The Tragic Muse (London & New York: Macmillan & Co., 1890)/Volume 2/Chapter 1
THE TRAGIC MUSE.
I.
While, after leaving Mrs. Gresham, he was hesitating which way to go and was on the point of hailing a gardener to ask if Mrs. Dallow had been seen, he noticed, as a spot of colour in an expanse of shrubbery, a far-away parasol moving in the direction of the lake. He took his course that way, across the park, and as the bearer of the parasol was strolling slowly it was not five minutes before he had joined her. He went to her soundlessly over the grass (he had been whistling at first, but as he got nearer he stopped), and it was not till he was close to her that she looked round. He had watched her moving as if she were turning things over in her mind, brushing the smooth walks and the clean turf with her dress, slowly making her parasol revolve on her shoulder and carrying in the hand which hung beside her a book which he perceived to be a monthly review.
"I came out to get away," she remarked when he had begun to walk with her.
"Away from me?"
"Ah, that's impossible," said Mrs. Dallow. Then she added: "The day is so nice."
"Lovely weather," Nick dropped. "You want to get away from Mrs. Gresham, I suppose."
Mrs. Dallow was silent a moment. "From everything!"
""Well, I want to get away too."
"It has been such a racket. Listen to the dear birds."
"Yes, our noise isn't so good as theirs," said Nick. "I feel as if I had been married and had shoes and rice thrown after me," he went on. "But not to you, Julia—nothing so good as that."
Mrs. Dallow made no answer to this; she only turned her eyes on the ornamental water which stretched away at their right. In a moment she exclaimed: "How nasty the lake looks!" and Nick recognized in the tone of the words a manifestation of that odd shyness—a perverse stiffness at a moment when she probably only wanted to be soft—which, taken in combination with her other qualities, was so far from being displeasing to him that it represented her nearest approach to extreme charm. He was not shy now, for he considered, this morning, that he saw things very straight and in a sense altogether superior and delightful. This enabled him to be generously sorry for his companion, if he were the reason of her being in any degree uncomfortable, and yet left him to enjoy the prettiness of some of the signs by which her discomfort was revealed. He would not insist on anything yet: so he observed that his cousin's standard in lakes was too high, and then talked a little about his mother and the girls, their having gone home, his not having seen them that morning, Lady Agnes's deep satisfaction in his victory and the fact that she would be obliged to "do something" for the autumn—take a house or something.
"I'll lend her a house," said Mrs. Dallow.
"Oh, Julia, Julia!" Nick exclaimed.
But Mrs. Dallow paid no attention to his exclamation; she only held up her review and said: "See what I have brought with me to read—Mr. Hoppus's article."
"That's right; then I sha'n't have to. You'll tell me about it." He uttered this without believing that she had meant or wished to read the article, which was entitled "The Revision of the British Constitution." in spite of her having encumbered herself with the stiff, fresh magazine. He was conscious that she was not in want of such mental occupation as periodical literature could supply. They walked along and then he added: "But is that what we are in for—reading Mr. Hoppus? Is that the sort of thing our constituents expect? Or even worse, pretending to have read him when one hasn't? Oh, what a tangled web we weave!"
"People are talking about it. One has to know. It's the article of the month."
Nick looked at his companion askance a moment. "You say things every now and then for which I could kill you. 'The article of the month,' for instance: I could kill you for that."
"Well, kill me!" Mrs. Dallow exclaimed.
"Let me carry your book," Nick rejoined, irrelevantly. The hand in which she held it was on the side of her on which he was walking, and he put out his own hand to take it. But for a couple of minutes she forbore to give it up, and they held it together, swinging it a little. Before she surrendered it he inquired where she was going.
"To the island," she answered.
"Well, I'll go with you—I'll kill you there."
"The things I say are the right things," said Mrs. Dallow.
"It's just the right things that are wrong. It's because you're so political," Nick went on. "It's your horrible ambition. The woman who has a salon should have read the article of the month. See how one dreadful thing leads to another."
"There are some things that lead to nothing."
"No doubt—no doubt. And how are you going to get over to your island?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't there a boat?"
"I don't know."
Nick had paused a moment, to look round for the boat, but Mrs. Dallow walked on without turning her head. "Can you row?" her companion asked.
"Don't you know I can do everything?"
"Yes, to be sure. That's why I want to kill you. There's the boat."
"Shall you drown me?"
