The Irrational Knot/Chapter XX

by George Bernard Shaw

Sholto Douglas returned to England in the ship which carried Marian's letter to Elinor. On reaching London he stayed a night in the hotel at Euston, and sent his man next day to take rooms for him at the West End. Early in the afternoon the man reported that he had secured apartments in Charles Street, St. James's. It was a fine wintry day, and Douglas resolved to walk, not without a sense of being about to run the gauntlet.

It proved the most adventurous walk he had ever taken in his life. Everybody he knew seemed to be lying in wait for him. In Portland Place he met Miss McQuinch, who, with the letter fresh in her pocket, looked at him indignantly, and cut him. At the Laugham Hotel he passed a member of his club, who seemed surprised, but nodded coolly. In Regent Street he saw Lady Carbury's carriage waiting before a shop. He hurried past the door, for he had lost courage at his encounter with Elinor. There were, however, two doors; and as he passed the second, the Countess, Lady Constance, and Marmaduke came out just before him.

"Where the devil is the carriage?" said Marmaduke, loudly.

"Hush! Everybody can hear you," said Lady Constance.

"What do I care whether—Hal-lo! Douglas! How are you?"

Marmaduke proffered his hand. Lady Carbury plucked her daughter by the sleeve and hurried to her carriage, after returning Douglas's stern look with the slightest possible bow. Constance imitated her mother. Douglas haughtily raised his hat.

"How obstinate Marmaduke is!" said the Countess, when she had bidden the coachman drive away at once. "He is going to walk down Regent Street with that man."

"But you didnt cut him, mamma."

"I never dreamed of his coming back so soon; and, of course, I cannot tell whether he will be cut or not. We must wait and see what other people will do. If we meet him again we had better not see him."

"Look here, old fellow," said Marmaduke, as he walked away with Douglas. "Youve come back too soon. It wont do. Take my advice and go away again until matters have blown over. Hang it, it's too flagrant! You have not been away two months."

"I believe you are going to be married," said Douglas. "Allow me to congratulate you."

"Thank you. Fine day, isnt it?"

"Very fine."

Marmaduke walked on in silence. Douglas presently recommenced the conversation.

"I only arrived in London last night. I have come from New York."

"Indeed. Pleasant voyage?"

"Very pleasant."

Another pause.

"Has anything special happened during my absence?"

"Nothing special."

"Was there much fuss made about my going?"

"Well, there was a great deal of fuss made about it. Excuse my alluding to the subject again. I shouldnt have done so if you hadnt asked me."

"Oh, my dear fellow, you neednt stand on ceremony with me."

"That's all very well, Douglas; but when I alluded to it just now, you as good as told me to mind my own business."

"I told you so!"

"Not in those words, perhaps. However, the matter is easily settled. You bolted with Marian. I know that, and you know it. If the topic is disagreeable, say so, and it is easily avoided. If you want to talk about it, better not change the subject when I mention it."

"You have taken offence needlessly. I changed the subject inadvertently."

"Hm! Well, has she come back with you?"

"No."

"Do you mean that youve thrown her over?"

"I have said nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, she has thrown me over."

"Thats very strange. You are not going to marry her then, I suppose?"

"How can I? I tell you she has deserted me. Let me remind you, Lind, that I should not be bound to marry her in any case, and I shall certainly not do so now. If I chose to justify myself, I could easily do so by her own conduct."

"I expect you will not be troubled for any justification. People seem to have made up their minds that you were wrong in the first instance, and you ought to keep out of the way until they have forgotten——Oh, confound it, here's Conolly! Now, for God's sake, dont let us have any row."

Douglas whitened, and took a step back into the roadway before he recovered himself; for Conolly had come upon them suddenly as they turned into Charles Street. A group of gentlemen stood on the steps of the clubhouse which stands at that corner.

"Bless me!" said Conolly, with perfect good humor. "Douglas back again! Why on earth did you run away with my wife? and what have you done with her?"

