William Shakespeare - "The Taming of the Shrew"

Martin Luther King - "The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue."

Michael Scott - "Tom Cringle's Log"

Frederick Douglass - "My Bondage and My Freedom, My Bondage and My Freedom"

The Unclassed

G >> George Gissing >> The Unclassed




"How? Give me some practical advice, Waymark! Let us talk of the
matter freely. Tell me what you would do!"

Waymark thought for a moment.

"Does there seem any chance of her health being permanently
improved?" he asked.

"I can't say. She says she is better. It's no use my asking the
doctors; they despise me, and would not think of treating me with
any consideration."

"Why don't you do this?" began Waymark, after another pause. "Use
all means to find some convalescent home where she can be received
when she leaves the hospital. Then, if her fits and the rest of it
still continue, find some permanent place for her. You can afford
it. Never mind if it reduces you for a time to a garret and a
crust."

"She would refuse to go to such places," said Julian despondently.

"Then refuse to take her back! Sell your furniture; take one room
for yourself; and tell her she must live where she likes on a
sufficient allowance from you."

"I dare not. It is impossible. She would never leave me in peace."

"You will have to do this ultimately, if you are to continue to
live. Of that there is no doubt. So why not now?"

"I must think; it is impossible to make up my mind to such a thing
at once. I know you advise what is best; I have thought of it
myself. But I shall never have the courage! I am so miserably weak.
If only I could get my health back! Good God, how I suffer!"

Waymark did his best to familiarise Julian with the thought, and to
foster in him something of resoluteness, but he had small hope of
succeeding. The poor fellow was so incapable of anything which at
all resembled selfishness, and so dreaded the results of any such
severity on his part as that proposed. There were moments when
indignation almost nerved him to independence, but there returned so
soon the souse of pity, and, oftener still, the thought of that
promise made to Harriet's father, long ago, in the dark little
parlour which smelt of drugs. The poor chemist, whose own life was
full of misery, had been everything to him; but for Mr. Smales, he
might now have been an ignorant, coarse-handed working man, if not
worse. Was Harriet past all rescue? Was there not even yet a chance
of saving her from herself and those hateful friends of hers?

This was the natural reaction after listening to Waymark's
remorseless counsel. Going home, Julian fought once more the battle
with himself, till the usual troubled sleep severed his thoughts
into fragments of horrible dreams. The next day he felt differently;
Waymark's advice seemed more practical. In the afternoon he should
have visited Harriet in the ward, but an insuperable repulsion kept
him away, and for the first time. It was a bleak, cheerless day; the
air was cold with the breath of the nearing winter; At night he
found it impossible to sit in his own room, and dreaded to talk with
any one. His thoughts were fixed upon one place; a great longing
drew him forth, into the darkness and the rain of the streets,
onwards in a fixed direction. It brought him to Westminster, and to
the gate of Tothill Fields Prison. The fetters upon the great doors
were hideous in the light of the lamps above them; the mean houses
around the gaol seemed to be rotting in its accursed shadow. A
deadly stillness possessed the air; there was blight in the dropping
of the rain.

He leaned against the great, gloomy wall, and thought of Ida. At
this hour she was most likely asleep, unless sorrow kept her waking.
What unimagined horrors did she suffer day after day in that
accursed prison-house? How did she bear her torments? Was she well
or ill? What brutality might she not be subjected to? He pictured
her face wasted with secret tears, those eyes which were the light
of his soul fixed on the walls of the cell, hour after hour, in
changeless despair, the fire of passionate resentment feeding at her
life's core.

The night became calmer. The rained ceased, and a sudden gleam made
him look up, to behold the moon breaking her way through billows of
darkness.





CHAPTER XXVI

STRAYING




The Enderbys were at Brighton during the autumn. Mr. Enderby only
remained with them two or three days at a time, business requiring
his frequent presence in town. Maud would have been glad to spend
her holidays at some far quieter place, but her mother enjoyed
Brighton, and threw herself into its amusements of the place with
spirits which seemed to grow younger. They occupied handsome rooms,
and altogether lived in a more expensive way than when at home.

