KEEPING A PROMISE
Modern young women are athletic, no doubt with a heavy balance of
advantage to themselves, to the race, and to the general joyousness of
things. Yet not all of them; there are still some whose strength is to
sit still, or at least whose attraction is not to move fast, but rather
to exhibit a languid grace, to hint latent forces which it is not the
first-comer's lot to wake. There is mystery in latent forces; there is a
challenge in composed inactivity. Not every woman who refuses to get hot
is painted; not every woman who declines to scamper about is
tight-laced. The matter goes deeper. This kind is not idle and lazy; it
is about its woman's business; it is looking tranquil, reserved, hard to
rouse or to move--with what degree of consciousness or of
unconsciousness, how far by calculation, how far by instinct, heaven
knows! Of this kind was Winnie Maxon. Though she was guiltless of paint
or powder, though her meagre figure could afford to laugh at stays
(although arrayed in them), yet it never occurred to her to scamper
about a lawn-tennis court and get very hot and very red in the face, as
Tora Aikenhead was doing, at half-past eleven on a Sunday morning. (Be
it observed, for what it is worth, that in spite of her declaration of
the day before Winnie had not gone to church.)
Tora's partner was her husband; she was very agile, he was a trifle
slow, but a good placer. Against them Dennehy rather raged than
played--a shortish thick-built man of five-and-thirty, with bristling
sandy hair and a moustache of like hue, whose martial upward twist was
at the moment subdued by perspiration. He could not play anywhere--and
he would play at the net. Yet the match was a tight one, for his
partner, Godfrey Ledstone, was really a player, though he was obviously
not taking this game seriously. A brilliant shot at critical moments,
with a laughing apology for such a fluke, betrayed that he was in a
different class from his companions.
The game ended in the defeat of the Aikenheads, and the players gathered
round Winnie. Dennehy was grossly triumphant, and raged again when his
late opponents plainly told him that his share in the victory was less
than nothing. He declared that the "moral effect" of his presence at the
net was incalculable.
"That quality is certainly possessed by your strokes," Stephen admitted.
Under cover of the friendly wrangle, Winnie turned to Ledstone, who had
sat down beside her. She found him already regarding her; a
consciousness that she desired his attention made her flush a little.
"How easily you play! I mean, you make the game look so easy."
"Well, if I want to impress the gallery, old Dennehy's rather a useful
partner to have, isn't he? But I did use to play a good bit once, before
I went into business."
"No time now? I'm told you go to London as much as three days a week!"
"I see Mrs. Aikenhead's been giving me away. Did she tell you anything
else?"
"Well, she told me what you looked like, but I know that for myself
now."
"Did she do me justice, Mrs. Maxon?" He had pleasant blue eyes, and
used them to enhance the value of his words.
"I don't want to put you and her at loggerheads," smiled Winnie.
"Ah, you mean she didn't?"
Winnie's smile remained mysterious. Here was a game that she could play,
though she had perforce abstained from it for many many days. It is
undeniable that she came back to it with the greater zest.
"I shall ask Mrs. Aikenhead what she said."
"That won't tell you what I think about it."
"Then how am I to find out?"
"Is it so important to you to know?"
"I feel just a sort of--well, mild interest, I must admit." There seemed
ground for supposing that lawn-tennis was not the only game that he had
played, either.
"Mere good looks don't go for very much in a man, do they?" said Winnie.
"There now, if you've given me anything with one hand, you've taken it
away with the other!"
"What is your business, Mr. Ledstone?"
"I draw designs--decorative designs for china, and brocades, and
sometimes fans. I can do a lot of my work down here--as Mrs. Aikenhead
might have told you, instead of representing me as a lazy dog, doing
nothing four days in the week."
"I've been led into doing you an injustice," Winnie admitted with much
gravity. "Is it a good business?"
"Grossly underpaid," he laughed.
"And I may have eaten off one of your plates?"
"Yes, or sat on one of my cushions, or fanned yourself with one of my
fans."
"It seems to serve as an introduction, doesn't it?"
"Oh, more than that, please! I think it ought to be considered as
establishing a friendship."
The other three had strolled off towards the house. Winnie rose, to
follow them. As Ledstone took his place by her side, she turned her eyes
on him.
"I haven't so many friends as to be very difficult about that," she
said, with a note of melancholy in her voice.
The hint of sadness came on the heels of her raillery with sure artistic
effect. Yet it was genuine enough. The few minutes of forgetfulness--of
engrossed satisfaction in her woman's wit and wiles--were at an end. Few
friends had she indeed! She could reckon scarcely one intimate outside
Shaylor's Patch itself. Being Mrs. Cyril Maxon was an exacting life; it
limited, trammelled, almost absorbed. Husbands are sometimes jealous of
women-friends hardly less than of men. Cyril was one of these.
Ledstone's vanity was flattered, his curiosity piqued. The hint of
melancholy added a spice of compassion. His susceptible temperament had
material enough and to spare for a very memorable first impression of
Mrs. Maxon. Though still a young man--he was no more than
seven-and-twenty--he was no novice either in the lighter or in the more
serious side of love-making; he could appreciate the impression he
received and recognize the impression he made.
