Muslin by George Moore

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XXVII

'Ah, _ce cher Milord, comme il est beau, comme il est parfait!_'
exclaimed Mrs. Barton, as she led him to his chair and poured out his
glass of sherry.

But there was a gloom on his face which laughter and compliments failed
for a moment to dissipate--at last he said:

'Ah, Mrs. Barton, Mrs. Barton! if I hadn't this little retreat to take
refuge in, to hide myself in, during some hours of the day, I should not
be able to bear up--Brookfield has prolonged my life for--'

'I cannot allow such sad thoughts as these,' said Mrs. Barton laughing,
and waving her white hands. 'Who has been teasing _notre cher_ Milord?
What have dreadful Lady Jane and terrible Lady Sarah been doing to him?'

'I shall never forget this morning, no, not if I lived to a thousand,'
the old gentleman murmured plaintively. 'Oh, the scenes--the scenes I
have been through! Cecilia, as I told you yesterday, has been filling
the house with rosaries and holywater-fonts; Jane and Sarah have been
breaking these, and the result has been tears and upbraidings. Last
night at dinner I don't really know what they didn't say to each other;
and then the two elder ones fell upon me and declared that it was all my
fault, that I ought never to have sent my daughter to a Catholic
convent. I was obliged to shut myself up in the study and lock the door.
Then this morning, when I thought it was all over, it began again worse
than ever; and then in the middle of it all, when Jane asked Cecilia how
many Gods there were in the roll of bread she was eating if the priest
were to bless it--if a Papist wasn't one who couldn't worship God till
somebody had turned Him into a biscuit--a most injudicious observation,
I said so at the time, and I must apologize to you, my dear Mrs. Barton,
for repeating it, but I am really so upset that I scarcely know what I
am saying. Well, Jane had no sooner spoken than Cecilia overthrew the
teacups and said she wasn't going to stay in the house to hear her
religion insulted, and without another word she walked down to the
parish priest and was baptized a Catholic; nor is that all. She returned
with a scapular round her neck, a rosary about her waist, and a Pope's
medal in her hand. I really thought Jane and Sarah would have fainted;
indeed I am sure they would have fainted if Cecilia hadn't declared that
she was going to pack up her things and return at once to St. Leonards
and become a nun. Such an announcement as this was, of course, far
beyond fainting, and . . . but no, I will not attempt to describe it, but
I can assure you I was very anxious to get out of the house.'

'Cecilia going to be a nun; oh, I am so glad!' exclaimed Olive. 'It is
far the best thing she could do, for she couldn't hope to be married.'

'Olive, Olive!' said Mrs. Barton, 'you shouldn't speak so openly. We
should always consider the religious prejudices of others. Of course, as
Catholics we must be glad to hear of anyone joining the true Church, but
we should remember that Milord is going to lose his daughter.'

'I assure you, my dear Mrs. Barton, I have no prejudices. I look upon
all religions as equally good and equally bad, but to be forced to live
in a perpetual discussion in which teacups are broken, concerning
scapulars, bacon and meal shops, and a school which, putting aside the
question of expense, makes me hated in the neighbourhood, I regard as
intolerable; and when I go home this evening, I shall tell Jane that the
school must be put down or carried on in a less aggressive way. I assure
you I have no wish to convert the people; they are paying their rents
very well now, and I think it absurd to upset them; and the fact of
having received Cecilia into the Church might incline the priest very
much towards us.'

'And Cecilia will be so happy in that beautiful convent!' suggested Mrs.
Barton.

'_C'est le genie du Catholicisme de nous debarrasser des filles
laides._'

And upon this expression of goodwill towards the Church of Rome
Cecilia's future life was discussed with much amiability. Mrs. Barton
said she would make a sweet little nun; Olive declared that she would
certainly go to St. Leonard's to see her 'professed'; and Milord's
description of Lady Sarah's and Lady Jane's ill-humour was considered
very amusing, and just as he was about to recount some new incident--one
that had escaped his memory till then--the door opened and the servant
announced Dr. Reed.

'Now, what can he want? Olive is quite well. He looks at her tongue and
feels her pulse. How do you do, Dr. Reed? Here is your patient, whom you
will find in the best health and spirits.'

