the giddy months frolicked away like youths and maidens dancing on a golden ground on one of povis de chavanne’s friezes. flirting, laughing, gaming, waltzing, shooting, hunting, driving, dressing—above all dressing—the seasons succeeded each other with breathless rapidity for mouse kenilworth, and hundreds of fair women like her.
money grew scarcer, credit grew rarer, billy became less easy to bleed, harry seemed to grow duller and less good-looking, cabmen became shyer still of cocky, and the old duke more unwilling to sign and sell; but she still all the same enjoyed herself, still carried high her golden head, and still crammed forty-eight hours into every twenty-four. occasionally she did a little philanthropy; inaugurated a railway line, visited some silk mills, or laid the stone of a church. the silver barrow she received made a pretty flower-stand, the pieces of silk offered to her were also useful in their way, and when she had opened a church she felt she had a dispensation for months from attending church services. only egypt she could not manage this year. egypt is a pastime which requires a good deal of ready money, and she had to console herself with hunting in the midlands and shooting rocketers in the damp english woods; she did not really care about shooting, but she found zest in it because ronald and the old duke hated the idea of women killing things, and even brancepeth disapproved it.
she went down again more than once to vale royal and went out with the hounds to whose maintenance her host had subscribed so liberally. but in february a long black frost sent hunters to their straw and riders up to town, and she opened her house in stanhope street as the session opened at westminster. she had the children up also; partly because she was really fond of them, partly because children poser you, and touch the heart and the purse-strings of your relatives.
[228]she disliked the town in winter; she wanted to be in cairo or at monte carlo or rome; but, being in london, she made the best of it and took her graceful person to any place where she thought she could be amused. there are many dinners in london when the frost binds the country in its iron bonds and the horses champ and fret in their stalls, and the herons starve by the frozen streams, and the dead kingfishers lie like crumpled heaps of broken iris-flowers on the cruel ice of their native ponds.
“has billy run dry?” asked her lord one day when their financial difficulties were pressing more hardly than usual, and an unpaid cabman had threatened bow street.
“no,” said mouse curtly. “but the young woman is always there. she’s as sharp as a needle.”
“why didn’t you splice her to ronnie?”
“he won’t even look at her.”
“how exactly like him!” said cocky. “if there’s a thing he might do to oblige one he always kicks at it.”
hurstmanceaux always seemed to them odiously unfeeling and huffy; nevertheless, as they always did in their troubles, they sent to him to come and speak to them one day when their creditors had been more offensive than usual. he was so rarely in town that they agreed it was only prudent to take advantage of his being there for a week or two on account of evidence he had to give before a house of lords committee on an irish land question.
what daddy gwyllian had said once in the smoking-room at otterbourne house, and had more than once since then repeated, dwelt in hurstmanceaux’s memory, and made him doubt whether it was indeed worth while to go on impoverishing himself for people who had neither gratitude nor scruple.
after all, if the duke of otterbourne’s eldest son went into the bankruptcy court, it was the duke of otterbourne’s affair.
it would be cruelly hard on otterbourne, who was himself one of the most upright, honorable and conscientious of gentlemen. but it would be still harder on himself, hurstmanceaux, after his long self-denial and self-sacrifice to find himself in queer street for sake of his brother-in-law, a brother-in-law whom he considered, in his own[229] forcible language, not fit to be touched with a pair of tongs.
if they would only retire awhile and retrench they could pull themselves together. cocky had an estate in the west of ireland, entirely unsaleable for the best of reasons that nobody would buy it, but which hurstmanceaux considered a very heaven upon earth, for its views of land and sea were sublime, and its myrtle and bay thickets, its pine and cork woods, had almost the beauty of cintra with the vast billows of the atlantic rolling on the rocky shores at their feet. if they would go to this place, called black hazel, and live there for a few years, their affairs would come round, and mouse would be taken out of that vicious circle of unending expenditure and compromising expedient in which women of the world turn like squirrels in a cage.
to the innocence of this simple masculine mind it seemed quite possible that if such a course were suggested to her she would follow it. she was fond of the children; black hazel would be a paradise for them; she liked sport—black hazel offered quail, woodcock, blackcock, teal in abundance, and both fresh water and deep sea fishing to any extent.
he enumerated its attractions enthusiastically to himself as if he were an auctioneer endeavoring to sell the estate, and, with the naïveté of an honest man, imagined that after all his sister could only need to have her duty clearly shown her to do it.
