The Revolt of Man

How could the sympathies of the people be otherwise than on her side? These marriages of old or middle-aged women with young men, common though they had become, could never be regarded by the youth of either sex as natural. The young women bitterly complained that the lovers provided for them by equality of age were taken from them, and that times were so bad that in no profession could one look to marry before forty. The young men, who were not supposed to have any voice in the matter, let it be clearly known that their continual prayer and daily dream was for a young wife. The general discontent found expression in songs and ballads, written no one knew by whom: they passed from hand to hand; they were sung with closed doors; they all had the same motif; they celebrated the loves of two young people, maiden and youth; they showed how they were parted by the elderly woman who came to marry the tall and gallant youth; how the girl’s life was embittered, or how she pined away, or how she became misanthropic; and how the young man spent the short remainder of his days in an apathetic endeavour to discharge his duty, fortified on his deathbed with the consolations of religion and the hopes of meeting, not his old wife, but his old love, in a better and happier world. Why, there could be nothing but sympathy with Constance and Lord Chester. Why, all the men, old and young alike, whose influence upon women and popular opinion, though denied by some, was never doubted by Constance, would give her cause their most active sympathies.

She remained at home that day, taking no other step than to charge a friend with the task of communicating the intelligence to her club, being well aware that in an hour or two it would be spread over London, and, in fact, over the whole realm of England. The next day she went down to the House, and had the satisfaction of finding that the excitement caused by her resignation – a ministerial resignation was too common a thing to cause much talk – had given way altogether to the excitement caused by this great Appeal. No one even took the trouble of asking who was going to be the new Home Secretary. It was taken for granted that it would be some friend of the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. The lobbies were crowded – reporters, members of clubs, diners-out, talkers, were hurrying backwards and forwards, trying to pick up a tolerably trustworthy anecdote; and there was the va et vient, the nervous activity, which is so much more easily awakened by personal quarrels than by political differences. And here was a personal quarrel! The young and beautiful Countess against the old and powerful Duchess.

‘Yes,’ said Constance loudly, in answer to a whispered question put by one of her friends – she may have observed two or three listeners standing about with eager ears and parted lips – ‘yes, it is all quite true; it was an understood thing – this match with my second cousin. The pretensions of the Duchess rest upon too transparent a foundation – the poor man’s money, my dear. As if she were not rich enough already! as if three husbands are not enough for any one woman to lament! Thank you; yes, I have not the slightest doubt of the result. In a matter of good feeling as well as equity one may always depend upon the House, whatever one’s political opinions.’

The Duchess certainly had not expected this resistance to her will. In fact, during the whole of her long life she had never known any resistance at all, except such as befalls every politician. But in her private life her will was law, which no one questioned or disputed. Nor did it even occur to her to inquire, before speaking to the Chancellor, whether there would be any rival in the field. Proud as she was, and careless of public opinion in a general way, it was far from pleasant, even for her, to reflect on the things which would be said of her proposal when the Appeal was brought before the House – on the motives which would be assigned or insinuated by her enemies; on the allusions to youth and age – the more keen the more skilfully they were disguised and wrapped in soft words; the open pity which would be expressed for the youth whose young life – she knew very well what would be said – was to be sacrificed; the sarcastic questions which would be asked about the increase of her property by the new marriage, and so forth. The plain speech of Peeresses in debate was well known to her. Yet pride forbade a retreat: she would fight it out; she could command, by ways and by methods only known to herself, a majority; yet she felt sure, beforehand, that it would be a cold and unsympathetic majority – even a reproachful majority. Nor was her temper improved by a visit from her old friend, once her schoolfellow, Lady Despard. She came with a long face, which portended expostulation.

‘You have quite made up your mind, Duchess?’ she began, without a word of explanation or preamble, but with a comfortable settlement in the chair, which meant a good long talk.

‘I have quite made up my mind,’ Between such old friends, no need to ask what was intended.

‘Lord Chester,’ said Lady Despard, thoughtfully, ‘who is, no doubt, all that you think him – worthy in every way, I mean, of this promotion and your name – is, after all, a very young man.’

