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Old Maids' Club

<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> A MUSICAL BAR. When Turple the magnificent, looking uneasy, brought up Frank Maddox's card, Lillie uttered a cry of surprise and pleasure. Frank Maddox was a magic name to her as to all the elect of the world of sweetness and light. After a moment of nervous anxiety lest it should not be the Frank Maddox, her fears were dispelled by the entry of the great authority on art and music, whose face was familiar to her from frontispiece portraits. Few critics possessed such charms of style and feature as Frank Maddox, who had a delicious retroussé nose, a dainty rosebud mouth, blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair. Lillie's best hopes were confirmed. The famous critic wished to become an Old Maid. The President and the new and promising candidate had a delightful chat over a cup of tea and the prospects of the Club. The two girls speedily became friends. "But if you join us, hadn't you better go back to your maiden name?" inquired Lillie. "Perhaps so," said Frank Maddox thoughtfully. "My pen-name does sound odd under the peculiar circumstances. On the other hand to revert to Laura Spragg now might be indiscreet. People would couple my name with Frank Maddox's—you know the way of the world. The gossips get their facts so distorted, and I couldn't even deny the connection." [pg 278] "But of course you have had your romance?" asked Lillie. "You know one romance per head is our charge for admission?" "Oh, yes! I have had my romance. In three vols. Shall I tell it you?" "If you please." "Listen, then. Volume the First: Frank Maddox is in her study. Outside the sun is setting in furrows of gold-laced sagging storm-clouds, dun and——" "Oh, please, I always skip that," laughed Lillie. "I know that two lovers cannot walk in a lane without the author seeing the sunset, which is the last thing in the world the lovers see. But when the sky begins to look black, I always begin to skip." "Forgive me. I didn't mean to do it. Remember I'm an habitual art-critic. I thought I was describing a harmony of Whistler's or a movement from a sonata. It shall not occur again. To the heroine enter the hero—shabby, close-cropped, pale. Their eyes meet. He is thunderstruck to find the heroine a woman; blushes, stammers, and offers to go away. Struck by something of innate refinement in his manner, she presses him to avow the object of his visit. At last, in dignified language, infinitely touching in its reticence, he confesses he called on Mr. Frank Maddox, the writer he admires so much, to ask a little pecuniary help. He is starving. Original, isn't it, to have your hero hungry in the first chapter? He speaks vaguely of having ambitions which, unless he goes under in the struggle for existence may some day be realized. There are so many men in London like that. However, the heroine is moved by his destitute condition and sitting down to her desk, she writes out a note, folds it up and gives it to him. 'There!' she says, 'there's a prescription against starvation.' 'But how am I to take it?' he asked. 'It must be taken before breakfast, [pg 280] the first thing in the morning,' she replied, 'to the editor of the Moon. Give him the note; he will change it for you. Don't mention my name.' <div class="image-center" style="max-width: 600px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i279.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="601" alt="" /> <div class="caption"> "There's a prescription against starvation." </div> </div> "He thanked me and withdrew." "And what was in the note?" asked Lillie curiously. "I can't quite remember. But something of this sort. 'The numerous admirers of Frank Maddox will be gratified to hear that she has in the press a volume of essays on the part played by color-blindness in the symphonic movements of the time. The great critic is still in town but leaves for Torquay next Tuesday.' For that the editor of the Moon gave him half-a-crown." "Do you call that charity?" said Lillie, astonished. "Certainly. Charity begins at home. Do many people give charity except to advertise themselves? Philanthropy by paragraph is a perquisite of fame. Why, I have a pensioner who comes in for all my Acadæum paragraphs. That Moon part saved our hero from starvation. Years afterwards I learnt he had frittered away two-pence in having his hair cut." "It seems strange for a starving man to get his hair cut," said Lillie. "Not when you know the cause," replied Frank Maddox. "It was his way of disguising himself. And this brings me to Volume Two. The years pass. Once again I am in my study. There is a breath of wind among the elms in the front garden, and the sky is strewn with vaporous sprays of apple-blossom——I beg your pardon. Re-enter the hero, spruce, frock-coated, dignified. He recalls himself to my memory—but I remember him only too well. He tells me that my half-crown saved him at the turning-point of his career, that he has now achieved fame and gold, that he loves my writing more passionately than ever, and that he has come to ask me to crown his life. The whole thing is so romantic that I am about to [pg 281] whisper 'yes' when an instinct of common sense comes to my aid and my half-opened lips murmur instead: 'But the name you sent up—Horace Paul—it is not known to me. You say you have won fame. I, at least, have never heard of you.' "'Of course not,' he replies. 