Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

CHAPTER III

Jim Spencer woke next morning with that thrill of quickened anticipation which serves to remind us even before full consciousness has returned, that something new and exciting has come into our lives. He needed but little thought to remember what it was, and as he lay watching with idle but wide-awake eyes his man putting his clothes out, he told over and over again in his mind, like the beads of a rosary, the events of the evening before, always finishing with the pendant, so to speak, the fact that in a few hours he was going to see her again. Frankly and honestly he reminded himself that all romance was over: to begin with, and also to end with, she was another man's wife, and that was sufficient for him, as no doubt it was sufficient for her. Three years ago he had left England because he desired in every fibre of his being to marry her, and since that was impossible, because he entirely refused to waste his life in purposeless dangling after what he could not get. And in this spirit, which is more instinct with manliness than any sacrifice of years and youth to the mere watching of the unattainable shadow on the blind, he had gone out to the Transvaal, farmed there with the same fervour as that which he had thrown into his love-making, and subsequently, by the discovery of the reef on his land, had become, if not one of the richest men who had found colossal fortunes as sheep-farmers, at any rate one of the second rank-millionaire, if not multi-millionaire. But at that point a certain sobriety of nature had reasserted itself; he had not mistaken that full meal of gold for the hors d'œuvre, nor sought to duplicate it and reduplicate it. He had not lost sight of the fact that he had enough, but recognising it with all the thankfulness that plenitude gives, and not with the false appetite of the habitual glutton, he had, so to speak, said grace and retired from the dinner-table.

So now, at the age of thirty, he was temporarily, at any rate, without employment, even as he had been, temporarily also, without employment when Marie decided to marry, not him, but Jack Alston. True, he had plenty of artistic tastes; in music and pictures he could easily have passed the remainder of his life, however long, just as, without ever being bored, he could have shot all the autumn, hunted all the winter, and dozed and dined all the spring and summer, according to the traditional method of the English gentleman, whose obituary notice eventually teems with encomium on his useful and simple life, which means that he has been a J. P. But to pass one's life merely in hearing music and looking at or buying pictures seemed to him as unworthy of a person who called himself a man, as did the recognised round of shooting and hunting appear to him unworthy of a rational being at all. But as to what this temporary abandonment of employment should terminate in, he, as he lay in bed this morning, had no present idea. Anyhow, he was to see Marie again, and he deliberately quenched further reflection.

The morning had not been foresworn, but fulfilled with liberal generosity the promise of the last few days, and when Mildred Brereton reached the Row on a black mare, which had been behaving itself as might a crab on hot plates, and would have tried any but the most masterly seat and hands, the broad brown expanse of the Ladies' Mile was plentifully dotted with riders. The little green seats, too, by the side were in high request, and she walked, or rather danced, very slowly up for a hundred yards or so, before letting her chafing mount have a canter, noting with her quick eye a hundred things and people which would have escaped one less trained and less naturally gifted to observe combinations of interest. Jack Alston had joined her, and she kept up a running comment.

"There's Pagani with that absurd Italian woman," she said. "Why must a man of that kind do that when Guardina is sure to be here? There, I told you so! what a row there will be! She has the temper of a fiend, like me. Jack, if you ever flirt with another woman on the sly, and I see you, there'll be the deuce to pay. Come and tell me frankly if you are going to do that sort of thing. Dear Madame Guardina, how are you? Do walk a little way with us. No, there's not a soul here this morning, is there? I've seen no one, not even the most constant habitués like Pagani. And you sang Lucia last night, I hear, too divinely, and I had some stupid people to dinner and couldn't come. Yes, Lord Alston was one of them; he was the cleverest there. Judge of the rest!"

The prima donna, a good-natured soul, who had the most perfect vocal chords in the world, absolutely no artistic sense, a passion for Pagani, and an adoration for the particular set to which Mrs. Brereton belonged, was delighted to be seen talking to her, and, turning back, walked along the rails in the opposite direction to that in which Pagani sat.

