"The sight of Jones as a female would make any man's gorge rise," said
Barrett contemptuously. "I know I had to shut my eyes when I made love
to him at 'The Footlights' last year. I never knew two such victims of
hysteria as you and Jones. Suggest a meeting! Maud suggest a meeting!
What do you know of women! I tell you two moral lepers, unfit to tie the
shoestring of a pure woman like Maud, that it takes a Galahad like me to
deal with a situation of this kind. What you've got to remember is that
I'm not trying to entangle him."
Cries of "Oh! Oh!" from the Committee.
"I mean Maud isn't. I am, but that's another thing. You two wretched,
whited sepulchres haven't got hold of the true inwardness of Maud's
character. Your gross, assignating minds don't apprehend her. Maud is
just one of those golden-haired, white-handed angels who go through life
girthing up a man's ideals; who exist only in the imagination of elderly
men like Maitland, who has never seen a woman in his life, and who does
not know that unless they are imbeciles they draw the line at drivel
like that letter. Bless her! _She's_ not going to suggest a meeting.
He'll do that and enjoy doing it. Can't you see Maitland in his new role
of ruthless pursuer--the relentless male? No more easy conquests for
him, sitting in his college chair, mowing them all down like a Maxim as
far as--Ely. He's got to _work_ this time. I tell you two miserable
poltroons that this is going to make a man of Maitland. He's been an old
woman long enough."
"All I can say is," said Parker, ignoring the allusion to Ely, "that if
the Almighty hasn't a sense of humour you will find yourself in a tight
place some day, Barrett."
My pen fails me to record the diabolical manner in which Barrett played
with his victim. It would have been like a cat and mouse if you can
imagine the mouse throwing his chest out and fancying himself all the
time. Barrett inveigled Maitland into going to Farnham, and accounted
somehow for Maud's non-appearance at the interview coyly deprecated by
Maud, and consequently hotly demanded by Maitland. He actually made him
shave off his moustache. Parker and I lost heavily on that. We each bet
a fiver that Barrett would never get it off. It was a beastly moustache
which would have made any decent woman ill to look at. It did not turn
up at the ends like Barrett's elder brother's, but grew over his mouth
like hart's tongue hanging over a well. You could see his teeth through
it. Horrible it was. But you can't help how your hair grows, so I'm not
blaming Maitland, and it was better gone. But we never thought Barrett
would have done it. I must own my opinion of him rose.
And he kept it up all through the long vacation with a pertinacity I
should never have given him credit for. He took an artistic pride in it,
and the letters were first rate. I did not think so at first; I thought
them rather washy until I saw how they took. Barrett said what Maitland
needed was a milk and water diet. He seemed to know exactly the kind of
letter that would fetch a timid old bachelor. But it was not all "beer
and skittles" for Barrett. He sorely wanted to make Maud stand up to him
once or twice, and put her foot through his mild platitudes. He wrote
one or two capital letters in a kind of rage, but he always groaned and
tore them up afterward.
"If Maud has any character whatever," he sometimes said, "if she shows
the least sign of seeing him except as he shows himself to her, if she
has any interest in life beyond his lectures, he will feel she is not
suited to him, and he will give his bridle-reins--I mean his waterproof
spats--a shake, and adieu for evermore."
Barrett eventually lured Maitland into deep water, long past the bathing
machine of adieu forevermore, as he called it. When he was too
cock-o-hoop, we reminded him that, after all, he was only one of a
committee, and that he had been immensely helped by the young woman
herself. She really looked such a saint, and as innocent as a pigeon's
egg.
But Barrett stuck to it that her appearance ought, on the contrary, to
have warned Maitland off, and that he was an infernal ass to think such
an exquisite creature as that would give a second thought to a stout old
bachelor of forty-five, looking exactly like a cod that had lain too
long on the slab. I could not see that Maitland was so very like a cod,
but there was a vindictiveness about Barrett's description of him that I
really think must have been caused by his romantic admiration of
Parker's aunt, and his disgust at the slight that he felt had been put
upon her. She married again the following year Barrett's elder brother's
Colonel.