It is to the credit of Mrs. Maxon's instinctively cunning reserve that
as they walked back to the house he still felt more certain that he
wanted to please her than that he had already done it to any
considerable extent. The reserve was not so much in words--she had let
her frank chaff show plainly enough that she liked her companion; it lay
rather in manner and carriage. Only on the hint of melancholy--only that
once--had she put her eyes to any significant use. He was conscious of
having made greater calls on his. That was right enough; he was the
man, and he was a bachelor. Ledstone could not be charged with an
exaggerated reverence for marriage, but he did know that he paid a
married woman a poor compliment if he assumed beforehand that she would
underrate the obligation of her status.
When they entered the long, low, panelled parlour that gave on to the
garden, Mrs. Lenoir had already arrived and was sitting enthroned in the
middle of the room; she had a knack of investing with almost regal
dignity any seat she chanced to occupy. She was a tall woman of striking
appearance, not stout, but large of frame, with a quantity of white hair
(disposed under an enormous black hat), a pale face, dark eyes, and very
straight dark eyebrows. She had long slim hands which she used
constantly in dramatic gesture. Stephen Aikenhead had credited her with
a "really grand" manner. It was possible to think it just a trifle too
grand, to find in it too strong a flavour of condescension and of
self-consciousness. It might be due to the fact that she had been in her
own way almost an historical figure--and had certainly mingled with
people who were historical. Or it was possible to see in it an instinct
of self-protection, exaggerated into haughtiness, a making haste to
exact homage, lest she should fail even of respect. Whatever its origin,
there it was, though not in a measure so strong as fatally to mar the
effect of her beauty or the attraction of her personality. Save for the
hat, she was dressed very simply; nay, even the hat achieved simplicity,
when the spectator had enjoyed time to master it. On one hand she wore
only her wedding-ring--she had married Mr. Lenoir rather late in life
and had now been a widow for several years--on the other a single fine
diamond, generally considered to be ante-Lenoirian in date. Lord Hurston
was a probable attribution.
Winnie was at sea, but found the breeze exhilarating and was not upset
by the motion. She was a responsive being, taking colour from her
surroundings. A little less exaction on the part of her husband might
have left her for ever an obedient wife; what a more extended liberty of
thought, of action, of the exploitation of herself, might do--and end
in--suggested itself in a vague dim question on this her first complete
day of freedom.
At lunch Dick Dennehy could not get away from his victory at
lawn-tennis. He started on an exposition of the theory of the game. He
was heard in silence, till Tora Aikenhead observed in her dispassionate
tones, "But you don't play at all well, Dick."
"What?" he shouted indignantly, trying to twist up a still humid
moustache.
"Theory against practice--that's the way of it always," said Stephen.
"Well, in a sense ye're right there," Dennehy conceded. "It needs a
priest to tell you what to do, and a man to do it."
"Let's put a 'not' in the first half of the proposition," said Ledstone.
"And a woman in the second half?" Mrs. Lenoir added.
"That must be why they like one another so much," Dennehy suggested.
"Each makes such a fine justification for the existence of the other.
They keep one another in work!" He rubbed his hands with a pleasantly
boyish laugh.
"I always try to be serious, though it's very difficult with the people
who come to my house." Stephen was hypocritically grave.
"Ye're serious because ye're an atheist," observed Dennehy.
"I'm not an atheist, Dick."
"The Pope'd call you one, and that's enough for a good Catholic like me.
How shouldn't you behave yourself properly when you don't believe that
penitence can do you any good?"
"The weak spot about penitence," remarked Tora, "is that it doesn't do
the other party any good."
Winnie ventured a meek question: "The other party?"
"There always is one," said Mrs. Lenoir.
Stephen smiled. "I always like to search for a contradictory instance.
Now, if a man drinks himself to death, he benefits the revenue, he
accelerates the wealth of his heirs, promotes the success of his rivals,
gratifies the enmity of his foes, and enriches the conversation of his
friends. As for his work--if he has any--_il n'y a pas d'homme
nécessaire_."
"It seems to me it would be all right if nobody wasted time and trouble
over stopping him," said Dennehy--a teetotaller, and the next instant
quaffing ginger-beer immoderately.
"He would be sure to be hurting somebody," said Mrs. Lenoir.
"And why not hurt somebody? I'm sure somebody's always hurting me,"
Dennehy objected hotly. "How would the world get on else? Don't I hold
my billet only till a better man can turn me out?"
"Yes," said Stephen. "'The priest who slew the slayer, and shall himself
be slain'--that system's by no means obsolete in modern civilization."
"Obsolete! It's the soul of it, its essence, its gospel." It was Mrs.
Lenoir who spoke.
"A definition of competition?" asked Stephen.
"Yes, and of progress--as they call it."
Tora Aikenhead was consolatory, benign, undismayed. "To be slain when
you're old and weak--what of that?"
"But ye don't think ye're old and weak. That's the shock of it," cried
Dennehy.
"It is rather a shock," Mrs. Lenoir agreed. "The truth about yourself is
always a shock--or even another person's genuine opinion."