The party on the steps ceased chatting and began to stare.

"This is not the place to call me to account, sir," said Douglas, still on his guard, and very ill at ease. "If you have anything to say to me which cannot be communicated through a friend, it had better be said in private."

"I shall trouble you for a short conversation," said Conolly. "How do you do, Lind? Where can we go? I do not belong to any club."

"My apartments are at hand," said Douglas.

"I suppose I had better leave you," said Marmaduke.

"Your presence will not embarrass me in the least," said Conolly.

"I have not sought this interview," said Douglas. "I therefore prefer Mr. Lind to witness what passes."

Conolly nodded assent; and they went to a house on the doorstep of which Douglas's man was waiting, and ascended to the front drawing-room.

"Now, sir," said Douglas, without inviting his guests to sit down. Conolly alone took off his hat. Marmaduke went aside, and looked out of the window.

"I know the circumstances that have led to your return," said Conolly; "so we need not go into that. I want you, however, to assist me on one point. Do you know what Marian's pecuniary position is at present?'

"I decline to admit that it concerns me in any way."

"Of course not. But it concerns me, as I do not wish that she should be without money in a foreign city. She has telegraphed a question about her property to Miss McQuinch. That by itself is nothing; but her new address, which I first saw on a letter this morning, happens to be known to me as that of a rather shabby lodging-house."

"I know nothing of it."

"I do: it means that she is poor. I can guess at the sum she carried with her to America. Now, if you will be good enough to tell me whether you have ever given her money; if so, how much; and what her expenditure has been, you will enable me to estimate her position at present."

"I do not know that you have any right to ask such questions."

"I do not assert any right to ask them. On the contrary, I have explained their object. I shall not press them, if you think that an answer will in any way compromise you."

"I have no fear of being compromised. None whatever."

Conolly nodded, and waited for an answer.

"I may say that my late trip has cost me a considerable sum. I paid all the expenses; and Miss—Mrs. Conolly did not, to my knowledge, disburse a single fraction. She did not ask me to give her money. Had she done so, I should have complied at once."

"Thank you. Thats all right: she will be able to hold out until she hears from us. Good-afternoon."

"Allow me to add, sir, before you go," said Douglas, asserting himself desperately against Conolly's absolutely sincere disregard of him and preoccupation with Marian, "that Mrs. Conolly has been placed in her present position entirely through her own conduct. I repudiate the insinuation that I have deserted her in a foreign city; and I challenge inquiry on the point."

"Quite so, quite so," assented Conolly, carelessly. "Good-bye, Lind." And he took his hat and went out.

"By George!" said Marmaduke, admiringly, "he did that damned well—damned well. Look here, old man: take my advice and clear out for another year or so. You cant stay here. As a looker-on, I see most of the game; and thats my advice to you as a friend."

Douglas, whose face had reddened and reddened with successive rushes of blood until it was now purple, lost all self-control at Marmaduke's commiserating tone. "I will see whether I cannot put him in the wrong," he burst out, in the debased voice of an ignobly angry man. "Do you think I will let him tell the world that I have been thrown over and fooled?"

"Thats your own story, isnt it? At least, I understood you to say so as we came along."

"Let him say so, and I'll thrash him like, a dog in the street. I'll——"

"Whats the use of thrashing a man who will simply hand you over to the police? and quite right, too! What rot!"

"We shall see. We shall see."

"Very well. Do as you like. You may twist one another's heads off for what I care. He has had the satisfaction of putting you into a rage, at all events."

"I am not in a rage."

"Very well. Have it your own way."

"Will you take a challenge to him from me?"

"No. I am not a born fool."

"That is plain speaking."

Marmaduke put his hands into his pockets, and whistled. "I think I will take myself off," he said, presently.

"As you please," replied Douglas, coldly.

"I will look in on you some day next week, when you have cooled down a bit. Good-bye."

