George Gissing
The Crown of Life
CHAPTER XXXII
Again it was springtime—the spring of 1894. Two years had gone by since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable in flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have afflicted him. Olga Hannaford—Mrs. Florio—was matter for a smile; he hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her hand with the old friendliness, and wish her well.
He had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, and was making arrangements for a visit to England, when one morning there came to him a letter which made his eyes sparkle and his heart beat high with joy. In the afternoon, having given more than wonted care to his dress, he set forth from the lodging he occupied at the lower end of the Nevski Prospect, and walked to the Hotel de France, near the Winter Palace, where he inquired for Mrs. Borisoff. After a little delay, he was conducted to a private sitting-room, where again he waited. On a table lay two periodicals, at which he glanced, recognising with a smile recent numbers of the Nineteenth Century and the Vyestnik Evropy.
There entered a lady with a bright English face, a lady in the years between youth and middle age, frank, gracious, her look of interest speaking a compliment which Otway found more than agreeable.
"I have kept you waiting," she said, in a tone that dispensed with formalities, "because I was on the point of going out when they brought your card–"
"Oh, I am sorry–"
"But I am not. Instead of twaddle and boredom round somebody or other's samovar, I am going to have honest talk under the chaperonage of an English teapot—my own teapot, which I carry everywhere. But don't be afraid; I shall not give you English tea. What a shame that I have been here for two months without our meeting! I have talked about you—wanted to know you. Look!"
She pointed to the periodicals which Piers had already noticed.
"No," she went on, checking him as he was about to sit down, "that is your chair. If you sat on the other, you would be polite and grave and—like everybody else; I know the influence of chairs. That is the chair my husband selects when he wishes to make me understand some point of etiquette. Miss Derwent warned you, no doubt, of my shortcomings in etiquette?"
"All she said to me," replied Piers, laughing, "was that you are very much her friend."
"Well, that is true, I hope. Tell me, please; is the article in the Vyestnik your own Russian?"
"Not entirely. I have a friend named Korolevitch, who went through it for me."
"Korolevitch? I seem to know that name. Is he, by chance, connected with some religious movement, some heresy?"
"I was going to say I am sorry he is; yet I can't be sorry for what honours the man. He has joined the Dukhobortsi; has sold his large estate, and is devoting all the money to their cause. I'm afraid he'll go to some new-world colony, and I shall see little of him henceforth. A great loss to me."
Mrs. Borisoff kept her eyes upon him as he spoke, seeming to reflect rather than to listen.
"I ought to tell you," she said, "that I don't know Russian. Irene—Miss Derwent almost shamed me into working at it; but I am so lazy—ah, so lazy! you are aware, of course, that Miss Derwent has learnt it?"
"Has learnt Russian?" exclaimed Piers. "I didn't know—I had no idea–"
"Wonderful girl! I suppose she thinks it a trifle."
"It's so long," said Otway, "since I had any news of Miss Derwent. I can hardly consider myself one of her friends—at least, I shouldn't have ventured to do so until this morning, when I was surprised and delighted to have a letter from her about that Nineteenth Century article, sent through the publishers. She spoke of you, and asked me to call—saying she had written an introduction of me by the same post."
Mrs. Borisoff smiled oddly.
"Oh yes; it came. She didn't speak of the Vyestnik?"
"No."
"Yet she has read it—I happen to know. I'm sorry I can't. Tell me about it, will you?"
The Russian article was called "New Womanhood in England." It began with a good-tempered notice of certain novels then popular, and passed on to speculations regarding the new ideals of life set before English women. Piers spoke of it as a mere bit of apprentice work, meant rather to amuse than as a serious essay.
"At all events, it's a success," said his listener. "One hears of it in every drawing-room. Wonderful thing—you don't sneer at women. I'm told you are almost on our side—if not quite. I've heard a passage read into French—the woman of the twentieth century. I rather liked it."
"Not altogether?" said Otway, with humorous diffidence.
"Oh! A woman never quite likes an ideal of womanhood which doesn't quite fit her notion of herself. But let us speak of the other thing, in the Nineteenth Century—'The Pilgrimage to Kief.' For life, colour, sympathy, I think it altogether wonderful. I have heard Russians say that they couldn't have believed a foreigner had written it."
