The Boy-Man

by Bettina von Hutten

 

THE BOY-MAN

BY BARONESS VON HUTTEN

AMONG other things, Lady Harden knew when to be silent; and now, having made her speech, she sat watching Cleeve as, aghast, he dropped his rod until its flexible tip lay on the darkening water, and stared off towards the house.

She had said it, and its effect on him was much what she had expected it to be.

He was so young that his strength, she knew, was largely potential: only she, as far as she knew, had ever observed its potentiality; to others he was a handsome, merry young animal, “keen on girls,” as he himself called it, and as innocent of any comprehension of the deeper meanings of life as a pleasant poodle pup.

She, being of those who have eyes to see, had, during the three days she had known him, watched him closely, with the result that he interested her.

And now, she had said to him this thing that so utterly disconcerted him. Partly out of kindness she had said it, and partly because it was the quickest way to fix his genial but roving attention where she wished it to be—on herself.

[Illustration:“Speaking with easy deliberation between puffs.”]

He was so young that her five years of seniority and the existence of her eleven-year-old son had, to his mind, separated her from him by something like a generation. He had found her a ripper as to looks, awfully jolly to talk to, and no end of a musician. But he had never thought of her as belonging to his own class in years, and she knew this.

And as she watched him first shrink and then straighten himself under the blow she had given him, she knew that her first move was a success.

For over a minute he did not speak. Then he looked up. “How in the devil did you find that out?” he asked abruptly.

“I saw it. Do you mind my warning you?”

“Good gracious, no. It's—most awfully kind of you. I—I really never thought of such a thing. You see, she was always a great pal of Dudley's—my eldest brother.”

Lady Harden laughed. “So she seemed too old for—that sort of thing? I see. In fact, I saw from the first, and that is why I ventured ... We have drifted nearly to the willows, by the way.”

He laid his neglected rod in the bottom of the boat, and rowed in silence until his companion resumed, lighting a cigarette, and speaking with easy deliberation between puffs: “She is thirty-four, and—that is not old nowadays. The Duke of Bodmin is crazy to marry her, by the way.”

“Bodmin!”

“Bodmin. And—there are others. My dear Teddy—may I, a contemporary of Miss—Methusaleh—call you Teddy? Are you really so naif as not to have known?”

It was almost dark, but she could still see the flush that burnt his face at the question.

“I hadn't the slightest idea,” he tested, indignantly jerking the boat the boathouse.

“But why have you been making love to her so—outrageously?” She rose, and stood balancing herself gracefully while she lit a fresh cigarette. Her figure was remarkably good.

“Making love to her? I? Nonsense!” he returned rudely: “she's the best dancer in the house, and the best sort all round: those Warrington girls are frights, and the little Parham thing is—poisonous.”

“But—at breakfast, who fetched her eggs and bacon? Who made her tea? Who——” She held out her hand as she spoke, and leaned on him as she got out of the boat.

“Who got your eggs and bacon, then?” he retorted.

It was the first sounding of the Personal tone, and behind the cigarette her lips quivered for a fraction of a second. Then looking up at him, “Colonel Darrant,—a contemporary of my own, as is right and proper.”

“A contemporary!—why, the man's old enough to be your father!”

“No.” They had left the dusky darkness of the trees, and struck off across the lawn. “He could hardly be my father, as he's forty-five, and I—thirty!”

Then silence fell, and she knew that he was somewhat tumultuously readjusting his thoughts. If Mrs. Fraser, who was thirty-four, was in love with him,—then this woman with the sleepy, far-seeing eyes, who was only thirty.... what an ass he had been! Just because he had known Bess Fraser ever since he was a kid, and because Lady Harden was a great swell, and wore diamond crowns and things, and had a son at Harrow....!

And Lady Harden, apparently dreaming, enjoying the exquisite evening, read his thoughts with the greatest ease, and smiled to herself—the vague smile that consisted more of a slight, dimpled lift of her upper lip than of a widening of her mouth.

That evening, by some caprice, she wore no diamonds, and the simplest of her rather sumptuous gowns.

Colonel Durrant, who had fallen deeply in love with her ten years before, and never fallen out, whispered to her that she looked twenty. And as she smiled in answer, her eyes met Teddy Cleeve's.

*****

Mrs. Fraser, quite unconsciously, gave the great Lady Harden all the information she wanted.

