THE COMPACT.
'It has blown over,' said Trist softly, as the little lady came
towards him.
'Yes,' replied Mrs. Wylie with obvious abstraction. She was not
thinking of the weather at all. In Trist's monotonous voice there
had been an almost imperceptible catch. Slight though it had been,
the acute little matron detected it, and she looked keenly through
the semi-darkness into her companion's face. His meek eyes met hers,
softly, suavely, aggravatingly innocent as usual.
'And,' she added as an after-thought, 'how beautifully fresh it is
now!'
She took a seat beside Brenda, glancing at her face as she did so.
The girl welcomed her with a little smile, but said nothing. The
silence was characteristic. Most young maidens would have considered
it necessary to make an inane remark about the weather, just to show,
as it were, that that subject had been under discussion before the
arrival of this third person.
There was something very pleasant and home-like in the very movements
of Mrs. Wylie's arms and hands, as she settled herself and drew her
shawl closer round her. Trist seated himself on the rail near at
hand, and relighted his pipe. Thus they remained for some time in
silence.
'What a strange couple they are!' the matron was reflecting, as she
looked slowly from one unconscious face to the other.
'There were one or two terrible flashes of lightning,' she said aloud
in a conversational way; 'I was quite nervous, but the Admiral slept
placidly through it all.'
Trist moved slightly, and shook the ash from his pipe over the side.
'Brenda was terrified,' he said resignedly.
'I was startled,' admitted the girl, 'that was all. And the result
was a very learned discourse on courage, its source and value, by
Theo.'
'I always thought,' said he to Mrs. Wylie, in a mildly disappointed
tone, 'that she was plucky.'
Mrs. Wylie laughed, and then with sudden gravity nodded her head
significantly.
'So she is--very plucky.'
'I think,' suggested Brenda, 'that it would be better taste, and more
natural, perhaps, to discuss me behind my back.'
Trist laughed.
'I never discuss anyone,' he said. 'That is a lady's privilege and
monopoly. Men are usually fully occupied in talking about
themselves, and have no time to devote to the study of their
surroundings.'
'I generally find that men say either too much or too little about
themselves,' observed Mrs. Wylie. 'There is no medium between the
super-egotistical and the hyper-reserved. Among my young men, and I
have a great number, there are some who tell me everything, and
others who tell me nothing. The former appear to think that the
universe revolves round them, that they are superlatively
interesting, and that their relations are the same in ratio to the
closeness of their connection with the axis of the social world--that
is, to themselves. Consequently I hear all sorts of confidences, and
many totally pointless stories.'
'Which,' suggested Trist, 'never go any further.'
'Which never go any further, because their specific gravity is of
such trifling importance that they make absolutely no impression upon
the tenderest of sympathetic hearts.'
Brenda, who had been listening in a semi-interested way, now made a
remark. She was not a brilliant conversationalist, this thoughtful
little person, and rarely contributed anything striking or witty to a
general intercourse. Her ideas needed the security of a
_tête-à-tête_ to coax them forth.
'I think,' she said to Mrs. Wylie, 'that you must be gifted with a
wonderful amount of patience, or you would never bother with your
young men. The obligation and the pleasure must be all on their
side.'
'It is,' put in Trist cynically, 'a sort of mother's agency. We
ought to issue a circular for the benefit of provincial parents:
"Young men's morals looked after; confidences received and kindly
forgotten. Youths without dull female relatives preferred. Address,
Mrs. Wylie, Suffolk Mansions, London, and Wyl's Hall, Wyvenwich."'
Mrs. Wylie laughed comfortably.
'I must confess,' she said, 'that the female relatives are a
drawback. There are a good many stories to be listened to about
hopelessly dull sisters and incapable mothers; but my young men are
not so bad on the whole, and I know I do a little good occasionally.
Of course there are some who require snubbing at times, and some who
are not interesting; but the silent ones are my favourites, and there
is only one type of talkative I really object to--a young Scotchman
with hard lashless eyes, a square bony jaw, a very small nose, no
complexion, and an accent.'
