"My own dearest Leo,"Oh, how I miss you already! But I shan't be theonlyone! That'ssomecomfort. Think of church now without your dreadful remarks about all the still more dreadful people. I know one or two who are not going to church any more now. Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Don't you ever feel ashamed of yourself? And the river on Wednesdays, and theparkon Saturday afternoons! The place will be dead. It will be a vast waste. You told me to make up to Dorothy Garforth. But she's notyou. She'll never have the pluck to talk to strange young men about their motor bikes or their horses and things. Youwerea wonder! Still my own dear Leo, you promised to invite me up to London to meet your people, didn't you, and don't you dare to forget. I shall pine away here if you do."I must tell you something that happened last night. Well, I met Charlie as I was coming home from saying good-bye to you. He was desolate. You really have been a little cruel. He said you gave him back his match-box and gold pencil, and that that meant you did not want anything more to do with him. He said he had been waiting behind the usual shrubbery in the park for two hours, for a long last good-bye and that you never turned up. I know what you mean about him, that he isn't smart and clean and all that, but he is rather nice all the same. Almost the best we knew. I think the hair on his hands, as you pointed out, made up for a heap of other shortcomings in him. But I know what you mean. He's a little rough and there's an end of it. I thought of telling him to write to you; but then it struck me you would not like him to. Hesaid you were a flirt, and that you would only have a rich man. I said it wasn't that a bit, that he had quite misunderstood you. I couldn't tell him the truth, could I?—that he wasn't altogether 'toothsome,' as you call it. He said he had seen us talking to that motor-cyclist fellow in the park last Saturday, and that proved it. I said it proved nothing, because we did not know then that he was one of the wealthiest boys in the county. However he seemed very bitter."Did you really give him so much encouragement? Of course mendothink it a lot if you let them kiss you. Aren't they stupid? They can't understand that even if one does not love them overmuch one wants to know what it's like. And youdidlike pretending you were deeply in love, didn't you now?—all the time? I tell you who'll be glad you've gone, Alice Dewlap. She was sweet on Charlie long before you met him, because Kitty told me so."Oh, Leo, you were a wicked creature, a regular godsend! What shall we do without you!Doask me to come soon. That's cool, isn't it? Asking for an invitation. But you know what I mean. Think of me in church next Sunday. Good Lord deliver us! Tell me what to say to Charlie if he bothers me about you again. And don't forget to tell me all that happens in London. Describe all the men you meet minutely,—you know to the smallest detail as you used to here. You taught me to notice heaps of things I should never have thought of."Good-bye my dearest treasure-trove, with heaps of love and kisses.
"My own dearest Leo,
"Oh, how I miss you already! But I shan't be theonlyone! That'ssomecomfort. Think of church now without your dreadful remarks about all the still more dreadful people. I know one or two who are not going to church any more now. Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Don't you ever feel ashamed of yourself? And the river on Wednesdays, and theparkon Saturday afternoons! The place will be dead. It will be a vast waste. You told me to make up to Dorothy Garforth. But she's notyou. She'll never have the pluck to talk to strange young men about their motor bikes or their horses and things. Youwerea wonder! Still my own dear Leo, you promised to invite me up to London to meet your people, didn't you, and don't you dare to forget. I shall pine away here if you do.
"I must tell you something that happened last night. Well, I met Charlie as I was coming home from saying good-bye to you. He was desolate. You really have been a little cruel. He said you gave him back his match-box and gold pencil, and that that meant you did not want anything more to do with him. He said he had been waiting behind the usual shrubbery in the park for two hours, for a long last good-bye and that you never turned up. I know what you mean about him, that he isn't smart and clean and all that, but he is rather nice all the same. Almost the best we knew. I think the hair on his hands, as you pointed out, made up for a heap of other shortcomings in him. But I know what you mean. He's a little rough and there's an end of it. I thought of telling him to write to you; but then it struck me you would not like him to. Hesaid you were a flirt, and that you would only have a rich man. I said it wasn't that a bit, that he had quite misunderstood you. I couldn't tell him the truth, could I?—that he wasn't altogether 'toothsome,' as you call it. He said he had seen us talking to that motor-cyclist fellow in the park last Saturday, and that proved it. I said it proved nothing, because we did not know then that he was one of the wealthiest boys in the county. However he seemed very bitter.
"Did you really give him so much encouragement? Of course mendothink it a lot if you let them kiss you. Aren't they stupid? They can't understand that even if one does not love them overmuch one wants to know what it's like. And youdidlike pretending you were deeply in love, didn't you now?—all the time? I tell you who'll be glad you've gone, Alice Dewlap. She was sweet on Charlie long before you met him, because Kitty told me so.
"Oh, Leo, you were a wicked creature, a regular godsend! What shall we do without you!Doask me to come soon. That's cool, isn't it? Asking for an invitation. But you know what I mean. Think of me in church next Sunday. Good Lord deliver us! Tell me what to say to Charlie if he bothers me about you again. And don't forget to tell me all that happens in London. Describe all the men you meet minutely,—you know to the smallest detail as you used to here. You taught me to notice heaps of things I should never have thought of.
"Good-bye my dearest treasure-trove, with heaps of love and kisses.
"Yours for ever and ever,
"Nessy."
