The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman/Chapter 12

by Stephen McKenna

XII

LADY ANN SPENWORTH DEFENDS HER CONSISTENCY

LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): Consistency?

It is very easy, of course, to overdo that sort of thing, to become so inflexible that one is the slave and victim of one’s own rules. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. . . On the other hand, I have no patience with the people who say one thing today and another to-morrow, so that you never know where you are with them. Surely the wise course is to discover the great laws and hold to them unswervingly, only stepping aside by a hair’s breadth to left or right when the great laws quite obviously apply no longer. In the realm of principle I admit no compromise; Right is Right, and Wrong is Wrong, and no amount of special pleading can blur that distinction. . .

But, though I hold no brief for consistency, I should be vastly entertained to know exactly where you think I have been inconsistent. . . Not you personally, of course! We have known each other long enough to look out on life with very much the same eyes. But the people who are good enough to criticize me without, perhaps, taking the trouble to ascertain even the facts of the case.

I have always said that I would not stir a finger to interfere with my boy Will, or any one else of that age, where the heart was concerned. They, for all their inexperience, must be the ultimate judges; the wisdom of instinct and so on and so forth. The responsibility on an outsider is too great even for advice; and the advice of a mother to the son who adores her. . . There is such a thing as having too much power put into one’s hands. I don’t say I’m right; but, if Will married a girl whom I considered the most unsuitable person in the world. . . So long as he loved her, and she loved him. . . Have I been inconsistent there?

I have always said that for a boy of his tastes and upbringing some little money is essential as light and air. A truism! Have I been inconsistent here?

I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, as they say; and I resent this modern practice of proclaiming to the whole world how much one loves one’s own flesh and blood—as though it were something very new and wonderful; but you have never doubted that I would sell the clothes from off my back and the roof from over my head if Will’s happiness depended on it. You are good enough to talk about my “sacrifices”, but am I being anything more than normal, natural and consistent, a mother brought up in a certain school of a certain period?

I think that, if the facts were ever known, you would find I had been loyal to my principles. They never will be—for obvious reasons. . . With you, of course, it is different; I have told you everything and laid my heart bare. Should I have done that, if there was anything to conceal? And if the last chapter would really interest you. . .

A superficial change undoubtedly there has been, corresponding to a profound change in all our conditions. A year or two ago. . . It is not too much to call it a revolution, so many unexpected things have happened. In those days one never dreamed that my brother-in-law would drag what I suppose I must call his “honour” through the Divorce Court; and, so long as poor Kathleen bore him one daughter after another, it seemed safe to presume that Cheniston and the title would come sooner or later to Arthur and, through him, to our boy. The problem of that period was to “carry on”, as Will would say; my brother Brackenbury and his wife would not like to be called mean, but they were certainly careful, and it was only by eternal pinching and scraping that we made both ends meet. Many young men in Will’s position would have put themselves up to auction, as it were, and married the first rich woman who came their way. Goodness me, my boy had a big enough choice! First of all Hilda, and he resigned his claims there to my nephew Culroyd; then the South American widow, but he very quickly saw how unsuitable that would be; and you may say—without any unkindness—that my niece Phyllida was waiting all the time for him to drop the handkerchief and only consented to marry Hilary Butler when the other thing was out of the question. Unfortunately you can’t please everybody, and Will was old-fashioned enough to desire a wife with whom he could be in love and to shut his ears to all the lures of money. . . Money? A man of his ability can always earn money, and our only difficulty was to know where to start. He contemplated la haute finance for a while, but was repelled by the prospect of having to work with men like Sir Adolf Erckmann; then he explored the possibilities of Mr. Surdan’s shipyards, but this for some reason was not to his taste. Now I truly honestly believe that he has found his métier. . . .

While he was still undecided about his career, I was reluctant to part with the house in Mount Street, though for many years it had really been too expensive for us. One grows, indeed, to love one’s own vine and fig-tree, and the place was filled with associations. Did I ever tell you that the princess was good enough to say that, in coming there, she always felt she was coming home? . . . With Will gone, the place is a white elephant; and I cannot flatter myself that any little niche I may occupy makes me indispensable to the life of London. When people talk about inconsistency, they fancy a change in you, but it doesn’t occur to them that the world all round you may have changed. I had long contemplated radical alterations and was only perplexed to know where to begin.

