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

"Extremely interesting," murmured Mr. Gallantry, as though he heard
all this for the first time, and was deeply impressed by it.

"Very interesting indeed," said Lashmar, with his frankest air. "I
hope I may be allowed to go over the mill; I should like nothing
better."

"You shall go over it as often as you like," said Lady Ogram, with a
grin. "But Miss Bride has more to tell you."

Constance looked inquiringly.

"Statistics?" she asked, when Lady Ogram paid no heed to her look.

"Don't be stupid. Tell him what I think about villages altogether."

"Yes, I should very much like to hear that," said Dyce, whose
confidence was gaining ground.

"Lady Ogram doesn't like the draining of the country population into
towns; she thinks it a harmful movement, with bad results on social
and political life, on national life from every point of view This
seems to her to be the great question of the day. How to keep up
village life?--in face of the fact that English agriculture seems
to be doomed. At Shawe, as Lady Ogram thinks, and we all do, a step
has been taken in the right direction. Lots of the young people who
are now working here in wholesome surroundings would by this time
have been lost in the slums of London or Liverpool or Birmingham. Of
course, as a mill-owner, she has made sacrifices; she hasn't gone
about the business with only immediate profit in view; children and
girls have been taught what they wouldn't have learnt but for Lady
Ogram's kindness."

"Admirable!" murmured Mr. Gallantry. "True philanthropy, and true
patriotism!"

"Beyond a doubt," agreed Dyce. "Lady Ogram deserves well of her
country."

"There's just one way," remarked Mrs. Gallantry, "in which, it seems
to me, she could have deserved better. Don't be angry with me, Lady
Ogram; you know I profit by your example in saying just what I
think. Now, if, instead of a mill, you had built a training
institution for domestic service--"

"Bah!" broke in the hostess. "How you harp on that idea! Haven't you
any other?"

"One or two more, I assure you," replied Mrs. Gallantry, with the
utmost good-humour. "But I particularly want to interest you in this
one. It's better that girls should work in a mill in the country
than go to swell the population of slums; I grant you that. But how
much better still for them to work in private houses, following
their natural calling, busy with the duties of domestic life.
They're getting to hate that as much as their menfolk hate
agricultural labour; and what could be a worse symptom or a greater
danger?"

"Pray," cried Lady Ogram, in her grating voice, "how would a
servants' school have helped the village?"

"Not so quickly, perhaps, but in time. With your means and
influence, Lady Ogram, you might have started an institution which
would be the model of its kind for all England. Every female child
in Shawe would have had a prospect before her, and the village would
have attracted decent poor families, who might somehow have been
helped to support themselves--"

Lady Ogram waved her hand contemptuously.

"Somehow! That's the way with your conservative-reform women.
Somehow! Always vague, rambling notions--"

Conservative-reform!" exclaimed Mrs. Gallantry, showing a little
pique, though her face was pleasant as ever. "Surely your own ideas
are to a great extent conservative."

"Yes, but there's a liberal supply of common sense in them!" cried
the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into
cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp
and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert
attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the
good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with
an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, and, when his
moment came, took up the conversation.

"Mrs. Gallantry's suggestion," he said, "is admirable, and the
sooner it's carried out, not merely in one place, but all over
England, the better. But I rather think that, in the given
circumstances, Lady Ogram took the wisest possible step. We have to
look at these questions from the scientific point of view. Our
civilisation is concerned, before all things, with the organisation
of a directing power; the supreme problem of science, and at the
same time the most urgent practical question of the day, is how to
secure initiative to those who are born for rule. Anything which
serves to impress ordinary minds with a sense of social equilibrium
to give them an object lesson in the substitution of leadership for
anarchy--must be of immense value. Here was a community falling
into wreck, cut loose from the orderly system of things, old duties
and obligations forgotten, only hungry rights insisted upon. It was
a picture in little of the multitude given over to itself. Into the
midst of this chaos, Lady Ogram brings a directing mind, a
beneficent spirit of initiative, and the means, the power, of
re-establishing order. The villagers have but to look at the old
state of things and the new to learn a lesson which the thoughtful
among them will apply in a wider sphere. They know that Lady Ogram
had no selfish aim, no wish to make profit out of their labour; that
she acted purely and simply in the interests of humble folk--and
of the world at large. They see willing industry substituted for
brutal or miserable indolence; they see a striking example of the
principle of association, of solidarity--of perfect balance
between the naturally superior and the naturally subordinate."

