Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

'Oh!' cried her companion, suddenly starting upright in the cushioned chair where she was lying apparently asleep, 'I had almost forgotten. My dear, I have got a present for you.'

'From yourself, Zoe?'

'Yes; from myself. It is a present which cost me nothing, but is worth a good deal. The making of it cost nobody anything. Yet it is a very precious thing. The material of which it is made is worth nothing. Yet the thing is worth anything you please.'

'It must be a picture, then.'

'It is a Work of Art, but not a picture. Guess again.'

'No; I will not guess any more. May I have it without guessing?'

Zoe held in her hands a small roll of blue paper. This she now opened, and gazed at the writing upon it with idolatry: but it hardly carried conviction with it – perhaps it was a little overdone.

'Least imaginative of girls,' she said. It pleased her to consider Armorel's refusal to join in that little scheme of hers as proving a lack of imagination. 'I have brought you, though you do not deserve it, what any other girl in London would give – would give – a dance, perhaps, to obtain, and you shall have it for nothing.'

'I want to hear what it is.'

'It is nothing less, Armorel, nothing less – I got it to-day from the table in his studio – than an autograph: it is the copy used by the printers – an autograph poem of Alec's! An autograph poem, as yet unpublished.'

'Is that all?' replied the least imaginative of girls. 'You must not give it to me, really. You will value it far more than I shall. Besides, I suppose it is to be published some day.'

'But the original manuscript – the autograph poem, dear child! Don't you know the value of such a thing? Take it. You shall be enriched in spite of yourself. Take it and put it aside somewhere in your desk, in some safe place. Heavens! if one had the autograph of a poem of Byron, for example!'

'Mr. Feilding is not Byron,' said Armorel, coldly. 'He may write pretty feminine verses, but he is not Byron. Thank you, however. I will take it, and I will keep it and value it because you think it valuable. I do not suppose the autograph verses of small poets are worth keeping; but still – as you value it' …

This was very ungracious and ungrateful. But she was really tired of Mr. Feilding's praises, and after the discovery of the pictures, and after the strange story she had heard only that morning – no; she wanted to hear no more, for the present, of the praises of this man – the cleverest man in London!

However, she unrolled the paper, and began to read the contents, at first carelessly. Then, 'Oh! what is this?' she cried.

'What is what?' asked Mrs. Elstree.

'This is a copy.'

They were the same words as she had used concerning the pictures. She remembered this, and a strange suspicion seized her. 'A copy,' she repeated, wondering.

'A copy? Not at all. They are the verses which are to appear in the next number of the journal – or the number after next. Alec's own verses, of course. Sweetly pretty, I think: what makes you say that they are copied?'

'I thought that I had seen them – something like them – somewhere before.' She went on reading. As she read she remembered the lines more clearly.

'What is the matter, Armorel?' asked Zoe. 'What makes you look so fierce? Heaven help your husband when you look like that!'

'Did I look fierce? It must have been something that I remembered. Yes – that was it.'

'May I read the verses again?' Zoe read them, suspiciously. There was something in them which had startled Armorel. What was it? She could see nothing to account for this emotion. Certainly she was not fond of poetry, and failed to appreciate the fine turns and subtle tones, the felicitous phrase and the unexpected thought with which the poet delights his readers. In this little poem she could find nothing but a few jingling rhymes. Why should Armorel behave so strangely?

'What is it, my dear?' she asked again.

'Something I remembered – nothing of any importance.'

'Armorel, has Alec said anything to you? Has he – has he wanted to make love to you? Has he offended you by speaking?'

'No. There has been no question of love-making between us, and there never will be.'

'One cannot say.' Zoe looked at the matter from experience. 'One can never say. Men are strange creatures; and Alec certainly thinks a great deal of you.'

'I cannot imagine his making love – any more than I can imagine his painting a picture or writing a poem. Perhaps he would make love as he paints.'

'Well, he paints very well.'

'Very well indeed, I dare say.' She got up. 'I am going to leave you to-night, Zoe. I want to go to my own room. I have things to write. You don't mind?'

