Fraternity, by John Galsworthy
by
John Galsworthy

Part 1 out of 7








This etext was produced by David Widger





FRATERNITY

By John Galsworthy




CHAPTER I

THE SHADOW

In the afternoon of the last day of April, 190-, a billowy sea of
little broken clouds crowned the thin air above High Street,
Kensington. This soft tumult of vapours, covering nearly all the
firmament, was in onslaught round a patch of blue sky, shaped
somewhat like a star, which still gleamed--a single gentian flower
amongst innumerable grass. Each of these small clouds seemed fitted
with a pair of unseen wings, and, as insects flight on their too
constant journeys, they were setting forth all ways round this starry
blossom which burned so clear with the colour of its far fixity. On
one side they were massed in fleecy congeries, so crowding each other
that no edge or outline was preserved; on the other, higher,
stronger, emergent from their fellow-clouds, they seemed leading the
attack on that surviving gleam of the ineffable. Infinite was the
variety of those million separate vapours, infinite the unchanging
unity of that fixed blue star.

Down in the street beneath this eternal warring of the various soft-
winged clouds on the unmisted ether, men, women, children, and their
familiars--horses, dogs, and cats--were pursuing their occupations
with the sweet zest of the Spring. They streamed along, and the
noise of their frequenting rose in an unbroken roar: "I, I-I, I!"

The crowd was perhaps thickest outside the premises of Messrs. Rose
and Thorn. Every kind of being, from the highest to the lowest,
passed in front of the hundred doors of this establishment; and
before the costume window a rather tall, slight, graceful woman stood
thinking: "It really is gentian blue! But I don't know whether I
ought to buy it, with all this distress about!"

Her eyes, which were greenish-grey, and often ironical lest they
should reveal her soul, seemed probing a blue gown displayed in that
window, to the very heart of its desirability.

"And suppose Stephen doesn't like me in it!" This doubt set her
gloved fingers pleating the bosom of her frock. Into that little
pleat she folded the essence of herself, the wish to have and the
fear of having, the wish to be and the fear of being, and her veil,
falling from the edge of her hat, three inches from her face,
shrouded with its tissue her half-decided little features, her rather
too high cheek-bones, her cheeks which were slightly hollowed, as
though Time had kissed them just too much.

The old man, with a long face, eyes rimmed like a parrot's, and
discoloured nose, who, so long as he did not sit down, was permitted
to frequent the pavement just there and sell the 'Westminster
Gazette', marked her, and took his empty pipe out of his mouth.

It was his business to know all the passers-by, and his pleasure too;
his mind was thus distracted from the condition of his feet. He knew
this particular lady with the delicate face, and found her puzzling;
she sometimes bought the paper which Fate condemned him, against his
politics, to sell. The Tory journals were undoubtedly those which
her class of person ought to purchase. He knew a lady when he saw
one. In fact, before Life threw him into the streets, by giving him
a disease in curing which his savings had disappeared, he had been a
butler, and for the gentry had a respect as incurable as was his
distrust of "all that class of people" who bought their things at
"these 'ere large establishments," and attended "these 'ere
subscription dances at the Town 'All over there." He watched her
with special interest, not, indeed, attempting to attract attention,
though conscious in every fibre that he had only sold five copies of
his early issues. And he was sorry and surprised when she passed
from his sight through one of the hundred doors.

The thought which spurred her into Messrs. Rose and Thorn's was this:
"I am thirty-eight; I have a daughter of seventeen. I cannot afford
to lose my husband's admiration. The time is on me when I really
must make myself look nice!"

Before a long mirror, in whose bright pool there yearly bathed
hundreds of women's bodies, divested of skirts and bodices, whose
unruffled surface reflected daily a dozen women's souls divested of
everything, her eyes became as bright as steel; but having
ascertained the need of taking two inches off the chest of the
gentian frock, one off its waist, three off its hips, and of adding
one to its skirt, they clouded again with doubt, as though prepared
to fly from the decision she had come to. Resuming her bodice, she
asked:

"When could you let me have it?"

"At the end of the week, madam."

"Not till then?"

"We are very pressed, madam."

"Oh, but you must let me have it by Thursday at the latest, please."

The fitter sighed: "I will do my best."

"I shall rely on you. Mrs. Stephen Dallison, 76, The Old Square."

Going downstairs she thought: "That poor girl looked very tired; it's
a shame they give them such long hours!" and she passed into the
street.

A voice said timidly behind her: "Westminister, marm?"

"That's the poor old creature," thought Cecilia Dallison, "whose nose
is so unpleasant. I don't really think I--" and she felt for a penny
in her little bag. Standing beside the "poor old creature" was a
woman clothed in worn but neat black clothes, and an ancient toque
which had once known a better head. The wan remains of a little bit
of fur lay round her throat. She had a thin face, not without
refinement, mild, very clear brown eyes, and a twist of smooth black
hair. Beside her was a skimpy little boy, and in her arms a baby.
Mrs. Dallison held out two-pence for the paper, but it was at the
woman that she looked.

"Oh, Mrs. Hughs," she said, "we've been expecting you to hem the
curtains!"

The woman slightly pressed the baby.

"I am very sorry, ma'am. I knew I was expected, but I've had such
trouble."

Cecilia winced. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, m'm; it's my husband."

"Oh, dear!" Cecilia murmured. "But why didn't you come to us?"

"I didn't feel up to it, ma'am; I didn't really--"

A tear ran down her cheek, and was caught in a furrow near the mouth.

Mrs. Dallison said hurriedly: "Yes, yes; I'm very sorry."

"This old gentleman, Mr. Creed, lives in the same house with us, and
he is going to speak to my husband."

The old man wagged his head on its lean stalk of neck.

"He ought to know better than be'ave 'imself so disrespectable," he
said.

Cecilia looked at him, and murmured: "I hope he won't turn on you!"

The old man shuffled his feet.

"I likes to live at peace with everybody. I shall have the police to
'im if he misdemeans hisself with me!... Westminister, sir?" And,
screening his mouth from Mrs. Dallison, he added in a loud whisper:
"Execution of the Shoreditch murderer!"

Cecilia felt suddenly as though the world were listening to her
conversation with these two rather seedy persons.

"I don't really know what I can do for you, Mrs. Hughs. I'll speak
to Mr. Dallison, and to Mr. Hilary too."

"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am."

With a smile which seemed to deprecate its own appearance, Cecilia
grasped her skirts and crossed the road. "I hope I wasn't
unsympathetic," she thought, looking back at the three figures on the
edge of the pavement--the old man with his papers, and his
discoloured nose thrust upwards under iron-rimmed spectacles; the
seamstress in her black dress; the skimpy little boy. Neither
speaking nor moving, they were looking out before them at the
traffic; and something in Cecilia revolted at this sight. It was
lifeless, hopeless, unaesthetic.

"What can one do," she thought, "for women like Mrs. Hughs, who
always look like that? And that poor old man! I suppose I oughtn't
to have bought that dress, but Stephen is tired of this."

She turned out of the main street into a road preserved from commoner
forms of traffic, and stopped at a long low house half hidden behind
the trees of its front garden.

It was the residence of Hilary Dallison, her husband's brother, and
himself the husband of Bianca, her own sister.

The queer conceit came to Cecilia that it resembled Hilary. Its look
was kindly and uncertain; its colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of
its windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the
windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache
and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines
and shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and
apart, though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that
studio--of white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue
paint--was something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to
Bianca, who used it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with
its eyes on the house, shrinking defiantly from too close company, as
though it could not entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who
often worried over the relations between her sister and her brother-
in-law, suddenly felt how fitting and symbolical this was.

But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed
one too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the
door. Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady
bulldog, of toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately
waving her bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards
everyone, for she had been handed down clearer and paler with each
generation, till she had at last lost all the peculiar virtues of
dogs that bait the bull.

Speaking the word "Miranda!" Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this
daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress,
being also unaccustomed to commit herself....

Mondays were Blanca's "days," and Cecilia made her way towards the
studio. It was a large high room, full of people.

Motionless, by himself, close to the door, stood an old man, very
thin and rather bent, with silvery hair, and a thin silvery beard
grasped in his transparent fingers. He was dressed in a suit of
smoke-grey cottage tweed, which smelt of peat, and an Oxford shirt,
whose collar, ceasing prematurely, exposed a lean brown neck; his
trousers, too, ended very soon, and showed light socks. In his
attitude there was something suggestive of the patience and
determination of a mule. At Cecilia's approach he raised his eyes.
It was at once apparent why, in so full a room, he was standing
alone. Those blue eyes looked as if he were about to utter a
prophetic statement.

"They have been speaking to me of an execution," he said.

Cecilia made a nervous movement.

"Yes, Father?"

"To take life," went on the old man in a voice which, though charged
with strong emotion, seemed to be speaking to itself, "was the chief
mark of the insensate barbarism still prevailing in those days. It
sprang from that most irreligious fetish, the belief in the
permanence of the individual ego after death. From the worship of
that fetish had come all the sorrows of the human race."

Cecilia, with an involuntary quiver of her little bag, said:

"Father, how can you?"

"They did not stop to love each other in this life; they were so sure
they had all eternity to do it in. The doctrine was an invention to
enable men to act like dogs with clear consciences. Love could never
come to full fruition till it was destroyed."

