The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters

  9. A LADY'S DRAWING-ROOMS--ETHELBERTA'S DRESSING-ROOM

  It was a house on the north side of Hyde Park, between ten and eleven inthe evening, and several intelligent and courteous people had assembledthere to enjoy themselves as far as it was possible to do so in a neutralway--all carefully keeping every variety of feeling in a state ofsolution, in spite of any attempt such feelings made from time to time tocrystallize on interesting subjects in hand.

  'Neigh, who is that charming woman with her head built up in a novel wayeven for hair architecture--the one with her back towards us?' said a manwhose coat fitted doubtfully to a friend whose coat fitted well.

  'Just going to ask for the same information,' said Mr. Neigh, determiningthe very longest hair in his beard to an infinitesimal nicety by drawingits lower portion through his fingers. 'I have quite forgotten--cannotkeep people's names in my head at all; nor could my father either--norany of my family--a very odd thing. But my old friend Mrs. Napper knowsfor certain.' And he turned to one of a small group of middle-agedpersons near, who, instead of skimming the surface of things in general,like the rest of the company, were going into the very depths of them.

  'O--that is the celebrated Mrs. Petherwin, the woman who makes rhymes andprints 'em,' said Mrs. Napper, in a detached sentence, and then continuedtalking again to those on the other side of her.

  The two loungers went on with their observations of Ethelberta'sheaddress, which, though not extraordinary or eccentric, did certainlyconvey an idea of indefinable novelty. Observers were sometimes halfinclined to think that her cuts and modes were acquired by some secretcommunication with the mysterious clique which orders the livery of thefashionable world, for--and it affords a parallel to cases in whichclever thinkers in other spheres arrive independently at one and the sameconclusion--Ethelberta's fashion often turned out to be the coming one.

  'O, is that the woman at last?' said Neigh, diminishing his broad generalgaze at the room to a close criticism of Ethelberta.

  '"The rhymes," as Mrs. Napper calls them, are not to be despised,' saidhis companion. 'They are not quite virginibus puerisque, and thewriter's opinions of life and society differ very materially from mine,but I cannot help admiring her in the more reflective pieces; the songs Idon't care for. The method in which she handles curious subjects, and atthe same time impresses us with a full conviction of her modesty, is veryadroit, and somewhat blinds us to the fact that no such poems weredemanded of her at all.'

  'I have not read them,' said Neigh, secretly wrestling with his jaw, toprevent a yawn; 'but I suppose I must. The truth is, that I never caremuch for reading what one ought to read; I wish I did, but I cannot helpit. And, no doubt, you admire the lady immensely for writing them: Idon't. Everybody is so talented now-a-days that the only people I careto honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain inobscurity. I am myself hoping for a corner in some biographicaldictionary when the time comes for those works only to contain lists ofthe exceptional individuals of whom nothing is known but that they livedand died.'

  'Ah--listen. They are going to sing one of her songs,' said his friend,looking towards a bustling movement in the neighbourhood of the piano. 'Ibelieve that song, "When tapers tall," has been set to music by three orfour composers already.'

  'Men of any note?' said Neigh, at last beaten by his yawn, which courtesynevertheless confined within his person to such an extent that only a fewunimportant symptoms, such as reduced eyes and a certain rectangularmanner of mouth in speaking, were visible.

  'Scarcely,' replied the other man. 'Established writers of music do notexpend their energies upon new verse until they find that such verse islikely to endure; for should the poet be soon forgotten, their labour isin some degree lost.'

  'Artful dogs--who would have thought it?' said Neigh, just as an exercisein words; and they drew nearer to the piano, less to become listeners tothe singing than to be spectators of the scene in that quarter. Butamong some others the interest in the songs seemed to be very great; andit was unanimously wished that the young lady who had practised thedifferent pieces of music privately would sing some of them now in theorder of their composers' reputations. The musical persons in the roomunconsciously resolved themselves into a committee of taste.

  One and another had been tried, when, at the end of the third, a ladyspoke to Ethelberta.

  'Now, Mrs. Petherwin,' she said, gracefully throwing back her face, 'youropinion is by far the most valuable. In which of the cases do youconsider the marriage of verse and tune to have been most successful?'

  Ethelberta, finding these and other unexpected calls made upon herself,came to the front without flinching.

  'The sweetest and the best that I like by far,' she said, 'is none ofthese. It is one which reached me by post only this morning from a placein Wessex, and is written by an unheard-of man who lives somewhere downthere--a man who will be, nevertheless, heard a great deal of some day, Ihope--think. I have only practised it this afternoon; but, if one's ownjudgment is worth anything, it is the best.'

  'Let us have your favourite, by all means,' said another friend ofEthelberta's who was present--Mrs. Doncastle.

  'I am so sorry that I cannot oblige you, since you wish to hear it,'replied the poetess regretfully; 'but the music is at home. I had notreceived it when I lent the others to Miss Belmaine, and it is only inmanuscript like the rest.'

