Loe raamatut: «The Crown of Life», lehekülg 13
CHAPTER XIX
Again Irene was going down into Cheshire, to visit the two old ladies, her relatives. It was arranged that she should accompany Mrs. Hannaford to Malvern, and spend a couple of days there. The travellers arrived on a Friday evening. Before leaving town Mrs. Hannaford had written to Piers Otway to give him the address of the house at Malvern in which rooms had been taken for them.
On Saturday morning there was sunshine over the hills. Irene walked, and talked, but it was evident with thoughts elsewhere. When they sat down to rest and to enjoy the landscape before them, the rich heart of England, with its names that echo in history and in song, Irene plucked at the grass beside her, and presently began to strip a stem, after the manner of children playing at a tell-fortune game. She stripped it to the end; her hands fell and she heaved a little sigh. From that moment she grew merry and talked without pre-occupation.
After lunch she wrote a short letter, and herself took it to the post. Mrs. Hannaford was lying on the sofa, with eyes closed, but not in sleep; her forehead and lips betraying the restless thoughts which beset her now as always. On returning, Irene took a chair, as if to read; but she gave only an absent glance at the paper in her hands, and smiled to herself in musing.
"I'm sure those thoughts are worth far more than a penny," fell from the lady on the couch, who had observed her for a moment.
"I may as well tell you them," was the gently toned reply, as Irene bent forward. "I have just done something decisive."
Mrs. Hannaford raised herself, a sudden anxiety in her features; she waited.
"You guess, aunt? Yes, that's it, I have written to Mr. Jacks."
"To—to–?"
"To answer an ultimatum. In the right way, I hope; any way, it's done."
"You have accepted him?"
"Even so."
Mrs. Hannaford tried to smile, but could not smooth away the uneasiness which had come into her look. She spoke a few of the natural words, and in doing so looked at the clock.
"There is something I have forgotten," she said, starting to her feet hurriedly. "You reminded me of it—speaking of a letter; I must send a telegram at once—indeed I must. No, no, I will go myself, dear. I had rather!"
She hastened away, leaving Irene in wonder.
When they were together again, Mrs. Hannaford seemed anxious to atone for her brevity on the all-important subject. She spoke with pleasure of her niece's decision thought it wise; abounded in happy prophecy; through the rest of the day she had a face which spoke relief, all but contentment. The morning of Sunday saw her nervous. She made an excuse of the slightly clouded sky for lingering within doors; she went often to the window and looked this way and that along the road, as if judging the weather, until Irene, when the church bells had ceased, grew impatient for the open air.
"Yes, we will go," said her aunt. "I think we safely may."
Each went to her room to make ready. At Mrs. Hannaford's door, just as she was about to come forth, there sounded a knock; the servant announced that a gentleman had called to see her—Mr. Otway. Quivering, death-pale, she ran to the sitting-room. Irene had not yet reappeared. Piers Otway stood there alone.
"You didn't get my telegram?" broke from her lips, in a hurried whisper. "Oh! I feared it would be too late, and all is too late."
"You mean–"
"The engagement is announced."
She had time to say no more. At that moment Irene entered the room, dressed for walking. At first she did not seem to recognise the visitor, then her face lighted up; she smiled, subdued the slight embarrassment which had succeeded to her perplexity, and stepped quickly forward.
"Mr. Otway! You are staying here?"
"A few hours only. I came down yesterday on business—which is finished."
His voice was so steady, his bearing so self-possessed, that Irene found herself relieved from the immediate restraint of the situation. She could not quite understand his presence here; there was a mystery, in which she saw that her aunt was involved; the explanation might be forthcoming after their visitor's departure. For the moment, enough to remark that the sun was dispersing the clouds, and that all were ready to enjoy a walk. Mrs. Hannaford, glancing anxiously at Irene before she spoke, hoped that Mr. Otway would return with them to lunch; Irene added her voice to the invitation; and Piers at once accepted.
