NO PROCEEDINGS!
At Cyril Maxon's chambers in the Temple--very pleasant chambers they
were, with a view over a broad sweep of the river--the day began in the
usual fashion. At half-past nine Mr. Gibbons, the clerk, arrived; at a
quarter to ten the diligent junior, who occupied the small room and
devilled for the King's Counsel, made his punctual appearance. At ten,
to the stroke of the clock, Maxon himself came in. His movements were
leisurely; he had a case in the paper--an important question of
demurrage--but it was not likely to be reached before lunch. He bade Mr.
Gibbons good morning, directed that the boy should keep a watch on the
progress of the court to which his case was assigned, passed into his
own room, and sat down to open his letters. These disposed of, he had a
couple of opinions to write, with time left for a final run through his
brief, aided by the diligent junior's note.
Half an hour later Mr. Gibbons opened the door. Maxon waved him back
impatiently.
"I'm busy, Gibbons. Don't disturb me. We can't be on in court yet?"
"No, sir. It's a gentleman to see you. Very urgent business, he says."
"No, no, I tell you I'm busy."
"He made it a particular favour. In fact, he seems very much upset--he
says it's private business." He glanced at a card he carried. "It's a
Mr. Ledstone, sir."
"Oh," said Maxon. His lips shut a little tighter as he took up a letter
which lay beside the legal papers in front of him. "Ledstone?" The
letter was signed "Winifred Ledstone."
"Yes, sir."
"What aged man?"
"Oh, quite elderly, sir. Stout, and grey 'air."
The answer dispelled an eccentric idea which had entered Maxon's head.
If this couple so politely informed him of their doings, they might even
be capable of paying him a call!
"Well, show him in." He shrugged his shoulders with an air of disgust.
Stout and grey-haired (as Mr. Gibbons had observed), yet bearing a
noticeable likeness to his handsome son, Mr. Ledstone made a very
apologetic and a very flustered entrance. Maxon bowed without rising;
Gibbons set a chair and retired.
"I must beg a thousand pardons, Mr. Maxon, but this morning I--I
received a letter--as I sat at breakfast, Mr. Maxon, with Mrs. Ledstone
and my daughter. It's terrible!"
"Are you the father of Mr. Godfrey Ledstone?"
"Yes, sir. My boy Godfrey--I've had a letter from him. Here it is."
"Thank you, but I'm already in possession of what your son has done.
I've heard from Mrs. Maxon. I have her letter here."
"They're mad, Mr. Maxon! Mean to make it all public! What are we to do?
What am I to say to Mrs. Ledstone and my daughter?"
"You must really take your own course about that."
"And my poor boy! He's been a good son, and his mother's devoted to him,
and----"
Cyril Maxon's wrath found vent in one of those speeches for which his
wife had a pet name. "I don't see how the fact that your son has run
away with my wife obliges, or even entitles, me to interfere in your
family affairs, Mr. Ledstone."
Acute distress is somewhat impervious to satire.
"Of course not, sir," said Mr. Ledstone, mopping his face forlornly.
"But what's to be done? There's no real harm in the boy. He's young----"
"If you wish to imply that my wife is mainly in fault, you're entirely
welcome to any comfort you and your family can extract from that
assumption."
Ledstone set his hands on the table between them, and looked plaintively
at Maxon. He was disconcerted and puzzled; he fancied that he had not
made himself, or the situation, fully understood. He brought up his
strongest artillery--the most extraordinary feature in the case.
"The boy actually suggests that he should bring your--that he should
bring Mrs.--that he should bring the lady to see Mrs. Ledstone and my
daughter!" He puffed out this crowning atrocity with quick breaths, and
mopped his face again.
"You're master in your own house, I suppose? You can decide whom to
receive, Mr. Ledstone." He pushed his chair back a little; the movement
was unmistakably a suggestion that his visitor should end his visit. Mr.
Ledstone did not take the hint.
"I suppose you'll--you'll institute proceedings, Mr. Maxon?"
"I'm not a believer in divorce."
"You won't?"
"I said I was not a believer in divorce." Growing exasperation, hard
held, rang in his voice.