The old gentleman lost sight of Leonetta during the lunch interval; but when she returned from the restaurant car, slightly flushed, and her eyelids lazily drooping, he concluded that she had probably partaken heartily of the good fare provided, more particularly as a few stray crumbs still clung about the corners of her lips, betraying to his experienced eye the unconscious eagerness which healthy people habitually show over their meals. Wisely he did not infer from these evidences of a youthful and unimpaired appetite that she was slovenly in her table manners, because the unmistakable gentleness of her upbringing precluded any such possibility. The observation merely confirmed his general impression of her, and left him pondering over the relationship of daintiness to health.
Drowsily the girl re-opened the letter which she had been perusing before the luncheon hour, and re-read it once or twice; then dropping it listlessly upon her lap, she turned upon her fellow-passengers a look of such guileless interest that they might have been excused had they been moved by that compassion, so frequently unwarranted, for innocence on the threshold of Life's great adventure.
The letter she held had been brought to her that morning by Vanessa's maid. Leonetta and Vanessa had made friends the moment they first met, and when Vanessa, duly qualified, had left the School of Domesticity, about six months afterLeonetta's arrival there, they had continued to see each other outside its walls. There was a difference of only a year in their ages, Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her for her every cue.
The train was nearing London; already the coquettish veil of smoke with which the "hub of the Universe" conceals the full horror of her ugliness from the eyes of critics, gave the summer sky a murky yellow tinge. Leonetta yawned, glanced across the vast city which she hoped would hence-forward be her home, and then suddenly recollecting that her mother and sister would probably be at King's Cross to meet her, quickly folded the letter that was lying on her lap and relegated it to one of the interstices of her pocket-portfolio.
Leonetta was home again and the old house in Kensington felt the change acutely. The stairs creaked in a manner almost indignant; doors which for months had disported themselves with quiet dignity, manifested a sudden and youthful tendency to slam; Palmer, the parlour-maid could never be found, except at the heels of her youngest mistress, who seemed to have requisitioned her entire services; while a fresh young voice, as imperious as it was melodious, could be heard on almost every floor at the same time, calling the stately rooms back to life again, and shivering the cobwebs of monotony as it were by acoustic principles alone.
The expression of the kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows, one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the feelings of anxiety and disapproval that lie behind it.
Now there was, as we have seen, little of themaiden aunt in Mrs. Delarayne's disposition, and yet this is precisely the expression which, from the moment of Leonetta's arrival at King's Cross, had fastened upon her features. It was the look of one who, though anxious to humour a youthful relative as far as possible, was nevertheless determined that the young creature's pranks should not be allowed to extend to incendiarism, personal assault and battery, homicide, or anything equally upsetting. It scarcely requires description: the brows are permanently slightly raised, the eyes are kept steadily upon the youthful relative in question in mingled astonishment and fear, while there is the aforesaid agitated smile, which threatens at any moment to assume the hard and petulant lines of impatient reproach.
Leonetta had quite properly insisted upon a completely new outfit. She had not "unpacked" in the accepted sense. She had simply emptied her boxes into the dust-bin. Some of her things, it is true, had fallen to Palmer, and to Wilmott, her mother's maid, but very few of them, indeed, had she been willing to return to her wardrobe or her chests of drawers.
No one could take exception to this procedure. It was perfectly right and proper. It was the way it was done, as if it had been a forgone and incontrovertible conclusion, that unnerved Mrs. Delarayne, and drove Cleopatra, more abashed than indignant, to the quietest corner of the house for peace and solitude.
Obviously Leonetta had as yet received no check from life, no threat of an obstacle, or worse still a snub. Her pride pranced with an assurance, a certainty, that was at once baffling and unbaffled. In the presence of her sister's unbroken and unshaken will and resolute assertion of her smallest rights, Cleopatra shrank as before the force of an elemental upheaval. Her tottering self-confidence swayed ominously in the neighbourhood of the younger girl, and it was with alarm and helplessness in her eyes, that she sought a refuge where she could breathe undisturbed.
In the library she dropped desperately into a chair, and her glance ran nervously up and down the bookshelves, while her ears listened stealthily for echoes of the voice that was subordinating the house.
She had forgotten during these blissful months how beautiful her sister was. Some mysterious power in her, that found it easy to forget these things, had even led her memory to form quite a moderate estimate of Leonetta's charms in her absence,—even her sister's telling tricks with her hair had been completely banished from her mind.
Cleopatra rose and walked to the fire-place. On the mantelpiece, she knew, there was a photograph of herself at Leonetta's age. She felt she wanted to examine this record of her adolescence. She was groping for strength: she wished to fortify herself.
She drew the photograph towards her. No, shehad not changed so very much. Only something inside her seemed to have grown less tense, less self-confident. Also, she had not had Leonetta's advantages,—advantages that she herself had been chiefly instrumental in securing for her younger sister. More arts than that of wielding the French tongue are learned in Paris. Apparently she never had arranged her hair quite as Baby arranged hers.
And then, all at once, the door opened, and she pushed the photograph violently from her, so that it fell with a clatter on the marble of the mantelpiece. It was her mother; and as the door opened and shut, the sound of Leonetta's voice upstairs swelled and died away again.
"Oh, it's you," Cleopatra cried, setting up the fallen frame.
Mrs. Delarayne walked to the window, spasmodically drew back a curtain, and then turned to face her daughter.
"She's amazingly high-spirited, isn't she?"
"Extraordinary!" Cleopatra exclaimed.
"Can you go with her to Mlle. Claude's to-morrow to order those frocks? You see, I have my Inner Light meeting in the afternoon."
"She won't like it."
"What does it matter? She won't listen to my suggestions, so I might just as well stay at home as go with her. She knows exactly what she wants down to the last button."
"Then why can't she go alone?"
