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The Complete Works of Edith Wharton - Part 2
THE DECORATION OF HOUSES
Charles Scribner's
Sons
New York
1914
The
Decoration of
Houses
By
Edith Wharton
and
Ogden Codman Jr.
Copyright, 1897, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
"_Une forme doit être belle en elle-même et on ne doit jamais compter
sur le décor appliqué pour en sauver les imperfections._"
HENRI MAYEUX: _La Composition Décorative_.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xix
I THE HISTORICAL TRADITION 1
II ROOMS IN GENERAL 17
III WALLS 31
IV DOORS 48
V WINDOWS 64
VI FIREPLACES 74
VII CEILINGS AND FLOORS 89
VIII ENTRANCE AND VESTIBULE 103
IX HALL AND STAIRS 106
X THE DRAWING-ROOM, BOUDOIR, AND MORNING-ROOM 122
XI GALA ROOMS: BALL-ROOM, SALOON, MUSIC-ROOM, GALLERY 134
XII THE LIBRARY, SMOKING-ROOM, AND "DEN" 145
XIII THE DINING-ROOM 155
XIV BEDROOMS 162
XV THE SCHOOL-ROOM AND NURSERIES 173
XVI BRIC-À-BRAC 184
CONCLUSION 196
INDEX 199
LIST OF PLATES
FACING PAGE
I ITALIAN GOTHIC CHEST 1
II FRENCH ARM-CHAIRS, XV AND XVI CENTURIES 6
III FRENCH _Armoire_, XVI CENTURY 10
IV FRENCH SOFA AND ARM-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 12
V ROOM IN THE GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES 14
VI FRENCH ARM-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD 16
VII FRENCH _Bergère_, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 20
VIII FRENCH _Bergère_, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 24
IX FRENCH SOFA, LOUIS XV PERIOD 28
X FRENCH MARQUETRY TABLE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 30
XI DRAWING-ROOM, HOUSE IN BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON 34
XII ROOM IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI 38
XIII DRAWING-ROOM AT EASTON NESTON HALL 42
XIV DOORWAY, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 48
XV SALA DEI CAVALLI, PALAZZO DEL T 54
XVI DOOR IN THE SALA DELLO ZODIACO, DUCAL PALACE,
MANTUA 58
XVII EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCH LOCKSMITHS' WORK 60
XVIII CARVED DOOR, PALACE OF VERSAILLES 62
XIX SALON DES MALACHITES, GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES 68
XX MANTELPIECE, DUCAL PALACE, URBINO 74
XXI MANTELPIECE, VILLA GIACOMELLI 78
XXII FRENCH FIRE-SCREEN, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 86
XXIII CARVED WOODEN CEILING, VILLA VERTEMATI 90
XXIV CEILING IN PALAIS DE JUSTICE, RENNES 92
XXV CEILING OF THE SALA DEGLI SPOSI, DUCAL PALACE,
MANTUA 96
XXVI CEILING IN THE STYLE OF BÉRAIN 100
XXVII CEILING IN THE CHÂTEAU OF CHANTILLY 102
XXVIII ANTECHAMBER, VILLA CAMBIASO, GENOA 104
XXIX ANTECHAMBER, DURAZZO PALACE, GENOA 106
XXX STAIRCASE, PARODI PALACE, GENOA 108
XXXI STAIRCASE, HÔTEL DE VILLE, NANCY 112
XXXII STAIRCASE, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 116
XXXIII FRENCH _Armoire_, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 120
XXXIV SALA DELLA MADDALENA, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA 122
XXXV CONSOLE IN PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES 124
XXXVI SALON, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 126
XXXVII ROOM IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 128
XXXVIII _Lit de Repos_, EARLY LOUIS XV PERIOD 130
XXXIX _Lit de Repos_, LOUIS XV PERIOD 130
XL PAINTED WALL-PANEL AND DOOR, CHANTILLY 132
XLI FRENCH BOUDOIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 132
XLII _Salon à l'italienne_ 136
XLIII BALL-ROOM, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA 138
XLIV SALOON, VILLA VERTEMATI 140
XLV SALA DELLO ZODIACO, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 140
XLVI FRENCH TABLE, TRANSITION BETWEEN LOUIS XIV AND
LOUIS XV PERIODS 142
XLVII LIBRARY OF LOUIS XVI, PALACE OF VERSAILLES 144
XLVIII SMALL LIBRARY, AUDLEY END 146
XLIX FRENCH WRITING-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD 150
L DINING-ROOM, PALACE OF COMPIÈGNE 154
LI DINING-ROOM FOUNTAIN, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 156
LII FRENCH DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 158
LIII FRENCH DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 158
LIV BEDROOM, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 162
LV BATH-ROOM, PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE 168
LVI BRONZE ANDIRON, XVI CENTURY 184
BOOKS CONSULTED
FRENCH
ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, JACQUES.
Les Plus Excellents Bâtiments de France. _Paris, 1607._
LE MUET, PIERRE.
Manière de Bien Bâtir pour toutes sortes de Personnes.
OPPENORD, GILLES MARIE.
Oeuvres. _1750._
MARIETTE, PIERRE JEAN.
L'Architecture Françoise. _1727._
BRISEUX, CHARLES ÉTIENNE.
L'Art de Bâtir les Maisons de Campagne. _Paris, 1743._
LALONDE, FRANÇOIS RICHARD DE.
Recueil de ses Oeuvres.
AVILER, C. A. D'.
Cours d'Architecture. _1760._
BLONDEL, JACQUES FRANÇOIS.
Architecture Françoise. _Paris, 1752._
Cours d'Architecture. _Paris, 1771-77._
De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance et de la
Décoration des Édifices. _Paris, 1737._
ROUBO, A. J., FILS.
L'Art du Menuisier.
HÉRÉ DE CORNY, EMMANUEL.
Recueil des Plans, Élévations et Coupes des Châteaux,
Jardins et Dépendances que le Roi de Pologne occupe en
Lorraine. _Paris, n. d._
PERCIER ET FONTAINE.
Choix des plus Célèbres Maisons de Plaisance de Rome et de
ses Environs. _Paris, 1809._
Palais, Maisons, et autres Édifices Modernes dessinés à
Rome. _Paris, 1798._
Résidences des Souverains. _Paris, 1833._
KRAFFT ET RANSONNETTE.
Plans, Coupes, et Élévations des plus belles Maisons et
Hôtels construits à Paris et dans les Environs. _Paris,
1801._
DURAND, JEAN NICOLAS LOUIS.
Recueil et Parallèle des Édifices de tout Genre. _Paris,
1800._
Précis des Leçons d'Architecture données à l'École Royale
Polytechnique. _Paris, 1823._
QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY, A. C.
Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages des plus Célèbres
Architectes du XIe siècle jusqu'à la fin du XVIII siècle.
_Paris, 1830._
PELLASSY DE L'OUSLE.
Histoire du Palais de Compiègne. _Paris, n. d._
LETAROUILLY, PAUL MARIE.
Édifices de Rome Moderne. _Paris, 1825-57._
RAMÉE, DANIEL.
Histoire Générale de l'Architecture. _Paris, 1862._
Meubles Religieux et Civils Conservés dans les principaux
Monuments et Musées de l'Europe.
VIOLLET LE DUC, EUGÈNE EMMANUEL.
Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française du XIe au
XVIe siècle. _Paris, 1868._
SAUVAGEOT, CLAUDE.
Palais, Châteaux, Hôtels et Maisons de France du XVe au
XVIIIe siècle.
DALY, CÉSAR.
Motifs Historiques d'Architecture et de Sculpture
d'Ornement.
ROUYER ET DARCEL.
L'Art Architectural en France depuis François Ier jusqu'à
Louis XIV.
HAVARD, HENRY.
Dictionnaire de l'Ameublement et de la Décoration depuis le
XIIIe siècle jusqu'à nos Jours. _Paris, n. d._
Les Arts de l'Ameublement.
GUILMARD, D.
Les Maîtres Ornemanistes. _Paris, 1880._
BAUCHAL, CHARLES.
Dictionnaire des Architectes Français. _Paris, 1887._
ROUAIX, PAUL.
Les Styles. _Paris, n. d._
BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT DES BEAUX ARTS.
Maison Quantin, _Paris_.
ENGLISH
WARE, ISAAC.
A Complete Body of Architecture. _London, 1756._
BRETTINGHAM, MATTHEW.
Plans, Elevations and Sections of Holkham in Norfolk, the
Seat of the late Earl of Leicester. _London, 1761._
CAMPBELL, COLEN.
Vitruvius Britannicus; or, The British Architect. _London,
1771._
ADAM, ROBERT AND JAMES.
The Works in Architecture. _London, 1773-1822._
HEPPLEWHITE, A.
The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide.
SHERATON, THOMAS.
The Cabinet-Maker's Dictionary. _London, 1803._
PAIN, WILLIAM.
The British Palladio; or The Builder's General Assistant.
_London, 1797._
SOANE, SIR JOHN.
Sketches in Architecture. _London, 1793._
HAKEWILL, ARTHUR WILLIAM.
General Plan and External Details, with Picturesque
Illustrations, of Thorpe Hall, Peterborough.
LEWIS, JAMES.
Original Designs in Architecture.
PYNE, WILLIAM HENRY.
History of the Royal Residences of Windsor Castle, St.
James's Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton
Court, Buckingham Palace, and Frogmore. _London, 1819._
GWILT, JOSEPH.
Encyclopedia of Architecture. New edition. _Longman's,
1895._
FERGUSSON, JAMES.
History of Architecture. _London, 1874._
History of the Modern Styles of Architecture. Third edition,
revised by Robert Kerr. _London, 1891._
GOTCH, JOHN ALFRED.
Architecture of the Renaissance in England.
HEATON, JOHN ALDAM.
Furniture and Decoration in England in the Eighteenth
Century.
ROSENGARTEN.
Handbook of Architectural Styles. _New York, 1876._
HORNE, H. P.
The Binding of Books. _London, 1894._
LOFTIE, W. J.
Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren. _London, 1893._
KERR, ROBERT.
The English Gentleman's House. _London, 1865._
STEVENSON, J. J.
House Architecture. _London, 1880._
GERMAN AND ITALIAN
BURCKHARDT, JACOB.
Architektur der Renaissance in Italien. _Stuttgart, 1891._
REINHARDT.
Palast Architektur von Ober Italien und Toskana.
GURLITT, CORNELIUS.
Geschichte des Barockstiles in Italien. _Stuttgart, 1887._
EBE, GUSTAV.
Die Spät-Renaissance. _Berlin, 1886._
LA VILLA BORGHESE, FUORI DI PORTA PINCIANA, CON L'ORNAMENTI
CHE SI OSSERVANO NEL DI LEI PALAZZO. _Roma, 1700._
INTRA, G. B.
Mantova nei suoi Monumenti.
LUZIO E RENIER.
Mantova e Urbino. _Torino-Roma, 1893._
MOLMENTI, POMPEO.
La Storia di Venezia nella Vita Privata. _Torino, 1885._
MALAMANI, VITTORIO.
Il Settecento a Venezia. _Milano, 1895._
LA VITA ITALIANA NEL SEICENTO. CONFERENZE TENUTE A FIRENZE
NEL 1890.
INTRODUCTION
Rooms may be decorated in two ways: by a superficial application of
ornament totally independent of structure, or by means of those
architectural features which are part of the organism of every house,
inside as well as out.
In the middle ages, when warfare and brigandage shaped the conditions
of life, and men camped in their castles much as they did in their
tents, it was natural that decorations should be portable, and that
the naked walls of the mediæval chamber should be hung with arras,
while a _ciel_, or ceiling, of cloth stretched across the open timbers
of its roof.
When life became more secure, and when the Italian conquests of the
Valois had acquainted men north of the Alps with the spirit of classic
tradition, proportion and the relation of voids to masses gradually
came to be regarded as the chief decorative values of the interior.
Portable hangings were in consequence replaced by architectural
ornament: in other words, the architecture of the room became its
decoration.
This architectural treatment held its own through every change of
taste until the second quarter of the present century; but since then
various influences have combined to sever the natural connection
between the outside of the modern house and its interior. In the
average house the architect's task seems virtually confined to the
elevations and floor-plan. The designing of what are to-day regarded
as insignificant details, such as mouldings, architraves, and
cornices, has become a perfunctory work, hurried over and unregarded;
and when this work is done, the upholsterer is called in to "decorate"
and furnish the rooms.
As the result of this division of labor, house-decoration has ceased
to be a branch of architecture. The upholsterer cannot be expected to
have the preliminary training necessary for architectural work, and it
is inevitable that in his hands form should be sacrificed to color and
composition to detail. In his ignorance of the legitimate means of
producing certain effects, he is driven to all manner of expedients,
the result of which is a piling up of heterogeneous ornament, a
multiplication of incongruous effects; and lacking, as he does, a
definite first conception, his work becomes so involved that it seems
impossible for him to make an end.
The confusion resulting from these unscientific methods has reflected
itself in the lay mind, and house-decoration has come to be regarded
as a black art by those who have seen their rooms subjected to the
manipulations of the modern upholsterer. Now, in the hands of
decorators who understand the fundamental principles of their art, the
surest effects are produced, not at the expense of simplicity and
common sense, but by observing the requirements of both. These
requirements are identical with those regulating domestic
architecture, the chief end in both cases being the suitable
accommodation of the inmates of the house.
The fact that this end has in a measure been lost sight of is perhaps
sufficient warrant for the publication of this elementary sketch. No
study of _house-decoration as a branch of architecture_ has for at
least fifty years been published in England or America; and though
France is always producing admirable monographs on isolated branches
of this subject, there is no modern French work corresponding with
such comprehensive manuals as d'Aviler's _Cours d'Architecture_ or
Isaac Ware's _Complete Body of Architecture_.
The attempt to remedy this deficiency in some slight degree has made
it necessary to dwell at length upon the strictly architectural
principles which controlled the work of the old decorators. The
effects that they aimed at having been based mainly on the due
adjustment of parts, it has been impossible to explain their methods
without assuming their standpoint--that of _architectural
proportion_--in contradistinction to the modern view of
house-decoration as _superficial application of ornament_. When
house-decoration was a part of architecture all its values were
founded on structural modifications; consequently it may seem that
ideas to be derived from a study of such methods suggest changes too
radical for those who are not building, but are merely decorating.
Such changes, in fact, lie rather in the direction of alteration than
of adornment; but it must be remembered that the results attained will
be of greater decorative value than were an equal expenditure devoted
to surface-ornament. Moreover, the great decorators, if scrupulous in
the observance of architectural principles, were ever governed, in the
use of ornamental detail, by the [Greek: sôphrosynê], the "wise
moderation," of the Greeks; and the rooms of the past were both
simpler in treatment and freer from mere embellishments than those of
to-day.
Besides, if it be granted for the sake of argument that a reform in
house-decoration, if not necessary, is at least desirable, it must be
admitted that such reform can originate only with those whose means
permit of any experiments which their taste may suggest. When the rich
man demands good architecture his neighbors will get it too. The
vulgarity of current decoration has its source in the indifference of
the wealthy to architectural fitness. Every good moulding, every
carefully studied detail, exacted by those who can afford to indulge
their taste, will in time find its way to the carpenter-built cottage.
Once the right precedent is established, it costs less to follow than
to oppose it.
In conclusion, it may be well to explain the seeming lack of accord
between the arguments used in this book and the illustrations chosen
to interpret them. While much is said of simplicity, the illustrations
used are chiefly taken from houses of some importance. This has been
done in order that only such apartments as are accessible to the
traveller might be given as examples. Unprofessional readers will
probably be more interested in studying rooms that they have seen, or
at least heard of, than those in the ordinary private dwelling; and
the arguments advanced are indirectly sustained by the most ornate
rooms here shown, since their effect is based on such harmony of line
that their superficial ornament might be removed without loss to the
composition.
Moreover, as some of the illustrations prove, the most magnificent
palaces of Europe contain rooms as simple as those in any private
house; and to point out that simplicity is at home even in palaces is
perhaps not the least service that may be rendered to the modern
decorator.
[Illustration: _PLATE I._
ITALIAN GOTHIC CHEST.
MUSEUM OF THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE.]
I
THE HISTORICAL TRADITION
The last ten years have been marked by a notable development in
architecture and decoration, and while France will long retain her
present superiority in these arts, our own advance is perhaps more
significant than that of any other country. When we measure the work
recently done in the United States by the accepted architectural
standards of ten years ago, the change is certainly striking,
especially in view of the fact that our local architects and
decorators are without the countless advantages in the way of schools,
museums and libraries which are at the command of their European
colleagues. In Paris, for instance, it is impossible to take even a
short walk without finding inspiration in those admirable buildings,
public and private, religious and secular, that bear the stamp of the
most refined taste the world has known since the decline of the arts
in Italy; and probably all American architects will acknowledge that
no amount of travel abroad and study at home can compensate for the
lack of daily familiarity with such monuments.
It is therefore all the more encouraging to note the steady advance in
taste and knowledge to which the most recent architecture in America
bears witness. This advance is chiefly due to the fact that American
architects are beginning to perceive two things that their French
colleagues, among all the modern vagaries of taste, have never quite
lost sight of: first that architecture and decoration, having wandered
since 1800 in a labyrinth of dubious eclecticism, can be set right
only by a close study of the best models; and secondly that, given the
requirements of modern life, these models are chiefly to be found in
buildings erected in Italy after the beginning of the sixteenth
century, and in other European countries after the full assimilation
of the Italian influence.
As the latter of these propositions may perhaps be questioned by those
who, in admiring the earlier styles, sometimes lose sight of their
relative unfitness for modern use, it must be understood at the outset
that it implies no disregard for the inherent beauties of these
styles. It would be difficult, assuredly, to find buildings better
suited to their original purpose than some of the great feudal
castles, such as Warwick in England, or Langeais in France; and as
much might be said of the grim machicolated palaces of republican
Florence or Siena; but our whole mode of life has so entirely changed
since the days in which these buildings were erected that they no
longer answer to our needs. It is only necessary to picture the lives
led in those days to see how far removed from them our present social
conditions are. Inside and outside the house, all told of the
unsettled condition of country or town, the danger of armed attack,
the clumsy means of defence, the insecurity of property, the few
opportunities of social intercourse as we understand it. A man's house
was in very truth his castle in the middle ages, and in France and
England especially it remained so until the end of the sixteenth
century.
Thus it was that many needs arose: the tall keep of masonry where the
inmates, pent up against attack, awaited the signal of the watchman
who, from his platform or _échauguette_, gave warning of assault; the
ponderous doors, oak-ribbed and metal-studded, with doorways often
narrowed to prevent entrance of two abreast, and so low that the
incomer had to bend his head; the windows that were mere openings or
slits, narrow and high, far out of the assailants' reach, and piercing
the walls without regard to symmetry--not, as Ruskin would have us
believe, because irregularity was thought artistic, but because the
mediæval architect, trained to the uses of necessity, knew that he
must design openings that should afford no passage to the besiegers'
arrows, no clue to what was going on inside the keep. But to the
reader familiar with Viollet-le-Duc, or with any of the many excellent
works on English domestic architecture, further details will seem
superfluous. It is necessary, however, to point out that long after
the conditions of life in Europe had changed, houses retained many
features of the feudal period. The survival of obsolete customs which
makes the study of sociology so interesting, has its parallel in the
history of architecture. In the feudal countries especially, where the
conflict between the great nobles and the king was of such long
duration that civilization spread very slowly, architecture was
proportionately slow to give up many of its feudal characteristics. In
Italy, on the contrary, where one city after another succumbed to some
accomplished condottiere who between his campaigns read Virgil and
collected antique marbles, the rugged little republics were soon
converted into brilliant courts where, life being relatively secure,
social intercourse rapidly developed. This change of conditions
brought with it the paved street and square, the large-windowed
palaces with their great court-yards and stately open staircases, and
the market-place with its loggia adorned with statues and marble
seats.
Italy, in short, returned instinctively to the Roman ideal of civic
life: the life of the street, the forum and the baths. These very
conditions, though approaching so much nearer than feudalism to our
modern civilization, in some respects make the Italian architecture of
the Renaissance less serviceable as a model than the French and
English styles later developed from it. The very dangers and
barbarities of feudalism had fostered and preserved the idea of home
as of something private, shut off from intrusion; and while the Roman
ideal flowered in the great palace with its galleries, loggias and
saloons, itself a kind of roofed-in forum, the French or English
feudal keep became, by the same process of growth, the modern private
house. The domestic architecture of the Renaissance in Italy offers
but two distinctively characteristic styles of building: the palace
and the villa or hunting-lodge.[1] There is nothing corresponding in
interior arrangements with the French or English town house, or the
_manoir_ where the provincial nobles lived all the year round. The
villa was a mere perch used for a few weeks of gaiety in spring or
autumn; it was never a home as the French or English country-house
was. There were, of course, private houses in Renaissance Italy, but
these were occupied rather by shopkeepers, craftsmen, and the
_bourgeoisie_ than by the class which in France and England lived in
country houses or small private hôtels. The elevations of these small
Italian houses are often admirable examples of domestic architecture,
but their planning is rudimentary, and it may be said that the
characteristic tendencies of modern house-planning were developed
rather in the mezzanin or low-studded intermediate story of the
Italian Renaissance palace than in the small house of the same period.
It is a fact recognized by political economists that changes in
manners and customs, no matter under what form of government, usually
originate with the wealthy or aristocratic minority, and are thence
transmitted to the other classes. Thus the _bourgeois_ of one
generation lives more like the aristocrat of a previous generation
than like his own predecessors. This rule naturally holds good of
house-planning, and it is for this reason that the origin of modern
house-planning should be sought rather in the prince's mezzanin than
in the small middle-class dwelling. The Italian mezzanin probably
originated in the habit of building certain very high-studded saloons
and of lowering the ceiling of the adjoining rooms. This created an
intermediate story, or rather scattered intermediate rooms, which
Bramante was among the first to use in the planning of his palaces;
but Bramante did not reveal the existence of the mezzanin in his
façades, and it was not until the time of Peruzzi and his
contemporaries that it became, both in plan and elevation, an accepted
part of the Italian palace. It is for this reason that the year 1500
is a convenient point from which to date the beginning of modern
house-planning; but it must be borne in mind that this date is purely
arbitrary, and represents merely an imaginary line drawn between
mediæval and modern ways of living and house-planning, as exemplified
respectively, for instance, in the ducal palace of Urbino, built by
Luciano da Laurano about 1468, and the palace of the Massimi alle
Colonne in Rome, built by Baldassare Peruzzi during the first half of
the sixteenth century.
The lives of the great Italian nobles were essentially open-air lives:
all was organized with a view to public pageants, ceremonies and
entertainments. Domestic life was subordinated to this spectacular
existence, and instead of building private houses in our sense, they
built palaces, of which they set aside a portion for the use of the
family. Every Italian palace has its mezzanin or private apartment;
but this part of the building is now seldom seen by travellers in
Italy. Not only is it usually inhabited by the owners of the palace
but, its decorations being simpler than those of the _piano nobile_,
or principal story, it is not thought worthy of inspection. As a
matter of fact, the treatment of the mezzanin was generally most
beautiful, because most suitable; and while the Italian Renaissance
palace can seldom serve as a model for a modern private house, the
decoration of the mezzanin rooms is full of appropriate suggestion.
In France and England, on the other hand, private life was gradually,
though slowly, developing along the lines it still follows in the
present day. It is necessary to bear in mind that what we call modern
civilization was a later growth in these two countries than in Italy.
If this fact is insisted upon, it is only because it explains the
relative unsuitability of French Renaissance or Tudor and Elizabethan
architecture to modern life. In France, for instance, it was not until
the Fronde was subdued and Louis XIV firmly established on the throne,
that the elements which compose what we call modern life really began
to combine. In fact, it might be said that the feudalism of which the
Fronde was the lingering expression had its counterpart in the
architecture of the period. While long familiarity with Italy was
beginning to tell upon the practical side of house-planning, many
obsolete details were still preserved. Even the most enthusiastic
admirer of the French Renaissance would hardly maintain that the
houses of that period are what we should call in the modern sense
"convenient." It would be impossible for a modern family to occupy
with any degree of comfort the Hôtel Voguë at Dijon, one of the best
examples (as originally planned) of sixteenth-century domestic
architecture in France.[2] The same objection applies to the furniture
of the period. This arose from the fact that, owing to the unsettled
state of the country, the landed proprietor always carried his
furniture with him when he travelled from one estate to another.
Furniture, in the vocabulary of the middle ages, meant something which
may be transported: "Meubles sont apelez qu'on peut transporter";--hence
the lack of variety in furniture before the seventeenth century, and
also its unsuitableness to modern life. Chairs and cabinets that had
to be carried about on mule-back were necessarily somewhat stiff and
angular in design. It is perhaps not too much to say that a
comfortable chair, in our self-indulgent modern sense, did not exist
before the Louis XIV arm-chair (see Plate IV); and the cushioned
_bergère_, the ancestor of our upholstered easy-chair, cannot be
traced back further than the Regency. Prior to the time of Louis XIV,
the most luxurious people had to content themselves with hard
straight-backed seats. The necessities of transportation permitted
little variety of design, and every piece of furniture was constructed
with the double purpose of being easily carried about and of being
used as a trunk (see Plate I). As Havard says, "Tout meuble se
traduisait par un coffre." The unvarying design of the cabinets is
explained by the fact that they were made to form two trunks,[3] and
even the chairs and settles had hollow seats which could be packed
with the owners' wardrobe (see Plate II). The king himself, when he
went from one château to another, carried all his furniture with him,
and it is thus not surprising that lesser people contented themselves
with a few substantial chairs and cabinets, and enough arras or cloth
of Douai to cover the draughty walls of their country-houses. One of
Madame de Sévigné's letters gives an amusing instance of the
scarceness of furniture even in the time of Louis XIV. In describing a
fire in a house near her own hôtel in Paris, she says that one or two
of the persons from the burning house were brought to her for shelter,
because it was known in the neighborhood (at that time a rich and
fashionable one) that she had _an extra bed_ in the house!
[Illustration: _PLATE II._
FRENCH CHAIRS, XV AND XVI CENTURIES.
FROM THE GAVET COLLECTION.]
It was not until the social influences of the reign of Louis XIV were
fully established that modern domestic life really began. Tradition
ascribes to Madame de Rambouillet a leading share in the advance in
practical house-planning; but probably what she did is merely typical
of the modifications which the new social conditions were everywhere
producing. It is certain that at this time houses and rooms first
began to be comfortable. The immense cavernous fireplaces originally
meant for the roasting of beeves and the warming of a flock of frozen
retainers,--"les grandes antiquailles de cheminées," as Madame de
Sévigné called them,--were replaced by the compact chimney-piece of
modern times. Cushioned _bergères_ took the place of the throne-like
seats of Louis XIII, screens kept off unwelcome draughts, Savonnerie
or moquette carpets covered the stone or marble floors, and grandeur
gave way to luxury.[4]
English architecture having followed a line of development so similar
that it need not here be traced, it remains only to examine in detail
the opening proposition, namely, that modern architecture and
decoration, having in many ways deviated from the paths which the
experience of the past had marked out for them, can be reclaimed only
by a study of the best models.
It might of course be said that to attain this end originality is more
necessary than imitativeness. To this it may be replied that no lost
art can be re-acquired without at least for a time going back to the
methods and manner of those who formerly practised it; or the
objection may be met by the question, What is originality in art?
Perhaps it is easier to define what it is _not_; and this may be done
by saying that it is never a wilful rejection of what have been
accepted as the necessary laws of the various forms of art. Thus, in
reasoning, originality lies not in discarding the necessary laws of
thought, but in using them to express new intellectual conceptions; in
poetry, originality consists not in discarding the necessary laws of
rhythm, but in finding new rhythms within the limits of those laws.
Most of the features of architecture that have persisted through
various fluctuations of taste owe their preservation to the fact that
they have been proved by experience to be necessary; and it will be
found that none of them precludes the exercise of individual taste,
any more than the acceptance of the syllogism or of the laws of rhythm
prevents new thinkers and new poets from saying what has never been
said before. Once this is clearly understood, it will be seen that the
supposed conflict between originality and tradition is no conflict at
all.[5]
In citing logic and poetry, those arts have been purposely chosen of
which the laws will perhaps best help to explain and illustrate the
character of architectural limitations. A building, for whatever
purpose erected, must be built in strict accordance with the
requirements of that purpose; in other words, it must have a reason
for being as it is and must be as it is for that reason. Its
decoration must harmonize with the structural limitations (which is by
no means the same thing as saying that all decoration must be
structural), and from this harmony of the general scheme of decoration
with the building, and of the details of the decoration with each
other, springs the rhythm that distinguishes architecture from mere
construction. Thus all good architecture and good decoration (which,
it must never be forgotten, _is only interior architecture_) must be
based on rhythm and logic. A house, or room, must be planned as it is
because it could not, in reason, be otherwise; must be decorated as it
is because no other decoration would harmonize as well with the plan.
[Illustration: _PLATE III._
FRENCH ARMOIRE, XVI CENTURY.]
Many of the most popular features in modern house-planning and
decoration will not be found to stand this double test. Often (as will
be shown further on) they are merely survivals of earlier social
conditions, and have been preserved in obedience to that instinct that
makes people cling to so many customs the meaning of which is lost.
In other cases they have been revived by the archæologizing spirit
which is so characteristic of the present time, and which so often
leads its possessors to think that a thing must be beautiful because
it is old and appropriate because it is beautiful.
But since the beauty of all such features depends on their
appropriateness, they may in every case be replaced by a more suitable
form of treatment without loss to the general effect of house or room.
It is this which makes it important that each room (or, better still,
all the rooms) in a house should receive the same style of decoration.
To some people this may seem as meaningless a piece of archaism as the
habit of using obsolete fragments of planning or decoration; but such
is not the case. It must not be forgotten, in discussing the question
of reproducing certain styles, that the essence of a style lies not in
its use of ornament, but in its handling of proportion. Structure
conditions ornament, not ornament structure. That is, a room with
unsuitably proportioned openings, wall-spaces and cornice might
receive a surface application of Louis XV or Louis XVI ornament and
not represent either of those styles of decoration; whereas a room
constructed according to the laws of proportion accepted in one or the
other of those periods, in spite of a surface application of
decorative detail widely different in character,--say Romanesque or
Gothic,--would yet maintain its distinctive style, because the detail,
in conforming with the laws of proportion governing the structure of
the room, must necessarily conform with its style. In other words,
decoration is always subservient to proportion; and a room, whatever
its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its
proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater. Unfortunately
it is usually by ornamental details, rather than by proportion, that
people distinguish one style from another. To many persons, garlands,
bow-knots, quivers, and a great deal of gilding represent the Louis
XVI style; if they object to these, they condemn the style. To an
architect familiar with the subject the same style means something
absolutely different. He knows that a Louis XVI room may exist without
any of these or similar characteristics; and he often deprecates their
use as representing the cheaper and more trivial effects of the
period, and those that have most helped to vulgarize it. In fact, in
nine cases out of ten his use of them is a concession to the client
who, having asked for a Louis XVI room, would not know he had got it
were these details left out.[6]
Another thing which has perhaps contributed to make people distrustful
of "styles" is the garbled form in which they are presented by some
architects. After a period of eclecticism that has lasted long enough
to make architects and decorators lose their traditional habits of
design, there has arisen a sudden demand for "style." It necessarily
follows that only the most competent are ready to respond to this
unexpected summons. Much has to be relearned, still more to be
unlearned. The essence of the great styles lay in proportion and the
science of proportion is not to be acquired in a day. In fact, in such
matters the cultivated layman, whether or not he has any special
familiarity with the different schools of architecture, is often a
better judge than the half-educated architect. It is no wonder that
people of taste are disconcerted by the so-called "colonial" houses
where stair-rails are used as roof-balustrades and mantel-friezes
as exterior entablatures, or by Louis XV rooms where the wavy movement
which, in the best rococo, was always an ornamental incident and never
broke up the main lines of the design, is suffered to run riot through
the whole treatment of the walls, so that the bewildered eye seeks in
vain for a straight line amid the whirl of incoherent curves.
[Illustration: _PLATE IV._
FRENCH SOFA AND ARMCHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
FROM THE CHÂTEAU DE BERCY.]
To conform to a style, then, is to accept those rules of proportion
which the artistic experience of centuries has established as the
best, while within those limits allowing free scope to the individual
requirements which must inevitably modify every house or room adapted
to the use and convenience of its occupants.
There is one thing more to be said in defence of conformity to style;
and that is, the difficulty of getting rid of style. Strive as we may
for originality, we are hampered at every turn by an artistic
tradition of over two thousand years. Does any but the most
inexperienced architect really think that he can ever rid himself of
such an inheritance? He may mutilate or misapply the component parts
of his design, but he cannot originate a whole new architectural
alphabet. The chances are that he will not find it easy to invent one
wholly new moulding.
The styles especially suited to modern life have already been roughly
indicated as those prevailing in Italy since 1500, in France from the
time of Louis XIV, and in England since the introduction of the
Italian manner by Inigo Jones; and as the French and English styles
are perhaps more familiar to the general reader, the examples given
will usually be drawn from these. Supposing the argument in favor of
these styles to have been accepted, at least as a working hypothesis,
it must be explained why, in each room, the decoration and furniture
should harmonize. Most people will admit the necessity of harmonizing
the colors in a room, because a feeling for color is more general than
a feeling for form; but in reality the latter is the more important in
decoration, and it is the feeling for form, and not any archæological
affectation, which makes the best decorators insist upon the necessity
of keeping to the same style of furniture and decoration. Thus the
massive dimensions and heavy panelling of a seventeenth-century room
would dwarf a set of eighteenth-century furniture; and the wavy,
capricious movement of Louis XV decoration would make the austere yet
delicate lines of Adam furniture look stiff and mean.
Many persons object not only to any attempt at uniformity of style,
but to the use of any recognized style in the decoration of a room.
They characterize it, according to their individual views, as
"servile," "formal," or "pretentious."
It has already been suggested that to conform within rational limits
to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to
write according to the rules of grammar. As to the accusations of
formality and pretentiousness (which are more often made in America
than elsewhere), they may probably be explained by the fact that most
Americans necessarily form their idea of the great European styles
from public buildings and palaces. Certainly, if an architect were to
propose to his client to decorate a room in a moderate-sized house in
the Louis XIV style, and if the client had formed his idea of that
style from the state apartments in the palace at Versailles, he would
be justified in rejecting the proposed treatment as absolutely
unsuitable to modern private life; whereas the architect who had gone
somewhat more deeply into the subject might have singled out the style
as eminently suitable, having in mind one of the simple panelled
rooms, with tall windows, a dignified fireplace, large tables and
comfortable arm-chairs, which were to be found in the private houses
of the same period (see Plate V). It is the old story of the two
knights fighting about the color of the shield. Both architect and
client would be right, but they would be looking at the different
sides of the question. As a matter of fact, the bed-rooms,
sitting-rooms, libraries and other private apartments in the smaller
dwelling-houses built in Europe between 1650 and 1800 were far
simpler, less pretentious and more practical in treatment than those
in the average modern house.
[Illustration: _PLATE V._
ROOM IN THE GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES.
(EXAMPLE OF SIMPLE LOUIS XIV DECORATION.)]
It is therefore hoped that the antagonists of "style," when they are
shown that to follow a certain style is not to sacrifice either
convenience or imagination, but to give more latitude to both, will
withdraw an opposition which seems to be based on a misapprehension of
facts.
Hitherto architecture and decoration have been spoken of as one, as in
any well-designed house they ought to be. Indeed, it is one of the
numerous disadvantages of the present use of styles, that unless the
architect who has built the house also decorates it, the most hopeless
discord is apt to result. This was otherwise before our present desire
for variety had thrown architects, decorators, and workmen out of the
regular routine of their business. Before 1800 the decorator called
upon to treat the interior of a house invariably found a suitable
background prepared for his work, while much in the way of detail was
intrusted to the workmen, who were trained in certain traditions
instead of being called upon to carry out in each new house the
vagaries of a different designer.
But it is with the decorator's work alone that these pages are
concerned, and the above digression is intended to explain why his
task is now so difficult, and why his results are so often
unsatisfactory to himself as well as to his clients. The decorator of
the present day may be compared to a person who is called upon to
write a letter in the English language, but is ordered, in so doing,
to conform to the Chinese or Egyptian rules of grammar, or possibly to
both together.
By the use of a little common sense and a reasonable conformity to
those traditions of design which have been tested by generations of
architects, it is possible to produce great variety in the decoration
of rooms without losing sight of the purpose for which they are
intended. Indeed, the more closely this purpose is kept in view, and
the more clearly it is expressed in all the details of each room, the
more pleasing that room will be, so that it is easy to make a room
with tinted walls, deal furniture and dimity curtains more beautiful,
because more logical and more harmonious, than a ball-room lined with
gold and marbles, in which the laws of rhythm and logic have been
ignored.
[Illustration: _PLATE VI._
FRENCH ARMCHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Charming as the Italian villa is, it can hardly be used in our
Northern States without certain modifications, unless it is merely
occupied for a few weeks in mid-summer; whereas the average French or
English country house built after 1600 is perfectly suited to our
climate and habits. The chief features of the Italian villa are the
open central _cortile_ and the large saloon two stories high. An
adaptation of these better suited to a cold climate is to be found in
the English country houses built in the Palladian manner after its
introduction by Inigo Jones. See Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_
for numerous examples.
[2] The plan of the Hôtel Voguë has been greatly modified.
[3] Cabinets retained this shape after the transporting of furniture
had ceased to be a necessity (see Plate III).
[4] It must be remembered that in describing the decoration of any
given period, we refer to the private houses, not the royal palaces,
of that period. Versailles was more splendid than any previous palace;
but private houses at that date were less splendid, though far more
luxurious, than during the Renaissance.
[5] "Si l'on dispose un édifice d'une manière convenable à l'usage
auquel on le destine, ne différera-t-il pas sensiblement d'un autre
édifice destiné à un autre usage? N'aura-t-il pas naturellement un
caractère, et, qui plus est, son caractère propre?" J. L. N. Durand.
_Précis des Leçons d'Architecture données à l'École Royale
Polytechnique._ Paris, 1823.
[6] It must not be forgotten that the so-called "styles" of Louis XIV,
Louis XV and Louis XVI were, in fact, only the gradual development of
one organic style, and hence differed only in the superficial use of
ornament.
II
ROOMS IN GENERAL
Before beginning to decorate a room it is essential to consider for
what purpose the room is to be used. It is not enough to ticket it
with some such general designation as "library," "drawing-room," or
"den." The individual tastes and habits of the people who are to
occupy it must be taken into account; it must be not "a library," or
"a drawing-room," but the library or the drawing-room best suited to
the master or mistress of the house which is being decorated.
Individuality in house-furnishing has seldom been more harped upon
than at the present time. That cheap originality which finds
expression in putting things to uses for which they were not intended
is often confounded with individuality; whereas the latter consists
not in an attempt to be different from other people at the cost of
comfort, but in the desire to be comfortable in one's own way, even
though it be the way of a monotonously large majority. It seems easier
to most people to arrange a room like some one else's than to analyze
and express their own needs. Men, in these matters, are less exacting
than women, because their demands, besides being simpler, are
uncomplicated by the feminine tendency to want things because other
people have them, rather than to have things because they are wanted.
But it must never be forgotten that every one is unconsciously
tyrannized over by the wants of others,--the wants of dead and gone
predecessors, who have an inconvenient way of thrusting their
different habits and tastes across the current of later existences.
The unsatisfactory relations of some people with their rooms are often
to be explained in this way. They have still in their blood the
traditional uses to which these rooms were put in times quite
different from the present. It is only an unconscious extension of the
conscious habit which old-fashioned people have of clinging to their
parents' way of living. The difficulty of reconciling these instincts
with our own comfort and convenience, and the various compromises to
which they lead in the arrangement of our rooms, will be more fully
dealt with in the following chapters. To go to the opposite extreme
and discard things because they are old-fashioned is equally
unreasonable. The golden mean lies in trying to arrange our houses
with a view to our own comfort and convenience; and it will be found
that the more closely we follow this rule the easier our rooms will be
to furnish and the pleasanter to live in.
People whose attention has never been specially called to the _raison
d'être_ of house-furnishing sometimes conclude that because a thing is
unusual it is artistic, or rather that through some occult process the
most ordinary things become artistic by being used in an unusual
manner; while others, warned by the visible results of this theory of
furnishing, infer that everything artistic is unpractical. In the
Anglo-Saxon mind beauty is not spontaneously born of material wants,
as it is with the Latin races. We have to _make_ things beautiful;
they do not grow so of themselves. The necessity of making this effort
has caused many people to put aside the whole problem of beauty and
fitness in household decoration as something mysterious and
incomprehensible to the uninitiated. The architect and decorator are
often aware that they are regarded by their clients as the possessors
of some strange craft like black magic or astrology.
This fatalistic attitude has complicated the simple and intelligible
process of house-furnishing, and has produced much of the discomfort
which causes so many rooms to be shunned by everybody in the house, in
spite (or rather because) of all the money and ingenuity expended on
their arrangement. Yet to penetrate the mystery of house-furnishing it
is only necessary to analyze one satisfactory room and to notice
wherein its charm lies. To the fastidious eye it will, of course, be
found in fitness of proportion, in the proper use of each moulding and
in the harmony of all the decorative processes; and even to those who
think themselves indifferent to such detail, much of the sense of
restfulness and comfort produced by certain rooms depends on the due
adjustment of their fundamental parts. Different rooms minister to
different wants and while a room may be made very livable without
satisfying any but the material requirements of its inmates it is
evident that the perfect room should combine these qualities with what
corresponds to them in a higher order of needs. At present, however,
the subject deals only with the material livableness of a room, and
this will generally be found to consist in the position of the doors
and fireplace, the accessibility of the windows, the arrangement of
the furniture, the privacy of the room and the absence of the
superfluous.
The position of doors and fireplace, though the subject comes properly
under the head of house-planning, may be included in this summary,
because in rearranging a room it is often possible to change its
openings, or at any rate, in the case of doors, to modify their
dimensions.
The fireplace must be the focus of every rational scheme of
arrangement. Nothing is so dreary, so hopeless to deal with, as a room
in which the fireplace occupies a narrow space between two doors, so
that it is impossible to sit about the hearth.[7] Next in importance
come the windows. In town houses especially, where there is so little
light that every ray is precious to the reader or worker, window-space
is invaluable. Yet in few rooms are the windows easy of approach, free
from useless draperies and provided with easy-chairs so placed that
the light falls properly on the occupant's work.
It is no exaggeration to say that many houses are deserted by the men
of the family for lack of those simple comforts which they find at
their clubs: windows unobscured by layers of muslin, a fireplace
surrounded by easy-chairs and protected from draughts, well-appointed
writing-tables and files of papers and magazines. Who cannot call to
mind the dreary drawing-room, in small town houses the only possible
point of reunion for the family, but too often, in consequence of its
exquisite discomfort, of no more use as a meeting-place than the
vestibule or the cellar? The windows in this kind of room are
invariably supplied with two sets of muslin curtains, one hanging
against the panes, the other fulfilling the supererogatory duty of
hanging against the former; then come the heavy stuff curtains, so
draped as to cut off the upper light of the windows by day, while it
is impossible to drop them at night: curtains that have thus ceased to
serve the purpose for which they exist. Close to the curtains
stands the inevitable lamp or jardinière, and the wall-space
between the two windows, where a writing-table might be put, is
generally taken up by a cabinet or console, surmounted by a picture
made invisible by the dark shadow of the hangings. The writing-table
might find place against the side-wall near either window; but these
spaces are usually sacred to the piano and to that modern futility,
the silver-table. Thus of necessity the writing-table is either
banished or put in some dark corner, where it is little wonder that
the ink dries unused and a vase of flowers grows in the middle of the
blotting-pad.
[Illustration: _PLATE VII._
FRENCH BERGÈRE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.]
The hearth should be the place about which people gather; but the
mantelpiece in the average American house, being ugly, is usually
covered with inflammable draperies; the fire is, in consequence,
rarely lit, and no one cares to sit about a fireless hearth. Besides,
on the opposite side of the room is a gap in the wall eight or ten
feet wide, opening directly upon the hall, and exposing what should be
the most private part of the room to the scrutiny of messengers,
servants and visitors. This opening is sometimes provided with doors;
but these, as a rule, are either slid into the wall or are unhung and
replaced by a curtain through which every word spoken in the room must
necessarily pass. In such a room it matters very little how the rest
of the furniture is arranged, since it is certain that no one will
ever sit in it except the luckless visitor who has no other refuge.
Even the visitor might be thought entitled to the solace of a few
books; but as all the tables in the room are littered with
knick-knacks, it is difficult for the most philanthropic hostess to
provide even this slight alleviation.
When the town-house is built on the basement plan, and the
drawing-room or parlor is up-stairs, the family, to escape from its
discomforts, habitually take refuge in the small room opening off the
hall on the ground floor; so that instead of sitting in a room twenty
or twenty-five feet wide, they are packed into one less than half that
size and exposed to the frequent intrusions from which, in basement
houses, the drawing-room is free. But too often even the "little room
down-stairs" is arranged less like a sitting-room in a private house
than a waiting-room at a fashionable doctor's or dentist's. It has the
inevitable yawning gap in the wall, giving on the hall close to the
front door, and is either the refuge of the ugliest and most
uncomfortable furniture in the house, or, even if furnished with
taste, is arranged with so little regard to comfort that one might as
well make it part of the hall, as is often done in rearranging old
houses. This habit of sacrificing a useful room to the useless
widening of the hall is indeed the natural outcome of furnishing rooms
of this kind in so unpractical a way that their real usefulness has
ceased to be apparent. The science of restoring wasted rooms to their
proper uses is one of the most important and least understood branches
of house-furnishing.
Privacy would seem to be one of the first requisites of civilized
life, yet it is only necessary to observe the planning and arrangement
of the average house to see how little this need is recognized. Each
room in a house has its individual uses: some are made to sleep in,
others are for dressing, eating, study, or conversation; but whatever
the uses of a room, they are seriously interfered with if it be not
preserved as a small world by itself. If the drawing-room be a part of
the hall and the library a part of the drawing-room, all three will be
equally unfitted to serve their special purpose. The indifference to
privacy which has sprung up in modern times, and which in France, for
instance, has given rise to the grotesque conceit of putting sheets
of plate-glass between two rooms, and of replacing doorways by
openings fifteen feet wide, is of complex origin. It is probably due
in part to the fact that many houses are built and decorated by people
unfamiliar with the habits of those for whom they are building. It may
be that architect and decorator live in a simpler manner than their
clients, and are therefore ready to sacrifice a kind of comfort of
which they do not feel the need to the "effects" obtainable by vast
openings and extended "vistas." To the untrained observer size often
appeals more than proportion and costliness than suitability. In a
handsome house such an observer is attracted rather by the ornamental
detail than by the underlying purpose of planning and decoration. He
sees the beauty of the detail, but not its relation to the whole. He
therefore regards it as elegant but useless; and his next step is to
infer that there is an inherent elegance in what is useless.
Before beginning to decorate a house it is necessary to make a
prolonged and careful study of its plan and elevations, both as a
whole and in detail. The component parts of an undecorated room are
its floor, ceiling, wall-spaces and openings. The openings consist of
the doors, windows and fireplace; and of these, as has already been
pointed out, the fireplace is the most important in the general scheme
of decoration.
No room can be satisfactory unless its openings are properly placed
and proportioned, and the decorator's task is much easier if he has
also been the architect of the house he is employed to decorate; but
as this seldom happens his ingenuity is frequently taxed to produce a
good design upon the background of a faulty and illogical structure.
Much may be done to overcome this difficulty by making slight changes
in the proportions of the openings; and the skilful decorator, before
applying his scheme of decoration, will do all that he can to correct
the fundamental lines of the room. But the result is seldom so
successful as if he had built the room, and those who employ different
people to build and decorate their houses should at least try to
select an architect and a decorator trained in the same school of
composition, so that they may come to some understanding with regard
to the general harmony of their work.
In deciding upon a scheme of decoration, it is necessary to keep in
mind the relation of furniture to ornament, and of the room as a whole
to other rooms in the house. As in a small house a very large room
dwarfs all the others, so a room decorated in a very rich manner will
make the simplicity of those about it look mean. Every house should be
decorated according to a carefully graduated scale of ornamentation
culminating in the most important room of the house; but this plan
must be carried out with such due sense of the relation of the rooms
to each other that there shall be no violent break in the continuity
of treatment. If a white-and-gold drawing-room opens on a hall with a
Brussels carpet and papered walls, the drawing-room will look too fine
and the hall mean.
In the furnishing of each room the same rule should be as carefully
observed. The simplest and most cheaply furnished room (provided the
furniture be good of its kind, and the walls and carpet
unobjectionable in color) will be more pleasing to the fastidious eye
than one in which gilded consoles and cabinets of buhl stand side by
side with cheap machine-made furniture, and delicate old marquetry
tables are covered with trashy china ornaments.
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._
FRENCH BERGÈRE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.]
It is, of course, not always possible to refurnish a room when it is
redecorated. Many people must content themselves with using their
old furniture, no matter how ugly and ill-assorted it may be; and it
is the decorator's business to see that his background helps the
furniture to look its best. It is a mistake to think that because the
furniture of a room is inappropriate or ugly a good background will
bring out these defects. It will, on the contrary, be a relief to the
eye to escape from the bad lines of the furniture to the good lines of
the walls; and should the opportunity to purchase new furniture ever
come, there will be a suitable background ready to show it to the best
advantage.
Most rooms contain a mixture of good, bad, and indifferent furniture.
It is best to adapt the decorative treatment to the best pieces and to
discard those which are in bad taste, replacing them, if necessary, by
willow chairs and stained deal tables until it is possible to buy
something better. When the room is to be refurnished as well as
redecorated the client often makes his purchases without regard to the
decoration. Besides being an injustice to the decorator, inasmuch as
it makes it impossible for him to harmonize his decoration with the
furniture, this generally produces a result unsatisfactory to the
owner of the house. Neither decoration nor furniture, however good of
its kind, can look its best unless each is chosen with reference to
the other. It is therefore necessary that the decorator, before
planning his treatment of a room, should be told what it is to
contain. If a gilt set is put in a room the walls of which are treated
in low relief and painted white, the high lights of the gilding will
destroy the delicate values of the mouldings, and the walls, at a
little distance, will look like flat expanses of whitewashed plaster.
When a room is to be furnished and decorated at the smallest possible
cost, it must be remembered that the comfort of its occupants depends
more on the nature of the furniture than of the wall-decorations or
carpet. In a living-room of this kind it is best to tint the walls and
put a cheerful drugget on the floor, keeping as much money as possible
for the purchase of comfortable chairs and sofas and substantial
tables. If little can be spent in buying furniture, willow
arm-chairs[8] with denim cushions and solid tables with stained legs
and covers of denim or corduroy will be more satisfactory than the
"parlor suit" turned out in thousands by the manufacturer of cheap
furniture, or the pseudo-Georgian or pseudo-Empire of the dealer in
"high-grade goods." Plain bookcases may be made of deal, painted or
stained; and a room treated in this way, with a uniform color on the
wall, and plenty of lamps and books, is sure to be comfortable and can
never be vulgar.
It is to be regretted that, in this country and in England, it should
be almost impossible to buy plain but well-designed and substantial
furniture. Nothing can exceed the ugliness of the current designs: the
bedsteads with towering head-boards fretted by the versatile jig-saw;
the "bedroom suits" of "mahoganized" cherry, bird's-eye maple, or some
other crude-colored wood; the tables with meaninglessly turned legs;
the "Empire" chairs and consoles stuck over with ornaments of cast
bronze washed in liquid gilding; and, worst of all, the supposed
"Colonial" furniture, that unworthy travesty of a plain and dignified
style. All this showy stuff has been produced in answer to the
increasing demand for cheap "effects" in place of unobtrusive merit in
material and design; but now that an appreciation of better things in
architecture is becoming more general, it is to be hoped that the
"artistic" furniture disfiguring so many of our shop-windows will no
longer find a market.
There is no lack of models for manufacturers to copy, if their
customers will but demand what is good. France and England, in the
eighteenth century, excelled in the making of plain, inexpensive
furniture of walnut, mahogany, or painted beechwood (see Plates
VII-X). Simple in shape and substantial in construction, this kind of
furniture was never tricked out with moulded bronzes and machine-made
carving, or covered with liquid gilding, but depended for its effect
upon the solid qualities of good material, good design and good
workmanship. The eighteenth-century cabinet-maker did not attempt
cheap copies of costly furniture; the common sense of his patrons
would have resented such a perversion of taste. Were the modern public
as fastidious, it would soon be easy to buy good furniture for a
moderate price; but until people recognize the essential vulgarity of
the pinchbeck article flooding our shops and overflowing upon our
sidewalks, manufacturers will continue to offer such wares in
preference to better but less showy designs.
The worst defects of the furniture now made in America are due to an
Athenian thirst for novelty, not always regulated by an Athenian sense
of fitness. No sooner is it known that beautiful furniture was made in
the time of Marie-Antoinette than an epidemic of supposed
"Marie-Antoinette" rooms breaks out over the whole country. Neither
purchaser nor manufacturer has stopped to inquire wherein the
essentials of the style consist. They know that the rooms of the
period were usually painted in light colors, and that the furniture
(in palaces) was often gilt and covered with brocade; and it is taken
for granted that plenty of white paint, a pale wall-paper with
bow-knots, and fragile chairs dipped in liquid gilding and covered
with a flowered silk-and-cotton material, must inevitably produce a
"Marie-Antoinette" room. According to the creed of the modern
manufacturer, you have only to combine certain "goods" to obtain a
certain style.
This quest of artistic novelties would be encouraging were it based on
the desire for something better, rather than for something merely
different. The tendency to dash from one style to another, without
stopping to analyze the intrinsic qualities of any, has defeated the
efforts of those who have tried to teach the true principles of
furniture-designing by a return to the best models. If people will buy
the stuff now offered them as Empire, Sheraton or Louis XVI, the
manufacturer is not to blame for making it. It is not the maker but
the purchaser who sets the standard; and there will never be any
general supply of better furniture until people take time to study the
subject, and find out wherein lies the radical unfitness of what now
contents them.
Until this golden age arrives the householder who cannot afford to buy
old pieces, or to have old models copied by a skilled cabinet-maker,
had better restrict himself to the plainest of furniture, relying for
the embellishment of his room upon good bookbindings and one or two
old porcelain vases for his lamps.
Concerning the difficult question of color, it is safe to say that the
fewer the colors used in a room, the more pleasing and restful the
result will be. A multiplicity of colors produces the same effect as a
number of voices talking at the same time. The voices may not be
discordant, but continuous chatter is fatiguing in the long run. Each
room should speak with but one voice: it should contain one color,
which at once and unmistakably asserts its predominance, in obedience
to the rule that where there is a division of parts one part shall
visibly prevail over all the others.
[Illustration: _PLATE IX._
FRENCH SOFA, LOUIS XV PERIOD.
TAPESTRY DESIGNED BY BOUCHER.]
To attain this result, it is best to use the same color and, if
possible, the same material, for curtains and chair-coverings. This
produces an impression of unity and gives an air of spaciousness to
the room. When the walls are simply panelled in oak or walnut, or are
painted in some neutral tones, such as gray and white, the carpet may
contrast in color with the curtains and chair-coverings. For instance,
in an oak-panelled room crimson curtains and chair-coverings may be
used with a dull green carpet, or with one of dark blue patterned in
subdued tints; or the color-scheme may be reversed, and green hangings
and chair-coverings combined with a plain crimson carpet.
Where the walls are covered with tapestry, or hung with a large number
of pictures, or, in short, are so treated that they present a variety
of colors, it is best that curtains, chair-coverings and carpet should
all be of one color and without pattern. Graduated shades of the same
color should almost always be avoided; theoretically they seem
harmonious, but in reality the light shades look faded in proximity
with the darker ones. Though it is well, as a rule, that carpet and
hangings should match, exception must always be made in favor of a
really fine old Eastern rug. The tints of such rugs are too subdued,
too subtly harmonized by time, to clash with any colors the room may
contain; but those who cannot cover their floors in this way will do
well to use carpets of uniform tint, rather than the gaudy rugs now
made in the East. The modern red and green Smyrna or Turkey carpet is
an exception. Where the furniture is dark and substantial, and the
predominating color is a strong green or crimson, such a carpet is
always suitable. These Smyrna carpets are usually well designed; and
if their colors be restricted to red and green, with small admixture
of dark blue, they harmonize with almost any style of decoration. It
is well, as a rule, to shun the decorative schemes concocted by the
writers who supply our newspapers with hints for "artistic interiors."
The use of such poetic adjectives as jonquil-yellow, willow-green,
shell-pink, or ashes-of-roses, gives to these descriptions of the
"unique boudoir" or "ideal summer room" a charm which the reality
would probably not possess. The arrangements suggested are usually
cheap devices based upon the mistaken idea that defects in structure
or design may be remedied by an overlaying of color or ornament. This
theory often leads to the spending of much more money than would have
been required to make one or two changes in the plan of the room, and
the result is never satisfactory to the fastidious.
There are but two ways of dealing with a room which is fundamentally
ugly: one is to accept it, and the other is courageously to correct
its ugliness. Half-way remedies are a waste of money and serve rather
to call attention to the defects of the room than to conceal them.
[Illustration: _PLATE X._
FRENCH MARQUETRY TABLE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] There is no objection to putting a fireplace between two doors,
provided both doors be at least six feet from the chimney.
[8] Not rattan, as the models are too bad.
III
WALLS
Proportion is the good breeding of architecture. It is that something,
indefinable to the unprofessional eye, which gives repose and
distinction to a room: in its origin a matter of nice mathematical
calculation, of scientific adjustment of voids and masses, but in its
effects as intangible as that all-pervading essence which the ancients
called the soul.
It is not proposed to enter here into a technical discussion of the
delicate problem of proportion. The decorator, with whom this book is
chiefly concerned, is generally not consulted until the house that he
is to decorate has been built--and built, in all probability, quite
without reference to the interior treatment it is destined to receive.
All he can hope to do is, by slight modifications here and there in
the dimensions or position of the openings, to re-establish that
harmony of parts so frequently disregarded in modern house-planning.
It often happens, however, that the decorator's desire to make these
slight changes, upon which the success of his whole scheme depends, is
a source of perplexity and distress to his bewildered client, who sees
in it merely the inclination to find fault with another's work.
Nothing can be more natural than this attitude on the part of the
client. How is he to decide between the architect, who has possibly
disregarded in some measure the claims of symmetry and proportion in
planning the interior of the house, and the decorator who insists upon
those claims without being able to justify his demands by any
explanation comprehensible to the unprofessional? It is inevitable
that the decorator, who comes last, should fare worse, especially as
he makes his appearance at a time when contractors' bills are pouring
in, and the proposition to move a mantelpiece or change the dimensions
of a door opens fresh vistas of expense to the client's terrified
imagination.
Undoubtedly these difficulties have diminished in the last few years.
Architects are turning anew to the lost tradition of symmetry and to a
scientific study of the relation between voids and masses, and the
decorator's task has become correspondingly easier. Still, there are
many cases where his work is complicated by some trifling obstacle,
the removal of which the client opposes only because he cannot in
imagination foresee the improvement which would follow. If the client
permits the change to be made, he has no difficulty in appreciating
the result: he cannot see it in advance.
A few words from Isaac Ware's admirable chapter on "The Origin of
Proportions in the Orders"[9] may serve to show the importance of
proportion in all schemes of decoration, and the necessity of
conforming to certain rules that may at first appear both arbitrary
and incomprehensible.
"An architect of genius," Ware writes (alluding to the latitude which
the ancients allowed themselves in using the orders), "will think
himself happy, in designing a building that is to be enriched with the
Doric order, that he has all the latitude between two and a half and
seventeen for the projecture of its capital; that he can proportion
this projecture to the general idea of his building anywhere between
these extremes and show his authority. This is an happiness to the
person of real genius;... but as all architects are not, nor can be
expected to be, of this stamp, it is needful some standard should be
established, founded upon what a good taste shall most admire in the
antique, and fixed as a model from which to work, or as a test to
which we may have recourse in disputes and controversies."
If to these words be added his happy definition of the sense of
proportion as "fancy under the restraint and conduct of judgment," and
his closing caution that "it is mean in the undertaker of a great work
to copy strictly, and it is dangerous to give a loose to fancy
_without a perfect knowledge how far a variation may be justified_,"
the unprofessional reader may form some idea of the importance of
proportion and of the necessity for observing its rules.
If proportion is the good breeding of architecture, symmetry, or the
answering of one part to another, may be defined as the sanity of
decoration. The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form
as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.
Yet for years Anglo-Saxons have been taught that to pay any regard to
symmetry in architecture or decoration is to truckle to one of the
meanest forms of artistic hypocrisy. The master who has taught this
strange creed, in words magical enough to win acceptance for any
doctrine, has also revealed to his generation so many of the forgotten
beauties of early art that it is hard to dispute his principles of
æsthetics. As a guide through the byways of art, Mr. Ruskin is
entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all; but as a logical
exponent of the causes and effects of the beauty he discovers, his
authority is certainly open to question. For years he has spent the
full force of his unmatched prose in denouncing the enormity of
putting a door or a window in a certain place in order that it may
correspond to another; nor has he scrupled to declare to the victims
of this practice that it leads to abysses of moral as well as of
artistic degradation.
Time has taken the terror from these threats and architects are
beginning to see that a regard for external symmetry, far from
interfering with the requirements of house-planning, tends to produce
a better, because a more carefully studied, plan, as well as a more
convenient distribution of wall-space; but in the lay mind there still
lingers not only a vague association between outward symmetry and
interior discomfort, between a well-balanced facade and badly
distributed rooms, but a still vaguer notion that regard for symmetry
indicates poverty of invention, lack of ingenuity and weak
subservience to a meaningless form.
What the instinct for symmetry means, philosophers may be left to
explain; but that it does exist, that it means something, and that it
is most strongly developed in those races which have reached the
highest artistic civilization, must be acknowledged by all students of
sociology. It is, therefore, not superfluous to point out that, in
interior decoration as well as in architecture, a regard for symmetry,
besides satisfying a legitimate artistic requirement, tends to make
the average room not only easier to furnish, but more comfortable to
live in.
[Illustration _PLATE XI._
DRAWING-ROOM IN BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON. XVIII CENTURY.]
As the effect produced by a room depends chiefly upon the distribution
of its openings, it will be well to begin by considering the treatment
of the walls. It has already been said that the decorator can often
improve a room, not only from the artistic point of view, but as
regards the comfort of its inmates, by making some slight change in
the position of its openings. Take, for instance, a library in which
it is necessary to put the two principal bookcases one on each side of
a door or fireplace. If this opening is in the _centre_ of one side of
the room, the wall-decorations may be made to balance, and the
bookcases may be of the same width,--an arrangement which will give to
the room an air of spaciousness and repose. Should the wall-spaces on
either side of the opening be of unequal extent, both decorations and
bookcases must be modified in size and design; and not only does the
problem become more difficult, but the result, because necessarily
less simple, is certain to be less satisfactory. Sometimes, on the
other hand, convenience is sacrificed to symmetry; and in such cases
it is the decorator's business to remedy this defect, while preserving
to the eye the aspect of symmetry. A long narrow room may be taken as
an example. If the fireplace is in the centre of one of the long sides
of the room, with a door directly opposite, the hearth will be without
privacy and the room virtually divided into two parts, since, in a
narrow room, no one cares to sit in a line with the doorway. This
division of the room makes it more difficult to furnish and less
comfortable to live in, besides wasting all the floor-space between
the chimney and the door. One way of overcoming the difficulty is to
move the door some distance down the long side of the room, so that
the space about the fireplace is no longer a thoroughfare, and the
privacy of the greater part of the room is preserved, even if the door
be left open. The removal of the door from the centre of one side of
the room having disturbed the equilibrium of the openings, this
equilibrium may be restored by placing in a line with the door, at the
other end of the same side-wall, a piece of furniture corresponding as
nearly as possible in height and width to the door. This will satisfy
the eye, which in matters of symmetry demands, not absolute similarity
of detail, but merely correspondence of outline and dimensions.
It is idle to multiply examples of the various ways in which such
readjustments of the openings may increase the comfort and beauty of a
room. Every problem in house decoration demands a slightly different
application of the same general principles, and the foregoing
instances are intended only to show how much depends upon the placing
of openings and how reasonable is the decorator's claim to have a
share in planning the background upon which his effects are to be
produced.
It may surprise those whose attention has not been turned to such
matters to be told that in all but the most cheaply constructed houses
the interior walls are invariably treated as an order. In all houses,
even of the poorest kind, the walls of the rooms are finished by a
plain projecting board adjoining the floor, surmounted by one or more
mouldings. This base, as it is called, is nothing more nor less than
the part of an order between shaft and floor, or shaft and pedestal,
as the case may be. If it be next remarked that the upper part of the
wall, adjoining the ceiling, is invariably finished by a moulded
projection corresponding with the crowning member of an order, it will
be clear that the shaft, with its capital, has simply been omitted, or
that the uniform wall-space between the base and cornice has been
regarded as replacing it. In rooms of a certain height and importance
the column or pilaster is frequently restored to its proper place
between base and cornice; but where such treatment is too monumental
for the dimensions of the room, the main lines of the wall-space
should none the less be regarded as distinctly architectural, and the
decoration applied should be subordinate to the implied existence of
an order. (For the application of an order to walls, see Plates XLII
and L.)
Where the shafts are omitted, the eye undoubtedly feels a lack of
continuity in the treatment: the cornice seems to hang in air and the
effect produced is unsatisfactory. This is obviated by the use of
panelling, the vertical lines carried up at intervals from base to
cornice satisfying the need for some visible connection between the
upper and lower members of the order. Moreover, if the lines of the
openings are carried up to the cornice (as they are in all
well-designed schemes of decoration), the openings may be considered
as intercolumniations and the intermediate wall-spaces as the shafts
or piers supporting the cornice.
In well-finished rooms the order is usually imagined as resting, not
on the floor, but on pedestals, or rather on a continuous pedestal.
This continuous pedestal, or "dado" as it is usually called, is
represented by a plinth surmounted by mouldings, by an intermediate
member often decorated with tablets or sunk panels with moulded
margins, and by a cornice. The use of the dado raises the chief
wall-decoration of the room to a level with the eye and prevents its
being interrupted or concealed by the furniture which may be placed
against the walls. This fact makes it clear that in all well-designed
rooms there should be a dado about two and a half feet high. If lower
than this, it does not serve its purpose of raising the
wall-decoration to a line above the furniture; while the high dado
often seen in modern American rooms throws all the rest of the
panelling out of scale and loses its own significance as the pedestal
supporting an order.
In rooms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when little
furniture was used, the dado was often richly ornamented, being
sometimes painted with delicate arabesques corresponding with those on
the doors and inside shutters. As rooms grew smaller and the quantity
of furniture increased so much that the dado was almost concealed, the
treatment of the latter was wisely simplified, being reduced, as a
rule, to sunk panels and a few strongly marked mouldings. The
decorator cannot do better than plan the ornamentation of his dado
according to the amount of furniture to be placed against the walls.
In corridor or antechamber, or in a ball-room, the dado may receive a
more elaborate treatment than is necessary in a library or
drawing-room, where probably much less of it will be seen. It was not
unusual, in the decoration of lobbies and corridors in old French and
Italian houses, to omit the dado entirely if an order was used, thus
bringing the wall-decoration down to the base-board; but this was done
only in rooms or passage-ways not meant to contain any furniture.
The three noblest forms of wall-decoration are fresco-painting,
panelling, and tapestry hangings. In the best period of decoration all
three were regarded as subordinate to the architectural lines of the
room. The Italian fresco-painters, from Giotto to Tiepolo, never lost
sight of the interrelation between painting and architecture. It
matters not if the connection between base and cornice be maintained
by actual pilasters or mouldings, or by their painted or woven
imitations. The line, and not the substance, is what the eye demands.
It is a curious perversion of artistic laws that has led certain
critics to denounce painted architecture or woven mouldings. As in
imaginative literature the author may present to his reader as
possible anything that he has the talent to make the reader accept, so
in decorative art the artist is justified in presenting to the eye
whatever his skill can devise to satisfy its requirements; nor is
there any insincerity in this proceeding. Decorative art is not an
exact science. The decorator is not a chemist or a physiologist; it is
part of his mission, not to explain illusions, but to produce them.
Subject only to laws established by the limitations of the eye, he is
master of the domain of fancy, of that _pays bleu_ of the impossible
that it is his privilege to throw open to the charmed imagination.
[Illustration: _PLATE XII._
ROOM IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI, NEAR CHIAVENNA.