Talk suggested by the locality occupied them until they were away from the houses; by that time Irene had thoroughly reassured herself, and was as tranquil in mind as in manner. Whatever the meaning of Piers Otway's presence, no difficulty could come about in the few hours he was to spend with them. Involuntarily she found herself listening to the rhythm of certain verses which she had received some months ago, and which she still knew by heart; but nothing in the author's voice or look indicated a desire to remind her of that romantic passage in their acquaintance. If they were still to meet from time to time—and why not?—common sense must succeed to vain thoughts in the poet's mind. He was quite capable of the transition, she felt sure. His way of talking, the short and generally pointed sentences in which he spoke on whatever subject, betokened a habit of lucid reflection. Had it been permissible, she would have dwelt with curiosity on the problem of Piers Otway's life and thoughts; but that she resolutely ignored, strong in the irrevocable choice which she had made only yesterday. He was interesting, but not to her. She knew him on the surface, and cared to know no more.
Business was a safe topic; at the first noticeable pause, Irene led to it.
Piers laughed with pleasure as he began to describe Andre Moncharmont. A man of the happiest vivacity, of the sweetest humour, irresistibly amusing, yet never ridiculous—entirely competent in business, yet with a soul as little mercantile as man's could be. Born a French Swiss, he had lived a good deal in Italy, and had all the charm of Italian manners; but in whatever country, he made himself at home, and by virtue of his sunny temper saw only the best in each nationality. His recreation was music, and he occasionally composed.
"There is a song of Musset's—you know it, perhaps—beginning 'Quand on perd, par triste occurrence'—which he has set, to my mind, perfectly. I want him to publish it. If he does I must let you see it."
Irene did not know the verses and made no remark.
"There are English men of business," pursued Otway, "who would smile with pity at Moncharmont. He is by no means their conception of the merchant. Yet the world would be a vastly better place if its business were often in the hands of such men. He will never make a large fortune, no; but he will never fall into poverty. He sees commerce from the human point of view, not as the brutal pitiless struggle which justifies every form of ferocity and of low cunning. I never knew him utter an ignoble thought about trade and money-making. An English acquaintance asked me once, 'Is he a gentleman?' I was obliged to laugh—delicious contrast between what he meant by a gentleman and all I see in Moncharmont."
"I picture him," said Irene, smiling, "and I picture the person who made that inquiry."
Piers flashed a look of gratitude. He had, as yet, hardly glanced at her; he durst not; his ordeal was to be gone through as became a man. Her voice, at moments, touched him to a sense of faintness; he saw her without turning his head; the wave of her dress beside him was like a perfume, was like music; part of him yielded, languished, part made splendid resistance.
"He is a lesson in civilisation. If trade is not to put an end to human progress, it must be pursued in Moncharmont's spirit. It's only returning to a better time; our man of business is a creation of our century, and as bad a thing as it has produced. Commerce must be humanised once more. We invented machinery, and it has enslaved us—a rule of iron, the servile belief that money-making is an end in itself, to be attained by hard selfishness."
He checked himself, laughed, and said something about the beauty of the lane along which they were walking.
"Don't you think," fell from Irene's lips, "that Mr. John Jacks is a very human type of the man of business?"
"Indeed he is!" replied Piers, with spirit. "An admirable type."
"I have been told that he owed most of his success to his brothers, who are a different sort of men."
"His wealth, perhaps."
"Yes, there's a difference," said Irene, glancing at him. "You may be successful without becoming wealthy; though not of course in the common opinion. But what would have been the history of England these last fifty years, but for our men of iron selfishness? Isn't it a fact that only in this way could we have built up an Empire which ensures the civilisation of the world?"
Piers could not answer with his true thought, for he knew all that was implied in her suggestion of that view. He bent his head and spoke very quietly.
"Some of our best men think so."
An answer which gratified Irene more keenly than he imagined; she showed it in her face.
When they returned to luncheon, and the ladies went upstairs, Mrs. Hannaford stepped into her niece's room.
"What you told me yesterday," she asked, in a nervous undertone, "may it be repeated?"
"Certainly—to anyone."
"Then please not to come down until I have had a few minutes' talk with Mr. Otway. All this shall be explained, dear, when we are alone again."
On entering the sitting-room Irene found it harder to preserve a natural demeanour than at her meeting with the visitor a couple of hours ago. Only when she had heard him speak and in just the same voice as during their walk was she able to turn frankly towards him. His look had not changed. Impossible to divine the thoughts hidden by his smile; he bore himself with perfect control.
At table all was cheerfulness. Speaking of things Russian, Irene recalled her winter in Finland, which she had so greatly enjoyed.
