"One sleeps, indeed, and wakes at intervals,We know, but waking's the main part with us,And my provision's for life's waking part.Accordingly, I use heart, head and handAll day, I build, scheme, study and make friends;And when night overtakes me, down I lie,Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,The sooner the better, to begin afresh.What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith?You, the philosopher that disbelieve,That recognise the night, give dreams their weight—To be consistent—you should keep your bed,Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man,For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream,Live through the day and bustle as you please.And so you live to sleep as I to wake,To unbelieve as I to still believe?Well, and the common sense o' the world calls youBedridden,—and its good things come to me."
"One sleeps, indeed, and wakes at intervals,We know, but waking's the main part with us,And my provision's for life's waking part.Accordingly, I use heart, head and handAll day, I build, scheme, study and make friends;And when night overtakes me, down I lie,Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,The sooner the better, to begin afresh.What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith?You, the philosopher that disbelieve,That recognise the night, give dreams their weight—To be consistent—you should keep your bed,Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man,For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream,Live through the day and bustle as you please.And so you live to sleep as I to wake,To unbelieve as I to still believe?Well, and the common sense o' the world calls youBedridden,—and its good things come to me."
Robert Browning: "Bishop Blougram's Apology."
The Bullingdon Ball took place on the Tuesday night, and Joyce returned to town the following morning. Her brother may have mentioned the time, or it may have been pure coincidence that I should be buying papers and watching the trains when she arrived at the station with the girl she was chaperoning. We met as friends and exchanged papers: I gave her theMorning Postand receivedtheNew Militantin return. As the train slipped away from the platform, she waved farewell with a carefully gloved left hand. Then Dick and I strolled back to the House.
In drowsy, darkened chamber Robin was sleeping the sleep of the just. As I voyaged round his rooms, I reflected that undergraduate humour changes little through the ages, and in Oxford as elsewhere the unsuspecting just falls easy prey to wakeful, prowling injustice. An enemy had visited that peaceful home of slumber. Half-hidden by disordered bed-clothes, a cold bath prematurely awaited Robin's foot, and on his table was spread a repast such as no right-thinking man orders for himself after two nights' heavy dancing. Moist, indecorous slabs of cold boiled beef, beer for six, two jars of piccalilli and a round of over-ripe Gorgonzola cheese, offered piteous appeal to a jaded, untasting palate. Suspended from the overmantel—that soul might start on equal terms with body—hung the pious aspiration—"God Bless our Home."
"Garton, for a bob!" Robin exclaimed when I described the condition of his rooms.
Flinging the bed-clothes aside, he fell heavily into the bath, extricated himself to the accompaniment of low, vehement muttering that may have been a prayer, and bounded across the landing to render unto Garton the things that were Garton's. I followed at a non-committal distance, and watched the disposal of two pounds of boiled beef in unsuspected corners of Garton's rooms. Three slices were hidden in the tobacco jar, the rest impartially distributed behind Garton's books—to mature and strengthen during sixteen weeks of Long Vacation. Balancing the jug of beer on the door-top—whence it fell and caved in the fraudulent white head ofa venerable scout—Robin hastened back to his own quarters and sported the oak.
"I was thinking of a touch of lunch on the Cher," he observed, exchanging his dripping pyjamas for a dressing-gown and making for a window-seat commanding Canterbury Gate, a cigarette in one hand and a Gorgonzola cheese in the other. "If you wouldn't mind toddling round to Phil and the Seraph and routing the girls out, we might all meet at the House barge at one. I'll cut along and dress as soon as I've given Garton a little nourishment. I suppose the pickles 'ud kill him," he added with a regretful glance at the two-pound glass jars.
I communicated the rendezvous to Philip, threw an eye over the "Where is Miss Rawnsley?" article as I crossed the Quad, and dropped anchor in the Seraph's rooms. His quaint streak of femininity showed itself in the bowls of "White Enchantress" carnations with which the tables and mantelpiece were adorned. A neat pile of foolscap covered with shorthand characters indicated early rising and studious method. I found him working his way through theTimesandWestminster Gazettefor the last three days.
"I suppose there is no news?" I said when I had told him Robin's arrangements for the day and described the Battle of the Beef.
"Nothing to-day," he answered. "Have you seen yesterday'sTimes?"
I had been far too busy with Joyce and my three wards to spare a moment for the papers. I now read for the first time that the Prime Minister had moved for the appropriation of all Private Members' days. The Poor Law Reform Bill would engage the attention of the House for the remainder of theSession, to the exclusion of Female Suffrage and every other subject.
"That's Rawnsley's answer tothis," I said, giving the Seraph my copy of theNew Militant.
"I wonder what the answer of theNew Militantwill be to Rawnsley," he murmured when he had read the article.
"That is for you to say," I told him. "You read the Heavens and interpret dreams and forecast the future...."
"Fortunately I can't."
This was an unexpected point of view.
"Wouldn't you if you could?" I asked.
"Would any one go on living if he didn't cheat himself into believing the future was not going to be quite as black as the present?"
This was not the right frame of mind for a man who had spent two nights dancing with Sylvia—to the exclusion of every one else, and I told him so.
"Come along to the Randolph," he exclaimed impatiently. "To-day, to-night; and to-morrow all will be over. I was a fool to come. I don't know why I did."
We picked up our hats and strolled into King Edward Street.
"You came because Sylvia invited you," I reminded him. "I heard the invitation. Young Rawnsley was not there, but Culling and Gartside were, and a dozen more I don't know by name. Any of them might have been chosen instead, but—they weren't. You should be more grateful for your advantages, my young friend."
"I'm not."
I linked my arm in his, and tried to find out what was upsetting him.
"You've been having some senseless, needless quarrel with her...." I hazarded.
"How can two people quarrel when they've not a single point in common? Our lives are on parallel lines, continue them indefinitely and they'll never meet. Therefore—it's a mistake to bring the parallels so close together that one can see the other."
For a moment I wondered whether he had put his fortune to the test and received a rebuff.
"Does Sylvia think your lives are on parallel lines?" I asked.
