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CHAPTER XVII
THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Contrary to all reasonable expectation, Alec Feilding called at Armorel's rooms the very next morning – and quite early in the morning, when it was not yet eleven. Armorel, however, had already gone out. He was received by Mrs. Elstree, who was, as usual, sitting, apparently asleep, by the fire.

'You have come in the hope of seeing Armorel alone, I suppose?' she said.

'Yes. You remember, Zoe,' he replied quickly – she observed that he was pale, and that he fidgeted nervously, and that his eyes, restless and scared, looked as if somebody was hunting him – 'that we had a talk about it. You said you wouldn't make a row. You know you did. You consented.'

'Oh, yes! I remember. I am to play another part, and quite a new one. You too are about to play a new part – one not generally desired – quite the stage villain.' He made a gesture of impatience. 'Consider, however,' she went on quickly, before he could speak. 'Do you think this morning – the day after yesterday – quite propitious for your purpose?'

'What do you mean?' he asked quickly. 'Why not the day after yesterday?'

'Nothing. Still, if I might advise – '

'Zoe, you know nothing at all. And time presses. If there was reason, a week ago, for me to be the reputed and accepted lover of this girl, there is tenfold more reason now. You don't know, I say. For Heaven's sake don't spoil things now by any interference.'

He was at least in earnest. Mrs. Elstree contemplated him with curiosity. It seemed as if she had never seen him really in earnest before. But now she understood. He knew by this time that Armorel had discovered the source, the origins, of his greatness. She might destroy him by a word. This knowledge would pierce the hide of the most pachydermatous: his strength, you see, was like that of Samson – it depended on a secret: it also now resembled that of Samson in that it lay at the mercy of a woman.

'Alec,' said Mrs. Elstree, softly, 'you were greatly moved last night by several things – by the play, by the picture, by the song. I watched you. While the rest were listening to the play, I watched you. The room was dark, and you thought no one could see you. But I could make out your features. Armorel watched you, too, but for other motives. I was wondering. She was triumphant. You know why?'

'What do you know?'

'Your face, which is generally so well under command, expressed surprise, rage, disgust, and terror – all these passions, dear Alec. On the stage we study how to express them. We represent an exaggeration so that the gallery shall understand, and we call it Art. But I know the symptoms.'

'What else do you know, I ask?'

'This morning you are nervous and agitated. You are afraid of something. Alec, you know what I think of the cruelty and hardheartedness of this project of yours – to sustain your credit on an engagement which will certainly not last a month – I could not possibly suffer the girl to be entangled longer than that – now give it over.'

'I cannot give it over: it is my only chance. Zoe, you don't know the mischief she has done me, and will do me again. It is ruin – ruin!'

'Well then, Alec, don't go after her to-day. Indeed, I advise you not. You are not in a condition to approach the subject, and she is not in a condition to be approached. I do not ask your reasons, or the kind of mischief you mean. I sit here and watch. In the course of time I find out all things.'

'How much do you know, Zoe? What have you found out?'

'Knowledge, Alec, is power. Should I part in a moment, and for nothing, with what I have acquired at the expense of a great deal of contriving and putting together? Certainly not. You can go and find Armorel, if you persist in choosing such a day for such a purpose. She has gone, I believe, to the National Gallery.'

'I must find her to-day. I must bring things to a head. Good Heavens! I don't know what new mischief they may be designing.'

'Go home and wait, Alec. No one will do anything to you to-day. You are nervous and excited.'

'You don't understand, I say. Tell me, did the men talk last night – about me – in your hearing?'

'Not in my hearing, certainly. Go home and rest, Alec.'

'I cannot rest. I must find the girl.'

'Well, if you want her – go and find her. Alec, remember, if you stood the faintest chance of success with her, I think I should have to get up and warn her. Even for your sake I do not think I could suffer this wickedness to be done. But you have no chance – none – not on any day, particularly on this day – and after last night. Go, however – go.'

