"Seems almost a pity," said Mr. Carmichael.
His wife looked her grey-eyed agreement.
"The one post promises security for life, a fixed salary...."
"And is so eminently your line, Cyprian."
"At the moment," said Cyprian, "a secure haven and a tranquil time to
brood upon my good fortune in it are the last attractions the world
can offer me. I feel restless. I know I am probably being a fool
but, since my mother died, there is nothing that need prevent me from
being a fool if I so desire."
Mrs. Carmichael had a feeling that any young man who rounded off his
sentence with, "if I so desire" at this stage of his career, was
intended by Heaven for a University donship and not the vicissitudes
of a miner's existence. She was quite right.
"The Company which has offered you the post of Secretarial Manager
and What-Not of its--er--machinations," went on Mr. Carmichael,
"will, in all likelihood, burst before the year's end and leave you
stranded. The Burmese mines are overdone and I hardly believe in
this new discovery and your avaricious expectations. What is
promised? Rubies?"
"I got such a pretty aquamarine straight from the Mogok mines once,"
murmured his wife, "through a friend who ..."
"You won't find any rubies, ten to one," warned Robin.
"But I may find something else again which is of even more importance
to me," said Cyprian.
Neither of his companions asked what that was. He went on slowly:
"Some force outside myself seems to be urging me away from England
for the present. I fear the facetious would describe me as a
quitter, but, for certain natures, it is always safest to quit ...
temptations. I have never dared to do anything else myself, and a
superficial peace at Oxford just now would multiply mine
unbelievably, though I am sensible of the honour done me by their
offer of the appointment."
"You are only twenty-eight, are you not?"
"Yes. For a humble tutor and lecturer to get such a chance..."
"Free house and garden," chirped Mrs. Carmichael, seeing womanly
visions and dreaming womanly dreams, "and with prospects of becoming
a master in time. What a pity..."
She knew, alas, that Muriel would refuse to be dazzled.
"Well, since you seem to have made up your mind to throw up a good
thing for a doubtful one"--Mr. Carmichael never wasted time on vain
regrets--"I agree that your science and geological knowledge will be
invaluable to your employers and I had better tell you what I have
seen of the district."
The talk drifted into generalities, and Mrs. Carmichael began to
price Ferlie's winter coat and remind herself to impress it upon the
matron at Peter's school that Peter was really an Exceptional Boy.
She believed in a private appeal to the only woman in an
establishment full of unimaginative men. Pictured the red-roofed
bungalow in Rangoon without the children's toys annoying her husband
in the verandah. Remembered all the other Colonial mothers and
wondered why that made the pain worse instead of better. Rejoiced
that she had, at least, got the better of Robin in the matter of
Ferlie's education. None of your hard modern schools,
over-developing brain and body at the expense of femininity.
Reaction must set in soon on this count, and Muriel Vane was nothing
if not a warning. There could come a revival of the old-fashioned
home-school, where it was so fortunate that the kind Miss Maynes had
welcomed the thought of having Peter for the holidays.
They could not have agreed to take just any boy, they had told
her--in fact none had, up to date, been offered them--but, in the
circumstances, "Why, it is really our _duty_, dear Mrs. Carmichael."
Yes, Lady Vigor's daughter had always remained with them and,
naturally, they had taken her to the seaside. How impossible,
thought Ferlie's mother, to have entrusted Ferlie or Peter to Aunt
Brillianna.
Brillianna Trefusis, a maternal aunt of Robin's, who was,
nevertheless, not more than five years his senior, was an eccentric
lady who travelled a great deal, spoke boldly and wore a
disconcerting air suggesting that life amused her. And she did not
go to church!
Mused Ferlie's mother, it was all very well for the men-folk to
content themselves with prayer by proxy, reaping where their loyal
wives had sown, but if the women were also to desert the old and
tried paths to that Better Land, Far, Far Away, the chances were that
the Judgment would fall due before anyone had reached those Eternal
Bowers, and the travellers find themselves shooed into Outer Darkness
to the tune of "Depart, ye Cursed!" And Ferlie was so responsive to
her surroundings: Aunt B. could easily have raised doubts in her mind
as to the authenticity of Lazarus and Jonah, and when once you began
to pick and choose...
