Mildred Lawson - Chapter 18

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_ MILDRED LAWSON
CHAPTER XVIII

In the long autumn and winter evenings Harold often thought of his sister. His eyes often wandered to the writing table, and he asked himself if he should write to her again. There seemed little use. She either ignored his questions altogether, or alluded to them in a few words and passed from them into various descriptive writing, the aspects of the towns she had visited, and the general vegetation of the landscapes she had seen; or she dilated on the discovery of a piece of china, a bronze, or an old engraving in some forgotten corner. Her intention to say nothing about herself was obvious.

In a general way he gathered that she had been to Nice and Monte Carlo, and he wondered why she had gone to the Pyrenees, and with whom she was living in the Boulevard Poissonier. That was her last address. The letter was dated the fifteenth of December, she had not written since, and it was now March. But scraps of news of her had reached him. One day he learnt from a paragraph in a newspaper that Miss Mildred Lawson had been received into the Church of Rome, he wrote to inquire if this was true, and a few days after a lady told him that she had heard that Mildred had entered a Carmelite convent and taken the veil. The lady's information did not seem very trustworthy, but Harold was nevertheless seriously alarmed, and, without waiting for an answer to the letter he had written the day before, he telegraphed to Mildred.

'I have not entered a convent and have no present intention of doing so.'

'Could anything be more unsatisfactory,' Harold thought. 'She does not say whether she has gone over to Rome. Perhaps that is untrue too. Shall I telegraph again?' He hesitated and then decided that he would not. She did not wish to be questioned, and would find an evasive answer that would leave him only more bewildered than before.

He hoped for an answer to his letter, but Mildred did not write, no doubt, being of opinion that her telegram met the necessity of the case, and he heard no more until some news of her came to him through Elsie Laurence, whom Harold met one afternoon as he was coming home from the city. From Elsie he learnt that Mildred was a great social success in Paris. She was living with the Delacours, she had met them at Fontainebleau. Morton Mitchell, that was the man she had thrown over, had introduced her to them. Harold had never heard of the Delacours, and he hastened to acquaint himself with them; Morton Mitchell he reserved for some future time; one flirtation more or less mattered little; but that his sister should be living with the Delacours, a radical and socialist deputy, a questionable financier, a company promoter, a journalist, was very shocking. Delacour was all these things and many more, according to Elsie, and she rattled on until Harold's brain whirled. He learnt, too, that it was with the Delacours that Mildred had been in the South.

'She wrote to me from some place in the Pyrenees.'

'From Lourdes? she was there.'

A cloud gathered on Harold's face.

'She didn't write to me from Lourdes,' he said. 'But Lourdes is, I suppose, the reason of her perversion to Rome?'

'No; Mildred told me that Lourdes had nothing to do with it.'

'You say that she now lives with these people, the Delacours.'

'Yes; she's just like one of the family. She invites her friends to dinner. She invited me to dinner. The Delacours are very rich, and Mildred is now all the rage in Paris.'

'And Madame Delacour, what kind of a woman is she?'

'Madame Delacour has very poor health, they say she was once a great beauty, but there's very little of her beauty left. ... She's very fond of Mildred. They are great friends.'

The next time that Harold heard of Mildred was through his solicitors. In the course of conversation regarding some investments, Messrs. Blunt and Hume mentioned that Miss Lawson had taken 5000 pounds out of mortgage. They did not know if she had re-invested it, she had merely requested them to pay the money into her banking account.

'Why did you not mention this to me before?'

'Miss Lawson has complete control over her private fortune. On a former occasion, you remember, when she required five hundred pounds to hire and furnish a studio, she wrote very sharply because we had written to you on the subject. She spoke of a breach of professional etiquette.'

'Then why do you tell me now about this 5000 pounds?'

'Strictly speaking we ought not to have done so, but we thought that we might venture on a confidential statement.'

