VI
It was a Sunday afternoon in full July, and a small party was seatedunder the spreading mulberry tree on the Monteiths' lawn. GeneralClaviger was of the number, that well-known constructor of scientificfrontiers in India or Africa; and so was Dean Chalmers, the popularpreacher, who had come down for the day from his London house todeliver a sermon on behalf of the Society for Superseding the ExistingSuperstitions of China and Japan by the Dying Ones of Europe. Philipwas there, too, enjoying himself thoroughly in the midst of such goodcompany, and so was Robert Monteith, bleak and grim as usual, but deeplyinterested for the moment in dividing metaphysical and theologicalcobwebs with his friend the Dean, who as a brother Scotsman loved agood discussion better almost than he loved a good discourse. GeneralClaviger, for his part, was congenially engaged in describing to Bertramhis pet idea for a campaign against the Madhi and his men, in theinterior of the Soudan. Bertram rather yawned through that technicaltalk; he was a man of peace, and schemes of organised bloodshedinterested him no more than the details of a projected human sacrifice,given by a Central African chief with native gusto, would interest anaverage European gentleman. At last, however, the General happened tosay casually, "I forget the exact name of the place I mean; I think it'sMalolo; but I have a very good map of all the district at my house downat Wanborough."
"What! Wanborough in Northamptonshire?" Bertram exclaimed with suddeninterest. "Do you really live there?"
"I'm lord of the manor," General Claviger answered, with a littleaccess of dignity. "The Clavigers or Clavigeros were a Spanish family ofAndalusian origin, who settled down at Wanborough under Philip and Mary,and retained the manor, no doubt by conversion to the Protestant side,after the accession of Elizabeth."
"That's interesting to me," Bertram answered, with his frank andfearless truthfulness, "because my people came originally fromWanborough before--well, before they emigrated." (Philip, listeningaskance, pricked up his ears eagerly at the tell-tale phrase; after all,then, a colonist!) "But they weren't anybody distinguished--certainlynot lords of the manor," he added hastily as the General turned akeen eye on him. "Are there any Ingledews living now in the Wanboroughdistrict? One likes, as a matter of scientific heredity, to know allone can about one's ancestors, and one's county, and one's collateralrelatives."
"Well, there ARE some Ingledews just now at Wanborough," the Generalanswered, with some natural hesitation, surveying the tall, handsomeyoung man from head to foot, not without a faint touch of soldierlyapprobation; "but they can hardly be your relatives, however remote....They're people in a most humble sphere of life. Unless, indeed--well,we know the vicissitudes of families--perhaps your ancestors and theIngledews that I know drifted apart a long time ago."
"Is he a cobbler?" Bertram inquired, without a trace of mauvaise honte.
The General nodded. "Well, yes," he said politely, "that's exactly whathe is; though, as you seemed to be asking about presumed relations, Ididn't like to mention it."
"Oh, then, he's my ancestor," Bertram put in, quite pleased at thediscovery. "That is to say," he added after a curious pause, "myancestor's descendant. Almost all my people, a little way back, you see,were shoe-makers or cobblers."
He said it with dignity, exactly as he might have said they were dukesor lord chancellors; but Philip could not help pitying him, not so muchfor being descended from so mean a lot, as for being fool enough toacknowledge it on a gentleman's lawn at Brackenhurst. Why, with mannerslike his, if he had not given himself away, one might easily have takenhim for a descendant of the Plantagenets.
So the General seemed to think too, for he added quickly, "But you'revery like the duke, and the duke's a Bertram. Is he also a relative?"
The young man coloured slightly. "Ye-es," he answered, hesitating; "butwe're not very proud of the Bertram connection. They never did muchgood in the world, the Bertrams. I bear the name, one may almost say byaccident, because it was handed down to me by my grandfather Ingledew,who had Bertram blood, but was a vast deal a better man than any othermember of the Bertram family."