"Oh, let me perish with you!" Nick answered with a sigh. The boat had been hidden from them by the bole of a great tree, which rose from the grass at the water's-edge. It was moored to a small place of embarkation and was large enough to hold as many persons as were likely to wish to visit at once the little temple in the middle of the lake, which Nick liked because it was absurd and Mrs. Dallow had never had a particular esteem for. The lake, fed by a natural spring, was a liberal sheet of water, measured by the scale of park scenery; and though its principal merit was that, taken at a distance, it gave a gleam of abstraction to the concrete verdure, doing the office of an open eye in a dull face, it could also be approached without derision on a sweet summer morning, when it made a lapping sound and reflected candidly various things that were probably finer than itself—the sky, the great trees, the flight of birds.
A man of taste, a hundred years before, coming back from Rome, had caused a small ornamental structure to be erected, on artificial foundations, on its bosom, and had endeavoured to make this architectural pleasantry as nearly as possible a reminiscence of the small ruined rotunda which stands on the bank of the Tiber and is declared by ciceroni to have been dedicated to Vesta. It was circular, it was roofed with old tiles, it was surrounded by white columns and it was considerably dilapidated. George Dallow had taken an interest in it (it reminded him not in the least of Rome, but of other things that he liked), and had amused himself with restoring it.
"Give me your hand; sit there, and I'll ferry you," Nick Dormer said.
Mrs. Dallow complied, placing herself opposite to him in the boat; but as he took up the paddles she declared that she preferred to remain on the water—there was too much malice prepense in the temple. He asked her what she meant by that, and she said it was ridiculous to withdraw to an island a few feet square on purpose to meditate. She had nothing to meditate about which required so much attitude.
"On the contrary, it would be just to change the pose. It's what we have been doing for a week that's attitude; and to be for half an hour where nobody's looking and one hasn't to keep it up is just what I wanted to put in an idle, irresponsible day for. I am not keeping it up now—I suppose you've noticed," Nick went on, as they floated and he scarcely dipped the oars.
"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Dallow, leaning back in the boat.
Nick gave no further explanation than to ask in a minute: "Have you people to dinner to-night?"
"I believe there are three or four, but I'll put them off if you like."
"Must you always live in public, Julia?" Nick continued.
She looked at him a moment, and he could see that she coloured slightly. "We'll go home—I'll put them off."
"Ah no, don't go. home; it's too jolly here. Let them come—let them come, poor wretches!"
"How little you know me, when, ever so many times, I have lived here for months without a creature."
"Except Mrs. Gresham, I suppose."
"I have had to have the house going, I admit."
"You are perfect, you are admirable, and I don't criticize you."
"I don't understand you!" she tossed back.
"That only adds to the generosity of what you have done for me," Nick returned, beginning to pull faster. He bent over the oars and sent the boat forward, keeping this up for ten minutes, during which they both remained silent. His companion, in her place, motionless, reclining (the seat in the stern was very comfortable), looked only at the water, the sky, the trees. At last Nick headed for the little temple, saying first however: "Sha'n't we visit the ruin?"
"If you like. I don't mind seeing how they keep it."
They reached the white steps which led up to it. Nick held the boat and Mrs. Dallow got out. He fastened the boat and they went up the steps together, passing through the open door.
"They keep it very well," Nick said, looking round. "It's a capital place to give up everything."
"It might do for you to explain what you mean," said Julia, sitting down.
"I mean to pretend for half an hour that I don't represent the burgesses of Harsh. It's charming—it's very delicate work. Surely it has been retouched."
The interior of the pavilion, lighted by windows which the circle of columns was supposed, outside and at a distance, to conceal, had a vaulted ceiling and was occupied by a few pieces of last-century furniture, spare and faded, of which the colours matched with the decoration of the walls. These and the ceiling, tinted and not exempt from indications of damp, were covered with fine mouldings and medallions. It was a very elegant little tea-house.
Mrs. Dallow sat on the edge of a sofa, rolling her parasol and remarking: "You ought to read Mr. Hoppus's article to me."
"Why, is this your salon?" asked Nick, smiling.
"Why are you always talking of that? It's an invention of your own."
"But isn't it the idea you care most about?"
Suddenly, nervously, Mrs. Dallow put up her parasol and sat under it, as if she were not quite sensible of what she was doing. "How much you know me! I don't care about anything—that you will ever guess."
Nick Dormer wandered about the room, looking at various things it contained—the odd volumes on the tables, the bits of quaint china on the shelves. "They keep it very well; you've got charming things."
"They're supposed to come over every day and look after them."
"They must come over in force."
"Oh, no one knows."
"It's spick and span. How well you have everything done!"
"I think you've some reason to say so," said Mrs. Dallow. Her parasol was down and she was again rolling it tight.
"But you're right about my not knowing you. Why were you so ready to do so much for me?"
