The Man Who Understood Women and Other Stories/The Back of Bohemia
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA
I
As two ladies came out of the florist's in the rue Royale and moved towards their carriage, the younger of the pair gave a start of surprise, and exclaimed, "Ernest!"
"Who?" said Lady Liddington, vaguely.
Her niece was already shaking hands with him—a young man with a voluminous necktie and a soft felt hat, who looked poor and clever and bohemian.
"Ernest," she cried, "how glad I am to see you!"
"Kate! Who'd have thought of meeting you here!" He gazed at her with astonishment and admiration. "I should hardly have recognised you."
"I've grown up. Let me … my aunt, Lady Liddington. You've often heard of Ernest, Aunt Madge. I was his first critic. And your mother and father?"
"Quite well, thanks."
"They're with you?"
"No, oh, no! they're still in Coblenz. The governor grumbles to me regularly once a month; the mater bears it better. Poor old governor! he was meant to lounge through life with a rose-bud in his buttonhole, wasn't he? I've been living in Paris nearly five years now."
"And working?"
"And working. I'm a painter, of sorts, at last."
"I can see you're a painter," laughed the girl. "Why 'of sorts'?"
"Art is a very arduous profession, I believe?" murmured Lady Liddington, politely. Mentally she was praying that no one who knew her would happen to pass. Really the young man was a "sight"! "Do you exhibit?"
"Not yet. I only sell."
"Oh? I always understood"
"I'm at the lowest of the practical stages, Lady Liddington. At present I sell—somehow! Later on I shall manage to exhibit, and be unable to sell. Finally I hope to exhibit and sell, too. But the way is long."
"I see," she replied, profoundly uninterested.
"A real live artist!" said Miss Ormerod, gaily. "How proud you must be! It seems only the other day that you were a boy at home, dreaming dreams."
"Yes, I was good at dreams; dreams don't need anatomy. How well I remember it all!"
"You must come and see us," she said, "and soon! I've a hundred questions to ask you. What are we doing to-morrow, Aunt Madge?"
"Er—to-morrow? There's the Elysée in the evening, you know; and the next night, I'm afraid—But if to-morrow afternoon"
"I shall be delighted," he said.
The victoria drove away; and the two occupants mused for a moment.
The elder was the first to speak.
"Your introduction was delicious. Who is the gentleman?"
"You don't mean to say you don't know him?—Ernest!"
"Yes, I heard you call him 'Ernest.' I shouldn't do it again if I were you. Hasn't he a surname by any chance?"
"Not call him—? Oh, how absurd! He's Ernest Mallock. Why, we were almost like brother and sister till his people had to leave Moyamehane and go abroad. My mother must have spoken of them to you a thousand times."
"Oh," said Lady Liddington, "he's Cyril Mallock, is he? But you're not in the wilds of County Roscommon now, remember! You've grown up, and"
"And the Mallocks have lost all their money!" concluded Miss Ormerod, with warmth. "Don't leave that out, because it's really what you want to say. Yes, they're ruined—and what of it? If you think it's any reason why I should cut a boy in the streets who"
"My dear," said the other, plaintively, "I did not suggest that you should cut anybody in the streets. I only hinted—It's very unkind of you to talk like that."
The girl turned apologetically.
"Poor Aunt Madge! Yes, I was bolting, wasn't I? I'm sorry. But if you knew how happy it made me to see him—it was like a bit of my childhood crossing the road. It was Ernest who taught me to sit a horse, and how to throw a fly. It was Ernest who taught me not to paint. He used to kiss me up to the time I was fifteen."
"My dear!" She looked apprehensively at the coachman's back. "Don't! … So he is Lord Fernahoe's nephew, that young man in the distressing costume? Of course he has no chance of the succession, not the slightest. Fernahoe has a son, and I've met him. He's twenty years of age and quite offensively robust. Wins cups and things, and takes absurd dumb-bells in his portmanteau when he stays anywhere. Your friend can go on dressing like a disreputable glazier for ever, if that's the only prospect he can boast."