'My dear child, mind! Of course, one would rather have your company. But since you must leave me' – she sank back in her chair with a sigh. 'Give me that book, dear – if you please – the French novel. When one has been married one can read French novels without trying to conceal the fact. They are mostly wicked, and sometimes witty. Not always. Good-night, dear. I shall not expect you back this evening.'

Armorel, in her own room, opened the manuscript book of poems which Archie had given her, and found – the very last of all – the lines which she had remembered. She laid the precious autograph beside Effie's poem. Word for word – comma for comma – they were exactly the same. There was not the slightest difference. And again Armorel thought of the two pictures.

Then she thought of the little dainty volume in white parchment containing the Second Series of 'Voice and Echo, by Alec Feilding.' She had tossed it aside, impatient with the man, when Zoe gave it to her. Now she looked for it, and found it after a little search. She opened it side by side with Effie's manuscript book. Presently she found the page in Effie's book which corresponded with the first page of the printed volume. There were about thirty or forty poems in the little book: in the manuscript book there were double that number; but the same poems followed each other one after the other in the same order, and without the difference of a single word, both in book and manuscript.

This discovery justifies my remarks about the common coincidences of daily life.

Again Armorel remembered that Zoe possessed another volume – the First Series of 'Voice and Echo, by Alec Feilding.' It was lying – she had seen it in the afternoon – in the drawing-room. She went in search of it, and returned without waking her companion, who had apparently fallen asleep over her novel.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Elstree was not sleeping. She was broad awake, but she was curious. She desired to know what it all meant: why Armorel was suddenly struck with hardness, why her cheek burned, and her eyes flashed; and what she wanted in the drawing-room. She perceived that Armorel had come in search of Alec's first volume of verse. Oh! Alec's first volume of verse. Now – what might Armorel want with that book?

At the end of March it is light at about half-past five. Everybody is then in their soundest sleep. But at that hour Mrs. Elstree came softly out of her bedroom, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her feet in soft slippers of white wool, and looked at the books and papers on the table in Armorel's room. There was a manuscript volume of verse, professing to be by one Effie Wilmot. There were also two printed little volumes, bound in white-and-gold, containing verses by one Alec Feilding. Strange and wonderful! The verses in both books were exactly the same! Mrs. Elstree returned to bed, thoughtful.

Armorel, for her part, when she returned to her own room, compared the first series of poems, as she had compared the second, with the manuscript book. And the first series, too, word for word, was the same as the earlier poems in the book.

'Good heavens!' cried Armorel. 'The man steals his verses, as he steals his pictures! Poor Effie! She is as bad as Roland!'

This was Thought the First. One has already seen how the three Thoughts treated her before. This time it was just the same. Thought the Second came next, and began to argue. A very capable logician is Thought the Second, once distinguished for what Oxford men call Science. If, said Thought the Second, the manuscript and the volumes agree, it seems to show that Effie has copied the latter into her own book, and now tries to pass the poems off as her own. Such things have been done. If this was the case – and why not? – Effie would be, indeed, a girl full of deceit and desperately wicked. But then, how came Effie to have in her volume a poem hitherto unpublished, which was lying on Mr. Feilding's table? Yet, surely, it was quite as probable that the girl should deceive her as that the man should deceive the world.

Next. Thought the Third. This sage remarked calmly, 'The man is full of villany. He has deceived the world in the matter of the pictures. Why not also in the matter of the poems? But let us consider the character of the verses. Take internal evidence.' Then Armorel read the whole series right through in the two little printed volumes. Oh! They were feminine. Only a woman could write these lines. Womanhood breathed in every one. Now that the key was supplied, she understood. She recognised the voice, eager, passionate, of her friend.

'They are all Effie's!' she cried again; 'all – all. The man has stolen his verses as well as his pictures.'

This discovery, when she had quite made up her mind that it was as true as the former, entirely fell in with all that Effie had told her concerning herself. She had sold her poems all to one editor – he was the only editor who would ever take them – and now she was afraid that he would take no more. Why? – why? – because – oh, now she understood all – because he wanted to be a dramatist in the same way that he was a painter and a poet, and neither Archie nor his sister would consent! 'Yes,' she said, 'he is, indeed, the cleverest man in London.'

