“But I love you, Winnie,” he said. “You’re the whole world to me. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll try to do it. I can’t lose you.”
“What can you do? How can you change yourself? Don’t you see that it’s impossible, and that we’re utterly unsuited to one another? Really we’ve not got a single thought or aim or idea in common. You can’t want to make me so unhappy as to wish to marry me.”
“Then it’s good-bye?” he asked.
Winnie looked up. To her surprise she saw her father ride past with Gwendolen Durant. Instinctively she drew back, seeking to hide herself; but they were too deeply engrossed in conversation to notice her.
Railing’s eyes met hers sadly.
“I don’t know how I shall live without you,” he said.
“You must try and forgive me for all the wretchedness I’ve caused you. And soon I hope that you’ll forget all about me.”
“Is there no chance that you’ll ever change your mind?” he asked, brokenly.
She hesitated, for there was something on her heart which she felt strangely impelled to confess. It seemed that she owed it to him.
“I think I ought to tell you that Lord Wroxham has asked me to marry him.”
“And are you going to?” he gasped.
“I’ve known him ever since I was a child, and I’m very fond of him. I’m frightened. I wanted you to know from my own lips rather than from a newspaper. You probably can’t despise me more than you do already.”
“What do you mean by saying you’re frightened? Are you frightened of me?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is good-bye indeed,” he answered, after a long silence.
He stood up and without another word left her. Winnie began to cry silently. In that pleasure garden, fit scene for the careless trifling of fair ladies in hoops and of gentlemen in periwigs, every one else seemed happy and unconcerned. Children in their bright dresses played with merry shouts and their nurses idly gossiped. A tremor passed through Winnie’s body as she struggled in vain to restrain her sobbing.
In the afternoon Winnie told her father that she had seen Bertram. She felt still as though her heart were breaking.
“Oh, father, I feel so ashamed,” she moaned.
Canon Spratte pursed his lips and nodded once or twice gravely. He did not approve of this stolen interview, but presumed it would be the last. He addressed her in grave, sonorous tones.
“You do well to feel ashamed, my child. I hope this will be a warning and a lesson to you. You see what comes of disobeying your father, and setting yourself obstinately and irreligiously against his better judgment. In future I trust you will be more dutiful. Believe me, it is always best to honour your parents; and if you don’t you’re sure to be punished for it.”
“Oughtn’t I to tell Harry?” she asked.
“Tell him what?” cried the Canon, perfectly aghast.
“I think he ought to know that I was engaged to Bertram.”
“Certainly not,” he answered, with the utmost decision. “I entirely forbid you to do anything of the sort, and I hope you’ve been sufficiently punished for your wilful disobedience to obey me now. Wroxham is very susceptible, and it’s your duty to give him no anxiety. And whatever you do, don’t begin your married life by confessing everything to your husband. It will only bore him to death. Besides, one never can tell the whole truth, and it leads inevitably to deception and subterfuge.”
“But suppose he finds out?”
Canon Spratte gave a sigh of genuine relief, for after all the fear of discovery is the easiest form of conscience to deal with.
“Is that all you’re frightened of, my darling?” he said. “Leave it to me. I’ll tell him all that’s necessary.”
And the next time he found himself alone with Wroxham, he took the opportunity to set the matter right.
“By the way, Harry, Winnie wants me to tell you something that’s rather worrying her. You know what girls are. They often have a sensitiveness of conscience which is very charming but at the same time rather ridiculous. I don’t suppose you ever heard of a young man called Railing?’”
“You mean the Socialist? Winnie gave me his book to read.”
“I may say I was among the first to discover its striking merit. I thought it my duty to encourage him, and I asked him to come and see us. His father, it appears, was a coal-heaver, and I thought him a very remarkable fellow. But he repaid my kindness by falling in love with Winnie and asking her to marry him.”
“Why didn’t you kick him down-stairs?” laughed Wroxham, lightly.
“Upon my word, I had half a mind to. I will never befriend the lower orders again; they always take liberties with you.”
At this juncture Winnie came into the room. Canon Spratte told her that he had informed Wroxham of the unfortunate incident. She gave her devoted lover an appealing glance; and the thought that she was so fearful to offend him, increased a thousandfold his passionate tenderness.
“You’re not angry with me, dear?”
“Because a madman wants to marry you? Why, I want to do that myself.”
“Capital! Capital!” laughed the Canon. “But seriously I don’t think he’s quite right in his head. His sister is in a lunatic asylum, you know. I hope you won’t receive any nonsensical letter from him.”
Wroxham was all eyes for Winnie, and scarcely listened to the trivial topic.
“If I do, it shall go straight into the waste-paper basket,” he answered, lightly.
“Quite right,” said the Canon. “Quite right!”
He tactfully left the lovers to themselves.
XVIII
SOME days later Lord Spratte found himself dressed half-an-hour too early for the dinner-party to which he was going. He made up his mind to walk down Piccadilly. The evening was delightful, and he looked with amiable eyes upon the populous street. The closing day flooded the scene with gold that seemed flung from divine hands with a gesture large and free. The crowd, sweeping along the pavements, the gay ‘buses and the carriages, were bathed in opulent splendour. They looked like magic things, all light and movement, seen by a painter who could work miracles. Lord Spratte congratulated himself that his fellow-men were all very well-to-do and had obviously no concern with sordid details. He braced himself to enjoy the charming world in general, and the festivity before him in particular.
