Part 34

From the time of reading this, I used to think of Christ as 'carrion crucified';--if I ever thought at all. I found out that no one had ever reproached Swinburne for this term,--that it did not interfere with his chances for the Laureateship,--and that not even a priest of the church had been bold-spoken or zealous enough in his Master's cause to publicly resent the shameless outrage. So I concluded that Swinburne must, after all, be right in his opinions, and I followed the lazy and unthinking course of social movement, spending my days with such literature as stored my brain with a complete knowledge of things evil and pernicious. Whatever soul I had in me was killed; the freshness of my mind was gone,--Swinburne, among others, had helped me to live mentally, if not physically, through such a phase of vice as had poisoned my thoughts for ever. I understand there is some vague law in existence about placing an interdiction on certain books considered injurious to public morals,--if there is such a rule, it has been curiously lax concerning the author of 'Anactoria'--who, by virtue of being a poet, passes unquestioned into many a home, carrying impure suggestion into minds that were once cleanly and simple. As for me, after I had studied his verse to my heart's content, nothing remained sacred,--I judged men as beasts and women as little better,--I had no belief in honour, virtue or truth,--and I was absolutely indifferent to all things save one, and that was my resolve to have my own way as far as love was concerned. I might be forced to marry without love for purely money-considerations,--but all the same, love I would have, or what I called love;--not an 'ideal' passion by any means, but precisely what Mr Swinburne and a few of the most-praised novelists of the day had taught me to consider as love. I began to wonder when and how I should meet my lover,--such thoughts as I had at this time indeed would have made moralists stare and uplift their hands in horror,--but to the exterior world I was the very pink and pattern of maidenly decorum, reserve and pride. Men desired, but feared me; for I never gave them any encouragement, seeing as yet none among them whom I deemed worthy of such love as I could give. The majority resembled carefully trained baboons,--respectably clothed and artistically shaven,--but nevertheless all with the spasmodic grin, the leering eye and the uncouth gestures of the hairy woodland monster. When I was just eighteen I 'came out' in earnest--that is, I was presented at Court with all the foolish and farcical pomp practised on such occasions. I was told before going that it was a great and necessary thing to be 'presented,'--that it was a guarantee of position, and above all of reputation,--the Queen received none whose conduct was not rigidly correct and virtuous. What humbug it all was!--I laughed then, and I can smile now to think of it,--why, the very woman who presented me had two illegitimate sons, unknown to her lawful husband, and she was not the only playful sinner in the Court comedy! Some women were there that day whom since even _I_ would not receive--so openly infamous are their lives and characters, yet they make their demure curtseys before the Throne at stated times, and assume to be the very patterns of virtue and austerity. Now and then, it chances in the case of an exceedingly beautiful woman, of whom all the others are jealous, that for her little slips she is selected as an 'example' and excluded from Court, while her plainer sisters, though sinning seventy times seven against all the laws of decency and morality, are still received,--but otherwise, there is very little real care exercised as to the character and prestige of the women whom the Queen receives. If any one of them _is_ refused, it is certain she adds to her social enormities, the greater crime of being beautiful, otherwise there would be no one to whisper away her reputation! I was what is called a 'success' on my presentation day. That is, I was stared at, and openly flattered by certain members of my sex who were too old and ugly to be jealous, and treated with insolent contempt by those who were young enough to be my rivals. There was a great crush to get into the Throne-Room; and some of the ladies used rather strong language. One duchess, just in front of me, said to her companion--'Do as I do,--_kick out_! Bruise their shins for them--as hard as you can,--we shall get on faster then!' This choice remark was accompanied by the grin of a fishwife and the stare of a drab. Yet it was a 'great' lady who spoke,--not a Transatlantic importation, but a woman of distinguished lineage and connection. Her observation however was only one out of many similar speeches which I heard on all sides of me during the 'distinguished' mélée,--a thoroughly ill-mannered 'crush,' which struck me as supremely vulgar and totally unfitting the dignity of our Sovereign's court. When I curtsied before the Throne at last, and saw the majesty of the Empire represented by a kindly faced old lady, looking very tired and bored, whose hand was as cold as ice when I kissed it, I was conscious of an intense feeling of pity for her in her high estate. Who would be a Monarch, to be doomed to the perpetual receiving of a company of fools! I got through my duties quickly, and returned home more or less wearied out and disgusted with the whole ceremony,--and next day I found that my 'debût' had given me the position of a 'leading beauty'; or in other words that I was now formally put up for sale. That is really what is meant by being 'presented' and 'coming out,'--these are the fancy terms of one's parental auctioneer. My life was now passed in dressing, having my photograph taken, giving 'sittings' to aspiring fashionable painters, and being 'inspected' by men with a view to matrimony. It was distinctly understood in society that I was not to be sold under a certain figure per annum,--and the price was too high for most would-be purchasers. How sick I grew of my constant exhibition in the marriage-market! What contempt and hatred was fostered in me for the mean and pitiable hypocrisies of my set! I was not long in discovering that money was the chief-motive power of all social success,--that the proudest and highest personages in the world could be easily gathered together under the roof of any vulgar plebeian who happened to have enough cash to feed and entertain them. As an example of this, I remember a woman, ugly, passée and squint-eyed, who during her father's life was only allowed about half-a-crown a week as pocket-money up to her fortieth year,--and who, when that father died, leaving her in possession of half his fortune, (the other half going to illegitimate children of whom she had never heard, he having always posed as a pattern of immaculate virtue) suddenly blossomed out as a 'leader' of fashion, and succeeded, through cautious scheming and ungrudging toadyism, in assembling some of the highest people in the land under her roof. Ugly and passée though she was, and verging towards fifty, with neither grace, wit, nor intelligence, through the power of her cash alone she invited Royal dukes and 'titles' generally to her dinners and dances,--and it is to their shame that they actually accepted her invitations. Such voluntary degradations on the part of really well-connected people I have never been able to understand,--it is not as if they were actually in want of food or amusement, for they have a surfeit of both every season,--and it seems to me that they ought to show a better example than to flock in crowds to the entertainments of a mere uninteresting and ugly nobody just because she happens to have money. I never entered her house myself though she had the audacity to invite me,--I learned moreover, that she had promised a friend of mine a hundred guineas if she could persuade me to make one appearance in her rooms. For my renown as a 'beauty' combined with my pride and exclusiveness, would have given her parties a _prestige_ greater than even Royalty could bestow,--_she_ knew that and _I_ knew that,--and knowing it, never condescended to so much as notice her by a bow. But though I took a certain satisfaction in thus revenging myself on the atrocious vulgarity of _parvenus_ and social interlopers, I grew intensely weary of the monotony and emptiness of what fashionable folks call 'amusement,' and presently falling ill of a nervous fever, I was sent down to the seaside for a few weeks' change of air with a young cousin of mine, a girl I rather liked because she was so different to myself. Her name was Eva Maitland--she was but sixteen and extremely delicate--poor little soul! she died two months before my marriage. She and I, and a maid to attend us, went down to Cromer,--and one day, sitting on the cliffs together, she asked me timidly if I knew an author named Mavis Clare? I told her no,--whereupon she handed me a book called 'The Wings of Psyche.'

