CROSS-PURPOSES.
Mrs. Wylie had undertaken the task of reconciling Alice Huston and
her husband without any great hope of success. The widow's married
life had been an exceptionally happy one, but even in her case there
had been small drawbacks, mostly arising, it is true, from the
untoward work of fate, but, nevertheless, undoubted drawbacks, and
undeniably appertaining to married life.
It would have been hard to find two people less calculated to
assimilate satisfactorily than Alice and Alfred Huston; and yet there
was love between them.
The weak-minded soldier undoubtedly loved his wife: as for her, it
would be hard to give a reliable opinion. She was, I honestly
believe, one of those beautiful women who go through life without
ever knowing what love really is.
With another woman for his helpmate, Huston might reasonably have
been expected to reform his ways. With another husband, Alice might
have made a good and dutiful wife.
Assuredly the task that had fallen upon Mrs. Wylie's handsome
shoulders was not overburdened with hope. She was, however, of an
evenly sanguine temperament, and I think that it is such women as she
who help us men along in life--women who trust for the best, and work
for the best, without any high-flown ideals, without poetic notions
respecting woman's influence and woman's aid; who, in fact, are
desperately practical, and make a point of expecting less than they
might reasonably get.
Mrs. Wylie was by no means ignorant of the fact that a reconciliation
between such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Huston was not calculated to be
of a very permanent or deeply-rooted character; but she had lived a
good many years in a grade of society which delights to watch the
inner life of others. She had seen and heard of so many unsuitable
matches, which, having been consummated, had proved the wonderful
power of love. It is only the very young and inexperienced who shake
their heads upon hearing of an engagement, and prophesy unhappiness.
No man can tell to what end love is working. The wise are silent in
such matters, because there are some mistakes which lead to good, and
some wise actions of which the result is unmitigated woe.
The widow therefore held her peace, and set to work as if there could
be but one result to her efforts. She communicated with Alice Huston
in her hiding-place, with Captain Huston at the club of which he was
still a member, and with Trist by word of mouth. Brenda was, so to
speak, in the enemy's country. Her reports were therefore to be
received, but no acknowledgment could be made. In this respect she
was like a spy, because she was without instruction from
headquarters, and, nevertheless, had to act and report her action.
Her first and, indeed, only communication reached Mrs. Wylie the
morning after her interviews with Theo Trist and Captain Huston. It
was only a few words scribbled on the back of a visiting card, and
slipped into an envelope previously addressed and stamped:
'Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.'
Mrs. Wylie turned the card over and read the neatly-engraved name on
the other side. Then she read the words aloud, slowly and
thoughtfully, once more:
'Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.'
'Brenda knows,' reflected the practical woman of the world, 'that
Huston is jealous of Theo. She also knows that I am quite aware of
this jealousy. It would be unnecessary to warn me of it; therefore
this means that Brenda has discovered a fresh reason.'
She broke off her meditations at this point by rising almost
hurriedly, and walking to the window. For a considerable time she
watched the passing traffic; then she returned to the fire-place.
'Poor Brenda!' she murmured--'my poor Brenda! And ... Alice is so
silly!'
The connection between these two observations may be a trifle obscure
to the ordinary halting male intellect; but I think I know what Mrs.
Wylie meant.
Later on in the day she sent a note to Captain Huston, requesting him
to come and see her, and by the same messenger despatched a few words
to Theo Trist--her reserve force--forbidding him to come near.
'My reserves,' she said to herself as she closed the envelope
energetically, 'are thus rendered useless; but Brenda is reliable. I
must do as she tells me.'
Captain Huston received the widow's note at his club. It was only
eleven o'clock, and, consequently, there was plenty of time before he
need put in an appearance at Suffolk Mansions. He was an idle man,
and, like all idle men, fond of lounging about the streets gazing
abstractedly into shops, and getting generally into the way of such
foot-passengers as might have an object in their walk.
There is no haven for loungers in London except Piccadilly in the
morning, and to this spot the soldier turned his steps. After
inspecting the wares of a sporting tailor, he was preparing to cross
the road with a view of directing his course down St. James's Street,
when someone touched him on the shoulder.
