The Picture Of Dorian Gray (11 page)

While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered, and reminded him it was time to dress for dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose. He thought of his friend’s young fiery-coloured life, and wondered how it was all going to end.

When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o’clock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall table. He opened it, and found it was from Dorian Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane.

‘Mother, mother, I am so happy!’ whispered the girl, burying her face in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their dingy sitting-room contained. ‘I am so happy!’ she repeated, ‘and you must be happy too!’

Mrs Vane winced, and put her thin bismuth-whitened
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hands on her daughter’s head. ‘Happy!’ she echoed, ‘I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.’

The girl looked up and pouted. ‘Money, mother?’ she cried, ‘what does money matter? Love is more than money.’

‘Mr Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts, and to get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds is a very large sum. Mr Isaacs has been most considerate.’

‘He is not a gentleman, mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,’ said the girl, rising to her feet, and going over to the window.

‘I don’t know how we could manage without him,’ answered the elder woman, querulously.

Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. ‘We don’t want him any more, mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now.’ Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood, and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her, and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. ‘I love him,’ she said simply.

‘Foolish child! foolish child!’ was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.
The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the words.

The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her eyes caught the melody, and echoed it in radiance: then closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of a dream had passed across them.

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on Memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with his breath.

Then Wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.

Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her. ‘Mother, mother,’ she cried, ‘why does he love me so much? I know why I love him. I love him because he is like what Love himself should be. But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet – why, I cannot tell – though I feel so much beneath him, I don’t feel humble. I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming?’

The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. ‘Forgive me, mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only pains you because you loved him so much. Don’t look so sad. I am as happy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for ever!’

‘My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides, what do you know of this young man? You don’t even know his name. The whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you should have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he is rich…’

‘Ah! mother, mother, let me be happy!’

Mrs Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment the door opened, and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large, and somewhat clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between them. Mrs Vane fixed her eyes on him, and intensified her smile. She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure that the
tableau
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was interesting.

‘You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,’ said the lad, with a good-natured grumble.

‘Ah! but you don’t like being kissed, Jim,’ she cried. ‘You are a dreadful old bear.’ And she ran across the room and hugged him.

James Vane looked into his sister’s face with tenderness. ‘I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don’t suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don’t want to.’

‘My son, don’t say such dreadful things,’ murmured Mrs Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.

‘Why not, mother? I mean it.’

‘You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in the Colonies, nothing that I would call society; so when you have made your fortune you must come back and assert yourself in London.’

‘Society!’ muttered the lad. ‘I don’t want to know anything about that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the stage. I hate it.’

‘Oh, Jim!’ said Sibyl, laughing, ‘how unkind of you! But are you really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you were going to say good-bye to some of your friends – to Tom Hardy, who gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the Park.’

‘I am too shabby,’ he answered, frowning. ‘Only swell people go to the Park.’

‘Nonsense, Jim,’ she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.

He hesitated for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said at last, ‘but don’t be too long dressing.’ She danced out of the door. One could hear her singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead.

He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to the still figure in the chair. ‘Mother, are my things ready?’ he asked.

‘Quite ready, James,’ she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this rough, stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when their eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her. She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. ‘I hope you will be contented, James, with your sea-faring life,’ she said. ‘You must remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a solicitor’s office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in the country often dine with the best families.’

‘I hate offices, and I hate clerks,’ he replied. ‘But you are quite right. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl. Don’t let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her.’

‘James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl.’

‘I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre, and goes behind to talk to her. Is that right? What about that?’

‘You are speaking about things you don’t understand, James. In the profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That was when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at present whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is always most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely.’

‘You don’t know his name, though,’ said the lad, harshly.

‘No,’ answered his mother, with a placid expression in her face. ‘He has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy.’

James Vane bit his lip. ‘Watch over Sibyl, mother,’ he cried, ‘watch over her.’

‘My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special care. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why she should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the aristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming couple. His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices them.’

The lad muttered something to himself, and drummed on the window-pane with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something, when the door opened, and Sibyl ran in.

‘How serious you both are!’ she cried. ‘What is the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘I suppose one must be serious sometimes. Good-bye, mother; I will have my dinner at five o’clock. Everything is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.’

‘Good-bye, my son,’ she answered, with a bow of strained stateliness.

She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.

‘Kiss me, mother,’ said the girl. Her flower-like lips touched the withered cheek, and warmed its frost.

‘My child! my child!’ cried Mrs Vane, looking up to the ceiling in search of an imaginary gallery.

‘Come, Sibyl,’ said her brother, impatiently. He hated his mother’s affectations.

They went out into the flickering wind-blown sunlight, and strolled down the dreary Euston Road.
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The passers-by glanced in wonder at the sullen, heavy youth, who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common gardener walking with a rose.

Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at which
comes on geniuses late in life, and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a super-cargo, or whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor’s existence was dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse, hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts down, and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain, and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and would watch over him. She would pray for him too, and in a few years he would come back quite rich and happy.

The lad listened sulkily to her, and made no answer. He was heart-sick at leaving home.

Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger
of Sibyl’s position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,
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and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother’s nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl’s happiness. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his under-lip.

‘You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,’ cried Sibyl, ‘and I am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Oh! that you will be a good boy, and not forget us,’ she answered, smiling at him.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are more likely to forget me, than I am to forget you, Sibyl.’

She flushed. ‘What do you mean, Jim?’ she asked.

‘You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me about him? He means you no good.’

‘Stop, Jim!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must not say anything against him. I love him.’

‘Why, you don’t even know his name,’ answered the lad. ‘Who is he? I have a right to know.’