William Dean Howells - "Of Literature (Entire)"

Victor Appleton - "Tom Swift And His Submarine Boat"

H. F. Cary - "The Divine Comedy of Dante"

Unkown - "Vida de Lazarillo"

Spring Days

G >> George Moore >> Spring Days




"I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is
excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and
tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go
there; sometimes one can't get a table."

"I don't think I am well dressed enough."

"You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for
the river."

"You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?"

"Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post--that's it, bravo!"
Frank shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as
he helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was
happiness. The spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his
eyes. He assisted her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She
laughed and laughed again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on
the railway line. It swept round another hill all overshadowed and
dark with cedars.

"Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve."

"You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the
rate of sixty miles an hour."

"This is not an express?"

"No."

The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and
Lizzie waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they
went to an hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of
barmaids far away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened with
table linen; the waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies,
sirloins, hams, tongues. Only one table was occupied, and the waiters
were lavishing all attention upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking
a cigarette. Fletcher sat next to her, alternately affecting
indifference and fixing her with his eyes. Harding was voluble and
observant. There was about them an air of thirty and the dissipations
of thirty. And, not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, Frank bowed to
Lady Seveley; she returned his bow by a slight nod; and Lizzie, very
much embarrassed, nodded to the men; they smiled in return.

"Who is that lady you saluted?"

"Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre
with the other night."

"Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!"

A waiter approached with the bill of fare. "We had better not have
anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?"

"Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very good
--young birds."

"Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat,
Lizzie, do."

"I am afraid my hair will come down."

"Never mind, so much the better."

With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the
bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass
of champagne; he was proud of her beauty.

"By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?"

They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too
critical looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect,
as they descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away,
that they were still the subject of conversation.

"She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope
he won't make a fool of himself."

"I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He was
paying her a great deal of attention--the night we saw you at the
theatre."

Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of
expression, and he said: "She is called the belle of the bar. Hers is
the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I
cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were
the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English
girl; all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-
ordination is an irresistible force against some young men; their
natures demand the freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of--"

"Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me
of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness."

"That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way
places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice
does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of
May and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the
lover of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms
touch him not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman
of thirty, and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of
thirty. The universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of
literature. There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of
thirty, there is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but--
"

"And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?"

"No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man
that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so
if it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world
must have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every
second woman will run after him--ladies of rank, prostitutes, maid-
servants--when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change his
mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds
himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an
allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required,
he will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper
with him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with
fear."

"You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?"

"Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths
to the man as to the woman--worse, for woman's youth is longer than
man's. The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular
opinions, it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man
never. I was saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because
the chorus girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings,
because the lady of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken
up his hat to go to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-
maid did not look lusciously round the corner when he passed her in
the passage. He looks in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous
changes in his person. His fears have no foundation in fact--or should
I say in the flesh? A year after the duchess makes overtures, the
chorus girl threatens to throw up her engagement for him, and the
chambermaid pesters him with unnecessary questions concerning baths
and towels. These facts tend to show, indeed I think they prove, that
love is a magnetism, which sometimes we possess in almost irresistible
strength, and which sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent
extinction."

"Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of
making oneself beloved?" said Fletcher.

"The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager
investigation; when we have traced each desire to its source, and
classified--"

"We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a
humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But
what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his
barmaid?"

"This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he
possesses at all the magnetism, the power--call it what you will--that
I have been speaking of. He will never influence either men or women,
he will never make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of
his friends. He will, I should think, always remain a little outside
of success. It will never quite come to him; he will be one of those
muddled, dissatisfied creatures who rail against luck and bad
treatment. I cannot see him really successful in anything; yes I can,
though, I believe he would make an excellent husband. I have spoken a
great deal to him. He has told me a lot about himself, and I can see
that he asks and desires nothing but leave to devote himself to a
woman, to pander to her caprices. All that violent exterior will wear
off, and he will yield to and love to be led by a woman. He writes a
little, and he paints. I don't know if he has any talent; but he never
will be able to work until he is obliged to work for a woman."

"Then you think he will marry that barmaid?"

"Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance
intervenes--she may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for
she does not care for him--he will be sucked into the gulf."

"He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year
one of these days."

"Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke,"
said Lady Seveley, "and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher."

"Yes, a little."

Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel,
the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the
loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and
regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were
lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day--that bud, it
must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie
dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water.
The river rose up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks,
the sensation of the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank
erect holding her off with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the
banks were overflowed, and the wonderful wooden gates opened,
disclosing a placid stream with overhanging boughs and a barge. And
the charming discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's
indolence, and the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a
new picture. How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were
the comfortable barns. If life is never very fair, a vision of life
may be fair indeed, and once the tears came to the bar girl's eyes,
for she, too, suddenly remembered her life of tobacco and whisky; long
weary hours of standing, politeness, washing glasses, and listening to
filthy jokes. Would there be no change? If she might live her life
here! She thought of the morning light, and the home occupations of
the morning, and then the languid and lazy afternoons in this boat,
amid the enchantment of these river lands.

Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers,
he took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too,
of seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw
her amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the
vision vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her
hands, a shadow had fallen.

They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on
the edge of a table and sang the ballad of "Biddy Malone." There was a
house so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank
said it was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he
treated Lizzie to all he could pretend to know on the subject, and he
condemned the owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which
the swards were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude
in every passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young
men, and the woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in
the deep blue river as upon the pale sky.

