A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION
To Winnie's few but devoted adherents Cyril Maxon was not a man, but a
monster, a type of tyranny, the embodied symbol of an intolerable
servitude; even Dick Dennehy, staunch champion of the institution, had
no charity for the individual. Needless to say that this was not at all
the view Mr. Maxon took of himself, and not entirely the judgment which
an impartial observer would form of him. There were many women with whom
he might have got on very well, women of a submissive temper, meek
women, limited women, sly women who hoodwinked under a show of perfect
obedience. He would not have been hard to hoodwink, had Winnie been
content to attack her problem in that old-fashioned way. Or, again, an
extremely clever and diplomatic woman--but she can make a good husband
out of the rawest of raw material, mere flesh and bone with (as Stephen
Aikenhead would certainly have added) the economic prerequisite.
From the moment that his wife had identified herself with the Ledstone
family--his memory of Mr. Ledstone was vivid and horrible--he had set
aside the idea that she would soon 'have had enough of it.' It was no
longer in his power to hold to that conclusion. Now it was he himself
who had had more than enough of it. She was done with. He took up his
life alone. At first he sought to mitigate solitude by constant work. It
was not a complete success. Then he installed an unmarried sister in
his house. She was his senior, her temper was akin to his; the
experiment lasted just a month, after which Miss Maxon returned to
Broadstairs. Then gradually he began to seek society again, to show his
face at his old resorts, to meet the women who admired him, who gushed
over him as interesting, clever, and rising. They gushed still more now,
hinting, each with what degree of delicacy nature had given her, their
sympathy with him, and their unlimited astonishment at the folly and
perverseness of Mrs. Maxon. He found this the most effective specific
that he had tried.
It would be unpardonably rash to generalize, but it may be hazarded that
in some cases the man who treats his wife worst misses her most. A
comrade can perhaps be replaced, a new slave is hard to come by.
Besides, Cyril Maxon's principles forbade the search for one, and now he
had to apply his principles to his own case. A year ago nothing in the
whole world would have seemed so unlikely--Fate at its pranks again! It
makes us pay for sins and principles alike--perhaps the best way (with
deference to the _à priori_ philosophers) of learning to appraise
either.
Cyril Maxon was very rising by now; people called him a certainty for a
judgeship in some ten years' time (he was only thirty-eight); and the
ladies were very sympathetic. Several of them were members of Mr.
Attlebury's congregation, and the personal friends of that genial but
exacting apostle. Some of the ladies wondered how Mr. Attlebury could be
so responsive, and yet so definitely restricted in his responsiveness;
they thought of his demeanour as of an occult art, and might have been
right had they stopped at calling it esoteric. Attlebury himself felt no
difficulty, not even a consciousness of effort. He met them in absolute
intimacy of soul to soul. Happily in all creeds--and discreeds--there
are men and women who can do it.
At first Cyril Maxon had refused to talk about his misfortune, which, of
course, soon became public property, and the hints about it had to be
almost impossibly delicate. But, as time went on, he found two or three
friends to whom he could, more or less, open his heart. There was Mrs.
Ladd, an elderly woman with hearty kindly ways and a mind shrewdly
matter of fact. There was Miss Fortescue, one of Attlebury's best
'workers,' a benevolent sensible spinster of five-and-forty. There was
also Lady Rosaline Deering, daughter of a Scotch peer, widow of a
Colonial Administrator. She was a woman of three-and-thirty, or
thereabouts, tall and of graceful carriage; her nose was too long, and
so was her chin, but she had pretty hair and fine eyes. She was a bit of
a blue-stocking and dabbled in theology and philosophy. "Not afraid to
think for myself," was the way in which she defined her attitude, in
contradistinction (as she implied) from the attitude of most of the
women who sat at Mr. Attlebury's feet. She admired Attlebury, but she
thought for herself.
"One can't quite give up one's reason," she would say, with a winning
smile. "Besides, I was brought up in the Church of Scotland, you know."
This ecclesiastical origin seemed to give her independence; she paid
only so much voluntary allegiance as she chose to Attlebury and his
Church; she could in case of need fall back on her Church of origin, as
though on a domicile never finally forfeited. Also in her husband's
lifetime she had seen the cities of men and known their minds. In fact
she might be considered emancipated, and her adherence to Mr.