Harold thought that Messrs. Blunt and Hume had acted very stupidly, and he asked himself what Mildred proposed to do with the money. Did she intend to re-invest it in French securities? Or had the Roman Catholics persuaded her to leave it to a convent or to spend it in building a church? Or perhaps, Delacour and the Socialists have got hold of the money. But Mildred was never very generous with her money. ... He stepped into a telegraph office and stepped out again without having sent a message. He wrote a long letter when he arrived home, and tore it up when he had finished it. It was not a case for a letter or telegram, but for an immediate journey. He could send a telegram to the office, saying he would not be there to-morrow; he remembered a business appointment for Friday, which could not be broken. But he could return on Thursday morning. ... Arrive on Wednesday night, return on Thursday morning or Thursday night, if he did not succeed in seeing Mildred on Wednesday night. ... Yes, that would do it, but it would mean a tedious journey on the coldest month of the year. But 5000 English pounds was a large sum of money, he must do what he could to save it. Save it! Yes, for he hadn't a doubt that it was in danger. ... He would take the train at Charing Cross to-morrow morning. ... He would arrive in Paris about eight.... He would then go to his hotel, change his clothes, dine, and get to Mildred's about nine or half- past.

This was the course he adopted, and on Wednesday night at half-past nine, he crossed the Rue Richlieu, and inquired the way to Boulevard Poissonier.... If Mildred were going to a ball he would be able to get half an hour's conversation were her before she went upstairs to dress. If she were dining out, he could wait until she came in. She would not be later than eleven, he thought as he entered a courtyard. There were a number of staircases, and he at last found himself in the corridors and the salons of _La voix du Peuple_, which was printed and published on the first floor. He addressed questions to various men who passed him with proofs in their hands, and, when a door was opened on the left, he saw a glare of gas and the compositors bending over the cases.

Then he found his way to the floor above, and there doors were open on both sides of the landing; footmen hurried to and fro. He asked for Mademoiselle Lawson, and was led through rooms decorated with flowers. 'They are giving a ball here to-night,' he thought, and the footmen drew aside a curtain; and in a small end room, a boudoir dimly lighted and hung with tapestry and small pictures in gold frames, he found Mildred sitting on a couch with an elderly man, about fifty.

They seemed to be engaged in intimate conversation; and they rose abruptly, as if disconcerted by his sudden intrusion.

'Oh, Harold,' said Mildred.... 'Why didn't you write to say that you were coming _vous tombez comme une tuile.... Permettez-moi, Monsieur Delacour, de vous presenter a won frere_.' Harold bowed and shook hands with the tall thin man with the high-bridged nose and the close- cut black hair, fitting close to his head. In the keen grey eyes, which shone out of a studiously formal face, there was a look which passed from disdain to swift interrogation, and then to an expression of courteous and polite welcome. M. Delacour professed himself delighted to make Harold's acquaintance, and he hoped that Harold was staying some time in Paris. Harold regretted that he was obliged to return on the following morning, and M. Delacour's face assumed an expression of disappointment. He said that it would have been his pleasure to make Harold's stay as agreeable as possible. However, on the occasion of Harold's next visit, M. Delacour hoped that he could stay with them. He went so far as to say that he hoped that Harold would consider this house as his own. Harold thanked him, and again expressed regret that he was obliged to leave the following morning. He noticed a slight change of expression on the diplomatist's face when he mentioned that he had come over in a hurry to discuss some business matters with his sister. A moment later M. Delacour was smiling perfect approval and comprehension and moving towards the door. At the door he lingered to express a hope that Harold would stay for the ball. He said that Mildred must do her best to persuade her brother to remain.

The musicians had just come, she could hear them tuning their instruments. Guests would soon arrive, so she hoped that the interview would not be prolonged. The way to shorten it was to say nothing. She could see that Harold was embarrassed, silence would increase his embarrassment. She knew that he had come to speak about the 4000 pounds which she had taken out of mortgage. She knew that he hoped to induce her to re-invest it in some good security at five per cent. But she did not intend to take his advice, or to inform him regarding her relations with the Delacours. She knew, too, that he disapproved of her dress: it was certainly cut a little lower than she had intended, and then she saw that his eyes had wandered to the newspaper, which lay open on the table. In a moment he would see her name at the bottom of the first article. If he were to read the article, he would be more shocked than he was by her dress. It was even more _decolletee_ than her dress, both had come out a little more _decolletee_ than she had intended.

