had reason to feel pleased as they snatched portions of rest during
the night. The Seneschal reposed in the bosom of his family. He was
weary unto death, but he felt unable to sleep. At the back of his mind
throbbed the safety of the Castle. It was his main preoccupation, and
it still gripped him in spite of the new bitterness, which underlay
his thought like a festering toothache. “No, it was monstrous, unheard
of in the annals of war and chivalry, that he should sacrifice his
daughter and his wife!” He moaned in agony. Beside him lay his wife,
the long brown hair across her face. He sat up in his leathern armour
as stiffly as though another attack had been signalled. Slowly he
recollected that he had given her away with his word.... At that moment
his daughter sighed in her sleep, and he cried aloud once more. Did
loyalty to his lord demand that he leave nothing undone even to his
own undoing? Must he give wife and daughter like provender into the
jaws of those who were defending his lord’s castle? It was unutterable,
unspeakable, unbelievable. Who would help him in his biting loneliness,
when he could not even think of a road out or even of words in which to
pray? Unthinkingly he muttered aloud “Most Serene Virgin! A thousand
candles and a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella.” Then silence
fell, and the weary Seneschal felt an unanswered prayer eddying in his
empty heart. To whom could he turn in his distress? His dear lord was
far away. He would never see him again. Again he cried to the Virgin,
and again silence followed his cry. He shivered with fear and fury. He
swayed miserably to and fro on his knees. If he slept not, he would
scarce be able to fight on the morrow. A thousand curses that his last
days on earth should be embittered beyond the endurance of the loyal
and the deserts of the faithful. At one time he began to despair.
Perhaps it would be better to hurl himself off the ramparts and let
his dead body announce the end of the siege to Don Balthasar the next
morning. No, that would leave wife and daughter to the mutineers. He
pulled himself to the top of the mighty keep. There were the flickering
lights of Don Balthasar’s camp. Would the Serene and Holy Virgin make
no answer, give no sign to one so fiercely tried? He had dedicated his
daughter a hundred times to the Immaculate Serenity. Well, what was the
use, if she could do nothing to save her child? He began to expostulate
with the Blessed Virgin and reasonably. Could she do nothing with
all the armies of Heaven recognising her as their Commandress? He
scolded her with the childlike faith of the mediæval warrior, who saw
the Virgin like the Tournament Queen learning over heavenly barriers
and deeply interested and concerned in all the affairs of heart and
chivalry on earth. “Take or abandon her,” the Seneschal shouted into
the night, “you know best, most sweet and serene Lady, whether she
shall be yours or for Don Balthasar. If you will not save her I will
give her to him called ‘The Cruel!’” He lifted his waving hands to
Heaven as a man carried down a whirlpool. Not a star fell. No vision
appeared.
His mind was now set and he returned to the armoury, pulled a vellum
leaf out of a Breviary and began writing a letter to Don Balthasar.
Anything rather than throw his daughter to the lout on the ramparts.
The Don was a Cavalier and a great gentleman of Spain. He began
scratching the titles of Don Balthasar in the fullness of all the
laudatory etiquette of the time. Then he explained that two of his
soldiers had mutinied, which placed the Castle in Don Balthasar’s hands
whenever it should seem agreeable to him. He begged Don Balthasar
to understand that he was not surrendering the Castle of his lord
foolishly or fearfully. The mutineers with Moorish impudence had
demanded his wife and daughter as the price of keeping their place on
the ramparts. He ventured to place the matter before the august eyes
of Don Balthasar himself, who, as the paragon of chivalry and loyalty
and such matters in Spain, could advise his troubled servant whether
loyalty to his family or to his lord came first, and whether he was
bound to persevere at the price of offering his wife and daughter to
these foul mutineers. He appealed to Don Balthasar for a ruling. He
would bow to his decision.
He carefully sealed the letter with his lord’s seal, and went on
the ramparts. He lit and waved a torch with slow movements in sign
of parley or surrender. He was quickly noticed, and Don Balthasar’s
secretary approached with an escort. The Seneschal threw the letter
over the ramparts and staggered back to rest. A whisper passed through
the Castle.