He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him. Her eyes rested on his a minute; then she broke out: "Why do you hate me so?"
"Was it because you like me personally?" Nick asked. "You may think that an odd, or even an odious question; but isn't it natural, my wanting to know?"
"Oh, if you don't know!" Mrs. Dallow exclaimed.
"It's a question of being sure."
""Well, then, if you're not sure—"
"Was it done for me as a friend, as a man?"
"You're not a man; you're a child," said his hostess, with a face that was cold, though she had been smiling the moment before.
"After all, I was a good candidate," Nick went on.
"What do I care for candidates?"
"You're the most delightful woman, Julia," said Nick, sitting down beside her, "and I can't imagine what you mean by my hating you."
"If you haven't discovered that I like you, you might as well."
"Might as well discover it?"
Mrs. Dallow was grave; he had never seen her so pale and never so beautiful. She had stopped rolling her parasol now: her hands were folded in her lap and her eyes were bent on them. Nick sat looking at them too, a trifle awkwardly. "Might as well have hated me," said Mrs. Dallow.
"We have got on so beautifully together, all these days: why shouldn't we get on as well forever and ever?" Mrs. Dallow made no answer, and suddenly Nick said to her: "Ah, Julia, I don't know what you have done to me, but you've done it. You've done it by strange ways, but it will serve. Yes, I hate you," he added, in a different tone, with his face nearer to hers.
"Dear Nick—dear Nick—" she began. But she stopped, for she suddenly felt that he was altogether nearer, nearer than he had ever been to her before, that his arm was round her, that he was in possession of her. She closed her eyes but she heard him ask: "Why shouldn't it be forever, forever?" in a voice that had, for her ear, such a vibration as no voice had ever had.
"You've done it—you've done it," Nick repeated.
"What do you want of me?" she demanded.
"To stay with me, this way, always."
"Ah, not this way," she answered, softly, but as if in pain, and making an effort, with a certain force, to detach herself.
"This way, then—or this!" He took such insistent advantage of her that he had quickly kissed her. She rose as quickly, but he held her yet, and while he did so he said to her in the same tender tone: "If you'll marry me, why shouldn't it be so simple, so good?" He drew her closer again, too close for her to answer. But her struggle ceased and she rested upon him for a minute, she buried her face on his breast.
"You're hard, and it's cruel!" she then exclaimed, breaking away.
"Hard—cruel?"
"You do it with so little!" And with this, unexpectedly to Nick, Mrs. Dallow burst straight into tears. Before he could stop her she was at the door of the pavilion, as if she wished to quit it immediately. There, however, he stopped her, bending over her while she sobbed, unspeakably gentle with her.
"So little? It's with everything—with everything I have."
"I have done it, you say? What do you accuse me of doing?" Her tears were already over.
"Of making me yours; of being so precious, Julia, so exactly what a man wants, as it seems to me. I didn't know you could," he went on, smiling down at her. "I didn't—no, I didn't."
"It's what I say—that you've always hated me."
"I'll make it up to you."
She leaned on the doorway with her head against the lintel. "You don't even deny it."
"Contradict you now? I'll admit it, though it's rubbish, on purpose to live it down."
"It doesn't matter," she said, slowly; "for however much you might have liked me, you would never have done so half as much as I have cared for you."
"Oh, I'm so poor!" Nick murmured, cheerfully.
She looked at him, smiling, and slowly shook her head. Then she declared: "You never can."
"I like that! Haven't I asked you to marry me? When did you ever ask me?"
"Every day of my life! As I say, it's hard—for a proud woman."
"Yes, you're too proud even to answer me."
"We must think of it, we must talk of it."
"Think of it? I've thought of it ever so much."
"I mean together. There are things to be said."
"The principal thing is to give me your word."
Mrs. Dallow looked at him in silence; then she exclaimed: "I wish I didn't adore you!" She went straight down the steps.
"You don't, if you leave me now. Why do you go? It's so charming here, and we are so delightfully alone."
"Detach the boat; we'll go on the water," said Mrs. Dallow.
Nick was at the top of the steps, looking down at her. "Ah, stay a little—do stay!" he pleaded.
"I'll get in myself, I'll put off," she answered.
At this Nick came down and he bent a little to undo the rope. He was close to her, and as he raised his head he felt it caught; she had seized it in her hands and she pressed her lips to the first place they encountered. The next instant she was in the boat.
