The Cords of Vanity. A Comedy of Shirking Read online

  "I—I almost think so,—and the horrid man looks as if he thought so, too!"

  There was a fourth interval, during which the girl made a complete and careful survey of her shoes.

  Then, all in a breath, "It could not possibly be June, of course, and you must give me until to-morrow to think about November," and a sudden flutter of skirts.

  I returned to Gridlington treading on air.

  7

  For I was, by this time, as thoroughly in love as Amadis of Gaul or Aucassin of Beaucaire or any other hero of romance you may elect to mention.

  Some two weeks earlier I would have scoffed at the notion of such a thing coming to pass; and I could have demonstrated, logically enough, that it was impossible for Robert Etheridge Townsend, with his keen knowledge of the world and of the innumerable vanities and whims of womankind, ever again to go the way of all flesh. But the problem, like the puzzle of the Eleatic philosophers, had solved itself. "Achilles cannot catch the tortoise," but he does. It was impossible for me to fall uncomfortably deep in love—but I had done so.

  And it pricked my conscience, too, that Margaret should not know I was aware of her identity. But she had chosen to play the comedy to the end, and in common with the greater part of trousered humanity, I had, after all, no insuperable objection to a rich wife; though, to do me justice, I rarely thought of her, now, as Margaret Hugonin the heiress, but considered her, in a more comprehensive fashion, as the one woman in the universe whose perfections triumphantly overpeered the skyiest heights of preciosity.

  26. He Assists in the Diversion of Birds

  1

  We met, then, in the clear May morning, with what occult trepidations I cannot say. You may depend upon it, though, we had our emotions.

  And about us, spring was marshaling her pageant, and from divers nooks, the weather-stained nymphs and fauns regarded us in candid, if preoccupied, appraisement; and above us, the clipped ilex trees were about a knowing conference. As for the birds, they were discussing us without any reticence whatever, for, more favoured of chance than imperial Solomon, they have been the confidants in any number of such affairs, and regard the way of a man with a maid as one of the most matter-of-fact occurrences in the world.

  "Here is he! here is she!" they shrilled. "See how they meet, see how they greet! Ah, sweet, sweet, sweet, to meet in the spring!" And that we two would immediately set to nest-building, they considered a foregone conclusion.

  2

  I had taken both her firm, warm hands in salutation, and held them, for a breathing-space, between my own. And my own hands seemed to me two very gross, and hulking, and raw, and red monstrosities, in contrast with their dimpled captives, and my hands appeared, also, to shake unnecessarily.

  "Now, in a moment," said I, "I am going to ask you something very important. But, first, I have a confession to make."

  And her glad, shamed eyes bemocked me. "My lord of Burleigh!" she softly breathed. "My liege Cophetua! My king Cophetua! And did you think, then, I was blind?"

  "Eh?" said I.

  "As if I hadn't known from the first!" the girl pouted; "as if I hadn't known from the very first day when you dropped your cigarette case! Ah, I had heard of you before, Peter!—of Peter, the misogynist, who was ashamed to go a-wooing in his proper guise! Was it because you were afraid I'd marry you for your money, Peter?—poor, timid Peter! But, oh, Peter, Peter, what possessed you to take the name of that notorious Robert Townsend?" she demanded, with uplifted forefinger. "Couldn't you think of a better one, Peter?—of a more respectable one, Peter? It really is a great relief to call you Peter at last. I've had to try so hard to keep from doing it before, Peter."

  And in answer, I made an inarticulate sound.

  "But you were so grave about it," the girl went on, happily, "that I almost thought you were telling the truth, Peter. Then my maid told me—I mean, she happened to mention casually that Mr. Townsend's valet had described his master to her as an extraordinarily handsome man. So, then, of course, I knew you were Peter Blagden."

  "I perceive," said I, reflectively, "that Byam has been somewhat too zealous. I begin to suspect, also, that kitchen-gossip is a mischancy petard, and rather more than apt to hoist the engineer who employs it. So, you thought I was Peter Blagden,—the rich Peter Blagden? Ah, yes!"

  Now the birds were caroling on a wager. "Ah, sweet! what is sweeter?" they sang. "Ah, sweet, sweet, sweet, to meet in the spring."

