Chapter II: Part 2

He told me he didn't hunt, he'd never had any opportunity. There was quite a list of things he didn't do, but he was very simple and straightforward about them. Don't you dislike that _aggressive_ spirit which compels people to tell you how many they slept in one room and the night-schools they attended and so forth and so on? It makes me quite hot. I believe that's why they do it... There was nothing of that about Colonel Butler, though the army had made him a little _borné_. When I took him to see the stables, he shewed a certain sentimental interest in Phyllida's horses; but his only comment was: "I wish we were given beasts like that in the army." And it was the army in everything that he ate or read. Phyllida, as you know, has travelled more than most girls of her age; she wouldn't like to drop that altogether on marrying; but, if you said "Egypt" to Colonel Butler, it was simply a place where he'd been invalided the first time he was wounded at Gallipoli. The war seems to make some men curiously material... You understand I'm not criticizing him as a soldier; I'm sure he did excellent and useful work, but the war is only an _episode_ in our lives...

At tea he was so silent that I felt it was all sinking in very deep. At the end he said:

"Lady Ann, may I ask your advice? You are a woman of the world----"

"Goodness me, no!," I said. "Thirty years ago I may have counted for something there; but now I live under my own little vine and fig-tree; I see no one; I'm out of touch; you'd find me very old-fashioned, I fear."

"You've been very kind to me," he said, "and I want you to add to your kindness. I'm in love with Phyllida, as you know; and she--I think she quite likes me. Lord Brackenbury and every one here have been simply ripping. Please tell me what you think about it."

"Do you mean, will she marry you?," I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Oh, I should think it very likely," I told him; "I wondered whether you meant, would you make her _happy_?"

"I should certainly hope to do that," he answered.

"We all _hope_," I said...

_My_ responsibility is confined to giving him a moment's pause for thought. Phyllida will tell you that I set him against her, poisoned his mind, I shouldn't wonder... It's most charitable to recognize that she really did not know what she was saying. I didn't talk about _him_ at all; I talked about Will, about my nephew Culroyd, their friends, their lives... Any deductions were of _his_ drawing; and, goodness me, one need not be branded a snob for seeing that they had been born and bred in different worlds. He seemed to think that _love_ would overcome everything.

"If you're in _love_," he kept saying, "these things don't matter, do they?"

What made him uncomfortable was the money question--the thought that he would be bringing literally nothing. I was most careful not to say anything, but every child knows that if you divide a sum of money by two... He _would_ be living on Phyllida; and, if he loved her as much as he pretended, he would always be feeling: "It's a frock for her or a suit of clothes for me." A very humiliating position for any man... I know it's the modern fashion to pretend that it doesn't matter; Phyllida says in so many words that the advantage of money to a girl is that she can marry where her heart leads her. A snare and a delusion, unless you mean that a woman with money and nothing else can occasionally buy herself _position_... I'm sure she picked that up from her poor mother. But, if Brackenbury married on his debts, he _did_ bring _something_; I know we all had to work very hard for Ruth--"doing propaganda," as my boy Will says--to shew people that the marriage was _all right_... And it will be the same with Will, if he ever marries... Who_ever_ he marries... He _does_ bring _something_...

Colonel Butler asked if people would think Phyllida had thrown herself away on him. What could I say? ... But for the war, he told me, he _would_ be earning his own living; and, do you know?, that was the only time the cloven hoof appeared.

"We've all of us had to make sacrifices," I answered, "and the war ought not to be made either an excuse or--an opportunity."

Goodness me, you don't suppose my boy Will _enjoyed_ the fatigues, the dangers... The general was utterly callous towards his staff; but Will "stuck it out", as he would say. It was the soldier's part, and Colonel Butler knew as well as I did that it was only the war and the accident of being wounded that had thrown him across Phyllida's path.

"What do you mean by 'opportunity', Lady Ann?," he asked.

It was not easy to put into words... I sometimes feel that romance has gone to the head of some of our girls; first of all, a man had only to be in uniform, then he had only to be wounded... I _liked_ Colonel Butler, but in the old days Phyllida would not have looked at him... And, goodness me, if you go back a generation, you can imagine what my father would have said if a man, however pleasant, with nothing but his pay and the clothes he stood up in... A soldier only by the _accident_ of war... And in a regiment one had truly honestly never heard of...

"I don't feel I can help you," I said. "Times have changed, and my ideas are out of date. My brother may be different; have you spoken to him?" ...

As a matter of fact any woman could have seen that it wasn't necessary to speak; Brackenbury, all of them were throwing themselves at the young man's head. That's why I felt that, if _I_ didn't--give him a pause for reflection, _no_ one would. No, he hadn't said anything yet; it seemed such presumption that, though every one was gracious to him and Phyllida more than gracious, he wanted an outside opinion from some one whom he was good enough to call "a woman of the world." Was he justified in saying anything while his financial prospects were so uncertain? Was it fair to ask Phyllida to give up so much of the life she was accustomed to? Would people think he was trying to marry her for her money? Was he entitled to ask her to wait?