Cecilia looked hastily round; no one had heard. She moved a little
sideways, and became merged in another group. Her father's lips
continued moving. He had resumed the patient attitude which so
slightly suggested mules. A voice behind her said: "I do think your
father is such an interesting man, Mrs. Dallison."

Cecilia turned and saw a woman of middle height, with her hair done
in the early Italian fashion, and very small, dark, lively eyes,
which looked as though her love of living would keep her busy each
minute of her day and all the minutes that she could occupy of
everybody else's days.

"Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace? Oh! how do you do? I've been meaning to
come and see you for quite a long time, but I know you're always so
busy."

With doubting eyes, half friendly and half defensive, as though
chaffing to prevent herself from being chaffed, Cecilia looked at
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, whom she had met several times at Bianca's
house. The widow of a somewhat famous connoisseur, she was now
secretary of the League for Educating Orphans who have Lost both
Parents, vice-president of the Forlorn Hope for Maids in Peril, and
treasurer to Thursday Hops for Working Girls. She seemed to know
every man and woman who was worth knowing, and some besides; to see
all picture-shows; to hear every new musician; and attend the opening
performance of every play. With regard to literature, she would say
that authors bored her; but she was always doing them good turns,
inviting them to meet their critics or editors, and sometimes--though
this was not generally known--pulling them out of the holes they were
prone to get into, by lending them a sum of money--after which, as
she would plaintively remark; she rarely saw them more.

She had a peculiar spiritual significance to Mrs. Stephen Dallison,
being just on the borderline between those of Bianca's friends whom
Cecilia did not wish and those whom she did wish to come to her own
house, for Stephen, a barrister in an official position, had a keen
sense of the ridiculous. Since Hilary wrote books and was a poet,
and Bianca painted, their friends would naturally be either
interesting or queer; and though for Stephen's sake it was important
to establish which was which, they were so very often both. Such
people stimulated, taken in small doses, but neither on her husband's
account nor on her daughter's did Cecilia desire that they should
come to her in swarms. Her attitude of mind towards them was, in
fact, similar-a sort of pleasurable dread-to that in which she
purchased the Westminster Gazette to feel the pulse of social
progress.

Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's dark little eyes twinkled.

"I hear that Mr. Stone--that is your father's name, I think--is
writing a book which will create quite a sensation when it comes
out."

Cecilia bit her lips. "I hope it never will come out," she was on
the point of saying.

"What will it be called?" asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. "I gather
that it's a book of Universal Brotherhood. That's so nice!"

Cecilia made a movement of annoyance. "Who told you?"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, "I do think your sister gets
such attractive people at her At Homes. They all take such interest
in things."

A little surprised at herself, Cecilia answered "Too much for me!"

Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace smiled. "I mean in art and social
questions. Surely one can't be too interested in them?"

Cecilia said rather hastily:

"Oh no, of course not." And both ladies looked around them. A buzz
of conversation fell on Cecilia's ears.

"Have you seen the 'Aftermath'? It's really quite wonderful!"

"Poor old chap! he's so rococo...."

"There's a new man.

"She's very sympathetic.

"But the condition of the poor....

"Is that Mr. Balladyce? Oh, really.

"It gives you such a feeling of life.

"Bourgeois!..."

The voice of Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace broke through: "But do please
tell me who is that young girl with the young man looking at the
picture over there. She's quite charming!"

Cecilia's cheeks went a very pretty pink.

"Oh, that's my little daughter."

"Really! Have you a daughter as big as that? Why, she must be
seventeen!"

"Nearly eighteen!"

"What is her name?"

"Thyme," said Cecilia, with a little smile. She felt that Mrs.
Tallents Smallpeace was about to say: 'How charming!'

Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace saw her smile and paused. "Who is the young
man with her?"

"My nephew, Martin Stone."

"The son of your brother who was killed with his wife in that
dreadful Alpine accident? He looks a very decided sort of young man.
He's got that new look. What is he?"

"He's very nearly a doctor. I never know whether he's quite finished
or not."

"I thought perhaps he might have something to do with Art."

"Oh no, he despises Art."

"And does your daughter despise it, too?"

"No; she's studying it."

"Oh, really! How interesting! I do think the rising generation
amusing, don't you? They're so independent."

Cecilia looked uneasily at the rising generation. They were standing
side by side before the picture, curiously observant and detached,
exchanging short remarks and glances. They seemed to watch all these
circling, chatting, bending, smiling people with a sort of youthful,
matter-of-fact, half-hostile curiosity. The young man had a pale
face, clean-shaven, with a strong jaw, a long, straight nose, a
rather bumpy forehead which did not recede, and clear grey eyes. His
sarcastic lips were firm and quick, and he looked at people with
disconcerting straightness. The young girl wore a blue-green frock.
Her face was charming, with eager, hazel-grey eyes, a bright colour,
and fluffy hair the colour of ripe nuts.

"That's your sister's picture, 'The Shadow,' they're looking at,
isn't it?" asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. "I remember seeing it on
Christmas Day, and the little model who was sitting for it--an
attractive type! Your brother-in-law told me how interested you all
were in her. Quite a romantic story, wasn't it, about her fainting
from want of food when she first came to sit?"

Cecilia murmured something. Her hands were moving nervously; she
looked ill at ease.

These signs passed unperceived by Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, whose
eyes were busy.

"In the F.H.M.P., of course, I see a lot of young girls placed in
delicate positions, just on the borders, don't you know? You should
really join the F.H.M.P., Mrs. Dallison. It's a first-rate thing--
most absorbing work."

The doubting deepened in Cecilia's eyes.

"Oh, it must be!" she said. "I've so little time."

Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace went on at once.

"Don't you think that we live in the most interesting days? There
are such a lot of movements going on. It's quite exciting. We all
feel that we can't shut our eyes any longer to social questions. I
mean the condition of the people alone is enough to give one
nightmare!"

"Yes, yes," said Cecilia; "it is dreadful, of course.

"Politicians and officials are so hopeless, one can't look for
anything from them."

Cecilia drew herself up. "Oh, do you think so?" she said.

"I was just talking to Mr. Balladyce. He says that Art and
Literature must be put on a new basis altogether."

"Yes," said Cecilia; "really? Is he that funny little man?"

"I think he's so monstrously clever."

Cecilia answered quickly: "I know--I know. Of course, something must
be done."

"Yes," said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace absently, "I think we all feel
that. Oh, do tell me! I've been talking to such a delightful
person--just the type you see when you go into the City--thousands of
them, all in such good black coats. It's so unusual to really meet
one nowadays; and they're so refreshing, they have such nice simple
views. There he is, standing just behind your sister."

Cecilia by a nervous gesture indicated that she recognized the
personality alluded to. "Oh, yes," she said; "Mr. Purcey. I don't
know why he comes to see us."

"I think he's so delicious!" said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace dreamily.
Her little dark eyes, like bees, had flown to sip honey from the
flower in question--a man of broad build and medium height, dressed.
with accuracy, who seemed just a little out of his proper bed. His
mustachioed mouth wore a set smile; his cheerful face was rather red,
with a forehead of no extravagant height or breadth, and a
conspicuous jaw; his hair was thick and light in colour, and his eyes
were small, grey, and shrewd. He was looking at a picture.

"He's so delightfully unconscious," murmured Mrs. Tallents
Smallpeace. "He didn't even seem to know that there was a problem of
the lower classes."

"Did he tell you that he had a picture?" asked Cecilia gloomily.

"Oh yes, by Harpignies, with the accent on the 'pig.' It's worth
three times what he gave for it. It's so nice to be made to feel
that there is still all that mass of people just simply measuring
everything by what they gave for it."

"And did he tell you my grandfather Carfax's dictum in the Banstock
case?" muttered Cecilia.

"Oh yes: 'The man who does not know his own mind should be made an
Irishman by Act of Parliament.' He said it was so awfully good."

"He would," replied Cecilia.

"He seems to depress you, rather!"

"Oh no; I believe he's quite a nice sort of person. One can't be
rude to him; he really did what he thought a very kind thing to my
father. That's how we came to know him. Only it's rather trying
when he will come to call regularly. He gets a little on one's
nerves."

"Ah, that's just what I feel is so jolly about him; no one would ever
get on his nerves. I do think we've got too many nerves, don't you?
Here's your brother-in-law. He's such an uncommon-looking man; I
want to have a talk with him about that little model. A country
girl, wasn't she?"

She had turned her head towards a tall man with a very slight stoop
and a brown, thin, bearded face, who was approaching from the door.
She did not see that Cecilia had flushed, and was looking at her
almost angrily. The tall thin man put his hand on Cecilia's arm,
saying gently: "Hallo Cis! Stephen here yet?"

Cecilia shook her head.

"You know Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, Hilary?"

The tall man bowed. His hazel-coloured eyes were shy, gentle, and
deep-set; his eyebrows, hardly ever still, gave him a look of austere
whimsicality. His dark brown hair was very lightly touched with
grey, and a frequent kindly smile played on his lips. His
unmannerismed manner was quiet to the point of extinction. He had
long, thin, brown hands, and nothing peculiar about his dress.

"I'll leave you to talk to Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace," Cecilia said.

A knot of people round Mr. Balladyce prevented her from moving far,
however, and the voice of Mrs. Smallpeace travelled to her ears.

