Chapter IV: Part I: I (4)

Lady Vizard was shrewd when she prophesied that a couple of years would suffice for her to regain the place in society due to her beauty, wealth, and distinction. None knew better that her position after the trial was precarious, and it required much tact to circumvent the many pitfalls. She was aware that the two best stepping-stones for social aspirants are philanthropy and the Church of Rome, but the astute creature did not think her state so desperate as to need conversion, and a certain assiduity in charitable pursuits offered all that was requisite. Lady Vizard made a dead-set for respectability in the person of a tedious old lady, whose rank and opulence gave her unlimited credit with the world, and whose benevolence made her an easy tool. Lady Edward Stringer was a little old woman with false teeth and a bright chestnut wig, always set awry; and, though immensely dull, managed to assemble in her drawing-rooms everyone in London of real importance. A relation of Lord Vizard, she had quarrelled with him desperately, and it was but natural that his wife should pour her troubles into a willing ear. Now, when she chose, Lady Vizard could assume a manner so flattering that few could resist it: she had an agile tongue and so good a memory for the lies she told that she was never caught tripping; she unfolded the story of her matrimonial unhappiness with such pathetic skill that Lady Edward, touched, promised to do everything to help her. She appeared at the old lady’s parties, was seen with her in all places where fashion congregates; and presently the world concluded it could well afford to know an amusing woman who suffered from no lack of money.

When Basil arrived, obedient to her summons, he found his mother seated in that favourite attitude in which she had been painted; and the portrait, by its daring colour the sensation of its season, hung behind her to show how little in ten years the clever woman had changed. By her side were the inevitable cigarettes, smelling-salts, and a French novel which on its appearance lately had excited a prosecution. Lady Vizard held a stall at a forthcoming bazaar, and it was not altogether without satisfaction that she read at that moment the prospectus in which her name figured on a list whereof the obvious respectability was highly imposing.

Tall and statuesque, she wore her gowns with a flaunting extravagance rather than with the simplicity, often bordering on slovenliness, of most of her countrywomen. She had no desire to conceal from masculine gaze the sinuous outlines of her splendid figure, and dressed, with the bold effrontery of the sensual woman, to draw attention to her particular anatomy rather than to conceal it. Nor was she strange to the intricate art of _maquillage:_ the average Englishwoman who paints her face, characteristically feeling it a first step in the descent to Avernus, paints it badly. She can never avoid the idea that cosmetics are a little wicked or a little vulgar, and a tiny devil, cloven-footed and betailed, lurks always at the bottom of her rouge-pot. Then, perversely, the plunge once taken, to reassure herself she very distinctly exaggerates. Lady Vizard used all the artifices known to the wise, but so cleverly that the result was admirable: even her hair, which to most of her sex is a block of stumbling, was dyed in complete harmony with her eyes and complexion, so that the gross male intelligence was often deceived. Her eyebrows were perfect, and the pencilled line at her eyelashes gave her flashing eyes a greater intensity; the cosmetic on her lips was applied with an artist’s hand, and her mouth was no less beautiful than Cupid’s bow.

Lady Vizard had not seen her son for five years, and she noted the change in him with interest but without emotion.

“Let me give you some tea,” she said. “By the way, why didn’t you come and see me on your return from the Cape?”

“You forget that you gave Miller orders not to admit me.”

“You shouldn’t have taken that _au grand serieux;_ I dismiss my maid every time she does my hair badly, but she’s been with me for years. I forgave you in a week.”

Their eyes met, and they realized that the position between them was unchanged. Lady Vizard shrugged her shoulders.

“I asked you to come to-day because I thought you might have grown more tolerant in five years. Apparently you are one of those men who never learn.”

Even a year before Basil would have answered that he hoped never to grow tolerant of dishonour, but now, ashamed, he sat in silence. His effort was to assume the air of polite indifference which his mother used so easily. He foresaw her next question, and it tortured him that he must expose part at least of his secret to that scornful woman; yet, just because it was so distasteful, he meant to answer openly.

“And whom are you going to marry?”

“No one you have ever heard of,” he answered, smiling.

“Do you wish to make a secret of the fortunate creature’s name?”

“Miss Bush.”

“That doesn’t sound very distinguished, does it? Who is her father?”

“He’s in the City.”

“Rich?” ’

“Very poor.”

Lady Vizard looked at her son keenly, then with a peculiar expression leaned forward.

“Pardon me if I ask, but is she what your tedious grandmother called a gentlewoman?”

“She’s a barmaid in Fleet Street,” he answered defiantly.

Without hesitation came the next question, in a ringing voice.

“And when do you expect the _accouchement?_”

A blow could not have taken him more aback. The blood rushed to his cheeks, and he sprang to his feet. Her eyes rested on him with cool scorn, and confounded by her penetration, he found nothing to say.

“I’m right, am I? Virtue has had a fall, apparently. Ah, _mon cher_, I’ve not forgotten the charming things you said to me five years ago. Have you? Don’t you remember the eloquence with which you spoke of chastity and honour? And you called me a name—which well-conducted sons don’t usually apply to their mothers; but I take it your wife will have no fewer claims to it than I?”

“If I have lust in my blood, it’s because I have the misfortune to be your son,” he cried fiercely.

I can’t help admiring you when I remember the unctuous rectitude with which you acted the upright man, you were playing your little game all the time. But, _franchement_, your little game rather disgusts me. I don’t like these hole-and-corner tricks with barmaids.”

