CHAPTER XXXVII

THE MOTHER-THE DAUGHTER

Taking Nesta's hand, on her entry into his chambers with her father,

Colney Durance bowed over it and kissed it. The unusual performance had a

meaning; she felt she was praised. It might be because she made herself

her father's companion. 'I can't persuade him to put on a great-coat,'

she said. 'You would defeat his aim at the particular waistcoat of his

ambition,' said Colney, goaded to speak, not anxious to be heard.

He kept her beside him, leading her about for introductions to multiform

celebrities of both sexes; among them the gentleman editing the Magazine

which gave out serially THE RIVAL TONGUES: and there was talk of a

dragon-throated public's queer appetite in Letters. The pained Editor

deferentially smiled at her cheerful mention of Delphica. 'In, book form,

perhaps!' he remarked, with plaintive' resignation; adding: 'You read

it?' And a lady exclaimed: 'We all read it!'

But we are the elect, who see signification and catch flavour; and we are

reminded of an insatiable monster how sometimes capricious is his gorge.

'He may happen to be in the humour for a shaking!' Colney's poor

consolation it was to say of the prospects of his published book: for the

funny monster has been known to like a shaking.

'He takes it kinder tickled,' said Fenellan, joining the group and

grasping Nesta's hand with a warmth that thrilled her and set her

guessing. 'A taste of his favourite Cayenne lollypop, Colney; it fetches

the tear he loves to shed, or it gives him digestive heat in the bag of

his literary receptacle-fearfully relaxed and enormous! And no wonder;

his is to lie him down on notion of the attitude for reading, his back;

and he has in a jiffy the funnel of the Libraries inserted into his

mouth, and he feels the publishers pouring their gallons through it

unlimitedly; never crying out, which he can't; only swelling, which he's

obliged to do, with a non-nutritious inflation; and that's his

intellectual enjoyment; bearing a likeness to the horrible old torture of

the baillir d'eau; and he's doomed to perish in the worst book-form of

dropsy. You, my dear Colney, have offended his police or excise, who

stand by the funnel, in touch with his palate, to make sure that nothing

above proof is poured in; and there's your misfortune. He's not half a

bad fellow, you find when you haven't got to serve him.'

'Superior to his official parasites, one supposes!' Colney murmured.

The celebrities were unaffectedly interested in a literary failure having

certain merits; they discussed it, to compliment the crownless author;

and the fervider they, the more was he endowed to read the meanness

prompting the generosity. Publication of a book, is the philosopher's

lantern upon one's fellows.

Colney was caught away from his private manufactory of acids by hearing

Simeon Fenellan relate to Victor some of the recent occurrences at

Brighton. Simeon's tone was unsatisfying; Colney would have the word; he

was like steel on the grindstone for such a theme of our national

grotesque-sublime.

