by Basil King
CHAPTER VII
As a matter of fact, that was all Mrs. Rossiter and I did say. I was sorelieved at not being thrown out of house and home on the instant that Iwent back to Gladys and her lisping in French almost cheerily. You willthink me pusillanimous--and I was. I didn't want to go to Mrs. Applegateand the Home for Working-Girls. As far as food and shelter wereconcerned I liked them well enough where I was. I liked Mrs. Rossitertoo. I should be sorry to give the impression that she was superciliousor unkind. She was neither the one nor the other. If she betrayed littlesentiment or sympathy toward me, it was because of admitting me intothat feminine freemasonry in which the emotional is not called for. Imight suffer while she remained indifferent; I might be killed on thespot while she wouldn't shed a tear; and yet there was a heartless,good-natured, live-and-let-live detachment about her which left me withnothing but good-will.
Then, too, I knew that when I married Hugh she would do nothing of herown free will against me. She would not brave her father's decree, butshe wouldn't be intolerant; she might think Hugh had been a fool, butwhen she could do so surreptitiously she would invite him and me todinner.
As this was a kind of recognition in advance, I could not be otherwisethan grateful.
It made waiting for Hugh the easier. I calculated that if he enteredinto some sort of partnership with his cousin Andrew Brew--I didn't inthe least know what--we might be married within a month or two. Atfurthest it might be about the time when Mrs. Rossiter removed to NewYork, which would make it October or November. I could then slip quietlyback to Halifax, be quietly married, and quietly settle with Hugh inBoston. In the mean time I was glad not to be disturbed.
I spent, therefore, a pleasant morning with my pupil, and ate a pleasantlunch, watching from the gable window of the school-room the greatpeople assemble in the breakfast loggia in honor of the Marquise dePompadour's mother. I am not sure that old Madame Poisson ever went tocourt; but if she did I know the courtiers must have shown her just suchdeference as that which Mrs. Rossiter's guests exhibited to thiswithered old lady with the hooked nose and the lorgnette.
I was curious about the whole entertainment. It was not the only one ofthe kind I had seen from a distance since coming to Mrs. Rossiter, and Icouldn't help comparisons with the same kind of thing as done in theways with which I was familiar. Here it was less a luncheon than it wasan exquisite thing on the stage, rehearsed to the last point. InEngland, in Canada, luncheon would be something of a friendly haphazard,primarily for the sake of getting food, secondly as a means to ascrambling, jolly sort of social intercourse, and hardly at all aceremonial. Here the ceremonial came first. Hostess and guests seemedalike to be taking part in a rite of seeing and being seen. The food,which was probably excellent, was a matter of slight importance. Thesocial intercourse amounted to nothing, since they all knew one anotherbut too well, and had no urgent vitality of interests in any case. Therite was the thing. Every detail was prepared for that. Silver,porcelain, flowers, doilies, were of the most expensive and the mostcorrect. The guests were dressed to perfection--a little too well,according to the English standard, but not too well for a function. As afunction it was beautiful, an occasion of privilege, a proof ofattainment. It was the best thing of its kind America could show. Thosewho had money could alone present the passport that would give the rightof admission.
If I had a criticism to make, it was that the guests were too muchalike. They were all business men, and the wives or widows of businessmen. The two or three who did nothing but live on inherited incomes werebusiness men in heart and in blood. Granted that in the New World thebusiness man must be dominant, it was possible to have too much of him.Having too much of him lowered the standard of interest, narrowed thecircle of taste. In the countries I knew the business man might bepresent at such a festivity, but there would be something to give himcolor, to throw him into relief. There would be a touch of the creativeor the intellectual, of the spiritual or the picturesque. The companywouldn't be all of a gilded drab. There would be a writer or a painteror a politician or an actor or a soldier or a priest. There would besomething that wasn't money before it was anything else. Here there wasnothing. Birds of a feather were flocking together, and they were allparrots or parrakeets. They had plumage, but no song. They drove out thethrushes and the larks and the wild swans. Their shrill screeches andhoarse shouts came up in a not wholly pleasant babel to the open windowwhere I sat looking down and Gladys hovered and hopped, wondering ifThomas, the rosy-cheeked footman, would remember to bring us some of theleft-over ice-cream.
