ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS.
If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but have a care that you do not fall in.
Hindu Proverb.
Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things that ayoung man can carry about with him at the beginning of his career, isan unrequited attachment. It makes him feel important and business-like,and blase, and cynical; and whenever he has a touch of liver, or suffersfrom want of exercise, he can mourn over his lost love, and be veryhappy in a tender, twilight fashion.
Hannasyde's affair of the heart had been a Godsend to him. It was fouryears old, and the girl had long since given up thinking of it. She hadmarried and had many cares of her own. In the beginning, she had toldHannasyde that, "while she could never be anything more than a sisterto him, she would always take the deepest interest in his welfare." Thisstartlingly new and original remark gave Hannasyde something to thinkover for two years; and his own vanity filled in the other twenty-fourmonths. Hannasyde was quite different from Phil Garron, but, none theless, had several points in common with that far too lucky man.
He kept his unrequited attachment by him as men keep a well-smokedpipe--for comfort's sake, and because it had grown dear in the using. Itbrought him happily through the Simla season. Hannasyde was not lovely.There was a crudity in his manners, and a roughness in the way in whichhe helped a lady on to her horse, that did not attract the other sexto him. Even if he had cast about for their favor, which he did not. Hekept his wounded heart all to himself for a while.
Then trouble came to him. All who go to Simla, know the slope from theTelegraph to the Public Works Office. Hannasyde was loafing up the hill,one September morning between calling hours, when a 'rickshaw came downin a hurry, and in the 'rickshaw sat the living, breathing image of thegirl who had made him so happily unhappy. Hannasyde leaned against therailing and gasped. He wanted to run downhill after the 'rickshaw, butthat was impossible; so he went forward with most of his blood in histemples. It was impossible, for many reasons, that the woman in the'rickshaw could be the girl he had known. She was, he discovered later,the wife of a man from Dindigul, or Coimbatore, or some out-of-the-wayplace, and she had come up to Simla early in the season for the good ofher health. She was going back to Dindigul, or wherever it was, at theend of the season; and in all likelihood would never return to Simlaagain, her proper Hill-station being Ootacamund. That night, Hannasyde,raw and savage from the raking up of all old feelings, took counsel withhimself for one measured hour. What he decided upon was this; and youmust decide for yourself how much genuine affection for the old love,and how much a very natural inclination to go abroad and enjoy himself,affected the decision. Mrs. Landys-Haggert would never in all humanlikelihood cross his path again. So whatever he did didn't much matter.She was marvellously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and therest of the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to makethe acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time--only avery little time--to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again.Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particularmonomania was his old love, Alice Chisane.
He made it his business to get introduced to Mrs. Haggert, and theintroduction prospered. He also made it his business to see as much ashe could of that lady. When a man is in earnest as to interviews, thefacilities which Simla offers are startling. There are garden-parties,and tennis-parties, and picnics, and luncheons at Annandale, andrifle-matches, and dinners and balls; besides rides and walks, which arematters of private arrangement. Hannasyde had started with the intentionof seeing a likeness, and he ended by doing much more. He wanted tobe deceived, he meant to be deceived, and he deceived himself verythoroughly. Not only were the face and figure, the face and figure ofAlice Chisane, but the voice and lower tones were exactly the same, andso were the turns of speech; and the little mannerisms, that every womanhas, of gait and gesticulation, were absolutely and identically thesame. The turn of the head was the same; the tired look in the eyesat the end of a long walk was the same; the sloop and wrench overthe saddle to hold in a pulling horse was the same; and once, mostmarvellous of all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to herself in the nextroom, while Hannasyde was waiting to take her for a ride, hummed, notefor note, with a throaty quiver of the voice in the second line:--"PoorWandering One!" exactly as Alice Chisane had hummed it for Hannasyde inthe dusk of an English drawing-room. In the actual woman herself--inthe soul of her--there was not the least likeness; she and Alice Chisanebeing cast in different moulds. But all that Hannasyde wanted to knowand see and think about, was this maddening and perplexing likeness offace and voice and manner. He was bent on making a fool of himself thatway; and he was in no sort disappointed.
Open and obvious devotion from any sort of man is always pleasant toany sort of woman; but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being a woman of the world,could make nothing of Hannasyde's admiration.
He would take any amount of trouble--he was a selfish man habitually--tomeet and forestall, if possible, her wishes. Anything she told him to dowas law; and he was, there could be no doubting it, fond of her companyso long as she talked to him, and kept on talking about trivialities.But when she launched into expression of her personal views and herwrongs, those small social differences that make the spice of Simlalife, Hannasyde was neither pleased nor interested. He didn't wantto know anything about Mrs. Landys-Haggert, or her experiences inthe past--she had travelled nearly all over the world, and could talkcleverly--he wanted the likeness of Alice Chisane before his eyes andher voice in his ears. Anything outside that, reminding him of anotherpersonality jarred, and he showed that it did.