'I see,' he said, 'that you write in this paper.'

'A little, I'm doing a series of articles under the title of _Bal Blanc_. My articles are a success. I like that one as well as any, you shall take the number of the paper away with you.'

'But how do you manage about writing in French?'

'I write very easily in French now, as easily as in English. M. Delacour looks over my proof, but he hardly finds anything to correct.'

Mildred suppressed a smile, she had taken in the entire situation, and was determined to act up to it. It offered an excellent opportunity for acting, and Mildred was only happy when she could get outside herself. She crossed her hands and composed her most demure air; and, for the sake of the audience which it pleased her to imagine; and when Harold was not looking she allowed her malicious eyes to say what she was really thinking. And he, unconscious of the amusement he afforded, made delightful comedy. He tried to come to the point, but feared to speak too suddenly of the money she had drawn out of the mortgage, and, in his embarrassment, he took a book from the table. The character of the illustrations caused his face to flush, and an expression of shame to appear. Mildred snatched the book out of his hand, saying:

'That is one of M. Delacour's books.'

'You know the book, then?'

'One knows everything. You are not an artist, and see things in a different light.'

'I don't think that art has much to do with a book of that kind. You must have changed very much, Mildred.'

'No,' she said, 'that shows me how little you understand me. I have not changed at all.'

The word suggested the idea, and he said, 'you have changed your religion. You've become a Roman Catholic. I must say, if that book is---'

'That book has nothing to do with me. I glanced at it once, that was all, and, when I saw what it was, I put it down.'

The subject was a painful one, and Harold was willing to let it drop.

'But why,' he said, 'did you go over to Rome? Wasn't the religion you were brought up in good enough for you?'

'I was so unhappy at the time. I had suffered a great deal, I didn't believe in anything--I did not know what was going to become of me.'

'Didn't believe in anything, Mildred--I'm very sorry.... But, if you found difficulty in accepting Protestantism, Catholicism, I should have thought, would be still more impossible. It makes so much a larger demand on faith.'

The discovery of the book had for a moment forced her out of the part she was playing, but religious discussion afforded her ample facility, which she eagerly availed herself of, to return to it.

'You do not understand women.'

'But what has understanding women to do with a religious question?' Harold asked a little more petulantly than usual.

These were the words and intonation she had expected, and she smiled inwardly.

'Women's lives are so different from men, we need a more intimate consolation than Protestantism can give us. Our sense of the beauty--'

'The old story, those who find difficulty in believing in the divinity of our Lord will swallow infallibility, transubstantiation, and the rest of it--all the miracles, and the entire hierarchy of the saints, male and female, if they may be gratified by music, candles, incense, gold vestments, and ceremonial display. ... It is not love of God, it is love of the senses.'

_'Ou fait la guerre avec de la musique, des panaches, des drapeaux, des harnais d'or, un deploiement de ceremonie.'_

'What's that?'

'That is from the _Tentation de Saint Antoine_. It comes in the dialogue between Death and Lust. They make war with music, with banners, with plumes, with golden trappings, and ceremonial display.'

'What's that got to do with what we were saying?'

'Only that you accidentally made use of nearly the same words as Flaubert. "Ceremonial display" is not so good as _deploiement de ceremonie_, but---'

'Mildred.'

'Well.'

