CHAPTER XXIV
AN ENLIGHTENMENT
It might well seem that by now Winnie would have become accustomed to the discovery that things which had never entered her head might none the less occupy a large and una.s.sailable position in the heads of other people--nay, that she might, for safety"s sake, allow for the likelihood of such a revelation when she laid plans or embarked on a course of conduct. But, in fact, this would be asking her to have learned very early a very hard lesson. It was not as if there were only one or two of these entrenched convictions; fresh ones leapt, as it were, from ambush at every step of her advance, at every stage of her pilgrimage, and manifested a strength on which she had not calculated, for which the airy and untrammelled flight of Shaylor"s Patch speculation had not prepared her. It was all very well for her to declare that she accorded to others the freedom of thought and opinion which she claimed for herself. Of course she did; but the others made such odd uses of their liberty! Maxon"s point of view, d.i.c.k Dennehy"s point of view, Woburn Square"s point of view, Bob Purnett"s point of view (his--and G.o.dfrey Ledstone"s!)--let these be taken as mastered and appreciated. Between them they had seemed to cover the ground pretty completely, to comprehend all the objections which could be raised by standards religious, social, or merely habitual. But no. Here was a man who was willing, for himself, to waive all the usual objections, but suddenly produced a new cult, an esoteric worship, a tribal fetish of his own, evidently a very powerful fetish, to be propitiated by costly sacrifices, which he regarded himself as obviously necessary, and had no doubt would be easily understood by other people.
"How could I be expected to think of the regiment?" asked Winnie pathetically. "I declare I thought of everything else--that"s why I told him. He doesn"t mind all the great world, but he does mind half a dozen women and a dozen boys somewhere in India! People are queer, aren"t they, Mrs. Lenoir?"
But by now Mrs. Lenoir had been schooled; talks with both father and son had made her understand better, and, since the thing had to be thus, it was desirable that Winnie should understand also.
"Well, Winnie, that may be all his regiment is to you--a pack of women and boys in India; indeed that"s pretty much what I called it myself.
But, in justice to Bertie, we must remember that to him it"s a great--a great----"
"A great what?" Winnie was looking malicious over her friend"s hesitation.
"Well, a great inst.i.tution," Mrs. Lenoir ended, rather lamely.
"An inst.i.tution! Yes!" Winnie nodded her head. "That"s it--and I"m absolutely fated to run up against inst.i.tutions. They wait for me, they lie in hiding, they lurk round corners. And what a lot of them there are, to break one"s shins over!"
"They all come back to one in the end, I think," said Mrs. Lenoir, smiling. She was glad to hear Winnie"s philosophizing. It was a fair proof that neither here was there a broken heart, though there might be some disappointment and vexation. "I was very hurt at first," she went on, "and it made me rude to the General. It"s no use being hurt or angry, Winnie. We bring it on ourselves, if we choose to go our own way.
Whether it"s worth taking the consequences--that"s for each of us to decide."
"Worth it a thousand times in my case," said Winnie. "All the same I didn"t in the least understand what it would be like. Only--now I do understand--I"m going to face it. Fancy if I"d had fewer scruples, and effected a furtive entrance into the regiment! What mightn"t have happened?"
Three days had elapsed from the date of Winnie"s confession to the Major; they had changed the relative att.i.tudes of the two women. Mrs.
Lenoir had got over her disappointment and returned to her usual philosophy, her habitual recognition of things as they were, her understanding that with men their profession and their affairs must come first. Winnie had hardened towards her late suitor. Ready to be rejected on her own account, she could not bring herself to accept rejection on account of the regiment with meekness. After the great things she had defied, the regiment seemed a puny antagonist. All the same, little thing as it was, a mere dwarf of an inst.i.tution compared with her other giant antagonists, it, not they, now vanquished her; it, not they, now held Bertie Merriam back.
It must be confessed that she behaved rather maliciously during the days when the two officers were waiting for their ship. An exaggerated interest in the affairs of the regiment, an apparently ingenuous admiration of the wonderful _esprit de corps_ of the British service, earnest inquiries as to the means by which the newly promoted Commanding Officer hoped to maintain a high moral tone among his subalterns--these were the topics with which she beguiled the hours of lunch and dinner.
The Major wriggled, the General looked grave and pained; Mrs. Lenoir affected to notice nothing, for she saw that her young friend was for the moment out of hand and only too ready to quarrel with them all. For the rest, Miss Wilson--whose artificial existence was to end when she got on the steamer for Genoa--flirted with the Anstruther boys and lost her money gambling.
So time went on till the eve of the departure of father and son. At dinner that night Winnie was still waywardly gay and gaily malicious; when the meal was over she ran off into the garden, and hid herself in a secret nook. The Anstruther boys sought her in vain, and discontentedly repaired to the casino. But there was a more persistent seeker.