"I remember," said Otway, "you had just returned when I met you for the first time."
It was said with a peculiar intonation, which fell agreeably on the listener's ear; a note familiar, in the permitted degree, yet touchingly respectful; a world of emotion subdued to graceful friendliness. Irene passed over the reminiscence with a light word or two, and went on to gossip merely of trifles.
"Do you like caviare, Mr. Otway?"
"Except perhaps that supplied by the literary censor," was his laughing reply.
"Now I am intriguee. Please explain."
"We call caviare the bits blacked out in our newspapers and periodicals."
"Unpalatable enough!" laughed Irene. "How angry that would make me!"
"I got used to it," said Piers, "and thought it rather good fun sometimes. After all, a wise autocrat might well prohibit newspapers altogether, don't you think? They have done good, I suppose, but they are just as likely to do harm. When the next great war comes, newspapers will be the chief cause of it. And for mere profit, that's the worst. There are newspaper proprietors in every country, who would slaughter half mankind for the pennies of the half who were left, without caring a fraction of a penny whether they had preached war for a truth or a lie."
"But doesn't a newspaper simply echo the opinions and feelings of its public?"
"I'm afraid it manufactures opinion, and stirs up feeling. Consider how very few people know or care anything about most subjects of international quarrel. A mere handful at the noisy centre of things who make the quarrel. The business of newspapers, in general, is to give a show of importance to what has no real importance at all—to prevent the world from living quietly—to arouse bitterness when the natural man would be quite different."
"Oh, surely you paint them too black! We must live, we can't let the world stagnate. Newspapers only express the natural life of peoples, acting and interacting."
"I suppose I quarrel with them," said Piers, once more subduing himself, "because they have such gigantic power and don't make anything like the best use of it."
"That is to say, they are the work of men—I don't mean," Irene added laughingly, "of men instead of women. Though I'm not sure that women wouldn't manage journalism better, if it were left to them."
"A splendid idea! All men to go about their affairs and women to report and comment. Why, it would solve every problem of society! There's the hope of the future, beyond a doubt! Why did I never think of it!"
The next moment Piers was talking about nightingales, how he had heard them sing in Little Russia, where their song is sweeter than in any other part of Europe. And so the meal passed pleasantly, as did the hour or two after it, until it was time for Otway to take leave.
"You travel straight back to London?" asked Irene.
"Straight back," he answered, his eyes cast down.
"To-morrow," said Mrs. Hannaford, "we think of going to Stratford."
Piers had an impulse which made his hands tremble and his head throb; in spite of himself he had all but asked whether, if he stayed at Malvern overnight, he might accompany them on that expedition. Reason prevailed, but only just in time, and the conquest left him under a gloomy sense of self-pity, which was the worst thing he had suffered all day. Not even Mrs. Hannaford's whispered words on his arrival had been so hard to bear.
He sat in silence, wishing to rise, unable to do so. When at length he stood up, Irene let her eyes fall upon him, and continued to observe him, as if but half consciously whilst he shook hands with Mrs. Hannaford. He turned to her, and his lips moved, but what he had tried to say went unexpressed. Nor did Irene speak; she could have uttered only a civil commonplace, and the tragic pallor of his countenance in that moment kept her mute. He touched her hand and was gone.
When the house door had closed behind him, the eyes of the two women met. Standing as before, they conversed with low voices, with troubled brows. Mrs. Hannaford rapidly explained her part in what had happened.
"You will forgive me, Irene? I see now that I ought to have told you about it yesterday."
"Better as it was, perhaps, so far as I am concerned. But he—I'm sorry–"
"He behaved well, don't you think?"
"Yes," replied Irene thoughtfully, slowly, "he behaved well."
They moved apart, and Irene laid her hand on a book, but did not sit down.
"How old is he?" she asked of a sudden.
"Six-and-twenty."
"One would take him for more. But of course his ways of thinking show how young he is." She fluttered the pages of her book, and smiled. "It will be interesting to see him in another five years."
That was all. Neither mentioned Otway's name again during the two more days they spent together.
