The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman/Chapter 8

by Stephen McKenna

VIII

LADY ANN SPENWORTH REFERS TO HER DIARY

LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): It is only a question of habit. When I first went to Italy, at the age of sixteen, my dear mother insisted that I should keep a diary, and I have kept one ever since. Goodness me, I am more likely to overlook my letters or the morning paper than forget to write up my journal. Sometimes it is only a few lines, for the spacious days are over, I am a dull old woman, and the most I ask of life is that I may be allowed to live. Very often I let months go by without turning back to see what I have written; but the record is there if I ever want to consult it. Usually at the end of the year one likes to take stock. . .

Not that it is very cheerful reading, alas! But at our age we must expect that. Another year gone, when perhaps we cannot hope to see so very many more; another hope dashed and yet another deferred, making the heart sick; gaps in the circle of those one loves; increasing frailty or ill-health; and that indefinable, inexplicable narrowing of outlook, interest, enthusiasm—and with us, I am afraid, of worldly circumstance. Inevitable. . . For oneself, perhaps, one does not mind it, but it is sometimes heart-rending to see the boys and girls setting out with those high hopes that we have been compelled, one by one, to discard; heart-rending, too, when those who seemed to walk with their heads on a level with the stars trip and sprawl like the rest. . .

No, I assure you I was not thinking of any one in particular. The feeling returns with the season and is quite general. One could find particular applications, no doubt, very near at hand. Begin where you will: my brother-in-law Spenworth. . . I wonder what we shall be thinking of him in a year’s time; divorced, remarried—and nobody one penny the worse! I am not ashamed to confess that, when the word “divorce” is mentioned, I am translated to another sphere. . . Groping blindly among things I don’t understand and don’t want to understand. . . Say what you will, we were not so lax a generation ago; those who fell remained where they fell . . . or climbed back with effort, difficulty and an acknowledgement of wrong-doing. Not as of right. . . The new Lady Spenworth I hardly know; she who marries a man that has been put away. . . I have not refused to meet her, but the opportunity has not come my way. Whether she will be able to hold him. . . Perhaps if she presents him with an heir . . . though I have had to change my views on that subject, as you know. Oh, I can speak about it now; and I shall never forget, when things were at their blackest, it was you who came to me with your divine sympathy. I could tell you the whole story if you truly honestly would not be bored; your discretion has been proved. . . I have lost the thread. . .

Ah, yes!—the family. . . My nephew Culroyd—and Hilda? I am humbly thankful to say that there has been no catastrophe so far, though when the first, honeymoon intoxication wears off. . . Long may it be delayed, for they are the one bright spot in my poor brother Brackenbury’s life. That pathetic child Phyllida is still breaking her heart over the cabman-colonel whom I, if you please, am supposed to have set against her in order to keep her for my boy. Thank goodness, she does not know he is driving a cab! Breaking her heart or pretending to. And I really think my brother encourages her. He wouldn’t send her right away as I advised; and now he pats her hand and looks worried when she comes down boasting that she hasn’t slept. And Ruth does the same. . . I don’t want to bring bad luck by talking about it; but I sometimes wonder how much longer Brackenbury will put up with that—invertebrate woman; I sometimes fear that the record of the year will shew that there, too, the blow has fallen. We have seen to our cost that the most devoted husband and father may sometimes go apparently quite mad. . . I feel that Phyllida, with her youth and her looks and her money, is being so shamefully wasted. . .

But, until she shakes off her obsession, I should pity any man who tried to marry her. At one time my boy Will seemed attracted to her out of compassion for her loneliness and misery. Those were anxious days, I can assure you, though I should have been glad to see Will safely married to almost any one. He is undoubtedly of an age; and what I called “the Morecambe menace”. . . We have heard nothing of the Phentons (you know, I always called her Miss Molly “Wanton”) since the father conducted his blackmailing descent upon us, protesting that Will had made this girl an offer of marriage, talking about horse-whips. I hope and pray that it is all over, but one can never be certain. For the last fortnight I have succeeded in not thinking about them; I suppose I should be grateful to Arthur for turning my thoughts. . .

