wonder if he
were not mistaken, and he still sought now an then for sympathy. The poor boy
had romantic ideas about women; he believed they were merciful and pitiful,
very kind to the unlucky and helpless. Men perhaps had to be different; after
all, the duty of a man was to get on in the world, or, in plain language, to
make money, to be successful; to cheat rather than to be cheated, but always to
be successful; and he could understand that one who fell below this high
standard must expect to be severely judged by his fellows. For example, there
was young Bennett, Miss Spurry's nephew. Lucian had met him once or twice when
he was spending his holidays with Miss Spurry, and the two young fellows
compared literary notes together. Bennett showed some beautiful things he had
written, over which Lucian had grown both sad and enthusiastic. It was such
exquisite magic verse, and so much better than anything he ever hoped to write,
that there was a touch of anguish in his congratulations. But when Bennett,
after many vain prayers to his aunt, threw up a safe position in the bank, and
betook himself to a London garret, Lucian was not surprised at the general
verdict.
Mr.
Dixon, as a clergyman, viewed the question from a high standpoint and found it
all deplorable, but the general opinion was that Bennett was a hopeless young
lunatic. Old Mr. Gervase went purple when his name was mentioned, and the young
Dixons sneered very merrily over the adventure.
"I
always thought he was a beastly young ass," said Edward Dixon, "but I
didn't think he'd chuck away his chances like that. Said he couldn't stand a
bank! I hope he'll be able to stand bread and water. That's all those littery
fellows get, I believe, except Tennyson and Mark Twain and those sort of
people."
Lucian
of course sympathized with the unfortunate Bennett, but such judgments were
after all only natural. The young man might have stayed in the bank and
succeeded to his aunt's thousand a year, and everybody would have called him a
very nice young fellow - "clever, too." But he had deliberately
chosen, as Edward Dixon had said, to chuck his chances away for the sake of
literature; piety and a sense of the main chance had alike pointed the way to a
delicate course of wheedling, to a little harmless practicing on Miss Spurry's
infirmities, to frequent compliances of a soothing nature, and the "young
ass" had been blind to the direction of one and the other. It seemed
almost right that the vicar should moralize, that Edward Dixon should sneer,
and that Mr. Gervase should grow purple with contempt. Men, Lucian thought,
were like judges, who may pity the criminal in their hearts, but are forced to
vindicate the outraged majesty of the law by a severe sentence. He felt the
same considerations applied to his own case; he knew that his father should
have had more money, that his clothes should be newer and of a better cut, that
he should have gone to the university and made good friends. If such had been
his fortune he could have looked his fellow-men proudly in the face, upright
and unashamed. Having put on the whole armor of a first-rate West End tailor,
with money in his purse, having taken anxious thought for the morrow, and
having some useful friends and good prospects; in such a case he might have
held his head high in a gentlemanly and Christian community. As it was he had
usually avoided the reproachful glance of his fellows, feeling that he deserved
their condemnation. But he had cherished for a long time his romantic
sentimentalities about women; literary conventions borrowed from the minor
poets and pseudo-medievalists, or so he thought afterwards. But, fresh from
school, wearied a little with the perpetual society of barbarian though worthy
boys, he had in his soul a charming image of womanhood, before which he
worshipped with mingled passion and devotion. It was a nude figure, perhaps,
but the shining arms were to be wound about the neck of a vanquished knight;
there was rest for the head of a wounded lover; the hands were stretched forth
to do works of pity, and the smiling lips were to murmur not love alone, but
consolation in defeat. Here was the refuge for a broken heart; here the scorn
of men would but make tenderness increase; here was all pity and all charity
with loving-kindness. It was a delightful picture, conceived in the "come
rest on this bosom," and "a ministering angel thou" manner, with
touches of allurement that made devotion all the sweeter. He soon found that he
had idealized a little; in the affair of young Bennett, while the men were
contemptuous the women were virulent. He had been rather fond of Agatha
Gervase, and she, so other ladies said, had "set her cap" at him.
Now, when he rebelled, and lost the goodwill of his aunt, dear Miss Spurry,
Agatha insulted him with all conceivable rapidity. "After all, Mr.
Bennett," she said, "you will be nothing better than a beggar; now,
will you? You mustn't think me cruel, but I can't help speaking the truth.
Write books!" Her expression filled up the incomplete sentence; she
waggled with indignant emotion. These passages came to Lucian's ears, and
indeed the Gervases boasted of "how well poor Agatha had behaved."
"Never
mind, Gathy," old Gervase had observed. "If the impudent young puppy
comes here again, we'll see what Thomas can do with the horse-whip."
"Poor
dear child," Mrs. Gervase added in telling the tale, "and she was so
fond of him too. But of course it couldn't go on after his shameful
behavior."
But
Lucian was troubled; he sought vainly for the ideal womanly, the tender note of
"come rest on this bosom." Ministering angels, he felt convinced, do
not rub red pepper and sulfuric acid into the wounds of suffering mortals.
