Walter Besant
The Revolt of Man
‘I will certainly say so, if you wish,’ replied Lady Despard. ‘I think, however, that you ought to know, Duchess, something of what people say – no, not common people, but people whose opinions even you are bound to consider.’
‘Go on,’ said the Duchess frowning.
‘They say that Lord Chester is so proud of his hereditary title and his rank that he would be broken-hearted to see it merged in any higher title; that he is too rich and too highly placed to be tempted by any of the ordinary baits by which men are caught; that you can give him nothing which he cannot buy for himself; and, lastly, that he is already in love, – even that words of affection have been passed between him and the Countess of Carlyon.’
Here the Duchess interrupted, vehemently banging the floor with the crutch which stood at her right hand.
‘Lord Chester in love? What nonsense is this, Julia? A young nobleman of his rank – almost my rank – in love! Are you mad, Julia? Are you softening in the brain? Are you aware that the boy has been properly brought up? Will you be good enough to remember that Lady Boltons is beyond all suspicion, and that he could never have seen Lady Carlyon alone since he was a boy?’
‘I answer your questions by one or two others,’ replied her friend calmly. ‘Are you, Duchess, aware that these two young people have had constant opportunities of being alone everywhere – coming from church, going to church, in conservatories, at morning parties, at dances, in gardens? Lady Boltons is all discretion; but still – but still – girls will be girls – boys love to flirt. My dear Duchess, we are still young enough to remember – ’
The Duchess smiled: the Duchess laughed. Good humour returned.
‘What else, Julia? You are a retailer of horrid gossip.’
‘This besides. On the very morning when he waited on the Chancellor, he rode to Lady Carlyon’s – ’
‘I know the exact particulars,’ said the Duchess. ‘Lady Boltons wrote to me on the subject to prevent misunderstanding. Professor Ingleby, his old tutor, was there. He rode there alone because his guardian could not go with him. Of course he was properly attended. Lady Carlyon is his second cousin. Properly speaking, perhaps he should have remained at home until the Professor came to him. But a man of Lord Chester’s rank may do things which smaller men cannot. And, besides, this impulsiveness – this apparent impatience of conventional restraint – seems to me only to prove the pride and dignity of his character. Is that all, Julia? Have you any more hearsays?’
They were brave words; but the Duchess felt uneasy.
‘I have; there is more behind, and worse. Still, in your present mood, I do not know that I ought to say what I should wish to say.’
‘Say on, Julia. You know that I wish to hear all. Perhaps there may be something after all. Hide nothing from me.’
‘Very good. They say that Lord Chester is, of all men, the least submissive, the least docile, the least manly – in the highest sense of the word. He habitually assumes authority which belongs to Us; he flies into violent rages; he horsewhips stable-boys; he presumptuously defies orders; he almost openly derides the laws which regulate man’s obedience. He questions – he actually questions – the fundamental principles on which society and government are based.’
‘Quite as it should be,’ said the Duchess, folding her hands. ‘I want my husband to obey no one in the world – except myself: he shall accept no teaching, except mine; no doctrine shall be sacred in his eyes – until it has received my authority.’
‘Would you like the Duke of Dunstanburgh to horsewhip stable-boys?’
The Duchess shrugged her shoulders.
‘Why not? No doubt the stable-boys deserve it. We cannot, of course, allow common men to use their strength in this way. But, my dear, in men of very high rank we should encourage – within proper limits – a masterfulness which is, after all, nothing but the legitimate expression of legitimate pride. What is crime in a clown or an artisan, is a virtue in Lord Chester; and, believe me, Julia, for my own part, I know how to tame the most obstinate of men.’
She folded her hands and set her teeth together. Julia thought of the late three dukes, and trembled.
‘No one should know better, dear Duchess. There remains one thing only. You tell me that the proposed match is to be one of pure affection – on both sides. I am truly rejoiced to hear it. Nothing is better calculated to allay these silly reports about Lady Carlyon and the Earl. Still you should know that outside people say that, should the Appeal go in your favour – ’
‘ “Should!” Julia, do not be absurd. It must go in my favour. “Should!” ’
‘In that case the Earl has declared before witnesses that he will absolutely refuse, whatever the penalty, to accept your hand. How am I to meet such stories as this? By your authorised statement of mutual affection?’