As he was about to reply, Alice came into the room, and she tried to
carry on the conversation naturally. But the silence of Mrs. Barton and
Milord made this difficult; Dr. Reed was not a ready talker, and this
morning his replies were more than ever awkward and constrained. At last
it dawned on Alice that he wanted to speak to her alone; and in answer
to a remark he had made concerning the fever dens in Gort she said:

'I wanted to ask you a question or two about typhoid fever, Dr. Reed;
one of my heroines is going to die of it, and I should like to avoid
medical impossibilities. May I show you the passage?'

'Certainly, Miss Barton; I shall be delighted to help you--if I can.'

As soon as Alice left the room to fetch her manuscript the doctor
hurriedly bade his patient, Milord, and Mrs. Barton, good-bye.

'Aren't you going to wait to see Alice?' Mrs. Barton asked.

'I have to speak to the boy in charge of my car; I shall see Miss Barton
as she comes downstairs.'

Mrs. Barton looked as if she thought this arrangement not a little
singular, but she said nothing; and when Alice came running downstairs
with a roll of MSS. in her hand, she attempted to explain her difficulty
to the doctor. He made a feeble attempt to listen to the passage she
read aloud to him; and when their eyes met across the paper she saw he
was going to propose to her.

'Will you walk down the drive with me? and we will talk of that as we go
along.'

Her hat was on the hall-table; she took it up, and in silence walked
with him out on the gravel.

'Will I put the harse up, sor?' cried the boy from the outside car.

'No; follow me down the avenue.'

It was a wild autumn evening, full of wind and leaves. The great green
pasture-lands, soaked and soddened with rain, rolled their monotonous
green turf to the verge of the blown beech-trees, about which the rooks
drifted in picturesque confusion. Now they soared like hawks, or on
straightened wings were carried down a furious gust across the
tumultuous waves of upheaved yellow, and past the rift of cold crimson
that is tossed like a banner through the shadows of evening.

'I came here to tell you that I am going away; that I am leaving Ireland
for ever. I've bought the practice I spoke to you of in Notting Hill.'

'Oh, I am so glad!'

'Thank you! But there is another and more important matter on which I
should like to speak to you. For a long time back I had resolved to
leave Ireland a sad or an entirely happy man. Which shall it be? You are
the only woman I ever loved--will you be my wife?'

'Yes, I will.'

'I was afraid to ask you before. But,' he added, sighing, 'I shan't be
able to give you a home like the one you are leaving. We shall have to
be very economical; we shall not have more than three hundred a year to
live upon. Will you be satisfied with that?'

'I hope, indeed--I am sure we shall get on very well. You forget that I
can do something to keep myself,' she added, smiling. 'I have two or
three orders.'

She passed her arm through Dr. Reed's; and as he unfolded his plans to
her, he held her hand warmly and affectionately in his: and as the
twilight drifted it was wrapped like a veil about them. The rooks in
great flitting flocks passed over their heads, the tempestuous crimson
of the sky had been hurled further away, and only the form of the grey
horse, that the boy had allowed to graze, stood out distinctly in the
gloom that descended upon the earth.

XXVIII

On the very first opportunity she could find Alice told her mother that
Dr. Reed had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him. Mrs. Barton
said it was disgraceful, and that she would never hear of such a
marriage; and when the doctor called next day she acquainted him with
her views on the subject. She told him he had very improperly taken
advantage of his position to make love to her daughter; she really
didn't know how he could ever have arrived at the conclusion that a
match was possible, and that for the future his visits must cease at
Brookfield. And when Alice heard what had passed between Dr. Reed and
her mother she wrote, assuring him that her feelings towards him would
remain uninfluenced by anything that anyone might say. All the same, it
might be as well, having regard for what had happened, that the marriage
should take place with the least possible delay.

She took this letter down to the post-office herself, and when she
returned she entered the drawing-room and told Mrs. Barton what she had
done.

'I wish you had shown me the letter before you sent it. There is nothing
we need advice about so much as a letter.'

'Yes, mother,' replied Alice, deceived by the gentleness of Mrs.
Barton's manner; 'but we seemed to hold such widely different views on
this matter that there did not seem to be any use in discussing it.'

'Mother and daughter should never hold different views; my children's
interests are my interests--what interests have I now but theirs?'

'Oh, mother! Then you will consent to this marriage?'