Then
there was the case of Mr. Vaughan, a squire in the neighborhood, at whose board
all the aristocracy of Caermaen had feasted for years. Mr. Vaughan had a
first-rate cook, and his cellar was rare, and he was never so happy as when he
shared his good things with his friends. His mother kept his house, and they delighted
all the girls with frequent dances, while the men sighed over the amazing
champagne. Investments proved disastrous, and Mr. Vaughan had to sell the grey
manor-house by the river. He and his mother took a little modern stucco villa
in Caermaen, wishing to be near their dear friends. But the men were "very
sorry; rough on you, Vaughan. Always thought those Patagonians were risky, but
you wouldn't hear of it. Hope we shall see you before very long; you and Mrs.
Vaughan must come to tea some day after Christmas."
"Of
course we are all very sorry for them," said Henrietta Dixon. "No, we
haven't called on Mrs. Vaughan yet. They have no regular servant, you know;
only a woman in the morning. I hear old mother Vaughan, as Edward will call
her, does nearly everything. And their house is absurdly small; it's little
more than a cottage. One really can't call it a gentleman's house."
Then
Mr. Vaughn, his heart in the dust, went to the Gervases and tried to borrow
five pounds of Mr. Gervase. He had to be ordered out of the house, and, as
Edith Gervase said, it was all very painful; "he went out in such a funny
way," she added, "just like the dog when he's had a whipping. Of
course it's sad, even if it is all his own fault, as everybody says, but he
looked so ridiculous as he was going down the steps that I couldn't help
laughing." Mr. Vaughan heard the ringing, youthful laughter as he crossed
the lawn.
Young
girls like Henrietta Dixon and Edith Gervase naturally viewed the Vaughans'
comical position with all the high spirits of their age, but the elder ladies
could not look at matters in this frivolous light.
"Hush,
dear, hush," said Mrs. Gervase, "it's all too shocking to be a
laughing matter. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Dixon? The sinful extravagance
that went on at Pentre always frightened me. You remember that ball they gave
last year? Mr. Gervase assured me that the champagne must have cost at least a
hundred and fifty shillings the dozen."
"It's
dreadful, isn't it," said Mrs. Dixon, "when one thinks of how many
poor people there are who would be thankful for a crust of bread?"
"Yes,
Mrs. Dixon," Agatha joined in, "and you know how absurdly the
Vaughans spoilt the cottagers. Oh, it was really wicked; one would think Mr.
Vaughan wished to make them above their station. Edith and I went for a walk
one day nearly as far as Pentre, and we begged a glass of water of old Mrs.
Jones who lives in that pretty cottage near the brook. She began praising the
Vaughans in the most fulsome manner, and showed us some flannel things they had
given her at Christmas. I assure you, my dear Mrs. Dixon, the flannel was the
very best quality; no lady could wish for better. It couldn't have cost less
than half-a-crown a yard."
"I
know, my dear, I know. Mr. Dixon always said it couldn't last. How often I have
heard him say that the Vaughans were pauperizing all the common people about
Pentre, and putting every one else in a most unpleasant position. Even from a
worldly point of view it was very poor taste on their part. So different from
the true charity that Paul speaks of."
"I
only wish they had given away nothing worse than flannel," said Miss
Colley, a young lady of very strict views. "But I assure you there was a
perfect orgy, I can call it nothing else, every Christmas. Great joints of
prime beef, and barrels of strong beer, and snuff and tobacco distributed
wholesale; as if the poor wanted to be encouraged in their disgusting habits.
It was really impossible to go through the village for weeks after; the whole
place was poisoned with the fumes of horrid tobacco pipes."
"Well,
we see how that sort of thing ends," said Mrs. Dixon, summing up
judicially. "We had intended to call, but I really think it would be
impossible after what Mrs. Gervase has told us. The idea of Mr. Vaughan trying
to sponge on poor Mr. Gervase in that shabby way! I think meanness of that kind
is so hateful."
It
was the practical side of all this that astonished Lucian. He saw that in
reality there was no high-flown quixotism in a woman's nature; the smooth arms,
made he had thought for caressing, seemed muscular; the hands meant for the
doing of works of pity in his system, appeared dexterous in the giving of
"stingers," as Barnes might say, and the smiling lips could sneer
with great ease. Nor was he more fortunate in his personal experiences. As has
been told, Mrs. Dixon spoke of him in connection with "judgments,"
and the younger ladies did not exactly cultivate his acquaintance.
Theoretically they "adored" books and thought poetry "too
sweet," but in practice they preferred talking about mares and
fox-terriers and their neighbors.
They
were nice girls enough, very like other young ladies in other country towns,
content with the teaching of their parents, reading the Bible every morning in
their bedrooms, and sitting every Sunday in church amongst the well-dressed
"sheep" on the right hand. It was not their fault if they failed to
satisfy the ideal of an enthusiastic dreamy boy, and indeed, they would have
thought his feigned woman immodest, absurdly sentimental, a fright ("never
wears stays, my dear") and horrid.
At
first he was a good deal grieved at the loss of that charming tender woman, the
work of his brain. When the Miss Dixons went haughtily by with a scornful
waggle, when the Miss Gervases passed in the wagonette laughing as the mud
splashed him, the poor fellow would look up with a facie of grief that must
have been very comic; "like a dying duck," as Edith Gervase said.
