A PHILOSOPHICAL PROJECT
Mrs. Lenoir did not, as the phrase runs, "do as much for" Winnie Maxon
as she had been prepared to do for the prospective Mrs. Bertie Merriam.
Perhaps because, though she had accepted the decision, her
disappointment over the issue persisted. Perhaps merely because, as
matters now stood, her bounty would not go in the end to benefit her old
friend's stock. After providing an annuity for her precious Emily, and
bequeathing a few personal relics to the General, she left to Winnie the
furniture of her flat and fifteen hundred pounds. The residue which was
at her disposition she gave--it may be with a parting kick at
respectability; it may be because she thought he would enjoy it most--to
her favourite, and the least meritorious, of the General's sons--the one
who went in for too much polo and private theatricals in India.
"There's no immediate need for you to hurry out of here," the General
added; he was the executor. "The rent must be paid till the summer
anyhow, and Clara told me that she wished you to stay till then if you
liked. I've no doubt Emily will stay with you."
"It was very kind of her, but I can't afford to live here long."
"Oh, well, just while you look about you, anyhow. And if there's
anything I can do for you, you won't hesitate to let me know, will
you?"
Winnie promised to call upon his services if she required them, but
again the feeling came over her that, however kind and obliging he might
be, the General did in his heart--even if unwillingly--regard their
connexion with one another as over. The bond which Mrs. Lenoir had made
was broken; that other and closer bond had never come into existence. It
would have been unjust to say that the General was washing his hands of
her. It was merely a recognition of facts to admit that fate--the course
of events--was performing the operation for him. They had no longer any
purchase on one another's lives, any common interest to unite them. His
only surviving concern now was in his three sons, and it had been
irrevocably decided that there Winnie was not to count.
The consciousness of this involuntary drifting apart from the old man
whom she liked and admired for his gentleness and his loyalty
intensified the loneliness with which Mrs. Lenoir's death afflicted
Winnie. She was in no better case now than when her friend had rescued
her from the empty studio and thereby seemed to open to her a new life.
The new life, too, was gone with the friend who had given it. Looking
back on her career since she had left Cyril Maxon's roof, she saw the
same thing happening again and again. She had made friends and lost
them; she had picked them up, walked with them to the next fork in the
road, and there parted company. "Is it mere chance, or something in me,
or something in my position?" she asked herself. A candid survey could
not refuse the conclusion that the position had contributed largely to
the result. The case of Godfrey Ledstone, the more trivial instance of
Bob Purnett, were there to prove it. The position had been a vital and
practically exclusive factor in bringing about her parting from Bertie
Merriam; she had an idea that its action was to be traced in the
continued absence and silence of Dick Dennehy. The same thing which had
parted her from her men-friends had forbidden her friendships with
women. She could, she felt, have made a friend of Amy Ledstone. To-day
she would have liked to make a friend of kindly shrewd old Mrs. Ladd;
but though Mrs. Ladd came to see her at the flat which had been Mrs.
Lenoir's, she received no invitation to Mrs. Ladd's house. The pressure
of public opinion, the feelings of Mr. Attlebury's congregation, the
'awkwardness' which would arise with Mrs. Ladd's old, if too exacting,
friend, Cyril Maxon, forbade. The one friendship which had proved able
to resist the disintegrating influence was ended now by death.
Well, great benefits cannot reasonably be expected for nothing. If she
was alone, she was also free--wonderfully free. And, of a certainty,
complete freedom can seldom be achieved save at the cost of a voluntary
or involuntary severing of ties. Must every one then be either a slave
or a solitary? She was not so soured as to accept that conclusion. She
knew that there was a way out--only she had not found it. The Aikenheads
had, down at Shaylor's Patch! Thither--to her old haven--her thoughts
turned longingly. While it stood, she did it injustice in calling
herself friendless. Yet to retire to that pleasant seclusion went
against pride; it seemed like a retreat, a confession that the world had
been too much for her, that she was beaten. She was not prepared to
acknowledge herself beaten--at least, not by the enemy in a fair square
fight. Her disasters were due to the defection of her allies. So she
insisted, as she sat long hours alone in the flat--ah, now so quiet
indeed!
