The Episode of Alethea. A novel

Front matter

THE EPISODE OF ALETHEA, a The Episode of Alethea. A NOVEL. BY ISABEL CLARKE. T\ LONDON : A. D. INNES & CO., BEDFORD STREET. 1897. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER and to EDITH VERE OWEN I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. Brighton, 1897. Around God's throne there may be choirs and companies of angels, cherubim and seraphim rising tier above tier, but not for one of them all does the soul cry aloud. Only, perhaps, for a little human woman full of sin that it once loved. (Story of an African Farm.) He fixed thee 'mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present thou, forsooth, would'st fain arrest : Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth sufficiently impressed. R. Browning.

Chapter I

" I weary of men's voices and their tread ; Of clamouring bells and whirl of wheels that pass." Philip Bourke Marston. " FROM the optimistic standpoint of youth, life's banquet looks very fair and bountiful till we sit down and begin to partake. Then we find that dead sea-fruit is mixed therein with the prodigal husks." Having delivered this speech with the air of one propounding a remarkable truth, Gilbert Lennox blew a thin wreath of smoke from his cigarette. His companion regarded him dubiously, and with an irritated air of only partial compre hension. " I — I don't see what you've got to complain of, Gillie," he said. " You are lying here in the lap of B luxury, while we poor devils can hardly get an hour's leave." Lennox smiled. "That is because you are so useful to the country, Throckmorton— it can't spare you.

Now, I am of no value, except to the owner, as the advertisements say, and it procures me un limited leisure, and practically endless scope for boring myself to death." He went on smoking, contemplating his friend with an expression of somewhat cynical derision. Throckmorton sat down in an easy-chair by the fire and took out his pipe. The room in which they were sitting was Lennox's studio. There were signs in it of his travels and wanderings in distant places. It was a spacious apartment, with two doors, one of which communicated with the house, and the other with the street. It was furnished in the modern way, and contained an indiscriminate olla-podrida of valuable or curious things, of many ages and many climes. Rare old china, proof etchings, Malay and Egyptian curios, Russian eikons, and strange weapons from many countries jostled against each other on the crowded walls.

There were curtains of cunningly wrought Indian embroideries, and hangings of old tapestry, threadbare and faded, but still testifying mutely to the industry of a bygone generation. A large canvas stood on an easel ; there were besides a few unfinished studies, and a couple of portraits, but except for these there were not many outward and visible signs of the artist's craft, and a casual observer might easily have gained the impression that this was only the studio of a dilettante. " It's a beastly night," said Throckmorton, after a moment's pause. " What a row the rain makes on the skylight, Gillie ! I'm only up for a day or two, so I thought I must look in and see you. Urgent private affairs." "And who is she ? " inquired Lennox ; " same as on the last occasion ? " " There has never been any other," said Throck morton, with portentous gravity.

" I — I've taken the plunge," he went on nervously; " I'm engaged to be married — Miss Wynne, you know ! I say, did you ever try it? Awfully unnerving work — but it's all fixed up now. She's a very pretty girl, with just enough money to make the thing possible." " Congratulate you," said Lennox, smiling possibly at the description. " I remember her quite well." He had a vivid recollection of a hearty laugh and large feet connected with the personality of the lady in question. "She'll suit you down to the ground, Throcky." " We are to be married the end of April. They're in town now — getting the kit. I don't deserve my luck — she's a jolly sight too good for me." " You are suffering," said Lennox, dryly, " from the lover's conventional sense of unworthiness. It is a mistake to adopt the conventional attitude always — so long as one does not rush into the opposite extreme and sacrifice the picturesque to the distinctive."