A visible relief brightened Mr. Ledstone's face. "You won't?" he
repeated. "Oh, well, that's something. That gives us time at all
events."
Maxon smiled--not genially. "I don't think you must assume that your son
and the lady who now calls herself Mrs. Ledstone will be as much pleased
as you appear to be."
"Oh, but if there are no proceedings!" murmured Ledstone. Then he
ventured a suggestion. "Private influence could be brought to bear?"
"Not mine," said Cyril Maxon grimly.
"Still, you don't propose to take proceedings!" He munched the crumb of
comfort almost affectionately.
Cyril Maxon sought refuge in silence; not to answer the man was probably
the best way to get rid of him--and he had defined his attitude twice
already. Silence reigned supreme for a minute or two.
"I suppose my wife and daughter must know. But as for the rest of the
family----" Mr. Ledstone was discussing his personal difficulties. Maxon
sat still and silent as a statue. "It may all be patched up. He'll see
reason." He glanced across at Maxon. "But I mustn't keep you, Mr.
Maxon." He rose to his feet. "If there are no proceedings----" Maxon
sharply struck the handbell on his table; Gibbons opened the door.
"Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Maxon." Maxon's silence was unbroken as
his visitor shuffled out.
Maxon's nature, hard and proud, not tender in affection, very tenacious
of dignity, found now no room for any feeling save of disgust--a double
disgust at the wickedness and at the absurdity--at the thing itself and
at the despicable pretence in which the pair sought to cloak it.
Ledstone's intrusion--so he regarded the visit of Godfrey's
father--intensified his indignant distaste for the whole affair. To have
to talk about it to a man like that! To be asked to use his influence!
He smiled grimly as he tried to picture himself doing that. Pleading
with his wife, it must be supposed; giving wise counsel to the young man
perhaps? He asked nothing now but to be allowed to wash his hands of
them both--and of the Ledstone family. Really, above all, of the
Ledstone family! How the thought of them got on his nerves! Mr.
Attlebury's teaching about the duty of saving a soul passed out of
sight. Was not he, in his turn, entitled to avail himself of the
doctrine of the limits of human endurance? Is it made only for
sinners--or only for wives? Maxon felt that it applied with overwhelming
force to any further intercourse with the Ledstone family--and he
instructed Mr. Gibbons to act accordingly, if need should arise. Mr.
Gibbons had noticed Winnie's handwriting, with which naturally he was
acquainted, on her letter, and wondered whether there could be any
connection between it and the odd visit and the peremptory order. He had
known for some two or three weeks that Mrs. Maxon was no longer in
Devonshire Street; he was on very friendly terms with the coachman who
drove Cyril Maxon's brougham.
Mr. Ledstone, mercifully ignorant of the aspect he assumed in Maxon's
thoughts, walked home to Woburn Square, careful and troubled about many
things. Though he was a good man and of orthodox views, it cannot be
said that he either was occupied primarily with the duty of saving
souls; saving a scandal was, though doubtless not so important,
considerably more pressing. He was, in fact, running over the names of
all those of his kindred and friends whom he did not wish to know of the
affair and who need know nothing about it, if things were properly
managed, and if Godfrey would be reasonable. He wished to have this list
ready to produce for the consolation of his immediate family circle.
They--Mrs. Ledstone and his daughter--must be told. It would be sure to
"get to" them somehow, and Mrs. Ledstone enjoyed the prestige of having
a weak heart; it would never do for a thing like this to get to her
without due precautions. Angry as he was with his son, he did not wish
the boy to run the risk of having that on his conscience! As a fact, the
way things get to people is often extremely disconcerting. It is a point
that Shaylor's Patch ought to have considered.
In view of the weak heart--Mrs. Ledstone never exposed it to the
sceptical inspection of a medical man--he told Amy first, Amy concerning
whom it seemed to be settled that she would never be married, although
she was but just turned twenty-five. He showed Amy the letter from
Godfrey his son; he indicated the crowning atrocity with an accusing
forefinger.
"Oh, she made him put that in," said Amy, with contemptuous
indifference--and an absolute discernment of the truth.
Mr. Ledstone boiled over. "The impudence of it!"
