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CHAPTER X
The remains of Henrietta Trefusis were interred in Highgate
Cemetery the day before Christmas Eve. Three noblemen sent their
carriages to the funeral, and the friends and clients of Mr.
Jansenius, to a large number, attended in person. The bier was
covered with a profusion of costly Bowers. The undertaker,
instructed to spare no expense, provided long-tailed black
horses, with black palls on their backs and black plumes upon
their foreheads; coachmen decorated with scarves and jack-boots,
black hammercloths, cloaks, and gloves, with many hired mourners,
who, however, would have been instantly discharged had they
presumed to betray emotion, or in any way overstep their function
of walking beside the hearse with brass-tipped batons in their
hands.
Among the genuine mourners were Mr. Jansenius, who burst into
tears at the ceremony of casting earth on the coffin; the boy
Arthur, who, preoccupied by the novelty of appearing in a long
cloak at the head of a public procession, felt that he was not so
sorry as he ought to be when he saw his papa cry; and a cousin
who had once asked Henrietta to marry him, and who now, full of
tragic reflections, was enjoying his despair intensely.
The rest whispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a
strange omission in the arrangements. The husband of the deceased
was absent. Members of the family and intimate friends were told
by Daniel Jansenius that the widower had acted in a blackguard
way, and that the Janseniuses did not care two-pence whether he
came or stayed at home; that, but for the indecency of the thing,
they were just as glad that he was keeping away. Others, who had
no claim to be privately informed, made inquiries of the
undertaker's foreman, who said he understood the gentleman
objected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it was
on the ground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr.
Trefusis was very wealthy, he added that he had been told so, but
believed the money had not come from the lady; that people seldom
cared to go to a great expense for a funeral unless they came
into something good by the death; and that some parties the more
they had the more they grudged. Before the funeral guests
dispersed, the report spread by Mr. Jansenius's brother had got
mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given rise to a
story of Trefusis expressing joy at his wife's death with
frightful oaths in her father's house whilst she lay dead there,
and refusing to pay a farthing of her debts or funeral expenses.
Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a
fresh scandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr. Jansenius's
helped him to compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of
pretty and touching stanzas, setting forth that Henrietta's
character had been one of rare sweetness and virtue, and that her
friends would never cease to sorrow for her loss. A tradesman who
described himself as a "monumental mason" furnished a book of
tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highly ornamental one,
and proposed to defray half the cost of its erection. Trefusis
objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did not
see why tombstones should be privileged to publish false
statements. It was reported that he had followed up his former
misconduct by calling his father-in-law a liar, and that he had
ordered a common tombstone from some cheap-jack at the East-end.
He had, in fact, spoken contemptuously of the monumental
tradesman as an "exploiter" of labor, and had asked a young
working mason, a member of the International Association, to
design a monument for the gratification of Jansenius.
The mason, with much pains and misgiving, produced an original
design. Trefusis approved of it, and resolved to have it executed
by the hands of the designer. He hired a sculptor's studio,
purchased blocks of marble of the dimensions and quality
described to him by the mason, and invited him to set to work
forthwith.
Trefusis now encountered a difficulty. He wished to pay the mason
the just value of his work, no more and no less. But this he
could not ascertain. The only available standard was the market
price, and this he rejected as being fixed by competition among
capitalists who could only secure profit by obtaining from their
workmen more products than they paid them for, and could only
tempt customers by offering a share of the unpaid-for part of the
products as a reduction in price. Thus he found that the system
of withholding the indispensable materials for production and
subsistence from the laborers, except on condition of their
supporting an idle class whilst accepting a lower standard of
comfort for themselves than for that idle class, rendered the
determination of just ratios of exchange, and consequently the
practice of honest dealing, impossible. He had at last to ask the
mason what he would consider fair payment for the execution of
the design, though he knew that the man could no more solve the
problem than he, and that, though he would certainly ask as much
as he thought he could get, his demand must be limited by his
poverty and by the competition of the monumental tradesman.
Trefusis settled the matter by giving double what was asked, only
imposing such conditions as were necessary to compel the mason to
execute the work himself, and not make a profit by hiring other
men at the market rate of wages to do it.
But the design was, to its author's astonishment, to be paid for
separately. The mason, after hesitating a long time between
two-pounds-ten and five pounds, was emboldened by a
fellow-workman, who treated him to some hot whiskey and water, to
name the larger sum. Trefusis paid the money at once, and then
set himself to find out how much a similar design would have cost
from the hands of an eminent Royal Academician. Happening to know
a gentleman in this position, he consulted him, and was informed
that the probable cost would be from five hundred to one thousand
pounds. Trefusis expressed his opinion that the mason's charge
was the more reasonable, somewhat to the indignation of his
artist friend, who reminded him of the years which a Royal
Academician has to spend in acquiring his skill. Trefusis
mentioned that the apprenticeship of a mason was quite as long,
twice as laborious, and not half so pleasant. The artist now
began to find Trefusis's Socialistic views, with which he had
previously fancied himself in sympathy, both odious and
dangerous. He demanded whether nothing was to be allowed for
genius. Trefusis warmly replied that genius cost its possessor
nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole race
incidentally vested in a single individual, and that if that
individual employed his monopoly of it to extort money from
others, he deserved nothing better than hanging. The artist lost
his temper, and suggested that if Trefusis could not feel that
the prerogative of art was divine, perhaps he could understand
that a painter was not such a fool as to design a tomb for five
pounds when he might be painting a portrait for a thousand.