Throckmorton laughed in his easy, good-natured way. He belonged to the familiar, if hackneyed, type of fair, ruddy Englishman, tall, broad shouldered, strong-limbed. Nature is careful of this type, and it is a good one for a man and a soldier to belong to. He ate, drank, and slept in a regular unquestioning fashion. Lennox found him distinctly refreshing. "Throcky," he said suddenly, "you don't know much about art, do you ? " " Nothing at all, thank Heaven ! ' "Then just go over there and look at that picture on the easel." Throckmorton rose obediently, and switched on the electric light to obtain a better view. "That production," said Lennox, "is humbly destined for the walls of Burlington House. What do you think of it ? Not so close, for Heaven's sake ! — you don't look at things with your nose."

Throckmorton shifted the easel, first in one direction, then in another. He looked puzzled. " That's awfully good, by Jove ! " he said. " Ton my word it is, Gilbert ! What's it — er — meant for ? " Lennox laughed. " Guess," he said. " How can a fellow know what a thing's about unless he's got a catalogue to tell him the name ? Don't set me these conundrums to answer — it's so dark— I can't make head or tail of it, and that's the truth." " You are a Philistine," said Gilbert, " an un mitigated Philistine. The function of art is no longer to insist upon the obvious. But I'll tell you this much — it's a scriptural subject." " And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days ? " suggested Throck morton, with a touch of irreverence. " It is Mary Magdalene coming, while it was yet dark, to the tomb of our Lord," said Lennox.

He came across the room and, stood by Throck morton's side. " By Jove ! I never noticed there was a woman. Why did you make her hide her face ? It's awfully good, old chap — bound to be on the line " " I am going to have my Academy show on Sunday," said Lennox. "You must come — and I'll send Miss Wynne a card too. Vida will be here — you remember my sister, of course? Married that little brute of a millionaire — Milroy." " Oh, I remember ! Half Russian, wasn't he ? " "And wholly savage ! " " And how do they get on ? " " They don't get on ! " said Lennox, succinctly. " I wonder why she married him ? " continued Throckmorton, reflectively. " To me the reason seemed sufficiently obvious." He glanced at Vida's photograph that stood on a little table near him. The pictured eyes seemed to return his look in a spirit of beautiful mockery.

" I say," said Throckmorton, suddenly, " why don't you marry ? " " Do I ever marry ? " said Lennox, derisively. " But there are lots of girls " "Willing to undertake my reform ? I disagree with you. I am not on the list of eligibles — I am, so to speak, on the fndex Expurgatorius. Besides, how is man to choose among so many ? Girls tall and girls short — girls dark and girls fair! If they are good they are generally very silly, and if they are clever they are generally very bad." Throckmorton laughed loudly. "You're get ting cynical," he said. "But, seriously, it's time you settled. You're thirty-five — or is it thirty six?" " On a Vdge de son cœur," interposed Lennox. " An artist has no business to marry. Depend upon it, when a wife comes into the studio the divine afflatus flies up the chimney.

She might bother me about what I should like for dinner. I could never submit to a purely domestic routine ! " "I thought," began Throckmorton, unwisely, "that you and Miss Maudslay " " Did you really, Reggie ? I should have had it announced in the Morning Post like this : ' A marriage has been arranged by Mrs. Maudslay, and will shortly take place.' " "You must come and see us turned off," said Throckmorton, when he rose to go. " I'll tell them to send you a card. Egerton is going to be my best man. I say, that's a pretty statue," turning towards a delicately wrought marble figure, gleam ing white against the dark background of curtain. It represented the Virgin kneeling at the foot of the cross. " The Mater Dolorosa ? " said Gilbert. " It was done by a poor chap who died. I bought that at the sale to help the widow.

It's a charming bit of work. He was a genius, but too poor to adver tise the fact." "Good night, old chap!" said Throckmorton. He went out, banging the studio door behind him, so that the "properties" shook upon their shelves. Lennox went back to the fireplace. It is the least lonely place in a room when one is alone. The rain was still beating upon the skylight ; outside the hum of the traffic mingled with the long moaning sound of the wind. "Another good man gone wrong," mused Lennox. " He was decent company once for gods and men. Now he is shorn of all his wit by this Delilah." There was a Venetian mirror above the fireplace, and he examined his own image therein with an air of profound and critical analysis, mingled with a remorseless cynicism. The bright light hair above his brow caught a certain glow almost of ruddiness from the fire.

