“That is a trifle. Let us keep the question straight before us. We need make no show of consideration for one another. I have shown none toward your family.”
“But I assure you our only desire is to arrange everything in a friendly spirit.”
“No doubt. But when I am bent on doing a certain thing which you are equally bent on preventing, no very friendly spirit is possible except one of us surrender unconditionally.”
“Hear me a moment, Mr. Conolly. I have no doubt I shall be able to convince you that this romantic project of my sister’s is out of the question. Your ambition — if I may say so without offence — very naturally leads you to think otherwise; but the prompting of self-interest is not our safest guide in this life.”
“It is the only guide I recognize. If you are going to argue the question, and your arguments are to prevail, they must be addressed to my self-interest.”
“I cannot think you quite mean that, Mr. Conolly.”
“Well, waive the point for the present: I am open to conviction. You know what my mind is. I have not changed it since I saw your father this morning. You think I am wrong?”
“Not wrong. I do not say for a moment that you are wrong. I — —”
“Mistaken. Ill-advised. Any term you like.”
“I certainly believe that you are mistaken. Let me urge upon you first the fact that you are causing a daughter to disobey her father. Now that is an awful fact. May I — appealing to that righteousness in which I am sure you are not naturally deficient — ask you whether you have reflected on that fact?”
“It is not half so awful to me as the fact of a father forcing his daughter’s inclinations. However, awful is hardly the word for the occasion. Let us come to business, Mr. Lind. I want to marry your sister because I have fallen in love with her. You object. Have you any other motive than aristocratic exclusiveness?”
“Indeed, you quite mistake. I have no such feeling. We are willing to treat you with every possible consideration.”
“Then why object?”
“Well, we are bound to look to her happiness. We cannot believe that it would be furthered by an unsuitable match. I am now speaking to you frankly as a man of the world.”
“As a man of the world you know that she has a right to choose for herself. You see, our points of view are different. On Sundays, for instance, you preach to a highly privileged audience at your church in Belgravia; whilst I lounge here over my breakfast, reading Reynold’s Newspaper. I have not many social prejudices. Although a workman, I dont look on every gentleman as a bloodsucker who seizes on the fruits of my labor only to pursue a career of vice. I will even admit that there are gentlemen who deserve to be respected more than the workmen who have neglected all their opportunities — slender as they are — of cultivating themselves a little. You, on the other hand, know that an honest man’s the noblest work of God; that nature’s gentlemen are the only real gentlemen; that kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood, and so forth. But when your approval of these benevolent claptraps is brought to such a practical test as the marriage of your sister to a workman, you see clearly enough that they do not establish the suitability of personal intercourse between members of different classes. That being so, let us put our respective philosophies of society out of the question, and argue on the facts of this particular case. What qualifications do you consider essential in a satisfactory brother-in-law?”
“I am not bound to answer that; but, primarily, I should consider it necessary to my sister’s happiness that her husband should belong to the same rank as she.”
“You see you are changing your ground. I am not in the same rank — after your sense — as she; but a moment ago you objected to the match solely on the ground of unsuitability.”
“Where is the difference?” said the clergyman, with some warmth. “I have not changed my ground at all. It is the difference in rank that constitutes the unsuitability.
“Let us see, then, how far you are right — how far suitability is a question of rank. A gentleman may be, and frequently is, a drunkard, a gambler, a libertine, or all three combined.”
“Stay, Mr. Conolly! You show how little you understand the only true significance — —”
“One moment, Mr. Lind. You are about to explain away the term gentleman into man of honor, honest man, or some other quite different thing. Let me put a case to you. I have a fellow at Queen Victoria Street working for thirty shillings a week, who is the honestest man I know. He is as steady as a rock; supports all his wife’s family without complaining; and denies himself beer to buy books for his son, because he himself has experienced what it is to be without education. But he is not a gentleman.”
“Pardon me, sir. He is a true gentleman.”
“Suppose he calls on you tomorrow, and sends up his name with a request for an interview. You wont know his name; and the first question you will put to your servant is ‘What sort of person is he?’ Suppose the servant knows him, and, sharing your professed opinion of the meaning of the word, replies ‘He is a gentleman!’ On the strength of that you will order him to be shewn in; and the moment you see him you will feel angry with your servant for deceiving you completely as to the sort of man you were to expect by using the word gentleman in what you call its true sense. Or reverse the case. Suppose the caller is your cousin, Mr. Marmaduke Lind, and your high-principled servant by mistaking the name or how not, causes you to ask the same question with respect to him. The answer will be that Mr. Marmaduke — being a scamp — is not a gentleman. You would be just as completely deceived as in the other case. No, Mr. Lind, you might as well say that this workman of mine is a true lord or a true prince as a true gentleman. A gentleman may be a rogue; and a knifegrinder may be a philosopher and philanthropist. But they dont change their ranks for all that.”
