Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

'You, Mr. Feilding?' Effie cried, springing to her feet. 'Oh! This is, indeed – '

The great man took her hand. 'My dear child,' he said, 'I have been thinking over our conversation of the other day. I am, of course, only anxious to be of service to you and to your brother, and so I thought I would call.' He was quite magnificent in his fur-lined coat, and he was very tall and big, so that he seemed to fill up the whole room. But he had an unusual air of hesitation. 'I thought,' he repeated, 'that I would call. Yes – '

The girl sat with her hands in her lap, waiting.

'You remember what I told you about – the – the verses which you sometimes bring me – '

'Oh! Yes. I remember. It is so kind of you, Mr. Feilding, so very kind and noble – ' For the moment the dazzling prospect of seeing her verses acknowledged as her own in place of seeing them adopted by the Editor, made her believe that none but a truly noble person could do such a thing.

'I mean to begin even sooner than I had intended. It is true that when I took your verses I made them my own by those little touches and corrections which, as you know very well, distinguish true poetry from its imitation' – It was not until he was gone that Effie remembered that not a single alteration had ever been made. So great is the power of the human voice that for the moment she listened and acquiesced, subdued and ashamed of herself – 'At last, my young friend, the time for alteration and improvement is past. You can now stand alone – your verses signed – if, of course, we remain, as I hope, on the same friendly relations.'

'Oh!' she murmured.

'Enough. We understand each other. Your brother, you told me, is at work on a play – a romantic drama.'

'Yes. He has finished it. He has been at work upon it for two years, thinking of nothing else all day.'

Mr. Feilding nodded approval.

'That is the way,' he said heartily, 'to produce good work. Perfect – absolute – devotion – regardless of any earthly consideration. Art – Art – before all else. And now it is done?'

'Yes; he is copying it out.'

'Effie' – he suddenly changed the subject – 'you have never told me of your resources. Tell me! I do not ask out of idle curiosity. That you are not rich I know – '

'No, we are not rich. We have a little – a thousand pounds apiece – and we have resolved to live on that, and on what we can get besides, until we have made our way. We have no rich relations to help us. My father is a country clergyman with a small living. We came to town so that Archie could get treatment for his hip. He is better now, and we shall stay altogether if we can only hold on.'

'A thousand pounds each. That is seventy pounds a year, I suppose?'

'Yes. But during the last twelve months you have given me a hundred pounds for my verses – three pounds for every poem, and there were thirty-three altogether in the volume – "Voices and Echoes," you know.'

The poet who had published these verses did not change colour or show any sign of emotion in the presence of the poet who had written them. He nodded his head. 'Yes,' he said, 'on a hundred and seventy pounds a year you can live – on seventy you would starve. Where is your brother?'

'He works in his bedroom. It is the room behind, on the same floor. My room is upstairs.'

'He requires, I suppose, good food, wine, and certain luxuries?'

'When we can afford them. Since you took my verses we have been able to buy things.'

'Your money is well expended. I should like to see your brother, Effie.'

'I will take you to him,' she said. But she hesitated and blushed. 'Oh! Mr. Feilding, Archie knows nothing about the – the volumes, you know! He sees only the verses in the paper. And he only knows that you have been so kind as to take them. Don't tell him anything else.'

'Your secret, Effie,' he replied generously, 'is safe with me. He shall not know it from my lips.'

She thanked him. Again, it was not until he was gone that Effie remembered that he could not possibly reveal that fact to her brother.

She led him into the room, at the back of which was her brother's study and bedroom as well.

Her brother might have been herself, save for a slight manly growth upon the upper lip, and for the pale cheek of ill health. The same large forehead overhanging the face, eyes sunken but as bright as his sister's, the same sensitive lips were his. A finer face than his sister's, and stronger, but not so sweet. Beside his chair a pair of crutches proclaimed that he was a cripple. Before him was a table, at which he was writing. There were on the table, besides his writing materials, a number of little dolls, some of which were arranged in groups, while others were lying about unused. He was copying his finished play: as he copied it he played the scenes with the dolls and spoke the dialogue. The dolls were his characters: there was not a single scene or change of the grouping which this conscientious young dramatist had not rehearsed over and over again, until every line of the dialogue had its own stage picture, clear and distinct in his mind.

