The Heritage of Eve

Front matter

BY H. H. SPETTIGUE LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS CONTENTS CHAFTER PAGE I. LOVE OR ART ? - - - - - I II. LITERARY SHARKS - - - 15 III. A CORNISH CRŒSUS - - - - 26 IV. CLOTHO AT PLAY - - - "33 V. LE ROI s'AMUSE - - - 40 VI. UNE PRECIEUSE RIDICULE - - - 47 VII. WHICH SAPPHO ? - - - " 57 VIII. DOWN THE EASY SLOPE - - - - 68 IX. RENUNCIATION ----- 76 X. ART - - - - - - 88 XI. THE ' DELICATE LIFE ' - - - 98 XII. HEART OF OAK ----- 108 XIII. ' SAINT GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE !' - - 121 XIV. BALM OF GILEAD .... jjq XV. WHAT WILL SHE DO WITH IT? - - - I39 XVI. RECKONING WITHOUT YOUR HOST - - I47 XVII. THE SPIDER AND THE FLY - - - 160 XVIII. AT LAST! ----- j67 XIX. CONQUERING AND TO CONQUER - - - 175 XX. IN GROSVENOR GARDENS - - - 1 CONTENTS VI CHAPTER PAGE XXI. 'MISCHIEF STILL' ... - 192 XXII. DRIFTING ON AVERNUS - - - 197 XXIII.

CONFESSIONS OF FAITH - - - 204 XXIV. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER - - - 213 XXV. A MODERN DIONYSUS - - - - 222 XXVI. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER - - - 234 XXVII. ALWAYS ANOTHER ... - 24O XXVIII. THE LAST STATE OF THAT MAN - - 247 XXIX. NEITHER LOVE NOR ART ? - - - 255 XXX. HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN ! - - 262 XXXI. CURING BY INOCULATION - - - 272 XXXII. ' THE MALEDICTION OF EVE ' - - - 280 XXXIII. OUT OF DARKNESS ... - 289 XXXIV. ON REVIENT TOUJOURS _ SES PREMIERS AMOURS 300 XXXV. THE MISERABLES ... - 308 XXXVI. THE GREAT SOLUTION - - - 317 XXXVII. THE MINUET DE LA COUR - - - 325 XXXVIII. PARIS AND ŒNONE - - - . 336 XXXIX. LOVE ------ 348 XL. LOVE AND ART - - - 36 I THE HERITAGE OF EVE

Chapter I. Love Or

ART? To some she is the goddess great ; To some the milch cow of the field Their care is but to calculate What butter she will yield.' Schiller. About the middle of this rapidly-dying century an important discovery of tin was made on a piece of moorland lying between the Cornish mining town of Camryn and the fishing village of Penborne. Colossal fortunes had been made in connection with Cornish tin-mining, and a party of eager adventurers soon bought up mineral and all other rights necessary to make the speculation a ' going concern.' Captain Obadiah Johns, the mining luminary, surveyed the property, and pronounced favourably on the prospects of the undertaking. On this verdict, as if by magic, appeared an army of those who, being rich, wanted to be richer, or, being poor, wanted to be rich.

The wilderness, which before had been given up to the noxious henbane and weird horned poppy, was soon covered with rough cottages and the hideous structures which spring up above the honeycombing of the miner. In this general immigration arrived a German engineer named Storck, who hoped to find here employment for his talents, as well as leisure to pursue his study of Shakespeare, the one passion, so far, of his life. He was free from the thirst of gain which actuated those around him, and while the Williamses and Carlyons and other hardened speculators were lining their nests, he made small progress towards the competence and leisure which it was his desire to gain. However, he made friends among the more fortunate adven turers, and in the sister of one of them, Miss Jennifer Williams, he found the object of his second passion.

