The Tragic Muse (London & New York: Macmillan & Co., 1890)/Volume 3/Chapter 4
IV.
The night Peter Sherringham walked away from Balaklava Place with Gabriel Nash the talk of the two men directed itself, as was natural under the circumstances, to the question of Miriam's future renown and the pace, as Nash called it, at which she would go. Critical spirits as they both were, and one of them as dissimulative in passion as the other was paradoxical in the absence of it, they yet took this renown for granted as completely as the simple-minded, a pair of hot spectators in the pit, might have done, and exchanged observations on the assumption that the only uncertain element would be the pace. This was a proof of general subjugation. Peter wished not to show, but he wished to know; and in the restlessness of his anxiety he was ready even to risk exposure, great as the sacrifice might be of the imperturbable, urbane scepticism most appropriate to a secretary of embassy. He was unable to rid himself of the sense that Gabriel Nash had got up earlier than he, had had opportunities in days already distant, the days of Mrs. Rooth's hungry foreign rambles. Something of authority and privilege stuck to him from this, and it made Sherringham still more uncomfortable when he was most conscious that at the best even the trained diplomatic mind would never get a grasp of Miriam as a whole. She was constructed to revolve like the terrestrial globe; some part or other of her was always out of sight or in shadow.
Sherringham talked to conceal his feelings and, like every man doing a thing from that sort of intention, did it perhaps too much. They agreed that, putting strange accidents aside, Miriam would go further than any one had gone, in England at least and within the memory of man; and that it was a pity, as regards marking the comparison, that for so long no one had gone any distance worth speaking of. They further agreed that it would naturally seem absurd to any one who didn't know, their prophesying such big things on such small evidence; and they agreed lastly that the absurdity quite vanished as soon as the prophets knew as they knew. Their knowledge (they quite recognized this) was simply confidence raised to a high point—the communication of the girl's own confidence. The conditions were enormously to make, but it was of the very essence of Miriam's confidence that she would make them. The parts, the plays, the theatres, the "support," the audiences, the critics, the money were all to be found, but she cast a spell which prevented that from seeming a serious hitch. One might not see from one day to the other what she would do or how she would do it, but she would none the less go on. She would have to construct her own road, as it were, but at the worst there would only be delays in making it. These delays would depend on the hardness of the stones she had to break.
As Sherringham had perceived, you never knew where to "have" Gabriel Nash; a truth exemplified in his unexpected delight at the prospect of Miriam's drawing forth the modernness of the age. You might have thought he would loathe that modernness; but he had a brilliant, amused, amusing vision of it, saw it as something huge and ornamentally vulgar. Its vulgarity would rise to the grand style, like that of a London railway station, and Miriam's publicity would be as big as the globe itself. All the machinery was ready, the platform laid; the facilities, the wires and bells and trumpets, the colossal, deafening newspaperism of the period—its most distinctive sign—were waiting for her, their predestined mistress, to press her foot on the spring and set them all in motion. Gabriel brushed in a large bright picture of her progress through the time and round the world, round it and round it again, from continent to continent and clime to clime; with populations and deputations, reporters and photographers, placards and interviews and banquets, steamers, railways, dollars, diamonds, speeches and artistic ruin all jumbled into her train. Regardless of expense the spectacle would be and thrilling, though somewhat monotonous, the drama—a drama more bustling than any she would put on the stage and a spectacle that would beat everything for scenery. In the end her divine voice would crack, screaming to foreign ears and antipodal barbarians, and her clever manner would lose all quality, simplified to a few unmistakable knock-down dodges. Then she would be at the fine climax of life and glory, still young and insatiate, but already coarse, hard and raddled, with nothing left to do and nothing left to do it with, the remaining years all before her and the raison d'etre all behind. It would be curious and magnificent and grotesque.
"Oh, she'll have some good years—they'll be worth having,"
Sherringham insisted, as they went. "Besides, you see her too much as a humbug and too little as a real producer. She has ideas—great ones; she loves the thing for itself. That may keep a woman serious."