Douglas said nothing, and Marmaduke, with a nod, went out. Some minutes later the servant entered and said that Mr. Lind was below.

"What! Back again!" said Douglas, with an oath.

"No, sir. It's old Mr. Lind—Mr. Reginald."

"Did you say I was in?"

"The man belonging to the house did, sir."

"Confound his officiousness! I suppose he must come up."

Reginald Lind entered, and bowed. Douglas placed a chair for him, and waited, mute, and a little put out. Mr. Lind's eyes and voice shewed that he also was not at his ease; but his manner was courtly and his expression grave, as Douglas had, in his boyhood, been accustomed to see them.

"I am sorry, Sholto," said Mr. Lind, "that I cannot for the present meet you with the cordiality which formerly existed between us. However unbearable your disappointment at Marian's marriage may have been, you should not have taken a reprehensible and desperate means of remedying it. I speak to you now as an old friend—as one who knew you when the disparity in our ages was more marked than it is at present."

Douglas bowed.

"I have just heard from Mr. Conolly—whom I met accidentally in Pall Mall—that you have returned from America. He gave me no further account of you, except that he had met you and spoken to you here. I hope nothing unpleasant passed."

"The meeting was not a pleasant one. I shall take steps to make Mr. Conolly understand that."

"Nothing approaching to violence, I trust."

"No. Mr. Conolly's discretion averted it. I am not sure that a second interview between us will end so quietly."

"The interview should not have taken place at all, Sholto. I need not point out to you that prudence and good taste forbid any repetition of it."

"I did not seek it, Mr. Lind. He forced it upon me. I promise you that if a second meeting takes place, it will be forced upon him by me, and will take place in another country."

"That is a young man's idea, Sholto. The day for such crimes, thank Heaven, is past and gone. Let us say no more of it. I was speaking to your mother on Sunday. Have you seen her yet?"

"No."

"Sholto, you hit us all very hard that Monday before Christmas. I know what I felt about my daughter. But I can only imagine what your mother must have felt about her son."

"I am not insensible to that. I has been rather my misfortune than my fault that I have caused you to suffer. If it will gratify you to know that I have suffered deeply myself, and am now, indeed, a broken man, I can assure you that such is the case."

"It is fortunate for us all that matters are not absolutely irremediable. I will so far take you into my confidence as to tell you that I have never felt any satisfaction in Marian's union with Mr. Conolly. Though he is unquestionably a remarkable man, yet there was a certain degree of incongruity in the match—you will understand me—which placed Marian apart from her family whilst she was with him. I have never entered my daughter's house without a feeling that I was more or less a stranger there. Had she married you in the first instance, the case would have been different: I wish she had. However, that is past regretting now. What I wish to say is that I can still welcome you as Marian's husband, even though she will have a serious error to live down; and I shall be no less liberal to her than if her previous marriage had never taken place."

Douglas cleared his throat, but did not speak.

"Well?" said Mr. Lind after a pause, reddening.

"This is a very painful matter," said Douglas at last. "As a man of the world, Mr. Lind, you must be aware that I am not bound to your daughter in any way."

"I am not speaking to you as a man of the world. I am speaking as a father, and as a gentleman."

"Doubtless your position as a father is an unfortunate one. I can sympathize with your feelings. But as a gentleman——"

"Think of what you are going to say, Sholto. If you speak as a gentleman, you can have only one answer. If you have any other, you will speak as a scoundrel." The last sentence came irrepressibly to Mr. Lind's lips; but the moment he had uttered it, he felt that he had been too precipitate.

"Sir!"

"I repeat, as a scoundrel—if you deny your duty in the matter."

"I decline to continue this conversation with you, Mr. Lind. You know as well as I do that no gentleman is expected or even permitted by society to take as his wife a woman who has lived with him as his mistress."

"No man who betrays a lady and refuses to make her all the reparation in his power can claim to be a gentleman."

