Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Maxon Protests», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XIV
A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION
To Winnie's few but devoted adherents Cyril Maxon was not a man, but a monster, a type of tyranny, the embodied symbol of an intolerable servitude; even Dick Dennehy, staunch champion of the institution, had no charity for the individual. Needless to say that this was not at all the view Mr. Maxon took of himself, and not entirely the judgment which an impartial observer would form of him. There were many women with whom he might have got on very well, women of a submissive temper, meek women, limited women, sly women who hoodwinked under a show of perfect obedience. He would not have been hard to hoodwink, had Winnie been content to attack her problem in that old-fashioned way. Or, again, an extremely clever and diplomatic woman – but she can make a good husband out of the rawest of raw material, mere flesh and bone with (as Stephen Aikenhead would certainly have added) the economic prerequisite.
From the moment that his wife had identified herself with the Ledstone family – his memory of Mr. Ledstone was vivid and horrible – he had set aside the idea that she would soon 'have had enough of it.' It was no longer in his power to hold to that conclusion. Now it was he himself who had had more than enough of it. She was done with. He took up his life alone. At first he sought to mitigate solitude by constant work. It was not a complete success. Then he installed an unmarried sister in his house. She was his senior, her temper was akin to his; the experiment lasted just a month, after which Miss Maxon returned to Broadstairs. Then gradually he began to seek society again, to show his face at his old resorts, to meet the women who admired him, who gushed over him as interesting, clever, and rising. They gushed still more now, hinting, each with what degree of delicacy nature had given her, their sympathy with him, and their unlimited astonishment at the folly and perverseness of Mrs. Maxon. He found this the most effective specific that he had tried.
It would be unpardonably rash to generalize, but it may be hazarded that in some cases the man who treats his wife worst misses her most. A comrade can perhaps be replaced, a new slave is hard to come by. Besides, Cyril Maxon's principles forbade the search for one, and now he had to apply his principles to his own case. A year ago nothing in the whole world would have seemed so unlikely – Fate at its pranks again! It makes us pay for sins and principles alike – perhaps the best way (with deference to the à priori philosophers) of learning to appraise either.
Cyril Maxon was very rising by now; people called him a certainty for a judgeship in some ten years' time (he was only thirty-eight); and the ladies were very sympathetic. Several of them were members of Mr. Attlebury's congregation, and the personal friends of that genial but exacting apostle. Some of the ladies wondered how Mr. Attlebury could be so responsive, and yet so definitely restricted in his responsiveness; they thought of his demeanour as of an occult art, and might have been right had they stopped at calling it esoteric. Attlebury himself felt no difficulty, not even a consciousness of effort. He met them in absolute intimacy of soul to soul. Happily in all creeds – and discreeds – there are men and women who can do it.
At first Cyril Maxon had refused to talk about his misfortune, which, of course, soon became public property, and the hints about it had to be almost impossibly delicate. But, as time went on, he found two or three friends to whom he could, more or less, open his heart. There was Mrs. Ladd, an elderly woman with hearty kindly ways and a mind shrewdly matter of fact. There was Miss Fortescue, one of Attlebury's best 'workers,' a benevolent sensible spinster of five-and-forty. There was also Lady Rosaline Deering, daughter of a Scotch peer, widow of a Colonial Administrator. She was a woman of three-and-thirty, or thereabouts, tall and of graceful carriage; her nose was too long, and so was her chin, but she had pretty hair and fine eyes. She was a bit of a blue-stocking and dabbled in theology and philosophy. "Not afraid to think for myself," was the way in which she defined her attitude, in contradistinction (as she implied) from the attitude of most of the women who sat at Mr. Attlebury's feet. She admired Attlebury, but she thought for herself.
"One can't quite give up one's reason," she would say, with a winning smile. "Besides, I was brought up in the Church of Scotland, you know." This ecclesiastical origin seemed to give her independence; she paid only so much voluntary allegiance as she chose to Attlebury and his Church; she could in case of need fall back on her Church of origin, as though on a domicile never finally forfeited. Also in her husband's lifetime she had seen the cities of men and known their minds. In fact she might be considered emancipated, and her adherence to Mr. Attlebury's school was rather æsthetic than dogmatic; she thought that religion should be invested with beauty, but she was not afraid to talk of some of its doctrines as possibly 'symbolic.'