She was roused from some not very happy meditations by finding Bertie Merriam standing opposite to her. He did not apologize for his intrusion nor, on the other hand, ask leave to sit by her; he stood there, looking gravely at her.
"Why do you take a pleasure in making me unhappy?" he asked. "Why do you try to make me look ridiculous, and feel as if I"d done something ungentlemanly? I"m not ridiculous, and I"m not aware of having done anything ungentlemanly. The subject is a very difficult one for me even to touch on with you; but I"m acting from honest motives and on an honest conviction."
Winnie looked up in a moody hostility. "Whenever I"ve acted from honest motives and on honest convictions, people have all combined to make me unhappy, Major Merriam."
"I"m sincerely, deeply sorry for that, and I don"t defend it. Still, the cases are not the same."
"Why aren"t they?"
"Because you wanted to do what you did. No doubt you were convinced you had the right, but you wanted to, besides. Now I don"t want to do what I"m doing. That"s the difference. I want it less and less every hour I spend with you--in spite of your being so disagreeable." He smiled a little over the last words.
Winnie looked at him in curiosity. What was he going to say?
"You"re not consistent. You say you like people to act up to their convictions; you feel wronged when people blame you for acting up to your convictions. Yet you punish me for acting up to mine. Will you let me put the thing before you frankly--since we"re to part, probably for good, to-morrow?"
"Yes, you can say what you like--since we"re to part to-morrow."
"Mine isn"t the absurd idea you think it is, and I"m not the grandmother you try to make me out. I"m going to be called on to serve the King in a position of great responsibility, where my example and my standards will affect many lives. I must be true to my responsibilities as I see them.
If I did what my feelings incline me to do--pray believe that I a.s.sume nothing as to yours--I shouldn"t be true to them. Because in the regiment you wouldn"t be understood--neither your position nor your convictions. What do most officers" wives, and what do most young men in the army, know about the sort of society or the sort of speculations which produce convictions like yours? They would neither understand nor appreciate them. And if they didn"t--well, what opinion must they hold about you? And what effect would that opinion have? I don"t speak of your position--that would be for you to consider--but what effect would it have on my position and my influence?"
"They"d just put me down as an ordinary--an ordinary bad woman?"
"Let"s say the ordinary case of a woman who has made a scandal. Because I agree with you in thinking that such a woman needn"t be a bad woman.
But even when she"s not bad, she may in certain positions be injurious to the commonwealth--and a regiment"s a commonwealth. I"m not clever, as my brother is. I"m not likely ever to get a bigger job than this. It"ll be the most important trust I shall get, I expect. I want to be loyal to it. I"m being loyal to it at a great cost to me--yes, a great cost now.
And you try to make me look ridiculous! Well, let that pa.s.s. Only, feeling as I do, I want to put myself right in your eyes, before we say good-bye."
"I"m sorry I tried to make you look ridiculous. Is that enough, Major Merriam?"
"It"s something," he smiled. "But couldn"t you go so far as not to think me ridiculous?"
"Have I got to think the officers" wives and the subalterns not ridiculous too?"
"I can leave that to your later reflections. They"re not going to part from you to-morrow, and they don"t care so much about your good opinion."
"No, I don"t think you ridiculous any more." She spoke now slowly and thoughtfully. "I didn"t understand. I see better what you mean and feel now. Only understanding other people doesn"t make the world seem any easier! But I think I do understand. The King pays you for your life, and you"re bound to give it, not only in war, if that"s required of you, but in peace too--is it something like that?"
"Yes, that"s the sort of thing it is. Thank you."
"And you mustn"t do anything that makes the life he"s bought less valuable to him either in war or peace?"
"Yes, that"s it too." He smiled at her more happily now and in a great kindness.
"In fact, you"ve sold yourself right out and quite irrevocably?"
"Ah, well, that"s not quite the way I should put it. We Merriams have always done it."
"Hereditary slaves!" smiled Winnie. "It"s really rather like marriage, as Cyril conceived it. You mustn"t have another wife. The regiment"s yours. It would be bigamy!"
"Charming people can talk great nonsense," the Major made bold to observe. He was rather chilled again.
"We"re veering round in this discussion. Now you"re making out that I"m ridiculous!"
He made a gesture of protest. Winnie laughed. "Six days ago I didn"t care particularly about you, but I should have married you if you"d asked me."
"So you told me why I"d better not ask you? Yes?"
"Now I like you very particularly, but nothing on earth would induce me to marry you," said Winnie. She shot a quick glance of raillery at him.
"So, if you"re struggling, you needn"t struggle."
"I am struggling rather, Winnie."
"To-morrow ends it."