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SEBASTIAN
FRANK DANBY
A A' A
y
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SEBASTIAN
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
SEBASTIAN
BY
FRANK DANBY
AUTHOR OF "THE HEART OF A CHILD," "PIGS
IN CLOVER," ETC.
"For love than wisdom is more deeply wise."
Nefo If orfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
All rights reserved
COPYBIGHT, 1909,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1909. Reprinted
April, 1909.
NottaooB
J. 8. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
CHAPTER I
DAVID slept badly. For this, the winter cough, that
had irritated his wife's sensitiveness even in the first
year of their marriage, was probably responsible. Va-
nessa always asserted that he was asthmatic, and certainly
he was short of breath. Although he was habitually an
insomniac, to-night he had woken with a start, suddenly,
as if from some external cause. He lay still for a few
moments, his heart beating quickly, his pulses throbbing.
What had startled him, how had he been roused ?
He opened his eyes. Darkness was in the room, and
quiet. He occupied the back room on the second floor;
the blinds were drawn, the outlook was on to the mews.
Perhaps Dr. Gifford's brougham, unusually late, had
driven its noisy way over the cobbled stones. But in
that case he would hear the clink of harness, the rattle of
unsteady hoofs, voices in the yard. He listened, but
outside all was still. The big Harley Street house had
been built in the Georgian era, the walls were thick, and
it was silence they seemed to hold. Black night alone
filled the room, and stillness. He shrank a little from
both, lying there, hearing his own heart-beats, hearing
nothing else, at first.
2 SEBASTIAN
Was it Vanessa, coming up to bed, slamming her door,
thoughtlessly, who had awakened him? Vanessa was
writing late. Her new book was nearly finished; she
had been dead to him, and the household, to Stella, al-
most to Sebastian, in the last few absorbed weeks. Her
work held her, and he respected her for it. If a man,
nothing much to recommend him, just a plain business
man, was married to a girl of genius, to the daughter of
John Hepplewight-Ventom, if he, already middle-aged,
had taken her from the schoolroom, almost from the
nursery, how could he expect her ear, her attention, her
heart?
Vanessa was always David's first thought when he
woke; she was in his mind by night and day. The book
upon which she was now engaged, was the third since
her marriage, the third in nine years. He wished it were
finished. She was so remote from them all, even Se-
bastian . . . even from Sebastian !
David jumped out of bed, forgot cold, himself, Va-
nessa, everything. It was Sebastian he had heard, of
course. He could hardly wait to thrust his feet into
slippers, hardly wait to find his overcoat ; dressing-gown
he had none. He sent his voice before him, as he
stumbled down the stairs:
"I am coming, Pupsy is coming!" Cold sweat was
on his forehead and his hands were clammy. It was
sobbing he had heard, sobbing in the night ! The boy
was awake, was crying. . . . "Pupsy is coming!" he
called out, "Pupsy is coming!"
The boy slept in the room leading out of his mother's,
just under David's. Vanessa's door was open, but
SEBASTIAN 3
there was no light in it. She had not yet emerged from
her study.
David found the knob of the electric light, and turned
it up.
"I'm here, little man, I'm here!"
And Sebastian, who had been crying in his sleep,
whose bright eyes were heavy with sleep and tears, smiled
at his anxious father. The smile showed a gap, for he
had just shed his milk teeth ; but it was full of confidence.
It was a plain little face the electric light discovered on
the tumbled pillow, thin, and rather sallow, under the
straight black hair, but it was very intelligent.
"I fought you or Mumsy would come," he said.
"I've been crying!" He looked up under the obvious
expectation of creating a sensation. Sebastian never
cried, was not allowed to cry ! The awkward, middle-
aged father, the mother, too young and self-absorbed,
had been agreed on this one point only. Sebastian was
wonderful, unique, he must not be brought up like an
ordinary child, he must be allowed to develop. No one
must contradict, nor govern him, they must only stand
aside, intelligently, and watch his growth. Then why
should Sebastian cry?
"Don't you feel well?" David asked. "Have you
got a pain?"
"Why have you got a greatcoat on?" the little boy
demanded.
"I heard you crying; I did not stop to dress, I came
as quickly as I could." David was almost apologetic.
"You do look funny in your legs," Sebastian went on.
David looked down. He had not been converted to
4 SEBASTIAN
pyjamas, and certainly the slippers and the bare legs,
the nightshirt and coat were sufficiently incongruous.
"But you haven't told me what is the matter."
Sebastian was glad of company, there was no doubt
about that. He did not want to talk of what had waked
him, what had fretted him; he wanted to talk of any-
thing else, to hear why Pupsy did not wear night-clothes
like his, why he had not got on a dressing-gown, why he
had not combed his hair, if that was a corn on his foot ?
He was filled with curiosity on every conceivable topic,
dumb as to what had made him cry. David had no gift
of obtaining confidence.
Sebastian would not let him go ; it was obvious he did
not want to be alone in the dark. He made his father
lift him out of bed presently, take him on his knee, tell
him stories.
This was the way Vanessa found them when she came
upstairs, hand tired, and brain weary, having written
herself out.
She was startled at seeing a light in the boy's room;
she saw it under the chink in the door, and it quickened
her step. She turned the handle quite as anxiously as
David had done ; the boy was as much hers as his —
more, she thought. It gave her a quick, unrecognised
pain to see her husband sitting by the bedside, holding
her boy in his arms. Sebastian was growing sleepy
again ; his trouble had been soothed, his head was on his
father's shoulder, and David was nursing him tenderly.
But the quick, unrecognised pain in Vanessa's heart,
the jealousy that stung her, made her reckless of his
drowsiness.
SEBASTIAN 5
"You might have seen the quilt was properly round
him," she said, sharply. "What is the matter? Why
did you not call me?"
And she knew she was unjust even while she spoke.
For had she not insisted she must be undisturbed when
writing? And David had taken the eiderdown from
the bed and enwrapped the boy. One little foot hung
down uncovered, but the boy was warm against his
father's breast. He opened drowsy eyes at his mother's
entry :
"I cwied in my sleep," he said; "it was your fault.
You said it was England, and about 'all the swallows.'
And they was only sparrows, and houses; there was
no blossoms, nor dewdrops, nor nothing." He was half
asleep again.
"What is he talking about?" said David. "Hush!
hush !" He soothed, and rocked him, to and fro, as if
he had been still a baby.
It was characteristic of Vanessa that she did not offer to
take him, although she stooped and adjusted the quilt,
covering the little foot carefully. Her heart-beats were
accelerated at the child's words, and her eyes triumphant.
How wonderful he was ! How quickly she understood
him ! His father was quite outside his mind.
" I am afraid he is not well ; he feels a little feverish.
Don't you think I'd better put my things on, and go for
Gifford?" David asked anxiously, although already
the boy's eyes were closed again, and his breathing was
soft and regular.
What was the good of trying to make David under-
stand? Her own heart beat high with pride, partly
6 SEBASTIAN
in the boy, partly in her own quick comprehension of
him.
She stood in the room, nothing obviously literary
about her, and still less of the maternal; a slim and
graceful figure, gowned for the ballroom, and not for the
study. Vanessa always said she wrote best in evening
dress. She had been absorbed in her pen puppets for
hours, these two belongings of hers, husband and son,
more shadowy and unreal than the figures she created.
But when she dreamed, in days when her pen lay idle,
Sebastian was ever the centre of her dreaming: it was
only in her working hours that she escaped him. Now
she said, with that light in her eyes:
"He is quite right, it is my fault. This afternoon I
found him, curled up in the window-seat in the dining-
room, gazing out of the window, with a book in his hand.
He asked me, 'Is this England, Mumsy?' I did not
pause to think what his query might mean ; I am on my
last chapter, and it is difficult to find the tag. I was
absorbed in my closing scene, careless of anything else.
I answered quickly, 'Yes, of course this is England. I
thought you knew London was the capital of England,
the centre of the world.' It comes back to me now that
he seemed distressed, puzzled, unsatisfied."
"I don't understand . . ."
"Of course not."
He winced at that. She had not meant to hurt him.
"I mean, it is difficult; he is so wonderful, so unusual.
I went into the dining-room just now. I picked up
this book — look!" She held it out to David, open.
But he would not take it, nor move, for fear of rousing
the boy.
SEBASTIAN 7
"Oh! to be in England
Now that April's there!
And whoever wakes in England
Sees some morning unaware
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf . . ."
She broke off abruptly, her voice had grown low, al-
most unsteady.
"He had been reading it to himself. It comes back
to me now that his eyes were wet. And I failed him !
I did not follow the working of his mind, the disappoint-
ment of his eyes, gazing on the grey street ..."
"And after April, when May follows
And the whitethrush builds, and all the swallows ..."
"He must have felt it ail so intensely, so exquisitely,
and I, I ought to have known. ... I am not fit to
mother him."
She looked down on the little fellow, fast asleep now
in his father's arms.
"If only my father had been alive!"
It broke from her involuntarily, it was heartfelt.
"It is so rare and fine a mind ! My father, too, never
read that poem without emotion. I put it in Sebastian's
hands on purpose to test him, and then forgot all about
it, fool that I am!"
"I don't think his brain ought to be excited."
"Try a thousand other children with it," she ex-
claimed, triumphantly.
David only sighed, he did not argue. It ached in him
8 SEBASTIAN
that she still missed her father, longed for his sympathy.
David, too, knew Sebastian was different from all other
children. He had once read "Little Red Riding Hood"
to him, and this when he was in his fifth year. And it
was an experience he had never forgotten, for Sebastian
almost had convulsions over the end, and had cried him-
self sick, although all the household, mother, father and
doctor, had assured him of Red Riding Hood's final
safety. David had never hurt Sebastian's sensitiveness
again, and he never would. Vanessa was wrong in
thinking he failed to recognise it.
