Books: Our Friend the Charlatan
G >>
George Gissing >> Our Friend the Charlatan
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 | 27 |
28 |
29 |
30
"I completely understand you," was the meditative reply.
"I was sure you would! To some people, such an explanation would be
useless; Mrs. Toplady, for instance. I should be sorry to have to
justify myself by psychological reasoning to Mrs. Toplady. And,
remember, Mrs. Toplady represents the world. A wise man does not try
to explain himself to the world; enough if, by exceptional good
luck, there is one person to whom he can confidently talk of his
struggles and his purposes. Don't suppose, however, that I lay claim
to any great wisdom; after the last fortnight, that would be rather
laughable. But I am capable of benefiting by experience, and very
few men can truly say as much. It is on the practical side that I
have hitherto been most deficient. I see my way to correcting that
fault. Nothing could be better for me, just now, than electioneering
work. It will take me out of myself, and give a rest to the
speculative side of my mind. Don't you agree with me?"
"Quite."
"There's another thing I must make clear to you," Dyce pursued, now
swimming delightedly on the flood of his own eloquence. "For a long
time I seriously doubted whether I was fit for a political career.
My ambition always tended that way, but my conscience went against
it. I used to regard politics with a good deal of contempt. You
remember our old talks, at Alverholme?"
Constance nodded.
"In one respect, I am still of the same opinion. Most men who go in
for a parliamentary career regard it either as a business by which
they and their friends are to profit, or as an easy way of
gratifying their personal vanity, and social ambitions. That, of
course, is why we are so far from ideal government. I used to think
that the man in earnest should hold aloof from Parliament, and work
in more hopeful ways--by literature, for instance. But I see now
that the fact of the degradation of Parliament is the very reason
why a man thinking as I do should try to get into the House of
Commons. If all serious minds hold aloof, what will the government
of the country sink to? The House of Commons is becoming in the
worst sense democratic; it represents, above all, newly acquired
wealth, and wealth which has no sense of its responsibilities. The
representative system can only be restored to dignity and usefulness
by the growth of a new Liberalism. What I understand by that, you
already know. One of its principles--that which for the present
must be most insisted upon--is the right use of money.
Irresponsible riches threaten to ruin our civilisation. What we have
first of all to do is to form the nucleus of a party which
represents money as a civilising, instead of a corrupting, power."
He looked into Constance's eyes, and she, smiling as if at a distant
object, met his look steadily.
"I have been working out this thought," he continued, with vigorous
accent. "I see it now as my guiding principle in the narrower
sense--the line along which I must pursue the greater ends. The
possession of money commonly says very little for a man's moral and
intellectual worth, but there is the minority of well-to-do people
who have the will to use their means rightly, if only they knew how.
This minority must be organised. It must attract intellect and moral
force from every social rank. Money must be used against money, and
in this struggle it is not the big battalions which will prevail.
Personally I care very little for wealth, as I think you know. I
have no expensive tastes; I can live without luxuries. Oh, I like to
be comfortable, and to be free from anxiety; who doesn't? But I
never felt the impulse to strive to enrich myself. On the other
hand, money as a civilising force has great value in my eyes.
Without it, one can. work indeed, but with what slow results? It is
time to be up and doing. We must organise our party, get our new
Liberalism to work.--In this also, do you agree with me?"
"It is certain," Constance replied, "that the right use of money is
one of the great questions of our day."
"I know how much you have thought of it," said Dyce. Then, after a
short pause, he added in his frankest tone, "And it concerns you
especially."
"It does."
"Do you feel," he softened his voice to respectful intimacy, "that,
in devoting yourself to this cause, you will be faithful to the
trusts you have accepted?"
Constance answered deliberately.
"It depends upon what you understand by devoting myself. Beyond a
doubt, Lady Ogram would have approved the idea as you put it."
"And would she not have given me her confidence as its
representative?" asked Dyce, smiling.
"Up to a certain point. Lady Ogram desired, for instance, to bear
the expenses of your contest at Hollingford, and I should like to
carry out her wish in the matter."
A misgiving began to trouble Lashmar's sanguine mood. He searched
his companion's face; it seemed to him to have grown more emphatic
in expression; there was a certain hardness about the lips which he
had not yet observed. Still, Constance looked friendly, and her eyes
supported his glance.
