The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman/Chapter 10
X
LADY ANN SPENWORTH IS A PRISONER IN HER OWN HOUSE
LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): You must forgive me for making you wait like this. The servants have positive instructions to say that I am not at home to any one until I have been specifically asked. Why one should be at the mercy of anybody who chooses to burst in. . . When all is said and done, the Englishman’s home is still his castle.
Partly I have been busy, partly I have been very much worried, partly I have been driven to it in self-defence. I only wish I had been more unyielding before. I told you of the mad clergyman from Morecambe who swept like a whirl-wind into this room, demanding to see my husband and, so far as I can make out, trying to browbeat my boy into marrying his daughter. . . It began from that day, and I find it hard to forgive Arthur for not enlightening me. With Will it was altogether different; no man that I should care to meet would try to get out of a difficulty at the expense of a woman. The code forbids that. . .
But, if Arthur—who knew as soon as there was anything to know—had told me, I should have acted at once; we should not be in our present state of absolute uncertainty, simply waiting with folded hands for the next blow to fall. . . Men have a strange idea that certain things are exclusively their province; their wives, even the mothers of their children must remain outside the door until it is too late to repair the damage. I was not told the facts until two days ago. . .
When my boy was offered that position at Morecambe, I went with him to see that he had a place fit to live in. The Phentons seemed our best hope, they were highly recommended, and I will say ungrudgingly that they played their cards well. An elderly clergyman, who had resigned his benefice on account of ill-health, a decent motherly woman for wife—and these two girls, young, presentable and thoroughly nice. . . If you tell me that I am too unready to think ill of people, I have no defence—except to say that I am not prepared to go through life suspecting. . . Molly Phenton was very much “the old country parson’s pretty little daughter”; simple, innocent, shy; a little fluttered, you would say, when she heard who we were, and agreeably excited by the prospect of having a good-looking young man to stay in the house. . .
Perhaps she overdid the innocence. Eyes are eyes, and saucers are saucers. . . But I don’t wish to appear wise after the event. I was completely taken in. . .
And so was Will. She was clever enough to guess that this was the appeal to reach him quickest: the simple little girl with the soft hair and the big grey eyes, Hving out of the world with her old father, no brothers to protect her or teach her anything. One would never have been surprised to find her affecting a lisp. . . She deliberately laid herself out to catch my boy.
You must not ask me what happened. I have never been forced to study the methods of campaign which a woman adopts for such a purpose. No doubt she tried first of all to attract him innocently. Whatever success she had, poor Will is not free to marry where his heart leads him, unless his heart leads him where there is some money (I have always, as you know, dreaded an entanglement with some girl whom he would simply have to support all his life); and Will is too honourable to give any encouragement to some one he has no intention of marrying. You will understand me, too, when I say that no one could have called it a very suitable alliance—for him or for her; it is no kindness to a girl to transport her from her own world, though—poor souls!—they all fancy that, if they can achieve a great match, they will be happy, and the rest will come by the light of nature. Goodness me, have we not seen that tragically disproved with Ruth Brackenbury and Kathleen Spenworth? Will and this girl had nothing in common. If she married him, it would be over my dead body. . .
If she did not see this, at least she saw that she was making no impression on my boy; and then I am sadly afraid that she deliberately laid herself out to tempt him. I have seen enough of life to know that, when a woman abandons herself to this kind of thing, very few even of the purest and best are proof against her wiles. This Molly had made up her mind to get a hold on Will; and, once she had decided on that, she would stop at nothing.
I never knew a thing at the time. When my boy suddenly arrived in London, when the mad clergyman followed him and insisted on seeing Arthur, I thought that she would content herself with making him compromise her. If they could be discovered kissing . . . as they were. . . And that was all that even her father was allowed to know at the time, though she talked about a promise of marriage. But she was clever enough to know that she couldn’t make a man marry her because he had kissed her. . .