David was moved, nevertheless, after this incident,
to consult Dr. Gifford as to the best course to pursue
with regard to Sebastian's education. The boy slept
well the remainder of the night, and had apparently
forgotten all about his disappointment in the morning.
Vanessa would have liked to recall it to him, and to dis-
cuss the source of his rare tears. But she, too, was not
sure of the right course. She asked the boy, casually,
if he were going to read the same book to-day as he
read yesterday, and he replied, quite indifferently, that
he wasn't going to read to-day, he was going to play
horses. She purposely left the book in his way, but he
did not take it up. Whilst she was making her experi-
ments, David got Dr. Gifford to give an opinion.
"Send him to boarding school, let him mix with other
boys." Dr. Gifford was quite decisive. "I quite admit
that he is not an ordinary boy. How should he be,
with such parentage?" This was a sop to Vanessa, for
Dr. Gifford was genuinely interested, and wanted to
carry his point. "But the nearer you approximate him
SEBASTIAN 9
to the normal, the better chance you give him of health
and happiness. He is not yet nine years old. You
give him Browning to read, and Madam, here, is revelling
in the fact that he cries at night because he can't see
the 'blossomed pear tree/ in Harley Street ! He ought
to be playing cricket, hockey, football, shirking his les-
sons, and barking his shins. That's the way to make a
man of him."
"I do not want him to be like other boys," Vanessa
objected.
"You need not fear that," the doctor answered, drily.
She was always a little outside his sympathies. He was
by no means a narrow-minded man, but Vanessa's
seriousness over her books, her father's reputation, and
literature generally, seemed to him exotic, perhaps a
trifle ridiculous. She had a husband, a home and a
baby — what more did a young woman need ? He did
not realise that she had needed none of these things at
eighteen years of age, and had not been trained for them.
They were accidental to her, external, and she had not
yet grown used to them. Her slow development was
on other lines, and no maturity of womanhood, know-
ledge, or suffering was yet hers.
Sebastian was sent to boarding school in his ninth
year, where, in a phenomenally short time, he rose to be
head of his class, and presently, of every class.
His individuality survived the ordeal. Like his
mother, he took little colour from his surroundings.
What happiness he achieved was intrinsic, and it did not
include the popularity that accrued to athletic boys with
meaner brain power. But that he did not enjoy his life
10 SEBASTIAN
at the preparatory school can be read in his letters to
David, which were carefully preserved, and of which
the following is a fair sample. It was written in his
eleventh year. David had typhoid fever, and the boy
received fewer visits from his parents in consequence.
ST. MICHAEL'S, November 25th.
"DEAR PUPSY, — I am very glad to hear you are
steadily improving. I am getting on all right and am
well and jolly. How is Mumsy, Aunt Stella and Bice?
Thank Mumsy for her letter which I received this morn-
ing. I am so lonely that I don't know what I should do
without yours and Mumsy's letters, but I know that it
would do you harm to come down, and I don't want
Mumsy to leave you all alone, so I will wait patiently for
the end of the term to come, which is exactly three weeks
on Wednesday, and trials begin Saturday week.
P.T.O.
"I was two from top this week, but I am determined
to do better this time, and as I have begun well, I am in
great hopes.
"We played Becenham the 2nd best preparatory
school this week and were only beaten 3 — 1.
"In a second XI match v. South Eastern Junior we
beat 1—0.
"In a third XI v. Campbells we beat 5 — 2.
"Good-bye.
"Your loving son, SEBASTIAN.
"P.S. — Don't let Mumsy leave you to come and
see me."
SEBASTIAN 11
In his thirteenth year Sebastian went to Eton. The
position of affairs between his parents had not improved,
but of this, naturally, he knew nothing. Vanessa's
reputation as a novelist had by this time become
established, but as hers was never a popular success,
as she never rivalled Marie Corelli, nor Hall Caine, and
was as yet unknown on the sixpenny bookstalls, the boy
gained no kudos among his companions for being her son.
CHAPTER II
"GAME and set, and match to me," said Sebastian
scoffingly, pitching his racquet on to the springless
sofa. " I told you I could give you forty. You haven't
a chance at the odds, you haven't got the temper for the
game. Look at you now ! "
She had flung all her ill-directed energies into the
last stroke, and the little volatile ball had gone half
a yard beyond the table, leaped into the fireplace,
jumped, and finally disappeared under the bookcase.
The girl's face was scarlet with rage, her black
eyes flashed, she stamped her feet at him.
" You needn't stand there, jeering and grinning !
Don't grin, I say, don't ! don't ! "
"All right, all right! Abuse me because you can't
play ping-pong."
" Can't play ? I can play ! You know you cheated ! "
" What a silly lie ! ' Just like a girl ! "
She burst into sudden tears.
"Anyway, you are a rude, a rude, beastly boy, and
I hate the sight of you ! "
"Very well, then I'll go. Mind, I shan't get round the
corner before you are running, full speed, after me,
begging me to come back."
" I shan't ! You know I shan't. I never want
to see you again. You're a prig, and I hate you ! "
12
SEBASTIAN 13
" Not you, no such luck ! You can't live without me."
She dried her eyes, on a handkerchief that had seen
better days, and sniffed defiance at him.
"Well, you are glad enough to come here, anyhow."
"You don't suppose I come to see you, do you?"
" You come to see Pleasey, but she wouldn't even stop
at home to meet you this afternoon! She knew you
were coming — I told her myself ; so there ! And she
says you are a prig, too. Everybody says you are ! "
He coloured at that. There was no doubt it was
Pleasey Plcyden-Carr he came to see, and not his fifteen-
year-old cousin. Beatrice Ashton was too impulsive,
passionate, untutored and crude, to suit the taste of an
Eton boy, already in the first hundred, and displaying
fancy waistcoats. He played ping-pong with Beatrice
because he had nothing better to do. But the dull back
schoolroom in Weymouth Street showed itself to him
in all its unrelieved and monotonous ugliness when there
was only Bice to set off its bareness with her ill-temper.
Sebastian sometimes wondered vaguely at the dif-
ference of Aunt Stella's own surroundings, and those with
which she was satisfied for her only daughter. For the
drawing-room was hung with water-colours and silken
draperies, luxurious with lounges, easy chairs and
femininess. The schoolroom was half of the dining-room,
shut off from it by folding doors. On the other side was
the inlaid, and beautiful, Sheraton sideboard; here was
only the rickety sofa, banished from some more luxurious
place. The carpet was shabby, the deal table, with
painted mahogany legs, might have been translated from
the kitchen; the window, of coloured glass, looked on to
14 SEBASTIAN
the yard. There were shelves with broken-backed books,
a small piano in walnut case, a litter of music on the floor,
an ink-stained oak writing-table with untidy papers.
But Aunt Stella was altogether too contradictory,
puzzling, and complicated for Sebastian to understand.
He accepted her, as other people did, without explana-
tion, on her merits, her idle good humour, and plea of
indifferent health.
The ping-pong had been a failure this afternoon.
Beatrice hated being beaten, and Sebastian beat her
so easily. He gave her thirty, and owed thirty, and still
beat her. At Queen's College, in the various examina-
tions there, and at Burlington House, Beatrice Ashton
excelled her schoolfellows, was conscious of her abilities,
and had the reward of them. But the aggravation of
her life, its excitement and poignancy, was her cousin
Sebastian's calm superiority.
"You came to see Pleasey," Beatrice went on, for she
had noted the sudden flush on the boy's pale face, and
was glad, in her rage at his ping-pong victory over her, to
know she could touch him. She jeered:
" You are in love with Pleasey ! In love, stupid !
She isn't in love with you, she likes me ever so much
better. I asked her, and she promised me she did. She
is only nice to you because you are my cousin. And she
likes Aunt Vanessa's books. She says you are only a
boy."
Excepting for that IHtle flush, it was impossible
to see that Sebastian had been moved at all by her
words. He prided himself on his self-control.
Beatrice's dark eyes had had no difficulty in detecting
SEBASTIAN 15
glances between her cherished boy cousin and her new
companion-governess. She knew Sebastian and Miss
Pleyden-Carr had become friends in the Easter holidays.
Bice had been cruelly jealous and unhappy about it.
Her nature was generous, her temper passionate, her love
for her cousin, although it was, as yet, but a child's love,
was overwhelming. And it brought her little but suffer-
ing. Sebastian, sensitive himself, could play on her
sensitiveness as if it were a violin, and she vibrated
to every touch his humour devised.
Beatrice had manoeuvred to give Pleasey her holiday
this afternoon. She had determined on monopolising
Sebastian's mid-half leave. His look of disappointment
round the empty schoolroom had enraged her; and she had
tried to enrage him. In the game, too, she had played
badly, had not done herself justice, hitting the balls
wildly, and losing the two sets.
Now, when they had finished their game, and he
stood with his back to the empty fireplace, she
could not help trying to break through his self-possession.
"She thinks you are only a boy. I told her you
were sixteen, though you said you were seventeen."
He retained his self-possession.
" I am seventeen ; I am eighteen months older than
you are, and eighteen years wiser. You are not a human
being at all ; you are an irresponsible person — rather
mad. I should never be surprised to see you come to a
bad end. ' Great wits to madness often are allied.' Mine
are the great wits, yours "
"Well, I am not mad enough to fall in love, in love."
It is impossible to exaggerate her scorn at such a state of
affairs. "She says you are ugly too. There!"