‘That,’ replied the Duchess spitefully, ‘is my affair. His age need not be considered. I am not afraid of myself, Julia. With my experience, at all events, I can say so much.’

‘Surely, Duchess; I did not mean that. The most powerful mind, coupled with the highest rank, – how should that fail to attract and fix the affection and gratitude of a man? No, dear friend; what I meant was this: he is too young, perhaps, for the full development either of virtues – or their opposites, – too young, perhaps, to know the reality of the prize you offer him.’

‘I think not, Julia,’ the Duchess spoke kindly, – ‘I think not. It is good of you to consider this possibility in so friendly a way; but I have the greatest reliance on the good qualities of Lord Chester. Lady Boltons is his guardian; who would be safer? Professor Ingleby has been his tutor; who could be more discreet?’

‘Yes, – Professor Ingleby. She is certainly learned; and yet – yet – at Cambridge there is an uneasy feeling about her orthodoxy.’

‘I care little,’ said the Duchess, ‘about a few wild notions which he may have picked up. On such a man, a little freedom of thought sits gracefully. A Duke of Dunstanburgh cannot possibly be anything but orthodox. Yes, Julia; and the sum of it all is that I am getting old, and I am going to make myself happy with the help of this young gentleman.’

‘In that case,’ said her friend, ‘I have nothing to say, except that I wish you every kind of happiness that you can desire.’

‘Thank you, Julia. And you will very greatly oblige me if you will mention, wherever you can, that you know, on the very best authority, that the match will be one of pure affection – on both sides; mind, on both sides.’

‘I will certainly say so, if you wish,’ replied Lady Despard. ‘I think, however, that you ought to know, Duchess, something of what people say – no, not common people, but people whose opinions even you are bound to consider.’

‘Go on,’ said the Duchess frowning.

‘They say that Lord Chester is so proud of his hereditary title and his rank that he would be broken-hearted to see it merged in any higher title; that he is too rich and too highly placed to be tempted by any of the ordinary baits by which men are caught; that you can give him nothing which he cannot buy for himself; and, lastly, that he is already in love, – even that words of affection have been passed between him and the Countess of Carlyon.’

Here the Duchess interrupted, vehemently banging the floor with the crutch which stood at her right hand.

‘Lord Chester in love? What nonsense is this, Julia? A young nobleman of his rank – almost my rank – in love! Are you mad, Julia? Are you softening in the brain? Are you aware that the boy has been properly brought up? Will you be good enough to remember that Lady Boltons is beyond all suspicion, and that he could never have seen Lady Carlyon alone since he was a boy?’

‘I answer your questions by one or two others,’ replied her friend calmly. ‘Are you, Duchess, aware that these two young people have had constant opportunities of being alone everywhere – coming from church, going to church, in conservatories, at morning parties, at dances, in gardens? Lady Boltons is all discretion; but still – but still – girls will be girls – boys love to flirt. My dear Duchess, we are still young enough to remember – ’

The Duchess smiled: the Duchess laughed. Good humour returned.

‘What else, Julia? You are a retailer of horrid gossip.’

‘This besides. On the very morning when he waited on the Chancellor, he rode to Lady Carlyon’s – ’

‘I know the exact particulars,’ said the Duchess. ‘Lady Boltons wrote to me on the subject to prevent misunderstanding. Professor Ingleby, his old tutor, was there. He rode there alone because his guardian could not go with him. Of course he was properly attended. Lady Carlyon is his second cousin. Properly speaking, perhaps he should have remained at home until the Professor came to him. But a man of Lord Chester’s rank may do things which smaller men cannot. And, besides, this impulsiveness – this apparent impatience of conventional restraint – seems to me only to prove the pride and dignity of his character. Is that all, Julia? Have you any more hearsays?’

They were brave words; but the Duchess felt uneasy.

‘I have; there is more behind, and worse. Still, in your present mood, I do not know that I ought to say what I should wish to say.’

‘Say on, Julia. You know that I wish to hear all. Perhaps there may be something after all. Hide nothing from me.’

