Woman Regained. A novel of artistic life

Front matter

WOMAN REGAINED: A NOVEL OF ARTISTIC LIFE Other Works by Mr. George Barlow. FROM DAWN TO SUNSET. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s., Post Free. THE CRUCIFIXION OF MAN: A Narrative Poem. With Portrait of the Author. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, Cloth extra, 6s. Fifty only signed Large Paper Copies, 7s. 6d. net, Post Free. A LOST MOTHER. "Dedicated to the Great Company of Mourners upon Earth, with the hope that for one and all of us comfort may be at hand." One Volume, Fcap. 4to, with Rubricated Initials, Antique Boards, 5s. A Large Paper Edition is also published at 7s. 6d. net, Post Free. (Both Editions contain an excellent reproduction of one of Blake's celebrated drawings.) THE PAGEANT OF LIFE: An Epic of Man. In Five Books. Third Edition. Crown Svo, Cloth, 6s. , Post Free. / 11 JPrepa ra tion.

A Novel of Social Life, Entitled— " THE DAUGHTERS OF MINERVA." Woman Regained H 1Ho»el of artistic life. BY ft.' GEORGE BARLOW LONDON THE ROXBURGHE PRESS 3, Victoria Street, Westminster, and "32, Charing Cross, S.H [All rights reserved.] This Work and all the publications of tbe Uosburgbe press are supplied to the Traxie by Messrs. Simpkin Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Limited, and may be obtained through all Booksellers.

Preface

. "^HIS book attempts to trace the life of an -*- artist, through phase after phase ; beginning with the sunny dreams of youth, and ending with darker episodes of disillusion and despair. The artist, in his passionate pursuit of artistic— which to him stands for moral — rapture, sacrifices others, but he also sacrifices himself: he is himself Art's chiefest victim. Artistic dreams, however subtle and refined, when carried into determined outward action in the present state of society, result frequently in chaos and catastrophe. Yet are these dreams pure and lovely in themselves, and though in a sense they may bring their own punishment, they also bring about their own reward. G. B. CONTENTS.

Part I. At Ferncombe

CHAP. PAGE I. In Hyde Park 3 II. Studies of Character 11 III. In Blandford Square 18 IV. In the Belgrave Road . . . 29 V. Ferncombe 35 VI. Interviewing a Sick Cow .... 39 VII. After Morning Service 43 VIII. A Dinner Party 51 IX. From the Rectory to Kelsey House . . 67 X. Lost in the Forest 72 XL Horse and Saddle 93 XII. A Battle 103 XIII. The Return of the Party of Search . m XIV. At Kelsey House 117 XV Robert's Soliloquy . . ... 126 XVI. Ghosts and Priests 130 XVII. Another Walk in Ferncombe Forest . 136 XVIII. The Great Crisis 147 XIX. By the Lake Contents. VIII

Part II. In London

: CHAP. PAGE I. A Discussion at Perceval's Rooms . . 163 II. A Surprise 186 III. The Waking of Margaret . . . .192 IV. The Waking of Robert . . . .197 V. Stanislaus Jackson at Ferncombe . .201 VI. Transcendentalism 212 VII. At the Theatre 221 VIII. An Artist's Meditations .... 225 IX. In Brompton Cemetery .... 230 X. An Afternoon Visit 236 XL On Degrees of Giving 247 XII. Salmon-coloured Geraniums . . . 253 XIII. A Letter from Muriel .... 262 XIV. The Worship of Mars 266 XV. The Worship of Venus . . . .271 XVI. A Music Lesson 277 XVII. An Auto-da-fe 292 XVIII. A Letter from Margaret . . . .296 XIX. A Difference of Opinion .... 302 XX. An Afternoon Chat 310 XXI. Another Surprise 320 XXII. The Empty Room 324 XXIII. On the Banks of the River . . . 327 XXIV. Back to Whitby 330 XXV. At the Railway Station .... XXVI. Starlight on the Moor ... 340 XXVII. An Interlude . XXVIII. More Starlight -555

