Arthur would not allow me to be present: it was not "a woman's
province." Clergyman or no, the mad old father would have had short
shrift from _me_. "Proof, my good man," I would have said, "proof."
... That is how the matter stands at present, and you can realize
that, while we are braced to receive the next onslaught, there can be
no question of long, careless holidays.
But I was glad I went even for a short time. Even to Menton, which
truly honestly is only a suburb of Monte Carlo (I had a reason), even
with the railways in their present abominable condition--the French
seem to be making no _effort_ to pull themselves together after the
war except by means of wholesale robbery. They have clearly decided
that, as we came to their rescue and paid for their war, it is now
our bounden duty to pay for them in peace as well... I always
believe in going _right_ away after a domestic crisis of that kind;
and I was really beginning to fear a break-down if I stayed any
longer in London. There is a curious convention that there is
something _funny_ about a man of Arthur's age and position falling
under the spell of a little chorus-girl; it is less funny when you
have to fight for your life to preserve _your_ husband and the father
of _your_ child. Some form of madness that overtakes men... I have
not told you, I never _shall_ tell you what Arthur was like when he
found that this girl had thrown him over at the last moment.
Dazed... His behaviour to _me_ seemed of _no_ account; the fact that
I knew everything from the girl's own lips and had helped to pack the
clothes in which he was to run away with her... He was like a man in
a trance...
I uttered no word of reproach. It was unnecessary. At first he
behaved as if the light had gone out of his life--which was pleasant
for me; then he seemed to realize that perhaps some amends were owing
to me... Assented immediately to my proposal that we should go right
away...
I chose Menton because Sir Appleton Deepe was there. He, I fancy,
would be the first to tell you that I really _made_ him. Unheard-of
before the war, except in business... I wanted his advice about
Will: where he could lay out his talents to greatest advantage, as it
were; and, though nothing has been decided definitely, I _have_ a
promise, and he is most anxious to meet Will... So one's time was
not _wasted_...
And there, in the peace and wonderful sunshine, one had an
opportunity of recovering one's perspective. I had tided Arthur
through his great crisis; and there was nothing, I felt, to fear in
the future. But we could not let it rest at that. There had been an
intolerable amount of malicious gossip--how wide-spread I could not
believe until the proof was thrust before me--; men jesting in their
clubs, women gloating... And you may be sure that the Brackenbury
and Spenworth broods were only too delighted to think that yet
another had been dragged down to their level; if one was not to be a
by-word and an object of scorn... Goodness me, I wasn't thinking of
my own poor dignity, but these stories had to be stopped somehow. In
the school in which I was brought up one was supposed to set
something of an example; for what it may be worth, one _does_ occupy
a certain _niche_; it was more than time for us to shew that there
had _been_ no catastrophe, as our kind friends would have liked to
think.
"Arthur," I said, "you will never hear me allude to this again. We
have passed through a time of trouble, but God has mercifully brought
us into safety. For some months we have been spied on and whispered
about; it is our duty to shew a happy and united front!"
Arthur said at once that he would do whatever I wanted...
You do not often hear me talking of "position" or "dignity" or
"rights", but I did indeed feel that any poor little _niche_ we might
occupy was threatened. Spenworth's own record is so infamous that
people would feel it was only natural for his brother to tread the
same path. I am not ashamed to confess that I _do_ feel what people
say about me. _Some_ people... And it was these people, the people
who _mattered_, that I wanted to convince; if there was indeed no
rift between Arthur and me, why should we allow the gossips to
pretend there was? ...
I decided to signalize our return to England by a little party--just
a few friends to dinner, a little music, a few more friends coming in
if they had nothing better to do. I have never found it necessary to
inform the world--as your Mrs. Tom Noddys do--that they have left
Gloucester Place for Eastbourne or Eastbourne for Gloucester Place.
Goodness me, "Who wonders--and who cares?," as they say. But I was
not sorry to find that our little party was being discussed; and, of
course, when once the princess's name was mentioned, the papers came
at me with open arms... I left no stone unturned to make a success
of the little gathering. We have always been quite pitiably
restricted in our entertaining, but this was not the moment to grudge
a few extra pounds well laid-out... And it does not require a
mathematician to prove that Arthur could have given me more money if
he had given less in other directions. Of course, I did not _hint_
such a thing; my dear, _peace_, _forgiveness_, _forgetfulness_ was
what I wanted... And it was not necessary; Arthur assented to
everything.
First of all I made certain of the princess. What she can see in a
dull old woman like me you must ask _her_; but she has been a _true_
and _loving_ friend for perhaps more years than either of us now
cares to recall; and, if humble affection and gratitude matter to
her, she knows that they are hers whenever she does me the honour of
visiting my house... She likes coming, I know; in me, she has been
gracious enough to say, she finds an attitude of mind, a point of
view which is disappearing only too fast; in a sense--I am sure she
would be the first to excuse my presumption--we were brought up in
the same school.
There was no difficulty about securing my brother. It is a pose with
Brackenbury to pretend that he hates what he calls
"orders-and-decorations" parties, but my sister-in-law is not so
jaded. Perhaps in the world in which she was reared... I certainly
notice marked civility and almost affection if Ruth hears that I am
giving a party and that the princess has graciously consented to be
present. My niece Phyllida is less punctilious in her courtesy;
there is rather too much of the "Oh-I-don't-care-_what_-I-do"
attitude about her, and, since she found that her cabman hero was
still alive and somewhere in London... A curious recklessness and
restlessness... I invited her because I cannot bear to see a
girl--young, well-connected, rich, good-looking--simply _moping_...
They say it takes two to make a quarrel, and I have refused to
quarrel with Phyllida, so that at last I think she has ceased to
believe that I turned the cabman hero against her in the hope of
keeping her for my boy. I--have--not--lifted--a--_finger_! She
evidently enjoys being with Will; and, if he wanted to marry her, I
should not stand in the way. Ever since that Morecambe nightmare
began, I have felt that I shall never know a moment's peace until he
is safely married...
I don't _want_ him to go abroad... When any one in his position
seeks his fortune in a foreign country, there is always a tendency
among some people to ask what he has _done_, to treat him as a
remittance-man ... which is offensive without being particularly
amusing... I have lost the thread...
Ah, yes! My little party. One thing I noticed on returning to
England was the extraordinary mixture of people that one met
everywhere. For this, though I am personally fond of her, I blame
Connie Maitland more than any dozen other women. Not being a
_persona grata_ in certain circles to which she would dearly like to
have the _entrée_, she seems to cultivate numbers for their own sake.
When the princess... More by a hint, you understand, than by any
direct criticism... But she cannot help seeing that the old barriers
_have_ been broken down... It is always on the tip of my tongue to
make my Lady Maitland wholly responsible. During the war one was
_flung_ against these people, as it were: the strangest generals who
seemed to have been stock-brokers the moment before... All that sort
of thing... "Captains of Industry" (I believe they are called) with
the queerest accents and all holding high office. There was an
_epidemic_ of cabinet rank; and, if one had business in Whitehall,
one met the oddest people--never the same two days running. Connie
Maitland _thoroughly_ enjoyed herself, I always felt; so many new
people to know before any one else. (I am not ashamed to confess
that it is _not_ my ambition simply to know new people.) When I
returned from Menton, I did drop a little hint and suggest that, as
the war was now over, she ought to revise some of her war
friendships. Quite kindly and gradually, you understand; I know that
with some of the really estimable women who sat on committees with
me... "_Is_ it true kindness?," I asked myself. "They lead their
lives, you lead yours; the war brought you together, but you've
_nothing_ else in common..." After that breath of fresh air at
Menton, I was honestly truly aghast to find what London had become
without one's noticing it. I sought an opportunity of speaking to
the princess about it: I felt some one ought to make a little stand.
_I_ don't count, because I'm not in a position to entertain; but I
did resolve to confine my little party _simply_ to the old friends...
I invited Spenworth... You look surprised; but, if you will think
for a moment... Arthur's brother. It was notorious that I had for
years disapproved of his whole way of life, but the family had to
shew a united front. His _very_ recent divorce, which--between
ourselves--I think was forgiven far too quickly; goodness me, I hope
I am not a bigot and I would assuredly persecute no one, but "whom
God hath joined together" ... I invited him chiefly on his wife's
account; her position is not so secure that she can altogether
dispense with a supporting hand, and I was tired of confessing to
people that I had not even met her... Never can I forget, either,
Spenworth's triumph when for a moment Arthur seemed to be treading
his path... _My_ Nemesis for trying to hold my head erect and daring
to reprove him. No, I did not hear what he said, but I am certain
that he said it...
For several days--to my amazement, for I knew they were at
Cheniston--there was no reply. Then I met Spenworth in the street.
"Oh, I say!," he began. (You know that _hunting-field_ voice of
his?) "You aren't playing the game with poor old Arthur, you know."
"I'm afraid I must beg for enlightenment," I said.
"Oh, well, you know, this is the first time the poor old boy has ever
left the rails." (I am always lost in admiration of Spenworth's
_elegance_!) "Dust his jacket for him at home as much as you like,
but don't make him eat humble-pie in public, don't make an exhibition
of him."
"I don't know what you _mean_," I said.
"Oh, bunkum! Every one knows he tried to slip his collar, every one
thought he'd got away; and, now that you've recaptured him, you want
to shew him off in his muzzle. 'Tain't cricket, Ann, if you ask me;
you've won, and there's no need to crow over the old boy. 'Tain't as
if he'd given you any trouble before."
"I must give it up," I said in despair. "Spenworth, will you tell
me--in language comprehensible to my poor wits--whether you and your
wife are coming to dine on the eighteenth?"
"Thank you very much, Ann," he answered, "we are _not_. 'Matter o'
fact, I'm taking the chair at a regimental dinner, but if I
_wasn't_... I think it's an infernal shame and I hope it's a rotten
party."
And then he turned on his heel...
I can never see his charm, myself. People excuse his rudeness, his
immorality, his utterly wasted, self-indulgent life... They say he's
"such a good fellow", whatever that may mean... But I find it very
hard to speak _coolly_ about Spenworth...
Without wanting to be inhospitable, I was secretly _relieved_ that he
could not come. The dear princess is the soul of tolerance, but I
was not at all sure how she would receive his name; I was not at all
sure that he would even behave himself properly. Did I ever tell you
how he set himself to drive the Archbishop out of the house by
sheer--but I prefer not to discuss it. "Indecency" is really the
only word; under the guise of an ethical discussion... As we
literally cannot sit down more than twenty-four in Mount Street, two
spare places _are_ a consideration. I was fortunate enough to secure
the Duke and Duchess of Yarrow; one had not seen much of them for
some years, and the duchess is so deaf that I sometimes wonder
whether she is really quite right in her head, but the duke is a
director of the Far East Trading Company, and I thought that, if Will
ever _did_ think of going abroad to seek his fortune, the duke ought
to know of it before he was snapped up by any one else. The
others... But I expect you saw the list; it was in all the
papers--the Bishop of Hatwell, dear old Lady Ursula Bedmont, the
Minister of Fine Arts, the Spanish Ambassador...
Or was it the Italian? I'm quite stupid about remembering who was
there. It was so long since I'd given a party of any kind that I'm
not ashamed to confess I was a little nervous. And we began badly:
Lord Fenchurch, who _really_ grows more and more absent-minded every
day, arrived with a black tie and one of those detestable little
jackets that young men affect in theatres. Arthur was waiting in the
hall to receive the princess and in a _moment_ had him fitted out
properly, while a maid dashed to Hay Hill to fetch his St. George.
(As Arthur said, "We can lend you anything from the South African
medal to the Victorian Order, but we _don't_ fly as high as Garters.")
One or two _tiny_ hitches like that, just enough to make me
nervous... When the princess arrived, all was transformed: she was
more than gracious, wanting to know why she never saw anything of me
nowadays... Some people are quite wonderfully able to give you that
sense of _well-being_. I presented Will. She said:
"But _you're_ not old enough to have a grown-up son!"
"I am old enough to be _proud_ of it, ma'am," I said.
