Edith Wharton - Novella 01 Read online

  Georgie was clever & politic enough to know that such desperate measures were the only ones which could put an end to this unpleasant matter; but she was really sorry for Guy & wanted to make the note as kind & gentle as possible. Perhaps Guy felt the sting none the less that it was so adroitly sheathed in protestations of affection & unworthiness. He was alone in the motley apartment, half-studio, half smoking-room & study, which opened off his bedroom at his London lodgings. He had not had the heart to stay at the Club after he had breakfasted; but pocketed Georgie’s note (which was brought to him there) & went home at once. Inevitable business had detained him in town the day before, but he had determined to run down to West Adamsborough that morning, having prepared Georgie by his note. Now his plans, & indeed his whole life, seemed utterly changed. There comes a time in the experience of most men when their faith in womankind is shaken pretty nearly to its foundations; & that time came to Guy Hastings as he sat by his fire, with a bust of Pallas (adorned by a Greek cap & a faded blue breast-knot) presiding over him, & read his dismissal. But here I propose to spare my reader. I suppose every lover raves in the same rhetoric, when his mistress plays him false, & when to you, Sylvia, or you, Damon, that bitter day comes, you will know pretty accurately how Guy felt & what Guy said. Let us, then, pass over an hour, & reenter our hero’s domain with Jack Egerton, who, at about 11 o’clock, gave his sharp, short rap at the door of that sanctum. “Who the devil is it?” said Guy, savagely, starting at the sound. “Your Mentor.” “Jack?—Confound you!—Well, come in if you like.” “I do like, most decidedly,” said Egerton briskly, sending a puff of balmy Havana smoke before him as he entered. “What’s the matter now? I’ve been at Swift’s after you, & didn’t half expect to find you moping here.” “I don’t care where I am,” said Guy with a groan. “Sit down. What is the use of living?” “Shall I answer you from a scientific, theological or moral point of view?” “Neither. Don’t be a fool.” “Oh,” with a slight shrug, “I thought you might like me to keep you company.” Guy growled. “I don’t know whether you want to be kicked or not,” he said, glaring at poor Jack, “but I feel deucedly like trying it.” “Do, my dear fellow! If it will shake you out of this agreeable fit of the dumps I shall feel that it is not paying too dearly.” Guy was silent for a moment; then he picked up Georgie’s letter & held it at arm’s length, before his friend. “Look there,” he said. Jack nodded. “My death warrant.” He stooped down & pushed it deep into the smouldering coals—it burst into a clear flame, & then died out & turned to ashes. “Woman’s love,” observed Jack sententiously. Jack was a boasted misogynist, & if he had not pitied Guy from the depths of his honest heart, might have felt some lawful triumph in the stern way in which his favourite maxim, “Woman is false” was brought home to his long unbelieving friend; such a triumph as that classic bore, Mentor, doubtless experienced when Telemachus broke loose from the rosy toils of Calypso. “There,” he continued. “If you have the pluck to take your fancy—your passion—whatever you choose to call it, & burn it as you burned that paper, I have some hopes for you.” Guy sat staring absently at the red depths of the falling fire. “Did a woman ever serve you so, Jack?” he asked, suddenly, facing about & looking at Egerton sharply; but Jack did not flinch. “No,” he said in a voice of the profoundest scorn; “I never gave one of them a chance to do it. You might as well say, did I ever pick up a rattle-snake, let it twist round my arm & say: ‘Bite!’ No, decidedly not!” “Then you believe that all women are the same?” “What else have I always preached to you?” cried Jack, warming with his favourite subject. “What does Pope say? “Every woman is at heart a rake’! And Pope knew ’em. And I know ’em. Look here; your cousin is not the only woman you’ve had to do with. How did the others treat you? Ah—I remember the innkeeper’s daughter that vacation in Wales, my boy!” “Don’t,” said Guy reddening angrily. “It was my own fault. I was only a boy, & I was a fool to think I cared for the girl—that’s nothing. She is the only woman I ever loved!” “So much the better. The more limited one’s experience, the less harm it will do. Only guard yourself from repeating such a favourite folly.” “There’s no danger of that!” “I hope not,” said Egerton. “But I have got a plan to propose to you. After such a little complaint as you have been suffering from, change of scene & climate is considered the best cure. Come to Italy with me, old fellow!” “To Italy!” Guy repeated. “When? How soon?” “The day after tomorrow.” “But-I-I meant—I hoped… to see her again.” Jack rapped the floor impatiently with his stick. “What? Expose yourself to the contempt & insult, or still worse, the pity, of a woman who has jilted you? For Heaven’s sake, lad, keep hold of your senses!” “You think I oughtn’t to go, then?” said Guy, anxiously. “Go!—out of the fryingpan into the fire I should call it,” stormed Jack, pacing up & down the littered room. “No. He must be a poor-spirited fellow who swims back for salvation to the ship that his pitched him overboard! No. Come abroad with me, as soon as you can get your traps together, & let the whole thing go to the deuce as fast as it can.” Jack paused to let his words take effect; & Guy sat, with his head leaning on his hand, still studying the ruins of the fire. At last he sprang up & caught his shrewd-headed friend by the hand. “By Jove, Jack, you’re right. What have we got to live for but our art? Come along. Let’s go to Italy—tomorrow, if you can, Jack!” And go they did, the next day. As his friends used to say of him, “Jack’s the fellow for an emergency.” His real, anxious affection for Guy, & his disinterested kind-heartedness conquered every obstacle to so hasty & unexpected a departure; & four days after he parted with Georgie in the drawingroom of Holly Lodge, Guy Hastings was on his way to Calais, looking forward, through the distorting spectacles of a disappointed love, to a long, dreary waste of life which was only one degree better than its alternative, the utter chaos of death.

