Soap. A romance

Chapter I

" Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors." Carlyle. My name is Theopholis Gautier ; my background is " soap." We made all our money in " soap : " a very clean way of making it, will be conceded at once. Our advertisements are to be seen everywhere, and to the manufacture of this particular " soap " I owe, I suppose, my own particular view of life. Don't run away with the idea that I can make no boast of blood because of the soap. The Gautiers came over with the Conqueror: that was before the introduction of soap ; anyhow, before the manufacture of this peculiar soap which makes black white. There is a village called " Gautier" somewhere. I take a strictly private satisfaction in this genealogical fact. A coat of arms all soap, bars of it, would be too frightfully tidy. I like a little dusty ancestry.

I believe profoundly in race, and I like a soapy man ner, the outcome of this source. It 's rather hard on me that my politeness is all i '■'■ SOAP put down to the soap, when in point of fact it has nothing whatever to do with it. I appeal to my dusty ancestry : I declare that this politeness is a matter of race. I 'm a solitary man. When I say solitary, I mean unmarried, at the present moment. I assure my readers that I have not yet met the woman who has captivated me entirely. I don't blink facts. I must be capped every way before I dream of making an alliance. I have met women who have been prepared to charm me in separate ways ; but I 've not met her, who, for lack of a better term, I must call " Com bination." I 'm not looking about — that is vulgar in the ex treme. My connection with " soap " might permit such hideous activity ; but my Norman blood rejects such a state.

I am a passive, urbane man, and a prey to no excitement. I 've heard of men coming over from India and Australia to seek a wife ; I 've even met these seek ing gentlemen ; I have mentally felt an eyebrow lift, and have speculated a little curiously. Bars of soap ! Ach ! it is incomprehensible. Then I have communed in the recesses of my soul and said, "Alien ! Sparrow on housetop ! Misanthropical eccentric ! Make haste and find thy spouse, wrangle and mangle, and fill thy quiver." But the mental uplifting was the Norman product ; the other the contaminating soap. SOAP 5 I yet hold to my manufactory. I might sell it, — I. am very wealthy, — but no, I prefer to keep it, I prefer to be called " Gautier's Soap." I was educated at Winchester and Oxford ; many private tutors have also hot-housed my brains.

I have many distinguished friends, and I make them under stand the nature of "soap;" I make them join me in a stroll round the manufactory. It 's situated in no out-of-the-way district — it 's located not far from Covent Garden ; and after pro fuse study of the soap question, I am fond of convey ing my friends into the poor people's square, and making serio-comic fun of the statuary, the painter in the pancake hat, and, alas ! the human statuary sitting beneath. I take it that I 'm a remarkable looking man. I 've a very forward nose and a narrow face ; my eyes I 'm convinced are slightly cast ; my lips are thin, and sardonically curved ; my complexion gloomy. I 've ill-set tumbled-about limbs. I should be sorry to wear knickerbockers. I 'm tall : I stand six feet two in my socks. I must not forget to mention my scar : it runs across my left cheek.

I don't know in the very least how it came there. I never enquired; in fact there is no one to ask, for I 'm a solitary, relationless man. I don't want my readers to say " I can't see the man," I sincerely hope they can see me now ! I have four residences, and I scintillate between them. I 've a charming villa at the " Wight." Directly the SOAP, Roman villa turned up, I acquired a residence not far distant ; Seneca I ought to know something about, and Mosaics. I must surely have a mediæval mind, in fact of course it is so, for directly I heard of the Roman villa I bought the stucco one. I 've a tumble-down place in Yorkshire, a little way out of Leeds. I 've a house in Bruxelles, on the Boulevard de Waterloo, and a town house in Palace Gardens ; the latter is a very dear befrilled looking little brick-and-mortar creation.

