“My niece is staying with us, Israel,” said Mr. Gascoyne one afternoon
as he was leaving the office. “Will you dine with us on Friday
evening?”
I said I should be delighted. Mr. Gascoyne and his wife had stayed at
the Grange till the summer was almost over, and I knew that Miss
Gascoyne was going to shut the house up for the winter, and that there
was a possibility of her selling it in the spring.
She looked very stately and beautiful in her deep mourning, and was
evidently glad to see me. We were together for fully a quarter of an
hour before Mr. and Mrs. Gascoyne came down, and she talked quite
freely and unconstrainedly of her brother.
The more I saw of her, the more I was struck by her absolute lack of
pose in any small acceptation of the word. It positively gave me a
sense of personal dignity to be with her.
“I am thinking of selling the Grange,” she said. “So long as there was
my brother it seemed to me a certain sort of duty that the offshoots
of a great family should keep up an appearance and have a fair country
residence.” Then she smiled. “I am afraid, however, that my views are
changing. I don’t look upon the Gascoynes as quite such great people
as I used to do, though I still think that if one bears a great name
one owes it a duty.”
“I am half a Jew,” I said, boldly, “and as an Oriental I have a great
respect for caste and authority.”
“Do you think that is why the Jews succeed so well?”
“Yes; their chief aim is to remain at peace with the powers that be,
and as Orientals they are satisfied that authority in this country
abuses its privileges very little. They have no craving for more
liberty.”
“They are a curious race.”
“I am not a Jew by religion, you know. I was baptised a Christian.”
She smiled.
“I don’t wish to be rude, but is that as far as your Christianity has
reached?”
“My mother was a very religious woman. That is, she tested everything
by her conscience, and always held that that was an unfailing
standard.”
It was really quite wonderful on what a high platform I could conduct
a conversation.
Mr. and Mrs. Gascoyne came in, and we went to dinner. The affection
that had arisen between these two women was quite extraordinary, and
it was surprising to see Miss Gascoyne yielding to her aunt something
of the deference of a daughter, although I am certain she would have
rejected the insinuation that she could ever put anyone in the place
of the mother she had idolised.
The conversation turned on the Gascoyne family.
“Do you know,” said Mr. Gascoyne, “I was quite astonished to find how
near our friend Israel is to the succession.”
It was an awkward remark, and Mr. Gascoyne evidently felt it to be so
as soon as he had made it. The subject was allowed to drop at the
moment, but Mr. Gascoyne revived it when we were alone.
“I can’t think how I came to make such a foolish remark, Israel. It
cannot have failed to remind them both of what you have gained by
their loss.”
This was exactly what I feared.
“I cannot be said to have gained much. Lord Gascoyne has a son and
heir.”
“Let us consider. If Lord Gascoyne and his son were to die, you
succeed as heir to your mother; that is, of course, when the two Henry
Gascoynes, Ughtred, and myself, are out of the way—and none of us
count for much. You see, the succession does not reach the female heir
till it has been carried down to the last male heir. Rather hard on
the women of the female lines, but so it is.”
“I am afraid, sir, it will be my lot to drudge along in the City all
my life.”
“You are not the sort of person who ends as a drudge, Israel. Besides,
go on as you are doing, and who knows what may happen.”
I guessed by the intonation of his voice that he was considering
whether he should tell me more of his intentions.
When we returned to the drawing-room I played and sang to them till
late, and left the house high in the good graces of both women. From
that moment my position in the house at South Kensington became a much
more intimate one. Even two women as independent by nature as Mrs.
Gascoyne and her niece found it pleasant and convenient to have a
young man about who was ready to take so much trouble off their hands.
This was, of course, not so apparent till the first months of mourning
were over, but when Miss Gascoyne, who was devoted to music and art,
began to go to concerts and picture-galleries I was very useful.
I learned that Lord and Lady Gascoyne had called on Mrs. Gascoyne and
her niece, and that the three were going to dine with them.
I sincerely hoped that my name would not be mentioned, as I had no
wish for the head of the family to know of my existence till I had
decided on my plan of action.
I had been inquiring cautiously about Ughtred Gascoyne, and had made a
point of coming across him several times in the districts he haunted.