Mrs. Barton's face always changed expression before a direct question.
'My dear, I would consent to anything that would make you happy; but it
seems to me impossible that you could be happy with Dr. Reed. I wonder
how you could like him. You do not know--I mean, you do not realize what
the intimacies of married life are. They are often hard to put up with,
no matter who the man may be, but with one who is not a gentleman--'

'But, mother, Dr. Reed seems to me to be in every way a gentleman. Who
is there more gentlemanly in the country? I am sure that from every
point of view he is preferable to Mr. Adair or Sir Charles, or Sir
Richard or Mr. Ryan, or his cousin, Mr. Lynch.'

'My darling child, I would sooner see you laid in your coffin than
married to either Mr. Ryan or Mr. Lynch; but that is not the question.
It is, whether you had not better wait for a few years before you throw
yourself away on such a man as Dr. Reed. I know that you have been
greatly tried; nothing is so trying to a girl as to come out with her
sister who is the belle of the season, and I must say you have shown a
great deal of pluck; and perhaps I haven't been considerate enough. But
I, too, have had my disappointments--Olive's affairs did not, as you
know, turn out as well as I had expected, and to see you now marry one
who is so much beneath us!'

'Mother, dear, he is not beneath us. There is no one who has earned his
career but Dr. Reed; he owes nothing to anyone; he has done it all by
his own exertions; and now he has bought a London practice.'

'Then you do not love him; it is only for the sake of settling yourself
in life that you are marrying him?'

'I respect Dr. Reed more than any man living; I bear for him a most
sincere affection, and I hope to make him a good wife.'

'You don't love him as you did Mr. Harding? If you will only wait you
may get him. The tenants are paying their rents very well, and I am
thinking of going to London in the spring.'

The girl winced at the mention of Harding, but she looked into her
mother's soft appealing brown eyes; and, reading clearer than she had
ever read before all the adorable falseness that lay therein, she
answered:

'I do not want to marry Mr. Harding; I am engaged to Dr. Reed, and I do
not intend to give him up.'

This answer was given so firmly that Mrs. Barton lost her temper for a
moment, and she said:

'And do you really know what this Dr. Reed originally was? Lord Dungory
is dining here to-night; he knows all about Dr. Reed's antecedents, and
I am sure he will be horrified when he hears that you are thinking of
marrying him.'

'I cannot recognize Lord Dungory's right to advise me on any course I
may choose to take, and I hope he will have the good taste to refrain
from speaking to me of my marriage.'

'What do you mean? How dare you speak to me like that, you impertinent
girl!'

'I am not impertinent, mother, and I hope I shall never be impertinent
to you; but I am now in my twenty-fifth year, and if I am ever to judge
for myself, I must do so now.'

Alice was curiously surprised by her own words; it seemed to her that it
was some strange woman, and not herself--not the old self with whom she
was intimately acquainted--who was speaking. Life is full of these
epoch-marking moments. We have all at some given time experienced the
sensation of finding ourselves either stronger or weaker than we had
ever before known ourselves to be; Alice now for the first time felt
that she was speaking and acting in her own individual right; and the
knowledge as it thrilled through her consciousness was almost a physical
pleasure. But notwithstanding the certitude that never left her of the
propriety of her conduct, and the equally ever-present sentiment of the
happiness that awaited her, she suffered much during the next ten days,
and she was frequently in tears. Cecilia had started for St. Leonards
without coming to wish her good-bye, and the cruel sneers, insinuations
of all kinds against her and against Dr. Reed, which Mrs. Barton never
missed an occasion of using, wounded the girl so deeply, that it was
only at the rarest intervals that she left her room--when she walked to
the post with a letter, when the luncheon or dinner bell rang. Why she
should be thus persecuted, Alice was unable to determine; and why her
family did not hail with delight this chance of getting rid of a plain
girl, whose prospects were limited, was difficult to say; nor could the
girl arrive at any notion of the pleasure or profit it might be to
anyone that she should waste her life amid chaperons and gossip, instead
of taking her part in the world's work. And yet this seemed to be her
mother's idea. She did not hesitate to threaten that she would neither
attend herself, nor allow Mr. Barton to attend the ceremony. Alice might
meet Dr. Reed at the corner of the road, and be married as best she
could. Alice appealed to her father against this decision, but she soon
had to renounce the hope of obtaining any definite answer. He had been
previously told that if he attempted any interference, his supply of
paints, brushes, canvases, and guitar-strings would be cut off, and, as
he was at present deeply engaged on a new picture of _Julius Caesar
overturning the Altars of the Druids_, he hesitated before the
alternatives offered to him. He spoke with much affection; he regretted
that Alice could not see her way to marrying somebody whom her mother
could approve! He explained the difficulties of his position, and the
necessity of his turning something out--seeing what he really could do
before the close of the year. Alice was disappointed, and bitterly, but
she bore her disappointment bravely, and she wrote to Dr. Reed, telling
him what had occurred, and proposing to meet him on a certain day at the
Parish Church, where Father Shannon would marry them; and, that if he
refused, they would proceed to Dublin, and be married at the Registry
Office. In a way Alice would have preferred this latter course, but her
good sense warned her against the uselessness of offering any too
violent opposition to the opinions of the world. And so it was arranged;
and sad, weary, and wretched, Alice lingered through the last few days
of the life that had always been to her one of humiliation, and which
now towards its close had quieted to one of intense pain.

