HILARY GIVES CHASE
The ethics of a man like Hilary were not those of the million pure bred
Purceys of this life, founded on a sense of property in this world
and the next; nor were they precisely the morals and religion of the
aristocracy, who, though aestheticised in parts, quietly used, in bulk,
their fortified position to graft on Mr. Purcey's ethics the principle
of 'You be damned!' In the eyes of the majority he was probably an
immoral and irreligious man; but in fact his morals and religion were
those of his special section of society--the cultivated classes, “the
professors, the artistic pigs, advanced people, and all that sort of
cuckoo,” as Mr. Purcey called them--a section of society supplemented by
persons, placed beyond the realms of want, who speculated in ideas.
Had he been required to make confession of his creed he would probably
have framed it in some such way as this: “I disbelieve in all Church
dogmas, and do not go to church; I have no definite ideas about a future
state, and do not want to have; but in a private way I try to identify
myself as much as possible with what I see about me, feeling that if I
could ever really be at one with the world I live in I should be happy.
I think it foolish not to trust my senses and my reason; as for what my
senses and my reason will not tell me, I assume that all is as it had to
be, for if one could get to know the why of everything in one would be
the Universe. I do not believe that chastity is a virtue in itself,
but only so far as it ministers to the health and happiness of the
community. I do not believe that marriage confers the rights of
ownership, and I loathe all public wrangling on such matters; but I am
temperamentally averse to the harming of my neighbours, if in reason it
can be avoided. As to manners, I think that to repeat a bit of scandal,
and circulate backbiting stories, are worse offences than the actions
that gave rise to them. If I mentally condemn a person, I feel guilty of
moral lapse. I hate self-assertion; I am ashamed of self-advertisement.
I dislike loudness of any kind. Probably I have too much tendency to
negation of all sorts. Small-talk bores me to extinction, but I will
discuss a point of ethics or psychology half the night. To make capital
out of a person's weakness is repugnant to me. I want to be a decent
man, but--I really can't take myself too seriously.”
Though he had preserved his politeness towards Cecilia, he was in truth
angry, and grew angrier every minute. He was angry with her, himself,
and the man Hughs; and suffered from this anger as only they can who are
not accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of things.
Such a retiring man as Hilary was seldom given the opportunity for an
obvious display of chivalry. The tenor of his life removed him from
those situations. Such chivalry as he displayed was of a negative order.
And confronted suddenly with the conduct of Hughs, who, it seemed,
knocked his wife about, and dogged the footsteps of a helpless girl, he
took it seriously to heart.
When the little model came walking up the garden on her usual visit, he
fancied her face looked scared. Quieting the growling of Miranda, who
from the first had stubbornly refused to know this girl, he sat down
with a book to wait for her to go away. After sitting an hour or more,
turning over pages, and knowing little of their sense, he saw a man
peer over his garden gate. He was there for half a minute, then lounged
across the road, and stood hidden by some railings.
'So?' thought Hilary. 'Shall I go out and warn the fellow to clear off,
or shall I wait to see what happens when she goes away?'
He determined on the latter course. Presently she came out, walking with
her peculiar gait, youthful and pretty, but too matter-of-fact, and yet,
as it were, too purposeless to be a lady's. She looked back at Hilary's
window, and turned uphill.
Hilary took his hat and stick and waited. In half a minute Hughs came
out from under cover of the railings and followed. Then Hilary, too, set
forth.
There is left in every man something of the primeval love of stalking.
The delicate Hilary, in cooler blood, would have revolted at the notion
of dogging people's footsteps. He now experienced the holy pleasures of
the chase. Certain that Hughs was really following the girl, he had
but to keep him in sight and remain unseen. This was not hard for a
man given to mountain-climbing, almost the only sport left to one who
thought it immoral to hurt anybody but himself.
Taking advantage of shop-windows, omnibuses, passers-by, and other bits
of cover, he prosecuted the chase up the steepy heights of Campden Hill.
