§4
Mr. Brumley grew so angry that presently even the strangers in the street annoyed him. He turned his face homeward. He hated dilemmas; he wanted always to deny them, to thrust them aside, to take impossible third courses.
“For three years,” shouted Mr. Brumley, free at last in his study to give way to his rage, “for three years I’ve been making her care for these things. And then—and then—they turn against me!”
A violent, incredibly undignified wrath against the dead man seized him. He threw books about the room. He cried out vile insults and mingled words of an unfortunate commonness with others of extreme rarity. He wanted to go off to Kensal Green and hammer at the grave there and tell the departed knight exactly what he thought of him. Then presently he became calmer, he lit a pipe, picked up the books from the floor, and meditated revenges upon Sir Isaac’s memory. I deplore my task of recording these ungracious moments in Mr. Brumley’s love history. I deplore the ease with which men pass from loving and serving women to an almost canine fight for them. It is the ugliest essential of romance. There is indeed much in the human heart that I deplore. But Mr. Brumley was exasperated by disappointment. He was sore, he was raw. Driven by an intolerable desire to explore every possibility of the situation, full indeed of an unholy vindictiveness, he went off next morning with strange questions to Maxwell Hartington.
He put the case as a general case.
“Lady Harman?” said Maxwell Hartington.
“No, not particularly Lady Harman. A general principle. What are people—what are women tied up in such a way to do?”
Precedents were quoted and possibilities weighed. Mr. Brumley was flushed, vague but persistent.
“Suppose,” he said, “that they love each other passionately—and their work, whatever it may be, almost as passionately. Is there no way——?”
“He’ll have a dum casta clause right enough,” said Maxwell Hartington.
“Dum——? Dum casta! But, oh! anyhow that’s out of the question—absolutely,” said Mr. Brumley.
“Of course,” said Maxwell Hartington, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the ball of his thumb into one eye. “Of course—nobody ever enforces these dum casta clauses. There isn’t anyone to enforce them. Ever.”—He paused and then went on, speaking apparently to the array of black tin boxes in the dingy fixtures before him. “Who’s going to watch you? That’s what I always ask in these cases. Unless the lady goes and does things right under the noses of these trustees they aren’t going to bother. Even Sir Isaac I suppose hasn’t provided funds for a private detective. Eh? You said something?”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Brumley.
“Well, why should they start a perfectly rotten action like that,” continued Maxwell Hartington, now addressing himself very earnestly to his client, “when they’ve only got to keep quiet and do their job and be comfortable. In these matters, Brumley, as in most matters affecting the relations of men and women, people can do absolutely what they like nowadays, absolutely, unless there’s someone about ready to make a row. Then they can’t do anything. It hardly matters if they don’t do anything. A row’s a row and damned disgraceful. If there isn’t a row, nothing’s disgraceful. Of course all these laws and regulations and institutions and arrangements are just ways of putting people at the mercy of blackmailers and jealous and violent persons. One’s only got to be a lawyer for a bit to realize that. Still that’s not our business. That’s psychology. If there aren’t any jealous and violent persons about, well, then no ordinary decent person is going to worry what you do. No decent person ever does. So far as I can gather the only barbarian in this case is the testator—now in Kensal Green. With additional precautions I suppose in the way of an artistic but thoroughly massive monument presently to be added——”
“He’d—turn in his grave.”
“Let him. No trustees are obliged to take action on that. I don’t suppose they’d know if he did. I’ve never known a trustee bother yet about post-mortem movements of any sort. If they did, we’d all be having Prayers for the Dead. Fancy having to consider the subsequent reflections of the testator!”
“Well anyhow,” said Mr. Brumley, after a little pause, “such a breach, such a proceeding is out of the question—absolutely out of the question. It’s unthinkable.”
“Then why did you come here to ask me about it?” demanded Maxwell Hartington, beginning to rub the other eye in an audible and unpleasant manner.