"That's the best praise of all."
"You mean to go on with this kind of thing? You might become a sort of interpreter of the two nations to each other. An original idea. The everyday thing is to exasperate Briton against Russ, and Russ against Briton, with every sort of cheap joke and stale falsehood. All the same Mr. Otway, I'm bound to confess to you that I don't like Russia."
"No more do I," returned Piers, in an undertone. "But that only means, I don't like the worst features of the Middle ages. The Russian-speaking cosmopolitan whom you and I know isn't Russia; he belongs to the Western Europe of to-day, his country represents Western Europe of some centuries ago. Not strictly that, of course; we must allow for race; but it's how one has to think of Russia."
Again Mrs. Borisoff scrutinised him as he spoke, averting her eyes at length with an absent smile.
"Here comes my tutelary teapot," she said, as a pretty maid-servant entered with a tray. "A phrase I got from Irene, by the bye—from Miss Derwent, who laughs at my carrying the thing about in my luggage. She has clever little phrases of that sort, as you know."
"Yes," fell from Piers, dreamily. "But it's so long since I heard her talk."
When he had received his cup of tea, and sipped from it, he asked with a serious look:
"Will you tell me about her?"
"Of course I will. But you must first tell me about yourself. You were in business in London, I believe?"
"For about a year. Then I found myself with enough to live upon, and came back to Russia. I had lived at Odessa–"
"You may presuppose a knowledge of what came before," interrupted Mrs. Borisoff, with a friendly nod.
"I lived for several months with Korolevitch, on his estate near Poltava. We used to talk—heavens! how we talked! Sometimes eight hours at a stretch. I learnt a great deal. Then I wandered up and down Russia, still learning."
"Writing, too?"
"The time hadn't come for writing. Korolevitch gave me no end of useful introductions. I've had great luck on my travels."
"Pray, when did you make your studies of English women?"
Piers tried to laugh; declared he did not know.
"I shouldn't wonder if you generalise from one or two?" said his hostess, letting her eyelids droop as she observed him lazily. "Do you know Russian women as well?"
By begging for another cup of tea, and adding a remark on some other subject, Piers evaded this question.
"And what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Borisoff "Stay here, and write more articles?"
"I'm going to England in a few days for the summer."
"That's what I think I shall do. But I don't know what part to go to. Advise me, can you? Seaside—no; I don't like the seaside. Do you notice how people—our kind of people, I mean—are losing their taste for it in England? It's partly, I suppose, because of the excursion train. One doesn't grudge the crowd its excursion train, but it's so much nicer to imagine their blessedness than to see it. Or are you for the other point of view?"
Otway gave an expressive look.
"That's right. Oh, the sham philanthropic talk that goes on in England! How it relieves one to say flatly that one does not love the multitude!—No seaside, then. Lakes—no; Wales—no; Highlands—no. Isn't there some part of England one would like if one discovered it?"
"Do you want solitude?" asked Piers, becoming more interested.
"Solitude? H'm!" She handed a box of cigarettes, and herself took one. "Yes, solitude. I shall try to get Miss Derwent to come for a time. New Forest—no, Please, please, do suggest! I'm nervous; your silence teases me."
"Do you know the Yorkshire dales?" asked Otway, watching her as she watched a nice little ring of white smoke from the end of her cigarette.
"No! That's an idea. It's your own country, isn't it?"
"But—how do you know that?"
"Dreamt it."
"I wasn't born there, but lived there as a child, and later a little. You might do worse than the dales, if you like that kind of country. Wensleydale, for instance. There's an old Castle, and a very interesting one, part of it habitable, where you can get quarters."
"A Castle? Superb!"
"Where Queen Mary was imprisoned for a time, till she made an escape–"
"Magnificent! Can I have the whole Castle to myself?"
"The furnished part of it, unless someone else has got it already for this summer. There's a family, the caretakers, always in possession—if things are still as they used to be."
"Write for me at once, will you? Write immediately! There is paper on the desk."
Piers obeyed. Whilst he sat penning the letter, Mrs. Borisoff lighted a second cigarette, her face touched with a roguish smile. She studied Otway's profile for a moment; became grave; fell into a mood of abstraction, which shadowed her features with weariness and melancholy. Turning suddenly to put a question, Piers saw the change in her look, and was so surprised that he forgot what he was going to say.