16 SEBASTIAN
"Oh, of course, she confides entirely in you ! "
"I don't care whether she confides in me, I didn't
say she confided in me." She stamped her foot at him.
" I know what she thinks, I see all her letters, she tells me
everything."
"Then you should have the tact and discretion to
keep it to yourself."
"Prig!"
"But there, I am tired of trying to teach you to
behave yourself. Perhaps I shall find you improved
by the midsummer." He took his carefully brushed
high hat from the mantelpiece.
Bice made a rush at him — at the hat.
" You shan't go ! You shan't ! "
He held it up, out of her reach : he was nearly a foot
taller than she, and this was another grievance.
"I am going."
She got between him and the door, and put her back
against it. He placed his hat on his head, he was very
deliberate in his ways. Then he took her, not roughly,
but firmly, by the two elbows, and with a dexterous
movement jerked her away from the door, was outside,
and had turned the key.
She flung herself against the door, and burst into a
sudden cry, she shrieked and stamped, and shook the
handle.
" I hate you ! I hate you ! Come back, Sebastian !
You are to come back; you are to; you are to ! "
But she heard his retreating footsteps, and threw
herself on the floor, beating it with her head and feet,
being altogether childish, hysterical and absurd as she
SEBASTIAN 17
lay alone in that dull, empty schoolroom. She was
fifteen years old, freakishly small, with elf locks, gipsy
complexion, strangely unlike her delicate, fair mother,
a throw-back to some early type of Ventom, when the
woods sufficed them.
Sebastian's mother and Beatrice's mother were
twin sisters. Fate had played them many strange
and untoward tricks, but it had given them each other
as compensation. They had never been separated. As
children they had slept in each other's arms, whispered
their baby confidences, chattered their b.aby talk. They
had shared each other's rooms as grown girls, and still
the confidences and intimate talk had gone on, the in-
evitable moment of reserve delayed, until Stella met
Jack Ashton.
The complete confidence between the two sisters
ended on their wedding day. For Jack Ashton was a
rake, David Kendall a saint, and neither sister well
mated. They learned their silences, although no distance
separated them.
Within a few doors of one lived always the other,
and their children, each a solitary and unique bud on the
parent stalk, seemed to them born only to carry on the
tradition of their complete intimacy.
Sebastian would not leave the house, after his quarrel
with Beatrice, without a farewell to his aunt. He went
upstairs to the pretty drawing-room, and found Stella
sitting, as usual, surrounded by flowers; Mare'chal Niel
roses, although it was April, lilies of the valley, tall palms,
and broad dishes of Neapolitan violets. He found her
18 SEBASTIAN
in a charming tea-gown, and still more charming mood,
pouring out tea for his mother.
"Is that you, Sebastian? Come in. How is Eton?
Well, what have you done wonderful this term? Are
you Captain of the Boats? And have you beaten Dr.
Warre in Greek verse? Here is your mother, dying to
know what new worlds you have conquered."
It was characteristic of the relations between Vanessa
Rendall and her son, that although it was a month since
they had met, they only greeted each other with a nod.
Also, that, although she knew that he was coming this
afternoon, she had not waited at home to receive him.
She always had tea with Stella on Saturday afternoons !
Both sisters lived in an unuttered, perpetual, fear lest
they should hurt each other by displaying an affection
for their children. Vanessa would not give up coming
to tea with Stella, although this was Sebastian's long
leave, and the clever stripling held all of her heart that
was as yet developed.
" Where is my Bice ? What have you done with my
little Bice? " asked Stella. "Have some tea? "
"I thought I should find you here, mater."
They had only nodded to each other, but there was
intimacy and understanding in that nod.
"Yes, I will have some tea, Aunt Stella. Eton?
Well, Eton's just as it always was, a beastly, unhealthy
hole, inhabited by aborigines. It is a bear garden, I
shall be very glad when my time is up."
"Have you made up your mind about the Harvey? "
asked his mother. It was the first word she had ad-
dressed to him. There was an eager interest in her speech.
SEBASTIAN 19
"It's such a sap," he answered, carelessly. Then
he smiled at her. His mouth was flexible, with sensitive
lips, and though his smile was what an unprejudiced
witness might call a grin, it answered her question, and
satisfied her. He belittled the Harvey prize for English
verse, but he meant trying for it, all the same. That was
what his smile told her. And when had Sebastian tried
for any scholastic prize that he had not achieved?
He had won a classical scholarship at Harrow before he
was twelve, refused it, and been elected on the founda-
tion at Eton the following year.
David Kendall had not allowed his son to become a
colleger, so Vanessa had to forego the pleasure of seeing
K.S. after his name, in the school list. But there were
few school distinctions obtainable by an Oppidan that
Sebastian had not acquired. He achieved everything
at Eton, except skill in sport, and the popularity that
goes with it. His mother urged him always on his course.
She had a pathetic, overwhelming, misdirected pride in
all his small triumphs. When he won the Brinkman
Divinity Prize, she sent paragraphs about it to the Press !
She cherished his "sent up for good" reports, as if they
had been bank-notes ; when he got into the house quar-
tette, she imagined Mario looking to his laurels.
In some respects Vanessa Kendall had failed in at-
taining the full prime of womanhood. Her emotions
were all young, and centred in unessentials. The
Harvey prize for English verse at present filled her
horizon; it seemed vital that Sebastian should win it.
She was visiting Stella, but Stella only had the blurred
background of her attention. She had been listening
20 SEBASTIAN
all the time for Sebastian's footsteps ; she knew he would
follow her here !
"Have you got a plan? Have you jotted down any
of the lines ?" she asked him, eagerly.
" Oh, don't bore Aunt Stella about the Harvey. I'll
read the twaddle to you when we get home. They gave
us the theme ; ' Courage ! ' Original, isn't it ? Just
like them, it's a regular cinch choosing a subject for the
Harvey."
"What on earth is a cinch?" asked Stella. "Is that
some new Eton slang?"
"Not it! Eton never invented anything so good;
it is the American for a dead certainty. We have got
a Yankee in our house this half. You should hear his
opinion of our arrangements ! He says his father's
dogs are better lodged. I tell you what, Aunt Stella,
of all the crackpot old institutions that ought to be
shown up for mismanagement and muddlement, and
general rottenness, it is Eton."
She handed him the jam roll.
" Never mind, old boy. I have no doubt you will put
it right, and I should think, if you mentioned your views
in the school magazine, you would achieve popularity
with the authorities at a stroke. Now, tell me, where is
Bice? What have you done with my Bice?"
He was very much in the way. She had a thousand
things to discuss with his mother. Children are always
in the way with grown-up people, Stella thought. She
kept her Bice in the schoolroom, in the background.
But Vanessa was never happy without her lout about
her! This was what Mrs. Ashton thought. What she
SEBASTIAN 21
did, always, was to make the boy welcome in her pretty
drawing-room, to feed him with jam sandwiches, and
interest in his pursuits. This was Stella's method, the
secret of her charming personality. And Vanessa,
although she occasionally suspected her sister of failing
in complete sincerity, never doubted that her interest in
Sebastian and his career was real. It seemed impossible
that it should be otherwise, seeing that his intellect
was so overwhelming, his brilliancy so remarkable, his
certainty of carrying on the Ventom tradition so com-
plete.
They were Mrs. Ashton and Mrs. Kendall; but to
Vanessa, at least, they remained, primarily, the daughters
of John Hepplewight- Ventom, the remarkable father to
whom her allegiance never faltered.
When Stella repeated her question about Bice for the
third time, Sebastian thought the limit of his self-
restraint was reached.
"I left her on the floor in the schoolroom, trying to
kick down the door," he said, calmly.
" Oh, Sebastian ! You have not been making my
baby cry again? She was so looking forward to your
leave. Why will you wretched children quarrel ? Your
mother and I never did."
"The mater has a perfect temper," he replied, quite
unmoved. "I expect that is how it was. So have I,
but Bice " He took another large slice of cake;
his manners were never quite on a level with his intelli-
gence, "she is a holy terror." He drew a long breath
over her.
Vanessa never found fault with Sebastian; in simple
22 SEBASTIAN
truth, she never thought there was any fault in him;
she admired his sincerity when it was impossible to
admire his suavity. But at this juncture she did venture
to say:
"I suppose you beat her at ping-pong?"
"Yes, I admit that."
"It cannot be pleasant to be always beaten."
"Well, mater, you needn't hold a brief for Bice. I
know more about her than any one else ; she is all right
in a way, but she has got no self-control, no self-control
at all. She ought to go to boarding-school."
"And what am I to do without my baby?"
Stella hardly resented Sebastian's words. What
she did resent was his presence there at all. She wanted
to talk to his mother.
"Oh! you would be all right. You and the mater
are quite content with each other. In the summer half
you might come down to Windsor, and stop at the
'White Hart'; it is not at all a bad sort of pub."
"And you could dine with me there sometimes?"
He did not resent the gentle sarcasm.
"That is the ticket," he smiled.
Stella's gift of superficial sympathy had established
her position with Sebastian. He, too, had complete
faith in her interest in him, and in his importance to
her, and to the family of Hepplewight-Ventom generally.
She was only less to him than his own mother because
he thought less of her abilities. He did not consider her
clever. And he had no doubt that she had brought
up her daughter disgracefully. He contrasted it with
his own upbringing, and although he had to admit that
SEBASTIAN 23
his aunt had inferior material upon which to work, still
he believed something could have been made of Bice,
if she had been trained differently.
Stella Ashton was one of those women, irresponsible,
humorous and delicate, who make instinctive appeal to
everything masculine. She was small, with exquisite
hands and feet; her pale face was crowned with hair
that waved naturally, brown in the shadows, and red
in the lights. Sometimes the lids of the light blue eyes
showed pinkish, and there were wrinkles in the corners.