The clergyman hesitated. Then he said timidly, “Even admitting this peculiar view of yours, Mr. Conolly, does it not tell strongly against yourself in the present instance?”
“No; and I will presently shew you why not. When we digressed as to the meaning of the word gentleman, we were considering the matter of suitability. I was saying that a gentleman might be a drunkard, or, briefly, a scoundrel. A scoundrel would be a very unsuitable husband for Marian — I perceive I annoy you by calling her by her name.”
“N — no. Oh, no. It does not matter.”
“Therefore gentility alone is no guarantee of suitability. The only gentlemanliness she needs in a husband is ordinary good address, presentable manners, sense enough to avoid ridiculous solecisms in society, and so forth. Marian is satisfied with me on these points; and her approval settles the question finally. As to rank, I am a skilled workman, the first in my trade; and it is only by courtesy and forbearance that I suffer any man to speak of my class as inferior. Take us all, professions and trades together; and you will find by actual measurement round the head and round the chest, and round our manners and characters, if you like, that we are the only genuine aristocracy at present in existence. Therefore I meet your objection to my rank with a point-blank assertion of its superiority. Now let us have the other objections, if there are any others.”
The clergyman received this challenge in silence. Then, after clearing his throat uneasily twice, he said:
“I had hoped, Mr. Conolly, to have been able to persuade you on general grounds to relinquish your design. But as you are evidently not within reach of those considerations which I am accustomed to see universally admitted, it becomes my painful duty to assure you that a circumstance, on the secrecy of which you are relying, is known to me, and, through me, to my father.”
“What circumstance is that?”
“A circumstance connected with Mr. Marmaduke Lind, whom you mentioned just now. You understand me, I presume?”
“Oh! you have found that out?”
“I have. It only remains for me to warn my sister that she is about to contract a close relationship with one who is — I must say it — living in sin with our cousin.”
“What do you suppose will be the result of that?”
“I leave you to imagine,” said the clergyman indignantly, rising.
“Stop a bit. You do not understand me yet, I see. You have said that my views are peculiar. What if I have taken the peculiar view that I was bound to tell Marian this before proposing to her, and have actually told her?”
“But surely — That is not very likely.”
“The whole affair is not very likely. Our marriage is not likely; but it is going to happen, nevertheless. She knows this circumstance perfectly well. You told her yourself.”
“I! When?”
“The year before last, at Carbury Towers. It is worth your consideration, too, that by mistrusting Marian at that time, and refusing to give her my sister’s address, you forced her to appeal to me for help, and so advanced me from the position of consulting electrician to that of friend in need. She knew nothing about my relationship to the woman in a state of sin (as you call it), and actually deputed me to warn your cousin of the risk he was running by his intimacy with her. Whilst I was away running this queer errand for her, she found out that the woman was my sister, and of course rushed to the conclusion that she had inflicted the deepest pain on me. Her penitence was the beginning of the sentimental side of our acquaintance. Had you recognized that she was a woman with as good a right as you to know the truth concerning all matters in this world which she has to make her way through, you would have answered her question, and then I suppose I should have gone away without having exchanged a word with her on any more personal matters than induction coils and ohms of resistance; and in all probability you would have been spared the necessity of having me for a brother-in-law.”
“Well, sir,” said the Rev. George dejectedly, “if what you say be true, I cannot understand Marian, I can only grieve for her. I shall not argue with you on the nature of the influence you have obtained over her. I shall speak to her myself; since you will not hear me.”
“That is hardly fair. I have heard you, and am willing to hear more, if you have anything new to urge.”
“You have certainly listened to my voice, Mr. Conolly. But I fear I have used it to very little purpose.”
“You will fail equally with Marian, believe me. Even I, whose ability to exercise influence you admit, never obtained the least over my own sister. She knew me too well on my worst side and not at all on my best. If, as I presume, your father has tried in vain, what hope is there for you?”
“Only my humble trust that a priest may be blessed in his appeal to duty even where a father’s appeal to natural affection has been disregarded.”
“Well, well,” said Conolly, kindly, rising as his visitor disconsolately prepared to go, “you can try. I got on by dint of dogged faith in myself.”
“And I get on by lowly faith in my Master. I would I could imbue you with the same feeling!”
Conolly shook his head; and they went downstairs in silence. “Hallo!” said he, as he opened the door, “it is raining. Let me lend you a coat.”
“Thank you, no. Not at all. Goodnight,” said the clergyman, quickly, and hastened away through the rain from Conolly’s civilities.
