Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

CHAPTER XIII

THE DRAMATIST

If Mrs. Elstree was Armorel's official and authorised companion, her private unpaid companion was Effie Wilmot. The official companion was resident in the chambers, and was seen with her charge at the theatres and concerts. The private unpaid companion went about with her all day long, sat with her in her own room, knew what she thought, and talked with her of the things she loved to discuss. So that, though the representative of Order and Propriety had less to do, the unpaid attachée had a much more lively time. Fortunately, the official companion was best pleased when there was nothing to do. In those days, when London was as yet an unknown land to both of them, the girls went together to see things. Nobody knows what a great quantity of things there are to see in London when you once set yourself seriously to explore this great unknown continent. Captain Magalhaens himself, crossing the Pacific Ocean for the first time, did not experience a more interesting and exciting time than these two girls in their walks in and about the great town, new to both. They were as ravenous as American tourists beginning their European round. And, like them, they consulted their Baedeker, their Hare, and their Peter Cunningham. Pictures there are, all in the West-End; museums, with every kind of treasure; historic houses – alas! not many; libraries; art galleries of all kinds; cathedrals, churches, ancient and modern; old streets, whose paving-stones are inscribed in the closest print with the most wonderful recollections; old sites, broken fragments, even. Every morning the two girls wandered forth, sometimes not coming home until late in the afternoon. Then Effie went back to her lodging, and spent the evening working at her verses; while Armorel practised her violin, or read and dreamed away the time opposite her companion, who sat for the most part in silence, gazing into the firelight, lying back in her easy-chair beside the fire.

These ramblings belong to another book – the Book of the Things Left Out. I could show you, dear reader, many curious and interesting places visited by these two pilgrims, but one must not in this place write these down, because Armorel's story is not Armorel's history. Let us always be careful to distinguish. Besides, the events which have to be related destroyed, as you will see, the calm and tranquillity necessary for the proper enjoyment of such ramblings. First, this discovery concerning the pictures. Who can visit old churches and museums with a mind full of wrath and bitterness? So wrathful was Armorel in considering the impudence of the fraud she had discovered: so bitter was she in considering the cowardice of her old hero: that she even failed to observe the unmistakable signs of trouble which at this time showed themselves in her friend's face. If not a beautiful face, it was expressive. When the projecting forehead showed a thick black line: when the deep-set eyes were ringed with dark circles: when the pale cheeks grew paler and more hollow: and when the girl, who was generally so bright and animated, became silent and distraite, something was wrong.

'What is it, Effie?' Armorel asked, waking up. 'I have asked you three questions, and have received no answer. And you are looking ill. Has anything gone wrong?'

'Oh!' cried Effie, 'it is horrid! You are in troubles of your own, and you want me to add to them by telling you about mine.'

'I am in trouble, dear. And it makes me selfish and blind. You know partly what it is about. It is about the Life that has gone wrong. I have found out why and how. But I can never tell you or anybody. Never mind. Tell me about yourself.'

'It is more about my brother than myself. You know that Archie has been writing a play?'

'Yes. You write verses which you have never shown me; and your brother writes plays. I shall see both some day, perhaps.'

'Whenever you like. But Archie has now finished his play.'

'Yes?'

'That means to him more than I can possibly tell you. He has been living for that play, and for nothing else. It has filled his brain day and night. Never was so much trouble given to a play before, I am sure. It is himself.'

'I understand.'

'Well – then – you will understand also what he feels when he has been told that his play is utterly worthless.'

'Who told him that?'

'A great authority – a writer of great reputation – the only living writer whom we have ever known.'

'Well – but – Effie, if a great authority says this, it is frightful.'

'It would be, but for one thing, which you shall hear afterwards. However, he did confess that some of the situations were fine. But the dialogue, he said, was unfitted for the stage, and no manager would so much as look at the play.'

'Poor Archie! What a dreadful blow! What does he say?'

'He is utterly cast down. He sits at home and broods. Sometimes he swears that he will tear up the thing and throw it into the fire; sometimes he recovers a little of his old confidence in it. He will not eat anything, and he does not sleep; and I can find nothing to say that will comfort him. If I knew anyone who would give him another opinion – the play cannot be so bad. Armorel, will you read the play?'

