Chapter 7
I think we ought not to miss hearing Mr. Kennaston's discourse. It is generally conceded that his style is wonderfully clever; and I have no doubt that his detractors--who complain that his style is mere word-twisting, a mere inversion of the most ancient truisms--are actuated by the very basest jealousy. Let us listen, then, and be duly edified as he reads in a low, sweet voice, and the birds twitter about him in the clear morning.
"It has been for many years," Mr. Kennaston began, "the custom of patriotic gentlemen in quest of office to point with pride to the fact that the schoolmaster is abroad in the land, in whose defense they stand pledged to draw their salaries and fight to the last gasp for reelection. These lofty platitudes, while trying to the lungs, doubtless appeal to a certain class of minds. But, indeed, the schoolmaster is not abroad; he is domesticated in every village in America, where each hamlet has its would-be Shakespeare, and each would-be Shakespeare has his 'Hamlet' by heart. Learning is rampant in the land, and valuable information is pasted up in the streetcars so that he who rides may read.
"And Ignorance--beautiful, divine Ignorance--is forsaken by a generation that clamours for the truth. And what value, pray, has this Truth that we should lust after it?"
He glanced up, in an inquiring fashion. Mr. Jukesbury, meeting his eye, smiled and shook his head and said "Fie, fie!" very placidly.
To do him justice, he had not the least idea what Kennaston was talking about.
"I am aware," the poet continued, with an air of generosity, "that many pleasant things have been said of it. In fact, our decade has turned its back relentlessly upon the decayed, and we no longer read the lament over the lost art of lying issued many magazines ago by a once prominent British author. Still, without advancing any Wilde theories, one may fairly claim that truth is a jewel--a jewel with many facets, differing in appearance from each point of view.
"And while 'Tell the truth and shame the Devil' is a very pretty sentiment, it need not necessarily mean anything. The Devil, if there be a personal devil--and it has been pointed out, with some show of reason, that an impersonal one could scarcely carry out such enormous contracts--would, in all probability, rather approve than otherwise of indiscriminate truth-telling. Irritation is the root of all evil; and there is nothing more irritating than to hear the truth about one's self. It is bad enough, in all conscience, to be insulted, but the truth of an insult is the barb that prevents its retraction. 'Truth hurts' has all the pathos of understatement. It not only hurts, but infuriates. It has no more right to go naked in public than any one else. Indeed, it has less right; for truth-telling is natural to mankind--as is shown by its prevalence among the younger sort, such as children and cynics--and, as Shakespeare long ago forgot to tell us, a touch of nature makes the whole world embarrassed."
At this point Mrs. Haggage sniffed. She considered he was growing improper. She distrusted Nature.
"Truth-telling, then, may safely be regarded as an unamiable indiscretion. In art, the bare truth must, in common gallantry, be awarded a print petticoat or one of canvas, as the case may be, to hide her nakedness; and in life, it is a disastrous virtue that we have united to commend and avoid. Nor is the decision an unwise one; for man is a gregarious animal, knowing that friendship is, at best, but a feeble passion and therefore to be treated with the care due an invalid. It is impossible to be quite candid in conversation with a man; and with a woman it is absolutely necessary that your speech should be candied.
"Truth, then, is the least desirable of acquaintances.
"But even if one wished to know the truth, the desire could scarcely be fulfilled. Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, a prominent lawyer of Elizabeth's time, who would have written Shakespeare's plays had his other occupations not prevented it, quotes Pilate as inquiring, 'What is Truth?'--and then not staying for an answer. Pilate deserves all the praise he has never received. Nothing is quite true. Even Truth lies at the bottom of a well and not infrequently in other places. No assertion is one whit truer than its opposite."
A mild buzz of protest rose about him. Kennaston smiled and cocked his head on one side.