“I dare say I did wrong, but I mean to make amends.”

“Of all fools, the saints preserve me from the fool who repents. If you can’t sin like a gentleman, you’d really better be virtuous. A gentleman doesn’t marry a barmaid because he’s seduced her—unless he has the soul of a counter-jumper. And then you dared come to me with your impudent sermons!”

At the recollection her eyes flashed, and she stood over Basil like some wrathful, outraged goddess.

“What do you know of life and the fiery passion that burns in my veins? You don’t know what devils tear at my breast. How can you judge me? But what do I care! I’ve had a good time in my day, and I’m not finished yet; and after all, if you weren’t such a prig, you’d see that I’m a better sort than most women, for I’ve never deserted a friend nor hit an enemy that was down.”

This she said with an angry vehemence, fluently as though she had often uttered the words to herself, and now at last found the opportunity for which she had waited. But quickly she regained that cutting irony of manner which she well knew was most effective.

“And when I grow old I shall go into the Catholic Church and finish my days in the odour of sanctity.”

“Have you anything more to say to me?” asked Basil coldly.

“Nothing,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “You were born to make a fool of yourself. You’re one of those persons who are doomed to mediocrity because you haven’t the spirit to go to the devil like a man. Go away and marry your barmaid. I tell you that you disgust me.”

Blind with rage, his hands clenched, Basil turned to the door, but before he reached it the butler announced Lord de Capit, and a tall fair youth entered. Basil gave him an angry glare, for he could well imagine what were the relations between his mother and the wealthy peer. Lord de Capit looked after him with astonishment.

“Who is that amiable person?” he asked.

Lady Vizard gave a little, irritated laugh.

“A foolish creature. He doesn’t interest me.”

“One of my predecessors?”

“No, of course not,” answered Lady Vizard, amused. “Give me a kiss, child.”

Profoundly despondent, Basil walked back to the Temple, and when he came to his door it was opened by Jenny. He remembered then that she had promised to come that afternoon to hear the final arrangements for their marriage, which was to take place at a registry office.

“I met my brother Jimmie in the Strand, Basil,” she said,” “and I’ve brought him up to see you.”

Going in, he found a weedy youth seated on the table, with dangling legs. He had sandy hair, a clean-shaven, sharp face, and pale eyes. Much commoner than his sister, he spoke with a pronounced Cockney accent, and when he smiled, showing small, discoloured teeth, had an expression of rather odious cunning. He was dressed in the height of fashion—for City sportsmen, with a rakish bowler, a check suit, and a bright violet shirt: he flourished a thin bamboo cane.

“How do?” he said, nodding to Basil. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting,”

“Don’t apologize,” Mr. Bush answered cheerfully. “I can’t stay long, because I’m a business man, but I thought I’d better just pop in and say ’ow d’ye do to my future brother-in-law. I’m a chap as likes to be cordial.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Basil politely.

“My! He was surprised when I told him I was going to marry you, Basil,” cried Jenny, with a little laugh of pleasure.

“Now then, don’t mind me,” said James. “Give ’im a slobber, old tart.”

“Go on, Jimmie; you are a caution!”

“Oh, I see you re bashful Well, I’ll be toddling.”

“Won’t you have some tea before you go?” asked Basil.

“Bless you, I don’t want to disturb you canary birds. And I’m not much of an ’and at tea; I leave that to females. I like something stronger myself.”

“That’s Jimmie all over,” cried his sister, amused.

“I have some whisky, Mr. Bush,” said Basil, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, blow the Mister and blow the Bush. Call me Jimmie. I can’t stand ceremony. We’re both of us gentlemen. Now mind you, I’m not a feller to praise myself, but I will say this—I am a gentleman. That’s not self-praise, is it?”

“Dear me, no. Mere statement of fact.”

“It’s a thing you can’t ’elp, so what’s the good of being proud about it? If I meet a chap in a pub, and he wants to stand me a drink, I don’t ask ’im if he’s a lord.”

“But you just take it.”

“Well, you’d do the same yourself, wouldn’t you?”

“I dare say. May I offer you some whisky now?”

“Well, if you are so pressing. My motto is: Never refuse a gargle. They say it’s good for the teeth.”

Basil poured out.

“Hold hard, old man,” cried James. “You needn’t be too generous with the soda. Well, ’ere’s luck!”

He emptied his glass at a gulp and smacked his lips.

“There are no flies about that, I lay. Now I’ll be toddling.”

Basil did not press him to stay, but by way of speeding the parting guest, offered a cigar. James took and examined it.

“_Villar y Villar!_” he exclaimed. ’That’s all right. How much do they run you in a ’undred?”

“I really don’t know what they cost. They were given to me.” Basil struck a match. ’Won’t you take the label off?”

“Not if I know it,” said James, with much decision. I don’t smoke a _Villar y Villar_ every day, and when I do I smoke it with the label on. . . . Well, so long. See you later, old tart.”

When he was gone Jenny turned to her lover.

“Kiss me. . . . There! Now I can sit down quietly and talk. How d’you like my brother?”

“I scarcely know him yet,” answered Basil cautiously.

“He’s not a bad sort when you do, and he can make you laugh. He’s just like my mother.”

“Is he?” cried Basil, with some vivacity. “And is your father like that too?”

“Well, you know, pa’s not had the education that Jimmie’s had. Jimmie was at a boarding-school at Margate. You were at a boarding-school, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was at Harrow.”

