The Tree of Knowledge Part 61

Turning aside, he aimlessly took up a dry brush and drew it across a finished canvas in slow sweeps.

"Wyn," he asked, "who _is_ this Mr. Percivale?"

Wyn made a gesture of ignorance with her hands.

"I don't know," she said. "n.o.body knows much about him. Mr. Cranmer told me all he knows the other evening." She related the meagre facts which Claud had given her. "But everyone seems agreed that he is very much all that can be wished," said she. "What made you ask me, dear?"

"I have been talking to Ottilie Orton," he said; and paused.

"To Mrs. Orton! And what had she to say, if one may ask?"

"You appear," observed Osmond, "to have taken a dislike to the lady in question."

"Well, I cannot say she fascinates me. She is so big and bold, and she looks artificial. She reminds me of that dreadful middle-aged Miss Walters who married the small, shy young curate of St. Mary's."

"She is a very handsome woman," said Osmond obstinately.

"Well, never mind her looks. What has she been saying to you?"

"Oh, she merely remarked," was the reply, as Osmond picked up his palette and charged a clean brush with color. "She merely made a remark about this Mr. Percivale whom everyone is so ready to take for granted."

"What was the remark?"

"She said there were several ugly stories afloat about him, and that--"

he paused to put a deliberate touch upon his almost completely finished picture--"that his antecedents were most questionable."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

Love is a virtue for heroes--as white as the snow on high hills, And immortal, as every great soul is, that straggles, endures, and fulfils.

_Lord Walter's Wife._

A long, dark, panelled room, with a low flat ceiling carved with coats-of-arms and traversed with fantastic ribs. A room so large and long that a small party could only inhabit one end of it. Its age was demonstrated by the ma.s.sive stone mullions of the small windows ranged along the wall on one side. There were four of these windows, each of them with three lights. Beneath each group of three was a deep, cus.h.i.+oned recess.

Opposite the windows were two fireplaces, the elaborately-carved black oak mantels reaching to the ceiling. In the further of these a great fire burned red and glowing, flinging out weird, suggestive half lights into the dim recesses of the chamber, and flecking with sudden gleams the mult.i.tude of curious things with which every corner was stored.

The room was very still, the air heavy with the scent of flowers; the early January darkness had fallen over the great city, but something very unlike London was in the warm, fragrant silence of this place. One of the diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nts was open, but through it came no hoa.r.s.e rumble of cart or waggon. An utter peace enfolded everything. Presently the door at the near and most densely dark end of the room opened and closed softly. From behind the great embossed screen which was folded round the entrance a flash of vivid light gleamed. A man-servant emerged, carrying a large silver lamp. He traversed the whole length of the room, and set down the lamp on a black oak table with heavy claw-feet.

The circle of radiance illuminated the scene, rendering visible the mellow oil-paintings on the panelled walls, the rich Oriental rugs which covered the floor of inlaid wood, and the treasures from all parts of the globe, which were ranged in cabinets or on shelves, or lay about on brackets and tables. A grand piano stood open not far from the fire, and beyond the groups of windows, in the corner, a curtain looped back over a small arched entrance looked darkly mysterious, till the servant carried in two small lamps and set them down, revealing a fine conservatory, and accounting for the garden-like fragrance of the place.

Silently the man moved to and fro arranging various lights, daintily shaded according to the present fas.h.i.+on; then, stepping to the windows, he closed them, and noiselessly let fall wide curtains of t.i.tian-like brocades shot with golden threads.

This accomplished, the general aspect of the lighted end of the room was that of sumptuous elegance, warmth, and comfort; while the shadows slowly deepening, as you gazed down towards the door, left the dark limits indefinite, and conveyed an idea of mysterious distance and gloom.

Just as the servant's arrangements were completed, a bell sounded, and he hastily left the room as he had entered it, leaving once more silence behind him. So still was it that, when the shrill notes of the dainty sunflower clock on the Louis Quatorze escritoire rang out the hour in musical chimes, it seemed to startle the Dying Gladiator as his white marble limbs drooped in the rosy radiance of the big standard lamp.

Again that door opened, away there among the shadows; and slowly up the room, in evening dress, with his crush hat, and his inevitable Neapolitan violets, came Claud Cranmer, looking about him, as if he expected to see the master of this romance-like domain. Percivale was not there, however; so, with a sigh of pleasure, Claud sank down in one of the chairs set invitingly near the wide hearth, and leaned back contentedly.

Apparently, however, solitude and firelight suggested serious thoughts, for gradually a far-off look came into the young man's eyes--a tender light which seemed to show that the object of his meditations was some person or thing lying very near his heart. Presently he leaned forward, joining his hands and resting his chin upon them; and was so completely absorbed that he did not hear Percivale, who, advancing through the conservatory, paused on the threshold, gazing at his visitor with a smile.

