A TRAGIC COIL
I
MARY, breakfasting late and at leisure, before her ride at eleven, had
propped the _Morning Post_ against the coffee-pot. Milly was arranging
roses in a blue bowl.
“I’m miserable!” Mary suddenly proclaimed. She had let her eyes stray
to the column devoted to marriage and the giving in marriage, and at
last she had flung the paper away from her.
“Get on with your breakfast,” said the practical Milly. “I’ve really no
patience with you.”
Mary rose from the table with big trouble in her face.
“You’re a gaby,” said Milly, scornfully. “If everybody was like you
there’d be no carrying on the world at all. You’re absurd. Mother is
quite annoyed with you, and so am I.”
“I’m simply wretched.” The tone was very far from that of the fine
resolute creature whom Milly adored.
The truth was Mary had been following a policy of drift and it was
beginning to tell upon her. Nearly a week had gone since the visit to
Laxton had disclosed a state of things which had trebly confounded
confusion. Besides, that ill-timed pilgrimage had given duty a sharper
point, a keener edge, but as yet she had not gathered the force of will
to meet the hard logic of the matter squarely.
In spite of a growing resolve to make an end of a situation that all
at once had become intolerable, she had weakly consented to ride
that morning with Jack as usual. So far he had proved the stronger,
no doubt because two factors of supreme importance were on his side.
One was the promise into which very incautiously she had let herself
be lured, to which he had ruthlessly held her, the other the simple
fact that she was deeply in love with him. It had been very perilous
to temporize, yet having been weak enough to do so, each passing day
tightened her bonds. The little scheme had failed. Laxton had caused
not the slightest change in his attitude; he was not the kind of man
to be influenced by things of that kind; only a simpleton like herself
would expect him to be! No, the plain truth was he was set more than
ever on not giving her up, and it was going to be a desperate business
to compel him. To make matters worse his attraction for her was great.
There was a force, a quality about him which she didn’t know how to
resist. When they were apart she made resolves which when they were
together she found herself unable to keep. The truth was, the cry of
nature was too strong.
Milly looked up from her roses to study a picture of distraction.
“You odd creature.” A toss of a sagacious head.
The charge was admitted frankly, freely, and fully.
“I don’t understand you in the least.” A wrinkling of a pert nose.
“I don’t understand myself.”
Milly looked at her wonderingly. “I really don’t. You are quite beyond
me. If you were actually afraid of these people, which I don’t for a
moment think you are, one might begin to see what’s at the back of your
absurd mind.”
“Why don’t you think I’m afraid of them?” Mary in spite of herself was
a little amused by the downrightness.
The question brought her right up against an eye of very honest
admiration.
“Because, Miss Lawrence, it simply isn’t in you to be afraid of
anybody.”
Princess Bedalia shook a rueful head. “You say that because you don’t
know all. I’m in a mortal funk of Bridport House.”
“That I won’t believe,” said the robust Milly. “And if a fit of
high-falutin’ sentiment, for which you’ll get not an ounce of credit,
causes you to throw away your happiness, and turn your life into a
sob-story, neither my mother nor I will ever forgive you, so there!”
“You seem to forget that I am the housekeeper’s niece.”
“As though it mattered.” The pert nose twitched furiously. “As though
it matters a row of little apples. You are yourself--your big and
splendid self. Any man is lucky to get you.”
But the large, long-lashed eyes were full of pain. “We look at things
so differently. I can’t explain what I mean or what I feel, but I want
to see the whole thing, if I can, as others see it.”
“We are the others--mother and I,” said Milly, stoutly. “But as we
are not titled snobs with Bridport House stamped on our notepaper, I
suppose we don’t count.”
“That’s not fair.” A curious look came into Mary’s face, which Milly
had noticed before and, for a reason she couldn’t explain, somehow
resented. “They have their point of view and it’s right that they
should have. Without it they wouldn’t be what they are, would they?”
“You speak as if they were better than other people.”
“Why, of course.”
“I shall begin to think you are as bad as they are,” Milly burst out
impatiently. “You are the oddest creature. I can understand your not
going where you are not wanted, but that’s no reason why you should
fight for the other side.”