She wore a little subdued look, and he did not detect the malice that it superficially veiled. She did not wish him to see that she was playing with him, but she wished to fret him with some slight suspicion that she was. She was at the same time conscious of his goodness, and her own baseness; she even longed to throw herself into his arms, and thank him for having come to Paris; she knew that it was in her interest that he had come, but an instinct stronger than her will forced her to continue improvising the words of her part, and it was her pleasure to provide it with suitable gesture, expression of face, and inflection of voice. She could hear the fiddles in the ball- room, and wished the wall away, and the company ranged behind a curtain. And, as these desires crossed her mind, she pitied poor Harold with his one idea, 'how he may serve _me_.' When she came to the word _me_ her heart softened towards him, but the temptation to discuss her conversion with him was imperative, and she watched him, guessing easily how his idea of Catholicism turned in his narrow brain, and she knew that turn it as he pleased, that he would get no nearer to any understanding of it or of her. Religion was a fixed principle in his life; it was there as his head, neck, and arms were there; and it played a very definite part in his life; his religion was not a doll that could be dressed to suit the humours of the day, but an unchanging principle that ruled, that was obeyed, and that visited all fallings away with remorse. So this opportunity to play with her brother's religious consciousness was to be gainsayed no more than an opportunity to persuade a lover into exhibition of passion. And she remembered how Harold and Alfred used to sit over the dining- room fire shaking their heads over the serious scandal that had been caused in the parish by the new Vicar, who had introduced the dangerous innovation of preaching in his surplice. She had laughed and sneered at her brother's hesitations and scruples about accepting the surplice for the black robe, and now she wondered if he would ask her if she considered it a matter of no importance if the priests put on vestments to say Mass, or if there were wine and water in the cruets.

She had, as she had told her brother, embraced Catholicism in a time of suffering and depression, when she had fancied herself very near to suicide, when she didn't know what else was going to become of her. Her painting had failed, and she had gone to Barbizon a wreck of abandoned hopes. She had gone there because at that moment it was necessary to create some interest in her life. And Barbizon had succeeded in a way--she had liked Morton, and it was not her fault if he had failed to understand her, that was one of the reasons why she had left Barbizon, and her distress of mind on leaving was the result of indiscretions which she did not like to remember. True it was that she had not actually been his mistress, but she had gone further than she had intended to go, and she had felt that she must leave Barbizon at once. For her chastity was her one safeguard, if she were to lose that, she had always felt, and never more strongly than after the Barbizon episode, that there would be no safety for her. She knew that her safety lay in her chastity, others might do without chastity, and come out all right in the end, but she could not: an instinct told her so.

There had been moments when she had wondered if she were really quite sane. Something had to happen--Catholicism had happened, and she had gone to travel with the Delacours. Madame Delacour was a strict Catholic and was therefore interested in Mildred's conversion. And with her Mildred went to Mass, high and low, vespers and benediction. She selected an old priest for confessor, who gave her absolution without hearing half she said; and she went to communion and besought of M. Delacour never to laugh at her when she was in one of her religious moods. These occurred at undetermined intervals, speaking broadly, about every two months; they lasted sometimes a week, sometimes a fortnight. In her moods she was a strict Catholic, but as they wore away she grew more loose, and Madame Delacour noticed Mildred's absentations from Mass. Mildred answered that she was a Newmanite and was more concerned with the essential spirit of Catholicism than with its outward practice; and she adopted the same train of argument when Harold asked her if she believed that the bread and wine consecrated and swallowed by the priest was the real Body and Blood of God. She replied:

'I take all that as a symbol.'

'But Catholicism imposes the belief that it is the real Body and Blood.'

Mildred passed off her perplexity with a short laugh, 'You're always the same,' she said, 'you never get farther than externals. I remember how you and Alfred used to shake your heads over the surplice and the black robe question.... You're an enemy of ritualism, and yet I know no one more ritualistic than you are, only your ritual is not ours. You cannot listen to a sermon if the preacher wears a surplice, you waive the entire merit of the sermon, and see nothing but the impudent surplice. All the beautiful instruction passes unheeded, and your brows gather into a frown black as the robe that isn't there.... I believe that you would insist that Christ Himself should ascend into Heaven in a black robe, and you would send the goats to hell draped in samite and white linen.' Her paradoxical imagination of the ascent into Heaven and the judgment-seat amused her, and the glimpse she had caught of her brother's portentous gravity curled her up like a cigarette paper. But he was too shocked for speech, and Mildred strove to curb her hilarity.