But always her lips were soft and inviting, and her smile
charming, lacking only youth and happiness to make
it irresistible. Although Stella ranked so close to his
mother in Sebastian's calm affections, he never put this
puzzling aunt of his on the same pinnacle of respect.
It was an instinct with him, he did not reason about it,
was scarcely conscious of a feeling to which he could put
no name.
It was strange to think of Stella and Vanessa as twins.
Stella was delicate, Vanessa had never known a day's
illness. Vanessa's eyes were of a darker hue than her
sister's, the thick lashes veiling them; there was not a
ripple in the burnished ebon of her hair, but a patch of
white over her left temple gave it distinction. She was
half a head taller than her sister, and might have been
ten years younger. There were no wrinkles round her
eyes, no lines in her face. It was not as lovable as
Stella's, it was the face of a clever girl to whom every-
thing was fresh, interesting, but whose personal impor-
tance, aims, and interests, came before the world.
Sebastian urged his view about boarding-school for
Bice until Vanessa succeeded in changing the subject.
24 SEBASTIAN
"Beatrice has had no one with whom to practise
her ping-pong except her companion. By the way,
Stella, Sebastian told me the new companion is a Miss
Pleyden-Carr; not Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's daughter,
surely?"
Stella would have answered, but Sebastian had a
quick point to make.
"She has just as much practice as I have. They
don't play ping-pong at Eton."
"Yes, it is Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's daughter. I'll
talk to you about that presently." Then she turned
again to the boy :
"I am sure you were rude, or unkind, or something.
Bice has been counting on your coming the whole week.
Every evening when she kissed me good-night, she said,
'Sebastian is coming on Saturday, Mummie. Saturday
and Sunday I shall have Sebastian.' And now you
have been quarrelling with her !"
Aunt Stella was distressed, and therefore his mother
looked vexed; so Sebastian, although he felt the injustice,
and the absurdity of it, and jerked up his chin in con-
tempt of women, and women's arguments, nevertheless
answered :
"I suppose that means you want me to go down, and
bring her round?"
"There's a dear," said Stella. "I am sure she is
crying on the floor of the schoolroom, all by herself.
Perhaps she has got a bad temper, but she adores you.
I aril sure I can't see why," she added, with a smile.
Sebastian smiled, too. In the vicinity of either,
or both, of his parents, he knew himself to be enveloped
in an atmosphere of admiring love.
SEBASTIAN 25
"Have it your own way," said the boy, 'good-hu-
mouredly. "I will go down to her. It's an awful bore,
but then, I suppose, one must always bore oneself in the
holidays, and annoy oneself in school-time; that's what
they call life !" And he sauntered out of the room.
"Isn't he good-natured?" said his mother, when the
door closed behind him.
"A bit of a prig, don't you think?" answered his aunt,
interrogatively. "But there, never mind. I see he is
still perfect in your eyes; and, anyway, thank heavens,
he has gone downstairs, and we can talk. Did you see
that Etruscan article in the Quarterly? I thought you
would be full of nothing else this afternoon. I suppose
you have already written reams to the editor about his
ignorance, and of how much better informed you are,
and, incidentally, what father said, or wrote."
"No, I have not had time to think, much less read,
or write. There are two crinoline pieces of Dresden in
to-morrow's sale at Christie's, and they have been before
me night and day. Nothing older, or younger, seems of
importance. Just now Etruria has no hold on me, and
the eighteenth is the only century that counts."
"What an extraordinary obsession that is of yours !
I can buy all the vases I want for one-and-elevenpence-
half-penny at D. H. Evans', or Whiteley's, and I am sure
my rooms always look as well as yours, although you
are a millionaire, and I am a pauper."
"Millionaire! To hear David talk, sometimes, you
would think / was the pauper. And, by the way,
Stella, do you really think crinoline pieces of Dresden
are vases?"
26 SEBASTIAN
"Vases or figures, it is all the same. Your china
mania is an absurdity ! Why don't you breed dogs ? "
"I don't like the smell of them, or their promiscuous
habits. You think it extravagant when I buy china,
but your bill at Jay's is twice as much as mine at Red-
fern's. And you must spend a fortune at the florist's,"
looking round at the roses and lilies, "I cannot think
how you do it. "
"Oh, don't worry. They come from Co vent Garden,
and cost nothing. I hate having my money affairs dis-
cussed. I know how to manage my income, that is all,"
said Stella, hastily.
She never liked to discuss her finances with Vanessa.
Vanessa was such a clever woman, and so wonderfully
dull, in some things !
The sisters were, financially, on a very different foot-
ing, although their fortunes had been the same. Jack
Ashton, when he left his wife in England, had left no
provision for her but debts, and an exhausted credit.
David Rendall, although he was a saint, and no husband
for any woman, had inherited an old substantial business,
and made a commensurate income. Yet there was no
luxury that Vanessa had, and Stella lacked.
These two lived in a wonderful intimacy, and in a
daily intercourse. But the gulf of silences created by
their marriages had deepened, and broadened, day by
day, and year by year. And of the gulf Vanessa knew
nothing, deeming herself completely in her sister's con-
fidences, delicately respecting some few scruples, re-
taining the same herself; thinking, quite rightly, that
Stella understood, without speech, her life with David,
SEBASTIAN 27
taking for granted, quite wrongly, that she understood
what Stella's had been with Jack, and what it was with-
out him. Stella gazed sometimes across that gulf of
silence, in whimsical amusement, at her more brilliant
sister, who counted herself a woman of the world; who
held a salon, and collected china, and wrote epigrammatic,
futile novels, and cherished the family name; and was
so blind, and innocent, and unworldly.
If neither of these two had realised happiness, Stella,
at least, knew all that she had missed. Vanessa, with
her ambitions for her son, her books, and circle of ad-
mirers, her china, and prints, never dreamed that her
life was lacking.
Stella had no illusions left to her.
The sisters chatted that evening until it was time for
dinner. Time for Vanessa Kendall to go home to her
evening dress, and menservants, her well-conducted meal,
with its elaborate setting, time for her to reluctantly
leave Stella to what she supposed was solitude.
After dinner, in that 'luxurious, over-full drawing-
room in Harley Street, Sebastian lounged on the big,
softly cushioned sofa, and read extracts to his mother
from the poem with which he was endeavouring to win
the Harvey prize for English verse. He asked her
opinion of the lines, and of his treatment of the subject.
He was very annoyed, although he fancied he concealed
it completely, when she found anything he had done less
than perfect. And he disputed, or brushed aside im-
patiently, any unfavourable comment. He queried
her suggestions, and argued every point.
In the end, nevertheless, the poem was reshaped, not
28 SEBASTIAN
as it had been first projected in his young, inexperienced
mind, but as, in her wider, and more mature intelligence,
she made him see that it should develop. She was a
writer by inheritance, as well as by inclination, and most
dexterously used her small talent. She wrote novels,
mordant and modern, and evanescent, and a gleam from
her father's mantle of glory lit the critic's judgment of
her work. She had success, and a special public, but
guessed her limitations. Sebastian was a boy in whom
she saw genius, the will-o'-the-wisp that had illumined
her father's life, and evaded her own.
When the poem had been revised, and the words
flowed easily from his pen on the lines she had indicated,
her pride in him was quite uncritical. He declaimed it
to her, when he had gone over it, correcting quantities
with a scholarly air of absorption and importance.
His voice was young, somewhat low, but it had a quality
that held the ear, a note of music, although the music
was in the minor key. She watched him as he recited
the poem, and the words he had written, and the deep
young voice, made her think of Keats, Shelley. It
seemed to her that here, in this boy, hers, was all their
fire, and immortal genius. And to her was entrusted
his future ! His career should not be wrecked, nor his
splendid talents obscured. She was intensely proud of
her possession, of Sebastian, she would garner up his
sands of life, and they should be all golden. Nothing
she had written might live, but she had given life to this.
She was very proud, and quite happy, missing nothing
as she watched him.
When she went to bed that night, the thought of his
SEBASTIAN 29
career followed her into her dreams. She was still a
young woman, little more than thirty-six years of age,
yet this was all her dreams gave her. They had never
taken her nearer to happiness, nor nearer to mystery,
than Sebastian, and Sebastian's career. Whether she
slept, or whether she woke, whenever she was out of the
puppet world, she saw that thin and mobile face, crowned
with laurel leaves, framed in green vistas of triumphal
arches.
She had seen him — a crowd hanging on his words,
as he defended some unhappy prisoner with irresistible
eloquence. She had pictured him in the House of Com-
mons, making the maiden speech on which a unanimous
Press would hail him as a descendant of the Great Com-
moner. As judge, or as prime minister, she had seen him
in his laurel leaves, but without the triumphal arches
she never envisaged him. To-night, in her happy dream-
ing, he was a poet, the laureateship illumined him, and
he stood alone among his fellows.
That was Vanessa's Saturday evening.
Stella's was different. Stella had no ambitions, no
illusions, strange experiences, and the temperament of
many artists. Her light humour, easy temper, her per-
functory sympathy with humanity in general, and her
reliance on Vanessa's love, were all her armoury against
a horde of pressing, continuous troubles. Often, when
she was alone, her time was spent in tears. Her friends
envied her her wonderful spirits, and even Vanessa never
guessed what it was that tinged those eyelids of Stella's
with unbecoming pink.
Stella sympathised with Vanessa because David
30 SEBASTIAN
Kendall was a saint, and incidentally a tradesman.