'But, my dear, I am no critic. What would be the good of my reading it?'

'I would rather have your criticism than' – she hesitated – 'than anybody's. Because you can feel – and you have the artist's soul; and everybody has not – though he may paint such beautiful pictures,' she added rather obscurely.

'Well, I will read the play, or hear him read it, if you think it will do him any good, Effie. I will go with you at once.'

'Oh! will you, really? Archie will be shy at first. The last criticism caused him so much agony that he dreads another. But yours will be sympathetic, at least. You will understand what he meant, even if he has not succeeded – poor boy! – in putting on the stage what was in his heart. When he sees that you do feel for him, it will be different. Oh! Armorel!' – the tears rose to her eyes – 'you cannot know what that play has been to both of us. We have talked over every situation: we have rehearsed all the dialogue. I know it by heart, I think. I could recite the whole of it, straight through. We have cried over it, and laughed over it. I have dressed dolls for all the parts, and one of us made them act while the other read the play. And, after all, to be told that it is worthless! Oh! It is a shame! It is a shame! And it isn't worthless. It is a great, a beautiful play. It is full of tenderness, and of strength as well.'

'Let us go at once, Effie.'

'What a good thing it was for me that the Head of the Reading Room sent me to you! I little thought I was going to make such a friend' – she took Armorel's hand – 'We had no friends – yes, there was one, but he is no true friend. We have had no friends at all, and we thought to make our way without any.'

'You came to London to conquer the world – such a great giant of a world – you and your brother, Jack the Giant Killer.'

'Ah! But we had read, somewhere, that the world is a good-natured giant. He only asks to be amused. If you make him laugh or cry, and forget, somehow, his own troubles – the world is full of troubles – he will give in at once. Archie was going to make him laugh and cry; I was going to tickle him with pretty rhymes. But you may play for him, act for him, dance for him, paint for him, sing for him, make stories for him – anything that you will, and he will be subdued. That is what we read, and we kept on repeating this assurance to each other, but as yet we have not got very far. The great difficulty seems to make him look at you and listen to you.'

'My dear, you shall succeed.'

The young dramatist was sitting at his table, as melancholy as Keats might have been after the Quarterly Review's belabouring. He looked wretched: there was no pretence at anything else: it was unmitigated wretchedness. Despair sat upon his countenance, visible for all to see: his hair had not apparently been brushed, nor his collar changed, since the misery began: he seemed to have gone to bed in his clothes. Trouble does thus affect many men. It attacks even their clothes as well as their hair and their minds. The manuscript was lying on the table before him, but the pen was dry: he had no longer any heart to correct the worthless thing. It was the hour of his deepest dejection. The day before he had plucked up a little courage: perhaps the critic was wrong: to-day all was blackness.

'Here is Armorel, Archie!' cried Effie, with the assumption of cheerfulness.

'I have come to ask a favour,' said Armorel, taking the hand that was mechanically extended. 'I hear that your play is finished, and I am told that it is a beautiful play.'

'No – it isn't,' said the author.

'And that an unkind critic has said horrid and unkind things about it. And I want to read it, if I may. Oh! I am not a great critic, but, indeed, Archie, I have some feeling for Art and for things beautiful. May I read it?'

'The play is perfectly worthless,' he replied sternly, but with signs of softening. 'It is only waste of time to read it. Better throw it behind the fire!' He seized the manuscript as he spoke, but he did not throw it behind the fire.

'Is your critic a dramatist?'

'No. He has never written a play that I know of. But he is a great authority. Everybody would acknowledge that.'

'A critic who has never written a play may very easily make mistakes,' said Armorel. 'You have only to read the critiques of pictures in the papers written by men who cannot paint. They are full of mistakes.'

'This man would not make a mistake, would he, Effie?'

'Well, dear, I think he might, and besides, remember what he said at the conclusion.' Armorel sat down. 'Now,' she said, 'tell me first what the play is about, and then read it, or let Effie read it. I am sure she will read it a great deal better than you.'

