Part 18

I was the only inharmonious figure in that round of festivals. But no one observed me. I simply got the reputation of being a man of reserve, a thinker rather than a talker--as if there ever lived a thinker who did not overflow with torrents of talk like a spring fed from a glacier; but, of course, the spring flows only when The conditions are favorable, not when it is ice-bound. I was not even interested in observing. There is a monotony about the actions of fashionable people that soon reduces a spectator of agile mind to stupor. The same thing over and over again, with variations so slight that only a nit-wit would be interested in them-- Could there be a worse indictment of the intelligence of the human race than that so large a part of its presumably most intelligent classes engage in the social farce, which is an example of aimless activity about on a level with a dog’s chasing its own tail?

But Edna----

As I look back on those weeks of days, each one crowded like a ragbag with rubbish, the figure of Edna stands out radiant. You would never have thought her the mother of the bride--or, indeed, a mother at all. A woman who for many years leads a virginal or almost virginal life gets back the vestal air of the unmarried girl. This air had returned to Edna. She had it as markedly as had Margot. It was most becoming to her piquant style of beauty, giving it the allure of the height that invites ascent and capture, yet has never been desecrated. And how she did enjoy the grandeur--the great names, the gorgeous presents of curiously and costlily wrought gold and silver and crystal, and precious stones, the succession of panoramas of ultra-fashionable life, with herself and Margot always the center.

I used to stand aside and watch her and feel as if I were hypnotized into vivid hallucinations. I recalled the incidents of our early life--Brooklyn, the Passaic flat, the squat and squalid homes of our childhood. I recalled our people--hers and mine--tucked away in homely obscurity among the New Jersey hills. But by no effort of mind could I associate her with these realities. She had literally been born again. I looked at the other Americans of humble beginnings--and there were not a few of them in that society. All had retained some traces of their origin, had some characteristics that made it not difficult to connect their present with their past. But not Edna.

At the wedding--in the most fashionable church in the West End--Margot looked weary and rather old, gone slightly stale from too long and hard preliminary training. Edna was at her best--delicate, fragile, radiant. How the other women hated her for that time-defying beauty of hers! Many of the women of her still youthful age retained much of the physical attractiveness of youth. But there was not another one who was not beginning to show the effects of dissipation--of too much food and wine and cigarettes, of lives devoid of elevating sensations, of minds used only for petty, mean thoughts. But Edna seemed in the flower of that period when the secrets of the soul have as yet made no marks upon the countenance. You would have said she was a merry and romantic girl. I could not fathom that mystery. I cannot fathom it now. Its clew must be in her truly amazing powers of self-deception and also in that unique capacity of hers for forgetting the thing, no matter what, that is disagreeable to remember.

When we were at last alone, with the young couple off for the yacht Lord Shangway had loaned them for the honeymoon, with the last guest gone and the last powdered flunkey vanished--when she and I were alone, she settled herself with a sigh and said:

“I wish I could make it begin all over again!”

“You must be built of steel,” said I.

“I am supremely happy,” said she, “and have been for weeks. Nothing agrees with me so thoroughly as happiness.”

I looked at her scrutinizingly. No, she was not the least tired; she was as fresh as if that moment risen from a long sleep in the air of seashore or mountains.

She went on: “I’m going over to Paris to-morrow. I’ve a lot of engagements there. And I must get some clothes. I’ve worn out all I brought with me.”

“Worn out” meant worn once or at most twice; for in a society where everyone is seeing everyone else all the time a woman with a reputation for dress cannot afford to reappear in clothes once seen. In some circles this would sound delightfully prodigal, in others delightfully impossible, and perhaps in still others delightfully criminal. But then all that sort of thing is relative--like everything else in the world.

“Won’t you come along?” said she in a perfunctory tone.

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’m off for Russia with a party of bankers to look at some mining properties.”

“I thought you were returning to New York?”

“Not for several months,” said I.

“How can you stay away so long from your beloved America?”

“Business--always business.”

She eyed me somewhat as one eyes a strange, mildly interesting specimen. “Well--you must enjoy it, or you wouldn’t keep at it year in and year out.”

