II
A shy but observant male, set down in an English country-house, soonrealises, especially when he has been compelled for a period of years torely for amusement almost entirely upon his own society, the truth ofthe saying that the proper study of mankind is Man--with which isincorporated Woman.
At The Towers I became an interested and uneasy spectator of thecontinued reformation of my friend Dicky Mainwaring. During the sameperiod I had constant opportunities of comparing the characters anddispositions of his first and (presumably) second choices, MesdamesBeverley and Damer, and in a lesser degree of his sister Sylvia.
Further acquaintance with Miss Beverley confirmed my first impression ofher. She struck me more and more as exactly the kind of girl whom acareful mother would select as a helpmeet for a somewhat erratic son.She was cool, aloof, capable, and decided, with very distinct ideas uponthe subject of personal dignity and good form. She had already curedher fiance of many regrettable habits. Dicky, I found, no longergreeted under-housemaids upon the stairs with "Hallo, Annie! How isyour bad knee getting on?" Instead, he hurried past the expectantdamsel with averted eyes. He no longer slipped warm shillings into thehands of beggar-women who assailed him with impossible tales of woe inthe back drive: instead, he apologetically handed them tickets ofintroduction to the Charity Organisation Society, with a packet of whichMiss Beverley had relentlessly provided him. He kept accounts. Heanswered letters by return of post. He perused closely printed volumes,and became enrolled in intellectual societies with mysterious aims andtitles difficult to remember.
"Tiny, my bonny boy," he enquired of me one morning after breakfast, "doyou happen to have any sort of notion what Eugenics is--or are?"
"I believe," I replied hazily, "that it is some sort of scheme forimproving the physique of the race."
Dicky nodded appreciatively.
"I see," he said. "One of old Sandow's schemes. His name is Eugen.That is better than I thought. I was afraid it was going to be anotherkind of political economy. Hilda wants me to become a localvice-president of the Eugenic Society; and as it seems to be a lesspois--complicated business than most of her enterprises, I think I willplank down five bob and win a good mark."
And off he went, money in hand, to gain an indulgent smile from hisMinerva.
Of Sylvia Mainwaring I need only say at present that she was a paleshade of Miss Beverley.
Miss Constance Damer was the exact opposite of Miss Beverley,physically, mentally, and spiritually. Miss Beverley was tall, dark,and stately; Miss Damer small, fair, and vivacious. Miss Beverley waspatronising and gracious in her manner; Miss Damer's prevailing note wasunaffected bonhomie. But where Miss Beverley slew her thousands, MissDamer slew her tens of thousands; for she possessed what the other didnot, that supreme gift of thegods--charm--magnetism--personality--whatever you like to call it. Inall my life I have never known a human being who attracted herfellow-creatures with so little effort and so little intention, and whoinspired love and affection so readily and lastingly, as ConstanceDamer. She never angled for admiration; she bestowed no favours; sheresponded to no advances; but she drew all the world after her likeOrpheus with his lute.
That is all I need say about Miss Damer. This narrative concerns itselfwith the career of my good friend The Freak, Dicky Mainwaring; and thepersevering reader will ultimately discover (if he has not alreadyguessed) that Fate had arranged The Freak's future on a basis which didnot include the lady whom I have just described.
With masculine admiration Miss Damer did not concern herself overmuch.We all think lightly of what can be had in abundance. Not that she didnot take a most healthy interest in noting what mankind thought of her;but her interest would undoubtedly have been heightened if she couldhave felt less certain what the verdict was going to be. I honestlybelieve she would have been thrilled and gratified if some one hadpassed an unfavourable opinion upon her. But no one ever did.
She had no sisters of her own, so large families of girls were anabiding joy to her. These received her with rapture--especially the shyand gawky members thereof--and made much of her, sunning themselves inthe unaffected kindliness of her nature and gloating over her clothesfor as long as they could keep her. She was greatly in request, too,among small boys, for purposes of football and the like; but her chiefpassion in life, as I discovered one afternoon when Dicky and Isurprised her at tea with the coachman's family, was a fat,good-tempered, accommodating, responsive baby.
As for her character in general, I think its outstanding feature was asort of fearless friendliness. (Miss Beverley may have been fearless,but she certainly was not friendly.) Constance Damer's was the absolutefearlessness of a child who has never yet encountered anything to beafraid of. It is given to few of us to walk through life without comingface to face at times with some of its ugliness. Apparently this hadnever happened to Miss Damer. I say "apparently," but such a wise anddiscerning young person as I ultimately found her to be could neverreally have been blind or indifferent to the sadder facts of this worldof ours. Consequently I often found myself enquiring why her attitudetowards her fellow-creatures as a whole was so entirely fearless andtrustful, when she must have known that so many of them were to befeared and so few to be trusted. I fancy the reason must have been thatshe possessed the power of compelling every one--man, woman, child,horse, and dog--to turn only their best side towards her. Rough folkanswered her gently, silent folk became chatty, surly folk smiled,fretful folk cheered up, awkward folk felt at home in her presence;children summed up the general attitude by clinging to her skirts andbegging her to play with them. It was impossible to imagine any onebeing rude to her, and certainly I never knew any one who was--not evenMiss Beverley.
But she never abused her power. She never domineered, never put onairs, never ordered us about, never revealed her consciousness that wewere all her servants. That is true greatness.
----
As you very properly observe, this is a book about Dicky Mainwaring._Revenons a nos moutons_!