The Dower of Earth

Chapter I

Misunderstandings, mistaken inferences, imperfect acquaintance with facts, play so large a part in the direction, or confusion, of human affairs that there is no reason why we should be surprised at the entanglements which have beset Fabian's life, although it is worth while to consider what they are in order that we may comprehend his present situation. And also that we may learn more about his own nature, for these errors and thwartings are among the inevitable conditions of life ; a man's character is shown not so much by his not incurring them as by his behaviour when he meets with them, and the way in which they affect his disposition generally. Fabian had gone to Germany very much in love with Stella and still hopeful that he might succeed in winning her. It must be remembered that she had not absolutely refused him ; her answer had been a faltering one, and a lover may be forgiven for not considering his case desperate when his mistress shows unmistakable signs of dismay and grief at the prospective loss of his society.

Perhaps, too, it was something of the authoritative discernment of the stronger nature, something of the divining instinct of genius, which told him that this was the thing which was right for both of them, that he ought to marry Stella as Stella ought to marry him. Though he did not put the case to himself in this crude way. It was only that he had this underlying sense of rightness justifying and urging his perseverance. He was a simple-minded and modest young man, liable to all sorts of misgivings and doubts as to his own worthiness, and to attacks of jealousy lest some rival should supersede him in his absence. Let nobody imagine that he entertained a fatuous confidence in his ultimate success and buoyed himself up with a supercilious 'I am right, you are wrong ' kind of assurance. On the contrary he set to work very earnestly, like a true, chivalrous lover, to win his laurels that he might have a crown to lay at the feet of his beloved.

He started on his quest determined not to return empty-handed. Speaking without metaphor, this means that he went to Leipzig with the intention of devoting himself to music, and of winning such distinction that in time Stella might consider him worthy of her acceptance. His artistic development required some stimulus of this kind. With his gentle, self forgetful disposition mere personal ambition could never have supplied sufficient motive force ; and his home affections, his love for his father and mother, and his desire to fulfil their expectations, were too tranquil, too familiar to rouse him to special effort. Had he not fallen in love he would no doubt have studied very conscientiously and have made a painstaking and creditable musician, but the genius within him — the wilful Ariel who will not work unless some strong, overmastering authority com pel him to do so — might have remained silent and inactive.

As it was, the voice of love awoke the voice of melody and they sang together very beautifully to the soul of this young man. He found that a strange, new facility for composition had taken possession of him, and that suddenly he had obtained the mastery over all that technical knowledge and skill in music which for years he had been striving, slowly and laboriously, to acquire. It was a very pleasant life that he led at Leipzig. He worked hard and made such rapid progress that his teachers were delighted with him and soon began to boast of the English pupil who was going to do them credit. He could not but enjoy being in the midst of so much musical activity. His fellow -students were so enthusiastic, so devoted to their art, so self-denying in their pursuit of it. They soon made him into a hero and treated him to a good deal of Teutonic Schwdrmerei ; but as he was too much in earnest to be distracted by their flattery, and as, moreover, with all their admiration there went a gfood deal of keen criticism and quickness to discover defects and prevent him from falling below his own achievement, the general demonstrations of sympathy were good for him and encouraged him to increased exertion.

He produced several compositions at this time which caused the professors to go into raptures as they wiped tears of joy from under their spectacles, and were performed by the other students in a nebulous atmosphere of enthusiasm and tobacco-smoke. He fell into the prevailing habit of the place of showing his work to his companions while he was in the process of composing it, and of getting their advice on turns of melody and changes of key and arrangement of subjects. But one composition, a trio for two violins and the piano, he kept secret from even his most intimate friends. The theme of the andante was the air inspired by a verse of one of Rossetti's poems which he had played one evening to Stella in the Rectory drawing room at Barstow. To him every movement was somehow descriptive of that love -episode of his — its hopes, its fears, its pleadings — the broad, smooth river, the garden, the church — and Stella herself, Stella's voice, Stella's eyes, Stella's smile.

This trio he had taken as a sort of measure of the time which must elapse before he renewed his declaration of love. When this was finished, finished to a state of fault less expressiveness of all the meaning he desired to put into it, then he would take it to England ; it should be performed there, and he would let it speak for him to Stella of the unaltered constancy of his passion. But of Stella, since his father's death, he heard nothing. His sisters had dropped all correspondence with Barstow for the sake of their mother, who could not bear any allusion to the time when her husband was alive ; he himself had no friend there who was likely to write to him. Perhaps he hardly realised how long it was since he had heard about her. Months went by very quickly with him, absorbed as he was in his work and in a world of imagination and ideals independent of times and seasons.

