The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman/Chapter 2
II
LADY ANN SPENWORTH REPUDIATES ALL RESPONSIBILITY
LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): But this is as delightful as it is unexpected! If we only have the carriage to ourselves. . . I often say that a first-class ticket is the merest snare and delusion; during the war it has exposed one to a new order—I’ve no doubt they are very brave and so forth and so on, but that sort of thing ought to be kept for the trenches. One doesn’t want to travel with it, one certainly doesn’t want to live with it. . .
At least I don’t. There’s no accounting for tastes, as my poor niece Phyllida has been shewing. You are going to Brackenbury, of course? Every one does by this train. In the old days my father enjoyed the privilege of being able to stop every train that ran through Brackenbury station; he held property on both sides of the line and was a director for very many years. One said a word to the guard—they were a very civil lot of men—, and that was literally all. My brother has allowed that to lapse, like everything else; and you now have to come by the four-twenty or not at all.
I should have thought the Brackenbury parties were difficult enough without giving everybody a gratuitous two hours in the train to grow tired of everybody else. My sister-in-law Ruth has other qualities, no doubt, but she will not go down to history as one of the great English hostesses. . . It’s not surprising, perhaps; but, if you’re not born to that sort of thing, wouldn’t you make an effort to acquire it? There must be brains of some kind in the family, or the father could never have made all that money. I always felt a certain responsibility about Ruth; Brackenbury had to marry some one with a little money, and, knowing the sort of girl he’d fancy if I gave him half a chance. . . I was fourteen years older and knew something of poor Brackenbury’s limitations; when I met Ruth Philpot and found that the money did come from quite a respectable shipping firm in Hull, I said: “Marry her, my dear boy, before you have a chance of making a greater fool of yourself.” And I told him I’d do what I could for her; little hints, you understand. . . I’m afraid poor Ruth was not a very apt pupil; and Brackenbury, who never had any sense of his position, was a mere broken reed. “Assert yourself!,” I used to say. “If you don’t absorb her, she’ll absorb you.” That is the only occasion on which I have ever interfered in matters of the heart, either to guide or check; I look at Ruth Brackenbury and say to myself: “Ann Spenworth, you have your lesson ever before you.” I would not urge or hinder now, even with my own son. Phyllida may try to fix responsibility on me, but I repudiate it—entirely. In the present instance I feel that it is, once again, the sins of the parents. . . As I felt it my duty to tell them, there wouldn’t have been a moment’s trouble with Phyllida, if she had been brought up differently. . .
I? Goodness me, no! Many, many things will have to be unsaid before Brackenbury induces me to set foot in his house again. You know whether I am the woman to stand on my dignity, but, when one’s niece writes one letters in the third person. . . Indeed I know what I am talking about! “Lady Phyllida Lyster presents her compliments to Lady Ann Spenworth and is not interested in any explanation that Lady Ann may think fit to put forward.” These are the manners of the war. From the very first I urged Brackenbury not to let her work in that hospital; some one had to go, of course; I’m not so foolish as to think that a hospital would run itself without hands, but why Phyllida? And, goodness me, if they couldn’t stop her, they might have made a few enquiries, exercised some little control. . . Christine Malleson is very energetic and capable, no doubt, but you would hardly look for standards or traditions in her; however, she and my Lady Maitland and the rest seem able to carry people off their feet by sheer violence. Now Ruth and Brackenbury are paying for it. And, of course, poor Aunt Ann is to blame for everything. For the present I think it’s best to leave them severely alone. One tries to do what seems to be one’s duty; one puts up with a great many rebuffs; but in the end people must be left, in the homely old phrase, to stew in their own juice. . .
I’m really not sure how much is supposed to be known. Phyllida will no doubt tell you her side, simply as a means of attacking me. She works herself into such a state! I told Brackenbury that he ought to send her away for a complete change. . . I’m sick and tired of the whole thing; I’m sure it contributed to my illness; but, if it is going to be discussed, you’d better hear the truth. The whole time she was working at the hospital, Phyllida did me the honour to make my house her own; and, if I questioned my own wisdom, it was because of Will. He would be home on leave from time to time; and, perhaps on account of a curious dream which I had about them at the time of my operation, I was not at all sure that I wanted to see the intimacy increasing ; when he marries, it will have to be some one with a little money, but I do not want to lose him yet and I cannot feel that Phyllida is very suitable. . . You can imagine, therefore, whether I should be likely to scheme or contrive to throw them into each other’s arms; to intrigue to get rivals out of the way. . . I have lost the thread.