"Good, very good!" murmured Mr. Gallantry. "Eloquent!"

"I admit the eloquence," said Mrs. Gallantry, smiling at Lashmar
with much amiability, "but I really can't see why this lesson
couldn't have been just as well taught by the measure that I
proposed."

"Let me show you why I think not," replied Dyce, who was now
enjoying the sound of his own periods, and felt himself inspired by
the general attention. "The idea of domestic service is far too
familiar to these rustics to furnish the basis of any new
generalisation. They have long ceased to regard it as an honour or
an advantage for their girls to go into the house of their social
superiors; it seems to them a kind of slavery; what they aim at is a
more independent form of wage-earning, and that's why they go off to
the great towns, where there are factories and public-houses,
work-rooms and shops. To establish here the training institution you
speak of would have done many sorts of good, but not, I think, that
particular good, of supreme importance, which results from Lady
Ogram's activity. In the rustics' eyes, it would be merely a new
device for filling up the ranks of cooks and housemaids, to the sole
advantage of an upper class. Of course that view is altogether
wrong, but it would be held. The paper-mill, being quite a novel
enterprise, excites new thoughts. It offers the independence these
people desire, and yet it exacts an obvious discipline. It
establishes a social group corresponding exactly to the ideal
organism which evolution will some day produce: on the one hand
ordinary human beings understanding their obligations and receiving
their due; on the other, a superior mind, reciprocally fulfilling
its duties, and reaping the nobler advantage which consists in a
sense of worthy achievement."

"Very striking indeed!" fell from Mr. Gallantry.

"You seem to have made out a fair case, Mr. Lashmar," said his wife,
with a good-natured laugh. "I'm not sure that I couldn't debate the
point still, but at present I'll be satisfied with your approval of
my scheme."

Lady Ogram, sitting more upright against the back of her chair than
before her attack of breathlessness, had gazed unwaveringly at the
young man throughout his speeches. A grim smile crept over her
visage; her lips were pressed together, and her eyes twinkled with
subdued satisfaction. She now spoke abruptly.

"Do you remain at Hollingford to-night, Mr. Lashmar?"

"Yes, Lady Ogram."

"Very well. Come here to-morrow morning at eleven, go over the mill,
and then lunch with us. My manager shall be ready for you."

"Thank you, very much."

"Miss Bride, give Mr. Lashmar your Report. He might like to look
over it."

Mr. and Mrs. Gallantry were rising to take leave, and the hostess
did not seek to detain them; she stood up, with some difficulty,
exhibiting a figure unexpectedly tall.

"We'll talk over your idea," she said, as she offered her hand to
the lady. "There's something in it, but you mustn't worry me about
it, you know. I cut up rough when I'm worried."

"Oh, I don't mind a bit!" exclaimed Mrs. Gallantry, gaily.

"But I do," was Lady Ogram's rejoinder, which again made her laugh,
with the result that she had to sink back into her chair, waving an
impatient adieu as Mr. Gallantry's long, loose figure bowed before
her.

Constance Bride had left the room for a moment; she returned with a
thin pamphlet in her hand, which, after taking leave of Mr. and Mrs.
Gallantry, she silently offered to Lashmar.

"Ah, this is the Report," said Dyce. "Many thanks."

He stood rustling the leaves with an air of much interest. On
turning towards his hostess, about to utter some complimentary
remark, he saw that Lady Ogram was sitting with her head bent
forward and her eyes closed; but for the position of her hands, each
grasping an arm of the chair, one would have imagined that she had
fallen asleep. Dyce glanced at Constance, who had resumed her seat,
and was watching the old lady. A minute passed in complete silence,
then Lady Ogram gave a start, recovered herself, and fixed her look
upon the visitor.

"How old are you?" she asked, in a voice which had become less
distinct, as if through fatigue.

"Seven and twenty, Lady Ogram."

"And your father is a clergyman?"

"My father is vicar of Alverholme, in Northamptonshire."

She added a few short, sharp questions, concerning his family and
his education, which Dyce answered succinctly.

"Would you like to see something of Rivenoak? If so, Miss Bride will
show you about."

"With pleasure," replied the young man.

"Very well. You lunch with us to-morrow. Be at the mill at eleven
o'clock."

She held out her skeleton hand, and Dyce took it respectfully. Then
Constance and he withdrew.

