of mind; he was so different from all the other men about her. His
cosmopolitan cynicism was so refreshing to her, his sophistry so
seductive. She also, in her turn, interested him much, for there was
no doubt she had brains. Women to him were usually more or less of
toys, but Lady Gladys was an intellectual being, she exercised his
mental fencing powers, and was difficult wooing. He hated Society, it
was too silly to amuse him, but he was obliged to endure it for the
sake of Lady Gladys. He meant to be her lover, so he allowed her to
procure him invitations to a series of “at homes,” where he should meet
her. He would attend her daily in the Park, he would drop in every
afternoon at teatime, and if she was going to the theatre, he would, of
course, have a stall next to hers. And all the while this love-making
was prosecuted with masterly tactics, and she was falling deeply in
love with him. She had never known love in her life before, and now
it filled her life, and made it tolerable. What her lover lacked in
emotional delicacies and sentimental refinements, she supplied out of
her own imagination, and was not aware that he lacked them; and she
was comparatively happy, and cared little or nothing for her husband’s
petty tyrannies. She was becoming hardened to them—and had not she now
a lover as well as her child to love? After all, love makes up the
sum of our lives; it is the only thing we cannot miss without being
wretched. Lady Gladys had had everything else till now, and now she
loved and believed herself loved. Might she not be happy in spite of
Sir Drury? Though she was tied to him for life, what happiness had he
ever given her?
But now people began to busy themselves with gossip about Lady Gladys,
to wonder how long it would be before Sir Drury woke up to the state of
affairs. It was only a whisper here and there, of course; but still
it was a whisper, and even whispers are sometimes heard by those not
intended to hear. So Sir Drury heard, not that he had not known before;
but it was only the whisper that gave him a weapon to strike with. She
loathed him; she had told him so more than once; then she should not
love another.
So when her lover called as usual one day, he was told that Lady Gladys
could not receive him, but that Sir Drury would be glad to see him in
his study; and then the cold-blooded old judge told him of the whisper,
and left it to him to discontinue his visits. Lady Gladys waited long
for her lover that day, and when she heard at length that he had come
and gone, she was furiously indignant. Of course, he felt bound in
honour to give her the option of running away with him, but he was not
sorry when she refused on account of her child. “She would only have
run away with some one else later on,” was the reflection with which he
cynically consoled himself.
And now I often wonder, when I see the chilling scorn with which Lady
Gladys and Sir Drury treat one another, whether she ever regrets not
having taken that step which might possibly have given her happiness,
and certainly cost her her social status; but when I see her fondling
her curly-haired little boy, I feel sure she does not regret it. But
she is more cynical than ever; her faith in man and woman, love and
the world, is hopelessly shaken. She is a confirmed pessimist, because
conjugal happiness has been unknown to her.
_THE BUSY-IDLE WOMAN_
Mrs. Restless I shall call her. Not that she would object to my
proclaiming her actual identity. In fact, I think she would prefer
it, for she loves to be talked about; and, as for seeing her name in
print, I fancy she would do much for the privilege, and then carefully
cut out the page for the edification of her friends, and wonder how
she had obtained, not merited, such publicity. Not merited, because
she will confess to knowing all about that. Who but she does so much
for everybody? Who is so active in every matter of public interest?
Then why should not she deserve newspaper recognition, as much as
Mrs. Montmorency Dazzle or Lady Capel-Courtney, who only occupy their
time in the frivolous amusements of Society, and employ expensive
dressmakers to win them paragraphs by making them “look well” in the
fashionable material of the moment?
This is a sore point with little Mrs. Restless, for she really believes
that her continuous occupiedness, in spite of the vast amount of
nothing she achieves, is of infinite value to the community at large,
and her own personal acquaintances in particular, whereas Mrs. Dazzle
is of no use to any one, except, as an ornament for the ball-room, and
a walking advertisement for her costumier. These are Mrs. Restless’s
views, and she has very strong views on every subject, though perhaps
they would not amount to much if subjected to the slightest analysis.