"Well,—I don't know," replied Mrs. Delarayne anxiously; "she might perhaps feel that neither of us was taking much interest in her, don't you think?"
"How much are you allowing her?"
"A hundred pounds."
"Edith!"
"My dear,—I could say nothing!"
"But I never had half that sum all at once."
"I know," sighed her mother wearily. "But you can have it now, or more if you want it."
There was a loud drumming of feet, and the door opened.
"Oh, Peachy darling!" Leonetta cried, "you're the very person I wanted to see, and I couldn't think what had become of you."
She was brandishing a paper of the latest Paris fashions in her hand as she skipped to her mother's side.
"You see," she pursued, "this is what I want for my best evening turn-out, I couldn't find it a moment ago." And she proceeded to describe to her mother what the particular confection consisted of.
"Of course they do these things miles better in Paris," she added with a pout.
"No doubt," said Mrs. Delarayne coldly.
"And they're not a scrap more expensive either," Leonetta continued.
"Possibly not," her mother rejoined. Then there was a moment's silence while Leonetta ran rapidly through the newspaper in her hands.
At last Mrs. Delarayne spoke.
"Leo, darling," she began, "would you mind very much if Cleo went with you to-morrow instead of me?"
Leonetta glanced up, scrutinised her mother and sister for a second, and her brow clouded. "Oh, Peachy," she cried at last, "you are a worm!"
Mrs. Delarayne sat down, and fumbled nervously with a brooch at her neck. She realised dimly that she ought to protest against being addressed in this manner by her younger daughter and stared vacantly at Cleopatra.
"You see," she said, "I have my Inner Light meeting."
"Your inner what?" Leonetta exclaimed contemptuously.
A slight flush crept slowly up the widow's neck, and she looked hopelessly in the direction of her elder daughter.
Leonetta laughed. "Inner Light!" she cried. "Peachy, you are getting into funny ways in your old age; now come, aren't you?"
A look of such deep mortification came into Mrs. Delarayne's eyes, that Cleopatra herself felt provoked.
"There's no need to be rude, Baby!" she ejaculated angrily, not realising quite how much of her anger was utterly unconnected with her sister's treatment of their mother.
Leonetta glanced down at her paper in the thoughtful manner of a buck about to butt. Forthe first time she had perceived clearly that much of which she had not the smallest inkling must have happened during her long absences from home, and that these two women,—her mother and sister,—were united by strangely powerful bonds. Being an intelligent creature, therefore, she decided to postpone the framing of her strategy until she had learned more about the strength that seemed to be constantly combining against her.
She raised her eyes at last, and looked straight into her sister's face.
"I can't think what makes you so dreadfully stuffy," she declared, "surely there's no harm in what I said."
Mrs. Delarayne, who longed only for one thing—that the remark complained about, with its brutal reference to her old age, should not be repeated, and least of all discussed,—here interposed a word or two.
"No, my darling Leo, of course not. You come fresh from school; you are full of new ideas and schemes; and we,—well, we've remained at home."
This observation was perhaps a little feeble, and it also constituted a desertion of Cleopatra, but in any case it seemed to give Leonetta the necessary hint, for she went quite close to her mother and began smoothing her hair. "You must tell me all about the Inner Light some time," she said, "it sounds ripping."
She glanced triumphantly at her sister as she spoke. Half of her action had been completely unconscious. Obviously she felt the need of making one of these women her friend, and instinctively she inclined to the one who appeared to be the more powerful.
"Peachy darling," she continued, "don't you think this white satin frock that the Claude hag is going to make me might be my coming-out frock? It will be new for the early autumn."
Cleopatra gasped, and Mrs. Delarayne gave her a glance full of meaning.
"You see," Leonetta pursued, "it will be the best of the lot, won't it?"
Mrs. Delarayne drew Leonetta towards her with an affectionate gesture, and smiled in that ingratiating manner so necessary to timidity in distress.
"But I didn't know you were to come out this autumn," she protested lamely, not daring to look at Cleopatra, whose attitude she only too shrewdly divined.
"It's ridiculous," Cleopatra exclaimed; "I didn't come out until I was eighteen. You know, Edith, you and father wouldn't hear of making it a moment sooner."
"Yes, but things are a little different now," Leonetta interposed.
"It would be unfair, grossly unfair, Edith," Cleopatra protested, "if you let her come out earlier than I did. Particularly as I did my bestto make you and father let me, and you both absolutely refused."
Leonetta was now gently stroking her mother's hair. She would not trust her eyes to look at her sister.
"Well, Peachy," she said, "surely you can't make a fuss about six months, whatever you say, Cleo. After all, I'll be seventeen and a half."
"Any way," Cleopatra snapped, "it won't be right."
"But what can it matter to you?" the younger girl demanded, glaring not too amiably at her sister.
Cleopatra's face coloured a little at this question.
"Oh, nothing," she replied, and she moved towards the door. "I don't care what you do."
"Where are you going to, Cleo dear?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired in a voice fraught with all the sympathy she could not openly express.
"I'm going out to get a breath of air," replied Cleopatra without turning her head; and she swept out of the room, performing as she went those peculiar oscillations of the upper part of her body, which are not unusually adopted by young women who are very much upon their dignity when they retire. The oscillations in question consist in curving the body sideways over small obstacles, such as chairs and tables, at the moment of passing them, as if with an exaggerated effort to combine the utmost care with the utmost rapidity of movement.
