A Superfluous Loyalist

by E. F. Benson

A SUPERFLUOUS LOYALIST.

BY E. F. BENSON

DICK HALLIDAY was looking less contented than a young man gifted with his quite exceptional advantages had any right to look. For if to be only just thirty, to be quite adequately well off and more than adequately popular, to have a digestion equal to poached visiting-cards, to have a quantity of congenial work to do, and, above all, to have that blessed temperament which can be absorbed in and delighted with a hundred various pursuits, does not constitute happiness, one might well ask where it, like wisdom, is to be found. And at the moment, at any rate, Dick, like the sea, would certainly have said, "It is not in me."

The truth is that this faculty for absorption in that which is immediately in focus, though a splendid gift, is one which bears its pains and penalties very closely knit up with it. For those to whom nature and the casting of lines in pleasant places have given most facilities and opportunities for focussing desirable objects may one day have swim into their orbit something entrancingly desirable, but, as the event shows, pre-eminently unattainable. And while that object remains in focus, it will be found that they are wickedly unconscious of all those beauties which lie however minutely outside it. Such was the unhappy condition, on this exquisite morning in June, of Dick Halliday.

And his focus, so it would seem, was of the smallest. Outside it lay the whole round of delightful things—his maiden speech in the House yesterday, the eulogy of his friends last night and that of the papers this morning, the day's work that lay before him, the day's pleasure that he would normally find in its performance, and of minor joys the horse that waited for him outside for his ride in these brisk hours of the early day, and the swim in the Bath club that should succeed the ride. But all these were just not in focus, and one thing only was—that small sheet of paper that lay by his half-eaten breakfast and the words contained thereon. It ran thus:

 

"Dearest Dick,—

"I meant to tell you last night at Aunt Harriet's, but I simply could not get a word with you. It is just this: I am engaged to Jim, and, Dick, it was you who brought us together, and I can never thank you enough; but, indeed, I don't think that thanks are due for that sort of thing, for it was inevitable. But I can never forget it, and I was determined to be the first to tell you.

"Yours,
"Madge.

"P.S.—I shall meet you in the Row, shall I not, to-morrow morning? Do be there. Usual time."

 

Now, in our present very imperfect knowledge of the nature of thunderbolts, it would be but a vague thing to say that this was a thunderbolt striking across the blue of Dick's serene existence, but it was, at any rate, a piece of news utterly unexpected and, as he found this morning, entirely destructive to the "values" of the background of his life, as he had consciously or unconsciously pictured it to himself. On it there had been two figures; now it appeared that there was only one, and that figure his own and solitary. The ride in the Row, at any rate, did not supply companionship of the calibre which he had figured to himself.

Half an hour afterwards he had entered the Park through Stanhope Gate, and was trotting down to the Corner. The scene on other mornings would have been eminently pleasing to him—its soft haze, more like a country mist than the night-breath of the crowded town, still hung over the distances, and roof over shining roof and illuminated tree-tops pricked it and stood gilded with the yet low rays of a sun that promised heat. Nearer at hand plants with their many-angled leaves and clustered buds stood glistening, as if with fresh paint, in the morning glow, and on the weedless grass beneath them pigeons of undieted corpulence patrolled busily for food with inarticulate cooings of content. All these things he saw with an unseeing eye, which watched for one thing only. She was waiting for him at the Corner, and beckoned with an impatient riding-whip.

"Oh! Dick, I have been here ages," said Madge, as he joined her. "But I waited; I was sure you would come. Let's have a canter first, and talk afterwards."

"The last ride together?" asked Dick unwisely, as he knew before the words were spoken.

"The last? You are not leaving London?" asked she. And he almost laughed at her utter unconsciousness of his unwisdom.

Side by side they devoured the brown riband of ride, and at the top drew rein.

"Oh! that was splendid," she said. "I do believe our horses know each other as well as you and I; they go together perfectly. And now, Dick, I have listened to you talking about your subjects for so many days, that now you are going to listen to me with mine. They will not take so long as some of yours. It is this only, in fact: what could he—what could he have seen in me?"

Dick looked at her sideways. "Oh! you are not altogether without attractions, Madge," he said. "Plainer girls than you get married."

"Yes, but compared—— Dick, you know him well. So tell me, is there another man in the world like him? If so, show him me at once."

"You are simply tempting an austere legislator to encourage bigamy," observed Dick.

"You funny old maid! Dear Dick, since I was engaged—it was only yesterday afternoon—I have been filled with a heavenly pity for all poor spinsters and bachelors. Now, Dick, do marry. It's true that I didn't want you to be married before, because I liked you so much myself, but I didn't know what it meant. Oh, there's old Lady Jezebel! Look at her wig! Why didn't you take off your hat, Dick? She saw you, and she saw you saw her."