Miss Self-Chaddy called it a " love of a house " the other day. " It looks like a good little girl in a white frock trimmed with embroidery, going out to a Christmas party," she went on to say. Miss Self-Chaddy writes books, so she is expected to be a little metaphorical ; and then she smiled and showed a dimple, and, I looking at the dimple, fell to speculating on that kind of moulding ; and before I had done with the dimple, it had gone, and she was frowning, and then I fell to speculating on that kind of knitting, and so at that time had no further speech of Miss Self-Chaddy. I keep very good cattle : it is said that my stud is equal to Lord F 's. When I 'm in town I ride to my manufactory on a Polo pony called " Brag." I know I look absurd on this little hack, — my legs all but touch the ground, — but Brag and I understand one another, and there is a good deal in that.

I have unworldly sympathies. When I see a tired looking girl walking down a muddy road, if I 'm driving I pull up, and, with my eyes carefully arranged SOAP 7 at a right angle, ask her to allow me the honour of giving her a lift ; and if she is not a vehicle for every kind of fear she gets in, I carry her to her destina tion, and leave her on some ambitious doorstep, smiling quite gratefully. Miss Self-Chaddy calls that eccentric. She said, " I suppose it 's true about the Norman blood. ' Soap ' would not, could not, be so — so — funny. You are a very funny man, Mr. Gautier, and I believe you will marry a cook." I murmured something about " Culmination and Combination," and Miss Self- Chaddy, who is a little deaf, swayed towards me and drooped her ear, and then I fell to examining it. " It 's just like a little oyster-shell," I believe I said so.

" I told you you would marry a cook," she said indignantly, " you horrid man ! I believe your mind is running on the Fisheries still ! " "Forgive me", I said; "remember, I'm only Gautier's Soap." Then she smiled, and once more showed the adorable dimple. " You should be transparent enough," she said, musingly; "but are you?" Oh, that wretched "soap!" I'll hand over the manufactory to the Radical party before long. I know I 'm philanthropical.

Chapter II

"You that will have all solid, and a world of pig-lead . . . you believe yourselves rooted and grounded in adamant, and yet if we uncover the last fact of our knowledge, you are spinning like bubbles in a river . . . and you are bottomed and capped and wrapped in delusion. Carlyle. I have a particular friend. Most men have a chum, till they get a female one — I mean, a wife. My male chum is Paul Trench ; he lives with me, ostensibly as my secretary. I consult him about everything. I shall pay him off when I marry : this point was settled between us long ago. He is the antithesis of myself. I consider Trench the prettiest little fellow about town. He was coxswain of our eight for a good many years, and the ladies are devoted to him ; they treat him like a child. I don't quite understand the nature of the tie that binds us together.

He never differs from me, and I 'm positively minded in some ways. Our conver sations are often one-sided ; I consult Trench, and yet nine times out of ten question and answer emanate from me ! The fact is, Trench can laugh and I can't. The tragic and the comic compete for our tears SOAP 9 or our laughter, and yet I can give to neither the one nor the other the susceptibility they imperiously de mand. I show Trench the funny side of men and matters ; he laughs, and the state of tension passes off through him. When Trench leans back in rollicking fashion, and tosses up that little well-shaped curly head of his, and haw-haw's or ha-ha's, I feel less isolated and queer. It 's an absurd illusion doubtless; but then is not everything very illusive ? We live upon illusions, or they live upon us.

I trust the future Mrs. Theopholis Gautier won't prove illusive ; but if I could follow her down the married vistas, I expect she would. I made a proposition to Trench last night ; J answered the proposition as usual. Trench merely knocked off the ashes of that barbaric remnant, his cigar, and said, " Do." He always says " Do." It acts on me like a moral poultice. I commenced by talking of Shakespeare's lovers, and the various disguises they assumed to mask their love if needs be. " Let me assume the manner and garb of a needy professor." " Oh, Love is a masked creature," said Trench : " for the most part it partakes of the nature of those two localities where our strongest hopes and fears tend." " True," I said ; and then we were silent for a few seconds. "Who is she?" said Trench, abruptly; "for of SOAP course I see where you are taking me, with your Shakespeare lovers."