'That Demerara Supple-jack, Victor! Don't listen to Simeon; he's a man of

lean narrative, fit to chronicle political party wrangles and such like

crop of carcase prose: this is epical. In DRINK we have Old England's

organic Epic; Greeks and Trojans; Parliamentary Olympus, ennobled

brewers, nasal fanatics, all the machinery to hand. Keep a straight eye

on the primary motives of man, you'll own the English produce the

material for proud verse; they're alive there! Dartrey's Demerara makes a

pretty episode of the battle. I haven't seen it--if it's possible to look

on it: but I hear it is flexible, of a vulgar appearance in repose,

Jove's lightning at one time, the thong of AEacus at another. Observe

Dartrey marching off to the Station, for the purpose of laying his

miraculous weapon across the shoulders of a son of Mars, who had

offended. But we have his name, my dear Victor! His name,

Simeon?--Worrell; a Major Worrell: his offence being probably, that he

obtained military instruction in the Service, and left it at his

convenience, for our poor patch and tatter British Army to take in his

place another young student, who'll grow up to do similarly. And Dartrey,

we assume, is off to stop that system. You behold Sir Dartrey twirling

the weapon in preparatory fashion; because he is determined we shall have

an army of trained officers instead of infant amateurs heading heroic

louts. Not a thought of Beer in Dartrey!--always unpatriotic, you 'll

say. Plato entreats his absent mistress to fix eyes on a star: eyes on

Beer for the uniting of you English! I tell you no poetic fiction. Seeing

him on his way, thus terribly armed, and knowing his intent, Venus, to

shield a former favourite servant of Mars, conjured the most diverting of

interventions, in the shape of a young woman in a poke-bonnet, and

Skepsey, her squire, marching with a dozen or so, informing bedevilled

mankind of the hideousness of our hymnification when it is not under

secluding sanction of the Edifice, and challengeing criticism; and that

was hard by, and real English, in the form of bludgeons, wielded by a

battalion of the national idol Bungay Beervat's boys; and they fell upon

the hymners. Here you fill in with pastoral similes. They struck the maid

adored by Skepsey. And that was the blow which slew them! Our little man

drove into the press with a pair of fists able to do their work. A

valiant skiff upon a sea of enemies, he was having it on the nob, and

suddenly the Demerara lightened. It flailed to thresh. Enough. to say,

brains would have come. The Bungays made a show of fight. No lack of

blood in them, to stock a raw shilling's worth or gush before Achilles

rageing. You perceive the picture, you can almost sing the ballad. We

want only a few names of the fallen. It was the carving of a maitre chef,

according to Skepsey: right-left-and point, with supreme precision: they

fell, accurately sliced from the joint. Having done with them, Dartrey

tossed the Demerara to Skepsey, and washed his hands of battle; and he

let his major go unscathed. Phlebotomy sufficient for the day!'

Nesta's ears hummed with the name of Major Worrell.

'Skepsey did come back to London with a rather damaged frontispiece,'

Victor said. 'He can't have joined those people?'

'They may suit one of your militant peacemakers,' interposed Fenellan.

'The most placable creatures alive, and the surest for getting-up a

shindy.'

'Suit him! They're the scandal of our streets.' Victor was pricked with a

jealousy of them for beguiling him of his trusty servant.

'Look at your country, see where it shows its vitality,' said Colney.

'You don't see elsewhere any vein in movement-movement,' he harped on the

word Victor constantly employed to express the thing he wanted to see.

'Think of that, when the procession sets your teeth on edge. They're

honest foes of vice, and they move:--in England! Pulpit-preaching has no

effect. For gross maladies, gross remedies. You may judge of what you are

by the quality of the cure. Puritanism, I won't attempt to paint--it

would barely be decent; but compare it with the spectacle of English

frivolity, and you'll admit it to be the best show you make. It may still

be the saving of you--on the level of the orderly ox: I 've not observed

that it aims at higher. And talking of the pulpit, Barmby is off to the

East, has accepted a Shoreditch curacy, Skepsey tells me.'

'So there's the reason for our not seeing him!' Victor turned to Nesta.

'Papa, you won't be angry with Skepsey if he has joined those people,'

said Nesta. 'I'm sure he thinks of serving his country, Mr. Durance.'

Colney smiled on her. 'And you too?'

'If women knew how!'

'They're hitting on more ways at present than the men--in England.'

'But, Mr. Durance, it speaks well for England when they're allowed the

chance here.'

'Good!' Fenellan exclaimed. 'And that upsets his placement of the modern

national genders: Germany masculine, France feminine, Old England what

remains.'

Victor ruffled and reddened on his shout of 'Neuter?'

Their circle widened. Nesta knew she was on promotion, by her being led

about and introduced to ladies. They were encouraging with her. One of

them, a Mrs. Marina Floyer, had recently raised a standard of feminine

insurrection. She said: 'I hear your praises from Mr. Durance. He rarely

praises. You have shown capacity to meditate on the condition of women,

he says.'

Nesta drew a shorter breath, with a hope at heart. She speculated in the

dark, as to whether her aim to serve and help was not so friendless. And

did Mr. Durance approve? But surely she stood in a glorious England if

there were men and women to welcome a girl to their councils. Oh! that is

the broad free England where gentlemen and gentlewomen accept of the

meanest aid to cleanse the land of its iniquities, and do not suffer

shame to smite a young face for touching upon horrors with a pure design.

She cried in her bosom: I feel! She had no other expression for that

which is as near as great natures may come to the conceiving of the

celestial spirit from an emissary angel; and she trembled, the fire ran

through her. It seemed to her, that she would be called to help or that

certainly they were nearing to an effacement of the woefullest of evils;

and if not helping, it would still be a blessedness for her to kneel

thanking heaven.

Society was being attacked and defended. She could but studiously listen.

Her father was listening. The assailant was a lady; and she had a

hearing, although she treated Society as a discrowned monarch on trial

for an offence against a more precious: viz., the individual cramped by

brutish laws: the individual with the ideas of our time, righteously

claiming expansion out of the clutches of a narrow old-world

disciplinarian-that giant hypocrite! She flung the gauntlet at externally

venerable Institutions; and she had a hearing, where horrification,

execration, the foul Furies of Conservatism would in a shortly antecedent

day have been hissing and snakily lashing, hounding her to expulsion.

