A POINT OF HONOUR
Mrs. Lenoir's boast was not without warrant; in the course of her life
she had held her own against men in more than one hard fight. She
admired another woman who could do the same. In her refugee from the
West Kensington studio she rejoiced to find not a sentimental penitent
nor an emotional wreck, but a woman scarred indeed with wounds, but
still full of fight, acknowledging a blunder, but not crushed by it,
both resolved and clearly able to make a life for herself still and to
enjoy it. She hailed in Winnie, too, the quality which her own career
had taught her both to recognize and to value--that peculiarly feminine
attractiveness which was the best weapon in her sex's battles; Winnie
fought man with her native weapons, not with an equipment borrowed from
the male armoury and clumsily or feebly handled. Under the influence of
this sex-sympathy pity had passed into admiration, and admiration into
affection, during the weeks which had elapsed since she brought Winnie
to her roof.
Her ethical code was pagan, as perhaps is already evident. When she
hated, she hurt if she could; when she loved, she helped--she would not
have quarrelled with the remark that she deserved no credit for it. She
was by now intent on helping Winnie, on giving her a fresh start, on
obliterating the traces of defeat, and on co-operating in fresh
manoeuvres which should result in victory. But to this end some
strategy was needful. Not only other people, but Winnie herself had to
be managed, and there was need of tact in tiding over an awkward period
of transition. As a subsidiary move towards the latter object, Mrs.
Lenoir projected a sojourn abroad; in regard to the former she had to be
on her guard against two sets of theories--the world's theories about
Winnie, which might perhaps find disciples in her own particular
friends, the General and his son, Major Merriam, and Winnie's theories
about the world, which had before now led their adherent into a rashness
that invited, and in the end had entailed, disaster.
She had pleasant memories of Madeira, which she had visited many years
ago under romantic circumstances. She outlined a tour which should begin
with that island, include a sea-trip thence to Genoa, and end up with a
stay at the Italian lakes. On the day that Winnie spent at Shaylor's
Patch she sketched out this plan to her friend, the General.
"Upon my word, it sounds uncommonly pleasant. I should like to come with
you, but I don't want to leave Bertie for so long, now he's at home for
once."
"No, of course you don't." For reasons of her own, she preferred that
any suggestion should come from him.
The General pondered, then smiled rather roguishly. "What would you say,
Clara, if two handsome young officers turned up at Madeira, for a few
days anyhow? Just to bask in the sun, you know?"
"I should say that two handsome young women wouldn't be much annoyed."
"By Jove, I'll suggest it to Bertie!" All right--so long as it was the
General who suggested it!
Mrs. Lenoir smiled at him. "Of course it would be very pleasant." A
slight emphasis on the last word suggested that, if there were any
reasons to weigh against the obvious pleasantness, they were matters for
her friend's consideration, not for hers. If he chose to go out of his
way to expose his eldest son to the fascination of a young woman about
whom he knew nothing at all, it was his own look out. By now there was
no doubt that Bertie Merriam was quite conscious of the fascination,
though by no means yet dominated by it.
"We should make a very harmonious quartette," the General declared. "I
shall certainly suggest it to Bertie."
"Oh, well, you must see how it strikes him. Remember, he may prefer the
gaieties of London. Don't press him on our account!" She would not in
any way invite; she preserved the attitude of a kindly, but not an
eager, acquiescence in any decision at which Bertie might arrive. But
she was strongly of opinion that the handsome officers would turn up--on
the island, and not improbably even at Southampton docks.
All this, then, was in Mrs. Lenoir's mind when Winnie came back from
Shaylor's Patch, her thoughts still occupied with two questions. One
related to Dick Dennehy; it was a private matter and did not concern her
hostess. But the problem of conduct which she had submitted to the
Aikenheads did. On that she was bound in loyalty to consult Mrs. Lenoir.
That lady had indeed given an opinion once, but circumstances alter
cases. As she ate her dinner, she described humorously the difference of
opinion between husband and wife, putting the case in the abstract, of
course, without explicit reference to the Major, and taking the liberty
of implying that it was Stephen who had initiated the debate. These
concessions to modesty and discretion scarcely deceived Mrs. Lenoir,
though she accepted them decorously. Both women knew that it was Bertie
Merriam who might make a settlement of the point necessary before many
days, or, at all events, many weeks, were out.
Worldly-wise Mrs. Lenoir took up a middle position. She was not prepared
for Tora's uncompromising doctrine; yet she agreed with the view that
there was much to be said for telling people what they might probably
find out--and find out too late in their own opinion. All the same, she
dissented from Stephen's extreme application of the rule of candour.
"You wouldn't accept a man without telling him, but you needn't blurt it
out to anybody who makes you a few pretty speeches."
