Thyrza

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Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

GEORGE GISSING

THYRZA

CHAPTER I

AMONG THE HILLS

There were three at the breakfast-table--Mr. Newthorpe, his
daughter Annabel, and their visitor (Annabel's Cousin), Miss Paula
Tyrrell. It was a small, low, soberly-furnished room, the walls
covered with carelessly-hung etchings and water-colours, and with
photographs which were doubtless mementoes of travel; dwarf
bookcases held overflowings from the library; volumes in disorder,
clearly more for use than ornament. The casements were open to let
in the air of a July morning. Between the thickets of the garden the
eye caught glimpses of sun-smitten lake and sheer hillside; for the
house stood on the shore of Ullswater.

Of the three breakfasting, Miss Tyrrell was certainly the one whose
presence would least allow itself to be overlooked. Her appetite was
hearty, but it scarcely interfered with the free flow of her airy
talk, which was independent of remark or reply from her companions.
Though it was not apparent in her demeanour, this young lady was
suffering under a Calamity; her second 'season' had been ruined at
its very culmination by a ludicrous _contretemps_ in the shape of an
attack of measles. Just when she flattered herself that she had
never looked so lovely, an instrument of destiny embraced her in the
shape of an affectionate child, and lo! she was a fright. Her
constitution had soon thrown off the evil thing, but Mrs. Tyrrell
decreed her banishment for a time to the remote dwelling of her
literary uncle. Once more Paula was lovely, and yet one could
scarcely say that the worst was over, seeing that she was
constrained to pass summer days within view of Helvellyn when she
might have been in Piccadilly.

Mr. Newthorpe seldom interrupted his niece's monologue, but his eye
often rested upon her, seemingly in good-natured speculation, and he
bent his head acquiescingly when she put in a quick 'Don't you think
so?' after a running series of comments on some matter which smacked
exceedingly of the town. He was not more than five-and-forty, yet
had thin, grizzled hair, and a sallow face with lines of trouble
deeply scored upon it. His costume was very careless--indeed, all
but slovenly--and his attitude in the chair showed, if not weakness
of body, at all events physical indolence.

Some word that fell from Paula prompted him to ask:

'I wonder where Egremont is?'

Annabel, who had been sunk in thought, looked up with a smile. She
was about to say something, but her cousin replied rapidly:

'Oh, Mr. Egremont is in London--at least, he was a month ago.'

'Not much of a guarantee that he is there now,' Mr. Newthorpe
rejoined.

'I'll drop him a line and see,' said Paula. 'I meant to do so
yesterday, but forgot. I'll write and tell him to send me a full
account of himself. Isn't it too bad that people don't write to me?
Everybody forgets you when you're out of town in the season. Now
you'll see I shan't have a single letter again this morning; it is
the cruellest thing!'

'But you had a letter yesterday, Paula,' Annabel remarked.

'A letter? Oh, from mamma; that doesn't count. A letter isn't a
letter unless you feel anxious to see what's in it. I know exactly
all that mamma will say, from beginning to end, before I open the
envelope. Not a scrap of news, and with her opportunities, too! But
I can count on Mr. Egremont for at least four sides--well, three.'

'But surely he is not a source of news?' said her uncle with
surprise.

'Why not? He can be very jolly when he likes, and I know he'll write
a nice letter if I ask him to. You can't think how much he's
improved just lately. He was down at the Ditchleys' when we were
there in February; he and I had ever such a time one day when the
others were out hunting. Mamma won't let me hunt; isn't it too bad
of her? He didn't speak a single serious word all the morning, and
just think how dry he used to be! Of course he can be dry enough
still when he gets with people like Mrs. Adams and Clara Carr, but I
hope to break him of the habit entirely.'

She glanced at Annabel, and laughed merrily before raising her cup
to her lips. Mr. Newthorpe just cast a rapid eye over his daughter's
face; Annabel wore a look of quiet amusement.

'Has he been here since then?' Paula inquired, tapping a second egg.
'We lost sight of him for two or three months, and of course he
always makes a mystery of his wanderings.'

'We saw him last in October,' her uncle answered, 'when he had just
returned from America.'

'He said he was going to Australia next. By-the-by, what's his
address? Something, Russell Street. Don't you know?'

'No idea,' he replied, smiling.

'Never mind. I'll send the letter to Mrs. Ormonde; she always knows
where he is, and I believe she's the only one that does.'