"I was talking about that little model. It was so good of you to
take such interest in the girl. I wondered whether we could do
anything for her."

Cecilia's hearing was too excellent to miss the tone of Hilary's
reply:

"Oh, thank you; I don't think so."

"I fancied perhaps you might feel that our Society---hers is an
unsatisfactory profession for young girls!"

Cecilia saw the back of Hilary's neck grow red. She turned her head
away.

"Of course, there are many very nice models indeed," said the voice
of Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. "I don't mean that they are necessarily
at all--if they're girls of strong character; and especially if they
don't sit for the--the altogether."

Hilary's dry, staccato answer came to Cecilia's ears: "Thank you;
it's very kind of you."

"Oh, of course, if it's not necessary. Your wife's picture was so
clever, Mr. Dallison--such an interesting type."

Without intention Cecilia found herself before that picture. It
stood with its face a little turned towards the wall, as though
somewhat in disgrace, portraying the full-length figure of a girl
standing in deep shadow, with her arms half outstretched, as if
asking for something. Her eyes were fixed on Cecilia, and through
her parted lips breath almost seemed to come. The only colour in the
picture was the pale blue of those eyes, the pallid red of those
parted lips, the still paler brown of the hair; the rest was shadow.
In the foreground light was falling as though from a street-lamp.

Cecilia thought: "That girl's eyes and mouth haunt me. Whatever made
Blanca choose such a subject? It is clever, of course--for her."




CHAPTER II

A FAMILY DISCUSSION

The marriage of Sylvanus Stone, Professor of the Natural Sciences, to
Anne, daughter of Mr. Justice Carfax, of the well-known county
family--the Carfaxes of Spring Deans, Hants--was recorded in the
sixties. The baptisms of Martin, Cecilia, and Bianca, son and
daughters of Sylvanus and Anne Stone, were to be discovered
registered in Kensington in the three consecutive years following, as
though some single-minded person had been connected with their
births. After this the baptisms of no more offspring were to be
found anywhere, as if that single mind had encountered opposition.
But in the eighties there was noted in the register of the same
church the burial of "Anne, nee Carfax, wife of Sylvanus Stone." In
that "nee Carfax" there was, to those who knew, something more than
met the eye. It summed up the mother of Cecilia and Bianca, and, in
more subtle fashion, Cecilia and Bianca, too. It summed up that
fugitive, barricading look in their bright eyes, which, though spoken
of in the family as "the Carfax eyes," were in reality far from
coming from old Mr. Justice Carfax. They had been his wife's in
turn, and had much annoyed a man of his decided character. He
himself had always known his mind, and had let others know it, too;
reminding his wife that she was an impracticable woman, who knew not
her own mind; and devoting his lawful gains to securing the future of
his progeny. It would have disturbed him if he had lived to see his
grand-daughters and their times. Like so many able men of his
generation, far-seeing enough in practical affairs, he had never
considered the possibility that the descendants of those who, like
himself, had laid up treasure for their children's children might
acquire the quality of taking time, balancing pros and cons, looking
ahead, and not putting one foot down before picking the other up. He
had not foreseen, in deed, that to wobble might become an art, in
order that, before anything was done, people might know the full
necessity for doing some thing, and how impossible it would be to do
indeed, foolish to attempt to do--that which would fully meet the
case. He, who had been a man of action all his life, had not
perceived how it would grow to be matter of common instinct that to
act was to commit oneself, and that, while what one had was not
precisely what one wanted, what one had not (if one had it) would be
as bad. He had never been self-conscious--it was not the custom of
his generation--and, having but little imagination, had never
suspected that he was laying up that quality for his descendants,
together with a competence which secured them a comfortable leisure.

Of all the persons in his grand-daughter's studio that afternoon,
that stray sheep Mr. Purcey would have been, perhaps, the only one
whose judgments he would have considered sound. No one had laid up a
competence for Mr. Purcey, who had been in business from the age of
twenty.

It is uncertain whether the mere fact that he was not in his own fold
kept this visitor lingering in the studio when all other guests were
gone; or whether it was simply the feeling that the longer he stayed
in contact with really artistic people the more distinguished he was
becoming. Probably the latter, for the possession of that
Harpignies, a good specimen, which he had bought by accident, and
subsequently by accident discovered to have a peculiar value, had
become a factor in his life, marking him out from all his friends,
who went in more for a neat type of Royal Academy landscape, together
with reproductions of young ladies in eighteenth-century costumes
seated on horseback, or in Scotch gardens. A junior partner in a
banking-house of some importance, he lived at Wimbledon, whence he
passed up and down daily in his car. To this he owed his
acquaintance with the family of Dallison. For one day, after telling
his chauffeur to meet him at the Albert Gate, he had set out to
stroll down Rotten Row, as he often did on the way home, designing to
nod to anybody that he knew. It had turned out a somewhat barren
expedition. No one of any consequence had met his eye; and it was
with a certain almost fretful longing for distraction that in
Kensington Gardens he came on an old man feeding birds out of a paper
bag. The birds having flown away on seeing him, he approached the
feeder to apologize.

"I'm afraid I frightened your birds, sir," he began.

This old man, who was dressed in smoke-grey tweeds which exhaled a
poignant scent of peat, looked at him without answering.

"I'm afraid your birds saw me coming," Mr. Purcey said again.

"In those days," said the aged stranger, "birds were afraid of men."

Mr. Purcey's shrewd grey eyes perceived at once that he had a
character to deal with.

"Ah, yes!" he said; "I see--you allude to the present time. That's
very nice. Ha, ha!"

The old man answered: "The emotion of fear is inseparably connected
with a primitive state of fratricidal rivalry."

This sentence put Mr. Purcey on his guard.

'The old chap,' he thought, 'is touched. He evidently oughtn't to be
out here by himself.' He debated, therefore, whether he should
hasten away toward his car, or stand by in case his assistance should
be needed. Being a kind-hearted man, who believed in his capacity
for putting things to rights, and noticing a certain delicacy--a
"sort of something rather distinguished," as he phrased it
afterwards--in the old fellow's face and figure, he decided to see if
he could be of any service. They walked along together, Mr. Purcey
watching his new friend askance, and directing the march to where he
had ordered his chauffeur to await him.

"You are very fond of birds, I suppose," he said cautiously.

"The birds are our brothers."

The answer was of a nature to determine Mr. Purcey in his diagnosis
of the case.

"I've got my car here," he said. "Let me give you a lift home."

This new but aged acquaintance did not seem to hear; his lips moved
as though he were following out some thought.

"In those days," Mr. Purcey heard him say, "the congeries of men were
known as rookeries. The expression was hardly just towards that
handsome bird."

Mr. Purcey touched him hastily on the arm.

"I've got my car here, sir," he said. "Do let me put you down!"

Telling the story afterwards, he had spoken thus:

"The old chap knew where he lived right enough; but dash me if I
believe he noticed that I was taking him there in my car--I had the
A. i. Damyer out. That's how I came to make the acquaintance of
these Dallisons. He's the writer, you know, and she paints--rather
the new school--she admires Harpignies. Well, when I got there in
the car I found Dallison in the garden. Of course I was careful not
to put my foot into it. I told him: 'I found this old gentleman
wandering about. I've just brought him back in my car.' Who should
the old chap turn out to be but her father! They were awfully
obliged to me. Charmin' people, but very what d'you call it 'fin de
siecle'--like all these professors, these artistic pigs--seem to know
rather a queer set, advanced people, and all that sort of cuckoo,
always talkin' about the poor, and societies, and new religions, and
that kind of thing."

Though he had since been to see them several times, the Dallisons had
never robbed him of the virtuous feeling of that good action--they
had never let him know that he had brought home, not, as he imagined,
a lunatic, but merely a philosopher.

It had been somewhat of a quiet shock to him to find Mr. Stone close
to the doorway when he entered Bianca's studio that afternoon; for
though he had seen him since the encounter in Kensington Gardens, and
knew that he was writing a book, he still felt that he was not quite
the sort of old man that one ought to meet about. He had at once
begun to tell him of the hanging of the Shoreditch murderer, as
recorded in the evening papers. Mr. Stone's reception of that news
had still further confrmed his original views. When all the guests
were gone--with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Dallison and
Miss Dallison, "that awfully pretty girl," and the young man "who was
always hangin' about her"--he had approached his hostess for some
quiet talk. She stood listening to him, very well bred, with just
that habitual spice of mockery in her smile, which to Mr. Purcey's
eyes made her "a very strikin'-lookin' woman, but rather---" There
he would stop, for it required a greater psychologist than he to
describe a secret disharmony which a little marred her beauty. Due
to some too violent cross of blood, to an environment too unsuited,
to what not--it was branded on her. Those who knew Bianca Dallison
better than Mr. Purcey were but too well aware of this fugitive,
proud spirit permeating one whose beauty would otherwise have passed
unquestioned.

She was a little taller than Cecilia, her figure rather fuller and
more graceful, her hair darker, her eyes, too, darker and more deeply
set, her cheek-bones higher, her colouring richer. That spirit of
the age, Disharmony, must have presided when a child so vivid and
dark-coloured was christened Bianca.

Mr. Purcey, however, was not a man who allowed the finest shades of
feeling to interfere with his enjoyments. She was a "strikin'-
lookin' woman," and there was, thanks to Harpignies, a link between
them.