"What experience or imagination do you think a girl like that's got? It never occurs to them that everybody's not turned out of the same machine as themselves, with the same ideas, beliefs, upbringing, position, means. D'you suppose Sylvia appreciates that she spends more money on dress in six months than I earn in a year? Can she imagine that I hate and despise all the little conventions that she wouldn't transgress for all the wealth of the Indies? The doctrines she's learnt from her mother, the doctrines she'll want to teach her children—can she imagine that I regard them as so much witchcraft that I wouldn't imperil my soul by asking any sane child to believe? I'm an infidel, a penniless, unconventional Bohemian, and she—well, you know the atmosphere of Brandon Court. What's the good of our going on meeting?"
"Nigel is neither infidel, unconventional, nor Bohemian," I said. "Moreover, he stands on the threshold of a big career...."
"I daresay," said the Seraph as I paused.
"Nigel was not invited. Gartside may be an infidel if he ever troubles to think of such things; he is certainly not penniless or Bohemian. He isa large-framed, large-hearted hero, with every worldly advantage a girl could desire. Gartside was not invited. No more were the others. You were."
"She hadn't known me two days; perhaps two days aren't long enough to find me out."
"Feminine intuition...." I began.
"Feminine intuition's a woman's power of jumping to wrong conclusions quicker than men. Unless you want to get yourself into trouble, you'd better not march into Sylvia's presence with aNew Militantin your hand."
I thanked him for the reminder, and bequeathed the offending sheet to the Martyrs' Memorial. The heavy type of the headline, "Where is Miss Rawnsley?" reminded me of our earlier conversation.
"I shan't be sorry to get rid of my charges," I remarked. "They're a responsibility in these troublous times."
"Sylvia's in no danger," he answered with great confidence.
"I'm not so sure."
"She's absolutely safe."
"How do you know?"
He looked at me doubtfully, and the confidence died out of his eyes.
"I don't. It's—just an opinion."
"Even if you're right, there's still Gladys," I said.
"I'd forgotten her."
"She's a fair mark."
"I suppose so."
"Though not as good as Sylvia."
"I assure you Sylvia's in no danger."
"But how do you know?" I repeated.
"I tell you; it's only an opinion."
"But you don't express any opinion about Gladys."
"How could I?"
"How can you about Sylvia?"
He hesitated, flushed, opened his lips and shut them again in his old tantalising way.
"I don't know," he answered as we entered the Randolph, and walked to the end of the hall where the three girls were awaiting us.
Robin had provided an imposing flotilla for our accommodation. His own punt was reserved for Cynthia, himself, and the luncheon-baskets; a mysterious reconciliation had placed Garton's at the disposal of Philip, Gladys, and myself, while Sylvia and the Seraph were stowed away in a Canadian canoe, detached by act of sheer piracy from the adjoining Univ. barge. We took the old course through Mesopotamia and over the Rollers, mooring for luncheon half a mile above the Cherwell Hotel. Hunger and a sense of duty secured my presence for that meal and tea; in the interval I retired for a siesta. Distance, I find, lends enchantment to a chaperon.
It was in my absence that Philip asked Gladys to marry him. On my reappearance at tea-time, Robin shouted the news across a not inconsiderable section of Oxfordshire. I affected the usual surprise, warned Philip that he must await my brother's approval, and shook hands with him avuncularly. Then I watched the orgy of kissing that seems inseparable from announcements of this kind. A mathematician would work out the possible combinations in two minutes, but his calculation would, as ever, be upset by the intrusion of the personal equation, for Robin kissed Gladys not once, but many times, less with a view to welcoming her as a sister than from a reasonable belief that such ill-timed assiduity would exasperate her elder brother.
In time it occurred to some one to make tea, and at six o'clock the flotilla started home. Robin ostentatiously transferred me from Philip's punt to his own, and with equal ostentation announced his intention of starting last so as to round up the laggards. The Canadian canoe shot gracefully ahead, and was soon lost to view; a fast stream was running, and the boat needed little assistance from the paddle. I have no doubt that in the late afternoon sun, and with an accompaniment of rippling water gently lapping the sides of the boat, time passed all too quickly. Fragments of conversation were disinterred for my benefit in the course of the following weeks, to set me wondering anew what sympathetic nimbus I must wear that girls and boys like Sylvia and the Seraph should unlock their hearts for my inspection.
I gather that Sylvia called for the verdict on the success of their expedition to Oxford, and that the Seraph found for her, but with reluctant, qualified judgment.
"You're not sorry you came?" she asked. "Well, what's lacking? I'm responsible for bringing you here; I want everything to be quite perfect."
"Everythingisperfect, Sylvia."
She shook her head.
"Something's wrong. You're moody and silent and troubled, just like you were the first time we met. D'you remember that night? You looked as if you thought I was going to bite you. I don't bite, Seraph. Tell me what's the matter, there's still one night more; I want to make you glad you came."
"You can't make me gladder than I am. But you can't find roses without thorns. I wish we weren't all going back to-morrow."
"It's only to London."
"I know, but it'll all be different."
"But why?"
"I don't know, but itwillbe. These three days wouldn't have been so glorious if I hadn't remembered every moment of the time that they were—just three days."
Shipping his paddle, he lay back in the boat and plunged his arms up to the elbow in the cool, reedy water. Sylvia roused him with a challenge.
"Four days would have bored you?"
"Have you ever met the man whowasbored by four days of your company?"
"Don't you sometimes fancy you know me better than most?"
"I've known you since Whitsun."
"You've known me since...."
She stopped abruptly. The Seraph lifted a wet hand, and watched the water trickling in zigzag rivulets up his arm.
"Shall I finish it for you?" he asked.
"You don't know what I was going to say."
"You've known me since the day I was born."
"Why do you think I was going to say that?"
"You were, weren't you?"
"I stopped in the middle."
"You'd thought out the end."
"Had I?"
"Unconsciously?"
A hand waved in impatient protest.
"If it was unconscious, how should I know?"
The Seraph glanced quickly up at her face, and turned away.
"True," he answered absently.
"No one could know," she persisted.
"Iknew."
"Guessed."
For answer he picked up his coat from the bottom of the boat, and extracted a closely written sheet of college note-paper. Folding it so that only the last line was visible, he handed it her with the words—
"You'll find it there."
Sylvia read the line, and gazed in perplexity at her companion.
"But I neversaidit," she persisted.
"You were going to."
She turned the paper over without answering.
"What's on the other side?" she asked.
The Seraph extended an anxious hand.
"Please don't read that!" he implored her. "It's not meant for you to see."
"Is it about me?"
"Yes."
"Then why shouldn't I see it?"