‘Idle gossip, Julia, may be left to itself. The Earl is only anxious to have the matter settled as soon as possible. Besides, is it in reason that he should have made such a declaration? Why, he knows – every man knows – that such a refusal would be nothing short of contempt – contempt of the Sovereign Majesty of the Realm. It is punishable – ay, and it shall be punished – that is, it should be punished’ – the face of the Duchess darkened – ‘by imprisonment with hard labour for life – Earl or no Earl.’
‘Then, Duchess,’ said Lady Despard, with a smile, ‘I say no more. Of course, a marriage of affection should be encouraged; and we women are all match-makers. You will have the best wishes of all as soon as things are properly understood.’
‘Julia,’ the Duchess laid her hand upon her friend’s arm, ‘I am unfeignedly glad that you have told me all this. We have had an explanation which has cleared the air. I refuse to believe that my future husband has so lost all manly feeling as to fall in love. Imagine an Earl of Chester falling in love like a sentimental rustic! Your canards about private interviews trouble me not; I am well assured that so well-bred a man will obey the will of the House without a murmur – nay, joyfully, even without consideration of his own inclinations, which, as I have told you, are already decided. And, upon my honour as a peeress, Julia, I am certain that when you come to my autumn party at Dunstanburgh in November next, you will acknowledge that the new Duke is the handsomest bridegroom in the world, that I am the most indulgent wife, and that there is not a happier couple in all England.’
Nothing could be more gracious than the smile of the Duchess when she chose to smile. Lady Despard, although she knew by this time what the smile was worth, was nevertheless always carried away by it. For the moment she believed what her friend wished her to believe.
‘My dear Duchess,’ she cried with effusion, ‘you deserve happiness for your part; and, upon my word, I think that the boy will get it, whether he deserves it or not.’
The smile died out from the Duchess’s face when she was left alone. A hard, stern look took its place. She took up a hand-glass, and intently examined her own face.
‘He is in love with the girl, is he?’ she murmured; ‘and she with him. Why, I saw it in their guilty stolen looks; her accents betrayed her when she spoke. It is not enough that she must cross me in the House, but she would rob me of a husband. Not yet, Lady Carlyon – not yet.’ … She looked at herself again. ‘Oh, that I could be again what I was at one-and-twenty! It is true, as Julia said, that I have nothing to give the boy in return for what I ask of him – his affection. I am an old woman – sixty-five years of age. I suppose I have had my share of love. Harry loved me when I was young, because I was young. Poor Harry! I did not then know how much he loved me, nor the value of a man’s heart. Well … as for the other two, they loved me after their fashion – but it was not like Harry’s love; they said they loved me, and in return I gave them all they wanted. They were happy, and I had to be contented.’ She mused in silence for a time; then she roused herself with an effort. ‘What then? Let them talk. I am the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. She shall have her whim; she shall have her darling, and if he chooses to sulk, she will punish him until he smiles again. Wait, my lord, only wait till you are safe on the Northumberland coast, and in my castle of Dunstanburgh.’
CHAPTER V
IN THE SEASON
WOMEN, especially politicians, are (or rather were, until the Revolt) accustomed to the publicity of photographs, illustrated papers, paragraphs in society papers, and to the curiosity with which people stare after them wherever they show themselves. They used to like it. Men, who were, on the other hand, taught to respect modest retirement and that graceful obscurity becoming to the masculine hand which carries out the orders of the female brain, shrank from such notoriety. It was a curious sensation for young Lord Chester to feel, rather than to see and to hear, the people pointing him out, and talking about him.
‘Courage!’ whispered the Professor. ‘You will have to encounter a great deal more curiosity than this before long. Above all, do not show by any sign or change of expression that you are conscious of their staring.’