"This, as you see, is the library," said his companion, when they
had passed into the adjoining room. "The books were mostly collected
by Sir Spencer Ogram, father of the late baronet; he bought
Rivenoak, and laid out the grounds. That is his portrait--the
painter has been forgotten."

Dyce let his eyes wander, but paid Tittle attention to what he saw.
His guide was speaking in a dry, uninterested voice, she, too,
seeming to have her thoughts elsewhere. They went out into the hall,
looked into one or two other rooms, and began to ascend the stairs.

"There's nothing of interest above," said Constance, "except the
view from the top of the house. But Lady Ogram would like you to see
that, no doubt."

Observing Constance as she went before him, Dyce was struck with a
new dignity in her bearing. Notwithstanding her subordinate position
at Rivenoak, and the unceremonious way in which Lady Ogram exercised
authority over her, Constance showed to more advantage here than on
her recent visit to Alverholme; she was more naturally
self-possessed, and seemed a freer, happier person. The house garb,
though decorous rather than ornamental, became her better than her
walking-costume. Her well-shaped head and thoughtful, sensitive,
controlled features, had a new value against this background of
handsome furniture and all the appointments of wealth. She moved as
if breathing the air that suited her.

From the terrace on the roof, their eyes commanded a wide and
beautiful prospect, seen at this moment of the year in its brightest
array of infinitely varied verdure. Constance, still in an absent
tone, pointed out the features of the landscape, naming villages,
hills, and great estates. Hollingford, partly under a canopy of
smoke, lay low by its winding river, and in that direction Dyce most
frequently turned his eyes.

"I felt very much obliged to you," he said, "for your carefully
written letter. But wasn't there one rather serious omission?"

Speaking, he looked at Constance with a humorous twinkle of the eye.
She smiled.

"Yes, there was. But, after all, it did no harm."

"Perhaps not. I ought to have used more discretion on strange
ground. By the bye, do you take an interest in the mill?"

"A good deal of interest. I think that what you said about it was,
on the whole, true--though such an obvious improvisation."

"Improvisation? In one sense, yes; I had to take in the facts of the
case very quickly. But you don't mean that you doubt my sincerity?"

"No, no. Of course not."

"Come, Miss Connie, we must understand each other--"

She interrupted him with a look of frank annoyance.

"Will you do me the kindness not to call me by that name? It sounds
childish--and I have long outgrown childhood."

"What shall I call you? Miss Bride?"

"It is the usual form of address."

"Good. I was going to say that I should like you to be clear about
my position. I have come here, not in the first place with a hope of
personal advantage, but to see if I can interest Lady Ogram in
certain views which I hold and am trying to get accepted by people
of influence. It happened that this affair of the mill gave me a
good illustration of the theory I generally have to put in an
abstract way. Your word 'improvisation' seems to hint that I shaped
my views to the purpose of pleasing Lady Ogram--a plain injustice,
as you will see if you remember the letter I wrote you."

Constance was leaning on a parapet, her arms folded.

"I'm sorry you so understood me," she said, though without the
accent of penitence, for in truth she seemed quietly amused. "All I
meant was that you were admirably quick in seizing an opportunity of
beginning your propaganda."

"I don't think you meant only that," remarked Dyce, coolly, looking
her in the eyes.

"Is it your habit to contradict so grossly?" asked Constance, with a
cold air of surprise.

"I try to make my talk--especially with women as honest as I can.
It seems mere justice to them, as well as to myself. And please
observe that I did _not_ grossly contradict you. I said that you
_seemed_ to me to have another thought in your mind beyond the one
you admitted.--Tell me, please; do you exact courtiership from
men? I imagined you would rather dislike it."

"You are right; I do."

"Then it's clear that you mustn't be annoyed when I speak in my
natural way. I see no reason in the world why one shouldn't talk to
a woman--about things in general--exactly as one does to a man.
What is called chivalry is simply disguised contempt. If a man bows
and honeys to a woman, he does so because he thinks she has such a
poor understanding that this kind of thing will flatter and please
her. For my own part, I shall never try to please a woman by any
other methods than those which would win the regard and friendship
of a man."

Constance wore a look of more serious attention.

"If you stick to that," she said, with a frank air, "you will be a
man worth knowing."

