‘Let us go down to luncheon,’ said Mrs Capadose, passing out of the room.
‘We went by the garden – without troubling your servant – I wanted to show my wife.’ Lyon followed his hostess with her husband and the Colonel stopped him at the top of the stairs. ‘My dear fellow, I can’t have been guilty of the folly of not fastening the door?’
‘I am sure I don’t know, Colonel,’ Lyon said as they went down. ‘It was a very determined hand – a perfect wild-cat.’
‘Well, she is a wild-cat – confound her! That’s why I wanted to get him away from her.’
‘But I don’t understand her motive.’
‘She’s off her head – and she hates me; that was her motive.’
‘But she doesn’t hate me, my dear fellow!’ Lyon said, laughing.
‘She hated the picture – don’t you remember she said so? The more portraits there are the less employment for such as her.’
‘Yes; but if she is not really the model she pretends to be, how can that hurt her?’ Lyon asked.
The inquiry baffled the Colonel an instant – but only an instant. ‘Ah, she was in a vicious muddle! As I say, she’s off her head.’
They went into the dining-room, where Mrs Capadose was taking her place. ‘It’s too bad, it’s too horrid!’ she said. ‘You see the fates are against you. Providence won’t let you be so disinterested – painting masterpieces for nothing.’
‘Did you see the woman?’ Lyon demanded, with something like a sternness that he could not mitigate.
Mrs Capadose appeared not to perceive it or not to heed it if she did. ‘There was a person, not far from your door, whom Clement called my attention to. He told me something about her but we were going the other way.’
‘And do you think she did it?’
‘How can I tell? If she did she was mad, poor wretch.’
‘I should like very much to get hold of her,’ said Lyon. This was a false statement, for he had no desire for any further conversation with Miss Geraldine. He had exposed his friends to himself, but he had no desire to expose them to any one else, least of all to themselves.
‘Oh, depend upon it she will never show again. You’re safe!’ the Colonel exclaimed.
‘But I remember her address – Mortimer Terrace Mews, Notting Hill.’
‘Oh, that’s pure humbug; there isn’t any such place.’
‘Lord, what a deceiver!’ said Lyon.
‘Is there any one else you suspect?’ the Colonel went on.
‘Not a creature.’
‘And what do your servants say?’
‘They say it wasn’t them, and I reply that I never said it was. That’s about the substance of our conferences.’
‘And when did they discover the havoc?’
‘They never discovered it at all. I noticed it first – when I came back.’
‘Well, she could easily have stepped in,’ said the Colonel. ‘Don’t you remember how she turned up that day, like the clown in the ring?’
‘Yes, yes; she could have done the job in three seconds, except that the picture wasn’t out.’
‘My dear fellow, don’t curse me! – but of course I dragged it out.’
‘You didn’t put it back?’ Lyon asked tragically.
‘Ah, Clement, Clement, didn’t I tell you to?’ Mrs Capadose exclaimed in a tone of exquisite reproach.
The Colonel groaned, dramatically; he covered his face with his hands. His wife’s words were for Lyon the finishing touch; they made his whole vision crumble – his theory that she had secretly kept herself true. Even to her old lover she wouldn’t be so! He was sick; he couldn’t eat; he knew that he looked very strange. He murmured something about it being useless to cry over spilled milk – he tried to turn the conversation to other things. But it was a horrid effort and he wondered whether they felt it as much as he. He wondered all sorts of things: whether they guessed he disbelieved them (that he had seen them of course they would never guess); whether they had arranged their story in advance or it was only an inspiration of the moment; whether she had resisted, protested, when the Colonel proposed it to her, and then had been borne down by him; whether in short she didn’t loathe herself as she sat there. The cruelty, the cowardice of fastening their unholy act upon the wretched woman struck him as monstrous – no less monstrous indeed than the levity that could make them run the risk of her giving them, in her righteous indignation, the lie. Of course that risk could only exculpate her and not inculpate them – the probabilities protected them so perfectly; and what the Colonel counted on (what he would have counted upon the day he delivered himself, after first seeing her, at the studio, if he had thought about the matter then at all and not spoken from the pure spontaneity of his genius) was simply that Miss Geraldine had really vanished for ever into her native unknown. Lyon wanted so much to quit the subject that when after a little Mrs Capadose said to him, ‘But can nothing be done, can’t the picture be repaired? You know they do such wonders in that way now,’ he only replied, ‘I don’t know, I don’t care, it’s all over, n’en parlons plus!’ Her hypocrisy revolted him. And yet, by way of plucking off the last veil of her shame, he broke out to her again, shortly afterward, ‘And you did like it, really?’ To which she returned, looking him straight in his face, without a blush, a pallor, an evasion, ‘Oh, I loved it!’ Truly her husband had trained her well. After that Lyon said no more and his companions forbore temporarily to insist, like people of tact and sympathy aware that the odious accident had made him sore.