And Lady Harden (her greatness, in several ways, was an undoubted fact, and the proof of this is that only two people in the world suspected it!) was insatiable in the matter of information. Like a boa-constrictor, her tremendous curiosity would sleep for months, and then, on awakening, it hungered with a most mighty and devastating hunger. And her concentrative force was such that while one person interested her she lived in a small world, half of which was in blackest shadow, half in brightest light, and in the shadow she stood, watching the only other person who, for the time being, existed.

Bess Fraser, after dinner, told her, quite without knowing it, the whole story of her own rather absurd love for the boy.

She had once been engaged to Dudley Cleeve; she had known Teddy as a little fellow in long sailor trousers and white blouses; he had had the dearest curls,—had Lady Harden noticed that the close-cropped hair turned up at the ends even now?

He had been an obstinate child, always good-tempered, but always bent on his own way. He was his mother's pet, and was by her always plentifully supplied with money, so that the world was for him a smiling place.

He had insisted on going into the Navy; or rather, he had not insisted—he had simply taken for granted that he was to go, and he had gone.

He had always been in love, but never with one girl for long. “Of course, he's a perfect child,” Mrs. Fraser added, with elaborate carelessness.

She herself had been a widow for five years. She was a magnificently beautiful woman, much handsomer than Lady Harden, but she did not know her own points, and wore the wrong colours.

Lady Harden, watching her while she talked, knew how ashamed she was of her love for Teddy Cleeve; and, constitutionally kind and comforting, the younger woman tried to put her at her ease by chiming in with her tone of detached, middle-aged friendliness towards the beautiful youth.

“He is a dear boy,” she agreed. “I do like to see him dance! He's so big and strong. Billy, my boy, is going to be big too, and I only hope he'll turn out like this Teddy!”

And Teddy, attracted while rather frightened by the idea of Mrs. Fraser's caring for him, made love to her spasmodically just to convince himself, and then, convinced by something in her voice, fled to Lady Harden for protection, and was scolded by her.

[Illustration:“The Major stared. 'Are you drunk?' he asked severely.”]

“You are a wretch!” she said, looking up at him. (She was a small woman, and in this day of giantesses, this has its charm.)

“A wretch?”

“Yes. You are a flirt.”

Of course, he was delighted by this accusation, and smiled down, his teeth gleaming; under his young yellow moustache.

“I am a saint,” he declared with conviction. “A young, innocent—anchorite.”

“Young—yes. You are very young, Mr. Cleeve.”

“You called me Teddy this afternoon.”

“Then I was a very abandoned person.”

“Please be abandoned again. By the way, the Colonel expiated many times at dinner, didn't he?”

She stared. “How?”

“By sitting where he did. Not even opposite side of the table! My luck, even, was better.”

“Your luck? How?”

“Because—I could at last see you!”

Lady Harden was an adept in the gentle art of snubbing. “My dear child,” she said, very gently, pulling off her gloves, “don't be absurd. I can't bear being made love to by boys!”

“I haven't the slightest intention——” he began, fiercely; but she had turned, and opening her violin case, took out what she always called her fiddle.

She was not a musical artist—so few people are!—but she had worked hard, and knew the things she played. If there was no Heaven-shaking inspiration about her, there was no flattening and no slipping from note to note. She played simple, little-known things, plaintive for the most part, and played them well. She also looked her best with the fiddle in her arms, a rapt, far-off expression in her half-closed eyes.

Teddy Cleeve, watching her, hated her for the moment. And, while he had in a youthful way loved several women, this was the first one he had hated. He was, however, too young to see the signification of this fact, and as soon as she had ceased playing, escaped to the smoking-room with a Major of Hussars who declared that fiddling was the one thing he couldn't stand.

“Lovely creature, Lady Harden,” the unmusical Major began, as he lit his cigar.

“Too thin,” returned Teddy the crafty.

The Major stared. “Are you drunk?” he asked, severely. “Her figger's the best in England! And amusin', Tells the best stories of any woman I know. Only thing I don't like about her is that infernal fiddlin'.”

But the fiddling continued, and Teddy, who loved it, felt his hatred melt. After a bit he went back to the drawing-room, only to see the violin being returned to its case. Lady Harden smiled absently at him, and soon afterwards was settled at a bridge-table, opposite. Colonel Durrant.

*****

The next morning Lady Harden went for a ride with a man who had just arrived—a fellow named Broughton. Cleeve watched them go. Then, finding Bess Fraser at his elbow, he asked her to play Fives with him.