“I’m feelin’ younger every day,” he murmured. “By Jupiter, if Theodore don’t mind his p’s and q’s I’ll marry and do him out of the title yet.”
So may the fancy of middle age in June turn lightly to amorous undertakings.
Suddenly he recognized Bertram Railing, who was walking quickly towards him. They met, and the Socialist, seeing him for the first time, flushed; then he fixed his eyes firmly on Lord Spratte and with much deliberation cut him. The elder man smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He wanted to speak with Bertram, and was entirely indifferent to his obvious disinclination. He turned round and with some trouble caught him up.
“Why the dickens do you walk at that rate?” he panted, somewhat out of breath.
He took Bertram’s arm familiarly. But the young man stopped and abruptly released himself.
“What do you want?”
“Merely to have a little chat. Let us stroll in the Park for five minutes.”
“I’m sorry, that’s impossible. I have an urgent engagement.”
“Nonsense!”
Lord Spratte again seized the unwilling arm, and in the most determined way made for the Park gates.
“I want to talk to you about your engagement with Winnie. I’m afraid you’ve been very unhappy.”
Bertram did not answer, but with firm-set jaws looked straight in front of him.
“You know, if I were you I would try not to take it too much to heart,” he went on. “In a little while you’ll understand that both you and Winnie would have been quite unnecessarily wretched.”
He paused and looked at Bertram sharply.
“Will you promise not to turn round and bolt if I stop to light a cigarette?”
“Yes,” said Bertram, smiling in spite of himself.
“You think she’s a very remarkable young woman, but she’s quite an average girl. Perhaps she’s a little prettier than most. I know very few young women of her particular station who wouldn’t have acted as she has.”
“Then Heaven help her particular station,” cried Bertram.
“I don’t suppose it’s struck you that it’s a very awkward one,” replied Lord Spratte, mildly. “A great family might have lived down a match of this sort, (I don’t want to hurt your feelings,) but we’re such very small fry. You think us snobs, and so we are. You can’t expect anythin’ else from people who’ve only just emerged from the middle-classes. You know, I have an impression that your grandfather and mine were great pals. I’m sure they used to hobnob and drink brandy and water together in seedy public-houses. Do you remember the Egyptian usurper who made a wine-cup into the image of a god, for the edification of his former boon-fellows? Well, we’re somethin’ like that astute monarch; we have to use all sorts of stratagems to persuade the world of our gentility. If this affair between you and Winnie had come to anything, do you know what she would have done? She would have tried all her life to live up to Mayfair, and it would have meant either that you were dragged away from your proper work, or that she would have been eternally dissatisfied. My dear boy, she would have reproached you every day for marrying her.”
He stopped, feeling that the words were not coming as he wished. He wanted to be kind, and there were a few useful things he thought Bertram ought to know. But he could not properly order what was in his mind. Bertram felt the intention and presently answered less bitterly:
“Why do you take the trouble to say all this?”
“I wish I had my brother Theodore’s eloquence. He’d say what I want to in the most beautiful language. He’s not a bad chap, although you probably don’t set much store on him. He’s so fortunate as to feel himself a person of importance; I don’t. I always wish I’d been the son of nobody in particular. It bores me to death to go about under the shadow of my father’s name. I can’t think why it is, but I go through life feeling as if I were perpetually wearin’ fancy-dress. I haven’t read your book. I believe it’s very instructive, and at my time of life I avoid instruction. But when Winnie said she was going to marry you, I went one day to hear you speak at a meetin’ in Holborn. I was never so surprised in my life.”
“Why?”
“I discovered that you were sincere. By Jupiter, how you would have bored Winnie if things had gone on much longer! Most of those worthy folk who advocate reform and lord knows what, have their own axes to grind. My brother Theodore, for instance, wants a bishopric, others want a seat in the Cabinet or a sinecure. Even now I believe there are some who want a peerage, though for the life of me I can’t see what good they think it’ll do them.”
Lord Spratte laughed a little and threw away his cigarette.
“They make a great fuss about redressin’ the people’s wrongs, but in their heart of hearts I believe they’re precious indifferent to them. They want the power which they can cozen out of the mob, or they think the Government will stop their mouths with a fat billet. At first I had an idea you were an impostor like the rest of them, but when you stood up on your hind legs I found out you were nothin’ of the kind. You were the only speaker among all those M.P.’s and clerics and millionaires who seemed to mean a word you said. Your speech was quite out of the picture, but it was interesting. Personally I loathe democracy and socialism and all the rest of it, but honest conviction amuses me. To see it on a platform is quite a new sensation.”
It made Lord Spratte uncommonly nervous to play the heavy father, and he feared that he was very ridiculous. He waited for Bertram to make an observation.
“I want to do something for my fellows in the few years of my life,” said the other, at last.
“You’ll find they’re much better left alone, and your reward will probably be the most virulent abuse. The human race loves a martyr; it will crucify a man with the greatest zest in order to have another God to worship as soon as the breath is out of his body.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” smiled Railing.
