The Picture Of Dorian Gray (21 page)

‘Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don’t know what he had made me suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended it, the result was the same.’

‘Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall not inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring in the matter, you are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something stupid. But I will have nothing to do with it.’

‘You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment; listen to me. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don’t affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you help me.’

‘I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me.’

‘Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you came I almost fainted with terror. You may know terror yourself some day. No! don’t think of that. Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. You don’t inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come from. Don’t inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan.’

‘Don’t speak about those days, Dorian: they are dead.’

‘The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away. He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan! Alan! if you don’t come to my assistance I am ruined. Why, they will hang me, Alan! Don’t you understand? They will hang me for what I have done.’

‘There is no good in prolonging this scene. I absolutely refuse to do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me.’

‘You refuse?’

‘Yes.’

‘I entreat you, Alan.’

‘It is useless.’

The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray’s eyes. Then he stretched out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table. Having done this, he got up, and went over to the window.

Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale, and he fell back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.

After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round, and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.

‘I am so sorry for you, Alan,’ he murmured, ‘but you leave me no alternative. I have a letter written already. Here it is. You see the address. If you don’t help me, I must send it. If you don’t help me, I will send it. You know what the result will be. But you are going to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to spare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. You were stern, harsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat me – no living man, at any rate. I bore it all. Now it is for me to dictate terms.’

Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.

‘Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are. The thing is quite simple. Come, don’t work yourself into this fever. The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it.’

A groan broke from Campbell’s lips, and he shivered all over. The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing Time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be borne. He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his forehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already come upon him. The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead. It was intolerable. It seemed to crush him.

‘Come, Alan, you must decide at once.’

‘I cannot do it,’ he said, mechanically, as though words could alter things.

‘You must. You have no choice. Don’t delay.’

He hesitated a moment. ‘Is there a fire in the room upstairs?’

‘Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.’

‘I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.’

‘No, Alan, you must not leave the house. Write out on a sheet of note-paper what you want, and my servant will take a cab and bring the things back to you.’

Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope to his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully. Then he rang the bell, and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as soon as possible, and to bring the things with him.

As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and, having got up from the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a kind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke. A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was like the beat of a hammer.

As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and, looking at Dorian Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him. ‘You are infamous, absolutely infamous!’ he muttered.

‘Hush, Alan: you have saved my life,’ said Dorian.

‘Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In doing what I am going to do, what you force me to do, it is not of your life that I am thinking.’

‘Ah, Alan,’ murmured Dorian, with a sigh, ‘I wish you had a thousandth part of the pity for me that I have for you.’ He turned away as he spoke, and stood looking out at the garden. Campbell made no answer.

After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil of steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously-shaped iron clamps.

‘Shall I leave the things here, sir?’ he asked Campbell.

‘Yes,’ said Dorian. ‘And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another errand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies Selby with orchids?’

‘Harden, sir.’

‘Yes – Harden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden personally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered, and to have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don’t want any white ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty place, otherwise I wouldn’t bother you about it.’

‘No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back?’

Dorian looked at Campbell. ‘How long will your experiment take, Alan?’ he said, in a calm, indifferent voice. The presence of a third person in the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.

Campbell frowned, and bit his lip. ‘It will take about five hours,’ he answered.

‘It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven, Francis. Or stay: just leave my things out for dressing. You can have the evening to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I shall not want you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the man, leaving the room.

‘Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest is! I’ll take it for you. You bring the other things.’ He spoke rapidly, and in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by him. They left the room together.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned it in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his eyes. He shuddered. ‘I don’t think I can go in, Alan,’ he murmured.

‘It is nothing to me. I don’t require you,’ said Campbell, coldly.

Dorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face of his portrait leering in the sunlight. On the floor in front of it the torn curtain was lying. He remembered that the night before he had forgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas, and was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.

What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible it was! – more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.

He heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with half-closed eyes and averted head walked quickly in, determined that he would not look even once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down, and taking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the picture.

There he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other things that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to wonder if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had thought of each other.

‘Leave me now,’ said a stern voice behind him.

He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been thrust back into the chair, and that Campbell was gazing into a glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs he heard the key being turned in the lock.

It was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library. He was pale, but absolutely calm. ‘I have done what you asked me to do,’ he muttered. ‘And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again.’

‘You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that,’ said Dorian, simply.

As soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs. There was a horrible smell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting at the table was gone.

That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed, and wearing a large buttonhole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady Narborough’s drawing-room by bowing servants. His forehead was throbbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his manner as he bent over his hostess’s hand was as easy and graceful as ever. Perhaps one never seems so much at one’s ease as when one has to play a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any tragedy of our age. Those finely-shaped fingers could never have clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God and goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life.

It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who was a very clever woman, with what Lord Henry used to describe as the remains of really remarkable ugliness. She had proved an excellent wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed, and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery, and French
esprit
when she could get it.

Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life. ‘I know, my dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you,’ she used to say, ‘and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake. It is most fortunate that you were not thought of at the time. As it was, our
bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to raise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody. However, that was all Narborough’s fault. he was dreadfully shortsighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who never sees anything.’

Her guests this evening were rather tedious. The fact was, as she explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make matters worse, had actually brought her husband with her. ‘I think it is most unkind of her, my dear,’ she whispered. ‘Of course I go and stay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake them up. You don’t know what an existence they lead down there. It is pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early because they have so little to think about. There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep after dinner. You sha’n’t sit next either of them. You shall sit by me, and amuse me.’

Dorian murmured a graceful compliment, and looked round the room. Yes: it was certainly a tedious party. Two of the people he had never seen before, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies, but are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Roxton, an overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against her; Mrs Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp, and Venetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess’s daughter, a dowdy dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces, that, once seen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked, white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of ideas.

