IN THE MODERN VEIN
AN UNSYMPATHETIC LOVE STORY
Of course the cultivated reader has heard of Aubrey Vair. He haspublished on three several occasions volumes of delicate verses,--some,indeed, border on indelicacy,--and his column "Of Things Literary" inthe _Climax_ is well known. His Byronic visage and an interview haveappeared in the _Perfect Lady_. It was Aubrey Vair, I believe, whodemonstrated that the humour of Dickens was worse than his sentiment,and who detected "a subtle bourgeois flavour" in Shakespeare. However,it is not generally known that Aubrey Vair has had erotic experiencesas well as erotic inspirations. He adopted Goethe some little timesince as his literary prototype, and that may have had something to dowith his temporary lapse from sexual integrity.
For it is one of the commonest things that undermine literary men,giving us landslips and picturesque effects along the otherwise evencliff of their respectable life, ranking next to avarice, and certainlyabove drink, this instability called genius, or, more fully, theconsciousness of genius, such as Aubrey Vair possessed. Since Shelleyset the fashion, your man of gifts has been assured that his duty tohimself and his duty to his wife are incompatible, and his renunciationof the Philistine has been marked by such infidelity as his means andcourage warranted. Most virtue is lack of imagination. At anyrate,a minor genius without his affections twisted into an inextricablemuddle, and who did not occasionally shed sonnets over his troubles, Ihave never met.
Even Aubrey Vair did this, weeping the sonnets overnight into hisblotting-book, and pretending to write literary _causerie_ when hiswife came down in her bath slippers to see what kept him up. She didnot understand him, of course. He did this even before the other womanappeared, so ingrained is conjugal treachery in the talented mind.Indeed, he wrote more sonnets before the other woman came than afterthat event, because thereafter he spent much of his leisure in cuttingdown the old productions, retrimming them, and generally altering thisreadymade clothing of his passion to suit her particular height andcomplexion.
Aubrey Vair lived in a little red villa with a lawn at the back and aview of the Downs behind Reigate. He lived upon discreet investmenteked out by literary work. His wife was handsome, sweet, and gentle,and--such is the tender humility of good married women--she found herlife's happiness in seeing that little Aubrey Vair had well-cookedvariety for dinner, and that their house was the neatest and brightestof all the houses they entered. Aubrey Vair enjoyed the dinners, andwas proud of the house, yet nevertheless he mourned because his geniusdwindled. Moreover, he grew plump, and corpulence threatened him.
We learn in suffering what we teach in song, and Aubrey Vair knewcertainly that his soul could give no creditable crops unless hisaffections were harrowed. And how to harrow them was the trouble, forReigate is a moral neighbourhood.
So Aubrey Vair's romantic longings blew loose for a time, much as aseedling creeper might, planted in the midst of a flower-bed. But atlast, in the fulness of time, the other woman came to the embraceof Aubrey Vair's yearning heart-tendrils, and his romantic episodeproceeded as is here faithfully written down.
The other woman was really a girl, and Aubrey Vair met her first ata tennis party at Redhill. Aubrey Vair did not play tennis after theaccident to Miss Morton's eye, and because latterly it made him pantand get warmer and moister than even a poet should be; and this younglady had only recently arrived in England, and could not play. So theygravitated into the two vacant basket chairs beside Mrs. Bayne's deafaunt, in front of the hollyhocks, and were presently talking at theirease together.
The other woman's name was unpropitious,--Miss Smith,--but you wouldnever have suspected it from her face and costume. Her parentagewas promising, she was an orphan, her mother was a Hindoo, and herfather an Indian civil servant; and Aubrey Vair--himself a happymixture of Kelt and Teuton, as, indeed, all literary men have to benowadays--naturally believed in the literary consequences of a mixtureof races. She was dressed in white. She had finely moulded palefeatures, great depth of expression, and a cloud of delicately _frise_black hair over her dark eyes, and she looked at Aubrey Vair with alook half curious and half shy, that contrasted admirably with thestereotyped frankness of your common Reigate girl.
"This is a splendid lawn--the best in Redhill," said Aubrey Vair in thecourse of the conversation; "and I like it all the better because thedaisies are spared." He indicated the daisies with a graceful sweep ofhis rather elegant hand.
"They are sweet little flowers," said the lady in white, "and I havealways associated them with England, chiefly, perhaps, through apicture I saw 'over there' when I was very little, of children makingdaisy chains. I promised myself that pleasure when I came home. But,alas! I feel now rather too large for such delights."
