The Hand of Ethelberta Part 11

Lady Petherwin, her mother-in-law, has been taking her about a great deal latterly.'

'She has apparently a very good prospect.'

'Yes; and it is through her being of that curious undefined character which interprets itself to each admirer as whatever he would like to have it. Old men like her because she is so girlish; youths because she is womanly; wicked men because she is good in their eyes; good men because she is wicked in theirs.'

'She must be a very anomalous sort of woman, at that rate.'

'Yes. Like the British Const.i.tution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.'

'These poems must have set her up. She appears to be quite the correct spectacle. Happy Mrs. Petherwin!'

The subject of their dialogue was engaged in a conversation with Mrs.

Belmaine upon the management of households--a theme provoked by a discussion that was in progress in the pages of some periodical of the time. Mrs. Belmaine was very full of the argument, and went on from point to point till she came to servants.

The face of Ethelberta showed caution at once.

'I consider that Lady Plamby pets her servants by far too much,' said Mrs. Belmaine. 'O, you do not know her? Well, she is a woman with theories; and she lends her maids and men books of the wrong kind for their station, and sends them to picture exhibitions which they don't in the least understand--all for the improvement of their taste, and morals, and n.o.body knows what besides. It only makes them dissatisfied.'

The face of Ethelberta showed venturesomeness. 'Yes, and dreadfully ambitious!' she said.

'Yes, indeed. What a turn the times have taken! People of that sort push on, and get into business, and get great warehouses, until at last, without ancestors, or family, or name, or estate--'

'Or the merest sc.r.a.p of heirloom or family jewel.'

'Or heirlooms, or family jewels, they are thought as much of as if their forefathers had glided un.o.btrusively through the peerage--'

'Ever since the first edition.'

'Yes.' Mrs. Belmaine, who really sprang from a good old family, had been going to say, 'for the last seven hundred years,' but fancying from Ethelberta's addendum that she might not date back more than a trifling century or so, adopted the suggestion with her usual well-known courtesy, and blushed down to her locket at the thought of the mistake that she might have made. This sensitiveness was a trait in her character which gave great gratification to her husband, and, indeed, to all who knew her.

'And have you any theory on the vexed question of servant-government?'

continued Mrs. Belmaine, smiling. 'But no--the subject is of far too practical a nature for one of your bent, of course.'

'O no--it is not at all too practical. I have thought of the matter often,' said Ethelberta. 'I think the best plan would be for somebody to write a pamphlet, "The Shortest Way with the Servants," just as there was once written a terribly stinging one, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters," which had a great effect.'

'I have always understood that that was written by a dissenter as a satire upon the Church?'

'Ah--so it was: but the example will do to ill.u.s.trate my meaning.'

'Quite so--I understand--so it will,' said Mrs. Belmaine, with clouded faculties.

Meanwhile Christopher's music had arrived. An accomplished gentleman who had every musical talent except that of creation, scanned the notes carefully from top to bottom, and sat down to accompany the singer. There was no lady present of sufficient confidence or skill to venture into a song she had never seen before, and the only one who had seen it was Ethelberta herself; she did not deny having practised it the greater part of the afternoon, and was very willing to sing it now if anybody would derive pleasure from the performance. Then she began, and the sweetness of her singing was such that even the most unsympathetic honoured her by looking as if they would be willing to listen to every note the song contained if it were not quite so much trouble to do so. Some were so interested that, instead of continuing their conversation, they remained in silent consideration of how they would continue it when she had finished; while the particularly civil people arranged their countenances into every attentive form that the mind could devise. One emotional gentleman looked at the corner of a chair as if, till that moment, such an object had never crossed his vision before; the movement of his finger to the imagined tune was, for a deaf old clergyman, a perfect mine of interest; whilst a young man from the country was powerless to put an end to an enchanted gaze at nothing at all in the exact middle of the room before him. Neigh, and the general phalanx of cool men and celebrated club yawners, were so much affected that they raised their chronic look of great objection to things, to an expression of scarcely any objection at all.

'What makes it so interesting,' said Mrs. Doncastle to Ethelberta, when the song was over and she had retired from the focus of the company, 'is, that it is played from the composer's own copy, which has never met the public eye, or any other than his own before to-day. And I see that he has actually sketched in the lines by hand, instead of having ruled paper--just as the great old composers used to do. You must have been as pleased to get it fresh from the stocks like that as he probably was pleased to get your thanks.'

Ethelberta became reflective. She had not thanked Christopher; moreover, she had decided, after some consideration, that she ought not to thank him. What new thoughts were suggested by that remark of Mrs.

Doncastle's, and what new inclination resulted from the public presentation of his tune and her words as parts of one organic whole, are best explained by describing her doings at a later hour, when, having left her friends somewhat early, she had reached home and retired from public view for that evening.

Ethelberta went to her room, sent away the maid who did double duty for herself and Lady Petherwin, walked in circles about the carpet till the fire had grown haggard and cavernous, sighed, took a sheet of paper and wrote:--

'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--I have said I would not write: I have said it twice; but discretion, under some circ.u.mstances, is only another name for unkindness. Before thanking you for your sweet gift, let me tell you in a few words of something which may materially change an aspect of affairs under which I appear to you to deserve it.

