THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN
AS the two ladies passed under the archway from Beers Cooperage into
the street they were followed by Mr. Grimes, anxious to efface the
rather humiliating figure he had cut in his encounter with Mike Finigan.
“I wonder if we may have the honour of seeing you at our bazaar this
week, Duchess?” he said smirkingly.
“What bazaar is that? I don’t think I have heard of it,” the Duchess
responded, with indifference.
“The Legitimist bazaar--to obtain funds on behalf of the cause,” the
curate explained.
The Duchess of Trent knitted her brows.
“I am afraid I don’t understand. What cause is that, if you please?”
The Rev. Aloysius faltered somewhat in his speech as he answered:
“It is the cause of the legitimate monarchs who have been excluded from
their thrones by--ah--popular insurrections, and--ah--constitutions
and republics, and so on. The Duke of Orleans is one of our principal
objects,” he went on rather hurriedly, observing a significant frown
come over her Grace’s brow at the word constitution--“rightfully Louis
XIX of France; and then there is Don Carlos of Spain, and the Duke of
Cumberland, and others. Many of us consider that the Bishop of Rome has
been wrongfully deprived of his sovereign rights by the House of Savoy.”
“Any more?” asked the Duchess, with some scorn. “I shall be glad to
know whether you consider the Queen as a usurper, because I have served
in her household as a girl, and I have no desire to conspire against
her in my old age.”
The curate of St. Jermyn’s cast down his eyes.
“Oh, I dare say there are a few members of the Guild who hold, in an
academical spirit, of course, that the elder branch of the Stuarts
are entitled to our allegiance, but that is really more a pose than
anything else. No one intends the slightest disrespect towards Queen
Victoria. But the French Republic is very different; its intolerance
towards the religious orders must make every Christian wish to see its
downfall.”
“I am afraid that I do not sympathize with your views sufficiently to
care to come to your bazaar,” the Duchess said dryly. “It appears to
me that Legitimism, according to your account of it, is another name
for Roman Catholicism, and I am a Protestant.” The Rev. Aloysius looked
pained. “Besides,” her Grace went on severely, “even if this nonsense
about the Stuarts is only a pose, as you say, it seems to me in very
bad taste. I only trust it is not actually treasonable.”
Mr. Grimes bit his lip. Then he put on a touch of bravado as he replied:
“I am sorry you should think so harshly of us, Duchess. I should not
have ventured to broach the subject, only Lord Alistair Stuart is among
our patrons, and we hope to see him on Saturday. Miss Vanbrugh also
held out a hope that she might drop in for an hour.”
“I was only coming out of curiosity, remember; I told you that, Mr.
Grimes,” put in Hero promptly. “As it is, I think I shall follow the
Duchess’s lead, and boycott you. I have no objection to Louis XIX, but
I think I must draw the line at Mary III.”
It was under this name that the Bavarian Princess whom the Legitimist
Guild honoured with their homage, figured in their recently published
calendar of true and lawful Sovereigns. It must not be supposed
that in so styling her the Legitimists were inconsistent enough to
acknowledge the title of the wife of William of Orange to a place in
the list of British monarchs. The Mary II recognized by them was the
ill-starred rival of Queen Elizabeth. Further back than the martyr of
Fotheringay their genealogical inquiries did not too curiously extend,
lest, perhaps, they should find themselves confronted with that direct
descendant of the Plantagenets who plied the trade of a chimney-sweeper
in the last generation, and who, as a base Protestant mechanic, would
have been ill-deserving of the sympathy accorded to such illustrious
figures as Don Carlos and Leo XIII.
But a change had come over the face of the Duchess while Hero was
speaking. Now she said to her:
“After all, I expect it is a mistake to treat Mr. Grimes’s friends
seriously. Suppose we agree to look in on the conspirators together? I
should like you to meet my boy Alistair.”
And without waiting for the expression of the curate’s exuberant
delight at this decision, the elder woman gave the signal to enter the
carriage that was to convey them to Colonsay House.
On the way thither the Duchess made no further reference to what was in
her mind. But while they were waiting for lunch to be served, she took
her guest into the little drawing-room where Alistair had found her the
night before.
“I want to talk to you about my boy,” she said, making Hero sit down
beside her on the couch. “I dare say you know he is in sad trouble just
now.”
This was by no means Hero’s first visit to Colonsay House. The
friendship between her and the Duchess was of some standing.
