Lord Henry felt he had done his best for England, and now his mind
turned covetously towards a country and a clime where his best promised
to yield richer and better fruit. He had mended society's nervous wrecks
so long that he had come to look upon the whole modern world as a
machine too hopelessly out of gear to repay his skilful efforts.
"People who never sit down to a meal with an appetite," he would say,
"people whose bodies are as surcharged as their houses with superfluous
loot, cannot hope to be well, physically or spiritually. We live on an
island huddled together, and yet we grow every day further apart. For
the acquisition of superfluous loot means incessant strife. The worst
sign of the times is that abstract terms no longer mean the same thing
to any two people. Individualism is thus destroying even the value of
language. Because where each man has his individual view a common
language itself becomes an impossibility. The effort of the Middle Ages
was to convert Europe into a single nation. The effort of the modern or
'Muddle' Age, is to convert each single nation into a Europe. That is
why abstract terms are slowly losing their value as the current coin of
speech."
St. Maur had attached himself to Lord Henry as a kind of voluntary or
honorary secretary. He assisted his master where and when he could, and
felt that he was more than adequately repaid in the enormous amount he
learnt from him.
"Is there no remedy?" he demanded seriously on a day early in August,
when the prospect of losing his friend was weighing more heavily than
usual upon him. The two were sitting talking in the study of Lord
Henry's cottage which stood in a lane off the London road, about two
miles north of Ashbury, where his sanatorium was situated.
"There is a remedy, of course," replied Lord Henry. "It would consist in
uniting modern nations afresh by means of a powerful common culture. It
is only then that men can be guided and led, for it is only then that
they can understand what they are taught about life and humanity. In the
Middle Ages a common culture was so universal, that even the barriers of
nationality did not prevent men from understanding one another. Now
there is such a total lack of a uniform culture that men of the same
nation speak an unknown tongue to one another. That is the recipe for
stupidity."
"But cannot this new uniform culture be created?" St. Maur insisted.
"It would mean a great new religion," Lord Henry answered. "And we are
all too much exhausted for such a stupendous undertaking. New religions
depend in the first place upon the belief in great men, and where are
the great men of to-day? Only those whose coarse impudence has made them
forget their limitations start new religions nowadays. And look at the
result!"
"There are enough of them at all events," suggested St. Maur.
"Exactly,--their number is the best comment on their futility."
"But surely the effort, general as it is, shows that people agree with
you, and feel the need that you see and recognise?"
"Yes, but the arrogance with which they pretend to supply the need
themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the
gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and
members of the Inner Light,--mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired
and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying
culture. They cannot therefore make language once more a common currency
for thought."
Aubrey St. Maur had endeared himself to Lord Henry chiefly by the
inordinate beauty of his person, his exuberant health, and his modesty.
He was wealthy and the only son of a wealthy father. All the "loot" of
the de Porvilliers had come to him through his mother, and to Lord
Henry's surprise had failed to turn his head. On the contrary, it had if
anything filled him with a feeling of guilt, or perhaps that which is
most akin to guilt--obligation. And he had long wondered how best he
could discharge this obligation to the world. In Lord Henry's company he
had elected to find a solution to this problem.
But Lord Henry did not want the youth to join him on his journey to
China. The love the young nobleman still felt for his native country
bade him leave this promising member of it, if only as a forlorn hope,
to prove to Englishmen that here and there, at ever more distant
intervals, their blood was still capable of producing something that was
eminently desirable.
"You will succeed your father in the Upper House," he said to St. Maur
on this occasion, when the latter expressed the desire to become a pious
mandarin, "and you will, I trust, be an example of health and wisdom to
all. The faith in blood and lineage wants people like you. There is so
precious little to which it can be pinned nowadays."
"That's all very well," protested St. Maur. "But you are deserting the
battlefield, and leaving an unfledged pupil in charge. Is this nothing
to you? Are you incapable of becoming attached to anybody? Without
fishing for compliments, is it nothing to you to break our friendship in
this way?"
