Read Ebook: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne : a Novel by Locke William John

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Ebook has 2108 lines and 85560 words, and 43 pages

After receiving this brickbat I took my leave.

To console myself I looked up, during the evening, Michael Angelo's noble letter about Bramante.

"One cannot deny," says he, "that Bramante was as excellent in architecture as any one has been from the ancients to now. He placed the first stone of St. Peter's, not full of confusion, but clear, neat, and luminous, and isolated all round in such a way that it injured no part of the palace, and was held to be a beautiful thing, as is still apparent, in such a way that any one who has departed from the said order of Bramante, as San Gallo has done, has departed from the truth."

Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo; neither did he like Bramante-who was his senior by thirty years-but this makes his appreciation of the elder's work all the more generous.

Tinkered away at it, indeed!

May 21st.

I spent all the morning at work by the open window.

I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north side of the Regent's Park, so that my drawing-room, on the first floor, has a southern aspect. It has been warm and sunny for the past few days, and the elms and plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their green bravery, as if intoxicated with the golden wine of spring. My French window is flung wide open, and on the balcony a triangular bit of sunlight creeps round as the morning advances. My work-table is drawn up to the window. I am busy over the first section of my "History of Renaissance Morals," for which I think my notes are completed. I have a delicious sense of isolation from the world. Away over those tree-tops is a faint purpurine pall, and below it lies London, with its strife and its misery, its wickedness and its vanity. Twenty minutes would take me into the heart of it. And if I chose I could be as struggling, as wretched, as much imbued with wickedness and vanity as anybody. I could gamble on the stock exchange, or play the muddy game of politics, or hawk my precious title for sale among the young women of London society. My Aunt Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. I am quite content that it should stay there. I have much the same nervous dread of it as I have of an angry sea breaking in surf on the shingle. If I ventured out in it I should be tossed hither and thither and broken on the rocks, and I should perish. I prefer to stand aloof and watch. If I had a little more of daring in my nature I might achieve something. I am afraid I am but a waster in the world's factory; but kind Fate, instead of pitching me on the rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set me under a glass case, in her own museum, as a curiosity. Well, I am happy in my shelter.

"Antoinette," said I, "go and inform Stenson that as he looks after my outside so do you look after my inside, and that I have implicit confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of action."

"But does Monsieur like sorrel?" Antoinette inquired, anxiously.

"I adore it even," said I, and Antoinette made her exit in triumph.

What a reverential care French women have for the insides of their masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting Antoinette's feelings.

I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny town in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed about it afterwards so touchingly that we soon became united in bonds of the closest affection. Suddenly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused, was dismissed without notice. I had a shrewd suspicion of the thief--a suspicion which was afterwards completely justified--and indignantly championed Antoinette's cause.

"And Jean-Marie," she added, "was as brave a fellow and as devoted a son as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere himself."

I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations, were every man jack of them so parented. Even William the Conqueror--

Antoinette's historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried since to develop it.

The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the other, Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne. She is of a different type from her sister-in-law, being a devout Roman Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two years ago has concerned herself more deeply than ever in the affairs of her religion. She lives in a gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington by-street. Only my Cousin Rosalie was at home. She gave me tea made with tepid water and talked about the Earl's Court Exhibition, which she had not visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. I tried in vain to infuse some life into the conversation. I don't believe she is interested in anything. She even spoke lukewarmly of Farm Street.

I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless. I should say she was passionless--a predestined spinster. She has never drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember once, at my wit's end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, without a smile, "Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people could be."

And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie. Mine might just as well have called me Hercules or Puck.

She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them one evening next week. When was I free? I chose Thursday. Oddly enough I enjoy dining there, although we are on the most formal terms, not having got beyond the "Sir Marcus" and "Mrs. Ordeyne." But both mother and daughter are finely bred gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very few among the ladies of to-day.

I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me.

I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and sorry for her domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension. If there is one thing women do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and the treatment of domestic servants. The mere man manages much better. But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith's cook's cookery. I breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him that I would dine at home.

I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith.

May 22d.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Judith.

Judith laughed.

"You in a garret? Why, you haven't got a temperament!"

I suppose I haven't. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted that from his list of attendant compensations.

"That's the difference between us," she added, after a pause. "I have a temperament and you haven't."

"I hope you find it a great comfort."

"It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of one's existence."

"Why be so proud of having it?"

"You wouldn't understand if I told you," said Judith.

I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the rain which swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one can sit by the open windows, and breathe in the health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, and listen to the sweet, tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When my new fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help that allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many mansions of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this abominable locality I could never understand. It isn't as if the flat were particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated over a public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had something to do with the temperament.

"It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. This is the fourth time since Easter," I remarked.

We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring wet we remained at home.

"Why should he disapprove?" I asked.

A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver.

"I am chilled through."

"My dear girl," I cried, "why on earth haven't you lit the fire?"

"The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy."

"But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman," I exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box.

I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. She stretched out her hand--she has delicate white hands with slender fingers--and lightly touched my head.

"How long have we known each other?" she asked.

"About eight years."

"And how long shall we go on?"

"As long as you like," said I, intent on the fire.

Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort.

"These are capital grates," I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable arm-chair to the front of the fire.

"Excellent," she replied, in a tone devoid of interest.

There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog!

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