by Basil King
CHAPTER XVI
Having made up my mind to adhere, however imperfectly, to the principlethat had guided me hitherto, I was obliged to examine my conscience asto what I had said to Mr. Brokenshire. This I did in the evening, comingto the conclusion that I had told him nothing but the truth, even if itwas not all the truth. Though I hated duplicity, I couldn't see that Ihad a right to tell him all the truth, or that to do so would be wise.If he could be kept, for everybody's sake, from knowing more than heknew already, however much or little that was, it seemed to me thatdiplomatic action on my part would be justified.
In the line of diplomatic action I had before all things to inform Mrs.Brokenshire of the visit I had received. This was not so easy as it mayseem. I could not trust to a letter, through fear of its falling intoother hands than hers. Neither could I wait for her coming on thefollowing Tuesday, since that was what I wanted to prevent. There was nointermediary whom I could intrust with a message, unless it was LarryStrangways, who knew something of the facts; but even with him thesecret was too much to share.
In the end I had recourse to the telephone, asking to be allowed tospeak to Mrs. Brokenshire. I was told that she never answered thetelephone herself, and was requested to transmit my message. Not toarouse suspicion, I didn't ask that she should break her rule, butbegged that during the day she might find a minute in which to see MissAdare, who was in a difficulty that involved her work. That this way ofputting it was understood I gathered from the reply that came back tome. It was to the effect that as Mr. Brokenshire would be lunching withsome men in the lower part of New York Mrs. Brokenshire would be aloneand able to receive Miss Adare at two. Fortunately, it was a Saturday,so that my afternoon was free.
Almost everybody familiar with New York knows the residence of J. HowardBrokenshire not far above the Museum. Built of brick with stone facings,it is meant to be in the style of Louis Treize. It would be quite in thestyle of Louis Treize were the stonework not too heavy and elaborate,and the facade too high for its length. Inside, with an incongruity manyrich people do not mind, it is sumptuously Roman and Florentine--theBrokenshire villa at Newport on a larger and more lavish scale. Havinggone over the house with Ethel Rossiter during the winter I spent withher, I had carried away the impression of huge unoccupied rooms, ofheavily carved or gilded furniture, of rich brocades, of dim old mastersin elaborate gold frames, of vitrines and vases and mirrors andconsoles, all supplied by some princely dealer in _objets d'art_ who hadreceived _carte blanche_ in the way of decoration. The Brokenshirefamily, with the possible exception of Mildred, cared little for thethings with which they lived. Ethel Rossiter, in showing me over thehouse, hardly knew a Perugino from a Fragonard, and still less could shedistinguish, between the glorious fading softness of a Flemishfifteenth-century tapestry and a smug and staring bit of Gobelins. Hughwent in and out as indifferently as in a hotel, while Jack Brokenshire'staste in art hardly reached beyond racing prints. Mildred liked prettygarlanded things _a la_ Marie Antoinette, which the parental habit ofdeciding everything would never let her have. J. Howard alone made aneffort at knowing the value, artistic and otherwise, of his possessions,and would sometimes, when strangers were present, point to this or thatobject with the authority of a connoisseur, which he was not.
It was a house for life in perpetual state, with no state to maintain.Stafford House, Holland House, Bridgewater House, to name but a few ofthe historic mansions in London, were made spacious and splendid to meeta definite necessity. They belonged to days when the feudal traditionstill obtained and there were no comfortable hotels. Great lords came tothem with great families and great suites of retainers. Accommodationbeing the first of all needs, there was a time when every corner ofthese stately residences was lived in. But now that in England the greatlord tends more and more to be only a simple democratic individual, andthe wants of his relatives are easily met on a public or co-operativeprinciple, the noble Palladian or Georgian dwelling either becomes amuseum or a club, or remains a white elephant on the hands of some onewho would gladly be rid of it. Princes and princesses of the blood royalrent numbered houses in squares and streets, next door to the Smiths andthe Joneses, in preference to the draughty grandeurs of St. James's andBuckingham Palace, while a villa in the suburbs, with a few trees and agarden, is often the shelter sought by the nobility.
