The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters

  24. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE (continued)--THE BRITISH MUSEUM

  Mrs. Chickerel, in deploring the risks of their present speculative modeof life, was far from imagining that signs of the foul future so muchdreaded were actually apparent to Ethelberta at the time the lament wasspoken. Hence the daughter's uncommon sensitiveness to prophecy. It wasas if a dead-reckoner poring over his chart should predict breakers aheadto one who already beheld them.

  That her story-telling would prove so attractive Ethelberta had notventured to expect for a moment; that having once proved attractive thereshould be any falling-off until such time had elapsed as would enable herto harvest some solid fruit was equally a surprise. Future expectationsare often based without hesitation upon one happy accident, when the onlysimilar condition remaining to subsequent sets of circumstances is thatthe same person forms the centre of them. Her situation was so peculiar,and so unlike that of most public people, that there was hardly anargument explaining this triumphant opening which could be used inforecasting the close; unless, indeed, more strategy were employed in theconduct of the campaign than Ethelberta seemed to show at present.

  There was no denying that she commanded less attention than at first: theaudience had lessened, and, judging by appearances, might soon beexpected to be decidedly thin. In excessive lowness of spirit,Ethelberta translated these signs with the bias that a lingering echo ofher mother's dismal words naturally induced, reading them as conclusiveevidence that her adventure had been chimerical in its birth. Yet it wasvery far less conclusive than she supposed. Public interest mightwithout doubt have been renewed after a due interval, some of the falling-off being only an accident of the season. Her novelties had been hailedwith pleasure, the rather that their freshness tickled than that theirintrinsic merit was appreciated; and, like many inexperienced dispensersof a unique charm, Ethelberta, by bestowing too liberally and toofrequently, was destroying the very element upon which its popularitydepended. Her entertainment had been good in its conception, and partlygood in its execution; yet her success had but little to do with thatgoodness. Indeed, what might be called its badness in a histrionicsense--that is, her look sometimes of being out of place, the sight of abeautiful woman on a platform, revealing tender airs of domesticity whichshowed her to belong by character to a quiet drawing-room--had beenprimarily an attractive feature. But alas, custom was staling this byimproving her up to the mark of an utter impersonator, therebyeradicating the pretty abashments of a poetess out of her sphere; andmore than one well-wisher who observed Ethelberta from afar feared thatit might some day come to be said of her that she had

  'Enfeoffed herself to popularity: That, being daily swallowed by men's eyes, They surfeited with honey, and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much.'

  But this in its extremity was not quite yet.

  We discover her one day, a little after this time, sitting before a tablestrewed with accounts and bills from different tradesmen of theneighbourhood, which she examined with a pale face, collecting theirtotals on a blank sheet. Picotee came into the room, but Ethelberta tookno notice whatever of her. The younger sister, who subsisted on scrapsof notice and favour, like a dependent animal, even if these were only anoccasional glance of the eye, could not help saying at last, 'Berta, howsilent you are. I don't think you know I am in the room.'

  'I did not observe you,' said Ethelberta. 'I am very much engaged: thesebills have to be paid.'

  'What, and cannot we pay them?' said Picotee, in vague alarm.

  'O yes, I can pay them. The question is, how long shall I be able to doit?'

  'That is sad; and we are going on so nicely, too. It is not true thatyou have really decided to leave off story-telling now the people don'tcrowd to hear it as they did?'

  'I think I shall leave off.'

  'And begin again next year?'

  'That is very doubtful.'

  'I'll tell you what you might do,' said Picotee, her face kindling with asense of great originality. 'You might travel about to country towns andtell your story splendidly.'

  'A man in my position might perhaps do it with impunity; but I could notwithout losing ground in other domains. A woman may drive to Mayfairfrom her house in Exonbury Crescent, and speak from a platform there, andbe supposed to do it as an original way of amusing herself; but when itcomes to starring in the provinces she establishes herself as a woman ofa different breed and habit. I wish I were a man! I would give up thishouse, advertise it to be let furnished, and sally forth with confidence.But I am driven to think of other ways to manage than that.'

  Picotee fell into a conjectural look, but could not guess.

