CHAPTER II
A LACK OF PERCEPTION
Mercantile as Americans were proclaimed to be, the opinion
of Sir Nigel Anstruthers was that they were, on some points,
singularly unbusinesslike. In the perfectly obvious and simple
matter of the settlement of his daughter's fortune, he had
felt that Reuben Vanderpoel was obtuse to the point of idiocy.
He seemed to have none of the ordinary points of view.
Naturally there was to Anstruthers' mind but one point of
view to take. A man of birth and rank, he argued, does not
career across the Atlantic to marry a New York millionaire's
daughter unless he anticipates deriving some advantage from
the alliance. Such a man--being of Anstruthers' type--would
not have married a rich woman even in his own country with
out making sure that advantages were to accrue to himself
as a result of the union. "In England," to use his own words,
"there was no nonsense about it." Women's fortunes as well
as themselves belonged to their husbands, and a man who was
master in his own house could make his wife do as he chose.
He had seen girls with money managed very satisfactorily by
fellows who held a tight rein, and were not moved by tears,
and did not allow talking to relations. If he had been
desirous of marrying and could have afforded to take a penniless
wife, there were hundreds of portionless girls ready to
thank God for a decent chance to settle themselves for life,
and one need not stir out of one's native land to find them.
But Sir Nigel had not in the least desired to saddle himself
with a domestic encumbrance, in fact nothing would have
induced him to consider the step if he had not been driven
hard by circumstances. His fortunes had reached a stage
where money must be forthcoming somehow--from somewhere.
He and his mother had been living from hand to
mouth, so to speak, for years, and they had also been obliged
to keep up appearances, which is sometimes embittering even
to persons of amiable tempers. Lady Anstruthers, it is true, had
lived in the country in as niggardly a manner as possible. She
had narrowed her existence to absolute privation, presenting at
the same time a stern, bold front to the persons who saw her, to
the insufficient staff of servants, to the village to the vicar
and his wife, and the few far-distant neighbours who perhaps once
a year drove miles to call or leave a card. She was an old woman
sufficiently unattractive to find no difficulty in the way of
limiting her acquaintances. The unprepossessing wardrobe she had
gathered in the passing years was remade again and again by the
village dressmaker. She wore dingy old silk gowns and appalling
bonnets, and mantles dripping with rusty fringes and bugle beads,
but these mitigated not in the least the unflinching arrogance of
her bearing, or the simple, intolerant rudeness which she
considered proper and becoming in persons like herself. She did
not of course allow that there existed many persons like herself.
That society rejoiced in this fact was but the stamp of its
inferiority and folly. While she pinched herself and harried
her few hirelings at Stornham it was necessary for Sir Nigel
to show himself in town and present as decent an appearance
as possible. His vanity was far too arrogant to allow of his
permitting himself to drop out of the world to which he could
not afford to belong. That he should have been forgotten
or ignored would have been intolerable to him. For a few
years he was invited to dine at good houses, and got shooting
and hunting as part of the hospitality of his acquaintances.
But a man who cannot afford to return hospitalities will find
that he need not expect to avail himself of those of his
acquaintances to the end of his career unless he is an extremely
engaging person. Sir Nigel Anstruthers was not an engaging
person. He never gave a thought to the comfort or interest
of any other human being than himself. He was also dominated
by the kind of nasty temper which so reveals itself when
let loose that its owner cannot control it even when it would
be distinctly to his advantage to do so.
Finding that he had nothing to give in return for what he
took as if it were his right, society gradually began to cease
to retain any lively recollection of his existence. The trades-
people he had borne himself loftily towards awakened to the
fact that he was the kind of man it was at once safe and wise
to dun, and therefore proceeded to make his life a burden to
him. At his clubs he had never been a member surrounded
and rejoiced over when he made his appearance. The time
came when he began to fancy that he was rather edged away
from, and he endeavoured to sustain his dignity by being sulky
and making caustic speeches when he was approached. Driven
occasionally down to Stornham by actual pressure of
circumstances, he found the outlook there more embittering still.
Lady Anstruthers laid the bareness of the land before him without
any effort to palliate unpleasantness. If he chose to stalk
about and look glum, she could sit still and call his attention
to revolting truths which he could not deny. She could point
out to him that he had no money, and that tenants would not
stay in houses which were tumbling to pieces, and work land
which had been starved. She could tell him just how long a
time had elapsed since wages had been paid and accounts
cleared off. And she had an engaging, unbiassed way of seeming
to drive these maddening details home by the mere manner
of her statement.
"You make the whole thing as damned disagreeable as you
can," Nigel would snarl.
"I merely state facts," she would reply with acrid serenity.
