17. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE
After such successes as these, Christopher could not forego the seductiveintention of calling upon the poetess and romancer, at her nowestablished town residence in Exonbury Crescent. One wintry afternoon hereached the door--now for the third time--and gave a knock which had init every tender refinement that could be thrown into the somewhatantagonistic vehicle of noise. Turning his face down the street hewaited restlessly on the step. There was a strange light in theatmosphere: the glass of the street-lamps, the varnished back of apassing cab, a milk-woman's cans, and a row of church-windows glared inhis eyes like new-rubbed copper; and on looking the other way he beheld abloody sun hanging among the chimneys at the upper end, as a danger-lampto warn him off.
By this time the door was opened, and before him stood Ethelberta's youngbrother Joey, thickly populated with little buttons, the remainder of himconsisting of invisible green.
'Ah, Joseph,' said Christopher, instantly recognizing the boy. 'What,are you here in office? Is your--'
Joey lifted his forefinger and spread his mouth in a genial manner, as ifto signify particular friendliness mingled with general caution.
'Yes, sir, Mrs. Petherwin is my mistress. I'll see if she is at home,sir,' he replied, raising his shoulders and winking a wink of strategicmeanings by way of finish--all which signs showed, if evidence werewanted, how effectually this pleasant young page understood, though quitefresh from Wessex, the duties of his peculiar position. Mr. Julian wasshown to the drawing-room, and there he found Ethelberta alone.
She gave him a hand so cool and still that Christopher, much as hedesired the contact, was literally ashamed to let her see and feel hisown, trembling with unmanageable excess of feeling. It was always so,always had been so, always would be so, at these meetings of theirs: shewas immeasurably the strongest; and the deep-eyed young man fancied, inthe chagrin which the perception of this difference always bred in him,that she triumphed in her superior control. Yet it was only in littlethings that their sexes were thus reversed: Christopher would receivequite a shock if a little dog barked at his heels, and be totally unmovedwhen in danger of his life.
Certainly the most self-possessed woman in the world, under pressure ofthe incongruity between their last meeting and the present one, mighthave shown more embarrassment than Ethelberta showed on greeting him to-day. Christopher was only a man in believing that the shyness which shedid evince was chiefly the result of personal interest. She might ormight not have been said to blush--perhaps the stealthy change upon herface was too slow an operation to deserve that name: but, though palewhen he called, the end of ten minutes saw her colour high and wide. Shesoon set him at his ease, and seemed to relax a long-sustained tension asshe talked to him of her arrangements, hopes, and fears.
'And how do you like London society?' said Ethelberta.
'Pretty well, as far as I have seen it: to the surface of its frontdoor.'
'You will find nothing to be alarmed at if you get inside.'
'O no--of course not--except my own shortcomings,' said the modestmusician. 'London society is made up of much more refined people thansociety anywhere else.'
'That's a very prevalent opinion; and it is nowhere half so prevalent asin London society itself. However, come and see my house--unless youthink it a trouble to look over a house?'
'No; I should like it very much.'
The decorations tended towards the artistic gymnastics prevalent in somequarters at the present day. Upon a general flat tint of duck's-egggreen appeared quaint patterns of conventional foliage, and birds, donein bright auburn, several shades nearer to redbreast-red than wasEthelberta's hair, which was thus thrust further towards brown by suchjuxtaposition--a possible reason for the choice of tint. Upon the glazedtiles within the chimney-piece were the forms of owls, bats, snakes,frogs, mice, spiders in their webs, moles, and other objects of aversionand darkness, shaped in black and burnt in after the approved fashion.
'My brothers Sol and Dan did most of the actual work,' said Ethelberta,'though I drew the outlines, and designed the tiles round the fire. Theflowers, mice, and spiders are done very simply, you know: you only pressa real flower, mouse, or spider out flat under a piece of glass, and thencopy it, adding a little more emaciation and angularity at pleasure.'
'In that "at pleasure" is where all the art lies,' said he.
'Well, yes--that is the case,' said Ethelberta thoughtfully; andpreceding him upstairs, she threw open a door on one of the floors,disclosing Dan in person, engaged upon a similar treatment of this flooralso. Sol appeared bulging from the door of a closet, a little furtheron, where he was fixing some shelves; and both wore workmen's blouses. Atonce coming down from the short ladder he was standing upon, Dan shookChristopher's hand with some velocity.
