CHAPTER XXIV
There was nothing to be done for Lady Cecilia because she took herbereavement with so little fuss. She asked for no sympathy; so far as Iever saw, she shed no tears. If on that particular spot in theneighborhood of Ypres a man had had to fall for his country, she wasproud that it had been a Boscobel. She put on a black frock and orderedher maid to take the jade-green plume out of a black hat; but, exceptthat she declined invitations, she went about as usual. As the firstperson we knew to be touched by the strange new calamity of war, we madea kind of heroine of her, treating her with an almost romanticreverence; but she herself never seemed aware of it. It was my firstglimpse of that unflinching British heroism of which I have since seenmuch, and it impressed me.
We began to dream together of being useful; our difficulty was that wedidn't see the way. War had not yet made its definite claims on womenand girls, and knitting till our muscles ached was not a sufficientoutlet for our energies. Had I been in Cissie's place, I should havegone home at once; but I suspected that, in spite of all her brave wordsto me, she couldn't quite kill the hope that kept her lingering on.
My own ambitions being distasteful to Hugh, I was obliged to repressthem, doing so with the greater regret because some of the courses Isuggested would have done him good. They would have utilized thephysical strength with which he was blessed, and delivered him from thatmaterial well-being to which he returned with the more child-likerejoicing because of having been without it.
"Hugh, dear," I said to him once, "couldn't we be married soon and goover to France or England? Then we should see whether there wasn'tsomething we could do."
"Not on your life, little Alix!" was his laughing response. "Since asAmericans we're out of it, out of it we shall stay."
Over replies like this, of which there were many, I was gnashing myteeth helplessly when, all at once, I was called on to see myself asothers saw me, so getting a surprise.
The first note of warning came to me in a few words from Ethel Rossiter.I was scribbling her notes one morning as she lay in bed, when itoccurred to me to say:
"If I'm going to be married, I suppose I ought to be doing somethingabout clothes."
She murmured, listlessly:
"Oh, I wouldn't be in a hurry about that, if I were you."
I went on writing.
"I haven't been in a hurry, have I? But I shall certainly want somethings I haven't got now."
"Then you can get them after you're married. When are you to be married,anyhow?"
As the question was much on my mind, I looked up from my task and said:
"Well--when?"
"Don't you know?"
"No. Do you?"
She shook her head.
"I didn't know but what father had said something about it."
"He hasn't--not a word." I resumed my scribbling. "It's a queer thingfor him to have to settle, don't you think? One might have supposed itwould have been left to me."
"Oh, you don't know father!" It was as if throwing off something of noimportance that she added, "Of course, he can see that you're not inlove with Hugh."
Amazed at this reading of my heart, I bent my head to hide my confusion.
"I don't know why you should say that," I stammered at last, "when youcan't help seeing I'm quite true to him."
She shrugged her beautiful shoulders, of which one was bare.
"Oh, true! What's the good of that?" She went on, casually: "By the by,do call up Daisy Burke and tell her I sha'n't go to that luncheon oftheirs. They're going to have old lady Billing, who's coming to stay atfather's; and you don't catch me with that lot except when I can't helpit." She reverted to the topic of a minute before. "I don't blame you,of course. I suppose, if I were in your place, it's what I should domyself. It's what I thought you'd try for--you remember, don't you?--aslong ago as when we were in Halifax. But naturally enough other peopledon't--" I failed to learn, however, what other people didn't, becauseof a second reversion in theme: "Do make up something civil to say toDaisy, and tell her I won't come."
We dropped the subject, chiefly because I was afraid to go on with it;but when I met old Mrs. Billing I received a similar shock. Having goneto Mr. Brokenshire's to pay her my respects, I was told she was on theterrace. As a matter of fact, she was making her way toward the hall,and awkwardly carried a book, a sunshade, and the stump of a cigarette.Dutifully I went forward in the hope of offering my services.
"Get out of my sight!" was her response to my greetings. "I can't bearto look at you."
Brushing past me without further words, she entered the house.
"What did she mean?" I asked of Cissie Boscobel, to whom I heard thatMrs. Billing had given her own account of the incident.
Lady Cecilia was embarrassed.
"Oh, nothing! She's just so very odd."
But I insisted:
"She must have meant something. Had it anything to do with Hugh?"
Reluctantly Lady Cissie let it out. Mrs. Billing had got the idea that Iwas marrying Hugh for his money; and, though in the past she had notdisapproved of this line of action, she had come to think it no road tohappiness. Having taken the trouble to give me more than one hint that Ishould many the man I was in love with she was now disappointed in mycharacter.