Edith was really very pretty, and he would have liked to talk to her, even about
fox-terriers, if she would have listened. One afternoon at the Dixons' he
really forced himself upon her, and with all the obtuseness of an enthusiastic
boy tried to discuss the Lotus Eaters of Tennyson. It was too absurd. Captain
Kempton was making signals to Edith all the time, and Lieutenant Gatwick had
gone off in disgust, and he had promised to bring her a puppy "by Vick out
of Wasp." At last the poor girl could bear it no longer:
"Yes,
it's very sweet," she said at last. "When did you say you were going
to London, Mr. Taylor?"
It
was about the time that his disappointment became known to everybody, and the
shot told. He gave her a piteous look and slunk off, "just like the dog
when he's had a whipping," to use Edith's own expression. Two or three lessons
of this description produced their due effect; and when he saw a male Dixon or
Gervase approaching him he bit his lip and summoned up his courage. But when he
descried a "ministering angel" he made haste and hid behind a hedge
or took to the woods. In course of time the desire to escape became an
instinct, to be followed as a matter of course; in the same way he avoided the
adders on the mountain. His old ideals were almost if not quite forgotten; he
knew that the female of the bête humaine, like the adder, would in all
probability sting, and he therefore shrank from its trail, but without any
feeling of special resentment. The one had a poisoned tongue as the other had a
poisoned fang, and it was well to leave them both alone. Then had come that sudden
fury of rage against all humanity, as he went out of Caermaen carrying the book
that had been stolen from him by the enterprising Beit. He shuddered as he
though of how nearly he had approached the verge of madness, when his eyes
filled with blood and the earth seemed to burn with fire. He remembered how he
had looked up to the horizon and the sky was blotched with scarlet; and the
earth was deep red, with red woods and red fields. There was something of
horror in the memory, and in the vision of that wild night walk through dim
country, when every shadow seemed a symbol of some terrible impending doom. The
murmur of the brook, the wind shrilling through the wood, the pale light
flowing from the moldered trunks, and the picture of his own figure fleeing and
fleeting through the shades; all these seemed unhappy things that told a story
in fatal hieroglyphics. And then the life and laws of the sunlight had passed
away, and the resurrection and kingdom of the dead began. Though his limbs were
weary, he had felt his muscles grow strong as steel; a woman, one of the hated
race, was beside him in the darkness, and the wild beast woke within him,
ravening for blood and brutal lust; all the raging desires of the dim race from
which he came assailed his heart. The ghosts issued out from the weird wood and
from the caves in the hills, besieging him, as he had imagined the spiritual
legion besieging Caermaen, beckoning him to a hideous battle and a victory that
he had never imagined in his wildest dreams. And then out of the darkness the
kind voice spoke again, and the kind hand was stretched out to draw him up from
the pit. It was sweet to think of that which he had found at last; the boy's
picture incarnate, all the passion and compassion of his longing, all the pity and
love and consolation. She, that beautiful passionate woman offering up her
beauty in sacrifice to him, she was worthy indeed of his worship. He remembered
how his tears had fallen upon her breast, and how tenderly she had soothed him,
whispering those wonderful unknown words that sang to his heart. And she had
made herself defenseless before him, caressing and fondling the body that had
been so despised. He exulted in the happy thought that he had knelt down on the
ground before her, and had embraced her knees and worshipped. The woman's body
had become his religion; he lay awake at night looking into the darkness with
hungry eyes; wishing for a miracle, that the appearance of the so-desired form
might be shaped before him. And when he was alone in quiet places in the wood,
he fell down again on his knees, and even on his face, stretching out vain
hands in the air, as if they would feel her flesh. His father noticed in those
days that the inner pocket of his coat was stuffed with papers; he would see Lucian
walking up and down in a secret shady place at the bottom of the orchard,
reading from his sheaf of manuscript, replacing the leaves, and again drawing
them out. He would walk a few quick steps, and pause as if enraptured, gazing
in the air as if he looked through the shadows of the world into some sphere of
glory, feigned by his thought. Mr. Taylor was almost alarmed at the sight; he
concluded of course that Lucian was writing a book. In the first place, there
seemed something immodest in seeing the operation performed under one's eyes;
it was as if the "make-up" of a beautiful actress were done on the
stage, in full audience; as if one saw the rounded calves fixed in position,
the fleshings drawn on, the voluptuous outlines of the figure produced by means
purely mechanical, blushes mantling from the paint-pot, and the golden tresses
well secured by the wigmaker. Books, Mr. Taylor thought, should swim into one's
ken mysteriously; they should appear all printed and bound, without apparent
genesis; just as children are suddenly told that they have a little sister,
found by mamma in the garden. But Lucian was not only engaged in composition;
he was plainly rapturous, enthusiastic; Mr. Taylor saw him throw up his hands,
and bow his head with strange gesture. The parson began to fear that his son
was like some of those mad Frenchmen of whom he had read, young fellows who had
a sort of fury of literature, and gave their whole lives to it, spending days
over a page, and years over a book, pursuing art as Englishmen pursue money,
building up a romance as if it were a business. Now Mr. Taylor held firmly by
the "walking-stick" theory; he believed that a man of letters should
have a real profession, some solid employment in life. "Get something to
do," he would have liked to say, "and then you can write as much as
you please. Look at Scott, look at Dickens and Trollope." And then there
was the social point of view; it might be right, or it might be wrong, but
there could be no doubt that the literary man, as such, was not thought much of
in English society. Mr. Taylor knew his Thackeray, and he remembered that old
Major Pendennis, society personified, did not exactly boast of his nephew's
occupation. Even Warrington was rather ashamed to own his connection with
journalism, and Pendennis himself laughed openly at his novel-writing as an
agreeable way of making money, a useful appendage to the cultivation of dukes,
his true business in life. This was the plain English view, and Mr. Taylor was
no doubt right enough in thinking it good, practical common sense. Therefore
when he saw Lucian loitering and sauntering, musing amorously over his
manuscript, exhibiting manifest signs that he fine fury which Britons have ever
found absurd, he felt grieved at heart, and more than ever sorry that he had
not been able to send the boy to Oxford.