When things have gone so far that assignations and appointments are made and places of secret meeting agreed upon, there is hardly any place in the whole of London more central, more convenient, or safer than the National Gallery. Here the young lady of society may be perfectly certain of remaining undiscovered. At the South Kensington no one is quite safe, because in the modern enthusiasm for art all kinds of people – even people in society – sometimes go there to see embroideries and hangings, and handiwork of every sort. The India Museum is perhaps safer even than the National Gallery – safer, for such a purpose, than any other spot in the world. But there is a loneliness in its galleries which strikes a chill to the most ardent heart, and damps the spirit of the most resolute lover.

In the National Gallery there are plenty of people: but they are all country visitors, or Americans, or copyists: never any people of the young lady's own set: and there is never any crowd. One can sit and talk undisturbed and quiet: the copyists chatter or go on with their work regardless of anything: the attendants slumber: the visitors pass round room after room, looking for pictures which have a story to tell – and a story which they can read. That, you see, is the only kind of picture – unless it be a picture of a pretty face – which the ordinary visitor commonly understands. Not many young people know of this place, and those who do keep the knowledge to themselves. The upper rooms of the British Museum are also commended by some for the same reason, but the approaches are difficult.

This use of the National Gallery once understood, the thing which happened here the day after the reading of the play will not seem incredible, though it certainly was not intended by the architect when he designed the building. Otherwise there might have been convenient arbours.

Armorel went often to the Gallery: the English girl reserves, as a rule, her study of pictures, and art generally, till she gets to Florence. Armorel, who had also studied art in Florence, found much to learn in our own neglected Gallery. Sometimes she went alone: sometimes she went with Effie, and then, being quite a learned person in the matter of pictures and their makers, she would discourse from room to room, till the day was all too short. The country visitors streamed past her in languid procession: the lovers met by appointment at her very elbow: the copyists flirted, talked scandal, wasted time, and sighed for commissions: but Armorel had not learned to watch people: she came to see the pictures: she had not begun to detach an individual from the crowd as a representative: in other words, she was not a novelist.

This morning she was alone. She carried a notebook and pencil, and was standing before a picture making notes. It was a wet morning: the rooms were nearly empty, and the galleries were very quiet.

She heard a manly step striding across the floor. She half turned as it approached her. Mr. Alec Feilding took off his hat.

'Mrs. Elstree told me you were here,' he said. 'I ventured to follow.'

'Yes?'

'You – you – come often, I believe?' He looked pale, and, for the first time in Armorel's recollection of him, he was nervous. 'There is, I believe, a good deal to be learned here.'

'There is, especially by those who want to paint – of course, I mean – who want to do their own paintings by themselves. Mr. Feilding, frankly, what do you want? Why do you come here in search of me?' Her face hardened: her eyes were cold and resolved. But the man was full of himself; he noted not these symptoms.

'I came because I have something to say.'

'Of importance?'

'Of great importance.'

'Not, I hope, connected with Art. Do not talk to me about Art, if you please, Mr. Feilding – not about any kind of Art.'

He bowed gravely. 'One cannot always listen to conversation involving canons and first principles,' he said, with much condescension. 'Let me, however, congratulate you on the promise of your protégés, Archie and Effie Wilmot.'

'They are clever.'

'They are distinctly clever,' he repeated, recovering his usual self-possession. 'Effie, as perhaps she has told you, has been my pupil for a long time.'

'She has told me, in fact, something about her relations to you.'

'Yes.' The man was preoccupied and rather dense by nature. Therefore he caught only imperfectly these side meanings in Armorel's replies. 'Yes – quite so – I have been able to be useful to her, and to her brother also – very useful, indeed, happily.'

'And to – to others – as well – very useful, indeed,' Armorel echoed.

He understood that there was some kind of menace in these words. But the very air, this morning, was full of menace. He passed them by.

'It is a curious coincidence that you should also have taken up this interesting pair. It ought to bring us closer.'

'Quite the contrary, Mr. Feilding. It puts us far more widely apart.'

'I do not understand that. We have a common interest. For instance, only the other day I accepted a poem of Effie's – '

'Only the other day, Mr. Feilding?'

'Yes, the day before yesterday. I had it set up, and I added a few words introducing the writer. That was the day before yesterday. Judge of my astonishment when, only yesterday, you sang that very song, and handed it round printed with the accompaniment. I have made no alteration. The verses will appear to-night, with my laudatory introduction. Some men might complain that they had not been taken into confidence. But I do not. Effie is a little genius in her way. She is not practical: she does not understand that having disposed of her verses to one editor she is not free to give them to another. But I do not complain, if your action in her cause brings her into notice.'