"Well, I must say you missed something," she said with engaging frankness, "for I never was in better voice. And on Saturday I sing La Tosca. With the open mouth, too, as I've no other engagement for a fortnight."

"What are you going to do?"

"Go to my house on the river and throw sticks for my dogs. You've never been there yet, Mrs. Brereton. Do come down sometimes. I shall drive there on Saturday night after the opera."

Mrs. Brereton made a short calculation.

"I will; I should love to," she said. "I hear it is charming."

"A dozen basket chairs and two dozen dogs," said Madame Guardina.

"I adore dogs. Are you off? Good-bye. About the middle of next week?"

"Any day."

Mildred gave her a charming smile and turned to Jack.

"That's one good-natured thing this morning already," she said, "and it's barely ten yet. Pagani was just moving when I saw Guardina; he'll be gone before she gets to him."

"I wish you were half as good-natured to me," remarked Jack.

"Well, what can I do for you?"

"Tell me how to behave to a hopelessly unreasonable woman, who is one's wife!"

Mildred puckered her lips as if to whistle.

"Explain in five minutes," she said. "I can't really hold this untamed savage any longer. Come on, Jack; we'll canter – shall we call it? up to the end."

Whether Mildred called it a canter or not, it is not doubtful what other people would have called it. But even the heart of the restraining policeman must have been touched by the splendid vision that flew by him, Mildred sitting her horse as no other woman could, sitting a horse also that few could have sat at all, and treating its agitated toe-steps with less concern than a man in an arm-chair gives to a persistent fly on a summer afternoon. The consciousness that hundreds of people were looking at her added, if anything, to her unconcern; certainly also the fact that many who saw her saw also, and remarked, that Jack was with her gave an additional zest to her enjoyment. For her creed was that secrecy in this world was impossible, and the only way to prevent people talking in the way that mattered and was annoying was to do things quite openly. It mattered not in the least if people said, "Oh, we have always known that!" or if they always took it for granted; what did matter was if they said, "We have lately thought there must be something of the kind!" Trespassers can be prosecuted; length of possession constitutes a title.

They drew up at the top of the mile, and Mildred adjusted her hat.

"There," she said, "the cobwebs have been dispersed for the day. Now we'll go on talking. Explain, Jack. Why do you want treatment for Marie?"

Jack lit a cigarette.

"She makes scenes," he said, "and they bore me. She made one last night."

"What about?"

"I don't know that it's worth repeating, really," he said.

"Probably not, but you are going to tell me."

He looked at her a moment with his thin eyebrows drawn together in a frown, hit his horse rather savagely for an imaginary stumble, and reined it in again more sharply than was necessary.

"I don't the least like being dictated to, Mildred," he said. "Nobody adopts that tone with me – with any success, that is to say."

She laughed.

"Oh, my excellent friend," she said, "you really speak as if I was afraid of you. For goodness' sake, don't put on schoolmaster airs. You know perfectly well that doesn't go down. Don't hit your horse now; you are behaving like a sulky child that whips its doll. What was the scene about?"

"Did you see the infernal manner in which she walked off with Jim Spencer last night, driving him home in her brougham and saying she was going to Blanche Devereux'? That was her way of getting quits with me."

"Quits with you? What for?"

"For a conversation I had with her after lunch yesterday. I told her that if she was seen about with Jim Spencer people would talk, and if they talked it was absurd for her to keep up the sort of attitude she maintains towards society in general, saying that we are both fools and knaves."

Mildred made a gesture of despair.

"The stupidity of men really exceeds all bounds," she said. "I beg your pardon, that is by the way. You were saying that she walked off with Jim last night. I suppose you commented on that too, did you?"

He flushed angrily.

"If she imagines she is going to make a fool of me before all the world, the sooner she learns her mistake the better," said he.

"You said that to her?" asked Mildred in a tone in which "even despair was mild."

"Of course I did, or rather, I asked her whether she really went to see Blanche. She saw what I meant all right."