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  V.

  Lady Breton of Lowood.

  “A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.”

  Tennyson: Locksley Hall.

  It is sometimes wonderful to me how little it takes to make people happy. How short a time is needed to bury a grief, how little is needed to cover it! What Salvandy once said in a political sense, “Nous dansons sur un volcan,” is equally true of life. We trip lightly over new graves & gulfs of sorrow & separation; we piece & patch & draw together the torn woof of our happiness; yet sometimes our silent sorrows break through the slight barrier we have built to ward them off, & look us sternly in the face—

  A month after Guy Hastings & Egerton started on their wanderings southward, Miss Rivers’ engagement to Lord Breton of Lowood was made known to the fashionable world, & a month after that (during which the fashionable world had time to wag its tongue over the nine-day’s wonder of the old peer’s being caught by that “fast little chit”) Georgie became Lady Breton. As a county paper observed: “The brilliant espousals were celebrated with all the magnificence of wealth directed by taste.” Georgie, under her floating mist of lace went up the aisle with a slow step, & not a few noticed how intensely pale she was; but when she came out on her husband’s arm her colour had revived & she walked quickly & bouyantly. Of course Mrs. Rivers was in tears; & Kate & Julia, in their new role of bridemaids fluttered about everywhere; & Miss Blackstone put on a gown of Bismarck-coloured poplin (her favourite shade) & a bonnet of surprising form & rainbow tints, in honour of the occasion. But perhaps the real moment of Georgie’s triumph was when the carriage rolled through the grand gateways of Lowood, & after long windings through stately trees & slopes of shaven lawn, passed before the door of her new home. Her heart beat high as Lord Breton, helping her to descend, led her on his arm through the wide hall lined by servants; she felt now that no stakes would have been too high to win this exquisite moment of possessorship. A fortnight after this brought on the bright, busy Christmas season; & as Lord Breton was desirous of keeping it festively, invitations were sent out right & left. Georgie, although perhaps she had not as much libe
rty as she had dreamed, found her husband sufficiently indulgent, unless his express wishes were crossed; when, as the game-keeper once remarked, “His lordship were quite pinacious.” She enjoyed, too, the character of Lady Bountiful, & the tribute of obsequious flattery which everybody is ready to pay to the mistress of a hospitable house; but it was not long before she felt that these passing triumphs, which her girlish fancy had exaggerated, palled on her in proportion as they became an understood part of her life; praise loses half its sweetness when it is expected. At first she would not confess to herself the great want that seemed to be growing undefinably into her life; but as the gulf widened, she could not overlook it. There is but one Lethe for those who are haunted by a life’s mistake; & Georgie plunged into it. I have hinted that she had had a reputation for fastness in her unmarried days; this reputation, which grew as much out of a natural vivacity & daring as out of anything marked in her conduct, grew to be a truth after she became Lady Breton. She dashed into the crowd to escape the ghosts that peopled her solitude with vague reproaches; & as the incompleteness of her mischosen life grew upon her day by day it gave new impetus to the sort of moral opium-eating which half-stifled memory. Lord Breton did not care to stay her; he took a certain pride in the glitter that his young wife’s daring manners carried with them; for in pretty women, fastness has always more or less fascination. And Georgie had to perfection the talent of being “fast.” She was never coarse, never loud, never disagreeably masculine; but there was a resistless, saucy elan about her that carried her a little beyond the average bounds laid for a lady’s behaviour. It seemed as though her life never stood still, but rushed on with the hurry & brawl of the streamlet that cannot hide the stones clogging its flow. Altogether, she fancied herself happy; but there were moments when she might have said, with Miss Ingelow: “My old sorrow wakes & cries”; moments when all the hubbub of the present could not drown the low reproach of the past. It was a very thin partition that divided Georgie from her skeleton.