“I want them to have fair play.”
“It’s more than they mean you to have, any way.”
“One oughtn’t to say that.” The tone had a quaint sternness, charming
to the ear, yet with a great power of affront for the soul of Milly.
“Miss Lawrence,” said that democrat, “you annoy me. If you go on like
this before mother she’ll shake you. The trouble with you”--a rather
fierce recourse to a cigarette--“is that you are a bit of a prig. You
must admit that you are a bit of a prig, aren’t you now?”
“More than a bit of one,” sighed Mary. And then the light of humor
broke over her perplexity. In the eyes of Milly this was her great
saving clause; and in spite of an ever-deepening annoyance with
her friend for the hay she was making of such amazingly brilliant
prospects, she could not help laughing at the comic look of her now.
“You are much too clever to take things so seriously,” said Milly. “You
are not the least bit of a prig in anything else, and that’s why you
made me so angry. Be sensible and follow your luck. Jack should know
far better than you. Besides, if you didn’t mean to keep your word, why
did you give it?”
This was a facer, as the candid Milly intended it to be.
“Because I was a fool.” At the moment that seemed the only possible
answer.
II
The argument had not gone farther when a rather strident “coo-ee”
ascending from the pavement below found its way through the open window.
“Diana, you are wanted.” The impulsive Milly ran on to the little
balcony to wave a hand of welcome to a young man in the street.
It was the intention, however, of the young man in the street, as soon
as he could find someone to look after his horses, to come up and have
a talk with Mary. To the quick-witted person to whom he made known
that resolve, he seemed much graver than usual. It hardly required any
special clairvoyance on the part of Milly to realize that something was
in the wind.
Three minutes later, Jack had found his way up and Milly had effaced
herself discreetly. This morning that warrior was not quite the
serenely humorous self whom his friends found so engaging. Recent
events had annoyed him, disquieted him, upset him generally, and the
previous afternoon they had culminated in a long and unsatisfactory
interview at Bridport House.
Those skilled in the signs might have told, from the young man’s
manner, that he had cast himself for a big thinking part. This morning
he was “all out” for diplomacy. He would like Mary to know that
his back was to the wall, and that he must be able to count on her
implicitly in the stern fight ahead; but the crux of the problem was,
and for that reason he felt such a great need of cunning, if he let
her know the full force and depth of the opposition the effect upon
her might be the reverse of what he intended. Even apart from the stab
to her pride, she was quite likely to make it a pretext for further
quixotism. Therefore, Mr. John Dinneford had decided to walk very
delicately indeed this morning.
His Grace, it appeared, had asked to see the lady in the case. Jack,
however, scenting peril in the request, had by no means consented
lightly to that. Diplomacy, assuming a very large D, had promptly
assured him that his kinsman and fiancée were far too much birds of a
feather; their method of looking at large issues was ominously alike.
Mary had developed what Jack called “the Aunt Sanderson viewpoint” to
an alarming degree. Aunt Sanderson, no doubt, had acquired it in the
first place from the fountain head; its authenticity therefore made it
the more perilous.
“Uncle Albert sends his compliments and hopes you’ll be kind enough
to go and see him.” The statement was made so casually that it was
felt to be a masterpiece of the non-committal. He would defy anyone to
tell from his tone how he had fought the old wretch, how he had tried
to outwit him, how he had done his damnedest to short-circuit a most
mischievous resolve.
“Now.” The diplomatist took her boldly by a very fine pair of
shoulders, and so made a violent end of the pause which had followed
the important announcement. “Whatever you do, be careful not to give
away the whole position. There’s a cunning old fox to deal with, and if
he finds the weak spot, we’re done.”
“You mean he thinks as I do?”
“I don’t say he does exactly, but, of course, he may. When you come to
Bridport House, you are up against all sorts of crassness.”
“Or common sense, whichever you choose to call it,” said the troubled
Mary.