"Your father and I, Mrs. Dallison, can't quite understand each
other," he began. "Our views of life don't seem to hit it off
exactly."

"Really," murmured Bianca; "I should have thought that you'd have got
on so well."

"He's a little bit too--er--scriptural for me, perhaps," said Mr.
Purcey, with some delicacy.

"Did we never tell you," Bianca answered softly, "that my father was
a rather well--known man of science before his illness?"

"Ah!" replied Mr. Purcey, a little puzzled; "that, of course. D'you
know, of all your pictures, Mrs. Dallison, I think that one you call
'The Shadow' is the most rippin'. There's a something about it that
gets hold of you. That was the original, wasn't it, at your
Christmas party--attractive girl--it's an awf'ly good likeness."

Bianca's face had changed, but Mr. Purcey was not a man to notice a
little thing like that.

"If ever you want to part with it," he said, "I hope you'll give me a
chance. I mean it'd be a pleasure to me to have it. I think it'll
be worth a lot of money some day."

Bianca did not answer, and Mr. Purcey, feeling suddenly a little
awkward, said: "I've got my car waiting. I must be off--really."
Shaking hands with all of them, he went away.

When the door had closed behind his back, a universal sigh went up.
It was followed by a silence, which Hilary broke.

"We'll smoke, Stevie, if Cis doesn't mind."

Stephen Dallison placed a cigarette between his moustacheless lips,
always rather screwed up, and ready to nip with a smile anything that
might make him feel ridiculous.

"Phew!" he said. "Our friend Purcey becomes a little tedious. He
seems to take the whole of Philistia about with him."

"He's a very decent fellow," murmured Hilary.

"A bit heavy, surely!" Stephen Dallison's face, though also long and
narrow, was not much like his brother's. His eyes, though not
unkind, were far more scrutinising, inquisitive, and practical; his
hair darker, smoother.

Letting a puff of smoke escape, he added:

"Now, that's the sort of man to give you a good sound opinion. You
should have asked him, Cis."

Cecilia answered with a frown:

"Don't chaff, Stephen; I'm perfectly serious about Mrs. Hughs."

"Well, I don't see what I can do for the good woman, my dear. One
can't interfere in these domestic matters."

"But it seems dreadful that we who employ her should be able to do
nothing for her. Don't you think so, B.?"

"I suppose we could do something for her if we wanted to badly
enough."

Bianca's voice, which had the self-distrustful ring of modern music,
suited her personality.

A glance passed between Stephen and his wife.

"That's B. all over!" it seemed to say....

"Hound Street, where they live, is a horrid place."

It was Thyme who spoke, and everybody looked round at her.

"How do you know that?" asked Cecilia.

"I went to see."

"With whom?"

"Martin."

The lips of the young man whose name she mentioned curled
sarcastically.

Hilary asked gently:

"Well, my dear, what did you see?"

"Most of the doors are open---"

Bianca murmured: "That doesn't tell us much."

"On the contrary," said Martin suddenly, in a deep bass voice, "it
tells you everything. Go on."

"The Hughs live on the top floor at No. 1. It's the best house in
the street. On the ground-floor are some people called Budgen; he's
a labourer, and she's lame. They've got one son. The Hughs have let
off the first-floor front-room to an old man named Creed---"

"Yes, I know," Cecilia muttered.

"He makes about one and tenpence a day by selling papers. The back-
room on that floor they let, of course, to your little model, Aunt
B."

"She is not my model now."

There was a silence such as falls when no one knows how far the
matter mentioned is safe to, touch on. Thyme proceeded with her
report.

"Her room's much the best in the house; it's airy, and it looks out
over someone's garden. I suppose she stays there because it's so
cheap. The Hughs' rooms are---" She stopped, wrinkling her straight
nose.

"So that's the household," said Hilary. "Two married couples, one
young man, one young girl"--his eyes travelled from one to another of
the two married couples, the young man, and the young girl, collected
in this room---" and one old man," he added softly.

"Not quite the sort of place for you to go poking about in, Thyme,"
Stephen said ironically. "Do you think so, Martin?"

"Why not?"

Stephen raised his brows, and glanced towards his wife. Her face was
dubious, a little scared. There was a silence. Then Bianca spoke:

"Well?" That word, like nearly all her speeches, seemed rather to
disconcert her hearers.

"So Hughs ill-treats her?" said Hilary.

"She says so," replied Cecilia---" at least, that's what I
understood. Of course, I don't know any details."

"She had better get rid of him, I should think," Bianca murmured.

Out of the silence that followed Thyme's clear voice was heard
saying:

"She can't get a divorce; she could get a separation."

Cecilia rose uneasily. These words concreted suddenly a wealth of
half-acknowledged doubts about her little daughter. This came of
letting her hear people talk, and go about with Martin! She might
even have been listening to her grandfather--such a thought was most
disturbing. And, afraid, on the one hand, of gainsaying the liberty
of speech, and, on the other, of seeming to approve her daughter's
knowledge of the world, she looked at her husband.

But Stephen did not speak, feeling, no doubt, that to pursue the
subject would be either to court an ethical, even an abstract,
disquisition, and this one did not do in anybody's presence, much
less one's wife's or daughter's; or to touch on sordid facts of
doubtful character, which was equally distasteful in the
circumstances. He, too, however, was uneasy that Thyme should know
so much.

The dusk was gathering outside; the fire threw a flickering light,
fitfully outlining their figures, making those faces, so familiar to
each other, a little mysterious.

At last Stephen broke the silence. "Of course, I'm very sorry for
her, but you'd better let it alone--you can't tell with that sort of
people; you never can make out what they want--it's safer not to
meddle. At all events, it's a matter for a Society to look into
first!"

Cecilia answered: "But she's, on my conscience, Stephen."

"They're all on my conscience," muttered Hilary.

Bianca looked at him for the first time; then, turning to her nephew,
said: "What do you say, Martin?"

The young man, whose face was stained by the firelight the colour of
pale cheese, made no answer.

But suddenly through the stillness came a voice:

"I have thought of something."

Everyone turned round. Mr. Stone was seen emerging from behind "The
Shadow"; his frail figure, in its grey tweeds, his silvery hair and
beard, were outlined sharply against the wall.

"Why, Father," Cecilia said, "we didn't know that you were here!"

Mr. Stone looked round bewildered; it seemed as if he, too, had been
ignorant of that fact.

"What is it that you've thought of?"

The firelight leaped suddenly on to Mr. Stone's thin yellow hand.

"Each of us," he said, "has a shadow in those places--in those
streets."

There was a vague rustling, as of people not taking a remark too
seriously, and the sound of a closing door.




CHAPTER III

HILARY'S BROWN STUDY

"What do you really think, Uncle Hilary?"

Turning at his writing-table to look at the face of his young niece,
Hilary Dallison answered:

"My dear, we have had the same state of affairs since the beginning
of the world. There is no chemical process; so far as my knowledge
goes, that does not make waste products. What your grandfather calls
our 'shadows' are the waste products of the social process. That
there is a submerged tenth is as certain as that there is an emerged
fiftieth like ourselves; exactly who they are and how they come,
whether they can ever be improved away, is, I think, as uncertain as
anything can be."

The figure of the girl seated in the big armchair did not stir. Her
lips pouted contemptuously, a frown wrinkled her forehead.

"Martin says that a thing is only impossible when we think it so."

"Faith and the mountain, I'm afraid."

Thyme's foot shot forth; it nearly came into contact with Miranda,
the little bulldog.

"Oh, duckie!"

But the little moonlight bulldog backed away.

"I hate these slums, uncle; they're so disgusting!"

Hilary leaned his face on his thin hand; it was his characteristic
attitude.

"They are hateful, disgusting, and heartrending. That does not make
the problem any the less difficult, does it?"

"I believe we simply make the difficulties ourselves by seeing them."

Hilary smiled. "Does Martin say that too?"

"Of course he does."

"Speaking broadly," murmured Hilary, "I see only one difficulty--
human nature."

Thyme rose. "I think it horrible to have a low opinion of human
nature."

"My dear," said Hilary, "don't you think perhaps that people who have
what is called a low opinion of human nature are really more tolerant
of it, more in love with it, in fact, than those who, looking to what
human nature might be, are bound to hate what human nature is."

The look which Thyme directed at her uncle's amiable, attractive
face, with its pointed beard, high forehead, and special little
smile, seemed to alarm Hilary.

"I don't want you to have an unnecessarily low opinion of me, my
dear. I'm not one of those people who tell you that everything's all
right because the rich have their troubles as well as the poor. A
certain modicum of decency and comfort is obviously necessary to man
before we can begin to do anything but pity him; but that doesn't
make it any easier to know how you're going to insure him that
modicum of decency and comfort, does it?"

"We've got to do it," said Thyme; "it won't wait any longer."

"My dear," said Hilary, "think of Mr. Purcey! What proportion of the
upper classes do you imagine is even conscious of that necessity?
We, who have got what I call the social conscience, rise from the
platform of Mr. Purcey; we're just a gang of a few thousands to Mr.
Purcey's tens of thousands, and how many even of us are prepared, or,
for the matter of that, fitted, to act on our consciousness? In
spite of your grandfather's ideas, I'm afraid we're all too much
divided into classes; man acts, and always has acted, in classes."

"Oh--classes!" answered Thyme--"that's the old superstition, uncle."