"Thank you," he murmured, with some feeling. "And, if, by chance, I
should be beaten? You wouldn't lose courage? We must remember--"
"You have asked me many questions," Constance interrupted quietly.
"Let me use the privilege of frankness which we grant each other,
and ask you one in turn. Your private means are sufficient for the
career upon which you are entering?"
"My private means?"
He gazed at her as if he did not understand, the smile fading from
his lips.
"Forgive me if you think I am going too far--"
"Not at all!" Dyce exclaimed, eagerly. "It is a question you have a
perfect right to ask. But I thought you knew I had _no_ private
means."
"No, I wasn't aware of that," Constance replied, in a voice of
studious civility. "Then how do you propose--?"
Their eyes encountered. Constance did not for an instant lose her
self-command; Lashmar's efforts to be calm only made his
embarrassment more obvious.
"I had a small allowance from my father, till lately," he said. "But
that has come to an end. It never occurred to me that you
misunderstood my position. Surely I have more than once hinted to
you how poor I was? I had no intention of misleading you. Lady Ogram
certainly knew "She knew you were not wealthy, but she thought you
had a competence. I told her so, when she questioned me. It was a
mistake, I see, but a very natural one."
"Does it matter, now?" asked Dyce, his lips again curling amiably.
"I should suppose it mattered much. How shall you live?"
"Let us understand each other. Do you withdraw your consent to Lady
Ogram's last wish?"
"That wish, as you see, was founded on a misunderstanding."
"But," exclaimed Lashmar, "you are not speaking seriously?"
"Quite. Lady Ogram certainly never intended the money she had left
in trust to me to be used for your private needs. Reflect a moment,
and you will see how impossible it would be for me to apply the
money in such a way."
"Reflection," said Dyce, with unnatural quietness, "would only
increase my astonishment at your ingenuity. It would have been much
simpler and better to say at once that you had changed your mind.
Can you for a moment expect me to believe that this argument really
justifies you in breaking your promise?"
"I assure you," replied Constance, also in a soft undertone, "it is
much sounder reasoning than that by which you excuse your
philosophical plagiarism."
Lashmar's eyes wandered. They fell upon the marble bust; its
disdainful smile seemed to him more pronounced than ever.
"Then," he cried, on an impulse of desperation, "you really mean to
take Lady Ogram's money, and to disregard the very condition on
which she left it to you?"
"You forget that her will was made before she had heard your name."
He sat in silence, a gloomy resentment lowering on his features.
After a glance at him, Constance began to speak in a calm,
reasonable voice.
"It is my turn to confess. I, too, seem to myself to have been
living in a sort of dream, and my awaking is no less decisive than
yours. At your instigation, I behaved dishonestly; I am very much
ashamed of the recollection. Happily, I see my way to atone for the
follies, and worse, that I committed. I can carry out Lady Ogram's
wishes--the wishes she formed while still in her sound mind--and
to that I shall devote my life."
"Do you intend, then, to apply none of this money to your personal
use? Do you mean to earn your own living still?"
"That would defeat Lady Ogram's purpose," was the calm answer. "I
shall live where and how it seems good to me, guided always by the
intention which I know was in her mind."
Dyce sat with his head bent forward, his hands grasping his knees.
After what seemed to be profound reflection, he said gravely:
"This is how you think to-day. I won't be so unjust to you as to
take it for your final reply."
"Yet that's what it is," answered Constance.
"You think so. The sudden possession of wealth has disturbed your
mind. If I took you at your word," he spoke with measured accent, "I
should be guilty of behaviour much more dishonourable than that of
which you accuse me. I can wait." He smiled with a certain severity.
"It is my duty to wait until you have recovered your natural way of
thinking."
Constance was looking at him, her eyes full of wonder and amusement.
"Thank you," she said. "You are very kind, very considerate. But
suppose you reflect for a moment on your theory of the equality of
man and woman. Doesn't it suggest an explanation of what you call my
disordered state of mind?--Let us use plain words. You want money
for your career, and, as the need is pressing, you are willing to
take the encumbrance of a wife. I am to feel myself honoured by your
acceptance of me, to subject myself entirely to your purposes, to
think it a glorious reward if I can aid your ambition. Is there much
equality in this arrangement?"
"You put things in the meanest light," protested Lashmar. "What I
offer you is a share in all my thoughts, a companionship in whatever
I do or become. I have no exaggerated sense of my own powers, but
this I know, that, with fair opportunity, I can attain distinction.