Ah, yes! Phyllida! Now, I chose my words carefully: “making my house her own,” not “staying in my charge.” When I went into the nursing-home, I tackled Brackenbury. . .
“Please understand,” I said, “that I accept no responsibility. The child goes to and from the hospital when she likes, how she likes. I know nothing of the people with whom she associates there; and, if you like the idea of her coming in at all hours from theatres and dances, I suppose it’s all right. But I can’t stop her,” I said; “I feel it my duty to tell you I can’t stop her.”
Brackenbury made some foolish rejoinder about Phyllida’s head being screwed on tight or her heart being in the right place. (In that family they express themselves so uncouthly. Goodness me, one need not be a blue-stocking to realize that English has a certain dignity.) She was only doing what every other girl did, he said. . . I’m as democratic as any one, but I wondered what our father would have said to the doctrine that his daughter might do a thing simply because everybody else was doing it. . .
You know this Colonel Butler, perhaps? (It’s only brevet-rank; if he stays on in the army, he reverts to full lieutenant only.) I’ll confess at once that I liked him. When he was convalescent, Phyllida brought him to luncheon one day in Mount Street, and I thought him a decent, manly young fellow. I understand he comes from the west of England; and that, perhaps, accounts for the accent which I thought I detected; or, of course, he may simply have been not altogether at ease. (When I commented on it afterwards to Phyllida, she insisted that he was very badly shaken by his wound and the three operations. . . I think that was the first time I suspected anything; she championed him so very warmly.) I liked him—frankly. Some one quite early in the war said something about “temporary officers” and “temporary gentlemen”—it was very naughty, but so true!—; I said to my boy Will, when Colonel Butler was gone:
“If they were all like him, the army might be proud of them.”
“All I’ve met are like him,” said Phyllida, “only of course not so much so.”
I was struggling to find a meaning—Phyllida expresses herself almost as carelessly as her poor mother, but with hardly her mother’s excuse—, when she began to pour out a catalogue of his virtues: he had won a Military Cross and a Distinguished Service Order with a bar, he was the youngest colonel in the army, I don’t know what else.
“Who are his people?,” I asked.
A name like Butler is so very misleading; it may be all right—or it may not.
“I really don’t know,” said Phyllida, “and, what’s more, I don’t care. . .”
She was prattling away, but I thought it time to make one or two enquiries. I remember saying to poor Ruth—I forget in what connection; life is one long succession of these needless, irritating little encounters—I remember saying that Phyllida was in the position of a girl with no mother. It’s not that Ruth and Brackenbury aren’t fond of her, but they take no trouble. . . I asked what our young paragon’s regiment was, and you’ll hardly believe me if I tell you that it was one I had never heard of. Will knew, of course, but then, on the staff, these things are brought to your notice. . .
“And what is he in civil life?,” I asked.
Phyllida didn’t know. His father, I think she told me, was a surveyor, and she presumed that he intended to be a surveyor too. And an excellent profession, I should imagine, with the big estates being broken up and the properties changing hands everywhere. Brackenbury had an offer for the Hall—some wealthy contractor. . . I couldn’t help smiling to think how our father would have dealt with him. Brackenbury let him off far too lightly, I thought, and tried to justify himself to me by saying that it was a very tempting offer. . . As if they needed money. . .
I had made up my mind at the outset to do nothing precipitate. The war has made girls quite dangerously romantic, and any opposition might have created—artificially—a most undesirable attachment. I knew that Phyllida had these young officers through her hands in dozens; and, though I was naturally anxious, I knew that in a few weeks or months our paragon would be back in Flanders or Devonshire—out of Christine Malleson’s hospital, at all events. I commended my spirit, so to say. . .
