The Poet's Audience; and Delilah

Front matter

Uniform with this Work. Noughts and Crosses. By Q, Author of "Dead Man's Rock," &c .Price 5s. Fourteen to One, and other Stories. By Elizabeth Stltari Phelps. Price 6s. Otto the Knight, and ether Stories. By Octave Thanet. Price 5s. Eleven Possible Cases. By Frank Stockton, Joaquin Miller, Q, and others. Pr.ce 5s. A Singer's Wife. By Fanny N. D. Murfree. Price 5s. The Poet's Audience, and Delilah. By Clare Savile Clarke. Price 5s. Cassell & Company, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. 32—9.91 AND DELILAH. A>D Delilah. uv CLAEA SAVILE CLARKE. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS <fc MELBOURNE. 1S91. [at.t. EIGHTS IiESEIIVED.] CONTENTS. THE POET'S AUDIENCE.

Chapter I. In Which The Audience Is Described, And The Foreign Gentleman

MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE. They were all sitting round the Poet, and were applauding as they had never done before. The window was open, letting in the hot afternoon air, and showing the small patch of lodging-house garden. The Princess kept the garden in order, and the Artist, a small, sandy -haired man, with slits for eyes, helped her. The Princess was the Poet's cousin — though the relationship was vague and distant — and she lived with her mother a flight below him. She had been so nicknamed by the most insignificant of the B company, a grave-faced man, almost hidden in the comer, a journalist, who did not worship at the shrine of pure unadulterated art, but wrote for money — for money alone. The Poet had been good enough to say the name suited her, so the Princess she had remained. Her chair was close to the Poet ; if he was the king, in a much lesser degree she was queen.

Her power was borrowed. No one ever dared to dispute with the Princess, for the very ex cellent reason that it meant to dispute with the Poet too. They all knew her black dress by heart; every button and seam was an old friend, and without speaking of it they felt a kind of lazy interest in the way she darned and mended, and made it last longer than any other black dress had ever done or had ever attempted to do. The day was Sunday, and outside was that quiet peculiar to the day ; an occasional foot step was to be heard in the distance, growing nearer, only to disappear again as it had come. There was a little breeze, also only occasional. that stirred the one tree in the garden, and shook the dingy lace curtains in the window very gently. Inside there were the clapping of hands and murmur of admiring voices.

" I fancy," the Poet had said before he began to read that day, "I fancy in these few songs I have surpassed myself." They were only too willing to agree with him, if they could first admit an impossibility : namely, that the Poet could in any way sur pass the work he had already done. The other Artist, who lived a few doors off, and did illustrations for one or two un known papers, had feebly suggested that such poems might benefit by being published with pictures. And the Poet, who knew his weak ness, promptly came down on him, while the rest of the Audience with unfeigned horror stared him of countenance. The Princess said, " They are very beautiful " — meaning the new songs — and sighed. The Artist proper ran his fingers through his hair in imitation of the Poet's favourite gesture, and murmured a few words about 1!

" Art bein? ennobled each time the Poet touched pen and blackened paper." The Novelist, a stout fair man, with a florid face, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and breathing heavily, began as usual, meaning to speak at length on the subject of the poems, but the Princess somehow silenced him. He was almost remarkable for the size of his pocket handkerchief. On this occasion, as was his custom when annoyed, he took it out, a large piece of glaring whiteness, shook it violently, and then with a twist of the wrist, absolutely un learnable, whirled it round and blew his nose Meanwhile the Audience was still admiring. A dark, sallow-faced gentleman, of foreign birth, contented himself with shrugging his shoulders and raising his eye-brows while in voking some invisible creature somewhere up in the ceiling.

In his corner the Journalist sat and smiled. He was the only one of the Audience who did not count. His opinion was valued even less than that of the foreign gentleman, who was able to affirm that not only were all the English poets dead and living eclipsed by the specimens before him, but those of his own loved country as well. There is nothing more uncomfortable than to feel you do not count. The Journalist always felt so, and yet, strange to say, he never resented the fact. He sat and smiled to himself in his dark corner, and when the Princess grew most eager over the poems he smiled no longer ; it is more probable he sighed. There was an old Violinist who had once been part of the Audience who had laughed when they told him the Journalist never worked for Art's sake. " He did once," he said, " write a poem ringing with human sympathy and human pain.