The Brennans had promised to meet her in the chapel, and one day, as she
was sitting by her window, she saw May in all the glory of her copper
hair, drive a tandem up to the door. This girl threw the reins to the
groom, and rushed to her friend.

'And how do you do, Alice, and how well you are looking, and how pleased
I am to see you. I would have come before, only my leader was coughing
and I couldn't take him out. Oh, I was so wild; it is always like that;
nothing is so disappointing as horses; whenever you especially require
them they are laid up, and you can't imagine the difficulty I had to get
him along; I must really get another leader; he was trying to turn round
the whole way--if it hadn't been for the whip. I took blood out of him
three times running. But I know you don't care anything about horses,
and I want to hear about this marriage. I am so glad, so pleased, but
tell me, do you like him? He seems a very nice sort of man, you know, a
man that would make a woman happy. . . . I am sure you will be happy with
him, but it is dreadful to think we are going to lose you. I shall, I
know, be running over to London on purpose to see you; but tell me, what
I want to know is, do you like him? Would you believe it, I never once
suspected there was anything between you?'

'Yes, my dear May,' Alice replied smiling, 'I do like Edward Reed; nor
do I think that I should ever like any other man half as much: I have
perfect confidence in him, and where there is not confidence there
cannot be love. He has bought a small practice in Notting Hill, which
with care and industry he hopes may be worked up into a substantial
business. We shall be very poor at first, but we shall be able to make
both ends meet.'

'I can see it all; a little suburban semi-detached house, with green
Venetian blinds, a small mahogany sideboard, and a clean capped
maid-servant; and in the drawing-room you won't have a piano--you don't
care for music, but you'll have some basket chairs, and small bookcases,
and a tea-table with tea-cakes at five--oh, won't you look quiet and
grave at that tea-table. But tell me, it is all over the county that
Mrs. Barton won't hear of this marriage, and that she won't allow your
father to go to the chapel to give you away. It is a shame, and for the
life of me I can't see what parents have to do with our marriages, do
you?'

Without waiting for an answer, May continued the conversation, and with
vehemence she passed from one subject to another utterly disconnected
without a transitional word of explanation. She explained how tiresome
it was to sit at home of an evening listening to Mrs. Gould bemoaning
the state of the country; she spoke of her terrier, and this led up to a
critical examination of the good looks of several of the officers
stationed at Gort; then she alluded to the last meet of the hounds, and
she described the big wall she and Mrs. Manly had jumped together; a new
hat and an old skirt that she had lately done up came in for a passing
remark, and, with an abundance of laughter, May gave an account of a
luncheon-party at Lord Rosshill's; and, apparently verbatim, she told
what each of the five Honourable Miss Gores had said about the marriage.
Then growing suddenly serious, she said:

'It is all very well to laugh, but, when one comes to think of it, it is
very sad indeed to see seven human lives wasting away, a whole family of
girls eating their hearts out in despair, having nothing to do but to
pop about from one tennis-party to another, and chatter to each other or
their chaperons of this girl and that who does not seem to be getting
married. You are very lucky indeed, Alice--luckier than you think you
are, and you are quite right to stick out and do the best you can for
yourself in spite of what your people say. It is all very well for them
to talk, but they don't know what we suffer: we are not all made alike,
and the wants of one are not the wants of another. I dare say you never
thought much about that sort of thing; but as I say, we are not all made
alike. Every woman, or nearly every one, wants a husband and a home, and
it is only natural she should, and if she doesn't get them the
temptations she has to go through are something frightful, and if we
make the slightest slip the whole world is down upon us. I can talk to
you, Alice, because you know what I have gone through. You have been a
very good friend to me--had it not been for you I don't know what would
have become of me. You didn't reproach me, you were kind and had pity
for me; you are a sensible person, and I dare say you understood that I
wasn't entirely to blame. And I wasn't entirely to blame; the
circumstances we girls live under are not just--no, they are not just.
We are told that we must marry a man with at least a thousand a year, or
remain spinsters; well, I should like to know where the men are who have
a thousand a year, and some of us can't remain spinsters. Oh! you are
very lucky indeed to have found a husband, and to be going away to a
home of your own. I wish I were as lucky as you, Alice, indeed I do, for
then there would be no excuse, and I could be a good woman. You won't
hate me too much, will you, Alice? I have made a lot of good
resolutions, and they shall be kept some day.'

'Some day! You don't mean that you are again--'

'No; but I've a lover. It is dreadfully sinful, and if I died I should
go straight to hell. I know all that. I wish I were going to be married,
like you! For then one is out of temptation. Haven't you a kind word for
me? Won't you kiss me and tell me you don't despise me?'

'Of course I'll kiss you, May; and I am sure that one of these days you
will--'

Alice could say no more; and the girls kissed and cried in each other's
arms, and the group was a sad allegory of poor humanity's triumph, and
poor humanity's more than piteous failures. At last they went
downstairs, and in the hall May showed Alice the beautiful
wedding-present she had bought her, and the girl did not say that she
had sold her hunter to buy it.

XXIX

At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, '84, the rain fell
persistently in the midst of a profound silence. The trees stood stark
in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the
falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.

Not a living thing was to be seen except the wet sheep, nor did anything
stir either within or without till an outside car, one seat overturned
to save the cushions from the wet, came careering up the avenue. There
was a shaggy horse and a wild-looking driver in a long, shaggy frieze
ulster. Even now, at the last moment, Alice expected the drawing-room
door to open and her mother to come rushing out to wish her good-bye.
But Mrs. Barton remained implacable, and after laying one more kiss on
her sister's pale cheek, Alice, in a passionate flood of tears, was
driven away.

In streaming mackintoshes, and leaning on dripping umbrellas, she found
her husband, and Gladys and Zoe Brennan, waiting for her in the porch of
the church.

'Did you ever see such weather?' said Zoe.

'Isn't it dreadful!' said Gladys.

'It was good of you to come,' said Alice.

'It was indeed!' said the bridegroom.

'What nonsense!' said Zoe. 'We were only too pleased; and if to-day be
wet, to-morrow and the next and the next will be sunshine.

And thanking Zoe inwardly for this most appropriate remark, the party
ascended the church toward the altar-rails, where Father Shannon was
awaiting them. Large, pompous, and arrogant, he stood on his
altar-steps, and his hands were crossed over his portly stomach. On
either side of him the plaster angels bowed their heads and folded their
wings. Above him the great chancel window, with its panes of green and
yellow glass, jarred in an unutterable clash of colour; and the great
white stare of the chalky walls, and the earthen floor with its tub of
holy water, and the German prints absurdly representing the suffering of
Christ, bespoke the primitive belief, the coarse superstition, of which
the place was an immediate symbol. Alice and the doctor looked at each
other and smiled, but their thoughts were too firmly fixed on the actual
problem of their united lives to wander far in the most hidden ways of
the old world's psychical extravagances. What did it matter to them what
absurd usages the place they were in was put to?--they, at least, were
only making use of it as they might of any other public office--the
police-station, where inquiries are made concerning parcels left in
cabs; the Commissioner before whom an affidavit is made. And it served
its purpose as well as any of the others did theirs. The priest joined
their hands, Edward put the ring on Alice's finger, and the usual
prayers did no harm if they did no good; and having signed their names
in the register and bid good-bye to the Miss Brennans, they got into the
carriage, man and wife, their feet set for ever upon one path, their
interests and delights melted to one interest and one delight, their
separate troubles merged into one trouble that might or might not be
made lighter by the sharing; and penetrated by such thoughts they leaned
back on the blue cushions of the carriage, happy, and yet a little
frightened.

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