The Princess Girla had a very strong sense of duty; from her earliest
years she had believed in doing right, and she had known that she ought
to have what she wanted. There was a moral compulsion behind her
simplest desires; and she never undertook anything without explaining to
God what she expected from His co-operation.
She often saw with sympathy the suffering in which people were involved
while carrying out her wishes.
This insight never deflected Hermione’s will, but it made her charming
to serve.
She was extremely generous in ways which caused her no inconvenience,
and her manner in getting her wants made known was little short of
exquisite. Hermione’s confidential maid, who was a Roman Catholic,
firmly believed that if the Princess could be led to embrace the true
faith, she would eventually be canonised.
Hermione was of the stuff out of which the most perfect Mother Superiors
are made. As a lady Abbess she would have been feared and adored by all
her nuns, and no one except, perhaps, an impotent Father Confessor in a
moment of rebellion, would have thought of deposing her.
The trained nurse believed that Hermione suffered from a mysterious
disease not yet discovered by the doctors. Hermione had suggested to her
that nurses really understood illness far more thoroughly than medical
men; and she gave the nurse five guineas a week, and a series of
beautiful hats.
Nurse Davies frequently told people that the Princess Girla often
reminded her of Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc. Her body was
pathetically frail but her spirit was indomitable.
Torture was nothing to her.
Hermione had an iron self-control even as a child. She had behaved
faultlessly. No one had ever had to correct her manners. She had had a
young and jealous mother, who first adored and spoiled her, and when
Hermione reached the age of fifteen, had turned against her with an
antagonism as fierce as it was secret. Hermione had for a time meditated
a friendly alliance with her father, but she gave up the idea when she
discovered that Mr. Brett refused to take her on her own valuation, and
never permitted any criticism of his wife. Theodora fought her daughter
for every human soul that came into the house. They both had beauty and
wit, Theodora had experience and Hermione youth. They were very evenly
matched combatants, but the extra weight of authority possessed by
Theodora weighed down the scale. Hermione decided at eighteen that she
would leave her home. She gained her father’s consent to travel with
friends of his to Europe; but she went without her mother’s approval.
Theodora resented Europe, except for clothes. She would have liked to
rule in Paris but Mr. Brett had refused to give her any assistance.
European countries were strange as well as illusory. They would not
permit Theodora to rule without her husband. So she turned her back upon
Europe and took up New York. But an instinct warned her that Hermione
would conquer the old world, and leave her perpetually dissatisfied with
the new.
When Hermione left America she decided never to return to it except as a
visitor, and when she could take precedence of her mother.
She met Prince Girla in Paris, kept him on a tight rope for a year, and
then married him. Her precedence was now assured, but she was
disappointed when she discovered that in spite of Prince Girla’s
connection with the ruling family of Roumania, the fact that he belonged
to a younger branch (quite precluding succession) gave her much less
social importance than she had expected. They both spoke French
perfectly, so that language was no barrier between them. Prince Girla
had heavy debts, but he was madly in love with Hermione.
He would have shot himself if he had failed to win her, although it is
improbable that he would have suggested marrying her if she had not been
able to bring him a magnificent dowry.
At nineteen there was only one thing that Hermione did not know about
life—and that was marriage. She had spent much time and ingenuity upon
the subject, but marriage is the one experience upon which no
correlation of facts, however careful, has much practical bearing.
It took Hermione three days of personal experience to understand married
life, but it took her longer than this to teach her husband.
Hermione said afterwards, to her greatest friends, that she was afraid
she was not material enough for marriage. In the Roman Catholic Church
marriage is accepted as one of the lesser sacraments, but if Hermione
had been the Pope she would have altered this definition.
Prince Girla did the best he could with a spiritual tie, but he had not
been brought up on those principles, and he was very much in love.
The whole affair was disastrous, and it was complicated by the birth of
a boy within a year of the marriage. The Girla family took this as a
sign of grace, and not as an omen of destruction. Their rejoicing was
premature. Hermione went through her trial with an incredulous serenity.
She could not believe that Providence really meant to play her such a
trick, but when she found it had, she decided to make the occasion
final.
She would never have another child, nor did she mean to be
inconvenienced by the one she possessed.
Hermione did nothing to defy the marriage law; she would have thought it
very wrong to defy a law as well as rather foolish when it could be so
easily adapted to her convenience without defiance. She became seriously
ill.
No doctor could quite understand the cause of the Princess’s illness
(its chief symptom was the enforced absence of her husband for two
years), but of the fact itself there could be no reasonable doubt.
Hermione barely ate enough to keep herself alive, she was as frail as a
leaf, and suffered intensely, with heroic fortitude—but she chose her
sufferings.
At the end of two years Prince Girla had had enough of it, he still
admired Hermione but he wanted a wife. He insisted upon an interview and
he told her in fluent French with the extreme clarity of the Latin mind
what he thought of her.