"You may, but not now."
"Well, when?"
The Seraph's manner had grown suddenly agitated. To gain time, he produced a cigarette, but his agitation was betrayed in the trembling hand that held the match.
"When we meet again," he answered after a pause.
"We meet again to-night."
"When we meet—after parting."
"We part to dress for dinner."
"I mean a long, serious parting," he replied in a low voice.
Sylvia laughed at his suddenly grave expression.
"Are we going to quarrel?" she asked.
He nodded without speaking.
"Why, Seraph?" she asked more gently.
"We can't help it."
"It takes two to make a quarrel.Idon't want to."
"We shouldn't—if we were the only two souls in creation."
Sylvia sat silent, fidgeting with a signet ring, and from time to time looking questioningly into the troubled blue eyes before her.
"How do youknowthese things?" she asked at length. "You can't know."
"Call it guessing, but I was right over the unfinished sentence, wasn't I?"
"Perhaps, but how do you know?"
"I don't. It's fancy. Some people spend their lives awake, others dreaming." He shrugged his shoulders. "I dream. And sometimes the dream's so real that I know it must be true."
Sylvia smiled with a shy wistfulness he had not seen on her face before.
"I wish you wouldn't dream we were going to quarrel," she said. "I don't want to lose you as a friend."
"You won't. Some day I shall be able to help you, when you want help badly."
Almost imperceptibly her mouth hardened its lines, and her eyes recovered their disdainful, independent fire.
"Why should I want help?" she asked.
"I don't know," was all he could answer. "You will."
Their canoe had drifted to the Rollers. The Seraph landed, helped Sylvia out of the boat, and stood silently by while it was hauled up and lowered into the water on the other side. As they paddled slowly through Mesopotamia neither was able—perhaps neither was willing—to pick up the threadsof the conversation where they had been dropped. In silence they passed the Magdalen Bathing Place, through the shade of Addison's Walk, under the Bridge and alongside the Meadows. Sylvia's mind grappled uneasily with the half-comprehended words he had spoken.
"Do we meet and make it up?" she asked with assumed lightness of tone as the canoe passed through the scummy, winding mouth of the Cher and shot clear into the Isis.
"We meet."
"And make it up?" she repeated.
"I don't know."
"Do you care?"
"Sylvia!"
"What will you do?"
"If we don't?" The Seraph sat motionless for a moment, and then began paddling the boat alongside the barges. "I shall go abroad. I've never been to India. I want to go there. And then I shall go on to Japan, and from Japan to some of Stevenson's islands in the South Seas. I've seen everything else that I want to see."
"And then?"
He raised his eyebrows and shook his head uncertainly.
"Burial at sea, I hope."
"Seraph, if you talk like that we shall quarrel now."
"But it's true."
"There'd be nothing more in life?"
"Not if we quarrelled and never made it up."
"But if wedid——"
"Ah, that'ud make all the difference in the world."
For a moment they looked into each other's eyes: then Sylvia's fell.
"I don't want to quarrel," she said. "I don'tbelieve we shall, I don't see why we need. If we do, I'm prepared to make it up."
"I wonder if you will be when the time comes," he answered.
We were, with a single, noteworthy exception—a subdued party that night at dinner. Philip and Gladys had much to occupy their minds and little their tongues: Sylvia and the Seraph were silent and reflective: I, too, in my unobtrusive middle-aged fashion, had passed an eventful night and morning. The exception was Robin, who furnished conversational relief in the form of Stone Age pleasantries at the expense of his brother in particular, engaged couples in general, and the whole immemorial institution of wedlock. I have forgotten some of his more striking parallels, but I recollect that each fresh dish called forth a new simile.
"Pity oysters aren't in season, Toby," he remarked. "Marriage is like your first oyster, horrid to look at, clammy to touch, and only to be swallowed at a gulp." "Clear soup for me, please. When I'm offered thick, I always wonder what the cook's trying to hide. Thick soup is like marriage." "Why does dressed crab always remind me of marriage? I suppose because it's irresistible, indigestible, and if carelessly mixed, full of little pieces of shell." "Capercailzie is symbolical of married life: too much for one, not enough for two." "Matrimony is like a cigarette before port: it destroys the palate for the best things in life."
No one paid any attention to Robin as he rambled on to his own infinite contentment: he would probably still be rambling but for the arrival of an express letter directed to me in Arthur Roden's writing. We were digesting dinner over a cigar in the hall, and after reading the letter I took Sylviaand the Seraph aside, and communicated its contents. By some chance it was included in a miscellaneous bundle of papers I packed up before leaving England, and I have it before me on my table as I write.
"Private and Confidential," it began—
"My Dear Toby,""If this arrives in time, I shall be glad if you will send me a wire to say all is well with Sylvia and the others. We are a good deal alarmed by the latest move of the Militants. You will have seen that Rawnsley got up in the House the other day and moved to appropriate all Private Members' time till the end of the Session, in this way frustrating all idea of the Suffrage coming up in the form of a Private Member's Bill."The Militants have made their counterstroke without loss of time. Yesterday morning Jefferson's only child—a boy of seven—disappeared. We left J. out when we were running over likely victims at Brandon: he was away in theEnchantressinspecting Rosyth at the time, and I suppose that was how we forgot him. We certainly ought not to have done so, as he has been one of the most outspoken of the anti-militants."The child went yesterday with his nurse to Hyde Park. The woman—like all her damnable kind—paid no attention to her duty, and allowed some young guardsman to sit and talk to her. In five minutes' time—she says it was only five minutes—the child had disappeared. No trace of him has been found. Jefferson, of course, is in a great state of worry, but agrees with Rawnsley that no word of the story must be allowed to reach the Press, and no effort spared to convince the electorate of the utter impossibility of considering the claims atpresent put forward by the Militants. I am arranging a series of meetings in the Midlands and Home Counties as soon as the House rises."And that reminds me. Rawnsley received a second letter immediately after the abduction of J.'s boy, telling him his action in respect of Private Members' time had been noted, and that he would be given till the end of the month [June] to foreshadow an autumn session. There may be an autumn session—that depends on the Committee Stage of the Poor Law Bill—but the Suffrage will not come up during its course, and Rawnsley is purposely withholding his announcement till the month has turned."For the next ten days, therefore, we may hope to be spared any fresh attack. After that they will begin again, and as my Midland campaign is being announced in the course of this week, it is more than probable that the blow may be aimed at me."Please shew this letter to Sylvia and the boys, and explain as much of the Rawnsley affair as may be necessary to make it clear to her. At present she has been told that Mavis is ill in London and may have to undergo an operation. Tell her to use the utmost care not to stir in public without some competent person to escort her. Scotland Yard is increasing its bodyguards, and everything must be done to assist them."You will, of course, see the necessity of keeping this letter private."Ever yours,"Arthur Roden."