"Do read it!" she said earnestly--"It will make you feel so happy!"

I laughed. The idea of a modern author writing anything to make one feel happy, seemed to me quite ludicrous, the aim of most of them being to awaken a disgust of life, and a hatred of one's fellow-creatures. However, to please Eva, I read the 'Wings of Psyche,'--and if it did not make me actually happy, it moved me to a great wonder and deep reverence for the woman-writer of such a book. I found out all about her,--that she was young, good-looking, of a noble character and unblemished reputation, and that her only enemies were the press-critics. This last point was so much in her favour with me that I at once bought everything she had ever written, and her works became, as it were, my haven of rest. Her theories of life are strange, poetic, ideal and beautiful;--though I have not been able to accept them or work them out in my own case, I have always felt soothed and comforted for a while in the very act of wishing they were true. And the woman is like her books,--strange, poetic, ideal and beautiful,--how odd it is to think that she is within ten minutes walk of me now!--I could send for her if I liked, and tell her all,--but she would prevent me carrying out my resolve. She would cling to me woman-like and kiss me, and hold my hands and say 'No, Sibyl, no! You are not yourself,--you must come to me and rest!' An odd fancy has seized me, ... I will open my window and call her very gently,--she might be in the garden coming here to see me,--and if she hears and answers, who knows!--why, perhaps my ideas may change, and fate itself may take a different course!

* * * * *

Well, I have called her. I have sent her name 'Mavis!' softly out on the sunshine and still air three times, and only a little brown namesake of hers, a thrush, swinging on a branch of fir, answered me with his low autumnal piping. Mavis! She will not come,--to-day God will not make her His messenger. She cannot guess--she does not know this tragedy of my heart, greater and more poignant than all the tragedies of fiction. If she did know me as I am, I wonder what she would think of me!