You are quite right! I have tried to avoid speaking bitterly to him, I must not speak bitterly about him. But, when the news came to me, I said: “Now indeed the bottom has fallen out of the world.” It was towards the end of the year, and I had been turning the pages of my journal. Catastrophe, disappointment, anxiety. . . But, whatever storms may blow, I said, I can always trust my husband. Arthur was my rock and anchor. He and I seemed to stand erect, with our heads level with the stars, while these others, one after another, tripped and sprawled. And then Arthur too. . .

I tell you now, as I told you then: I had heard and suspected nothing until you put me on my guard. I truly believe that the person most affected is commonly the last to hear. . . And Arthur’s way of life made it almost impossible for me even to guess: for years he has spent as much time away from me as with me—his board-meetings in London and Birmingham, his shooting . . . and, with Will at home, there was so much unhappy friction that I was not sorry when one or other went off and left me in peace for a few days. I did not enquire; so was it surprising that, if the board-meetings and so on were simply a blind, I should be the last person to hear? So with money. My father-in-law’s will was so iniquitous. . . Cheniston and the house in Grosvenor Square went naturally to Spenworth; but every penny, with the exception of a wretched thousand a year for Arthur,—that was sheer wickedness. My dear father would have done more for me if he could; but he had impoverished himself when he was ambassador at Vienna, and, until Brackenbury sold himself to Ruth, we were all very, very poor. The result has been that throughout my married life we have been forced to pinch and scrape. You may say that the house in Mount Street was an extravagance, but one had to live somewhere. It was for one’s friends rather than oneself; I could not ask the princess to dine with me in Bayswater. . . Pinch and scrape, scrape and pinch. Arthur made a fair income by his director’s fees, but I had dreadful moments when I thought of the future. Spenworth will do no more than he has already done—that we know—; when I lay at death’s door and begged him with what might have been my last breath to make a settlement on Will—his own nephew. . . And at Brackenbury it is canny, north-country little Ruth who holds the purse-strings . . . and dispenses her charity, offering to pay for my operation and reminding me that, when Will was at Eton, the bills came to them. . . I have felt for more years than I like to count that pinching and scraping are my appointed lot. . .

Of recent months the task became almost too much for my powers. Not only the cost of living. . . Will had lost this Morecambe appointment without finding another. Arthur complained that figure-head directors were not in so great request as formerly ; he was shame-faced about it, as though his pride were hurt; I did not then imagine that he had to give me less money because he was giving more in another quarter. . .

And you will remember that, when you told me, I refused to believe it. Goodness me, I am not so vain as to think that the man who once loved me must always love me, but there is such a thing as loyalty—and gratitude. I had trusted him . . . and that was enough; I did not need to tell him—or you—or even myself that he had enjoyed the best years of my life, that I was an old woman while he was still—thanks to me—a young man, that I had borne him a son and worn myself out before my time in scheming and contriving for the comfort and well-being of them both. . .

It was brave of you to tell me, to insist on my knowing. . . and believing. I was dazed. That Arthur should be giving her dresses and jewellery, when he could not afford to redecorate his wife’s house. . . And apparently it was the common talk of the clubs; and no doubt kind friends were secretly pitying me. . . The last infatuation of the middle-aged man—they were telling one another that I was six years Arthur’s senior—and what could you expect? As if I had made any secret of my age! It is in the books. And they were, perhaps, wondering how soon he would outgrow it and how much I knew and whether I minded. . . There was the rub—this savage, impertinent curiosity. What business of theirs if my husband humiliated me? And, strangely enough, one has so often seen it with other women and somehow always fancied that it would never happen to oneself. The swan-song. . . As a man feels that his youth is slipping out of his grasp, he makes this one last despairing effort. And love at that age is like a blow from a sledge-hammer; Arthur was prepared to run away with the woman. Indeed I know what I am talking about. Then, I felt, it was time for me to intervene. . .