Barrett hustled Maitland about till he got almost thin. He snap-shotted
him waiting for his Maud at Charing Cross station. And he did not make
her write half as often as you would think. But he somehow egged
Maitland on until, by the middle of the vacation, he had worked him up
into such a state that Barrett had to send Maud into a rest cure for her
health, so as to get a little rest himself.
When we met at Cambridge in October he had collected such a lot of
material, such priceless letters, and several good photographs of
Maitland's back, that he said he thought we were almost in a position
to discover to him exactly how he stood.
He threw down his last letter, and as Parker and I read them, any
lurking pity we felt for him as having fallen into Barrett's clutches,
evaporated.
They showed Maitland at his worst. It was obvious that he was tepidly in
love with Maud, or rather that he was anxious she should be in love with
him. He said voluntarily all the things that torture ought not to have
been able to wring out of him. He told her the story of the woman who
had quarrelled with him because he did not dance attendance on her, and
several other incidents which meant, if they meant anything, that there
was something in his personality, hidden from his own searching
self-examination, which was deadly to the peace of mind of the opposite
sex. He was very humble about it. He did not understand it, but there it
was. He said that he had from boyhood lived an austere, intellectual
life, which he humbly hoped had not been without effect on the tone of
the college, that he had never met so far any one whom he could love.
"That's colossal," said Parker, suddenly, striking the letter. "Never
met any one he could love. He'll never better that."
But Maitland went one better. He said he still hoped that some day,
etc., etc., that he now saw with great self-condemnation that if his
life had been altruistic in some ways, it had been egotistic in others,
as in preferring his own independence to the mutual services of
affection; that he must confess to his shame that he had received more
than his share of love, and that he had not given out enough.
"He's determined she shall know how irresistible he is," said Barrett.
"I had no idea these early Victorian methods of self-advertisement were
still in vogue even among the most elderly Dons."
"Hang it all!" blurted out Parker, reddening. "The matter has gone
beyond a joke. We haven't any right to see his mind without its clothes
on. You always say the nude is beautiful. But really--Maitland
undraped--viewed through a key-hole, sets my teeth on edge."
"Undraped? you prude," said Barrett. "What are you talking about?
Maitland is clothed up to his eyes in his own illusions. He's padded out
all round with them back and front to such an extent that you can't see
the least vestige of the human form divine. Personally, I don't think he
has one. I don't believe he is a man at all, but just a globular mass of
conceit and unpublished matter, swathed in a college gown. The thing
that revolts me is the way he postures before her. Malvolio and his
garters isn't in it with Maitland. Good Lord! Supposing she were a real
live woman! What a mercy for him that it's only us, that it's all
strictly _en famille_. I always have said that it's better to keep women
out of love affairs."
"How did you answer this?" said Parker, pushing the last letter from him
in disgust.
"I let him see at last--a little."
"That it was all a joke?"
"No. That I--that Maud, I mean--cared. She did not say much. She never
does. She mostly sticks to flowers and sunsets, but she gave a little
hint of it, and threw in at the same time that she was very much out of
health and going abroad."
"That'll put him off. He'll back out. He would hate to have a delicate
wife. He might have to look after her, instead of her waiting hand and
foot on him."
"We shall see," said Barrett. "Her last letter was posted at Dover."
"Well, mind! It's got to be the last," said Parker decisively. "I had
not realised you had been playing the devil to such an extent as this. I
had a sort of idea that you were only one of a committee. And what a
frightful lot of trouble you must have taken. I suppose Maud was always
moving about so that he could never nail her."
"Always, just where I was going, too, by a curious coincidence. And her
old aunt is a regular tartar; I don't suppose there ever was such a
typical female guardian outside a penny novelette. But she is turning
out a trump now about taking Maud abroad, I will say that for her. They
remain at Dover a week. I've arranged for it. I knew you two would wish
me to feel myself quite untrammelled, and, indeed, I wish it myself.