That was long ago. The public laughed at him. He is grave enough now, but I fancy then he laughed too. Anyhow," the old man would always end, " he is a gentleman, and I like him." The old Violinist was dead, and the days were gone by when people said " I hke him," of the Journalist, with the same hearty ring in it, almost better than the words. The foreign gentleman lived in a small garret under the roof, and claimed to have scribbled once long ago in his own country. His skin was very sallow, and his eyes were very dark and bright. The Princess feared him a little, without knowing why. He had a queer, uncomfortable way of watching people suddenly, as if he wished to trick them into revealing their inmost thoughts — he smiling sweetly all the time. He was fond of copying the Poet's poems, and was then engaged in doing so in his pointed foreign hand.

His pen screamed and squeaked over the paper as his long fingers dragged backwards and forwards across the white sheet. The Artist from his seat near the window had a good view of his beloved garden, and was lazily watching a stray cat gingerly treading its way between the pansy roots. He held a pencil, cut down to almost nothing, between his finger and thumb, ready to throw at the thin animal if it attempted to damage anything. " You know," the Poet was saying, " the purest Art is never fully appreciated by the public." '" Because they are not educated up to it," said the Princess. " That is true ; and yet what is the most faithful representation of the most beautiful truths in Nature should somehow go home to them." The Poet fixed his grey eyes straight on the Journalist, who had stirred uneasily in his comer, and the Journalist answered — " If it is the most beautiful truth.

It seems to me only too often a cheap imitation." But the Poet was unmoved. " A very common mistake," he said, " of those who cannot read between the lines and have no real appreciation of its beauty." The Artist turned from his contemplation of the stray cat and joined in the conversation. " Take my own art," he said, " was it ever in such a poor way ? Who buys pictures for their own worth now ? No one. There is a fashion in Art, as in everything else, and fashion rules society. If I paint seascapes once, I must do them always ; my pictures must be cut from one pattern, and I am hissed from the exhibiting stage if I attempt anything else." "You are quite right," answered the Poet. " If I write love songs, I must write love songs till I am grey. This fashion in art will be the death of it."

" Oh," groaned the heavy Novelist, " that is only too true ! But let us set to work to find a remedy ; let us make a stand. Let us say, ' My pictures shall not be cut to pattern ; my poems shall not be written by rule ; my books " Yes, yes," interrupted the other Artist, " and starve meanwhile." " Then, sir," said the Poet, fixing him with his grey magnetic eyes, " in the cause of art starve!" There was an impressive silence. As usual, the Poet had the final word, and whatever objection the Audience felt it never dared to express it. Only the Journalist smiled again, hidden in his corner. " To-morrow," continued the Poet, " I shall meet the publisher, and he -will settle finally if he sees his way to publishing my book." " He is sure to do so," murmured the Princess. And there was a low murmur audible from the rest as well.

" I have one more poem to read you," con tinued the Poet. And there was a scraping of chairs on the floor, and a little rustle indicating attention. The Poet read in an uninteresting voice, but at the same time had a way of making his points tell. The voice was not sweet, but it was distinct and intellectually sympathetic. If he meant people to like a thing, he had power to force most people to like it. So that to read his poems afterwards was to experience disappoint ment. He knew how to make them tell, and he made them, owing to his acting powers, appear very much finer than they were. He could sway his Audience by the slightest change in his voice, in his eyes, in the quick movement of his right hand, which rested on the arm of his chair, and at certain passages was lifted, as if to point out the most striking parts almost before he read them.

As usual, the poem pleased them. It thrilled the Princess, and gave her white face a new ex pression that lit up her dark eyes, and made her lips, always a deep red, quiver. The Journalist had his eyes fixed on the wood-shavings in the fireplace ; they blew about a httle, and they fascinated him. The foreign gentleman, who infinitely pre ferred something passionate, was more than con tent, the poem being essentially so. He rubbed his long fingers together, and said it was " Splen dide," his dark eyes watching the Princess, and his white teeth gleaming under his moustache more than ever. The Artist proper said quietly, " That is very line," and turned back to the window to find the cat vanished, and his occupation of watching it gone. The other Artist was too much engaged in digging his penknife into the wood table, shorn of its green cloth on such occasions, because the foreign gentleman always spilt the ink, to notice that he was expected to join in the chorus of admiration.