"Wouldn't it be fair to tell him before he got much in love?"
"If he wasn't much in love, he'd be rather inclined to smile over your
telling him, wouldn't he?"
The suggestion went home to Winnie. "I shouldn't want to risk that."
"Unless circumstances make it absolutely necessary, I should let things
stay as they are till your case is over, at all events. It'll be so much
pleasanter for you to be incog. till then."
There was something in that suggestion too. Not great on theory, Mrs.
Lenoir took good practical points.
"It's rather giving up my point of view," Winnie objected.
Mrs. Lenoir smiled in a slightly contemptuous kindness. "Oh, my poor
child, take a holiday from your point of view, as well as from all the
rest of it. And really it's quixotic of you to be so much afraid of
giving some man or other a little shock, after all they've made you
suffer."
Winnie felt the appeal to the cause of the sex also. In short all Mrs.
Lenoir's points told; they seemed full of workaday wisdom and reasonable
common-sense.
"Just don't think about it again till after the case. Promise me."
"That is best, I think, in the end. Yes, I promise, Mrs. Lenoir."
Mrs. Lenoir said nothing about the possibility of the two officers
'turning up' at Madeira--or at Southampton docks. Diplomacy forbade; the
connection would have been too rudely obvious; it might have led Winnie
to reconsider her pledge. In fact things were so managed--mainly by a
policy of masterly inactivity, tempered by just one hint to the
General--that the first Winnie heard of this idea came neither from Mrs.
Lenoir nor from the General, but from Bertie Merriam himself. Emanating
from that quarter, the suggestion could not be brusquely repelled; it
was bound to meet with courteous consideration. Indeed, to refuse to
accept it would be extremely difficult. To Mrs. Lenoir Winnie might have
avowed the only possible objection; she could not so much as hint at it
to the Major. Mrs. Lenoir knew her way about, as the colloquial phrase
has it.
Winnie's relations with Bertie Merriam had now reached the stage which a
mature and retrospective judgment, though not, of course, the heat of
youth, may perhaps declare to be the pleasantest that can exist between
man and woman--a congenial friendship coloured into a warmer tint by
admiration on the one side and a flattered recognition of it on the
other. Winnie's recent experience raised recognition to the height of
gratification, almost to that of gratitude. Not only her theory had
suffered at Godfrey Ledstone's hands; deny it though she might, her
vanity also had been wounded. She welcomed balms, and smiled kindly on
any who would administer them. After an unfortunate experience in love,
people are said often to welcome attentions from a new-comer 'out of
pique'; it is likely that the motive is less often vexation with the
offender than gratitude to the successor, who restores pride and gives
back to life its potentiality of pleasure. This was Winnie's mood. She
was willing to take Mrs. Lenoir's advice not merely on the specific
point on which it was offered. She was willing to accept it all
round--willing, so far as she could, to forget her theories and her
point of view, as well as what they had entailed upon her. She wanted to
enjoy the pleasant things of life for awhile; one could not be playing
apostle or martyr all the time! She was ready to see what this new
episode, this journey and this holiday, had to offer; she was not
unwilling to see how much she might be inclined to like Major Merriam.
Yet all this is to analyse her far more than she analysed herself. In
her it was, in reality, the youthful blood moving again, the rebound
from sorrow, the reassertion of the right of her charms and its
unimpeded exercise. Such a mood is not one where the finer shades of
scruple are likely to prevail; it is too purely a natural and primitive
movement of mind and body. Besides, Winnie could always, as Mrs. Lenoir
reminded her, soothe a qualm of conscience by a staggering _tu quoque_
launched against the male sex in general.
Again, in an unconscious and blindly instinctive way, she was a student
of human nature, and rather a head-strong one. She did not readily rest
in ignorance about people, or even find repose in doubt. She liked to
search, test, classify, and be guided by the result. Her history showed
it. She had tested Cyril Maxon, classified him, and acted on her
conclusion. She had experimented on Godfrey Ledstone, classified him,
found that she had miscalculated, paid the expense of an unsuccessful
experiment, and accepted the issue of it. Here, now, was new
material--men of a kind to whom her experience had not previously
introduced her in any considerable degree of intimacy. She might often
have dined in the company of such; but under Maxon's roof real knowledge
of other men was not easily come by.
Men of views and visions, men of affairs and ambitions, men of ease and
pleasure--among these her lot had been cast since she left her father's
house. The Merriams were pre-eminently men of duty. They had their
opinions, and both took their recreations with a healthy zest; but the
Service was as the breath of their nostrils. The General was the
cleverer soldier of the two, as the Kala Kin Expedition bore witness.