When the meal came to an end Mr. Newthorpe went, as usual, to his
study. Miss Tyrrell, also as usual, prepared for three hours of
letter-writing. Annabel, after a brief Consultation with Mrs.
Martin, the housekeeper, would ordinarily have sat down to study in
the morning room. She laid open a book on the table, but then
lingered between that and the windows. At length she took a volume
of a lighter kind--in both senses--and, finding her garden hat in
the hall, went forth.

She was something less than twenty, and bore herself with grace
perchance a little too sober for her years. Her head was wont to
droop thoughtfully, and her step measured itself to the grave music
of a mind which knew the influence of mountain solitude. But her
health was complete; she could row for long stretches, and on
occasion fatigued her father in rambles over moor and fell. Face and
figure were matched in mature beauty; she had dark hair, braided
above the forehead on each side, and large dark eyes which regarded
you with a pure intelligence, disconcerting if your word uttered
less than sincerity.

When her mother died Annabel was sixteen. Three months after that
event Mr. Newthorpe left London for his country house, which neither
he nor his daughter had since quitted. He had views of his own on
the subject of London life as it affects young ladies. By nature a
student, he had wedded a woman who became something not far removed
from a fashionable beauty. It was a passionate attachment on both
sides at first, and to the end he loved his wife with the love which
can deny nothing. The consequence was that the years of his prime
were wasted, and the intellectual promise of his youth found no
fulfilment. Another year and Annabel would have entered the social
mill; she had beauty enough to achieve distinction, and the means of
the family were ample to enshrine her. But she never 'came out.' No
one would at first believe that Mr. Newthorpe's retreat was final;
no one save a close friend or two who understood what his life had
been, and how he dreaded for his daughter the temptations which had
warped her mother's womanhood. 'In any case,' wrote Mrs. Tyrrell,
his sister-in-law, when a year and a half had gone by, 'you will of
course let me have Annabel shortly. I pray you to remember that she
is turned seventeen. You surely won't deprive her of every pleasure
and every advantage?' And the recluse made answer: 'If bolts and
shackles were needful I would use them mercilessly rather than allow
my girl to enter your Middlesex pandemonium. Happily, the fetters of
her reason suffice. She is growing into a woman, and by the blessing
of the gods her soul shall be blown through and through with the
free air of heaven whilst yet the elements in her are blending to
their final shape.' Mrs. Tyrrell raised her eyebrows, and shook her
head, and talked sadly of 'poor Annabel,' who was buried alive.

She walked down to a familiar spot by the lake, where a rustic bench
was set under shadowing leafage; in front two skiffs were moored on
the strand. The sky was billowy with slow-travelling shapes of
whiteness; a warm wind broke murmuring wavelets along the pebbly
margin. The opposite slopes glassed themselves in the deep dark
water--Swarth Fell, Hallin Fell, Place Fell--one after the other;
above the southern bend of the lake rose noble summits, softly
touched with mist which the sun was fast dispelling. The sweetness
of summer was in the air. So quiet was it that every wing-rustle in
the brake, every whisper of leaf to leaf, made a distinct small
voice; a sheep-dog barking over at Howtown seemed close at hand.

This morning Annabel had no inclination to read, yet her face was
not expressive of the calm reflection which was her habit. She
opened the book upon her lap and glanced down a page or two, but
without interest. At length external things were wholly lost to her,
and she gazed across the water with continuance of solemn vision.
Her face was almost austere in this mood which had come upon her.

Someone was descending the path which led from the high road; it was
a step too heavy for Paula's, too rapid to be Mr. Newthorpe's.
Annabel turned her head and saw a young man, perhaps of
seven-and-twenty, dressed in a light walking-suit, with a small
wallet hanging from his shoulder and a stick in his hand. At sight
of her he took off his cap and approached her bare-headed.

'I saw from a quarter of a mile away,' he said, 'that someone was
sitting here, and I came down on the chance that it might be you.'

She rose with a very slight show of surprise, and returned his
greeting with calm friendliness.

'We were speaking of you at breakfast. My cousin couldn't tell us
for certain whether you were in England, though she knew you were in
London a month ago.'

'Miss Tyrrell is with you?' he asked, as if it were very unexpected.

'But didn't you know? She has been ill, and they sent her to us to
recruit.'

'Ah! I have been in Jersey for a month; I have heard nothing.'

'You were able to tear yourself from London in mid-season?'

'But when was I a devotee of the Season, Miss Newthorpe?'

'We hear you progress in civilisation.'

'Well, I hope so. I've had a month of steady reading, and feel
better for it. I took a big chest of books to Jersey. But I hope
Miss Tyrrell is better?'