I said... Phyllida was not present, you understand, so anything she tells you _can_ only be the fruit of a disordered imagination. If Brackenbury sent her right away, the whole thing would be forgotten in two months... I really forget what I _did_ say...

At dinner I could see that Colonel Butler was pondering my advice. At least, when I say "advice", the limit of my responsibility is that perhaps the _effect_ of our little talk was to check his natural impetuosity. Things were sinking in; his own good sense, more than anything I should have dared to say... Phyllida came down arrayed with quite unnecessary splendour--we were only the family and Colonel Butler. "Poor child," I thought to myself, "you fancy you're attracting him when you're only frightening the shy bird away; you imagine he's admiring your frock when he's only wondering how much it cost." It was sinking in... If poor Ruth wanted her to throw herself away on a penniless surveyor, she might have told her that _simplicity_ was the note to strike. Phyllida won't think for herself, and Ruth is incapable of thinking for her. Good gracious! at dinner the child sat between Colonel Butler and my boy Will; I don't encourage any girl to become a minx, but no man thinks the better of you for throwing yourself at his head. A little distance, a little indifference; until a man's jealous, he doesn't know he's in love. She proved my point that night, both my points; Will was furious--and with reason--at being so uncivilly neglected; and the young paragon ... he was simply sated. When the telegram arrived...

But I thought Phyllida would have told you about that; she has been so--immodestly candid. He returned to London next day, saying he'd received a wire overnight. I met him the following week, and he told me. Simple and straightforward as ever... He wanted to know how Phyllida was; had Lady Brackenbury thought him very rude? It was one thing or the other, he said: he could ask Phyllida to marry him or he could go right away and forget about her ... until he had something more to offer, I think he said... You and I know what _that_ means. He was greatly upset and begged me to write occasionally when he was back at the front, just to tell him how Phyllida was; he wouldn't write to her himself, he said, because he wanted to leave her unembarrassed and it would be too painful for him.

"If she's still unmarried when I've made good," he said, "it will be time to begin writing then."

I suppose it was because Phyllida had never been in love before... I was ready to make allowances, but I was _not_ prepared for the outburst, the extravagance, the self-indulgence of grief.

"Come, come, my dear!," I said, "it would have been a very unsuitable match; and, if you haven't the sense to realize it, he has."

She turned on me like a fury... I don't know what was in his letter of good-bye; but I suppose it was the usual romantic promise that he'd go away and make his fortune and then come back to claim her. (Good riddance, too, I thought; though I _liked_ him.) Phyllida evidently treated it quite seriously...

"If he'd been mine for a week or a day..." she kept sobbing. "I know he'll be killed." ..

Well, he wasn't the only man in the world, but nothing that I could say was right...

"I think he behaved very properly," I said. "He did me the honour to ask my advice; and, if I see him again, I shall tell him so."

Then the flood-gates were opened. I--tell--you--as I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't let me speak--that I _gave_ no advice; I wanted him to proceed with caution, but I never even told him to wait and think... He did it entirely on his own initiative. What he quite rightly saw was that he could not take advantage of a young girl's infatuation to marry her for her money. Phyllida really shocked me with the things she said, but I'm old enough to have learnt patience; it will not be very long before she begs my pardon and admits that perhaps a certain measure of wisdom may be conceded to age... In the meantime I prefer not to mix myself up in the broils and wrangles that seem a daily feature of life at the Hall. One makes a certain effort; and, after that, one has to leave people, in the homely old phrase, to stew in their own juice... I need hardly tell you that Brackenbury took her side. And poor Ruth, though I've learnt not to expect too much of Ruth after all these years. If, for curiosity's sake, you ask them what I am supposed to have done, I should be deeply interested to know what they say. I have nothing but praise for the young man. When you are in the army, one private is as good as another; in hospital, you are a name, a bed, a case. That is so fine, I always think; it makes this truly a _people's_ war. Colonel Butler would have gone to the Hall sooner or later without any prompting from me; and, once there, it was impossible for a man of any intelligence to pretend that there were no differences... It is so hard for me to put it into words without seeming a snob, but _you_ understand what I mean...

You will find my boy Will there. He never seems to come home without picking up a cold, and the doctor has very sensibly recommended that he should be given an extension of leave. I was _not_ very much set on his going, I admit. Goodness me, any silly little ill-bred things that Phyllida may pick up from her poor mother are forgotten as soon as they are said; I have no need to stand on my dignity. The sins of the fathers... Brackenbury _never_ checks her... But you know what a girl is when she has had a disappointment, we must both of us have seen it a dozen times ... some sort of natural recoil. If she throws herself at Will's head... With her money they'd have enough to live on, of course, and young people ought to be very comfortable on four thousand a year. (It will be seven, when the parents die.) One need not look ahead to a family; but the grandfather, Ruth's father, would not be illiberal. But, though dear Will must marry some day, I dread the time when I must lose him...