Lord Henry, who as usual was curling his mesh of hair with his fingers,
cast a sidelong glance full of meaning at his friend and smiled.
"My dear boy, if it hadn't been for you," he said, "I should not be
here now. Do you suppose it amuses me to investigate the unsavoury
details of every society lady's nervous affliction? Do you suppose I'm
flattered by such and such a Guardsman's encomiums when I have cured his
stammer, or his inability to proceed beyond the letter 'P' when writing
a letter?"
"What is your real purpose in going to China?" persisted the younger
man. "I shan't divulge. Can't you tell me?"
"In the first place, my dear boy," Lord Henry replied, "curiosity. I
honestly want to see how Chinamen have escaped the madness that is
overtaking Europe. Secondly, I have a heart, and I love my country, and
I cannot witness my country's decline. Thirdly, and chiefly,--but this
is a secret,--I feel that now it is the duty of all enlightened Western
Europeans, who have seen the madness of European civilisation, to hasten
to the last healthy spot on earth and to preach the Gospel of
Europophobia,--that is to say, to warn the wise East against our
criminal errors, and to save it from becoming infected by our diseases.
If the world is to be saved, a _cordon sanitaire_ must be established
round Europe and everything like Europe; for Europe has now become a
pestilence."
St. Maur who had been standing at the window with his back turned to his
friend swung suddenly round, his face illumined as if by an inspiration.
"By Jove," he cried, "that is an idea! That is indeed a crusade! I
hadn't thought of that!"
"It is the only beneficent direction in which I feel I can use my
powers," said Lord Henry gravely. "It is, if you will, my religion. I
feel I am called to be a missionary to the East, to preach the solemn
warning against Western civilisation."
"God!" St. Maur exclaimed, "that's an idea with which to fire a
generation. It is a new gospel; a new gospel of sin and the Devil."
"I assure you," Lord Henry rejoined, "the bulk of the men at my club
would not turn a hair at the suggestion. They would simply turn their
papers over, nod significantly at each other, and whisper, 'The fellow's
not all there.'"
At this moment Lord Henry's man, Fordham, entered the room.
"Yes?" his master grunted from the depths of his chair.
"A lady to see you, my lord," replied the man.
"I'm out."
"That's what I said, my lord."
"Well?"
"The lady said that was all nonsense; she 'ad called at the Sanatorium,
and they'd said you was 'ere."
"Then her name's Delarayne," said Lord Henry.
"Yes, that's it, my lord."
"Very well, then, show her up."
"That woman's a wonder," St. Maur exclaimed. "It is a boiling hot day;
at any moment there may be a storm; there was probably no fly at the
station,--there never is when I come,--and she must have walked the
whole of the two miles in the dust. She has an eye on you, my friend."
"Yes," said Lord Henry, "and by the time a woman has her eye on you, she
usually has her claws in you as well. You needn't go," he added, as he
noticed St. Maur preparing to leave. "But she's an admirable woman. Good
taste amounts almost to heroism in these women who battle with age until
their very last breath."
Mrs. Delarayne, if anything more regal and more youthful than ever, but
certainly showing signs of having taken violent exercise along a chalky
thoroughfare, stepped eagerly towards Lord Henry.
"My dear Lord Henry," she began, "so good of you to be in only to me.
But oh, I felt I must see you before leaving town."
She turned and shook hands with St. Maur, and Lord Henry moved an easy
chair in her direction.
"Oh, that's right; give me a chair, quick!" she gasped. "I'm
broken--broken in body and spirit."
Lord Henry asked the expected question.
"Only this," she said, "that my life soon won't be worth a moment's
purchase."
"You are tired," suggested her host. "You don't look after yourself."
"It isn't that," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined. "Nobody takes greater care of
themselves than I do. I go to bed every night at ten o'clock precisely,
and read until half-past two. What more can I do?"
Lord Henry blinked rapidly, and surveyed her with an air of deep
interest. "And you say you are leaving town?" he enquired.