"No, I am afraid she is still out in the park, Cyprian. What's that?
Crystallized apricots? Oh, but you really shouldn't. I could give
them to her when she comes in.... Well, if you will ... she's sure
to be near the pond. Thank you, Peter is quite well. So odd! He
says his form master asked him where he had learnt the secret of
perpetual motion. Such a silly sort of thing to say to a child."
Cyprian had never met the exiled Peter, on the occasion of whose
swift banishment he had first recognized a kindred spirit in the
Ferlie, white-faced and dumb, presented to him in the Carmichaels'
drawing-room with the motherly rebuke, "And, Cyprian, this is the one
I intended to ask you to be godfather to, only Robin put me off,
insisting that you would not know what the term meant."
He visualized Peter, after winning his sister's confidence, as a wiry
mortal of nine summers, permanently unlaced boots and an enquiring
expression; this last suggesting a soul too perfectly in tune, if not
with the Infinite, at least with the Infinitely Annoying, as
connected with problems of Eternal Research, for the peace of mind of
those in charge of him.
"Isn't it funny, when you come to think of it"--thus Mrs. Carmichael
when Cyprian had gone--"that a woman's 'No' can alter the whole
course of a man's life?"
"Not nearly so thoroughly as can a woman's 'Yes,' believe me. He is
jolly well out of that one."
"The trouble is that you can't persuade him of it. Such an ideal
situation for him, Robin. A free house and garden..."
"Nice Society," went on Robin, a little grimly, "church bells within
ear-shot, so that one can imbibe atmospheric religion from an
arm-chair, and the golf-links closed on Sunday. But you're right: it
would have suited him--in the end. If ever I saw an Oxford don in
embryo, it is Cyprian."
"He's so Nice," his wife lingered over the word. "One realizes at
once how high-principled..."
"Oh, he's all that ... and he listens to the Abbey organ regularly."
"Simple and obtuse," Linda Carmichael continued. "And _she's_ quite
heartless. Do you know, Robin, sometimes she behaves almost as if
she were not a lady."
Mrs. Carmichael couldn't understand why Robin sniggered at this
superlative condemnation.
"She wants the Man-with-the-Stick," he briefly summed up Muriel.
Mrs. Carmichael did not pursue that idea. It was so bluntly lowering
to the dignity of Womanhood as to make her feel mildly uncomfortable.
There were wife-beaters in the slums--very sad--but she always closed
fastidious eyes to the thought that among Us, also, the thing called
Human Nature could betray itself in crude unmentionable ways.
Exploited as it might be in these days, Human Nature always seemed to
her to have an undressed sound.
Her own marriage had been a reticent affair: separate dressing-rooms
and so on.
There was something about Muriel, though her father's first cousin
was an Earl, which reminded one of the pictures kept in the house
because they were classical but which one did not look at very
closely and hung in darkish corners of the landing. Necessary to Art
but hardly to Life.
* * * * * *
While Cyprian was laying in stocks of quinine, dark glasses and thin
pyjamas, and the Carmichaels were busily embracing relations whom
they never set eyes on except at the "Ave atque Vale" occupying the
two separate ends of their four-yearly "leaves," and while Peter was
interesting himself in illicit Natural History during class hours,
and Ferlie in members of her own sex as a regiment, in class and out,
Muriel was brooding over her bones and finding them tasteless.
She came out of her bath one morning after washing her hair and,
having given the damp cloud a desultory rub with a large fluffy
towel, tossed that shield from her and paused before the long
pier-glass.
"And God, who made that body for delight"--
She quoted under her breath--
"Should there have stayed and left a perfect thing,
Nor added to your loveliness a soul.
So had He spared you sharpest suffering;
Dark waves of night that o'er your spirit roll.
And sobs which shake you through the lonely night...."
Where had she read the words? Some literary magazine. Author?
Hamilton Fyffe? Was it? Or Fyfe? Remembered she had thought that
clever when, very young, she came across it. Someone had scrawled
against the margin, "I fear me Fyffe is very inexperienced. No woman
without a soul has held a man for long."
Did she want to hold any man for long? Did she ever want to "fall in
love"? What bosh it all was--this thirst of milk-blooded girls for
the soul-mate.