Encountering each other among the squalid byways of St. Jermyn’s
parish, a mutual liking had quickly sprung up between them, which
rested on no more occult base than the simple goodness of heart which
was common to the two. The older woman admired Hero Vanbrugh for her
courage and plain good sense, and Hero on her part revered the Duchess
for her antique piety and single-mindedness. Thus it came about that
the two were constant companions, visiting in the same district and
helping in each other’s work.
It was a source of secret regret to the Duchess that Hero did not
share her own old-fashioned prejudice against the Catholic practices
and teachings of Mr. Grimes and his Vicar. Hero had an æsthetic
appreciation of the ritual of St. Jermyn’s, with its banners and
processions, its incense and its worship of the consecrated elements,
and this led her to listen with outward tolerance to the utterances of
Dr. Coles and his disciple on the subject of the Catholic doctrines
which lay behind these outward symbols. But the native strength of her
mind forbade her to make that surrender of her own judgment to priestly
authority which is the real test of the Catholic temper.
Perhaps this obstinacy was due more largely than she suspected to
the personal antipathy inspired in her by the Rev. Aloysius. A young
woman’s religion is generally coloured by her personal relations with
the man who is her religious teacher; and Hero secretly despised Mr.
Grimes as a man, though she tried to respect him as a clergyman. A
suggestion from the curate that Miss Vanbrugh would derive spiritual
benefit from a visit to his confessional had been so discouragingly
received that he never ventured to renew it.
The curate did not help himself in Hero’s eyes by his rather too
evident admiration of her as a woman. If he had not been vowed to
celibacy it might have been supposed that he was courting her; and even
as it was, there were jealous eyes, belonging to older and plainer
women in the St. Jermyn’s flock, which watched him with distrust, and
jealous minds which dwelt upon the fact that Anglican vows of celibacy
are a poor security. Perhaps it is not doing much injustice to Mr.
Grimes to suppose that there were moments when he himself recollected
with some satisfaction that in his Church such vows resemble the
treaties of civilized Powers, and are liable to be repudiated the
moment they become inconvenient.
Be that as it may, it is certain that Hero Vanbrugh was heart-whole as
far as her clerical admirer was concerned. Lord Alistair Stuart she had
never met, her intimacy at Colonsay House dating since the separation
due to Molly Finucane.
She was familiar with Lord Alistair’s story, in so far as it had become
a social scandal, but this was the first time his mother had pronounced
Alistair’s name in her presence, and her interest was strongly roused.
She gave the Duchess a nod of sympathy and understanding.
“I saw what had happened in the papers. I was very sorry. It must have
been a great blow to you and to the Duke.”
“It is a crushing blow,” the mother answered. “Not only in itself, but
because of what lies behind it. My boy would never have come to this if
he had not fallen under the influence of that dreadful woman.”
In saying this the poor mother spoke quite sincerely. In spite of
Alistair’s disclaimer, in spite of her own experience with him in the
past, she could not bring herself to forego the mother’s consolation
of laying her darling’s sins upon another’s shoulders. In the eyes of
a true mother the whole world is full of wicked men and women busied
in laying snares for the destruction of her child; she never deems it
possible that her child may be himself the tempter of others.
Hero did not doubt that the Duchess spoke perfect truth. What woman
likes to think that another woman’s influence is otherwise than hurtful
to a man in whom she is interested?
“I am sure of it,” Miss Vanbrugh said with conviction. “But perhaps
what has happened”--they both shrank from the word “bankruptcy”--“may
be the best thing in the end, if it compels him to leave her.”
The Duchess shook her head despondently.
“I hardly know what will happen yet. I hinted that his brother might
come to his help if he would give up his present life, and he refused.
Do you know what I am actually afraid of? I believe that woman is
scheming to make him marry her!”
Hero Vanbrugh was as much shocked by this suggestion as the Duchess
could have desired. Her training had not been severely Puritanical,
but an instinct older than copybooks and Sunday schools taught her
to look on Molly Finucane as her natural enemy. Such women as Molly
were traitors to their sex; they were the blacklegs of the feminine
trades-union. The wage which the others had worked from time immemorial
to establish--honour, a home, the half of all a man’s possessions, and
the chief place in his life--all this the free-lance had foregone, to
snatch the miserable gains of adventure.
The announcement that lunch was on the table did not interrupt the
conversation. But it added another interlocutor in the person of the
Duke of Trent.
