The Martian: A Novel

"That's Leah Gibson," says my sister; "the tall one, with the long black plait."

Leah Gibson turned round and nodded to my sister and smiled – showing a delicate narrow face, a clear pale complexion, very beautiful white pearly teeth between very red lips, and an extraordinary pair of large black eyes – rather close together – the blackest I ever saw, but with an expression so quick and penetrating and keen, and yet so good and frank and friendly, that they positively sent a little warm thrill through me – though she was only twelve years old, and not a bit older than her age, and I a fast youth nearly twenty!

And finding her very much to my taste, I said to my sister, just for fun, "Oh —that's Leah Gibson, is it? then some day Leah Gibson shall be Mrs. Robert Maurice!"

From which it may be inferred that I looked on Leah Gibson, at the first sight of her, as likely to become some day an extremely desirable person.

She did.

The Gibsons lived in a very good house in Tavistock Square. They seemed very well off. Mrs. Gibson had a nice carriage, which she kept entirely with her own money. Her father, who was dead, had been a wealthy solicitor. He had left a large family, and to each of them property worth £300 a year, and a very liberal allowance of good looks.

Mr. Gibson was in business in the City.

Leah, their only child, was the darling of their hearts and the apple of their eyes. To dress her beautifully, to give her all the best masters money could procure, and treat her to every amusement in London – theatres, the opera, all the concerts and shows there were, and give endless young parties for her pleasure – all this seemed the principal interest of their lives.

Soon after my first introduction to Leah, Ida and I received an invitation to a kind of juvenile festivity at the Gibsons', and went, and spent a delightful evening. We were received by Mrs. Gibson most cordially. She was such an extremely pretty person, and so charmingly dressed, and had such winning, natural, genial manners, that I fell in love with her at first sight; she was also very playful and fond of romping; for she was young still, having married at seventeen.

Her mother, Mrs. Bletchley (who was present), was a Spanish Jewess – a most magnificent and beautiful old person in splendid attire, tall and straight, with white hair and thick black eyebrows, and large eyes as black as night.

In Leah the high Sephardic Jewish type was more marked than in Mrs. Gibson (who was not Jewish at all in aspect, and took after her father, the late Mr. Bletchley).

It is a type that sometimes, just now and again, can be so pathetically noble and beautiful in a woman, so suggestive of chastity and the most passionate love combined – love conjugal and filial and maternal – love that implies all the big practical obligations and responsibilities of human life, that the mere term "Jewess" (and especially its French equivalent) brings to my mind some vague, mysterious, exotically poetic image of all I love best in woman. I find myself dreaming of Rebecca of York, as I used to dream of her in the English class at Brossard's, where I so pitied poor Ivanhoe for his misplaced constancy.

If Rebecca at fifty‐five, was at all like Mrs. Bletchley, poor old Sir Wilfred's regrets must have been all that Thackeray made them out to be in his immortal story of Rebecca and Rowena.

Mr. Gibson was a good‐looking man, some twelve or fifteen years older than his wife; his real vocation was to be a low comedian; this showed itself on my first introduction to him. He informally winked at me and said:

"Esker voo ker jer dwaw lah vee? Ah! kel Bonnure!"

This idiotic speech (all the French he knew) was delivered in so droll and natural a manner that I took to him at once. Barty himself couldn't have been funnier!

Well, we had games of forfeits and danced, and Ida played charming things by Mendelssohn on the piano, and Leah sang very nicely in a fine, bold, frank, deep voice, like a choir‐boy's, and Mrs. Gibson danced a Spanish fandango, and displayed feet and ankles of which she was very proud, and had every right to be; and then Mr. Gibson played a solo on the flute, and sang "My Pretty Jane" – both badly enough to be very funny without any conscious effort or straining on his part. Then we supped, and the food was good, and we were all very jolly indeed; and after supper Mr. Gibson said to me:

"Now, Mister Parleyvoo – can't you do something to amuse the company? You're big enough!"

I professed my willingness to do anything– and wished I was as Barty more than ever!

"Well, then," says he – "kneel to the wittiest, bow to the prettiest – and kiss the one you love best."