Winnie Maxon remembered how she had administered to her husband his
"awful facer"; she recollected also, rather ruefully, that he had taken
it well. You always have to hurt somebody, even when you want so obvious
a right as freedom! A definite declaration of incompatibility must be
wounding--at any rate when it is not mutual.
It is an irksome thing to have--nay, to constitute in your own
person--an apposite and interesting case, and to be forbidden to produce
it. If only Winnie Maxon might lay her case before the company while
they were so finely in the mood to deal with it! She felt not merely
that she would receive valuable advice (which she could not bring
herself to doubt would be favourable to her side), but also that she
herself would take new rank; to provide these speculative minds with a
case must be a passport to their esteem. Bitterly regretting her
unfortunate promise, she began to arraign the justice of holding herself
bound by it, and to accuse her husband's motives in extorting it. He
must have wished to deprive her of what she would naturally and properly
seek--the counsel of her friends. He must have wanted to isolate her, to
leave her to fight her bitter battle all alone. To chatter in public was
one thing, to consult two or three good friends surely another? Promises
should be kept; but should they not also be reasonably interpreted,
especially when they have been exacted from such doubtful motives?
Thus straying, probably for the first time in her life, in the mazes of
casuistry, the adventurous novice was rewarded by a really brilliant
idea. Why should she not put her case in general terms, as an imaginary
instance, hypothetically? The promise would be kept, yet the counsel and
comfort (for, of course, the counsel would be comfortable) would be
forthcoming. No sooner conceived than executed! Only, unfortunately, the
execution was attended with a good deal of confusion and no small
display of blushes--a display not indeed unbecoming, but sadly
compromising. It was just as well that they had got to the stage of
coffee, and the parlour-maid had left the room.
Dennehy did not find her out. He was not an observant man, and he was
more interested in general questions than in individual persons. Hence
Winnie had the benefit of listening to a thoroughgoing denunciation of
the course she had adopted and was resolved to maintain. Kingdoms
might--and in most cases ought to--fall; that was matter of politics.
But marriage and the family--that was matter of faith and morals. He
bade Winnie's hypothetical lady endure her sufferings and look for her
reward elsewhere. At the close of his remarks Tora Aikenhead smiled and
offered him a candied apricot. He had certainly spoken rather hotly.
Stephen guessed the truth, and it explained what had puzzled him from
the first--the sudden visit of his cousin, unaccompanied by her
husband. He had suspected a tiff. But he had not divined a rupture. He
was surprised at Winnie's pluck; it must be confessed that he was also
rather staggered at being asked to consider Cyril Maxon as quite so
impossible to live with. However, Winnie ought to know best about that.
"Oh, come, Dick, there are limits--there must be. You may be bound to
take the high line, but the rest of us are free to judge cases on the
merits. At this time of day you can't expect women to stand being sat
upon and squashed all their lives."
Godfrey Ledstone had not talked much. Now he came forward on Winnie's
side.
"A man must appreciate a woman, or how can he ask her to stay with him?"
"I don't see why she shouldn't do as she likes," said Tora. "Especially
as you put a case where there are no children, Winnie."
Mrs. Lenoir was more reserved. "Let her either make up her mind to stand
everything or not to stand it at all any more. Because she'll never
change a man like that."
Only one to the contrary--and he a necessarily prejudiced witness! She
claimed Mrs. Lenoir for her side, in spite of the reserve. The other
three were obviously for her. Winnie was glad that she had put her case.
Not only was she comforted; somehow she felt more important. No longer a
mere listener, she had contributed to the debate. She would have felt
still more important had she been free to declare that it was she
herself who embodied the matter at issue.
For such added consequence she had not long to wait. After the guests
had gone, Stephen Aikenhead came to her in the garden.
"I don't want to pry into what's not my business, but I think some of us
had an idea that--well, that you were talking about yourself, really, at
lunch. Don't say anything if you don't want to. Only, of course, Tora
and I would like to help."
She looked up at him, blushing again. "I promised not to tell. But since
you've guessed----"
"I'm awfully sorry about it."
"At least I promised not to tell till it was settled. Well--it is
settled. So I've not broken the promise, really."
Stephen did not think it necessary--or perhaps easy--to pass judgment on
this point.
"At any rate it's much better we should know, I think. I'm sure you'll
find Tora able to help you now."
She was not thinking of Tora--nor of Dennehy's tirade, nor even of Mrs.
Lenoir's reserve.
"Do you think Mr. Ledstone--guessed?"
Stephen smiled. "He took a very definite stand on the woman's side when
you put your parable. I should say it's probable that he guessed."
Thus it befell that the secret leaked out, though the promise was kept;
and Winnie found herself an object of sympathy and her destinies a
matter of importance at Shaylor's Patch. It is perhaps enough to say
that she would have been behaving distinctly well if, for the sake of a
scrupulous interpretation of her promise, she had forgone these
consolations. They were very real and precious. They negatived the
doleful finality which she had set to her life as a woman. They
transformed her case; instead of a failure, it became a problem. A
little boldness of vision, a breath of the free air of Shaylor's Patch,
a draught of the new wine of speculation--and behold the victim turned
experimentalist!