When they quitted the table the Colonel went away without coming upstairs; but Lyon returned to the drawing-room with his hostess, remarking to her however on the way that he could remain but a moment. He spent that moment – it prolonged itself a little – standing with her before the chimney-piece. She neither sat down nor asked him to; her manner denoted that she intended to go out. Yes, her husband had trained her well; yet Lyon dreamed for a moment that now he was alone with her she would perhaps break down, retract, apologise, confide, say to him, ‘My dear old friend, forgive this hideous comedy – you understand!’ And then how he would have loved her and pitied her, guarded her, helped her always! If she were not ready to do something of that sort why had she treated him as if he were a dear old friend; why had she let him for months suppose certain things – or almost; why had she come to his studio day after day to sit near him on the pretext of her child’s portrait, as if she liked to think what might have been? Why had she come so near a tacit confession, in a word, if she was not willing to go an inch further? And she was not willing – she was not; he could see that as he lingered there. She moved about the room a little, rearranging two or three objects on the tables, but she did nothing more. Suddenly he said to her: ‘Which way was she going, when you came out?’
‘She – the woman we saw?’
‘Yes, your husband’s strange friend. It’s a clue worth following.’ He had no desire to frighten her; he only wanted to communicate the impulse which would make her say, ‘Ah, spare me – and spare him! There was no such person.’
Instead of this Mrs Capadose replied, ‘She was going away from us – she crossed the road. We were coming towards the station.’
‘And did she appear to recognise the Colonel – did she look round?’
‘Yes; she looked round, but I didn’t notice much. A hansom came along and we got into it. It was not till then that Clement told me who she was: I remember he said that she was there for no good. I suppose we ought to have gone back.’
‘Yes; you would have saved the picture.’
For a moment she said nothing; then she smiled. ‘For you, I am very sorry. But you must remember that I possess the original!’
At this Lyon turned away. ‘Well, I must go,’ he said; and he left her without any other farewell and made his way out of the house. As he went slowly up the street the sense came back to him of that first glimpse of her he had had at Stayes – the way he had seen her gaze across the table at her
husband. Lyon stopped at the corner, looking vaguely up and down. He would never go back – he couldn’t. She was still in love with the Colonel – he had trained her too well.
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
I
HE had been informed that the ladies were at church, but that was corrected by what he saw from the top of the steps (they descended from a great height in two arms, with a circular sweep of the most charming effect) at the threshold of the door which, from the long, bright gallery, overlooked the immense lawn. Three gentlemen, on the grass, at a distance, sat under the great trees; but the fourth figure was not a gentleman, the one in the crimson dress which made so vivid a spot, told so as a ‘bit of colour’ amid the fresh, rich green. The servant had come so far with Paul Overt to show him the way and had asked him if he wished first to go to his room. The young man declined this privilege, having no disorder to repair after so short and easy a journey and liking to take a general perceptive possession of the new scene immediately, as he always did. He stood there a little with his eyes on the group and on the admirable picture – the wide grounds of an old country-house near London (that only made it better) on a splendid Sunday in June. ‘But that lady, who is she?’ he said to the servant before the man went away.
‘I think it’s Mrs St George, sir.’
‘Mrs St George, the wife of the distinguished—’ Then Paul Overt checked himself, doubting whether the footman would know.