'Quite herself again. Shall we walk up to the house?'

'I have broken in upon your reading.'

She exhibited the volume; it was Buskin's 'Sesame and Lilies.'

'Ah! you got it; and like it?'

'On the whole.'

'That is disappointing.'

Annabel was silent, then spoke of another matter as they walked up
from the lake.

This Mr. Egremont had not the look of a man who finds his joy in the
life of Society. His clean-shaven face was rather bony, and its
lines expressed independence of character. His forehead was broad,
his eyes glanced quickly and searchingly, or widened themselves into
an absent gazing which revealed the imaginative temperament. His
habitual cast of countenance was meditative, with a tendency to
sadness. In talk he readily became vivacious; his short sentences,
delivered with a very clear and conciliating enunciation, seemed to
indicate energy. It was a peculiarity that he very rarely smiled, or
perhaps I should say that he had the faculty of smiling only with
his eyes. At such moments his look was very winning, very frank in
its appeal to sympathy, and compelled one to like him. Yet, at
another time, his aspect could be shrewdly critical; it was so when
Annabel fell short of enthusiasm in speaking of the book he had
recommended to her when last at Ullswater. Probably he was not
without his share of scepticism. For all that, it was the visage of
an idealist.

Annabel led him into the house and to the study door, at which she
knocked; then she stood aside for him to enter before her. Mr.
Newthorpe was writing; he looked up absently, but light gathered in
his eyes as he recognised the visitor.

'So here you are! We talked of you this morning. How have you come?'

'On foot from Pooley Bridge.'

They clasped hands, then Egremont looked behind him; but Annabel had
closed the door and was gone.

She went up to the room in which Paula sat scribbling letters.

'Ten minutes more!' exclaimed that young lady. 'I'm just finishing a
note to mamma--so dutiful!'

'Have you written to Mr. Egremont?'

Paula nodded and laughed.

'He is downstairs.'

Paula started, looking incredulous.

'Really, Bell?'

'He has just walked over from Pooley Bridge.'

'Oh, Bell, do tell me! Have those horrid measles left any trace? I
really can't discover any, but of course one hasn't good eyes for
one's own little speckles. Well, at all events, everybody hasn't
forgotten me. But do look at me, Bell.'

Her cousin regarded her with conscientious gravity.

'I see no trace whatever; indeed, I should say you are looking
better than you ever did.'

'Now that's awfully kind of you. And you don't pay compliments,
either. Shall I go down? Did you tell him where I was?'

Had Annabel been disposed to dainty feminine malice, here was an
opportunity indeed. But she looked at Paula with simple curiosity,
seeming for a moment to lose herself. The other had to repeat her
question.

'I mentioned that you were in the house,' she replied. 'He is
talking with father.'

Paula moved to the door, but suddenly paused and turned.

'Now I wonder what thought you have in your serious head?' she said,
merrily. 'It's only my fun, you know.'

Annabel nodded, smiling.

'But it is only my fun. Say you believe me. I shall be cross with
you if you put on that look.'

They went into the morning room. Annabel stood at the window; her
companion flitted about, catching glimpses of herself in reflecting
surfaces. In five minutes the study door opened, and men's voices
drew near.

Egremont met Miss Tyrrell with the manner of an old acquaintance,
but unsmiling.

'I am fortunate enough to see you well again without having known of
your illness,' he said.

'You didn't know that I was ill?'

Paula looked at him dubiously. He explained, and, in doing so, quite
dispelled the girl's illusion that he was come on her account. When
she remained silent, he said:

'You must pity the people in London.'

'Certainly I do. I'm learning to keep my temper and to talk wisely.
I know nobody in London who could teach me to do either the one or
the other.'

'Well, I suppose you'll go out till luncheon-time?' said Mr.
Newthorpe. 'Egremont wants to have a pull. You'll excuse an old
man.'

They left the house, and for an hour drank the breath of the
hillsides. Paula was at first taciturn. Very unlike herself she
dabbled her fingers over the boat-side, and any light remark that
she made was addressed to her cousin. Annabel exerted herself to
converse, chiefly telling of the excursions that had been made with
Paula during the past week.

'What have you been doing in Jersey?' Paula asked of Egremont,
presently. Her tone was indifferent, a little condescending.

'Reading.'

'Novels?'

'No.'

'And where are you going next?'

'I shall live in London. My travels are over, I think.'

'We have heard that too often,' said Annabel. 'Did you ever
calculate how many miles you have travelled since you left Oxford?'