When he arrived at Westbourne Terrace, there was a cab waiting before the house. The door was opened to him by Marian’s maid, who was dressed for walking.
“Master is in the drawingroom, sir, with Miss McQuinch,” she said, meaning, evidently, “Look out for squalls.”
He went upstairs, and found Elinor, with her hat on, standing by the pianoforte, with battle in her nostrils. Mr. Lind, looking perplexed and angry, was opposite to her.
“George,” said Mr. Lind, “close the door. Do you know the latest news?”
“No.”
“Marian has run away!”
“Run away!”
“Yes,” said Miss McQuinch. “She has fled to Mrs. Toplis’s, at St. Mary’s Terrace, with — as Uncle Reginald was just saying — a most dangerous associate.”
“With — ?”
“With me, in short.”
“And you have counselled her to take this fatal step?”
“No. I advised her to stay. But she is not so well used to domestic discomfort as I am; so she insisted on going. We have got very nice rooms: you may come and see us, if you like.”
“Is this a time to display your bitter and flippant humor?” said the
Rev. George, indignantly. “I think the spectacle of a wrecked home—”
“Stuff!” interrupted Elinor, impatiently. “What else can I say? Uncle Reginald tells me I have corrupted Marian, and refuses to believe what I tell him. And now you attack me, as if it were my fault that you have driven her away. If you want to see her, she is within five minutes walk of you. It is you who have wrecked her home, not she who has wrecked yours.”
“There is no use in speaking to Elinor, George,” said Mr. Lind, with the air of a man who had tried it. “You had better go to Marian, and tell her what you mentioned this afternoon. What has been the result of your visit?”
“He maintains that she knows everything,” said the Rev. George, with a dispirited glance at Elinor. “I fear my visit has been worse than useless.”
“It is impossible that she should know. He lies,” said Mr. Lind. “Go and tell her the truth, George; and say that I desire her — I order her — to come back at once. Say that I am waiting here for her.”
“But, Uncle Reginald,” began Elinor, in a softer tone than before, whilst the clergyman stood in doubt —
“I think,” continued Mr. Lind, “that I must request you, Elinor, to occupy the rooms you have taken, until you return to your parents. I regret that you have forced me to take this step; but I cannot continue to offer you facilities for exercising your influence over my daughter. I will charge myself with all your expenses until you go to Wiltshire.”
Elinor looked at him as if she despaired of his reason. Then, seeing her cousin slowly going to the door, she said:
“You dont really mean to go on such a fool’s errand to Marian, George?”
“Elinor!” cried Mr. Lind.
“What else is it?” said Elinor. “You asserted all your authority yourself this morning, and only made matters worse. Yet you expect her to obey you at second hand. Besides, she is bound in honor not to desert me now; and I will tell her so, too, if I see any sign of her letting herself be bullied.”
“I fear Marian will not pay much heed to what I say to her,” said the clergyman.
“If you are coming,” said Elinor, “you had better come in my cab.
Goodnight, Uncle Reginald.”
“Stay,” said Mr. Lind, irresolutely. “Elinor, I — you — Will you exercise your influence to induce Marian to return? I think you owe me at least so much.”
“I will if you will withdraw your opposition to her marriage and let her do as she likes. But if you can give her no better reason for returning than that she can be more conveniently persecuted here than at St. Mary’s Terrace, she will probably stay where she is, no matter how I may influence her.”
“If she is resolved to quarrel with me, I cannot help it,” said Mr.
Lind, pettishly.
“You know very well that she is the last person on earth to quarrel with anyone.”
“She has been indulged in every way. This is the first time she has been asked to sacrifice her own wishes.”
“To sacrifice her whole life, you mean. It is the first time she has ever hesitated to sacrifice her own comfort, and therefore the first time you are conscious that any sacrifice is required. Let me tell her that you will allow her to take her own course, Uncle Reginald. He is well enough off; and they are fond of one another. A man of genius is worth fifty men of rank.”
“Tell her, if you please, Elinor, that she must choose between Mr.
Conolly and me. If she prefers him, well and good: I have done with her.
That is my last word.”
“So now she has nobody to turn to in the world except him. That is sensible. Come, cousin George! I am off.”
“I do not think I should do any good by going,” said the clergyman.
“Then stay where you are,” said Elinor. “Goodnight.” And she abruptly left the room.
“It was a dreadful mistake ever to have allowed that young fury to enter the house,” said Mr. Lind. “She must be mad. What did he say?”
“He said a great deal in attempted self-justification. But I could make no impression on him. We have no feelings in common with a man of his type. No. He is evidently bent on raising himself by a good marriage.”
“We cannot prevent it.”
“Oh, surely we — —”
“I tell you we cannot prevent it,” repeated Mr. Lind, turning angrily upon his son. “How can we? What can we do? She will marry this — this — this — this beggar. I wish to God I had never seen her mother.”