Besides, there would have been a certain disloyalty in constantly inquiring about her. Knights-errant do not demand perpetual bulletins as to the state of their ladies' affections while they are away slaying the dragon. It is their glory that they stake their all on an uncertainty ; and I know no reason why a chivalrous sentiment, which we recognise as admirable in lovers of long ago, should be out of date in this nineteenth century because we have railroads and a foreign postal union. So it happened that the prize which he was striving to attain was won from him without his knowledge. Still, what he had done was good, he had made the world the richer by some noble and serious music ; he was not the first whose reward has been the accomplished work, and whose achievement has been the reality when the faith in which it was done has proved vain.

Meanwhile, and likewise unawares, he was forging a link which was to connect him with Stella's new life. Very soon after he went to Leipzig, Cyril Ashton and his wife had followed him and had made their home there. He had done a great deal for the young artist, not only in making arrangements for him and helping him to find work, but in encouraging him. No doubt they were a considerable hindrance to him at first — these helpless young people who did not know a word of German and had a general conviction that it was impossible to get anything civilised or sensible out of the foreigners amongst whom they were settling. Fabian, for some months after their arrival, had many anxieties on their account, and found them a heavy charge on his time and thoughts. It was he who discovered for them, high up in a tall, many-storeyed house, a convenient flat, with a large attic room capable of being converted into a studio.

It was he who went to the principal publishers and book sellers in the city and risked various rebuffs for the sake of a few orders for illustrating books and designing bindings. He was the kind friend who listened patiently to Cyril's outpourings of self-condemnation and de spondency, and was ready with good, practical advice which sent the young artist away in a more cheerful frame of mind. He had some satisfaction in return for his trouble, for in time his friend obtained a moderate supply of work, enough to keep him occupied and to encourage him to continue where he was and look forward to a more prosperous future. Moreover, Cyril, when he was in good spirits, was a very delightful companion, bright and amusing, overflowing with picturesque descriptions and original reflections on life in general, and with a kind of perpetual recognition of the elements of pathos and poetry in every subject he touched upon, which gave a peculiar charm to his conversation.

Fabian found his visits to the studio very pleasant and home-like ; he liked to go there in the afternoon and listen to Cyril's entertaining discourse, and watch Amy's gentle, graceful movements as she went about her domestic duties, or sat in the window with her needlework. It was a little bit of England always at hand, where he might depend on getting five o'clock tea, and hearing soft voices, and sitting in a room which was properly ventilated and free from the smell of tobacco. It was true that there was always the chance that he might find Cyril tearing his hair in front of some picture which would not come out right, or in depths of woe because his supply of commissions was running short. Or Amy might be in a plaintive mood, Avith traces on her fair, childish face of the tears she had been shedding over the delinquencies of the German Mddchen who helped her with the house-work, or over her inability to afford some indulgence she desired for her little boy, and ready, if her husband were not in the room, to confide all her troubles and homesick longings to her sympathetic visitor.

These clouded intervals however became rarer as time went on, and presently Fabian was able to climb the steep, winding staircase which led to the artist's abode in tolerable certainty of finding cheerfulness and serenity at the top of it. Of course his friends' welfare was a source of deeper satisfaction to him than came from the mere pleasant companionship, for he had really undertaken a heavy responsibility when he persuaded them to join him in Leipzig, and it was a great relief to him to know that his advice was being justified by the event. They were very grateful to him. They were an emotional couple who talked and thought a good deal about their own feelings, and they used to say often to each other, and not seldom to himself, that he had been their good angel who had rescued them from wrong-doing and despair, and had set them in the way of living happy, useful lives.

Their affectionate admiration made them sure that he was going to be a second Mendelssohn. When he started for England with his trio — they had not heard it but they knew it was his magnum opus on which he had been at work for years — they were confident that he was going to be received with acclamation ; and they devoured eagerly the notices he sent to them from certain musical journals of the extremely favour able criticism bestowed upon his com position. On his return a month later there was much melancholy wondering in the little attic household as to the cause of his altered appearance. He was still kind and good to them, they said, but why should he look so sad ?