Mrs. Delarayne rose and went sadly to the window. Her eyes, full of self-pity, gazed with unwonted indifference at the passers-by. How thankful she would have been to have Mr. Delarayne at her side at this critical moment in her life. There were times when she was not unappreciative of the many advantages of widowhood; but this was not precisely the moment when the bright side of her peculiar situation seemed to be conspicuous. With Leonetta home for good, and Cleo still unmarried, she felt the need of help and advice; and it was significant that, as she became more and more aware of the practical usefulness that the late Mr. Delarayne might have had at this juncture, her thoughts turned rather to Lord Henry than to Sir Joseph Bullion.
She must speak to Lord Henry. He would know how to direct her.
A sound in the room disturbed her meditations. Leonetta, having concluded a further examination of the Paris fashions, had tossed the paper on to the table.
"Peachy darling," she began, with slow deliberation. "May I have a friend to stay with me?"
Mrs. Delarayne continued to gaze into the street. She did not like being called Peachy. She had an indistinct feeling that it sounded vulgar,—why she would have been unable to explain. Nevertheless, since anything was preferable to being called "Mother" at the top of Leonetta's strident soprano in the public highway, andfor some reason or other Leonetta would not make use of the name "Edith," she felt that it would perhaps be diplomatic to say nothing.
"Who is she?" she enquired cautiously.
Leonetta was silent for a moment. It was not the question, but the caution that dictated it, that struck the girl as strange.
"Isn't it enough that she is a friend of mine?" she observed.
"Quite, of course!" Mrs. Delarayne hastened to reply. "I only meant,—what is her name, who are her people?"
"Vanessa Vollenberg," answered Leonetta.
"It sounds foreign," was the mother's quiet comment.
"As a matter of fact, it is."
"It sounds a little Jewish."
"She is a Jewess," Leonetta admitted.
Mrs. Delarayne purred approvingly over her remarkable display of insight.
"She's very beautiful and wonderfully clever," Leonetta pursued.
"How old?"
"A year older than I am,—eighteen and a half."
"Jewesses are always pretty at that age," Mrs. Delarayne muttered, glancing at her daughter furtively for a moment.
"Oh yes, I know," Leonetta replied with unexpected warmth; "and they fade quickly afterwards. That's what everybody says."
It was clear that for some obscure reasons, she was very much attached to Vanessa Vollenberg.
"But Mrs. Vollenberg," she continued, "is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has been painted by every great artist in Europe. So she can't have faded much."
"How long do you want Vanessa to stay?"
Leonetta suggested that her friend might go to Brineweald with them for a fortnight; Mrs. Delarayne said that it might be three weeks if she chose, and the girl bounded towards her mother and embraced her.
"Oh Peachy, my own Peachy,—that is sweet of you," she exclaimed, "you are forgiven for not coming to the Claude hag to-morrow."
One of the points in Cleopatra's nature that greatly endeared her to her parent, was that she scarcely ever kissed, and when she did so, it was delicately, with a respectful consideration for her mother's facial toilet. Moreover, she never, in any circumstances, disarranged her mother's hair.
"Are they well off?" Mrs. Delarayne asked, easing a ringlet of hair tenderly back into its position near her ear.
"If you mean the Vollenbergs," Leonetta answered, "they're as rich as you and Sir Joseph knocked into one."
Her mother protested.
"Oh, very well. He owns a whole quarter of Hull, and has a West Indian Copra business into the bargain."
Leonetta did not know what "copra" was, but she thought it sounded sufficiently like a precious metal to suggest immense wealth.
Later in the evening, Mrs. Delarayne and Cleopatra were alone in the former's bedroom.
"I have a feeling," Cleopatra was saying, "that I don't love Denis sufficiently to go mad about him. You know what I mean: he may be the best specimen of manhood who has ever crossed this threshold, but he does not electrify me."
"That's very sound," her mother rejoined with unusual emphasis. "There's no need to be electrified by the man one marries."
"Yes, but I feel that one ought,—I mean that seeing that I could,—you know,—if one is going to be something to a man, one feels that one would like to be electrified by him."
Mrs. Delarayne deposited her voluminous transformation lovingly upon the dressing-table,—Cleo was such an intimate friend!
"Rubbish!" she ejaculated. "Romantic rubbish! How often have I told you girls that provided a man can keep you in comfort and has a clean sweet mouth, it doesn't matter a rap about anything else. Even if he has dirty hands and finger-nails in addition, it doesn't signify;—there's the English Channel and the Atlantic close by to wash them in. But if he hasn't a clean, sweet mouth, a second deluge wouldn't wash it for him. How can you attach so much importance to trifles, when in Denis you have the two first prerequisites in an eminent degree? You are romantic, my dear Cleo. And matrimony is a matter of flesh and blood. When the demands of these are properly attended to, I assure you the rest is mere foolishness. Denis can keep you in comfort, and he has the teeth of an African negro. What more can you want? You cannot go on losing chance after chance through these romantic notions."
"But surely," Cleo objected hopelessly, "a man ought to fire you with something more exciting than the consideration of his means and his dentition!"
"In our class," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined with gravity, "men no longer set fire to anything. Get that out of your mind at once. Modern English civilisation has entirely failed to produce men who can be at once gentlemen and fiery lovers. We have wanted things both ways, and that is why we have failed. We have wanted nice clean-minded men with whom we could walk, talk, and play games freely. But that means men who can exercise self-control. Now, of course, we are certainly free to enjoy men as safe playmates all through our youth; but we are, I'm afraid, also free to be bored with them as husbands for the rest of our lives."