Hermione lay on a sofa with her eyes shut, breathing softly. There were
moments in his long and emphatic speeches when Prince Girla pulled
himself up short and wondered if Hermione, who was as still as a statue,
was really alive at all.
But Hermione was alive; she waited until the Prince had said all that
had accumulated in his goaded and troubled spirit for the space of two
years, then she slowly opened her eyes, and selecting a few gentle words
which had occurred to her while he was stamping about the room, she
uttered them. They were perfectly wifely phrases and they gave Prince
Girla no justification whatever for what took place.
He struck Hermione.
This was the end of the marriage.
Prince Girla could not get a divorce on account of his religion, nor was
Hermione anxious for one.
She preferred to keep her title, and she had had enough of marriage.
Prince Girla apologised for the blow, and from time to time offered
abject terms of reconciliation; but Hermione refused to see him again.
She said she forgave him from the bottom of her heart and mentioned
meeting him at the judgment seat of Heaven where there was—as she was
thankful to reflect—no marrying nor giving in marriage, but she would
not meet him upon earth where the arrangements were less satisfactory.
Her relations-in-law wrote her letters which Hermione described as
“terribly Roumanian,” but they failed either to move her, or, as they
subsequently attempted, to cause her social destruction.
Hermione despised the Roumanian court which she privately described as
“potty,” and in the larger field of Europe her character remained
unblemished. She lived with perfect discretion; she was a Princess, and
she had an enormous income. She made no complaints, and yet every one
who mattered knew that Girla had beaten her black and blue continually.
Men raved against her ill-treatment and black-balled Girla out of their
clubs; but Hermione’s best and strongest supporters were those of her
own sex. She accepted passively and up to a certain point the admiration
of men; at this point she definitely checked it; but she made efforts to
attract women, and their admiration never became inconvenient to her.
Hermione was said to have a purifying influence over young married
women, and if they sometimes became very unhappy with their husbands,
she became an increasing support to them.
It was with this theory in mind that the Princess Girla came to Mambles.
If she had been able to help other young married women, how much more
ought she not to help Elise?
In her first twenty-four hours Hermione had pointed out to her sister,
with infinite tact and gentleness, that there is a selfishness of two,
as well as a selfishness of one, and that Elise might very easily fall
into it.
That evening Elise forbore to go out into the garden with John, and sang
Gounod’s “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” instead, in the presence of
the assembled family. John had never appreciated sacred music, and he
hated Gounod from that hour.
Hermione warned Elise how soon she could exhaust the affections of her
husband by permitting a demonstrative regard.
“Do not rebuff him,” she explained gently, “but evade him.”
Elise tried to evade John, and neither of them liked it.
Hermione told Elise how difficult young married life is, and Elise, to
whom it had come as easily as sunshine, began to see in it obstacles and
perils to John’s happiness and her own, which would have been
exaggerated in a jungle exclusively tenanted by wild beasts.
It never occurred to Elise that Hermione could be wrong; because
Hermione loved her so much and had been so unhappy herself, and only
wanted to save and shield Elise from a similar unhappiness.
Elise became pale with apprehension over the disasters and pitfalls
which lay ahead of herself and John, and even for the gardener’s wife
who had been married the week before, and did not look as if it had made
any difference.
Elise would have liked to ask her father’s help but that might seem as
if she had not perfect confidence in John, and she would have loved to
talk to John about it, only that might seem as if she had not perfect
confidence in Hermione, so that she decided to keep her anxieties to
herself.
She struggled manfully on, evading John, and seeing that Mr. Brett was
regularly and carefully attended to, even when he wanted to be left
alone.
“I should never,” Hermione carefully explained to Elise, “leave dear
Papa to stroll about by himself, or even sit for any length of time,
without running in to see if he is still alive. At any moment we may
lose him.”
Of course Hermione could not take this duty upon herself, partly because
of Mr. Brett’s inexplicable dislike to her company, brought on, no
doubt, by a diseased state of mind; and partly because her own health
required the utmost watchfulness and repose. But Elise could make a
point of running in and out and following Mr. Brett up, without any
grave consequences to anybody, and if it interrupted her persistent
tête-à-tête with John, so much the more precious would she make this
rare companionship.
“I do not want you ever to think of me,” Hermione said tenderly, “if I
never see your face from one day’s end to the other, Childie, I shall
not complain! All yesterday I sat alone, hour after hour, while you went
fishing with John. I thought of Papa once or twice and I was anxious at
your staying out so late—but for the rest, I want you to dismiss your
little old sister from your mind. I am one of those whose path in life
is cut out for loneliness.”