'We do a little at a time, you see,' he said, 'because Colonel downbelow, and Mrs. Petherwin's visitors, shan't smell the turpentine.'
'We be pushing on to-day to get it out of the way,' said Sol, also comingforward and greeting their visitor, but more reluctantly than his brotherhad done. 'Now I'll tell ye what--you two,' he added, after an uneasypause, turning from Christopher to Ethelberta and back again in greatearnestness; 'you'd better not bide here, talking to we rough ones, youknow, for folks might find out that there's something closer between usthan workmen and employer and employer's friend. So Berta and Mr.Julian, if you'll go on and take no more notice o' us, in case ofvisitors, it would be wiser--else, perhaps, if we should be found outintimate with ye, and bring down your gentility, you'll blame us for it.I get as nervous as a cat when I think I may be the cause of any disgraceto ye.'
'Don't be so silly, Sol,' said Ethelberta, laughing.
'Ah, that's all very well,' said Sol, with an unbelieving smile; 'but ifwe bain't company for you out of doors, you bain't company for wewithin--not that I find fault with ye or mind it, and shan't takeanything for painting your house, nor will Dan neither, any more forthat--no, not a penny; in fact, we are glad to do it for 'ee. At thesame time, you keep to your class, and we'll keep to ours. And so, goodafternoon, Berta, when you like to go, and the same to you, Mr. Julian.Dan, is that your mind?'
'I can but own it,' said Dan.
The two brothers then turned their backs upon their visitors, and went onworking, and Ethelberta and her lover left the room. 'My brothers, youperceive,' said she, 'represent the respectable British workman in hisentirety, and a touchy individual he is, I assure you, on points ofdignity, after imbibing a few town ideas from his leaders. They arepainfully off-hand with me, absolutely refusing to be intimate, from amistaken notion that I am ashamed of their dress and manners; which, ofcourse, is absurd.'
'Which, of course, is absurd,' said Christopher.
'Of course it is absurd!' she repeated with warmth, and looking keenly athim. But, finding no harm in his face, she continued as before: 'Yet,all the time, they will do anything under the sun that they think willadvance my interests. In our hearts we are one. All they ask me to dois to leave them to themselves, and therefore I do so. Now, would youlike to see some more of your acquaintance?'
She introduced him to a large attic; where he found himself in thesociety of two or three persons considerably below the middle height,whose manners were of that gushing kind sometimes called Continental,their ages ranging from five years to eight. These were the youngestchildren, presided over by Emmeline, as professor of letters, capital andsmall.
'I am giving them the rudiments of education here,' said Ethelberta; 'butI foresee several difficulties in the way of keeping them here, which Imust get over as best I can. One trouble is, that they don't get enoughair and exercise.'
'Is Mrs. Chickerel living here as well?' Christopher ventured to inquire,when they were downstairs again.
'Yes; but confined to her room as usual, I regret to say. Two moresisters of mine, whom you have never seen at all, are also here. Theyare older than any of the rest of us, and had, broadly speaking, noeducat
ion at all, poor girls. The eldest, Gwendoline, is my cook, andCornelia is my housemaid. I suffer much sadness, and almost miserysometimes, in reflecting that here are we, ten brothers and sisters, bornof one father and mother, who might have mixed together and shared all inthe same scenes, and been properly happy, if it were not for the strangeaccidents that have split us up into sections as you see, cutting me offfrom them without the compensation of joining me to any others. They areall true as steel in keeping the secret of our kin, certainly; but thatbrings little joy, though some satisfaction perhaps.'
'You might be less despondent, I think. The tale-telling has been one ofthe successes of the season.'
'Yes, I might; but I may observe that you scarcely set the example ofblitheness.'
'Ah--that's not because I don't recognize the pleasure of being here. Itis from a more general cause: simply an underfeeling I have that at themost propitious moment the distance to the possibility of sorrow is soshort that a man's spirits must not rise higher than mere cheerfulnessout of bare respect to his insight.
"As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow."'