"B.N.C.
would have knocked all this nonsense out of him," he thought. "He
would have taken a double First like my poor father and made something of a
figure in the world. However, it can't be helped." The poor man sighed,
and lit his pipe, and walked in another part of the garden.
But
he was mistaken in his diagnosis of the symptoms. The book that Lucian had
begun lay unheeded in the drawer; it was a secret work that he was engaged on,
and the manuscripts that he took out of that inner pocket never left him day or
night. He slept with them next to his heart, and he would kiss them when he was
quite alone, and pay them such devotion as he would have paid to her whom they
symbolized. He wrote on these leaves a wonderful ritual of praise and devotion;
it was the liturgy of his religion. Again and again he copied and recopied this
madness of a lover; dallying all days over the choice of a word, searching for
more exquisite phrases. No common words, no such phrases as he might use in a
tale would suffice; the sentences of worship must stir and be quickened, they
must glow and burn, and be decked out as with rare work of jewelry. Every part
of that holy and beautiful body must be adored; he sought for terms of
extravagant praise, he bent his soul and mind low before her, licking the dust
under her feet, abased and yet rejoicing as a Templar before the image of
Baphomet. He exulted more especially in the knowledge that there was nothing of
the conventional or common in his ecstasy; he was not the fervent, adoring
lover of Tennyson's poems, who loves with passion and yet with a proud respect,
with the love always of a gentleman for a lady. Annie was not a lady; the
Morgans had farmed their land for hundreds of years; they were what Miss
Gervase and Miss Colley and the rest of them called common people. Tennyson's
noble gentleman thought of their ladies with something of reticence; they
imagined them dressed in flowing and courtly robes, walking with slow dignity;
they dreamed of them as always stately, the future mistresses of their houses,
mothers of their heirs. Such lovers bowed, but not too low, remembering their
own honor, before those who were to be equal companions and friends as well as
wives. It was not such conceptions as these that he embodied in the amazing
emblems of his ritual; he was not, he told himself, a young officer,
"something in the city," or a rising barrister engaged to a Miss
Dixon or a Miss Gervase. He had not thought of looking out for a nice little
house in a good residential suburb where they would have pleasant society;
there were to be no consultations about wall-papers, or jocose whispers from
friends as to the necessity of having a room that would do for a nursery. No
glad young thing had leant on his arm while they chose the suite in white
enamel, and china for "our bedroom," the modest salesman doing his
best to spare their blushes. When Edith Gervase married she would get mamma to
look out for two really good servants, "as we must begin quietly,"
and mamma would make sure that the drains and everything were right. Then her
"girl friends" would come on a certain solemn day to see all her
"lovely things." "Two dozen of everything!" "Look,
Ethel, did you ever see such ducky frills?" "And that insertion,
isn't it quite too sweet?" "My dear Edith, you are a lucky
girl." "All the underlinen specially made by Madame Lulu!"
"What delicious things!" "I hope he knows what a prize he is winning."
"Oh! do look at those lovely ribbon-bows!" "You darling, how
happy you must be." "Real Valenciennes!" Then a whisper in the
lady's ear, and her reply, "Oh, don't, Nelly!" So they would chirp
over their treasures, as in Rabelais they chirped over their cups; and every
thing would be done in due order till the wedding-day, when mamma, who had
strained her sinews and the commandments to bring the match about, would weep
and look indignantly at the unhappy bridegroom. "I hope you'll be kind to
her, Robert." Then in a rapid whisper to the bride: "Mind, you insist
on Wyman's flushing the drains when you come back; servants are so careless and
dirty too. Don't let him go about by himself in Paris. Men are so queer, one
never knows. You have got the pills?" And aloud, after these secreta,
"God bless you, my dear; good-bye! cluck, cluck, good-bye!"