"I don't suppose he even thinks of it. His clothes seem to jar you like an Anarchist banner. He used to be rather a dandy, I can tell you, till the crash came. And Lord Fernahoe might have paid off the mortgage without feeling it—hateful man! But he quarrelled with the Mallocks years ago."
"Very strange, isn't it? Perhaps his brother did something disgraceful."
"Why on earth should it be Mr. Mallock's fault?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know, my dear. Only one of them must have been to blame, it's very certain; and it's always pleasanter to blame the people you don't meet; don't you think so? How sweet those roses smell, but what a price! I'm sorry we bought them."
Men said of Madge Liddington that she was "a good sort." Her worldliness was not disagreeable, not too real. She herself said that she knew what she ought to do, but somehow never did it. Her theories were more cynical than her heart. And on the morrow, when Mallock came, she was gracious, and even cordial.
He had made some concessions to the fashionable address. His clothes, if shabby, were less unconventional to-day; and obviously he had no idea of falling in love with Kate. There was too little formality between them for a chaperon to be wholly pleased, but, at the same time, there was nothing on either side to suggest the existence of sentiment.
"Tell me all," said Miss Ormerod, "tell me frankly! Does it come up to your expectations? You're a painter, you're in Paris, you're in bohemia; is it all as lovely as you thought it was going to be? Does everybody talk Art and rave about the time when he will 'make a school,' and discuss his 'methods' over bocks and cigarettes? What are you painting now—can we see your studio?"
"Which am I to answer first?" he laughed.
"Talk! Tell me what the life's like."
"It's all right. Yes, some of us do prose about our methods, I'm afraid, and we drink a great many bocks—when we've the money to pay for them; and my Paris isn't a bit like your Paris—it's a different world."
"It must be heavenly. If I'd had any talent I should have loved to go in for it myself. And do you know any clever people besides artists? Authors and actors, I mean? Do you know any people with long hair? Frenchmen seem to go to one extreme or the other—their hair's either waving in the breeze or too short to part. All the people who come here are the cropped and dull ones."
"Kate!"
"Well, they are, Aunt Madge. … Do you know Sardou, or Alphonse Daudet, or Sarah Bernhardt?"
He shook his head.
"No. I know one or two English correspondents. I did a piece of newspaper work myself not long ago."
"Really?"
"In collaboration. Gladstone was expected in Paris, and my friend thought he'd like to send an Interview with him to his paper. We wrote it together at one of the tables outside a café on the Boul' Mich' while Gladstone was still travelling towards the gare du Nord. We credited him with some highly interesting views. I don't know if they were ever published."
"Oh!"
"And do you prefer living here to being in London?" inquired Lady Liddington; "or couldn't you work so well at home?"
"I've scarcely thought about it," he said, with a shrug; "this is my home now. Oh, I should say London'd be ghastly—unless one were making a big income. For the smaller fry"
"Dull?"
"I shouldn't like it. I've heard about it. A fellow that I know here works for London—black and white work, you know. Oh, rather funny! Did you ever see a magazine called The Lantern? It's very earnest—and only sixpence. Last month poor Tassie had to illustrate the line, 'He strolled meditatively through the summer night.' He made the man lighting a cigar. The other day he got his sketch back; the Editor wrote reprovingly that 'in The Lantern they didn't smoke.’"
He stayed an hour; and, in the circumstances, could one do less, when he rose, than fix an evening for his dining there? After he had dined there, what was more natural than that he should call?
Two afternoons, a dinner, and a host of mutual memories. The earlier friendship was revived. And Lady Liddington bowed to the inevitable.
They saw him frequently now. He sent tickets to them, and met them to explain the virtues of the pictures. And if the elder woman, failing to understand why magenta cattle should graze on purple grass, sometimes sat down with a headache and left Kate to wander round the room with him alone, was she a chaperon without defence?