But she does not know that; for she is always too busy to analyse
anything. She is a woman of action, she will tell you; she must always
“be up and doing.” And so she wastes a great deal of valuable time
which might otherwise be devoted to idling that is worth living for,
that is full of pleasurable suggestion, instead of commonplace and
pretentious time-frittering; busy-idleness, in fact, which is neither
the one thing nor the other, neither good idling nor good business.
[Illustration]
Women seldom idle well; they do not understand the art. They make it
too much of a business, and so miss the spirit of true idling. Now I
reckon myself something of a _connoisseur_ in this matter, for if
there be one art with which I am familiar in all its branches, and on
terms of perfect understanding, it is this art of idling. A fine art,
look you, that must be studied with the same assiduity and sympathy
as painting, poetry, music, love-making, lying, or any other of those
accomplishments that have been reckoned among the fine arts. Your true
idler is born, not made, but in the easy and happy evasion of work and
its responsibilities he proves himself the artist. The obligation to
effort is a necessity to him, but his art teaches him how to make a
virtue of necessity by shunting the obligation on to pleasanter lines,
while the effort fails naturally upon other shoulders which perhaps
ought to bear it for some penance they have no doubt deserved. At
least, your idler consoles himself so, if he concern himself at all
about the matter. Thus, to idle artistically is not to vulgarly waste
time, but to adorn it as with May-day garlands. And every one who
cultivates this most delightful of arts may build himself a Castle of
Pleasaunce in the midst of this workaday world, wherein he may joyously
live at ease, and listen to the hearty songs of the toilers, who have
never dreamed of Arcady, and who know nought but that each hour must
produce its full profit of work.
But to return to Mrs. Restless. She is the busy-idle woman _par
excellence_. To idle simply is impossible to her; she must always
be indefinitely busy with definite results. There is seldom any
uncertainty about the results, generally they are practically
valueless, or not worth the trouble they have cost, but they occupy a
great deal of time in achieving for all that. She will take up some
charitable object, and go from place to place and worry all her friends
and acquaintances in the cause, and at the end of her efforts she will
find that, had she at first given a certain reasonable sum from her
own pocket, she would not only have come off cheaper than she has by
frittering out small payments, but she would have saved much trouble
and time, which might have been more advantageously employed. If she
plans any pleasure, she will, instead of enjoying it in the right,
rational manner of the true idler, make so much fuss about it, and
expend so much argument upon it, that it becomes a business and loses
all semblance of pleasure.
Figuratively speaking, Mrs. Restless is in a chronic state of moral
perspiration; effort oozes out of every pore of her being. She does not
understand repose, but rather seems to have discovered the secret of
perpetual motion. She cannot sit still. If in her drawing-room you be
calmly and comfortably ensconced in a luxurious armchair, from which
you feel convinced that wild horses would be powerless to drag you,
Mrs. Restless will enter, dusting the back of a chair, or changing
the position of some trivial ornament as she approaches. Then when
you think she is actually settled for conversation, she will rise to
rearrange an antimacassar at the further end of the room, and probably
insist upon your assisting her to move the piano.
At the breakfast-table Mrs. Restless is very trying, for she will
never allow a plate or dish, or any eating utensil, to remain in the
position into which it naturally falls in the course of the meal.
She plays therefore a perpetual game of draughts with the breakfast
things. I remember on one occasion watching an amusing game. Mrs.
Restless was discussing some philanthropic plan—she is nothing if not
philanthropic—with an old gentleman, whose constant habit as he talked
was to push everything by degrees into the middle of the table; but
Mrs. Restless could not stand that, so she as persistently pushed
everything back again, thus giving fresh play to the old gentleman’s
idle fingers, while she was kept constantly occupied at this
purposeless business. And this is typical of all that Mrs. Restless
does.
If she goes into the garden, and you invite her to the tempting
repose of a hammock which hangs under sun-shading boughs, or of a
long wicker-chair which, surrounded by rose-trees, suggests the “idle
dreaming of an empty day,” and into which, but for politeness sake,
you would fain have flung yourself, will she enjoy the proffered
luxuries of lounging restfulness? Not a bit of it. She cannot waste the
opportunity of plucking dead leaves from the flower-bushes, sweeping
fallen leaves from the gravel paths—all the gardener’s actual business.
