by Basil King
CHAPTER XXI
But once we were settled in Newport, I almost forgot the tragedy ofSarajevo. The world, it seemed to me, had forgotten it, too; it hadpassed into history. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek being dead andburied, we had gone on to something else.
Personally I had gone on to the readjustment of my life. I was withEthel Rossiter as a guest. Guest or retainer, however, made littledifference. She treated me just as before--with the same detached,live-and-let-live kindliness that dropped into the old habit of makinguse of me. I liked that. It kept us on a simple, natural footing. Icould see myself writing her notes and answering her telephone calls aslong as I lived. Except that now and then, when she thought of it, shecalled me Alix, instead of Miss Adare, she might still have been payingme so much a month.
"Well, I can't get over father," was the burden of her congratulationsto me. "I knew that woman could turn him around her finger; but I didn'tsuppose she could do it like that. You played your cards well in gettinghold of her."
"I didn't play my cards," was my usual defense, "because I had none toplay.'"
"Then what on earth brought her over to your side?"
"Life."
"Life--fiddlesticks! It was life with a good deal of help from AlixAdare." She added, on one occasion: "Why didn't you take that youngStrangways--frankly, now?"
"Because," I smiled, "I don't believe in polyandry."
"But you're fond of him. That's what beats me! You're fond of one manand you're marrying another; and yet--"
I don't know what color I turned outwardly, but within I was fire. Itwas the fire of confusion and not of indignation. I felt it safest tolet her go on, hazarding no remarks of my own.
"And yet--what?"
"And yet you don't seem like a girl who'd marry for money--you reallydon't. That's one thing about you."
I screwed up a wan smile.
"Thanks."
"So that I'm all in the dark. What you can see in Hugh--"
"What I can see in Hugh is the kindest of men. That's a good deal to sayof any one."
"Well, I'll be hanged if I'd marry even the kindest of men if it was fornothing but his kindness."
The Jack Brokenshires were jovially non-committal, letting it go atthat. In offering the necessary good wishes Jack contented himself withcalling me a sly one; while Pauline, who was mannish and horsey, wrungmy hand till she almost pulled it off, remarking that in a family likethe Brokenshires the natural principle was, The more, the merrier.Acting, doubtless, on a hint from higher up, they included Hugh and mein a luncheon to some twenty of their cronies, whose shibboleths Ididn't understand and among whom I was lost.
As far as I went into general society it was so unobtrusively that Imight be said not to have gone at all. I made no sensation as theaffianced bride of Hugh Brokenshire. To the great fact of my engagementfew people paid any attention, and those who referred to it did so withthe air of forgetting it the minute afterward. It came to me with somepain that in his own circle Hugh was regarded more or less as anonentity. I was a "queer Canadian." Newport presented to me a hard,polished exterior, like a porcelain wall. It was too high to climb overand it afforded no nooks or crevices in which I might find a niche. Noone ever offered me the slightest hint of incivility--or of interest.
"It's because they've too much to do and to think of," Mrs. Brokenshireexplained to me. "They know too many people already. Their lives are toofull. Money means nothing to them, because they've all got so much ofit. Quiet good breeding isn't striking enough. Cleverness they don'tcare anything about--and not even for scandals outside their own closecorporation. All the same"--I waited while she formulated heropinion--"all the same, a great deal could be done in Newport--in NewYork--in Washington--in America at large--if we had the right sort ofwomen."
"And haven't you?"
"No. Our women are--how shall I say?--too small--too parochial--tooprovincial. They've no national outlook; they've no authority. Few ofthem know how to use money or to hold high positions. Our men hardlyever turn to them for advice on important things, because they've rarelyany to give."
Her remarks showed so much more of the reflecting spirit than I had everseen in her before, that I was emboldened to ask:
"Then, couldn't you show them how?"
She shook her head.
"No; I'm an American, like the rest. It isn't in me. It's both personaland national. Cissie Boscobel could do it--not because she's clever orhas had experience, but because the tradition is there. We've notradition."
The tradition in Cissie Boscobel became evident on a day in July whenshe came to sit beside me in the grounds of the Casino. I had gone withMrs. Rossiter, with whom I had been watching the tennis. When shedrifted away with a group of her friends I was left alone. It was thenthat Lady Cecilia, in tennis things, with her racket in her hand, cameacross the grass to me. She moved with the splendid careless freedom ofwomen who pass their lives outdoors and yet are trained todrawing-rooms.
She didn't go to her point at once; she was, in fact, a mistress of theintroductory. The visits she had made and the people she had met sinceour last meeting were the theme of her remarks; and now she was stayingwith the Burkes. She would remain with them for a month, after which shehad two or three places to go to on Long Island and in the Catskills.She would have to be at Strath-na-Cloid in September, for the wedding ofher sister Janet and the young man in the Inverness Rangers, who wouldthen have got home from India. She would be sorry to leave. She adoredAmerica. Americans were such fun. Their houses were so fresh and new.She doted on the multiplicity of bathrooms. It would be so horrid tolive at Strath-na-Cloid or Dillingham Hall after the cheeriness of Mrs.Burke's or Mrs. Rossiter's.