There
were stranger things written in the manuscript pages that Lucian cherished,
sentences that burnt and glowed like "coals of fire which hath a most
vehement flame." There were phrases that stung and tingled as he wrote
them, and sonorous words poured out in ecstasy and rapture, as in some of the
old litanies. He hugged the thought that a great part of what he had invented
was in the true sense of the word occult: page after page might have been read
aloud to the uninitiated without betraying the inner meaning. He dreamed night
and day over these symbols, he copied and recopied the manuscript nine times
before he wrote it out fairly in a little book which he made himself of a skin
of creamy vellum. In his mania for acquirements that should be entirely useless
he had gained some skill in illumination, or limning as he preferred to call
it, always choosing the obscurer word as the obscurer arts. First he set
himself to the sever practice of the text; he spent many hours and days of toil
in struggling to fashion the serried columns of black letter, writing and
rewriting till he could shape the massive character with firm true hand. He cut
his quills with the patience of a monk in the scriptorium, shaving and altering
the nib, lightening and increasing the pressure and flexibility of the points,
till the pen satisfied him, and gave a stroke both broad and even. Then he made
experiments in inks, searching for some medium that would rival the glossy
black letter of the old manuscripts; and not till he could produce a fair page
of text did he turn to the more entrancing labor of the capitals and borders
and ornaments. He mused long over the Lombardic letters, as glorious in their
way as a cathedral, and trained his hand to execute the bold and flowing lines;
and then there was the art of the border, blossoming in fretted splendor all
about the page. His cousin, Miss Deacon, called it all a great waste of time,
and his father thought he would have done much better in trying to improve his
ordinary handwriting, which was both ugly and illegible. Indeed, there seemed
but a poor demand for the limner's art. He sent some specimens of his skill to
an "artistic firm" in London; a verse of the "Maud,"
curiously emblazoned, and a Latin hymn with the notes priced on a red stave.
The firm wrote civilly, telling him that his work, though good, was not what
they wanted, and enclosing an illuminated text. "We have great demand for
this sort of thing," they concluded, "and if you care to attempt
something in this style we should be pleased to look at it." The said text
was "Thou, God, seest me." The letter was of a degraded form, bearing
much the same relation to the true character as a "churchwarden
gothic" building does to Canterbury Cathedral; the colours were varied.
The initial was pale gold, the h pink, the o black, the u blue, and the first
letter was somehow connected with a bird's nest containing the young of the
pigeon, who were waited on by the female bird.
"What
a pretty text," said Miss Deacon. "I should like to nail it up in my
room. Why don't you try to do something like that, Lucian? You might make
something by it."
"I
sent them these," said Lucian, "but they don't like them much."
"My
dear boy! I should think not! Like them! What were you thinking of to draw
those queer stiff flowers all round the border? Roses? They don't look like
roses at all events. Where do you get such ideas from?"
"But
the design is appropriate; look at the words."
"My
dear Lucian, I can't read the words; it's such a queer old-fashioned writing.
Look how plain that text is; one can see what it's about. And this other one; I
can't make it out at all."
"It's
a Latin hymn."
"A
Latin hymn? Is it a Protestant hymn? I may be old-fashioned, but Hymns Ancient
and Modern is quite good enough for me. This is the music, I suppose? But, my
dear boy, there are only four lines, and who ever heard of notes shaped like
that: you have made some square and some diamond-shape? Why didn't you look in
your poor mother's old music? It's in the ottoman in the drawing-room. I could
have shown you how to make the notes; there are crotchets, you know, and
quavers."
Miss
Deacon laid down the illuminated Urbs Beata in despair; she felt convinced that
her cousin was "next door to an idiot."
And
he went out into the garden and raged behind a hedge. He broke two flower-pots
and hit an apple-tree very hard with his stick, and then, feeling more calm,
wondered what was the use in trying to do anything. He would not have put the
thought into words, but in his heart he was aggrieved that his cousin liked the
pigeons and the text, and did not like his emblematical roses and the Latin
hymn. He knew he had taken great pains over the work, and that it was well
done, and being still a young man he expected praise. He found that in this
hard world there was a lack of appreciation; a critical spirit seemed abroad.
If he could have been scientifically observed as he writhed and smarted under
the strictures of "the old fool," as he rudely called his cousin, the
spectacle would have been extremely diverting. Little boys sometimes enjoy a
very similar entertainment; either with their tiny fingers or with mamma's nail
scissors they gradually deprive a fly of its wings and legs. The odd gyrations
and queer thin buzzings of the creature as it spins comically round and round
never fail to provide a fund of harmless amusement. Lucian, indeed, fancied
himself a very ill-used individual; but he should have tried to imitate the
nervous organization of the flies, which, as mamma says, "can't really
feel."
But
now, as he prepared the vellum leaves, he remembered his art with joy; he had
not labored to do beautiful work in vain. He read over his manuscript once
more, and thought of the designing of the pages. He made sketches on furtive
sheets of paper, and hunted up books in his father's library for suggestions.