Heavens! you expect her next to take a duster and flip off all the
casual dust from the trees, or dry the dew from the flowers. And
meanwhile you have self-denyingly taken the less comfortable lounge,
leaving the place of perfect repose vacant for this busy-idle woman,
who will not enjoy it.
Mrs. Restless scorns the unintellectual and despises the frivolous.
She believes herself to be the reverse of both, and entertains great
opinions of her own mental powers. But, dear thing, she is naïvely
superficial; she has, unfortunately, no time for reading, and—thank
goodness!—she has no logic. If she had she would be unendurable, for
she would wish to reason out her aggressive busying. Of course she
firmly believes she is logical. What woman does not, and would not be
offended if you hinted to the contrary? But, truly, a logical woman
loses half the charm of her sex, for her moods must be consequent
and responsible. Now, Mrs. Restless redeems much of her irritating
faculty of idle occupation by her delightfully amusing inconsequence,
of which, however, she is quite seriously unconscious. She will go off
at a tangent without any provocation, which to the humorously inclined
outsider frequently provides food for mirth, though to Mr. Restless the
fact of not knowing what his wife’s irresponsible energy will prompt
her to say and do next must be somewhat temper-trying. Nevertheless,
he adores her, and when he is not reproving her in his practical way,
while she attempts to argue his utter incapacity to understand her
high-minded aims, they do a good deal of billing and cooing, though
she is always too restless to enjoy even the repose of the melting,
affectionate mood for many minutes together.
If her husband, to whom she is devotedly attached, comes home tired
from his daily work, and inclined to rest in the society of his wife,
she will fret him with the petty details of her day’s doings, of which
he will not find much to approve, seeing that her “much ado about
nothing” has perhaps involved the departure of a valuable servant, the
estrangement of a useful acquaintance, or a quarrel with an excellent
tradesman. Then she will have muddled up her engagements so that she is
obliged to drag her unwilling husband from the much-needed quiet of his
domestic hearth to some purposeless party, where boredom is inevitable.
In spite of her professed dislike to the idle members of the community,
of the Society butterflies that flutter over the flowered fields of
pleasure, Mrs. Restless is never happier than when she is going to
parties, and theatres, and fêtes; but when she does so she speaks of it
as a duty rather than an amusement, and grumbles that Society keeps
her so busy. Not that she allows social occupations to interfere with
her domestic cares. She has children, and they know it; and servants,
and _they_ know it. She never allows them to forget that they are _her_
children and _her_ servants. Not a detail concerning either escapes
her, but she misses the general harmony in effect. She worries about
everything and everybody, until I verily believe the infant in the
cradle longs to find prussic acid in its bottle, if only to obtain a
little peace.
And yet there is a great deal of good nature and fine feeling in Mrs.
Restless, and half of her idle industry is due to her over-heartedness
and her concern for the pleasure and welfare of others, coupled with
an instinctive feeling of economy. She will spend a whole day and
worry all her propinquious friends and relations in her endeavours to
give away a ticket that has been sent to her for some theatrical or
musical entertainment, in order that it shall not be wasted. “Somebody
will be glad of it,” she thinks, and so any sacrifice of time and
trouble must be made to find out _who_ will. Kindness and generosity
are at the bottom of most of her actions, but there is too much of the
vexatious atmosphere of wasted energy and frittered time. She will
take an infinite amount of trouble for an infinitely small result,
and invariably in the interests of others; yet her genuine friends
sincerely like her, and her relations are fond of her, though they
laugh at her follies, and amiably ridicule her untimely and misplaced
energies and her magnificent muddling. Her children love her, though
she wearies them with over-carefulness and excessive attention; and
her husband, on the whole, thinks himself a very fortunate individual,
though he certainly would be content if his wife were a little less
busy and a little more idle. There would then, perhaps, be more calm
and comfort in his home.
On the whole, I feel that I frankly do not bear Mrs. Restless any
grudge for not having fallen in with my matrimonial views years ago,
when we were both in our teens, and I used to regard her enthusiasm
about everything, and her ardent activity in the cause of, Heaven
knows what, as something approaching the divine. And now I call it
busy-idleness! Well, the illusions of youth give place to the illusions
of age; but happily we have illusions always. Life would be terribly
dull without them.
