SISTER
In the contest rageing at mid-sea still between the man and the woman,
it is the one who is hard to the attractions of the other that will make
choice of the spot and have the advantages. A short time earlier Lord
Ormont could have marked it out at his leisure. He would have been
unable to comprehend why it was denied him to do so now; for he was
master of himself, untroubled by conscience, unaware, since he was
assured of his Aminta's perfect safety and his restored sense of
possession, that any taint of softness in him had reversed the condition
of their alliance. He felt benevolently the much he had to bestow, and
was about to bestow. Meanwhile, without complicity on his part, without
his knowledge, yet absolutely involving his fate, the battle had gone
against him in Aminta's breast.
Like many of his class and kind, he was thoroughly acquainted with the
physical woman, and he took that first and very engrossing volume of
the great Book of Mulier for all the history. A powerful wing of
imagination, strong as the flappers of the great Roc of Arabian story,
is needed to lift the known physical woman even a very little way up
into azure heavens. It is far easier to take a snap-shot at the psychic,
and tumble her down from her fictitious heights to earth. The mixing of
the two make nonsense of her. She was created to attract the man, for an
excellent purpose in the main. We behold her at work incessantly. One is
a fish to her hook; another a moth to her light. By the various arts
at her disposal she will have us, unless early in life we tear away
the creature's coloured gauzes and penetrate to her absurdly simple
mechanism. That done, we may, if we please, dominate her. High priests
of every religion have successively denounced her as the chief enemy.
To subdue and bid her minister to our satisfaction is therefore a right
employment of man's unperverted superior strength. Of course, we keep
to ourselves the woman we prefer; but we have to beware of an uxorious
preference, or we are likely to resemble the Irishman with his wolf, and
dance imprisoned in the hug of our captive.
For it is the creature's characteristic to be lastingly awake, in her
moments of utmost slavishness most keenly awake to the chances of the
snaring of the stronger. Be on guard, then. Lord Ormont had been on
guard then and always: his instinct of commandership kept him on guard.
He was on guard now when his Aminta played, not the indignant and the
frozen, but the genially indifferent. She did it well, he admitted.
Had it been the indignant she played, he might have stooped to cajole
the handsome queen of gypsies she was, without acknowledgement of
her right to complain. Feeling that he was about to be generous, he
shrugged. He meant to speak in deeds.
Lady Charlotte's house was at the distance of a stroller's half-hour
across Hyde Park westward from his own. Thither he walked, a few
minutes after noon, prepared for cattishness. He could fancy that he had
hitherto postponed the visit rather on her account, considering that
he would have to crush her if she humped and spat, and he hoped to be
allowed to do it gently. There would certainly be a scene.
Lady Charlotte was at home.
'Always at home to you, Rowsley, at any hour. Mr. Eglett has driven down
to the City. There 's a doctor in a square there's got a reputation for
treating weak children, and he has taken down your grand-nephew Bobby to
be inspected. Poor boy comes of a poor stock on the father's side. Mr.
Eglett would have that marriage. Now he sees wealth isn't everything.
Those Benlews are rushlights. However, Elizabeth stood with her father
to have Robert Benlew, and this poor child 's the result. I wonder
whether they have consciences!'
My lord prolonged the sibilation of his 'Yes,' in the way of
absent-minded men. He liked little Bobby, but had to class the boy
second for the present.
'You have our family jewels in your keeping, Charlotte?'
'No, I haven't,--and you know I haven't, Rowsley.' She sprang to arms,
the perfect porcupine, at his opening words, as he had anticipated.
'Where are the jewels?'
'They're in the cellars of my bankers, and safe there, you may rely on
it.'
'I want them.'
'I want to have them safe; and there they stop.'
'You must get them and hand them over.'
'To whom?'
'To me.'
'What for?'
'They will be worn by the Countess of Ormont'
'Who 's she?'
'The lady who bears the title.'
'The only Countess of Ormont I know of is your mother and mine, Rowsley;
and she's dead.'
'The Countess of Ormont I speak of is alive.'
Lady Charlotte squared to him. 'Who gives her the title?'
'She bears it by right.'
'Do you mean to say, Rowsley, you have gone and married the woman since
we came up from Steignton?'
'She is my wife.'
'Anyhow, she won't have our family jewels.'
'If you had swallowed them, you'd have to disgorge.'
'I don't give up our family jewels to such people.'
'Do you decline to call on her?'
'I do: I respect our name and blood.'
'You will send the order to your bankers for them to deliver the jewels
over to me at my house this day.'
'Look here, Rowsley; you're gone cracked or senile. You 're in the hands
of one of those clever wenches who catch men of your age. She may catch
you; she shan't lay hold of our family jewels: they stand for the honour
of our name and blood.'
'They are to be at my house-door at four o'clock this afternoon.'
'They'll not stir.'
'Then I go down to order your bankers and give them the order.'
'My bankers won't attend to it without the order from me.'
'You will submit to the summons of my lawyers.'
'You're bent on a public scandal, are you?'