“the finest thoroughbred mare will chew dry reeds when she finds she can’t get hay or oats,” he thought, his mind reverting to his memories of the egyptian campaign, which he had shared in as an amateur. the brother of lady kenilworth should have known that women of the world are more “kittle cattle” than even blood-mares; but he did not realize this.
he knew that she was unreasonable, wildly extravagant, very selfish, and so accustomed to have her own way that she thought the stars would pause in their courses to please her; but still, even she would stop short of absolute social suicide, he thought.
so when next he received a note from his sister asking[230] him to come to her on a matter of importance, which always with her meant money, he took his way to the conference determined to tell her frankly that the retreat to the west of ireland was the only possible refuge for her, and to keep well in his memory the sensible warning and counsel of daddy gwyllian.
when he got to the house in stanhope street he found cocky waiting to see him before he went out. this fact alone was ominous and extremely disagreeable to him, the presence of cocky, in his wife’s morning-room, invariably indicating not only that money was wanted, which was chronic, but that some more than usually unpleasant dilemma had to be met.
cocky’s paper was all over the place, as he would have expressed it; and very often in hands so disreputable that its rescue was a matter as compromising as it was costly.
when he was walking about amongst the china and the trinkets, and the flowers and the lacquer work, with his thin pale aquiline profile against the light, and the blenheims barking furiously at him as they invariably did, his presence was the certain sign of something impending which might get with most odious prominence into the newspapers.
“if he’s forged anybody’s name, i only hope to heavens that it’s only mine,” thought hurstmanceaux: he always expected cocky to come to forgery sooner or later. in point of fact, cocky had come to it very early in his career, as early as his eton days, when he had been ducked in the river by the comrade with whose name he had taken such liberties.
with his hands in his trowser pockets and his little frail person flitting amongst the chinoiseries and the heaths and orchids, he peered up at this moment at hurstmanceaux where he stood on the hearth, very tall, very stern, very unsympathetic, and absolutely silent.
“what a glum brute he is,” cocky thought of the man to whom he had owed his own social salvation a score of times. “what an uncommon nasty thing human nature must be that it must always look so deuced unpleasant whenever it finds anybody in trouble.”
cocky was of opinion that it was the first duty of other[231] men to pick himself out of the mud whenever he got into it, and that it should not only be the duty of his neighbors but their pleasure.
“such a hard-hearted brute is ronnie,” he thought. “only lives for himself and don’t spend sixpence a day. i do hate selfishness and stinginess.”
the blenheims at this instant scampered into the room, and flew at his ankles with that strong disapproval of him which they never failed to show.
“oh lord, you little beasts!” he cried, as their shrill voices rent the air.
hurstmanceaux looked on in grim approval of the dogs’ discrimination, whilst his brother-in-law wasted kicks in all directions, the blenheims avoiding them with the happiest dexterity and returning undaunted to the charge.
the entrance of their mistress effected a diversion in the warfare and relaxed the contemptuous sternness of her brother’s face.
“so kind of you, dear ronnie,” she said sweetly as she came up to him softly and brought a sense of fragrance and freshness, like a dewy rose, as she came straight from her bath and its opponax soap and eau de verveine.
“they’ve torn my trowsers,” said cocky, looking down at the marks of their small sharp teeth upon frayed cloth.
“you know they dislike you,” said his wife coldly. “why do you provoke them?”
“hang it all, i’m their master,” murmured cocky, eyeing his ankles ruefully.
“oh, dear no, you are not,” said mouse very uncivilly; “i never taught them to think so for a moment.”
“if you only sent for me to hear you quarrel over the ownership of the blenheims——” said hurstmanceaux. he was angry; he had to attend a royal commission at two o’clock, and he wanted to be instead on the river, watching the practice of the eton eight of which his youngest brother was captain. and here he was, shut up at half-past twelve with two bickering people and two barking lap-dogs, with the prospect of hearing for an hour of debts and difficulties which he had neither the power nor the will to meet or dissipate. “pray let me hear the worst at once,” he added. “is it the old bailey, or only[232] the bankruptcy court, that cocky is going to show himself in this time to an admiring society?”
his sister looked at him and saw that he was not in a pleasant mood; but she did not mind his moods, they always ended in giving her what she wanted. he was an intrinsically generous and compassionate man, and such tempers are always kindly to their own hurt.