Mrs. Restless is, beyond a doubt, an excellent wife, as in the long ago
of my boyhood I thought she would be; but I am glad she is another’s.
_THE SKITTISH OLD MAID_
I believe I may consider myself a passably amiable man, and I could
certainly produce ample testimony to prove I am so considered by a
large variety of impartial witnesses, ranging from my baby nieces to
my septuagenarian mother, and not forgetting to include my tailor. I
am of equable temper, and charitably expansive in matters of opinion.
I generally contrive to find excuses for the foibles and failings of
my fellow-creatures, and, had I but the gift of oratory, I believe I
could melt any jury to mercy, where an ordinary professional advocate
for the defence would only aggravate a conviction. I am forgiving to
a fault, and hence, if Pope’s dictum on the humanity of error and the
divinity of forgiveness count for truth, I must surely have in me some
kinship with the gods. But though I can so charitably temper my mind
as to frequently regard murder from the criminal’s point of view as
justifiable homicide, forgery and embezzlement as a practical protest
in favour of socialism, and arson as a mere tribute to the picturesque,
there is one crime I can never bring myself to contemplate with any
toleration. When one person commits boredom upon another, he puts
himself beyond the pale of mercy. I am an amiable man, but I cannot
bear to be bored.
Now, there is a class of persons who seem to have come into the world
for no other purpose than to test the patience of others. To this class
Miss Kittenish most undoubtedly belongs. I cannot determine any other
plausible reason for her existence. I have thought that her constant
devotion to her invalid mother might have had something to do with it,
her usefulness in directing the domestic affairs of the household,
her eager interest in the concerns of her five unmarried sisters, her
exemplary energy in parish mission-work, or her active enthusiasm in
the matter of school-treats; but, praiseworthy as all this is, I can
scarcely regard all or any one of these causes as the _raison d’être_
of Miss Kittenish. She was born to be a bore, to try the temper of the
amiable, to prove that we are all mortal, even the most charitable.
Bores are of two kinds—active and passive. The active are the worse,
and in that category Miss Kittenish must be placed, her special
aggravation being that she is so playful, and has a passion for
parlour-games—a very virulent form of boredom to practise upon the
amiable person. Now, be it remembered that Miss Kittenish is a spinster
of a very uncertain age—so uncertain, in fact, that there is no telling
what childish prank she may not be up to. But that which may be all
very well when directing the rollicking festivities of a school-treat
is apt to be aggressively out of place in an assembly of grown-up and
presumably reasonable persons. Yet that is just what Miss Kittenish
is unable to realise. The fascination of the round game seems to have
stunted her mental growth, and all her friends suffer in consequence.
Heaven knows, no one is more amenable than I to frivolity of any kind;
no one is readier to make a fool of himself at the proper season, and
under the necessary inspiration. And as for playing with children, no
game is too primitive for me, nothing that they can expect me to do is
too idiotic, nothing too undignified.
For the nonce I will set a fool’s cap upon my dignity, and laugh at
it. I will sing, “This is the way we wash our clothes,” and act the
attendant “business,” as they call it in stage-parlance, till I go
perfectly hoarse in my throat. I will “hunt the slipper,” or play “puss
in the corner,” and roll and romp on the floor with my little friends,
and enjoy it as much as any of them. Let me loose among their toys,
and witness my enthusiasm. Give me tops to spin, clockwork engines to
set running, tin soldiers to shoot down with spring cannons, or a box
of bricks to work my architectural fancy withal, and you shall see a
transformation to which fairy lore alone can supply a parallel—you
shall see thirty years fly away and leave me a child of six.
But Miss Kittenish is so playful that she is entirely unable to
discriminate between the amusements of the very juvenile and the adult;
and this is painfully forced upon one whenever one is weak enough to
accept an invitation to a social gathering at the Kittenishes’, who, I
may add, live in the suburbs. This I do periodically, because they are
such old family friends—they are, indeed, a sort of heirloom from the
last generation, which has to be kept up. It would sometimes be curious
to trace the origin of old family friends, from the cumbersome heirloom
point of view.
