The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman/Chapter 11
XI
LADY ANN SPENWORTH FINDS HER HEART WARMING
LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): Indeed I think I may claim that you have come to the right person. I returned from the Hall only this morning, so I am well primed with news.
And very, very happy. It is only since I have been established once more in the beleaguered city that I have had to remember this menace. No! Not a word or sign! The old clergyman descended on us from Morecambe, protesting that my boy Will had promised to marry his daughter; the daughter came and told a cock-and-bull story which proved her own abandonment without establishing anything against my boy; and, since then, nothing! But one does not choose to be a standing target for that sort of thing. When next Miss Molly Phenton (or Wanton) comes to Mount Street, she may find that Will is safely married to some one else or that I have sent him abroad. I have lost the thread. . . Ah, yes, the great romance! In that atmosphere of radiance one forgot one’s troubles. . .
My brother Brackenbury did indeed lend me the house for a few weeks in the summer—when every one was away in Scotland— but otherwise I have not passed a night there on their invitation since that deplorable week-end when all the trouble with Phyllida began. You have forgotten it! I hope now that every one will forget it. Hilary—Colonel Butler, you know—had fallen in love with my niece while he was in her hospital. As Phyllida was living with me at the time, I had a duty to my brother, so I suggested that this boy should be invited to the Hall “on approval”, as Will would say. I yield to no one in my real affection for dear Hilary, but—why disguise it?—he had been brought up simply—on modest means—, and it was only right that he should see Phyllida in her natural frame and decide for himself whether he could support her and live up to it. Most people so notoriously cannot: my sister-in-law Ruth, who remains and will ever remain the purse-proud shipping magnate’s daughter. . . I was more than justified. Hilary consulted me; and, though I will never take the responsibility of advising young people in love, he was grateful for the detachment of an outsider. I, he could see, had no axe to grind. . . Brackenbury and Ruth received him effusively; my nephew Culroyd took him to his heart; if he had proposed, he would have been accepted then and there. He had done too wonderfully in the war and, in my humble judgement, gave a promise of success in any career he might undertake.
Me he consulted to know whether the world would say that he had married Phyllida for her money. He was daunted, I could see, by the lavishness of the Hall: the size of the house, the number of servants, Phyllida’s four hunters—and so forth and so on. I told him that, in this respect of money and—in—this—respect—alone, he was not in fact contributing very much. He nodded, packed his bag and went off to make money—with an enterprise and a resolution that was too splendid. Did I ever tell you that I once detected him driving a motorcab? He has now formed a company and is doing very well indeed. It was quite romantic! I always knew that there were such men in England and I was proud to meet one.
He begged me not to enlighten Phyllida, as he wished to leave her entirely free. Which I thought a most proper attitude, not extravagantly common in the youth of the present day. In my efforts to help him I exposed myself to an unhappy misconception, for Phyllida persuaded first herself and then the family that I had scotched her romance with some crazy idea of securing her for my boy Will. It was always on the tip of my tongue to say that she seemed very certain of him. Goodness me, if Will had wanted her. . . I have never wholly approved of cousin-marriages; and I looked with something like dismay on their growing intimacy. That was later, of course; at first she was like a demented creature, saying the wildest and wickedest things. Do you know that she charged me with trying to keep my brother-in-law from getting a divorce—so that there should be no possibility of an heir, so that in time Arthur or Will should inherit Cheniston and the title? These are not the fancies of a balanced mind, and it was then that I urged Brackenbury to send her right away. Failing that, I asked him to entrust her to me for a while in the hopes that I might turn her thoughts. Her loyalty to Colonel Butler I admired, but there is a danger that love may develop into an obsession. . .
That was the time when I became so nervous about Will. She was listless and unhappy, he was sympathetic; a dangerous combination! They had actually, I believe, reached what is called an understanding, when Phyllida learned by chance that Colonel Butler was alive and working in London; and this, I am thankful to say, turned her attention from Will. You were not present, I think, at the great meeting? No, I remember you were away; it was one night when the princess honoured me by dining to meet a few old friends. I gave a little impromptu dance afterwards to some of the officers in Spenworth’s old regiment, not remembering that Hilary Butler was of the number; Phyllida was dining, and they met. . .
After that, it was a foregone conclusion. Every day when I opened my letters or looked at the paper, I expected to read the announcement. You may judge of my misgivings when my sister-in-law Ruth invited me most urgently to come for the week-end to the Hall and to bring Will with me. I have told you that there was some sort of understanding: if Hilary disappeared from human ken, Phyllida would marry Will—something of that kind; she was such a little picture of misery that, if some one had not shewn her a little kindness, I truly honestly believe that she would have wilted away. I was in dread that she would come up and say: “Aunt Ann, Will and I are going to be married”. . . That is why I searched the “Times” so diligently. . . It would be a suitable marriage in some ways: she has money. . . But I could never regard it as satisfactory.