He came to call—Colonel Butler did. I so little expected him—or any one else, for that matter; the war has done that for us—that I’d given no orders, and he was shewn up. Norden—you remember him? They took him for the army, though I wrote a personal letter to the War Office. . . A man with varicose veins and three small children. . . Norden would have known better, but I’d no one but maids, who don’t know and don’t care. . . Colonel Butler was shewn up, still not quite at ease, and I made myself as gracious as possible. D’you know, I thought it quite dear of him? His mother had told him that he must always call at any house where he’d had a meal—even luncheon, apparently, in war-time; as Will said, when I told him, I’m glad there aren’t many wild mothers like that, roaming at large. . . He sat and talked—quite intelligently; I want to give him his due—; I rang for tea. . . He hadn’t learned the art of going. . . We got on famously until he began speaking of Phyllida; the first time it was “your niece,” then almost at once “Phyllida.” I said “Lady Phyllida”—I must have said it three times, but he was quite impervious. Then Phyllida came in and openly called him “Hilary.” . . They were dining together, it seemed, and going to a play. I try to conceal my palæolithic remains in dealing with Phyllida, but I did say “By yourselves?” Oh, yes, the most natural thing in the world. . . I reminded her that Will was home on leave, but the hint was not taken. Off they went. . .
If I were not very fond of Phyllida, I shouldn’t take so much trouble about her. . . And I always have to remember that Ruth is too busy painting and powdering ever to think of her own daughter. I suppose she feels that her looks are the only thing that keeps Brackenbury enslaved. . . What was I saying? Oh, about poor Phyllida. It is to my credit that I insisted on a proper settlement when Brackenbury was mooning about like a love-sick boy; she has four thousand when she’s of age and she’ll have another three when the parents die—enough, you will agree, to tempt some men. I happened to mention at dinner that this Colonel Butler had called, and Will became greatly concerned. It was quite disinterested, because I have always felt that, if he ever dropped the handkerchief, I could make a good guess who would pick it up. Will quite clearly thought, with me, that Colonel Butler was in earnest and that poor Phyllida was slipping into his toils. . .
An opportunity came to me two or three days before my operation. Phyllida—she was quite brazen about it—admitted that she had dined with her hero four times in one week. That was on a Saturday; I’m glad to say that she hasn’t become democratic enough to go to these picture-houses, and there was nothing to do on Sunday. I told her she might ask Colonel Butler to dine with us. And, when he came, I took occasion to speak rather freely to him.
“I can’t help seeing,” I said, “that you are very intimate with my niece.”
“Oh, I’m devoted to Phyllida,” he answered.
“Then,” I said, “you’d cut your hand off before you did anything to make people talk about her.”
And then I rehearsed these dinners and plays. . .
“It’s not my business,” I said. “Phyllida regards me as a lodging-house keeper, but, if your intentions are honourable, I think you should make them known to my brother. Lord Brackenbury.” . .
Well, then he became nervous and sentimental. He wouldn’t compromise Phyllida for the world; he’d every intention of speaking to Brackenbury when the time came, but as long as he was living on his pay and the war went on. . . You can imagine it. He was quite sincere. I told you I liked him; the only thing was that I didn’t think him quite suitable for Phyllida. Upbringing, milieu. . . He was no fool; I felt he’d see it for himself before he’d been at the Hall half an hour. . .
To cut a long story short, I made him promise to hold no more communication with the child until he’d seen Brackenbury; and I told my brother to invite him there for a week-end. I didn’t see very much of what happened, as I left the young people to themselves; but Will entirely bore out the vague, intangible feeling. . . Poor Colonel Butler wasn’t at home; he made my boy’s life a burden for days beforehand, asking what clothes he should take, and, when they were there, it was “I’ve been away so much that I don’t know what the tariff is since the war: if I give ten shillings to the man who looks after me, how much ought I to give the butler?” . . . Things I should have thought a man knew without asking. Will was really rather naughty about it. . .
Brackenbury didn’t see anything amiss. One’s standard changes when one has done that sort of thing oneself. As I always said, “If you don’t absorb her, she’ll absorb you.” And so it’s proved. Ruth, of course, saw only the romance of it all. Goodness me, unless we’re all twins, some one has to be the youngest colonel in the army. . . I don’t know what people mean nowadays, when they talk about “romance.” . . Brackenbury and the whole family made the absurdest fuss—well, I won’t say that, because I liked young Butler; they made a great fuss. Even my nephew Culroyd, who’s in the Coldstream, was quite affable; “eating out of his hand” was Will’s phrase. So descriptive, I thought; Will has an extraordinary knack of hitting people off. . .