They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the
reedy river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a
kettle. He spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping
out, and he invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out
the tea-things. Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little
adventures endeared and memorised the day.

They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage
giving way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they
walked at ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed
endless, so soft and so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called
Liz, of her past, of the reasons that had led her to leave home and
"go to business." Her brother, she said, was a painter, a celebrated
bird-painter.

"Then we should know each other, I am a painter." He told her of his
ideas and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there
again, unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote a
little too, in the papers, and he might do something to help her
brother--a paragraph in _Fashion_, he could get one in. For fear of
wounding her he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter,
employed by a firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had
married again. She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined
her to go into business.

Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all
over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of
soul.

Parts of the path were marked "Dangerous." The earth had given way,
creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung
out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a
small green painted table, and the young people leaning on the
protecting railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture.
There was in them and about them an illusive sense of death and the
beauty of life. One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of
feet down to the painted table.

The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of
June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a
dream.

The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered,
their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and
tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank
fell asleep that night.




VII



One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris.
Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London;
Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent
in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick.
Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one
evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes
suddenly.

"How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for--for--how long?"

"I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down
somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up."

"Hang the looking up; better come and look me up."

The young men laughed.

"It must be nearly a year and a half."

"I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at
Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night."

Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively.

"No," he said, "I am afraid I can't. I have something to do."

"Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?"

"I have some cheques to write."

"That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place."

"I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I
wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds."

"Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards."

"I am very sorry, but I really couldn't--not to-night."

"You never go in for amusing yourself."

"Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would
sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than
go to a music-hall."

Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said:
"But what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?"

Willy laughed. "A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores."

"You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them
home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to--"

"Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in
Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if
you will come with me; so will the missus."

"I forgot to ask about her, how is she?"

"Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-
morrow. I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of
mutton will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy."

"I'll come whenever you like."

"Can you come to-morrow?"

"Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards."

"We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty
of time."

"What a queer fish he is," thought Frank, as he walked down Regent
Street, looking at the women. "Can't come and dine with me because he
has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make
entries--what a clerk for the Government--an ideal clerk! What a
genius for red tape!"

Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented
on his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him.

"You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that
cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an
hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep
a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up."

Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet
suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room,
kept for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room--a
little more alive--where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts,
but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry,
bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too
obviously dry and bare, joyless and mean.

Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused
on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one,
making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the
humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the
reception rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and
poverty, another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths
float on the surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised
are they that they appear for a moment "new and original." But further
than a regret that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of
the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his
thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the
consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by "doing the
right thing by the woman." He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things
marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the
being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight.
Frank was such a one.

He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees,
and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed,
and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders.

They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called
indignantly to the crowd not to press him. "Did they not see that he
was carrying a child?" He did not think that his friends might
recognise him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of
some face in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside;
nor would he have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn,
shabbily-dressed woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his
friends, their interests and concerns; so complete was the investment
of himself that Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from
them; and it was not until he sat smoking with Willy in the back
parlour that he said:

"I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl."

"You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't
you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?"

"No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was
a pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had
such a jolly day in the woods and on the water--amid the water-lilies
and bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up
the river."

"I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if
I can help it--I am too nervous."

"How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!"

"But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in
your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone
somewhere. I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too
impatient."

"I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them--Lizzie among
the number--had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That
was true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known
previously at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they
look! all over London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for
hours tobacco smoke, fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable
jokes, the subjects of hideous flirtations; and then the little
comedy, the effort to appear as virtuous young ladies--'young ladies
of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In such circumstances how do you
expect a girl to keep straight? I do not think it is the men who do
the harm. There are, of course, a few blackguards who crack filthy
jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes she needn't listen--a girl
can always keep a man in his place. Then if a man flirts with a girl
he always loves her, likes her, if you think 'like' a better word; but
you must admit that in the most beery flirtation there must be a
certain amount of liking. There is, therefore, something to save a
girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not men, who lead innocent girls
astray. Those poor bar girls are quite unprotected; they have a
sitting-room into which they may not bring a friend--a man, I mean. In
the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit talking and drinking
going an. A girl who has gone wrong herself is never content until she
has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl is so mean! I feel very
much on this subject. I am thinking of writing a book on the subject.
Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to write?"

"You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I
forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her
Saviour.'"

"Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a
woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who
loves her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last,
determined to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his
own life, he marries her. What do you think?"

Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great
gravity. "I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like
giving opinions on questions I do not understand."

The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle.

"Just a little flat--quarter of a note wrong there and there!"

"Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I
wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it."

"What, with the missus overhead?"

"She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily _she_ used to sing
it; a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember
when you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look
pretty?"

"You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of
that story."

"There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I
used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper
at Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days."

"You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?"

"Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for
you. I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I
used to."

The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence.

"I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You
haven't mentioned the subject."

"I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now.
I don't think any one is doing much good."

"But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope."

"I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit
lately--war scares. But I daresay it will all come right."

"I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for.
What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father
with his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city
clerk for?"

"You see, you don't care about making money; I do--it was bred in me.
Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to
think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should
be able to leave the missus independent." Then, after a slight pause,
Willy said: "But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this
morning saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you
were to come to Southwick for a ball."

"What ball?"

"A subscription ball at Henfield--a county ball. Will you come?"

"Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?"

"Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters."

"How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?"

"Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by
the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?"

"Not if I go home now and pack up."

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.