“Ah, you don’t get the fine air at Harrow that you do at Margate.”

“No,” said Basil.

“Come and sit by me, ducky. . . . I’m so glad we’re I alone. I should like to be alone with you all my life. You do love me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Much?”

“Yes,” he repeated, smiling.

She gave him a long, searching glance, and her eyes suddenly darkened. She looked away.

“Basil, I want to say something to you, and it’s dreadfully hard.”

“What is it, darling?”

He put his arm round her waist and drew her towards him.

“No, don’t do that,” she said, getting up and moving away. “Please stay where you are. I can’t say it if I look at you.”

He paused, wondering what was in her mind. She spoke brokenly, as though by an effort almost beyond her strength.

“Are you sure you love me, Basil?”

“Quite sure,” he answered, trying to smile.

“Because I don’t want to be married out of pity or anything like that. If you’re only doing it because you think you ought, I’d rather go on as I am.”

“But why d’you say this now, Jenny?”

“I’ve been thinking it over. The other day when you offered to marry me I was so happy I couldn’t think it out. But I love you so much that I’ve seen things quite differently since then. I don’t want to hurt you. I know I’m not the sort of woman you ought to marry, and I can’t help you to get on.”

Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to continue, and Basil, motionless, listened to her gravely. He could not see her face.

“I want to know if you really care for me, Basil. If you don’t, you’ve only got to say so, and we’ll break it off. After all, I’m not the first girl that’s got into trouble; I could easily manage, you know.”

For one moment he hesitated, and his heart beat painfully. Miss Ley’s cold advice, his mother’s scorn, recurred to him: the girl herself offered an opportunity, and would it not, after all, be best to seize it?

His freedom stood before him, and he exulted; a few easy words might destroy that horrible nightmare, and he could start life afresh, wiser and better. But Jenny turned round, and in her sad, beautiful eyes he saw a mortal anxiety; in the sickening anguish of her expectation she could scarcely breathe. He had not the strength to speak.

“Jenny, don’t torture yourself,” he said brokenly. “And you torture me, too. You know I love you, and I want to marry you.”

“Straight?”

“Yes.”

She sighed deeply, and heavy tears fell down her cheeks. For a while she remained silent.

“You’ve saved my life, Basil,” she said at last. “I made up my mind that if you didn’t want to marry me I’d do away with myself.”

“What nonsense you talk!”

“I mean it. I couldn’t have faced it. I’d fixed it all up in my head—I should have waited till it was dark, and then I’d have gone over the bridge.”

“I will do my best to be a good husband to you, Jenny,” he said.

But when Jenny left him, Basil, utterly bowed down, surrendered himself to an uncontrollable depression. It came to his mind that Miss Ley had likened existence to a game of chess, and now bitterly he recalled each move that he should have played differently: again and again the result hung as on a balance, so that if he had acted otherwise everything would have gone right; but each time the choice appeared to matter so little one way or the other, and it was not till afterwards that he saw the fateful consequence. Every move was irretrievable, but at the moment seemed strangely unimportant; it was not a fair game, for the issue was hidden constantly by a trivial mask. And then it appeared to him as though, alter all, he had never had a choice in the matter; he felt himself powerless in the hand of a greater might, and Fate, for once grown ghastly visible, directed each step as though he were a puppet. Now life before him loomed black and cheerless, and even his child, the thought of which had been his greatest strength, offered no solace.

“Oh, what shall I do?” he moaned—“what shall I do?” He remembered with a shudder Jenny’s threat of suicide, and he knew that she would have carried it out, unhesitating; a sudden impulse seized him in just such a manner to finish with all that doubt and misery. But then, setting his teeth, he sprang up.

“I won’t be such a funk,” he cried savagely. “Alter all, I’ve made my bed and I must lie on it.”

IX

A few days later Basil was married, and Frank, who had assisted him in the rather sordid proceedings of the registry office, going back to his rooms, found Reggie Bassett comfortably lounging in an armchair, with his long legs on another. By his side were Frank’s cigarettes and the whisky-and-soda.

“I see you make yourself at home, my friend.”

“I was passing this way and I hadn’t got anything particular to do, so I thought I’d look in: my mamma thinks your society good for me. Got your wedding over?”

“What do you know about it?” asked Frank sharply.

“More than you think, my boy,” answered Reggie, with a grin. “The mater told me as a solemn warning. She says Kent’s married a barmaid, and it’s the result of keeping bad company and going to pubs. What did he do it for?”

“If I were you I’d mind my own business, Reggie.”

“If it’s because she’s in the family way, he’s a bally ass. If I got in a mess like that, I’d see the lady shot before I married her.”

“I have some work to do, my friend,” said Frank shortly. “You would show discretion if you took yourself off.”

“All right! I’ll just have another drink,” he answered, helping himself to the whisky. “I’m going out to tea with Mrs. Castillyon.”

Frank pricked up his ears, but said nothing. Reggie looked at him, smiled with great self-satisfaction, and winked.

“Smart work, ain’t it—considering I’ve only known her a fortnight. But that’s the right way with women—rush ’em, I saw she was smitten the first time we met, so I made a dead-set for her. I knew she was all right, so I just told her what I wanted; by Jove, she is a little baggage! I’ve come to the conclusion I like ladies, Frank; you don’t have to beat about the bush. You just come to the point at once, and there’s no blasted morality about them.”

“You’re a philosopher, Reggie.”

“You think I’m rotting, but I’m not. I’ll read you the letter she wrote me. By the way, I’m going to give her your address—in case the mater stops anything.”