  'The way of marriage,' said Ethelberta. 'Otherwise perhaps the poetessmay live to become what Dryden called himself when he got old and poor--arent-charge on Providence. . . . . Yes, I must try that way,' shecontinued, with a sarcasm towards people out of hearing. I must buy a"Peerage" for one thing, and a "Baronetage," and a "House of Commons,"and a "Landed Gentry," and learn what people are about me. 'I must go toDoctors' Commons and read up wills of the parents of any likely gudgeonsI may know. I must get a Herald to invent an escutcheon of my family,and throw a genealogical tree into the bargain in consideration of mytaking a few second-hand heirlooms of a pawnbroking friend of his. Imust get up sham ancestors, and find out some notorious name to start mypedigree from. It does not matter what his character was; either villainor martyr will do, provided that he lived five hundred years ago. Itwould be considered far more creditable to make good my descent fromSatan in the age when he went to and fro on the earth than from aministering angel under Victoria.'

  'But, Berta, you are not going to marry any stranger who may turn up?'said Picotee, who had creeping sensations of dread when Ethelberta talkedlike this.

  'I had no such intention. But, having once put my hand to the plough,how shall I turn back?'

  'You might marry Mr. Ladywell,' said Picotee, who preferred to look atthings in the concrete.

  'Yes, marry him villainously; in cold blood, without a moment to preparehimself.'

  'Ah, you won't!'

  'I am not so sure about that. I have brought mother and the children totown against her judgment and against my father's; they gave way to myopinion as to one who from superior education has larger knowledge of theworld than they. I must prove my promises, even if Heaven should fallupon me for it, or what a miserable future will theirs be! We must notbe poor in London. Poverty in the country is a sadness, but poverty intown is a horror. There is something not without grandeur in the thoughtof starvation on an open mountain or in a wide wood, and your bones lyingthere to bleach in the pure sun and rain; but a back garret in a rookery,and the other starvers in the room insisting on keeping the windowshut--anything to deliver us from that!'

  'How gloomy you can be, Berta! It will never be so dreadful. Why, I cantake in plain sewing, and you can do translations, and mother can knitstockings, and so on. How much longer will this house be yours?'

  'Two years. If I keep it longer than that I shall have to pay rent atthe rate of three hundred a year. The Petherwin estate provides me withit till then, which will be the end of Lady Petherwin's term.'

  'I see it; and you ought to marry before the house is gone, if you meanto marry high,' murmured Picotee, in an inadequate voice, as oneconfronted by a world so tragic that any hope of her assisting thereinwas out of the question.

  It was not long after this exposition of the family affairs thatChristopher called upon them; but Picotee was not present, having gone tothink of superhuman work on the spur of Ethelberta's awakening talk.There was something new in the way in which Ethelberta received theannouncement of his name; passion had to do with it, so hadcircumspection; the latter most, for the first time since their reunion.

  'I am going to leave this part of England,' said Christopher, after a fewgentle preliminaries. 'I was one of the applicants for the post ofassistant
-organist at Melchester Cathedral when it became vacant, and Ifind I am likely to be chosen, through the interest of one of my father'sfriends.'

  'I congratulate you.'

  'No, Ethelberta, it is not worth that. I did not originally mean tofollow this course at all; but events seemed to point to it in theabsence of a better.'

  'I too am compelled to follow a course I did not originally mean totake.' After saying no more for a few moments, she added, in a tone ofsudden openness, a richer tincture creeping up her cheek, 'I want to puta question to you boldly--not exactly a question--a thought. Have youconsidered whether the relations between us which have lately prevailedare--are the best for you--and for me?'

  'I know what you mean,' said Christopher, hastily anticipating all thatshe might be going to say; 'and I am glad you have given me theopportunity of speaking upon that subject. It has been very good andconsiderate in you to allow me to share your society so frequently as youhave done since I have been in town, and to think of you as an object toexist for and strive for. But I ought to have remembered that, since youhave nobody at your side to look after your interests, it behoved me tobe doubly careful. In short, Ethelberta, I am not in a position tomarry, nor can I discern when I shall be, and I feel it would be aninjustice to ask you to be bound in any way to one lower and lesstalented than you. You cannot, from what you say, think it desirablethat the engagement should continue. I have no right to ask you to be mybetrothed, without having a near prospect of making you my wife. I don'tmind saying this straight out--I have no fear that you will doubt mylove; thank Heaven, you know what that is well enough! However, asthings are, I wish you to know that I cannot conscientiously put in aclaim upon your attention.'

