XXI
The preparations for my marriage now went on apace,--shoals of presents began to arrive for Sibyl as well as for myself, and I was introduced to an hitherto undemonstrated phase (as far as I personally was concerned) of the vulgarity and hypocrisy of fashionable society. Everyone knew the extent of my wealth, and how little real necessity there was for offering me or my bride-elect costly gifts; nevertheless, all our so-called "friends" and acquaintances, strove to outvie each other in the gross cash-value, if not in the good taste, of their various donations. Had we been a young couple bravely beginning the world on true love, in more or less uncertainty as to our prospects and future income, we should have received nothing either useful or valuable,--everyone would have tried to do the present-giving in as cheap and mean a way as possible. Instead of handsome services of solid silver, we should have had a meagre collection of plated teaspoons; instead of costly editions of books sumptuously enriched with fine steel engravings, we might possibly have had to express our grat.i.tude for a ten-shilling Family Bible. Of course I fully realized the actual nature and object of the lavish extravagance displayed on this occasion by our social "set,"--their gifts were merely so many bribes, sent with a purpose which was easy enough to fathom. The donors wished to be invited to the wedding in the first place,--after that, they sought to be included in our visiting-list, and foresaw invitations to our dinners and house-parties;--and more than this they calculated on our influence in society, and the possible chance there might be in the dim future of our lending some of them money should pressing occasion require it. In the scant thankfulness and suppressed contempt their adulatory offerings excited, Sibyl and I were completely at one. She looked upon her array of glittering valuables with the utmost weariness and indifference, and flattered my self-love by a.s.suring me that the only things she cared at all for were the riviere of sapphires and diamonds I had given her as a betrothal-pledge, together with an engagement-ring of the same l.u.s.trous gems. Yet I noticed she also had a great liking for Lucio"s present, which was a truly magnificent masterpiece of the jeweller"s art. It was a girdle in the form of a serpent, the body entirely composed of the finest emeralds, and the head of rubies and diamonds. Flexible as a reed, when Sibyl put it on, it appeared to spring and coil round her waist like a living thing, and breathe with her breathing. I did not much care for it myself as an ornament for a young bride,--it seemed to me quite unsuitable,--but as everyone else admired it and envied the possessor of such superb jewels, I said nothing of my own distaste.
Diana Chesney had shown a certain amount of delicate sentiment and refinement in her offering,--it was a very exquisite marble statue of Psyche, mounted on a pedestal of solid silver and ebony. Sibyl thanked her, smiling coldly.
"You have given me an emblem of the Soul,"--she said; "No doubt you remembered I have no soul of my own!"
And her airy laugh had chilled poor Diana "to the marrow," as the warm-hearted little American herself, with tears, a.s.sured me.
At this period I saw very little of Rimanez. I was much occupied with my lawyers on the question of "settlements." Messrs Bentham and Ellis rather objected to the arrangement by which I gave the half of my fortune to my intended wife unconditionally; but I would brook no interference, and the deed was drawn up, signed, sealed and witnessed.
The Earl of Elton could not sufficiently praise my "unexampled generosity"--my "n.o.ble character;"--and walked about, eulogising me everywhere, till he almost turned himself into a public advertis.e.m.e.nt of the virtues of his future son-in-law. He seemed to have taken a new lease of life,--he flirted with Diana Chesney openly,--and of his paralysed spouse with the fixed stare and deathly grin, he never spoke, and, I imagine, never thought. Sibyl herself was always in the hands of dressmakers and milliners,--and we only saw each other every day for a few minutes" hurried chat. On these occasions she was always charming,--even affectionate; and yet,--though I was full of pa.s.sionate admiration and love for her, I felt that she was mine merely as a slave might be mine; that she gave me her lips to kiss as if she considered I had a right to kiss them because I had bought them, and for no other reason,--that her pretty caresses were studied, and her whole behaviour the result of careful forethought and not natural impulsiveness. I tried to shake off this impression, but it still remained persistently, and clouded the sweetness of my brief courtship.