Miss Williams' father, a typical country doctor, now old and apoplectic, did not smile upon the suit. Late in life, and through no exertions of his own, he had seen his sons placed in positions which promised considerable influence in the county, and he was by no means disposed to bestow his only daughter on a penniless foreign adventurer. The course of true love, however, was smoothed in this case by an elder brother of Miss Williams, a middle-aged man with no particular interests in life, who had made a romantic marriage himself, having, while still a struggling medical student, won the heart of Margery Carlyon, daughter and heiress of the favourite of fortune who absolutely owned the celebrated South Pond property. The world, that part of it which lay within ten miles of Penborne and Camryn, prophesied that Mr. George Williams would pay dearly for his intervention on the lovers' behalf ; but when the bride was won Herr Storck peremptorily forbade any interference in her affairs by her family, preferring the bread and water of liberty to the richer fare of dependence.

Matters went well for the East Wheal Jemima Ann for some years after the engineer's marriage, and he began to think seriously of retiring on his means and producing the ? 3 treatise on ' Shakespeare's Influence on English Literature,' which was to be the crown of his life. But Providence had sent him four daughters to be provided for, and this fact kept him at the wheel, for Dr. Williams had never forgiven the misalliance, and at his death made no provision for his daughter, beyond bequeathing to her the picturesque old house in which he had lived. To keep his mind steadily fixed on his favourite topic, Herr Storck bestowed on the international infants the names of Shakespeare's heroines, Miranda, Bianca, Olivia, and Titania. Notwithstanding his peculiarities, the German was a very tender-hearted father.

The wife of Professor Arthur, at that time living at Camryn, relates how she was once riding along the country lanes with her husband in the very early spring, when they saw the much-talked-of engineer approaching. ' Now you can introduce me to the man of mind !' she exclaimed. Herr Storck, a small and inconspicuous-looking man, beamed a cordial welcome and raised his hat — a high one, such as every man wore at that time — with the foreigner's liberal politeness. In doing so he covered himself with a veritable shower of primroses. He gathered them up carefully, explaining that he had found them on a sunny bank, and was taking them home to the children, who would be delighted to have them so early in the season. On Mrs. Arthur's hint, he pinned his handkerchief round the lining of his hat, and rode off com placently, while she turned away, laughingly declaring that the only suggestion of mind was the absence of it.

It was a great grief to the German philosopher that his children were all girls. He craved for a son to inherit his tastes, profit by his researches, and make a grand figure in European literature. Woman's intellect he held in rather low estimation. In his difficulty he threw his ægis over a certain waif of the Carlyon family, an orphan boy whose father had been associated with him in the East Wheal I — Jemima Ann, where he had speedily won a considerable fortune, which, however, was even more speedily dissipated in kindred enterprises. That he might wrestle well, and overcome more than his enemies, his ambitious godfather selected the name of Orlando for the destined student. He would gladly have adopted his protege but for two reasons. One was that Orlando's Aunt Margery, from what she called a ' high sense of duty,' thought fit to bury family feuds and see after her ne'er-do-well brother's son herself.

The other was sadder still, namely, that in spite of his beautifully appropriate name, his training from the cradle, and all the influences which could be brought to bear on him, Orlando showed a distinct preference for blowing birds' eggs, flying kites, sailing boats, even winding worsted yarn or beating batter — any amusement or occupation, in short, rather than apply his youthful mind to Shakespearian study ; and it was an incontrovertible fact that his play-fellow, Titania, though she belonged to the weaker sex, displayed more appreciation of and aptitude in the pursuit of knowledge. The German's disappointment was short, however, for there occurred at the East Wheal Jemima Ann one of those terrible disasters which again and again paralyze mining industries. No one could ever tell the cause of the calamity, those who only could have thrown any light on the subject having fallen its victims.

When all seemed going on as usual, an explosion took place, killing instantaneously the engineer and three workmen employed in the engine-house. It was no doubt a coincidence, but from the day of the fatal accident nothing went well at the mine. The ore deteriorated, the vein ran differently from what had been expected, and depression fell on the spirits of both capitalists and miners. The army of workers vanished, and in two years' time the moor was once more given up to hen bane and poppy. Coarse spire grass fringed the edges of the shafts, moss grew over the hurdles around them, and the cottage walls fell down. Desolation reigned supreme again. The Storck family would probably have joined in the general exodus, but the scantiness of their means compelled them to live where the means of living were cheap, and Mrs. Storck dreaded leaving her own people.