The son was not likely ever to command more than a regiment or, at most,
a brigade; higher distinctions must be left to the second brother.
Bertie's enthusiasm corresponded nicely with his gifts. He adored
the regiment, and in due course a few months would see him
Lieutenant-Colonel; if only the regiment could see service under his
command, how joyously would he sing his _Nunc dimittis_, with duty done
and his name on an honourable roll!
Winnie sat regarding his pleasant tanned face, his sincere pale blue
eyes, and his very well-made clothes, with a calm satisfaction. She had
been hearing a good deal about the regiment, but the gossip amused her.
"And where do the officers' wives--I suppose some of you have
wives?--come in?" she asked.
"Oh, they're awfully important, Miss Wilson. The social tone depends so
much on them. You see, with a parcel of young chaps--the subalterns, you
know--well, you do see, don't you?"
"Well, I think I can see that, Major Merriam. They mustn't flirt with
the subalterns? At any rate, not too much?"
"That's rotten. But they ought to teach them their manners."
"Ought to be motherly? You don't look as if that sounded quite right!
Elder-sisterly?"
"That's more like it, Miss Wilson."
He said 'Miss Wilson' rather often, or so it struck Winnie--just as Bob
Purnett used to say 'Mrs. Ledstone' much too often. He gave her another
little jar the next moment. He left the subject of officers' wives, and
leant forward to her with an ingratiating yet rather apologetic smile.
"I say, do you know what the General has had the cheek to suggest to
your cousin?"
Winnie had forgotten her cue. "My cousin?" she exclaimed in surprise.
"Why, Mrs. Lenoir! She is your cousin, isn't she?"
The lie direct Winnie disliked. Yet could she betray her benefactress?
"It's so awfully distant that I forget the cousin in the friend," she
said, with an uneasy little laugh. "But what has the General had the
cheek--your phrase, not mine--to suggest to Mrs. Lenoir?" She seemed to
have forgotten the cousin again, for she said 'Mrs. Lenoir,' not 'Cousin
Clara.' As, however, the Major had never heard her say anything else,
the point did not attract his notice.
"Why, that we four might make a party of it as far as Madeira. Nice
little place, though I suppose it won't be as lively now as it was when
the war was going on."
"It sounds delightful."
"I've got a paper to read to the Naval and Military Institute in six
weeks' time. I could just fit it in--and write the thing out there, you
know."
"We'd all help you," said Winnie.
The Major detected raillery. "I should have a go at it before you were
up in the morning."
"Oh, well, then I must be content with the humble function of helping to
relax your mind afterwards."
"But you wouldn't mind our coming?"
"You don't appreciate how fond I am of the General."
"Well, he half-worships you, Miss Wilson. And you'll put up with my
company for his sake?"
"He's too distinguished a man to carry the rugs and cushions."
"You can fag me as much as you like on board. The difficulty is to get
enough moving about."
"On that distinct understanding, I won't veto the party, Major Merriam."
She laughed. "But, of course, I've really got nothing to say to it. It's
for Mrs. Lenoir to decide, isn't it?"
Bertie Merriam felt that he had obtained permission, but hardly
encouragement--just as the General was convinced that he had made a
suggestion and not received one. But permission was enough.
"I shall tell the General I've squared you," he said, beaming. "There
are jolly excursions to be made, you know. You can either ride, or be
carried in a hammock----"
"I wonder if Mrs. Lenoir will care for the excursions!"
"Well, if the seniors want to take it easy, we could do them together,
couldn't we, Miss Wilson?"
"To be sure we could," smiled Winnie. "More rugs and cushions for you!
Won't it be what you call fatigue duty?"
"I'll take it on," he declared. "I don't shirk work in a good cause, you
know."
One thing about him surprised Winnie, while it also pleased her.
Obviously he considered her witty. She had never been accustomed to take
that view of herself. Cyril Maxon would have been amazed at it. Though
Stephen Aikenhead now and then gave her credit for a hit, her general
attitude towards him was that of an inquirer or a disciple, and
disciples may not becomingly bandy witticisms with their masters.
Because Bertie Merriam visibly enjoyed--without attempting to equal--her
fencing, she began to enjoy it herself. Nay, more, she began to rely on
it. No less than her staggering _tu quoque_ to the male sex, it might
serve, at a pinch, to quiet a qualm of conscience. "I can always keep
him at his distance." That notion in her mind helped to minimize any
scruples to which his admiration, the expedition, the excursions, the
rugs and the cushions, might give rise. For if fencing can accord
permission, it can surely also refuse it? If the Merriams were anything
in this world, they were gentlemen. In matters of the heart a gentleman
need not be very clever to take a hint; he feels it.
But the most dexterous soother of qualms and scruples was Mrs. Lenoir.
