Books: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne
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William J. Locke >> The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne
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"And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be executed,
and being sorry for it when sober," said Judith.
It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised
knowledge of history can now and then put her finger upon
something vital. I have been racking my brain and searching my
library for the past two or three days for an illustration of
just that nature. I had not thought of it. Here is Tomaso da
Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, like myself, an editor of
classical texts, a peaceful librarian of Cosmo de' Medici, a
scholar and a gentleman to the tips of his fingers; he is made
Pope, a King Log to save the cardinalate from a possible King
Stork Colonna; the Porcari conspiracy breaks out, is discovered
and the conspirators are hunted over Italy and put to death; a
gentleman called Anguillara is slightly inculpated; he is invited
to Rome by Nicholas, and given a safe-conduct; when he arrives
the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano Infessura, the contemporary
diarist, says so); the next morning his Holiness finds to his
surprise and annoyance that the gentleman's head has been cut off
by his orders. It is an amazing tale. To realise how amazing it
is, one must picture the fantastic possibility of it happening at
the Vatican nowadays. And the most astounding thing is this:
that if all the dead and gone popes were alive, and the soul of
the saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass from him, the one who
could most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be this very
Thomas of Sarzana.
"Pardon me, my dear Judith," said I. "But this is a story lying
somewhat up one of the back-waters of history. Where did you
come across it?"
"I saw it the other day in a French comic paper," replied Judith.
I really don't know which to admire the more: the inconsequent
way in which the French toss about scholarship, or the marvellous
power of assimilation possessed by Judith.
Before we separated she returned to the subject of Carlotta.
"Am I to see this young creature?" she asked.
"That is just as you choose," said I.
"Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am perfectly
indifferent," replied Judith, assuming the supercilious
expression with which women invariably try to mask inordinate
curiosity.
"Then," said I, with a touch of malice, "there is no reason why
you should make her acquaintance."
"I should be able to see through her tricks and put you on your
guard."
"Against what?"
She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste breath on
so obtuse a person.
"You had better bring her round some afternoon," she said.
Have I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? And why do
I use the word "confess"? Far from having committed an evil
action, I consider I have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I
want a "young savage from Syria" to come and interfere with my
perfectly ordered life? Judith does not realise this. I had a
presentiment of the prejudice she would conceive against the poor
girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I had held my tongue.
As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to herself, has
steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she might very
well have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta's existence. And why
not? The fact of the girl being my pensioner does not in the
least affect the personality which I bring to Judith. The idea
is absurd. Why wasn't I wise before the event? I might have
spared myself considerable worry.
A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a fancy dress
ball at the Empress Rooms. The preposterous lady!
"Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the life of a
recluse of seventy. Here we are in the height of the London
season, and I am sure you haven't been into ten houses, when a
hundred of the very best are open to you--" I loathe the term
"best houses." The tinsel ineptitude of them! For entertainment
I really would sooner attend a mothers' meeting or listen to the
serious British Drama--Have I read so and so's novel? Am I going
to Mrs. Chose's dance? Do I ride in the Park? Do I know young
Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady Betty
Something? What do I think of the Academy? As if one could have
any sentiment with regard to the Academy save regret at such
profusion of fresh paint! "You want shaking up," continued my
aunt. Silly woman! If there is a thing I should abhor it would
be to be shaken up. "Come and dine with us at seven-thirty _in
costume_, and I'll promise you a delightful time. And think how
proud the girls would be of showing off their _beau cousin_." _Et
patiti et patita._ I am again reminded that I owe it to my
position, my title. God ha' mercy on us! To bedeck myself like
a decayed mummer in a booth and frisk about in a pestilential
atmosphere with a crowd of strange and uninteresting young
females is the correct way of fulfilling the obligations that the
sovereign laid upon the successors to the title, when he
conferred the dignity of a baronetcy on my great-grandfather!
Now I come to think of it the Prince Regent was that sovereign,
and my ancestor did things for him at Brighton. Perhaps after
all there is a savage irony of truth in Aunt Jessica's
suggestion!
And a _beau cousin_ should I be indeed. What does she think I
would go as? A mousquetaire? or a troubadour in blue satin
trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes and a Grecian
helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at Mrs. Leo Hunter's _fete champetre?_
I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica's reasons for her attempts at
involving me in her social mountebankery. If the girls get no
better dance-partners than me, heaven help them!
Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlingham. My aunt
and Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable manner with another
man, leaving me under an umbrella tent to take charge of Dora. I
had an hour and a half of undiluted Dora. The dose was too
strong, and it made my head ache. I think I prefer neat
Carlotta.
CHAPTER IX
July 5th
I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open window till
four o'clock. Then the splendour of the day invited me forth.
Whither should I go? I thought of Judith and Hampstead Heath; I
also thought of Carlotta and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions
roaring for their afternoon tea reached me through the still air,
and I put from me a strong temptation to wander alone and
meditative in the Zoological Gardens close by. I must not
forget, I reflected, that I am responsible for Carlotta's
education, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the animals or
for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the other, the
entire charm of our relationship would be broken.
I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her
mind. She would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport
themselves externally. It would be a lesson in decorum.
I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to the point
when it puts on the airs of revealed religion. My neighbours and
I decide on a certain code of manners which will enable us to
meet without mutual offence. I agree to put my handkerchief up
to my nose when I sneeze in his presence, and he contracts not to
wipe muddy boots on my sofa. I undertake not to shock his wife
by parading my hideous immorality before her eyes, and he binds
himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating her or kissing
her when I am paying a call. I agree, by wearing an arbitrarily
fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand myself with the
stamp of a certain class of society, so that his guests shall
receive me without question, and he in return gives me a
well-ordered dinner served with the minimum amount of inconvenience
to myself that his circumstances allow. Many folks make what they
are pleased to call unconventionality a mere cloak for selfish
disregard of the feelings and tastes of others. Bohemianism too
often means piggish sloth or slatternly ineptitude.
Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why I desire
to instil some convention into what, for want of a more accurate
term, I may allude to as Carlotta's mind. It will save me much
trouble in the future.
I summoned Carlotta.
"Carlotta," I said, "I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show
you the English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their
best behaviour. You must do the same."
"My best clothes?" cried Carlotta, her face lighting up.
"Your very best. Make haste."
I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time
reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening
dress that had caused her such dismay on Saturday.
I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked
amazingly beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly
beautiful. I found it hard to tell her to take the dress off
again.
"Is it wrong?" she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips.
"Yes, indeed," said I. "People would be shocked."
"But on Saturday evening--"she began.
"I know, my child," I interrupted. "In society you are scarcely
respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so
in the daytime would be the grossest indecency. I'll explain
some other time."
"I shall never understand," said Carlotta.
Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fell
simultaneously down her cheeks.
"What on earth are you crying for?" I asked aghast.
"You are not pleased with me," said Carlotta, with a choke in her
voice.
The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and she stood
before me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I did a very foolish
thing.
Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller's window caught my
fancy. I bought it with the idea of presenting it to Carlotta,
when an occasion offered, as a reward for peculiar merit. Now,
however, to show her that I was in no way angry, I abstracted the
bauble from the drawer of my writing-table, and put it in her
hand.
"You please me so much, Carlotta," said I, "that I have bought
this for you."
Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew what she
was after, her arms were round my neck and she was hugging me
like a child.
I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my life as the
touch of Carlotta's fresh young arms upon my face and the perfume
of spring violets that emanated from her person. I released
myself swiftly from her indecorous demonstration.
"You mustn't do things like that," said I, severely. "In
England, young women are only allowed to embrace their
grandfathers."
Carlotta looked at me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of
the forehead.
"But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous," she said.
"I hope you'll find many people good to you, Carlotta," I
answered. "But if you continue that method of expressing your
appreciation, you may possibly be misunderstood."
I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, and I
laughed. She fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and a smile as
inscrutable as the Monna Lisa's hovered over her lips.
"What would they do if they did not understand?"
"They would take you," I replied, fixing her sternly with my
gaze, "they would take you for an unconscionable baggage."
"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from the room.
In a moment she was back again. She came up to me demurely and
plucked my sleeve.
"Come and show me what I must put on so as to please you."
I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary
instructions. Her next request would be that I should act the
part of lady's-maid. I must maintain my dignity with Carlotta.
The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and
the lawns were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge
of one of the cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly.