Our thoughts had all been turned for the moment from our own affairs by the romance of my dear niece Phyllida’s engagement to Colonel Butler. Alas! when we came back to London, it was to find what I then regarded as a sword still suspended over our heads, still hanging by a hair. Since the night when Sir Appleton Deepe dined with us to discuss the appointment for Will, this girl Molly Phenton had not been near the house. For a week before that she had been calling, waiting, writing—always protesting that my boy had given her a promise of marriage. As it was impossible for them to marry without money, I refused to believe that Will had promised; not believing this story of a promise, I felt that she was trying to blackmail us; feeling that, I declined to see her. One thing followed automatically from another. It was not until she called that evening and Sir Appleton—rather officiously, if you’ll promise not to tell any one I said so—insisted on interviewing her, that I learned the truth about her condition. Then, I am sure, we should all have agreed that Will must marry her at once, but Sir Appleton would give us no time. I suppose concentration on one object is very necessary in business, but it does limit a man’s outlook: Sir Appleton could see but this one thing. “My good sir,” I wanted to tell him, “shew us how it is to be done, and it will be done.” But he would not discuss the appointment, though he had given me as solemn a promise as a man can give; he dashed home, after sending this girl on ahead, and we heard no more of them.

I felt that it was useless to talk to my boy just then, because he was so much worried that anything more might have brought on a complete break-down. My husband too. . . I respect Arthur’s judgement at other times, but, where his own son is concerned, I find him curiously unsympathetic. I pretended to myself that I was trying to find a new opening for Will, now that Sir Appleton had played us so shamefully false, but I’m afraid that I was simply letting things drift. . .

Then my brother-in-law Spenworth paid me the rare honour of a visit. He had come up from Cheniston on purpose, though—to judge from his voice—you would have thought he was still trying to make himself heard from the fastnesses of Warwickshire. . .

“Well, my dear Ann,” he roared, “I’ve come to give you a piece of my mind.”

Do you know, had the retort not been so cheaply obvious, one would have been strongly tempted to ask whether he could really spare it. . . So characteristic of Spenworth! I am not a woman to bear malice, but I could not forget that very few days had passed since he played me a trick which to that type of mind, no doubt, seems funny, but which might have involved me in embarrassment and humiliation. It was one night when the princess was with me; Spenworth had been presiding over some regimental dinner and he thought it would be an amusing hoax to send all these young officers—with partners whom they had apparently picked up one really dares not contemplate where—on the pretext that I was giving a dance and would be delighted to see them. Dear Hilary Butler’s presence of mind alone saved the situation. I detest practical joking and, when my brother-in-law was announced, I confess that I expected less to be lectured than to receive some little expression of regret. . .

Hoped rather than expected. . . You are quite right.

“I must beg for enlightenment,” I said.

“Well, what’s that scamp of a boy of yours been up to?,” he asked.

“I will not permit such language about my son!,” I cried.

“Too late now. You should have brought him up better,” he said.

This from Spenworth, whose life has been one dark, unbroken record of debauchery, unfaithfulness . . . not a tenth part known owing to his cleverness in hushing up scandals, impoverishing that glorious estate to buy the silence of those who held awkward secrets. Indeed I know what I am talking about. When he wanted poor Kathleen to divorce him, he gave her the run of Cheniston; heirlooms apart, she might take anything “to feather her new nest”, as he elegantly put it. And this in a house which will come to Arthur and Will if anything happens to that sickly baby. . . There was a marvellous story going the rounds a few months ago that I had tried to entangle Kathleen with the King’s Proctor or the President of the Divorce Court or somebody of the kind, so that she might be tied to Spenworth and Cheniston have no heir. Comment. . . What is the phrase? Comment is superfluous! But, if Arthur or Will were steward of Cheniston, they would give a better account of their stewardship than my brother-in-law is likely to do. . . I have lost the thread. . . Ah, yes!

“Satan rebuking sin, Spenworth,” I suggested, “though I have no idea what charge you are bringing against my boy.”