So far as I can see, there is no doubt at all. . . I did not ask Will, because I could not bear him to tell me an untruth; and the code ordains that a man must never admit such a thing, always the woman must be shielded. One did not need to be his mother in order to see that he was worried. Remorse. . . The sense that nothing could ever again be the same. . . Hatred of himself. . . Hatred of her. . . And, all the while, I had to sit with my hands in my lap, seeing his health and happiness ruined. He could not eat, he could not sleep; Sir Appleton kept writing and telephoning to ask when Will was coming to see him, but there was no question of trying to find fresh work. . . And at any moment this wild man of the woods might descend upon us again.
The first time he came—I, if you please, was not allowed in the room—, Arthur would only stamp up and down, saying that Will—our boy—was a scamp and deserved horse-whipping. I begged for enlightenment, but at this period the wild man only claimed that Will had compromised his Molly and that there had been a promise of marriage. . . Exactly what one would have expected! Precisely what the girl was working for! That was the moment to strike and to strike hard. “A promise of marriage? Prove it!” I well knew that Will was too instinctively wise to write her letters—and they were in the same house!—or to give her presents. But I was informed that this was not a woman’s province. So we dragged on, waiting for the blow. . .
I quite dreaded the Morecambe post-mark. The girl wrote every other day, and every letter seemed to plunge poor Will into deeper gloom. The code would not let him make a confidant of his mother, but one day I saw one of these letters. It bore no name and opened with a flood of mingled passion and reproach; only when I saw “Your heart-broken Molly” at the end did I realize that the letter was intended for Will. She was begging him to come back and talking a great deal about his “promise”. . . I should have paid no attention if there had not been other things as well: talk about her “honour” and so on and so forth. . . Her “soul”. . . God would never forgive her—the egotism of the girl! . . . Then I felt that, to get a hold on Will, she had stopped at nothing. . .
I wonder what you would have done in my place? . . Constant dripping wears away a stone, and this dazing attack would in time have broken down my boy’s resistance. Suppose he had let himself be blackmailed into marrying her! No money on either side—and Will’s parents could do nothing to help—, not a taste in common, two people drawn from different worlds. . . And this terrible, blasting knowledge that he—and she—and I had of the girl’s character. Ruin, misery lay before them. And nothing else. . .
I had to save Will from any temptation to yield. If he could have fallen in love with some nice girl and forgotten the whole episode. . . If I could have sent him right away. . . It was not easy, and you know better than any one that my hands have been fairly full. At one time I thought that South American woman was attracted by him, at another my niece Phyllida roused to interest. He was so much preoccupied that he seemed indifferent to women; one after another, they gave him up in despair. Then I bethought me of my second string and cast about in my mind for means to send him far away where he could forget this girl and her importunity. . .
You have met Sir Appleton Deepe in this house. You have met him more than once and you have always been too dear and too discreet to ask, to hint, to raise an eyebrow in mild wonder that I should be liée with such a man. Of his kind I believe he has no rival. As a mere boy he was sent out to one of the Chinese branches of the business; and by sheer hard work, by studying the natives and learning their requirements he had, before he was forty, built up the trade of his firm to its present gigantic dimensions. Now he is senior partner and a millionaire many times over, with patronage beyond one’s wildest dreams. Curious! These “merchant princes” are all the same—never content to stick to their business, always looking for fresh worlds to conquer. I met Sir Appleton—he was plain Mr. Deepe then—in the early days of the war; and, though any intimacy was out of the question, I felt that he was a man to keep one’s eye on for the days when the war would be over and all our boys would be wondering what to do next. He had great ideas then of going into politics—something that Lady Maitland let fall had started the train, and he was convinced that the business man had the world at his feet. (I could not help wondering whether she hoped to exploit him on behalf of that worthless youngest boy of hers, the one who evaded military service by hiding in one of the government offices.)