"You are dreaming, Mr. Lind. Your daughter was the guardian of her own honor. I made her no promises. It is absurd to speak of a woman of her age and experience being betrayed, as though she were a child."

"I always understood that you prided yourself on acting up to a higher standard of honorable dealing than other men. If this is your boasted——"

"Mr. Lind," said Douglas, interrupting him with determination, "no more of this, if you please. Briefly, I will have nothing whatever to say to Mrs. Conolly in the future. If her reputation were as unstained as your own, I would still refuse to know her. I have suffered from her the utmost refinements of caprice and treachery, and the coarsest tirades of abuse. She left me of her own accord, in spite of my entreaties to her to stay—entreaties which I made her in response to an exhibition of temper which would have justified me in parting from her there and then. It is true that I have moulded my life according to a higher standard of honor than ordinary men; and it is also true that that standard is never higher, never more fastidiously acted up to, than where a woman is concerned. I have only to add that I am perfectly satisfied as to the propriety of my behavior in Marian's case, and that I absolutely refuse to hear another accusation of unworthiness from you, much as I respect you and your sorrow."

Mr. Lind, though he saw that he must change his tone, found it hard to subdue his temper; for though not a strong man, he was unaccustomed to be thwarted. "Sholto," he said: "you are not serious. You are irritated by some lovers' quarrel."

"I am justly estranged from your daughter, and I am resolved never to give her a place in my thoughts again. I have madly wasted my youth on her. Let her be content with that and the other things I have sacrificed for her sake."

"But this is dreadful. Think of the life she must lead if you do not marry her. She will be an outcast. She will not even have a name."

"She would not be advised. She made her choice in defiance of an explicit warning of the inevitable results, and she must abide by it. I challenge the most searching inquiry into my conduct, Mr. Lind. It will be found, if the truth be told, that I spared her no luxury before she left me; and that, far from being the aggressor, it is I who have the right to complain of insult and desertion."

"Still, even granting that her unhappy position may have rendered her a little sore and impatient at times, do you not owe her some forbearance since she gave up her home and her friends for you?"

"Sacrifice for sacrifice, mine was the greater of the two. Like her, I have lost my friends and my position here—to some extent, at least. Worse, I have let my youth slip by in fruitless pursuit of her. For the home which she hated, I offered her one ten times more splendid. I gave her the devotion of a gentleman to replace the indifference of a blacksmith. What have I not done for her? I freed her from her bondage; I carried her across the globe; I watched her, housed her, fed her, clothed her as a princess. I loved her with a love that taught her a meaning of the word she had never known before. And when I had served her turn—when I had rescued her from her husband and placed her beyond his reach—when she became surfeited with a wealth of chivalrous love which she could not comprehend, and when a new world opened before her a fresh field for intrigue, I was assailed with slanderous lies, and forsaken. Do you think, Mr. Lind, that in addition to this, I will endure the reproaches of any man—even were he my own father?"

"But she suffers more, being a woman. The world will be comparatively lenient toward you. If you and she were married and settled, with no consciousness of being in a false position, and no wearing fear of detection, you would get on together quite differently."

"It may be so, but I shall never put it to the test."

"Listen a moment, Sholto. Just consider the matter calmly and rationally. I am a rich man—at least, I can endow Marian better than you perhaps think. I see that you feel aggrieved, and that you fear being forced into a marriage which you have, as you say—I fully admit it, most fully—a perfect right to decline. But I am urging you to make Marian your legal wife solely because it is the best course for both of you. That, I assure you, is the feeling of society in the matter. Everybody speaks to me of your becoming my son-in-law. The Earl says no other course is possible. I will give you ten thousand pounds down on her wedding-day. You will lose nothing: Conolly will not claim damages. He has contradicted the report that he would. I will pay the costs of the divorce as well. Mind! I do not mean that I will settle the money on her. I will give it to her unconditionally. In other words, it will become your property the moment you become her husband."

