This evening Julia’s doings told much of herself and her place in the household. Through the reading of the play she knelt with her ear at the keyhole; though her face betrayed that her pleasure was rather in her master’s voice than in what he read. When the silence came, she rose to her feet, but remained in a posture of listening; and when Claverhouse and Janet appeared, neither started nor stepped aside, but stood in quiet waiting. When the former returned, she watched him out of sight with venerating eyes, and then made haste to the tending of her mistress.
Claverhouse made his appeal to his friend almost before the door was open.
“Well?” he said; “well?”
Soulsby was sitting in the firelight, his hands passing up and down before each other, and his eyes fixed on the glowing coals. He had been moved to strong emotion, and his nervousness had left him.
“It is wonderful,” he said in grave, musical tones, turning his large grey eyes to Claverhouse. “It is wonderful. It is great — there is no doubt it is great.”
“It is true, is it not?” said Claverhouse. “It is that, that I strove for. Have I got it, Soulsby? Ah, but I have.”
“The play is wonderful,” repeated Soulsby. “It is marvellously deep.”
“Deep?” said Claverhouse. “Yes, it is deep. There is no great play that is not deep. But there are great plays that are not true. Mine is true, if you could but know it.”
“If I could but know it?” said the other with a return of his nervous manner. “Yes, yes — you are right. I hardly follow you.”
“You do not follow me?” said Claverhouse, leaning forwards, and speaking low. “Listen! When Althea hears that her father is dead, she utters no sound, no word — that is true. The madman in his lucid days thinks more of the life he shares for the time with his kind, than of the certain madness before him — that is true. When the teacher is enfeebled beyond the toil of his years, his thoughts are of the pupils whom he taught in his prime, rather than of those he is yielding up with their present gratitude. When old Jannetta is failing, she is cold to the friends who tend her age, and yearns towards her kin of blood.”
“Yes, yes, I follow,” said Soulsby. “I see that it is true — that all — that all your plays are true.”
“No, no, that is not what I said,” said Claverhouse, rising to his feet. “In all of them there is truth; but the two last are all true; this one, and the one that lies unread in the closet.” Then with a change of tone, “Ah, well! Well, Soulsby, what is there in this, that offends your scholar’s judgment?”
“There — there was — there seemed to me — amongst other things,” said Soulsby, “a slight — a slight discrepancy between the opening speech, and the reference to it later in the play. I–I think, if you consider it, you will agree with me.”
“Soulsby, you are a pedant — a quibbling schoolman,” said Claverhouse, moving his limbs impatiently. “You love the letter; and the spirit escapes you.”
“No, no, believe me, it does — it does not,” said Soulsby. “I was only — only answering the question you put. And I think you will see — will see I am right. A superficial inelegance remains — remains an inelegance.”
“Inelegance!” said Claverhouse, fuming in contempt for the expression, and then changing his tone. “Soulsby, you are a friend and helper I value greatly. You understand it, is it not so? I knew it; and too well to be showing it so overmuch. So there are other ‘inelegances’? Well, let us see to them. Tell me them. I will be grateful.”
The friends talked earnestly over the manuscript; Soulsby showing his points with nervous insistence; and Claverhouse alternately fuming and complying. He chafed less as the talk proceeded, and he felt the spirit of the drama tighten its hold. He read on rapidly, often losing sight of the task of revision; and at last became utterly lost in it. He rose to his feet, holding it closely to his eyes, and read on aloud, in forgetfulness of Soulsby’s presence. It was one o’clock in the morning. Soulsby noiselessly rose to his feet, crept to the door, stood for a moment watching the stooping form, and then slipped from the house. Julia came from the kitchen, fastened the outer door, and went up to bed. An hour later her master followed her, walking wearily, and carrying the manuscript under his arm.
Day began late in the playwright’s strange little household. The many clocks of the university were striking the hour of nine, when Julia entered the living-room to clear the day’s disorder; and the sun was strong, when Claverhouse and Janet sat at their silent morning meal. Janet had recovered from the previous night’s exhaustion. She was one of those aged people who sleep readily and long; and thus put on their waning energy the minimum daily drain. The daylight had neither injustice nor mercy for the seamed, dark-coloured skin, the strong, sunken jaw, and the hair’s dead whiteness. When the meal was over she rose; and seating herself on a covered stool by an ottoman that was wont to serve her as a table, spoke her first words of the day to her son.
“Sigismund, I will read the play to myself.”
Claverhouse nodded, as though half-gratified; and going from the room, returned with the manuscript. He set it by his mother, after holding it closely to his eyes, to ensure his placing it the right way up before her; and left her without a word. In the narrow little hall he came to a pause, and pushed his fingers through his hair, as though he were schooling himself for a task that was distasteful. After a moment he made his way to his attic study, to await the pupils whose teaching was the trial of his days, and the means of his sustenance through them. The room seemed to fit its owner. It was bare of board, and of sparse furnishing; disorderly and paper — scattered. The table was hacked and scored; a pile of used quill pens flanked a broken inkstand; a smaller table, clearly profaned by any touch but his own, was littered with crumpled papers and grey with dust. He seated himself at the larger table, and drew towards him a pile of papers, scored and overwritten in his own hand. Till late in the afternoon, with the respite of an hour for food, he laboured at his irksome toil. His pupils came and went — strong — limbed striplings, rejoicing in their youth, ignorant or heedless of their contact with genius, ready to hail any carelessness of duty as a pedagogic favour. He laboured with a simple conscientiousness; recognising the prostitution of his powers, and giving of them fully. When the last had left him, he rose and stretched his limbs; and then went at once to a wooden cabinet, and drew out a pile of manuscript. He held it for a long moment, almost dandling it in his arms; and then replaced it with a lingering touch. “Ah!” he muttered. “There is another now.”
He broke off, seated himself on the table, and drew towards him paper and pens. Half an hour later a limping step came softly to the door, and was silent.
Chapter VI
In the living again of the early time of after years, Dolores was to see in her student days the things of the student’s life as strangely least amongst many. There seemed from the first to be strange, bright promise in this being to face and in touch with the one, whom her young reverence had placed apart from the world, in the sphere which youth creates for those it sees the world’s great. Hence, underlying her visible lot, was a hidden thing to which other things grew to be nothing. In secret she watched the self-absorbed being, that seemed to think and move in regard of none, and when perplexity’s edge was blunt, of none regarded. In secret her hours were given to the dramas, which had fed her early eagerness for knowledge of her kind; and, grasped by her mind as given by his own, they seemed to bring her soul and his into subtle mutual knowledge. She spoke no word of this current of her life which was deeper than that which carried her fellows; sensitive to shame upon feelings she could only connect with her earlier self by yielding that self to their force; and in light discussion of the playwright, yielded her part to the lightness, drawing over what she sanctified the closest veil.