_Masks with a purpose--For the sake of their daughter--A murderer's
smiling mask--Waiting for the convict son--A secret from his
wife--Beaten in a fight with fate_
|THERE is a mask that most of us wear occasionally. It is not always
politic to show ourselves to the world exactly as we are. People of the
highest respectability, of the most irreproachable honour, find the same
difficulty in avoiding the occasional use of the social mask that the
good bishop found in systematically avoiding the evasive answer.
The smile with which you greet an acquaintance who calls upon you when
his visit is most inconvenient is a social mask; so is the admiration
you express for the "dear little children" of your hostess when they are
worrying you to death.
But that is not quite the social mask that I have in mind at the present
time. I propose to deal rather with the men and women who wear
the social mask to conceal from the world something of far greater
importance than dislike, contempt, or weariness.
The social mask of wealth is often worn to conceal poverty; of
extravagance to conceal bankruptcy; of love to conceal hatred; of gaiety
to conceal grief; of innocence to conceal guilt.
If something happened which compelled the social mask to be laid aside
by all our acquaintances, the revelation would astonish us; for it is
worn in every rank of life and by all sorts and conditions of men and
women.
Only in the home--sometimes only when the door of the room in which the
wearer can be alone is locked--is the mask laid aside.
The husband may wear it for years in the presence of his wife; the wife
may wear it in the presence of the husband.
Both wear a mask unsuspected by the other until the day that death
dissolves their union.
There died not long ago a man who was universally esteemed and
respected. He was looked upon as a model husband and father. His married
life had been unclouded by a domestic care. His widow in her time of
grief spoke of him as the truest, kindest husband that ever a woman had.
But for years he had worn a mask. He had not been in his grave a
fortnight before the startling discovery was made that the man without
reproach had another wife and another family and another home, and the
two homes were not half a mile apart.
This man had worn the mask with both wives and both families. He had
appeared to both to be all that was noble and good and constant in his
affection. His profession being one that must necessarily take him from
home pretty frequently to various parts of the country, he had been able
to carry on the deception without arousing suspicion on either side. A
clever arrangement of sending letters into the country to be posted back
to his wives had got over the difficulties of correspondence during the
intervals.
Husbands and wives who have long ceased to find pleasure in each other's
society often wear the mask for the children's sake. Before the world
and before their guests they are still a happy, united couple, but the
marriage tie is a prison fetter to them both.
In a fashionable church the other day an aristocratic crowd assembled to
witness the marriage of a beautiful girl, the only daughter of a couple
well known in Society. No word of scandal had ever been whispered
against husband or wife. At the wedding reception hopes were fervently
expressed by old friends of the family that the married life of the fair
young bride might be as happy as that of her parents. The young husband
and wife drove away, and then one by one the guests bade the smiling
father and mother good-bye.
The next day the smiling parents separated, each to make a separate
home. The tragedy of their lives was over--or, if you will, the farce
was finished. For ten years they had not spoken a kindly word to each
other except in public. But that nothing might spoil or interfere with
the matrimonial chances of their daughter they had worn the mask of a
loyal and loving union.
A young man of fashion, elegant, good-looking, admired, and credited
with the enjoyment of everything that goes to make life worth living! It
was my privilege to know him, and I never saw him without a smile. One
afternoon he came into the club, looked round the room, saw a friend,
and invited him to play billiards.
The friend was not that way inclined, so the young man of fashion joined
a little group and presently he was making us all merry. He was the
embodiment of the joy of life, and more than one of us envied him his
perennial flow of animal spirits.
He left the club and went home to his chambers, put a pistol to his head
and blew his brains out, leaving behind him a note to say that he was
unable any longer to endure the torture his life had become to him.
It was not until some months afterwards that we knew what had induced
him to commit suicide. The woman he loved had married another man. The
marriage took place in June, the suicide in September, so that for three
months this young man had worn the mask of gaiety while his heart was
slowly breaking.