PART I

A T FERNCOMBE

Chapter I. In Hyde Park

IT was a beautiful winter evening, — fresh, but not too cold. Two persons — a gentleman and a lady — were walking along the path that skirts the east side of Hyde Park, engaged in a close conversation. Over the houses in Park Lane, the moon, nearly full, was rising, white and clear ; and a light wind rustled through the leafless branches. " But you do love me ?" the gentleman said ; and his hand sought the lady's arm gently. "Nonsense," she answered. "You must not say such things. Really you must not. Not in this full moonlight, at any rate." " What has the moon to do with it ? " he said. "Has the moon eyes like Argus, or ears like — a husband ? I know you do love me. His hand had only touched her arm lightly before ; but now it rested there for a moment, and she did not shake it off. " The moon is a faithful dutiful creature," she said.

" She always does her duty at home, and she thinks of others first, and she never beats against barriers which Fate has set up. She never talks nonsense in Hyde Park on a winter's evening ; when there are so many nice things to talk about, too. She always " "Always does her duty to the man in the moon, in fact," he broke in. " But does she love the man in the moon ?" Of course she does." How much ? " Immensely." But does she not love the sun more ? " She cannot look at the sun. It dazzles her." " Not after an eclipse of ten years, surely ! You have been muddling about with your man in the moon, or moon-man, or whatever he is, for ten years, Margaret, — and now we have met, and you talk this commonplace rubbish about astronomy ! " " Well," said the lady, and her eyes gleamed IN HYDE PARK. 5 with fun — " if it comes to be a question of talking rubbish " " Yes — I know — exactly : but now let us talk sense.

What have you been doing all these years ? Here we are at the end of the path, — let us take another turn, in the moonlight." " In the moonlight ? " " In the sunlight, I mean." " What have I been doing ? Many things. Reading novels, and dressing, and sleeping, and poking the fire, and washing my hands, and " Damn No, don't be rash. Suns are never rash Well — go on." " Where was I ? Washing my hands,— and mending my stockings, and looking after my children " "Ah! " And performing all sorts of commonplace matronly duties. And " Yes ? " And — reading your books sometimes. Oh, you do read my books then ? " Of course I do." I thought you were a very good little girl, and always did what the moon-man told you, and that he would not let you read my books ? " " Don't talk of moon-men ; it is very ungentle manly.

Of course I read your books." And do you like them ? " Some of them." Which don't you like ? " I don't like the untrue part." ' And what do you call the untrue part ? " " Well, a good deal of the love-part is quite untrue, I think. You always assume that a certain woman whom you met in past years loves you still, and she doesn't. And, even if she did, it would be very unfair to go about telling all the world so, in endless sonnets and lyrics." " But suppose she told me so herself. Wouldn't that make a difference ? " " She cannot tell you so herself; she is dumb." " But what makes her dumb ? Here is a lovely moon — a perfect summer moon of romance ; and here is a bench. Let us sit down and fancy we are in Venice, or — at Whitby. Come — sit down, — and I will write you a sonnet. Lend me your pocket-book."

IN HYDE PARK. 7 " Thank you ; but won't January be cold for sitting ? " " Not at all. Not when people have poetic minds. And you were always poetic, you know, and probably are still, unless the ' matronly ' cares and the ' stockings ' have taken all the poetry out of you. There — that is very nice." "We shall catch tremendous colds." " Impossible. Now give me your pocket-book — quick, — before the inspiration deserts me ! " She felt in her pocket, and produced a small memorandum-book, which she gave to him. He took it, tore off a blank page, jerked the pencil out, and began to scribble something hastily. She sat quietly by his side. At this moment a woman, crossing the Park, passed in front of them. If she had looked at the two occupants of the bench, what would she have seen ? A tawny-bearded handsome man, seemingly absorbed is writing, and a very beautiful woman, dressed in a cloth jacket and blue-grey gown with darker bands round the bottom of the skirt, sitting close to him.