Attlebury's school was rather æsthetic than dogmatic; she thought that
religion should be invested with beauty, but she was not afraid to talk
of some of its doctrines as possibly 'symbolic.'
All the three ladies took a great interest in Maxon, but by common
consent the first place was yielded to Lady Rosaline. Mrs. Ladd could
fortify him, Miss Fortescue could cheer him up; they both recognized
that Lady Rosaline could do something else, a subtle thing into which
femininity entered more specifically; one of the things which Mrs. Maxon
ought to have given him, but obviously had not; perhaps something like
what Lady Rosaline herself derived from Attlebury's church services, a
blend of intellectual and æsthetic satisfaction. Mrs. Ladd and Miss
Fortescue were weak in the æsthetic element. Moreover there was a
special bond of sympathy between Lady Rosaline and Maxon. The late
Colonial Administrator had been by no means all that he should have been
as a husband, and when death severed the union, it was but a very
slender string that its shears cut.
Mrs. Ladd and Miss Fortescue had hinted at this sad story; Lady Rosaline
herself told it, though in reticent outline only, to Cyril one evening
in November when he happened to have leisure to go to tea with her at
her flat in Hans Place.
"It's a terrible thing to have to say, but really his death--poor
fellow!--ended a situation which had become almost unendurable to any
woman of fine feelings. He was never rude or unkind to me, but one's
pride! And the solitude of the soul, Mr. Maxon!"
"Still you endured it bravely." His tone subtly asked sympathy, while
his words gave it.
"I wonder if I could have gone on! I should shock Mr. Attlebury, I
suppose, but I thought more than once of divorce. Our home--when we were
at home--had always been in Scotland. That would have made it easier,
and it needn't have hurt his career anything like so much. He could just
have left me and stayed away the necessary time, you see. After the
last--the last trouble--he offered me that, if I wished it."
"You must have been under a considerable temptation."
"Yes. But then his health began to fail, and--and things were different.
I had to stay and look after him; and so we became better friends at the
end. I really don't bear malice now."
"I think with Attlebury on that question, you know."
"Yes, I suppose you do. But then, isn't there--room for doubt?"
"I scarcely think so, Lady Rosaline."
"Oh, but it is hard sometimes, then!" she murmured, looking into the
fire. "Do you think there's nothing in the view that the offence itself
is a dissolution?--That it's the offender himself--or herself--who puts
asunder, not the judge, who merely deals with the legal consequences?"
"No, I can't see that." He paused, frowning, then went on: "I can
understand a man maintaining that it's given as a counsel of perfection,
rather than an absolutely binding rule--I mean, that a man should try,
but, if it proves beyond his strength, he might not be absolutely
condemned."
"Does it hurt you to talk about it?"
"Not to people who understand."
"How strange she didn't understand you better! Do you mind my saying
that?"
"If I'd ever had any doubts about the substantial rights of the matter,
her subsequent proceedings would have dispelled them completely."
"Yes, they throw a light back, don't they?"
Cyril Maxon threw more light, setting forth the preposterous charges
which his wife had levelled against him before she went away. He put
them as honestly as he could; they were to him so unreasonable that he
was not in the least afraid to submit them to an impartial judge. They
seemed just as unreasonable to Lady Rosaline. She was as secure of
herself as was Mrs. Lenoir; she was not afraid of being 'crushed.'
(Perhaps being 'Lady Rosaline' helped her a little there.) And Winnie's
alleged grievances fell so short of her own tale of wrongs as to seem a
ridiculously inadequate excuse.
"I can't understand her any more than you can," she said.
"There's really no use in saying any more about her, Lady Rosaline. It's
a matter of character."
"And she's actually with this man Ledstone now?"
He spread out his hands and bowed his head. It was both answer and
comment enough.
"They'd marry, I suppose, if they could?"
Cyril Maxon was not quick at marking the delicate shades of a woman's
mood; there at least Winnie was right. He did not now detect the
underlying note of pity in Lady Rosaline's voice. It was, indeed, no
more than hinted. He made another gesture--this time of pronounced
impatience and distaste. Lady Rosaline smiled faintly, and changed the
subject.