“If letters come for you here, my friend, they shall be promptly returned to the postman.”

“You are a low blackguard; it wouldn’t hurt you,” said Reggie crossly. “But if you think that’ll stop her writing, it won’t, as I shall just have them sent to my crammer’s. I say, I must read you this; it’s rather funny.”

Reggie took from his pocket a letter on which Frank recognised Mrs. Castillyon’s large writing.

“Don’t you think it’s playing it rather low down to show the private letters which a woman has written you?”

“Rot!” cried Reggie, with a laugh. “If she didn’t want anyone to see them, she oughtn’t to have written.”

With manifest pride he read parts of an epistle which would have left the President of the Divorce Court few doubts as to the relations between the happy pair. The wretched woman’s love tickled his vanity, and to him the pleasure lay chiefly in boasting of it: he uttered with rolling emphasis certain expressions of endearment.

“‘Yours till death,’” he finished. “Good Lord, what rot women write! and the funny thing is that it’s always the same rot. But there’s not much doubt about this, is there? She’s as far gone as she can be.”

“Amiable youth!” said Frank. “Does your mother know that you have struck up an acquaintance with Mrs. Castillyon?”

“Rather! At first the mater thought her a bit vulgar, but she looked her up in the _Landed Gentry_, and when she found out her grandfather was a lord she thought it must be all right. The mater’s a bit of a snob, you know—her governor was in the City, and she’s got it into her head that the Castillyons will ask us down to Dorsetshire. By Gad, if they do I’ll make things hum.”

Reggie looked at his watch.

“I shall have to be scooting, or I shall be late for tea.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Yes, but I can let that wait. You see, I’m not going up for the exam next time. The mater gave me the fees, and I blued them, so I shall just tell her that I’ve got through. It’ll be all right in the end.”

“Isn’t that very dishonest?”

“Why?” asked Reggie, with surprise. “She keeps me so devilish short, and I must have money somehow. It’ll all be mine when she pegs out, so it can’t matter, you know.”

“And what about the little lady you dined with on Saturday?”

“Oh, I’ve chucked her. I think Mrs. Castillyon will be more economical. She’s got lots of tin, and I’m blowed if I see why a man should always be expected to fork out for women.”

“You’re trying to reconcile two contradictory things, my boy—love and economy.”

Reggie marched off to Bond Street, and finding that Mrs. Castillyon was not yet arrived, began to walk up and down; but having waited half an hour, he grew annoyed, and it was with no smiling countenance that he met the pretty little lady when at length she drove up. “Have I kept you waiting?” she asked airily.

“Yes, you have,” he answered.

“It’s good for you.”

She tripped in, and they ordered tea.

“I can’t possibly eat those cakes,” she said. “Tell them to bring some more.”

The next plateful was as little to her taste, and she called for a third.

“I think I like the first lot best, after all,” she said, when these were produced.

“You might have taken one of them straight away, instead of disturbing the whole place,” exclaimed Reggie, very peevish himself, but peculiarly impatient of that defect in others.

“That woman has nothing else to do: why shouldn’t I disturb her? And she was very impudent; I have a good mind to report her.”

“If you do, I shall go and say that she was nothing of the sort.”

“This is a disgusting place; I can’t think why you suggested it. Anyhow, I’ll have some sweets to make up.”

Looking round, she saw a box of chocolates, elaborately decorated with ribands and artificial violets.

“You can get those for me, I love sweets—don’t you?”

“Yes, when somebody else pays for them.”

She threw back her head and laughed boisterously, so that people turned round and looked. Reggie grew vexed.

“I wish you wouldn’t make such a row. Everyone’s staring at you.”

“Well, let them! Give me a cigarette.”

“You can’t smoke here.”

“Why not? There’s a woman over there smoking.”

“Yes, but she’s no better than she should be.”

“Nonsense! It’s Lady Vizard. It’s only your friends in Piccadilly who are always thinking of propriety; they’re so afraid of not behaving like ladies, and you can always tell them because they’re so prim.”

Mrs. Castillyon, powdered and scented, was dressed in the most outrageous taste, but no one could have been more fashionable; and she displayed uncommon sagacity when she said that her flaunting manners alone distinguished her from persons of easy virtue. She looked across at Lady Vizard, no less strikingly attired, but with a sort of flamboyant discretion which marked the woman of character: she sat with the young Lord de Capit, and Mrs. Castillyon told Reggie the latest scandal about the pair.

“You know she’s Mr. Kent’s mother, don’t you? By the way, is it true he married a creature off the streets?”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “Silly ass!”

He gave a vivid account of the affair according to his lights. Unaccountably, for Frank and Miss Ley, both highly discreet, alone knew the circumstances, Basil’s adventure in a very elaborate form was current among all his friends.

“I say, Reggie, will you come to the play to-morrow? Lady Paperleigh’s got a box for _The Belle of Petersburg_, and she’s asked me to bring my man.”

“Am I your man?” asked Reggie.

“Why not?”

“It sounds bally vulgar. I should have thought it meant your valet.”

At this Mrs. Castillyon laughed as she spoke at the top of her voice, so that people, to Reggie’s confusion, again turned round.

“How prim you are! Is it your mamma’s bringing-up, Reggie? She’s rather an old frump, you know.”

“Thanks!”