The moment I could get a word alone with my sister-in-law, I asked her whether they had seen anything of Colonel Butler.
“Not since you arranged that meeting at your house,” Ruth told me, “but he is due here to-night.” She persists in speaking of people as though they were ships! The Hull strain coming out! “That is why I invited you all—Culroyd and Hilda are coming; and Spenworth and his wife—; I wanted you all to meet him. Or rather Phyllida did. She has been very mysterious, but there seems to be no doubt now. . .”
“They are going to be married?,” I interrupted.
“Nothing has been said about it— yet,” answered Ruth.
I know you will not misunderstand me, still less make mischief, if I tell you that I heaved a sigh of relief. Fond as I am of Phyllida, she would not have made a very suitable wife for Will, though it is essential for him to marry some one with a little money and I have felt lately that, if he could marry any one, it would put an end to this persecution from the girl who is trying to blackmail him. . . At the same time it seemed a little strange for Phyllida to be summoning the entire family, when, so far as I could make out, Hilary had not said a word. . .
“So you are expecting Colonel Butler,” I said to her at tea.
“He’s coming to-day,” she answered rather brusquely. “I thought he might have been here by now. . . Well, Aunt Ann, was I wise to wait? You told me to go right away and forget him; you always said you wanted to turn my thoughts.”
Do you know, for a dreadful moment I fancied that she was trying to reopen her insane vendetta. . . When she circulated those truly wicked stories about me. . .
“Dear Phyllida,” I said, “did I ever try to shake your faith in him? No one, not even you, has a greater admiration or regard for Colonel Butler; he has done me more than one inestimable service, and I think he would be the first to admit that he owes something to my friendship and advice. Ask him, dear child! I have nothing to fear from his testimony; but there is a right way and a wrong way in most things, and he will tell you that, on my advice, he chose the right. If I urged your father to send you away, if I tried to the best of my poor abilities to distract your thoughts, it was because I could not bear to see my own niece, my own brother’s child, the picture of misery that you were.”
“Well, you’d look miserable,” said Phyllida, “if the one person you cared for had been set against you and if everybody said you’d tried to capture him and he’d run away.”
Who it was that Phyllida imagined she was quoting I have really no idea. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that, if a girl conducts a love affair quite so ostentatiously as she had done, she must not be surprised if people ask questions when, all of a sudden, nothing comes of it. It was hardly the moment to talk about ostentation, however. You remember the terrace at the Hall; we were sitting there like people in the first row of the stalls, waiting for the curtain to go up—Brackenbury, Ruth, their boy Culroyd and Hilda, his wife, my brother-in-law Spenworth, his new wife, Arthur, Will and myself. I really pitied any poor young man with such an audience to face. . .
“But all has now turned out well?,” I asked. “Dear Phyllida, I am very, very glad.”
“Oh, don’t congratulate me yet,” she said. “He hasn’t said anything.”
I was really amazed. . .
“I thought perhaps that, when you met at my house—,” I began.
After all, if—as I hope—everything goes well, I am entitled to a little credit. . .
“Oh, not a word!,” said Phyllida. “He wouldn’t even dance with me at first. I said: ‘Are you trying to avoid me?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ . . And I could have died till I saw he was only joking. Then we both laughed. Then he said: ‘Would your mother invite me down to the Hall one week-end soon? It’s only fair to warn her that, if she doesn’t, I shall invite myself.’ ‘And, if you don’t invite yourself, I shall invite you,’ I told him. ‘Don’t let’s say anything at present,’ he said; ‘I’ve been very busy since I saw you last, but I shall be free in a week or two.’ He wired on Wednesday to know if he might come. I knew you would like to meet him and to see that my faith was justified.”
“Dear Phyllida,” I said. “I hope indeed that it has been.”
“If he doesn’t propose to me,” answered Phyllida, “I shall propose to him. I always told you I would.”
Of course, I am old-fashioned; I was brought up in a different school. Do you know, even in jest, between the two of us, that kind of speech is always very distasteful to me. . .
Apparently the young man was motoring from London, and there was some sort of idea that he would arrive in time for tea. We maintained our absurd theatrical postures until the terrace became too unbearably cold. When I went up to dress, he had not arrived; but Phyllida was still sitting with her gaze fixed down the drive to the white gates of the lodge. . . It may have been love; but I could not help feeling that she was very conscious of the effect. . .