Being a woman, she would probably have noticed that the lady wore yellow leather gloves, a white scarf round her neck, and a hat with a grey feather. And, if she had looked yet more closely, she would have seen that the lady's large hazel eyes were full of tears. " There," he said. " There is a sonnet for you. Shall I read it — or are you frozen ?" " Read it, please." And he read :— LOVE'S IMMORTALITY. Some say that passion dwindles with the years, Grows old and loses colour, — but I say That noble love can never pass away, Made strong by pain, made perfect through its tears. Who dreads pale Time's attempts, who doubts and fears Lest noon should mar morn's promise to the day, Shall perish crownless, loveless, in the fray : When weak hearts wail, nor Love nor woman hears. Not all hell's poisonous spears or swords of flame Shall harm the soul that loves, though love seem crime In the eyes of those who love not, for his fame Shall everlasting be, his joy sublime, And Love shall write in gold his deathless name : He who would conquer Love, must conquer Time.

" Will that do ? " " Did you really write that, — all in that minute?" IN HYDE PARK. 9 "Of course I did. Ah! now the moonlight falls on your face, I see that you are more beautiful than ever. And you have on just the old colours. That eternal cloth jacket, and the Whitby blue grey dress, and the yellow gloves " " Hardly the same — that was ten years ago." She rose from the bench, and moved slowly along the path, towards the Marble Arch. He followed her. " How is your wife, Mr. Perceval ? " It was the first time that evening that she had called him by his name. " By Jove, I forgot. She is fairly well, thank you. We are living in town now. Will you not come and see us ? " She paused a moment before answering. " Thank you ; I think not." " But I may come and see you ? " " Yes ; you may come and see me, — sometimes.

But you must not be poetic ; you must be very commonplace and prosaic. Mr. Jackson under stands nothing at all about poetry. He is very busy just now, taking out a patent for a new mechanical invention " "Who is Mr. Jackson?" " My husband, of course." " By Jove, I forgot. Are you going already ? " "Yes; it is past nine. Good-night." " But I have so many things to say to you, Margaret." She was already ten paces distant " The ' many things ' must wait a little, Mr. Perceval. Good-night." " Good-night then. Au revoir." And, rather disconsolately, he turned on his way along Oxford Street. He had gone some little distance before it occurred to him to see what had become of the sonnet. Had he left it on the bench ? He had no distinct recollection whatever about it. He looked behind him along the pavement. But it was not there. Then he felt in all his pockets, one after the other. But it was not there either.

Chapter II. Studies Of Character

ROBERT PERCEVAL was a peculiar man. A man of ability, and a writer of some repute, he was likely under any circumstances to make his way in the world. Since the days of early love-making at Whitby his temperament had developed along lines of its own, and there was much in it of artistic richness and of poetic vigour. But he had one weak point, — or strong point. You might take it either way. In fact, it was in him the source both of strength and weakness. He could never understand why a man should not love more than one woman at the same time. When people spoke about Dante and Beatrice and Ideal Monogamy, he always replied that personally they might be right ; he had nothing to say to that ; but, individually, he felt that his power of love and passion was n limitless, and that each new woman he loved, by importing variety into his life and employing fresh faculties of his nature, only enabled him to love the former one — or the former ones — more intensely and more devotedly.

It was not difficult to convert men to this creed ; indeed Perceval found that his men friends seemed to have a natural aptitude for it, — a sort of latent intuition of it which they were only waiting for him to come and put into words. The difficulty was with the women ;— and, here, not so much with the women of the future, so to speak, as with the women of the past — the women whom he had loved and who stood in the background. The women of the future were ready enough to be wooed — generally. Nor must it be supposed that the man was a shallow man,— or a wholly selfish man, — or a mere pleasure-seeker. He really had a large and deep faculty of loving : he was not in jest, but in earnest, when he said that the more he loved, the more he could love. Whether, if he had found in the first instance a perfectly sympathetic wife who could have responded to all the intellectual and spiritual STUDIES OF CHARACTER. 13 needs of his nature, his temperament would have evolved itself otherwise, is a question that can hardly now be solved ; but it is a question which one cannot help asking.