Ethelberta bowed uncertainly; the remark might refer to her past conductor it might not. 'My great cause of uneasiness is the children,' shepresently said, as a new page of matter. 'It is my duty, at all risk andall sacrifice of sentiment, to educate and provide for them. The grown-up ones, older than myself, I cannot help much, but the little ones Ican. I keep my two French lodgers for the sake of them.'
'The lodgers, of course, don't know the relationship between yourself andthe rest of the people in the house?'
'O no!--nor will they ever. My mother is supposed to let the ground andfirst floors to me--a strange lady--as she does the second and thirdfloors to them. Still, I may be discovered.'
'Well--if you are?'
'Let me be. Life is a battle, they say; but it is only so in the sensethat a game of chess is a battle--there is no seriousness in it; it maybe put an end to at any inconvenient moment by owning yourself beaten,with a careless "Ha-ha!" and sweeping your pieces into the box.Experimentally, I care to succeed in society; but at the bottom of myheart, I don't care.'
'For that very reason you are likely to do it. My idea is, make ambitionyour business and indifference your relaxation, and you will fail; butmake indifference your business and ambition your relaxation, and youwill succeed. So impish are the ways of the gods.'
'I hope that you at any rate will succeed,' she said, at the end of asilence.
'I never can--if success means getting what one wants.'
'Why should you not get that?'
'It has been forbidden to me.'
Her complexion changed just enough to show that she knew what he meant.'If you were as bold as you are subtle, you would take a more cheerfulview of the matter,' she said, with a look signifying innermost things.
'I will instantly! Shall I test the truth of my cheerful view by a wordof question?'
'I deny that you are capable of taking that view, and until you provethat you are, no question is allowed,' she said, laughing, and stillwarmer in the face and neck. 'Nothing but melancholy, gentle melancholy,now as in old times when there was nothing to cause it.'
'Ah--you only tease.'
'You will not throw aside that bitter medicine of distrust, for theworld. You have grown so used to it, that you take it as food, as someinvalids do their mixtures.'
'Ethelberta, you have my heart--my whole heart. You have had it eversince I first saw you. Now you understand me, and no pretending that youdon't, mind, this second time.'
'I understood you long ago; you have not understood me.'
'You are mysterious,' he said lightly; 'and perhaps if I disentangle yourmystery I shall find it to cover--indifference. I hope it does--for yoursake.'
'How can you say so!' she exclaimed reproachfully. 'Yet I wish it didtoo--I wish it did cover indifference--for yours. But you have all of methat you care to have, and may keep it for life if you wish to. Listen,surely there was a knock at the door? Let us go inside the room: I amalways uneasy when anybody comes, lest any awkward discovery should bemade by a visitor of my miserable contrivances for keeping up theestablishment.'
Joey met them before they had left the landing.
'Please, Berta,' he whispered, 'Mr. Ladywell has called, and I've showedhim into the liberry. You know, Berta, this is how it was, you know: Ithought you and Mr. Julian were in the drawing-room, and wouldn't wanthim to see ye together, and so I asked him to step into the liberry aminute.'
'You must improve your way of speaking,' she said, with quickembarrassment, whether at the mention of Ladywell's name before Julian,or at the way Joey coupled herself with Christopher, was quite uncertain.'Will you excuse me for a few moments?' she said, turning to Christopher.'Pray sit down; I shall not be long.' And she glided downstairs.
They had been standing just by the drawing-room door, and Christopherturned back into the room with no very satisfactory countenance. It wasvery odd, he thought, that she should go down to Ladywell in thatmysterious manner, when he might have been admitted to where they weretalking without any trouble at all. What could Ladywell have to say, asan acquaintance calling upon her for a few minutes, that he was not tohear? Indeed, if it came to that, what right had Ladywell to call uponher at all, even though she were a widow, and to some extent chartered tolive in a way which might be considered a trifle free if indulged in byother young women. This was the first time that he himself had venturedinto her house on that very account--a doubt whether it was quite properto call, considering her youth, and the fertility of her position asground for scandal. But no sooner did he arrive than here was Ladywellblundering in, and, since this conjunction had occurred on his firstvisit, the chances were that Ladywell came very often.
Julian walked up and down the room, every moment expanding itself to aminute in his impatience at the delay and vexation at the cause. Afterscrutinizing for the fifth time every object on the walls as if afflictedwith microscopic closeness of sight, his hands under his coat-tails, andhis person jigging up and down upon his toes, he heard her coming up thestairs. When she entered the apartment her appearance was decidedly thatof a person subsiding after some little excitement.