Amy looked down at her feet--shod in good stout shoes, sensible, yet not
ugly; she was a great walker and no mean hockey player. "I wonder what
she's like," said Amy. "I've seen Mr. Maxon's name in the _Mail_ quite
often. What did you think of him, daddy?" She had always kept the old
name for her father.
Mr. Ledstone searched for a description of his impressions. "He didn't
strike me as very sympathetic. He didn't seem to feel with us much,
Amy."
"Hates the very idea of us, I suppose," remarked Amy. She turned to
Godfrey's letter again; a faint smile came to her lips. "He does seem to
be in love!"
"The question is--how will mother take it?"
"Yes, of course, dear," Amy agreed, just a trifle absently. Yet,
generally considered, it is a large question; it has played a big part,
for good and evil, in human history.
Mrs. Ledstone--a woman of fifty-five, but still pretty and with prettily
surviving airs of prettiness (it is pleasant to see their faded grace,
like the petals of a flower flattened in a heavy book)--took it hardly,
yet not altogether with the blank grief and dismay, or with the spasm of
the heart, which her husband had feared for her. She did indeed say,
"The idea!" when the crowning atrocity--the suggestion that Winnie
should be brought to see her--was mentioned; and she cordially endorsed
the list of kindred and friends who need know nothing about it. Also she
paid a proper and a perfectly sincere tribute to outraged proprieties.
But behind all this was the same sort of interest as had appeared in her
daughter's comments--and had existed more explicitly in her daughter's
thoughts. These Maxons--this Mrs. Maxon, for the husband was a
subordinate figure, although with his own interest--had abruptly made
incursion into the orderly life of Woburn Square, not merely challenging
its convictions, but exciting its curiosity, bringing it suddenly into
contact with things and thoughts that it had seen only in the newspapers
or (in Amy's case) now and then at the theatre, where dramas "of ideas"
were presented. Of course they knew such things happened; one may know
that about a thing, and yet find it very strange when it happens to
oneself.
"There was always something about that boy," said Mrs. Ledstone. The
vagueness was extreme, but pride lurked in the remark, like onion in the
salad.
And she, like her husband, was immeasurably comforted by the news that
there would be no proceedings. "His career won't suffer, father." She
seemed to draw herself up, as though on the brink of moral laxity. "But,
of course, it must be put a stop to at once." She read a passage in
Godfrey's letter again. "Oh, what a goose the boy is! His head's turned;
you can see that. I suppose she's pretty--or what they call smart,
perhaps."
"The whole thing is deplorable, but the grossest feature is the woman's
effrontery." The effrontery was all the woman's--an unkind view, but
perhaps in this case more unkind than unjust. "How could she look you in
the face, mother?" Mr. Ledstone squeezed his wife's hand
sympathetically.
"Well, we must get him away from her as soon as possible."
A pessimist--one of those easily discouraged mortals who repine at
nothing being effected within the brief span of their own
generation--might liken the world to a ponderous ball, whereunto are
attached five thousand strings. At the end of each somebody is tugging
hard; but all of them are tugging in different directions. Universal
effort, universal fatigue--and the big ball remains exactly where it
was! Here was Winnie, heart and soul in her crusade, holding it great,
almost holy. But the only idea in Woburn Square was to put an end to it
as soon as possible!--And meanwhile to cover it up, to keep it quiet, to
preserve the possibility of being able to say no more about it as soon
as it was happily over. No proceedings! What a comfort!
"Of course we can have nothing to do with her. But what about him--while
it lasts, I mean?" Mr. Ledstone propounded the question. "We ought to
mark our--our horror."
"Yes, father, but we can't abandon the poor boy because he's been
deluded. What do you think, Amy? After all, you're a grown-up woman
now." (Mrs. Ledstone was defending herself against an inward sense of
indelicacy in referring to the matter before her unmarried daughter.)
"Oh, the more we can get him here, the better," was Amy's view. "He'll
realize how we feel about it then."
"Amy's right," the father declared emphatically. "And so are you,
mother. We mustn't abandon him. We must bring our influence to bear."