Mrs. Marina Floyer gravely seconded her. Colney did the same. Victor

turned sharp on him. 'Yes,' Colney said; 'we unfold the standard of

extremes in this country, to get a single step taken: that's how we move:

we threaten death to get footway. Now, mark: Society's errors will be

admitted.'

A gentleman spoke. He began by admitting Society's errors. Nevertheless,

it so distinctly exists for the common good, that we may say of Society

in relation to the individual, it is the body to the soul. We may wash,

trim, purify, but we must not maim it. The assertion of our individuality

in opposition to the Government of Society--this existing Society--is a

toss of the cap for the erasure of our civilization, et caetera.

Platitudes can be of intense interest if they approach our case.--But, if

you please, we ask permission to wash, trim, purify, and we do not get

it.--But you have it! Because we take it at our peril; and you, who are

too cowardly to grant or withhold, call-up the revolutionary from the

pits by your slackness:--etc. There was a pretty hot debate. Both

assailant and defendant, to Victor's thinking, spoke well, and each the

right thing and he could have made use of both, but he could answer

neither. He beat about for the cause of this deficiency, and discovered

it in his position. Mentally, he was on the side of Society. Yet he was

annoyed to find the attack was so easily answerable when the defence

unfolded. But it was absurd to expect it would not be. And in fact, a

position secretly rebellious is equal to water on the brain for

stultifying us.

Before the controversy was over, a note in Nataly's handwriting called

him home. She wrote: 'Make my excuses. C. D. will give Nesta and some

lady dinner. A visitor here. Come alone, and without delay. Quite well,

robust. Impatient to consult with you, nothing else.'

Nesta was happy to stay; and Victor set forth.

The visitor? plainly Dudley. Nataly's trusting the girl to the chance of

some lady being present, was unlike her. Dudley might be tugging at the

cord; and the recent conversation upon Society, rendered one of its gilt

pillars particularly estimable.--A person in the debate had declared this

modern protest on behalf of individualism to represent Society's Criminal

Trial. And it is likely to be a long one. And good for the world, that we

see such a Trial!--Well said or not, undoubtedly Society is an old

criminal: not much more advanced than the state of spiritual worship

where bloody sacrifice was offered to a hungry Lord. But it has a case

for pleading. We may liken it, as we have it now, to the bumping

lumberer's raft; suitable along torrent waters until we come to smoother.

Are we not on waters of a certain smoothness at the reflecting

level?--enough to justify demands for a vessel of finer design. If

Society is to subsist, it must have the human with the logical argument

against the cry of the free-flags, instead of presenting a block's

obtuseness. That, you need not hesitate to believe, will be rolled

downward and disintegrated, sooner than later. A Society based on the

logical concrete of humane considerateness:--a Society prohibiting to

Mrs. Burman her wielding of a life-long rod . . . .

The personal element again to confuse inquiry!--And Skepsey and Barmby

both of them bent on doing work without inquiry of any sort! They were

enviable: they were good fellows. Victor clung to the theme because it

hinted of next door to his lost Idea. He rubbed the back of his head,

fancying a throb there. Are civilized creatures incapable of abstract

thought when their social position is dubious? For if so, we never can be

quit of those we forsake.--Apparently Mrs. Burman's unfathomed power lay

in her compelling him to summon the devilish in himself and play upon the

impish in Society, that he might overcome her.

Victor's house-door stopped this current.

Nataly took his embrace.

'Nothing wrong?' he said, and saw the something. It was a favourable

moment to tell her what she might not at another time regard as a small

affair. 'News in the City to-day of that South London borough being

vacated. Quatley urges me. A death again! I saw Pempton, too. Will you

credit me when I tell you he carries his infatuation so far, that he has

been investing in Japanese and Chinese Loans, because they are less

meat-eaters than others, and vegetarians are more stable, and outlast us

all!--Dudley the visitor?' 'Mr. Sowerby has been here,' she said, in a

shaking low voice.

Victor held her hand and felt a squeeze more nervous than affectionate.

'To consult with me,' she added. 'My maid will go at ten to bring Nesta;

Mr. Durance I can count on, to see her safe home. Ah!' she wailed.

Victor nodded, saying: 'I guess. And, my love, you will receive Mrs. John

Cormyn to-morrow morning. I can't endure gaps. Gaps in our circle must

never be. Do I guess?--I spoke to Colney about bringing her home.'