I thought it was a pity. With elements as good as could be foundanywhere to form a Society--that fusion of all varieties of achievementto which alone the word written with a capital can be applied--there wasno one to form it. It was a woman's business; and for the role ofhostess in the big sense the American woman, as far as I could judge,had little or no aptitude. She was too timid, too distrustful ofherself, too much afraid of doing the wrong thing or of knowing thewrong people. She was so little sure of her standing that, as Mrs.Rossiter expressed it, she could be "queered" by shaking hands withLibby Jaynes. She lacked authority. She could stand out in a throng byher dress or her grace, but she couldn't lead or combine or co-ordinate.She could lend a charming hand where some one else was the Lady Hollandor the Madame de Stael, but she couldn't take the seeminglyheterogeneous types represented by the writer, the painter, thepolitician, the actor, the soldier, the priest, and the business man andweld them into the delightful, promiscuous, entertaining whole to befound, in its greater or lesser degree, according to size or importanceof place, almost anywhere within the borders of the British Empire. Icame to the conclusion that this was why there were few "great houses"in America and fewer women of importance.
It was why, too, the guests were subordinated to the ceremonial. Itcouldn't be any other way. With flint and steel you can get a spark; butwhere you have nothing but flint or nothing but steel, friction producesno light. The American hostess, in so far as she exists, rarely hopesfor anything from the clash of minds, and therefore centers herattention on her doilies. It must be admitted that she has the mosttasteful doilies in the world. There is a pathos in the way in which,for want of the courage to get interesting human specimens together, shespends her strength on the details of her rite. It is like the instinctof women who in default of babies lavish their passion on little dogs.One can say that it is _faute de mieux_. _Faute de mieux_ was, I amsure, the reason why Ethel Rossiter took her table appointments withwhat seemed to me such extraordinary seriousness. When all was said anddone it was the only real thing to care about.
I repeat that I thought it was a pity. I had dreams, as I looked down,of what I could do with the same use of money, the same position ofcommand. I had dreams that the Brokenshires accepted me, that Hugh cameinto the means that would be his in the ordinary course. I saw myselfstanding at the head of the stairway of a fine big house in Washingtonor New York. People were streaming upward, and I was shaking hands witha delightful, smiling _desinvolture_. I saw men and women of all theranks and orders of conspicuous accomplishment, each contributing agift--some nothing but beauty, some nothing but wit, some nothing butmoney, some nothing but position, some nothing but fame, some nothingbut national importance. The Brokenshire clan was there, and theBillings and the Grays and the Burkes; but statesmen and diplomatists,too, were there, and those leaders in the world of the pen and the brushand the buskin of whom, oddly enough, I saw Larry Strangways, with hiseternal defensive smile, emerging from the crowd as chief. I was wearingdiamonds, black velvet, and a train, waving in my disengaged hand aspangled fan.
From these visions I was roused by Gladys, who came prancing from thestair-head.
"_V'la, Mademoiselle! V'la Thomas et le ice-cream!_"
Having consumed this dainty, we watched the company wander about theterraces and lawns and finally drift away. I was getting Gladys readyfor her walk when Thomas, with a pitying expression on his boyish face,came back to say t
hat Mr. Brokenshire would like to speak with medown-stairs.
I was never so near fainting in my life. I had barely the strength togasp, "Very well, Thomas, I'll come," and to send Gladys to her nurse.Thomas watched me with his good, kind, sympathetic eyes. Like the otherservants, he must have known something of my secret and was on my side.I called him the _bouton de rose_, partly because his clean, pink cheekssuggested a Killarney breaking into flower, and partly because in hiswaiting on Gladys and me he had the yearning, care-taking air of afatherly little boy. Just now he could only march down the passage aheadof me, throw open the door of my bedroom as if he was lord chamberlainto a queen, and give me a look which seemed to say, "If I can be yourliege knight against this giant, pray, dear lady, command me." I threwhim my thanks in a trumped-up smile, which he returned with such sweetencouragement as to nearly unman me.
I stayed in my room only long enough to be sure that I was neat,smoothing my hair and picking one or two threads from my white-linensuit. The suit had scarlet cuffs and a scarlet belt, and as there was ascarlet flush beneath my summer tan, like the color under the glaze of aChinese jar, I could see for myself that my appearance was notineffective.
The _bouton de rose_ was in waiting at the foot of the stairs as I camedown. Through the hall and the dining-room he ushered me royally; but asI came out on the breakfast loggia my royalty stopped with what I canonly describe as a bump.