Here was a turning of tables! Now, some men overdo a thing. They smile too much: they rub their hands nervously: they show a nervous anxiety to be believed. Not so this man. He spoke naturally – he had now recovered his usual equanimity: he looked blankly unconscious that any doubt could possibly be thrown upon his word. Since he said it, the thing must be so. Men of honour have always claimed and exacted this concession. Therefore, the following syllogism: —

Mr. Alec Feilding is a man of honour:

Everybody must acknowledge so much.

A man of honour cannot lie:

Else – what becomes of his honour?

Therefore:

Any statement made by Mr. Alec Feilding is literally true.

Armorel showed no doubt in her face. Why should she? There was no doubt in her mind. The man was a Liar.

'The Wilmots will get on,' she said coldly, 'without any help from anybody. Now, Mr. Feilding, you came to say something important to me. Shall we go on to that important communication?' She took a seat on the divan in the middle of the room. He stood over her, 'There is no one here this morning,' she said. 'You can speak as freely as in your own study.'

'Among your many fine qualities, Miss Rosevean,' he began floridly, but with heightened colour, 'a certain artistic reserve is reckoned by your friends, perhaps, the highest. It makes you queenly.'

'Mr. Feilding, I cannot possibly discuss my own qualities with any but my friends.'

'Your friends! Surely, I also – '

'My friends, Mr. Feilding,' Armorel repeated, bristling like the fretful porcupine. But the man, preoccupied and thick of skin, and full of vainglory and conceit, actually did not perceive these quills erect. Armorel's pointed remarks did not prick his hide: her coldness he took for her customary reserve. Therefore he hurried to his doom.

'Give me,' he said, 'the right to speak to you as your dearest friend. You cannot possibly mistake the attentions that I have paid to you for the last few weeks. They must have indicated to you – they were, indeed, deliberately designed to indicate – a preference – deepening into a passion – '

'I think you had better stop at once, Mr. Feilding.'

There are many men who honestly believe that they are irresistible. It seems incredible, but it is really true. It is the consciousness of masculine superiority carried to an extreme. They think that they have only to repeat the conventional words in the conventional manner for the woman to be subjugated. They come: they conquer. Now, this man, who plainly saw that he was to a certain extent – he did not know how far – detected, actually imagined that the woman who had detected him in a gigantic fraud one day would accept his proffered hand and heart the very next day! There are no bounds, you see, to personal vanity. Besides, for this man, if it was necessary that he should appear as the accepted suitor of a rich girl, it was doubly necessary that the girl should be the one woman in the world who could do mischief. He was anxious to discover how much she knew. But of his wooing he had no anxiety at all. He should speak: she would yield: she could do nothing else.

'Permit me,' he replied blandly, 'to go on. I am, as you know, a leader in the world of Art. I am known as a painter, a poet, and a writer of fiction. I have other ambitions still.'

'Doubtless you will succeed in these as you have succeeded in those three Arts.'

'Thank you.' He really did not see the meaning of her words. 'I take your words as of happy augury. Armorel – '

'No, Sir! Not my Christian name, if you please.'

'Give me the right to call you by your Christian name.'

'You are asking me to marry you. Is that what you mean?'

'It is nothing less.'

'Really! When I tell you, Mr. Feilding, that I know you – that I know you – it will be plain to you that the thing is absolutely impossible.'

'To know me,' he replied, showing no outward emotion, 'should make it more than possible. What could I wish better than to be known to you?'

She looked him full in the face. He neither dropped his eyes nor changed colour.

'What could be better for me?' he repeated. 'What could I hope for better than to be known?'

'Oh! This man is truly wonderful!' she cried. 'Must I tell you what I know?'

'It would be better, perhaps. You look as if you knew something to my – actually – if I may say so – actually to my discredit!'

Armorel gasped. His impudence was colossal.

