An Opera and Lady Grasmere/Book 1/Chapter 5

T was five o'clock of a summer's morning, and Merceron, his domino over his arm, was in the street, watching the lady's carriage as it disappeared, rolling towards Knightsbridge.

Despite the hour, no vestige of fatigue did he display; rather was he elate, a being treading on air, ascending rainbows light-footed as a god, with song and melody on his lips, volatile within him. For Hope, Expectation, new-sprung and virginal, were his companions—as never in this life.

The way to his rooms was no long one. He was at his door before he was well aware of any exercise; and there stood the old, familiar abode, in semi-darkness, with the sunshine struggling behind drawn blinds, unchanged, as he had always known it—but he, how altered, how foreign to this trim sobriety!

Merceron let in the light and the fresh air, lit a pipe, mixed a brimming tumbler of whisky and potass, threw off his coat and put on an old college blazer. Then he sat down with feet on the fender, and let the night's work steal over his thoughts.

This review was all-sufficing. Over every phase of his adventure he dwelt, lover-like, ardent, and eager. His blood, long so latent, so torpid and confined, was warmed to sweetness by the renewal. After all, what were the past years, spent studious and apart, but an apprenticeship?—over now, behind him at last. He had served his term, was free once more and a man. He was rich, with youth and fortune equally untouched: he would give all to her, to that life of which she was the symbol, the supremest manifestation; to the fair, young world wherein he had dwelt unknowing these many years.

Over this ground he trod, repeating and repeating, and these thoughts were but the sweeter for their repetition. Now the last night came back to him in one continuous whole—no series of splendid moments like the Faust he had just witnessed, but as an opera of Wagner, a late one; richer even than this, for the world was his stage, his opera-house, libretto and setting had ranged themselves spontaneous, fallen truly as the rain of heaven, were no studied effort of cunningly-disciplined particles. Back, over all this ground he went, lingering at the dinner-table where light had first stolen in upon him, to the fair women, showing faces bright with anticipation and toying with delicate viands to the sound of music; then Hutchinson's friendly countenance and the terrace overlooking London—London awakening to its evening release, its myriad lights opening upon the dusk like rows of enchanted flowers, a festive London—while below ran the river, slow moving, girt with the tender greys of its distances, soft, trailing shadows that climbed into the tinted sky. Afterwards, the busy streets that led to the great Opera House, where some of the world's sweetest singers had thrilled him with some of the world's sweetest melody; not him alone—for he had been but an atom, an infinitesimal part of that vast audience. A part of what? Of the very cream, of the topmost blossoming, of all that London boasted! He had formed a part of that magic coronal, pre-eminent, privileged, by right of its beauty, its health, its brilliance, and fastidious appetites. He had been part of this world; he would stay with it now, always—its life was the one Art! From thence he had descended to the supper-place: a passing through the fustian, the shoddy; a dip into a stream deceptively like the other, yet tainted from its very source, unclean with an invisible pollution. Away from there into his disguise, the music of the dance, the rhythm of harmonious motion, the dramatic semi-danger of his peculiar outrage. And yet this danger had been but illusive—what company would not have welcomed so ardent a recruit? And now, uppermost and chiefest, throned amid all this opulence, this pomp of splendid living, crowning his edifice, was a woman: the woman whose hand had rested on his arm as he and she stood looking down upon this same London of the night before—again awakening; now to no feverish release, but calm, vestal, throwing back mist and darkness, and uprising, glorious, golden, from out the dawn. Warm, living, this woman stood once more beside him, tall and perfect in her rare proportions, dark-eyed and with ruddy hair, the sweep of her full voice encompassing all emotion. He would be with her again, later, that very day!

His vehement thoughts, rose-tinted and intense with all desires, coloured with the full brush of young anticipation, now left the concrete, the particular, wandered off towards the general, the larger issues of this chase. The previous night was no longer a chain of incident, but a conquest. Had he not won a new and complete existence out of that which, but one short day ago, had been to him as a nothingness? Twenty-four hours!—his whole life lay in that twenty-four hours: the rest!—the rest had been work and futile strivings, the attempted appeasement of a hunger, an appetite which no life here below could effectually still, the service which men call Art. Before, he had faced the impossible and ultimate darkness; now, but twenty-four hours distant, and he had found the other way, the one, the right, the true path—a road hewn straight through the heart of Life, and bordered with love and all the graces.