" She is a very remarkable girl," I said, feeling rather annoyed when that " Who is she ? " startled me into detail (a prosy, ugly thing always). " I think she may prove to be out of the common, Miss Self- Chaddy and she were changing their books at the ' Grosvenor.' I said to the former, ' Will you not introduce me to your friend ? ' and she said with quite an east-wind voice, ' Will I not ! ' How I lament my ill-poised limbs. I know I looked 'crashed;' but my awkwardness was covered by the extreme ease with which Miss Ben-Israel turned from the consideration ofthe backs of books and said, ' I 'm Lucka Ben-Israel, I like best to introduce myself ; it gives one the sensation of making the best of oneself. One has a rich interest in one's own self.' " "Has she a backage? " said Trench. "A young lady who talks like that should have a backage.

Is she an Oxford woman ? " I frowned, I suppose ; for Trench opened the locket attached to his watch-chain, and looked with a hateful smile at the photo, of his favourite bull, "Bess." "I suppose," he murmured sentimentally, "she has the full lips and other peculiarities of her nation. My poor Gautier, where will you land yourself? " Whenever Trench attempts to condescend, I do one thing with him, — take him on my knee and " spank " him. SOAP 11 He is quite accustomed to the proceeding ; it 's an old Oxford habit, and he likes it. Then we do a little bear-fighting. I keep up all these customs, though Oxford saw the last of me a few years ago. " I suppose you will fall in love with Miss Ben- Israel ? " said Trench, as we resumed our arm-chairs, and assumed our favourite attitudes, — he nursing his little left knee, and I with my frightful feet on the mantelpiece.

"What nonsense you talk!" I said. " Did you ever hear of an intellectual affinity ? That style of inter course is, I take it, too lifting to bring about the state of love. I suspect Miss Ben-Israel of that rare occur rence, a detached nature — a nature that has thought for itself, that does not take to the stars as it takes to Stilton cheese, that sees the miraculous surrounding it, and knows that sober facts are but after all the outside garment of things, whether the things of nature or of human nature, — like the homespun cloak which some fairy godmother throws over some fairy prince to conceal his splendid raiment from the cavilling many. Believe me, Trench, these intellectual affinities are wholesome enough ! is there not a quill-pen knocking about in the middle of them? You follow me Trench?"

He nods, and stares at the waves of smoke, then he grins. He knows I 'm the most susceptible and yet the most difficult of men. Sometimes I think I ought to be a monk. I can't take the measure of my mind. In a monastery the measure is taken for one. " Miss Ben-Israel wants a German master, I heard SOAP her say so to Miss Self-Chaddy," I said, coming thus circuitously to my proposition. " I propose to offer myself as German master to Miss Ben-Israel. I shall get a wig ; in fact, I shall transform myself, and thus disguised make the acquaintance, with no shams, of the Israelitish ' Miss.' " " My dear fellow, she will recognise your nose," said Trench, playfully stroking his own plastic arrangement. This staggered me for a moment, and I fell into reflection. It was true the Misses Berritons from Inverness met me the other day on the steps of the " Langham," and as I was about to glide past them, the elder of the twain laid a black kid-gloved hand on my shoulder (I see it now : the fingers had only gone half-way up), and said, " How are you, Mr. Gautier ?

I knew you by your nose." Tragic moments. Rising, I strolled to the glass, the one furthest from Trench. I examined this nose carefully : a suspension bridge was nothing to it ! "A light wig and a light moustache will make it look less," said Trench ; " and a little bit of — what dy'e call it — court plaster ? on the bridge. She won't fall in love with you anyhow, Gautier," and Trench haw-hawed as usual, with his head thrown back. " I shall have my cards printed to-morrow: 'Pro fessor Hertz, from Berlin,' " I said meditatively. " Don't over-do it," said Trench: " that's the worst of failures. What shall you charge ? Is she rich ? " SOAP 13 " Rich ! " I said vexedly : " rich ! I hope not. She dresses well, but that is no sign — rather, a hopeful countersign. She has no dimples, like her friend Miss Self-Chaddy.