If I thought of you as in any sense an encumbrance, I shouldn't
dream of asking you to marry me; it would defeat the object of my
life. I have always seen in you just the kind of woman who would
understand me and help me."
"My vanity will grant you that," replied Constance. "But for the
moment I want you to inquire whether you are the kind of man who
would understand and help _me_.--You are surprised. That's quite a
new way of putting the matter, isn't it? You never saw _that_ as a
result of your theory?"
"Stay!" Dyce raised his hand. "I know perfectly well that you are
ambitious. If you were not, we should never have become friends. But
you must remember that, from my point of view, I am offering you
such a chance of gratifying your ambition as you will hardly find
again."
"That is to say, the reflection of _your_ glory. As a woman, what
more can I ask? You can't think how this amuses me, now that I have
come to my senses. Putting aside the question of whether you are
likely to win glory at all, have you no suspicion of your delightful
arrogance? I should like to know how far your contempt of women
really goes. It went far enough, at all events, to make you think
that I believed your talk about equality of the sexes. But really, I
am not quite such a simpleton. I always knew that you despised
women, that you looked upon them as creatures to be made use of. If
you ask: why, then, did I endure you for a moment? the answer must
be, that I am a woman. You see, Mr. Lashmar, we females of the human
species are complex. Some of us think and act very foolishly, and
all the time, somewhere in our curious minds, are dolefully aware of
our foolishness. You knew that of _men_; let me assure you that
women share the unhappy privilege."
Lashmar was listening with knitted brows. No word came to his lips.
"You interest me," pursued Constance. "I think you are rather a
typical man of our time, and it isn't at all impossible that you may
become, as you say, distinguished. But, clothed and in my right
mind, I don't feel disposed to pay the needful price for the honour
of helping you on. You mustn't lose heart; I have little doubt that
some other woman will grasp at the opportunity you so kindly wish to
reserve for me. But may I venture a word of counsel? Don't let it be
a woman who holds the equality theory. I say this in the interest of
your peace and happiness. There are plenty of women, still, who like
to be despised, and some of them are very nice indeed. They are the
only good wives; I feel sure of it. We others--women cursed with
brains--are not meant for marriage. We grow in numbers,
unfortunately. What will be the end of it, I don't know. Some day
you will thank your stars that you did not marry a woman capable of
understanding you."
Dyce stood up and took a few steps about the floor, his eyes fixed
on the marble bust.
"When can I see you again?" he asked abruptly.
"I shall be going to London in a day or two; I don't think we will
meet again--until your circumstances are better. Can you give me
any idea of what the election expenses will be?"
"Not yet," Dyce answered, in an undertone. "You are going to London?
Will you tell me what you mean to do?"
"To pursue my career."
"Your career?"
"That surprises you, of course. It never occurred to you that I also
might have a career in view. Yet I have. Let us enter upon a
friendly competition. Five years hence, which of us will be better
known?"
"I see," remarked Dyce, his lip curling. "You will use your money to
make yourself talked about?"
"Not primarily; but it is very likely that that will result from my
work. It offends your sense of what is becoming in a woman?"
"It throws light upon what you have been saying."
"So I meant. You will see, when you think about it, that I am acting
strangely like a male creature. We females with minds have a way of
doing that. I'll say more, for I really want you to understand me.
'The sudden possession of wealth' has not, as you suppose, turned my
head, but it has given my thoughts a most salutary shaking, and made
me feel twice the woman that I was. At this moment, I should as soon
think of taking a place as kitchen-maid as of becoming any man's
wife. I am free, and have power to assert myself--the first
desire, let me assure you, of modern woman no less than of modem
man. That I shall assert myself for the good of others is a
peculiarity of mine, a result of my special abilities; I take no
credit for it. Some day we shall meet again, and talk over our
experiences; for the present, let us be content with corresponding
now and then. You shall have my address as soon as I am settled."
She rose, and Lashmar gazed at her. He saw that she was as little to
be moved by an appeal, by an argument, as the marble bust behind
her.
"I suppose," he said, "you will appear on platforms?"
"Oh dear no!" Constance replied, with a laugh. "My ambition doesn't
take that form. I leave that to you, who are much more eloquent."
"How you have altered!" He kept gazing at her, with a certain awe.