He was a very good-looking man, with apparently no such mentality as
provoked restlessness. He enjoyed his life thoroughly, for all I could
see. He had been in the Guards. He had also sat in the House of
Commons for a limited period, and had utterly declined to repeat the
experiment. In fact, the two ventures, together with a short period of
Court life, had in his own eyes been activity enough, and he had
settled down to a life of ease. Having a good income of his own, and
being welcome at Hammerton as often as he chose to go there, existence
was altogether a pleasant affair. Still, fifty-five is young for a man
nowadays, and he might very well marry and have a whole family of
children. Selfish and apparently confirmed bachelors do very often in
middle age perform a complete right-about-face, and end up as the
benignant fathers of a whole troop of boys and girls. Ughtred Gascoyne
had now arrived at that age when a man may by some such shock as
hearing himself described as “that old bore” be driven into matrimony.
At present there did not seem to be much chance of it. There was a
woman in his life, however. She was an actress, Catherine Goodsall, a
woman of birth, who moved in very good society, and who, being neither
a great tragedienne nor a great comedienne, managed to earn a salary
larger than could be achieved by cleverer and more legitimate artistes
on account of the extraordinary _chic_ and distinction she could
import into the delineation of smart society women. She was so much
the real thing, so entirely free from the metallic artificiality of
the usual impersonator of such characters, that managers sought her
continually.
She had a husband somewhere, poor soul, a man who had been in the
Navy, a blackguard who had been untrue to the dearest traditions of
the British tar by laying his hand on a female otherwise than in the
way of kindness; in fact, he had beaten her, and Ughtred Gascoyne had
thrashed him, and, strange to relate, the wife had been grateful.
The husband had then disappeared. She had been unable to obtain a
divorce, but society, recognising the plucky way in which she had
managed to earn her own living, accepted her intimate friendship with
Ughtred Gascoyne for the innocent affair it pretended to be.
Her position, perhaps, had also something to do with the fact that she
had a keen tongue and a ready wit. Her tongue would have been a weapon
to be dreaded had it not been that she had the superlatively rare
quality of using it with discretion. Her somewhat unique social
position earned her the envy of her fellow artistes, the majority of
whom retain such footing as they have in society on sufferance, their
insecurity by no means being caused by their profession; for, were it
not for their calling, the majority of the theatrical sisterhood, even
of the higher ranks, would still be moving in their own proper
slatternly or suburban circles.
Perhaps it would be possible to reach the Honourable Ughtred through
her. She was not above the weakness common to most women of fashion of
possessing a craving for new male friends. I chose an opportunity when
Ughtred Gascoyne was out of town to obtain an introduction to her.
This was not a difficult matter. I kept my eyes on the advertisements
of charitable performances and bazaars to which she was very generous
in contributing her services. A bazaar would be the thing, being the
sort of entertainment at which it was fairly easy to force an
introduction.
I had not long to wait. She was announced to hold a stall at a
fashionable bazaar. The particular object of it I forget, but I
remember that it was at a town-hall a mile or two from Piccadilly
Circus. She had charge of a photographic stall, and I had my
photograph taken in such a variety of positions that long before the
operation was over, and aided by the mention of one or two mutual
friends, we had become sufficiently acquainted for me to remain and
help her. Nothing, as I had calculated, could have been more likely to
bring about a rapid intimacy, and before I left I had been asked to go
and see her.
She had a small house on the north side of the Park, and I made up my
mind to call on Sunday afternoon, but before that day I received a
note asking me to come to lunch.
“A great many people drop in on Sunday afternoon in the winter,” she
said when I arrived. “I should probably see nothing of you, and new
friends always interest me. People think that a bad trait, don’t they,
whereas it is nothing of the kind.”
“It certainly is not. It shows a progressive mind—that is, if there is
no premature protestation.”
“Exactly. New friends should have just as many fresh points of
interest as, say, a picture-gallery. I love to watch new temperaments;
they blaze and change like sunsets.”
“You are quite right; but I hope this does not infer that you tire of
your friends easily.”
“Not of the residuum. The majority pass, of course. One would miss an
immense amount of good comradeship if everything which cannot be
lasting is to be avoided.”
“You are not fickle?”
“Not in the least. We all have our inner sanctuary, and consequently
we have our esoteric and exoteric friendships, and the lookers-on make
mistakes as to which is which.”
“That is very true. There is nothing in which people are so much
deceived about each other as in their emotions. Human nature is so
much more many-sided than the world is willing to admit.”
“You believe that the good are not as good as they would have us
believe, nor the bad as bad?”
“Exactly.”
She was a woman worth talking to, and I roused myself.
“It can be demonstrated. Goodness is largely a question of having
aptitude for the latest conventions.”
“Demonstrate,” she challenged, and then added: “Personally, I feel it,
but have not the proof to hand.”
