Chapter 23

'Then you do not love him; it is only for the sake of settling yourself in life that you are marrying him?'

'I respect Dr. Reed more than any man living; I bear for him a most sincere affection, and I hope to make him a good wife.'

'You don't love him as you did Mr. Harding? If you will only wait you may get him. The tenants are paying their rents very well, and I am thinking of going to London in the spring.'

The girl winced at the mention of Harding, but she looked into her mother's soft appealing brown eyes; and, reading clearer than she had ever read before all the adorable falseness that lay therein, she answered:

'I do not want to marry Mr. Harding; I am engaged to Dr. Reed, and I do not intend to give him up.'

This answer was given so firmly that Mrs. Barton lost her temper for a moment, and she said:

'And do you really know what this Dr. Reed originally was? Lord Dungory is dining here to-night; he knows all about Dr. Reed's antecedents, and I am sure he will be horrified when he hears that you are thinking of marrying him.'

'I cannot recognize Lord Dungory's right to advise me on any course I may choose to take, and I hope he will have the good taste to refrain from speaking to me of my marriage.'

'What do you mean? How dare you speak to me like that, you impertinent girl!'

'I am not impertinent, mother, and I hope I shall never be impertinent to you; but I am now in my twenty-fifth year, and if I am ever to judge for myself, I must do so now.'

Alice was curiously surprised by her own words; it seemed to her that it was some strange woman, and not herself--not the old self with whom she was intimately acquainted--who was speaking. Life is full of these epoch-marking moments. We have all at some given time experienced the sensation of finding ourselves either stronger or weaker than we had ever before known ourselves to be; Alice now for the first time felt that she was speaking and acting in her own individual right; and the knowledge as it thrilled through her consciousness was almost a physical pleasure. But notwithstanding the certitude that never left her of the propriety of her conduct, and the equally ever-present sentiment of the happiness that awaited her, she suffered much during the next ten days, and she was frequently in tears. Cecilia had started for St. Leonards without coming to wish her good-bye, and the cruel sneers, insinuations of all kinds against her and against Dr. Reed, which Mrs. Barton never missed an occasion of using, wounded the girl so deeply, that it was only at the rarest intervals that she left her room--when she walked to the post with a letter, when the luncheon or dinner bell rang. Why she should be thus persecuted, Alice was unable to determine; and why her family did not hail with delight this chance of getting rid of a plain girl, whose prospects were limited, was difficult to say; nor could the girl arrive at any notion of the pleasure or profit it might be to anyone that she should waste her life amid chaperons and gossip, instead of taking her part in the world's work. And yet this seemed to be her mother's idea. She did not hesitate to threaten that she would neither attend herself, nor allow Mr. Barton to attend the ceremony. Alice might meet Dr. Reed at the corner of the road, and be married as best she could. Alice appealed to her father against this decision, but she soon had to renounce the hope of obtaining any definite answer. He had been previously told that if he attempted any interference, his supply of paints, brushes, canvases, and guitar-strings would be cut off, and, as he was at present deeply engaged on a new picture of _Julius Cæsar overturning the Altars of the Druids_, he hesitated before the alternatives offered to him. He spoke with much affection; he regretted that Alice could not see her way to marrying somebody whom her mother could approve! He explained the difficulties of his position, and the necessity of his turning something out--seeing what he really could do before the close of the year. Alice was disappointed, and bitterly, but she bore her disappointment bravely, and she wrote to Dr. Reed, telling him what had occurred, and proposing to meet him on a certain day at the Parish Church, where Father Shannon would marry them; and, that if he refused, they would proceed to Dublin, and be married at the Registry Office. In a way Alice would have preferred this latter course, but her good sense warned her against the uselessness of offering any too violent opposition to the opinions of the world. And so it was arranged; and sad, weary, and wretched, Alice lingered through the last few days of the life that had always been to her one of humiliation, and which now towards its close had quieted to one of intense pain.

The Brennans had promised to meet her in the chapel, and one day, as she was sitting by her window, she saw May in all the glory of her copper hair, drive a tandem up to the door. This girl threw the reins to the groom, and rushed to her friend.

'And how do you do, Alice, and how well you are looking, and how pleased I am to see you. I would have come before, only my leader was coughing and I couldn't take him out. Oh, I was so wild; it is always like that; nothing is so disappointing as horses; whenever you especially require them they are laid up, and you can't imagine the difficulty I had to get him along; I must really get another leader; he was trying to turn round the whole way--if it hadn't been for the whip. I took blood out of him three times running. But I know you don't care anything about horses, and I want to hear about this marriage. I am so glad, so pleased, but tell me, do you like him? He seems a very nice sort of man, you know, a man that would make a woman happy. . . . I am sure you will be happy with him, but it is dreadful to think we are going to lose you. I shall, I know, be running over to London on purpose to see you; but tell me, what I want to know is, do you like him? Would you believe it, I never once suspected there was anything between you?'