Meanwhile, slowly and almost imperceptibly, my "boomed" book dropped out of notice. Morgeson presented a heavy bill of publishing costs which I paid without a murmur; now and then an allusion to my "literary triumphs" cropped up in one or other of the newspapers, but otherwise no one spoke of my "famous" work, and few read it. I enjoyed the same sort of cliquey reputation and public failure attending a certain novel ent.i.tled "Marius the Epicurean." The journalists with whom I had come in contact began to drift away like flotsam and jetsam; I think they saw I was not likely to give many more "reviewing" dinners or suppers, and that my marriage with the Earl of Elton"s daughter would lift me into an atmosphere where Grub-street could not breathe comfortably or stretch its legs at ease. The heap of gold on which I sat as on a throne, divided me gradually from even the back courts and lower pa.s.sages leading to the Temple of Fame,--and almost unconsciously to myself I retreated step by step, shading my eyes as it were from the sun, and seeing the glittering turrets in the distance, with a woman"s slight figure entering the lofty portico, turning back her laurelled head to smile sorrowfully and with divinest pity upon me, ere pa.s.sing in to salute the G.o.ds. Yet, if asked about it, everyone on the press would have said that I had had a great success. I--only I--realized the bitterness and truth of my failure. I had not touched the heart of the public;--I had not succeeded in so waking my readers out of the torpor of their dull and commonplace every-day lives, that they should turn towards me with outstretched hands, exclaiming--"More,--more of these thoughts which comfort and inspire us!--which make us hear G.o.d"s voice proclaiming "All"s well!" above the storms of life!" I had not done it,--I could not do it. And the worst part of my feeling on this point was the idea that possibly I might have done it had I remained poor! The strongest and healthiest pulse in the composition of a man,--the necessity for hard work,--had been killed in me. I knew I need not work; that the society in which I now moved thought it ridiculous if I did work; that I was expected to spend money and "enjoy" myself in the idiotic fashion of what the "upper ten" term enjoyment. My acquaintances were not slow in suggesting plans for the dissipation of my surplus cash,--why did I not build for myself a marble palace on the Riviera?--or a yacht to completely outshine the Prince of Wales"s "Britannia"? Why did I not start a theatre? Or found a newspaper? Not one of my social advisers once proposed my doing any private personal good with my fortune. When some terrible case of distress was published, and subscriptions were raised to relieve the object or objects of suffering, I invariably gave Ten Guineas, and allowed myself to be thanked for my "generous a.s.sistance." I might as well have given ten pence, for the guineas were no more to me in comparison than the pence.
When funds were started to erect a statue to some great man who had, in the usual way of the world, been a victim of misrepresentation till his death, I produced my Ten Guineas again, when I could easily have defrayed the whole cost of the memorial, with honour to myself, and been none the poorer. With all my wealth I did nothing noteworthy; I showered no unexpected luck in the way of the patient, struggling workers in the hard schools of literature and art; I gave no "largesse"
among the poor;--and when a thin, eager-eyed curate, with a strong earnest face called upon me one day, to represent, with much nervous diffidence, the hideous sufferings of some of the sick and starving in his district down by the docks, and suggested that I might possibly care to alleviate a few of these direful sorrows as a satisfaction to myself, as well as for the sake of human brotherhood, I am ashamed to say I let him go with a sovereign, for which he heaped coals of fire on my head by his simple "G.o.d bless you, and thank you." I could see he was himself in the grip of poverty,--I could have made him and his poor district gloriously happy by a few strokes of my pen on a cheque for an amount I should never have missed,--and yet--I gave him nothing but that one piece of gold, and so allowed him to depart. He invited me, with earnest good-will, to go and see his starving flock,--"for, believe me Mr Tempest," said he--"I should be sorry if you thought, as some of the wealthy are unhappily apt to do, that I seek money simply to apply it to my own personal uses. If you would visit the district yourself, and distribute whatever you pleased with your own hand, it would be infinitely more gratifying to me, and would have a far better effect on the minds of the people. For, sir, the poor will not always be patient under the cruel burdens they have to bear."
I smiled indulgently, and a.s.sured him, not without a touch of satire in my tone, that I was convinced all clergymen were honest and unselfish,--and then I sent my servant to bow him out with all possible politeness. And that very day I remember, I drank at my luncheon Chateau Yquem at twenty-five shillings a bottle.
I enter into these apparently trifling details because they all help to make up the sum and substance of the deadly consequences to follow,--and also because I wish to emphasize the fact that in my actions I only imitated the example of my compeers. Most rich men to-day follow the same course as I did,--and active personal good to the community is wrought by very few of them. No great deed of generosity illumines our annals. Royalty itself leads no fashion in this,--the royal gifts of game and cast-off clothing sent to our hospitals are too slight and conventional to carry weight. The "entertainments for the poor" got up by some of the aristocrats at the East end, are nothing, and less than nothing. They are weak sops to our tame "lion couchant" offered in doubtful fear and trembling. For our lion is wakeful and somewhat restive,--there is no knowing what may happen if the original ferocity of the beast is roused. A few of our over-rich men might considerably ease the load of cruel poverty in many quarters of the metropolis if they united themselves with a n.o.ble unselfishness in the strong and determined effort to do so, and eschewed red-tapeism and wordy argument.