"My Dear Toby,"
"If this arrives in time, I shall be glad if you will send me a wire to say all is well with Sylvia and the others. We are a good deal alarmed by the latest move of the Militants. You will have seen that Rawnsley got up in the House the other day and moved to appropriate all Private Members' time till the end of the Session, in this way frustrating all idea of the Suffrage coming up in the form of a Private Member's Bill.
"The Militants have made their counterstroke without loss of time. Yesterday morning Jefferson's only child—a boy of seven—disappeared. We left J. out when we were running over likely victims at Brandon: he was away in theEnchantressinspecting Rosyth at the time, and I suppose that was how we forgot him. We certainly ought not to have done so, as he has been one of the most outspoken of the anti-militants.
"The child went yesterday with his nurse to Hyde Park. The woman—like all her damnable kind—paid no attention to her duty, and allowed some young guardsman to sit and talk to her. In five minutes' time—she says it was only five minutes—the child had disappeared. No trace of him has been found. Jefferson, of course, is in a great state of worry, but agrees with Rawnsley that no word of the story must be allowed to reach the Press, and no effort spared to convince the electorate of the utter impossibility of considering the claims atpresent put forward by the Militants. I am arranging a series of meetings in the Midlands and Home Counties as soon as the House rises.
"And that reminds me. Rawnsley received a second letter immediately after the abduction of J.'s boy, telling him his action in respect of Private Members' time had been noted, and that he would be given till the end of the month [June] to foreshadow an autumn session. There may be an autumn session—that depends on the Committee Stage of the Poor Law Bill—but the Suffrage will not come up during its course, and Rawnsley is purposely withholding his announcement till the month has turned.
"For the next ten days, therefore, we may hope to be spared any fresh attack. After that they will begin again, and as my Midland campaign is being announced in the course of this week, it is more than probable that the blow may be aimed at me.
"Please shew this letter to Sylvia and the boys, and explain as much of the Rawnsley affair as may be necessary to make it clear to her. At present she has been told that Mavis is ill in London and may have to undergo an operation. Tell her to use the utmost care not to stir in public without some competent person to escort her. Scotland Yard is increasing its bodyguards, and everything must be done to assist them.
"You will, of course, see the necessity of keeping this letter private.
"Ever yours,"Arthur Roden."
As I gave the letter to Sylvia and the Seraph to read, I will admit that my first feeling was one of unsubstantial relief that Joyce had been in Oxfordwhen the abduction took place in London. I did not in any way condone the offence, I should not have condoned it even had I known that she was mainly responsible for the abduction. Independently of all moral considerations, I found myself being glad that she was out of town at the time of the outrage. The consolation was flimsy. I concede that. But it is interesting to me to look back now and review my mental standpoint at that moment. I had already got beyond the point of administering moral praise and blame: my descent to active participation in crime followed with incredible abruptness.
I felt the "Private and Confidential" was not binding against the Seraph, as he had been present when Rawnsley described the disappearance of Mavis. While he expounded her father's letter to Sylvia, I gave its main points to Philip and Robin. The comments of the family were characteristic of its various members. Philip shook a statesmanlike head and opined that this was getting very serious, you know. Robin inquired plaintively who'd want to abduct a little thing like him.
"I don't want any 'competent escort,'" Sylvia exclaimed with her determined small chin in the air.
"For less than twenty-four hours," I begged. "I'm responsible for your safety till then. After that you can fight the matter out with your father."
"But I can look after myself even for the next twenty-four hours."
I assumed my severest manner.
"Have you ever seen me angry?" I said.
"Do you think you could frighten me?" she asked with a demure smile.
"I'm quite sure I couldn't," I answered helplessly. "Seraph, can you do anything with her?"
"Nobody can do anything with her...."
"Seraph!"
"...against her will."
"That's better."
I struck at a propitious moment.
"When we leave here," I said to the Seraph, "you're to take her hand and not let go till you're back in the hotel again. I give her into your charge. Treat her...."
I hesitated, and Sylvia interrogated me with a King's Ransom smile.
"Treat her as she deserves," I said. "If she were my wife, ward or daughter, I should slap her and send her to bed. So would you, so would any man worthy of the name."
"Would you, Seraph?"
He was helping her into her cloak and did not answer the question. Suddenly she turned round and looked into his eyes.
"Would you, Seraph?" I heard her repeat.
"I shall treat you—as you deserve to be treated," he answered slowly.
"That's not an answer," she objected.
"What's the good of asking him?" I said as the rest of our party joined us.
In the absence of Joyce I spent large portions of a dull and interminably long night smoking excessive cigarettes and leaning against a wall to watch the dancers. Towards three o'clock I discovered an early edition of an evening paper and read it from cover to cover. Canadian Pacifics were rising or falling, and some convulsion was taking place in Rio Tintos.
The only other news of interest I found in the Cause List. I remember the case of Wyltonv.Wylton and Sleabury was down for trial one day towards the end of that week.
"Conventional women—but was not the phrase tautological?"
"Conventional women—but was not the phrase tautological?"
George Gissing: "Born in Exile."
I always look back with regret to our return to London after Commemoration. Our parting at the door of the Rodens' house in Cadogan Square was more than the dispersal of a pleasant, youthful, light-hearted gathering; it marked out a definite end to my first careless, happy weeks in England, and foreshadowed a period of suspense and heart-burning that separated old friends and strained old alliances. As we shook hands and waved adieux, we were slipping unconsciously into a future where none of us were to meet again on our former frank, trustful footing.
I doubt if any of us recognised this at the time—not even the Seraph, for a man is notoriously a bad judge in his own cause. Looking back over the last six months, I appreciate that the seeds of trouble had already been sown, and that I ought to have been prepared for much that followed.