But in proportion as civilization in England, to say nothing of therest of Europe, puts off the burdensome to enjoy simplicity, America, itstrikes me, chases the tail of an antiquated, disappearing stateliness.Rich men, just because they have the money, take upon their shouldershuge domestic responsibilities in which there is no object, and which itis probable the next generation will refuse to carry. In New York, inWashington, in Newport, in Chicago, they raise palaces and chateauxwhere they often find themselves lonely, and which they can rarely fillmore than two or three times a year. In the case of the HowardBrokenshires it had ceased to be as often as that. After Ethel wasmarried Mr. Brokenshire seldom entertained, his second wife having noheart for that kind of display. Now and then, in the course of a winter,a great dinner was given in the great dining-room, or the music-room wasfilled for a concert; but this was done for the sake of "killing off"those to whom some attention had to be shown, and not because eitherhost or hostess cared for it. Otherwise the down-stairs rooms weresilent and empty, and whatever was life in the house went on in a cornerof the mansard.
Thither the footman took me in a lift. Here were the rooms--a sort offlat--which the occupants could dominate with their personalities. Theyreminded me of those tiny chambers at Versailles to which what was humanin poor Marie Antoinette fled for refuge from her uncomfortablegorgeousness as queen.
Not that these rooms were tiny. On the contrary, the library orliving-room into which I was ushered was as large as would be found inthe average big house, and, notwithstanding its tapestries and massivefurniture, was bright with sunshine and flowers. Books lay about, andpapers and magazines, and after the tomb-like deadness of the lowerfloors one got at least the impression of life.
From the far end of the room Mrs. Brokenshire came forward, threadingher way between arm-chairs and taborets, and looking more exquisite, andalso more lost, than ever. She wore what might be called a glorified_negligee_, lilac and lavender shading into violet, the train adding toher height. Fear had to some degree blotted out her color and puttrouble into the sweetness of her eyes.
"Something has happened," she said at once, as she took my hand.
I spoke as directly as she did, though a little pantingly.
"Yes; Mr. Brokenshire came to the library yesterday."
"Ah-h!" The exclamation was no more than a long, frightened breath."Then that explains things. I saw when he came home to dinner that hewas unhappy."
"Did he say anything?"
"No; nothing. He was just--unhappy. Sit down and tell me."
Staring wide-eyed at each other, we seated ourselves on the edge of twohuge arm-chairs. Having half expected my companion to fling the gauntletin her husband's face, I was relieved to find in her chiefly the dreadof detection.
As exactly as I could I gave her an account of what had passed betweenMr. Brokenshire and myself, omitting only those absurd suggestions of myown that had sent him away in dudgeon. She listened with no moreinterruption than a question or two, after which she said, simply:
"Then, I suppose, I can't go any more."
"On the contrary," I corrected, "you must come just the same as ever,only not on the same days, or at the same hours--or--or when there's anyone else there besides the visitors and me. If you stopped coming all ofa sudden Mr. Brokenshire would think--"
"But he thinks that already."
"Of course, but he doesn't know--not after what I said to him." I seizedthe opportunity to beg her to play up. "You are all the things I toldhim you were, dear Mrs. Brokenshire, don't you see you are?"
But my appeal passed unheeded.
"What made him suspect? I thought that would be the las
t thing."
"I don't know. It might have been a lot of things. Once or twice I'verather fancied that some of the people who came there--"
Her features contracted in a spasm of horror.
"You don't mean detect--" She found the word difficult to pronounce."You don't mean de-detectives watching--me?"
"I don't say as much as that; but I've never liked Mr. Brokenshire'sman, Spellman."
"No, nor I. He's out now. I made sure of that before you came."
"So he might have sent some one; or-- But it's no use speculating, isit? when there are so many ways. What we've specially got to know is howto act, and I think I've told you the best method. If you don't keepcoming--judiciously--you'll show you're conscious of having done wrong."
She sighed plaintively.