The clergyman stood by, cowed, and said nothing.
“You had better go to that woman of Marmaduke’s,” continued Mr. Lind, “and try whether she can persuade her brother to commute his interest in the company, and go back to America, or to the devil. I will take care that he gets good terms, even if I have to make them up out of my own pocket. If the worst comes, she must be persuaded to leave Marmaduke. Offer her money. Women of that sort drive a hard bargain; but they have their price.”
“But, sir, consider my profession. How can I go to drive a bargain with a woman of evil reputation?”
“Well, I must go myself, I suppose.”
“Oh, no. I will go. Only I thought I would mention it.”
“A clergyman can go anywhere. You are privileged. Come to breakfast in the morning: we can talk over matters then.”
“Admitted,” interposed Conolly, hastily. “Here is my workman’s tea. Are you fond of scones?”
“I hardly know. Anything — the simplest fare, will satisfy me.”
“So it does me, when I can get nothing better. Help yourself, pray.”
Conolly did not sit down to the meal, but worked whilst the clergyman ate. Presently the Rev. George, warmed by the fire and cheered by the repast, returned to the subject of his host’s domestic affairs.
“Come,” he said, “I am sure that a few judicious words would lead to an explanation between you and Marian.”
“I also think that a few words might do so. But they would not be judicious words.”
“Why not? Can it be injudicious to restore harmony in a household?”
“No; but that would not be the effect of an explanation, because the truth is not likely to reconcile us. If I were to explain the difficulty to a man, he would argue. But Marian would just infer that I despised her, and nothing else.”
“Oh no! Oh dear no! A few kind words; an appeal to her good sense; a little concession on both sides — —”
“All excellent for a pair estranged by a flash of temper, or a motherin-law, or a trifle of jealousy, or too many evenings spent at the club on the man’s part, or too many dances with a gallant on the woman’s; but no good for us. We have never exchanged unkind words: there are no concessions to be made: her good sense is not at fault. Besides, these few kind words that are supposed to be such a sovereign remedy for all sorts of domestic understandings are generally a few kind fibs. If I told them, Marian wouldnt believe them. Fibs dont make lasting truces either. No: the situation is graver than you think. Just suppose, for instance, that you undertake to restore harmony, as you call it! what will you say to her?”
“Well, it would depend on circumstances.”
“But you know the circumstances on which it depends. How would you begin?”
“There are little ways of approaching delicate subjects with women. For instance, I might say, casually, that it was a pity that a pair so happily situated as you two should not agree perfectly.”
“You would get no further; for Marian would never admit that we do not agree. She does not know what her complaint is, and therefore feels bound in honor to maintain that she has nothing to complain of. She is not the woman to cast reproach on me for a discontent she cannot explain. Or, if she could explain it, how much wiser should you be? I have explained; and you confess you cannot understand me. The difference between us is neither her fault nor mine; and all the explanations in the world will not remove it.”
“If you would allow me to appeal to her religious duty — —”
“Religion! She doesnt believe in it.”
“What!” exclaimed the clergyman, unaffectedly shocked. “Surely, surely — —”
“Listen. To me, believing in a doctrine doesnt mean holding up your hand and saying, ‘Credo.’ It means habitually acting on the assumption that the doctrine is true. Marian thinks it wrong not to go to church; and she will hold up her hand and cry ‘Credo’ to the immortality of her soul, or to any verse in the New Testament. The shareholders of our concern in the city will do the same. But do they or she ever act on the assumption that they are immortal, or that riches are dross, or that class prejudice is damnable? Never. They dont believe it. You will find that Marian has been thoroughly trained to separate her practice from her religious professions; and if you allude to the inconsistency she will instinctively feel that you are offending against good taste. In short, her ‘Credo’ doesnt mean faith: it means churchgoing, which is practised because it is respectable, and is respectable because it is a habit of the upper caste. But churchgoing is churchgoing; and business is business, as Marian will soon let you know if you meddle with her business. However, we need not argue about that: we know one another’s views and can agree to differ.”
“I should be false to my duty as a Christian priest if I made any such agreement.”
“Perhaps so; but, at any rate, we cant spend all our lives over the same argument. No, as I was saying, take my advice, and let Marian alone.”
“But what do you intend to do, then?”
“What can I do but wait? Experience must wear out some of her illusions. She will at least find out that she is no worse off than other women, and better off than some of them. Since the job cannot be undone, we must try how making the best of it will work. I am pretty hopeful myself. How are affairs getting on at your chapel? I am told that the sermons of your locum tenens send the congregation asleep.”
