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A Life\'s Morning

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Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

George Gissing

A Life's Morning





CHAPTER I

AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE




Wilfrid Athel went down invalided a few days after the beginning of
Trinity term. The event was not unanticipated. At Christmas it had been
clear enough that he was overtaxing himself; his father remarked on the
fact with anxiety, and urged moderation, his own peculiar virtue.
Wilfrid, whose battle with circumstances was all before him, declined to
believe that the body was anything but the very humble servant of the
will. So the body took its revenge.

He had been delicate in childhood, and the stage of hardy naturalism
which interposes itself between tender juvenility and the birth of
self-consciousness did not in his case last long enough to establish his
frame in the vigour to which it was tending. There was nothing sickly
about him; it was only an excess of nervous vitality that would not
allow body to keep pace with mind. He was a boy to be, intellectually,
held in leash, said the doctors. But that was easier said than done.
What system of sedatives could one apply to a youngster whose
imagination wrought him to a fever during a simple walk by the seashore,
who if books were forcibly withheld consoled himself with the
composition of five-act tragedies, interspersed with lyrics to which he
supplied original strains? Mr. Athel conceived a theory that such
exuberance of emotionality might be counterbalanced by studies of a
strictly positive nature; a tutor was engaged to ground young Wilfrid in
mathematics and the physical sciences. The result was that the tutor's
enthusiasm for these pursuits communicated itself after a brief
repugnance to the versatile pupil; instincts of mastery became as vivid
in the study of Euclid and the chemical elements as formerly in the
humaner paths of learning; the plan had failed. In the upshot Wilfrid
was sent to school; if that did not develop the animal in him, nothing
would.

He was not quite three-and-twenty when the break-down removed him from
Oxford. Going to Balliol with a scholarship, he had from the first been
marked for great things, at all events by the measure of the schools.
Removal from the system of home education had in truth seemed to answer
in some degree the ends aimed at; the lad took his fair share of cricket
and football, and kept clear of nervous crises. At the same time he made
extraordinary progress with his books. He acquired with extreme
facility, and his ambition never allowed him to find content in a second
place; conquest became his habit; he grew to deem it the order of nature
that Wilfrid Athel's name should come first in the list. Hence a
reputation to support. During his early terms at Balliol he fagged as
hard as the mere dullard whose dear life depended upon a first class and
a subsequent tutorship. What he would make of himself in the end was
uncertain; university distinctions would probably be of small moment to
him as soon as they were achieved, for already he spent the greater
portion of his strength in lines of study quite apart from the
curriculum, and fate had blessed him with exemption from sordid cares.
He led in a set devoted to what were called advanced ideas; without
flattering himself that he was on the way to solve the problem of the
universe, he had satisfaction in reviewing the milestones which removed
him from the unconscious man, and already clutched at a measure of
positive wisdom in the suspicion that lie might shortly have to lay
aside his school-books and recommence his education under other
teachers. As yet he was whole-hearted in the pursuit of learning. The
intellectual audacity which was wont to be the key-note of his
conversation did not, as his detractors held, indicate mere
bumptiousness and defect of self-measurement; it was simply the florid
redundancy of a young mind which glories in its strength, and plays at
victory in anticipation. It was true that he could not brook the
semblance of inferiority; if it were only five minutes' chat in the
Quad, he must come off with a phrase or an epigram; so those duller
heads who called Athel affected were not wholly without their
justification. Those who shrugged their shoulders with the remark that
he was overdoing it, and would not last out to the end of the race,
enjoyed a more indisputable triumph. One evening, when Athel was taking
the brilliant lead in an argument on 'Fate, free-will, foreknowledge
absolute,' his brain began to whirl, tobacco-smoke seemed to have dulled
all the lights before his eyes, and he fell from his chair in a
fainting-fit.