This was at the Royal Academy. The rooms were crowded with the usual mob, for it was early in June. There were the country ladies – rosy, fat, and jolly – catalogue and pencil in hand, dragging after them husbands, brothers, sons – ruddy, stalwart fellows – who wearily followed from room to room, – ignorant of art, and yet unwilling to be thought ignorant, – flocking to any picture which seemed to contain a story or a subject likely to interest them, such as a horse, or a race, or a match of some kind, and turning away with a half-conscious feeling that they ought to rejoice in not liking the much-praised picture, instead of being ashamed of it, so unlike a horse did they find it, so unfaithful a representation of figure or of action. There were artistic ladies with their new fashion of dress and pale languid airs, listlessly exchanging the commonplace of the fashionable school; there were professional ladies, lawyers, and doctors, ‘doing’ all the rooms between two consultations in an hour; there were schoolgirls from Harrow, yawning over the Exhibition, which it was a duty they owed to themselves to see early in the season, unless they could get tickets, which they all ardently desired, for the fortnight’s private view; there were shoals of men in little parties of two and four, escorted by some good-natured uncle or elderly cousin. The crowd squeezed round the fashionable pictures; they passed heedlessly before pictures of which nobody talked; they all tried to look critical; those who pretended to culture searched after strange adjectives; those who did not, said everything was pretty, and yawned furtively; the ladies whispered remarks to each other, with a quick nod of intelligence; and they received the feeble criticism of the men with the deferent smile due to politeness, or a half-concealed contempt.
This year there were more than the usual number of pictures – in fact, the whole of the five-and-twenty rooms were crowded. Fortunately, they were mostly small rooms, and it was remarkable that the same subjects occurred over and over again. ‘The same story,’ said the Professor, ‘every year. No invention; we follow like sheep. Here is Judith slaying Holofernes’ – they were then in the Ancient History Department – ‘here is Jael slaying Sisera; here are Miriam and Deborah singing their songs of triumph; here is Joan of Arc raising the siege of Orleans, – all exactly the same as when I was a girl forty years ago and more. Ancient History, indeed! What do they know about Ancient History?’
‘Why do you not teach them, then, Professor?’ asked Lord Chester.
‘I will tell you why, my lord, in a few weeks, – perhaps.’
There were a great many altar-pieces in the Sacred Department. In these the Perfect Woman was depicted in every attitude and occupation by which perfection may best be represented. It might have been objected, had any one so far ventured outside the beaten path of criticism, that the Perfect Woman’s dress, her mode of dressing her hair, and her ornaments were all of the present year’s fashion. ‘As if,’ said the Professor, the only one who did venture, ‘as if no one had any conception of beauty and grace except what fashion orders. Sheep! sheep! we follow like a flock.’
The pictures were mostly allegorical: the Perfect Woman directed Labour – represented by twenty or thirty burly young men with implements of various kinds; this was a very favourite subject. Or she led Man upwards. This was a series of pictures: in the first, Man was a rough rude creature, carrying a club with which he banged something – presumably Brother Man; he gradually improved, until at the end he was depicted as laying at the altar of womanhood flowers, fruit, and wine, from his own husbandry. By this time he had got his beard cut off, and was smooth shaven, save for a pair of curly moustaches; his dress was in the fashion of the day; his eyes were down-dropped in reverential awe; and his expression was delightfully submissive, pious, and béate. ‘Is it,’ asked Lord Chester, ‘impossible to be religious without becoming such a creature as that?’
Again, the Perfect Woman sat alone, thinking for the good of the world. She had a star above her head; she tried, in the picture, not to look as if she were proud of that star. Or the Perfect Woman sat watching, in the dead of night, in the moonlight, for the good of the world; or the Perfect Woman was revealed to enraptured man rising from the waves, not at all wet, and clothed in the most beautifully-fashioned and most expensive modern garments. These two rooms, the Sacred and the Ancient History Departments, were mostly deserted. The principal interest of the Exhibition was in the remaining three-and-twenty, which were devoted to general subjects. Here were sweetnesses of flower and fruit, here were lovely creamy faces of male youth, here were full length figures of athletes, runners, wrestlers, jumpers, rowers, cricket-players, and others, treated with delicate conventionality, so that the most successful pictures represented man with no more expression in his face than a barber’s block, and the strongest young Hercules was figured with tiny hands or fingers like a girl’s for slimness, for transparency, and for whiteness, and beautifully small feet; on the other hand, his calves were prodigious. In fact, as was always maintained at the Academy dinner, the Exhibition was the great educator of the people in the sense of beauty. To know the beautiful, to recognise what should be delightful, and then take joy in it, was given, it was said, only to those women of culture who had been trained by a course of Academy exhibitions. Here men, for their part, who would never otherwise rise beyond the phenomenal to the ideal, learned what was the Perfect Man – the Man of woman’s imagination. Having learned, he might go away and try to resemble him. Women who could not feel, unhappily, the full sense of the beautiful, might learn from these models into what kind of man they should shape their husbands.