"I do not see why we should not be able to enjoy these simple pleasuresas we grow older--why our growth should have in it so much forgetting.For my own part"--
"Has your wife got Jane's recipe for stuffing trout?" asked Mrs.Bayne's deaf aunt abruptly.
"I really don't know," said Aubrey Vair.
"That's all right," said Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt. "It ought to pleaseeven you."
"Anything will please me," said Aubrey Vair; "I care very little"--
"Oh, it's a lovely dish," said Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt, and relapsedinto contemplation.
"I was saying," said Aubrey Vair, "that I think I still find my keenestpleasures in childish pastimes. I have a little nephew that I see agreat deal of, and when we fly kites together, I am sure it would behard to tell which of us is the happier. By the bye, you should get atyour daisy chains in that way. Beguile some little girl."
"But I did. I took that Morton mite for a walk in the meadows, andtimidly broached the subject. And she reproached me for suggesting'frivolous pursuits.' It was a horrible disappointment."
"The governess here," said Aubrey Vair, "is robbing that child of itsyouth in a terrible way. What will a life be that has no childhood atthe beginning?"
"Some human beings are never young," he continued, "and they nevergrow up. They lead absolutely colourless lives. They are--they areetiolated. They never love, and never feel the loss of it. Theyare--for the moment I can think of no better image--they are humanflower-pots, in which no soul has been planted. But a human soulproperly growing must begin in a fresh childishness."
"Yes," said the dark lady thoughtfully, "a careless childhood, runningwild almost. That should be the beginning."
"Then we pass through the wonder and diffidence of youth."
"To strength and action," said the dark lady. Her dreamy eyes werefixed on the Downs, and her fingers tightened on her knees as shespoke. "Ah, it is a grand thing to live--as a man does--self-reliantand free."
"And so at last," said Aubrey Vair, "come to the culmination and crownof life." He paused and glanced hastily at her. Then he dropped hisvoice almost to a whisper--"And the culmination of life is love."
Their eyes met for a moment, but she looked away at once. Aubrey Vairfelt a peculiar thrill and a catching in his breath, but his emotionswere too complex for analysis. He had a certain sense of surprise,also, at the way his conversation had developed.
Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt suddenly dug him in the chest with herear-trumpet, and someone at tennis bawled, "Love all!"
"Did I tell you Jane's girls have had scarlet fever?" asked Mrs.Bayne's deaf aunt.
"No," said Aubrey Vair.
"Yes; and they are peeling now," said Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt, shuttingher lips tightly, and nodding in a slow, significant manner at both ofthem.
There was a pause. All three seemed lost in thought, too deep for words.
"Love," began Aubrey Vair presently, in a severely philosophical tone,leaning back in his chair, holding his hands like a praying saint'sin front of him, and staring at the toe of his shoe,--"love is, Ibelieve, the one true and real thing in life. It rises above reason,interest, or explanation. Yet I never read of an age when it was somuch forgotten as it is now. Never was love expected to run so much inappointed
channels, never was it so despised, checked, ordered, andobstructed. Policemen say, 'This way, Eros!' As a result, we relieveour emotional possibilities in the hunt for gold and notoriety. Andafter all, with the best fortune in these, we only hold up the gildedimages of our success, and are weary slaves, with unsatisfied hearts,in the pageant of life."
Aubrey Vair sighed, and there was a pause. The girl looked at him outof the mysterious darkness of her eyes. She had read many books, butAubrey Vair was her first literary man, and she took this kind of thingfor genius--as girls have done before.
"We are," continued Aubrey Vair, conscious of a favourableimpression,--"we are like fireworks, mere dead, inert things until theappointed spark comes; and then--if it is not damp--the dormant soulblazes forth in all its warmth and beauty. That is living. I sometimesthink, do you know, that we should be happier if we could die soonafter that golden time, like the Ephemerides. There is a decay sets in."
"Eigh?" said Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt startlingly. "I didn't hear you."
"I was on the point of remarking," shouted Aubrey Vair, wheeling thearray of his thoughts,--"I was on the point of remarking that fewpeople in Redhill could match Mrs. Morton's fine broad green."
"Others have noticed it," Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt shouted back. "It issince she has had in her new false teeth."
This interruption dislocated the conversation a little. However--
"I must thank you, Mr. Vair," said the dark girl, when they parted thatafternoon, "for having given me very much to think about."
And from her manner, Aubrey Vair perceived clearly he had not wastedhis time.