'Yes, my dear May,' Alice replied smiling, 'I do like Edward Reed; nor do I think that I should ever like any other man half as much: I have perfect confidence in him, and where there is not confidence there cannot be love. He has bought a small practice in Notting Hill, which with care and industry he hopes may be worked up into a substantial business. We shall be very poor at first, but we shall be able to make both ends meet.'

'I can see it all; a little suburban semi-detached house, with green Venetian blinds, a small mahogany sideboard, and a clean capped maid-servant; and in the drawing-room you won't have a piano--you don't care for music, but you'll have some basket chairs, and small bookcases, and a tea-table with tea-cakes at five--oh, won't you look quiet and grave at that tea-table. But tell me, it is all over the county that Mrs. Barton won't hear of this marriage, and that she won't allow your father to go to the chapel to give you away. It is a shame, and for the life of me I can't see what parents have to do with our marriages, do you?'

Without waiting for an answer, May continued the conversation, and with vehemence she passed from one subject to another utterly disconnected without a transitional word of explanation. She explained how tiresome it was to sit at home of an evening listening to Mrs. Gould bemoaning the state of the country; she spoke of her terrier, and this led up to a critical examination of the good looks of several of the officers stationed at Gort; then she alluded to the last meet of the hounds, and she described the big wall she and Mrs. Manly had jumped together; a new hat and an old skirt that she had lately done up came in for a passing remark, and, with an abundance of laughter, May gave an account of a luncheon-party at Lord Rosshill's; and, apparently verbatim, she told what each of the five Honourable Miss Gores had said about the marriage. Then growing suddenly serious, she said:

'It is all very well to laugh, but, when one comes to think of it, it is very sad indeed to see seven human lives wasting away, a whole family of girls eating their hearts out in despair, having nothing to do but to pop about from one tennis-party to another, and chatter to each other or their chaperons of this girl and that who does not seem to be getting married. You are very lucky indeed, Alice--luckier than you think you are, and you are quite right to stick out and do the best you can for yourself in spite of what your people say. It is all very well for them to talk, but they don't know what we suffer: we are not all made alike, and the wants of one are not the wants of another. I dare say you never thought much about that sort of thing; but as I say, we are not all made alike. Every woman, or nearly every one, wants a husband and a home, and it is only natural she should, and if she doesn't get them the temptations she has to go through are something frightful, and if we make the slightest slip the whole world is down upon us. I can talk to you, Alice, because you know what I have gone through. You have been a very good friend to me--had it not been for you I don't know what would have become of me. You didn't reproach me, you were kind and had pity for me; you are a sensible person, and I dare say you understood that I wasn't entirely to blame. And I wasn't entirely to blame; the circumstances we girls live under are not just--no, they are not just. We are told that we must marry a man with at least a thousand a year, or remain spinsters; well, I should like to know where the men are who have a thousand a year, and some of us can't remain spinsters. Oh! you are very lucky indeed to have found a husband, and to be going away to a home of your own. I wish I were as lucky as you, Alice, indeed I do, for then there would be no excuse, and I could be a good woman. You won't hate me too much, will you, Alice? I have made a lot of good resolutions, and they shall be kept some day.'

'Some day! You don't mean that you are again--'

'No; but I've a lover. It is dreadfully sinful, and if I died I should go straight to hell. I know all that. I wish I were going to be married, like you! For then one is out of temptation. Haven't you a kind word for me? Won't you kiss me and tell me you don't despise me?'

'Of course I'll kiss you, May; and I am sure that one of these days you will--'

Alice could say no more; and the girls kissed and cried in each other's arms, and the group was a sad allegory of poor humanity's triumph, and poor humanity's more than piteous failures. At last they went downstairs, and in the hall May showed Alice the beautiful wedding-present she had bought her, and the girl did not say that she had sold her hunter to buy it.

XXIX

At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, '84, the rain fell persistently in the midst of a profound silence. The trees stood stark in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.

Not a living thing was to be seen except the wet sheep, nor did anything stir either within or without till an outside car, one seat overturned to save the cushions from the wet, came careering up the avenue. There was a shaggy horse and a wild-looking driver in a long, shaggy frieze ulster. Even now, at the last moment, Alice expected the drawing-room door to open and her mother to come rushing out to wish her good-bye. But Mrs. Barton remained implacable, and after laying one more kiss on her sister's pale cheek, Alice, in a passionate flood of tears, was driven away.

