after midnight. He felt sick and disgusted, little elated at the
successful termination of his visit and the prospect of a year or two’s
peace of mind. A thousand pounds seemed to him a poor compensation for
his descent into those foul depths of human nature where the civilized
brute slays with his mind even if he withhold his hand. It was his
disposition to dwell on the fair and splendid surfaces, harming no man
and ignoring the primal passions that crawled over their sands below.
Had he, upon his majority, realized the expectations of his careless
boyhood, it is doubtful if he ever would have experienced a mean, much
less a criminal, impulse, for, although this may be said of many men,
Ordham had true refinement of mind and a surpassing indolence. He was a
fair sample of all that civilization has yet accomplished for its
aristocracies, and had no desire even to be reminded of elemental
instincts, much less to be their victim. And the wretched want of money,
of a petty thousand pounds, had transformed himself and his brother into
two aboriginals. He might in time banish the sensations and impulses he
had experienced to-night, but he doubted if he could ever forget the
bestial degradation of the head of his house.
And what excuse for such deterioration? His mind flew to Margarethe
Styr, who had lifted herself from untold horrors to the very heights of
character, intellect, fame. Where had she found that strength? What
mysterious arrangement of particles had enabled her to rise from that
abyss in which thousands of her sort burned out their brief lives? Was
it genius alone? Genius availed little those that began life in the dark
back-waters of society unless propelled by force of character, an
indomitable will. She too, in her determined seclusion, lived a selfish
life of a sort, but at least she gave delight to thousands, she spent
freely on promising young singers, and she was an example for all women,
dreaming ambitiously, to follow. More, she was an inspiration. And she
had come out of what? The picture was not to be invoked, but the bare
fact made the man downstairs, who had been born one of the inheritors of
the earth, the more unfit to live.
He realized suddenly that he felt closer to Styr than he had ever felt
before. And she was the one person on earth to whom he could confess the
horrid experience of this night. He made up his mind to return to her at
once, no matter where she was. They could meet in the various cities
where she sang, as freely as in her home, although not, of course, as
delightfully.
Then his mind swung to the future, the future he must face upon his
second return from Munich. He should never willingly exchange a syllable
with his brother again. There was not the faintest hope that
Bridgminster would increase his income. Nor was the man’s health, as far
as he could judge, seriously impaired. He might go mad and be chucked
into an asylum, but lunatics lived forever. True, he might fall on his
gun, or break his neck on the hunting field, but these were mere
contingencies. Meanwhile, save for this passing relief, his own problem
was as serious as ever. He should spend five times his present income in
any capital to which he was accredited, and he could think of nothing he
would not rather do than force his mother into heavy sacrifices. Turn
over the detestable question as often as he might, he could find but one
solution. He had disliked the prospect of matrimony before he knew
Margarethe Styr, and it was doubly hateful now. He did not want to marry
her, nor could he spend his life dawdling at her skirts; but—well—once
more he was forced to admit that he could not have everything in life he
wanted at once. There should be that last long visit to Munich, however,
and then he would return and swallow his medicine.
XXX
LADY BRIDGMINSTER, POTTER
But he was not to return to Munich and Margarethe Styr at present. That
excellent friend of his, Princess Nachmeister, having ascertained
throughout the summer that, although indefatigable in his attendance
upon the prima donna, he wore neither the hopeless mien of rejected love
nor that of sublime content, had kept her lance in rest. Moreover, she
well knew that the vestal Lutz would never have lent her countenance to
a liaison, neither could it have escaped eyes sharp with an old maid’s
resentful curiosity. Therefore, although uneasy, Excellenz had not
thought it worth while to interfere with his studies; but upon the day
she learned of his departure for London she wrote to Lady Bridgminster,
with whom she had some time since fallen into correspondence, advising
her to prevent her son’s return to Munich. Only he could have resisted
Styr during long months of intimacy, and then only because she had
chosen that he should. But he was growing older every hour, there was no
telling in what moment he might awake and call himself an ass, nor, in
faith, when Styr would recover from her long attack of virtue. Sudden
interruptions in deep but continent intimacies had proved fatal before.
They would not be the first to discover that they could not exist apart.
Better divert his mind at once.