“Then in Heaven’s name don’t hamper yourself by marriage. If you marry out of your own station you’ll be nobbled. My boy, before you’d been Winnie’s husband twelve months they’d have set you up as a Tory Member of Parliament. On the other hand, if you marry a pauper, you’ll have to think of all sorts of shifts to earn bread. You’ll have to hold your tongue when you ought to speak, because you daren’t risk your means of livelihood.”
“I loved Winnie with all my heart and soul.”
“I daresay, but you’ll get over it. One thinks one’s heart is broken and the world is suddenly hollow and empty, but a disappointment in love is like an attack of the gout. It’s the very devil while it lasts, but one feels all the better for it afterwards. My dear fellow, I was jilted once. I loved a lady in the Gaiety chorus, and I loved her dearly. But I promise you, not a day passes without my huggin’ myself to think I’m still a bachelor.”
He gave Bertram his hand, asked him to call soon at his chambers, and jumped into a cab. He was sorry that these efforts at consolation had not been successful, but presently he shrugged his shoulders.
“He’ll write a series of articles for a Radical paper on the wickedness of the aristocracy, and that’ll soothe him a good sight better than I could.”
XIX
CANON SPRATTE was a man of buoyant temper, and did not grieve long over his frustrated hopes. After all there were richer Sees than Barchester. With youth and strength still on his side he need not resign himself yet to insignificance. Importance lay in the position which a man had the ability to make for himself, and the Vicar of St. Gregory’s might wield greater power than the bishop of an obscure diocese in the Western provinces. Reconsidering his opinions, he came to the conclusion that Barchester was a dull place, unhealthy, moribund, and tedious. He had always disliked a clay soil. And very soon he sincerely made up his mind that even if it had been offered to him, he would have refused. Like Wilhelm Meister he cried that America was here and now; London offered the only opportunity for such a vigorous character as his. And what were earthly honours to a person of quality?
He consoled himself for everything with the thought that he had steered Winnie successfully through the shoals of her amorous entanglements. She was now staying in the country with Lady Wroxham, and on her return the pleasing news of her engagement would be delivered to an envious world. The Canon flattered himself that her foolish passion for Bertram Railing was definitely extinguished. Her letters to Lady Sophia proved that this facile heart was now given in the properest way to Harry Wroxham. She wrote of him freely, with increasing affection, and her enthusiasm found daily new qualities to admire.
Meanwhile the fine weather gave admirable opportunity for the Canon’s matutinal rides with Gwendolen Durant. The effect upon his health was all that could be desired. He found her a more delightful girl than he had ever guessed; and his happy charm quickly brought their acquaintance to such a degree of intimacy that they might have known one another for ten years. It flattered him to see her flashing glance of pleasure when they met each morning, and he exerted himself to entertain her. Sir John also had taken such a fancy to him that much of the Canon’s time was spent at the brewer’s gorgeous mansion in Park Lane. His urbanity had never been more suave nor the scintillations of his wit more brilliant. Gwendolen hung upon his lips.
But when Canon Spratte thought of Lionel he was a little disconcerted.
On the day Winnie was to come back to London, when he opened his Times at breakfast, the Canon uttered an exclamation. Lady Sophia and Lionel looked up with alarm.
“A dreadful thing has happened,” he said, solemnly. “Dr. Gray has had an apoplectic stroke and died last night.�
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“Poor man,” cried Lady Sophia. “He hasn’t enjoyed his bishopric long.”
“I look upon it as a judgment of Providence,” replied her brother, very gravely.
“What on earth do you mean?”
“I said at the time he was not fit to go to Barchester. I have no doubt the excitement and the strain of altering all his plans proved too much for him. You see, I was right. When will men learn to put a rein upon their ambition?”
Canon Spratte read the details carefully, shaking his head, and then turned up the leading articles to see if by chance some reference was made to the sad event. But here a new surprise awaited him. He gave a start and smothered another cry. He ran his eyes down the column quickly to gather its gist, and then perused it with concentrated attention. He forgot entirely that the Church of England had sustained a grievous loss, and that two lamb cutlets on the plate before him sought to tempt his appetite. The news he examined was of vital importance. The brewers, driven beyond endurance, were in full revolt against the Government. On the previous night Sir John Durant, joining in the debate upon the bill to close certain public-houses, had made a violent speech in the House of Commons. The Government’s position was insecure already, and if the liquor interest withdrew its support, a dissolution was inevitable. Sir John Durant became suddenly a person of vast importance. The determination he took might throw the money-markets into confusion; it might alter the political balance of Europe and have far-reaching effects in the uttermost parts of the earth. He had paramount influence with the trade and the other members in the House would follow his lead. He could command a large enough number of votes to make Lord Stonehenge’s tenure of office impossible. It was certain that the country would not return the Conservative party again. Canon Spratte’s heart beat as though he were reading intelligence of the most sensational kind. He threw the paper down and his breath came very fast. For some time he stared straight in front of him and reviewed the situation from every side. He jumped up, and unmindful of his breakfast walked backwards and forwards.
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 108