“No, Mr. Deepe,” I said. “To use one of your own phrases, you have missed your market. The business men have got in before you.” And, goodness me, in those days, Whitehall was like a foreign capital! Even the ministers were unheard-of, and every one seemed to be a mining magnate or a shipping magnate or a railway magnate or the keeper of a shop. . . If one had a favour to ask, one quite literally did not know whom to approach. And they were always changing. . . “No, Mr. Deepe,” I said, “some enter society through politics, others enter politics through society; but no man ever rose to the top of the political tree—and stayed there—without backing”. . .
And, so far as I could, I shewed him how it should be done and who were the people he must get to know. Quite methodically I set him to work; and I really took a great deal of trouble about him. Connie Maitland has the sublime assurance to pretend that she got him his knighthood, but on a point like that Sir Appleton himself is surely the most reliable witness. . . I helped him in a hundred ways; he is quite reasonably well-known now. . .
When the bomb-shell first descended from Morecambe, I thought at once of him. In such a business there must be scores of openings for young men of character and ability, accustomed to command; and, say what you like, the presence of those whom for want of a better word I will call “well-connected” does help to lift commerce out of the ruck. . . Unhappily Sir Appleton was abroad at the time, and that was really why we chose Menton, which truly honestly is only a suburb of Monte Carlo. The opportunity was too good to be thrown away; and it was worth enduring a little discomfort if by shewing him some slight civility I could enlist his support. It was not so easy as I had hoped. He wanted to make me believe that the best positions in the business were reserved for men who had worked their way up from the bottom, as he had done; that there was an immense deal to be learned, that the most responsible part of his duties consisted in choosing the right men. . .
“But,” I said, “I am in a position to speak with knowledge here; it is my own son whom I am putting forward.”
“I shall be delighted to see him,” answered Sir Appleton, “and to talk things over again on my return to London.”
And really he wanted to leave it like that, but I am not quite so easily discouraged. I hammered away until I had extracted a definite promise that he would find some position in which Will could support himself, though I am afraid he was not very gracious about it. . .
“If I accept him in the dark,” he said in conclusion, “don’t blame me for discharging him after a month if I find he’s no good.”
“I have no fear of that,” I said.
“Discharge” was hardly the word I should have chosen, but one is foolish to expect too great nicety of language. . .
It was arranged that Sir Appleton should dine with us here to meet Will.
I did try to impress on my boy that this would be one of the most momentous days of his life. I wanted Sir Appleton to see him at his best. When you have no experience, no technical knowledge to offer, it is so important that character, personality, breeding. . . I am sure you understand what I mean. And I could never forget that, when the Jew man—Sir Adolf Erckmann or whatever he now calls himself—pretended to have an appointment ready and waiting, Will endangered his prospects by participating in some ridiculous game that caused our worthy host to take offence. One had not looked for such sensitiveness in that quarter; but, when a man is uncertain of himself and takes refuge in his dignity, high spirits and irresponsibility have no place. This time, I told Will, he must run no risks. And, after that, I hoped—and expected—to see my boy taking our friend by storm. . .
Do you know, it was as much as I could do to prevail on him to meet Sir Appleton at all! This menace was preying on his nerves; this pitiless hail of appealing letters from his “heart-broken Molly”. One day he came in looking as if he had seen a ghost. This girl had dared to call for him at his club! I am thankful to say that he kept his head and refused resolutely to see her, but we never imagined that she was in London. . . And we both knew that we should now never be safe even in our own house. She had not dared to face me; perhaps she made a good guess what kind of reception I should feel it my duty to give her; she was clever enough to know that a woman would see through her in a moment. . . But she would make for Will the moment she thought my back was turned. . .
It was then that I gave those orders to the servants. There had been one or two cases in the papers, you may remember, of people who called on chance and walked off with whatever they could lay their hands on. I made this the text for my little homily. And it was not a moment too soon! The girl called that same afternoon and asked to see my boy. . .
She called daily, refusing to take “no” for an answer. Mr. William Spenworth not at home? When would he be home? . . . But for this dinner to Sir Appleton, I should have insisted on sending Will right away, but I had to hold my hand until the Chinese appointment had been arranged. The servants were instructed to say that they did not know. . . And, after that, I knew it was only a question of time before she encamped on the pavement at sunrise and stayed there. . . Can you imagine a more intolerable situation? Always having to peep round the curtain to see whether it was safe to venture into the street?