'How should you? If I were Horace Paul you would not marry me; just as I should certainly not marry you if you were Frank Maddox. But what of Paul Horace?'" "Paul Horace," cried Lillie. "The great composer!" "That is just what I exclaimed. And my hero answers: 'The composer, great or little. None but a few intimates connect me with him. The change of name is too simple. I always had a longing—call it morbid if you will—for obscurity in the midst of renown. I have weekly harvests of hair to escape any suspicion of musical attainments. But you and I, dearest—think of what our life will be enriched by our common love of the noblest of the arts. Outside, the marigolds nod to the violets, the sapphire—excuse me, I mean to say——' thus he rambled on, growing in enthusiasm with every ardent phrase, the while a deadly coldness was fastening round my heart. For I felt that it could not be." "And why?" inquired Lillie in astonishment. "It seems one of the marriages made in heaven." "I dared not tell him why; and I can only tell you on condition you promise to keep my secret." "I promise." "Listen," whispered the great critic. "I know nothing about music or art, and I was afraid he would find me out." Lillie fell back in her chair, white and trembling. Another idol shivered! "But how——?" she gasped. "There, then, don't take on so," said the great critic kindly. "I did not think you, too, were such an admirer of [pg 282] mine, else I might have spared you the shock. You ask how it is done. Well, I didn't set out to criticise. I can at least plead that in extenuation. My nature is not wilfully perverse. There was a time when I was as pure and above criticism as yourself." She paused and furtively wiped away a tear, then resumed more calmly, "I drifted into it. For years I toiled on, without ever a thought of musical and art criticism sullying my maiden meditations. My downfall was gradual. In early maidenhood I earnt my living as a type-writer. I had always had literary yearnings, but the hard facts of life allowed me only this rough approximation to my ideal. Accident brought excellent literature to my machine, and it required all my native honesty not to steal the plots of the novelists and the good things of the playwrights. The latter was the harder temptation to resist, for when the play was good enough to be worth stealing from, I knew it would never be produced and my crime never discovered. Still in spite of my honesty, I benefited indirectly by my type-writing, for contact with so much admirable work fostered the graceful literary style which, between you and me, is my only merit. In time I plucked up courage to ask one of my clients, a journalist, if he could put some newspaper work in my way. 'What can you do?' he asked in surprise. 'Anything,' I replied with maiden modesty. 'I see, that's your special line,' he said musingly. 'Unfortunately we are full up in that department. You see, everyone turns his hand to that—it's like schoolmastering, the first thing people think of. It's a pity you are a girl, because the way to journalistic distinction lies through the position of office-boy. Office-girl sounds strange. I doubt whether they would have you except on a Freethought organ. Our office-boy has to sweep out the office and review the novels, else you might commence humbly as a critic of literature. It isn't a bad post either, [pg 283] for he supplements his income by picking rejected matter out of the waste paper basket and surreptitiously lodging it in the printer's copy pigeonhole. His income in fees from journalistic aspirants must be considerable. Yes, had you been a boy you might have made a pretty good thing out of literature! Then there is no chance at all for me on your paper?' I inquired desperately. 'None,' he said sadly. 'Our editor is an awful old fogey. He is vehemently opposed to the work of outsiders, and if you were to send him his own leaders in envelopes he would say they were rot. For once he would be a just critic. You see, therefore, what your own chance is. Even I, who have been on the staff for years, couldn't do anything to help you. No, I am afraid there is no hope for you unless you approach our office-boy.' I thanked him warmly for his advice and encouragement, and within a fortnight an article of mine appeared in the paper. It was called 'The Manuscripts of Authors,' and revealed in a refined and ladylike way the secrets of the chirographic characteristics of the manuscripts I had to type-write. My friend said I was exceedingly practical——" "Exceedingly practical," agreed Lillie with a suspicion of a sneer. "Because most amateur journalists write about abstract principles, whereas I had sliced out for the public a bit of concrete fact, and the great heart of the people went out to hear the details of the way Brown wrote his books, Jones his jokes, and Robinson his recitations. The