I took up the challenge easily.
“For instance, in ancient Sparta, thieving was a virtue and cowardice
a crime. Nowadays, a coward may get along very well, but a thief would
probably come to grief very soon. So it is with many other things.”
“You think that a criminal may make a charming member of society, a
good husband and father?”
I winced. The conversation was extracting opinions from me which were
just as well concealed, but I answered frankly:
“I am sure of it.”
“So am I.”
I continued whimsically:
“Don’t you think society would be much happier if, instead of these
horrible punishments and immurings, people who had been convicted of a
crime should be compelled to wear some outward sign that they were not
to be trusted in that particular direction? It should be treated as a
disease, not as a disgrace.”
“A little difficult to enforce, eh?”
“Not at all. We should all be up in arms if Brown came to lunch
without the governmental mark that he was not to be trusted with forks
and spoons, and without the least acrimony we should call in a
policeman who would correct the matter.”
“It might be carried still further, and people might be obliged to
wear the evidence of their particular moral failing.”
“Everybody would lie, and which do you think would be the most popular
hypocrisy?”
“In England, drink; because in the eyes of the average citizen of this
country it would carry with it the least shame.”
“Well said; but to my mind there is no vice which is not preferable,
and yet people will shake a drunkard by the hand when they would
shrink from a criminal of the emotions.”
We both agreed that this was ridiculous. I had not been in the house
an hour before I realised that she was a very charming woman, and that
she was sincerely in love with Ughtred Gascoyne.
She harped a good deal on friendship, as if to exaggerate her sense of
its value, and send the hearer away with the notion that a pure
friendship between man and woman was her ideal.
I have, however, always had a keen instinct for the subtleties of
female deception, and I was fully alive to the trend of her
dissertations on friendship. They were the weapons she kept constantly
in use for the defence of her character. She need not have been so
careful, for the attacks and insinuations on her reputation were far
fewer than she imagined. She was one of the chartered exceptions to
the general demands of propriety. These exceptions exist to a certain
degree, even in the most straight-laced society. She made some witty
remark about the suburbs, that never-failing topic for the jests of
those who consider themselves the elect of the social citadel of
Mayfair.
“I am a suburban,” I answered. “I was brought up in Clapham.”
“You hardly suggest the suburbs,” she answered, unabashed.
“Oh, believe me, there are people of distinction in the suburbs.”
“Of course; only, one must have one’s little joke about them.
Personally, I always tell my friends that they must not be too sure
that they are free from the parochial because they dwell within hail
of Piccadilly Circus.”
“Still, I think that, after all, the Londoner has a quickness and
intelligence denied to the provincial, don’t you?”
“Yes, to the provincial, but not necessarily to the inhabitants of
greater London. The guttersnipe of Manchester is a very stupid
creature after your Cockney urchin.”
We went upstairs and talked until her regular coterie dropped in.
Sir Anthony Cross, whom I had met at Lady Pebworth’s, was one of the
first to arrive. He did not like me, but, to my surprise, drew me into
a corner.
“Do you remember, Rank, that evening the Pebworths and ourselves went
to the Gaiety?”
“Perfectly.”
“You bowed to an awfully pretty woman in the stalls. She was with a
good-looking bounder.”
I knew perfectly well whom he meant, of course; but, as he paused for
me to refresh my memory, I looked puzzled.
“You must remember—an extraordinarily pretty woman.”
I still looked blank.
“Surely you must remember. A fair woman with fluffy hair and enormous
blue eyes, but not a bit dolly, like most fair women. Rather a large
mouth.”
“Oh yes; I think I remember.”
“Well, I fancy she’s married to that man.”
“If it’s the girl I think you mean, she is married to him. Her name is
Sibella Holland.” It was not very well-bred to call Lionel Holland a
bounder without first finding out if he was a friend of mine.
“What a ripping name! They’ve got a flat below mine. I should very
much like to know them.”
“Do you want me to introduce you?”
Considering that Sir Anthony had gone out of his way on more than one
occasion to be rude to me, I could not help thinking that there was a
certain insolence in his obvious readiness to make use of me. If he
intended doing so, however, I should certainly return the compliment.
“I am obliged to hurry away now, but that’s my address. I am usually
at home between six and seven.”
I gave him a card and said good-bye.
I had promised to spend the evening with the Gascoynes. I was making
immense strides with their niece, and I fancy that both Mr. and Mrs.
Gascoyne were a little surprised at our having so much in common.