‘Yes, sir – probably, sir,’ said the servant, who appeared to wish to intimate that a person staying at Summersoft would naturally be, if only by alliance, distinguished. His manner, however, made poor Overt feel for the moment as if he himself were but little so.
‘And the gentlemen?’ he inquired.
‘Well, sir, one of them is General Fancourt.’
‘Ah yes, I know; thank you.’ General Fancourt was distinguished, there was no doubt of that, for something he had done, or perhaps even had not done (the young man could not remember which) some years before in India. The servant went away, leaving the glass doors open into the gallery, and Paul Overt remained at the head of the wide double staircase, saying to himself that the place was sweet and promised a pleasant visit, while he leaned on the balustrade of fine old ironwork which, like all the other details, was of the same period as the house. It all went together and spoke in one voice – a rich English voice of the early part of the eighteenth century. It might have been church-time on a summer’s day in the reign of Queen Anne; the stillness was too perfect to be modern, the nearness counted so as distance and there was something so fresh and sound in the originality of the large smooth house, the expanse of whose beautiful brickwork, which had been kept clear of messy creepers (as a woman with a rare complexion disdains a veil), was pink rather than red. When Paul Overt perceived that the people under the trees were noticing him he turned back through the open doors into the great gallery which was the pride of the place. It traversed the mansion from end to end and seemed – with its bright colours, its high panelled windows, its faded, flowered chintzes, its quickly-recognised portraits and pictures, the blue and white china of its cabinets and the attenuated festoons and rosettes of its ceiling – a cheerful upholstered avenue into the other century.
The young man was slightly nervous; that belonged in general to his disposition as a student of fine prose, with his dose of the artist’s restlessness; and there was a particular excitement in the idea that Henry St George might be a member of the party. For the younger writer he had remained a high literary figure, in spite of the lower range of production to which he had fallen after his three first great successes, the comparative absence of quality in his later work. There had been moments when Paul Overt almost shed tears upon this; but now that he was near him (he had never met him), he was conscious only of the fine original source and of his own immense debt. After he had taken a turn or two up and down the gallery he came out again and descended the steps. He was but slenderly supplied with a certain social boldness (it was really a weakness in him), so that, conscious of a want of acquaintance with the four persons in the distance, he indulged in a movement as to which he had a certain safety in feeling that it did not necessarily appear to commit him to an attempt to join them. There was a fine English awkwardness in it – he felt this too as he sauntered vaguely and obliquely across the lawn, as if to take an independent line. Fortunately there was an equally fine English directness in the way one of the gentlemen presently rose and made as if to approach him, with an air of conciliation and reassurance. To this demonstration Paul Overt instantly responded, though he knew the gentleman was not his host. He was tall, straight and elderly, and had a pink, smiling face and a white moustache. Our young man met him half-way while he laughed and said: ‘A— Lady Watermouth told us you were coming; she asked me just to look after you.’ Paul Overt thanked him (he liked him without delay) and turned round with him, walking toward the others. ‘They’ve all gone to church – all except us,’ the stranger continued as they went; ‘we’re just sitting here – it’s so jolly.’ Overt rejoined that it was jolly indeed – it was such a lovely place; he mentioned that he had not seen it before – it was a charming impression.
‘Ah, you’ve not been here before?’ said his companion. ‘It’s a nice little place – not much to do, you know.’ Overt wondered what he wanted to ‘do’ – he felt as if he himself were doing a good deal. By the time they came to where the others sat he had guessed his initiator was a military man, and (such was the turn of Overt’s imagination) this made him still more sympathetic. He would naturally have a passion for activity – for deeds at variance with the pacific, pastoral scene. He was evidently so good-natured, however, that he accepted the inglorious hour for what it was worth. Paul Overt shared it with him and with his companions for the next twenty minutes; the latter looked at him and he looked at them without knowing much who they were, while the talk went on without enlightening him much as to what it was about. It was indeed about nothing in particular, and wandered, with casual, pointless pauses and short terrestrial flights, amid the names of persons and places – names which, for him, had no great power of evocation. It was all sociable and slow, as was right and natural on a warm Sunday morning.