" Nearly thirty - five ; time to get settled. Throcky is rather infelicitous in his speeches ; his evil lies less in want of thought than in the absence of thinking power. I feel as young as ever, though, if it were not for my sight, which is something between a centenarian's and a kitten's on the first day of its existence. The Maudslay girl, too ! Good Lord, deliver us ! Throckmorton and Miss Wynne will make a splendid couple, healthy in mind and body, and free from all morbid emotions arising from a superfluity of intellect. I think he bored me to-night. What does he want to saddle himself with a wife for? Why, it [seems only the other day he left Eton. It would tire me out for the rest of the day to hear Mabel Wynne laugh at breakfast. Seven o'clock — time to dress. I wish Vida wouldn't ask me to dinner.

It annoys Milroy, and doesn't benefit me to be bored by those M.P.'s — especially the Radical ones. I suppose Tremayne will be there as usual." He switched off the electric light and moved cautiously across the studio. It was almost the tentative action of a man who is not sure of his next step. He put his hand to his eyes with an irritated gesture. " I'm not in tune to-night," he said, So far he had learned to regard life only as a process of gradual disillusionment, to which we euphemistically give the name of experience.

Chapter II

" Quand on chasse la nature elle revient au grand galop." Lady Milroy's dinner-party that night was of the kind one is wont to define as small and select. She would have considered it incomplete without Gilbert. He professed to " go nowhere." She reminded him at intervals that it was easier for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than to keep out of society. On this occasion she had only invited people who would be certain to amuse her. As amuse ment, with her ladyship, was the end and aim of existence, she was somewhat of an epicure in the matter. "Lately," she told Gilbert, "we have had a succession of ' duty ' dinners : county magnates — M.P.'s (Conservatives, of course). And for the dullest company in the world, commend me to some of Joscelyn's country neighbours." Gilbert, though early, was not the first to arrive.

Sir Nigel Tremayne was already ensconced in the most comfortable chair in the yellow drawing room, where Lady Milroy received her guests She was a tall, slender woman, of distinctly aris tocratic appearance ; her hair was of that dubious golden hue commonly ascribed to art, but the secret of which Nature has jealously guarded as her own. Vida sometimes declared that the colour of her hair cast aspersions on an otherwise irre proachable character. She was a woman who appreciated a broad margin in the fundamental things of life — from novels upwards. Gilbert had never fully realized his sister's character until the question of her marriage arose. To a woman of more sensitive nerves, such a union would have inevitably ended in destruction. She had, how ever, at the time of her engagement, thoroughly counted the cost, as only a worldly woman could have done.

On the debit side of the sheet she, metaphorically speaking, placed the personality of her future husband ; on the credit side, his income, the prospect of having her bills paid, and the sundry social and mundane advantages accruing to the position. Gilbert, as her sole guardian, had remonstrated with her — not seriously, but in a quasi-facetious manner. " You are an orphan," he said. " You have a very fair income, and no impossible home to escape from. My house is yours, and I don't interfere with you in the least — in fact, I have allowed you such a long rope that some unkind people have suggested it was not tethered at all." Vida, who was a woman of more deeds than words, set before him a packet of bills of sub stantial thickness. "Would you like to hear some of the items, Gillie dear ?

" she said sweetly. " Oh no, thank you ! " said Gilbert. " Unless I marry this man," she said, " I shall be in the bankruptcy court in less than a year. How nice it would look in the daily papers — Re Vida Lennox, the debtor described as a lady living with her brother in Eaton Square. You see," she went on, " a person whose dresses are described continually as mine are, in the society papers, is bound to prepare fresh surprises for the press." So the wedding took place, and Gilbert gave his sister away. Vida seemed satisfied with the result of her bargain. She said she had got what she wanted. Whereas she was poor, now she was rich. She told Gilbert that in her opinion only the very rich could afford to fall in love — or pay cash. "It is a luxury, not a necessity," she sighed. " I feel I have done my duty."

