made Lynn swear began to show itself most unpleasantly. The truth was
so simple, the secrecy made the whole matter so difficult. Lynn had
dreaded inquiries anent the boy when she first returned after her
mother's death, but none had been forthcoming. Mr. Thayer had expected
that Lynn would ask him to have an eye to the boy and see that the small
allowance he had promised to make him was fairly spent; when nothing was
said on the matter he assumed that Lynn disliked the child as she did
the father and preferred never to think or speak of them, now that the
one link between them and her was broken. Mr. Thayer was glad to forget
the existence of his sister-in-law's other child. He had never even
seen the father or the son; he had been intensely indignant at the
second marriage contracted while Clara was visiting friends in the
States; and, subsequent events having justified his indignation, he had
sedulously avoided meeting any of the people concerned. His offer to
adopt Lynn had been made by letter; he had sent money for the journey
when that offer was accepted, and settled the amount agreed upon his
sister-in-law; and had then endeavoured to drive the whole affair from
his mind. However, upon Lynn's return from New York, he did make some
gruff inquiries as to the child's whereabouts; and, on her replying that
the boy was at a cheap but highly respectable boarding-school in the
country, he had, with a feeling of relief, dismissed the whole matter
from his mind, thinking that "that Italian blackguard" had some sense of
decency after all.
There seemed little that Lynn could do, now that Lionel had taken
matters into his own hands and openly declared his intention of
remaining with his father. Of course the rational thing was to break
her promise and take her relatives into her confidence. Only the most
scrupulous moralist could hold her bound by an oath which her mother,
could she have looked into the future, would have surely wished her to
break. Ah, if only logic ruled life, how simple life would be.
Unfortunately it does not.
Lynn had inherited from both father and mother an overstrained sense of
honour and, though she had done her best to refrain from making the
unfair and ridiculous promise, the possibility of breaking it when made
never occurred to her.
The Roman Catholic system of confession has its advantages after all.
Had Lynn gone to any confessional and asked for permission to break her
oath, and absolution for the sin of so doing, what sensible man, priest
or layman, would have refused to sanction such a procedure? Lynn, under
the circumstances, had no confidant, no adviser, no one to show her the
needlessness of her various sacrifices.
Besides, it is to be feared that Lynn's sense of honour was so deeply
ingrained that it could not, under any conditions, have yielded to the
dictates of common sense. She would probably have done, in any
circumstances, just what she proceeded to do; kept the foolish oath in
its entirety, continued to help the ungrateful boy, in spite of the fact
that he, in defiance of her expressed wishes, continued to live in New
York with his father, and generally have conducted herself as over-fond
and irrational women do, under such circumstances.
When Lionel was sixteen, however, his father died of consumption in a
tragic and horrible manner; and Lionel, temporarily sobered by the
occurrence, suddenly "turned over a new leaf," as he expressed it, and
wrote Lynn to that effect, declaring his intention of taking up literary
work and "making his name in it." Although his manner of supporting
himself did not seem very practicable to his sister, she hailed with joy
this indication that her work and care had at last borne fruit.
And, for a short time, Lionel was a source of unmitigated joy and pride
to her. There are but a few poets in the world and he was one of them.
His work earned him instant recognition among a certain set and,
although his earnings were paltry, he, at all events, did earn something
and bade fair to earn more. All literary workers know how frequently a
certain amount of fame may be gained with very small pecuniary success
to back it.
Then Lionel decided to live in Montreal. He was ill; New York did not
agree with him; he wanted new experiences and realized that Lynn could
give him one thing that he had never known--the society of rich and
fashionable people; and, more important than all, he knew well that he
could wheedle every penny of her earnings from her, provided he lived in
the same town. The boy was a degenerate, totally without gentle feeling
of any kind, his only approach to it being a sort of sympathetic and
artistic understanding of other people's emotions. His sister was, to
him, merely a cow to be milked dry. He was, to his sister, a demi-god
to be sacrificed to; she laid before him in the dust the burnt ashes of
her heart and life--and received the fitting and inevitable reward of
such folly.
By reason of the oath sworn by Lynn and also because Lionel had won fame
under the name of Leo Ricossia, this was the name by which he chose to
be known in Montreal. As Leo Ricossia he was received with open arms.