“You can have a good time in this world without being a cad,” he said. “At least I hope I can. Apparently your precious Will can’t.”

“Have a good time”! There is a phrase to put you on your guard!

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you. But I do know that we shan’t do any good by continuing this discussion.”

“Not so fast,” said Spenworth, as I walked to the bell. “You asked me to second that little beast at the club. I did. I went there the other day and was told that some fellow with a name like Apple-pie-bed had told Will that, if he ever dared shew his nose inside the door again, he’d be kicked into the street. Well, as it’s our misfortune to share a common name, I took it on myself to have Mr. Apple-pie-bed pointed out to me; I asked him if he didn’t think that perhaps he was being a little high-handed. I don’t allow every Chinese grocer to take liberties with me. He said: ‘I’m sorry the feller should be a relation of yours, but for the sake of the club I must stick to what I threatened. You’d better report me to the committee when it’s all over, and we shall then see whether, on a show-down, my action is approved.’ That, my dear Ann, is all I know; but, in case you’re not aware of it, any reflection on a man I’ve supported at a club is a reflection on me; if the young cub had been pilled, I should have had to resign; if he gets hoofed out, people will want to know why the hell I ever backed him. . .”

As you know, I am always lost in admiration of Spenworth’s elegance of diction. And all delivered as though he were cheering hounds on to a line. Everything in my poor little house trembled. . .

Truly honestly I had no idea that men in their clubs could be such great babies. . .

“Sir Appleton Deepe—that is his name, Spenworth; I am not sure whether you were trying to be facetious—,” I said, “is evidently a queer-tempered man. I have had evidence of it before. Should you engage in conversation with him again, you may tell him that he touches a hair of Will’s head at his peril. I have nothing more to say except that in your club you seem to be as violent and disorderly as out of it.”

There was a certain amount more noise . . . and bluster. But I think that in time even Spenworth must have seen that he was hardly the appropriate person to champion such a cause . . . whatever cause he imagined he was championing. . . Hardly had he left when my nephew was announced—and came in with a great show of embarrassment. I am very fond of Culroyd; so far as any one, without taking the responsibility of active interference, can help to bring two young people together. . . Both Culroyd and Hilda persist in regarding me as their good fairy. . .

“My dear boy,” I said, “what is the matter?”

“Oh, I’m—in the deuce of a hole, Aunt Ann,” he answered. “Where’s Will?”

“He has not come in yet,” I said. “Tell me what has happened.”

“Well,” said Culroyd, “I think you know a man called Deepe, Appleton Deepe.” My heart sank! “He called on me to-day—I don’t know if the fellow’s mad, but he said: ‘You’re a cousin of Mr. William Spenworth, aren’t you? Now, he’s been doing one of the things that a gentleman doesn’t do; and some one has to thrash him for it. I’ll say that there’s a girl mixed up in it, but I won’t tell you any more. She has no brothers, and her father’s too old to do justice to the occasion. The question is: who’s to give him his thrashing? I’m not as vigorous as I could wish; but I’ll undertake it, if I must. If, on the other hand, you’ll do it for me and do it properly, we may save a scandal; I shouldn’t like to injure his mother in any way, but he has to have his thrashing.’ . . Well, I didn’t know whether the fellow was in his right mind. . . I tried to get him to tell me something more. . . Then I said I’d think it over. . . What the devil’s Will been up to now?”

“Now?,” I repeated . Really, I will stand a good deal from Culroyd, because he is my nephew and I am very fond of him. But I would not submit to being hectored by my relations old and young, one after another. Goodness me, the next thing would be that I should have to give sureties to Phyllida and allow Ruth to make herself a ruler and a judge. . .

“Well, what does it mean?,” Culroyd persisted.

“You have suggested,” I said, “that this Sir Appleton Deepe was mad; I can only fear that his madness was contagious.”

I was beside myself with anger. . . And at the same time highly uneasy. Will had not been going to his club the last few days because of this girl’s practice of camping on the doorstep there; and it was long past the time when he usually came home. Culroyd shrugged his shoulders and said good-bye. I waited—on and on. Seven o’clock, half-past seven, eight. I was just going up to dress when Norden rang through to say that some one wished to speak to me on the telephone.

