III.
TERPSICHORE’S STORY: THE UNDER-STUDY.
A SHORT pause, and then Erato spoke, addressing Clio:
“Clio, my dear, and reverend sister, do you think these young men below us, in the colleges, have gone to bed yet?”
“My dear child,” said Clio, “you could hardly expect me to——well, as far as I can judge, some of them are still up and at work. The young red-headed man is stamping up and down his room, as if he were angry. He has discovered that his hexameter would not do, for
and he has been trying it a different way. Now he moans: ‘“Caput erat nudum”—and the “a” ’s short, and I wish I was dead!”’
“I asked the question,” said Erato, “because a story has just occurred to me, which I should like to tell you. I read it in the French. I don’t think it would hurt the young men, even if they could hear it. I’ll tone it down a little, of course. There’s one splendid part where the husband——” She paused suddenly.
“Yes,” said Thalia drily. “In those pretty French stories there generally is one splendid part where the husband——” and she also paused suddenly. She looked at Erato, and they both smiled.
“Certainly not! Most certainly not!” said Clio at once. “You must remember, Erato, that this is not the Greek civilisation. The English have got beyond that: they have advanced; they sweep through the deep while the stormy winds do blow, and hearts of oak are their men, and they’d take a cup o’ kindness yet on the place where the old hoss died. I make these last remarks on the authority of their own favourite songs, of which I have made a special study for my book on National Misfortunes. I assure you, Erato, that any University paper which printed your story would be ruined.”
“Ah, well!” answered Erato. “I have heard it said that Love’s a lost art nowadays.” She paused a second, and then added: “Perhaps—perhaps they are happier without it.”
“I don’t think so,” said Terpsichore. “Everything depends on the way you take it. Some take their love laughing, and some take it crying. I always take it laughing myself. Either way, you’re happier for it.”
“Really, Terpsichore,” murmured Clio reprovingly.
Terpsichore did not heed her. “Where they are so wrong nowadays is in taking their love commercially; in other words, they do not love; they simply acquire all rights in a cheap housekeeper or an expensive table ornament. They are so much too judicious. Yet sometimes—well, there was a man—shall I go on?”
“Yes, do,” said Erato.
And this is the way that Terpsichore went on:—
There was a man once—not very long ago—who was poor, but artistic; and during his life he had rather more than his share of coincidences. It happened one autumn that he was amusing himself by wandering about a country that was good enough for an artist, but failed to attract many tourists because it did not boast enough places where you had to pay for admission. He had stayed a few days in a little village, where there was one street that went tumbling downhill, sometimes with cottages on each side, sometimes through clumps of stunted trees, sometimes with the open heath all round it. It happened one night that he was wandering down this street, and had reached one of those places where the street turned into a country lane for a time, or rather for a space. He was smoking, and humming to himself a song that he had heard Viola sing a few months before.
Viola had taken very fair hold of the town that season. It was not only that she sang divinely; she was beautiful, and a little mysterious. The numerous stories told about her were rendered probable by her beauty, which was rather wicked; but no one could be certain about them because she was so mysterious. Besides, many of the stories were self-contradictory.
On one side of the road was a cottage, standing by itself, and partly screened by the shrubs which grew in the small garden in front of it. Here the man stopped short, for the lower windows of the cottage were open, and from within he could hear some one singing the very song which he had just been humming. Some one? Why, it could be no other than Viola herself who was singing it like that! He had always been interested in Viola, although he had seen her only on the stage. It was her reputation that she loved splendour and luxury. What could she be doing in this quiet, out-of-the-way village?
He leaned over the low garden gate, resting his elbows on the top of it, and listened until the song’s conclusion. The room in the cottage was brightly lighted, and the curtains were not drawn over the window; he had heard rightly; it was Viola. He could see her distinctly. She was standing with her face towards the garden; and the man watched her attentively. The mystery increased. Her dress was brilliant, not the dress that a woman would put on in solitude and in a country village. She was wearing her diamonds too—those diamonds about which every story had been told except the true one. What was the reason for it all? Was this simply her passion for splendour, existing even when the splendour was to have no witnesses. The little, shabby, taciturn old woman who acted as her companion in London was seated at the piano, and had been playing the music for her song. But surely Viola would not have made herself so magnificent simply on her account.
It suddenly dawned on him that he was doing rather a mean thing by watching Viola in this way. He would not look any more, but he would wait, in case she should be going to sing again. That was love of music—not curiosity.
But even as he was making this decision the door of the cottage opened, and Viola came out. She walked straight up the pathway towards the gate on which the man was leaning; there was not the least hesitation about her.
“I wonder how on earth she managed to see me in this darkness?” he thought. “Well, I’m not going to run away. I will wait, and make my apologies to her. I expect she will be angry with me. Well, she should not leave the windows open when she sings, if she does not want people to stop and listen.”
As she drew near to him she murmured a few words in Italian, as if she were pleased about something; he conjectured that much, for he could not understand Italian. Then she astonished him by placing her hands on his shoulders, and kissing him, once, passionately.
It flashed across him for an instant that she had been expecting some one else, and had made a mistake. Now he understood the dress, the diamonds—everything.
“Excuse me, my dear lady,” he said, “but you are kissing the wrong face—are you not?” He afterwards thought that he might have expressed himself better, but he was agitated.
She, on the other hand, never lost her composure for a second. She spoke in English, with the faintest possible stammer:
“Yes, th—thanks; it is the wrong face. Would you t—take it away?”
He retired at once, walked twenty yards down the road, and then met the full humour of the situation. He laughed a long, suppressed laugh. He went on and on, away from the village, out over the heath, away from the haunts of men. And, as he walked, the humour of the situation vanished again; but the night was full of her music, her queenliness, the fragrant charm of her presence. “Viola,” he said softly, “Viola, what a heavenly mistake!”
Three years passed away. The poor but artistic man grew slowly wealthy in those years. The exaltation of that night never left him; he was full of brightness and happiness; his work was all light and strength. He grew popular—partly by reason of his excellent spirits, and partly because of his finer qualities. His luck was proverbially good; but he had enough hope, optimism, and vigour to have carried him safely through the most trying fortunes. His reputation was at its brightest when his death came.
He was in an accident—a commonplace railway accident—an accident that passed over a dishonest commercial traveller in one compartment, and killed the artist in the next. There was a short period, however, chiefly occupied by delirium, between the accident and the man’s death.
It was at the end of the delirium that he turned to the friend who was by his bedside, and asked abruptly:
“Have I been speaking of Viola?”
“Yes; of course I wouldn’t——”
“Of course. All the time?”
“All the time.”
“Were you surprised?”
“Well, I have known you most of your life, and I never heard you speak of her before—not in that way at all. I did not know that you had been her lover.”
“I was not. But once, before she left England, I was—I was her lover’s under-study. I have lived on it ever since,” he added, after a pause.
Then, through some queer freak of the brain, the humour of the mistaken kiss appealed to him again, and he began to laugh—uncontrollably, as if the thing had just happened.
Laughter was the worst thing possible for him in that state. He died laughing.
“I suppose she—Viola—didn’t care,” said Erato thoughtfully, when Terpsichore had finished her story.
“You forget that she had some one else to think about. Did you ever know a woman yet that thought twice, by way of pity, about a man she did not love, when she had a man that she did love to think about?”
“N—no,” Erato replied.
There was a moment’s pause. “Personally I don’t mind,” said Clio, “but—considering where we are—do you think that last story quite—quite judicious?”