When Hermon was finding fault with Hal’s friendship for Sir Edwin
Crathie, it had not apparently occured to him that his own friends and
relations were likely enough to take precisely the same view of his
friendship with Lorraine Vivian. He did not want to think it, any more
than Hal had done, and therefore he conveniently ignored the
probability, and indulged in the reflection that anyhow they were never
likely to hear of it.
Yet it was through them, and their ill-chosen mode of interference,
that the first trouble arose, when that quiet, peaceful winter was
over, and the spring arrived with renewing and vigour, and with new
happenings in other beside the natural world.
It was as though the one gladsome winter of pleasant companionship and
firesides was given to them all—Dudley and Hal, Ethel and Basil,
Lorraine and Hermon—before the wider issues of the future stepped in
and claimed their toll of sorrow before they gave the deeper joys.
Alymer Hermon’s father and mother were at this time living in a
charming house at Sevenoaks, whither he went at least once a week to
see them.
His father had become more or less of a recluse, enjoying a quiet old
age with his books; but his mother was an energetic, bigoted lady of
the old school, who had allowed much natural kindliness to become
absorbed in her devotion to church precepts and church works.
When it first reached her ears that her only son, of boundless hopes
and dreams, was continually with the actress Lorraine Vivian, she was
horrified beyond words.
Undoubtedly the story had been much magnified and embroidered, and
accepted as a scandalous liaison or entanglement without any inquiry.
To make matters worse, Mrs. Hermon belonged so thoroughly to the old
school that she could not even distinguish between a clever celebrated
actress and a chorus girl.
The stage, to her, was a synonym which included all things theatrical
in one comprehensive ban of immorality and vice, with degrees, of
course, but in no case without deserving censure from the eminently
respectable, well-born British matron. She could not have been more
upset had the heroine of the story been the under housemaid; and indeed
she placed actressess and housemaids in much the same category.
Of course the friendship must be stopped, and stopped instantly. What a
mercy of mercies she had discovered it so soon, and that now it might
be nipped in the bud. Just at the very outset of his career, too, which
had so astonishingly developed of late, and caused her such proud
delight.
That that surprising development, both in the career and the beloved
son, might have anything to do with this dreadful entanglement was not
to be thought of for a moment; and when Alymer’s father ventured to
suggest thoughtfully and a little wonderingly that the friendship had
certainly not harmed the boy, she turned on him with bitterness, ending
up with the dictum that men were all alike when there was a woman in
the case, and could not possibly form an unbiased opinion.
After which, she went off to church to a week-day service, partly to
pray for guidance in a matter in which she had already firmly decided
what line to take, and partly to unburden her mind to her pet
clergyman. Of course she must speak to Alymer that very evening. How
fortunate that it was one of the nights he almost always came to
Sevenoaks.
If only he had lived at home it would never have happened. It was all
that hateful little flat where he lived with Bruce and St. Quintin. She
ought never to have given way so easily. If his father had docked his
allowance, in order to compel him to live at home, he would soon have
got used to the daily train journey, and it would have been far better
for him.
Now, of course, he was not likely to hear of it; and since he was
making such good headway in his profession, it certainly did seem a
pity to risk upsetting him. But no doubt a little quiet talk would
convince him of the unwisdom of allowing his name to be associated with
an actress just now; and once more she congratulated herself that she
had heard in time.
The Rev. Hetherington listened to her story with all the sympathetic
horror she could wish, and she felt buoyed up in her adamantine
decision, although she still harped on the intention of praying for
guidance.
The Rev. Hetherington, of morbid and woeful countenance, was one who
looked across a world glorious with spring sunshine, as if he saw
nothing but the earwigs, and black-beetles, and creepy, crawly things
of existence, and he promised readily to pray also: and perhaps God
smiled the smile He keeps for the good people who so often ask to be
guided by His Will, when they have long before decided exactly what
that Will shall be.
The pastor accompanied his parishioner to her door, walking slowly with
her through a garden bursting into a joyous splendour of crocuses, and
snowdrops, and promise of laughing daffodils in warm corners; and
together they lamented the terrible temptations of wicked sirens that
beset the paths of splendid young men in the world.
“Not that he isn’t a good, affectionate son,” she finished, “but he has
always been made so much of—which is not in the least surprising, and
no doubt he has grown lax. Still, he might have remembered how proud a
name he bore, and, at least, have drawn the line at a frivolous,
painted actress. His father says she is very clever and quite well
known, but even he cannot deny she probably paints her face; and surely
that is enough to show what her mind is! How Alymer could endure it, I
don’t know. He has been used to such perfect ladies all his life, and
the mere sight of paint should disgust him.”
