The Golden Butterfly
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Carlyle and Tennyson, for their part, sat perfectly silent. Lower down – below the Twins, that is – Sala, Huxley, and the others were conversing freely, but in a low tone. And when Gilead Beck caught a few words it seemed to him as if they talked of horse-racing.
Presently, to his relief, John Ruskin leaned forward and spoke to him.
"I have been studying lately, Mr. Beck, the Art growth of America."
"Is that so, sir? And perhaps you have got something to tell my countrymen?"
"Perhaps, Mr. Beck. You doubtless know my principle, that Art should interpret, not create. You also know that I have preached all my life the doctrine that where Art is followed for Art's own sake, there infallibly ensues a distinction of intellectual and moral principles, while, devoted honestly and self-forgetfully to the clear statement and record of the facts of the universe, Art is always helpful and beneficial to mankind. So much you know, Mr. Beck, I'm sure."
"Well, sir, if you would not mind saying that over again – slow – I might be able to say I know it."
"I have sometimes gone on to say," pursued Mr. Ruskin, "that a time has always hitherto come when, having reached a singular perfection, Art begins to contemplate that perfection and to deduce rules from it. Now all this has nothing to do with the relations between Art and mental development in the United States of America."
"I am glad to hear that, sir," said Gilead Beck, a little relieved.
He looked for help to the Twins, but he leaned upon a slender reed, for they were both engaged upon the duckling, and proffered no help at all. They did not even seem to listen. The dinner was far advanced, their cheeks were red, and their eyes were sparkling.
"What is it all about?" Mr. Carlyle murmured across the table to Tennyson.
"Don't know," replied the Maker. "Didn't think he had it in him."
Could these two great men be jealous of Mr. Ruskin's fame?
"Your remarks, Mr. Ruskin," said the host, "sound very pretty. But I should like to have them before me in black and white, so I could tackle them quietly for an hour. Then I'd tell you what I think. I was reading, last week, all your works."
"All my works in a week!" cried Ruskin. "Sir, my works require loving thought and lingering tender care. You must get up early in the morning with them, you must watch the drapery of the clouds at sunrise when you read them, you must take them into the fields at spring-time and mark, as you meditate on the words of the printed page, the young leaflets breathing low in the sunshine. Then, as the thoughts grow and glow in the pure ether of your mind – hock, if you please – you will rise above the things of the earth, your wings will expand, you will care for nothing of the mean and practical – I will take a little more duckling – your faculties will be woven into a cunning subordination with the wondrous works of Nature, and all will be beautiful alike, from a blade of grass to a South American forest."
"There are very good forests in the Sierra Nevada," said Mr. Beck, who had just understood the last words; "we needn't go to South America for forests, I guess."
"That, Mr. Beck, is what you will get from a study of my works. But a week – a week, Mr. Beck!"
He shook his head with a whole library of reproach.
"My time was limited, Mr. Ruskin, and I hope to go through your books with more study, now I have had the pleasure of meeting you. What I was going to say was, that I am sorry not to be able to talk with you gentlemen on the subjects you like best, because things have got mixed, and I find I can't rightly remember who wrote what."
"Thank goodness!" murmured Mr. Tennyson, under his breath.
Presently the diners began to thaw, and something like general conversation set in.
About the grated Parmesan period, Mr. Beck observed with satisfaction that they were all talking together. The Twins were the loudest. With flushed faces and bright eyes they were laying down the law to their neighbours in Poetry and Art. Cornelius gave Mr. Tennyson some home truths on his later style, which the Poet Laureate received without so much as an attempt to defend himself. Humphrey, from the depth of his Roman experiences, treated Mr. Ruskin to a brief treatise on his imperfections as a critic, and Mr. Leighton to some remarks on his paintings, which those great men heard with a polite stare. Gilead Beck observed also that Jack Dunquerque was trying hard to keep the talk in literary grooves, though with small measure of success. For as the dinner went on the conversation resolved itself into a general discussion on horses, events, Aldershot, Prince's, polo, the drama from its lightest point of view, and such topics as might perhaps be looked for at a regimental mess, but hardly at a dinner of Literature. It was strange that the two greatest men among them all, Carlyle and Tennyson, appeared as interested as any in this light talk.