‘The drawing of this picture,’ said the Professor aloud, before a picture round which were gathered a throng of worshippers – for it was painted by a Royal Academician of great repute – ‘is inaccurate. Did one ever see a man with such shoulders, and yet with such a waist and such a hand? As for the colouring, it is as false as it is conventional; and look at the peach-like cheek and the feeble chin! It is the flesh of a weakly baby, not of a grown man and an athlete.’
There were murmurs of dissent, but no one ventured to dispute the Professor’s opinion; and indeed most of the bystanders had already recognised Lord Chester, and were staring at the hero of so much talk.
‘He is better-looking,’ he overheard one schoolgirl whispering to another, ‘than the fellow on the canvas, isn’t he?’
The ‘fellow on the canvas’ was, in fact, the Ideal Man. He was meant by the artist to represent the noblest, tallest, strongest, straightest, and most dexterous of men. He carried a cricket-bat. It would have been foolish to figure him with book, pencil, or paper. Art, literature, science, politics, all belonged to the other sex. Only his strength was left to man, and that was to be expended by the orders of the superior sex, who were quite competent to exercise the functions for which they were born – namely, to think for the world.
Of course, all the artists were women. Once there was a man who, assuming a female name, actually got a picture exhibited in the Academy. He was a self-taught man it was afterwards discovered; he had never been in a studio; he had never seen a Royal Academy. He painted an Old Man from nature. There was a faithful ruggedness about his work which made artists scoff, and yet brought tears to the eyes of country girls who knew no better. When the trick was discovered, the picture was taken down and burnt, and the wretched man – who was discovered in a little country cottage, painting two or three more in the same style – went mad, and was locked up for the rest of his days. Presently Lord Chester grew tired of the pictures and of the staring crowd. ‘I have seen enough, Professor, if you have. They are all exactly like those of last year – the gladiators, and the runners, and all. Are we always to go on producing the same pictures?’
‘I suppose so,’ she replied. ‘They say that the highest point of art has been reached. It would be a change if we were only to deteriorate for a few years. Meanwhile, one is reminded of the mole, who was asked why he did not invent another form of architecture.’
‘What did she reply?’
‘He, not she, my lord, replied that science could go no further; and so he goes on building the same shaped hill.’
The crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs of the Academy and made a lane for Lord Chester quite to his carriage. It was a crowd of the best people in England, composed of ladies and gentlemen. Yet was it no insignificant sign of the times that many a handkerchief was waved to him, that all hats were lifted, and that one girl’s voice was heard crying, ‘Young men for young wives!’ at which there was a general murmur of assent.
In the evening there were the usual engagements of the season, beginning with a lecture on the Arrival at the Highest Level. The lecturer – a young Oxford woman – was learned and eloquent, though the subject was, so to speak, wellnigh threadbare. Yet the discontent of the nation was so great, that it was necessary continually to raise the courage of the people by showing that if the Ministries failed, it was only because the right Cabinet had not yet been found. On this night, however, no one listened. All eyes were turned to the young lord, who, it was everywhere stated, had announced his rebellious intention not to obey the law if Lady Carlyon’s appeal went against her. The men whispered; the elderly ladies assumed airs of virtuous indignation; the younger ones looked at each other and laughed.
Then there was a dance, at which Lord Chester was seen, but only for a quarter of an hour, because the rush made by all the girls who could get an introduction for his name on their cards was almost unseemly. The Professor therefore took him home.
In the Park the next afternoon, at the theatre in the evening, the same curiosity of the multitude. Indeed the play, as happened very often in those days, was entirely neglected. Glasses were levelled at Lord Chester’s box; the whole audience with one consent fell to talking among themselves; the actors went on with the piece unregarded, and the curtain fell unnoticed.