'You are Mr. Feilding?' he asked, rising with some difficulty. 'I have heard so much of you from Effie. It is a great honour to have a call from you.'

'I take a deep interest,' the great man replied, 'in anything that concerns Miss Effie Wilmot. I have been able – I believe you know – to give her some assistance and advice in her work. Oh!' – he waved his hand to deprecate any expressions of gratitude – 'I have done very little – very little indeed. Now, about yourself. I learn from your sister that you have ambitions – you would become a dramatist?'

'I have no other ambition. It is my only dream.'

'A very good dream indeed. And you have made, I am told, a start – a maiden effort – a preliminary flight to try your wings. You have written your first attempt at a play?'

'Yes. It is here. It is finished.'

'Tell me, briefly, the plot.'

Some young dramatists mar their plot in getting it out. This young man had taken the trouble to write out first a rough outline of his piece and next a complete scenario with every situation detailed. These he read to his visitor one after the other.

'Yes,' said Mr. Feilding, when he had finished; 'there is something in the idea of the play. Perhaps not a completely novel motif. A good deal might be said as to the arrangement of the scenes. And one or two of the characters might – but these are details. Remains to find out how the dialogue goes. Will you read me a scene or two?'

The dramatist read. As he read he might have observed in the eyes of his listener a growing eagerness, as of one who vehemently yearns to get possession of something – his neighbour's vineyard, for example, or his solitary ewe lamb. But the reader did not observe this. He was wholly wrapped in his piece: he threw his soul into the reading: he was anxious only that his words and his situations should produce the best effect upon his hearer.

'Yes, yes; your dialogue, unhappily, shows the want of skill common to the beginner,' said Mr. Feilding, when he had finished. 'It will have to be completely rewritten. As it stands now, the play would be simply killed by it, in spite of the situations, which, with some alterations, are really pretty good – pretty good for a first effort.'

'You don't think, then – that – ' the dramatist's voice broke down. Consider: for two long years he had done nothing but cast, recast, write, rewrite this play. He had dreamed all this time of success with this play. And now – now – the very first critic – and that the most accomplished man of the day – no less than Mr. Alec Feilding – told him that the play would not be received unless the dialogue was entirely rewritten. He could not rewrite the dialogue. It was a part of himself. As well ask him to remake his own face or to reconstruct his legs. His face fell: his cheeks grew pale: his eyes filled with unmanly tears.

'I am truly sorry, believe me,' said the critic, 'to throw cold water on your hopes. I have been myself an aspirant. Yet' – he hesitated in his kindliness – 'why encourage illusive expectations? The play as it is – I say, as it is only – must be pronounced totally unfit for the stage. No manager would think of it for a moment.'

'Then I may as well throw it on the fire? And all my work wasted!'

'Nay – not wasted. Good work – true work – is never wasted. You ought to have learned much – very much – from this two years' labour. And, as for putting it into the fire' – he laughed genially – 'I believe I can show you a better way than that. Look here, Archie – I call you by your Christian name because I have so often talked about you: we are old friends – I should be really sorry to think that you had actually lost all your time. Give me this play: I will take it – skeleton, scenario, dialogue – all, just as it is – the mere rough, crude, shapeless thing that it is. I will buy it of you – useless as it is. I will give you fifty pounds down for it, and it shall become my property – my own, absolutely. I shall then, perhaps, recast and rewrite the play from beginning to end. When I have made a play out of it worth putting on the stage – when, in short, I have made it my own play – I may possibly bring it out – possibly. Most likely, however, not. There's a chance for you, Archie, such as you will never get again! Fifty pounds down – think of that! Fifty pounds!'

The dramatist laid his hand, for reply, upon his papers.

'If it should ever be brought out,' this good Samaritan went on, 'you will come and see it acted. What a splendid lesson it will be for you in the art of writing drama!'

The dramatist's fingers tightened on his manuscript.