In streaming mackintoshes, and leaning on dripping umbrellas, she found her husband, and Gladys and Zoe Brennan, waiting for her in the porch of the church.

'Did you ever see such weather?' said Zoe.

'Isn't it dreadful!' said Gladys.

'It was good of you to come,' said Alice.

'It was indeed!' said the bridegroom.

'What nonsense!' said Zoe. 'We were only too pleased; and if to-day be wet, to-morrow and the next and the next will be sunshine.

And thanking Zoe inwardly for this most appropriate remark, the party ascended the church toward the altar-rails, where Father Shannon was awaiting them. Large, pompous, and arrogant, he stood on his altar-steps, and his hands were crossed over his portly stomach. On either side of him the plaster angels bowed their heads and folded their wings. Above him the great chancel window, with its panes of green and yellow glass, jarred in an unutterable clash of colour; and the great white stare of the chalky walls, and the earthen floor with its tub of holy water, and the German prints absurdly representing the suffering of Christ, bespoke the primitive belief, the coarse superstition, of which the place was an immediate symbol. Alice and the doctor looked at each other and smiled, but their thoughts were too firmly fixed on the actual problem of their united lives to wander far in the most hidden ways of the old world's psychical extravagances. What did it matter to them what absurd usages the place they were in was put to?--they, at least, were only making use of it as they might of any other public office--the police-station, where inquiries are made concerning parcels left in cabs; the Commissioner before whom an affidavit is made. And it served its purpose as well as any of the others did theirs. The priest joined their hands, Edward put the ring on Alice's finger, and the usual prayers did no harm if they did no good; and having signed their names in the register and bid good-bye to the Miss Brennans, they got into the carriage, man and wife, their feet set for ever upon one path, their interests and delights melted to one interest and one delight, their separate troubles merged into one trouble that might or might not be made lighter by the sharing; and penetrated by such thoughts they leaned back on the blue cushions of the carriage, happy, and yet a little frightened.

Rather than pass three hours waiting for a train at the little station of Ardrahan, it had been arranged to spend the time driving to Athenry; and, as the carriage rolled through the deliquefying country, the eyes of the man and the woman rested half fondly, half regretfully, and wholly pitifully, on all the familiar signs and the wild landmarks which during so many years had grown into and become part of the texture of their habitual thought; on things of which they would now have to wholly divest themselves, and remember only as the background of their younger lives. Through the streaming glass they could see the strip of bog; and the half-naked woman, her soaked petticoat clinging about her red legs, piling the wet peat into the baskets thrown across the meagre back of a starveling ass. And farther on there were low-lying, swampy fields, and between them and the roadside a few miserable poplars with cabins sunk below the dung-heaps, and the meagre potato-plots lying about them; and then, as these are passed, there are green enclosures full of fattening kine, and here and there a dismantled cottage, one wall still black with the chimney's smoke, uttering to those who know the country a tale of eviction. Beyond these, beautiful plantations sweep along the crests of the hills, the pillars of a Georgian house showing at the end of a vista. The carriage turned up a narrow road, and our travellers came upon a dozen policemen grouped round a roadside cottage, out of which the furniture had just been thrown. The family had taken shelter from the rain under a hawthorn-tree, and the agents were consulting with their bailiffs if it would not be as well to throw down the walls of the cottage.

'If we don't,' one of the men said, 'they will be back again as soon as our backs are turned, and our work will have to be begun all over again.'

'Shocking,' Alice said, 'that an eviction scene should be our last glimpse of Ireland. Let us pay the rent for them, Edward,' and as she spoke the words the thought passed through her mind that her almsgiving was only another form of selfishness. She wished her departure to be associated with an act of kindness. She would have withdrawn her request, but Edward's hand was in his pocket and he was asking the agent how much the rent was. Five years' rent was owing--more than the travellers had in their purses.

'It is well that we cannot assist them to remain here,' said Edward. 'Circumstances are different, and they will harden; none is of use here. Of what use--'

'You believe, then, that this misery will last for ever?'

'Nothing lasts in Ireland but the priests. And now let us forget Ireland, as many have done before us.'

