Name and Fame Part 10

And aloud she added: "Brooke, come and be introduced to Miss Campion.

You used to know her at Angleford."

"It seems a long time since I saw you," Mr. Dalton said, rather clumsily, as he took Lettice's hand into a very cordial clasp. "It was that day in December when your brother had just got his scholarship at Trinity."

"Oh, yes; that day! I remember it very well," said Lettice, drawing a long breath, which was not exactly a sigh, although it sounded like one.

"I gave up being a child on that day, I believe!"

"There have been many changes since then." Brooke Dalton was not brilliant in conversation.

"You have heard of them all, I suppose? Yes, my mother and I are in London now."

"You will allow me to call, I hope?"

Lettice had but time to signify her consent, when Mrs. Hartley seized on her again, but this time Lettice did not so much object to be cross-examined. She recognized the fact that Mrs. Hartley's aim was kindly, and she submitted to be asked questions about her work and her prospects, and to answer them with a frankness that amazed herself. But in the very midst of the conversation she was conscious of being much observed by two or three people in the room; notably by Brooke Dalton, who had planted himself in a position from which he could look at her without attracting the other visitors' remark; and also by a tall man with a dark, melancholy face, deep-set eyes, and a peaked Vand.y.k.e beard, whose glances were more furtive than those of Dalton, but equally interested and intent. He was a handsome man, and Lettice found herself wondering whether he were not "somebody," and somebody worth talking to, moreover; for he was receiving, in a languid, half-indifferent manner, a great deal of homage from the women in the room. He seemed bored by it, and was turning away in relief from a lady who had just quoted half-a-dozen lines of Sh.e.l.ley for his especial behoof, when Mrs.

Hartley, who had been discussing Feuerbach and the German materialists with Lettice, caught his eye, and beckoned him to her side.

"Mr. Walcott," she said, "I never heard that you were a materialist, and I don't think it is very likely; so you can condole with Miss Campion on having been condemned to translate five hundred pages of Feuerbach. Now, isn't that terrible?"

"I don't know Feuerbach," said the poet, after he had bowed to Lettice, "but it sounds warm and comfortable on a wintry day. Nevertheless, I do condole with her."

"I am not sure that I need condolence," said Lettice. "The work was really very interesting, and one likes to know what any philosopher has to say for himself, whether one believes in his theories or not. I must say I have enjoyed reading Feuerbach,--though he _is_ a German with a translatable name."

This was a flippant speech, as Lettice acknowledged to herself; but, then, Mr. Walcott's speech had been flippant to begin with, and she wanted to give as good as she got.

"You read German, then?" said Walcott, sitting down in the chair that Mrs. Hartley had vacated, and looking at Lettice with interest, although he did not abandon the slight affectation of tone and manner that she had noted from the beginning of her talk with him. "How nice that must be! I often wish I knew something more than my schoolboy's smattering of Greek, Latin, and French."

Lettice had read Mr. Walcott's last volume of poems, which were just then exciting considerable interest in the literary world, and she could not help recalling one or two lyrics and sonnets from Uhland, Filicaja, and other Continentals. As though divining her thoughts, Walcott went on quickly, with much more sincerity of tone:

"I do try now and then to put an idea that strikes me from German or Italian into English; but think of my painful groping with a dictionary, before the cramped and crippled idea can reach my mind! I am the translator most in need of condolence, Miss Campion!"

"Yet, even without going to other languages," said Lettice, "there is an unlimited field in our own, both for ideas and for expression--as well as a practically unlimited audience."

"The artists and musicians say that their domains are absolutely unlimited--that the poet sings to those who happen to speak his language, whilst they discourse to the whole world and to all time. I suppose, in a sense, they are right."

He spoke listlessly, as if he did not care whether they were right or wrong.

But Lettice's eyes began to glow.

"Surely in a narrow sense! They would hardly say that Handel or Beethoven speaks to a wider audience than Homer or Shakspeare, and certainly no musician or painter or sculptor can hope to delight mankind for as many centuries as a poet. And, then, to think what an idea can accomplish--what Greek ideas have done in England, for instance, or Roman ideas in France, or French ideas in nearly every country of Europe! Could a tune make a revolution, or a picture destroy a religion?"