The Novelist began to point out the chief merits of the Poem. And the Princess had risen to listen to him, and was standing with her hand on the arm of the Poet's chair. The Poet, idly listening to his praises, let his hand drop slowly, till it covered the girl's soft little fingers. She started, and the blood rushed to her face and throat, turning her whiteness into a warm pink. The Poet smiled, moistening his lower lip, as was his habit when pleased, and drew his hand away. The foreign gentleman noticed everything. and his eyes glistened. The rest were apparently blind. The Journalist rose abruptly ': When is the next meeting ? " he said. " On Tuesday evening," answered the Poet. " Thank you. I must be going." And the Novelist shook hands with the Prin cess, and, annoyed at being interrupted again, waved the handkerchief, till it flapped against the other Artist's face, much to his indignation, just as he came to take leave of the Poet.

And they clattered down the narrow staircase, and through the dark little hall into the hot sunshine. The foreign gentleman de parted to his garret in the same house. The Artist strolled into the hot little garden and found a caterpillar on the first seedy geranium. The Poet also turned to go. The Princess was standing in the window, her face proud and very white. Her fingers tightly interlaced. People were beginning to go past to church with their prayer-books in their hands; lovers sauntered by, and stopped to whisper, and stare in at her wretched attempt at a garden. The church bells seemed to be quarrelling with each other. " You are angry," said the Poet quietly, " because I touched your hand when those men were here." The Princess winced. " Yes," she admitted. " I hope," said the Poet in his coldest tones, " you will not be so foolish again."

" Don't speak like that," pleaded the girl, her pride breaking down, and her white face quiver ing with wistful earnestness. But the Poet did not answer. He went to the door, and then turned. " I am sfoinas out to-niarht," he said. " Good-bye. " Wait," said the Princess. " I — I wish you would come back. I am very sorry." He went across to where she stood, and she turned swiftly. " Put your arms round my neck," commanded the Poet, " and kiss me." And he stretched out his hands towards her as he spoke. The girl, proud by nature, winced and shuddered. Only for a moment. Then she obeyed him. And the Monday that followed was a dis mally wet day, and the Tuesday after it proved the same.

On a rainy afternoon the small sitting-room rented by the Princess and her mother was more gloomy in appearance than usuaL The look-out at all times was uninteresting and commonplace : there was the small row of unpicturesque lodging houses opposite, each on the exact pattern of its fellow, the miserable genteel poverty of their inhabitants, the small gardens striving to appear something grander than a refuge for rubbish and dirt, the notice up in the window in front that robes and mantles were made there, and the notice up in the window on the other side that lessons were to be had in French ; the dirt that accumulated in the road and on the pavement, in spite of the sweeping the lodging-house drudges gave it, each pursuing the dust relentlessly down her own patch, and scorning to in any way assist its passage down her neighbours : the dirty children that played in the road and quarrelled with each other, and the gaudy house a few yards down where the builder lived, who turned his house into an advertisement, and had gay flower boxes in the window, wherein flowers really grew, and neat little round beds in his garden where the cats revelled amid daisies, ferns, and red geraniums.

The whole row was a mixture of dirt and cleanliness, of attempts at keeping up appear ances, and no attempts at all. The Princess and her mother had a small income, enough to keep them from starving, which the Princess supplemented by romance writing. She got, on well in her own way, and wrote pretty little stories, pleasant enough to read, without really having much talent. The foreign gentleman's room, or rather garret, was distinctly of the bare-faced poverty kind. Dirt, untidiness, rubbish everywhere. The foreign gentleman in his dress was as neat as his shabby clothes and still more shabby means would allow him to be. On this particular Tues day afternoon with the rain outside, and his own company inside, he decided he needed enlivening, and proceeded down the creaking stairs. The Poet's door was open ; it was plain he was out.

The foreign gentleman smiled, and went on. The Princess was also out ; in the small sitting-room her mother bent over the table encased in recopying one of her daughter's novels. The foreign gentleman knocked, and was admitted. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "you are busy; I beg pardon — I go." " Oh, no ! I am only copying something for my daughter. Please sit down." If the Princess was regal in any way, her mother was distinctly the reverse. Mrs. Barlow was worn, a little crooked, wore her caps awry, and had queer little grey eyes and a mouth that never for a moment seemed stilL She had married very much above her station, and her daughter was as unlike her as it was possible for any other woman to be. The foreign gentleman had long ago studied Mrs. Barlow, and perfectly understood her. " Your daughter, I believe, dear Madam, is out ?