"You seem to imagine she is as great a fool as you," remarked Mildred.

He turned half round on his horse.

"I don't stand such language from any one," said he.

"Oh, for God's sake don't be absurd! You stand exactly what language I choose to use to you. Is it really possible, Jack, that you don't see what a dangerous and foolish game you are playing? Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! you are married to that pearl of a woman, and you think you can treat her like that. You aren't fit to tie her boot-laces, and – "

"I have no intention of trying."

"Don't be funny. I was saying you weren't fit to tie her boot-laces, but I can't expect you to see that. And you have practically told her you suspect her of an intrigue with Jim Spencer. Now, if she was the sort of woman you seem to think she is, that would be the very way to drive her into it. Personally, I wish she was, but she isn't, and we must make the best of it. But what you have done is to show her, if further demonstration were necessary, your own utter depravity. Of the sickening folly of that, I needn't speak. Go on: what did she say then?"

"She said she didn't care in the slightest degree whether I believed she went to Lady Devereux's or not. She also said that Jim was coming to lunch. So of course I shall go home to lunch."

Mildred laughed outright.

"You have the most wonderful power of choosing the only impossible thing to do or say," she remarked. "That is the one thing out of the question. The impeccable attitude of guardian angel, my dear Jack, is the one attitude that cannot be made to pose well. Nor have you the figure for it."

They rode on a little while in silence.

"Have your own way, then," he said at length.

"Of course I shall. Poor old Jack, how you do manage to put your foot in it! And I have to pull you out so often. Aren't you grateful to me?"

"Not particularly this moment."

"Well, you will be soon. You needn't tell me when you are. A good action is its own reward, and I am bursting with an approving conscience this morning. I've helped Guardina and Pagani, I've helped you."

"Yourself perhaps?"

"That also is my reward. I didn't think of myself – at least, not much."

She looked at him with a gay and kindled eye; the exercise had brought the blood into her face, and it was impossible to credit her with the six-and-thirty years which she had assured Marie were hers. And looking at her, his smarting ill-humour evaporated.

"How is it one never gets tired of you?" he said.

She laughed.

"Because I do not let you get accustomed to me," she answered.

Certainly if Jack Alston had, as was generally supposed, the gift of getting his way with other people, Mrs. Brereton had the gift of getting her way with him. This, she knew well, but was far too wise to say, was the true secret of his absolute dependence on her, for there is nothing that a masterful and brutal mind really enjoys so much as finding some one stronger than itself. At times she was inwardly afraid that she would some day get the worst of it, but knowing that in managing men, as in managing horses, the real secret of their mutiny is not so much fear on their driver's part, as the knowledge of that fear in the driver, she was always, as in this particular instance, more than usually brutal, and was accustomed to make him, so to speak, more resonant under her hand, when she was not quite certain in the depths of her own mind that she was going to win. Then, when the stress was over, she gave him his own head again, with such completeness as to convey to him the impression that he had always been free: there was no reminder, not the faintest strain on the curb to show him that the curb was still there. She used it, in fact, rarely, but in earnest, and never fell into the habit, so common in women of her stamp who are otherwise clever, of nagging, or making a point of getting her way over any matter on which she did not really desire it.