  One day, when the last Christmas guests had departed from Lowood, & the new relay had not arrived, Lord Breton, who was shut up with a sharp attack of gout, sent a servant to Georgie’s dressing-room, to say that he would like to see my lady. She came to him at once, for even his company, & his slow, pompous speeches, were better than that dreadful solitude; although gout did not sweeten his temper. “My dear,” he said, “seeing that ivory chess-board in the drawing-room yesterday suggested to me an occupation while I am confined to my chair. I used to be a fair player once. Will you kindly have the board brought up?” As it happened, Georgie had not played a game of chess since the afternoon of her parting with Guy, & her husband’s words, breaking upon a train of sad thought (she had been alone nearly all day) jarred her strangely. “Chess!” she said, with a start. “Oh, I—I had rather not. Excuse me. I hate chess. Couldn’t we play something else?” Lord Breton looked surprised. “Is the game so repugnant to you that I may not ask you to gratify me this afternoon?” he asked, serenely; & Georgie felt almost ashamed of her weakness. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I play very badly, & could only bore you.” “I think I can instruct you,” said Lord Breton, benignly; mistaking her aversion for humility, & delighted at the display of this wife-like virtue. “Oh, no, indeed. I am so stupid about those things. And I don’t like the game.” “I hoped you might conquer your dislike for my sake. You forget that I lead a more monotonous existence than yours, when confined by this unfortunate malady.” Lord Breton’s very tone spoke unutterable things; but if Georgie could have mastered her feeling, the spirit of opposition alone would have been enough to prick her on now. “I am sorry,” she said, coldly, “that my likes & dislikes are not under better control. I cannot play chess.” “You cannot, or will not?” “Whichever you please,” said Georgie, composedly. Lord Breton’s wrath became evident in the contraction of his heavy brows; that a man with his positive ideas about wifely submission, & marital authority, should have his reproofs answered thus! “I do not think,” he observed, “that you consider what you are saying.” “I seldom do,” said Georgia, with engaging frankness. “You know I am quite incorrigible.” “I confess, Lady Breton, I do not care for such trifling.” “I was afraid I was boring you. I am going to drive into Morley. Shall I order you any books from the library?” enquired Georgie, graciously. But as she rose to go, Lord Breton’s ire burst out. “Stay!” he exclaimed, turning red up to his rough eye-brows. “I repeat, Lady Breton, that I do not think you know what you are saying. This trivial evasion of so simple [a] request displeases me; & I must again ask you to sacrifice part of your afternoon to the claims of your husband.” Georgie, who [was] standing with her hand on the door, did not speak; but her eyes gave him back flash for flash. “Will you oblige me by ringing for the chess-board?” continued Lord Breton, rigidly. “Certainly. Perhaps you can get Williamson to play with you,” said Georgie, pulling the bell. (Williamson was my lord’s confidential valet.) “I beg your pardon. I believe I have already asked you to perform that function, Lady Breton.” “And I believe that I have already refused,” said Georgie, regaining her coolness in proportion as her husband grew more irate. At this moment, Williamson appeared, & Lord Breton ordered him to bring up the chessboard. When he was gone, Georgie saw that matters had gone too far for trifling. She had set her whole, strong will against playing the game, & she resolved that Lord Breton should know it at once. “I do not suppose,” she said, looking him directly in the face, “that you mean to drive me into obeying by force. Once for all, I cannot & I will not, do as you ask me. You have insulted me by speaking to me as if I were a perverse child, & not the head of your house; but I don’t mean to lose my temper. I know that gout is very trying.” With this Parthian shot, she turned & left the room. Lord Breton, boiling with rage, called after her—but what can a man tied to his chair with the gout do against a quick-witted strategist in petticoats? Lord Breton began to think that this wife-training was, after all, not mere child’s play. This was the first declaration of open war; but it put Lord Breton on the alert, & spurred Georgie into continual opposition. After all, she said to herself, quarrelling was better than [the] heavy monotony of peace; Lord Breton was perhaps not quite such a bore when worked into a genuine passion, as when trying to be ponderously gallant. Poor Georgie! When she appeared on her husband’s arm at the county balls & dinners in the flash of her diamonds & the rustle of her velvet & lace, it seemed a grand thing to be Lady Breton of Lowood; but often, after those very balls & dinners, when she had sent her hundred-eyed maid away, & stood before the mirror taking off her jewels, she felt that, like Cinderella, after one of those brief triumphs, she was going back to the ashes & rags of reality.