Perhaps the perfection of the drama was the thing on which the new civilisation chiefly prided itself, unless, indeed, it was the perfection of painting and sculpture already described. The old tragedies, in which women played the secondary part, were long since consigned to oblivion. The old style of farce, which was simply brutal, raising laughter by the representation of situations in which one or more persons are made ridiculous, was absolutely prohibited; the once favourite ballet was suppressed, because it was below the dignity of woman to dance for the amusement of the people, and because neither men nor women wished to see men dancing; the comic man naturally disappeared with the farce, because no one ever wrote anything for him. It was resolved, after a series of letters and discussion in the Academy, the only literary paper left – it owed its continued existence to the honourable associations of its early years – that laughter was for the most part vulgar; that it always rudely disturbed the facial lines; that to make merriment for others was quite beneath the notice of an educated woman; and that the drama must be severe, and even austere – a school for women and for men. Such it was sought to make it, with as yet unsatisfactory results, because the common people, finding nothing to laugh at, came no more to the theatre; and even the better class, who wanted to be amused, and were only instructed, ceased to attend.
When, therefore, the curtain fell, the scanty audience rushed to the doors of the house, and there was something very much like a demonstration, a report of which, the Professor felt with pleasurable emotion, could not fail to be carried to the Duchess.
The next day there came a letter to Lady Boltons – who was still confined to her room with gout – from no less a person than the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, suggesting that the publicity thrust upon Lord Chester through the unconstitutional action of his cousin might produce an injurious effect upon a mind so young. In other words, her Grace was already sensible of the sympathy which was growing up for what was believed to be a love affair, cruelly blighted by herself. If Lord Chester was kept in retirement until the case was decided, he would, perhaps be forgotten. As for Lady Carlyon, the Duchess rightly judged that the sympathy which one woman gets from another in such cases is generally scant.
No doubt she was right, but unfortunately she was too late. The young Earl had been seen everywhere; his story, much altered and improved, was in everybody’s mouth; his likeness was in all the shop windows, side by side with that of Lady Carlyon, or, as if to give emphasis to the difference between the two suitors, he was placed with the Duchess on his left and Lady Carlyon on his right. The young men envied him because he was so rich, so handsome, and so gallant; the young ladies looked and sighed. He was nearer the Ideal Man than any they had ever seen; his bold and daring eyes struck them with a kind of awe, which they thought was due to his rank, ignorant of the manhood in those eyes, which attracted and yet daunted them. They bought his photograph by thousands, and spent their leisure hours, or even the hours of study, when they ought to have been ‘mugging bones,’ or drawing contracts, or reading theology, in gazing upon that remarkable presence. Older ladies – those who had established positions and could think of marriage – wished that such young men were within their reach; and very old ladies, looking at the photograph with admiring eyes, would wag their heads, and tell their grandsons how their grandfather, dead and gone, had been just such another as Lord Chester – so handsome, so strong, so brave, and yet withal the most dutiful and obedient of husbands. They did not explain how the virtue of submission was compatible with such frank and fearless eyes.
The mischief, therefore, was done. So far as the sympathies of the people were concerned, Constance could rest content. There remained, however, the House.
Lord Chester appeared no more in public. He went to none of the cricket-matches and athletics which made the season so lively; nor was he seen at any balls or dinners; nor did he ride in the Row. He was kept in almost monastic seclusion, a few companions only being invited to play tennis on his own lawns. But the Professor was with him constantly – Lady Boltons continuing to be laid up with her gout – and they had long talks in the gardens, sitting beneath the shade of the trees, or walking on the lawns. During these conversations the young man would clench his fist and stamp his foot with rage; or his eyes would kindle, and he would stretch out his right hand as if moved beyond control. And he became daily more masterful, insomuch that the women were afraid of him, and the men-servants – whom he had cuffed until they respected him – laughed, seeing the dismay of the women. Never any man like him! ‘Why,’ said the butler, a most respectable old lady, ‘if he goes on like this, he’ll be like the Duchess of Dunstanburgh herself. She’ll have a handful, whichever o’ their ladyships gets him. Beer, my lord? At twelve o’clock in the morning! It isn’t good for your lordship. Better wait – oh dear, dear! Yes, my lord, in one minute.’
