lady currey was not at all pleased with her son’s engagement, and she said so. she came to town for this purpose, and made gilbert give her lunch while she strongly disapproved, from the hors d’?uvres to the coffee. she had the soulless good looks which time, as if contemptuous, neglects to touch. and because she could afford to do so, she purposely dressed in a middle-aged, sober fashion which she considered dignified. she had a great sense of her own importance, and the modern grandmother of fifty in ninon and picture-hats was to her extreme anathema. she and circe were much the same age. sybil daunton-pole had flashed into society like a brilliant comet, a trail of admirers behind her, when gilbert’s mother, the amiable daughter of the then home secretary, had been one of the small and unremarked stars that dot the social firmament.
lady currey had brought her husband a considerable sum of money, but the only thing for which she needed money was to gratify her craze for old china. if she had any heart or soul it was given to her specimens of priceless ming and old chelsea. she spent hours every day dusting her cabinets. her only idea of travel was the opportunity it gave her for visiting museums and picking up bargains in rare porcelain.
for gilbert she had a pleasant feeling of proprietorship—much[48] the same as she felt for the wonderful famille rose-jar of the kien-lung period which she had herself unearthed in a visit to the east. gilbert was an only child, and he had been little or no trouble. this was the first time he had disappointed her. when other mothers complained of their sons, of escapades at eton and oxford, or premature and undesirable love affairs, of monumental debts and lack of family pride, lady currey’s lips always took on an added shade of complacency as she thought of gilbert and the even and admirable tenour of his way. it was entirely becoming that gilbert should be so satisfactory and in some way reflected well on herself, just as did the discovery of the famille rose-jar. lady currey liked everything around her to be comme il faut, not the elastic comme il faut of fashion, but rather the correctness of the copybook and the ten commandments. curiously enough, engrossed in herself and her china, she had never until quite recently speculated, as do most mothers, on her son’s probable choice of a wife. when she had thought of it, she had dismissed the idea with the assurance that gilbert would choose wisely and soberly and to his advantage. it was not in her to feel any jealousy of the woman gilbert should love.
“i am grieved,” she said, sitting very upright—she rarely used the back of a chair—“i am grieved to think that you intend to marry into the iverson family. the iversons are not a family of which i—or any right-thinking people—approve.”
“but, mother,” said gilbert, rather taken aback, for he had become used to her invariable approval, “i am not marrying the family. i am marrying claudia.”
“ah! that’s what you think—the usual reply. for geoffrey iverson i have no particular dislike—he has been the cat’s-paw of a clever and unscrupulous woman. his family is a very good one. she would have spoilt[49] any man who had the misfortune to be married to her. why, sybil iverson is notorious!”
“claudia is quite unlike her in every way. why, she is not even like her in appearance.”
lady currey lifted her thin, fair eyebrows. it was unbecoming that she should tell him the scandalous rumours that floated about respecting claudia’s parentage: such things could only be told by a father to a son. she vehemently disapproved of any plain speaking between the sexes. such a crime could never be laid to her charge; not even in the marital chamber had she ever discussed any such thing.
“she is the daughter of her mother, gilbert, and the mother—i say it deliberately—is a bad woman, a woman who has trailed the glory and purity of the flower of womanhood in the dust.” lady currey occasionally indulged in such flights of rhetoric. she had rehearsed this in the train.
“i don’t think the two women see much of one another.” gilbert was a little nettled. “claudia told me herself that she hardly knew her mother at all in her young days. she was left entirely to her governesses. she can hardly have imbibed any—any idea from her mother.”
the pathos of such an admission did not strike lady currey, it only helped to justify her present attitude.
“it is, of course, very painful for me to have to mention such matters to you, but why has she seen so little of her mother? because sybil was—i blush to say it—so surrounded by lovers that she neglected her maternal duties. i say again, she is notorious for her lax life and morals. don’t you believe in heredity, gilbert? think of the blood that runs in that girl’s veins.”
gilbert frowned. “heredity is a curious thing. not worth worrying over, i think. i don’t profess to understand it.”
[50]
“i have studied the question.” she had read one book that was quite out of date. “i firmly believe in heredity. the vices or the virtues of the father and mother are surely transmitted to the children.” it was pleasing to think that only virtues could be transmitted to gilbert, but it was all the more annoying that those inherited virtues should be linked with the vices of sybil iverson’s child.
gilbert was becoming annoyed, and made no reply. after all, his mother was only a woman, and women never could argue. it jarred on his manhood that she should take him to task, and his voice was a little cold as he inquired what she would take to drink.
