Death of a Hero (11 page)

But she didn't let herself or George Augustus down to the Hartly family. She reckoned – and reckoned rightly – that George Augustus would follow her up pretty smartly, for fear of “what people would say”. So she sent a telegram to Pa and Ma to say she was coming to see them for a few days – they were pretty well accustomed to Isabel's impulsive moves by this time – and she left a note, a dramatic and naturally (not artistically) tear-stained note for George Augustus on the bedroom dressing-table. She took a few inexpensive presents home, and played her part so well that at first even Ma Hartly only vaguely suspected that something was wrong.

The loving and united home at Sheffield was in some consternation when Isabel did not return for lunch; and the consternation almost became panic – it certainly became rage in dear Mamma – when George Augustus found and communicated Isabel's letter.

“She must be found and brought back here at once,” said dear Mamma decisively, already scenting carnage from afar; “she has disgraced herself, disgraced her husband, and disgraced the family. I have long noticed that she is inattentive at family prayers. She must be given a good lesson. It was an ill day for us all when Augustus married so far beneath him. He must go and fetch her back from her low, vulgar family – to think of our dear little George being in such
immoral
surroundings!”

“Suppose she won't come?” said dear Papa, who had suffered so many years from dear Mamma that he had a fellow-feeling for Isabel.

“She must be
made
to come,” said dear Mamma. “Augustus! You must do your duty and assert your authority as a
Husband.
You must leave to-night.”

“But what will people
say?”
murmured George Augustus dejectedly.

At those fatal words even dear Mamma flushed beneath the pallor of fifty years' bad temper and cloistered malevolence. What would people say? What would people say! What indeed! What would the Minister say? What would Mrs. Standish say? And Mrs. Gregory? And Miss Stint, who was another Minister's niece? And Cousin Joan, who had an eye like a brace of buzzards, and a nose for scandal and other carrion which would have been surprising in a starving condor of the Andes? What would they say? Why, they would say that young Mrs W.interbourne had run away with a ticket-collector on the G.W.R. They would say young George had turned out to have a touch of the tar-brush owing to the prolonged residence of Captain and Mrs. Hartly in the West Indies; and that, consequently, Mrs. Winterbourne and the infant had been spirited away “to a home”. They would say that there was a “dreadful disease” in the Winterbourne family, and that Isabel had run away with an infected baby. They would also say things which, being nearer the truth, would be even more painful. They would say that dear Mamma had plagued Isabel beyond the verge of endurance – and so she had run away, with or without an accomplice. They would say that George Augustus was unable to support his family, and that Isabel had grown tired of thumb-twiddling and “all this nonsense about books.” They would say – what would they not say? And the Winterbournes, unique in this among human beings, were sensitive to “what people said”.

So when George Augustus said dejectedly, “What will people
say
?” even the ranks of Tuscany – viz, dear Mamma – were for a moment dismayed. But that undaunted spirit (which had made the Empire famous) soon rallied, and dear Mamma evolved a plan, and issued orders with a precision and clarity which may be recommended to all Brigadiers, Battalion, Company, and Platoon commanders. The maids must be told at once that Mrs. Winterbourne had been unexpectedly called home by the illness of her father – which was immediately done; but as the maids had been listening with delighted eagerness to the conference in the parlour, that bit of camouflage was not very effective. Then dear Mamma would pay a round of visits that afternoon, and casually let drop that “dear Isabel” had been unexpectedly etcetera; to which she would add negligently that an “important conveyance” had detained her son in Sheffield until the next morning, when he would follow his wife – “such a devoted couple, and only my daughter-in-law's earnest entreaties could prevail upon my dear son
not to neglect this important business to act as her cavalier.” Then George Augustus would leave next morning for rural Kent, and would hale Isabel home like the husband of patient Grissel, or some other hero of romance.