There are many people who would have considered Mrs. Delarayne a selfish mother. Despite the fact that no man, woman, or child has ever yet been known to perform an unselfish action, the superstition still holds ground, that "selfish" and "unselfish" are two different and possible descriptions of human life and action. Believing, as we do, however, that no intellectually honest man can any longer attach any significance to these words, it cannot be admitted in these pages that Mrs. Delarayne was selfish. Neither was she at all conscious of any evil impulses when, standing at the dining-room window on her "Inner Light" afternoon, she watched her two children leave the house on their way to the "Claude hag," as Leonetta called the lady. On the contrary, she felt wonderfully free, exceptionally happy, profoundly relieved. The big house was silent. She was alone. She even had to suppress the half-formed longing that it might always be so.
She knew that Cleopatra felt no deep sympathy with any part of the "Inner Light" doctrine, and she was convinced, before enquiring, that Leonetta would sympathise with it even less. Although, therefore, she expected a number of young men that afternoon,—Lord Henry, St. Maur, and Malster, among them,—who might have interested her daughters, she was not in the least conscious of having acted with deliberate hostility in arranging so neatly that they should be out of the house when these gentlemen came.
To explain precisely what the "Inner Light" meetings meant to Mrs. Delarayne would entail such a long discussion of the relation of women's religiosity in general to sex and to self-deception, that it would require almost the compass of another independent treatise to deal with it adequately.
In a word Mrs. Delarayne suffered, as a large number of modern women suffer, from receiving no sure and reliable guidance from men. As a widow this was, of course, incidental to her position; but she knew well enough that there were thousands who still had their husbands, who were no better off than she was. In addition to this, she had succumbed to the influence of that absurd belief, so prevalent in cultivated circles, that typical modern thought is superior to Christianity.
She felt the ease and peace of mind that resulted from having a belief of some sort; but she would have regarded it as a surrender of principle to return to Christianity; and, far from suspecting that most modern thought, as manifested in the doctrine of the "Inner Light," for instance, or Theosophy, or Christian Science, is inferior to Christianity, she had become a member of the Inner Light, and paid its heavy entrance fee of fifty guineas, with a feeling of deep pride and satisfaction.
The doctrine of the Inner Light was an importation from America. It had been introduced into England by a very intelligent, very tall, but very delicate looking Virginian lady, about fifteen years before this story opens. It had not spread very much, it is true,—its total number of members in Great Britain amounted only to two thousand five hundred; but it was all the more select on that account, and it was guaranteed by its founders and by all who belonged to it, to be entirely free from those "regrettable remnants of superstition which so very much marred the beauty of the older religions."
It professed to recognise only one purifying and creative agent in life, and that was Light. "The world was all darkness and death," said the first prophet of the "Inner Light,"—an American named Adolf Albernspiel, who had died worth half a million dollars,—"and then Light appeared, and with it Life and the great lucid Powers: Thought, Spirit, Order."
It was so obviously superior to Christianity, it commended itself so cogently to the meanest intelligence, that the members of the "Inner Light," try how they might to exercise the tolerance which is universal to-day, could hardly refrain from a mild consciousness of superiority when they looked down upon other creeds.
Thus the priests of the Order were not called "Fathers" or "Brethren," which implied a false anthropomorphic relationship to a supreme parent "God"; they were simply "Incandescents":—Incandescent Bernard, Incandescent Margaret, Incandescent Mansel, and so on. Again, in allowing women to officiate at the altar of the Supreme Incandescence, the doctrine of the Inner Light rose superior to Christianity. "Owing to Judaic tradition and influence," as his Incandescence Albernspiel had truly pointed out, "the Christian Church had never enjoyed the eminent advantage of women's ministration. Even the Greeks had been wiser than this. And thus much of an essential character in all true religion had always been absent from Christianity, owing to this proscription of feminine influence." (The Doctrine of the Inner Light, Vol. II., p. 1303.)
There was only one Temple in England, at which all the faithful met once a year, and that was at Liverpool. It was hoped that other churches would be built sooner or later in other big centres, but meanwhile,—that is to say, pending the collecting of the necessary building fund,—all the faithful outside Liverpool were recommended to meet once a month at each other's houses, where one of the Incandescents would hold a service.
The Incandescent for London was a pale and feverish looking little man, Gerald Tribe by name, with false teeth and large, bony red hands, who lived as a sort of non-paying guest at the house ofMiss Mallowcoid, Mrs. Delarayne's elder sister, at Hampstead. It was a perfectly orderly arrangement, because, apart from the fact that he had his young wife with him, he was in any case such a learned and pure-minded young man, that, as Miss Mallowcoid declared, even if he had not been married, she would have regarded it as a privilege to live under the same roof with him. She admitted, of course, that his wife was so far beneath him as to present an almost insufferable objection to the arrangement; but Miss Mallowcoid regarded this creature as the trial and chastisement sent by the supreme Incandescence, to bring both her own and Gerald Tribe's inner light to ever greater prodigies of brilliance and power.
Miss Mallowcoid, who had been responsible for her sister, Mrs. Delarayne's conversion to the Inner Light, was expected that afternoon, as were also Sir Joseph Bullion, and all the London faithful. Lord Henry had also reluctantly agreed to attend this one meeting after months of persuasion from Mrs. Delarayne.