She looks as if she is grappling with every imaginable problem ; and men and their matters are out of her ken. I must teach her to grow dimples. I suspect myself of that kindly but feeble companion to a true faith, philanthropy. Charge ! what shall I charge ? How vulgar of you, Trench! " " My dear Gautier, that 's the first question with most ladies. What if she finds you too dear ? " " Too dear ! " I said, hitting out at Trench. " Look here ! " said Trench, as, after a final round and finish, we again subsided into the complacent looking arm-chairs; "the court plaster will appeal to her philanthropy. Go up if she looks com passionate, and go down if she looks frightened ; and give me full warning if it 's something more or some thing less than an intellectual affinity."

Chapter III

" What the Greeks only suspected we know well ; what their Æschylus imagined our nursery children feel." I have no cause to regret the supposed starchiness of English Society. I go everywhere, because of my wealth. Most doors fly open to golden keys, and that "funny Mr. Gautier" is admitted into many charmed circles. I believe Trench and I do look ridiculously bracketed when we make our entrance and exit. Trench stands a few inches above my knee, and the signal for our entrance is a flutter of some sort. I have not sought notoriety ; I rather dislike it than otherwise. But if you have a tumbled-about "envelope," as somebody has called our personality, a Lilliputian friend, and a soap manufactory to boot, how can you avoid notoriety. It 's ready to hand ! There are at least six houses in London where I am a frequent visitor — in fact, where I am extremely intimate.

I go and come, and as yet nothing has occurred to prevent such going and coming. I am accepted on SOAP 15 my own terms ; and as I am neither a priest nor a doctor, I consider myself fortunate in my friends. The Self-Chaddys are particularly friendly. Mrs. Self-Chaddy is, I consider, a brilliant woman. She has one daughter, one son, and an extinguishing husband ; but she flames up still, and I think it 's these fitful sparks that attract me to her house. I 'm nearly sure it's not Miss Self-Chaddy. I can't be quite sure, because my serene belief in my motives has once or twice been rudely surprised. I have found a plausible old gentleman very comfortably installed in my mental guest-chamber on one or two occasions ; and once confronted, I 'm tolerably honest. I misdoubt myself. The Self-Chaddys live at Kensington.

I should call it Harrow, or Ealing, or Hammersmith, or some such spot ; but they call it No. 87 Philophotemical Gardens, Kensington. Mr. Self-Chaddy is a tall fair man, with small private means. To firm convictions he adds an im pressive manner, a combination which is prone to bore and spear you. The convictions and manner have nearly abolished Mrs. Self-Chaddy. Whenever her husband ap proaches her, she looks at him much as one can imagine the flaming wick eyes the extinguisher. I have seen her " go out " literally over and over again, and it has taken a good deal of lighting to make her — I was going to say, "come in." The reader will forgive me my lack of enterprise in looking about for a better simile. Mr. Self-Chaddy finds himself in SOAP the position of a man with convictions and no platform.

He must extinguish somebody : the Moloch is ready to hand : he extinguishes her. " Do belong to a literary and scientific society, Gustavus," I heard Mrs. Self-Chaddy suggest mildly: "there you would find your audience." His convictions are just now bound up in the Boer : the visit of Cetewayo to this country set him off in this direction. He aims an assegai at intervals, and it never fails of its mark. He draws frightful contrasts in favour ofthe Boer intellect. He speaks of their wonderful gift of language, their impassioned oratory, their extraordinary habit of seeing before and behind. - " Who but a couple of Englishmen would sit down in a wood, both looking in the same direction? " saith the Boer. He enlarges on the peculiar manner in which they acquire their wives, paying five cows apiece for them.