One afternoon, towards the end of June, a little party had been made up for his amusement. It consisted of half a dozen young men of his own age, and a few ladies whose age more nearly approached that of the Professor. The young men played one or two matches of tennis, changed their flannels for morning dress, and joined the ladies at afternoon tea. The one topic of conversation possible at the moment was forbidden in that house: it was, of course, that of the great Appeal, and how some said that the Countess wanted it pushed on, so as to take advantage of the public sympathy, and the Duchess wanted it delayed, so as to give this feeling time to cool down; but the Duchess had sworn by everything dear to her that she would marry the young lord whether the House gave a decision in her favour or not; how Lady Carlyon declared that she would carry him off under the very nose of the Duchess; with a thousand other canards, rumours, little secrets, whispers on the best authority, and so forth. As, of course, that could not be entered upon in Lord Chester’s own house, the afternoon was dull to the ladies. They pumped the Professor artfully, but learned nothing. She was enthusiastic in her praises of her pupil, but was reticent about his previous relations, if any, with either of his suitors; nor would she reveal anything, if she knew anything, about his inclinations – if he had any preference. As for his character, she spoke openly; he was certainly, – well, say masterful – that could not be denied – in a way which would be unbecoming in a man below his rank; as for his religion, no one could more truly love and revere the Perfect Woman than did Lord Chester; as for his abilities, they were far beyond the common: and for his reading, ‘I have always considered,’ said the Professor, ‘his rank as of more importance than his sex; and though I have, perhaps, given him a wider and deeper education than is generally considered prudent for the masculine brain, I believe it will be found, in the long-run, a course productive of great good. In fact,’ she whispered, ‘I believe that Lord Chester is a man likely to be the father of daughters, illustrious not only by their birth, but also by their strength of intellect and force of character.’
‘No man,’ said one of the guests – one of those persons who always know how to find the right commonplace at the right time, – ‘no man can have a more worthy object of ambition. To sink himself in the family, to work for them, to reproduce his own virtues in their higher feminine form in his own daughters, – I hope his lordship will obtain this happiness.’
‘But he can’t,’ cried another – one of those persons who always say the wrong things, – ‘he can’t if he marries the Duc – ’
‘Hush!’ said the Professor. ‘My dear madam, we were talking, I think, about Lord Chester’s character. Yes, he is in many respects a most remarkable young man.’
‘But is he,’ asked another lady, ‘is he quite – are you sure of what you say, Professor, about his orthodoxy?’
Professor Ingleby smiled. All smiled, indeed, because her own faith had been greatly suspected, as everybody knew.
‘As sure,’ she said, ‘as I am of my own. Oh! I know what wicked people have hinted at Cambridge. But wait; have patience; I will before long prove my religious convictions, and satisfy the world once for all, in a way that will perhaps astonish, but certainly convince everybody, what my faith really is, and how truly orthodox – and I will answer for my pupil.’
Then the young men appeared, and they began to talk about the games over their tea. Presently they pressed Lord Chester to sing. No one had a better voice, or sang with greater expression. He refused at first, on the ground of being tired of the words of all his songs, but gave way and sang, with a laughing protest at the sentiment of the song and the inanity of the words, the following ballad, just then popular: —
‘Through sweet buttercups, through sweet hay
Rolled in swathes by the southern wind;
Side by side they wended their way;
The sloping sun on their faces lay,
And dragged long shadows behind.
‘Eighteen he, and stalwart to see;
Muscles of steel and a heart of gold.
Cheeks hot-burning, and eyes down-dropped, —
What did he think when she suddenly stopped,
And gave him her hand – to hold?
‘She was but thirty; her lands around
Lay with orchards and cornfields spread;
Meadow and hill with the sunlight crowned,
Wealth and joy without stint or bound,
And all for the lad she would wed!
‘He listened in silence, as young men should,
While she pictured the life to come;
In tangled copse, in the way of the wood,
With new spring flowers and old leaves strewed,
She spoke of a love-lit home.
‘Only a year: and the hay again
Lies in swathes, like the weed on the shore;
Lone he wanders with troubled brain,
Crying, “When will she come again?”
Poor fool; for she comes no more.
Forgotten her troth; and broken her oath;
His love will return no more.
‘The air is not bad,’ said the singer, when he had finished, rising from the piano,’ but the words are ridiculous. As if he were likely to care for a woman eighteen years his senior!’