But Irene's mind was busy with the contrast between him and Arnold Jacks. She pursued this track of thought whithersoever it led her, believing it a wholesome exercise in her present mood. Her choice was made, and irrevocable; reason bade her justify it by every means that offered. And she persuaded herself that nothing better could have happened, at such a juncture, than this suggestion of an alternative so widely different.
An interesting boy—six-and-twenty is still a boyish age—with all sorts of vague idealisms; nothing ripe; nothing that convinced; a dreary cosmopolite, little likely to achieve results in any direction. On the other hand, a mature and vigorous man, English to the core, stable in his tested views of life, already an active participant in the affairs of the nation and certain to move victoriously onward; a sure patriot, a sturdy politician. It was humiliating to Piers Otway. Indeed, unfair!
On Monday, when she returned from her visit to Stratford, a telegram awaited her. "Thank you, letter tomorrow, Arnold." That pleased her; the British laconicism; the sensible simplicity of the thing! And when the letter arrived (two pages and a half) it seemed a suitable reply to hers of Saturday, in which she had used only everyday words and phrases. No gushing in Arnold Jacks! He was "happy," he was "grateful"; what more need an honest man say to the woman who has accepted him? She was his "Dearest Irene"; and what more could she ask to be?
A curious thing happened that evening. Mrs. Hannaford and her niece, both tired after the day's excursion, and having already talked over its abundant interests, sat reading, or pretending to read. Suddenly, Irene threw her book aside, with a movement of impatience, and stood up.
"Don't you find it very close?" she said, almost irritably. "I shall go upstairs. Good-night!"
Her aunt gazed at her in surprise.
"You are tired, my dear."
"I suppose I am—Aunt, there is something I should like to say, if you will let me. You are very kind and good, but that makes you, sometimes, a little indiscreet. Promise me, please, never to make me the subject of conversation with anyone to whom you cannot speak of me quite openly, before all the world."
Mrs. Hannaford was overcome with astonishment, with distress. She tried to reply, but before she could shape a word Irene had swept from the room.
When they met again at breakfast, the girl stepped up to her aunt and kissed her on both cheeks—an unusual greeting. She was her bright self again; talked merrily; read aloud a letter from her father, which proved that at the time of writing he had not seen Arnold Jacks.
"I must write to the Doctor to-morrow," she said, with an air of reflection.
At ten o'clock they drove to the station. While Miss Derwent took her ticket Mrs. Hannaford walked on the platform. On issuing from the booking-office, Irene saw her aunt in conversation with a man, who, in the same moment, turned abruptly and walked away. Neither she nor her aunt spoke of this incident, but Irene noticed that the other was a little flushed.
She took her seat; Mrs. Hannaford stood awaiting the departure of the train. Before it moved, the man Irene had noticed came back along the platform, and passed them without a sign. Irene saw his face, and seemed to recognise it, but could not remember who he was.
Half an hour later, the face came back to her, and with it a name.
"Daniel Otway!" she exclaimed to herself.
It was five years and more since her one meeting with him at Ewell, but the man, on that occasion, had impressed her strongly in a very disagreeable way. She had since heard of him, in relation to Piers Otway's affairs, and knew that her aunt had received a call from him in Bryanston Square. What could be the meaning of this incident on the platform? Irene wondered, and had an unpleasant feeling about it.
CHAPTER XX
On the journey homeward, and for two or three days after, Piers held argument with his passions, trying to persuade himself that he had in truth lost nothing, inasmuch as his love had never been founded upon a reasonable hope. Irene Derwent was neither more nor less to him now than she had been ever since he first came to know her: a far ideal, the woman he would fain call wife, but only in a dream could think of winning. What audacity had speeded him on that wild expedition? It was well that he had been saved from declaring his folly to Irene herself, who would have shared the pain her answer inflicted. Nay, when the moment came, reason surely would have checked his absurd impulse. In seeing her once more, he saw how wide was the distance between them. No more of that! He had lost nothing but a moment's illusion.
