Under St Paul's: A Romance
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CHAPTER V.
FROM WESTMINSTER TO THE CRITERION
'Is not coming in here,' he whispered to her, when they had been a few minutes in the Abbey, 'like listening to a prayer for man that must be heard.' 'Yes,' she whispered back; 'it may be heard, but it can't be seen. Why don't they clean the windows?' 'It is, you know, the spirit of the Gothic to be gloomy. You, of course, also know the gloom is increased by the legends on the glass,' he whispered. He had never whispered to her, nor she to him, before. What new delight lurked in these whispers? It was that she or he was for the first time deliberately limiting to one what the other had to say. He was speaking to her, and to her only; she to him, and to him only, as though they had gone out of the general bustle of a ballroom into the seclusion of a grotto. 'But,' she said, 'it was all very well for folk of the dark ages to keep out the light with tall gawky windows and stained glass. They could not read, and they had no costumes worth looking at. If I were at the head of affairs here, I should take down all this blinking, blinking glass, widen the windows, and let plenty of the wholesome sunlight in.' He said nothing. He turned away and sighed. What she would sweep away he would guard with his life. The poetry, the romance, the depth of historical tone, were indebted for much to the narrow high windows and dim light. He and she were not getting on nearly as pleasantly as they might in that grotto of whispers. How sadly different to-day was from yesterday! She had been then so silent and unobtrusive. She had let him talk to her in St Paul's as he loved best to talk, as he had talked to his mother and sisters often, but never until that day to any strange woman. 'I know it's not poetical. I am not a bit poetical, although I like to hear a poet talk, for I think one should know all the weaknesses of human nature. Don't you agree with me?' 'Yes,' he said; 'certainly.' 'So poetry is a weakness of human nature to her mind,' he thought bitterly. 'Poetry, the perfume of earth, the odour that sanctifies man; poetry, which is at the base of every noble emotion in human nature; and this poetry a weakness of human nature! I am sorry I came out with her to-day.' 'Mr Osborne.' He looked down. Her face was turned up to his. His eyes met hers. 'And what place on all earth could I choose, if not that by her side?' he asked himself helplessly. Aloud he said merely, 'Yes.' 'You are not nearly so amusing as yesterday. If you keep on this dreary, woebegone look, I shall walk away and leave you to your musings. Why are you so silent?' 'I have a different audience to-day, and I am not clever enough for it.' 'I don't want you to be clever. I hate clever men. They are always too stuck-up and smart. You're not a bit clever.' 'I really don't know what to say or do. This is not a good place to discuss such subjects. Shall we leave, and talk the matter over as we walk round the Abbey?' 'No, no. I want to go over this place with you. We will drop that subject if you wish, and stay here. Tell me about the place.' 'I don't know what to say. I am afraid I shall not find anything likely to please you.' 'I don't want you to talk with a view to pleasing me. I hate a man who does. I want you to say things that I shall demolish.' 'What am I to speak of?' 'This place. Tell me what was your first feeling on coming in.' 'I thought I should like to have been born in the time of the Medicis, when there were only two thoughts in days of peace-religion and the arts.' 'Do you mean you would like to have been born under the Medicis, in Italy?' 'Yes; in Florence or Venice. Venice by preference.' 'But the religion of Venice was not the religion you now hold.' 'No; but it was the best religion of those days; and if I had lived and died then, I should most likely never have felt any perplexity.' 'Oh, then you have felt perplexities?' 'Yes, now and then. Not in essentials, but in small matters; and perplexities of this kind wear one down.' She looked at him with scornful compassion for a few seconds, and then said, – 'You are very young; you are no more than fourteen or fifteen. I can see what your fate will be.' 'Can you? What?' 