In the morning the garrison were not surprised to see an unarmed
company approaching the barbican waving the personal standard of Don
Balthasar. The Seneschal himself descended from his watchpoint on the
keep and leaning through the crenellations picked a letter from the top
of a spearpoint. He read it slowly and its purport burst like the first
glimpse of harbour on the eyes of the shipwrecked, for Don Balthasar
commended his loyalty and fidelity, and was grieved to hear that two
of his soldiers had mutineered and shown a lesser sense of loyalty
to their lord. He considered that the terms they had offered their
Seneschal were arrogant and outrageous, and foul beyond the foulness
of the pit. He wished the Seneschal to mind not their threats, but to
let them both desert to his camp. He gave his word that their desertion
would not afflict the Seneschal in a military sense. Let him send them
under safe conduct forthwith.
The mutineers were waiting in their turret when the Seneschal reached
them. They had watched the coming of the embassage eagerly, and doubted
not that the Seneschal had made a desperate bid for terms to save
the Castle now he knew he could hold it no longer. Ineffectually for
certain. With his prize in his jaws Don Balthasar was not the one to
let it drop for a kiss given to his greedy cheeks. They awaited the
Seneschal as the player who has called Checkmate and knows that any
further struggle is useless. The Seneschal showed neither levity nor
seriousness in his face. He spoke gently and firmly as though he was
discussing some minute part of their routine. “My children, you have
against all your loyalty to your lord offered to mutiny and go over to
Don Balthasar unless I give you my wife and daughter. I have decided to
surrender the Castle rather than allow such a misery to be inflicted
upon me, and I bid you accompany Don Balthasar’s men and tell that
great and terrible lord that I can no longer defend the Castle and will
accept his commands. Go!”
The mutineers looked up with angry surprise. They felt they were
being cheated out of their rights, out of their agreement, out of
their pleasure. They had expected the immediate fulfilment of their
demand. At any rate the siege was over. They could only rejoice that
their weariness was at an end, though they would have preferred a
few more weeks’ fighting, lightened as they had hoped by the wicked
debauchery they had devised at their unfortunate Seneschal’s expense.
For one baffled moment they hesitated. But the Seneschal had left
them no choice, and they turned to accept the freedom they had not
desired. They walked on to the ramparts amid their scowling comrades
and lowered themselves with a rope that the Seneschal grimly held
for them. With a malevolent grin they slid down into their new
allegiance. At least they would be fed well that night, when they
brought Don Balthasar good news. They marched away stretching their
cramped legs between the riders who had come to meet them. Within an
hour they stood before Don Balthasar called the Cruel. He did not
waste his time with them. He mentioned his detestation of all kinds
of disloyalty, especially to an absent lord. He showed no surprise
or gratitude on hearing that the Castle was now within his reach. To
their terror-struck excitement they learnt that the terrible one had
been informed of the predicament in which they had placed the loyal
Seneschal. He briefly informed them that he was unwilling to profit by
so base an action even if it did place the Castle in his power. The
mutineers stared at him with dull amaze.
The Seneschal was more agreeably surprised an hour later when he saw a
scaffold being erected in front of the barbican, and his two defaulters
being bound and deliberately executed. A roar of laughter and derision
rose from the Castle walls. It was almost worth the surrender to enjoy
so majestic a jest on the part of Don Balthasar. With parched throats
and weary lungs the garrison shouted _Vivas_ to Don Balthasar’s name.
As for the Seneschal, he could only utter delirious thanks to the
Virgin, who had delivered him so mightily from domestic shame and
agony. She had strange and devious ways, the _Serenissima_, for coming
to the rescue of her clients. This was really her most brilliant
master-stroke!
The Seneschal laughed his first laugh during the siege, and he was
still smiling when the riders of Don Balthasar again approached
the barbican waving the signal of parley. It must be for the final
surrender of the Castle, thought the Seneschal. Sadly he picked the
letter of summons from the tip of the spearpoint handed to him.
He broke the heavy seal and coloured cord fastening the vellum. It
brought him the greeting of his enemy, who further made plain his
great regret that contrary to the laws of war he had killed two
of the garrison after they had left the Seneschal under his safe
conduct. But he had done what he thought was due to himself and to the
honour of all Christian princes. Treachery among men-at-arms could
not be too speedily or sternly punished. But lest he had taken any
unfair advantage of the heroic garrison he was sending two suitable
men-at-arms to take the place of the mutineers! By their fidelity to
himself they were sworn to fight exactly as the Seneschal disposed
and directed them. There was no doubt! Two stalwarts were waiting for
admittance at the barbican and their escort was already riding away.