"I understand," said Douglas contemptuously. "However, as it is merely a question of making your daughter an honest woman in consideration of so much cash, I have no doubt you will find plenty of poorer men who will be glad to close with you for half the money. You are much in the city now, I believe. Allow me to suggest that you will find a dealer there more easily than in St. James's."

Mr. Lind reddened again. "I do not think you see the matter in the proper light," he said. "You are asked to repair the disgrace you have brought on a lady and upon her family. I offer you a guarantee that you will not lose pecuniarily by doing so. Whatever other loss you may incur, you are bound to bear it as the penalty of your own act. I appeal to you, sir, as one gentleman appeals to another, to remove the dishonor you have brought upon my name."

"To transfer it to my own, you mean. Thank you, Mr. Lind. The public is more accustomed to associate conjugal levity with the name of Lind than with that of Douglas."

"If you refuse me the justice you owe to my daughter, you need not couple that refusal with an insult."

"I have already explained that I owe your daughter nothing. You come here and offer me ten thousand pounds to marry her. I decline the bargain. You then take your stand upon the injury to your name. I merely remind you that your name was somewhat tarnished even before Mrs. Conolly changed it for the less distinguished one which she has really dishonored."

"Douglas," said Mr. Lind, trembling, "I will make you repent this. I will have satisfaction."

"As you remarked when I declared my readiness to give satisfaction in the proper quarter, the practice you allude to is obsolete. Fortunately so, I think, in our case."

"You are a coward, sir." Douglas rang the bell. "I will expose you in every club in London."

"Shew this gentleman out," said Douglas to his servant.

"You have received that order because I told your master that he is a rascal," said Mr. Lind to the man. "I shall say the same thing to every man I meet between this house and the committee-room of his club."

The servant looked grave as Mr. Lind left the room. Soon after, Douglas, whose self-respect, annihilated by Conolly, had at first been thoroughly restored by Mr. Lind, felt upset again by the conclusion of the interview. Finding solitude and idleness intolerable, he went into the streets, though he no longer felt any desire to meet his acquaintances, and twice crossed the Haymarket to avoid them. As he strolled about, thinking of all that had been said to him that afternoon, he grew morose. Twice he calculated his expenditure on the American trip, and the difference that an increment of ten thousand pounds would make in his property. Suddenly, in turning out of Air Street into Piccadilly, he found himself face to face with Lord Carbury.

"How do you do?" said the latter pleasantly, but without the unceremonious fellowship that had formerly existed between them.

"Thank you," said Douglas, "I am quite well."

A pause followed, Jasper not knowing exactly what to say next.

"I am considering where I shall dine," said Douglas. "Have you dined yet?"

"No. I promised to dine at home this evening. My mother likes to have a family dinner occasionally."

Douglas knew that before the elopement he would have been asked to join the party. "I suppose people have been pleased to talk a good deal about me of late," he said.

"Yes, I fear so. However, I hope it will pass over."

"It shews no sign of passing over as yet, then?"

"Well, it has become a little stale as a topic; but there is undeniably a good deal of feeling about it still. If you will excuse my saying so, I think that perhaps you would do well to keep out of the way a little longer."

"Presuming, of course, that popular feeling is a matter about which I am likely to concern myself."

"That is a question for you to decide. Excuse the hint."

"The question is whether it is not better to be on the spot, so as to strangle calumny at its source, than to hide myself abroad whilst a host of malicious tongues are busy with me."

"As to that, Douglas, I assure you you have been very fairly treated. The chief blame, as usual, has fallen on the weaker sex. Nothing could exceed the moderation of those from whom the loudest complaints might have been expected. Reginald Lind has hardly ever mentioned the subject. Even to me, he only shook his head and said that it was an old attachment. As to Conolly, we have actually reproached him for making excuses for you."