Bess had become non-interesting since Lady Harden's revelation. Poor old Bess—he wondered whether she really... And to think of Bodmin's wanting to marry her! She really was a splendid creature. Much better-looking than Lady Harden. Lady Harden was too pale by daylight.

“I say, Bess, what is Lady Harden's first name?”

“Dagny. Her mother's mother was a Norwegian, you know.”

“Dagny,” repeated Cleeve slowly. “I never heard the name before: I like it; it suits her somehow.”

Alas for poor Mrs. Fraser, she was not clever. Pausing in the game, she looked up. “Mind you don't fall in love with her, Teddy,” she said sharply.

“What rot!” he answered, smashing the ball into a pocket. “Why should I fall in love with her?”

“Well,—a good many men do. And she's frightfully attractive, and you're so—young.”

He frowned. “I'm twenty-five, and—a fellow sees a lot by that time, if he's ever going to see anything. Play!”

When Lady Harden came in from her ride, she found Teddy waiting for her.

“I've been warned against you,” he said abruptly, his blue eyes dancing.

“Against me?”

“Yes. Against falling in love with you.” The personal note was strong now.

Lady Harden sank into a chair with a laugh.

“How perfect! Who warned you? Dear old Lady Carey? Did you tell her a man may not fall in love with his—great-aunt?”

“I'm even not sure that yesterday I was not in love with—some one who is five years older than you!”

Her charming face, flushed with exercise, grew suddenly serious. “Oh, but that was—different!”

“I don't see why.”

“Why, because she is married.”

Cleeve burst out laughing. “I may be an infant,” he said, “but I'm not such an infant as to think that 'married or not married' has anything to do with the question!”

She laughed too. “You are a charming infant, at all events. Perhaps if you were a little older——”

“Well?”

“I might allow you to—do what you were warned against.”

“Allow me?”

She rose, and went slowly to the foot of the stairs. Then she gathered up her habit, and turned. “Yes, Allow you to.”

“You grant a great deal by that remark. How about the old 'I had no idea of such a thing'?” he retorted.

She looked at him meditatively. 'You know more than I had thought. How old are you?”

“Nearly twenty-six,” he answered, stretching a point. “Why?”

“Because my boy is only eleven. I am so curious as to how he will turn out. He is blond, too. Well, au 'voir. I must go and dress.”

*****

If any one had asked Dagny Harden at that period just what she wanted of young Cleeve she would not have known what to answer. She was a great flirt, but at the same time she was a very kind woman, and never wilfully gave pain to any one.

A careful study of the science of flirting and its masters and mistresses would probably prove that the greatest (in the sense of artistic skill) flirts are those people who have excitable brains and little temperament.

Dagny Harden had been fond of her husband in a mild, domestic, sincere way that satisfied both him and herself, and that had never faltered.

She had, however, a really remarkable dramatic talent, and this needing outlet, she interested herself with a series of gracefully conducted, scandal-avoiding flirtations, in which she appeared to each man as a very good woman found by him personally to be more charming than she intended. These men, some of them, suffered intensely during their term, but they had no bitterness for her. And she, liking them all (for she was discriminating, and never let herself in for an affair with a dull man), had really no appreciation of their suffering. When she had turned a victim's mind and heart wrong-side out; when she had watched the wheels go round; when all had been said that could be said without her nice scales of judgment being weighed down on the side of either too great severity or too great indulgence—it was good-bye.

She was exquisitely ruthless, brutally enchanting, admirably cruel. And she never talked of her victims to each other, or to other women. She was, in a way, great.

*****

“I wish,” said Teddy Cleeve, folding his arms as he sat on the low stone wall, and looking at her, “that I was clever.”

“Aren't you clever?”

“No.”

“And if you were?”

“If I were, I'd know what you are thinking about.”

This, too, is a milestone on the Dover Road.

“What I am thinking about? Well, at that moment I was thinking about you.”

“Honour bright?”

“Honour bright. I was wondering what you will be like in fifteen years.”

“Why fifteen?”

She smiled, and prodded with her stick at a bit of moss in a crack in the wall. Somewhere below them there was a view, but it was far away.

“Well—because if you were forty, you would be—just my age.”

“You are thirty.”

“Voilà! 'That's exactly what I said. A woman of thirty is as old as a man of forty. As it is, you are a child, and I a middle-aged person.”