Chapter II

To make her husband love her. With the new explicitness of her intention, a new power of discernment and initiative came to Stella — a new wisdom which had, indeed, its pathetic quality and yet was not without its affinity to the wisdom of the serpent. One of her first steps was to obtain from Georgina Mrs. Yorke's address, and to supple ment a formal call on that lively lady by an invitation to dinner at an early date. Her announcement of the acceptance of this invitation was the first intimation she gave her husband that she was aware of Mrs. Yorke's presence in London. ' Oh, that Avill be all right !' replied Mortimer carelessly. ' We ought to see something of her and show her some civility as we are so soon to be connected with her by marriage. It would have been as well if we had thought of her before, but it is difficult to remember everybody.

Where do you say she is staying ? ' There was an implied duplicity in this speech, ignoring as it did his recent inter course with Mr. Farnell's sister, which made Stella feel suddenly chill and pulseless. It was not the first time that she had been made conscious of a strain of insincerity in her husband's nature underlying the apparently almost exaggerated openness of his de meanour. Yet in a moment the hot blood rushed back tingling to her very finger-tips — for was it an entirely candid part that she had herself undertaken ? ' By the bye,' he continued, ' I have a speech to make on Thursday. Could you manage to go to the British Museum and look up some statistics for me ?' Stella consented at once and joyfully, and willingly gave up some of the day's VOL. Ill c engagements in order to leave several hours free for her task.

It took her longer than she expected ; but when, late that night, she sat with her husband in his study, and went over with him the results of her search, and observed the admirably lucid manner in which he seized the important points and arranged them with telling and brilliant effect, she forgot how tired she had been and how her head had ached when she reached home, luncheonless and exhausted, in the middle of the afternoon. She lay awake, with excited brain and beating heart, till the dull light of another London morning slowly diffused itself through her curtains ; but what did that matter ? Sleeplessness was but a small price to pay for the joy she had in helping her husband and in feeling that, intellectually at least, they could come near to each other and work together with oneness of purpose.

He had approved of what she had done, had even been surprised at her quickness of apprehension and ready industry. ' I declare, Stella, ' he said, ' you've done it splendidly. I couldn't have managed it nearly so well myself. I have not that kind of patience. This speech of mine will do me some good, I flatter myself. I generally know pretty well beforehand whether I am going to make a success or not. It is a great thing to be a good judge of one's own achievements.' It was a success — a brilliant one. Stella read some highly laudatory criticisms of it in the papers the day after it was delivered, and several people went out of their way to congratulate her on her husband's eloquence, and to tell her how favourably various dis tinguished politicians spoke of it and of him. The following Saturday evening was the one fixed for the dinner-party to which she had invited Mrs. Yorke.

When she came into the drawing-room a few minutes before the arrival of her guests she found her husband already there, sitting before the fire and reading an evening newspaper. ' Hullo!' he exclaimed, looking up at her, ' what magnificence ! Won't the other women be jealous ! But that's all right. I like my wife to be the best-dressed woman in the room. Only I think it's rather unfair that men are not allowed similar advantages of dress.' Stella laughed. She had taken special pains with her attire that night, and her mirror had shown her a very beautiful reflection of a slight, graceful figure in a long dress of green velvet, of soft arms and neck with opals shining on them, and a shapely little head with hair more elaborately arranged than usual. She put her hand on her husband's shoulder. ' Never mind ! you shall wear the Lord Chancellor's robes one day, and they are as gorgeous as even you can desire,' she said, bending over him to see what he was reading. ' Is there anything there to make conversation about ?' 'Not much,' he replied; 'it was a name that happened to catch my eye.

Apparently you are not the only celebrity that your birthplace has produced. I see that a new musical lion is the son of the parson at Bar stow. What is his name ? Oh ! here it is — yes, Sartoris ; that's it. Have you come across him ?' ' Yes,' she answered quietly ; ' I have known him all my life. But his father is dead now.' ' Then if you know him you had better make use of him and get him to come and play at your parties. I daresay he would be pleased enough if you took notice of him. Only don't make too much of him. Those professionals give themselves such disgusting airs sometimes.' The hand on his shoulder trembled a little. ' Oh, but I see ! ' he continued ; ' you won't be able to get him yet. He has gone back again to Leipzig. The writer of the "occasional note" seems quite offended.