In her charming surroundings she looked more beautiful than ever. She was a child of luxury, loved sweet scents, dim lights, and things not in season. To-night, in a dress of palest blue satin, she looked almost regal. Lennox glanced round the room. "Where's Joscelyn ? " he said. " He hasn't appeared yet." There was a " thank the-Lord " expression on her face which a devout worshipper would have found it hard to beat. "The fates are kind," observed Tremayne, laconically. Gilbert looked at him with a swift, penetrating glance. "Depend upon it," he said, "when you are congratulating yourself that the fates are kind, Atropos is busy snipping. You don't notice the broken thread at first." " Don't be enigmatical, Gillie," said his sister. " Who is Atropos ? " " The lady with the scissors," said Lennox.

Vida crossed the room and stood near her brother. On the way she stopped to bend over some fragrant spikes of hyacinth, and a bowl of fresh neapolitan violets. " How dull you both are to-night," she said suddenly, as the two men relapsed into silence. They were, however, both regarding her covertly : Gilbert from an impartial, brotherly standpoint ; Tremayne possibly from one in which the fraternal sentiment was absent. "You have on a new dress," said Tremayne, cautiously. "Is that what you wished me to remark? Shall I add the traditional commonplace, that it is becoming ? " "Joscelyn never noticed it," said Vida, pathetically. " One must flay the Tartar to make him feel," said Gilbert. " Do you think he has gone to bed with the gout, Vida ? " "It is one of my husband's most marked characteristics, that he is never ill."

" I can imagine," said Gilbert, " that such diseases as are the result of an effete civilization would be unknown to Joscelyn." " The history of the present moment," continued Vida, dispassionately, "will be recorded by the valet this evening — to the other servants. I am sometimes a little sorry for Joscelyn's valet, only that his misfortunes furnish the servants' hall with copy." At that moment Sir Joscelyn entered the room. He was fully seventy years of age, and presented a remarkable contrast to his wife — a contrast which would have been tragic had not Vida contrived to imbue the situation with a touch of comedy. His attitude towards her was at once reminiscent of an indulgent grandparent and a cat ready to spring. But so far, to pursue the simile, he had not sprung. Doubtless with a virtuous intention of presenting his nearest interpretation of serenity to the assembled company, Milroy shook hands with his brother-in-law, and gave Tremayne two fingers and a scowl.

" I've got such a nice Buddhist coming here to night," Vida explained to Gilbert. " He's going to try and convert me. You must talk theosophy to him." " I hope," said Gilbert, solemnly, " that he won't precipitate his astral body, or perform any spiritual freak of that sort." The Buddhist was the next to arrive. His complexion denoted a long residence in the East, possibly complicated with liver trouble and the fall of the rupee. At dinner he touched neither meat nor wine. His conversation was characterized by the mysterious jargon of the theo sophical cult. There were about a dozen guests. The women were, without exception, well-dressed and good looking ; and owing to the eccentricities of fashion in that year of grace, the room seemed full of THE EPISODE OF ALETHEA. sleeves. Among them Gilbert noticed a tall, slight girl, dressed in black, who had come with Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie, old friends of Vida's. He asked Tremayne in an undertone who she was.

"The newest woman," he said laconically; " rather well off, too. A cousin of Mrs. Fairlie's." " What a superb model that head would make," said Gilbert, bestowing upon her the frank, dis passionate gaze of an artist. "You could easily convert her into one of those greenish impressions of yours," said Tremayne. " I wonder if the lady would be flattered." Gilbert was an impressionist, but he did not like to be reminded of the fact in that supercilious tone, though as a member of the New English Art Club he had every right to be proud of it. He turned away from Tremayne with a quick, irritable movement, and looked again towards the girl, who was standing in an unconsciously graceful attitude. She was rather tall, and the extreme and elaborate simplicity of her black dress set off the slim out line of her figure to perfection.

