Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

CHAPTER V
ONLY A SIMPLE SERVICE

Mrs. Elstree took the card that the maid brought her. She started up, mechanically touched her hair—which was of the feathery and fluffy kind—and her dress, with the woman's instinct to see that everything was in order: the quick colour rose to her cheek—perhaps from the heat of the fire. 'Yes,' she said, 'I am at home.' She was sitting beside the fire in the drawing-room of Armorel's flat. It was a cold afternoon in March: outside, a black east wind raged through the streets; it was no day for driving or for walking: within, soft carpets, easy-chairs, and bright fires invited one to stay at home. This lady, indeed, was one of those who love warmth and physical ease above all other things. Actually to be warm, lazily warm, without any effort to feel warmth, afforded her a positive and distinct physical pleasure, just as a cat is pleased by being stroked. Therefore, though a book lay in her lap, she had not been reading. It is much pleasanter to lie back and feel warm, with half-closed eyes, in a peaceful room, than to be led away by some impetuous novelist into uncomfortable places, cold places, fatiguing places.

She started, however, and the book fell to the floor, where it remained. And she rose to her feet when the owner of the card came in. The relict of Jerome Elstree was still young, and grief had as yet destroyed none of her beauty. She looked better, perhaps, in the morning—which says a great deal.

'Alec?' she murmured—her eyes as soft as her voice. 'I thought you would come this afternoon.'

'Are you quite alone, Mrs. Elstree?' he asked with a look of warning.

'Quite, Mr. Feilding. And, since the door is shut, and we are quite alone—why—then——' She laughed, held out both her hands, and put up her face like a child.

He took her hands and bent to kiss her lips.

'Zoe,' he said, 'you grow lovelier every day. Last night——' He kissed her again.

'Lovelier than Philippa?'

'What is Philippa beside you? An iceberg beside a—a garden of flowers——'

'There is beauty in icebergs, I have read.'

'Never mind Philippa, dear Zoe. She is nothing to us.'

'I don't mind her a bit, Alec, if you don't. If you begin to mind her—— But we will wait until that happens. Why are you here to-day?'

'I have come to call upon Mrs. Elstree, widow of my poor friend Jerome Elstree.'

'Ce pauvre Jerome! The tears come into my eyes'—in fact, they did at that moment—'look!—when I think of him. So often have I spoken of his virtues and his untimely fate that he has really lived. I never before understood that there are ghosts of men who never lived as well as ghosts of the dead.'

'And I came to call upon your charge, Miss Rosevean.'

'Yes'—she said this dubiously, perhaps jealously—'so I supposed. Why did you send me here, Alec? You have always got some reason for everything. There was no need for my coming—I was doing as well as I expect to do.'

The young man looked about the room without replying to this question.

'Someone,' he said presently, 'has furnished this room who knows furniture.'

'It was Armorel herself. I have no taste—as you know.'

'And how do you get on with her? Are you happy here, Zoe?'

'I am as happy as I ever expect to be—until——'

'Yes, yes,' he interrupted, impatiently. 'You like her, then?'

'I like her as much as I can like any woman. You know, Alec, I am not greatly in love with my own sex. If there were no other women in the world than just enough to dress me, get my dinner, and keep my house clean, I should not murmur. Eve was the happiest of women, in spite of the difficulties she must have had in keeping up with the fashion. Because, you see, she was the only woman.'

'No doubt. And now tell me about this girl.'

'She is rich. To be rich is everything. Money makes an angel of every woman. When I was eighteen, and first met you, Alec, I was rich. Then you saw the wings sticking out visibly one on each shoulder, didn't you? They are gone now—at least,' she looked over her shoulder, 'I see them no longer.'

'I heard she was rich. Where did the money come from?'

'It has been saving up for I don't know how long. The girl is only twenty-one, and she has about thirty thousand pounds, besides all kinds of precious things worth I don't know how much.'

'Jagenal told me she was comfortably off—"comfortably," he said—but—thirty thousand pounds!'

'The mere thought of so much makes your eyes glow quite poetically, Alec. Write a poem on thirty thousand pounds. Well, that is what she has, and all her own, without any drawbacks: no nasty poor relations—no profligate brothers—to nibble and gnaw. She has not either brother or sister—an enviable lot when one has money. When one has no money a brother—a successful brother—might be useful.'

'And how do you get on with her?'

'I think we do pretty well together. But my post is precarious.'

'Why?'

'Because the young woman is pretty, rich, and masterful. It is a curious thing about women that the most masterful soonest find their master.'

'You mean that she will marry.'

'If she gets engaged, being rich, she will certainly marry at once. Until she marries I believe we can get on together, because she is totally independent of me. This afternoon, for example, she has gone out to look at pictures somewhere, with a girl she has picked up somehow—a girl who writes.'

'But, my dear Zoe, you must look after her. Don't let her pick up girls and make friendships. You are here to look after her. I hoped that you would gain her complete confidence—become indispensable to her.'

'Oh! that is why you sent me here? Pray, my dear Alec, what can Armorel be to you?'

'Nothing, dear child,' he replied, patting her soft hand, 'that will bring any discord between you and me. But—make yourself indispensable and necessary to her.'