He hesitated. He was ashamed to show his miserable work to a second critic. And yet he longed to have another opinion, because, when he came to think about it, he could not understand why the thing could be called worthless.

He yielded. He read, with faltering accents, the scenario which he had prepared with so much pride. Now it was like unrolling a canvas daubed for the scenery of Richardson's Show. He took no more pride in it.

'Oh!' cried Armorel, interrupting. 'This seems to me a very fine situation.'

'My critic said that some of the situations were fine.'

He went on to the end without further interruption.

'Now, Effie,' said Armorel, 'you will read it aloud while your brother plays it with his dolls. Then I am sure to catch the points.'

Archie sat up, and began to place his dolls while Effie read. He was so expert in manipulating his puppets that he made them actually represent the piece, changing the groups every moment, while Effie, dropping the manuscript, folded her arms and recited the play, watching Armorel's face.

This was quite another kind of critic. It was such a critic as the playwright loves when he sits in his box and watches the people in the house – a face which is easily moved to laughter or to tears, which catches the points and feels the story. There are thousands of such faces in every theatre every night. It is for them that the play is written, and not for the critic, who comes to show his superiority by picking out faults and watching for slips. For two hours, not pausing for the division of the acts, Effie went on, her soft voice rising and falling, the passion indicated but repressed; and Archie watched, and moved his groups, and the audience of one sat motionless but not unmoved.

'What?' she cried, springing to her feet and clasping her hands. It is easy for this fine gesture to become theatrical and unreal, but Armorel was never unreal. 'He dared to call this splendid play – this glorious play – oh, this beautiful, sweet, and noble play!' – here Archie's eyes began to fill, and his lips to quiver: he was but a young dramatist, and of praise he had as yet had none – 'he dared to call this worthless?'

'He said it was utterly worthless,' said Effie.

'He said,' Archie added, 'that the language was wholly unfitted for the stage. And then – then – after he'd said that, he offered to give me fifty pounds for it.'

'Fifty pounds for a play quite worthless?'

'On the condition that he was to bring it out himself if he pleased, under his own name.'

'Oh! but this is monstrous! Can there be,' asked Armorel, thinking of the pictures, 'two such men in London?'

'If I would let him call it his own! He wants to take my play – mine – to do what he likes with it – to bring it out as if it was his own! Never! Never! I would rather starve first.'

'What did you tell him?'

'He said that he would wait for an answer. I have sent him none as yet.'

'When you do,' said Armorel, 'let there be no hesitation or possibility of mistaking. Oh! If I could tell you a thing that I know!'

'I will put it quite plainly. Effie, am I the same man? I feel transformed. What a difference it makes only to think that, perhaps, after all one is not such a dreadful failure!' In fact, he looked transformed. The trouble had gone out of him – out of his face – out of his hair – out of his clothes – out of his attitude. Armorel even fancied that his limp, day-before-yesterday's collar had become white and starched again. That may have been mere fancy, but joy certainly produces very strange effects.

'I would have sent an answer before,' he said, 'but it is so unlucky for Effie. This great man – this critic – is the only editor who would ever take her verses. And now, of course, he will be offended, and will never take any more.'

'He shall not have any more,' said Effie, with red cheeks.

'Oh! But that would be horribly mean. Well, Archie, I will begin by taking advice. I know a dramatic critic – his name is Stephenson. I will ask him what you should do next, and I will ask him about your verses, Effie, too – those verses which you are always going to show me.'

'I tell her,' said her brother, 'that she will easily find another editor. You would say so too, if you were to see her verses. I am always telling her she ought to show them to you.'

The poet blushed. 'Some day, perhaps, when I am very courageous.'

'No – to-day.' Archie opened a drawer and took out a manuscript book bound in limp brown leather. 'I will read you one,' he said.

'Of course, you will say kind things,' said the poet. 'But you cannot deceive me, Armorel. I shall tell by your eyes and by your face if you really like my rhymes.'

'Well, I will read one, and I will lend you the volume, and then you will see whether Effie hasn't got her gifts as well as anybody else.'