  But the girl gave a wordless cry at sight of the change in my face. "Oh, how dear of you to care so much! I didn't mean that you were ugly, Peter. I just meant you are so big and—and so like the baby that they probably have on the talcum-powder boxes in Brobdingnag—"

  "Because I happen to be really Robert Townsend—the notorious Robert Etheridge Townsend," I continued, with a smile. "I am sorry you were deceived by the cigarette-case. I remember now; I borrowed it from Peter. What I meant to confess was that I have known all along you were Margaret Hugonin."

  "But I'm not," the girl said, in bewilderment. "Why—Why I told you I was Avis Beechinor."

  "This handkerchief?" I queried, and took it from my pocket. I had been absurd enough to carry it next to my heart.

  "Oh—!" And now the tension broke, and her voice leapt to high, shrill, half-hysterical speaking.

  "I am Avis Beechinor. I am a poor relation, a penniless cousin, a dependent, a hanger-on, do you understand? And you—Ah, how—how funny! Why, Margaret always gives me her cast-off finery, the scraps, the remnants, the clothes she is tired of, the misfit things,—so that she won't be ashamed of me, so that I may be fairly presentable. She gave me eight of those handkerchiefs. I meant to pick the monograms out with a needle, you understand, because I haven't any money to buy such handkerchiefs for myself. I remember now,—she gave them to me on that day—that first day, and I missed one of them a little later on. Ah, how—how funny!" she cried, again; "ah, how very, very funny! No, Mr. Townsend, I am not an heiress,—I'm a pauper, a poor relation. No, you have failed again, just as you did with Mrs. Barry-Smith and with Miss Jemmett, Mr. Townsend. I—I wish you better luck the next time."

  I must have raised one hand as though in warding off a physical blow.

  "Don't!" I said.

  And all the woman in her leapt to defend me. "Ah no, ah no!" she pleaded, and her hands fell caressingly upon my shoulder; and she raised a penitent, tear-stained face toward mine; "ah no, forgive me! I didn't mean that altogether. It is different with a man. Of course, you must marry sensibly,—of course you must, Mr. Townsend. It is I who am to blame—why, of course it's only I who am to blame. I have encouraged you, I know—"

  "You haven't! you haven't" I barked.

  "But, yes,—for I came back that second day because I thought you were the rich Mr. Blagden. I was so tired of being poor, so tired of being dependent, that it simply seemed to me I could not stand it for a moment longer. Ah, I tell you, I was tired, tired, tired! I was tired and sick and worn out with it all!"

  I did not interrupt her. I was nobly moved; but even then at the back of my mind some being that was not I was taking notes as to this girl, so young and desirable, and now so like a plaintive child who has been punished and does not understand exactly why.

  "Mr. Townsend, you don't know what it means to a girl to be poor!—you can't ever know, because you are only a man. My mother—ah, you don't know the life I have led! You don't know how I have been hawked about, and set up for inspection by the men who could afford to pay my price, and made to show off my little accomplishments for them, and put through my paces before them like any horse in the market! For we are poor, Mr. Townsend,—we are bleakly, hopelessly poor. We are only hangers-on, you see. And ever since I can remember, she has been telling me I must make a rich marriage—must make a rich marriage—"

  And the girl's voice trailed off into silence, and her eyes closed for a moment, and she swayed a little on her feet, so that I caught her by both arms.

  But, presently, she open
ed her eyes, with a wearied sigh, and presently the two fortune-hunters stared each other in the face.

  "Ah, sweet! what is sweeter?" sang the birds. "Can you see, can you see, can you see? It is sweet, sweet, sweet!" They were extremely gay over it, were the birds.

  After a little, though, I opened my lips, and moistened them two or three times before I spoke. "Yes," said I, "I think I understand. We have both been hangers-on. But that seems, somehow, a long while ago. Yes, it was a knave who scaled that wall the first time,—one who needed and had earned a kicking from here to Aldebaran. But I think that I loved you from the very moment I saw you. Will you marry me, Avis?"

  And in her face there was a wonderful and tender change. "You care for me—just me?" she breathed.

  "Just you," I answered, gravely.

  And I saw the start, and the merest ghost of a shiver which shook her body, as she leaned toward me a little, almost in surrender; but, quickly, she laughed.