Aunt Margery insisted on defraying all educational ex penses, which relieved the widow of her heaviest burden. ' The girls are worth fifty of Orlando,' the old lady remarked when matters came to be discussed ; ' and I say it, though he is my own flesh and blood.' ' There is no need to draw comparisons,' said her sister in-law, who resented with as much warmth as her gentle nature would allow any imputation on Orlando. ' That may be so, but I suppose I may think what I like. I hope I shall do my duty by all parties.' Nobody knew what Aunt Margery's means were, but she selected a very expensive school for her nieces, and started Orlando in what she considered a corresponding manner. Had it not been for Mrs. Storck's motherly love and the kindness of the girls, Orlando's holidays, first from school, and then from Peters' Mercantile Marine Inquiry Office, would have been ' dark days ' indeed.

He did not in the least resent his aunt's preference for her husband's relations — it was his misfortune, not their fault. ' It would alter the case if she really made one of the Storck girls an heiress,' some people remarked. 1 Orlando would probably find some means to cut that Gordian knot,' others replied. Before Mrs. Williams condescended to enliven the district with any solution of this problem, the Storck family rose into prominence by another sensation. Miranda married Mr. Pennant, the young and handsome owner of Pengeagle Hall and the fertile lands comprising the parish of St. Petifer the Less, an oasis bordered on the north by the deserted moorland, and stretching past the commons of Penborne to the sunny valley which ended in the little seaport of Eyelets. Left an orphan as a child, with no near friends to be interested in him, he had grown up in a kind of glorified isolation, which was a pillar of cloud to him, closing round him again and again, when he returned from school and college to his lonely home.

It was natural he should lightly estimate his advantages of position and birth, and little to be wondered at that he should fall deeply in love with the beautiful and charming daughter of his kind neighbour Mrs. Storck. 'What a mother!' said the world. 'You may depend upon it, those quiet, good-tempered people are always the deepest.' The world looked to see what other game this clever huntress would bring down, but year by year went by and neither of the others followed Mirry's brilliant example. Indeed, Mirry made no attempt at reigning as queen in society. She was as good-natured as ever, gave her surplus fruit and flowers to the poor, organized concerts for any necessitous charity, and asked the most humdrum people to stand sponsors to her children. Altogether the affair was anomalous.

The world decided that Bianca, Olivia, and Tita would not marry until Aunt Margery left them her money. One autumn day, after a sharp attack of bronchitis and a partial recovery, ' My good old lady catch'd a cold, and died.' Everybody was intensely surprised to find that so arbitrary and eccentric a woman had left every penny of her fortune to her husband, absolutely and unconditionally. ' It will be a sad blow to Orlando,' said Mrs. Lawrence, the wife of the overworked doctor, to her friend Mrs. Tangert, the wife of the underworked lawyer. ' As for the poor Storck girls, money may come too late for them. ? 7 Bianca and Olivia are getting old-maidish, and Tita quite strong-minded.' Strong-minded, in its accepted significance, was certainly a harsh word to use about the subject of this biography, Tita Storck ; but her best friends would not have claimed for her exemption from a certain severity of judgment, which was due much more to her principles than to her prejudices.

She was clever, but had seen nothing of the world ; she was twenty-four, and yet had known nothing of life. Her face was still a perfect mirror of her mind. There were no wrinkles on her forehead, no lines around her mouth. Her gray eyes had a perfectly neutral expression, and her mouth was generally firmly closed over her small teeth. In describing her, strangers generally used the word ' intelligent ' instead of 'clever ' about her expression. This was owing to the fact that there was something childish about her face and figure. She was rather less than the middle height, but looked a little taller than she was, being slight, and having singularly long arms and small hands and feet. Her hair was yellow, turned perfectly smoothly off her forehead and braided, be the fashion what it might, at the back of her head.