He turned over the pages, selected a poem, and read it. The lines showed, first of all, the command that comes of long and constant practice; and next, they were sweet, simple, and pure in tone.

'Strange!' said Armorel. 'I seem to have heard something like them before – a phrase, perhaps. Where did I read only the other day?.. Never mind. But, Effie, this is not ordinary girl's verse.'

'Oh! you really like it?'

'Of course I like it. But it is so strange – I seemed to know the style. May I borrow the whole volume? I will be very careful with it. Thank you. I will carry it home with me. And now – I have thought of a plan. Listen, Archie. You know that many young dramatists bring out their pieces first at a matinée. Now, suppose that you read your piece, Archie, in my rooms in the evening. Should you like to do so?'

'I read badly,' he said. 'Could Effie read or recite it?'

'The very thing. Bring your dolls along and arrange your groups, while Effie recites. You will do that, Effie?'

'I will do anything that will help Archie.'

'Very well, then. We will get an evening fixed as soon as possible. I fear we shall have to wait a week at least. I will get my dramatic critic and a few more people, and we will have a private performance of our own. And then we shall defy this critic who said the piece was worthless – and then wanted to buy it and to bring it out as his own. I could not have believed,' she added, 'that there were two such impudent pretenders and liars to be found in the whole of London.'

'Two?' asked Ellie, changing colour. 'There can be only one.'

CHAPTER XIV

AN HONOURABLE PROPOSAL

At the same time Mr. Alec Feilding, whose ears ought to have been burning, was engaged in a serious conversation in his own studio with Armorel's companion. The conversation took the form of reproach. 'I expected,' he said – 'I had a right to expect – greater devotion – more attention to business. It was not for play that you undertook the charge of this girl. How long have you been with her? Three months? And no more influence with her than when you began.'

'Not a bit more,' Mrs. Elstree replied. She had of course taken the most comfortable chair by the fire. 'Not a bit, my dear Alec. What is more, I never shall have any influence over her. A society girl I could manage. I know what she wants, and how she looks at things. With such a girl as Armorel I am powerless.'

'She is a woman, I suppose.' He occupied a commanding position on his own hearthrug, towering above his visitor, but yet he did not command her.

'Therefore, you think, open to flattery and artful wiles. She is a woman, and yet, strange to say, not open to flattery.'

'Rubbish! It is because you are too stupid or too careless to find out the weak point.'

'To return, Alec: I have failed. I have no influence at all upon this girl. I have spent hours and hours in singing your praise. I have enlarged upon the absolute necessity of giving you a rest from business cares. I have proposed that she and I together – that was the way I put it – should buy a share in the paper, and that she should advance my half. Oh! I grew eloquent on the glory that two women thus coming to the relief of a man like yourself would achieve in after years. I tried to speak from my heart, Alec.' The woman caught his hand, but he drew it away. 'Oh! you deserve no help. You are hard-hearted, and you are selfish: you have broken every promise you ever made me: you spend all that you have in selfish pleasures: you leave me almost without assistance – '

'When I have got you into the easiest and most luxurious berth that can be imagined; when I have asked you for nothing but a simple – '

'Yes, dear Alec, but you see that an honest acknowledgment would be worth all this goodness. Well, I say that I spoke from my heart, because in spite of all I was proud of my man – mine, yes, though Philippa still imagines, poor wretch!'

'Do leave my cousin's name out of it, will you, Zoe?' he said, a little less roughly.

'I am proud of the man who is acknowledged to be the cleverest man in London.' She got up and began to walk about the studio. She stopped before the picture. 'Do you know, Alec – I am not a critic, but I can feel a thing – that this is quite the best work you have ever done. Oh! Those waves, they live and dance; and those birds, they fly; and the air is so warm and soft! – you are a great painter. Odd! your girl is curiously like Armorel. One would fancy your model was Armorel at sixteen or so – a lovely girl she must have been then, and a lovely woman she is now.' Zoe left the picture and began to look at the papers on the table. 'What is this – the new story? Is it good?'

'To you, Zoe, I may confess that it is as good as anything I have ever done.'

'You are really splendid, Alec! What is this?' She took up a very neatly written page in his handwriting. 'Poetry?'