But they remain inert;--spending solely on their own personal gratification and amus.e.m.e.nt,--and meanwhile there are dark signs of trouble brooding. The poor, as the lean and anxious curate said, will not always be patient!
I must not here forget to mention, that through some secret management of Rimanez, my name, much to my own surprise, appeared on the list of compet.i.tors for the Derby. How, at so late an hour, this had been effected, I knew no more than where my horse "Phosphor" came from. It was a superb animal, but Rimanez, whose gift to me it was, warned me to be careful as to the character of the persons admitted into the stables to view it, and to allow no one but the horse"s own two attendants to linger near it long on any pretext. Speculation was very rife as to what "Phosphor"s" capabilities really were; the grooms never showed him off to advantage during exercise. I was amazed when Lucio told me his man Amiel would be the jockey.
"Good heavens!--not possible!" I exclaimed. "Can he ride?"
"Like the very devil!"--responded my friend with a smile: "He will ride "Phosphor" to the winning-post."
I was very doubtful in my own mind of this; a horse of the Prime Minister"s was to run, and all the betting was on that side. Few had seen "Phosphor," and those few, though keen admirers of the animal"s appearance, had little opportunity of judging its actual qualities, thanks to the careful management of its two attendants, who were dark-faced, reticent-looking men, somewhat after Amiel"s character and complexion. I myself was quite indifferent as to the result of the contest. I did not really care whether "Phosphor" lost or won the race.
I could afford to lose; and it would be little to me if I won, save a momentary pa.s.sing triumph. There was nothing lasting, intellectual or honourable in the victory,--there _is_ nothing lasting, intellectual or honourable in anything connected with racing. However, because it was "fashionable" to be interested in this particular mode of wasting time and money, I followed the general "lead," for the sake of "being talked about," and nothing more. Meanwhile, Lucio, saying little to me concerning it, was busy planning the betrothal-fete at Willowsmere, and designing all sorts of "surprise" entertainments for the guests. Eight hundred invitations were sent out; and society soon began to chatter volubly and excitedly on the probable magnificence of the forthcoming festival. Eager acceptances poured in; only a few of those asked were hindered from attending by illness, family deaths or previous engagements, and among these latter, to my regret, was Mavis Clare. She was going to the sea-coast to stay with some old friends, and in a prettily-worded letter explained this, and expressed her thanks for my invitation, though she found herself unable to accept it. How curious it was that when I read her little note of refusal I should experience such a keen sense of disappointment! She was nothing to me,--nothing but a "literary" woman who, by strange chance, happened to be sweeter than most women _un_literary; and yet I felt that the fete at Willowsmere would lose something in brightness lacking her presence. I had wanted to introduce her to Sibyl, as I knew I should thus give a special pleasure to my betrothed,--however, it was not to be, and I was conscious of an inexplicable personal vexation. In strict accordance with the promise made, I let Rimanez have his own way entirely with regard to all the arrangements for what was to be the _ne plus ultra_ of everything ever designed for the distraction, amus.e.m.e.nt and wonderment of listless and fastidious "swagger" people, and I neither interfered, nor asked any questions, content to rely on my friend"s taste, imagination and ingenuity. I only understood that all the plans were being carried out by foreign artists and caterers,--and that no English firms would be employed. I did venture once to inquire the reason of this, and got one of Lucio"s own enigmatical replies:--
"Nothing English is good enough for the English,"--he said--"Things have to be imported from France to please the people whom the French themselves angrily designate as "perfide Albion." You must not have a "Bill of Fare"; you must have a "Menu"; and all your dishes must bear French t.i.tles, otherwise they will not be in good form. You must have French "comediennes" and "danseuses" to please the British taste, and your silken draperies must be woven on French looms. Lately too, it has been deemed necessary to import Parisian morality as well as Parisian fashions. It does not suit stalwart Great Britain at all, you know,--stalwart Great Britain, aping the manners of Paris, looks like a jolly open-faced, st.u.r.dy-limbed Giant, with a doll"s bonnet stuck on his leonine head. But the doll"s bonnet is just now _la mode_. Some day I believe the Giant will discover it looks ridiculous, and cast it off with a burst of genuine laughter at his own temporary folly. And without it, he will resume his original dignity;--the dignity that best becomes a privileged conqueror who has the sea for his standing-army."