"I want to hear the poor boy's own story--not a letter written with the
woman at his elbow," said Mrs. Ledstone.
"Will he come without her?" Amy asked.
"Without her--or not at all! It's my duty to shield you and your mother,
Amy. And now, really, I must read my paper." In the excitement of the
morning, in his haste to find Cyril Maxon, in his terror of proceedings,
he had omitted the rite.
"I haven't been through the wash yet," said Mrs. Ledstone.
"It's time for Snip's walk," added Amy.
Life had to go on, in spite of Winnie Maxon--just as we read that some
people lived their ordinary routine throughout the French Revolution.
Snip was Amy Ledstone's Aberdeen terrier--and, let it be said at once,
an extremely attractive and accomplished dog; he "died" for the King and
whined if one mentioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Amy lavished on
him her surplus of affection--what was left after her love for mother,
father, and brother, her affection for uncles, aunts, and cousins, and a
stray friendship or two which survived from schoolgirl days. Dogs
sometimes come in for these windfalls. But to-day her thoughts--as she
made her way along the Euston Road and into Regent's Park--were less
occupied with Snip than was usually the case. Obstinately they fastened
themselves on Winnie Maxon; on more than Winnie Maxon--on ill-regulated
affections in general. She had read about them in novels (which are so
largely occupied with them), seen them exhibited in plays, pursed her
lips over them in newspapers. All that was not the same thing--any more
than an earthquake in China is the same thing as a burglary in one's own
house. Here they were--actually in the family circle! Not mere
"dissipation," but a settled determination to set the rules at naught.
What manner of woman was this Mrs. Maxon? What had driven her to it? She
had "borne more than any human being could"--so said Godfrey's letter.
She now "claimed a little happiness," which "wronged nobody." She only
"took what the law ought to give her--freedom from unendurable bondage."
The phrases of the letter were vivid in Amy's recollection. A woman who
rebelled against the law--ought not her case against it to be heard?
Hadn't she at least a right to a hearing? After all, as things stood,
she had nothing to do with making it--nothing direct, at any rate. That
sounded a plausible plea for Mrs. Maxon. But on the other hand, because
she had been wronged, or suffered ill-treatment, or had bad luck, to go
on and do what was, by Amy's training and prepossession, the one
absolutely unpardonable thing, the thing hardly to be named--"I don't
see how she could, whatever she thinks!" exclaimed Amy, as she entered
the Broad Walk.
People will, when they are allowed, go to see other people hanged, or to
see murderers in their cells, or to watch a woman battling in open court
for her fame as for her life. It was something of this sort of interest
that fastened Amy's thoughts on Winnie Maxon. There is some admiration,
some pity, in the feeling--and certainly a high curiosity about such
people in the average mind, the law-keeping, the non-speculative mind,
the mind trained to regard conventions as eternities and national
customs as laws divine.
Suddenly a smile came on her lips. Would it be very wrong? She and
Godfrey had always been "awfully good friends." She would like to be
that still. What an awfully good friend he would think her if--if she
did not treat Mrs. Maxon as dirt! If she--Amy trembled intellectually as
the speculation developed itself--without saying anything about it at
home, went to see her, made friends, tried to understand her point of
view--called her "Winnie"! Calling her "Winnie" seemed the supreme
point, the pivot on which her attitude turned.
Then came a cold doubt. "Will she care to be called Winnie?" "Will she
care about seeing me?" "She's pretty, she's smart, she has been in
society." Falling in love with a man may not involve a concern about the
opinion of his maiden sister. How pretty was Mrs. Maxon, how smart?
Interest in Winnie Maxon accumulated from source after source. Yes, and
on Amy Ledstone's part, interest in herself accrued also, mingled with a
little uneasiness. She seemed to have travelled far in her
meditations--and she had almost forgotten Snip. Yet it was hardly likely
that these speculations would in the end issue in much. Amy herself
recognized that. They would probably produce nothing save a touch of
sympathy, treacherous to her home, in regard to Winnie barren and
unexpressed. They could not prevent her from being against Winnie; they
could only make her sorry that she had to be. Even so much was a
victory--hard won against the prepossessions of her mind and the canons
of her life.