"Is it? I thought one's class, perhaps, was only oneself
exaggerated--not to be shaken off. For instance, what are you and I,
with our particular prejudices, going to do?"

Thyme gave him the cruel look of youth, which seemed to say: 'You are
my very good uncle, and a dear; but you are more than twice my age.
That, I think, is conclusive!'

"Has something been settled about Mrs. Hughs?" she asked abruptly.

"What does your father say this morning?"

Thyme picked up her portfolio of drawings, and moved towards the
door.

"Father's hopeless. He hasn't an idea beyond referring her to the
S.P.B."

She was gone; and Hilary, with a sigh, took his pen up, but he wrote
nothing down ....

Hilary and Stephen Dallison were grandsons of that Canon Dallison,
well known as friend, and sometime adviser, of a certain Victorian
novelist. The Canon, who came of an old Oxfordshire family, which
for three hundred years at least had served the Church or State, was
himself the author of two volumes of "Socratic Dialogues." He had
bequeathed to his son--a permanent official in the Foreign Office--if
not his literary talent, the tradition at all events of culture.
This tradition had in turn been handed on to Hilary and Stephen.

Educated at a public school and Cambridge, blessed with competent,
though not large, independent incomes, and brought up never to allude
to money if it could possibly be helped, the two young men had been
turned out of the mint with something of the same outward stamp on
them. Both were kindly, both fond of open-air pursuits, and neither
of them lazy. Both, too, were very civilised, with that bone-deep
decency, that dislike of violence, nowhere so prevalent as in the
upper classes of a country whose settled institutions are as old as
its roads, or the walls which insulate its parks. But as time went
on, the one great quality which heredity and education, environment
and means, had bred in both of them--self-consciousness--acted in
these two brothers very differently. To Stephen it was preservative,
keeping him, as it were, in ice throughout hot-weather seasons,
enabling him to know exactly when he was in danger of decomposition,
so that he might nip the process in the bud; it was with him a
healthy, perhaps slightly chemical, ingredient, binding his component
parts, causing them to work together safely, homogeneously. In
Hilary the effect seemed to have been otherwise; like some slow and
subtle poison, this great quality, self-consciousness, had soaked his
system through and through; permeated every cranny of his spirit, so
that to think a definite thought, or do a definite deed, was
obviously becoming difficult to him. It took in the main the form of
a sort of gentle desiccating humour.

"It's a remarkable thing," he had one day said to Stephen, "that by
the process of assimilating little bits of chopped-up cattle one
should be able to form the speculation of how remarkable a thing it
is."

Stephen had paused a second before answering--they were lunching off
roast beef in the Law Courts--he had then said:

"You're surely not going to eschew the higher mammals, like our
respected father-in-law?"

"On the contrary," said Hilary, "to chew them; but it is remarkable,
for all that; you missed my point."

It was clear that a man who could see anything remarkable in such a
thing was far gone, and Stephen had murmured:

"My dear old chap, you're getting too introspective."

Hilary, having given his brother the special retiring smile, which
seemed not only to say; "Don't let me bore you," but also, "Well,
perhaps you had better wait outside," the conversation closed.

That smile of Hilary's, which jibbed away from things, though
disconcerting and apt to put an end to intercourse, was natural
enough. A sensitive man, who had passed his life amongst cultivated
people in the making of books, guarded from real wants by modest, not
vulgar, affluence, had not reached the age of forty-two without
finding his delicacy sharpened to the point of fastidiousness. Even
his dog could see the sort of man he was. She knew that he would
take no liberties, either with her ears or with her tail. She knew
that he would never hold her mouth ajar, and watch her teeth, as some
men do; that when she was lying on her back he would gently rub her
chest without giving her the feeling that she was doing wrong, as
women will; and if she sat, as she was sitting now, with her eyes
fixed on his study fire, he would never, she knew, even from afar,
prevent her thinking of the nothing she loved to think on.

In his study, which smelt of a particular mild tobacco warranted to
suit the nerves of any literary man, there was a bust of Socrates,
which always seemed to have a strange attraction for its owner. He
had once described to a fellow-writer the impression produced on him
by that plaster face, so capaciously ugly, as though comprehending
the whole of human life, sharing all man's gluttony and lust, his
violence and rapacity, but sharing also his strivings toward love and
reason and serenity.

"He's telling us," said Hilary, "to drink deep, to dive down and live
with mermaids, to lie out on the hills under the sun, to sweat with
helots, to know all things and all men. No seat, he says, among the
Wise, unless we've been through it all before we climb! That's how
he strikes me--not too cheering for people of our sort!"

Under the shadow of this bust Hilary rested his forehead on his hand.
In front of him were three open books and a pile of manuscript, and
pushed to one side a little sheaf of pieces of green-white paper,
press-cuttings of his latest book.

The exact position occupied by his work in the life of such a man is
not too easy to define. He earned an income by it, but he was not
dependent on that income. As poet, critic, writer of essays, he had
made himself a certain name--not a great name, but enough to swear
by. Whether his fastidiousness could have stood the conditions of
literary existence without private means was now and then debated by
his friends; it could probably have done so better than was supposed,
for he sometimes startled those who set him down as a dilettante by a
horny way of retiring into his shell for the finish of a piece of
work.

Try as he would that morning to keep his thoughts concentrated on his
literary labour, they wandered to his conversation with his niece and
to the discussion on Mrs. Hughs; the family seamstress, in his wife's
studio the day before. Stephen had lingered behind Cecilia and Thyme
when they went away after dinner, to deliver a last counsel to his
brother at the garden gate.

"Never meddle between man and wife--you know what the lower classes
are!"

And across the dark garden he had looked back towards the house. One
room on the ground-floor alone was lighted. Through its open window
the head and shoulders of Mr. Stone could be seen close to a small
green reading-lamp. Stephen shook his head, murmuring:

"But, I say, our old friend, eh? 'In those places--in those
streets!' It's worse than simple crankiness--the poor old chap is
getting almost---"

And, touching his forehead lightly with two fingers, he had hurried
off with the ever-springy step of one whose regularity habitually
controls his imagination.

Pausing a minute amongst the bushes, Hilary too had looked at the
lighted window which broke the dark front of his house, and his
little moonlight bulldog, peering round his legs, had gazed up also.
Mr. Stone was still standing, pen in hand, presumably deep in
thought. His silvered head and beard moved slightly to the efforts
of his brain. He came over to the window, and, evidently not seeing
his son-in-law, faced out into the night.

In that darkness were all the shapes and lights and shadows of a
London night in spring: the trees in dark bloom; the wan yellow of
the gas-lamps, pale emblems of the self-consciousness of towns; the
clustered shades of the tiny leaves, spilled, purple, on the surface
of the road, like bunches of black grapes squeezed down into the
earth by the feet of the passers-by. There, too, were shapes of men
and women hurrying home, and the great blocked shapes of the houses
where they lived. A halo hovered above the City--a high haze of
yellow light, dimming the stars. The black, slow figure of a
policeman moved noiselessly along the railings opposite.

>From then till eleven o'clock, when he would make himself some cocoa
on a little spirit-lamp, the writer of the "Book of Universal
Brotherhood" would alternate between his bent posture above his
manuscript and his blank consideration of the night....

With a jerk, Hilary came back to his reflections beneath the bust of
Socrates.

"Each of us has a shadow in those places--in those streets!"

There certainly was a virus in that notion. One must either take it
as a jest, like Stephen; or, what must one do? How far was it one's
business to identify oneself with other people, especially the
helpless--how far to preserve oneself intact--'integer vita'? Hilary
was no young person, like his niece or Martin, to whom everything
seemed simple; nor was he an old person like their grandfather, for
whom life had lost its complications.

And, very conscious of his natural disabilities for a decision on a
like, or indeed on any, subject except, perhaps, a point of literary
technique, he got up from his writing-table, and, taking his little
bulldog, went out. His intention was to visit Mrs. Hughs in Hound
Street, and see with his own eyes the state of things. But he had
another reason, too, for wishing to go there ....




CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE MODEL

When in the preceding autumn Bianca began her picture called "The
Shadow," nobody was more surprised than Hilary that she asked him to
find her a model for the figure. Not knowing the nature of the
picture, nor having been for many years--perhaps never--admitted into
the workings of his wife's spirit, he said:

"Why don't you ask Thyme to sit for you?"

Blanca answered: "She's not the type at all--too matter-of-fact.
Besides, I don't want a lady; the figure's to be half draped."

Hilary smiled.

Blanca knew quite well that he was smiling at this distinction
between ladies and other women, and understood that he was smiling,
not so much at her, but at himself, for secretly agreeing with the
distinction she had made.

And suddenly she smiled too.

There was the whole history of their married life in those two
smiles. They meant so much: so many thousand hours of suppressed
irritation, so many baffled longings and earnest efforts to bring
their natures together. They were the supreme, quiet evidence of the
divergence of two lives--that slow divergence which had been far from
being wilful, and was the more hopeless in that it had been so
gradual and so gentle. They had never really had a quarrel, having
enlightened views of marriage; but they had smiled. They had smiled
so often through so many years that no two people in the world could
very well be further from each other. Their smiles had banned the
revelation even to themselves of the tragedy of their wedded state.
It is certain that neither could help those smiles, which were not
intended to wound, but came on their faces as naturally as moonlight
falls on water, out of their inimically constituted souls.

