[CHAPTER XI]
HOUSEHOLD POLITICS
For the next three months—through the course of the London season, a fine and prosperous one—Arthur Lisle played truant. The poison of speculation was in his veins, the lust of pleasure in his heart; romantic imaginings and posings filled his thoughts. The Temple saw little of him. More than once Norton Ward would have offered him some "devilling" to do, or some case to make a note on; but Henry reported that Mr. Lisle was not at chambers. Norton Ward shrugged his shoulders and let the thing drop; the first duty of an earnest aspirant in the Temple is to be there—always waiting in the queue for employment. "You can't help a man who won't help himself," Norton Ward observed to his wife, who pursed up her lips and nodded significantly; she knew what she knew about the young man's case. Informed of his missed chances by a deferentially reproachful Henry, Arthur was impenitent. He did not want to make notes on cases and to do devilling; not so much now because of his terrors (though he still felt that Pretyman, j., was formidable) as because his own interests were too enthralling; he had no time to spare for the quarrels of John Doe and Richard Roe and the rest of the litigious tribe. There were roads to fortune shorter, less arid and less steep. Also there were green pastures and flowery dells, very pleasant though they led nowhere in particular, peopled by charming companions, enlivened by every diversion—and governed by a Fairy Queen.
In London an agreeable young man who has—or behaves as if he had—nothing to do will soon find things to do in plenty. Arthur's days were full; lunches, dinners, theatres, dances, tennis to play, cricket and polo matches to watch, a race-meeting now and then, motor excursions or a day on the river—time went like lightning in amusing himself and other people. Everybody accepted so readily the view that he was a man of leisure and wholly at their disposal that he himself almost came to accept it as the truth. Only in the background lay the obstinate fact that, in a life like this, even five hundred pounds will not last for ever. Never mind! In the autumn there would come the farce. There was a rare flavour in the moment when he wrote his cheque for a thousand pounds, payable to the order of Joseph Halliday, Esquire. Joe had asked for an instalment only, but Arthur was not going to fritter away the sensation like that.
Of course Bernadette had first call on him, and she used her privilege freely. At her house in Hill Street he was really at home; he was expected to come without an invitation; he was expected to come in spite of any other invitation, when he was wanted. He fetched and carried, an abject delighted slave. She never flirted with him or tried to win his devotion; but she accepted it and in return made a pet of him. Yet she had no idea how immense, how romantic, how high-flying the devotion was. She was not very good at understanding great emotions—as Oliver Wyse might perhaps have agreed. So, if she had no designs, she had no caution either; she was as free from conscience as from malice; or it might be that any conscience she had was engaged upon another matter. Sir Oliver had not yet returned to town, but soon he was coming.
Engrossed in Bernadette herself, at first Arthur paid little heed to the other members of the household. Indeed he never became intimate with Judith Arden during all this time in London. He liked her, and forgave a satirical look which he sometimes caught directed at himself in consideration of her amusing satirical remarks directed at other people; and after all she could not be expected to appreciate the quality of his devotion to Bernadette. But with Godfrey Lisle things gradually reached a different footing. The shy awkward man began to put out feelers for friendship. Amongst all who came and went he had few friends, and he sought to make no more. Even Judith, as became her age and sex, was much occupied in gaieties. He spent his days in his library and in walking. But now he began to ask Arthur to join him. "If Bernadette can spare you," he would say; or, to his wife, "If you don't want Arthur this afternoon—" and so suggest a walk or a smoke together. He did not succeed in conveying the impression that he would be greatly pleased by the acceptance of his invitations. But he did give them, and that from him was much.
"Do go," Bernadette would say, or "Do stay," as the case might be. "He does like a talk so much." Strangely it appeared that this was the case, provided he could get his talk quietly with a single person—and, it must be added, though Arthur's eyes were not yet opened to this, provided that the person was not his wife. From private conversation with her he shrank, ever fearing that something might seem to be demanded of him which he could not give. But he read and thought much, and enjoyed an exchange of ideas. And he took to Arthur with the liking a reserved man often has for one who is expansive and easy of access. Arthur responded to his overtures, at first through a mixture of obligation and good-nature, then with a real interest, to which presently there was added a sympathy rather compassionate, a pity for a man who seemed by nature unable to take the pleasures which lay so plentiful around.
He fretted about money too—a thing pathetic to the eyes with which at present Arthur looked on the world. But he did; he might be found surrounded by account-books, rent-books, pass-books, puzzling over them with a forlorn air and a wrinkled brow. It was not long before he took Arthur into his confidence, in some degree at least, about this worry of his.
"We spend a terrible lot of money; I can't think where it all goes," he lamented.