'I know the type,' said Trist; 'he has a theory for everything,
including life. Is a hard business man, a keen arguer, and never
makes a good soldier.'
'Altogether a most pleasing and fascinating young man,' interrupted
Brenda, with a low laugh. 'You are both terribly cynical, I believe,
beneath a gentle suavity. It only comes to the surface when you get
together and lay aside the social mask. I never met this ideal
Scotchman at your house, Mrs. Wylie.'
'No, my dear,' was the decisive reply, 'and I do not think you ever
will.'
'You prefer young men who take but do not grab,' suggested Trist.
'Mine,' replied the lady, with tolerant complacency, 'are not
brilliant youths. Some of them may get in front of the crowd, but
they will do so in a quiet and gentlemanly way, without elbowing or
pushing too obviously, and without using other men's shoulders as
levers to help themselves forward.'
She looked straight into the young fellow's face with her pleasantly
keen smile, for he was the first and the foremost of her young men,
and she was justly proud of him. He had passed beyond the dense
mediocrity of the crowd, and stood alone in a place which he had won
unaided. He was one of those who said too little--one of the silent
ones whom she loved above the others who told her everything. In her
cheery, careless way, with all her assumed worldliness, she did a
vast deal of good amongst these unattached young men who were in the
habit of dropping in during their spare evenings at the cosy little
drawing-room on the second-floor of Suffolk Mansions.
There was usually some connecting-link, some vague and distant
introduction between the young men and the cheerful, worldly,
childless lady who chose to make all waifs and stragglers welcome.
These were generally provincial men living in chambers and working
out their apprenticeships under the different styles of their
different professions. Articled clerks, medical students, art
students, somethings in the City, and a journalist or so. She never
invited them to come, and so they came when they wanted to, often to
find her out, for she was a gay little soul, and then they came
again. There was always a box of cigarettes on the mantelpiece, and
the broad polished table was invariably littered with the latest
magazines, books, and periodicals. Mrs. Wylie was always broad
awake, and the Admiral usually fell asleep as soon as the
conversation waxed personal.
In the matter of confidences Mrs. Wylie possessed real genius. She
forgot things so conveniently, and never smiled when given to
understand that some youthful heart was broken for the third time in
one season. She never preached and rarely advised, but merely
listened sympathetically. There were men who came to her and never
mentioned themselves, sought no advice, made no confidences, and
these she made most welcome, for she loved to study them, and wonder
indefinitely over their projects, their ambitions, and their motives.
Above all, she loved to watch Theo Trist. This young man was a mine
of human interest to her, and with Brenda Gilholme she sought to
discover its inmost depths. I believe there is a delicate instrument
which betrays the presence of precious metals in the earth when
brought into proximity with its surface. Mrs. Wylie had perhaps
heard of such an instrument, but whether that be so or no, she
deliberately used Brenda to detect the good that lay in Theo Trist.
You will say that this was matchmaking pure and simple; but such it
certainly could not be, for Mrs. Wylie knew full well that Brenda
Gilholme and Theo Trist were people who knew their own minds, who
would never be forced into anything by a third person. And treating
the great question generally, she was of the comforting opinion that
each individual is best left to manage his or her own affairs
unaided. The matchmaker--the third person, in fact--has remarkably
little to do with most marriages, though many of us are pleased to
remember after the event that we had something to do with its earlier
career.
If it was not match-making, Mrs. Wylie's conduct was, to say the
least of it, unscrupulous; but then, my brothers, who amongst us
knows a perfectly scrupulous woman? Not I, _par Dieu_. Charming,
intelligent, fascinating, superior (ahem!), but scrupulous--no. I
have not yet met her. Be it the shape of a hat or the heart of a
lover, she will get it, taking it as a German clerk will take your
business from you, by the means that are surest of success, without
stopping to consider the silly question of an overstrained point of
honour.
Trist was not, strictly speaking, merely one of Mrs. Wylie's young
men. His mother was her first cousin, and she it was who had gone
down to Windsor to bring home a little round-faced Eton boy to the
house of sickness when Mrs. Trist's earthly pilgrimage was thought to
be at an end. Since that day she had never quite lost sight of the
boy, and years later she chaperoned Alice and Brenda Gilholme through
an Oxford Commemoration at the undergraduate's request.