The new Minister had passed a busy morning at the Home Office. His
first care had been to send for his solicitor, to consult him about
Lord Alistair’s affairs. The lawyer told him that, though the nominal
amount of his brother’s indebtedness was not less than fifty thousand
pounds, the creditors would probably be willing to accept one-half to
cancel the proceedings. Twenty-five thousand was a large sum to a man
circumstanced as the Duke was; nevertheless, he had made up his mind
that it should be forthcoming, and he had instructed the solicitor to
open the negotiations on his behalf.
The most important item of official business had been a call from the
Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who reported a fresh
piece of hooligan violence from the neighbourhood of Bermondsey. A
policeman was again the victim, and the Force were beginning to show a
dangerous temper, and to demand permission to carry revolvers for their
own protection.
The Home Secretary privately sympathized with this demand, but he
foresaw that such a departure would be the signal for a storm of
protest in the workmen’s papers and in the House of Commons. The
particular quarter of London where the latest outrage had occurred was
represented in the House by a sturdy demagogue who was not likely to
sit with his mouth closed while his constituents were threatened with
what he had already described in advance as martial law. The very gangs
which were now defying the police were believed to have done effective
work during the last election, and on one memorable occasion their
popular representative had led them to an armed encounter with the
forces of law and order in the heart of the capital.
These considerations had to be weighed by the Home Secretary. A Cabinet
Minister in these days holds the position of a buffer between the
permanent heads of his department, who really govern the Raj, and
the assembly elected by the populace to supervise them. The first
duty of the Minister, no doubt, was to support his staff, but it was
also imperative to take no step that might endanger the popularity of
his party in the constituencies. In this dilemma the Duke of Trent
had reserved his decision till he should have had an opportunity of
consulting Major Berwick, the trusted chief of the electoral machine.
A smile of pleasure betrayed his gratification at the entrance of Miss
Vanbrugh, who greeted him with the ease of old friendship. He told his
mother briefly of the steps he had already taken on Alistair’s behalf.
The Duchess gave him a grateful look.
“Thank you, dear; I knew you would do what you could. I was just
talking to Hero about the poor boy. The one thing we have to try for
now is to make this trouble a means of rescuing him from his present
life.”
“I ought to make that condition, of course,” the elder brother observed
doubtingly; “but from what you told me last night he would only refuse
it if I were to.”
“It is very difficult,” the Duchess admitted. “I am afraid you are
right. Perhaps if you say nothing about conditions, and simply let him
know that you are helping him generously, he will feel ashamed not to
make a return.”
The Duke of Trent had his own opinion as to his brother’s sense of
shame, but he did not care to express it before Miss Vanbrugh.
“What I want most,” the Duchess proceeded, “is to induce him to come
here again. I dread the consequence of his always being with that
woman. If I could get hold of him sometimes, and bring him into contact
with women of a different kind, I feel sure that the contrast between
them and the woman he is living with would soon disgust him with her.”
Even if the Duchess had not stolen a glance at Hero Vanbrugh as she
spoke, her drift could hardly have been misunderstood by the girl. The
Duke failed to see the personal application of his mother’s remark.
“If you could find some decent woman who would overlook the past, and
get him to marry her, she might be able to keep him straight,” he said
bluntly. “On the other hand, she might not.”
“I feel sure that he might be saved by the right woman,” the Duchess
said earnestly. “I am convinced that the poor boy is secretly sick of
the life he has been leading, and only his pride keeps him from giving
it up. A noble, pure-minded girl, who really cared for him, would be
able to do anything she liked with Alistair.”
This time the allusion was too plain to be mistaken. The Home Secretary
intercepted the blush on Hero’s face, and his eyes were opened. A look
of dissatisfaction replaced his indifferent air, as he replied with
some bitterness:
“I am not so sure of it. Many a good woman has sacrificed her life
before now in the effort to reclaim a man who was unworthy of her, and
the sacrifice has been in vain.”
In saying this he was thinking of the history of his own father and
mother, of which he had learned more than his mother suspected. He had
sometimes felt surprised, as well as mortified, that he should have
had such a parent as Lord Alexander. Never having seen his father since
early childhood, and being free from any tendency to romantic idealism,
the Duke was able to judge the dead man quite impartially, and to think
of him as if he had been some remote ancestor, whose virtues and vices
were merely matter of curiosity for his descendants.