He needed nothing but rest; that, however, was imperative. Mr. Athel
brought him to London, and the family went down at once to their house
in Surrey. Wilfrid was an only son and an only child. His father had
been a widower for nearly ten years; for the last three his house had
been directed by a widowed sister, Mrs. Rossall, who had twin girls. Mr.
Athel found it no particular hardship to get away from town and pursue
his work at The Firs, a delightful house in the midst of Surrey's
fairest scenery, nor would Mrs. Rossall allow that the surrender of high
season cost her any effort. This lady had just completed her
thirty-second year; her girls were in their tenth. She was comely and
knew it, but a constitutional indolence had preserved her from becoming
a woman of fashion, and had nurtured in her a reflective mood, which, if
it led to no marked originality of thought, at all events contributed to
an appearance of culture. At the time of her husband's death she was at
the point where graceful inactivity so often degenerates into
slovenliness. Mrs. Rossall's homekeeping tendencies and the growing
childhood of her twins tended to persuade her that her youth was gone;
even the new spring fashions stirred her to but languid interest, and
her music, in which she had some attainments, was all but laid aside.
With widowhood began a new phase of her life. Her mourning was
unaffected; it led her to pietism; she spent her days in religious
observance, and her nights in the study of the gravest literature. She
would have entered the Roman Church but for her brother's interposition.
The end of this third year of discipline was bringing about another
change, perhaps less obvious to herself than to those who marked her
course with interest, as several people did. Her reading became less
ascetic, she passed to George Herbert and the 'Christian Year,' and by
way of the decoration of altars proceeded to thought for her personal
adornment. A certain journal of society which she had long ago abandoned
began to show itself occasionally in her rooms, though only as yet by
oversight left to view. She spoke with her brother on the subject of
certain invitations, long neglected, and did not seem displeased when he
went beyond her own motion to propose the issuing of cards for a
definite evening. Then came Wilfrid's break-down. There was really no
need, said Mr. Athel, that she should transfer herself immediately to
the country, just when everybody was well settled in town. But Mrs.
Rossall preferred to go; she was not sure that the juncture had not some
connection with her own spiritual life. And she maintained, on the
whole, a seemly cheerfulness.

Mr. Athel was an Egyptologist of some distinction. Though not in person
or manner suggestive of romantic antecedents, he had yet come by this
taste in a way which bordered on romance. Travelling in Southern Europe
at about the age which Wilfrid had now reached, he had the good fortune
to rescue from drowning an Italian gentleman then on a tour in Greece.
The Italian had a fair daughter, who was travelling with him, and her,
after an acquaintance of a few weeks, Athel demanded by way of
recompense. Her father was an enthusiastic student of Egyptian
antiquities; the Englishman plied at one and the same time his wooing
and the study of hieroglyphics, with marked success in both directions.
The Mr. Athel who at that time represented parental authority, or at all
events claimed filial deference, was anything but pleased with the step
his son had taken; he was a highly respectable dealer in grain, and,
after the manner of highly respectable men of commerce, would have had
his eldest son espouse some countrywoman yet more respectable. It was
his opinion that the lad had been entrapped by an adventurous foreigner.
Philip Athel, who had a will of his own, wedded his Italian maiden,
brought her to England, and fought down prejudices. A year or two later
he was at work in Egypt, where lie remained for some twelve months; his
studies progressed. Subsequently he published certain papers which were
recognised as valuable. Wilfrid found the amusement of his childhood in
his father's pursuit; he began to decipher hieratic not much later than
he learned to read English. Scarabs were his sacred playthings, and by
the time of his going to school he was able to write letters home in a
demotic which would not perhaps have satisfied Champollion or Brugsch,
but yet was sufficiently marvellous to his schoolfellows and gratifying
to his father.

For the rest, Philip Athel was a typical English gentle. man. He enjoyed
out-of-door sports as keenly as he did the pursuit of his study; he had
scarcely known a day's illness in his life, owing, he maintained, to the
wisdom with which he arranged his day. Three hours of study was, he
held, as much as any prudent man would allow himself. He was always in
excellent spirits, ever ready to be of service to a friend, lived with
much moderation on victuals of the best quality procurable, took his
autumnal holiday abroad in a gentlemanly manner. With something of
theoretic Radicalism in his political views, he combined a stout respect
for British social institutions; affecting to be above vulgar
prejudices, he was in reality much prepossessed in favour of hereditary
position, and as time went on did occasionally half wish that the love
he had bestowed on his Italian wife had been given to some English lady
of 'good' family. He was liberal, frank, amiably autocratic in his home,
apt to be peppery with inferiors who missed the line of perfect respect,
candid and reasonable with equals or superiors. For his boy he reserved
a store of manly affection, seldom expressing itself save in bluff
fashion; his sister he patronised with much kindness, though he despised
her judgment. One had now and then a feeling that his material
circumstances aided greatly in making him the genial man he was, that
with beef and claret of inferior quality he might not have been
altogether so easy to get along with. But that again was an illustration
of the English character.