All of which was carried out according to schedule, with one important exception. When George Augustus unexpectedly walked into the multitudinous and tumultuous Saturday dinner of the Hardy family – loin of fresh pork, greens, potatoes, apple sauce, fruit-suet pudding, but no beer this time – he found no patient Grissel awaiting him. And his very impatient and aggrieved Grissel was backed up by an equally aggrieved family, who by now had wormed out of her by no means reticent mind something of the truth. The Hartlys were simply furious with George Augustus for not being “rich”. The way he had come it over them! The way he had mashed Isabel with his ls. 6d. a pound chocolates! The way dear Mamma had put on her airs of righteous disapproval at Captain Hartly's little jokes about a fellah in India (Ha! ha!) and a couple of native women (He! he!)! The intolerable way in which dear Papa had come it about '64 port and Paris and the Plains of Waterloo! And after the Hartlys had endured all those humiliations, to find that George Augustus was not “rich” after all! O, horrible, most horrible!

So when George Augustus, still half-armed with the bolts of thunder-compelling dear Mamma, walked in dramatically to that agape of roast pig, he found he had a tougher job to deal with than he had imagined.

He was greeted with very constrained and not very polite reticence by the elder Hartlys, and gazed at by such an inordinate number of round-O-eyed youthful Hartlys that he felt all the reproachful juvenile eyes in the world must be directed upon him, as he struggled with an (intentionally) tough and disagreeable portion of the meal.

Need it be said? George Augustus was defeated by Isabel and the Hartlys, as he would have been defeated by any one with half an ounce of spunk and half a dram of real character.

He capitulated.

Without the honours of war.

He apologized to Isabel.

And to Ma Hartly.

And to “the Captain”.

An Armistice was arranged, the terms of which were:

George Augustus surrendered unconditionally, and all the honours of war went to Isabel.

Isabel was not to return to dear Mamma or to Sheffield, not ever again.

They were to take a cottage in rural Kent, not far from the Hartlys.

George Augustus was to return to Sheffield and bring to rural Kent his precious aesthetes and as much furniture as he could cadge.

He was to sell his “practice” in Sheffield, and to start to “practise” in rural Kent.

As a concession to George Augustus, he was to be allowed to WRITE – for a time. But if the Writing proved unremunerative within a reasonable period – such period to be determined by Isabel and the Other High Contracting Powers – he was to “practise” with more assiduity – and profit.

Failing which, George Augustus would hear about it, and Isabel would apply for a maintenance order for herself and child.

Signed, sealed, and delivered over a quart bottle of East Kent Pale Ale.

Poor old George Augustus! the shadows of the prison were rapidly-closing round
him
, though he didn't know it. He had a hell of a time with dear Mamma when he went home with his tail between his legs and without Isabel, and announced that they had determined to take a cottage in rural Kent and – WRITE. At the word “write”, dear Mamma sniffed:

“And who, pray, will pay your washing-bills?”

In a spirit of loving kindness and forbearance, George Augustus ignored this taunt, which was just as well, since he could think of nothing to say in reply.

Well, dear Papa came to the rescue again. He gave George Augustus as much of the furniture as he dared, and another gift of £50 he hadn't got. And Bulburry got George Augustus orders for an article on The Friends of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and another article on My Wanderings in Florence. Bulburry also advised George Augustus to write a book, either a history of The Decline and Fall of the Florentine Republic, or a novel on the unhackneyed topic of Savonarola. In addition, Bulburry gave him an introduction to one of those enterprising young publishers who are always arising in London to witch the world
with noble publishing, and then, after two or three years, always disappear in the bankruptcy court, leaving behind a sad trail of unpaid bills and disappointed authors and wrecked reputations.

So George Augustus set up in rural Kent as a WRITER, in a pleasant little cottage which Isabel had found for them.

(I do wish you could have seen the “artistic” ties George Augustus wore when he was a WRITER; they would have given you that big feeling.)

But – let us be just – George Augustus really worked – three hours a day, like all the great authors – at writing. He produced articles and he produced stories and he began the Decline and Fall of the Florentine Republic and the most blood-curdling novel about Savonarola, beginning: “One stormy night in December 14 –, two black-cloaked figures might have been observed traversing the Piazza della Signoria in Florence on their way from Or San Michele to the private residence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, now know as the Palazzo Strozzi.”