"I didn't see her," said he.

"Then you don't use your eyes. I can always see her, even without looking. She is per—pervasive."

"Then you don't use yours," said he.

They rode on a little way in silence, Madge, it may be presumed, absorbed in her thoughts, for she was unconsciously smiling; Dick, it may also be presumed, absorbed in his, for he was unconsciously frowning. At last, turning her head directly to him, she noticed this.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing whatever. Why?"

"You don't look like that for nothing. Dick, you really are very uncomplimentary. You were thinking of your own affairs, when you are here specially to think about mine. You were brooding over some terrible scheme for ameliorating the conditions of the lower classes. Now, weren't you?"

"I was," he said, "and I apologise. I will think about anything you like—the degradation of the upper, if it pleases you."

She laughed. "Now, I don't want to degrade anybody this morning," she said. "I suppose happiness makes one unselfish—at least, that has always been a pet theory of yours."

Dick did not swear either above or below his breath, and the attention of the recording angel is hereby called to it. Neither had he much time to do so, for Madge went on almost immediately.

"Anyhow, your theory holds about Jim and me," she said. "Last night we both found that we had been talking about nothing but you. It was odd."

"Very odd," said Dick.

"He told me about those Paris days, when he and you were learning French together, eight or nine years ago—at least, he began to. Ah! Dick, what a horrible place to send young men to!"

Dick's frown suddenly became conscious. "You are talking of what you do not know, Madge," he said rather brusquely.

"Yes, that is true. Jim, for some reason, kept harping back to Paris, and your life there; but I, on my side, kept stopping him. Why should I not say these things to you? I know you well enough. But why, so I asked him, should he tell me about the horrible people there?"

Dick straightened himself on the saddle. "You were perfectly right, Madge," he said. "Jim always has a sort of unholy—sort of unholy gratification in thinking of the things he didn't do. Didn't, mind you."

She flushed. "You are simply horrid," she said, with a flaming face. "To imagine Jim—— Oh!"

Next moment she was scattering the spirted mould behind her, and Dick followed in a rain of bespatterment. But in those few minutes he saw his mistake, and when Madge drew rein he came up beside her.

"I have offended you," he said, "and I am sorry. But you must remember that I said 'didn't do.' Of course he didn't. That seems to you an insult when applied to him. I assure you that it would be a testimonial with regard to most men."

She turned on him with fire still in her eye. "Ah! Are you among them?" she asked.

He laughed. "Oh! don't be a tragic muse," he said. "Yes, I never despise testimonials, if they are true."

"Then you are despicable, Dick," she said, and turned southwards out of the Park, leaving him without another word.

Dick watched her disappear, and then, with a shrug of the shoulders expressive of an indifference which he did not feel, went homewards. Her fierce, unreasonable championship of Jim, though productive of such heavy blows on himself, seemed to him an admirable performance, sincere and thoroughly characteristic of her. But as his inward rounds of applause died into silence, a black demon from the pit, or so he held it, rose and possessed him. For himself, he had always been of cleanly life; he knew himself in such regards to be worthy to offer all there was of him to a woman. And that woman, to whom he would make his offering, had accepted another, soiled and stained. To the world's view this is a matter of infinitesimal moment—wild oats are a recognised and even creditable crop; but to Dick they were otherwise, and to Madge it appeared, in the first rosy blush of a girl's love, quite unspeakably otherwise. And at that thought temptation gripped him by the throat. What could be easier than to encourage Jim to tell her the true story of the days he had spent in Paris? From his own conscience's standpoint the thing ought to be told; from his own conscience's standpoint also a grave stain rested on his friend. But what, then, had caused his own vigorous and instinctive denial of what he knew to be true, the mere hint of which, even though negatived, had roused so sudden a storm in the girl? It was a loyalty, he supposed, to his friend. The denial had been somehow forced upon him; he could not have done otherwise. But Madge was worshipping that which was not.

He had a long and busy day in the City, and a late sitting at the House of Commons following. He did not get home till the smallest hour of the morning was past, tired with work, tired, even more, with the monotonous and dreary march of his own thoughts, which had moved across the events of the day like some dismal, never-ending procession, headed as it was by the funeral car of his dead and disappointed hopes, and escorted by a legion of doubts and fears. Madge had found, so she believed, the man whom her soul sought; but he, the man's friend, felt sure it was not so. He himself, on the other hand, had long ago discovered the woman for whom his soul sought, but, by the left-handedness of human affairs, she had no thrill of the blood for him. And by a chance more sinister yet, it was now in his power, and, many would say, lay in the sphere of his duty, to tell her, or at any rate not prevent her from knowing, that her idol had feet of clay. The idol, therefore, toppling down, would leave the niche in the shrine empty again, and the pulse in his body beat and tingled. …

But only for a moment, for the light beneath which this miserable procession moved was of a sun pale and wintry indeed, but still luminous—that light of loyalty which there is no explaining or getting away from, elementary it may be, but elemental. Evidently he had deeply offended Madge in his following of it; it seemed, in fact, to lead him with unwavering persistence into dark places. Nor did it illuminate them particularly successfully.