'You will tell me, I dare say, presently, what you mean. But you don't know this young islander. Necessary to me she is, as you know. Necessary to her I shall never become. We have nothing in common. I can do nothing for her at all, except go out to theatres and concerts and things in the evening. Even then our tastes clash. I like to laugh; she likes to sit solemnly with big eyes staring—so—as if she was receiving inspiration. I like comic operas, she likes serious plays; I like dance music, she likes classical music; I like the fool's paradise, she likes—the other kind, where they all behave so well and are under no illusions. In fact, Armorel takes herself quite seriously all round. Of course, a girl with such a fortune can take herself anyhow she pleases.'

'She knows how to dress, apparently. Most advanced girls disdain dress.'

'But she is not an advanced girl. She is only a girl who knows a great deal. She is not in the least emancipated. Why, she still professes the Christian religion. She is just a girl who has set herself resolutely to learn all she can. She has been about it for five years. When she began, I understand that she knew nothing. What she means to do with her knowledge I have not learned. She talks French and German and Italian. You have heard her play? Very well: you can't beat that. You shall see some of her drawings. They are rather in your style, I think. A highly cultivated girl. That is all.'

'A female prig? A consciously superior person?'

'Not a bit. Rather humble-minded. But masterful and independent. Where she fails is, of course, in ordinary talk. She can't talk—she can only converse. She doesn't know the pictures and painters, and poets and novelists of the day—she doesn't know a single person in society. She doesn't know any personal history at all. And she doesn't care about any. That is Armorel.'

'I see,' he replied thoughtfully. 'Things will be difficult, I am afraid.'

'What things? Oh! there is another point in which she differs from people of society.'

'Yes?'

'When you and I, dear Alec, think and talk of people, we conclude that they are exactly like ourselves—do we not? Quite worldly and selfish, you know. Everyone with his little show to run for himself. Now, Armorel, on the other hand, concludes that everyone is like—not us—but herself. Do you catch the difference? There is a difference, you know.'

'Sometimes, Zoe, I seem not to understand you. But never mind. Under your influence——'

'I have no influence at all with her. I never shall have.'

'But, my dear Zoe, why are you here? I want you—I repeat—to exercise an overwhelming influence.'

'Oh! It is impossible. Consider—you who know me so well—how can I influence a girl who is always seeking after great things? She wants everything noble and lofty and pure. She has what they call a great soul—and I—oh! Alec, you know that I belong to the infinitely little souls. There are a great, great number of us, but we are very contemptible.'

'Let us think,' he replied. 'Let us contrive and devise some way——'

'Enough about Armorel. Tell me now about yourself.'

'I am always the same.'

'You have come, perhaps, this afternoon,' she murmured softly, 'to bring me some new hope—Oh! Alec—at last—some hope?'

'I have no new hope to give you, child.'

Both sat in silence, looking into the firelight.

'It is seven years—seven years,' said Zoe, 'since I had my great quarrel with Philippa. She was eighteen then—and so was I—I charged her with throwing herself at your head, you know. So she did. So she does still. Why, the woman can't conceal, even now, that she loves you. I saw it in her eyes last night, I saw it in her attitude when she was talking to you. She swore after the row we had that she would never speak to me again. But you see she has broken that vow. I was eighteen then, and I was rich, a good deal richer than Philippa ever will be. When you and I became engaged I was twenty-one. That is four years ago, Alec. Yet, a year or two, and the girl you were—engaged to—will be thin and faded. For your sake, my dear boy, I hope that you will not keep her waiting very much longer before you present her to the world.'

'My dear child, could I help the smash that came—the smash and scandal? When the whole town was ringing with your father's smash and his suicide, and the ruin of I don't know how many people, was that the moment for us to step forward and take hands before the world?'

'No; you certainly could not. As a man of the world, you would have been justified in breaking off the thing—especially as it was only a day or two old.'

'I could not let you go, Zoe,' he said, with a touch of real tenderness. 'I was madly in love.'

'I think you were, Alec. I really think that at the time you were truly and madly in love. Else you would never have done a thing of which you repented the next day.'

'I have never repented, dear Zoe—never once.'

'Perhaps you calculated that something would be saved out of the smash. Perhaps, for once in your life, you never calculated at all upon anything. Well—I consented to keep the thing a secret.'

'You know that it was necessary.'

'You said so. I obeyed. But four years—four years—and no prospect of a termination. Consider!' She pleaded as she had spoken before, in the same soft, caressing, murmuring tone.

'I do consider, Zoe. You can have your freedom again. I have no right——'

'Nonsense! My freedom? It is your own that you want. My freedom?' she repeated, but without raising her voice. 'Mine? What could I do with it—now? Whither could I turn? Do not, I advise you, think that I will ever while I live restore your freedom to you.'

'I spoke in your own interest, believe me.'

'I am now what you have made me. You know what that is. You know what I was four years ago.'

'I have advised you, it is true.'

'No; you have led me. At the moment of my greatest trouble you made me break away from my own people, who were sorry for my misfortunes, and would have kept me among them in my own circle. There was no reason for me to leave them. The wreck of my father's fortune was not imputed to me. You persuaded me to assert my own independence, and to go upon the stage, for which I was as well fitted as for the kingdom of heaven.'

'I hoped—I thought—that you would succeed.'

'No; what you hoped and intended was to keep me in your power. You would not let me go, and you could not—or would not——'

'Could not, my child. I could not.'

'For four years I have endured the humiliations of the actress who is a failure and can only take the lowest parts. You know what I have endured, and yet—— Oh! Alec, your love is, indeed, a noble gift! And now, for your sake, I am here, playing a part for you. I am the young widow of the man who never existed. I make up a hundred lies every day to a girl who believes every word—which makes it more disgraceful and more horrible. When one knows that she is disbelieved it is different.'