"We have, for example," he pointed out, "a large number of proverbs, the small coin of conversation, received everywhere, whose value no one disputes. They are rapped forth, like an oath, with an air of settling the question once and forever. Well! there is safety in quotations. But even the Devil can cite Shakespeare for his purpose. 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day' agrees ill with 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'; and it is somewhat difficult to reconcile 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves' with the equally familiar 'Penny-wise, pound-foolish.' Yet the sayings are equally untrue; any maxim is, perforce, a general statement, and therefore fallacious, and therefore universally accepted. Art is long, and life is short, but the platitudes concerning them are both insufferable and eternal. We must remember that a general statement is merely a snap-shot at flying truth, an instantaneous photograph of a moving body. It may be the way that a thing is; but it is never the way in which any one ever saw that thing, or ever will. This is, of course, a general statement.
"As to present events, then, it may be assumed that no one is either capable or desirous of speaking the truth; why, then, make such a pother about it as to the past? There we have carried the investigation of truth to such an extreme that nowadays very few of us dare believe anything. Opinions are difficult to secure when a quarter of an hour in the library will prove either side of any question. Formerly, people had a few opinions, which, if erroneous, were at least universal. Nero was not considered an immaculate man. The Flood was currently believed to have caused the death of quite a number of persons. And George Washington, it was widely stated, once cut down a cherry-tree. But now all these comfortable illusions have been destroyed by 'the least little men who spend their time and lose their wits in chasing nimble and retiring truth, to the extreme perturbation and drying up of the moistures.'"
Kennaston looked up for a moment, and Billy Woods, who had counted seven wrinkles and was dropping into a forlorn doze, started violently. His interest then became abnormal.
"There are," Mr. Kennaston complained, rather reproachfully, "too many inquiries, doubts, investigations, discoveries, and apologies. There are palliations of Tiberius, eulogies of Henry VIII., rehabilitations of Aaron Burr. Lucretia Borgia, it appears, was a grievously misunderstood woman, and Heliogabalus a most exemplary monarch; even the dog in the manger may have been a nervous animal in search of rest and quiet. As for Shakespeare, he was an atheist, a syndicate, a lawyer's clerk, an inferior writer, a Puritan, a scholar, a _nom de plume_, a doctor of medicine, a fool, a poacher, and another man of the same name. Information of this sort crops up on every side. Even the newspapers are infected; truth lurks in the patent-medicine advertisements, and sometimes creeps stealthily into the very editorials. We must all learn the true facts of history, whether we will or no; eventually, the writers of historical romance will not escape.
"So the sad tale goes. Ignorance--beautiful, divine Ignorance--is forsaken by a generation that clamours for the truth. The earnest-minded person has plucked Zeus out of Heaven, and driven the Maenad from the wood, and dragged Poseidon out of his deep-sea palace. The conclaves of Olympus, it appears, are merely nature-myths; the stately legends clustering about them turn out to be a rather elaborate method of expressing the fact that it occasionally rains. The heroes who endured their angers and jests and tragic loves are delicately veiled allusions to the sun--surely, a very harmless topic of conversation, even in Greece; and the monsters, 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimæras dire,' their grisly offspring, their futile opponents, are but personified frosts. Mythology--the poet's necessity, the fertile mother of his inventions--has become a series of atmospheric phenomena, and the labours of Hercules prove to be a dozen weather bulletins.
"Is it any cause for wonder, that under this cheerless influence our poetry is either silent or unsold? The true poet must be ignorant, for information is the thief of rhyme. And it is only in dealing with--"
Kennaston paused. Margaret had appeared in the vestibule, and behind her stood her father, looking very grave.
"We have made a most interesting discovery," Miss Hugonin airily announced to the world at large. "It appears that Uncle Fred left all his property to Mr. Woods here. We found the will only last night. I'm sure you'll all be interested to learn I'm a pauper now, and intend to support myself by plain sewing. Any work of this nature you may choose to favour me with, ladies and gentlemen, will receive my most _earnest_ attention."
She dropped a courtesy. The scene appealed to her taste for the dramatic.
Billy came toward her quickly.
"Peggy," he demanded of her, in the semi-privacy of the vestibule, "will you kindly elucidate the meaning of this da--this idiotic foolishness?"
"Why, this," she explained, easily, and exhibited a folded paper. "I found it in the grate last night."