When I came down at half-past eight, there was still no sign of him. And then you can imagine the inevitable discussion! Was he coming or was he not? Should we wait or should we begin without him? Phyllida expressed no opinion; she sat by herself, waiting. . . At nine o’clock I took Arthur and Will on one side and told them that we must really make a concerted attack on Ruth; I was famished. . .
“He can’t be coming,” I said.
Unfortunately Phyllida overheard me and interpreted this as an attack on Colonel Butler’s good faith. . .
“He said he would come,” she persisted. Over one shoulder, you know. . . With a toss of the head.
“Perhaps the car has broken down,” I suggested. “There may have been an accident.”
“He will come,” said Phyllida.
At a quarter past nine Ruth was merciful enough to allow her guests to have a little food—one of those meals where, as my boy said very wittily, “everything was cold except the ice.” A hideous dinner! I am not now referring to the food, but to the atmosphere. Phyllida refused to come in; Brackenbury wavered and wobbled, now going out to her, now coming back. . . And the one not very interesting topic of conversation: what had happened to Colonel Butler. By ten o’clock most of us had made up our minds that he was not coming. . .
By eleven I really believe some were wondering whether he had ever intended to come. He had invited himself, it is true. Or so we were told. But it really seemed as though the initiative came from Phyllida, that she might be forcing his hand, that he had suggested coming really as a means of ending the discussion at my dance. I did not know what letters had passed between them since. She might have been pressing and pressing him until he at last consented to come; then he may have seen that, once at the Hall, he would not be allowed to escape a second time. He may have invited himself with the reservation that he would stop away at the last moment and say that he had been called abroad. Phyllida is attractive, she is rich; for people who care about these things, she is the daughter of an earl. Undeniably young Butler had been glamoured by it all at first; but he may well have felt on reconsideration that it would not be a very suitable match, and I have yet to learn that a man thinks more highly of a girl because she throws herself at his head. That is a lesson which the rising generation will have to learn—at a heavy price.
I felt that some such thoughts must be passing through Spenworth’s mind every time he said: “The fellow’s not coming to-night. Can’t some one persuade that child to have some food instead of giving herself a chill?” Brackenbury and Ruth, too, were beginning to doubt and to look very much concerned. If the young man had sheered off, they would never forgive themselves for allowing the unhappy girl to make such an exhibition of herself. . . In my heart of hearts I knew that Colonel Butler could be trusted as I would trust my own son. I was only afraid that there might have been an accident. . .
And I could fancy what poor Phyllida’s feelings must be after assembling all the family to meet her soldier-hero, after telling me at the top of her very clear little voice that, if he did not propose to her, she would propose to him.. . Every one would say that he had run away and she had dragged him back and now he had run away again. . .
At half-past eleven we gave up hope.
“He can’t be coming to-night,” Ruth told Phyllida. “Let’s all go to bed; we shall hear something in the morning.”
“He said he would come,” Phyllida answered.
There was another aimless discussion when we were all so tired that we could hardly keep our eyes open. Brackenbury went out to see what he could do with the girl—and returned to say that she had vanished!
Oh, my dear! Our feelings I leave you to imagine. In some directions Phyllida has a wild, insane pride . . . and she had seen it dragged in the mire before the eyes of us all. When I spoke of love degenerating into obsession, I chose my words with care: for months the child had been so distraught that I felt a very little more might upset her reason. Rapidly reviewing all that had passed that day, I recalled the utter desperation of her behaviour—the ruined gambler’s last throw. . . We stood as though we had been carved out of stone, staring at Brackenbury while he stared at us . . . white as paper.
He was thinking of the river. . .
We seemed unable to move. . .
At last Spenworth hurled himself through the door, with Brackenbury, Culroyd, Arthur, goodness knows who at his heels. I caught Will’s arm and went with him on to the terrace; it was time that some one kept his head. Do you know, I had a premonition: a moonless night, that inky river, demented, shouting men jostling one another on the bank and in the water, plunging and splashing, a cry for help, some one caught in the reeds, two—three tragedies instead of one. . .
“The boat-house, Will,” I urged.
We dashed along the terrace and across the lawn. Suddenly I stopped. Ahead of me—in the darkness I could not see how far—there was a flash of white. It vanished, appeared again, vanished again.
“This way,” I said.
And I could have sobbed aloud. Instead of making for the river, poor Phyllida was roaming distractedly towards the lodge. We heard her feet stumbling on and off the gravel, there came the moan of a tortured animal. . . The footsteps ceased abruptly, the white coat vanished. . . She had left the drive and turned away behind a clump of laurel. I heard her crying as though her heart would break. . .