“One has to pass the time,” said I.

“How does Mary Kirkwood pass the time?”

This unexpected and--except sub-consciously--accidental question, staggered me for an instant. “I don’t know much about it,” said I. “She has a house--and she looks after it, herself. She reads, I believe. She has gardens--and they use up a lot of time. Then she rides.”

Edna yawned. “It sounds dull,” she said. “But domestic people are always dull. And she is certainly domestic. I wonder why she doesn’t marry again.”

I was silent.

“Are any men attentive to her? It seems to me I heard something about a novelist--some poor man who is after her money.”

I was choking with rage and jealousy.

“Did you see any such man about?”

I contrived to compose myself for a calm reply. “No one answering to your description,” said I.

“Do you like her?”

“You asked me that once before,” said I.

“Oh--I forgot. It seems to me you and she would have exactly suited each other. You like domestic women. That is, you think you do. Really, you’d probably fly from a woman of that sort.”

“And a woman of the other sort would fly from me,” said I, laughing.

She looked at me thoughtfully. “You must admit you’re not easy to get on with--except at a distance,” observed she. “But men of positive individuality are never easy to get on with. A big tree blights all the little trees and bushes that try to grow in its neighborhood.... No, Godfrey dear, you weren’t made for domestic life--you and I. Domestic life is successful only where there are two very small and very much alike. People like us have to live alone.”

I rose abruptly. There was for me a sound in that “alone” like the slam of a graveyard gate.

“You never will appreciate me--how satisfactory I’ve been,” she went on, “until you marry again.”

“I must make my final arrangements for Russia,” said I.

“Shall I see you in the morning? I’m leaving rather early.”

“Probably not,” said I.

“Then we’ll meet when you come back. We’ll visit Margot at Sothewell Abbey.” She rose, drew herself to her full height with a graceful gesture of triumph. “Don’t you honestly rather like it, being the father of a Marchioness?”

I could not speak. I looked at her.

“How solemn you are!” laughed she. “Well, good-by, dear.” And she held out her hand and turned her face upward for me to kiss her lips.

“Oh, I’ll probably see you in the morning,” I said, “or to-night.” And away I went.

* * * * *

From Russia I drifted to India, intending to return home by the Pacific. At Bombay I met Lord Blankenship, and he persuaded me to cross to East Africa. I found him a companion exactly to my taste. He was a silent chap having nothing to think about and nothing to think with--a typical and model product of the aristocratic education that completes a man as a sculptor completes an image, and prepares him to stand in his appointed niche until decay tumbles him down as rubbish. I had lost all my former passion for talking and listening. I wished to confine myself--my thoughts--to the trivial matters of the senses, to lingering over and tinkering with the physical details of life. The silent and vacant Blankenship set me a perfect example, one easy to fall into the habit of following.

At Paris, I picked up my private secretary, Markham, and resumed attention to my affairs. I had arranged for things to go on without me, when I set out for East Africa. I found that my guess as to how they would go had been correct. For a month or so there was confusion--the confusion that is inevitable when a man who has attended to everything abruptly throws up his leadership. Then the affairs in which he fancied himself indispensable begin to move as well as if he were at the throttle--perhaps better. The most substantial result of my neglect seemed to be that I had become much richer, had more than recovered what my purchase of a son-in-law had cost me.

Markham, who had been at Cairo two months, had got himself engaged to be married. For several years I had been promising him a good position, that is to say, one more fitting a grown man of real capacity. But he made himself so useful that I put off redeeming my promise and eased my conscience and quieted his ambition with a succession of increases of salary. Now, however, I could no longer delay releasing him. So I must go back to New York, to find some one to take his place. Blankenship was wavering between a trip through West Africa and going to America with me, on the chance of my accompanying him on a shooting trip through British Columbia. He decided to stick to me, and as I had grown thoroughly used to having him about I was rather glad. It is astonishing how much comfort one can get out of the society of a silent man, when one feels that he is a good fellow and a devoted friend.