III

LADY ANN SPENWORTH TOUCHES RELUCTANTLY ON DIVORCE

_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): I have been brought up in a different school, that's all. "Whom God hath joined..." I don't ask any one to share my feelings and I'm not so foolish as to say I won't receive people who have taken a step which is at least legal, however much one may deplore the present ease of divorce. I do indeed try to differentiate in my attitude towards the guilty party, but in this I am more than ever "ploughing a lonely furrow," as my boy Will rather picturesquely expresses it...

Nowadays it is unfashionable to heed the teachings of religion; but I should have thought that the least consideration for patriotism, stability... My father's maxim was that family life is the _basis_ of the state and that, when once you sanction the principle of divorce, you are undermining the foundations of the commonwealth. So I have at least been consistent...

That is perhaps more important than you think. The cynic cannot see that one's principles are independent of personal considerations. If they ever have the ill fortune to coincide even in appearance... Indeed yes! I happen to know what I am talking about... Forgive me if I spoke sharply; but one's nerves are not of iron, and it is not pleasant to be charged with conspiracy by the members of one's own family. Oh, not Spenworth! We have hardly met for years, I am thankful to say, though my husband has more than once tried to bring about a reconciliation. I have no personal animus; but, if the head of an honoured family chooses to drag his name in the mire, he shall at least not say that he has had countenance or support from even so humble a person as his sister-in-law. I was referring to the other side, my own people; I have an unforgiving little enemy, I fear, in my niece Phyllida; I should mind that less if Brackenbury and his poor wife did not seem to aid and abet her. Loyalty to the family, I should have thought... But, once again, I was brought up in a different school. I have told my brother, until I am tired, he ought to send her _right_ away. It was a disappointment... Goodness me, it is a disappointment when one cries for the moon; and, though I thought this Colonel Butler a decent, manly fellow, he was really nobody. He saw, without my telling him, that every one would say he was marrying her for her money... I won't call it an _escape_ for Phyllida, because that always sounds so spiteful. But I will allow no one to say I made him throw her over so that I might keep her for my own boy!

I want you to tell me frankly how much you have heard. _Literally_ nothing? Then you _will_--the very next time you go to the Hall. Not satisfied with inventing this abominable story, Phyllida feels it her duty to inflict it upon any one who will listen. But you must have seen about the divorce? Not even that? Well, you are wise; these things are unsavoury reading. The case was tried in the summer--"Spenworth's washing-day", as my boy called it--, and the decree will be made absolute in a few weeks' time.

It is the fashion to say that my brother-in-law was more sinned against than sinning. Does not that formula always put you on your guard, so to say? He was a mere boy when he succeeded to the title; an immense estate like Cheniston offered too many temptations; his good looks made him a prey for all the harpies; he was too kindly ever to say "no" even to the most dissolute of his associates. And so forth and so on... Goodness me! Arthur--my husband--was two years younger; and, if his old father's iniquitous will did not leave him enough money to tempt the hangers-on, at least he did not play ducks and drakes with what he had. It is more a question of character than of income. And Arthur had his share of good looks, as you can see from Will. No! Whatever Spenworth did, he could always buy indulgence. Establish for yourself the reputation of "a good fellow"--whatever that may mean--; and you will walk on roses all your life...

One must assume that _he_ thought the marriage would be a success, but I am sure no one else did. I _knew_ Spenworth, you see. It is ancient history now, but it was only when I destroyed his last hope by marrying Arthur that he turned in desperation to Kathleen Manorby ... after remaining disconsolate for nearly ten years. For her and her like my Will coined the description "chocolate-box beauty." She is still attractive after twenty years... I tried to warn her, so far as one could without having one's motives misconstrued; but she was glamoured by the money and the title. She had several offers, I believe, from men rather more in her own _milieu_, but it was a case of not being able to afford the luxury of marrying a poor man. Otherwise her first love, young Laughton, who broke his heart over her and transferred to the Indian Army... I warned her that Spenworth would be unfaithful before they had been married a year, but she was too sure of her own charm and power.

Within a year! Within three months... Kathleen is a fool, but one may feel for any woman who has had to put up with so many sordid humiliations. If she had borne him a son, it might have been different, but one girl after another... Four of them, and no heir to Cheniston. Superstitious people would tell you that it was a judgement on Spenworth for his past life and on her for her treatment of poor young Laughton... And, little by little, Spenworth seemed to lose all regard for human decency, until one was tempted to forget poor Kathleen's disappointment and to feel that Providence had decided that no son of his should ever reign in his stead. I am utterly free from superstition myself; but it did seem curious... He, I fancy, never quite gave up hope; as I felt it my duty to tell him, he was on such good terms with this world that he could not imagine another world in which his behaviour might be less leniently regarded. When the _fourth_ girl was born and we realized that Will _must_ ultimately succeed, I suggested that something might now be done to enable our boy to live in a manner befitting the heir to an historic title. Spenworth gave one of his great laughs and begged me to wait until he was dead before I cast lots for his raiment, adding that he had no intention of dying yet awhile. The usual blend of arrogance and blasphemy...