None of them seemed to think of the money side at all. Brackenbury was always improvident as a boy; but, until you’ve felt the pinch as Will and I have done, you don’t learn anything about values. Four thousand a year sounds very pleasant, but if it’s now only equal to two. . . And Phyllida has always lived up to anything she’s had. “I want it, therefore I must have it” has been her rule. Clothes, trinkets, little treats. . . She has four horses, eating their heads off, while my poor Will says he stands hat in hand before any one who’ll mount him. And her own little car. . . I know a brick wall when I see one; it was no use asking Phyllida whether she thought she could afford a husband as well as everything else. And a family; one has to look ahead. . . Colonel Butler wouldn’t be earning anything for years.
He told me so. I liked him more and more, because he was so simple and straightforward. After luncheon on the Saturday, we had a long talk together. I think I said I’d shew him the house. As you know, I yield to no one in my love for the dear old Hall, but Colonel Butler was like a child. You’d have said he’d never been inside a big house before; I don’t believe he ever had. . . I took him everywhere, even Phyllida’s rooms; it was well for him to see, I felt. . .
I remember he thanked me for having him invited to the Hall; from his tone you’d have said I was playing fairy god-mother, and he credited me with the very friendly reception that every one had given him. If the truth must be known—I wasn’t taking sides; you must understand that!—I wanted them to see and I wanted him to see. . . As Will once said, “Half the world doesn’t know how the other half lives.” I felt that, when Colonel Butler stood there, everything sinking in. A man, I suppose, always is rather bewildered at the number of things a girl requires—frocks, gloves, hats, shoes, stockings. . . You mustn’t think that I shewed him Phyllida’s wardrobe! Goodness me, no! But her maid was in the room, getting things ready for the child’s return from hunting. It was almost pathetic; one could fancy the poor young man counting on his fingers and saying: “She must have as good a room as this, she’ll want to keep on her present maid, I don’t suppose she can even prepare a bath for herself or fasten her dress or brush her hair. . .” But it’s better for that kind of thing to sink in at the beginning. . . Wherever I took him, he seemed to be saying: “You can’t do this sort of thing without so many servants, so much a year.” . . Will told me that the first night at dinner. . . But I’m afraid Will’s naughty sometimes. . .
He thanked me—Colonel Butler did—in a way that suggested I hadn’t shewn him only the house.
“But I’ve enjoyed it,” I said. “I’m only sorry you weren’t able to go out with the rest.”
He told me he didn’t hunt, he’d never had any opportunity. There was quite a list of things he didn’t do, but he was very simple and straightforward about them. Don’t you dislike that aggressive spirit which compels people to tell you how many they slept in one room and the night-schools they attended and so forth and so on? It makes me quite hot. I believe that’s why they do it. . . There was nothing of that about Colonel Butler, though the army had made him a little borné. When I took him to see the stables, he shewed a certain sentimental interest in Phyllida’s horses; but his only comment was: “I wish we were given beasts like that in the army.” And it was the army in everything that he ate or read. Phyllida, as you know, has travelled more than most girls of her age; she wouldn’t like to drop that altogether on marrying; but, if you said “Egypt” to Colonel Butler, it was simply a place where he’d been invalided the first time he was wounded at Gallipoli. The war seems to make some men curiously material. . . You understand I’m not criticizing him as a soldier; I’m sure he did excellent and useful work, but the war is only an episode in our lives. . .
At tea he was so silent that I felt it was all sinking in very deep. At the end he said:
“Lady Ann, may I ask your advice? You are a woman of the world——”
“Goodness me, no!,” I said. “Thirty years ago I may have counted for something there; but now I live under my own little vine and fig-tree; I see no one; I’m out of touch; you’d find me very old-fashioned, I fear.”
“You’ve been very kind to me,” he said, “and I want you to add to your kindness. I’m in love with Phyllida, as you know; and she—I think she quite likes me. Lord Brackenbury and every one here have been simply ripping. Please tell me what you think about it.”
“Do you mean, will she marry you?,” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, I should think it very likely,” I told him; “I wondered whether you meant, would you make her happy?”