"Her greatest idea must always be to show herself; and fortunately she has a splendid self to show. I think of her absolutely as a real producer, but as a producer whose production is her own person, No 'person,' even as fine a one as hers, will stand that for more than an hour, so that humbuggery has very soon to lend a hand. However," Nash continued, "if she's a fine humbug it will do as well, and perfectly suit the time. We can all be saved by vulgarity; that's the solvent of all difficulties and the blessing of this delightful age. Let no man despair; a new hope has dawned."
"She'll do her work like any other worker, with the advantage over many that her talent is rare," Peter replied. "Compared with the life of many women, that's security and sanity of the highest order. Then she can't help her beauty. You can't vulgarize that."
"Oh, can't you?" exclaimed Gabriel Nash.
"It will abide with her till the day of her death. It isn't a mere superficial freshness. She's very noble."
"Yes, that's the pity of it," said Nash. "She's a capital girl, and I quite admit that she'll do for a while a lot of good. She will have brightened up the world for a great many people; she will have brought the ideal nearer to them, held it fast for an hour, with its feet on earth and its great wings trembling. That's always something, for blessed is he who has dropped even the smallest coin into the little iron box that contains the precious savings of mankind. Miriam will doubtless have dropped a big gold piece. It will be found, in the general scramble, on the day the race goes bankrupt. And then, for herself, she will have had a great go at life."
"Oh, yes, she'll have got out of her hole; she won't have vegetated," said Sherringham. "That makes her touching to me; it adds to the many good reasons for which one may want to help her. She's tackling a big job, and tackling it by herself; throwing herself upon the world, in good faith, and dealing with it as she can; meeting alone, in her youth, her beauty and her generosity all the embarrassments of notoriety and all the difficulties of a profession of which, if one half is what's called brilliant, the other half is odious."
"She has great courage, but should you speak of her as solitary, with such a lot of us all round her?" Gabriel asked.
"She's a great thing for you and me, but we're a small thing for her."
"Well, a good many small things may make up a considerable one," Nash returned. "There must always be the man; he's the indispensable element in such a life, and he'll be the last thing she'll ever want for."
"What man are you talking about?" Sherringham asked, rather confusedly.
"The man of the hour, whoever he is. She'll inspire innumerable devotions."
"Of course she will, and they will be precisely a part of the insufferable side of her life."
"Insufferable to whom?" Nash inquired. "Don't forget that the insufferable side of her life will be just the side she'll thrive on. You can't eat your cake and have it, and you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs. You can't at once sit by the fire and fly about the world, and you can't go round and round the globe without having adventures. You can't be a great actress without quivering nerves. If you haven't them you'll only be a small one. If you have them, your friends will be pretty sure to hear of them. Your nerves and your adventures, your eggs and your cake, are part of the cost of the most expensive of professions. If you do your business at all you should do it handsomely, so that the costs may run up tremendously. You play with human passions, with exaltations and ecstasies and terrors, and if you trade on the fury of the elements you must know how to ride the storm."
"Those are the fine old commonplaces about the artistic temperament, but I usually find the artist a very meek, decent little person," said Sherringham.
"You never find the artist—you only find his work, and that's all you need find. When the artist's a woman and the woman's an actress, meekness and decency will doubtless be there in the right proportions," Nash went on. "Miriam will represent them for you, if you give her her starting-point, with the utmost charm."
"Of course she'll have devotions—that's all right," said Sherringham, impatiently.
"And—don't you see?—they'll mitigate her solitude, they'll even enliven it," Nash remarked.
"She'll probably box a good many ears: that'll be lively," Peter rejoined, with some grimness.
"Oh, magnificent! it will be a merry life. Yet with its tragic passages, its distracted or its pathetic hours," Nash continued. "In short a little of everything."
The two men walked on without further speech, till at last Sherringham said: "The best thing for a woman in her situation is to marry some good fellow."