  'Could it not be sent for?' suggested an enthusiast who knew thatEthelberta lived only in the next street, appealing by a look to her, andthen to the mistress of the house.

  'Certainly, let us send for it,' said that lady. A footman was at oncequietly despatched with precise directions as to where Christopher'ssweet production might be found.

  'What--is there going to be something interesting?' asked a young marriedfriend of Mrs. Napper, who had returned to her original spot.

  'Yes--the best song she has written is to be sung in the best manner tothe best air that has been composed for it. I should not wonder if shewere going to sing it herself.'

  'Did you know anything of Mrs. Petherwin until her name leaked out inconnection with these ballads?'

  'No; but I think I recollect seeing her once before. She is one of thosepeople who are known, as one may say, by subscription: everybody knows alittle, till she is astonishingly well known altogether; but nobody knowsher entirely. She was the orphan child of some clergyman, I believe.Lady Petherwin, her mother-in-law, has been taking her about a great deallatterly.'

  'She has apparently a very good prospect.'

  'Yes; and it is through her being of that curious undefined characterwhich interprets itself to each admirer as whatever he would like to haveit. Old men like her because she is so girlish; youths because she iswomanly; wicked men because she is good in their eyes; good men becauseshe is wicked in theirs.'

  'She must be a very anomalous sort of woman, at that rate.'

  'Yes. Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice toher inconsistencies in principle.'

  'These poems must have set her up. She appears to be quite the correctspectacle. Happy Mrs. Petherwin!'

  The subject of their dialogue was engaged in a conversation with Mrs.Belmaine upon the management of households--a theme provoked by adiscussion that was in progress in the pages of some periodical of thetime. Mrs. Belmaine was very full of the argument, and went on frompoint to point till she came to servants.

  The face of Ethelberta showed caution at once.

  'I consider that Lady Plamby pets her servants by far too much,' saidMrs. Belmaine. 'O, you do not know her? Well, she is a woman withtheories; and she lends her maids and men books of the wrong kind fortheir station, and sends them to picture exhibitions which they don't inthe least understand--all for the improvement of their taste, and morals,and nobody knows what besides. It only makes them dissatisfied.'

  The face of Ethelberta showed venturesomeness. 'Yes, and dreadfullyambitious!' she said.

  'Yes,
indeed. What a turn the times have taken! People of that sortpush on, and get into business, and get great warehouses, until at last,without ancestors, or family, or name, or estate--'

  'Or the merest scrap of heirloom or family jewel.'

  'Or heirlooms, or family jewels, they are thought as much of as if theirforefathers had glided unobtrusively through the peerage--'

  'Ever since the first edition.'

  'Yes.' Mrs. Belmaine, who really sprang from a good old family, had beengoing to say, 'for the last seven hundred years,' but fancying fromEthelberta's addendum that she might not date back more than a triflingcentury or so, adopted the suggestion with her usual well-known courtesy,and blushed down to her locket at the thought of the mistake that shemight have made. This sensitiveness was a trait in her character whichgave great gratification to her husband, and, indeed, to all who knewher.

  'And have you any theory on the vexed question of servant-government?'continued Mrs. Belmaine, smiling. 'But no--the subject is of far toopractical a nature for one of your bent, of course.'

  'O no--it is not at all too practical. I have thought of the matteroften,' said Ethelberta. 'I think the best plan would be for somebody towrite a pamphlet, "The Shortest Way with the Servants," just as there wasonce written a terribly stinging one, "The Shortest Way with theDissenters," which had a great effect.'

  'I have always understood that that was written by a dissenter as asatire upon the Church?'

  'Ah--so it was: but the example will do to illustrate my meaning.'

  'Quite so--I understand--so it will,' said Mrs. Belmaine, with cloudedfaculties.

  Meanwhile Christopher's music had arrived. An accomplished gentleman whohad every musical talent except that of creation, scanned the notescarefully from top to bottom, and sat down to accompany the singer. Therewas no lady present of sufficient confidence or skill to venture into asong she had never seen before, and the only one who had seen it wasEthelberta herself; she did not deny having practised it the greater partof the afternoon, and was very willing to sing it now if anybody wouldderive pleasure from the performance. Then she began, and the sweetnessof her singing was such that even the most unsympathetic honoured her bylooking as if they would be willing to listen to every note the songcontained if it were not quite so much trouble to do so. Some were sointerested that, instead of continuing their conversation, they remainedin silent consideration of how they would continue it when she hadfinished; while the particularly civil people arranged their countenancesinto every attentive form that the mind could devise. One emotionalgentleman looked at the corner of a chair as if, till that moment, suchan object had never crossed his vision before; the movement of his fingerto the imagined tune was, for a deaf old clergyman, a perfect mine ofinterest; whilst a young man from the country was powerless to put an endto an enchanted gaze at nothing at all in the exact middle of the roombefore him. Neigh, and the general phalanx of cool men and celebratedclub yawners, were so much affected that they raised their chronic lookof great objection to things, to an expression of scarcely any objectionat all.