* * * * *

Let me go back to the time when love came to me,--love, ardent, passionate, and eternal! Ah, what wild joy thrilled through me! what mad ecstasy fired my blood!--what delirious dreams possessed my brain!--I saw Lucio,--and it seemed as if the splendid eyes of some great angel had flashed a glory in my soul! With him came his friend, the foil to his beauty,--the arrogant, self-satisfied fool of a millionaire, Geoffrey Tempest,--he who bought me, and who by virtue of his purchase, is entitled by law to call himself my husband ..."

Here I paused in my reading and looked up. The dead woman's eyes appeared now to regard me as steadily as herself in the opposite mirror,--the head was a little more dropped forward on the breast, and the whole face very nearly resembled that of the late Countess of Elton when the last shock of paralysis had rendered her hideous disfigurement complete.

"To think I loved _that_!" I said aloud, pointing at the corpse's ghastly reflection--"Fool that I was indeed!--as great a fool as all men are who barter their lives for the possession of a woman's mere body! Why if there were any life after death,--if such a creature had a soul that at all resembled this poisoned clay, the very devils might turn away aghast from such a loathly comrade!"

The candles flickered and the dead face seemed to smile,--a clock chimed in the adjoining room, but I did not count the hour,--I merely arranged the manuscript pages I held more methodically, and read on with renewed attention.

XXXVI

"From the moment I saw Lucio Rimânez"--went on Sibyl's 'dying speech'--"I abandoned myself to love and the desire of love. I had heard of him before from my father who had (as I learned to my shame) been indebted to him for monetary assistance. On the very night we met, my father told me quite plainly that now was my chance to get 'settled' in life. 'Marry Rimânez or Tempest, whichever you can most easily catch,' he said--'The prince is fabulously wealthy--but he keeps up a mystery about himself and no one knows where he actually comes from,--besides which he dislikes women;--now Tempest has five millions and seems an easy-going fool,--I should say you had better go for Tempest.' I made no answer and gave no promise either way. I soon found out however that Lucio did not intend to marry,--and I concluded that he preferred to be the lover of many women, instead of the husband of one. I did not love him any the less for this,--I only resolved that I would at least be one of those who were happy enough to share his passion. I married the man Tempest, feeling that like many women I knew, I should when safely wedded, have greater liberty of action,--I was aware that most modern men prefer an amour with a married woman to any other kind of _liaison_,--and I thought Lucio would have readily yielded to the plan I had pre-conceived. But I was mistaken,--and out of this mistake comes all my perplexity, pain and bewilderment I cannot understand why my love,--beloved beyond all word or thought,--should scorn me and repulse me with such bitter loathing! It is such a common thing now-a-days for a married woman to have her own lover, apart from her husband _de convenance_! The writers of books advise it,--I have seen the custom not only excused but advocated over and over again in long and scientific articles that are openly published in leading magazines. Why then should I be blamed or my desires considered criminal? As long as no public scandal is made, what harm is done? I cannot see it,--it is not as if there were a God to care,--the scientists say there is no God!

* * * * *

I was very startled just now. I thought I heard Lucio's voice calling me. I have walked through the rooms looking everywhere, and I opened my door to listen, but there is no one. I am alone. I have told the servant not to disturb me till I ring; ... I shall never ring! Now I come to think of it, it is singular that I have never known who Lucio really is. A prince, he says--and that I can well believe,--though truly princes now-a-days are so plebeian and common in look and bearing that he seems too great to belong to so shabby a fraternity. From what kingdom does he come?--to what nation does he belong? These are questions which he never answers save equivocally.

* * * * *

I pause here, and look at myself in the mirror. How beautiful I am! I note with admiration the deep and dewy lustre of my eyes and their dark silky fringes,--I see the delicate colouring of my cheeks and lips,--the dear rounded chin with its pretty dimple,--the pure lines of my slim throat and snowy neck,--the glistening wealth of my long hair. All this was given to me for the attraction and luring of men, but my love, whom I love with all this living, breathing, exquisite being of mine, can see no beauty in me, and rejects me with such scorn as pierces my very soul. I have knelt to him,--I have prayed to him,--I have worshipped him,--in vain! Hence it comes that I must die. Only one thing he said that had the sound of hope, though the utterance was fierce, and his looks were cruel,--'Patience!' he whispered--'we shall meet ere long!' What did he mean?--what possible meeting can there be now, when death must close the gate of life, and even love would come too late!