Therefore, when Ordham drove up to his mother’s house on his return from
the north, he was surprised to find the curtains up, the door opened by
a footman instead of the caretaker that had attended to his wants during
his previous visit. He wished that he had driven from Paddington to
Victoria, for he was in no humour to meet any other member of his family
at present; but when the footman informed him that her ladyship would
expect him for tea in the drawing-room in half an hour he summoned what
grace was in him, and sent her word that he would join her as soon as he
had rid himself of soot and dust.
His bath braced him somewhat, and he went downstairs resignedly to
answer his mother’s questions. He hated questions, and she could ask
more than any one he knew. Lady Bridgminster was seated at the
tea-table, and knowing better than to wait for him, had just finished
her first cup. She rose and met him halfway, for it was several years
since she had treated him negligently, and even her kiss, if not too
maternal, was something more than a peck. He told her that she was
looking very handsome, and in that rosy light she seemed little older
than her portrait. She wore clinging trailing garments of smoke-colored
chiffon embroidered with peacocks’ feathers, and long strands of dull
green and blue beads covered her flat chest and were wound through the
mazes of her beautiful silvery blonde hair. She looked as æsthetic as
Wilde himself, and, indeed, he designed more than one of her gowns.
“Glad to see you so fit, Johnny dear,” she said in a very light musical
voice. “It is too delightful that you have passed those tiresome
examinations. How is Bridg?”
“Beastly drunk, probably.”
Lady Bridgminster, who had floated back to her chair, opened her eyes
very wide. She rarely altered her expression, as it was then the belief
that immobility made for perpetual youth, but she allowed her
well-trained orbs to shed forth her astonishment.
“What? Does Bridg drink?”
“Rather.” Ordham had selected the most comfortable chair in the room and
pushed it to the table. He received his cup of tea and disposed himself
in the depths.
“Don’t be tiresome. Has he taken to drink as a habit?”
“He can barely handle a gun, eats next to nothing, and is now quite,
instead of half, a boor. His face is twice its former size. There is no
doubt that he is going the pace in his own quiet way.”
“And his health?”
“Good enough.”
“That accounts for several things I noticed when I was there last, but
never thought of attributing to drink. Of course you did not get the
money?”
“I got it.”
Lady Bridgminster drew a deep sigh of relief. “Then those wretched
creditors of yours can be disposed of. The interviews I have had with
them! What is the world coming to? My own are not more vulgar and
impertinent. But this is only a respite, Johnny. Two years hence you
will be in the same predicament; worse, no doubt. Bridg is good for
twenty years yet. Did you persuade him to increase your income?”
“No, and he never will.”
“Then you must marry at once. Let us not beat about the bush.”
“I am not ready to marry. Please remember that I am barely twenty-four.”
“Fiddlesticks! You are forty. You are the sort in whom years count for
next to nothing. Besides, your father was married at twenty-two, my
father when he was six months younger. But that has little to do with
it. There are certain times in life when opportunities seem fairly to
fly at one. Ignore these caprices of Fortune, and you may spend the rest
of your life chasing her. One of the greatest heiresses in England is
dying to marry you. Not only have I carefully prepared her mind, but she
has always been more or less in love with you, although she has not seen
you now for five years.”
“Who can she be?”
“Manlike! Probably you will not even recall her when I tell you her
name, for when she used to come to Ordham with her mother you were
following the yellow curls of Jessie Middleton about her father’s park
and never looked at poor Rosamond.”
A dark flush rose to Ordham’s very hair and he drew his brows together.
“You surely do not mean Rosamond Hayle?”
“Ah! You do remember her?”
“Her front teeth stuck out. Her hair was like tow. Her pasty skin was
covered with green freckles—”
“Oh, that was years ago. She has vastly improved.”
“Time cannot have altered the formation of her upper jaw. I doubt if it
could put colour into her hair. You know quite well that I shall never
marry an ugly woman. I even hate ugly men and children. I don’t set up
to be an æsthetic ass, but beauty I will have if I can command it, and
at least I need not fasten myself for life to a woman whose ugliness is
not even distinguished. As I recall Rosamond Hayle she was the
apotheosis of the commonplace—and that was only five years ago.”