Yes, my husband is the only brother. It is a matter of rather less than no interest to either of us, for Spenworth will last our time. His constitution is proof against even his own assaults on it. Besides, one would hate the idea of waiting to step into a dead man's shoes... So really the heir is Will, but _he_ is in no hurry; Cheniston is a night-mare to him, he does not _desire_ the place. Perhaps he dreads having to cleanse the Augean stable. You have never stayed there, of course; I can say without unkindness that, wherever a naked savage could have made one error in taste, poor Kathleen has made three...

It was Will who brought the news that a divorce was pending. One _guessed_ that Spenworth and Kathleen were living apart, but she had let slip so many opportunities... One asked oneself what new provocation could have roused her.

"Oh, it's a put-up job," said Will. "As Aunt Kathleen hasn't produced a son, Spenworth wants to get free of her and marry some one else. A man at the club told me that he was allowing her twenty thousand a year for his liberty."

Really and truly, the interest that total strangers take in other people's affairs the moment that sinister word "divorce" is pronounced... Within two days the story was on every one's lips: Spenworth was the one topic of conversation, and everything was known. I think it is called a petition for restitution. Alas! for twenty years it would always have been easy to produce evidence of Spenworth's vagaries; now, I gathered, he was to "desert" Kathleen and then refuse to obey some order to come back. I don't profess to understand the subject; it is wholly distasteful to me...

"And what then?," I asked.

"A decree _nisi_," Will told me. "I gather my next aunt has been chosen already."

I will not mention her name. She who marries a man that has been put away... Perhaps I take too lofty a view of human nature, knowing my brother-in-law as I do; but, until he _actually_ marries her, I shall continue to look for a sign of grace.

"And now perhaps Cheniston is going to have an heir after all," said Will.

I confess that I was thinking not at all of Cheniston at this season, though a second marriage may revolutionize everything. The shame of seeing my husband's elder brother, the head of an historic family, in the Divorce Court... And already thinking of another union with goodness knows who; and, once he begins, there is no reason why he should ever stop. I am told that there are more than two thousand cases waiting to be tried. The war! I always felt that you could not have an upheaval on that scale without paying for it afterwards. There are moments when I feel glad that my dear father did not live to see this _bouleversement_... Mere beasts of the field...

"I cannot discuss this," I told Will.

My husband had heard the story too and was so much shocked that I dared not allude to it. We could _do_ nothing...

I _did_ make one effort. I tried to persuade my brother to reason with her. The opinion of an outsider--and Brackenbury has the reputation, not perhaps very well-founded, if you consider his own life, of being a man of the world... He would only say that, though "dear old Spenworth" was "no end of a good fellow", he was also "no end of a bad husband" and that, if Kathleen had had sense or spirit, she'd have divorced him a dozen years ago. Then, against my own inclinations, I went to see Kathleen and literally begged her to reconsider her decision before it was too late. One might as profitably have spoken to the dead...

She was not antagonistic in any way. Indeed, our meeting would have been profoundly interesting, if it had not been so painful. She was still in love with Spenworth. Men like that, dissolute and unfaithful, seem to have an animal magnetism which holds certain women in complete subjection. Kathleen was _miserable_ at the thought of parting from her scamp of a husband.

"I couldn't do it if I didn't love him," she cried.

And, if you please, I was left to understand that she was effacing herself, giving him up and making way for another woman simply because she fancied that he would be happier. I confess I should have had little patience with her, if she had not been so pitiable. Life was a blank without Spenworth.

"Then why," I asked, "do you cut your own throat and drag the name of the family through the mire? Have you _no_ sense of your position after all these years, _no_ feeling for the rest of us?"

"It's for him," she said.

And I verily believe that, if he had told her literally to cut her throat, she would have done it...

I have never been greatly attached to Kathleen. These backboneless, emotional women... But I felt that _some_body must do _some_thing for her. She came to Mount Street, and I reasoned with her again; at Cheniston I may be less than the dust, but under my own vine and fig-tree... In London I _have_ a certain _niche_ and I was bound to warn her that a divorced woman is _mal vue_ in certain circles and among certain persons who sometimes do me the honour to dine at my house. There would be occasions on which I should be unable to invite her. You would have said that she didn't care... She was staying with us when the case was tried; she stayed all through the summer, four months. No, you mustn't give me credit to which I'm not entitled. I felt very little sympathy when she proved obdurate; but, if one _could_ do anything to brighten her lot... I gave one or two little parties... Trying to take her out of herself. To some extent I succeeded. Kathleen has still the remains of good looks, though that fair fluffiness is not a type that I admire. When I refused to let her sit and mope in her room, she made an effort and assumed quite an attractive appearance. Several men were impressed...

