Chapter VII: Part I: The Author’s Study

A half-dead _Spirëa Japonica_ stood on the writing-table; reared against the pot was a miniature, which, as the only beautiful thing in the room, and, moreover, as the work of John Ravil himself, merits a full description. Not even the most ardent flatterer of the sex would have sworn that the woman was less than eight-and-twenty. She was reclining on a luxurious, shawl-covered chair, with a background of pale roses and quaintly shapen mirrors. One hand held a frontal of pearls just taken from the light-brown hair; the other a letter which she was reading with some tenderness. Her face was fair, her eyes of a rich blue. Firm and lustrous shoulders peeped through the smooth white muslin of her gown. Mother Eve could not have peered her physical charm.

John Ravil himself was grotesque even to ugliness. Of scarcely the middle height, ill-shapen in body, and husky voiced, his peculiarities were so marked that it was impossible for him to walk in the streets without exciting unfavourable comment. His complexion was neither light nor dark; and an odd look was given by a bushy copper-coloured moustache, whose ends had never known training. An overhanging forehead, with knitted brows and stiff white hair that stood on end, completed the list of his most noticeable faults. Despite the marks of age, however, he was as yet only in his twenty-third year, and evidences of his youth were visible in his large brown eyes that seemed at times to belong to a young child.

To-day those eyes were full of terrified perplexity. A change had come into his life; the love that had sapped his fountain of inspiration, and hindered him in his struggle for bread, had grown more and more absorbing of late, and in proportion, the passion of the beloved one had dwindled. Life had nothing for him save this woman: fame could never come now, and in his unhappiness he felt himself degraded to the verge of the commonplace.

After awhile he rose, with a heavy indraught of breath, and opening the secret drawer of an old mahogany bureau took thence a small bundle of letters, each enclosed in its gilt-edged envelope. A band of white paper, whereon was inscribed ‘Flavia’s Correspondence,’ was tied round all. This he loosened, and taking the topmost letter, reverentially unfolded the sheet. It had been written soon after their first meeting. Flavia’s hand was eccentrically masculine. ‘Forgive me,’ it ran, ‘for being so obtuse last night in not divining the meaning of your words. You stung me somehow when you laughed at my singing: it was not till afterwards that I understood your laughter--strange and harsh as it sounded--as a far greater compliment than any other man could bestow. Truth to tell, I half resented the little speech that followed. _Why should I sing only alone or only for one?_ Heaven knows that I have not a beautiful voice, but still I believe (and I am not an egotist) that I have the power of expressing the predominant sentiment of the song. _Addio_, stay, I often visit that alley of firs you admire so--in the afternoon of most fine days--and a voice sounds infinitely more _spacious_ there. Shall I sing there alone?’

Here John Ravil bit his white lower lip until the blood oozed in scarlet drops. O the midsummer noon-tide; the trembling air; the golden dusk that clung around the fir trunks! Flavia had wafted towards him from the eastern glade, clad in azure and seeming like a cloud-borne cherub. Cherubs sing too, and she sang; but no cherub ever sang as she. Only one song--

‘Oh turn, love, oh turn I pray
I prithee, love, turn to me.’

But such memories add to one’s agony.

The second letter, dated two months later, told of capitulation.

‘You did not come,--some scruple withheld you? If you had known how utterly sick I grew as the hours passed you would have pitied me. At every sound I gazed from my window, craving to see you on the terrace, your head downcast as ever; your eyes waiting for the brightness that my presence alone can bring. You are very cruel; I could not bear you to suffer as I do. Even when absent you magnetise me. Nothing appeals to me now--the gorgeous sunsets of late; the autumn foliage; the knee-deep drifts of already fallen leaves. Come to-night, my lover, my--I had almost blasphemed! Just to let my heart spring to yours, my blood leap through my body, my beauty grow paramount.’

Ravil sat for a while with his hands covering his face. The blood trickled down his chin and fell on the white sheet; he wiped it away, replaced the letter in its envelope and took the next. The tide of love was flowing yet.

‘Genius,’ it began, ‘poet-painter, genius of mine, I thank you for your idealising of me. But I was never as lovely as the picture. I am almost glad that you insisted on retaining it, for I should have become jealous of its excellence, and perhaps destroyed it in some frenzy. How lively must my image be to you in absence!

‘To other people you are grotesque (what you said was true): to me you are the handsomest in the world. I and none other have seen that wondrous lighting of countenance, have heard that quickening of the voice. At this moment I could tear myself without a murmur from the vain world, to dwell in some remote garden where conventionalism triumphs not; where we should exist for each other, and let our lives form one perfection. Come to-night: I will sit with your head cushioned on my breast. Bring your story and let us cry together.’

Soon after this the woman’s passion had begun to fade. Ravil knew what was in the other letters. She had wearied slowly of the genius. Her feeling had been too fervent to endure. She was healthy and full-blooded. Another, ‘a swart-haired Hercules,’ had taken her fancy; and with the admission of this second love all the old worship had grown lukewarm. In proportion, however, as she had become less infatuated, he had descended almost to madness: had craved over humbly that she would consider the wrong she was doing him; had sworn that if she were false to him, life would hold naught of goodness more.

Men as highly strung and as unfortunate have little sustaining strength. Fate, the evil godmother, bestows an excess of imaginative power, and Nature, angry in the unwelcome gift, takes her spite out of the unsinning god-child, and makes him timorous and unmanly.

Flavia’s last letter must have cost her an effort. Each word was as a dart through his vitals.

‘My love, there is a certain proverb which I am not powerful enough to disprove, that the constancy of women exists more in fiction than in reality. You accuse me of no longer loving you? In a measure you are wrong: your friendship will be more to me than anything in life. One way I have failed. Forgive me if I tell you that you will ever appeal to my spiritual part. We never could have married; in my cooler moments I have often acknowledged myself too cowardly to cross the bridge between our ranks. The homage of my kind is necessary after all. Let us regard the past as a pleasant episode.

‘Apparently you have heard the rumour of my approaching marriage. Let me beg of you one thing: in honour you are bound to return my letters; yours are ready in exchange. I shall be much pained to part with what has given me almost preternatural pleasure. Why should we not meet and bid each other good-bye?’