"Yes, I'm taking my family to Brineweald, you know. It is my annual
penance, my yearly sacrificial offering to my children. It lasts just
six weeks. By the end of it, of course, I am at death's door; but I feel
that I can then face the remaining forty-six weeks of gross selfishness
with a clean conscience and a brazen face."
"Who's going?"
"Oh, the usual crowd,--my daughters, of course, a friend of theirs, a
young Jewess, and perhaps the Fearwell children. The men of the party
and my sister Bella will be lodged at Sir Joseph's place, Brineweald
Park."
"It sounds engaging enough," said St. Maur.
"Oh, most!" sighed Mrs. Delarayne. "Oh, you can't think what a happy
mother I'd be if only I had no children!"
Both men laughed, and Mrs. Delarayne who, ever since her arrival, had
been casting unmistakable glances at St. Maur, at last succeeded in
silently conveying her meaning to him.
"Well, I'm afraid I must be going downstairs," he said, "I've letters to
write."
She extended a hand with alacrity. "Oh, it looks as if I were driving
you away," she said.
St. Maur protested feebly against this truthful interpretation of his
proposed retreat, and withdrew.
Lord Henry took a seat opposite to his visitor, who was obviously as shy
as a schoolgirl in his presence, and surveyed her covertly.
"Have you come to tell me that you have abandoned that absurd Inner
Light?" he demanded playfully.
"No, indeed; why should I?" she rejoined with affected indignation.
"It is unpardonable," he murmured.
"Why unpardonable?"
"Had you been a Protestant in the past, it would at least have been
comprehensible," he said, "because any kind of absurdity is possible
after one has been a Protestant. What after all are all these
ridiculous, new-fangled creeds but further schisms of Protestantism? But
seeing that you were once a Catholic, I repeat, it is unpardonable."
Mrs. Delarayne purred resentfully, as if to imply that it would require
something more than that line of persuasion to convince her of her
error.
"What do you do to induce me to abandon anything--however erroneous?"
she protested at last. "It isn't as if you were even remaining in the
country. You are going away. But I cannot bear to think of your going
away."
Lord Henry folded his hands and scrutinised her for a moment beneath
lowered brows. Her manner was unmistakable; she revealed as much of her
game as her dignity allowed. His heart softened towards her.
"Is it so much to you that I am going?" he demanded.
"Oh, no," she replied, mock cheerfully, "_le roi est mort, vive le
roi!_"
"Haven't you a number of friends?"
"Weighed in the scales, of course," she said, "they represent a
tremendous amount of friendship."
"Aren't your daughters an interest?"
"Too adorable, of course,--so adorable that I sometimes wish I'd never
been born."
The problem as it presented itself to Lord Henry was rightly: how could
this quinquagenarian be given a son whom she could worship? To Mrs.
Delarayne the problem was: how could she induce this young man to
overcome the obvious objection consisting in the disparity of their
ages? She could read her own nature no further than this.
"Have you never any feelings of loneliness?" she demanded. "Don't you
ever reflect upon the happiness you might secure yourself and somebody
else by being decently married?"
"I might be tempted to marry. It is perfectly possible," Lord Henry
replied. "Hitherto the only thing that has deterred me has been my
vanity. It would be so horrible to watch the love a woman might bear me
slowly turning to indifference,--for that is what marriage means,--that
I don't think I could have the courage to embark upon the undertaking."
"You are flippant," said the widow sadly. "You pipe and joke while Rome
is burning."
"One day, of course, I shall have to marry," he muttered, as if to
himself.
She would have liked to ask him to Brineweald. She wanted a deep breath
of him before he left. For some reason, however, for which she was not
too anxious to account, she did not express this wish.
"Why will you _have_ to?" she asked.
"I mean," he said, "simply what I am always repeating in my clinique,
that save in the case of those who are really called to celibacy,--the
Newmans, the Spencers, and the Nietzsches of this world,--physical and
spiritual health is difficult without a normal sexual life."
"Quite so," the widow agreed.