One day she forced her way into the house. It was the afternoon before Sir Appleton came to dine; and Will, who had been sleeping—on my suggestion—at his club, arrived in time to dress. Hardly had the door shut behind him when this girl (you would have thought she had more pride!) rang the bell and put her unvarying question. Mr. William Spenworth was not at home. Oh, but he was! She had just seen him come in! (An altercation with a servant on some one else’s door-step!) Norden behaved with perfect discretion, asking her to take a seat while he made enquiries. After a moment he returned to say—once more—that Mr. William was not at home. The girl, from his account, was in two minds whether to search the house, but at last she consented to go.
I am not a nervous woman, as you are aware, but I was thoroughly upset. A worse prelude to a momentous meeting could hardly be imagined. Will was quite unstrung by the persecution; and, though I never encourage him to drink between meals, I said nothing when he helped himself to brandy. He needed it. . .
“Son of mine, we must rally,” I said. “She must see, after this—”
“I shall go off my head if this goes on any longer,” he said.
Utterly unnerved. . .
I had thought it better to send Arthur off to his club for dinner. To my mind, it is inconceivable that a father should be jealous of his own son, but I can think of no other way to explain my husband’s persistent attitude of disparagement whenever a united front is most necessary. “A policy of pin-pricks” was the phrase that my boy once coined for it. We are, I hope, a devoted family, but Arthur seems never to lose an opportunity of indulging in a sneer. . . Yet I wish we had had him with us that night. In a crisis I am only too well aware that I am always left to find a way out, but that night I felt hardly adequate even to ordinary conversation; and, when this Sir Appleton began to shew the cloven hoof, I knew that only a man could deal with him.
We were taken utterly off our guard. He came into the room, shook hands with me, bowed to Will, waited until Norden was out of the room and then said:
“There’s a lady downstairs who wants to see one of you for a moment. She was on the doorstep, when I arrived, and your servants didn’t want to admit her. I gathered, however, that she’d been waiting for some time, so I made them let her in.”
Made. . . In the school in which I was brought up, the bare idea of giving orders to other people’s servants. . . I do not know whether you have been forced into contact with the world of “business men”, but I find their autocracy sometimes a little trying.
“A lady to see me?,” I said. “Really, this is not a reasonable time for calling.”
“I fancy it was your son, Lady Ann, that she asked for,” said Sir Appleton.
“Oh, I can’t be bothered to see people at this hour of the night,” said Will.
When Norden came in to announce dinner, I told him to explain that neither Will nor I could possibly desert our guest to talk to this girl at such a time. . .
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Sir Appleton.
“But I do!,” I said. “And I mind about dinner.”
“I should be disposed to see her,” said he. “Perhaps she’s in trouble.”
“It’ll keep till to-morrow,” said Will.
There was nothing so very heartless either in the words or in the tone, but for some reason Sir Appleton chose to take offence.
“That’s not a very sympathetic line to take with some one who may be in great distress,” he said. “For all you know, she’s some girl friend of yours who’s stranded in London without money. If you’ll allow me to say so, Lady Ann, I think one of you should see her. It need not take more than a moment.”
I fancied that I knew better. . .
“Norden can find out what the matter is while we’re at dinner,” I said. “You’ll agree that it is not a very reasonable hour for calling.”
“Which is what makes me think that her business is urgent,” said Sir Appleton. “If you don’t want to be bothered, will you allow me to interview her? If it’s only a five-pound note she wants because she’s lost her purse. . .”
What could one say? Obviously he should not have made such a suggestion, but, as obviously, I could not forbid him. It seemed fair to assume that she would not incriminate herself with a total stranger or try to blackmail us through him. . . And he had an assurance of manner which led me to hope that he would not stand any nonsense from her. . .
“Try—by all means,” I said.