There were books about architecture, and medieval iron work, and brasses which
contributed hints for adornment; and not content with mere pictures he sought
in the woods and hedges, scanning the strange forms of trees, and the poisonous
growth of great water-plants, and the parasite twining of honeysuckle and
briony. In one of these rambles he discovered a red earth which he made into a
pigment, and he found in the unctuous juice of a certain fern an ingredient
which he thought made his black ink still more glossy. His book was written all
in symbols, and in the same spirit of symbolism he decorated it, causing
wonderful foliage to creep about the text, and showing the blossom of certain
mystical flowers, with emblems of strange creatures, caught and bound in rose
thickets. All was dedicated to love and a lover's madness, and there were songs
in it which haunted him with their lilt and refrain. When the book was finished
it replaced the loose leaves as his constant companion by day and night. Three
times a day he repeated his ritual to himself, seeking out the loneliest places
in the woods, or going up to his room; and from the fixed intentness and
rapture of his gaze, the father thought him still severely employed in the
questionable process of composition. At night he contrived to wake for his strange
courtship; and he had a peculiar ceremony when he got up in the dark and lit
his candle. From a steep and wild hillside, not far form the house, he had cut
from time to time five large boughs of spiked and prickly gorse. He had brought
them into the house, one by one, and had hidden them in the big box that stood
beside his bed. Often he woke up weeping and murmuring to himself the words of
one of his songs, and then when he had lit the candle, he would draw out the
gorse-boughs, and place them on the floor, and taking off his nightgown, gently
lay himself down on the bed of thorns and spines. Lying on his face, with the
candle and the book before him, he would softly and tenderly repeat the praises
of his dear, dear Annie, and as he turned over page after page, and saw the
raised gold of the majuscules glow and flame in the candle-light, he pressed
the thorns into his flesh. At such moments he tasted in all its acute savor the
joy of physical pain; and after two or three experiences of such delights he
altered his book, making a curious sign in vermilion on the margin of the
passages where he was to inflict on himself this sweet torture. Never did he
fail to wake at the appointed hour, a strong effort of will broke through all
the heaviness of sleep, and he would rise up, joyful though weeping, and
reverently set his thorny bed upon the floor, offering his pain with his
praise. When he had whispered the last word, and had risen from the ground, his
body would be all freckled with drops of blood; he used to view the marks with
pride. Here and there a spine would be left deep in the flesh, and he would
pull these out roughly, tearing through the skin. On some nights when he had
pressed with more fervor on the thorns his thighs would stream with blood, red
beads standing out on the flesh, and trickling down to his feet. He had some
difficulty in washing away the bloodstains so as not to leave any traces to
attract the attention of the servant; and after a time he returned no more to
his bed when his duty had been accomplished. For a coverlet he had a dark rug,
a good deal worn, and in this he would wrap his naked bleeding body, and lie
down on the hard floor, well content to add an aching rest to the account of
his pleasures. He was covered with scars, and those that healed during the day
were torn open afresh at night; the pale olive skin was red with the angry
marks of blood, and the graceful form of the young man appeared like the body
of a tortured martyr. He grew thinner and thinner every day, for he ate but
little; the skin was stretched on the bones of his face, and the black eyes
burnt in dark purple hollows. His relations noticed that he was not looking
well.
"Now,
Lucian, it's perfect madness of you to go on like this," said Miss Deacon,
one morning at breakfast. "Look how your hand shakes; some people would
say that you have been taking brandy. And all that you want is a little
medicine, and yet you won't be advised. You know it's not my fault; I have
asked you to try Dr. Jelly's Cooling Powders again and again."
He
remembered the forcible exhibition of the powders when he was a boy, and felt
thankful that those days were over. He only grinned at his cousin and swallowed
a great cup of strong tea to steady his nerves, which were shaky enough. Mrs. Dixon
saw him one day in Caermaen; it was very hot, and he had been walking rather
fast. The scars on his body burnt and tingled, and he tottered as he raised his
hat to the vicar's wife. She decided without further investigation that he must
have been drinking in public-houses.
"It
seems a mercy that poor Mrs. Taylor was taken," she said to her husband.
"She has certainly been spared a great deal. That wretched young man
passed me this afternoon; he was quite intoxicated."
"How
very said," said Mr. Dixon. "A little port, my dear?"
"Thank
you, Merivale, I will have another glass of sherry. Dr. Burrows is always
scolding me and saying I must take something to keep up my energy, and this
sherry is so weak."
The
Dixons were not teetotalers. They regretted it deeply, and blamed the doctor,
who "insisted on some stimulant." However, there was some consolation
in trying to convert the parish to total abstinence, or, as they curiously
called it, temperance. Old women were warned of the sin of taking a glass of beer
for supper; aged laborers were urged to try Cork-ho, the new temperance drink;
an uncouth beverage, styled coffee, was dispensed at the reading-room. Mr.
Dixon preached an eloquent "temperance" sermon, soon after the above
conversation, taking as his text: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. In his
discourse he showed that fermented liquor and leaven had much in common, that
beer was at the present day "put away" during Passover by the strict
Jews; and in a moving peroration he urged his dear brethren, "and more
especially those amongst us who are poor in this world's goods," to beware
indeed of that evil leaven which was sapping the manhood of our nation. Mrs.
Dixon cried after church:
"Oh,
Merivale, what a beautiful sermon! How earnest you were. I hope it will do
good."
Mr.
Dixon swallowed his port with great decorum, but his wife fuddled herself every
evening with cheap sherry. She was quite unaware of the fact, and sometimes
wondered in a dim way why she always had to scold the children after dinner.
And so strange things sometimes happened in the nursery, and now and then the
children looked queerly at one another after a red-faced woman had gone out,
panting.
Lucian
knew nothing of his accuser's trials, but he was not long in hearing of his own
intoxication. The next time he went down to Caermaen he was hailed by the
doctor.
"Been
drinking again today?"
"No,"
said Lucian in a puzzled voice. "What do you mean?"
"Oh,
well, if you haven't, that's all right, as you'll be able to take a drop with me.
Come along in?"
Over
the whisky and pipes Lucian heard of the evil rumors affecting his character.
"Mrs.
Dixon assured me you were staggering from one side of the street to the other.
You quite frightened her, she said. Then she asked me if I recommended her to
take one or two ounces of spirit at bedtime for the palpitation; and of course
I told her two would be better. I have my living to make here, you know. And
upon my word, I think she wants it; she's always gurgling inside like
waterworks. I wonder how old Dixon can stand it."