“I should certainly hope to do that,” he answered.
“We all hope,” I said. . .
My responsibility is confined to giving him a moment’s pause for thought. Phyllida will tell you that I set him against her, poisoned his mind, I shouldn’t wonder. . . It’s most charitable to recognize that she really did not know what she was saying. I didn’t talk about him at all; I talked about Will, about my nephew Culroyd, their friends, their lives. . . Any deductions were of his drawing; and, goodness me, one need not be branded a snob for seeing that they had been born and bred in different worlds. He seemed to think that love would overcome everything.
“If you’re in love,” he kept saying, “these things don’t matter, do they?”
What made him uncomfortable was the money question—the thought that he would be bringing literally nothing. I was most careful not to say anything, but every child knows that if you divide a sum of money by two. . . He would be living on Phyllida; and, if he loved her as much as he pretended, he would always be feeling: “It’s a frock for her or a suit of clothes for me.” A very humiliating position for any man. . . I know it’s the modern fashion to pretend that it doesn’t matter; Phyllida says in so many words that the advantage of money to a girl is that she can marry where her heart leads her. A snare and a delusion, unless you mean that a woman with money and nothing else can occasionally buy herself position. . . I’m sure she picked that up from her poor mother. But, if Brackenbury married on his debts, he did bring something; I know we all had to work very hard for Ruth—“doing propaganda,” as my boy Will says—to shew people that the marriage was all right. . . And it will be the same with Will, if he ever marries. . . Whoever he marries. . . He does bring something. . .
Colonel Butler asked if people would think Phyllida had thrown herself away on him. What could I say? . . . But for the war, he told me, he would be earning his own living; and, do you know?, that was the only time the cloven hoof appeared.
“We’ve all of us had to make sacrifices,” I answered, “and the war ought not to be made either an excuse or—an opportunity.”
Goodness me, you don’t suppose my boy Will enjoyed the fatigues, the dangers. . . The general was utterly callous towards his staff; but Will “stuck it out”, as he would say. It was the soldier’s part, and Colonel Butler knew as well as I did that it was only the war and the accident of being wounded that had thrown him across Phyllida’s path.
“What do you mean by ‘opportunity’, Lady Ann?,” he asked.
It was not easy to put into words. . . I sometimes feel that romance has gone to the head of some of our girls; first of all, a man had only to be in uniform, then he had only to be wounded. . . I liked Colonel Butler, but in the old days Phyllida would not have looked at him. . . And, goodness me, if you go back a generation, you can imagine what my father would have said if a man, however pleasant, with nothing but his pay and the clothes he stood up in. . . A soldier only by the accident of war. . . And in a regiment one had truly honestly never heard of. . .
“I don’t feel I can help you,” I said. “Times have changed, and my ideas are out of date. My brother may be different; have you spoken to him?” . . .
As a matter of fact any woman could have seen that it wasn’t necessary to speak; Brackenbury, all of them were throwing themselves at the young man’s head. That’s why I felt that, if I didn’t—give him a pause for reflection, no one would. No, he hadn’t said anything yet; it seemed such presumption that, though every one was gracious to him and Phyllida more than gracious, he wanted an outside opinion from some one whom he was good enough to call “a woman of the world.” Was he justified in saying anything while his financial prospects were so uncertain? Was it fair to ask Phyllida to give up so much of the life she was accustomed to? Would people think he was trying to marry her for her money? Was he entitled to ask her to wait?
I said. . . Phyllida was not present, you understand, so anything she tells you can only be the fruit of a disordered imagination. If Brackenbury sent her right away, the whole thing would be forgotten in two months. . . I really forget what I did say. . .
At dinner I could see that Colonel Butler was pondering my advice. At least, when I say “advice”, the limit of my responsibility is that perhaps the effect of our little talk was to check his natural impetuosity. Things were sinking in; his own good sense, more than anything I should have dared to say. . . Phyllida came down arrayed with quite unnecessary splendour—we were only the family and Colonel Butler. “Poor child,” I thought to myself, “you fancy you’re attracting him when you’re only frightening the shy bird away; you imagine he’s admiring your frock when he’s only wondering how much it cost.” It was sinking in. . . If poor Ruth wanted her to throw herself away on a penniless surveyor, she might have told her that simplicity was the note to strike. Phyllida won’t think for herself, and Ruth is incapable of thinking for her. Good gracious! at dinner the child sat between Colonel Butler and my boy Will; I don’t encourage any girl to become a minx, but no man thinks the better of you for throwing yourself at his head. A little distance, a little indifference; until a man’s jealous, he doesn’t know he’s in love. She proved my point that night, both my points; Will was furious—and with reason—at being so uncivilly neglected; and the young paragon . . . he was simply sated. When the telegram arrived. . .