“you know i always take one glass of claret.” the tone somehow implied that a woman like sybil iverson might reprehensibly vary her drink with lunch, but she had regular habits. then she returned to the attack.
“claudia is not the woman that we—your dear father and i—would have chosen for you.”
“doesn’t every mother say that about her son’s choice?”
his mother sighed and waited while gilbert ordered the wine. “what sort of bringing-up has she had? what sort of a wife and mother will such a girl make? her mother’s only god was pleasure, her only commandment ‘enjoy the fleeting hour.’ do you mean to tell me that the daughter of such a woman has proper ideas about life? would you care to be the complaisant husband of a circe?”
but here gilbert put his foot down. his mother must be made to see that he knew quite well what he was about, that he had not run haphazard into this engagement. not on any account would he let her see that curious mixture of surprise and annoyance at the back of his mind when he thought of the proposal scene. he had an undefined feeling that he had been hurried[51] into it, though how he had been hurried, by whom or by what, he did not seek to explain even to himself. to gilbert’s cast of mind vague feelings were best ignored as symptoms of a weak and illogical brain, much the same as vague symptoms may denote an illness of the body. still the feeling was there, behind many stacks of docketed and pigeonholed pieces of information. yet he had almost made up his mind to propose to claudia—oh! yes—only—that particular night?
“mother, i cannot hear you say such ridiculous things about claudia. you do not know her. you might as well say that the children of murderers will all grow up murderers.”
“you might commit murder in a sudden fit of passion, but such a warped, degraded nature as sybil iverson’s is another story. besides—the sons of a murderer have probably seen him hanged or punished—the law steps in; but who punishes a woman like sybil iverson? society, nowadays, is too lax to such creatures, and virtuous women have to mix with them and take them by the hand, or else be dubbed ridiculous or old-fashioned. well,” with a sudden little gust of passion like a disturbance in a tea-cup, “thank god, i am old-fashioned and absurd. i can say my prayers every night and lie down in peace.... no, gilbert, you know i only take one glass of claret.”
“they say mrs. iverson has given up her wicked, siren-like ways and gone in for spiritualism.” he wished his mother realized that she was keeping him from his work and would hurry up with her lunch. the leisurely ways of the country were not those of town. but lady currey was doing her duty.
“such women never give up their wicked ways, they take them to the grave with them.” both gilbert and his mother had very little sense of humour, with the distinction that gilbert knew when things were ridiculous. “i know sybil’s mother died of a broken heart.” this[52] was quite untrue, she had died of fatty degeneration of the liver. “but there, the psalms say that the wicked flourish like green bay-trees, and if they did in king david’s time there is no doubt they do now. but their punishment awaits them, gilbert; always remember that.”
gilbert nodded absently. life after death was one of the vague things, like psychology, that he did not consider as practical politics. but he did not tell his mother this. if she liked to imagine him striving for a golden harp with humility of soul, she might.
“i confess i am disappointed in you, gilbert. i had looked forward to your choosing some nice girl i could take to my heart, someone like maud curtice, for example.”
maud curtice was a colourless girl who agreed with lady currey in being shocked at the modern scanty fashion of dressing—she was painfully thin and had ungainly hands and feet—and who devoted herself to the mothers of eligible sons. she also had a large income.
“wait till you know claudia, mother. you are sure to like her.”
“i have heard she is very handsome and a great favourite in society,” returned his mother gloomily. “it is a bad report to my way of thinking. that’s how her mother started.”
just then, to his great relief, gilbert caught sight of colin paton wending his way out of the restaurant. he hailed him with joy, and paton came to a standstill beside their table.
lady currey approved of colin paton. his manners were respectful and he showed an intelligent interest in china. she never noticed the quizzical gravity with which he received her views on life, nor the humorous twinkle in his eyes at her criticisms. she thought him “a very nice young man.”
[53]
“colin, old man, come and have some coffee with us.”
“just had some. i hope you are quite well, lady currey?”
gilbert made a business of looking at his watch and starting with alarm. “by jove, i didn’t know it was so late. i must just swallow my coffee and run. may i leave the mater with you to finish her coffee at her leisure?”
colin caught the appeal in gilbert’s eyes and guessed the cause.
“certainly, if lady currey will accept me as a poor substitute for you.”
lady currey smiled a gracious assent. “i hope your dear mother is better, mr. paton?”
“yes, thank you.... busy as usual, gilbert? i hear the proverbial busy bee is quite out of it.”
“well, i am tearingly busy. don’t get a minute to myself.”
paton slipped into his chair. “and yet you’ve found time to get engaged, i hear? i wrote my congratulation this morning.”
“thanks, old chap. oh! getting engaged doesn’t take very long.” gilbert laughed pleasantly and displayed his firm white teeth.