“Don’t you go playing for them.” He shook the fine shoulders in a
masterful colonial manner. “If you do, I’ll never forgive you. Bridport
House can be trusted to take very good care of itself. We’ve got to
keep our own end going. If we have really made up our minds to get
married, no one has a right to prevent us, and it’s up to you to let
his Grace know that.”
Again came the look of trouble. “But suppose I don’t happen to think
so?”
“I think so for you. In fact, I think it so strongly that I intend to
answer for both.”
She could not help secretly admiring this cool audacity. At any rate,
it was the speech of a man who knew his own mind, and in spite of
herself it pleased her.
“Now, remember.” Once more the over-bold wooer resorted to physical
violence: “You simply can’t afford to enjoy the luxury of your fine
feelings in this scene of the comedy. As I say, he’s a cunning old fox
and he’ll play on them for all he’s worth.”
“But why should he?”
“Because he knows you are Mrs. Sanderson’s niece.”
“In his opinion that would make one the less likely to have them,
wouldn’t it?” She tried very hard to keep so much as a suspicion of
bitterness out of her tone, yet somehow it seemed almost impossible to
do that.
“He’s not exactly a fool. Nobody knows better than he that your Aunt
Sanderson is more royalist than the king. And my view is that he and
she have laid their heads together in order to work upon your scruples.”
“Pray, why shouldn’t they? Isn’t it right that they should?”
“There you go!” he said sternly. “Now, look here.” In the intensity of
the moment his face was almost touching hers. “I’m next in at Bridport
House, so this is my own private funeral. But I just want to say this.
A man can’t go knocking about the world in the way I have done without
getting through to certain things. And as soon as that happens one no
longer sees Bridport House at the angle at which it sees itself. White
marble and precedence were all very well in the days of Queen Victoria,
but they won’t build airships, you know.”
“I never heard of a duchess building airships.”
“It’s the duke who is going to do the building. The particular hobo
I’m figuring on has got to take a hand in all sorts of stunts at this
moment of the world’s progress which will make his distinguished
forbears turn in their graves, no doubt. It seems to me he’s got to do
a single on the big time, as they say in vaudeville, and the finest
girl in the western hemisphere must keep him up to his job.”
“‘Some’ talk,” said Mary, with a smile rather drawn and constrained.
“You see”--the force of his candor amused her considerably--“I’ve
drawn a big prize in the lottery, and if I let myself be robbed of it
by other people’s tomfool tricks, I’m a guy, a dead-beat, an out and
out dud.”
“But don’t you see,” she urged, laughing a little, although suffering
bitterly, “how cruel it would be for them, poor souls? We _must_ think
of them a little.”
“Why should they come in at all?”
“I really think they ought, poor dears. After all, they stand for
something.” She recalled their former talk on this vexed subject.
“What do they stand for?--that’s the point. They are an inbred lot, a
mass of conceit and silly prejudice. I’m sorry to give them away like
this, but, after all, they are only very distant relations to whom I
owe nothing, and they have a trick of annoying me unspeakably.”
“I won’t have you say such things.” The stern line of a truly adorable
mouth was a delight, a challenge. “You are one of them, whether you
want to be or whether you don’t, and it’s your duty to stand by them.
_Noblesse oblige_, you know.”
“And that means a scrupulous respect for the feelings of other people,
if it means anything. No, let us see things as they are and come down
to bedrock.” And as the Tenderfoot spoke after this manner, he took a
hand of hers in each of his in a fashion at once whimsical, delicate,
and loverlike. Somehow he had the power to put an enchantment upon her.
“You’ve got to marry me whatever happens.”
“Oh, don’t ask me to do that.” Black trouble was now in her eyes.
“Don’t ask me to go where I’m not wanted.”
“Certainly you shan’t. We can do without Bridport House, and if they
can do without us, by all means let ’em.”
“But they are in a cleft stick, aren’t they? If you insist, they will
simply have to climb down, and that’s why it would be cruel to make
them. Don’t be too hard upon them--_please_!” A sudden change of voice,
rich and surprising, held him like magic. “Somehow they don’t quite
seem to deserve it. They have their points. And they are really rather
big and fine if you see them as I do.”