'Zoe, you know my position.'

'Very well, indeed. You live in a little palace. You keep your man-servant and your two horses. You go every day into some kind of good society——'

'It is necessary: my position demands it.'

'Your position, my friend, has nothing to do with it. If you stayed at home every evening just as many copies of your paper would be sold. You spend all this money on yourself, Alec, because you are a selfish person and indulgent, and because you like to make a great show of success.'

'You do not understand.'

'Oh, yes, I do! You paint lovely pictures, which you sell: you write admirable stories and excellent verses—at least, I suppose they are admirable and excellent. You put them into a paper which is your own——'

'Yes—yes. But all these things leave me as poor as I was four years ago.'

He got up and stood before the fire, looking into it. Then he walked across to the window and gazed into the street. Then he returned and looked into the fire again. This restlessness may be a sign that something is on a man's mind.

'Zoe,' he said at length, without looking at her, 'your impatience makes you unjust. You do not understand. Things have come to a crisis.'

'What kind of a crisis?'

'A financial crisis. I must have money.'

'Then go and make it. Paint more pictures: write more poetry. Make money, as other men do. It is very noble and grand to pretend that you only work when you please; but it isn't business, and it isn't true.'

'Again—you do not understand. I must have money in a short time, or else——'

'Else—what may happen, Alec?' She leaned forward, losing her murmuring manner for the first time.

'I may—I must—become bankrupt. That to me signifies social ruin.'

'You have something more to say. Won't you say it at once?'

'If I can get over this difficulty it will be all right—my anxieties over. I thought, Zoe, when I sent you here, that, with a girl rich, mistress of her own, of age, it would be easy for you to wind yourself into her confidence and borrow—or beg, or somehow get what I want out of her. To borrow would be best.'

'How much do you want? Tell me exactly.'

'I want, before the end of next month, about 3,000l. Say, 3,500l.'

'That is a very large sum of money.'

'Not to this girl. Make her lend it to you. Make up some story. Beg it or borrow it—and——' he laid his hand upon her shoulder, but she made no movement in reply; he stooped and kissed her head, but she did not look up. 'Zoe—I swear—if you will do this for me, our long and weary waiting shall be at an end. I will acknowledge everything. I will give up this extravagant life: we will settle down like a couple of honest bourgeois: we will live over the shop if you like—that is, the publishing office of the paper.' He took her hand and raised it to his lips, but she made no response.

'Would she ever get the money back again?'

'Perhaps. How can I tell?'

'Even for the bribe you offer, Alec, I am afraid I cannot do it.'

'We will try together. We will lay ourselves out to attract the girl, to win her confidence. Consider. She is alone. She is in our hands——'

'Yes, yes. But you do not know her. Alec, if I cannot succeed, what will you do?'

'I must look out for some girl with money and get engaged to her. The mere fact of an engagement would be enough for me.'

'Yes,' she said quickly, 'it would have to be. Will you get engaged to—to Philippa?'

'No; Philippa will only have money at the death of her father and mother—not before. Philippa is out of the question.'

'Is there nobody among all your fine friends who will lend you the money?'

'No one. We do not lend money to each other. We go on as if there were no money difficulties in the world, as well as no diseases, no old age, no dying. We do not speak of money.'

'Friendship in society has its limits. Yes; I see. But can't you borrow it in the usual way of business people?'

'I should have to show books and enter into unpleasant explanations. You see, Zoe, the paper has got a very good name, but rather a small circulation. Everybody sees it, but very few buy it.'

'And so you heard of Armorel, and you thought that here was a chance. You say to me, in plain words: "If you get this money, there shall be an end of the false position." Is that so?'

'That is exactly what I do say and swear, Zoe. It is a very simple thing. You have only to persuade the girl to lend you this money, or to advance it, or to invest it by your agency—or something—a very simple and easy thing. You love me well enough to do me such a simple service.'

'I love you well enough, I suppose,' she replied sadly, 'to do everything you tell me to do. A simple service! Only to deceive and plunder this girl, who believes us all to be honourable and truthful!'

'Oh, we shall find a way—some way—to pay her back. Don't be afraid. And don't go off into platitudes, Zoe—you are much too pretty—and when it is done, and you are openly, before the world——'

'I know you well enough to know how much happiness to expect. I am a fool. All women are fools. Philippa is a fool. And I've set my foolish heart on—you. If I fail—if I fail'—her words sank to the softest and gentlest murmur—'you are going to cast about for an heiress, and you will get engaged to her, and then—then—we shall see, dear Alec, what will happen then.' She sat up, her cheek fiery, and her eyes flashing, though her voice was so soft. 'Hush!' she whispered. 'I hear Armorel's step!'

They heard her voice as well outside, loud and clear.

'Come to my own room,' she said. 'What you want is there. This way.'

'It is the girl with her—the girl who writes. They have gone into her own room—her boudoir—her study—where she works half the day. The girl lives with her brother, close by.'

They listened, silent, with hushed breath, like conspirators.

'Poor Armorel!' said Zoe. 'If she only knew what we are plotting! She thinks me the most truthful of women! And all I am here for is to cheat her out of her money! Don't you think I had better make a clean breast and ask her to give me the money and let me go?'