Under the new Post Office, one evening, Mrs. Landys-Haggert turned onhim, and spoke her mind shortly and without warning. "Mr. Hannasyde,"said she, "will you be good enough to explain why you have appointedyourself my special cavalier servente? I don't understand it. But Iam perfectly certain, somehow or other, that you don't care the leastlittle bit in the world for ME." This seems to support, by the way, thetheory that no man can act or tell lies to a woman without being foundout. Hannasyde was taken off his guard. His defence never was a strongone, because he was always thinking of himself, and he blurted out,before he knew what he was saying, this inexpedient answer:--"No more Ido."
The queerness of the situation and the reply, made Mrs. Landys-Haggertlaugh. Then it all came out; and at the end of Hannasyde's lucidexplanation, Mrs. Haggert said, with the least little touch of scorn inher voice:--"So I'm to act as the lay-figure for you to hang the rags ofyour tattered affections on, am I?"
Hannasyde didn't see what answer was required, and he devoted himselfgenerally and vaguely to the praise of Alice Chisane, which wasunsatisfactory. Now it is to be thoroughly made clear that Mrs. Haggerthad not the shadow of a ghost of an interest in Hannasyde. Only....only no woman likes being made love through instead of to--specially onbehalf of a musty divinity of four years' standing.
Hannasyde did not see that he had made any very particular exhibitionof himself. He was glad to find a sympathetic soul in the arid wastes ofSimla.
When the season ended, Hannasyde went down to his own place and Mrs.Haggert to hers. "It was like making love to a ghost," said Hannasydeto himself, "and it doesn't matter; and now I'll get to my work." Buthe found himself thinking steadily of the Haggert-Chisane ghost; and hecould not be certain whether it was Haggert or Chisane that made up thegreater part of the pretty phantom.
. . . . . . . . .
He got understanding a month later.
A peculiar point of this peculiar country is the way in which aheartless Government transfers men from one end of the Empire to theother. You can never be sure of getting rid of a friend or an enemy tillhe or she dies. There was a case once--but that's another story.
Haggert's Department ordered him up from Dindigul to the Frontier attwo days' notice, and he went through, losing money at every step, fr
omDindigul to his station. He dropped Mrs. Haggert at Lucknow, to staywith some friends there, to take part in a big ball at the ChutterMunzil, and to come on when he had made the new home a littlecomfortable. Lucknow was Hannasyde's station, and Mrs. Haggert stayeda week there. Hannasyde went to meet her. And the train came in,he discovered which he had been thinking of for the past month. Theunwisdom of his conduct also struck him. The Lucknow week, with twodances, and an unlimited quantity of rides together, clinched matters;and Hannasyde found himself pacing this circle of thought:--Headored Alice Chisane--at least he HAD adored her. AND he admiredMrs. Landys-Haggert because she was like Alice Chisane. BUT Mrs.Landys-Haggert was not in the least like Alice Chisane, being a thousandtimes more adorable. NOW Alice Chisane was "the bride of another," andso was Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and a good and honest wife too. THEREFORE,he, Hannasyde, was.... here he called himself several hard names, andwished that he had been wise in the beginning.
Whether Mrs. Landys-Haggert saw what was going on in his mind, she aloneknows. He seemed to take an unqualified interest in everything connectedwith herself, as distinguished from the Alice-Chisane likeness, and hesaid one or two things which, if Alice Chisane had been still betrothedto him, could scarcely have been excused, even on the grounds of thelikeness. But Mrs. Haggert turned the remarks aside, and spent a longtime in making Hannasyde see what a comfort and a pleasure she had beento him because of her strange resemblance to his old love. Hannasydegroaned in his saddle and said, "Yes, indeed," and busied himself withpreparations for her departure to the Frontier, feeling very small andmiserable.
The last day of her stay at Lucknow came, and Hannasyde saw her offat the Railway Station. She was very grateful for his kindness and thetrouble he had taken, and smiled pleasantly and sympathetically as onewho knew the Alice-Chisane reason of that kindness. And Hannasyde abusedthe coolies with the luggage, and hustled the people on the platform,and prayed that the roof might fall in and slay him.
As the train went out slowly, Mrs. Landys-Haggert leaned out of thewindow to say goodbye:--"On second thoughts au revoir, Mr. Hannasyde. Igo Home in the Spring, and perhaps I may meet you in Town."
Hannasyde shook hands, and said very earnestly and adoringly:--"I hopeto Heaven I shall never see your face again!"
And Mrs. Haggert understood.