CHAPTER LXXXV
Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion of putting his Experiences into Writing
“Dear Noll,”writes Horace Malahide about this time, “I have a son. He speaks English as yet with a strong foreign accent—but lack of experience may have more than something to do with it. If you come, I’ll let you play with him.
I live in a whirl of tangled emotions in these days.
T’other evening I went home, to my father’s marble halls, to seek the old gentleman on an affair of hot urgency. It was in the long hours. I lost some temper—the butler being a sphinx of ducal know-nothingness—so I rang up the housekeeper. Yes, she knew where a telegram would find Sir Pompey if I would leave it with her.
I!
Leave it!
Gods! said I, am I utterly disinherit?
Forthwith the heir of this branch of the Malahides demanded the address.
It lay at St. John’s Wood!
I nodded ‘That will do’ to the twain, and dismissed them; and, they being dismissed, I whistled long.
Naughty old gentleman!...
The next morning Pa did not return. Mid-day passed. Evening stole on.... The dusk saw me descend at the doors of the address in St. John’s Wood from mine hansom cab.
I must preach the decencies; thus I, strengthening the intention as I rang.
‘Sir Pompey Malahide is here,’ said I sternly to the smart maid that opened the door.
‘Yes, sir,’ said she.
‘I desire to see my father,’ said I, and marched boldly towards the furious racket that filled the room near at hand—the paternal roar distinctly discernible, bassoonlike as though he cried small coal.
I flung open the door—burst upon the riot——
On the floor lay the Byronic Bartholomew Doome with three children rolling over him—three, no less!—another in his arms—SirPompey Malahide, my father, on all fours, pretending to be a she-bear, his coat-tails over his head, shaking a footstool in his teeth, and growling like an ass in pain—and seated on the immaculate waistcoat of the dark mysterious Bartholomew the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen. The din infernal—and Pa the worst part of the din.
‘What does this mean, Pa?’ cried I.
They gathered themselves up, shamelessly—laughed—ye gods, twittingly, atme! Wholly unabashed, Pa, shaking himself into comfort in his clothes, slapped me upon the back:
‘Horace, my son——’
‘Don’t be familiar, Sir Pompey,’ said I. ‘You are speaking to the heir to a baronetcy.’
The baronet laughed vulgarly:
‘Mrs. Bartholomew Doome,’ he said—‘allow me to introduce to you Horace, my son—at least, my reputed son.’
Bows, chassées, and greetings.
‘Horace—the Misses Doome, Master Horace Doome, and Master Oliver Doome——’
The old gentleman slapped me upon the back again with mighty hand that near drove me down amongst the fire-irons.
He dug me in the ribs:
‘The rogue’s been married this seven years,’ cried he; ‘and now he’s signed the deeds as partner in Malahide and Son, and you’re just in the nick of time, the fool of a lawyer is upstairs—only—look here, Horace, you must, like Doome, sign a bond not to touch the business arrangements—you and he would wreck the counting-house in six months....’
Doome took an early opportunity to draw me aside and to whisper to me the grave disappointment it must be to all who respected him if they should discover the real Don Juan, begged me not to expose him, and pointed out the serious loss of prestige he must suffer in the eyes of the British Public; so we sat down together on a sofa and pitied him for his decencies.
Luddy, luddy! how the homely virtues will persist!
The idol of our youth, the dark, mysteriously wicked man—with feet of honest clay and a clean simple heart after all! Even prolific, and——
Well, damn romance, say I....
Oh, and more!
Even the gods fall out—drift apart.
Aubrey and the O’Myre go different ways—Aubrey in pain that O’Myre has now discovered that there is no great work of art without a moral purpose—Aubrey holding that Aubrey himself is sufficient purpose. He, Aubrey, avers that he has found himself—nothing matters after that. He must back to Paris. There the women have secular lips and voices of brocade and understand being loved. Tiens! He will in future give his splendid talents to attack the Philistinic brutality of strength and the barbarity of the over-rated glory in mere outdoor delight that to-day holds England in poisonous embrace; in all the pride of effeminacy hewithdraws into the palace of his Egoism, where he is lord—back to Paris—thereare mirrors, where he may reflect upon himself, take himself up by the roots and dwell upon his own image!
I expect he will come back to us occasionally to see what he looks like.
The egregious O’Myre also hath descended on London town—stays, however, but a little while——
Yet a wondrous thing of a man, the O’Myre—the most consistent surely of all created things—always wrong. He andThe Times. He must have been suckled on half-truths, and nurtured on the Irish Bull; he now browses on false conclusions. But with what an air! Nevertheless, he has it all on the most philosophic basis—has for ever been blaming something for his lack of greatness. It now appears the English drama is dead. The O’Myre will breathe new life into it.
Meanwhile, he has laid it down, like a minor god with a throaty tenor voice, that scenery destroys the illusion of the drama—therefore it comes about to-day that if you would be in the vogue with the ladies you must go in state not to the play, but to the dress rehearsal—the bare theatre and the dinginess being alone at back, the low tone and the cobwebs and the like giving mystery to the spoken word that requires for enunciation but beautiful lips. God! how the ducks quack!
Thus mews he much monstrous wisdom, sitting like a pale emotional maggot upon the apple of discord that is called the modern drama.”...
The rest of the letter is a matter of affection and goodwill. A man is always ridiculous about his first-born—exaggerative, egotistical. As though he had invented the business. Whereas, like heredity, immortality, and the latest fashion, it is thrust upon us.