And the letter was signed in the big, gawky lettering of Don Balthasar
himself who was called the Cruel!
A SAVING PHANTASM
When they parted they parted good friends. Gregory Cappleston was more
than a gentleman. He was very affluent; and he refused to let Matilda
Bryant suffer financially by his marriage. He was bound to marry to
keep up the grand old name of Cappleston. Aunts, aged and dowager,
expected him to marry if he was to expect anything from them. He was
a rough-and-ready fellow, Gregory Cappleston. At the University he
was called “Cobblestones.” He wanted to be kind, but he did not cause
particularly smooth-going to those who came his way. He found it hard
to leave the woman who had lived with him since Oxford days, but it
was harder to find a wife and tie himself to her for the rest of his
days. Matilda felt this turn in her life hardest, but she suppressed
the sighs of her soul even when she read Gregory’s engagement in that
column of marriages and engagements of the _Morning Post_ which may far
more truly be called one of agony.
Still, she ought to have been preparing for the wrench for years.
Presumably she had known other men before, and should have experienced
the circumstantial shock of a thoughtless man’s thought-out departure.
Cappleston never imagined her pained for a moment. He was not
insensitive, however, to her genuine grief when he cheerfully announced
the settlement he had made on her. Nobody can live on a woman’s love
for many years without responding to some of the myriad ripples of her
inmost thought. True, that with tragedy they become confused and break
off, and on the sand of hardship they are stayed and disappear. But
in the spectroscope of Matilda’s mind a real love for the man, with
whom she had contracted herself quarterly for the last three years,
shone white. If the colours of her aura could have been analysed, there
would have been found no red tinge of malice therein, no green line of
jealousy, no purple splosh of hate. The white soul is rare even among
good and virtuous women.
She loved Gregory sufficiently not to wish him to sacrifice his life to
her. She was incapable of a scene. She loved him enough to love herself
for her own self-suppression. She felt as though she were giving her
soul an opiate with a steel needle. It was so like him to make over
a lump sum to her without noticing the lump in her throat. He kissed
her for the last time, and she wished him happiness in marriage as few
mothers have wished their own beloved sons. As she walked out, he felt
sorry, but not sorry in another way, that he would see her no more.
That was in the letter and the spirit of their agreement. She had
played the game, he reflected. And he was certain that he had, too. He
was a Cappleston!
The marriage was a great success. How could it be otherwise? The
pandemonium of an advertised social event, the honeymoon reflected
in the _Daily Mirror_, the town house purchased from the dissolving
partnership of the Plantagenet-Goldenburgs, their first country house
party discreetly portrayed in the _Sketch_, the shower of pleasant,
meaningless snippets which Press Agencies supplied from the _Powder
Puff_, the _Flapper_ and other recognised organs of fashion are still
within the memory of Society. Gregory began nibbling at a political
career with a good conscience. He had had his past like most men, but
unlike most men he had shown a post-amorous generosity which satisfied
him almost to feelings of virtue.
Domestic beatitude was his proper reward, and he passed into paternal
tranquillity watching the race of Cappleston projected into yet another
generation, and his children growing up like little dissected parts of
his own youth. He watched them playing about the house and reflected
on that wonderful measure of repayment he had been able to make to
his wife. So many women had no children. He had been generous in his
paternity. Generosity was his strong feature. That was why he felt
women had always liked him, to use a mild expression. There had been
Matilda, for instance--but he dismissed her from his mind.
* * * * *
He was quite disturbed when her name was announced by the butler. It
was seven years since they had parted. It was unexpected and it was
undesirable, this visit. He tore a preparatory blank cheque out of his
book before she came in. He was always prepared to meet women with that
astonishing generosity of his. “Mrs. Bryant,” said the footman. She
showed no make-up to cover the difference of seven years. It was not a
professional--hardly a predatory--visit, he reflected. Shabby clothes
and daylight were not heart-overwhelming. He gave her a chair.
“I am glad to see you looking so well, Matilda,” he began
chivalrously, “but you should have written to me through my lawyers if
you wanted to see me.”
“I am not in need of anything that comes through lawyers, Gregory,” she
answered. “I only wanted to see you again for the last time, you know.”