"I'm very glad to hear you say so. Now that we've cleared the air,
we shall get on better together. Let me tell you that, whatever else
I may fall short in, I have the virtue of sincerity. You know well
enough that I am naturally ambitious, but my ambition has never made
me unprincipled. I aim at distinction, because I believe that nature
has put it within my reach. I don't regard myself as an average man,
because I can't; it would be practising hypocrisy with myself. There
is--if you like--the possibility of self-deception. Perhaps I am
misled by egregious conceit. Well, it is honest conceit, and, as it
tends to my happiness, I don't pray to be delivered from it."

Constance smiled.

"This is very interesting, Mr. Lashmar. But why do you honour me
with such confidence?"

"Because I think you and I are capable of understanding each other,
which is a rare thing between man and woman. I want you as a
supporter of my views, and, if I succeed in that, I hope you will
become a supporter of my ambitions."

"What are they, just now?"

"Your letter contained a suggestion; whether you intended it or not,
I don't know. Why shouldn't I be the man Lady Ogram is looking for--the
future Liberal member for Hollingford?"

His companion gazed at a far point of the landscape.

"That is perhaps not an impossible thing," she said, meditatively.
"More unlikely things have come to pass."

"Then it does seem to you unlikely?"

"I think we won't discuss it just now.--You see, from here, the
plan of the gardens and the park. Perhaps you would like to walk
there a little, before going back to Hollingford?"

This was a dismissal, and Dyce accepted it. They went downstairs
together, and in the hall parted, with more friendliness on
Constance's side than she had hitherto shown. Dyce did not care to
linger in the grounds. He strolled awhile about the village,
glancing over the pamphlet with its report of last year's business
at the mill, and the local improvements consequent upon it, then
returned on foot to Hollingford, where he arrived with an excellent
appetite for dinner.

CHAPTER VI

Wind and rain interfered with Lashmar's project for the early
morning. He had meant to ramble about the town for an hour before
going out to Shawe. Unable to do this, he bought half-a-dozen
newspapers, and read all the leading articles and the political news
with close attention. As a rule, this kind of study had little
attraction for him; he was anything but well-informed on current
politics; he understood very imperfectly the British constitution,
and had still less insight into the details of party organisation
and conflict. All that kind of thing he was wont to regard as
unworthy of his scrutiny. For him, large ideas, world-embracing
theories, the philosophy of civilisation. Few Englishmen had a
smaller endowment of practical ability; few, on the other hand,
delighted as he did in speculative system, or could grasp and
exhibit in such lucid entirety hypothetical laws. Much as he talked
of science, he was lacking in several essentials of the scientific
mind; he had neither patience to collect and observe facts, nor
conscientiousness in reasoning upon them; prejudice directed his
every thought, and egoism pervaded all his conclusions. Excelling in
speciousness, it was natural that he should think success as a
politician within his easy reach; possessed by a plausible theory of
government, he readily conceived himself on the heights of
statesmanship, ruling the nation for its behoof. And so, as he read
the London and provincial papers this morning, they had all at once
a new interest for him; he probed questions, surveyed policies, and
whilst smiling at the intellectual poverty of average man, gravely
marked for himself a shining course amid the general confusion and
ineptitude.

At ten o'clock there shot a glint of promise across the clouded sky;
rain had ceased, the wind was less boisterous. Lashmar set forth
briskly on foot, and walked to Shawe, where he arrived in good time
for his appointment. The manager of the mill, a very intelligent
Scotchman, conscientiously showed him everything that was to be
seen, and Dyce affected great interest. Real interest he felt little
or none; the processes of manufacture belonged to a world to which
he had never given the slightest thought, which in truth repelled
him. But he tried to persuade himself that he saw everything from a
philosophical point of view, and found a place for it in his system.
The folk employed he regarded attentively and saw that they looked
healthy, well cared for.

"This must all be very gratifying to Lady Ogram," he remarked, in a
voice which struck just the right note of dignified reflection.

"I understand that it is," replied the manager. "And to Miss Bride
also, no doubt."

"Does Miss Bride take an active interest in the mill?"

"In the hands, she does. She is an uncommon sort of young lady and,
I should say, makes her influence felt."