XVI OR EARLY XVII CENTURY.
(EXAMPLE OF FRESCOED CEILING.)]
Of the means of wall-decoration already named, fresco-painting and
stucco-panelling were generally preferred by Italian decorators, and
wood-panelling and tapestries by those of northern Europe. The use of
arras naturally commended itself to the northern noble, shivering in
his draughty castles and obliged to carry from one to another the
furniture and hangings that the unsettled state of the country made it
impossible to leave behind him. Italy, however, long supplied the
finest designs to the tapestry-looms of northern Europe, as the
Italian painters provided ready-made backgrounds of peaked hills,
winding torrents and pinnacled cities to the German engravers and the
Flemish painters of their day.
Tapestry, in the best periods of house-decoration, was always
subordinated to the architectural lines of the room (see Plate XI).
Where it was not specially woven for the panels it was intended to
fill, the subdivisions of the wall-spaces were adapted to its
dimensions. It was carefully fitted into the panelling of the room,
and never made to turn an angle, as wall-paper does in modern rooms,
nor combined with other odds and ends of decoration. If a room was
tapestried, it was tapestried, not decorated in some other way, with
bits of tapestry hung here and there at random over the fundamental
lines of the decoration. Nothing can be more beautiful than tapestry
properly used; but hung up without regard to the composition of the
room, here turning an angle, there covering a part of the dado or
overlapping a pilaster, it not only loses its own value, but destroys
the whole scheme of decoration with which it is thus unmeaningly
combined.
Italian panelling was of stone, marble or stucco, while in northern
Europe it was so generally of wood that (in England especially) the
term _panelling_ has become almost synonymous with _wood-panelling_,
and in some minds there is a curious impression that any panelling not
of wood is a sham. As a matter of fact, wood-panelling was used in
northern Europe simply because it kept the cold out more successfully
than a _revêtement_ of stone or plaster; while south of the Alps its
use was avoided for the equally good reason that in hot climates it
attracts vermin.
If priority of use be held as establishing a standard in decoration,
wood-panelling should be regarded as a sham and plaster-panelling as
its lawful prototype; for the use of stucco in the panelling of walls
and ceilings is highly characteristic of Roman interior decoration,
and wood-panelling as at present used is certainly of later origin.
But nothing can be more idle than such comparisons, nor more
misleading than the idea that stucco is a sham because it seeks to
imitate wood. It does not seek to imitate wood. It is a recognized
substance, of incalculable value for decorative effect, and no more
owes its place in decoration to a fancied resemblance to some other
material than the nave of a cathedral owes its place in architecture
to the fancied resemblance to a ship.
In the hands of a great race of artistic _virtuosi_ like the Italians,
stucco has produced effects of beauty which in any other substance
would have lost something of their freshness, their plastic
spontaneity. From the delicate traceries of the Roman baths and the
loveliness of Agostino da Duccio's chapel-front at Perugia, to the
improvised bravura treatment of the Farnese theatre at Parma, it has
served, through every phase of Italian art, to embody the most refined
and studied, as well as the most audacious and ephemeral, of
decorative conceptions.
It must not be supposed that because painting, panelling and tapestry
are the noblest forms of wall-decoration, they are necessarily the
most unattainable. Good tapestry is, of course, very expensive, and
even that which is only mediocre is beyond the reach of the average
purchaser; while stuff hangings and wall-papers, its modern
successors, have less to recommend them than other forms of
wall-decoration. With painting and panelling the case is different.
When painted walls were in fashion, there existed, below the great
creative artists, schools of decorative designers skilled in the art
of fresco-decoration, from the simplest kind to the most ornate. The
demand for such decoration would now call forth the same order of
talent, and many artists who are wasting their energies on the
production of indifferent landscapes and unsuccessful portraits might,
in the quite different field of decorative painting, find the true
expression of their talent.
To many minds the mention of a frescoed room suggests the image of a
grandiose saloon, with gods and goddesses of heroic size crowding the
domed ceiling and lofty walls; but the heroic style of fresco-painting
is only one of its many phases. To see how well this form of
decoration may be adapted to small modern rooms and to our present way
of living, it is only necessary to study the walls of the little
Pompeian houses, with their delicate arabesques and slender, fanciful
figures, or to note the manner in which the Italian painters treated
the small rooms of the casino or garden-pavilion which formed part of
every Italian country-seat. Examples of this light style of decoration
may be found in the Casino del grotto in the grounds of the Palazzo
del T at Mantua, in some of the smaller rooms of the hunting-lodge of
Stupinigi near Turin, and in the casino of the Villa Valmarana near
Vicenza, where the frescoes are by Tiepolo; while in France a pleasing
instance of the same style of treatment is seen in the small octagonal
pavilion called the Belvédère, frescoed by Le Riche, in the gardens of
the Petit Trianon at Versailles.
As regards panelling, it has already been said that if the effect
produced be satisfactory to the eye, the substance used is a matter of
indifference. Stone-panelling has the merit of solidity, and the
outlines of massive stone mouldings are strong and dignified; but the
same effect may be produced in stucco, a material as well suited to
the purpose as stone, save for its greater fragility. Wood-panelling
is adapted to the most delicate carving, greater sharpness of edge and
clearness of undercutting being obtainable than in stucco: though this
qualification applies only to the moulded stucco ornaments used from
economy, not to those modelled by hand. Used in the latter way, stucco
may be made to produce the same effects as carved wood, and for
delicacy of modelling in low relief it is superior to any other
material. There is, in short, little to choose between the different
substances, except in so far as one or the other may commend itself to
the artist as more peculiarly suited to the special requirements of
his design, or to the practical conditions regulating his work.
[Illustration: _PLATE XIII._
DRAWING-ROOM AT EASTON NESTON HALL, ENGLAND.
BUILT BY NICHOLAS HAWKESMOOR, 1702.
(EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)]
It is to this regard for practical conditions, and not to any fancied
superiority over other materials, that the use of wood-panelling in
northern Europe may most reasonably be attributed. Not only was wood
easy to obtain, but it had the additional merit of keeping out the
cold: two qualities sufficient to recommend it to the common sense of
French and English architects. From the decorative point of view it
has, when unpainted, one undeniable advantage over stucco--that is,
beauty of color and veining. As a background for the dull gilding of
old picture-frames, or as a setting for tapestry, nothing can surpass
the soft rich tones of oak or walnut panelling, undefaced by the
application of a shiny varnish.
With the introduction of the orders into domestic architecture and the
treatment of interior walls with dado and cornice, the panelling of
the wall-space between those two members began to assume definite
proportions. In England and France, before that time, wall-panels were
often divided into small equal-sized rectangles which, from lack of
any central motive, produced a most inadequate impression. Frequently,
too, in the houses of the Renaissance the panelling, instead of being
carried up to the ceiling, was terminated two or three feet below it a
form of treatment that reduced the height of the room and broke the
connection between walls and ceiling. This awkward device of stunted
panelling, or, as it might be called, of an unduly heightened dado,
has been revived by modern decorators; and it is not unusual to see
the walls of a room treated, as regards their base-board and cornice,
as part of an order, and then panelled up to within a foot or two of
the cornice, without apparent regard to the true _raison d'être_ of
the dado (see Plate XII).
If, then, the design of the wall-panelling is good, it matters little
whether stone, stucco, or wood be used. In all three it is possible to
obtain effects ranging from the grandeur of the great loggia of the
Villa Madama to the simplicity of any wood-panelled parlor in a New
England country-house, and from the greatest costliness to an outlay
little larger than that required for the purchase of a good
wall-paper.
It was well for the future of house-decoration when medical science
declared itself against the use of wall-papers. These hangings have,
in fact, little to recommend them. Besides being objectionable on
sanitary grounds, they are inferior as a wall-decoration to any form
of treatment, however simple, that maintains, instead of effacing, the
architectural lines of a room. It was the use of wall-paper that led
to the obliteration of the over-door and over-mantel, and to the
gradual submerging under a flood of pattern of all the main lines of
the wall-spaces. Its merits are that it is cheap, easy to put on and
easy to remove. On the other hand, it is readily damaged, soon fades,
and cannot be cleaned; while from the decorative point of view there
can be no comparison between the flat meanderings of wall-paper
pattern and the strong architectural lines of any scheme of panelling,
however simple. Sometimes, of course, the use of wall-paper is a
matter of convenience, since it saves both time and trouble; but a
papered room can never, decoratively or otherwise, be as satisfactory
as one in which the walls are treated in some other manner.
The hanging of walls with chintz or any other material is even more
objectionable than the use of wall-paper, since it has not the saving
merit of cheapness. The custom is probably a survival of the time when
wall-decorations had to be made in movable shape; and this facility of
removal points to the one good reason for using stuff hangings. In a
hired house, if the wall-decorations are ugly, and it is necessary to
hide them, the rooms may be hung with stuff which the departing tenant
can take away. In other words, stuff hangings are serviceable if used
as a tent; as a permanent mode of decoration they are both unhealthy
and inappropriate. There is something unpleasant in the idea of a
dust-collecting fabric fixed to the wall, so that it cannot be shaken
out at will like a curtain. Textile fabrics are meant to be moved,
folded, shaken: they have none of the qualities of permanence and
solidity which we associate with the walls of a room. The much-derided
marble curtains of the Jesuit church in Venice are no more illogical
than stuff wall-hangings.
In decorating the walls of a room, the first point to be considered is
whether they are to form a background for its contents, or to be in
themselves its chief decoration. In many cases the disappointing
effects of wall-decoration are due to the fact that this important
distinction has been overlooked. In rooms that are to be hung with
prints or pictures, the panelling or other treatment of the walls
should be carefully designed with a view to the size and number of the
pictures. Pictures should never be hung against a background of
pattern. Nothing is more distressing than the sight of a large
oil-painting in a ponderous frame seemingly suspended from a spray of
wild roses or any of the other naturalistic vegetation of the modern
wall-paper. The overlaying of pattern is always a mistake. It produces
a confusion of line in which the finest forms lose their individuality
and significance.
It is also important to avoid hanging pictures or prints too close to
each other. Not only do the colors clash, but the different designs of
the frames, some of which may be heavy, with deeply recessed
mouldings, while others are flat and carved in low relief, produce an
equally discordant impression. Every one recognizes the necessity of
selecting the mouldings and other ornamental details of a room with a
view to their position in the scheme of decoration; but few stop to
consider that in a room hung with pictures, the frames take the place
of wall-mouldings, and consequently must be chosen and placed as
though they were part of a definite decorative composition.
Pictures and prints should be fastened to the wall, not hung by a cord
or wire, nor allowed to tilt forward at an angle. The latter
arrangement is specially disturbing since it throws the picture-frames
out of the line of the wall. It must never be forgotten that pictures
on a wall, whether set in panels or merely framed and hung, inevitably
become a part of the wall-decoration. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, in rooms of any importance, pictures were always
treated as a part of the decoration, and frequently as panels sunk in
the wall in a setting of carved wood or stucco mouldings (see
paintings in Plates V and XIX). Even when not set in panels, they were
always fixed to the wall, and their frames, whether of wood or stucco,
were made to correspond with the ornamental detail of the rest of the
room. Beautiful examples of this mode of treatment are seen in many
English interiors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,[10] and
some of the finest carvings of Grinling Gibbons were designed for this
purpose.
Even where the walls are not to be hung with pictures, it is necessary
to consider what kind of background the furniture and objects of art
require. If the room is to be crowded with cabinets, bookcases and
other tall pieces, and these, as well as the tables and mantel-shelf,
are to be covered with porcelain vases, bronze statuettes, ivories,
Chinese monsters and Chelsea groups, a plain background should be
provided for this many-colored medley. Should the room contain only a
few important pieces of furniture, and one or two vases or busts, the
walls against which these strongly marked objects are to be placed may
receive a more decorative treatment. It is only in rooms used for
entertaining, dining, or some special purpose for which little
furniture is required, that the walls should receive a more elaborate
scheme of decoration.
Where the walls are treated in an architectural manner, with a
well-designed dado and cornice, and an over-mantel and over-doors
connecting the openings with the cornice, it will be found that in a
room of average size the intervening wall-spaces may be tinted in a
uniform color and left unornamented. If the fundamental lines are
right, very little decorative detail is needed to complete the effect;
whereas, when the lines are wrong, no overlaying of ornamental odds
and ends, in the way of pictures, bric-à-brac and other improvised
expedients, will conceal the structural deficiencies.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _A Complete Body of Architecture_, Book II, chap. iii.
[10] See the saloon at Easton Neston, built by Nicholas Hawkesmoor
(Plate XIII), and various examples given in Pyne's _Royal Residences_.
IV
DOORS
The fate of the door in America has been a curious one, and had the
other chief features of the house--such as windows, fireplaces, and
stairs--been pursued with the same relentless animosity by architects
and decorators, we should no longer be living in houses at all. First,
the door was slid into the wall; then even its concealed presence was
resented, and it was unhung and replaced by a portière; while of late
it has actually ceased to form a part of house-building, and many
recently built houses contain doorways _without doors_. Even the front
door, which might seem to have too valid a reason for existence to be
disturbed by the variations of fashion, has lately had to yield its
place, in the more pretentious kind of house, to a wrought-iron
gateway lined with plate-glass, against which, as a climax of
inconsequence, a thick curtain is usually hung.
It is not difficult to explain such architectural vagaries. In
general, their origin is to be found in the misapplication of some
serviceable feature and its consequent rejection by those who did not
understand that it had ceased to be useful only because it was not
properly used.
[Illustration: _PLATE XIV._
DOORWAY WITH MARBLE ARCHITRAVE,
DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVI CENTURY.]
In the matter of doors, such an explanation at once presents itself.
During the latter half of the eighteenth century it occurred to
some ingenious person that when two adjoining rooms were used for
entertaining, and it was necessary to open the doors between them,
these doors might be in the way; and to avoid this possibility, a
recess was formed in the thickness of the wall, and the door was made
to slide into it.
This idea apparently originated in England, for sliding doors, even in
the present day, are virtually unknown on the continent; and Isaac
Ware, in the book already quoted, speaks of the sliding door as having
been used "at the house, late Mr. de Pestre's, near Hanover Square,"
and adds that "the manner of it there may serve as an example to other
builders," showing it to have been a novelty which he thought worthy
of imitation.
English taste has never been so sure as that of the Latin races; and
it has, moreover, been perpetually modified by a passion for
contriving all kinds of supposed "conveniences," which instead of
simplifying life not unfrequently tend to complicate it. Americans
have inherited this trait, and in both countries the architect or
upholsterer who can present a new and more intricate way of planning a
house or of making a piece of furniture, is more sure of a hearing
than he who follows the accepted lines.
It is doubtful if the devices to which so much is sacrificed in
English and American house-planning always offer the practical
advantages attributed to them. In the case of the sliding door these
advantages are certainly open to question, since there is no reason
why a door should not open into a room. Under ordinary circumstances,
doors should always be kept shut; it is only, as Ware points out, when
two adjoining rooms are used for entertaining that it is necessary to
leave the door between them open. Now, between two rooms destined for
entertaining, a double door (_à deux battants_) is always preferable
to a single one; and as an opening four feet six inches wide is
sufficient in such cases, each of the doors will be only two feet
three inches wide, and therefore cannot encroach to any serious extent
on the floor-space of the room. On the other hand, much has been
sacrificed to the supposed "convenience" of the sliding door: first,
the decorative effect of a well-panelled door, with hinges, box-locks
and handle of finely chiselled bronze; secondly, the privacy of both
rooms, since the difficulty of closing a heavy sliding door always
leads to its being left open, with the result that two rooms are
necessarily used as one. In fact, the absence of privacy in modern
houses is doubtless in part due to the difficulty of closing the doors
between the rooms.
The sliding door has led to another abuse in house-planning: the
exaggerated widening of the doorway. While doors were hung on hinges,
doorways were of necessity restricted to their proper dimensions; but
with the introduction of the sliding door, openings eight or ten feet
wide became possible. The planning of a house is often modified by a
vague idea on the part of its owners that they may wish to give
entertainments on a large scale. As a matter of fact, general
entertainments are seldom given in a house of average size; and those
who plan their houses with a view to such possibilities sacrifice
their daily comfort to an event occurring perhaps once a year. But
even where many entertainments are to be given large doorways are of
little use. Any architect of experience knows that ease of circulation
depends far more on the planning of the house and on the position of
the openings than on the actual dimensions of the latter. Indeed, two
moderate-sized doorways leading from one room to another are of much
more use in facilitating the movements of a crowd than one opening ten
feet wide.
Sliding doors have been recommended on the ground that their use
preserves a greater amount of wall-space; but two doorways of moderate
dimensions, properly placed, will preserve as much wall-space as one
very large opening and will probably permit a better distribution of
panelling and furniture. There was far more wall-space in seventeenth
and eighteenth-century rooms than there is in rooms of the same
dimensions in the average modern American house; and even where this
space was not greater in actual measurement, more furniture could be
used, since the openings were always placed with a view to the proper
arrangement of what the room was to contain.
According to the best authorities, the height of a well-proportioned
doorway should be twice its width; and as the height is necessarily
regulated by the stud of the room, it follows that the width varies;
but it is obvious that no doorway should be less than six feet high
nor less than three feet wide.
When a doorway is over three feet six inches wide, a pair of doors
should always be used; while a single door is preferable in a narrow
opening.
In rooms twelve feet or less in height, doorways should not be more
than nine feet high. The width of openings in such rooms is therefore
restricted to four feet six inches; indeed, it is permissible to make
the opening lower and thus reduce its width to four feet; six inches
of additional wall-space are not to be despised in a room of average
dimensions.
The treatment of the door forms one of the most interesting chapters
in the history of house-decoration. In feudal castles the interior
doorway, for purposes of defense, was made so small and narrow that
only one person could pass through at a time, and was set in a plain
lintel or architrave of stone, the door itself being fortified by
bands of steel or iron, and by heavy bolts and bars. Even at this
early period it seems probable that in the chief apartments the lines
of the doorway were carried up to the ceiling by means of an over-door
of carved wood, or of some painted decorative composition.[11] This
connection between the doorway and the ceiling, maintained through all
the subsequent phases of house-decoration, was in fact never
disregarded until the beginning of the present century.
It was in Italy that the door, in common with the other features of
private dwellings, first received a distinctly architectural
treatment. In Italian palaces of the fifteenth century the doorways
were usually framed by architraves of marble, enriched with
arabesques, medallions and processional friezes in low relief,
combined with disks of colored marble. Interesting examples of this
treatment are seen in the apartments of Isabella of Este in the ducal
palace at Mantua (see Plate XIV), in the ducal palace at Urbino, and
in the Certosa of Pavia--some of the smaller doorways in this
monastery being decorated with medallion portraits of the Sforzas, and
with other low reliefs of extraordinary beauty.
The doors in Italian palaces were usually of inlaid wood, elaborate in
composition and affording in many cases beautiful instances of that
sense of material limitation that preserves one art from infringing
upon another. The intarsia doors of the palace at Urbino are among the
most famous examples of this form of decoration. It should be noted
that many of the woods used in Italian marquetry were of a light
shade, so that the blending of colors in Renaissance doors produces a
sunny golden-brown tint in perfect harmony with the marble architrave
of the doorway. The Italian decorator would never have permitted so
harsh a contrast as that between the white trim and the mahogany doors
of English eighteenth-century houses. This juxtaposition of colors was
disapproved by French decorators also, and was seldom seen except in
England and in the American houses built under English influence. It
should be observed, too, that the polish given to hard-grained wood in
England, and imitated in the wood-varnish of the present day, was
never in favor in Italy and France. Shiny surfaces were always
disliked by the best decorators.
The classic revival in Italy necessarily modified the treatment of the
doorway. Flat arabesques and delicately chiselled medallions gave way
to a plain architrave, frequently masked by an order; while the
over-door took the form of a pediment, or, in the absence of shafts,
of a cornice or entablature resting on brackets. The use of a pediment
over interior doorways was characteristic of Italian decoration.
In studying Italian interiors of this period from photographs or
modern prints, or even in visiting the partly dilapidated palaces
themselves, it may at first appear that the lines of the doorway were
not always carried up to the cornice. Several causes have combined to
produce this impression. In the first place, the architectural
treatment of the over-door was frequently painted on the wall, and has
consequently disappeared with the rest of the wall-decoration (see
Plate XV). Then, again, Italian rooms were often painted with
landscapes and out-of-door architectural effects, and when this was
done the doorways were combined with these architectural compositions,
and were not treated as part of the room, but as part of what the room
_pretended to be_. In the suppressed Scuola della Carità (now the
Academy of Fine Arts) at Venice, one may see a famous example of this
treatment in the doorway under the stairs leading up to the temple, in
Titian's great painting of the "Presentation of the Virgin."[12]
Again, in the high-studded Italian saloons containing a musician's
gallery, or a clerestory, a cornice was frequently carried around the
walls at suitable height above the lower range of openings, and the
decorative treatment above the doors, windows and fireplace extended
only to this cornice, not to the actual ceiling of the room.
Thus it will be seen that the relation between the openings and
cornice in Italian decoration was in reality always maintained except
where the decorator chose to regard them as forming a part, not of the
room, but of some other architectural composition.
In the sixteenth century the excessive use of marquetry was abandoned,
doors being panelled, and either left undecorated or painted with
those light animated combinations of figure and arabesque which
Raphael borrowed from the Roman fresco-painters, and which since his
day have been peculiarly characteristic of Italian decorative
painting.[13]
Wood-carving in Italy was little used in house-decoration, and, as a
rule, the panelling of doors was severely architectural in character,
with little of the delicate ornamentation marking the French work of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[14]
[Illustration: _PLATE XV._
SALA DEI CAVALLI, PALAZZO DEL T, MANTUA. XVI CENTURY.
(EXAMPLE OF PAINTED ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION.)]
In France the application of the orders to interior doorways was never
very popular, though it figures in French architectural works of
the eighteenth century. The architrave, except in houses of great
magnificence, was usually of wood, sometimes very richly carved. It
was often surmounted by an entablature with a cornice resting on
carved brackets; while the panel between this and the ceiling-cornice
was occupied by an over-door consisting either of a painting, of a
carved panel or of a stucco or marble bas-relief. These over-doors
usually corresponded with the design of the over-mantel.
Great taste and skill were displayed in the decoration of door-panels
and embrasure. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century, doors
and embrasures were usually painted, and nothing in the way of
decorative painting can exceed in beauty and fitness the French
compositions of this period.[15]
During the reign of Louis XIV, doors were either carved or painted,
and their treatment ranged from the most elaborate decoration to the
simplest panelling set in a plain wooden architrave. In some French
doors of this period painting and carving were admirably combined; and
they were further ornamented by the chiselled locks and hinges for
which French locksmiths were famous. So important a part did these
locks and hinges play in French decoration that Lebrun himself is said
to have designed those in the Galerie d'Apollon, in the Louvre, when
he composed the decoration of the room. Even in the simplest private
houses, where chiselled bronze was too expensive a luxury, and
wrought-iron locks and hinges, with plain knobs of brass or iron, were
used instead, such attention was paid to both design and execution
that it is almost impossible to find in France an old lock or hinge,
however plain, that is not well designed and well made (see Plate
XVII). The miserable commercial article that disgraces our modern
doors would not have been tolerated in the most unpretentious
dwelling.
The mortise-lock now in use in England and America first made its
appearance toward the end of the eighteenth century in England, where
it displaced the brass or iron box-lock; but on the Continent it has
never been adopted. It is a poor substitute for the box-lock, since it
not only weakens but disfigures the door, while a well-designed
box-lock is both substantial and ornamental (see Plate XVII).
In many minds the Louis XV period is associated with a general
waviness of line and excess of carving. It has already been pointed
out that even when the rocaille manner was at its height the main
lines of a room were seldom allowed to follow the capricious movement
of the ornamental accessories. Openings being the leading features of
a room, their main lines were almost invariably respected; and while
considerable play of movement was allowed in some of the accessory
mouldings of the over-doors and over-mantels, the plan of the panel,
in general symmetrical, was in many cases a plain rectangle.[16]
During the Louis XV period the panelling of doors was frequently
enriched with elaborate carving; but such doors are to be found only
in palaces, or in princely houses like the Hôtels de Soubise, de
Rohan, or de Toulouse (see Plate XVIII). In the most magnificent
apartments, moreover, plain panelled doors were as common as those
adorned with carving; while in the average private hôtel, even where
much ornament was lavished on the panelling of the walls, the doors
were left plain.
Towards the close of this reign, when the influence of Gabriel began
to simplify and restrain the ornamental details of house-decoration,
the panelled door was often made without carving and was sometimes
painted with attenuated arabesques and grisaille medallions, relieved
against a gold ground. Gabriel gave the key-note of what is known as
Louis XVI decoration, and the treatment of the door in France followed
the same general lines until the end of the eighteenth century. As the
classic influence became more marked, paintings in the over-door and
over-mantel were replaced by low or high reliefs in stucco: and
towards the end of the Louis XVI period a processional frieze in the
classic manner often filled the entablature above the architrave of
the door (see Plate XVI).
Doors opening upon a terrace, or leading from an antechamber into a
summer-parlor, or _salon frais_, were frequently made of glass; while
in gala rooms, doors so situated as to correspond with the windows of
the room were sometimes made of looking-glass. In both these instances
the glass was divided into small panes, with such strongly marked
mouldings that there could not be a moment's doubt of the apparent, as
well as the actual, solidity of the door. In good decorative art first
impressions are always taken into account, and the immediate
satisfaction of the eye is provided for.
In England the treatment of doorway and door followed in a general way
the Italian precedent. The architrave, as a rule, was severely
architectural, and in the eighteenth century the application of an
order was regarded as almost essential in rooms of a certain
importance. The door itself was sometimes inlaid,[17] but oftener
simply panelled (see Plate XI).
In the panelling of doors, English taste, except when it closely
followed Italian precedents, was not always good. The use of a pair of
doors in one opening was confined to grand houses, and in the average
dwelling single doors were almost invariably used, even in openings
over three feet wide. The great width of some of these single doors
led to a curious treatment of the panels, the door being divided by a
central stile, which was sometimes beaded, as though, instead of a
single door, it were really a pair held together by some invisible
agency. This central stile is almost invariably seen in the doors of
modern American houses.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the use of highly
polished mahogany doors became general in England. It has already been
pointed out that the juxtaposition of a dark-colored door and a white
architrave was not approved by French and Italian architects. Blondel,
in fact, expressly states that such contrasts are to be avoided, and
that where walls are pale in tint the door should never be dark: thus
in vestibules and antechambers panelled with Caen stone he recommends
painting the doors a pale shade of gray.
In Italy, when doors were left unpainted they were usually made of
walnut, a wood of which the soft, dull tone harmonizes well with
almost any color, whether light or dark; while in France it would not
be easy to find an unpainted door, except in rooms where the
wall-panelling is also of natural wood.
[Illustration: _PLATE XVI._
DOOR IN THE SALA DELLO ZODIACO,
DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVIII CENTURY.]
In the better type of house lately built in America there is seen a
tendency to return to the use of doors hung on hinges. These, however,
have been so long out of favor that the rules regulating their
dimensions have been lost sight of, and the modern door and architrave
are seldom satisfactory in these respects. The principles of
proportion have been further disturbed by a return to the confused
and hesitating system of panelling prevalent in England during the
Tudor and Elizabethan periods.
The old French and Italian architects never failed to respect that
rule of decorative composition which prescribes that where there is
any division of parts, one part shall unmistakably predominate. In
conformity with this rule, the principal panel in doors of French or
Italian design is so much higher than the others that these are at
once seen to be merely accessory; whereas many of our modern doors are
cut up into so many small panels, and the central one so little
exceeds the others in height, that they do not "compose."
The architrave of the modern door has been neglected for the same
reasons as the window-architrave. The use of the heavy sliding door,
which could not be opened or shut without an effort, led to the
adoption of the portière; and the architrave, being thus concealed,
was no longer regarded as a feature of any importance in the
decoration of the room.
The portière has always been used, as old prints and pictures show;
but, like the curtain, in earlier days it was simply intended to keep
out currents of air, and was consequently seldom seen in well-built
houses, where double sets of doors served far better to protect the
room from draughts. In less luxurious rooms, where there were no
double doors, and portières had to be used, these were made as scant
and unobtrusive as possible. The device of draping stuffs about the
doorway, thus substituting a textile architrave for one of wood or
stone, originated with the modern upholsterer; and it is now not
unusual to see a wide opening with no door in it, enclosed in yards
and yards of draperies which cannot even be lowered at will.
The portière, besides causing a break in architectural lines, has
become one of the chief expenses in the decoration of the modern room;
indeed, the amount spent in buying yards of plush or damask, with the
addition of silk cord, tassels, gimp and fringe, often makes it
necessary to slight the essential features of the room; so that an
ugly mantelpiece or ceiling is preserved because the money required to
replace it has been used in the purchase of portières. These
superfluous draperies are, in fact, more expensive than a well-made
door with hinges and box-lock of chiselled bronze.
The general use of the portière has also caused the disappearance of
the over-door. The lines of the opening being hidden under a mass of
drapery, the need of connecting them with the cornice was no longer
felt, and one more feature of the room passed out of the architect's
hands into those of the upholsterer, or, as he might more fitly be
called, the house-dressmaker.
The return to better principles of design will do more than anything
else to restore the architectural lines of the room. Those who use
portières generally do so from an instinctive feeling that a door is
an ugly thing that ought to be hidden, and modern doors are in fact
ugly; but when architects give to the treatment of openings the same
attention they formerly received, it will soon be seen that this
ugliness is not a necessity, and portières will disappear with the
return of well-designed doors.
Some general hints concerning the distribution of openings have been
given in the chapter on walls. It may be noted in addition that while
all doorways in a room should, as a rule, be of one height, there are
cases where certain clearly subordinate openings may be lower than
those which contain doors _à deux battants_. In such cases the
panelling of the door must be carefully modified in accordance with
the dimensions of the opening, and the treatment of the over-doors
in their relation to each other must be studied with equal attention.
Examples of such adaptations are to be found in many old French and
Italian rooms.[18]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVII._
EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCH LOCKSMITHS' WORK.]
Doors should always swing _into_ a room. This facilitates entrance and
gives the hospitable impression that everything is made easy to those
who are coming in. Doors should furthermore be so hung that they
screen that part of the room in which the occupants usually sit. In
small rooms, especially those in town houses, this detail cannot be
too carefully considered. The fact that so many doors open in the
wrong way is another excuse for the existence of portières.
A word must also be said concerning the actual making of the door.
There is a general impression that veneered doors or furniture are
cheap substitutes for articles made of solid blocks of wood. As a
matter of fact, owing to the high temperature of American houses, all
well-made wood-work used in this country is of necessity composed of
at least three, and often of five, layers of wood. This method of
veneering, in which the layers are so placed that the grain runs in
different directions, is the only way of counteracting the shrinking
and swelling of the wood under artificial heat.
To some minds the concealed door represents one of those architectural
deceptions which no necessity can excuse. It is certain that the
concealed door is an expedient, and that in a well-planned house there
should be no need for expedients, unless the architect is hampered by
limitations of space, as is the case in designing the average American
town house. Architects all know how many principles of beauty and
fitness must be sacrificed to the restrictions of a plot of ground
twenty-five feet wide by seventy-five or a hundred in length. Under
such conditions, every device is permissible that helps to produce an
effect of spaciousness and symmetry without interfering with
convenience: chief among these contrivances being the concealed door.
Such doors are often useful in altering or adding to a badly planned
house. It is sometimes desirable to give increased facilities of
communication without adding to the visible number of openings in any
one room; while in other cases the limited amount of wall-space may
make it difficult to find place for a doorway corresponding in
dimensions with the others; or, again, where it is necessary to make a
closet under the stairs, the architrave of a visible door may clash
awkwardly with the stringboard.
Under such conditions the concealed door naturally suggests itself. To
those who regard its use as an offense against artistic integrity, it
must once more be pointed out that architecture addresses itself not
to the moral sense, but to the eye. The existing confusion on this
point is partly due to the strange analogy drawn by modern critics
between artistic sincerity and moral law. Analogies are the most
dangerous form of reasoning: they connect resemblances, but disguise
facts; and in this instance nothing can be more fallacious than to
measure the architect's action by an ethical standard.
[Illustration: _PLATE XVIII._
CARVED DOOR, PALACE OF VERSAILLES.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.
(SHOWING PAINTED OVER-DOOR.)]
"Sincerity," in many minds, is chiefly associated with speaking the
truth; but architectural sincerity is simply obedience to certain
visual requirements, one of which demands that what are at once seen
to be the main lines of a room or house shall be acknowledged as such
in the application of ornament. The same architectural principles
demand that the main lines of a room shall not be unnecessarily
interrupted; and in certain cases it would be bad taste to disturb the
equilibrium of wall-spaces and decoration by introducing a visible
door leading to some unimportant closet or passageway, of which the
existence need not be known to any but the inmates of the house. It is
in such cases that the concealed door is a useful expedient. It can
hardly be necessary to point out that it would be a great mistake to
place a concealed door in a main opening. These openings should always
be recognized as one of the chief features of the room, and so treated
by the decorator; but this point has already been so strongly insisted
upon that it is reverted to here only in order to show how different
are the requirements which justify concealment.
The concealed door has until recently been used so little by American
architects that its construction is not well understood, and it is
often hung on ordinary visible hinges, instead of being swung on a
pivot. There is no reason why, with proper care, a door of this kind
should not be so nicely adjusted to the wall-panelling as to be
practically invisible; and to fulfil this condition is the first
necessity of its construction (see concealed door in Plate XLV).
FOOTNOTES:
[11] See Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture
française_, under _Porte_.
[12] This painting has now been restored to its proper position in the
Scuola della Carità, and the door which had been _painted in_ under
the stairs has been removed to make way for the actual doorway around
which the picture was originally painted.
[13] See the doors of the Sala dello Zodiaco in the ducal palace at
Mantua (Plate XVI).
[14] Some rooms of the rocaille period, however, contain doors as
elaborately carved as those seen in France (see the doors in the royal
palace at Genoa, Plate XXXIV).
[15] See the doors at Vaux-le-Vicomte and in the Palais de Justice at
Rennes.
[16] Only in the most exaggerated German baroque were the vertical
lines of the door-panels sometimes irregular.
[17] The inlaid doors of Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
Walpole, were noted for their beauty and costliness. The price of each
was £200.
[18] See a room in the Ministère de la Marine at Paris, where a
subordinate door is cleverly treated in connection with one of more
importance.
V
WINDOWS
In the decorative treatment of a room the importance of openings can
hardly be overestimated. Not only do they represent the three chief
essentials of its comfort,--light, heat and means of access,--but they
are the leading features in that combination of voids and masses that
forms the basis of architectural harmony. In fact, it is chiefly
because the decorative value of openings has ceased to be recognized
that modern rooms so seldom produce a satisfactory and harmonious
impression. It used to be thought that the effect of a room depended
on the treatment of its wall-spaces and openings; now it is supposed
to depend on its curtains and furniture. Accessory details have
crowded out the main decorative features; and, as invariably happens
when the relation of parts is disturbed, everything in the modern room
has been thrown out of balance by this confusion between the essential
and the incidental in decoration.[19]
The return to a more architectural treatment of rooms and to a
recognition of the decorative value of openings, besides producing
much better results, would undoubtedly reduce the expense of
house-decoration. A small quantity of ornament, properly applied, will
produce far more effect than ten times its amount used in the wrong
way; and it will be found that when decorators rely for their effects
on the treatment of openings, the rest of the room will require little
ornamentation. The crowding of rooms with furniture and bric-à-brac is
doubtless partly due to an unconscious desire to fill up the blanks
caused by the lack of architectural composition in the treatment of
the walls.
The importance of connecting the main lines of the openings with the
cornice having been explained in the previous chapter, it is now
necessary to study the different openings in turn, and to see in how
many ways they serve to increase the dignity and beauty of their
surroundings.
As light-giving is the main purpose for which windows are made, the
top of the window should be as near the ceiling as the cornice will
allow. Ventilation, the secondary purpose of the window, is also
better served by its being so placed, since an opening a foot wide
near the ceiling will do more towards airing a room than a space twice
as large near the floor. In our northern States, where the dark winter
days and the need of artificial heat make light and ventilation so
necessary, these considerations are especially important. In Italian
palaces the windows are generally lower than in more northern
countries, since the greater intensity of the sunshine makes a much
smaller opening sufficient; moreover, in Italy, during the summer,
houses are not kept cool by letting in the air, but by shutting it
out.
Windows should not exceed five feet in width, while in small rooms
openings three feet wide will be found sufficient. There are
practical as well as artistic reasons for observing this rule, since a
sash-window containing a sheet of glass more than five feet wide
cannot be so hung that it may be raised without effort; while a
casement, or French window, though it may be made somewhat wider, is
not easy to open if its width exceeds six feet.
The next point to consider is the distance between the bottom of the
window and the floor. This must be decided by circumstances, such as
the nature of the view, the existence of a balcony or veranda, or the
wish to have a window-seat. The outlook must also be considered, and
the window treated in one way if it looks upon the street, and in
another if it gives on the garden or informal side of the house. In
the country nothing is more charming than the French window opening to
the floor. On the more public side of the house, unless the latter
gives on an enclosed court, it is best that the windows should be
placed about three feet from the floor, so that persons approaching
the house may not be able to look in. Windows placed at this height
should be provided with a fixed seat, or with one of the little
settees with arms, but without a back, formerly used for this purpose.
Although for practical reasons it may be necessary that the same room
should contain some windows opening to the floor and others raised
several feet above it, the tops of all the windows should be on a
level. To place them at different heights serves no useful end, and
interferes with any general scheme of decoration and more specially
with the arrangement of curtains.
Mullions dividing a window in the centre should be avoided whenever
possible, since they are an unnecessary obstruction to the view. The
chief drawback to a casement window is that its sashes join in the
middle; but as this is a structural necessity, it is less
objectionable. If mullions are required, they should be so placed as
to divide the window into three parts, thus preserving an unobstructed
central pane. The window called Palladian illustrates this point.
Now that large plate-glass windows have ceased to be a novelty, it
will perhaps be recognized that the old window with subdivided panes
had certain artistic and practical merits that have of late been
disregarded.
Where there is a fine prospect, windows made of a single plate of
glass are often preferred; but it must be remembered that the
subdivisions of a sash, while obstructing the view, serve to establish
a relation between the inside of the house and the landscape, making
the latter what, _as seen from a room_, it logically ought to be: a
part of the wall-decoration, in the sense of being subordinated to the
same general lines. A large unbroken sheet of plate-glass interrupts
the decorative scheme of the room, just as in verse, if the distances
between the rhymes are so great that the ear cannot connect them, the
continuity of sound is interrupted. Decoration must rhyme to the eye,
and to do so must be subject to the limitations of the eye, as verse
is subject to the limitations of the ear. Success in any art depends
on a due regard for the limitations of the sense to which it appeals.
The effect of a perpetually open window, produced by a large sheet of
plate-glass, while it gives a sense of coolness and the impression of
being out of doors, becomes for these very reasons a disadvantage in
cold weather.
It is sometimes said that the architects of the eighteenth century
would have used large plates of glass in their windows had they been
able to obtain them; but as such plates were frequently used for
mirrors, it is evident that they were not difficult to get, and that
there must have been other reasons for not employing them in windows;
while the additional expense could hardly have been an obstacle in an
age when princes and nobles built with such royal disregard of cost.
The French, always logical in such matters, having tried the effect of
plate-glass, are now returning to the old fashion of smaller panes;
and in many of the new houses in Paris, where the windows at first
contained large plates of glass, the latter have since been subdivided
by a network of narrow mouldings applied to the glass.
As to the comparative merits of French, or casement, and sash windows,
both arrangements have certain advantages. In houses built in the
French or Italian style, casement windows are best adapted to the
general treatment; while the sash-window is more in keeping in English
houses. Perhaps the best way of deciding the question is to remember
that "les fenêtres sont intimement liées aux grandes lignes de
l'architecture," and to conform to the rule suggested by this axiom.
The two common objections to French windows--that they are less
convenient for ventilation, and that they cannot be opened without
letting in cold air near the floor--are both unfounded. All properly
made French windows have at the top an impost or stationary part
containing small panes, one of which is made to open, thus affording
perfect ventilation without draught. Another expedient, seen in one of
the rooms of Mesdames de France at Versailles, is a small pane in the
main part of the window, opening on hinges of its own. (For examples
of well-designed French windows, see Plates XXX and XXXI.)
[Illustration: _PLATE XIX._
SALON DES MALACHITES, GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES.
LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
(SHOWING WELL-DESIGNED WINDOW WITH SOLID INSIDE SHUTTER, AND
PICTURES FORMING PART OF WALL-DECORATION.)]
Sash-windows have the disadvantage of not opening more than half-way,
a serious drawback in our hot summer climate. It is often said that
French windows cannot be opened wide without interfering with the
curtains; but this difficulty is easily met by the use of curtains
made with cords and pulleys, in the sensible old-fashioned manner. The
real purpose of the window-curtain is to regulate the amount of light
admitted to the room, and a curtain so arranged that it cannot be
drawn backward and forward at will is but a meaningless accessory. It
was not until the beginning of the present century that curtains were
used without regard to their practical purpose. The window-hangings of
the middle ages and of the Renaissance were simply straight pieces of
cloth or tapestry hung across the window without any attempt at
drapery, and regarded not as part of the decoration of the room, but
as a necessary protection against draughts. It is probably for this
reason that in old prints and pictures representing the rooms of
wealthy people, curtains are so seldom seen. The better the house, the
less need there was for curtains. In the engravings of Abraham Bosse,
which so faithfully represent the interior decoration of every class
of French house during the reign of Louis XIII, it will be noticed
that in the richest apartments there are no window-curtains. In all
the finest rooms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
inside shutters and embrasures of the windows were decorated with a
care which proves that they were not meant to be concealed by curtains
(see the painted embrasures of the saloon in the Villa Vertemati,
Plate XLIV). The shutters in the state apartments of Fouquet's château
of Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Melun, are painted on both sides with
exquisite arabesques; while those in the apartments of Mesdames de
France, on the ground floor of the palace of Versailles, are examples
of the most beautiful carving. In fact, it would be more difficult to
cite a room of any importance in which the windows were not so
treated, than to go on enumerating examples of what was really a
universal custom until the beginning of the present century. It is
known, of course, that curtains were used in former times: prints,
pictures and inventories alike prove this fact; but the care expended
on the decorative treatment of windows makes it plain that the
curtain, like the portière, was regarded as a necessary evil rather
than as part of the general scheme of decoration. The meagreness and
simplicity of the curtains in old pictures prove that they were used
merely as window shades or sun-blinds. The scant straight folds pushed
back from the tall windows of the Prince de Conti's salon, in
Olivier's charming picture of "Le Thé à l'Anglaise chez le Prince de
Conti," are as obviously utilitarian as the strip of green woollen
stuff hanging against the leaded casement of the mediæval bed-chamber
in Carpaccio's "Dream of St. Ursula."
Another way of hanging window-curtains in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries was to place them inside the architrave, so that
they did not conceal it. The architectural treatment of the trim, and
the practice prevalent at that period of carrying the windows up to
the cornice, made this a satisfactory way of arranging the curtain;
but in the modern American house, where the trim is usually bad, and
where there is often a dreary waste of wall-paper between the window
and the ceiling, it is better to hang the curtains close under the
cornice.
It was not until the eighteenth century that the window-curtain was
divided in the middle; and this change was intended only to facilitate
the drawing of the hangings, which, owing to the increased size of the
windows, were necessarily wider and heavier. The curtain continued to
hang down in straight folds, pulled back at will to permit the opening
of the window, and drawn at night. Fixed window-draperies, with
festoons and folds so arranged that they cannot be lowered or raised,
are an invention of the modern upholsterer. Not only have these fixed
draperies done away with the true purpose of the curtain, but they
have made architects and decorators careless in their treatment of
openings. The architrave and embrasure of a window are now regarded as
of no more importance in the decorative treatment of a room than the
inside of the chimney.
The modern use of the lambrequin as an ornamental finish to
window-curtains is another instance of misapplied decoration. Its
history is easy to trace. The mediæval bed was always enclosed in
curtains hanging from a wooden framework, and the lambrequin was used
as a kind of cornice to conceal it. When the use of gathered
window-shades became general in Italy, the lambrequin was transferred
from the bed to the window, in order to hide the clumsy bunches of
folds formed by these shades when drawn up. In old prints, lambrequins
over windows are almost always seen in connection with Italian shades,
and this is the only logical way of using them; though they are often
of service in concealing the defects of badly-shaped windows and
unarchitectural trim.
Those who criticize the architects and decorators of the past are
sometimes disposed to think that they worked in a certain way because
they were too ignorant to devise a better method; whereas they were
usually controlled by practical and artistic considerations which
their critics are prone to disregard, not only in judging the work of
the past, but in the attempt to make good its deficiencies. Thus the
cabinet-makers of the Renaissance did not make straight-backed wooden
chairs because they were incapable of imagining anything more
comfortable, but because the former were better adapted than cushioned
arm-chairs to the _déplacements_ so frequent at that period. In like
manner, the decorator who regarded curtains as a necessity rather than
as part of the decoration of the room knew (what the modern
upholsterer fails to understand) that, the beauty of a room depending
chiefly on its openings, to conceal these under draperies is to hide
the key of the whole decorative scheme.
The muslin window-curtain is a recent innovation. Its only purpose is
to protect the interior of the room from public view: a need not felt
before the use of large sheets of glass, since it is difficult to look
through a subdivided sash from the outside. Under such circumstances
muslin curtains are, of course, useful; but where they may be
dispensed with, owing to the situation of the room or the subdivision
of panes, they are no loss. Lingerie effects do not combine well with
architecture, and the more architecturally a window is treated, the
less it need be dressed up in ruffles. To put such curtains in a
window, and then loop them back so that they form a mere frame to the
pane, is to do away with their real purpose, and to substitute a
textile for an architectural effect. Where muslin curtains are
necessary, they should be a mere transparent screen hung against the
glass. In town houses especially all outward show of richness should
be avoided; the use of elaborate lace-figured curtains, besides
obstructing the view, seems an attempt to protrude the luxury of the
interior upon the street. It is needless to point out the futility of
the second layer of muslin which, in some houses, hangs inside the
sash-curtains.
The solid inside shutter, now so generally discarded, save in France,
formerly served the purposes for which curtains and shades are used,
and, combined with outside blinds, afforded all the protection that a
window really requires (see Plate XIX). These shutters should be made
with solid panels, not with slats, their purpose being to darken the
room and keep out the cold, while the light is regulated by the
outside blinds. The best of these is the old-fashioned hand-made
blind, with wide fixed slats, still to be seen on old New England
houses and always used in France and Italy: the frail machine-made
substitute now in general use has nothing to recommend it.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] As an example of the extent to which openings have come to be
ignored as factors in the decorative composition of a room, it is
curious to note that in Eastlake's well-known _Hints on Household
Taste_ no mention is made of doors, windows or fireplaces. Compare
this point of view with that of the earlier decorators, from Vignola
to Roubo and Ware.
VI
FIREPLACES
The fireplace was formerly always regarded as the chief feature of the
room, and so treated in every well-thought-out scheme of decoration.
The practical reasons which make it important that the windows in a
room should be carried up to the cornice have already been given, and
it has been shown that the lines of the other openings should be
extended to the same height. This applies to fireplaces as well as to
doors, and, indeed, as an architectural principle concerning all kinds
of openings, it has never been questioned until the present day. The
hood of the vast Gothic fireplace always descended from the springing
of the vaulted roof, and the monumental chimney-pieces of the
Renaissance followed the same lines (see Plate XX). The importance of
giving an architectural character to the chimney-piece is insisted on
by Blondel, whose remark, "Je voudrais n'appliquer à une cheminée que
des ornements convenables à l'architecture," is a valuable axiom for
the decorator. It is a mistake to think that this treatment
necessitates a large mantel-piece and a monumental style of panelling.
The smallest mantel, surmounted by a picture or a mirror set in simple
mouldings, may be as architectural as the great chimney-pieces at
Urbino or Cheverny: all depends on the spirit of the treatment and
on the proper relation of the different members used. Pajou's monument
to Madame du Barry's canary-bird is far more architectural than the
Albert Memorial.
[Illustration: _PLATE XX._
MANTELPIECE IN DUCAL PALACE, URBINO.
XV CENTURY.
(TRANSITION BETWEEN GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE.)]
When, in the middle ages, the hearth in the centre of the room was
replaced by the wall-chimney, the fireplace was invariably constructed
with a projecting hood of brick or stone, generally semicircular in
shape, designed to carry off the smoke which in earlier times had
escaped through a hole in the roof. The opening of the fireplace, at
first of moderate dimensions, was gradually enlarged to an enormous
size, from the erroneous idea that the larger the fire the greater
would be the warmth of the room. By degrees it was discovered that the
effect of the volume of heat projected into the room was counteracted
by the strong draught and by the mass of cold air admitted through the
huge chimney; and to obviate this difficulty iron doors were placed in
the opening and kept closed when the fire was not burning (see Plate
XXI). But this was only a partial remedy, and in time it was found
expedient to reduce the size of both chimney and fireplace.
In Italy the strong feeling for architectural lines and the invariable
exercise of common sense in construction soon caused the fireplace to
be sunk into the wall, thus ridding the room of the Gothic hood, while
the wall-space above the opening received a treatment of panelling,
sometimes enclosed in pilasters, and usually crowned by an entablature
and pediment. When the chimney was not sunk in the wall, the latter
was brought forward around the opening, thus forming a flat
chimney-breast to which the same style of decoration could be applied.
This projection was seldom permitted in Italy, where the thickness of
the walls made it easy to sink the fireplace, while an unerring
feeling for form rejected the advancing chimney-breast as a needless
break in the wall-surface of the room. In France, where Gothic
methods of construction persisted so long after the introduction of
classic ornament, the habit of building out the chimney-breast
continued until the seventeenth century, and even a hundred years
later French decorators described the plan of sinking the fireplace
into the thickness of the wall as the "Italian manner." The thinness
of modern walls has made the projecting chimney-breast a structural
necessity; but the composition of the room is improved by "furring
out" the wall on each side of the fireplace in such a way as to
conceal the projection and obviate a break in the wall-space. Where
the room is so small that every foot of space is valuable, a niche may
be formed in either angle of the chimney-breast, thus preserving the
floor-space which would be sacrificed by advancing the wall, and yet
avoiding the necessity of a break in the cornice. The Italian plan of
panelling the space between mantel and cornice continued in favor,
with various modifications, until the beginning of the present
century. In early Italian Renaissance over-mantels the central panel
was usually filled by a bas-relief; but in the sixteenth century this
was frequently replaced by a picture, not hung on the panelling, but
forming a part of it.[20] In France the sculptured over-mantel
followed the same general lines of development, though the treatment,
until the time of Louis XIII, showed traces of the Gothic tendency to
overload with ornament without regard to unity of design, so that the
main lines of the composition were often lost under a mass of
ill-combined detail.
In Italy the early Renaissance mantels were usually of marble. French
mantels of the same period were of stone; but this material was so
unsuited to the elaborate sculpture then in fashion that wood was
sometimes used instead. For a season richly carved wooden
chimney-pieces, covered with paint and gilding, were in favor; but
when the first marble mantels were brought from Italy, that sense of
fitness in the use of material for which the French have always been
distinguished, led them to recognize the superiority of marble, and
the wooden mantel-piece was discarded: nor has it since been used in
France.
With the seventeenth century, French mantel-pieces became more
architectural in design and less florid in ornament, and the ponderous
hood laden with pinnacles, escutcheons, fortified castles and statues
of saints and warriors, was replaced by a more severe decoration.
Thackeray's gibe at Louis XIV and his age has so long been accepted by
the English-speaking races as a serious estimate of the period, that
few now appreciate the artistic preponderance of France in the
seventeenth century. As a matter of fact, it is to the schools of art
founded by Louis XIV and to his magnificent patronage of the
architects and decorators trained in these schools that we owe the
preservation, in northern Europe, of that sense of form and spirit of
moderation which mark the great classic tradition. To disparage the
work of men like Levau, Mansart, de Cotte and Lebrun, shows an
insufficient understanding, not only of what they did, but of the
inheritance of confused and turgid ornament from which they freed
French art.[21] Whether our individual tastes incline us to the Gothic
or to the classic style, it is easy to see that a school which tried
to combine the structure of the one with the ornament of the other was
likely to fall into incoherent modes of expression; and this was
precisely what happened to French domestic architecture at the end of
the Renaissance period. It has been the fashion to describe the art of
the Louis XIV period as florid and bombastic; but a comparison of the
designs of Philibert de Lorme and Androuet Ducerceau with those of
such men as Levau and Robert de Cotte will show that what the latter
did was not to introduce a florid and bombastic manner, but to discard
it for what Viollet-le-Duc, who will certainly not be suspected of
undue partiality for this school of architects, calls "une grandeur
solide, sans faux ornements." No better illustration of this can be
obtained than by comparing the mantel-pieces of the respective
periods.[22] The Louis XIV mantel-pieces are much simpler and more
coherent in design. The caryatides supporting the entablature above
the opening of the earlier mantels, and the full-length statues
flanking the central panel of the over-mantel, are replaced by massive
and severe mouldings of the kind which the French call _mâle_ (see
mantels in Plates V and XXXVI). Above the entablature there is usually
a kind of attic or high concave member of marble, often fluted, and
forming a ledge or shelf just wide enough to carry the row of
porcelain vases with which it had become the fashion to adorn the
mantel. These vases, and the bas-relief or picture occupying the
central panel above, form the chief ornament of the chimney-piece,
though occasionally the crowning member of the over-mantel is treated
with a decoration of garlands, masks, trophies or other strictly
architectural ornament, while in Italy and England the broken
pediment is frequently employed. The use of a mirror over the
fireplace is said to have originated with Mansart; but according to
Blondel it was Robert de Cotte who brought about this innovation, thus
producing an immediate change in the general scheme of composition.
The French were far too logical not to see the absurdity of placing a
mirror too high to be looked into; and the concave Louis XIV member,
which had raised the mantel-shelf six feet from the floor, was
removed[23] and the shelf placed directly over the entablature.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXI._
MANTELPIECE IN THE VILLA GIACOMELLI,
AT MASER, NEAR TREVISO. XVI CENTURY.
(SHOWING IRON DOORS IN OPENING.)]
Somewhat later the introduction of clocks and candelabra as mantel
ornaments made it necessary to widen the shelf, and this further
modified the general design; while the suites of small rooms which had
come into favor under the Regent led to a reduction in the size of
mantel-pieces, and to the use of less massive and perhaps less
architectural ornament.
In the eighteenth century, mantel-pieces in Italy and France were
almost always composed of a marble or stone architrave surmounted by a
shelf of the same material, while the over-mantel consisted of a
mirror, framed in mouldings varying in design from the simplest style
to the most ornate. This over-mantel, which was either of the exact
width of the mantel-shelf or some few inches narrower, ended under the
cornice, and its upper part was usually decorated in the same way as
the over-doors in the room. If these contained paintings, a picture
carrying out the same scheme of decoration was often placed in the
upper part of the over-mantel; or the ornaments of carved wood or
stucco filling the panels over the doors were repeated in the upper
part of the mirror-frame.
In France, mirrors had by this time replaced pictures in the central
panel of the over-mantel; but in Italian decoration of the same period
oval pictures were often applied to the centre of the mirror, with
delicate lines of ornament connecting the picture and mirror
frames.[24]
The earliest fireplaces were lined with stone or brick, but in the
sixteenth century the more practical custom of using iron fire-backs
was introduced. At first this fire-back consisted of a small plaque of
iron, shaped like a headstone, and fixed at the back of the fireplace,
where the brick or stone was most likely to be calcined by the fire.
When chimney-building became more scientific, the size of the
fireplace was reduced, and the sides of the opening were brought much
nearer the flame, thus making it necessary to extend the fire-back
into a lining for the whole fireplace.
It was soon seen that besides resisting the heat better than any other
substance, the iron lining served to radiate it into the room. The
iron back consequently held its own through every subsequent change in
the treatment of the fireplace; and the recent return, in England and
America, to brick or stone is probably due to the fact that the modern
iron lining is seldom well designed. Iron backs were adopted because
they served their purpose better than any others; and as no new
substance offering greater advantages has since been discovered, there
is no reason for discarding them, especially as they are not only more
practical but more decorative than any other lining. The old
fire-backs (of which reproductions are readily obtained) were
decorated with charming bas-reliefs, and their dark bosses, in the
play of the firelight, form a more expressive background than the
dead and unresponsive surface of brick or stone.
It was not uncommon in England to treat the mantel as an order crowned
by its entablature. Where this was done, an intermediate space was
left between mantel and over-mantel, an arrangement which somewhat
weakened the architectural effect. A better plan was that of
surmounting the entablature with an attic, and making the over-mantel
spring directly from the latter. Fine examples of this are seen at
Holkham, built by Brettingham for the Earl of Leicester about the
middle of the eighteenth century.
The English fireplace was modified at the end of the seventeenth
century, when coal began to replace wood. Chippendale gives many
designs for beautiful basket-grates, such as were set in the large
fireplaces originally intended for wood; for it was not until later
that chimneys with smaller openings were specially constructed to
receive the fixed grate and the hob-grate.
It was in England that the architectural treatment of the over-mantel
was first abandoned. The use of a mirror framed in a panel over the
fireplace had never become general in England, and toward the end of
the eighteenth century the mantel-piece was frequently surmounted by a
blank wall-space, on which a picture or a small round mirror was hung
high above the shelf (see Plate XLVII). Examples are seen in
Moreland's pictures, and in prints of simple eighteenth-century
English interiors; but this treatment is seldom found in rooms of any
architectural pretensions.
The early American fireplace was merely a cheap provincial copy of
English models of the same period. The application of the word
"Colonial" to pre-Revolutionary architecture and decoration has
created a vague impression that there existed at that time an American
architectural style. As a matter of fact, "Colonial" architecture is
simply a modest copy of Georgian models; and "Colonial" mantel-pieces
were either imported from England by those who could afford it, or
were reproduced in wood from current English designs. Wooden mantels
were, indeed, not unknown in England, where the use of a wooden
architrave led to the practice of facing the fireplace with Dutch
tiles; but wood was used, both in England and America, only from
motives of cheapness, and the architrave was set back from the opening
only because it was unsafe to put an inflammable material so near the
fire.
After 1800 all the best American houses contained imported marble
mantel-pieces. These usually consisted of an entablature resting on
columns or caryatides, with a frieze in low relief representing some
classic episode, or simply ornamented with bucranes and garlands. In
the general decline of taste which marked the middle of the present
century, these dignified and well-designed mantel-pieces were replaced
by marble arches containing a fixed grate. The hideousness of this
arched opening soon produced a distaste for marble mantels in the
minds of a generation unacquainted with the early designs. This
distaste led to a reaction in favor of wood, resulting in the
displacement of the architrave and the facing of the space between
architrave and opening with tiles, iron or marble.
People are beginning to see that the ugliness of the marble
mantel-pieces of 1840-60 does not prove that wood is the more suitable
material to employ. There is indeed something of unfitness in the use
of an inflammable material surrounding a fireplace. Everything about
the hearth should not only be, but _look_, fire-proof. The chief
objection to wood is that its use necessitates the displacement of the
architrave, thus leaving a flat intermediate space to be faced with
some fire-proof material. This is an architectural fault. A door of
which the architrave should be set back eighteen inches or more to
admit of a facing of tiles or marble would be pronounced
unarchitectural; and it is usually admitted that all classes of
openings should be subject to the same general treatment.
Where the mantel-piece is of wood, the setting back of the architrave
is a necessity; but, curiously enough, the practice has become so
common in England and America that even where the mantel is made of
marble or stone it is set back in the same way; so that it is unusual
to see a modern fireplace in which the architrave defines the opening.
In France, also, the use of an inner facing (called a _retrécissement_)
has become common, probably because such a device makes it possible to
use less fuel, while not disturbing the proportions of the mantel as
related to the room.
The reaction from the bare stiff rooms of the first quarter of the
present century--the era of mahogany and horsehair--resulted, some
twenty years since, in a general craving for knick-knacks; and the
latter soon spread from the tables to the mantel, especially in
England and America, where the absence of the architectural
over-mantel left a bare expanse of wall above the chimney-piece.
The use of the mantel as a bric-à-brac shelf led in time to the
lengthening and widening of this shelf, and in consequence to the
enlargement of the whole chimney-piece.
Mantels which in the eighteenth century would have been thought in
scale with rooms of certain dimensions would now be considered too
small and insignificant. The use of large mantel-pieces, besides
throwing everything in the room out of scale, is a structural mistake,
since the excessive projection of the mantel has a tendency to make
the fire smoke; indeed, the proportions of the old mantels, far from
being arbitrary, were based as much on practical as on artistic
considerations. Moreover, the use of long, wide shelves has brought
about the accumulation of superfluous knick-knacks, whereas a smaller
mantel, if architecturally designed, would demand only its
conventional _garniture_ of clock and candlesticks.
The device of concealing an ugly mantel-piece by folds of drapery
brings an inflammable substance so close to the fire that there is a
suggestion of danger even where there is no actual risk. The lines of
a mantel, however bad, represent some kind of solid architrave,--a
more suitable setting for an architectural opening than flimsy
festoons of brocade or plush. Any one who can afford to replace an
ugly chimney-piece by one of good design will find that this change
does more than any other to improve the appearance of a room. Where a
badly designed mantel cannot be removed, the best plan is to leave it
unfurbelowed, simply placing above it a mirror or panel to connect the
lines of the opening with the cornice.
The effect of a fireplace depends much upon the good taste and
appropriateness of its accessories. Little attention is paid at
present to the design and workmanship of these and like necessary
appliances; yet if good of their kind they add more to the adornment
of a room than a multiplicity of useless knick-knacks.
Andirons should be of wrought-iron, bronze or ormolu. Substances which
require constant polishing, such as steel or brass, are unfitted to a
fireplace. It is no longer easy to buy the old bronze andirons of
French or Italian design, with pedestals surmounted by statuettes of
nymph or faun, to which time has given the iridescence that modern
bronze-workers vainly try to reproduce with varnish. These bronzes,
and the old ormolu andirons, are now almost _introuvables_; but the
French artisan still copies the old models with fair success (see
Plates V and XXXVI). Andirons should not only harmonize with the
design of the mantel but also be in scale with its dimensions. In the
fireplace of a large drawing-room, boudoir andirons would look
insignificant; while the monumental Renaissance fire-dogs would dwarf
a small mantel and make its ornamentation trivial.
If andirons are gilt, they should be of ormolu. The cheaper kinds of
gilding are neither durable nor good in tone, and plain iron is
preferable to anything but bronze or fire-gilding. The design of
shovel and tongs should accord with that of the andirons: in France
such details are never disregarded. The shovel and tongs should be
placed upright against the mantel-piece, or rest upon hooks inserted
in the architrave: the brass or gilt stands now in use are seldom well
designed. Fenders, being merely meant to protect the floor from
sparks, should be as light and easy to handle as possible: the folding
fender of wire-netting is for this reason preferable to any other,
since it may be shut and put away when not in use. The low guards of
solid brass in favor in England and America not only fail to protect
the floor, but form a permanent barrier between the fire and those who
wish to approach it; and the latter objection applies also to the
massive folding fender that is too heavy to be removed.
Coal-scuttles, like andirons, should be made of bronze, ormolu or
iron. The unnecessary use of substances which require constant
polishing is one of the mysteries of English and American
housekeeping: it is difficult to see why a housemaid should spend
hours in polishing brass or steel fenders, andirons, coal-scuttles and
door-knobs, when all these articles might be made of some substance
that does not need daily cleaning.
Where wood is burned, no better wood-box can be found than an old
carved chest, either one of the Italian _cassoni_, with their painted
panels and gilded volutes, or a plain box of oak or walnut with
well-designed panels and old iron hasps. The best substitute for such
a chest is a plain wicker basket, without ornamentation, enamel paint
or gilding. If an article of this kind is not really beautiful, it had
better be as obviously utilitarian as possible in design and
construction.
A separate chapter might be devoted to the fire-screen, with its
carved frame and its panel of tapestry, needlework, or painted
arabesques. Of all the furniture of the hearth, it is that upon which
most taste and variety of invention have been spent; and any of the
numerous French works on furniture and house-decoration will supply
designs which the modern decorator might successfully reproduce (see
Plate XXII). So large is the field from which he may select his
models, that it is perhaps more to the purpose to touch upon the
styles of fire-screens to be avoided: such as the colossal brass or
ormolu fan, the stained-glass screen, the embroidered or painted
banner suspended on a gilt rod, or the stuffed bird spread out in a
broiled attitude against a plush background.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXII._
FRENCH FIRE-SCREEN, LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
FROM THE CHÂTEAU OF ANET.]
In connection with the movable fire-screen, a word may be said of the
fire-boards which, until thirty or forty years ago, were used to close
the opening of the fireplace in summer. These fire-boards are now
associated with old-fashioned boarding-house parlors, where they are
still sometimes seen, covered with a paper like that on the walls, and
looking ugly enough to justify their disuse. The old fire-boards
were very different: in rooms of any importance they were beautifully
decorated, and in Italian interiors, where the dado was often painted,
the same decoration was continued on the fire-boards. Sometimes the
latter were papered; but the paper used was designed expressly for the
purpose, with a decorative composition of flowers, landscapes, or the
ever-amusing _chinoiseries_ on which the eighteenth-century designer
played such endless variations.
Whether the fireplace in summer should be closed by a board, or left
open, with the logs laid on the irons, is a question for individual
taste; but it is certain that if the painted fire-board were revived,
it might form a very pleasing feature in the decoration of modern
rooms. The only possible objection to its use is that it interferes
with ventilation by closing the chimney-opening; but as fire-boards
are used only at a season when all the windows are open, this drawback
is hardly worth considering.
In spite of the fancied advancement in refinement and luxury of
living, the development of the modern heating apparatus seems likely,
especially in America, to do away with the open fire. The temperature
maintained in most American houses by means of hot-air or hot-water
pipes is so high that even the slight additional warmth of a wood fire
would be unendurable. Still there are a few exceptions to this rule,
and in some houses the healthy glow of open fires is preferred to the
parching atmosphere of steam. Indeed, it might almost be said that the
good taste and _savoir-vivre_ of the inmates of a house may be guessed
from the means used for heating it. Old pictures, old furniture and
fine bindings cannot live in a furnace-baked atmosphere; and those who
possess such treasures and know their value have an additional motive
for keeping their houses cool and well ventilated.
No house can be properly aired in winter without the draughts produced
by open fires. Fortunately, doctors are beginning to call attention to
this neglected detail of sanitation; and as dry artificial heat is the
main source of throat and lung diseases, it is to be hoped that the
growing taste for open-air life and out-door sports will bring about a
desire for better ventilation, and a dislike for air-tight stoves,
gas-fires and steam-heat.
Aside from the question of health and personal comfort, nothing can be
more cheerless and depressing than a room without fire on a winter
day. The more torrid the room, the more abnormal is the contrast
between the cold hearth and the incandescent temperature. Without a
fire, the best-appointed drawing-room is as comfortless as the shut-up
"best parlor" of a New England farm-house. The empty fireplace shows
that the room is not really lived in and that its appearance of luxury
and comfort is but a costly sham prepared for the edification of
visitors.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] In Italy, where the walls were frescoed, the architectural
composition over the mantel was also frequently painted. Examples of
this are to be seen at the Villa Vertemati, near Chiavenna, and at the
Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, near Treviso. This practice accounts for
the fact that in many old architectural drawings of Italian interiors
a blank wall-space is seen over the mantel.
[21] It is to be hoped that the recently published English translation
of M. Émile Bourgeois's book on Louis XIV will do much to remove this
prejudice.
[22] It is curious that those who criticize the ornateness of the
Louis XIV style are often the warmest admirers of the French
Renaissance, the style of all others most remarkable for its excessive
use of ornament, exquisite in itself, but quite unrelated to structure
and independent of general design.
[23] It is said to have been put at this height in order that the
porcelain vases should be out of reach. See Daviler, "Cours
d'Architecture."
[24] Examples are to be seen in several rooms of the hunting-lodge of
the kings of Savoy, at Stupinigi, near Turin.
VII
CEILINGS AND FLOORS
To attempt even an outline of the history of ceilings in domestic
architecture would exceed the scope of this book; nor would it serve
any practical purpose to trace the early forms of vaulting and
timbering which preceded the general adoption of the modern plastered
ceiling. To understand the development of the modern ceiling, however,
one must trace the two very different influences by which it has been
shaped: that of the timber roof of the North and that of the brick or
stone vault of the Latin builders. This twofold tradition has
curiously affected the details of the modern ceiling. During the
Renaissance, flat plaster ceilings were not infrequently coffered with
stucco panels exactly reproducing the lines of timber framing; and in
the Villa Vertemati, near Chiavenna, there is a curious and
interesting ceiling of carved wood made in imitation of stucco (see
Plate XXIII); while one of the rooms in the Palais de Justice at
Rennes contains an elaborate vaulted ceiling constructed entirely of
wood, with mouldings nailed on (see Plate XXIV).