Maud was glad to see her mother happy, but could not be at ease
herself in this kind of life. It was soon arranged that she should
live in her own way, withholding from the social riot which she
dreaded, and seeking rest in out-of-the-way parts of the shore,
where more of nature was to be found and less of fashion. Maud
feared lest her mother should feel this as an unkind desertion, but
Mrs. Enderby was far from any such trouble; it relieved her from the
occasional disadvantage of having by her side a grown-up daughter,
whose beauty so strongly contrasted with her own. So Maud spent her
days very frequently in exploring the Downs, or in seeking out
retired nooks beneath the cliffs, where there was no sound in her
ears but that of the waves. She would sit for hours with no
companion save her thoughts, which were unconsciously led from phase
to phase by the moving lights and shadows upon the sea, and the soft
beauty of unstable clouds.

Even before leaving London, she had begun to experience a frequent
sadness of mood, tending at times to weariness and depression, which
foreshadowed new changes in her inner life. The fresh delight in
nature and art had worn off in some degree; she read less, and her
thoughts took the habit of musing upon the people and circumstances
about her, also upon the secrets of the years to come. She grew more
conscious of the mystery in her own earlier life, and in the
conditions which now surrounded her. A sense which at times besets
all imaginative minds came upon her now and then with painful force;
a fantastic unreality would suddenly possess all she saw and heard;
it seemed as if she had been of a sudden transported out of the old
existence into this new and unrealised position; if any person spoke
to her, it was difficult to feel that she was really addressed and
must reply; was it not all a mere vision she was beholding, out of
which she would presently awake! Such moments were followed by dark
melancholy. This life she was leading could not last, but would pass
away in some fearful shock of soul. Once she half believed herself
endowed with the curse of a hideous second-sight. Sitting with her
father and mother, silence all at once fell upon the room, and
everything was transfigured in a ghostly light. Distinctly she saw
her mother throw her head back and raise to her throat what seemed
to be a sharp, glistening piece of steel; then came a cry, and all
was darkened before her eyes in a rush of crimson mist. The cry she
had herself uttered, much to her parents' alarm; what her mother
held was in reality only a paper-knife, with which she had been
tapping her lips in thought. A slight attack of illness followed on
this disturbance, and it was some days before she recovered from the
shock; she kept to herself, however, the horrible picture which her
imagination had conjured up.

She began to pay more frequent visits to her aunt Theresa, whom at
first she had seen very seldom. There was not the old confidence
between them. Maud shrank from any direct reference to the change in
herself, and Miss Bygrave spoke no word which could suggest a
comparison between past and present. Maud tried once more to draw
near to the pale, austere woman, whose life ever remained the same.
She was not repelled, but neither did any movement respond to her
yearning. She always came away with a sad heart.

One evening in the week she looked forward to with eagerness; it was
that on which Waymark was generally expected. In Waymark's presence
she could forget those dark spirits that hovered about her; she
could forget herself, and be at rest in the contemplation of
strength and confidence. There was a ring in his voice which
inspired faith; whatever might be his own doubts and difficulties--
and his face testified to his knowledge of both--it was so certain
that he had power to overcome them. This characteristic grew
stronger in him to her observation; he was a far other man now than
when she first knew him; the darkness had passed from his eyes,
which seemed always to look straight forward, and with perception of
an end he was nearing. Why could she not make opportunities of
speaking freely with him, alone with him? They were less near to
each other, it seemed, after a year of constant meeting, than in the
times when, personally all but strangers, they had corresponded so
frankly and unconventionally. Of course he came to the house for her
sake; it could not but be so; yet at times he seemed to pay so
little attention to her. Her mother often monopolised him through a
whole evening, and not apparently to his annoyance. And all the time
he had in his heart the message for which she longed; support and
comfort were waiting for her there, she felt sure, could he but
speak unrestrainedly. In herself was no salvation; but he had
already overcome, and why could she not ask him for the secret of
his confidence? Often, as the evening drew to an end, and he was
preparing to leave, an impatience scarcely to be repressed took hold
upon her; her face grew hot, her hands trembled, she would have
followed him from the room and begged for one word to herself had it
been possible. And when he was gone, there came the weakest moments
her life had yet known; a childish petulance, a tearful fretting, an
irritable misery of which she was ashamed. She went to her room to
suffer in silence, and often to read through that packet of his
letters, till the night was far spent.