"I
like 'ounces of spirit,'" said Lucian. "That's taking it medicinally,
I suppose. I've often heard of ladies who have to 'take it medicinally'; and
that's how it's done?"
"That's
it. 'Dr Burrows won't listen to me': 'I tell him how I dislike the taste of
spirits, but he says they are absolutely necessary for my constitution': 'my
medical man insists on something at bedtime'; that's the style."
Lucian
laughed gently; all these people had become indifferent to him; he could no
longer feel savage indignation at their little hypocrisies and malignancies.
Their voices uttering calumny, and morality, and futility had become like the
thin shrill angry note of a gnat on a summer evening; he had his own thoughts
and his own life, and he passed on without heeding.
"You
come down to Caermaen pretty often, don't you?" said the doctor. "I've
seen you two or three times in the last fortnight."
"Yes,
I enjoy the walk."
"Well,
look me up whenever you like, you know. I am often in just at this time, and a
chat with a human being isn't bad, now and then. It's a change for me; I'm
often afraid I shall lose my patients."
The
doctor had the weakness of these terrible puns, dragged headlong into the
conversation. He sometimes exhibited them before Mrs. Gervase, who would smile
in a faint and dignified manner, and say:
"Ah,
I see. Very amusing indeed. We had an old coachmen once who was very clever, I
believe, at that sort of thing, but Mr. Gervase was obliged to send him away,
the laughter of the other domestics was so very boisterous."
Lucian
laughed, not boisterously, but good-humouredly, at the doctor's joke. He liked
Burrows, feeling that he was a man and not an automatic gabbling machine.
"You
look a little pulled down," said the doctor, when Lucian rose to go.
"No, you don't want my medicine. Plenty of beef and beer will do you more
good than drugs. I daresay it's the hot weather that has thinned you a bit. Oh,
you'll be all right again in a month."
As
Lucian strolled out of the town on his way home, he passed a small crowd of
urchins assembled at the corner of an orchard. They were enjoying themselves
immensely. The "healthy" boy, the same whom he had seen some weeks
ago operating on a cat, seemed to have recognized his selfishness in keeping
his amusements to himself. He had found a poor lost puppy, a little creature
with bright pitiful eyes, almost human in their fond, friendly gaze. It was not
a well-bred little dog; it was certainly not that famous puppy "by Vick
out of Wasp"; it had rough hair and a foolish long tail which it wagged
beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal
had evidently been used to gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face,
and give a leap, fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and
cower a moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle
and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was quite
a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a plan of his
own which he brought before the leader, a stout and sturdy youth.
"Drown
him! What be you thinkin' of, mum?" he was saying. "'Tain't no sport
at all. You shut your mouth, gwaes. Be you goin' to ask your mother for the
boiling-water? Is, Bob Williams, I do know all that: but where be you a-going
to get the fire from? Be quiet, mun, can't you? Thomas Trevor, be this dog
yourn or mine? Now, look you, if you don't all of you shut your bloody mouths,
I'll take the dog 'ome and keep him. There now!"
He
was a born leader of men. A singular depression and lowness of spirit showed
itself on the boys' faces. They recognized that the threat might very possibly
be executed, and their countenances were at once composed to humble attention.
The puppy was still cowering on the ground in the midst of them: one or two
tried to relieve the tension of their feelings by kicking him in the belly with
their hobnail boots. It cried out with the pain and writhed a little, but the
poor little beast did not attempt to bite or even snarl. It looked up with
those beseeching friendly eyes at its persecutors, and fawned on them again,
and tried to wag its tail and be merry, pretending to play with a straw on the
road, hoping perhaps to win a little favor in that way.
The
leader saw the moment for his master-stroke. He slowly drew a piece of rope
from his pocket.
"What
do you say to that, mun? Now, Thomas Trevor! We'll hang him over that there
bough. Will that suit you, Bobby Williams?"
There
was a great shriek of approval and delight. All was again bustle and animation.
"I'll tie it round his neck?" "Get out, mun, you don't know how
it be done." "Is, I do, Charley." "Now, let me, gwaes, now
do let me." "You be sure he won't bite?" "He hain't mad, be
he?" "Suppose we were to tie up his mouth first?"
The
puppy still fawned and curried favor, and wagged that sorry tail, and lay down
crouching on one side on the ground, sad and sorry in his heart, but still with
a little gleam of hope; for now and again he tried to play, and put up his
face, praying with those fond, friendly eyes. And then at last his gambols and
poor efforts for mercy ceased, and he lifted up his wretched voice in one long
dismal whine of despair. But he licked the hand of the boy that tied the noose.
He
was slowly and gently swung into the air as Lucian went by unheeded; he
struggled, and his legs twisted and writhed. The "healthy" boy pulled
the rope, and his friends danced and shouted with glee. As Lucian turned the
corner, the poor dangling body was swinging to and fro, the puppy was dying,
but he still kicked a little.