Need I tell you that it was Sir Appleton Deepe? My dear, by that time I should have been amazed if it had been any one else; he seemed to dog my steps and pervade my life. As, he said, I was apparently expecting Will home to dinner, I should no doubt like to know that my boy was with him; they had met in the street, and he had persuaded him to come home. . .

You have met the man, of course. Well, I wonder whether you will agree with me here. Ordinarily, I should say, he had the furtive, apologetic manner of one who is not quite certain of himself; once roused, even by something that the detached outsider might think was not quite his business, he is a changed man. I am thinking now of his voice; the telephone had changed its timbre into something quite terribly sinister. The way he said he had persuaded Will to come home with him! And then he went on to ask whether he could not persuade me, if I was not already engaged, to join them, as they were discussing certain things in which I really ought to have a say. . .

Of course I went just as soon as Norden could find me a taxi. Will has the courage of a lion, but I would not leave him at the mercy of that epileptic creature when I knew that for weeks he had been so much overwrought and worried that the least thing might bring on a break-down. . . Besides, if Sir Appleton had repented his haste in throwing away an opportunity of securing my boy’s services in his business, a mother’s guidance and judgement could never be more needed; I do not wholly trust these “captains of commerce”; if they did not know how to drive a very hard bargain, they would not be where they are. . .

I found them in Sir Appleton’s study—doing nothing in particular, so far as I could make out, though Will was drinking whisky and soda, which shewed me that he must be greatly overwrought.

“It is good of you to come, Lady Ann,” said Sir Appleton. “You have not had time to forget our last meeting. I was made aware then of several things: as that your son had taken advantage of a young girl’s innocence and was leaving her to bear the consequences. . . As that you were opposed heart and soul to such a mésalliance as would result from his marrying her. . . As that you were unhappily not in a position to make adequate financial provision for her, but that you would pay her a hundred pounds ‘in full discharge’, as we say in business. . . I felt that, as there was no law to cope with such gentry as your son, some one must take the law into his own hands. Now, Miss Phenton had no relations of an age to protect her, and your nephew seemed reluctant to vindicate the family honour—I sympathize with him; his words were: ‘If once one starts thrashing the little beast, I don’t see where it’s going to end,’—; I therefore decided that it was incumbent on me, as the one person whom Miss Phenton had consulted, to administer such a lesson that your son would remember it to the end of his days. Having the good fortune to meet him in the street this afternoon, I invited him to come home with me and—be whipped!”

My attention had wandered a little in preparing a speech for my Lord Culroyd the next time he does me the honour to call; but I saw Sir Appleton jerk his head towards the table and, to my horror, I beheld an enormous crop made, I should think, of rhinoceros-hide.

“I regret to inform you that it may not be necessary,” said Sir Appleton. “When I told our young friend to prepare for execution, he asked naturally enough why he was being executed and quite convinced me that it would be absurd to carry out the sentence when his one burning desire and ambition was to marry Miss Phenton.”

Sheer, unabashed intimidation!

I looked at Will; but he was sitting with his head between his hands, utterly worn out with the worry of the past few weeks.

“Is this true?,” I asked.

“He will tell you,” said Sir Appleton, taking care to give him no chance of speaking for himself, “that he always intended to marry her; he now clearly remembers promising to marry her, which is so satisfactory. It was only a question of times and seasons and ways and means. I admit it is not a solution which I consider ideal, because I—like you, though from another standpoint—do not regard it as a wholly suitable match. A first love, however, is not an easy thing to overcome, and Miss Phenton is unaffectedly devoted to your son despite the period of anxiety through which he unavoidably compelled her to pass; your son will tell you that he is no less devoted to her.”

If only the man would have stopped talking for one moment! He sat there, smiling to himself and pouring out this stream of pretentious, shop-walker’s English. . . I’m sure you know what I mean! One so often finds with people who are not quite certain of themselves that they heap up affectations and dare not venture on a colloquialism for fear of seeming what they would call “ungenteel”. Slang I abhor, but there is such a thing as the daily speech of educated men and women. . .