It had cost her much to leave London. She feared lest, during her
absence, something should occur to break off the wonted course of
things, and that Waymark might not resume his visits on their
return. After the feverish interval of those first weeks, she tried
sometimes to distract her thoughts by reading, and got from a
library a book which Waymark had recommended to her at their last
meeting--Rossetti's poems. These gave her much help in restoring
her mind to quietness. Their perfect beauty entranced her, and the
rapturous purity of ideal passion, the mystic delicacies of emotion,
which made every verse gleam like a star, held her for the time high
above that gloomy cloudland of her being, rife with weird shapes and
muffled voices. That Beauty is solace of life, and Love the end of
being,--this faith she would cling to in spite of all; she grasped
it with the desperate force of one who dreaded lest it should fade
and fail from her. Beauty alone would not suffice; too often it was
perceived as a mere mask, veiling horrors; but in the passion and
the worship of love was surely a never-failing fountain of growth
and power; this the draught that would leave no bitter aftertaste,
its enjoyment the final and all-sufficient answer to the riddle of
life. Rossetti put into utterance for her so much that she had not
dared to entrust even to the voice of thought. Her spirit and flesh
became one and indivisible; the old antagonism seemed at an end for
ever.

Such dreamings as these naturally heightened Maud's dislike for the
kind of life her mother led, and she longed unspeakably for the time
of her return to London. They had been at Brighton already nearly a
month, when a new circumstance was added to her discomfort. As she
walked with her mother one day, they met their acquaintance, Mr.
Budge. This gentleman dined with them that evening at Mrs. Enderby's
invitation, and persuaded the latter to join a party he had made up
for an excursion on the following day. Maud excused herself. She did
not like Mr. Budge, and his demeanour during the evening only
strengthened her prejudice. He was unduly excited and fervent, and
allowed himself a certain freedom in his conversation with Mrs.
Enderby which Maud resented strongly.

When they were once more in London, Maud did not win back the former
quiet of mind. Waymark came again as usual, but if anything the
distance between him and herself seemed more hopeless. He appeared
preoccupied; his talk, when he spoke with her, was of a more general
kind than formerly; she was conscious that her presence did not
affect him as it had done. She sank again into despondency; books
were insipid, and society irritated her. She began the habit of
taking long walks, an aimless wandering about the streets and parks
within her reach. One evening, wending wearily homewards, she was
attracted by the lights in a church in Marylebone Road, and, partly
for a few minutes' rest, partly out of a sudden attraction to a
religious service, she entered. It was the church of Our Lady of the
Rosary. She had not noticed that it was a Roman Catholic place of
worship, but the discovery gave her an unexpected pleasure. She was
soothed and filled with a sense of repose. Sinking into the attitude
of prayer, she let her thoughts carry her whither they would; they
showed her nothing but images of beauty and peace. It was with
reluctance that she arose and went back into the dark street, where
the world met her with a chill blast, sleet-laden.

Our Lady of the Rosary received her frequently after this. But there
were days when the thought of repose was far from her. At one such
time, on an evening in November, a sudden desire possessed her mind;
she would go out into the streets of the town and see something of
that life which she knew only in imagination, the traffic of highway
and byway after dark, the masque of pleasure and misery of sin of
which a young girl can know nothing, save from hints here and there
in her reading, or from the occasional whispers and head-shakings of
society's gossip. Her freedom was complete; her absence, if noticed,
would entail no questions; her mother doubtless would conclude that
she was at her aunt Theresa's. So she clad herself in walking attire
of a kind not likely to attract observation, and set forth. The
tumult which had been in her blood all day received fresh impulse
from the excitement of the adventure. She had veiled her face, but
the veil hindered her observation, and she threw it back. First into
Edgware Road, then down Oxford Street. Her thoughts pointed to an
eastern district, though she feared the distance would be too great;
she had frequently talked with Waymark of his work in Litany Lane
and Elm Court, and a great curiosity possessed her to see these
places. She entered an omnibus, and so reached the remote
neighbourhood. Here, by inquiry of likely people, she found her way
to Litany Lane, and would have penetrated its darkness, but was
arrested by a sudden event characteristic of the locality.

