The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne : a Novel

CHAPTER II

May 22d.

I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret "in the brave days when I was twenty-one," if I had undergone the lessons of misery with the attendant compensations of "une folle maitresse, de francs amis et l'amour des chansons," and had joyous-heartedly mounted my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the weary moments seemed a lifetime.

And now that I am forty, "it is too late a week." Boon companions, of whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their intolerable heartiness. I once spent an evening at the Savage Club. As for the folle maitresse—as a concomitant of my existence she transcends imagination.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Judith.

"I was thinking how the 'Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans' principle would have worked in my own case," I answered truthfully, for the above reflections had been Passing through my mind.

Judith laughed.

"You in a garret? Why, you haven't got a temperament!"

I suppose I haven't. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted that from his list of attendant compensations.

"That's the difference between us," she added, after a pause. "I have a temperament and you haven't."

"I hope you find it a great comfort."

"It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of one's existence."

"Why be so proud of having it?"

"You wouldn't understand if I told you," said Judith.

I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the rain which swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one can sit by the open windows, and breathe in the health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, and listen to the sweet, tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When my new fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help that allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many mansions of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this abominable locality I could never understand. It isn't as if the flat were particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated over a public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had something to do with the temperament.

"It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. This is the fourth time since Easter," I remarked.

We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring wet we remained at home.

"Perhaps this is the way the bon Dieu has of expressing his disapproval of us," said Judith.

"Why should he disapprove?" I asked.

A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver.

"I am chilled through."

"My dear girl," I cried, "why on earth haven't you lit the fire?"

"The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy."

"But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman," I exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box.

I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. She stretched out her hand—she has delicate white hands with slender fingers—and lightly touched my head.

"How long have we known each other?" she asked.

"About eight years."

"And how long shall we go on?"

"As long as you like," said I, intent on the fire.

Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort.

"These are capital grates," I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable arm-chair to the front of the fire.

"Excellent," she replied, in a tone devoid of interest.

There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog!

I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of the head. I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her face in half-profile. Most people would call her plain. I can't make up my mind on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde—that is to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance—it is one of her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is thin, a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered—temperament again! Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn down at the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has pretty feet. One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. At last it fell off. I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of material in slippers—about an inch of leather (I suppose it's leather) from the toe. I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her stocking-foot.

"Will you do that eight years hence?" said Judith.

"My dear, as I've done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I suppose I shall," I replied, laughing. "I'm a creature of habit."

"You may marry, Marcus."

"God forbid!" I ejaculated.

"Some pretty fresh girl."

"I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a baby in a perambulator."

"The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly delight to converse with, my friend," said Judith.

I lit another cigarette. "I think the sex feminine has marriage on the brain," I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. "My Aunt Jessica was worrying me about it the day before yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!"

Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you haven't got a temperament."

This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I told her so. She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned the eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out that she was years younger.

"How many heart-beats have you had in your life—real, wild, pulsating heart-beats—eternity in an hour?"

"That's Blake," I murmured.

"I'm aware of it. Answer my question."

"It's a silly question."

"It isn't. The next time you see a female baby in a perambulator, take off your hat respectfully."

I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee.

"And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith," said I, "send for a mere man."

She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have learned something more about female human nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my life long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever know her. I told her so once. She answered: "If you loved me you would know me." Very likely she was right. Honestly speaking, I don't love Judith. I am accustomed to her. She is a lady, born and bred. She is an educated woman and takes quite an intelligent interest in the Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the Venetian School of Painting than I have. She first opened my eyes, in Italy, to the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of Palma Vecchio in his second or Giorgionesque manner. She is in every way a sympathetic and entertaining companion. Going deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I find she represents to me—so chance has willed it—the ewige weibliche which must complement masculinity in order to produce normal existence. But as for the "zieht uns hinan"—no. It would not attract me hence—out of my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its Bruderspharen.

I don't understand Judith. It doesn't very greatly matter. Many things I don't understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, of the intelligent juggler who expends his life's energies in balancing a cue and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that Judith understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our intimacy. She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my affection. She is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing theatrical about Judith.

Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of my offence, by suddenly calling my name.

"Yes?" said I, inquiringly.

"I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won't be vexed."

"My dear Judith," said I, "my great and imperial namesake, in whose meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: 'If anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at once, if you please!' So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your disturbing communication and not to be vexed."

"If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus Aurelius," said Judith.

I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which protested, in a fire's cheery, human way, against the depression of the murky world outside, and to banter Judith.

"I can quite understand it," I said. "A man sucks in the consolations of philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion."

"I can do neither," she replied, changing her attitude with an exaggerated shaking down of skirts. "If I could, I shouldn't want to go away."

"Go away?" I echud.

"Yes. You mustn't be vexed with me. I haven't got a cook—"

"No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear."

The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, last evening, when she was sober enough to walk.

"And so it is a convenient opportunity," Judith continued, ignoring my compliment—and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order to provide me with food.

"I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the beginning of a London season. I know I'm silly," she went on, hurriedly. "If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser—I don't mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in town—people I used to know and mix with—I meet them in the streets and they cut me and it—hurts—and so I want to get away somewhere by myself. When I get sick of solitude I'll come back."

One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my side. She caught my hand.

"For pity's sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is."

I said, "I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I didn't guess. Of course I understand."

"If you didn't, it would be impossible for us."

"Have no doubt," said I, softly, and I kissed her hand.

I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with—at eight and twenty—and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a small pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I cannot say. If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the most futile of speculations. What did happen was the drifting together of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason that there were no forces urging us apart. She was past all care for social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, why should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me? As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the bon Dieu disapprove? I pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity.

When my fortune came, she remarked, "I am glad I am not free. If I were, you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal."

The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster.

Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a quid of protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a quo of the various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase de mensa et thoro. The other, the only possible existence for two beings whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction I have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall never become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph in a German churchyard: "I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest me; but let me sleep awhile, for I am very weary." Has the human soul ever so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have been a heart's friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool and quiet shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not be turned upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for the social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better housekeeper than Antoinette; and my dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to grace its foot; I have no a priori craving to add to the population. "If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone," says Schopenhauer, "would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?" By bringing children into the world by means of a marriage of convenience I should be imposing the burden of existence upon them in cold blood. I agree with Schopenhauer.

And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is not the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams—no, never! Au grand non, au grand jamais!

Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers.

But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both.

Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would vex me?

The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men credit for this distaste.

I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little.

"I don't make your path rougher, Judith?" I whispered.

She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully.

"You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it."

"Like a steam-roller," said I.

She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin bread-and-butter in a woman's deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath.

"A man would never dream of doing it like that!" I cried, in rebuke.

She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and loaf.

"Do it your way," she said, with a smile of mock humility.

I did it my way, and cut my finger.

"The devil's in the knife!" I cried. "But that's the right way."

Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking.

"And all this time," I said, half an hour later, "you haven't told me where you are going."

"Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere."

"I thought you said you wanted solitude."