Before she went to bed that night she had devised a little plan – quite an ingenious clever little plan. You shall hear what it was, and how it came off.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLAY AND THE COMEDY

Armorel arranged for the reading of the play one evening four or five days later. It was a short notice, but she secured the people whom she wanted most, and trusted to chance for the others. She occupied herself in the interval in arranging the details and leading situations for a little comedy drama of her own – a play of some melodramatic force, in which, as in 'Hamlet,' a certain guilty person was to discover by a kind of dumb show that his guilt was known to her. It was to be a comedy which no one, except herself, was to understand. You shall see, directly, what an extremely clever little comedy it was, and how effective to the person principally concerned. She said nothing at all about this comedy even to Effie. As for words, there were none. They were left to the principal character. This is, indeed, the ancient and original drama. The situations were, at the outset, devised beforehand. The actors filled in the dialogue. This form of drama is still kept up, and with vigour. When the schoolboy sets the booby-trap, or sews up the shirt-sleeves, or greases the side-walk – if that old situation is still remembered – or practises any other kindly and mirthful sally, the victim supplies the words. The confidence trick in all its branches is another form of the primitive drama, and this evening's performance with reference to a certain person was only another example. You will hear, presently, what admirable dialogue was elicited by Armorel's situations.

By half-past eight she had completed the mounting of her piece. First, for the reading of the play she placed a table at the side of the room, with a space at the back sufficient for a chair, or for a person to sit. A reading-lamp, with one of those silver cowls that throw the whole light upon the table, stood at either end, illuminating a small space in the middle. This was for the manipulation of the dolls. For, though the people had been asked to come for a reading, Armorel had determined to try the experiment of a recitation, accompanied by the presentment of those puppets which Effie had dressed with such care, and her brother manipulated so deftly. Needless to say that more than one rehearsal had been held. In front of the table she placed a semicircle of chairs for some of her audience. At one side of the table was the piano: a music-stand, with a violin case, gave promise of an overture. Between the music-stand and the table was room for a person to stand, and on the table a water-decanter and a glass showed that this was the place for the reciter. On the other side of the table, in the corner of the room, stood an easel, and on it a picture, with curtains arranged so that they could fall over and cover it up. The picture was lighted up by two lamps. The room had no other lights in it at all, so that, if these two lamps were lowered or extinguished, the only light would be that thrown by the reading-lamps upon the table. As for the picture, it was as yet unfinished, but nearly finished. Of course it was Roland Lee's new picture. This evening, indeed, which professed to be the simple reading of a new play by a new writer, included a great deal more: it included, in fact, Roland's return to the arena he had deserted, and, as you shall see, the stepping upon the stage of both the twins, brother and sister. When one adds that Mr. Alec Feilding would be one of the company, you understand, dear reader, the nature of Armorel's comedy, and the kind of situation devised and prepared by that artful and vindictive young lady.

'How long will it take, dear?' asked Mrs. Elstree, wearily contemplating these preparations.

'I should say that the play will take an hour and a half or two hours to recite. Then there will be a little music between the acts. I dare say it will last two hours and a half.'

'Oh, that will bring us to half-past eleven at least! And then it will be too late for anything else.'

'We don't want anything else to-night.'

'No, dear. The play will be quite enough for us. I wish it was over. I am so constituted, Armorel, that I cannot see the least use in going out of my way to help anybody. If you succeed in helping people to climb up, they only trample on you as soon as they get the chance. If you fail, they are a burden upon you for life. These two Wilmot people, for instance: what are you going to do with them when you have read their play and stuff? You can't get a manager to play it any the more for having it read. The two are no further advanced.'

'Yes; I shall have made the young man known. He will be introduced. Mr. Stephenson promised to bring some critics with him, and you have asked Mr. Feilding to do the same. An introduction – perhaps the creation of some personal interest – may be to Archie of the greatest advantage.'

'Then he will rise by your help, and he will proceed to trample upon you. That is, if the brother is like the sister. If ever I saw "trampler" written plain on any woman's face, it is written on the great square block of bone that Effie Wilmot calls a forehead.'

'They may trample on me if they please,' Armorel replied, smiling.