Of her own matrimonial burdens she made no plaint.
But never a morning she rose, and never an evening she
went to bed, without the fear lest her Daily Mail, Evening
Standard, or Morning Post would show her the name
she bore, with some disgraceful story attached to it.
She was the most patient, the most reticent of little
women, but where she was tenderest, it was because there
she had been the deeper lacerated. And in her soul, she
was lonely, because even Vanessa, to whose strength she
clung, and on whose courage she leaned, knew nothing
of what Jack Ashton's vices and follies, his disgraceful
infidelities, and yet more disgraceful amorousnesses had
taught her, nothing of where her knowledge had brought
her.
These girls were the daughters of a man of high prin-
ciple, and the pride of them. And Stella had married
for love, and learned it afterwards, in a sad school.
Stella sat in her pretty drawing-room, with its scents
of lilies and roses, and Beatrice lay in her lap. Beatrice's
tears were all shed, and her rage had exhausted itself.
"It was not Sebastian's fault, Mummie. I was angry
because he wanted Pleasey. He looked round the
schoolroom, and frowned — you know the way Sebastian
frowns — just because he had to spend the afternoon
alone with me."
"Sebastian is rather too good, rather too perfect,
isn't he?"
But the child was loyalty itself. She pondered a mo-
ment or two over the proposition.
"But it is not affectation, Mummie, he really does do
SEBASTIAN 31
everything better than any one else. He is always
right!"
"The people who are always right, my Bice, fail a
little in understanding their fellow-mortals," Stella said,
almost to herself. " Vanessa is always right, too."
" Doesn't Aunt Vanessa understand?"
"Not quite — perhaps."
"Why don't you make her ? "
"Your Aunt Vanessa is very clever, and she thinks
Sebastian is cleverer still, so it is no great wonder that
he is impressed with himself, and his own importance.
But I wish he would not make my baby unhappy,"
she went on, caressing her.
Dreamily the child answered, her head pressed against
her mother's breast, her eyes half-closed.
"It wasn't Sebastian's fault. I expect I shall always
be unhappy."
And then Stella grew chill, shivered, gathered the girl
closer to her, had, perhaps, an unspoken prayer in that
soft, ill-regulated heart of hers.
"Don't be so silly," was all she answered, however.
"Are you not happy now?"
"I like lying in your arms, I love you better than
anything in the world, Mummie, you and Sebastian "
"Well "
Sebastian had said Beatrice had no self-control. Yet
the child lay still when her mother's questioning voice
reached her ears; lay still for a long time. She would
not say what was in her heart. It lay in her heart
that she must always be unhappy, because she loved
people more than they loved her. All she said, how-
ever, was:
32 SEBASTIAN
"I am too sleepy to talk. Let me go to sleep here.
Hannah can carry me up to bed asleep, like she used to
when I was a little girl."
"You were always spoilt."
"That is what Sebastian says; but it's only because
you never have any time to say ' No' to me."
Stella laughed lightly. It was true. She rose late,
and her early hours were languid, in the afternoon there
were visitors, and various occupations. There was never
time to contradict Bice, nor argue with her. It had
always been so much easier to say "Yes" to anything
she asked, and thus avoid all tears, and contention.
" So Sebastian thinks you are spoilt ! I wonder what
he thinks about himself? You really must get down
now. You are getting too heavy for me, and I cannot ask
Hannah to carry a grown-up young lady to bed, it is
absurd."
Stella was really fragile. Even Bice's weight was too
much for her. She put the girl off her lap, and entreated
her to go to bed. There was much kissing, and many
loving words; Stella's demonstrative affection to Bice
was in reverse to Vanessa's apparent coolness with
Sebastian.
She had got rid of the child by nine o'clock. Now
the evening was her own, and that solitude, for which
her sister pitied her, should have begun.
Perhaps she was to be pitied, although, before she had
rested a little quarter of an hour, she heard the familiar
sound of a brougham stopping at her door, the familiar
knock, and voice on the stairs.
So weak, so solitary, so sweet a little woman, without
SEBASTIAN 33
a husband's countenance, or the protection of a chastened
widowhood, had not been able to keep her defences
intact. Here was the intruder, here, too, was the mystery
of Lord Saighton's life, his strange political lapses, his
brilliant mistakes, uncertain ambitions, and unrelia-
bility. Here, in this secret orchard, lay the explanation
of all of them. For the orchard had been planted in bog
and swamp, and corruption lay in the tangled roots of
its gnarled and distorted fruit trees.
CHAPTER III
SEBASTIAN did not obtain the recognition he antici-
pated for his ambitious poem.
The Harvey prize for English verse was awarded to
Sparkes, K.S. And this was the beginning of the end.
Sparkes, K.S., although he was only "a dirty little tug,"
was a personal acquaintance of Sebastian's, and, under
very slight pressure, was persuaded to show his friend a
copy of his prize poem.
It was shown to Vanessa too ; for Vanessa went down
to Eton to hear the result of the competition, and was
lunching with her boy at Leyton's the very day it was
announced.
It is hardly necessary to dilate upon the respective
literary, or scholastic, merits of the poems. Naturally,
considered as works of art, they were both rather futile.
But there was no possible doubt as to which was the
better of the two. Sebastian had had an idea, and had
worked it out consistently. He had taken for his thesis
the superiority of moral, over physical, courage, and told
a story to exemplify it.
It was the time of the South African War, and the
picture he had drawn was of the women, hardening their
hearts, sending forth their husbands, lovers, brothers,
sons ; holding back their tears, whilst urging on the men;
seeing all that made life sweet leave them, but being
34
SEBASTIAN 35
brave for their country, and for themselves; sitting at
home, afterwards, knitting socks, and working com-
forters, their withheld tears falling slowly, then, in silence,
and in solitude. The poem was divided into two parts.
In the first one heard the rustle, and clank, the move-
ment of soldiers amid the shriek of the cannon, "the
murderous music of Maxims," as the boy had phrased it;
in the second, one saw the women, waiting, watching,
praying, in their empty rooms, and desolate homes.
The thing, although it was immature, was nevertheless
alive; one felt the conviction in it, and it convinced.
Sparkes, K.S.'s poem was Newbolt and water. There
was nothing in it to arrest the attention. It contained
lines, not pictures, and those lines were ready-made ones,
remembered, not invented. Putting the two poems
side by side, and selecting the latter for recommendation,
argued gross unfairness, or dense ignorance. It was not
a case for anything between these two opinions.
Vanessa read the poems through very carefully, and
very slowly, whilst the boy ate his roast fowl, drank his
ginger beer, and watched her, without speaking. It
must be borne in mind that Vanessa Kendall's was a
name quite well known in the world of letters. Stella
and Vanessa were the daughters of John Hepplewight-
Ventom, whose "Epigrams of the Saints," "In Umbrian
Hills and Valleys," and "Romances of the Sabine Hills,"
are amongst the most notable literary works of the nine-
teenth century. And in the second place, Vanessa had
achieved her own distinction, by the delicate flavour,
and cultured mannerisms of her half score of society
novels. In appealing to her judgment, therefore, Se-
36 SEBASTIAN
bastian was resting upon something tangible, and as-
sured. Had there been a question between Vanessa
Rendall, and the head-master of Eton, on a subject of
literary taste, or values, the literary public would not
have hesitated, at any moment, to have accepted the
woman's dictum.
She read Sparkes's poem very carefully, she was anx-
ious not to be biassed. But it was really not a position
in which hesitation was possible. The King's scholar
had succeeded in writing sixty lines of versification,
without one original thought or phrase.
"Well, mater?" asked Sebastian, when he had com-
manded pine-apple and cream, and had informed the
waiter that he should require an ice to follow. "Well,
mater?" he said, "what do you think of Eton now?"
She pushed the papers aside; she was on her own sub-
ject, and spoke with authority:
"Not a doubt about it, not room for a shadow of
doubt ; yours is a poem — immature, of course, crude,
but full of imagination, power, and intelligence. The
other is a very bad schoolboy essay, without distinction,
or individuality. The decision that gave its author the
prize, and withheld it from you, is grossly unfair and
indefensible. What do you want me to do?"
" I will talk to you about that presently. In the first
place, I only wanted your opinion. You know I am not
conceited, but I have read a good bit, and I believe I
do know when a thing is absolutely worthless. They
have cheated me out of this prize."
"Has Ferguson seen them both?"
Mr. Ferguson was Sebastian's tutor, and house-master.
SEBASTIAN 37
" Yes, he asked me to show him mine, and this morning
I showed him Sparkes's."
"What did he say?"
"Practically the same as you do. Then he tried to
gloze it over by talking a lot of twaddle about ' working
for work's sake/ and not for the sake of reward."
"What he usually puts into your report?"
"The same sort of rubbish. 'Dignity and value of
labour' — ' desire for prizes somewhat vulgar.' He is an ,
awful ass; conscientious, you know, and all that sort
of thing, but he doesn't know the world. Never been
outside of Eton, except to go to Oxford, nor outside
Oxford, except to return to Eton. But, of course, I
could see he knew my poem was miles ahead of the
other."
" Do you think he influenced the placing of the prize ?
That he thought it good for your moral character not
to win always?"
"No." Sebastian admitted it, although reluctantly.
" I don't believe he actually influenced the result. But
he has probably, at some time or another, told the Head
of my vulgar liking to be recognised. You see, all the
things I have got, are things neither of them could keep
from me. The 'Trial' prizes, the 'Brinkman Divinity,'
and the 'sent up for goods.' But they wouldn't give me
the Harvey, and you will see they won't give me the Jelf .