If Mrs. Delarayne had been asked why she had joined the cult of the Inner Light, she would have probably replied that it was a simple doctrine. Light was the beginning, Light would be the end. Life on earth was simply the struggle of Light against Darkness. When you died, you became one with the Eternal Incandescence. Age, old age,—and this was the part that chiefly attracted Mrs. Delarayne,—was simply the fatigue incurredby battling with darkness. When Light prevailed, as it would in the other world, Age would pass away,and everybody would remain eternally youthful.
Thus, far from feeling selfish or unselfish, Mrs. Delarayne was conscious only of a sensation of supreme elation, as she watched her daughters leave the house on that afternoon in July. She was even able to contemplate their unusual beauty, which would have made them a credit to any family, with unmixed feelings of pride as they walked down the square, and she smiled as she noticed the eagerness with which Leonetta strode ahead, just about half a pace in front of her sister. When she turned away from the window, therefore, and once again surveyed the large stately dining-room, with its row upon row of chairs all ready for the meeting, she was conscious only of feeling supremely happy and above all secure.
Lord Henry was to come at last. For months, in fact ever since her first initiation into the Order, she had implored him to attend a meeting, and now that her will had prevailed she felt confident that once he saw with his own eyes the large number of distinguished people gathered that day under her roof—all followers and devotees of the Inner Light,—he would be forced to acknowledge that there was a good deal in it.
Among the first arrivals was Sir Lionel Borridge, the inventor of the most up-to-date calculating machine, and a mathematician of renown.He had a conical brow like a beautifully polished knee, and very sad eyes which seemed to proclaim to the world that the study of mathematics was, on the whole, a most harrowing occupation. With him came his aged wife and spinster daughter. Both appeared to be over fifty, and, like the head of their household, also deeply depressed by mathematics. These three, looking so learned, looking so miserable with learning, were surely the best evidence that could be advanced in support of the truth of the Inner Light; for they were all convinced adherents of the Order. Sir Joseph arrived punctually at three, the hour appointed for the meeting. With him came Malster, and one of the junior secretaries of Bullion Ltd., a certain Guy Tyrrell. Lord Henry and St. Maur came a minute after time, and were followed by a phalanx of ladies of uncertain age, with their Poms, their Pekinese, their Yorkshire and their toy terriers.
Mrs. Delarayne's dining-room was filling rapidly. A buzz of conversation, accompanied by the shuffling of the latest arrivals' feet, began to pervade the large room, and necks were craned in tense expectation of celebrities.
The philocanine Palmer was entrusted with the care of the legion of lap dogs out in the garden,—for the religious meeting could not admit even the most docile pet animal; and the sound of their spiteful yappings could be heard through the open windows at the back of the room.
"You know, my dear," said Lady Muriel Bellington, who had brought her Mexican hairless, "of course he is very, very naughty. And it's very tiresome. But they are so minute, one couldn't beat them. It would be really too too!"
Lady fflote, already purple with the heat, went almost black at the suggestion of beating the Mexican hairless.
"Beat them!" she ejaculated. "Oh that would be very wrong. Oh no, you couldn't bully them. Better far let them tyrannise over you. I should never forgive myself."
In another part of the room Sir Lionel Borridge was leaning across Mrs. Gerald Tribe, the delicate and emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald Tribe, to address a word to Miss Mallowcoid.
"I think it possible, you know," he said very gravely, and looking the image of the most unconquerable woe, "that I may be able to give our minister certain mathematical facts, which I feel convinced are all in support of the doctrine of the Inner Light. I was working at them with my daughter last night,—the results are simply astounding—astounding, that's the only word."
Miss Mallowcoid ejaculated, "Really! Really!" in a hushed, awed voice, and then quickly proceeded to communicate the thrilling intelligence to her right hand neighbour, who marvelled as reverently and as inaudibly as she had done.
Sir Joseph, feeling a little bewildered, was asking Guy Tyrrell a string of questions which this young man was quite unqualified to answer, and both looked and felt extremely uncomfortable.
Lord Henry, who was seated in the second row from the front, between Denis Malster and St. Maur, glanced round at the crowd behind him, and frowned darkly.
"I think, you know, Lord Henry," said Denis Malster, noticing the young nobleman's expression of angry scorn, "you do not allow sufficiently for the fact that all of us have a subconscious inkling of the supernatural behind phenomena, and these attempts on the part of the followers of the Inner Light, of the Theosophists, or the Spiritualists, to realise the nature of this supernatural basis to the material and visible world, are all proofs of this subconscious inkling."
"I don't think," Lord Henry replied, "that you are sufficiently inclined to allow for the fundamental fact, that mankind is very, very slow in dropping an old habit. We are now, thank goodness, witnessing the slow death agony of Christianity. These people here are among those who plume themselves on having abandoned Christian dogma. But deep down in their natures, there is not the inkling of the supernatural of which you speak, but simply the religious habit,—the habit of believing in something vague and indemonstrable, the habit of services and congregational worship. And while they are dropping away from the old Church in all directions, they simultaneously,from sheer habit, create new-fangled creeds very much more absurd than anything the Church ever taught, and not nearly so beautiful."
At this moment a hush suddenly fell upon the whole company, and Mrs. Delarayne, who by virtue of her rôle as hostess, was officiating as assistant to the Incandescent Gerald that afternoon, entered the room by a small door at the back, followed by the minister.
Everyone stood up, and Lord Henry noticed that the venerable bald head of Sir Lionel Borridge was bowed in humble reverence.
The service lasted about three quarters of an hour; even Sir Joseph Bullion, who, as the latest of the elect, was the new broom of the afternoon, was seen to gape once during the course of it; and when it was over and a sort of blessing had been pronounced by the minister, the whole company filed out of the dining-room into the library for refreshment and also for the discussion of the meeting.