" " Yes, she was obliged to go to see about something. She will be back soon." Mrs. Barlow was shrewd enough at all times ; she was wondering what her visitor wanted. " Your daughter is so like you : just as kind and good — oh, so good ! " The foreign gentleman folded his hands together as if he were praying, and smiled over them at Mrs. Barlow. "Good," she said in her sharp, high voice, "I don't know that I'm good. Rose is, I suppose." " What are you now engaged in, dear Madam ? " inquired her visitor. " This tiresome copying. However, it had to be done. Rose is quite right — she really has not the time to do it all herself, and some of this had to be rewritten to please the pub lisher." " Indeed, Madam ; what a pity ! If I could help you." The foreign gentleman leant for ward and fixed his dark eyes on Mrs. Barlow.

She did not answer, so he went on. " If I might only be privileged to copy for Miss Rose, just a little — just a little piece. I should be so glad — so delighted to help." The woman opposite him watched him out of her small pale eyes, and wondered again what he wanted. " We could not afford to pay you," she said, bluntly. " Madam, you insult me. Pay me — im possible ! I do it for you — for you to save you the trouble — the great trouble you have to take. c Indeed, Madam, I shall feel honoured if you will permit me — will allow me to help you." The small eyes twinkled. " To help my daughter, you mean," she said. " On the contrary, Madam, to help you." The foreign gentleman kept his eyes fixed on hers ; he was perfectly master of his voice, his smiles, his actions. Mrs. Barlow was baffled. " I will ask Rose if she is willing," she said.

" But why, Madam ? You give me the work — I copy — I return — you tell her then." " No, I must tell her first. You do not understand Rose." " And now, Madam, your head, is it better ? 1 >oes it ache again ? " The foreign gentleman lowered his voice to an expression of gentle concern. Again the woman shot him a quick glance from her pale eyes, and again she found him smiling as before. " It ached last night," she said. " Rose worried me. I never have any peace, I think ; it is worry from morning till night." " You are so unselfish, Madam ; you never spare yourself." But the foreign gentleman could not conceal a gleam in his eyes which she caught. " No," she answered, sharply, " I am not un selfish. I pretend to nothing I am not. I hate having to work, and like everything done for me. Oh, here is Rose."

Rose, dripping wet, in an old ulster buttoned up to the chin, her face very white, and her lips firmly set, the Princess in spite of the rain and the shabby clothes. She glanced quickly from the foreign gentleman to her mother, and then back again. The mother returned the glance much as a cunning animal might have done ; there was nothing to be learned from her. " Well," said the Princess, " did you want anything ? " The words were addressed to the foreign gentleman, but they rather disconcerted both her listeners. " No, Mademoiselle," he said ; " that is — I came to offer my services to — to Madam." C With her grave eyes on him he dared not say " to Mademoiselle." " Services, in what way ? '' At first his " dear Madam " had no inten tion of helping him out, but she resented the idea that it was an impossibility for her to have had a visitor without some special reason.

So she broke in, her sharp thin voice almost squeaking as a mouse might have squeaked. " I got so tired with this copying, and he came to offer to do some of it for me — for us I mean. You know, reallv, Rose " But Rose was looking scornfully down at her without speaking. " If you would let me help Madam — just in this little way," begged the foreign gentleman. " I am sorry it tires you, mother " — the Princess spoke in an even, cold voice, with her eyes on those other pale ones in front of her — " but I cannot accept the offer. I shall in future do the work myself." " Oh, dear, no, Rose, you mistake — I don't grumble. Dear, dear, dear ! You are always angry about something." And the foreign gentleman began to interfere, when the door opened, and the Poet walked in. The Poet was one of those people who know instinctively directly they enter a room what is going on, or has just gone on in it.

At a glance he took in the present situation, if even Rose's face as she turned to him had not shown her relief at his entry. " Well," he said, quickly, " I have something to say to you, Princess." Then he glanced at the foreign gentleman, who did not seem inclined to move. The Princess was silent. She had drawn close to the Poet and stood beside him, looking down at the two seated at the table. They were stealthily eyeing each other. " A very wet day," said the foreign gentle man, " is it not ? " It was impossible to say to whom it was addressed, and no one answered. There was a pause ; then the Poet said, in his most frigid tones — " I have something to tell you, Princess — 1 am sure you will excuse us." The foreign gentleman could do no less than go after that. He rose scowling, and said as pleasantly as he was able, considering the circumstances — " The meeting — it is to-night.

I say Au revoir. Again there was no answer, and he slunk out, omitting to close the door, which the Poet noticing, was flung to as soon as he got out side it. '• Rose," said the Poet, " wish me joy. My book is to be published at once." And the Princess in the damp ulster and worn gloves clung to his arm in a transport of delight, alternating between laughter and tears. " He was most generous, that old publisher ; really wanted the things, he said, and has asked me to spend the day with him at his place on the river next Saturday." " Oh, I am glad." The Princess looked it ; her proud, tired face seemed transformed. The Poet, glancing down at her, gave a little laugh. " I believe you would die if I died, Rose," he said. " Yes, I should," said the girl, promptly. And the old mother broke in — " There, there, that is enough !