Cleeve watched her for a moment. Then he said slowly, “I'd give up those intervening years to be forty to-day.”

“Then you'd be an awful idiot!”

“I'd not be an idiot at all. You treat me like a child.”

“You are one—to me.”

“I'm not a child.”

“Very well—you are old. You are a padded veteran of sixty—like Mr. Blake. Do you like that better?”

He was silent, and after a pause they started slowly down the hill.

Two days had passed since she had told him that Mrs. Fraser was in love with him. They had been much together, but never alone until now, and she knew that he was furious with himself for letting the minutes slip unmarked by.

Suddenly he burst out: “Will you wear that grey frock you wore the first night to-night, and the low diamond thing in your hair?”

“Why?”

“Because—I want to see you again as I saw you then. I—I have lost my bearings. I can't remember how you looked, and I—want——”

“I looked like a well-preserved middle-aged lady. Please don't begin to think me young, Teddy.”

Under her broad hat-brim her eyes gleamed maliciously.

“You are young! I was an idiotic——”

She raised her 'head. “Oh, don't! Don't fall in love with me; it would bore us both to death: be my nice adopted son.”

“Dear Lady Harden,” he returned, flushing, “I assure you that I have not the slightest idea of falling in love with you.”

“Thank Heaven! I adore boys, but a boy in love is really too appalling!”

He caught her hand, and looked down at her, something suddenly dominating in his eyes. “That is nonsense,” he said, shortly. “I am young, but I am not a child; and if I fell in love with you——”

“Well?”

“It would not be as a child loves. That is all.”

He released her hand, and they walked on in silence.

*****

The extraordinary delight that most charming women take in playing with fire had ever been Dagny Harden's, for the reason that she had never in all her experiences been in the slightest danger of burning her delicate fingers. Purely cerebral flirt that she was, her unawakened heart dozed placidly in the shadow of her husband's strong affection for her.

Once or twice, when the suffering she inflicted was plainly written on the face of her victim, her mind shrank fastidiously away from closer examination of pain she had caused, and the disappearance of the man was a relief to her.

As she descended the stairs that evening, in the grey frock and the diamond circlet, she smiled the little smile that meant pleased anticipation.

Teddy was a dear boy, and he had grown older in the last day or two. After dinner she would play on her fiddle and—watch the dear boy. Then there would be a rather picturesque good-bye, for he was leaving at dawn, and—that would be all.

Fate, grinning in his monk's sleeve, had settled things otherwise.

There was no music, and at half-past ten Lady Harden found herself in a little boat on the lake, one of several parties, alone with Teddy Cleeve.

In the shadow of some willows he pulled in his oars. His face was very white, his mouth fixed. “Why—have you done this?” he asked, abruptly.

She hesitated, and then, the obvious banality refusing to be uttered, answered slowly: “It isn't really done, Teddy; you only think it is.”

“That is—a damned lie.”

The woman never lived who did not enjoy being sworn at by the right man in the right way.

“Teddy!”

“Oh yes, 'Teddy.' It is a lie. Why tell it?”

“I mean that if it hadn't been me it would have been—some one else. Your time had come,” she returned, nervously.

From across the lake came singing—some “coon song” anglicised into quaint incomprehensibility. Cleeve folded his arms.

“Don't—look like that, Teddy.”

“I look as I feel. I am not—you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you looked at me at dinner as if——”

“Hush! Don't say horrid things.”

“You looked at me as though you loved me. And if truth is better than lying, it was worse to look—like that—without feeling it, than it would have been to really feel it.”

“You are talking nonsense. I am very near-sighted, and——”

He laughed harshly. “Can't you play the game even for five minutes? I understand that it amused you to make a fool of me, but it didn't end with that. You have made me really love you. Really love you—do you understand?”

As he spoke, they heard peals of distant laughter, and saw six or seven of the people who had been boating, scampering across the moonlit lawn towards the nearest park gates,

“They must be going over to the Westerleighs',—we must go too,” said Lady Harden. “Will you row in?”

Cleeve did not answer; he did not appear to have heard her remark.

After a pause he said slowly: “You have made me really love you. I don't know why you did it, for I surely had not hurt you in any way. However, you did it, and you must have had some reason. You found me a boy; you have made me a man. Well,—you must love me too.”

The boat had begun to drift, and was alone on the burnished water.

[Illustration:“'I wish,' said Teddy Cleeve, folding his arms as he sat on the low stone wall, 'that I was clever.'”]