You had been clever enough to find out the address—the house, by the way, Arthur did not give her. She told me so, but without that I knew enough of his finances to realize that it was physically impossible—; and all the way there I tried to understand this strange streak which apparently runs through all men. The old phrase: “Sowing one’s wild oats.” . . When I married Arthur, he had never had an affaire of any kind with any one; and so for thirty years. Am I very cynical in thinking that perhaps it would have been better if he had? . . . Spenworth, on the other hand, had been tossed from one woman’s arms to another’s ever since he was a lad at Eton. You entered his house and never knew whom you would find at the head of his table—except that it would not be the one you had seen there a month before; the only difference that marriage made to him was that, while Kathleen sat at the head of his table, he dined elsewhere. Now that he has married again in middle life, one has no sort of guarantee. It seems impossible to frame any rules for a man of that age. . .

I had not spoken to Arthur beforehand, of course. He would have spoiled everything. What I wanted was a cold, passionless talk with this Mrs. Templedown. Two women, even in our position, could understand each other: neither of us wanted a scandal, I was prepared to admit even that she might be genuinely fond of Arthur and would try—according to her lights—to do the best for him. I need hardly say that I did not dream of intimidating—Arthur was her property—nor of bribing—goodness me, what had I to offer? Nor did I feel constrained to beg for mercy or to ask what manner of life she proposed to leave for me. I hardly think that pride held me in check, but—somehow—to go on one’s knees to a young woman who started life on the stage was hardly. . . Well, as my boy would say, “It is not done.” I knew she was clever, I hoped to find her sensible; and then the only thing was to decide what to do. . .

Of course I did not send up my name. . .

“Say that a lady wishes to see her,” I told the maid.

And I was shewn upstairs readily enough. Not into the drawing-room; I think that class of person lives entirely in her bedroom. She was lying on the sofa in a kimono and—so far as I could judge from the generous opportunities which she insisted on giving me—nothing else; a lovely animal, as she was at pains that I should see, with perfect skin, a great mane of copper hair and golden-brown eyes. Very red lips, very white teeth; I was reminded of a soft, beautiful lion-cub. She moved and stretched herself like an animal, speaking as though she were only half-awake. I don’t think she could have been more than twenty. She left the stage to marry a man in the Air Force, I understand, and he was killed at the end of the war, leaving her very ill-provided-for. . . “Seductive” was the word I was trying to think of. . .

“It’s easy to see why men should fall down and worship you,” I said.

“Who’s in love with me now?,” she asked with the laugh of a child, exulting in her beauty, as it were, until in a flash I saw that her whole life was natural to her. . . Inevitable, I might say.

“Arthur Spenworth,” I told her.

“Oh, he’s a dear old thing,” she answered.

“He is my husband,” I said.

I might have added “and the father of our boy,” but I would make no appeal; I had come there to decide dispassionately what had to be done. . . The woman jumped up and faced me, but I stood my ground. Her eyes kept changing in expression, and I saw that she was first bewildered . . . and then defiant . . . then curious . . . then a little ashamed, then defiant again and once more bewildered.

“Well?,” she said; and then in spite of herself, as it were, “You’re not a bit like what I expected.”

“Older perhaps?,” I asked. “My dear young lady, my husband and I are much of an age, but he carries his years better. Why, goodness me, you are a child! Our boy must be ten years older than you. . . Won’t you ask me to sit down? Walking upstairs makes me out of breath, and I want to have a little talk with you. I have only just heard of this; and I want to know what is to be done. You will find me a reasonable woman, I hope, and perhaps I know too much of the world to judge hastily or reproach easily. Won’t you tell me everything, so that we may understand better how we are situated?”

Do you know, because I remained dispassionate, I felt in a moment that I was holding my own and in another moment that I was gaining ground. I who had walked upstairs wondering whether my knees would give way under me. . . It was Mrs. Templedown who was embarrassed. . . And I had not sought to make myself a ruler or a judge. . .