She had a statu esque little face, reminding him insistently of one of Paul Helleu's delicate dry-points. There was a suggested combination of strength and fragility about her; the calm saintly curve of the long eyebrow was curiously at variance with the half cynical derision, even a touch of diablerie ex pressed by the mouth. The eyes were very dark, and bore the impress, Lennox thought, of having gazed alike on all sorrows and all joys — " ran sacked the ages, spoilt the climes," remaining through it all unsatisfied. There was a touch of melancholy, of morbidezza, of Goethe's Welt schmerz about her. " The newest woman." Gilbert had, in common with many of his sex, an inordinate horror of the New Woman. Mentally he relegated her to the exclusive precincts of the Pioneer Club. She was, he felt, a being whose existence one was bound to admit, although one could not classify it under any recognized species.

For a brief second the dark eyes met his. Then Vida touched him lightly on the arm, and he, following her across the room, was introduced to the object of his notice. Gilbert gave her his arm, and they moved off somewhere in the rear of the procession of guests. They took their seats at the table, which pre sented a graceful wilderness of silver, cut-glass, and flowers. He cast a tentative glance towards Miss Ken nedy. She wore her hair a la Grecque — it grew c THE EPISODE OF ALETHEA. close to her brow — in seven points, as the French say. When she smiled at something he said in a quick, responsive fashion, he was struck by the amazing radiance of her face. Here, at least, was life, fire and intelligence mingled with a beauty at once strange and perplexing — inscrutable as La Gioconda herself.

" I think it right to warn you that I have only lately come home from India. This is really my first experience of London — so I don't know what we shall find to talk about." "There is always the weather," said Gilbert. " How many gaps has that immortal subject not lifted us across? What appalling hiatus has it not filled? However, there are plenty of subjects on which we can discourse if you like. ' Shall England keep India ? ' for instance " " That has been exhaustively treated," she said, interrupting him. "Bi-metallism," he continued; "the Vanishing Rupee — I wish it would vanish altogether, and be replaced by a more stable coin. Or there is the Opium Question — the wild abandon of the Nautch " Miss Kennedy laughed. " I would much rather," she said, "that you should tell me who every one is."

" Oh, I'll do that with pleasure," he said. " They're all people you ought to know — by sight, at any rate. That's a Buddhist over there ; he is trying to teach my sister theosophy. I don't know his name, but he answers to my imaginary conception of a Mahatma. Sir Nigel Tremayne is sitting next my sister, on the other side ; he's a very well-known physician — his great forte is nervous diseases. He is writing a vast work — a ' Monograph on the Hereditary Aspect of Neurosis.' " " It is a comprehensive subject," observed Miss Kennedy. " That man next Mrs. Fairlie is the latest thing in authors. He comes on purpose to study Joscelyn ; no doubt he is seeking what he may devour as copy. The others " — he glanced hastily round the table, and dropped his voice — " aren't anything particular, because that sort of person is more amusing, Vida says.

But they are smart and witty and ' down to date,' and their names appear in the Peerage and the Morning Post." " Thank you," she said quietly. " I think you've labelled every one." " Staying in town ? " inquired Gilbert. She corrected him. " I am living in town. I have astonished my friends and annoyed my relations by taking a flat and setting up for myself. It was partly on my sister's account. She has been very ill lately, and couldn't bear to have strangers about her." So the " newest woman " was yet the old, to which he had always been accustomed. "I'll send you a card for my private view on Sunday," he said. "You could get Mrs. Fairlie to bring you, unless you consider a chaperon too much out of date. I expect a lot of people — fashion always smiles blandly on the artist once a year. We then emerge from an obscure Bohemianism into quite a ' classy ' prominence in the social world."