“He is not at his best in the pulpit. A good fellow! a most loving man but not able to grapple with a large congregation. After all, I am obliged to confess that very few of our cloth are. The power of preaching is quite an exceptional one; and it is a gift as well as a trust. I humbly believe that the power of the tongue comes of a higher ordination than the bishop’s.”
Nothing further was said about Marian. The clergyman’s object in visiting Conolly was, it presently appeared, to borrow a portmanteau. When he was gone, Conolly returned to the laboratory, and wrote the following letter:
“My dear Marian
“I have just had two unexpected visits, one from Mrs. Fairfax, and one from George. Mrs. L.F. said you asked her to call and give me the news. When I told her, without blushing, that you had written to prepare me for her visit, she was rather put out, justly thinking me to mean that I did not believe her. As this is fully the thirty-sixth falsehood in which you have detected good Mrs. F., I fear you will be compelled, in spite of your principle of believing the best of everybody, to regard her in future as a not invariably accurate woman. She came with the object of making me go down to Sark. You were so young and so much admired: Mr. Douglas was so attentive: you should not be left entirely alone, and so forth. You will be angry with her; but she thinks Douglas so irresistible that she is genuinely anxious about you: I believe she really meant well this time. As to our reverend brother, his portmanteau burst in the train coming from Edinburgh; so he came to borrow mine, having apparently resolved to wear out those of all his friends before buying a new one. Unfortunately, he met Mrs. F. down the road; and she urged him to go down to Sark just as she had urged me. Now as George is incapable of holding his tongue when he ought, I feel sure that unless I tell you what Mrs. F. said, he will anticipate me. Otherwise I should not have mentioned it until your return, for fear of annoying you and spoiling your visit. So if his reverence hints or lectures, you will know what he means and not heed him. Mrs. F’s confidences have probably not been confined to me; but were I in your place, I should not make the slightest change in my conduct in consequence. At all events, if you feel constrained to display any sudden accession of reserve toward Douglas, tell him the reason; because if you dont, he will ascribe the change to coquetry.
“I have turned the spare room on the first floor into a laboratory, and am sitting in it now. I’m thinking of fitting it up like a studio, and having private views of my inventions, as Scott has of his pictures. Parson’s man came with some flowers the other day, and informed me that three balls, to the first of which he was invited, took place in the house while I was away. One or two trifling dilapidations, and the fact that somebody has been tampering with the locks of the organ and piano, dispose me to believe this tale. Parson’s man declares that he was too virtuous to come to the two last entertainments after finding out that the first was a clandestine one; but I believe he made himself disagreeable, and was not invited. Probably he quarrelled with some military follower of Armande’s; for he was particularly bitter on the subject of a common soldier making free in a gentleman’s house. I have not said anything to the two culprits; but I have contrived to make them suspect that I know all; and they now do their duty with trembling diligence. Some man sat on the little walnut table and broke it; but no other damage worth mentioning has been done. The table was absurdly repaired with a piece of twine, and pushed into the recess between the organ and the front window, whence I sometimes amuse myself by the experiment of pulling it into broad daylight. It is always pushed back again before I return in the evening.
“How are you off for money? I have plenty of loose cash just now. Madame called last Monday, and asked Matilda, who opened the door, when you would be back. Thereupon I interviewed her. I must say she is loyal to her clients; for I had great difficulty in extracting her bill, which was, of course, what she called about. She evidently recognizes the necessity of keeping husbands in the dark in such matters. One of the items was for the lace on your maccaroni-colored body, which, as I chanced to remember, you supplied yourself. After a brief struggle she deducted it; so I paid her the balance: only 35£ 13s. 9d.
“When are you coming back to me? After Sark I fear you will find home a little dull. Nevertheless, I should like to see you again. Come back before Christmas, at any rate.
”Yours, dear Marian, in solitude,
”NED.”
The answer came two days later than return of post, and ran thus:
”Melbourne House, Sark,
”Sunday.