"It's positively terrifying to see Truth naked," remarked Muriel to
her own white reflection. Or was it not better to be free from
mental corsets--as well as the ordinary sort? She raised herself on
tiptoes, clasping her rounded arms above her head as the thought
rippled into merriment across her face: "If Cyprian were my husband
and came in now, accidentally, he would apologize and flee, and be
too much of a gentleman even to mention it again on our meeting
later. He's the type of man who would never forget that though its
wife was its wife she was still a 'lady'."
Footsteps, and a knock at her door disturbed these cogitations. A
known voice greeted her through it.
"May I come in, Muriel?"
"Oh, is that you, Twinkle? Yes, so far as I'm concerned you can come
in. Better leave your gentleman-friend outside on the mat
though--for his sake, not for mine."
A thickset, handsome girl entered languidly, took in the situation at
a glance and sat down upon the unmade bed.
"You are a One!" Her voice drawled richly. "I suppose I can smoke
while you dress?"
"Puff away! I'll have one too while I finish my air-bath. It fills
me with optimism to take it in front of the glass."
Twinkle ran critical eyes over this unbashful nymph.
"You're all right," she said candidly. "A bit thin. Thinking of
posing as an artist's model?"
"Glory! It never occurred to me."
"It's a possible treatment for your complaint, my dear."
"What do you mean?" A deepening of the carnation tint on Muriel's
soft cheek.
Twinkle did not appear to notice.
"Enough eyes on your _tout ensemble_ to satisfy even your thirst for
admiration. The joy of seeing, say, thirty individuals all occupied
in reproducing your beauty for general display in some gallery.
After-results ... _qui sait_? The artist's model...."
"Meets artists," finished Muriel, recovering herself: "I am out after
bigger game. I had thought of going into training on your lines."
"The stage is over-stocked with people seeking auditions who have not
the slightest talent," warned Miss Ruth Levine, commonly known as
Twinkle, probably because it was the most unsuitable nickname that
could possibly be found for her. "You _might_ prove a happy
exception."
"I'd get a walking-on chorus part, at any time," Muriel confidently
assured her, "with nothing to do but kick and use my eyes."
"M-m! You've been reading some reliable literature, wherein the
pure-hearted Gladiola Trevelyan, who is only on this degrading beat
in order to supply calves' foot jelly for little cripple sister
Winnie at home, finds the young earl's card in her dressing-room. In
real life you'll discover it is the son of the local butcher who
leaves his in a Rolls Royce and that the marquises' cheques are to be
mistrusted more often than honoured."
"Truly enough, gold paint can disguise a lead coronet. We've one in
our family--my second cousin's. Anyone is welcome to him for me.
Money I must have, Twinkle, or I may as well commit suicide."
"You are doing that by inches while you waste time emptying old
pocket-books."
"My little weakness," admitted Muriel frankly. "I take what comes
while keeping my eyes on the final goal."
"What the devil is your goal? One man or several?"
"You are an honest woman," laughed Muriel. "I don't mind confessing
for your private ear, that I simply do not know." She flung herself
face downwards on the tumbled satin quilt, cupping her face in her
pink palms.
"To look it in the face: I have seen marriage at close quarters and
found it distinctly uninspiring. Father and Mother! My God! How
they bore one another! They try to go their separate ways and yet
cling to a snarling respectability."
"Why don't they get a divorce?"
"Too expensive. Besides, there is no just cause or impediment. I
could forgive them if either had risen to a guilty passion. But that
would have smirched the family escutcheon, you see; merely being rude
to one another doesn't. Then they have not got me off their hands
yet. Dad would sell me to the highest bidder to-morrow. I am
marketable stock for some degenerate duke with no age-limit, provided
he is rich. Not so easy to find, eh? As for a love-match with an
impecunious captain, whose inspiriting moustache bristles to touch
one's holy hand before the ring adorns it and, a year later, remains
quiescent against one's immovable lip-salve--well, I ask you! Every
Sweet Young Thing thinks her matrimonial drama will be acted to muted
violins in 'Just a little love, a little kiss,' and is perfectly
prepared to 'Give him all her life for this.' Now, I'm not."
"The alternative is a profession. Mannequin?"
"Golly! Not enough men in it. And your Model idea would have to be
carried out in dark secrecy. Mother would poison me!"