He had secured letters of introduction to certain influential
Montrealers and soon contrived to be formally presented to his sister at
the home of one of these. His literary fame had preceded him, and this,
in conjunction with his extraordinary beauty, his extreme youth, and the
fact that he, already, lay under sentence of death made him, for the
time being, "the rage." No social gathering was complete without him;
all the debutantes cut out his poems, pasted them in albums, and
entreated his signature on the opening page; all the older women of
fashion petted, indulged and ran after him.
It is extraordinary how rapidly and completely a certain person may
become "the rage" and still more extraordinary how rapidly and
completely this person may sink out of sight and be practically
forgotten in the space of a few months. For about a year Ricossia's
popularity was at fever height; then--murmurs of disapprobation,
shruggings of shoulders, a few hints here, a few direct words of
condemnation there--and, by the end of another year, Society knew
Ricossia no more. He had overstepped the limit of indulgence; much is
excused to a young and handsome man with charming manners and lung
disease; but not everything. In Ricossia's case, unfortunately, there
was everything to excuse and people finally and positively refused to
excuse it. Ricossia, who had tired very quickly of comparative
respectability, hastened the climax with a certain gay recklessness, and
abandoned himself with entire satisfaction to all that he had vowed to
relinquish when he came to Montreal. Taking up his abode in the
disreputable old studio building before-mentioned, he proceeded to
follow very literally the words of the Episcopal prayer-book, doing
everything that he ought not to do, leaving undone all that he ought to
do.
Now, it will be supposed, Lynn's patience failed, utterly. Now, at last
she abandoned the wretched boy who was bound to her only by blood and
who had voluntarily relinquished every claim on her regard? Ah, no.
Again let us repeat, if only logic ruled life, how simple life would be.
As logic does not rule life, Lynn continued to support her half-brother,
denying herself everything that she could go without, refusing all
invitations that entailed expensive clothes, immolating herself on the
altar of self-sacrifice with most-admired indiscretion. Nor was this
all. As it was clearly impossible that the disgraced and ostracized
Ricossia should visit her in the respectable home of her irreproachable
relatives; as it was equally impossible that she should go by daylight
to the somewhat disreputable quarter of the town where he lived; as
everything within her denied the possibility of leaving him to die in
poverty, illness and loneliness; for all these reasons and for fifty
others equally excellent, Lynn hit on the brilliant plan of visiting him
by stealth, Nicodemus-fashion, of going ostensibly to dine with some
friend or friends, and of leaving early and driving to the Chatham in
order to see for herself whether the worthless life was still extant and
whether the cold heart craved anything that she could give it. A fool?
Oh yes, a very great and undoubted fool.
Unfortunately the vast mass of humanity is composed of fools, and the
people apparently free from any trace of such folly are not just the
people whom we most admire and love. Casabianca, standing
flame-encircled on the sinking ship; Joan of Arc leading a handful of
peasants against the flower of the English army; Charlotte Corday giving
her life on the guillotine for the pleasure of making a martyr of an
inhuman hound; all these and all the other divine fools of history make
a curious appeal to humanity. Why? That is difficult to answer.
Perhaps because, deep in our hearts, we know ourselves to be fools and
are not, in moments of depression, quite convinced that we are even
divine fools.
Be that as it may, Lynn Thayer qualified herself, as will be admitted,
for a high place in the picture gallery of fools; risking her
reputation, beggaring her life, breaking her heart, all for the sake of
a boy who had done nothing from childhood but grieve, torment and
disappoint her. Ah, but he had done a little more than this. He had
filled her life with his image; he had afforded her an object on which
to squander the treasures of her mind and heart. And what more does the
average fool want, whether she be an historical, or, as in this case, an
ultra-modern fool?
Ricossia had hit on a way by which Lynn was enabled to supplement her
teacher's salary and provide for him more comfortably. Struck by the
humour and style of a little sketch which she had written for his
amusement, he made a few alterations in it and sent it to an editor with
whom he was personally acquainted, under his own name. It was accepted
and paid for; and, from that time on, Ricossia was known for his pungent
and witty society skits. Lynn was only too grateful for the addition to
her much-strained purse and delighted that her brother was pleased to
approve of her work. Had it not been for this new method of earning,
she would have found it increasingly difficult to account for the way in
which her money went, bringing her no apparent return.