And it was on the tip of my tongue to beg him not to consider us; we could await his pleasure before thinking about dinner. But one had to be civil to the man for this one night.
He was gone for nearly half an hour. Will and I waited and waited. . . At last he came back and said:
“I must apologize for keeping you so long. It was a complicated story.” Then he looked at Will. “I should like a word with you afterwards.”
The agony of that dinner is a thing which I shall never forget. Sir Appleton sat in dead silence for half the meal, then roused himself to talk about red lacquer. That was his nearest approach to China, business. . . And, when we were alone, he turned to Will and said:
“How much does your mother know about it?”
“About what?,” Will asked, naturally enough.
“Now don’t try that kind of thing on me, young man!,” cried Sir Appleton in a quite unpardonable tone.
And then, for the first time, I heard the facts about this girl’s unhappy condition. Will, apparently, knew, but she had not told her father or Arthur or anybody but Sir Appleton. And how much of it was true. . .
“You are accepting this girl’s tale?,” I asked.
“I believe her.”
“Without a shadow of evidence? If Will assured you—”
“I shouldn’t believe him,” he interrupted.
To Will’s mother, in her own house, at her own table! I could see that this was going to be war to the knife. . .
And then I’m afraid I threw all restraint to the winds. After urging Will to be careful, too. What I said. . . The words poured out of me in a torrent until my boy stared at me with round eyes. Sir Appleton just sat nodding like a mandarin. I told him how this girl had set her trap to catch Will, how she had evidently resolved to stop at nothing for the chance of marrying above her station, how she had persecuted and blackmailed us. Whatever she had got, I said, she richly deserved. Not that I believed her story! Oh, not for a single moment! As soon as she had forced Will to marry her, she would laugh in his face for the trick she had played him. And, if all this was true—her condition and so forth and so on—, what possible proof was there that Will was in any way responsible?
“Ask him,” said Sir Appleton.
“How should I know?,” said Will.
“Exactly,” Sir Appleton cried in triumph. “Now, young man, what do you propose to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Will.
“Then suppose you find out,” said Sir Appleton. “Are you going to marry her?”
“No, no!,” I cried. “A thousand times, no! She must reap what she has sown. My son shall not pay the price of her wickedness.”
“He promised to marry her,” said Sir Appleton.
“Prove it,” I said.
Oh, if only I had been allowed to see the mad old father and challenge him! We should have heard very little more of Miss Molly Wanton. Sir Appleton didn’t seem to care whether he could prove it or not. . .
“Oh,” he had to admit, “there’s no proof. But she says so, and I believe her. Most of my life. Lady Ann, I’ve had to form quick judgements of people and, perhaps three times out of seven, I know when they’re speaking the truth. Your son did promise.”
“He did not!,” I retorted. “It stands to reason. . .”
And then I tried to hammer a little sense into his head. Two people drawn from different worlds, without an interest in common, without money. All his life she would drag him down and down. . . How would he like to see a son of his in such a position? . . .
“He should have thought of that before he began playing the fool,” said Sir Appleton.
“Before he began playing the fool! A woman knows well enough. . . And a clergyman’s daughter! You want my boy to marry her with his knowledge, our knowledge of her character? You must be mad!”
Will said nothing. This quite unseemly altercation, when he was already worn out with the long persecution. . . I wished, oh! I wished that Arthur had been dining at home; he would never have allowed us to be bullied like this. . .
“Let’s take the next thing, then,” proposed Sir Appleton. And, do you know, I felt that he was enjoying our agony. “Your son is too fine a gentleman to marry this frail beauty, though he was not so fastidious when there was a question of getting her into trouble.” Fine gentlemen and frail beauties! The man was talking like a character in some ridiculous melodrama! “Well, he has rather spoiled her for any other life, so I presume he will gladly pay what compensation he can. Even a court of law would award substantial damages, if she could prove that there had been a promise of marriage.”
“She can’t prove it,” I said.