Reaching out for a spike of geranium bloom, he threw it with such exact aim that it struck Claud on the face, startling him so that he sprang instantly to his feet, and, facing about, caught sight of the laughing face of his a.s.sailant.

"Good shot," said Percivale, coming in. "Sorry to keep you waiting, old man."

His hands were full of lilies of the valley, which he laid down on a small table, and then saluted his guest.

"You told me to come early," said Claud.

"Yes," was the answer. "I wanted to have a talk with you before the ladies arrived."

"Delighted. What do you want to talk about?" asked Mr. Cranmer, as the two young men settled themselves in comfort.

"It is a subject I have never touched upon before," said Percivale, hesitatingly. "Not to you or any man. I hardly know why I should expect that you should listen. I have no claim on your attention. I want to talk about--myself."

"Yourself?" Claud set up with keenly awakened interest.

"Myself. It is not an interesting topic...."

Breaking off, he leaned forward, supporting his chin on his left hand as he stared at the fire. Little flames sprang up from the red ma.s.s, cast flickering lights on his serious face, and glowed in his dark blue eyes.

Claud thought he had never seen so interesting a man in his life.

Whether on board the _Swan_, in his white s.h.i.+rt and crimson sash, or here in these quaint London rooms of his, in modern Philistine dress-clothes, he seemed equally at home, yet equally distinguished.

Mr. Cranmer waited for what he would say--he would not break in upon his meditations.

"Have you ever," slowly he spoke at last, "have you ever given your really serious attention to the subject of marriage? I mean, in the abstract?"

Claud started, tossed his head combatively, while an eager light broke over his face.

"Yes, I have," he replied, quickly. "I have considered very few things in my life, but this I have seriously thought over."

"I am glad," said Percivale, simply. "I want to know how you regard it.

What place ought marriage to take in a man's life? Is it an episode?

Ought it to be left to chance? Or is it a thing to be deliberately striven and planned for as the completion of one's existence? Is happiness possible for an unmarried man?--I mean, of course, happiness in its deepest and fullest sense? Can a man whose experience of life is partial and imperfect, as a single man's must be--can he be said to be a judge at all, not having tried it in its most important aspect? What do you think?"

"I do wish," said Claud, in an irritable voice, "that you would not put your question in that way. I wish you would not follow the example of people who talk of marriage in such an absurdly generic way, as if it were a fixed state, a thing in which the symptoms must be the same in every case, like measles or scarlet fever. I have always thought the subject of marriage left remarkably little room for generalising. One marriage is no more like another than one man is like another. The Jones marriage differs essentially from the Smith, because they are the Jones, and the Smiths are the Smiths. Yet people will be absurd enough to argue that because Jones is unhappy Smith had better not try matrimony. If he were going to marry the same woman there might be a show of reason in such an argument; but even then it wouldn't follow, because he is not the same man."

Percivale's eyes were fixed on the speaker.

"I see," he said, reflectively. "Your view is that the individual side of our nature is the side which determines the success or failure of marriage."

"Certainly--especially in this age of detail. In the Middle Ages, when life was shorter, people took broader views; and, besides, they had no nerves. Any woman who was young and anything short of repulsive as to her appearance would suit your feudal baron, who would perhaps only enjoy her society for a few weeks in the intervals of following the duke to the wars, or despoiling his neighbor's frontier. When they did meet, it was among a host of servants, men-at-arms, poor relations, minstrels and retainers; they had no scope for boring each other. A man's value was enhanced in his wife's eyes when it was always an open question, as she bade him adieu, whether they ever met again in this world.

Moreover, in those days the protection of a husband was absolutely necessary to a woman. Left a widow, she became, if poor, a prey for the vicious--if rich, for the designing. Eccentricities of temper must have been kept wonderfully in the background, when issues like these were almost always at stake; the broad sympathies of humanity are, generally speaking, the same. Any woman and man will be in unison on a question of life or death; but now-a-days how different! Maid, wife, or widow can inhabit a flat in South Kensington without any need of a male protector to "act the husband's coat and hat set up to drive the world-crows off from pecking in her garden"--which Romney Leigh conceived to be one, though the lowest, of a husband's duties. And your choice of a woman becomes narrowed when one cannot live in London, another will not emigrate, a third differs from you in politics, a fourth disdains all social duties, a fifth can only sit under a particular preacher, and yet another dare not be out of reach of her family doctor. Times are changed, sir. Marriage to-day depends on the individual."

"Of course it must, to a large extent; and, to meet the requirements of the age, women are now allowed to marry where they fancy, and not where they are commanded. Yet, as one looks around at the marriages one knows," continued Percivale, "there is a sameness about matrimony."