“But I intend to ask her down to Jeyston for Christmas. We’re going to have a house-party, and I mean to get Miss Ley and Dr. Hurrell. I don’t like him much, but Miss Ley won’t come without him. Pity she’s not younger, isn’t it? They could talk philosophy to more purpose then. They say she has a passion for young men; I wonder what she does with them. D’you think she was very gay in her youth?”

“She’s a regular ripper, I know that,” answered Reggie, remembering the frequent tips which in his school-days the generous creature had slipped into his hand.

“I’m sure there was something,” expostulated Mrs. Castillyon, “or she wouldn’t have lived so long in Italy.”

“My mother thinks her about the straightest woman she’s ever known.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep thrusting your mother down my throat, Reggie. It’s bad enough having to put up with Paul’s, without getting yours as well. I suppose I shall have to ask that old cat for Christmas: she’s awful, as rich as they make ’em, and she’ll get on with your mother first-rate. Let’s go; I’m sick of this hole.”

When Reggie asked for the bill, he found the box of chocolates cost fifteen shillings, and preferring to spend his money exclusively on himself, was consequently none too pleased. Mrs. Castillyon had kept the cab, and offered to drive her cavalier to Grosvenor Gardens, where she was going for a second tea.

’I’ve had a good time,” she said, when they arrived. “You’d better give the driver five bob. Good-bye, Reggie. Mind you’re not late to-morrow. Where shall we dine?”

“I don’t mind as long as it’s cheap,” he said, ruefully handing the cabman five shillings.

“Oh, I’ll stand you a dinner,” said Mrs. Castillyon.

“All right,” he answered, his face brightening. “Let’s go to the _Carlton_, then.”

Mrs. Castillyon skipped into the house, and Reggie, who hated walking, to save money trudged sulkily home to Sloane Gardens: Frank showed much wisdom when he asserted that love and economy went seldom hand-in-hand.

“It’s cost me over a quid,” he muttered. “I could have dined Madge three times for that, and I’m blowed if she’s so damned vulgar as that little baggage.”

But next day he met her in the _Carlton_ vestibule, and they sat down to dinner. The waiter brought him a wine-card.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked.

“Something fizzy.”

This entirely agreed with Reggie’s ideas, and since he was not to pay the bill, he took care to order the champagne he liked best, which was by no means the least expensive. Flattering himself on his educated palate, he drank the wine with added satisfaction because the price was high. Mrs. Castillyon, overpowdered, with somewhat the look of a faded rose arranged under careful lights in a shop window to delude the purchaser that it had still its first freshness, was in high spirits: pleased with her own appearance and with that of the handsome youth in front of her, languid and sensual as the waking Adam of Michaelangelo, she talked very quickly in an excessively loud voice. Reggie’s spirits rose with the intoxicating liquor, and his doubts whether an amour with a woman of distinction was quite worth while, were soon dissipated; looking at the costly splendour of her gown, the boy’s flesh tingled, and his eyes rested with approval on the diamonds about her neck and in her yellow hair. It was a new sensation to dine with a well-dressed, rich woman in a crowded restaurant, and he felt himself with pride a very gay Lothario.

Handing something, he touched her fingers.

“Don’t,” she said, “you give me the shivers;” and seeing the effect she created, Mrs. Castillyon displayed all her arts and graces.

“Confound this theatre! I wish we weren’t bound to go to it.”

“But we are. Lady Paperleigh is going with her man, and we’ve got to chaperon her.”

It pleased Reggie to sit in a box with a person of title, and he knew it would gratify his mother.

“Why don’t they make your hubby a Baronet?” he asked ingenuously.

“My mother-in-law won’t fork out. You see, Paul ain’t what you might call a genius—he’d love a handle to name, but the price has gone up lately, and a baronetcy is one of the few things you have to pay for money down.

Reggie’s appetite was large, and he went through the long dinner with huge satisfaction. When they arrived at dessert, he lit a cigarette and gave a sigh of contented repletion.

“Yet people say the pleasures of the intellect are higher than the pleasures of the table,” he sighed.

He looked at Mrs. Castillyon with heavy eyes, and since, like most men, love arose in his heart as an accompaniment to the satisfactory process of digestion, he gave her a peculiarly sensual smile.

“I say, Grace, don’t you think you could come away for a week-end somewhere?”

“Oh, I couldn’t risk it. It would be too dangerous.”

“Not if we go somewhere quiet. It would be a beano!”

Her heart beat quickly, and under those handsome, lazy eyes she felt a curious defaillance; his hand rested on the table, large, soft and smooth, and the sight of it sent through her an odd thrill.

“Paul’s going up to the North to speak next month,” she said. “That’s our chance, isn’t it?”

The risk fascinated her, and the whim for Reggie grew on a sudden to an ardent passion for which she was willing to venture all things.

“I say, I’ve got an idea,” she whispered, with sparkling eyes. “Let’s go to Rochester. Don’t you remember, Basil Kent spoke of it the other day? I could easily say I was going down to see the view or whatever it is. I believe it’s a dull hole, and nobody goes there but Americans.”

“All right,” he said. “That’ll do A1.”

“Now we must be getting off. Call for the bill.”

Mrs. Castillyon felt for her pocket; then, throwing back her head, gave a little shriek of laughter.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve forgotten my purse. You’ll have to pay, after all. D’you mind?”

“Fortunately the mater gave me a fiver this morning,” he answered, without enthusiasm, and when he doled out the shining sovereigns, added to himself: “By Jove, I’ll punish her for this some time.”