'Of course you must consider your sister,' the considerate critic continued. 'She has been able to make a few pounds of late, having been so fortunate as to attract the interest of… one who is not wholly without influence. Should that interest fail or be withdrawn you might have – both of you – to suffer much privation. The luxuries which you now enjoy would be impossible – and – '

'Oh, you kill me!' cried the unfortunate youth.

'Shall I leave you for the present? My offer is always open – on the condition of secrecy – one is bound to keep business transactions secret. I will leave you now. There is no hurry. Think it over carefully and send me an answer.'

He went out and shut the door. The young dramatist, I am ashamed to say, fell to tears and weeping over the destruction of his hopes.

'Effie,' said Mr. Feilding, 'I have talked with your brother. He has read some of the play to me – '

'And you think?' she asked him eagerly.

He shook his head mournfully. 'The boy has much to learn – very much. Meantime, the play itself is worthless – quite worthless.'

'Oh! Poor boy! And he has built so much upon it.'

'Yes – they all do at the outset. Mind, Effie, he is a clever boy: he will do. Meantime, he must study.'

'Oh! Poor Archie! Poor boy!'

'It seems hard, doesn't it, not to succeed all at once? Yet Browning and Tennyson and Thackeray were all well on for forty before they succeeded. Why should he despair? Meantime I have made him a little offer.'

'Oh! Mr. Feilding, you are always so good.'

'I have offered to give him fifty pounds – down – and to take this rough unlicked thing he calls a Play. If I find time I shall, perhaps, rewrite the whole, and put it on the stage. It will then, of course, be my own – my own, Effie. Good-bye, child. I have not forgotten our talk – or my promise – if we remain on friendly relations.'

He went away. Effie sank into a chair. What she had done with her own work had never seemed to her half so terrible as what was now proposed to be done with her brother's work.

She crept into his room. He sat with his head in his hands, most mournful of bards since the world began.

'Archie, I know – I know; he has told me. Oh! Archie – do you think it is true?'

'He says so, Effie. He says it is worthless.'

'Yet he will give you fifty pounds.'

'That is to please you – for your sake. The thing is worthless – no manager would look at it.'

'Yet – fifty pounds! Why should Mr. Feilding give fifty pounds – a whole fifty pounds – for a worthless play? Archie, don't do it – don't let him have it; wait a little – we will ask somebody else. Oh! I could tell you something. Wait – tell him, if you must say anything, that you will think it over.'

When Effie turned over the pages of the next number of The Muses Nine, she found, first of all, her own verses in the Editor's column with his name at the bottom. This sight, which had formerly made her so proud, now filled her with shame. The generous promise of the future failed to awaken in her any glow of hope. For the very words with which her only editor had beguiled her of her verses – the plea that they were worthless, and must be rewritten – he had used to her brother. And as her poems had never been rewritten, so would Archie's play, she felt sure, be presented without a single alteration, with the name of Mr. Alec Feilding as author. That week she took no verses to the studio-study.

And a certain paragraph in the same columns perused by this suspicious young woman brought rage – nothing short of rage – into her heart. No! not her brother, as well as herself! It ran thus: 'I have always been under the impression that the dearth of good plays is due to nothing else in the world than the fact that the good men who ought to be writing them all run off into the domain of fiction. It is a pleasant country – that of Fable Land. I have been there, and I hope to go there again and make a long stay. But Play Land – that is also a pleasant country. I have been there lately, and I hope to demonstrate that a good play may still be produced in the English tongue – a good and original play. In short, I have written a romantic drama, of which all I can say at present is that it lies finished, in my fireproof safe, and that a certain actor-manager will probably play the title-rôle before many moons have waxed and waned.'

'No,' said Effie, crumpling up the paper. 'You have not got Archie's romantic drama yet.'