There was one in particular. I won't give you his name... And yet I don't know why I shouldn't; if Phyllida persuades you to listen to her story, I am sure she will spare you nothing. He was introduced to me as Captain Laughton; and the name conveyed nothing to me until some one reminded me of the old boy-and-girl attachment before Kathleen married Spenworth, when this man Laughton pretended to be heart-broken and disappeared to Central India. They had not met for twenty years, but, when he read of the divorce proceedings, I can only assume that he sought her out. Will met him at his club, I think, and the man virtually invited himself to come and dine. I was not greatly enchanted by him at our first meeting, but he was a new interest to Kathleen (I knew nothing until _days_ afterwards when I tackled her about her really unaccountable behaviour with him)... And I must confess that there were moments when poor Kathleen was a grave trial and I repented my impetuosity in asking her to stay with us. Captain Laughton came a second time and a third. By the end of a month he had really done us the honour to make our house his own...

There are things I can say to you that I would never breathe to a man. I, personally, never make a mystery of my age; you will find it in all the books, every one knows I am six years older than Arthur, four years older than Spenworth--why conceal it? I wished Kathleen could have been equally frank, could have seen herself as I saw her. She is within a few months of thirty-nine, with four strapping girls; one does expect a certain dignity and restraint at that age. I know what you are going to say! We of the older generation _usually_ expect more than we receive. I have learnt that lesson, thank you! Kathleen seemed to fancy that she was back in the period of this boy-and-girl attachment to which I have alluded. She and Captain Laughton were inseparable. He took her to _dances_ ... as if she were eighteen! Indecent, I considered it. And I wondered what her girls thought of their mother,--if they're capable of thinking at all. I don't associate _brains_ with that chocolate-box beauty... Dances, dinners, little expeditions. Every one was beginning to smile...

"If she's not careful," Will said to me one day, "she'll cook her own goose as well as Spenworth's."

I had to ask him to express his fears in simpler language.

"There _is_ such a person as a King's Proctor," he said, "though they don't seem aware of it. If she plays the fool with Laughton, the decree won't be made absolute; and she and Spenworth will be tied to each other for the rest of their lives. That would hardly suit _their_ book."

Do you ever feel that you have strayed into a new world? The fact of divorce... And then this light-hearted pairing off: Spenworth with some woman who had been setting her cap at him for years, Kathleen with the love of her youth. They had lost all reverence for marriage, the family; it was a game, a dance--like that figure in the lancers, where you offer your right hand first and then your left... I made Will explain the whole position to me again and again until I had it quite clear in my mind. The King's Proctor, as he described him--rather naughtily--, was "a licensed spoil-sport", who intervened in cases where the divorce was being arranged by collusion or where both parties had sinned.

"The office seems a sinecure," I commented.

Those two thousand petitions... They stick in my throat.

"As a rule people don't take risks," Will explained. "And it's not often to the advantage of an outsider to come in and upset the apple-cart. You or the guv'nor or I," he said, "could do a lot of mischief, if we liked; but we're interested parties, and it wouldn't look well."

I confess that I did not share his tenderness towards what is nothing but a life of premeditated sin... Yes, I know it's _legal_, but Parliament can make a thing legal without making it _right_. The whole subject, however, was very distasteful, and I did not pursue it. That night I let fall a hint to Arthur, but he was not disposed to take any action.

"She's a bigger fool than I took her for," was all he would say. "She's endangering her own future and Spenworth's and playing into our hands if we chose to take advantage of our opportunity."

Whether Arthur spoke to her or not, I cannot say; but I know that she received a very frank warning from her own solicitors. Spenworth, too, did us the honour to write and say: "_For heaven's sake keep that_--" I forget the actual phrasing--"_keep that man away from Katie, or he'll do us in_." Spenworth was always noted for his elegance of diction... If a pawn could speak, I'm sure its feelings would be very much what mine were: pushed hither and thither in a game that I did not begin to understand. _I_ had never asked Captain Laughton to the house; he invited himself, and by the same token I knew that it was no good telling him to stay away. My house was not my own, my soul was not my own. And I had that hopeless sense that, whatever I did, I should be wrong...

It was a trying season... Their behaviour was so extraordinary! I pinched myself and said: "_This_ is the woman who cried to you because she was losing Spenworth, because the light was being taken out of her life. She was sacrificing herself to make Spenworth happy!" I admit that I was taken in. She may have been sincere at the time, but that is only the more discreditable. To cry for Spenworth one day and for her Captain Laughton the next... I use the word literally; if a single day passed without her seeing him, she moped--for all the world like a love-sick girl who thinks her sweetheart is tiring of her. And when they met...

I have told you that people were beginning to smile, and that should have been humiliating enough to a woman who has achieved at least a dignity of _position_; one said that there was nothing in it, but that had no effect. Anything connected with divorce seems to breed a morbid curiosity; they were being spied on, whispered about; people who did not wait to consider that Kathleen was nearly forty assumed that she would inevitably marry again and decided no less obstinately that she would marry Laughton. Then the tittle-tattle press laid hold of her. I am told that certain women, probably known to both of us, earn a _livelihood_ by collecting gossip at one's dinner-table and selling it at so much a scandal to these wretched papers. One is quite defenceless... I noticed for myself--and others were indefatigable in shewing me--little snippets saying that Lady Spenworth and Captain Laughton had been seen at this or that garish new restaurant. I believe that Kathleen's solicitors wrote to her a second time...