I will not weary you with the story. Arthur had met her—in the train from Birmingham! Is there not dignity and distinction in that? He had asked her to dine with him on reaching London, they had met three or four times, Arthur had begun giving her little presents. How much one can ever believe of such a woman’s story I do not profess to judge. She vowed that their relations were innocent, that her husband’s death had left her heart-broken and that she was simply and sincerely grateful to any man who shewed her a little kindness; in that class I gather it is only natural for every girl to have some benevolent elderly protector who takes her out to dinner and gives her little presents. If it had not been Arthur, I was to understand, it would have been some one else. I confess that her ingenuousness rang a little hollow when she betrayed how intimately and accurately she knew who he was—the connection with Spenworth on one side and with Brackenbury on the other; like the rest of them, she hunted with one quarry—or one type of quarry—definitely in view. . .

After the little presents came the big presents—dresses, jewellery and sums of money which she did not specify. One thought of the rags that one had worn oneself during the war. . . No shame in telling me about that! She had nothing of her own except this house which the husband had left her, and Arthur would have been hurt if she had refused. . . So charming! So delicate—on both sides. . . By and by Arthur seems to have become more exacting, but the girl vowed again that she kept him at arm’s length—knowing her own value, one presumes. I did not enquire very closely into this aspect of the campaign, as I knew only too well what was coming. When everything else failed, he would have to offer her marriage—by way of the Divorce Court.

“And that is how things stand now?,” I asked, as she came to the end of her story.

“That’s what he wants,” she answered. “Oh, but I can’t discuss it with you, Lady Ann.”

“My dear young lady,” I said, “that is just what we have to do—quite dispassionately, to decide what’s best. He is my husband, I love him in spite of everything; you love him too, I judge, and we have to put our heads together. You will go away with him, I take it?”

It was then that she began to cry. I knew it would come sooner or later. Convulsively. . . I have told you that she was nothing more nor less than a child. . .

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“To France? Next Thursday?”

It was no second-sight on my part, I can assure you. Arthur had arranged to visit Paris and Lyons—on business, I was told—, and the guess was natural, though Mrs. Templedown seemed to think I was some sort of witch.

“Yes,” she answered again. And then—really, you know, for all the world as though we were at a play: “Oh, don’t torture me!”

Torture her. . . ?

“And then,” I said, “my husband will write to tell me he loves you and has been unfaithful to me and is never coming back and I had better divorce him and he is sorry for the unhappiness he is causing me. . .”

Those terrible letters that the papers always publish. I never read them myself. In the school in which I was brought up, divorce lay beyond the pale: “Whom God hath joined. . .”

“And then you will divorce him, won’t you?,” she asked.

Really, you know, it was almost comic! She was afraid, after plunging herself in dishonour, that I might refuse to divorce Arthur so that she could never marry him.

“If he asks me,” I promised. “I am thinking solely of his happiness. He could not live with you unless you were married—I am not now thinking of Right or Wrong; it would cause too great a scandal, and he would have to resign his various public positions. I only hope that the divorce will not compel him to do that, for you will both be entirely dependent on the fees that he earns. We find it hard enough to live on his income as it is, by ceaseless scraping and pinching, denying ourselves little luxuries. . . I hope you are a good house-keeper? . . .

Do you know, as soon as I said it, I realized what an absurd question it was. One look at her, one glance at the room, the least spark of imagination, any guess at what she was and what her life had been! An economical house-keeper indeed! I wish I could describe her room to you: great bowls and vases of the most expensive flowers, boxes of sweets, cigarettes; all the magazines and illustrated papers that one really does think twice about before buying. . . Clothes, too. . . I am sure that even my niece Phyllida or Culroyd’s wife, who seem to have money to burn, would not have quite such a profusion. Lingerie, gloves, handkerchiefs, the finest silk stockings—and everything thrown about on floor and chairs like so much waste-paper. And I in rags that truly honestly I am ashamed for my maid to see. . . Her dressing-table alone supported a small fortune—bottles and boxes and looking-glasses and brushes that really made me feel a pauper. The door of her bathroom was open—in that class it is a point of honour never to shut anything or put anything away—, and I saw the most extravagant array of salts and soaps and powders and scents . . . like the tiring-room of some great eastern queen. Things I simply couldn’t afford; we discontinued bath-salts when the war broke out and one had an excuse for economizing, and we have never resumed them.