“I can run no farther,” I said to Will. “And an old woman like me is no good to her now. Go to her and comfort her. You have always loved her, so you will know what to say. If she breaks her heart, she will break yours too; you will never forgive yourself for abandoning her. Let her see that, however lonely and deserted she may feel, one staunch friend is true to her through all things. It is your right and privilege to share her sorrow and, if may be, to assuage it.”
At such a time my boy did not need to be told twice. As I sank exhausted against a tree, he stole forward; I heard him calling her softly by name. If I could, I would have hurried out of ear-shot, for whatever he said was sacred to the two of them; but I expected every moment to faint with my unaccustomed exertion. . .
“Phyllida. . . Darling Phyllida,” he began.
I do not mind telling you, because you are always discreet and, when reverence is demanded, you will be reverent. . . I thought I knew my boy, but there are depths of tenderness in a man which he never shews to his own mother. . .
“Phyllida, darling Phyllida, won’t you let me comfort you? If you break your heart, you will break mine too. You know that I have always loved you, and that gives me the right to comfort you when you are unhappy. Whatever other people may do to you or say to you, I am always here for you to turn to. . .”
I cannot go on. . . Already I have said more than I ought. Will you think your old friend very foolish if she confesses that for a moment she forgot that she was old ? Time slipped from my shoulders, and I saw once again a young girl in that very garden, not a hundred yards from where I was standing. . . Dear Phyllida, I suppose, would think her a very funny, old-fashioned creature, but I did not seem so then—certainly to Arthur. . . A young girl in a white dress with a young man pleading at her feet until his voice broke and he said: “It’s no good, I can’t go on.” And then he threw his arms about me. . . And I remember my dear father coming on to the terrace and calling out to me. And Arthur seized my hand and strode forward with his head among the stars. . . Brackenbury—he is fourteen years my junior—was already in bed, but we insisted on going upstairs to tell him the news. Life was a very glorious thing that night. I walked on air; and, if any one had told me that it was a thing of greed and cruelty and ingratitude and mean passions, I should have laughed him to scorn. . .
Forgive me. . .
I am sentimental, no doubt, but if we have the opportunity of feeling our heart warming. . . Of late years. . . I have lost the thread. . . Ah, yes! I crept away, leaving them together, with the murmur of my boy’s divine sympathy still in my ears. At first I walked aimlessly, trying to keep my mind blank until I was competent to think of anything. What would happen now? . . . In time I found myself on the lawn once more, and the sight of the river reminded me of duty still left undone. I had to find Brackenbury and tell him that his child was safe and in good hands. . . I remember wondering, trying to make up my mind what I should think if this crise shewed Phyllida that it was Will she wanted to marry. . .
There was no one in sight. I walked cautiously to the river, expecting every moment to step over the edge. . . No sound of voices. I called: “Brackenbury!”, “Arthur!”, “Culroyd!”. There was no answer. Do you know that quite unreasoning fear that sometimes overtakes one when one is in the dark and knows that one is not alone? And the river—like a looking-glass in a twilit room. . . I have a horror of any great expanse of water at night ; it is so silent and merciless. “Culroyd! Brackenbury! Spenworth!,” I called again—this time at the top of my voice. And then I am not ashamed to confess that I hurried back to the house as fast as my legs would carry me.
It was no less deserted than the garden! Lights blazing, doors and windows open, but not a soul in sight; the very servants pressed into the hue-and-cry. I wandered through room after room, upstairs and down. When I went back to the terrace, it was with the crazy feeling that the world had come to an end and I alone was left. . . Suddenly a step on the gravel! And I do assure you that I did not know whether to scream with fear or sob with relief.
“Lady Ann!”
I was far beyond recognizing voices. I peered into the darkness until the figure of a man emerged from the shadows. . .
“Colonel Butler!,” I cried.
“Where’s Phyllida?,” he asked.
“Goodness me, what have you been doing to yourself?,” I exclaimed.
His clothes were in rags, he had lost his hat, he was plastered in mud from head to foot, and one arm was in some sort of make-shift sling.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “A fool of a girl was riding a horse she couldn’t control, and, in trying not to run her down, I had to turn the car over an embankment. There was no station within reach, so I had to come here across country. I’d have wired; but, by the time I reached a telegraph-office, everything was closed—”
“But have you had no dinner?,” I asked, remembering our own fate.
“I don’t want any dinner till I know what’s happened to Phyllida. When did she disappear? Lord Brackenbury says she was out here one moment. . . If anything’s happened to her—”
“Calm yourself. Colonel Butler,” I enjoined.