Forth from the alley, just before her, rushed a woman of hideous
aspect, pursued by another, younger, but, if possible, yet more
foul, who shrieked curses and threats. In the way of the fugitive
was a costermonger's stall; unable to check herself, the woman
rushed against this, overturning it, and herself falling among the
ruin. The one in pursuit, with a yell of triumph, sprang upon her
prostrate enemy, and attacked her with fearful violence, leaping on
her body, dashing her head against the pavement, seemingly bent on
murder. In a moment there was a thick crowd rushing round, amid
which Maud was crushed and swayed without possibility of disengaging
herself. The screams of the one woman, and the terrific objurgations
of the other, echoed through the street. From the words of those
about her, Maud understood that the two women were mother and
daughter, and that it was no rare occurrence for the younger woman
to fall just short of killing her parent. But only for a moment or
two could Maud understand anything; horror and physical oppression
overcame her senses. Her fainting caused a diversion in the crowd,
and she was dragged without much delay to the nearest doorstep.

She was not long unconscious, and presently so far recovered as to
know that she was being helped to enter a cab. The cab began to
drive off. Then she saw that some one was sitting opposite her. "Who
is it?" she asked, trying to command herself, and to see clearly by
the light of the street lamps. At the sound of the voice which
answered, she started, and, looking again, at length recognised
Waymark.

"Do you feel better?" he asked. "Are you able to go on homewards?"

"Quite able," she answered, leaning back again, and speaking with
strange calmness.

"What on earth is the meaning of this?" was Waymark's next inquiry.
"How came you here at this time?"

"Curiosity brought me," Maud answered, with the same unnatural
composure.

"Had you been there long?"

"No; I had asked my way to Litany Lane, and all at once found myself
in the crowd."

"Thank goodness I happened to be by! I had just been looking up a
defaulting tenant. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you lying
in that doorway. Why didn't you ask me to come with you, and show
you these places?"

"It would have been better," she said, with her eyes closed. Waymark
leaned back. Conversation was difficult in the noise of the vehicle,
and for a long time neither spoke.

"I told the man to drive to Edgware Road," Waymark said then. "Shall
he go on to the house?"

"No; I had rather walk the last part."

They talked brokenly of the Lane and its inhabitants. When at length
Maud alighted Waymark offered his arm, and she just laid her hand
upon it.

"I have seen dreadful things to-night," she said, in a voice that
still trembled; "seen and heard things that will haunt me."

"You give too much weight to the impressions of the moment. That
world is farther removed from yours than the farthest star; you must
forget this glimpse of it."

"Oh, I fear you do not know me; I do not know myself."

He made no reply, and, on their coming near to the house, Maud
paused.

"Mother's sending you a note this evening," she said, as she held
out her hand, "to ask you to come on Thursday instead of to-morrow.
She will be from home to-morrow night"

"Shall you also be from home?"

"I? No."

"Then may I not come and see you?--Not if it would be
troublesome."

"It would not, at all."

"It is good of you. I will come."





CHAPTER XXVII

THE WILL TO LIVE




Waymark made his way to Paddington at the usual time on the
following evening, and found Maud alone. There was agitation in her
manner as she welcomed him, and she resumed her seat as if the
attitude of rest was needful to her. In reply to his inquiries about
her health, she assured him she was well, and that she felt no
painful results from the previous evening. Waymark also showed an
unusual embarrassment. He stood for some moments by the table,
turning over the leaves of a book.

"I didn't know you had Rossetti," he said, without looking up. "You
never mentioned him."

"I seem to have had no opportunity."

"No. I too have many things that I have wanted to speak to you
about, but opportunity was wanting. I have sometimes been on the
point of asking you to let me write to you again."

He glanced inquiringly at her. Her eyes fell, and she tried to
speak, but failed. Waymark went to a seat at a little distance from
her.

"You do not look as well as when I met you in the summer," he said.
"I have feared you might be studying too hard. I hope you threw away
your books whilst you were at the sea-side."

"I did, but it was because I found little pleasure in them. It was
not rest that took the place of reading."

"Are your difficulties of a kind you could speak of to me?" he
asked, with some hesitation.

She kept her eyes lowered, and her fingers writhed nervously on the
arm of the chair.