'I am bent on having the jewels.'
'They are not yours; you 've no claim to them; they are heirlooms in our
family. Things most sacred to us are attached to them. They belong to
our history. There 's the tiara worn by the first Countess of Ormont.
There 's the big emerald of the necklace-pendant--you know the story of
it. Two rubies not counted second to any in England. All those diamonds!
I wore the cross and the two pins the day I was presented after my
marriage.'
'The present Lady Ormont will wear them the day she is presented.'
'She won't wear them at Court.'
'She will.'
'Don't expect the Lady Ormont of tradesmen and footmen to pass the Lord
Chamberlain.'
'That matter will be arranged for next season. Now I 've done.'
'So have I; and you have my answer, Rowsley.' They quitted their chairs.
'You decline to call on my wife?' said the earl.
Lady Charlotte replied: 'Understand me, now. If the woman has won you
round to legitimize the connection, first, I've a proper claim to see
her marriage lines. I must have a certificate of her birth. I must have
a testified account of her life before you met her and got the worst of
it. Then, as the case may be, I 'll call on her.
'You will behave yourself when you call.'
'But she won't have our family jewels.'
'That affair has been settled by me.'
'I should be expecting to hear of them as decorating the person of one
of that man Morsfield's mistresses.'
The earl's brow thickened. 'Charlotte, I smacked your cheek when you
were a girl.'
'I know you did. You might again, and I wouldn't cry out. She travels
with that Morsfield; you 've seen it. He goes boasting of her. Gypsy or
not, she 's got queer ways.'
'I advise you, you had better learn at once to speak of her
respectfully.'
'I shall have enough to go through, if what you say's true, with
questions of the woman's antecedents and her people, and the date of the
day of this marriage. When was the day you did it? I shall have to give
an answer. You know cousins of ours, and the way they 'll be pressing,
and comparing ages and bawling rumours. None of them imagined my brother
such a fool as to be wheedled into marrying her. You say it's done,
Rowsley. Was it done yesterday or the day before?'
Lord Ormont found unexpectedly that she struck on a weak point. Married
from the first? Why not tell me of it? He could hear her voice as if she
had spoken the words. And how communicate the pell-mell of reasons?
'You're running vixen. The demand I make is for the jewels,' he said.
'You won't have them, Rowsley--not for her.'
'You think of compelling me to use force?'
'Try it.'
'You swear the jewels are with your bankers?'
'I left them in charge of my bankers, and they've not been moved by me.'
'Well, it must be force.'
'Nothing short of it when the honour of our family's concerned.'
It was rather worse than the anticipated struggle with this Charlotte,
though he had kept his temper. The error was in supposing that an hour's
sharp conflict would settle it, as he saw. The jewels required a siege.
'When does Eglett return?' he asked.
'Back to lunch. You stay and lunch here, Rowsley we don't often have
you.'
The earl contemplated her, measuring her powers of resistance for a
prolonged engagement. Odd that the pride which had withdrawn him from
the service of an offending country should pitch him into a series of
tussles with women, for its own confusion! He saw that, too, in his dim
reflectiveness, and held the country answerable for it.
Mr. Eglett was taken into confidence by him privately after lunch.
Mr. Eglett's position between the brother and sister was perplexing;
habitually he thought his wife had strong good sense, in spite of the
costliness of certain actions at law not invariably confirming his
opinion; he thought also that the earl's demand must needs be considered
obediently. At the same time, his wife's objections to the new Countess
of Ormont, unmasked upon the world, seemed very legitimate; though it
might be asked why the earl should not marry, marrying the lady who
pleased him. But if, in the words of his wife, the lady had no claim to
be called a lady, the marriage was deplorable. On the other hand, Lord
Ormont spoke of her in terms of esteem, and he was no fondling dotard.
How to compromise the matter for the sake of peace? The man perpetually
plunged into strife by his combative spouse, cried the familiar question
again; and at every suggestion of his on behalf of concord he heard from
Lady Charlotte that he had no principles, or else from Lord Ormont that
his head must be off his shoulders.
The man for peace had the smallest supply of language, and so, unless he
took a side and fought, his active part was football between them.
It went on through the afternoon up to five o'clock. No impression was
betrayed by Lady Charlotte.
She congratulated her brother on the recruit he had enlisted. He
smiled his grimmest of the lips drawn in. A combat, perceptibly of some
extension, would soon give him command of the man of peace; and energy
to continue attacks will break down the energies of any dogged defensive
stand.
He deferred the discussion with his unreasonable sister until the
next day at half-past twelve o'clock. Lady Charlotte nodded to the
appointment. She would have congratulated herself without irony on the
result of the first day's altercation but for her brother Rowsley's
unusual and ominous display of patience. Twice during the wrangle she
had to conceal a difficult breathing. She felt a numbness in one arm
now it was over, and mentally complimented her London physician on the
unerringness of his diagnosis. Her heart, however, complained of
the cruelty of having in the end, perhaps, if the wrangle should be
protracted, to yield, for sheer weakness, without ceasing to beat.