You want me to stay and have a shot for the Newcastle,
but they wouldn't give me that either. You don't
know the ropes here, mater. It suits them to give any-
thing that is going, in that sort of way, to a Tug. There
is a place in the boats for us, or in the eleven, or at foot-
38 SEBASTIAN
ball; we can compete in the racquet court. But the
Oppidans have no right to try for scholastic success,
it's considered bad form. The authorities really look
upon me as an outsider, because of what I have done
already. And so do the fellows. Of course, I ought to
be in Pop, but I'm not, and never shall be. lam too
good at school work, that's a fact, and they resent it
all through the place. The thing is worked on a distinct
plan, and to kick against it is just pawing the air."
"I do not think you are right about the Newcastle.
Surely an Oppidan does sometimes get that?"
"Once, nineteen years ago; and his father was on
the council!"
Vanessa paid for the lunch, and they sauntered down
Brocas to the boat-house, still talking of the injustice
that had been done to Sebastian. It is rare, astonish-
ingly rare, to find a mother and son with the good under-
standing existing between these two, they seemed more
like brother and sister. The time came when they lost
that fine comprehension for a while, but to-day it was
complete between them.
The silver-grey water was jotted with boats, outriggers,
and skiffs. The eight shot past rafts, the sun shining on
young arms pulling vigorously, shoulders thrown back,
and faces set. The cox leaned forward, shouting con-
tinuously, and from the banks, one of the masters, on a
bicycle, called out criticism and comment; many boys
ran beside him.
Sebastian rowed his mother away from the crowd,
into the haze of the June afternoon, into the silence of
the Clewer backwater. She consoled his young pride,
SEBASTIAN 39
and cheered him by her complete comprehension of
where, and how, it had been wounded. But still, she
had not anticipated the conclusion at which he had
arrived. She had mapped out Sebastian's life for him,
in that calm moment, succeeding her night of agony,
when the doctor's voice had penetrated her drugged
brain, and she had heard him say:
"It's a fine boy; a Ventom heir; well, the world ought
to hear of this little fellow."
From that hour to the present, her son had been to
her materialised ambition. He had stood next to her
work, before even Stella, she hardly yet knew how much
he meant to her. She never contemplated anything for
him but brilliant success, and until now, indeed, his foot-
steps had not faltered in the path she had marked out.
"They cannot keep you out of the Newcastle," she
reiterated, for about the fourth time.
But Sebastian, rowing on, giving her an occasional
direction as to the steering, throwing out an occasional
irrelevant observation, made no reply. Sebastian, in
his grey trousers, flannel shirt, and grey felt hat, rowed
leisurely. Under that shapeless hat one saw the sharply-
cut young face, pale ; the thin-lipped mouth was nervous,
but the cleft chin was square and strong. No one
could have called Sebastian Kendall a handsome boy,
but his was a beautifully modelled head, wide in the
brow, Grecian in its contour, and not only Vanessa saw
the promise in it. She appreciated the strength, yet
this afternoon she dreaded it. It seemed to her he had
come to some resolution, that he had something to say
to her of more importance than he had yet told her.
40 SEBASTIAN
And she felt, instinctively, that whatever his determina-
tion, she would do well not to cross it. She had said to
herself a thousand times, noting other women with
adolescent children, that if there came a moment when
Sebastian and she thought differently on a given subject,
she would treat him as an equal. She would not oppose
her maternity to his intelligence. It was always Vanessa
Kendall's way to make phrases of her feelings, or reso-
lutions. At this period of her life she was primarily
a novelist. Motherhood, sisterhood, womanhood itself,
were shadows to the printed page's substance.
"Can we lie up by the lock, or are you in a hurry to
get home?"
"I am not in the slightest hurry. I can catch the
7.32, if that suits you?"
He brought the boat deftly to the side of the weir,
and shipped his sculls.
"Tie it up, and let us go for a walk," she suggested.
"No, I don't want to walk. She will ride all right
here. Make room for me, I am coming to sit beside you,
so that we can talk comfortably."
She made room for him; his young body, lax shoul-
ders, undeveloped chest, the boyishness of him, she saw
clearly. Nevertheless, it seemed to her that his mind
was developed, reliable ! She had a curious modesty,
curious considering her position. She never doubted
that the boy's brain was of better quality than her own.
She was ready to listen to him, not with condescension,
but with deference. They sat together comfortably
for a few moments, in silent companionship, but his face
was quite set and determined.
SEBASTIAN 41
"You know, mater, after this, I can't stay."
She had the premonition of a shock, but nevertheless
it fell heavily.
"The Newcastle?" she reminded him.
"I knew you would be disappointed. I have made
up my mind to stay until after the Fourth, but I shan't
go and say good-bye to the Head, and I shan't take my
leaving book. I'll wash my hands of the beastly place
without any ceremony."
"Impossible!"
"Oh, I knew you would feel pretty sick about it.
But that is only because you take a narrow view. Come
to think of it, what good am I doing here? Don't rot
about it, just think it out. There is a very decent set
of fellows at my tutor's, but you don't suppose they are
any companions to me, do you? When a man wants
to read, they bang at his door, or play a mouth-organ,
or get up an amateur band." Sebastian's grin held the
remembrance of many pranks. "Of course, it is all
right, it has been very jolly sometimes, but somehow
or other, I have outgrown horse-play, I don't find any
more fun in a mouth-organ, and I want to be free."
" I see your point of view. But not staying your time
out, and resenting this Harvey matter, seems to me,
nevertheless— ' she hesitated a little for the word,
she wanted it to move him, "a little undignified."
"Mater, that is all rot. Dignity and exhibitions are
two words that can't be used in one sentence. I have
hinted what I'm going to say to you now half a dozen
times, but you never took any notice of it. I have gone
on in the path you laid out, just because you wanted it;
42 SEBASTIAN
not because I have had any illusions about it. You set
your heart on my doing all the things that are no good
to anybody when they are done. And as learning is
easy enough to me I did them just to please you. Prizes
and scholarships have appealed to your vanity, not to
mine: I soon learnt they didn't lead anywhere. Far
from impressing the world I live in, they repel, and bore
it. Here I am neither fish, fowl, nor good red-herring.
At Hawtrey's, I worked for the Harrow Schol. when I
might have got into the second eleven; at Eton I have
flung away my chance for the eight, it was a very poor
one, by the way, by getting a reputation for Latin verse.
And, mind you, I am just as unpopular with the masters
as I am with the boys. They are here to teach the
Tugs, and watch the Oppidans. I have complicated
their work. They suspect a fellow of all sorts of things
if he doesn't play games, and he isn't a Tug. If you
knew the beastly minds of these people whom you expect
us to obey and to whom we are supposed to look up,
it would make you sick ! An average of, at least, ten
boys every half since I have been here, have been sacked,
or superannuated, because the authorities have neither
known how to guard, nor how to teach them. They
have been ruined for life, before they have learnt how
to take care of themselves, or to avoid the pitfalls, dug
by the beaks. There is no justice in the place. I don't
say it only because of my Harvey poem, although that
may help you to believe it. Look at Tagg's house, for
instance. It was broken up, and thirty fellows sent
away, whilst every lower boy in the whole school knew
they kept the two rotters who were responsible for all
SEBASTIAN 43
the trouble, because one was in the boat, and the other
in the eleven. But I don't want to talk to you about
that. One of these days there will be some plain speak-
ing about it, and that will be the end of the famous public
school system ! The only thing we really are taught
here thoroughly is to hold our tongues; and for very
good reason too ! You are so sensible, that I don't
mind talking to you pretty straight ; I take it for granted
you know what I mean?"
She had not the slightest notion, but answered nothing.
"I've done my last stroke of work, school work. It's
no good, and I'm simply sick of boys and masters. I
suppose it is rather low down of me not to have spoken
out about the injustice, or resented it until it touched
me personally; but I believe I was coming to it. I've
studied to oblige you, since I've been seven years old,
and now I have finished with it. Do you think it matters
whether they're Eton boys, or Oxford boys ? Because it
doesn't, not a bit ! It is all run on the same lines. I've
put in my last piece of school work, you can bet on that.
There's no good arguing with me about it."
She was silent, and he too, for a minute.
"I suppose you think it's just because I have been
disappointed in the Harvey ? " he said tentatively.
"No."
"I've been sick of it for a long time. You talk of
atmosphere; well, I'm in the wrong atmosphere. You
see, I don't really like any of the things the fellows about
here like, and I resent all the things they take for
granted."
"Stalky and Co.?"
44 SEBASTIAN
"I made old Ferguson mad by quoting that at him."
"Is there any use arguing? Are you open to argu-
ment ? Can I persuade you, do you think, not to throw
away your school career abruptly, not to leave Eton, so
to speak, under a cloud?"
"I'm not going on, if that's what you mean by 'am
I open to argument.' I see I've given you the hump."
For truly her face looked dull and disappointed, older,
as if the light had gone out of it.
"Well," as one making a great sacrifice, "I'll stay
the half out, if you want me to; and I'll get my leaving
book, although I'd like to refuse it, and tell the Head
what I think of the school, and the management generally ;
the antiquated laws, the beastly narrowness, and all the
injustice — that's what I'd like to do. But I don't
want to worry you, you're not a bad sort, as mothers go,
so I'll leave in the odour of sanctity, just to please you,
and I'll give a dinner party, if it will run to it."
"Oh, that is all right," she interpolated hastily.
"A really good bust, champagne, you know. That's
the sort of thing they like, and I'll have an auction of my
things, and make them a farewell speech in debate."
He went into details as to how he should celebrate
his departure. And Vanessa sat beside him, silent.
The blow, for of course it was a blow, hurt her beyond
resentment. Sebastian had been brought up to expect
justice, perhaps more than justice. The platform, upon
which his character was being moulded, fell to pieces
when his work was unappreciated. She knew, immedi-
ately he had failed in obtaining the Harvey, that her
only chance of re-establishing the school authority with
SEBASTIAN 45
him, lay in persuading him, or herself, here was another
genius in the field, and that a better poem had been sent
up. Had not young Sparkes, in the vanity of his heart,
exhibited his prize poem, she might have carried her
scheme through. But there was no argument for either
of them in face of Sparkes's poem. The authority with
which he was surrounded could not establish itself in the
face of such a decision.
"I wish you wouldn't look so depressed. How would
you like to be shut up in a backyard ? That is the posi-
tion I'm in," he said, breaking off from his description of
the farewell supper he would give, to note her face. " It is
all very well for you to talk, why, you were married at
seventeen, and here am I, over that, and have never seen
the world at all."
She did not see the humour of his plaint, her sense of
humour, never her strongest point, was always in abey-
ance when she was following the convolutions of Sebas-
tian's mind ; she considered him too seriously, it was one
of her many mistakes.
" But you are not prepared to face the world," she said,
at length, hesitatingly.
"All rot, mater. Greek and Latin don't make you fit
to face the world, nor three years in a university. We
have too many of that sort here for me not to know."
" But you are not fit, you are not ready, you are not old
enough, to do anything."
She could not yet begin to focus him differently.
Before that shadowy university career was over, she
would have arranged the next section of his life ; without
that breathing time, she was nonplussed, all her images
confused.
46 SEBASTIAN
" You know jolly well, that doing nothing is not my line.
I have never shirked work, nor idled, like the other
fellows."
It was true, Sebastian was a born worker; she made a
quick apology.
"Why, what I have hated most at Eton, after the
injustice of the expulsions, has been the encouragement
of the laziness;" he went on, "I have never seen why
it should be considered good form to get filthy dirty on the
footer field, and bad form to get a trial prize ; good form
to walk up and down the High, socking, and bad form to
sit in the library. Half the beaks have no common sense,
and the others have no power. The Head only cares
about the boat. And besides, mater," he began to
urge her along an easier path, "the place is fearfully un-
healthy. I know I never ever felt really well since I've
been here. We have been swamped every winter, and
the mud, well, you should just smell it ! "
She was beyond sustained speech, dull with disap-
pointment, with an overwhelming wish not to estrange
him, not to show herself out of sympathy with his sore-
ness, and irritation, and sense of having been badly
treated. To whom should he come for comfort and
comprehension, if not to his mother ? Again she thought
of Shelley and his parents. David Kendall was not like
that narrow squire, Shelley's father, not in the least like
him. But Vanessa wanted Sebastian to look to her, and
to her alone, for sympathy. Perhaps that was why she
asked:
"What do you think your father will say?"
Sebastian knew and trusted David better than Vanessa
SEBASTIAN 47
ever had. That good, unusual father, of whom he so
seldom spoke, had touched some deeper spring in the boy's
fine nature than Vanessa had yet reached, notwithstand-
ing her intellectuality, and literary fame.
"Oh, he will be quite satisfied. But, mater, that
reminds me, there is something I have often been going
to ask you, you don't mind — ' there was a certain
hesitation. What he had to ask seemed impertinent,
inquisitive. Sebastian was a little shy about it, and so
surprised her.
"Ask? Of course you can ask me anything ; why not?
I have no secrets from you. What is it ? Go on ! "
"About the business, about the pater's income?
Tell me, I don't ask out of curiosity, but before I make
my plans I want to know. Are we really so well off as we
seem ? Is the governor rich ? He hints sometimes —
but there, of course, just tell me what you like. What
have I got to rely upon? "
"You have always had everything you want?"
she said quickly.
"Oh, that is because you are both such bricks to me.
I know how differently I am treated to other fellows, but
still ... I want to know how soon I ought to be earning
money; or if it will ever be necessary."
She did not reply at once. Her thoughts required re-
adjusting, she had had a shock, and her strength, that
strength upon which she prided herself, was reeling a
little. Of course, she had always known that Sebastian
had been a little outside, a little separate from his sur-
roundings at Eton. She had been satisfied, perhaps even
proud, that he had not assimilated the tone, that he had
48 SEBASTIAN
not become the mere devotee of the school, a mere up-
holder of its conventions, like other boys.
John Hepplewight-Ventom had been a Borrow of the
towns, a wanderer, an intellectual gipsy. The Ventoms,
a long line of them, had been articulate with pen, or with
brush, one of them even with the violin bow. But no
Ventom had ever been articulate in praise of conserva-
tive rule. Reverence for tradition, and authority, was
not Sebastian's birthright, not from her side, that is to
say, and she wished to think, had taught herself to think,
that Sebastian was entirely a Ventom ; that David Ken-
dall's name was all that he bore of Kendall. It was one of
her dreams that he should discard even that.
"I think your father is a rich man; money has never
interested me very much. I suppose he does not work
all these hours for nothing. I have an income of my own,
your aunt and I have each five hundred a year, mine will
go to you when I die. Stella seems to do much more with
her money than I can, but then Stella, for all her seem-
ing frivolity, is wonderfully practical and clever. But
why are you asking ? Will you not let me see into your
plans ? What have you in your mind ? "
"Do you make a lot of money by your books, mater?
Of course I should be able to write, any fellow can earn
money that way, I suppose?"
She smiled at that.
"No! I do not think I make what you would call a
great deal of money."
"A good income ? " he persisted.
" I do not know what I make, I never go into it. When
my publisher sends me a cheque, I generally buy some-
SEBASTIAN 49
thing unnecessary, china, prints, or ivories ; I suppose it
comes to a good deal, one way or another. I used to offer
the cheques to your father ; he never wished them to be
applied to household purposes. But why this sudden in-
terest in so strange a subject?"
"Well, it is difficult to form my plans without knowing
if I am justified in leading a comparatively selfish life for
a few years."
At some length Sebastian then proceeded to tell his
mother all over again why he had decided to leave
Eton, and why he refused to consider the idea of going
on to the 'Varsity. He dwelt again on the barren years
he had wasted in trying for valueless scholastic prizes,
letting the intellect, on which he prided himself, lie
fallow, whilst he associated with schoolboys and school-
masters, all of whom he found narrow, self-absorbed, and
unresponsive. He must gain experience. He admitted,
he rather more than admitted, he laboured the point, that
he had an idea in his head, but he did not wish to mention
it as yet. She longed for his complete confidence, but
would not press him for it. Listening to him, it became
more and more definite to her that his school-days were
inevitably over. Young as he was in his expressions, in
his undeveloped reasoning power, yet he was no longer
malleable. Nor could she conscientiously press him to
remain in subservience to an authority which he no longer
respected.
Sebastian's school-days were over. They had been one
long series of triumphs, one great gift to her.
They were not a caressing mother and son, but she
put her hand on his arm.
50 SEBASTIAN
"I won't balk you, Sebastian, I won't stand between
you and your needs. If you want to leave, you must
leave, but " her eyes softened, "but don't let it
alter things between us two. You will not be a school-
boy any more, but you will want me just the same, won't
you ? We shall be in sympathy just the same ? "
He was embarrassed by her half caress, by the hand on
his arm, the intimacy between them had been reached
without demonstration.
"That's all right, I knew I should be able to make you
listen to reason. I have not got the whole thing cut and
dried yet, but I must have six months in Paris to start
with, and I should like at least as long in Germany, Spain
and Italy. It is absurd to know only one language, one
hates to feel at a disadvantage with anybody, but of
course, it won't take me long to pick them up ; that sort
of thing comes easy to me."
"Then your Latin and Greek has not been wasted.
They will help you there?" She was pathetically eager
to justify the education she had thrust upon him.
"Oh yes, I daresay. But don't run away with the
notion that I'm going to spend the next few years only
in learning languages; they are simply an incident. I
don't want to tell you what I've got in my mind just yet,
nor the way I intend to get there."
A colour had come into his face, patchy, uneven; his
words were a little hurried, as if his breath came too
quickly. Whatever ambition he envisaged, whatever
goal he dimly saw, had obviously the power to move him,
and it moved her to a sympathetic thrill and silence.
His way must be left clear for him.
SEBASTIAN 51
In the train, on the way home, she thought over all
that had occurred. Her belief in the boy was absolute,
and what he desired must be granted him, of that there
could be no doubt. She must break the news to the
boy's father, she must go through the farce of consulting
David. The end of the week would see her husband back
in Harley Street, and she would tell him that she had
decided to let Sebastian go abroad for a year or two
before he went to Oxford. That was the euphemism
with which she intended to cloak the affair. But she
hoped, she still hoped, that after these wandering years,
Sebastian might take up the thread of those studies he
now despised.
It vexed her to think, to remember, that she must con-
sult her husband. David Kendall had a thousand
virtues, but few of them appealed to her. He had, how-
ever, half a score of habits that were as blisters to her
social nerves. She was only free from irritation when she
was not in his company. She had never had a day's
illness, and her constitution was practically perfect, yet
a neuralgia of the conscience, physical in its effect, was
what her husband stood for in the limited ange of her
emotions. She had resented the marriage state from the
moment she had realised it, it was only her innate con-
scientiousness, and honesty, that had compelled her to
preserve its semblance.
But never, not until the very end, did she see, or under-
stand, David Kendall's tender, comprehending, daily,
and hourly effort that the chain should chafe only, and
not gall. Those awkward hands of his were for ever
tremulous in the effort to lift the fetters from eating into
her flesh.
