Read Ebook: The confessions of a well-meaning woman by McKenna Stephen

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Ebook has 505 lines and 70156 words, and 11 pages

"Oh, I'm devoted to Phyllida," he answered.

And then I rehearsed these dinners and plays...

"It's not my business," I said. "Phyllida regards me as a lodging-house keeper, but, if your intentions are honourable, I think you should make them known to my brother, Lord Brackenbury." ..

"But I've enjoyed it," I said. "I'm only sorry you weren't able to go out with the rest."

At tea he was so silent that I felt it was all sinking in very deep. At the end he said:

"Goodness me, no!," I said. "Thirty years ago I may have counted for something there; but now I live under my own little vine and fig-tree; I see no one; I'm out of touch; you'd find me very old-fashioned, I fear."

"You've been very kind to me," he said, "and I want you to add to your kindness. I'm in love with Phyllida, as you know; and she--I think she quite likes me. Lord Brackenbury and every one here have been simply ripping. Please tell me what you think about it."

"Do you mean, will she marry you?," I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I should certainly hope to do that," he answered.

"We've all of us had to make sacrifices," I answered, "and the war ought not to be made either an excuse or--an opportunity."

"What do you mean by 'opportunity', Lady Ann?," he asked.

"I don't feel I can help you," I said. "Times have changed, and my ideas are out of date. My brother may be different; have you spoken to him?" ...

"If she's still unmarried when I've made good," he said, "it will be time to begin writing then."

"Come, come, my dear!," I said, "it would have been a very unsuitable match; and, if you haven't the sense to realize it, he has."

She turned on me like a fury... I don't know what was in his letter of good-bye; but I suppose it was the usual romantic promise that he'd go away and make his fortune and then come back to claim her. Phyllida evidently treated it quite seriously...

"If he'd been mine for a week or a day..." she kept sobbing. "I know he'll be killed." ..

Well, he wasn't the only man in the world, but nothing that I could say was right...

"I think he behaved very properly," I said. "He did me the honour to ask my advice; and, if I see him again, I shall tell him so."

LADY ANN SPENWORTH TOUCHES RELUCTANTLY ON DIVORCE

It is the fashion to say that my brother-in-law was more sinned against than sinning. Does not that formula always put you on your guard, so to say? He was a mere boy when he succeeded to the title; an immense estate like Cheniston offered too many temptations; his good looks made him a prey for all the harpies; he was too kindly ever to say "no" even to the most dissolute of his associates. And so forth and so on... Goodness me! Arthur--my husband--was two years younger; and, if his old father's iniquitous will did not leave him enough money to tempt the hangers-on, at least he did not play ducks and drakes with what he had. It is more a question of character than of income. And Arthur had his share of good looks, as you can see from Will. No! Whatever Spenworth did, he could always buy indulgence. Establish for yourself the reputation of "a good fellow"--whatever that may mean--; and you will walk on roses all your life...

"Oh, it's a put-up job," said Will. "As Aunt Kathleen hasn't produced a son, Spenworth wants to get free of her and marry some one else. A man at the club told me that he was allowing her twenty thousand a year for his liberty."

Really and truly, the interest that total strangers take in other people's affairs the moment that sinister word "divorce" is pronounced... Within two days the story was on every one's lips: Spenworth was the one topic of conversation, and everything was known. I think it is called a petition for restitution. Alas! for twenty years it would always have been easy to produce evidence of Spenworth's vagaries; now, I gathered, he was to "desert" Kathleen and then refuse to obey some order to come back. I don't profess to understand the subject; it is wholly distasteful to me...

"And what then?," I asked.

"And now perhaps Cheniston is going to have an heir after all," said Will.

"I cannot discuss this," I told Will.

"I couldn't do it if I didn't love him," she cried.

And, if you please, I was left to understand that she was effacing herself, giving him up and making way for another woman simply because she fancied that he would be happier. I confess I should have had little patience with her, if she had not been so pitiable. Life was a blank without Spenworth.

"It's for him," she said.

And I verily believe that, if he had told her literally to cut her throat, she would have done it...

"If she's not careful," Will said to me one day, "she'll cook her own goose as well as Spenworth's."

I had to ask him to express his fears in simpler language.

Do you ever feel that you have strayed into a new world? The fact of divorce... And then this light-hearted pairing off: Spenworth with some woman who had been setting her cap at him for years, Kathleen with the love of her youth. They had lost all reverence for marriage, the family; it was a game, a dance--like that figure in the lancers, where you offer your right hand first and then your left... I made Will explain the whole position to me again and again until I had it quite clear in my mind. The King's Proctor, as he described him--rather naughtily--, was "a licensed spoil-sport", who intervened in cases where the divorce was being arranged by collusion or where both parties had sinned.

"The office seems a sinecure," I commented.

Those two thousand petitions... They stick in my throat.

"As a rule people don't take risks," Will explained. "And it's not often to the advantage of an outsider to come in and upset the apple-cart. You or the guv'nor or I," he said, "could do a lot of mischief, if we liked; but we're interested parties, and it wouldn't look well."

"She's a bigger fool than I took her for," was all he would say. "She's endangering her own future and Spenworth's and playing into our hands if we chose to take advantage of our opportunity."

"Oh, Lady Ann, I've been talking to Kitty about that," he answered. I think "jaunty" is the word to describe his manner; great assurance, good humour, no thought that any one would even dream of giving him a rebuff. "We were thinking," he continued, "that it would be such fun if we could come too. I have a car, we wouldn't get in your way; but we can hardly go off unattended, and I quite agree with what you say about not compromising Kitty in London."

"Drive carefully!," Captain Laughton called out, as we started from Norton. "It will be the devil and all, if anything happens to you."

"Temptation only seems strong to those who do not wish to withstand it," I said.

Brackenbury had the consideration to ask if I would not stay the night. I explained the very delicate position in which we had left Kathleen and Captain Laughton.

I would have stayed if Will could have stayed with me. I would have gone if that had been the only means of keeping by his side. Do you know, I had the feeling that in the length and breadth of that house he was the only one who cared whether I was well or ill, whether I lived or died ... almost...

"Well, some one's got to go," said Brackenbury with unnecessary impatience. "It's all up, if you leave those two without any one to keep them in countenance."

"We will both go," I said.

When the car was ordered, we went into the hall and waited... After about twenty minutes Brackenbury rang to find out the reason for the delay. The servant came back to say that part of what I think is called the magneto was missing. I chose my word carefully: not "injured" or "worn-out," but "missing"--as though some one had invaded the garage and removed the requisite part...

Brackenbury seemed to lose his head altogether.

"Aren't you afraid he may lose his way?," asked Phyllida.

I said nothing... I believe I murmured to myself: "You wicked child"; but, literally, I couldn't speak. I couldn't see ... or hear. Brackenbury was making furious arrangements. As in a dream I saw Ruth being wrapped in a fur-coat... A car came to the door and drove away... I asked my boy to ascertain which was my room and to lend me the support of his arm up the stairs...

Will and I returned to London by train. Phyllida was in the hall, reading the telegram, as I appeared.

"It nearly came off," she said. "I'm sorry--for your sake--that you've had a disappointment. Time, you will find, works wonders; and some day, perhaps, you will be more grateful than I can expect to find you now. If I were you, I would go right away..."

But you will see that anything she says in her present state, poor child, must be accepted with charitable reserve.

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