This was rather a large order – but I did as well as I could. I went down on my knees to Mr. Gibson and craved his paternal blessing; and made my best French bow with my heels together to old Mrs. Bletchley; and kissed my sister, warmly thanking her in public for having introduced me to Mrs. Gibson: and as far as mere social success is worth anything, I was the Barty of that party!

Anyhow, Mr. Gibson conceived for me an admiration he never failed to express when we met afterwards, and though this was fun, of course, I had really won his heart.

It is but a humble sort of triumph to crow over – and where does Barty Josselin come in?

Pazienza!

"Well – what do you think of Leah Gibson?" said my sister, as we walked home together through Torrington Square.

"I think she's a regular stunner," said I – "like her mother and her grandmother before her, and probably her great‐grandmother too."

And being a poetical youth, and well up in my Byron, I declaimed:

"She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes."…

Old fogy as I am, and still given to poetical quotations, I never made a more felicitous quotation than that. I little guessed then to what splendor that bony black‐eyed damsel would reach in time.

All through this period of high life and low dissipation Barty kept his unalterable good‐humor and high spirits – and especially the kindly grace of manner and tact and good‐breeding that kept him from ever offending the most fastidious, in spite of his high spirits, and made him many a poor grateful outcast's friend and darling.

I remember once dining with him at Greenwich in very distinguished company; I don't remember how I came to be invited – through Barty, no doubt. He got me many invitations that I often thought it better not to accept. "Ne sutor ultra crepidam!"

It was a fish dinner, and Barty ate and drank a surprising amount – and so did I, and liked it very much.

We were all late and hurried for the last train, some twenty of us – and Barty, Lord Archibald, and I, and a Colonel Walker Lindsay, who has since become a peer and a Field‐Marshal (and is now dead), were all pushed together into a carriage, already occupied by a distinguished clergyman and a charming young lady – probably his daughter; from his dress, he was either a dean or a bishop, and I sat opposite to him – in the corner.

Barty was very noisy and excited as the train moved off; he was rather tipsy, in fact – and I was alarmed, on account of the clerical gentleman and his female companion. As we journeyed on, Barty began to romp and play the fool and perform fantastic tricks – to the immense delight of the future Field‐Marshal. He twisted two pocket‐handkerchiefs into human figures, one on each hand, and made them sing to each other – like Grisi and Mario in the Huguenots– and clever drivel of that kind. Lord Archibald and Colonel Lindsay were beside themselves with glee at all this; they also had dined well.

Then he imitated a poor man fishing in St. James's Park and not catching any fish. And this really was uncommonly good and true to life – with wonderful artistic details, that showed keen observation.

I saw that the bishop and his daughter (if such they were) grew deeply interested, and laughed and chuckled discreetly; the young lady had a charming expression on her face as she watched the idiotic Barty, who got more idiotic with every mile – and this was to be the man who wrote Sardonyx!

As the train slowed into the London station, the bishop leant forward towards me and inquired, in a whisper,

"May I ask the name of your singularly delightful young friend?"

"His name is Barty Josselin," I answered.

"Not of the Grenadier Guards?"

"Yes."

"Oh, indeed! a – yes – I've heard of him – "

And his lordship's face became hard and stern – and soon we all got out.

Part Fourth

"La cigale ayant chantéTout l'été,Se trouva fort dépourvueQuand la bise fut venue."…– Lafontaine.

Sometimes I went to see Lord and Lady Archibald, who lived in Clarges Street; and Lady Archibald was kind enough to call on my mother, who was charmed with her, and returned her call in due time.

Also, at about this period (1853) my uncle Charles (Captain Blake, late 17th Lancers), who had been Lord Runswick's crony twenty years before, patched up some feud he had with my father, and came to see us in Brunswick Square.

He had just married a charming girl, young enough to be his daughter.

I took him to see Barty, and they became fast friends. My uncle Charles was a very accomplished man, and spoke French as well as any of us; and Barty liked him, and it ended, oddly enough, in Uncle Charles becoming Lord Whitby's land‐agent and living in St. Hilda's Terrace, Whitby.