Hilary spent two afternoons among his artist friends, trying, by
means of the indications he had gathered, to find a model for "The
Shadow." He had found one at last. Her name, Barton, and address
had been given him by a painter of still life, called French.

"She's never sat to me," he said; "my sister discovered her in the
West Country somewhere. She's got a story of some sort. I don't
know what. She came up about three months ago, I think."

"She's not sitting to your sister now?" Hilary asked.

"No," said the painter of still life; "my sister's married and gone
out to India. I don't know whether she'd sit for the half-draped,
but I should think so. She'll have to, sooner or later; she may as
well begin, especially to a woman. There's a something about her
that's attractive--you might try her!" And with these words he
resumed the painting of still life which he had broken off to talk to
Hilary.

Hilary had written to this girl to come and see him. She had come
just before dinner the same day.

He found her standing in the middle of his study, not daring, as it
seemed, to go near the furniture, and as there was very little light,
he could hardly see her face. She was resting a foot, very patient,
very still, in an old brown skirt, an ill-shaped blouse, and a blue-
green tam-o'-shanter cap. Hilary turned up the light. He saw a
round little face with broad cheekbones, flower-blue eyes, short
lamp-black lashes, and slightly parted lips. It was difficult to
judge of her figure in those old clothes, but she was neither short
nor tall; her neck was white and well set on, her hair pale brown and
abundant. Hilary noted that her chin, though not receding, was too
soft and small; but what he noted chiefly was her look of patient
expectancy, as though beyond the present she were seeing something,
not necessarily pleasant, which had to come. If he had not known
from the painter of still life that she was from the country, he
would have thought her a town-bred girl, she looked so pale. Her
appearance, at all events, was not "too matter-of-fact." Her speech,
however, with its slight West-Country burr, was matter-of-fact
enough, concerned entirely with how long she would have to sit, and
the pay she was to get for it. In the middle of their conversation
she sank down on the floor, and Hilary was driven to restore her with
biscuits and liqueur, which in his haste he took for brandy. It
seemed she had not eaten since her breakfast the day before, which
had consisted of a cup of tea. In answer to his remonstrance, she
made this matter-of-fact remark:

"If you haven't money, you can't buy things.... There's no one I can
ask up here; I'm a stranger."

"Then you haven't been getting work?"

"No," the little model answered sullenly; "I don't want to sit as
most of them want me to till I'm obliged." The blood rushed up in
her face with startling vividness, then left it white again.

'Ah!' thought Hilary, 'she has had experience already.'

Both he and his wife were accessible to cases of distress, but the
nature of their charity was different. Hilary was constitutionally
unable to refuse his aid to anything that held out a hand for it.
Bianca (whose sociology was sounder), while affirming that charity
was wrong, since in a properly constituted State no one should need
help, referred her cases, like Stephen, to the "Society for the
Prevention of Begging," which took much time and many pains to
ascertain the worst.

But in this case what was of importance was that the poor girl should
have a meal, and after that to find out if she were living in a
decent house; and since she appeared not to be, to recommend her
somewhere better. And as in charity it is always well to kill two
birds with one expenditure of force, it was found that Mrs. Hughs,
the seamstress, had a single room to let unfurnished, and would be
more than glad of four shillings, or even three and six, a week for
it. Furniture was also found for her: a bed that creaked, a
washstand, table, and chest of drawers; a carpet, two chairs, and
certain things to cook with; some of those old photographs and prints
that hide in cupboards, and a peculiar little clock, which frequently
forgot the time of day. All these and some elementary articles of
dress were sent round in a little van, with three ferns whose time
had nearly come, and a piece of the plant called "honesty." Soon
after this she came to "sit." She was a very quiet and passive
little model, and was not required to pose half-draped, Bianca having
decided that, after all, "The Shadow" was better represented fully
clothed; for, though she discussed the nude, and looked on it with
freedom, when it came to painting unclothed people, she felt a sort
of physical aversion.

Hilary, who was curious, as a man naturally would be, about anyone
who had fainted from hunger at his feet, came every now and then to
see, and would sit watching this little half-starved girl with kindly
and screwed-up eyes. About his personality there was all the
evidence of that saying current among those who knew him: "Hilary
would walk a mile sooner than tread on an ant." The little model,
from the moment when he poured liqueur between her teeth, seemed to
feel he had a claim on her, for she reserved her small, matter-of-
fact confessions for his ears. She made them in the garden, coming
in or going out; or outside, and, now and then, inside his study,
like a child who comes and shows you a sore finger. Thus, quite
suddenly:

"I've four shillings left over this week, Mr. Dallison," or, "Old Mr.
Creed's gone to the hospital to-day, Mr. Dallison."

Her face soon became less bloodless than on that first evening, but
it was still pale, inclined to colour in wrong places on cold days,
with little blue veins about the temples and shadows under the eyes.
The lips were still always a trifle parted, and she still seemed to
be looking out for what was coming, like a little Madonna, or Venus,
in a Botticelli picture. This look of hers, coupled with the matter-
of-factness of her speech, gave its flavour to her personality....

On Christmas Day the picture was on view to Mr. Purcey, who had
chanced to "give his car a run," and to other connoisseurs. Bianca
had invited her model to be present at this function, intending to
get her work. But, slipping at once into a corner, the girl had
stood as far as possible behind a canvas. People, seeing her
standing there, and noting her likeness to the picture, looked at her
with curiosity, and passed on, murmuring that she was an interesting
type. They did not talk to her, either because they were afraid she
could not talk of the things they could talk of, or that they could
not talk of the things she could talk of, or because they were
anxious not to seem to patronize her. She talked to one, therefore.
This occasioned Hilary some distress. He kept coming up and smiling
at her, or making tentative remarks or jests, to which she would
reply, "Yes, Mr. Dallison," or "No, Mr. Dallison," as the case might
be.

Seeing him return from one of these little visits, an Art Critic
standing before the picture had smiled, and his round, clean-shaven,
sensual face had assumed a greenish tint in eyes and cheeks, as of
the fat in turtle soup.

The only two other people who had noticed her particularly were those
old acquaintances, Mr. Purcey and Mr. Stone. Mr. Purcey had thought,
'Rather a good-lookin' girl,' and his eyes strayed somewhat
continually in her direction. There was something piquant and, as it
were, unlawfully enticing to him in the fact that she was a real
artist's model.

Mr. Stone's way of noticing her had been different. He had
approached in his slightly inconvenient way, as though seeing but one
thing in the whole world.

"You are living by yourself?" he had said. "I shall come and see
you."

Made by the Art Critic or by Mr. Purcey, that somewhat strange remark
would have had one meaning; made by Mr. Stone it obviously had
another. Having finished what he had to say, the author of the book
of "Universal Brotherhood" had bowed and turned to go. Perceiving
that he saw before him the door and nothing else, everybody made way
for him at once. The remarks that usually arose behind his back
began to be heard--"Extraordinary old man!" "You know, he bathes in
the Serpentine all the year round?" "And he cooks his food himself,
and does his own room, they say; and all the rest of his time he
writes a book!" "A perfect crank!"




CHAPTER V

THE COMEDY BEGINS

The Art Critic who had smiled was--like all men--a subject for pity
rather than for blame. An Irishman of real ability, he had started
life with high ideals and a belief that he could live with them. He
had hoped to serve Art, to keep his service pure; but, having one day
let his acid temperament out of hand to revel in an orgy of personal
retaliation, he had since never known when she would slip her chain
and come home smothered in mire. Moreover, he no longer chastised
her when she came. His ideals had left him, one by one; he now lived
alone, immune from dignity and shame, soothing himself with whisky.
A man of rancour, meet for pity, and, in his cups, contented.
He had lunched freely before coming to Blanca's Christmas function,
but by four o'clock, the gases which had made him feel the world a
pleasant place had nearly all evaporated, and he was suffering from a
wish to drink again. Or it may have been that this girl, with her
soft look, gave him the feeling that she ought to have belonged to
him; and as she did not, he felt, perhaps, a natural irritation that
she belonged, or might belong, to somebody else. Or, again, it was
possibly his natural male distaste for the works of women painters
which induced an awkward frame of mind.

Two days later in a daily paper over no signature, appeared this
little paragraph: "We learn that 'The Shadow,' painted by Bianca
Stone, who is not generally known to be the wife of the writer, Mr.
Hilary Dallison, will soon be exhibited at the Bencox Gallery. This
very 'fin-de-siecle' creation, with its unpleasant subject,
representing a woman (presumably of the streets) standing beneath a
gas-lamp, is a somewhat anaemic piece of painting. If Mr. Dallison,
who finds the type an interesting one, embodies her in one of his
very charming poems, we trust the result will be less bloodless."

The little piece of green-white paper containing this information was
handed to Hilary by his wife at breakfast. The blood mounted slowly
in his cheeks. Bianca's eyes fastened themselves on that flush.
Whether or no--as philosophers say--little things are all big with
the past, of whose chain they are the latest links, they frequently
produce what apparently are great results.