As matters stood, however, he had, quite in early life, met Margaret Jackson — then Margaret Grere — and had loved her with a poet-youth's whole strength of passion. She created his poet hood : her girlish wonderful beauty aroused in him that wild dream of love and that youthful adoration of womanhood, without which no poet worth the name seems ever yet to have been able to enter the courts of song. Whatever bays he had won, were from her hand. For Art and Love, and the roses and the bays, are most subtly and inextricably intertwined. Never yet has song charmed the world, but some woman has first charmed and swayed, and pierced and crowned, the soul of the singer. Whether she — then — returned his love, was never quite clear. At any rate she did not marry him. She married, a year or two later, a civil engineer ; a clever man, temperamentally about the very opposite of Robert Perceval, while Perceval himself, on receiving the news of her marriage, proposed on the spur of the moment to a young lady of the name of Dora Granville — by whom he was at once accepted.

This is the thoughtful and genial manner in which " mar riages are planned in heaven." Stanislaus Jackson, the husband whom heaven had selected for Margaret, was a man of keen intellect, but (as his thin tight-drawn lips showed) without passion. Probably he hardly knew what passion meant : passion for a woman. His personal appearance was not prepossessing. He had a large powerful head, set upon a small body ; sandy whiskers, cut square half way down the cheek ; a quantity of hair of the same colour, which he wore rather long ; small grey eyes with reddish rims, — eyes which he had a curious habit of puckering up, when he was looking at any one intently. He had anæmic lips, and a muddy complexion, which had a habit of breaking out here and there into red unwholesome-looking blotches, when he grew excited, as he often did, in some physiological or antitheistic argu ment.

His intellect was steely, and cold like moon light. It had no fervent glow of sunlight in it, — STUDIES OF CHARACTER. 15 not a trace. His wife had not been married to him a week before she found this out. Indeed, while with him, it was almost impossible to forget it. He approached everything from the high and-dry point of view of positive science. He was a great mechanical genius (though lately his mind had begun to gravitate in the direction of physiological inquiry), and had made large sums of money by various new inventions, and novel applications of old ones, — some of them of un doubted ingenuity. The only thing he had not either the ingenuity, or the desire, to unravel, was a woman's heart ; his own wife's heart least of all. The marriage had been what is called a good one, from a monetary and social point of view.

The girl was young — very young and inexperi enced — when she married him, and family influence had probably been used. They had at this time been married nearly ten years, and had several children ; for whom their father used to make the most wonderful mechanical toys. Mrs. Jackson had accommodated herself to a very humdrum monotonous sort of life. What will not women accommodate themselves to ? There seems to be no variety of male mind and character — from the most tropical passion-warmth of soul to the most passion-lacking Arctic coldness of intellect — which they cannot manage to live with, and be "wives" to, — at all events for a time. She had ceased to expect passion in her husband, — indeed, now she knew him thoroughly, had ceased to desire it. Such passion as he could have given would have been hell's horror to her.

When once she understood what the man was really like (and how soon a clever woman fathoms the real nature of the being she has tied herself to for life, — far sooner than she even dreams of admitting to herself that she has done so !) she ceased for ever to expect any response to the deeper sides of her nature : she gave up that tender girlish dream of love and sweet soul-sympathy ; and with both hands she struggled to put it away from her for evermore. But the dream died hard. It is not so easy for a young and clever and beautiful woman, — passionately fond of music, nature, poetry, art, — to stultify and crucify her whole being in this way, and deliberately to make STUDIES OF CHARACTER. 17 up her mind that the one great experiment of her life — marriage — has been a mistake. It is not so easy for her fully and once for all to admit to herself that flowers will still continue to bloom, and soft winds to rustle through the reed-beds, and white seas to break on glittering shores, and sunsets to dye the clouds with scarlet, — but that these things will gladden her alone as she slowly passes through life ; her, and never her husband.