A man who cannot keep up his estate, pay his tailor or the
rent of his lodgings in town, is in a strait which may drive
him to desperation. Sir Nigel Anstruthers borrowed some
money, went to New York and made his suit to nice little
silly Rosalie Vanderpoel.
But the whole thing was unexpectedly disappointing and
surrounded by irritating circumstances. He found himself face
to face with a state of affairs such as he had not contemplated.
In England when a man married, certain practical matters
could be inquired into and arranged by solicitors, the
amount of the prospective bride's fortune, the allowances
and settlements to be made, the position of the bridegroom
with regard to pecuniary matters. To put it simply, a man
found out where he stood and what he was to gain. But,
at first to his sardonic entertainment and later to his
disgusted annoyance, Sir Nigel gradually discovered that in the
matter of marriage, Americans had an ingenuous tendency
to believe in the sentimental feelings of the parties concerned.
The general impression seemed to be that a man married
purely for love, and that delicacy would make it impossible
for him to ask questions as to what his bride's parents were
in a position to hand over to him as a sort of indemnity for
the loss of his bachelor freedom. Anstruthers began to discover
this fact before he had been many weeks in New York.
He reached the realisation of its existence by processes of
exclusion and inclusion, by hearing casual remarks people let
drop, by asking roundabout and careful questions, by leading
both men and women to the innocent expounding of certain
points of view. Millionaires, it appeared, did not expect to
make allowances to men who married their daughters; young
women, it transpired, did not in the least realise that a man
should be liberally endowed in payment for assuming the
duties of a husband. If rich fathers made allowances, they
made them to their daughters themselves, who disposed of them
as they pleased. In this case, of course, Sir Nigel privately
argued with fine acumen, it became the husband's business to
see that what his wife pleased should be what most agreeably
coincided with his own views and conveniences.
His most illuminating experience had been the hearing of
some men, hard-headed, rich stockbrokers with a vulgar
sense of humour, enjoying themselves quite uproariously one
night at a club, over a story one of them was relating of an
unsatisfactory German son-in-law who had demanded an
income. He was a man of small title, who had married the
narrator's daughter, and after some months spent in his father-
in-law's house, had felt it but proper that his financial
position should be put on a practical footing.
"He brought her back after the bridal tour to make us a
visit," said the storyteller, a sharp-featured man with a quaint
wry mouth, which seemed to express a perpetual, repressed
appreciation of passing events. "I had nothing to say against
that, because we were all glad to see her home and her mother
had been missing her. But weeks passed and months passed
and there was no mention made of them going over to settle
in the Slosh we'd heard so much of, and in time it came out
that the Slosh thing"--Anstruthers realised with gall in his
soul that the "brute," as he called him, meant "Schloss," and
that his mispronunciation was at once a matter of humour and
derision--"wasn't his at all. It was his elder brother's. The
whole lot of them were counts and not one of them seemed
to own a dime. The Slosh count hadn't more than twenty-five
cents and he wasn't the kind to deal any of it out to his
family. So Lily's count would have to go clerking in a dry
goods store, if he promised to support himself. But he didn't
propose to do it. He thought he'd got on to a soft thing.
Of course we're an easy-going lot and we should have stood
him if he'd been a nice fellow. But he wasn't. Lily's mother
used to find her crying in her bedroom and it came out by
degrees that it was because Adolf had been quarrelling with
her and saying sneering things about her family. When her
mother talked to him he was insulting. Then bills began to
come in and Lily was expected to get me to pay them. And
they were not the kind of bills a decent fellow calls on another
man to pay. But I did it five or six times to make it easy
for her. I didn't tell her that they gave an older chap than
himself sidelights on the situation. But that didn't work well.
He thought I did it because I had to, and he began to feel
free and easy about it, and didn't try to cover up his tracks
so much when he sent in a new lot. He was always working
Lily. He began to consider himself master of the house.
He intimated that a private carriage ought to be kept for
them. He said it was beggarly that he should have to consider
the rest of the family when he wanted to go out. When I got
on to the situation, I began to enjoy it. I let him spread
himself for a while just to see what he would do. Good Lord!
I couldn't have believed that any fellow could have thought
any other fellow could be such a fool as he thought I was.