Lucian
went on his way hastily, and shuddering with disgust. The young of the human
creature were really too horrible; they defiled the earth, and made existence
unpleasant, as the pulpy growth of a noxious and obscene fungus spoils an
agreeable walk. The sight of those malignant little animals with mouths that
uttered cruelty and filthy, with hands dexterous in torture, and feet swift to
run all evil errands, had given him a shock and broken up the world of strange
thoughts in which he had been dwelling. Yet it was no good being angry with
them: it was their nature to be very loathsome. Only he wished they would go
about their hideous amusements in their own back gardens where nobody could see
them at work; it was too bad that he should be interrupted and offended in a
quiet country road. He tried to put the incident out of his mind, as if the
whole thing had been a disagreeable story, and the visions amongst which he
wished to move were beginning to return, when he was again rudely disturbed. A
little girl, a pretty child of eight or nine, was coming along the lane to meet
him. She was crying bitterly and looking to left and right, and calling out
some word all the time.
"Jack,
Jack, Jack! Little Jackie! Jack!"
Then
she burst into tears afresh, and peered into the hedge, and tried to peep
through a gate into a field.
"Jackie,
Jackie, Jackie!"
She
came up to Lucian, sobbing as if her heart would break, and dropped him an
old-fashioned curtsy.
"Oh,
please sir, have you seen my little Jackie?"
"What
do you mean?" said Lucian. "What is it you've lost?"
"A
little dog, please sir. A little terrier dog with white hair. Father gave me
him a month ago, and said I might keep him. Someone did leave the garden gate
open this afternoon, and he must 'a got away, sir, and I was so fond of him
sir, he was so playful and loving, and I be afraid he be lost."
She
began to call again, without waiting for an answer.
"Jack,
Jack, Jack!"
"I'm
afraid some boys have got your little dog," said Lucian. "They've
killed him. You'd better go back home."
He
went on, walking as fast as he could in his endeavor to get beyond the noise of
the child's crying. It distressed him, and he wished to think of other things.
He stamped his foot angrily on the ground as he recalled the annoyances of the
afternoon, and longed for some hermitage on the mountains, far above the stench
and the sound of humanity.
A
little farther, and he came to Croeswen, where the road branched off to right
and left. There was a triangular plot of grass between the two roads; there the
cross had once stood, "the goodly and famous roode" of the old local
chronicle. The words echoed in Lucian's ears as he went by on the right hand.
"There were five steps that did go up to the first pace, and seven steps
to the second pace, all of clene hewn ashler. And all above it was most
curiously and gloriously wrought with thorowgh carved work; in the highest
place was the Holy Roode with Christ upon the Cross having Marie on the one
syde and John on the other. And below were six splendent and glisteringe
archaungels tha bore up the roode, and beneath them in their stories were the
most fair and noble images of the xii Apostles and of divers other Saints and
Martirs. And in the lowest storie there was a marvelous imagerie of divers
Beasts, such as oxen and horses and swine, and little dogs and peacocks, all
done in the finest and most curious wise, so that they all seemed as they were
caught in a Wood of Thorns, the which is their torment of this life. And here
once in the year was a marvelous solemn service, when the parson of Caermaen
came out with the singers and all the people, singing the psalm Benedicite
omnia opera as they passed along the road in their procession. And when they
stood at the roode the priest did there his service, making certain prayers for
the beasts, and then he went up to the first pace and preached a sermon to the
people, shewing them that as our lord Jhu dyed upon the Tree of his deare mercy
for us, so we too owe mercy to the beasts his Creatures, for that they are all
his poor lieges and silly servants. And that like as the Holy Aungells do
atheir suit to him on high, and the Blessed xii Apostles and the Martirs, and
all the Blissful Saints served him aforetime on earth and now praise him in
heaven, so also do the beasts serve him, though they be in torment of life and
below men. For their spirit goeth downward, as Holy Writ teacheth us."
It
was a quaint old record, a curious relic of what the modern inhabitants of
Caermaen called the Dark Ages. A few of the stones that had formed the base of
the cross still remained in position, grey with age, blotched with black lichen
and green moss. The remainder of the ramous rood had been used to mend the
roads, to built pigsties and domestic offices; it had turned Protestant, in
fact. Indeed, if it had remained, the parson of Caermaen would have had no time
for the service; the coffee-stall, the Portuguese Missions, the Society for the
Conversion of the Jews, and important social duties took up all his leisure.
Besides, he thought the whole ceremony unscriptural.
Lucian
passed on his way, wondering at the strange contrasts of the Middle Ages. How
was it that people who could devise so beautiful a service believed in
witchcraft, demoniacal possession and obsession, in the incubus and succubus,
and in the Sabbath an in many other horrible absurdities? It seemed astonishing
that anybody could even pretend to credit such monstrous tales, but there could
be no doubt that the dread of old women who rode on broomsticks and liked black
cats was once a very genuine terror.
A
cold wind blew up from the river at sunset, and the scars on his body began to
burn and tingle. The pain recalled his ritual to him, and he began to recite it
as he walked along. He had cut a branch of thorn from the hedge and placed it
next to his skin, pressing the spikes into the flesh with his hand till the
warm blood ran down. He felt it was an exquisite and sweet observance for her
sake; and then he thought of the secret golden palace he was building for her,
the rare and wonderful city rising in his imagination. As the solemn night
began to close about the earth, and the last glimmer of the sun faded from the
hills, he gave himself anew to the woman, his body and his mind, all that he
was, and all that he had.