A man at such a season does occasionally contrive to keep his head, but Captain Laughton was no less blind and uncontrolled than Kathleen. Will and I had arranged to go away for a few days' motoring at the end of the summer. A car _and_ unlimited petrol--for the first time since the war--; Sussex; the New Forest; perhaps a day in Dorset to take luncheon with the Spokeleighs; Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and up into Hereford. Delightful... We had planned it months ahead--before this unhappy divorce. The problem of Kathleen called for solution; we could not conveniently take her in the car, and, if I left her in Mount Street, I did want to be assured that there would be no unpleasantness...

"Captain Laughton," I said one night, when he had telephoned to know whether he might dine. It was on the tip of my tongue to say: "My good man, don't ask _me_! Refer your invitations to my cook..." He was such a _boy_ that I never spoke to him as I truly honestly think he deserved... "Captain Laughton," I said, "will you promise that, while I'm away, you won't come here or try to see Lady Spenworth? She is in a position," I said, "where you can easily compromise her; a severer critic might say that you had compromised her already. If you have her interests at heart, you have a chance of proving your friendship to her..."

Am I unduly idealizing the past if I say that in my youth it would have been unnecessary to speak like that to any man? Captain Laughton was no longer a boy... Assuredly, in the school in which I was brought up, if one _had_ spoken, one's word would have been law...

"Oh, Lady Ann, I've been talking to Kitty about that," he answered. I think "jaunty" is the word to describe his manner; great assurance, good humour, no thought that any one would even dream of giving him a rebuff. "We were thinking," he continued, "that it would be such fun if we could come too. I have a car, we wouldn't get in your way; but we can hardly go off unattended, and I quite agree with what you say about not compromising Kitty in London."

He took my breath away. We this, we that. Perhaps I shall take away yours if I tell you that I acquiesced in his really impudent proposal. Not without a struggle, you may be sure; and not without declaring my own terms. If there were any unpleasantness, _I_ should be held responsible. I ordained that, if I had to play the dragon, I would be a dragon in earnest; Kathleen should come in my car, while my Will went with Captain Laughton. Can't you picture how the other arrangement would have worked out? The two of them mooning like rustic lovers, forgetful of time and everything else, the car breaking down to prolong their stolen joy... My dear, you could see it in their faces when I launched my ultimatum...

And you could see it a hundred times a day when our tour began. Any excuse to slip away and be together. When I suggested a _détour_ to call on Sir Charles Spokeleigh, I was told at once that Captain Laughton did not know him and that Kathleen disliked his wife--or had a head-ache, I forget which. Kathleen always had a head-ache if one suggested a little constitutional before dinner. And Captain Laughton insisted on staying behind with her. There was no great harm, perhaps, in an out-of-the-way village which had escaped the contamination of the London press, but in places like Dorchester, Gloucester, Hereford... One was known; the papers would announce us among the new arrivals: "Lady Spenworth, Lady Ann Spenworth, Captain Laughton..." and so on and so forth. They could not afford to take the slightest risk. If I had yielded to their entreaties and then the car had broken down... The King's Proctor or whoever he is would never believe that it was an accident and that they were truly innocent. There would be the record in the register of the hotel...

I am thankful to say that we were spared all catastrophes; and I frankly enjoyed the tour, though it was impossible to escape a feeling of conspiracy. The only hitch occurred at the end as we came within thirty miles of Brackenbury. The roads there are not all that could be desired, and I should not have contemplated for a moment the cross-country journey, were it not that I saw an opportunity of healing the unhappy breach with my niece Phyllida. At present she is so terribly and unjustly bitter that there is nothing she will not believe and say. It occurred to me that, if I, the older woman, made the first advance... A gracious phrase or two, telling her that I could not pass her home--my _old_ home--with the feeling that any rancour remained... You understand. It is always worth a little inconvenience to be gracious... And she had been speaking quite wickedly about me...

We lunched that day at Norton and had arranged to sleep at Rugely. I need hardly say that, when I suggested a _détour_ to Brackenbury--an extra forty miles at most--, Kathleen discovered that she was tired out and Captain Laughton trumped up his usual excuse that he didn't know my brother and disliked "butting in" on strangers... Ridiculous! I've never met a man more completely self-possessed... For once I broke my rule and said that they might go on by themselves and order rooms for us in Rugely. They would leave a note for us at the General Post Office to say where we should meet them.

"Drive carefully!," Captain Laughton called out, as we started from Norton. "It will be the devil and all, if anything happens to you."

I did not understand this new-born solicitude until my boy Will undertook to enlighten me. And then I saw that perhaps I had been really imprudent. After a fortnight of heart-breaking discretion, I _had_ allowed these two feather-brained creatures to drive off alone... If they failed to secure rooms and could not communicate with us in time... If for any reason we did not meet at the _rendez-vous_... I can assure you that I gave myself a headache, just thinking of one possible disaster after another. It would _not_ have passed unnoticed; we had received ample evidence of that. Most dreadful misconstructions would be placed on their conduct--and on mine. The King's Proctor--really, the _name_ is so absurd; one makes a mental picture of some strange court functionary taken straight from the pages of that delightful Lewis Carroll book--I became haunted by visions of the King's Proctor intervening to stay the divorce proceedings. And then, as Will said so lucidly, Spenworth and Kathleen would be tied to each other for the rest of their lives; gone would be her St. Martin's summer of romance, gone would be--no, romance is always to me a singularly beautiful word; I decline to associate it with what my boy calls Spenworth's latest shuffle of the matrimonial pack. The worst thing of all was that we should be held responsible.