Nor was her genuine attachment to him less capable of comprehension than his to her. In addition to the immense charm of his extraordinary good looks and his devotion to her, there was added that sense, so dear to an ambitious woman, that she was controlling a figure that bade fair to be one of the most prominent of the day, and could make it dance to her wire-pulling like a marionette on its string. Though Jack was not yet forty, he already held a minor post in the Government, and when the elections came on in the summer or autumn, it was expected in many quarters that he would be made Chief Secretary at the War Office. For the nation had of late begun to wonder whether that serene and unbiased attitude which is the natural outcome of complete ignorance on the affairs of the Department is really the ideal equipment for a statesman. A little knowledge, it has long been agreed, is a dangerous thing, but the nation, in view of recent events, had distinctly formed the suspicion that no knowledge at all was almost as hazardous. Indeed, it was supposed that this idea had gently begun to communicate itself to the Government itself. Anyhow, it was rumoured that more than a mere reshuffling of the old cards would take place, and Jack Alston's name was freely mentioned as a probable occupant of the office in Pall Mall. Until his succession to the title on his father's death six years ago, he had been a soldier of the practical, hard-working order, not content with figures and much polo, but busy with ideas on boots and rifles, and the knowledge he had thus acquired he had since used on more than one occasion with telling effect on discussions in the Upper House about military matters, and the cold, aloof attitude with which anything so out of taste as criticism founded on knowledge, or the discussion of practical questions in a practical manner, is usually treated in that august assembly had not produced the slightest effect on him. He asked awkward questions, and pointed out the absurdity of the answers or the silence they received with such imperturbable pertinacity that it was beginning to be felt that there really might be something in this novel idea of letting a man who knew a good deal about a subject be employed in that capacity. At any rate, he could not then continue to criticise the Department in question if he controlled it. Builders and Government contractors Jack appeared to consider not as masters of the Government, but as their servants, and where a firm vowed that a particular programme could not be completed under six years, he would have no hesitation in demanding to know how they had managed to take foreign orders in the interval. These things shook the immemorial calm of Pall Mall, and produced the sort of gentle perturbation which might be caused by the introduction of a risky topic at a tea-party of elderly maiden ladies. But Jack Alston was without tact in these matters, and continued to be horribly risky.

So he who should perhaps control so huge an affair as the army, and she who controlled him, rode back towards Hyde Park Corner, a striking-looking pair, at which many gazed. Their friendship was now of several years' standing, and people had begun to find that there was nothing new to say about so well-established a fact. There had never been any scandal, and London is a wonderfully tolerant town. It is, in fact, almost incapable of being shocked except by that which is printed in the daily papers. This constitutes the real power of the press. As long as definite publicity in black type on white or pink paper is not given, a fact, however well known, remains private; it is only truly shocking when the compositor has set it up; then takes place a great and essential change. And this morning half the world looked at them, and remarked on the beauty of their horses and the fine horsemanship of their riders, and shrugged their shoulders now and then, and smiled and talked about something else.

"So you had better lunch with me, Jack," said Mrs. Brereton, going back to her subject. "You have a Committee at three, I know."

"And what must I say to Marie?" asked he.

"Say? Say you lunched with me. It has also the minor advantage of being perfectly true. Oh, so few people see the extraordinary advantage to be gained by telling the truth. It is so easy, too: you can tell the truth by a mere effort of memory, whereas any – any diplomatic evasion calls the imaginative faculty into play."

"I don't think I've got the imaginative faculty," said Jack.

"No, you haven't much. That is why, when you evade, you are always so unconvincing. Rich ornamental detail is necessary to the simplest untruth, whereas if you are telling the truth the cruder you are the better. Your very crudity, Jack, is the making of you as a politician."

"I know what I want politically, anyhow," he said. "I want proper rifles and the knowledge among the men as to the right direction in which to fire them off."

"Oh, don't make speeches. That is exactly your oratorical style – in other words, no style at all. The British public likes that. It says there is no nonsense about you. How odd it is that politically you should be a man of such astounding simplicity, and socially – well, a person who savours of duplicity!"

"I'm straightforward enough," said he.

"Oh – oh! Never mind that. But the British public is odder still. It insists – at least, it wishes to believe – that its public men should be people of blameless private life. Now, what can that matter? But I don't think it has any doubt about you, Jack. It believes you to be a model of domesticity. Also by my advice, you see, you breed pigs and shorthorns. There is something magical about pigs and shorthorns. The public consider them a sort of testimonial to a man's character; I suppose it is the touch of Nature, or the touch of the farmyard."

"Making the whole world kind!"

"Chestnuts, surely. Well, au revoir; go home and dress, and try not to look glum, and tell Marie you are lunching with me. Good-bye, I must hurry: I have some things to do before lunch."