“My son, remember that she has forty thousand a year in her own right.
They discovered coal mines on unentailed lands in Nottinghamshire and
she was the only child.”
“I hope she may enjoy it. What of the American beauty and heiress you
were so keen about?”
“Do you mean Mabel Cutting?” Lady Bridgminster dipped her tones in ice.
“Of course. Are there so many?”
“I thought favourably of her at first; but really, Mrs. Cutting was too
keen. It was indecent. If we must put ourselves up for sale, let us not
admit the fact to these outsiders. Her silly pedantic little daughter
may have more money than Rosamond, but she is not our sort.”
“Pedantic?” Ordham had lost the rest of his mother’s observations. A
vision of the deliciously pretty empty-headed little chatterbox had
risen before him, alluring indeed after the frightful menace of Lady
Rosamond Hayle. “Are we talking of the same person?”
“Rather. When the child first came over I liked her. She was a sweet,
innocent, well-bred little thing, who knew no more than a young girl
should. But the change soon began. Nearly every marriageable man in
London ran after her, which was natural enough. I will do several the
justice to believe that they were really in love with her, irrespective
of the millions. Youth and beauty and sweet manners go far, and I
suppose there is romance left even in London. I did not mind her head
being turned. That also was natural, with artists painting her for the
Academy and all the rest of it—although it was too silly of her to
insist upon having that ridiculous LaLa in every picture. Well—when
after a mere three months of such a success as few girls enjoy, she
suddenly announced herself bored with society, declared that she did not
yet know enough to waste so much time, that men talked only nonsense to
her, and therefore taught her nothing, she forced her unfortunate
mother, who loves society more than any woman I ever met, to retire to
the country with a staff of tutors—oh, I have no patience with such
nonsense. When girls have youth and beauty, the less brains they have
the more attractive they are.”
“Oh?” Ordham had risen to his feet, his eyes very bright.
“Is not that too brief period for enjoyment pure and simple? Intellect
does well enough when everything else has deserted a woman. What a waste
of time and energy before! It has made this little American
insufferable. When I heard yesterday they were in town I went out of
common civility—as well as curiosity—to call. The girl looks
moonstruck. She had not a word to say. No doubt her brains are addled.”
“Then they are in town? I must call to-morrow.”
Lady Bridgminster rose, and, sweeping over to her son’s side (she never
merely walked), laid her hand on his shoulder. Her face was flushed and
there were tears in her voice.
“My son,” she said solemnly, “let these people alone. Their ways are not
our ways. They never make themselves really like us. It was only my
desire to see you care-free in your youth that made me consider Mabel
Cutting for a time. I have always disapproved of these international
marriages. Americans are a thin, passionless, hybrid race, and, I am
sure, vulgar at the core, no matter how deep the veneer. How could it be
otherwise? Marry a woman of your own class and race—”
“Not Rosamond Hayle.”
“Don’t be tiresome.” She almost shook him. “No man knows how his wife
looks six months after he has married her.”
“Think of those six months.”
“And a plain wife is so safe. In a diplomatic career, of all things, you
want no scandals. How should you like being married to a professional
beauty?”
“I should not mind a bit. I should find it insufferable to be the
husband of a wife that every other man rejoiced was not his.”
“No man ever rejoiced that a woman with forty thousand pounds a year was
not his wife.”
“I should if she were ugly.”
“Are you going to Grosvenor Square?”
“Of course. They showed me great politeness in Munich. It is a matter of
common decency.”
“I believe they came up on purpose.” Lady Bridgminster’s well-composed
features were in disarray. “What else would bring them up at this
season? Their excuse, that Mabel wished to attend a series of concerts,
was too silly. I might have suspected at once. You will not be such a
silly little fly as to rush into their parlour?”
“There is no moat and drawbridge about the house in Grosvenor Square, I
suppose? Don’t be foolish, Lady Pat.” (Everlastings rarely train their
children to address them as “mother.”) “I must call on Mrs. Cutting. It
commits me to nothing. If you can find me a beautiful and not
too-English English girl, I will marry her, but not Rosamond Hayle.”
“I don’t know of another English girl of her class with such a fortune.
I know these upstarts will get you!”