“doesn’t it?” returned paton, smiling. “i think it would take me no end of a time. but there, we shall soon be born in the morning, married at midday, and buried in the evening!” he saw lady currey looking at him rather doubtfully. “a man like your son, lady currey, takes a woman and the world by storm. veni, vidi, vici is not for me. women have to know me quite a long time before they remember me.”
“i am sure you have a great many friends,” she said encouragingly.
“yes, that’s why i expect i shall never get a wife.... really must go, gilbert? i had tea with claudia and[54] the long-legged patricia yesterday. we wished you could have been with us.”
“teas are not in my line. i suppose i shall see you again soon?”
“well, i’m going away, you know.”
gilbert turned back in surprise.
“what, at the beginning of the season!” exclaimed lady currey.
“going out to the argentine for a while. a friend of mine is going out on a political mission and wants an assistant. i’ve decided to accompany him. never been there, and it must be an interesting country.”
gilbert raised his eyebrows. why on earth didn’t paton stop in one place and make a name for himself? he had often advised him to do so.
“sudden isn’t it? i thought you said the other night that you were remaining in town until the end of july.”
paton nodded. “i’ve changed my mind. i think i want a change. i shall only be away six months or so, perhaps a year.”
gilbert’s thoughts had raced ahead. “then if we’re married at the end of july, as is probable, you’ll be away? that’s too bad. i had relied on you for being best man.”
“you’ll be married so soon? no, i am afraid i can’t assist to give you away.”
gilbert again expressed his regrets, which were quite genuine, and left his mother with paton. colin did not make the mistake of rushing in where angels fear to tread, but waited for lady currey’s comments.
“what do you think of this engagement, mr. paton? i know i can speak to you quite frankly. i think it is a great mistake. weren’t you surprised?”
“yes,” returned paton truthfully, “i was very surprised. gilbert did not confide his hopes in me. i didn’t see any wooing going on, and he never talked about her[55] to me. he must have made the running quickly.” then he added, half to himself, “he can’t have seen a great deal of her.”
“of course not, or he wouldn’t have done it. gilbert, for once in his life, has lost his head over a pretty woman. why, you are much more of a friend than gilbert.”
a slight shadow crossed her companion’s face and he dropped his eyelids. “well, i thought i was. but then friend—oh! it’s the veni, vidi, vici trick. she’s a charming girl, lady currey, with all sorts of possibilities.”
lady currey pursed up her thin lips that had never bestowed or received a kiss of passion. “she is handsome, certainly. but is she the wife for gilbert? i have lived long enough to know that looks are a poor foundation for matrimony.”
“she has quite a good deal of character,” said her companion quietly, without any annoying enthusiasm. “i am sure she will develop into a splendid woman with the man she loves. she isn’t the usual pretty society doll, you know.”
“does it strike you that gilbert wants a woman of character?” asked his mother with unexpected acuteness. “clever men are usually better mated to stupid wives. look at carlyle and jane welsh! much too clever for one another.” then irrelevantly, “there are too many clever girls nowadays. i don’t believe they make any the better wives and mothers for being so clever. i am sure i never wanted such a daughter-in-law.”
paton found himself at a loss for conversation. he knew he could do claudia no good by praising her warmly to her future mother-in-law, he might even make matters worse. yet to hear claudia belittled made something leap within him into fierce flame. it seemed disloyal to listen to lady currey’s sneers. yet he knew that claudia must storm the citadel of lady currey’s[56] heart herself. as an advance agent his labours would be wasted. but paton, looking across the table into the light, offended eyes of the woman, was sorry for the girl. it was rather odd. his mother, a confirmed invalid, and lady currey had been close friends in their youth. yet his mother had warmly liked claudia when she had once met her for a few minutes. he was startled to find that his current of thought had communicated itself to lady currey.
“your mother always did like pretty things—i know she admires claudia—but she was always unduly swayed by good looks, even at school. i know how deceptive they are. a man told me the other day that his wife had left him and been through the divorce court, and he attributed it entirely to her good looks. ‘a very pretty woman is difficult to live with,’ he said; ‘she gets a great deal of adulation and flattery in society, and naturally the husband at home falls rather flat.’ there is a lot of truth in that, mr. paton.”
“perhaps he was the typical english husband who, as soon as he has won a wife, forgets to be her lover,” replied paton. “you are very careful and precious of your rare china, lady currey.”
his vis-à-vis stared. she wondered that paton, who was usually so smooth in conversation, should make such a sudden jump. but it served to divert her mind from claudia.