The guests had gone, but the family remained. The last phase of thedetails of the rite were also on the table. All the doilies were there,and the magnificent lace centerpiece which Mrs. Rossiter had at varioustimes called on me to admire. The old Spode dessert service was the moredimly, anciently brilliant because of the old polished oak, and so werethe glasses and finger-bowls picked out in gold.
Mr. Brokenshire, whom I had seen from my window strolling with someladies on the lawn, had returned to the foot of the table, opposite tothe door by which I came out, where he now sat in a careless, sidewiseattitude, fingering his cigar. Old Mrs. Billing, who was beside him onhis right, put up her lorgnette immediately I appeared in the entrance.Mrs. Rossiter had dropped into a chance chair half-way down the table onthe left; but Mrs. Brokenshire, oddly enough, was in that same seat inthe far corner to which she had retreated on the occasion of mysummoning ten days before. I wondered whether this was by intention orby chance, though I was presently to know.
Terrified though I was, I felt salvation to lie in keeping a certaindignity. I made, therefore, something between a bow and a courtesy,first to Mr. Brokenshire, then to Mrs. Billing, then to Mrs. Rossiter,and lastly to Mrs. Brokenshire, to whom I raised my eyes and looked allthe way diagonally across the loggia. I took my time in making thesefour distinct salutations, though in response I was only stared at.After that there was a space of some seconds in which I merely stood, inmy pose of _Ecce Femina_!
"Sit down!"
The command came, of course, from J. Howard. The chair to which I hadonce before been banished being still in its corner, I slipped into it.
"I wished to speak to you, Miss--a--Miss--"
He glanced helplessly toward his daughter, who supplied the name.
"Ah yes. I wished to speak to you, Miss Adare, because my son has beenacting very foolishly."
I made my tone as meek as I could, scarcely daring to lift my eyes fromthe floor. "Wouldn't it be well, sir, to talk to him about that?"
Mrs. Billing's lorgnette came down. She glanced toward her son-in-law asthough finding the point well taken.
He went on imperturbably. "I've said all I mean to say to him. Mypresent appeal is to you."
"Oh, then this is an--appeal?"
He seemed to hesitate, to reflect. "If you choose to take it so," headmitted, stiffly.
"It surely isn't as I choose to take it, sir; it's as you choose tomean."
"Don't bandy words."
"But I must use words, sir. I only want to be sure that you're making anappeal to me, and not giving me commands."
He spoke sharply. "I wish you to understand that you're inducing a youngman to act in a way he is going to find contrary to his interests."
I could barely nerve myself to look up at him. "If by the 'young man'you mean Mr. Hugh Brokenshire, then I'm inducing him to do nothingwhatever; unless," I added, "you call it an inducement that I--I"--I wasbound to force the word out--"unless you call it an inducement that Ilove him."
"But that's it," Mrs. Rossiter broke in. "That's what my father means.If you'd stop caring anything about him you wouldn't give himencouragement."
I looked at her with a dim, apologetic smile. It was a time, I felt, tospeak not only with more courage, but with more sentiment than I wasaccustomed to use in expressing myself.
"I'm afraid I can't give my heart, and take it back, like that."
"I can," she returned, readily. She spoke as if it was a matter ofcracking her knuckles or wagging her ears. "If I don't want to like aperson I don't do it. It's training and self-command."
"You're fortunate," I said, quietly. Why I should have glanced again atMrs. Brokenshire I hardly know; but I did so, as I added: "I've had notraining of that kind--and I doubt if many women have."
Mrs. Brokenshire, who was gazing at me with the same kind of fascinatedstare as on the former occasion, faintly, but quite perceptibly,inclined her head. In this movement I was sure I had the key to themystery that seemed to surround her.
"All this," J. Howard declared, magisterially, "is beside the point. Ifyou've told my son that you'd marry him--"
"I haven't."
"Or even given him to understand that you would--"
"I've only given him to understand that I'd marry him--on conditions."
"Indeed? And would it be discreet on my part to inquire the terms you'vebeen kind enough to lay down?"
I pulled myself together and spoke firmly. "The first is that I'll marryhim--if his family come to me and express a wish to have me as a sisterand a daughter."
Old Mrs. Billing emitted the queer, cracked cackle of a hen when itcrows, but she put up her lorgnette and examined me more closely. EthelRossiter gasped audibly, moving her chair a little farther round in mydirection. Mrs. Brokenshire stared with concentrated intensity, butsomehow, I didn't know why, I felt that she was backing me up.
The great man contented himself with saying, "Oh, you will!"