The marital relations of Hilary and his wife, which till then had
been those of, at all events, formal conjugality, changed from that
moment. After ten o'clock at night their lives became as separate as
though they lived in different houses. And this change came about
without expostulations, reproach, or explanation, just by the turning
of a key; and even this was the merest symbol, employed once only, to
save the ungracefulness of words. Such a hint was quite enough for a
man like Hilary, whose delicacy, sense of the ridiculous, and
peculiar faculty of starting back and retiring into himself, put the
need of anything further out of the question. Both must have felt,
too, that there was nothing that could be explained. An anonymous
double entendre was not precisely evidence on which to found a
rupture of the marital tie. The trouble was so much deeper than
that--the throbbing of a woman's wounded self-esteem, of the feeling
that she was no longer loved, which had long cried out for revenge.

One morning in the middle of the week after this incident the
innocent author of it presented herself in Hilary's study, and,
standing in her peculiar patient attitude, made her little
statements. As usual, they were very little ones; as usual, she
seemed helpless, and suggested a child with a sore finger. She had
no other work; she owed the week's rent; she did not know what would
happen to her; Mrs. Dallison did not want her any more; she could not
tell what she had done! The picture was finished, she knew, but Mrs.
Dallison had said she was going to paint her again in another
picture....

Hilary did not reply.

"....That old gentleman, Mr.--Mr. Stone, had been to see her. He
wanted her to come and copy out his book for two hours a day, from
four to six, at a shilling an hour. Ought she to come, please? He
said his book would take him years."

Before answering her Hilary stood for a full minute staring at the
fire. The little model stole a look at him. He suddenly turned and
faced her. His glance was evidently disconcerting to the girl. It
was, indeed, a critical and dubious look, such as he might have bent
on a folio of doubtful origin.

"Don't you think," he said at last, "that it would be much better for
you to go back into the country?"

The little model shook her head vehemently.

"Oh no!"

"Well, but why not? This is a most unsatisfactory sort of life."

The girl stole another look at him, then said sullenly:

"I can't go back there."

"What is it? Aren't your people nice to you?"

She grew red.

"No; and I don't want to go"; then, evidently seeing from Hilary's
face that his delicacy forbade his questioning her further, she
brightened up, and murmured: "The old gentleman said it would make me
independent."

"Well," replied Hilary, with a shrug, "you'd better take his offer."

She kept turning her face back as she went down the path, as though
to show her gratitude. And presently, looking up from his
manuscript, he saw her face still at the railings, peering through a
lilac bush. Suddenly she skipped, like a child let out of school.
Hilary got up, perturbed. The sight of that skipping was like the
rays of a lantern turned on the dark street of another human being's
life. It revealed, as in a flash, the loneliness of this child,
without money and without friends, in the midst of this great town.

The months of January, February, March passed, and the little model
came daily to copy the "Book of Universal Brotherhood."

Mr. Stone's room, for which he insisted on paying rent, was never
entered by a servant. It was on the ground-floor, and anyone passing
the door between the hours of four and six could hear him dictating
slowly, pausing now and then to spell a word. In these two hours it
appeared to be his custom to read out, for fair copying, the labours
of the other seven.

At five o'clock there was invariably a sound of plates and cups, and
out of it the little model's voice would rise, matter-of-fact, soft,
monotoned, making little statements; and in turn Mr. Stone's, also
making statements which clearly lacked cohesion with those of his
young friend. On one occasion, the door being open, Hilary heard
distinctly the following conversation:

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says he was a butler. He's got an ugly
nose." (A pause.)

Mr. STONE: "In those days men were absorbed in thinking of their
individualities. Their occupations seemed to them important---"

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says his savings were all swallowed up
by illness."

Mr. STONE: "---it was not so."

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says he was always brought up to go to
church."

Mr. STONE (suddenly): "There has been no church worth going to since
A. D. 700."

The LITTLE MODEL: "But he doesn't go."

And with a flying glance through the just open door Hilary saw her
holding bread-and-butter with inky fingers, her lips a little parted,
expecting the next bite, and her eyes fixed curiously on Mr. Stone,
whose transparent hand held a teacup, and whose eyes were immovably
fixed on distance.

It was one day in April that Mr. Stone, heralded by the scent of
Harris tweed and baked potatoes which habitually encircled him,
appeared at five o'clock in Hilary's study doorway.

"She has not come," he said.

Hilary laid down his pen. It was the first real Spring day.

"Will you come for a walk with me, sir, instead?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mr. Stone.

They walked out into Kensington Gardens, Hilary with his head rather
bent towards the ground, and Mr. Stone, with eyes fixed on his far
thoughts, slightly poking forward his silver beard.

In their favourite firmaments the stars of crocuses and daffodils
were shining. Almost every tree had its pigeon cooing, every bush
its blackbird in full song. And on the paths were babies in
perambulators. These were their happy hunting-grounds, and here they
came each day to watch from a safe distance the little dirty girls
sitting on the grass nursing little dirty boys, to listen to the
ceaseless chatter of these common urchins, and learn to deal with the
great problem of the lowest classes. And babies sat in their
perambulators, thinking and sucking india-rubber tubes. Dogs went
before them, and nursemaids followed after.

The spirit of colour was flying in the distant trees, swathing them
with brownish-purple haze; the sky was saffroned by dying sunlight.
It was such a day as brings a longing to the heart, like that which
the moon brings to the hearts of children.

Mr. Stone and Hilary sat down in the Broad Walk.

"Elm-trees!" said Mr. Stone. "It is not known when they assumed
their present shape. They have one universal soul. It is the same
with man." He ceased, and Hilary looked round uneasily. They were
alone on the bench.

Mr. Stone's voice rose again. "Their form and balance is their
single soul; they have preserved it from century to century. This is
all they live for. In those days"--his voice sank; he had plainly
forgotten that he was not alone--"when men had no universal
conceptions, they would have done well to look at the trees. Instead
of fostering a number of little souls on the pabulum of varying
theories of future life, they should have been concerned to improve
their present shapes, and thus to dignify man's single soul"

"Elms were always considered dangerous trees, I believe," said
Hilary.

Mr. Stone turned, and, seeing his son-in-law beside him, asked:

"You spoke to me, I think?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Stone said wistfully:

"Shall we walk?"

They rose from the bench and walked on....

The explanation of the little model's absence was thus stated by
herself to Hilary: "I had an appointment."

"More work?"

"A friend of Mr. French."

"Yes--who?"

"Mr. Lennard. He's a sculptor; he's got a studio in Chelsea. He
wants me to pose to him."

"Ah!"

She stole a glance at Hilary, and hung her head.

Hilary turned to the window. "You know what posing to a sculptor
means, of course?"

The little model's voice sounded behind him, matter-of-fact as ever:
"He said I was just the figure he was looking for."

Hilary continued to stare through the window. "I thought you didn't
mean to begin standing for the nude."

"I don't want to stay poor always."

Hilary turned round at the strange tone of these unexpected words.

The girl was in a streak of sunlight; her pale cheeks flushed; her
pale, half-opened lips red; her eyes, in their setting of short black
lashes, wide and mutinous; her young round bosom heaving as if she
had been running.

"I don't want to go on copying books all my life."

"Oh, very well."

"Mr. Dallison! I didn't mean that--I didn't really! I want to do
what you tell me to do--I do!"

Hilary stood contemplating her with the dubious, critical look, as
though asking: "What is there behind you? Are you really a genuine
edition, or what?" which had so disconcerted her before. At last he
said: "You must do just as you like. I never advise anybody."

"But you don't want me to--I know you don't. Of course, if you don't
want me to, then it'll be a pleasure not to!"

Hilary smiled.

"Don't you like copying for Mr. Stone?"

The little model made a face. "I like Mr. Stone--he's such a funny
old gentleman."

"That is the general opinion," answered Hilary. "But Mr. Stone, you
know, thinks that we are funny."

The little model smiled faintly, too; the streak of sunlight had
slanted past her, and, standing there behind its glamour and million
floating specks of gold-dust, she looked for the moment like the
young Shade of Spring, watching with expectancy for what the year
would bring her.

With the words "I am ready," spoken from the doorway, Mr. Stone
interrupted further colloquy....

But though the girl's position in the household had, to all seeming,
become established, now and then some little incident--straws blowing
down the wind--showed feelings at work beneath the family's apparent
friendliness, beneath that tentative and almost apologetic manner
towards the poor or helpless, which marks out those who own what
Hilary had called the "social conscience." Only three days, indeed,
before he sat in his brown study, meditating beneath the bust of
Socrates, Cecilia, coming to lunch, had let fall this remark:

"Of course, I know nobody can read his handwriting; but I can't think
why father doesn't dictate to a typist, instead of to that little
girl. She could go twice the pace!"

Blanca's answer, deferred for a few seconds, was:

"Hilary perhaps knows."

"Do you dislike her coming here?" asked Hilary.

"Not particularly. Why?"

"I thought from your tone you did."

"I don't dislike her coming here for that purpose."

"Does she come for any other?"

Cecilia, dropping her quick glance to her fork, said just a little
hastily: "Father is extraordinary, of course."

But the next three days Hilary was out in the afternoon when the
little model came.

This, then, was the other reason, on the morning of the first of May,
which made him not averse to go and visit Mrs. Hughs in Hound Street,
Kensington.