"Aye. A very astute method of bringing me into contempt. Allow me to enlighten you a little, Jasper. Lind, whose daughter I have discovered to be one of the worst of women, has just offered me ten thousand pounds to marry her. That speaks for itself. Conolly, who drove her into my arms by playing the tyrant whilst I played the lover, is only too glad to get rid of her. At the same time, he is afraid to fight me, and ashamed to say so. Therefore, he impudently pretends to pity me for being his gull in the matter. But I will stop that."

"Conolly is a particular friend of mine, Douglas, Let us drop the subject, if you dont mind."

"If he is your friend, of course I have nothing more to say. I think I will turn in here and dine. Good-evening."

They parted without any salutation: and Douglas entered the restaurant and dined alone, he came out an hour later in improved spirits, and began to consider whether he would go to the theatre or venture into his club. He was close to a lamp at a corner of Leicester Square when he stopped to debate the point with himself; and in his preoccupation he did not notice a four-wheeled cab going slowly past him, carrying a lady in an old white opera cloak. This was Mrs. Leith Fairfax, who, recognizing him, called to the cabman to drive a little past the lamp and stop.

"Good heavens!" she said in a half-whisper: "you here! What madness possessed you to come back?"

"I had no further occasion to stay away."

"How coolly you say so! You have iron nerves, all you Douglases. I have heard all, and I know what you have suffered. How soon will you leave London?"

"I have no intention of leaving it at present."

"But you cannot stay here."

"Pray why not? Is not London large enough for any man who does not live by the breath of the world?"

"Out of the question, Mr. Douglas. Absolutely out of the question. You must go away for a year at the very least. You must yield something to propriety."

"I shall yield nothing. I can do without any section of society that may feel called upon to do without me."

"Oh, you must subdue that imperious nature of yours for your mother's sake if not for your own. Besides, you have been very wicked and reckless and daring, just like a Douglas. You ought to do penance with a good grace. I may conclude, since you are here, that Elinor McQuinch's story is true as far as the facts go."

"I have not heard her story."

"It is only that you have parted from—you know."

"That is true. Can I gratify your curiosity in any other particular?"

"Strive not to let yourself be soured, Mr. Douglas. I shudder when I think of what you have undergone at the hands of one woman. There! I will not allude to it again."

"You will do wisely, Mrs. Leith Fairfax. What I have suffered, I have suffered. I desire no pity, and will endure none."

"That is so like yourself. I must hurry on to Covent Garden, or I shall be late. Will you come and see me quietly some day before you go? I am never at home to any one on Tuesdays; but if you come at about five, Caroline will let you in. It will be dark: nobody will see you. We can have a chat then."

"Thank you," said Douglas, coldly, stepping back, and raising his hat, "I shall not intrude on you. Good-evening."

She waved her hand at him; and the cab departed. He walked quickly back to Charles Street, and called his servant.

"I suppose no one has called?"

"Yes, sir. Mrs. Douglas came very shortly after you went out. She wishes you to go to the Square this evening, sir."

"This evening? I am afraid—Buckstone."

"Yes, sir."

"Is she looking well?"

"A little tired, sir. But quite well, I have no doubt."

"How much of the luggage have you unpacked?"

"Only your portmanteau, sir. I thought——"

"So much the better. Pack it again. I am going to Brussels to-night. Find out about the trains. I shall want you to take a hansom and take a note to Chester Square; but come back at once without waiting to be spoken to."

"Very good, sir."

Douglas then sat down and wrote the note.

  "My dear Mother:

  "I am sorry I was out when you called. I did not expect you, as I
  am only passing through London on my way to Brussels. I am anxious
  to get clear of this vile city, and so shall start to-night.
  Buckstone tells me you are looking well; and this assurance must
  content me for the present, as I find it impossible to go to you.
  You were quite right in warning me against what has happened; but
  it is all past and broken off now, and I am still as ever,

                                     "Your affectionate son,
                                               "SHOLTO DOUGLAS."