"I don't want to do wrong unless I can't help it. If I can't--"
"Oh, but you can." I tried once more to get in my point. "You wouldn'tbe all I told Mr. Brokenshire you were if your first instinct wasn't todo right."
"Oh, right!" She sighed again, but impatiently. "You're always talkingabout that."
"One has to, don't you think, when it's so important--and so easy to dowrong?"
She grew mildly argumentative.
"I don't see anything so terrible about wrong, when other people do itand are none the worse."
"May not that be because you've never tried it on your own account? Itdepends a little on the grain of which one's made. The finer the grain,the more harm wrong can do to it--just as a fragile bit of Venetianglass is more easily broken than an earthenware jug, and an infinitelygreater loss."
But the simile was wasted. From long contemplation of her hands shelooked up to say in a curiously coaxing tone:
"You live at the Hotel Mary Chilton, don't you?"
I caught her suggestion in a flash, and decided that I could let it gono further.
"Yes, but you couldn't come there--unless it was only to see me."
"But what shall I do?"
It was a kind of cry. She twisted her ringed fingers, while her eyesimplored me to help her.
"Do nothing," I said, gently, and yet with some severity. "If you doanything do just as I've said. That's all we've got to know for thepresent."
"But I must see him. Now that I've got used to doing it--"
"If you must see him, dear Mrs. Brokenshire, you will."
"Shall I? Will you promise me?"
"I don't have to promise you. It's the way life works. If we only trustto events--and to whatever it is that guides events--and--and doright--I must repeat it--then the thing that ought to be will shape itscourse--"
"Ah, but if it doesn't?"
"In that case we can know that it oughtn't to be."
"I don't care whether it ought to be or not, so long as I can go onseeing him--somewhere."
I had enough sympathy with her to say:
"Yes, but don't plan for it. Let it take care of itself and happen insome natural way. Isn't it by mapping out things for ourselves that weoften thwart the good that would otherwise have come to us? I rememberreading somewhere of a lady who wrote of herself that she had beenhealed of planning, and spoke of it as a real cure. That struck me as sosensible. Life--not to use a greater word--knows much better what's goodfor us than we do ourselves."
She allowed this theme to lapse, while she sat pensive.
"What shall I say," she asked at last, "if he brings the subject up?"
I saw another opportunity.
"What can you say other than what I've said already? You came to mebecause you were sorry for me, and you wanted to help Hugh. He mightregret that you should do both, but he couldn't blame you for either.They're only kindnesses--and we're all at liberty to be kind. Oh, don'tyou see? That's your--how shall I put it?--that's your line if Mr.Brokenshire ever speaks to you."
"And suppose he tells me not to go to see you any more?"
"Then you must stop. That will be the time. But not now when the merestopping would be a kind of confession--"
And so, after many repetitions and some tears on both our parts, thelesson was urged home. She was less docile, however, when in the spiritof our new compact she came on the following Monday morning.
"I must see him," was the burden of what she had to say. She spoke as ifI was forbidding her and ought to lift my veto. I might even haveinferred that in my position in Mr. Grainger's employ it was for me toarrange their meetings.
"You will see him, dear Mrs. Brokenshire--if it's right," was the onlyanswer I could find.
"You don't seem to remember that I was to have married him."
"I do, but we both have to remember that you didn't."
"Neither did I marry Mr. Brokenshire. I was handed over to him. WhenLady Mary Hamilton was handed over in that way to the Prince of Monacothe Pope annulled the marriage. We knew her afterward in Budapest,married to some one else. If there's such a thing as right, as you're sofond of saying, I ought to be considered free."
I was holding both her hands as I said:
"Don't try to make yourself free. Let life do it."
"Life!" she cried, with a passionate vehemence I scarcely knew to be inher. "It's life that--"
"Treat life as a friend and not as an enemy. Trust it; wait for it.Don't hurry it, or force it, or be impatient with it. I can't believethat essentially it's hard or cruel or a curse. If it comes from God, itmust be good and beautiful. In proportion as we cling to the good andbeautiful we must surely get the thing we ought to have."