"Perhaps, yes," said Walcott, wishing to draw her out, "if the tunes or the pictures could be repeated often enough, and brought before the eyes and ears of the mult.i.tude."

"I do not think so. And, at any rate, that could not be done by way of systematic and comprehensive teaching, so that your comparison only suggests another superiority in literary expression. A poet can teach a whole art, or establish a definite creed; he can move the heart and mould the mind at the same time; but one can hardly imagine such an effect from the work of those who speak to us only through the eye or ear."

By this time Alan Walcott was fairly interested. What Lettice said might be commonplace enough, but it did not strike him so. It was her manner that pleased him, her quiet fervor and gentle insistance, which showed that she was accustomed to think for herself, and suggested that she would have the honesty to say what she thought. And, of course, he applied to himself all that she said about poets in general, and was delighted by her warm championship of his special vocation. As they went on talking for another quarter of an hour he recognized, without framing the admission in words, that Miss Campion was an exceedingly well-read person, and that she knew many authors--even poets--with whom he had the slightest acquaintance. Most of the people whom he met talked idle nonsense to him, as though their main object was to pa.s.s the time, or else they aired a superficial knowledge of the uppermost thoughts and theories of the day, gleaned as a rule from the cheap primers and magazine articles in which a bustled age is content to study its science, art, economy, politics, and religion. But here was a woman who had been a voracious reader, who had gone to the fountain-head for her facts, and who yet spoke with the air of one who wanted to learn, rather than to display.

"We have had a very pleasant talk," he said to her at last. "I mean that I have found it very pleasant. I am going now to dine at my club, and shall spend my evening over a monologue which has suggested itself since I entered this room. As you know the Grahams I may hope to meet you again, there if not here. A talk with you, Miss Campion, is what the critics in the _Acropolis_ might call very suggestive!"

Again Lettice thought the manner and the speech affected, but there was an air of sincerity about the man which seemed to be fighting down the affectation. She hardly knew whether she liked him or not, but she knew that he had interested her and made her talk--for which two things she half forgave him the affectation.

"I knew you two would get on together," said Mrs. Hartley, who came up at the moment and dropped into Alan Walcott's chair. "I am not easily deceived in my friends, and I was sure you would have plenty to say to each, other. I have been watching you, and I declare it was quite a case of conversation at first sight. Now, mind you come to me often, Miss Campion. I feel that I shall like you."

And the fat good-natured little woman nodded her grey head to emphasize the compliment.

"It is kind of you to say that," said Lettice, warmly. "I will certainly take you at your word."

"My dear," said Mrs. Hartley, when Alan Walcott had left them, "he is a very nice and clever man--but, oh, so melancholy! He makes me feel quite unhappy. I never saw him so animated as he was just now, and it must be thoroughly good for him to be drawn out in that way."

"I suppose it is the natural mood of poets," Lettice answered with a smile. "It is an old joke against them."

"Ah, but I think the race is changing its characteristics in these days, and going in for cheerfulness and comfort. There is Mr. Pemberton, for instance--how aggravatingly prosperous he looks! Do you see how he beams with good nature on all the world? I should say that he is a jovial man--and yet, you know, he has been down there, as they said of Dante."

"Perhaps it goes by opposites. What I have read of Mr. Walcott's poetry is rather light than sad--except one or two pieces in _The Decade_."

"Poor man! I think there is another cause for his melancholy. He lost his wife two or three years ago, and I have been told that she was a charming creature, and that her death upset him terribly. He has only just begun to go about again."

"How very unfortunate!" said Lettice. "And that makes it still more strange that his poems should be so slightly tinged with melancholy. He must live quite a double life. Most men would give expression to their personal griefs, and publish them for everybody to read; but he keeps them sacred. That is much more interesting."

"I should think it is more difficult. It seems natural that a poet, being in grief, should write the poetry of grief."

"Yes--no doubt it is more difficult."