I don't think I am _envious_; but, when I saw the success of my
little party, when I looked at Brackenbury, who _has_ the money and
does nothing with it, _and_ at Ruth, who couldn't do anything with it
if she wanted to ... just an over-grown school-girl... When I
thought of Spenworth and the _opportunities_ at Cheniston, I felt it
was a little hard... They do come to me, gladly, graciously; and I
am not in a position to entertain them...
After dinner we had music...
I don't know what your experience has been, but I find it hard to
remain patient with the whole world of people who delight in calling
themselves "artists". (If English has any meaning, an artist is a
person who _paints_, not a fiddler or a poet or an actor.) So much
fuss has been made of them that their heads have really been turned.
Before I had quite decided what music to have, I heard a young man
playing at Connie Maitland's. Quite well he played--for an
Englishman, and I asked Connie to present him.
"I have a few friends dining on the eighteenth," I said, "and I was
wondering whether you would be so very kind as to come and give us an
opportunity of hearing a little more of your too delightful playing."
These people _expect_ to be flattered, as no doubt you know...
"The eighteenth?," he repeated. "I'm not dining anywhere that night,
so far as I know; I will come with great pleasure."
The impudence of the man!
"Dinner itself..." I said. "My dining-room is so absurdly small that
I am absolutely restricted in numbers. But _afterwards_... I have
asked a few friends, real music-lovers; say about half-past ten. The
address--"
"Oh," he interrupted, "I'll ask you to get in touch with my agent.
He'll tell you my terms and make all arrangements."
"But there are no arrangements to make," I protested. "Lady Maitland
told me that you were a new-comer to London, and I thought you might
like to meet a few people..."
And then I told him that the princess had graciously promised to come.
The young man thought it over--for all the world as though he were at
a bazaar and I were pressing him to buy something that he didn't
want! I was _beside_ myself...
"I should like to meet her," he was good enough to say. "She may be
useful. All right, I'll do it this once."
And, do you know, it was on the tip of my tongue to say that never
should he set foot inside my _house_! First of all _inviting_
himself to dinner, then trying to make me _pay_ him for coming... An
artist I can understand; and a tradesman I can understand. But this
hybrid...
And on the night he insisted on my presenting him to the princess.
Insisted! There is no other word... She, of course, was too sweet
... made no objection and even complimented him. I kept thinking of
the old days. When my niece Phyllida came out just before the war,
Brackenbury gave a ball for her and asked me to do what I could (Ruth
is worse than useless on such occasions, because she tries to cover
up her ignorance by saying it doesn't matter--and being obstinate
about it). I ordered the band--from those really nice people in
Clifford Street--; and the princess was present on that occasion too.
I _wondered_ what we should have thought if the leader had strolled
up, baton in hand, and said: "Oh, won't you present me to Her Royal
Highness?" ...
I _will_ say this boy played well. Magnetically... The whole room
was silent and motionless. One looked up through a mist, as it were,
and saw rows of rapt faces, a regiment of men by the walls, a mere
black and white cloud by the door.
At first I did not notice...
I mean, one cannot be expected to identify eighty or a hundred people
all at once; the princess was obviously my first concern, and, when
this young fellow ceased playing and I stood up, _naturally_ I
imagined that they would all come forward. So they did ... some of
them. I am not good at recognizing people, so I made allowances for
myself; but, even so, a _great_ many of the faces were unfamiliar.
Nothing in that, you may say; a little music and some light
refreshments--sandwiches and cake, you know, with perhaps claret-cup
and coffee--afford a wonderful opportunity for making a little return
to people whom one truly honestly doesn't want to have _dining_; I'm
sure you understand! There is nothing wrong with them or I would not
invite them to have the honour of meeting the princess; but, as Will
would say, they just don't pull their weight in the boat... I
recognized one or two ... and then, really, I did not know what to
make of it. After anything I may have said to the princess about the
unpleasantly go-as-you-please, enjoy-yourself-and-don't-ask-questions
character of modern London, you may be sure that I had not encouraged
anybody to collect the first half-dozen waifs and strays from the
street and bring them in. Every one had been _told_ that the
princess would be there, so that they might equip themselves
accordingly; yet, when I looked round the room, I did not know a
tenth of the people!
It was like a bad dream! You know my drawing-room in Mount Street:
windows on the south side, and between them a sofa on which I was
sitting with the princess; to the left, at the far end, the piano; to
the right, the door. At one moment--a perfect picture! Dear old
Lord Fenchurch with his St. George, Brackenbury with the Bath, my boy
with his war medals--almost every one with a little _something_ to
enhance what will always be the most _dignified_ dress in the world.
Repose... Distinction. And then, at the door, an invading army!
Men I had never seen before, some in uniform, some in those
detestable little jackets and limp, pleated shirts; flushed,
dishevelled... And all of them unknown to me as the man in the moon!
The princess, perhaps you know, abominates the smell of tobacco; need
I say that a positive _cloud_ of smoke was bursting in from the
stair-case? ...
If it had been the men alone, I could have borne it. _Somehow_ one
would have carried it off... I made my way, through this _sea_ of
strange faces, to the door--and I really believe that, if I had found
the Jacquerie in possession, I could hardly have been more astounded.
_With_ the men there were girls, scores and scores of them, surging
up to the door, lolling about on the stairs, smoking cigarettes in
the hall, powdering their horrible little noses. One glance was
enough... The dresses alone--skirts that hardly reached their
_knees_, bodices that hardly reached their _waists_, "the shoe and
shoulder-strap brigade", as my boy calls them. A reek of powder and
cheap scent...
"What," I said, "what have I done to deserve this?"
You would think that my cross was sufficiently heavy, but I was
evidently to be spared nothing. _Some of the men were not even
sober_! As I came on to the landing, some one said--with great
elegance--:
"Here, old thing, you'd better go home and sleep it off."
Don't let me claim more pity than I deserve! I _was_ spared a free
fight. When the Arbiter of Taste had returned from escorting his
friend downstairs, I said to him:
"I must _beg_ for enlightenment. There has evidently been a mistake.
I cannot remember having invited you; and I think you must have come
to the wrong house."
He looked a little surprised, but rallied at once and pulled from his
pocket a _menu_ with the address written on it.
"We were told that you were giving a dance and that we might come,"
he said. "I am addressing Lady Ann Spenworth, am I not?"
"You are," I said, "but there's some hideous mistake. Dance?
There's no dance. _Who_ told you?"
"Lord Spenworth," he answered. "At the regimental dinner. He said
that you were giving a party; some of us were a bit shy of coming
without an invitation, but he assured us that we should be as welcome
as he was. We'd all arranged to go on to Ledlow's; so, as soon as
we'd found our partners, on we came. Is it the wrong night?"
"Wrong night!," I said. "All nights are wrong nights! My
brother-in-law must have made a mistake. I _am_ giving a little
party and I invited him..."
And then I whispered to this boy about the princess. I must say that
he behaved _well_. It can never be pleasant to find yourself in a
house where you're not expected and where, only too plainly, you're
not wanted. He saw my terrible position...
"I hope you realize it's not _our_ fault," he said.
"I acquit you of _everything_," I cried. "But won't you explain to
your friends and--and get them away?"
He promised to do his best, though some of the men looked anything
but tractable; and I went back to the princess, hoping that the music
would _drown_ all the going and coming. "Play like mad!," I
whispered to this boy at the piano; "_Noise_, at all costs!" And, as
if I hadn't enough to bear, I thought he was going to take offence.
Half-way through, the door opened a crack, and I saw--who do you
think? Colonel Butler; Phyllida's cabman hero. Nothing could
surprise me then--the fact that he was in evening-dress... If he'd
brought his cab in with him...
I hurried to the door, no longer caring whether he met Phyllida,
whether she threw herself at his head... _Any_thing...
"This is a case for heroic measures, Lady Ann," he said, when I had
explained my _tragic_ position. "Some of these fellows have been
doing themselves rather well and they swear they won't go without a
dance. If you leave things to me, I believe I can pull you through.
Certainly I'll do my best, but you must back me up in everything. Is
that agreed? Then, as soon as the music stops, will you present me
to the princess? I'll get hold of your husband and Will and tell
them what has to be done."
I asked leave to present him... The princess knew his name, knew all
about him--far more than I had ever guessed. It appears that he
ought to have had the V.C.; and, if it lay in my gift, he should have
had it that night! Oh, I don't wonder that he did well in the war.
Such coolness, determination, foresight...
"I expect Lady Ann has told you, ma'am," he began, "that the Forest
Rangers have been having their regimental dinner. Lady Ann has
_most_ kindly lent us the house for a little dance later on. I want
to know whether I may ask an extraordinary favour. It will give
immense gratification if you will allow Lady Ann to present the
officers to you before the dance begins. I know it's a very big
thing to ask, because there are a great many of them; but, if you
knew the pleasure you would confer, I could almost hope that you
would forgive my presumption."
The princess is really and truly the sweetest woman I know. Was
there a moment's hesitation? Colonel Butler brought them in, one
after another, announced the names, herded them out again, brought in
more. Arthur hunted them upstairs to his bedroom as they came out,
so that there should be a little room on the stairs... And, when she
came out--this presentation was really a very clever stroke on
Colonel Butler's part to give her an excuse for leaving--, there was
a word and a smile for every one--praising the girls' dresses, saying
she hoped that all the young people would have a _very_ pleasant
time. Graciousness like that cannot be _learned_, but perhaps a
certain dignity can. To do these girls justice, they behaved quite
admirably; no familiarity, no nervousness--to the outward eye. I
hope for their sakes that, when they compared their own "shoes and
shoulder-straps" with what was thought fitting to be worn by another
generation, trained in a different school, the lesson was not
altogether thrown away...
I did not suppose that Colonel Butler _seriously_ intended that I
should improvize a dance at a moment's notice, but I had misjudged my
man. He had given his word, he said, and, if he broke it, there
might be an unpleasant scene; if, however, I would back him up, he
would "see me through" again. Almost before the princess was out of
the house, one section was rolling back the rug in the drawing-room
and disposing of the furniture. Arthur, with his coat off and his
shirt-sleeves rolled up, was dashing down to the cellar and up again,
bringing wine that literally cannot be replaced; and, to judge from
next day's accounts, it must have been Colonel Butler himself who won
over my rather unyielding cook. He has a gift of _silver_ speech;
the superior young man at the piano, who always left all arrangements
of terms to his _agent_, if you please, sat with a bottle of
champagne and a plate of sandwiches playing till _four o'clock_...
The relief was so great that I really quite lost my head. Colonel
Butler asked me for the first dance--quite charmingly.
"Your manners are better than your judgement of age," I said. "I
have not danced for thirty years."
"But it's quite simple," he explained. "Walk round the room in time
with the music, turn when you feel inclined and add any frills you
like when we've got into each other's step."
And I _did_...
Jean Yarrow I found later, helping him to cut sandwiches and bawling
the most unsuitable answers to questions which, poor soul, she could
not hear. When he said something about "potted tongue", she thought
he said "clot in the lung" and gave him a history of her own
complaints which I could not help feeling was _not_ suitable for the
ears of a young man... The duke, meanwhile, was mixing cup by some
secret process that he had learned at Cambridge; I hoped it would
save the wine a little, but from this point of view it was _not_ a
success. They only asked for more, like that boy in the book...
To use a favourite word of Will's, Colonel Butler was a "superman."
But for him... I mean, there was plenty of high spirits but not a
hint of rowdiness. And he was master of the ceremonies, cook,
butler, carriage-finder. The older generation, too, has been so much
thrust into the background that we find it refreshing when a young
man shews a little politeness and consideration. As soon as supper
was ready--he had prepared it with his own hands--, Colonel Butler
asked if he might take me down. Arthur was with me and he at once
intervened.
"No, no," he said. "You're a dancing man. Go off and find Phyllida.
You'll spoil her evening if you don't ask her to dance."
I should have thought it was hardly necessary to _throw_ the girl at
him like that, but after the way Brackenbury and Ruth had been crying
over their lost sheep...
"It's no use your thinking you can keep her for Will," Arthur said,
though I had never uttered a word. "Look at them--meeting... And
now look at them--dancing. Come down to supper."
I don't think that any account of the dance was published in the
press. I certainly supplied no particulars. But I expect you read
about the dinner. I have been inundated with letters of thanks--the
most touching, unquestionably, from the princess, who loved what she
called my little informal gathering. It was not quite what I had
intended, but the _effect_ was good; when our friends saw us
together--I mean Arthur and me, of course--harmoniously, lovingly...