Huston turned with rather more alacrity than is usually displayed by
a British gentleman with a clear conscience, and for some seconds
gazed in a watery manner at a fair, insipid face, ornamented by a
wondrous moustache. There was a peculiarity about this moustache
worth mentioning. Although an essentially masculine adornment, it,
in some subtle way, suggested effeminacy.
'Mr. ... eh ... Hicks,' murmured Huston vaguely, and without much
interest.
Hicks forgave magnanimously this Philistine want of appreciation.
'Yes, Captain Huston. How are you?'
'I? ... Oh! I'm all right, thanks.'
There was a faint suggestion of movement about the soldier's left leg
as if intimating a desire to continue on its way towards St. James's
Street; but this was ignored by Hicks in his own inimitable way.
'I caught sight of you the other day,' he said graciously; 'and I
also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Huston at Mrs. Wylie's.'
'Oh yes,' vaguely.
The soldier made a violent effort, pulled himself together, and
stepped into the road. The artist stepped with him, and,
furthermore, slipped his gloved hand within his companion's arm with
a familiar ease which seemed to say that they would live or die
together until the passage was safely accomplished.
'How _is_ Mrs. Huston?' inquired he when they had reached the
opposite pavement.
That lady's husband looked very stolid as he answered:
'Quite well, thanks.'
He mentally wriggled, poor fellow, and in sympathy his arm became
lifeless and repelling. Hicks removed his hand from the
unappreciative sleeve.
'Do you know,' he asked pleasantly, 'whether Trist happens to be in
town?'
Huston began to feel uncomfortable. He was afraid of this society
prig, and honestly wished to save his wife's name from the ready
tongue of slander.
'I don't,' he answered abruptly--'why?'
This sudden question in no way disconcerted Hicks, who met the
soldier's unsteady, and would-be severe, gaze with bland innocence.
'Because I happen to know a Russian artist who is very anxious to
meet him, that is all.'
'Ah! I have seen him since I came home, but I could not say where he
is now.'
If Hicks had been a really observant man (such as he devoutly
considered himself to be), he would have noticed that his companion
raised a gloved finger to his cheek, and tenderly pressed a slight
abrasion visible still just on the bone in front of the ear.
'He is generally to be heard of,' said the artist in that
innocently-significant tone which may mean much or nothing, according
to the acuteness or foreknowledge of the listener, '... he is
generally to be heard of at Suffolk Mansions. That is to say, when
Brenda is staying there.'
Captain Huston's dull eyes were for a moment actually endowed with
life. He stroked his drooping moustache, which was apparently placed
there by a merciful Providence for purposes of justifiable
concealment, and his moral attitude became visibly milder. He had
just begun to realize that his own private affairs might not, after
all, be of paramount importance to the whole of society.
'Is there,' he asked with military nonchalance, 'supposed to be
something between Trist and Brenda?'
Hicks laughed, and, before replying, waved his hand gracefully to a
friend in the stock-jobbing line, who had previously crossed the road
in order to be recognised by him in passing.
'Oh no,' he answered cheerfully; 'I did not mean that at all. Now
that I think of it, however, you were quite justified in taking it
thus. They have always been great friends--that was all I meant.
Their mothers were related, I believe.'
Captain Huston looked slightly disappointed. He did not, however,
display such eagerness to walk either faster or slower, or in some
other direction, now.
'Trist,' he observed as he opened his cigar-case sociably, 'is a
queer fellow. Have a cigar?'
'Oh, I never smoke, you know--never. No, thanks.'
The captain grunted, and put his case back with a suppressed sigh.
He had not known, but hoped. Then he waited for a reply to his
leading and ambiguous remark.
'Yes,' mused Hicks at length; 'he is. I dined with him the night he
left for the Servian frontier.'
This detail, interesting as it was, had but slight reference to the
general characteristics of Theodore Trist. Huston tried again after
he had lighted his cigar.
'One never knows where one has him.'