No inkling of regret mingled with this awakening; his twenty-five years stood him in good stead. Young enough he was to smile unruffled over lost opportunity; old enough to exult in the youth, the measure of strong years that lay before him. His was the golden age. For a moment he stood aloof from himself, recognising the wealth that was his own. Vaguely he called to mind that there were men—men no older than he, too—who were already tired, spoilt, cynical; yes, men even of his few years who were prematurely weary, scarce capable of enjoyment. He might have been as these, disillusioned, spiritually dyspeptic! This verging Pharisaism disgusted him; he withdrew his attention to less comparative fields, to the present, the near future. What would these be! What would they not be! A passage in a play of Ibsen's, John Gabriel Borkman, came back to him, struck home with a new force, a new meaning—a vision of enlightenment. He had hitherto been playing for the dancers; henceforth he was going to join in the dance—there lay his future.

Merceron rose, found the book, the scene that had flashed back, well-nigh prophetic. He read it aloud, doubling the parts of Borkman and Frida Foldal:

"Do you like playing dance music? At parties, I mean?" he asked as Borkman.

"Yes, when I can get an engagement. I can always earn a little in that way," he answered as Frida.

"Is that the principal thing in your mind as you sit playing for the dancers? "

"No; I am generally thinking how hard it is that I mayn't join in the dance myself."

"That's just what I wanted to know. Yes, yes, yes! That you mustn't join in the dance, that's the hardest thing of all. But there's one thing that should make up to you for that, Frida."

"What is that, Mr. Borkman?"

"The knowledge that you have ten times more music in you than all the dancers together." And Merceron closed the volume with a bang.

No; he would no longer play for the dancers. Money, he had money in plenty! Fame, what was fame to him!—to him, who was going to join in the dance; to him, who had ten times more music in him than all the other dancers together! He knew this last, was certain of his power, had felt it last night as he moved, a figure leading and dominant, among strange crowds. The others recognised it too. How else would he have ventured so boldly to the attack of the lady in yellow, how else would she have received this attack with such unmistakable favour? Even his successful demolition of the arrogant Lady May, his trumpery triumph at the Opera bar, the promiscuous men whom he had attracted, magnetised, stood ample evidence in confirmation of this estimate... He had ten times more music in him than all the other dancers together, and instead of expressing it in written signs, he would live it; he himself would enjoy this luxuriance, this tenfold capacity—he, and he only. There should be no burdensome division between Art and Life—but Life, nothing but Life. And he was to live this Life.... He would make of it, and would wear it as some strange power; a force, baffling and compelling, impalpable and subtle, ever-present yet never manifest; a secret religion, a completed Pantheism, that should make him eminent—elusively eminent among mankind.

Within him, some small voice, a remnant, perhaps, of his former devotion, his old altruism, whispered, "Impossible!" The injustice of such advantage could not be. "Impossible!" whispered the voice.

"Possible, and I will prove it!" cried Merceron. "As for what has been, as for the past—there shall be no past—my life began to-day!"

One link, a something living and articulate that bound him to his former state, remained, testifying to what was, to what might be. Three years had he spent upon its forging; three years, complete and without break. Isabella, this score with its libretto; Isabella, his first opera, that represented the whole of his doing and being since he had quitted Oxford; Isabella, but newly finished and laid aside, must burn. His apprenticeship was over now; away with every shed and symbol of the chrysalis from which he had emerged! Isabella belonged to the past, was the past—away with Isabella!

Fire was the surest, the swiftest annihilator. Here were the matches, and over there the cabinet where this manuscript opera lay, carefully, cleanly piled, as he had stacked it three weeks since, after a last revision. The fire-place would be a ready crematorium. He found the key of the cabinet. All was ready for this burnt sacrifice, this first offering to the gods that were to watch over his new career. All was ready—save only Isabella. Before him yawned bare shelves and naked walls, an ironic void.

The lock of the cabinet was smashed, evidently forced from the outside. The key had turned round and round. The door hung loosely, and offered no resistance. It swung wide open almost as soon as he touched it. The cabinet was quite empty. Isabella, both the score and the libretto, had been stolen.