"Evidently you like England!" I said smiling.
He laughed.
"Not in the very least! I do not like England any more than any other country on the globe. I do not like the globe itself; and England comes in for a share of my aversion as one of the spots on the trumpery ball.
If I could have my way, I should like to throne myself on a convenient star for the purpose and kick out at Earth as she whirls by in s.p.a.ce, hoping by that act of just violence to do away with her for ever!"
"But why?" I asked, amused--"Why do you hate the Earth? What has the poor little planet done to merit your abhorrence?"
He looked at me very strangely.
"Shall I tell you? You will never believe me!"
"No matter for that!" I answered smiling--"Say on!"
"What has the poor little planet done?" he repeated slowly--"The poor little planet has done--nothing. But it is what the G.o.ds have done with this same poor little planet, that awakens my anger and scorn. They have made it a living sphere of wonders,--endowed it with beauty borrowed from the fairest corners of highest Heaven,--decked it with flowers and foliage,--taught it music,--the music of birds and torrents and rolling waves and falling rains,--rocked it gently in clear ether, among such light as blinds the eyes of mortals,--guided it out of chaos, through clouds of thunder and barbed shafts of lightning, to circle peacefully in its appointed orbit, lit on the one hand by the vivid splendours of the sun, and on the other by the sleepy radiance of the moon;--and more than all this, they have invested it with a Divine Soul in man! Oh, you may disbelieve as you will,--but notwithstanding the pigmy peeps earth takes at the vast and eternal ocean of Science, the Soul is here, and all the immortal forces with it and around it! Nay, the G.o.ds--I speak in the plural, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks--for to my thinking there are many G.o.ds emanating from the Supreme Deity,--the G.o.ds, I say, have so insisted on this fact, that One of them has walked the earth in human guise, solely for the sake of emphasizing the truth of Immortality to these frail creatures of seemingly perishable clay! For this I hate the planet;--were there not, and are there not, other and far grander worlds that a G.o.d should have chosen to dwell on than this one!"
For a moment I was silent, out of sheer surprise.
"You amaze me!" I said at last--"You allude to Christ, I suppose; but everybody is convinced by this time that He was a mere man like the rest of us; there was nothing divine about Him. What a contradiction you are!
Why, I remember you indignantly denied the accusation of being a Christian."
"Of course,--and I deny it still"--he answered quickly--"I have not a fat living in the church that I should tell a lie on such a subject. I am not a Christian; nor is anyone living a Christian. To quote a very old saying "There never was a Christian save One, and He was crucified."
But though I am not a Christian I never said I doubted the existence of Christ. That knowledge was forced upon me,--with considerable pressure too!"
"By a reliable authority?" I inquired with a slight sneer.
He made no immediate reply. His flashing eyes looked, as it were, through me and beyond me at something far away. The curious pallor that at times gave his face the set look of an impenetrable mask, came upon him then, and he smiled,--an awful smile. So might a man smile out of deadly bravado, when told of some dim and dreadful torture awaiting him.
"You touch me on a sore point,"--he said at last, slowly, and in a harsh tone--"My convictions respecting certain religious phases of man"s development and progress, are founded on the arduous study of some very unpleasant truths to which humanity generally shuts its eyes, burying its head in the desert-sands of its own delusions. These truths I will not enter upon now. Some other time I will initiate you into a few of my mysteries."
The tortured smile pa.s.sed from his face, leaving it intellectually composed and calm as usual,--and I hastily changed the subject, for I had made up my mind by this time that my brilliant friend had, like many exceptionally gifted persons, a "craze" on one topic, and that topic a particularly difficult one to discuss as it touched on the superhuman and therefore (to my thinking) the impossible. My own temperament, which had, in the days of my poverty, fluctuated between spiritual striving and material gain, had, with my sudden access to fortune, rapidly hardened into the character of a man of the world worldly, for whom all speculations as to the unseen forces working in and around us, were the merest folly, not worth a moment"s waste of thought. I should have laughed to scorn anyone who had then presumed to talk to me about the law of Eternal Justice, which with individuals as well as nations, works, not for a pa.s.sing "phase," but for all time towards good, and not evil,--for no matter how much a man may strive to blind himself to the fact, he has a portion of the Divine within him, which if he wilfully corrupts by his own wickedness, he must be forced to cleanse again and yet again, in the fierce flames of such remorse and such despair as are rightly termed the quenchless fires of h.e.l.l!