We find the family assembling for breakfast at The Firs one delightful
morning at the end of July. The windows of the room were thrown open,
and there streamed in with the sunlight fresh and delicious odours,
tonics alike of mind and body. From the Scotch firs whence the dwelling
took its name came a scent which mingled with wafted breath from the
remoter heather, and the creepers about the house-front, the lovely
bloom and leafage skirting the lawn, contributed to the atmosphere of
health and joy. It was nine o'clock. The urn was on the gleaming table,
the bell was sounding, Mr. Athel stepped in straight from the lawn,
fresh after his ten minutes' walk about the garden. Wilfrid Athel
appeared at the same moment; he was dark-complexioned and had black,
glossy hair; his cheeks were hollower than they should have been, but he
had not the aspect of an invalid. Mrs. Rossall glided into the room
behind him, fresh, fair, undemonstrative. Then came the twins, by name
Patty and Minnie, delicate, with promise of their mother's English style
of beauty; it was very hard to distinguish them, their uncle had
honestly given up the pretence long ago, and occasionally remonstrated
with his sister on the absurdity of dressing them exactly alike. The
last to enter the room was the governess, Miss Emily Hood.

Mr. Athel, having pronounced a grace, mentioned that he thought of
running up to town; did anybody wish to give him a commission? Mrs.
Rossall looked thoughtful, and said she would make a note of two or
three things.

'I haven't much faith in that porridge regimen, Wilf,' remarked the
master of the house, as he helped himself to chicken and tongue. 'We are
not Highlanders. It's dangerous to make diet too much a matter of
theory. Your example is infectious; first the twins; now Miss Hood.
Edith, do you propose to become a pervert to porridge?'

'I have no taste for it,' replied his sister, who had become
absent-minded.

'There's a certain dishonesty about it, moreover,' Mr. Athel pursued.
'Porridge should be eaten with salt. Milk _and_ sugar--didn't I hear a
suggestion of golden syrup, more honestly called treacle, yesterday?
These things constitute evasion, self-deception at the least. In your
case, Miss Hood, the regimen is clearly fruitful of ill results.'

'Of what kind, Mr. Athel?'

'Obviously it leads to diminution of appetite. You were in the habit of
eating a satisfactory breakfast; at present some two ounces of that
farinaceous mess--'

'My dear Philip!' interposed Mrs. Rossall, still absently.

I hold that I am within my rights,' asserted her brother. 'If Miss Hood
goes down into Yorkshire in a state of emaciation--'

Wilfrid and the twins showed amusement.

'To begin with,' pursued Mr. Athel, 'I hold that sweet food the first
thing in the morning is a mistake; the appetite is checked in an
artificial way, and impaired. Even coffee--'

'You would recommend a return to flagons of ale?' suggested Wilfrid.

'I am not sure that it wasn't better dietetically.'

Mrs. Rossall had taken an egg, but, after fruitlessly chipping at the
shell throughout this conversation, put down her spoon and appeared to
abandon the effort to commence her meal. Presently she broke silence,
speaking with some diffidence.

'I really think I will go to town with you, Philip,' she said. 'I want
some things you can't very well get me, and then I ought to go and see
the Redwings. I might persuade Beatrice to come to us for a day or two.'

'Do so by all means. You're quite sure,' he added with a smile, 'that I
couldn't save you the trouble of the journey? I have no objection to
visiting the Redwings.'

'I think it will be better if I go myself,' replied Mrs. Rossall, with a
far-off look. 'I might call on one or two other people.'

Having decided this point, she found herself able to crack the egg. The
anticipation of her day in London made her quite gay throughout the
meal.

The carriage was at the door by ten o'clock, to drive to Dealing, the
nearest station, some four miles away. The twins had gone upstairs with
Miss Hood to their lessons, and Wilfrid was sauntering about the hall.
His father paused by him on the way to the carriage.

'What do you propose to do with yourself, Wilf?' lie asked.

'Ride, I think.'

'Do. Go over to Hilstead and lunch there. Capital lunch they give you at
the inn; the last time I was there they cooked me one of the best chops
I ever ate. Oberon wants exercise; make a day of it.'

'Very well.'

'You're not looking quite so well, I'm afraid,' remarked his father,
with genuine solicitude in his tone. 'Haven't been reading, have you?'

'No.'

'No imprudences, mind. I must stop that porridge regimen; it doesn't
suit you. Ready, Edith?' he shouted heartily at the foot of the stairs.