“I don’t know what your plans are, Mrs. Templedown,” I said. “If you return to the stage, everything may be different, but I know my husband’s income to a penny. The court will no doubt insist that he makes what provision he can for my son and myself; I should be greatly surprised if he could allow you more than about a thousand a year.”

“Well, I suppose it’s possible to manage on that,” she said.

It was pathetic! Money had no meaning for her! And, so long as other people paid the bills, what else could you expect? It must have required twice that sum to keep that beautiful body of hers in its present embarrassing state of semi-nudity.

“A thousand pounds—at present prices,” I said very distinctly, “for two people—to cover everything—, it’s not much, you will find. And, if you have been used to luxury, you will miss it more than a person who has always had to live on a small income. That is your affair, of course, and you mustn’t think me brutal if I tell you candidly that I’m considering my husband as much as I can and you not at all. You are young enough to take care of yourself, but he needs a great deal of looking after. . .”

I paused to let my words sink in. Of course she didn’t believe me! Because Arthur had squandered a few hundreds on her, she thought he could produce thousands merely by pressing a bell; and, when she had sucked him dry, she expected Spenworth and Brackenbury to come forward. I had to tell her how things really were. . . We should all be poorer than we are by a divorce. . . Though she clearly did not believe me, she was impressed; she was thinking. In that class one doesn’t think very much, apparently. I gathered that she could not go back to the stage; she had no position there and could only hope for work in the chorus. . .

“Old Boy says it will be all right,” she said, and I could see that she was exhausted by the rare exertion of thinking. Until you have heard your husband described as “Old Boy” by a half-naked chorus-girl who is slowly bleeding him to death, you have not realized how highly your self-restraint may be tested. . .

“I don’t suggest more than that it will be an effort,” I said. “My dear young lady, I speak with some knowledge. You were married for a few months to a husband whom you hardly saw and who spent what money he had like water. I have kept house for more than thirty years on an income which you would not think large, but which is bigger than anything you can hope for. I know something of men and their ways and their extravagances and humours. It will be a great change, and I only hope that you will prove equal to it.” I pointed—not unkindly—at the litter in her room. “I trust for your sake as well as his that you will learn habits of tidiness.”

“Is Old Boy a fusser?,” she asked.

I wish to be judged by results. If you tell me that the end has justified the means, I give you complete freedom to say that I spoke of Arthur as one might speak of a cook when one’s name had been furnished as a reference. I gave him a character—for his next employer. No, indeed, he was not what the young woman could fairly call a “fusser”, but all men of his age had contracted certain habits. He abominated untidiness and unpunctuality—the necessary fruit of his business-training; though generous, he had long been compelled to be careful about money. I offered to shew her my books, but she said she didn’t think she could understand them. And so on and so forth. He was very particular about his food, and in this respect Mrs. Templedown .would have to be a veritable martinet—not only to the servants but to him.

“My dear young lady,” I said, “you know what men of that age are like—or perhaps you still don’t. My husband is essentially temperate, but he is also criminally injudicious. He thinks that an occasional glass of champagne—he cannot afford to drink it regularly—is good for him; I know better. Acidity. . . Whisky and soda—two, if he likes—, one glass of port and nothing else. The moment he takes liberties with himself, his digestion suffers, he cannot sleep—and you pay the penalty. Similarly with what he eats; he must never be given butcher’s meat more than once a day, shell-fish of every kind are poison to him, and, though he will never admit it, any rich sweets tell their tale next day. I could give you a list, but you will find out for yourself. . . Smoking again . . . one cigar does him no harm, after two he can hardly breathe; all the Spenworths are liable to bronchitis. And exercise. My husband was quite an athlete as a young man; he says he doesn’t need exercise, but I know better. If I may speak quite openly, he suffers from what men call ‘liver.’ . . I should dearly like to give you a little list of things, if you won’t think me impertinent; one does not live with a man for more than thirty years without coming to regard him as one’s child. . .”

And, whether she liked it or not, then and there, I took pencil and paper and just jotted things down. He would never put on his winter underclothes unless some one reminded him; result—a week in bed with a severe chill. . .