Of course Hermione’s path was very rarely lonely at Mambles. Elise made
constant opportunities to be with her sister, her little feet grew weary
with running to and fro, her heart beat fast with suppressed fears, and
she often lay awake for hours haunted by remorse. Had she neglected
Hermione? Would Papa die suddenly while she was out of the room? Was
John’s crossness when she left him quite the reward she had expected
from her evasive tactfulness?
The cook, too, was difficult. She said she couldn’t see the sense of the
Princess’s meals. She had no objection to Mr. Brett’s, which were no
trouble, and took place at the same time as other people’s, though she
wondered that he could keep alive on them, such stuff would kill a
healthy rabbit if exclusively condemned to it! But the Princess liked
her meals to be ordered at different times on different days, so that
nobody knew when they sat down how soon they would have to be up again,
and they were all new-fangled dishes which had to be cooked just
right—a slice off anything cold, even off a loaf of bread, was simply
sent down again as so much rat poison.
Elise wrinkled her delicate eyebrows, and wondered distractedly if she
ought to get an extra cook for Hermione, and if she did, wouldn’t she
(cooks’ tempers being what they were) have to ask John to build an extra
kitchen, and would John build an extra kitchen while there was a war on?
She would have liked to consult John about it, but Hermione had
expressly told her, “Never take your domestic difficulties to your
husband, many married lives are ruined by just that lack of self-control
on the part of young wives. Always meet him with a smiling face and tell
him that everything is perfectly easy.”
Life became more and more complicated for Elise, and she often wondered
if she would have been able to bear it at all if Hermione had not been
there.
This state of tension was unexpectedly broken by Bodger.
One Sunday afternoon they were all sitting out on the lawn having tea.
Mr. Brett had a glass of milk with digestive biscuits, Hermione had
chocolate with whipped cream and savoury sandwiches, and John and Elise
real tea with bread and butter. The Poms took what they could get from
each table, and shrieked over it.
It was a lovely south-west day, high clouds sailed swiftly overhead,
passing each other on different levels, in a clear blue sky. The garden
was full of light movements, travelling scents and midsummer colours.
John had moved the wind-screen five times for Hermione, quite
good-naturedly. Elise was just wondering whether it would affect her
married life irreparably if she should suggest a walk with John after
tea, when Bodger, having gnawed through a substantial rope and missed
the detaining hand of the stable boy by a fraction of a second, burst
upon the scene.
The peaceful lawn rocked in chaos. There was a table between Bodger and
one Pom: for a fleeting moment the rampart stood erect, and then in
jangled pieces bestrewed the lawn.
Mr. Brett reached out an arm, seized the Pom nearest him, and stuffed
it, screaming, into a capacious pocket; John ought to have caught the
other Pom—he nearly caught it, but unfortunately the sight of Bodger
passing imperturbably through hot chocolate and whipped cream (it was
Hermione’s table he had overturned) checked him, by a gust of laughter.
The chuckle cost him the life of the Pom.
Bichon dived past him, making foolishly away from Hermione towards the
open lawn. Hermione screamed and deflected Bodger from her chair. He was
on the Pom’s trail in a second and an instant later Bichon was
painlessly shaken into Eternity.
John caught Bodger only a moment afterwards, but there was nothing left
to catch of Bichon: he had entered upon the first unbroken silence of
his career.
John beat Bodger sternly and without mercy, but Bodger merely licked his
lips, writhed as a matter of form, and hunted for the other Pom, out of
the corner of a wicked eye.
Bichette had hysterics in Mr. Brett’s waistcoat.
Hermione missed a great opportunity. She should have fainted, probably
she would have fainted, only a spontaneous faint comes off quicker than
one which is premeditated. Before she had time to think of it, Elise had
forestalled her.
Elise had spent a long hot day trying to make everybody happy and
comfortable, and bloodshed upon the top of these efforts was more than
she could stand.
“Now,” said Hermione with her grey eyes cold with hatred, “perhaps John
you will be content to part with that unspeakable monster, when you see
what it has done to your poor wife!”
“Hermione,” said Mr. Brett, suddenly depositing the remaining Pom upon
her lap. “Quit this lawn and take this demented muff with you. You and
your dogs between you have done enough mischief for one bright summer’s
day.”
Hermione murmured that dear Papa was of course upset, but she did leave
the lawn with Bichette under her arm, casting a glance of terror and
aversion at the recumbent, contemplative form of Bodger.
John was on his knees beside his wife.
“She’s round, John,” said Mr. Brett very gently. “I guess the thing that
will suit her best is for you to stay there quietly with her till dinner
time.”
Elise whispered that she was perfectly all right, but some one must go
at once to help and comfort Hermione.
“Sure,” agreed Mr. Brett with alacrity. “I’ll go right in and see to
Hermione. I’ve assisted her some already, but it ain’t anything to what
I _might_ do if I put my mind to it.”
Mr. Brett moved off with unusual quickness across the lawn, and in a fit
of absent-mindedness called out “Good dog” as he passed Bodger.