Poor George Augustus! Take it for all in all, we shall look upon many like him again. He had a lot to learn. He had to learn that the only books which have the least importance are those which are made from direct contact with life, which are built out of a man's guts. He had to learn that every age pullulates with imitators of the authors who have done this, and created a fashion – which in time and for a time kills them and their influence.

But still, for a year or so he had his cottage in rural Kent and was a Writer. He dreamed his dream, though it was a pretty silly and castrated dream. If he hadn't married Isabel and gotten her with child, he might have made quite a reasonably good literary hack. But, oh! those hostages given to Fortune! Look after your cock, and your life will look after itself.

As for Isabel, she was happy for the first, and perhaps the last, time in her life. She adored her cottage in rural Kent. What did it matter that George Augustus wasted his time Writing? He still had about £170 and earned a few guineas a month by articles and stories. But for her the thrill was having a real home of her own. She furnished the cottage herself, partly with the heavy mahogany 1850 stuff George Augustus had brought from Sheffield, partly with her own atrocious taste and bamboo. George urged her to furnish “artistically”, and the resultant chaos of huge, solid, stodgy, curly mahogany and flimsy bamboo, palms,
cauliflower chintzes, and framed photographs would have rendered the late Mr. Oscar Wilde plaintive in less than fifty seconds. Never mind; Isabel was happy. She had her home and she had George Augustus under her eye and thumb, and she had her baby – whom she adored with all the selfishness of a pure woman – and, best of all, she did NOT have dear Mamma pestering and sneering and praying at her through every hour of the day and at every turn. Dear Isabel, how happy she was in her hum-ble little ho-o-ome! Put it to yourself, now. Suppose you had been one of an innumerable family, enduring all the abominable discomforts and lack of privacy in that elementary Soviet System. And suppose you had then been uncomfortably impregnated and most painfully delivered, and then bullied and pried into and domineered over and tortured by dear Mamma: wouldn't you be glad to have a home of your own, however humble, and however flimsily based on sandy foundations of WRITING and arty ties? Of course you would. So Isabel looked after the baby,
tant bien que mal
, and cooked abominable meals, and was swindled by the tradesmen, and ran up bills which frightened her, and let young George catch croup and nearly die, and didn't interrupt George Augustus's wooing of the Muse more than half a dozen times a morning and – was happy.

But in all our little arrangements on this satellite of the Sun, we are apt to forget – among a multitude of other things – two important facts. We are the inhabitants of a planet who keep alive only by a daily consumption of the material products of that planet; we are members of a crude collective organization which distributes these essential products in accordance with certain bizarre rules painfully evolved from chaos by primitive brains. George Augustus certainly forgot these two facts – if he had ever recognized them. A man, a woman, and a brat cannot live for ever on £170 and a few odd guineas a month. They couldn't do it even in the eighteen-nineties, even with extraordinary economy. And Isabel was not economical. Neither, for that matter, was George Augustus. He was mean, but he liked to be pretty comfortable, and his notions of the pretty comfortable were a bit extravagant. Torn between his respect for the Right Hnble. the Lord Tennyson's well-known predilection for port and Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne's less notorious but undisguised preference for brandy neat, George Augustus finally became original, and fell back on his favourite claret. But, even in the ‘nineties, claret was not cheap; and three dozen a month rather eat into an income of four to six
guineas. And then Isabel was inexperienced. In housekeeping inexperience costs money! So a time arrived when the £170 was nearly at zero, and the few guineas a month became ‘fewer instead of more numerous. Then George, young George, developed some infant malady; Isabel lost her head, and insisted on a doctor; the doctor, like all the English middle classes, thought a Writer was a harmless fool with money, to be bled ruthlessly, called far more often than was necessary, and sent in a much bigger bill than he would have dared send a stockbroker or a millionaire. Then George Augustus had the influenza and thought he was going to die. And after that Isabel was stricken with haemorrhoids in her secret parts, and had to be treated. Consequently, the bank balance of a few guineas was turned into a deficit of a good many pounds; and the affable Bank Manager rapidly became strangely unaffable when his polite references to the overdraft remained unsatisfied with the manna of a few cheques.