It is a terrible thing for a woman finally to realise that she sees in nature and in art and in life what her husband will never see ; that in all things they are as far apart as the poles ; that the only thing which they have in common is the same dwelling-house. All this Margaret Jackson had slowly realised. She had been married ten years, and she knew her lesson. The sense of duty towards her husband — friend more than husband he had become to her now, in her mental estimate of him — had never forsaken her ; but her spirit was well nigh wearied out, and was ripe for revolt. In this mood, as narrated in the first chapter, she met her old lover, Robert Perceval, on that January evening in Hyde Park.

Chapter III. In Blandford Square

ROBERT PERCEVAL walked slowly along Oxford Street, thinking of all that had passed between him and Mrs. Jackson. His temperament was a very excitable one, and he was almost morbidly susceptible to the influence of woman. He was, for the time, possessed by the woman he had just left : she seemed still to be with him ; she wound soft hands about him — the stars were her eyes, the clear moonlit sky was full of her. He knew — or thought he knew ■ — that she loved him ; and the exquisite know ledge seemed to make every flower in the whole wide world smell sweeter, and every star in the whole dark-blue heaven shine with rays more golden and more bright. What was this ? He had stumbled up against a lamp-post. ,i8 " Bother the lamp," he muttered — "and I had a new sonnet in my head too ! " Then he looked round, and saw that across the street, on the left, was Tottenham Court Road.

In his dream of love he had wandered along Oxford Street eastward, without in the least thinking where he was going. He looked at his watch — ten o'clock. He called a hansom, and told the man to drive to 201, Blandford Square. Then, as he drove along, his mind reverted to his home and to what awaited him there. The swift contact of mind and mind in the Park had unfitted him for the rather dull and defective companionship which he knew he would find at home. " I will write poetry till bed-time," he thought. Yes — it was as he expected. When he entered the drawing-room, his wife looked pale and weary ; ugly almost. She had been a long time alone, and hadn't much to say. But she got up, and wondered why he was so late, and brought out some crewel-work to show him. " Robby," she said, " what colour ought this narcissus to be ?

" " Yellow, oughtn't it ? " he answered, half hearing. (He was seeking for a rhyme where with to end the fifth line of his sonnet.) " Daffo dils (ah ! daffodil, with the stress on the last syllable, might do) — are always yellow, are they not ? " "Yes : but I said narcissus." " Oh, narcissus — No, that would not rhyme. " But what colour is it ?" " What does it matter about the colour ? it is a question of rhyme." " But I want to know the colour.' " Brown I think, brown hair, — and a very lovely shade." " Brown ? But that is such a dull colour. " Brown a dull colour ! Good heavens, Dora — you are getting more prosaic than ever ! Why, I believe Beatrice's hair was brown, and Dante himself tells us that she had green eyes, sea-green eyes. At least they would have been sea-green, if she had lived in England ; but the Italian seas, I believe, are blue.

And that leads up to an interesting question — Buckle goes into it — you know Buckle's book — the question of the in fluence of climate upon colour. But then the Italians ought to have blue eyes, and they have black — I don't quite see " " O Robby, Robby — you have been out all day and this is all you can say to me ! Don't you see that this is crewel-work ? " " Of course it is — cruel enough when one has been out all day, and comes home tired at night, that you can't listen for a single minute to really interesting subjects. You put all the good thoughts out of my head — I had a sonnet in it just now. Where is that blue plumbago pencil of mine ? " "You can't want to write the sonnet now Never mind." " Yes — but I do. Where is the pencil ? " Mrs. Perceval got up wearily, and looked round the room.