In northern countries, where the ceiling was simply the under side of
the wooden floor,[25] it was natural that its decoration should
follow the rectangular subdivisions formed by open timber-framing. In
the South, however, where the floors were generally of stone, resting
on stone vaults, the structural conditions were so different that
although the use of caissons based on the divisions of timber-framing
was popular both in the Roman and Renaissance periods, the architect
always felt himself free to treat the ceiling as a flat, undivided
surface prepared for the application of ornament.
The idea that there is anything unarchitectural in this method comes
from an imperfect understanding of the construction of Roman ceilings.
The vault was the typical Roman ceiling, and the vault presents a
smooth surface, without any structural projections to modify the
ornament applied to it. The panelling of a vaulted or flat ceiling was
as likely to be agreeable to the eye as a similar treatment of the
walls; but the Roman coffered ceiling and its Renaissance successors
were the result of a strong sense of decorative fitness rather than of
any desire to adhere to structural limitations.
Examples of the timbered ceiling are, indeed, to be found in Italy as
well as in France and England; and in Venice the flat wooden ceiling,
panelled upon structural lines, persisted throughout the Renaissance
period; but in Rome, where the classic influences were always much
stronger, and where the discovery of the stucco ceilings of ancient
baths and palaces produced such lasting effects upon the architecture
of the early Renaissance, the decorative treatment of the stone vault
was transferred to the flat or coved Renaissance ceiling without a
thought of its being inapplicable or "insincere." The fear of
insincerity, in the sense of concealing the anatomy of any part of a
building, troubled the Renaissance architect no more than it did his
Gothic predecessor, who had never hesitated to stretch a "ciel" of
cloth or tapestry over the naked timbers of the mediæval ceiling. The
duty of exposing structural forms--an obligation that weighs so
heavily upon the conscience of the modern architect--is of very recent
origin. Mediæval as well as Renaissance architects thought first of
adapting their buildings to the uses for which they were intended and
then of decorating them in such a way as to give pleasure to the eye;
and the maintenance of that relation which the eye exacts between main
structural lines and their ornamentation was the only form of
sincerity which they knew or cared about.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXIII._
CARVED WOODEN CEILING, VILLA VERTEMATI.
XVI CENTURY.
(SHOWING INFLUENCE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)]
If a flat ceiling rested on a well-designed cornice, or if a vaulted
or coved ceiling sprang obviously from walls capable of supporting it,
the Italian architect did not allow himself to be hampered by any
pedantic conformity to structural details. The eye once satisfied that
the ceiling had adequate support, the fit proportioning of its
decoration was considered far more important than mere technical
fidelity to the outline of floor-beams and joists. If the Italian
decorator wished to adorn a ceiling with carved or painted panels he
used the lines of the timbering to frame his panels, because they
naturally accorded with his decorative scheme; while, were a large
central painting to be employed, or the ceiling to be covered with
reliefs in stucco, he felt no more hesitation in deviating from the
lines of the timbering than he would have felt in planning the pattern
of a mosaic or a marble floor without reference to the floor-beams
beneath it.
In France and England it was natural that timber-construction should
long continue to regulate the design of the ceiling. The Roman vault
lined with stone caissons, or with a delicate tracery of stucco-work,
was not an ever-present precedent in northern Europe. Tradition
pointed to the open-timbered roof; and as Italy furnished numerous and
brilliant examples of decorative treatment adapted to this form of
ceiling, it was to be expected that both in France and England the
national form should be preserved long after Italian influences had
established themselves in both countries. In fact, it is interesting
to note that in France, where the artistic feeling was much finer, and
the sense of fitness and power of adaptation were more fully
developed, than in England, the lines of the timbered ceiling
persisted throughout the Renaissance and Louis XIII periods; whereas
in England the Elizabethan architects, lost in the mazes of Italian
detail, without a guiding perception of its proper application,
abandoned the timbered ceiling, with its eminently architectural
subdivisions, for a flat plaster surface over which geometrical
flowers in stucco meandered in endless sinuosities, unbroken by a
single moulding, and repeating themselves with the maddening
persistency of wall-paper pattern. This style of ornamentation was
done away with by Inigo Jones and his successors, who restored the
architectural character of the ceiling, whether flat or vaulted; and
thereafter panelling persisted in England until the French Revolution
brought about the general downfall of taste.[26]
In France, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the liking for
_petits appartements_ led to greater lightness in all kinds of
decorative treatment; and the ceilings of the Louis XV period, while
pleasing in detail, are open to the criticism of being somewhat weak
in form. Still, they are always _compositions_, and their light
traceries, though perhaps too dainty and fragile in themselves, are so
disposed as to form a clearly marked design, instead of being allowed
to wander in a monotonous network over the whole surface of the
ceiling, like the ubiquitous Tudor rose. Isaac Ware, trained in the
principles of form which the teachings of Inigo Jones had so deeply
impressed upon English architects, ridicules the "petty wildnesses" of
the French style; but if the Louis XV ceiling lost for a time its
architectural character, this was soon to be restored by Gabriel and
his followers, while at the same period in England the forcible
mouldings of Inigo Jones's school were fading into the ineffectual
grace of Adam's laurel-wreaths and velaria.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXIV._
CEILING IN THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, RENNES.
LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
(WOODEN CEILING IMITATING MASONRY VAULTING AND STUCCO
ORNAMENTATION.)]
In the general effect of the room, the form of the ceiling is of more
importance than its decoration. In rooms of a certain size and height,
a flat surface overhead looks monotonous, and the ceiling should be
vaulted or coved.[27] Endless modifications of this form of treatment
are to be found in the architectural treatises of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, as well as in the buildings of that period.
A coved ceiling greatly increases the apparent height of a low-studded
room; but rooms of this kind should not be treated with an order,
since the projection of the cornice below the springing of the cove
will lower the walls so much as to defeat the purpose for which the
cove has been used. In such rooms the cove should rise directly from
the walls; and this treatment suggests the important rule that where
the cove is not supported by a cornice the ceiling decoration should
be of very light character. A heavy panelled ceiling should not rest
on the walls without the intervention of a strongly profiled cornice.
The French Louis XV decoration, with its fanciful embroidery of stucco
ornament, is well suited to coved ceilings springing directly from
the walls in a room of low stud; while a ceiling divided into panels
with heavy architectural mouldings, whether it be flat or vaulted,
looks best when the walls are treated with a complete order.
Durand, in his lectures on architecture, in speaking of cornices lays
down the following excellent rules: "Interior cornices must
necessarily differ more or less from those belonging to the orders as
used externally, though in rooms of reasonable height these
differences need be but slight; but if the stud be low, as sometimes
is inevitable, the cornice must be correspondingly narrowed, and given
an excessive projection, in order to increase the apparent height of
the room. Moreover, as in the interior of the house the light is much
less bright than outside, the cornice should be so profiled that the
juncture of the mouldings shall form not right angles, but acute
angles, with spaces between the mouldings serving to detach the latter
still more clearly from each other."
The choice of the substance out of which a ceiling is to be made
depends somewhat upon the dimensions of the room, the height of the
stud and the decoration of the walls. A heavily panelled wooden
ceiling resting upon walls either frescoed or hung with stuff is
likely to seem oppressive; but, as in all other kinds of decoration,
the effect produced depends far more upon the form and the choice of
ornamental detail than upon the material used. Wooden ceilings,
however, both from the nature of the construction and the kind of
ornament which may most suitably be applied to them, are of necessity
rather heavy in appearance, and should therefore be used only in large
and high-studded rooms the walls of which are panelled in wood.[28]
Stucco and fresco-painting are adapted to every variety of decoration,
from the light traceries of a boudoir ceiling to the dome of the
_salon à l'Italienne_; but the design must be chosen with strict
regard to the size and height of the room and to the proposed
treatment of its walls. The cornice forms the connecting link between
walls and ceiling and it is essential to the harmony of any scheme of
decoration that this important member should be carefully designed. It
is useless to lavish money on the adornment of walls and ceiling
connected by an ugly cornice.
The same objections extend to the clumsy plaster mouldings which in
many houses disfigure the ceiling. To paint or gild a ceiling of this
kind only attracts attention to its ugliness. When the expense of
removing the mouldings and filling up the holes in the plaster is
considered too great, it is better to cover the bulbous rosettes and
pendentives with kalsomine than to attempt their embellishment by
means of any polychrome decoration. The cost of removing plaster
ornaments is not great, however, and a small outlay will replace an
ugly cornice by one of architectural design; so that a little economy
in buying window-hangings or chair-coverings often makes up for the
additional expense of these changes. One need only look at the
ceilings in the average modern house to see what a thing of horror
plaster may become in the hands of an untrained "designer."
The same general principles of composition suggested for the treatment
of walls may be applied to ceiling-decoration. Thus it is essential
that where there is a division of parts, one part shall perceptibly
predominate; and this, in a ceiling, should be the central division.
The chief defect of the coffered Renaissance ceiling is the lack of
this predominating part. Great as may have been the decorative skill
expended on the treatment of beams and panels, the coffered ceiling
of equal-sized divisions seems to press down upon the spectator's
head; whereas the large central panel gives an idea of height that the
great ceiling-painters were quick to enhance by glimpses of cloud and
sky, or some aerial effect, as in Mantegna's incomparable ceiling of
the Sala degli Sposi in the ducal palace of Mantua.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXV._
CEILING OF THE SALA DEGLI SPOSI, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA.
BY ANDREA MANTEGNA, 1474.]
Ceiling-decoration should never be a literal reproduction of
wall-decoration. The different angle and greater distance at which
ceilings are viewed demand a quite different treatment and it is to
the disregard of this fact that most badly designed ceilings owe their
origin. Even in the high days of art there was a tendency on the part
of some decorators to confound the two plane surfaces of wall and
ceiling, and one might cite many wall-designs which have been
transferred to the ceiling without being rearranged to fit their new
position. Instances of this kind have never been so general as in the
present day. The reaction from the badly designed mouldings and
fungoid growths that characterized the ceilings of forty years ago has
led to the use of attenuated laurel-wreaths combined with other puny
attributes taken from Sheraton cabinets and Adam mantel-pieces. These
so-called ornaments, always somewhat lacking in character, become
absolutely futile when viewed from below.
This pressed-flower ornamentation is a direct precedent to the modern
ceiling covered with wall-paper. One would think that the
inappropriateness of this treatment was obvious; but since it has
become popular enough to warrant the manufacture of specially designed
ceiling-papers, some protest should be made. The necessity for hiding
cracks in the plaster is the reason most often given for papering
ceilings; but the cost of mending cracks is small and a plaster
ceiling lasts much longer than is generally thought. It need never
be taken down unless it is actually falling; and as well-made repairs
strengthen and improve the entire surface, a much-mended ceiling is
stronger than one that is just beginning to crack. If the cost of
repairing must be avoided, a smooth white lining-paper should be
chosen in place of one of the showy and vulgar papers which serve only
to attract attention.
Of all forms of ceiling adornment painting is the most beautiful.
Italy, which contains the three perfect ceilings of the world--those
of Mantegna in the ducal palace of Mantua (see Plate XXV), of Perugino
in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia and of Araldi in the Convent of St.
Paul at Parma--is the best field for the study of this branch of art.
From the semi-classical vaults of the fifteenth century, with their
Roman arabesques and fruit-garlands framing human figures detached as
mere ornament against a background of solid color, to the massive
goddesses and broad Virgilian landscapes of the Carracci and to the
piled-up perspectives of Giordano's school of prestidigitators,
culminating in the great Tiepolo, Italian art affords examples of
every temperament applied to the solution of one of the most
interesting problems in decoration.
Such ceilings as those on which Raphael and Giovanni da Udine worked
together, combining painted arabesques and medallions with stucco
reliefs, are admirably suited to small low-studded rooms and might
well be imitated by painters incapable of higher things.
There is but one danger in adapting this decoration to modern
use--that is, the temptation to sacrifice scale and general
composition to the search after refinement of detail. It cannot be
denied that some of the decorations of the school of Giovanni da Udine
are open to this criticism. The ornamentation of the great loggia of
the Villa Madama is unquestionably out of scale with the dimensions
of the structure. Much exquisite detail is lost in looking up past the
great piers and the springing of the massive arches to the lace-work
that adorns the vaulting. In this case the composition is less at
fault than the scale: the decorations of the semi-domes at the Villa
Madama, if transferred to a small mezzanin room, would be found to
"compose" perfectly. Charming examples of the use of this style in
small apartments may be studied in the rooms of the Casino del Grotto,
near Mantua.
The tendency of many modern decorators to sacrifice composition to
detail, and to neglect the observance of proportion between ornament
and structure, makes the adaptation of Renaissance stucco designs a
somewhat hazardous undertaking; but the very care required to preserve
the scale and to accentuate the general lines of the design affords
good training in the true principles of composition.
Equally well suited to modern use are the designs in arabesque with
which, in France, Bérain and his followers painted the ceilings of
small rooms during the Louis XIV period (see Plate XXVI). With the
opening of the eighteenth century the Bérain arabesques, animated by
the touch of Watteau, Huet and J.-B. Leprince, blossomed into
trellis-like designs alive with birds and monkeys, Chinese mandarins
balancing umbrellas, and nymphs and shepherdesses under slender
classical ruins. Side by side with the monumental work of such artists
as Lebrun and Lesueur, Coypel, Vouet and Natoire, this light style of
composition was always in favor for the decoration of _petits
appartements_: the most famous painters of the day did not think it
beneath them to furnish designs for such purposes (see Plate XXVII).
In moderate-sized rooms which are to be decorated in a simple and
inexpensive manner, a plain plaster ceiling with well-designed
cornice is preferable to any device for producing showy effects at
small cost. It may be laid down as a general rule in house-decoration
that what must be done cheaply should be done simply. It is better to
pay for the best plastering than to use a cheaper quality and then to
cover the cracks with lincrusta or ceiling-paper. This is true of all
such expedients: let the fundamental work be good in design and
quality and the want of ornament will not be felt.
In America the return to a more substantial way of building and the
tendency to discard wood for brick or stone whenever possible will
doubtless lead in time to the use of brick, stone or marble floors.
These floors, associated in the minds of most Americans with shivering
expeditions through damp Italian palaces, are in reality perfectly
suited to the dry American climate, and even the most anæmic person
could hardly object to brick or marble covered by heavy rugs.
The inlaid marble floors of the Italian palaces, whether composed of
square or diamond-shaped blocks, or decorated with a large design in
different colors, are unsurpassed in beauty; while in high-studded
rooms where there is little pattern on the walls and a small amount of
furniture, elaborately designed mosaic floors with sweeping arabesques
and geometrical figures are of great decorative value.
Floors of these substances have the merit of being not only more
architectural in character, more solid and durable, but also easier to
keep clean. This should especially commend them to the
hygienically-minded American housekeeper, since floors that may be
washed are better suited to our climate than those which must be
covered with a nailed-down carpet.
Next in merit to brick or marble comes the parquet of oak or other
hard wood; but even this looks inadequate in rooms of great
architectural importance. In ball-rooms a hard-wood floor is generally
regarded as a necessity; but in vestibule, staircase, dining-room or
saloon, marble is superior to anything else. The design of the parquet
floor should be simple and unobtrusive. The French, who brought this
branch of floor-laying to perfection, would never have tolerated the
crudely contrasted woods that make the modern parquet so aggressive.
Like the walls of a room, the floor is a background: it should not
furnish pattern, but set off whatever is placed upon it. The
perspective effects dear to the modern floor-designer are the climax
of extravagance. A floor should not only be, but appear to be, a
perfectly level surface, without simulated bosses or concavities.
In choosing rugs and carpets the subject of design should be carefully
studied. The Oriental carpet-designers have always surpassed their
European rivals. The patterns of Eastern rugs are invariably well
composed, with skilfully conventionalized figures in flat unshaded
colors. Even the Oriental rug of the present day is well drawn; but
the colors used by Eastern manufacturers since the introduction of
aniline dyes are so discordant that these rugs are inferior to most
modern European carpets.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXVI._
CEILING IN THE STYLE OF BÉRAIN.
LOUIS XIV PERIOD.]
In houses with deal floors, nailed-down carpets are usually considered
a necessity, and the designing of such carpets has improved so much in
the last ten or fifteen years that a sufficient choice of unobtrusive
geometrical patterns may now be found. The composition of European
carpets woven in one piece, like rugs, has never been satisfactory.
Even the splendid _tapis de Savonnerie_ made in France at the royal
manufactory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not
so true to the best principles of design as the old Oriental rugs. In
Europe there was always a tendency to transfer wall or ceiling-decoration
to floor-coverings. Such incongruities as architectural mouldings,
highly modelled trophies and human masks appear in most of the
European carpets from the time of Louis XIV to the present day; and
except when copying Eastern models the European designers were subject
to strange lapses from taste. There is no reason why a painter should
not simulate loggia and sky on a flat plaster ceiling, since no one
will try to use this sham opening as a means of exit; but the
carpet-designer who puts picture-frames and human faces under foot,
though he does not actually deceive, produces on the eye a momentary
startling sense of obstruction. Any _trompe-l'oeil_ is permissible in
decorative art if it gives an impression of pleasure; but the inherent
sense of fitness is shocked by the act of walking upon upturned faces.
Recent carpet-designs, though usually free from such obvious
incongruities, have seldom more than a negative merit. The
unconventionalized flower still shows itself, and even when banished
from the centre of the carpet lingers in the border which accompanies
it. The vulgarity of these borders is the chief objection to using
carpets of European manufacture as rugs, instead of nailing them to
the floor. It is difficult to find a border that is not too wide, and
of which the design is a simple conventional figure in flat unshaded
colors. If used at all, a carpet with a border should always be in the
form of a rug, laid in the middle of the room, and not cut to follow
all the ins and outs of the floor, as such adaptation not only narrows
the room but emphasizes any irregularity in its plan.
In houses with deal floors, where nailed-down carpets are used in all
the rooms, a restful effect is produced by covering the whole of each
story with the same carpet, the door-sills being removed so that the
carpet may extend from one room to another. In small town houses,
especially, this will be found much less fatiguing to the eye than the
usual manner of covering the floor of each room with carpets differing
in color and design.
Where several rooms are carpeted alike, the floor-covering chosen
should be quite plain, or patterned with some small geometrical figure
in a darker shade of the foundation color; and green, dark blue or red
will be found most easy to combine with the different color-schemes of
the rooms.
Pale tints should be avoided in the selection of carpets. It is better
that the color-scale should ascend gradually from the dark tone of
floor or carpet to the faint half-tints of the ceiling. The opposite
combination--that of a pale carpet with a dark ceiling--lowers the
stud and produces an impression of top-heaviness and gloom; indeed, in
a room where the ceiling is overladen, a dark rich-toned carpet will
do much to lighten it, whereas a pale floor-covering will bring it
down, as it were, on the inmates' heads.
Stair-carpets should be of a strong full color and, if possible,
without pattern. It is fatiguing to see a design meant for a
horizontal surface constrained to follow the ins and outs of a flight
of steps; and the use of pattern where not needed is always
meaningless, and interferes with a decided color-effect where the
latter might have been of special advantage to the general scheme of
decoration.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXVII._
CEILING IN THE CHÂTEAU OF CHANTILLY.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.
(EXAMPLE OF CHINOISERIE DECORATION.)]
FOOTNOTES:
[25] In France, until the sixteenth century, the same
word--_plancher_--was used to designate both floor and ceiling.
[26] For a fine example of an English stucco ceiling, see Plate XIII.
[27] The flat Venetian ceilings, such as those in the ducal palace,
with their richly carved wood-work and glorious paintings, beautiful
as they have been made by art, are not so fine architecturally as a
domed or coved ceiling.
[28] For an example of a wooden ceiling which is too heavy for the
wall-decoration below it, see Plate XLIV.
VIII
ENTRANCE AND VESTIBULE
The decoration of the entrance necessarily depends on the nature of
the house and its situation. A country house, where visitors are few
and life is simple, demands a less formal treatment than a house in a
city or town; while a villa in a watering-place where there is much in
common with town life has necessarily many points of resemblance to a
town house.
It should be borne in mind of entrances in general that, while the
main purpose of a door is to admit, its secondary purpose is to
exclude. The outer door, which separates the hall or vestibule from
the street, should clearly proclaim itself an effectual barrier. It
should look strong enough to give a sense of security, and be so plain
in design as to offer no chance of injury by weather and give no
suggestion of interior decoration.
The best ornamentation for an entrance-door is simple panelling, with
bold architectural mouldings and as little decorative detail as
possible. The necessary ornament should be contributed by the design
of locks, hinges and handles. These, like the door itself, should be
strong and serviceable, with nothing finikin in their treatment, and
made of a substance which does not require cleaning. For the latter
reason, bronze and iron are more fitting than brass or steel.
In treating the vestibule, careful study is required to establish a
harmony between the decorative elements inside and outside the house.
The vestibule should form a natural and easy transition from the plain
architecture of the street to the privacy of the interior (see Plate
XXVIII).
No portion of the inside of the house being more exposed to the
weather, great pains should be taken to avoid using in its decoration
materials easily damaged by rain or dust, such as carpets or
wall-paper. The decoration should at once produce the impression of
being weather-proof.
Marble, stone, scagliola, or painted stucco are for this reason the
best materials. If wood is used, it should be painted, as dust and
dirt soon soil it, and unless its finish be water-proof it will
require continual varnishing. The decorations of the vestibule should
be as permanent as possible in character, in order to avoid incessant
small repairs.
The floor should be of stone, marble, or tiles; even a linoleum or
oil-cloth of sober pattern is preferable to a hard-wood floor in so
exposed a situation. For the same reason, it is best to treat the
walls with a decoration of stone or marble. In simpler houses the same
effect may be produced at much less cost by dividing the wall-spaces
into panels, with wooden mouldings applied directly to the plaster,
the whole being painted in oil, either in one uniform tint or in
varying shades of some cold sober color. This subdued color-scheme
will produce an agreeable contrast with the hall or staircase, which,
being a degree nearer the centre of the house, should receive a gayer
and more informal treatment than the vestibule.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXVIII._
ANTECHAMBER IN THE VILLA CAMBIASO, GENOA.
BUILT BY ALESSI, XVI CENTURY.]
The vestibule usually has two doors: an outer one opening toward the
street and an inner one giving into the hall; but when the outer is
entirely of wood, without glass, and must therefore be left open
during the day, the vestibule is usually subdivided by an inner glass
door placed a few feet from the entrance. This arrangement has the
merit of keeping the house warm and of affording a shelter to the
servants who, during an entertainment, are usually compelled to wait
outside. The French architect always provides an antechamber for this
purpose.
No furniture which is easily soiled or damaged, or difficult to keep
clean, is appropriate in a vestibule. In large and imposing houses
marble or stone benches and tables should be used, and the
ornamentation may consist of statues, vases, or busts on pedestals
(see Plate XXIX). When the decoration is simpler and wooden benches
are used, they should resemble those made for French gardens, with
seats of one piece of wood, or of broad thick slats; while in small
vestibules, benches and chairs with cane seats are appropriate.
The excellent reproductions of Robbia ware made by Cantagalli of
Florence look well against painted walls; while plaster or terra-cotta
bas-reliefs are less expensive and equally decorative, especially
against a pale-blue or green background.
The lantern, the traditional form of fixture for lighting vestibules,
is certainly the best in so exposed a situation; and though where
electric light is used draughts need not be considered, the sense of
fitness requires that a light in such a position should always have
the semblance of being protected.
IX
HALL AND STAIRS
What is technically known as the staircase (in German the
_Treppenhaus_) has, in our lax modern speech, come to be designated as
the hall.
In Gwilt's _Encyclopedia of Architecture_ the staircase is defined as
"that part or subdivision of a building containing the stairs which
enable people to ascend or descend from one floor to another"; while
the hall is described as follows: "The first large apartment on
entering a house.... In magnificent edifices, where the hall is larger
and loftier than usual, and is placed in the middle of the house, it
is called a saloon; and a royal apartment consists of a hall, or
chamber of guards, etc."
It is clear that, in the technical acceptance of the term, a hall is
something quite different from a staircase; yet the two words were
used interchangeably by so early a writer as Isaac Ware, who, in his
_Complete Body of Architecture_, published in 1756, continually speaks
of the staircase as the hall. This confusion of terms is difficult to
explain, for in early times the staircase was as distinct from the
hall as it continued to be in France and Italy, and, with rare
exceptions, in England also, until the present century.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXIX._
ANTECHAMBER IN THE DURAZZO PALACE, GENOA.
DECORATED BY TORRIGIANI. LATE XVIII CENTURY.]
In glancing over the plans of the feudal dwellings of northern Europe
it will be seen that, far from being based on any definite
conception, they were made up of successive accretions about the
nobleman's keep. The first room to attach itself to the keep was the
"hall," a kind of microcosm in which sleeping, eating, entertaining
guests and administering justice succeeded each other or went on
simultaneously. In the course of time various rooms, such as the
parlor, the kitchen, the offices, the muniment-room and the lady's
bower, were added to the primitive hall; but these were rather
incidental necessities than parts of an organized scheme of
planning.[29] In this agglomeration of apartments the stairs found a
place where they could. Space being valuable, they were generally
carried up spirally in the thickness of the wall, or in an
angle-turret. Owing to enforced irregularity of plan, and perhaps to
the desire to provide numerous separate means of access to the
different parts of the dwelling, each castle usually contained several
staircases, no one of which was more important than the others.
It was in Italy that stairs first received attention as a feature in
the general composition of the house. There, from the outset, all the
conditions had been different. The domestic life of the upper classes
having developed from the eleventh century onward in the comparative
security of the walled town, it was natural that house-planning should
be less irregular,[30] and that more regard should be given to
considerations of comfort and dignity. In early Italian palaces the
stairs either ascended through the open central _cortile_ to an
arcaded gallery on the first floor, as in the Gondi palace and the
Bargello at Florence, or were carried up in straight flights between
walls.[31] This was, in fact, the usual way of building stairs in
Italy until the end of the fifteenth century. These enclosed stairs
usually started near the vaulted entranceway leading from the street
to the _cortile_. Gradually the space at the foot of the stairs, which
at first was small, increased in size and in importance of decorative
treatment; while the upper landing opened into an antechamber which
became the centre of the principal suite of apartments. With the
development of the Palladian style, the whole staircase (provided the
state apartments were not situated on the ground floor) assumed more
imposing dimensions; though it was not until a much later date that
the monumental staircase so often regarded as one of the chief
features of the Italian Renaissance began to be built. Indeed, a
detailed examination of the Italian palaces shows that even in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such staircases as were built by
Fontana in the royal palace at Naples, by Juvara in the Palazzo Madama
at Turin and by Vanvitelli at Caserta, were seen only in royal
palaces. Even Morelli's staircase in the Braschi palace in Rome,
magnificent as it is, hardly reaches the popular conception of the
Italian state staircase--a conception probably based rather upon the
great open stairs of the Genoese _cortili_ than upon any actually
existing staircases. It is certain that until late in the seventeenth
century (as Bernini's Vatican staircase shows) inter-mural stairs were
thought grand enough for the most splendid palaces of Italy (see Plate
XXX).
[Illustration: _PLATE XXX._
STAIRCASE IN THE PARODI PALACE, GENOA.
XVI CENTURY.
(SHOWING INTER-MURAL STAIRS AND MARBLE FLOOR.)]
The spiral staircase, soon discarded by Italian architects save as
a means of secret communication or for the use of servants, held
its own in France throughout the Renaissance. Its structural
difficulties afforded scope for the exercise of that marvellous, if
sometimes superfluous, ingenuity which distinguished the Gothic
builders. The spiral staircase in the court-yard at Blois is an
example of this kind of skilful engineering and of the somewhat
fatiguing use of ornament not infrequently accompanying it; while such
anomalies as the elaborate out-of-door spiral staircase enclosed
within the building at Chambord are still more in the nature of a
_tour de force_,--something perfect in itself, but not essential to
the organism of the whole.
Viollet-le-Duc, in his dictionary of architecture, under the heading
_Château_, has given a sympathetic and ingenious explanation of the
tenacity with which the French aristocracy clung to the obsolete
complications of Gothic house-planning and structure long after
frequent expeditions across the Alps had made them familiar with the
simpler and more rational method of the Italian architects. It may be,
as he suggests, that centuries of feudal life, with its surface of
savagery and violence and its undercurrent treachery, had fostered in
the nobles of northern Europe a desire for security and isolation that
found expression in the intricate planning of their castles long after
the advance of civilization had made these precautions unnecessary. It
seems more probable, however, that the French architects of the
Renaissance made the mistake of thinking that the essence of the
classic styles lay in the choice and application of ornamental
details. This exaggerated estimate of the importance of detail is very
characteristic of an imperfect culture; and the French architects who
in the fifteenth century were eagerly taking their first lessons from
their contemporaries south of the Alps, had behind them nothing like
the great synthetic tradition of the Italian masters. Certainly it
was not until the Northern builders learned that the beauty of the old
buildings was, above all, a matter of proportion, that their own
style, freed from its earlier incoherencies, set out on the line of
unbroken national development which it followed with such harmonious
results until the end of the eighteenth century.
In Italy the staircase often gave directly upon the entranceway; in
France it was always preceded by a vestibule, and the upper landing
invariably led into an antechamber.
In England the relation between vestibule, hall and staircase was
never so clearly established as on the Continent. The old English
hall, so long the centre of feudal life, preserved its somewhat
composite character after the _grand'salle_ of France and Italy had
been broken up into the vestibule, the guard-room and the saloon. In
the grandest Tudor houses the entrance-door usually opened directly
into this hall. To obtain in some measure the privacy which a
vestibule would have given, the end of the hall nearest the
entrance-door was often cut off by a screen that supported the
musicians' gallery. The corridor formed by this screen led to the
staircase, usually placed behind the hall, and the gallery opened on
the first landing of the stairs. This use of the screen at one end of
the hall had so strong a hold upon English habits that it was never
quite abandoned. Even after French architecture and house-planning had
come into fashion in the eighteenth century, a house with a vestibule
remained the rarest of exceptions in England; and the relative privacy
afforded by the Gothic screen was then lost by substituting for the
latter an open arcade, of great decorative effect, but ineffectual in
shutting off the hall from the front door.
The introduction of the Palladian style by Inigo Jones transformed
the long and often narrow Tudor hall into the many-storied central
saloon of the Italian villa, with galleries reached by concealed
staircases, and lofty domed ceiling; but it was still called the hall,
it still served as a vestibule, or means of access to the rest of the
house, and, curiously enough, it usually adjoined another apartment,
often of the same dimensions, called a saloon. Perhaps the best way of
defining the English hall of this period is to say that it was really
an Italian saloon, but that it was used as a vestibule and called a
hall.
Through all these changes the staircase remained shut off from the
hall, upon which it usually opened. It was very unusual, except in
small middle-class houses or suburban villas, to put the stairs in the
hall, or, more correctly speaking, to make the front door open into
the staircase. There are, however, several larger houses in which the
stairs are built in the hall. Inigo Jones, in remodelling Castle Ashby
for the Earl of Northampton, followed this plan; though this is
perhaps not a good instance to cite, as it may have been difficult to
find place for a separate staircase. At Chevening, in Kent, built by
Inigo Jones for the Earl of Sussex, the stairs are also in the hall;
and the same arrangement is seen at Shobden Court, at West Wycombe,
built by J. Donowell for Lord le Despencer (where the stairs are shut
off by a screen) and at Hurlingham, built late in the eighteenth
century by G. Byfield.
This digression has been made in order to show the origin of the
modern English and American practice of placing the stairs in the hall
and doing away with the vestibule. The vestibule never formed part of
the English house, but the stairs were usually divided from the hall
in houses of any importance; and it is difficult to see whence the
modern architect has derived his idea of the combined hall and
staircase. The tendency to merge into one any two apartments designed
for different uses shows a retrogression in house-planning; and while
it is fitting that the vestibule or hall should adjoin the staircase,
there is no good reason for uniting them and there are many for
keeping them apart.
The staircase in a private house is for the use of those who inhabit
it; the vestibule or hall is necessarily used by persons in no way
concerned with the private life of the inmates. If the stairs, the
main artery of the house, be carried up through the vestibule, there
is no security from intrusion. Even the plan of making the vestibule
precede the staircase, though better, is not the best. In a properly
planned house the vestibule should open on a hall or antechamber of
moderate size, giving access to the rooms on the ground floor, and
this antechamber should lead into the staircase. It is only in houses
where all the living-rooms are up-stairs that the vestibule may open
directly into the staircase without lessening the privacy of the
house.
In Italy, where wood was little employed in domestic architecture,
stairs were usually of stone. Marble came into general use in the
grander houses when, in the seventeenth century, the stairs, instead
of being carried up between walls, were often placed in an open
staircase. The balustrade was usually of stone or marble, iron being
much less used than in France.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXI._
STAIRCASE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, NANCY.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.
BUILT BY HÉRÉ DE CORNY; STAIR-RAIL BY JEAN LAMOUR.]
In the latter country the mediæval stairs, especially in the houses of
the middle class, were often built of wood; but this material was soon
abandoned, and from the time of Louis XIV stairs of stone with
wrought-iron rails are a distinctive feature of French domestic
architecture. The use of wrought-iron in French decoration received a
strong impulse from the genius of Jean Lamour, who, when King
Stanislas of Poland remodelled the town of Nancy early in the reign of
Louis XV, adorned its streets and public buildings with specimens
of iron-work unmatched in any other part of the world. Since then
French decorators have expended infinite talent in devising the
beautiful stair-rails and balconies which are the chief ornament of
innumerable houses throughout France (see Plates XXXI and XXXII).
Stair-rails of course followed the various modifications of taste
which marked the architecture of the day. In the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries they were noted for severe richness of design.
With the development of the rocaille manner their lines grew lighter
and more fanciful, while the influence of Gabriel, which, toward the
end of the reign of Louis XV, brought about a return to classic
models, manifested itself in a simplified mode of treatment. At this
period the outline of a classic baluster formed a favorite motive for
the iron rail. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the designs
for these rails grew thin and poor, with a predominance of upright
iron bars divided at long intervals by some meagre medallion or
geometrical figure. The exuberant sprays and volutes of the rococo
period and the architectural lines of the Louis XVI style were alike
absent from these later designs, which are chiefly marked by the
negative merit of inoffensiveness.
In the old French stair-rails steel was sometimes combined with gilded
iron. The famous stair-rail of the Palais Royal, designed by Coutant
d'Ivry, is made of steel and iron, and the Duc d'Aumale copied this
combination in the stair-rail at Chantilly. There is little to
recommend the substitution of steel for iron in such cases. It is
impossible to keep a steel stair-rail clean and free from rust, except
by painting it; and since it must be painted, iron is the more
suitable material.
In France the iron rail is usually painted black, though a very dark
blue is sometimes preferred. Black is the better color, as it forms a
stronger contrast with the staircase walls, which are presumably
neutral in tint and severe in treatment. Besides, as iron is painted,
not to improve its appearance, but to prevent its rusting, the color
which most resembles its own is more appropriate. In French houses of
a certain importance the iron stair-rail often had a few touches of
gilding, but these were sparingly applied.
In England wooden stair-rails were in great favor during the Tudor and
Elizabethan period. These rails were marked rather by fanciful
elaboration of detail than by intrinsic merit of design, and are
doubtless more beautiful now that time has given them its patina, than
they were when first made.
With the Palladian style came the classic balustrade of stone or
marble, or sometimes, in simpler houses, of wood. Iron rails were
seldom used in England, and those to be found in some of the great
London houses (as in Carlton House, Chesterfield House and Norfolk
House) were probably due to the French influence which made itself
felt in English domestic architecture during the eighteenth century.
This influence, however, was never more than sporadic; and until the
decline of decorative art at the close of the eighteenth century,
Italian rather than French taste gave the note to English decoration.
The interrelation of vestibule, hall and staircase having been
explained, the subject of decorative detail must next be considered;
but before turning to this, it should be mentioned that hereafter the
space at the foot of the stairs, though properly a part of the
staircase, will for the sake of convenience be called _the hall_,
since in the present day it goes by that name in England and America.
In contrasting the vestibule with the hall, it was pointed out that
the latter might be treated in a gayer and more informal manner than
the former. It must be remembered, however, that as the vestibule is
the introduction to the hall, so the hall is the introduction to the
living-rooms of the house; and it follows that the hall must be as
much more formal than the living-rooms as the vestibule is more formal
than the hall. It is necessary to emphasize this because the tendency
of recent English and American decoration has been to treat the hall,
not as a hall, but as a living-room. Whatever superficial attractions
this treatment may possess, its inappropriateness will be seen when
the purpose of the hall is considered. The hall is a means of access
to all the rooms on each floor; on the ground floor it usually leads
to the chief living-rooms of the house as well as to the vestibule and
street; in addition to this, in modern houses even of some importance
it generally contains the principal stairs of the house, so that it is
the centre upon which every part of the house directly or indirectly
opens. This publicity is increased by the fact that the hall must be
crossed by the servant who opens the front door, and by any one
admitted to the house. It follows that the hall, in relation to the
rooms of the house, is like a public square in relation to the private
houses around it. For some reason this obvious fact has been ignored
by many recent decorators, who have chosen to treat halls like rooms
of the most informal character, with open fireplaces, easy-chairs for
lounging and reading, tables with lamps, books and magazines, and all
the appointments of a library. This disregard of the purpose of the
hall, like most mistakes in household decoration, has a very natural
origin. When, in the first reaction from the discomfort and formality
of sixty years ago, people began, especially in England, to study the
arrangement of the old Tudor and Elizabethan houses, many of these
were found to contain large panelled halls opening directly upon the
porch or the terrace. The mellow tones of the wood-work; the bold
treatment of the stairs, shut off as they were merely by a screen; the
heraldic imagery of the hooded stone chimney-piece and of the carved
or stuccoed ceiling, made these halls the chief feature of the house;
while the rooms opening from them were so often insufficient for the
requirements of modern existence, that the life of the inmates
necessarily centred in the hall. Visitors to such houses saw only the
picturesqueness of the arrangement--the huge logs glowing on the
hearth, the books and flowers on the old carved tables, the family
portraits on the walls; and, charmed with the impression received,
they ordered their architects to reproduce for them a hall which, even
in the original Tudor houses, was a survival of older social
conditions.
One might think that the recent return to classic forms of
architecture would have done away with the Tudor hall; but, except in
a few instances, this has not been the case. In fact, in the greater
number of large houses, and especially of country houses, built in
America since the revival of Renaissance and Palladian architecture, a
large many-storied hall communicating directly with the vestibule, and
containing the principal stairs of the house, has been the distinctive
feature. If there were any practical advantages in this overgrown
hall, it might be regarded as one of those rational modifications in
plan which mark the difference between an unreasoning imitation of a
past style and the intelligent application of its principles; but the
Tudor hall, in its composite character as vestibule, parlor and
dining-room, is only another instance of the sacrifice of convenience
to archaism.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXII._
STAIRCASE IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
The abnormal development of the modern staircase-hall cannot be
defended on the plea sometimes advanced that it is a roofed-in
adaptation of the great open _cortile_ of the Genoese palace, since
there is no reason for adapting a plan so useless and so unsuited to
our climate and way of living. The beautiful central _cortile_ of the
Italian palace, with its monumental open stairs, was in no sense part
of a "private house" in our interpretation of the term. It was rather
a thoroughfare like a public street, since the various stories of the
Italian palace were used as separate houses by different branches of
the family.
In most modern houses the hall, in spite of its studied resemblance to
a living-room, soon reverts to its original use as a passageway; and
this fact should indicate the treatment best suited to it. In rooms
where people sit, and where they are consequently at leisure to look
about them, delicacy of treatment and refinement of detail are
suitable; but in an anteroom or a staircase only the first impression
counts, and forcible simple lines, with a vigorous massing of light
and shade, are essential. These conditions point to the use of severe
strongly-marked panelling, niches for vases or statues, and a
stair-rail detaching itself from the background in vigorous decisive
lines.[32]
The furniture of the hall should consist of benches or straight-backed
chairs, and marble-topped tables and consoles. If a press is used, it
should be architectural in design, like the old French and Italian
_armoires_ painted with arabesques and architectural motives, or the
English seventeenth-century presses made of some warm-toned wood like
walnut and surmounted by a broken pediment with a vase or bust in the
centre (see Plate XXXIII).
The walls of the staircase in large houses should be of panelled stone
or marble, as in the examples given in the plates accompanying this
chapter.
In small houses, where an expensive decoration is out of the question,
a somewhat similar architectural effect may be obtained by the use of
a few plain mouldings fixed to the plaster, the whole being painted in
one uniform tint, or in two contrasting colors, such as white for the
mouldings, and buff, gray, or pale green for the wall. To this scheme
may be added plaster medallions, as suggested for the vestibule, or
garlands and other architectural motives made of staff, in imitation
of the stucco ornaments of the old French and Italian decorators. When
such ornaments are used, they should invariably be simple and strong
in design. The modern decorator is too often tempted by mere
prettiness of detail to forget the general effect of his composition.
In a staircase, where only the general effect is seized, prettiness
does not count, and the effect produced should be strong, clear and
telling.
For the same reason, a stair-carpet, if used, should be of one color,
without pattern. Masses of plain color are one of the chief means of
producing effect in any scheme of decoration.
When the floor of the hall is of marble or mosaic,--as, if possible,
it should be,--the design, like that of the walls, should be clear and
decided in outline (see Plate XXX). On the other hand, if the hall is
used as an antechamber and carpeted, the carpet should be of one
color, matching that on the stairs.
In many large houses the stairs are now built of stone or marble, while
the floor of the landings is laid in wood, apparently owing to the
idea that stone or marble floors are cold. In the tropically-heated
American house not even the most sensitive person could be chilled by
passing contact with a stone floor; but if it is thought to "look
cold," it is better to lay a rug or a strip of carpet on the landing
than to permit the proximity of two such different substances as wood
and stone.
Unless the stairs are of wood, that material should never be used for
the rail; nor should wooden stairs be put in a staircase of which the
walls are of stone, marble, or scagliola. If the stairs are of wood,
it is better to treat the walls with wood or plaster panelling. In
simple staircases the best wall-decoration is a wooden dado-moulding
nailed on the plaster, the dado thus formed being painted white, and
the wall above it in any uniform color. Continuous pattern, such as
that on paper or stuff hangings, is specially objectionable on the
walls of a staircase, since it disturbs the simplicity of composition
best fitted to this part of the house.
For the lighting of the hall there should be a lantern like that in
the vestibule, but more elaborate in design. This mode of lighting
harmonizes with the severe treatment of the walls and indicates at
once that the hall is not a living-room, but a thoroughfare.[33]
If lights be required on the stairs, they should take the form of
fire-gilt bronze sconces, as architectural as possible in design,
without any finikin prettiness of detail. (For good examples, see the
_appliques_ in Plates V and XXXIV). It is almost impossible to obtain
well-designed _appliques_ of this kind in America; but the increasing
interest shown in house-decoration will in time doubtless cause a
demand for a better type of gas and electric fixtures. Meantime,
unless imported sconces can be obtained, the plainest brass fixtures
should be chosen in preference to the more elaborate models now to be
found here.
Where the walls of a hall are hung with pictures, these should be few
in number, and decorative in composition and coloring. No subject
requiring thought and study is suitable in such a position. The
mythological or architectural compositions of the Italian and French
schools of the last two centuries, with their superficial graces of
color and design, are for this reason well suited to the walls of
halls and antechambers.
The same may be said of prints. These should not be used in a large
high-studded hall; but they look well in a small entranceway, if hung
on plain-tinted walls. Here again such architectural compositions as
Piranesi's, with their bold contrasts of light and shade, Marc
Antonio's classic designs, or some frieze-like procession, such as
Mantegna's "Triumph of Julius Caesar," are especially appropriate;
whereas the subtle detail of the German Little Masters, the symbolism
of Dürer's etchings and the graces of Marillier or Moreau le Jeune
would be wasted in a situation where there is small opportunity for
more than a passing glance.
In most American houses, the warming of hall and stairs is so amply
provided for that where there is a hall fireplace it is seldom used.
In country houses, where it is sometimes necessary to have special
means for heating the hall, the open fireplace is of more service; but
it is not really suited to such a situation. The hearth suggests an
idea of intimacy and repose that has no place in a thoroughfare like
the hall; and, aside from this question of fitness, there is a
practical objection to placing an open chimney-piece in a position
where it is exposed to continual draughts from the front door and from
the rooms giving upon the hall.
The best way of heating a hall is by means of a faience stove--not the
oblong block composed of shiny white or brown tiles seen in Swiss and
German _pensions_, but one of the fine old stoves of architectural
design still used on the Continent for heating the vestibule and
dining-room. In Europe, increased attention has of late been given to
the design and coloring of these stoves; and if better known here,
they would form an important feature in the decoration of our halls.
Admirable models may be studied in many old French and German houses
and on the borders of Switzerland and Italy; while the museum at Parma
contains several fine examples of the rocaille period.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXIII._
FRENCH ARMOIRE, LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS, PARIS.]
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Burckhardt, in his _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_,
justly points out that the seeming inconsequence of mediæval
house-planning in northern Europe was probably due in part to the fact
that the feudal castle, for purposes of defence, was generally built
on an irregular site. See also Viollet-le-Duc.
[30] "Der gothische Profanbau in Italien ... steht im vollen Gegensatz
zum Norden durch die rationelle Anlage." Burckhardt, _Geschichte der
Renaissance in Italien_, p. 28.
[31] See the stairs of the Riccardi palace in Florence, of the
Piccolomini palace at Pienza and of the ducal palace at Urbino.
[32] For a fine example of a hall-niche containing a statue, see Plate
XXX.
[33] In large halls the tall _torchère_ of marble or bronze may be
used for additional lights (see Plate XXXII).
X
THE DRAWING-ROOM, BOUDOIR, AND MORNING-ROOM
The "with-drawing-room" of mediæval England, to which the lady and her
maidens retired from the boisterous festivities of the hall, seems at
first to have been merely a part of the bedchamber in which the lord
and lady slept. In time it came to be screened off from the
sleeping-room; then, in the king's palaces, it became a separate room
for the use of the queen and her damsels; and so, in due course,
reached the nobleman's castle, and established itself as a permanent
part of English house-planning.
In France the evolution of the _salon_ seems to have proceeded on
somewhat different lines. During the middle ages and the early
Renaissance period, the more public part of the nobleman's life was
enacted in the hall, or _grand'salle_, while the social and domestic
side of existence was transferred to the bedroom. This was soon
divided into two rooms, as in England. In France, however, both these
rooms contained beds; the inner being the real sleeping-chamber, while
in the outer room, which was used not only for administering justice
and receiving visits of state, but for informal entertainments and the
social side of family life, the bedstead represented the lord's _lit
de parade_, traditionally associated with state ceremonial and feudal
privileges.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXIV._
SALA DELLA MADDALENA, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA.
XVIII CENTURY.
(ITALIAN DRAWING-ROOM IN ROCAILLE STYLE.)]
The custom of having a state bedroom in which no one slept (_chambre
de parade_, as it was called) was so firmly established that even in
the engravings of Abraham Bosse, representing French life in the reign
of Louis XIII, the fashionable apartments in which card-parties,
suppers, and other entertainments are taking place, invariably contain
a bed.
In large establishments the _chambre de parade_ was never used as a
sleeping-chamber except by visitors of distinction; but in small
houses the lady slept in the room which served as her boudoir and
drawing-room. The Renaissance, it is true, had introduced from Italy
the _cabinet_ opening off the lady's chamber, as in the palaces of
Urbino and Mantua; but these rooms were at first seen only in kings'
palaces, and were, moreover, too small to serve any social purpose.
The _cabinet_ of Catherine de' Medici at Blois is a characteristic
example.
Meanwhile, the gallery had relieved the _grand'salle_ of some of its
numerous uses; and these two apartments seem to have satisfied all the
requirements of society during the Renaissance in France.
In the seventeenth century the introduction of the two-storied Italian
saloon produced a state apartment called a _salon_; and this, towards
the beginning of the eighteenth century, was divided into two smaller
rooms: one, the _salon de compagnie_, remaining a part of the gala
suite used exclusively for entertaining (see Plate XXXIV), while the
other--the _salon de famille_--became a family apartment like the
English drawing-room.
The distinction between the _salon de compagnie_ and the _salon de
famille_ had by this time also established itself in England, where
the state drawing-room retained its Italian name of _salone_, or
saloon, while the living-apartment preserved, in abbreviated form, the
mediæval designation of the lady's with-drawing-room.
Pains have been taken to trace as clearly as possible the mixed
ancestry of the modern drawing-room, in order to show that it is the
result of two distinct influences--that of the gala apartment and that
of the family sitting-room. This twofold origin has curiously affected
the development of the drawing-room. In houses of average size, where
there are but two living-rooms--the master's library, or "den," and
the lady's drawing-room,--it is obvious that the latter ought to be
used as a _salon de famille_, or meeting-place for the whole family;
and it is usually regarded as such in England, where common sense
generally prevails in matters of material comfort and convenience, and
where the drawing-room is often furnished with a simplicity which
would astonish those who associate the name with white-and-gold walls
and uncomfortable furniture.
In modern American houses both traditional influences are seen.
Sometimes, as in England, the drawing-room is treated as a family
apartment, and provided with books, lamps, easy-chairs and
writing-tables. In other houses it is still considered sacred to
gilding and discomfort, the best room in the house, and the
convenience of all its inmates, being sacrificed to a vague feeling
that no drawing-room is worthy of the name unless it is uninhabitable.
This is an instance of the _salon de compagnie_ having usurped the
rightful place of the _salon de famille_; or rather, if the bourgeois
descent of the American house be considered, it may be more truly
defined as a remnant of the "best parlor" superstition.
Whatever the genealogy of the American drawing-room, it must be owned
that it too often fails to fulfil its purpose as a family apartment.
It is curious to note the amount of thought and money frequently spent
on the one room in the house used by no one, or occupied at most for
an hour after a "company" dinner.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXV._
CONSOLE IN THE PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES.
LATE LOUIS XV STYLE.
BUST OF LOUIS XVI, BY PAJOU.]
To this drawing-room, from which the inmates of the house
instinctively flee as soon as their social duties are discharged, many
necessities are often sacrificed. The library, or den, where the
members of the family sit, may be furnished with shabby odds and ends;
but the drawing-room must have its gilt chairs covered with brocade,
its _vitrines_ full of modern Saxe, its guipure curtains and velvet
carpet.
The _salon de compagnie_ is out of place in the average house. Such a
room is needed only where the dinners or other entertainments given
are so large as to make it impossible to use the ordinary living-rooms
of the house. In the grandest houses of Europe the gala-rooms are
never thrown open except for general entertainments, or to receive
guests of exalted rank, and the spectacle of a dozen people
languishing after dinner in the gilded wilderness of a state saloon is
practically unknown.
The purpose for which the _salon de compagnie_ is used necessitates
its being furnished in the same formal manner as other gala
apartments. Circulation must not be impeded by a multiplicity of small
pieces of furniture holding lamps or other fragile objects, while at
least half of the chairs should be so light and easily moved that
groups may be formed and broken up at will. The walls should be
brilliantly decorated, without needless elaboration of detail, since
it is unlikely that the temporary occupants of such a room will have
time or inclination to study its treatment closely. The chief
requisite is a gay first impression. To produce this, the
wall-decoration should be light in color, and the furniture should
consist of a few strongly marked pieces, such as handsome cabinets and
consoles, bronze or marble statues, and vases and candelabra of
imposing proportions. Almost all modern furniture is too weak in
design and too finikin in detail to look well in a gala
drawing-room.[34] (For examples of drawing-room furniture, see Plates
VI, IX, XXXIV, and XXXV.)
Beautiful pictures or rare prints produce little effect on the walls
of a gala room, just as an accumulation of small objects of art, such
as enamels, ivories and miniatures, are wasted upon its tables and
cabinets. Such treasures are for rooms in which people spend their
days, not for those in which they assemble for an hour's
entertainment.
But the _salon de compagnie_, being merely a modified form of the
great Italian saloon, is a part of the gala suite, and any detailed
discussion of the decorative treatment most suitable to it would
result in a repetition of what is said in the chapter on Gala Rooms.
The lighting of the company drawing-room--to borrow its French
designation--should be evenly diffused, without the separate centres
of illumination needful in a family living-room. The proper light is
that of wax candles. Nothing has done more to vulgarize interior
decoration than the general use of gas and of electricity in the
living-rooms of modern houses. Electric light especially, with its
harsh white glare, which no expedients have as yet overcome, has taken
from our drawing-rooms all air of privacy and distinction. In
passageways and offices, electricity is of great service; but were it
not that all "modern improvements" are thought equally applicable to
every condition of life, it would be difficult to account for the
adoption of a mode of lighting which makes the _salon_ look like a
railway-station, the dining-room like a restaurant. That such light is
not needful in a drawing-room is shown by the fact that electric bulbs
are usually covered by shades of some deep color, in order that the
glare may be made as inoffensive as possible.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXVI._
SALON, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU.]
The light in a gala apartment should be neither vivid nor
concentrated: the soft, evenly diffused brightness of wax candles is
best fitted to bring out those subtle modellings of light and shade to
which old furniture and objects of art owe half their expressiveness.
The treatment of the _salon de compagnie_ naturally differs from that
of the family drawing-room: the latter is essentially a room in which
people should be made comfortable. There must be a well-appointed
writing-table; the chairs must be conveniently grouped about various
tables, each with its lamp;--in short, the furniture should be so
disposed that people are not forced to take refuge in their bedrooms
for lack of fitting arrangements in the drawing-room.
The old French cabinet-makers excelled in the designing and making of
furniture for the _salon de famille_. The term "French furniture"
suggests to the Anglo-Saxon mind the stiff appointments of the gala
room--heavy gilt consoles, straight-backed arm-chairs covered with
tapestry, and monumental marble-topped tables. Admirable furniture of
this kind was made in France; but in the grand style the Italian
cabinet-makers competed successfully with the French; whereas the
latter stood alone in the production of the simpler and more
comfortable furniture adapted to the family living-room. Among those
who have not studied the subject there is a general impression that
eighteenth-century furniture, however beautiful in design and
execution, was not comfortable in the modern sense. This is owing to
the fact that the popular idea of "old furniture" is based on the
appointments of gala rooms in palaces: visitors to Versailles or
Fontainebleau are more likely to notice the massive gilt consoles and
benches in the state saloons than the simple easy-chairs and
work-tables of the _petits appartements_. A visit to the Garde Meuble
or to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, or the inspection of any
collection of French eighteenth-century furniture, will show the
versatility and common sense of the old French cabinet-makers. They
produced an infinite variety of small _meubles_, in which beauty of
design and workmanship were joined to simplicity and convenience.
The old arm-chair, or _bergère_, is a good example of this
combination. The modern upholsterer pads and puffs his seats as though
they were to form the furniture of a lunatic's cell; and then, having
expanded them to such dimensions that they cannot be moved without
effort, perches their dropsical bodies on four little casters. Any one
who compares such an arm-chair to the eighteenth-century _bergère_,
with its strong tapering legs, its snugly-fitting back and cushioned
seat, must admit that the latter is more convenient and more beautiful
(see Plates VIII and XXXVII).
The same may be said of the old French tables--from desks, card and
work-tables, to the small _guéridon_ just large enough to hold a book
and candlestick. All these tables were simple and practical in design:
even in the Louis XV period, when more variety of outline and ornament
was permitted, the strong structural lines were carefully maintained,
and it is unusual to see an old table that does not stand firmly on
its legs and appear capable of supporting as much weight as its size
will permit (see Louis XV writing-table in Plate XLVI).
The French tables, cabinets and commodes used in the family apartments
were usually of inlaid wood, with little ornamentation save the design
of the marquetry--elaborate mounts of chiselled bronze being
reserved for the furniture of gala rooms (see Plate X). Old French
marquetry was exquisitely delicate in color and design, while Italian
inlaying of the same period, though coarser, was admirable in
composition. Old Italian furniture of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries was always either inlaid or carved and painted in gay
colors: chiselled mounts are virtually unknown in Italy.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXVII._
ROOM IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU.
LOUIS XV PANELLING, LOUIS XVI FURNITURE.]
The furniture of the eighteenth century in England, while not
comparable in design to the best French models, was well made and
dignified; and its angularity of outline is not out of place against
the somewhat cold and formal background of an Adam room.
English marquetry suffered from the poverty of ornament marking the
wall-decoration of the period. There was a certain timidity about the
decorative compositions of the school of Adam and Sheraton, and in
their scanty repertoire the laurel-wreath, the velarium and the
cornucopia reappear with tiresome frequency.
The use to which the family drawing-room is put should indicate the
character of its decoration. Since it is a room in which many hours of
the day are spent, and in which people are at leisure, it should
contain what is best worth looking at in the way of pictures, prints,
and other objects of art; while there should be nothing about its
decoration so striking or eccentric as to become tiresome when
continually seen. A fanciful style may be pleasing in apartments used
only for stated purposes, such as the saloon or gallery; but in a
living-room, decoration should be subordinate to the individual,
forming merely a harmonious but unobtrusive background (see Plates
XXXVI and XXXVII). Such a setting also brings out the full decorative
value of all the drawing-room accessories--screens, andirons,
_appliques_, and door and window-fastenings. A study of any old
French interior will show how much these details contributed to the
general effect of the room.
Those who really care for books are seldom content to restrict them to
the library, for nothing adds more to the charm of a drawing-room than
a well-designed bookcase: an expanse of beautiful bindings is as
decorative as a fine tapestry.
The boudoir is, properly speaking, a part of the bedroom suite, and as
such is described in the chapter on the Bedroom. Sometimes, however, a
small sitting-room adjoins the family drawing-room, and this, if given
up to the mistress of the house, is virtually the boudoir.
The modern boudoir is a very different apartment from its
eighteenth-century prototype. Though it may preserve the delicate
decorations and furniture suggested by its name, such a room is now
generally used for the prosaic purpose of interviewing servants, going
over accounts and similar occupations. The appointments should
therefore comprise a writing-desk, with pigeon-holes, drawers, and
cupboards, and a comfortable lounge, or _lit de repos_, for resting
and reading.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXVIII._
LIT DE REPOS, EARLY LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
The _lit de repos_, which, except in France, has been replaced by the
clumsy upholstered lounge, was one of the most useful pieces of
eighteenth-century furniture (see Plate XXXVIII). As its name implies,
it is shaped somewhat like a bed, or rather like a cradle that stands
on four legs instead of swinging. It is made of carved wood, sometimes
upholstered, but often seated with cane (see Plate XXXIX). In the
latter case it is fitted with a mattress and with a pillow-like
cushion covered with some material in keeping with the hangings of the
room. Sometimes the _duchesse_, or upholstered _bergère_ with
removable foot-rest in the shape of a square bench, is preferred
to the _lit de repos_; but the latter is the more elegant and
graceful, and it is strange that it should have been discarded in
favor of the modern lounge, which is not only ugly, but far less
comfortable.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXIX._
LIT DE REPOS, LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
As the boudoir is generally a small room, it is peculiarly suited to
the more delicate styles of painting or stucco ornamentation described
in the third chapter. A study of boudoir-decoration in the last
century, especially in France, will show the admirable sense of
proportion regulating the treatment of these little rooms (see Plate
XL). Their adornment was naturally studied with special care by the
painters and decorators of an age in which women played so important a
part.
It is sometimes thought that the eighteenth-century boudoir was always
decorated and furnished in a very elaborate manner. This idea
originates in the fact, already pointed out, that the rooms usually
seen by tourists are those in royal palaces, or in such princely
houses as are thrown open to the public on account of their
exceptional magnificence. The same type of boudoir is continually
reproduced in books on architecture and decoration; and what is really
a small private sitting-room for the lady of the house, corresponding
with her husband's "den," has thus come to be regarded as one of the
luxuries of a great establishment.
The prints of Eisen, Marillier, Moreau le Jeune, and other
book-illustrators of the eighteenth century, show that the boudoir in
the average private house was, in fact, a simple room, gay and
graceful in decoration, but as a rule neither rich nor elaborate (see
Plate XLI). As it usually adjoined the bedroom, it was decorated in
the same manner, and even when its appointments were expensive all
appearance of costliness was avoided.[35]
The boudoir is the room in which small objects of art--prints,
mezzotints and _gouaches_--show to the best advantage. No detail is
wasted, and all manner of delicate effects in wood-carving, marquetry,
and other ornamentation, such as would be lost upon the walls and
furniture of a larger room, here acquire their full value. One or two
well-chosen prints hung on a background of plain color will give more
pleasure than a medley of photographs, colored photogravures, and
other decorations of the cotillon-favor type. Not only do mediocre
ornaments become tiresome when seen day after day, but the mere
crowding of furniture and gimcracks into a small room intended for
work and repose will soon be found fatiguing.
Many English houses, especially in the country, contain a useful room
called the "morning-room," which is well defined by Robert Kerr, in _The
English Gentleman's House_, as "the drawing-room in ordinary." It is,
in fact, a kind of undress drawing-room, where the family may gather
informally at all hours of the day. The out-of-door life led in England
makes it specially necessary to provide a sitting-room which people
are not afraid to enter in muddy boots and wet clothes. Even if the
drawing-room be not, as Mr. Kerr quaintly puts it, "preserved"--that
is, used exclusively for company--it is still likely to contain the
best furniture in the house; and though that "best" is not too fine
for every-day use, yet in a large family an informal, wet-weather room
of this kind is almost indispensable.
[Illustration: _PLATE XL._
PAINTED WALL-PANEL AND DOOR, CHÂTEAU OF
CHANTILLY. LOUIS XV.
(EXAMPLE OF CHINOISERIE DECORATION.)]
No matter how elaborately the rest of the house is furnished, the
appointments of the morning-room should be plain, comfortable, and
capable of resisting hard usage. It is a good plan to cover the floor
with a straw matting, and common sense at once suggests the furniture
best suited to such a room: two or three good-sized tables with
lamps, a comfortable sofa, and chairs covered with chintz, leather, or
one of the bright-colored horsehairs now manufactured in France.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLI._
Sa triste amante abandonnee
Pleure ses maux et ses plaisirs.
FRENCH BOUDOIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.
(FROM A PRINT BY LE BOUTEUX.)]
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Much of the old furniture which appears to us unnecessarily stiff
and monumental was expressly designed to be placed against the walls
in rooms used for general entertainments, where smaller and more
delicately made pieces would have been easily damaged, and would,
moreover, have produced no effect.
[35] The ornate boudoir seen in many XVIIIth-century prints is that of
the _femme galante_.
XI
GALA ROOMS: BALL-ROOM, SALOON, MUSIC-ROOM, GALLERY
European architects have always considered it essential that those rooms
which are used exclusively for entertaining--gala rooms, as they are
called--should be quite separate from the family apartments,--either
occupying an entire floor (the Italian _piano nobile_) or being so
situated that it is not necessary to open them except for general
entertainments.
In many large houses lately built in America, with ball and music
rooms and a hall simulating the two-storied Italian saloon, this
distinction has been disregarded, and living and gala rooms have been
confounded in an agglomeration of apartments where the family, for
lack of a smaller suite, sit under gilded ceilings and cut-glass
chandeliers, in about as much comfort and privacy as are afforded by
the public "parlors" of one of our new twenty-story hotels. This
confusion of two essentially different types of room, designed for
essentially different phases of life, has been caused by the fact that
the architect, when called upon to build a grand house, has simply
enlarged, instead of altering, the _maison bourgeoise_ that has
hitherto been the accepted model of the American gentleman's house;
for it must not be forgotten that the modern American dwelling
descends from the English middle-class house, not from the
aristocratic country-seat or town residence. The English nobleman's
town house was like the French _hôtel_, with gates, porter's lodge,
and court-yard surrounded by stables and offices; and the planning of
the country-seat was even more elaborate.
A glance at any collection of old English house-plans, such as
Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_, will show the purely middle-class
ancestry of the American house, and the consequent futility of
attempting, by the mere enlargement of each room, to turn it into a
gentleman's seat or town residence. The kind of life which makes gala
rooms necessary exacts a different method of planning; and until this
is more generally understood the treatment of such rooms in American
houses will never be altogether satisfactory.
Gala rooms are meant for general entertainments, never for any
assemblage small or informal enough to be conveniently accommodated in
the ordinary living-rooms of the house; therefore to fulfil their
purpose they must be large, very high-studded, and not overcrowded
with furniture, while the walls and ceiling--the only parts of a
crowded room that can be seen--must be decorated with greater
elaboration than would be pleasing or appropriate in other rooms. All
these conditions unfit the gala room for any use save that for which
it is designed. Nothing can be more cheerless than the state of a
handful of people sitting after dinner in an immense ball-room with
gilded ceiling, bare floors, and a few pieces of monumental furniture
ranged round the walls; yet in any house which is simply an
enlargement of the ordinary private dwelling the hostess is often
compelled to use the ball-room or saloon as a drawing-room.
A gala room is never meant to be seen except when crowded: the crowd
takes the place of furniture. Occupied by a small number of people,
such a room looks out of proportion, stiff and empty. The hostess
feels this, and tries, by setting chairs and tables askew, and
introducing palms, screens and knick-knacks, to produce an effect of
informality. As a result the room dwarfs the furniture, loses the air
of state, and gains little in real comfort; while it becomes
necessary, when a party is given, to remove the furniture and
disarrange the house, thus undoing the chief _raison d'être_ of such
apartments.
The Italians, inheriting the grandiose traditions of the Augustan age,
have always excelled in the treatment of rooms demanding the "grand
manner." Their unfailing sense that house-decoration is interior
architecture, and must clearly proclaim its architectural
affiliations, has been of special service in this respect. It is rare
in Italy to see a large room inadequately treated. Sometimes the
"grand manner"--the mimic _terribilità_--may be carried too far to
suit Anglo-Saxon taste--it is hard to say for what form of
entertainment such a room as Giulio Romano's Sala dei Giganti in the
Palazzo del T would form a pleasing or appropriate background--but
apart from such occasional aberrations, the Italian decorators showed
a wonderful sense of fitness in the treatment of state apartments. To
small dribbles of ornament they preferred bold forcible mouldings,
coarse but clear-cut free-hand ornamentation in stucco, and either a
classic severity of treatment or the turbulent bravura style of the
saloon of the Villa Rotonda and of Tiepolo's Cleopatra frescoes in the
Palazzo Labia at Venice.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLII._
SALON À L'ITALIENNE.
(FROM A PICTURE BY COYPEL.)]
The saloon and gallery are the two gala rooms borrowed from Italy by
northern Europe. The saloon has already been described in the chapter
on Hall and Stairs. It was a two-storied apartment, usually with
clerestory, domed ceiling, and a gallery to which access was obtained
by concealed staircases (see Plates XLII and XLIII). This gallery
was often treated as an arcade or loggia, and in many old Italian
prints and pictures there are representations of these saloons, with
groups of gaily dressed people looking down from the gallery upon the
throngs crowding the floor. The saloon was used in Italy as a
ball-room or gambling-room--gaming being the chief social amusement of
the eighteenth century.
In England and France the saloon was rarely two stories high, though
there are some exceptions, as for example the saloon at
Vaux-le-Vicomte. The cooler climate rendered a clerestory less
necessary, and there was never the same passion for grandiose effects
as in Italy. The saloon in northern Europe was always a stately and
high-studded room, generally vaulted or domed, and often circular in
plan; but it seldom reached such imposing dimensions as its Italian
prototype, and when more than one story high was known by the
distinctive designation of _un salon à l'italienne_.
The gallery was probably the first feature in domestic house-planning
to be borrowed from Italy by northern Europe. It is seen in almost all
the early Renaissance châteaux of France; and as soon as the influence
of such men as John of Padua and John Shute asserted itself in
England, the gallery became one of the principal apartments of the
Elizabethan mansion. There are several reasons for the popularity of
the gallery. In the cold rainy autumns and winters north of the Alps
it was invaluable as a sheltered place for exercise and games; it was
well adapted to display the pictures, statuary and bric-à-brac which,
in emulation of Italian collectors, the Northern nobles were beginning
to acquire; and it showed off to advantage the long line of ancestral
portraits and the tapestries representing a succession of episodes
from the _Æneid_, the _Orlando Innamorato_, or some of the
interminable epics that formed the light reading of the sixteenth
century. Then, too, the gallery served for the processions which were
a part of the social ceremonial in great houses: the march to the
chapel or banquet-hall, the escorting of a royal guest to the state
bedroom, and other like pageants.