CHAPTER IV

Mrs. Maxwell was a voluminous woman of gorgeous exterior, who would have been pained to hear herself alluded to as a woman instead of a lady. There was, as she had more than once acutely remarked, a breeding that is altogether independent either of beauty or wit, and Cleopatra herself might have been utterly without it.

"And that," said Mrs. Maxwell, "is what makes the difference between a lady and not a lady."

The inference which she herself drew and meant to be drawn is too obvious to need pointing out, especially when we remember that she certainly had neither beauty nor wit, except in so far as it may be held a proof of ability to have married a money-lender of Jewish extraction and enormous wealth. But Mrs. Maxwell had ambition, and an amazing industry. Years ago when she married her Henry she had made up her mind that, if there was any power whatever in the fact of millions, she would procure whatever was to be procured with them, and in especial she had set her heart on bringing not to her feet, but to her table and her ballroom, all that was noblest and highest in the land. The task had been far less arduous than she had anticipated, and she felt on this night of the 16th of May that the prize had been publicly presented to her. Every one who was any one was going to cross her threshold that night; a favoured three or four dozen were going to dine there first, and the rest would come in afterwards. Earls and Countesses were among them. There was not room for all such nowadays at Mrs. Maxwell's table.

The form that the entertainment was going to take was a concert, for, as Mrs. Maxwell said, you can dance anywhere for the cost of your shoe-leather and a couple of trumpets; but it meant a prettier penny than most people can find in their purse to hear Pagani and Guardina sitting in a comfortable chair instead of that dreadful draughty opera-house, and having to go to that cold, creepy "foyure" to get a glass of lemonade. There was no nonsense or affectation, it will be remarked, about Mrs. Maxwell's French, which she used ruthlessly in her conversation, and all her epithets ran in well-matched pairs, like her horses.

The Maxwells' house stood in Piccadilly overlooking the Green Park, and it had been purchased as it stood, glass, plate, china, and books complete, from its owner, who was in straitened circumstances. There were not many books in the bargain, but among them, luckily enough, was the callers' book of the late owner, and for the sake of continuity and general interest Mrs. Maxwell's visitors went on writing their names there without a break, since the book at the time of their taking possession was only about half full. It was curious to observe how at first there was a sort of slump in distinguished names, which now had completely rallied and developed into a boom; in fact, on the last few pages half the names were the same as those on the earlier part of the book.

Among the many other desirable objects in the house were the pictures. These included several very fine Italian pictures by great masters, "Raffle," as Mrs. Maxwell rather familiarly called that eminent artist, being notably represented. They had occasioned a somewhat violent difference between their present master and mistress, Mrs. Maxwell maintaining that it was impossible to feel easy and comfortable beneath such serious-like pictures, Transfigurations and what not, and observing with some heat that you couldn't sit quiet in your chair with St. Stephen stoned and bleeding immediately above your head. Eventually a compromise had been arrived at, and they had been removed from the drawing-room into the corridor. But even more pointed had been the discrepancies arising from the small but exquisite half-dozen of Dutch pictures that had hung in the dining-room. Mr. Maxwell, again, had been disposed to leave everything exactly as they had found it, arguing that a family who had lived in the house for a couple of hundred years knew more about what was suitable to the house than they. This had inflamed his wife.

"It's a matter of taste, Maxwell," she said; "and I've got as much right to my own taste as any Duke in the kingdom. And I maintain that while you're eating your dinner there's no pleasure in looking at a row of pots and pans hung on the wall, as if to remind you of where your food has been, and cheeses and what not. And as for that picture of old Dutchmen eating I don't know what horror, and smoking their pipes the while, why, it's enough to turn the good wholesome food in your stomach. And that's my opinion, whether you like it or not."

Mr. Maxwell, who was a just man except in matters of money-lending, realized that he did not feel as keenly as this.

"But if you take them away, my dear, what will you put in their place!"

"Why, the portraits of you and me and Anthony: you and me on each side of the fireplace, and Anthony in the middle."