Hicks looked mildly sympathetic. He even gave the impression of
being about to look in his pockets on the chance of finding the
war-correspondent there.
'No; he is always on the move. I was once told that the Diplomatic
Corps call him the Stormy Petrel, because he arrives before the
hurricane.'
'And sits smiling on the top of the waves afterwards, while we poor
devils sink,' added the soldier with a disagreeable laugh.
'He has not the reputation of being a coward,' said Hicks, who
despised personal courage as a mere brute-like attribute.
The man of arms did not like the turn of the conversation.
'No; I believe not,' he said rather hurriedly, as if no man could be
a coward. 'What I don't like about him is a certain air of mystery
which he cultivates. It pleases the women, I suppose.'
'That,' suggested the other calmly, 'is probably part of his trade.
If he talked much there would be nothing original left in him to
write! All these diplomatic fellows get that peculiar reticence of
manner--a sort of want of frankness, as it were. That is the great
difference between art practised by the tongue, and art stimulated by
the eye and created for the pleasure of the eye.'
Huston looked at the burning end of his cigar with bibulous
concentration. He knew absolutely nothing about art, and cared less.
It is just possible that, in his hideous ignorance, he doubted the
purity of the pleasure vouchsafed by the pictorial productions of the
artist at his side.
'_We_,' continued Hicks, with a deprecating wave of the hand, 'can
always be frank. The bolder we are, the higher we aim, the ... eh
... the better.'
'Yes ... yes,' murmured Huston. 'But tell me--what made you think
that Trist was out of town?'
'Oh, nothing!' airily. 'Nobody stays in town at this time of the
year unless they can't help it; that is all! But I suppose these
newspaper men hardly think of the seasons. They do not seem to
realize the difference between summer and winter--between joyous
spring and dismal autumn. I saw a man sketching the other day in a
cold east wind on the Thames Embankment. He was only a "black and
white" man, you know; but he seemed to know something about drawing.
His fingers were blue.'
Like many weak-minded people, Alfred Huston was subject to sudden
fits of obstinacy. He felt now that Hicks wished to lead him away
from the subject originally under discussion, and in consequence was
instigated by a sudden desire to talk and hear more of Theodore Trist.
'That is another thing,' he said, 'about Trist that I do not like.
He pretends to despise personal discomfort. It is mere affectation,
of course, and on that account, perhaps, all the more aggravating.'
'Carried away by enthusiasm, I suppose?'
The soldier laughed.
'Trist never was carried away by anything. He sits on a box of
cartridges, and writes in that beastly note-book of his as if he were
at a review. If all his countrymen were being slaughtered round him
he would count them with his pencil and take a note of it.'
Hicks gave a few moments' careful attention to the curl of his
moustache. Then he glanced curiously at his companion's vacant
physiognomy. There was evidently some motive in this sudden attack
on Trist. Both these men distrusted the war-correspondent, but were
in no way prepared to test the value of that force which is said to
arise from union. They distrusted each other more.
Presently they parted, each absorbed in his own selfish fears as
before. Here, again, was Vanity and her hideous sister Jealousy. If
one of these be not found at the bottom of all human misery, I think
you will find the other. With these two men both motives were at
work. Each was jealous of Trist, and neither would confess his
jealousy to the other; while Vanity was wounded by the
war-correspondent's simple silence. He ignored them, and for that
they hated him. His own path was apparently mapped out in front of
him, and he followed it without ostentation, without seeking comment
or approbation.