All the three ladies took a great interest in Maxon, but by common consent the first place was yielded to Lady Rosaline. Mrs. Ladd could fortify him, Miss Fortescue could cheer him up; they both recognized that Lady Rosaline could do something else, a subtle thing into which femininity entered more specifically; one of the things which Mrs. Maxon ought to have given him, but obviously had not; perhaps something like what Lady Rosaline herself derived from Attlebury's church services, a blend of intellectual and æsthetic satisfaction. Mrs. Ladd and Miss Fortescue were weak in the æsthetic element. Moreover there was a special bond of sympathy between Lady Rosaline and Maxon. The late Colonial Administrator had been by no means all that he should have been as a husband, and when death severed the union, it was but a very slender string that its shears cut.
Mrs. Ladd and Miss Fortescue had hinted at this sad story; Lady Rosaline herself told it, though in reticent outline only, to Cyril one evening in November when he happened to have leisure to go to tea with her at her flat in Hans Place.
"It's a terrible thing to have to say, but really his death – poor fellow! – ended a situation which had become almost unendurable to any woman of fine feelings. He was never rude or unkind to me, but one's pride! And the solitude of the soul, Mr. Maxon!"
"Still you endured it bravely." His tone subtly asked sympathy, while his words gave it.
"I wonder if I could have gone on! I should shock Mr. Attlebury, I suppose, but I thought more than once of divorce. Our home – when we were at home – had always been in Scotland. That would have made it easier, and it needn't have hurt his career anything like so much. He could just have left me and stayed away the necessary time, you see. After the last – the last trouble – he offered me that, if I wished it."
"You must have been under a considerable temptation."
"Yes. But then his health began to fail, and – and things were different. I had to stay and look after him; and so we became better friends at the end. I really don't bear malice now."
"I think with Attlebury on that question, you know."
"Yes, I suppose you do. But then, isn't there – room for doubt?"
"I scarcely think so, Lady Rosaline."
"Oh, but it is hard sometimes, then!" she murmured, looking into the fire. "Do you think there's nothing in the view that the offence itself is a dissolution? – That it's the offender himself – or herself – who puts asunder, not the judge, who merely deals with the legal consequences?"
"No, I can't see that." He paused, frowning, then went on: "I can understand a man maintaining that it's given as a counsel of perfection, rather than an absolutely binding rule – I mean, that a man should try, but, if it proves beyond his strength, he might not be absolutely condemned."
"Does it hurt you to talk about it?"
"Not to people who understand."
"How strange she didn't understand you better! Do you mind my saying that?"
"If I'd ever had any doubts about the substantial rights of the matter, her subsequent proceedings would have dispelled them completely."
"Yes, they throw a light back, don't they?"
Cyril Maxon threw more light, setting forth the preposterous charges which his wife had levelled against him before she went away. He put them as honestly as he could; they were to him so unreasonable that he was not in the least afraid to submit them to an impartial judge. They seemed just as unreasonable to Lady Rosaline. She was as secure of herself as was Mrs. Lenoir; she was not afraid of being 'crushed.' (Perhaps being 'Lady Rosaline' helped her a little there.) And Winnie's alleged grievances fell so short of her own tale of wrongs as to seem a ridiculously inadequate excuse.
"I can't understand her any more than you can," she said.
"There's really no use in saying any more about her, Lady Rosaline. It's a matter of character."
"And she's actually with this man Ledstone now?"
He spread out his hands and bowed his head. It was both answer and comment enough.
"They'd marry, I suppose, if they could?"
Cyril Maxon was not quick at marking the delicate shades of a woman's mood; there at least Winnie was right. He did not now detect the underlying note of pity in Lady Rosaline's voice. It was, indeed, no more than hinted. He made another gesture – this time of pronounced impatience and distaste. Lady Rosaline smiled faintly, and changed the subject.