He went perfectly crazy after a month or so and ordered me
about and patronised me as if I was a bootblack he meant to
teach something to. So at last I had a talk with Lily and
told her I was going to put an end to it. Of course she cried
and was half frightened to death, but by that time he had ill-
used her so that she only wanted to get rid of him. So I sent
for him and had a talk with him in my office. I led him on
to saying all he had on his mind. He explained to me what
a condescension it was for a man like himself to marry a girl
like Lily. He made a dignified, touching picture of all the
disadvantages of such an alliance and all the advantages they
ought to bring in exchange to the man who bore up under
them. I rubbed my head and looked worried every now and
then and cleared my throat apologetically just to warm him
up. I can tell you that fellow felt happy, downright happy
when he saw how humbly I listened to him. He positively
swelled up with hope and comfort. He thought I was going
to turn out well, real well. I was going to pay up just as
a vulgar New York father-in-law ought to do, and thank God
for the blessed privilege. Why, he was real eloquent about
his blood and his ancestors and the hoary-headed Slosh. So
when he'd finished, I cleared my throat in a nervous,
ingratiating kind of way again and I asked him kind of anxiously
what he thought would be the proper thing for a base-born New
York millionaire to do under the circumstances--what he would
approve of himself."
Sir Nigel was disgusted to see the narrator twist his mouth
into a sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated
into the nearest receptacle. The grin was greeted by a shout
of laughter from his companions.
"What did he say, Stebbins?" someone cried.
"He said," explained Mr. Stebbins deliberately, "he said
that an allowance was the proper thing. He said that a man
of his rank must have resources, and that it wasn't dignified
for him to have to ask his wife or his wife's father for money
when he wanted it. He said an allowance was what he felt
he had a right to expect. And then he twisted his moustache
and said, `what proposition' did I make--what would I
allow him?"
The storyteller's hearers evidently knew him well. Their
laughter was louder than before.
"Let's hear the rest, Joe! Let's hear it! "
"Well," replied Mr. Stebbins almost thoughtfully, "I
just got up and said, `Well, it won't take long for me to
answer that. I've always been fond of my children, and Lily
is rather my pet. She's always had everything she wanted,
and she always shall. She's a good girl and she deserves it.
I'll allow you----" The significant deliberation of his drawl
could scarcely be described. "I'll allow you just five minutes
to get out of this room, before I kick you out, and if I kick
you out of the room, I'll kick you down the stairs, and if I kick
you down the stairs, I shall have got my blood comfortably
warmed up and I'll kick you down the street and round the
block and down to Hoboken, because you're going to take the
steamer there and go back to the place you came from, to
the Slosh thing or whatever you call it. We haven't a damned
bit of use for you here.' And believe it or not, gentlemen----"
looking round with the wry-mouthed smile, "he took that
passage and back he went. And Lily's living with her mother
and I mean to hold on to her."
Sir Nigel got up and left the club when the story was
finished. He took a long walk down Broadway, gnawing his
lip and holding his head in the air. He used blasphemous
language at intervals in a low voice. Some of it was addressed
to his fate and some of it to the vulgar mercantile coarseness
and obtuseness of other people.
"They don't know what they are talking of," he said.
"It is unheard of. What do they expect? I never thought
of this. Damn it! I'm like a rat in a trap."
It was plain enough that he could not arrange his fortune
as he had anticipated when he decided to begin to make love
to little pink and white, doll-faced Rosy Vanderpoel. If he
began to demand monetary advantages in his dealing with
his future wife's people in their settlement of her fortune, he
might arouse suspicion and inquiry. He did not want inquiry
either in connection with his own means or his past manner
of living. People who hated him would be sure to crop up
with stories of things better left alone. There were always
meddling fools ready to interfere.
His walk was long and full of savage thinking. Once or
twice as he realised what the disinterestedness of his sentiments
was supposed to be, a short laugh broke from him which was
rather like the snort of the Bishopess.
"I am supposed to be moonstruck over a simpering American
chit--moonstruck! Damn!" But when he returned to his
hotel he had made up his mind and was beginning to look
over the situation in evil cold blood. Matters must be settled
without delay and he was shrewd enough to realise that with
his temper and its varied resources a timid girl would not be
difficult to manage. He had seen at an early stage of their
acquaintance that Rosy was greatly impressed by the superiority
of his bearing, that he could make her blush with embarrassment
when he conveyed to her that she had made a mistake,
that he could chill her miserably when he chose to assume a
lofty stiffness. A man's domestic armoury was filled with
weapons if he could make a woman feel gauche, inexperienced,
in the wrong. When he was safely married, he could pave the
way to what he felt was the only practical and feasible end.
If he had been marrying a woman with more brains, she would
be more difficult to subdue, but with Rosalie Vanderpoel,
processes were not necessary. If you shocked, bewildered or
frightened her with accusations, sulks, or sneers, her light,
innocent head was set in such a whirl that the rest was easy. It
was possible, upon the whole, that the thing might not turn out
so infernally ill after all. Supposing that it had been Bettina
who had been the marriageable one! Appreciating to the full
the many reasons for rejoicing that she had not been, he walked
in gloomy reflection home.