Shaylor's Patch had not forgotten her. The Aikenheads did not attend
their friend Mrs. Lenoir's funeral--they had a theory antagonistic to
graveside gatherings, which was not totally lacking in plausibility--but
Stephen had written to her, promising to come and see her as soon as he
could get to town. He came there very seldom--Winnie, indeed, had never
met him in London--and it was above a fortnight before he made his
appearance at the flat. Delighted as Winnie was by his visit, her glad
welcome was almost smothered in amazement at his appearance. He wore the
full uniform of a man about town, all in the latest fashion, from the
curl of the brim of his silk hat to the exact cut of his coat-tails.
Save that his hair was a trifle long and full, he was a typical
Londoner, dressed for a ceremonial occasion. As it was, he would pass
well for a poet with social ambitions.
"Good gracious!" said Winnie, holding up her hands. "You got up like
that, Stephen!"
"Yes, I think I can hold my own in Piccadilly," said Stephen,
complacently regarding himself in the long gilt mirror. "I believe I
once told you I had atavistic streaks? This is one of them. I can
mention my opinions if I want to--and I generally do; but there's no
need for my coat and hat to go yelling them out in the street. That's my
view; of course it isn't in the least Tora's. She thinks me an awful
fool for doing it."
Winnie did not feel it necessary to settle this difficult point in the
philosophy of clothes--on which eminent men hold widely varying
opinions, as anybody who takes his walks abroad and keeps his eyes open
for the celebrities of the day will have no difficulty in observing.
"Well, at any rate, I think you look awfully nice--quite handsome! I
expect Tora's just afraid of your being too fascinating in your best
clothes."
He sat down with a laugh and looked across at her inquiringly. "Pretty
cheerful, Winnie?"
"Not so very particularly. I do feel her loss awfully, you know. I was
very fond of her, and it seems to leave me so adrift. I had an
anchorage here, but the anchor won't hold any more."
"Come and anchor at Shaylor's Patch. The anchor always holds there for
you."
Winnie both made her confession and produced her objection. "I can't
deny I've been thinking of you rather wistfully in these melancholy
days, but it seems like--like giving up."
"Not a bit of it. You can be absolutely in the thick of the fight there,
if you like." He looked across at her with his whimsical smile. "I'm
actually going to do something at last, Winnie. I'm about to start on my
life's work. I'm going to do a Synopsis of Social Philosophy."
"It sounds like a life's work," Winnie remarked. His society always
cheered her, and already her manner showed something of its normal
gaiety.
"Yes, it's a big job, but I'm a healthy man. You see, I shall take all
the great fellows from the earliest time down to to-day, and collect
from them everything that bears on the questions that we of to-day have
to face--not worrying about their metaphysics and that sort of stuff,
but taking what bears on the things we've really got to settle--the live
things, you know. See the idea? There'll be a section on Education, for
instance, one on Private Property, one on Marriage, one on Women and
Labour. I want it to reach the masses, so all the excerpts will be in
English. Then each section will have an appendix, in which I shall
collate the excerpts, and point out the main lines of agreement and
difference. Perhaps I shall add a few suggestions of my own."
"I think you very likely will, Stephen."
"Now don't you think it's a ripping idea? Of course I shall take in
poetry and novels and plays, as well as philosophers and historians. A
comparison between Lecky and Ibsen, for instance! Bound to be fruitful!
Oh, it'll be a big job, but I mean to put it through." He leant forward
to her. "That's not giving up, is it? That's fighting! And the point
is--you can help me. You see, there'll be no end of books to read, just
to see if there's anything of possible use in them. You can do lots of
spade-work for me. Besides, you've got very good judgment."
"Wouldn't Tora help you better than I could?"
His eyes twinkled. "I wouldn't trust Tora, and I've told her so plainly.
She's so convinced of what she thinks herself that she considers the
other view all nonsense--or, if she did hit on a particularly clever
fellow who put the case too well against her, it's my firm belief that
she'd have no scruple about suppressing him. Yours is much more the mind
for me. We're inquirers, not dogmatists, you and I. With you, and a
secretary learned in tongues, and a couple of typewriters, we shall make
a hole in the work in no time."