I ignored the tone to speak with a decision and a spirit I was far fromfeeling.
"Yes, sir, I will. I shall not steal him from you--not so long as he'sdependent."
"That's very kind. And may I ask--"
"You haven't let me tell you my other condition."
"True. Go on."
I panted the words out as best I could. "I've told him I'd marry him--ifhe rendered himself independent; if he earned his own money and became aman."
"Ah! And you expect one or the other of these miracles to take place?"
"I expect both."
Though the words uttered themselves, without calculation or expectationon my part, they gave me so much of the courage of conviction that Iheld up my head. To my surprise Mrs. Billing didn't crow again or somuch as laugh. She only gasped out that long "Ha-a!" which proclaimsthe sporting interest, of which both Hugh and Ethel Rossiter had told mein the morning.
Mr. Brokenshire seemed to brace himself, leaning forward, with his elbowon the table and his cigar between the fingers of his raised right hand.His eyes were bent on me--fine eyes they were!--as if in kindlyamusement.
"My good girl," he said, in his most pitying voice, "I wish I could tellyou how sorry for you I am. Neither of these dreams can possibly cometrue--"
My blood being up, I interrupted with some force. "Then in that case,Mr. Brokenshire, you can be quite easy in your mind, for I should nevermarry your son." Having made this statement, I followed it up by saying,"Since that is understood, I presume there's no object in my staying anylonger." I was half rising when his hand went up.
"Wait. We'll tell you when to go. You haven't
yet got my point. PerhapsI haven't made it clear. I'm not interested in your hopes--"
"No, sir; of course not; nor I in yours."
"I haven't inquired as to that--but we'll let it pass. We're bothapparently interested in my son."
I gave a little bow of assent.
"I said I wished to make an appeal to you."
I made another little bow of assent.
"It's on his behalf. You could do him a great kindness. You could makehim understand--I gather that he's under your influence to some degree;you're a clever girl, I can see that--but you could make him understandthat in fancying he'll marry you he's starting out on a task in whichthere's no hope whatever."
"But there is."
"Pardon me, there isn't. By your own showing there isn't. You've laiddown conditions that will never be fulfilled."
"What makes you say that?"
"My knowledge of the world."
"Oh, but would you call that knowledge of the world?" I was swept alongby the force of an inner indignation which had become reckless."Knowledge of the world," I hurried on, "implies knowledge of the humanheart, and you've none of that at all." I could see him flush.
"My good girl, we're here to speak of you, not of me--"
"Surely we're here to speak of us both, since at any minute I choose Ican marry your son. If I don't marry him it's because I don't choose;but when I do choose--"
Again the hand went up. "Yes, of course; but that's not what we wantspecially to hear. Let us assume, as you say, that you can marry my sonat any time you choose. You don't choose, for the reason that you'reastute enough to see that your last state would be worse than the first.To enter a family that would disown you at once--"
I kept down my tone, though I couldn't master my excitement. "That's notmy reason. If I don't marry him it's precisely because I have the power.There are people--cowards they are at heart, as a rule--who because theyhave the power use it to be insolent, especially to those who areweaker. I'm not one of those. There's a _noblesse oblige_ that compelsone in spite of everything. In dealing with an elderly man, who Isuppose loves his son, and with a lady who's been so kind to me as Mrs.Rossiter--"
"You've been hired, and you're paid. There's no special call forgratitude."
"Gratitude is in the person who feels it; but that isn't what Ispecially want to say."
"What you specially want to say apparently is--"
"That I'm not afraid of you, sir; I'm not afraid of your family or yourmoney or your position or anything or any one you can control. If Idon't marry Hugh, it's for the reason that I've given, and for no other.As long as he's dependent on your money I shall not marry him till youcome and beg me to do it--and that I shall expect of you."
He smiled tolerantly. "That is, till you've brought us to our knees."
I could barely pipe, but I stood to my guns. "If you like theexpression, sir--yes. I shall not marry Hugh--so long as you supporthim--till I've brought you to your knees."
If I expected the heavens to fall at this I was disappointed. All J.Howard did was to lean on his arm toward Mrs. Billing and talk to herprivately. Mrs. Rossiter got up and went to her father, entering alsointo a whispered colloquy. Once or twice he glanced backward to hiswife, but she was now gazing sidewise in the direction of the house andover the lines of flowers that edged the terraces.