"Finished?" she asked, moving nervously in her chair.
When the letter was written, Mrs. Borisoff resumed talk in the same tone as before.
"You have heard of Dr. Derwent's discoveries about diphtheria?– That's the kind of thing one envies, don't you think? After all, what can we poor creatures do in this world, but try to ease each other's pain? The man who succeeds in that is the man I honour."
"I too," said Piers. "But he is lost sight of, nowadays, in comparison with the man who invents a new gun or a new bullet."
"Yes—the beasts!" exclaimed Mrs. Borisoff, with a laugh. "What a world! I'm always glad I have no children. But you wanted to speak, not about Dr. Derwent, but Dr. Derwent's daughter."
Piers bent forward, resting his chin on his hand.
"Tell me about her—will you?"
"There's not much to tell. You knew about the broken-off marriage?"
"I knew it was broken off."
"Why, that's all anyone knows, except the two persons concerned. It isn't our business. The world talks far too much about such things—don't you think? when we are civilised, there'll be no such things as public weddings, and talk about anyone's domestic concerns will be the grossest impertinence. That's an obiter dictum. I was going to say that Irene lives with her father down in Kent. They left Bryanston Square half a year after the affair. They wander about the Continent together, now and then. I like that chumming of father and daughter; it speaks well for both."
"When did you see her last?"
"About Christmas. We went to a concert together. That's one of the things Irene is going in for—music. When I first knew her, she didn't seem to care much about it, though she played fairly well."
"I never heard her play," fell from Piers in an undertone.
"No; she only did to please her father now and then. It's a mental and moral advance, her new love of music. I notice that she talks much less about science, much more about the things one really likes—I speak for myself. Well, it's just possible I have had a little influence there. I confess my inability to chat about either physic or physics. It's weak, of course, but I have no place in your new world of women."
"You mistake, I think," said Piers. "That ideal has nothing to do with any particular study. It supposes intelligence, that's all."
"So much the better. You must write about it in English; then we'll debate. By the bye, if I go to your Castle, you must come down to show me the country."
"I should like to."
"Oh, that's part of the plan. If we don't get the Castle, you must find some other place for me. I leave it in your hands—with an apology for my impudence."
After a pause, during which each of them mused smiling, they began to talk of their departure for England. Otway would go direct in a few days' time; Mrs. Borisoff had to travel a long way round, first of all accompanying her husband to the Crimea, on a visit to relatives. She mentioned her London hotel, and an approximate date when she might be heard of there.
"Get the Castle if you possibly can," were her words as they parted. "I have set my heart on the Castle."
"So have I," said Piers, avoiding her look.
And Mrs. Borisoff laughed.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Once in the two years' interval he had paid a short visit to England. He came on disagreeable business—to see his brother Daniel, who had fallen into the hands of the police on an infamous charge, and only by the exertions of clever counsel (feed by Piers) received the benefit of a doubt and escaped punishment. Daniel had already written him several begging letters, and, when detected in what looked like crime, declared that poverty and ill-health were his excuse. He was a broken man. Surmising his hidden life, Piers wondered at the pass a man can be brought to, in our society, by his primitive instincts; instincts which may lead, when they are impetuous, either to grimiest degradation or loftiest attainment. To save him, if possible, from the worst extremities, Piers granted him a certain small income, to be paid weekly, and therewith bade him final adieu.
The firm of Moncharmont & Co. grew in moderate prosperity. Its London representative was a far better man, from the commercial point of view, than Piers Otway, and on visiting the new offices—which he did very soon after reaching London, in the spring of 1894—Piers marvelled how the enterprise had escaped shipwreck during those twelve months which were so black in his memory with storm and stress. The worst twelve month of his life!—with the possible exception of that which he spent part at Ewell, part at Odessa.
Since, he had sailed in no smooth water; had seen no haven. But at least he sailed onward, which gave him courage. Was courage to be now illumined with hope? He tried to keep that thought away from him; he durst not foster it. Among the papers he brought with him to England was a letter, which, having laid it aside, he never dared to open again. He knew it by heart—unfortunately for his peace.