The murderer and the murderess do not as a rule go about allowing
their features to express their guilt. There are many crimes yet to be
discovered; many which never, perhaps, will be discovered, the authors
of which are going about among their fellow-citizens, keeping up
appearances, and passing for very amiable and worthy people.
Wainwright, who murdered Harriett Lane, had the reputation of being "a
good fellow." He had excellent social qualities, and was always welcomed
by his acquaintances because of his good spirits and cheery views of
life.
All the time that the body of the woman he had murdered was lying under
the floor of his warehouse in Whitechapel, Henry Wainwright was earning
golden opinions of all sorts of people. He was highly appreciated as a
temperance lecturer, and of many a family gathering or festival he was
the life and soul. And all the time the terror of discovery was gnawing
at his heart. Shortly after his arrest I met a man who had been his
intimate friend for years. He told me that on the last occasion they
spent an evening together he had asked Wainwright how he managed always
to look so supremely happy. Wainwright did not tell him that the smile
was a mask he wore to impose on society. He said instead that he was
happy because he had a good digestion and a clear conscience.
A friend and _confrère_ of mine had a cook-housekeeper--a middle-aged
woman whose smiling good humour made her a general favourite.
One day a man of fifty-five was arrested for the murder of the woman
with whom he lived, and who was supposed to be his wife.
This man was tried, convicted, and executed.
On the morning of the execution the housemaid came to my _confrère's_
room in a state of great excitement and told him that the housekeeper
had fallen down "suddenly all of a heap," and was in a dead faint.
When the master went downstairs he found the poor woman had recovered
and was sitting in a chair. She was very white and ill, and when he
spoke kindly to her she began to cry.
He sent the other servants out of the room and asked her what was the
matter.
Then, feeling probably that she _must_ confide in some one, she told him
the truth. The man who had that morning been hanged was her husband. He
had deserted her for the other woman six years previously, and she had
not seen him since.
She had read of the murder, the arrest, and the conviction, and with a
great effort had concealed the agony the tragedy had caused her.
She had gone about her work smiling and amiable as ever, and it was only
on the day that she knew her husband was dying on the gallows that the
tension proved too much for her heart-strings and she broke down and let
the mask fall.
A sweet-faced, white-haired old lady came to me a few weeks ago and
asked me to sign a petition to the Home Secretary for the release of
her son, who, many years ago, murdered a woman who had driven him to
desperation. The young man was condemned to death, but the capital
sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life.
I knew the young man, I knew his father and mother.
The father died. The old lady took her son's children, moved into a new
neighbourhood, and brought them up in ignorance of the tragedy that had
shadowed their lives.
I have seen the children, now grown up, happy in the home that granny
has made for them. They have never read in that gentle, loving face
the story of the sorrow that shattered her happiness for ever. To them
granny is the embodiment of great happiness. She has set herself the
task of brightening their lives and keeping the shadows away.
I hope and believe that the petition for her son's release will
presently be granted. Then the father, whom the children believe to be
far away engaged in business on the other side of the world and unable
to leave it, will suddenly appear among them. He will have come home at
last. But the secret so carefully guarded will be kept to the end. The
children will never know that all these years their gentle, smiling,
loving granny has worn a mask before them and before the world, and
that night after night, when they could not see her, she has wept bitter
tears for the son who was sentenced to death, and spared to work out a
life sentence within the walls of a convict gaol.
The Humbert case startled the world. A family on the brink of a volcano
of shame and humiliation lived gaily and grandly, imposing upon the
cleverest and shrewdest men in Europe. In their case suspicion was
aroused before the final crash came, and the famous safe was found to be
empty.
But we have our Humberts here in London, concerning whom not the
slightest suspicion exists. We see them living in luxury, indulging in
the most lavish hospitality, and fêted everywhere in return.
Less fortunate people envy them, perhaps, for their wealth. No one
guesses that they are hopelessly involved, and that their life is a
perpetual stress and harass because they are compelled to scheme from
morning to night in order to continue the imposture and postpone the
fatal day of discovery, which is rapidly approaching.