* * * * *
It would require a subtler pen than mine to tell how from that day apassion for Miss Smith grew like Jonah's gourd in the heart of AubreyVair. He became pensive, and in the prolonged absence of Miss Smith,irritable. Mrs. Aubrey Vair felt the change in him, and put it downto a vitriolic Saturday Reviewer. Indisputably the _Saturday_ does attimes go a little far. He re-read _Elective Affinities_; and lent itto Miss Smith. Incredible as it may appear to members of the AreopagusClub, where we know Aubrey Vair, he did also beyond all questioninspire a sort of passion in that sombre-eyed, rather clever, andreally very beautiful girl.
He talked to her a lot about love and destiny, and all that bric-a-bracof the minor poet. And they talked together about his genius. Heelaborately, though discreetly, sought her society, and presentedand read to her the milder of his unpublished sonnets. We considerhis Byronic features pasty, but the feminine mind has its own laws.I suppose, also, where a girl is not a fool, a literary man has anenormous advantage over anyone but a preacher, in the show he can makeof his heart's wares.
At last a day in that summer came when he met her alone, possibly bychance, in a quiet lane towards Horley. There were ample hedges oneither side, rich with honeysuckle, vetch, and mullein.
They conversed intimately of his poetic ambitions, and then he readher those verses of his subsequently published in _Hobson's Magazine_:"Tenderly ever, since I have met thee." He had written these the daybefore; and though I think the sentiment is uncommonly trite, there isa redeeming note of sincerity about the lines not conspicuous in allAubrey Vair's poetry.
He read rather well, and a swell of genuine emotion crept into hisvoice as he read, with one white hand thrown out to point the rhythm ofthe lines. "Ever, my sweet, for thee," he concluded, looking up intoher face.
Before he looked up, he had been thinking chiefly of his poem and itseffect. Straightway he forgot it. Her arms hung limply before her, andher hands were clasped together. Her eyes were very tender.
"Your verses go to the heart," she said softly.
Her mobile features were capable of wonderful shades of expression. Hesuddenly forgot his wife and his position as a minor poet as he lookedat her. It is possible that his classical features may themselves haveundergone a certain transfiguration. For one brief moment--and it wasalways to linger in his memory--destiny lifted him out of his vainlittle self to a nobler level of simplicity. The copy of "Tenderlyever" fluttered from his hand. Considerations vanished. Only one thingseemed of importance.
"I love you," he said abruptly.
An expression of fear came into her eyes. The grip of her hands uponone another tightened convulsively. She became very pale.
Then she moved her lips as if to speak, bringing her face slightlynearer to his. There was nothing in the world at that moment for eitherof them but one another. They were both trembling exceedingly. In awhisper she said, "You love me?"
Aubrey Vair stood quivering and speechless, looking into her eyes. Hehad never seen such a light as he saw there before. He was in a wildtumult of emotion. He was dreadfully scared at what he had done. Hecould not say another word. He nodded.
"And this has come to me?" she said presently, in the same awe-strickenwhisper, and then, "Oh, my love, my love!"
And thereupon Aubrey Vair had her clasped to himself, her cheek uponhis shoulder and his lips to hers.
Thus it was that Aubrey Vair came by the cardinal memory of his life.To this day it recurs in his works.
A little boy clambering in the hedge some way down the lane saw thisgroup with surprise, and then with scorn and contempt. Recking nothingof his destiny, he turned away, feeling that he at least could nevercome to the unspeakable unmanliness of hugging girls. Unhappily forReigate scandal, his shame for his sex was altogether too deep forwords.
* * * * *
An hour after, Aubrey Vair returned home in a hushed mood. There weremuffins after his own heart for his tea--Mrs. Aubrey Vair had hadhers. And there were chrysanthemums, chiefly white ones,--flowers heloved,--set out in the china bowl he was wont to praise. And his wifecame behind him to kiss him as he sat eating.
"De lill Jummuns," she remarked, kissing him under the ear.
Then it came into the mind of Aubrey Vair with startling clearness,while his ear was being kissed, and with his mouth full of muffin, thatlife is a singularly complex thing.
* * * * *
The summer passed at last into the harvest-time, and the leaves beganfalling. It was evening, the warm sunset light still touched the Downs,but up the valley a blue haze was creeping. One or two lamps in Reigatewere already alight.
About half-way up the slanting road that scales the Downs, there isa wooden seat where one may obtain a fine view of the red villasscattered below, and of the succession of blue hills beyond. Here thegirl with the shadowy face was sitting.
She had a book on her knees, but it lay neglected. She was leaningforward, her chin resting upon her hand. She was looking across thevalley into the darkening sky, with troubled eyes.
Aubrey Vair appeared through the hazel-bushes, and sat down beside her.He held half a dozen dead leaves in his hand.