'To your discredit! Oh! Actually to your discredit! Sir, I know the whole of your disgraceful history – the history of the past three or four years. I know by what frauds you have passed yourself off as a painter and as a poet. I know by what pretences you thought to lay the foundation for a reputation as a dramatist. I know that your talk is borrowed – that you do not know art when you see it: that you could never write a single line of verse – and that of all the humbugs and quacks that ever imposed themselves upon the credulity of people you are the worst and biggest.'

He stared with a wonder which was, at least, admirably acted.

'Good Heavens!' he said. 'These words – these accusations – from you? From Armorel Rosevean – cousin of my cousin – whom I had believed to be a friend? Can this be possible? Who has put this wonderful array of charges into your head?'

'That matters nothing. They are true, and you know it.'

'They are so true,' he replied sternly, 'that if anyone were to dare to repeat these things before a third person, I should instantly – instantly – instruct my solicitors to bring an action for libel. Remember: youth and sex would not avail to protect that libeller. If anyone – anyone – dares, I say – '

'Oh! say no more. Go, and do not speak to me again! What will be done with this knowledge, I cannot say. Perhaps it will be used for the exposure which will drive you from the houses of honest people. Go, I say!'

She stamped her foot and raised her voice, insomuch that two drowsy attendants woke up and looked round, thinking they had dreamed something unusual.

The injured man of Art and Letters obeyed. He strode away. He, who had come pale and hesitating, now, on learning the truth which he had suspected and on receiving this unmistakable rejection, walked away with head erect and lofty mien. He showed, at least by outward bearing, the courage which is awakened by a declaration of war.

CHAPTER XVIII
CONGRATULATIONS

In the afternoon of the same day Armorel received a visit from a certain Lady Frances, of whom mention has already been made. She was sitting in her own room, alone. The excitements of the last night and of the morning were succeeded by a gentle melancholy. These things had not been expected when she took her rooms and plunged into London life. Besides, after these excitements the afternoon was flat.

Lady Frances came in, dressed beautifully, gracious and cordial; she took both Armorel's hands in her own, and looked as if she would have kissed her but for conscientious scruples: she was five-and-forty, or perhaps fifty, fat, comfortable, and rosy-cheeked. And she began to talk volubly. Not in the common and breathless way of volubility which leaves out the stops; but steadily and irresistibly, so that her companion should not be able to get in one single word. Well-bred persons do not leave out their commas and their full stops: but they do sometimes talk continuously, like a cataract or a Westmoreland Force, at least.

'My dear,' she said, 'I told your maid that I wanted to see you alone, and in your own room. She said Mrs. Elstree was out. So I came in. It is a very pretty little room. They tell me you play wonderfully. This is where you practise, I suppose.' She put up her glasses and looked round, as if to see what impression had been produced on the walls by the music. 'And I hear also that you paint and draw. My dear, you are the very person for him.' Again she looked round. 'A very pretty room, really – wonderful to observe how the taste for decoration and domestic art has spread of late years!' A doubtful compliment, when you consider it. 'Well, my dear, as an old friend of his – at all events, a very useful friend of his – I am come to congratulate you.'

'To congratulate me?'

'Yes. I thought I would be one of the first. I asked him two or three days ago if it was settled, and he confessed the truth, but begged me not to spread it abroad, because there were lawyers and people to see. Of course, his secrets are mine. And, except my own very intimate friends and one or two who can be perfectly trusted, I don't think I have mentioned the thing to a soul. I dare say, however, the news is all over the town by this time. Wonderful how things get carried – a bird of the air – the flying thistledown – '

'I do not understand, Lady Frances.'

'My dear, you need not pretend, because he confessed. And I think you are a very lucky girl to catch the cleverest man in all London, and he certainly is a lucky man to catch such a pretty girl as you. They say that he has got through all his money – men of genius are always bad men of business – but your own fortune will set him up again – a hundred thousand, I am told – mind you have it all settled on yourself. No one knows what may happen. I could tell you a heartrending story of a girl who trusted her lover with her money. But your lawyers will, of course, look after that.'

'I assure you – '

'He tells me,' the lady went on, without taking any notice of the interruption, 'that the thing will not come off for some time yet. I wouldn't keep it waiting too long, if I were you. Engagements easily get stale. Like buns. Well, I suppose you have learned all his secrets by this time: of course he is madly in love, and can keep nothing from you.'