“And I’m sure you would not like her to try,” he retorted with quite an undisguised threat in his voice. “It would cause an ugly scandal, and you would all gladly pay ten times whatever damages a jury would give her for the sake of hushing up the scandal. Are you prepared to give her enough to go abroad and, if need be, live abroad and make a new life for herself?”
“I’ve no doubt we shall do what we can,” I said, “if the story’s true—which I don’t for one moment admit at present.”
I was thankful that he no longer suggested that Will should marry her. . . I’d have promised anything! Though why he should make himself a ruler and a judge. . .
“You will have to provide for her,” he said, “at least as generously as if she were marrying your son. She will have no chance of participating in his prosperity and success as he rises from triumph to triumph in his career.”
I thought I detected a sneer in his voice. If I had been sure, I would have suggested that he ceased insulting my son until we were both free of the obligation to treat a guest with courtesy. The face was curiously expressionless; I couldn’t be certain.
“You must not judge every one by your own standard of wealth,” I pointed out. “We are very far from rich.”
“You would settle, say, five thousand a year on her?,” he proposed. “The cost of living has reduced that to little more than three thousand by the standard of prices before the war.”
“Sir Appleton,” I said as patiently as I could, “if we had five thousand a year to throw about, we should not be inviting your generous assistance in finding a position for Will.”
It was more than time to dismiss this girl and get to business. . .
“Five hundred, then,” he suggested.
“A year? For all her life?,” I asked, hardly believing my ears. If he could have had any conception what Arthur allows me to dress on. . .
“Your son’s costly regard will affect the whole of her life,” said Sir Appleton.
“I won’t go into that,” I said. “I admit nothing. But I can tell you that it would be out of the question.”
“Fifty pounds then?,” he went on remorselessly. “It’s less than a pound a week—with present purchasing power of about a shilling a day.”
“I don’t think we need discuss this,” I said. “If the story’s true, this girl will find that we shall not behave illiberally to her. I don’t admit any claim; I was brought up in a stern school which ordained that a woman should reap as she had sown. What you regard as her misfortune, I was taught to consider the divine, just punishment of sin.”
Sir Appleton looked at his watch and rose to his feet.
“But you’ll pay her a lump sum of a hundred,” he suggested, “to prevent a scandal and help her through her troubles and keep her from jumping into the river?”
“I hope she would not be so foolish or wicked as to contemplate such a thing,” I told him, “but I would certainly pay her that.”
“Then it’s right that she should know as soon as possible,” said he. “I told her to go round to my house so that my wife could look after her. She dare not face her father; and she was growing rather miserable in lodgings. If you will excuse me, I should like just to explain how the land lies and how much she can hope from your—generosity.”
Will opened the door. . . I can see now that I should have done better to say nothing, but I could not let him slip away without a word on the one subject which had made me ask him . . . and submit to his company. . .
“And when,” I asked, “may we hope to hear about the appointment?”
“The appointment?,” he repeated.
“The opening you promised to find for Will,” I reminded him.
“Did I promise?,” he asked stupidly; and then with deliberate malice, “Can you prove that there was ever a promise?”
I reminded him of our talks at Menton. Goodness me, the man had dined for the express purpose of meeting Will and deciding what kind of work would suit him best.
“We have to make our plans,” I explained.
“I don’t think we need discuss this,” he said. “Your son, as you told me, has no experience or technical knowledge, so that, if I employed him at all, I should employ him for his qualities of character. I should not dream of judging any man on a single meeting, so I think we had better postpone a decision until I have had better opportunity of studying his honour and generosity.”
And that is how we stand at present. . .
Will thinks that there is nothing to hope for in that quarter, but I cannot believe that, when a man has given a solemn promise, he will try to wriggle out of it. Sir Appleton owes a good deal to me; but for my advice and really untiring pains he would still be plain Mr. Deepe, unknown to any one outside his business. . .
Of the girl we have heard nothing for two days. If she must live on some one else’s doorstep, I should be thankful to know that she had transferred herself to his. . .
But our existence is like life in a beleaguered city, never knowing when the next attack will be delivered. . .