“Well, I shall not propose to-morrow,” he said lightly. And then he
changed the conversation so deliberately that his mother sighed and
rested on her arms for the present.
XXXI
ORDHAM ESCAPES A HANSOM IN PICCADILLY
On the following morning he rose at the comparatively early hour of ten,
and, repairing to Piccadilly, bought presents for the servants at Ordham
and even sent them off himself. He had intended to omit this exertion in
favour of Hines, but the morning was so fresh, and he felt so young and
buoyant, particularly after having turned his check into the bank, and
the prospect of meeting the beautiful Mabel once more was so
unexpectedly enlivening, that he was equal to almost any form of energy.
He even sauntered into the Green Park, and there he met Mrs. Cutting,
taking the famous pug for an airing. She dropped the leash when she saw
Ordham, and although there was no warmth in her cold pure eyes, her
smile was dazzling.
“Dear Mr. Ordham! What a pleasure! Lady Bridgminster told me that you
were in England, but I gathered that you intended to remain in the north
and shoot for weeks to come.”
“I do not care for shooting and had rather intended to go back to the
Continent for a time—to perfect myself in languages. It may, however,
be merely an excuse to put off those six months in the F. O. as long as
possible.”
“But you have passed your examinations!”
“Heaven only knows how. But my French and German are really very bad. I
need the theatres more than anything else.”
“I won’t attempt to conceal my disappointment. To be sure, I was
resigned not to see you for a few weeks—but now that I have seen
you—well, if it must be, at least you will come to us before you leave?
I must show you what I have made of my little girl. She had an enormous
success in society. Just now she thinks she wants to be intellectual,
artistic, musical, although she played far better than most girls
already. It is rather a bore for me, but I am hoping it will pass. I
tell her it is a pity she did not have the seizure while at school. But
I fancy it is merely the reaction from the rush of the season, and a
little too much frivolity, perhaps too many suitors. But I should not
say that!”
“Oh, my mother has told me. I hear she uses her scalps as cotillon
favours!”
“How like you! But I wish she had fewer.” Mrs. Cutting wrinkled her
brows delicately. “She was so sweetly simple and natural before—do you
remember what a chatterbox she was? And all this adulation has made her
bored, indifferent. I don’t think she is conceited, but I am afraid she
has permitted the idea to take lodgment in that clever little head of
hers that all men are far too easy game, and therefore to be despised. I
have hinted gently that without the bait of her fortune even her beauty
and cleverness might not have made her the belle of a London season, but
you cannot convince eighteen that men are mercenary, and no doubt some
of the poor fellows were sincere enough.”
“Unfortunately, most men cannot afford to be too sincere.” Ordham smiled
grimly. “For instance, I could not dream of marrying a poor girl. And it
must be far easier even to love a pretty rich girl than a pretty poor
one. We have not been brought up on the love-in-a-cottage ideal, and
when we try it generally come a cropper.”
She remembered that he had taken her breath away with his audacious
candour more than once during the fortnight of their previous
acquaintance, and smiled gayly.
“But a rich girl _can_ be loved. That is the point to bear in mind. It
is Mabel’s argument, by the way, and even I believe that a really lovely
woman need not be eclipsed by her money. Of course I am quite aware of
your point of view. But all the same I believe you to be capable of what
the world calls folly.”
“You mean that I would marry a poor girl?”
“You are capable of it.”
“Possibly. But I know of no folly that I have less intention of
committing.”
“Oh, I don’t say that you will. It is merely your capacity for the
sudden and romantic wrecking of your life that makes you so
interesting.” She stooped and recovered the leash. Her face, when she
stood upright once more, was flushed, but she looked him straight in the
eyes. “I have always hoped that you would marry Mabel,” she said, and
her courage touched his chivalric nerve while it flushed his face. “I
shall be perfectly frank. I wished it from the moment we met. She was
too young to think of such a thing, and you were obliged to remain in
Germany. But now—she has developed quite wonderfully, and you are quite
free. I shall continue to be frank. When I brought Mabel over Lady
Bridgminster took a great fancy to her, and I feel sure that she had
some such idea herself, although naturally we could not speak of it; but
latterly she seems to have taken a dislike to the poor child, and to
have set her heart upon a frightfully plain English heiress—”
“She heard my opinion on that subject last night. I fancy she will not
broach it again.” Ordham spoke ironically, but his blush had deepened
and he moved about nervously.