“Tell me, dear Will,” I begged, “whether this is true.”

“I’ve always wanted to marry Molly,” he answered. And, though sheer fatigue had taken the tone from his voice, I heard a throb of conviction. “I didn’t see, though, how we could marry until we had something to marry on. That’s what I told her fool of a father . . . and her . . . and the guv’nor . . . and Sir Appleton. If you’d settle that between you instead of badgering me, I’ll marry her to-morrow.”

His nerves were strained to breaking-point. . .

And I am not ashamed to confess that I felt hardly adequate to discussing the most momentous decision in my boy’s life. After inviting me to dinner, Sir Appleton seemed to have forgotten all about it. Nine o’clock had struck; and I was faint and sick with hunger. I have reached an age when I like regular meals at regular hours. These business men must have iron constitutions; or else they must eat very hearty luncheons. And I kept saying to myself: “For truly unbusinesslike irregularity, go to your business man.” . .

One thing stood out clearly. As I have always refused to lead Will where his affections were concerned, so I could never stand in the way when once his heart had spoken.

“We must not worry him,” I told Sir Appleton. “Cannot you and I talk over ways and means together? I have no idea what to suggest. As you know, my husband and I are paupers. . .”

He, if any one, after all that he had taken upon himself, was the man to help us out of our difficulty.

“I have a scheme,” he said, “but your son had better hear it, as he will be a party to it.”

I could have gone on my knees to him for a crust of bread. . . It could hardly have been deliberate—this policy of starvation—, but I was strongly reminded of very similar treatment from a certain general in the War Office . . . who shall be nameless. You remember my difficulty about Will’s commission; he was on fire, of course, to go into the infantry. “Do you,” I asked him, “think you are serving your country by spending one day in the trenches and six months in hospital with rheumatic fever?” And, when I had wasted argument and entreaty on him, I carried my appeal to Cæsar. On the staff my boy would have been worth his weight in gold; anything else was simply a short cut to hospital. I told this general . . . when at last I contrived to see him; and his method of receiving me was to keep me standing — not a chair to be seen in the room!—with all the windows open, a gale blowing and no fire. I made him see reason at the end, but I was in bed for a week afterwards. . . I wondered whether Sir Appleton was trying to starve me into submission. . .

His plan. . . I wish you could have heard it in his own words! The impudence and brutality. . .

“If you’ve no money yourself, Lady Ann,” he said, “you’ve rich relations. Lord Brackenbury, I am sure, would give a substantial sum to start his nephew in life. And so would your brother-in-law, Lord Spenworth. I have spoken to both and demonstrated that your son will be at the other side of the world for probably a number of years with no opportunity of coming to them, as in the past, when he needed assistance. They both seemed disposed to help, but felt that the first step should be taken by you. I have ascertained that the lease of your house—”

“You would like,” I interrupted, “to sell the roof over my head! Why not the clothes off my back?”

“There is a great scarcity of houses,” he said, “and you would get a good price. Besides, with your son married and away you will not have the same need for a big house in London. . . When the fund has been collected, it will be settled on Miss Phenton, as it is her position that requires safeguarding; you have assured me of your son’s abilities, so he should have no difficulty in making a big income in the position which I contemplate offering him. If he fails, it will be his own fault; but, as I never believe in bolstering up failures, his wife must be made independent of his success in business. If you consent to this in principle and will empower me to work out the details, your son’s appointment is secured, and he can sail for China as soon as he can get a passage. Let us now go in to dinner, or Miss Phenton will be wondering what has happened to us.”

I felt then that he had decided to break me at all costs, one shock after another. Forcing Will into marriage, driving him abroad, calmly proposing that I should denude myself of everything—and then throwing me face to face with this girl. I tried to protest. . . And then I knew that, if he did not give me something to eat, I should simply break down. . .

I had met the girl before, of course—just for a moment, hardly long enough to take in more than a general view, “the old clergyman’s pretty little daughter”, if you understand me. . . Big grey eyes and a quantity of soft hair; a shy, appealing girl. . .

“Won’t you leave us alone for a moment?,” I said to Sir Appleton. Rather to my surprise he did have the consideration to oblige me in that. “Molly, my dear, won’t you kiss me?,” I said.