”My dear Ned
“How very provoking about the servants! I do not mind Matilda so much; but I do think it hard that we could not depend on Armande, considering all the kindness we have shewn her. I can scarcely believe that she would have acted so badly unless she were led away by Matilda, whom I will pack off the moment I return. As to Armande, I will give her another chance; but she shall have a sharp talking to. I am quite sure that a great deal more mischief has been done than you noticed. If the carpet was danced on for three nights by men in heavy boots, it must be in ribbons. It is really too bad. I do not want any money. Indeed the twenty pounds you sent me last was quite unnecessary, as I have nearly sixteen left. What a rogue Madame is to try and make you pay for my lace! I am sorry you paid the bill. She had no business to call for her money: she is never paid so soon by anybody. We have had great fun down here. It has been one continual garden party all through; and the weather is still lovely. Mr. McQuinch is very colonial: but I think his ways make the house pleasanter than if he were still English. Carbury is quite stupid in comparison to this place. I have danced more than I ever did in my life before; and now we are so tired of frivolity that if any one ventures to strum a waltz or propose a game, we all protest. We tried to get up some choral music; but it was a failure. On Friday, George, who is looked on as a great man here, was asked to give us a Shakespeare reading. He was only too glad to be asked; for he had heard Simonton, the actor, read at a bazaar in Scotland, and was full of Richard the Third in consequence. He was not very bad; but his imitation of Simonton was so obvious and so queerly mixed with his own churchy style that he seemed rather monotonous and affected. At least I thought so. I was dreadfully uncomfortable during the reading because of Marmaduke, who behaved scandalously. There were some schoolboys present; and he not only encouraged them to misbehave themselves, but was worse than any of them himself. At last he pretended to be overcome by the heat, and went out of the room, to my great relief; but when the passage about the early village cock came, he crew outside the door, where he had been waiting expressly to do it. Nobody could help laughing; and the boys screamed so that Mr. McQuinch took two of them out by the collar. I believe he was glad of the excuse to go out and laugh himself. George was very angry, and no wonder! He will hardly speak to Marmaduke, who, of course, denies all knowledge of the interruption; but George knows better. All the Hardy McQuinches are down here. Uncle Hardy is rather stooped from rheumatism. Nelly is now the chief personage in the family: Lydia and Jane are nowhere beside her. They are goodhumored, bouncing girls; but they are certainly not brilliant. I hope it is not Aunt Dora’s walnut table that is broken. Was it not mean of Parson’s man to tell on Armande? I think, since you have plenty of loose cash, we might venture on a set of those curtains we saw at Protheroe’s, for the drawingroom. I can easily use the ones that are there now for portières.
“You must not think that I have written this all at once. I shall be able to finish to-day, as it is Sunday, and I have made an excuse to stay away from church. George is to preach; and somehow I never feel toward the service as I ought when he officiates. I know you will laugh at this.
“The first part of your letter must have a paragraph all to itself. I hardly know what to say. I could not have believed that Mrs. Leith Fairfax would have behaved as she has done. I was so angry at first that for fully an hour I felt ill; and I spoke quite wickedly to George the day after he arrived, because he said that Sholto had better not take me down to dinner, although his doing so was quite accidental. I know you will believe me when I tell you that I was quite unconscious that he had been unusually attentive to me; and I was about to write you an indignant denial, only I shewed Nelly your letter, and she crushed me by telling me she had noticed it too. We nearly had a quarrel about it; but she counted up the number of times I had danced with him and sat beside him at dinner; and I suppose an evil-minded woman looking on might think what Mrs. Leith Fairfax thought. But there is no excuse for her. She knows that Sholto and I have been intimate since we were children; and there is something odious in her, of all people, pretending to misunderstand us. What is worse, she was particularly friendly and confidential with me while she was here; and although I tried to keep away from her at first, she persisted in conciliating me, and persuaded me that Douglas had entirely mistaken what she said that other time. Who could have expected her to turn round and calumniate me the moment my back was turned! How can people do such things! I hope we shall not meet her again; for I will never speak to her. I have not said anything to Douglas. How could I? It would only make mischief. I feel that the right course is to come home as soon as I can, and in the meantime to avoid him as much as possible. So you may expect me on Saturday next. Mr. McQuinch is quite dismayed at my departure, which he says will be the signal for a general breaking up; but this I cannot help. I shall be glad to go home, of course. Still, I am sorry to leave this place, where we have all been so jolly. I will write and let you know what train I shall come by; but you need not trouble to meet me, unless you like: I can get home quite well by myself. After all, it is just as well that I am getting away. It was pleasant enough; but now I feel utterly disgusted with everything and everybody. I find I must stop. They have just come in from church; and I must go down.
”Your affectionate
”MARIAN.”
This novel was written in the year 1880, only a few years after I had exported myself from Dublin to London in a condition of extreme rawness and inexperience concerning the specifically English side of the life with which the book pretends to deal. Everybody wrote novels then. It was my second attempt; and it shared the fate of my first. That is to say, nobody would publish it, though I tried all the London publishers and some American ones. And I should not greatly blame them if I could feel sure that it was the book’s faults and not its qualities that repelled them.
I have narrated elsewhere how in the course of time the rejected MS. became Mrs. Annie Besant’s excuse for lending me her ever helping hand by publishing it as a serial in a little propagandist magazine of hers. That was how it got loose beyond all possibility of recapture. It is out of my power now to stand between it and the American public: all I can do is to rescue it from unauthorized mutilations and make the best of a jejune job.