Lady Harden clasped her hands nervously.

“I must love you—what rot! Come, row to the landing, please. I am going back to the house, and you must go on to the Westerleighs'.”

“Dagny,—I say, you must love me too.”

“You are crazy.”

“I am not.”

“Well,—I do not love you, and I never shall. Now let us end this melodrama.”

Cleeve took up the oars and rowed rapidly to the landing-place. Then, as she stepped on to the platform he took her into his arms. “You must,” he said, looking down at her. “It's all your own fault. You did it wilfully. Now you must love me.”

His dogged persistency puzzled her, and routed all her usual array of graceful phrases. “Am I being invited to—elope with you?” she asked, laughing a little shrilly.

He flushed. “No. I—love you. But—you must feel something of this that is hurting me. Hurting? Why, it's Hell!”

“Hell! I am sorry,—indeed I am!”

“Oh, that does no good. Words can't help. You have got to suffer too,” he returned, still holding her round the shoulders.

It was, in spite of the thrill of the unusual that she distinctly felt, absurd. It ought to be laughed at. So she laughed. “How can you make me suffer, you baby?” she asked.

“Well, I can. Women have their weapons, and men have theirs. You've made a man of me. I know a lot of things I didn't know last week. Among others, I know that you couldn't have been as you have been, unless I had attracted you pretty strongly. You are,” he went on, with a coolness that sat oddly on his tense young face, “pretty near to loving me at this moment.”

“That is not true.”

“Oh yes, it is, Lady Harden. It's because I am young, and big, and—good-looking. These things count for you as well as for us. And you are thirty. I read a book the other day about a woman of thirty. Thirty is young enough, but thirty-five isn't, and—thirty-five is coming.”

Her eyes closed for an instant. “You are brutal.”

“Yes, I am very brutal. You were brutal too. You see, I remembered that novel while I was dressing for dinner, and it taught me a lot. You and it have made me rather wise between you. Well—I love you,” he went on, suddenly fierce, “and you must love me. Dagny!”

Bending, he kissed her.

She had killed his boyish shyness, his youthful hesitation, all the boy's natural fear of repulsion. He was the man, she the woman. He dominated, she submitted; he was strong, she was weak; he was big, she was small.

“Oh, why——?” she stammered, as he released her.

Because,—it is the only way. You could always have beaten me at talking.”

“You had no right to kiss me.”

“I think I had. If a woman has a right to torment a man as you tormented me, he surely has a right to take whatever means he can of—getting even. Women are so brutal.”

He had found, she felt, the solution to the Eternal riddle. Her heart was beating furiously, but her voice, as she went on, was cool enough.

“Look here, Teddy, I will tell you the truth about all this. Will you believe me?”

After a second's hesitation he answered curtly, “Yes.”

“Well,—you are right: I mean your—method is right. It never occurred to me before that—well, that turn-about is fair play. Women are brutes—particularly, perhaps, the good ones who flirt.”

Cleeve laughed. “'The good ones who flirt.' Go on!”

“And I suppose you were, in a way, entitled to use against me the only weapons you had. You see, I am quite frank. Only—you used them too soon. I don't love you. Probably, if we had been together a week longer, I should have; but I do not love you at this minute.”

“Wait till I'm gone,” he observed, with his horrible young wisdom.

She frowned. “That has nothing to do with it. You leave here to-morrow morning, and on Friday you sail. And I do not love you. I am sorry for having hurt you. Believe this.”

“I don't believe it. I'm not sorry, and I don't believe you are. Listen,—the others are coming. Run back to the house, and I'll go and meet them. And first—if there is no danger for you, let me kiss you again.”

The voices, still afar, seemed discordant in the white stillness.

[Illustration:“Cleeve opened his arms. “Come. Then I shall believe you.”]

Cleeve opened his arms. “Come. Then I shall believe you.”

Lady Harden took a step forward, and held her face bravely to his. Then, just as he bent his head, she turned and hid her face on his arm. “I cannot,” she whispered.

The Boy-Man's lips were set hard, his brows drawn down. “Ah! Dagny, dearest,” he whispered, “and I must go to-morrow.”

She looked up. “You have won; I have lost: thank God you go to-morrow!” she answered.

A moment later she was speeding through the shadows towards the house, Cleeve, lighting a cigarette, lounged down to the drive towards the laughing groups of returning frolickers.

Copyright 1905 by the Baroness von Hutten.