Trefusis retorted that the fact of a man paying a thousand pounds
for a portrait proved that he had not earned the money, and was
therefore either a thief or a beggar. The common workman who
sacrificed sixpence from his week's wages for a cheap photograph
to present to his sweet. heart, or a shilling for a pair of
chromolithographic pictures or delft figures to place on his
mantelboard, suffered greater privation for the sake of
possessing a work of art than the great landlord or shareholder
who paid a thousand pounds, which he was too rich to miss, for a
portrait that, like Hogarth's Jack Sheppard, was only interesting
to students of criminal physiognomy. A lively quarrel ensued,
Trefusis denouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a
priestly caste when they were obviously only the parasites and
favored slaves of the moneyed classes, and his friend
(temporarily his enemy) sneering bitterly at levellers who were
for levelling down instead of levelling up. Finally, tired of
disputing, and remorseful for their acrimony, they dined amicably
together.
The monument was placed in Highgate Cemetery by a small band of
workmen whom Trefusis found out of employment. It bore the
following inscription:
THIS IS THE MONUMENT OF HENRIETTA JANSENIUS WHO WAS BORN ON THE
26TH JULY, 1856, MARRIED TO SIDNEY TREFUSIS ON THE 23RD AUGUST,
1875, AND WHO DIED ON THE 21ST DECEMBER IN THE SAME YEAR.
Mr. Jansenius took this as an insult to his daughter's memory,
and, as the tomb was much smaller than many which had been
erected in the cemetery by families to whom the Janseniuses
claimed superiority, cited it as an example of the widower's
meanness. But by other persons it was so much admired that
Trefusis hoped it would ensure the prosperity of its designer.
The contrary happened. When the mason attempted to return to his
ordinary work he was informed that he had contravened trade
usage, and that his former employers would have nothing more to
say to him. On applying for advice and assistance to the
trades-union of which he was a member he received the same reply,
and was further reproached for treachery to his fellow-workmen.
He returned to Trefusis to say that the tombstone job had ruined
him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an argumentative letter to the
"Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic one to the
trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the
employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to
content himself with setting the man to work again on
mantelpieces and other decorative stone-work for use in house
property on the Trefusis estate. In a year or two his liberal
payments enabled the mason to save sufficient to start as an
employer, in which capacity he soon began to grow rich, as he
knew by experience exactly how much his workmen could be forced
to do, and how little they could be forced to take. Shortly after
this change in his circumstances he became an advocate of thrift,
temperance, and steady industry, and quitted the International
Association, of which he had been an enthusiastic supporter when
dependent on his own skill and taste as a working mason.
During these occurrences Agatha's school-life ended. Her
resolution to study hard during another term at the college had
been formed, not for the sake of becoming learned, but that she
might become more worthy of Smilash; and when she learned the
truth about him from his own lips, the idea of returning to the
scene of that humiliation became intolerable to her. She left
under the impression that her heart was broken, for her smarting
vanity, by the law of its own existence, would not perceive that
it was the seat of the injury. So she bade Miss Wilson adieu; and
the bee on the window pane was heard no more at Alton College.
The intelligence of Henrietta's death shocked her the more
because she could not help being glad that the only other person
who knew of her folly with regard to Smilash (himself excepted)
was now silenced forever. This seemed to her a terrible discovery
of her own depravity. Under its influence she became almost
religious, and caused some anxiety about her health to her
mother, who was puzzled by her unwonted seriousness, and, in
particular, by her determination not to speak of the misconduct
of Trefusis, which was now the prevailing topic of conversation
in the family. She listened in silence to gossiping discussions
of his desertion of his wife, his heartless indifference to her
decease, his violence and bad language by her deathbed, his
parsimony, his malicious opposition to the wishes of the
Janseniuses, his cheap tombstone with the insulting epitaph, his
association with common workmen and low demagogues, his suspected
connection with a secret society for the assassination of the
royal family and blowing up of the army, his atheistic denial, in
a pamphlet addressed to the clergy, of a statement by the
Archbishop of Canterbury that spiritual aid alone could improve
the condition of the poor in the East-end of London, and the
crowning disgrace of his trial for seditious libel at the Old
Bailey, where he was condemned to six months' imprisonment; a
penalty from which he was rescued by the ingenuity of his
counsel, who discovered a flaw in the indictment, and succeeded,
at great cost to Trefusis, in getting the sentence quashed.