"I'll be seeing the duke on Wednesday," the General put in, with markedpoliteness, "and I'll ask him, if you like, about your grandfather'srelationship. Who was he exactly, and what was his connection with thepresent man or his predecessor?"
"Oh, don't, please," Bertram put in, half-pleadingly, it is true, butstill with that same ineffable and indefinable air of a great gentlemanthat never for a moment deserted him. "The duke would never have heardof my ancestors, I'm sure, and I particularly don't want to be mixed upwith the existing Bertrams in any way."
He was happily innocent and ignorant of the natural interpretation theothers would put upon his reticence, after the true English manner; butstill he was vaguely aware, from the silence that ensued for a momentafter he ceased, that he must have broken once more some importanttaboo, or offended once more some much-revered fetich. To get rid ofthe awkwardness he turned quietly to Frida. "What do you say, Mrs.Monteith," he suggested, "to a game of tennis?"
As bad luck would have it, he had floundered from one taboo headlonginto another. The Dean looked up, open-mouthed, with a sharp glance ofinquiry. Did Mrs. Monteith, then, permit such frivolities on the Sunday?"You forget what day it is, I think," Frida interposed gently, with alook of warning.
Bertram took the hint at once. "So I did," he answered quickly. "Athome, you see, we let no man judge us of days and of weeks, and of timesand of seasons. It puzzles us so much. With us, what's wrong to-day cannever be right and proper to-morrow."
"But surely," the Dean said, bristling up, "some day is set apart inevery civilised land for religious exercises."
"Oh, no," Bertram replied, falling incautiously into the trap. "We doright every day of the week alike,--and never do poojah of any sort atany time."
"Then where do you come from?" the Dean asked severely, pouncing downupon him like a hawk. "I've always understood the very lowest savageshave at least some outer form or shadow of religion."
"Yes, perhaps so; but we're not savages, either low or otherwise,"Bertram answered cautiously, perceiving his error. "And as to your otherpoint, for reasons of my own, I prefer for the present not to say whereI come from. You wouldn't believe me, if I told you--as you didn't, Isaw, about my remote connection with the Duke of East Anglia's family.And we're not accustomed, where I live, to be disbelieved or doubted.It's perhaps the one thing that really almost makes us lose our tempers.So, if you please, I won't go any further at present into the debatablematter of my place of origin."
He rose to stroll off into the gardens, having spoken all the time inthat peculiarly grave and dignified tone that seemed natural to himwhenever any one tried to question him closely. Nobody save a churchmanwould have continued the discussion. But the Dean was a churchman, andalso a Scot, and he returned to the attack, unabashed and unbaffled."But surely, Mr. Ingledew," he said in a persuasive voice, "your people,whoever they are, must at least acknowledge a creator of the universe."
Bertram gazed at him fixedly. His eye was stern. "My people, sir," hesaid slowly, in very measured words, unaware that one must not arguewith a clergyman, "acknowledge and investigate every reality they canfind in the universe--and admit no phantoms. They believe in everythingthat can be shown or proved to be natural and true; but in nothingsupernatural, that is to say, imaginary or non-existent. They acceptplain facts: they reject pure phantasies. How beautiful those liliesare, Mrs. Monteith! such an exquisite colour! Shall we go over and lookat them?"
"Not just now," Frida answered, relieved at the appearance of Marthawith the tray in the distance. "Here's tea coming." She was glad ofthe diversion, for she liked Bertram immensely, and she could not helpnoticing how hopelessly he had been floundering all that afternoon rightinto the very midst of what he himself would have called their taboosand joss-business.
But Bertram was not well out of his troubles yet. Martha broughtthe round tray--Oriental brass, finely chased with flowing Arabicinscriptions--and laid it d
own on the dainty little rustic table. Thenshe handed about the cups. Bertram rose to help her. "Mayn't I do itfor you?" he said, as politely as he would have said it to a lady in herdrawing-room.