But there was a more insidious temptation still. He, like Madge herself, had certain ideas, old-fashioned, maybe, but to him (and, it would seem, to her) convincing, about the sort of life which it behoved men not less than women to lead. A deviation from it, if such deviation amounted to a changed course and habit of life and thought, constituted an unworthiness, and in this regard he considered that Jim was entirely unworthy of her. Was there not, then, a duty thrust upon him? If loyalty to his friend pulled strongly in one direction, did not justice—the bare justice, that is, that cries out against a grievous error being made when a word can save it—pull no less strongly in the other? It was as if he had heard in some confessional—the secrecy, that is to say, that loyalty and friendship enjoined on him—the story of a crime for which another would suffer. Should he not therefore with his utmost persuasiveness urge the criminal at least to confess? Such a course seemed straightforward and honest enough; yet how was it that so sudden and instinctive a denial had risen to his lips? Which was right, reason or instinct?

 

He let himself into the silent house where he had chambers, and went upstairs. There in the window with a paper and a cigarette was sitting Jim.

"Thought you were never coming," said the latter; "but I wanted to see you, and so I waited. Well, Dick?"

Dick stared for a moment, then recollected himself. "Congratulations, old boy!" he said. "But you're not half good enough for Madge." And as he said it he felt all the old habits of convention closing round him.

Jim got up. "My God! Don't I know that!" he exclaimed.

Dick gave a long sigh: things were clearing a little, for if ever a voice rang true, it was Jim's. The ice was broken also, and while still considering what to say, the other went on:

"That's what I want to talk to you about," he said. "You know all about me, Dick—at least, you have had a pretty fair sample of me. Well, do you know, when one meets the girl, everything becomes different. I could no more—— O Lord, Paris and all that hell!" "

Dick sat down. As Jim spoke he felt all the fluid doubts that had beset him all day crystallise and become solid and sharp-edged certainties, precipitated by the sincerity of the voice.

"You haven't told her?" he asked.

"No; but I am going to. I began to lead up to it the other day, but she stopped me."

"Well, then, never attempt it again. Look here, Jim, I believe you are serious, and that you have really finished with your—your agricultural experiments. Now, it's all very fine to talk high-flown bosh, and say that you cannot bear that Madge should not know all about your past life. You've got to bear it: that is your penalty for having—for having fluttered about. But now it is over. You say so, and I believe you. You might as well confess to her that you once stole sweets when you were a kid. You don't steal things now, you know, and neither that nor other things that you have done have got anything to do with what you are now. It is all dead. Give it a decent burial. But"—and Dick pointed a menacing forefinger—"if it is not dead, you have no business to marry at all. I don't want to preach unpracticable things; but that is what I know."

Jim shifted from toot to foot on the hearthrug. "Ah! if I didn't love her," he said, "if I was going to marry her for any other reason but that, I could salve my conscience as you suggest. But as it is, I can't."

Dick got up and faced the other. "You are prepared for the consequences?" he said. "You risk everything, you know."

"I risk everything," said Jim.

"Then God help you for a wrong-headed fool!" said Dick, with some warmth.

"Amen to that. I say, Dick?"

"Well?"

"Wouldn't you do it yourself, if you really loved a girl?"

"Can't say," said Dick.

"I once thought you were rather gone on her yourself, you know," said Jim.

"You are fool enough to think anything," said Dick steadily.

 

All that day Dick saw nothing either of his cousin or Jim, and the hours had passed in impatient fretting as to what should come next. But just as he was going out to dinner, a card was brought up, and on the heels of her card came Madge, radiant, soft-smiling.

"Oh! Dick," she said, when the man had left the room, "you lied beautifully yesterday morning. You must have practised a great deal. But Jim has told me everything, and I just wanted to beg your pardon for being a brute to you. Do you know, I loved him more for telling me. And it does not make a bit of difference; it all belongs to his dead self, not to the Jim I know."

The corners of Dick's mouth twitched. "Did he say that?" he asked.

"No; I did. Why?"

"Only that I said the same to him last night; that was the identical reason I gave for his not telling you."

Madge frowned. "Oh! Dick, how could you tell him not to?"

At that he smiled outright. "I can't do right, it appears," he said.

There was silence for a moment, and a silver-voiced clock chimed on the mantelpiece.

"Horrors, how late it is!" said Madge. "I must fly. You are a good old soul, Dick; but you don't know anything about women."

"Who does?" asked he. "Anyhow, women don't."