"I wonder what Spenworth would do if the positions were reversed," said Will. "If the guv'nor were elder brother and wanted an heir, if _he_ had the chance of stopping it and keeping the inheritance for himself... I wonder if he'd be able to resist."

"Temptation only seems strong to those who do not wish to withstand it," I said.

Our arrival at the Hall was hardly auspicious, as my head-ache had been growing so steadily worse that I had to ask my sister-in-law Ruth to let me lie down if there was to be any question of my driving on to Rugely. And, though I felt better after a cup of tea, the pain returned when I was left for a moment with Phyllida. I sought an opportunity for my little speech. Phyllida... It would be absurd to feel resentment against a mere child whose nerves were obviously unstrung, but I wondered then and I wonder now what _my_ dear mother would have said if I had spoken, looked, behaved in such a way to _any_ older woman. When she had _slammed_ her way out of the room, I sank into a chair, trembling. _You_ know whether I am a limp, nervous woman; when Ruth came in to ask--without a spice of welcome--whether we would not stay to dinner, I was too much upset to speak; I just nodded... If I had been stronger, I would not have remained another moment in the house; but Will had disappeared, and I was unequal to returning alone.

Brackenbury had the consideration to ask if I would not stay the night. I explained the very delicate position in which we had left Kathleen and Captain Laughton.

"Well, go if you feel up to it," said Brackenbury in what I thought was an off-hand manner to adopt to his sister. "Or send Will, if anybody can find what's happened to him. So long as they've _some_ one to chaperon them, they're all right."

I would have stayed if Will could have stayed with me. I would have gone if that had been the only means of keeping by his side. Do you know, I had the feeling that in the length and breadth of that house he was the only one who cared whether I was well or ill, whether I lived or died ... almost...

"I'm not sure that I _care_ to leave my mother while she's like this," said my boy rather timidly, when he was fetched in to join the council. It is unfashionable, I believe, for the modern son to shew his mother any overt tenderness...

"Well, some one's got to go," said Brackenbury with unnecessary impatience. "It's all up, if you leave those two without any one to keep them in countenance."

"We will both go," I said.

When the car was ordered, we went into the hall and waited... After about twenty minutes Brackenbury rang to find out the reason for the delay. The servant came back to say that part of what I think is called the magneto was missing. I chose my word carefully: not "injured" or "worn-out," but "missing"--as though some one had invaded the garage and removed the requisite part...

Brackenbury seemed to lose his head altogether.

"It's ten o'clock," he roared. "If you don't get to Hugely by mid-night, can't you see that you'll be too late to stop a scandal? If you _want_ to stay the divorce, say so at once, say that you're scheming to tie up Spenworth in your own interests; and, by God, if it comes off, _I_'ll say it until every decent man and woman will walk out of a room when any of your gang come into it... Phyllida," he shouted. "Order your car! Will can drive it..."

"Aren't you afraid he may lose his way?," asked Phyllida.

I don't attempt to reproduce her voice... It was silky ... oh, and wicked! I _tell_ myself not to mind, I try to remember that she was overwrought and that her father was a criminal not to insist on her going away. Phyllida was deliberately charging us with a conspiracy to interrupt the divorce proceedings so that in time--goodness me, when Arthur and I are dead and buried!--our boy Will might succeed. Cheniston is a noble seat; the Spenworth title is old and was once honoured; but neither for my husband nor my son do I want them--at that cost.

I said nothing... I believe I murmured to myself: "You wicked child"; but, literally, I couldn't speak. I couldn't see ... or hear. Brackenbury was making furious arrangements. As in a dream I saw Ruth being wrapped in a fur-coat... A car came to the door and drove away... I asked my boy to ascertain which was my room and to lend me the support of his arm up the stairs...

Ruth telegraphed next day from Rugely--just two words--"_All well_." ...

Will and I returned to London by train. Phyllida was in the hall, reading the telegram, as I appeared.

"It nearly came off," she said. "I'm sorry--for your sake--that you've had a disappointment. Time, you will find, works wonders; and some day, perhaps, you will be more grateful than I can expect to find you now. If I were you, I would go right away..."

What she _intended_ to convey I have no more idea than the man in the moon... The night before, her meaning was _never_ in doubt; and I am waiting for her to put it into words, to charge Will or me or both of us with deliberately damaging our car...

But you will see that anything she says in her present state, poor child, must be accepted with charitable reserve.