'Begin to-day,' said Alec. 'Begin to talk about me. Interest her in me. Let her know how great and good——'

'Hush!'

Then they heard her voice again in the hall.

'No—no—you must come this evening. Bring Archie with you. I will play, and he shall listen. You shall both listen. And then great thoughts will come to you.'

'Always great thoughts—great thoughts—great pictures,' Zoe murmured. 'And we are so infinitely little. Brother worm, shall we crawl into some hole and hide ourselves?'

Then the door opened, and Armorel herself appeared, fresh and rosy in spite of the cold wind.

'My dear child,' said Zoe softly, looking up from her cushions, 'come in and sit down. You must be perishing with the east wind. Do sit down and be comfortable. You met Mr. Feilding last night, I believe.'

The visitor remained for a quarter of an hour. Armorel had been to see a certain picture in the National Gallery. He talked of pictures just as, the night before, he had talked of music: that is to say, as one who knows all the facts about the painters and their works and their schools: their merits and their defects. He knew and could talk fluently the language of the Art Critic, just as he knew and could talk the language of the Musical Critic. Armorel listened. Now and then she made a remark. But her manner lacked the reverence with which most maidens listened to this thrice-gifted darling of the Muses. She actually seemed not to care very much what he said.

Zoe, for her part, lay back in her cushions in silence.

'How do you like him?' she asked, when their visitor left them.

'I don't know; I haven't thought about him. He talks too much, I think. And he talks as if he was teaching.'

'No one has a better right to talk with authority.'

'But we are free to listen or not as we please. Why has he the right to teach everybody?'

'My dear child, Alec Feilding is the cleverest man in all London.'

'He must be very clever then. What does he do?'

'He does everything—poetry, painting, fiction—everything!'

'Oh, you will show me his poetry, perhaps, some time? And his pictures I suppose we shall see in May somewhere. He doesn't look as if he was at all great. But one may be wrong.'

'My dear Armorel, you are a fortunate girl, though you do not understand your good fortune. Alec—I am privileged to call him Alec—has conceived a great interest in you. Oh, not of the common love kind, that you despise so much—nothing to do with your beaux yeux—but on account of your genius. He was greatly taken with your playing: if you will show him your pictures he will give you instruction that may be useful to you. He wants to know you, my dear.'

'Well,' said Armorel, not in the least overwhelmed, 'he can if he pleases, I suppose, since he is a friend of yours.'

'That is not all: he wants your friendship as a sister in art. Such a man—such an offer, Armorel, must not be taken lightly.'

'I am not drawn towards him,' said the girl. 'In fact, I think I rather dislike his voice, which is domineering; and his manner, which seems to me self-conscious and rather pompous; and his eyes, which are too close together. Zoe, if he were not the cleverest man in London, I should say that he was the most crafty.'

Zoe laughed. 'What man discovers by experiment and experience,' she murmured, incoherently, 'woman discovers at a glance. And yet they say——'

CHAPTER VI
THE OTHER STUDIO

For three years Roland Lee had withdrawn from his former haunts and companions. No one knew now where he lived: he had not exhibited: he had resigned his membership at the club: he had gone out of sight. Many London men every year go out of sight. It is quite easy. You have only to leave off going to the well-known places of resort: very soon—so soon that it is humiliating only to think of it—men cease asking where you are: then they cease speaking of you: you are clean gone out of their memory—you and your works—it is as if the sea had closed over you. There is not left a trace or a sign of your existence. Perhaps, now and then, something may revive your name: some little adventure may be remembered: some frolic of youth—for the rest—nothing: Silence: Oblivion. It does, indeed, humiliate those who look on. When such an accident revived the memory of Roland Lee, one would ask another what had become of him. And no one knew. But, of course, he had gone down—down—down. When a man disappears it means that he sinks. He had gone out of sight: therefore he had gone under. Yet, when you climb, you can never get so high as to be invisible. Even the President, R.A., is not invisible. Again, the higher that a balloon soars, the smaller does it grow; but the higher a man climbs up the Hill of Fame the bigger does he show. It is quite certain that when a man has disappeared he has sunk. The only question—and this can never be answered—is, what becomes of the men who sink? One man I heard of—also, like Roland, an artist—who has been traced to a certain tavern, where he fuddles himself every evening, and where you may treat with him for the purchase of his pictures at ten shillings—ay, or even five shillings—apiece. And two scholars—scholars gone under—I heard of the other day. They now reside in the same lodging-house. It is close to the Gray's Inn Road. One lives in the garret, and the other occupies the cellar. In the evening they get drunk together and dispute on points of the finer scholarship. But this only accounts for three. And where are all the rest?

Of Roland Lee nobody knew anything. There was no story or scandal attached to him: he was no drinker: he was no gambler: he was no profligate. But he had vanished.

Yet he had not gone far—only to Keppel Street, which is really a central place. Here he occupied a second floor, and lived alone. Nobody ever called upon him: he had no friends. Sometimes he sat all day long in his studio doing nothing: sometimes he went forth, and wandered about the streets: in the evening he dined at restaurants where he was certain to meet none of his old friends. He lived quite alone. As to that rumour concerning opium, it was an invention of his employer and proprietor. He did not take opium. Day after day, however, he grew more moody. What developments might have followed in this lonely life I know not. Opium, perhaps: whisky, perhaps: melancholia, perhaps. And from melancholia—Good Lord deliver us!