The poor little thing shrank from me. . .

“I’m so ashamed,” she cried.

“My child, my child,” I said, “you are overwrought. But we are going to send you right away, where you will forget all your troubles. All will be well. All would have been well from the beginning if you had trusted me and taken me into your confidence.”

“I felt you’d think me so wicked!,” sobbed the poor little thing.

I told her that I couldn’t think her wicked without thinking the same of Will.

“Right and Wrong,” I said, “existed from the beginning and will endure to the end, irrespective of conventions and institutions. I say to you what I should not dare say to your father: right and wrong are older than any marriage laws. You love my boy?”

“Oh, I do,” she cried. “I never loved any one before and I could never love any one else.”

“And he loves you,” I said. “Need we say any more at present? I find it hard to spare him, but sooner or later this is a thing that comes to every mother. If I surrender him to you, will you in your turn take my place and devote yourself to him as I have tried to do? There is so little time and so many things to do that I cannot talk to you as I should like. Very soon you will be married, very soon you will both have slipped away to a very far country. Nothing that any of us can do for you both will be left undone; every penny that we can scrape together will be yours. As time goes on, you will learn how much money can do—and how little. All my life I have been scraping and pinching, pinching and scraping to provide for the happiness and comfort of my husband and son. You will have to do the same. Very few of us have enough for all we should like, and you will find that between husband and wife, when one has to yield, it is the wife who yields. That is the law of the Medes and Persians. Too often it is ‘A suit for him or a frock for me’. . . Promise me that you will never let my boy go short of anything. He has been brought up to a certain standard of comfort, and I know by experience that, if you try to reduce that, it will be you who will suffer in the long run. That is part of the price that we pay for being women. And now,” I said, “let me kiss my daughter.”

I do not wonder that my boy fell in love with her. You will, too, the moment you see her. As Arthur did. . . There is nothing much more to tell you about our dinner with Sir Appleton; when he did allow us to begin, I will say that he tried to make amends for any exhibition of what I had better call the business manner.

Of course, when I reached home, I found that I had only got rid of one trouble to make way for another. Arthur. . . He would have been even more furious if he had been less bewildered, but, as it is, I try to forget and I shall certainly not remind him of certain things that he said about my going to work behind his back, taking decisions over his head. When one has grown attached to a house. . . Is it not my frame and setting? Is not every corner filled, for me, with memories of the old days when the princess almost lived with us? There was an entirely meaningless explosion at the expense of poor Will, who very properly refused to be drawn into argument and went straight to bed.

“My dear Arthur,” I said, “sooner or later this was inevitable. When our boy married, we knew that we should have to go on providing for him. Is it so great a sacrifice that we should move into a smaller house, that you, perhaps, should have to work longer than you had intended? It is to establish our son in life.”

When the announcement was published, I invited just the family to a little informal dinner. They were extravagant in their praise of Molly—Spenworth in his hyperbolical manner going so far as to tell her that she was “chucking herself away”, as he elegantly put it, on some one who was not good enough for her. I should have thought it possible to pay a compliment without trying to be rude to as many other people as possible. . .

To do Spenworth justice, he behaved liberally over the money, though he must needs be facetious and tell Will that he would pay twice the sum to keep him out of England. Such humour is a little primitive. . . I acquit Brackenbury, too, of any illiberality, though Spenworth must needs call this a “thank-offering” . . . for some reason. . .

The marriage, of course, takes place immediately, as they sail the moment Sir Appleton can arrange about their passages. I am sure that it will be a success, though I prefer not to think about it; dearly as I love little Molly, she is robbing me of my boy. As soon as they leave England, I shall go right away for a time. What with one thing and another, the last year has been very exhausting, and Arthur and I have to prepare for a new life and a very different life. The old and the new are bridged by one’s friends. . . Their love follows us into what must inevitably be retirement from the stage on which we have played our little part for our few years. . . We are abandoning any little niche that we may have occupied. . .

You I hope to see constantly. At the ceremony, of course, and afterwards here. . . The princess is coming. Whoever appeals to her graciousness and devotion will never appeal in vain. . .

 

THE END