To begin with, the astonishing acrimony of speech and writing that characterised both parties in the Suffrage controversy should have warned me of the futility of trying to retain the friendship of JoyceDavenant on the one hand and the Rodens on the other. Bitter were their tongues and angry their hearts in the old, forgotten era of demonstrations and hecklings; the bitterness increased with the progress of the arson campaign, and its prompt, ruthless reprisals; but I remember no political sensation equalling the suppressed, vindictive anger of the days when the abduction policy was launched, and no clue could be found to incriminate its perpetrators. I suffered the fate of most neutral powers, and succeeded in arousing the suspicions of both belligerents.
Again, the Wylton divorce proved—if proof were ever needed—that when English Society has ostracised a woman, her sympathisers gain nothing for themselves by championing her cause. They had better secure themselves greetings in the market-place by leading the chorus of moral condemnation. Elsie Wylton would scarcely have noticed the two added voices, and the Seraph and I might have spared ourselves much unnecessary discomfort. He was probably too young to appreciate that Quixotism does not pay in England, while I—well, there is no fool like a middle-aged fool.
Lastly, I ought to have seen the shadow cast by Sylvia's tropical intimacy with the Seraph at Oxford. She was unquestionablyintriguée, and I should have seen it and been on my guard. Resist as she might, there was something arresting in his other-world, somnambulant attitude towards life; for him, at least, his dreams were too real to be lightly dismissed. And his sensitive feminine sympathy was something new to her, something strangely stimulating to a girl who but half understood her own moods and ambitions. I have no doubt that in their solitary passage back to Oxford she had unbent andrevealed more to him than to any other man, had unbent as far as any woman of reserve can ever unbend to a man. Equally, I have no doubt that in cold retrospect her passionate, uncontrolled pride exaggerated the significance of her conduct, and magnified the moment of unaffected friendliness into an humiliating self-betrayal.
The Seraph—it is clear—had not responded. I know now—indeed, I knew at the time—that Sylvia had made an indelible impression on his receptive, emotional nature. Her wilful, rebellious self-confidence had galvanised him as every woman of strong character will galvanise a man of hesitations and doubts, reservations, and self-criticism. Knowing Sylvia, I find no difficulty in understanding the ascendancy she had established over his mind; knowing him, I can well appreciate his exasperating diffidence and self-depreciation. It never occurred to him that Sylvia could forget his relative poverty, obscurity, and their thousand points of conflict; it never dawned on her that he could be held back by honourable scruples from accepting what she had shown herself willing to offer. The Seraph came back from Oxford absorbed and pre-occupied with haunting memories of Sylvia; with his curious frankness he told her in so many words that she possessed his mind to the exclusion of every other thought. There he had stopped short—for no reason she could see, and it was not possible for her to go further to meet him. Next to the Capitol stands the Tarpeian Rock. I ought to have remembered that with Sylvia it was now crown or gibbet, and that there was no room for platonic admirers.
With his genius for the unexpected the Seraph disappeared from our ken for an entire week after our return to London. Gladys and I were alwaysrunning over to the Rodens' or receiving visits from Sylvia and Philip; it appeared that he had forsaken Cadogan Square as completely as Pont Street, and the unenthusiastic tone in which the information was volunteered did not tempt me to prosecute further inquiries. On about the fifth day I did pluck up courage to ask Lady Roden if he had yet come to the surface, but so far from receiving an intelligible answer I found myself undergoing rigorous examination into his antecedents. "Whoisthis Mr. Aintree?" I remember her asking in her lifeless, faded voice. "Has he any relations? There used to be a Sir John Aintree who was joint-master of the Meynell."
After a series of unsuccessful inquiries over the telephone, I set out to make personal investigation. Sylvia had carried Gladys off to Ranelagh, and as Robin offered his services as escort to the girls, I felt no scruples in resigning my ward to her charge. For Sylvia, I am glad to say, my responsibility had ceased, and I was at liberty to proceed to Adelphi Terrace, and ascertain why at any hour of the day or night I was met with the news that Mr. Aintree was in town, but away from his flat, and had left no word when he would be back. I called in at the club before trying his flat. The Seraph was not there, but I found the polyglot Culling explaining for Gartside's benefit certain of the more obvious drolleries of the current "Vie Parisienne."
"Where did ye pick up yer French accent, Bob?" I heard him inquire with feigned admiration. "In Soho? I wonder who dropped it there?" Then he caught sight of me, and his face assumed an awful solemnity. "'Corruptio optimi pessima!' I wonder ye've the courage to show yerself among respectable men like me and Gartside."
I inquired if either of them knew of the Seraph's whereabouts, but the question appeared to add fuel to Culling's indignation.
"Where is the Seraph?" he exclaimed. "Well ye may ask! His wings are clipped, there's a dint in his halo, and his harp has its strings broken. The Heavenly Choir——" He paused abruptly, seized a sheet of foolscap and resumed his normal tone. "This'll be rather good—the Heavenly Choir and our Seraph flung out like a common drunk same as Gartside here.
'To bottomless perdition, there to dwell—Why can't the club afford a decent pen?You're our committeeman, Bob, you're to blame.I always use blank verse for my complaints.—To bottomless perdition, there to dwellIn adamantine chains and penal fire.'"
'To bottomless perdition, there to dwell—Why can't the club afford a decent pen?You're our committeeman, Bob, you're to blame.I always use blank verse for my complaints.—To bottomless perdition, there to dwellIn adamantine chains and penal fire.'"
John Milton: "Paradise Lost, Liber One."
I watched the Heavenly Choir being sketched. In uniform and figure the Archangel Gabriel presented a striking resemblance to any Keeper of the Peace at any Music Hall. An official braided coat bulged at the shoulders with the pressure of two cramped wings, his peaked cap had been knocked over one eye, and his halo—in Culling's words—was "all anyhow." As the artist insisted on a companion picture to show the Seraph's reception in Bottomless Perdition, I turned to Gartside for enlightenment.
"It's been going on long enough to be getting serious," I was told. "A solid week now."
"What'sbeen going on?" I exclaimed in despair. "Where are we? Above all, where's the Seraph?"
"Isn't it telling you we are?" protested Culling. "It started on the day you returned from your godless wanderings and prowled through Londonlike a lion seeking whom you might devour. 'Portrait of a Gentleman—well known in Society—seeking whom he may devour,'" he murmured to himself, stretching forth a hand for fresh foolscap. "And it's been going on ever since. And nobody's had the courage to speak to him about it. There you have the thing in a nutshell."