The tramplers were naturally the first to arrive. They were both pale, and they trembled, especially the one who was not going to speak. He came in, limping on his crutches, and looked around with terror at the preparations. One does not realise before the night comes what a serious thing is a first appearance in public. Besides, the strong light on the table, the expectant chairs, the arrangement of everything, presented an aspect at once critical and threatening. The manuscript play and the box of puppets were in readiness.

'Now, Archie,' said Armorel, 'it is not yet nine o'clock. You shall have a cup of coffee to steady your nerves. So shall you, Effie. After that we will settle ourselves.' She talked about other things to distract their thoughts. 'See, Effie, that is Roland Lee's new picture. It is not yet finished. The central figure is myself. You see, it is as yet only sketched in. I am going to sit for him, but he has caught a good likeness, has he not? It will be a lovely picture when it is completed, and I am going to give him permission to flatter me as much as ever he pleases. The scene is among the outer rocks of Scilly. We will go there some day and sail about the Western Islands, and I will show you Camber Rock and the Channel, and Castle Bryher and Menovawr and Maiden Bower, and all the lovely places where I lived till I was sixteen years of age. Are you in good voice to-night, Effie?'

'I don't know. I hope so.'

'She has eaten nothing all day,' said Archie.

'You are not really frightened, are you, Effie?' The girl was white with nervousness. 'A little excited and anxious. Will you have another cup of coffee? A little jelly? Remember I shall be close beside you, with the play in my hand, to prompt. I like your dress. You look very well in white, dear.'

'Oh! Armorel, I am horribly frightened. If I should break down, Archie's chance will be ruined. And if I recite it badly I shall spoil the play.'

'You will not break down, dear; you will think of nothing but the play. You will forget the people. Besides, it will be so dark that you will hardly see them.'

'I will try my best. Perhaps when I begin – Oh! for Archie's sake, I would stand up on the stage at the theatre and speak before all the people! And yet – '

'She had no sleep last night,' said her brother. 'I think, after all, I had better read it. Only I read so badly.'

Armorel's face fell. She had thought so much of the reciting. Then Mrs. Elstree came to the rescue.

'Nonsense,' she said. 'You three people are making yourselves so nervous that you will most certainly break down. Now, Mr. Wilmot, go into your own place. Set out your dolls. Here's your cardboard back scene.' She arranged it while Archie got himself and his crutches into the chair behind, and began to take the dolls out of their box. 'So. Now don't speak to your sister. You will only make her worse. And as for you, Effie, if you break down now you will be a most disgraceful coward. With your brother's future, perhaps, dependent on your courage. For shame! Pull yourself together!' Effie, thus rudely stimulated, and by a person she disliked greatly, lost her limpness and stood upright. Her face also put on a little colour, and her lips stiffened. The tonic worked, in fact. Then Zoe went on. 'Now,' she said, 'take up your position here. How are you going to stand? Fold your hands so. That is a very good attitude to begin with. Of course, you understand nothing of gesture. Don't try it. Change your hands a little – so – front – right – left – like that. And don't – don't – don't hold your head like that, facing the crowd. Hold it up – like this. Look at the corner of that cornice – straight up. Oh! you will lower your head as you go on. But, to begin with, and at the opening of each act, look up to that corner. Remember, if you break down – ' She held up a forefinger, threatening, admonitory, and left her standing in position. 'You will do now,' she said.

'Besides,' said Armorel, 'no one will look at you. They will all be looking at Archie's actors.'

The dramatist, relegated to the humble position of fantoccini-man, would be also in complete shade behind the table. He would not be seen, whatever emotion of anxiety he should feel. And for dexterity of manipulation with his puppets he could vie even with the firm of Codlin and Short.

The noise of cups and saucers in the dining-room proclaimed the arrival of guests. The first to come was Roland Lee, still a little shy, as Alexander Selkirk might have been, or Philip Quarles, or Mr. Penrose, on his return to civilised society. He looked about the room. Mrs. Elstree – looking resigned – and Armorel, standing by the fire, and the two performers. Nobody else. And, in a place of honour, his unfinished picture.

'It looks very well, doesn't it?' said Armorel. 'I wish it was a little more complete. But it will do to show.'

'Are you quite sure it is wise?'

'Quite sure. The sooner you show everybody what you can do the better.'