He returned to another London than that he had known, a London which smiled welcome. It was his duty, no less than his pleasure, to call upon certain people for whom he had letters of introduction from friends in Russia, and their doors opened wide to him. Upon formalities followed kindness; the season was beginning, and at his modest lodgings arrived cards, notes, bidding to ceremonies greater and less; one or two of these summonses bore names which might have stirred envy in the sons of fashion.
Solus feci! He allowed himself a little pride. His doing, it was true, had as yet been nothing much to the eye of the world; but he had made friends under circumstances not very favourable, friends among the intelligent and the powerful. That gift, it seemed, was his, if no other—the ability to make himself liked, respected. He, by law the son of nobody, had begun to approve himself true son of the father he loved and honoured.
His habits were vigorous. Rising very early, he walked across the Park, and had a swim in the Serpentine. The hours of the solid day he spent, for the most part, in study at the British Museum. Then, if he had no engagement, he generally got by train well out of town, and walked in sweet air until nightfall; or, if weather were bad, he granted himself the luxury of horse-hire, and rode—rode, teeth set against wind and rain. This earned him sleep—his daily prayer to the gods.
At the date appointed, he went in search of Mrs. Borisoff, who welcomed him cordially. Her first inquiry was whether he had got the Castle.
"I have got it," Piers replied, and entered into particulars. They talked about it like children anticipating a holiday. Mrs. Borisoff then questioned him about his doings since he had been in England. On his mentioning a certain great lady, a Russian, with whom he was to dine next week, his friend replied with a laugh, which she refused to explain.
"When can you spend an evening here? I don't mean a dinner. I'll give you something to eat, but it doesn't count; you come to talk, as I know you can, though you didn't let me suspect it at Petersburg. I shall have one or two others, old chums, not respectable people. Name your own day."
When the evening came, Piers entered Mrs. Borisoff's drawing-room with trepidation. He glanced at the guest who had already arrived—a lady unknown to him. When again the door opened, he looked, trembling. His fearful hope ended only in a headache, but he talked, as was expected of him, and the hostess smiled approval.
"These friends of yours," he said aside to her, before leaving, "are nice people to know. But–"
And he broke off, meeting her eyes.
"I don't understand," said his hostess, with a perplexed look.
"Then I daren't try to make you."
A few days after, at the great house of the great Russian lady, he ascended the stairs without a tremor, glanced round the room with indifference. No one would be there whom he could not face calmly. Brilliant women awed him a little at first, but it was not till afterwards, in the broken night following such occasions as this, that they had power over his imagination; then he saw them, drawn upon darkness, their beauty without that halo of worldly grandeur which would not allow him to forget the gulf between them. The hostess herself shone by quality of intellect rather than by charm of feature; she greeted him with subtlest flattery, a word or two of simple friendliness in her own language, and was presenting him to her husband, when, from the doorway, sounded a name which made Otway's heart leap, and left him tongue-tied.
"Mrs. Borisoff and Miss Derwent."
He turned, but with eyes downcast: for a moment he durst not raise them. He moved, insensibly, a few steps backward, shadowed himself behind two men who were conversing together. And at length he looked.
With thrill of marvelling and rapture, with chill of self-abasement. When, years ago, he saw Irene in the dress of ceremony, she seemed to him peerlessly radiant; but it was the beauty and the dignity of one still girlish. What he now beheld was the exquisite fulfilment of that bright promise. He had not erred in worship; she who had ever been to him the light of life, the beacon of his passionate soul, shone before him supreme among women. What head so noble in its unconscious royalty! What form so faultless in its mould and bearing! He heard her speak—the graceful nothings of introduction and recognition; it was Irene's voice toned to a fuller music. Then her face dazzled, grew distant; he turned away to command himself.
Mrs. Borisoff spoke beside him.
"Have you no good-evening for me?"
"So this is what you meant?"
"You have a way of speaking in riddles."
"And you—a way of acting divinely. Tell me," his voice sank, and his words were hurried. "May I go up to her as any acquaintance would? May I presume that she knows me?"
"You mean Miss Derwent? But—why not? I don't understand you."
"No—I forget—it seems to you absurd. Of course—she wrote and introduced me to you–"
"You are amusing—which is more than can be said of everyone."