His large, firm, well-booted foot taps the floor as he talks. He might be in the full swing of an Afghan wedding, as that 's their mode of dancing and making merry at their nuptials, I believe. Miss Self-Chaddy is a rather flippant commingling of these two natures. She is exaltce at moments, and then she is like her mother ; she is hard as ice unbroken at others, and then she is like her father. I think her very charming looking. I have seen faces the sac-simile of hers amidst collections of miniatures. At a rose show last summer, given at the bric-a-brac SOAP 17 residence of Mr. Harley, wandering through his museum, I came across his minature art treasures. In the impudent faces 'of many celebrities I traced a likeness to Miss Self-Chaddy, and I remember I thought, " When this young lady has an accepted suitor, the said suitor, if he be a man of discrimination, should have her miniature, and framed in old paste."

As I thought, with much complacency, of her in tended, I believed myself incapable of assuming that position, unless I became alter ego or alter idem. But why should I not find myself in either of these states — alas ! why ? The Trelawnys are also great friends of mine. There are seven Miss Trelawny's. It 's said there .is safety in numbers ; the only fateful thing is propinquity and proximity. • I talk to a different Miss Trelawny on every occasion that I go to their house, so my admiration is well filtered. They are all plump, rosy, and easy ; and I like them, as I find them a different selection each time.

Chapter IV

" When the instinctive question about a person is ' What is he doing ? ' i t is felt that he will not be found to be like most of us, doing nothing in particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing well, the secret faith is that he is making a mess of it." After that introduction, at the Grosvenor Library, to Miss Ben-Israel, I went to Yorkshire for a couple of weeks. The name of my property there is " The Old Red House." As it 's an old white house, I call this appli cation somewhat misapplied — not more so, however, than most applications. Trench accompanied me as usual. I should feel •very wretched without Trench. I doubt if a Mrs. Theopholis could make up for his loss. I have, by-the-by, one relation who lives not far distant from Leeds : I forgot her when I denominated myself a relationless man.

She is a very good representative of the Gautier genealogy. She says she is my aunt. I 've never looked into the matter ; but I take her word on the subject. She has various Gautier genealogical curiosities. SOAP 19 An olde booke bound in vellum, containing ye poems of one Phillipe le Gautier in ye reign of Elizabeth. This is interesting enough. She has also in her possession the family tree, the branches whereof are very positive branches ; there is nothing indistinct about them. She has also a " hand : " I 've rarely seen such a hand. She has also an "air." As I said before, she is quite a representative Gautier, a culminated personage well put together. When in Yorkshire I invariably call upon her, and she returns my visit in stately style an hour after. She has never allowed herself to be intimate with me, on account of the soap.

This time, however, I perceived a marked change. She was less formal, less like a piece of pasteboard with " Miss Gautier " inscribed thereon, less indeed like a splendid remnant of by-gone greatness, and more like a woman of present-day littleness. She returned my visit as usual an hour afterwards. Her old yellow coach with the old herses, fat coachman, and lean footmen hanging on behind, was descried rumbling up the avenue by Trench as he stood on the hearth-rug in the dining-room. " Here comes your aunt ! Allow me to express my sympathy and decamp." Then he fell into attitude, and mimicked the haughty head, and the " How do you do, Theopholis?" from the frozen zone. Stifling my laughter, I was just in time to receive her, and extend my arm for the gentle pressure of " the hand," as I led her across the hall to the yellow 2 =': SOAP 20 drawing-room.

The three drawing-rooms are vari ously decorated in the Old Red House — Florentine Yellow. Venetian Red, and Olde English. " Where is Mr. Trench ? " she said, pausing before the mirror, and looking apprehensively behind her shoulder, " He is with you, of course ? " " Of course," I echoed ; " what should I do without Trench ? Shall I call him." " No," she said, with a gesticulation of alarm ; "no, I wish to see you alone ; it 's seldom I see you alone. I don't know that I ever yet saw you without your little friend." " Little ! " I said indignantly. " One thing only is little, — personalities ! " " I meant nothing," said Miss Gautier quite meekly. "You are volcanic, eruptive. Doubtless,Theo pholis, it is only when we are alone that I should exactly care to — to" — (Here she lowered her voice and looked extraordinary ; I never thought I should have seen Miss Gautier look so utterly limp) — " teli you what.has happened."