She did not alter her attitude. "Well?" she said.
"Is it to be flight?" he asked.
Aubrey Vair was rather pale. He had been having bad nights latterly,with dreams of the Continental Express, Mrs. Aubrey Vair possibly evenin pursuit,--he always fancied her making the tragedy ridiculous bytearfully bringing additional pairs of socks, and any such trifles hehad forgotten, with her,--all Reigate and Redhill in commotion. He hadnever eloped before, and he had visions of difficulties with hotelproprietors. Mrs. Aubrey Vair might telegraph ahead. Even he had had aprophetic vision of a headline in a halfpenny evening newspaper: "YoungLady abducts a Minor Poet." So there was a quaver in his voice as heasked, "Is it to be flight?"
"As you will," she answered, still not looking at him.
"I want you to consider particularly how this will affect you. A man,"said Aubrey Vair, slowly, and staring hard at the leaves in his hand,"even gains a certain eclat in these affairs. But to a woman it isruin--social, moral."
"This is not love," said the girl in white.
"Ah, my dearest! Think of yourself."
"Stupid!" she said, under her breath.
"You spoke?"
"Nothing."
"But cannot we go on, meeting one another, loving one another, withoutany great scandal or misery? Could we not"--
"That," interrupted Miss Smith, "would be unspeakably horrible."
"This is a dreadful conversation to me. Life is so intricate, such aweb of subtle strands binds us this way and that. I cannot tell what isright. You must consider"--
"A man would break such strands."
"There is no manliness," said Aubrey Vair, with a sudden glow of moralexaltation, "in doing wrong. My love"--
"We could at least die together, dearest," she said.
"Good Lord!" said Aubrey Vair. "I mean--consider my wife."
"You have not considered her hitherto."
"There is a flavour--of cowardice, of desertion, about suicide," saidAubrey Vair. "Frankly, I have the English prejudice, and do not likeany kind of running away."
Miss Smith smiled very faintly. "I see clearly now what I did not see.My love and yours are very different things."
"Possibly it is a sexual difference," said Aubrey Vair; and then,feeling the remark inadequate, he relapsed into silence.
They sat for some time without a word. The two lights in Reigate belowmultiplied to a score of bright points, and, above, one star had becomevisible. She began laughing, an almost noiseless, hysterical laugh thatjarred unaccountably upon Aubrey Vair.
Presently she stood up. "They will wonder where I am," she said. "Ithink I must be going."
He followed her to the road. "Then this is the end?" he said, with acurious mixture of relief and poignant regret.
"Yes, this is the end," she answered, and turned away.
There straightway dropped into the soul of Aubrey Vair a sense ofinfinite loss. It was an altogether new sensation. She was perhapstwenty yards away, when he groaned aloud with the weight of it, andsuddenly began running after her with his arms extended.
"Annie," he cried,--"Annie! I have been talking _rot_. Annie, nowI know I love you! I cannot spare you. This must not be. I did notunderstand."
The weight was horrible.
"Oh, stop, Annie!" he cried, with a breaking voice, and there weretears on his face.
She turned upon him suddenly, and his arms fell by his side. Hisexpression changed at the sight of her pale face.
"You do not understand," she said. "I have said good-bye."
She looked at him; he was evidently greatly distressed, a little out ofbreath, and he had just stopped blubbering. His contemptible qualityreached the pathetic. She came up close to him, and, taking his dampByronic visage between her hands, she kissed him again and again."Good-bye, little man that I loved," she said; "and good-bye to thisfolly of love."
Then, with something that may have been a laugh or a sob,--she herself,when she came to write it all in her novel, did not know which,--sheturned and hurried away again, and went out of the path that AubreyVair must pursue, at the cross-roads.
Aubrey Vair stood, where she had kissed him, with a mind as inactiveas his body, until her white dress had disappeared. Then he gave aninvoluntary sigh, a large exhaustive expiration, and so awoke himself,and began walking, pensively dragging his feet through the dead leaves,home. Emotions are terrible things.
* * * * *
"Do you like the potatoes, dear?" asked Mrs. Aubrey Vair at dinner. "Icooked them myself."
Aubrey Vair descended slowly from cloudy, impalpable meditations to thelevel of fried potatoes. "These potatoes"--he remarked, after a pauseduring which he was struggling with recollection. "Yes. These potatoeshave exactly the tints of the dead leaves of the hazel."
"What a fanciful poet it is!" said Mrs. Aubrey Vair. "Taste them. Theyare very nice potatoes indeed."