XXII
On the afternoon of the twenty-first of May, I went down, accompanied by Lucio, to Willowsmere, to be in readiness for the reception of the social swarm who were to flock thither the next day. Amiel went with us,--but I left my own man, Morris, behind, to take charge of my rooms in the Grand, and to forward late telegrams and special messages. The weather was calm, warm and bright,--and a young moon showed her thin crescent in the sky as we got out at the country station and stepped into the open carriage awaiting us. The station-officials greeted us with servile humility, eyeing Lucio especially with an almost gaping air of wonderment; the fact of his lavish expenditure in arranging with the railway company a service of special trains for the use of the morrow"s guests, had no doubt excited them to a speechless extent of admiration as well as astonishment. When we approached Willowsmere, and entered the beautiful drive, bordered with oak and beech, which led up to the house, I uttered an exclamation of delight at the festal decorations displayed, for the whole avenue was spanned with arches of flags and flowers, garlands of blossoms being even swung from tree to tree, and interlacing many of the lower branches. The gabled porch at the entrance of the house was draped with crimson silk and festooned with white roses,--and as we alighted, the door was flung open by a smart page in brilliant scarlet and gold.
"I think," said Lucio to me as we entered--"You will find everything as complete as this world"s resources will allow. The retinue of servants here are what is vulgarly called "on the job"; their payment is agreed upon, and they know their duties thoroughly,--they will give you no trouble."
I could scarcely find words to express my unbounded satisfaction, or to thank him for the admirable taste with which the beautiful house had been adorned. I wandered about in an ecstasy of admiration, triumphing in such a visible and gorgeous display of what great wealth could really do. The ball-room had been transformed into an elegant bijou theatre, the stage being concealed by a curtain of thick gold-coloured silk on which the oft-quoted lines of Shakespeare were embroidered in raised letters,--
"All the world"s a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
Turning out of this into the drawing-room, I found it decorated entirely round with banks of roses, red and white, the flowers forming a huge pyramid at one end of the apartment, behind which, as Lucio informed me, unseen musicians would discourse sweet harmony.
"I have arranged for a few "tableaux vivants" in the theatre to fill up a gap of time;"--he said carelessly--"Fashionable folks now-a-days get so soon tired of one amus.e.m.e.nt that it is necessary to provide several in order to distract the brains that cannot think, or discover any means of entertainment in themselves. As a matter of fact, people cannot even converse long together because they have nothing to say. Oh, don"t bother to go out in the grounds on a tour of inspection just now,--leave a few surprises for yourself as well as for your company to-morrow. Come and have dinner!"
He put his arm through mine and we entered the dining-room. Here the table was laid out with costly fruit, flowers and delicacies of every description,--four men-servants in scarlet and gold stood silently in waiting, with Amiel, in black as usual, behind his master"s chair. We enjoyed a sumptuous repast served to perfection, and when it was finished, we strolled out in the grounds to smoke and talk.
"You seem to do everything by magic, Lucio;"--I said, looking at him wonderingly--"All these lavish decorations,--these servants--"
"Money, my dear fellow,--nothing but money"--he interrupted with a laugh--"Money, the devil"s pa.s.s-key! you can have the retinue of a king without any of a king"s responsibilities, if you only choose to pay for it. It is merely a question of cost."
"And taste!" I reminded him.
"True,--and taste. Some rich men there are who have less taste than a costermonger. I know one who has the egregious vulgarity to call the attention of his guests to the value of his goods and chattels. He pointed out for my admiration one day, an antique and hideous china plate, the only one of that kind in the world, and told me it was worth a thousand guineas. "Break it,"--I said coolly--"You will then have the satisfaction of knowing you have destroyed a thousand guineas" worth of undesirable ugliness." You should have seen his face! He showed me no more _curios_!"
I laughed, and we walked slowly up and down for a few minutes in silence. Presently I became aware that my companion was looking at me intently, and I turned my head quickly to meet his eyes. He smiled.
"I was just then thinking," he said, "what you would have done with your life if you had not inherited this fortune, and if,--if _I_ had not come your way?"