As regards Phyllida and Colonel Butler, you know as much as I do...
There has been no announcement; and, if people do not wish to tell me
things, I do not choose to ask...
From every point of view--almost, the evening was highly successful.
But I shall never forgive Spenworth, never... As long as I live...
X
LADY ANN SPENWORTH IS A PRISONER IN HER OWN HOUSE
_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): You must forgive me
for making you wait like this. The servants have positive
instructions to say that I am not at home to any one until I have
been specifically asked. Why one should be at the mercy of anybody
who chooses to burst in... When all is said and done, the
Englishman's home is still his castle.
Partly I have been busy, partly I have been very much worried, partly
I have been driven to it in self-defence. I only wish I had been
more unyielding before. I told you of the mad clergyman from
Morecambe who swept like a whirl-wind into this room, demanding to
see my husband and, so far as I can make out, trying to browbeat my
boy into marrying his daughter... It began from that day, and I find
it hard to forgive Arthur for not enlightening me. With Will it was
altogether different; no man that I should care to meet would try to
get out of a difficulty at the expense of a woman. The code forbids
that...
But, if Arthur--who _knew_ as soon as there was anything to know--had
told me, I should have acted at _once_; we should not be in our
present state of absolute uncertainty, simply waiting with folded
hands for the next blow to fall... Men have a strange idea that
certain things are exclusively their _province_; their wives, even
the mothers of their children must remain outside the door until it
is too late to repair the damage. I was not told the _facts_ until
two days ago...
When my boy was offered that position at Morecambe, I went with him
to see that he had a place fit to live in. The Phentons seemed our
best hope, they were highly recommended, and I will say ungrudgingly
that they played their cards well. An elderly clergyman, who had
resigned his benefice on account of ill-health, a decent motherly
woman for wife--and these two girls, young, presentable and
thoroughly _nice_... If you tell me that I am too unready to think
ill of people, I have no defence--except to say that I am not
prepared to go through life _suspecting_... Molly Phenton was very
much "the old country parson's pretty little daughter"; simple,
innocent, shy; a little fluttered, you would say, when she heard who
we were, and agreeably excited by the prospect of having a
good-looking young man to stay in the house...
Perhaps she _overdid_ the innocence. Eyes are eyes, and saucers are
saucers... But I don't wish to appear wise after the event. I was
completely taken in...
And so was Will. She was clever enough to guess that this was the
appeal to reach him quickest: the simple little girl with the soft
hair and the big grey eyes, living out of the world with her old
father, no brothers to protect her or _teach_ her anything. One
would never have been surprised to find her affecting a lisp... She
deliberately laid herself out to catch my boy.
You must not ask me what happened. I have never been forced to study
the methods of campaign which a woman adopts for such a purpose. No
doubt she tried first of all to attract him innocently. Whatever
success she had, poor Will is not free to marry where his heart leads
him, unless his heart leads him where there is _some_ money (I have
always, as you know, dreaded an entanglement with some girl whom he
would _simply_ have to support all his life); and Will is too
honourable to give any encouragement to some one he has no intention
of marrying. You will understand me, too, when I say that _no_ one
could have called it a very suitable alliance--for him or for _her_;
it is no kindness to a girl to transport her from her own world,
though--poor souls!--they all fancy that, if they can achieve a great
match, they will be happy, and the rest will come by the light of
nature. Goodness me, have we not seen that tragically disproved with
Ruth Brackenbury and Kathleen Spenworth? Will and this girl had
_nothing_ in common. If she married him, it would be over my dead
body...
If she did not see this, at least she saw that she was making no
impression on my boy; and then I am sadly afraid that she
deliberately laid herself out to tempt him. I have seen enough of
life to know that, when a woman abandons herself to this kind of
thing, very few even of the purest and best are proof against her
_wiles_. This Molly had made up her mind to get a hold on Will; and,
once she had decided on that, she would stop at nothing.
I never knew a _thing_ at the time. When my boy suddenly arrived in
London, when the mad clergyman followed him and _insisted_ on seeing
Arthur, I thought that she would content herself with making him
compromise her. If they could be discovered _kissing_ ... as they
_were_... And that was all that even her father was allowed to know
at the time, though she talked about a promise of marriage. But she
was clever enough to know that she couldn't make a man marry her
because he had kissed her...
So far as I can see, there is no doubt at all... I did not ask Will,
because I could not bear him to tell me an untruth; and the code
ordains that a man must never admit such a thing, always the woman
must be shielded. One did not need to be his mother in order to see
that he was _worried_. Remorse... The sense that nothing could ever
again be the same... _Hatred_ of himself... Hatred of _her_...
And, all the while, I had to sit with my hands in my lap, seeing his
health and happiness ruined. He could not eat, he could not _sleep_;
Sir Appleton kept writing and telephoning to ask when Will was coming
to see him, but there was no question of trying to find fresh
_work_... And at any moment this wild man of the woods might
_descend_ upon us again.
The first time he came--I, if you please, was not allowed in the
room--, Arthur would only stamp up and down, saying that Will--_our
boy_--was a scamp and deserved horse-whipping. I begged for
enlightenment, but at this period the wild man only claimed that Will
had compromised his Molly and that there had been a promise of
marriage... _Exactly_ what one would have expected! _Precisely_
what the girl was working for! _That_ was the moment to strike and
to strike hard. "A promise of marriage? _Prove_ it!" I well knew
that Will was too instinctively wise to write her letters--and they
were in the same house!--or to give her presents. But I was informed
that this was not a woman's province. So we dragged on, waiting for
the blow...
I quite dreaded the Morecambe post-mark. The girl wrote every other
day, and every letter seemed to plunge poor Will into deeper gloom.
The code would not let him make a confidant of his mother, but one
day I saw one of these letters. It bore no name and opened with a
flood of mingled passion and reproach; only when I saw "_Your
heart-broken Molly_" at the end did I realize that the letter was
intended for Will. She was begging him to come back and talking a
great deal about his "promise"... I should have paid no attention if
there had not been other things as well: talk about her "honour" and
so on and so forth... Her "_soul_"... God would never forgive
her--the egotism of the girl! ... Then I felt that, to get a _hold_
on Will, she had stopped at nothing...
I wonder what you would have done in my place? ... Constant dripping
wears away a stone, and this dazing attack would in time have broken
down my boy's resistance. Suppose he had _let_ himself be
blackmailed into marrying her! No money on either side--and Will's
_parents_ could do nothing to help--, not a taste in common, two
people drawn from different worlds... And this terrible, _blasting_
knowledge that he--and _she_--and _I_ had of the girl's character.
Ruin, misery lay before them. And _nothing_ else...
I had to save Will from any temptation to yield. If he could have
fallen in love with some nice girl and forgotten the whole episode...
If I could have sent him _right_ away... It was not easy, and you
know better than any one that my hands have been fairly full. At one
time I thought that South American woman was attracted by him, at
another my niece Phyllida roused to interest. He was so much
preoccupied that he seemed indifferent to women; one after another,
they gave him up in despair. Then I bethought me of my second string
and cast about in my mind for means to send him far away where he
could forget this girl and her importunity...
You have met Sir Appleton Deepe in this house. You have met him more
than once and you have always been too dear and too discreet to ask,
to hint, to raise an eyebrow in mild wonder that I should be _liée_
with such a man. _Of his kind_ I believe he has no rival. As a mere
boy he was sent out to one of the Chinese branches of the business;
and by sheer hard work, by studying the natives and learning their
requirements he had, before he was forty, built up the trade of his
firm to its present gigantic dimensions. Now he is senior partner
and a millionaire many times over, with patronage beyond one's
wildest dreams. Curious! These "merchant princes" are all the
same--never content to stick to their business, always looking for
fresh worlds to conquer. I met Sir Appleton--he was plain Mr. Deepe
then--in the early days of the war; and, though any _intimacy_ was
out of the question, I felt that he was a man to keep one's eye on
for the days when the war would be over and all our boys would be
wondering what to do next. He had great ideas then of going into
politics--something that Lady Maitland let fall had started the
train, and he was convinced that the business man had the world at
his feet. (I could not help wondering whether she hoped to exploit
him on behalf of that _worthless_ youngest boy of hers, the one who
evaded military service by _hiding_ in one of the government offices.)
"No, Mr. Deepe," I said. "To use one of your own phrases, you have
missed your market. The business men have got in before you." And,
goodness me, in those days, Whitehall was like a foreign capital!
Even the ministers were unheard-of, and every one seemed to be a
mining magnate or a shipping magnate or a railway magnate or the
keeper of a shop... If one had a favour to ask, one quite literally
did not know whom to approach. And they were always changing...
"No, Mr. Deepe," I said, "some enter society through politics, others
enter politics through society; but no man ever rose to the top of
the political tree--_and stayed there_--without _backing_"...
And, so far as I could, I shewed him how it should be done and who
were the people he must get to know. _Quite_ methodically I set him
to work; and I really took a great deal of trouble about him. Connie
Maitland has the sublime assurance to pretend that _she_ got him his
knighthood, but on a point like that Sir Appleton himself is surely
the most reliable witness... I helped him in a hundred ways; he is
quite reasonably well-known now...
When the bomb-shell first descended from Morecambe, I thought at once
of him. In such a business there must be scores of openings for
young men of character and ability, accustomed to command; and, say
what you like, the presence of those whom for want of a better word I
will call "well-connected" _does_ help to lift commerce out of the
ruck... Unhappily Sir Appleton was abroad at the time, and that was
really why we chose Menton, which truly honestly is only a _suburb_
of Monte Carlo. The opportunity was too good to be thrown away; and
it was worth enduring a little discomfort if by shewing him some
slight civility I could enlist his support. It was not so _easy_ as
I had hoped. He wanted to make me believe that the best positions in
the business were reserved for men who had worked their way up from
the bottom, as he had done; that there was an immense deal to be
learned, that the most responsible part of his duties consisted in
choosing the right men...
"But," I said, "I _am_ in a position to speak with knowledge here; it
is my own son whom I am putting forward."
"I shall be delighted to see him," answered Sir Appleton, "and to
talk things over again on my return to London."
And really he wanted to leave it like that, but I am not _quite_ so
easily discouraged. I hammered away until I had extracted a definite
promise that he would find _some_ position in which Will could
support himself, though I am afraid he was not very gracious about
it...
"If I accept him in the dark," he said in conclusion, "don't blame me
for discharging him after a month if I find he's no good."
"I have no fear of that," I said.
"Discharge" was hardly the word I should have chosen, but one is
foolish to expect too great nicety of language...
It was arranged that Sir Appleton should dine with us here to meet
Will.
I did _try_ to impress on my boy that this would be one of the most
momentous days of his life. I wanted Sir Appleton to see him at his
best. When you have no experience, no technical knowledge to offer,
it is so important that character, personality, breeding... I am
sure you understand what I mean. And I could never forget that, when
the Jew man--Sir Adolf Erckmann or whatever he _now_ calls
himself--pretended to have an appointment ready and waiting, Will
endangered his prospects by participating in some ridiculous game
that caused our worthy host to take offence. One had not looked for
such sensitiveness in _that_ quarter; but, when a man is uncertain of
himself and takes refuge in his dignity, high spirits and
irresponsibility have no place. _This_ time, I told Will, he must
run _no_ risks. And, after that, I hoped--_and expected_--to see my
boy taking our friend by _storm_...
Do you know, it was as much as I could do to prevail on him to meet
Sir Appleton at all! This _menace_ was preying on his nerves; this
pitiless hail of appealing letters from his "heart-broken Molly".
One day he came in looking as if he had seen a ghost. This girl had
dared to call for him at his club! I am thankful to say that he kept
his head and refused resolutely to see her, but we never imagined
that she was in London... And we both knew that we should now never
be safe even in our own house. She had not dared to face _me_;
perhaps she made a good guess what kind of reception I should feel it
my duty to give her; she was clever enough to know that a woman would
see through her in a moment... But she would make for Will the
moment she thought my back was turned...
It was then that I gave those orders to the servants. There had been
one or two cases in the papers, you may remember, of people who
called on chance and walked off with whatever they could lay their
hands on. I made this the text for my little homily. And it was not
a moment too soon! The girl called that same afternoon and asked to
see my boy...