CHAPTER VIII

ALL ABOUT MYSELF

'You have kept this promise, then.' Armorel welcomed her old friend with eyes of kindness and lips of smiles. 'Do you ever think of the promise that you broke? Effie, dear' – this young lady was the only other occupant of the room – 'this is Mr. Roland Lee – my first friend and my first master. He knew me long ago, in Samson, in the days of which I have told you. We have memories of our own – memories such as make the old friendships impossible to be dissolved – whatever happens. Roland, you first put a pencil into my hand and taught me how to use it. In return, I used to play old-fashioned tunes in the evening. And you first put thoughts into my head. Before you came my head was filled with phantoms, which had neither voice nor shape. What am I to do now in return for such a gift?' She gave him both her hands, and her face was so glowing, her eyes so soft yet serious withal, her voice so full of tenderness – that the luckless painter stood confused and overwhelmed. How had he deserved such a reception?

'This evening,' she went on, 'we are going to talk about nobody but myself, and about nothing but my own affairs. Effie, you will be horribly bored. It is five years since I had such a chance. Because, my dear, though you have the best will in the world, and would talk to me about old times if you could, you did not know me when I lived on Samson in the Scilly Islands – and Roland did. That is, if he still remembers Samson.'

'I remember every day on Samson: every blade of grass on the island: every boulder and every crag.'

'And every talk we had in those days? – all the things you told me?'

'I remember, as well, a girl who has so changed, so grown – '

'So much the better. Then we can talk just as we used to do. I thought you would somehow remember the girl, Roland.' She looked up again, smiling. Then she hesitated, and went on slowly: 'Yet I was afraid, this morning, that you might have forgotten one of the two who wandered about the island together.'

'I could never forget you, Armorel.'

'I meant – the other – Roland.'

He made no reply. In his evening dress – which was full of creases, as if it had not been put on for a very long time – he looked a little less forlorn than in the shabby old brown-velvet jacket; he had brushed his hair – nay, he had even had it cut and trimmed: but there still hung about him the look of waste: his eyes were melancholy: his bearing was dejected: he spoke with hesitation: he was even shy, like a schoolboy. Effie noted these things, and wondered. And she observed, besides, not only that his coat was creased, but that his shirt was frayed at the cuffs, and torn in the front. In fact, the young man, in dropping out of society, had, as a natural consequence, neglected his wardrobe and allowed his linen to run to seed unrebuked. Every man who has been a bachelor – most of us have – remembers how shirts behave when the eye of the master is once taken off them.

He was shy because the atmosphere of the drawing-room, so dainty, so luxurious, so womanly, was strange to him. Three years and more had passed since he had been in such a room. He was also shy because this splendid creature, this girl dressed in silk and lovely lace, this miracle of girls, called herself Armorel, his once simple rustic maid of Samson Isle. Further, he was ashamed because this girl remembered him as he was in the good old days, when his face was turned to the summit of the mountain and his feet were on the upward slope.

Armorel had placed on the table a portfolio full of drawings.

'Now for myself,' she said, gaily. 'Roland, you are an artist. You must look at my drawings. Here are the best I have done. I have had many masters since you, but none that taught me so much in so short a time. Do you remember when you first found out that I could hold a pencil? You were very patient then, Master. Be lenient now.'

'I had a very apt pupil,' he began, turning over the drawings. 'These need no leniency. These are very good indeed. You have had other and better masters.'

'I have had other masters, it is true. I have done my best, Roland – to grow.'

He dropped his eyes. But he continued to turn over the sketches. The drawings showed, at least, that natural aptitude which may be genius and may be that imitation of genius which is difficult to distinguish from the real gift. Many painters with no more natural aptitude than Armorel have risen to be Royal Academicians.

'But these are very good indeed,' Roland repeated, with emphasis. 'You have, indeed, worked well, and you have the true feeling.'

'Do you remember, Roland, that day when we talked about the Perfect Woman? No, I see by your eyes that you have forgotten. But I remember. I will not tell you all. One thing she had done: she had trained her eye and her hand. She knew what was good in Art, and was not carried away by any follies or fashions. I did not understand then what you meant by follies and fashions. But I am wiser now. I have been training eye and hand. I think I know a good picture, or a good statue, or a good work in any Art. Do not think me conceited, Master. I have been obedient to your instructions – that is all.'

'You have the soul of an artist, Armorel,' said her Master. 'But yet – I fear – I think – you have missed the supreme gift. You are not a great artist.'