He inspected it with large eyes. "That's absurd," he said, at length. "You know perfectly well this will isn't worth the paper it's written on."
"My dear sir," she informed him, coldly, "you are vastly mistaken. You see, I've burned the other one." She pushed by him. "Mr. Kennaston, are you ready for our walk? We'll finish the paper some other time. Wasn't it the strangest thing in the world--?" Her dear, deep, mellow voice died away as she and Kennaston disappeared in the gardens.
Billy gasped.
But meanwhile, Colonel Hugonin had given the members of his daughter's house-party some inkling as to the present posture of affairs. They were gazing at Billy Woods rather curiously. He stood in the vestibule of Selwoode, staring after Margaret Hugonin; but they stared at him, and over his curly head, sculptured above the door-way, they saw the Eagle--the symbol of the crude, incalculable power of wealth.
Mr. Woods stood in the vestibule of his own house.
XVII
"By gad!" said Colonel Hugonin, very grimly, "anybody would think you'd just lost a fortune instead of inheriting one! Wish you joy of it, Billy. I ain't saying, you know, we shan't miss it, my daughter and I--no, begad, for it's a nice pot of money, and we'll miss it damnably. But since somebody had to have it, I'd much rather it was you, my boy, than a set of infernal, hypocritical, philanthropic sharks, and I'm damn' glad Frederick has done the square thing by you--yes, begad!"
The old gentleman was standing beside Mr. Woods in the vestibule of Selwoode, some distance from the other members of the house-party, and was speaking in confidence. He was sincere; I don't say that the thought of facing the world at sixty-five with practically no resources save his half-pay--I think I have told you that the Colonel's diversions had drunk up his wife's fortune and his own like a glass of water--I don't say that this thought moved him to hilarity. Over it, indeed, he pulled a frankly grave face.
But he cared a deal for Billy; and even now there was balm--soothing, priceless balm--to be had of the reflection that this change in his prospects affected materially the prospects of those cultured, broad-minded, philanthropic persons who had aforetime set his daughter to requiring of him a perusal of Herbert Spencer.
Billy was pretty well aware how monetary matters stood with the old wastrel; and the sincerity of the man affected him far more than the most disinterested sentiments would have done. Mr. Woods accordingly shook hands, with entirely unnecessary violence.
"You're a trump, that's what you are!" he declared; "oh, yes, you are, Colonel! You're an incorrigible, incurable old ace of trumps--the very best there is in the pack--and it's entirely useless for you to attempt to conceal it."
"Gad----!" said the Colonel.
"And don't you worry about that will," Mr. Woods advised. "I--I can't explain things just now, but it's all right. You just wait--just wait till I've seen Peggy," Billy urged, in desperation, "and I'll explain everything."
"By gad----!" said the Colonel. But Mr. Woods was half-way out of the vestibule.
Mr. Woods was in an unenviable state of perturbation.
He could not quite believe that Peggy had destroyed the will; the thing out-Heroded Herod, out-Margareted Margaret. But if she had, it struck him as a high-handed proceeding, entailing certain vague penalties made and provided by the law to cover just such cases--penalties of whose nature he was entirely ignorant and didn't care to think. Heavens! for all he knew, that angel might have let herself in for a jail sentence.
Billy pictured that queen among women! that paragon! with her glorious hair cropped and her pink-tipped little hands set to beating hemp--he had a shadowy notion that the lives of all female convicts were devoted to this pursuit--and groaned in horror.
"In the name of Heaven!" Mr. Woods demanded of his soul, "what _possible_ reason could she have had for this new insanity? And in the name of Heaven, why couldn't she have put off her _tête-à-tête_ with Kennaston long enough to explain? And in the name of Heaven, what does she see to admire in that putty-faced, grimacing ass, any way! And in the name of Heaven, what am I to say to this poor, old man here? I can't explain that his daughter isn't in any danger of being poor, but merely of being locked up in jail! And in the name of Heaven, how long does that outrageous angel expect me to remain in this state of suspense!"