I telegraphed Edna that I would be unable to come to London, where she then was. But she defeated my plan for not seeing her. When I reached Paris there she was waiting for me at the Ritz. She had a swarm of French, Italians, and English about her--I believe there were some Germans or Austrians, also. I refused to be annoyed with them, and we dined quietly with Blankenship, Markham, and a pretty little Countess de Salevac to act us buffers between us. I tried to avoid being left alone with her, but she would not have it so. She insisted on my coming to her sitting room after the others had gone.

“I know you are tired,” said she, “but I shan’t detain you long.”

“Please don’t,” said I. “The journey has knocked me out. I’ve not slept for two nights.”

“It’s a shame to worry you----”

I made for the door. “Not to-night--no worries. They’ll keep until to-morrow.”

“No, Godfrey dear,” she said. “I must tell you at once. There is serious trouble between Margot and Hugh.”

“Why, they haven’t been married a year.”

“He has been treating her shamefully from the outset. In fact, he cut short the honeymoon to hurry back to that music-hall person.”

“The one I saw him with?”

“Yes--the same one--that notorious Jupey What’s-her-name. Isn’t it dreadful! Margot’s pride is up in arms. Nothing I say will quiet her.”

“Um,” said I.

“She refuses to understand that over here husbands are allowed a--a----”

“Latitude,” I suggested.

“More latitude than in America. I have talked with Hugh, too. He is--very difficult. Really, he isn’t at all as he seemed. He is a--he is horribly coarse.”

“People who think of nothing but how to get money without work and how to spend it without usefulness are apt to be coarse, when you probe through to the reality of them.”

“He is--defiant,” pursued she, too femininely practical to have interest in or patience with philosophy. “He-- Godfrey, he says he hates her. He won’t speak to her. And there’s no prospect of an heir. He says he wants to get rid of her.”

These successive admissions of a worse and worse mess were forced from her by my air of indifference. “What has _she_ done?” I asked.

“Done? I don’t understand----”

“What has she done to drive him to extremes?”

“Godfrey!” she cried in a shocked tone. “_You_--taking sides against your daughter--your only child! Have you no paternal feeling, either?”

“Not much,” said I. “You see, I’ve seen little of Margot--not enough to get acquainted with her. And you educated her so that we are uncongenial. No--since you set me to thinking, I find I haven’t much paternal feeling for her. I used to have in Passaic, when I wheeled her about the streets on Sundays.”

I paused to enjoy the shame my wife was struggling with.

“But soon after we moved to Brooklyn----”

Edna winced and shivered.

“You sent her away to begin to be a lady. And a lady she is--and ladies are not daughters--are not women even.”

“You must help me, Godfrey,” said Edna, after a strained silence. “Margot is wretched, and a dreadful scandal may break out in time. Already people are talking. Margot is ashamed to show herself in public. She thinks everyone is laughing at her.”

“No doubt she’s right,” said I. “A woman who loses her husband on the honeymoon is likely to be laughed at.... What did she do?”

“Why do you persist in saying that?” cried she, so irritated that she could not altogether restrain herself. “Your dislike of women has become a mania with you.”

“But I don’t dislike them,” replied I. “On the contrary, I like them--like them so well that their worthlessness angers me like the treachery of a friend. And I believe so much in their power that, when things go wrong, I blame them. They have dominion over the men and over the children. And whenever they use their powers it is to make fools of the men and weaklings of the children. I don’t know which is the worse influence--the wishy-washy, unpractical, preacher morality of the good woman or the lazy, idle, irresponsible dissipation of the--the ladies and near-ladies and lady-climbers and lady-imitators.”

“But this has nothing to do with poor Margot!” exclaimed she impatiently.

“Everything to do with her,” replied I. “Still--it’s a spilt pail of milk. As for the present--and future-- How can I do anything to help her?”

“You can’t, if you condemn her unheard.”

“I don’t condemn her. I am simply recognizing that there are two sides to this quarrel. And I assure you, you only make matters worse when you interfere without recognizing that fact. So I say again, what did _she_ do?”

My wife calmed slightly and replied: “He says she made him ridiculous with the airs she put on.”

I laughed. “After the education you gave her?”

“That’s right! Blame me!”