In her spare moments, therefore, she wrote, busily, and, moreover,
assumed the duty of amanuensis to her brother, who seemed more and more
indifferent, as his health declined and his energy waned, as to the
disposal of his brain-wares. Provided he could carouse all night and
sleep all day he seemed content; only varying this routine by complaints
if Lynn either came at inopportune times or failed to come when she
might have been of use.
He absolutely refused all medical aid and scoffed at the idea of going
to a sanitarium. He knew that he must die and he wanted to die, happy.
And, if Lynn had but known it, this, under the circumstances, was about
the greatest kindness he could have done society in general and his
sister in particular.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*"PUNCHINELLO"*
"He laughed ... as gaily,
Dancing, joking every night,
'He's the maddest, merriest fellow,'
Cried the people with delight.
Bravo, bravo! Punchinello!
Bravo, Punchinello!"
--Old Song.
Mr. Zangwell, in his clever "Serio-Comic Governess," has shown us a
young lady leading two very different lives at one and the same time. In
the day-time she is a highly respectable and decorous governess, at
night, a music-hall artiste. In both lines she is a success.
Now this success is probably owing to the fact that this particular
young lady is gratifying her curiosity and her desire to lead a
conventional existence at one and the same time. She is, in short,
doing that which she wishes to do.
There are many such "serio-comic governesses" in real life. Perhaps
you, who read, may be one; perhaps, unknown to you, the dear friend from
whom you have no secrets and who, you fondly believe, has none from you,
may have a personality which you have never even guessed at.
In the case of our "serio-comic governess," however, we must draw a
distinction. Lynn Thayer liked neither of her lives, which clashed
horribly both with one another and with her sense of right. Since she
saw no way in which she could avoid it, however, she continued to lead
them to the best of her ability, sustained, if not comforted, by the
thought that one of them was bound to terminate with the death of the
one being whom she most loved.
We have seen our "serio-comic governess" in one role; now we see her in
another. We have seen Punchinello with the mask off and the grin
absent; now we see him as he appears daily in the theatre of life.
Lynn had returned from the school where she taught and sat in her aunt's
sitting-room, engaged on a shirtwaist and in conversation. If we listen
we shall be able to form a fair idea of the progress of the
conversation, if not of that of the shirtwaist. Mrs. Thayer was
employed in embroidering a collar and impressed the casual observer as
doing the exact thing for which Nature had fitted her. She was one of
those pretty, faded, querulous women with worthy hearts but limited
intellects of whom one almost instinctively speaks as "poor thing"; why,
it is hard to say, except that something in their appearance calls forth
the expression. No one ever called Lynn Thayer "poor thing," nor would,
whatever griefs or difficulties she might labour under.
Mrs. Thayer was speaking.
"Now, Lynn, _why_ is he not coming here, to-night?"
"For one thing, because I don't want him; and, for another, because he
is changing his hotel. You know he is staying at the 'Hastings' while
his house is in the hands of the painters."
"And he is moving from the 'Hastings.' Why?"
"Oh, I think he said it was 'tough' and that he would have to leave it.
I tried hard not to compliment him upon the altruism of his action.
Certainly if one thing more than another is calculated to 'raise the
tone' of a hotel, it is his leaving it."
"Lynn! you didn't tell him so?" shrieked her aunt.
"No," returned her niece, rather sorrowfully. "I didn't. I wish I
had."
"_Lynn!_"
"I don't often neglect anything calculated to render me unpopular with
him," continued Miss Thayer, composedly, "and when I do I'm always sorry
for it, afterwards. You know that, Aunt Lucy?"
"Lynn, dear, don't use all those long words," adjured her aunt,
piteously. "They do sound so clever. And men do so hate clever women.
I don't mean that you are clever, you understand, dear," she continued,
apologetically, "only that you appear so, sometimes."
"I wonder whether Mr. Lighton would dislike it if he thought I were
clever!" queried Lynn with sudden interest.
"I don't know. I am afraid--"
"_How_ I would scintillate if I only thought it would annoy him," Lynn
said in a low voice.
Mrs. Thayer started, indignantly.
"I am thankful," she reflected in loud and severe accents, "that _I_ was
never afflicted with a desire to make myself unpleasant to estimable
young men."
"Estimable! Aunt Lucy!"