Though I cannot say that she accepted this doctrine, it helped her overa day or two, leaving me free for the time being to give my attention tomy own affairs. Having no natural stamina, the poor, lovely littlecreature lived on such mental and spiritual pick-me-ups as I was able toadminister. Whenever she was specially in despair, which was everyforty-eight or sixty hours, she came back to me, and I did what I couldto brace her for the next short step of her way. I find it hard toexplain the intensity of her appeal to me. I suppose I must havesubmitted to that spell of the perfect face which had bewitched StacyGrainger and Howard Brokenshire. I submitted also to her child-likehelplessness. God knows I am not a heroine. Any little fright ordifficulty upsets me. As compared with her, however, I was a giantrefreshed with wine. When her lip quivered, or when the sudden mistdrifted across her eyes, obscuring their forget-me-not blue with violet,my yearning was exactly that which makes any woman long to take anysuffering baby in her arms. For this reason she didn't tax my patience,nor had I that impulse to scold or shake her to which another woman ofsuch obvious limitations would have driven me. Touched as I was by theaching heart, I was captivated by the perfect face; and I couldn't helpit.
Thus through the rest of February and into March my chief occupation wasin keeping Howard Brokenshire's wife as true to him as the conditionsrendered possible. In the intervals I comforted Hugh, and beat off LarryStrangways, and sat rigidly still while Stacy Grainger prowled round mewith fierce, suspicious, melancholy eyes, like those of a cowed tiger.Afraid of him as I was, it filled me with grim inward amusement todiscover that he was equally afraid of me. He came into the libraryfrom time to time, when he happened to be at his house, and like Mrs.Brokenshire gave me the impression that the frustration of their lovewas my fault. As I sat primly and severely at my desk, and he stalkedround and round the room, stabbing the old gentleman who classifiedprints and the lady who collated the early editions of Shakespeare withcontemptuous glances, I knew that in his sight I represented--poorme!--that virtuous respectability the sinner always holds in scorn. Hecould not be ignorant of the fact that if it hadn't been for me Mrs.Brokenshire would have been meeting him elsewhere, and so he held me asan enemy. Had he not known that I was something besides an enemy hewould doubtless have sent me about my business.
In one of the intervals of this portion of the drama I received a visitthat took me by surprise. Early in the afternoon of a day in March, Mrs.Billing trotted into the library, followed by Lady Cecilia Boscobel. Itwas the sort of
occasion on which I should have been nervous enough inany case, but it became terrifying when Mrs. Billing marched up to mydesk and pointed at me with her lorgnette, saying over her shoulder,"There she is," as though I was a portrait.
I struggled to my feet with what was meant to be a smile.
"Lady Cecilia Boscobel," I stammered, "has seen me already."
"Well, she can look at you again, can't she?"
The English girl came to my rescue by smiling back, and murmuring afaint "How do you do?" She eased the situation further by saying, with acrisp, rapid articulation, in which every syllable was charminglydistinct: "Mrs. Billing thought that as we were out sight-seeing wemight as well look at this. It's shown every day, isn't it?"
She went on to observe that when places were shown only on certain daysit was so tiresome. One of her father's places, Dillingham Hall, inNottinghamshire, an old Tudor house, perfectly awful to live in, wasopen to the public only on the second and fourth Wednesdays, and eventhe family couldn't remember when those days came round. It was soawkward to be doing your hair, or worse, and have tourists stumbling inon you.
I counted it to the credit of her tact and kindliness that she chattedin this way long enough for me to get my breath, while Mrs. Billingturned her lorgnette on the room with which she must have once beenfamiliar. If there was to be anything like rivalry between Lady Cissieand me I gathered that she wouldn't stoop to petty feminine advantages.Dressed in dark green, with a small hat of the same color worndashingly, she had that air of being the absolutely finished thing whichthe tones of her voice announced to you. My heart grew faint at thethought that Hugh would have to choose between this girl, so certain ofherself, and me.
As we were all standing, I invited my callers to sit down. To this LadyCecilia acceded, though old Mrs. Billing strolled off to renew heracquaintance with the room. I may say here that I call her old becauseto be old was a kind of pose with her. She looked old and "dressed old"so as to enjoy the dictatorial privileges that go with being old, whenas a matter of fact she was only sixty, which nowadays is young.