She called daily, refusing to take "no" for an answer. Mr. William
Spenworth not at home? When _would_ he be home? ... But for this
dinner to Sir Appleton, I should have insisted on sending Will
_right_ away, but I _had_ to hold my hand until the Chinese
appointment had been arranged. The servants were instructed to say
that they did not know... And, after that, I knew it was only a
question of time before she encamped on the pavement at sunrise and
_stayed_ there... Can you imagine a more intolerable situation?
Always having to peep round the curtain to see whether it was safe to
_venture_ into the street?
One day she forced her way into the house. It was the afternoon
before Sir Appleton came to dine; and Will, who had been sleeping--on
my suggestion--at his club, arrived in time to dress. Hardly had the
door shut behind him when this girl (you would have thought she had
more pride!) rang the bell and put her unvarying question. Mr.
William Spenworth was not at home. Oh, but he _was_! She had just
seen him come in! (An altercation with a servant on some one else's
door-step!) Norden behaved with perfect discretion, asking her to
take a seat while he made enquiries. After a moment he returned to
say--once more--that Mr. William was not at home. The girl, from his
account, was in two minds whether to search the house, but at last
she consented to go.
I am not a nervous woman, as you are aware, but I was _thoroughly_
upset. A worse prelude to a _momentous_ meeting could hardly be
imagined. Will was quite unstrung by the persecution; and, though I
never encourage him to drink between meals, I said nothing when he
helped himself to brandy. He needed it...
"Son of mine, we must _rally_," I said. "She _must_ see, after
this--"
"I shall go off my head if this goes on any longer," he said.
Utterly unnerved...
I had thought it better to send Arthur off to his club for dinner.
To my mind, it is inconceivable that a father should be jealous of
his own son, but I can think of no other way to explain my husband's
persistent attitude of disparagement whenever a united front is most
necessary. "A policy of pin-pricks" was the phrase that my boy once
coined for it. We are, I hope, a devoted family, but Arthur seems
_never_ to lose an opportunity of indulging in a sneer... Yet I wish
we had had him with us that night. In a crisis I am only too well
aware that I am always left to find a way out, but that night I felt
hardly adequate even to ordinary conversation; and, when this Sir
Appleton began to shew the cloven hoof, I knew that only a man could
deal with him.
We were taken utterly off our guard. He came into the room, shook
hands with me, bowed to Will, waited until Norden was out of the room
and then said:
"There's a lady downstairs who wants to see one of you for a moment.
She was on the doorstep, when I arrived, and your servants didn't
want to admit her. I gathered, however, that she'd been waiting for
some time, so I made them let her in."
_Made_... In the school in which I was brought up, the bare idea of
giving orders to other people's servants... I do not know whether
you have been forced into contact with the world of "business men ",
but I find their autocracy sometimes a little trying.
"A lady to see me?," I said. "Really, this is _not_ a reasonable
time for calling."
"I fancy it was your son, Lady Ann, that she asked for," said Sir
Appleton.
"Oh, I can't be bothered to see people at this hour of the night,"
said Will.
When Norden came in to announce dinner, I told him to explain that
neither Will nor I could possibly desert our guest to talk to this
girl at such a time...
"Oh, don't mind me," said Sir Appleton.
"But I do!," I said. "And I mind about dinner."
"I should be disposed to see her," said he. "Perhaps she's in
trouble."
"It'll keep till to-morrow," said Will.
There was nothing so very heartless either in the words or in the
tone, but for some reason Sir Appleton chose to take offence.
"That's not a very sympathetic line to take with some one who may be
in great distress," he said. "For all you know, she's some girl
friend of yours who's stranded in London without money. If you'll
allow me to say so, Lady Ann, I think one of you should see her. It
need not take more than a moment."
I fancied that I knew better...
"Norden can find out what the matter is while we're at dinner," I
said. "You'll agree that it is not a very reasonable hour for
calling."
"Which is what makes me think that her business is urgent," said Sir
Appleton. "If you don't want to be bothered, will you allow _me_ to
interview her? If it's only a five-pound note she wants because
she's lost her purse..."
What could one say? Obviously he should not have _made_ such a
suggestion, but, as obviously, I could not forbid him. It seemed
fair to assume that she would not incriminate herself with a total
stranger or try to blackmail us through him... And he had an
assurance of manner which led me to hope that he would not stand any
nonsense from her...
"Try--by all means," I said.
And it was on the tip of my tongue to beg him not to consider us; we
could await his pleasure before thinking about dinner. But one had
to be civil to the man for this one night.
He was gone for nearly half an hour. Will and I waited and waited...
At last he came back and said:
"I must apologize for keeping you so long. It was a complicated
story." Then he looked at Will. "I should like a word with you
afterwards."
The agony of that dinner is a thing which I shall never forget. Sir
Appleton sat in dead silence for half the meal, then roused himself
to talk about red lacquer. That was his nearest approach to China,
business... And, when we were alone, he turned to Will and said:
"How much does your mother know about it?"
"About what?," Will asked, naturally enough.
"Now don't try that kind of thing on me, young man!," cried Sir
Appleton in a quite unpardonable tone.
And then, _for the first time_, I heard the facts about this girl's
unhappy condition. Will, apparently, knew, but she had not told her
father or Arthur or anybody but Sir Appleton. And how much of it was
true...
"You are accepting this girl's tale?," I asked.
"I believe her."
"Without a shadow of evidence? If Will _assured_ you--"
"I shouldn't believe him," he interrupted.
To Will's mother, in her own house, at her own table! I could see
that this was going to be war to the knife...
And then I'm afraid I threw all restraint to the winds. After urging
Will to be careful, too. What I said... The words poured out of me
in a torrent until my boy stared at me with round eyes. Sir Appleton
just sat nodding like a mandarin. I told him how this girl had set
her trap to catch Will, how she had evidently resolved to stop at
_nothing_ for the chance of marrying above her station, how she had
persecuted and blackmailed us. Whatever she had got, I said, she
richly deserved. Not that I believed her story! Oh, not for a
single moment! As soon as she had _forced_ Will to marry her, she
would laugh in his face for the trick she had played him. And, if
all this was true--her condition and so forth and so on--, what
possible proof was there that Will was in any way responsible?
"Ask him," said Sir Appleton.
"How should _I_ know?," said Will.
"Exactly," Sir Appleton cried in triumph. "Now, young man, what do
you propose to do?"
"I don't know," said Will.
"Then suppose you find out," said Sir Appleton. "Are you going to
marry her?"
"No, no!," I cried. "A thousand times, no! She must reap what she
has sown. My son shall not pay the price of her wickedness."
"He promised to marry her," said Sir Appleton.
"Prove it," I said.
Oh, if only I had been allowed to see the mad old father and
challenge him! We should have heard _very_ little more of Miss Molly
Wanton. Sir Appleton didn't seem to care whether he could prove it
or not...
"Oh," he had to admit, "there's no _proof_. But she says so, and I
believe her. Most of my life, Lady Ann, I've had to form quick
judgements of people and, perhaps three times out of seven, I know
when they're speaking the truth. Your son _did_ promise."
"He did _not_!," I retorted. "It stands to reason..."
And then I tried to _hammer_ a little sense into his head. Two
people drawn from different worlds, without an interest in common,
without money. All his life she would drag him down and down... How
would he like to see a son of _his_ in such a position? ...
"He should have thought of that before he began playing the fool,"
said Sir Appleton.
"Before _he_ began playing the fool! A woman knows well enough...
And a _clergyman's_ daughter! You want my boy to marry her with his
knowledge, _our_ knowledge of her character? You must be mad!"
Will said nothing. This quite _unseemly_ altercation, when he was
already worn out with the long persecution... I wished, oh! I
_wished_ that Arthur had been dining at home; _he_ would never have
allowed us to be bullied like this...
"Let's take the next thing, then," proposed Sir Appleton. And, do
you know, I felt that he was _enjoying_ our agony. "Your son is too
fine a gentleman to marry this frail beauty, though he was not so
fastidious when there was a question of getting her into trouble."
Fine gentlemen and frail beauties! The man was talking like a
character in some ridiculous melodrama! "Well, he has rather spoiled
her for any other life, so I presume he will gladly pay what
compensation he can. Even a court of law would award substantial
damages, if she could prove that there had been a promise of
marriage."
"She can't prove it," I said.
"And I'm sure you would not like her to try," he retorted with quite
an undisguised threat in his voice. "It would cause an ugly scandal,
and you would all gladly pay ten times whatever damages a jury would
give her for the sake of hushing up the scandal. Are you prepared to
give her enough to go abroad and, if need be, live abroad and make a
new life for herself?"
"I've no doubt we shall do what we can," I said, "_if_ the story's
true--which I don't for one moment admit at present."
I was _thankful_ that he no longer suggested that Will should marry
her... I'd have promised anything! Though why _he_ should make
himself a ruler and a judge...
"You will have to provide for her," he said, "at least as generously
as if she were marrying your son. She will have no chance of
participating in his prosperity and success as he rises from triumph
to triumph in his career."
I _thought_ I detected a sneer in his voice. If I had been sure, I
would have suggested that he ceased insulting my son until we were
both free of the obligation to treat a _guest_ with courtesy. The
face was curiously expressionless; I couldn't be certain.
"You must not judge every one by your own standard of wealth," I
pointed out. "We are very far from rich."
"You would settle, say, five thousand a year on her?," he proposed.
"The cost of living has reduced that to little more than three
thousand by the standard of prices before the war."
"Sir Appleton," I said as patiently as I could, "if we had five
thousand a year to throw about, we should not be inviting your
generous assistance in finding a position for Will."
It was _more_ than time to dismiss this girl and get to _business_...
"Five hundred, then," he suggested.
"A _year_? For all her life?," I asked, hardly believing my ears.
If he could have had any conception what Arthur allows me to dress
on...
"Your son's costly regard will affect the whole of her life," said
Sir Appleton.
"I won't go into that," I said. "I admit nothing. But I _can_ tell
you that it would be out of the question."
"Fifty pounds then?," he went on remorselessly. "It's less than a
pound a week--with present purchasing power of about a shilling a
day."
"I don't think we need discuss this," I said. "If the story's true,
this girl will find that we shall not behave illiberally to her. I
don't admit any claim; I was brought up in a stern school which
ordained that a woman should reap as she had sown. What you regard
as her misfortune, I was taught to consider the divine, just
punishment of sin."
Sir Appleton looked at his watch and rose to his feet.
"But you'll pay her a lump sum of a hundred," he suggested, "to
prevent a scandal and help her through her troubles and keep her from
jumping into the river?"
"I hope she would not be so foolish or wicked as to contemplate such
a thing," I told him, "but I would certainly pay her that."
"Then it's right that she should know as soon as possible," said he.
"I told her to go round to my house so that my wife could look after
her. She dare not face her father; and she was growing rather
miserable in lodgings. If you will excuse me, I should like just to
explain how the land lies and how much she can hope from
your--generosity."
Will opened the door... I can see now that I should have done better
to say _nothing_, but I could not let him slip away without a _word_
on the one subject which had made me ask him ... and _submit_ to his
company...
"And when," I asked, "may we hope to hear about the appointment?"
"The appointment?," he repeated.
"The opening you _promised_ to find for Will," I reminded him.
"Did I promise?," he asked stupidly; and then with deliberate malice,
"Can you _prove_ that there was ever a promise?"
I reminded him of our talks at Menton. Goodness me, the man had
dined for the express purpose of meeting Will and deciding what kind
of work would suit him best.
"We have to make our plans," I explained.
"I don't think we need discuss this," he said. "Your son, as you
told me, has no experience or technical knowledge, so that, if I
employed him at all, I should employ him for his qualities of
character. I should not dream of judging any man on a single
meeting, so I think we had better postpone a decision until I have
had better opportunity of studying his honour and generosity."
And that is how we stand at present...
Will thinks that there is nothing to hope for in that quarter, but I
cannot believe that, when a man has given a solemn promise, he will
try to wriggle out of it. Sir Appleton owes a good deal to me; but
for my advice and really _untiring_ pains he would still be plain Mr.