'No, I can grow no higher in painting. I have learned my own limitations. If it is only to understand and to worship the Great Masters it is worth while to get so far. Are you satisfied with your pupil?'

For a moment the old look came back to Roland's eyes. 'You are the best of pupils,' he said. 'But I might have expected so much. Tell me how you succeeded in getting away from Samson?'

She told him, briefly, how the Ancient Lady died, how she found the family treasure, and how she had resolved to go away and learn: how she found masters and guardians: how she lived in Florence, Dresden, Paris: how she worked unceasingly. 'I remembered, always, Roland, your picture of the Perfect Woman.'

'Could I – I – have told you things that have made you – what you are?' It seemed as if another man had given the girl this excellent advice. Not himself – quite another man.

'Effie, dear,' Armorel turned to her, 'you do not understand. I must tell you. Five years ago, when I lived on Samson, a girl so ignorant that it makes me tremble to think what might have happened – there came to the island a young gentleman who was so kind as to take this ignorant girl – me – in hand, and to fill her empty head with all kinds of great and noble thoughts. He was an artist by profession. Oh! an artist filled with ardour and with ambition. He would be satisfied with nothing short of the best: he taught me that none of us ought to be satisfied till we have attained our full stature, and grown as tall as we possibly can. It made that ignorant girl's heart glow only to hear him talk, because she had never heard such talk before. Then he left her, and came back no more. But presently the chance came to this girl, as you have heard, and she was able to leave the island and go where she could find masters and teachers. It is five years ago. And always, every day, Roland' – her lip quivered – 'I have said to myself, "My first master is growing taller – taller – taller – every day – I must grow as tall as I can, or else when I meet him again I shall be too insignificant for him to notice." Always I have thought how I should meet him again. So tall, so great, so wonderful!'

Effie remarked that while Armorel addressed Roland she did not look at him until the last words, when she turned and faced him with eyes running over. The man's head dropped: his fingers played with the drawings: he made no reply.

'In the evening,' Armorel went on, 'we used to have music. I played only the old-fashioned tunes then that Justinian Tryeth taught me – do you remember the tunes, Roland? I will play one for you again.' She took a violin out of the case and began to tune the strings. 'This is my old fiddle. It has been Justinian's – and his father's before him. I have had other instruments since then, but I love the old fiddle best.' She drew her bow across the strings. 'I can play much better now, Roland. And I have much better music; but I will play only the old tunes, because I want you to remember quite clearly those two who walked and talked and sailed together. It is so easy for you to forget that young man. But I remember him very well indeed.' She drew the bow across the strings again. 'Now we are in the old room, while the old people are sitting round the fire. Effie, dear, put the shade over the lamp and turn it low – so – now we are all sitting in the firelight, just as it used to be on Samson – see the red light dancing about the walls. It fills your eyes and makes them glow, Roland. Oh! we are back again. What are you thinking of, artist, while the music falls upon your ears? – while I play – what shall I play? "Dissembling Love," which others call "The Lost Heart"?' She played it with the old spirit, but far more than the old delicacy and feeling. 'You remember that, Roland? Do you hear the lapping of the waves in Porth Bay and the breakers over Shark Point? Or is it too rustic a ditty? I will play you something better, but still the old tunes.' She played first 'Prince Rupert's March,' and then 'The Saraband' – great and lofty airs to one who can play them greatly. While she played Effie watched. In Armorel's eyes she read a purpose. This was no mere play. The man she called her master listened, sitting at the table, the sketches spread out before him, ill at ease, and as one in a troubled dream.

'Do you see him again, that young man?' Armorel asked. 'It makes one happy only to think of such a young man. He knew the dangers before him. "The Way of Wealth," he said once, "and the Way of Pleasure draw men as if with ropes." But he was so strong and steadfast. Nothing would turn him from his way. Not Pleasure, not Wealth, not anything mean or low. There was never any young man so noble. Oh! Do you remember him, Roland? Tell me – tell me – do you remember him?'

Over the pictures on the table he bowed his head. But he made no reply. Then Effie, watching the glittering tears in Armorel's eyes and the bowed head of the man, stole softly out of the room and closed the door.