It was at her house, and through her instrumentality, that the
friendship between these motherless young people was chiefly kept up.
The respective fathers knew nothing of each other, and cared
likewise. One was a Parliamentary monomaniac; the other a worn-out
Indian Civil-servant, tottering on his last legs at Cheltenham.
There had never been an interchange of pretty sentiments; such things
were not in Mrs. Wylie's line of country at all. She had not wept
silent tears over Brenda's bowed head, and promised to fill the place
of that vague and shadowy mother whom the girl had never known.
Tears of any description were unfamiliar to the comfortable, brave
little lady. Some of us profess, and some there are who act without
professing: of these latter was Mrs. Wylie. It is so easy to talk of
filling that vacant place, and so utterly impossible to cast the
faintest shadow upon the walls of the empty chamber.
With Trist it had been the same. Unquestioned he had come and gone,
only to come again. Mrs. Wylie never sought to entice confidences by
a kindly show of interest, and what he chose to tell (which was
little enough) she listened to with small comment. If she had in any
slight degree influenced his strangely-blended character, her
influence had been all and entirely beneficial.
Such, briefly, was the social relationship existing between these
three persons brought together upon the deck of the _Hermione_
beneath the magic of an Arctic night. Amidst such vast and grandiose
scenery the trim yacht looked petty and insignificant; but these
three persons had no appearance of being out of place. They were of
that adaptable material which appears to yield to its environments
and takes the shape of the receptacle in which it finds itself. Yet
is it, like certain boneless marine animals, independent of its
surroundings, having a perfect shape of its own, into which it
invariably returns when left alone.
A brilliantly capable woman, an intellectual girl, and a gifted man
could not well be in their social element in a deserted fjord, amidst
gloomy mountains which weigh down men's minds and keep back all
mental growth; but there was no sign of discomfort, no suspicion of
boredom. This world was theirs, and with it they were content.
The stillness that had come over them was broken at length by the
voice of Admiral Wylie, raised in the cabin below and heard through
the open skylight.
'Brenda--little woman! Brenda--ahoy! Come and play to me!' cried
the pleasantly raucous tones.
The girl rose from her seat at once, and passed down the little
stairway with a light responsive laugh, leaving the other occupants
of the deck in silence.
Presently the sound of her playing reached them. It was
characteristic of herself: so perfectly trained, so technically
faultless, and yet as innately and pathetically sweet, was it.
Trist moved restlessly at the sound of it, and Mrs. Wylie, watching
him, saw the blue puffs of smoke follow each other with unnatural
rapidity from his lips. She leant back, and drew her shawl cosily
around her.
At length Trist spoke, busying himself with his pipe and giving it
his full attention.
'Brenda,' he remarked conversationally, 'has been lecturing me upon
the evils attending an excessive spirit of independence.'
'I have no doubt that her remarks were worthy of your consideration.'
'They were. Brenda's remarks generally are worthy of consideration.'
'Were they of a personal nature?' inquired Mrs. Wylie, with a slight
suggestion of mischief in her tone.
'Decidedly so. She has a pleasant way of telling me my faults. But
I like it, because she is invariably right. Perfect sincerity is a
rare thing in these times.'
Mrs. Wylie did not reply to this melancholy truth. She was looking
past her companion across the glassy water, with her eyelids slightly
contracted and her rather thin lips pressed closely together. It was
an expression very familiar to Theo Trist, and he waited silently.
Presently she made a little movement, and looked at him with a faint
suggestion of surprise, as if she had just landed on firm earth after
a long, long mental voyage.
'She was quite right, Theo!' was the result.
He smiled vaguely, and looked obstinate.
'If,' said Mrs. Wylie in an explanatory way, 'I were a different sort
of woman to what I am, I should consider myself very much ill-used at
being deprived of a fuller confidence. I should strive, and nag, and
persist until I had wormed out of you your ambitions, your joys, your
sorrows, and your possible motives. That is what Brenda means, I
think. Theoretically, she is right; practically and personally she
is wrong.'