Winnie could not be sure that he was not building a golden bridge for
her retreat. Perhaps she did not wish to risk being made quite sure. The
plan sounded so attractive. What things she would read and learn! And it
was certainly possible to argue that she would still be fighting the
battle of liberty and progress. After all, is it not the students who
really set the line of advance? They originate the ideas, which some day
or other the practical men carry out. It was Moltke who won the
campaign, not the generals in the field. Such was the plea which
inclination offered to persuade pride.
"But, Stephen, apart from anything else, it would mean quartering myself
on you practically for ever!"
"What if it did? But, as a matter of fact, Tora thought you'd like to
have your own place. You remember that cottage Godfrey had? He took it
furnished; but it's to be let on lease unfurnished now, and if you liked
it----"
"Oh, I shouldn't mind it. And Mrs. Lenoir has left me her furniture."
"The whole thing works out beautifully," Stephen declared. He grew a
little graver. "Come and try it, anyhow. Look here--I'll take the
cottage, and sublet it to you. Then you can give it up at any moment, if
you get sick of it. We shall be a jolly little colony. Old Dick
Dennehy's house--you remember how we put him up to it?--is almost
finished, and he'll be in it in six months. Of course he'll hate the
Synopsis, and we shall have lots of fun with him."
"Oh, my dear, you're good!" sighed Winnie--and a smile followed the
sigh. For suddenly life and activity, comradeship and gaiety, crossed
her path again. The thing was not over. It had almost seemed over--there
in the lonely flat. "How is dear old Dick Dennehy?" she asked.
"We've hardly seen him--he's only been down once. He's left me to build
his house for him, and says encouragingly that he doesn't care a hang
what it's like. He's been settling into his new job, I suppose. After a
bit, perhaps, he'll be more amiable and accessible. You'll come and give
it a trial, Winnie?" He got up and came over to her. "You've done enough
off your own bat," he said. "I don't quite know how to put it to you,
but what I think I mean is that no single person does any good by more
than one protest. Intelligent people recognize that; but if you go on,
you get put down not as a Protestant, but just as an anarchist--like our
poor dear old friend here, you know."
He touched, with a true and discerning hand, on one of the great
difficulties. If you were burnt at the stake for conscience' sake, it
was hard to question your sincerity--though it appears that an
uncalled-for and wanton quest of even the martyr's crown was not always
approved by the soberer heads of and in the Churches. It was far harder
to make people believe or understand that what you wanted to do might
seem also what it was your duty to do--that the want made the duty. Only
because the want was great--a thing which must be satisfied if a human
life were not to be fruitlessly wasted--did the duty become imperative.
A doctrine true, perhaps, but perilous! Its professors should be above
suspicion.
"It's awfully difficult," Stephen went on, stroking his forehead the
while. "It's war, you see, and in any war worth arguing about both sides
have a lot to say for themselves. We shall bring that out in the
Synopsis."
"Don't be too impartial, Stephen!"
"No, I've got my side--but the other fellows shall have a fair show."
His smile grew affectionate. "But I think you're entitled to come out of
the fighting line and go into the organizing department--whatever it's
called technically."
"I'll tell you all about it some day. I'll wait a little. I seem only
just to be getting a view of it."
"You're very young. You may have a bit more practical work to deal with
still. At any rate, I shall be very glad to hear all about it." He rose
and took his resplendent silk hat--that symbol of a sentimental
attachment to the old order, from which he sprang, to which his
sceptical mind had so many questions to put. "Look here, Winnie, I
believe you've been thinking life was finished--at any rate, not seeing
any new start in it. Here's one--take it. It'll develop. The only way to
put a stopper on life is to refuse to go along the open lines. Don't do
that." He smiled. "I rather think we started you from Shaylor's Patch
once. We may do it again."
The plain truth came suddenly in a burst from her. "I'm so tired,
Stephen!"
He laid down the hat again and took her two hands in his. "The Synopsis
will be infinitely restful, Winnie. I'm going straight back to take the
cottage, and begin to whitewash it. Send me word when you're ready to
come. I'll tell you the truth before I go--or shan't I? Yes, I will,
because, as I've told you before now, you've got pluck. You tell
yourself you're facing things by staying here. You're not. You're hiding
from things--and people. There are people you fear to meet, from one
reason or another, in London, aren't there? Leave all that then. Come
and live and work with us--and get your nerve back."