The Twins were out of it altogether. If there was one thing about which they were absolutely ignorant, it was the Turf. Probably they had never seen a race in their lives. They talked fast and a little at random, but chiefly to each other, because no one, Mr. Beck observed, took any notice of what they said. Also, they drank continuously, and their host remarked that to the flushed cheeks and the bright eyes was rapidly being added thickness of speech.
Mr. Beck rose solemnly, at the right moment, and asked his guests to allow him two or three toasts only. The first, he said, was England and America. Ile, he said briefly, had not yet been found in the old country, and so far she was behind America. But she did her best; she bought what she could not dig.
By special request of the host Mademoiselle Claribelle sang "Old John Brown lies a-mouldering in his grave."
The next toast, Mr. Beck said, was one due to the peculiar position of himself. He would not waste their time in telling his own story, but he would only say that until the Golden Butterfly brought him to Limerick City and showed him Ile, he was but a poor galoot. Therefore, he asked them to join him in a sentiment. He would give them, "More Ile."
Signor Altotenoro, an Englishman who had adopted an Italian name, sang "The Light of other Days."
Then Mr. Beck rose for the third time and begged the indulgence of his friends. He spoke slowly and with a certain sadness.
"I am not," he said, "going to orate. You did not come here, I guess, to hear me pay out chin music. Not at all. You came to do honour to an American. Gentlemen, I am an obscure American; I am half educated; I am a man lifted out of the ranks. In our country – and I think in yours as well, though some of you have got handles to your names – that is not a thing to apologise for. No, gentlemen. I only mention it because it does me the greater honour to have received you. But I can read and I can think. I see here to-night some of the most honoured names in England and I can tell you all what I was goin' to say before dinner, only the misbegotten cuss of a waiter took the words out of my mouth: that I feel this kindness greatly, and I shall never forget it. I did think, gentlemen, that you would have been too many for me in the matter of tall talk, but exceptin' Mr. Ruskin, to whom I am grateful for his beautiful language, though it didn't all get in, not one of you has made me feel my own uneducated ignorance. That is kind of you, and I thank you for it. It was true feeling, Mr. Carlyle, which prompted you, sir, to give the conversation such a turn that I might join in without bein' ashamed or makin' myself feel or'nary. Gentlemen, what a man like me has to guard against is shoddy. If I talk Literature, it's shoddy. If I talk Art, it's shoddy. Because I know neither Literature nor Art. If I pretend to be what I am not, it's shoddy. Therefore, gentlemen, I thank you for leavin' the tall talk at home, and tellin' me about your races and your amusements. And I'll not ask you, either, to make any speeches; but if you'll allow me, I will drink your healths. Mr. Carlyle, sir, the English-speaking race is proud of you. Mr. Tennyson, our gells, I'm told, love your poems more than any others in this wide world. What an American gell loves is generally worth lovin', because she's no fool. Mr. Ruskin, if you'd come across the water you might learn a wrinkle yet in the matter of plain speech. Mr. Sala, we know you already over thar, and I shall be glad to tell the Reverend Colonel Quagg of your welfare when I see him. Mr. Swinburne, you air young, but you air getting on. Professor Huxley and Mr. Darwin, I shall read your sermons and your novels, and I shall be proud to have seen you at my table. Mr. Cornelius and Mr. Humphrey Jagenal, I would drink your healths, too, if you were not sound asleep." This was unfortunately the case; the Twins, having succumbed to the mixture and quantity of the drinks almost before the wine went round once, were now leaning back in their chairs, slumbering with the sweetest of smiles. "Captain Ladds, you know, sir, that you are always welcome. Mr. Dunquerque, you have done me another favour. Gentlemen all, I drink your health."
"Jack," whispered Mr. Swinburne, "I call this a burning shame. He's a rattling good fellow, this, and you must tell him."
"I will, some time; not now," said Jack, looking remorseful. "I haven't the heart. I thought he would have found us out long ago. I wonder how he'll take it."
They had coffee and cigars, and presently Gilead Beck began telling about American trotting matches, which was interesting to everybody.
It was nearly twelve when Mr. Beck's guests departed.
Mr. Carlyle, in right of his seniority, solemnly "up and spake."
"Mr. Beck," he said, "you are a trump. Come down to the Derby with me, and we will show you a race worth twenty of your trotting. Good night, sir, you've treated us like a prince."