We must do something besides write. Don't you feel hungry, Rose 1 " The Princess laughed. " Rather," she said. " I will go and take my things off, and then we will have tea. You will stay ? " she asked, looking at the Poet. " Yes." He smiled at her as if she had been a child. " That is nice. Mother, remember there is a meeting." " Yes, bother the thing ! Why can't they meet in some other room, and let ours alone ? " " Because we are the only people with a sitting-room. Come, mother, don't grumble to-night. I am going to take my cloak off." And at tea she sat next the Poet almost unrecognisable. His influence was remarkable and her pride seemed gone. She was hardly the Princess at all, save that her grave white face had a dignity of its own that through everything was unchangeable. Outside, the rain continued.

A few people went past with umbrellas held over them, and their skirts dragged up from the wet ground behind. The opposite houses looked more wretched than usual ; the children's faces ap peared dirty and careworn at the windows, three small mites in a row with their noses flattened against the dirty panes. A little baby a few doors down the street was crying; it lived crying. The row would hardly have been the same with out a child weeping somewhere. As soon as one small infant had grown old enough to know better, another started, and so on all through the year. There was a queer red light in the sky, struggling to force its way through the heavy7 leaden clouds and the damp mist. The Princess stood looking up at it, with a horrible foreboding of a struggle and trouble to come. She drew the Poet near to her.

" Look," she said, " is that a bad omen ? " Nonsense," he answered lightly. " A bad omen to-night ! Impossible ; why, we are to be happier than we have ever been before." " You are to be happier," she said. " And you too, Rose. Surely you are glad at my happiness you " " Yes," said the girl gravely. " When you are glad I am glad, and when you are troubled I suffer when you Oh ! suppose I should have to go away or " He smiled. " Nonsense again, Princess. You are tired to-night." And he drew her into his arms, so that together they looked up at the red glare, and the Poet suggesting it was a fire somewhere, both, without any reason for it, laughed. And the Audience was a very wet one that night. The Novelist was most indignant with the rain, and expressed his feelings in violent language ; the other Artist seemed depressed ; the foreign gentleman being dry, was smil ing, evidently forgetful of his late rebuff.

The Artist proper said that the rain had beaten down his best geraniums, and the Princess was unsympathetic about the matter. The Journal ist, having the longest distance to come, was decidedly the wettest, and being so, said the least about it. He handed the Princess her chair with the quiet courtesy unknown amid the Audience as a rule. But then the Journalist had always been the most polite, the most uncomplaining of them all. The latter fact was natural ; he wrote for what he could get, and had no aims above money making, so why should he complain ? The Audience would to a man have been furious had ho attempted such a thing. The Poet told the great news, and they tried to express a proper amount of gratification in vain. The damp atmosphere seemed to have stolen into the room : their words, ill-chosen, sounded flat and meaningless.

If the Poet was disappointed, he was far too clever to show it. But the Princess seemed crushed. She had been so glad, and had expected them to be so too. Of course they said nice things, but she would have preferred a regular roar of delight, or a wild stampede to congi-atulate and wring the Poet's hand. They felt the lack of enthusiasm them selves, and tried to pump it up. The Journalist, noting the wistful expression in the girl's dark eyes, was the most successful, much to the Poet's astonishment. The Journalist, whose low, rich voice came from his dark corner as from a tomb, " was certain of the book's success, was certain — of course all along — that the poems being what they were, would be accepted ; for that reason, the event being foredetermined, there was very little to say, except to congratulate the Poet on the ultimate success, so certain, also, of the little book."

The Princess, for the first time, absolutely beamed on the dark corner, and the grave-faced man sitting there having relapsed again into silence, had a wistful expression of astonishment as he watched her, being by no means elated at his own success. After that they discussed the cover and the paper desirable, and the Novelist warmed to the subject and ceased blowing his nose. The other Artist was still an Advocate for illustrations, or at least headings to the chapters, but the Poet crushed him with the unanswerable assertation " that there were no chapters." The foreign gentleman said nothing, but he kept his eyes, with an ominous glare in them, fixed on the Princess, who was far too excited to notice him. They had a shorter meeting than usual, and broke up early, each going shivering out into the damp night.