"You carry out a number of things in secrecy with complete success."
"Pff! Not what you think. I know my market value."
Twinkle's dark gaze became fixed and speculative. "Any of your folk
ever died in an asylum?" she enquired suddenly.
"I suppose you are being funny. But, as a matter of fact, my
grandmother's sister did, and there was an uncle, who gore-ily cut
his throat, of unsound mind. Why? Do I look as if I meditated such
a drastic solution of my problems?"
Twinkle decisively knocked out her cigarette and stood up.
"Never mind.... Curiosity, I guess."
Muriel became dimly interested in this dispassionate friend's
disapproval of something.
"Do I fill you with disgust?"
"No--with pity," was the unexpected reply. "You don't understand
what you are up against, Muriel. But I've seen types like you
before; and they are born, not made."
They went out together, presently.
"I have only got till lunch-time," warned the actress. "Matinee at
two. Performance again at 8.30. A dog's life!"
"You wouldn't change with me!"
"Holy snakes! I would not!" Her vehemence startled, for the moment,
in one so remotely calm. She pulled herself together as quickly.
"No, I am fitted for my job. Some day I shall be the Big Noise all
right."
Muriel glanced at the sure, emotionless face. Not pretty; La
Gioconda, refined and Semiticized--if one might use the word.
Beautifully tinted eyes, heavy lidded and calculating, not for gain,
but as if their owner were perpetually weighing up the world and did
not, like Brillianna Trefusis, find it at all amusing.
That Twinkle's distrait attitude at Marshall's silk-stocking counter
was due to Muriel's own looming future the latter never guessed.
"I've seen 'em"--so ran the thoughts of the Jewess--"always devoid of
natural feeling at the start, but unable to live without a man's eye
upon them. The market value of passion glibly at the tongue's end.
Never sentimentally eroto-maniacal; better if they were. Then,
suddenly, the day when the craving for admiration merges into
sex-realization. No actual desire perhaps, for the love of an
individual: no realization of Love in the abstract as a desirable
thing. A sudden startled awakening and, with neither religion nor
moral sense behind.... If one could warn ... but there is always the
chance that I am misreading her and am utterly in the wrong. She's
no 'modern' product anyhow."
"Musings without method," remarked Muriel, having lingered to reduce
the youth at the ribbon-counter to a state of drivelling imbecility
with her smile: "Are you meditating upon some subtle gesture for your
great act that will bring the curtain down in a storm of sobs more
soul-satisfying than applause?"
"I was simply letting my mind run wild on the subject of heredity as
a factor in folks' lives. There are few things admitted heredity now
except those which are sexual, and I was wondering how far the
psycho-analysts had really got going on that subject, apart from the
sex-chart. One has heard of hypnotism as a cure at early stages for
... some things."
"If I went to a hypnotist to be cured of anything," said Muriel,
"what's the betting the gentleman in the chair would find the
positions reversed and himself masquerading as victim?"
"I have no doubt you'd do your damnedest," said Ruth, dryly.
* * * * * *
It was not long before Cyprian sailed for the East.
Captain Wright, temporarily insane, though he was the only one who
did not know it, began to drink at unusual hours. Muriel had taken
three months to sicken of him and considered him exceedingly
ungrateful. Weak.
Cyprian had shown himself much stronger. He went down to Ferlie's
school to say good-bye to her.
"Like an uncle to the child, you know," her mother had told the
Misses Mayne; who beamed over the avuncular visit, brooding on the
Degrees and reflecting what a good thing it might be should he
recommend the school while in the East.
"You will come back soon?"
"It will seem very soon, Ferlie."
"You promise, Cyprian?"
Nothing had ever succeeded in getting a respectful prefix out of
Ferlie, though Mrs. Carmichael was uneasy lest the Misses Mayne
should not feel quite happy over the familiar mode of address.
"Of course I promise. And I'll write if you will."
"I'll write," said Ferlie, "when I have things to say." A sensible
resolution which might be more widely adhered to.
Cyprian carried away with him the memory of delicate hands, laughing
eyes and a poignantly sweet voice ... a memory which left the same
ache as does a solitary aloof star on a summer evening.
But always it was followed by the haunting comfort of Ferlie's
clinging arms.