I did make one effort. I tried to persuade my brother to reason with her. The opinion of an outsider—and Brackenbury has the reputation, not perhaps very well-founded, if you consider his own life, of being a man of the world... He would only say that, though "dear old Spenworth" was "no end of a good fellow", he was also "no end of a bad husband" and that, if Kathleen had had sense or spirit, she'd have divorced him a dozen years ago. Then, against my own inclinations, I went to see Kathleen and literally begged her to reconsider her decision before it was too late. One might as profitably have spoken to the dead...
She was not antagonistic in any way. Indeed, our meeting would have been profoundly interesting, if it had not been so painful. She was still in love with Spenworth. Men like that, dissolute and unfaithful, seem to have an animal magnetism which holds certain women in complete subjection. Kathleen was miserable at the thought of parting from her scamp of a husband.
"I couldn't do it if I didn't love him," she cried.
And, if you please, I was left to understand that she was effacing herself, giving him up and making way for another woman simply because she fancied that he would be happier. I confess I should have had little patience with her, if she had not been so pitiable. Life was a blank without Spenworth.
"Then why," I asked, "do you cut your own throat and drag the name of the family through the mire? Have you no sense of your position after all these years, no feeling for the rest of us?"
"It's for him," she said.
And I verily believe that, if he had told her literally to cut her throat, she would have done it...
I have never been greatly attached to Kathleen. These backboneless, emotional women... But I felt that somebody must do something for her. She came to Mount Street, and I reasoned with her again; at Cheniston I may be less than the dust, but under my own vine and fig-tree... In London I have a certain niche and I was bound to warn her that a divorced woman is mal vue in certain circles and among certain persons who sometimes do me the honour to dine at my house. There would be occasions on which I should be unable to invite her. You would have said that she didn't care... She was staying with us when the case was tried; she stayed all through the summer, four months. No, you mustn't give me credit to which I'm not entitled. I felt very little sympathy when she proved obdurate; but, if one could do anything to brighten her lot... I gave one or two little parties... Trying to take her out of herself. To some extent I succeeded. Kathleen has still the remains of good looks, though that fair fluffiness is not a type that I admire. When I refused to let her sit and mope in her room, she made an effort and assumed quite an attractive appearance. Several men were impressed...
There was one in particular. I won't give you his name... And yet I don't know why I shouldn't; if Phyllida persuades you to listen to her story, I am sure she will spare you nothing. He was introduced to me as Captain Laughton; and the name conveyed nothing to me until some one reminded me of the old boy-and-girl attachment before Kathleen married Spenworth, when this man Laughton pretended to be heart-broken and disappeared to Central India. They had not met for twenty years, but, when he read of the divorce proceedings, I can only assume that he sought her out. Will met him at his club, I think, and the man virtually invited himself to come and dine. I was not greatly enchanted by him at our first meeting, but he was a new interest to Kathleen (I knew nothing until days afterwards when I tackled her about her really unaccountable behaviour with him)... And I must confess that there were moments when poor Kathleen was a grave trial and I repented my impetuosity in asking her to stay with us. Captain Laughton came a second time and a third. By the end of a month he had really done us the honour to make our house his own...
There are things I can say to you that I would never breathe to a man. I, personally, never make a mystery of my age; you will find it in all the books, every one knows I am six years older than Arthur, four years older than Spenworth—why conceal it? I wished Kathleen could have been equally frank, could have seen herself as I saw her. She is within a few months of thirty-nine, with four strapping girls; one does expect a certain dignity and restraint at that age. I know what you are going to say! We of the older generation usually expect more than we receive. I have learnt that lesson, thank you! Kathleen seemed to fancy that she was back in the period of this boy-and-girl attachment to which I have alluded. She and Captain Laughton were inseparable. He took her to dances ... as if she were eighteen! Indecent, I considered it. And I wondered what her girls thought of their mother,—if they're capable of thinking at all. I don't associate brains with that chocolate-box beauty... Dances, dinners, little expeditions. Every one was beginning to smile...