The Gay Adventure: A Romance
that the play was soon to be taken off: when he saw an announcement in
the newspaper that the Macready Theater was closed, he wondered if his
hostess would join him at dinner that night. If she _did_, why, it would
be a damning fact. But she did not, either on that or any subsequent
day. He breathed more freely, and went on waiting as patiently as he
might.
The task of learning the house, grounds and personnel did not take long.
The servants were an aged cook, whom he never saw; a gardener; Forbes
the footman; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Wetherby, a silent faded woman
of over sixty, whose recreation outside her duties was the game of
patience. A sad and oppressive creature, she, whose life had been a
tragedy. The details were not given, though Lionel gathered that it had
been a very ordinary tragedy, but enough to wither her life and make her
shun her kind. Both the men servants were dumb--an odd circumstance, but
Lionel was getting used to oddity. He expressed surprise one day, hoping
to draw out his hostess. She was frank about the matter: "They are dumb,
poor creatures, but their affliction is my gain. Most servants gossip or
argue. Mine do neither, and that is why I was at some pains to engage
them. It works very well, though a stranger is naturally surprised at
first."
The more he saw of her, the more he admired. The primness of her
attitude, when he began to know her better, struck him as being anything
but ineradicable; she was in some things exceedingly human. They were
talking one afternoon of Christian Science, and Lionel asked her if she
really believed there was no such thing as pain.
"Of course," she said promptly. "Pain is merely ignorance."
"Then you must admit," he said, "that there can be no pleasure."
She was puzzled. "How so?"
"Everything must have its foil. Good requires evil as its negative, or
there is--nothing. So to feel pleasure one must postulate pain.
Otherwise you are incapable of pleasure."
"Oh, but I'm _not_!" she said impulsively, and laughed.
"Then where are your science and your logic?"
"You mean I am a woman and illogical." She parried, evading the dilemma.
"When you understand our true position you will realize how fallacious
are your arguments. Now, what do you think of _Pendennis_?"
He laughed again, but talked Thackeray willingly enough. When, a few
moments later, she idly plucked a rose and pricked her finger on a
thorn, giving a little cry, he said humorously, "Ignorance, not pain!"
She disdained to notice him, but smelt the rose luxuriously. "The
illusion of pleasure?" he suggested, pressing the thrust home. Her eyes
sparkled with indignation, but he smiled into them unafraid. They were
getting on capitally, he felt, and it was pleasant to find Miss
Arkwright so much of a woman. She would pay for flirtatious treatment,
he thought villainously, reflecting what a shame it was that lips so
alluring should be unkissed. Lionel, you may have observed, was an
adaptable creature. Fickle? Surely not. He had mapped his course and
was steering strictly according to compass. While Beatrice was still a
grass-widow the more innocent paths of dalliance showed no warning
board, "Trespassers will be Prosecuted." They were not applauded, it is
true--and here he readily confessed his weakness,--but they were not
forbidden. So why, in the strict execution of the charge laid upon him,
may he not try to persuade Miss Arkwright to take a less frigid view of
life? The reader, virtuous soul, may censure: I can only record. Yet,
too, it was something in the nature of a drug to his conscience. When he
had time to think (and he had plenty of time for that) he loathed the
idea of being there under false pretenses, playing the spy. It was all
very well arguing that it was for the sake of Beatrice, but it would
have been an easier task if Winifred had not been so charming. She was
too charming, but it had to be done.... Of course, he ought to have
refused a hint of dalliance, but one step leads to another, and man is
frail. Besides, it had not gone very far ... not far enough to hurt
either him or her.
One mundane detail must be given in this chapter. The morning after his
arrival he had written to London for a supply of clothes. For the
credit of the Blair side of the family he felt that some of Beatrice's
notes ought to be spent on an adequate wardrobe. They came the day
after, giving color to the excuse that his valet had got drunk and
pawned the contents of his flat two hours after his leaving London. Miss
Arkwright did not seem to think it strange; anything might happen in
that wicked city. But she considered the Homburg hat a little "too
continental." This was before her education had begun in earnest.
CHAPTER XVII
OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE
It is all very well to be urged to suspect, for, within reason, nothing
is easier. The world, in the process of our education, deals out so many
hard knocks that speedily we begin to look with dubious eyes on every
stranger--sometimes, alas! even upon our friends. We suspect the motives
of Smith, who recommends a first-rate cigar: does he get a commission?
We suspect Brown, who asks us to drop in any evening: has he a
marriageable daughter? Jones lauds the latest novel: is he the anonymous
author? Robinson advises the purchase of Consolidated Stumers: is he
trying to make us "hold the baby"? Suspicion is epidemic. What the world
wants is a host of missionary spirits to say, "For goodness' sake do
drop suspicion for a while and believe in your fellow man! Smith really
does imagine himself a judge of tobacco; Brown, as a matter of fact,
thinks you quite a pleasant chap, and his daughter is engaged; Jones
never wrote a line in his life, save on a check; and Robinson for once
has inside information. Give suspicion a rest!" Ah! if only the other
fellow would!