"My only fear would be lest you should think my troubles unreal.
Indeed it is so hard to make them appear anything more than morbid
fancies. They are traceable, no doubt, to my earliest years. To
explain them fully, I should have to tell you circumstances of my
life which could have little interest for you."

"Tell me--do," Waymark replied earnestly.

"Will you let me?" she said, with a timid pleasure in her voice. "I
believe you could understand me. I have a feeling that you must have
experienced something of these troubles yourself, and have overcome
them. Perhaps you could help me to understand myself."

"If I thought I could, it would give me great happiness."

She was silent a little, then, with diffidence which lessened as she
went on, she related the history, as far as she knew it, of her
childhood, and described the growth of her mind up to the time when
she had left home to begin life as a governess. It was all very
simply, but very vividly, told; that natural command of impressive
language which had so struck Waymark in her letters displayed itself
as soon as she had gained confidence. Glimpses of her experience
Waymark had already had, but now for the first time he understood
the full significance of her early years. Whilst she spoke, he did
not move his eyes from her face. He was putting himself in her
position, and imagining himself to be telling his own story in the
same way. His relation, he knew, would have been a piece of more or
less clever acting, howsoever true; he would have been considering,
all the time, the effect of what he said, and, indeed, could not, on
this account, have allowed himself to be quite truthful. How far was
this the case with Maud Enderby? Could he have surprised the
faintest touch of insincerity in look or accent, it would have made
a world's difference in his position towards _her_. His instinct was
unfailing in the detection of the note of affected feeling; so much
the stronger the impression produced upon him by a soul unveiling
itself in the _naivete_ of genuine emotion. That all was
sincere he could have no doubt. Gradually he lost his critical
attitude, and at moments surprised himself under the influence of a
sympathetic instinct. Then he would lose consciousness of her words
for an interval, during which he pondered her face, and was wrought
upon by its strange beauty. The pure and touching spirituality of
Maud's countenance had never been so present to him as now; she was
pale with very earnestness, her eyes seemed larger than their wont,
there was more than womanly sweetness in the voice which so
unconsciously modulated itself to the perfect expression of all she
uttered. Towards the end, he could but yield himself completely to
the spell, and, when she ceased, he, like Adam at the end of the
angel's speech, did not at once perceive that her voice was silent.

"It was long," she said, after telling the outward circumstances of
her life with her aunt, "before I came to understand how differently
I had been brought up from other children. Partly I began to see it
at the school where we first met; but it only grew quite clear to me
when I shared in the home life of my pupils in the country. I found
I had an entirely different view of the world from what was usual.
That which was my evil, I discovered to be often others' good; and
my good, their abhorrence. My aunt's system was held to be utterly
unchristian. Little things which I sometimes said, in perfect
innocence, excited grave disapproval. All this frightened me, and
made me even more reserved than I should have been naturally.

"In my letters to you I began to venture for the first time to speak
of things which were making my life restless. I did little more than
hint my opinions; I wonder, in looking back, that I had the courage
to do even that. But I already knew that your mind was broader and
richer than mine, and I suppose I caught with a certain desperation
at the chance of being understood. It was the first opportunity I
had ever had of discussing intellectual things. With my aunt I had
never ventured to discuss anything; I reverenced her too much for
that; she spoke, and I received all she said. I thought that from
you I should obtain confirmation where I needed it, but your
influence was of the opposite kind. Your letters so abounded with
suggestion that was quite new to me, referred so familiarly to
beliefs and interests of which I was quite ignorant, showed such a
boldness in judging all things, that I drifted further and further
from certainty. The result of it all was that I fell ill.

"You see now what it is that has burdened me from the day when I
first began to ask myself about my beliefs. I was taught to believe
that the world was sin, and that the soul only freed itself from sin
in proportion as it learned to live apart from and independently of
the world. Everything was dark because of sin; only in the still,
secret places of the soul was the light of purity and salvation.

"I thought I had passed out of this. When I returned to London, and
began this new life, the burden seemed all at once lifted from me. I
could look here and there with freedom; the sky was bright above me;
human existence was cheerful and noble and justified in itself. I
began to learn a thousand things. Above all, my mind fixed on Art;
in that I thought I had found a support that would never fail me.

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