Billy groaned again and paced the vestibule. Then he retraced his steps, shook hands with Colonel Hugonin once more, and, Kennaston or no Kennaston, set out to find her.
XVIII
But when he came out upon the terrace, Sarah Ellen Haggage stopped him--stopped him with a queer blending of diffidence and resolve in her manner.
The others, by this, had disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled--all save Mrs. Haggage.
She, alone, remained to view Mr. Woods with newly opened eyes; for as he paused impatiently--the sculptured Eagle above his head--she perceived that he was a remarkably handsome and intelligent young man. Her motherly heart opened toward this lonely, wealthy orphan.
"My dear Billy," she cooed, with asthmatic gentleness, "as an old, old friend of your mother's, aren't you going to let me tell you how rejoiced Adèle and I are over your good fortune? It isn't polite, you naughty boy, for you to run away from your friends as soon as they've heard this wonderful news. Ah, such news it was--such a manifest intervention of Providence! My heart has been fluttering, fluttering like a little bird, Billy, ever since I heard it."
In testimony to this fact, Mrs. Haggage clasped a stodgy hand to an exceedingly capacious bosom, and exhibited the whites of her eyes freely. Her smile, however, remained unchanged and ample.
"Er--ah--oh, yes! Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Mr. Woods.
"I never in my life saw Adèle so deeply affected by _anything_," Mrs. Haggage continued, with a certain large archness. "The sweet child was always so fond of you, you know, Billy. Ah, I remember distinctly hearing her speak of you many and many a time when you were in that dear, delightful, wicked Paris, and wonder when you would come back to your friends--not very grand and influential friends, Billy, but sincere, I trust, for all that."
Mr. Woods said he had no doubt of it.
"So many people," she informed him, confidentially, "will pursue you with adulation now that you are wealthy. Oh, yes, you will find that wealth makes a great difference, Billy. But not with Adèle and me--no, dear boy, despise us if you will, but my child and I are not mercenary. Money makes no difference with us; we shall be the same to you that we always were--sincerely interested in your true welfare, overjoyed at your present good fortune, prayerful as to your brilliant future, and delighted to have you drop in any evening to dinner. We do not consider money the chief blessing of life; no, don't tell me that most people are different, Billy, for I know it very well, and many is the tear that thought has cost me. We live in a very mercenary world, my dear boy; but _our_ thoughts, at least, are set on higher things, and I trust we can afford to despise the merely temporal blessings of life, and I entreat you to remember that our humble dwelling is always open to the son of my old, old friend, and that there is always a jug of good whiskey in the cupboard."
Thus in the shadow of the Eagle babbled the woman whom--for all her absurdities--Margaret had loved as a mother.
Billy thanked her with an angry heart.
"And this"--I give you the gist of his meditations--"this is Peggy's dearest friend! Oh, Philanthropy, are thy protestations, then, all void and empty, and are thy noblest sentiments--every one of 'em--so full of sound and rhetoric, so specious, so delectable--are these, then, but dicers' oaths!"
Aloud, "I'm rather surprised, you know," he said, slowly, "that you take it just this way, Mrs. Haggage. I should have thought you'd have been sorry on--on Miss Hugonin's account. It's awfully jolly of you, of course--oh, awfully jolly, and I appreciate it at its true worth, I assure you. But it's a bit awkward, isn't it, that the poor girl will be practically penniless? I really don't know whom she'll turn to now."
Then Billy, the diplomatist, received a surprise.
"She'll come with me, of course," said Mrs. Haggage.
Mr. Woods made an--unfortunately--inaudible observation.
"I beg your pardon?" she queried. Then, obtaining no response, she continued, with perfect simplicity: "Margaret's quite like a daughter to me, you know. Of course, she and the Colonel will come with us--at least, until affairs are a bit more settled. Even afterward--well, we have a large house, Billy, and I don't see that they'd be any better off anywhere else."
Billy's emotions were complex.