The ideal remained; the worship, the gratitude. How much she had been to him! Rarely a day—very rarely a day—that the thought of Irene did not warm his heart and exalt his ambition. He had yielded to the fleshly impulse, and the measure of his lapse was the sincerity of that nobler desire; he had not the excuse of the ordinary man, nor ever tried to allay his conscience with facile views of life. What times innumerable had he murmured her name, until it was become to him the only woman's name that sounded in truth womanly—all others cold to his imagination. What long evenings had he passed, yonder by the Black Sea, content merely to dream of Irene Derwent; how many a summer night had he wandered in the acacia-planted streets of Odessa, about and about the great square, with its trees, where stands the cathedral; how many a time had his heart throbbed all but to bursting when he listened to the music on the Boulevard, and felt so terribly alone—alone! Irene was England. He knew nothing of the patriotism which is but shouted politics; from his earliest years of intelligence he had learnt, listening to his father, a contempt for that loud narrowness; but the tongue which was Irene's, the landscape where shone Irene's figure—these were dear to him for Irene's sake. He believed in his heart of hearts that only the Northern Island could boast the perfect woman—because he had found her there.
Should he talk of loss—he who had gained so unspeakably by an ideal love through the hot years of his youth, who to the end of his life would be made better by it? That were the basest ingratitude. Irene owed him nothing, yet had enriched him beyond calculation. He did not love her less; she was the same power in his life. This sinking of the heart, this menace of gloom and rebellion, was treachery to his better self. He fought manfully against it.
Circumstances were unfavourable to such a struggle. Work, absorption in the day's duty, well and good; but when work and duty led one into the City of London! At first, he had found excitement in the starting of his business; so much had to be done, so many points to be debated and decided, so many people to be seen and conversed with, contended with; it was all an exhilarating effort of mind and body. He felt the joy of combat; sped to the City like any other man, intent on holding his own amid the furious welter, seeing a delight in the computation of his chances; at once a fighter and a gambler, like those with whom he rubbed shoulders in the roaring ways. He overtaxed his energy, and in any case there must have come reaction. It came with violence soon after that day at Malvern.
The weather was hot; one should have been far away from these huge rampart-streets, these stifling burrows of commerce. But here toil and stress went on as usual, and Piers Otway saw it all in a lurid light. These towering edifices with inscriptions numberless, announcing every imaginable form of trade with every corner of the world; here a vast building, consecrate in all its commercial magnificence, great windows and haughty doorways, the gleam of gilding and of brass, the lustre of polished woods, to a single company or firm; here a huge structure which housed on its many floors a crowd of enterprises, names by the score signalled at the foot of the gaping staircase; arrogant suggestions of triumph side by side with desperate beginnings; titles of world-wide significance meeting the eye at every turn, vulgar names with more weight than those of princes, words in small lettering which ruled the fate of millions of men;—no nightmare was ever so crushing to one in Otway's mood. The brute force of money; the negation of the individual—these, the evils of our time, found there supreme expression in the City of London. Here was opulence at home and superb; here must poverty lurk and shrink, feeling itself alive only on sufferance; the din of highway and byway was a voice of blustering conquest, bidding the weaker to stand aside or be crushed. Here no man was a human being, but each merely a portion of an inconceivably complicated mechanism. The shiny-hatted figure who rushed or sauntered, gloomed by himself at corners or made one of a talking group, might elsewhere be found a reasonable and kindly person, with traits, peculiarities; here one could see in him nothing but a money-maker of this or that class, ground to a certain pattern. The smooth working of the huge machine made it only the more sinister; one had but to remember what cold tyranny, what elaborate fraud, were served by its manifold ingenuities, only to think of the cries of anguish stifled by its monotonous roar.
Piers had undertaken a task and would not shirk it; but in spite of all reasonings and idealisms he found life a hard thing during those weeks of August. He lost his sleep, turned from food, and for a moment feared collapse such as he had suffered soon after his first going to Odessa.
By the good offices of John Jacks he had already been elected to a convenient club, and occasionally he passed an evening there; but his habit was to go home to Guildford Street, and sit hour after hour in languid brooding. He feared the streets at night-time; in his loneliness and misery, a gleam upon some wanton face would perchance have lured him, as had happened ere now. Not so much at the bidding of his youthful blood, as out of mere longing for companionship, the common cause of disorder in men condemned to solitude in great cities. A woman's voice, the touch of a soft hand—this is what men so often hunger for, when they are censured for lawless appetite. But Piers Otway knew himself, and chose to sit alone in the dreary lodging-house. Then he thought of Irene, trying to forget what had happened. Now and then successfully; in a waking dream he saw and heard her, and knew again the exalting passion that had been the best of his life, and was saved from ignoble impulse.