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  VI.

  At Rome.

  “I & he, Brothers in art.” Tennyson.

  A large studio on the third floor of a Roman palazzo; a room littered & crowded & picturesque in its disorderliness, as only a studio can be. A white cast of Aphrodite relieved by a dull tapestry background representing a wan Susannah dipping her foot in the water, while two muddy-coloured elders glare through a time-eaten bough; an Italian stove surmounted by a coloured sporting print, a Toledo blade & a smashed Tyrolean hat; in one corner a lay-figure with the costumes of a nun, a brigand, a sultana & a Greek girl piled on indiscriminately; in another an easel holding a large canvas on which was roughly sketched the head of a handsome contadina. Such was the first mixed impression which the odd furnishing of the room gave to a newcomer; although a thousand lesser oddities, hung up, artist-fashion, everywhere, made a background of bright colours for these larger objects. It was a soft February day, & the window by which Guy Hastings sat (he was lounging on its broad, uncushioned sill) was opened; so that the draught blew the puffs from his cigarette hither & thither before his face. Jack Egerton, who shared the studio with him, was painting before a small easel, adding the last crimson touches to a wild Campagna sunset, & of course they kept the ball flying between them pretty steadily, as
the one worked & the other watched. “That will be a success,” observed Guy, critically. “For whom did you say it was painted?” “A fellow named Graham, an English merchant, with about as much knowledge of art as you & I have of roadmaking. But it is such a delightful rarity to sell a picture, that I don’t care who gets it.” “How did he happen to be trapped?” Jack laughed. “Why, I met him at your handsome Marchese’s the other day, & she made a little speech about my superhuman genius, which led him to take some gracious notice of me. I hinted that he might have seen one of my pictures (that confounded thing that Vianelli’s had for a month) in a shop-window on the Corso, & he remembered it, & enquired the price. ‘Very sorry’ said I, ‘but the thing is sold. To an English Earl, an amateur, whose name I am not at liberty to mention.’ He gobbled the bait at once, ordered this at a splendid price, & I ran down to Vianelli’s, let him into my little game, told him to send the picture home at once, & then sent some flowers to the Marchese!” Guy laughed heartily at his friend’s ruse, & then observed, “I wish you had mentioned that I had some pictures which I would part with as a favour.” “By degrees, my boy, by degrees. He will come to the studio, to see this chef-d’oeuvre, & then you shall be introduced as a painter of whose fame he has of course etc., etc. By the way, I shouldn’t wonder if he came today.” Guy knocked the ashes off his cigarette & got up from his seat. “I thought Teresina would have come this morning,” he said, “but I hope she won’t. She gets so confoundedly frightened when anybody comes in, & one feels like such a fool.” “Guy!” said Egerton, suddenly, laying down his brush. “Well, old fellow?” “Are you going to make an ass of yourself?” “Not that I know of. How do you mean?” Guy stood opposite his friend, & looked him frankly in the face. “I mean,” said Jack, resuming his work, “Are you going to fancy yourself in love with this pretty little peasant, & get into no end of a scrape?” “I don’t know.” “Well, then, be warned. What is the saying? Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.” “Very likely not. But… Ah, here she is. I know that tremulous little knock.” Guy opened the door as he spoke, to admit a contadina, in holyday dress, with a gold chain about her soft olive throat & a clean white head-dress above her lustrous braids pinned with a silver dagger. She could not have been more than 16 years old, & was of that purest type of the Roman peasant which is so seldom met with nowadays. Her large, languid blue-black eyes were so heavily fringed that when she looked downward (as she almost always did, from an instinct of fawn-like timidity) they scarcely gleamed