William Hicks was, as Mrs. Wylie had said, finding his own level. He
was beginning to come under the influence of a vague misgiving that
his individuality was not such as commands the respect of the better
sort of women. In his own circle he was a demi-god; but the
gratification to be gathered from the worship of a number of
weak-kneed uncomely ladies was beginning to pall. In fact, he had
hitherto been intensely satisfied with the interesting creature
called William Hicks; but now there was a tiny rift within the lute
upon which he always played his own praises. He had not hitherto
realized that man is scarcely created for the purpose of being
worshipped by the weaker sex, and lately there had been in his mind a
vague desire to be of greater account among his fellow-men. Of
athletics, sport, or the more manly accomplishments he knew nothing;
indeed, he had up to this period despised them as the pastime of
creatures possessed of little or no intellect; now he was at times
troubled by a haunting thought that it would have been as well had he
been able to play lawn-tennis, to ride, or shoot, or row, or
drive--or even walk ten miles at a stretch. This was not the outcome
of any natural taste for healthy exercise, but a mere calculation
that such accomplishments carry with them a certain weight with
energetic and well-found young ladies. The curse of jealousy has a
singular way of opening our eyes, _mes frères_, to sundry small
shortcomings of which we were not aware before. When I saw Angelina,
for instance, dance with young Lightfoot in former days, my own
fantastic toes suddenly became conscious of clumsiness. Hicks was
jealous of Theodore Trist, and while, in a half-hearted way,
despising the sturdy philosopher's soldier-like manliness, he could
not help feeling that Brenda Gilholme admired Trist for this same
quality. He was fully satisfied that he was in every other way a
superior man to the war-correspondent, although the latter had made a
deep mark upon the road he had selected to travel; but he wished,
nevertheless, that he himself could assume at times the quiet
strength of independence that characterized Trist's thoughts and
actions.
The young artist was celebrated in his own circle--that is to say,
among a certain coterie of would-be artistic souls, whose talents ran
more into words than into action. They admired each other aloud, and
themselves with a silent adoration wonderful to behold. Most of them
possessed sufficient means to live an idle, self-indulgent life in a
small way. Such pleasures as they could not afford were conveniently
voted unprofitable and earthly. They hung upon the outskirts of the
best society, and were past-masters in the art of confusing the terms
'having met' and 'knowing' as applied to living celebrities. Among
them were artists who had never exhibited a picture, authors who had
never sold a book, and singers who had never faced an audience. The
vulgar crowd failed to appreciate them, and those who painted and
sold, wrote and published, sang and made money, tolerantly laughed at
them. Hicks was clever enough to know that his mind was in reality
of a slightly superior order, and weak enough to value its
superiority much more highly than it deserved. He was undoubtedly a
clever fellow in his way, but a moderate income and a doting mother
had combined to kill in him that modicum of ambition which is
required to make men push forward continuously in the race of life.
Had he been compelled to work for his daily bread, he might have been
saved from the clutches of London society; but as a rising young
artist, with pleasant manners and some social accomplishments, he was
received with open arms, and succumbed to the enervating round of
so-called pleasure. He continued to be 'rising,' but never rose.
Hicks did not confess deliberately to himself that he was in love
with Brenda Gilholme, but he made no pretence of ignoring the fact
that she occupied in his thoughts a place quite apart. He respected
her, and in that lay the great difference. The unkempt and
strangely-attired damsels who were pleased to throw themselves
mentally at his feet were not such as command respect. In his heart
he despised them a little; for contempt is invariably incurred by
affectation of any description.
And so each went on his way--the idle soldier, the vain artist, and
the absorbed journalist, each framing his life for good or
evil--pressing upward, or shuffling down, according to his bent;
each, no doubt, peering ahead, as sailors peer through rime and mist,
striving to penetrate the blessed veil drawn across the future. Ah!
Let us, my brothers, thank God that, despite necromancer, astrologer,
thought-reader, or chiromancer, we know absolutely nothing of what is
waiting for us in the years to come. Could we raise that veil, life
would be hell. Could we see the end of all our aims, our ambitions,
our hopes, and our 'long, long thoughts,' there would be few of us
courageous enough to go on with this strange experiment called human
existence. Could we see the end, no faith, no dogma, no _fanaticism_
even, would have power to prevent us questioning the existence of the
Almighty, because we could never reconcile the beginning to that end.
The question would rise before us continuously: 'If such was to be
the end, why was the beginning made?' And turn this question as you
will, explain it as you may, it is ever a question. The only
safeguard is suppression. The question is not asked because life is
so slow that the beginning is almost forgotten in the climax; and
while we live through the earlier chapters, the last volume is
inexorably closed.