Overt’s first attention was given to the question, privately considered, of whether one of the two younger men would be Henry St George. He knew many of his distinguished contemporaries by their photographs, but he had never, as it happened, seen a portrait of the great misguided novelist. One of the gentlemen was out of the question – he was too young; and the other scarcely looked clever enough, with such mild, undiscriminating eyes. If those eyes were St George’s, the problem presented by the ill-matched parts of his genius was still more difficult of solution. Besides, the deportment of the personage possessing them was not, as regards the lady in the red dress, such as could be natural, towards his wife, even to a writer accused by several critics of sacrificing too much to manner. Lastly, Paul Overt had an indefinite feeling that if the gentleman with the sightless eyes bore the name that had set his heart beating faster (he also had contradictory, conventional whiskers – the young admirer of the celebrity had never in a mental vision seen his face in so vulgar a frame), he would have given him a sign of recognition or of friendliness – would have heard of him a little, would know something about Ginistrella, would have gathered at least that that recent work of fiction had made an impression on the discerning. Paul Overt had a dread of being grossly proud, but it seemed to him that his self-consciousness took no undue licence in thinking that the authorship of Ginistrella constituted a degree of identity. His soldierly friend became clear enough; he was ‘Fancourt’, but he was also the General; and he mentioned to our young man in the course of a few moments that he had but lately returned from twenty years’ service abroad.
‘And do you mean to remain in England?’ Overt asked.
‘Oh yes, I have bought a little house in London.’
‘And I hope you like
it,’ said Overt, looking at Mrs St George.
‘Well, a little house in Manchester Square – there’s a limit to the enthusiasm that that inspires.’
‘Oh, I meant being at home again – being in London.’
‘My daughter likes it – that’s the main thing. She’s very fond of art and music and literature and all that kind of thing. She missed it in India and she finds it in London, or she hopes she will find it. Mr St George has promised to help her – he has been awfully kind to her. She has gone to church – she’s fond of that too – but they’ll all be back in a quarter of an hour. You must let me introduce you to her – she will be so glad to know you. I daresay she has read every word you have written.’
‘I shall be delighted – I haven’t written very many,’ said Overt, who felt without resentment that the General at least was very vague about that. But he wondered a little why, since he expressed this friendly disposition, it did not occur to him to pronounce the word which would put him in relation with Mrs St George. If it was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt (apparently she was unmarried) was far away and the wife of his illustrious confrère was almost between them. This lady struck Paul Overt as a very pretty woman, with a surprising air of youth and a high smartness of aspect which seemed to him (he could scarcely have said why) a sort of mystification. St George certainly had every right to a charming wife, but he himself would never have taken the important little woman in the aggressively Parisian dress for the domestic partner of a man of letters. That partner in general, he knew, was far from presenting herself in a single type: his observation had instructed him that she was not inveterately, not necessarily dreary. But he had never before seen her look so much as if her prosperity had deeper foundations than an ink-spotted study-table littered with proof-sheets. Mrs St George might have been the wife of a gentleman who ‘kept’ books rather than wrote them, who carried on great affairs in the City and made better bargains than those that poets make with publishers. With this she hinted at a success more personal, as if she had been the most characteristic product of an age in which society, the world of conversation, is a great drawing-room with the City for its antechamber. Overt judged her at first to be about thirty years of age; then, after a while, he perceived that she was much nearer fifty. But she juggled away the twenty years somehow – you only saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the conjurer’s sleeve. She was extraordinarily white, and everything about her was pretty – her eyes, her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands, her feet (to which her relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great publicity), and the numerous ribbons and trinkets with which she was bedecked. She looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to church and then had decided that they were too good for that and had stayed at home. She told a story of some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had treated the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation to a purchase she had made in Paris (on her way back from Cannes) for Lady Egbert, who had never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of a tendency to figure great people as larger than life, until he noticed the manner in which she handled Lady Egbert, which was so subversive that it reassured him. He felt that he should have understood her better if he might have met her eye; but she scarcely looked at him. ‘Ah, here they come – all the good ones!’ she said at last; and Paul Overt saw in the distance the return of the churchgoers – several persons, in couples and threes, advancing in a flicker of sun and shade at the end of a large green vista formed by the level grass and the overarching boughs.