She paused, and I filled up the pause with every imaginable catastrophe. " Theopholis," she said, breaking the silence, " I 'm going to be married. You are astonished, — the lift of your eyelid shows it, — so am I. I had not contemplated a step of this kind ; but do we ever do just what we expect to do ? Is it not the sudden and uncontemplated that often enough seizes the strong idea which had moulded our wills, and, breaking the idea in twain, hurries us down some SOAP 21 avenue of hitherto undreamed-of action, and behold us with a new truth or a new life?" Miss Gautier's large grey eyes were meditatively fixed on the swaying tree tops, which were just bursting into bud. " It is so," I said surprisedly. As I spoke she turned and looked a little hardly at me, and said eagerly, " The new Bishop of Langbarton has been a good deal in Leeds lately, and he has completely turned my life about.

In the first place, he is not at all like a bishop. You could not fancy him, as Cardinal Newman mentions in one of his books, with a lady tucked under his arm. He is unlike all one's preconceived notions and knowledge of bishops. He is not severe. I don't know that he is cultured in one way. He is a great rough fellow. There is nothing pleasing about him save his sincerity; and remember, sincerity is only pleasing to the sincere. I don't know whether I 'm sincere. I hate mud and rough winds. Then with regard to theology, he blows such a trumpet, it 's grand — it shakes me ; but I cry meekly out ' Give me some starry flowers, some fragrance from art, and trans mute it into your theology.' But I would not say so — for perhaps, after all, I am a child catching at toys — though I don't know that I am, for all creative power partakes of the god-like."

" Religion does not alter the man," I said. " With regard to his natural gifts, they remain the same." Miss Gautier looked down and said, " Well the thing has formed itself into the present shape." SOAP 22 I laughed; "the thing" amused me. Certainly Miss Gautier's language was Teutonic. " I intend," she went on to say, " to hand over all the old family records to you. Miss Gautier will soon cease to be. I shall find myself on board a very noisy steam-packet for the rest of my days." She smiled whimsically. " Dr. Clarges is a very effective platform speaker. I see myself listening to him at one of those monster meetings at Exeter Hall. I see myself watching him shake his long beard and worry his subject. I shall be completely taken up, for I don't intend to emulate present-day ladies : I intend to be very much married, as poor dear Prebendary Fiddle used to playfully say when alluding to his own happiness- I feel somehow that my cherished and inward glorifications should go — pride of race, for instance.

When I listen to the Bishop, it looks disfigured, odd, ugly. I shall hold to the old coach and horses ; but this is all I shall hold to with tenacity. The book of poems written by Phillipe le Gautier in the reign of Queen Bess I shall transfer to you." Here she sighed, and looked downward at her negligently clasped hands, with taper fingers curling upwards, and rose-tinted palm. " That is to go too," I said. " Yes, that is to go too," she answered humor ously. She was thrown back in a deep amber velvet chair, facing the fire. She drew it yet a little nearer to the ridiculous milk-stool which, with my usual wretched awkwardness, I had ap- SOAP 23 propriated. She bent forward, and looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. Miss Gautier was in that state which may be called the diffusive. A touch of love maketh all men kin.

She commenced in yet lower and more dulcet tones to unburden her mind : " Theopholis, for many years I have seemed in different to you. In reality I have not been so. Petty considerations and small worldly ways have separated aunt and nephew. Now for the worldliness. Sum it up, concerning yourself, in one word 'soap.' Believe me," she added (and her lips drooped a little plaintively), " I flinch when I use it. " On arriving at the most remote stations our name greets me. Startling announcements, hideous placards. I assure you a Frenchman said -in my hearing the other day, when the Bishop and I were travelling to Rugby to'visit his sister, who is married to one of the masters there, ' Ver are we now, vat station ? Ah ! der it is,' pointing to a huge placard — " Gautier's Soap." Veil, dat is one droll name for a station !