Indeed I might as profitably have addressed the advice to myself. It was time for some one to keep his head. I was thinking only of Phyllida and the effect that another shock might have upon her. She was already so much overwrought, sobbing her heart out when any of us could have told her that there was nothing to cry about. . .
“We’ve been searching high and low,” said Colonel Butler. “Lord Brackenbury told me that she suddenly bolted into the night. We haven’t dared shout for fear of frightening her away. . . What’s it all about? In the name of God, what can have happened to her?”
“If you stay here,” I said, “I will find her for you.”
“But do you know where she is?,” he cried in great excitement. “I must come too.”
“Won’t you trust my judgement, Colonel Butler?,” I asked.
He hesitated for a moment and then said:
“Of course I will. You’ve been a jolly good friend to me. But for pity’s sake go at once; I can’t stand much more.”
“If you know where the others are,” I suggested, “you might employ your time in finding them.”
Then I set off down the drive once more. I walked on the grass, but, on reaching the laurel-clump, I gave a little cough to apprise them of my presence. Poor Phyllida was so much overwrought that she started to her feet like a frightened animal. (She had been lying with her face in her arms, while Will stroked her hair and whispered such little words of comfort as came into his head.)
“Will, I want to speak to you a moment,” I said.
And, when he came to me, I told him to go down to the lodge gates and wait there till I fetched him. Then I tried to make some impression on poor Phyllida, who was indulging in such an abandonment of grief that you would really say that she was enjoying it.
“Phyllida, stop crying,” I said, “and listen to what I have to tell you.”
“Oh, why can’t you leave me alone?,” she sobbed.
“Because,” I said, “there is great and glorious news for you, and your old aunt is selfish enough to wish to be its bearer.”
You may be sure that she stopped her crying soon enough at that.
I told her that Hilary Butler had arrived. . . And about the accident; she tried to bolt from my grasp, but I contrived to restrain her. . . And the dreadful fright she had been wicked enough to give us. . .
“Oh, let me go!,” she kept crying.
“A moment more, dearest child,” I said. “You are both over-excited, overwrought. Would you not like to meet him alone first, without feeling that the eyes of all your family are upon you?” . . .
She is an impetuous, affectionate little thing. In a moment she was kissing me and making my face quite wet with her tears. . .
“We will go into the rose-garden,” I said. “Many years before you were born, dear Phyllida, another girl stood there with the man who loved her more than any one in the world. May you be at least not less happy than she has been!” . . .
Then I returned to the house. Hilary had collected most of the party, and I whispered to him that he would find Phyllida by the sun-dial. . . I am not so well used to praise from my occasionally critical relations that I can afford to treat it lightly; Spenworth was good enough to propose three cheers for me when he heard of my childishly simple little stratagem for letting the young people meet unlistened to, unspied on…
“And now had not the rest of us better go to bed?,” I suggested to Ruth. “If all is as we hope, you and Brackenbury would sooner not be embarrassed by our presence.”
Poor Ruth is consistent in one thing: she never shews any instinct for arranging or managing. It is perhaps not to be expected that she should take to it by the light of nature, but one would have thought that the first ambition of any woman who had been transported from one milieu to another would have been to learn… She is in a position of authority…
When they had all separated to their rooms, I once more set out… Will, I think, had guessed; and I have never seen any one more delighted.
“I knew the fellow would turn up,” he said, “but I couldn’t make poor little Phyl see it. I suppose she thought he must have killed himself on the road. Just as well he didn’t, because I believe she’s quite fond of him. I should think they’d get on quite well gether, though of course she’s not everybody’s money.”
I explained to him that every one had gone to bed, but here he was quite immovable.
“I want to be the first to congratulate them,” he said.
Which I thought was handsome, when you remember how Phyllida threw herself at his head.
They are to be married as soon as Hilary’s company has been formed. He is very anxious that Arthur should join the board, but I am not sure that it is wise to undertake too many enterprises. One is always reluctant to refuse what is really a tempting offer—on a small scale—, but there are only twenty-four hours in the day. . .
One quite rubs one’s eyes when the younger generation knocks at the door in this way. How old would you say Phyllida was? Twenty-two, I assure you; and I know what I am talking about. It will be my boy’s turn next, I suppose; he is nearly thirty-one. And, though I do not want to lose him, I shall not be sorry to see him safely married.
I hope that Phyllida will make a success of her life. I have every reason to think she will, but I refuse to accept any responsibility for guiding young people to their affinities. After one irrational period in which I was the wicked stepmother, I suddenly find myself regarded as the good fairy. . .
It is really too ridiculous. . .
Oh, I think you can congratulate them at once. They are to be “Morning-Posted”, as Will would say, to-morrow. . .