Her matter-of-fact treatment of the joint excursion shamed Winnie out of
making too much of it. What reason was there to suppose that Bertie
would fall in love? A pleasant passing flirtation perhaps--and why not?
Moreover--here the subject was treated in a more general way, though the
special application was not obscure--suppose he did! What did it matter?
Men were always falling in love, and falling out of it again. A slight
shrug of still shapely shoulders reduced these occurrences to their true
proportions. Finally she took occasion to hint that Bertie Merriam was
not what he himself would call 'pious.' He accepted the religion of his
caste and country as he found it; he conformed to its observances and
had an honest uninquiring belief in its dogmas. It was to him a natural
side of life and an integral part of regimental discipline--much, in
fact, as church-going was to Alice Aikenhead, at school. But there was
no reason to suppose that he would carry it to extremes, or consider
that it could ask more of him than the law asked. So far as the law
went, all objections would vanish in a few months. Strong in her
influence over the General, Mrs. Lenoir foresaw, in the event of the
falling in love coming to pass, a brief trouble and a happy ending. The
second was well worth the first. In fact she was by now set on her
project--on the fresh start and the good match for Winnie. She was ready
to forward it in every way she could, by diplomacy, by hard fighting if
need be, by cajolery, and, finally, by such an endowment for Winnie as
would remove all hindrances of a financial order. Though most of her
money was sunk in an annuity, she could well afford to make Winnie's
income up to four hundred a year--not a despicable dower for the wife of
a regimental officer. With three sons in the army the General was not
able to make very handsome allowances; the four hundred would be welcome
with a bride.
She would have been interested to overhear a conversation which took
place between the General and his son while they were dining together at
Bertie's club two days before the expedition was to set out. The General
filled his glass of port and opened the subject.
"Bertie, my boy, you ought to get married," he said. "A C.O., as you
will be soon, ought to have a wife. It's good for the regiment, in my
opinion--though some men think otherwise, as I'm aware--and it makes it
much less likely that a man will get into any scrape on his own
account--a thing a bachelor's always liable to do, and in these days a
much more serious matter than it used to be."
The General, at least, did not sound unpracticably 'pious.' Mrs. Lenoir
might take comfort.
Bertie Merriam blushed a little through his tan. "Well, to tell the
truth, I have been just sort of thinking about it--in a kind of way, you
know."
"Anybody special in your eye?" asked the General.
"It's rather early days to give it away," Bertie pleaded.
"Yes, yes. I quite see, my boy. I beg your pardon. But I'm very glad to
hear what you say. I know you'll choose a good girl--and a pretty one
too, I'll lay odds! I won't ask any more. A little bit of money wouldn't
hurt, of course. Take your own time, Bertie, and I'll wait." Thus the
General ostensibly passed from the subject. But after finishing his
glass and allowing it to be refilled, he remarked, "I'm looking forward
to our jaunt, Bertie. It was a happy idea of mine, wasn't it? I shall
enjoy talking to Clara--I always do--and you'll be happy with little
Miss Wilson. I like her--I like her very much. Of course, twenty years
ago it wouldn't have been wise for Clara to chaperon her, but at this
time of day it's all forgotten. Only old fogies like me remember
anything about it. It oughtn't to prejudice the girl in any sensible
man's eyes."
He exchanged a glance with his son. Nothing explicit was said. But a
question had been answered which Bertie had desired to put. It was now
quite clear to him that, if he were desirous of courting Miss Winnie
Wilson, he need expect no opposition from the General.
"I'm quite with you there, father. It would be very unfair to Miss
Wilson."
With what mind would Mrs. Lenoir--and Miss Wilson--have overheard the
conversation? Might they have recognized that they were not giving quite
such fair treatment as was being accorded to them? Or would Winnie's
theories and her ability to launch a staggering _tu quoque_, and Mrs.
Lenoir's practical points of difficulty, still have carried the day? It
is probable that they would. Taken all together, they were very
powerful, and Stephen Aikenhead's atavistic 'public-school' idea of
honour could hardly have prevailed.
Father and son walked home, arm in arm. The talk of his son's marriage,
the prospect of his son's commanding his regiment, moved the old soldier
to unwonted feeling.
"I shall be a proud man when I can boast of two Colonels--and if that
scamp George'll stick to work, he ought to give me a third before many
years are over. There's no finer billet in the world than the command of
a regiment--no position in which you can do more good, in my opinion, or
serve the King to better purpose. And a good wife can help you, as I
said--help you a lot."
He pressed his son's arm and added, "Only you mustn't let her interfere
with your work. The regiment must still come first in everything,
Bertie--aye, even before your wife! That's the rule of the Service."