They were not in love, but they were in danger. He had begun to look forward to the meetings, and so had the girl. He interested her; she was interesting to him. He had been right in saying that they belonged to different worlds; and that their lives were the antithesis of each other had, itself, a fascination—the deeper for the fact that they had once been so much alike. He knew his Bullier, his Montmartre, the minor studios, and the third-rate cafés; he wasn't unfamiliar with the interior of the nearest mont-de-piété. But of the Paris unfolded to Lady Liddington's niece he knew very little. It was a novel experience to him to see a dinner-table poetised by flowers and a Salviati service. It was even a strange thing to Mallock tc be sitting in a room with two ladies and listening to ladies' conversation.
If, as the weeks passed, he told himself that he was being a fool, it must be conceded that the temptation to folly was a strong one; but it must also be acknowledged that he told the truth. He already thought much too often of Miss Ormerod for a man who could not hope to marry her, and yet he continued to see her because he was too weak to stay away.
Then he knew that he loved her. He ceased at last to excuse himself by saying that he found her "companionable," that there was "nothing in it"; he knew that he loved her, that the world was peopled by men, women, and Kate Ormerod; that she stood on a plane by herself—different from everyone else.
Paris now—the Paris that was open to him—stank in his nostrils. When he could not be with her during the day, he worked doggedly, and badly, finding occupation a relief to his impatience; but in the evening, to paint was impossible—and it was in the evening that he ate his heart out.
He had not the faintest right ever to own his feelings to her, and he was aware of it. If he acted properly, he would assert that he had to go to Caudebec or somewhere and say good-bye; but he could not string himself to the necessary pitch.
And, after all, he argued, since he confessed nothing, asked for nothing, why should he deny himself the only happiness that he possessed? Yes, he was passionately in love with her—but, if he didn't say so, what harm did it do? It would end by making him infernally miserable? Well, that was his affair! He would be infernally miserable, anyhow!
However, if the man was not disposed to do his duty, the time had arrived when Lady Liddington had to do hers. One morning, when he called with some tickets and was shown into the drawing-room, she was in it alone, reading a Tauchnitz novel. Kate was practising, he was told; indeed, he could hear the piano.
"I was going to write to you," said Lady Liddington; "we're returning to London."
He stared at her blankly.
"It's an awful bore; we meant to stay quite two months longer. But things pull me back."
"You go soon?"
"To-morrow. And I'm such a shocking sailor."
Miss Ormerod had begun Chopin's Second Nocturne. Mallock listened to a line of it intensely, without realising he listened. He felt that he had turned pale, and that it was essential to say something; but his mind refused to yield a commonplace. Lady Liddington, who had avoided plain-speaking with her niece by the same pretext, was no longer confident that the necessity for plain-speaking had been escaped.
"I'm sorry," he said, at last. He played with the book she had put down. … "Is it good?" he asked desperately.
"It's a romance. No, stereotyped. A romance always ends with a marriage."
"Isn't that realistic? Marriage is generally the end of romance."
"You're practical, Mr. Mallock."
"Quite the reverse, I'm afraid," he stammered, hot with the sudden fear that she might be imputing mercenary motives.
Their gaze met in a pause, and she answered him gently:
"Ah, well, to be practical is often distressing!"
"This is au revoir, then?" He got up. "Shall I see Miss Ormerod?"
"I don't think she has been told you're here. I'll let her know."
"Please don't trouble! I can say 'good-bye' as I pass the room. I hope you will have a smooth crossing."
He wasn't forbidden, and his face thanked her.
Kate lifted her head as the handle turned.
"You!"
"So you're going away?" he said huskily.
"We go to-morrow." Her voice was nervous.
"Your aunt just told me. I shan't see you any more."
"Not before we leave, I suppose."
"I mayn't see you again at all. Perhaps you won't come back to Paris."
"Oh, yes—some time!"
"I shall miss you horribly. I don't know what I shall do without you."
"We've been very good friends." She stroked a key of the piano slowly. "It seems a long while since we met again."