At present, of course, I am not the author of The Irrational Knot. Physiologists inform us that the substance of our bodies (and consequently of our souls) is shed and renewed at such a rate that no part of us lasts longer than eight years: I am therefore not now in any atom of me the person who wrote The Irrational Knot in 1880. The last of that author perished in 1888; and two of his successors have since joined the majority. Fourth of his line, I cannot be expected to take any very lively interest in the novels of my literary great-grandfather. Even my personal recollections of him are becoming vague and overlaid with those most misleading of all traditions, the traditions founded on the lies a man tells, and at last comes to believe, about himself to himself. Certain things, however, I remember very well. For instance, I am significantly clear as to the price of the paper on which I wrote The Irrational Knot. It was cheap — a white demy of unpretentious quality — so that sixpennorth lasted a long time. My daily allowance of composition was five pages of this demy in quarto; and I held my natural laziness sternly to that task day in, day out, to the end. I remember also that Bizet’s Carmen being then new in London, I used it as a safety-valve for my romantic impulses. When I was tired of the sordid realism of Whatshisname (I have sent my only copy of The Irrational Knot to the printers, and cannot remember the name of my hero) I went to the piano and forgot him in the glamorous society of Carmen and her crimson toreador and yellow dragoon. Not that Bizet’s music could infatuate me as it infatuated Nietzsche. Nursed on greater masters, I thought less of him than he deserved; but the Carmen music was — in places — exquisite of its kind, and could enchant a man like me, romantic enough to have come to the end of romance before I began to create in art for myself.
When I say that I did and felt these things, I mean, of course, that the predecessor whose name I bear did and felt them. The I of to-day is (? am) cool towards Carmen; and Carmen, I regret to say, does not take the slightest interest in him (? me). And now enough of this juggling with past and present Shaws. The grammatical complications of being a first person and several extinct third persons at the same moment are so frightful that I must return to the ordinary misusage, and ask the reader to make the necessary corrections in his or her own mind.
This book is not wholly a compound of intuition and ignorance. Take for example the profession of my hero, an Irish-American electrical engineer. That was by no means a flight of fancy. For you must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living. I began trying to commit that sin against my nature when I was fifteen, and persevered, from youthful timidity and diffidence, until I was twenty-three. My last attempt was in 1879, when a company was formed in London to exploit an ingenious invention by Mr. Thomas Alva Edison — a much too ingenious invention as it proved, being nothing less than a telephone of such stentorian efficiency that it bellowed your most private communications all over the house instead of whispering them with some sort of discretion. This was not what the British stockbroker wanted; so the company was soon merged in the National Telephone Company, after making a place for itself in the history of literature, quite unintentionally, by providing me with a job. Whilst the Edison Telephone Company lasted, it crowded the basement of a huge pile of offices in Queen Victoria Street with American artificers. These deluded and romantic men gave me a glimpse of the skilled proletariat of the United States. They sang obsolete sentimental songs with genuine emotion; and their language was frightful even to an Irishman. They worked with a ferocious energy which was out of all proportion to the actual result achieved. Indomitably resolved to assert their republican manhood by taking no orders from a tall-hatted Englishman whose stiff politeness covered his conviction that they were, relatively to himself, inferior and common persons, they insisted on being slave-driven with genuine American oaths by a genuine free and equal American foreman. They utterly despised the artfully slow British workman who did as little for his wages as he possibly could; never hurried himself; and had a deep reverence for anyone whose pocket could be tapped by respectful behavior. Need I add that they were contemptuously wondered at by this same British workman as a parcel of outlandish adult boys, who sweated themselves for their employer’s benefit instead of looking after their own interests? They adored Mr. Edison as the greatest man of all time in every possible department of science, art and philosophy, and execrated Mr. Graham Bell, the inventor of the rival telephone, as his Satanic adversary; but each of them had (or pretended to have) on the brink of completion, an improvement on the telephone, usually a new transmitter. They were free-souled creatures, excellent company: sensitive, cheerful, and profane; liars, braggarts, and hustlers; with an air of making slow old England hum which never left them even when, as often happened, they were wrestling with difficulties of their own making, or struggling in nothoroughfares from which they had to be retrieved like strayed sheep by Englishmen without imagination enough to go wrong.
In this environment I remained for some months. As I was interested in physics and had read Tyndall and Helmholtz, besides having learnt something in Ireland through a fortunate friendship with a cousin of Mr. Graham Bell who was also a chemist and physicist, I was, I believe, the only person in the entire establishment who knew the current scientific explanation of telephony; and as I soon struck up a friendship with our official lecturer, a Colchester man whose strong point was pre-scientific agriculture, I often discharged his duties for him in a manner which, I am persuaded, laid the foundation of Mr. Edison’s London reputation: my sole reward being my boyish delight in the half-concealed incredulity of our visitors (who were convinced by the hoarsely startling utterances of the telephone that the speaker, alleged by me to be twenty miles away, was really using a speaking-trumpet in the next room), and their obvious uncertainty, when the demonstration was over, as to whether they ought to tip me or not: a question they either decided in the negative or never decided at all; for I never got anything.