Arriving at the theatre, they found Lady Paperleigh was not yet come and since they did not know the number of her box, were obliged to wait in the entrance. They waited for nearly half an hour, during which Mrs. Castillyon grew every moment more peevish.

“It’s perfectly disgusting and awfully rude of her,” she cried for the tenth time. “I wish I hadn’t come, and I wish to goodness you wouldn’t stand there looking bored. Can’t you say something to amuse me?”

“I should have thought you could wait for a few minutes without getting into a beastly temper.”

“I shall take care to serve that woman as she has served me. I suppose she’s eating somewhere with her wretched man. Why don’t you pay for the box so that we can go in?”

“Why should I? They’ve asked us, and we must hang about till they choose to turn up.”

“If you cared for me the least bit, you wouldn’t refuse to do things I asked you.”

“If you’ll ask for something reasonable I’ll do it.”

Reggie had a very pretty little temper of his own, which his fond mother’s upbringing had never taught him to restrain; and seeing that Mrs. Castillyon raged with impatience, he assumed an exaggerated calm which was far more irritating than if he had fussed or fumed. The lady busied herself with sharp tongue to pierce his thick hide of indifference, and abused him roundly. In a little while without more ado he answered her in kind.

“If you’re not satisfied with me I’ll go. D’you think you’re the only woman in the world? I’m about sick of your vixenish temper. Good Lord, if this is what a married man has to put up with, God save me from marriage!”

They sat without speaking, and through her powder Mrs. Castillyon’s cheeks glowed angrily; but when at length Lady Paperleigh appeared, accompanied by a strapping youth with military airs, Mrs. Castillyon greeted her with smiles and soft words, vowing that they had only that very moment arrived. Reggie, less accustomed to the ways of polite society, could not conceal his ill-humour, and shook hands in sulky silence.

After the performance Reggie put Mrs. Castillyon into a cab, but he would not shake hands, and there was a malevolent scowl on his handsome face which singularly disturbed her; for what at first had seemed but a passing fancy was now unaccountably changed into a desperate passion. She had the soul of a trollop, and for years had flirted more or less seriously with one man after another; but it was chiefly admiration she sought and someone to go about with her and pay for little extravagances; and though several had taken the matter in earnest, she always kept her head, and was careful to drop them when they grew troublesome. But now, driving away alone, there was a dull and hungry pain in her heart; she was tormented by the anger of those handsome eyes, and remembered sorrowfully the hurried kiss he had given her the day before in the cab.

“Supposing he doesn’t come back,” she whispered, with a painful sob.

She was a little frightened also, knowing herself in the power of a dissolute, selfish boy who cared nothing for her. Any woman would have served his purpose as well, for she saw with bitter clearness that he was merely dazzled by her wealth and her diamonds. He liked to dine at her house, and it pleased his vanity to embrace a woman in expensive clothes. But she had not the temperament to make a fight for freedom, and gave herself up to this love weakly, careless into what abyss of shame and misery it led. Going to her room, she wrote a pitiful letter to Reggie, and those with whom in time past she had cruelly played, seeing this utter abasement, might have felt abundantly revenged.

“Don’t be angry with me, darling; I can’t bear it. I love you with all my heart and soul. I’m sorry that I was horrid this evening, but I couldn’t help it, and I will try to keep my temper. Write and say you forgive me, because my head is throbbing and my heart is aching for you. “I love you—I love you—I love you.

“GRACE.”

She folded the letter, and was about to put it in an envelope, when an idea crossed her mind. For all her flippancy, Mrs. Castillyon had a good deal of observation; it had not escaped her notice that Reggie hated to spend money. She went to a drawer and took out a ten-pound note, which with a postscript she enclosed.

“I’m sorry I hadn’t my purse to-night, and I’ve only got this note here. Please take what I owe you out of it, and with the change you might buy yourself a tie-pin. I wanted to give you a little present, but I’m afraid of getting something you won’t like. Please say you’re not cross with me for asking you to see about it yourself.”

The youth read the letter with indifference, but when he came to the last lines blushed, for his mother had instilled into him certain rules of honour, and against his will, he could not escape the notion that it was the most discreditable thing possible to accept money from a woman. For a moment he felt sick with shame, but the note was crisp and clean and inviting. His fingers itched.

His first impulse was to send it back, and he sat down at his writing-table. But when he came to put the note in an envelope, he hesitated and looked at it again.

“After all, what with the dinner and tea yesterday, she owes me a good deal of it, and I shall spend it on her if I keep it. She’s so rich, it means nothing to her.”

Then he had an inspiration.

“I’ll put the balance on a horse, and if it comes in I’ll give her the tenner back. If it doesn’t—well, it’s not my fault.”

He pocketed the note.

X

The Kents spent their honeymoon in a fisherman’s cottage at Carbis Water, the very name of which, romantic and muflical, enchanted Basil’s ear; and from their window the cliff, grown over with odorous broom, tumbled lazily to the edge of the coloured sea. There was an amiable simplicity about the old man from whom they hired rooms, and Basil delighted to hear his long stories of the pilchard fishery, of storms that had strewn the beach with wreckage, and of fierce battles fought between the fishers of St. Ives and the foreigners from Lowestoft. He told of the revivals which burned along the countryside, calling sinners to repentance, and how himself on a memorable occasion had found salvation; now he confessed his late-found faith with savage ardour, but notwithstanding made the most he could out of the strangers in his house! And the tall, gaunt figure of that ancient seaman, with furrowed cheeks and eyes bleared with long scanning of the sea, seemed a real expression of that country—wild with its deserted mines, yet tender; barren, yet with the delicate colour of a pastel. To Basil, weary with the conflicting emotions of the last month, it had a restful charm unrivalled by the distincter glories of more southern lands.