"You big-hearted old parasite," his own heart was singing. "If you could only keep that ring of truth that's in your voice for your platform utterances--why, in less than no time you could afford to feed your Afro-Americans on nightingales' tongues and clothe every working-girl in the land in cloth of gold! You've been pilfering from Peggy for years--pilfering right and left with both hands! But you've loved her all the time, God bless you; and now the moment she's in trouble you're ready to take both her and the Colonel--whom, by the way, you must very cordially detest--and share your pitiful, pilfered little crusts with 'em and--having two more mouths to feed--probably pilfer a little more outrageously in the future! You're a sanctimonious old hypocrite, you are, and a pious fraud, and a delusion, and a snare, and you and Adèle have nefarious designs on me at this very moment, but I think I'd like to kiss you!"
Indeed, I believe Mr. Woods came very near doing so. She loved Peggy, you see; and he loved every one who loved her.
But he compromised by shaking hands energetically, for a matter of five minutes, and entreating to be allowed to subscribe to some of her deserving charitable enterprises--any one she might mention--and so left the old lady a little bewildered, but very much pleased.
She decided that for the future Adèle must not see so much of Mr. Van Orden. She began to fear that gentleman's views of life were not sufficiently serious.
XIX
Billy went into the gardens in pursuit of Margaret. He was almost happy now and felt vaguely ashamed of himself. Then he came upon Kathleen Saumarez, who, indeed, was waiting for him there; and his heart went down into his boots.
He realised on a sudden that he was one of the richest men in America. It was a staggering thought. Also, Mr. Woods's views, at this moment, as to the advantages of wealth, might have been interesting.
Kathleen stood silent for an instant, eyes downcast, face flushed. She was trembling.
Then, "Billy," she asked, almost inaudibly, "do--do you still want--your answer?"
The birds sang about them. Spring triumphed in the gardens. She looked very womanly and very pretty.
To all appearances, it might easily have been a lover and his lass met in the springtide, shamefaced after last night's kissing. But Billy, somehow, lacked much of the elation and the perfect content and the disposition to burst into melody that is currently supposed to seize upon rustic swains at such moments. He merely wanted to know if at any time in the remote future his heart would be likely to resume the discharge of its proper functions. It was standing still now.
However, "Can you ask--dear?" His words, at least, lied gallantly.
The poor woman looked up into Billy's face. After years of battling with the world, here for the asking was peace and luxury and wealth incalculable, and--as Kathleen thought--a love that had endured since they were boy and girl together. Yet she shrunk from him a little and clinched her hands before she spoke.
"Yes," Kathleen faltered, and afterward she shuddered.
And here, if for the moment I may prefigure the Eagle as a sentient being, I can imagine his chuckle.
"Please God," thought poor Billy, "I will make her happy. Yes, please God, I can at least do that, since she cares for me."
Then he kissed her.
"My dear," said he, aloud, "I'll try to make you happy. And--and you don't mind, do you, if I leave you now?" queried this ardent lover. "You see, it's absolutely necessary I should see--see Miss Hugonin about this will business. You don't mind very much, do you--darling?" Mr. Woods inquired of her, the last word being rather obviously an afterthought.
"No," said she. "Not if you must--dear."
Billy went away, lugging a heart of lead in his breast.
Kathleen stared after him and gave a hard, wringing motion of her hands. She had done what many women do daily; the thing is common and sensible and universally commended; but in her own eyes, the draggled trollop of the pavements was neither better nor worse than she.
At the entrance of the next walkway Billy encountered Felix Kennaston--alone and in the most ebulliently mirthful of humours.
XX
But we had left Mr. Kennaston, I think, in company with Miss Hugonin, at the precise moment she inquired of him whether it were not the strangest thing in the world--referring thereby to the sudden manner in which she had been disinherited.
The poet laughed and assented. Afterward, turning north from the front court, they descended past the shield-bearing griffins--and you may depend upon it that each shield is adorned with a bas-relief of the Eagle--that guard the broad stairway leading to the formal gardens of Selwoode. The gardens stretch northward to the confines of Peter Blagden's estate of Gridlington; and for my part--unless it were that primitive garden that Adam lost--I can imagine no goodlier place.