He grasped his hand with a grip which had all its youthful vigour, and strode out of the room with the step of early manhood.
"A wonderful man!" said Mr. Beck. "Who would have thought it?"
The rest shook hands in silence, except Mr. Ruskin.
"I am sorry, Mr. Beck," he said meekly, "that the nonsense I talked at dinner annoyed you. It's always the way if a fellow tries to be clever; he overdoes it, and makes himself an ass. Good night, sir, and I hope we shall meet on the racecourse next Wednesday."
Mr. Beck was left alone with Jack Dunquerque, the waiter, and the Twins still sleeping.
"What am I to do with these gentlemen, sir?" asked the waiter.
Mr. Beck looked at them with a little disdain.
"Get John, and yank them both to bed, and leave a brandy-and-soda at their elbows in case they're thirsty in the night. Mr. Dunquerque and Captain Ladds, don't go yet. Let us have a cigar together in the little room."
They sat in silence for a while. Then Jack said, with a good deal of hesitation:
"I've got something to tell you, Beck."
"Then don't tell it to-night," replied the American. "I'm thinking over the evening, and I can't get out of my mind that I might have made a better speech. Seems as if I wasn't nigh grateful enough. Wal, it's done. Mr. Dunquerque, there is one thing which pleases me. Great authors are like the rest of us. They are powerful fond of racing; they shoot, they ride, and they hunt; they know how to tackle a dinner; and all of 'em, from Carlyle to young Mr. Swinburne, seem to love the gells alike. That's a healthy sign, sir. It shows that their hearts air in the right place. The world's bound to go on well, somehow, so long as its leaders like to talk of a pretty woman's eyes; because it's human. And then for me to hear these great men actually doing it! Why, Captain Ladds, it adds six inches to my stature to feel sure that they like what I like, and that, after all said and done, Alfred Tennyson and Gilead P. Beck are men and brothers."
CHAPTER XXVII
"Greater humanity."
The world, largely as it had unfolded itself to Phillis, consisted as yet to her wholly of the easy classes. That there were poor people in the country was a matter of hearsay. That is, she had caught a glimpse during a certain walk with Cæsar of a class whose ways were clearly not her ways, nor their manner of thought hers. She had now to learn – as a step to that wider sympathy first awakened by the butter-woman's baby – that there is a kind of folk who are more dangerous than picturesque, to be pitied rather than to be painted, to be schooled and disciplined rather than to be looked at.
She learned this lesson through Mrs. L'Estrange, whose laudable custom it was to pay periodical visits to a certain row of cottages. They were not nice cottages, but nasty. They faced an unrelenting ditch, noisome, green, and putrid. They were slatternly and out at elbows. The people who lived in them were unpleasant to look at or to think of; the men belonged to the riverside – they were boat-cads and touts; and if there is any one pursuit more demoralising than another, it is that of launching boats into the river, handing the oars, and helping out the crew.
In the daytime the cottages were in the hands of the wives. Towards nightfall the men returned: those who had money enough were drunk; those who were sober envied those who were drunk. Both drunk and sober found scolding wives, squalid homes, and crying children. Both drunk and sober lay down with curses, and slept till the morning, when they awoke, and went forth again with the jocund curse of dawn.
Nothing so beautiful as the civilisation of the period. Half a mile from Agatha L'Estrange and Phillis Fleming were these cottages. Almost within earshot of a house where vice was unknown, or only dimly seen like a ghost at twilight, stood the hovels where virtue was impossible, and goodness a dream of an unknown land. What notion do they have of the gentle life, these dwellers in misery and squalor? What fond ideas of wealth's power to procure unlimited gratification for the throat do they conceive, these men and women whose only pleasure is to drink beer till they drop?
One day Phillis went there with Agatha.
It was such a bright warm morning, the river was so sparkling, the skies were so blue, the gardens were so sunny, the song of the birds so loud, the laburnums so golden, and the lilacs so glorious to behold, that the girl's heart was full of all the sweet thoughts which she had learned of others or framed for herself – thoughts of poets, which echoed in her brain and flowed down the current of her thoughts like the swans upon the river; happy thoughts of youth and innocence.