He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the
mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed: ‘How horrid of Henry Wotton to be so late! I sent round to him this morning on chance, and he promised faithfully not to disappoint me.’

It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.

But at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went away untasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called ‘an insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the
menu
specially for you’, and now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence and abstracted manner. From time to time the butler filled his glass with champagne. He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.

‘Dorian,’ said Lord Henry, at last, as the
chaud-jroid
¹
was being handed round, ‘what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of sorts.’

‘I believe he is in love,’ cried Lady Narborough, ‘and that he is afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I certainly should.’

‘Dear Lady Narborough,’ murmured Dorian, smiling, ‘I have not been in love for a whole week – not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town.’

‘How you men can fall in love with that woman!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘I really cannot understand it.’

‘It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, Lady Narborough,’ said Lord Henry. ‘She is the one link between us and your short frocks.’

‘She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how
décolletée
she was then.’

‘She is still
décolletée
,’ he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers; ‘and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an
édition de luxe
of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief’
²

‘How can you, Harry!’ cried Dorian.

‘It is a most romantic explanation,’ laughed the hostess. ‘But her third husband, Lord Henry! You don’t mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?’

‘Certainly, Lady Narborough.’

‘I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘Well, ask Mr Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends.’

‘Is it true, Mr Gray?’

‘She assures me so, Lady Narborough,’ said Dorian. ‘I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn’t, because none of them had had any hearts at all.’

‘Four husbands! Upon my word that is
trop de zéle
.’

‘
Trop d’audace
,
³
I tell her,’ said Dorian.

‘Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don’t know him.’

‘The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,’ said Lord Henry, sipping his wine.

Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. ‘Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.’

‘But what world says that?’ asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. ‘It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.’

‘Everybody I know says you are very wicked,’ cried the old lady, shaking her head.

Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. ‘It is perfectly monstrous,’ he said, at last, ‘the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.’

‘Isn’t he incorrigible?’ cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.

‘I hope so,’ said his hostess, laughing. ‘But really if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion.’

‘You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,’ broke in Lord Henry. ‘You were far too happy. When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.’

‘Narborough wasn’t perfect,’ cried the old lady.

‘If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,’ was the rejoinder. ‘Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again, after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough; but it is quite true.’

‘Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.’

‘
Fin de siécle
,’
⁴
murmured Lord Henry.

‘
Fin du globe
,’ answered his hostess.

‘I wish it were
fin du globe
,’ said Dorian, with a sigh. ‘Life is a great disappointment.’

‘Ah, my dear,’ cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, ‘don’t tell me that you have exhausted Life. When a man says that one knows that Life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good – you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don’t you think that Mr Gray should get married?’

‘I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough,’ said Lord Henry, with a bow.

‘Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go through Debrett
⁵
carefully to-night, and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies.’

‘With their ages, Lady Narborough?’ asked Dorian.

‘Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what
The Morning Post
calls a suitable alliance, and I want you both to be happy.’

‘What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!’ exclaimed Lord Henry. ‘A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.’

‘Ah! what a cynic you are!’ cried the old lady, pushing back her chair, and nodding to Lady Ruxton. ‘You must come and dine with me soon again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better
than what Sir Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like to meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering.’

‘I like men who have a future, and women who have a past,’ he answered. ‘Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?’

‘I fear so,’ she said, laughing, as she stood up. ‘A thousand pardons, my dear Lady Ruxton,’ she added, ‘I didn’t see you hadn’t finished your cigarette.’

‘Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. I am going to limit myself, for the future.’

‘Pray don’t, Lady Ruxton,’ said Lord Henry. ‘Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.’

Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. ‘You must come and explain that to me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory,’ she murmured, as she swept out of the room.

‘Now, mind you don’t stay too long over your politics and scandal,’ cried Lady Narborough from the door. ‘If you do, we are sure to squabble upstairs.’

The men laughed, and Mr Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the table and came up to the top. Dorian Gray changed his seat, and went and sat by Lord Henry. Mr Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. The word
doctrinaire
– word full of terror to the British mind – reappeared from time to time between his explosions. An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. He hoisted the Union Jack on the pinnacles of Thought. The inherited stupidity of the race – sound English common sense he jovially termed it – was shown to be the proper bulwark for Society.

A smiled curved Lord Henry’s lips, and he turned round and looked at Dorian.

‘Are you better, my dear fellow?’ he asked. ‘You seemed rather out of sorts at dinner.’

‘I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all.’

‘You were charming last night. The little Duchess is quite devoted to you. She tells me she is going down to Selby.’

‘She has promised to come on the twentieth.’

‘Is Monmouth to be there too?’

‘Oh, yes, Harry.’

‘He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that makes the gold of the image precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. White porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through the fire, and what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences.’

‘How long has she been married?’ asked Dorian.

‘An eternity, she tells me. I believe, according to the peerage, it is ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity, with time thrown in. Who else is coming?’

‘Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey Clouston, the usual set. I have asked Lord Grotrian.’

‘I like him,’ said Lord Henry. ‘A great many people don’t, but I find him charming. He atones for being occasionally somewhat over-dressed, by being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.’

‘I don’t know if he will be able to come, Harry. He may have to go to Monte Carlo with his father.’

‘Ah! what a nuisance people’s people are! Try and make him come. By the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before eleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you go straight home?’

Dorian glanced at him hurriedly, and frowned. ‘No, Harry,’ he said at last, ‘I did not get home till nearly three.’

‘Did you go to the club?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. Then he bit his lip. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I didn’t go to the club. I walked about. I forget what I did…. How inquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing. I came in at half-past two, if you wish to know the exact time. I had left my latch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in. If you want any corroborative evidence on the subject you can ask him.’