  "That was very gentlemanly in you," she said; "but, of course, I understand. Let us part friends, then,—Robert. Even if—if you really cared, we couldn't marry. We are too poor."

  "Too poor!" I scoffed,—and my voice was joyous, for I knew now that it was I she loved and not just Peter Blagden's money; "too poor, Avis! I am to the contrary, an inordinately rich man, I tell you, for I have your love. Oh you needn't try to deny it. You are heels over head in love with me. And we have made, no doubt, an unsavoury mess of the past; but the future remains to us. We are the earthen pots, you and I, who wanted to swim with the brazen ones. Well! they haven't quite smashed us, these big, stupid, brazen pots, but they have shown us that they have the power to do it. And so we are going back where we belong—to the poor man's country, Avis,—or, in any event, to the country of those God-fearing, sober and honest folk who earn their bread and, just occasionally, a pat of butter to season it."

  The world was very beautiful. I knew that I was excellent throughout and unconquerable. So I moved more near to her.

  "For you will come with me, won't you, dear? Oh, you won't have quite so many gowns in this new country, Avis, and, may be, not even a horse and surrey of your own; but you will have love, and you will have happiness, and, best of all, Avis, you will give a certain very undeserving man his chance—his one sole chance—to lead a real man's life. Are you going to deny him that chance, Avis?"

  Her gaze read me through and through; and I bore myself a bit proudly under it; and it seemed to me that my heart was filled with love of her, and that some sort of new-born manhood in Robert Etheridge Townsend was enabling me to meet her big brown eyes unflinchingly.

  "It wouldn't be sensible," she wavered.

  I laughed at that. "Sensible! If there is one thing more absurd than another in this very absurd world, it is common-sense. Be sensible and you will be miserable, Avis, not to mention being disliked. Sensible! Why, of course, it is not sensible. It is stark, rank, staring idiocy for us two not to make a profitable investment of, we will say, our natural endowments, when we come to marry. For what will Mrs. Grundy say if we don't? Ah, what will she say, indeed? Avis, just between you and me, I do not care a double-blank domino what Mrs. Grundy says. You will obligingly remember that the car for the Hesperides is in the rear, and that this is the third and last call. And in consequence—will you marry me, Avis?"

  She gave me her hand frankly, as a man might have done. "Yes, Robert," said Miss Beechinor, "and God helping us, we will make something better of the future than we have of the past."

  In the silence that fell, one might hear the birds. "Sweet, sweet, sweet!" they twittered. "Can you see, can you see, can you see? Their lips meet. It is sweet, sweet, sweet!"

  3

  But, by and by, she questioned me. "Are you sure—quite sure," she queried, wistfully, "that you wouldn't rather have me Margaret Hugonin, the heiress?"

  I raised a deprecatory hand. "Avis!" I reproached her; "Avis, Avis, how little you know me! That was the solitary fly in the amber,—that I thought I was to marry a woman named Margaret. For I am something of a connoisseur in nomenclature, and Margaret has always—always—been my pet detestation in the way of names."

  "Oh, what a child you are!" she said.

  27. He Calls, and Counsels, and Considers

  1

  "I am now" said I, in my soul, "quite immeasurably, and insanely, and unreasonably, and unadulteratedly happy. Why, of course I am."

  This statement was advanced just two weeks later than the events previously recorded. And the origin of it was the fact that I was now engaged to Avis Beechinor though it was not as yet to be "announced"; just this concession alone had Mrs. Beechinor wrested from an indignant and, latterly, a tearful interview…. For I had called at Selwoode, in due form; and after leaving Mrs. Beechinor had been pounced upon by an excited and comely little person in black.

  "Don't you mind a word she said," this lady had exhorted, "because she is the Gadarene swine, and Avis has told me everything! Of course you are to be married at once, and I only wish I could find the only man in the world who can keep me interested for four hours on a stretch and send my pulse up to a hundred and make me feel those thrilly thrills I've always longed for."

  "But surely—" said I.