"Oh, I dare say she'll do that too!" Nash laughed; a remark in consequence of which Peter again lapsed into silence. Gabriel left him to enjoy his silence for some minutes; after which he added: "There's a good fellow she'd marry to-morrow."
Peter hesitated. "Do you mean her friend Dashwood?"
"No, no, I mean Nick Dormer."
"She'd marry him?" Sherringham asked.
"I mean her head's full of him. But she'll hardly get the chance."
"Does she like him so much as that?" Sherringham went on.
"I don't know quite how much you mean, but enough for all practical ends."
"Marrying a fashionable actress—that's hardly a practical end."
"Certainly not, but I'm not speaking from his point of view. Moreover I thought you just now said it would be such a good thing for her."
"To marry Nick Dormer?"
"You said a good fellow, and he's the very best."
"I wasn't thinking of the man, but of the marriage. It would protect her, make things safe and comfortable for her and keep a lot of cads and blackguards away."
"She ought to marry the prompter or the box-keeper," said Nash. "Then it would be all right. I think indeed they generally do, don't they?"
Sherringham felt for a moment a strong disposition to drop his companion on the spot—to cross to the other side of the street and walk away without him. But there was a different impulse which struggled with this one and, after a minute, overcame it—the impulse which led to his saying presently: "Has she told you that—that she's in love with Nick?"
"No, no—that's not the way I know it."
"Has Nick told you, then?"
"On the contrary, I've told him."
"You've rendered him a questionable service if you've no proof," said Peter.
"My proof is only that I've seen her with him. She's charming, poor thing."
"But surely she isn't in love with every man she's charming to."
"I mean she's charming to me," Nash replied. "I see her that way. But judge for yourself—the first time you get a chance."
"When shall I get a chance? Nick doesn't come near her."
"Oh, he'll come, he'll come; his picture isn't finished."
"You mean he'll be the box-keeper then?"
"My dear fellow, I shall never allow it," said Gabriel Nash. "It would be idiotic and quite unnecessary. He's beautifully arranged, in quite a different line. Fancy his taking that sort of job on his hands! Besides, she would never expect it; she's not such a goose. They're very good friends—it will go on that way. She's an excellent sort of woman for him to know; she'll give him lots of ideas of the plastic kind. He would have been up there before this, but he has been absorbed in this delightful squabble with his constituents. That of course is pure amusement; but when once it's well launched he'll get back to business and his business will be a very different matter from Miriam's. Imagine him writing her advertisements, living on her money, adding up her profits, having rows and recriminations with her agent, carrying her shawl, spending his days in her rouge-pot. The right man for that, if she must have one, will turn up. 'Pour le mariage, non.' Miriam isn't an idiot; she really, for a woman, quite sees things as they are."
As Sherringham had not crossed the street and left Gabriel planted, he was obliged to brave the torment of this suggestive flow. But descrying in the dusky vista of the Edgware Road a vague and vigilant hansom, he waved his stick with eagerness and with the abrupt declaration that he was tired, must drive the rest of the way. He offered Nash, as he entered the vehicle, no seat, but this coldness was not reflected in the lucidity with which that master of every subject went on to affirm that there was, of course, a danger—the danger that in given circumstances Miriam would leave the stage.
"Leave it you mean for some man?"
"For the man we're talking about."
"For Nick Dormer?" Peter asked from his place in the cab, his paleness lighted by its lamps.
"If he should make it a condition. But why should he— why should he make any conditions? He's not an ass either. You see it would be a bore," Nash continued while the hansom waited, "because if she were to do anything of that sort she would make him pay for the sacrifice."
"Oh yes, she'd make him pay for the sacrifice," Sherringham repeated.
"And then, when he had paid, she'd go back to her footlights," Gabriel added, explicatively, from the curbstone, as Sherringham closed the apron of the cab.
"I see—she'd go back—good-night," Peter replied. "Please go on!" he cried to the driver through the hole in the roof. And when the vehicle rolled away he subjoined to himself: "Of course she would—and quite right!"