'With regard to my history and origin you are altogether mistaken; and how can I tell whether your bitterness at my previous silence on those points may not cause you to withdraw your act of courtesy now? But the gratification of having at last been honest with you may compensate even for the loss of your respect.

'The matter is a small one to tell, after all. What will you say on learning that I am not the trodden-down "lady by birth" that you have supposed me? That my father is not dead, as you probably imagine; that he is working for his living as one among a peculiarly stigmatized and ridiculed mult.i.tude?

'Had he been a brawny cottager, carpenter, mason, blacksmith, well- digger, navvy, tree-feller--any effective and manly trade, in short, a worker in which can stand up in the face of the n.o.blest and daintiest, and bare his gnarled arms and say, with a consciousness of superior power, "Look at a real man!" I should have been able to show you antecedents which, if not intensely romantic, are not altogether antagonistic to romance. But the present fashion of a.s.sociating with one particular cla.s.s everything that is ludicrous and bombastic overpowers me when I think of it in relation to myself and your known sensitiveness. When the well-born poetess of good report melts into.

Having got thus far, a faint-hearted look, which had begun to show itself several sentences earlier, became p.r.o.nounced. She threw the writing into the dull fire, poked and stirred it till a red inflammation crept over the sheet, and then started anew:--

'DEAR MR. JULIAN,--Not knowing your present rank as composer--whether on the very brink of fame, or as yet a long way off--I cannot decide what form of expression my earnest acknowledgments should take. Let me simply say in one short phrase, I thank you infinitely!

'I am no musician, and my opinion on music may not be worth much: yet I know what I like (as everybody says, but I do not use the words as a form to cover a hopeless blank on all connected with the subject), and this sweet air I love. You must have glided like a breeze about me--seen into a heart not worthy of scrutiny, jotted down words that cannot justify attention--before you could have apotheosized the song in so exquisite a manner. My grat.i.tude took the form of wretchedness when, on hearing the effect of the ballad in public this evening, I thought that I had not power to withhold a reply which might do us both more harm than good. Then I said, "Away with all emotion--I wish the world was drained dry of it--I will take no notice," when a lady whispered at my elbow to the effect that of course I had expressed my gratification to you. I ought first to have mentioned that your creation has been played to-night to full drawing-rooms, and the original tones cooled the artificial air like a fountain almost.

'I prophesy great things of you. Perhaps, at the time when we are each but a row of bones in our individual graves, your genius will be remembered, while my mere cleverness will have been long forgotten.

'But--you must allow a woman of experience to say this--the undoubted power that you possess will do you socially no good unless you mix with it the ingredient of ambition--a quality in which I fear you are very deficient. It is in the hope of stimulating you to a better opinion of yourself that I write this letter.

'Probably I shall never meet you again. Not that I think circ.u.mstances to be particularly powerful to prevent such a meeting, rather it is that I shall energetically avoid it. There can be no such thing as strong friendship between a man and a woman not of one family.

'More than that there must not be, and this is why we will not meet.

You see that I do not mince matters at all; but it is hypocrisy to avoid touching upon a subject which all men and women in our position inevitably think of, no matter what they say. Some women might have written distantly, and wept at the repression of their real feeling; but it is better to be more frank, and keep a dry eye.--Yours, ETHELBERTA.'

Her feet felt cold and her heart weak as she directed the letter, and she was overpowered with weariness. But murmuring, 'If I let it stay till the morning I shall not send it, and a man may be lost to fame because of a woman's squeamishness--it shall go,' she partially dressed herself, wrapped a large cloak around her, descended the stairs, and went out to the pillar-box at the corner, leaving the door not quite close. No gust of wind had realized her misgivings that it might be blown shut on her return, and she re-entered as softly as she had emerged.

It will be seen that Ethelberta had said nothing about her family after all.

10. LADY PETHERWIN'S HOUSE

The next day old Lady Petherwin, who had not accompanied Ethelberta the night before, came into the morning-room, with a newspaper in her hand.

'What does this mean, Ethelberta?' she inquired in tones from which every shade of human expressiveness was extracted by some awful and imminent mood that lay behind. She was pointing to a paragraph under the heading of 'Literary Notes,' which contained in a few words the announcement of Ethelberta's authorship that had more circ.u.mstantially appeared in the Wess.e.x Reflector.

'It means what it says,' said Ethelberta quietly.

'Then it is true?'

'Yes. I must apologize for having kept it such a secret from you. It was not done in the spirit that you may imagine: it was merely to avoid disturbing your mind that I did it so privately.'

'But surely you have not written every one of those ribald verses?'

Ethelberta looked inclined to exclaim most vehemently against this; but what she actually did say was, '"Ribald"--what do you mean by that? I don't think that you are aware what "ribald" means.'

'I am not sure that I am. As regards some words as well as some persons, the less you are acquainted with them the more it is to your credit.'