‘Very good. They say that Lord Chester is, of all men, the least submissive, the least docile, the least manly – in the highest sense of the word. He habitually assumes authority which belongs to Us; he flies into violent rages; he horsewhips stable-boys; he presumptuously defies orders; he almost openly derides the laws which regulate man’s obedience. He questions – he actually questions – the fundamental principles on which society and government are based.’

‘Quite as it should be,’ said the Duchess, folding her hands. ‘I want my husband to obey no one in the world – except myself: he shall accept no teaching, except mine; no doctrine shall be sacred in his eyes – until it has received my authority.’

‘Would you like the Duke of Dunstanburgh to horsewhip stable-boys?’

The Duchess shrugged her shoulders.

‘Why not? No doubt the stable-boys deserve it. We cannot, of course, allow common men to use their strength in this way. But, my dear, in men of very high rank we should encourage – within proper limits – a masterfulness which is, after all, nothing but the legitimate expression of legitimate pride. What is crime in a clown or an artisan, is a virtue in Lord Chester; and, believe me, Julia, for my own part, I know how to tame the most obstinate of men.’

She folded her hands and set her teeth together. Julia thought of the late three dukes, and trembled.

‘No one should know better, dear Duchess. There remains one thing only. You tell me that the proposed match is to be one of pure affection – on both sides. I am truly rejoiced to hear it. Nothing is better calculated to allay these silly reports about Lady Carlyon and the Earl. Still you should know that outside people say that, should the Appeal go in your favour – ’

‘ “Should!” Julia, do not be absurd. It must go in my favour. “Should!” ’

‘In that case the Earl has declared before witnesses that he will absolutely refuse, whatever the penalty, to accept your hand. How am I to meet such stories as this? By your authorised statement of mutual affection?’

‘Idle gossip, Julia, may be left to itself. The Earl is only anxious to have the matter settled as soon as possible. Besides, is it in reason that he should have made such a declaration? Why, he knows – every man knows – that such a refusal would be nothing short of contempt – contempt of the Sovereign Majesty of the Realm. It is punishable – ay, and it shall be punished – that is, it should be punished’ – the face of the Duchess darkened – ‘by imprisonment with hard labour for life – Earl or no Earl.’

‘Then, Duchess,’ said Lady Despard, with a smile, ‘I say no more. Of course, a marriage of affection should be encouraged; and we women are all match-makers. You will have the best wishes of all as soon as things are properly understood.’

‘Julia,’ the Duchess laid her hand upon her friend’s arm, ‘I am unfeignedly glad that you have told me all this. We have had an explanation which has cleared the air. I refuse to believe that my future husband has so lost all manly feeling as to fall in love. Imagine an Earl of Chester falling in love like a sentimental rustic! Your canards about private interviews trouble me not; I am well assured that so well-bred a man will obey the will of the House without a murmur – nay, joyfully, even without consideration of his own inclinations, which, as I have told you, are already decided. And, upon my honour as a peeress, Julia, I am certain that when you come to my autumn party at Dunstanburgh in November next, you will acknowledge that the new Duke is the handsomest bridegroom in the world, that I am the most indulgent wife, and that there is not a happier couple in all England.’

Nothing could be more gracious than the smile of the Duchess when she chose to smile. Lady Despard, although she knew by this time what the smile was worth, was nevertheless always carried away by it. For the moment she believed what her friend wished her to believe.

‘My dear Duchess,’ she cried with effusion, ‘you deserve happiness for your part; and, upon my word, I think that the boy will get it, whether he deserves it or not.’

The smile died out from the Duchess’s face when she was left alone. A hard, stern look took its place. She took up a hand-glass, and intently examined her own face.

‘He is in love with the girl, is he?’ she murmured; ‘and she with him. Why, I saw it in their guilty stolen looks; her accents betrayed her when she spoke. It is not enough that she must cross me in the House, but she would rob me of a husband. Not yet, Lady Carlyon – not yet.’ … She looked at herself again. ‘Oh, that I could be again what I was at one-and-twenty! It is true, as Julia said, that I have nothing to give the boy in return for what I ask of him – his affection. I am an old woman – sixty-five years of age. I suppose I have had my share of love. Harry loved me when I was young, because I was young. Poor Harry! I did not then know how much he loved me, nor the value of a man’s heart. Well … as for the other two, they loved me after their fashion – but it was not like Harry’s love; they said they loved me, and in return I gave them all they wanted. They were happy, and I had to be contented.’ She mused in silence for a time; then she roused herself with an effort. ‘What then? Let them talk. I am the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. She shall have her whim; she shall have her darling, and if he chooses to sulk, she will punish him until he smiles again. Wait, my lord, only wait till you are safe on the Northumberland coast, and in my castle of Dunstanburgh.’