He appears to consider it a sort of slur upon the English musical world. He supposes that " the influences in the young composer's native land are not of a sufficiently stimulating nature. In this case it is the prophet who takes the initiative in the disagreement be tween himself and his own country." I believe they keep writers on the staff who make up slightly spiteful sentences of that kind and shove them in where they can make a hole for them. But I am glad we are not to be plagued to go into raptures all the season over this young fiddling fellow. He would certainly have become a bore. Women make such asses of themselves when they think they have got hold of a genius.' Stella had let her husband talk on without interruption, as she felt that any reply would be a strain on her sincerity as well as on her self-command ; and by so doing she pleased Mortimer, who liked to exercise his talent, on which he prided himself, of making any casual subject serve as material for conversa tion.

He was not very observant of changes of expression in other people's faces, and probably would not have noticed in any case that she had turned very pale and that her lips trembled ; as it was, however, she was behind him and he could not see her. He might have wondered, had he been thinking more of her and less of himself, why she should lean upon his shoulder as if for support. 'Ah, Mrs. Ashton, please extricate me from this embarrassing situation in which your butler has left me ! He did announce me ; I have not made my way in sur reptitiously, as you might think, but you were too pleasantly absorbed to notice him.' Stella started at the sound of the clear, soft, fluent voice ; but in a moment she controlled herself and turned to greet Mrs. Yorke, who, a glitter of black satin and jet, was standing in the middle of the room, leaning forward a little with clasped hands and parted lips, in an attitude she had studied for private theatricals. ' Oh, forgive me ! ' said Stella, smiling as she came forward to receive her visitor ; ' it is the fault of these evening papers.

Mortimer, you really must not bring them again into the drawing-room before dinner. It is quite an uncivilised thing to do ! ' ' Don't believe her, Mrs. Yorke,' said Mortimer, who had risen without any pressing alacrity from the depths of his arm-chair. ' It was a little scene of conjugal felicity which we had arranged for your benefit. We generally get up something of the kind for our dinner-parties, and we have trained our man not to disturb the effect. You see, it looks very well to be affectionate during the first year of married life, and then, too, it makes our guests feel quite at home — that we are treating them without ceremony, There, Stella; I have got you out of that pretty well, I think.' ' Ah, I quite understood the situation ! ' said Mrs. Yorke, with her dazzling smile, and comprehensive glance which took in at once everything that the room contained. 'You need not explain.

But did it never occur to you that it might make your friends feel just a little de trop ? My first impulse, I must tell you, was to go discreetly out of the room before I was observed.' ' Surely,' said Mortimer, 'you must know better than to imagine that under any circumstances you could ever be de trop. Stella and I,' he continued, as Mrs. Yorke having found a convenient sofa-corner near enough to the fire to make it natural for her to extend her smartly shod feet towards the warm blaze, and to put up her fan to screen her face and display the fine curves of her wrist, he dropped into his former place, — ' Stella and I are very glad to have a companion occasionally. We want somebody to settle our quarrels and stimulate our wit. We get as dull as ditch-water when we are left to ourselves too long.

Now your example will make us sparkle again.' ' Which of us will venture to speak first after that, Mrs. Yorke?' asked Stella. 'I think that on the whole I come off best. It is easier to sustain a reputation for dulness than for brilliancy.' Some other guests were announced and Stella went towards the opposite end of the room. Mrs. Yorke looked straight at Mortimer, who, however, continued to gaze into the fire. ' Does your wife always consult you as to whom she should invite to dinner ? ' she asked. ' She did not consult me before sending you an invitation, if that is what you want to know,' replied Mortimer. ' Ah ! I thought perhaps she had not.' And there was a just perceptible mingling of triumph and disdain in her smile as she turned her head away. 'You will probably find it advisable not to come to see me for a little while,' she murmured. ' I shall probably find it advisable to do as I feel inclined,' he returned.

His wife came to him and touched his arm. 'Mortimer,' she said hurriedly, 'won't you come? Several people have arrived.' ' This is the first time that I have seen you doing the honours of your house,' said Mrs. Yorke in her soft voice. It was not an amiable glance that Mortimer bestowed upon her as he rose. He did not like implied criticism of his manners. The party was a large one, including a good many political people. Stella made a very pretty young hostess as she moved among her guests with a shy dignity and gentleness which were very charming. The member of the Diplomatic Service, who took Mrs. Yorke down to dinner, expressed his admiration in enthusiastic terms. ' In my opinion she is the most attractive woman in London,' he said. ' And she's so unaffected ; it's quite refreshing to see her.