Everyone seemed intent upon reaching Mrs. Delarayne, and among those who struggled most to achieve this end was Sir Joseph Bullion. Congratulations were being pronounced on all sides. "How well she had read the Articles of Faith!" "How clearly she had announced the hymns!" "How cool and collected she was, and yet how reverent!"
Gradually the throng pressed less thickly about her, and Sir Joseph reached his idol.
"Wonderful, Edith,—wonderful!" he whispered. "And what a beautiful impressive service!"
Mrs. Delarayne grasped his hand, and even nodded, but her eyes were busy elsewhere. She was watching the movements of Lord Henry, who had not yet spoken to her, and who, apparently in animated conversation with Sir Lionel Borridge, had hitherto held himself aloof.
"You wouldn't remember, of course," Sir Joseph pursued, "the arrival of Baroness Puckha Bilj in London in the late eighties, with her doctrine of 'Self-Exteriorisation.' The Inner Light reminds me somewhat of that. We were her bankers. She was most successful."
"Your husband surpassed himself, Mrs. Tribe," said Denis Malster to the emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald. Denis felt extremely superior behind his solid Anglican Protestant entrenchments, and thought that he could afford to be generous and even patronising to the members of a struggling creed.
"Of course, Baroness Puckha Bilj had not your advantages," continued the undaunted Sir Joseph. "She was already advanced in years when she left Hungary."
"Have some cake?" said Mrs. Delarayne.
"I admit," Lord Henry was saying, "that a new religion is perhaps the most urgent need of modern times; but then this Age is scarcely great enough to make it."
"Come, come!" exclaimed Sir Lionel gruffly,his melancholy eyes closing heavily as he spoke, "you are a little hard surely. Is not this your first attendance here? I don't seem to remember having seen you amongst us before."
Lord Henry apologised and turned away. He had noticed his hostess's eye upon him, and he hastened towards her.
"Sir Lionel's conversation seems to have been singularly engrossing," remarked Mrs. Delarayne as he approached.
"It always amazes me," declared the young nobleman with laughter in his eyes, "how the men of the so-called 'exact sciences' become involved in our new emergency substitutes for a great Faith."
Mrs. Delarayne purred with a slightly treble note of dissent.
"Why not?" Sir Joseph demanded.
"I suppose it is the refuge of the mind that deals only with precise and exact terms and rules, to plunge into the opposite extreme,—into blue mistiness for instance. Or is it perhaps the fact that mathematicians and physicists deal very largely with symbols, with abstractions as opposed to realities, and that they therefore easily fall a prey to this sort of thing?"
Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders and tried hard to look wise.
"The worst of it is," Lord Henry pursued, "the adherence of a man like Borridge, makes lesser men imagine that the creed to which he lends his support, must have something in it."
Mrs. Delarayne contented herself with pouting, and casting a glance full of distress signals at Sir Joseph.
But Sir Joseph appeared not to notice, and taking unnecessarily large bites at a piece of cake he held, was evidently hoping to convey the impression that a sudden and inconvenient access of appetite prevented his opposing Lord Henry as violently as he might otherwise have done on the subject of the Inner Light.
The occupants of the room were beginning to revolve in that purposeful manner which augurs of leave-taking. People came up to shake hands with their hostess, and gradually the library emptied. Only Denis Malster, St. Maur, Sir Joseph, and Lord Henry remained.
Their hostess fidgeted uneasily. She wished to be alone with Lord Henry. Gradually the others understood, and ultimately took their leave.
"Now quickly, explain to me," Lord Henry began severely, "why you have anything to do with this arrant nonsense. Surely it would be more dignified, more sensible to be a Christian again, than to lend your support to this inferior modern bunkum?"
Mrs. Delarayne, with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her chin in her hand, stood sulking and was mute.
"Good Heavens! The Inner Light!" He strode towards her. "Promise me you'll give it up," he said.
"What for?"
That was her position. What for? What did he propose to offer in compensation? His protection? His devotion? His love? Then the sacrifice might be worth while. She bowed her head and smiled icily. She adored this young man. This was the last weapon she believed she could still wield against him. She was aware, perhaps, that the Inner Light was all nonsense. The fact that he said it was made it abundantly probable to her. But was it possible that the Inner Light might afford her a means of bringing their relationship to its desired conclusion?
"A supremely intelligent woman like you," Lord Henry continued, "—really! And the Incandescent Gerald! And hymn number 27——!"
"You may scoff," said the poor lady, feeling uncommonly hot, "but it all means something to me."
"That is not true!" Lord Henry exclaimed. "You know it's not true. Oh, and Lady fflote, and Lady Muriel. And Adolf Albernspiel—God!"
"Are you still determined to go to China?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded, her voice faltering a little.
"As firmly as ever."
"Well, don't let us quarrel then," she said. "The time is short enough."
"Lord Henry," she began hesitatingly, as she pulled a marguerite to pieces over the fender."I asked you to stay for a few minutes because I wanted to consult you on a very delicate matter."
He sat down facing her, and began to tug at the mesh over his brow. He frowned and blinked rapidly, as was his wont when interested. He wondered whether this charming and unhappy creature realised how thoroughly he understood her.
"You know Leonetta is home again," Mrs. Delarayne continued.
Lord Henry nodded.
"She is rather difficult to manage."
He nodded again.
"She is so full of life, so eager, so—well, can you imagine me at seventeen? Can you picture the mercurial creature I was, with every sense agog, with every nerve on thequi vive?—a dreadful little person in every way."