“damned ungrateful fellow he is!” reflected cocky. “as if there wasn’t one court that he ought to bless me for never going into.”
but he said nothing aloud, and left the recital of their difficulties to his wife.
she plunged immediately into the narrative of their woes and needs, the blenheims, reduced to silence through want of breath, sitting with their tongues out and their heads on one side, listening attentively as though they were two auditors in bankruptcy.
hurstmanceaux listened also in an unsympathetic silence which to his companions seemed to bode no good to themselves. there was nothing new in the relation; debts have seven-leagued boots, as everyone knows, and people who spend a few thousands every year in railway journeys, but do not pay their tailor, shoemaker, and greengrocer, realize this with unpleasant frequency. then there were debts of honor in all directions, these being the only form of honor which was left to the delinquents as hurstmanceaux thought, but charitably forebode to say.
he looked at his sister whilst she spoke, admiring her appearance whilst he scarcely attended to her words because he knew their import beforehand so painfully well. what a terribly expensive animal was a modern woman of the world! as costly as an ironclad and as complicated as a theatrophone. the loveliest product of an entirely artificial state, but the most ruinous, and the most irritating to those whom she ruined.
he told himself that daddy gwyllian had been entirely right. and he hardened his heart against this beautiful apparition which with dewy lips, perfumed hair, and a delicious suggestion of a nymph fresh from a waterbrook, stood before him in that charming attitude of contrition[233] and candor with which from her nursery days he had always known her tell her very largest lies.
“so all the dirt you’ve eaten hasn’t done you any good,” he said curtly, after some minutes of silence.
“what can you possibly mean?” said mouse.
cocky chuckled feebly. he knew what his brother-in-law meant.
“we can’t bleed billy every day,” he murmured in an explanatory tone.
“you seem to think you can bleed your father and myself whenever you please,” said hurstmanceaux in his most incisive tones.
“lord, what else is one’s family for?” said cocky candidly.
his wife looked with impatience at the clock, for she had appointments which were agreeable.
“really, i think we’ve told you everything,” she said to her brother. “it is not nice of you to insult us in our troubles, but i am sure you mean to help us in the end, don’t you, ronnie?”
“i am extremely sorry,” said hurstmanceaux. “but it is wholly out of my power to help you this time. your debts are enormous. the only possible chance for you is to give up london life, and life in the world altogether, and go and retrench in the country. why not at black hazel? it would be admirable for the children; and your creditors, if they knew you were really economizing, could probably be induced to wait. i see no other prospect possible.”
“don’t be a fool, ronald,” said his sister curtly, throwing her handkerchief rolled in a ball to the dogs.
her husband stared through his eye-glass. “ah—er—i thought you would make some practical suggestion; something feasible, you know!”
hurstmanceaux frowned.
“so i do. when people are in your position they always withdraw to their black hazel or whatever their retreat is called. they don’t go on living in the world. black hazel is a delightful place. it will be much better than a second floor in florence, or a boarding house in[234] dresden, which many people come to who are in your plight.”
his sister looked at her watch.
“my dear ronald, i have no more time to spare you,” she said rather insolently. “and if you can suggest nothing more sensible than a second floor in florence, or a bog in ireland, i shall lose little by not hearing anything more that you may have to say.”
“i have given you my opinion and my advice,” said hurstmanceaux stiffly. “you can live at black hazel tolerably well, and in a way becoming your position; the air is very fine and the children will thrive admirably. but if you persist in continuing your present rate of expenditure——”
his sister opened the door and disappeared, calling the blenheims with her.
“lord, excuse me, ronnie, but why do you talk that rot?” said her husband, peering up through his glasses at his brother-in-law. “what on earth is the use of going on in that way to her? out o’ london? down in the west of ireland? your sister and me? oh, lord!”
the idea of his exile from “life” so tickled his fancy that he laughed till he choked himself.
“black hazel! mouse and i and her chicks at black hazel! oh, good lord, ronnie! you won’t beat that if you try for a week o’ sundays!”
he chuckled feebly but merrily.