  A second meaning was written in Christopher's look, though he scarcelyuttered it. A woman so delicately poised upon the social globe could notin honour be asked to wait for a lover who was unable to set bounds tothe waiting period. Yet he had privily dreamed of an approach to thatposition--an unreserved, ideally perfect declaration from Ethelberta thattime and practical issues were nothing to her; that she would stand asfast without material hopes as with them; that love was to be an end withher henceforth, having utterly ceased to be a means. Therefore thissurreptitious hope of his, founded on no reasonable expectation, was likea guilty thing surprised when Ethelberta answered, with a predominance ofjudgment over passion still greater than before:

  'It is unspeakably generous in you to put it all before me so nicely,Christopher. I think infinitely more of you for being so unreserved,especially since I too have been thinking much on the indefiniteness ofthe days to come. We are not numbered among the blest few who can affordto trifle with the time. Yet to agree to anything like a positiveparting will be quite unnecessary. You did not mean that, did you? forit is harsh if you did.' Ethelberta smiled kindly as she said this, asmuch as to say that she was far from really upbraiding him. 'Let it beonly that we will see each other less. We will bear one another in mindas deeply attached friends if not as definite lovers, and keep upfriendly remembrances of a sort which, come what may, will never have tobe ended by any painful process termed breaking off. Different persons,different natures; and it may be that marriage would not be the mostfavourable atmosphere for our old affection to prolong itself in. Whendo you leave London?'

  The disconnected query seemed to be subjoined to disperse the crudeeffect of what had gone before.

  'I hardly know,' murmured Christopher. 'I suppose I shall not call hereagain.'

  Whilst they were silent somebody entered the room softly, and they turnedto discover Picotee.

  'Come here, Picotee,' said Ethelberta.

  Picotee came with an abashed bearing to where the other two werestanding, and looked down steadfastly.

  'Mr. Julian is going away,' she continued, with determined firmness. 'Hewill not see us again for a long time.' And Ethelberta added, in a lowertone, though still in the unflinching manner of one who had set herselfto say a thing, and would say it--'He is not to be definitely engaged tome any longer. We are not thinking of marrying, you know, Picotee. Itis best that we should not.'

  'Perhaps it is,' said Christopher hurriedly, taking up his hat. 'Let menow wish you good-bye; and, of course, you will always know where I am,and how to find me.'

  It was a tender time. He inclined forward that Ethelberta might give himher hand, which she did; whereupon their eyes met. Mastered by animpelling instinct she had not reckoned with, Ethelberta presented hercheek. Christopher kissed it faintly. Tears were in Ethelberta's eyesnow, and she was heartfull of many emotions. Placing her arm roundPicotee's waist, who had never lifted her eyes from the carpet, she drewthe slight girl forward, and whispered quickly to him--'Kiss her, too.She is my sister, and I am yours.'

  It seemed all right and natural to their respective moods and the tone ofthe moment that free old Wessex manners should prevail, and Christopherstooped and dropped upon Picotee's cheek likewise such a farewell kiss ashe had imprinted upon Ethelberta's.

  'Care for us both equally!' said Ethelberta.

  'I will,' said Christopher, scarcely knowing what he said.

  When he had reached the door of the room, he looked back and saw the twosisters standing as he had left them, and equally tearful. Ethelberta atonce said, in a last futile struggle against letting him go altogether,and with thoughts of her sister's heart:

  'I think that Picotee might correspond with Faith; don't you, Mr.Julian?'

  'My sister would much like to do so,' said he.

  'And you would like it too, would you not, Picotee?'

  'O yes,' she replied. 'And I can tell them all about you.'

  'Then it shall be so, if Miss Julian will.' She spoke in a settled way,as if something intended had been set in train; and Christopher havingpromised for his sister, he went out of the house with a parting smile ofmisgiving.