"You know how much truth there is in all that, don't you?" I said,evasively.
Lady Cissie did her best to support me, though between her words and herinflection there was a curious lack of correspondence.
"Oh yes--certainly!"
I got the reaction of her thought, however, some minutes later, when shesaid, apropos of nothing in our conversation:
"Since Janet can't be married this month, I needn't go home for a longtime."
But knowing that this suggestion was in the air, I was the better ableto interpret Mildred's oracular utterance the next time I sat at thefoot of the couch, in the darkened room.
"One can't be true to another," she said, in reply to some feeler of myown, "unless one is true to oneself, and one can't be true to oneselfunless one follows the highest of one's instincts."
I said, inwardly: "Ah! Now I know the reason for her distrust of me."Aloud I made it:
"But that throws us back on the question as to what one's highestinstincts are."
There was the pause that preceded all her expressions of opinion.
"On the principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive, Isuppose our highest promptings are those which urge us to give most ofourselves."
"And when one gives all of oneself that one can dispose of?"
"One has then to consider the importance or the unimportance of what onehas to withhold."
Of all the things that had been said to me this was the most disturbing.It had seemed to me hitherto that the essence of my duty lay in marryingHugh. If I married him, I argued, I should have done my best to make upto him for all he had undergone for my sake. I saw myself as owing him adebt. The refusal to pay it would have implied a kind of moralbankruptcy. Considering myself solvent, and also considering myselfhonest, I felt I had no choice. Since I could pay, I must pay. Thereasoning was the more forcible because I liked Hugh and was gratefulto him. I could be tolerably happy with him, and would make him a goodwife.
To make him a good wife I had choked back everything I had ever felt forLarry Strangways; I had submitted to all the Brokenshire repressions; Ihad made myself humble and small before Hugh and his father, andaccepted the status of a Libby Jaynes. My heart cried out like any otherwoman's heart--it cried out for my country in the hour of its stress; itcried out for my home in what I tried to make the hour of my happiness;when it caught me unawares it cried out for the man I loved. But allthis I mastered as our Canadian men were mastering their longings andregrets on saying their good-bys. What was to be done was to be done,and done willingly. Willingly I meant to marry Hugh, not because he wasthe man I would have chosen before all others, but because, when no oneelse in the world was giving me a thought, he had had the asto
nishinggoodness to choose me. And now--
With Mrs. Brokenshire the situation was different. She believed I was inlove with Hugh and that the others were doing me a wrong. Moreover, sheinformed me one day that I was making my way in Newport. People whonoticed me once noticed me again. The men beside whom I sat at theoccasional lunches and dinners I attended often spoke of me to thehostess on going away, and there could be no better sign than that. Theysaid that, though I "wasn't long on looks," I had ideas and knew how toexpress them. She ventured to hope that this kindly opinion might, inthe end, soften Mr. Brokenshire.
"Do you mean that he isn't softened as it is?"
She answered, indirectly:
"He's not accustomed to be forced--and he feels I've forced him."
It was her first reference to what she had done for Hugh and me. In itsway it gave me permission to say:
"But isn't it a question of the _quid pro quo_? If you granted himsomething for something he granted you in return--"
But the expression on her face forbade my going on. I have never seensuch a parting to human lips, or so haunting, so lost a look in humaneyes. It told me everything. It was a confession of all the things shenever could have said. "Better is it," says the Book of Ecclesiastes,"that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."She had vowed and not paid. She had got her price and hadn't fulfilledher bargain. She couldn't; she never would. It was beyond her. The bigmoneyed man who at that minute was helping to finance a good part ofEurope, who was a power not only in a city or a country, but the world,had been tricked by a woman; and I in my poor little person was thesymbol of his discomfiture.
No wonder he found it hard to forgive me! No wonder that whenever I camewhere he was he treated me to some kindly hint or correction which wasno sufficient veil for his scorn! As I had never to my knowledge beenhated by any one, it was terrible to feel myself an object of abhorrenceto a man of such high standing in the world. Our eyes couldn't meetwithout my seeing that his passions were seething to the boiling-point.If he could have struck me dead with a look I think he would have doneit. And I didn't hate him; I was too sorry for him. I could have likedhim if he had let me.