Then we'll hand him the whole series, and see how he takes it; and tell
him we've shown it to a few of his most intimate friends first, and your
aunt, Parker--she'll nearly die of it--and that they are all of opinion
that it's the best thing he has done since his paper on Bacchylides."
Neither of us answered. In spite of myself I was sorry for Maitland.
A few days later Barrett came to my rooms. We knocked on the floor for
Parker, and he came up.
Then he put down a letter on the table and we read it in silence.
It was just what we expected, an enigmatic, self-protecting effusion.
Maitland was hedging. He had evidently been put off by Maud's illness,
and talked a great deal about friendship being the crown of life, and
how she must think of nothing but the care of her health, etc., etc.;
and he on his side must not be selfish and trouble her with too many
letters, etc.
"Brute," said Parker.
"There's another," said Barrett.
"You don't mean to say you wrote again. There's not been time."
"No. _He_ wrote again. He doesn't seem to have been perfectly satisfied
with the chivalry of the letter you've just read. He's always great on
chivalry, you know. And it certainly would be hard to make that last
letter dovetail in with his previous utterances on a man's instinct to
guard and protect the opposite sex."
Barrett threw down a bulky letter and--may God forgive us--Parker and I
read it together under the lamp.
"I can't go on," said Parker after a few minutes.
"You must," said Barrett savagely.
We read it through from the first word to the last, and as we read
Parker's face became as grave as Barrett's.
It is an awful thing when a poseur ceases to pose, when an egoist
becomes a human being. But this is what had befallen Maitland. The thing
had happened which one would have thought could not possibly happen. He
had fallen in love.
I can't put in the whole of his letter here. Indeed, I don't remember it
very clearly. But I shall not forget the gist of it while I live.
After he had despatched his other letter he told her the scales of
egotism had suddenly dropped from his eyes, and he had realised that he
loved for the first time, and that he could not face life without her,
and that the thought that he might lose her, had possibly already lost
her by his own fault, was unendurable to him. For in the new light in
which now all was bathed he realised the meanness of his previous
letter, of his whole intercourse with her: that he had never for a
moment been truthful with her: that he had attitudinised before her in
order to impress her: that he had always taken the ground that he was
difficult to please, and that many women had paid court to him, but that
it was all chimerical. No woman had ever cared for him except his
mother, and a little nursery governess when he was a lad. During the
last twenty years he had made faint, half-hearted attempts to ingratiate
himself with attractive women: and when the attempts failed, as they
always had failed, he had had the meanness to revenge himself by
implying that his withdrawal had been caused by their wish to give him
more than the friendship he craved. He had said over and over again that
he valued his independence too much to marry, but it was not true. He
did not value it a bit. He had been pining to get married for years and
years. He saw now that to say that kind of thing was only to say in
other words that he had never lived. He had not. He had only talked
about living. He abased himself before her with a kind of passion. He
told her that he did not see how any woman, and she least of all, could
bring herself to care for a man of his age and appearance, even if he
had been simple and humble and sincere, much less one who had taken
trouble to show himself so ignoble, so petty, so self-engrossed, so
arrogant. But the fact remained that he loved her; she had unconsciously
taught him to abhor himself, and he only loved her the more, he
worshipped her, well or ill, kind or unkind, whether she could return it
or not.
We stared at each other in a ghastly silence. I expected some ribald
remark from Barrett, but he made none.
"What's to be done?" said Parker at last.
"There's one thing that can't be done," said Barrett, and I was
astonished to see him so changed, "and that is to show the thing up.
It's not to be thought of."
We both nodded.
"I said it would make a man of him, but I never in my wildest moments
thought it really would," continued Barrett. "It's my fault. You two
fellows said I should go too far."
We assured him that we were all three equally guilty.
"The point is, what's to be done?" repeated Parker.
"I've thought it over," said Barrett, putting the letter carefully in
his pocket, "and I've come to the conclusion it _must_ go on. I have not
the heart to undeceive him. And I don't suppose you two will want to be
more down on him than I am."
"If it goes on he'll find out," I groaned.