In France and England the gallery seems for a long time to have been
used as a saloon and ball-room, whereas in Italy it was, as a rule,
reserved for the display of the art-treasures of the house, no Italian
palace worthy of the name being without its gallery of antiquities or
of marbles.
In modern houses the ball-room and music-room are the two principal
gala apartments. A music-room need not be a gala room in the sense of
being used only for large entertainments; but since it is outside the
circle of every-day use, and more or less associated with
entertaining, it seems best to include it in this chapter.
Many houses of average size have a room large enough for informal
entertainments. Such a room, especially in country houses, should be
decorated in a gay simple manner in harmony with the rest of the house
and with the uses to which the room is to be put. Rooms of this kind
may be treated with a white dado, surmounted by walls painted in a
pale tint, with boldly modelled garlands and attributes in stucco,
also painted white (see Plate XIII). If these stucco decorations are
used to frame a series of pictures, such as fruit and flower-pieces or
decorative subjects, the effect is especially attractive. Large
painted panels with eighteenth-century _genre_ subjects or pastoral
scenes, set in simple white panelling, are also very decorative. A
coved ceiling is best suited to rooms of this comparatively simple
character, while in state ball-rooms the dome increases the general
appearance of splendor.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLIII._
BALL-ROOM, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA. LATE XVIII CENTURY.
(EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)]
A panelling of mirrors forms a brilliant ball-room decoration, and
charming effects are produced by painting these mirrors with birds,
butterflies, and garlands of flowers, in the manner of the famous
Italian mirror-painter, Mario dei Fiori--"Mario of the Flowers"--as he
was called in recognition of his special gift. There is a beautiful
room by this artist in the Borghese Palace in Rome, and many Italian
palaces contain examples of this peculiarly brilliant style of
decoration, which might be revived to advantage by modern painters.
In ball-rooms of great size and importance, where the walls demand a
more architectural treatment, the use of an order naturally suggests
itself. Pilasters of marble, separated by marble niches containing
statues, form a severe but splendid decoration; and if white and
colored marbles are combined, and the whole is surmounted by a domed
ceiling frescoed in bright colors, the effect is extremely brilliant.
In Italy the architectural decoration of large rooms was often
entirely painted (see Plate XLIV), the plaster walls being covered
with a fanciful piling-up of statues, porticoes and balustrades, while
figures in Oriental costume, or in the masks and parti-colored dress
of the _Comédie Italienne_, leaned from simulated loggias or wandered
through marble colonnades.
The Italian decorator held any audacity permissible in a room used
only by a throng of people, whose mood and dress made them ready to
accept the fairy-tales on the walls as a fitting background to their
own masquerading. Modern travellers, walking through these old Italian
saloons in the harsh light of day, while cobwebs hang from the
audacious architecture, and the cracks in the plaster look like wounds
in the cheeks of simpering nymphs and shepherdesses, should remember
that such apartments were meant to be seen by the soft light of wax
candles in crystal chandeliers, with fantastically dressed dancers
thronging the marble floor.
Such a ball-room, if reproduced in the present day, would be far more
effective than the conventional white-and-gold room, which, though
unobjectionable when well decorated, lacks the imaginative charm, the
personal note, given by the painter's touch.
Under Louis XIV many French apartments of state were panelled with
colored marbles, with an application of attributes or trophies, and
other ornamental motives in fire-gilt bronze: a sumptuous mode of
treatment according well with a domed and frescoed ceiling. Tapestry
was also much used, and forms an admirable decoration, provided the
color-scheme is light and the design animated. Seventeenth and
eighteenth-century tapestries are the most suitable, as the scale of
color is brighter and the compositions are gayer than in the earlier
hangings.
Modern dancers prefer a polished wooden floor, and it is perhaps
smoother and more elastic than any other surface; but in beauty and
decorative value it cannot be compared with a floor of inlaid marble,
and as all the dancing in Italian palaces is still done on such
floors, the preference for wood is probably the result of habit. In a
ball-room of any importance, especially where marble is used on the
walls, the floor should always be of the same substance (see floors in
Plates XXIX, XXX, and LV).
[Illustration: _PLATE XLIV._
SALOON IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI. XVI CENTURY.
(EXAMPLE OF FRESCOED WALLS AND CARVED WOODEN CEILING.)]
Gala apartments, as distinguished from living-rooms, should be lit
from the ceiling, never from the walls. No ball-room or saloon is
complete without its chandeliers: they are one of the characteristic
features of a gala room (see Plates V, XIX, XXXIV, XLIII, XLV, L). For
a ball-room, where all should be light and brilliant, rock-crystal
or cut-glass chandeliers are most suitable: reflected in a long line
of mirrors, they are an invaluable factor in any scheme of gala
decoration.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLV._
SALA DELLO ZODIACO, ROYAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVIII CENTURY.
(EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)]
The old French decorators relied upon the reflection of mirrors for
producing an effect of distance in the treatment of gala rooms. Above
the mantel, there was always a mirror with another of the same shape
and size directly opposite; and the glittering perspective thus
produced gave to the scene an air of fantastic unreality. The gala
suite being so planned that all the rooms adjoined each other, the
effect of distance was further enhanced by placing the openings in
line, so that on entering the suite it was possible to look down its
whole length. The importance of preserving this long vista, or
_enfilade_, as the French call it, is dwelt on by all old writers on
house-decoration. If a ball-room be properly lit and decorated, it is
never necessary to dress it up with any sort of temporary
ornamentation: the true mark of the well-decorated ball-room is to
look always ready for a ball.
The only chair seen in most modern ball-rooms is the folding camp-seat
hired by the hundred when entertainments are given; but there is no
reason why a ball-room should be even temporarily disfigured by these
makeshifts, which look their worst when an effort is made to conceal
their cheap construction under a little gilding and satin. In all old
ball-rooms, benches and _tabourets_ (small seats without backs) were
ranged in a continuous line along the walls. These seats, handsomely
designed, and covered with tapestry, velvet, or embroidered silk
slips, were a part of the permanent decoration of the room. On
ordinary occasions they would be sufficient for a modern ball-room;
and when larger entertainments made it needful to provide additional
seats, these might be copied from the seventeenth-century
_perroquets_, examples of which may be found in the various French
works on the history of furniture. These _perroquets_, or folding
chairs without arms, made of natural walnut or gilded, with seats of
tapestry, velvet or decorated leather, would form an excellent
substitute for the modern cotillon seat.
The first rule to be observed in the decoration of the music-room is
the avoidance of all stuff hangings, draperies, and substances likely
to deaden sound. The treatment chosen for the room must of course
depend on its size and its relation to the other rooms in the house.
While a music-room should be more subdued in color than a ball-room,
sombre tints and heavy ornament are obviously inappropriate: the
effect aimed at should be one of lightness and serenity in form and
color. However small and simple the music-room may be, it should
always appear as though there were space overhead for the notes to
escape; and some form of vaulting or doming is therefore more suitable
than a flat ceiling.
While plain panelling, if well designed, is never out of keeping, the
walls of a music-room are specially suited to a somewhat fanciful
style of decoration. In a ball-room, splendor and brilliancy of effect
are more needful than a studied delicacy; but where people are seated,
and everything in the room is consequently subjected to close and
prolonged scrutiny, sprightliness of composition should be combined
with variety of detail, the decoration being neither so confused and
intricate as to distract attention, nor so conventional as to be
dismissed with a glance on entering the room.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLVI._
FRENCH TABLE.
(TRANSITION BETWEEN LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV PERIODS.)]
The early Renaissance compositions in which stucco low-reliefs blossom
into painted arabesques and tendrils, are peculiarly adapted to a
small music-room; while those who prefer a more architectural
treatment may find admirable examples in some of the Italian
eighteenth-century rooms decorated with free-hand stucco ornament, or
in the sculptured wood-panelling of the same period in France. At
Remiremont in the Vosges, formerly the residence of a noble order of
canonesses, the abbess's _hôtel_ contains an octagonal music-room of
exceptional beauty, the panelled walls being carved with skilfully
combined musical instruments and flower-garlands.
In larger apartments a fanciful style of fresco-painting might be
employed, as in the rooms painted by Tiepolo in the Villa Valmarana,
near Vicenza, or in the staircase of the Palazzo Sina, at Venice,
decorated by Longhi with the episodes of an eighteenth-century
carnival. Whatever the design chosen, it should never resemble the
formal treatment suited to ball-room and saloon: the decoration should
sound a note distinctly suggestive of the purpose for which the
music-room is used.
It is difficult to understand why modern music-rooms have so long been
disfigured by the clumsy lines of grand and upright pianos, since the
cases of both might be modified without affecting the construction of
the instrument. Of the two, the grand piano would be the easier to
remodel: if its elephantine supports were replaced by slender fluted
legs, and its case and sounding-board were painted, or inlaid with
marquetry, it would resemble the charming old clavecin which preceded
the pianoforte.
Fewer changes are possible in the "upright"; but a marked improvement
could be produced by straightening its legs and substituting right
angles for the weak curves of the lid. The case itself might be made
of plainly panelled mahogany, with a few good ormolu ornaments; or of
inlaid wood, with a design of musical instruments and similar
"attributes"; or it might be decorated with flower-garlands and
arabesques painted either on the natural wood or on a gilt or colored
background.
Designers should also study the lines of those two long-neglected
pieces of furniture, the music-stool and music-stand. The latter
should be designed to match the piano, and painted or inlaid like its
case. The revolving mushroom that now serves as a music-stool is a
modern invention: the old stools were substantial circular seats
resting on four fluted legs. The manuals of the eighteenth-century
cabinet-makers contain countless models of these piano-seats, which
might well be reproduced by modern designers: there seems no practical
reason why the accessories of the piano should be less decorative than
those of the harpsichord.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLVII._
LIBRARY OF LOUIS XVI, PALACE OF VERSAILLES.
(LOUIS XV WRITING-TABLE WITH BUST.)]
XII
THE LIBRARY, SMOKING-ROOM, AND "DEN"
In the days when furniture was defined as "that which may be carried
about," the natural bookcase was a chest with a strong lock. These
chests, packed with precious manuscripts, followed the prince or noble
from one castle to another, and were even carried after him into camp.
Before the invention of printing, when twenty or thirty books formed
an exceptionally large library, and many great personages were content
with the possession of one volume, such ambulant bookcases were
sufficient for the requirements of the most eager bibliophile.
Occasionally the volumes were kept in a small press or cupboard, and
placed in a chest only when their owner travelled; but the bookcase,
as now known, did not take shape until much later, for when books
multiplied with the introduction of printing, it became customary to
fit up for their reception little rooms called _cabinets_. In the
famous _cabinet_ of Catherine de Medici at Blois the walls are lined
with book-shelves concealed behind sliding panels--a contrivance
rendered doubly necessary by the general insecurity of property, and
by the fact that the books of that period, whether in manuscript or
printed, were made sumptuous as church jewelry by the art of painter
and goldsmith.
Long after the establishment of the printing-press, books, except in
the hands of the scholar, continued to be a kind of curiosity, like
other objects of art: less an intellectual need than a treasure upon
which rich men prided themselves. It was not until the middle of the
seventeenth century that the taste for books became a taste for
reading. France led the way in this new fashion, which was assiduously
cultivated in those Parisian _salons_ of which Madame de Rambouillet's
is the recognized type. The possession of a library, hitherto the
privilege of kings, of wealthy monasteries, or of some distinguished
patron of letters like Grolier, Maioli, or de Thou, now came to be
regarded as a necessity of every gentleman's establishment. Beautiful
bindings were still highly valued, and some of the most wonderful work
produced in France belongs to the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; but as people began to buy books for the sake of what they
contained, less exaggerated importance was attached to their exterior,
so that bindings, though perfect as taste and skill could make them,
were seldom as extravagantly enriched as in the two preceding
centuries. Up to a certain point this change was not to be regretted:
the mediæval book, with its gold or ivory bas-reliefs bordered with
precious stones, and its massive jewelled clasps, was more like a
monstrance or reliquary than anything meant for less ceremonious use.
It remained for the Italian printers and binders of the sixteenth
century, and for their French imitators, to adapt the form of the book
to its purpose, changing, as it were, a jewelled idol to a human
companion.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLVIII._
SMALL LIBRARY AT AUDLEY END, ENGLAND. XVIII CENTURY.]
The substitution of the octavo for the folio, and certain
modifications in binding which made it possible to stand books upright
instead of laying one above the other with edges outward, gradually
gave to the library a more modern aspect. In France, by the middle of
the seventeenth century, the library had come to be a recognized
feature in private houses. The Renaissance _cabinet_ continued to be
the common receptacle for books; but as the shelves were no longer
concealed, bindings now contributed to the decoration of the room.
Movable bookcases were not unknown, but these seem to have been merely
presses in which wooden door-panels were replaced by glass or by a
lattice-work of brass wire. The typical French bookcase _à deux
corps_--that is, made in two separate parts, the lower a cupboard to
contain prints and folios, the upper with shelves and glazed or
latticed doors--was introduced later, and is still the best model for
a movable bookcase. In rooms of any importance, however, the French
architect always preferred to build his book-shelves into niches
formed in the thickness of the wall, thus utilizing the books as part
of his scheme of decoration.
There is no doubt that this is not only the most practical, but the
most decorative, way of housing any collection of books large enough
to be so employed. To adorn the walls of a library, and then conceal
their ornamentation by expensive bookcases, is a waste, or rather a
misapplication, of effects--always a sin against æsthetic principles.
The importance of bookbindings as an element in house-decoration has
already been touched upon; but since a taste for good bindings has
come to be regarded as a collector's fad, like accumulating
snuff-boxes or _baisers-de-paix_, it seems needful to point out how
obvious and valuable a means of decoration is lost by disregarding the
outward appearance of books. To be decorative, a bookcase need not
contain the productions of the master-binders,--old volumes by Eve and
Derôme, or the work of Roger Payne and Sanderson,--unsurpassed as they
are in color-value. Ordinary bindings of half morocco or vellum form
an expanse of warm lustrous color; such bindings are comparatively
inexpensive; yet people will often hesitate to pay for a good edition
bound in plain levant half the amount they are ready to throw away
upon a piece of modern Saxe or a silver photograph-frame.
The question of binding leads incidentally to that of editions, though
the latter is hardly within the scope of this book. People who have
begun to notice the outside of their books naturally come to
appreciate paper and type; and thus learn that the modern book is too
often merely the cheapest possible vehicle for putting words into
print. The last few years have brought about some improvement; and it
is now not unusual for a publisher, in bringing out a book at the
ordinary rates, to produce also a small edition in large-paper copies.
These large-paper books, though as yet far from perfect in type and
make-up, are superior to the average "commercial article"; and, apart
from their artistic merit, are in themselves a good investment, since
the value of such editions increases steadily year by year. Those who
cannot afford both edition and binding will do better to buy
large-paper books or current first editions in boards, than
"handsomely bound" volumes unworthy in type and paper. The plain paper
or buckram covers of a good publisher are, in fact, more decorative,
because more artistic, than showy tree-calf or "antique morocco."
The same principle applies to the library itself: plain shelves filled
with good editions in good bindings are more truly decorative than
ornate bookcases lined with tawdry books.
It has already been pointed out that the plan of building book-shelves
into the walls is the most decorative and the most practical (see
Plate XLVIII). The best examples of this treatment are found in
France. The walls of the rooms thus decorated were usually of panelled
wood, either in natural oak or walnut, as in the beautiful library of
the old university at Nancy, or else painted in two contrasting
colors, such as gray and white. When not set in recesses, the shelves
formed a sort of continuous lining around the walls, as in the library
of Louis XVI in the palace at Versailles (see Plate XLVII), or in that
of the Duc de Choiseul at Chanteloup, now set up in one of the rooms
of the public library at Tours.
In either case, instead of being detached pieces of furniture, the
bookcases formed an organic part of the wall-decoration. Any study of
old French works on house-decoration and furniture will show how
seldom the detached bookcase was used in French libraries: but few
models are to be found, and these were probably designed for use in
the boudoir or study, rather than in the library proper (see bookcase
in Plate V).
In England, where private libraries were fewer and less extensive, the
movable bookcase was much used, and examples of built-in shelves are
proportionately rarer. The hand-books of the old English
cabinet-makers contain innumerable models of handsome bookcases, with
glazed doors set with diamond-shaped panes in wooden mouldings, and
the familiar broken pediment surmounted by a bust or an urn. It was
natural that where books were few, small bookcases should be preferred
to a room lined with shelves; and in the seventeenth century,
according to John Evelyn, the "three nations of Great Britain"
contained fewer books than Paris.
Almost all the old bookcases had one feature in common: that is, the
lower cupboard with solid doors. The bookcase proper rested upon this
projecting cupboard, thus raising the books above the level of the
furniture. The prevalent fashion of low book-shelves, starting from
the floor, and not extending much higher than the dado-moulding, has
probably been brought about by the other recent fashion of
low-studded rooms. Architects are beginning to rediscover the
forgotten fact that the stud of a room should be regulated by the
dimensions of its floor-space; so that in the newer houses the dwarf
bookcase is no longer a necessity. It is certainly less convenient
than the tall old-fashioned press; for not only must one kneel to
reach the lower shelves, but the books are hidden, and access to them
is obstructed, by their being on a level with the furniture.
The general decoration of the library should be of such character as
to form a background or setting to the books, rather than to distract
attention from them. The richly adorned room in which books are but a
minor incident is, in fact, no library at all. There is no reason why
the decorations of a library should not be splendid; but in that case
the books must be splendid too, and sufficient in number to dominate
all the accessory decorations of the room.
When there are books enough, it is best to use them as part of the
decorative treatment of the walls, panelling any intervening spaces in
a severe and dignified style; otherwise movable bookcases may be
placed against the more important wall-spaces, the walls being
decorated with wooden panelling or with mouldings and stucco
ornaments; but in this case composition and color-scheme must be so
subdued as to throw the bookcases and their contents into marked
relief. It does not follow that because books are the chief feature of
the library, other ornaments should be excluded; but they should be
used with discrimination, and so chosen as to harmonize with the
spirit of the room. Nowhere is the modern litter of knick-knacks and
photographs more inappropriate than in the library. The tables should
be large, substantial, and clear of everything but lamps, books and
papers--one table at least being given over to the filing of books
and newspapers. The library writing-table is seldom large enough, or
sufficiently free from odds and ends in the shape of photograph-frames,
silver boxes, and flower-vases, to give free play to the elbows. A
large solid table of the kind called _bureau-ministre_ (see the table
in Plate XLVII) is well adapted to the library; and in front of it
should stand a comfortable writing-chair such as that represented in
Plate XLIX.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLIX._
WRITING-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
The housing of a great private library is one of the most interesting
problems of interior architecture. Such a room, combining monumental
dimensions with the rich color-values and impressive effect produced
by tiers of fine bindings, affords unequalled opportunity for the
exercise of the architect's skill. The two-storied room with gallery
and stairs and domed or vaulted ceiling is the finest setting for a
great collection. Space may of course be gained by means of a series
of bookcases projecting into the room and forming deep bays along each
of the walls; but this arrangement is seldom necessary save in a
public library, and however skilfully handled must necessarily
diminish the architectural effect of the room. In America the great
private library is still so much a thing of the future that its
treatment need not be discussed in detail. Few of the large houses
lately built in the United States contain a library in the serious
meaning of the term; but it is to be hoped that the next generation of
architects will have wider opportunities in this direction.
The smoking-room proper, with its _mise en scène_ of Turkish divans,
narghilehs, brass coffee-trays, and other Oriental properties, is no
longer considered a necessity in the modern house; and the room which
would formerly have been used for this special purpose now comes
rather under the head of the master's lounging-room, or "den"--since
the latter word seems to have attained the dignity of a technical
term.
Whatever extravagances the upholsterer may have committed in other
parts of the house, it is usually conceded that common sense should
regulate the furnishing of the den. Fragile chairs, lace-petticoat
lamp-shades and irrelevant bric-à-brac are consequently excluded; and
the master's sense of comfort often expresses itself in a set of
"office" furniture--a roller-top desk, a revolving chair, and others
of the puffy type already described as the accepted model of a
luxurious seat. Thus freed from the superfluous, the den is likely to
be the most comfortable room in the house; and the natural inference
is that a room, in order to be comfortable, must be ugly. One can
picture the derision of the man who is told that he might, without the
smallest sacrifice of comfort or convenience, transact his business at
a Louis XVI writing-table, seated in a Louis XVI chair!--yet the
handsomest desks of the last century--the fine old _bureaux à la
Kaunitz_ or _à cylindre_--were the prototypes of the modern
"roller-top"; and the cane or leather-seated writing-chair, with
rounded back and five slim strong legs, was far more comfortable than
the amorphous revolving seat. Convenience was not sacrificed to beauty
in either desk or chair; but both the old pieces, being designed by
skilled cabinet-makers, were as decorative as they were useful. There
seems, in fact, no reason why the modern den should not resemble the
financiers' _bureaux_ seen in so many old prints: rooms of dignified
plainness, but where each line of wall-panelling and furniture was as
carefully studied and intelligently adapted to its ends as though
intended for a drawing-room or boudoir.
Reference has been made to the way in which, even in small houses, a
room may be sacrificed to a supposed "effect," or to some inherited
tradition as to its former use. Thus the family drawing-room is too
often made uninhabitable from some vague feeling that a "drawing-room"
is not worthy of its name unless too fine to sit in; while the small
front room on the ground floor--in the average American house the only
corner given over to the master--is thrown into the hall, either that
the house may appear larger and handsomer, or from sheer inability to
make so small a room habitable.
There is no reason why even a ten-by-twelve or an eight-by-fourteen
foot room should not be made comfortable; and the following
suggestions are intended to indicate the lines on which an appropriate
scheme of decoration might be carried out.
In most town houses the small room down-stairs is built with an
opening in the longitudinal wall, close to the front door, while there
is usually another entrance at the back of the room, facing the
window; one at least of these openings being, as a rule, of
exaggerated width. In such cases the door in the side of the room
should be walled up: this gives privacy and provides enough additional
wall-space for a good-sized piece of furniture.
The best way of obtaining an effect of size is to panel the walls by
means of clear-cut architectural mouldings: a few strong vertical
lines will give dignity to the room and height to the ceiling. The
walls should be free from pattern and light in color, since dark walls
necessitate much artificial light, and have the disadvantage of making
a room look small.
The ceiling, if not plain, must be ornamented with the lightest
tracery, and supported by a cornice correspondingly simple in design.
Heavy ceiling-mouldings are obviously out of place in a small room,
and a plain expanse of plaster is always preferable to misapplied
ornament.
A single curtain made of some flexible material, such as corduroy or
thin unlined damask, and so hung that it may be readily drawn back
during the day, is sufficient for the window; while in a corner near
this window may be placed an easy-chair and a small solidly made
table, large enough to hold a lamp and a book or two.
These rooms, in some recently built town houses, contain chimneys set
in an angle of the wall: a misplaced attempt at quaintness, making it
inconvenient to sit near the hearth, and seriously interfering with
the general arrangement of the room. When the chimney occupies the
centre of the longitudinal wall there is space, even in a very narrow
room, for a group of chairs about the fireplace--provided, as we are
now supposing, the opening in the parallel wall has been closed. A
bookcase or some other high piece of furniture may be placed on each
side of the mantel, and there will be space opposite for a sofa and a
good-sized writing-table. If the pieces of furniture chosen are in
scale with the dimensions of the room, and are placed against the
wall, instead of being set sideways, with the usual easel or palm-tree
behind them, it is surprising to see how much a small room may contain
without appearing to be overcrowded.
[Illustration: _PLATE L._
DINING-ROOM, PALACE OF COMPIÈGNE. LOUIS XVI PERIOD.
(OVER-DOORS AND OVER-MANTEL PAINTED IN GRISAILLE, BY SAUVAGE.)]
XIII
THE DINING-ROOM
The dining-room, as we know it, is a comparatively recent innovation
in house-planning. In the early middle ages the noble and his
retainers ate in the hall; then the _grand'salle_, built for
ceremonial uses, began to serve as a banqueting-room, while the meals
eaten in private were served in the lord's chamber. As house-planning
adapted itself to the growing complexity of life, the mediæval bedroom
developed into a private suite of living-rooms, preceded by an
antechamber; and this antechamber, or one of the small adjoining
cabinets, was used as the family dining-room, the banqueting-hall
being still reserved for state entertainments.
The plan of dining at haphazard in any of the family living-rooms
persisted on the Continent until the beginning of the eighteenth
century: even then it was comparatively rare, in France, to see a room
set apart for the purpose of dining. In small _hôtels_ and apartments,
people continued to dine in the antechamber; where there were two
antechambers, the inner was used for that purpose; and it was only in
grand houses, or in the luxurious establishments of the _femmes
galantes_, that dining-rooms were to be found. Even in such cases the
room described as a _salle à manger_ was often only a central
antechamber or saloon into which the living-rooms opened; indeed,
Madame du Barry's sumptuous dining-room at Luciennes was a vestibule
giving directly upon the peristyle of the villa.
In England the act of dining seems to have been taken more seriously,
while the rambling outgrowths of the Elizabethan residence included a
greater variety of rooms than could be contained in any but the
largest houses built on more symmetrical lines. Accordingly, in old
English house-plans we find rooms designated as "dining-parlors"; many
houses, in fact, contained two or three, each with a different
exposure, so that they might be used at different seasons. These rooms
can hardly be said to represent our modern dining-room, since they
were not planned in connection with kitchen and offices, and were
probably used as living-rooms when not needed for dining. Still, it
was from the Elizabethan dining-parlor that the modern dining-room
really developed; and so recently has it been specialized into a room
used only for eating, that a generation ago old-fashioned people in
England and America habitually used their dining-rooms to sit in. On
the Continent the incongruous uses of the rooms in which people dined
made it necessary that the furniture should be easily removed. In the
middle ages, people dined at long tables composed of boards resting on
trestles, while the seats were narrow wooden benches or stools, so
constructed that they could easily be carried away when the meal was
over. With the sixteenth century, the _table-à-tréteaux_ gave way to
various folding tables with legs, and the wooden stools were later
replaced by folding seats without arms called _perroquets_. In the
middle ages, when banquets were given in the _grand'salle_, the plate
was displayed on movable shelves covered with a velvet slip, or on
elaborately carved dressers; but on ordinary occasions little silver
was set out in French dining-rooms, and the great English
sideboard, with its array of urns, trays and wine-coolers, was
unknown in France. In the common antechamber dining-room, whatever was
needed for the table was kept in a press or cupboard with solid wooden
doors; changes of service being carried on by means of serving-tables,
or _servantes_--narrow marble-topped consoles ranged against the walls
of the room.
[Illustration: _PLATE LI._
DINING-ROOM FOUNTAIN, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.]
For examples of dining-rooms, as we understand the term, one must look
to the grand French houses of the eighteenth century (see Plate L) and
to the same class of dwellings in England. In France such dining-rooms
were usually intended for gala entertainments, the family being still
served in antechamber or cabinet; but English houses of the same
period generally contain a family dining-room and another intended for
state.
The dining-room of Madame du Barry at Luciennes, already referred to,
was a magnificent example of the great dining-saloon. The ceiling was
a painted Olympus; the white marble walls were subdivided by
Corinthian pilasters with plinths and capitals of gilt bronze,
surmounted by a frieze of bas-reliefs framed in gold; four marble
niches contained statues by Pajou, Lecomte, and Moineau; and the
general brilliancy of effect was increased by crystal chandeliers,
hung in the intercolumniations against a background of looking-glass.
Such a room, the banqueting-hall of the official mistress, represents
the _courtisane's_ ideal of magnificence: decorations as splendid, but
more sober and less theatrical, marked the dining-rooms of the
aristocracy, as at Choisy, Gaillon and Rambouillet.
The state dining-rooms of the eighteenth century were often treated
with an order, niches with statues being placed between the pilasters.
Sometimes one of these niches contained a fountain serving as a
wine-cooler--a survival of the stone or metal wall-fountains in which
dishes were washed in the mediæval dining-room. Many of these earlier
fountains had been merely fixed to the wall; but those of the
eighteenth century, though varying greatly in design, were almost
always an organic part of the wall-decoration (see Plate LI).
Sometimes, in apartments of importance, they formed the pedestal of a
life-size group or statue, as in the dining-room of Madame de
Pompadour; while in smaller rooms they consisted of a semicircular
basin of marble projecting from the wall and surmounted by groups of
cupids, dolphins or classic attributes. The banqueting-gallery of
Trianon-sous-Bois contains in one of its longitudinal walls two wide
niches with long marble basins; and Mariette's edition of d'Aviler's
_Cours d'Architecture_ gives the elevation of a recessed buffet
flanked by small niches containing fountains. The following
description, accompanying d'Aviler's plate, is quoted here as an
instance of the manner in which elaborate compositions were worked out
by the old decorators: "The second antechamber, being sometimes used
as a dining-room, is a suitable place for the buffet represented. This
buffet, which may be incrusted with marble or stone, or panelled with
wood-work, consists in a recess occupying one of the side walls of the
room. The recess contains a shelf of marble or stone, supported on
brackets and surmounting a small stone basin which serves as a
wine-cooler. Above the shelf is an attic flanked by volutes, and over
this attic may be placed a picture, generally a flower or fruit-piece,
or the representation of a concert, or some such agreeable scene;
while in the accompanying plate the attic is crowned by a bust of
Comus, wreathed with vines by two little satyrs--the group detaching
itself against a trellised background enlivened with birds. The
composition is completed by two lateral niches for fountains,
adorned with masks, tritons and dolphins of gilded lead."
[Illustration: _PLATE LII._
DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD.]
These built-in sideboards and fountains were practically the only
feature distinguishing the old dining-rooms from other gala
apartments. At a period when all rooms were painted, panelled, or hung
with tapestry, no special style of decoration was thought needful for
the dining-room; though tapestry was seldom used, for the practical
reason that stuff hangings are always objectionable in a room intended
for eating.
[Illustration: _PLATE LIII._
DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.]
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, when comfortable seats
began to be made, an admirably designed dining-room chair replaced the
earlier benches and _perroquets_. The eighteenth century dining-chair
is now often confounded with the light _chaise volante_ used in
drawing-rooms, and cabinet-makers frequently sell the latter as copies
of old dining-chairs. These were in fact much heavier and more
comfortable, and whether cane-seated or upholstered, were invariably
made with wide deep seats, so that the long banquets of the day might
be endured without constraint or fatigue; while the backs were low and
narrow, in order not to interfere with the service of the table. (See
Plates LII and LIII. Plates XLVI and L also contain good examples of
dining-chairs.) In England the state dining-room was decorated much as
it was in France: the family dining-room was simply a plain parlor,
with wide mahogany sideboards or tall glazed cupboards for the display
of plate and china. The solid English dining-chairs of mahogany, if
less graceful than those used on the Continent, are equally well
adapted to their purpose.
The foregoing indications may serve to suggest the lines upon which
dining-room decoration might be carried out in the present day. The
avoidance of all stuff hangings and heavy curtains is of great
importance: it will be observed that even window-curtains were seldom
used in old dining-rooms, such care being given to the decorative
detail of window and embrasure that they needed no additional ornament
in the way of drapery. A bare floor of stone or marble is best suited
to the dining-room; but where the floor is covered, it should be with
a rug, not with a nailed-down carpet.
The dining-room should be lit by wax candles in side _appliques_ or in
a chandelier; and since anything tending to produce heat and to
exhaust air is especially objectionable in a room used for eating, the
walls should be sufficiently light in color to make little artificial
light necessary. In the dining-rooms of the last century, in England
as well as on the Continent, the color-scheme was usually regulated by
this principle: the dark dining-room panelled with mahogany or hung
with sombre leather is an invention of our own times. It has already
been said that the old family dining-room was merely a panelled
parlor. Sometimes the panels were of light unvarnished oak, but
oftener they were painted in white or in some pale tint easily lit by
wax candles. The walls were often hung with fruit or flower-pieces, or
with pictures of fish and game: a somewhat obvious form of adornment
which it has long been the fashion to ridicule, but which was not
without decorative value and appropriateness. Pictures representing
life and action often grow tiresome when looked at over and over
again, day after day: a fact which the old decorators probably had in
mind when they hung what the French call _natures mortes_ in the
dining-room.
Concerning the state dining-room that forms a part of many modern houses
little remains to be said beyond the descriptions already given of the
various gala apartments. It is obvious that the banqueting-hall
should be less brilliant than a ball-room and less fanciful in
decoration than a music-room: a severer and more restful treatment
naturally suggests itself, but beyond this no special indications are
required.
The old dining-rooms were usually heated by porcelain stoves. Such a
stove, of fine architectural design, set in a niche corresponding with
that which contains the fountain, is of great decorative value in the
composition of the room; and as it has the advantage of giving out
less concentrated heat than an open fire, it is specially well suited
to a small or narrow dining-room, where some of the guests must
necessarily sit close to the hearth.
Most houses which have banquet-halls contain also a smaller apartment
called a breakfast-room; but as this generally corresponds in size and
usage with the ordinary family dining-room, the same style of
decoration is applicable to both. However ornate the banquet-hall may
be, the breakfast-room must of course be simple and free from gilding:
the more elaborate the decorations of the larger room, the more
restful such a contrast will be found.
Of the dinner-table, as we now know it, little need be said. The
ingenious but ugly extension-table with a central support, now used
all over the world, is an English invention. There seems no reason why
the general design should not be improved without interfering with the
mechanism of this table; but of course it can never be so satisfactory
to the eye as one of the old round or square tables, with four or six
tapering legs, such as were used in eighteenth-century dining-rooms
before the introduction of the "extension."
XIV
BEDROOMS
The history of the bedroom has been incidentally touched upon in
tracing the development of the drawing-room from the mediæval hall. It
was shown that early in the middle ages the sleeping-chamber, which
had been one of the first outgrowths of the hall, was divided into the
_chambre de parade_, or incipient drawing-room, and the _chambre au
giste_, or actual sleeping-room.
The increasing development of social life in the sixteenth century
brought about a further change; the state bedroom being set aside for
entertainments of ceremony, while the sleeping-chamber was used as the
family living-room and as the scene of suppers, card-parties, and
informal receptions--or sometimes actually as the kitchen. Indeed, so
varied were the uses to which the _chambre au giste_ was put, that in
France especially it can hardly be said to have offered a refuge from
the promiscuity of the hall.
[Illustration: _PLATE LIV._
BEDROOM. PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU. LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
(LOUIS XVI BED AND CHAIR, MODERN SOFA.)]
As a rule, the bedrooms of the Renaissance and of the seventeenth
century were very richly furnished. The fashion of raising the bed on
a dais separated from the rest of the room by columns and a balustrade
was introduced in France in the time of Louis XIV. This innovation
gave rise to the habit of dividing the decoration of the room into two
parts; the walls being usually panelled or painted, while the
"alcove," as it was called, was hung in tapestry, velvet, or some
rich stuff in keeping with the heavy curtains that completely
enveloped the bedstead. This use of stuff hangings about the bed, so
contrary to our ideas of bedroom hygiene, was due to the difficulty of
heating the large high-studded rooms of the period, and also, it must
be owned, to the prevalent dread of fresh air as of something
essentially unwholesome and pernicious.
In the early middle ages people usually slept on the floor; though it
would seem that occasionally, to avoid cold or dampness, the mattress
was laid on cords stretched upon a low wooden framework. In the
fourteenth century the use of such frameworks became more general, and
the bed was often enclosed in curtains hung from a tester resting on
four posts. Bed-hangings and coverlet were often magnificently
embroidered; but in order that it might not be necessary to transport
from place to place the unwieldy bedstead and tester, these were made
in the rudest manner, without attempt at carving or adornment. In
course of time this primitive framework developed into the sumptuous
four-post bedstead of the Renaissance, with elaborately carved cornice
and _colonnes torses_ enriched with gilding. Thenceforward more wealth
and skill were expended upon the bedstead than upon any other article
of furniture. Gilding, carving, and inlaying of silver, ivory or
mother-of-pearl, combined to adorn the framework, and embroidery made
the coverlet and hangings resplendent as church vestments. This
magnificence is explained by the fact that it was customary for the
lady of the house to lie in bed while receiving company. In many old
prints representing suppers, card-parties, or afternoon visits, the
hostess is thus seen, with elaborately dressed head and stiff brocade
gown, while her friends are grouped about the bedside in equally rich
attire. This curious custom persisted until late in the eighteenth
century; and under such conditions it was natural that the old
cabinet-makers should vie with each other in producing a variety of
ornate and fanciful bedsteads. It would be useless to enumerate here
the modifications in design marking the different periods of
decoration: those who are interested in the subject will find it
treated in detail in the various French works on furniture.
It was natural that while the bedroom was used as a _salon_ it should
be decorated with more elaboration than would otherwise have been
fitting; but two causes combined to simplify its treatment in the
eighteenth century. One of these was the new fashion of _petits
appartements_. With artists so keenly alive to proportion as the old
French designers, it was inevitable that such a change in dimensions
should bring about a corresponding change in decoration. The bedrooms
of the eighteenth century, though sometimes elaborate in detail, had
none of the pompous richness of the great Renaissance or Louis XIV
room (see Plate LIV). The pretentious dais with its screen of columns
was replaced by a niche containing the bed; plain wood-panelling
succeeded to tapestry and embroidered hangings; and the heavy carved
ceiling with its mythological centre-picture made way for light
traceries on plaster.
The other change in the decoration of French bedrooms was due to the
substitution of linen or cotton bed and window-hangings for the
sumptuous velvets and brocades of the seventeenth century. This change
has usually been ascribed to the importation of linens and cottons
from the East; and no doubt the novelty of these gay _indiennes_
stimulated the taste for simple hangings. The old inventories,
however, show that, in addition to the imported India hangings, plain
white linen curtains with a colored border were much used; and it is
probably the change in the size of rooms that first led to the
adoption of thin washable hangings. The curtains and bed-draperies of
damask or brocatelle, so well suited to the high-studded rooms of the
seventeenth century, would have been out of place in the small
apartments of the Regency. In studying the history of decoration, it
will generally be found that the supposed vagaries of house-furnishing
were actually based on some practical requirement; and in this
instance the old decorators were doubtless guided rather by common
sense than by caprice. The adoption of these washable materials
certainly introduced a style of bedroom-furnishing answering to all
the requirements of recent hygiene; for not only were windows and
bedsteads hung with unlined cotton or linen, but chairs and sofas were
covered with removable _housses_, or slip-covers; while the painted
wall-panelling and bare brick or parquet floors came far nearer to the
modern sanitary ideal than do the papered walls and nailed-down
carpets still seen in many bedrooms. This simple form of decoration
had the additional charm of variety; for it was not unusual to have
several complete sets of curtains and slip-covers, embroidered to
match, and changed with the seasons. The hangings and covers of the
queen's bedroom at Versailles were changed four times a year.
Although bedrooms are still "done" in chintz, and though of late
especially there has been a reaction from the satin-damask bedroom
with its dust-collecting upholstery and knick-knacks, the modern habit
of lining chintz curtains and of tufting chairs has done away with the
chief advantages of the simpler style of treatment. There is something
illogical in using washable stuffs in such a way that they cannot be
washed, especially in view of the fact that the heavily lined
curtains, which might be useful to exclude light and cold, are in nine
cases out of ten so hung by the upholsterer that they cannot possibly
be drawn at night. Besides, the patterns of modern chintzes have so
little in common with the _toiles imprimées_ of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries that they scarcely serve the same decorative
purpose; and it is therefore needful to give some account of the old
French bedroom hangings, as well as of the manner in which they were
employed.
The liking for _cotonnades_ showed itself in France early in the
seventeenth century. Before this, cotton materials had been imported
from the East; but in the seventeenth century a manufactory was
established in France, and until about 1800 cotton and linen curtains
and furniture-coverings remained in fashion. This taste was encouraged
by the importation of the _toiles des Indes_, printed cottons of gay
color and fanciful design, much sought after in France, especially
after the government, in order to protect native industry, had
restricted the privilege of importing them to the _Compagnie des
Indes_. It was not until Oberkampf established his manufactory at Jouy
in 1760 that the French _toiles_ began to replace those of foreign
manufacture. Hitherto the cottons made in France had been stamped
merely in outline, the colors being filled in by hand; but Oberkampf
invented a method of printing in colors, thereby making France the
leading market for such stuffs.
The earliest printed cottons having been imported from India and
China, it was natural that the style of the Oriental designers should
influence their European imitators. Europe had, in fact, been prompt
to recognize the singular beauty of Chinese art, and in France the
passion for _chinoiseries_, first aroused by Mazarin's collection of
Oriental objects of art, continued unabated until the general decline
of taste at the end of the eighteenth century. Nowhere, perhaps, was
the influence of Chinese art more beneficial to European designers
than in the composition of stuff-patterns. The fantastic gaiety and
variety of Chinese designs, in which the human figure so largely
predominates, gave fresh animation to European compositions, while the
absence of perspective and modelling preserved that conventionalism so
essential in pattern-designing. The voluminous acanthus-leaves, the
fleur-de-lys, arabesques and massive scroll-work so suitable to the
Genoese velvets and Lyons silks of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, would have been far too magnificent for the cotton stuffs
that were beginning to replace those splendid tissues. On a thin
material a heavy architectural pattern was obviously inappropriate;
besides, it would have been out of scale with the smaller rooms and
lighter style of decoration then coming into fashion.
The French designer, while influenced by Chinese compositions, was too
artistic to be satisfied with literal reproductions of his Oriental
models. Absorbing the spirit of the Chinese designs, he either blent
mandarins and pagodas with Italian grottoes, French landscapes, and
classical masks and trophies, in one of those delightful inventions
which are the fairy-tales of decorative art, or applied the principles
of Oriental design to purely European subjects. In comparing the
printed cottons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with
modern chintzes, it will be seen that the latter are either covered
with monotonous repetitions of a geometrical figure, or with realistic
reproductions of some natural object. Many wall-papers and chintzes of
the present day represent loose branches of flowers scattered on a
plain surface, with no more relation to each other or to their
background than so many real flowers fixed at random against the wall.
This literal rendering of natural objects with deceptive accuracy,
always condemned by the best artists, is especially inappropriate when
brought in close contact with the highly conventionalized forms of
architectural composition. In this respect, the endlessly repeated
geometrical figure is obviously less objectionable; yet the
geometrical design, as produced to-day, has one defect in common with
the other--that is, lack of imagination. Modern draughtsmen, in
eliminating from their work that fanciful element (always strictly
subordinated to some general scheme of composition) which marked the
designs of the last two centuries, have deprived themselves of the
individuality and freshness that might have saved their patterns from
monotony.
This rejection of the fanciful in composition is probably due to the
excessive use of pattern in modern decoration. Where much pattern is
used, it must be as monotonous as possible, or it will become
unbearable. The old decorators used few lines, and permitted
themselves more freedom in design; or rather they remembered, what is
now too often forgotten, that in the decoration of a room furniture
and objects of art help to make design, and in consequence they were
chiefly concerned with providing plain spaces of background to throw
into relief the contents of the room. Of late there has been so marked
a return to plain panelled or painted walls that the pattern-designer
will soon be encouraged to give freer rein to his fancy. In a room
where walls and floor are of uniform tint, there is no reason why the
design of curtains and chair-coverings should consist of long straight
rows of buttercups or crocuses, endlessly repeated.
[Illustration: _PLATE LV._
BATH-ROOM, PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE.
LATE XVIII CENTURY. DECORATED BY CACIALLI.]
It must not be thought that the old designs were unconventional.
Nature, in passing through the medium of the imagination, is
necessarily transposed and in a manner conventionalized; and it is
this transposition, this deliberate selection of certain
characteristics to the exclusion of others, that distinguishes the
work of art from a cast or a photograph. But the reduction of natural
objects to geometrical forms is only one of the results of artistic
selection. The Italian fresco-painters--the recognized masters of
wall-decoration in the flat--always used the naturalistic method, but
subject to certain restrictions in composition or color. This applies
also to the Chinese designers, and to the humbler European
pattern-makers who on more modest lines followed the same sound
artistic traditions. In studying the _toiles peintes_ manufactured in
Europe previous to the present century, it will be seen that where the
design included the human figure or landscape naturalistically treated
(as in the fables of Æsop and La Fontaine, or the history of Don
Quixote), the pattern was either printed entirely in one color, or so
fantastically colored that by no possibility could it pass for an
attempt at a literal rendering of nature. Besides, in all such
compositions (and here the Chinese influence is seen) perspective was
studiously avoided, and the little superimposed groups or scenes were
either connected by some decorative arabesque, or so designed that by
their outline they formed a recurring pattern. On the other hand, when
the design was obviously conventional a variety of colors was freely
used. The introduction of the human figure, animals, architecture and
landscape into stuff-patterns undoubtedly gave to the old designs an
animation lacking in those of the present day; and a return to the
_pays bleu_ of the Chinese artist would be a gain to modern
decoration.
Of the various ways in which a bedroom may be planned, none is so
luxurious and practical as the French method of subdividing it into a
suite composed of two or more small rooms. Where space is not
restricted there should in fact be four rooms, preceded by an
antechamber separating the suite from the main corridor of the house.
The small sitting-room or boudoir opens into this antechamber; and
next comes the bedroom, beyond which are the dressing and bath rooms.
In French suites of this kind there are usually but two means of
entrance from the main corridor: one for the use of the occupant,
leading into the antechamber, the other opening into the bath-room, to
give access to the servants. This arrangement, besides giving greater
privacy, preserves much valuable wall-space, which would be sacrificed
in America to the supposed necessity of making every room in a house
open upon one of the main passageways.
The plan of the bedroom suite can of course be carried out only in
large houses; but even where there is no lack of space, such an
arrangement is seldom adopted by American architects, and most of the
more important houses recently built contain immense bedrooms, instead
of a series of suites. To enumerate the practical advantages of the
suite over the single large room hardly comes within the scope of this
book; but as the uses to which a bedroom is put fall into certain
natural subdivisions, it will be more convenient to consider it as a
suite.
Since bedrooms are no longer used as _salons_, there is no reason for
decorating them in an elaborate manner; and, however magnificent the
other apartments, it is evident that in this part of the house
simplicity is most fitting. Now that people have been taught the
unhealthiness of sleeping in a room with stuff hangings, heavy
window-draperies and tufted furniture, the old fashion of painted
walls and bare floors naturally commends itself; and as the bedroom
suite is but the subdivision of one large room, it is obviously better
that the same style of decoration should be used throughout.
For this reason, plain panelled walls and chintz or cotton hangings
are more appropriate to the boudoir than silk and gilding. If the
walls are without pattern, a figured chintz may be chosen for curtains
and furniture; while those who prefer plain tints should use
unbleached cotton, trimmed with bands of color, or some colored linen
with applications of gimp or embroidery. It is a good plan to cover
all the chairs and sofas in the bedroom suite with slips matching the
window-curtains; but where this is done, the furniture should, if
possible, be designed for the purpose, since the lines of modern
upholstered chairs are not suited to slips. The habit of designing
furniture for slip-covers originated in the middle ages. At a time
when the necessity of transporting furniture was added to the other
difficulties of travel, it was usual to have common carpenter-built
benches and tables, that might be left behind without risk, and to
cover these with richly embroidered slips. The custom persisted long
after furniture had ceased to be a part of luggage, and the benches
and _tabourets_ now seen in many European palaces are covered merely
with embroidered slips. Even when a set of furniture was upholstered
with silk, it was usual, in the eighteenth century, to provide
embroidered cotton covers for use in summer, while curtains of the
same stuff were substituted for the heavier hangings used in winter.
Old inventories frequently mention these _tentures d'été_, which are
well adapted to our hot summer climate.
The boudoir should contain a writing-table, a lounge or _lit de
repos_, and one or two comfortable arm-chairs, while in a bedroom
forming part of a suite only the bedstead and its accessories should
be placed.
The pieces of furniture needed in a well-appointed dressing-room are
the toilet-table, wash-stand, clothes-press and cheval-glass, with the
addition, if space permits, of one or two commodes or chiffonniers.
The designing of modern furniture of this kind is seldom satisfactory;
yet many who are careful to choose simple, substantial pieces for the
other rooms of the house, submit to the pretentious "bedroom suit" of
bird's-eye maple or mahogany, with its wearisome irrelevance of line
and its excess of cheap ornament. Any study of old bedroom furniture
will make clear the inferiority of the modern manufacturer's designs.
Nowhere is the old sense of proportion and fitness seen to better
advantage than in the simple, admirably composed commodes and
clothes-presses of the eighteenth-century bedroom.
The bath-room walls and floor should, of course, be water-proof. In
the average bath-room, a tiled floor and a high wainscoting of tiles
are now usually seen; and the detached enamel or porcelain bath has in
most cases replaced the built-in metal tub. The bath-rooms in the
larger houses recently built are, in general, lined with marble; but
though the use of this substance gives opportunity for fine
architectural effects, few modern bath-rooms can in this respect be
compared with those seen in the great houses of Europe. The chief
fault of the American bath-room is that, however splendid the
materials used, the treatment is seldom architectural. A glance at the
beautiful bath-room in the Pitti Palace at Florence (see Plate LV)
will show how much effect may be produced in a small space by
carefully studied composition. A mere closet is here transformed into
a stately room, by that regard for harmony of parts which
distinguishes interior architecture from mere decoration. A bath-room
lined with precious marbles, with bath and wash-stand ranged along the
wall, regardless of their relation to the composition of the whole, is
no better architecturally than the tiled bath-room seen in ordinary
houses: design, not substance, is needed to make the one superior to
the other.
XV
THE SCHOOL-ROOM AND NURSERIES
One of the most important and interesting problems in the planning and
decoration of a house is that which has to do with the arrangement of
the children's rooms.
There is, of course, little opportunity for actual decoration in
school-room or nursery; and it is only by stretching a point that a
book dealing merely with the practical application of æsthetics may be
made to include a chapter bordering on pedagogy. It must be
remembered, however, that any application of principles presupposes
some acquaintance with the principles themselves; and from this
standpoint there is a certain relevance in studying the means by which
the child's surroundings may be made to develop his sense of beauty.
The room where the child's lessons are studied is, in more senses than
one, that in which he receives his education. His whole view of what
he is set to learn, and of the necessity and advantage of learning
anything at all, is tinged, more often than people think, by the
appearance of the room in which his studying is done. The æsthetic
sensibilities wake early in some children, and these, if able to
analyze their emotions, could testify to what suffering they have been
subjected by the habit of sending to school-room and nurseries
whatever furniture is too ugly or threadbare to be used in any other
part of the house.
In the minds of such children, curious and lasting associations are
early established between the appearance of certain rooms and the
daily occupations connected with them; and the aspect of the
school-room too often aggravates instead of mitigating the weariness
of lesson-learning.
There are, of course, many children not naturally sensitive to
artistic influences, and the parents of such children often think that
no special care need be spent on their surroundings--a curious
misconception of the purpose of all æsthetic training. To teach a
child to appreciate any form of beauty is to develop his intelligence,
and thereby to enlarge his capacity for wholesome enjoyment. It is,
therefore, never idle to cultivate a child's taste; and those who have
no pronounced natural bent toward the beautiful in any form need more
guidance and encouragement than the child born with a sense of beauty.
The latter will at most be momentarily offended by the sight of ugly
objects; while they may forever blunt the taste and narrow the views
of the child whose sluggish imagination needs the constant stimulus of
beautiful surroundings.
If art is really a factor in civilization, it seems obvious that the
feeling for beauty needs as careful cultivation as the other civic
virtues. To teach a child to distinguish between a good and a bad
painting, a well or an ill-modelled statue, need not hinder his growth
in other directions, and will at least develop those habits of
observation and comparison that are the base of all sound judgments.
It is in this sense that the study of art is of service to those who
have no special aptitude for any of its forms: its indirect action in
shaping æsthetic criteria constitutes its chief value as an element of
culture.
The habit of regarding "art" as a thing apart from life is fatal to
the development of taste. Parents may conscientiously send their
children to galleries and museums, but unless the child can find some
point of contact between its own surroundings and the contents of the
galleries, the interest excited by the pictures and statues will be
short-lived and ineffectual. Children are not reached by abstract
ideas, and a picture hanging on a museum wall is little better than an
abstraction to the child's vivid but restricted imagination. Besides,
if the home surroundings are tasteless, the unawakened sense of form
will not be roused by a hurried walk through a museum. The child's
mind must be prepared by daily lessons in beauty to understand the
masterpieces of art. A child brought up on foolish story-books could
hardly be expected to enjoy _The Knight's Tale_ or the _Morte
d'Arthur_ without some slight initiation into the nature and meaning
of good literature; and to pass from a house full of ugly furniture,
badly designed wall-papers and worthless knick-knacks to a hurried
contemplation of the Venus of Milo or of a model of the Parthenon is
not likely to produce the desired results.
The daily intercourse with poor pictures, trashy "ornaments," and
badly designed furniture may, indeed, be fittingly compared with a
mental diet of silly and ungrammatical story-books. Most parents
nowadays recognize the harmfulness of such a _régime_, and are careful
to feed their children on more stimulating fare. Skilful compilers
have placed Mallory and Chaucer, Cervantes and Froissart, within reach
of the childish understanding, thus laying the foundations for a
lasting appreciation of good literature. No greater service can be
rendered to children than in teaching them to know the best and to
want it; but while this is now generally conceded with regard to
books, the child's eager eyes are left to fare as best they may on
chromos from the illustrated papers and on carefully hoarded rubbish
from the Christmas tree.
The mention of the Christmas tree suggests another obstacle to the
early development of taste. Many children, besides being surrounded by
ugly furniture and bad pictures, are overwhelmed at Christmas, and on
every other anniversary, by presents not always selected with a view
to the formation of taste. The question of presents is one of the most
embarrassing problems in the artistic education of children. As long
as they are in the toy age no great harm is done: it is when they are
considered old enough to appreciate "something pretty for their rooms"
that the season of danger begins. Parents themselves are often the
worst offenders in this respect, and the sooner they begin to give
their children presents which, if not beautiful, are at least useful,
the sooner will the example be followed by relatives and friends. The
selection of such presents, while it might necessitate a little more
trouble, need not lead to greater expense. Good things do not always
cost more than bad. A good print may often be bought for the same
price as a poor one, and the money spent on a china "ornament," in the
shape of a yellow Leghorn hat with a kitten climbing out of it, would
probably purchase a good reproduction of one of the Tanagra
statuettes, a plaster cast of some French or Italian bust, or one of
Cantagalli's copies of the Robbia bas-reliefs--any of which would
reveal a world of unsuspected beauty to many a child imprisoned in a
circle of _articles de Paris_.
The children of the rich are usually the worst sufferers in such
cases, since the presents received by those whose parents and
relations are not "well off" have the saving merit of usefulness. It
is the superfluous gimcrack--the "ornament"--which is most
objectionable, and the more expensive such articles are the more
likely are they to do harm. Rich children suffer from the quantity as
well as the quality of the presents they receive. Appetite is
surfeited, curiosity blunted, by the mass of offerings poured in with
every anniversary. It would be better if, in such cases, friends and
family could unite in giving to each child one thing worth having--a
good edition, a first-state etching or engraving, or some like object
fitted to give pleasure at the time and lasting enjoyment through
life. Parents often make the mistake of thinking that such presents
are too "serious"--that children do not care for good bindings, fine
engravings, or reproductions of sculpture. As a matter of fact,
children are quick to appreciate beauty when pointed out and explained
to them, and an intelligent child feels peculiar pride in being the
owner of some object which grown-up people would be glad to possess.
If the selection of such presents is made with a reasonable regard for
the child's tastes and understanding--if the book chosen is a good
edition, well bound, of the _Morte d'Arthur_ or of _Chaucer_--if the
print represents some Tuscan Nativity, with a joyous dance of angels
on the thatched roof, or a group of splendid horsemen and strange
animals from the wondrous fairy-tale of the Riccardi chapel--the
present will give as much immediate pleasure as a "juvenile" book or
picture, while its intrinsic beauty and significance may become
important factors in the child's æsthetic development. The possession
of something valuable, that may not be knocked about, but must be
handled with care and restored to its place after being looked at,
will also cultivate in the child that habit of carefulness and order
which may be defined as good manners toward inanimate objects.
Children suffer not only from the number of presents they receive, but
from that over-crowding of modern rooms that so often makes it
necessary to use the school-room and nurseries as an outlet for the
overflow of the house. To the children's quarters come one by one the
countless objects "too good to throw away" but too ugly to be
tolerated by grown-up eyes--the bead-work cushions that have
"associations," the mildewed Landseer prints of foaming, dying
animals, the sheep-faced Madonna and Apostles in bituminous draperies,
commemorating a paternal visit to Rome in the days when people bought
copies of the "Old Masters."
Those who wish to train their children's taste must resolutely clear
the school-room of all such stumbling-blocks. Ugly furniture cannot
always be replaced; but it is at least possible to remove unsuitable
pictures and knick-knacks.
It is essential that the school-room should be cheerful. Dark colors,
besides necessitating the use of much artificial light, are depressing
to children and consequently out of place in the school-room: white
woodwork, and walls tinted in some bright color, form the best
background for both work and play.
Perhaps the most interesting way of decorating the school-room is that
which might be described as the rotation system. To carry out this
plan--which requires the coöperation of the children's teacher--the
walls must be tinted in some light color, such as turquoise-blue or
pale green, and cleared of all miscellaneous adornments. These should
then be replaced by a few carefully-chosen prints, photographs and
plaster casts, representing objects connected with the children's
studies. Let it, for instance, be supposed that the studies in hand
include natural history, botany, and the history of France and England
during the sixteenth century. These subjects might be respectively
illustrated by some of the clever Japanese outline drawings of plants
and animals, by Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, Clouet's of Charles
IX and of Elizabeth of Austria, Dürer's etchings of Luther and
Erasmus, and views of some of the principal buildings erected in
France and England during the sixteenth century.
The prints and casts shown at one time should be sufficiently
inexpensive and few in number to be changed as the child's lessons
proceed, thus forming a kind of continuous commentary upon the various
branches of study.
This plan of course necessitates more trouble and expense than the
ordinary one of giving to the walls of the school-room a permanent
decoration: an arrangement which may also be made interesting and
suggestive, if the child's requirements are considered. When casts and
pictures are intended to remain in place, it is a good idea to choose
them at the outset with a view to the course of studies likely to be
followed. In this way, each object may serve in turn to illustrate
some phase of history or art: even this plan will be found to have a
vivifying effect upon the dry bones of "lessons."
In a room decorated in this fashion, the prints or photographs
selected might represent the foremost examples of Greek, Gothic,
Renaissance and eighteenth-century architecture, together with several
famous paintings of different periods and schools; sculpture being
illustrated by casts of the Disk-thrower, of one of Robbia's friezes
of child-musicians, of Donatello's Saint George, and Pigalle's "Child
with the Bird."
Parents who do not care to plan the adornment of the school-room on
such definite lines should at least be careful to choose appropriate
casts and pictures. It is generally conceded that nothing painful
should be put before a child's eyes; but the deleterious effects of
namby-pamby prettiness are too often disregarded. Anything "sweet" is
considered appropriate for the school-room or nursery; whereas it is
essential to the child's artistic training that only the sweetness
which proceeds _de forte_ should be held up for admiration. It is easy
to find among the world's masterpieces many pictures interesting to
children. Vandyck's "Children of Charles I"; Bronzino's solemn
portraits of Medici babies; Drouais' picture of the Comte d'Artois
holding his little sister on the back of a goat; the wan little
princes of Velasquez; the ruddy beggar-boys of Murillo--these are but
a few of the subjects that at once suggest themselves. Then, again,
there are the wonder-books of those greatest of all story-tellers, the
Italian fresco-painters--Benozzo Gozzoli, Pinturicchio,
Carpaccio--incorrigible gossips every one, lingering over the minor
episodes and trivial details of their stories with the desultory
slowness dear to childish listeners. In sculpture, the range of choice
is no less extended. The choristers of Robbia, the lean little St.
Johns of Donatello and his school--Verrocchio's fierce young David,
and the Capitol "Boy with the Goose"--these may alternate with
fragments of the Parthenon frieze, busts of great men, and studies of
animals, from the Assyrian lions to those of Canova and Barye.
Above all, the walls should not be overcrowded. The importance of
preserving in the school-room bare wall-spaces of uniform tint has
hitherto been little considered; but teachers are beginning to
understand the value of these spaces in communicating to the child's
brain a sense of repose which diminishes mental and physical
restlessness.
The furniture of the school-room should of course be plain and
substantial. Well-designed furniture of this kind is seldom made by
modern manufacturers, and those who can afford the slight extra
expense should commission a good cabinet-maker to reproduce some of
the simple models which may be found in the manuals of old French and
English designers. It is of special importance to provide a large,
solid writing-table: children are too often subjected to the needless
constraint and fatigue of writing at narrow unsteady desks, too small
to hold even the books in use during the lesson.
A well-designed bookcase with glass doors is a valuable factor in the
training of children. It teaches a respect for books by showing that
they are thought worthy of care; and a child is less likely to knock
about and damage a book which must be taken from and restored to such
a bookcase, than one which, after being used, is thrust back on an
open shelf. Children's books, if they have any literary value, should
be bound in some bright-colored morocco: dingy backs of calf or black
cloth are not likely to attract the youthful eye, and the better a
book is bound the more carefully it will be handled. Even
lesson-books, when they become shabby, should have a covering of some
bright-colored cloth stitched over the boards.
The general rules laid down for the decoration of the school-room may,
with some obvious modifications, be applied to the treatment of
nursery and of children's rooms. These, like the school-room, should
have painted walls and a floor of hard wood with a removable rug or a
square of matting. In a house containing both school-room and nursery,
the decoration of the latter room will of course be adapted to the
tastes of the younger children. Mothers often say, in answer to
suggestions as to the decoration of the nursery, that little children
"like something bright"--as though this precluded every form of art
above the newspaper chromo and the Christmas card! It is easy to
produce an effect of brightness by means of white wood-work and walls
hung with good colored prints, with large photographs of old Flemish
or Italian pictures,--say, for example, Bellini's baby-angels playing
on musical instruments,--and with a few of the Japanese plant and
animal drawings already referred to. All these subjects would interest
and amuse even very young children; and there is no reason why a gay
Japanese screen, with boldly drawn birds and flowers, should not
afford as much entertainment as one composed of a heterogeneous
collection of Christmas cards, chromos, and story-book pictures, put
together without any attempt at color-harmony or composition.
Children's rooms should be as free as possible from all superfluous
draperies. The windows may be hung with either shades or curtains: it
is needless to have both. If curtains are preferred, they should be of
chintz, or of some washable cotton or linen. The reproductions of the
old _toiles de Jouy_, with pictures from Æsop and La Fontaine, or from
some familiar myth or story, are specially suited to children's rooms;
while another source of interest and amusement may be provided by
facing the fireplace with blue and white Dutch tiles representing the
finding of Moses, the story of David and Goliath, or some such
familiar episode.
As children grow older, and are allotted separate bedrooms, these
should be furnished and decorated on the same principles and with the
same care as the school-room. Pieces of furniture for these bedrooms
would make far more suitable and interesting presents than the costly
odds and ends so often given without definite intention. In the
arrangement of the child's own room the expression of individual taste
should be encouraged and the child allowed to choose the pictures and
casts with which the walls are hung. The responsibility of such
selection will do much to develop the incipient faculties of
observation and comparison.
To sum up, then: the child's visible surroundings form the basis of
the best, because of the most unconscious, cultivation: and not of
æsthetic cultivation only, since, as has been pointed out, the
development of any artistic taste, if the child's general training is
of the right sort, indirectly broadens the whole view of life.
XVI
BRIC-À-BRAC
It is perhaps not uninstructive to note that we have no English word
to describe the class of household ornaments which French speech has
provided with at least three designations, each indicating a delicate
and almost imperceptible gradation of quality. In place of bric-à-brac,
bibelots, _objets d'art_, we have only knick-knacks--defined by
Stormonth as "articles of small value."
This definition of the knick-knack fairly indicates the general level
of our artistic competence. It has already been said that cheapness is
not necessarily synonymous with trashiness; but hitherto this
assertion has been made with regard to furniture and to the other
necessary appointments of the house. With knick-knacks the case is
different. An artistic age will of course produce any number of
inexpensive trifles fit to become, like the Tanagra figurines, the
museum treasures of later centuries; but it is hardly necessary to
point out that modern shop-windows are not overflowing with such
immortal toys. The few objects of art produced in the present day are
the work of distinguished artists. Even allowing for what Symonds
calls the "vicissitudes of taste," it seems improbable that our
commercial knick-knack will ever be classed as a work of art.
[Illustration: _PLATE LVI._
BRONZE ANDIRON. VENETIAN SCHOOL.
XVI CENTURY.]
It is clear that the weary man must have a chair to sit on, the
hungry man a table to dine at; nor would the most sensitive judgment
condemn him for buying ugly ones, were no others to be had; but
objects of art are a counsel of perfection. It is quite possible to go
without them; and the proof is that many do go without them who
honestly think to possess them in abundance. This is said, not with
any intention of turning to ridicule the natural desire to "make a
room look pretty," but merely with the purpose of inquiring whether
such an object is ever furthered by the indiscriminate amassing of
"ornaments." Decorators know how much the simplicity and dignity of a
good room are diminished by crowding it with useless trifles. Their
absence improves even bad rooms, or makes them at least less
multitudinously bad. It is surprising to note how the removal of an
accumulation of knick-knacks will free the architectural lines and
restore the furniture to its rightful relation with the walls.
Though a room must depend for its main beauty on design and furniture,
it is obvious that there are many details of luxurious living not
included in these essentials. In what, then, shall the ornamentation
of rooms consist? Supposing walls and furniture to be satisfactory,
how put the minor touches that give to a room the charm of
completeness? To arrive at an answer, one must first consider the
different kinds of minor embellishment. These may be divided into two
classes: the object of art _per se_, such as the bust, the picture, or
the vase; and, on the other hand, those articles, useful in
themselves,--lamps, clocks, fire-screens, bookbindings,
candelabra,--which art has only to touch to make them the best
ornaments any room can contain. In past times such articles took the
place of bibelots. Few purely ornamental objects were to be seen, save
in the cabinets of collectors; but when Botticelli decorated the
panels of linen chests, and Cellini chiselled book-clasps and
drinking-cups, there could be no thought of the vicious distinction
between the useful and the beautiful. One of the first obligations of
art is to make all useful things beautiful: were this neglected
principle applied to the manufacture of household accessories, the
modern room would have no need of knick-knacks.
Before proceeding further, it is necessary to know what constitutes an
object of art. It was said at the outset that, though cheapness and
trashiness are not always synonymous, they are apt to be so in the
case of the modern knick-knack. To buy, and even to make, it may cost
a great deal of money; but artistically it is cheap, if not worthless;
and too often its artistic value is in inverse ratio to its price. The
one-dollar china pug is less harmful than an expensive onyx lamp-stand
with moulded bronze mountings dipped in liquid gilding. It is one of
the misfortunes of the present time that the most preposterously bad
things often possess the powerful allurement of being expensive. One
might think it an advantage that they are not within every one's
reach; but, as a matter of fact, it is their very unattainableness
which, by making them more desirable, leads to the production of that
worst curse of modern civilization--cheap copies of costly horrors.
An ornament is of course not an object of art because it is
expensive--though it must be owned that objects of art are seldom
cheap. Good workmanship, as distinct from designing, almost always
commands a higher price than bad; and good artistic workmanship having
become so rare that there is practically no increase in the existing
quantity of objects of art, it is evident that these are more likely
to grow than to diminish in value. Still, as has been said, costliness
is no test of merit in an age when large prices are paid for bad
things. Perhaps the most convenient way of defining the real object of
art is to describe it as _any ornamental object which adequately
expresses an artistic conception_. This definition at least clears the
ground of the mass of showy rubbish forming the stock-in-trade of the
average "antiquity" dealer.
Good objects of art give to a room its crowning touch of distinction.
Their intrinsic beauty is hardly more valuable than their suggestion
of a mellower civilization--of days when rich men were patrons of "the
arts of elegance," and when collecting beautiful objects was one of
the obligations of a noble leisure. The qualities implied in the
ownership of such bibelots are the mark of their unattainableness. The
man who wishes to possess objects of art must have not only the means
to acquire them, but the skill to choose them--a skill made up of
cultivation and judgment, combined with that feeling for beauty that
no amount of study can give, but that study alone can quicken and
render profitable.
Only time and experience can acquaint one with those minor
peculiarities marking the successive "manners" of a master, or even
with the technical _nuances_ which at once enable the collector to
affix a date to his Sèvres or to his maiolica. Such knowledge is
acquired at the cost of great pains and of frequent mistakes; but no
one should venture to buy works of art who cannot at least draw such
obvious distinctions as those between old and new Saxe, between an old
Italian and a modern French bronze, or between Chinese peach-bloom
porcelain of the Khang-hi period and the Japanese imitations to be
found in every "Oriental emporium."