Carlotta, vastly entertained, asked innumerable questions. How
could I tell whether a lady was married or unmarried? Did they
all wear stays? Why did every one look so happy? Did I think
that old man was the young girl's husband? What were they all
talking about? Wouldn't I take her for a drive in one of those
beautiful carriages? Why hadn't I a carriage? Then suddenly, as
if inspired, after a few minutes' silent reflection:
"Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?"
"The what?" I gasped.
"The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss
Griggs gave it me to read aloud--Tack--Thack--"
"Thackeray?"
"Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want
wives." She edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm.
"That is not why you have brought me here--to sell me?"
"How much do you think you would be worth?" I asked,
sarcastically.
She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol,
as she did so, upon her neighbour's little Belgian griffon, who
yelped.
"Ch, lots," she said in her frank way. "I am very beautiful."
I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the
stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta.
"Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you
are by no means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you
might possibly fetch half a crown--"
"Two shillings and sixpence?" asked the literal Carlotta.
"Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you.
This is not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a
marriage market. English mothers and fathers do not sell their
daughters for money. Such a thing is monstrous and impossible."
"Then it was all lies I read in the book?"
"All lies," said I.
I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me.
"Why do they put lies in books?"
"To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail," I answered.
This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent
for a moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible.
"I thought I was beautiful," she said.
"Who told you so?"
"Pasquale."
"Pasquale has no sense," said I. "There are men to whom all
women who are not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes
are beautiful. Pasquale has said the same to every woman he has
met. He is a Lothario and a Don Juan and a Caligula and a
Faublas and a Casanova."
"And he tells lies, too?"
"Millions of them," said I. "He contracts with their father
Beelzebub for a hundred gross a day."
"Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him,"
said Carlotta.
"I am very sorry to hear it," said I.
The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta's skirts, suddenly
leaped into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept
the poor little creature, as if it had been a noxious insect,
yards away.
"Carlotta!" I cried angrily, springing to my feet.
The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whining pet and
looked astonished daggers at Carlotta. When they picked it up,
it sat dangling a piteous paw. Carlotta rose, merely scared at
my anger. I raised my hat.
"I am more than sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I hope
the little dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom I offer a thousand
apologies, is a Mohammedan, to whom all dogs are unclean. Please
attribute the accident to religious instinct."
The younger of the two, who had been examining the paw, looked up
with a smile.
"Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn't to jump on strange
ladies' laps, whether they are Mohammedans or not. Oh! he is
more frightened than hurt. And I," she added, with a twinkling
eye, "am more hurt than frightened, because Sir Marcus Ordeyne
doesn't recognise me."
So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled
acquaintance.
"I do indeed recognise you now," said I, mendaciously. I seem to
have been lying to-day through thick and thin. "But in the
confusion of the disaster--"
"You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs.
Ordeyne's," interrupted the lady, "and you talked to me of
transcendental mathematics."
I remembered. "The crime," said I, "has lain heavily on my
conscience."
"I don't believe a word of it," she laughed, dismissing me with a
bow. I raised my hat and joined Carlotta.
It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica's
house. To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed
that I was the guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious
instinct compelled her to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of
this from my Aunt Jessica.
I walked stonily away with Carlotta.
"You are cross with me," she whimpered.
"Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was
very wicked and cruel of you."
Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade.
The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had
done an hour before; but she wept copiously, after the
unrestrained manner of children, and used her pocket-
handkerchief. From their seats women put up their lorgnons to
look at her, passers-by turned round and stared. The whole of
the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In' a
moment or two I became conscious that reprehensory glances were
being directed towards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could
call, an ill-conditioned brute, for making the poor young
creature, who was at my mercy, thus break down in public. It was
a charming situation for an even-tempered philosopher. We walked
stolidly on, I glaring in front of me and Carlotta weeping. The
malice of things arranged that ne. neighbouring chair should be
vacant, and that the path should be unusually crowded. I had the
satisfaction of hearing a young fellow say to a girl:
"He? That's Ordeyne--came into the baroaetcy--mad as a dingo
dog."
I was giving myself a fine advertisement.
"For heaven's sake stop crying," I said. Then a memory of
far-off childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. "If you don't,"
I added, grimly, "I'll take you out and give you to a policeman."
The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped,
pulled down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes
with her pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the
fountain of her tears.
"A policeman?"
"Yes," said I, "a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up
people who misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their
clothes, and shaves their heads, and feeds them on bread and
water."