"It is true," said Mrs. Thayer, putting two diminutive stitches in the
collar which she was embroidering, "it is undeniably true, Lynn, that
the poor boy has been a little wild. But he wants to settle down."
"If he wants to settle down with me, Aunt Lucy, he can want."
"Lynn, is that the remark of a lady?"
"It is; and, furthermore, it is the remark of a lady who knows her own
mind."
Mrs. Thayer raised a tiny handkerchief to her eyes and deposited two
tinier tears, thereupon. Long practice had made her an adept in the
gentle art of weeping, by which art she had succeeded in establishing an
absolute monarchy in her own home.
"Oh, Lynn, what a way to talk," she wept, gently, "when the poor boy is
so fond of you and has such a good salary and a house of his own,
besides. How few young men have houses of their own that you can walk
right into as soon as you marry them! What are you laughing at? And
anyway he is much too good for you and besides Eva Holt would jump at
him."
"Let her jump."
"Ah, Lynn, you have no natural, womanly instincts."
"I am afraid I am lacking in some."
"Such a nice house as it is, too," sighed her aunt, "and all being done
over--new plumbing, electric light and everything! Electric light is so
nice to read by. How fortunate it is that his uncle di--that is to say,
how fortunate it is that his uncle left it to him."
"Yes, indeed. There's something very attractive about electric lights,"
returned her niece, gravely.
Mrs. Thayer looked slightly puzzled and changed the subject.
"Mr. Lighton is really in many ways a very nice young man," she
ventured, timidly. "And not a bit worse than lots of others."
"Not a bit!" assented the other. Her voice was still cheerful but her
face had clouded a little. "The trouble is," she went on, rather
absently, after a moment's pause, "the trouble is, he's worse-looking.
Vice, pure and simple, one might tolerate; but vice, in conjunction with
a vermilion nose"--
"Lynn!" interrupted her aunt with righteous indignation. "Mr. Lighton
is as the Lord made him."
"The Lord! Brandy and soda!"
Mrs. Thayer had her answer ready in her pocket; she drew it out and
deposited three more tears upon its snowy surface. Lynn hesitated; she
had a truly masculine aversion to tears, an aversion which had cost her
many a domestic battle.
"Please don't cry, Aunt Lucy," she burst forth at length. "I don't see
why you are so very anxious to get me married. I thought you liked
having me in the house. If you don't"--
"Of course I like having you," said the older woman, reproachfully.
"But I must confess that it makes me feel dreadfully to think of having
you, always--that is, I mean that it makes me feel dreadfully to see you
throw away such good chances. For you know, Lynn, you are not in the
least pretty."
"Dear Aunt Lucy, you have told me that so often," returned her niece,
patiently. "But I cannot for the life of me see why the fact of my not
possessing a Greek profile should make me want to marry Mr. Lighton."
"That is just where you are so incomprehensible. And, besides, he has
such a lovely horse."
"His horse is certainly a dream. Unfortunately, though, it was not his
horse who proposed. If I could marry the horse and lock the gentleman
up in the stable, I'd do it with pleasure. O dear, why will you talk
about it and make me say such horrid things. The plain truth of the
matter is that I do not like the man and I hate talking about the whole
affair. It irritates me, someway. I hate to see anything wasted."
"Then why do you"--
"Oh, Aunt Lucy, _don't_ start it, again! after all I've said."
"I perceive at last," said Mrs. Thayer with dignity, "that I may as well
let the matter drop."
"You might have seen that at first, if you had wished to," thought Lynn.
"I only hope you may never regret this."
"I hope so, too. By the way, I am going to drop in at Estelle's for tea
at five. A lot of the girls are going there. Have you any message?"
"None, whatever; but, as you are going there, I trust that you will talk
this matter over with her. You could not have a better confidante.
Talk it over with her, won't you?"
"I don't think it is necessary to promise that," replied Lynn, wearily,
"for she is quite certain to talk it over with me, which comes to the
same thing in the end."
Mrs. Thayer compressed her lips and continued to embroider. Lynn
departed to make some change in her toilet and, that being concluded,
left the house. Once on the street her face changed and contracted a
little, making her look curiously older.