Agatha at last got tired of hearing of his misdeeds. She believed
him to be heartless, selfish, and misguided, but she knew that he
was not the loud, coarse, sensual, and ignorant brawler most of
her mother's gossips supposed him to be. She even felt, in spite
of herself, an emotion of gratitude to the few who ventured to
defend him.
Preparation for her first season helped her to forget her
misadventure. She "came out" in due time, and an extremely dull
season she found it. So much so, that she sometimes asked herself
whether she should ever be happy again. At the college there had
been good fellowship, fun, rules, and duties which were a source
of strength when observed and a source of delicious excitement
when violated, freedom from ceremony, toffee making, flights on
the banisters, and appreciative audiences for the soldier in the
chimney.
In society there were silly conversations lasting half a minute,
cool acquaintanceships founded on such half-minutes, general
reciprocity of suspicion, overcrowding, insufficient ventilation,
bad music badly executed, late hours, unwholesome food,
intoxicating liquors, jealous competition in useless expenditure,
husband-hunting, flirting, dancing, theatres, and concerts. The
last three, which Agatha liked, helped to make the contrast
between Alton and London tolerable to her, but they had their
drawbacks, for good partners at the dances, and good performances
at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointingly
scarce. Flirting she could not endure; she drove men away when
they became tender, seeing in them the falsehood of Smilash
without his wit. She was considered rude by the younger gentlemen
of her circle. They discussed her bad manners among themselves,
and agreed to punish her by not asking her to dance. She thus got
rid, without knowing why, of the attentions she cared for least
(she retained a schoolgirl's cruel contempt for "boys"), and
enjoyed herself as best she could with such of the older or more
sensible men as were not intolerant of girls.
At best the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She
repeatedly alarmed her mother by broaching projects of becoming a
hospital nurse, a public singer, or an actress. These projects
led to some desultory studies. In order to qualify herself as a
nurse she read a handbook of physiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought
so improper a subject for a young lady that she went in tears to
beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate with her unruly girl. Mrs.
Jansenius, better advised, was of opinion that the more a woman
knew the more wisely she was likely to act, and that Agatha would
soon drop the physiology of her own accord. This proved true.
Agatha, having finished her book by dint of extensive skipping,
proceeded to study pathology from a volume of clinical lectures.
Finding her own sensations exactly like those described in the
book as symptoms of the direst diseases, she put it by in alarm,
and took up a novel, which was free from the fault she had found
in the lectures, inasmuch as none of the emotions it described in
the least resembled any she had ever experienced.
After a brief interval, she consulted a fashionable teacher of
singing as to whether her voice was strong enough for the
operatic stage. He recommended her to study with him for six
years, assuring her that at the end of that period--if she
followed his directions--she should be the greatest singer in the
world. To this there was, in her mind, the conclusive objection
that in six years she should be an old woman. So she resolved to
try privately whether she could not get on more quickly by
herself. Meanwhile, with a view to the drama in case her operatic
scheme should fail, she took lessons in elocution and gymnastics.
Practice in these improved her health and spirits so much that
her previous aspirations seemed too limited. She tried her hand
at all the arts in succession, but was too discouraged by the
weakness of her first attempts to persevere. She knew that as a
general rule there are feeble and ridiculous beginnings to all
excellence, but she never applied general rules to her own case,
still thinking of herself as an exception to them, just as she
had done when she romanced about Smilash. The illusions of
adolescence were thick upon her.
Meanwhile her progress was creating anxieties in which she had no
share. Her paroxysms of exhilaration, followed by a gnawing sense
of failure and uselessness, were known to her mother only as
"wildness" and "low spirits," to be combated by needlework as a
sedative, or beef tea as a stimulant. Mrs. Wylie had learnt by
rote that the whole duty of a lady is to be graceful, charitable,
helpful, modest, and disinterested whilst awaiting passively
whatever lot these virtues may induce. But she had learnt by
experience that a lady's business in society is to get married,
and that virtues and accomplishments alike are important only as
attractions to eligible bachelors. As this truth is shameful,
young ladies are left for a year or two to find it out for
themselves; it is seldom explicitly conveyed to them at their
entry into society. Hence they often throw away capital bargains
in their first season, and are compelled to offer themselves at
greatly reduced prices subsequently,when their attractions begin
to stale. This was the fate which Mrs. Wylie, warned by Mrs.
Jansenius, feared for Agatha, who, time after time when a callow
gentleman of wealth and position was introduced to her, drove him
brusquely away as soon as he ventured to hint that 200
his affections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The
anxious mother had to console herself with the fact that her
daughter drove away the ineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible,
formed no unworldly attachments, was still very young, and would
grow less coy as she advanced in years and in what Mrs. Jansenius
called sense.
But as the seasons went by it remained questionable whether
Agatha was the more to be congratulated on having begun life
after leaving school or Henrietta on having finished it.
Content of CHAPTER X [George Bernard Shaw's novel: An Unsocial Socialist]
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