When he had left her, she sat on by the fire, musing. She was a widow with few happy memories and no fond regrets; she was childless; in spite of her high connections she was by no means rich; she could not afford to travel much in the style she desired, or to entertain much. And she was thirty-three. Surveying her position as a whole, she did not take a roseate view of it. "I'm bound to drop out in a few years" – that was how she summed up her prospects – not a cheerful summary, it must be admitted. She had not the contentment of a Mrs. Ladd nor the philanthropic zeal of a Miss Fortescue. She had a good deal of ambition, a love of luxury, and (as has been said) a commendable self-confidence. Masterful herself under all her graceful gentleness, she liked rather than feared masterful men; Cyril Maxon attracted her none the less because he had 'crushed' Winnie. "A poor little thing like that!" So ran her verdict on Winnie, whom she had met half a dozen times. And he was very rising. She found herself recalling the precise words that he had used about 'a counsel of perfection.'
It needs little acuteness to detect a congruity between the interpretation of a rule as a counsel of perfection, and the doctrine of the limits of human endurance. In fact they come to very much the same thing and are invoked, rightly or wrongly, plausibly or unplausibly, on much the same occasions and under very similar circumstances. If a man strikes you lightly on one cheek, you turn the other. But if he strikes the first cheek very hard? If he forces you to go a mile with him, will you go with him twain? Does the amenity of the road make no difference? If he takes your coat, shall he take your cloak also? Something might turn on the relative value of the two garments. In such cases the human race makes accommodations; and accommodations are not confined to any one class of thinkers.
Cyril Maxon had afforded scant countenance to Lady Rosaline's suggestion that the offender himself severed the tie. She had picked it up from an article of Catholic complexion, which set out the authorities for it only to confute them. His logical mind saw that the position implied rather startling consequences; for if an act can sever, an act can bind. But he did not so easily or readily reject his own idea of the counsel of perfection. Arguing before a Court, he could have made a good case for it. Argued in the forum of his own conscience, it found pleas and precedents. Yet it was slowly that it gained even a hearing from the judge, and only by much dexterous pleading; for at first sight the authorities to which he bowed were all against it. They had seemed absolutely and immediately conclusive on the morning when Mr. Ledstone called in the Temple. 'No proceedings!' Save as a record of his own attitude, Maxon attached no importance to the utterance so charged with relief to its auditor. It was in no sense a pledge; it was merely an expression of present intention. On what conceivable theory had that Ledstone family any right to pledges from him? If a pledge at all, it was one to himself and to the school of thought to which he belonged. To the Ledstones? Never!
So the slow hidden current of his feelings began to bore for itself a new channel – a way round the rock of principle that barred direct advance. Another change there was in him. A woman – his wife – had gibbeted him as a man impossible to live with. He was secretly, almost unconsciously, afraid of the world's agreeing with her. Seeking sympathy, he tried to manifest it; afraid of being misunderstood, he embarked on an effort to be understanding. He made a fair success of it. People said that he was human after all, and that Mrs. Maxon ought to have seen it. The work which Winnie had done redounded to her discredit; it is not an uncommon case. The rebels are shot, flogged, or have to fly the kingdom. But reforms are introduced into the administration, and these make the rebels seem more guilty still – because, of course, the reforms were just going to be introduced anyhow, if only the rebels would have had a little faith, a little patience. Who has not read it a score of times in the newspapers?
"That little wife of his can't have known how to manage a man," said old Mrs. Ladd, who had owned two husbands, the first an over-festive soul, the second a hypochondriac.
"The Vicar has the highest opinion of him," remarked Miss Fortescue.
Mrs. Ladd smiled. "He won't have such a high opinion of him if he goes gadding after Rosaline Deering."
Miss Fortescue was shocked and interested. "My dear, is there any chance of that?"
Mrs. Ladd pursed up her lips. "I don't see much harm in it myself," she said.
"Oh, Mrs. Ladd! If the Vicar heard you!"
"If you may marry again when your husband's dead – "
"It's allowed, but it's – it's not exactly recommended, is it?"
"Well, on the Vicar's theory, I don't see in the end any difference between the two cases – or, at any rate, not much." Mrs. Ladd destroyed her logic by a concession to her friend's pained surprise. She ought to have stuck to there being no difference at all. Then on Attlebury's theory she had an argument; 'not much' came perilously near to cutting the roots of it.