'Rome.' He looked at her with quick trouble in his eyes. 'I have often wondered if there is any danger of that.' 'As sure as your name is George Osborne, that is what your fate will be.' He shrank back from her. 'I think I should rather die,' he whispered, 'than desert the pure simple faith I was brought up in.' 'Then,' she said, with a bright smile, 'it will be with you as it was with the Italian patriots, a case of Roma o morte.' She sang the last words under her breath, to the air of the 'Inno Nazionale.' He looked around in horror, to ascertain if anyone had heard her. No one was near. 'Pray, Miss Gordon, don't sing. The people here have great ideas of the sanctity of this place, and anything like a profanation would be badly received.' 'Then take me away from this place. I am not good enough to be here.' He looked down at her. The expression of alarm and reproach faded from his eyes, to be succeeded by one of wonder, followed by that yearning regard of unperfected love. When he spoke, his voice was thick. 'You not good enough to be here that are beautiful enough for heaven!' 'Come,' she said, archly, 'if I may not sing, you shall not bow down and worship a graven image here. I have had plenty of heavy matters; and as for compliments, he must be a very original man who pays me one I have not had already. I see a lot of names I know about here. Is this the Poets' Corner?' He shook himself, and glanced to either side. 'Yes, this is the Poets' Corner.' 'I daresay it is not the only corner the poets were ever in.' 'I think it is. I do not know that they were buried elsewhere, and have been shifted to this place.' She looked and shook her head at him, and sighed comically. 'Now,' she said, 'what name of all those here do you think most of?' 'Edmund Spenser.' 'Have you read the "Faerie Queene" right through?' 'Not quite through, but almost.' 'I can't bear him.' 'Can't bear Spenser! Why, he is one of the richest poets of all! He is the laureate of the forest. I am astonished to hear you say you don't like Spenser.' 'The allegory is killing.' 'Do you think so? His handling of it is masterful.' 'Well, I don't think so, that's all.' 'You remember what you said yesterday about resting from travel for awhile, and giving your mind to serious matters?' 'Yes, but to-day I am not quite sure of it.' He looked at her wistfully, painfully. She turned away from him. 'Has my staying or going anything to do with the Poets' Corner or the tomb of Spenser?' 'It recalls a favourite stanza at the end of the first book, which is the legend of the "Knight of the Red Cross, or Holiness." It runs: "Now strike your sails, ye jolly mariners, for we be come unto a quiet road, where we must land some of our passengers, and light this weary vessel of her load. Here she awhile may make her safe abode, till she repaired have her tackles spent and wants supplied; and then again abroad on the long voyage whereto she is bent; well may she speed and finish her intent!" The ashes of the man who, three hundred years ago, wrote the lines that figure forth your spiritual position of to-day lie here. Three centuries he is behind the Great Veil. He says himself; "But after death the trial is to come when best shall be to them that lived best." Three centuries ago he foreshadowed the position you stand in to-day. Three centuries ago he foreshadowed more than this; he foreshadowed the charms of a woman, and sang: "Upon her eyelids many graces sate, under the shadow of her even brows." He knew of other things too-sweet things. He tells us, "Sweet is the love that comes alone with willingness?" Do you believe in this sweet love that comes alone with willingness?' She shook her head archly, looked up and whispered, – 'This is not a good place to discuss such subjects. Shall we go out and talk the matter over as we walk round the Abbey?' His face, which had been flushed, grew grey and sad. 'Will you laugh at everything, Miss Gordon?' 'Yes, until someone convinces me of the value of tears.' He turned away. 'Come,' he said, 'I have never been here before; but you find the place dull, this sanctuary for memories, this incense of worship. Come away.' 'I am not so much tired of the place as of the guide.' 