So much for my electrical engineer! To get him into contact with fashionable society before he became famous was also a problem easily solved. I knew of three English peers who actually preferred physical laboratories to stables, and scientific experts to gamekeepers: in fact, one of the experts was a friend of mine. And I knew from personal experience that if science brings men of all ranks into contact, art, especially music, does the same for men and women. An electrician who can play an accompaniment can go anywhere and know anybody. As far as mere access and acquaintance go there are no class barriers for him. My difficulty was not to get my hero into society, but to give any sort of plausibility to my picture of society when I got him into it. I lacked the touch of the literary diner-out; and I had, as the reader will probably find to his cost, the classical tradition which makes all the persons in a novel, except the comically vernacular ones, or the speakers of phonetically spelt dialect, utter themselves in the formal phrases and studied syntax of eighteenth century rhetoric. In short, I wrote in the style of Scott and Dickens; and as fashionable society then spoke and behaved, as it still does, in no style at all, my transcriptions of Oxford and Mayfair may nowadays suggest an unaccountable and ludicrous ignorance of a very superficial and accessible code of manners. I was not, however, so ignorant as might have been inferred at that time from my somewhat desperate financial condition.
I had, to begin with, a sort of backstairs knowledge; for in my teens I struggled for life in the office of an Irish gentleman who acted as land agent and private banker for many persons of distinction. Now it is possible for a London author to dine out in the highest circles for twenty years without learning as much about the human frailties of his hosts as the family solicitor or (in Ireland) the family land agent learns in twenty days; and some of this knowledge inevitably reaches his clerks, especially the clerk who keeps the cash, which was my particular department. He learns, if capable of the lesson, that the aristocratic profession has as few geniuses as any other profession; so that if you want a peerage of more than, say, half a dozen members, you must fill it up with many common persons, and even with some deplorably mean ones. For “service is no inheritance” either in the kitchen or the House of Lords; and the case presented by Mr. Barrie in his play of The Admirable Crichton, where the butler is the man of quality, and his master, the Earl, the man of rank, is no fantasy, but a quite common occurrence, and indeed to some extent an inevitable one, because the English are extremely particular in selecting their butlers, whilst they do not select their barons at all, taking them as the accident of birth sends them. The consequences include much ironic comedy. For instance, we have in England a curious belief in first rate people, meaning all the people we do not know; and this consoles us for the undeniable secondrateness of the people we do know, besides saving the credit of aristocracy as an institution. The unmet aristocrat is devoutly believed in; but he is always round the corner, never at hand. That the smart set exists; that there is above and beyond that smart set a class so blue of blood and exquisite in nature that it looks down even on the King with haughty condescension; that scepticism on these points is one of the stigmata of plebeian baseness: all these imaginings are so common here that they constitute the real popular sociology of England as much as an unlimited credulity as to vaccination constitutes the real popular science of England. It is, of course, a timid superstition. A British peer or peeress who happens by chance to be genuinely noble is just as isolated at court as Goethe would have been among all the other grandsons of publicans, if they had formed a distinct class in Frankfurt or Weimar. This I knew very well when I wrote my novels; and if, as I suspect, I failed to create a convincingly verisimilar atmosphere of aristocracy, it was not because I had any illusions or ignorances as to the common humanity of the peerage, and not because I gave literary style to its conversation, but because, as I had never had any money, I was foolishly indifferent to it, and so, having blinded myself to its enormous importance, necessarily missed the point of view, and with it the whole moral basis, of the class which rightly values money, and plenty of it, as the first condition of a bearable life.
Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis. Every teacher or twaddler who denies it or suppresses it, is an enemy of life. Money controls morality; and what makes the United States of America look so foolish even in foolish Europe is that they are always in a state of flurried concern and violent interference with morality, whereas they throw their money into the street to be scrambled for, and presently find that their cash reserves are not in their own hands, but in the pockets of a few millionaires who, bewildered by their luck, and unspeakably incapable of making any truly economic use of it, endeavor to “do good” with it by letting themselves be fleeced by philanthropic committee men, building contractors, librarians and professors, in the name of education, science, art and what not; so that sensible people exhale relievedly when the pious millionaire dies, and his heirs, demoralized by being brought up on his outrageous income, begin the socially beneficent work of scattering his fortune through the channels of the trades that flourish by riotous living.