"Good-bye!" said Mallock, jerkily. He put out his hand, and she rose. His misery glowed in his eves. In hers—but he dared not read them. He caught her hand to his lips and kissed it, and went out. Lady Liddington heard the door close. … The nocturne was not resumed.
II
Well, it was all over! He had never been so wretched in his life. He walked away aimlessly; it was nothing to him where he went. Outside the Grand Hotel he collided with a gentleman hurrying from the courtyard. Both looked round with resentment. The gentleman was his father.
The next instant Mallock realised that his father was in deep mourning. "Good God! My mother—?" he faltered.
"Your mother was never better," exclaimed the other gaily, clapping him on the shoulder; "she sends her love, and a thousand messages! I was on my way to you. Let me look at you. Well, well, well! it is good to see you again, Ernest. You know the news, don't you?"
"News? What news?"
"‘What news'? You haven't heard? Prepare yourself!" He chuckled. "Prepare yourself, my boy!"
"Something good?"
"It is very sad," returned his father, suddenly assuming an expression of solemnity, "very terrible. But as we have seen nothing of them for so long—My brother and his son are dead—drowned. A yacht accident. Poor Maurice! He had his faults, but—poor Maurice! … Let's go inside—you haven't lunched, have you? I'll tell you all about it."
The bohemian listened, half stupefied.
"You're Lord Fernahoe?" he said. "You're Lord Fernahoe now?"
"And you're the Honourable Ernest Mallock. Better than your profession, eh? Not but what you might have a studio still, if you fancied it. It would be rather chic. And all the pretty women could come and have their portraits painted. But, to think you didn't know!"
"I haven't opened a paper for a week. But—but Miss Ormerod's here, with Lady Liddington. It's amazing they haven't seen it."
"Well, of course they've seen it!"
"I can swear they haven't. Great heavens, Governor, what a change for you!"
"Yes," said the peer, complacently, "it'll be a change after Coblenz. I've borne my reverses, Ernest, I've never complained; but my health is not what it was. I—I haven't the physique for the life of a poor man." He spoke as if he had been condemned to be a dock-labourer. "How do you think I'm looking?"
"You're looking as well as ever—and as young."
"Nonsense, nonsense! Ha! ha! What'll you drink? We had better have champagne—my doctor advises a glass of champagne. … You must order some clothes. You are—you are damned shabby. Go to a tailor to-day; don't forget. What are you doing with yourself this evening?
"Nothing," said Mallock. "That's to say"
"Nothing that won't keep. You'll meet me, and we'll have a little dinner together at—Bignon's is gone, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Where do you go, as a rule?"
"I?" He smiled grimly. "I'm afraid my haunts would hardly suit you."
"No, I suppose not. Well, all that's finished. You've grown very handsome, Ernie; you remind me of myself when I was your age. I may say that now—an old man? … But you look dazed. It was a horrible affair; poor Maurice! poor Maurice! But don't look so dazed."
"You've staggered me," said Mallock, gulping his wine. "I—I—If you don't mind, I'll leave you now. Where shall we meet?"
"Call for me here," said Fernahoe, airly; "say six o'clock. There are some things I've got to attend to: I have to be shaved, and—By the way, to-morrow I can let you have a substantial sum; in the meanwhile, here's something to go on with—I suppose it'll be useful? Six o'clock, then, sharp. And don't forget the tailor. Ta! ta!"
"Six o'clock. Thanks. I won't be late."
Lorn Fernahoe signed to a cabman. His son stood stupidly on the kerb after the cab had rattled away. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was set. After a minute he crossed the road, and turned down the avenue de l'Opéra, still with the fixed stare. Among the traffic of the rue de Rivoli, he hesitated; he seemed in doubt. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and slouched on—away from fashion, to the place St. Michel. On the boulevard one or two threw him a greeting. He did not know it. His face was grey; now and again he wiped the perspiration from it with a hand that shook. Threading his way through a maze of dilapidated streets, he came to a narrow doorway, next a shop-window packed high with charcoal and wood. There was a flight of dirty stairs, and he mounted them very slowly.