When Mrs. Rossiter had gone back to her seat, and J. Howard had raisedhimself from his conversation with Mrs. Billing, he began again toaddress me tranquilly:
"I hoped you might have sympathized with my hopes for Hugh, and havehelped to convince him how useless his plans for a marriage between himand you must be."
I answered with decision: "No; I can't do that."
"I should have appreciated it--"
"That I can quite understand."
"And some day have shown you that I'm acting for your good."
"Oh, sir," I cried, "whatever else you do, you'll let my good be my ownaffair, will you not?"
I thought I heard Mrs. Billing say, "Brava!" At any rate, she tapped herfingers together as if in applause. I began to feel a more lenientspirit toward her.
"I'm quite willing to do that," my opponent said, in a moderate,long-suffering tone, "now that I see that you refuse to take Hugh's goodinto consideration. So long as you encourage him in his presentmadness--"
"I'm not doing that."
He took no notice of the interruption. "--I'm obliged to regard him asnothing to me."
"That must be between you and your son."
"It is. I'm only asking you to note that you--ruin him."
"No, no," I began to protest, but he silenced me with a movement of hishand.
"I'm not a hard man naturally," he went on, in his tranquil voice, "butI have to be obeyed."
"Why?" I demanded. "Why should you be obeyed more than any one else?"
"Because I mean to be. That must be enough--"
"But it isn't," I insisted. "I've no intention of obeying you--"
He broke in with some haste: "Oh, there's no question of you, my dearyoung lady. I've nothing to do with you. I'm speaking of my son. He mustobey me, or take the consequences. And the consequences will last aslong as he lives. I'm not one to speak rashly, or to speak twice. Sothat's what I'm putting to you. Do you think--do you honestlythink--that you're improving your position by ruining a man who sooneror later--sooner rather than later--will lay his ruin at your door andloathe you? Come now! You're a clever girl. The case is by no meansbeyond you. Think, and think straight."
"I am thinking, sir. I'm thinking so straight that I see right throughyou. My father used to say--"
"No reminiscence, please."
"Very well, then; we'll let the reminiscence go. But you're thinking ofcommitting a crime, a crime against Hugh, a crime against yourself, acrime against love, every kind of love--and that's the worst crime ofall--and you haven't the moral courage to shoulder the guilt yourself;you're trying to shuffle it off on me."
"My good woman--"
But nothing could silence me now. I leaned forward, with hands claspedin my lap, and merely looked at him. My voice was low, but I spokerapidly:
"You're talking to bewilder me, to throw dust in my eyes, to snare meinto taking the blame for what you're doing of your own free act. It's akind of reasoning which some girls would be caught by, but I'm not oneof them. If Hugh is ruined in the sense you mean, it's his father whowill ruin him--but even that is not the worst. What's worst, what'sdastardly, what's not merely unworthy of a man like you but unworthy ofany man--of anything that calls itself a male--is that you, with allyour resources of every kind, should try to foist your responsibilitiesoff on a woman who has no resources whatever. That I shouldn't havebelieved of any of your sex--if it hadn't happened to myself."
But my eloquence left him as unmoved as before. He whispered with Mrs.Billing. The old lady was animated, making beats and lunges with herlorgnette.
"So that what it comes to," he said to me at last, lifting himself upand speaking in a tired voice, "is that you really mean to pit yourselfagainst me."
"No, sir; but that you mean to pit yourself against me." Somethingcompelled me to add: "And I can tell you now that you'll be beaten inthe end."
Perhaps he didn't hear me, for he rose and, stooping, carried on hisdiscussion with Mrs. Billing. There was a long period in which no onepaid any further attention to my presence; in fact, no one paid anyattention to me any more. To my last words I expected some retort, butnone came. Ethel Rossiter joined her father at the end of the table, andwhen Mrs. Billing also rose the conversation went on _a trois_. Mrs.Brokenshire alone remained seated and aloof.
But the moment came when her husband turned toward her. Not having beendismissed, I merely stood and looked on. What I saw then passed quickly,so quickly that it took a minute of reflection before I could put twoand two together.
Having taken one step toward his wife, Howard Brokenshire stood still,abruptly, putting his hand suddenly to the left side of his
face. Hiswife, too, put up her hand, but palm outward and as if to wave him back.At the same time she averted her face--and I knew it was his eye.
It was over before either of the other two women perceived anything.Presently, all four were out on the grass, strolling along in a littlechattering group together. My dismissal having come automatically, asyou might say, I was free to go.