"Quite so," Lord Henry repeated, "a _normal_ sexual life." He emphasised
the word "normal," hoping thereby to convey gently how hopeless her
scheme was.
"And when will that be?"
"Oh, Heaven knows!"
She rose, went to the window, and there was a pause.
"Lord Henry," she began after a while, "would it seem odd to you? Would
you think me shameless? Am I hopelessly abandoned, to tell you now, how
very much more than mere friendship, mere gratitude I feel for you?"
He buried his face in his hands and held his breath. He knew this was
inevitable; but as he had already told St. Maur, he had a heart.
She did not look at him, but continued speaking fluently, warmly,
incisively.
"Ever since I met you, I have felt what all of us women long to feel,
the ridiculous inferiority of the bulk of modern men suddenly relieved
by an object which we are willing to serve and obey. Your cures, if you
have ever effected any in me, were just that,--not your regimens or your
analyses,--but your words, your glance, the touch of your hand, your
presence. Everybody knows you have a bewildering presence. I need not
add to the idle compliments you must receive on all hands. But surely I
have recognised the greatness beneath the outward glamour. And it has
cast a spell over me. I admit it. I am fettered to it, riveted to it. We
women suffer to-day because we have no such men as you to look up to.
Oh, to have met for once something great, something precious, in a world
where these things are so rare!"
He glanced up at her. He could not help observing her spruce footgear
smothered in the dust of the road, her straight proud back, her fine
profile outlined against the bright colours of the chintz, and her
blue-veined hands. And he felt an uncontrollable impulse to tell her how
deeply he admired her.
"You are no fool," she pursued; "you must have known that I loved you.
Therefore I'm only confirming what you already know. But, believe me,
Lord Henry, I am something more than one of your interesting cases."
He protested.
"Yes, I know; you always say women cannot understand men, because to
comprehend is to comprise, and the smaller cannot comprise the
greater----"
He smiled approvingly.
"You see how accurately I can quote you. That is possibly true. I do not
claim to be able to understand you. But surely you will grant me that a
woman may have a deep and very real knowledge of being in the presence
of something exceptionally great, without precisely understanding it?"
Lord Henry rose. He was blinking rapidly and tugging with more than
usual force at his mesh of hair.
"Am I impossible?" she asked hoarsely. "Is the disparity of our ages
such that, hitherto, the thought of our being more than friends has been
unthinkable to you?"
He went to her side by the window. Words were forming on his lips, but
they would make no sentence. She saw his lips moving and noticed his
distress.
"Is it not a sign of our deep sympathy that you are the only man in all
England in whose presence I forget my ghastly age, my half century and
more expended on futilities?"
He took her hand.
"Oh, Edith Delarayne, you wonderful creature!" he exclaimed; "that is
the tragedy. You put your finger on the tragedy. If only you could be
twenty again, what a wife you would make for me!"
She gave a little sob and fell into his arms. "Oh, my boy, my dear boy!"
she cried, and kissed his hand almost with the avidity of hunger, as it
clasped hers on his shoulder.
She released herself slowly and lightly dabbed her eyes.
"When are you going away?" he demanded gravely.
"The day after to-morrow," she replied.
"Write to me as usual," he said.
She caught his hand and grasped it firmly. "Oh, Lord Henry, be the same
to me!" she pleaded.
He laughed the plea to scorn. "Of course I'll always be the same to you.
What do you think?"
She saw that he meant it and moved lightly towards the door. "I must be
going," she said, putting away her handkerchief, and trying to control
an awkward catch in her breath which was reminiscent of her weeping.
He urged her to stay for lunch; he offered to have her fetched by the
Sanatorium car; he begged to be allowed to accompany her back to
Ashbury; but she stalwartly refused; and in a moment he and St. Maur
were watching her, sprightly as a girl, tripping back along the dusty
road to the station.
"My boy, my dear boy," he muttered to St. Maur, "that is what she felt,
that is what she said. The unconscious voice in her knew the desired
relationship and expressed the wish, although the conscious mind thought
only of 'husband.'"