She spoke with a slight inequality of voice, which no one would have dreamt of calling either a stammer or a lisp, and yet partook in the least possible degree of both. Of the other two girls all that need now be said is that Bianca was vivacious and Olivia shrewd. They were all three rather weary of Penborne and its ways. ' I wish Mirry would take a little more trouble to make things pleasant for us,' exclaimed Olivia one day, after they had settled down again into the old grooves, from which they had been temporarily roused by the excitement of their aunt's illness and death. ' If Mirry had managed well when she was married, I don't doubt she might have known the Saint Aubyns and Trelawneys, and gone everywhere. Instead of which she knows nobody and goes nowhere. I really hardly see the use of having a sister well married, unless she makes an effort to help on the younger ones.* 'I do hope there is some way of getting through life without marrying,' said Bianca in reply. ' I think Mirry troubles herself quite enough about it as it is.

She said the other day she had misgivings as to whether she was doing her duty by us. " But then," she said, " something is sure to happen ji it is meant to. Bianca will never marry"— and I am sure I don't want to—" and there is Mr. Fotherin gay for Olivia — if Providence means them for one another, somebody will leave him some money or something — and if Tita doesn't marry Orlando she won't marry at all. I don't see what I can do." ' ' How like Mirry !' exclaimed Olivia. ' Are we to spend our lives waiting for something to happen ? What are you going to do, Tita ?' ' I mean to be a great writer,' said Tita promptly ; but down in her heart she was singing, ' Love and Art are both before me !' ' I don't wish to be discouraging, but it seems to me we have heard that tale before.' ' Well, I am sure I have written enough !

But I mean to succeed some day.' ' If you had only let Mr. Fowler put " As Frank as Fair " into his magazine, I dare say you would have received a few pounds for it.' ' I don't call that success,' said Tita contemptuously. ' One must begin somewhere, and you need not despise availing yourself of a helping hand. The fire will try your work after that.' ' But you have written stories and had them accepted by the first editor to whom you sent them, without any patronage. Why should I lick the dust ?' ' Because while I write what there is a demand for, you ? 9 write what is worth writing. I have no literary taste and no literary talent ; but I know what style of writing will be accepted by the second-rate magazines to which I am con tent to send my productions when I want an extra bonnet. I shall have used up my lords and ladies and garden-parties and sprained ankles before long, and then I shall have nothing left.

No critic ever mentions my stories, no pub lisher proposes that I shall write a novel. I am mediocre, and know it.' ' I would not commit my mediocrity to the world if I could.' ' Never fear ! you cannot be mediocre. You are too intensely conscious of the meaning of life ; you try to keep touch with the undercurrent of thoughts and feelings ; you must be earnest, real. I remember hearing you say one still summer day that you could hear the world's heart beat. It was half the conviction of the philosopher and half the fancy of the child. Some day you will grow out of your crudity, and then you will find that you are successful.' ' Before I have founded my school I have a devoted disciple. I wonder bolstering me up in a belief in myself does not wear you out. Sometimes I think it must be a superhuman effort.

I write poetry to fill some editor's waste-paper basket ; I write essays, they are returned with thanks ; I write stories, their fiction department is full ; I write novels, " They are well written, but would not pay " ; and still you say, " You will succeed " !' ' Remember Cowper did not write till middle age, and many of the successful writers who did begin young must have wished they had suppressed their " tu-whit, tu-whoo." ' ' But Longfellow, Chatterton, Kirke White, Byron — they all did well in their youth.' ' I shall only grant you Longfellow. Chatterton's life seems to me more valuable from an artistic point of view, for its tragedy than for anything he produced. Kirke White would probably never have written at all had he not been consumptive ; and you might never have heard of Byron but for the Scotch reviewers.' ' Am I to range myself with Longfellow, or poison my self, or go off in a consumption, or get laughed at by the critics, to achieve fame ?' ' Neither.