* * * * *

I have unlocked my jewel-case and taken from it the deadly thing secreted there,--a poison that was entrusted to me by one of the physicians who lately attended my mother. 'Keep this under lock and key,' he said, 'and be sure that it is used only for external purposes. There is sufficient in this flask to kill ten men, if swallowed by mistake.' I look at it wonderingly. It is colourless,--and there is not enough to fill a teaspoon, ... yet ... it will bring down upon me an eternal darkness, and close up for ever the marvellous scenes of the universe! So little!--to do so much! I have fastened Lucio's wedding-gift round my waist,--the beautiful snake of jewels that clings to me as though it were charged with an embrace from him,--ah! would I could cheat myself into so pleasing a fancy! ... I am trembling, but not with cold or fear,--it is simply an excitation of the nerves,----an instinctive recoil of flesh and blood at the near prospect of death.... How brilliantly the sun shines through my window!--its callous golden stare has watched so many tortured creatures die without so much as a cloud to dim its radiance by way of the suggestion of pity! If there were a God I fancy He would be like the sun,--glorious, changeless, unapproachable, beautiful, but pitiless!

* * * * *

Out of all the various types of human beings I think I hate the class called poets most. I used to love them and believe in them; but I know them now to be mere weavers of lies,--builders of cloud castles in which no throbbing life can breathe, no weary heart find rest. Love is their chief motive,--they either idealize or degrade it,--and of the love we women long for most, they have no conception. They can only sing of brute passion or ethical impossibilities,--of the mutual great sympathy, the ungrudging patient tenderness that should make love lovely, they have no sweet things to say. Between their strained æstheticism and unbridled sensualism, my spirit has been stretched on the rack and broken on the wheel, ... I should think many a wretched woman wrecked among love's disillusions must curse them as I do!

* * * * *

I am ready now, I think. There is nothing more to say. I offer no excuses for myself. I am as I was made,--a proud and rebellious woman, self-willed and sensual, seeing no fault in free love, and no crime in conjugal infidelity,--and if I am vicious, I can honestly declare that my vices have been encouraged and fostered in me by most of the literary teachers of my time. I married, as most women of my set marry, merely for money,--I loved, as most women of my set love, for mere bodily attraction,--I die, as most women of my set will die, either naturally or self-slain, in utter atheism, rejoicing that there is no God and no Hereafter!

* * * * *

I had the poison in my hand a moment ago, ready to take, when I suddenly felt someone approaching me stealthily from behind, and glancing up quickly at the mirror I saw ... my mother! Her face, hideous and ghastly as it had been in her last illness, was reflected in the glass, peering over my shoulder! I sprang up and confronted her,----she was gone! And now I am shivering with cold, and I feel a chill dampness on my forehead,--mechanically I have soaked a handkerchief with perfume from one of the silver bottles on the dressing table, and have passed it across my temples to help me recover from this sick swooning sensation. To _recover_!--how foolish of me, seeing I am about to die. I do not believe in ghosts,--yet I could have sworn my mother was actually present just now,--of course it was an optical delusion of my own feverish brain. The strong scent on my handkerchief reminds me of Paris--I can see the shop where I bought this particular perfume, and the well-dressed doll of a man who served me, with his little waxed moustache, and his indefinable French manner of conveying a speechless personal compliment while making out a bill.... Laughing at this recollection, I see my face radiate in the glass,--my eyes flash into vivid lustre, and the dimples near my lips come and go, giving my expression an enchanting sweetness. Yet in a few hours this loveliness will be destroyed,--and in a few days, the worms will twine where the smile is now!

* * * * *

An idea has come upon me that perhaps I ought to say a prayer. It would be hypocritical,--but conventional. To die fashionably, one ought to concede a few words to the church. And yet ... to kneel down with clasped hands and tell an inactive, unsympathetic, selfish, paid community called the church, that I am going to kill myself for the sake of love and love's despair, and that therefore I humbly implore its forgiveness for the act seems absurd,--as absurd as to tell the same thing to a non-existent Deity. I suppose the scientists do not think what a strange predicament their advanced theories put the human mind in at the hour of death. They forget that on the brink of the grave, thoughts come that will not be gainsaid, and that cannot be appeased by a learned thesis.... However I will not pray,--it would seem to myself cowardly that I who have never said my prayers since I was a child, should run over them now in a foolish babbling attempt to satisfy the powers invisible,--I could not, out of sheer association, appeal to Mr Swinburne's 'crucified carrion'! Besides I do not believe in the powers invisible at all,--I feel that once outside this life, 'the rest' as Hamlet said 'is silence.'

* * * * *