"I hardly know you."
"I doubt whether you know me at all. Never mind." She held out her
hand. "We may be friends yet when you have come to understand that
you are not so very, very much my superior."
CHAPTER XXVII
Lashmar walked hack to Hollingford, and reached the hotel without
any consciousness of the road by which he had come. He felt as tired
as if he had been walking all day. When he had dropped into an easy
chair, he let his arms hang, and, with head drooping forward, stared
at his feet stretched out before him: the posture suggested a man
half overcome with drink.
He had a private meeting to attend to-night. Should he attend it or
not? His situation had become farcical. Was it not his plain duty to
withdraw at once from the political contest, that a serious
candidate might as soon as possible take his place? Where could he
discern even the glimmer of a hope in this sudden darkness? His
heart was heavy and cold.
He went through the business of the evening, talking automatically,
seeing and hearing as in a dream. He had no longer the slightest
faith in his electioneering prospects, and wondered how he could
ever have been sanguine about them. Of course the Conservative would
win. Breakspeare knew it; every member of the committee knew it;
they pretended to hope because the contest amused and occupied them.
No Liberal had a chance at Hollingford. To-morrow he would throw the
thing up, and disappear. Never in his life had he passed such a
miserable night. At each waking from hag-ridden slumbers, the
blackest despondency beset him; once or twice his tortured brain
even glanced towards suicide; temptation lurking in the assurance
that, by destroying himself, he would become, for a few days at all
events, the subject of universal interest. He found no encouragement
even in the thought of Iris Woolstan. Not only had he deeply
offended her by his engagement to Constance Bride, but almost
certainly she would hear from her friend Mrs. Toplady the whole
truth of his disaster, which put him beyond hope of pardon. He owed
her money; with what face, even if she did not know the worst, could
he go to her and ask for another loan? In vain did he remember the
many proofs he had received of Mrs. Woolstan's devotion; since the
interview with Constance, all belief in himself was at an end. He
had thought his eloquence, his personal magnetism, irresistible;
Constance had shown him the extent of his delusion. If he saw Iris,
the result would be the same.
At moments, so profound was his feeling of insignificance that he
hid his face even from the darkness, and groaned.
Not only had he lost faith in himself; there remained to him no
conviction, no trust, no hope of any kind. Intellectually, morally,
he had no support; shams, insincerities, downright dishonesties, had
clothed him about, and these were now all stripped away, leaving the
thing he called his soul to quiver in shamed nakedness. He knew
nothing; he believed nothing. But death still made him fearful.
With the first gleam of daylight, he flung himself out of his hot,
uncomfortable bed, and hastened to be a clothed mortal once more. He
felt better as soon as he had dressed himself and opened the window.
The night with its terrible hauntings was a thing gone by.
At breakfast he thought fixedly of Iris Woolstan. Perhaps Iris had
not seen Mrs. Toplady yet. Perhaps, at heart, she was not so utterly
estranged from him as he feared; something of his old power over her
might even now be recovered. It was the resource of desperation; he
must try it.
The waiter's usual respect seemed, this morning, covert mockery. The
viands had no savour; only the draught of coffee that soothed his
throat was good. He had a headache, and a tremor of the nerves. In
any case, it would have been impossible to get through the day in
the usual manner, and his relief when he found himself at the
railway station was almost a return of good spirits.
On reaching London, he made straight for West Hampstead. As he
approached Mrs. Woolstan's house, his heart beat violently. Without
even a glance at the windows, he rang the visitor's bell. It sounded
distinctly, but there came no response. He rang again, and again
listened to the far-off tinkling. Only then did he perceive that the
blinds at the lower windows were drawn. The house was vacant.
Paralysed for a moment, he stared about, as if in search of someone
who could give him information. Then, with sweat on his forehead, he
stepped up to the next door, and asked if anything was known of Mrs.
Woolstan; he learnt only that she had been absent for about ten
days; where she was, the servant with whom he spoke could not tell
him. Were the other neighbours likely to know?--he asked.
Encouraged by a bare possibility, he inquired at the house beyond;
but in vain.
Fate was against him. He might as well go home and write a letter to
his committee at Hollingford.
Stay, could he not remember the school to which Leonard Woolstan had
been sent? Yes it was noted in his pocket-book; for he had promised
to write to the boy.