Mrs. Rossall came down, buttoning her gloves.

'If I were you, Wilf,' she said, 'I'd go off somewhere for the day. The
twins will only worry you.'

Wilfrid laughed.

'I am going to eat unexampled chops at the "Waggoner" in Hilstead,' he
replied.

'That's right. Good-bye, my dear boy. I wish you'd get fatter.'

'Pooh, I'm all right.'

The landau rolled away. Wilfrid still loitered in the hall, a singular
look of doubt on his face. In a room above one of the twins was having a
music lesson; a certain finger-exercise was being drummed with
persistent endeavour at accuracy.

'How can she bear that morning after morning?' the young man murmured to
himself.

He took his straw hat and went round to the stables. Oberon was being
groomed. Wilfrid patted the horse's sleek neck, and talked a little with
the man. At length he made up his mind to go and prepare for riding;
Oberon would be ready for him in a few minutes.

In the porch Patty ran to meet him.

'Truant!' Wilfrid exclaimed. 'Have I caught you in the act of escape?'

'I was going to look for you,' said the child, putting her arm through
his and swinging upon him. 'We want to know if you'll be back for
lunch.'

'Who wants to know?'

'I and Minnie and Miss Hood.'

'Oh, you are Patty, then, are you?'

This was an old form of joke. The child shook her dark curls with a
half-annoyed gesture, but still swung on her cousin as he moved into the
house. Wilfrid passed his arm about her playfully.

'Can't you make up your mind, Wilf?' she asked.

'Oh yes, my mind is quite made up,' he replied, with a laugh.

'And won't you tell me?'

'Tell you? Ah, about lunch. No, I shall not be back.'

'You won't? Oh, I am sorry.'

'Why are you sorry, indistinguishable little maiden?' he asked, drawing
out one of her curls between his fingers, and letting it spring back
again into its circling beauty.

'We thought it would be so nice, we four at lunch.'

'I am warned to avoid you. The tone of conversation would try my weak
head; I am not capable yet of intellectual effort.'

The little girl looked at him with puzzled eyes.

'Well, it can't be helped,' she said. 'I must go back to my lessons.'

She ran off, and Wilfrid went up to his dressing-room. When he came
down, Oberon was pawing the gravel before the door. He mounted and rode
away.

His spirits, which at first seemed to suffer some depression, took
vigour once more from the air of the downs. He put Oberon at a leap or
two, then let the breeze sing in his ears as he was borne at a gallop
over the summer land, golden with sunlight. In spite of his still worn
look, health was manifest in the upright vigour of his form, and in his
eyes gleamed the untroubled joy of existence. Hope just now was strong
within him, a hope defined and pointing to an end attainable; he knew
that henceforth the many bounding and voiceful streams of his life would
unite in one strong flow onward to a region of orient glory which shone
before him as the bourne hitherto but dimly imagined. On, Oberon, on! No
speed that would not lag behind the fore-flight of a heart's desire. Let
the stretch of green-shadowing woodland sweep by like a dream; let the
fair, sweet meadow-sides smile for a moment and vanish; let the dark
hill-summits rise and sink. It is the time of youth and hope, of
boundless faith in the world's promises, of breathless pursuit.

Hilstead was gained long before lunch could be thought of. Wilfrid rode
on, and circled back towards the hostelry famous for chops about the
hour of noon. He put up his horse, and strayed about the village till
his meal was ready; after he had eaten it he smoked a cigar among
hollyhocks and sunflowers. Then impatience possessed him. He looked at
his watch several times, annoyed to find that so little of the day was
spent. When he at last set forth again, it was to ride at walking pace
in the direction of home. He reached a junction of roads, and waited
there for several minutes, unable to decide upon his course. He ended by
throwing the reins on Oberon's neck.

'Go which way you will,' he said aloud.

Oberon paced forward to the homeward route.

'So be it. On, then! An hour will bring us to The Firs.'

The house was all but reached, when Wilfrid caught a glimpse of a straw
hat moving into a heath-clad hollow a hundred yards from the road. He
pressed on. At the gate stood a gardener.

'James,' he cried, leaping down, 'take the horse to the stable, will
you?'

And, instead of going up to the house, he walked back in the direction
he had come till he reached the hollow in which the straw hat had
disappeared. Miss Hood sat on the ground, reading. She was about to
rise, but Wilfrid begged her not to move, and threw himself into a
reclining posture.