I had, consequently, much to think about. I thought and I prayed. It wasnot a minute at which to do anything hurriedly. To a spirit so hot asmine it would have been a relief to lash out at them all; but, as I hadchecked myself hitherto, I checked myself again. I reasoned that if Ikept close to right, right would take care of me. Not being atheologian, I felt free to make some closeness of identity between rightand God. I might have defined right as God in action, or God as right inconjunction with omnipotence, intelligence, and love; but I had no needfor exactness of terms. In keeping near to right I knew I must be nearto God: and near to God I could let myself go so far that no power onearth would seem strong enough to save me--and yet I should be saved.
I went on then with a kind of fearlessness. If I was to marry Hugh I wasconvinced that I should be supported; if not, I was equally convincedthat something would hold me back.
"If anything should happen," I said to Cissie Boscobel one day, "I wantyou to look after Hugh."
The dawn seemed to break over her, though she only said, tremulously:
"Happen--how?"
"I don't know. Perhaps nothing will. But if it does--"
She slipped away, doubtless so as not to hear more.
And then one evening, when I was not thinking especially about it, theCloud came down on the Mountain; the voice spoke out of it, and mycourse was made plain.
But before that night I also had received a cablegram. It was from mysister Louise, to say that the _King Arthur_, her husband's ship, hadbeen blown up in the North Sea, and that he was among the lost.
So the call was coming to me more sharply than I had yet heard it. WithLady Cecilia's example in mind, I said little to those about me beyondmentioning the fact. I suppose they showed me as much sympathy as thesweeping away of a mere brother-in-law demanded. They certainly saidthey were sorry, and hinted that that was what nations let themselves infor when they were so rash as to go to war.
"Think we'd ever expose our fellows like that?" was Hugh's comment. "Noton your life!"
But they didn't make a heroine of me as they did with Lady Cissie; notthat I cared about that. I only hoped that the fact that mybrother-in-law's name was in all the American accounts of the incidentwould show them that I belonged to some one, and that some one belongedto me. If it did I never perceived it. Perhaps the loss of a merecaptain in the navy was a less gallant occurrence than the death inaction of a Lord Leatherhead; perhaps we were already getting used tothe toll of war; but, whatever the reason, Lady Cissie was still, to allappearances, the only sufferer. Within a day or two a black dress was mysole reminder that the _King Arthur_ had gone down; and, even to Hugh, Imade no further reference to the catastrophe.
And then came the evening when, as Larry Strangways said on my tellinghim about it, "the fat was all in the fire."
It was the occasion of what had become the annual dinner at Mr.Brokenshire's in honor of Mrs. Billing--a splendid function. Nothingshort of a splendid function would have satisfied the old lady, who hadthe gift of making even the great afraid of her. The event was the moremagnificent for the reason that, in addition to the mother of thefavorite, a number of brother princes of finance, in Newport forconference with our host, were included among the guests. Of these onewas staying in the house, one with the Jack Brokenshires, and two at ahotel. I was seated between the two who were at the hotel because theywere socially unimportant. Even Mr. Brokenshire had sometimes to extendhis domestic hospitality to business friends for the sake of business,when perhaps he should have preferred to show his attentions in clubs.
The chief scene, if I may so call it, was played to the family alone inMildred's sitting-room, after the guests had gone; but there was acurtain-raiser at the dinner-table before the assembled company. I givebits of the conversation, not because they were important, but becauseof what they led up to.
We were twenty-four, seated on great Italian chairs, which gave each ofus the feeling of being a sovereign on a throne. It took all the men ofthe establishment, as well as those gathered in from the JackBrokenshires' and Mrs. Rossiter's, to wait on us, a detail by which inthe end I profited. The gold service had been sent down from the vaultsin New York, so that the serving-plates were gold, as well as the platesfor some of the other courses. Gold vases and bowls held the roses thatadorned the table, and gold spoons and forks were under our hands. Itwas the first time I had ever been able to notice with my own eyes hownearly the rich American can rival the state of kings and emperors.
It goes without saying that all the women had put on their best, andthat the jewels were as precious metals in the days of Solomon; theywere "nothing accounted of." Diamonds flashed, rubies broke out in fire,and emeralds said unspeakable things all up and down the table; the rowsand ropes and circlets of pearls made one think of the gates ofParadise. I was the only one not so bedecked, getting that contrast ofsimplicity which is the compensation of the poor. The ring Hugh hadgiven me, a sapphire set in diamonds, was my only ornament; and yet theneat austerity of my black evening frock rendered me conspicuous.