  "No, I'm beginning to be afraid not, beautiful, though of course I used to be crazy about Billy Woods; and then once I was engaged to another man for a long time, and I was perfectly devoted to him, but he never made me feel a single thrilly thrill. And would you believe it, Mr. Townsend?—after a while he came back, precisely as though he had been a bad penny or a cat. He had been in the Boer War and came home just a night before I left, wounded and promoted several times and completely covered with glory and brass buttons. He came seven miles to see me, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him, for I had on my best dress and was feeling rather talkative. Well! at ten I was quite struck on him. At eleven perfectly willing to part friends, and at twelve crazy for him to go. He stayed till half-past, and I didn't want to think of him for days. And, by the way, I am Miss Hugonin, and I hope you and Avis will be very happy. Good-bye!"

  "Good-bye!" said I.

  2

  And that, oddly enough, was the one private talk I ever had with the Margaret Hugonin whom, for some two weeks, I had believed myself to be upon the verge of marrying; for the next time I conversed with her alone she was Mrs. William Woods.

  "Oh, go away, Billy!" she then said, impatiently "How often will I have to tell you it isn't decent to be always hanging around your wife? Oh, you dear little crooked-necktied darling!"—and she remedied the fault on tiptoe,—"please run away and make love to somebody else, and be sure to get her name right, so that I shan't assassinate the wrong person,—because I want to tell this very attractive child all about Avis, and not be bothered." And subsequently she did.

  But I must not forestall her confidences, lest I get my cart even further in advance of my nominal Pegasus than the loosely-made conveyance is at present lumbering.

  3

  And meanwhile Peter Blagden and I had called at Selwoode once or twice in unison and due estate. And Peter considered "Miss Beechinor a damn fine girl, and Miss Hugonin too, only—"

  "Only," I prompted, between puffs, "Miss Hugonin keeps everybody, as my old Mammy used to say, 'in a perpetual swivet.' I never understood what the phrase meant, precisely, but I somehow always knew that it was eloquent."

  "Just so," said Peter. "You prefer—ah—a certain amount of tranquillity. I haven't been abroad for a long while," said Mr. Blagden; and then, after another meditative pause: "Now Stella—well, Stella was a damn sight too good for me, of course—"

  "She was," I affably assented.

  "—and I'd be the very last man in the world to deny it. But still you do prefer—" Then Peter broke off short and said: "My God, Bob! what's the matter?"

  So I think I must have had the ill-taste to have laughed a little over Mr. Blagden's magnanimity in regard to Stella's foibles. But I only said: "Oh, nothing, Peter! I was
just going to tell you that travelling does broaden the mind, and that you will find an overcoat indispensable in Switzerland, and that during the voyage you ought to keep in the open air as much as possible, and that you should give the steward who waits on you at table at least ten shillings,—I was just going to tell you, in fine, that you would be a fool to squander any money on a guide-book, when I am here to give you all the necessary pointers."

  "But I didn't mean to go to Europe exactly," said Mr. Blagden; "—I just meant to go abroad in a general sense. Any place would be abroad, you know, where people weren't always remembering how rich you were, and weren't scrambling to marry you out of hand, but really cared, you know, like she does. Oh, may be it is bad form to mention it, but I couldn't help seeing how she looked at you, Bob. And it waked something—Oh, I don't know what I mean," said Peter—"it's just damn foolishness, I suppose."

  "It's very far from that," I said; and I was honestly moved, just as I always am when pathos, preferably grotesque, has caught me unprepared. This millionaire was lonely, because of his millions, and Stella was dead; and somehow I understood, and laid one hand upon his shoulder.

  "Oh, you can't help it, I suppose, if all women love by ordinary because he is so like another person, where as men love because she is so different. My poor caliph, I would sincerely advise you to play the fool just as you plan to do,—oh, anywhere,—and without even a Mesrour. In fine go Bunburying at once. For very frankly, First Cousin of the Moon, it is the one thing worth while in life."

  "I half believe I will," said Peter…. So he was packing in the interim during which I pretended to be writing, and was in reality fretting to think that, whilst Avis was in England by this, I could not decently leave America until those last five chapters were finished. So, in part as an excuse for not scrawling the dullest of nonsense and subsequently tearing it up, I fell to considering the unquestionable fact that I was in love with Avis, and upon the verge of marrying her, and was in consequence, as a matter of plain logic, deliriously happy.