How I ever came to incur the obligation of visiting the Kittenishes I
do not recollect. I know I was taken there as a child, and I remember
that in those days there was a series of maiden aunts similar to
the present brood, and I can recall playing games with them to my
youthful enjoyment, so that the revived acquaintance has now become a
traditional duty. But I am grown-up now, and have been so these many
years, and so have Miss Kittenish and her five sisters; but it makes no
difference. They invite a number of friends to spend the evening there,
all of whom have entered upon the business of life, and consequently
are, or should be, interested in the events or social problems of the
day. Some may belong to the liberal professions, some may be votaries
of the arts, others merely competitors in the race for wealth, or idle
killers of time. But will these be permitted to converse under the
Kittenish roof on topics which appeal to them? Emphatically, no! Miss
Kittenish has taken care to leaven her guests with a few persons of
her own mind, and as soon as you are on the point of learning from a
Stock Exchange wiseacre whether Egyptian Unifieds are going up or down,
or from an omniscient journalist the date of the next Parliamentary
dissolution, the name of Tennyson’s next poem, the details of Irving’s
next play, the winner of the next Derby, and the true particulars of
the last Cabinet Council, Miss Kittenish approaches you with that
diabolically playful expression on her face, which portends “Dumb
Crambo” or something equally terrible, and asks you to go out of the
room while the rest of the company thinks of something.
I am usually the first victim, being known for an amiable man—how
I wish I had cultivated ferocity from my cradle—and after making a
feeble defence to the effect that I am so stupid at that kind of
thing, I am led away like a lamb to the slaughter. After a few chilly
minutes on the landing, during which I vainly contemplate means of
escape, I am called back into the room, and find myself in the centre
of a circle of presumably intelligent persons waiting to be asked a
number of inconsequent questions. All the Kittenish girls are keenly
on the alert, but Miss Kittenish is the mistress of the ceremonies;
she explains my duties, and I proceed resignedly. Of course I have
not the least idea what it is all about, and when, after the dismal
proceedings, I am asked to guess the word or proverb or whatever it
was, I make a series of random guesses which are so extravagantly
absurd that they provoke roars of laughter, and I am voted most
amusing—a fatal success.
Miss Kittenish is now all bustle and playfulness, and she once more
takes advantage of my amiability, and I am called upon to act in a
charade, then to play “Dumb Crambo,” and eventually to sit cross-legged
upon a broomstick poised upon two chairs, an abominable torture if
you succeed, while if you do not, you fall with a sudden bump to the
ground. In any case you afford boisterous merriment to the spectators,
who are neither on the broomstick nor on the ground. After this my
amiability is conquered by my increasing mental depression, aided by
the bodily torture involved in the fiendish broomstick trick, and
I make all sorts of excuses to elude Miss Kittenish in her fresh
devices. She is, however, untiring, and her resource in the matter
of parlour-games and tricks is positively amazing. Of course, it
is impossible to adopt all her suggestions on a single evening.
I diplomatically propose that we should keep some novelties for
Christmas; but there is no escape, and, after we are physically wearied
by the more active games, paper and pencils are handed round, and we
are set to play “consequences,” then to write doggerel verses, then
to remember as many towns and countries beginning with G as we can in
a given number of minutes, and other equally aimless occupations. And
what annoys me is that the majority of sycophantic guests actually
encourage Miss Kittenish in these suburban atrocities, pretending they
are amused, while I am doomed to endure this boredom now and again by
family tradition.
If I were not so amiable, I would break from it. I would never go there
again, and then I should be accused of inconstancy to old friends.
This is chaining myself to a sentiment, certainly; but I would Miss
Kittenish were not so playful, or that she confined her volatile
spirits to the parish schoolroom, or the seaside boarding-house, where
she is quite an acquisition and in her element.
To one of these establishments at Eastbourne Miss Kittenish sometimes
accompanies her invalid mother, and the announcement that “Miss
Kittenish is coming” produces as much pleasurable excitement as the
preliminary announcement of a visit from Sanger’s Circus to the town of
Sleepy Hollow. A vision of abnormal festivities and something new in
parlour-games is immediately conjured up, while it is well known that
Miss Kittenish is a perfect mine of conundrums, old and new. For years
past she has collected them in manuscript.