It also goes without saying that I had no right to be conspicuous, beingthe person of least consequence at the board. Mr. Brokenshire not onlyfelt that himself, but he liked me to feel it; and he not only liked meto feel it, but he liked others to see that his great, broad spiritadmitted me among his family and friends from noble promptings oftolerance. I was expected to play up to this generosity and to presentthe foil of humility to the glory of the other guests and the beauty ofthe table decorations.
In general I did this, and had every intention of doing it again.Nothing but what perhaps were the solecisms of my immediate neighborscaused my efforts to miscarry. I had been informed by Mrs. Brokenshirebeforehand that they were socially dull, that one of them was "awful,"and that my powers would be taxed to keep them in co
nversation. Mymettle being up, I therefore did my best.
The one who was awful proved to be a Mr. Samuel Russky, whose claim tobe present sprang from the fact that he was a member of a house that hadthe power to lend a great deal of money. He was a big man, of a mingledSlavic and Oriental cast of countenance, and had nothing more awfulabout him than a tendency to overemphasis. On my right I had Mr. John G.Thorne, whose face at a glance was as guileless as his name tillcontemplation revealed to you depth beyond depth of that peculiarastuteness of which only the American is master. I am sure that when wesat down to table neither of these gentlemen had any intention of takinga hand in my concerns, and are probably ignorant to this day of everhaving done so; but the fact remains.
It begins with my desire to oblige Mrs. Brokenshire by trying to makethe dinner a success. Having to lift the heaviest corner, so to speak, Igave myself to the task first with one of my neighbors and then with theother. They responded so well that as early as when the terrapin wasreached I was doing it with both. As there was much animation about thetable, there was nothing at that time to call attention to our talk.
Naturally, it was about the war. From the war we passed to the attitudeof the United States toward the struggle; and from that what could I dobut glide to the topics as to which I felt myself a mouthpiece for LarryStrangways? It was a chance. Here were two men obviously of someinfluence in the country, and neither of them of very strongconvictions, so far as I could judge, on any subject but that offloating foreign bonds. As the dust from a butterfly's wing might turnthe scale with one or both of them, I endeavored to throw at least thatmuch weight on the side of a British and American entente.
At something I said, Mr. Russky, with the slightest hint of a Yiddishpronunciation, complained that I spoke as if all Americans were"Anglo-Zaxons"; whereas it was well known that the "Anglo-Zaxon" elementamong them was but a percentage, which was destined to grow less.
"I'm not putting it on that ground," I argued, with some zeal, taking upa point as to which one of Larry Strangways's letters had enlightenedme. "I see well enough that the American ideal isn't one of nationality,but of principle. When the federation of the States was completed it wason the basis not of a common Anglo-Saxon origin, but on that of theessential unity of mankind. Mere nationality was left out of thequestion. All nations were welcomed, with the idea of welding them intoone."
"And England," Mr. Russky declared, somewhat more loudly than wasnecessary for my hearing him, "is still bound up in her Anglo-Zaxondon."
"Not a bit of it!" I returned. "Her spirit is exactly the same as thatof this country. Except this country, where is there any other of whichthe gates and ports and homes and factories have been open to allnations as hers have been? They've landed on her shores in thousands andthousands, without passports and without restraint, welcomed andprotected even when they've been taking the bread out of the bornEnglishman's mouth. Look at the number of foreigners they've beenobliged to round up since the war began--for the simple reason thatthey'd become so many as to be a peril. It's the same not only in theBritish Islands, but in every part of the British Empire. Always thesame reception for all, with liberty for all. My own country, inproportion to its population, is as full of citizens of foreign birth asthis is. They've been fathered and mothered from the minute they landedat Halifax. Poles and Ruthenians and Slovaks and Icelanders have beengiven the same advantages as ourselves. I'm not boasting of this, Mr.Russky. I'm only saying that, though we've never defined the principlein a constitution, our instinct toward mankind is the same as yours."
It was here Mr. Thorne broke in, saying that sympathy in the UnitedStates was all for France.
"I can understand that," I said. "You often find in a family that thesympathy of each of the members is for some one outside. But thatdoesn't keep them from being a family, or from acting in importantmoments with a family's solidarity."
"And, personally," Mr. Thorne went on, "I don't care for England."
I laughed politely in his face.