" I can't see it anywhere. What have you been doing all day, Robert ? Where did you dine ? " ' In Hyde Park." ' In Hyde Park ? ' No — I mean at the Grosvenor.' At the Grosvenor. Did you see anybody there ? " " Yes ; there were the waiters and several other people. You look pale, — hadn't you better go to bed ? Only find the pencil first." " But I don't want to go to bed yet. I want to tell you about the servants. Do you know that Laura is the very worst girl we have ever had ? Mrs. Slater has been up here the whole afternoon, crying and complaining. The girl has broken two bottles, and knocked three brushes to pieces, and pulled the handle off the kitchen broom — and she washed her cap this afternoon, and put it down by the kitchen fire to dry, and forgot it, and it was burnt all to pieces, and there is a large hole in it, and the ribbon is completely singed.

And she was sent out this evening to get some of the good butter — you know the kind — and some fresh eggs in Swallow Passage, and instead of going there straight she went home to her step-mother's, who said to her, ' What's your hurry ? ' — and she stayed there an hour and a half, and then got the butter — oh such butter, you will never be able to eat it ! — -and the eggs at a shop close to her home, and when Mrs. Slater smelt it and said, ' Oh Laura where in the world did you get this stinking butter ? — the master won't touch it,' she only said, ' I don't care — what is that to you ? — do you think I was going all out of my way to Swallow Passage to get butter — the master must put up with it.' Just think of that — and she has been reading your books — taking them down from the book case — and they are all over black filthy finger marks — and she put one of the silver spoons in the dust-heap " Robert had been hunting about the room for his pencil during most of this tirade, and occa sionally putting books straight.

He had caught the name Laura however. When Mrs. Perceval paused for want of breath, and also with a certain misgiving, he looked round. " What was that about Laura ? I never could understand Petrarch. His personality seems to me more shrouded in mystery than even that — of Ezekiel, say. Whether his love for Laura was, or was not, purely Platonic " This was too much. His poor little wife burst into tears. " Oh, Robby ! And I had been taking such trouble to explain ! And I did want your help so ! I had been waiting all day for it. I thought you were listening." " Listening ! What, to a lot of rubbish about servants ? I didn't hear what it was — but I can guess. It is always the same thing. When one comes home tired, it is sickening — most sickening — to have to hear the whole kitchen-diary of the day repeated to one, word for word.

I really wonder " She had taken her candle by this time, and was standing near the door. " Good-night, Robby." " Don't go till you have found that pencil, dear. Oh, here it is in my pocket. Good night." He sat down, alone ; then he jumped up and locked the door (he could never write well unless the door was locked) and put some more coals on the fire. After these preliminary proceedings he seemed satisfied. He had to get up from his chair once more however, in order to put a screen between his left ear and the fire. (He never could write with one ear hot.) Then he began his sonnet. It was about Margaret Jackson — " naturally and of course," as good Bishop Butler used to say. " This pencil is no good. She ought to have sharpened it before she went up to bed. It was in my pocket though, — I never yet could get inspiration out of a blunt pencil — Where is my knife ?

Dora " He had to get up again, and unlock the door. He called upstairs, " Dora, — do you know where my penknife is ? " No answer. " Dora ! " again. No answer. Then — and then for the first time — it occurred to him that his wife had been crying when she left the room, and that he might really have pained her. The man had a tender heart, underneath the artistic crust, — and his heart smote him now. He left his sonnet and went upstairs. There he found his wife, sitting up in bed, in her red dressing-gown, trying to do her crewel work, — and crying at the same time. But she had not made much progress with it — with the crewel-work, that is to say. She had remembered what he told her; and, in her simple way, had been working the narcissus in brown. For what her Robby told her must be right. If he had told her to work a lily in black, and a rose in green, and a violet in yellow, and a snowdrop in purple, she would have believed and done it.