This time he dipped the oars very slowly indeed; and while, for a period that was longer than it seemed to them, they floated vaguely, they mainly sat and glowed at each other, as if everything had been settled. There were reasons enough why Nick should be happy; but it is a singular fact that the leading one was the sense of having escaped from a great mistake. The final result of his mother's appeal to him the day before had been the idea that he must act with unimpeachable honour. He was capable of taking it as an assurance that Julia had placed him under an obligation which a gentleman could regard only in one way. If she had understood it so, putting the vision, or at any rate the appreciation, of a closer tie into everything she had done for him, the case was conspicuously simple and his course unmistakably plain. That is why he had been gay when he came out of the house to look for her: he could be gay when his course was plain. He could be all the gayer, naturally, I must add, that in turning things over, as he had done half the night, what he had turned up oftenest was the recognition that Julia now had a new personal power over him. It was not for nothing that she had thrown herself personally into his life. She had by her act made him live twice as much, and such a service, if a man had accepted and deeply tasted it, was certainly a thing to put him on his honour. Nick gladly recognized that there was nothing he could do in preference that would not be spoiled for him by any deflection from that point. His mother had made him uncomfortable by intimating to him that Julia was in love with him (he didn't like, in general, to be told such things); but the responsibility seemed easier to carry and he was less shy about it when once he was away from other eyes, with only Julia's own to express that truth and with indifferent nature all around. Besides, what discovery had he made this morning but that he also was in love?
"You must be a very great man," she said to him, in the middle of the lake. "I don't know what you mean about my salon; but I am ambitious."
"We must look at life in a large, bold way," Nick replied, resting his oars.
"That's what I mean. If I didn't think you could I wouldn't look at you."
"I could what?"
"Do everything you ought—everything I imagine, I dream of. You are clever: you can never make me believe the contrary, after your speech on Tuesday. Don't speak to me! I've seen, I've heard and I know what's in you. I shall hold you to it. You are everything that you pretend not to be."
Nick sat looking at the water while she talked. "Will it always be so amusing?" he asked.
"Will what always be?"
"Why, my career."
"Sha'n't I make it so?"
"It will be yours; it won't be mine," said Nick.
"Ah, don't say that: don't make me out that sort of woman! If they should say it's me, I'd drown myself."
"If they should say what's you?"
"Why, your getting on. If they should say I push you, that I do things for you."
"Well, won't you do them? It's just what I count on."
"Don't be dreadful," said Mrs. Dallow. "It would be loathsome if I were said to be cleverer than you. That's not the sort of man I want to marry."
"Oh, I shall make you work, my dear!"
"Ah, that!" exclaimed Mrs. Dallow, in a tone that might come back to a man in after years.
"You will do the great thing, you will make my life delightful," Nick declared, as if he fully perceived the sweetness of it. "I dare say that will keep me in heart."
"In heart? Why shouldn't you be in heart?" Julia's eyes, lingering on him, searching him, seemed to question him still more than her lips.
"Oh, it will be all right!" cried Nick.
"You'll like success, as well as any one else. Don't tell me—you're not so ethereal!"
"Yes, I shall like success."
"So shall I! And of course I am glad that you'll be able to do things," Mrs. Dallow went on. "I'm glad you'll have things. I'm glad I'm not poor."
"Ah, don't speak of that," Nick murmured. "Only be nice to my mother: we shall make her supremely happy."
"I'm glad I like your people," Mrs. Dallow dropped. "Leave them to me!"
"You're generous—you're noble," stammered Nick.
"Your mother must live at Broadwood; she must have it for life. It's not at all bad."
"Ah, Julia," her companion replied, "it's well I love you!"
"Why shouldn't you?" laughed Julia; and after this there was nothing said between them till the boat touched the shore. When she had got out Mrs. Dallow remarked that it was time for luncheon; but they took no action in consequence, strolling in a direction which was not that of the house. There was a vista that drew them on, a grassy path skirting the foundations of scattered beeches and leading to a stile from which the charmed wanderer might drop into another division of Mrs. Dallow's property. This lady said something about their going as far as the stile; then the next instant she exclaimed: "How stupid of you—you've forgotten Mr. Hoppus!"
"We left him in the temple of Vesta. Darling, I had other things to think of there."
"I'll send for him," said Mrs. Dallow.
"Lord, can you think of him now?" Nick asked.
"Of course I can—more than ever."
"Shall we go back for him?" Nick inquired, pausing.
Mrs. Dallow made no answer; she continued to walk, saying they would go as far as the stile. "Of course I know you're fearfully vague," she presently resumed.
"I wasn't vague at all. But you were in such a hurry to get away."
"It doesn't signify. I have another one at home."
"Another summer-house?" suggested Nick.
"A copy of Mr. Hoppus."