“Of course, of course,” murmured the mournful parson, who had great
hopes of a big subscription for his Young Women’s Bible Class, and was
in two minds as to whether to regard the present moment as auspicious,
and introduce the need of educating all young women in high and holy
thoughts; or whether it was wiser to wait until his companion were in a
less perturbed frame of mind.
And the crocuses nodded and laughed, holding up their little yellow
staves gaily to the sunshine, and shouting to each other that it was
spring, clamouring to make the most of their great day, before the
flowers came in battalions to crowd them out of sight and mind.
And the gentle little snowdrops whispered secrets to each other, which
only themselves could hear, about warmth and sunshine and the beauty of
the new spring world—too old in the wisdom of nature to pay any heed to
the two humans who would rather have had a world all maxims and rules,
and rigid straight lines from which no gladsome young hearts ever
strayed.
Finally the mournful clergyman went away without asking for his
subscription, having made mental decision that there would be far more
trouble to come over the painted woman, and yet more propitious
occasion was likely to arise.
And Alymer’s mother went into the house with set, severe lips; and
pulled down all the blinds that were letting in sunlight, for fear some
of the carpets got spoiled.
She did not, however, venture into the library, where her husband sat
in a large bow window reading, with sunlight flooding all round him,
and sunshine in his quiet eyes, and the sunshine of a great man’s
thoughts filling his mind.
He was too much of a philosopher to worry about his son, and, moreover
he knew Alymer well, and had great faith in his good sense; but he
realised a mother would take fright more quickly, and that it was as
well to let her have her talk with the boy, and comfort herself with
the belief that she had saved him. As long as she did not shut out his
library sunlight, nor bring her pet clergyman into his sanctum, he
found it easy to balance her sterling companionable qualities against
certain others of a trying nature, and go serenely on his philosophical
way.
Undoubtedly Alymer was a well-selected mixture of both parents. To his
mother he owed his fine features and his power of resolve when he chose
to exert it; and to his father his splendid stature, his quiet little
humours, and the old-fashioned, courtly protectiveness that had so
quickly won Lorraine’s heart.
Yet it was a mixture that might have borne no practical results if left
to itself, but rather a retarding.
As Lorraine had so clearly seen, the spur of ambition, and a resolute
determination to succeed in other walks than that of the casual,
charming, petted favourite of fortune, were indispensable to bring his
traits into a harmony with each other that would achieve.
It was to this end that she had given him of her best encouragement and
help; too old and too wise not to have seen that whatever her own
personal feelings towards him, it was extremely probable that she had
helped him towards realising his highest promise, for some one else to
reap the deepest joy of it.
Well, at any rate she had had the interest and the companionship, and
these had not been small things. He had come into her life just when it
was wearying of triumph and adulation; when lovely frocks and jewels,
and hosts of admirers—the very things she had craved for a few years
earlier—had commenced to pall in the light of the little real
satisfaction to be won from them. With some women perhaps they never
palled. Perhaps each fresh conquest renewed them, and each fresh
triumph invigorated.
In Lorraine’s complex character, the love of success was blended with a
love of the deeper and richer things of life. She was of those to whom,
at times, wide spaces, and fresh breezes, and the big, sweeping,
elemental things call loudly, above the noise of the world of fashion;
and she knew what it was to be filled with an aching nausea of all she
had practically sold her soul to win, and a yearning _nostalgia_ for
something that might satisfy the finer instincts of her nature.
And in a measure her interest in Hermon had filled the void. Whatever
her feeling had been in the beginning, it had undoubtedly merged now
into a definite purpose for his good, from which she meant to
eliminate—if the time came when he wanted to be free of her—any claim
her heart might clamour to assert.
Her dealings with him were, for the time being, on a par with the
generous unselfishness she had shown towards her mother. For both of
them she found the courage and resolution to thrust herself in the
background and give of her best as the hour required.
If the friendship had been permitted to develop quietly along these
lines, a future day might have witnessed Lorraine quite naturally
outgrowing her infatuation, and happily satisfied with the result of
her unwearying interest and effort; while Hermon, from his proud
pinnacle of success, would still have felt her his best friend.
But at the critical moment the blundering, disturbing hand was
permitted to jar the harmony of the strings and spoil the melody. To
what end?… who knows?… Perhaps to some unseen, mysterious widening, and
deepening, and learning necessary to the onward march of Humanity
towards its goal of Perfection.