"You're English, aren't you?" Lady Cecilia began, as soon as we werealone. "I can tell by the way you speak."
I said I was a Canadian, that I was in New York more or less byaccident, and might go back to my own country again.
"How interesting! It belongs to us, Canadia, doesn't it?"
With a slightly ironic emphasis on the proper noun I replied thatCanadia naturally belonged to the Canadians, but that the King of GreatBritain and Ireland was our king, and that we were very loyal to allthat we represented.
"Fancy! And isn't it near here?"
All of Canada, I stated, was north of some of the United States, andsome of it was south of others of the United States, but none of themore settled parts was difficult of access from New York.
"How very odd!" was her comment on these geographical indications. "Ithink I remember that a cousin of ours was governor out there--orsomething--though perhaps it was in India."
I named the series of British noblemen who had ruled over us since theconfederation of the provinces in 1867, but as Lady Cecilia's kinsmanwas not among them we concluded that he must have been Viceroy of Indiaor Governor-General of Australia.
The theme served to introduce us to each other, and lasted while Mrs.Billing's tour of inspection kept her within earshot.
I am bound to admit that I admired Lady Cecilia with an envy that mightbe qualified as green. She was not clever and she was not well educated,but her high breeding was so spontaneous. She so obviously belonged tospheres where no other rule obtained. Her manner was the union of polishand simplicity; each word she pronounced was a pleasure to the ear. Inmy own case life had been a struggle with that American-Canadiancrudity which stamps our New World carriage and speech with commonness;but you could no more imagine this girl lapsing from the even tenor ofthe exquisite than you could fancy the hermit thrush failing in itssong.
When Mrs. Billing was quite at the other end of the room my companion'smanner underwent a change. During a second or two of silence her eyesfell, while the shifting of color over the milk-whiteness of her skinwas like the play of Canadian northern lights. I was prepared for thefact that beneath her poise she might be shy, and that, being shy, shewould be abrupt.
"You're engaged to Hugh Brokenshire, aren't you?"
The words were whipped out fast and jerkily, partly to profit by theminute during which Mrs. Billing was at a distance, and partly becauseit was a matter of now-or-never with their utterance.
I made the necessary explanations, for what seemed to me must be thehundredth time. I was not precisely engaged to him, but I had said Iwould marry him if either of two conditions could be carried out. I wenton to state what those conditions were, finishing with the informationthat of the two I had practically abandoned one.
She nodded her comprehension.
"You see that--that they won't come round."
"No," I replied, with some incisiveness; "they will comeround--especially Mr. Brokenshire. It's the other condition I no longerexpect to see fulfilled."
If the hermit thrush could fail in its song it did it then. Lady Ceciliastared at me with a blankness that became awe.
"That's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard. Ethel Rossiter mustbe wrong."
I had a sudden suspicion.
"Wrong about what?"
The question put Lady Cecilia on her guard.
"Oh, nothing I need explain." But her face lighted with quickenthusiasm. "I call it magnificent."
"Call what 'magnificent'?"
"Why, that you should have that conviction. When one sees any one sosporting--"
I began to get her idea.
"Oh, I'm not sporting. I'm a perfect coward. But a sheep will make astand when it's put to it."
With her hands in her sable muff, her shapely figure was inclinedslightly toward me.
"I'm not sure that a sheep that makes a stand isn't braver than a lion.The man my sister Janet is engaged to--he's in the InvernessRangers--often says that no one could be funkier than he on going intoaction; but that," she continued, her face aglow, "didn't prevent hisbeing ever so many times mentioned in despatches and getting his D. S.O."
"Please don't put me into that class--"
"No; I won't. After all a soldier couldn't really funk things, becausehe's got everything to back him up. But you haven't. And when I think ofyou sitting here all by yourself, and expecting that great big rich Mr.Brokenshire and Ethel, and all of them, to come to your terms--"
To get away from a view of my situation that both consoled andembarrassed me, I said:
"Thank you, Lady Cecilia, very, very much; but it isn't what you meantto say when you began, is it?"
