Evelyn Innes

by George Moore

She had been longing to speak of Owen. He seemed always about them, and in phantasmal presence he seemed to sunder them, to stand jailor-like. It was only by speaking of Owen that his interdiction could be removed, and she said that she had often been to the gallery with him. Having said so much, it was easy to tell Ulick of the story of the three days of hesitation which had preceded her elopement.

"The Colonnade," and "The Lady playing the Virginal," had seemed to her symbols of the different lives which that day had been pressed upon her choice. Ulick explained that Fate and free will are not as irreconcilable as they seem. For before birth it is given to us to decide whether we shall accept or reject the gift of life. So we are at once the creatures and the arbiters of destiny. These metaphysics excited and then eluded her perceptions, and she hastened to tell him how she had stood at the corner of Berkeley Square, seeing the season passing under the green foliage, thinking how her life was summarised in a single moment. She remembered even the lady who wore the bright irises in her bonnet; but she neglected to mention her lest Ulick should think that it was memory of this woman's horses that had decided her to the choice of her pair of chestnuts. She told him about the journey to France, the buying of the trousseau, and the day that Madame Savelli had said, "If you'll stay with me a year, I'll make something wonderful of you." She told him how Owen had sent her to the Bois by herself, and the madness that had risen to her brain: and how near she had been to standing up in the carriage and asking the people to listen to her. She told the tale of all this mental excitement fluently, volubly, carried away by the narrative. Suddenly she ceased speaking, and sat absorbed by the mystery.

She sat looking into that corner of the garden where the gardener on a high ladder worked his shears without pausing. The light branches fell, and she thought of how she had grown up in this obscure suburb amid old instruments and old music. She remembered her yearning for fame and love; now she had both, love and fame. But within herself nothing was changed; the same little soul was now as it had been long ago, she could hear it talking, living its intense life within her unknown to everyone, an uncommunicable thing, unchanged among much change. She remembered how Owen, like Siegfried, had come to release her, and all the exhausting passion of that time. She had sat with him under this very tree. She was sitting there now with Ulick. Everything was changed, yet everything was the same.... She was going to fall in love with another man, that was all.

She awoke with a start, frightened as by a dream; and before she had time to inquire of herself if the dream might come true, she remembered the girl with whom Ulick used to play Mozart in a drawing-room hung with faded tapestries. She feared that he would divulge nothing, and to her surprise he told her that it had happened two years ago at Dieppe, where he had gone for a month's holiday. At that time when he was writing "Connla and the Fairy Maiden." He had composed a great deal of the music by the sea-shore and in sequestered woods; and to assist himself in the composition of the melodies, he used to take his violin with him. One day, while wandering along the dusty high road on the look out for a secluded, shady place, he had come upon what seemed to be a private park. It was guarded by a high wall, and looking through an iron gate that had been left ajar, he was tempted by the stillness of the glades. "A music-haunted spot if ever there was one," he said to himself; and encouraged by the persuasion of a certain melody which he felt he could work out there, and nowhere but there, he pushed the gate open, and entered the park. A perfect place it seemed to him, no one but the birds to hear him, and the sun's rays did not pierce the thick foliage of the sycamore grove. Never did place correspond more intimately with the mood of the moment, and he played his melody over and over again, every now and then stopping to write. Her step was so light, and he was so deep to his music, that he did not hear it.... She had been listening doubtless for some time before he had seen her. He spoke very little French, and she very little English, but he easily understood that she wished him to go on playing. A little later her father and mother had come through the trees; she had held up her hand, bidding them be silent. Ulick could see by the way they listened that they were musicians. So he was invited to the villa which stood in the centre of the park, and till the end of his holiday he went there every day. The girl—Eliane was her beautiful name—was an exquisite musician. They had played Mozart in the room hung with faded tapestries, or, beguiled by the sunshine, they had walked in the park. When Evelyn asked him what they said, he answered simply, "We said that we loved each other." But when he returned to Dieppe three months later, all was changed. When he spoke of their marriage she laughed the question away, and he perceived that his visits were not desired; on returning to England, all his letters were returned to him.... Soon after she married a Protestant clergyman, and last year she had had a baby.

He sat absorbed in the memory of this passion, and Evelyn and the garden were perceived in glimpses between scenes of youthful exaltations and romantic indiscretions. He remembered how he had threatened to throw himself from her window for no other reason except the desire of romantic action; and while he sat absorbed in the past, Evelyn watched him, nervous and irritated, striving to read in his face how much of the burden had fallen from him, and how free his heart might be to accept another love story.

As he sat in the garden under the calm cedar tree he dreamed of a reconciliation with Eliane. He even speculated on the effect that the score of his opera would have upon her if he were to send it—all that music composed in her honour. But which opera? Not "Connla and the Fairy Maiden," for a great deal of it was crude, thin, absurd. No; he could not send it. But he might send "Grania." Yes, he would send "Grania" when he had finished it. To arrive suddenly from England, to cast himself at her feet—that might move her. Then, with a sigh, "These are things we dream of," he thought, "but never do. Only in dreams do men set forth in quest of the ideal."

He looked up, Evelyn's eyes were fixed on him, and he felt like Bran returning home after his voyage to the wondrous isles.

They saw the footman coming across the green sward. He had come to tell her that Mr. Innes was waiting for her. She was taking him to St. Joseph's. But there was not room in the victoria for three, and Ulick would have to go back to London by train.

"But you will come and see me soon? You promised to go through the 'Isolde' music with me. Will you come to-morrow?"

Her clear, delightful eyes were fixed upon him; he felt for the first time the thrill of her personality; their light caused him to hesitate, and then to accept her invitation eagerly. He heard her remind her father that he had promised to come to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth. He would be there too. He would see her to-night as well, and he stood watching the beautiful horses bearing father and daughter swiftly away. The shady Dulwich street dozed under a bright sky, and the bloom of the flowering trees was shedding its fine dust. He thought of Palestrina and Wagner, and a delicious little breeze sent a shower of bloom about his feet, as if to remind him of the pathos of the passing illusion of which we are a part. He stood watching the carriage, and the happiness and the sorrow of things choked him when he turned away.