I hope she may long retain her youthful simplicity. We get artificial as we get older, don't we ?' Mrs. Yorke began to think that she had made a mistake in coming to this party. Mortimer was rather a noisy host. He paid but little attention to the middle-aged lady who occupied the place of honour on his right hand. Beyond her was a man of some literary distinction to whom he principally addressed his conversation. ' You know,' he said, ' I consider that you are quite behind the times — you men who want to write books that will live. No book can live nowadays. Somebody writes one that is good, and immediately that suggests to some one else to write another that is better on the same subject. And people in general won't read either, but will get all that's worth knowing in them out of the reviews.

The function of authors now is to supply material to the critics. There's not time to read books through — except novels, and they don't count as literature. They are a sort of intellectual soothing syrup or cigarette — indispensable in these days of nervous excitement and rapid locomotion.' ' Oh, it's all very well for you, Ashton ! ' returned his guest. ' You political men have hold of the public ear. You are, so to speak, in possession of the telephone apparatus of the world, and you know that whatever you say is listened to. There's no need for you to write books nor to read them either. But we humbler men, who have no platform at our disposal, we have our thoughts too which we think worth imparting to our fellow-creatures. We preserve them for the benefit of posterity, for the tranquil age of electricity and balloons when reading will be in fashion again.

There is always the chance, you know, that after a century or so we may turn out to be fine old classics.' ' There's another of your superstitions, ' said Mortimer. ' The classics belong to the schoolboy, dictionary, and grammar period of life. Who cares for them afterwards except pedagogues — and perhaps publishers, who can make money out of annotated editions ? We have to get through them, of course, if only for the sake of allusion and quotation, and the name of the thing, but it's a labour well over. I assure you,' he continued, turning to the lady on his left, ' the very dullest six weeks of my life were some I spent one summer in the Black Forest, reading Dante with a German enthusiast. You can't imagine the delight with which I got back to actual life — to good magazine articles on the statistics of education and the Egyptian question and to one of Zola's novels.' ' But I think you are to be pitied for your preference,' she replied.

She was a clever, young married woman who was accus tomed to expressing her opinions plainly. 'Why, surely,' he urged, 'a humane person like you, who occupy yourself in all sorts of good works, must think that the welfare of present humanity is of paramount import ance to a representative of the people. My business is with the world as it is now. I have the interests of my electors to think about. And I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that it is my duty to devote what faculties I possess first to the understanding, and then to the alleviation of the wrongs and sufferings of my fellow-creatures, who have not the means of making their needs known nor of obtaining what they want for themselves.' ' Ah, well ! ' she replied, ' I have not a vote, so no doubt my opinions are not properly disciplined.

But I am sorry if the time is approaching when there will be no cultivated gentlemen among our English statesmen.' ' They've wits enough between them — our host and hostess,' Mrs. Yorke's diplo matist was saying to her, ' to stock several ordinary couples quite creditably. Which of them, do you think, is the more bountifully provided with brains ? ' ' You put things in quite a new light to me,' said Mrs. Yorke. ' I can see that Mrs. Ashton is gentle and charming, but it would never occur to me to call her clever. Do you like clever women ? ' ' Certainly not, and I should think it almost profane to apply such a word to Mrs. Ashton,' he replied. He was a man of about forty, dark, with well -cut features and a long moustache, who was likely to preserve a youthful appearance for the next fifteen years if his success in restraining the rapid development of his figure should prove con sistent with his popularity as a diner - out.

He possessed a variety of accomplishments : he sang and he played several instruments, and he sketched a little. He had been an attache at Vienna for some years. He prided himself on his discernment in the character of women ; it was perhaps from fear of im pairing his proficiency in this branch of learning by over-intimate study of a single example, or by diminution of opportunity of extending it, that he had refrained from marrying. Just now he was making his rapid estimate of Mrs. Yorke's brilliant personality. ' Cleverness is odious as a feminine quality,' he continued ; 'only a degree better than smartness. It implies a regard to self interest and getting on in the world, and other things of the same kind which we object to in women, though I don't see that we discourage them in ourselves.