Red Pottage Part 4

"Well, then, the poet? I am sure he is a poet because his tie is uneven and his hair is so long. Why do literary men wear their hair long, and literary women wear it short. I should _like_ the poet."

"You shall not have him," said Hugh, with decision. "I am hesitating between the bald young man with the fat hand and the immense ring and the old professor who is drawing plans on the table-cloth."

"The apostle told me with bated breath that the young man with the ring is Mr. Harvey, the author of _Unashamed_."

Hugh looked at his plate to conceal his disgust.

There was a pause in the buzz of conversation, and into it fell straightway the voice of the apostle like a brick through a skylight.

"The need of the present age is the realization of our brotherhood with sin and suffering and poverty. West London in satin and diamonds does not hear her sister East London in rags calling to her to deliver her.

The voice of East London has been drowned in the dance-music of the West End."

Sybell gazed with awed admiration at the apostle.

"What a beautiful thought," she said.

"Miss Gresley's _Idyll of East London_," said Hugh, "is a voice which, at any rate, has been fully heard."

The apostle put up a _pince-nez_ on a bone leg and looked at Hugh.

"I entirely disapprove of that little book," she said. "It is misleading and wilfully one-sided."

"Hester Gresley is a dear friend of mine," said Sybell, "and I must stand up for her. She is the sister of our clergyman, who is a very clever man. In fact, I am not sure he isn't the cleverest of the two.

She and I have great talks. We have so much in common. How strange it seems that she who lives in the depths of the country should have written a story of the East End!"

"That is always so," said the author of _Unashamed_, in a sonorous voice. "The novel has of late been dwarfed to the scope of the young English girl"--he p.r.o.nounced it gurl--"who writes from her imagination and not from her experience. What true art requires of us is a faithful rendering of a great experience."

He looked round, as if challenging the world to say that _Unashamed_ was not a lurid personal reminiscence.

Sybell was charmed. She felt that none of her previous dinner-parties had reached such a high level as this one.

"A faithful rendering of a great experience," she repeated. "How I wish Hester were here to hear that. I often tell her she ought to see life, and cultivated society would do so much for her. I found her out a year ago, and I'm always begging people to read her book, and I simply long to introduce her to clever people and oblige the world to recognize her talent."

"I agree with you, it is not yet fully recognized," said Hugh, in a level voice; "but if _The Idyll_ received only partial recognition, it was, at any rate, enthusiastic. And it is not forgotten."

Sybell felt vaguely uncomfortable, and conceived a faint dislike of Hugh as an uncongenial person.

The apostle and the poet began to speak simultaneously, but the female key was the highest, and prevailed.

"We all agree in admiring Miss Gresley's delicate piece of workmanship,"

said the apostle, both elbows on the table after the manner of her kind, "but it is a misfortune to the cause of suffering humanity--to _our_ cause--when the books which pretend to set forth certain phases of its existence are written by persons entirely ignorant of the life they describe."

"How true!" said Sybell. "I have often thought it, but I never could put it into words as you do. Oh! how I agree with you and Mr. Harvey! As I often say to Hester, 'How can you describe anything if you don't go anywhere or see anything? I can't give you my experience. No one can.' I said that to her only a month ago, when she refused to come up to London with me."

Rachel's white face and neck had taken on them the pink transparent color that generally dwelt only in the curves of her small ears.

"Why do you think Miss Gresley is ignorant of the life she describes?"

she said, addressing the apostle.

The author and the apostle both opened their mouths at the same moment, only to register a second triumph of the female tongue.

Miss Barker was in her element. The whole table was listening. She shrugged her orange-velvet shoulders.

"Those who have cast in their lot with the poor," she said, sententiously, "would recognize at once the impossibility of Miss Gresley's characters and situations."

"To me they seem real," said Rachel.

"Ah, my dear Miss West, you will excuse me, but a young lady like yourself, nursed in the lap of luxury, can hardly be expected to look at life with the same eyes as a poor waif like myself, who has penetrated to the very core of the city, and who has heard the stifled sigh of a vast perishing humanity."

"I lived in the midst of it for six years," said Rachel. "I did not cast in my lot with the poor, for I was one of them, and earned my bread among them. Miss Gresley's book may not be palatable in some respects, the district visitor and the woman missionary are certainly treated with harshness, but, as far as my experience goes, _The Idyll_ is a true word from first to last."

There was in Rachel's voice a restrained force that vaguely stirred all the occupants of the room. Every one looked at her, and for a moment no one spoke. She became quite colorless.

"Very striking. Just what I should have said in her place," said Sybell to herself. "I will ask her again."

"I can hear it raining," said Doll's voice from the head of the table to the company in general. "If it will only go on for a week without stopping there may be some hope for the crops yet."

The conversation buzzed up again, and Rachel turned instantly to Hugh, before Mr. Harvey, leaning forward with his ring, had time to address her.

Hugh alone saw what a superhuman effort it had been to her to overcome her shrinking from mentioning, not her previous poverty, but her personal experience. She had sacrificed her natural reserve, which he could see was great; she had even set good taste at defiance to defend Hester Gresley's book. Hugh had shuddered as he heard her speak. He felt that he could not have obtruded himself on so mixed an a.s.sembly. Yet he saw that it had cost her more to do so than it would have cost him.

He began to remember having heard people speak of an iron-master's daughter, whose father had failed and died, and who, after several years of dire poverty, had lately inherited a vast fortune from her father's partner. It had been talked about at the time, a few months ago. This must be she.

"You have a great affection for Miss Gresley," he said, in a low voice.

"I have," said Rachel, her lip still quivering. "But if I disliked her I hope I should have said the same. Surely it is not necessary to love the writer in order to defend the book."

Hugh was silent. He looked at her, and wished that she might always be on his side.

"About two courses ago I was going to tell you," said Rachel, smiling, "of one of my chief difficulties on my return to the civilized world and 'Society.' But now you have had an example of it. I am trying to cure myself of the trick of becoming interested in conversation. I must learn to use words as counters, not as coins. I need not disbelieve what I say, but I must not speak of anything to which I attach value. I perceive that to do this is an art and a means of defence from invasion.

But I, on the contrary, become interested, as you have just seen. I forget that I am only playing a game, and I rush into a subject like a bull into a china-shop, and knock about all the crockery until--as I am not opposed by my native pitchfork--I suddenly return to my senses, and discover that I have mistaken a game for real earnest."

"We were all in earnest five minutes ago," said Hugh; "at least, I was.

I could not bear to hear Miss Gresley patronized by all these failures and amateurs. But, unless I am very much mistaken, you will find several pitchforks laid up for you in the drawing-room."

"I don't mean to smash any more china," said Rachel.

Another wavelet skimmed in and broke a little further up the sand. A sense of freshness, of expectation was in the air. The great gathered ocean was stirring itself in the distance. Hugh had forgotten his trouble.

He turned the conversation back to Hester Gresley and her writing. He spoke of her with sympathy and appreciation, and presently detected a softness in Rachel's eyes which made him jealous of Hester.

By the time the evening was over the imperceptible travelling of the summer sea had reached as far as the tidal wave.

Hugh left when Rachel did, accompanying her to her carriage. At the door were the darkness and the rain. At the door with them the horror and despair of the morning were in wait for him, and laid hold upon him.

Hugh shuddered, and turned instinctively to Rachel.

She was holding out her hand to him. He took it and held it tightly in his sudden fear and desolation.