Gregory was puzzled.
“But I am not leaving the country,” he said. “Why should you want to
say good-bye to me?” “But I am,” she shot, and with a pause, “for
another country, and I am taking the shortest and cheapest path
possible. I am done with the half-world in which I live. You know that
for me middle age must be what old age is to other folk. It is death,
and I believe in taking death by the forelock. But I wanted to see you
once again and to say that you were the best thing I found in this
world, and I would always have lived with you even had you lost all
your money. I rather hoped the chance would come to show you that. But
it never did, and then you married and were happy, and your happiness
made me happy in a sort of way. Good-bye.”
“You’re not going to kill yourself?” asked the astonished Cappleston.
She nodded vacantly. Cappleston was immensely touched. She had
confirmed the high opinion he had of himself. And she had come without
an ulterior object just to say good-bye. It was amazing. He felt that
something was required of him. He was inartistic and could not rise to
the dramatic. But as a patron of several Church livings he admonished
her gently as to the heinousness of self-destruction and how unpleasant
coroners’ verdicts were liable to be for surviving friends. He was one
of those men who live in dread of painful impressions in public.
She was not to be dissuaded of her purpose, but she agreed to see him
before she committed the supreme act of bodily renunciation. He offered
to increase her little income, but she smiled pathetically and passed
out of his presence. She was content to have looked once again into
his eyes. Her love had not failed. It was no mere memory. She would
certainly keep the promise he had obtained from her.
Cappleston was left to reflect on his proffered generosity. He had
never known a woman refuse money before. But it was a woman’s way to
want what she wanted to the exclusion of all else for the moment. For
the moment she wanted to see him. He felt suitably pleased. He was glad
he was not a woman to be swayed by whims and fancies, to be utterly
dependent on men’s good will and charity. He felt glad to be a man and
to feel virtuous. He realised how much more generous he was than other
men, and threw himself back in his chair with the easy content of a man
who has always enjoyed life without making his conscience suffer. Then
a whole year passed.
* * * * *
Gregory Cappleston, M.P., was sleeping alone in his dressing-room when
he woke with a jerk and saw a figure standing at the foot of his bed.
He looked and could not doubt, for he believed in his senses and in
very little else in life. It was Matilda, and he was intensely annoyed
that she should have been so ill-advised, not to say criminal, to
penetrate into the sleeping-room. It was indiscreet, outrageous and
very dangerous, and he hissed all this and more at her. He made more
than the protest of the British householder and the patron of Church
livings. He ordered her to leave the house instantly, and as quietly
as she came--without waking his wife in the adjoining room. He was
too sleepy to imagine how she could have entered without ringing or
waking the servants. He faced her look of piercing sadness with an
angry stare, but it never wilted. Then it faded away, and Cappleston
rather angrily discovered he was alone. He felt as though he had been
the victim of some clever conjuring trick. He switched on the electric
light, and at that moment the voice of Big Ben rang through the London
hemisphere--one! two! three! He confirmed the clock of Empire by his
own watch, and perceived that he was not dreaming.
He rose and searched the room. It was locked, and nothing had been
displaced. He suddenly developed a creepy and almost guilty feeling
for no reason. It was not in consonance with the mind of a virtuous
householder and a benefactor to his species. Then it struck him full.
Perhaps he had seen a ghost! Perhaps, however, it was only a bad dream.
Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps he ought to do something. What about
Matilda? He fumbled for her address on the card he had kept in his
pocket-case. It was a flat in Maida Vale, quite impossible for him to
reach at this hour of the night. Nor respectable either, but he could
send his valet to inquire early in the morning. He rang his night bell.
His valet appeared, and hoped he was not ill. Cappleston gave him the
card and told him to go to the address and find out what was happening
to the lady whose name it bore.
Further, Cappleston ordered him to refuse to take _no_ as an answer.
He must find out how the lady in the second flat was, and return as
soon as possible. If he had any trouble he could send a policeman in
a cab to fetch himself.... An hour passed, and a second hour before
a policeman rang at the door. Cappleston let him in. The policeman
explained that a strange man had been found trying to force entrance
in a flat at Maida Vale and excused himself by giving Mr. Cappleston’s
name. He had been taken in charge, and the police would like to have
evidence of his identity or sanity.