Supposing the amateur to have acquired this proficiency, he is still
apt to buy too many things, or things out of proportion with the rooms
for which they are intended. The scoffers at style--those who assume
that to conform to any known laws of decoration is to sink one's
individuality--often justify their view by the assertion that it is
ridiculous to be tied down, in the choice of bibelots, to any given
period or manner--as though Mazarin's great collection had comprised
only seventeenth-century works of art, or the Colonnas, the Gonzagas,
and the Malatestas had drawn all their treasures from contemporary
sources! As a matter of fact, the great amateurs of the past were
never fettered by such absurd restrictions. All famous patrons of art
have encouraged the talent of their day; but the passion for
collecting antiquities is at least as old as the Roman Empire, and
Græco-Roman sculptors had to make archaistic statues to please the
popular fancy, just as our artists paint pre-Raphaelite pictures to
attract the disciples of Ruskin and William Morris. Since the Roman
Empire, there has probably been no period when a taste for the best of
all ages did not exist.[36] Julius II, while Michel Angelo and Raphael
worked under his orders, was gathering antiques for the Belvedere
_cortile_; under Louis XIV, Greek marbles, Roman bronzes, cabinets of
Chinese lacquer and tables of Florentine mosaic were mingled without
thought of discord against Lebrun's tapestries or Bérain's arabesques;
and Marie-Antoinette's collection united Oriental porcelains with
goldsmiths' work of the Italian Renaissance.
Taste attaches but two conditions to the use of objects of art: that
they shall be in scale with the room, and that the room shall not be
overcrowded with them. There are two ways of being in scale: there is
the scale of proportion, and what might be called the scale of
appropriateness. The former is a matter of actual measurement, while
the latter is regulated solely by the nicer standard of good taste.
Even in the matter of actual measurement, the niceties of proportion
are not always clear to an unpractised eye. It is easy to see that the
Ludovisi Juno would be out of scale in a boudoir, but the discrepancy,
in diminishing, naturally becomes less obvious. Again, a vase or a
bust may not be out of scale with the wall-space behind it, but may
appear to crush the furniture upon which it stands; and since
everything a room contains should be regarded as a factor in its
general composition, the relation of bric-à-brac to furniture is no
less to be studied than the relation of bric-à-brac to wall-spaces.
Much of course depends upon the effect intended; and this can be
greatly modified by careful adjustment of the contents of the room. A
ceiling may be made to look less high by the use of wide, low pieces
of furniture, with massive busts and vases; while a low-studded room
may be heightened by tall, narrow commodes and cabinets, with objects
of art upon the same general lines.
It is of no less importance to observe the scale of appropriateness. A
bronze Pallas Athene or a cowled mediæval _pleureur_ would be
obviously out of harmony with the spirit of a boudoir; while the
delicate graces of old Saxe or Chelsea would become futile in library
or study.
Another kind of appropriateness must be considered in the relation of
objects of art to each other: not only must they be in scale as
regards character and dimensions, but also--and this, though more
important, is perhaps less often considered--as regards quality. The
habit of mixing good, bad, and indifferent in furniture is often
excused by necessity: people must use what they have. But there is no
necessity for having bad bric-à-brac. Trashy "ornaments" do not make a
room more comfortable; as a general rule, they distinctly diminish its
comfort; and they have the further disadvantage of destroying the
effect of any good piece of work. Vulgarity is always noisier than
good breeding, and it is instructive to note how a modern commercial
bronze will "talk down" a delicate Renaissance statuette or bust, and
a piece of Deck or Minton china efface the color-values of
blue-and-white or the soft tints of old Sèvres. Even those who set
down a preference for old furniture as an affectation will hardly
maintain that new knick-knacks are as good as old bibelots; but only
those who have some slight acquaintance with the subject know how wide
is the distance, in conception and execution, between the old object
of art and its unworthy successor. Yet the explanation is simple. In
former times, as the greatest painters occupied themselves with
wall-decoration, so the greatest sculptors and modellers produced the
delicate statuettes and the incomparable bronze mountings for vases
and furniture adorning the apartments of their day. A glance into the
window of the average furniture-shop probably convinces the most
unobservant that modern bronze mountings are not usually designed by
great artists; and there is the same change in the methods of
execution. The bronze formerly chiselled is now moulded; the iron once
wrought is cast; the patina given to bronze by a chemical process
making it a part of the texture of the metal is now simply applied as
a surface wash; and this deterioration in processes has done more than
anything else to vulgarize modern ornament.
It may be argued that even in the golden age of art few could have
walls decorated by great painters, or furniture-mountings modelled by
great sculptors; but it is here that the superiority of the old method
is shown. Below the great painter and sculptor came the trained
designer who, formed in the same school as his superiors, did not
attempt a poor copy of their masterpieces, but did the same kind of
work on simpler lines; just as below the skilled artificer stood the
plain artisan whose work was executed more rudely, but by the same
genuine processes. This explains the supposed affectation of those who
"like things just because they are old." Old bric-à-brac and furniture
are, indeed, almost always worthy of liking, since they are made on
good lines by a good process.
Two causes connected with the change in processes have contributed to
the debasement of bibelots: the substitution of machine for hand-work
has made possible the unlimited reproduction of works of art; and the
resulting demand for cheap knick-knacks has given employment to a
multitude of untrained designers having nothing in common with the
_virtuoso_ of former times.
It is an open question how much the mere possibility of unlimited
reproduction detracts from the intrinsic value of an object of art. To
the art-lover, as distinguished from the collector, uniqueness _per
se_ can give no value to an inartistic object; but the distinction,
the personal quality, of a beautiful object is certainly enhanced when
it is known to be alone of its kind--as in the case of the old bronzes
made _à cire perdue_. It must, however, be noted that in some
cases--as in that of bronze-casting--the method which permits
reproduction is distinctly inferior to that used when but one object
is to be produced.
In writing on objects of art, it is difficult to escape the charge of
saying on one page that reproductions are objectionable, and on the
next that they are better than poor "originals." The United States
customs laws have drawn a rough distinction between an original work
and its reproductions, defining the former as a work of art and the
latter as articles of commerce; but it does not follow that an article
of commerce may not be an adequate representation of a work of art.
The technical differences incidental to the various forms of
reproduction make any general conclusion impossible. In the case of
bronzes, for instance, it has been pointed out that the _cire perdue_
process is superior to that by means of which reproductions may be
made; nor is this the only cause of inferiority in bronze
reproductions. The nature of bronze-casting makes it needful that the
final touches should be given to bust or statue after it emerges from
the mould. Upon these touches, given by the master's chisel, the
expressiveness and significance of the work chiefly depend; and
multiplied reproductions, in lacking this individual stamp, must lack
precisely that which distinguishes the work of art from the commercial
article.
Perhaps the safest general rule is to say that the less the
reproduction suggests an attempt at artistic interpretation,--the more
literal and mechanical is its rendering of the original,--the better
it fulfils its purpose. Thus, plaster-casts of sculpture are more
satisfactory than bronze or marble copies; and a good photograph of a
painting is superior to the average reproduction in oils or
water-color.
The deterioration in gilding is one of the most striking examples of
the modern disregard of quality and execution. In former times gilding
was regarded as one of the crowning touches of magnificence in
decoration, was little used except where great splendor of effect was
desired, and was then applied by means of a difficult and costly
process. To-day, after a period of reaction during which all gilding
was avoided, it is again unsparingly used, under the mistaken
impression that it is one of the chief characteristics of the French
styles now once more in demand. The result is a plague of liquid
gilding. Even in France, where good gilding is still done, the great
demand for cheap gilt furniture and ornaments has led to the general
use of the inferior process. The prevalence of liquid gilding, and the
application of gold to furniture and decoration not adapted to such
treatment, doubtless explain the aversion of many persons to any use
of gilding in decoration.
In former times the expense of good gilding was no obstacle to its
use, since it was employed only in gala rooms, where the whole
treatment was on the same scale of costliness: it would never have
occurred to the owner of an average-sized house to drench his walls
and furniture in gilding, since the excessive use of gold in
decoration was held to be quite unsuited to such a purpose. Nothing
more surely preserves any form of ornament from vulgarization than a
general sense of fitness.
Much of the beauty and propriety of old decoration was due to the fact
that the merit of a work of art was held to consist, not in substance,
but in design and execution. It was never thought that a badly
designed bust or vase could be saved from mediocrity by being made of
an expensive material. Suitability of substance always enhances a work
of art; mere costliness never. The chryselephantine Zeus of Olympia
was doubtless admirably suited to the splendor of its surroundings;
but in a different setting it would have been as beautiful in marble.
In plastic art everything depends on form and execution, and the
skilful handling of a substance deliberately chosen for its
resistance (where another might have been used with equal fitness) is
rather a _tour de force_ than an artistic achievement.
These last generalizations are intended to show, not only that there
is an intrinsic value in almost all old bibelots, but also that the
general excellence of design and execution in past times has handed
down to us many unimportant trifles in the way of furniture and
household appliances worthy of being regarded as minor objects of art.
In Italy especially, where every artisan seems to have had the gift of
the _plasticatore_ in his finger-tips, and no substance was thought
too poor to express a good design, there are still to be found many
bits of old workmanship--clocks, _appliques_, terra-cottas, and carved
picture-frames with touches of gilding--that may be characterized in
the terms applied by the builder of Buckingham House to his collection
of pictures:--"Some good, _none disagreeable_." Still, no accumulation
of such trifles, even where none is disagreeable, will give to a room
the same distinction as the presence of a few really fine works of
art. Any one who has the patience to put up with that look of bareness
so displeasing to some will do better to buy each year one superior
piece rather than a dozen of middling quality.
Even the buyer who need consult only his own pleasure must remember
that his very freedom from the ordinary restrictions lays him open to
temptation. It is no longer likely that any collector will be
embarrassed by a superfluity of treasures; but he may put too many
things into one room, and no amount of individual merit in the objects
themselves will, from the decorator's standpoint, quite warrant this
mistake. Any work of art, regardless of its intrinsic merit, must
justify its presence in a room by being _more valuable than the space
it occupies_--more valuable, that is, to the general scheme of
decoration.
Those who call this view arbitrary or pedantic should consider, first,
the importance of plain surfaces in decoration, and secondly the
tendency of overcrowding to minimize the effect of each separate
object, however striking in itself. Eye and mind are limited in their
receptivity to a certain number of simultaneous impressions, and the
Oriental habit of displaying only one or two objects of art at a time
shows a more delicate sense of these limitations than the Western
passion for multiplying effects.
To sum up, then, a room should depend for its adornment on general
harmony of parts, and on the artistic quality of such necessities as
lamps, screens, bindings, and furniture. Whoever goes beyond these
essentials should limit himself in the choice of ornaments to the
"labors of the master-artist's hand."
FOOTNOTE:
[36] "A little study would probably show that the Ptolemaic era in
Egypt was a renaissance of the Theban age, in architecture as in other
respects, while the golden period of Augustus in Rome was largely a
Greek revival. Perhaps it would even be discovered that all ages of
healthy human prosperity are more or less revivals, and have been
marked by a retrospective tendency." _The Architecture of the
Renaissance in Italy_, by W. J. Anderson. London, Batsford, 1896.
CONCLUSION
In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to show that in the
treatment of rooms we have passed from the golden age of architecture
to the gilded age of decoration.
Any argument in support of a special claim necessitates certain
apparent injustices, sets up certain provisional limitations, and can
therefore be judged with fairness only by those who make due allowance
for these conditions. In the discussion of æsthetics such impartiality
can seldom be expected. Not unnaturally, people resent any attempt to
dogmatize on matters so generally thought to lie within the domain of
individual judgment. Many hold that in questions of taste _Gefühl ist
alles_; while those who believe that beyond the oscillations of
fashion certain fixed laws may be discerned have as yet agreed upon no
formula defining their belief. In short, our civilization has not yet
developed any artistic creed so generally recognized that it may be
invoked on both sides of an argument without risk of misunderstanding.
This is true at least of those forms of art that minister only to the
æsthetic sense. With architecture and its allied branches the case is
different. Here beauty depends on fitness, and the practical
requirements of life are the ultimate test of fitness.
If, therefore, it can be proved that the old practice was based upon a
clearer perception of these requirements than is shown by modern
decorators, it may be claimed not unreasonably that the old methods
are better than the new. It seems, however, that the distinction
between the various offices of art is no longer clearly recognized.
The merit of house-decoration is now seldom measured by the standard
of practical fitness; and those who would set up such a standard are
suspected of proclaiming individual preferences under the guise of
general principles.
In this book, an endeavor has been made to draw no conclusion
unwarranted by the premises; but whatever may be thought of the
soundness of some of the deductions, they must be regarded, not as a
criticism of individual work, but simply of certain tendencies in
modern architecture. It must be remembered, too, that the book is
merely a sketch, intended to indicate the lines along which further
study may profitably advance.
It may seem inconsequent that an elementary work should include much
apparently unimportant detail. To pass in a single chapter from a
discussion of abstract architectural laws to the combination of colors
in a bedroom carpet seems to show lack of plan; yet the transition is
logically justified. In the composition of a whole there is no
negligible quantity: if the decoration of a room is planned on certain
definite principles, whatever contributes line or color becomes a
factor in the composition. The relation of proportion to decoration is
like that of anatomy to sculpture: underneath are the everlasting
laws. It was the recognition of this principle that kept the work of
the old architect-decorators (for the two were one) free from the
superfluous, free from the intemperate accumulation that marks so many
modern rooms. Where each detail had its determinate part, no
superficial accessories were needed to make up a whole: a great
draughtsman represents with a few strokes what lesser artists can
express only by a multiplicity of lines.
The supreme excellence is simplicity. Moderation, fitness,
relevance--these are the qualities that give permanence to the work of
the great architects. _Tout ce qui n'est pas nécessaire est nuisible._
There is a sense in which works of art may be said to endure by virtue
of that which is left out of them, and it is this "tact of omission"
that characterizes the master-hand.
Modern civilization has been called a varnished barbarism: a
definition that might well be applied to the superficial graces of
much modern decoration. Only a return to architectural principles can
raise the decoration of houses to the level of the past. Vasari said
of the Farnesina palace that it was not built, but really born--_non
murato ma veramente nato_; and this phrase is but the expression of an
ever-present sense--the sense of interrelation of parts, of unity of
the whole.
There is no absolute perfection, there is no communicable ideal; but
much that is empiric, much that is confused and extravagant, will give
way before the application of principles based on common sense and
regulated by the laws of harmony and proportion.
INDEX
Adam, ceiling ornaments of, 93
Andirons, 84
_Appliques_, in hall and staircase, 119
Araldi's ceiling in the convent of St. Paul, Parma, 97
Architrave of door, see Doorway;
of mantel-piece, 82
Arm-chair, modern, 128
_Armoires_, old French and Italian, 117
Ashby, Castle, Inigo Jones's stairs in, 111
Aviler, d', his description of dining-room fountain, 158
Ball-room, 137;
in Italy, 138;
Louis XIV, 139;
lighting of, 140;
chairs, 140
Barry, Madame du, dining-room of, 156
Bath-room, 172;
in Pitti Palace, 172
Bedroom, development of, 162;
Renaissance, 162;
Louis XIV, 162;
XVIII-century, 163;
cotton hangings in, 164;
suite, plan of, 169;
children's, 182
Bedstead, history of, 163
Belvédère, at Versailles, frescoes in, 42
Bérain, ceiling arabesques of, 98
_Bergère_, origin of, 7;
design of, 128
Bernini, his staircase in the Vatican, 108
Bindings, decorative value of, 146
Blinds, 73
Blois, spiral stairs in court-yard of château, 109;
_cabinet_ of Catherine de' Medici, 123
Blondel, on doors, 58;
on fireplaces, 74
Book-cases, medieval, 145;
in Catherine de' Medici's _cabinet_, 145;
in France in the XVII century, 146;
built into the wall, 147;
in England, 149;
modern, 148
Books in the middle ages, 145;
in the Renaissance, 146
Bosse, Abraham, engravings of Louis XIII interiors, 69;
examples of state bedrooms, 123
Boudoir, 130;
modern decoration of, 170
Bramante, his use of the mezzanin floor, 5
Breakfast-room, 160
Bric-à-brac, definition of, 184;
knowledge of, 187;
superiority of old over new, 190
Burckhardt, on medieval house-planning, 107, note
Byfield, G., his stairs at Hurlingham, 111
_Cabinet_, Italian origin of, 123;
used in French Renaissance houses, 123;
of Catherine de' Medici, book-cases in, 145
Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_, example of Palladian manner, 4;
of English house-planning, 135
Carpets, in general color-scheme, 29;
choice of, 100;
_Savonnerie_, 100;
designs of, 101;
stair-carpets, 102, 118;
hall-carpets, 118
Caserta, staircase in royal palace, 108
Casino del Grotto, near Mantua, frescoes in, 42;
ceilings in, 98
Casts in vestibule, 105;
in hall, 118;
in school-room, 178
Ceilings, 89;
timbered, 90;
in France and England, 91;
Elizabethan, 92;
Louis XIII, 92;
Louis XV, 92;
Louis XVI, 93;
Adam, 93, 96;
objections to wooden, 94;
modern treatment of, 95;
frescoed, 97
Chambord, staircase at, 109
_Chambre de parade_, 123
Chandeliers, 140, 159
Chanteloup, library of, 149
Chantilly, stair-rail at, 113
Chevening, Inigo Jones's stairs at, 111
Cheverny, fireplace at, 74
Chinese art, influence of, on stuff patterns, 166
Chippendale's designs for grates, 81
"Colonial" style, the, 81
Color, use of, in decoration, 28;
predominance of one color in each room, 28;
color-schemes, 29
Cornices, interior, Durand on, 94
Cortile, Italian, modern adaptation of, 117
Coutant d'Ivry's stair-rail in the Palais Royal, 113
Curtains, mediæval and Renaissance, 69;
in XVII and XVIII centuries, 70;
muslin, 72
Dado, the, 37;
sometimes omitted in lobbies and corridors, 38
Decoration and furniture, harmony between, 13;
individuality in decoration, 17;
graduated scheme of, 24
"Den," furniture of, 152;
decoration of, 153
Dining-chairs, mediæval, 156;
XVII century, 159;
XVIII century, 159
Dining-room, origin of, 155;
in France, 154;
in England, 155;
furniture of, 156;
French, XVIII century, 157;
fountains in, 158;
decoration of modern, 160;
lighting of, 160;
state, 160;
heating of, 161
Dining-table, mediæval, 156;
modern, 161
Donowell, J., his stairs at West Wycombe, 111
Doors, 48;
sliding, origin of, 49;
double, 49;
mediæval, 51;
in palace of Urbino, 52;
in Italy, 52-54;
locks and hinges, 55;
in the Hôtels de Rohan, de Soubise, and de Toulouse, 56;
glass doors, 57;
treatment in England, 57;
mahogany, 58;
panelling, principles of, 59;
veneering, 61;
concealed doors, 61;
entrance-door, 103
Doorway, proper dimensions of, 51, 60;
treatment of, in Italy, 52;
in France, 55;
in England, 57
Drawing-room, in modern town houses, 20;
evolution of, in England, 122;
in France, 122;
origin of modern, 124;
treatment of, in England and America, 124;
furniture of, 127
Dressing-room, 171
_Duchesse_, 130
Durand, J. L. N., on originality in architecture, 10;
on interior cornices, 94
Easton Neston, use of panel-pictures at, 46
Entrance, treatment of, 103;
entrance-door, 103
Fenders, 85
Fire-backs, 80
Fire-boards, 86
Fireplaces, 74;
mediæval, construction of, 75;
in Italy, 75;
in France, 76;
lining of, 80;
American, 81;
accessories of, 84
Fire-screens, 86
Floors, 89;
of brick or stone, 99;
marble and mosaic, in Italy, 99;
parquet, 99;
of vestibule, 104;
of ball-room, 140
Fontana, his staircase in the royal palace, Naples, 108
Fountains in dining-rooms, 158
Fresco-painting, in wall-decoration, 41;
examples of, in Italy and France, 42;
in ceiling-decoration, 97;
in Italy, 97;
in France, 98;
in Italian gala rooms, 139
Furniture, in the middle ages, 7;
furniture and decoration, harmony between, 25;
modern English and American, 26;
XVIII century, in France and England, 27;
in vestibule, 105;
in hall, 117;
in _salon de compagnie_, 125;
in drawing-room, 127, 128;
English, XVIII century, 129;
in dining-room, 156;
in bedroom, 171;
in school-room, 180
Gabriel, influence of, on ornamental detail, 56;
on ceilings, 93;
on stair-rails, 114
Gala rooms, 134;
uses of, 135;
in Italy, 136
Gallery, 137
Genoa, royal palace, doors in, 54
Gibbons, Grinling, carvings for panel-pictures, 46
Gilding, deterioration of, 192
Giulio Romano's frescoes in the Palazzo del T, 136
_Grand'salle_, mediæval, 110
Grates, 81
Gwilt, his definition of _staircase_, 106
Hall, 106;
old English, 110;
uses of, 115;
modern treatment of, 115;
decoration of, 117;
furniture, 117;
floor of, 118;
lighting of, 119;
prints and pictures in, 119
Holkham, over-mantels at, 81
Hôtel de Rohan, doors in, 56
de Soubise, doors in, 56
de Toulouse, doors in, 56
Houghton Hall, doors in, 57, note
House, Carlton, stair-rail in, 114
Devonshire, stair-rail in, 114
Norfolk, stair-rail in, 114
Individuality in decoration, 17
Isabella of Este's apartment at Mantua, doorways in, 52
Jones, Inigo, his introduction of Palladian manner in England, 4,
note;
influence on ceiling-decoration, 92;
on plan of English hall, 110;
his stairs at Castle Ashby, 111;
at Chevening, 111
Juvara, his staircase in the Palazzo Madama, Turin, 108
Lambrequin, origin of, 71
Lamour, Jean, his wrought-iron work at Nancy, 112
Lantern in vestibule, 105
Laurano, Luciano da, palace of Urbino built by, 6
Lebrun, door-locks in _Galerie d'Apollon_ designed by, 55
Le Riche, frescoes of, in Belvédère, Versailles, 42
Library, 145;
in the university at Nancy, 149;
of Louis XVI, at Versailles, 149;
of Chanteloup, 149;
modern, decoration of, 150
_Lit de parade_, 122
_Lit de repos_, 130
Longhi, frescoes of, in Palazzo Sina, Venice, 143
Louis XIII, windows, 69;
ceilings, 92
Louis XIV, modern house-furnishing dates from his reign, 8;
style, characteristics of, 14;
window-shutters, 69;
influence on French, 77;
mantels, 78;
ceilings, 98;
stair-rails, 112;
ball-rooms, 140
Louis XV style, characteristics of, 13;
doors, 56;
ceilings, 92;
wrought-iron work, 112;
stair-rails, 113
Louis XVI style, characteristics of, 12;
Gabriel's influence on, 56, 93;
doors, 57;
ceilings, 93;
stair-rails, 114
Luciennes, Madame du Barry's dining-room at, 157
Mantegna's ceiling, palace of Mantua, 97
Mantel-pieces, Italian Renaissance, 77;
French Renaissance, 77;
Louis XIV, 78;
XVIII century, 79;
American, 82;
facing of, 83
Mantua, doorways in palace, 52, 54;
Mantegna's ceiling in, 97;
_cabinet_ of Isabella of Este, 123
Mario dei Fiori, 139
Massimi alle Colonne, palace of, in Rome, 6
Mezzanin, origin of, 5; treatment of, 6
Ministère de la Marine, Paris, door in, 61
Mirrors, use of, in over-mantel, 79;
painted, in Borghese Palace, Rome, 139;
in ball-rooms, 141
Morelli's staircase in Palazzo Braschi, Rome, 108
Morning-room, 132
Mullions, use of, 66
Music-room, 142;
at Remiremont, 143
Music-stand, 144
Music-stool, 144
Nancy, wrought-iron work at, 112;
library in the university, 149
Naples, staircase in royal palace, 108
Niches, in hall and staircase, 117
Nursery, 181
Oberkampf, inventor of color-printing on cotton, 166
Object of art, definition of, 187;
reproductions of, 191
Openings, placing and proportion of, 23;
lines of, carried up to ceiling, 37, 52, 65, 74;
treatment of, in rocaille style, 56
Orders, use of, in wall-decoration, 36;
application to doorways in Italy, 53;
in France, 54;
in England, 57;
in ball-rooms, 139
Originality in art, 9;
J. L. N. Durand on, 10
Over-doors, mediæval treatment of, 52;
in Italy, 53;
in France, 55;
Louis XVI, 57
Over-mantels, Renaissance, 76;
use of mirror in, 79;
XVIII-century treatment, 79;
in England, 81
Palais Royal, stair-rail in, 113
Palazzo Borghese, Rome, painted mirrors in, 139
Braschi, Rome, staircase in, 108
Gondi, Florence, stairs in, 108
Labia, Venice, frescoes in, 136
Madama, Turin, staircase in, 108
Massimi alle Colonne, Rome, date of, 6
Piccolomini, at Pienza, staircase in, 108, note
Pitti, Florence, bath-room in, 172
Reale, Caserta, staircase in, 108
Reale, Naples, staircase in, 108
Riccardi, staircase in, 108, note
Sina, Venice, frescoes in, 143
del T, Mantua, frescoes in, 136
Palladian window, 67
Panelling, in Italy and north of the Alps, 40;
wood, stone and stucco, 40, 42;
subdivisions of, 43
Parma, Araldi's ceiling in convent of St. Paul, 97;
rocaille stoves in museum, 121
Pavia, Certosa of, doorways in, 52
_Perroquets_, 141
Perugia, ceiling in the Sala del Cambio, 97
Perugino's ceiling in the Sala del Cambio, Perugia, 97
Peruzzi, Baldassare, his use of the mezzanin, 5
Piano, design of, 143
Pictures, proper background for, 45;
mode of hanging, 46;
in hall, 119;
in dining-room, 160;
in school-room, 180
Picture-frames, selection of, 45
Plan of house in relation to decoration, 23
Plate-glass in windows, 67
Pompadour, Madame de, dining-room fountain of, 158
Pompeii, wall-frescoes of, 41
Portière, use of, 59
Presses, old English, 117
Prints in hall, 120;
in school-room, 180
Privacy, modern indifference to, 22
Proportion, definition of, 31;
Isaac Ware on, 32
Pyne's _Royal Residences_, examples of pictures set in panels, 46
Rambouillet, Madame de, her influence on house-planning, 8
Raphael, ceilings of, 97
Remiremont, music-room at, 143
Renaissance, characteristics of domestic architecture, 4;
doors, 52;
window-curtains, 69;
mantels, 76, 77;
ceilings, 90-92;
French architects of, 109
Rennes, Palais de Justice, carved wooden ceilings, 89
Rugs, Oriental, 29, 100;
modern European, 101
_Salon à l'Italienne_, see Saloon
_Salon de compagnie_, origin and use of, 123, 125;
decoration and furniture of, 125;
lighting of, 126
_Salon de famille_, origin and use of, 123
Saloon, adaptation of, in England by Inigo Jones, 111;
introduction in France, 123;
uses in Italy, 136;
at Vaux-le-Vicomte, 137
School-room, 172;
decoration of, 178
Screen in Tudor halls, 110
Shobden Court, stairs in, 111
Shutters, interior decoration of, 69;
at Vaux-le-Vicomte, 69;
in rooms of Mesdames de France, Versailles, 69;
purpose of, 72
Sideboard, mediæval, 156;
in France, 157
Smoking-room, 151
Stairs, 106;
development of, in Italy, 107;
in the Palladian period, 108;
in the XVII and XVIII centuries, 108;
spiral, 109;
in hall, in England, 111;
construction of, in Italy, 112;
in France, 112
Stair-carpets, 118
Staircase, meaning of term, 106;
walls of, 117;
in simple houses, 119;
lighting of, 119
Stair-rails, in Italy and France, 112;
Louis XIV and XV, 113;
Louis XVI and Empire, 113;
Tudor and Elizabethan, 114;
Palladian, in England, 114
Stoves, use of, in hall, 120;
examples of old stoves, 121;
in dining-room, 161
Stucco, use of, in decoration, 40;
panelling, in Italy, 40;
in ceilings, 90;
in Elizabethan ceilings, 92;
combined with painting, 97
Stuff hangings, 44
Stupinigi, frescoes at, 42;
over-mantels at, 80
Styles, essence of, 11;
conformity to, 13
Symmetry, definition of, 33;
advantages of, 34
Tapestry, use of, in northern Europe, 39;
its subordination to architectural lines of room, 39
Tiepolo, frescoes of, in the Villa Valmarana, 42;
in the Palazzo Labia, 136
Titian's "Presentation of the Virgin," doorway in, 53
_Toiles de Jouy_, 166
Trianon-sous-Bois, fountains in banqueting-gallery, 158
Udine, Giovanni da, ceilings of, in collaboration with Raphael, 97
Urbino, ducal palace of, 6;
doors in, 52;
fireplace in, 74;
_cabinet_ of Isabella of Este, 123
Vanvitelli's staircase at Caserta, 108
Vatican, Bernini's staircase in, 108
Vault, the Roman, influence of, on ceilings, 191
Vaux-le-Vicomte, interior shutters at, 69;
saloon at, 137
Versailles, frescoes in Belvédère, 42;
windows in rooms of Mesdames de France, 68;
shutters in same, 69;
library of Louis XVI, 148
Vestibule, 104;
furniture of, 105;
lighting of, 105;
absence of, in English house-planning, 110
Villa, Italian, chief features of, 4, note
Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, over-mantel in, 76
Madama, in Rome, ceiling of loggia, 97
Rotonda, near Vicenza, saloon in, 136
Valmarana, near Vicenza, frescoes in, 42
Vertemati, near Chiavenna, over-mantel in, 76;
carved wooden ceiling in, 89
Viollet-le-Duc, on doorways, 52, note;
on mediæval house-planning, 109
Voguë, Hôtel, at Dijon, 7
Wall-decoration, 38
Wall-papers, 44
Walls, 31
Ware, Isaac, on proportion, 32;
on sliding doors, 49;
his definition of staircase, 106
West Wycombe, Donowell's stairs at, 111
Windows, decorative value of, 64;
dimensions of, 65;
plate-glass in, 67;
French or casement, 68;
sash, 68;
curtains, 69, 70;
shutters, 69, 72;
lambrequin, 71;
muslin curtains, 72;
blinds, 73
Wood-box, 86
THE DESCENT OF MAN
AND OTHER STORIES
BY EDITH WHARTON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND OTHER STORIES
The Descent of Man
The Other Two
Expiation
The Lady's Maid's Bell
The Mission of Jane
The Reckoning
The Letter
The Dilettante
The Quicksand
A Venetian Night's Entertainment
THE DESCENT OF MAN
I
When Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods
the air of rejuvenation he brought with him was due less to the
influences of the climate than to the companionship he had enjoyed on
his travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appeared to set out
alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact accompanied him, and if
his heart beat high it was simply at the pitch of his adventure: for
the Professor had eloped with an idea.
No one who has not tried the experiment can divine its exhilaration.
Professor Linyard would not have changed places with any hero of
romance pledged to a flesh-and-blood abduction. The most fascinating
female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up a
good deal of room in the present and overlap inconveniently into the
future; whereas an idea can accommodate itself to a single molecule of
the brain or expand to the circumference of the horizon. The
Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality of adaptability.
As the express train whirled him away from the somewhat inelastic
circle of Mrs. Linyard's affections, his idea seemed to be sitting
opposite him, and their eyes met every moment or two in a glance of
joyous complicity; yet when a friend of the family presently joined him
and began to talk about college matters, the idea slipped out of sight
in a flash, and the Professor would have had no difficulty in proving
that he was alone.
But if, from the outset, he found his idea the most agreeable of
fellow-travellers, it was only in the aromatic solitude of the woods
that he tasted the full savour of his adventure. There, during the long
cool August days, lying full length on the pine-needles and gazing up
into the sky, he would meet the eyes of his companion bending over him
like a nearer heaven. And what eyes they were!--clear yet unfathomable,
bubbling with inexhaustible laughter, yet drawing their freshness and
sparkle from the central depths of thought! To a man who for twenty
years had faced an eye reflecting the obvious with perfect accuracy,
these escapes into the inscrutable had always been peculiarly inviting;
but hitherto the Professor's mental infidelities had been restricted by
an unbroken and relentless domesticity. Now, for the first time since
his marriage, chance had given him six weeks to himself, and he was
coming home with his lungs full of liberty.
It must not be inferred that the Professor's domestic relations were
defective: they were in fact so complete that it was almost impossible
to get away from them. It is the happy husbands who are really in
bondage; the little rift within the lute is often a passage to freedom.
Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he had sought in it; a
comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of rising to sentimental
crises had made him scrupulously careful not to shirk the practical
obligations of the bond. He took as it were a sociological view of his
case, and modestly regarded himself as a brick in that foundation on
which the state is supposed to rest. Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared
about entomology, or had taken sides in the war over the transmission
of acquired characteristics, he might have had a less impersonal notion
of marriage; but he was unconscious of any deficiency in their
relation, and if consulted would probably have declared that he didn't
want any woman bothering with his beetles. His real life had always
lain in the universe of thought, in that enchanted region which, to
those who have lingered there, comes to have so much more colour and
substance than the painted curtain hanging before it. The Professor's
particular veil of Maia was a narrow strip of homespun woven in a
monotonous pattern; but he had only to lift it to step into an empire.
This unseen universe was thronged with the most seductive shapes: the
Professor moved Sultan-like through a seraglio of ideas. But of all the
lovely apparitions that wove their spells about him, none had ever worn
quite so persuasive an aspect as this latest favourite. For the others
were mostly rather grave companions, serious-minded and elevating
enough to have passed muster in a Ladies' Debating Club; but this new
fancy of the Professor's was simply one embodied laugh. It was, in
other words, the smile of relaxation at the end of a long day's toil:
the flash of irony that the laborious mind projects, irresistibly, over
labour conscientiously performed. The Professor had always been a hard
worker. If he was an indulgent friend to his ideas, he was also a stern
task-master to them. For, in addition to their other duties, they had
to support his family: to pay the butcher and baker, and provide for
Jack's schooling and Millicent's dresses. The Professor's household was
a modest one, yet it tasked his ideas to keep it up to his wife's
standard. Mrs. Linyard was not an exacting wife, and she took enough
pride in her husband's attainments to pay for her honours by turning
Millicent's dresses and darning Jack's socks, and going to the College
receptions year after year in the same black silk with shiny seams. It
consoled her to see an occasional mention of Professor Linyard's
remarkable monograph on the Ethical Reactions of the Infusoria, or an
allusion to his investigations into the Unconscious Cerebration of the
Amoeba.
Still there were moments when the healthy indifference of Jack and
Millicent reacted on the maternal sympathies; when Mrs. Linyard would
have made her husband a railway-director, if by this transformation she
might have increased her boy's allowance and given her daughter a new
hat, or a set of furs such as the other girls were wearing. Of such
moments of rebellion the Professor himself was not wholly unconscious.
He could not indeed understand why any one should want a new hat; and
as to an allowance, he had had much less money at college than Jack,
and had yet managed to buy a microscope and collect a few "specimens";
while Jack was free from such expensive tastes! But the Professor did
not let his want of sympathy interfere with the discharge of his
paternal obligations. He worked hard to keep the wants of his family
gratified, and it was precisely in the endeavor to attain this end that
he at length broke down and had to cease from work altogether.
To cease from work was not to cease from thought of it; and in the
unwonted pause from effort the Professor found himself taking a general
survey of the field he had travelled. At last it was possible to lift
his nose from the loom, to step a moment in front of the tapestry he
had been weaving. From this first inspection of the pattern so long
wrought over from behind, it was natural to glance a little farther and
seek its reflection in the public eye. It was not indeed of his special
task that he thought in this connection. He was but one of the great
army of weavers at work among the threads of that cosmic woof; and what
he sought was the general impression their labour had produced.
When Professor Linyard first plied his microscope, the audience of the
man of science had been composed of a few fellow-students, sympathetic
or hostile as their habits of mind predetermined, but versed in the
jargon of the profession and familiar with the point of departure. In
the intervening quarter of a century, however, this little group had
been swallowed up in a larger public. Every one now read scientific
books and expressed an opinion on them. The ladies and the clergy had
taken them up first; now they had passed to the school-room and the
kindergarten. Daily life was regulated on scientific principles; the
daily papers had their "Scientific Jottings"; nurses passed
examinations in hygienic science, and babies were fed and dandled
according to the new psychology.
The very fact that scientific investigation still had, to some minds, a
flavour of heterodoxy, gave it a perennial interest. The mob had broken
down the walls of tradition to batten in the orchard of forbidden
knowledge. The inaccessible goddess whom the Professor had served in
his youth now offered her charms in the market-place. And yet it was
not the same goddess after all, but a pseudo-science masquerading in
the garb of the real divinity. This false goddess had her ritual and
her literature. She had her sacred books, written by false priests and
sold by millions to the faithful. In the most successful of these
works, ancient dogma and modern discovery were depicted in a close
embrace under the lime-lights of a hazy transcendentalism; and the
tableau never failed of its effect. Some of the books designed on this
popular model had lately fallen into the Professor's hands, and they
filled him with mingled rage and hilarity. The rage soon died: he came
to regard this mass of pseudo-literature as protecting the truth from
desecration. But the hilarity remained, and flowed into the form of his
idea. And the idea--the divine, incomparable idea--was simply that he
should avenge his goddess by satirizing her false interpreters. He
would write a skit on the "popular" scientific book; he would so heap
platitude on platitude, fallacy on fallacy, false analogy on false
analogy, so use his superior knowledge to abound in the sense of the
ignorant, that even the gross crowd would join in the laugh against its
augurs. And the laugh should be something more than the distension of
mental muscles; it should be the trumpet-blast bringing down the walls
of ignorance, or at least the little stone striking the giant between
the eyes.
II
The Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would
command prompt access to the publisher's sanctuary; but the young man
who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was clear that
Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a specific figure to
the purveyors of popular literature. But the publisher was an old
friend; and when the card had finally drifted to his office on the
languid tide of routine he came forth at once to greet his visitor.
The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been
right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had
been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one of
the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly turns
out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and fathers. The
Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was aware that many of
his most reckless comrades had been transformed into prudent
capitalists or cowed wage-earners; but he was almost sure that he could
count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so keen a perception of
relative values, could hardly have been blunted even by twenty years'
intercourse with the obvious.
The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as if
he had been fattened on popular fiction; and his fat was full of
optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his
office a long train of spotless heroines laden with the maiden tribute
of the hundredth thousand volume.
Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his early
enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by such
flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his
manuscript without a scruple.
"What--you don't mean to say you've been doing something in our line?"
The Professor smiled. "You publish scientific books sometimes, don't
you?"
The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm--it all
depends--I'm afraid you're a little _too_ scientific for us. We have a
big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the concentrated
essences. In your case, of course, I should be delighted to stretch a
point; but in your own interest I ought to tell you that perhaps one of
the educational houses would do you better."
The Professor leaned back, still smiling luxuriously.
"Well, look it over--I rather think you'll take it."
"Oh, we'll _take_ it, as I say; but the terms might not--"
"No matter about the terms--"
The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that
science was so profitable; we find our popular novelists are the
hardest hands at a bargain."
"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have a
fancy to have you publish this thing."
"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name goes
with a certain public--and I rather like the originality of our
bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us both."
His creases deepened at the thought, and he shone encouragingly on the
Professor's leave-taking.
Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to town.
He had been looking forward with immense zest to this second meeting;
Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured himself
following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his friend's
progress through the manuscript. He was proud of the adroitness with
which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had maintained to the last
the pretense of a serious work, in order to give the keener edge to his
reader's enjoyment. Not since under-graduate days had the Professor
tasted such a draught of pure fun as his anticipations now poured for
him.
This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the
office like a successful novelist, and Harviss grasped him with both
hands.
"Well--do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry.
"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already--you'll excuse
my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty about terms,
I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the autumn market. My
dear Linyard, why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice sank to a
reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own arm-chair.
The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of
letting you find out?"
"Well--it _was_ a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars. "I
don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly
unexpected--and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the
right shop."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly.
Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a doubt
of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so
extraordinarily out of your line--"
The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow smile.
"Would you have thought it so--at college?"
Harviss stared. "At college?--Why, you were the most iconoclastic
devil--"
There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses and
looked at his friend. "Well--?" he said simply.
"Well--?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah--I see; you mean that
that's what explains it. The swing of the pendulum, and so forth. Well,
I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed myself, for
example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow I hadn't
expected it of you."
The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the
official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too amazed
to have an ear for such fine shades.
"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven do
you think this thing is?" And he struck his fist on the manuscript
which lay between them.
Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent
eye on the document.
"Why, your apologia--your confession of faith, I should call it. You
surely must have seen which way you were going? You can't have written
it in your sleep?"
"Oh, no, I was wide awake enough," said the Professor faintly.
"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were _not?"_ Harviss
leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor's worn
coat-sleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there was
the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front. What is
growth but the shifting of the stand-point? Why should a man be
expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at--our age?
It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy in
admitting that you have come round a little--have fallen into line, so
to speak."
But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to
expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial
rafters.
"Oh, Lord, oh Lord--is it really as good as that?" he gasped.
Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his desk;
it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency.
"My dear fellow--" he began in a soothing tone.
"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor. "I'll--I'll
quiet down in a minute; you needn't ring for the young man." He dropped
into his chair again, and grasped its arms to steady his shaking. "This
is the best laugh I've had since college," he brought out between his
paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up with a groan. "But if it's as
good as that it's a failure!" he exclaimed.
Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My dear
Linyard," he said at length, "I don't understand a word you're saying."
The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which he
managed to fling out--"But that's the very core of the joke!"
Harviss looked at him resignedly. "What is?"
"Why, your not seeing--your not understanding--"
"Not understanding _what?"_
"Why, what the book is meant to be." His laughter subsided again and he
sat gazing thoughtfully at the publisher. "Unless it means," he wound
up, "that I've over-shot the mark."
"If I am the mark, you certainly have," said Harviss, with a glance at
the clock.
The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. "The book is a
skit," he said, rising.
The other stared. "A skit? It's not serious, you mean?"
"Not to me--but it seems you've taken it so."
"You never told me--" began the publisher in a ruffled tone.
"No, I never told you," said the Professor.
Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. "I don't pretend to
be up in such recondite forms of humour," he said, still stiffly. "Of
course you address yourself to a very small class of readers."
"Oh, infinitely small," admitted the Professor, extending his hand
toward the manuscript.
Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. "That is," he
continued, "if you insist on an ironical interpretation."
"If I insist on it--what do you mean?"
The publisher smiled faintly. "Well--isn't the book susceptible of
another? If _I_ read it without seeing--"
"Well?" murmured the other, fascinated.--"why shouldn't the rest of the
world?" declared Harviss boldly. "I represent the Average
Reader--that's my business, that's what I've been training myself to do
for the last twenty years. It's a mission like another--the thing is to
do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows who are
publishers in business hours and dilettantes the rest of the time.
Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary in business
as in religion. But that's not the point--I was going to say that if
you'll let me handle this book as a genuine thing I'll guarantee to
make it go."
The Professor stood motionless, his hand still on the manuscript.
"A genuine thing?" he echoed.
"A serious piece of work--the expression of your convictions. I tell
you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions--they'll
always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is
just on the line of popular interest. You've got hold of a big thing.
It's full of hope and enthusiasm: it's written in the religious key.
There are passages in it that would do splendidly in a Birthday
Book--things that popular preachers would quote in their sermons. If
you'd wanted to catch a big public you couldn't have gone about it in a
better way. The thing's perfect for my purpose--I wouldn't let you
alter a word of it. It'll sell like a popular novel if you'll let me
handle it in the right way."
III
When the Professor left Harviss's office, the manuscript remained
behind. He thought he had been taken by the huge irony of the
situation--by the enlarged circumference of the joke. In its original
form, as Harviss had said, the book would have addressed itself to a
very limited circle: now it would include the world. The elect would
understand; the crowd would not; and his work would thus serve a double
purpose. And, after all, nothing was changed in the situation; not a
word of the book was to be altered. The change was merely in the
publisher's point of view, and in the "tip" he was to give the
reviewers. The Professor had only to hold his tongue and look serious.
These arguments found a strong reinforcement in the large premium which
expressed Harviss's sense of his opportunity. As a satire, the book
would have brought its author nothing; in fact, its cost would have
come out of his own pocket, since, as Harviss assured him, no publisher
would have risked taking it. But as a profession of faith, as the
recantation of an eminent biologist, whose leanings had hitherto been
supposed to be toward a cold determinism, it would bring in a steady
income to author and publisher. The offer found the Professor in a
moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the
necessity of postponing a course of well-paid lectures, had combined to
diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an advance of a
thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible.
It was still as a joke that he persisted in regarding the transaction;
and though he had pledged himself not to betray the real intent of the
book, he held _in petto_ the notion of some day being able to take the
public into his confidence. As for the initiated, they would know at
once: and however long a face he pulled, his colleagues would see the
tongue in his cheek. Meanwhile it fortunately happened that, even if
the book should achieve the kind of triumph prophesied by Harviss, it
would not appreciably injure its author's professional standing.
Professor Linyard was known chiefly as a microscopist. On the structure
and habits of a certain class of coleoptera he was the most
distinguished living authority; but none save his intimate friends knew
what generalizations on the destiny of man he had drawn from these
special studies. He might have published a treatise on the Filioque
without disturbing the confidence of those on whose approval his
reputation rested; and moreover he was sustained by the thought that
one glance at his book would let them into its secret. In fact, so sure
was he of this that he wondered the astute Harviss had cared to risk
such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably reflected that even in
this reverberating age the opinions of the laboratory do not easily
reach the street; and the Professor, at any rate, was not bound to
offer advice on this point.
The determining cause of his consent was the fact that the book was
already in press. The Professor knew little about the workings of the
press, but the phrase gave him a sense of finality, of having been
caught himself in the toils of that mysterious engine. If he had had
time to think the matter over, his scruples might have dragged him
back; but his conscience was eased by the futility of resistance.
IV
Mrs. Linyard did not often read the papers; and there was therefore a
special significance in her approaching her husband one evening after
dinner with a copy of the _New York Investigator_ in her hand. Her
expression lent solemnity to the act: Mrs. Linyard had a limited but
distinctive set of expressions, and she now looked as she did when the
President of the University came to dine.
"You didn't tell me of this, Samuel," she said in a slightly tremulous
voice.
"Tell you of what?" returned the Professor, reddening to the margin of
his baldness.
"That you had published a book--I might never have heard of it if Mrs.
Pease hadn't brought me the paper."
Her husband rubbed his eye-glasses with a groan. "Oh, you would have
heard of it," he said gloomily.
Mrs. Linyard stared. "Did you wish to keep it from me, Samuel?" And as
he made no answer, she added with irresistible pride: "Perhaps you
don't know what beautiful things have been said about it."
He took the paper with a reluctant hand. "Has Pease been saying
beautiful things about it?"
"The Professor? Mrs. Pease didn't say he had mentioned it."
The author heaved a sigh of relief. His book, as Harviss had
prophesied, had caught the autumn market: had caught and captured it.
The publisher had conducted the campaign like an experienced
strategist. He had completely surrounded the enemy. Every newspaper,
every periodical, held in ambush an advertisement of "The Vital Thing."
Weeks in advance the great commander had begun to form his lines of
attack. Allusions to the remarkable significance of the coming work had
appeared first in the scientific and literary reviews, spreading thence
to the supplements of the daily journals. Not a moment passed without a
quickening touch to the public consciousness: seventy millions of
people were forced to remember at least once a day that Professor
Linyard's book was on the verge of appearing. Slips emblazoned with the
question: _Have you read "The Vital Thing"?_ fell from the pages of
popular novels and whitened the floors of crowded street-cars. The
query, in large lettering, assaulted the traveller at the railway
bookstall, confronted him on the walls of "elevated" stations, and
seemed, in its ascending scale, about to supplant the interrogations as
to soap and stove-polish which animate our rural scenery.
On the day of publication, the Professor had withdrawn to his
laboratory. The shriek of the advertisements was in his ears, and his
one desire was to avoid all knowledge of the event they heralded. A
reaction of self-consciousness had set in, and if Harviss's cheque had
sufficed to buy up the first edition of "The Vital Thing" the Professor
would gladly have devoted it to that purpose. But the sense of
inevitableness gradually subdued him, and he received his wife's copy
of the _Investigator_ with a kind of impersonal curiosity. The review
was a long one, full of extracts: he saw, as he glanced over them, how
well they would look in a volume of "Selections." The reviewer began by
thanking his author "for sounding with no uncertain voice that note of
ringing optimism, of faith in man's destiny and the supremacy of good,
which has too long been silenced by the whining chorus of a decadent
nihilism.... It is well," the writer continued, "when such reminders
come to us not from the moralist but from the man of science--when from
the desiccating atmosphere of the laboratory there rises this glorious
cry of faith and reconstruction."
The review was minute and exhaustive. Thanks no doubt to Harviss's
diplomacy, it had been given to the _Investigator's_ "best man," and
the Professor was startled by the bold eye with which his emancipated
fallacies confronted him. Under the reviewer's handling they made up
admirably as truths, and their author began to understand Harviss's
regret that they should be used for any less profitable purpose.
The _Investigator_, as Harviss phrased it, "set the pace," and the
other journals followed, finding it easier to let their critical
man-of-all-work play a variation on the first reviewer's theme than to
secure an expert to "do" the book afresh. But it was evident that the
Professor had captured his public, for all the resources of the
profession could not, as Harviss gleefully pointed out, have carried
the book so straight to the heart of the nation. There was something
noble in the way in which Harviss belittled his own share in the
achievement, and insisted on the inutility of shoving a book which had
started with such headway on.
"All I ask you is to admit that I saw what would happen," he said with
a touch of professional pride. "I knew you'd struck the right note--I
knew they'd be quoting you from Maine to San Francisco. Good as
fiction? It's better--it'll keep going longer."
"Will it?" said the Professor with a slight shudder. He was resigned to
an ephemeral triumph, but the thought of the book's persistency
frightened him.
"I should say so! Why, you fit in everywhere--science, theology,
natural history--and then the all-for-the-best element which is so
popular just now. Why, you come right in with the How-to-Relax series,
and they sell way up in the millions. And then the book's so full of
tenderness--there are such lovely things in it about flowers and
children. I didn't know an old Dryasdust like you could have such a lot
of sentiment in him. Why, I actually caught myself snivelling over that
passage about the snowdrops piercing the frozen earth; and my wife was
saying the other day that, since she's read 'The Vital Thing,' she
begins to think you must write the 'What-Cheer Column,' in the
_Inglenook."_ He threw back his head with a laugh which ended in the
inspired cry: "And, by George, sir, when the thing begins to slow off
we'll start somebody writing against it, and that will run us straight
into another hundred thousand."
And as earnest of this belief he drew the Professor a supplementary
cheque.
V
Mrs. Linyard's knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had
been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at his
study table for the Christmas number of the _Inglenook_. On this point
the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the unwonted smile
with which he welcomed his wife's intrusion showed that his defences
were weakening.
The lady from the _Inglenook_ took the hint with professional
promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her
note-book: "I shan't let you forget me, Professor."
The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his
wife's question: "Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?"
The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly," he
said, wondering at her expression.
She sank down with a sigh. "Indirectly, then?"
"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the
other day--"
Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really
believe your success has turned his head."
"The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!"
"It's only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can't
repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the
success of your book he has been asked about so much--it's given the
children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they
go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation of the author of
"The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud of the book; but it
entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it."
The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the
study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of
the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular
weekly paper.
"I don't know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I
suppose this might."
Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity.
"What is it, Samuel?"
"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column of
_The Woman's World_. I believe that journal has a larger circulation
than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."
He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been so
easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely production
of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs.
Linyard out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The
Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's suggestion that he should
follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had
sworn not to lend more than a passive support to the fraud of "The
Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from Mrs. Linyard
prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on
the Scientific Sermons.
The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his
family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing
was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital
Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged his
own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The Professor,
during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only two types of
women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the earnest and
intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he infinitely preferred the
former, even for conversational purposes. But as a social instrument
woman was unknown to him; and it was not till he was drawn into the
world on the tide of his literary success that he discovered the
deficiencies in his classification of the sex. Then he learned with
astonishment of the existence of a third type: the woman who is fond
without foolishness and intellectual without earnestness. Not that the
Professor inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he
expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his
new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to
talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal
without being domestic.
Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly, and
emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself
constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was
unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of hearing
it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women just how "it
had first come to him."
Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his
family relations. His photograph in the _Inglenook_, to which the lady
of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview, carried
his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing"; and the
Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew used to the
functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar interviews on
every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a frequency which
reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer. Presently his head began
to figure in the advertising pages of the magazines. Admiring readers
learned the name of the only breakfast-food in use at his table, of the
ink with which "The Vital Thing" had been written, the soap with which
the author's hands were washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified
him for further effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to
millions of readers, and his head passed in due course from the
magazine and the newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box.
VI
The Professor, all the while, was leading a double life. While the
author of "The Vital Thing" reaped the fruits of popular approval, the
distinguished microscopist continued his laboratory work unheeded save
by the few who were engaged in the same line of investigations. His
divided allegiance had not hitherto affected the quality of his work:
it seemed to him that he returned to the laboratory with greater zest
after an afternoon in a drawing-room where readings from "The Vital
Thing" had alternated with plantation melodies and tea. He had long
ceased to concern himself with what his colleagues thought of his
literary career. Of the few whom he frequented, none had referred to
"The Vital Thing"; and he knew enough of their lives to guess that
their silence might as fairly be attributed to indifference as to
disapproval. They were intensely interested in the Professor's views on
beetles, but they really cared very little what he thought of the
Almighty.
The Professor entirely shared their feelings, and one of his chief
reasons for cultivating the success which accident had bestowed on him,
was that it enabled him to command a greater range of appliances for
his real work. He had known what it was to lack books and instruments;
and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which summoned them to his
aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a
discovery: balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of
hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The conjecture was the
result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would
take months more of comparison and classification. But at the end of
the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself that
assurance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes
a life-time seem the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he
had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It
was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and
criticism of his associates, that he could test their final value; and
this inner assurance was confirmed by the only friend whose confidence
he invited.
Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs. Linyard's
eyes to the triumph of "The Vital Thing," was the repository of her
husband's scientific experiences. What he thought of "The Vital Thing"
had never been divulged; and he was capable of such vast exclusions
that it was quite possible that pervasive work had not yet reached him.
In any case, it was not likely to affect his judgment of the author's
professional capacity.
"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease's
summing-up. "I'm sure you've got hold of something big; but to see it
clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my
advice--chuck everything else and get to work tomorrow. It's time you
wrote a book, anyhow."
_ It's time you wrote a book, anyhow!_ The words smote the Professor
with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could have wept over their
significance. But his friend's other phrase reminded him with a start
of Harviss. "You have got hold of a big thing--" it had been the
publisher's first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a world of
meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which the
powers who fought for the Professor were destined to wage their final
battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome. The next day
he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for an advance on the
new popular edition of "The Vital Thing." He had determined to drop a
course of supplementary lectures at the University, and to give himself
up for a year to his book. To do this, additional funds were necessary;
but thanks to "The Vital Thing" they would be forthcoming.
The publisher received him as cordially as usual; but the response to
his demand was not as prompt as his previous experience had entitled
him to expect.
"Of course we'll be glad to do what we can for you, Linyard; but the
fact is, we've decided to give up the idea of the new edition for the
present."
"You've given up the new edition?"
"Why, yes--we've done pretty well by 'The Vital Thing,' and we're
inclined to think it's _your_ turn to do something for it now."
The Professor looked at him blankly. "What can I do for it?" he
asked--"what _more_" his accent added.
"Why, put a little new life in it by writing something else. The secret
of perpetual motion hasn't yet been discovered, you know, and it's one
of the laws of literature that books which start with a rush are apt to
slow down sooner than the crawlers. We've kept 'The Vital Thing' going
for eighteen months--but, hang it, it ain't so vital any more. We
simply couldn't see our way to a new edition. Oh, I don't say it's dead
yet--but it's moribund, and you're the only man who can resuscitate it."
The Professor continued to stare. "I--what can I do about it?" he
stammered.
"Do? Why write another like it--go it one better: you know the trick.
The public isn't tired of you by any means; but you want to make
yourself heard again before anybody else cuts in. Write another
book--write two, and we'll sell them in sets in a box: The Vital Thing
Series. That will take tremendously in the holidays. Try and let us
have a new volume by October--I'll be glad to give you a big advance if
you'll sign a contract on that."
The Professor sat silent: there was too cruel an irony in the
coincidence.
Harviss looked up at him in surprise.
"Well, what's the matter with taking my advice--you're not going out of
literature, are you?"
The Professor rose from his chair. "No--I'm going into it," he said
simply.
"Going into it?"
"I'm going to write a real book--a serious one."
"Good Lord! Most people think 'The Vital Thing' 's serious."
"Yes--but I mean something different."
"In your old line--beetles and so forth?"
"Yes," said the Professor solemnly.
Harviss looked at him with equal gravity. "Well, I'm sorry for that,"
he said, "because it takes you out of our bailiwick. But I suppose
you've made enough money out of 'The Vital Thing' to permit yourself a
little harmless amusement. When you want more cash come back to
us--only don't put it off too long, or some other fellow will have
stepped into your shoes. Popularity don't keep, you know; and the
hotter the success the quicker the commodity perishes."
He leaned back, cheerful and sententious, delivering his axioms with
conscious kindliness.
The Professor, who had risen and moved to the door, turned back with a
wavering step.
"When did you say another volume would have to be ready?" he faltered.
"I said October--but call it a month later. You don't need any pushing
nowadays."
"And--you'd have no objection to letting me have a little advance now?
I need some new instruments for my real work."
Harviss extended a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, that's talking--I'll
write the cheque while you wait; and I daresay we can start up the
cheap edition of 'The Vital Thing' at the same time, if you'll pledge
yourself to give us the book by November.--How much?" he asked, poised
above his cheque-book.
In the street, the Professor stood staring about him, uncertain and a
little dazed.
"After all, it's only putting it off for six months," he said to
himself; "and I can do better work when I get my new instruments."
He smiled and raised his hat to the passing victoria of a lady in whose
copy of "The Vital Thing" he had recently written:
_Labor est etiam ipsa voluptas._
THE OTHER TWO
I
WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come down
to dinner.
It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at
his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure--his
glass gave him little more than the five-and-thirty years to which his
wife confessed--but he had fancied himself already in the temperate
zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a tender sense of all
it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial
door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the
good dinner just beyond it.
They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of
Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The little
girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the
day of her mother's wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke
the news that she was ill with typhoid, but declared that all the
symptoms were favorable. Lily could show twelve years of unblemished
health, and the case promised to be a light one. The nurse spoke as
reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn had adjusted
herself to the situation. She was very fond of Lily--her affection for
the child had perhaps been her decisive charm in Waythorn's eyes--but
she had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl had
inherited, and no woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry.
Waythorn was therefore quite prepared to see her come in presently, a
little late because of a last look at Lily, but as serene and
well-appointed as if her good-night kiss had been laid on the brow of
health. Her composure was restful to him; it acted as ballast to his
somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over the
child's bed he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness:
her very step would prognosticate recovery.
His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than
circumstance, and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gayety
which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women's activities
are growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was said about her;
for, popular as she was, there had always been a faint undercurrent of
detraction. When she had appeared in New York, nine or ten years
earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had unearthed
somewhere--was it in Pittsburgh or Utica?--society, while promptly
accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own
discrimination. Inquiry, however, established her undoubted connection
with a socially reigning family, and explained her recent divorce as
the natural result of a runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was
known of Mr. Haskett it was easy to believe the worst of him.
Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set
whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the
most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and
stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even
Varick's stanchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for
matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were of a nature to bear the
inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a
diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this second separation
Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide her
wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was
known that she was to marry Waythorn there was a momentary reaction.
Her best friends would have preferred to see her remain in the role of
the injured wife, which was as becoming to her as crape to a rosy
complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed, and it was not even
suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor. Still, people
shook their heads over him, and one grudging friend, to whom he
affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly:
"Yes--and with your ears shut."
Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall Street
phrase, he had "discounted" them. He knew that society has not yet
adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the
adaptation takes place every woman who uses the freedom the law accords
her must be her own social justification. Waythorn had an amused
confidence in his wife's ability to justify herself. His expectations
were fulfilled, and before the wedding took place Alice Varick's group
had rallied openly to her support. She took it all imperturbably: she
had a way of surmounting obstacles without seeming to be aware of them,
and Waythorn looked back with wonder at the trivialities over which he
had worn his nerves thin. He had the sense of having found refuge in a
richer, warmer nature than his own, and his satisfaction, at the
moment, was humorously summed up in the thought that his wife, when she
had done all she could for Lily, would not be ashamed to come down and
enjoy a good dinner.
The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment
expressed by Mrs. Waythorn's charming face when she presently joined
him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected
to assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn thought he had
never seen her look so nearly worried.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is anything wrong with Lily?"
"No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn
hesitated. "But something tiresome has happened."
He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a
paper between them.
"This letter?"
"Yes--Mr. Haskett has written--I mean his lawyer has written."
Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife's hands.
"What about?"
"About seeing Lily. You know the courts--"
"Yes, yes," he interrupted nervously.
Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed to
have remained in the outer darkness from which his wife had been
rescued, and Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he had
given up his business in Utica and followed her to New York in order to
be near his little girl. In the days of his wooing, Waythorn had often
met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and smiling, on her way "to see papa."
"I am so sorry," Mrs. Waythorn murmured.
He roused himself. "What does he want?"
"He wants to see her. You know she goes to him once a week."
"Well--he doesn't expect her to go to him now, does he?"
"No--he has heard of her illness; but he expects to come here."
"_Here?_"
Mrs. Waythorn reddened under his gaze. They looked away from each other.
"I'm afraid he has the right....You'll see...." She made a proffer of
the letter.
Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring about
the softly lighted room, which a moment before had seemed so full of
bridal intimacy.
"I'm so sorry," she repeated. "If Lily could have been moved--"
"That's out of the question," he returned impatiently.
"I suppose so."
Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute.
"He must come, of course," he said. "When is--his day?"
"I'm afraid--to-morrow."
"Very well. Send a note in the morning."
The butler entered to announce dinner.
Waythorn turned to his wife. "Come--you must be tired. It's beastly,
but try to forget about it," he said, drawing her hand through his arm.
"You're so good, dear. I'll try," she whispered back.
Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers,
between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back into a smile.
"How pretty everything is!" she sighed luxuriously.
He turned to the butler. "The champagne at once, please. Mrs. Waythorn
is tired."
In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her own
were quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his
injunction and forgotten.
II
WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett
was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight
drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day--he had thoughts of
dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he reflected that
before he opened it again it would have admitted another man who had as
much right to enter it as himself, and the thought filled him with a
physical repugnance.
He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself
crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street the
man facing him wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn
glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close
together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition on
Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all--why not? They had
always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before
Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on
the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at
their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of
self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick.
The latter drew the stout man's breath of relief.
"Lord--I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned back,
looking unconcernedly at Waythorn. "Sorry to hear that Sellers is
knocked out again."
"Sellers?" echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner's name.
Varick looked surprised. "You didn't know he was laid up with the gout?"
"No. I've been away--I only got back last night." Waythorn felt himself
reddening in anticipation of the other's smile.
"Ah--yes; to be sure. And Sellers's attack came on two days ago. I'm
afraid he's pretty bad. Very awkward for me, as it happens, because he
was just putting through a rather important thing for me."
"Ah?" Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in
"important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools
of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually concern
itself.
It occurred to him that Varick might be talking at random, to relieve
the strain of their propinquity. That strain was becoming momentarily
more apparent to Waythorn, and when, at Cortlandt Street, he caught
sight of an acquaintance, and had a sudden vision of the picture he and
Varick must present to an initiated eye, he jumped up with a muttered
excuse.
"I hope you'll find Sellers better," said Varick civilly, and he
stammered back: "If I can be of any use to you--" and let the departing
crowd sweep him to the platform.
At his office he heard that Sellers was in fact ill with the gout, and
would probably not be able to leave the house for some weeks.
"I'm sorry it should have happened so, Mr. Waythorn," the senior clerk
said with affable significance. "Mr. Sellers was very much upset at the
idea of giving you such a lot of extra work just now."
"Oh, that's no matter," said Waythorn hastily. He secretly welcomed the
pressure of additional business, and was glad to think that, when the
day's work was over, he would have to call at his partner's on the way
home.
He was late for luncheon, and turned in at the nearest restaurant
instead of going to his club. The place was full, and the waiter
hurried him to the back of the room to capture the only vacant table.
In the cloud of cigar-smoke Waythorn did not at once distinguish his
neighbors; but presently, looking about him, he saw Varick seated a few
feet off. This time, luckily, they were too far apart for conversation,
and Varick, who faced another way, had probably not even seen him; but
there was an irony in their renewed nearness.
Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat
despatching his hurried luncheon he looked across half enviously at the
other's leisurely degustation of his meal. When Waythorn first saw him
he had been helping himself with critical deliberation to a bit of
Camembert at the ideal point of liquefaction, and now, the cheese
removed, he was just pouring his _cafe double_ from its little
two-storied earthen pot. He poured slowly, his ruddy profile bent above
the task, and one beringed white hand steadying the lid of the
coffee-pot; then he stretched his other hand to the decanter of cognac
at his elbow, filled a liqueur-glass, took a tentative sip, and poured
the brandy into his coffee-cup.
Waythorn watched him in a kind of fascination. What was he thinking
of--only of the flavor of the coffee and the liqueur? Had the morning's
meeting left no more trace in his thoughts than on his face? Had his
wife so completely passed out of his life that even this odd encounter
with her present husband, within a week after her remarriage, was no
more than an incident in his day? And as Waythorn mused, another idea
struck him: had Haskett ever met Varick as Varick and he had just met?
The recollection of Haskett perturbed him, and he rose and left the
restaurant, taking a circuitous way out to escape the placid irony of
Varick's nod.
It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the footman
who opened the door looked at him oddly.
"How is Miss Lily?" he asked in haste.
"Doing very well, sir. A gentleman--"
"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him off,
hurrying upstairs.
He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife. When
he reached the drawing-room she was there, fresh and radiant. Lily's
day had been good; the doctor was not coming back that evening.
At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the resulting
complications. She listened sympathetically, adjuring him not to let
himself be overworked, and asking vague feminine questions about the
routine of the office. Then she gave him the chronicle of Lily's day;
quoted the nurse and doctor, and told him who had called to inquire. He
had never seen her more serene and unruffled. It struck him, with a
curious pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that
she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial incidents of
her day.
After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the coffee
and liqueurs on a low table before her and left the room. She looked
singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark
leather of one of his bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the contrast
would have charmed him.
He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation.
"Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her.
"Oh, yes--he came."
"You didn't see him, of course?"
She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him."
That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward her,
applying a match to his cigar. Well, the thing was over for a week, at
any rate. He would try not to think of it. She looked up at him, a
trifle rosier than usual, with a smile in her eyes.
"Ready for your coffee, dear?"
He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the
coffee-pot. The lamplight struck a gleam from her bracelets and tipped
her soft hair with brightness. How light and slender she was, and how
each gesture flowed into the next! She seemed a creature all compact of
harmonies. As the thought of Haskett receded, Waythorn felt himself
yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were his, those white
hands with their flitting motions, his the light haze of hair, the lips
and eyes....
She set down the coffee-pot, and reaching for the decanter of cognac,
measured off a liqueur-glass and poured it into his cup.
Waythorn uttered a sudden exclamation.
"What is the matter?" she said, startled.
"Nothing; only--I don't take cognac in my coffee."
"Oh, how stupid of me," she cried.
Their eyes met, and she blushed a sudden agonized red.
III
TEN DAYS later, Mr. Sellers, still house-bound, asked Waythorn to call
on his way down town.
The senior partner, with his swaddled foot propped up by the fire,
greeted his associate with an air of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, my dear fellow; I've got to ask you to do an awkward thing
for me."
Waythorn waited, and the other went on, after a pause apparently given
to the arrangement of his phrases: "The fact is, when I was knocked out
I had just gone into a rather complicated piece of business for--Gus
Varick."
"Well?" said Waythorn, with an attempt to put him at his ease.