She bent her head and turned to speak with someone else. Piers, with what courage he knew not, stepped across the carpet to where Miss Derwent was sitting. She saw his approach, and held her hand to him as if they had met only the other day. That her complexion was a little warmer than its wont, Piers had no power of perceiving; he saw only her eyes, soft-shining as they rose to his, in their depths an infinite gentleness.
"How glad I am that you got my letter just before leaving Petersburg!"
"How kind of you to introduce me to Mrs. Borisoff!"
"I thought you would soon be friends."
It was all they could say. At this moment, the host murmured his request that Otway would take down Mrs. Borisoff; the hostess led up someone to be introduced to Miss Derwent. Then the procession began.
Piers was both disappointed and relieved. To have felt the touch upon his arm of Irene's hand would have been a delight unutterable, yet to desire it was presumption. He was not worthy of that companionship; it would have been unjust to Irene to oblige her to sit by him through the dinner, with the inevitable thoughts rising in her mind. Better to see her from a distance—though it was hard when she smiled at the distinguished and clever-looking man who talked, talked. It cost him, at first, no small effort to pay becoming attention to Mrs. Borisoff; the lady on his other hand, a brilliant beauty, moved him to a feeling almost hostile—he knew not why. But as the dinner progressed, as the kindly vintage circled in his blood, he felt the stirrings of a deep joy. By his own effort he had won reception into Irene's world. It was something; it was much—remembering all that had gone before.
He spoke softly to his partner.
"I am going to drink a silent health—that of my friend Korolevitch. To him I owe everything."
"I don't believe that, but I will drink it too—I was speaking of him to Miss Derwent. She wants to know all about the Dukhobortsi. Instruct her, afterwards, if you get a chance. Do you think her altered?"
"No—yes!"
"By the bye, how long is it really since you first knew her?"
"Eight years—just eight years."
"You speak as if it were eighty."
"Why, so it seems, when I look back. I was a boy, and had the strangest notions of the world."
"You shall tell me all about that some day," said Mrs. Borisoff, glancing at him. "At the Castle, perhaps–"
"Oh yes! At the Castle!"
When the company divided, and Piers had watched Irene pass out of sight, he sat down with a tired indifference. But his host drew him into conversation on Russian subjects, and, as had happened before now in gatherings of this kind, Otway presently found himself amid attentive listeners, whilst he talked of things that interested him. At such moments he had an irreflective courage, which prompted him to utter what he thought without regard to anything but the common civilities of life. His opinions might excite surprise; but they did not give offence; for they seemed impersonal, the natural outcome of honest and capable observation, with never a touch of national prejudice or individual conceit. It was well, perhaps, for the young man's natural modesty, that he did not hear certain remarks afterwards exchanged between the more intelligent of his hearers.
When they passed to the drawing-room, the piano was sounding there. It stopped; the player rose, and moved away, but not before Piers had seen that it was Irene. He felt robbed of a delight. Oh, to hear Irene play!
Better was in store for him. With a boldness natural to the hour, he drew nearer, nearer, watching his opportunity. The chair by Irene's side became vacant; he stepped forward, and was met with a frank countenance, which invited him to take the coveted place. Miss Derwent spoke at once of her interest in the Russian sectaries with whom—she had heard—Otway was well acquainted, the people called Dukhobortsi, who held the carrying of arms a sin, and suffered persecution because of their conscientious refusal to perform military service. Piers spoke with enthusiasm of these people.
"They uphold the ideal above all necessary to our time. We ought to be rapidly outgrowing warfare; isn't that the obvious next step in civilisation? It seems a commonplace that everyone should look to that end, and strive for it. Yet we're going back—there's a military reaction—fighting is glorified by everyone who has a loud voice, and in no country more than in England. I wish you could hear a Russian friend of mine speak about it, a rich man who has just given up everything to join the Dukhobortsi. I never knew before what religious passion meant. And it seems to me that this is the world's only hope—peace made a religion. The forms don't matter; only let the supreme end be peace. It is what people have talked so much about—the religion of the future."
His tones moved the listener, as appeared in her look and attitude.
"Surely all the best in every country lean to it," she said.
"Of course! That's our hope—but at the same time the pitiful thing; for the best hold back, keep silence, as if their quiet contempt could prevail against this activity of the reckless and the foolish."