One afternoon they walked up a hill to see the local curiosity, a gravestone which crowned its summit, and Basil wandered on while Jenny, indifferent and tired, sat down to test. He sauntered through the furze, saffron and green, and the heather rich with the subdued and decorous richness of an amethyst: some child had gathered a bunch of this and thrown it aside, so that it lay on the grass dying, faded purple, like a symbol of the decay of an imperial power. For a reason that escaped him, it recalled to Basil’s mind that most poetical of prose-writers, the divinely simple weaver of words, Jeremy Taylor, and he repeated to himself that sad, passionate phrase used in the _Holy Dying:_ “Break the beds, drink your wine, crown your head with roses and besmear your curled locks with nard; for God bids you to remember death.”

Standing on the brink, he overlooked the valley of the sea—Hale in the distance, with its placid river, like some old Italian town coloured and gay even under that sombre heaven. The sky was gray and overcast, and the clouds, pregnant with rain, swept over the hill-top like the gauzy drapery of some dying pagan spirit, lingering solitary among the grotesque shapes of Christian legend. There was a line of dead trees on the crest of the hill, and Basil, visiting this place earlier in the year, had found them then incongruous with the summer, a hideous darkness against the joyous colour of the Cornish June. But now all Nature drew into harmony with them, and they stood, gnarled and leafless, with a placid silence, as though in a sense of the eternity of things they felt a singular content. The green leaves and the flowers were vanity, ephemeral as the butterflies and the light breeze of April, but they were changeless and constant. Dead ferns lay all about, brown as the earth, and they were the first of the summer plants to go, chilled to death by the mild wind of September. The silence was so great that Basil seemed to hear the wings of the rooks as they beat the air, flying overhead from field to field, and in his mind, curiously, he listened to the voice of London calling. Basil peculiarly enjoyed his solitude, for he was used to be much alone, and the constant companionship since his marriage at times proved irksome. He began to plan out his future. There was no reason why Jenny should not be induced to a wider view of things than she then possessed; she was by no means a fool, and little by little, with patience on his side, she might gain interest in the things that interested him: it would be wonderful to disclose a human soul to its own beauty. But his enthusiasm was short-lived, for, walking down the hillside, he found Jenny asleep, her head thrown back and her hat slouched over one eye, her mouth open. His heart sank, for he saw her as he had never seen her before: amid the soft grace of that scene her clothes looked tawdry and crude, and with keen eyes he detected, under her beauty, the commonness of nature for which already he loathed the brother.

But, fearing it would rain, he woke her and proposed that they should go home. She smiled at him lovingly.

“Have you been looking at me asleep? Had I got my mouth open?”

“Yes.”

“I must have looked a sight.”

“Where did you buy your hat?” he asked.

“I made it myself. Don’t you like it?”

“I wish it weren’t so very bright.”

“Colours suit me,” she answered. “They always did.”

The Cornish drizzle hovered over the earth, all-penetrating like human sorrow, and at length, with the closing day, the rain fell. In the mist and in the night the country sank into darkness. But in Basil’s heart was a greater darkness, and already, after one short week, he feared that the task he had confidently undertaken was beyond his strength.

On their return to London Basil moved such furniture as he possessed into the little house he had taken in Barnes. He liked the old-fashioned High Street of that place because it had preserved a certain village simplicity, and the common made up for the dreary look of the long row of villas in which was his own: the builder, careful of his invention, had placed on each side fifty small houses so alike that they were distinguishable only by their numbers and the grandiloquent names on the fanlight. For two or three weeks the young couple were engaged in putting things to rights, and then Basil settled to the monotonous life he liked because it gave most opportunity for work. He went away every morning early to chambers, where he devilled for the “silk” in whose room he sat, waiting for briefs that came not, and about five took the train back to Barnes; then followed a stroll along the tow-path with Jenny, and after dinner he wrote till bed-time. Basil felt now a certain quiet satisfaction in his marriage; his affairs settled for good, and he could surrender himself to his literary ambition. Apparently there was a magic in the nuptial tie, since there arose within him by degrees a sober but deep affection for Jenny; he was flattered by her adoration, and touched at the humility wherewith she did his bidding. With all his heart he looked forward to the birth of their child. They talked of him incessantly for both were convinced that it must be a son, and they never tired of discussing what to do with him, how he should wear his hair, when be breeched, and where go to school. When Basil pictured the beautiful woman nursing her child—and she had never been lovelier than then—his pulse throbbed with thankfulness and pride; and he chid himself because he had ever hesitated to marry her or for a moment during the honeymoon bitterly regretted his rashness.

Jenny was radiantly happy. She was of indolent temper, and it delighted her, after the bondage of the _Golden Crown_, to do nothing from morning till night. It was very amusing to have at her beck and call a servant who called her “ma’am,” and hugely satisfactory to watch her work while she sat idly. She was proud also of the little house and the furniture, and dusted the pictures with greater complacency because she thought them rather ugly; Basil said they were very beautiful, and she knew they cost a lot of money. In the same way Jenny admired her husband all the more because she neither understood his ideas nor sympathized with his ambitions. She worshipped him like a dog his master. It was a daily torment when he went to town, and invariably she accompanied him to the door to see the last of him: when he was due to return, she listened with held breath for his step on the pavement, and sometimes in her impatience walked to meet him.