'Is it not,' suggested the young fellow in self-defence, 'the height
of egoism to inflict thoughtlessly upon other people one's petty,
temporary, and often imaginary woes?'
'Not always, Theo. There is one case where it is real kindness to be
a little selfish, and to speak openly of one's feelings and thoughts.
I once had a little boy of my own, though it was years ago, when I
was quite a different person to ... to what I am now, so I can hardly
pretend to know much of a mother's feelings; but I am convinced that
it is truer kindness to tell one's mother too much than too little.
She knows--her mere natural instinct tells her--that there is
something wrong, and in the intensity of her love and anxiety she
exaggerates things unduly.
They were both speaking lightly and only half gravely, but there was
something pathetic in their ignorance, however indifferent and
conversational their tones might be. Both were speaking vaguely and
speculatively of something they had never known, something they never
could know from personal experience.
'Perhaps it is better....' Trist began, and then he stopped suddenly,
withheld by a quick remembrance of the utter misery that weighed down
the heart of the little Eton boy who had gazed stupidly out of the
cab window as he passed over Windsor bridge fifteen years ago. He
could hear again the rattle of the shaky wheels, the vibration of the
windows; and again the sound of this kindly woman's voice, lovingly
lowered, came to his recollection.
'No,' he said, correcting himself, 'it cannot be better, but as
things have turned out, perhaps it is as well that there is no one at
home listening too eagerly to the cry of the paper-boy when I am
away.'
'You forget poor me,' said Mrs. Wylie merrily. She had a wonderful
way of slipping round a grave subject.
'Not at all. But I should imagine that you generally look at the
births, deaths, and marriages before studying the list of killed and
wounded.'
'Invariably. I look upon you as a person eminently capable of taking
care of himself. And I should hope that if there were anything wrong
you would have the good grace to let me know before the penny papers
shriek it forth to the world.'
'That sounds inconsistent.'
'Nevertheless, it is not so. I am not an anxious person, Theo. I
never lie awake on stormy nights at Wyl's Hall and think of
you--probably sleeping peaceably in tropic calms--but I like to hear
occasionally of your movements, and I like to hear people talk of
you, because I can say, "I know him"--that is all.'
'Then.... Brenda is wrong?' murmured Trist with a suggestion of
relief in his manner.
'Yes, Brenda is wrong, because I am not your mother, and have no
desire to pretend to that doubtful felicity. It is an honour which I
distinctly decline.'
'I am sorry....'
'Oh, don't mention it. You are hardly to blame. But I imagine that
you would make a very bad son.'
Trist laughed and rose to his feet. His pipe was empty, and having
knocked the ashes out against the rail, he dropped it into his
pocket. Then he stood before her waiting until she should make a
movement to go below.
'Nevertheless,' said Mrs. Wylie casually, without looking up as she
drew her shawl comfortably around her previous to
rising'--nevertheless, I should like you to understand that if ever I
can be of use to you (for an old woman might on occasions be useful
to the most independent of young men, Theo), I am ready to do
anything for you. Any little odd maternal jobs without pretending to
the maternal honour, you understand.'
She rose and stepped to the side of the vessel, looking round the
fjord and over the mountains in a practical, weather-wise way. Trist
followed her, and stood a little behind, in his still unemotional
manner, with his meek eyes raised to a distant snowfield, where the
pink reflection of the north-western sky hovered yet.
'It need not be a one-sided transaction,' he said in the same
worldly, hopelessly every-day tone of voice. 'There may be little
odd filial jobs without acknowledging the filial ties, you
understand.'
Mrs. Wylie laughed her easy, flowing laugh, and walked briskly
forward; for the Admiral was calling her now in his genial,
tyrannical autocracy.
'Yes,' she said cheerily. 'It may be so.'
And so this compact was made at last--a compact of which his share
was to be commenced rudely and suddenly within twenty-four hours,
while hers was harder perhaps, and infinitely sadder, extending into
years yet unopened and unthought of.