She looked at him in a long silence, then drew her breath. "Yes, I think
you're right. I've turned afraid." She threw out her arms in a spreading
gesture. "Here it is so big--and it takes no notice of me! On it
goes--on--on!"
"You didn't expect to stop it, all on your own, did you?" asked Stephen,
smiling.
"Or if it does take notice for a minute, half of it shudders, and the
other half sniggers! Is there nothing in between?"
"Oh, well, those are the two attitudes of conservatism. Always have
been--and, I suppose, always with a good deal of excuse. We do blunder,
and we have a knack of attracting ridiculous people. It sets us back,
but it can't be helped. We win in the end." He took up his hat again.
"And the Synopsis is going to leaven the lump. Send me a wire to-morrow,
Winnie, and the whitewashing shall begin!"
Faith, patience, candour--these were the three great qualities; these
composed the temper needed for the work. Stephen Aikenhead had them,
and, even though he never put himself to the ordeal of experience, nay,
even though he never finished the Synopsis (a contingency likely
enough), encouragement radiated from him, and thus his existence was
justified and valuable. There were bigots on both sides, and every cause
counted some fools among its adherents. Probably, indeed, every
individual in the world, however wise and open-minded in the sum, had
his spot of bigotry and his strain of folly. After Stephen's departure
Winnie did much moralizing along these and similar lines, but her
moralizing was at once more cheerful and more tolerant than it had been
before he came. She had a greater charity towards her enemy the
world--even towards the shudders and the sniggers. Why, the regiment
would have been divided between shudders and sniggers--exactly the
attitudes which Bertie Merriam had sketched--and yet she had felt, under
his inspiration, both liking and respect for the regiment. Why not then
for that greater regiment, the world? Liking and respect, yes--but not,
therefore, assent or even acquiescence. And on her own proceedings, too,
Stephen enabled her to cast new eyes--eyes more open to the humorous
aspect, taking a juster view of how much she might have expected to do
and could reasonably consider herself to have done. Both seemed to come
to very little compared with the wear and tear of the effort. But, then,
if everybody did even a very little--why, the lump would be leavened, as
Stephen said.
Three days later--just after she had made up her mind for Shaylor's
Patch and the Synopsis, and had given notice to the General--and to
Emily--of her approaching departure, there came a short note from the
obstinately absent and invisible Dick Dennehy. It was on the official
notepaper of the great journal:
"I hear from Tora that you're going back to Shaylor's Patch, to
settle down there quietly. Thank God for it! Perhaps I shall see
you there before very long, but I'm still very busy.--Yours, R. D."
She read with a mixture of affection and resentment. She had been
arriving at her own verdict on her efforts and adventures. Here was Dick
Dennehy's! He thanked God that efforts and adventures were at an end,
and that she was going to settle down quietly--in fact, to take care of
herself, as he had put it that evening when he walked with her to the
railway station. A very unjust verdict, thought Winnie, but then--she
added, smiling--"It's only old Dick Dennehy's!" What else was to be
expected from him--from him who liked her so much and disapproved of her
'goings-on' so strenuously? What about his own? How was he settling that
question of his? Or how had he settled it? That problem which was 'not
serious'! "Perhaps I shall see you"! Only 'perhaps'? Yet she was going
to settle down at Nether End, and he was building his house there. The
probabilities of an encounter between them seemed to warrant more than
'perhaps.' The atmosphere of the railway waiting-room, the look on his
face, that shout, muffled by engine-snorts, about somebody being a
fool--they all came back to her. "But I'm very busy"--meaning
thereby--Winnie took leave to add the innuendo--"I shan't be able to see
you often!" Irresistibly her lips curved into a smile. It looked as if
the problem weren't quite settled yet! If it were finally settled either
way, why should Dick be so busy, so entirely unable to give reasonable
attention to his house, or--as Stephen had told her--to care a hang
about it?
"Oh, nonsense!" Winnie contrived to say to herself, though not with
absolute conviction. "If it ever was that, he must have got over it by
now, and I shall bury myself in the Synopsis."
It was really rather soon to find herself pitted against another
Institution!