He was a very good fellow and a thorough man of the world, and was of great service to Barty in many ways. But, alas and alas! he was not able to prevent or make up the disastrous quarrel that happened between Barty and Lord Archibald, with such terrible results to my friend – to both.

It is all difficult even to hint at – but some of it must be more than hinted at.

Lord Archibald, like his nephew, was a very passionate admirer of lovely woman. He had been for many years a faithful and devoted husband to the excellent Frenchwoman who brought him wealth – and such affection! Then a terrible temptation came in his way. He fell in love with a very beautiful and fascinating lady, whose birth and principles and antecedents were alike very unfortunate, and Barty was mixed up in all this: it's the saddest thing I ever heard.

The beautiful lady conceived for Barty one of those frantic passions that must lead to somebody's ruin; it led to his; but he was never to blame, except for the careless indiscretion which allowed of his being concerned in the miserable business at all, and to this frantic passion he did not respond.

"Spretæ injuria formæ."

So at least she fancied; it was not so. Barty was no laggard in love; but he dearly loved his uncle Archie, and was loyal to him all through.

"His honor rooted in dishonor stood,And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."

Where he was unfaithful was to his beloved and adoring Lady Archibald – his second mother – at miserable cost of undying remorse to himself for ever having sunk to become Lord Archibald's confidant and love‐messenger, and bearer of nosegays and billets doux, and singer of little French songs. He was only twenty, and thought of such things as jokes; he had lived among some of the pleasantest, best‐bred, and most corrupt people in London.

The beautiful frail lady told the most infamous lies, and stuck to them through thick and thin. The story is not new; it's as old as the Pharaohs. And Barty and his uncle quarrelled beyond recall. The boy was too proud even to defend himself, beyond one simple denial.

Then another thing happened. Lady Archibald died, quite suddenly, of peritonitis – fortunately in ignorance of what was happening, and with her husband and daughter and Barty round her bedside at the end. She died deceived and happy.

Lord Archibald was beside himself with grief; but in six months he married the beautiful lady, and went to the bad altogether – went under, in fact; and Daphne, his daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was taken by the Whitbys.

So now Barty, thoroughly sick of smart society, found himself in an unexpected position – without an allowance, in a crack regiment, and never a penny to look forward to!

For old Lord Whitby, who loved him, was a poor man with a large family; and every penny of Lady Archibald's fortune that didn't go to her husband and daughter went back to her own family of Lonlay‐Savignac. She had made no will – no provision for her beloved, her adopted son!

So Barty never went to the Crimea, after all, but sold out, and found himself the possessor of seven or eight hundred pounds – most of which he owed – and with the world before him; but I am going too fast.

In the winter of 1853, just before Christmas, my father fitted up for me a chemical laboratory at the top of the fine old house in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury, where his wine business was carried on, a splendid mansion, with panelled rooms and a carved‐oak staircase – once the abode of some Dick Whittington, no doubt a Lord Mayor of London; and I began my professional career, which consisted in analyzing anything I could get to analyze for hire, from a sample of gold or copper ore to a poisoned stomach.

Lord Whitby very kindly sent me different samples of soil from different fields on his estate, and I analyzed them carefully and found them singularly like each other. I don't think the estate benefited much by my scientific investigation. It was my first job, and brought me twenty pounds (out of which I bought two beautiful fans – one for my sister, the other for Leah Gibson – and got a new evening suit for myself at Barty's tailor's).

When this job of mine was finished I had a good deal of time on my hands, and read many novels and smoked many pipes, as I sat by my chemical stove and distilled water, and dried chlorate of potash to keep the damp out of my scales, and toasted cheese, and fried sausages, and mulled Burgundy, and brewed nice drinks, hot or cold – a specialty of mine.

I also made my laboratory a very pleasant place. My father wouldn't permit a piano, nor could I afford one; but I smuggled in a guitar (for Barty), and also a concertina, which I could play a little myself. Barty often came with friends of his, of whom my father did not approve – mostly Guardsmen; also friends of my own – medical students, and one or two fellow‐chemists, who were serious, and pleased my father. We often had a capital time: chemical experiments and explosions, and fearful stinks, and poisoned waters of enchanting hue; also oysters, lobsters, dressed crab for lunch – and my Burgundy was good, I promise you, whether white or red!