Speculation as to Mr. Attlebury's attitude was not confined to these good members of his flock. It had a place in Cyril Maxon's own mind, so soon as he began to consider the idea of freeing himself from the legal bond of marriage – and of reviewing his situation after that was done. But here the idiosyncrasy of the man came in, and cut across the loyalty of the Churchman. He had given to Attlebury a voluntary allegiance. But if Attlebury tried to extort a forced obedience? Cyril's face set at the thought. Winnie's great offence had been that she would not 'adapt herself.' In his heart he demanded that the priest and the Church should adapt themselves also, should recognize his services and his value, and find a way out for him, if necessary. The 'counsel of perfection' theory seemed more and more, on consideration, to be a possible way out, and already he began to feel, in anticipation, a resentment against the man or the institution that should say the contrary. He chafed beforehand at such dictation, such interference with a view conscientiously held by a man whom all must admit to be sincere and devout – and, moreover, an adherent very much worth having.
Among the various influences which caused the project of freeing himself to take definite shape in his mind, Rosaline Deering had to be reckoned first, no doubt, but she was not the only woman who counted. Done with as she was, out of his life, yet Winnie Maxon also had her share in the work. He felt a primitive desire to 'show her,' as children say – to show her that she had not the power to destroy his life, that there were women wiser than she, women who did not think him impossible to live with, but would hold it high fortune to become his wife. As soon as he began to think of Rosaline Deering, he thought oftener of his wife, setting the two women in opposition as it were, and endowing Rosaline with all the virtues which Winnie had so conspicuously lacked. Even such an adventitious thing as Rosaline's courtesy title counted in this connexion; it would help to convince Winnie of her own insignificance, of what a much greater career than her own she had tried – vainly tried – to spoil. When she was little better than a vagabond – he did not put things mercifully – Mr. Justice and Lady Rosaline Maxon might be entertaining in Devonshire Street – or perhaps Berkeley Square.
When the Law Courts rose for the Christmas vacation he went to Paris, and Lady Rosaline was gracious enough to make no secret of the fact that his presence there had a share in determining her also on a short visit. They did some of the sights together, they had many talks over the fire, and it was there – on the same Christmas Eve whereon Winnie had gone to Shaylor's Patch and Godfrey Ledstone to Woburn Square – that he told her that he had made up his mind to seek legal dissolution of his ill-starred marriage.
"I have looked at the question from all sides, and I have satisfied my conscience," he said. "Now I must act on my own responsibility."
In the last words there sounded anticipatory defiance of Mr. Attlebury – a defiance which indicated that the satisfaction of his conscience was not quite complete. The case rather was that his conscience had come to terms with the other influences, and under their pressure had accepted the way out.
"I think I may justly plead that the circumstances are exceptional." He leant forward towards her and asked, "You don't condemn me?"
"What's my opinion worth? You know much more about it; you're much more able to form a judgment."
"But I want to know that I haven't forfeited your good opinion, your regard, if I may hope that I have ever gained it."
"No, I don't condemn you, if your own conscience doesn't, Mr. Maxon." She rose and stood – leaning her elbow on the mantelpiece, her back half turned towards him. The pose displayed well the grace of her tall figure; his eyes rested on her in satisfaction.
"Thank you," he said. "That – that means a great deal to me, Lady Rosaline."
Her elbow rested on the mantelpiece, her face on her hand; her mouth was hidden. But unseen by him a smile bent her lips. His words were entirely decorous – from a man still married – but they were explicit enough. "I can have him if I want him," probably sums up pretty accurately the lady's comfortable conclusion.
CHAPTER XV
MRS. NOBODY
In spite of the untoward telegram, her visit to Shaylor's Patch heartened up Winnie in two ways. It checked the searching of conscience which is the natural and frequent result of threatened failure; by the evidence it afforded her of Stephen's affection and Dick Dennehy's loyal admiration, it strengthened her woman's confidence in her power to hold her man. After all, Mabel Thurseley was not very pretty; with the sea between Godfrey and Woburn Square, there would be full cause for hope. She dreamed of Italian skies. Though she had recalled and recognized his liberty, under their bargain, to leave her, it was not prominent in her mind. The natural woman was fighting – and fights, it may be supposed, much the same, whatever her status by law or her rights by agreement.