'Indeed – '

'Has he told you yet who writes his stories for him? Eh? Has he told you that?' The lady bent forward and lowered her voice, and spoke earnestly. 'Has he told you?'

'I assure you that he has told me nothing – and – '

'That is in reality what I came about. Because, my dear, there must be a little plain speaking.'

'Oh! but let me speak – I – '

'When I have said what I came to say' – Lady Frances motioned with her hand gently but with authority – 'then you shall have your turn. Men are so foolish that they tell their sweethearts everything. The chief reason why they fall in love, I believe, is a burning desire to have somebody to whom they can tell everything. I know a man who drove his wife mad by constantly telling her all his difficulties. He was always swimming in difficulties. Well, Alec is bound to tell you before long, even if he has not told you yet, which I can hardly believe. Now, my dear child, it matters very little to him if all the world knew the truth. All the world, to be sure, credits him with those stories, though he has been very careful not to claim them. He knows better. I say to such a clever man as Alec a few stories, more or less, matter nothing. But it matters a great deal to me' – what was this person talking about? – 'because, you see, if it were to come out that I had been putting together old family scandals and forgotten stories, and sending them to the papers – there would be – there would be – Heaven knows what there would be! Yes, my dear – you can tell Alec that you know – I am the person who has written those stories. I wrote them, every one. They are all family stories – every good old family has got thousands of stories, and I have been collecting them – some of my own people, some of my husband's, and some of other people – and writing them down, changing names, and scenes, and dates, so that they should not be identified except by the few who knew them.'

Armorel made no further attempt to stem the tide of communication.

'I have come to make you understand clearly, young lady, that it is not his secret alone, but mine. You would do him a little harm, perhaps – I don't know – by letting it out, but you would do me an infinity of harm. I write them down, you see, and I take them to Alec, and he alters them – puts the style right – or says he does – though I never see any difference in them when they come out in the paper. And everybody who knows the story asks how in the name of wonder he got it.'

'Oh! But I do assure you that I know nothing at all of this.'

'Don't you? Well, never mind. Now you do know. And you know also that you can't talk about it, because it is his secret as well as mine. Why, you don't suppose that the man really does all he says he does, do you? Nobody could. It isn't in nature. Everybody who knows anything at all agrees that there must be a ghost – perhaps more than one. I'm the story ghost. I dare say there's a picture ghost, and a poetry ghost. He's a wonderful clever man, no doubt – it's the cleverest thing in the world to make other people work for you; but don't imagine, pray, that he can write stories of society. Bourgeois stories – about the middle class – his own class – perhaps; but not stories about Us. My stories belong to quite another level. Well, my dear, that is off my mind. Remember that this secret would do a great deal of harm to him as well as to me if it were to get about.'

'Oh! You are altogether – wholly – wrong – '

'My dear, I really do not care if I am wrong. You will not, however, damage his reputation by letting out his secrets? A wife can help her husband in a thousand ways, and especially in keeping up the little deceptions. Thousands of wives, I am told, pass their whole lives in the pretence that they and their husbands are gentlefolk. Alec has been received into a few good houses; and though it is, of course, more difficult to get a woman in than a man, I will really do what I can for you. With a good face, good eyes, a good figure, and a little addition of style, you ought to get on very well by degrees. Or you might take the town by storm, and become a professional beauty.'

'Thank you – but – '

'And there's another thing. As an old friend of Alec's, I feel that I can give advice to you. Let me advise you earnestly, my dear, to make all the haste you can to get rid of your companion. I know all about it. She was sent to your lawyer's by Alec himself. Why? Well, it is an old story, and I suppose he wanted to place her comfortably – or he had some other reason. He's always been a crafty man. You can see that in his eyes.'

'Oh! But I cannot listen to this!' cried Armorel.

'Nonsense, my dear. You do not expect your husband to be an angel, I suppose. Only silly middle-class girls who read novels do that. It will do you no harm to know that the man is no better than his neighbours. And I am sure he is no worse. I am speaking, in fact, for your own good. My dear child, Alec ran after the woman years ago. She was rich then, and used to go about. Certain houses do not mind who enter within their gates. They lived in Palace Gardens, and Monsieur le Papa was rich – oh! rich à millions– and the daughter was sugar-sweet and as innocent as an angel – fluffy hair, all tangled and rebellious – you know the kind – and large blue, wondering eyes, generally lowered until the time came for lifting them in the faces of young men. It was deadly, my dear. I believe she might have married anybody she pleased. There was the young Earl of Silchester – he wanted her. What a fool she was not to take him! No; she was spoony on Alec Feilding – '

'Oh! I must not!' cried Armorel again.