IV

LADY ANN SPENWORTH IS CONTENT WITH A LITTLE MUSIC

_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): I am easily satisfied, I ask for nothing better than a little music after dinner. If only the rising generation were _rather_ less self-conscious... When I was a girl, it was a law of the Medes and Persians that, if any one asked us to play or sing, we at _once_ complied. None of this modern absurdity of not playing in public, insisting on the hush of the grave, looking round the room first to see if by chance there is some great _maestro_ present... When I tell you that I once sang before Jenny Lind, being too young and ignorant to know who she was... And no one could have been sweeter...

I am not a musician in any sense of the word. (I am almost tempted to add: "Thank goodness!") When one sees and hears the devotees at Covent Garden, talking a language of their own which I am quite sure half of them don't understand, ready to set one right in a moment if one _presumes_ to offer an opinion... If any one said to me: "I want to be a social success and I don't know how to begin," I should answer: "Learn the musical jargon and use it _rudely_, especially to people who for one reason or another have not had to _fight_ their way into any little _niche_ that they may occupy." I won't mention names... But I see you have guessed! And do you not agree? That man, for all his millions, would be received _nowhere_ but for his alleged love of music; but take a double box at the opera, go every night, allow yourself to be seen at all the concerts, give immense parties of your own, support and bring out three new geniuses a month--everything is forgiven you!

I did not know him before the war ... when, by the way, I understand he passed by the name of Sir Adolf Erckmann. One saw, indeed, his not very prepossessing beard and bald head protruding from his box--a red, anxious face and single eye-glass, positively _scattering_ bows right and left at the people he had succeeded in getting to know in his upward progress. Originally, I believe, a German-Jewish banker, with immense interests of all kinds in every part of the world and a very unsavoury domestic reputation. He was nothing to me, nor I to him; and it would have been no true kindness for me to "take him up," as Connie Maitland was always urging me to do. No doubt we should have been surfeited with invitations to Westbourne Terrace and Rock Hill; but we are not _yet_ reduced to scouring London for free meals, like some people we could think of, and, without being cynical, I always felt that the Erckmanns would try to use us as a means of getting to know Spenworth and Brackenbury so that in time their triumphal progress might carry them to Cheniston and the Hall. If I could have done any good, it would have been a different matter; but you remember the Erckmanns were a test-case before the war, in the days when the energy of Christine Malleson and my Lady Maitland and the rest had broken down so many barriers which hitherto had been at least a convenience. Not only Spenworth and Brackenbury, but a dozen more as good as said that they could not continue to know me if I consented to know Erckmann...

When the war came, things materially altered. The Erckmanns vanished--in every sense of the word. The old friends, who had _plagued_ me to receive him, now denied with cursing and swearing, as it were, saying: "I know not the man." One or two of the radical papers made a bitter personal attack on him because harmless German hair-dressers and waiters were being interned while this wealthy international financier, who _was_ in a position to collect information and influence opinion, was left at large, thanks to highly-placed friends and a title. They said that some of the Cabinet were absolutely dependent on him... Though I saw nothing of the man, I could not help hearing of him, for the mob broke his windows in Westbourne Terrace whenever there was an air-raid; they said he was shewing lights to guide the Zeppelins to Paddington. Whether there was a _word_ of truth in it I can't say... And, when he erected an enormous hospital at Rock Hill, even this was not accounted to him for righteousness: the men there held him to ransom, his own patients. Some one would whisper that he had a secret wireless apparatus on his roof; and immediately Sir Adolf would build another ward or a recreation-room or a picture theatre...

And in another sense they disappeared: as Will said, "Plant an Erckmann in England, and up comes an Erskine." Poor souls, if they had changed their names _before_ the war and if some one could have performed an operation to rid Sir Adolphus of that appalling guttural accent... I really began to feel sorry for them when all their friends--led, if you please, by my Lady Maitland--turned the cold shoulder. "Satisfy me," I said to Arthur, "that he is a truly loyal subject, and I should like to see if I could not shew him a little kindness."

"He's a noxious creature," said Arthur with his usual intolerance, "but all these stories of spying and of blackmailing ministers are sheer flumdiddle. It isn't worth his while. Whoever wins, Erskine will make money. He's technically loyal; but he's a man without patriotism, because the whole world is his country. For the Lord's sake, don't throw _your_ mantle over him; as long as there _are_ national distinctions, I object to the way these international Jew financiers settle in England for their own convenience."

"I am not," I said, "concerned with that. You may be right. Perhaps we should all of us have done better to hold aloof and offer him no welcome at the outset. But, do you know, I feel a certain responsibility? _Having_ been received here, having _poured_ money like water into the pockets of his so-called friends, will he not form a low view of our sincerity and goodwill if every one abandons him at a time like this? I am disinterested: we have accepted nothing from him, we can look to him for nothing; but there is a reproach which I feel it my duty to remove."

I could not make Arthur see that people like Connie Maitland, _liée_ with the poor man one moment and throwing him to the wolves the next... We are not _all_ of us like that in England.

"Well, for Heaven's sake, don't ask him when _I'm_ here," was the utmost encouragement I got from my husband.