But I thought Phyllida would have told you about that; she has been so—immodestly candid. He returned to London next day, saying he’d received a wire overnight. I met him the following week, and he told me. Simple and straightforward as ever. . . He wanted to know how Phyllida was; had Lady Brackenbury thought him very rude? It was one thing or the other, he said: he could ask Phyllida to marry him or he could go right away and forget about her . . . until he had something more to offer, I think he said. . . You and I know what that means. He was greatly upset and begged me to write occasionally when he was back at the front, just to tell him how Phyllida was; he wouldn’t write to her himself, he said, because he wanted to leave her unembarrassed and it would be too painful for him.
“If she’s still unmarried when I’ve made good,” he said, “it will be time to begin writing then.”
I suppose it was because Phyllida had never been in love before. . . I was ready to make allowances, but I was not prepared for the outburst, the extravagance, the self-indulgence of grief.
“Come, come, my dear!,” I said, “it would have been a very unsuitable match; and, if you haven’t the sense to realize it, he has.”
She turned on me like a fury. . . I don’t know what was in his letter of good-bye; but I suppose it was the usual romantic promise that he’d go away and make his fortune and then come back to claim her. (Good riddance, too, I thought; though I liked him.) Phyllida evidently treated it quite seriously. . .
“If he’d been mine for a week or a day. . .” she kept sobbing. “I know he’ll be killed.” . .
Well, he wasn’t the only man in the world, but nothing that I could say was right. . .
“I think he behaved very properly,” I said. “He did me the honour to ask my advice; and, if I see him again, I shall tell him so.”
Then the flood-gates were opened. I—tell—you—as I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t let me speak—that I gave no advice; I wanted him to proceed with caution, but I never even told him to wait and think. . . He did it entirely on his own initiative. What he quite rightly saw was that he could not take advantage of a young girl’s infatuation to marry her for her money. Phyllida really shocked me with the things she said, but I’m old enough to have learnt patience; it will not be very long before she begs my pardon and admits that perhaps a certain measure of wisdom may be conceded to age. . . In the meantime I prefer not to mix myself up in the broils and wrangles that seem a daily feature of life at the Hall. One makes a certain effort; and, after that, one has to leave people, in the homely old phrase, to stew in their own juice. . . I need hardly tell you that Brackenbury took her side. And poor Ruth, though I’ve learnt not to expect too much of Ruth after all these years. If, for curiosity’s sake, you ask them what I am supposed to have done, I should be deeply interested to know what they say. I have nothing but praise for the young man. When you are in the army, one private is as good as another; in hospital, you are a name, a bed, a case. That is so fine, I always think; it makes this truly a people’s war. Colonel Butler would have gone to the Hall sooner or later without any prompting from me; and, once there, it was impossible for a man of any intelligence to pretend that there were no differences. . . It is so hard for me to put it into words without seeming a snob, but you understand what I mean. . .
You will find my boy Will there. He never seems to come home without picking up a cold, and the doctor has very sensibly recommended that he should be given an extension of leave. I was not very much set on his going, I admit. Goodness me, any silly little ill-bred things that Phyllida may pick up from her poor mother are forgotten as soon as they are said; I have no need to stand on my dignity. The sins of the fathers. . . Brackenbury never checks her. . . But you know what a girl is when she has had a disappointment, we must both of us have seen it a dozen times . . . some sort of natural recoil. If she throws herself at Will’s head. . . With her money they’d have enough to live on, of course, and young people ought to be very comfortable on four thousand a year. (It will be seven, when the parents die.) One need not look ahead to a family; but the grandfather, Ruth’s father, would not be illiberal. But, though dear Will must marry some day, I dread the time when I must lose him. . .