CHAPTER VI

FIRST PILGRIMAGE TO HOUND STREET

Hilary and his little bulldog entered Hound Street from its eastern
end. It was a grey street of three-storied houses, all in one style
of architecture. Nearly all their doors were open, and on the
doorsteps babes and children were enjoying Easter holidays. They sat
in apathy, varied by sudden little slaps and bursts of noise. Nearly
all were dirty; some had whole boots, some half boots, and two or
three had none. In the gutters more children were at play; their
shrill tongues and febrile movements gave Hilary the feeling that
their "caste" exacted of them a profession of this faith: "To-day we
live; to-morrow--if there be one--will be like to-day."

He had unconsciously chosen the very centre of the street to walk in,
and Miranda, who had never in her life demeaned herself to this
extent, ran at his heels, turning up her eyes, as though to say: 'One
thing I make a point of--no dog must speak to me!'

Fortunately, there were no dogs; but there were many cats, and these
cats were thin.

Through the upper windows of the houses Hilary had glimpses of women
in poor habiliments doing various kinds of work, but stopping now and
then to gaze into the street. He walked to the end, where a wall
stopped him, and, still in the centre of the road, he walked the
whole length back. The children stared at his tall figure with
indifference; they evidently felt that he was not of those who, like
themselves, had no to-morrow.

No. 1, Hound Street, abutting on the garden of a house of better
class, was distinctly the show building of the street. The door,
however, was not closed, and pulling the remnant of a bell, Hilary
walked in.

The first thing that he noticed was a smell; it was not precisely
bad, but it might have been better. It was a smell of walls and
washing, varied rather vaguely by red herrings. The second thing he
noticed was his moonlight bulldog, who stood on the doorstep eyeing a
tiny sandy cat. This very little cat, whose back was arched with
fury, he was obliged to chase away before his bulldog would come in.
The third thing he noticed was a lame woman of short stature,
standing in the doorway of a room. Her face, with big cheek-bones,
and wide-open, light grey, dark-lashed eyes, was broad and patient;
she rested her lame leg by holding to the handle of the door.

"I dunno if you'll find anyone upstairs. I'd go and ask, but my
leg's lame."

"So I see," said Hilary; "I'm sorry."

The woman sighed: "Been like that these five years"; and turned back
into her room.

"Is there nothing to be done for it?"

"Well, I did think so once," replied the woman, "but they say the
bone's diseased; I neglected it at the start."

"Oh dear!"

"We hadn't the time to give to it," the woman said defensively,
retiring into a room so full of china cups, photographs, coloured
prints, waxwork fruits, and other ornaments, that there seemed no
room for the enormous bed.

Wishing her good-morning, Hilary began to mount the stairs. On the
first floor he paused. Here, in the back room, the little model
lived.

He looked around him. The paper on the passage walls was of a dingy
orange colour, the blind of the window torn, and still pursuing him,
pervading everything, was the scent of walls and washing and red
herrings. There came on him a sickness, a sort of spiritual revolt.
To live here, to pass up these stairs, between these dingy, bilious
walls, on this dirty carpet, with this--ugh! every day; twice, four
times, six times, who knew how many times a day! And that sense, the
first to be attracted or revolted, the first to become fastidious
with the culture of the body, the last to be expelled from the temple
of the pure-spirit; that sense to whose refinement all breeding and
all education is devoted; that sense which, ever an inch at least in
front of man, is able to retard the development of nations, and
paralyse all social schemes--this Sense of Smell awakened within him
the centuries of his gentility, the ghosts of all those Dallisons
who, for three hundred years and more, had served Church or State.
It revived the souls of scents he was accustomed to, and with them,
subtly mingled, the whole live fabric of aestheticism, woven in fresh
air and laid in lavender. It roused the simple, non-extravagant
demand of perfect cleanliness. And though he knew that chemists
would have certified the composition of his blood to be the same as
that of the dwellers in this house, and that this smell, composed of
walls and washing and red herrings, was really rather healthy, he
stood frowning fixedly at the girl's door, and the memory of his
young niece's delicately wrinkled nose as she described the house
rose before him. He went on upstairs, followed by his moonlight
bulldog.

Hilary's tall thin figure appearing in the open doorway of the top-
floor front, his kind and worried face, and the pale agate eyes of
the little bulldog peeping through his legs, were witnessed by
nothing but a baby, who was sitting in a wooden box in the centre of
the room. This baby, who was very like a piece of putty to which
Nature had by some accident fitted two movable black eyes, was
clothed in a woman's knitted undervest, spreading beyond his feet and
hands, so that nothing but his head was visible. This vest divided
him from the wooden shavings on which he sat, and, since he had not
yet attained the art of rising to his feet, the box divided him from
contacts of all other kinds. As completely isolated from his kingdom
as a Czar of all the Russias, he was doing nothing. In this realm
there was a dingy bed, two chairs, and a washstand, with one lame
leg, supported by an aged footstool. Clothes and garments were
hanging on nails, pans lay about the hearth, a sewing-machine stood
on a bare deal table. Over the bed was hung an oleograph, from a
Christmas supplement, of the birth of Jesus, and above it a bayonet,
under which was printed in an illiterate hand on a rough scroll of
paper: "Gave three of em what for at Elandslaagte. S. Hughs." Some
photographs adorned the walls, and two drooping ferns stood on the
window-ledge. The room withal had a sort of desperate tidiness; in a
large cupboard, slightly open, could be seen stowed all that must not
see the light of day. The window of the baby's kingdom was tightly
closed; the scent was the scent of walls and washing and red
herrings, and--of other things.

Hilary looked at the baby, and the baby looked at him. The eyes of
that tiny scrap of grey humanity seemed saying:

'You are not my mother, I believe?'

He stooped down and touched its cheek. The baby blinked its black
eyes once.

'No,' it seemed, to say again, 'you are not my mother.'

A lump rose in Hilary's throat; he turned and went downstairs.
Pausing outside the little model's door, he knocked, and, receiving
no answer, turned the handle. The little square room was empty; it
was neat and clean enough, with a pink-flowered paper of
comparatively modern date. Through its open window could be seen a
pear-tree in full bloom. Hilary shut the door again with care,
ashamed of having opened it.

On the half-landing, staring up at him with black eyes like the
baby's, was a man of medium height and active build, whose short
face, with broad cheekbones, cropped dark hair, straight nose, and
little black moustache, was burnt a dark dun colour. He was dressed
in the uniform of those who sweep the streets--a loose blue blouse,
and trousers tucked into boots reaching half-way up his calves; he
held a peaked cap in his hand.

After some seconds of mutual admiration, Hilary said:

"Mr. Hughs, I believe?" Yes.

"I've been up to see your wife."

"Have you?"

"You know me, I suppose?"

"Yes, I know you."

"Unfortunately, there's only your baby at home."

Hughs motioned with his cap towards the little model's room. "I
thought perhaps you'd been to see her," he said. His black eyes
smouldered; there was more than class resentment in the expression of
his face.

Flushing slightly and giving him a keen look, Hilary passed down the
stairs without replying. But Miranda had not followed. She stood,
with one paw delicately held up above the topmost step.

'I don't know this man,' she seemed to say, 'and I don't like his
looks.'

Hughs grinned. "I never hurt a dumb animal," he said; "come on,
tykie!"

Stimulated by a word she had never thought to hear, Miranda descended
rapidly.

'He meant that for impudence,' thought Hilary as he walked away.

"Westminister, sir? Oh dear!"

A skinny trembling hand was offering him a greenish newspaper.

"Terrible cold wind for the time o' year!"

A very aged man in black-rimmed spectacles, with a distended nose and
long upper lip and chin, was tentatively fumbling out change for
sixpence.

"I seem to know your face," said Hilary.

"Oh dear, yes. You deals with this 'ere shop--the tobacco
department. I've often seen you when you've a-been agoin' in.
Sometimes you has the Pell Mell off o' this man here." He jerked his
head a trifle to the left, where a younger man was standing armed
with a sheaf of whiter papers. In that gesture were years of envy,
heart-burning, and sense of wrong. 'That's my paper,' it seemed to
say, 'by all the rights of man; and that low-class fellow sellin' it,
takin' away my profits!'

"I sells this 'ere Westminister. I reads it on Sundays--it's a
gentleman's paper, 'igh-class paper--notwithstandin' of its politics.
But, Lor', sir, with this 'ere man a-sellin' the Pell Mell"--lowering
his voice, he invited Hilary to confidence--"so many o' the gentry
takes that; an' there ain't too many o' the gentry about 'ere--I
mean, not o' the real gentry--that I can afford to 'ave 'em took away
from me."

Hilary, who had stopped to listen out of delicacy, had a flash of
recollection. "You live in Hound Street?"

The old man answered eagerly: "Oh dear! Yes, sir--No. 1, name of
Creed. You're the gentleman where the young person goes for to copy
of a book!"

"It's not my book she copies."

"Oh no; it's an old gentleman; I know 'im. He come an' see me once.
He come in one Sunday morning. 'Here's a pound o' tobacca for you!'
'e says. 'You was a butler,' 'e says. 'Butlers!' 'e says, 'there'll
be no butlers in fifty years.' An' out 'e goes. Not quite"--he put
a shaky hand up to his head--"not quite--oh dear!"

"Some people called Hughs live in your house, I think?"

"I rents my room off o' them. A lady was a-speakin' to me yesterday
about 'em; that's not your lady, I suppose, sir?"

His eyes seemed to apostrophise Hilary's hat, which was of soft felt:
'Yes, yes--I've seen your sort a-stayin' about in the best houses.


 


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