“i had such luck last week. i was walking along the high street in moulton and i caught sight of a pair of vases. i thought that powder blue could be nothing less than chinese. they had blue and white reserves on them. you know what that means. i got them for a mere song, and they’re beauties. since i last saw you i have bought....”
still talking china, paton saw her into a taxi.
he strolled away from the restaurant. it was warm[57] and sunny, and the pedestrians seemed all in a good humour. paton often wandered for hours through the streets of london, finding in that wonderful panorama food for eyes and brain and heart. he loved the feeling that he was part of the crowd, and his mind was stored with many observations and memories. the romance of the streets was no idle journalistic phrase to him. he felt it around him on all sides, plucking at him with alluring fingers leading him into the land of dreams. often at night he would give himself wholly up to its enchantment, wandering along mile after mile through quaint byways and on misty commons, through silent suburbia and the noisy, restless east-end slums. london was to him a book of unending pages with countless illustrations.
this afternoon he mingled with the crowd, but he did not heed it, so that he did not see a woman in a motor energetically waving her hand to him and directing the chauffeur to stop.
“mr. paton—oh! mr. paton, what a day-dream!”
it was claudia herself, looking altogether charming in light summer attire. there were waving, greeny-blue ostrich feathers in her leghorn hat and around her neck. the softness of the feathers and the peculiar shade of blue accentuated the creamy tint of her skin and the brightness of her eyes. her happiness shone through the envelope of the flesh like a flame through clear glass. a heavy-eyed woman of the lower classes who was passing marked her and muttered, “she has a good time, i’ll be bound,” then, wrapped in her own bad one, passed on.
paton went up to the car and held out his hand.
“mr. paton, you’re just the man i want. do come and see some pictures with me. jujubes hates pictures, don’t you, jujubes?” she turned to the faded, amiable woman beside her in the car.
“i don’t hate them, but they all look so alike,” said[58] jujubes mildly. “when you’ve seen one, it seems to me you’ve seen the lot.”
“there, listen to this awful heathen who rejoices in her darkness! leave me not to her tender mercies. jujubes can do some shopping for me.” she looked entreatingly at him with her fresh young mouth smiling at herself, jujubes, paton and the whole world.
he hesitated for the fraction of a second. then he said cheerily: “of course i’ll come, if only out of kindness to miss jujubes. and i shan’t be seeing any more english pictures for a long time, i suppose.” then he told her of his intended visit to the argentine.
“oh!” said claudia blankly. “oh! i wish you weren’t going away. i shall miss you so much—we shall all miss you.” she said it quite naturally as the thought came to her mind. one could always do that with colin paton.
“thank you,” he said smilingly, as he helped jujubes to alight. “it’s very good of you to say so.” he seated himself beside claudia.
“don’t. you needn’t be formal and polite. why are you going? is it the wanderlust again? or is it to help you in your career?”
gilbert had taught her to think of careers.
“oh! i shall never have a career,” said paton lightly, aware of the soft, dark eyes on his face questioning him. but he did not meet them. somehow they held a look in them to-day that he could not bear. “i don’t concentrate, you know. i’m just ‘a blooming amateur.’ gilbert was reading me a solemn lecture the other day, but—i go on the same old way. i’m glad, however, that gilbert is getting on so well. but then, he does concentrate.”
“he works very hard,” said claudia thoughtfully, “i had no idea how hard. he does too much, i think.” then she looked at the rather fine lines of the face beside[59] her. “but i don’t believe you are afraid of hard work. i remember how hard you worked when you were on that hospital committee.”
“no, i don’t think it’s that,” said paton quietly. “let’s say it’s lack of ambition and driving power.”
was there something in his tone that sent a vague shadow of distrust over claudia’s expression, or was it the echo of some secret misgiving in herself?
“does that mean you think ambition—the ordinary get-to-the-top-of-the-tree ambition—rather commonplace?”
“not a bit,” he said heartily. “after all, we live on a commonplace earth. gilbert is right and i am wrong, and when gilbert is lord chief justice and i’m an obscure old bore of a bachelor, i shall, no doubt, fully realize my wrongness. but do ask me to dinner sometimes.”
“but you mustn’t remain a bachelor,” said claudia, with all the enthusiasm of the newly-engaged woman, “because your life will be incomplete. that sounds like sex conceit, but you said it yourself to me, and then i began to believe it. and now——” she completed the sentence with a charming blush.