"Mercy, how you go in for him! Fancy having two!"
"He sent me the number of the magazine; and the other is the one that comes every month."
"Every month—I see," said Nick, in a manner justifying considerably Mrs. Dallow's charge of vagueness. They had reached the stile and he leaned over it, looking at a great mild meadow and at the browsing beasts in the distance.
"Did you suppose they come every day?" asked Mrs. Dallow.
"Dear no, thank God!" They remained there a little; he continued to look at the animals and before long he added: "Delightful English pastoral scene. Why do they say it won't paint?"
"Who says it won't?"
"I don't know—some of them. It will in France; but somehow it won't here."
"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Dallow demanded.
Nick appeared unable to satisfy her on this point; at any rate instead of answering her directly he said: "Is Broadwood very charming?"
"Have you never been there? It shows how you've treated me. We used to go there in August. George had ideas about it," added Mrs. Dallow. She had never affected not to speak of her late husband, especially with Nick, whose kinsman in a manner he had been and who had liked him better than some others did.
"George had ideas about a great many things."
Julia Dallow appeared to be conscious that it would be rather odd on such an occasion to take this up. It was even odd in Nick to have said it. "Broadwood is just right," she rejoined at last. "It's neither too small nor too big, and it takes care of itself. There's nothing to be done: you can't spend a penny."
"And don't you want to use it?"
"We can go and stay with them," said Mrs. Dallow.
"They'll think I bring them an angel." And Nick covered her hand, which was resting on the stile, with his own large one.
"As they regard you yourself as an angel they will take it as natural of you to associate with your kind."
"Oh, my kind!" murmured Nick, looking at the cows.
Mrs. Dallow turned away from him as if she were starting homeward, and he began to retrace his steps with her. Suddenly she said: "What did you mean that night in Paris?"
"That night?"
"When you came to the hotel with me, after we had all dined at that place with Peter."
"What did I mean?"
"About your caring so much for the fine arts. You seemed to want to frighten me."
"Why should you have been frightened? I can't imagine what I had in my head: not now."
"You are vague," said Julia, with a little flush.
"Not about the great thing."
"The great thing?"
"That I owe you everything an honest man has to offer. How can I care about the fine arts now?"
Mrs. Dallow stopped, looking at him. "Is it because you think you owe it—" and she paused, still with the heightened colour in her cheek; then she went on—"that you have spoken to me as you did there?" She tossed her head toward the lake.
"I think I spoke to you because I couldn't help it."
"You are vague." And Mrs. Dallow walked on again.
"You affect me differently from any other woman."
"Oh, other women! Why shouldn't you care about the fine arts now?" she added.
"There will be no time. All my days and my years will be none too much to do what you expect of me."
"I don't expect you to give up anything. I only expect you to do more."
"To do more I must do less. I have no talent."
"No talent!"
"I mean for painting."
Mrs. Dallow stopped again. "That's odious! You have—you must."
Nick burst out laughing. "You're altogether delightful. But how little you know about it—about the honourable practice of any art!"
"What do you call practice? You'll have all our things—you'll live in the midst of them."
"Certainly I shall enjoy looking at them, being so near them."
"Don't say I've taken you away then."
"Taken me away?"
"From the love of art. I like them myself now, poor George's treasures. I didn't, of old, so much, because it seemed to me he made too much of them—he was always talking."
"Well, I won't talk," said Nick.
"You may do as you like—they're yours."
"Give them to the nation," Nick went on.
"I like that! When we have done with them."
"We shall have done with them when your Vandykes and Moronis have cured me of the delusion that I may be of their family. Surely that won't take long."
"You shall paint me," said Julia.
"Never, never, never!" Nick uttered these words in a tone that made his companion stare; and he appeared slightly embarrassed at this result of his emphasis. To relieve himself he said, as they had come back to the place beside the lake where the boat was moored: "Sha'n't we really go and fetch Mr. Hoppus?"
She hesitated. "You may go; I won't, please."
"That's not what I want."
"Oblige me by going. I'll wait here." With which Mrs. Dallow sat down on the bench attached to the little landing.
Nick, at this, got into the boat and put off; he smiled at her as she sat there watching him. He made his short journey, disembarked and went into the pavilion; but when he came out with the object of his errand he saw that Mrs. Dallow had quitted her station—she had returned to the house without him. He rowed back quickly, sprang ashore and followed her with long steps. Apparently she had gone fast; she had almost reached the door when he overtook her.
"Why did you basely desert me?" he asked, stopping her there.
"I don't know. Because I'm so happy."
"May I tell mother?"
"You may tell her she shall have Broadwood."