"No, thank you, sir," Martha answered, turning red at the offer, butwith the imperturbable solemnity of the well-trained English servant.She "knew her place," and resented the intrusion. But Bertram had hisown notions of politeness, too, which were not to be lightly set asidefor local class distinctions. He could not see a pretty girl handingcups to guests without instinctively rising from his seat to assist her.So, very much to Martha's embarrassment, he continued to give his helpin passing the cake and the bread-and-butter. As soon as she was gone,he turned round to Philip. "That's a very pretty girl and a very nicegirl," he said simply. "I wonder, now, as you haven't a wife, you'venever thought of marrying her."
The remark fell like a thunderbolt on the assembled group. Even Fridawas shocked. Your most open-minded woman begins to draw a line when youtouch her class prejudices in the matter of marriage, especially withreference to her own relations. "Why, really, Mr. Ingledew," she said,looking up at him reproachfully, "you can't mean to say you think mybrother could marry the parlour-maid!"
Bertram saw at a glance he had once more unwittingly run his headagainst one of the dearest of these strange people's taboos; but he madeno retort openly. He only reflected in silence to himself how unnaturaland how wrong they would all think it at home that a young man ofPhilip's age should remain nominally celibate; how horrified they wouldbe at the abject misery and degradation such conduct on the part of halfhis caste must inevitably imply for thousands of innocent young girls oflower station, whose lives he now knew were remorselessly sacrificed invile dens of tainted London to the supposed social necessity that youngmen of a certain class should marry late in a certain style, and "keep awife in the way she's been accustomed to." He remembered with a checkedsigh how infinitely superior they would all at home have considered thatwholesome, capable, good-looking Martha to an empty-headed and uselessyoung man like Philip; and he thought to himself how completely taboohad overlaid in these people's minds every ethical idea, how whollyit had obscured the prime necessities of healthy, vigorous, and moralmanhood. He recollected the similar though less hideous taboos he hadmet with elsewhere: the castes of India, and the horrible pollution thatwould result from disregarding them; the vile Egyptian rule, by whichthe divine king, in order to keep up the so-called purity of his royaland god-descended blood, must marry his own sister, and so foullypollute with monstrous abortions the very stock he believed himself tobe preserving intact from common or unclean influences. His mind ranback to the strange and complicated forbidden degrees of the AustralianBlackfellows, who are divided into cross-classes, each of which mustnecessarily marry into a certain other, and into that other only,regardless of individual tastes or preferences. He remembered theprofound belief of all these people that if they were to act in anyother way than the one prescribed, some nameless misfortune or terribleevil would surely overtake them. Yet, nowhere, he thought to himself,had he seen any system which entailed in the end so much misery on bothsexes, though more particularly on the women, as that system of closelytabooed marriage, founded upon a broad basis of prostitution andinfanticide, which has reached its most appalling height of developmentin hypocritical and puritan England. The ghastly levity with which allEnglishmen treated this most serious subject, and the fatal readinesswith which even Frida herself seemed to acquiesce in the most inhumanslavery ever devised for women on the face of this earth, shocked andsaddened Bertram's profoundly moral and sympathetic nature. He could sitthere no longer to listen to their talk. He bethought him at once of thesickening sights he had seen the evening before in a London music-hall;of the corrupting mass of filth underneath, by which alone thisabomination of iniquity could be kept externally decent, and this vilesystem of false celibacy whitened outwardly to the eye like Orientalsepulchres: and he strolled off by himself into the shrubbery, veryheavy in heart, to hide his real feelings from the priest and thesoldier, whose coarser-grained minds could never have understood theenthusiasm of humanity which inspired and informed him.
Frida rose and followed him, moved by some unconscious wave ofinstinctive sympathy. The four children of this world were left togetheron the lawn by the rustic table, to exchange views by themselves on theextraordinary behaviour and novel demeanour of the mysterious Alien.