Wait till Uncle George leaves you his money, and then see something of the world.' ' Do you think he has very much money ? and do you think he will leave it to me ?' Bianca, who through the literary discussion had maintained a dignified indifference, looked up with astonishment at hearing such cold-blooded questions fall from Tita, who since Mrs. Williams' death had been a most devoted nurse to the ailing widower. ' The Carlyons made heaps of money out of the mines,' said Olivia. ' Perhaps fifty thousand pounds.' ' That would make an heiress of me,' said Tita slowly. ' I don't think it is fair of you to count on it like that,' said Bianca sharply. ■ She is Uncle George's favourite, and was Aunt Margery's. I think that gives her a sort of right to it,' said Olivia. ' I don't think so,' said Tita seriously. ' Remember, there are other Williamses, and Orlando, to whom the Carlyons' money certainly should go.' ' Aunt Margery never meant that,' said Olivia. ' What she meant makes no difference to the justice of the case.' ' I don't agree with you there,' said Bianca ; ' but I think uncle will leave his money — which I dare say is not half what people say— equally between the Camryn Williamses, Orlando, and ourselves.' ' That would leave Tita free to publish at her own cost, if she could get a publisher to do it for her.' ? 11 ' But I should not be an heiress ?' hazarded Tita. ' You are horribly mercenary,' said Bianca. ' Perhaps I am,' said Tita ; ' but I don't think it would do for me to trust to my " goddess great " to provide me with the necessaries of life.' ' Your " goddess great " might get on a little better in this world if she were a rather more humble-minded damsel.' ' She shall never stoop to conquer,' retorted Tita. ' I will write on till I produce something worth publishing for its own sake, or I will be " mute inglorious."

My greatest trouble is that I cannot always hear the world's heart throbs ; I cannot even keep control over the workings of my brain. There comes some interruption, and my ideas dis perse like the snowflakes before the December blast.' ' Keep your magnificent similes for your next romance,' said Bianca sarcastically. ' You may be ironical if you like,' said Tita patiently ; ' but it is as trying for me to have my ideas dispersed as if I were capable of writing " Kubla Khan " : ' "AU the charm Is broken — all the phantom-world so fair Vanishes." Say I am writing, " So Sir Guy, hearing a piercing shriek in the distance, spurs his fiery courser to the fray," when the door opens, and Selina says : " Any mack'rel wanted, please, miss ?" Do you suppose I can gallop straight on to the rescue ?' ' I don't see that it would matter much if you couldn't,' said Bianca dryly. ' Habit will help you to conquer the distraction which interruptions cause you,' said Olivia. ' I have another source of distraction,' said Tita, with one of her infrequent smiles. 'When I am lost in "maiden meditation," some velvet step will pass me, and a lowered voice will say, "Hush! don't disturb Titania."

Then I want to rush away and become part of the elements.' ' Would you rather mother hammered about the house as Aunt Margery used to do ?' asked Bianca, with the ready aptitude for taking up the cudgels in behalf of the absent which comes naturally to those whose instincts prompt them to belabour the present. ' No ; it is something in myself, and cannot be helped,' said Tita, who, knowing Bianca's real good nature, never became irritated under her sarcasms, but rather enjoyed her quips and cranks, as some people like snuff or cayenne pepper. ' Rubbish !' said Bianca. ' Why don't you write straight away, like Mr. William Black, and not go so deep that you get stuck in the mud at every turn ?' ' " Away up among the lochs a canoe was drifting idly upon the rising tide. Its owner, Johnnie Callendar, who should by this time have been on the return voyage to his night's resting-place, was lying at full length on his back in the heather on the bank above the creek.

The purple-green sky gradually darkened to a black red-blue, studded with eyes of lambent flame. The moon crept up in the east, like a cycle of phosphorus paint. The dew stole softly down. Presently the shrill cry of a curlew roused the young man from his reverie, and, starting up, he displayed the outlines of a son of Anak against the sky. He hurried down to the creek, but there was no sign of his canoe. With a sigh he resigned it to its fate, with its cargo of sandwiches and soda-water, and turned inland to make his way across the dreary marshes. Clouds dashed rapidly past the moon ; the wind was getting up. No pathway was to be descried, and he had to make his way guided entirely by the position of the stars, which were fast being obscured by the rising tempest. Splash, splash, through dark pools, now above his ankle, now above his knee.