'I have been a restless fellow,' he admitted, regarding her with
quiet scrutiny, 'but I dare say some profit has come of my
wanderings. However, it's time to set to work.'

'Work!' asked Paula in surprise. 'What sort of work?'

'Local preacher's.'

Paula moved her lips discontentedly.

'That is your way of telling me to mind my own business. Don't you
find the sun dreadfully hot, Annabel? Do please row into a shady
place, Mr. Egremont.'

His way of handling the oars showed that he was no stranger to
exercise of this kind. His frame, though a trifle meagre, was well
set. By degrees a preoccupation which had been manifest in him gave
way under the influence of the sky, and when it was time to approach
the landing-place he had fallen into a mood of cheerful talk--light
with Paula, with Annabel more earnest. His eyes often passed from
one to the other of the faces opposite him, with unmarked
observation; frequently he fixed his gaze on the remoter hills in
brief musing.

Mr. Newthorpe had come down to the water to meet them; he had a
newspaper in his hand.

'Your friend Dalmaine is eloquent on education,' he said, with a
humorous twitching of the eyebrows.

'Yes, he knows his House,' Egremont replied. 'You observe the
construction of his speech. After well-sounding periods on the
elevation of the working classes, he casually throws out the hint
that employers of labour will do wisely to increase the intelligence
of their hands in view of foreign competition. Of course that is the
root of the matter; but Dalmaine knows better than to begin with
crude truths.'

In the meanwhile the boat was drawn up and the chain locked. The
girls walked on in advance; Egremont continued to speak of Mr.
Dalmaine, a rising politician, whose acquaintance he had made on the
voyage home from New York.

'One of the few sincere things I ever heard from his lips was a
remark he made on trade-unions. "Let them combine by all means," he
said; "it's a fair fight." There you have the man; it seems to him
mere common sense to regard his factory hands as his enemies. A fair
fight! What a politico-economical idea of fairness!'

He spoke with scorn, his eyes flashing and his nostrils trembling.
Mr. Newthorpe kept a quiet smile--sympathetic, yet critical.

Annabel sought her father for a word apart before lunch.

'How long will Mr. Egremont stay?' she asked, apparently speaking in
her quality of house-mistress.

'A day or two,' was the reply. 'We'll drive over to Pooley Bridge
for his bag this afternoon; he left it at the hotel.'

'What has he on his mind?' she continued, smiling.

'Some idealistic project. He has only given me a hint. I dare say we
shall hear all about it to-night.'

CHAPTER II

THE IDEALIST

When Egremont began his acquaintance with the Newthorpes he was an
Oxford undergraduate. A close friendship had sprung up between him
and a young man named Ormonde, and at the latter's home he met Mr.
Newthorpe, who, from the first, regarded him with interest. A year
after Mrs. Newthorpe's death Egremont was invited to visit the house
at Ullswater; since then he had twice spent a week there. This
personal intercourse was slight to have resulted in so much
intimacy, but he had kept up a frequent correspondence with Mr.
Newthorpe from various parts of the world, and common friends aided
the stability of the relation.

He was the only son of a man who had made a fortune by the
manufacture of oil-cloth. His father began life as a house-painter,
then became an oil merchant in a small way, and at length married a
tradesman's daughter, who brought him a moderate capital just when
he needed it for an enterprise promising greatly. In a short time he
had established the firm of Egremont & Pollard, with extensive works
in Lambeth. His wife died before him; his son received a liberal
education, and in early manhood found himself, as far as he knew,
without a living relative, but with ample means of independence.
Young Walter Egremont retained an interest in the business, but had
no intention of devoting himself to a commercial life. At the
University he had made alliances with men of standing, in the
academical sense, and likewise with some whose place in the world
relieved them from the necessity of establishing a claim to
intellect. In this way society was opened to him, and his personal
qualities won for him a great measure of regard from those whom he
most desired to please.