I turned despairingly to Gartside, and in time was successful in extracting and piecing together an explanation of his dark references to the Seraph. "Once upon a time," he began.
"When pigs were swine," Culling interrupted, "and monkeys chewed tobacco."
"Shut up, Paddy! Once upon a time a girl named Elsie Davenant married a man called Arnold Wylton. Perhaps she knows why she did it, but I'm hanged if anybody else did. She was a nice enough girl by all accounts, and Wylton—well, I expect you've heard some queer stories about him, they're all true. After they'd been married—how long was it, Paddy?"
"Oh, a few years—by the calendar," said Culling, eagerly taking up the parable. "It's long enough she must have found 'em! Wylton used to work in little spells of domesticity in the intervals of being horse-whipped out of other people's houses, and disappearing abroad while sundry little storms blew over. Morgan and Travers took in a new partner and started a special 'Wylton Department' for settling his actions out of court...."
"This is all fairly ancient history," I interposed.
"It's the extenuating circumstance," said Gartside.
Culling warmed oratorically to his work.
"In the fulness of time," he went on in the manner of the Ancient Mariner, "Mrs. Wylton woke up and said, 'This is a one-sided business.' Toby,ye're a bachelor. Let me tell you that married life is amauvais quart d'heuremade up of exquisite week-ends. While Wylton dallied unobtrusively in Buda Pesth, giving himself out to be the Hungarian correspondent of theBaptist Family Herald, Mrs. Wylton spent her exquisite week-end at Deauville."
He paused delicately.
"Girls will be girls," sighed Gartside.
"A gay cavalry major, with that way they have in the army, made a flying descent on Deauville. He'd been seen about with her in London quite enough to cause comment. Good-natured friends asked Wylton why he was vegetating in Pesth when he might be in Deauville; he came, he saw, he stayed in the self same hotel as his wife...."
"Which curiously enough had been already chosen by the gay cavalry major."
Culling shook his head over the innate depravity of human nature.
"You see the finish?" he inquired rhetorically. "They say the senior partner in Morgan and Travers had a seizure when Wylton had finished the last batch of cases in his own department, and strolled into the private office to instruct proceedings for a petition."
"Six days ago, decree nisi was granted," said Gartside.
"Scene in Court: President expressing sympathy with Petitioner," murmured Culling, with quick pencil already at work on the blotting-pad.
I lit a cigar to clear my head.
"Where does the Seraph come in?" I persisted like a man with anidée fixe.
"In the sequel," said Gartside. "There is a right way of doing everything, also a wrong. When one is divorced, one hides one's diminished head...."
"I always do," said Culling.
"One grows a beard and goes to live in Kensington. Mrs. Wylton is making the mistake of trying to brazen things out. 'You may cut me,' she says, 'but ye canna brek me manly sperrit.' Consequently in every place where she can be certain of attracting a crowd, Mrs. Wylton is to be found in the front row of the stalls, very pretty, very quiet and so unobtrusively dressed that you're almost tempted to damn her as respectable."
He lit a cigarette and I took occasion to remind him that we had not yet come in sight of the Seraph.
Culling took up the parable.
"Is she alone?" he asked in a husky whisper. "Sir, she is not! Who took her to dinner last night at Dieudonné's, the night before at the Savoy, the night before that at the Carlton? Who has been seen with her at the Duke of York's, the Haymarket, the St. James'?"
"Who rides with her every summer morning in the Park?" cut in Gartside. "It is our Seraph. Our foolish Seraph, and we lay at your door the blame for his demoralisation. Seriously, Toby, somebody ought to speak the word in season. He's getting talked about, and that sort of flying in the face of public opinion doesn't do one damn's worth of good. The woman's got to have her gruel and take her time over it. She'll only put people's backs up by going on as she's doing at present. Mind you, I'm sorry for her," he went on more gently. "In her place I'd have done precisely the same thing, and I'd have done it years ago. But I should have had the sense to recognise I'd got to face the consequences."
I wondered for a short two seconds if it wouldbe of the slightest avail to proclaim my belief in Elsie Wylton's innocence. A glance at Culling and Gartside convinced me of the futility.
"Where's the Seraph now?" I asked.
"With her. Any money you like. She lives with her sister in Chester Square; you'll find him there."
I sent a boy off to telephone to Adelphi Terrace. Until his return with the announcement that the Seraph was still away from home, Gartside suggested the lines on which I was to admonish the young offender.
"The gay cavalry major's prudently shipped himself back to India," he said, "and he was a pretty shadowy figure to most people as it was. What the Seraph has to understand is that he'll get all the discredit of being an 'and other' if he ties himself to her strings in this way. I only give you what everybody's saying."
I promised to ponder his advice, and after being reminded that Gladys and I were due at his musical party the following week, and reminding him that he was expected to lunch on my house-boat at Henley, we went our several ways.
Wandering circuitously round the smoking-rooms and library on my way to the hall, I had ample corroboration of what—in Gartside's words—everybody was saying. The Wylton divorce was the one topic of conversation. For the most part, I found Gartside's own tolerance to the woman representative of the general feeling in the club: his strictures on the folly of the Seraph's conduct had a good many echoes, though two men had the detachment to praise his disinterested behaviour. Of the rest, those who did not condemn opined that he was too young to know any better.
The one discordant note was struck when I met Nigel Rawnsley in the hall. Elsie Wylton was shot hellwards in one sentence and the Seraph in another, but the burden of his discourse was reserved for the sacramental nature of wedlock and the damnable heresy of divorce. I was subjected to a lucid exposition of the Anglican doctrine of marriage, initiated into the mysteries of the first three (or three hundred) General Councils of the Church, presented with thumbnail biographies of Arius and S. Athanasius, and impressed with the necessity of unfrocking all priests who celebrated the marriage of divorced persons. It was all very stimulating, and I found that half my most prosaic friends were living in something that Rawnsley damningly described as "a state of sin."
It was tea-time before I arrived at Chester Square. I suppose I had never taken Gartside very seriously: the moment I saw Elsie and the Seraph, my lot was unconditionally thrown in with the publicans and sinners. She greeted me with the smile of a woman who has no care in the world: then as she turned to ring the bell for tea, I caught the expression of one who is passing through Purgatory on her way to Hell. The Seraph's eyes were telegraphing a whole code-book. I walked to the window so that she could not see my face, nor I hers.
