NIGEL
The relation between Bertha and Nigel Hillier was a rather curious one.
He had met her when she was eighteen. The attraction had been sudden,
violent and mutual; and she was quite prepared to marry him against all
opposition. There had been a good deal in her own family, because Nigel
was what is euphemistically called without means, and she was the
daughter of a fashionable London vicar who, though distinguished for his
eloquence and extremely popular, successful and social, had a
comparatively small income and a positively large family. In a short
time Nigel--not Bertha--succumbed to the family opposition and the
general prudent disapproval of worldly friends. He wrote and told Bertha
that he was afraid after all they were right; persuaded to this view by
having meanwhile met the only daughter of a millionaire when staying for
a week-end at a country house. The girl had fallen in love with him,
and was practically independent.
A few months after his gorgeous wedding, described and photographed with
the greatest enthusiasm in all the illustrated papers, Bertha married
Percy Kellynch, to the great satisfaction of her relations. Nigel was,
by then, a lost illusion, a disappointed ideal; she did not long resent
his defection and it cured her passion, but she despised him for what
she regarded as the baseness of his motive.
She loved and looked up to Percy, but her marriage to him had not been
at the time one of romance--to her great regret. She would have liked it
to be, for she was one of those ardent souls to whom the glamour of love
was everything; she could never worship false gods. But Bertha had a
warm, grateful nature, and finding him even better than she expected,
her affection threw out roots and tendrils; became deeper and deeper;
her experience with Nigel had made her particularly appreciative of
Percy's good qualities. She was expansive, affectionate and constant;
and she really cared far more about Percy now than she did when she
married him. And this, though she was quite aware that he was entirely
wanting in several things that she had particularly valued in Nigel (a
sense of humour for one), and that he had inherited rather acutely the
depressing Kellynch characteristic of taking oneself seriously.
* * * * *
Percy, on the other hand, had been quite carried away by her rosebud
charm and prettiness, and he had continued to regard her as a pet and a
luxury (for he was pre-eminently one of that large class of people who
see only the obvious). But he had never realised her complexities, and
was quite unaware of her depth and strength of mind. He was proud of her
popularity, and had never known a jealous moment. Since they had never
had a shadow of a quarrel, theirs might certainly be described as a
happy marriage; although Bertha had always found it from the first
rather deficient in the elements of excitement and a little wanting in
fun.
* * * * *
Nigel, who had been in a frightful hole when he met the heiress, of
course made a point of discovering, as soon as all grinding money
troubles had been removed and agonising debts paid, that no material
things were capable of making him happy. The gratification to his vanity
of his big country house, and charming house in London and so forth,
amused him for a very short time. He became horribly bored, and when
Bertha married Percy Kellynch, felt pained and particularly surprised
and disappointed in her. He had always believed her to be so superior to
other girls, so true and loyal! It was quite a disillusion; to think
that she could get over _him_ so easily! Women usually took much longer
than that. However, he now despised himself even more as a fool than as
a coward for having given up Bertha, and not being of the type who
trouble to conceal their feelings in domestic life, he openly and
frankly showed to the unfortunate Mary that he knew he had made an
irrevocable mistake. This was the natural way of regaining his
self-respect, since he was under the deepest obligation to her. To add
to his annoyance, not long after the marriage he and his brother Charlie
came into a legacy from an unexpected and forgotten relative. He knew,
then, that if he had waited a little longer, (as she had wished), he
could, without sacrifice, have married Bertha; and so he was naturally
very angry with Mary.
* * * * *
Now that Bertha was beyond his reach she seemed to him the one desirable
thing in the world. For several years they hardly met; then Nigel
contrived that they should become friends again. Her feeling for him
could never be revived. His was far more vivid than formerly. It was
fanned by her coolness, and was in a fair way to become an _idee fixe_,
for he was not material enough to live without some dream, some ideal,
and Bertha found him amusing. There always had been a certain mental
sympathy between them; in a sense (superficially and humorously), they
saw life very much from the same standpoint. With the instinctive tact
of the real lover of women he carefully concealed from her the secret
that made his home life miserable, instead of merely tedious. It was,
simply, that Mary was morbidly, madly jealous of him. He had shown far
too soon that he had married her for her money, and if he had convinced
her that she had bought him, it was perhaps natural in return that she
should wish for her money's worth. The poor woman was passionately in
love with Nigel. She suspected him of infidelity, with and without
reason, morning, noon, and night; it was almost a monomania. They had
two children in the first and second years of the marriage. Nigel was
carelessly fond of them, but he regarded them rather as a private luxury
and resource of his wife, mistakenly thinking their society could fill
up all the gaps made by his rather frequent absences. Nigel knew better
than to complain of his wife, or to ask for sympathy from Bertha, for he
was certain that if she had the faintest idea of the jealousy, her door
would be closed to him.
* * * * *
Bertha was peculiarly kind, peculiarly full of sympathy for her own sex.
And yet she was not at all fond of the society of women, with few
exceptions; and she was often bored by the liking and admiration she
usually inspired in them. Something in her personality disarmed ordinary
jealousy, for though she was pretty and attractive, it was easy for
other women to see that she was not trying to attract. What the average
woman resents in another woman is not her involuntary charm; it is her
making use of it.