"Well--it's this way: Varick came to me the day before my attack. He
had evidently had an inside tip from somebody, and had made about a
hundred thousand. He came to me for advice, and I suggested his going
in with Vanderlyn."
"Oh, the deuce!" Waythorn exclaimed. He saw in a flash what had
happened. The investment was an alluring one, but required negotiation.
He listened intently while Sellers put the case before him, and, the
statement ended, he said: "You think I ought to see Varick?"
"I'm afraid I can't as yet. The doctor is obdurate. And this thing
can't wait. I hate to ask you, but no one else in the office knows the
ins and outs of it."
Waythorn stood silent. He did not care a farthing for the success of
Varick's venture, but the honor of the office was to be considered, and
he could hardly refuse to oblige his partner.
"Very well," he said, "I'll do it."
That afternoon, apprised by telephone, Varick called at the office.
Waythorn, waiting in his private room, wondered what the others thought
of it. The newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's marriage, had
acquainted their readers with every detail of her previous matrimonial
ventures, and Waythorn could fancy the clerks smiling behind Varick's
back as he was ushered in.
Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being undignified,
and Waythorn was conscious of cutting a much less impressive figure.
Varick had no head for business, and the talk prolonged itself for
nearly an hour while Waythorn set forth with scrupulous precision the
details of the proposed transaction.
"I'm awfully obliged to you," Varick said as he rose. "The fact is I'm
not used to having much money to look after, and I don't want to make
an ass of myself--" He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing
that there was something pleasant about his smile. "It feels uncommonly
queer to have enough cash to pay one's bills. I'd have sold my soul for
it a few years ago!"
Waythorn winced at the allusion. He had heard it rumored that a lack of
funds had been one of the determining causes of the Varick separation,
but it did not occur to him that Varick's words were intentional. It
seemed more likely that the desire to keep clear of embarrassing topics
had fatally drawn him into one. Waythorn did not wish to be outdone in
civility.
"We'll do the best we can for you," he said. "I think this is a good
thing you're in."
"Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you--" Varick broke
off, embarrassed. "I suppose the thing's settled now--but if--"
"If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again," said
Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the end, to appear the more
self-possessed of the two.
The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed
Waythorn grew used to the idea of Haskett's weekly visit. The first
time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as
to the visit on his return. She replied at once that Haskett had merely
seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor did not wish any one in the
child's sick-room till after the crisis.
The following week Waythorn was again conscious of the recurrence of
the day, but had forgotten it by the time he came home to dinner. The
crisis of the disease came a few days later, with a rapid decline of
fever, and the little girl was pronounced out of danger. In the
rejoicing which ensued the thought of Haskett passed out of Waythorn's
mind and one afternoon, letting himself into the house with a latchkey,
he went straight to his library without noticing a shabby hat and
umbrella in the hall.
In the library he found a small effaced-looking man with a thinnish
gray beard sitting on the edge of a chair. The stranger might have been
a piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are
summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic
machinery. He blinked at Waythorn through a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles and said mildly: "Mr. Waythorn, I presume? I am Lily's
father."
Waythorn flushed. "Oh--" he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off,
disliking to appear rude. Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual
Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences.
Waythorn had been allowed to infer that Alice's first husband was a
brute.
"I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the-counter
politeness.
"Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose
the nurse has been told?"
"I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of
speaking, as though life had worn down his natural powers of resistance.
Waythorn stood on the threshold, nervously pulling off his gloves.
"I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he said;
and as he opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad we can
give you a good report of Lily." He winced as the _we_ slipped out, but
Haskett seemed not to notice it.
"Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me."
"Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn
nodded and passed out.
In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the
womanish sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the
grotesque chances of life. He had known when he married that his wife's
former husbands were both living, and that amid the multiplied contacts
of modern existence there were a thousand chances to one that he would
run against one or the other, yet he found himself as much disturbed by
his brief encounter with Haskett as though the law had not obligingly
removed all difficulties in the way of their meeting.
Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not
suffered half so much from his two meetings with Varick. It was
Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so
intolerable. He stood still, hearing steps in the passage.
"This way, please," he heard the nurse say. Haskett was being taken
upstairs, then: not a corner of the house but was open to him. Waythorn
dropped into another chair, staring vaguely ahead of him. On his
dressing-table stood a photograph of Alice, taken when he had first
known her. She was Alice Varick then--how fine and exquisite he had
thought her! Those were Varick's pearls about her neck. At Waythorn's
instance they had been returned before her marriage. Had Haskett ever
given her any trinkets--and what had become of them, Waythorn wondered?
He realized suddenly that he knew very little of Haskett's past or
present situation; but from the man's appearance and manner of speech
he could reconstruct with curious precision the surroundings of Alice's
first marriage. And it startled him to think that she had, in the
background of her life, a phase of existence so different from anything
with which he had connected her. Varick, whatever his faults, was a
gentleman, in the conventional, traditional sense of the term: the
sense which at that moment seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning
to Waythorn. He and Varick had the same social habits, spoke the same
language, understood the same allusions. But this other man...it was
grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that Haskett had worn a
made-up tie attached with an elastic. Why should that ridiculous detail
symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own
paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him,
became as it were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs.
Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a
pianola, and a copy of "Ben Hur" on the centre-table. He could see her
going to the theatre with Haskett--or perhaps even to a "Church
Sociable"--she in a "picture hat" and Haskett in a black frock-coat, a
little creased, with the made-up tie on an elastic. On the way home
they would stop and look at the illuminated shop-windows, lingering
over the photographs of New York actresses. On Sunday afternoons
Haskett would take her for a walk, pushing Lily ahead of them in a
white enameled perambulator, and Waythorn had a vision of the people
they would stop and talk to. He could fancy how pretty Alice must have
looked, in a dress adroitly constructed from the hints of a New York
fashion-paper; how she must have looked down on the other women,
chafing at her life, and secretly feeling that she belonged in a bigger
place.
For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in
which she had shed the phase of existence which her marriage with
Haskett implied. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every
inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period of
her life. If she had denied being married to Haskett she could hardly
have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this obliteration of the
self which had been his wife.
Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her motives.
What right had he to create a fantastic effigy of her and then pass
judgment on it? She had spoken vaguely of her first marriage as
unhappy, had hinted, with becoming reticence, that Haskett had wrought
havoc among her young illusions....It was a pity for Waythorn's peace
of mind that Haskett's very inoffensiveness shed a new light on the
nature of those illusions. A man would rather think that his wife has
been brutalized by her first husband than that the process has been
reversed.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure
IV
"MR. WAYTHORN, I don't like that French governess of Lily's."
Haskett, subdued and apologetic, stood before Waythorn in the library,
revolving his shabby hat in his hand.
Waythorn, surprised in his armchair over the evening paper, stared back
perplexedly at his visitor.
"You'll excuse my asking to see you," Haskett continued. "But this is
my last visit, and I thought if I could have a word with you it would
be a better way than writing to Mrs. Waythorn's lawyer."
Waythorn rose uneasily. He did not like the French governess either;
but that was irrelevant.
"I am not so sure of that," he returned stiffly; "but since you wish it
I will give your message to--my wife." He always hesitated over the
possessive pronoun in addressing Haskett.
The latter sighed. "I don't know as that will help much. She didn't
like it when I spoke to her."
Waythorn turned red. "When did you see her?" he asked.
"Not since the first day I came to see Lily--right after she was taken
sick. I remarked to her then that I didn't like the governess."
Waythorn made no answer. He remembered distinctly that, after that
first visit, he had asked his wife if she had seen Haskett. She had
lied to him then, but she had respected his wishes since; and the
incident cast a curious light on her character. He was sure she would
not have seen Haskett that first day if she had divined that Waythorn
would object, and the fact that she did not divine it was almost as
disagreeable to the latter as the discovery that she had lied to him.
"I don't like the woman," Haskett was repeating with mild persistency.
"She ain't straight, Mr. Waythorn--she'll teach the child to be
underhand. I've noticed a change in Lily--she's too anxious to
please--and she don't always tell the truth. She used to be the
straightest child, Mr. Waythorn--" He broke off, his voice a little
thick. "Not but what I want her to have a stylish education," he ended.
Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't
quite see what I can do."
Haskett hesitated. Then he laid his hat on the table, and advanced to
the hearth-rug, on which Waythorn was standing. There was nothing
aggressive in his manner; but he had the solemnity of a timid man
resolved on a decisive measure.
"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can
remind Mrs. Waythorn that, by the decree of the courts, I am entitled
to have a voice in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went on more
deprecatingly: "I'm not the kind to talk about enforcing my rights, Mr.
Waythorn. I don't know as I think a man is entitled to rights he hasn't
known how to hold on to; but this business of the child is different.
I've never let go there--and I never mean to."
The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect ways,
he had been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had learned was
favorable. The little man, in order to be near his daughter, had sold
out his share in a profitable business in Utica, and accepted a modest
clerkship in a New York manufacturing house. He boarded in a shabby
street and had few acquaintances. His passion for Lily filled his life.
Waythorn felt that this exploration of Haskett was like groping about
with a dark-lantern in his wife's past; but he saw now that there were
recesses his lantern had not explored. He had never inquired into the
exact circumstances of his wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the
surface all had been fair. It was she who had obtained the divorce, and
the court had given her the child. But Waythorn knew how many
ambiguities such a verdict might cover. The mere fact that Haskett
retained a right over his daughter implied an unsuspected compromise.
Waythorn was an idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant
contingencies till he found himself confronted with them, and then he
saw them followed by a special train of consequences. His next days
were thus haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by
conjuring them up in his wife's presence.
When he repeated Haskett's request a flame of anger passed over her
face; but she subdued it instantly and spoke with a slight quiver of
outraged motherhood.
"It is very ungentlemanly of him," she said.
The word grated on Waythorn. "That is neither here nor there. It's a
bare question of rights."
She murmured: "It's not as if he could ever be a help to Lily--"
Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is,"
he repeated, "what authority has he over her?"
She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am
willing to see him--I thought you objected," she faltered.
In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's claims.
Perhaps it was not the first time she had resisted them.
"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if Haskett
has a right to be consulted you must consult him."
She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as
a victim.
Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure that
he would not. But the governess was dismissed, and from time to time
the little man demanded an interview with Alice. After the first
outburst she accepted the situation with her usual adaptability.
Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the piano-tuner, and Mrs.
Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with that
domestic familiar. Waythorn could not but respect the father's
tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett
might be "up to" something, that he had an object in securing a
foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure of Haskett's
single-mindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild contempt for
such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns might offer.
Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable, and his successor
had to accept him as a lien on the property.
Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and Varick's
affairs hung on Waythorn's hands. The negotiations were prolonged and
complicated; they necessitated frequent conferences between the two
men, and the interests of the firm forbade Waythorn's suggesting that
his client should transfer his business to another office.
Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his
coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but in the
office he was concise and clear-headed, with a flattering deference to
Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so affably
established, it would have been absurd for the two men to ignore each
other in society. The first time they met in a drawing-room, Varick
took up their intercourse in the same easy key, and his hostess's
grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it. After that they ran
across each other frequently, and one evening at a ball Waythorn,
wandering through the remoter rooms, came upon Varick seated beside his
wife. She colored a little, and faltered in what she was saying; but
Varick nodded to Waythorn without rising, and the latter strolled on.
In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't
know you spoke to Varick."
Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time--he happened to be
standing near me; I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward, meeting
everywhere--and he said you had been very kind about some business."
"That's different," said Waythorn.
She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly.
"I thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when we meet."
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her
own--no theory about her relation to these men? She had accepted
Haskett--did she mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as she
had said, and her instinct was to evade difficulties or to circumvent
them. With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct had
developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe"--a shoe that too many feet
had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many
different directions. Alice Haskett--Alice Varick--Alice Waythorn--she
had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of
her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self
where the unknown god abides.
"Yes--it's better to speak to Varick," said Waythorn wearily.
"Earth's Martyrs." By Stephen Phillips.
V
THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns'
acceptance of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for
bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as a
miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist the
diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and there
were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But Mrs.
Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided Varick
nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that she had
discovered the solution of the newest social problem.
He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had
fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he saw that
Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which forced her into
continued relation with it, and by the traces it had left on her
nature. With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a member of a
syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's personality and his
predecessors were his partners in the business. If there had been any
element of passion in the transaction he would have felt less
deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands
like a change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could
have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses; for resisting Hackett,
for yielding to Varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact.
She reminded him of a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt
and she knew they would never cut her.
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his
sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort with the small change
of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less
store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with
Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap revenge of
satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages
which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a
third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who
had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For it _was_ an art, and
made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations and
embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully
softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights, and he knew
exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace the
source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which
had combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that
Haskett's commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while
Varick's liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to
value the conjugal virtues; so that he was directly indebted to his
predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring.
From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased
to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the situation and
the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat
on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat
was often seen there now, for it had been decided that it was better
for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his
boarding-house. Waythorn, having acquiesced in this arrangement, had
been surprised to find how little difference it made. Haskett was never
obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware
of his identity. Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with
himself Haskett was seldom in contact.
One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father was
waiting to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a chair
in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to him for
not leaning back.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted to
see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here till
she came in."
"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that
morning given over the drawing-room to the plumbers.
He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and Haskett's
acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their intercourse. The
spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his guest to draw up
his chair to the fire. He meant to find an excuse to leave Haskett in a
moment; but he was tired and cold, and after all the little man no
longer jarred on him.
The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar-smoke when
the door opened and Varick walked into the room. Waythorn rose
abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house, and
the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular inopportuneness
of his arrival, gave a new edge to Waythorn's blunted sensibilities. He
stared at his visitor without speaking.
Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must
apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to
catch you down town, and so I thought--" He stopped short, catching
sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which
spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he recovered
himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in silence, and
Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman came in carrying
a tea-table.
The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the
deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the
drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the
library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a reflection
on Waythorn's reasonableness.
"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman proceeded
to open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated appointments.
While this interminable process continued the three men stood
motionless, watching it with a fascinated stare, till Waythorn, to
break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a cigar?"
He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick helped
himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and finding
none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the background,
held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and then, and
stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes into the fire.
The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could
just say half a word to you about this business--"
"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room--"
But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and his
wife appeared on the threshold.
She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a
fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing.
"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught sight
of Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of surprise.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure.
As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her
smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a scarcely
perceptible side-glance at Waythorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a
shade less cordially.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most
self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase.
"We--I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered,
brick-red from chin to nape.
Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to
intrude; but you appointed five o'clock--" he directed his resigned
glance to the time-piece on the mantel.
She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of
hospitality.
"I'm so sorry--I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She
stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing
about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost
its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly,
"I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea."
She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two visitors,
as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she held out.
She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a laugh.
EXPIATION
I.
"I CAN never," said Mrs. Fetherel, "hear the bell ring without a
shudder."
Her unruffled aspect--she was the kind of woman whose emotions never
communicate themselves to her clothes--and the conventional background
of the New York drawing-room, with its pervading implication of an
imminent tea-tray and of an atmosphere in which the social functions
have become purely reflex, lent to her declaration a relief not lost on
her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from the other side of the fireplace,
agreed with a glance at the clock, that it _was_ the hour for bores.
"Bores!" cried Mrs. Fetherel impatiently. "If I shuddered at _them_, I
should have a chronic ague!"
She leaned forward and laid a sparkling finger on her cousin's shabby
black knee. "I mean the newspaper clippings," she whispered.
Mrs. Clinch returned a glance of intelligence. "They've begun already?"
"Not yet; but they're sure to now, at any minute, my publisher tells
me."
Mrs. Fetherel's look of apprehension sat oddly on her small features,
which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of being set in
order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there were rumors that
it was her cousin) had once said that Paula Fetherel would have been
very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a moral axiom in a copy-book
hand.
Mrs. Clinch received her confidence with a smile. "Well," she said, "I
suppose you were prepared for the consequences of authorship?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed brightly. "It isn't their coming," she
owned--"it's their coming _now_."
"Now?"
"The Bishop's in town."
Mrs. Clinch leaned back and shaped her lips to a whistle which
deflected in a laugh. "Well!" she said.
"You see!" Mrs. Fetherel triumphed.
"Well--weren't you prepared for the Bishop?"
"Not now--at least, I hadn't thought of his seeing the clippings."
"And why should he see them?"
"Bella--_won't_ you understand? It's John."
"John?"
"Who has taken the most unexpected tone--one might almost say out of
perversity."
"Oh, perversity--" Mrs. Clinch murmured, observing her cousin between
lids wrinkled by amusement. "What tone has John taken?"
Mrs. Fetherel threw out her answer with the desperate gesture of a
woman who lays bare the traces of a marital fist. "The tone of being
proud of my book."
The measure of Mrs. Clinch's enjoyment overflowed in laughter.
"Oh, you may laugh," Mrs. Fetherel insisted, "but it's no joke to me.
In the first place, John's liking the book is so--so--such a false
note--it puts me in such a ridiculous position; and then it has set him
watching for the reviews--who would ever have suspected John of knowing
that books were _reviewed?_ Why, he's actually found out about the
Clipping Bureau, and whenever the postman rings I hear John rush out of
the library to see if there are any yellow envelopes. Of course, when
they _do_ come he'll bring them into the drawing-room and read them
aloud to everybody who happens to be here--and the Bishop is sure to
happen to be here!"
Mrs. Clinch repressed her amusement. "The picture you draw is a lurid
one," she conceded, "but your modesty strikes me as abnormal,
especially in an author. The chances are that some of the clippings
will be rather pleasant reading. The critics are not all union men."
Mrs. Fetherel stared. "Union men?"
"Well, I mean they don't all belong to the well-known
Society-for-the-Persecution-of-Rising-Authors. Some of them have even
been known to defy its regulations and say a good word for a new
writer."
"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Fetherel, with the laugh her cousin's
epigram exacted. "But you don't quite see my point. I'm not at all
nervous about the success of my book--my publisher tells me I have no
need to be--but I _am_ afraid of its being a succes de scandale."
"Mercy!" said Mrs. Clinch, sitting up.
The butler and footman at this moment appeared with the tea-tray, and
when they had withdrawn, Mrs. Fetherel, bending her brightly rippled
head above the kettle, continued in a murmur of avowal, "The title,
even, is a kind of challenge."
"'Fast and Loose,'" Mrs. Clinch mused. "Yes, it ought to take."
"I didn't choose it for that reason!" the author protested. "I should
have preferred something quieter--less pronounced; but I was determined
not to shirk the responsibility of what I had written. I want people to
know beforehand exactly what kind of book they are buying."
"Well," said Mrs. Clinch, "that's a degree of conscientiousness that
I've never met with before. So few books fulfil the promise of their
titles that experienced readers never expect the fare to come up to the
menu."
"'Fast and Loose' will be no disappointment on that score," her cousin
significantly returned. "I've handled the subject without gloves. I've
called a spade a spade."
"You simply make my mouth water! And to think I haven't been able to
read it yet because every spare minute of my time has been given to
correcting the proofs of 'How the Birds Keep Christmas'! There's an
instance of the hardships of an author's life!"
Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose to
experienced authors there's always something absurd in the nervousness
of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake; I've put so much
of myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being misunderstood...of
being, as it were, in advance of my time... like poor Flaubert....I
_know_ you'll think me ridiculous... and if only my own reputation were
at stake, I should never give it a thought...but the idea of dragging
John's name through the mire..."
Mrs. Clinch, who had risen and gathered her cloak about her, stood
surveying from her genial height her cousin's agitated countenance.
"Why did you use John's name, then?"
"That's another of my difficulties! I _had_ to. There would have been
no merit in publishing such a book under an assumed name; it would have
been an act of moral cowardice. 'Fast and Loose' is not an ordinary
novel. A writer who dares to show up the hollowness of social
conventions must have the courage of her convictions and be willing to
accept the consequences of defying society. Can you imagine Ibsen or
Tolstoy writing under a false name?" Mrs. Fetherel lifted a tragic eye
to her cousin. "You don't know, Bella, how often I've envied you since
I began to write. I used to wonder sometimes--you won't mind my saying
so?--why, with all your cleverness, you hadn't taken up some more
exciting subject than natural history; but I see now how wise you were.
Whatever happens, you will never be denounced by the press!"
"Is that what you're afraid of?" asked Mrs. Clinch, as she grasped the
bulging umbrella which rested against her chair. "My dear, if I had
ever had the good luck to be denounced by the press, my brougham would
be waiting at the door for me at this very moment, and I shouldn't have
to ruin this umbrella by using it in the rain. Why, you innocent, if
I'd ever felt the slightest aptitude for showing up social conventions,
do you suppose I should waste my time writing 'Nests Ajar' and 'How to
Smell the Flowers'? There's a fairly steady demand for pseudo-science
and colloquial ornithology, but it's nothing, simply nothing, to the
ravenous call for attacks on social institutions--especially by those
inside the institutions!"
There was often, to her cousin, a lack of taste in Mrs. Clinch's
pleasantries, and on this occasion they seemed more than usually
irrelevant.
"'Fast and Loose' was not written with the idea of a large sale."
Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed. "Perhaps that's just as well," she
returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The surprise will be all the
pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously;
especially if you can get the press to denounce it."
"Bella, how _can_ you? I sometimes think you say such things expressly
to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would understand
my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed to me that the
message I had to deliver was not for myself alone, but for all the
other women in the world who have felt the hollowness of our social
shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the idols of the market, but have
lacked either the courage or the power to proclaim their independence;
and I have fancied, Bella dear, that, however severely society might
punish me for revealing its weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy
of those who, like you"--Mrs. Fetherel's voice sank--"have passed
through the deep waters."
Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free her
ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to have
traversed.
"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll find,
my dear, that women who've had any wading to do are rather shy of
stirring up mud. It sticks--especially on white clothes."
Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she
proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a
clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she
exclaimed, "and I know it's the Bishop!"
It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced by
Mrs. Fetherel's butler, now made an entry that may best be described as
not inadequate to the expectations the announcement raised. The Bishop
always entered a room well; but, when unannounced, or preceded by a Low
Church butler who gave him his surname, his appearance lacked the
impressiveness conferred on it by the due specification of his diocesan
dignity. The Bishop was very fond of his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one
of the traits he most valued in her was the possession of a butler who
knew how to announce a bishop.
Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she
possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself open to her uncle's
criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of
going into five or ten editions, while the fruits of his own episcopal
leisure--"The Wail of Jonah" (twenty cantos in blank verse), and
"Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora Memorial
Window"--inexplicably languished on the back shelves of a publisher
noted for his dexterity in pushing "devotional goods." Even this
indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned, had his niece
thought fit to turn to him for support and advice at the painful
juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became necessary for
her to invite Mr. Clinch to look out for another situation. Mr.
Clinch's misconduct was of the kind especially designed by Providence
to test the fortitude of a Christian wife and mother, and the Bishop
was absolutely distended with seasonable advice and edification; so
that when Bella met his tentative exhortations with the curt remark
that she preferred to do her own housecleaning unassisted, her uncle's
grief at her ingratitude was not untempered with sympathy for Mr.
Clinch.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bishop's warmest greetings
were always reserved for Mrs. Fetherel; and on this occasion Mrs.
Clinch thought she detected, in the salutation which fell to her share,
a pronounced suggestion that her own presence was superfluous--a hint
which she took with her usual imperturbable good humor.
II
Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge
from conversation by offering him a cup of tea. The Bishop accepted
with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment, tea is but a
subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and
knowing that the surest way of distracting attention from one's own
affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she
hastily asked if her uncle had come to town on business.
"On business--yes--" said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had to
see my publisher, who has been behaving rather unsatisfactorily in
regard to my last book."
"Ah--your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense of
her inability to recall the name or nature of the work in question, and
a mental vow never again to be caught in such ignorance of a
colleague's productions.
"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis
which revealed his detection of her predicament. "You may remember that
I sent you a copy last Christmas?"
"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful
story of the poor consumptive girl who had no money, and two little
brothers to support--"
"Sisters--idiot sisters--" the Bishop gloomily corrected.
"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a
beautiful memorial window to her--her grandfather, whom she had never
seen--"
"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during
her long struggle with poverty and disease." The Bishop gave the
satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A
touching subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice; at least, so
my friends assured me."
"Why, yes--I remember there was a splendid review of it in the
'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by the incipient instinct of
reciprocity.
"Yes--by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean
Gollinger, was under very particular obligations to me. Mrs. Gollinger
is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my book was
unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned fare, and the
approval of a thoughtful churchwoman carries less weight than the
sensational comments of an illiterate journalist." The Bishop lent a
meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the risk of horrifying you,
my dear," he added, with a slight laugh, "I will confide to you that my
best chance of a popular success would be to have my book denounced by
the press."
"Denounced?" gasped Mrs. Fetherel. "On what ground?"
"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze.
"Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of course; but I am only
repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic could
be induced--I mean, if a critic were to be found, who called in
question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health and
that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window to her
grandfather, it would probably raise a general controversy in the
newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen thousand
within the next year. If he described her as morbid or decadent, it
might even run to twenty thousand; but that is more than I permit
myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any general charge
of immorality." The Bishop sighed again. "I need hardly tell you that I
am actuated by no mere literary ambition. Those whose opinion I most
value have assured me that the book is not without merit; but, though
it does not become me to dispute their verdict, I can truly say that my
vanity as an author is not at stake. I have, however, a special reason
for wishing to increase the circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly';
it was written for a purpose--a purpose I have greatly at heart--"
"I know," cried his niece sympathetically. "The chantry window--?"
"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence, my
little book might be the means of filling it. All our wealthy
parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for this
reason that, in writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my appeal more
especially to the less well-endowed, hoping by the example of my
heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums throughout the entire
diocese, and perhaps beyond it. I am sure," the Bishop feelingly
concluded, "the book would have a wide-spread influence if people could
only be induced to read it!"
His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in Mrs. Fetherel's
vibrating nerve-centers. "I never thought of that!" she cried.
The Bishop looked at her inquiringly.
"That one's books may not be read at all! How dreadful!" she exclaimed.
He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an
authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have dared to inflict my
troubles on any one not of the craft."
Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her involuntary
self-betrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she murmured.
"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to brush
away her scruples, "I came here partly to speak to you about your
novel. 'Fast and Loose,' I think you call it?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed assentingly.
"And is it out yet?" the Bishop continued.
"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and it
must be quite cold. Let me give you another cup..."
"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland
inexorableness with which, in his younger days, he had been known to
continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at his
watch--"my reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too late
to induce you to change the title."
Mrs. Fetherel set down the cup she had filled. "The title?" she
faltered.
The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me, dear
child; don't for a moment imagine that I take it to be in anyway
indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for that.
My first idea was that it had probably been forced on you by an
unscrupulous publisher--I know too well to what ignoble compromises one
may be driven in such cases!..." He paused, as though to give her the
opportunity of confirming this conjecture, but she preserved an
apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though taking up the second
point in his sermon--"Or, again, the name may have taken your fancy
without your realizing all that it implies to minds more alive than
yours to offensive innuendoes. It is--ahem--excessively suggestive, and
I hope I am not too late to warn you of the false impression it is
likely to produce on the very readers whose approbation you would most
value. My friend Mrs. Gollinger, for instance--"
Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in theory
a woman of independent views; and if in practise she sometimes failed
to live up to her standard, it was rather from an irresistible tendency
to adapt herself to her environment than from any conscious lack of
moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had excited in her that sense of
opposition which such admonitions are apt to provoke; but as he went on
she felt herself gradually enclosed in an atmosphere in which her
theories vainly gasped for breath. The Bishop had the immense
dialectical advantage of invalidating any conclusions at variance with
his own by always assuming that his premises were among the necessary
laws of thought. This method, combined with the habit of ignoring any
classifications but his own, created an element in which the first
condition of existence was the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so
that his niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs. Gollinger's
Mechlin cap spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow
and the "Revue de Paris" at her elbow turning into a copy of the
"Reredos." She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware
of the significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been
deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her novel, and that
the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class of
readers for whose susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words were
almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion conveyed by the
Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic murmur,
"Oh, uncle, you mustn't think--I never meant--" How much farther this
current of reaction might have carried her, the historian is unable to
computer, for at this point the door opened and her husband entered the
room.
"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow
envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're here!"
Though the trials of married life have been classified and catalogued
with exhaustive accuracy, there is one form of conjugal misery which
has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is the suffering of
the versatile woman whose husband is not equally adapted to all her
moods. Every woman feels for the sister who is compelled to wear a
bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but how much sympathy is
given to her whose husband refuses to harmonize with the pose of the
moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been done to the misunderstood
wife whose husband persists in understanding her; to the submissive
helpmate whose taskmaster shuns every opportunity of browbeating her;
and to the generous and impulsive being whose bills are paid with
philosophic calm. Mrs. Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt
from trials of this nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by
pronounced brutality or indifference, had at least the negative merit
of being her intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware
of the usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can
form an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn
such deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had
made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to every
one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate such a
woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he did his best
to invalidate this advantage by admiring her without pretending to
understand her. What she most suffered from was this fatuous approval:
the maddening sense that, however she conducted herself, he would
always admire her. Had he belonged to the class whose conversational
supplies are drawn from the domestic circle, his wife's name would
never have been off his lips; and to Mrs. Fetherel's sensitive
perceptions his frequent silences were indicative of the fact that she
was his one topic.
It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation that
had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship. She had fancied that even the
most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at least
negatively, an attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her
anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness of her
act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact
complicated by an irrepressible tendency to be fond of him; and there
was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that justified
the most explicit expiation.
These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the book
with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy to his
mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the reviewers. It
was perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that made his wife
doubly alive to his special defects; so that his inopportune entrance
was aggravated by the very sound of his voice and the hopeless
aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant, is more indicative
of a man's character and circumstances than his way of entering a room.
The Bishop of Ossining, for instance, brought with him not only an
atmosphere of episcopal authority, but an implied opinion on the verbal
inspiration of the Scriptures, and on the attitude of the church toward
divorce; while the appearance of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an
immediate impression of domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that
there was a well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did
not sew on his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that
task; that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with
his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock.
All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with which
he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel's clutch; and
knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be silly, she said, with
a dry despair, "You're boring the Bishop horribly."
Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all
horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted.
"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably.
"Read it? Of course not--it's just this minute come. I say, Bishop,
you're not going--?"
"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his
chair with an indulgent smile.
His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense
detain you," she entreated.
"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as one
of his sermons--won't take me five minutes to read. Here, listen to
this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism and
decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer to open
one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the sewer--'"
Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a
gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze
fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his
hand.--"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder is
proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly inoffensive
as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a
new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of
inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure, fresh
view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader's
moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its distinctly
misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of
domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force in
character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be described
as a distinctly pretty story.'"
III
It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the
plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into the
violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room.
"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a
silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so awfully
shocked!"
Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid
hand, looked up without speaking.
"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill."
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she said,
mournfully.
"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."
Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a buttered
tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.
"It's not what I said just now--?" she ventured.
"Just now?"
"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over."
Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically,
"want to hear it mentioned again!"
"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.
Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the
incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with a
tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say."
"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but
feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so
charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been
said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven't they been nice?"
"They've been odious--odious--" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an
ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It's been perfectly
intolerable!"
Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of
taking no more tea, crossed over to her cousin and laid a sympathizing
hand on that lady's agitated shoulder.
"It _is_ a bore at first," she conceded; "but you'll be surprised to
see how soon one gets used to it."
"I shall--never--get--used to it--" Mrs. Fetherel brokenly declared.
"Have they been so very nasty--all of them?"
"Every one of them!" the novelist sobbed.
"I'm so sorry, dear; it _does_ hurt, I know--but hadn't you rather
expected it?"
"Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up.
Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied
from what you said before the book came out--that you rather
expected--that you'd rather discounted--"
"Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?"
"Good gracious! Is _that_ what they've done?"
Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded.
"Every one of them?"
"Every one--"
"Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle.
"Why, you've just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached her.
"Said what?"
"That you weren't so _awfully_ shocked--"
"I? Oh, well--you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn't
quite as bad as I expected--"
Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at
once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly pretty story?"
"They haven't said _that?_"
"They've all said it."
"My poor Paula!"
"Even the Bishop--"
"The Bishop called it a pretty story?"
"He wrote me--I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared
him--he wanted me to change it; but when he'd read the book he wrote
that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his friends."
"The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but
professional jealousy."
"Do you think so?" cried her cousin, brightening.
"Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the
quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it through the diocese
with his blessing."
"Then you don't really think it's a pretty story?"
"Dear me, no! Not nearly as bad as that--"
"You're so good, Bella--but the reviewers?"
"Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at the
cold remains of her tea-cake. "Let me see," she said, suddenly; "do you
happen to remember if the first review came out in an important paper?"
"Yes--the 'Radiator.'"
"That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they
often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves a lot of trouble. Now if
you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you--"
"That's what the Bishop said!" cried Mrs. Fetherel.
"He did?"
"He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was to
have it denounced on the ground of immorality."
"H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She turned
an illuminated eye on her cousin. "You ought to get _him_ to denounce
'Fast and Loose'!" she cried.
Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must
stand or fall on its own merits," she said in an unconvinced tone.
"Bosh! That view is as extinct as the post-chaise and the
packet-ship--it belongs to the time when people read books. Nobody does
that now; the reviewer was the first to set the example, and the public
were only too thankful to follow it. At first they read the reviews;
now they read only the publishers' extracts from them. Even these are
rapidly being replaced by paragraphs borrowed from the vocabulary of
commerce. I often have to look twice before I am sure if I am reading a
department-store advertisement or the announcement of a new batch of
literature. The publishers will soon be having their 'fall and spring
openings' and their 'special importations for Horse-Show Week.' But the
Bishop is right, of course--nothing helps a book like a rousing attack
on its morals; and as the publishers can't exactly proclaim the
impropriety of their own wares, the task has to be left to the press or
the pulpit."
"The pulpit--?" Mrs. Fetherel mused.
"Why, yes--look at those two novels in England last year--"
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head hopelessly. "There is so much more
interest in literature in England than here."
"Well, we've got to make the supply create the demand. The Bishop could
run your novel up into the hundred thousands in no time."
"But if he can't make his own sell--?"
"My dear, a man can't very well preach against his own writings!"
Mrs. Clinch rose and picked up her proofs.
"I'm awfully sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't
help being thankful that there's no demand for pessimism in the field
of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a Sparrow,' or
'How the Plants Misbehave!'"
IV
Mrs. Fetherel, driving up to the Grand Central Station one morning
about five months later, caught sight of the distinguished novelist,
Archer Hynes, hurrying into the waiting-room ahead of her. Hynes, on
his side, recognizing her brougham, turned back to greet her as the
footman opened the carriage-door.
"My dear colleague! Is it possible that we are traveling together?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed with pleasure. Hynes had given her two columns of
praise in the Sunday "Meteor," and she had not yet learned to disguise
her gratitude.
"I am going to Ossining," she said, smilingly.
"So am I. Why, this is almost as good as an elopement."
"And it will end where elopements ought to--in church."
"In church? You're not going to Ossining to go to church?"
"Why not? There's a special ceremony in the cathedral--the chantry
window is to be unveiled."
"The chantry window? How picturesque! What _is_ a chantry? And why do
you want to see it unveiled? Are you after copy--doing something in the
Huysmans manner? 'La Cathedrale,' eh?"
"Oh, no." Mrs. Fetherel hesitated. "I'm going simply to please my
uncle," she said, at last.
"Your uncle?"
"The Bishop, you know." She smiled.
"The Bishop--the Bishop of Ossining? Why, wasn't he the chap who made
that ridiculous attack on your book? Is that prehistoric ass your
uncle? Upon my soul, I think you're mighty forgiving to travel all the
way to Ossining for one of his stained-glass sociables!"
Mrs. Fetherel's smile flowed into a gentle laugh. "Oh, I've never
allowed that to interfere with our friendship. My uncle felt dreadfully
about having to speak publicly against my book--it was a great deal
harder for him than for me--but he thought it his duty to do so. He has
the very highest sense of duty."
"Well," said Hynes, with a shrug, "I don't know that he didn't do you a
good turn. Look at that!"
They were standing near the book-stall, and he pointed to a placard
surmounting the counter and emblazoned with the conspicuous
announcement: "Fast and Loose. New Edition with Author's Portrait.
Hundred and Fiftieth Thousand."
Mrs. Fetherel frowned impatiently. "How absurd! They've no right to use
my picture as a poster!"
"There's our train," said Hynes; and they began to push their way
through the crowd surging toward one of the inner doors.
As they stood wedged between circumferent shoulders, Mrs. Fetherel
became conscious of the fixed stare of a pretty girl who whispered
eagerly to her companion: "Look Myrtle! That's Paula Fetherel right
behind us--I knew her in a minute!"
"Gracious--where?" cried the other girl, giving her head a twist which
swept her Gainsborough plumes across Mrs. Fetherel's face.
The first speaker's words had carried beyond her companion's ear, and a
lemon-colored woman in spectacles, who clutched a copy of the "Journal
of Psychology" on one drab-cotton-gloved hand, stretched her disengaged
hand across the intervening barrier of humanity.
"Have I the privilege of addressing the distinguished author of 'Fast
and Loose'? If so, let me thank you in the name of the Woman's
Psychological League of Peoria for your magnificent courage in raising
the standard of revolt against--"
"You can tell us the rest in the car," said a fat man, pressing his
good-humored bulk against the speaker's arm.
Mrs. Fetherel, blushing, embarrassed and happy, slipped into the space
produced by this displacement, and a few moments later had taken her
seat in the train.
She was a little late, and the other chairs were already filled by a
company of elderly ladies and clergymen who seemed to belong to the
same party, and were still busy exchanging greetings and settling
themselves in their places.
One of the ladies, at Mrs. Fetherel's approach, uttered an exclamation
of pleasure and advanced with outstretched hand. "My dear Mrs.
Fetherel! I am so delighted to see you here. May I hope you are going
to the unveiling of the chantry window? The dear Bishop so hoped that
you would do so! But perhaps I ought to introduce myself. I am Mrs.
Gollinger"--she lowered her voice expressively--"one of your uncle's
oldest friends, one who has stood close to him through all this sad
business, and who knows what he suffered when he felt obliged to
sacrifice family affection to the call of duty."
Mrs. Fetherel, who had smiled and colored slightly at the beginning of
this speech, received its close with a deprecating gesture.
"Oh, pray don't mention it," she murmured. "I quite understood how my
uncle was placed--I bore him no ill will for feeling obliged to preach
against my book."
"He understood that, and was so touched by it! He has often told me
that it was the hardest task he was ever called upon to perform--and,
do you know, he quite feels that this unexpected gift of the chantry
window is in some way a return for his courage in preaching that
sermon."
Mrs. Fetherel smiled faintly. "Does he feel that?"
"Yes; he really does. When the funds for the window were so
mysteriously placed at his disposal, just as he had begun to despair of
raising them, he assured me that he could not help connecting the fact
with his denunciation of your book."
"Dear uncle!" sighed Mrs. Fetherel. "Did he say that?"
"And now," continued Mrs. Gollinger, with cumulative rapture--"now that
you are about to show, by appearing at the ceremony to-day, that there
has been no break in your friendly relations, the dear Bishop's
happiness will be complete. He was so longing to have you come to the
unveiling!"
"He might have counted on me," said Mrs. Fetherel, still smiling.
"Ah, that is so beautifully forgiving of you!" cried Mrs. Gollinger,
enthusiastically. "But then, the Bishop has always assured me that your
real nature was very different from that which--if you will pardon my
saying so--seems to be revealed by your brilliant but--er--rather
subversive book. 'If you only knew my niece, dear Mrs. Gollinger,' he
always said, 'you would see that her novel was written in all innocence
of heart;' and to tell you the truth, when I first read the book I
didn't think it so very, _very_ shocking. It wasn't till the dear
Bishop had explained tome--but, dear me, I mustn't take up your time in
this way when so many others are anxious to have a word with you."
Mrs. Fetherel glanced at her in surprise, and Mrs. Gollinger continued,
with a playful smile: "You forget that your face is familiar to
thousands whom you have never seen. We all recognized you the moment
you entered the train, and my friends here are so eager to make your
acquaintance--even those"--her smile deepened--"who thought the dear
Bishop not _quite unjustified_ in his attack on your remarkable novel."
V
A religious light filled the chantry of Ossining Cathedral, filtering
through the linen curtain which veiled the central window, and mingling
with the blaze of tapers on the richly adorned altar.
In this devout atmosphere, agreeably laden with the incense-like aroma
of Easter lilies and forced lilacs, Mrs. Fetherel knelt with a sense of
luxurious satisfaction. Beside her sat Archer Hynes, who had remembered
that there was to be a church scene in his next novel, and that his
impressions of the devotional environment needed refreshing. Mrs.
Fetherel was very happy. She was conscious that her entrance had sent a
thrill through the female devotees who packed the chantry, and she had
humor enough to enjoy the thought that, but for the good Bishop's
denunciation of her book, the heads of his flock would not have been
turned so eagerly in her direction. Moreover, as she had entered she
had caught sight of a society reporter, and she knew that her presence,
and the fact that she was accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously
proclaimed in the morning papers. All these evidences of the success of
her handiwork might have turned a calmer head than Mrs. Fetherel's; and
though she had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still
filled her inwardly with a delightful glow.
The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the
interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already
partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a
satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination,
Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure
now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of
society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the
purpose of her new book. Experience had shown her that where she had
fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding
in guarded terms to the drawing-room shovel. She was determined not to
repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her coming
novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale,
however likely it was to receive this crowning evidence of success.
She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst into
song and the ceremony of the unveiling began. The Bishop, almost always
felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex, was never more so than
when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his cherished purposes.
There was a peculiar mixture of Christian humility and episcopal
exultation in the manner with which he called attention to the
Creator's promptness in responding to his demand for funds, and he had
never been more happily inspired than in eulogizing the mysterious gift
of the chantry window.
Though no hint of the donor's identity had been allowed to escape him,
it was generally understood that the Bishop knew who had given the
window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense the
possible announcement of a name. None came, however, though the Bishop
deliciously titillated the curiosity of his flock by circling ever
closer about the interesting secret. He would not disguise from them,
he said, that the heart which had divined his inmost wish had been a
woman's--is it not to woman's intuitions that more than half the
happiness of earth is owing? What man is obliged to learn by the
laborious process of experience, woman's wondrous instinct tells her at
a glance; and so it had been with this cherished scheme, this
unhoped-for completion of their beautiful chantry. So much, at least,
he was allowed to reveal; and indeed, had he not done so, the window
itself would have spoken for him, since the first glance at its
touching subject and exquisite design would show it to have originated
in a woman's heart. This tribute to the sex was received with an
audible sigh of contentment, and the Bishop, always stimulated by such
evidence of his sway over his hearers, took up his theme with gathering
eloquence.
Yes--a woman's heart had planned the gift, a woman's hand had executed
it, and, might he add, without too far withdrawing the veil in which
Christian beneficence ever loved to drape its acts--might he add that,
under Providence, a book, a simple book, a mere tale, in fact, had had
its share in the good work for which they were assembled to give thanks?
At this unexpected announcement, a ripple of excitement ran through the
assemblage, and more than one head was abruptly turned in the direction
of Mrs. Fetherel, who sat listening in an agony of wonder and
confusion. It did not escape the observant novelist at her side that
she drew down her veil to conceal an uncontrollable blush, and this
evidence of dismay caused him to fix an attentive gaze on her, while
from her seat across the aisle, Mrs. Gollinger sent a smile of unctuous
approval.
"A book--a simple book--" the Bishop's voice went on above this flutter
of mingled emotions. "What is a book? Only a few pages and a little
ink--and yet one of the mightiest instruments which Providence has
devised for shaping the destinies of man . .. one of the most powerful
influences for good or evil which the Creator has placed in the hands
of his creatures..."
The air seemed intolerably close to Mrs. Fetherel, and she drew out her
scent-bottle, and then thrust it hurriedly away, conscious that she was
still the center of an unenviable attention. And all the while the
Bishop's voice droned on...
"And of all forms of literature, fiction is doubtless that which has
exercised the greatest sway, for good or ill, over the passions and
imagination of the masses. Yes, my friends, I am the first to
acknowledge it--no sermon, however eloquent, no theological treatise,
however learned and convincing, has ever inflamed the heart and
imagination like a novel--a simple novel. Incalculable is the power
exercised over humanity by the great magicians of the pen--a power ever
enlarging its boundaries and increasing its responsibilities as popular
education multiplies the number of readers....Yes, it is the novelist's
hand which can pour balm on countless human sufferings, or inoculate
mankind with the festering poison of a corrupt imagination...."
Mrs. Fetherel had turned white, and her eyes were fixed with a blind
stare of anger on the large-sleeved figure in the center of the chancel.
"And too often, alas, it is the poison and not the balm which the
unscrupulous hand of genius proffers to its unsuspecting readers. But,
my friends, why should I continue? None know better than an assemblage
of Christian women, such as I am now addressing, the beneficent or
baleful influences of modern fiction; and so, when I say that this
beautiful chantry window of ours owes its existence in part to the
romancer's pen"--the Bishop paused, and bending forward, seemed to seek
a certain face among the countenances eagerly addressed to his--"when I
say that this pen, which for personal reasons it does not become me to
celebrate unduly--"
Mrs. Fetherel at this point half rose, pushing back her chair, which
scraped loudly over the marble floor; but Hynes involuntarily laid a
warning hand on her arm, and she sank down with a confused murmur about
the heat.
"--When I confess that this pen, which for once at least has proved
itself so much mightier than the sword, is that which was inspired to
trace the simple narrative of 'Through a Glass Brightly'"--Mrs.
Fetherel looked up with a gasp of mingled relief and anger--"when I
tell you, my dear friends, that it was your Bishop's own work which
first roused the mind of one of his flock to the crying need of a
chantry window, I think you will admit that I am justified in
celebrating the triumphs of the pen, even though it be the modest
instrument which your own Bishop wields."
The Bishop paused impressively, and a faint gasp of surprise and
disappointment was audible throughout the chantry. Something very
different from this conclusion had been expected, and even Mrs.
Gollinger's lips curled with a slightly ironic smile. But Archer
Hynes's attention was chiefly reserved for Mrs. Fetherel, whose face
had changed with astonishing rapidity from surprise to annoyance, from
annoyance to relief, and then back again to something very like
indignation.
The address concluded, the actual ceremony of the unveiling was about
to take place, and the attention of the congregation soon reverted to
the chancel, where the choir had grouped themselves beneath the veiled
window, prepared to burst into a chant of praise as the Bishop drew
back the hanging. The moment was an impressive one, and every eye was
fixed on the curtain. Even Hynes's gaze strayed to it for a moment, but
soon returned to his neighbor's face; and then he perceived that Mrs.
Fetherel, alone of all the persons present, was not looking at the
window. Her eyes were fixed in an indignant stare on the Bishop; a
flush of anger burned becomingly under her veil, and her hands
nervously crumpled the beautifully printed program of the ceremony.
Hynes broke into a smile of comprehension. He glanced at the Bishop,
and back at the Bishop's niece; then, as the episcopal hand was
solemnly raised to draw back the curtain, he bent and whispered in Mrs.
Fetherel's ear:
"Why, you gave it yourself! You wonderful woman, of course you gave it
yourself!"
Mrs. Fetherel raised her eyes to his with a start. Her blush deepened
and her lips shaped a hasty "No"; but the denial was deflected into the
indignant murmur--"It wasn't _his_ silly book that did it anyhow!"
THE LADY'S MAID'S BELL
I
IT was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I'd been three months in
hospital, and when I came out I looked so weak and tottery that the two
or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of my money
was gone, and after I'd boarded for two months, hanging about the
employment-agencies, and answering any advertisement that looked any
way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting hadn't made
me fatter, and I didn't see why my luck should ever turn. It did
though--or I thought so at the time. A Mrs. Railton, a friend of the
lady that first brought me out to the States, met me one day and
stopped to speak to me: she was one that had always a friendly way with
her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white, and when I told her,
"Why, Hartley," says she, "I believe I've got the very place for you.
Come in to-morrow and we'll talk about it."
The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she'd in mind was a
niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of an
invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the
Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life.
"Now, Hartley," Mrs. Railton said, in that cheery way that always made
me feel things must be going to take a turn for the better--"now
understand me; it's not a cheerful place i'm sending you to. The house
is big and gloomy; my niece is nervous, vaporish; her husband--well,
he's generally away; and the two children are dead. A year ago, I would
as soon have thought of shutting a rosy active girl like you into a
vault; but you're not particularly brisk yourself just now, are you?
and a quiet place, with country air and wholesome food and early hours,
ought to be the very thing for you. Don't mistake me," she added, for I
suppose I looked a trifle downcast; "you may find it dull, but you
won't be unhappy. My niece is an angel. Her former maid, who died last
spring, had been with her twenty years and worshipped the ground she
walked on. She's a kind mistress to all, and where the mistress is
kind, as you know, the servants are generally good-humored, so you'll
probably get on well enough with the rest of the household. And you're
the very woman I want for my niece: quiet, well-mannered, and educated
above your station. You read aloud well, I think? That's a good thing;
my niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of
a companion: her last was, and I can't say how she misses her. It's a
lonely life...Well, have you decided?"
"Why, ma'am," I said, "I'm not afraid of solitude."
"Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I'll
telegraph her at once and you can take the afternoon train. She has no
one to wait on her at present, and I don't want you to lose any time."
I was ready enough to start, yet something in me hung back; and to gain
time I asked, "And the gentleman, ma'am?"
"The gentleman's almost always away, I tell you," said Mrs. Ralston,
quick-like--"and when he's there," says she suddenly, "you've only to
keep out of his way."
I took the afternoon train and got out at D---- station at about four
o'clock. A groom in a dog-cart was waiting, and we drove off at a smart
pace. It was a dull October day, with rain hanging close overhead, and
by the time we turned into the Brympton Place woods the daylight was
almost gone. The drive wound through the woods for a mile or two, and
came out on a gravel court shut in with thickets of tall black-looking
shrubs. There were no lights in the windows, and the house _did_ look a
bit gloomy.
I had asked no questions of the groom, for I never was one to get my
notion of new masters from their other servants: I prefer to wait and
see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that I had
got into the right kind of house, and that things were done handsomely.
A pleasant-faced cook met me at the back door and called the house-maid
to show me up to my room. "You'll see madam later," she said. "Mrs.
Brympton has a visitor."
I hadn't fancied Mrs. Brympton was a lady to have many visitors, and
somehow the words cheered me. I followed the house-maid upstairs, and
saw, through a door on the upper landing, that the main part of the
house seemed well-furnished, with dark panelling and a number of old
portraits. Another flight of stairs led us up to the servants' wing. It
was almost dark now, and the house-maid excused herself for not having
brought a light. "But there's matches in your room," she said, "and if
you go careful you'll be all right. Mind the step at the end of the
passage. Your room is just beyond."
I looked ahead as she spoke, and half-way down the passage, I saw a
woman standing. She drew back into a doorway as we passed, and the
house-maid didn't appear to notice her. She was a thin woman with a
white face, and a darkish stuff gown and apron. I took her for the
housekeeper and thought it odd that she didn't speak, but just gave me
a long look as she went by. My room opened into a square hall at the
end of the passage. Facing my door was another which stood open: the
house-maid exclaimed when she saw it.
"There--Mrs. Blinder's left that door open again!" said she, closing it.
"Is Mrs. Blinder the housekeeper?"
"There's no housekeeper: Mrs. Blinder's the cook."
"And is that her room?"
"Laws, no," said the house-maid, cross-like. "That's nobody's room.
It's empty, I mean, and the door hadn't ought to be open. Mrs. Brympton
wants it kept locked."
She opened my door and led me into a neat room, nicely furnished, with
a picture or two on the walls; and having lit a candle she took leave,
telling me that the servants'-hall tea was at six, and that Mrs.
Brympton would see me afterward.
I found them a pleasant-spoken set in the servants' hall, and by what
they let fall I gathered that, as Mrs. Railton had said, Mrs. Brympton
was the kindest of ladies; but I didn't take much notice of their talk,
for I was watching to see the pale woman in the dark gown come in. She
didn't show herself, however, and I wondered if she ate apart; but if
she wasn't the housekeeper, why should she? Suddenly it struck me that
she might be a trained nurse, and in that case her meals would of
course be served in her room. If Mrs. Brympton was an invalid it was
likely enough she had a nurse. The idea annoyed me, I own, for they're
not always the easiest to get on with, and if I'd known, I shouldn't
have taken the place. But there I was, and there was no use pulling a
long face over it; and not being one to ask questions, I waited to see
what would turn up.
When tea was over, the house-maid said to the footman: "Has Mr. Ranford
gone?" and when he said yes, she told me to come up with her to Mrs.
Brympton.
Mrs. Brympton was lying down in her bedroom. Her lounge stood near the
fire and beside it was a shaded lamp. She was a delicate-looking lady,
but when she smiled I felt there was nothing I wouldn't do for her. She
spoke very pleasantly, in a low voice, asking me my name and age and so
on, and if I had everything I wanted, and if I wasn't afraid of feeling
lonely in the country.
"Not with you I wouldn't be, madam," I said, and the words surprised me
when I'd spoken them, for I'm not an impulsive person; but it was just
as if I'd thought aloud.
She seemed pleased at that, and said she hoped I'd continue in the same
mind; then she gave me a few directions about her toilet, and said
Agnes the house-maid would show me next morning where things were kept.
"I am tired to-night, and shall dine upstairs," she said. "Agnes will
bring me my tray, that you may have time to unpack and settle yourself;
and later you may come and undress me."
"Very well, ma'am," I said. "You'll ring, I suppose?"
I thought she looked odd.
"No--Agnes will fetch you," says she quickly, and took up her book
again.
Well--that was certainly strange: a lady's maid having to be fetched by
the house-maid whenever her lady wanted her! I wondered if there were
no bells in the house; but the next day I satisfied myself that there
was one in every room, and a special one ringing from my mistress's
room to mine; and after that it did strike me as queer that, whenever
Mrs. Brympton wanted anything, she rang for Agnes, who had to walk the
whole length of the servants' wing to call me.
But that wasn't the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I
found out that Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes about
the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said
she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be
sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and she had excused
herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough
to know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been
a friend of the cook's, or of one of the other women-servants: perhaps
she had come down from town for a night's visit, and the servants
wanted it kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their
servants' friends in the house overnight. At any rate, I made up my
mind to ask no more questions.
In a day or two, another odd thing happened. I was chatting one
afternoon with Mrs. Blinder, who was a friendly disposed woman, and had
been longer in the house than the other servants, and she asked me if I
was quite comfortable and had everything I needed. I said I had no
fault to find with my place or with my mistress, but I thought it odd
that in so large a house there was no sewing-room for the lady's maid.
"Why," says she, "there _is_ one; the room you're in is the old
sewing-room."
"Oh," said I; "and where did the other lady's maid sleep?"
At that she grew confused, and said hurriedly that the servants' rooms
had all been changed about last year, and she didn't rightly remember.
That struck me as peculiar, but I went on as if I hadn't noticed:
"Well, there's a vacant room opposite mine, and I mean to ask Mrs.
Brympton if I mayn't use that as a sewing-room."
To my astonishment, Mrs. Blinder went white, and gave my hand a kind of
squeeze. "Don't do that, my dear," said she, trembling-like. "To tell
you the truth, that was Emma Saxon's room, and my mistress has kept it
closed ever since her death."
"And who was Emma Saxon?"
"Mrs. Brympton's former maid."
"The one that was with her so many years?" said I, remembering what
Mrs. Railton had told me.
Mrs. Blinder nodded.
"What sort of woman was she?"
"No better walked the earth," said Mrs. Blinder. "My mistress loved her
like a sister."
"But I mean--what did she look like?"
Mrs. Blinder got up and gave me a kind of angry stare. "I'm no great
hand at describing," she said; "and I believe my pastry's rising." And
she walked off into the kitchen and shut the door after her.
II
I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came
that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the whole
household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs. Mrs.
Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she snapped
at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr. Wace, the
butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties as if he'd
been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great Bible-reader, Mr. Wace
was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts at his command; but that
day he used such dreadful language that I was about to leave the table,
when he assured me it was all out of Isaiah; and I noticed that
whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to the prophets.
About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I found
Mr. Brympton. He was standing on the hearth; a big fair bull-necked
man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes: the kind of man
a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and would have been like
to pay dear for thinking it.
He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice. I knew
what the look meant, from having experienced it once or twice in my
former places. Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to
his wife; and I knew what _that_ meant, too. I was not the kind of
morsel he was after. The typhoid had served me well enough in one way:
it kept that kind of gentleman at arm's-length.
"This is my new maid, Hartley," says Mrs. Brympton in her kind voice;
and he nodded and went on with what he was saying.
In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for
dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that she was white, and chill
to the touch.
Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house
drew a long breath when he drove away. As for my mistress, she put on
her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out for a
walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that for a
minute, before her color faded, I could guess what a pretty young lady
she must have been, and not so long ago, either.
She had met Mr. Ranford in the grounds, and the two came back together,
I remember, smiling and talking as they walked along the terrace under
my window. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ranford, though I had
often heard his name mentioned in the hall. He was a neighbor, it
appeared, living a mile or two beyond Brympton, at the end of the
village; and as he was in the habit of spending his winters in the
country he was almost the only company my mistress had at that season.
He was a slight tall gentleman of about thirty, and I thought him
rather melancholy-looking till I saw his smile, which had a kind of
surprise in it, like the first warm day in spring. He was a great
reader, I heard, like my mistress, and the two were forever borrowing
books of one another, and sometimes (Mr. Wace told me) he would read
aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour, in the big dark library where she
sat in the winter afternoons. The servants all liked him, and perhaps
that's more of a compliment than the masters suspect. He had a friendly
word for every one of us, and we were all glad to think that Mrs.
Brympton had a pleasant companionable gentleman like that to keep her
company when the master was away. Mr. Ranford seemed on excellent terms
with Mr. Brympton too; though I couldn't but wonder that two gentlemen
so unlike each other should be so friendly. But then I knew how the
real quality can keep their feelings to themselves.
As for Mr. Brympton, he came and went, never staying more than a day or
two, cursing the dulness and the solitude, grumbling at everything, and
(as I soon found out) drinking a deal more than was good for him. After
Mrs. Brympton left the table he would sit half the night over the old
Brympton port and madeira, and once, as I was leaving my mistress's
room rather later than usual, I met him coming up the stairs in such a
state that I turned sick to think of what some ladies have to endure
and hold their tongues about.
The servants said very little about their master; but from what they
let drop I could see it had been an unhappy match from the beginning.
Mr. Brympton was coarse, loud and pleasure-loving; my mistress quiet,
retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold. Not that she was not always
pleasant-spoken to him: I thought her wonderfully forbearing; but to a
gentleman as free as Mr. Brympton I daresay she seemed a little offish.
Well, things went on quietly for several weeks. My mistress was kind,
my duties were light, and I got on well with the other servants. In
short, I had nothing to complain of; yet there was always a weight on
me. I can't say why it was so, but I know it was not the loneliness
that I felt. I soon got used to that; and being still languid from the
fever, I was thankful for the quiet and the good country air.
Nevertheless, I was never quite easy in my mind. My mistress, knowing I
had been ill, insisted that I should take my walk regular, and often
invented errands for me:--a yard of ribbon to be fetched from the
village, a letter posted, or a book returned to Mr. Ranford. As soon as
I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I looked forward to my walks
through the bare moist-smelling woods; but the moment I caught sight of
the house again my heart dropped down like a stone in a well. It was
not a gloomy house exactly, yet I never entered it but a feeling of
gloom came over me.
Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did
she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace. Excepting Mr. Ranford,
we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from D---- about once
a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction
about my mistress, and though he never told me what her illness was, I
thought, from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning, that it
might be the heart that ailed her. The season was soft and unwholesome,
and in January we had a long spell of rain. That was a sore trial to
me, I own, for I couldn't go out, and sitting over my sewing all day,
listening to the drip, drip of the eaves, I grew so nervous that the
least sound made me jump. Somehow, the thought of that locked room
across the passage began to weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long
rainy nights, I fancied I heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of
course, and the daylight drove such notions out of my head. Well, one
morning Mrs. Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me
she wished me to go to town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then
how low my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my first
sight of the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took
me out of myself. Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion
began to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of
Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the
dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once
been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number of
years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in the
interval. When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her eyes
and pulled a long face.
"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the
Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there three months."
"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her
tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be quiet."
She shook her head. "It's not the country I'm thinking of. All I know
is she's had four maids in the last six months, and the last one, who
was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the house."
"Did she say why?" I asked.
"No--she wouldn't give me her reason. But she says to me, _Mrs. Ansey_,
she says, _if ever a young woman as you know of thinks of going there,
you tell her it's not worth while to unpack her boxes_."
"Is she young and handsome?" said I, thinking of Mr. Brympton.
"Not her! She's the kind that mothers engage when they've gay young
gentlemen at college."
Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in my
head, and my heart sank lower than ever as I drove up to Brympton in
the dusk. There _was_ something about the house--I was sure of it now...
When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I saw
at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind. Mrs.
Blinder's hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr.
Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a
word to me then, but when I went up to my room Mrs. Blinder followed me.
"Oh, my dear," says she, taking my hand, "I'm so glad and thankful
you've come back to us!"
That struck me, as you may imagine. "Why," said I, "did you think I was
leaving for good?"
"No, no, to be sure," said she, a little confused, "but I can't a-bear
to have madam left alone for a day even." She pressed my hand hard,
and, "Oh, Miss Hartley," says she, "be good to your mistress, as you're
a Christian woman." And with that she hurried away, and left me staring.
A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. Hearing Mr. Brympton's
voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room, thinking I would
lay out her dinner-gown before going in. The dressing-room is a large
room with a window over the portico that looks toward the gardens. Mr.
Brympton's apartments are beyond. When I went in, the door into the
bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr. Brympton saying angrily:--"One would
suppose he was the only person fit for you to talk to."
"I don't have many visitors in winter," Mrs. Brympton answered quietly.
"You have _me!_" he flung at her, sneering.
"You are here so seldom," said she.
"Well--whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as a
family vault--"
With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning and
she rose and called me in.
The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace's manner at
supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets
something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she declared
she wouldn't go down alone to put the cold meat in the ice-box. I felt
nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to bed I was
half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to sit up
awhile over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for the
night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun again, and
the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain. I lay awake
listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town had said. What
puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left...
After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell
had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to go
on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I couldn't
find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out of bed. I
began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at the bell
against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering.
I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another
sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine
softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it
frightened me so that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep
hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being
carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a
woman's step. I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute or
two I dursn't breathe or move. Then I came to my senses.
"Alice Hartley," says I to myself, "someone left that room just now and
ran down the passage ahead of you. The idea isn't pleasant, but you may
as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to answer her bell
you've got to go the way that other woman has gone."
Well--I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I
should never get to the end of the passage or reach Mrs. Brympton's
room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and
quiet as the grave. When I reached my mistress's door the silence was
so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming, and was half-minded
to turn back. Then a panic seized me, and I knocked.
There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment
the door was opened by Mr. Brympton. He started back when he saw me,
and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage.
_"You!"_ he said, in a queer voice. _"How many of you are there, in
God's name?"_
At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that he
had been drinking, and answered as steadily as I could: "May I go in,
sir? Mrs. Brympton has rung for me."
"You may all go in, for what I care," says he, and, pushing by me,
walked down the hall to his own bedroom. I looked after him as he went,
and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober man.
I found my mistress lying very weak and still, but she forced a smile
when she saw me, and signed to me to pour out some drops for her. After
that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick, and her eyes
closed. Suddenly she groped out with her hand, and "_Emma_," says she,
faintly.
"It's Hartley, madam," I said. "Do you want anything?"
She opened her eyes wide and gave me a startled look.
"I was dreaming," she said. "You may go, now, Hartley, and thank you
kindly. I'm quite well again, you see." And she turned her face away
from me.
III
THERE was no more sleep for me that night, and I was thankful when
daylight came.
Soon afterward, Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. I was afraid she was
ill again, for she seldom sent for me before nine, but I found her
sitting up in bed, pale and drawn-looking, but quite herself.
"Hartley," says she quickly, "will you put on your things at once and
go down to the village for me? I want this prescription made up--" here
she hesitated a minute and blushed--"and I should like you to be back
again before Mr. Brympton is up."
"Certainly, madam," I said.
"And--stay a moment--" she called me back as if an idea had just struck
her--"while you're waiting for the mixture, you'll have time to go on
to Mr. Ranford's with this note."
It was a two-mile walk to the village, and on my way I had time to turn
things over in my mind. It struck me as peculiar that my mistress
should wish the prescription made up without Mr. Brympton's knowledge;
and, putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with
much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began to wonder if the
poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of
ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on
a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the chemist's
counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at
me so hard that it brought me to myself.
"Mr. Limmel," I says, trying to speak indifferent, "will you run your
eye over this, and tell me if it's quite right?"
He put on his spectacles and studied the prescription.
"Why, it's one of Dr. Walton's," says he. "What should be wrong with
it?"
"Well--is it dangerous to take?"
"Dangerous--how do you mean?"
I could have shaken the man for his stupidity.
"I mean--if a person was to take too much of it--by mistake of
course--" says I, my heart in my throat.
"Lord bless you, no. It's only lime-water. You might feed it to a baby
by the bottleful."
I gave a great sigh of relief, and hurried on to Mr. Ranford's. But on
the way another thought struck me. If there was nothing to conceal
about my visit to the chemist's, was it my other errand that Mrs.
Brympton wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought frightened me
worse than the other. Yet the two gentlemen seemed fast friends, and I
would have staked my head on my mistress's goodness. I felt ashamed of
my suspicions, and concluded that I was still disturbed by the strange
events of the night. I left the note at Mr. Ranford's--and, hurrying
back to Brympton, slipped in by a side door without being seen, as I
thought.
An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress's breakfast, I
was stopped in the hall by Mr. Brympton.
"What were you doing out so early?" he says, looking hard at me.
"Early--me, sir?" I said, in a tremble.
"Come, come," he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead,
"didn't I see you scuttling home through the shrubbery an hour or more
ago?"
I'm a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out
ready-made. "No, sir, you didn't," said I, and looked straight back at
him.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you think
I was drunk last night?" he asked suddenly.
"No, sir, I don't," I answered, this time truthfully enough.
He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have of
me!" I heard him mutter as he walked off.
Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize how
the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn't pass that locked door
without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of it, and walk
down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to Mrs. Blinder or
to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house who appeared to have an inkling
of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if I questioned them
they would deny everything, and that I might learn more by holding my
tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of spending another night
opposite the locked room sickened me, and once I was seized with the
notion of packing my trunk and taking the first train to town; but it
wasn't in me to throw over a kind mistress in that manner, and I tried
to go on with my sewing as if nothing had happened.
I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewing-machine broke down. It
was one I had found in the house, a good machine, but a trifle out of
order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma Saxon's
death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working at the
machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid forward and a
photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at it in a maze. It
was a woman's likeness, and I knew I had seen the face somewhere--the
eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me before. And suddenly I
remembered the pale woman in the passage.
I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed to
be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should never get
away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs. Blinder. She
was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump when I came in.
"Mrs. Blinder," said I, "who is that?" And I held out the photograph.
She rubbed her eyes and stared.
"Why, Emma Saxon," says she. "Where did you find it?"
I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've seen
that face before."
Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. "Dear me! I
must have been asleep," she says. "My front is all over one ear. And
now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock striking
four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the Virginia ham
for Mr. Brympton's dinner."
IV
TO all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The only
difference was that Mr. Brympton stayed on, instead of going off as he
usually did, and that Mr. Ranford never showed himself. I heard Mr.
Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting in my
mistress's room before dinner.
"Where's Ranford?" says he. "He hasn't been near the house for a week.
Does he keep away because I'm here?"
Mrs. Brympton spoke so low that I couldn't catch her answer.
"Well," he went on, "two's company and three's trumpery; I'm sorry to
be in Ranford's way, and I suppose I shall have to take myself off
again in a day or two and give him a show." And he laughed at his own
joke.
The very next day, as it happened, Mr. Ranford called. The footman said
the three were very merry over their tea in the library, and Mr.
Brympton strolled down to the gate with Mr. Ranford when he left.
I have said that things went on as usual; and so they did with the rest
of the household; but as for myself, I had never been the same since
the night my bell had rung. Night after night I used to lie awake,
listening for it to ring again, and for the door of the locked room to
open stealthily. But the bell never rang, and I heard no sound across
the passage. At last the silence began to be more dreadful to me than
the most mysterious sounds. I felt that _someone_ were cowering there,
behind the locked door, watching and listening as I watched and
listened, and I could almost have cried out, "Whoever you are, come out
and let me see you face to face, but don't lurk there and spy on me in
the darkness!"