article made a hit, and annoyed the authors very much." "So, I should think," said Lillie. "Didn't they withdraw their custom from you instanter?" <div class="image-center" style="max-width: 483px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i284.jpg" width-obs="483" height-obs="700" alt="" /> <div class="caption"> The office boy edits the paper. </div> </div> "Why? They didn't know it was I. Only my journalistic friend knew; and he was too much of a gentleman to give away my secret. I wrote to the editor under the name of Frank Maddox, thanking him for having inserted [pg 285] my article, and the editor said to my friend, 'Egad, I fancy I've made a discovery there. Why, if I were to pay any attention to your idea of keeping strictly to the old grooves, the paper would stagnate, my boy, simply stagnate.' The editor was right, for my friend assured me the paper would have died long before, if the office-boy had not condescended to edit it. Anyhow, it was to that office-boy I owed my introduction to literature. The editor was very proud of having discovered me, and, being installed in his good graces, I passed rapidly into dramatic criticism, and was even allowed to understudy the office-boy as literary reviewer. He could not stomach historical novels, and handed over to me all works with pronouns in the second person. Gradually I rose to higher things, but it was not until I had been musical and art critic for over eighteen months that the editor learnt that the writer whose virile style he had often dilated upon to my friend was a woman." "And what did he do when he learnt it?" asked Lillie. "He swore——" "Profane man!" cried Lillie. "That he loved me—me whom he had never seen. Of course, I declined him with thanks; happily there was a valid excuse, because he had written his communication on both sides of the paper. But even this technical touch did not mollify him, and he replied that my failure to appreciate him showed I could no longer be trusted as a critic. Fortunately my work had been signed, my fame was established. I collected my articles into a book and joined another paper." "But you haven't yet told me how it is done?" "Oh, that is the least. You see, to be a critic it is not essential to know anything—you must simply be able to write. To be a great critic you must simply be able to write well. In my omniscience, or catholic ignorance, I naturally [pg 286] looked about for the subject on which I could most profitably employ my gift of style with the least chance of being found out. A moment's consideration will convince you that the most difficult branches of criticism are the easiest. Of musical and artistic matters not one person in a thousand understands aught but the rudiments: here, then, is the field in which the critical ignoramus may expatiate at large with the minimum danger of discovery. Nay, with no scintilla of danger; for the subject matter is so obscure and abstruse that the grossest of errors may put on a bold face and parade as a profundity, or, driven to bay, proclaim itself a paradox. Only say what you have not got to say authoritatively and well, and the world shall fall down and worship you. The place of art in religion has undergone a peculiar historical development. First men worshipped the object of art; then they worshipped the artist; and nowadays they worship the art critic." "It is true," said Lillie reflectively. "This age has witnessed the apotheosis of the art critic." "And of all critics. And yet what can be more evident than that the art of criticism was never in such a critical condition? Nobody asks to see the critic's credentials. He is taken at his own valuation. There ought to be an examination to protect the public. Even schoolmasters are now required to have certificates; while those who pretend to train the larger mind in the way it should think are left to work their mischief uncontrolled. No dramatic critic should be allowed to practise without an elementary knowledge of human life, law, Shakespeare, and French. The musical critic should be required to be able to perform on some one instrument other than his own trumpet, to distinguish tune from tonality, to construe the regular sonata, to comprehend the plot of Il Trovatore, and to understand the motives of Wagner. The art critic should [pg 287] be able to discriminate between a pastel and a water-color, an impressionist drawing and a rough sketch, to know the Dutch school from the Italian, and the female figure from the male, to translate morbidezza and chiaroscuro, and failing this, to be aware of the existence and uses of a vanishing point. A doctor's certificate should also be produced to testify that the examinee is in possession of all the normal faculties; deafness, blindness, and color-blindness being regarded as disqualifications, and no one should be allowed to practise unless he enjoyed a character for common honesty supplemented by a testimonial from a clergyman, for although art is non-moral the critic should be moral. This would be merely the passman stage; there could always be examinations in honors for the graduates. Once the art critics were educated, the progress of the public