When he had left her, she sat on by the fire, musing. She was a widow
with few happy memories and no fond regrets; she was childless; in spite
of her high connections she was by no means rich; she could not afford
to travel much in the style she desired, or to entertain much. And she
was thirty-three. Surveying her position as a whole, she did not take a
roseate view of it. "I'm bound to drop out in a few years"--that was how
she summed up her prospects--not a cheerful summary, it must be
admitted. She had not the contentment of a Mrs. Ladd nor the
philanthropic zeal of a Miss Fortescue. She had a good deal of ambition,
a love of luxury, and (as has been said) a commendable self-confidence.
Masterful herself under all her graceful gentleness, she liked rather
than feared masterful men; Cyril Maxon attracted her none the less
because he had 'crushed' Winnie. "A poor little thing like that!" So ran
her verdict on Winnie, whom she had met half a dozen times. And he was
very rising. She found herself recalling the precise words that he had
used about 'a counsel of perfection.'
It needs little acuteness to detect a congruity between the
interpretation of a rule as a counsel of perfection, and the doctrine of
the limits of human endurance. In fact they come to very much the same
thing and are invoked, rightly or wrongly, plausibly or unplausibly, on
much the same occasions and under very similar circumstances. If a man
strikes you lightly on one cheek, you turn the other. But if he strikes
the first cheek very hard? If he forces you to go a mile with him, will
you go with him twain? Does the amenity of the road make no difference?
If he takes your coat, shall he take your cloak also? Something might
turn on the relative value of the two garments. In such cases the human
race makes accommodations; and accommodations are not confined to any
one class of thinkers.
Cyril Maxon had afforded scant countenance to Lady Rosaline's suggestion
that the offender himself severed the tie. She had picked it up from an
article of Catholic complexion, which set out the authorities for it
only to confute them. His logical mind saw that the position implied
rather startling consequences; for if an act can sever, an act can bind.
But he did not so easily or readily reject his own idea of the counsel
of perfection. Arguing before a Court, he could have made a good case
for it. Argued in the forum of his own conscience, it found pleas and
precedents. Yet it was slowly that it gained even a hearing from the
judge, and only by much dexterous pleading; for at first sight the
authorities to which he bowed were all against it. They had seemed
absolutely and immediately conclusive on the morning when Mr. Ledstone
called in the Temple. 'No proceedings!' Save as a record of his own
attitude, Maxon attached no importance to the utterance so charged with
relief to its auditor. It was in no sense a pledge; it was merely an
expression of present intention. On what conceivable theory had that
Ledstone family any right to pledges from him? If a pledge at all, it
was one to himself and to the school of thought to which he belonged. To
the Ledstones? Never!
So the slow hidden current of his feelings began to bore for itself a
new channel--a way round the rock of principle that barred direct
advance. Another change there was in him. A woman--his wife--had
gibbeted him as a man impossible to live with. He was secretly, almost
unconsciously, afraid of the world's agreeing with her. Seeking
sympathy, he tried to manifest it; afraid of being misunderstood, he
embarked on an effort to be understanding. He made a fair success of it.
People said that he was human after all, and that Mrs. Maxon ought to
have seen it. The work which Winnie had done redounded to her discredit;
it is not an uncommon case. The rebels are shot, flogged, or have to fly
the kingdom. But reforms are introduced into the administration, and
these make the rebels seem more guilty still--because, of course, the
reforms were just going to be introduced anyhow, if only the rebels
would have had a little faith, a little patience. Who has not read it a
score of times in the newspapers?
"That little wife of his can't have known how to manage a man," said old
Mrs. Ladd, who had owned two husbands, the first an over-festive soul,
the second a hypochondriac.
"The Vicar has the highest opinion of him," remarked Miss Fortescue.
Mrs. Ladd smiled. "He won't have such a high opinion of him if he goes
gadding after Rosaline Deering."
Miss Fortescue was shocked and interested. "My dear, is there any chance
of that?"
Mrs. Ladd pursed up her lips. "I don't see much harm in it myself," she
said.
"Oh, Mrs. Ladd! If the Vicar heard you!"