Lord Henry chuckled, and gave his forelock one or two unusually rapid twists.
"Leonetta is if anything worse than I was," Mrs. Delarayne continued, "for she is of this century. I belonged to the last one. D'you understand?"
He bowed.
"She is vitality incarnate,—wilful, womanly, vain, beautiful,—not more beautiful than Cleopatra, but more intrepid, more inquisitive, more determined to live than her elder sister."
"Have you a photograph of her?" Lord Henry enquired.
Mrs. Delarayne darted across the room, and returned with a large framed photograph which she handed to her visitor.
"There's the latest. It was taken a month ago."
Lord Henry examined it closely.
"Yes," he said, with his customary gravity in dealing with interesting questions. "I see. I see now. Well?"
"Can you see the girl she is? Daring,—oh, and can I say it?"
Lord Henry looked up and blinked rapidly again.
"A little—a little——"
"A little inclined to temperamental precocity?" Lord Henry enquired.
Mrs. Delarayne, very much relieved, nodded quickly.
"That's exactly it,—that's just what I meant to say,—that's it precisely. Oh how accurately that describes her!"
The elegant widow was uncommonly agitated and anxious. Lord Henry noted her state of mind, and wondered what it signified.
"I feel—people tell me,—I feel I ought perhaps to tell Leonetta——"
"You are wondering," Lord Henry interrupted, hoping to help her, "whether it is your duty to enlighten the child at all concerning——"
She sat down beside him. "Yes, I am," she said quickly.
"Has she asked any questions?" Lord Henry demanded, allowing his hand for a moment to hang motionless from his mesh of hair and glancing up at the cornice.
"No, I scarcely expect that," Mrs. Delarayne replied. "But in case. You see Cleopatra was so different. I never had any difficulty with her. Her reserve was always so rigid, I would have trusted her as acantinièrein a barracks of Zouaves. I never spoke a word about anything to Cleopatra. But Leonetta!"
"Yes, I see. You think Leonetta different?"
"What ought I to do? Do help me! Some say this and some say that. Some say that a mother should speak; some say that they never did, and they don't see why I should. My sister, Miss Mallowcoid, you know, says I ought to."
Lord Henry gave vent to an expletive of contempt.
"I'll do what you say;—only what you say," said the harassed matron, resting a hand on his.
"You should begin, my dear lady," Lord Henry replied, "by utterly distrusting all the nonsense the modern world says on this subject."
"But I do,—I don't! I mean, I pay no heed to what anybody says but you."
A shadow from the Inner Light passed across Lord Henry's mind; but that, he rightly imagined, was the widow's last little fortress against him.
"The bond that unites parent to child is a very precious one," Lord Henry continued. "It is,however, as brittle as it is precious. A trifle will snap it. Now there is one aspect of the relationship between parent and child, the physical aspect, the physical relation, which lies beneath a sort of sacred seal: it is deliberately never fully realised; it does not require to be fully realised, particularly by the child——"
Mrs. Delarayne nodded quickly and smiled.
"Think of the havoc you may create, through yourself breaking this seal by calling this delicate aspect into prominence, by discussing with your child all those matters which, as between you and her, by virtue of your relationship, are a closed book!"
"Yes, I see, I see," cried the widow quickly. "My feelings, my instincts, were always against it from the very start, and I see now that I was right."
"The modern world is immensely stupid; few of us know how immensely stupid it is. Everything that modern thought expresses, on this subject, particularly, you must feel sure therefore is utterly and radically absurd. You cannot afford to weaken the precious bond that unites you to your children; therefore do not attempt this business."
"Yes, I see. Yes, you are right. I feel you are right."
"It can only lead to the most acute embarrassment as between parent and child,—however well it is done;—and you would do it admirably, Iknow. Unfortunately, when one is embarrassed one is not at one's best for understanding. Consequently the whole proceeding, besides being dangerous, would be utterly futile."
Mrs. Delarayne pressed his hand. "It is at times like these," she burst out a little tearfully, "that I think of you going to China, and all that."
He rose.
"One minute," she said, turning eyes glistening with tears pleadingly upon him. "You have not told me what to do."
"The natural and proper thing," he replied, "is to keep her well in hand and then to trust her to her husband. The good husband is the best hierophant."
"Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Delarayne rising also.
"They master these things better on the Continent than we do in England," Lord Henry continued. "The young girl is carefully supervised, scrupulously watched, and a good husband is entrusted with the rest. That is by far the best."
"Yes," Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed, laughing in her old way for the first time that afternoon, "but then, you see, they happen to have the Continental husband to whom they can entrust the matter."
"True," Lord Henry replied. "Never mind. We must try to find her someone who is as like a Continental husband as possible."
"St. Maur is a most fascinating boy," Mrs. Delarayne observed.
"Ah—hands off Aubrey, at least for the present. He's not ripe yet," said Lord Henry; and in a moment he was gone.
A day or two later,—that is to say on the Saturday before Sir Joseph's evening At Home in honour of Leonetta's homecoming,—Mrs. Delarayne herself gave a dinner party, to which a few of her more intimate friends were invited. Sir Joseph, of course, was among the guests, as were also Denis and Guy Tyrrell. For some reason, into which she made no effort to enquire, however, Mrs. Delarayne did not ask Lord Henry.
On the afternoon of the day in question, Leonetta, after her tea, ensconced herself in the library and wrote the following letter to her friend, Vanessa Vollenberg: