LADY ALISTAIR
SIR BERNARD VANBRUGH kept his own counsel about his conversation with
Lord Alistair, as he had done about the Duke of Trent’s proposal.
In a brief letter from London Alistair told Hero the truth.
“If I am a scapegoat of others” (he wrote), “I cannot let you be my
scapegoat. My life, I am told, must be a cul-de-sac, and you must
not think of walking down it with me. I ought to have seen this all
along; perhaps I did suspect it; but I was forlorn and you made me
happy. Now I can only do my best not to make you miserable. Forgive
my mother for her share in the mischief that has been done, and try
to forgive and forget.
“ALISTAIR STUART.”
This letter made no difference to Hero whatever. She guessed that her
father had influenced Alistair to write it, but she forbore to speak to
him on the subject. Her mind was made up, and so was his, and further
discussion between them would only make them both unhappy.
She carried the letter to Alistair’s mother, who had been left
wondering and dismayed by his unexplained departure, and the two women
who loved Alistair embraced and shed some tears over it.
“He will come back to you if you will wait for him,” the mother
pleaded. The language of the letter was outside her comprehension, but
she thought she knew what was in Alistair’s heart. “He has drawn back
because he is afraid he cannot make you a good husband. But he has not
really given you up.”
“I have not given him up, at all events,” Hero said quietly.
The Duchess felt greatly comforted. Only her old misgiving came back to
her.
“Suppose he means to marry that woman?” she whispered.
“Then I shall look upon his wife as my sister. I shall try to make a
friend of her for his sake, and I think I shall succeed. After all,
perhaps I have no right to take her place.”
The mother was daunted by this answer. She could not bear to admit that
Molly Finucane had any rights where Alistair was concerned. She would
have liked to see Hero more jealous.
The news of the marriage reached them only through the newspaper.
Alistair had thought it would be affectation to try to soften the blow.
It was a dreadful blow to the Duchess, though she had seen it coming.
She sank under it, and aged visibly. Hero tried in vain to administer
consolation.
“I think Alistair has acted nobly,” she declared. “I am proud of him.
And I should be proud of myself if I thought he had done it to please
me.”
The poor Duchess began to fear that Hero, instead of an ally, was going
to prove a traitor. She could see in her son’s action nothing but
desperation. She had her own settled view as to what would constitute
happiness for her boy, and she wanted to see him happy.
Hero wrote in the same courageous strain to Alistair himself. And she
enclosed a short note to Molly, asking permission as a cordial friend
of Lord Alistair’s to congratulate her on a step which she believed and
hoped would be for the happiness of them both.
When Molly got the letter, she was puzzled and rather alarmed.
“Is Miss Vanbrugh the girl your mother wanted you to marry?” she asked
her husband.
“Yes. But you see I married you instead,” was all Alistair said in
reply.
And Molly did not dare to question him further. She answered Hero’s
letter as ungraciously as she could, though her new sense of dignity
kept her within the bounds of formal civility. She hoped that this
would be the end of all intercourse in that quarter.
Neither Alistair nor his wife had any suspicion that their new
residence was within the charitable rounds of the Duchess of Trent.
The dwellers in Beers Cooperage were equally ignorant that their new
neighbour was her Grace’s son. They had soon given up the notion
that he was among them as a social or religious missionary, and now
cherished the exciting belief that he was in hiding from the police,
who would presently appear on the scene, and drag him off with all
dramatic circumstance.
Alistair had concealed his address from nobody; on the contrary, he had
taken pains to transmit it to the editor of every directory in which
his name was included. The ratification of his bankruptcy had left him
with a pleasing sense of freedom, and the sale of Molly’s furniture had
provided for present needs.
When the Duchess returned to Colonsay House, her first thought was for
Beers Cooperage. She dreaded a meeting with her daughter-in-law so
much that she was tempted to relinquish her visits to the little yard.
But a sense that it would be cowardly to make her poor friends suffer
on this account co-operated with some human curiosity to overcome her
repugnance. She decided to go to the Cooperage as usual, and take her
chance of meeting its new inmates.
Hero disappointed her friend by refusing to accompany her. She made it
her excuse that she intended to call on Lady Alistair, and did not wish
the compliment to be lessened by association with charitable visits.
She had another reason which she did not tell the Duchess. She feared
that Alistair’s mother was incapable of dealing tactfully with such
a woman as Molly Finucane. Indeed, she had shown herself little able
to deal with her own son. Hero was determined to be the friend of
both, and in order to be so she saw that she must not let herself be
identified with the Duchess.
Caroline delayed so long that it was Miss Vanbrugh who first made Lady
Alistair’s acquaintance.
She drove to the Cooperage in her father’s carriage at the fashionable
hour of the afternoon, walked up the yard without noticing its inmates,
except by a nod in passing, and knocked at the bright green door.
It was opened by Alistair himself, who could not restrain an
exclamation of pleasure.
“Is Lady Alistair at home?” Hero asked smilingly.
“You have come to call on her? That is good of you! She is upstairs; I
will fetch her down.”
Hero detained him by a gesture, as she whispered swiftly:
“Don’t tell her that it is good of me. Don’t praise me to her at all.
And leave us together.”
Alistair understood. He placed Hero in one of the Cromwellian
armchairs, and went upstairs wearing a look of indifference.
He found Molly seated on her bed, looking very fierce and flushed. Her
ladyship had inspected the visitor from overhead through the window,
and immediately prepared for battle.
“Who is she?” she demanded.
Alistair shrugged his shoulders with well-assumed carelessness.
“It’s Miss Vanbrugh, the girl who wrote to you, you know.”
“What has she come here for?”
“I suppose it’s a call. She asked if you were at home.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said yes. You hadn’t told me that you didn’t want to receive
callers.”
Molly felt herself baffled. She bit her lip, and looked hard at
Alistair.
“Our marriage was announced in the paper,” he said, pushing his
advantage. “That entitles my friends to call on you, I suppose. In
fact, it would be rather marked if they did not.”
“Your mother hasn’t called.”
“No. That is rather marked.”
Molly saw she was in a dilemma. She would have been glad to cut off all
further acquaintance between her husband and this girl, of whom she
had such good reason to be jealous. But Miss Vanbrugh’s visit offered
an opening into society, that respectable society which had been the
object of her ambition for so long. It was the first opening that had
presented itself, and it might very easily be the last.
Lady Alistair decided to sacrifice jealousy to ambition, and, like
other wives, to make her husband suffer for the sacrifice.
“You know that she has only come to see you,” she said.
“If you think so you can stay up here. I will go down and tell her that
you have a headache.”
“Yes, you would like that, wouldn’t you? Me to stay up here by myself,
while you and her enjoy yourselves without me! I shall come down.”
“You may do as you please. But if you imagine that Miss Vanbrugh or any
other lady would consent to stay and talk with the master of the house
while the mistress keeps out of the room, you have a good deal to pick
up.”
This speech produced an effect on Lady Alistair. She did not resent
receiving lessons in social etiquette.
“You want me as a chaperon, I suppose,” she grumbled, hastily touching
up her toilet and complexion.
“What nonsense! I doubt if I shall stay in the room. You must learn to
entertain your own visitors.”
Incredulous, but silenced, Molly descended and faced the enemy with a
warlike front.
At the first sight and speech of Hero she felt herself half disarmed.
The perfect sincerity, the clear nobility of nature, that shone in
Hero’s face, put every thought of vulgar jealousy instantly to shame.
This woman might be a rival, and a formidable one, in the sense that
a mother or a bachelor friend is the rival of a selfish wife, but she
would never be a rival in any other sense.
“Dear Lady Alistair, I am afraid I have been rather slow in calling,
but we have been abroad, and when we got back I found I had really
nothing to wear. What do you do for your autumn hats?”
One glance at the overdressed and bejewelled little woman had taught
Hero the way to her friendship. Once lured on to the ground of
millinery Molly became interested and animated before she knew it, and
Stuart found himself provided with a good excuse for slipping out of
the room.
The new Lady Alistair had expected to feel embarrassed in talking to
the first lady she had ever met, and she had prepared to carry off
her embarrassment by insolence. It was a surprise, and an agreeable
one, to find herself chatting easily and pleasantly with the new-comer
on topics that she thoroughly understood. Instead of being schooled
and patronized, it was she whose superior knowledge of fashions and
fashionable shops enabled her to impart information, and almost to
condescend.
Hero was not contented with this opening success. She wanted to be
Molly’s friend, and not merely to be friends with Molly.
“What a clever idea to take this little house!” she said, as soon as
the opportunity served. “And what a charming nest you have made of it!”
“It is rather poky,” said Lady Alistair, not quite sure whether her
visitor was speaking sincerely.
“Oh, but how cosy you must find it! Everybody loves cottages, but then
so few of us can afford to live in them. My father, for instance--of
course, as a working professional man he is obliged to consider the
opinion of his patients.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Molly assented. It made her quite gracious to
think that Miss Vanbrugh recognized her own social inferiority.
“I should not wonder if you set the fashion,” Hero pursued. “I am sure
there must be lots of people who are tired of flats.”
Molly was surprised by her visitor’s discernment.
“The Chevalier Vane, a friend of ours, talks of taking the cottage next
door,” she said, with satisfaction.
“That will be just the thing for you, won’t it? I know Lord Alistair
well enough to be sure that he wants plenty of society. I expect you
have hard work sometimes to find distractions for him.”
The hint sank into Molly’s mind. Frivolous and stupid as she was, she
was able to see that this new friend was giving her sound advice, and
she was not ungrateful for it. Alistair had married her, but whether he
would continue to live with her would depend a good deal on how far she
succeeded in making his home a pleasant one.
Poor Molly! She had caged her bird, but she had yet to see if she could
make it sing.
Hero would not go away till she had coaxed Molly into making tea. She
praised the furniture, the copper saucepans, the new cuckoo clock, the
absence of servants--everything about the house, till its mistress
began to think that she must be really a most enviable housewife. When
Alistair rejoined them over the tea, he found Molly in a better humour
than he ever remembered. And he was careful to do nothing to break the
charm.
As he escorted Hero down the yard to her carriage he thanked her
earnestly.
“Your visit has been like an angel’s--only let me hope there will be no
‘far between.’”
“I will come as often as I think your wife wishes me to,” was the
gentle answer. “Be sure you do nothing to make me unwelcome to her.”
The advice was not unnecessary. After Miss Vanbrugh had departed
Molly began to doubt whether she had done well in being so friendly.
She tried the experiment of disparaging the visitor to her husband,
watching him keenly to see the effect of her remarks. But Alistair was
on his guard, and only responded by shrugging his shoulders and saying:
“If you don’t like her you needn’t see any more of her. You have only
not to return the call, and the Vanbrughs will leave us alone. If you
do return it, I suppose they will ask us to dinner. Please yourself. As
long as you don’t interfere with my friendships I won’t interfere with
yours.”
The prospect of going to a real dinner-party--a dinner-party at which
ladies would be present--was a strong temptation to Molly. She decided
that the acquaintance must be kept up.
“Of course I shall return her call,” she said sharply. “What do you
take me for? Do you think I’m jealous of an ordinary girl like that,
who doesn’t even know where to get her gloves?”
During the next few days there was a perceptible change in Molly’s
behaviour towards her husband. She suggested his going to look up some
of his friends, and asked him to choose at what place they should dine.
It was in the midst of this effort of the little creature’s to be a
good wife to Alistair that Alistair’s mother came to see her.
Caroline had found her simple morality confused by the transformation
of Molly Finucane into Lady Alistair Stuart. Ordinarily the marriage
ceremony would have amounted in her view to a complete white-washing
of the sinner. It was the atonement prescribed by all her social and
religious canons. But this particular marriage concerned her as a
mother. She could not but view with jealousy an atonement made at her
son’s expense, and she found an excuse for condemnation in the fact
that the marriage had taken place in a registry office. The Duchess was
not so strong a Churchwoman as to deem it no marriage at all, but she
could, and did, regard it as something short of that reconciliation
with righteousness and respectability which a union blessed by the
Church would have been.
She could not forgive her son’s wife, but she could not quite condemn
her. In this frame of mind she made her way to Beers Cooperage one
morning before lunch, determined to give her first visit a neutral
character.
The appearance of the Duchess after an absence of so many weeks caused
a flutter of excitement in the little court, and all its inhabitants
hastened out of doors to greet her.
As it happened, Lady Alistair was in her house alone, and hearing the
sounds, she went to the window and looked out.
The spectacle of an elderly lady in old-fashioned black silk walking up
the yard amid the throng of her dependents told Molly nothing. It was
an entire surprise to see the visitor advance straight to her own door,
and to hear her say to the people thronging round her: “I am going in
here first. I will see you all again when I come out.”
In the absence of a servant, Molly was half inclined to let the visitor
knock in vain. But, after all, a visit paid at such an hour could
hardly be one of ceremony. Most likely the old thing wanted to ask her
for a subscription: she would surely not presume to talk religion to
her when she was informed of her rank.
Determined to put the intruder in her place at once, Molly went
leisurely to the door and threw it open.
“Do you want to see me?” she asked roughly.
Caroline gazed at the pretty painted face that she had brought herself
to believe had been her boy’s undoing, and there was not much relenting
in the gaze.
“Are you my son’s wife?” she returned, with gravity.
Molly was taken aback. The idea that this old person, evidently a
familiar figure in the court, should be the mother of Lord Alistair
quite confused her for an instant.
“Are you the Duchess of Trent?” she stammered, with a shamefaced
recollection of certain correspondence that had once passed between
them.
“I am Alistair’s mother,” was the response. “Is he here?”
“He has gone out,” said Molly. Then, realizing that she was standing in
the doorway, and that the interview was being watched by a number of
curious eyes, she drew aside hastily. “But won’t you come inside?”
“I will, thank you.”
The Duchess walked in with great deliberation, and seated herself,
upright and stately, in Molly’s own chair, exactly as she was
accustomed to do in one of her poor people’s cottages when about to
admonish a drunken husband or a slatternly wife. The poor people, who
knew that the lecture was really an excuse offered by the Duchess to
her own conscience for the forgiveness and solid kindness that were to
follow, always listened meekly enough. Unfortunately Molly did not know
anything except that she was on her defence. These court martial airs
roused her spirit, and she sailed across the room with a flushed face,
and cast herself down with insolent negligence on the settle.
“I have been a district visitor in this neighbourhood for some years.
I don’t know whether you were aware of it when you took this house.”
“No,” said Molly, “I wasn’t. But I don’t think I should have had any
objection.”
The Duchess frowned. She had come, not prepared to make peace, perhaps,
but disposed to entertain a truce. Now the enemy seemed not to desire
either peace or truce.
“I asked because I could not understand my son’s choice of such a
residence. Does he really mean to stay here?”
“You must ask him that. I suppose he will leave it when I do--not
before.”
The Duchess, routed from her own position, was obliged to accept
Molly’s.
“Why have you brought him here? Do you wish him to forfeit his place in
society altogether?”
“I don’t know what society you mean. Our friends are visiting us here
as usual, and they think the place charming. If it keeps away frumps
and bores, so much the better.”
Caroline was confounded. In her mind the common notions of her
generation on the subjects of piety, morality, and social propriety
were inextricably blended. Quite unconsciously to herself she had
included in her scheme for Alistair’s salvation the possession of a
big Cubitt-built house in Eaton Square, with menservants eating five
substantial meals a day in the basement, and doing little else; a
carriage and pair, conveying him and his wife to an endless round of
serious entertainments in other Cubitt-built houses, wherein similar
menservants ate similar meals; the directorship of some respectable
railway or insurance company to occupy his mind; a seat on a hospital
committee by way of good works; and, above all, a stately pew furnished
with red cushions and hassocks, in which he would be seen regularly
every Sunday morning, carrying the glossiest of silk hats and wearing
the straightest of frock-coats. No doubt she placed first of all
that spiritual change which she deemed necessary to all men, but she
believed that if Alistair were once converted all these other things
would be added unto him, and perhaps she also believed, without being
conscious of it, that if the other things were present the conversion
would be added.