One thing saved him. The work which filled his soul with rage also kept his soul from madness. When the spirit of his Art seized him and held him he forgot everything. He worked as if he was a free man: he forgot everything, until the time came when he had to lay down his palette and to come back to the reality of his life. Some men would have accepted the position: there were, as we have seen, compensations of a solid and comfortable kind: had he chosen to work his hardest, these golden compensations might have run into four figures. Some men might have sat and laughed among their friends, forgetting the ignominy of their slavery. Not so Roland. His chains jangled as he walked; they cut his wrists and galled his ankles: they filled him with so much shame that he was fain to go away and hide himself. And in this manner he enjoyed the great success which his employer had achieved for his pictures. To arrive at the success for which you have always longed and prayed—and to enjoy it in such a fashion. Oh! mockery of fate!

This morning he was at work contentedly—with ardour. He was beginning a picture from one of his sketches: it was to be another study of rocks and sea: as yet there was little to show: it was growing in his brain, and he was so fully wrapped in his invention that he did not hear the door open, and was not conscious that for the first time within three years he had a visitor.

She opened the door and stood for a moment looking about her. The bare and dingy walls, the scanty furniture, the meanness of the place, made her very soul sink within her. For they cried aloud the story of the painter.

For five long years she had thought of him. He was successful: he was rising to the top of the tree: he was conquering the world—so brave, so strong, so clever! There was no height to which he could not rise. She should find him splendid, triumphant, and yet modest—her old friend the same, but glorified. And she found him thus, in this dingy den—so low, so shabby! Consider, if she had risen while he was sinking, how great was now the gulf between them! Then she stepped into the room and stood beside the artist at his easel.

'Roland Lee,' she whispered.

He started, looked up, and recognised her. 'Armorel!' he cried.

Then, strange to say, instead of hastening to meet and greet her, and to hold out hands of welcome, he stood gazing at her stupidly, his face changing colour from crimson to white. His hair was unkempt, she saw; his cheeks worn; his eyes haggard, with deep lines round them; and his dress was shabby and uncared for.

'You have not forgotten me, then?' she said.

'Forgotten you? No. How could I forget you?'

'Then are you pleased to see me? Shake hands with me, Roland Lee.'

He complied, but with restraint. 'Have you dropped from the clouds?' he asked. 'How did you find me here?'

'I met your old friend Dick Stephenson. He told me that you lived here. You are no longer friends: but he has seen you going in and coming out. That is how I found you. Are you well, Roland?'

'Yes, I am well.'

'Does all go well with you, my old friend?'

'Why not? You see—I have got a magnificent studio: there is every outward sign of wealth and prosperity: and if you look into any art-criticisms you will find the papers ringing with my name.'

'You are changed.' Armorel passed over the bitterness of this speech. 'You are a little older, perhaps.' She did not tell him how haggard and worn he looked, how unkempt and unhappy.

'Let me see some of your work,' she said. The picture on the easel was only in its very first stage. She looked about the room. Nothing on the walls but one picture with its face turned round. 'May I look at this?' She turned it round. It was the picture of herself, 'The Princess of Lyonesse,' the sketch of which he had finished on the last day of his holiday. 'Oh!' she cried, 'I remember this. And you have kept it, Roland—you have kept it. I am glad.'

'Yes, I have kept the only picture which I can call my own.'

'Was I like that in those days?'

'You are like that now. Only, the little Princess has become a tall Queen.'

'Yes, yes; I remember. You said, then, that if I should ever look like this, you would be proved to be a painter indeed. Roland, you are a painter indeed.'

'No, no,' he said; 'I am nothing—nothing at all.'

'We were talking—when you made this sketch—of how one can grow to his highest and noblest.'

'I have grown to my lowest,' he replied. 'But you—you——'

'What has happened, my friend? You told me so much once about yourself—you taught me so much—you put so many new things into my head—you must tell me more! What has happened?'

'Nothing.'

'Why are you here in this poor room? I have been to studios in Rome and Florence, and Paris and Vienna: they are lovely rooms, fit for a man whose mind is always full of lovely images and sweet thoughts. But this—this room is not a studio. It is an ugly little prison. How can light and colour visit such a place?'

'It explains itself. It proclaims aloud—Failure—Failure—Failure!'

'This picture is not Failure.'

'My name is unknown. I work on like a mole under ground. I am a Failure. You have seen Dick Stephenson. What did he say of me?'

'He said that you must have left off working. But you have not.'

'What does it matter how much or how long a Failure goes on working?'

'Have you lost heart, Roland?'

'Heart, and hope, and faith. Everything is lost, Armorel!'

'You have lost your courage because you have failed. But many men have failed at first—great men. Robert Browning failed for years. You were brave once, Roland. You were able to say that if you knew you were doing good work you cared nothing for the critics.'

'You see, Dick was right. I no longer do any work. I never send anything to the exhibitions.'

'But why—why—why?'

'Ask me no more questions, Armorel. Go away and leave me. How beautiful and glorious you have grown, child! But I knew you would. And I have gone down so low, and—and—well, you see! Yes. I remember how we talked of growing to our full height. We did not think, you see, of the depths to which we might also drop. There are awful depths, which you could never guess.'

He sank into the chair, and his head dropped.

Armorel stood over him, the tears gathering into her eyes.

'Roland,' she laid her hand upon his shoulder—there is no action more sisterly—'since I have found you I shall not let you go again. It is five years since you went away. You will tell me about yourself, when you please. I have a great deal to tell you. Don't you remember how sympathetic you used to be in the old days? I want a great deal more sympathy now, because I am five years older, and I am trying so much. I want you to hear me play—you were the first who ever praised my playing, you know. And you must see my drawings. I have worked every day, as I promised you I would. I have remembered all your instructions. Come and see your pupil's work, my master.'

He made no reply.

'You live too much alone,' she went on. 'Dick Stephenson told me that you have given up your club, and that you go nowhere, and that no one knows how you live. You have dropped quite away from your old friends. Why did you do that? You live in this dismal room by yourself—alone with your thoughts: no wonder you lose courage and faith.' She opened the portfolio and drew out a number of the sketches. 'Why,' she said, 'here are some of those you made with me. Here is Castle Bryher—you in the boat, and I on the ledge among the sea-weed under the great rock—and the shags in a row on the top: and here is Porth Cressa—and here Peninnis—and here Round Island. Oh! we have so many things to talk about. Will you come to see me?'

'You had better leave me alone, Armorel,' he said. 'Even you can do no good to me now.'

'When will you come? See—I will write down my address. I have a flat, and it is ever so much better furnished than this, Sir. Will you come to-night? I shall be at home. There will be no one but Effie Wilmot. Oh! I am not going to talk about you, but about myself. I want your praise, Roland, and your sympathy. Both were so ready—once. Will you come to-night?'

'You will drive me mad, I think, Armorel!'

'Will you come?'

He shook his head.

'I have got to tell you how I became rich, if you will listen. You must come and hear my news. Why, there is no one but you in all London who knew me when I lived on Samson alone with those old people. You will come to-night, Roland?' Again she laid her hand upon his shoulder. 'I will ask no questions about you—none at all. You will tell me what you please about yourself. But you must let me talk to you about myself, as frankly as in the old days. If you have got any kindly memory left of me at all, Roland, you will come.'

He rose and lifted his shameful eyes to hers, so full of pity and of tears.

'Yes,' he said; 'I will do whatever you tell me.'

CHAPTER VII
A CANDID OPINION

Something more than a year ago two such young people came up from the country, and found shelter in a London lodging-house, where they could work and study until success should arrive. They were boy and girl, brother and sister—twins. They had very little money, and could afford no more than one sitting-room. Therefore, one worked in the sitting-room and the other in a bedroom, because their occupations demanded solitude. The one in the sitting-room was the girl. She was engaged in the pursuit of poetry: she made verses continually, every day. Unless she was reading verse, she was either making, or polishing, or devising verses. Of all pursuits in the world this is at once the most absorbing and the most delightful. It is also, with the greater part of these who follow it, the most useless. Thomas the Rhymer sits down and takes his pen: it is nine of the clock. He considers: he writes: he scratches out: he writes again: he corrects again: after ten minutes or so, he looks up. It is three in the afternoon: the luncheon hour is past: the morning is gone: all he has to show for the six golden hours, when an account of them is demanded, will be a single stanza of a ballade. And perhaps not a single editor will look at it. To Effie Wilmot, the girl-twin, thus engaged morning after morning, the hours become moments and the days minutes. The result and outcome of her labours you have already learned. But she was young, and she lived in hope. A few more weeks, and the great man, her patron, would have satisfied that whim of wishing to be thought a poet of society. Strange that one who painted pictures of such wonderful beauty, who wrote such charming stories in such endless variety—stories quaint and bizarre, stories pathetic, stories humorous—should so condescend! What could a few simple verses—such as hers—do to increase his fame? However, that was nearly over. She felt quite happy and light-hearted: as happy as if, like other poets, she was writing things that would appear with her own name: she pursued the light and airy fancies of her brain, capturing one or two, chaining them in the prison of her rhymes, which, of course, were set to the old-new tunes affected by the little poets of the day. If they have got no message to deliver, they can at least come on the stage and repeat over again the old things clad in dress revived. We can keep on dressing up in the poet's habit until the poet himself shall come along.

Effie worked on, sitting at the window. Poets can work anywhere, though, of course, they ought to sit habitually on the sides of hills, with hanging woods and mountain-streams and waterfalls. But they can work just as well in a mean London lodging, such as this where Effie sat, looking out, if she looked through the curtain, upon a most commonplace street. We can all—common spirits as well as poets—rise above our streets and houses and our dingy setting—otherwise there would be no work done at all. Nay, if we were all cockered up, and daintily surrounded with things æsthetic and artistic and beautiful, I believe we should be so happy that nobody would ever do anything. The poet would murmur his thoughts in indolent rhyme by the fireside: the musician would drop his fingers among the notes, echoing faintly and imperfectly the music in his soul—all for his own enjoyment: the story-teller would tell his stories to his wife: the dramatist would make plots without words for his children to act: the painter would half sketch his visions and leave them unfinished. Art would die.

No such temptations were offered to Effie. The æsthetic movement had not touched that ground-floor front. The shaky round table stood under the flaring gas which every night made her head ache; the chiffonier contained in its recesses the tea and sugar and bread and butter, and, when the money ran to such luxuries, her jam or her honey or her oranges. There was one easy-chair and one arm-chair; and before the window a small square table, which had, at least, the merit of being firm; and at this she wrote. Everybody knows this kind of room perfectly.

The poetic workshop is always kept locked. No poet ever tells of the terrific struggles he has to encounter before he finally subdues his thought and compels it to walk or run in double harness of rhythm and rhyme. No poet ever confesses how he sometimes has to let that thought go because he cannot subdue it—nay, the same discomfiture has been reported of those who, like M. Jourdain, speak in prose. And no poet ever shows, as a painter will readily show us, the first sketch, the first rough draft of a poem, the unfinished lines, the first feeble attempts at the rhythmic expression of a great thought. Let us respect the mystery of the craft—have we not all dabbled in verse and essayed to play upon the scrannel-pipe?

It was towards noon, however, that Effie was disturbed by the arrival of a visitor. The event was so unusual—so unprecedented even—that no instructions had ever been given to the lodging-house servant in the art of introducing callers. She therefore opened the door, and put in her head—'A gentleman, Miss'—and went downstairs, leaving the gentleman to walk in if he pleased.

'You, Mr. Feilding?' Effie cried, springing to her feet. 'Oh! This is, indeed——'

The great man took her hand. 'My dear child,' he said, 'I have been thinking over our conversation of the other day. I am, of course, only anxious to be of service to you and to your brother, and so I thought I would call.' He was quite magnificent in his fur-lined coat, and he was very tall and big, so that he seemed to fill up the whole room. But he had an unusual air of hesitation. 'I thought,' he repeated, 'that I would call. Yes——'

The girl sat with her hands in her lap, waiting.

'You remember what I told you about—the—the verses which you sometimes bring me——'

'Oh! Yes. I remember. It is so kind of you, Mr. Feilding, so very kind and noble——' For the moment the dazzling prospect of seeing her verses acknowledged as her own in place of seeing them adopted by the Editor, made her believe that none but a truly noble person could do such a thing.

'I mean to begin even sooner than I had intended. It is true that when I took your verses I made them my own by those little touches and corrections which, as you know very well, distinguish true poetry from its imitation'—It was not until he was gone that Effie remembered that not a single alteration had ever been made. So great is the power of the human voice that for the moment she listened and acquiesced, subdued and ashamed of herself—'At last, my young friend, the time for alteration and improvement is past. You can now stand alone—your verses signed—if, of course, we remain, as I hope, on the same friendly relations.'

'Oh!' she murmured.

'Enough. We understand each other. Your brother, you told me, is at work on a play—a romantic drama.'

'Yes. He has finished it. He has been at work upon it for two years, thinking of nothing else all day.'

Mr. Feilding nodded approval.

'That is the way,' he said heartily, 'to produce good work. Perfect—absolute—devotion—regardless of any earthly consideration. Art—Art—before all else. And now it is done?'

'Yes; he is copying it out.'

'Effie'—he suddenly changed the subject—'you have never told me of your resources. Tell me! I do not ask out of idle curiosity. That you are not rich I know——'

'No, we are not rich. We have a little—a thousand pounds apiece—and we have resolved to live on that, and on what we can get besides, until we have made our way. We have no rich relations to help us. My father is a country clergyman with a small living. We came to town so that Archie could get treatment for his hip. He is better now, and we shall stay altogether if we can only hold on.'

'A thousand pounds each. That is seventy pounds a year, I suppose?'

'Yes. But during the last twelve months you have given me a hundred pounds for my verses—three pounds for every poem, and there were thirty-three altogether in the volume—"Voices and Echoes," you know.'

The poet who had published these verses did not change colour or show any sign of emotion in the presence of the poet who had written them. He nodded his head. 'Yes,' he said, 'on a hundred and seventy pounds a year you can live—on seventy you would starve. Where is your brother?'

'He works in his bedroom. It is the room behind, on the same floor. My room is upstairs.'

'He requires, I suppose, good food, wine, and certain luxuries?'

'When we can afford them. Since you took my verses we have been able to buy things.'

'Your money is well expended. I should like to see your brother, Effie.'

'I will take you to him,' she said. But she hesitated and blushed. 'Oh! Mr. Feilding, Archie knows nothing about the—the volumes, you know! He sees only the verses in the paper. And he only knows that you have been so kind as to take them. Don't tell him anything else.'

'Your secret, Effie,' he replied generously, 'is safe with me. He shall not know it from my lips.'

She thanked him. Again, it was not until he was gone that Effie remembered that he could not possibly reveal that fact to her brother.

She led him into the room, at the back of which was her brother's study and bedroom as well.

Her brother might have been herself, save for a slight manly growth upon the upper lip, and for the pale cheek of ill health. The same large forehead overhanging the face, eyes sunken but as bright as his sister's, the same sensitive lips were his. A finer face than his sister's, and stronger, but not so sweet. Beside his chair a pair of crutches proclaimed that he was a cripple. Before him was a table, at which he was writing. There were on the table, besides his writing materials, a number of little dolls, some of which were arranged in groups, while others were lying about unused. He was copying his finished play: as he copied it he played the scenes with the dolls and spoke the dialogue. The dolls were his characters: there was not a single scene or change of the grouping which this conscientious young dramatist had not rehearsed over and over again, until every line of the dialogue had its own stage picture, clear and distinct in his mind.

'You are Mr. Feilding?' he asked, rising with some difficulty. 'I have heard so much of you from Effie. It is a great honour to have a call from you.'

'I take a deep interest,' the great man replied, 'in anything that concerns Miss Effie Wilmot. I have been able—I believe you know—to give her some assistance and advice in her work. Oh!'—he waved his hand to deprecate any expressions of gratitude—'I have done very little—very little indeed. Now, about yourself. I learn from your sister that you have ambitions—you would become a dramatist?'