'Then by all means let us go back. I am most unfortunate if I am the cause of dulness in you; for I am sure, under average circumstances, you could not fail to be interested in this place. Let us go back, I beg.' She dropped her brows slightly over her eyes and looked fixedly at him for awhile. 'What new surprise and disappointment are in store for me?' he thought. 'What unexpected onslaught is she going to make on my esteem for her? How beautiful she is in this unbecoming wear! fine feathers may make fine birds, but plain ones cannot mar her.' 'Are you hungry?' she asked, still keeping her careful eyes upon him. He started. Had she, with her wonderful sharpness, seen some shadow on his face, betraying a want of which he was unconscious? Most marvellous of women! What keen penetration! He said, – 'May I ask you why?' 'Because your reply interests me.' 'In what way?' He looked confounded. How on earth could it matter to her whether he was or was not hungry? 'Because I am. I am tired of tombs and sermons. Come away, get a hansom, and take me to the Criterion and give me a cosy luncheon. I am tired of graves. Do, please.' She said this in a low, rich, tender, pleading voice. Suddenly a smile came over his face. 'The first smile to-day,' she murmured complainingly; 'and that because I have told him I am hungry!' with a shadowy smile. 'No,' he answered; 'but because physical causes have broken down the hardness of your manner, and restored your womanhood.' 'And,' she asked, turning weary eyes upon him,' do you think nothing but physical causes could break down the hardness of my manner and restore my womanhood?' 'Mad and drunk, and love though it is,' he thought, 'I cannot take her in my arms here.' He said, 'I do not know. What do you think?' 'I am not at present capable of thought. It is half-past two, and I am desperately hungry; that is all I am sure of now, as far as my thoughts go.' Nothing more was said until they had got into the open air. 'Ah,' she sighed, 'what a relief!' 'But, though you have got out of the church, you still have the gloomy spectre by your side.' 'Yes, but you look quite jovial in the air compared to the figure you cut as expounder of monumental jokes. Then, too, you have undertaken, I infer (you were as careful as a lawyer not to commit yourself to words) you have undertaken to give me a luncheon in a cheerful place. As with you, this is my first visit to London; and although I have not seen the Criterion, from what I have heard, I have formed the conclusion it bears little or no resemblance to Westminster Abbey.' 'I wish you were always as you now are,' he said, as he handed her into the hansom. 'What!' she cried, in amazement, 'famished?' 'No,' he answered. 'I mean in your present semi-serious, non-aggressive humour.' 'But would it not be enough for you if I kept my temper for the few hours we shall be together?' 'No.' He was looking fixedly at her, and she demurely at him, as they drove rapidly up Whitehall. 'Why?' 'I cannot tell you that now.' 'But perhaps I may never come out with you again.' 'Then I shall keep my secret as an inducement to make you come.' 'What! Could you tolerate me again?' 'Again! Again! Ay, for ever and ever!' 'Mr Osborne!' 'I know! I know! But what can I do? I know I never met you until a few days ago. But what good is that to me? I cannot help myself! will you help me?' 'How can I help you?' 'By telling me you are not offended.' 'I am not offended.' 'And by permitting me to hope you will let me renew this subject on a more fitting occasion.' 'In an omnibus, or on the saloon deck of a penny steamboat?' 'For God's sake don't laugh at me, Miss Gordon!' Above the noise of the traffic her ear caught something in his voice that made her start and raise her eyes. She held out her hand to him frankly, and said, – 'No, Mr Osborne, I will not laugh at you. I have been very thoughtless. And you are not to say anything more to me of this subject for awhile.' 'How long?' 'A month.' 'And during that month you will stay where you are now staying, and you will let me see you often, and be with you, and speak to you, and hear of you, and hear you, and touch your hand-now and then?' 'Yes.' 'And do you think there is likely to be any reason for hope?' 'Now,' she said, 'the subject is closed for a month. Let it rest. The cab has stopped. This must be the Criterion.'