Screwing up her greenish cat-like eyes till they were no more than tinyslits with a laugh in them, she said, with her deliciously incisiveutterance:
"So you've done it, haven't you?"
"You mean that Mr. Brokenshire has come round."
"You know, that seems to me the most wonderful thing I ever heard of!It's like a miracle isn't it? You've hardly lifted a finger--and yethere it is." She leaned forward, her firm hands grasping the racket thatlay across her knees. "I want to tell you how much I admire you. You'resplendid! You're not a bit like a Colonial, are you?"
Since she meant well, I mastered my indignation.
"Oh yes, I am. I'm exactly like a Colonial, and very proud of the fact."
"Fancy! And are all Colonials like you?"
"All that aren't a great deal cleverer and better."
"Fancy!" she breathed again. "I must tell them when I go home. Theydon't know it, you know." She added, in a slight change of key: "I'm soglad Hugh is going to have a wife like you."
It was on my tongue to say, "He'd be much better off with a wife likeyou"; but I made it:
"What do you think it will do for him?"
"It will bring him out. Hugh is splendid in his way--just as youare--only he needs bringing out, don't you think?"
"He hasn't needed bringing out in the last ten months," I declared, withsome emphasis. "See what he's done--"
"And yet he didn't pull it off, did he? You managed that. You'll managea lot of other things for him, too. I must go back to the others," shecontinued, getting up. "They're waiting for me to make up the set. But Iwanted to tell you I'm--I'm glad--without--without any--any reserves."
I think there were tears in her narrow eyes, as I know there were in myown; but she beat such a hasty retreat that I could not be very sure ofit.
Mildred Brokenshire was a surprise to me. I had hardly ever seen hertill she sent for me in order to talk about Hugh. I found her lying on acouch in a dim corner of her big, massively furnished room, her face nomore than a white pain-pinched spot in the obscurity. After havingkissed me she made me sit at a distance, nominally to get the breezethrough an open window, but really that I might not have to look at her.
In an unnaturally hollow, tragic voice she said it was a pleasure to herthat Hugh should have g
ot at last the woman he loved, especially afterhaving made such a fight for her. Though she didn't know me, she wassure I had fine qualities; otherwise Hugh would not have cared for me ashe did. He was a dear boy, and a good wife could make much of him. Helacked initiative in the way that was unfortunately common among richmen's sons, especially in America; but the past winter had shown that hewas not deficient in doggedness. She wondered if I loved him as much ashe loved me.
There was that in this suffering woman, so far withdrawn from ourstruggles in the world outside, which prompted me to be as truthful asthe circumstances rendered possible.
"I love him enough, dear Miss Brokenshire," I said, with some emotion,"to be eager to give my life to the object of making him happy."
She accepted this in silence. At least it was silence for a time, afterwhich she said, in measured, organ-like tones:
"We can't make other people happy, you know. We can only do ourduty--and let their happiness take care of itself. They must makethemselves happy! It's a mistake for any of us to feel responsible formore than doing right. "When we do right other people must make the bestthey can of it."
"I believe that, too," I responded, earnestly--"only that it's sometimesso hard to tell what is right."
There was again an interval of silence. The voice, when it came out ofthe dimness, might have been that of the Pythian virgin oracle. Theutterances I give were not delivered consecutively, but in answer toquestions and observations of my own.
"Right, on the whole, is what we've been impelled to do when we've beenconscientiously seeking the best way. . . . Forces catch us, oftencontradictory and bewildering forces, and carry us to a certain act, orto a certain line of action. Very well, then; be satisfied. Don't goback. Don't torture yourself with questionings. Don't dig up what hasalready been done. That's done! Nothing can undo it. Accept it as it is.If there's a wrong or a mistake in it life will take care of it. . . .Life is not a blind impulse, working blindly. It's a beneficent,rectifying power. It's dynamic. It's a perpetual unfolding. It's a firethat utilizes as fuel everything that's cast into it. . . ."
And yet when I kissed her to say good-by I got the impression that shedidn't like me or that she didn't trust me. I was not always liked, butI was generally trusted. The idea that this Brokenshire seeress, thissuffering priestess whose whole life was to lie on a couch and think,and think, and think, had reserves in her consciousness on my accountwas painful. I said so to Hugh that evening.
"Oh, you mustn't take Mildred's gassing too seriously," he advised."Gets a lot of ideas in her head: but--poor thing--what else can she do?Since she doesn't know anything about real life, she just spinstheories on the subject. Whatever you want to know, little Alix, I'lltell you."
"Thanks," I said, dryly, explaining the shiver which ran through me bythe fact that we were sitting in the loggia, in the open air.
"Then we'll go in."
"No, no!" I protested. "I like it much better out here."
But he was on his feet.
"We'll go in. I can't have my sweet little Alix taking cold. I'm here toprotect her. She must do what I tell her. We'll go in."
And we went in. It was one of the things I was learning, that my kindHugh would kill me with kindness. It was part of his way of takingpossession. If he could help it he wouldn't leave me for an hourunwatched; nor would he let me lift a hand.
"There are servants to do that," he would say. "It's one of the thingslittle Alix will have to get accustomed to."