Basil had not the amiable gift of taking people as they are, asking no more from them than they can give; but rather sought to mould after his own ideas the persons with whom he came in contact. Jenny’s taste was deplorable, and the ignorance which had not been unbecoming to the pretty barmaid in the wife was a little distressing. In accordance with a plan of unconscious education whereby, like powder in jam, Jenny might acquire knowledge without realizing it, Basil gave her books to read; and though she took them obediently, his choice, perhaps, was not altogether happy, for alter a diligent quarter of an hour she would mostly drop the volume, and for the rest of the morning chat familiarly with the maid-of-all-work. If, however, at any time she yearned for literary pabulum, she much preferred to buy a novelette at the station bookstall, but took care to hide it when Basil came in; and once he found by chance a work entitled _Rosamund’s Revenge_, explained that it belonged to the servant. For one penny Mrs. Kent could get a long and blood-curdling romance, the handsome, aristocratic hero of which bore an unusual similarity to Basil, while the peerless creature for whom doughty deeds were so fearlessly performed was none other than herself; under the mattress in the spare bedroom she kept her favourite story, wherein a maid of high degree nobly sacrificed herself, and Jenny’s heart beat fast when she thought how willingly under similar circumstances she would have risked her life for Basil. Ignorant of all this, Kent talked frequently of the books himself had given her, but in his enthusiasm was apt to be so carried away as not to notice how small her knowledge thereof remained.

“I wish you’d read me your book, Basil,” she said one evening. “You never tell me anything about it.”

“It would only bore you, darling.”

“D’you think I’m not clever enough to understand it?”

“Of course not! If you’d like me to, I shall be only too pleased to read you bits of it.”

“I’m so glad you’re a novelist. It’s so uncommon, isn’t it? And I _shall_ be proud when I see your name in the papers. Read me some now, will you?”

No writer, however violent his protests, really dislikes being asked to read an unpublished book; it is the child of his heart, and has still the glamour which, when it is coldly set up in type and bound in cloth, will be utterly destroyed. Basil especially needed sympathy, for he was distrustful of himself, and could work better when someone expressed admiration for his efforts. It had been his ardent hope that Jenny would take interest in his writing, and it was only from diffidence that hitherto he had said little about it.

The idea of his novel, the scene of which was Italy in the early sixteenth century, came to him one day in the National Gallery soon after his return from South Africa, when his mind, fallow after the long rest from artistic things, was peculiarly sensitive to the impression of beauty. He wandered among the pictures, visiting old favourites, and the sober quiet of that place filled his soul with a greater elation than love or wine; he recalled the moment often for its singular happiness, spiritual and calm, yet very fruitful. At last he came to that portrait of an Italian nobleman by Moretto, which to an imaginative mind seems to express the whole spirit of the later Renaissance. It fitted his mood strangely. He thought that to make lovely patterns was the ultimate end of the painter’s art, and noticed with keen appreciation the decorative effect of the sombre colouring and of the tall man, leaning, melancholy and languid, in that marble embrasure. Nameless through the ages, he stood in an attitude that was half weariness and half affectation; and his restrained despair was reflected by the tawny landscape of the background, blank like the desert places of the spiritual life; the turquoise sky even was cold and sad. The date was given, 1526, and he wore the slit sleeves and hose of the period; (the early passion for the New Birth was passed already; or Michaelangelo was dead, and Cæsar Borgia rotted in far Navarre;) the dark cerise of his parti-coloured dress was no less mournful than the black, but against it gleamed the delicate cambric of his shirt and ruffles. One hand, ungloved, rested idly on the pommel of his long sword, the slender, delicate hand, white and soft, of a gentleman and student. On his head he wore a strange-shaped hat, part buff, part scarlet, with a medallion on the front of St. George and the Dragon.

The face haunted Basil, paler by reason of the dark beard; and out of it looked wistfully the eyes, as though sight were weariness and the world had naught to offer but disillusion. Presently, brooding over the character which seemed there expressed, he invented a story, and to work it out for some months, steeping himself in the poets and historians of the period, spent much time in the British Museum. At last he began actually to write. Basil wished to describe Italian society at that time, its profound disenchantment after the vigorous glow with which it had welcomed the freedom of mind when the fall of Constantinople threw open to the human intellect a new horizon; and devised a man who waged life as though it were a battle, vehemently, seeking to enjoy every moment, and now, finding all things vain, looked back with despair because the world had nothing more to offer. Acquainted with the courts of princes and the tents of condottieri, he had experienced every emotion, fought bloodily, loved and intrigued, written poetry and talked platonism. The incidents of this career were stirring, but Basil referred to them only so much as was necessary to explain the state of mind, for he desired to show his scorn of commonplace by eschewing sensation and giving merely detailed analyses of a spiritual condition.

His theme gave opportunity for the elaborate style Basil affected, and he began to read, emphasizing the rhythm of his sentences and rejoicing in their music. His vocabulary, chosen from the Elizabethans, was rich and sonorous, and the beauty of certain words intoxicated him. But at last he stopped suddenly.

“Jenny?” he said.

No answer came, and he saw that she was fast asleep. Taking care not to disturb her, he put aside the book and rose from his chair. It was not worth while to ask him to read if she could not keep awake, and with some vexation he went to his desk. But his sense of humour came the rescue.