With some confusion she admitted that it wasn't.
"Only," she went on, "that isn't worth while now."
A hint in her tone impelled me to insist.
"It may be. You don't know. Please tell me what it was."
"But what's the use? It was only something Ethel Rossiter said--and shewas wrong."
"What makes you so sure she was wrong?"
"Because I am. I can see." She added, reluctantly, "Ethel thought therewas some one--some one besides Hugh--"
"And what if there was?"
Though startled by the challenge, she stood her ground.
"I don't believe in people making each other any more unhappy than theycan help, do you?" She had a habit of screwing up her small gray-greeneyes into two glimmering little slits of light, with an effect ofshyness showing through amusement and _diablerie_. "We're both girls,aren't we? I'm twenty, and you can't be much older. And so Ithought--that is, I thought at first--that if you had any one else inmind, there'd be no use in our making each other miserable--but I seeyou haven't; and so--"
"And so," I laughed, nervously, "the race must be to the swift and thebattle to the strong. Is that it?"
"N-no; not exactly. What I was going to say is that since--since there'sn
obody but Hugh--you won't be offended with me, will you?--I won't stepin--"
It was my turn to be enthusiastic.
"But that's what I call sporting!"
"Oh no, it isn't. I haven't seen Hugh for two or three years, andwhatever little thing there was--"
I strained forward across my desk. I know my eyes must have beenenormous.
"But was there--was there ever--anything?"
"Oh no; not at all. He--he never noticed me. I was only in theschool-room, and he was a grown-up young man. If his father and minehadn't been great friends--and got plans into their heads--Laura andJanet used to poke fun at me about it. And then we rode together andplayed tennis and golf, and so--but it was all--just nothing. You knowhow silly a girl of seventeen can be. It was nonsense. I only want youto know, in case he ever says anything about it--but then he neverwill--men see so little--I only want you to know that that's the way Ifeel about it--and that I didn't come over here to-- I don't say that ifin your case there had been any one else--but I see there isn't--EthelRossiter is wrong--and so if I can do anything for Hugh and yourselfwith the Brokenshires. I--I want you to make use of me."
With a dignity oddly in contrast to this stammering confession, whichwas what it was, she rose to her feet as Mrs. Billing came back to us.
The hook-nosed face was somber. Curiosity as to other people's businesshad for once given place in the old lady's thoughts to meditations thatturned inward. I suppose that in some perverse fashion of her own sheloved her daughter, and suffered from her unhappiness. There was enoughin this room to prove to her how cruelly mere self-seeking can overreachitself and ruin what it tries to build.
"Well, what are you talking about?" she snapped, as she approached us."Hugh Brokenshire, I'll bet a dime."
"Fancy!" was the stroke with which the English girl, smiling dimly,endeavored to counter this attack.
Mrs. Billing hardly paused as she made her way toward the door.
"Don't let her have him," she threw at Lady Cecilia. "He's not goodenough for her. She's my kind," she went on, poking at me with herlorgnette. "Needs a man with brains. Come along, Cissie. Don't mind whatshe says. You grab Hugh the first chance you get. She'll have biggerfish to fry. Do come along. We've had enough of this."
Lady Cissie and I shook hands with the over-acted listlessness of twodaughters of the Anglo-Saxon race trying to carry off an emotionalcrisis as if they didn't know what it meant. But after she had gone Ithought of her--I thought of her with her Limoges-enamel coloring, herluscious English voice, her English air of race, her dignity, her style,her youth, her naivete, her combination of all the qualities that makehuman beings distinguished, because there is nothing else for them tobe. I dragged myself to the Venetian mirror and looked into it. With myplain gray frock, my dark complexion, and my simply arranged hair. I wasa poor little frump whom not even the one man in five hundred could findattractive. I wondered how Hugh could be such a fool. I asked myself ifhe could go on being such a fool much longer. And with the thought thathe would--and again with the thought that he wouldn't--I surprisedmyself by bursting into tears.