Cappleston, with a weary “It is all right,” swung himself out of his
dressing-gown and dressed. He accompanied the policeman without a word
to Maida Vale. He found his valet between the caretaker and a policeman
on the second floor. He had never been there before, but he told the
caretaker enough to show that he had a right to entry, in fact that
he paid the rent of the flat in all probability. Besides, he had very
bad news for the occupant and he demanded entrance. He was prepared
to stand the financial damage of any breakages, also the remuneration
necessary to their trouble. The police exchanged highly intelligent
glances, and the caretaker said he was not the one to stand in the way
of the law. Some panes of frosted glass were cut out of the door with
a chisel, and the door opened from outside. The occupant, it appeared,
had given strict orders that nobody was to disturb her till ten the
next morning.
Cappleston entered and opened door after door. The farthest room of
the suite was a bedroom. He switched on the light. Matilda was lying
on the floor breathing heavily, while an empty bottle remained in
her outstretched hand. Cappleston ordered a doctor to be brought,
and a policeman saluted ... a precious half-hour passed before any
revival was possible. But the doctor gradually brought her out of
unconsciousness. When she caught sight of Cappleston’s worried face,
she cried aloud: “Forgive me, forgive me. I did not keep my promise.”
“But I rather think you did,” he answered, “for that is how I happen
to be here. You came into my room at three this morning, and it is now
half-past five. How can you explain it?” She could not explain it.
Women can explain anything, but they do not always need to. Strange
powers are always at their aid. She confessed that she had taken a
strong overdose; and the sympathetic police withdrew at this moment
with several bank-notes of Cappleston to be shared, or to be used
for the repainting of Scotland Yard, or whatever use gratuities to
policemen are put to. “But,” she continued, “I remembered when it was
too late my promise to you. I had passed over the border, and my last
feeling was a bitter regret that for the first time I had broken my
word to you, the very first time in my life. Will you ever forgive me?”
“You need no forgiveness,” said Cappleston, holding her hand while the
doctor felt the pulse in the other, “for you came into my room and
stood looking at me from the foot of my bed. I could guess then what
had happened. I never knew you to fail me in any way. You always played
the game, and your word was always better than any gentleman’s. Thank
God, we were in the nick of time, for the doctor says you would have
been dead by ten o’clock. Matilda, I have seen your ghost while you
were yet alive. Or was it your soul? It was the whitest thing I have
ever laid eyes upon!”
JEALOUSY
Jealousy is the worst and most terrible in the sinful category.
Jealousy may not be the unforgivable sin, but it is certainly the
unforgiving one. Jealousy is not to be defined or analysed. There is a
method in madness and a refinement in Love, but Jealousy knows neither
how to plan nor how to relent. It is a torrential surge of misgiving
and misdirection that bides no hour and keeps no banks. It is the
strongest emotion known to man, for it has no gradations, no preludes,
and no convalescence. It leaps fully armed and full-grown upon the
jealous brain, and gives no peace to the jealous nor if possible to the
jealoused. In man or woman it conspires and consummates the acts of
madness and crime, which are sometimes but only pardoned to those who
act under stress of emotional love.
Jealousy is the perversion of Love. It is unto Love what the Apples of
Sodom are to the fragrant orange-blossom. It is even what Atheism is
to Faith, and Turpitude is to Sanctity; and perhaps great lovers must
tread along the gulf of Jealousy just as the great contemplatives never
realise the divine ecstasy until after they have sighted the appalling
abyss which may be described as Time without God, otherwise Hell, for
Heaven is God without Time.
Jealousy is more cruel than Love, though Love, in all conscience, is
cruel enough. Love more often destroys the lover than the beloved,
but Jealousy seeks only the destruction of the jealoused. Jealousy
is the diseased elephantiasis of sentiment, Love smitten to leprosy!
Vision the divine and rosy Eros suddenly turned into a leper white as
snow! Vision the once resilient and rainbowed wings caked and cracked
like the flukes of a rotten fungus! Vision the delicate little limbs
puffed and pustuled, and the divine brow puckered and blistered, the
mother-of-pearl ears chipped and chapped, the mouth opened like an old
wound instead of a fresh budding rose! Vision the eye rotting wickedly
into its cavity--and even so you have not sufficiently symbolised
Jealousy, the bane of mankind, and apparently of godkind as well, since
it is written that they include some who are jealous!