When that day comes the head of the family will have his choice between
the pistol or poison of the suicide and the dock of the Old Bailey.
The hero, or, rather, I should say the villain, of one of the most
sensational frauds of modern times was princely in his hospitality. His
wife, to celebrate their little boy's birthday, which was at Christmas
time, gave a children's party, and there was a Christmas tree. I was a
child at the time, and one of my playmates, a little boy who lived a
few doors from me, was invited. He brought home a beautiful little gold
watch, which he said had been given him from the Christmas tree. His
mother, concluding that some mistake must have been made, took the
watch back. With considerable haughtiness the hostess explained that no
mistake had been made. "There was nothing on our Christmas tree worth
less than five pounds," she said; "that was the lowest." Three months
afterwards the haughty lady's husband was sentenced to fifteen years'
penal servitude for a series of frauds in which nearly half a million
of money was involved. For years he had worn the mask of generosity over
the face of a rascal.
He confessed after his conviction that for months before his arrest
he had been in hourly dread of discovery, and there were times when
he contemplated suicide. Yet not even his wife had the shadow of a
suspicion that he had not legitimately acquired the wealth he spent so
ostentatiously.
A genial and widely respected solicitor has just retired into convict
life for a period of years. Up to the day of his arrest he was looked
upon as the most charming of men, and was a welcome guest at some of the
best country houses. His manners were delightful and his light-hearted
gaiety infectious. It was known that he was backing an enterprise that
had failed, and lost large sums of money in it. But everybody said,
"What does it matter to him? He is so rich. It evidently hasn't upset
him--he's as jolly as ever."
But the genial and gentlemanly solicitor had been using trust money.
He wore the mask until sentence was pronounced. It was much more severe
than he anticipated. When he heard it he buried his face in his hands
and wept in the dock.
It is a May meeting at Exeter Hall. All the people crowded together to
listen to the speeches from the platform love their fellow-men. There
are clergymen and philanthropists, bright old ladies and serious young
ones all listening with rapt attention to the genial eloquence of a
gentleman honoured for his good works and his philanthropy.
It is a beautiful speech, and the face of the speaker beams with
benevolence.
You would not think to look at that kindly, smiling face, that the
speaker had a care in the world. But follow him home. See him when, his
doors closed against the outside world, he drops the mask.
He could smile at others. He cannot smile to himself. The terror of the
future is an abiding skeleton at the family feast. He has juggled with
figures for years to hide the first fraud that he committed when things
began to go wrong with him financially in the business of which he is
the chief. Securities intrusted to him have been disposed of, but the
payment of the interest regularly has lulled suspicion.
But now the crisis is at hand. Unless to-morrow he can get a large sum
of money placed to his credit he will have to throw up the sponge and
acknowledge that in the fight with Fate he has been beaten at last.
He has worn the mask for years in Society. It would not do for him to
drop it and appear anxious and careworn.
But if the worst should happen, and he finds it advisable to start
hurriedly for Spain to-morrow night, you will see a very different face
under the travelling-cap drawn down over the eyes of the philanthropist
as he paces the deck of the Dover to Calais packet.
It is her ladyship's reception, and the beautiful rooms in the family
mansion are crowded with brave men and lovely women.
One of the most beautiful of all the beautiful women present stands
wreathed in smiles, the centre of a little group of admirers.
Her husband is not at the reception. He very rarely accompanies her.
He does not care for the gaieties of Society. One or two of the little
group ask about him casually, and the bright, happy wife tells them
smilingly, in the slang of the day, that he is "awfully fit," but
absorbed in one of his agriculture schemes.
To the eyes that look upon her smiling face that beautiful Society dame
is one of the happiest wives in the world. As a matter of fact she has
not seen her husband for six months. He went away "by agreement" to
one of his seats in the country, leaving her in the town house. That
afternoon she received the document which informed her that an action
for divorce had been entered against her. In due course the paragraphs
will appear in the newspapers, and another Society scandal will be the
talk of the town.
The social mask to-day is an adjunct of civilization. The mystery is as
to who is wearing it and who is not.