Deepe, unknown to any one outside his business...
Of the girl we have heard nothing for two days. If she _must_ live
on some one else's doorstep, I should be thankful to know that she
had transferred herself to his...
But our existence is like life in a beleaguered city, never knowing
when the next attack will be delivered.
XI
LADY ANN SPENWORTH FINDS HER HEART WARMING
_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): Indeed I think I may
claim that you have come to the right person. I returned from the
Hall only this morning, so I am well primed with news.
And very, very happy. It is only since I have been established once
more in the beleaguered city that I have had to remember this menace.
No! Not a word or sign! The old clergyman descended on us from
Morecambe, protesting that my boy Will had promised to marry his
daughter; the daughter came and told a cock-and-bull story which
proved her own abandonment without establishing anything against my
boy; and, since then, nothing! But one does not choose to be a
standing target for that sort of thing. When next Miss Molly Phenton
(or Wanton) comes to Mount Street, she may find that Will is safely
married to some one else or that I have sent him abroad. I have lost
the thread... Ah, yes, the great romance! In that atmosphere of
radiance one forgot one's troubles...
My brother Brackenbury did indeed lend me the house for a few weeks
in the summer--when every one was away in Scotland--, but otherwise I
have not passed a night there on their invitation since that
deplorable week-end when all the trouble with Phyllida began. You
have forgotten it! I hope now that every one will forget it.
Hilary--Colonel Butler, you know--had fallen in love with my niece
while he was in her hospital. As Phyllida was living with me at the
time, I had a duty to my brother, so I suggested that this boy should
be invited to the Hall "on approval", as Will would say. I yield to
no one in my _real_ affection for dear Hilary, but--why disguise
it?--he had been brought up simply--on modest means--, and it was
only right that he should see Phyllida in her natural frame and
decide for himself whether he could support her and live up to it.
Most people so notoriously _cannot_: my sister-in-law Ruth, who
remains and will ever remain the purse-proud shipping magnate's
daughter... I was more than justified. Hilary consulted me; and,
though I will never take the responsibility of advising young people
in love, he was grateful for the detachment of an outsider. _I_, he
could see, had no axe to grind... Brackenbury and Ruth received him
effusively; my nephew Culroyd took him to his heart; if he had
proposed, he would have been accepted then and there. He had done
too wonderfully in the war and, in my humble judgement, gave a
promise of success in any career he might undertake.
_Me_ he consulted to know whether the world would say that he had
married Phyllida for her money. He was daunted, I could see, by the
_lavishness_ of the Hall: the size of the house, the number of
servants, Phyllida's four hunters--and so forth and so on. I told
him that, _in this respect of money and--in--this--respect--alone_,
he was not in fact contributing very much. He nodded, packed his bag
and went off to _make_ money--with an enterprise and a resolution
that was too splendid. Did I ever tell you that I once detected him
driving a motor-cab? He has now formed a company and is doing very
well indeed. It was quite romantic! I always knew that there _were_
such men in England and I was proud to meet one.
He begged me not to enlighten Phyllida, as he wished to leave her
entirely free. Which I thought a most proper attitude, not
extravagantly common in the youth of the present day. In my efforts
to help him I exposed myself to an unhappy misconception, for
Phyllida persuaded first herself and then the family that I had
scotched her romance with some crazy idea of securing her for my boy
Will. It was always on the tip of my tongue to say that she seemed
very certain of him. Goodness me, if Will had _wanted_ her... I
have never wholly approved of cousin-marriages; and I looked with
something like dismay on their growing intimacy. That was later, of
course; at first she was like a demented creature, saying the wildest
and wickedest things. Do you know that she charged me with trying to
keep my brother-in-law from getting a divorce--so that there should
be no possibility of an heir, so that in time Arthur or Will should
inherit Cheniston and the title? These are not the fancies of a
_balanced_ mind, and it was then that I urged Brackenbury to send her
_right_ away. Failing that, I asked him to entrust her to me for a
while in the hopes that I might turn her thoughts. Her loyalty to
Colonel Butler I _admired_, but there is a danger that love may
develop into an obsession...
That was the time when I became so nervous about Will. _She_ was
listless and unhappy, he was sympathetic; a dangerous combination!
They had actually, I believe, reached what is called an
understanding, when Phyllida learned by chance that Colonel Butler
was alive and working in London; and this, I am thankful to say,
turned her attention from Will. You were not present, I think, at
the great meeting? No, I remember you were away; it was one night
when the princess honoured me by dining to meet a few old friends. I
gave a little impromptu dance afterwards to some of the officers in
Spenworth's old regiment, not remembering that Hilary Butler was of
the number; Phyllida was dining, and they met...
After that, it was a foregone conclusion. Every day when I opened my
letters or looked at the paper, I expected to read the announcement.
You may judge of my misgivings when my sister-in-law Ruth invited me
most urgently to come for the week-end to the Hall and to bring Will
with me. I have told you that there was _some_ sort of
understanding: if Hilary disappeared from human ken, Phyllida would
marry Will--something of that kind; she was such a little picture of
misery that, if _some_ one had not shewn her a little kindness, I
truly honestly believe that she would have wilted away. I was in
dread that she would come up and say: "Aunt Ann, Will and I are going
to be married"... _That_ is why I searched the "Times" so
diligently... It would be a suitable marriage in some ways: she
_has_ money... But I could never regard it as satisfactory.
The moment I could get a word alone with my sister-in-law, I asked
her whether they had seen anything of Colonel Butler.
"Not since you arranged that meeting at your house," Ruth told me,
"but he is due here to-night." She persists in speaking of people as
though they were ships! The Hull strain coming out! "That is why I
invited you all--Culroyd and Hilda are coming; and Spenworth and his
wife--; I wanted you all to meet him. Or rather Phyllida did. She
has been very mysterious, but there seems to be no doubt now..."
"They are going to be married?," I interrupted.
"Nothing has been said about it--_yet_," answered Ruth.
I know you will not misunderstand me, still less make mischief, if I
tell you that I heaved a _sigh_ of relief. Fond as I am of Phyllida,
she would not have made a very suitable wife for Will, though it is
essential for him to marry some one with a _little_ money and I have
felt lately that, if he could marry _any one_, it would put an end to
this persecution from the girl who is trying to blackmail him... At
the same time it seemed a little strange for Phyllida to be summoning
the entire family, when, so far as I could make out, Hilary had not
said a _word_...
"So you are expecting Colonel Butler," I said to her at tea.
"He's coming to-day," she answered rather brusquely. "I thought he
might have been here by now... _Well_, Aunt Ann, was I wise to wait?
You told me to go right away and forget him; you always said you
wanted to turn my thoughts."
Do you know, for a dreadful moment I fancied that she was trying to
reopen her insane vendetta... When she circulated those truly wicked
stories about me...
"Dear Phyllida," I said, "did I ever try to shake your faith in him?
No one, not even you, has a greater admiration or regard for Colonel
Butler; he has done me more than one inestimable service, and I think
he would be the first to admit that he owes something to my
friendship and advice. Ask him, dear child! I have nothing to fear
from his testimony; but there is a right way and a wrong way in most
things, and he will tell you that, on my advice, he chose the right.
If I urged your father to send you away, if I tried to the best of my
poor abilities to distract your thoughts, it was because I could not
bear to see my own niece, my own brother's child, the picture of
misery that you were."
"Well, you'd look miserable," said Phyllida, "if the one person you
cared for had been set against you and if everybody said you'd tried
to capture him and he'd run away."
Who it was that Phyllida imagined she was quoting I have really no
idea. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that, if a girl
conducts a love affair quite so ostentatiously as she had done, she
must not be surprised if people ask questions when, all of a sudden,
nothing comes of it. It was hardly the moment to talk about
ostentation, however. You remember the terrace at the Hall; we were
sitting there like people in the first row of the stalls, waiting for
the curtain to go up--Brackenbury, Ruth, their boy Culroyd and Hilda,
his wife, my brother-in-law Spenworth, _his_ new wife, Arthur, Will
and myself. I really pitied any poor young man with such an audience
to face...
"But all has now turned out well?," I asked. "Dear Phyllida, I am
very, very glad."
"Oh, don't congratulate me yet," she said. "He hasn't _said_
anything."
I was really _amazed_...
"I thought perhaps that, when you met at my house--," I began.
After all, _if_--as I hope--everything goes well, I am entitled to a
_little_ credit...
"Oh, not a word!," said Phyllida. "He wouldn't even dance with me at
first. I said: 'Are you trying to avoid me?' He said: 'Yes.' ...
And I could have died till I saw he was only joking. Then we both
laughed. Then he said: 'Would your mother invite me down to the Hall
one week-end soon? It's only fair to warn her that, if she doesn't,
I shall invite myself.' 'And, if you don't invite yourself, I shall
invite you,' I told him. 'Don't let's say anything at present,' he
said; 'I've been very busy since I saw you last, but I shall be free
in a week or two.' He wired on Wednesday to know if he might come.
I knew you would like to meet him and to see that my faith was
justified."
"Dear Phyllida," I said. "I hope indeed that it has been."
"If he doesn't propose to me," answered Phyllida, "I shall propose to
him. I always told you I would."
Of course, I am old-fashioned; I was brought up in a different
school. Do you know, even in jest, between the two of us, that kind
of speech is always very distasteful to me...
Apparently the young man was motoring from London, and there was some
sort of idea that he would arrive in time for tea. We maintained our
absurd theatrical postures until the terrace became too unbearably
cold. When I went up to dress, he had not arrived; but Phyllida was
still sitting with her gaze fixed down the drive to the white gates
of the lodge... It may have been love; but I could not help feeling
that she was _very_ conscious of the _effect_...
When I came down at half-past eight, there was still no sign of him.
And then you can imagine the inevitable discussion! Was he coming or
was he not? Should we wait or should we begin without him? Phyllida
expressed no opinion; she sat by herself, waiting... At nine o'clock
I took Arthur and Will on one side and told them that we must really
make a concerted attack on Ruth; I was _famished_...
"He _can't_ be coming," I said.
Unfortunately Phyllida overheard me and interpreted this as an attack
on Colonel Butler's good faith...
"He _said_ he would come," she persisted. Over one shoulder, you
know... With a toss of the head.
"Perhaps the car has broken down," I suggested. "There may have been
an accident."
"He will come," said Phyllida.
At a quarter past nine Ruth was merciful enough to allow her guests
to have a little food--one of those meals where, as my boy said very
wittily, "everything was cold except the ice." A hideous dinner! I
am not now referring to the food, but to the atmosphere. Phyllida
refused to come in; Brackenbury wavered and wobbled, now going out to
her, now coming back... And the one _not_ very interesting topic of
conversation: what had happened to Colonel Butler. By ten o'clock
_most_ of us had made up our minds that he was not coming...
By eleven I really believe some were wondering whether he had ever
_intended_ to come. He had invited himself, it is true. Or so we
were told. But it really seemed as though the initiative came from
Phyllida, that she might be forcing his hand, that he had suggested
coming really as a means of ending the discussion at my dance. _I_
did not know what letters had passed between them since. She might
have been pressing and pressing him until he at last consented to
come; then he may have seen that, once at the Hall, he would not be
allowed to escape a second time. He may have invited himself with
the reservation that he would stop away at the last moment and say
that he had been called abroad. Phyllida is _attractive_, she is
rich; for people who care about these things, she is the daughter of
an earl. Undeniably young Butler had been glamoured by it all at
first; but he may well have felt on reconsideration that it would not
be a very suitable match, and I have yet to learn that a man thinks
more highly of a girl because she throws herself at his head. That
is a lesson which the rising generation will have to learn--at a
heavy price.
I felt that some such thoughts must be passing through Spenworth's
mind every time he said: "The fellow's not coming to-night. Can't
some one persuade that child to have some food instead of giving
herself a chill?" Brackenbury and Ruth, too, were beginning to doubt
and to look very much concerned. If the young man _had_ sheered off,
they would never forgive themselves for allowing the unhappy girl to
make such an exhibition of herself... In my heart of hearts I knew
that Colonel Butler could be trusted as I would trust my own son. I
was only afraid that there might have been an _accident_...