"If you may marry again when your husband's dead----"
"It's allowed, but it's--it's not exactly recommended, is it?"
"Well, on the Vicar's theory, I don't see in the end any difference
between the two cases--or, at any rate, not much." Mrs. Ladd destroyed
her logic by a concession to her friend's pained surprise. She ought to
have stuck to there being no difference at all. Then on Attlebury's
theory she had an argument; 'not much' came perilously near to cutting
the roots of it.
Speculation as to Mr. Attlebury's attitude was not confined to these
good members of his flock. It had a place in Cyril Maxon's own mind, so
soon as he began to consider the idea of freeing himself from the legal
bond of marriage--and of reviewing his situation after that was done.
But here the idiosyncrasy of the man came in, and cut across the loyalty
of the Churchman. He had given to Attlebury a voluntary allegiance. But
if Attlebury tried to extort a forced obedience? Cyril's face set at the
thought. Winnie's great offence had been that she would not 'adapt
herself.' In his heart he demanded that the priest and the Church should
adapt themselves also, should recognize his services and his value, and
find a way out for him, if necessary. The 'counsel of perfection' theory
seemed more and more, on consideration, to be a possible way out, and
already he began to feel, in anticipation, a resentment against the man
or the institution that should say the contrary. He chafed beforehand at
such dictation, such interference with a view conscientiously held by a
man whom all must admit to be sincere and devout--and, moreover, an
adherent very much worth having.
Among the various influences which caused the project of freeing himself
to take definite shape in his mind, Rosaline Deering had to be reckoned
first, no doubt, but she was not the only woman who counted. Done with
as she was, out of his life, yet Winnie Maxon also had her share in the
work. He felt a primitive desire to 'show her,' as children say--to show
her that she had not the power to destroy his life, that there were
women wiser than she, women who did not think him impossible to live
with, but would hold it high fortune to become his wife. As soon as he
began to think of Rosaline Deering, he thought oftener of his wife,
setting the two women in opposition as it were, and endowing Rosaline
with all the virtues which Winnie had so conspicuously lacked. Even such
an adventitious thing as Rosaline's courtesy title counted in this
connexion; it would help to convince Winnie of her own insignificance,
of what a much greater career than her own she had tried--vainly
tried--to spoil. When she was little better than a vagabond--he did not
put things mercifully--Mr. Justice and Lady Rosaline Maxon might be
entertaining in Devonshire Street--or perhaps Berkeley Square.
When the Law Courts rose for the Christmas vacation he went to Paris,
and Lady Rosaline was gracious enough to make no secret of the fact that
his presence there had a share in determining her also on a short visit.
They did some of the sights together, they had many talks over the fire,
and it was there--on the same Christmas Eve whereon Winnie had gone to
Shaylor's Patch and Godfrey Ledstone to Woburn Square--that he told her
that he had made up his mind to seek legal dissolution of his
ill-starred marriage.
"I have looked at the question from all sides, and I have satisfied my
conscience," he said. "Now I must act on my own responsibility."
In the last words there sounded anticipatory defiance of Mr.
Attlebury--a defiance which indicated that the satisfaction of his
conscience was not quite complete. The case rather was that his
conscience had come to terms with the other influences, and under their
pressure had accepted the way out.
"I think I may justly plead that the circumstances are exceptional." He
leant forward towards her and asked, "You don't condemn me?"
"What's my opinion worth? You know much more about it; you're much more
able to form a judgment."
"But I want to know that I haven't forfeited your good opinion, your
regard, if I may hope that I have ever gained it."
"No, I don't condemn you, if your own conscience doesn't, Mr. Maxon."
She rose and stood--leaning her elbow on the mantelpiece, her back half
turned towards him. The pose displayed well the grace of her tall
figure; his eyes rested on her in satisfaction.
"Thank you," he said. "That--that means a great deal to me, Lady
Rosaline."
Her elbow rested on the mantelpiece, her face on her hand; her mouth
was hidden. But unseen by him a smile bent her lips. His words were
entirely decorous--from a man still married--but they were explicit
enough. "I can have him if I want him," probably sums up pretty
accurately the lady's comfortable conclusion.