Mrs. Cutting shook her head with a little absent gesture of despair.
“Your mother is not the woman to relinquish lightly any cherished plan,
and this Lady Rosamond Hayle seems to be a particular friend of hers.
You could never be married against your will—at least I think you could
not. But you will see Lady Rosamond quite intimately, you will become
fascinated with her virtues, which no one can dispute, and forget her
plainness.”
“I have no intention of entering the possibly dangerous zone of her
virtues. But you are very kind. Why on earth have you selected me? There
are bigger fish in this great pond.”
“That is as it may be. But I am very exacting. I want far more than a
title—which, no doubt, you will inherit in due course. You see I am
really frank! I got to know you very well in Munich, remember, and of
all the young men I have ever met you are the only one to whom I care to
intrust my daughter. That is, if you really could love her.”
“Oh! Love!” Ordham’s eyes stared far beyond his companion in a manner
not at all to her taste. She resumed sadly:
“Of course she might not be able to interest you after your experience
of so many complicated European women. And she—well, Mabel is a mystery
even to me—what girl is not a mystery? When we left Munich I fancied
that you had made an indelible impression upon her cloistered little
heart. But now—as I told you—she affects to despise all men; and so
much has happened since then. A girl is no sooner launched in the world
than she grows a year every day. And I did not feel that I should be
justified in keeping your memory green in her mind, for how could I know
that you would not have loved and married before we met again? But I
wish! I wish! If she does not marry you, I hope it will be many years
before she marries at all. Of course there are many fine men in the
world, and she can afford to wait. A fortune hunter shall never have
her. Of that I am determined.”
“There are thousands of fine fellows in the world,” said Ordham,
generously, increasingly desirous of meeting the enigmatic and difficult
Mabel. “When may I call? I should not think of leaving London without
renewing that delightful acquaintance. I had intended to try my luck
this afternoon.”
“Come at five. And perhaps you will dine with us before you go? You
cannot be rushed with engagements at this season, and it will be
pleasant to see a bit of you, even if—”
Ordham laughed and shook hands with the handsome charming woman, who
looked so unconventionally eager in spite of her cool eyes. “I have
never been so flattered in my life, and it is wonderful of you to be so
enchantingly frank. Men must get so sick of transparent angling—I
wonder that anything induces the big fish to bite. Please don’t let Miss
Cutting know that you like me, or she will be sure to hate me. Of course
I shall call at five to-day. And dine with you to-morrow? May I?”
He walked to his club in a very thoughtful mood. Here, no doubt, was the
natural solution of his difficulties. But with the prospect of that easy
escape came a passionate wave of protest, the protest of masculine youth
at paying the price. He had not the faintest idea that he could fall in
love with Mabel Cutting; and were her millions an adequate compensation
for the loss of his precious liberty? He felt that a man’s youth should
last until thirty. Time enough then for shackles: wife—and children! He
blushed angrily at the thought. This cursed question of money! If his
brother would settle two thousand a year on him, he would not consider
matrimony with the most beautiful girl that walked.
And deep down in his heart he heard a murmured demand for the woman by
the Isar. Was this woman, perchance, his mate? He stopped, appalled at
the thought, in the middle of Piccadilly, and was nearly run over by a
hansom cab. To what end? The difference in their ages meant nothing to
him, but he could not ask the various diplomatic circles of the world to
accept Margarethe Styr. Nor was there the least probability that she
would renounce her career to keep house for him and devote her talents
to the advancement of his own. Even if she loved him—and did she?—how
could he demand such a sacrifice? Society would be a poor substitute for
art, for the adulation of the multitude. Moreover, there was the
question of money again. She might possess small fortune, but it would
not go far in his world. To permit her to remain on the stage he would
not consider for a moment. He would neither abandon his career nor would
he live on a woman’s earnings. To marry a girl with a large inheritance
was one thing, but to loaf about while his famous wife sang to a public
ignorant of his very name, that neither might want for the luxuries to
which they were accustomed—good God!