CHAPTER V

IN THE SEASON

WOMEN, especially politicians, are (or rather were, until the Revolt) accustomed to the publicity of photographs, illustrated papers, paragraphs in society papers, and to the curiosity with which people stare after them wherever they show themselves. They used to like it. Men, who were, on the other hand, taught to respect modest retirement and that graceful obscurity becoming to the masculine hand which carries out the orders of the female brain, shrank from such notoriety. It was a curious sensation for young Lord Chester to feel, rather than to see and to hear, the people pointing him out, and talking about him.

‘Courage!’ whispered the Professor. ‘You will have to encounter a great deal more curiosity than this before long. Above all, do not show by any sign or change of expression that you are conscious of their staring.’

This was at the Royal Academy. The rooms were crowded with the usual mob, for it was early in June. There were the country ladies – rosy, fat, and jolly – catalogue and pencil in hand, dragging after them husbands, brothers, sons – ruddy, stalwart fellows – who wearily followed from room to room, – ignorant of art, and yet unwilling to be thought ignorant, – flocking to any picture which seemed to contain a story or a subject likely to interest them, such as a horse, or a race, or a match of some kind, and turning away with a half-conscious feeling that they ought to rejoice in not liking the much-praised picture, instead of being ashamed of it, so unlike a horse did they find it, so unfaithful a representation of figure or of action. There were artistic ladies with their new fashion of dress and pale languid airs, listlessly exchanging the commonplace of the fashionable school; there were professional ladies, lawyers, and doctors, ‘doing’ all the rooms between two consultations in an hour; there were schoolgirls from Harrow, yawning over the Exhibition, which it was a duty they owed to themselves to see early in the season, unless they could get tickets, which they all ardently desired, for the fortnight’s private view; there were shoals of men in little parties of two and four, escorted by some good-natured uncle or elderly cousin. The crowd squeezed round the fashionable pictures; they passed heedlessly before pictures of which nobody talked; they all tried to look critical; those who pretended to culture searched after strange adjectives; those who did not, said everything was pretty, and yawned furtively; the ladies whispered remarks to each other, with a quick nod of intelligence; and they received the feeble criticism of the men with the deferent smile due to politeness, or a half-concealed contempt.

This year there were more than the usual number of pictures – in fact, the whole of the five-and-twenty rooms were crowded. Fortunately, they were mostly small rooms, and it was remarkable that the same subjects occurred over and over again. ‘The same story,’ said the Professor, ‘every year. No invention; we follow like sheep. Here is Judith slaying Holofernes’ – they were then in the Ancient History Department – ‘here is Jael slaying Sisera; here are Miriam and Deborah singing their songs of triumph; here is Joan of Arc raising the siege of Orleans, – all exactly the same as when I was a girl forty years ago and more. Ancient History, indeed! What do they know about Ancient History?’

‘Why do you not teach them, then, Professor?’ asked Lord Chester.

‘I will tell you why, my lord, in a few weeks, – perhaps.’

There were a great many altar-pieces in the Sacred Department. In these the Perfect Woman was depicted in every attitude and occupation by which perfection may best be represented. It might have been objected, had any one so far ventured outside the beaten path of criticism, that the Perfect Woman’s dress, her mode of dressing her hair, and her ornaments were all of the present year’s fashion. ‘As if,’ said the Professor, the only one who did venture, ‘as if no one had any conception of beauty and grace except what fashion orders. Sheep! sheep! we follow like a flock.’