'Those are some verses for next week's journal. I think there is no falling off there, Zoe.'

'Have you got another copy?'

'There is the copy that has gone to the printers'.'

'Then I will take this. It will do for a present – the autograph original draft of the poem – or I may keep it.'

'Zoe, come back and sit down. We must talk seriously.'

She returned and took up her old position by the fire. 'As seriously as you please. It means something disagreeable – something to do with money. Let us get it over. To go back to what we were saying, therefore. I cannot get you that money from Armorel. And at the very word of money she refers one to her lawyer. No confidence at all, as between friends who love each other. That is the position, Alec.' She sat with her hands clasped over her right knee.

'I must have some money,' he said.

'Then, as I have before remarked, Alec – make it.'

'If one cannot have money, Zoe, one may get credit, which is sometimes just as good.'

'I cannot help you in getting credit.'

'Perhaps you can. You can help me, Zoe, by keeping quite quiet.'

'Oh! I am always quiet. I have remained quiet for three years and more, while you flirt with countesses and cousins. How much more quiet do you wish me to remain? While you marry them?'

'Not quite that, my child. But next door to it. While I get engaged to one of them – to one who has money.'

'Not – Philippa.'

'No – I told you before. What the devil is the good of harping on Philippa? You see, if I can let it be understood that I am going to marry an heiress, the difficulties will be tided over. Therefore I shall get engaged to your charge – Armorel Rosevean.'

'Oh!' Zoe received this proposition with coldness. 'This is a charming thing for me to sanction, isn't it?'

'It will do you no harm.'

'I have certainly endured things as bad.'

'You see, Zoe, one could always break off the thing when the time came.'

'Certainly.'

'And you would know all the time that it was a mere pretence.'

'I should certainly know that.'

'Well; is there any other observation?'

'You would make it an open engagement – go about with her – have it publicly known?'

'Of course. The whole point is publicity. I must be known to be engaged to an heiress.'

'And it would last – '

'As long as might prove necessary. One could find an excuse at any time for breaking it off.'

'Or I could.'

'Just so. It really amounts to nothing at all.'

'To nothing at all!' Zoe neither raised her voice nor her eyes. 'Here is a man who proposes to pretend love and to win a girl's affections, when he can never marry her. He also proposes to throw her over, as soon as she has served his purpose. It is nothing at all, of course! Alec, you are really a wonderful man!'

'Nonsense! The thing is done every day.'

'No – not every day. If you are the cleverest man in London, you are also the most heartless.'

'You know that you can say what you please,' he replied, without any outward sign of annoyance. 'Even heroics.'

'But,' she said, nursing her knee and swinging backwards and forwards, 'we have forgotten one thing – the most important thing of all, in fact. My poor boy, there is no more chance of your being engaged to Armorel than of your entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.'

'Why?'

'Other girls you might catch: you are tall and big and handsome; and you have the reputation of being so very, very clever. Most girls would be carried away. But not Armorel. She is not subdued by bigness in men, and she doesn't especially care for a clever man. She is actually so old-fashioned – think of it! – that she wants – character.'

'Well! What objection would that raise, I should like to know?'

Zoe laughed softly and sweetly.

'Don't you see, dear Alec? Oh! But you must let Armorel explain to you.'

CHAPTER XV

NOT TWO MEN, BUT ONE

Great is the power of coincidence. Things have got a habit of happening just when they are most likely to be useful. It is not on the stage alone that the long-lost uncle turns up, or the long-missing will is found in the cupboard. And you cannot invent for fiction anything half so strange as the daily coincidence of common life. A tolerably long experience of the common life has convinced me of this great truth. Therefore, the coincidence which happened to Armorel on the very day when the young dramatist unfolded his griefs will not, by wise men, be thought at all strange.

It was in the evening. She was sitting with her companion, thinking over Archie and his play. Was it really good? Was it good enough to hold the stage, and to command the attention of the audience? To her it seemed a singularly beautiful, poetical, and romantic piece. But Armorel was of a lowly and humble mind. She knew that she had no experience in things dramatic. Had it been a picture, now —