But soon a nearly fatal check occurred; for, chancing to take his eyes
off Hughs, he saw the little model returning on her tracks. Ready enough
in physical emergencies, Hilary sprang into a passing omnibus. He saw
her stopping before the window of a picture-shop. From the expression
of her face and figure, she evidently had no idea that she was being
followed, but stood with a sort of slack-lipped wonder, lost in
admiration of a well-known print. Hilary had often wondered who could
possibly admire that picture--he now knew. It was obvious that the
girl's aesthetic sense was deeply touched.
While this was passing through his mind, he caught sight of Hughs
lurking outside a public-house. The dark man's face was sullen and
dejected, and looked as if he suffered. Hilary felt a sort of pity for
him.
The omnibus leaped forward, and he sat down smartly almost on a lady's
lap. This was the lap of Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, who greeted him with
a warm, quiet smile, and made a little room.
“Your sister-in-law has just been to see me, Mr. Dallison. She's such
a dear-so interested in everything. I tried to get her to come on to my
meeting with me.”
Raising his hat, Hilary frowned. For once his delicacy was at fault. He
said:
“Ah, yes! Excuse me!” and got out.
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace looked after him, and then glanced round the
omnibus. His conduct was very like the conduct of a man who had got in
to keep an assignation with a lady, and found that lady sitting next his
aunt. She was unable to see a soul who seemed to foster this view, and
sat thinking that he was “rather attractive.” Suddenly her dark busy
eyes lighted on the figure of the little model strolling along again.
'Oh!' she thought. 'Ah! Yes, really! How very interesting!'
Hilary, to avoid meeting the girl point-blank, had turned up a
by-street, and, finding a convenient corner, waited. He was puzzled. If
this man were persecuting her with his attentions, why had he not gone
across when she was standing at the picture-shop?
She passed across the opening of the by-street, still walking in the
slack way of one who takes the pleasures of the streets. She passed from
view; Hilary strained his eyes to see if Hughs were following. He
waited several minutes. The man did not appear. The chase was over! And
suddenly it flashed across him that Hughs had merely dogged her to see
that she had no assignation with anybody. They had both been playing the
same game! He flushed up in that shady little street, in which he was
the only person to be seen. Cecilia was right! It was a sordid business.
A man more in touch with facts than Hilary would have had some mental
pigeonhole into which to put an incident like this; but, being by
profession concerned mainly with ideas and thoughts, he did not quite
know where he was. The habit of his mind precluded him from thinking
very definitely on any subject except his literary work--precluded him
especially in a matter of this sort, so inextricably entwined with that
delicate, dim question, the impact of class on class.
Pondering deeply, he ascended the leafy lane that leads between high
railings from Notting Hill to Kensington.
It was so far from traffic that every tree on either side was loud with
the Spring songs of birds; the scent of running sap came forth shyly as
the sun sank low. Strange peace, strange feeling of old Mother Earth up
there above the town; wild tunes, and the quiet sight of clouds. Man in
this lane might rest his troubled thoughts, and for a while trust the
goodness of the Scheme that gave him birth, the beauty of each day, that
laughs or broods itself into night. Some budding lilacs exhaled a scent
of lemons; a sandy cat on the coping of a garden wall was basking in the
setting sun.
In the centre of the lane a row of elm-trees displayed their gnarled,
knotted roots. Human beings were seated there, whose matted hair clung
round their tired faces. Their gaunt limbs were clothed in rags; each
had a stick, and some sort of dirty bundle tied to it. They were asleep.
On a bench beyond, two toothless old women sat, moving their eyes from
side to side, and a crimson-faced woman was snoring. Under the next
tree a Cockney youth and his girl were sitting side by side-pale young
things, with loose mouths, and hollow cheeks, and restless eyes. Their
arms were enlaced; they were silent. A little farther on two young men
in working clothes were looking straight before them, with desperately
tired faces. They, too, were silent.
On the last bench of all Hilary came on the little model, seated slackly
by herself.