“what is there to laugh at?” said hurstmanceaux. “is the bankruptcy court more agreeable than a country place which is your own and where you will be your own master?”
but cocky continued to laugh convulsively, holding his side and coughing.
from his great height hurstmanceaux looked down in scorn on the speaker.
“pray,” he said coldly, “do you ever ask how your wife gets the ready money she has to carry on with?”
kenilworth shook his head.
“not i. mutual what do-ye-call it and non-interference is the only sound basis for domestic peace.”
he spoke with an expression of implicit seriousness and[235] good faith; only his left eye winked knowingly, as if he had said something very amusing indeed. hurstmanceaux wondered if it would be within decent manners to kick one’s brother-in-law on his own hearth.
“you are an unutterable scoundrel, cocky,” he said, with an effort mastering his impulse to use acts instead of words.
kenilworth remained unmoved.
“that’s libel. a beak would fine you a fiver for it,” he said placidly. “do you happen to have got a fiver about you?”
“go and ask brancepeth for one,” said hurstmanceaux, white with rage.
“oh, lord!” said the other innocently. “i’ve had his last ages ago. he is a very poor devil is harry, a very poor devil, else we shouldn’t be in this strait.”
hurstmanceaux approached him so closely that cocky, whose nerves were shaken by much absinthe and angostura, trembled.
“i would sooner my sister were on the pavement of the haymarket than that she were the wife of such a cur as you.”
cocky breathed more freely.
“that is a very exaggerated remark,” he murmured. “you are so very stagy, my dear ronald, so very stagy. you should have lived a century or two ago.”
“i am ashamed to be of the same generation as yourself,” said hurstmanceaux sternly. “great heavens, man! you come of a good stock; you will be chief of a great house; your father is a gentleman in every fibre of his being; how can you endure to live as you do with your very name a by-word for the cabmen in the street? there is not a servant in your house, not a match-seller on your area steps, not a stableboy in your mews, who does not know the dishonor which you alone affect to ignore! she is my sister, i am ashamed to say; but i can do nothing with her so long as you, her husband, condone and countenance what she does. you have every power; i have none. take her to black hazel, sacrifice yourself for sake of your children, shut yourself up there, try and lead a cleanly life and make her lead an honest one.[236] cease to be the miserable thing you are—a diseased maggot living on putrefaction?”
kenilworth listened imperturbably. to be likened to a diseased maggot did not distress him; it slightly diverted him in its appositeness.
“the children?” he said softly and slowly. “you really think i ought to consider those children?”
his pale, expressionless grey eyes, becoming suddenly full of unutterable depth of expression, looked up into his brother-in-law’s and said volumes without words.
hurstmanceaux grew red to the roots of his bright curly hair. after all, the woman spoken of, if this man’s wife, was his own sister, his favorite sister, the little one whom he had carried about in his arms when a boy, up and down the tapestried galleries and the oak staircases of the dear old house at faldon.
kenilworth saw that emotion and despised it, but thought he would profit by it and do a bit of dignity.
“my dear ronnie,” he said almost seriously, “if i had married another sort of woman than your sister clare, i might have become a different sort of man. it is not likely; still, it is possible. but, you may believe me, if she had married the best man under heaven, she would have been just exactly what she is. sages and angels wouldn’t alter her. don’t you fret yourself about us. we aren’t worth it—i grant that. we are of our time, and we shall get along somehow. ta-ta, ronnie; you are a good boy. be grateful that i am what i am; if i were like you, vieux jeu, what a bother i should have made for our respective families long ago in the d. c.”
and with a low complacent chuckle at having got the best of the argument, he dived under his seat for his hat, glanced at the clock, and, with an apologetic gesture of two fingers, left hurstmanceaux alone in the morning-room with the chinoiseries and nipponiséries.
“now his conscience will work and make him miserable,” he thought, as he went across the hall with satisfaction. “after all, i said the truth, and he knows it is the truth. she is his sister, and she’s a bad a lot as there is in london, and he’ll feel he owes me something, and he’ll come down handsomely, stingy old bloke though he is. what[237] duffers those sentiment men always are to be sure. how neat i handled him. gad, if he didn’t blush like a girl!”
and cocky stepped lightly down park lane to hamilton place and entered the bachelors club “fancying himself very much,” as he would have expressed it; and quite aware that his strategy would end sooner or later in an interview more or less agreeable to his interests between his own lawyers and those of his brother-in-law.