'My dear, I'm telling you. Her papa went smash – poor thing! – a grand, awful, impossible smash; other people's money mixed up in it. A dozen workhouses were filled with the victims, I believe. That kind of smash out of which it is impossible to pull yourself anyhow. Killed himself, therefore. Went out of the world without invitation by means of a coarse, vulgar, common piece of two-penny rope, tied round his great fat neck. I remember him. What did the girl do? Ran away from society: went on the stage as one of a travelling company. Why, I saw her myself three years ago at Leamington. I knew her instantly. "Aha!" I said, "there's Miss Fluffy, with the appealing, wondering eyes. Poor thing! Here is a come down in the world!" Now I find her here – your companion – a widow – widow of one Jerome Elstree deceased – artist, I am told. I never heard of the gentleman, and I confess I have my doubts as to his existence at all.'

Armorel ceased to offer any further opposition to the stream.

'The innocent, appealing blue eyes: the childish face: oh! I remember. My dear, I hope you will not have any reason to be jealous of Mrs. Elstree. But take care. There were other girls, too, now I come to think about it. There was his cousin, Philippa Rosevean. Everybody knows that he went as far with her as a man can go, short of an actual engagement. Canon Langley, of St. Paul's, wants to marry her. She's an admirable person for an ecclesiastical dignitary's wife – beautiful, cold, and dignified. But, as yet, she has not accepted him. They say he will be a bishop. And they say she loves her cousin Alec still. Women are generally dreadful fools about men. But I don't know. I don't think, if I were you, I should be jealous of Philippa. There's another little girl, too, I have seen coming out of his studio. But she's only a model, or something. If you begin to be jealous about the models, there will be no end. Then, there are hundreds of girls about town – especially those who can draw and paint a little, or write a silly little song – who think they are greatly endowed with genius, and would give their heads to get your chance. You are a lucky girl, Miss Armorel Rosevean; but I would advise you, in order to make the most of your good fortune, to change your companion quickly. Persuade her to try the climate of Australia. Else, there may be family jars.'

Here she stopped. She had said what was in her mind. Whether she came to say this out of the goodness of her heart; or whether she intended to make a little mischief between the girl and her lover; or whether she supposed Armorel to be a young lady who accepts a lover with no illusions as to imaginary perfections, so that a new weakness discovered here and there would not lower him in her opinion, I cannot say. Lady Frances was generally considered a good-natured kind of person, and certainly she had no illusions about perfection in any man.

'May I speak now?' asked Armorel.

'Certainly, my dear. It was very good of you to hear me patiently. And I've said all I wanted to. Keep my secret, and get rid of your companion, and I'll take you in hand.'

'Thank you. But you would not suffer me to explain that you are entirely mistaken. I am not engaged to Mr. Feilding at all.'

'But he told me that you were.'

'Yes; but he also tells the world, or allows the world to believe, that he writes your stories. I am not engaged to Mr. Feilding, Lady Frances, and, what is more, I never shall be engaged to that man – never!'

'Have you quarrelled already?'

'We have not quarrelled, because before people quarrel they must be on terms of some intimacy. We have never been more than acquaintances.'

'Well – but – child – he has been seen with you constantly. At theatres, at concerts, in the park, in galleries – everywhere, he has been walking with you as if he had the right.'

'I could not help that. Besides, I never thought – '

'Never thought? Why, where were you brought up? Never thought? Good gracious! what do young ladies go into society for?'

'I am not a young lady of society, I am afraid.'

'Well – but – what was your companion about, to allow – Oh!' – Lady Frances nodded her head – 'oh! now I understand. Now one can understand why he got her placed here. Now one understands her business. My dear, you have been placed in a very dangerous position – most dangerous. Your guardians or lawyers are very much to blame. And you really never suspected anything?'