'I saw you as I rode past,' he said, in a friendly way. 'I suppose the
twins are straying?'

'They are at Greenhaws,' was the reply, 'Mrs. Winter called for them
immediately after lunch. She will bring them back early in the evening.'

'Ah!'

He plucked sprigs of heather. Miss Hood turned to her book.

'I've had a magnificent ride,' Wilfrid began again. 'Surely there is no
country in England so glorious as this. Don't you enjoy it?'

'Very much.'

'I have never seen the Yorkshire moors. The scenery, of course, is of a
much wilder kind?'

'I have not seen them myself,' said the governess.

'I thought you might have taken your holidays sometimes in that
direction.'

'No. We used to go to a seaside place in Lincolnshire called
Cleethorpes. I suppose you never heard of it?'

'I think not.'

Wilfrid continued to pluck heather, and let his eyes catch a glimpse of
her face now and then. Miss Hood was a year younger than himself, and
had well outgrown girlishness. She was of very slight build, looked
indeed rather frail; but her face, though lacking colour, had the
firmness of health. It was very broad at the forehead, and tapered down
into narrowness; the eyes seemed set at an unusual distance from each
other, though the nose was thin and of perfect form, its profile making
but a slight angle away from the line of the brows. Her lips were large,
but finely curved; the chin was prominent, the throat long. She had warm
brown hair.

Few would at first sight have called her face beautiful, but none could
deny the beauty of her hands. Ungloved at present, they lay on the open
pages of the book, unsurpassable for delicate loveliness. When he did
not venture to look higher, Wilfrid let his eyes feed on the turn of the
wrist, the faint blue lines and sinuous muscles, the pencilling about
the finger-joints, the delicate white and pink nails.

Miss Hood was habitually silent when in the company of others than the
children. When she replied to a question it was without timidity, but in
few, well-chosen words. Yet her manner did not lack cheerfulness; she
impressed no one as being unhappy, and alone with the twins she was
often gay enough. She was self-possessed, and had the manners of a lady,
though in her position this was rather to be observed in what she
refrained from doing than in what she did. Wilfrid had, on first meeting
her, remarked to himself that it must imply a Certain force of
individuality to vary so distinctly from the commonplace even under the
disadvantage of complete self-suppression; he had now come to understand
better the way in which that individuality betrayed itself.

'Shall you go to Cleethorpes this year?' was his next question.

'I think not. I shall most likely pass the holidays at home.'

'And study electricity?'

In a former conversation she had surprised him by some unexpected
knowledge of the principles of electricity, and explained the
acquirement by telling him that this subject was her father's favourite
study. Wilfrid put the question now with a smile.

'Yes, very likely,' she replied, smiling also, but faintly. 'It gives my
father pleasure when I do so.'

'You have not a keen interest in the subject yourself?'

'I try to have.'

Her voice was of singular quality; if she raised it the effect was not
agreeable, owing possibly to its lack of strength, but in low tones,
such as she employed at present, it fell on the ear with a peculiar
sweetness, a natural melody in its modulation.

'The way in which you speak of your father interests me,' said Wilfrid,
leaning his chin upon his hand, and gazing at her freely. 'You seem so
united with him in sympathy.'

She did not turn her eyes to him, but her face gathered brightness.

'In sympathy, yes,' she replied, speaking now with more readiness. 'Our
tastes often differ, but we are always at one in feeling. We have been
companions ever since I can remember.'

'Is your mother living?'

'Yes.'

Something in the tone of the brief affirmative kept Wilfrid from further
questioning.

'I wonder,' he said, 'what you think of the relations existing between
myself and my father. We are excellent friends, don't you think?
Strange--one doesn't think much about such things till some occasion
brings them forward. Whether there is deep sympathy between us, I
couldn't say. Certainly there are many subjects on which I should not
dream of speaking to him unless necessity arose; partly, I suppose, that
is male reserve, and partly English reserve. If novels are to be
trusted, French parents and children speak together with much more
freedom; on the whole that must be better.'

She made no remark.

'My father,' he continued, 'is eminently a man of sense if I reflect on
my boyhood, I see how admirable his treatment of me has always been. I
fancy I must have been at one time rather hard to manage; I know I was
very passionate and stubbornly self-willed. Yet he neither let me have
my own way nor angered me by his opposition. In fact, he made me respect
him. Now that we stand on equal terms, I dare say he has something of
the same feeling towards myself. And So it comes that we are excellent
friends.'

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