'No,' she said, 'you can never get farther than externals, you are the true ritualist, the Pope is not more so.' Harold's face now wore an expression of such awful gravity that Mildred could hardly contain herself, she bit her lips and continued: 'But ritual hardly concerns me at all. I was received into the Church before I had ever heard Mass. I am not interested in externals; I think of the essentials, and Catholicism seems to me to be essentially right. A great deal of it I look upon as symbolism. I am a Catholic, but my Catholicism is my own: I am a Newmanite. If there be no future life and all is mistake, then Catholicism is a sublime mistake; if there be a future life, then we're on the right side.'

'I'm afraid there is little use in our discussing this subject, Mildred. We feel religion very differently. You say that I don't understand women, it seems to me that some women do not understand religion.... They have never originated any religious movement.'

'There have been great saints among women; there have been great Roman Catholic saints.'

'Mildred, really this discussion is futile, not to say exasperating. Don't you hear the fiddles in the next room, they're playing a waltz.'

Mildred had heard the fiddlers all the while, without them the conversation would have been shorn of most of its interest for her.

'We have wandered very far from the subject on which I came to talk to you--the matter which I came to Paris to talk to you about.'

Mildred suppressed a smile. She had annoyed him sufficiently, there was no reason why she should press this interview towards a quarrel. Harold paused a moment and then said:

'I hear from our solicitors that you have drawn five thousand pounds out of first-class mortgages. Now, this is a large sum of money. How do you intend to re-invest it? I don't see how you could get better interest than you have been getting unless you accept doubtful security. I hope that neither this paper _La Voix du Peuple_ or Panama has tempted you.'

'It is very kind of you, Harold, to come to Paris to inquire into this matter. You won't think that I am ungrateful, will you?'

'No.'

'Then I would sooner say nothing about this money.... I have re- invested it, and I think well invested it. I am satisfied, it is my own money. I am of age and quite capable of judging.'

'You know a great deal more than I do, Mildred, about art and literature and all that kind of thing, but I have had business experience that you have not, and I feel it my duty to tell you if you have invested your money in _La Voix du Peuple_ that I can only look upon it as lost.'

'Come, Harold. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that I have invested the whole or part of my money in this paper.'

'Then you have done so. If you hadn't, you would not feel inclined to discuss hypothetical investments.'

'Why not? For you impugn the integrity of my dearest friends. The circulation of the paper is going up steadily. When we reach sixty thousand I shall have invested my money, supposing I have put it into the paper at twenty per cent., and will then receive not 250 pounds but 1000 pounds a year. You will admit there is a difference.'

'I should think there was. I wish I could get twenty per cent, for my money. But I thought that getting a big interest for money was against your principles. I thought that the Socialists said that interest was "unpaid labour." Isn't that the expression you use?'

'Yes, it is. I had scruples on this point, but M. Delacour overruled my scruples. Your objection is answered by the theory that individual sacrifice is unavailing: indeed, it is as useless as giving charity, quite. A case of intense suffering is brought under the notice of a _bourgeois;_ it awakens in him a certain hysterical pity, or, I should say, remorse, for he feels that a system that permits such things to be cannot be wholly right. He relieves this suffering, and then he thinks he is a virtuous man; he thinks he has done a good action; but a moment's reflection shows us that this good action is only selfishness in disguise--that it is nothing more than a personal gratification, a balm to his wound, which, by a sort of reflective action, he has received from outraged humanity. Charity is of no use; it is individual, and nothing individual is of any value; the movement must be general.'

'It seems to me that pity is a human sentiment, that it always existed. In all ages there has been pity for the blind, the lame, the deformed, never was pity so general, or so ardent as in the nineteenth century, but it always existed for the poor of spirit and the feeble of body, and these are not the victims of our social system; they are nature's victims.' Mildred did not answer, and they heard the fiddles, the piano, and then the cornet.