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE CRITERION
Osborne helped his companion out of the hansom, and took the number of it, and paid the driver. When they turned their backs upon the street and walked towards the hall, he offered her his arm. She took it, with a quiet smile, remarking, while she kept her eyes fixed upon the causeway, – 'Only yesterday you were displeased when I took your arm, and now you offer it quickly.' 'But there is a great difference between this day and yesterday.' 'Do you really think so? Well, I did not notice it; but now you call my attention to it, I do think it is colder.' He drew up, and looked reproachfully into her face. 'Miss Gordon, you promised not to laugh at me.' 'And you promised to say nothing more of what has passed for a month.' At that moment the driver of the cab stood in front of Osborne, and dropping the brass butt of his whip within an inch of Osborne's toes, said, in a tone of insolent menace, 'No, you don't, my blooming lad! No, you don't!' 'What is the matter? Get out of the way;' quietly, firmly. 'No, I won't! Why did you take the number of my cab?' 'That is my own affair,' answered Osborne, growing confused and crimson. A crowd collected, and two policemen were sailing slowly down upon the scene. 'It's something of my affair as well,' said the driver vehemently. 'I'm not a-going to be hauled up for any of your tricks and plants. I'm only a poor man, and it isn't right and just. Pay me my honest fare.' 'I shall give you no more,' said Osborne, becoming still more confused. 'What is wrong?' asked a man of the driver. 'I took him and the lady up at Broad Sanctuary,' explained the driver to the crowd; 'and I drove them here, and he takes the number of my cab, and slips a sovereign into my hand, and walks away without asking for his change.' He held out his open hand with the yellow sovereign shining in the middle of his dirty palm like the sun through a London fog. 'But I know his game. He wants me to drive off, and then he'd have me lagged for his blooming change; and I with a wife and family of children looking to me!' 'Shame!' cried the crowd. 'I intended the sovereign for you,' said Osborne, more composedly. 'Please let me pass.' 'Oh, did you, sir? Thank you, sir,' said the man, touching his hat to Osborne and Miss Gordon. 'Much obliged to you, and I'll drink the lady's health and your own.' He backed to his cab, looked at them as they entered the hall, and said confidentially to the off-wheel, 'You don't often pick up a fare like that about the Abbey. You get your half-crown, and maybe a crown now and then. I didn't see they was spoons at first. I'm not half sharp enough for picking up a living in this world, I ain't. You never know what luck you are going to get out of the railway stations; but out of the Abbey a sovereign for a shilling! Well, I'm blowed!' When they were in the vestibule Miss Gordon turned to Osborne, and said, – 'Why did you take that man's number, and why did you give him a sovereign?' 'You told me the other evening I was a poet. I mean to try to be a poet now and then; and the first thing I shall write will be "A Sonnet to Hansom Cab No. 1136." Does that answer both questions?' 'Yes; but the sovereign was extravagant. 'But poets are never prudent; and when a poet falls in-' 'A hansom.' They had gained the dining-room and sat down. 'When a poet falls in a hansom, why, you cannot expect him to peddle like a second-hand-clothes dealer.' 'Still I think the sovereign too much. How much a year have you?' 'About fifteen hundred, out of money recently left me,' he answered. He thought: 'What other girl in all the world would ask a man such a question under the circumstances?' 'Oh, I did not think you had so much! A bachelor with fifteen hundred a year ought not to wear such clumsy clothes and such long hair. You must get your hair shortened, wear a dark-blue frock-coat made by a good man, and an Oxford-blue tie. Blue suits you. I don't insist on patent-leather boots and gaiters, but they make an improvement. Your dress and hair led me to think you had not more than four or five hundred a year. You'd look very well in evening dress. All you light-bearded, high-foreheaded, square-faced, light-haired men look well in evening dress. My horror is a dark man-a man with black hair, a low forehead, heavy eyebrows, and black hair all over his face-in an open waistcoat and tailed coat. He looks as if the black of his coat had crawled up his poll and run down his face.' 'Will you have some potato?' 'No, thank you. I never eat potato with sole. The idea is barbarous. Have you never observed that potato and sole are very like in flavour? They are, and the idea of drowning two delicate flavours in one another is atrocious. It would be like helping seakale and vegetable-marrow as fish and vegetable. The art of eating is in its infancy.' There was a long silence, 'All the world is made of my joy,' thought Osborne. 'This great room, these bright tables, these polite waiters-all are made of my joy. My joy lifts the desolation of winter from the land, and floods the world with the warm level sunshine of evening. My joy, my glory, my fate, my love! My Jove! What were all the argosies of Hamburg or of Venice compared to you? What are all the riches of London compared to you? The value of riches is in spending them; this joy I have neither diminishes nor changes. It builds heavens above the skies, and glorifies the sordid things of earth.' 