Nataly sighed: 'Ah! make what provision we will! Evil--Mr. Sowerby has

had a great deal to bear.'

'A worldling may think so.'

Her breast heaved, and the wave burst: but her restraining of tears froze

her speech.

'Victor! Our Nesta! Mr. Sowerby is unable to explain. And how the Miss

Duvidneys! . . . At that Brighton!'--The voice he heard was not his

darling's deep rich note, it had dropped to toneless hoarseness: 'She has

been permitted to make acquaintance--she has been seen riding with--she

has called upon--Oh! it is one of those abandoned women. In her house!

Our girl! Our Nesta! She was insulted by a man in the woman's house. She

is talked of over Brighton. The mother!--the daughter! And grant me

this--that never was girl more carefully . . . never till she was taken

from me. Oh! do not forget. You will defend me? You will say, that her

mother did with all her soul strive . . . It is not a rumour. Mr. Sowerby

has had it confirmed.' A sob caught her voice.

Victor's hands caressed to console: 'Dudley does not propose to . . ?'

'Nesta must promise . . . But how it happened? How! An acquaintance

with--contact with!--Oh! cruel!' Each time she ceased speaking, the

wrinkles of a shiver went over her, and the tone was of tears coming, but

she locked them in.

'An accident!' said Victor; 'some misunderstanding--there can't be harm.

Of course, she promises--hasn't to promise. How could a girl distinguish!

He does not cast blame on her?'

'Dear, if you would go down to Dartrey to-morrow. He knows:--it is over

the Clubs there; he will tell you, before a word to Nesta. Innocent, yes!

Mr. Sowerby has not to be assured of that. Ignorant of the character of

the dreadful woman? Ah, if I could ever in anything think her ignorant!

She frightens me. Mr. Sowerby is indulgent. He does me justice. My duty

to her--I must defend myself--has been my first thought. I said in my

prayers--she at least! . . . We have to see the more than common reasons

why she, of all girls, should--he did not hint it, he was delicate: her

name must not be public.'

'Yes, yes, Dudley is without parallel as a gentleman,' said Victor. 'It

does not suit me to hear the word "indulgent." My dear, if you were down

there, you would discover that the talk was the talk of two or three men

seeing our girl ride by--and she did ride with a troop: why, we've

watched them along the parade, often. Clear as day how it happened! I'll

go down early to-morrow.'

He fancied Nataly was appeased. And even out of this annoyance, there was

the gain of her being won to favour Dudley's hitherto but tolerated suit.

Nataly also had the fancy, that the calm following on her anguish, was a

moderation of it. She was kept strung to confide in her girl by the

recent indebtedness to her for words heavenly in the strengthening

comfort they gave. But no sooner was she alone than her torturing

perplexities and her abasement of the hours previous to Victor's coming

returned.

For a girl of Nesta's head could not be deceived; she had come home with

a woman's intelligence of the world, hard knowledge of it--a knowledge

drawn from foul wells, the unhappy mother imagined: she dreaded to probe

to the depth of it. She had in her wounded breast the world's idea, that

corruption must come of the contact with impurity.

Nataly renewed her cry of despair: 'The mother!--the daughter!'--her sole

revelation of the heart's hollows in her stammered speaking to Victor.

She thanked heaven for the loneliness of her bed, where she could repeat:

'The mother!--the daughter!' hearing the world's words:--the daughter

excused, by reason of her having such a mother; the mother unpitied for

the bruiting of her brazen daughter's name: but both alike consigned to

the corners of the world's dust-heaps. She cried out, that her pride was

broken. Her pride, her last support of life, had gone to pieces. The

tears she restrained in Victor's presence, were called on to come now,

and she had none. It might be, that she had not strength for weeping. She

was very weak. Rising from bed to lock her door against Nesta's entry to

the room on her return at night, she could hardly stand: a chill and a

clouding overcame her. The quitted bed seemed the haven of a drifted

wreck to reach.

Victor tried the handle of a locked door in the dark of the early winter

morning. 'The mother!--the daughter!' had swung a pendulum for some time

during the night in him, too. He would rather have been subjected to the

spectacle of tears than have heard that toneless voice, as it were the

dry torrent-bed rolling blocks instead of melodious, if afflicting,

waters.

He told Nesta not to disturb her mother, and murmured of a headache:

'Though, upon my word, the best cure for mama would be a look into

Fredi's eyes!' he said, embracing his girl, quite believing in her, just

a little afraid of her.