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Morals of Marcus Ordeyne

<h2> CHAPTER XIII </h2> September 30th. Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she served up this evening was all but uneatable. Something is wrong with Stenson, who has taken to playing his lugubrious hymn-tunes on the concertina while I am in the house; I won’t have it. Something is wrong with the cat. He wanders round the house like a lost soul, sniffing at everything. This evening he actually jumped onto the dinner-table, looked at me out of his one eye, in which all the desolation of two was concentrated, and miaowed heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the house, with my pens which will not write, with my books which have the air of dry bones in a charnel-house, with the MS. of my History of Renaissance Morals, which stands on the writing-table like a dusty monument to the futility of human endeavour. Something is wrong with me. Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just returned from her stay with the Willoughbys. I have been to see her this evening and found her of uncertain temper, and inclined to be contradictious. She accused me of being dull. I answered that the autumn world outside was drenched with miserable rain. How could man be sprightly under such conditions? “In this room,” said Judith, “with its bright fire and drawn curtains there is no miserable rain, and no autumn save in our hearts.” “Why in our hearts?” I asked. “How you peg one down to precision,” said Judith, testily. “I wish I were a Roman Catholic.” “Why?” “I could go into a convent.” “You had much better go to Delphine Carrere,” said I. “I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid of me already?” she cried, using her woman’s swift logic of unreason. “I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Judith.” “H’m,” she said. Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot fell to the ground. I declare I was only half conscious of the accident as my mind was deep in other things. “You don’t even pick up my slipper,” she said. “Ten thousand pardons,” I exclaimed, springing forward. But she had anticipated my intention. We remained staring into the fire and saying nothing. As she professed to be tired I went away early. At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my umbrella behind, I remounted the stairs, and rang Judith’s bell. After a while I saw her figure through the ground-glass panel approach the door, but before she opened it, she turned out the light in the passage. “Marcus!” she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dimness of the threshold her eyes looked strangely accusative of tears. “You have come back!” “Yes,” said I, “for my umbrella.” She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her hands to her throat, turned away sharply, caught up my umbrella, and putting it into my hands and thrusting me back shut the door in my face. In great astonishment I went downstairs again. What is wrong with Judith? She said this evening that all men are cruel. Now, I am a man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect syllogism. But how have I been cruel? I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the depressed man as the unmitigated misery of a walk through the London rain. One is not mocked by any factitious gaiety. The mind is in harmony with the sodden universe. It is well to have everything in the world wrong at one and the same time. I have changed my drenched garments for dressing-gown and slippers. I find on my writing-table a letter addressed in a round childish hand. It is from Carlotta, who for the last fortnight has been staying in Cornwall with the McMurrays. I have known few fortnights so long. In a ridiculous schoolboy way I have been counting the days to her return—the day after to-morrow. The letter begins: “Seer Marcous dear.” The spelling is a little jest between us. The inversion is a quaint invention of her own. “Mrs. McMurray says, can you spare me for one more week? She wants to teach me manners. She says I have shocked the top priest here—oh, you call him a vikker—now I do remember—because I went out for a walk with a little young pretty priest without a hat, and because it rained I put on his hat and the vikker met us. But I did not flirt with the little priest. Oh, no! I told him he must not make love to me like the young man from the grocer’s. And I told him that if he wrote poetry you would beat him. So I have been very good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come back very much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she is going to have a baby and I am very happy and good, and Mr. McMurray says funny things and makes me laugh. But I love my darling Seer Marcous best. Give Antoinette and Polifemus (the one-eyed cat) two very nice kisses for me. And here is one for Seer Marcous from his “CARLOTTA.” How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. 31st October. I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. The Renaissance has receded into a Glacial Epoch wherein, as far as its humanity is concerned, I have not a tittle of interest. I sought refuge in the club. Why should an old sober University club be such a haven of unrest? Ponting, an opinionated don of Corpus, seated himself at my luncheon table, and discoursed on political economy and golf. I manifested a polite ignorance of these high matters. He assured me that if I studied the one and played at the other, I should be physically and mentally more robust; whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, and put on a scowl of intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, like most of the men here, studies golf and plays at political economy. In serener moments I suffer Ponting gladly. But to-day his boast that he had done the course at Westward Ho! in seven, or seventeen, or seventy—how on earth should I remember?—left me cold, and his crude economics interfered with my digestion. Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I, came face to face with my sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured gown. She gave me a hasty nod and would have passed on, but I arrested her. Her white face was turned piteously upward and from her expressionless eyes flashed a glance of fear. I felt myself in a brutal mood. “Why,” I asked, “are you avoiding me as if I were a pestilence?” She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was in a hurry. “I don’t believe it,” said I. “People have been telling you that I am a vile, wicked man who does unspeakable things, and like a good little girl you are afraid to talk to me. Tell people, the next time you see them, with my compliments, that they are malevolent geese.” I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying presence, walked away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and unreasonably angry. I bethought me of my Aunt Jessica, whom I held responsible for her niece’s behaviour. A militant mood prompted a call. After twenty minutes in a hansom I found myself in her drawing-room. She was alone, the girls being away on country-house visits. Her reception was glacial. I expressed the hope that the yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. “Exceedingly pleasant,” snapped my aunt. “I trust Dora is well,” said I, keeping from my lips a smile that might have hinted at the broken heart. “Very well, thank you.” As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained politely silent, inviting her by my attitude to speak. “I rather wonder, Marcus,” she said at last, “at your referring to Dora.” “Indeed? May I ask why?” “May I speak plainly?” “I beseech you.” “I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward.” “Well?” I asked. “Verbum sap,” said my aunt. “And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of my summer holiday and given them to understand that I am a monster of depravity. I am exceedingly obliged to you. I have just met Rosalie in the street, and she shrank from me as if I were the reincarnation of original sin.” “I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are,” replied my Aunt Jessica. The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my eccentricities had gone, and her face was hard and unpitying. “I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations,” said I. “I am a woman of the world,” my aunt retorted, “but I think that when such things are flaunted in the face of society they become immoral.” I rose. “Do evil by stealth—as much as you like,” said I, “but blush to find it fame.” With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. “On the other hand,” said I, heatedly, “I have been doing a certain amount of good both by stealth and openly, and I naturally blush with indignation to find it accounted infamous.” I looked narrowly into my aunt’s eyes and I read in them entire disbelief in my protest. I swear, if I had proved my innocence beyond the shadow of doubt, that woman would have been grievously disappointed. “Good-bye,” said I. She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A moment later—I really believe she was moved by a kindly impulse—she intercepted me at the door. “I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus,” she said in a softer tone. “I hope you will do nothing rash.” “What do you mean?” I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage. “I hope you won’t try to repair things by marrying this—young person.” “To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?” I asked grimly. “Yes,” said my aunt. Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the elements of unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron which I suppose was my heart. The result was explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands and my aunt recoiled in alarm. “By heaven!” I cried, “I would give the soul out of my body to marry her!” And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed this infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express Niagara in terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything vital in heart and brain. She is an obsession. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, the cooing dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes and feel the rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witchery of her movements dances before my eyes. I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate enough—a ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without her my very life will be void. My heart has been crying for her these two weeks and I knew it not. Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my hands toward the south where she abides, and lift up my voice, and cry for her passionately aloud. There is no infernal foolishness in the world that I could not commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he could appreciate my state of being, would learn points in insanity. It is two o’clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory apophthegm: “The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a beginner in philosophy.” He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail against Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am helpless. But by heaven! Am I mad? Is not this on the contrary the sanest hour of my existence? I have lived like an automaton for forty years, and I suddenly awake to find myself a man. I don’t care whether I sleep or not. I feel gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have never lived, I have never grown old. Life translates itself into music—a wild “Invitation to the Waltz” by some Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. Polyphemus, who has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from Carlotta’s corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. Heigh, old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb in your veins, too? Come along and let us make a night of it. To the Devil with sleep. We’ll go together down to the cellar and find a bottle of Pommery, and we will drink to Life and Youth and Love and the Splendour and the Joy thereof. He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the blackness of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he purrs unutterable rapture. My hand passed over his back produces a shower of sparks. We return up the silent stairs, I carry a bottle of Pommery and a milkjug—for you shall revel, too, Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten to bring a saucer, you shall drink, as no cat has drunk before, from an old precious platter bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara—over which Lucrezia Borgia laughed when the world was young. It is a pity cats don’t drink champagne. I would have made you to-night as drunk as Bacchus. We drink, and in the stillness the glouglou of his tongue forms a bass to the elfin notes of the Pommery in the soda-water tumbler. Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar what you buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of the vine, dream entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the liquid gold of life’s joyousness. A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here tomorrow night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is an eternity; but winged with the dove’s iris it is a mere moment. Besides, I must accustom myself to my youth. I must investigate its follies, I must learn the grammar of its wisdom. We’ll take counsel together, Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into a bridal bower radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink again to her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss. I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid over his cups—which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken into enthusiasm. “I care not,” I cry, “for man or devil, Polyphemus. ‘Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!’’ You may say that it’s wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, and that Triboulet said ‘colere’’ instead of amour. You always were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say amour-love, do you hear? I’ll translate, if you like: ‘Now am I mighty, and my love of fire To-night goes even with a god’s desire.’ Yes; I’ll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind claws, Polyphemus.” There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms when she clasped them round my neck; et sa peau, on dirait du satin. Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and her youth, and I drink Carlotta. “Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?” To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter. October 2d. I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six o’clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed tom-cat as boon companion, at two o’clock in the morning: But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her infinitely. October 6th. She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome. The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson’s functions, has polished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid to walk about or sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless brightness of my surroundings. “You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette,” I remarked, satirically. “You have omitted to strew the front steps with rose-leaves.” “I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon as she entered,” said Antoinette. “That would scarcely be rose-leaves,” I murmured. Antoinette laughed. “And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has he not put new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new toilette table, and a set of silver brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the toilette of a princess? And the eiderdown in pink satin? Regardez-moi ca! Monsieur can no longer say that it is I alone who spoil the dear angel.” “Monsieur,” said I, at a loss for a better retort, “will say whatever Monsieur pleases.” “It is indeed the right of Monsieur,” said Antoinette, respectfully, but with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of significance. Does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for Carlotta’s return have been inordinate, for they have extended to the transformation of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady’s boudoir. I have been busy this happy week. But what care I? It will not be long before I have to say to her, “Antoinette, there is going to be a wedding.” I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she clasp me to her capacious bosom! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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