She walked beside her companion with light and elastic tread; she looked about her with the fresh unconscious grace that belongs to childhood; it was her greatest charm. But the contentment of her soul was rudely shaken – the beauty went out of the day – when Mrs. L'Estrange only led her away from the leafy road and took her into her "Row." There the long arms of the green trees were changed into protruding sticks, on which linen was hanging out to dry; the songs of the birds became the cry of children and the scolding of women; for flowers there was the iridescence on the puddles of soap-suds; for greenhouse were dirty windows and open doors which looked into squalid interiors.
"I am going to see old Mr. Medlicott," said Mrs. L'Estrange cheerfully, picking her accustomed way among the cabbage-stalks, wash-tubs, and other evidences of human habitation.
The women looked out of their houses and retired hastily. Presently they came out again, and stood every one at her door with a clean apron on, each prepared to lie like an ambassador for the good of the family.
In a great chair by a fire there sat an old woman – a malignant old woman. She looked up and scowled at the ladies; then she looked at the fire and scowled; then she pointed to the corner and scowled again.
"Look at him," she growled in a hoarse crescendo. "Look at him, lying like a pig – like a pig. Do you hear?"
"I hear."
The voice came from what Phillis took at first to be a heap of rags. She was right, because she could not see beneath the rags the supine form of a man.
Mrs. L'Estrange took no notice of the old woman's introduction to the human pig. That phenomenon repeated his answer:
"I hear. I'm her beloved grandson, ladies. I'm Jack-in-the-Water."
"Get up and work. Go down to your river. Comes home and lies down, he does – yah! ye lazy pig; says he's goin' to have the horrors, he does – yah! ye drunken pig; prigs my money for drink – yah! ye thievin' pig. Get up and go out of the place. Leave me and the ladies to talk. Go, I say!"
Jack-in-the-Water arose slowly. He was a long-legged creature with shaky limbs, and when he stood upright his head nearly touched the rafters of the low unceiled room. And he had a face at sight of which Phillis shuddered – an animal face with no forehead; a cruel, bad, selfish face, all jowl and no front. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips were thick. He twitched and trembled all over – his legs trembled; his hands trembled; his cheeks twitched.
"'Orrors!" he said in a husky voice. "And should ha' had the 'orrors if I hadn't a took the money. Two-and-tuppence."
He pushed past Phillis, who shrank in alarm, and disappeared.
"Well, Mrs. Medlicott, and how are we?" asked Mrs. L'Estrange in a cheerful voice – she took no manner of notice of the man.
"Worse. What have you got for me? Money? I want money. Flannel? I want flannel. Physic? I want physic. Brandy? I want brandy very bad; I never wanted it so bad. What have you got? Gimme brandy and you shall read me a tract."
"You forget," said Agatha, "that I never read to you."
"Let the young lady read, then. Come here, missy. Lord, Lord! Don'tee be afraid of an old woman as has got no teeth. Come now. Gimme your hand. Ay, ay, ay! Eh, eh, eh! Here's a pretty little hand."
"Now, Mrs. Medlicott, you said you would not do that any more. You know it is all foolish wickedness.
"Foolish wickedness," echoed the Witch of Endor. "Never after to-day, my lady. Come, my pretty lass, take off the glove and gimme the hand."
Without knowing what she did, Phillis drew off the glove from her left hand. The old woman leaned forward in her chair and looked at the lines. She was a fierce and eager old woman. Life was strong in her yet, despite her fourscore years; her eyes were bright and fiery; her toothless gums chattered without speaking; her long lean fingers shook as they seized on the girl's dainty palm.
"Ay, ah! Eh, eh! The line of life is long. A silent childhood! a love-knot hindered; go, on, girl – go on, wife and mother; happy life and happy age, but far away – not here – far away; a lucky lot with him you love; to sleep by his side for fifty years and more; to see your children and your grandchildren; to watch the sun rise and set from your door – a happy life, but far away."
She dropped the girl's hand as quickly as she had seized it, and fell back in her chair mumbling and moaning.
"Gimme brandy, Mrs. L'Estrange – you are a charitable woman – gimme brandy. And port-wine! – ah! lemme have some port-wine. Tea? Don't forget the tea. And Jack-in-the-Water drinks awful, he does. Worse than his father; worse than his grandfather – and they all went off at five-and-thirty."
"I will send you up a basket, Mrs. Medlicott. Come, Phillis, I have got to go to the next cottage."
But Phillis stayed behind a moment.
