Part 22 (1/2)
Dimly outlined against the night, he has the appearance of a friendly hobgoblin. But I wish he didn't fancy himself as a vocalist. It is against his own interests, I am sure, if he only knew it. That American college yell of his must have the effect of sending every living thing within half a mile back into its hole. Maybe it is a provision of nature for clearing off the very old mice who have become stone deaf and would otherwise be a burden on their relatives. The others, unless out for suicide, must, one thinks, be tolerably safe. Ethelbertha is persuaded he is a sign of death; but seeing there isn't a square quarter of a mile in this county without its screech-owl, there can hardly by this time be a resident that an a.s.surance Society would look at. Veronica likes him.
She even likes his screech. I found her under the tree the other night, wrapped up in a shawl, trying to learn it. As if one of them were not enough! It made me quite cross with her. Besides, it wasn't a bit like it, as I told her. She said it was better than I could do, anyhow; and I was idiot enough to take up the challenge. It makes me angry now, when I think of it: a respectable, middle-aged literary man, standing under a yew-tree trying to screech like an owl. And the bird was silly enough to encourage us.
”She was a charming girl,” I said, ”seven-and-twenty years ago, when St.
Leonard fell in love with her. She had those dark, dreamy eyes so suggestive of veiled mysteries; and her lips must have looked bewitching when they pouted. I expect they often did. They do so still; but the pout of a woman of forty-six no longer fascinates. To a pretty girl of nineteen a spice of temper, an illogical unreasonableness, are added attractions: the scratch of a blue-eyed kitten only tempts us to tease her the more. Young Hubert St. Leonard-he had curly brown hair, with a pretty trick of blus.h.i.+ng, and was going to conquer the world-found her fretfulness, her very selfishness adorable: and told her so, kneeling before her, gazing into her bewildering eyes-only he called it her waywardness, her imperiousness; begged her for his sake to be more capricious. Told her how beautiful she looked when displeased. So, no doubt, she did-at nineteen.”
”He didn't tell you all that, did he?” demanded Robina.
”Not a word,” I rea.s.sured her, ”except that she was acknowledged by all authorities to have been the most beautiful girl in Tunbridge Wells, and that her father had been ruined by a rascally solicitor. No, I was merely, to use the phrase of the French police courts, 'reconstructing the crime.'”
”It may be all wrong,” grumbled Robina.
”It may be,” I agreed. ”But why? Does it strike you as improbable?”
We were sitting in the porch, waiting for d.i.c.k to come by the white path across the field.
”No,” answered Robina. ”It all sounds very probable. I wish it didn't.”
”You must remember,” I continued, ”that I am an old playgoer. I have sat out so many of this world's dramas. It is as easy to reconstruct them backwards as forwards. We are witnessing the last act of the St. Leonard drama: that unsatisfactory last act that merely fills out time after the play is ended! The intermediate acts were probably more exciting, containing 'pa.s.sionate scenes' played with much earnestness; chiefly for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the servants. But the first act, with the Kentish lanes and woods for a back-cloth, must have been charming. Here was the devout lover she had heard of, dreamed of. It is delightful to be regarded as perfection-not absolute perfection, for that might put a strain upon us to live up to, but as so near perfection that to be more perfect would just spoil it. The spots upon us, that unappreciative friends and relations would magnify into blemishes, seen in their true light: artistic shading relieving a faultlessness that might otherwise prove too glaring. Dear Hubert found her excellent just as she was in every detail. It would have been a crime against Love for her to seek to change herself.”
”Well, then, it was his fault,” argued Robina. ”If he was silly enough to like her faults, and encourage her in them-”
”What could he have done,” I asked, ”even if he had seen them? A lover does not point out his mistress's shortcomings to her.”
”Much the more sensible plan if he did,” insisted Robina. ”Then if she cared for him she could set to work to cure herself.”
”You would like it?” I said; ”you would appreciate it in your own case?
Can you imagine young Bute-?”
”Why young Bute?” demanded Robina; ”what's he got to do with it?”
”Nothing,” I answered; ”except that he happens to be the first male creature you have ever come across since you were six that you haven't flirted with.”
”I don't flirt with them,” said Robina; ”I merely try to be nice to them.”
”With the exception of young Bute,” I persisted.
”He irritates me,” Robina explained.
”I was reading,” I said, ”the other day, an account of the marriage customs prevailing among the Lower Caucasians. The lover takes his stand beneath his lady's window, and, having attracted her attention, proceeds to sing. And if she seems to like it-if she listens to it without getting mad, that means she doesn't want him. But if she gets upset about it-slams down the window and walks away, then it's all right. I think it's the Lower Caucasians.”
”Must be a very silly people,” said Robina; ”I suppose a pail of water would be the highest proof of her affection he could hope for.”
”A complex being, man,” I agreed. ”We will call him X. Can you imagine young X coming to you and saying: 'My dear Robina, you have many excellent qualities. You can be amiable-so long as you are having your own way in everything; but thwarted you can be just horrid. You are very kind-to those who are willing for you to be kind to them in your own way, which is not always their way. You can be quite unselfish-when you happen to be in an unselfish mood, which is far from frequent. You are capable and clever, but, like most capable and clever people, impatient and domineering; highly energetic when not feeling lazy; ready to forgive the moment your temper is exhausted. You are generous and frank, but if your object could only be gained through meanness or deceit you would not hesitate a moment longer than was necessary to convince yourself that the circ.u.mstances justified the means. You are sympathetic, tender-hearted, and have a fine sense of justice; but I can see that tongue of yours, if not carefully watched, wearing decidedly shrewish. You have any amount of grit. A man might go tiger-hunting with you-with no one better; but you are obstinate, conceited, and exacting. In short, to sum you up, you have all the makings in you of an ideal wife combined with faults sufficient to make a Socrates regret he'd ever married you.'”
”Yes, I would!” said Robina, springing to her feet. I could not see her face, but I knew there was the look upon it that made Primgate want to paint her as Joan of Arc; only it would never stop long enough. ”I'd love him for talking like that. And I'd respect him. If he was that sort of man I'd pray G.o.d to help me to be the sort of woman he wanted me to be. I'd try. I'd try all day long. I would!”
”I wonder,” I said. Robina had surprised me. I admit it. I thought I knew the s.e.x better.
”Any girl would,” said Robina. ”He'd be worth it.”
”It would be a new idea,” I mused. ”_Gott im Himmel_! what a new world might it not create!” The fancy began to take hold of me. ”Love no longer blind. Love refusing any more to be the poor blind fool-sport of G.o.ds and men. Love no longer pa.s.sion's slave. His bonds broken, the senseless bandage flung aside. Love helping life instead of muddling it.