Molly’s own ideal was really very similar. The Cubitt-built life was
the life for which she hankered with all a woman’s thirst for the envy
of other women. If the Duchess had known it she might have found in
Molly a much more trustworthy ally than in Hero Vanbrugh. But she was
never likely to know it. For her Molly embodied every evil influence
at work in Alistair’s life. The evil had triumphed, and the best that
could now be hoped for was some poor salvage from the wreck.
“What sort of friends?” she said, in answer to Molly’s last remarks. “I
am afraid my poor boy’s friendships have done him more harm than good.”
“His relations haven’t done much for him anyway.”
The two women regarded each other with unconcealed hostility as they
exchanged these retorts. It was a new experience for the Duchess to be
defied in this open fashion.
“I am afraid you must take the responsibility for that,” she said
severely. “His brother and I were both trying to save him, but you
prevented us.”
“How did I?”
“How? By marrying him, of course.”
“And why should that prevent your doing anything for him? I know! If he
had married your Miss Vanbrugh, as you wanted, the Duke would have paid
off his debts fast enough. Because he preferred me you wash your hands
of him in revenge.”
“He did not prefer you,” said the Duchess sternly. “He thought that
after living with you as he had done he was unfit to be the husband of
a good woman.”
It was a merciless stab, the stab of a mother fighting for her
offspring. For an instant Molly felt sick. Then, to the dismay of her
adversary, she burst into tears.
“You are a cruel, wicked woman to say a thing like that. You hate me
because I love Alistair, and you know that he loves me. What do you
want me to do?”
The Duchess’s conscience smote her. She sat there unable to make a
reply. After all, now that this wretched marriage had taken place, what
did she want Alistair’s wife to do?
Molly, unconscious of the difficulty, removed it by putting her
question in a different form.
“He came back to me of his own accord,” she sobbed. “I was living
here--with my brother--and he came and asked me to marry him. What
ought I to have done?”
“You knew that such a marriage would be his ruin. You ought to have
saved him from it, if you really did love him.”
“And what about me?” moaned the dejected Molly.
The Duchess felt a momentary shame.
“There are Homes,” she said, with hesitation, “where women who desire
to lead better lives are encouraged and trained to become useful
members of society.”
Molly sat up, and dashed away the tears that were making havoc of her
rouge and powder.
“And is that what you want to do to me? Put me into a reformatory, and
cut my hair, and make me go about in a grey dress and an apron, saying
‘Ma’am’ to a lot of old maids who are too ugly themselves for any man
to want them? and then get me a situation as a servant or something,
where I should always be patronized and watched to see that I didn’t
enjoy myself? No, thank you! I won’t go into your Home! I won’t--I
won’t!”
The Duchess rose to her feet slowly.
“Some other time, when you are calmer----” she began.
“I’m not going to be calm!” Molly cried fiercely. “And I’m not going to
be good either--not in your way. Why should I? Why should I pretend to
be ashamed of myself, and make long faces--repent, as you call it--to
please you? I don’t want your good opinion. I never asked for it. All
I want is for you to leave me alone. You think you are very good and
gracious, I dare say, to talk to a girl like me. I don’t see it. If you
really wanted to be kind, you would be kind to me now, as I am. It is
easy enough to forgive people when they have left off doing what you
don’t like; the thing is to forgive them while they are still doing
it. If I joined the Salvation Army, and wore a poke-bonnet, you would
have nothing to say against me. Bah! You’re like all the rest; I know
you. Get us to go down at your feet and be miserable, and then you take
credit for forgiving us. And that’s what you call Christianity!”
The Duchess had stumbled to the door and escaped before Molly lost her
breath.
Alistair’s mother tottered down the yard, too much agitated to remember
her pensioners, and Alistair’s wife lay on the high-art settle, with
the copper pans gleaming down at her, and wept as if her heart would
break.