“can you imagine any modern woman wanting a man without worldly ambition, a man she will never be proud of, a man who is nothing and does nothing?” the tone was light enough, and the girl, engrossed in her own happiness, did not detect an unusual note of bitterness. for colin paton was never bitter. he could be sarcastic and even scathing when roused, but he never indulged in the refuge of cowardly souls.
claudia took him quite seriously, for happiness, just as sorrow, may temporarily obscure a sense of humour. “i forbid you to say such things of yourself,” she said, with an engaging air of motherliness. “you’re awfully clever—awfully clever. why, you are one of the best-read[60] and best-informed men in london.” suddenly she realized how often she had turned to him for information or advice. and she could never remember an occasion on which he had failed her, or an opinion that her critical faculty on reflection deemed unsound.
“no market value, dear lady.”
she paused a moment thoughtfully. “is that true?” she said slowly. “gilbert said that the other day when i asked him if he had read something. he says he has no time for books, it’s as much as he can do to read the newspapers.... somehow it seems all wrong.” she looked away with a puzzled expression at the trees of the park.
he cast a quick glance at her profile and the beautiful lines of her throat. he seemed about to say something with unusual impetuosity, and then he resolutely locked his lips. he allowed her to go on speaking.
“ambition gets in the way of—of a lot of other things, doesn’t it? it seems a voracious dragon, swallowing up everything: friends, books, pictures—all the beautiful, graceful things of life. isn’t it a pity?”
“i think so; but then i’m in the minority.”
“and that’s why you are not ambitious,” she flashed out with sudden insight. “yes, i see. i wonder if you are right.” her voice was a little wistful.
“no,” he said, with resolute reassurance. “no. i’m wrong, and gilbert is right. wife of the lord chief justice—what greater honour could you wish?”
“now you are making fun of me,” she replied, with a tiny frown, “and i was quite serious. it’s difficult to explain. but—well, i hate the usual sort of man who does nothing except wear his clothes well, don’t you? look at jack. he sets off his uniform beautifully, but he just footles his life away. there doesn’t seem anything between that and great strenuosity—except you. i can’t place you. somehow you always make me see[61] things in a different perspective from anyone else. i wonder why it is. sometimes you make things seem better and sometimes you make them seem worse.”
he drew in his breath a little and his hand in its thin suède covering clenched itself on his knee. “claudia, you mustn’t let me make things seem worse or any different from—what they are. i’d be content if my mission in life were to make things better, not worse, for you. not that you want that now,” he added hastily, pulling himself in. “i know, from things you have left unsaid, that your home life hasn’t been all you wanted and ought to have had, but now—now you are going to be very happy. gilbert is a splendid fellow.”
she turned to him, her face glowing, her eyes deep and dark with emotion.
“yes, i think i am going to be very happy. somehow you have always understood. i have never had to tell you things. you see, nobody ever wanted me very much, and i—i wanted somebody to want me and to rely on me and care for my companionship. it is so wonderful to think that our interests are one, that what interests me interests him, that i can tell him my good news and bad news and be always sure that i don’t bore him. i’ve always had to bottle up things. i’ve had one or two girl friends, but it isn’t the same. and even then they get engaged and married and you fall in the background. but when i’ve got a husband of my own it will be different, won’t it?”
he hesitated the fraction of a second. “yes, claudia, it will be different. you know how glad i am that you have found happiness, don’t you? i wanted that so much for my—friend.”
“and isn’t it nice that i am marrying your friend?” she exclaimed joyfully. “because you might not have liked my husband, or my husband might not have liked you. oh, i know,” sagely. “i have heard from my[62] friends who got married, that it is sometimes very difficult. but you and gilbert are friends, and you and i are friends. it’s quite ideal, isn’t it?”
“yes,” he said cryptically, “quite ideal. the ideal is always the unattainable.”
“but you must marry too,” she persisted, “because i am sure i should like your wife. there are some men that one knows and likes that one feels doubtful about their choice of a wife, and there are others—like you—one is sure it will be all right.” she laughed gaily. “won’t you get married to please me?”
no one could have guessed there was any effort in his laughing reply. “i know. you are planning to get rid of some obnoxious wedding-present on me, something especially hideous in the way of rose-bowls or tea-services. no, i absolutely refuse to accommodate you.”
“well, at least promise me to come back soon,” she smiled as the motor stopped before the entrance to the galleries. “i shall want to discuss a thousand things with you long before you’ve got to the argentine. i think i shall keep a little book and call it ‘the paton diary.’ in it i shall enter all sorts of queries and the names of books and pictures and music that i want to discuss with you.”
“heavens! i shall never come back!” her hand rested in his as he helped her to alight, and she gave him a mischievous squeeze.
“no, but really.”
“really, i will come back as—soon as i can, and i shall be grateful if the ‘paton diary’ will keep my memory green.... i hear there is a wonderful giorgione here. you remember those two we saw here last year....”