"One can't make a religion," said Irene sadly. "It is just this religious spirit which has decayed throughout our world. Christianity turns to ritualism. And science—we were told you know, that science would be religion enough."
"There's the pity—the failure of science as a civilising force. I know," added Piers quickly, "that there are men whose spirit, whose work, doesn't share in that failure; they are the men—the very few—who are above self-interest. But science on the whole, has come to mean money-making and weapon-making. It leads the international struggle; it is judged by its value to the capitalist and the soldier."
"Isn't this perhaps a stage of evolution that the world must live through—to its extreme results?"
"Very likely. The signs are bad enough."
"You haven't yourself that enthusiastic hope?"
"I try to hope," said Piers, in a low, unsteady voice, his eyes falling timidly before her glance. "But what you said is so true—one can't create the spirit of religion. If one hasn't it–" He broke off, and added with a smile, "I think I have a certain amount of enthusiasm. But when one has seen a good deal of the world, it's so very easy to feel discouraged. Think how much sheer barbarism there is around us, from the brutal savage of the gutter to the cunning savage of the Stock Exchange!"
Irene had a gleam in her eyes; she nodded appreciation.
"If," he went on vigorously, "if one could make the multitude really understand—understand to the point of action—how enormously its interest is peace!"
"More hope that way, I'm afraid," said Irene, "than through idealisms."
"Yes, yes. If it comes at all, it'll be by the way of self-interest. And really it looks as if the military tyrants might overreach themselves here and there. Italy, for instance. Think of Italy, crushed and cursed by a blood-tax that the people themselves see to be futile. One enters into the spirit of the men who freed Italy from foreigners—it was glorious; but how much more glorious to excite a rebellion there against her own rulers! Shouldn't you enjoy doing that?"
At times, there is no subtler compliment to a woman than to address her as if she were a man. It must be done involuntarily, as was the case with this utterance of Otway's. Irene rewarded him with a look such as he had never had from her, the look of rejoicing comradeship.
"Indeed I should! Italy is becoming a misery to those who love her. Is no plot going on? Couldn't one start a conspiracy against that infamous misgovernment?"
"There's an arch-plotter at work. His name is Hunger. Let us be glad that Italy can't enrich herself by manufactures. Who knows? The revolution against militarism may begin there, as that against feudalism did in France. Talk of enthusiasm! How should we feel if we read in the paper some morning that the Italian people had formed into an army of peace—refusing to pay another centesimo for warfare?
"The next boat for Calais! The next train for Rome!" Their eyes met, interchanging gleams of laughter.
"Oh, but the crowd, the crowd!" sighed Piers. "What is bad enough to say of it? who shall draw its picture with long enough ears?"
"It has another aspect, you know."
"It has. At its best, a smiling simpleton; at its worst, a murderous maniac."
"You are not exactly a socialist," remarked Irene, with that smile which, linking past and present, blended in Otway's heart old love and new—her smile of friendly irony.
"Socialism? I seldom think of it; which means, that I have no faith in it.—When we came in, you were playing."
"I miss the connection," said Irene, with a puzzled air.
"Forgive me. I am fond of music, and it has been in my mind all the time—the hope that you would play again."
"Oh, that was merely the slow music, as one might say, of the drawing-room mysteries—an obligato in the after-dinner harmony. I play only to amuse myself—or when it is a painful duty."
Piers was warned by his tactful conscience that he had held Miss Derwent quite long enough in talk. A movement in their neighbourhood gave miserable opportunity; he resigned his seat to another expectant, and did his best to converse with someone else.
Her voice went with him as he walked homewards across the Park, under a fleecy sky silvered with moonlight; the voice which now and again brought back so vividly their first meeting at Ewell. He lived through it all again, the tremors, the wild hopes, the black despair of eight years ago. How she encountered him on the stairs, talked of his long hours of study, and prophesied—with that indescribable blending of gravity and jest, still her characteristic—that he would come to grief over his examination. Irene! Irene! Did she dream what was in his mind and heart? The long, long love, his very life through all labours and cares and casualties—did she suspect it, imagine it? If she had received his foolish verses (he grew hot to think of them), there must have been at least a moment when she knew that he worshipped her, and does such knowledge ever fade from a woman's memory?