  'What makes it so interesting,' said Mrs. Doncastle to Ethelberta, whenthe song was over and she had retired from the focus of the company, 'is,that it is played from the composer's own copy, which has never met thepublic eye, or any other than his own before to-day. And I see that hehas actually sketched in the lines by hand, instead of having ruledpaper--just as the great old composers used to do. You must have been aspleased to get it fresh from the stocks like that as he probably waspleased to get your thanks.'

  Ethelberta became reflective. She had not thanked Christopher; moreover,she had decided, after some consideration, that she ought not to thankhim. What new thoughts were suggested by that remark of Mrs.Doncastle's, and what new inclination resulted from the publicpresentation of his tune and her words as parts of one organic whole, arebest explained by describing her doings at a later hour, when, havingleft her friends somewhat early, she had reached home and retired frompublic view for that evening.

  Ethelberta went to her room, sent away the maid who did double duty forherself and Lady Petherwin, walked in circles about the carpet till thefire had grown haggard and cavernous, sighed, took a sheet of paper andwrote:--

  'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--I have said I would not write: I have said it twice; but discretion, under some circumstances, is only another name for unkindness. Before thanking you for your sweet gift, let me tell you in a few words of something which may materially change an aspect of affairs under which I appear to you to deserve it.

  'With regard to my history and origin you are altogether mistaken; and how can I tell whether your bitterness at my previous silence on those points may not cause you to withdraw your act of courtesy now? But the gratification of having at last been honest with you may compensate even for the loss of your respect.

  'The matter is a small one to tell, after all. What will you say on learning that I am not the trodden-down "lady by birth" that you have supposed me? That my father is not dead, as you probably imagine; that he is working for his living as one among a peculiarly stigmatized and ridiculed multitude?

  'Had he been a brawny cottager, carpenter, mason, blacksmith, well- digger, navvy, tree-feller--any effective and manly trade, in short, a worker in which can stand up in the face of the noblest and daintiest, and bare his gnarled arms and say, with a consciousness of superior power, "Look at a real man!" I should have been able to show you antecedents which, if not intensely romantic, are not altogether antagonistic to romance. But the present fashion of associating with one particular class everything that is ludicrous and bombastic overpowers me when I think of it in relation to myself and your known sensitiveness. When the well-born poetess of good report melts into. . .'

  Having got thus far, a faint-hearted look, which had begun to show itselfseveral sentences earlier, became pronounced. She threw the writing intothe dull fire, poked and stirred it till a red inflammation crept overthe sheet, and then started anew:--

  'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--Not knowing your present rank as composer--whether on the very brink of fame, or as yet a long way off--I cannot decide what form of expression my earnest acknowledgments should take. Let me simply say in one short phrase, I thank you infinitely!

  'I am no musician, and my opinion on music may not be worth much: yet I know what I like (as everybody says, but I do not use the words as a form to cover a hopeless blank on all connected with the subject), and this sweet air I love. You must have glided like a breeze about me--seen into a heart not worthy of scrutiny, jotted down words that cannot justify attention--before you could have apotheosized the song in so exquisite a manner. My gratitude took the form of wretchedness when, on hearing the effect of the ballad in public this evening, I thought that I had not power to withhold a reply which might do us both more harm than good. Then I said, "Away with all emotion--I wish the world was drained dry of it--I will take no notice," when a lady whispered at my elbow to the effect that of course I had expressed my gratification to you. I ought first to have mentioned that your creation has been played to-night to full drawing-rooms, and the original tones cooled the artificial air like a fountain almost.

  'I prophesy great things of you. Perhaps, at the time when we are each but a row of bones in our individual graves, your genius will be remembered, while my mere cleverness will have been long forgotten.

  'But--you must allow a woman of experience to say this--the undoubted power that you possess will do you socially no good unless you mix with it the ingredient of ambition--a quality in which I fear you are very deficient. It is in the hope of stimulating you to a better opinion of yourself that I write this letter.

  'Probably I shall never meet you again. Not that I think circumstances to be particularly powerful to prevent such a meeting, rather it is that I shall energetically avoid it. There can be no such
thing as strong friendship between a man and a woman not of one family.

  'More than that there must not be, and this is why we will not meet. You see that I do not mince matters at all; but it is hypocrisy to avoid touching upon a subject which all men and women in our position inevitably think of, no matter what they say. Some women might have written distantly, and wept at the repression of their real feeling; but it is better to be more frank, and keep a dry eye.--Yours, ETHELBERTA.'

  Her feet felt cold and her heart weak as she directed the letter, and shewas overpowered with weariness. But murmuring, 'If I let it stay tillthe morning I shall not send it, and a man may be lost to fame because ofa woman's squeamishness--it shall go,' she partially dressed herself,wrapped a large cloak around her, descended the stairs, and went out tothe pillar-box at the corner, leaving the door not quite close. No gustof wind had realized her misgivings that it might be blown shut on herreturn, and she re-entered as softly as she had emerged.

  It will be seen that Ethelberta had said nothing about her family afterall.