  He could scarcely believe as he walked along that those late words, yethanging in his ears, had really been spoken, that still visible sceneenacted. He could not even recollect for a minute or two how the finalresult had been produced. Did he himself first enter upon thelong-looming theme, or did she? Christopher had been so nervously aliveto the urgency of setting before the hard-striving woman a clear outlineof himself, his surroundings and his fears, that he fancied the mainimpulse to this consummation had been his, notwithstanding that a faintinitiative had come from Ethelberta. All had completed itself quickly,unceremoniously, and easily. Ethelberta had let him go a second time;yet on foregoing mornings and evenings, when contemplating the necessityof some such explanation, it had seemed that nothing less than Atlanteanforce could overpower their mutual gravitation towards each other.

  On his reaching home Faith was not in the house, and, in the restlessstate which demands something to talk at, the musician went off to findher, well knowing her haunt at this time of the day. He entered thespiked and gilded gateway of the Museum hard by, turned to the wingdevoted to sculptures, and descended to a particular basement room, whichwas lined with bas-reliefs from Nineveh. The place was cool, silent, andsoothing; it was empty, save of a little figure in black, that wasstanding with its face to the wall in an innermost nook. This spot wasFaith's own temple; here, among these deserted antiques, Faith was alwayshappy. Christopher looked on at her for some time before she noticedhim, and dimly perceived how vastly differed her homely suit andunstudied contour--painfully unstudied to fastidious eyes--fromEthelberta's well-arranged draperies, even from Picotee's clever bits ofribbon, by which she made herself look pretty out of nothing at all. Yetthis negligence was his sister's essence; without it she would have beena spoilt product. She had no outer world, and her rusty black was asappropriate to Faith's unseen courses as were Ethelberta's correct lightsand shades to her more prominent career.

  'Look, Kit,' said Faith, as soon as she knew who was approaching. 'Thisis a thing I never learnt before; this person is really Sennacherib,sitting on his throne; and these with fluted bea
rds and hair like plough-furrows, and fingers with no bones in them, are his warriors--reallycarved at the time, you know. Only just think that this is not imaginedof Assyria, but done in Assyrian times by Assyrian hands. Don't you feelas if you were actually in Nineveh; that as we now walk between theseslabs, so walked Ninevites between them once?'

  'Yes. . . . Faith, it is all over. Ethelberta and I have parted.'

  'Indeed. And so my plan is to think of verses in the Bible aboutSennacherib and his doings, which resemble these; this verse, forinstance, I remember: "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah didSennacherib, King of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities ofJudah and took them. And Hezekiah, King of Judah, sent to the King ofAssyria to Lachish," and so on. Well, there it actually is, you see.There's Sennacherib, and there's Lachish. Is it not glorious to thinkthat this is a picture done at the time of those very events?'

  'Yes. We did not quarrel this time, Ethelberta and I. If I may so putit, it is worse than quarrelling. We felt it was no use going on anylonger, and so--Come, Faith, hear what I say, or else tell me that youwon't hear, and that I may as well save my breath!'

  'Yes, I will really listen,' she said, fluttering her eyelids in herconcern at having been so abstracted, and excluding Sennacherib there andthen from Christopher's affairs by the first settlement of her featuresto a present-day aspect, and her eyes upon his face. 'You said you hadseen Ethelberta. Yes, and what did she say?'

  'Was there ever anybody so provoking! Why, I have just told you!'

  'Yes, yes; I remember now. You have parted. The subject is too largefor me to know all at once what I think of it, and you must give me time,Kit. Speaking of Ethelberta reminds me of what I have done. I justlooked into the Academy this morning--I thought I would surprise you bytelling you about it. And what do you think I saw? Ethelberta--in thepicture painted by Mr. Ladywell.'

  'It is never hung?' said he, feeling that they were at one as to a topicat last.

  'Yes. And the subject is an Elizabethan knight parting from a lady ofthe same period--the words explaining the picture being--

  "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate."

  The lady is Ethelberta, to the shade of a hair--her living face; and theknight is--'

  'Not Ladywell?'

  'I think so; I am not sure.'

  'No wonder I am dismissed! And yet she hates him. Well, come along,Faith. Women allow strange liberties in these days.'