“They are crass, conceited, narrow, ossified. They think the world was
made for ’em, instead of thinking they were made for the world. It’s
time they had a lesson. And you and I have got to teach ’em.” He took
her wrists and drew her to him. “We’ve got to larn ’em to be toads--you
and me.”
“On these grounds you command me!” The flash of glorious eyes was a
direct challenge.
“No, on these--you darling.” And he took her in his arms and held her
in a grip of iron.
III
“Please, please!”
Reluctantly he let her go--provisionally and on sufferance.
But there was something in her face that looked like fear. The
observant lover saw it at once, and the invincible lover tried to
dispel it.
“Why take it tragically?” he said. “It’s a thing to laugh at, really.”
She shook a solemn head. “We _must_ think of them--you must at any
rate. You are all they have, and you are bound to play for them as
well as you know how--aren’t you, my dear?” The soft fall of her voice
laid a siren’s spell upon him. His eyes glowed as he looked at her.
“No, I don’t see it in that way,” he said. “Somehow I can’t. It’s my
colonial outlook, I daresay--anyhow there it is--simply us two. The
bedrock of the matter is you and me? And when you get down to that,
other people don’t come in, do they?”
Again she shook a head rather woeful in its defiance. “Poor Aunt
Harriet came to me yesterday. I wish you could have seen her. This
means the end of the world for her. She almost went down on her knees
to implore me not to marry you.”
The Tenderfoot snorted with impatience. “That’s where this old
one-horse island gets me all the time. Things are all wrong here.
They’re positively medieval.”
“You forget”--the tone of the voice was stern dissent--“she’s been
thirty years a servant in the Family.”
“That should make her all the prouder to see her niece married to the
head of it.” He was determined to stand his ground.
“Yes, but she understands what it means to them. She has thought
herself into their skins; she lives and moves and has her being in
Bridport House. Dear soul, it makes me weep to think of her! She almost
forced me to give you up.”
“You can’t do that, not on grounds of that kind.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because I won’t let you.” She was bound to admire this masculine
decision. “Your Aunt Sanderson is a woman of fine character and Uncle
Albert has a great regard for her, but why let ourselves be sidetracked
by prejudice? You see this is the call of the blood, and--under
Providence!--it means the grafting of a very valuable new strain upon
a pretty effete one. I mean no disrespect to Bridport House, but look
what the system of intermarriage has done for it. From all one hears
poor Lyme was better out of the world than in it. And that parcel of
stupid women! And, of course, I should never have been here at all if
another couple of consumptive cousins hadn’t suddenly decided to hand
in their checks. So much for the feudal system, so much for inbreeding
and marrying to order. No, it won’t do!”
In spite of her own deep conviction, she could not hope to shake such
force and such sincerity. She was bound to admit the strength of his
case. But the power of his argument left her in a miserable dilemma,
from which there seemed but one means of escape. There must be no
half-measures.
“Let us be wise and make an end now,” she said very softly.
“It’s not playing fair if you do,” was the ruthless answer. “Besides,
as I say, Uncle Albert wants to see you.”
“I am quite sure it would be far better to end it all now.”
“You must go and see Uncle Albert before we decide upon anything,” he
said determinedly.
“I don’t mind doing that, if really he wishes it.” There was a queer
little note of reverence in her tone, which the Tenderfoot, having
intelligently anticipated, was inclined to resent as soon as he heard
it. “I don’t know why he should trouble himself with me, but I’ll go
as he asks me to. But whatever happens we can’t possibly get married,
unless----”
“Unless what?” he demanded sternly.
“Unless the head of the house gives a full and free consent, and of
course he’ll never do that.”
“It remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, no, it’s all so clear. Poor Aunt Harriet has made me realize that.
I never saw anyone so upset as she was yesterday; she nearly broke
down, poor dear. She has made me see that there is so much at stake for
them all, that it simply becomes one’s duty not to go on.”