"I won't cry any more," she said, swallowing a sob. "Is it also
wicked to cry?"
"Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with
dyspepsia or cut in two with tight-lacing," I replied severely.
"Let us sit down."
We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through the first
two rows of people, found seats behind where the crowd was
thinner.
"Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?" asked Carlotta, and the
simple plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of
Nero. I lectured her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties
of kindness towards the lower creation appealed to her as a
totally new idea. Supposing the dog had broken all its legs and
ribs, would she not have been sorry? She answered frankly in the
negative. It was a nasty little dog. If she had hurt it badly,
so much the better. What did it matter if a dog was hurt? She
was sorry now she had hurled it into space, because it belonged
to my friends, and that had made me cross with her.
Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action;
but my anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal
it might have caused, and in the discovery that I was known to
the victim's owner. It is the sad fate of the instructors of
youth that they must hypocritically credit themselves with only
the sublimest of motives. I spoke to Carlotta like the good
father in the "Swiss Family Robinson." I gave vent to such noble
sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my
borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my bosom
and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder
whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons
manage to keep themselves good.
The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good
temper; and when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if
I had forgiven her, I magnanimously assured her that all the past
was forgotten.
"Only," said I, "you will have to get out of this habit of tears.
A wise man called Burton says in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' a
beautiful book which I'll give you to read when you are sixty,
'As much count may be taken of a woman weeping as a goose going
barefoot.'"
"He was a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they
feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason
that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at
Alexandretta; but Hamdi!--" she broke into an adorable trill of
a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and
stockings, like the Puss in the shoes --the fairy tale--as Hamdi
crying. _Hou_!"
Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a
rather long silence which she had evidently been employing in
meditation.
"Seer Marcous."
"Yes?"
She has a child's engaging way of rubbing herself up against one
when she wants to be particularly ingratiating.
"It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday."
"Really?"
"Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to
show me you have forgiven me?"
A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process
of ingratiation.
"You shall dine with me this evening," said I, and Carlotta cooed
with pleasure.
I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised.
July 8th.
In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta
this afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my
hostess, turned round and said
"This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta."
"I am very pleased to see you," said Judith.
"So am I," replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness.
She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and
responded monosyllabically to Judith's questions. Her demeanour
could not have been more impeccable had she been trained in a
French convent. Just before we arrived, she had been laughing
immoderately because I had ordered her to spit out a mass of
horrible sweetmeat which she had found it impossible to
masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with my
fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a
Maenad. I was entertained by Judith's fruitless efforts to get
behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said," Oh, ye-es" or
"No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous conversation. As
it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly interested, I
effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk,
Carlotta said, very politely:
"Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house."
"It's only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?" asked
Judith, eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, "Now
that I shall have her to myself, you may trust me to get to the
bottom of her."
"I would like it very much," said Carlotta, rising.
I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cigarette.
When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling
and self-possessed, evidently very well pleased with herself, but
Judith had a red spot on each of her cheeks.
The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I
cannot dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have
seen the two women standing side by side, a piteous parable. The
light from the window shone full upon them, and the dark curtain
of the door was an effective background. The one flaunted the
sweet insolence of youth, health, colour, beauty; of the bud just
burst into full flower. The other wore the stamp of care, of the
much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled
the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like a ghost-
dressed in white pique, which of itself drew the colour from her
white face and pale lips and mass of faint straw-coloured hair,
the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red spots on her
cheeks and her violet eyes.
I saw that something had occurred to vex her.
"Before we go," I said, "I should like a word with you. Carlotta
will not mind."
We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in
spite of the July warmth.
"Well, my dear," said I. "What do you think of my young savage
from Asia Minor?"
Judith laughed--I am sure not naturally.
"Is that all you wanted to say to me?"
She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the
overmantel.
"I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am
disappointed. I had anticipated something original. I had
looked forward to some amusement. But, really, my dear Marcus,
she is _bete a pleurer_--weepingly stupid."
"She certainly can weep," said I.
"Oh, can she?" said Judith, as if the announcement threw some
light on Carlotta's character. "And when she cries, I suppose
you, like a man, give in and let her have her own way?" And
Judith laughed again.
"My dear Judith," said I; "you have no idea of the wholesome
discipline at Lingfield Terrace."
Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of front, she
turned and caught me by the coat-lappels.
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