'The Delacours entertain a great deal, I suppose: on the first floor the editor writes that property is robbery, and advocates an equal division of property; on the second floor he spends the money he gets out of the people by holding illusory hopes of an approaching spoliation of the rich, and advocating investment in a fraudulent enterprise like Panama.... You always accuse me of want of humour, but I have sufficient to appreciate _The Voice of the People_ on the first floor and the voice of the ball on the second.'

At that moment M. Delacour opened the door of the boudoir:

'Forgive me,' he said, 'for interrupting you, but I wanted to tell that every one has read your article. It is a great success, _spirituel, charmant, surtout tres parisien,_ that's what is said on every side.'

Mildred's face flushed with pleasure, and, turning to Harold, she said:

'I am writing a series of articles in _La Voix du Peuple_ under the title of _Bal Blanc_.'

'Have you not seen your sister's articles, M. Lawson?' asked M. Delacour.

'No, Mildred did not send them to me, and I rarely see the French papers in London.'

Mildred looked at M. Delacour, and Harold read in her eyes that she was annoyed that M. Delacour had called attention to the article. He asked himself why this was, and, when M. Delacour left the room, he took up the paper. He read a few lines and then Mildred said:

'I cannot remain much longer away from my guests.'

'Your guests?'

'Yes; they are my guests in a way, the ball was given for me.'

'You can go to them; I can remain here I suppose. I can see you later on.'

Mildred did not answer, and, while Harold looked through the article, her face darkened, and she bit her lips twice. At last she said:

'We had better finish: I cannot remain away any longer from my guests, and I shall be engaged the rest of the evening. There's no use in your reading that article. You won't like it. You won't approve of it.'

'I certainly do not approve of it, and are all the articles you write under this title of the same character?'

'I can't see anything wrong in it. Of course you can read meanings into it that I don't intend if you like.'

'I am afraid that your articles must give people a very false idea of you.'

'Every one who knows me knows that I would not do anything wrong, that I am not that kind of woman. You need not be afraid, I shall not disgrace you.'

'I'm not thinking of myself, Mildred. I am sure you would not do anything wrong, that you would not disgrace yourself; I was merely wondering what people would think. Do the priests approve of this kind of writing?'

'I don't submit my writings to my Confessor,' Mildred answered laughing.

'And your position in this house. Your intimacy with M. Delacour. I found you sitting side by side on this sofa.'

'I never heard before that there was any harm in sitting on a sofa with a man. But there are people who see immorality in every piece of furniture in a drawing-room.'

'You seemed very intimate, that's all. What does Madame Delacour say? Does she approve of this intimacy?'

'I don't know what you mean. What intimacy? Madame Delacour does not see any harm in my sitting on a sofa with her husband. She knows me very well. She knows that I wouldn't do anything wrong. She's my most intimate friend; she is quite satisfied, I can assure you. I'll introduce you to her as you go out.'

'I see you are anxious to join your company, I must not keep you from your guests any longer. I suppose I shall not see you again, I return to-morrow.'

'Then it is good-bye.'

'I suppose so, unless you return with me.'

'Return to Sutton to look after your house!'

'I don't want you to look after my house; you can have a housekeeper. I'm sorry you think that is why I want you to return. Perhaps you think that is why I came over. Oh, Mildred!'

'Harold, I'm sorry. I did not think such a thing. It was good of you to come to Paris. Harold, you're not angry?'

'No, Mildred, I'm not angry. But all this seems strange to me: this house, these people, this paper.'

'I know, I know. But we cannot all think alike. We never did think alike. But that should not interfere in our affection for one another. We should love each other. We are alone in the world, father and mother both gone, only a few aunts and cousins that we don't care about.' 'Do you ever think of what father and mother would say if they knew? What would they think of your choosing to leave home to live with these people?'

'Do not let us argue these things, we shall never agree.'

The affection which had suddenly warmed her had departed, and her heart had grown cold as stone again.

'Each must be free to choose his or her life.'

'You surely don't intend always to live here?'

'Always? I don't know about always, for the present certainly.'

'Then there is nothing but to say good-bye.' _

Read next: Mildred Lawson: Chapter 19

Read previous: Mildred Lawson: Chapter 17

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