“I wonder my mother’s own experience has not taught her the folly of
thinking that a worthless man can be redeemed by a good wife,” he
reflected impatiently. “Alistair takes after his father; no doubt
that is why she has always loved him better than me. Her whole soul
is absorbed in trying to save him from the consequences of his own
follies, and I am merely a pawn in the game. Now she wants to enlist
Hero Vanbrugh in the same task, as if a girl like that were fit for
nothing better than to be the keeper of a drunken prodigal.”
The Duchess observed the frown on her eldest son’s brow with wondering
dismay. It did not occur to her that he could be moved by any other
feeling than fraternal jealousy. Old-fashioned in her ideas on this
subject, as on most others, she had never contemplated it as possible
that the Duke of Trent and Colonsay could marry out of his own
class. And the class in which, with perfectly unconscious pride, she
placed her young friend was that middle one which appeared to have
been created to supply doctors and lawyers and men of business for
the service of the aristocracy. In her eyes the girl’s father, Sir
Bernard Vanbrugh, was simply a successful medical man. The scientific
achievements which had made him a European personage, greater than any
Secretary of State, were outside her ken.
If she had come to entertain the project of marrying Hero Vanbrugh to
her prodigal son as a last means of averting the terrible catastrophe
of Molly Finucane, she did so honestly, considering that she offered a
privilege to Hero, corresponding with the greatness of the interest at
stake. It was in the perfect simplicity of this conviction that she had
so candidly revealed her design. In the same spirit she had been ready
to take Alistair’s brother into her confidence without any apprehension
that she might be applying the spur of rivalry to a slumbering
admiration.
She was familiar with the Duke’s expressed views on matrimony, which
she respected, although they struck a little cold on her own more
emotional nature. She knew that he had made up his mind from an early
age to two things--that he was one of the best matches in Great
Britain, and that marriage was the most important card he had to play
in the game of life. It had long been understood between them that
Trent was in no hurry; that what he required in a wife was a great
fortune, accompanied by those social graces which count for so much
in politics; and that when he found a possessor of both these gifts
who pleased him she would become his Duchess. The mother lived in the
mild expectation of hearing some day that her young sultan had thrown
the handkerchief to a fitting aspirant, whom it would be her part to
welcome with what tenderness was permitted, and in whose favour she
would cheerfully resign her place in Colonsay House.
Thus it lay altogether outside her calculations that her eldest
son could take any interest in Hero Vanbrugh warmer than a passing
friendship. The prudent young statesman was the last person in the
world whom anyone acquainted with him would have believed capable of a
romantic passion. And the last person in the world to believe it would
have been the young Minister himself.
A man who has lived to the age of thirty without ever losing his head
in the company of a woman naturally regards himself as love-proof, and
perhaps insensibly relaxes his self-defence. But Hero Vanbrugh enjoyed
one great advantage over almost every unmarried girl whom Trent had
ever met, inasmuch as she had not come before him as a candidate for
the orange-blossoms.
If he had met her in one of those crowded ballrooms where her sisters
are paraded nightly in the London season for the allurement of
intending purchasers, Trent would have carefully guarded himself from
giving her a second thought. He had met her for the first time at his
own table, lunching in outdoor costume with his mother, who introduced
her as a helper in her charitable work. The Duke, presuming that
Miss Vanbrugh came from some humble clerical circle, unbent from his
ordinary reserve in the desire to put her at her ease. He was rewarded
for this kindly effort by the discovery that she was beautiful and
charming.
It was not until afterwards that he learned from his mother, who
rallied him playfully on his fascination, that he had been entertaining
the daughter of the great Vanbrugh. It was chance, therefore--one
of those chances that every now and then take over the control of
our lives and change them for us--that had caused Trent to meet Hero
Vanbrugh on this easy footing instead of in the cankered atmosphere
of fashion. But the ice, once broken, could not be re-formed, and the
relations between Hero and her host at Colonsay House had developed
into intimacy.
Up to this time the Duke’s mental attitude had been that of a man who
views a tempting object in a shop-window, and stands hesitating, purse
in hand, wishful to buy, but unable to make up his mind to give the
price. Now he suddenly became aware that another possible purchaser was
coming up, and that if he wanted to make sure of the bargain, he must
lose no more time.
An embarrassing silence was broken by Hero, who undertook to divert the
thoughts of the Home Secretary by asking:
“What do they think in the Home Office of the Legitimist Guild?”