through their veil; & there was not a tinge of colour in the transparent olive cheek which made her full, sensitive mouth look all the redder as it parted on a row of pearl-white teeth, when Guy greeted her with his usual gentle gayety. It was no wonder that Jack had his fears. Little Teresina, with her trembling shyness & her faint smiles, & her low, sweet Italian, was a more dangerous siren than many an accomplished woman of the world. “I expected you” said Guy, smiling, as she stepped timidly into the room; & speaking in Italian, which Jack, as he bent quietly over his work, wished more than ever to understand. “Look here,” Guy continued, pointing to the sketched head in the corner, “I have not touched it since because I knew I could not catch those eyes or that sweet, frightened smile without looking at you again.” As he spoke, he moved the easel out into its place, & began to collect his brushes, while Teresina went quietly to place herself in a large, carved armchair raised on a narrow dais. When Guy had finished his preparations, & arranged the light to his complete satisfaction, he sprang up on the dais, with an old red cloth on his arm & stretched it at Teresina’s feet. “Now, piccola,” he said, standing at a critical distance, “let us see if you are properly posed. Wait a minute. So.” He came close to her, adjusted a fold in her dress & moved her soft, frightened hand a little. “Are you so much afraid of me, cara?” he asked, smiling, as he felt it tremble. “I am not very hard to please, am I?” Teresina shook her head. “There,” said Guy, “that is right, now. Only lift up those wonderful lashes. I do not want to paint the picture of a blind contadina, do I?” All this, spoken in a soft tone which was natural to Guy when addressing any woman, made poor Jack groan inwardly at his own stupidity in not understanding that sweet pernicious language that sounded like perpetual love-making! Having perfected Teresina’s attitude, Guy sat down before his canvas, & began to paint; every now & then saying something to provoke the soft, monosyllables that he liked so well. “Where did you get that fine gold necklace, piccola?” he asked, beginning to paint it in with a few preparatory touches. “It is not mine. It belongs to la madre,” said Teresina. “She wore it at her wedding.” “Ah, & perhaps you will wear it at yours. Should you like to get married, Teresina?” “I don’t know,” said Teresina, slowly. “La madre wants me to marry Pietro (the carpenter, you know) but I would rather kill myself!” There was a flash in the soft velvet eyes, that made Guy pause in undisguised admiration; but it died in an instant, & no art of his brush or palette could hope to reflect it. “Is there anyone else you would like to marry, Teresina?” She was silent; & he repeated his question. “Why do you ask me, Signore?” said the girl, dropping her lids. “I wish you would go on painting.” Guy was not a little astonished at this outburst; & went on with his work quietly, to Jack’s intense relief. After about an hour of silence (Jack was obstinately dumb during Teresina’s presence in the studio, believing that those infernal models could understand anything a fellow said) a round knock at the door made Guy breathe a low “confound it!” Egerton called “Come in,” & the next moment a portly gentleman, unmistakably English from top to toe, stood on the threshold. “Mr. Graham!” said Jack, rising. “You find me at work on the last touches of your little thing. Let me present my friend, Mr. Hastings, whose fame of course… I need not say Mr. Graham bowed, & was very much honoured by an introduction to Mr. Hastings. Mr. Graham spoke in a satisfied, important voice. Mr. Graham had the uneasy, patronizing air of a man who stands higher than his level, & is not quite sure of his footing. “You see,” Jack continued, lightly, moving a chair forward for his august visitor, “that we painters are not quite such idle fellows as the world makes us out to be. Hastings & I take advantage of this fine light for our work.” “So I observe,” said Mr. Graham, with a bow. “I see you’ve nearly done my order—a very nice little bit (as you artists