Lionel had been told to suspect, and at first found the task no harder
than you or I should find it. But apart from the strong inducement to
forego suspicion--viz., the physical and mental attractions of Miss
Arkwright--every day made it more difficult to sustain the suspicious
attitude. The early surprises--the "out of bounds" rule, the dumb
servants, the seclusion of his hostess and the like--gave him plenty to
wonder at, rich food for a seeker of garbage. But usage made the odd
seem ordinary, and Miss Arkwright always had an explanation. The
servants had already been accounted for; the prohibition of the village
might be a whim (though of course he was not satisfied with this), her
own seclusion he guessed, from a hint here and there, was due to a
disappointment in early youth. But it was really custom that staled the
infinite variety of the first surprises; he had to accept the routine of
The Quiet House, and could not be expected to whip up a daily supply of
suspicions. One can imagine, perhaps, a Jew in a medieval baron's
dungeon waking peacefully and asking his jailer, "What is it to-day,
Cedric? A tooth out, the strappado, or the rack? Just a tooth? Good."
The analogy is anything but exact, for Lionel did not get a succession
of thrills. The daily wonder as to _why_ she forbade him the village;
_why_ she did not receive any local god, parson, squire, or doctor;
_why_ she did this or that, dwindled imperceptibly. He did not
consciously relax: he had to adjust himself to the new conditions; but
the effort at adjustment grew less laborious, and soon was in some
danger of ceasing altogether.
Not that he abandoned his vigilance. Beatrice had enjoined him with
unnecessary and vain repetition to watch her sister. He gladly obeyed.
The English language is susceptible of many interpretations, and who
could dogmatize on the precise value to be attached to the word
"watch!"? Lionel "watched" all the time, but his watching at the end of
a fortnight was very different from the early vigils. He learned nothing
from watching, save that Winifred Arkwright was a delightful creature,
with hair of such and such a color and softness--eyes of such and such a
sweetness, and so forth. Things, you observe, of no importance from
Lukos' point of view, though a chronicler is bound to state them,
however briefly.
They became good friends. There was no hint of boredom on either side,
no suggestion that the visit was being prolonged a little queerly.
Lionel, you may be sure, did not offer to go: he was obeying Beatrice
(who had not written again, though he sent a daily bulletin to London),
and was in no hurry to study fresh characters. It was no ill reward of
virtue to find a replica of Beatrice to keep his devotion alive. A
brutal phrase,--too brutal. His devotion was there, hidden below the
surface, but necessarily quiescent as long as Lukos lived. That might be
for years; therefore, why not sun himself in Beatrice's rays by proxy?
A statue can partly compensate for the loss of an adored: even a
photograph is better than nothing. But a real woman,--a living
replica ... Lionel thought himself in luck. He mentioned this in one of
his letters, hoping to show how strong and faithful he was. He did not
mention it to Winifred. Even a lay figure has feelings.
A lay figure ... was she merely that? The question came to him more than
once during that peaceful fortnight. He faced it without a blush, and up
to the present had always been able to give an affirmative answer. His
memory of Beatrice and the unnecessary warning in her letter enabled him
to watch, admire and lightly dally with the rose-weaved chains. He
laughed at the warning: he was a man, of course, and no stronger than
his fellows; but fancy being in danger of falling in love with Miss
Arkwright! In love--real, genuine love ... absurd! Why, he was not in
love with Beatrice. Was he? N ... no.... He was a free man--hurrah!
At the end of ten days he could utter the mental hurrah with a braver
note: Beatrice was a darling, whom he hoped to see again soon. But in
love? No. In love with Miss Arkwright, then? (In his mind he now called
her Winifred.) No. Of course not. Absurd. Was she not a lay figure?....
Stay!--that was hardly the choicest of expressions, hardly respectful or
considerate. She was a delightful lady whom it was his painful duty to
watch. But one must not speak of her as a lay figure: that is crude,
elementary ... containing a grain of truth, one admits, but likely to be
misinterpreted by the vulgar herd. "A peerless proxy" would be more in
keeping.
And the proxy, what of her? How had she fared during her unusual
fortnight? Patently, anything but ill. Under the sun of Lionel's
sympathetic kindliness her virgin coldness melted. They talked together
on every subject--men and women, books, art, music. Their views often
clashed, but interest is sustained by conflict; complete agreement makes
conversation a superfluity. Their conversation rarely descended to small
talk, though more than once it became almost a quarrel.
A quarrel of friends, be it understood,--a quarrel that left no
bitterness behind, but made the next meeting more stored with interest,
explanation, withdrawal, even partial conversion. Their chief debatable
country was the stage; and at last Lionel had the happiness of winning
the admission that the stage had possibly improved of recent years. A
great admission for her! He paid his debt handsomely by a promise to
read a book (five hundred and thirty-seven pages, eight volumes) on
Christian Science. She gave him the book next day. Alas! it now reposes
in the present historian's drawer, the leaves still innocent of the
paper-knife.
So a pretty comradeship sprang up between a cloistered lady and an
ineligible worldling. The latter had never a penny, had not so long ago
vowed himself to the service of another, declared upon his honor that