“And aren’t you to be blamed?” urged I. “Didn’t you have full charge of her from the time she was born? Couldn’t you have made what you pleased of her? Didn’t you make what you pleased of her?”

Edna tossed her head indignantly. “I never taught her to be a vulgar snob.”

“Why, I thought that was her whole education.”

Edna ignored this interruption. “It’s all very well for the women of noble families to act the snob,” pursued she. “Lots of them do, and no one criticises. But Margot ought to have had sense enough to realize that she, a mere American, couldn’t afford to do it. I warned her that her cue was sweetness and an air of equality. I told her that her title in itself would keep people at their proper distance. But she lost her head.”

“Then the thing for her to do is to behave herself.”

“It’s too late, I’m afraid. The tide has turned against her. All the women--especially the titled English women of good family--were against her--hated her--were ready to stab her in the back. And her haughtiness and condescension gave them the chance.”

“Well, what do you propose? To give him more money?”

Edna showed none of her familiar scorn of sordid things. She reflected, said uncertainly: “I wonder would that do any good?”

“To win anyone give them what they most want,” said I. “What do your friends over here want above everything and anything?”

“Perhaps you are right,” confessed she. Consider, gentle reader, what this confession involved, how it exposed the rotten insincerity of all her and her fine friends’ pretenses. “Yes, I guess you’re right, Godfrey.” She pressed her hands to her temples. “It simply _must_ be straightened out. I am quite distracted. I can’t afford to lose sleep and to be harrowed up. Those things mean ruin to a woman’s looks. And what _would_ I do if she were flung back on my hands in this disgraceful fashion!”

“You want me to go to London?”

“Godfrey, you _must_ go. You must see her, and him, too.”

“I was thinking it would be enough to see him. But perhaps you’re right.”

“She is clean mad,” cried Edna, with sudden fury against her daughter. “She doesn’t appreciate the peril of her position. One minute she’s all for groveling. The next she talks like an idiot about her rank and power. Oh, she is a fool--a _fool_! I always knew she was--though I wouldn’t admit it to myself. You never will know what a time I’ve had training her to hide it enough to make a pleasing appearance. She is a brainless fool.”

“A fool, but not brainless,” said I. “Her education made her a fool and paralyzed her brain. You see, she didn’t have the advantages you had in your early training. In your early days you had the chance to learn something--the useful things that have saved you from the consequences of such folly as you’ve taught her.”

“What nonsense!” cried Edna in disgust. “But we mustn’t quarrel. I’m agitated enough already. You will go to London?”

“Yes,” said I, after reflecting. “I’ll go.”

“When?”

“To-morrow.”

“And I’ll go with you.”

“No,” said I firmly. “Either I manage this affair alone or I have nothing to do with it.”

“But, Godfrey, there are so many things about these people that you don’t understand. And you----”

“I understand the essential thing,” said I. “And that is their mania for money.”

She was on the verge of hysteria--afraid I would not go, afraid of what I would do if I did go. “But they have to be handled carefully,” she urged. “If you put them in a position where their pride won’t let them take the--the money----”

“Trust me,” said I. “Go to bed, sleep soundly, and trust me.”

I stood. She suddenly flung herself against my breast and began to sob on my shoulder. “You are hard and cold,” she said. “You have no sympathy with me--no feeling for anything but business. But somehow--in spite of it all--I have such a sense of your strength and your honesty.”

I laughed rather awkwardly, patted her shoulder, helped her to a chair. “There are times when a coarse, common American business man of a husband has his uses--and advantages,” I said lightly. “I’ll telegraph you how things are going.”

She dried her eyes, looked at me in a puzzled way. “You always repulse me,” she said.

“I appreciate your kindness in remembering to toss a few crumbs to the starving man,” laughed I. “They are precious crumbs, no doubt, and more than he deserves. But--please don’t do it. He hates that sort of thing. You are free to act as you feel like acting. I’ll do as much for you and Margot without the crumbs as with them.”

“How hard you are, Godfrey! How you have always misunderstood me!”

“That’s right,” said I amiably. “I’m too coarse for such a fine nature. Well--good night.”