"And do you, a business man, say that? I thought business was carried onindependently of personal regard. You might conceivably not like Mr.Warren or Mr. Casemente"--I named the two other banker guests--"or evenMr. Brokenshire; but you do business with them as if you loved them, andquite successfully, too. In the same way the Briton and the Americanmight put personal fancies out of the question and co-operate for greatends."
"Ah, but, young lady," Mr. Russky exclaimed, so noisily as to drawattention, "you forget that we're far from the scene of Europeandisputes, and that our wisest course is to keep out of them!"
I fell back again on what I had learned from Larry Strangways.
"But you're not far from the past of mankind. You inherit that as muchas any European; and it isn't an inheritance that can be limitedgeographically." I still quoted one of Larry Strangways's letters,knowing it by heart. "Every Russian and German and Jew and Italian andScotchman who lands in New York brings a portion of it with him andbinds the responsibility of the New World more closely to the sins ofthe Old. Oceans and continents will not separate us from sins. As we cannever run away from our past, Americans must help to expiate what theyand their ancestors have done in the countries from which they came.This isn't going to be a local war or a twentieth-century war. It's thestruggle of all those who have had to bear the burdens of the worldagainst those who have made them bear them."
"If that was the case," Mr. Russky said, doubtfully, "Americans would beall on one side."
"They will be all on one side--when they see it. The question is, Willthey see it soon enough?"
Being so interested I didn't notice that our immediate neighbors werelistening, nor did I observe, what Cissie Boscobel told me afterward,that Hugh was dividing disquieting looks between me and his father. Idid try to divert Mr. Thorne to giving his attention to Mrs. Burke, whowas his neighbor on the right, but I couldn't make him take the hint. Itwas, in fact, he who said:
"We've too many old grudges against England to keep step with her now."
I smiled engagingly.
"But you've no old grudges against the British Empire, have you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've no old grudges against Canada, or Australia, or the West Indies,or New Zealand, or the Cape?"
"N-no."
"Nor even against Scotland or Wales or Ireland?"
"N-no."
"You recognize in all those countries a spirit more or less akin to yourown, and one with which you can sympathize?"
"Y-yes."
"Then isn't that my point? You speak of England, and you see thesouthern end of an island between the North Sea and the Atlantic; butthat's all you see. You forget Scotland and Ireland and Canada andAustralia and South Africa. You think I'm talking of a country threethousand miles away, whereas it comes right up to your doors. It's onthe borders of Maine and Michigan and Minnesota, and all along yourline. That isn't Canada alone; it's the British Empire. It's the countrywith which you Americans have more to do than with any other in theworld. It's the one you have to think of first. You may like some otherbetter, but you can't get away from having it as your most pressingconsideration the minute you pass your own frontiers. That," I declared,with a little laugh, "is what makes my entente important."
"Important for England or for America?" Mr. Russky, as a citizen of thecountry he thought had most to give, was on his guard.
"Important for the world!" I said, emphatically. "England andAmerica--the British Empire and the United States--are both secondary inwhat I'm trying to say. I speak of them only as the two that can mosteasily line up together. When they've done that the rest will followtheir lead. It's not to be an offensive and defensive alliance, ordirected against any other power. It would be a starting-point, thebeginning of world peace. It would also be an instance of what could beaccomplished in the long run among all the nations of the world bymutual tolerance and common sense."
As I made a little mock oratorical flourish there was a laug
h from ourpart of the table. Some one sitting opposite called out, "Good!" Idistinctly heard Mrs. Billing's cackle of a "Brava!" I ought to say,too, that, afraid of even the appearance of "holding forth," I had keptmy tone lowered, addressing myself to my left-hand companion. If othersstopped talking and listened it was because of the compulsion of thetheme. It was a burning theme. It was burning in hearts and minds thathad never given it a conscious thought; and, now that for a minute itwas out in the open, it claimed them. True, it was an occasion meant tobe kept free from the serious; but even in Newport we were beginning tounderstand that occasions kept free from the serious were over--perhapsfor the rest of our time.
After that the conversation in our neighborhood became general. With theexception of Hugh, who was not far away, every one joined in, aptly orinaptly, as the case might be, with pros and cons and speculations andanecdotes and flashes of wit, and a far deeper interest than I shouldhave predicted. As Mrs. Brokenshire whispered after we regained thedrawing-room, it had made the dinner go; and a number of women whom Ihadn't known before came up and talked to me.
But all that was only the curtain-raiser. It was not till the familywere assembled in Mildred's room up-stairs that the real play began.