would be rapid. They would no longer be ready to admire the canvases of Michael Angelo, who, as I learnt the other day for the first time, painted frescoes, nor would they prefer him, as unhesitatingly as they do now, to Buonarotti, which is his surname, nor would they imagine Raffaelle's Cartoons appeared in Puncinello. All these mistakes I have myself made, though no one discovered them; while in the realm of music no one has more misrepresented the masters, more discouraged the overtures of young composers." "But still I do not understand how it is done," urged Lillie. "You shall have my formula in a nutshell. I had to be a musical critic and an art critic. I was ignorant of music and knew nothing of art. But I was a dab at language. When I was talking of music, I used the nomenclature of art. I spoke of light and shade, color and form, delicacy of outline, depth and atmosphere, perspective, foreground and background, nocturnes and harmonies in blue. I analyzed symphonies pictorially [pg 288] and explained what I saw defiling before me as the music swept on. Sunsets and belvedere towers, swarthy Paynims on Shetland ponies, cypress plumes and Fra Angelico's cherubs, lumps of green clay and delicate pillared loggias, fennel tufts and rococo and scarlet anemones, and over all the trail of the serpent. Thus I created an epoch in musical criticism. On the other hand, when I had to deal with art, I was careful to eschew every suggestion of the visual vocabulary and to confine myself to musical phrases. In talking of pictures, I dwelt upon their counter-point and their orchestration, their changes of key and the evolution of their ideas, their piano and forte-passages, and their bars of rest, their allegro and diminuendo aspects, their suspensions on the dominant. I spoke of them as symphonies and sonatas and masses, said one was too staccato and another too full of consecutive sevenths, and a third in need of transposition to the minor. Thus I created an epoch in art criticism. In both departments the vague and shifting terms I introduced enabled me to evade mistakes and avoid detection, while the creation of two epochs gave me the very first place in contemporary criticism. There is nothing in which I would not undertake to create an epoch. I do not say I have always been happy, and it has been a source of constant regret to me that I had not even learnt to play the piano when a girl and that unplayed music still remained to me little black dots." "And so you did not dare marry the composer?" "No, nor tell him why. Volume Three: I said I admired him so much that I wanted to go on devoting critical essays to him, and my praises would be discounted by the public if I were his wife. Was it not imprudent for him to alienate the leading critic by marrying her? Rather would I sacrifice myself and continue to criticise him. But [pg 289] I love him, and it is for his sake I would become an Old Maid." "I would rather you didn't," said Lillie, her face still white. "I have found so much inspiration in your books that I could not bear to be daily reminded I ought not to have found it." Poor president! The lessons of experience were hard! The Club taught her much she were happier without. That day Lord Silverdale appropriately intoned (with banjo obligato) a patter-song which he pretended to have written at the Academy, whence he had just come with the conventional splitting headache. AFTER THE ACADEMY—A JINGLE. (NOT BY ALFRED JINGLE.) <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> Brain a-whirling, pavement twirling, Cranium aching, almost baking, Mind a muddle, puddle, fuddle. Million pictures, million mixtures, Small and great 'uns, Brown's and Leighton's, Sky and wall 'uns, short and tall 'uns, Pseudo classic for, alas! Sic Transit gloria sub Victoriâ), Landscape, figure, white or nigger, Steely etchings, inky sketchings, Genre, portrait (not one caught trait), Eke historic (kings plethoric), Realistic, prize-fight-fistic, Entozoic, nude, heroic, Coarse, poetic, homiletic, Still-life (flowers, tropic bowers), Pure domestic, making breast tick With emotion; endless ocean, Glaze or scrumble, craze and jumble, Varnish mastic, sculpture plastic, Canvas, paper (oh, for taper!) Oil and water, (oh, for slaughter!) [pg 290] Children, cattle, 'busses, battle, Seamen, satyrs, lions, waiters, Nymphs and peasants, peers and pheasants, Dogs and flunkeys, gods and monkeys Half-dressed ladies, views of Hades, Phillis tripping, seas and shipping, Hearth and meadow, brooks and bread-dough, Doves and dreamers, stars and steamers, Saucepans, blossoms, rags, opossums, Tramway, cloudland, wild and ploughed land, Gents and mountains, clocks and fountains, Pan and pansy—these of fancy Have possession in procession Never-ending, ever blending, All a-flitter and a-glitter, Ever prancing, ever dancing, Ever whirling, ever curling, Ever swirling, ever twirling, Ever bobbing, ever throbbing. Ho, some brandy—is it handy? Air seems tainting, I am fainting. Hang all—no, don't hang all—painting! </div> </div> [pg 291] <hr class="hr2" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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