"He mustn't be allowed to find out," said Barrett. "He simply mustn't.
I've got to insure that. I dragged the poor devil in, and I've got to
get him out."
"How will you do it?"
"Kill her. There's nothing for it but that. Fortunately she was ill in
the vacation. He's uneasy about her health now. I put her in a rest
cure, if you remember, when he became too pertinacious, and I was
yachting."
"He'll feel her death," said Parker. "It's hard luck on him."
"Suggest something better then," snapped Barrett.
But though we thought over the matter until late into the night we could
think of nothing better. Barrett, who seemed to have mislaid all his
impudent self-confidence, departed at last saying he would see to it.
"Who would have thought it," said Parker to me as I followed him to lock
him out. "And so Maitland is a live man, after all." We stood and looked
across the court to Maitland's windows, who was still burning the
midnight oil.
"You don't think he'll ever get wind of this," I said.
"You may trust Barrett," Parker replied. "Good-night."
Barrett proved trustworthy. He and Parker laid their heads together, and
it was finally decided that Maud's aunt should write Maitland a letter
from Paris describing her sudden death, and how she had enjoined on her
aunt to break it to Maitland, and to send him the little ring she always
wore. After much cogitation they decided that Maud should send him a
death-bed message, in which she was to own that she loved him. Barrett
thought it would comfort him immensely if she had loved him at first
sight, so he put it in. And though he was frightfully short of money he
went up to London and got a very nice little ring with a forget-me-not
in turquoises on it, for the same amount he had won off us about
Maitland's moustache. I think he was glad as it was blood money in a way
(if you can call a moustache blood) that it should go back to Maitland.
The old aunt's letter was a masterpiece. At any other time Barrett's
artistic sense would have revelled in it, but he was out of spirits, and
only carried the matter through by a kind of doggedness. The letter was
prim and stilted, but humane, and the writer was obviously a little hurt
by the late discovery that her dear niece had concealed anything from
her. She returned all the letters which she said her niece had
evidently treasured, and said that she was returning heartbroken to her
house in Pimlico the same day, and would, of course, see him if he
wished it, but she supposed that one so busy as Maitland would hardly be
able to spare the time. The letter was obviously written under the
supposition that the address in Pimlico was familiar to him. It was
signed in full. _Yours faithfully, Maud Markham._
Barrett got a friend whom he could rely on to post the packet on his way
through Paris.
I don't know how Maitland took the news. I don't know what he can have
thought of his grisly letters when he saw them again. But I do know that
he knocked up and had to go away.
There is one thing I admire about Barrett. He did not pretend he did not
feel Maitland's illness, though I believe it was only gout. He did not
pretend he was not ashamed of himself. He never would allow that we were
equally guilty. And when Maitland came back rather thinner and graver,
we all noticed that he treated him with respect. And he never jeered at
him again. Maitland regained his old self-complacency in time and was
dreadfully mysterious and Maitlandish about the whole affair. I have
seen Barrett wince when he made vague allusions to the responsibility of
being the object of a great passion, and the discipline of suffering.
But he _had_ suffered in a way. He really had. And when the Bursar's
wife died Maitland was genuinely kind. He shot off lots of platitudes of
course; but on previous occasions when he had said he had been stirred
to the depths he only meant to the depth of a comfortable arm-chair. Now
it was platitudes and actions mixed. He actually heaved himself out of
his armchair, and exerted himself on behalf of the poor, dreary little
bounder, took him walks, and sat with him in an evening--his sacred
evenings. To think of Maitland putting himself out for anyone! It seemed
a miracle.
After a time it was obvious that the incident had added a new dignity
and happiness to his life. He settled down so to speak, into being an
old bachelor, and grew a beard, and did not worry about women any more.
He felt he had had his romance.
I don't know how it was, but we all three felt a kind of lurking respect
for him after what had happened. You would have thought that what we
knew must have killed such a feeling, especially as it wasn't there
before. But it didn't. On the contrary. And Maitland felt the change,
and simply froze on to us three. He liked us all, but Barrett best.