He sought the nearest post-office, and dispatched a telegram to
Leonard; "Please let me know immediately your mother's present
address." The reply was to be sent to his rooms in Devonshire
Street, and thither he straightway betook himself, hoping that in an
hour or so he would have news. An extempore lunch was put before
him; never had he satisfied his hunger with less gusto. Time went
on; the afternoon brought him no telegram. At seven o'clock he lay
on his sofa, exhausted by nervous strain, anticipating a hideous
night. Again his thoughts had turned to suicide. It would be easier
to obtain poison here than at Hollingford. Laudanum? Death under
laudanum must be very easy, mere falling asleep in a sort of
intoxication. But he must leave behind him something in writing,
something which would excite attention when it appeared in all the
newspapers. Addressed to the coroner? No; to his committee. He would
hint to them of a tragic story, of noble powers and ambitions
frustrated by the sordid difficulties of life. The very truth, let
malice say what it would. At his age, with his brain and heart, to
perish thus for want of a little money! As he dwelt on the infinite
pathos of the thing, tears welled to his eyes, trickled over his
cheek--
Of a sudden, he started up, and shouted "Come in!" Yes, it was a
telegram; he took it from the servant's hand with an exclamation of
joy. Leonard informed him that Mrs. Woolstan was staying at
Gorleston, near Yarmouth, her address "Sunrise Terrace." He clutched
at a railway guide. Too late to get to Yarmouth to-night, but that
did not matter. "Sunrise Terrace!" In his sorry state of mind, a
name of such good omen brought him infinite comfort. He rushed out
of the house, and walked at a great rate, impelled by the joy of
feeling himself alive once more. Sunrise! Iris Woolstan would save
him. Already he warmed with gratitude to her: he thought of her with
a tender kindness. She might be richer than he supposed; at all
events, she was in circumstances which would allow him to live
independently. And was she not just the kind of woman Constance
Bride had advised him to marry? Advice given in scorn, but, his
conscience told him, thoroughly sound. A nice, gentle, sufficiently
intelligent little woman. Pity that there was the boy; but he would
always be at school. Suppose she had only four or five hundred a
year? Oh, probably more than that, seeing that she could economise
such substantial sums. He was saved; the sun would rise for him,
literally and in metaphor.
A rainy morning saw him at Liverpool Street. The squalid roofs of
north-east London dripped miserably under a leaden sky. Not till the
train reached the borders of Suffolk did a glint of sun fall upon
meadow and stream; thence onwards the heavens brightened; the risen
clouds gleamed above a shining shore. Lashmar did not love this part
of England, and he wondered why Mrs. Woolstan had chosen such a
retreat, but in the lightness of his heart he saw only pleasant
things. Arrived at Yarmouth, he jumped into a cab, and was driven
along the dull, flat road which leads to Gorleston. Odour of the
brine made amends for miles of lodgings, for breaks laden with
boisterous trippers, for tram cars and piano-organs. Here at length
was Sunrise Terrace, a little row of plain houses on the top of the
cliff, with sea-horizon vast before it, and soft green meadow-land
far as one could see behind. Bidding his driver wait, Lashmar
knocked at the door, and stood tremulous. It was half-past twelve;
Iris might or might not have returned from her morning walk; he
prepared for a brief disappointment. But worse awaited him. Mrs.
Woolstan, he learnt, would not be at home for the mid-day meal; she
was with friends who had a house at Gorleston.
"Where is the house?" he asked, impatiently, stamping as if his feet
were cold.
The woman pointed his way.
"Who are the people? What is their name?"
He heard it, but it conveyed nothing to him. After a moment's
reflection, he decided to go to the hotel, and there write a note.
Whilst he was having lunch, the reply came, a dry missive, saying
that, if he would call at three o'clock, Mrs. Woolstan would have
much pleasure in presenting him to her friends the Barkers, with
whom she was spending the day.
Lashmar fumed, but obeyed the invitation. In a garden on the edge of
the cliff, he found half a dozen persons; an elderly man who looked
like a retired tradesman, his wife, of suitable appearance, their
son, their two daughters, and Iris Woolstan. Loud and mirthful talk
was going on; his arrival interrupted it only for a moment.
"So glad to see you!" was Mrs. Woolstan's friendly, but not cordial,
greeting. "I didn't know you ever came to the east coast."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 | 27 |
28 |
29 |
30