When he was at the lowest, there came a letter from Olga Hannaford, the first he had ever received in her writing. Olga had joined her mother at Malvern, and Mrs. Hannaford was so unwell that it seemed likely they would remain there for a few weeks. "When we can move, the best thing will be to take a house in or near London. Mother has decided not to return to Bryanston Square, and I, for my part, shall give up the life you made fun of. You were quite right; of course it was foolish to go on in that way." She asked him to write to her mother, whom a line from him would cheer. Piers did so; also replying to his correspondent, and trying to make a humorous picture of the life he led between the City and Guilford Street. It was a sorry jest, but it helped him against his troubles. When, in a week's time, Olga again wrote, he was glad. The letter seemed to him interesting; it revived their common memories of life at Geneva, whither Olga said she would like to return. "What to do—how to pass the years before me—is the question with me now, as I suppose it is with so many girls of my age. I must find a mission. Can you suggest one? Only don't let it have anything humanitarian about it. That would make me a humbug, which I have never been yet. It must be something entirely for my own pleasure and profit. Do think about it in an idle moment."
With recovery from his physical ill-being came a new mental restlessness; the return, rather, of a mood which had always assailed him when he lost for a time his ideal hope. He demanded of life the joy natural to his years; revolted against the barrenness of his lot. A terror fell upon him lest he should be fated never to know the supreme delight of which he was capable, and for which alone he lived. Even now was he not passing his prime, losing the keener faculties of youth? He trembled at the risks of every day; what was his assurance against the common ill-hap which might afflict him with disease, blight his life with accident, so that no woman's eye could ever be tempted to rest upon him? He cursed the restrictions which held him on a straight path of routine, of narrow custom, when a world of possibilities spread about him on either hand, the mirage of his imprisoned spirit. Adventurous projects succeeded each other in his thoughts. He turned to the lands where life was freer, where perchance his happiness awaited him, had he but the courage to set forth. What brought him to London, this squalid blot on the map of the round world? Why did he consume the irrecoverable hours amid its hostile tumult, its menacing gloom?
On the first Sunday in September he aroused himself to travel by an early train, which bore him far into the country. He had taken a ticket at hazard for a place with a pleasant-sounding name, and before village bells had begun to ring he was wandering in deep lanes amid the weald of Sussex. All about him lay the perfect loveliness of that rural landscape which is the old England, the true England, the England dear to the best of her children. Meadow and copse, the yellow rank of new-reaped sheaves, brown roofs of farm and cottage amid shadowing elms, the grassy borders of the road, hedges with their flowered creepers and promise of wild fruit—these things brought him comfort. Mile after mile he wandered, losing himself in simplest enjoyment, forgetting to ask why he was alone. When he felt hungry, an inn supplied him with a meal. Again he rambled on, and in a leafy corner found a spot where he could idle for an hour or two, until it was time to think of the railway station.
He had tired himself; his mind slipped from the beautiful things around him, and fell into the old reverie. He murmured the haunting name—Irene. As well as for her who bore it, he loved the name for its meaning. Peace! As a child he had been taught that no word was more beautiful, more solemn; at this moment, he could hear it in his father's voice, sounding as a note of music, with a tremor of deep feeling. Peace! Every year that passed gave him a fuller understanding of his father's devotion to that word in all its significance; he himself knew something of the same fervour, and was glad to foster it in his heart. Peace! What better could a man pursue? From of old the desire of wisdom, the prayer of the aspiring soul.
And what else was this Love for which he anguished? Irene herself, the beloved, sought with passion and with worship, what more could she give him, when all was given, than content, repose, peace?
He had been too ambitious. It was the fault of his character, and, thus far on his life's journey, in recognising the error might he not correct it? Unbalanced ambition explained his ineffectiveness. At six-and-twenty he had done nothing, and saw no hope of activity correspondent with his pride. In Russia he had at least felt that he was treading an uncrowded path: he had made his own a language familiar to very few western Europeans, and constantly added to his knowledge of a people moving to some unknown greatness; the position was not ignoble. But here in London he was lost amid the uproar of striving tradesmen. The one thing which would still have justified him, hope of wealth, had all but vanished. He must get rid of his absurd self-estimate, see himself in the light of common day.