The pictures were mostly allegorical: the Perfect Woman directed Labour – represented by twenty or thirty burly young men with implements of various kinds; this was a very favourite subject. Or she led Man upwards. This was a series of pictures: in the first, Man was a rough rude creature, carrying a club with which he banged something – presumably Brother Man; he gradually improved, until at the end he was depicted as laying at the altar of womanhood flowers, fruit, and wine, from his own husbandry. By this time he had got his beard cut off, and was smooth shaven, save for a pair of curly moustaches; his dress was in the fashion of the day; his eyes were down-dropped in reverential awe; and his expression was delightfully submissive, pious, and béate. ‘Is it,’ asked Lord Chester, ‘impossible to be religious without becoming such a creature as that?’

Again, the Perfect Woman sat alone, thinking for the good of the world. She had a star above her head; she tried, in the picture, not to look as if she were proud of that star. Or the Perfect Woman sat watching, in the dead of night, in the moonlight, for the good of the world; or the Perfect Woman was revealed to enraptured man rising from the waves, not at all wet, and clothed in the most beautifully-fashioned and most expensive modern garments. These two rooms, the Sacred and the Ancient History Departments, were mostly deserted. The principal interest of the Exhibition was in the remaining three-and-twenty, which were devoted to general subjects. Here were sweetnesses of flower and fruit, here were lovely creamy faces of male youth, here were full length figures of athletes, runners, wrestlers, jumpers, rowers, cricket-players, and others, treated with delicate conventionality, so that the most successful pictures represented man with no more expression in his face than a barber’s block, and the strongest young Hercules was figured with tiny hands or fingers like a girl’s for slimness, for transparency, and for whiteness, and beautifully small feet; on the other hand, his calves were prodigious. In fact, as was always maintained at the Academy dinner, the Exhibition was the great educator of the people in the sense of beauty. To know the beautiful, to recognise what should be delightful, and then take joy in it, was given, it was said, only to those women of culture who had been trained by a course of Academy exhibitions. Here men, for their part, who would never otherwise rise beyond the phenomenal to the ideal, learned what was the Perfect Man – the Man of woman’s imagination. Having learned, he might go away and try to resemble him. Women who could not feel, unhappily, the full sense of the beautiful, might learn from these models into what kind of man they should shape their husbands.

‘The drawing of this picture,’ said the Professor aloud, before a picture round which were gathered a throng of worshippers – for it was painted by a Royal Academician of great repute – ‘is inaccurate. Did one ever see a man with such shoulders, and yet with such a waist and such a hand? As for the colouring, it is as false as it is conventional; and look at the peach-like cheek and the feeble chin! It is the flesh of a weakly baby, not of a grown man and an athlete.’

There were murmurs of dissent, but no one ventured to dispute the Professor’s opinion; and indeed most of the bystanders had already recognised Lord Chester, and were staring at the hero of so much talk.

‘He is better-looking,’ he overheard one schoolgirl whispering to another, ‘than the fellow on the canvas, isn’t he?’

The ‘fellow on the canvas’ was, in fact, the Ideal Man. He was meant by the artist to represent the noblest, tallest, strongest, straightest, and most dexterous of men. He carried a cricket-bat. It would have been foolish to figure him with book, pencil, or paper. Art, literature, science, politics, all belonged to the other sex. Only his strength was left to man, and that was to be expended by the orders of the superior sex, who were quite competent to exercise the functions for which they were born – namely, to think for the world.

Of course, all the artists were women. Once there was a man who, assuming a female name, actually got a picture exhibited in the Academy. He was a self-taught man it was afterwards discovered; he had never been in a studio; he had never seen a Royal Academy. He painted an Old Man from nature. There was a faithful ruggedness about his work which made artists scoff, and yet brought tears to the eyes of country girls who knew no better. When the trick was discovered, the picture was taken down and burnt, and the wretched man – who was discovered in a little country cottage, painting two or three more in the same style – went mad, and was locked up for the rest of his days. Presently Lord Chester grew tired of the pictures and of the staring crowd. ‘I have seen enough, Professor, if you have. They are all exactly like those of last year – the gladiators, and the runners, and all. Are we always to go on producing the same pictures?’

‘I suppose so,’ she replied. ‘They say that the highest point of art has been reached. It would be a change if we were only to deteriorate for a few years. Meanwhile, one is reminded of the mole, who was asked why he did not invent another form of architecture.’