'I have no other ambition. It is my only dream.'

'A very good dream indeed. And you have made, I am told, a start—a maiden effort—a preliminary flight to try your wings. You have written your first attempt at a play?'

'Yes. It is here. It is finished.'

'Tell me, briefly, the plot.'

Some young dramatists mar their plot in getting it out. This young man had taken the trouble to write out first a rough outline of his piece and next a complete scenario with every situation detailed. These he read to his visitor one after the other.

'Yes,' said Mr. Feilding, when he had finished; 'there is something in the idea of the play. Perhaps not a completely novel motif. A good deal might be said as to the arrangement of the scenes. And one or two of the characters might—but these are details. Remains to find out how the dialogue goes. Will you read me a scene or two?'

The dramatist read. As he read he might have observed in the eyes of his listener a growing eagerness, as of one who vehemently yearns to get possession of something—his neighbour's vineyard, for example, or his solitary ewe lamb. But the reader did not observe this. He was wholly wrapped in his piece: he threw his soul into the reading: he was anxious only that his words and his situations should produce the best effect upon his hearer.

'Yes, yes; your dialogue, unhappily, shows the want of skill common to the beginner,' said Mr. Feilding, when he had finished. 'It will have to be completely rewritten. As it stands now, the play would be simply killed by it, in spite of the situations, which, with some alterations, are really pretty good—pretty good for a first effort.'

'You don't think, then—that——' the dramatist's voice broke down. Consider: for two long years he had done nothing but cast, recast, write, rewrite this play. He had dreamed all this time of success with this play. And now—now—the very first critic—and that the most accomplished man of the day—no less than Mr. Alec Feilding—told him that the play would not be received unless the dialogue was entirely rewritten. He could not rewrite the dialogue. It was a part of himself. As well ask him to remake his own face or to reconstruct his legs. His face fell: his cheeks grew pale: his eyes filled with unmanly tears.

'I am truly sorry, believe me,' said the critic, 'to throw cold water on your hopes. I have been myself an aspirant. Yet'—he hesitated in his kindliness—'why encourage illusive expectations? The play as it is—I say, as it is only—must be pronounced totally unfit for the stage. No manager would think of it for a moment.'

'Then I may as well throw it on the fire? And all my work wasted!'

'Nay—not wasted. Good work—true work—is never wasted. You ought to have learned much—very much—from this two years' labour. And, as for putting it into the fire'—he laughed genially—'I believe I can show you a better way than that. Look here, Archie—I call you by your Christian name because I have so often talked about you: we are old friends—I should be really sorry to think that you had actually lost all your time. Give me this play: I will take it—skeleton, scenario, dialogue—all, just as it is—the mere rough, crude, shapeless thing that it is. I will buy it of you—useless as it is. I will give you fifty pounds down for it, and it shall become my property—my own, absolutely. I shall then, perhaps, recast and rewrite the play from beginning to end. When I have made a play out of it worth putting on the stage—when, in short, I have made it my own play—I may possibly bring it out—possibly. Most likely, however, not. There's a chance for you, Archie, such as you will never get again! Fifty pounds down—think of that! Fifty pounds!'

The dramatist laid his hand, for reply, upon his papers.

'If it should ever be brought out,' this good Samaritan went on, 'you will come and see it acted. What a splendid lesson it will be for you in the art of writing drama!'

The dramatist's fingers tightened on his manuscript.

'Of course you must consider your sister,' the considerate critic continued. 'She has been able to make a few pounds of late, having been so fortunate as to attract the interest of... one who is not wholly without influence. Should that interest fail or be withdrawn you might have—both of you—to suffer much privation. The luxuries which you now enjoy would be impossible—and——'

'Oh, you kill me!' cried the unfortunate youth.

'Shall I leave you for the present? My offer is always open—on the condition of secrecy—one is bound to keep business transactions secret. I will leave you now. There is no hurry. Think it over carefully and send me an answer.'

He went out and shut the door. The young dramatist, I am ashamed to say, fell to tears and weeping over the destruction of his hopes.

'Effie,' said Mr. Feilding, 'I have talked with your brother. He has read some of the play to me——'

'And you think?' she asked him eagerly.

He shook his head mournfully. 'The boy has much to learn—very much. Meantime, the play itself is worthless—quite worthless.'

'Oh! Poor boy! And he has built so much upon it.'

'Yes—they all do at the outset. Mind, Effie, he is a clever boy: he will do. Meantime, he must study.'

'Oh! Poor Archie! Poor boy!'

'It seems hard, doesn't it, not to succeed all at once? Yet Browning and Tennyson and Thackeray were all well on for forty before they succeeded. Why should he despair? Meantime I have made him a little offer.'

'Oh! Mr. Feilding, you are always so good.'

'I have offered to give him fifty pounds—down—and to take this rough unlicked thing he calls a Play. If I find time I shall, perhaps, rewrite the whole, and put it on the stage. It will then, of course, be my own—my own, Effie. Good-bye, child. I have not forgotten our talk—or my promise—if we remain on friendly relations.'

He went away. Effie sank into a chair. What she had done with her own work had never seemed to her half so terrible as what was now proposed to be done with her brother's work.

She crept into his room. He sat with his head in his hands, most mournful of bards since the world began.

'Archie, I know—I know; he has told me. Oh! Archie—do you think it is true?'