'Are you aware you are attracting a good deal of attention towards us?' she asked, breaking in suddenly on his thoughts. 'Good gracious, no! How?' he exclaimed, in great discomfiture. 'By staring at me in that way.' 'I beg your pardon. I am sorry. Pray forgive me?' 'I do not mind it in the least. I am used to being stared at, and don't mind it a bit; but I thought you would not like it.' 'I am very much obliged to you for telling me. I promise you not to do it again.' 'Oh, I don't mind it at all! I rather like it.' 'Rather like being stared at, so as to attract the attention of a common room like this! You are not serious?' 'Perfectly,' she said, with a placid smile. 'But what earthly pleasure can it give you to have a number of eyes fixed upon you?' 'Did you ever notice that people are disposed to stare at a pretty woman?' 'Certainly. That goes without saying.' 'When a handsome man and woman, like you and me, are in a public place like this, people cannot help staring.' 'I wish you would give up saying such things.' 'All I have said is quite true. Well, when there are a good-looking man and woman in a room like this, and all the people are looking at them, if the man lifts his head and looks round, all the men drop their eyes, because they do not wish to displease the man by staring at his companion; if the woman looks up, all the women drop their heads, because they do not wish to let her see how they envy her.' 'Envy her! How can you say such an uncharitable thing, Miss Gordon?' he asked, with an expression of serious disturbance on his face. 'Ah,' she sighed, 'you are very young! Wait until you are as old as I am, and you will know what I have said is true. You may take my word for it in the meantime.' She looked lazily around her, and when she had completed a survey of the room, she said, 'I do feel so much better than when I was in that chilly Abbey. Don't you?' 'I feel much happier. But you must not hold such very unpleasant views of your sex. I reverence it, and I must teach you to think as I think.' 'I wish you could. It is much more pleasant to think well than to think poorly of people. But what are you to do when you are sure you are right?' 'Keep your mind still open to conviction.' 'I do. There is no one in the world less bigoted than I.' 'I know very few women. The few I do know are, I am sure, above such a feeling of vulgar jealousy.' 'I congratulate you if it is so. It may be, perhaps, that you have had no opportunity of getting at the real character of women. You may not have been brought close enough to them for a long enough time.' 'I am perfectly sure,' he said gravely; 'you, for instance, are incapable of such a paltry sentiment.' 'You are quite right. But I am an exception, a very rare exception.' 'And why are you an exception? What is the cause of your being an exception?' 'Because,' she said, with deliberation, 'the homage of no man has up to this interested me; and I always feel quite independent of men; and if I do flirt it is only because I have not an amusing book, or a liking to play and sing, or fine castles to build in the air.' He looked at her with pain mingled with astonishment. 'I don't like you to say such things. There is an ungentleness about them that does not become you. I wish you would adopt a more sober style. Believe me, all the world cannot be wrong and you right; and nearly all the world-all the wisdom of the world, at all events-is against you.' 'But am I to be a hypocrite, or am I to be what I am?' 'You should try to be what you ought to be.' 'Conventional?' 'Well, I would rather see you conventional than as you are. Conventionalism is the accumulated tradition of vast experience; and anyone who throws it over runs a great risk of falling into ways he has no knowledge of, and through which he can find no guide.' Osborne was scarcely looking at her as he spoke. She was looking at him intently, with all the faculties of her nature fixed on him. 'Do you know,' she said, 'you are talking awful rubbish? But you look your best when you maunder.' He started, coloured, glanced around him hastily, and taking up the bill of fare, said, – 'I am the worst of caterers, Miss Gordon. What sweet do you like? Will you look at the bill and select?' She turned her grave, sweet eyes upon him, and whispered softly, – 'If you please, Mr Osborne, as this must serve for my dinner, I should like a small piece of joint. I have had only one tiny piece of sole and a little soup since breakfast, and it's now nearly four o'clock.' 'Good gracious, I must have been dreaming! Waiter!' 'You look very well asleep.' Osborne said to the waiter, 'Roast beef.' 'When the waiter has brought the beef are you likely to fall asleep again?' 'I thought you said I talked nonsense.' 'Yes, you did. But I don't mind what you say. I like to look at you when you talk that kind of rubbish. It's like seeing a panorama to music. You look at the panorama, and don't mind the music a bit.' His eyes dwelt on her with a wistful sadness. She was looking like a woman whose heart would melt at the first touch of enthusiasm or love, and she was talking like a machine. How was this? What could it mean? What could cause the antagonism between the spirit in the eyes and the spirit in the words? He shook his head sadly, and was silent awhile. She spoke again, – 'You told me you had sisters: how many?' 