She had telegraphed to Godfrey the proposed time of her arrival at the studio, and expected to find him there; for surely the slight chill would be better by now? He was not there; yet apparently the chill was better, for he had been there earlier in the day. The old Irish servant gave her this news, looking at her in what Winnie felt to be rather an odd way. The woman lingered by the door for a minute, glancing round the room, seeming half in a mind to say something more, and half in a mind not to. In the end she said nothing, and went out in silence – as a rule she was loquacious – when her mistress told her that she would give any necessary orders after she had unpacked. Winnie's mind was on the idea of carrying Godfrey off that very night.
Short as her absence had been, the studio looked somehow unfamiliar; it had less of the 'lived in' look which she associated with it as a pleasant feature. She scanned it with awakening curiosity. The board on which he stretched his drawing-paper – what had become of that? His tobacco-jar was not in its usual place; technical books of his were missing from their appointed shelf. He must have felt inclined for work in spite of the chill, and come to fetch them; at least, that would account for the board and books, if not as well for the tobacco-jar. She moved towards the kitchen, to inquire of the servant, but suddenly came to a full stop in the middle of the room. She stood there for a moment, then turned sharp round and went up the stairs that led to the bedrooms – not to unpack, for she left her own trunk and dressing-bag on the floor of the studio.
She went upstairs slowly, determinedly calm, but with beating heart and a touch of vivid colour on her cheeks. The door of his bedroom stood wide open. The furniture was all in its place; the toilet table was no barer than his visit to Woburn Square accounted for; the little clock she had given him ticked away on the mantelpiece. But Winnie made straight for the chest of drawers, and quickly opened and shut one after another. They were all empty. The wardrobe yielded the same result. All his clothes had gone, and his boots – all of them. She went back to the landing and opened the door of a cupboard, where his portmanteau was usually stowed away; it was gone. Preparation for a long stay – somewhere! Yet the chill was so much better that he had been able to visit the studio that morning, when, no doubt, he had carried off all these things – all of them, not merely drawing-board, books, and tobacco-jar.
She moved quickly into her own room. There all was as usual; but she had thought that perhaps there would be a letter. None was visible. A curious quiet, almost a desolation, seemed to brood over the little room; it too took on, suddenly, an uninhabited air. She sank into a wicker arm-chair and sat there quite still for some minutes. Then she sprang briskly to her feet again, exclaiming, "Oh, but nonsense!"
She was seeking indignantly to repel the conviction which was mastering her mind. Surely he would not, could not, do it like this? In her rare contemplation of their possible parting, as bargained for, there had always been not indeed argument, much less recrimination, but much friendly discussion, a calm survey of the situation, probably an agreement to 'try it again' for a longer or shorter time, till a mature and wise decision, satisfactory to the reason, if not to the feelings, of both, should be arrived at. But this would be sheer running away – literal running away from her, from the problem, from the situation. It could not be. There must be some explanation.
Sounds were easily audible in the small flimsy dwelling. She heard the front door bell ring – and sat listening for his voice calling her, his step across the studio floor, and then coming up the stairs. Neither voice came, nor step; besides – odd she had not remembered it before – of course he would have used his latchkey. She got up, took off her jacket, unpinned her hat, laid it on the bed, looked to her hair, and then went slowly downstairs again.
Amy Ledstone was standing in the middle of the studio; the knock had been hers. Then in an instant Winnie knew, and in an instant she put on her armour. Her tone was cool and her manner self-possessed; they need not both be cowards – she and Godfrey!
"How do you do, Miss Ledstone? You've come to tell me something?"
"Yes." Amy Ledstone was neither cool nor self-possessed. Her voice trembled violently; it was an evident effort for her not to break into sobbing. "He – he still loves you; he told me to tell you that."
"Told you to tell me! Isn't that rather odd? – After all our – well, he's been able to tell me for himself before. Won't you sit down?" She sat herself as she spoke.
"No, thank you. But he can't bear to see you; he can't trust himself. He told me to say that. He said you'd understand – that you had a – an understanding. Only he couldn't bear to say good-bye."
"He's not coming back?"
"He was really rather seedy on Sunday – so he stayed. And – and on Sunday night mother had a bad attack; we were really alarmed."
Winnie nodded. Always, from the very beginning, a dangerous enemy – mother's weak heart!
"Mother had been with him all day – she wouldn't leave him. I suppose she got over-tired, and there was the strain of – of the situation; and daddy – my father – broke out on Godfrey the next morning; and I'd broken out on him Christmas night."