As this was the most direct statement which the Scotchman had
committed himself during their hour together, it correspondingly
impressed Lashmar. He went away thinking of Constance, and wondering
whether she was indeed such a notable woman. Must he really regard
her as an equal, or something like it. Needless to say that Dyce at
heart deemed all women his natural inferiors, and only by conscious
effort could entertain the possibility that one or other of their
sex might view and criticise him with level eyes. Six years ago
Connie Bride had looked up to him; he, with his University culture,
held undoubted superiority over the country girl striving hard to
educate herself and to find a place in the world. But much had
changed since then, and Dyce was beginning to feel that it would not
do to reckon on any dulness, or wilful blindness, in Constance with
regard to himself, his sayings and doings. Their talk yesterday had,
he flattered himself, terminated in his favour; chiefly, because of
his attitude of entire frankness, a compliment to the girl. That he
had been, in the strict sense of the word, open-hearted, it did not
occur to him to doubt. Dyce Lashmar's introspection stopped at a
certain point. He was still a very young man, and circumstance had
never yet shown him an austere countenance.

The sun was shining, the air exquisitely fresh. Lady Ogram had not
named the hour of luncheon, but it seemed to Dyce that he could
hardly present himself at Rivenoak before one o'clock; so, instead
of directing his steps towards the lodge; he struck off into a
by-road, where the new-opened leafage of the hawthorn glistened
after the morning's showers. Presently there came speeding towards
him a lady on a bicycle, and he was sure that it was Constance. She
did not slacken her pace; clearly she would not stop.

"Good morning!" sounded cheerfully from her, as she drew near. "Have
you seen the mill?--Come up to the house as soon as you like."

She had swept past, leaving in Dyce a sense of having been
cavalierly treated.

He turned, and followed towards Rivenoak. When he reached the house,
Constance was walking among the flower-beds, in her hand a
newspaper.

"Do you cycle?" she asked.

"No. I never felt tempted."

"Lady Ogram is having her drive. Shall we stay in the garden, as the
sun is so bright?"

They strolled hither and thither. Constance had a glow in her
checks, and spoke with agreeable animation. For a few minutes they
talked of the mill, and Dyce repeated the manager's remark about
Miss Bride's influence; he saw that it pleased her, but she affected
to put it carelessly aside.

"How long have you known Lady Ogram?" he inquired.

"A good many years. My father was once a friend of hers--long ago,
when he was a curate at Hollingford."

The circumstances of that friendship, and how it came to an end,
were but vaguely known to Constance. She remembered that, when she
was still a child, her mother often took her to Rivenoak, where she
enjoyed herself in the gardens or the park, and received presents
from Lady Ogram, the return journey being often made in their
hostess's carriage. In those days the baronet's wife was a vigorous
adherent of the Church of England, wherein she saw the hope of the
country and of mankind. But her orthodoxy discriminated; ever
combative, she threw herself into the religious polemics of the
time, and not only came to be on very ill terms with her own parish
clergyman, but fell foul of the bishop of the diocese, who seemed to
her to treat with insufficient consideration certain letters she
addressed to him. Then it was that, happening to hear a sermon by
the Rev. Mr. Bride in an unfashionable church at Hollingford, she
found in it a forcible expression of her own views, and straight way
selected Mr. Bride from all the Hollingford clergy as the sole
representative of Anglicanism. She spoke of him as "the coming man,"
prophesied for him a brilliant career, and began to exert herself on
his behalf. Doubtless she would have obtained substantial promotion
for the curate of St. John's, had not her own vehemence and Mr.
Bride's difficult character brought about a painful misunderstanding
between them. The curate was not what is known as a gentleman by
birth; he had the misfortune to count among his near kinsfolk not
only very poor, but decidedly ungenteel, persons. His only sister
had married an uneducated man, who, being converted to some
nondescript religion, went preaching about the country, and
unluckily, in the course of his apostolate, appeared at Hollingford.
Here he had some success; crowds attended his open-air sermons. It
soon became known that the preacher's wife, who was always at his
side, was a sister of Mr. Bride of St. John's, and great scandal
arose in orthodox circles. Mr. Bride took quite another view of the
matter, and declared that, in doing so, he behaved simply as a
Christian. The debate exasperated Lady Ogram's violent temper, and
fortified Mr. Bride in a resentful obstinacy. After their parting,
in high dudgeon, letters were exchanged, which merely embittered the
quarrel. It was reported that the Lady of Rivenoak had publicly
styled the curate of St. John's "a low-born and ill-bred parson;"
whereto Mr. Bride was alleged to have made retort that as regards
birth, he suspected that he had somewhat the advantage of Lady
Ogram, and, as for his breeding, it at all events forebade him to
bandy insults. Not long after this, St. John's had another curate. A
sequel of the story was the ultimate settling at Hollingford of Mr.
Bride's sister and her husband, where, to this day the woman, for
some years a widow, supported herself by means of a little bakery

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