would say) a very nice little bit.” As Mr. Graham spoke, his eye wandered about the motley room, & in its course rested on Teresina. As Guy had said, she got “so confoundedly frightened” when any stranger was present; it was the first year she had been hired as a model, & the miserable life had not yet rubbed off her girlish bloom. When she met Mr. Graham’s scrutinizing eyes, her lashes drooped & a soft crimson stole over her neck & face, making her lovelier than ever; “let me go, Signore,” she whispered to Guy, who had approached her to rearrange some detail in her dress. Then, without a word, she slipped down from her elavation, & stole quickly out of the room, still followed by Mr. Graham’s gaze. “A model, eh? A very pretty little girl, Mr. Hastings. And a very nice picture—a very good likeness.” Mr. Graham threw his head back critically & fancied, worthy man, that he had been eminently calculated to discriminate justly in art. “Have you been long at that, eh?” he continued, nodding towards the picture. “Two sittings,” said Guy, shortly; he was vexed that this intrusion had put his shy bird to the flight, & could not abide this goodnatured bourgeois patronage which Jack laughed at & professed to like as a study of character. “A very pretty, sweet little girl,” said Mr. Graham, who had a weighty way of repeating his remarks as if they were too precious to pass at once into oblivion. “But I am told that those models haven’t much character, Mr. Hastings, eh?” “A common mistake,” Guy returned coldly. “Ah!” said Mr. Graham. But Jack’s effusive politeness flattered him more than the stern reserve of Jack’s handsome, sulky friend; & Guy was left to himself, while the merchant & Egerton talked together. It was not until the former rose to go, that he was again drawn into the circle of conversation. “I hope we shall see you at our apartment, no.
2 via , Mr. Egerton. You—Mr. Hastings—you also, Sir. I shall be happy to introduce my wife & daughter. I shall have my little commission tomorrow, then? Good morning to you, gentlemen.” And Mr. Graham marched out with what (he flattered himself) was a ducal elegance of manner & carriage. When the door was shut, Guy relieved himself of, “I hate your confounded shopkeepers!” “Every man who buys my pictures is my brother,” exclaimed Jack, dramatically, “whatever be his station in life!” “Odd—because I never knew one of your brothers to do such an ingenuous thing!” observed Guy, gathering up his brushes. “Guy, my boy! You’re getting sarcastic.” “Very likely. I am going to the deuce by grande vitesse.” “Why don’t you stop at a station by the way?” said Egerton, rising with a yawn from his easel. “It would be a pity to reach your destination so soon.” “What does it matter?” returned Guy, bitterly, turning away to stare out of the window. “A good deal, my boy, to some people.” I might have thought so once,” said Guy very low. Jack was silent; he lighted his cigar & leaned back in a medieval armchair puffing meditatively. After a while he said, “Are you falling in love with Teresina?” Guy started. “No,” he said, “I don’t think I am falling in love with anybody. If I have any heart left, I haven’t enough for that. Poor little Teresina!” “Why do you pity her?” said Jack, sharply. “Because she is young &—I believe—sincere.” “Pity such virtues don’t last longer in persons of her class!” said Egerton.” “But you’ve got her in your head. Now, what are you going to do with her?” “Paint her.” Nonsense!” Jack jumped up & laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Look here, my boy,” he said, in his quick way, “since you left London with me last Autumn you have been doing your best to shew what I have always said—that there is nothing like a woman for ruining a man’s life. In short, you have been going rapidly to the dogs. Well; I am not a parson either, & I don’t care to preach. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t give way one instant to another woman! If, as you say, this child is innocent & honest, leave her so. Don’t let those confounded soft eyes twist you into the idea that you’re in love.” “Poor little Teresina!” said Guy again.