"There are times," she said slowly, regarding the little terrier which
gambolled joyfully at her side, "there are times, Bob, when I find the
society of the four-legged portion of humanity infinitely more congenial
than that of the two-legged. This is one of them. How I wish sometimes
that Aunt Lucy were dumb or I deaf! How thankful I am that you can't
talk reason with me or advise me for my good or do any other unpleasant
thing of the kind, Bob. If they only knew what they were talking about!
if they only knew why I can't marry Lighton or--or anyone else"--She
broke off, abruptly, biting her lip as though in pain. "What's the use
of thinking?" she went on, presently. "I've got to face Del and twenty
other women nearly as sharp in five minutes' time and I can't show my
feelings here in this horrible street, either. Oh, to get away from it
all!--here, don't be a fool! You have about two minutes to pull yourself
together in, you weak, whining--I'll put it out of my mind, entirely.
Whom has Del asked, I wonder. If it's one of those vile functions where
you're wedged tightly between layers of fat, stupid women who gabble
inanely and continuously and spill ice-cream and coffee over your good
clothes, I'll never forgive her. No, she said distinctly that it was
just a few of the girls and she always tells the truth to me, if she
doesn't to anyone else. Oh, Del, Del! I wonder if you are the right
person to go by. I wonder what you would say if I were to tell you of
all this miserable coil of deception and misery. Of course I know what
you would say; you would say that I was a fool and so I am; that
wouldn't help matters, much. What _could_ you, or anyone suggest?
Nothing, nothing that would be of any use; anyway, if I were dying for
advice, I am not free to obtain it. If I had an unfailing fund of
common sense and a heart of stone what would I do, I wonder? God knows.
Being myself I'll do what I'm doing--and God grant it can't last
forever." She set her lips firmly and walked along until she reached
Pine Avenue.
Pine Avenue lies at the foot of Mount Royal and, in fact, is built upon
its slope. It is a broad, fine street and some of the handsomest
residences in Montreal are situated upon, or, rather, directly above it.
At all seasons of the year it is largely frequented and, in winter, is a
favourite haunt of snowshoers and "skiers." At the present hour,
however, it was practically deserted; and Lynn drew a long breath of
relief as, leaving the crowded city streets behind, she sought its
solitude. For some little time she walked on in silence.
The golden January sun turned Mount Royal into a mass of shining marble,
flecked with skeleton-like maples and crowned with dark green pines.
Beyond--behind its towering whiteness--lay the dead of Montreal. Lynn
winced at the thought of them and fiercely refused to let her thought
dwell on their impenetrable peace.
"I'm going to an At Home, Bob," she said, half-aloud, trying to laugh.
"There will be about twenty other women there--and, in all probability,
half of them are wearing veils over their faces like the minister in
Hawthorne's story. 'I look around me and lo! on every visage a black
veil.' Only people don't go in for black veils unless they're cowards;
they go in for scarlet and gold, which makes a far better disguise and
renders life more cheerful. What's the use of making a fuss? Anyway,
whatever happens, whatever nasty knocks Fate may hand me, there is one
thing she can't do--she can't make me whine." She threw her head back
and laughed; then called the dog to her side and smiled as he licked her
gloved hand.
"Del doesn't like you, old boy," she said, fondly. "But I'll hide you,
somewhere, and I won't stay any longer than I can help. Ah! there's the
house, already. It's just as well. I don't feel like being alone,
to-day, more than I can help. I wonder why it is that things seem so
much worse at some times than they do at others."
*CHAPTER IX*
*"JUST A FEW OF THE GIRLS"*
"'I must be my own Mamma,' said Becky."--_Thackeray_.
"She was clever, witty, brilliant and sparkling beyond most of
her kind but possessed of many devils of malice and
mischievousness. She could be nice, though, even to her own
sex. But that is another story."--_Kipling_.
Mrs. Hadwell's home, whither her friend, Miss Thayer, was bound,
contrived to be both home-like and imposing. Situated on a slope of the
"mountain," as all loyal Montrealers call Mount Royal, it commanded an
unsurpassed view of the city and harbour and was surrounded by a
picturesque garden, unspoilt by overcultivation. In summer it assumed
an appearance of fairy-like charm: and even when, as now, devoid of
verdant ornament and encompassed only by the sighing branches of bare
trees, it had an appearance of creature comfort, oddly at variance with
the bleak, snow-crowned hills that rose behind it. Mount Royal, the
pride of every Montrealer, boasts many another such home; but few
combine dignity and cosiness in the measure which Mrs. Hadwell's did.