Somebody had called him 'the Idealist,' and the name adhered to him.
At two-and-twenty he published a volume of poems, obviously derived
from study of Shelley, but marked with a certain freshness of
impersonal aspiration which was pleasant enough. They had the note
of sincerity rather than the true poetical promise. The book had no
successor. Having found this utterance for his fervour, Egremont
began a series of ramblings over sea, in search, he said, of
himself. The object seemed to evade him; he returned to England from
time to time, always in appearance more restless, but always
overflowing with ideas, for which he had the readiest store of
enthusiastic words. He was able to talk of himself without conveying
the least impression of egotism to those who were in sympathy with
his intellectual point of view; he was accused of conceit only by a
few who were jealous of him or were too conventional to appreciate
his character. With women he was a favourite, and their society was
his greatest pleasure; yet, in spite of his fervid temperament--in
appearance fervid, at all events--he never seemed to fall in love.
Some there were who said that the self he went so far to discover
would prove to have a female form. Perhaps there was truth in this;
perhaps he sought, whether consciously or no, the ideal woman. None
of those with whom he companioned had a charge of light wooing to
bring against him, though one or two would not have held it a
misfortune if they had tempted him to forget his speculations and
declare that he had reached his goal. But his striving always seemed
to be for something remote from the world about him. His capacity
for warm feeling, itself undeniable, was never dissociated from that
impersonal zeal which was the characteristic of his expressions in
verse. In fact, he had written no love-poem.

Annabel and her father observed a change in him since his last
visit. This was the first time that he had come without an express
invitation, and they gathered from his speech that he had at length
found some definite object for his energies. His friends had for a
long time been asking what he meant to do with his life. It did not
appear that he purposed literary effort, though it seemed the
natural outlet for his eager thought; and of the career of politics
he at all times spoke with contempt. Was he one of the men, never so
common as nowadays, who spend their existence in canvassing the
possibilities that lie before them and delay action till they find
that the will is paralysed? One did not readily set Egremont in that
class, principally, no doubt, because he was so free from the
offensive forms of self-consciousness which are wont to stamp such
men. The pity of it, too, if talents like his were suffered to rust
unused; the very genuineness of his idealism made one believe in him
and look with confidence to his future.

Having dined, all went forth to enjoy the evening upon the lawn. The
men smoked; Annabel had her little table with tea and coffee. Paula
had brought out a magazine, and affected to read. Annabel noticed,
however, that a page was very seldom turned.

'Have you seen Mrs. Ormonde lately?' Mr. Newthorpe asked of
Egremont.

'I spent a day at Eastbourne before going to Jersey.'

'She has promised to come to us in the autumn,' said Annabel; 'but
she seems to have such a difficulty in leaving her Home. Had she
many children about her when you were there?'

'Ten or twelve.'

'Do they all come from London?' asked Annabel.

'Yes. She has relations with sundry hospitals and the like.
By-the-by, she told me one remarkable story. A short time ago out of
eight children that were in the house only one could read--a little
girl of ten--and this one regularly received letters from home. Now
there came for her what seemed to be a small story-paper, or
something of the kind, in a wrapper. Mrs. Ormonde gave it her
without asking any questions, and, in the course of the morning,
happening to see her reading it, she went to look what the paper
was. It proved to be an anti-Christian periodical, and on the front
page stood a woodcut offered as a burlesque illustration of some
Biblical incident. "Father always brings it home and gives it me to
read," said the child. "It makes me laugh!"'

'Probably she knew nothing of the real meaning of it all,' said Mr.
Newthorpe.

'On the contrary, she understood the tendency of the paper
surprisingly well; her father had explained everything to the
family.'

'One of the interesting results of popular education,' remarked Mr.
Newthorpe philosophically. 'It is inevitable.'

'What did Mrs. Ormonde do?' Annabel asked.

'It was a difficult point. No good would have been done by
endeavouring to set the child against her father; she would be home
again in a fortnight. So Mrs. Ormonde simply asked if she might have
the paper when it was done with, and, having got possession, threw
it into the fire with vast satisfaction. Happily it didn't come
again.'

'What a gross being that father must be!' Annabel exclaimed.

'Gross enough,' Egremont replied, 'yet I shouldn't wonder if he had
brains above the average in his class. A mere brute wouldn't do a
thing of that kind; ten to one he honestly believed that he was
benefiting the girl; educating her out of superstition.'

'But why should the poor people be left to such ugly-minded
teachers?' Annabel exclaimed. 'Surely those influences may be
opposed?'

'I doubt whether they can be,' said her father. 'The one insuperable
difficulty lies in the fact that we have no power greater than
commercial enterprise. Nowadays nothing will succeed save on the
commercial basis; from church to public-house the principle applies.
There is no way of spreading popular literature save on terms of
supply and demand. Take the Education Act. It was devised and
carried simply for the reason indicated by Egremont's friend
Dalmaine; a more intelligent type of workmen is demanded that our
manufacturers may keep pace with those of other countries. Well,
there is a demand for comic illustrations of the Bible, and the
demand is met; the paper exists because it pays. An organ of culture
for the people who enjoy burlesquing the Bible couldn't possibly be
made to pay.'