I took myself hastily away to bed; and at ten the next morning I departed for London.

I decided to see Margot first. She was at Sothewell Abbey, about an hour by express from Paddington. You perhaps know Sothewell Abbey through the pictures and descriptions. And it is indeed an imposing pile of old masonry seated in the midst of a park of surpassing beauty. As soon as I entered the ancient gates for the two-mile drive to the Abbey, I saw signs that my money was in action. When I first visited it, the lodge was in sad disrepair, the gates were about to fall to pieces and the vista of the drive was unkempt. Now, all was changed. The servile pair who came out to open for me, and made me fear they would drop down on their bellies and crawl before me, were neatly and properly dressed, in strong contrast to their former appearance.

The exterior of the house, which had been most “romantic” but obviously the front of poverty and decay, looked much better--not younger I hasten to assure you, quiet reader, but somewhat like a hairless, toothless old man when he gets a nice white wig on his pate and a set of good false teeth on his shriveled gums. I saw gardeners at work--and plenty there was for them to do. Within, I saw evidences of a more adequate staff of servants; but the great halls were dreary and bare and dingy. That was a cold summer in England, even colder than the summer usually is. So, the enormous house was literally uninhabitable, like all the European palaces, city and country, that I have been in. I can fancy what such a place must be in winter with no way of heating it but open fireplaces, and not many of them. I can’t conceive any sane American, used to comfort in the way of steam heat, spending a winter in the English country. I know it is done by Americans reputedly sane; but if those at home knew what Europe in winter meant--the old-fashioned “romantic” Europe--they would not believe their expatriated countrymen sane in sacrificing comfort and health to vanity. Yes, I believe they would; for, do not they, at home, make the same imbecile sacrifices to vanity in other ways?

“Take me to some small warm room,” said I to Margot, “before I catch my death of cold.” This the instant I was within doors and felt in my very marrow the clammy chill of that picturesque vaulted hall.

“There isn’t any warm room in the house,” replied she.

“How about the kitchen?” said I.

She looked alarmed--being her mother’s own daughter, in lack of the sense of humor as in many other ways. She said hastily: “The upstairs rooms are a little better.”

“They couldn’t be worse. These rooms are cold storage.”

“I’m getting used to it,” said she. “One doesn’t mind it so much after a while.”

Her nose was red and swollen, and her voice husky. She had a frightful cold at that very moment. “Why don’t you get out of here and go to a decent modern hotel in town?” said I.

“Give up possession!” cried she in horror. “He might not let me come back.”

It was too ridiculous. “Possession of what?” said I.

“Oh, _papa_!” cried she, in despair and shame at my coarse stupidity.

“Possession of what?” I repeated. “Of a dirty, dingy old cold-storage plant. Why should you want to come back? Put on your wraps and let’s fly to town by the next train.”

She burst into tears. “I’d rather die!” she sobbed. “I _won’t_ give up my position. I am Marchioness of Crossley and I belong here.”

“All right,” said I. “Let’s try the smaller rooms.”

She led me up a vast stairway--it would have thrilled your soul, gentle reader. Think how it sounds, put into the fitting language-- “The beautiful young Marchioness conducted her father up the ancient and magnificent stairway that rose from the spacious mediæval hall and swept in a curve of wonderfully wrought stone work, dating from the thirteenth century, to the upper chambers of the majestic old abbey.” I hurried her as fast as I could, for we both were sneezing and a hideous draught like the breath of death was streaming from somewhere. I don’t mind looking at pictures of abbeys and the like; but when I read of the grandeur of living in that sort of place, I laugh. The men who built them did as well as they could in the age they lived in. But what shall be said of men who dwell in them now, when infinitely better is to be had?

Those upper chambers! Cold, clammy, draughty--the furniture and hangings old and dowdy. And my daughter’s room! Like a squalid, decrepit tenement flat. Yes, squalid; for the rugs and draperies were dirty, were stained and frayed. There was a distinct tenement odor.

“Isn’t it fascinating?” said she, gazing round with sparkling eyes.

“Where’s the fire?” said I.