"I can't get accustomed to doing nothing, Hugh."
"You'll have plenty to do in having a good time."
"Oh, but I must have more than that in life."
"In your old life, perhaps; but everything is to be different now. Don'tbe afraid, little Alix; you'll learn."
"Learn what? It seems to me you're taking the possibility of everlearning anything away."
This was a joke. Over it he laughed heartily.
"You won't know yourself, little Alix, when I've had you for a year."
Mr. Brokenshire's compliments to me were in a similar vein. He seemedalways to be in search of the superior position he had lost on the daywe sat looking up into the hillside wood. His dear Alexandra must neverforget her social inexperience. In being raised to a higher level I wasto watch the manners of those about me. I was to copy them, as peoplelearning French or Italian try to catch an accent which is not that oftheir mother tongue. They probably do it badly; but that is better thannot doing it at all. I could never be an Ethel Rossiter or a DaisyBurke, but I could become an imitation. Imitations being to the house ofBrokenshire like paste diamonds or fish-glue pearls, my gratitude forthe effort they made in accepting me had to be the more humble.
And yet on occasions I tried to get justice for myself.
"I'm not altogether without knowledge of the world, Mr. Brokenshire," Isaid, after one of his kindly, condescending lectures. "Not only inCanada, but in England, and to some slight extent abroad, I've hadopportunities--"
"Yes, yes; but this is different. You've had opportunities, as you say.But there you were looking on from the outside, while here you'll beliving from within."
"Oh, but I wasn't looking on from the outside--"
His hand went up; his pitiful crooked smile was meant to expresstolerance. "You'll pardon me, my dear; but we gain nothing by discussingthat point. You'll see it yourself when you've been one of us a littlelonger. Meantime, if you watch the women about you and study them--"
We left it there. I always left it there. But I did begin to see thatthere was a difference between me and the women whom Hugh and his fatherwished me to take as my models. I had hitherto not observed thisvariation in type--I might possibly call it this distinction betweennational ideals--during my two years under the Stars and Stripes; and Ifind a difficulty in expressing it, for the reason that to anything Isay so many exceptions can be made. The immense class of wage-earningwomen would be exceptions; mothers and housekeepers would again beexceptions; exceptions would be all women engaged in political or socialor philanthropic service to the country; but when this allowance hasbeen made there still remain a multitude of American women economicallyindependent, satisfied to be an incubus on the land. They dress, theyentertain, they go to entertainments, they live gracefully. When theycan't help it they bear children; but they bear as few as possible.Otherwise they are not much more than pleasing forms of vegetation, idleof body and mind; and the American man, as a rule, loves to have it so.
"The American man," Mrs. Rossiter had said to me once, "likesfigurines." Hugh was a rebel to that doctrine, she had added then; buthis rebellion had been short-lived. He had come back to the standard ofhis countrymen. He had chosen me, he used to say, because I was a womanof whom a Socialist might make his star; and now I was to be put in avitrine.
Canadian women, as a class, are not made for the vitrine. Their instinctis to be workers in the world and mates for men. They have no very highopinion of their privileges; they are not self-analytical. They rarelythink of themselves as the birds and flowers of the human race, or asother than creatures to put their shoulders to the wheel in the ways ofwhich God made them mistresses. Not ashamed to know how to bake and brewand mend and sew, they rule the house with a practically Frencheconomy. I was brought up in that way; not ignorant of books or ofsocial amenities, but with the assumption that I was in this world tocontribute something to it by my usefulness. I hadn't contributed much,Heaven only knows; but the impulse to work was instinctive.
And as Hugh's wife I began to see that I should be lifted high and dryinto a sphere where there was nothing to be done. I should dress and Ishould amuse myself; I should amuse myself and I should dress. It wasall Mrs. Rossiter did; it was all Mrs. Brokenshire did--except that toher, poor soul, amusement had become but gall and bitterness. Still,with the large exceptions which I cheerfully concede, it was theAmerican ideal, so far as I could get hold of it; and I began to feelthat, in the long run, it would stifle me.
It was a kind of
feminine Nirvana. It offered me nothing to strive for,nothing to wait for in hope, nothing to win gloriously. The wife ofLarry Strangways, whoever she turned out to be, would have a goal beforeher, high up and far ahead, with the incentive of lifelong striving.Hugh Brokenshire's wife would have everything done for her, as it wasdone for Mildred. Like Mildred she would have nothing to do but thinkand think and think--or train herself to not thinking at all. Little bylittle I saw myself being steered toward this fate; and, like St. Peter,when I thought thereon I wept.
I had taken to weeping all alone in my pretty room, which looked out onshrubberies and gardens. I should probably have shrubberies and gardenslike them some day; so that weeping was the more foolish. Every oneconsidered me fortunate. All my Canadian and English friends spoke of meas a lucky girl, and, in their downright, practical way, said I was"doing very well for myself."
Of course I was--which made it criminal on my part not to take theBrokenshire view of things with equanimity. I tried to. I bent my willto it. I bent my spirit to it. In the end I might have succeeded if theheavenly trumpet had not sounded again, with another blast fromSarajevo.