'Two,' he answered wearily, keeping his glance on the cloth. He thought, 'How different they are from you! How shocked they would be to see any girl act and speak as you do! And yet-and yet I-I have asked this woman to be my wife, and in a month I shall know whether she will or not! They never could endure her. They would not walk with her, or sit with her. They would be horrified at every trait in her character. What am I doing? What have I done? Two days ago I told myself I did not want her or her love, and I have proposed to her to-day! What is the matter with me? I used to be a firm man; now I am as fickle as the wind. Perhaps she will refuse me after all. There is one thing certain, whether I marry her or not, I can never introduce her at home.' 'Busy on that sonnet to No. 1136?' He raised his face quickly. She was smiling gently, confidentially at him. This 1136 was a lover's joke, a lover's secret, the first of the kind he had ever had. What a warmth ran through all his nature, at the thought of having a secret with the owner of that soft figure, the owner of that beautiful face, and with the spirit of those dark eyes! They two, she and he, intimate already; bound round by a secret; separated from all the rest of the world by a trivial secret! They two in the innermost bowers of personality! What affluence and prodigality of happiness! What rich tumult! What bewildering joy! 'Ah,' he said, looking at her with eyes dancing with happiness, 'I must think of that sonnet.' 'But were you not thinking of it when I spoke?' 'No.' 'Pray, of what were you thinking behind that gloomy face?' 'I was thinking of my sisters.' 'Are they so very, very dreadful, that when you think of them you must look like a bankrupt gambler coming from the gaming-table?' 'No. They are considered good-looking. Miss Gordon-' 'You must not say that.' 'What?' 'What you were going to say. I saw it on your face, and you have promised not to speak of the matter for a month. I want to talk to you about your sisters. Are they like you?' 'Kate, the elder, is like me.' 'Fair and handsome?' 'She is fair.' 'How old is she?' 'Twenty-four.' 'Ah, my age! And what is your other sister like?' 'Alice is dark.' The girl paused awhile and kept her eyes fixed on the table. She raised her finger for his attention, and said, 'I shall be a month in London. I don't like any of the women at Mrs Barclay's. I am not likely to like any of them. The probability is, no chance arrival will be better than the set now there. Write to-night and ask your sister Kate up for a month.' She raised her eyes to his and looked into his face. He was in dismay. 'She-she would not come!' he cried hastily. 'Why?' 'I know she would not come. She has been more home-staying than I.' 'All the more reason why she should come up now. You don't intend keeping her in a place like Stratford all her life?' 'There would not be the least use in my asking her.' 'You decline to write?' 'I know it would be in vain.' 'Then I will write to-night to her, asking her to come up and stay with me.' 'You, Miss Gordon! You! You would not dream of doing such a thing!' cried Osborne, in terror. 'I'm not a poet, and I never dream except in sleep. If you will not write for your sister to-night, I will.' 'But what would she think of it? She would not come. Of course she would not leave home.' 'I shall try. Once I have fully decided upon anything I never bother about detail.' 'If you do this I should be greatly displeased; I, who want to be so close a friend of yours.' 'Then why do you refuse so small a favour? It is my first request.' She uttered the latter sentence with her eyes turned into his, and all the beauty of her face gathered into a smile for him. She laid an emphasis on the word first. Oh, delicious significance of that emphasis! It meant that other requests were to follow. Requests of her to him now would mean hope. Think of having the right to hold her for ever to his breast. What a hope! She was giving him encouragement. There could be no doubt that, by asking him for favours and wishing to know his sister, she did not intend to treat his suit lightly. If he finally declined to write, and she wrote, his mother and sisters would not hear her name mentioned again; they would be cruelly shocked. What had he been thinking a while ago about his sisters and her? Never mind now. Who could look at that face and see that smile and hear that voice asking for a first favour and deny it? He spoke, – 'Even if I do write I am almost sure she will not come.' 'But you must write in a way that will leave no option. Your mother will not object.' 'If I fail?' 'You must not fail. You must not fail to obtain the first favour I ask. Promise me you will succeed.' 'I will do my best' 'Now pay the bill and let us go.' As he was handing her into a hansom,' he said, 'May I ask you why you are so anxious my sister should come up?' 'That is my affair,' she whispered to him, as she curled herself up daintily in the corner.