" I should like to come, if I am able to leave my sister," she said. " I had no idea you were an artist, Mr. Lennox." " I try to be one." " And what sorts of things do you paint ? " "Greenish impressions," he said, quoting Tre mayne. A pretty woman opposite broke into the conversation. " Don't ever let him paint your portrait, Miss Kennedy," she said. "He did mine once, and then said it was no use, as I hadn't a soul. Like all disagreeable remarks, it had the germ of truth." "Truth is an unnecessary evil," said Gilbert, with gravity. "But your portrait was hung on the line, Mrs. Raymond. There is always com pensation." " My husband was the only person who said it was like me," she continued. " Perhaps he has fewer opportunities of judging," said Lennox, cynically. There was one of those sudden, unaccountable lulls in the conversation, and Tremayne's voice was plainly audible in the final words of a speech addressed to the lady on his left : " Impressionist — quite the French style.

Paints wet streets and bilious-looking women ! " Gilbert looked at him tolerantly and without marked hostility. " Tremayne is doing me the honour of monographing me," he remarked. " He always says he should like to prescribe for my models. I showed him the head of a girl I'd just finished the other day. His only remark was, ' Take it away, and bring a clean one! I see my sister is ' collecting eyes.' Perhaps you don't quote Kipling in India ? I suppose he incurs the usual odium of a prophet in his own country." Before she had time to answer, Lady Milroy rose, and the ladies filed slowly out of the room. Milroy immediately began to expound the death duties to his guests. But his port alone made dining with him worth the sacrifice. In the drawing-room Miss Kennedy found her self talking to Mrs. Raymond.

" So you've been in India," she said, surveying her with a frankly appreciative gaze. " I dare say you are glad to be at home again. I've got rather a grudge against India, you know ; it takes away so many of our nicest men. And they get into such trouble out there, what with flirting with other people's wives, or marrying black women, or being eaten by tigers ! " At this epitome of possible misadventures to be encountered in India, Miss Kennedy smiled faintly. She had not been in England very long, and the glamour, the spell, the subtle charm of the East was still upon her ; that charm which lies in those scents more fragrant, those colours more vivid, that life more vital than ours. She had learned something of the strange fatal attraction of that far-off land, siren-like luring Englishmen on into the dance of death, but always for the great cause of country and Queen.

It belonged to the past, but she could not forget it all so soon. There was a pathetic sadness in her eyes, though her lips smiled. Suddenly she became aware that Mrs. Ray mond's prattle had drifted off upon other topics. " Have you met Mr. Lennox before ? " she said, dropping her voice cautiously. " He's quite a modern sort of person, and of course he is the best company in the world. No house-party is happy without him ! To know him is a liberal education. He is very clever, you know — paints, writes, and all that sort of thing. I remember reading a book he wrote — they say all the girls kept it from their mothers. As for his painting, it's supposed to be clever ; but the portrait he did of me was a positive insult. I never look like it even at my worst ! Lady Milroy is his sister. Isn't she beautiful ?

And so well dressed — Worth, you know " When Gilbert appeared, he went straight up to Miss Kennedy, and remained talking to her for the rest of the evening. This fact did not escape the all-vigilant eye of Mrs. Fairlie. She had a strong contempt, bordering on dislike, for Gilbert Lennox ; at the same time she was bound to admit that he was attractive, and in common with many hostesses, she always liked to secure his presence at her smart dinner-parties. " I suppose he will want her to sit to him next, and all that sort of nonsense," she reflected. Nor were her doubts quieted when she over heard him taking leave of her cousin. " Good night, Miss Kennedy. I hope your sister will soon be better. Don't forget Sunday."

Chapter III

" I, pointing from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame, Or their praise eitheri. ' R. Browning. SOME years had passed since Gilbert Lennox had written the book mentioned by Mrs. Raymond. It was said of that lady that her excellent memory was the only bar to her complete social success. She was always raking up the unsuccessful past, which had been deservedly steeped in oblivion. And a first tentative essay in literature, severely handled by critics and reviewers, is a sin for which men rarely forgive themselves, and certainly never forgive any one else for mentioning. The work in question, evolved from his inner consciousness, and apparently doing that locality but little credit, had sailed to achieve popularity, or what is even more remunerative in literature — notoriety.