XIV

About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton for a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought the evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to those who passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to go to Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind a bar serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest—that nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains on the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past four, during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of the awful goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls were out, some two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight; a group of four or five men who had lingered from half-hour to half-hour turned their backs, and talked among themselves; sometimes a couple would condescendingly address Lizzie, and tease her with rude remarks; or else Frank found her having a little private chat with an old gentleman, a youth, or, may be, the waiter.

Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on the former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the slab and passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles, personal observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when the conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke authoritatively, she was secure, it was different—it was behind the bar; and she spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times were quite foreign to her. “I will not sleep with you to-night if you don't behave yourself,” so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering young man. She spoke out loud, evidently regarding her words merely in the light of gentle repartee. What she heard and said in the bar remained not a moment on her mind, she appeared to accept it all as part of the business of the place, and when Frank was annoyed she only laughed.

“Men will talk improper—what does it matter? One doesn't pay attention to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all that, tell me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton yesterday, I suppose?”

“No, I had to go to the Manor House.”

“And how is she—the only one? Are you as much in love with her as ever?”

“I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her.”

“What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I come and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait.”

“Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you come? I should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very nice now. When will you come?”

“I have no time.”

“Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off.”

“What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out.”

“If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter of fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about twelve—they're all in church about that time.”

“And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare trust myself with you.”

A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, and he gave her all information about the train she would have to take to reach Southwick by twelve o'clock.

He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived.

“Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine.”

“I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here.”

Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that Frank had spoilt her lunch for her.

“It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking to. How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?”

“But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar because I like it?”

“No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're going to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I can. All that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from your head!” Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her over the counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager. “Let's forget what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the light, just a three-quarter face.”

At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but at the end of fifty minutes she said: “I must get up,” and she came round to see what he was doing.

“Now you mustn't criticise it,” he said. “It's only a beginning. You've forgiven me my remarks about the bar?”

“Don't remind me of it again.”

But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and was unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason his drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought struck him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio she would certainly ask him whose portrait it was.

“I can't paint to-day,” he said, getting up from his easel.

“And why can't you paint?” The question seemed to him at first a stupid one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. “Are you afraid the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me sitting to you?”

The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his mind for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the studio, and it was not improbable that the girls might knock at his door at any moment, and if they did it would be impossible for him not to answer. Triss would bark.

“Well,” she said, “I won't keep you any longer.”

“No, I assure you,” he said aloud, and within himself, “I'd give a sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen.”

And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. “Come to ask me to dine at the Manor House,” he thought; but she told him that she knew all about his visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she grew more violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't want to see him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him his liberty.

“What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to coax her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter must have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a thousand a year to live on at the outside—that is to say, if Mount Rorke and Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might make up a thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for two, and I should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model. The thing is absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely necessary; we were bound to have a row over that model question, so it might as well come off now as later on, and we shall understand each other better when this has blown over. There is nothing, and never has been anything, between me and Lizzie—my conscience is clear on that score. How pretty she looked to-day—that pale brown hair, so soft and so full of colour. To-day was an unlucky day; I began by being unfortunate with my painting; I never made a worse drawing in my life, and the worst of it was that I did not see that my drawing was wrong until I had begun to paint.”

A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company—was never happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six dashes of bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky except in a thin glass.

As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and when he thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew genuinely alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the letter, and she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without undue emphasis. In its severity and quiet determination the letter did not seem like her, and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal influence—a family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He looked through the various furniture for his hat; and with his head full of citations from the lives of artists illustrative of their conduct, he went to her. But Maggie would not see him.

“Miss Brookes,” the servant said, “is in her room and cannot see you, sir.”

“She will never be mine, she will never be mine,” he muttered as he passed into the town. “But why do I think she'll never be mine?” And looking at the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the grey sky he asked himself if the thought that had crossed his mind were a conviction, a fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by the difficulty of the moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself saying, “She'll never be mine” and mistaken his own voice for the voice of Fate. Over the shingle bank the sea faded, a thin illusion, dim and promiseful of peace, and as the darkness and the sea filled Frank's soul he, the lightest and most life-loving of men, was filled for once with a sense of failure of life, and as his sorrowing thoughts drifted on he remembered that he had stood with her in hearing of the rising tide, and all his pleading and passion came back to him.

“What are you doing here?”

It was Willy.

“I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never speak to me again, she hopes we may never meet.”

“I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?”

Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the studio.

“Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me.”

“I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to them if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness.”

“I suppose I am like that—excitable—the difference between the Celt and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as excitable as I am.”

“They take after their mother; I am more like my father.”

“It wouldn't be a bad character for a play—a man who never would believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the stars.”

“He can't be very bad if he can think about plays,” thought Willy.

“Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think, did I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me and Lizzie—I believe she is over head and ears in love with some fellow who has treated her very badly. She never would tell me who he was. In fact, she told me she had left London so that she might get over it. There would be no use my humbugging you, and I swear there is not, and never was, anything between me and Lizzie Baker. I never expected to see her again. It is very strange how people meet. I have told you all about it. When I go to Brighton I must go somewhere to get a drink, and I really don't see there is any harm in going to the 'Tivoli'; it didn't occur to me to think I should avoid the place merely because she was serving there. I have often been there, I don't deny it. Do you see there is any harm in my going there?”

“I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to have a drink without asking her to your studio.”

“Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how I see Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four o'clock train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking to some one else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I have never been out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar, and yet Maggie accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't hear what I have to say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have it on unquestionable authority that you have been keeping this woman since you returned from Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by the four o'clock train almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it is fair to make such accusations—such utterly false and baseless accusations—and then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in his defence? By Jove! if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies about me, I'd let him have it. Some of those Southdown Road people have been writing to her, that's about the long and short of it.

“As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my intentions were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what I mean; you don't care for painting, but very often an artist has a longing to paint a certain face, and the desire completely masters him. Well, I had a longing of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just the kind of head that suits me—she offered to give me a sitting, Idid not see much harm in accepting, and as I could not paint her in the bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as for making out there was anything wrong—I assure you she is not that sort of girl. If we were married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to have models; we'll have to come to an understanding on that point. Now what I want you to do is to explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong between me and Lizzie, you can tell her there is nothing—I swear there is nothing; and then you had better explain that an artist must have models to work from.”

“Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I thought I should never hear the end of it.”

“I think you might do this for me.”

“Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an exceedingly nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my life.”

“You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own.”

Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: “Tell me, Frank, are you really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know people often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little excited. Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing is very different from such fancies.”

“I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love her.”

“You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's no more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out your mistake.”

“You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he was fair, and I loved him far too well'?”

Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this actress vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had never shown signs of wishing to confide.

“Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my life. Now nothing really amuses me—now nothing really interests me. I often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release.”

“You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?”

“I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father. Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every one loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, others get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong and I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing I wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have won her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the stage, and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I thought she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty pounds for it.”

“Did she accept your presents?”

“I sent them anonymously.”

“Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?”

“I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man.”

“Did you make no attempt? You might have written.”

“At last I did write.”

“What did you write?”

“I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that I had some faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that there might be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few words to her.”

“And did she?”

“I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked close by me.”

“You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?”

“Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, unable to move.”

“She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she did think.”

“I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could, and telling her I would come the following night.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“Yes.”

“And she wouldn't speak?”

“She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she married. It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to see her. I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at a time, saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice present. I wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to me. No one came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to read the paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted the days that would have to pass till I saw her again—only thirty more days, only nineteen days, only one more week—so I used to count, marking off each day in an almanac, until one day I read the announcement of her marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I went mad that night and rushed out of the house, and I should have drowned myself had I not fainted. When I came to, I was weak and delirious, and wandered along the beach, not knowing where I was going. Some fishermen brought me home. My sisters were at school at the time. I believe I was very near dying. I fainted three times one afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa and cry for hours. She married a stockbroker. I believe she didn't care for him at all. Then she died. She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever I am in London I go and see her grave.”

“This is awfully sad.”

“Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went wrong with me.”

“I should like to see those letters.”

“I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days. Let's talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for breeding race-horses.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make from fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money.”

“By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?”

“You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic-looking place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make money I shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once.”

“You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do all this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital.”

“More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under twenty-five thousand pounds,” Willy replied sententiously. “I have got about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of three thousand at the beginning of this year—an aunt of mine left me the money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand on condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of his fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him to accept my offer.”

“I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year.”

“No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years past. Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his investments he wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer.”

“Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?”

“The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected something in return—I expected him to let me have peaches in April and strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good deal of heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly stoked, and—would you believe it?—my father actually raised objections—objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole thing up.”

“And when are you going to start the new scheme?”

“Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock.”

“And you told him? What did he say?”

“What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse—if he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, by Newminster out of Molly Bawn.”

“I didn't know you knew so much about racing.”

“I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know.”

“And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?”

“Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch of yearlings is put up for sale—500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down for 1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by William Brookes, Esq.”

“I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that.”

“Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew any one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous.”

“What nonsense!”

“Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my business will bring me into connection with the very best in the land. Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like to know people who are better than myself—at all events, who are no worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and Arundel before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady This and Lady That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the Conservative interest.”

“How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his character,” thought Frank. “So vanity is at the bottom of all these efforts to make money.”

“When are you coming to the Manor House?”

“Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father—”

“Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has forgotten all about it.”

“I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister is sanctioned by him.”

“The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into it. For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would be better that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more damaging than these clandestine meetings.”

“What can I do? I will not give her up.”

“I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be getting home. It is very late. Good-bye.”

The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched Willy walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, but haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as an old book—a book whose text is trite—which no one will read, and which yet continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has always missed its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing to offer for any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of all sight and reckoning.