And I could fancy what poor Phyllida's feelings must be after
assembling all the family to meet her soldier-hero, after telling me
at the top of her _very_ clear little voice that, if he did not
propose to her, she would propose to him... Every one would say that
he had run away and she had dragged him back and now he had run away
again...
At half-past eleven we gave up hope.
"He can't be coming to-night," Ruth told Phyllida. "Let's all go to
bed; we shall hear something in the morning."
"He _said_ he would come," Phyllida answered.
There was another aimless discussion when we were all so tired that
we could hardly keep our eyes open. Brackenbury went out to see what
_he_ could do with the girl--and returned to say that she had
vanished!
Oh, my dear! Our _feelings_ I leave you to imagine. In some
directions Phyllida has a wild, insane pride ... and she had seen it
dragged in the mire before the eyes of us all. When I spoke of love
degenerating into obsession, I chose my words with care: for months
the child had been so _distraught_ that I felt a _very_ little more
might upset her reason. Rapidly reviewing all that had passed that
day, I recalled the utter desperation of her behaviour--the ruined
gambler's last throw... We stood as though we had been carved out of
stone, _staring_ at Brackenbury while he _stared_ at us ... white as
paper.
He was thinking of the river...
We seemed unable to move...
At last Spenworth hurled himself through the door, with Brackenbury,
Culroyd, Arthur, goodness knows who at his heels. I caught Will's
arm and went with him on to the terrace; it was time that _some one_
kept his head. Do you know, I had a premonition: a moonless night,
that inky river, demented, shouting men jostling one another on the
bank and in the water, plunging and splashing, a cry for help, some
one caught in the reeds, two--three tragedies instead of one...
"The boat-house, Will," I urged.
We dashed along the terrace and across the lawn. Suddenly I stopped.
Ahead of me--in the darkness I could not see how far--there was a
flash of white. It vanished, appeared again, vanished again.
"_This_ way," I said.
And I could have sobbed aloud. Instead of making for the river, poor
Phyllida was roaming distractedly towards the lodge. We heard her
feet stumbling on and off the gravel, there came the moan of a
tortured animal... The footsteps ceased abruptly, the white coat
vanished... She had left the drive and turned away behind a clump of
laurel. I heard her crying as though her heart would break...
"I can run no farther," I said to Will. "And an old woman like me is
no good to her now. Go to her and comfort her. You have always
loved her, so you will know what to say. If she breaks her heart,
she will break yours too; you will never forgive yourself for
abandoning her. Let her see that, however lonely and deserted she
may feel, one staunch friend is true to her through all things. It
is your right and privilege to share her sorrow and, if may be, to
assuage it."
At such a time my boy did not need to be told twice. As I sank
exhausted against a tree, he stole forward; I heard him calling her
softly by name. If I could, I would have hurried out of ear-shot,
for whatever he said was sacred to the two of them; but I expected
every moment to faint with my unaccustomed exertion...
"Phyllida... Darling Phyllida," he began.
I do not mind telling _you_, because you are always discreet and,
when reverence is demanded, you will be reverent... I thought I knew
my boy, but there are depths of tenderness in a man which he never
shews to his own mother...
"Phyllida, darling Phyllida, won't you let me comfort you? If you
break your heart, you will break mine too. You know that I have
always loved you, and that gives me the right to comfort you when you
are unhappy. Whatever other people may do to you or say to you, I am
always here for you to turn to..."
I cannot go on... Already I have said more than I ought. Will you
think your old friend very foolish if she confesses that for a moment
she forgot that she was old? Time slipped from my shoulders, and I
saw once again a young girl in that very garden, not a hundred yards
from where I was standing... Dear Phyllida, I suppose, would think
her a very funny, old-fashioned creature, but I did not seem so
then--certainly to Arthur... A young girl in a white dress with a
young man pleading at her feet until his voice broke and he said:
"It's no good, I can't go on." And then he threw his arms about
me... And I remember my dear father coming on to the terrace and
calling out to me. And Arthur seized my hand and _strode_ forward
with his head among the _stars_... Brackenbury--he is fourteen years
my junior--was already in bed, but we insisted on going upstairs to
tell him the news. Life was a very glorious thing that night. I
walked on air; and, if any one had told me that it was a thing of
greed and cruelty and ingratitude and mean passions, I should have
laughed him to scorn...
Forgive me...
I am sentimental, no doubt, but if we _have_ the opportunity of
feeling our heart warming... Of late years... I have lost the
thread... Ah, yes! I crept away, leaving them together, with the
murmur of my boy's divine sympathy still in my ears. At first I
walked aimlessly, trying to keep my mind _blank_ until I was
competent to think of anything. What _would_ happen now? ... In time
I found myself on the lawn once more, and the sight of the river
reminded me of duty still left undone. I had to find Brackenbury and
tell him that his child was safe and in good hands... I remember
wondering, trying to make up my mind what I should think if this
_crise_ shewed Phyllida that it was Will she wanted to marry...
There was no one in sight. I walked cautiously to the river,
expecting every moment to step over the edge... No sound of voices.
I called: "Brackenbury!", "Arthur!", "Culroyd!". There was no
answer. Do you know that quite unreasoning fear that sometimes
overtakes one when one is in the dark and knows that one is not
_alone_? And the river--like a looking-glass in a twilit room... I
have a horror of any great expanse of water at night; it is so silent
and merciless. "Culroyd! Brackenbury! Spenworth!," I called
again--this time at the top of my voice. And then I am not ashamed
to confess that I hurried back to the house as fast as my legs would
carry me.
It was no less deserted than the garden! Lights blazing, doors and
windows open, but not a soul in sight; the very servants pressed into
the hue-and-cry. I wandered through room after room, upstairs and
down. When I went back to the terrace, it was with the crazy feeling
that the world had come to an end and I alone was left... Suddenly a
step on the gravel! And I do assure you that I did not know whether
to scream with fear or sob with relief.
"Lady Ann!"
I was _far_ beyond recognizing voices. I _peered_ into the darkness
until the figure of a man emerged from the shadows...
"Colonel Butler!," I cried.
"Where's Phyllida?," he asked.
"Goodness me, what have you been doing to yourself?," I exclaimed.
His clothes were in _rags_, he had lost his hat, he was plastered in
mud from head to foot, and one arm was in some sort of make-shift
sling.
"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "A fool of a girl was riding a horse
she couldn't control, and, in trying not to run her down, I had to
turn the car over an embankment. There was no station within reach,
so I had to come here across country. I'd have wired; but, by the
time I reached a telegraph-office, everything was closed--"
"But have you had no dinner?," I asked, remembering our own fate.
"I don't want any dinner till I know what's happened to Phyllida.
When did she disappear? Lord Brackenbury says she was out here one
moment... If any thing's happened to her--"
"Calm yourself, Colonel Butler," I enjoined.
Indeed I might as profitably have addressed the advice to myself. It
was time for some one to keep his head. I was thinking only of
Phyllida and the effect that _another_ shock might have upon her.
She was already so much overwrought, sobbing her heart out when any
of us could have told her that there was _nothing_ to cry about...
"We've been searching high and low," said Colonel Butler. "Lord
Brackenbury told me that she suddenly bolted into the night. We
haven't dared shout for fear of frightening her away... What's it
all about? In the name of God, what can have happened to her?"
"If you stay here," I said, "I will find her for you."
"But do you know where she is?," he cried in great excitement. "I
must come too."
"Won't you trust my judgement, Colonel Butler?," I asked.
He hesitated for a moment and then said:
"Of course I will. You've been a jolly good friend to me. But for
pity's sake go at once; I can't stand much more."
"If you know where the others are," I suggested, "you might employ
your time in finding them."
Then I set off down the drive once more. I walked on the grass, but,
on reaching the laurel-clump, I gave a little cough to apprise them
of my presence. Poor Phyllida was so much overwrought that she
started to her feet like a frightened animal. (She had been lying
with her face in her arms, while Will stroked her hair and whispered
such little words of comfort as came into his head.)
"Will, I want to speak to you a moment," I said.
And, when he came to me, I told him to go down to the lodge gates and
wait there till I fetched him. Then I tried to make _some_
impression on poor Phyllida, who was indulging in such an abandonment
of grief that you would really say that she was enjoying it.
"Phyllida, stop crying," I said, "and listen to what I have to tell
you."
"Oh, why can't you leave me alone?," she sobbed.
"Because," I said, "there is great and glorious news for you, and
your old aunt is selfish enough to wish to be its bearer."
You may be sure that she stopped her crying soon enough at that.
I told her that Hilary Butler had arrived... And about the accident;
she tried to bolt from my grasp, but I contrived to restrain her...
And the dreadful fright she had been wicked enough to give us...
"Oh, let me go!," she kept crying.
"A moment more, dearest child," I said. "You are both over-excited,
overwrought. Would you not like to meet him alone first, without
feeling that the eyes of all your family are upon you?" ...
She is an impetuous, affectionate little thing. In a moment she was
kissing me and making my face quite wet with her tears...
"We will go into the rose-garden," I said. "Many years before you
were born, dear Phyllida, another girl stood there with the man who
loved her more than any one in the world. May you be at least not
less happy than she has been!" ...
Then I returned to the house. Hilary had collected most of the
party, and I whispered to him that he would find Phyllida by the
sun-dial... I am not so well used to praise from my occasionally
critical relations that I can afford to treat it lightly; Spenworth
was good enough to propose three cheers for me when he heard of my
_childishly_ simple little stratagem for letting the young people
meet unlistened to, unspied on...
"And now had not the rest of us better go to bed?," I suggested to
Ruth. "If all is as we hope, you and Brackenbury would sooner not be
embarrassed by our presence."
Poor Ruth is consistent in one thing: she never shews any instinct
for _arranging_ or _managing_. It is perhaps not to be expected that
she should take to it by the light of nature, but one would have
thought that the first ambition of any woman who had been transported
from one _milieu_ to another would have been to _learn_... She is in
a position of authority...
When they had all separated to their rooms, I once more set out...
Will, I think, had guessed; and I have never seen any one more
delighted.
"_I_ knew the fellow would turn up," he said, "but I couldn't make
poor little Phyl see it. I suppose she thought he _must_ have killed
himself on the road. Just as well he didn't, because I believe she's
quite fond of him. I should think they'd get on quite well together,
though of course she's not everybody's money."
I explained to him that every one had gone to bed, but here he was
_quite_ immovable.
"I want to be the first to congratulate them," he said.
Which I thought was _handsome_, when you remember how Phyllida threw
herself at his head.
They are to be married as soon as Hilary's company has been formed.
He is very anxious that Arthur should join the board, but I am not
sure that it is wise to undertake _too_ many enterprises. One is
always reluctant to refuse what is really a tempting offer--on a
small scale--, but there _are_ only twenty-four hours in the day...
One quite rubs one's eyes when the younger generation knocks at the
door in this way. How old would you say Phyllida was? Twenty-two, I
assure you; and I know what I am talking about. It will be my boy's
turn next, I suppose; he is nearly thirty-one. And, though I do not
want to lose him, I shall not be sorry to see him _safely_ married.
I hope that Phyllida will make a success of her life. I have every
reason to think she will, but I refuse to accept any responsibility
for guiding young people to their affinities. After one irrational
period in which I was the wicked stepmother, I suddenly find myself
regarded as the good fairy...
It is really too ridiculous...
Oh, I think you can congratulate them at once. They are to be
"Morning-Posted", as Will would say, to-morrow...
XII
LADY ANN SPENWORTH DEFENDS HER CONSISTENCY
_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): Consistency?
It is very easy, of course, to _overdo_ that sort of thing, to become
so inflexible that one is the slave and victim of one's own rules.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath... On the
other hand, I have no patience with the people who say one thing
to-day and another to-morrow, so that you never know where you are
with them. Surely the wise course is to discover the great laws and
hold to them unswervingly, only stepping aside by a hair's breadth to
left or right when the great laws quite obviously apply no longer.
In the realm of principle I admit no compromise; Right is Right, and
Wrong is Wrong, and no amount of special pleading can blur _that_
distinction...
But, though I hold no _brief_ for consistency, I should be vastly
entertained to know exactly where you think I have been
inconsistent... Not you personally, of course! We have known each
other long enough to look out on life with very much the same eyes.
But the people who are good enough to criticize me without, perhaps,
taking the trouble to ascertain even the facts of the case.