She touched the old woman on the forehead with her fingers and said softly —
"Tell me, are you happy? Do you suffer?"
"Happy? only the rich are happy. Suffer? of course I suffer. All the pore suffers."
"Poor thing! May I come and see you and bring you things?"
"Of course you may."
"And you will tell me about yourself?"
"Child, child!" cried the old woman impatiently. "Tell you about myself? There, there, you're one of them the Lord loves – wife and mother; happy life and happy death; childer and grandchilder; but far away, far away."
Mrs. Medlicott gave Phillis her first insight into that life so near and yet so distant from us. She should have been introduced to the ideal cottage, where the stalwart husband supports the smiling wife, and both do honour to the intellectual curate with the long coat and the lofty brow. Where are they – lofty brow of priest and stalwart form of virtuous peasant? Remark that Phillis was a child; the first effect of the years upon a child is to sadden it. Philemon and Baucis in their cot would have rejoiced her; that of old Mrs. Medlicott set her thinking.
And while she drew from memory the old fortune-teller in her cottage, certain words of Abraham Dyson's came back to her:
"Life is a joy to one and a burden to ninety-nine. Remember in your joy as many as you can of the ninety-nine.
"Learn that you cannot be entirely happy, because of the ninety-nine who are entirely wretched.
"When you reach this knowledge, Phillis, be sure that the Coping-stone is not far-off."
CHAPTER XXVIII
"Non possidentem multa vocaverisRecte beatum."The manner in which Mr. Cassilis conveyed his advice, or rather instructions, to Gilead Beck inspired the American with a blind confidence. He spoke slowly, grimly, and with deliberation. He spoke as one who knew. Most men speak as those who only half know, like the Frenchman who said, "Ce que je sais, je le sais mal; ce que j'ignore, je l'ignore parfaitement."
Mr. Cassilis weighed each word. While he spoke his eyes sought those of his friend, and looked straight in them, not defiantly, but meditatively. He brought Mr. Beck bills, which he made him accept; and he brought prospectuses, in which the American, finding they were English schemes, invested money at his adviser's suggestion.
"You have now," said Mr. Cassilis, "a very large sum invested in different companies; you must consider now how long to hold the shares – when to sell out in fact."
"Can't I sell my shares at once, if I please?"
"You certainly can, and so ruin the companies. Consider my undertaking to my friends on the allotment committees."
"Yes, sir."
"You forget, Mr. Beck, that you are a wealthy man. We do not manage matters in a hole and corner. The bears have sold on expectation of an allotment. Now as they have not got an allotment, and we have, they must buy. When such men as you buy largely, the effect is to run shares up; when you sell largely, you run them down."
Mr. Cassilis did not explain that he had himself greatly profited by this tidal influence, and proposed to profit still more.
"Many companies, perfectly sound in principle, may be ruined by a sudden decrease in the price of shares; a panic sets in, and in a few hours the shareholders may lose all. And if you bring this about by selling without concert with the other favoured allottees, you'll be called a black sheep."
Mr. Beck hesitated. "It's a hard thing – " he began.
His adviser went on:
"You have thus two things to think of – not to lose your own profit, and not to spread disaster over a number of other people by the very magnitude of your transactions."
This was a new light to Gilead.
"Then why sell at all? Why not keep the shares and secure the dividend? It's a hard hank, all this money."
And this was a new light for the financier.
Hold the shares? When they were, scores of them, at 16 premium? "You can certainly do that, if you please," he said slowly. "That, however, puts you in the simple position of investor."
"I thought I was that, Mr. Cassilis?"
"Not at all, Mr. Beck. The wise man distrusts all companies, but puts his hope in a rise or fall. You are not conversant with the way business is done. A company is formed – the A B C let us say. Before any allotment of shares is made, influential brokers, acting in the interest of the promoters, go on to the Stock Exchange, and make a market."
"How is that, sir?"
"They purchase as many shares as they can get. Persons technically called 'bears' in London or in New York sell these shares on the chance of allotment."
"Well?"
"To their astonishment they don't get any shares allotted. Millions of money in a year are allotted to clerks, Mr. Beck – to anybody, in fact – a market is established, and our shares figure at a pretty premium. Then begins the game of backing and filling – to and fro, backward and forward – and all this time we are gradually unloading the shares on the public, the real holders of every thing."