'I did not calculate upon being so long,' she said sweetly, at the sametime throwing back her face and smiling. 'But I--was longer than Iexpected.'
'It seemed rather long,' said Christopher gloomily, 'but I don't mindit.'
'I am glad of that,' said Ethelberta.
'As you asked me to stay, I was very pleased to do so, and always shouldbe; but I think that now I will wish you good-bye.'
'You are not vexed with me?' she said, looking quite into his face. 'Mr.Ladywell is nobody, you know.'
'Nobody?'
'Well, he is not much, I mean. The case is, that I am sitting to him fora subject in which my face is to be used--otherwise than as aportrait--and he called about it.'
'May I say,' said Christopher, 'that if you want yourself painted, youare ill-advised not to let it be done by a man who knows how to use thebrush a little?'
'O, he can paint!' said Ethelberta, rather warmly. 'His last picture wasexcellent, I think. It was greatly talked about.'
'I imagined you to say that he was a mere nobody!'
'Yes, but--how provoking you are!--nobody, I mean, to talk to. He is atrue artist, nevertheless.'
Christopher made no reply. The warm understanding between them had quiteended now, and there was no fanning it up again. Sudden tiffs had beenthe constant misfortune of their courtship in days gone by, had been theremote cause of her marriage to another; and the familiar shadows seemedto be rising again to cloud them with the same persistency as ever.Christopher went downstairs with well-behaved moodiness, and left thehouse forthwith. The postman came to the door at the same time.
Ethelberta opened a letter from Picotee--now at Sandbourne again; and,stooping to the fire-light, she began to read:--
'MY DEAR ETHELBERTA,--I have tried to like staying at Sandbourne because you wished it, but I can't endure the town at all, dear Berta; everything is so wretched and dull! O, I only wish you knew how dismal it is here, and how much I would give to come to London! I cannot help thinking that I could do better in town. You see, I should be close to you, and should have the benefit of your experience. I would not mind what I did for a living could I be there where you all are. It is so like banishment to be here. If I could not get a pupil-teachership in some London school (and I believe I could by advertising) I could stay with you, and be governess to Georgina and Myrtle, for I am sure you cannot spare time enough to teach them as they ought to be taught, and Emmeline is not old enough to have any command over them. I could also assist at your dressmaking, and you must require a great deal of that to be done if you continue to appear in public. Mr. Long read in the papers the account of your first evening, and afterwards I heard two ladies of our committee talking about it; but of course not one of them knew my personal interest in the discussion. Now will you, Ethelberta, think if I may not come: Do, there's a dear sister! I will do anything you set me about if I may only come.--Your ever affectionate, PICOTEE.'
'Great powers above--what worries do beset me!' cried Ethelberta, jumpingup. 'What can possess the child so suddenly?--she used to likeSandbourne well enough!' She sat down, and hastily scribbled thefollowing reply:--
'MY DEAR PICOTEE--There is only a little time to spare before the post goes, but I will try to answer your letter at once. Whatever is the reason of this extraordinary dislike to Sandbourne? It is a nice healthy place, and you are likely to do much better than either of our elder sisters, if you follow straight on in the path you have chosen. Of course, if such good fortune should attend me that I get rich by my contrivances of public story-telling and so on, I shall share everything with you and the rest of us, in which case you shall not work at all. But (although I have been unexpectedly successful so far) this is problematical; and it would be rash to calculate upon all of us being able to live, or even us seven girls only, upon the fortune I am going to make that way. So, though I don't mean to be harsh, I must impress upon you the necessity of going on as you are going just at present. I know the place must be dull, but we must all put up with dulness sometimes. You, being next to me in age, must aid me as well as you can in doing something for the younger ones; and if anybody at all comes and lives here otherwise than as a servant, it must be our father--who will not, however, at present hear of such a thing when I mention it to him. Do think of all this, Picotee, and bear up! Perhaps we shall all be happy and united some day. Joey is waiting to run to the post-office with this at once. All are well. Sol and Dan have nearly finished the repairs and decorations of my house--but I will tell you of that another time.--Your affectionate sister, BERTA.'