"I thought you wouldn't mind my dropping in," I said as carelessly as I could. "It was tea-time for one thing, and for another I wanted to tell you that you've done about the pluckiest thing a woman can do. Good luck to you! If there's anything I can do...."
Then we shook hands again, and I found her death-like placidity a good deal harder to bear than if she had broken down or gone into hysterics. Ido not believe the Davenant women know how to cry: Nature left the lachrymal sac out of their composition. Yet on reflection I can see now that she was suffering less than in the days six weeks before when the anticipation of the divorce lowered menacingly over her head and haunted every waking moment. It is curious to see how suspense cards down a woman's spirit while the shock of a catastrophe seems actually to brace her and call forth every reserve of strength. From this time till the day of my departure from England, Elsie was indomitable.
"It's hard work at present," she said with a gentle, tired smile, "but I'm going through with it."
That was what her father used to say when I climbed with him in Trans-Caucasia. He would say it as we crawled and fought and bit our way up a slippery face of rock, sheer as the side of a house. And he was five and twenty years my senior.
"What are you doing to-night?" I asked.
"We were trying to make up our minds when you came in," said the Seraph.
"Dinner somewhere, I suppose, and a theatre? What's on, Seraph? I'm all alone to-night, and I want you and Elsie to dine with me."
Elsie was sitting with closed eyes, bathing her forehead with scent.
"Make it something that starts late," she said wearily. "I don't feel I can stand many hours."
After a brief study of the theatrical advertisements in theMorning Postthe Seraph went off to make arrangements over the telephone. I took hold of Elsie's disengaged hand and tried in a clumsy, masculine fashion to pump courage into her tired spirit.
"You must stick it out to the end of the Season,"I told her. "It's only a few more weeks, and then you can rest as long as you like. Don't let people think they can drive you into hiding. If you do that, you'll lose pride in yourself, and when you lose pride in yourself, why should any one believe in you?"
"How many people believe in me now?"
"Not many. That's why I admire your pluck. But there's Joyce for one."
"Yes, Joyce," she assented slowly.
"And the Seraph for another."
"Yes, the Seraph."
"And me for a third."
I felt her trying to draw her hand away.
"I wonder if you do, or whether it's just because I'm a bit—hard hit."
I let go the hand as she rose to blow out the spirit lamp. Standing erect—blue-eyed, pale faced and golden haired—she was wonderfully like Joyce, I thought, with her slim, black-draped figure and slender white neck, but a Joyce who had drunk deep of tribulation.
"It's a pity you weren't ever at a boys' school," I said.
"Why?"
"If you had been, you'd know there are some boys who simply can't keep themselves and their clothes clean, and others who can't get dirty or untidy if they try. In time the grubby ones usually get cleaner, but the boy who starts with a clean instinct never deteriorates into a grub. The distinction holds good for both sexes. And it applies to conduct as much as clothes. The Davenants can't help keeping clean. I've known three in one generation and one in another."
I said it because I meant it. I should have said it just the same if Elsie had had no sister Joyce.
The Seraph came back with Dick Davenant, and I tried to get him to join us, but he was already engaged for dinner. Shortly afterwards I found it was time to get home and change my clothes. In the hall I found Joyce and pressed her into our party. It was a short, hurried meeting, as she was saying good-bye to two colleagues or fellow-conspirators when I appeared. I caught their names and looked at them with some interest. One was the formidable Mrs. Millington, a weather-beaten, stoutish woman of fifty with iron-grey hair cut short to the neck, and double-lensed pince-nez. The other was an anæmic girl of twenty—a Miss Draper—with fanatical eyes that watched Joyce's every movement, and a little dry cough that told me her days of agitation were numbered. When next we met she wiped her lips after coughing.... Mrs. Millington I never saw again.
That night was my first effort in the vindication of Elsie Wylton. I believe we dined at the Berkeley and went on to Daly's. The place is immaterial; wherever we went we found—or so it seemed to our over-sensitive, suspicious nerves—a slight hush, a movement of turning bodies and craning necks, a whispered name. Elsie went through it like a Royal Duchess opening a bazaar; laughing and talking with the Seraph, turning to throw a word to Joyce or myself; untroubled, indifferent—best of all, perfectly restrained. The hard-bought actress-training of immemorial centuries should give woman some superiority over man....
We certainly supped at the Carlton in a prominent position by the door. I fancy no one missed seeing us. The Seraph knew everybody, of course, and I had picked up a certain number of acquaintances in two months. We bowed to every familiar form, andthe familiar forms bowed back to us. When they passed near our table we hypnotised them into talking, and they brought their women-folk with them....
When supper was ended we moved outside for coffee and cigars, so that none who had entered the supper room before us should leave without running the gauntlet. We had our share of black looks and noses in air, directed I suppose against Joyce as much as against her sister; and many a mild husband must have submitted to a curtain lecture that night on the text that no man will believe political or moral evil of any woman with a pretty face. The older I get the truer I find that text; I cannot remember the day when I was without the instinct underlying such a belief.
At a quarter-past twelve Elsie began to flag, and we started our preparations for returning home. As I waited for my bill—and swore a private oath that Gartside should translate his sympathy into acts, and join our moral-leper colony before the week was out—an unexpected party emerged from the restaurant and passed us on their way to collect cloaks. Gladys and Philip, Sylvia and Robin, driven home from Ranelagh by the impossibility of securing a table for dinner, had eaten sketchily at Cadogan Square, hurried to the Palace, and turned in to the Carlton to make up for lost food.
The Seraph of course saw them first, rose up and bowed. I followed, and both of us were rewarded by a gracious acknowledgment from Sylvia. Then she caught sight of Joyce and Elsie, and her mouth straightened itself and lost its smile. The change was slight, but I had been expecting it. Another moment, and the straight lines broke to a slight curve. Every one bowed to every one—Robin withhis irrepressible, instinctive good-humour, Philip more sedately, as befitted a public man, the eldest son of the Attorney-General, and an avowed opponent of the Militant Suffrage Movement. Then Sylvia passed on to get her cloak, I arranged with Philip to take Gladys home, we bowed again and parted.
The whole encounter had taken less than two minutes. It was more than enough to make Elsie say she must decline my invitation to Henley.
"A public place is one thing, and a houseboat's another," she said. "You wouldn't invite two people to stay with you if you knew the mere presence of one was distasteful to the other."
"You've got to go the whole road," I said. "If the Rodens know me, they've got to know my friends."
"We mustn't be in too much of a hurry," she answered. "I'm right, aren't I, Joyce? There's no scandal about Joyce, but she's given up visiting with the Rodens. It was beginning to get rather uncomfortable."
The matter was compromised by the Seraph inviting Elsie to come to Henley in an independent party of two. They would then secure as much publicity as could be desired without causing any kind of embarrassment to a private gathering.
I saw nothing of Sylvia until Gartside's Soirée Musicale three nights later. The Seraph dined with us, and when Philip snatched Gladys from under my wing almost before the car had turned into Carlton House Terrace, I retired with him into an inviting balcony and watched the female side of human nature at work.
Sylvia stood twelve feet from us, looking radiant. Instinctive wisdom had led her to dress—as ever—in white, and to wear no jewellery but pearls. Herblack hair seemed silkier and more luxuriant than ever; her dark eyes flashed with a certain proud vitality and assurance. Nigel Rawnsley was talking to her, talking well, and paying her the compliment of talking up to her level. I watched her give thrust for thrust, parry for parry; all exquisite sword play.... His enemies called Nigel a prig, even his friends complained he was overbearing; I liked him, as I contrive to like most men, and only wish he could meet more people of his own mental calibre. He had met one in Sylvia; there was no button to his foil when he fenced with her.
"Thus far and no farther," I murmured.
The Seraph looked up, but I had only been thinking aloud. I was wondering why she painted that sign over her door when Nigel approached. A career of brilliant achievement and more brilliant promise, her own chosen faith and ritual, ambition enough and to spare—Nigel entered the lists well armed, and she was the only one who could humanise him. I wondered what gulf of temperamental antipathy parted them and placed him without the pale....
They talked till Culling interposed his claim for attention, preferring the request with triplicated brogue. From time to time Gartside strayed away from his other guests and shivered a lance in deferential tourney. As I watched his fine figure, and looked from him to the irrepressible Culling, and from Culling to Rawnsley's clear-cut, intellectual face, I asked myself for the thousandth time what indescribable affinity could be equally lacking in three men otherwise so dissimilar.
With light-hearted carelessness she guarded the sword's length of territory that divided them. It was adroit, nimble fencing, but I wondered howmuch it amused her. Not many women can resist the age-long fascination of playing off one admirer against another; but I should have written Sylvia down among the exceptions. She did not want admiration.... Then I remembered Oxford and read into her conduct the first calculated stages in the Seraph's castigation. If this were her object, it failed; the Seraph was ignorant of the very nature of jealousy. In the light of their subsequent meeting, I doubt if this were even her motive.
We had both received a distant bow as we entered the room, but not a word had been vouchsafed us. I am afraid my nature is too indolent to be greatly upset by this kind of neglect. The Seraph, I could see, grew rather unhappy when his presence was overlooked every time he came within speaking distance. It was not till the end of the evening that she unbent. I had promised to take Gladys on to a ball, and at eleven I came out of hiding and went in search of her. Culling had just been told off to find Robin, and Sylvia stood alone.
"Are you going on anywhere?" she asked the Seraph when they had the room to themselves.
"It's the Marlthrops, isn't it?" he asked.
"And Lady Carsten. Robin and I are going there. Are you coming?"
The Seraph's hand went to his pocket and made pretence of weighing three or four invitations in the balance. Finally he selected the Carsten card and glanced at it with an air of doubt.
"Will my presence be welcome?" he asked.
"You must ask Lady Carsten, she's invited you."
"Welcome to you?"
"It depends on yourself."
"What must I do?"
Sylvia pursed up her mouth and looked at him with head on one side.
"Be a little more particular in the company you keep."
"I usually am."
"With some startling lapses."
"I'm not aware of any."
Sylvia drew herself up to her full height.
"How have you spent the last week?"
"In a variety of ways."
"In a variety of company?"
"The same nearly all the time."
She nodded.
"This is my objection."
"Ifshedoesn't object...." A dawning flush on Sylvia's cheek warned him to leave the sentence unfinished.
"I'm giving you advice for your own sake because, apparently, you've no one else to advise you," she said with the slow, elaborate carelessness of one who is with difficulty keeping her temper. "You've spent the last week thrusting yourself under every one's notice in company with a woman who's just been divorced from her husband. Every one's seen you, every one's talking about you. If you like that sort of notoriety...."
"Can it be avoided?"
"You can drop the woman."
"She's none too many friends."
"She's one too many."
"I cannot agree."
"Then you put yourself on her level."
"I should be proud to rank with her."
Sylvia paused a moment to steady her voice.
"I've got a temper," she remarked with exaggerated indifference, "it's never wise for anybody torouse it, and many people would be annoyed if you talked to them as you're talking to me. I—simply don't think it's worth it, but can you wonder if I ask you to choose between her and me?"
The Seraph's face and voice were grave.
"The choice seems unnecessary," he said.
"You must take it from me that I have no wish to be seen about with a man who allows his name to be coupled with a woman of that kind."
"What kind, Sylvia?"
"You know my meaning."
"But your meaning is wrong."
"I mean an ugly word for an ugly sin. A woman of the kind that breaks the Seventh Commandment."
The Seraph began tearing his card in narrow strips.
"Elsie Wylton didn't," he said quietly.
"She told you so?"
"I didn't need telling."
Sylvia's expression implored pity on the credulity of man. The Seraph was still nervously fingering his card, but no signs of emotion ruffled her calm. The face was slightly flushed, but she bent her head to hide it.
"Part friends, Seraph," she said at last, "if you're not coming to the Carstens'. Think it over, and you'll find every one will give you the same advice."
"I dare say." He pocketed the torn card and prepared to accompany her. "What would you do in my place if you believed the woman innocent?"
Sylvia shirked the question.
"Innocent women don't get into those positions."
"It is possible."
"How can she prove her innocence?"
"How do you prove her guilt?"
"I don't attempt to go behind what the Court finds."
At the door the Seraph hesitated.
"To-night's only an armistice, Sylvia," he stipulated. "I must have time to think. I'm not committed either way."
She gave him her old friendly smile.
"If you like." Then the smile melted away. "My ultimatum comes in force to-morrow morning, though. You must make up your mind then."