* * * * *

Two years and a half have passed away, and the suburban home predicted by May, when she came to bid Alice a last good-bye, arises before the reader in all its yellow paint and homely vulgarity. In this suburb we find the ten-roomed house with all its special characteristics--a dining-room window looking upon a commodious area with dust and coal holes. The drawing-room has two windows, and the slender balcony is generally set with flower-boxes. Above that come the two windows of the best bedroom belonging to Mr. and Mrs., and above that again the windows of two small rooms, respectively inhabited by the eldest son and daughter; and these are topped by the mock-Elizabethan gable which enframes the tiny window of a servant's room. Each house has a pair of trim stone pillars, the crude green of the Venetian blinds jars the cultured eye, and even the tender green of the foliage in the crescent seems as cheap and as common as if it had been bought--as everything else is in Ashbourne Crescent--at the Stores. But how much does this crescent of shrubs mean to the neighbourhood? Is it not there that the old ladies take their pugs for their constitutional walks, and is it not there that the young ladies play tennis with their gentleman acquaintances when they come home from the City on a Saturday afternoon?

In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither Dissent nor Radicalism, but general aversion to all considerations which might disturb belief in all the routine of existence, in all its temporal and spiritual aspects, as it had come amongst them. The fathers and the brothers go to the City every day at nine, the young ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to be taken to dances at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is alive with the clanging of bells, and in orderly procession every family proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas and prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy ready-made elastic sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their summer dresses with lively bustles bobbing, the young men in frock-coats which show off their broad shoulders--from time to time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each house keeps a cook and housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the skies are flushed with sunset and the outlines of this human warren grow harshly distinct--black lines upon pale red--these are seen walking arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men.

Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its white-capped maid-servant, and spotless oilcloths, will pass away before some great tide of revolution that is now gathering strength far away, deep down and out of sight in the heart of the nation, is probable enough; but for the moment it is, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything else representative, though the length and breadth of the land be searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through the long tale that nine hundred years have to tell. Ashbourne Crescent may possibly soon be replaced by something better, but at present it commands our admiration, for it is, more than all else, typical England. Neither ideas nor much lucidity will be found there, but much belief in the wisdom shown in the present ordering of things, and much plain sense and much honesty of purpose. Certainly, if your quest be for hectic emotion and passionate impulses, you would do well to turn your steps aside; you will not find them in Ashbourne Crescent. There life flows monotonously, perhaps sometimes even a little moodily, but it is built upon a basis of honest materialism--that materialism without which the world cannot live. And No. 31 differs a little from the rest of the houses. The paint on its walls is fresher, and there are no flowers on its balcony: the hall-door has three bells instead of the usual two, and there is a brass plate with 'Dr. Reed' engraved upon it. The cook is talking through the area-railings to the butcher-boy; a smart parlourmaid opens the door, and we see that the interior is as orderly, commonplace, and clean as we might expect at every house in the crescent. The floorcloths are irreproachable, the marble-painted walls are unadorned with a single picture. On the right is the dining-room, a mahogany table bought for five pounds in the Tottenham Court Road, a dozen chairs to match, a sideboard and a small table; green-painted walls decorated with two engravings, one of Frith's 'Railway Station,' the other of Guido's 'Fortune.' Further down the passage leading to the kitchen-stairs there is a second room: this is the Doctor's consulting-room. A small bookcase filled with serious-looking volumes, a mahogany escritoire strewn with papers, letters, memoranda of all sorts. The floor is covered with a bright Brussels carpet; there are two leather armchairs, and a portrait of an admiral hangs over the fireplace.

Let us go upstairs. How bright and clean are the high marble-painted walls! and on the first landing there is a large cheaply coloured window. The drawing-room is a double room, not divided by curtains but by stiff folding-doors. The furniture is in red, and the heavy curtains that drape the windows fall from gilt cornices. In the middle of the floor there is a settee (probably a reminiscence of the Shelbourne Hotel); and on either side of the fireplace there are sofas, and about the hearthrug many arm-chairs to match with the rest. Above the chimneypiece there is a gilt oval mirror, worth ten pounds. The second room is Alice's study; it is there she writes her novels. A table in black wood with a pile of MSS. neatly fastened together stands in one corner; there is a bookcase just behind; its shelves are furnished with imaginative literature, such as Shelley's poems, Wordsworth's poems, Keats' poems. There are also handsome editions of Tennyson and Browning, presents from Dr. Reed to his wife. You see a little higher up the shelf a thin volume, Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_, and next to it is Walter Pater's _Renaissance_--studies in art and poetry. There are also many volumes in yellow covers, evidently French novels.

The character of the house is therefore essentially provincial, and shows that its occupants have not always lived amid the complex influences of London life--viz., is not even suburban. Nevertheless, here and there traces of new artistic impulses are seen. On the mantelpiece in the larger room there are two large blue vases; on a small table stands a pot in yellow porcelain, evidently from Morris's; and on the walls there are engravings from Burne Jones. Every Thursday afternoon numbers of ladies, all of whom write novels, assemble here to drink tea and talk of their work.