* * * * *
With the casual indiscretion of the selfish man, Nigel, of course, told
his wife at length, early in the honeymoon, all about his romance with
Bertha. This Mary had never forgiven. Curiously, she minded more this
old innocent affair of ten years ago, which he had broken off for _her_,
than any of his flirtations since. Bertha had rightly guessed that, when
they met, Mary had taken a great dislike to her. But she had no idea
that Nigel's wife was suspicious, nor that she seriously and bitterly
resented his visits. He never admitted them to Mary if he could help
it, for he had learnt by now to be so far considerate to her--or to
himself--that he would tell her fifty fibs in half-an-hour rather than
let out one annoying fact. Nigel saw--he was very quick in these
matters--that the only terms on which he could ever see anything of
Bertha were those of the intimate old brotherly friend; the slightest
look or suggestion of sentiment of any kind made her curl up and look
angry. She made it utterly impossible for him to make the slightest
allusion to the past. The friendliness had been growing to intimacy, and
Nigel believed that perhaps with time he might get back to the old
terms, or something like them. It was becoming the chief object of his
life. He was a keen sportsman, and the ambition of the hunter was added
to the longing of the lover. A born diplomatist, he had, of course,
easily made Percy like him immensely. But he hated Percy, and could
never forgive him for the unpardonable injury he had done to him, Nigel,
in consoling Bertha. Nigel could not bear to own, even to himself, that
Bertha was happy in her married life. Sometimes he would swear to
himself when he remembered that it was all his own doing, that she might
have been _his_ wife. How coolly she had taken it! She had accepted it
at the time with calm acquiescence, and met him again with amiable
composure. Had she ever really forgiven him?
* * * * *
It had opened her eyes, had been a shock. She saw him now as the
shattered dream of her childish fancy, and she was thankful for her
escape. Yet deep down in her heart was a slight scar. It did not make
her hate Nigel, but apart from the fun and pleasantness of their
intercourse her real indifference to him was slightly tinged with
acidity: probably she would have been less sorry for him in any trouble
than for anybody else.
* * * * *
Bertha's vanity was not a very vivid part of her, and it took only one
form. When she cared for anyone she was deeply (though not outwardly)
exacting; she wanted that person entirely. To say that the general
admiration she received gave her no pleasure would be an absurd
exaggeration; if she had suddenly lost it, she would have missed it very
much, no doubt. But after all, she valued it chiefly because she thought
it was good for Percy. Privately she was not satisfied that Percy valued
her enough. Had her many friends and acquaintances been told that the
chief wish of the pretty Mrs. Kellynch was the more complete and
absolute conquest of her own husband--who seemed much more devoted than
most husbands--they would have been surprised, incredulous, perhaps even
a little shocked.
Nigel had promised to use all the means at his disposal to help
Madeline. Bertha was anxious her friend should have what she had just
missed.
* * * * *
"Well! Soon after the dinner I shall go and see Rupert in his rooms. I
shall get to know him well, and I shall gradually tell him about
Charlie, and how keen he is, and lead up to Miss Irwin, and say what a
charming girl she is, and all that sort of thing. Nothing makes so much
impression."
"Don't make him jealous of Charlie," said Bertha. "Anything that he
regarded as a slight I think would put an end to it. Rupert is not quite
a commonplace man."
"Jealous? Oh no, I should merely imply that Miss Madeline won't have
anything to say to Charlie, and that I wonder why. But it can't do him
any harm to know someone else wants her. My dear girl, a man understands
another man. That is where women are such fools. They think they know
more about men than men do, and that is why they are always being----"
He stopped.
She smiled.
"Oh no. I quite do you justice, Nigel. I am never above consulting you
on that sort of subject. I may know just a little bit more about men
than some women do, for one reason----"
"And what is that? Because you attract them?"
"No, that doesn't help much. It's because I have brothers, and they have
always confided in me without reserve. Oh! there was one more thing I
_may_ have to ask you. I don't want to, and I don't like it at all, on
account of Mrs. Hillier; but still it might happen to be necessary. It's
_just_ possible I may ask you to flirt a little with a girl called Moona
Chivvey."
"Oh, _I_ know her." He smiled. "Of course I'd do anything for you, but
_that_ would be about the hardest thing you could command."
"She's not uninteresting," said Bertha. "I shall find out how she stands
with Rupert, and I don't think there's much danger. But if it should be
required--well--you might go further and fare worse."
"I expect I should go further than Rupert," murmured Nigel.
"Nigel, _don't_ think I haven't scruples about things. I have, very
much, but I know a good deal about Moona, and I really think that any
harmless thing we can do to remove obstacles for poor Madeline should be
done. I promised Madeline. I shall be grateful if you'll help, Nigel."
"There's no question about it," said Nigel. "Of course it must be rushed
through. And now I suppose you want me to go?"
"Oh no! Please don't! Percy will be here directly."
He got up.
"Good-bye. I'll ring you up to-morrow. It's some little consolation for
being an idle man to have leisure to fulfil your commands."
She answered that he was very good and she was very pleased with him,
and he went away.