“Rubbish! Rubbish! Rubbish!” The Tenderfoot suddenly became
tempestuous. “Mere parochialism, I assure you. I’ve been back six
months, and every day it strikes me more and more what a lot we’ve
got to learn. Our so-called social fabric is mainly bunkum. Half the
prejudice in these islands is a mere cloak for damnable incompetence.
Forgive my saying just what is in my mind, but this flunkeyism of
ours--try to keep the daggers out of your eyes, my charmer!--fairly
gets one all the time. In one form or another one’s always up against
it.”
“It isn’t flunkeyism at all.” The air of outrage was nothing less than
adorable.
“Let me finish----”
“Under protest!” Her face was aglow with the light of battle.
“It’s perfectly absurd to take a mere pompous stunt like Bridport House
at its own valuation.”
“I won’t have you vulgar--I won’t allow you to be vulgar!”
“Be it so, Miss Prim--but I don’t apologize. One’s uncles, cousins,
aunts, they are all alike, whether they are yours or mine. They
simply grovel before material greatness--the greatness that comes of
money--that begins and ends with money.”
“Don’t be rude, sir!” The stamp of a particularly smart riding boot,
and a flash of angry eyes were as barbs to this fiat.
“They are all so set on things that don’t matter a bit, that they lose
sight altogether of the one thing that is really important.”
“Pray, what is that?” The eyes held now a lurking, troubled smile; for
him at that moment, their fascination verged upon the tragic.
Suddenly both the slender wrists were seized by this forcible thinker.
“Why the time spirit, you charmer. And that just asks one simple
question. Do you love me--or do you not?”
IV
She tried to keep her eyes from his.
“You can’t hide the truth,” he cried triumphantly. “And if you think
I’m going to lose you for the sake of some stupid piece of prejudice
you don’t know what it means to live five years in God’s own country.”
She seemed to shrink into herself. “Don’t you see the impossibility of
the whole thing?” she gasped.
“Frankly, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be such a cad as to badger you. If
you marry me an effete strain is going to be your debtor. Just look
at them--poor devils! Look at the two who died untimely. That’s the
feudal system of marriage working to a logical conclusion. And if
I put it squarely to my kinsman, Albert John, who is by no means a
fool, he’d be the first to admit it. No, it doesn’t matter what your
arguments are, if you override the call of the blood sooner or later
there’s bound to be big trouble.”
The conviction of the tone, the urgency of the manner were indeed
hard to meet. From the only point of view that really mattered it was
impossible to gainsay him, and she was far too intelligent to try.
Suddenly she broke away from him and in a wretched state of indecision
and unhappiness flung herself into a chair.
“The whole thing’s as clear as daylight.” Pitilessly he followed up the
advantage he had won. “There’s really no need to state it. And once
more, to come down to bedrock, far better to make an end of Bridport
House and all that it stands for--just what it does stand for I have
not been able to make out--than that it should perpetuate a race of
inbred incompetents who are merely a fixed charge on the community.”
“Oh, you don’t see--you don’t see!” The words were rather feeble, and
rather wild, but just then they were all she could offer. Yet in spite
of herself, and in spite of the half-promise the intensely unhappy Aunt
Harriet had wrung from her on the previous afternoon, the clear-cut
determination of this young man, his force and his breadth, his
absolute conviction were beginning to tell heavily.
“You are going to Bridport House to have a word with my kinsman. And if
you’re true blue--and I know you are that--you will make him see honest
daylight. And it ought to be easy, because he has only to look at
you--the finest thing up to now that has found its way on to this old
planet, in order to realize that he’s right up against it.”
He knew his own mind and she didn’t know hers. Such a man was terribly
hard to resist.
“He says any morning at twelve. I suggest tomorrow.”
“You insist?” She was struggling helplessly in meshes of her own
weaving.
“I insist. And my last word is that if you let the old beast down us,
as of course he’ll try to do, I go back to B. C. and remain a single
man to the end of my days. And I’m not out for that, as long as there
is half a chance of something better. So that’s that.” In the style
of the great lover he laid a hand on each shoulder, looked into the
troubled eyes and kissed her. “And now, if you please, we will witch
the world with noble horsemanship.”