And Lettice, on her way home and afterwards, found herself pondering on the problem of a man who, recently robbed of a well-beloved wife, wrote a thousand verses without a single reference to her.

She took down his "Measures and Monologues," and read it through, to see what he had to say about women.

There were a few cynical verses from Heine, and three bitter stanzas on the text from Balzac:--"Vous nous promettiez le bonheur, et finissiez par nous jeter dans une precipice;" but not one tender word applied to a woman throughout the book. It was certainly strange; and Lettice felt that her curiosity was natural and legitimate.

Alan Walcott, in fact, became quite an interesting study. During the next few months Lettice had many opportunities of arriving at a better knowledge of his character, and she amused herself by quietly pushing her inquiries into what was for her a comparatively new field of speculation. The outcome of the research was not very profitable. The more she saw of him the more he puzzled her. Qualities which appeared one day seemed to be entirely wanting when they next met. In some subtle manner she was aware that even his feelings and inclinations constantly varied; at one time he did not conceal his craving for sympathy, at another he was frigid and almost repellent. Lettice still did not know whether she liked or disliked him. But she was now piqued as well as interested, and so it happened that Mr. Walcott began to occupy more of her thoughts than she was altogether willing to devote to him.

So far, all their meetings were in public. They had never exchanged a word that the world might not hear. They saw each other at the Grahams'

dinner-parties, at Mrs. Hartley's Sunday afternoon "at homes," and at one or two other houses. To meet a dozen times in a London season const.i.tutes intimacy. Although they talked chiefly of books, sometimes of men and women, and never of themselves, Lettice began to feel that a confidential tone was creeping into their intercourse--that she criticized his poems with extraordinary freedom, and argued her opinions with him in a way that would certainly have staggered her brother Sydney if he had heard her. But in all this friendly talk, the personal note had never once been struck. He told her nothing of his inner self, of his past life, or his dreams for the future. All that they said might have been said to each other on their first meeting in Mrs. Hartley's drawing-room. It seemed as if some vague impalpable barrier had been erected between them, and Lettice puzzled herself from time to time to know how this barrier had been set up.

Sometimes--she did not know why--she was disposed to a.s.sociate it with the presence of Brooke Dalton. That gentleman continued to display his usual lack of brilliance in conversation, together with much good-heartedness, soundness of judgment, and thoughtfulness for others; and in spite of his slowness of speech Lettice liked him very much. But why would he persist in establishing himself within earshot when Alan was talking to her? If they absolutely eluded him, he betrayed uneasiness, like that of a faithful dog who sees his beloved mistress in some danger. He did not often interrupt the conversation. He sat silent for the most part, unconsciously throwing a wet blanket over both speakers, and sometimes sending Walcott away in a state of almost irrepressible irritation. And yet he seemed to be on good terms with Alan. They spoke to each other as men who had been acquaintances, if not friends, for a good number of years; and he never made an allusion to Alan, in his absence, which could in the least be deemed disparaging.

And yet Lettice felt that she was watched, and that there was some mysterious anxiety in Dalton's mind.

Having no companions (for Clara was too busy with her house and her children to be considered a companion for the day-time), Lettice sometimes went for solitary expeditions to various "sights" of London, and, as usual in such expeditions, had never once met anybody she knew.

She had gone rather early one summer morning to Westminster Abbey, and was walking slowly through the dim cloistered shades, enjoying the coolness and the quietness, when she came full upon Alan Walcott, who seemed to be doing likewise.

They both started: indeed, they both changed color. For the first time they met outside a drawing-room; and the change in their environment seemed to warrant some change in their relation to one another. After the first greeting, and a short significant pause--for what can be more significant than silence between two people who have reached that stage of sensitiveness to each other's moods when every word or movement seems like self-revelation?--Alan spoke.

"You love this place--as I do; I know you love it."

"I have never been here before," said Lettice, letting her eyes stray dreamily over the grey stones at her feet.

"No, or I should have seen you. I am often here. And I see you so seldom----"

"So seldom?" said Lettice in some natural surprise. "Why, I thought we met rather often?"