We also had songs and music of every description. Barty's taste had improved. He could sing Beethoven's "Adelaida" in English, German, and Italian, and Schubert's "Serenade" in French – quite charmingly, to his own ingenious accompaniment on the guitar.

We had another vocalist, a little Hebrew art‐student, with a heavenly tenor (I've forgotten his name); and Ticklets, the bass; and a Guardsman who could yodel and imitate a woman's voice – one Pepys, whom Barty loved because he was a giant, and, according to Barty, "the handsomest chap in London."

These debauches generally happened when my father was abroad – always, in fact. I'm greatly ashamed of it all now; even then my heart smote me heavily at times when I thought of the pride and pleasure he took in all my scientific appliances, and the money they cost him – twenty guineas for a pair of scales! Poor dear old man! he loved to weigh things in them – a feather, a minute crumb of cork, an infinitesimal wisp of cotton wool!..

However, I've made it all up to him since in many ways; and he has told me that I have been a good son, after all! And that is good to think of now that I am older than he was when he died!

One fine morning, before going to business, I escorted my sister to Bedford Square, calling for Leah Gibson on the way; as we walked up Great Russell Street (that being the longest way round I could think of), we met Barty, looking as fresh as a school‐boy, and resplendent as usual. I remember he had on a long blue frock‐coat, check trousers, an elaborate waistcoat and scarf, and white hat – as was the fashion – and that he looked singularly out of place (and uncommonly agreeable to the eye) in such an austere and learned neighborhood.

He was coming to call for me in Brunswick Square.

My sister introduced him to her friend, and he looked down at Leah with a surprised glance of delicate fatherly admiration – he might have been fifty.

Then we left the young ladies and went off together citywards; my father was abroad.

"By Jove, what a stunner that girl is! I'm blest if I don't marry her some day – you see if I don't!"

"That's just what I mean to do," said I. And we had a good laugh at the idea of two such desperadoes, as we thought ourselves, talking like this about a little school-girl.

"We'll toss up," says Barty; and we did, and he won.

This, I remember, was before his quarrel with Lord Archibald. She was then about fourteen, and her subtle and singular beauty was just beginning to make itself felt.

I never knew till long after how deep had been the impression produced by this glimpse of a mere child on a fast young man about town – or I should not have been amused. For there were times when I myself thought quite seriously of Leah Gibson, and what she might be in the long future! She looked a year or two older than she really was, being very tall and extremely sedate.

Also, both my father and mother had conceived such a liking for her that they constantly talked of the possibility of our falling in love with each other some day. Castles in Spain!

As for me, my admiration for the child was immense, and my respect for her character unbounded; and I felt myself such a base unworthy brute that I couldn't bear to think of myself in such a connection – until I had cleansed myself heart and soul (which would take time)! And as for showing by my manner to her that such an idea had ever crossed my mind, the thought never entered my head.

She was just my dear sister's devoted friend; her petticoat hem was still some inches from the ground, and her hair in a plait all down her back…

Girlish innocence and purity incarnate – that is what she seemed; and what she was. "La plus forte des forces est un cœur innocent," said Victor Hugo – and if you translate this literally into English, it comes to exactly the same, both in rhythm and sense.

When Barty sold out, he first thought he would like to go on the stage, but it turned out that he was too tall to play anything but serious footmen.

Then he thought he would be a singer. We used to go to the opera at Drury Lane, where they gave in English a different Italian opera every night; – and this was always followed by Acis and Galatea.

We got our seats in the stalls every evening for a couple of weeks, through the kindness of Mr. Hamilton Braham, whom Barty knew, and who played Polyphemus in Handel's famous serenata.

I remember our first night; they gave Masaniello, which I had never seen; and when the tenor sang, "Behold how brightly breaks the morning," it came on us both as a delicious surprise – it was such a favorite song at Brossard's – "amis! la matinée est belle…" Indeed, it was one of the songs Barty sang on the boulevard for the poor woman, six or seven years back.