I have always said that I would not stir a finger to interfere with
my boy Will, or any one else of that age, where the heart was
concerned. They, for all their inexperience, must be the ultimate
judges; the wisdom of _instinct_ and so on and so forth. The
responsibility on an outsider is too great even for advice; and the
advice of a mother to the son who adores her... There is such a
thing as having too much power put into one's hands. I don't say I'm
_right_; but, if Will married a girl whom I considered the most
unsuitable person in the world... So long as _he_ loved _her_, and
_she_ loved _him_... Have I been inconsistent there?
I have always said that for a boy of his tastes and upbringing _some_
little money is essential as light and air. A truism! Have I been
inconsistent here?
I don't want to blow my own trumpet, as they say; and I resent this
modern practice of proclaiming to the whole world how much one loves
one's own flesh and blood--as though it were something very new and
wonderful; but _you_ have never doubted that I would sell the clothes
from off my back and the roof from over my head if Will's happiness
depended on it. You are good enough to talk about my "sacrifices",
but am I being anything more than normal, natural and consistent, a
mother brought up in a certain school of a certain period?
I think that, if the facts were ever known, you would find I had been
loyal to my principles. They never will be--for obvious reasons...
With you, of course, it is different; I have told you everything and
laid my heart bare. Should I have done that, if there was anything
to conceal? And if the last chapter would really interest you...
A _superficial_ change undoubtedly there has been, corresponding to a
profound change in all our conditions. A year or two ago... It is
not too much to call it a revolution, so many unexpected things have
happened. In those days one never dreamed that my brother-in-law
would drag what I suppose I must call his "honour" through the
Divorce Court; and, so long as poor Kathleen bore him one daughter
after another, it seemed safe to presume that Cheniston and the title
would come sooner or later to Arthur and, through him, to our boy.
The problem of that period was to "carry on", as Will would say; my
brother Brackenbury and his wife would not like to be called mean,
but they were certainly _careful_, and it was only by eternal
pinching and scraping that we made both ends meet. Many young men in
Will's position would have put themselves up to auction, as it were,
and married the first rich woman who came their way. Goodness me, my
boy had a big enough choice! First of all Hilda, and he resigned his
claims there to my nephew Culroyd; then the South American widow, but
he very quickly saw how unsuitable _that_ would be; and you may
say--without any unkindness--that my niece Phyllida was waiting all
the time for him to drop the handkerchief and only consented to marry
Hilary Butler when the other thing was out of the question.
Unfortunately you can't please _everybody_, and Will was
old-fashioned enough to desire a wife with whom he could be in love
and to shut his ears to all the lures of money... Money? A man of
his ability can always _earn_ money, and our only difficulty was to
know where to start. He contemplated _la haute finance_ for a while,
but was repelled by the prospect of having to work with men like Sir
Adolf Erckmann; then he explored the possibilities of Mr. Surdan's
shipyards, but this for some reason was not to his taste. Now I
truly honestly believe that he has found his _métier_....
While he was still undecided about his career, I was reluctant to
part with the house in Mount Street, though for many years it had
really been too expensive for us. One grows, indeed, to love one's
own vine and fig-tree, and the place was _filled_ with associations.
Did I ever tell you that the princess was good enough to say that, in
coming there, she always felt she was coming _home_? ... With Will
gone, the place is a white elephant; and I cannot flatter myself that
any little _niche_ I may occupy makes me indispensable to the life of
London. When people talk about inconsistency, they fancy a change in
_you_, but it doesn't occur to them that the world all _round_ you
may have changed. I had long contemplated _radical_ alterations and
was only perplexed to know where to begin.
Our thoughts had all been turned for the moment from our own affairs
by the romance of my dear niece Phyllida's engagement to Colonel
Butler. Alas! when we came back to London, it was to find what I
then regarded as a sword _still_ suspended over our heads, _still_
hanging by a hair. Since the night when Sir Appleton Deepe dined
with us to discuss the appointment for Will, this girl Molly Phenton
had not been near the house. For a week before that she had been
calling, waiting, writing--always protesting that my boy had given
her a promise of marriage. As it was impossible for them to marry
without money, I refused to believe that Will had promised; not
believing this story of a promise, I felt that she was trying to
blackmail us; feeling _that_, I declined to see her. One thing
followed automatically from another. It was not until she called
that evening and Sir Appleton--_rather_ officiously, if you'll
promise not to tell any one I said so--insisted on interviewing her,
that I learned the truth about her condition. _Then_, I am sure, we
should all have agreed that Will must marry her at once, but Sir
Appleton would give us no time. I suppose concentration on one
object is very necessary in business, but it _does_ limit a man's
outlook: Sir Appleton could see but this one thing. "My good sir," I
wanted to tell him, "shew us _how_ it is to be done, and it _will_ be
done." But he would not discuss the appointment, though he had given
me as solemn a promise as a man can give; he dashed home, after
sending this girl on ahead, and we heard no more of them.
I felt that it was useless to talk to my boy just then, because he
was so much worried that anything more might have brought on a
complete break-down. My husband too... I respect Arthur's judgement
at other times, but, where his own son is concerned, I find him
curiously unsympathetic. I pretended to myself that I was trying to
find a new opening for Will, now that Sir Appleton had played us so
shamefully false, but I'm afraid that I was simply letting things
drift...
Then my brother-in-law Spenworth paid me the rare honour of a visit.
He had come up from Cheniston on purpose, though--to judge from his
voice--you would have thought he was still trying to make himself
heard from the fastnesses of Warwickshire...
"Well, my dear Ann," he roared, "I've come to give you a piece of my
mind."
Do you know, had the retort not been so cheaply obvious, one would
have been strongly tempted to ask whether he could really spare it...
So characteristic of Spenworth! I am not a woman to bear malice, but
I could not forget that _very_ few days had passed since he played me
a trick which to that type of mind, no doubt, seems funny, but which
_might_ have involved me in _embarrassment_ and _humiliation_. It
was one night when the princess was with me; Spenworth had been
presiding over some regimental dinner and he thought it would be an
amusing hoax to send all these young officers--with partners whom
they had apparently picked up one really dares not contemplate
_where_--on the pretext that I was giving a dance and would be
delighted to see them. Dear Hilary Butler's presence of mind _alone_
saved the situation. I detest practical joking and, when my
brother-in-law was announced, I confess that I expected less to be
lectured than to receive some little expression of regret...
_Hoped_ rather than _expected_... You are quite right.
"I must beg for enlightenment," I said.
"Well, what's that scamp of a boy of yours been up to?," he asked.
"I will _not_ permit such language about my son!," I cried.
"Too late now. You should have brought him up better," he said.
This from Spenworth, whose life has been one dark, unbroken record of
debauchery, unfaithfulness ... not a tenth part known owing to his
cleverness in hushing up scandals, impoverishing that glorious estate
to buy the silence of those who held awkward secrets. Indeed I know
what I am talking about. When he wanted poor Kathleen to divorce
him, he gave her the run of Cheniston; heirlooms apart, she might
take anything "to feather her new nest", as he elegantly put it. And
this in a house which will come to Arthur and Will if anything
happens to that sickly baby... There was a _marvellous_ story going
the rounds a few months ago that I had tried to entangle Kathleen
with the King's Proctor or the President of the Divorce Court or
somebody of the kind, so that she might be tied to Spenworth and
Cheniston have no heir. Comment... What is the phrase? Comment is
superfluous! But, if Arthur or Will were steward of Cheniston, they
would give a better account of their stewardship than my
brother-in-law is likely to do... I have lost the thread... Ah, yes!
"Satan rebuking sin, Spenworth," I suggested, "though I have no idea
what charge you are bringing against my boy."
"You can have a good time in this world without being a cad," he
said. "At least I hope _I_ can. Apparently your precious Will
can't."
"Have a good time"! _There_ is a phrase to put you on your guard!
"I don't know what you mean," I said. "I don't know what's the
matter with you. But I _do_ know that we shan't do any good by
continuing this discussion."
"Not so fast," said Spenworth, as I walked to the bell. "_You_ asked
me to second that little beast at the club. I _did_. I went there
the other day and was told that some fellow with a name like
Apple-pie-bed had told Will that, if he ever dared shew his nose
inside the door again, he'd be kicked into the street. Well, as it's
our misfortune to share a common name, I took it on myself to have
Mr. Apple-pie-bed pointed out to me; I asked him if he didn't think
that perhaps he was being a little high-handed. I don't allow
_every_ Chinese grocer to take liberties with me. He said: 'I'm
sorry the feller should be a relation of yours, but for the sake of
the club I must stick to what I threatened. You'd better report me
to the committee when it's all over, and we shall then see whether,
on a show-down, my action is approved.' That, my dear Ann, is all I
know; but, in case you're not aware of it, any reflection on a man
I've supported at a club is a reflection on me; if the young cub had
been pilled, I should have had to resign; if he gets hoofed out,
people will want to know why the hell I ever backed him..."
As you know, I am always lost in admiration of Spenworth's _elegance_
of diction. And all delivered as though he were cheering hounds on
to a line. Everything in my poor little house _trembled_...
Truly honestly I had no idea that men in their clubs could be such
great babies...
"Sir Appleton Deepe--_that_ is his name, Spenworth; I am not sure
whether you were trying to be facetious--," I said, "is evidently a
queer-tempered man. I have had evidence of it before. Should you
engage in conversation with him again, you may tell him that he
touches a hair of Will's head _at his peril_. I have nothing more to
say except that _in_ your club you seem to be as violent and
disorderly as out of it."
There was a certain amount more _noise_ ... and _bluster_. But I
think that in time even Spenworth must have seen that he was hardly
the appropriate person to champion such a cause ... whatever cause he
imagined he _was_ championing... Hardly had he left when my nephew
was announced--and came in with a great show of embarrassment. I am
very fond of Culroyd; so far as any one, without taking the
responsibility of active interference, can help to bring two young
people together... Both Culroyd and Hilda persist in regarding me as
their good fairy...
"My dear boy," I said, "what is the matter?"
"Oh, I'm--in the deuce of a hole, Aunt Ann," he answered. "Where's
Will?"
"He has not come in yet," I said. "Tell me what has happened."
"Well," said Culroyd, "I think you know a man called Deepe, Appleton
Deepe." My heart _sank_! "He called on me to-day--I don't know if
the fellow's mad, but he said: 'You're a cousin of Mr. William
Spenworth, aren't you? Now, he's been doing one of the things that a
gentleman _doesn't_ do; and some one has to thrash him for it. I'll
say that there's a girl mixed up in it, but I won't tell you any
more. She has no brothers, and her father's too old to do justice to
the occasion. The question is: who's to give him his thrashing? I'm
not as vigorous as I could wish; but I'll undertake it, if I must.
If, on the other hand, you'll do it for me and do it properly, we may
save a scandal; I shouldn't like to injure his mother in any way, but
he has to have his thrashing.' ... Well, I didn't know whether the
fellow was in his right mind... I tried to get him to tell me
something more... Then I said I'd think it over... What the devil's
Will been up to now?"
"_Now?_," I repeated.
Really, I will stand a good deal from Culroyd, because he is my
nephew and I am very fond of him. But I would not submit to being
hectored by my relations old and young, one after another. Goodness
me, the next thing would be that I should have to give sureties to
_Phyllida_ and allow _Ruth_ to make herself a ruler and a judge...
"Well, what does it mean?," Culroyd persisted.
"You have suggested," I said, "that this Sir Appleton Deepe was mad;
I can only fear that his madness was contagious."
I was _beside_ myself with anger... And at the same time _highly_
uneasy. Will had not been going to his club the last few days
because of this girl's practice of camping on the doorstep there; and
it was long past the time when he usually came home. Culroyd
shrugged his shoulders and said good-bye. I waited--on and on.
Seven o'clock, half-past seven, eight. I was just going up to dress
when Norden rang through to say that some one wished to speak to me
on the telephone.
Need I tell you that it was Sir Appleton Deepe? My dear, by that
time I should have been amazed if it had been any one _else_; he
seemed to dog my steps and pervade my life. As, he said, I was
apparently expecting Will home to dinner, I should no doubt like to
know that my boy was with him; they had met in the street, and he had
_persuaded_ him to come home...