“You make him out to be a complete crock,” said Mrs. Templedown. Poor soul! one hardly looked for any great elegance from her. . .

“Not that, by any means,” I told her, “but, at his age, a man has to be careful.”

We were still at work on the list when her maid came in and whispered that she had to dress and be out to dinner in half an hour. She was, I understand, going to a dance.

“Not with Arthur!” I said.

Oh no! She was going with some friend of her husband. I told her that, if Arthur was ever persuaded or even allowed to stay up after midnight, one paid for it next day. . . She asked if I would not wait with her while she dressed, but I was glad to escape while the maid was still in the room. The parting, had we been by ourselves, must inevitably have been difficult. As it was, we just shook hands. . .

I honestly cannot tell you whether I expected to hear anything more. I did not know what to think and was trying to keep my mind a blank. . . She came next day, when Arthur was out; it was pleasant to feel that she knew more of his movements than I did! We—my maid and I—were upstairs, looking through Arthur’s clothes before packing them to go abroad with him. I sent the maid out of the room and asked if Mrs. Templedown would mind coming up to me. And, when she came, I added practice to theory. Until you do it, you’re hardly conscious of it; but you cannot be a man’s wife for thirty-two years without finding out thirty-two thousand little peculiarities about him. I had spoken about the winter underclothing already. . . I gave her the prescription for his tonic and told her where to have it made up and when he must be forced to take it—the symptoms, danger-signals. . . My dear, I talk frankly to you and I sometimes fear that you must think me terribly sordid, but truly honestly, if one neglects small things, one neglects everything. You may fancy that there is little difference between two shillings and half-a-crown on a bottle of medicine, but, when you take the medicine for half the year and multiply the difference by twenty-six,—thirteen shillings! Multiply that one item of medicine by half a hundred things. . . I am not very enthusiastically supported; at dinner it is always “Why don’t we ever have this or that?,” when this or that is out of season and prohibitive; even Will rounded on me once and said that his poor old mother had reduced meanness to a fine art. I had to bite my lip! From Will. . . I told poor little Mrs. Templedown everything; and, if you say that I failed in loyalty to Arthur, I can only answer that the end must justify the means and that I am content to be judged by results.

“And now,” I said, “I can only wish you good luck. I am nothing to you, but, if you ever feel kindly disposed to a dull old woman, do your best for Arthur, keep him happy—for my sake. You are making a great experiment and taking a great risk; you, and you alone, can crown it with success. When you both ask me to divorce my husband, I shall take the necessary steps; but I shall do nothing hastily. Perhaps, when you have been with him for a time, you will find that the difficulties are greater than you anticipated—or, let me say, that success is harder of achievement than you hoped. I ask only one thing: do not force yourselves into an extremity from any false pride. Be candid with me, as I have been candid with you. Should you find only failure and the prospect of failure, recognize it boldly. Write to me. Say ‘It has not turned out as we expected. Your husband is coming back to you.’ I shall receive him without reproaches, I shall know nothing. He will find his favourite dinner, his chair and cigar, his book and ‘night-cap’, as he calls it. . . I shall be truly glad to see him back, but I look at you, with all your youth and beauty ; I know that I must not keep him if you are his hope of happiness. Kiss me, dear child,” I said, “and do better for him than I have been able to do.”

A singular meeting! She stayed with me for nearly two hours longer. I won’t say “not speaking a word”, but I can say “not finishing a sentence.” Bewildered. . . Then she went away, and I rang for my maid. I never heard from her again. On Thursday—the Thursday—Arthur found his suit-case and kit-bag packed and labelled in the hall. “I don’t want all this,” he said, “for one night.” . . And he was back again in three days. I happen to know that he went alone and returned alone—and was alone in Paris. . .

I was talking about the diary, was I not? It is not cheerful reading, and much of it is dull. This entry in question: “Arthur returned from France tired and depressed, but very glad to be home again. . .” It does not mean much. . .

To any one else. . .

I am not crying! I am simply worn-out. . . ! Oh, my dear, I am too old for this kind of thing, apart from the long agony of humiliation. Arthur must send me right away for a complete change. He can afford it now. . .