The tenor, Mr. Elliot Galer, had a lovely voice; and that was a moment never to be forgotten.

Then came Acis and Galatea, which was so odd and old‐fashioned we could scarcely sit it out.

Next night, Lucia– charming; then again Acis and Galatea, because we had nowhere else to go.

"Tiens, tiens!" says Barty, as the lovers sang "the flocks shall leave the mountains"; "c'est diantrement joli, ça! – écoute!"

Next night, La Sonnambula– then again Acis and Galatea.

"Mais, nom d'une pipe – elle est divine, cette musique‐là!" says Barty.

And the nights after we could scarcely sit out the Italian opera that preceded what we have looked upon ever since as among the divinest music in the world.

So one must not judge music at a first hearing; nor poetry; nor pictures at first sight; unless one be poet or painter or musician one's self – not even then! I may live to love thee yet, oh Tannhäuser!

Lucy Escott, Fanny Huddart, Elliot Galer, and Hamilton Braham – that was the cast; I hear their voices now…

One morning Hamilton Braham tried Barty's voice on the empty stage at St. James's Theatre – made him sing "When other lips."

"Sing out, man – sing out!" said the big bass. And Barty shouted his loudest – a method which did not suit him. I sat in the pit, with half a dozen Guardsmen, who were deeply interested in Barty's operatic aspirations.

It turned out that Barty was neither tenor nor barytone; and that his light voice, so charming in a room, would never do for the operatic stage; although his figure, in spite of his great height, would have suited heroic parts so admirably.

Besides, three or four years' training in Italy were needed – a different production altogether.

So Barty gave up this idea and made up his mind to be an artist. He got permission to work in the British Museum, and drew the "Discobolus," and sent his drawing to the Royal Academy, in the hope of being admitted there as a student. He was not.

Then an immense overwhelming homesickness for Paris came over him, and he felt he must go and study art there, and succeed or perish.

My father talked to him like a father, my mother like a mother; we all hung about him and entreated. He was as obdurate as Tennyson's sailor‐boy whom the mermaiden forewarned so fiercely!

He was even offered a handsome appointment in the London house of Vougeot‐Conti & Co.

But his mind was made up, and to my sorrow, and the sorrow of all who knew him, he fixed the date of his departure for the 2d of May (1856), – this being the day after a party at the Gibsons' – a young dance in honor of Leah's fifteenth birthday, on the 1st – and to which my sister had procured him an invitation.

He had never been to the Gibsons' before. They belonged to a world so different to anything he had been accustomed to – indeed, to a class that he then so much disliked and despised (both as ex‐Guardsman and as the descendant of French toilers of the sea, who hate and scorn the bourgeois) – that I was curious to see how he would bear himself there; and rather nervous, for it would have grieved me that he should look down on people of whom I was getting very fond. It was his theory that all successful business people were pompous and purse‐proud and vulgar.

I admit that in the fifties we very often were.

There may perhaps be a few survivals of that period: old nouveaux riches, who are still modestly jocose on the subject of each other's millions when they meet, and indulge in pompous little pleasantries about their pet economics, and drop a pompous little h now and then, and pretend they only did it for fun. But, dear me, there are other things to be vulgar about in this world besides money and uncertain aspirates.

If to be pompous and pretentious and insincere is to be vulgar, I really think the vulgar of our time are not these old plutocrats – not even their grandsons, who hunt and shoot and yacht and swagger with the best – but those solemn little prigs who have done well at school or college, and become radicals and agnostics before they've even had time to find out what men and women are made of, or what sex they belong to themselves (if any), and loathe all fun and sport and athletics, and rave about pictures and books and music they don't understand, and would pretend to despise if they did – things that were not even meant to be understood. It doesn't take three generations to make a prig – worse luck!

At the Gibsons' there was neither pompousness nor insincerity nor pretension of any kind, and therefore no real vulgarity. It is true they were a little bit noisy there sometimes, but only in fun.

When we arrived at that most hospitable house the two pretty drawing‐rooms were already crammed with young people, and the dancing was in full swing.