The room was bedroom and parlour, too. The bed was in disorder; on the table the remainder of a stew that had been hot two hours ago was stiffening in the gravy. A baby of twelve-months, unkempt, uncared for, lay fretting on a pillow on the floor; and a woman in a flannel dressing-gown sat reading an English novelette. She turned her untidy head, shedding a hair-pin as she moved.
"Oh, here you are!" said Ernest Mallock's wife.
He threw himself on the bed. "I'm here!"
"Have you brought back any money?"
"Take all you want."
"My word!" she exclaimed, with delight. "You're in luck!"
"Yes," he groaned, "I'm devilish lucky!"
She stooped for the fallen hair-pin, and picked her teeth with it.
"Where does it come from? You've never sold that old 'Solitude,' surely?"
"Oh, for God's sake be quiet!" he said, "I'm tired."
"Where have you been? Everything's got cold. Shall I hot it up for you?"
"No, never mind, Bessy."
"It won't take a minute."
"I don't want it."
"How's that?" she asked sullenly.
"I had déjeuner out."
"Oh, you had your dirgennay out again! Who with? You've taken to dirgennaying out a good deal, haven't you? Jolly for me, I'm sure—stuck at 'ome with the kid while you're enjoying yourself? Seems to me you're all alike."
"Does it?"
"Yes, it does," she said angrily, imitating his inflexion; "yes, it does, Mr. Sneerer! And I tell you more; I don't believe there's a decent one among the lot of you. Do you hear?"
"Oh?"
"I saw you the other day in the rue Scribe, with two women. Very classy they were—to look at. You didn't see me, did you? But I saw you! Who were they? Answer me that."
"They were ladies that I might have known better if I had had more sense."
"I suppose that's meant for me? You didn't look at the young one as if you'd like to eat her up, did you?"
"Be quiet!" he burst out. "Now, then, be quiet! I won't have you speak about her. I've had enough!"
"Oh, what a fine gentleman! Not speak about her, eh? His wife mustn't so much as speak about her! We've come to a pretty pass! Listen to your father, my Blessing! And she was no beauty, neither. Find better figures than hers in any life class, for all her swank. Any girl who ain't his wife, that's it! So long as she ain't his wife, any girl's good enough for a man. I could look like it, too, if you gave me the money to do it on. 'Won't have me speak about her'? Who do you think you're talking to? I've a good mind to smack your face!"
He clasped his hands on his head, and lay motionless.
"I'm tired," he repeated, wearily. "For God's sake, shut up! I want to go to sleep."
But it wasn't true—he wanted to think; he wanted to curse himself and die. In memory he was re-living the night of his first meeting with her; an English girl in a divan off the boulevard St. Martin—insulted, on the evening of his presence, by a French student. He recalled the enthusiasm with which he had knocked the man down; the general row—the cry of "English chaps forward!" She wept, and blessed him, on the pavement, at two o'clock in the morning. It transpired that she was virtuous; and he afforded the quarter another example of "the English eccentricity." After reflection, he offered to send her back to London. She had been unhappy there—she wept again, and didn't want to go. He supported her until she found employment as a model. She was pretty; was the end surprising? She thought she was in love with him—let him see as much—and he was in love with romance. Whom had he to study? Life with her would be "very jolly"! It was a boy's infatuation for bohemia, while bohemia was foreign to him. Its front had been delightful. He married her. This was the back of it.
She picked up the paper, and he regarded her under lowered lids. She was pretty still, but he hated every expression on her face. He hated her every attitude, and the notes of her laugh. Every little harmless habit that she had made his nerves ache.
It was half-past four. This evening he would have to confess the truth to his father. How to do it? And he must tell Bessy of her new importance and witness her ecstasies.
The hands of a tawdry French clock crept on. If he meant to keep the appointment, he must go soon!
The novelette engrossed her now. Flies swarmed about the table, settling on the meat. The dirty baby slept. When the clock struck again, Mallock dragged himself from the unmade bed to announce his marriage.