"You?" There was a touch of reproach in the question.
"Yes, I told him he must choose. He really made love to Mabel all the time. So I told him – "
"I see." She smiled faintly. "The poor boy can't have had a pleasant Christmas, Miss Ledstone!"
"We were all at him, all three of us!" She stretched out her hands suddenly. "Do try to understand that he had something to bear too. And that we had – thinking as we do about it. It was hard for other people besides you. Father's getting old, and Godfrey's all mother and I – "
Winnie nodded her understanding of the broken sentence.
"I haven't said a word against him or any of you. He had a right to do what he has done, though he's done it in a way I didn't think he'd choose."
"He doesn't trust himself, and mother – oh!" Her forlorn murmuring ended hopelessly in nothing.
"Mother! Yes! What a lot of things there are to think of! I had just made up my mind to take him right away from all of you, to take him abroad. I could have done it if I'd found him here. Perhaps I could do it still – I wonder?"
Amy shivered uncomfortably under the thoughtful gaze of her companion's eyes.
"I might write letters too – as you used to – and contrive secret meetings. He's said nothing about Miss Thurseley to me – I don't suppose he'd say anything about me to Miss Thurseley. But he'd meet me all the same, I think. That seems to be his way; only before your last visit I didn't know it."
"Indeed he won't think of Mabel – not for a long while. He's so – so broken up."
Winnie raised her brows slightly; she was beginning to form an opinion of her own about that – an opinion not likely to be too generous to Godfrey.
Amy spoke with obvious effort, with an air of shame. "Mother begged and prayed me to – to try and persuade you – " She broke off again.
"To let him alone? I suppose she would. She thinks I've done all the harm? As far as he's concerned, I suppose I have. If we'd gone about it in the ordinary way, he really needn't have suffered at all."
Again came Amy's uncomfortable shiver; she was not at home with steady contemplation of the ways of the world; it had not come across her path any more than love-making had.
"You can tell your mother that I'll let him alone. Then, I hope, she'll get better."
"Oh, I don't understand you!"
"No? Well, I didn't understand Godfrey. But in your case it doesn't matter. Why should you want to? You can all put me out of your thoughts from to-day."
"I can't!" cried Amy; "I shall never be able to!" Suddenly she came over to Winnie, and, standing before her, rather awkwardly, burst into tears. "How can you be so hard?" she moaned. "Don't you see that I'm terribly unhappy for you? But it's hopeless to try to tell you. You're so – so hard. And I've got to go back home, where they'll be – "
Winnie supplied the word – "Jubilant? Yes." She frowned. "You cry, and I don't – it is rather funny. I wonder if I shall cry when you've gone!"
"Oh, do you love him, or don't you?"
Winnie's brows were raised again. In view of what had occurred that day, of the sudden revelation of Godfrey, of the abrupt change his act had wrought in her relations to him, the question seemed to imply an unreal simplicity of the emotions, a falsely uncomplicated contrast between two states of feeling, standing distantly over against one another. Such a conception in no way corresponded with her present feelings about Godfrey Ledstone. The man she loved had done the thing she could not forgive – did she love him? Yet if she did not love him, why could she not forgive him? Unless she loved him, it was small matter that he should be ashamed and run away. But if he were ashamed and ran away, how could she love? Love and contempt, tenderness and repulsion, seemed woven into one fabric of intricate, almost untraceable pattern. How could she describe that to Amy Ledstone?
"I suppose I love my Godfrey, but he seems not to be the same as yours. I can't put it better than that. And you love yours, and not mine. I think that's all we can say about it."
Amy had her complications of feeling too. She dried her eyes, mournfully saying, "That's not true about me. I like yours best – if I know what you mean. He was a man, anyhow. But then I know it's wicked to feel like that."
Winnie looked up at her. "Of course you must think it wicked – I quite see that – but you do understand more than I thought," she said. "And you won't think I'm abusing him? It wouldn't seem wicked to me at all – if I'd happened on the right man. But I didn't. That's all. And this way of ending it seems somehow to – to defile it all. The end spoils it all. That seems to me shamefully unfair. He had a right to go, but he had no right to be ashamed. And he is ashamed, and almost makes me ashamed. I could almost hate him for it."