Feeling as I did, you may wonder I didn't give warning. Once I very
nearly did so; but at the last moment something held me back. Whether
it was compassion for my mistress, who had grown more and more
dependent on me, or unwillingness to try a new place, or some other
feeling that I couldn't put a name to, I lingered on as if spell-bound,
though every night was dreadful to me, and the days but little better.
For one thing, I didn't like Mrs. Brympton's looks. She had never been
the same since that night, no more than I had. I thought she would
brighten up after Mr. Brympton left, but though she seemed easier in
her mind, her spirits didn't revive, nor her strength either. She had
grown attached to me, and seemed to like to have me about; and Agnes
told me one day that, since Emma Saxon's death, I was the only maid her
mistress had taken to. This gave me a warm feeling for the poor lady,
though after all there was little I could do to help her.
After Mr. Brympton's departure, Mr. Ranford took to coming again,
though less often than formerly. I met him once or twice in the
grounds, or in the village, and I couldn't but think there was a change
in him too; but I set it down to my disordered fancy.
The weeks passed, and Mr. Brympton had now been a month absent. We
heard he was cruising with a friend in the West Indies, and Mr. Wace
said that was a long way off, but though you had the wings of a dove
and went to the uttermost parts of the earth, you couldn't get away
from the Almighty. Agnes said that as long as he stayed away from
Brympton, the Almighty might have him and welcome; and this raised a
laugh, though Mrs. Blinder tried to look shocked, and Mr. Wace said the
bears would eat us.
We were all glad to hear that the West Indies were a long way off, and
I remember that, in spite of Mr. Wace's solemn looks, we had a very
merry dinner that day in the hall. I don't know if it was because of my
being in better spirits, but I fancied Mrs. Brympton looked better too,
and seemed more cheerful in her manner. She had been for a walk in the
morning, and after luncheon she lay down in her room, and I read aloud
to her. When she dismissed me I went to my own room feeling quite
bright and happy, and for the first time in weeks walked past the
locked door without thinking of it. As I sat down to my work I looked
out and saw a few snow-flakes falling. The sight was pleasanter than
the eternal rain, and I pictured to myself how pretty the bare gardens
would look in their white mantle. It seemed to me as if the snow would
cover up all the dreariness, indoors as well as out.
The fancy had hardly crossed my mind when I heard a step at my side. I
looked up, thinking it was Agnes.
"Well, Agnes--" said I, and the words froze on my tongue; for there, in
the door, stood Emma Saxon.
I don't know how long she stood there. I only know I couldn't stir or
take my eyes from her. Afterward I was terribly frightened, but at the
time it wasn't fear I felt, but something deeper and quieter. She
looked at me long and long, and her face was just one dumb prayer to
me--but how in the world was I to help her? Suddenly she turned, and I
heard her walk down the passage. This time I wasn't afraid to follow--I
felt that I must know what she wanted. I sprang up and ran out. She was
at the other end of the passage, and I expected her to take the turn
toward my mistress's room; but instead of that she pushed open the door
that led to the backstairs. I followed her down the stairs, and across
the passageway to the back door. The kitchen and hall were empty at
that hour, the servants being off duty, except for the footman, who was
in the pantry. At the door she stood still a moment, with another look
at me; then she turned the handle, and stepped out. For a minute I
hesitated. Where was she leading me to? The door had closed softly
after her, and I opened it and looked out, half-expecting to find that
she had disappeared. But I saw her a few yards off, hurrying across the
court-yard to the path through the woods. Her figure looked black and
lonely in the snow, and for a second my heart failed me and I thought
of turning back. But all the while she was drawing me after her; and
catching up an old shawl of Mrs. Blinder's I ran out into the open.
Emma Saxon was in the wood-path now. She walked on steadily, and I
followed at the same pace, till we passed out of the gates and reached
the high-road. Then she struck across the open fields to the village.
By this time the ground was white, and as she climbed the slope of a
bare hill ahead of me I noticed that she left no foot-prints behind
her. At sight of that, my heart shrivelled up within me, and my knees
were water. Somehow, it was worse here than indoors. She made the whole
countryside seem lonely as the grave, with none but us two in it, and
no help in the wide world.
Once I tried to go back; but she turned and looked at me, and it was as
if she had dragged me with ropes. After that I followed her like a dog.
We came to the village, and she led me through it, past the church and
the blacksmith's shop, and down the lane to Mr. Ranford's. Mr.
Ranford's house stands close to the road: a plain old-fashioned
building, with a flagged path leading to the door between box-borders.
The lane was deserted, and as I turned into it, I saw Emma Saxon pause
under the old elm by the gate. And now another fear came over me. I saw
that we had reached the end of our journey, and that it was my turn to
act. All the way from Brympton I had been asking myself what she wanted
of me, but I had followed in a trance, as it were, and not till I saw
her stop at Mr. Ranford's gate did my brain begin to clear itself. It
stood a little way off in the snow, my heart beating fit to strangle
me, and my feet frozen to the ground; and she stood under the elm and
watched me.
I knew well enough that she hadn't led me there for nothing. I felt
there was something I ought to say or do--but how was I to guess what
it was? I had never thought harm of my mistress and Mr. Ranford, but I
was sure now that, from one cause or another, some dreadful thing hung
over them. _She_ knew what it was; she would tell me if she could;
perhaps she would answer if I questioned her.
It turned me faint to think of speaking to her; but I plucked up heart
and dragged myself across the few yards between us. As I did so, I
heard the house-door open, and saw Mr. Ranford approaching. He looked
handsome and cheerful, as my mistress had looked that morning, and at
sight of him the blood began to flow again in my veins.
"Why, Hartley," said he, "what's the matter? I saw you coming down the
lane just now, and came out to see if you had taken root in the snow."
He stopped and stared at me. "What are you looking at?" he says.
I turned toward the elm as he spoke, and his eyes followed me; but
there was no one there. The lane was empty as far as the eye could
reach.
A sense of helplessness came over me. She was gone, and I had not been
able to guess what she wanted. Her last look had pierced me to the
marrow; and yet it had not told me! All at once, I felt more desolate
than when she had stood there watching me. It seemed as if she had left
me all alone to carry the weight of the secret I couldn't guess. The
snow went round me in great circles, and the ground fell away from
me....
A drop of brandy and the warmth of Mr. Ranford's fire soon brought me
to, and I insisted on being driven back at once to Brympton. It was
nearly dark, and I was afraid my mistress might be wanting me. I
explained to Mr. Ranford that I had been out for a walk and had been
taken with a fit of giddiness as I passed his gate. This was true
enough; yet I never felt more like a liar than when I said it.
When I dressed Mrs. Brympton for dinner she remarked on my pale looks
and asked what ailed me. I told her I had a headache, and she said she
would not require me again that evening, and advised me to go to bed.
It was a fact that I could scarcely keep on my feet; yet I had no fancy
to spend a solitary evening in my room. I sat downstairs in the hall as
long as I could hold my head up; but by nine I crept upstairs, too
weary to care what happened if I could but get my head on a pillow. The
rest of the household went to bed soon afterward; they kept early hours
when the master was away, and before ten I heard Mrs. Blinder's door
close, and Mr. Wace's soon after.
It was a very still night, earth and air all muffled in snow. Once in
bed I felt easier, and lay quiet, listening to the strange noises that
come out in a house after dark. Once I thought I heard a door open and
close again below: it might have been the glass door that led to the
gardens. I got up and peered out of the window; but it was in the dark
of the moon, and nothing visible outside but the streaking of snow
against the panes.
I went back to bed and must have dozed, for I jumped awake to the
furious ringing of my bell. Before my head was clear I had sprung out
of bed, and was dragging on my clothes. _It is going to happen now_, I
heard myself saying; but what I meant I had no notion. My hands seemed
to be covered with glue--I thought I should never get into my clothes.
At last I opened my door and peered down the passage. As far as my
candle-flame carried, I could see nothing unusual ahead of me. I
hurried on, breathless; but as I pushed open the baize door leading to
the main hall my heart stood still, for there at the head of the stairs
was Emma Saxon, peering dreadfully down into the darkness.
For a second I couldn't stir; but my hand slipped from the door, and as
it swung shut the figure vanished. At the same instant there came
another sound from below stairs--a stealthy mysterious sound, as of a
latch-key turning in the house-door. I ran to Mrs. Brympton's room and
knocked.
There was no answer, and I knocked again. This time I heard some one
moving in the room; the bolt slipped back and my mistress stood before
me. To my surprise I saw that she had not undressed for the night. She
gave me a startled look.
"What is this, Hartley?" she says in a whisper. "Are you ill? What are
you doing here at this hour?"
"I am not ill, madam; but my bell rang."
At that she turned pale, and seemed about to fall.
"You are mistaken," she said harshly; "I didn't ring. You must have
been dreaming." I had never heard her speak in such a tone. "Go back to
bed," she said, closing the door on me.
But as she spoke I heard sounds again in the hall below: a man's step
this time; and the truth leaped out on me.
"Madam," I said, pushing past her, "there is someone in the house--"
"Someone--?"
"Mr. Brympton, I think--I hear his step below--"
A dreadful look came over her, and without a word, she dropped flat at
my feet. I fell on my knees and tried to lift her: by the way she
breathed I saw it was no common faint. But as I raised her head there
came quick steps on the stairs and across the hall: the door was flung
open, and there stood Mr. Brympton, in his travelling-clothes, the snow
dripping from him. He drew back with a start as he saw me kneeling by
my mistress.
"What the devil is this?" he shouted. He was less high-colored than
usual, and the red spot came out on his forehead.
"Mrs. Brympton has fainted, sir," said I.
He laughed unsteadily and pushed by me. "It's a pity she didn't choose
a more convenient moment. I'm sorry to disturb her, but--"
I raised myself up, aghast at the man's action.
"Sir," said I, "are you mad? What are you doing?"
"Going to meet a friend," said he, and seemed to make for the
dressing-room.
At that my heart turned over. I don't know what I thought or feared;
but I sprang up and caught him by the sleeve.
"Sir, sir," said I, "for pity's sake look at your wife!"
He shook me off furiously.
"It seems that's done for me," says he, and caught hold of the
dressing-room door.
At that moment I heard a slight noise inside. Slight as it was, he
heard it too, and tore the door open; but as he did so he dropped back.
On the threshold stood Emma Saxon. All was dark behind her, but I saw
her plainly, and so did he. He threw up his hands as if to hide his
face from her; and when I looked again she was gone.
He stood motionless, as if the strength had run out of him; and in the
stillness my mistress suddenly raised herself, and opening her eyes
fixed a look on him. Then she fell back, and I saw the death-flutter
pass over her....
We buried her on the third day, in a driving snow-storm. There were few
people in the church, for it was bad weather to come from town, and
I've a notion my mistress was one that hadn't many near friends. Mr.
Ranford was among the last to come, just before they carried her up the
aisle. He was in black, of course, being such a friend of the family,
and I never saw a gentleman so pale. As he passed me, I noticed that he
leaned a trifle on a stick he carried; and I fancy Mr. Brympton noticed
it too, for the red spot came out sharp on his forehead, and all
through the service he kept staring across the church at Mr. Ranford,
instead of following the prayers as a mourner should.
When it was over and we went out to the graveyard, Mr. Ranford had
disappeared, and as soon as my poor mistress's body was underground,
Mr. Brympton jumped into the carriage nearest the gate and drove off
without a word to any of us. I heard him call out, "To the station,"
and we servants went back alone to the house.
THE MISSION OF JANE
I
LETHBURY, surveying his wife across the dinner table, found his
transient conjugal glance arrested by an indefinable change in her
appearance.
"How smart you look! Is that a new gown?" he asked.
Her answering look seemed to deprecate his charging her with the
extravagance of wasting a new gown on him, and he now perceived that
the change lay deeper than any accident of dress. At the same time, he
noticed that she betrayed her consciousness of it by a delicate, almost
frightened blush. It was one of the compensations of Mrs. Lethbury's
protracted childishness that she still blushed as prettily as at
eighteen. Her body had been privileged not to outstrip her mind, and
the two, as it seemed to Lethbury, were destined to travel together
through an eternity of girlishness.
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
Since she never did, he always wondered at her bringing this out as a
fresh grievance against him; but his wonder was unresentful, and he
said good-humoredly: "You sparkle so that I thought you had on your
diamonds."
She sighed and blushed again.
"It must be," he continued, "that you've been to a dressmaker's
opening. You're absolutely brimming with illicit enjoyment."
She stared again, this time at the adjective. His adjectives always
embarrassed her: their unintelligibleness savored of impropriety.
"In short," he summed up, "you've been doing something that you're
thoroughly ashamed of."
To his surprise she retorted: "I don't see why I should be ashamed of
it!"
Lethbury leaned back with a smile of enjoyment. When there was nothing
better going he always liked to listen to her explanations.
"Well--?" he said.
She was becoming breathless and ejaculatory. "Of course you'll
laugh--you laugh at everything!"
"That rather blunts the point of my derision, doesn't it?" he
interjected; but she rushed on without noticing:
"It's so easy to laugh at things."
"Ah," murmured Lethbury with relish, "that's Aunt Sophronia's, isn't
it?"
Most of his wife's opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint
pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and saw
no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable. Some,
of course, were so fine that she kept them for state occasions, like
her great-grandmother's Crown Derby; but from the lady known as Aunt
Sophronia she had inherited a stout set of every-day prejudices that
were practically as good as new; whereas her husband's, as she noticed,
were always having to be replaced. In the early days she had fancied
there might be a certain satisfaction in taxing him with the fact; but
she had long since been silenced by the reply: "My dear, I'm not a rich
man, but I never use an opinion twice if I can help it."
She was reduced, therefore, to dwelling on his moral deficiencies; and
one of the most obvious of these was his refusal to take things
seriously. On this occasion, however, some ulterior purpose kept her
from taking up his taunt.
"I'm not in the least ashamed!" she repeated, with the air of shaking a
banner to the wind; but the domestic atmosphere being calm, the banner
drooped unheroically.
"That," said Lethbury judicially, "encourages me to infer that you
ought to be, and that, consequently, you've been giving yourself the
unusual pleasure of doing something I shouldn't approve of."
She met this with an almost solemn directness. "No," she said. "You
won't approve of it. I've allowed for that."
"Ah," he exclaimed, setting down his liqueur-glass. "You've worked out
the whole problem, eh?"
"I believe so."
"That's uncommonly interesting. And what is it?"
She looked at him quietly. "A baby."
If it was seldom given her to surprise him, she had attained the
distinction for once.
"A baby?"
"Yes."
"A--human baby?"
"Of course!" she cried, with the virtuous resentment of the woman who
has never allowed dogs in the house.
Lethbury's puzzled stare broke into a fresh smile. "A baby I sha'n't
approve of? Well, in the abstract I don't think much of them, I admit.
Is this an abstract baby?"
Again she frowned at the adjective; but she had reached a pitch of
exaltation at which such obstacles could not deter her.
"It's the loveliest baby--" she murmured.
"Ah, then it's concrete. It exists. In this harsh world it draws its
breath in pain--"
"It's the healthiest child I ever saw!" she indignantly corrected.
"You've seen it, then?"
Again the accusing blush suffused her. "Yes--I've seen it."
"And to whom does the paragon belong?"
And here indeed she confounded him. "To me--I hope," she declared.
He pushed his chair back with an inarticulate murmur. "To _you_--?"
"To _us_," she corrected.
"Good Lord!" he said. If there had been the least hint of hallucination
in her transparent gaze--but no: it was as clear, as shallow, as easily
fathomable as when he had first suffered the sharp surprise of striking
bottom in it.
It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew
that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.
"Is it a joke?" he faltered.
"Oh, I hope not. I want it so much to be a reality--"
He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were
not realities, and continued gently: "But since it is one already--"
"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want--" her voice wavered, and her
eyes with it. "I have always wanted so dreadfully...it has been such a
disappointment...not to..."
"I see," said Lethbury slowly.
But he had not seen before. It seemed curious, now, that he had never
thought of her taking it in that way, had never surmised any hidden
depths beneath her outspread obviousness. He felt as though he had
touched a secret spring in her mind.
There was a moment's silence, moist and tremulous on her part, awkward
and slightly irritated on his.
"You've been lonely, I suppose?" he began. It was odd, having suddenly
to reckon with the stranger who gazed at him out of her trivial eyes.
"At times," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"It was not your fault. A man has so many occupations; and women who
are clever--or very handsome--I suppose that's an occupation too.
Sometimes I've felt that when dinner was ordered I had nothing to do
till the next day."
"Oh," he groaned.
"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "I never told you--but when I
chose that rose-bud paper for the front room upstairs, I always
thought--"
"Well--?"
"It would be such a pretty paper--for a baby--to wake up in. That was
years ago, of course; but it was rather an expensive paper... and it
hasn't faded in the least..." she broke off incoherently.
"It hasn't faded?"
"No--and so I thought...as we don't use the room for anything ... now
that Aunt Sophronia is dead...I thought I might... you might...oh,
Julian, if you could only have seen it just waking up in its crib!"
"Seen what--where? You haven't got a baby upstairs?"
"Oh, no--not _yet_," she said, with her rare laugh--the girlish
bubbling of merriment that had seemed one of her chief graces in the
early days. It occurred to him that he had not given her enough things
to laugh about lately. But then she needed such very elementary things:
it was as difficult to amuse her as a savage. He concluded that he was
not sufficiently simple.
"Alice," he said, almost solemnly, "what _do_ you mean?"
She hesitated a moment: he saw her gather her courage for a supreme
effort. Then she said slowly, gravely, as though she were pronouncing a
sacramental phrase:
"I'm so lonely without a little child--and I thought perhaps you'd let
me adopt one....It's at the hospital...its mother is dead...and I
could...pet it, and dress it, and do things for it...and it's such a
good baby...you can ask any of the nurses...it would never, _never_
bother you by crying..."
II
Lethbury accompanied his wife to the hospital in a mood of chastened
wonder. It did not occur to him to oppose her wish. He knew, of course,
that he would have to bear the brunt of the situation: the jokes at the
club, the inquiries, the explanations. He saw himself in the comic role
of the adopted father, and welcomed it as an expiation. For in his
rapid reconstruction of the past he found himself cutting a shabbier
figure than he cared to admit. He had always been intolerant of stupid
people, and it was his punishment to be convicted of stupidity. As his
mind traversed the years between his marriage and this unexpected
assumption of paternity, he saw, in the light of an overheated
imagination, many signs of unwonted crassness. It was not that he had
ceased to think his wife stupid: she _was_ stupid, limited, inflexible;
but there was a pathos in the struggles of her swaddled mind, in its
blind reachings toward the primal emotions. He had always thought she
would have been happier with a child; but he had thought it
mechanically, because it had so often been thought before, because it
was in the nature of things to think it of every woman, because his
wife was so eminently one of a species that she fitted into all the
generalizations on the sex. But he had regarded this generalization as
merely typical of the triumph of tradition over experience. Maternity
was no doubt the supreme function of primitive woman, the one end to
which her whole organism tended; but the law of increasing complexity
had operated in both sexes, and he had not seriously supposed that,
outside the world of Christmas fiction and anecdotic art, such truisms
had any special hold on the feminine imagination. Now he saw that the
arts in question were kept alive by the vitality of the sentiments they
appealed to.
Lethbury was in fact going through a rapid process of readjustment. His
marriage had been a failure, but he had preserved toward his wife the
exact fidelity of act that is sometimes supposed to excuse any
divagation of feeling; so that, for years, the tie between them had
consisted mainly in his abstaining from making love to other women. The
abstention had not always been easy, for the world is surprisingly
well-stocked with the kind of woman one ought to have married but did
not; and Lethbury had not escaped the solicitation of such
alternatives. His immunity had been purchased at the cost of taking
refuge in the somewhat rarified atmosphere of his perceptions; and his
world being thus limited, he had given unusual care to its details,
compensating himself for the narrowness of his horizon by the minute
finish of his foreground. It was a world of fine shadings and the
nicest proportions, where impulse seldom set a blundering foot, and the
feast of reason was undisturbed by an intemperate flow of soul. To such
a banquet his wife naturally remained uninvited. The diet would have
disagreed with her, and she would probably have objected to the other
guests. But Lethbury, miscalculating her needs, had hitherto supposed
that he had made ample provision for them, and was consequently at
liberty to enjoy his own fare without any reproach of mendicancy at his
gates. Now he beheld her pressing a starved face against the windows of
his life, and in his imaginative reaction he invested her with a pathos
borrowed from the sense of his own shortcomings.
In the hospital, the imaginative process continued with increasing
force. He looked at his wife with new eyes. Formerly she had been to
him a mere bundle of negations, a labyrinth of dead walls and bolted
doors. There was nothing behind the walls, and the doors led
no-whither: he had sounded and listened often enough to be sure of
that. Now he felt like a traveller who, exploring some ancient ruin,
comes on an inner cell, intact amid the general dilapidation, and
painted with images which reveal the forgotten uses of the building.
His wife stood by a white crib in one of the wards. In the crib lay a
child, a year old, the nurse affirmed, but to Lethbury's eye a mere
dateless fragment of humanity projected against a background of
conjecture. Over this anonymous particle of life Mrs. Lethbury leaned,
such ecstasy reflected in her face as strikes up, in Correggio's
Night-piece, from the child's body to the mother's countenance. It was
a light that irradiated and dazzled her. She looked up at an inquiry of
Lethbury's, but as their glances met he perceived that she no longer
saw him, that he had become as invisible to her as she had long been to
him. He had to transfer his question to the nurse.
"What is the child's name?" he asked.
"We call her Jane," said the nurse.
III
Lethbury, at first, had resisted the idea of a legal adoption; but when
he found that his wife's curiously limited imagination prevented her
regarding the child as hers till it had been made so by process of law,
he promptly withdrew his objection. On one point only he remained
inflexible; and that was the changing of the waif's name. Mrs.
Lethbury, almost at once, had expressed a wish to rechristen it: she
fluctuated between Muriel and Gladys, deferring the moment of decision
like a lady wavering between two bonnets. But Lethbury was unyielding.
In the general surrender of his prejudices this one alone held out.
"But Jane is so dreadful," Mrs. Lethbury protested.
"Well, we don't know that _she_ won't be dreadful. She may grow up a
Jane."
His wife exclaimed reproachfully. "The nurse says she's the loveliest--"
"Don't they always say that?" asked Lethbury patiently. He was prepared
to be inexhaustibly patient now that he had reached a firm foothold of
opposition.
"It's cruel to call her Jane," Mrs. Lethbury pleaded.
"It's ridiculous to call her Muriel."
"The nurse is _sure_ she must be a lady's child."
Lethbury winced: he had tried, all along, to keep his mind off the
question of antecedents.
"Well, let her prove it," he said, with a rising sense of exasperation.
He wondered how he could ever have allowed himself to be drawn into
such a ridiculous business; for the first time he felt the full irony
of it. He had visions of coming home in the afternoon to a house
smelling of linseed and paregoric, and of being greeted by a chronic
howl as he went up stairs to dress for dinner. He had never been a
club-man, but he saw himself becoming one now.
The worst of his anticipations were unfulfilled. The baby was
surprisingly well and surprisingly quiet. Such infantile remedies as
she absorbed were not potent enough to be perceived beyond the nursery;
and when Lethbury could be induced to enter that sanctuary, there was
nothing to jar his nerves in the mild pink presence of his adopted
daughter. Jars there were, indeed: they were probably inevitable in the
disturbed routine of the household; but they occurred between Mrs.
Lethbury and the nurses, and Jane contributed to them only a placid
stare which might have served as a rebuke to the combatants.
In the reaction from his first impulse of atonement, Lethbury noted
with sharpened perceptions the effect of the change on his wife's
character. He saw already the error of supposing that it could work any
transformation in her. It simply magnified her existing qualities. She
was like a dried sponge put in water: she expanded, but she did not
change her shape. From the stand-point of scientific observation it was
curious to see how her stored instincts responded to the
pseudo-maternal call. She overflowed with the petty maxims of the
occasion. One felt in her the epitome, the consummation, of centuries
of animal maternity, so that this little woman, who screamed at a mouse
and was nervous about burglars, came to typify the cave-mother rending
her prey for her young.
It was less easy to regard philosophically the practical effects of her
borrowed motherhood. Lethbury found with surprise that she was becoming
assertive and definite. She no longer represented the negative side of
his life; she showed, indeed, a tendency to inconvenient affirmations.
She had gradually expanded her assumption of motherhood till it
included his own share in the relation, and he suddenly found himself
regarded as the father of Jane. This was a contingency he had not
foreseen, and it took all his philosophy to accept it; but there were
moments of compensation. For Mrs. Lethbury was undoubtedly happy for
the first time in years; and the thought that he had tardily
contributed to this end reconciled him to the irony of the means.
At first he was inclined to reproach himself for still viewing the
situation from the outside, for remaining a spectator instead of a
participant. He had been allured, for a moment, by the vision of
severed hands meeting over a cradle, as the whole body of domestic
fiction bears witness to their doing; and the fact that no such
conjunction took place he could explain only on the ground that it was
a borrowed cradle. He did not dislike the little girl. She still
remained to him a hypothetical presence, a query rather than a fact;
but her nearness was not unpleasant, and there were moments when her
tentative utterances, her groping steps, seemed to loosen the dry
accretions enveloping his inner self. But even at such moments--moments
which he invited and caressed--she did not bring him nearer to his
wife. He now perceived that he had made a certain place in his life for
Mrs. Lethbury, and that she no longer fitted into it. It was too late
to enlarge the space, and so she overflowed and encroached. Lethbury
struggled against the sense of submergence. He let down barrier after
barrier, yielded privacy after privacy; but his wife's personality
continued to dilate. She was no longer herself alone: she was herself
and Jane. Gradually, in a monstrous fusion of identity, she became
herself, himself and Jane; and instead of trying to adapt her to a
spare crevice of his character, he found himself carelessly squeezed
into the smallest compartment of the domestic economy.
IV
He continued to tell himself that he was satisfied if his wife was
happy; and it was not till the child's tenth year that he felt a doubt
of her happiness.
Jane had been a preternaturally good child. During the eight years of
her adoption she had caused her foster-parents no anxiety beyond those
connected with the usual succession of youthful diseases. But her
unknown progenitors had given her a robust constitution, and she passed
unperturbed through measles, chicken-pox and whooping-cough. If there
was any suffering it was endured vicariously by Mrs. Lethbury, whose
temperature rose and fell with the patient's, and who could not hear
Jane sneeze without visions of a marble angel weeping over a broken
column. But though Jane's prompt recoveries continued to belie such
premonitions, though her existence continued to move forward on an even
keel of good health and good conduct, Mrs. Lethbury's satisfaction
showed no corresponding advance. Lethbury, at first, was disposed to
add her disappointment to the long list of feminine inconsistencies
with which the sententious observer of life builds up his favorite
induction; but circumstances presently led him to take a kindlier view
of the case.
Hitherto his wife had regarded him as a negligible factor in Jane's
evolution. Beyond providing for his adopted daughter, and effacing
himself before her, he was not expected to contribute to her
well-being. But as time passed he appeared to his wife in a new light.
It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the intellect, Mrs.
Lethbury was the first to declare her deficiencies--to proclaim them,
even, with a certain virtuous superiority. She said she did not pretend
to be clever, and there was no denying the truth of the assertion. Now,
however, she seemed less ready, not to own her limitations, but to
glory in them. Confronted with the problem of Jane's instruction, she
stood in awe of the child.
"I have always been stupid, you know," she said to Lethbury with a new
humility, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't know what is best for Jane. I'm
sure she has a wonderfully good mind, and I should reproach myself if I
didn't give her every opportunity." She looked at him helplessly. "You
must tell me what ought to be done."
Lethbury was not unwilling to oblige her. Somewhere in his mental
lumber-room there rusted a theory of education such as usually lingers
among the impedimenta of the childless. He brought this out,
refurbished it, and applied it to Jane. At first he thought his wife
had not overrated the quality of the child's mind. Jane seemed
extraordinarily intelligent. Her precocious definiteness of mind was
encouraging to her inexperienced preceptor. She had no difficulty in
fixing her attention, and he felt that every fact he imparted was being
etched in metal. He helped his wife to engage the best teachers, and
for a while continued to take an ex-official interest in his adopted
daughter's studies. But gradually his interest waned. Jane's ideas did
not increase with her acquisitions. Her young mind remained a mere
receptacle for facts: a kind of cold-storage from which anything that
had been put there could be taken out at a moment's notice, intact but
congealed. She developed, moreover, an inordinate pride in the capacity
of her mental storehouse, and a tendency to pelt her public with its
contents. She was overheard to jeer at her nurse for not knowing when
the Saxon Heptarchy had fallen, and she alternately dazzled and
depressed Mrs. Lethbury by the wealth of her chronological allusions.
She showed no interest in the significance of the facts she amassed:
she simply collected dates as another child might have collected stamps
or marbles. To her foster-mother she seemed a prodigy of wisdom; but
Lethbury saw, with a secret movement of sympathy, how the aptitudes in
which Mrs. Lethbury gloried were slowly estranging her from their
possessor.
"She is getting too clever for me," his wife said to him, after one of
Jane's historical flights, "but I am so glad that she will be a
companion to you."
Lethbury groaned in spirit. He did not look forward to Jane's
companionship. She was still a good little girl: but there was
something automatic and formal in her goodness, as though it were a
kind of moral calisthenics that she went through for the sake of
showing her agility. An early consciousness of virtue had moreover
constituted her the natural guardian and adviser of her elders. Before
she was fifteen she had set about reforming the household. She took
Mrs. Lethbury in hand first; then she extended her efforts to the
servants, with consequences more disastrous to the domestic harmony;
and lastly she applied herself to Lethbury. She proved to him by
statistics that he smoked too much, and that it was injurious to the
optic nerve to read in bed. She took him to task for not going to
church more regularly, and pointed out to him the evils of desultory
reading. She suggested that a regular course of study encourages mental
concentration, and hinted that inconsecutiveness of thought is a sign
of approaching age.
To her adopted mother her suggestions were equally pertinent. She
instructed Mrs. Lethbury in an improved way of making beef stock, and
called her attention to the unhygienic qualities of carpets. She poured
out distracting facts about bacilli and vegetable mould, and
demonstrated that curtains and picture-frames are a hot-bed of animal
organisms. She learned by heart the nutritive ingredients of the
principal articles of diet, and revolutionized the cuisine by an
attempt to establish a scientific average between starch and
phosphates. Four cooks left during this experiment, and Lethbury fell
into the habit of dining at his club.
Once or twice, at the outset, he had tried to check Jane's ardor; but
his efforts resulted only in hurting his wife's feelings. Jane remained
impervious, and Mrs. Lethbury resented any attempt to protect her from
her daughter. Lethbury saw that she was consoled for the sense of her
own inferiority by the thought of what Jane's intellectual
companionship must be to him; and he tried to keep up the illusion by
enduring with what grace he might the blighting edification of Jane's
discourse.
V
As Jane grew up, he sometimes avenged himself by wondering if his wife
was still sorry that they had not called her Muriel. Jane was not ugly;
she developed, indeed, a kind of categorical prettiness that might have
been a projection of her mind. She had a creditable collection of
features, but one had to take an inventory of them to find out that she
was good-looking. The fusing grace had been omitted.
Mrs. Lethbury took a touching pride in her daughter's first steps in
the world. She expected Jane to take by her complexion those whom she
did not capture by her learning. But Jane's rosy freshness did not work
any perceptible ravages. Whether the young men guessed the axioms on
her lips and detected the encyclopaedia in her eye, or whether they
simply found no intrinsic interest in these features, certain it is,
that, in spite of her mother's heroic efforts, and of incessant calls
on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first season, had dropped
hopelessly out of the running. A few duller girls found her
interesting, and one or two young men came to the house with the object
of meeting other young women; but she was rapidly becoming one of the
social supernumeraries who are asked out only because they are on
people's lists.
The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with the
idea that Jane had failed because she was too clever. Jane probably
shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no consciousness of
failure. She had developed a pronounced taste for society, and went
out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after winter, while Mrs.
Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions on oblivious
hostesses. To Lethbury there was something at once tragic and
exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one conciliatory,
the other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the elusive prize of
popularity. He even began to feel a personal stake in the pursuit, not
as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his wife. He saw that the
latter was the victim of Jane's disappointment: that Jane was not above
the crude satisfaction of "taking it out" of her mother. Experience
checked the impulse to come to his wife's defence; and when his
resentment was at its height, Jane disarmed him by giving up the
struggle.
Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that
the visiting ceased, and that the dressmaker's bills diminished. At the
same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up
charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this
announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated himself on the change;
but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day she
was sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she was
always there. At first she and Mrs. Lethbury sat in the drawing-room
together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but presently Jane formed
the habit of joining him there, and he began to suspect that he was
included among the objects of her philanthropy.
Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very
serious-minded lately," she said. "She imagines that she used to
neglect you, and she is trying to make up for it. Don't discourage
her," she added innocently.
Such a plea delivered Lethbury helpless to his daughter's
ministrations: and he found himself measuring the hours he spent with
her by the amount of relief they must be affording her mother. There
were even moments when he read a furtive gratitude in Mrs. Lethbury's
eye.
But Lethbury was no hero, and he had nearly reached the limit of
vicarious endurance when something wonderful happened. They never quite
knew afterward how it had come about, or who first perceived it; but
Mrs. Lethbury one day gave tremulous voice to their inferences.
"Of course," she said, "he comes here because of Elise." The young lady
in question, a friend of Jane's, was possessed of attractions which had
already been found to explain the presence of masculine visitors.
Lethbury risked a denial. "I don't think he does," he declared.
"But Elise is thought very pretty," Mrs. Lethbury insisted.
"I can't help that," said Lethbury doggedly.
He saw a faint light in his wife's eyes; but she remarked carelessly:
"Mr. Budd would be a very good match for Elise."
Lethbury could hardly repress a chuckle: he was so exquisitely aware
that she was trying to propitiate the gods.
For a few weeks neither said a word; then Mrs. Lethbury once more
reverted to the subject.
"It is a month since Elise went abroad," she said.
"Is it?"
"And Mr. Budd seems to come here just as often--"
"Ah," said Lethbury with heroic indifference; and his wife hastily
changed the subject.
Mr. Winstanley Budd was a young man who suffered from an excess of
manner. Politeness gushed from him in the driest seasons. He was always
performing feats of drawing-room chivalry, and the approach of the most
unobtrusive female threw him into attitudes which endangered the
furniture. His features, being of the cherubic order, did not lend
themselves to this role; but there were moments when he appeared to
dominate them, to force them into compliance with an aquiline ideal.
The range of Mr. Budd's social benevolence made its object hard to
distinguish. He spread his cloak so indiscriminately that one could not
always interpret the gesture, and Jane's impassive manner had the
effect of increasing his demonstrations: she threw him into paroxysms
of politeness.
At first he filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it
became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed
exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked
away from each other. They pretended not to notice the frequency of Mr.
Budd's visits, they struggled against an imprudent inclination to leave
the young people too much alone. Their conclusions were the result of
indirect observation, for neither of them dared to be caught watching
Mr. Budd: they behaved like naturalists on the trail of a rare
butterfly.
In his efforts not to notice Mr. Budd, Lethbury centred his attentions
on Jane; and Jane, at this crucial moment, wrung from him a reluctant
admiration. While her parents went about dissembling their emotions,
she seemed to have none to conceal. She betrayed neither eagerness nor
surprise; so complete was her unconcern that there were moments when
Lethbury feared it was obtuseness, when he could hardly help whispering
to her that now was the moment to lower the net.
Meanwhile the velocity of Mr. Budd's gyrations increased with the ardor
of courtship: his politeness became incandescent, and Jane found
herself the centre of a pyrotechnical display culminating in the "set
piece" of an offer of marriage.
Mrs. Lethbury imparted the news to her husband one evening after their
daughter had gone to bed. The announcement was made and received with
an air of detachment, as though both feared to be betrayed into
unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended, could not repress
the inquiry, "Have they decided on a day?"
Mrs. Lethbury's superior command of her features enabled her to look
shocked. "What can you be thinking of? He only offered himself at five!"
"Of course--of course--" stammered Lethbury--"but nowadays people marry
after such short engagements--"
"Engagement!" said his wife solemnly. "There is no engagement."
Lethbury dropped his cigar. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Jane is thinking it over."
_"Thinking it over?"_ "She has asked for a month before deciding."
Lethbury sank back with a gasp. Was it genius or was it madness? He
felt incompetent to decide; and Mrs. Lethbury's next words showed that
she shared his difficulty.
"Of course I don't want to hurry Jane--"
"Of course not," he acquiesced.
"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive
temperament might--might be easily discouraged--"
"Yes; and what did she say?"
"She said that if she was worth winning she was worth waiting for."
VI
The period of Mr. Budd's probation could scarcely have cost him as much
mental anguish as it caused his would-be parents-in-law.
Mrs. Lethbury, by various ruses, tried to shorten the ordeal, but Jane
remained inexorable; and each morning Lethbury came down to breakfast
with the certainty of finding a letter of withdrawal from her
discouraged suitor.
When at length the decisive day came, and Mrs. Lethbury, at its close,
stole into the library with an air of chastened joy, they stood for a
moment without speaking; then Mrs. Lethbury paid a fitting tribute to
the proprieties by faltering out: "It will be dreadful to have to give
her up--"
Lethbury could not repress a warning gesture; but even as it escaped
him, he realized that his wife's grief was genuine.
"Of course, of course," he said, vainly sounding his own emotional
shallows for an answering regret. And yet it was his wife who had
suffered most from Jane!
He had fancied that these sufferings would be effaced by the milder
atmosphere of their last weeks together; but felicity did not soften
Jane. Not for a moment did she relax her dominion: she simply widened
it to include a new subject. Mr. Budd found himself under orders with
the others; and a new fear assailed Lethbury as he saw Jane assume
prenuptial control of her betrothed. Lethbury had never felt any strong
personal interest in Mr. Budd; but, as Jane's prospective husband, the
young man excited his sympathy. To his surprise, he found that Mrs.
Lethbury shared the feeling.
"I'm afraid he may find Jane a little exacting," she said, after an
evening dedicated to a stormy discussion of the wedding arrangements.
"She really ought to make some concessions. If he _wants_ to be married
in a black frock-coat instead of a dark gray one--" She paused and
looked doubtfully at Lethbury.
"What can I do about it?" he said.
"You might explain to him--tell him that Jane isn't always--"
Lethbury made an impatient gesture. "What are you afraid of? His
finding her out or his not finding her out?"
Mrs. Lethbury flushed. "You put it so dreadfully!"
Her husband mused for a moment; then he said with an air of cheerful
hypocrisy: "After all, Budd is old enough to take care of himself."
But the next day Mrs. Lethbury surprised him. Late in the afternoon she
entered the library, so breathless and inarticulate that he scented a
catastrophe.
"I've done it!" she cried.
"Done what?"
"Told him." She nodded toward the door. "He's just gone. Jane is out,
and I had a chance to talk to him alone."
Lethbury pushed a chair forward and she sank into it.
"What did you tell him? That she is _not_ always--"
Mrs. Lethbury lifted a tragic eye. "No; I told him that she always
_is_--"
"Always _is_--?"
"Yes."
There was a pause. Lethbury made a call on his hoarded philosophy. He
saw Jane suddenly reinstated in her evening seat by the library fire;
but an answering chord in him thrilled at his wife's heroism.
"Well--what did he say?"
Mrs. Lethbury's agitation deepened. It was clear that the blow had
fallen.
"He...he said...that we...had never understood Jane... or appreciated
her..." The final syllables were lost in her handkerchief, and she left
him marvelling at the mechanism of a woman.
After that, Lethbury faced the future with an undaunted eye. They had
done their duty--at least his wife had done hers--and they were reaping
the usual harvest of ingratitude with a zest seldom accorded to such
reaping. There was a marked change in Mr. Budd's manner, and his
increasing coldness sent a genial glow through Lethbury's system. It
was easy to bear with Jane in the light of Mr. Budd's disapproval.
There was a good deal to be borne in the last days, and the brunt of it
fell on Mrs. Lethbury. Jane marked her transition to the married state
by an appropriate but incongruous display of nerves. She became
sentimental, hysterical and reluctant. She quarrelled with her
betrothed and threatened to return the ring. Mrs. Lethbury had to
intervene, and Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But the
blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's chivalry was proof against all his
bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty. Lethbury
feared that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed to urge him
to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared with the ring on her
finger, and consented to try on the wedding-dress; but her
uncertainties, her reactions, were prolonged till the final day.
When it dawned, Lethbury was still in an ecstasy of apprehension.
Feeling reasonably sure of the principal actors, he had centred his
fears on incidental possibilities. The clergyman might have a stroke,
or the church might burn down, or there might be something wrong with
the license. He did all that was humanly possible to avert such
contingencies, but there remained that incalculable factor known as the
hand of God. Lethbury seemed to feel it groping for him.
In the church it almost had him by the nape. Mr. Budd was late; and for
five immeasurable minutes Lethbury and Jane faced a churchful of
conjecture. Then the bridegroom appeared, flushed but chivalrous, and
explaining to his father-in-law under cover of the ritual that he had
torn his glove and had to go back for another.
"You'll be losing the ring next," muttered Lethbury; but Mr. Budd
produced this article punctually, and a moment or two later was bearing
its wearer captive down the aisle.
At the wedding-breakfast Lethbury caught his wife's eye fixed on him in
mild disapproval, and understood that his hilarity was exceeding the
bounds of fitness. He pulled himself together, and tried to subdue his
tone; but his jubilation bubbled over like a champagne-glass
perpetually refilled. The deeper his draughts, the higher it rose.
It was at the brim when, in the wake of the dispersing guests, Jane
came down in her travelling-dress and fell on her mother's neck.
"I can't leave you!" she wailed, and Lethbury felt as suddenly sobered
as a man under a douche. But if the bride was reluctant her captor was
relentless. Never had Mr. Budd been more dominant, more aquiline.
Lethbury's last fears were dissipated as the young man snatched Jane
from her mother's bosom and bore her off to the brougham.
The brougham rolled away, the last milliner's girl forsook her post by
the awning, the red carpet was folded up, and the house door closed.
Lethbury stood alone in the hall with his wife. As he turned toward
her, he noticed the look of tired heroism in her eyes, the deepened
lines of her face. They reflected his own symptoms too accurately not
to appeal to him. The nervous tension had been horrible. He went up to
her, and an answering impulse made her lay a hand on his arm. He held
it there a moment.
"Let us go off and have a jolly little dinner at a restaurant," he
proposed.
There had been a time when such a suggestion would have surprised her
to the verge of disapproval; but now she agreed to it at once.
"Oh, that would be so nice," she murmured with a great sigh of relief
and assuagement.
Jane had fulfilled her mission after all: she had drawn them together
at last.
THE RECKONING
I
"THE marriage law of the new dispensation will be: _Thou shalt not be
unfaithful--to thyself_."
A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze
of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from
his improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of
ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The New Ethics" had drawn about
him an eager following of the mentally unemployed--those who, as he had
once phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The
talks had begun by accident. Westall's ideas were known to be
"advanced," but hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of
publicity. He had been, in his wife's opinion, almost pusillanimously
careful not to let his personal views endanger his professional
standing. Of late, however, he had shown a puzzling tendency to
dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in
the face of society; and the relation of the sexes being a topic always
sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had persuaded him to give
his after-dinner opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a
series of talks at the Van Sideren studio.
The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on the
fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren's pictures were chiefly
valuable as accessories to the _mise en scene_ which differentiated his
wife's "afternoons" from the blighting functions held in long New York
drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends
whiskey-and-soda instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was
skilled in making the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure
and an easel create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to
maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert
could paint, she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling
in some fresh talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic"
impression. It was in quest of such aid that she had seized on Westall,
coaxing him, somewhat to his wife's surprise, into a flattered
participation in her fraud. It was vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren
circle, that all the audacities were artistic, and that a teacher who
pronounced marriage immoral was somehow as distinguished as a painter
who depicted purple grass and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were
tired of the conventional color-scheme in art and conduct.
Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage;
she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early
days of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to
proclaim himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax
him with moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions
for which their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first
burst of propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her
disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly
account for the change, yet being a woman who never allowed her
impulses to remain unaccounted for, she tried to do so by saying that
she did not care to have the articles of her faith misinterpreted by
the vulgar. In this connection, she was beginning to think that almost
every one was vulgar; certainly there were few to whom she would have
cared to intrust the defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was
precisely at this point that Westall, discarding his unspoken
principles, had chosen to descend from the heights of privacy, and
stand hawking his convictions at the street-corner!
It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed
upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In the first place,
the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid"--Mrs. Westall
found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary--simply
"horrid" to think of a young girl's being allowed to listen to such
talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional
cocktail did not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which
made her appear the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents'
vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something
ought to be done--that some one ought to speak to the girl's mother.
And just then Una glided up.
"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with large
limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I suppose?" she asked with seraphic
gravity.
"All--what, my dear child?"
The girl shone on her. "About the higher life--the freer expansion of
the individual--the law of fidelity to one's self," she glibly recited.
Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush.
"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what it's
all about!"
Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't _you_,
then?" she murmured.
Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always--or altogether! But I should like
some tea, please."
Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As
Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was
not such a girlish face, after all--definite lines were forming under
the rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty,
and wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would
have as her dower! If _they_ were to be a part of the modern girl's
trousseau--
Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one
else had been speaking--a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: she
felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism.
Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and Una's tea too sweet,
she set down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes
had long been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but
only, as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a
larger flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner
to which Una had withdrawn--one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van
Sideren attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment
later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side.
She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the
depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to
swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite.
Julia winced at her own definition of the smile.
On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his
wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open their eyes a
bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily.
Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What _I_
wanted--?"
"Why, haven't you--all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of his
tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking more
openly--before--You've made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing
principles to expediency."
She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What made
you decide not to--any longer?"
She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish to
please you!" he answered, almost too simply.
"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly.
He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the
darkness.
"Not go on--?"
"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden rush
of physical weariness.
Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally
hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had noticed once or
twice that she looked pale--she mustn't come to another Saturday. She
felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his
concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a
conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her
hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let
them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles!
That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the
subject of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of uncomfortable
questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew
that if he returned to the subject he must have some special reason for
doing so.
"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put
the case badly?"
"No--you put it very well."
"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go
on with it?"
She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening
her sense of helplessness.
"I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public."
"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his
surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She
was not sure that she understood herself.
"Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience.
Her eyes wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been the
scene of so many of their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the
quiet-colored walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers
scattered here and there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sevres,
recalled, she hardly knew why, the apartment in which the evenings of
her first marriage had been passed--a wilderness of rosewood and
upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant above the mantel-piece,
and a Greek slave in "statuary marble" between the folding-doors of the
back drawing-room. It was a room with which she had never been able to
establish any closer relation than that between a traveller and a
railway station; and now, as she looked about at the surroundings which
stood for her deepest affinities--the room for which she had left that
other room--she was startled by the same sense of strangeness and
unfamiliarity. The prints, the flowers, the subdued tones of the old
porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial refinement that had no
relation to the deeper significances of life.
Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question.
"I don't know that I can explain," she faltered.
He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth.
The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had a
kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its
setting.
"Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?" he asked.
"In our ideas--?"
"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to
stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which our marriage was
founded."
The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was sure
now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how
often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was
founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to
examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of course--the house
rests on it--but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was
she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the
situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified
her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the
religion of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel the
need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage as
frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive
needs of the heart, and needed no special sanction to explain or
justify it.
"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed.
"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory
that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of
marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?"
She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one is
addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them
don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted
simply by its novelty."
"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and
learned the truth from each other."
"That was different."
"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such
things never _are_ discussed before young girls; but that is beside the
point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience
to-day--"
"Except Una Van Sideren!"
He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow.
"Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--"
"Why naturally?"
"The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her
governess?"
"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my
house!"
Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I
fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself."
"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late."
"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of
self-defence?"
"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?"
"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the
marriage tie."
She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind
of a girl?"
"Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects."
She took up the argument at another point.
"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young
girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" She broke
off, wondering why she had spoken.
Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of
their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my
oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you
that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her.
She's quite capable of doing it herself."
"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly
from his wife.
He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting.
"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me."
II
If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to
Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to
excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John
Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the
thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine.
There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had
accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as
"statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their
allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for
divorce, and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of
desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's second
marriage did not make traditional morality stir in its sleep. It was
known that she had not met her second husband till after she had parted
from the first, and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor
one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it
was generally felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his
reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and
go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better evidence of Mrs.
Arment's complete disinterestedness?
If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat
cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both
explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible.
The only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was
something deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in
ironical defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her
from the necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not
then realized at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was
impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he
made it impossible for those about him to be other than himself. By an
unconscious process of elimination he had excluded from the world
everything of which he did not feel a personal need: had become, as it
were, a climate in which only his own requirements survived. This might
seem to imply a deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing
deliberate about Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child.
It was this childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment
unsettled his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that he was
simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is usual,
the laborious process of growing up? He had the kind of sporadic
shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man that he is "no
fool"; and it was this quality that his wife found most trying. Even to
the naturalist it is annoying to have his deductions disturbed by some
unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how much more so to the
wife whose estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment
of her husband!
Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual
power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering,
perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's sensibilities
naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood her own reasons
for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as
comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic
moments, by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with
which he had acquiesced to her explanations.
These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too
concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been
unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it
had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia
was wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her husband's personality
seemed to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting
off the air, till she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of
her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old
conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair.
If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in
ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for
one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had
been a victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the
narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though
they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature
tree outgrows the iron brace about the sapling.
It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met
Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was "interested," and had
fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her
back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril
she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to
him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted
by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted
that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem
to surprise him: he had thought out all that she had felt, and they had
reached the same conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke
that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the
other. That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal
relations. As soon as their necessarily transitive nature was
recognized they would gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There
would be no farther need of the ignoble concessions and connivances,
the perpetual sacrifice of personal delicacy and moral pride, by means
of which imperfect marriages were now held together. Each partner to
the contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest
standard of self-development, on pain of losing the other's respect and
affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but
must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The only
necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of
this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to
keep faith with themselves, and not to live together for a moment after
complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was
unfaithfulness to self.
It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that
they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social
prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need be
an imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any
diminution of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed them
so far beyond the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to
discuss them with an open mind; and Julia's sense of security made her
dwell with a tender insistence on Westall's promise to claim his
release when he should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows
seemed to make them, in a sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in
the forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they had
somehow achieved beatitude without martyrdom.
This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her
theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously,
insidiously, that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed
another conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct
of passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood
revolt at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they
had called it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination
rather--this rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another's
being! Another? But he was not other! He and she were one, one in the
mystic sense which alone gave marriage its significance. The new law
was not for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a mockery
of union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing
on her own case.... She sent for the doctor and told him she was sure
she needed a nerve tonic.
She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative
to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her
anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject
of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a
softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration,
that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because
she looked badly--because he knew about the doctor and the nerve
tonic--that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to
screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the
way for fresh inferences.
The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday
the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia
ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was
to be some music after his "talk"? Westall was just leaving for his
office when his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door
and called him back to deliver the message.
He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall have
to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Will
you write and say it's all right?"
Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against
which she leaned.
"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked.
"I--why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his
surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find
words.
"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--"
"Well?"
"I told you last week that they didn't please me."
"Last week? Oh--" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought you
were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day."
"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--"
"My assurance?"
Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair
with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her
like straws down a whirling flood.
"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I hate it?"
He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and
sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently.
She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument.
"I can't bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were like
the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other
afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming
that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they
were tired--or had seen some one else--"
Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet.
"You _have_ ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke off.
"You no longer believe that husbands and wives _are_ justified in
separating--under such conditions?"
"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes--I still believe that--but
how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances--?"
He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of our
creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to
interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty." He paused a
moment. "I thought that was your reason for leaving Arment."
She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal
turn to the argument.
"It was my reason," she said simply.
"Well, then--why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?"
"I don't--I don't--I only say that one can't judge for others."
He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting. What you
mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed
it, you now repudiate it."
"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does it
matter to us?"
Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before
his wife with something of the formality of a stranger.
"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do _not_
repudiate it."
"Well--?"
"And because I had intended to invoke it as"--
He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened
by her heart-beats.--"as a complete justification of the course I am
about to take."
Julia remained motionless. "What course is that?" she asked.
He cleared his throat. "I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise."
For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a
torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed
upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the
hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to
each sense.
"My promise--" she faltered.
"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the
other should wish to be released."
She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position
nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: "You acknowledge
the agreement?"
The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it
proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement," she said.
"And--you don't mean to repudiate it?"
A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and
pushed it back.
"No," she answered slowly, "I don't mean to repudiate it."
There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on
the mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he
had given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered
vaguely if he noticed it.
"You intend to leave me, then?" she said at length.
His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion.
"To marry some one else?"
Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him.
"Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?"
He was silent.
"I wish you good luck," she said.
III
She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how
he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire
still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the
wall.
Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that
she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no
crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or
evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns.
Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked
about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed
to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is
my room--this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her
house? She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her.
She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room
frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close
a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her
husband must have left the house, then--her _husband?_ She no longer
knew in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge.
She sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock
struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that she
had not ordered dinner...or were they dining out that evening?
_Dinner--dining out_--the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She
must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a
some one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose
wants and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the
ways of a strange animal...
The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked to
the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. _Her_ room?
Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow
hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's
sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The
same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French
print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual
continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same
untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she
could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the
lounge, a stupor creeping over her...
Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the
interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments,
ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon
themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these
chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she could master
the inner tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a
whim, a fancy; the law itself would side with her, would defend her.
The law? What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner of her own
choice: she had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined
victim of the code she had devised. But this was grotesque,
intolerable--a mad mistake, for which she could not be held
accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might still be
invoked...invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall
to her side? _She_ had been allowed to go free when she claimed her
freedom--should she show less magnanimity than she had exacted?
Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony--one does not strike an
attitude when one is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel,
cajole...she would yield anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah,
but the difficulty lay deeper! The law could not help her--her own
apostasy could not help her. She was the victim of the theories she
renounced. It was as though some giant machine of her own making had
caught her up in its wheels and was grinding her to atoms...
It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with
an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant,
metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal
the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our
architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared
and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's
address. She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found
herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too
late to save herself--but the girl might still be told. The hansom
rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding
recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang the
bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and
self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say.
The ladies were both out...the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card.
Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a
moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the
cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He
touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty
street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where
she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness
had returned. Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of
Broadway, swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with
a succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite
direction...
A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since
morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of
ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the
sign _Ladies' Restaurant:_ a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against
the dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She
entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a
table for her near the window. The table was covered with a red and
white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick
tumbler and a salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered
tea, and sat a long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from
the noise and confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was
empty, and two or three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the
background staring at her and whispering together. At last the tea was
brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it
hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like
an elixir. She was almost dizzy with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how
unutterably tired she had been!
She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once
more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she
had stood on the Van Siderens' door-step--but the wish to return there
had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt--the
humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was
that she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading,
and she realized that she could not remain much longer in the
restaurant without attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out
into the street. The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement
shop cast an oblong of gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the
dusk there was something sinister about the aspect of the street, and
she hastened back toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out
alone at that hour.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream
of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her
that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street,
but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the
farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied
the policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the
nearest side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely...
Night had fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a passing
carriage, she caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer
of an opera cloak...
Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a
moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing
whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in
which she had once lived--her first husband's house. The blinds were
drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom
above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a
man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a
heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders,
the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his
overcoat. He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew
forth a latch-key, and let himself in...
There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against
the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house.
The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea
still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural
clearness. Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving
quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the
house. The impulse which had carried her there prolonged itself in a
quick pressure of the electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and
tremulous, and grasped the balustrade for support. The door opened and
a young footman with a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold.
Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her.
"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to
see me for a moment?"
The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for
dinner, madam."
Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will not
detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the
tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on
the drawing-room door.
"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?"
Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she
returned carelessly.
The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant
the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He
drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with
the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his
temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears.
It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the
change in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down
into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one
conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must
not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body
throbbed with the urgency of her message.
She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said.
Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and
her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a "scene"
predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will
you come this way?"
He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as
she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged:
time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from
the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the
inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from
every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles
of the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was
carrying these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was
centred in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would
refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her
purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each other in
the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she
imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; but as she was
struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly:
"You are not well."
The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind--a
voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen
developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair and
drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a
cold embarrassed politeness.
Julia raised an entreating hand. "No--no--thank you. I am quite well."
He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I ask--?"
"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see you.
There is something I must tell you."
Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said.
"I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make
could have been made through our lawyers."
"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they could
help me--this time."
Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question of
help--of course--"
It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some
shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she
wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or even in
money... The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change
slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she
remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that
lumbering scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that
she had been cruel. "There _is_ a question of help," she said in a
softer key: "you can help me; but only by listening... I want to tell
you something..."
Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier
to--write?" he suggested.
She shook her head. "There is no time to write...and it won't take
long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My husband has left
me," she said.
"Westall--?" he stammered, reddening again.
"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me."
The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the
limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed
glance returned to Julia.
"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"But I don't see--"
"No--but you will--in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!"
Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him
and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short
breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything--I thought we
were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me...
there is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As she spoke,
the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the
exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled
with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her face.
Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very
unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--"
"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?"
"You are not obliged to give it."
"You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did."
He made a protesting gesture.
"You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went on.
"That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it can't
go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law...the obligation that
love creates...being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to
prevent our spreading ruin unhindered...is there?" She raised her head
plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see
now...what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired...but
_I_ was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the
dreadful part of it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it
meant. But I've been thinking of it all day, and things have come back
to me--things I hadn't noticed...when you and I..." She moved closer to
him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond
words. "I see now that _you_ didn't understand--did you?"
Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be
lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled.
"No," he said, "I didn't understand."
She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You
wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your life
falling in ruins...the world slipping from you...and you couldn't speak
or move!"
She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I
know--now I know," she repeated.
"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer.
She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to
be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me...for not understanding that
_you_ didn't understand... That's all I wanted to say." She rose with a
vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward
the door.
Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile.
"You forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive--"
"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in hers: it
was nerveless, reluctant.
"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now."
She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment
took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was
evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let
her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door,
and she found herself outside in the darkness.
THE LETTER
I
For many years he had lived withdrawn from the world in which he had
once played so active and even turbulent a part. The study of Tuscan
art was his only pursuit, and it was to help him in the classification
of his notes and documents that I was first called to his villa.
Colonel Alingdon had then the look of a very old man, though his age
can hardly have exceeded seventy. He was small and bent, with a finely
wrinkled face which still wore the tan of youthful exposure. But for
this dusky redness it would have been hard to reconstruct from the
shrunken recluse, with his low fastidious voice and carefully tended
hands, an image of that young knight of adventure whose sword had been
at the service of every uprising which stirred the uneasy soil of Italy
in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Though I was more of a proficient in Colonel Alingdon's later than his
earlier pursuits, the thought of his soldiering days was always coming
between me and the pacific work of his old age. As we sat collating
papers and comparing photographs, I had the feeling that this dry and
quiet old man had seen even stranger things than people said: that he
knew more of the inner history of Europe than half the diplomatists of
his day.
I was not alone in this conviction; and the friend who had engaged me
for Colonel Alingdon had appended to his instructions the injunction to
"get him to talk." But this was what no one could do. Colonel Alingdon
was ready to discuss by the hour the date of a Giottesque triptych, or
the attribution of a disputed master; but on the history of his early
life he was habitually silent.
It was perhaps because I recognized this silence and respected it that
it afterward came to be broken for me. Or it was perhaps merely
because, as the failure of Colonel Alingdon's sight cut him off from
his work, he felt the natural inclination of age to revert from the
empty present to the crowded past. For one cause or another he _did_
talk to me in the last year of his life; and I felt myself mingled, to
an extent inconceivable to the mere reader of history, with the
passionate scenes of the Italian struggle for liberty. Colonel Alingdon
had been mixed with it in all its phases: he had known the last
Carbonari and the Young Italy of Mazzini; he had been in Perugia when
the mercenaries of a liberal Pope slaughtered women and children in the
streets; he had been in Sicily with the Thousand, and in Milan during
the _Cinque Giornate_.
"They say the Italians didn't know how to fight," he said one day,
musingly--"that the French had to come down and do their work for them.
People forget how long it was since they had had any fighting to do.
But they hadn't forgotten how to suffer and hold their tongues; how to
die and take their secrets with them. The Italian war of independence
was really carried on underground: it was one of those awful silent
struggles which are so much more terrible than the roar of a battle.
It's a deuced sight easier to charge with your regiment than to lie
rotting in an Austrian prison and know that if you give up the name of
a friend or two you can go back scot-free to your wife and children.
And thousands and thousands of Italians had the choice given them--and
hardly one went back."
He sat silent, his meditative fingertips laid together, his eyes fixed
on the past which was the now only thing clearly visible to them.
"And the women?" I said. "Were they as brave as the men?"
I had not spoken quite at random. I had always heard that there had
been as much of love as of war in Colonel Alingdon's early career, and
I hoped that my question might give a personal turn to his
reminiscences.
"The women?" he repeated. "They were braver--for they had more to bear
and less to do. Italy could never have been saved without them."
His eye had kindled and I detected in it the reflection of some vivid
memory. It was then that I asked him what was the bravest thing he had
ever known of a woman's doing.
The question was such a vague one that I hardly knew why I had put it,
but to my surprise he answered almost at once, as though I had touched
on a subject of frequent meditation.
"The bravest thing I ever saw done by a woman," he said, "was brought
about by an act of my own--and one of which I am not particularly
proud. For that reason I have never spoken of it before--there was a
time when I didn't even care to think of it--but all that is past now.
She died years ago, and so did the Jack Alingdon she knew, and in
telling you the story I am no more than the mouthpiece of an old
tradition which some ancestor might have handed down to me."
He leaned back, his clear blind gaze fixed smilingly on me, and I had
the feeling that, in groping through the labyrinth of his young
adventures, I had come unawares upon their central point.
II
When I was in Milan in 'forty-seven an unlucky thing happened to me.
I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian
friends in England. As an English officer I had no difficulty in
getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the
refuge of the Italian fugitives, and I was known to be working in their
interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never enjoyed
life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal going
on--good music, balls and theatres. Milan kept up her gayety to the
last. The English were shocked by the _insouciance_ of a race who could
dance under the very nose of the usurper; but those who understood the
situation knew that Milan was playing Brutus, and playing it uncommonly
well.
I was in the thick of it all--it was just the atmosphere to suit a
young fellow of nine-and-twenty, with a healthy passion for waltzing
and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was
fool enough to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard of
her, of course: you know the share she had in the great work. In a
different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had been to
an earlier generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible. She was
quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she was a widow of
thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years previously,
soon after their marriage. The marriage had been notoriously unhappy,
and his death was a release to Donna Candida. Her family were of
Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon after the execution of
Ciro Menotti and his companions. You remember the details of that
business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most adroit villains in
Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting the Italian states
under his rule. It was a vision of Italian liberation--of a sort. A few
madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro Menotti was one of them. You know
the end. The Duke of Modena, who had counted on Louis Philippe's
backing, found that that astute sovereign had betrayed him to Austria.
Instantly, he saw that his first business was to get rid of the
conspirators he had created. There was nothing easier than for a
Hapsburg Este to turn on a friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his life for
the Duke--and the Duke took it. You may remember that, on the night
when seven hundred men and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke
was seen looking on at the slaughter from an arcade across the square.
Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen,
Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of Donna Candida. The Verna
family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at that
time, of the mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his sister.
Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties. He had never
recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile, without seeing
his wife and children again. Countess Verna had been an ardent patriot
in her youth, but the failure of the first attempts against Austria had
discouraged her. She thought that in losing her husband she had
sacrificed enough for her country, and her one idea was to keep Emilio
on good terms with the government. But the Verna blood was not
tractable, and his father's death was not likely to make Emilio a good
subject of the Estes. Not that he had as yet taken any active share in
the work of the conspirators: he simply hadn't had time. At his trial
there was nothing to show that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but
he had been seen once or twice coming out of what the ducal police
called "suspicious" houses, and in his desk were found some verses to
Italy. That was enough to hang a man in Modena, and Emilio Verna was
hanged.
The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her
son's death were too abominable, to unendurable. If he had risked his
life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his losing
it. But he was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but
powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had been sacrificed
to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for victims, and the
Countess Verna was not to be consoled.
As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan.
There they lived in seclusion till Candida's marriage. During her
girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut
herself up in the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her
martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the dead. At the
moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had been
reading Petrarch's Ode to the Lords of Italy, and the lines _l'antico
valor nell'italici cor non e ancor morto_ had lodged like a bullet in
her brain. From the day of her marriage she began to take a share in
the silent work which was going on throughout Italy. Milan was at that
time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco threw herself into
it with all the passion which her unhappy marriage left unsatisfied. At
first she had to act with great reserve, for her husband was a prudent
man, who did not care to have his habits disturbed by political
complications; but after his death there was nothing to restrain her,
except the exquisite tact which enabled her to work night and day in
the Italian cause without giving the Austrian authorities a pretext for
interference.
When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a tragic
woman, prematurely bowed, like an image of death in the background of
the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her son's death, had
become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense than Candida. The
mother's first thought was that her dead must be avenged, the
daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different motives they
worked for the same end. Candida felt for the Countess that protecting
tenderness with which Italian children so often regard their parents, a
feeling heightened by the reverence which the mother's sufferings
inspired. Countess Verna, as the wife and mother of martyrs, had done
what Candida longed to do: she had given her utmost to Italy. There
must have been moments when the self-absorption of her grief chilled
her daughter's ardent spirit; but Candida revered in her mother the
image of their afflicted country.
"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had
suffered after Emilio's death. "All the circumstances were too
unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother; as
if she had been singled out to suffer more than any of the others. All
the other families received some message or token of farewell from the
prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry a letter--another
sent a lock of hair by the chaplain. But Emilio made no sign, sent no
word. My mother felt as though he had turned his back on us. She used
to sit for hours, saying again and again, 'Why was he the only one to
forget his mother?' I tried to comfort her, but it was useless: she had
suffered too much. Now I never reason with her; I listen, and let her
ease her poor heart. Do you know, she still asks me sometimes if I
think he may have left a letter--if there is no way of finding out if
he left one? She forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have
sent bribes and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who
came near him. The answer is always the same--no one has ever heard of
a letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of
writing. Who knows what was passing through his poor bewildered brain?
But it would have been a great help to my mother to have a word from
him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should have forged a
letter."
I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence must
have aggravated the Countess's grief. Precious as a message from a
dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness have to the
Italians a peculiar significance. The Latin race is rhetorical: it
possesses the gift of death-bed eloquence, the knack of saying the
effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters which the Italian
patriots sent home from their prisons or from the scaffold are not the
halting farewells that anguish would have wrung from a less expressive
race: they are veritable "compositions," saved from affectation only by
the fact that fluency and sonority are a part of the Latin inheritance.
Such letters, passed from hand to hand among the bereaved families,
were not only a comfort to the survivors but an incentive to fresh
sacrifices. They were the "seed of the martyrs" with which Italy was
being sown; and I knew what it meant to the Countess Verna to have no
such treasure in her bosom, to sit silent while other mothers quoted
their sons' last words.
I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in love
with Donna Candida; and no doubt you have guessed the reason. She was
in love with some one else. It was the old situation of Heine's song.
That other loved another--loved Italy, and with an undivided passion.
His name was Fernando Briga, and at that time he was one of the
foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middle-class Modenese family.
His father was a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed in his profession and
unwilling to compromise it by meddling in politics. His irreproachable
attitude won the confidence of the government, and the Duke conferred
on him the sinister office of physician to the prisons of Modena. It
was this Briga who attended Emilio Falco, and several of the other
prisoners who were executed at the same time.
Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in
safety. He was studying medicine, and every one supposed him to be
absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening into
one of Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to history, so
I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in Milan, and had become
one of the leading figures in the liberal group which was working for a
coalition with Piedmont. Like all the ablest men of his day, he had
cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the house of Savoy. The
Austrian government had an eye on him, but he had inherited his
father's prudence, though he used it for nobler ends, and his
discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause than a dozen
enthusiasts could have accomplished. No one understood this better than
Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution, and he trusted her with
secrets which he would not have confided to many men. Her drawing-room
was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet so clever was she in
averting suspicion that more than one hunted conspirator hid in her
house, and was helped across the Alps by her agents.
Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love her,
and she knew it. Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he loved
no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate friends
she made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not reticent in
such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a hero. You will
see at once that I had no chance; but if she could not give up hope,
neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure my services for the
cause she may have shown herself overkind; or perhaps I was still young
enough to set down to my own charms a success due to quite different
causes. At any rate, I persuaded myself that if I could manage to do
something conspicuous for Italy I might yet make her care for me. With
such an incentive you will not wonder that I worked hard; but though
Donna Candida was full of gratitude she continued to adore my rival.
One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her with
having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated by
taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that, and said
it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return; and as she
said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so unattainably the
woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped me:--was she so sure then
that Briga was a hero? I remember her proud silence and our wretched
parting. I went away feeling that at last I had really lost her; and
the thought made me savage and vindictive.
Soon after, as it happened, came the _Five Days_, and Milan was free. I
caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to which I
was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one and in
twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she might send
for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the first advance.
A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion in Modena, and
not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over there with one or two
men whom the Modenese liberals had called in to help them. When we
arrived the precious Duke had been swept out and a provisional
government set up. One of my companions, who was a Modenese, was made a
member, and knowing that I wanted something to do, he commissioned me
to look up some papers in the ducal archives. It was fascinating work,
for in the pursuit of my documents I uncovered the hidden springs of
his late Highness's paternal administration. The principal papers
relative to the civil and criminal administration of Modena have since
been published, and the world knows how that estimable sovereign cared
for the material and spiritual welfare of his subjects.
Well--in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers
marked: "Taken from political prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year of
Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was
thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I
came across one which was docketed: "Given by Doctor Briga's son to the
warder of His Highness's prisons." _Doctor Briga's son?_ That could be
no other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But how came such
a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from them into those of
the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened the letter--I felt
the man suddenly in my power.
Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle of
hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the hope
that these last words of farewell may reach you...." My eyes ran on
over pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored
Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father and
brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the thought of
Spielberg and Reggio. Do not grieve that I die so young... though not
with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit, and am worthy to
be enrolled in the sacred phalanx..." and so on. Before I reached the
signature I knew the letter was from Emilio Verna.
I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for
Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant to do--my head was in a whirl.
I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a lad of
fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during Emilio
Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the lad's liberal
sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the letter. But why
had Briga given it up to the warder? That was the puzzling question.
The docket said: "_Given by_ Doctor Briga's son"--but it might mean
"taken from." Fernando might have been seen to receive the letter and
might have been searched on leaving the prison. But that would not
account for his silence afterward. How was it that, if he knew of the
letter, he had never told Emilio's family of it? There was only one
explanation. If the letter had been taken from him by force he would
have had no reason for concealing its existence; and his silence was
clear proof that he had given it up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope
of standing well with the authorities. But then he was a traitor and a
coward; the patriot of 'forty-eight had begun life as an informer! But
does innate character ever change so radically that the lad who has
committed a base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man? A
good man may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak
into a hero?
You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had been
false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and cowardly
still? In those days there were traitors under every coat, and more
than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his best
friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished, that he had
exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by his friends too
steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of his good faith. So reason
might have told me in a calmer moment, but she was not allowed to make
herself heard just then. I was young, I was angry, I chose to think I
had been unfairly treated, and perhaps at my rival's instigation. It
was not unlikely that Briga knew of my love for Donna Candida, and had
encouraged her to use it in the good cause. Was she not always at his
bidding? My blood boiled at the thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I
went straight to Donna Candida.
I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The
triumph of the liberals in Modena had revived public interest in the
unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen years
earlier, had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The victors of
'forty-eight wished to honor the vanquished of 'thirty-two. All the
families exiled by the ducal government were hastening back to recover
possession of their confiscated property and of the graves of their
dead. Already it had been decided to raise a monument to Menotti and
his companions. There were to be speeches, garlands, a public holiday:
the thrill of the commemoration would run through Europe. You see what
it would have meant to the poor Countess to appear on the scene with
her boy's letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on
the back of the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's
farewell would be published in all the journals of Europe: the finding
of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal those fatal
words on the back? At the moment, it seemed to me that fortune could
not have given me a handsomer chance of destroying my rival than in
letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of having
suppressed.
My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what could I
do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was out of the
question; and with the best will in the world I could not have erased
Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in thinking it lucky
that the paper had fallen into my hands.
Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but she
held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I brought
from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she were trying
to get me into her power again.
"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to her.
I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she should
not see it.
She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light struck
up from it into her face as she read--a radiance that smote me to the
soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her and efface the
name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived her happiness
must be.
Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and
kissed them. "Oh, thank you--bless you a thousand times! He died
thinking of us--he died loving Italy!"
I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch
of her lips hardened me.
She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness--what
consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the
bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you
know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight
her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was
always sure that he had written--I suppose some blessed instinct told
her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I saw her tears fall on
the wretched letter.
In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me.
"Tell me where you found it," she said.
I told her.
"Oh, the savages! They took it from him--"
My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did _not_ take
it from him."
"Then how--"
I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was
given up to the warder of the prison by the son of Doctor Briga."
She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga? But
that is--Fernando," she said.
"I have always understood," I replied, "that your friend was an only
son."
I had expected an outcry of horror; if she had uttered it I could have
forgiven her anything. But I heard, instead, an incredulous
exclamation: my statement was really too preposterous! I saw that her
mind had flashed back to our last talk, and that she charged me with
something too nearly true to be endurable.
"My brother's letter? Given to the prison warder by Fernando Briga? My
dear Captain Alingdon--on what authority do you expect me to believe
such a tale?"
Her incredulity had in it an evident implication of bad faith, and I
was stung to a quick reply.
"If you will turn over the letter you will see."
She continued to gaze at me a moment: then she obeyed. I don't think I
ever admired her more than I did then. As she read the name a tremor
crossed her face; and that was all. Her mind must have reached out
instantly to the farthest consequences of the discovery, but the long
habit of self-command enabled her to steady her muscles at once. If I
had not been on the alert I should have seen no hint of emotion.
For a while she looked fixedly at the back of the letter; then she
raised her eyes to mine.
"Can you tell me who wrote this?" she asked.
Her composure irritated me. She had rallied all her forces to Briga's
defence, and I felt as though my triumph were slipping from me.
"Probably one of the clerks of the archives," I answered. "It is
written in the same hand as all the other memoranda relating to the
political prisoners of that year."
"But it is a lie!" she exclaimed. "He was never admitted to the
prisons."
"Are you sure?"
"How should he have been?"
"He might have gone as his father's assistant."
"But if he had seen my poor brother he would have told me long ago."
"Not if he had really given up this letter," I retorted.
I supposed her quick intelligence had seized this from the first; but I
saw now that it came to her as a shock. She stood motionless, clenching
the letter in her hands, and I could guess the rapid travel of her
thoughts.
Suddenly she came up to me. "Colonel Alingdon," she said, "you have
been a good friend of mine, though I think you have not liked me
lately. But whether you like me or not, I know you will not deceive me.
On your honor, do you think this memorandum may have been written later
than the letter?"
I hesitated. If she had cried out once against Briga I should have
wished myself out of the business; but she was too sure of him.
"On my honor," I said, "I think it hardly possible. The ink has faded
to the same degree."
She made a rapid comparison and folded the letter with a gesture of
assent.
"It may have been written by an enemy," I went on, wishing to clear
myself of any appearance of malice.
She shook her head. "He was barely fifteen--and his father was on the
side of the government. Besides, this would have served him with the
government, and the liberals would never have known of it."
This was unanswerable--and still not a word of revolt against the man
whose condemnation she was pronouncing!
"Then--" I said with a vague gesture.
She caught me up. "Then--?"
"You have answered my objections," I returned.
"Your objections?"
"To thinking that Signor Briga could have begun his career as a patriot
by betraying a friend."
I had brought her to the test at last, but my eyes shrank from her face
as I spoke. There was a dead silence, which I broke by adding lamely:
"But no doubt Signor Briga could explain."
She lifted her head, and I saw that my triumph was to be short. She
stood erect, a few paces from me, resting her hand on a table, but not
for support.
"Of course he can explain," she said; "do you suppose I ever doubted
it? But--" she paused a moment, fronting me nobly--"he need not, for I
understand it all now."
"Ah," I murmured with a last flicker of irony.
"I understand," she repeated. It was she, now, who sought my eyes and
held them. "It is quite simple--he could not have done otherwise."
This was a little too oracular to be received with equanimity. I
suppose I smiled.
"He could not have done otherwise," she repeated with tranquil
emphasis. "He merely did what is every Italian's duty--he put Italy
before himself and his friends." She waited a moment, and then went on
with growing passion: "Surely you must see what I mean? He was
evidently in the prison with his father at the time of my poor
brother's death. Emilio perhaps guessed that he was a friend--or
perhaps appealed to him because he was young and looked kind. But don't
you see how dangerous it would have been for Briga to bring this letter
to us, or even to hide it in his father's house? It is true that he was
not yet suspected of liberalism, but he was already connected with
Young Italy, and it is just because he managed to keep himself so free
of suspicion that he was able to do such good work for the cause." She
paused, and then went on with a firmer voice. "You don't know the
danger we all lived in. The government spies were everywhere. The laws
were set aside as the Duke pleased--was not Emilio hanged for having an
ode to Italy in his desk? After Menotti's conspiracy the Duke grew mad
with fear--he was haunted by the dread of assassination. The police, to
prove their zeal, had to trump up false charges and arrest innocent
persons--you remember the case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were
smuggled into people's houses--they were condemned to death on the paid
evidence of brigands and galley-slaves. The families of the
revolutionists were under the closest observation and were shunned by
all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had been
seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected. If he
had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its discovery might have ruined his
family as well as himself. It was his duty to consider all these
things. In those days no man could serve two masters, and he had to
choose between endangering the cause and failing to serve a friend. He
chose the latter--and he was right."
I stood listening, fascinated by the rapidity and skill with which she
had built up the hypothesis of Briga's defence. But before she ended a
strange thing happened--her argument had convinced me. It seemed to me
quite likely that Briga had in fact been actuated by the motives she
suggested.
I suppose she read the admission in my face, for hers lit up
victoriously.
"You see?" she exclaimed. "Ah, it takes one brave man to understand
another."
Perhaps I winced a little at being thus coupled with her hero; at any
rate, some last impulse of resistance made me say: "I should be quite
convinced, if Briga had only spoken of the letter afterward. If brave
people understand each other, I cannot see why he should have been
afraid of telling you the truth."
She colored deeply, and perhaps not quite resentfully.
"You are right," she said; "he need not have been afraid. But he does
not know me as I know him. I was useful to Italy, and he may have
feared to risk my friendship."
"You are the most generous woman I ever knew!" I exclaimed.
She looked at me intently. "You also are generous," she said.
I stiffened instantly, suspecting a purpose behind her praise. "I have
given you small proof of it!" I said.
She seemed surprised. "In bringing me this letter? What else could you
do?" She sighed deeply. "You can give me proof enough now."
She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most
difficult point in our interview.
"Captain Alingdon," she said, "does any one else know of this letter?"
"No. I was alone in the archives when I found it."
"And you spoke of it to no one?"
"To no one."
"Then no one must know."
I bowed. "It is for you to decide."
She paused. "Not even my mother," she continued, with a painful blush.
I looked at her in amazement. "Not even--?"
She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well--_he_
was a cruel friend. What he did was done for Italy: shall I allow
myself to be surpassed?"
I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at least
tell the Countess--"
Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother--don't make it more
difficult for me!"
"But I don't understand--"
"Don't you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She
has suffered so much! And I can't risk that--for in her anger she might
speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to show the
letter. Don't you see that, even now, a word of this might ruin him? I
will trust his fate to no one. If Italy needed him then she needs him
far more to-day."
She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great
refusal; then she turned to the writing-table at which she had been
seated when I came in. Her sealing-taper was still alight, and she held
her brother's letter to the flame.
I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose to
my lips.
"You will tell _him_, then, what you have done for him?" I cried.
And at that the heroine turned woman, melted and pressed unhappy hands
in mine.
"Don't you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is my
gift to Italy," she said.
THE DILETTANTE
IT was on an impulse hardly needing the arguments he found himself
advancing in its favor, that Thursdale, on his way to the club, turned
as usual into Mrs. Vervain's street.
The "as usual" was his own qualification of the act; a convenient way
of bridging the interval--in days and other sequences--that lay between
this visit and the last. It was characteristic of him that he
instinctively excluded his call two days earlier, with Ruth Gaynor,
from the list of his visits to Mrs. Vervain: the special conditions
attending it had made it no more like a visit to Mrs. Vervain than an
engraved dinner invitation is like a personal letter. Yet it was to
talk over his call with Miss Gaynor that he was now returning to the
scene of that episode; and it was because Mrs. Vervain could be trusted
to handle the talking over as skilfully as the interview itself that,
at her corner, he had felt the dilettante's irresistible craving to
take a last look at a work of art that was passing out of his
possession.
On the whole, he knew no one better fitted to deal with the unexpected
than Mrs. Vervain. She excelled in the rare art of taking things for
granted, and Thursdale felt a pardonable pride in the thought that she
owed her excellence to his training. Early in his career Thursdale had
made the mistake, at the outset of his acquaintance with a lady, of
telling her that he loved her and exacting the same avowal in return.
The latter part of that episode had been like the long walk back from a
picnic, when one has to carry all the crockery one has finished using:
it was the last time Thursdale ever allowed himself to be encumbered
with the debris of a feast. He thus incidentally learned that the
privilege of loving her is one of the least favors that a charming
woman can accord; and in seeking to avoid the pitfalls of sentiment he
had developed a science of evasion in which the woman of the moment
became a mere implement of the game. He owed a great deal of delicate
enjoyment to the cultivation of this art. The perils from which it had
been his refuge became naively harmless: was it possible that he who
now took his easy way along the levels had once preferred to gasp on
the raw heights of emotion? Youth is a high-colored season; but he had
the satisfaction of feeling that he had entered earlier than most into
that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every half-tone has its value.
As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable to
Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray their
feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to work in.
She had been surprisingly crude when he first knew her; capable of
making the most awkward inferences, of plunging through thin ice, of
recklessly undressing her emotions; but she had acquired, under the
discipline of his reticences and evasions, a skill almost equal to his
own, and perhaps more remarkable in that it involved keeping time with
any tune he played and reading at sight some uncommonly difficult
passages.
It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent; but the
result justified the effort. At the crucial moment she had been
perfect: her way of greeting Miss Gaynor had made him regret that he
had announced his engagement by letter. It was an evasion that
confessed a difficulty; a deviation implying an obstacle, where, by
common consent, it was agreed to see none; it betrayed, in short, a
lack of confidence in the completeness of his method. It had been his
pride never to put himself in a position which had to be quitted, as it
were, by the back door; but here, as he perceived, the main portals
would have opened for him of their own accord. All this, and much more,
he read in the finished naturalness with which Mrs. Vervain had met
Miss Gaynor. He had never seen a better piece of work: there was no
over-eagerness, no suspicious warmth, above all (and this gave her art
the grace of a natural quality) there were none of those damnable
implications whereby a woman, in welcoming her friend's betrothed, may
keep him on pins and needles while she laps the lady in complacency. So
masterly a performance, indeed, hardly needed the offset of Miss
Gaynor's door-step words--"To be so kind to me, how she must have liked
you!"--though he caught himself wishing it lay within the bounds of
fitness to transmit them, as a final tribute, to the one woman he knew
who was unfailingly certain to enjoy a good thing. It was perhaps the
one drawback to his new situation that it might develop good things
which it would be impossible to hand on to Margaret Vervain.
The fact that he had made the mistake of underrating his friend's
powers, the consciousness that his writing must have betrayed his
distrust of her efficiency, seemed an added reason for turning down her
street instead of going on to the club. He would show her that he knew
how to value her; he would ask her to achieve with him a feat
infinitely rarer and more delicate than the one he had appeared to
avoid. Incidentally, he would also dispose of the interval of time
before dinner: ever since he had seen Miss Gaynor off, an hour earlier,
on her return journey to Buffalo, he had been wondering how he should
put in the rest of the afternoon. It was absurd, how he missed the
girl....Yes, that was it; the desire to talk about her was, after all,
at the bottom of his impulse to call on Mrs. Vervain! It was absurd, if
you like--but it was delightfully rejuvenating. He could recall the
time when he had been afraid of being obvious: now he felt that this
return to the primitive emotions might be as restorative as a holiday
in the Canadian woods. And it was precisely by the girl's candor, her
directness, her lack of complications, that he was taken. The sense
that she might say something rash at any moment was positively
exhilarating: if she had thrown her arms about him at the station he
would not have given a thought to his crumpled dignity. It surprised
Thursdale to find what freshness of heart he brought to the adventure;
and though his sense of irony prevented his ascribing his intactness to
any conscious purpose, he could but rejoice in the fact that his
sentimental economies had left him such a large surplus to draw upon.
Mrs. Vervain was at home--as usual. When one visits the cemetery one
expects to find the angel on the tombstone, and it struck Thursdale as
another proof of his friend's good taste that she had been in no undue
haste to change her habits. The whole house appeared to count on his
coming; the footman took his hat and overcoat as naturally as though
there had been no lapse in his visits; and the drawing-room at once
enveloped him in that atmosphere of tacit intelligence which Mrs.
Vervain imparted to her very furniture.
It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances, Mrs.
Vervain should herself sound the first false note.
"You?" she exclaimed; and the book she held slipped from her hand.
It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art. The
difficulty of classifying it disturbed Thursdale's balance.
"Why not?" he said, restoring the book. "Isn't it my hour?" And as she
made no answer, he added gently, "Unless it's some one else's?"
She laid the book aside and sank back into her chair. "Mine, merely,"
she said.
"I hope that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to share it?"
"With you? By no means. You're welcome to my last crust."
He looked at her reproachfully. "Do you call this the last?"
She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth. "It's a way
of giving it more flavor!"
He returned the smile. "A visit to you doesn't need such condiments."
She took this with just the right measure of retrospective amusement.
"Ah, but I want to put into this one a very special taste," she
confessed.
Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the
imprudence of saying, "Why should you want it to be different from what
was always so perfectly right?"
She hesitated. "Doesn't the fact that it's the last constitute a
difference?"
"The last--my last visit to you?"
"Oh, metaphorically, I mean--there's a break in the continuity."
Decidedly, she was pressing too hard: unlearning his arts already!
"I don't recognize it," he said. "Unless you make me--" he added, with
a note that slightly stirred her attitude of languid attention.
She turned to him with grave eyes. "You recognize no difference
whatever?"
"None--except an added link in the chain."
"An added link?"
"In having one more thing to like you for--your letting Miss Gaynor see
why I had already so many." He flattered himself that this turn had
taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase.
Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose. "Was it that you came
for?" she asked, almost gaily.
"If it is necessary to have a reason--that was one."
"To talk to me about Miss Gaynor?"
"To tell you how she talks about you."
"That will be very interesting--especially if you have seen her since
her second visit to me."
"Her second visit?" Thursdale pushed his chair back with a start and
moved to another. "She came to see you again?"
"This morning, yes--by appointment."
He continued to look at her blankly. "You sent for her?"
"I didn't have to--she wrote and asked me last night. But no doubt you
have seen her since."
Thursdale sat silent. He was trying to separate his words from his
thoughts, but they still clung together inextricably. "I saw her off
just now at the station."
"And she didn't tell you that she had been here again?"
"There was hardly time, I suppose--there were people about--" he
floundered.
"Ah, she'll write, then."
He regained his composure. "Of course she'll write: very often, I hope.
You know I'm absurdly in love," he cried audaciously.
She tilted her head back, looking up at him as he leaned against the
chimney-piece. He had leaned there so often that the attitude touched a
pulse which set up a throbbing in her throat. "Oh, my poor Thursdale!"
she murmured.
"I suppose it's rather ridiculous," he owned; and as she remained
silent, he added, with a sudden break--"Or have you another reason for
pitying me?"
Her answer was another question. "Have you been back to your rooms
since you left her?"
"Since I left her at the station? I came straight here."
"Ah, yes--you _could:_ there was no reason--" Her words passed into a
silent musing.
Thursdale moved nervously nearer. "You said you had something to tell
me?"
"Perhaps I had better let her do so. There may be a letter at your
rooms."
"A letter? What do you mean? A letter from _her?_ What has happened?"
His paleness shook her, and she raised a hand of reassurance. "Nothing
has happened--perhaps that is just the worst of it. You always _hated_,
you know," she added incoherently, "to have things happen: you never
would let them."
"And now--?"
"Well, that was what she came here for: I supposed you had guessed. To
know if anything had happened."
"Had happened?" He gazed at her slowly. "Between you and me?" he said
with a rush of light.
The words were so much cruder than any that had ever passed between
them that the color rose to her face; but she held his startled gaze.
"You know girls are not quite as unsophisticated as they used to be.
Are you surprised that such an idea should occur to her?"
His own color answered hers: it was the only reply that came to him.
Mrs. Vervain went on, smoothly: "I supposed it might have struck you
that there were times when we presented that appearance."
He made an impatient gesture. "A man's past is his own!"
"Perhaps--it certainly never belongs to the woman who has shared it.
But one learns such truths only by experience; and Miss Gaynor is
naturally inexperienced."
"Of course--but--supposing her act a natural one--" he floundered
lamentably among his innuendoes--"I still don't see--how there was
anything--"
"Anything to take hold of? There wasn't--"
"Well, then--?" escaped him, in crude satisfaction; but as she did not
complete the sentence he went on with a faltering laugh: "She can
hardly object to the existence of a mere friendship between us!"
"But she does," said Mrs. Vervain.
Thursdale stood perplexed. He had seen, on the previous day, no trace
of jealousy or resentment in his betrothed: he could still hear the
candid ring of the girl's praise of Mrs. Vervain. If she were such an
abyss of insincerity as to dissemble distrust under such frankness, she
must at least be more subtle than to bring her doubts to her rival for
solution. The situation seemed one through which one could no longer
move in a penumbra, and he let in a burst of light with the direct
query: "Won't you explain what you mean?"
Mrs. Vervain sat silent, not provokingly, as though to prolong his
distress, but as if, in the attenuated phraseology he had taught her,
it was difficult to find words robust enough to meet his challenge. It
was the first time he had ever asked her to explain anything; and she
had lived so long in dread of offering elucidations which were not
wanted, that she seemed unable to produce one on the spot.
At last she said slowly: "She came to find out if you were really free."
Thursdale colored again. "Free?" he stammered, with a sense of physical
disgust at contact with such crassness.
"Yes--if I had quite done with you." She smiled in recovered security.
"It seems she likes clear outlines; she has a passion for definitions."
"Yes--well?" he said, wincing at the echo of his own subtlety.
"Well--and when I told her that you had never belonged to me, she
wanted me to define _my_ status--to know exactly where I had stood all
along."
Thursdale sat gazing at her intently; his hand was not yet on the clue.
"And even when you had told her that--"
"Even when I had told her that I had _had_ no status--that I had never
stood anywhere, in any sense she meant," said Mrs. Vervain,
slowly--"even then she wasn't satisfied, it seems."
He uttered an uneasy exclamation. "She didn't believe you, you mean?"
"I mean that she _did_ believe me: too thoroughly."
"Well, then--in God's name, what did she want?"
"Something more--those were the words she used."
"Something more? Between--between you and me? Is it a conundrum?" He
laughed awkwardly.
"Girls are not what they were in my day; they are no longer forbidden
to contemplate the relation of the sexes."
"So it seems!" he commented. "But since, in this case, there wasn't
any--" he broke off, catching the dawn of a revelation in her gaze.
"That's just it. The unpardonable offence has been--in our not
offending."
He flung himself down despairingly. "I give it up!--What did you tell
her?" he burst out with sudden crudeness.
"The exact truth. If I had only known," she broke off with a beseeching
tenderness, "won't you believe that I would still have lied for you?"
"Lied for me? Why on earth should you have lied for either of us?"
"To save you--to hide you from her to the last! As I've hidden you from
myself all these years!" She stood up with a sudden tragic import in
her movement. "You believe me capable of that, don't you? If I had only
guessed--but I have never known a girl like her; she had the truth out
of me with a spring."
"The truth that you and I had never--"
"Had never--never in all these years! Oh, she knew why--she measured us
both in a flash. She didn't suspect me of having haggled with you--her
words pelted me like hail. 'He just took what he wanted--sifted and
sorted you to suit his taste. Burnt out the gold and left a heap of
cinders. And you let him--you let yourself be cut in bits'--she mixed
her metaphors a little--'be cut in bits, and used or discarded, while
all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him! But he's
Shylock--and you have bled to death of the pound of flesh he has cut
out of you.' But she despises me the most, you know--far the most--"
Mrs. Vervain ended.
The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room: they
seemed out of harmony with its setting of afternoon intimacy, the kind
of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor might intrude without
perceptibly lowering the atmosphere. It was as though a grand
opera-singer had strained the acoustics of a private music-room.
Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess. Half the room was between them,
but they seemed to stare close at each other now that the veils of
reticence and ambiguity had fallen.
His first words were characteristic. "She _does_ despise me, then?" he
exclaimed.
"She thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the
heart."
He was excessively pale. "Please tell me exactly what she said of me."
"She did not speak much of you: she is proud. But I gather that while
she understands love or indifference, her eyes have never been opened
to the many intermediate shades of feeling. At any rate, she expressed
an unwillingness to be taken with reservations--she thinks you would
have loved her better if you had loved some one else first. The point
of view is original--she insists on a man with a past!"
"Oh, a past--if she's serious--I could rake up a past!" he said with a
laugh.
"So I suggested: but she has her eyes on his particular portion of it.
She insists on making it a test case. She wanted to know what you had
done to me; and before I could guess her drift I blundered into telling
her."
Thursdale drew a difficult breath. "I never supposed--your revenge is
complete," he said slowly.
He heard a little gasp in her throat. "My revenge? When I sent for you
to warn you--to save you from being surprised as _I_ was surprised?"
"You're very good--but it's rather late to talk of saving me." He held
out his hand in the mechanical gesture of leave-taking.
"How you must care!--for I never saw you so dull," was her answer.
"Don't you see that it's not too late for me to help you?" And as he
continued to stare, she brought out sublimely: "Take the rest--in
imagination! Let it at least be of that much use to you. Tell her I
lied to her--she's too ready to believe it! And so, after all, in a
sense, I sha'n't have been wasted."
His stare hung on her, widening to a kind of wonder. She gave the look
back brightly, unblushingly, as though the expedient were too simple to
need oblique approaches. It was extraordinary how a few words had swept
them from an atmosphere of the most complex dissimulations to this
contact of naked souls.
It was not in Thursdale to expand with the pressure of fate; but
something in him cracked with it, and the rift let in new light. He
went up to his friend and took her hand.
"You would do it--you would do it!"
She looked at him, smiling, but her hand shook.
"Good-by," he said, kissing it.
"Good-by? You are going--?"
"To get my letter."
"Your letter? The letter won't matter, if you will only do what I ask."
He returned her gaze. "I might, I suppose, without being out of
character. Only, don't you see that if your plan helped me it could
only harm her?"
"Harm _her?_"
"To sacrifice you wouldn't make me different. I shall go on being what
I have always been--sifting and sorting, as she calls it. Do you want
my punishment to fall on _her?_"
She looked at him long and deeply. "Ah, if I had to choose between
you--!"
"You would let her take her chance? But I can't, you see. I must take
my punishment alone."
She drew her hand away, sighing. "Oh, there will be no punishment for
either of you."
"For either of us? There will be the reading of her letter for me."
She shook her head with a slight laugh. "There will be no letter."
Thursdale faced about from the threshold with fresh life in his look.
"No letter? You don't mean--"
"I mean that she's been with you since I saw her--she's seen you and
heard your voice. If there _is_ a letter, she has recalled it--from the
first station, by telegraph."
He turned back to the door, forcing an answer to her smile. "But in the
mean while I shall have read it," he said.
The door closed on him, and she hid her eyes from the dreadful
emptiness of the room.
THE QUICKSAND
I
AS Mrs. Quentin's victoria, driving homeward, turned from the Park into
Fifth Avenue, she divined her son's tall figure walking ahead of her in
the twilight. His long stride covered the ground more rapidly than
usual, and she had a premonition that, if he were going home at that
hour, it was because he wanted to see her.
Mrs. Quentin, though not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a
sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her son's
impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in
possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few
could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help overhearing
Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her discoveries to
herself, the tact to take for granted nothing that lay below the
surface of their spoken intercourse: she knew that most people would
rather have their letters read than their thoughts. For this
superfeminine discretion Alan repaid her by--being Alan. There could
have been no completer reward. He was the key to the meaning of life,
the justification of what must have seemed as incomprehensible as it
was odious, had it not all-sufficingly ended in himself. He was a
perfect son, and Mrs. Quentin had always hungered for perfection.
Her house, in a minor way, bore witness to the craving. One felt it to
be the result of a series of eliminations: there was nothing fortuitous
in its blending of line and color. The almost morbid finish of every
material detail of her life suggested the possibility that a diversity
of energies had, by some pressure of circumstance, been forced into the
channel of a narrow dilettanteism. Mrs. Quentin's fastidiousness had,
indeed, the flaw of being too one-sided. Her friends were not always
worthy of the chairs they sat in, and she overlooked in her associates
defects she would not have tolerated in her bric-a-brac. Her house was,
in fact, never so distinguished as when it was empty; and it was at its
best in the warm fire-lit silence that now received her.
Her son, who had overtaken her on the door-step, followed her into the
drawing-room, and threw himself into an armchair near the fire, while
she laid off her furs and busied herself about the tea table. For a
while neither spoke; but glancing at him across the kettle, his mother
noticed that he sat staring at the embers with a look she had never
seen on his face, though its arrogant young outline was as familiar to
her as her own thoughts. The look extended itself to his negligent
attitude, to the droop of his long fine hands, the dejected tilt of his
head against the cushions. It was like the moral equivalent of physical
fatigue: he looked, as he himself would have phrased it, dead-beat,
played out. Such an air was so foreign to his usual bright
indomitableness that Mrs. Quentin had the sense of an unfamiliar
presence, in which she must observe herself, must raise hurried
barriers against an alien approach. It was one of the drawbacks of
their excessive intimacy that any break in it seemed a chasm.
She was accustomed to let his thoughts circle about her before they
settled into speech, and she now sat in motionless expectancy, as
though a sound might frighten them away.
At length, without turning his eyes from the fire, he said: "I'm so
glad you're a nice old-fashioned intuitive woman. It's painful to see
them think."
Her apprehension had already preceded him. "Hope Fenno--?" she faltered.
He nodded. "She's been thinking--hard. It was very painful--to me, at
least; and I don't believe she enjoyed it: she said she didn't." He
stretched his feet to the fire. "The result of her cogitations is that
she won't have me. She arrived at this by pure ratiocination--it's not
a question of feeling, you understand. I'm the only man she's ever
loved--but she won't have me. What novels did you read when you were
young, dear? I'm convinced it all turns on that. If she'd been brought
up on Trollope and Whyte-Melville, instead of Tolstoi and Mrs. Ward, we
should have now been vulgarly sitting on a sofa, trying on the
engagement-ring."
Mrs. Quentin at first was kept silent by the mother's instinctive anger
that the girl she has not wanted for her son should have dared to
refuse him. Then she said, "Tell me, dear."
"My good woman, she has scruples."
"Scruples?"
"Against the paper. She objects to me in my official capacity as owner
of the _Radiator_."
His mother did not echo his laugh.
"She had found a solution, of course--she overflows with expedients. I
was to chuck the paper, and we were to live happily ever afterward on
canned food and virtue. She even had an alternative ready--women are so
full of resources! I was to turn the _Radiator_ into an independent
organ, and run it at a loss to show the public what a model newspaper
ought to be. On the whole, I think she fancied this plan more than the
other--it commended itself to her as being more uncomfortable and
aggressive. It's not the fashion nowadays to be good by stealth."
Mrs. Quentin said to herself, "I didn't know how much he cared!" Aloud
she murmured, "You must give her time."
"Time?"
"To move out the old prejudices and make room for new ones."
"My dear mother, those she has are brand-new; that's the trouble with
them. She's tremendously up-to-date. She takes in all the moral
fashion-papers, and wears the newest thing in ethics."
Her resentment lost its way in the intricacies of his metaphor. "Is she
so very religious?"
"You dear archaic woman! She's hopelessly irreligious; that's the
difficulty. You can make a religious woman believe almost anything:
there's the habit of credulity to work on. But when a girl's faith in
the Deluge has been shaken, it's very hard to inspire her with
confidence. She makes you feel that, before believing in you, it's her
duty as a conscientious agnostic to find out whether you're not
obsolete, or whether the text isn't corrupt, or somebody hasn't proved
conclusively that you never existed, anyhow."
Mrs. Quentin was again silent. The two moved in that atmosphere of
implications and assumptions where the lightest word may shake down the
dust of countless stored impressions; and speech was sometimes more
difficult between them than had their union been less close.
Presently she ventured, "It's impossible?"
"Impossible?"
She seemed to use her words cautiously, like weapons that might slip
and inflict a cut. "What she suggests."
Her son, raising himself, turned to look at her for the first time.
Their glance met in a shock of comprehension. He was with her against
the girl, then! Her satisfaction overflowed in a murmur of tenderness.
"Of course not, dear. One can't change--change one's life...."
"One's self," he emended. "That's what I tell her. What's the use of my
giving up the paper if I keep my point of view?"
The psychological distinction attracted her. "Which is it she minds
most?"
"Oh, the paper--for the present. She undertakes to modify the point of
view afterward. All she asks is that I shall renounce my heresy: the
gift of grace will come later."
Mrs. Quentin sat gazing into her untouched cup. Her son's first words
had produced in her the hallucinated sense of struggling in the thick
of a crowd that he could not see. It was horrible to feel herself
hemmed in by influences imperceptible to him; yet if anything could
have increased her misery it would have been the discovery that her
ghosts had become visible.
As though to divert his attention, she precipitately asked, "And you--?"
His answer carried the shock of an evocation. "I merely asked her what
she thought of _you_."
"Of me?"
"She admires you immensely, you know."
For a moment Mrs. Quentin's cheek showed the lingering light of
girlhood: praise transmitted by her son acquired something of the
transmitter's merit. "Well--?" she smiled.
"Well--you didn't make my father give up the _Radiator_, did you?"
His mother, stiffening, made a circuitous return: "She never comes
here. How can she know me?"
"She's so poor! She goes out so little." He rose and leaned against the
mantel-piece, dislodging with impatient fingers a slender bronze
wrestler poised on a porphyry base, between two warm-toned Spanish
ivories. "And then her mother--" he added, as if involuntarily.
"Her mother has never visited me," Mrs. Quentin finished for him.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Mrs. Fenno has the scope of a wax doll. Her
rule of conduct is taken from her grandmother's sampler."
"But the daughter is so modern--and yet--"
"The result is the same? Not exactly. _She_ admires you--oh,
immensely!" He replaced the bronze and turned to his mother with a
smile. "Aren't you on some hospital committee together? What especially
strikes her is your way of doing good. She says philanthropy is not a
line of conduct, but a state of mind--and it appears that you are one
of the elect."
As, in the vague diffusion of physical pain, relief seems to come with
the acuter pang of a single nerve, Mrs. Quentin felt herself suddenly
eased by a rush of anger against the girl. "If she loved you--" she
began.
His gesture checked her. "I'm not asking you to get her to do that."
The two were again silent, facing each other in the disarray of a
common catastrophe--as though their thoughts, at the summons of danger,
had rushed naked into action. Mrs. Quentin, at this revealing moment,
saw for the first time how many elements of her son's character had
seemed comprehensible simply because they were familiar: as, in reading
a foreign language, we take the meaning of certain words for granted
till the context corrects us. Often as in a given case, her maternal
musings had figured his conduct, she now found herself at a loss to
forecast it; and with this failure of intuition came a sense of the
subserviency which had hitherto made her counsels but the anticipation
of his wish. Her despair escaped in the moan, "What _is_ it you ask me?"
"To talk to her."
"Talk to her?"
"Show her--tell her--make her understand that the paper has always been
a thing outside your life--that hasn't touched you--that needn't touch
_her_. Only, let her hear you--watch you--be with you--she'll see...she
can't help seeing..."
His mother faltered. "But if she's given you her reasons--?"
"Let her give them to you! If she can--when she sees you...." His
impatient hand again displaced the wrestler. "I care abominably," he
confessed.
II
On the Fenno threshold a sudden sense of the futility of the attempt
had almost driven Mrs. Quentin back to her carriage; but the door was
already opening, and a parlor-maid who believed that Miss Fenno was in
led the way to the depressing drawing-room. It was the kind of room in
which no member of the family is likely to be found except after dinner
or after death. The chairs and tables looked like poor relations who
had repaid their keep by a long career of grudging usefulness: they
seemed banded together against intruders in a sullen conspiracy of
discomfort. Mrs. Quentin, keenly susceptible to such influences, read
failure in every angle of the upholstery. She was incapable of the
vulgar error of thinking that Hope Fenno might be induced to marry Alan
for his money; but between this assumption and the inference that the
girl's imagination might be touched by the finer possibilities of
wealth, good taste admitted a distinction. The Fenno furniture,
however, presented to such reasoning the obtuseness of its black-walnut
chamferings; and something in its attitude suggested that its owners
would be as uncompromising. The room showed none of the modern attempts
at palliation, no apologetic draping of facts; and Mrs. Quentin,
provisionally perched on a green-reps Gothic sofa with which it was
clearly impossible to establish any closer relations, concluded that,
had Mrs. Fenno needed another seat of the same size, she would have set
out placidly to match the one on which her visitor now languished.
To Mrs. Quentin's fancy, Hope Fenno's opinions, presently imparted in a
clear young voice from the opposite angle of the Gothic sofa, partook
of the character of their surroundings. The girl's mind was like a
large light empty place, scantily furnished with a few massive
prejudices, not designed to add to any one's comfort but too ponderous
to be easily moved. Mrs. Quentin's own intelligence, in which its
owner, in an artistically shaded half-light, had so long moved amid a
delicate complexity of sensations, seemed in comparison suddenly close
and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the glare of the young
girl's candor, the older woman found herself stumbling in an unwonted
obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself into a sense of irritation
against her listener. Mrs. Quentin knew that the momentary value of any
argument lies in the capacity of the mind to which it is addressed, and
as her shafts of persuasion spent themselves against Miss Fenno's
obduracy, she said to herself that, since conduct is governed by
emotions rather than ideas, the really strong people are those who
mistake their sensations for opinions. Viewed in this light, Miss Fenno
was certainly very strong: there was an unmistakable ring of finality
in the tone with which she declared,
"It's impossible."
Mrs. Quentin's answer veiled the least shade of feminine resentment. "I
told Alan that, where he had failed, there was no chance of my making
an impression."
Hope Fenno laid on her visitor's an almost reverential hand. "Dear Mrs.
Quentin, it's the impression you make that confirms the impossibility."
Mrs. Quentin waited a moment: she was perfectly aware that, where her
feelings were concerned, her sense of humor was not to be relied on.
"Do I make such an odious impression?" she asked at length, with a
smile that seemed to give the girl her choice of two meanings.
"You make such a beautiful one! It's too beautiful--it obscures my
judgment."
Mrs. Quentin looked at her thoughtfully. "Would it be permissible, I
wonder, for an older woman to suggest that, at your age, it isn't
always a misfortune to have what one calls one's judgment temporarily
obscured?"
Miss Fenno flushed. "I try not to judge others--"
"You judge Alan."
"Ah, _he_ is not others," she murmured, with an accent that touched the
older woman.
"You judge his mother."
"I don't; I don't!"
Mrs. Quentin pressed her point. "You judge yourself, then, as you would
be in my position--and your verdict condemns me."
"How can you think it? It's because I appreciate the difference in our
point of view that I find it so difficult to defend myself--"
"Against what?"
"The temptation to imagine that I might be as _you_ are--feeling as I
do."
Mrs. Quentin rose with a sigh. "My child, in my day love was less
subtle." She added, after a moment, "Alan is a perfect son."
"Ah, that again--that makes it worse!"
"Worse?"
"Just as your goodness does, your sweetness, your immense indulgence in
letting me discuss things with you in a way that must seem almost an
impertinence."
Mrs. Quentin's smile was not without irony. "You must remember that I
do it for Alan."
"That's what I love you for!" the girl instantly returned; and again
her tone touched her listener.
"And yet you're sacrificing him--and to an idea!"
"Isn't it to ideas that all the sacrifices that were worth while have
been made?"
"One may sacrifice one's self."
Miss Fenno's color rose. "That's what I'm doing," she said gently.
Mrs. Quentin took her hand. "I believe you are," she answered. "And it
isn't true that I speak only for Alan. Perhaps I did when I began; but
now I want to plead for you too--against yourself." She paused, and
then went on with a deeper note: "I have let you, as you say, speak
your mind to me in terms that some women might have resented, because I
wanted to show you how little, as the years go on, theories, ideas,
abstract conceptions of life, weigh against the actual, against the
particular way in which life presents itself to us--to women
especially. To decide beforehand exactly how one ought to behave in
given circumstances is like deciding that one will follow a certain
direction in crossing an unexplored country. Afterward we find that we
must turn out for the obstacles--cross the rivers where they're
shallowest--take the tracks that others have beaten--make all sorts of
unexpected concessions. Life is made up of compromises: that is what
youth refuses to understand. I've lived long enough to doubt whether
any real good ever came of sacrificing beautiful facts to even more
beautiful theories. Do I seem casuistical? I don't know--there may be
losses either way...but the love of the man one loves...of the child
one loves... that makes up for everything...."
She had spoken with a thrill which seemed to communicate itself to the
hand her listener had left in hers. Her eyes filled suddenly, but
through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last desperate
denial:
"Don't you see it's because I feel all this that I mustn't--that I
can't?"
III
Mrs. Quentin, in the late spring afternoon, had turned in at the doors
of the Metropolitan Museum. She had been walking in the Park, in a
solitude oppressed by the ever-present sense of her son's trouble, and
had suddenly remembered that some one had added a Beltraffio to the
collection. It was an old habit of Mrs. Quentin's to seek in the
enjoyment of the beautiful the distraction that most of her
acquaintances appeared to find in each other's company. She had few
friends, and their society was welcome to her only in her more
superficial moods; but she could drug anxiety with a picture as some
women can soothe it with a bonnet.
During the six months that had elapsed since her visit to Miss Fenno
she had been conscious of a pain of which she had supposed herself no
longer capable: as a man will continue to feel the ache of an amputated
arm. She had fancied that all her centres of feeling had been
transferred to Alan; but she now found herself subject to a kind of
dual suffering, in which her individual pang was the keener in that it
divided her from her son's. Alan had surprised her: she had not
foreseen that he would take a sentimental rebuff so hard. His
disappointment took the uncommunicative form of a sterner application
to work. He threw himself into the concerns of the _Radiator_ with an
aggressiveness that almost betrayed itself in the paper. Mrs. Quentin
never read the _Radiator_, but from the glimpses of it reflected in the
other journals she gathered that it was at least not being subjected to
the moral reconstruction which had been one of Miss Fenno's
alternatives.
Mrs. Quentin never spoke to her son of what had happened. She was
superior to the cheap satisfaction of avenging his injury by
depreciating its cause. She knew that in sentimental sorrows such
consolations are as salt in the wound. The avoidance of a subject so
vividly present to both could not but affect the closeness of their
relation. An invisible presence hampered their liberty of speech and
thought. The girl was always between them; and to hide the sense of her
intrusion they began to be less frequently together. It was then that
Mrs. Quentin measured the extent of her isolation. Had she ever dared
to forecast such a situation, she would have proceeded on the
conventional theory that her son's suffering must draw her nearer to
him; and this was precisely the relief that was denied her. Alan's
uncommunicativeness extended below the level of speech, and his mother,
reduced to the helplessness of dead-reckoning, had not even the solace
of adapting her sympathy to his needs. She did not know what he felt:
his course was incalculable to her. She sometimes wondered if she had
become as incomprehensible to him; and it was to find a moment's refuge
from the dogging misery of such conjectures that she had now turned in
at the Museum.
The long line of mellow canvases seemed to receive her into the rich
calm of an autumn twilight. She might have been walking in an enchanted
wood where the footfall of care never sounded. So deep was the sense of
seclusion that, as she turned from her prolonged communion with the new
Beltraffio, it was a surprise to find she was not alone.
A young lady who had risen from the central ottoman stood in suspended
flight as Mrs. Quentin faced her. The older woman was the first to
regain her self-possession.
"Miss Fenno!" she said.
The girl advanced with a blush. As it faded, Mrs. Quentin noticed a
change in her. There had always been something bright and bannerlike in
her aspect, but now her look drooped, and she hung at half-mast, as it
were. Mrs. Quentin, in the embarrassment of surprising a secret that
its possessor was doubtless unconscious of betraying, reverted
hurriedly to the Beltraffio.
"I came to see this," she said. "It's very beautiful."
Miss Fenno's eye travelled incuriously over the mystic blue reaches of
the landscape. "I suppose so," she assented; adding, after another
tentative pause, "You come here often, don't you?"
"Very often," Mrs. Quentin answered. "I find pictures a great help."
"A help?"
"A rest, I mean...if one is tired or out of sorts."
"Ah," Miss Fenno murmured, looking down.
"This Beltraffio is new, you know," Mrs. Quentin continued. "What a
wonderful background, isn't it? Is he a painter who interests you?"
The girl glanced again at the dusky canvas, as though in a final
endeavor to extract from it a clue to the consolations of art. "I don't
know," she said at length; "I'm afraid I don't understand pictures."
She moved nearer to Mrs. Quentin and held out her hand.
"You're going?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Quentin looked at her. "Let me drive you home," she said,
impulsively. She was feeling, with a shock of surprise, that it gave
her, after all, no pleasure to see how much the girl had suffered.
Miss Fenno stiffened perceptibly. "Thank you; I shall like the walk."
Mrs. Quentin dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of
withdrawal, and a momentary wave of antagonism seemed to sweep the two
women apart. Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again addressed
herself to the picture, she felt a sudden touch on her arm.
"Mrs. Quentin," the girl faltered, "I really came here because I saw
your carriage." Her eyes sank, and then fluttered back to her hearer's
face. "I've been horribly unhappy!" she exclaimed.
Mrs. Quentin was silent. If Hope Fenno had expected an immediate
response to her appeal, she was disappointed. The older woman's face
was like a veil dropped before her thoughts.
"I've thought so often," the girl went on precipitately, "of what you
said that day you came to see me last autumn. I think I understand now
what you meant--what you tried to make me see.... Oh, Mrs. Quentin,"
she broke out, "I didn't mean to tell you this--I never dreamed of it
till this moment--but you _do_ remember what you said, don't you? You
must remember it! And now that I've met you in this way, I can't help
telling you that I believe--I begin to believe--that you were right,
after all."
Mrs. Quentin had listened without moving; but now she raised her eyes
with a slight smile. "Do you wish me to say this to Alan?" she asked.
The girl flushed, but her glance braved the smile. "Would he still care
to hear it?" she said fearlessly.
Mrs. Quentin took momentary refuge in a renewed inspection of the
Beltraffio; then, turning, she said, with a kind of reluctance: "He
would still care."
"Ah!" broke from the girl.
During this exchange of words the two speakers had drifted
unconsciously toward one of the benches. Mrs. Quentin glanced about
her: a custodian who had been hovering in the doorway sauntered into
the adjoining gallery, and they remained alone among the silvery
Vandykes and flushed bituminous Halses. Mrs. Quentin sank down on the
bench and reached a hand to the girl.
"Sit by me," she said.
Miss Fenno dropped beside her. In both women the stress of emotion was
too strong for speech. The girl was still trembling, and Mrs. Quentin
was the first to regain her composure.
"You say you've suffered," she began at last. "Do you suppose _I_
haven't?"
"I knew you had. That made it so much worse for me--that I should have
been the cause of your suffering for Alan!"
Mrs. Quentin drew a deep breath. "Not for Alan only," she said. Miss
Fenno turned on her a wondering glance. "Not for Alan only. _That_ pain
every woman expects--and knows how to bear. We all know our children
must have such disappointments, and to suffer with them is not the
deepest pain. It's the suffering apart--in ways they don't understand."
She breathed deeply. "I want you to know what I mean. You were
right--that day--and I was wrong."
"Oh," the girl faltered.
Mrs. Quentin went on in a voice of passionate lucidity. "I knew it
then--I knew it even while I was trying to argue with you--I've always
known it! I didn't want my son to marry you till I heard your reasons
for refusing him; and then--then I longed to see you his wife!"
"Oh, Mrs. Quentin!"
"I longed for it; but I knew it mustn't be."
"Mustn't be?"
Mrs. Quentin shook her head sadly, and the girl, gaining courage from
this mute negation, cried with an uncontrollable escape of feeling:
"It's because you thought me hard, obstinate narrow-minded? Oh, I
understand that so well! My self-righteousness must have seemed so
petty! A girl who could sacrifice a man's future to her own moral
vanity--for it _was_ a form of vanity; you showed me that plainly
enough--how you must have despised me! But I am not that girl
now--indeed I'm not. I'm not impulsive--I think things out. I've
thought this out. I know Alan loves me--I know _how_ he loves me--and I
believe I can help him--oh, not in the ways I had fancied before--but
just merely by loving him." She paused, but Mrs. Quentin made no sign.
"I see it all so differently now. I see what an influence love itself
may be--how my believing in him, loving him, accepting him just as he
is, might help him more than any theories, any arguments. I might have
seen this long ago in looking at _you_--as he often told me--in seeing
how you'd kept yourself apart from--from--Mr. Quentin's work and
his--been always the beautiful side of life to them--kept their faith
alive in spite of themselves--not by interfering, preaching, reforming,
but by--just loving them and being there--" She looked at Mrs. Quentin
with a simple nobleness. "It isn't as if I cared for the money, you
know; if I cared for that, I should be afraid--"
"You will care for it in time," Mrs. Quentin said suddenly.
Miss Fenno drew back, releasing her hand. "In time?"
"Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the
pictures. "My poor child," she broke out, "I've heard all you say so
often before!"
"You've heard it?"
"Yes--from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as I
mean to prevent your doing, when I married Alan's father."
The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's startled
exclamation--"Oh, Mrs. Quentin--"
"Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind of
pink-and-white idiot he ought to have married? It's because I see
you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies, as
I was--that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without
stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing rigidly forward, her
eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of one who
tries to press the meaning of a lifetime into a few breathless
sentences.
"When I met Alan's father," she went on, "I knew nothing of his--his
work. We met abroad, where I had been living with my mother. That was
twenty-six years ago, when the _Radiator_ was less--less notorious than
it is now. I knew my husband owned a newspaper--a great newspaper--and
nothing more. I had never seen a copy of the _Radiator_; I had no
notion what it stood for, in politics--or in other ways. We were
married in Europe, and a few months afterward we came to live here.
People were already beginning to talk about the _Radiator_. My husband,
on leaving college, had bought it with some money an old uncle had left
him, and the public at first was merely curious to see what an
ambitious, stirring young man without any experience of journalism was
going to make out of his experiment. They found first of all that he
was going to make a great deal of money out of it. I found that out
too. I was so happy in other ways that it didn't make much difference
at first; though it was pleasant to be able to help my mother, to be
generous and charitable, to live in a nice house, and wear the handsome
gowns he liked to see me in. But still it didn't really count--it
counted so little that when, one day, I learned what the _Radiator_
was, I would have gone out into the streets barefooted rather than live
another hour on the money it brought in...." Her voice sank, and she
paused to steady it. The girl at her side did not speak or move. "I
shall never forget that day," she began again. "The paper had stripped
bare some family scandal--some miserable bleeding secret that a dozen
unhappy people had been struggling to keep out of print--that _would_
have been kept out if my husband had not--Oh, you must guess the rest!
I can't go on!"
She felt a hand on hers. "You mustn't go on, Mrs. Quentin," the girl
whispered.
"Yes, I must--I must! You must be made to understand." She drew a deep
breath. "My husband was not like Alan. When he found out how I felt
about it he was surprised at first--but gradually he began to see--or
at least I fancied he saw--the hatefulness of it. At any rate he saw
how I suffered, and he offered to give up the whole thing--to sell the
paper. It couldn't be done all of a sudden, of course--he made me see
that--for he had put all his money in it, and he had no special
aptitude for any other kind of work. He was a born journalist--like
Alan. It was a great sacrifice for him to give up the paper, but he
promised to do it--in time--when a good opportunity offered. Meanwhile,
of course, he wanted to build it up, to increase the circulation--and
to do that he had to keep on in the same way--he made that clear to me.
I saw that we were in a vicious circle. The paper, to sell well, had to
be made more and more detestable and disgraceful. At first I
rebelled--but somehow--I can't tell you how it was--after that first
concession the ground seemed to give under me: with every struggle I
sank deeper. And then--then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby
that there was very little hope of saving him. But money did it--the
money from the paper. I took him abroad to see the best physicians--I
took him to a warm climate every winter. In hot weather the doctors
recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I
owed his life to the _Radiator_. And when he began to grow stronger the
habit was formed--the habit of luxury. He could not get on without the
things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped
under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel,
every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted for him his
inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give!
"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going.
There was no more talk of giving up the _Radiator_. He never reproached
me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the
thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the paper
altogether--to take what it gave as though I didn't know where it came
from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to
speak, purify money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a great
deal in charity--I indulged myself very little at first. All the money
that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But gradually, as
my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated. How was I to
protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in? I couldn't
preach by example--couldn't hold up his father as a warning, or
denounce the money we were living on. All I could do was to disguise
the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside--to build a
wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and
interests another way, hide the _Radiator_ from him as a smiling woman
at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast! Just as Alan was entering
college his father died. Then I saw my way clear. I had loved my
husband--and yet I drew my first free breath in years. For the
_Radiator_ had been left to Alan outright--there was nothing on earth
to prevent his selling it when he came of age. And there was no excuse
for his not selling it. I had brought him up to depend on money, but
the paper had given us enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last
we could turn on the monster that had nourished us. I felt a savage joy
in the thought--I could hardly bear to wait till Alan came of age. But
I had never spoken to him of the paper, and I didn't dare speak of it
now. Some false shame kept me back, some vague belief in his ignorance.
I would wait till he was twenty-one, and then we should be free.
"I waited--the day came, and I spoke. You can guess his answer, I
suppose. He had no idea of selling the _Radiator_. It wasn't the money
he cared for--it was the career that tempted him. He was a born
journalist, and his ambition, ever since he could remember, had been to
carry on his father's work, to develop, to surpass it. There was
nothing in the world as interesting as modern journalism. He couldn't
imagine any other kind of life that wouldn't bore him to death. A
newspaper like the _Radiator_ might be made one of the biggest powers
on earth, and he loved power, and meant to have all he could get. I
listened to him in a kind of trance. I couldn't find a word to say. His
father had had scruples--he had none. I seemed to realize at once that
argument would be useless. I don't know that I even tried to plead with
him--he was so bright and hard and inaccessible! Then I saw that he
was, after all, what I had made him--the creature of my concessions, my
connivances, my evasions. That was the price I had paid for him--I had
kept him at that cost!
"Well--I _had_ kept him, at any rate. That was the feeling that
survived. He was my boy, my son, my very own--till some other woman
took him. Meanwhile the old life must go on as it could. I gave up the
struggle. If at that point he was inaccessible, at others he was close
to me. He has always been a perfect son. Our tastes grew together--we
enjoyed the same books, the same pictures, the same people. All I had
to do was to look at him in profile to see the side of him that was
really mine. At first I kept thinking of the dreadful other side--but
gradually the impression faded, and I kept my mind turned from it, as
one does from a deformity in a face one loves. I thought I had made my
last compromise with life--had hit on a _modus vivendi_ that would last
my time.
"And then he met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying, but
not a girl like you. I thought he would choose a sweet thing who would
never pry into his closets--he hated women with ideas! But as soon as I
saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He is so much
stronger than his father--he is full of the most monstrous convictions.
And he has the courage of them, too--you saw last year that his love
for you never made him waver. He believes in his work; he adores it--it
is a kind of hideous idol to which he would make human sacrifices! He
loves you still--I've been honest with you--but his love wouldn't
change him. It is you who would have to change--to die gradually, as I
have died, till there is only one live point left in me. Ah, if one
died completely--that's simple enough! But something persists--remember
that--a single point, an aching nerve of truth. Now and then you may
drug it--but a touch wakes it again, as your face has waked it in me.
There's always enough of one's old self left to suffer with...."
She stood up and faced the girl abruptly. "What shall I tell Alan?" she
said.
Miss Fenno sat motionless, her eyes on the ground. Twilight was falling
on the gallery--a twilight which seemed to emanate not so much from the
glass dome overhead as from the crepuscular depths into which the faces
of the pictures were receding. The custodian's step sounded warningly
down the corridor. When the girl looked up she was alone.
A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT
I
THIS is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street
house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous
East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn
to the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was throwing its gauzy web of
sound across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the
year that Buonaparte marched upon Moscow.
I
"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony
Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East Indiaman,
the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of
towers and domes dissolved in golden air.
It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of
age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old
Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled
into shape. _Venice!_ The name, since childhood, had been a magician's
wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung
a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought
home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and
palaces, of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St. Peter's Church in Rome;
and, in a corner--the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks
hung--a busy merry populous scene, entitled: _St. Mark's Square in
Venice_. This picture, from the first, had singularly taken little
Tony's fancy. His unformulated criticism on the others was that they
lacked action. True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking
gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious
monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to
raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of
turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled
lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at
once--more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a
twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb,
were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and
many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys,
chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who stalked
through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at
their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves
hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained
dogs and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their
pockets picked by slippery-looking fellows in black--the whole with
such an air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be
as much a part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals.
As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost its
magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old
picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a
cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name of
Venice remained associated; and all that observation or report
subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober
warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between reality
and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice glass,
gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that,
standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed,
among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly.
There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same
sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the
fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which
seemed held in air as if by magic. _Magic!_ That was the word which the
thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which
things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in which two and
two might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion
give the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did
not, once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony,
at least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms in
his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a
Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before
him, as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes
across the morning sea!
The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was just
putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on
Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled
overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge
with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his
lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in
suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical foreign
city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many Moslem
idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up his
conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be
happy, he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell
the next morning.
The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked at
the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down with
a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next
deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah's gig.
A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of
the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling
with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic
painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling,
laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched,
crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over
a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press,
aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the
gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency
to horse-play, as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of
facetious suavity which seemed to include everybody in the
circumference of one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness
soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel himself vastly at home,
when a lift of the tide bore him against a droll-looking bell-ringing
fellow who carried above his head a tall metal tree hung with
sherbet-glasses.
The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and
clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints,
and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by
mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, and
just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the
transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English:
"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency."
"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed
and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from his business and
open a gaming-house over the arcade."
Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries,
the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in
front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted
himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was
good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he
had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out
again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count
Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to
point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of
ton and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a
kind not openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem.
Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had
perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but
though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of
Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the
surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend named
to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped
trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and
doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour;
while the President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible
strutting fellow with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a
trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on.
It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on
forever; but he had given his word to the captain to be at the
landing-place at sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the
skies! Tony was a man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a
handsome damascened dagger selected from one of the goldsmiths' shops
in a narrow street lined with such wares, he insisted on turning his
face toward the Hepzibah's gig. The Count yielded reluctantly; but as
they came out again on the square they were caught in a great throng
pouring toward the doors of the cathedral.
"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, with many
lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it."
Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled
back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a haze
of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty
undulations of the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and
as Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at
his elbow:--"Oh, sir, oh, sir, your sword!"
He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched
the voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard.
She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies
affected, and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as
sweet as a nesting bird.
In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself
a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony's enchanted fingers. Looking
after her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in
a long black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the
exchange of glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a
threatening look.
The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian beauties,"
said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest
eyes in Venice."
"She spoke English," stammered Tony.
"Oh--ah--precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint
James's, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as
Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England."
"And that was her father?"
"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go abroad save
with their parents or a duenna."
Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish bound,
and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under
the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful
page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and
vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at
the Count, who appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the
ringing of a bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of
devotion; and Tony seized the moment to step beneath a lighted shrine
with his letter.
"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"--he read;
but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his
shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind
of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian.
Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk
himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other's
grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his
way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: "For
God's sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I
tell you."
Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity
among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in
Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was
that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his
breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count's agitated
whisper.
"This is one of the agents of the Ten.--For God's sake, no outcry." He
exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony.
"You have been seen concealing a letter about your person--"
"And what of that?" says Tony furiously.
"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna
Polixena Cador.--A black business! Oh, a very black business! This
Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice--I beseech you, not
a word, sir! Let me think--deliberate--"
His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the
potentate in the cocked hat.
"I am sorry, sir--but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded
as the Grand Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal.
The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador,
instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth
and inexperience"--Tony winced at this--"and I think the business may
still be arranged."
Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a
sharp-featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a
lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many
apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the doors of the
church. The Count held him by the other arm, and in this fashion they
emerged on the square, which now lay in darkness save for the many
lights twinkling under the arcade and in the windows of the
gaming-rooms above it.
Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go
where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of
the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at
the landing-place.
The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook his
head and rattled off a sharp denial.
"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any
resistance will tell against you in the end."
Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of
escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and
boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to
outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry
the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten
yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng
was thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert
for an opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show.
Tony's fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the latter
could right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of
heels to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide
in Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye,
dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow
hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls. But
now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The
walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath
came short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed
him. Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a
servant wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh
chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted
it, and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses.
II
THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They
climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor,
and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the
painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his
surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started
up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was
the cause of all his troubles.
She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her
face changed and she shrank back abashed.
"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried
out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you are
here?"
"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not
over-pleased by his reception.
"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?"
"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was
yours--"
"Mine?"--"in sending me a letter--"
"_You_--a letter?"--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it
to me under your father's very nose--"
The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was _you_ who received
my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged
her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same
jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the
doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark's.
"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?"
Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded
instantly and she returned to the charge.
"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my undoing!
Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for
you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my
mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh, how can I ever
excuse myself to you?"
"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am
surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador."
Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you must
pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English,
and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner
in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English
Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome man."
"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!"
She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look
of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in
dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you
also--Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale and
leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.
Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment
later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by
half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the
square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst
into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to
the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly
plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the
intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on
his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming
face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress.
Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves,
and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape,
stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his
wit's end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena's tears had
quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the
magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at.
At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on
the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He
pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be
silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at
first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he
walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of
earshot.
"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a
perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a
great misfortune."
"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose
blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the
beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up
to the forehead.
"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his
Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few
words of it, and--"
"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me if I
ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me."
The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count,
stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is that
you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the
most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the
most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and he waved a deferential hand
at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff.
"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with
the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" but here he
stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance
at him.
"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to take
shelter behind a lady's reputation."
"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was merely
about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has never seen me
before."
Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died
to defend her.
The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His
Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's misconduct
has been all the more reprehensible."
"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?"
"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter
which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The
incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo,
who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride."
Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his
Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so
trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her
father's resentment."
"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only
excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to
advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio."
It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies,
and the thought sharpened his retort.
"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same
behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman
would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was
seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and
has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose."
As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far
as he dared commit himself.
There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the
Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to
meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the
means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her
father?"
There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to
look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance
toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by
unmistakable signs of apprehension.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, and
whatever happens I must keep her secret."
He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in the
habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers."
The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing
his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess
continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.
The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared.
This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal
imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation
incumbent upon you as a man of honour."
Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the
Marquess. "And what obligation is that?"
"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the lady."
Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in
heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that it
had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them
to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm
suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all thought of
his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so preposterous
that he could not repress a smile.
"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome this
solution."
The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty," he
said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were
justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in
this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father
has selected."
"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman
yonder was in that enviable position."
"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in
your favour."
"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness
obliges me to decline--"
"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a
misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted
than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary
that you should marry her within the hour."
Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his
veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself
and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the
apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her
father's feet.
"And if I refuse?" said he.
The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to
threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the
consequences would be to the lady."
Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned
words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an
obdurate gesture.
The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at what
cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his
Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness
consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed."
He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to
Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in
the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.
III
THE girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and
agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own
extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her,
drawing her hands from her face.
"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his bosom
that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he
might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him
gently from her.
"What humiliation!" she lamented.
"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?"
"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight?
And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show
the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save
me from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even
greater."
"Ah--it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable relief.
"Of course--what else did you think?"
"But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?"
"From _you?_" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." She drew
back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of
shame.
Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that window--"
he muttered.
"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.--Oh, I
must speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But indeed you can
scarce think worse of me than you do already--"
"I think ill of you?"
"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen
for me--"
"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married
him."
"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice."
"It is infamous, I say--infamous!"
"No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others."
"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!"
"He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my little
maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you
I should be thinking?"
"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head.
"Yes, and how to save you--for I _can_ save you! But every moment
counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful."
"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful."
"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!"
"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little wildly;
but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him.
"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I tell
you."
Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight
through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the
fall had stunned him.
"What am I to do?" he said.
"Look away from me, or I can never tell you."
He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him,
and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the
window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back
was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though
she were reciting a lesson.
"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not
a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate
spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of
ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!--He wrangled
horribly with my father over my dowry--he wanted me to have more than
either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a
grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too--oh, such fortunes as
are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so--and so--don't turn, I
implore you--oh, do you begin to see my meaning?"
She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes
from her.
"Go on," he said.
"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You
don't know us Venetians--we're all to be bought for a price. It is not
only the brides who are marketable--sometimes the husbands sell
themselves too. And they think you rich--my father does, and the
others--I don't know why, unless you have shown your money too
freely--and the English are all rich, are they not? And--oh, oh--do you
understand? Oh, I can't bear your eyes!"
She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was
at her side.
"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped her.
"You _are_ rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?" she
persisted.
"To enable you to marry the Marquess?"
"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see
your face again." She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and
paced the floor in a fever.
Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to
a clock against the wall. "The hour is nearly over. It is quite true
that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be
warned by me! There is no other way of escape."
"And if I do as you say--?"
"You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it."
"And you--you are married to that villain?"
"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to
myself when I am alone."
"My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow."
"You forgive me, Anthony? You don't think too badly of me?"
"I say you must not marry that fellow."
She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she adjured him,
"and I warn you there is no other way."
For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a
Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's sermons in the best parlour at
Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in
his. "Yes, there is," he cried, "if you are willing. Polixena, let the
priest come!"
She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be silent!" she
said.
"I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates," he cried. "My
father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts--but if
you--"
"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I bless
you, bless you, bless you on my knees!" And she knelt before him, and
fell to kissing his hands.
He drew her up to his breast and held her there.
"You are willing, Polixena?" he said.
"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not
willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!"
"On my money?" he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him.
"Yes, on your money," she said sadly.
"Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?"
She was silent.
"If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?" he persisted.
"You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past."
"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger
to help another man to marry you."
"Oh, madman, madman!" she murmured.
Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the
wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and
falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty.
"Polixena, I love you!" he cried.
A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the
verge of her troubled brows.
"I love you! I love you!" he repeated.
And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their
lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird's poise and before he
knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them.
She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it from
your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any
of the money, you know."
She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her
ashen face.
"What are you talking of?" he said.
"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never
see you again, Anthony!" She gave him a dreadful look. "Oh, my poor
boy, my poor love--'_I love you, I love you, Polixena!_'"
He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with
soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm's length, and as he
gazed he read the truth in her face.
He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on
his hands.
"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play
here," she said.
As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of
voices on the threshold.
"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the
Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator--but not, oh, not about
your danger in this place--or about my love," she breathed to him. And
as the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow.
The key rattled, and the door swung open--but the black-cassocked
gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of
idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias
Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much
on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident
relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was
closed by an escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and
small-swords, who led between them Tony's late friends the magnificoes,
now as sorry a looking company as the law ever landed in her net.
The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of
satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony.
"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival with
this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has
landed you? H'm--a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head
of it." He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock
ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a princess.
"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this morning in
the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain
Spavent--" and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess--"I've
watched him drive his bully's trade under the arcade ever since I first
dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well," he continued, his
indignation subsiding, "all's fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this
gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up
your little party."
At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and
explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain.
"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, "that this
incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you
will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here
will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his
companions."
Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud
guffaw.
"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you,
considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage of
your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it
too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly,
"decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of yours--" His eye
fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we
must all see the Carnival once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that
ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr.
Bracknell, if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll bid
adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the
Hepzibah."