You have met the man, of course. Well, I wonder whether you will
agree with me here. Ordinarily, I should say, he had the furtive,
apologetic manner of one who is not quite certain of himself; once
roused, even by something that the detached outsider might think was
_not_ quite his business, he is a changed man. I am thinking now of
his voice; the telephone had changed its _timbre_ into something
quite terribly sinister. The way he said he had _persuaded_ Will to
come home with him! And then he went on to ask whether he could not
_persuade_ me, if I was not already engaged, to join them, as they
were discussing certain things in which I really ought to have a
say...
Of course I went just as soon as Norden could find me a taxi. Will
has the courage of a lion, but I would not leave him at the mercy of
that epileptic creature when I knew that for weeks he had been so
much overwrought and worried that the least thing might bring on a
break-down... Besides, if Sir Appleton had repented his haste in
throwing away an opportunity of securing my boy's services in his
business, a mother's guidance and judgement could never be more
needed; I do not wholly trust these "captains of commerce"; if they
did not know how to drive a very hard bargain, they would not be
where they are...
I found them in Sir Appleton's study--doing nothing in particular, so
far as I could make out, though Will was drinking whisky and soda,
which shewed me that he must be greatly overwrought.
"It is good of you to come, Lady Ann," said Sir Appleton. "You have
not had time to forget our last meeting. I was made aware then of
several things: as that your son had taken advantage of a young
girl's innocence and was leaving her to bear the consequences... As
that you were opposed heart and soul to such a _mésalliance_ as would
result from his marrying her... As that you were unhappily not in a
position to make adequate financial provision for her, but that you
would pay her a hundred pounds 'in full discharge', as we say in
business... _I_ felt that, as there was no law to cope with such
gentry as your son, some one must take the law into his own hands.
Now, Miss Phenton had no relations of an age to protect her, and your
nephew seemed reluctant to vindicate the family honour--I sympathize
with him; his words were: 'If once one starts thrashing the little
beast, I don't see where it's going to end,'--; I therefore decided
that it was incumbent on me, as the one person whom Miss Phenton had
consulted, to administer such a lesson that your son would remember
it to the end of his days. Having the good fortune to meet him in
the street this afternoon, I invited him to come home with me and--be
whipped!"
My attention had wandered a little in preparing a speech for my Lord
Culroyd the next time he does me the honour to call; but I saw Sir
Appleton jerk his head towards the table and, to my _horror_, I
beheld an enormous crop made, I should think, of rhinoceros-hide.
"I regret to inform you that it may not be necessary," said Sir
Appleton. "When I told our young friend to prepare for execution, he
asked naturally enough why he was being executed and quite convinced
me that it would be absurd to carry out the sentence when his one
burning desire and ambition was to marry Miss Phenton."
Sheer, unabashed intimidation!
I looked at Will; but he was sitting with his head between his hands,
utterly worn out with the worry of the past few weeks.
"Is this true?," I asked.
"He will tell you," said Sir Appleton, taking care to give him no
chance of speaking for himself, "that he always intended to marry
her; he now clearly remembers promising to marry her, which is so
satisfactory. It was only a question of times and seasons and ways
and means. I admit it is not a solution which I consider ideal,
because I--like you, though from another standpoint--do not regard it
as a wholly suitable match. A first love, however, is not an easy
thing to overcome, and Miss Phenton is unaffectedly devoted to your
son despite the period of anxiety through which he unavoidably
compelled her to pass; your son will tell you that he is no less
devoted to her."
If only the man would have stopped talking for one moment! He sat
there, smiling to himself and pouring out this stream of pretentious,
shop-walker's English... I'm sure you know what I mean! One so
often finds with people who are not quite certain of themselves that
they heap up affectations and dare not venture on a colloquialism for
fear of seeming what they would call "ungenteel". _Slang_ I abhor,
but there _is_ such a thing as the daily speech of educated men and
women...
"Tell me, dear Will," I begged, "whether this is true."
"I've always wanted to marry Molly," he answered. And, though sheer
fatigue had taken the tone from his voice, I heard a throb of
conviction. "I didn't see, though, how we could marry until we had
something to marry on. That's what I told her fool of a father ...
and her ... and the guv'nor ... and Sir Appleton. If you'd settle
that between you instead of badgering me, I'll marry her to-morrow."
His nerves were strained to breaking-point...
And I am not ashamed to confess that I felt hardly adequate to
discussing the most momentous decision in my boy's life. After
inviting me to dinner, Sir Appleton seemed to have forgotten all
about it. Nine o'clock had struck; and I was faint and _sick_ with
hunger. I have reached an age when I like regular meals at regular
hours. These business men must have iron constitutions; or else they
must eat very hearty luncheons. And I kept saying to myself: "For
_truly_ unbusinesslike irregularity, go to your business man." ...
One thing stood out clearly. As I have always refused to _lead_ Will
where his affections were concerned, so I could never stand in the
way when once his heart had spoken.
"We must not worry him," I told Sir Appleton. "Cannot you and I talk
over ways and means together? I have no idea what to suggest. As
you know, my husband and I are paupers..."
_He_, if any one, after all that he had taken upon himself, was the
man to help us out of our difficulty.
"I have a scheme," he said, "but your son had better hear it, as he
will be a party to it."
I could have gone on my knees to him for a crust of bread... It
could hardly have been deliberate--this policy of starvation--, but I
was _strongly_ reminded of very similar treatment from a certain
general in the War Office ... who shall be nameless. You remember
my difficulty about Will's commission; he was on _fire_, of course,
to go into the infantry. "Do you," I asked him, "think you are
serving your country by spending one day in the trenches and six
months in hospital with rheumatic fever?" And, when I had _wasted_
argument and entreaty on _him_, I carried my appeal to Cæsar. On the
_staff_ my boy would have been worth his weight in gold; anything
else was simply a short cut to hospital. I told this general ...
when at _last_ I contrived to see him; and his method of receiving me
was to keep me standing--not a chair to be seen in the room!--with
all the windows open, a gale blowing and no fire. I made him see
reason at the end, but I was in bed for a week afterwards... I
wondered whether Sir Appleton was trying to starve me into
submission...
His plan... I wish you could have heard it in his own words! The
impudence and brutality...
"If you've no money yourself, Lady Ann," he said, "you've rich
relations. Lord Brackenbury, I am sure, would give a substantial sum
to start his nephew in life. And so would your brother-in-law, Lord
Spenworth. I have spoken to both and demonstrated that your son will
be at the other side of the world for probably a number of years with
no opportunity of coming to them, as in the past, when he needed
assistance. They both seemed disposed to help, but felt that the
first step should be taken by you. I have ascertained that the lease
of your house--"
"You would like," I interrupted, "to sell the roof over my head! Why
not the clothes off my back?"
"There is a great scarcity of houses," he said, "and you would get a
good price. Besides, with your son married and away you will not
have the same need for a big house in London... When the fund has
been collected, it will be settled on Miss Phenton, as it is her
position that requires safeguarding; you have assured me of your
son's abilities, so he should have no difficulty in making a big
income in the position which I contemplate offering him. If he
fails, it will be his own fault; but, as I never believe in
bolstering up failures, his wife must be made independent of his
success in business. If you consent to this in principle and will
empower me to work out the details, your son's appointment is
secured, and he can sail for China as soon as he can get a passage.
Let us now go in to dinner, or Miss Phenton will be wondering what
has happened to us."
I felt _then_ that he had decided to break me at all costs, one shock
after another. _Forcing_ Will into marriage, _driving_ him abroad,
calmly proposing that I should denude myself of everything--and then
throwing me face to face with this girl. I tried to protest... And
then I knew that, if he did not give me something to eat, I should
simply break down...
I had met the girl before, of course--just for a moment, hardly long
enough to take in more than a general view, "the old clergyman's
pretty little daughter", if you understand me... Big grey eyes and a
quantity of soft hair; a shy, appealing girl...
"Won't you leave us alone for a moment?," I said to Sir Appleton.
Rather to my surprise he _did_ have the consideration to oblige me in
that. "Molly, my dear, won't you kiss me?," I said.
The poor little thing shrank from me...
"I'm so _ashamed_," she cried.
"My child, my child," I said, "you are overwrought. But we are going
to send you right away, where you will forget all your troubles. All
will be well. All would have been well from the beginning if you had
trusted me and taken me into your confidence."
"I felt you'd think me so wicked!," sobbed the poor little thing.
I told her that I couldn't think _her_ wicked without thinking the
same of Will.
"Right and Wrong," I said, "existed from the beginning and will
endure to the end, irrespective of conventions and institutions. I
say to you what I should not dare say to your father: right and wrong
are older than any marriage laws. You love my boy?"
"Oh, I do," she cried. "I never loved any one before and I could
never love any one else."
"And he loves you," I said. "Need we say any more at present? I
find it hard to spare him, but sooner or later this is a thing that
comes to every mother. If I surrender him to you, will you in your
turn take my place and devote yourself to him as I have tried to do?
There is so little time and so many things to do that I cannot talk
to you as I should like. Very soon you will be married, very soon
you will both have slipped away to a very far country. Nothing that
any of us can do for you both will be left undone; every penny that
we can scrape together will be yours. As time goes on, you will
learn how much money can do--and how little. All my life I have been
scraping and pinching, pinching and scraping to provide for the
happiness and comfort of my husband and son. You will have to do the
same. Very few of us have enough for all we should like, and you
will find that between husband and wife, when one has to yield, it is
the wife who yields. That is the law of the Medes and Persians. Too
often it is 'A suit for him _or_ a frock for me'... Promise me that
you will never let my boy go short of anything. He has been brought
up to a certain standard of comfort, and I know by experience that,
if you try to reduce that, it will be you who will suffer in the long
run. That is part of the price that we pay for being women. And
now," I said, "let me kiss my daughter."
I do not wonder that my boy fell in love with her. _You_ will, too,
the moment you see her. As Arthur did... There is nothing much more
to tell you about our dinner with Sir Appleton; when he _did_ allow
us to begin, I will say that he tried to make amends for any
exhibition of what I had better call the business manner.
Of course, when I reached home, I found that I had only got rid of
one trouble to make way for another. Arthur... He would have been
even more furious if he had been less bewildered, but, as it is, I
try to forget and I shall certainly not remind him of certain things
that he said about my going to work behind his back, taking decisions
over his head. When one has grown _attached_ to a house... Is it
not my frame and setting? Is not every corner filled, for me, with
memories of the old days when the princess almost lived with us?
There was an entirely _meaningless_ explosion at the expense of poor
Will, who very properly refused to be drawn into argument and went
straight to bed.
"My dear Arthur," I said, "sooner or later this was inevitable. When
our boy married, we knew that we should have to go on providing for
him. Is it so great a sacrifice that we should move into a smaller
house, that you, perhaps, should have to work longer than you had
intended? It is to establish our son in life."
When the announcement was published, I invited just the family to a
little informal dinner. They were _extravagant_ in their praise of
Molly--Spenworth in his hyperbolical manner going so far as to tell
her that she was "chucking herself away", as he elegantly put it, on
some one who was not good enough for her. I should have thought it
possible to pay a compliment without trying to be rude to as many
other people as possible...
To do Spenworth justice, he behaved liberally over the money, though
he must needs be facetious and tell Will that he would pay twice the
sum to _keep_ him out of England. Such humour is a little
_primitive_... I acquit Brackenbury, too, of any illiberality,
though Spenworth must needs call this a "thank-offering" ... for some
reason...
The marriage, of course, takes place immediately, as they sail the
moment Sir Appleton can arrange about their passages. I am sure that
it will be a success, though I prefer not to think about it; dearly
as I love little Molly, she _is_ robbing me of my boy. As soon as
they leave England, I shall go right away for a time. What with one
thing and another, the last year has been very exhausting, and Arthur
and I have to prepare for a new life and a very different life. The
old and the new are bridged by one's friends... Their love follows
us into what must inevitably be _retirement_ from the stage on which
we have played our little part for our few years... We are
abandoning any little _niche_ that we may have occupied...
_You_ I hope to see constantly. At the ceremony, of course, and
afterwards here... The princess is coming. Whoever appeals to _her_
graciousness and devotion will never appeal in vain...
THE END
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