'I have found a new studio,' he told her in low tones. 'I have moved in to-day. It is among the old lot of men that I used to know a little. I have gone back to them just as if I had only been gone for a day. I don't find that they have got on very much. Perhaps they spend too much time smoking pipes and cigarettes and talking. They chaff me, but with respect, because, I believe, they think I have been staying in a lunatic asylum. Respect, you know, is due to madmen and to old men.'

'I hope it is the kind of studio you want.'

'It will do. I am anxious to begin your sittings. When can you come?'

'Any day you please. To-morrow. The next day. I can begin at once.'

Then came a small party of men – journalists and critics – captured by Dick Stephenson at the club, and bribed to come by the promise of an introduction to the beautiful Miss Armorel Rosevean. I do not think they expected much joy from the amateur reading of an unacted piece. It is melancholy, indeed, to consider that though the preliminary and tentative performance of the unacted play – long prayed for – has been at last established, the promised appearance of the great dramatist has not yet come off – nay, the theatrical critic weeps, swears, and growls at the mention of a matinée, and when he is requested to attend one passes it on if he can to his younger brother in the calling. And yet such great treasures were expected of the matinée! However, they agreed to come and listen on this occasion. It shall be put down to their credit as a Samaritan deed.

'Dick Stephenson,' said Armorel, with an assumption of old friendship which filled him with pride, 'I hope you are come here to-night in a really serious frame of mind – you and your friends.'

'We are always serious.'

'I mean that you are going to hear an ambitious piece of work. All I ask of you is to listen seriously, and to remember that it is really the work of a man who aims at the very highest.'

'Will he reach the very highest?'

'I do not know. But I am quite certain that there are very few artists, in any branch, who dare to aim high. Listen, and try to understand what the poet has attempted – what has been in his mind. Promise me this.'

'Certainly, I will promise you so much.'

'Thank you. It was for this that I asked you to-night. And see – here is your old friend Roland Lee.' The two young men shook hands rather sheepishly – the one because he had been an Ass – a long-eared Ass; and the other, because he was not guiltless of letting his friend slip out of his hands without a remonstrance and so away into paths unknown. 'I hear,' said Armorel, with her beautiful seriousness, 'that you two have suffered yourselves to drift apart of late. I hope that will be all over now. Oh! you must never give up the early friendships. Have you seen Roland's new picture? He has lent it to me for this evening. Come and look at it.'

'Why,' cried one of the men, 'it is an unfinished picture of Alec Feilding's!'

Roland turned hot and red.

'Not at all,' said Armorel. 'This is a sketch made in the isles of Scilly and in my presence, five years ago. As for the figure, you see it is not yet completed. I am the model. You remember Scilly, Dick Stephenson? To be sure, you were not with us when we used to go sailing about among the rocks.'

'I have reason to remember Scilly, seeing that you saved my life there, and Roland's too. But the picture is curiously in Feilding's style. Only it seems to me better than any of his. Old man' – he laid his hand on Roland's shoulder: it was the renewal of the ancient friendship – 'old man, you've done the trick at last.'

Philippa came next, with her father and two or three girls. They, in their turn, called out upon the striking similarity in style. A few more people came, and it was a quarter past nine. But the man for whom Armorel had especially arranged her little comedy did not come. He was late. Perhaps he would not come at all.

'We must wait no longer,' said Armorel. 'Will everybody please to sit down?'

Philippa placed herself at the piano. Armorel took out her violin and tuned it. First, however, she made a little speech.

'I have asked you,' she said, 'to come this evening in order to hear a play read. It is a play written by a young gentleman in whom some of us take the deepest interest. I hope greatly that it will succeed. But we want your judgment and opinion as well as our own. The play belongs to all time and to no time. The scene is laid in Italy, and in the sixteenth century; but it might as well have been laid in London and in the nineteenth – only that we are more self-governed than a dramatist likes, and we conceal our emotions. It is a play of romance and of human passion. I entreat you to consider it seriously – as seriously as the author himself considers it. We have arranged for you a list of the dramatis personæ, with a little scenario of each act – there are three – and we think that if, instead of hearing it read, we have it recited, while the author himself plays the piece before us by puppets on this little stage, we shall get a clearer idea of the dramatic merits of the piece.'