Now he had to ? 13 plough his way through beds of iris, whose spiky leaves looked like bayonet - points in the uncertain light ; now through tangled masses of heather, which clung about his feet like matted sponge. At last the rain began to fall, and, drenched from head to foot, he could barely struggle forward towards a lambent flash of colour which had appeared in the distance. Was it a Will-o'-the-Wisp or a light from a farm lantern?"' Tita paused a moment in mischievous silence. ' There !' she exclaimed ; ' confess I can tell a straight-away story if I choose.' ' Mr. Black would never get his hero into such positive discomfort as that,' objected Olivia. ' He sees the necessity of pain, but his muse is a comfortable dame.' ' Ted Ives in " Kilmeny " walks without shoes,' said Tita. ' That was from choice,' said Olivia. ' Any way, Johnnie Callendar's adventures promised to be a good deal more interesting than what you generally write,' said Bianca. ' I don't think you know much about that,' said Olivia. ' I don't suppose you ever read ten pages of what Tita has written.' ' Oh yes, I have !

I remember reading a poem called "The Martyr," in which heretic was spelt with two " r's " and a "k."' ' I remember it, too. Tita was ten when she wrote that, and it proved that she could feel if she could not spell,' said Olivia loyally. ' The idea was nearly the same as that in the " Miracle of the Roses," but Tita saw other forms in the fire : ■ " Ye demons ! Though ye hide in crowds amid the sparkling flames, And laugh and mock the living God, See ye not the hosts of angels crowding In the white smoke ?" I think that is not to be despised as the effort of a child of ten, though how a child of ten could voluntarily keep such a vision of horror before her eyes for three pages of closely written verse I cannot imagine. She realized what she was writing, too, for do you remember she says : 1 " See the pearl drops on his brow !

His crown they are " ?' ' I don't remember those lines, but I remember she calls the priest who invites the " herretick " to recant "the devil's son," which seems to me rather narrow-minded, and I think the whole piece was suggested by Southey's " Miracle of the Roses." The line 1 " And praying, a soft cloudy hand sealed his lips for ever" sounds suspiciously familiar.' 'Ah, you can remember a line when you choose!' ex claimed Olivia, somewhat sharply ; ' but that idea, at any rate, cannot come from Southey. And none of it does, either,' she continued, warming beyond the consideration of grammar, ' for she could not have read the " Miracle of the Roses" before "The Martyr" was written, for we had no copy of Southey's works, and Tita's first acquaintance with it was made at school, when she found it in the " Thousand and One Gems." ' ' " Why don't you speak for yourself, John ?" ' said Bianca, turning to Tita. ' Because I don't think it is worth it,' said Tita quietly.

But in reality she vastly enjoyed this stir about her poor little poem, and in this susceptibility you had the vulnerable heel of this little adamantine Sappho. Olivia knew that she required this flattering unction to her soul, and her extra ordinary belief in her younger sister's ability never allowed her to stint it. Had it not been for this, the world might never have heard the name of Tita Storck.

Chapter II. Literary Sharks

' It is therefore vanity to seek after perishing riches. It is also vanity to seek honours.' — Thomas k Kempis. Penborne society, as defined by Olivia, consisted of the Tangerts and Lawrences ; Uncle George ; Mrs. Tyrwhit, widow of the late vicar ; Mrs. Storck ; six spinsters of varying ages and circumstances ; and Mrs. Peters, a recent recruit, to whom the door had been opened on account of the success and benevolence of her son, who, having left his native village a cabin-boy and worked his way up the rough ladder of life, found himself at fifty one of the largest ship-owners in the kingdom, able and willing to lend a helping hand to many a struggling Cornishman. The Rev. Septimus Randolph and his daughter classed themselves with the county families, and as there were no county families within walking distance, they postponed their visiting till circumstances should be more favourable.

The Pennants lived two miles out of the village, and, strictly speaking, did not belong to any society at all, and were quite content to devote themselves to their children and the home farm. For the first year or two of their married life they had been visited during the autumn by college friends of Mr. Pennant's ; but these had gradually dropped off, and now they could only count on the first of September bringing them Mr. Fotheringay, a clever though as yet briefless barrister, who we know, failing other more eligible suitors, was destined to rescue Olivia from the Moated Grange. With such surroundings had the Storck family grown up. For years they had been beating their wings against the cage. Bianca wanted to travel, Olivia wanted to get into society, and Tita wanted to earn her place in the equally imaginary paradise she called the literary world.