CHAPTER IV
IT was not strange that these daughters of the great
stylist had mismanaged their marriages.
John Hepplewight-Ventom had kept his twin girls
on the Continent during all their childhood. Their
mother had died in giving them birth, and with her, too,
died all that was young, and human, and natural, in
John Ventom. The children seemed no part of her, or of
him ; a cruel accident, a burden, where had been a bless-
ing. But he was always an honourable man, and he
accepted his responsibilities. Relations in England
approached him with kindness, with offers of adoption,
but he kept the little ones by him. They were to be
found, now in convent schools near Paris, now with
governesses and tutors in Rome, Vienna, Brussels, or
Florence, wherever his humour took him. He grew,
with their growth, into a vague, superficial intimacy with
them, and whenever no new work absorbed him, he found
pleasure in their society, in their intelligence and grace.
He had been occasionally interested in their likeness,
and unlikeness, to him and to each other, in the philology
of them, as it were.
But of the world, and its ways, of men and women, he
taught them nothing, and they had learnt nothing, when
at seventeen, they came to England for the first time.
The Honourable John Ashton was their great mis-
52
SEBASTIAN 53
fortune. He met them in Venice, and achieved an
introduction. Their homeward journey was very dila-
tory and circuitous. The dissolute young attach6 had
ample opportunity for his wooing. Hepplewight-Ventom
had just begun to realise that Vanessa was intellectually
nearer akin to him than her sister. With the selfishness
of genius in pursuit of an idea, he absorbed whatever he
found of value. His then idea, and his whole mental
horizon was bounded by it, was a monograph on early
Italian missal paper. Vanessa's sympathetic intelli-
gence, young eyes, and enthusiasm were in constant re-
quest for the consideration and differentiation of speci-
mens. Stella was admittedly bored with such things.
Vanessa was then, and remained always, unobservant of
what held the attention of other girls or women. She
lived ever most vividly and intensely in her imagination ;
the monograph on fifteenth-century paper possessed her
entirely for the moment, she was inordinately proud that
her distinguished father should take her into his literary
confidence.
Stella had definitely engaged herself to Jack Ashton
before father or sister realised that they had been living
in an atmosphere of impetuous young love-making. And
then it was too late to interfere. But it was unlikely the
young couple would have had serious opposition to
encounter. John Hepplewight-Ventom believed in the
liberty of the individual, and he knew nothing, for or
against, Jack Ashton. The engagement was of little
importance in comparison with the monograph.
Before Vanessa had time to grow jealous of Jack's
monopoly of Stella's time, or interrogative of his desire,
54 SEBASTIAN
or capacity, to make Stella's happiness, they were in
London, and David Kendall, of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall
and Co., owner of the Kendall Paper Mills, appeared on the
scene.
John Hepplewight-Ventom made David's life a burden
to him, whilst he was endeavouring to reproduce fifteenth-
century Italian paper. Vanessa and her father spent days
at the mills, and David discussed material, for hours, with
them in London. Experiments were made with every
description of recognised pulp, English, Irish, and Con-
tinental. There were old blue linen rags from Fra ce,
wood pulp from Norway, curious reeds from China,
esparto from South America, and pampas grass from
Canada. The wire frame, specially made with the
Ventom hieroglyphic, was dipped into every imaginable
mixture before the great faddist was satisfied.
Poor David fell humbly hi love with the bright-
eyed, graceful girl who was as keen as her father on
texture, colour, and printing possibilities.
Everybody knows what happened. The monograph
for which the experiments were being made was never
completed, the "limited edition" went no further than
the prospectus stage. The years in Italy had left the
idealist in no condition to brave an English spring;
he caught a cold and disregarded it, the cold became a
fever and was still ignored. Before the gravity of the
case was diagnosed, the danger signal of that first
haemorrhage had been hoisted. And it was never again
lowered. John Hepplewight-Ventom passed from one
rarefied atmosphere to another, one may hope more
rarefied.
SEBASTIAN 55
There was no member of his family now ready to offer
a home to his suddenly orphaned girls; they were
practically without kin, and their trustees indifferent.
Jack Ashton pressed for an immediate marriage. In a
strange interview with Vanessa, immediately after the
funeral, a so-called business interview, about the now
useless sheets, David Kendall, moved by unmeasurable
pity, an almost insane desire to be of use, in an agony of
modesty and apprehension, put forth a timid suit. Stella,
coming in inopportunely, strengthened him to urge it.
What would Stella do without Vanessa? Vanessa
had talked wildly of returning to Italy, of taking up her
father's work; she was bewildered, weakened, by the
suddenness of her bereavement. Stella begged her not
to go away, not to leave her alone, she knew no husband
could replace her sister; perhaps, already, she doubted
the wisdom of her choice. It was what they had always
planned; to marry on the same day, to live in England,
as near as possible to each other. There was no other
way to fill the blank caused by their father's death.
There was argument, and misgiving, but Stella's af-
fectionate pleading prevailed, and on the same day that
Stella culminated her love affair with Jack Ashton,
Vanessa married David Kendall, to their mutual be-
wilderment and misfortune.
He knew, from the very beginning, that he had married
above him. Socially, intellectually, physically, he saw,
with painful accuracy of vision, the superiority of his
young wife. What he had expected when he secured the
treasure it is difficult to realise; what he received was
easy to see. His genuine humility of spirit, his complete
56 SEBASTIAN
unselfishness, his overwhelming desire for her happiness,
were all obscured in her eyes in the early days, by his
obnoxious claim upon her. Had not Ventom's death
made Vanessa homeless, and threatened Stella with
loneliness, the marriage could never have taken place.
It was only Vanessa's unbalanced grief for her father,
her almost equally unbalanced love for Stella, that
blinded her, for a desperate hour, to David's and her
own incongruity. To her he was ever the typical trades-
man, awkward in a drawing-room, a trifle servile, of no
importance.
Because Stella, at seventeen, had fallen in love with
Jack Ashton, Vanessa had taken this husband whose
entire outlook upon the world was as a blank wall to her.
Vanessa was unconscious, and in her youthful hardness,
incapable, of realising how greatly her incongruous hus-
band loved and admired her. She resented marriage
intemperately, it had no meaning for her; between
herself and David Kendall the word held no holiness of
meaning. It was the man who recognised it, and early
made his renunciation, as an offering at the shrine of
his love.
The first year had been difficult, but for the advent
of Sebastian it might have proved impossible. But
David Kendall was extraordinarily moved by his new
dignity of fatherhood, accepting it in the lowliest of
spirit, striving for worthiness of his responsibility, be-
coming, if possible, more utterly selfless. Soon after
the birth of her son, Vanessa discovered that literature
was her metier; she wrote her first novel, and made a
small sensation with it, a sensation, and a success, that
SEBASTIAN 57
both of them overestimated. But it proved the end of any
possibility of her acceptance of ordinary domestic life.
In the very earliest days of his marriage, David had
stood aside so that the sisters should not think of him
as of a barrier between them. He stood aside later,
that his wife should feel him to be no interruption to her
literary life. It was impressed upon him presently, that
his son was the grandson of John Hepplewight-Ventom,
and he let his own slighted paternity remain in the
background.
He grew to understand his young wife so well, and
to love her so greatly, notwithstanding, or perhaps
through, his complete comprehension, that he could
never forgive himself for having married her, nor palliate
his offence. His love and loyalty were never shaken
by her attitude toward him. But his self-esteem was
bruised and wounded; under her critical young eyes
he grew yearly more awkward, incongruous, less possibly
her husband.
He arrived in Harley Street a few days after Sebastian
had given in his ultimatum about Eton, after a week of
thought and toil, of the busy booking, and rapid execu-
tion of orders, of telegrams to and from his firm, calcu-
lations of freights and prices, of all the minutiae that
spell successful business. He returned home to an
empty house, to a chill unwelcome, and the dreariness
of its disregard. But he resented nothing. He made
no claim for appreciation, consideration, or compre-
hension. It was only as a firm that David Kendall still
asked for recognition. As an entity he had a complete
humility of spirit. But he was "our Mr. David," he
58 SEBASTIAN
was David Kendall of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall and Co.,
the firm that had been established over one hundred
years hi the City of London, and never had a question
raised as to its credit. He was proud of that, pathetically
proud, it stood to him for patriotism and religion, in
place of home and happiness, he clung to it as mystics
to their symbols.
His pride in the business that his grandfather had
created was utterly beyond the sympathy, or compre-
hension, of the daughter of John Hepplewight-Ventom.
It was a small business, a limited business; there was
no possibility of millions in it, not even of hundreds of
thousands, it was, at the best, a five or six thousand a
year affair, steady and unexciting. David Kendall
knew that his wife had a vague additional contempt
for him, because he was proud of that small solid busi-
ness. Vanessa was naturally frank, and David instinc-
tively reticent. She tried to conceal her feelings, she never
wished to hurt him; that she did so constantly, con-
tinuously, even fatally, was the secret he guarded from
her always.
He came home this Saturday and mounted the three
flights of stairs that led to his bedroom. He sat down
to recover himself, for his breath came quickly ; somehow
or other, although he was but a little past fifty, he felt
like an old man. He had gained weight rapidly lately,
and the stairs tried him. He had to remove his travel
stains, unpack, . transcribe his notes, put his papers in
order, but first he rested. He did not disguise from
himself that each time he came home from these busi-
ness journeys, which he took regularly four times a
SEBASTIAN 59
year, he returned more weary, more consciously fatigued.
Although he was only fifty-one, he felt to-day that he
was almost worked out. And a pain, at the back of
his mind, that added bitterness to his over-fatigue,
was belief that he ought to let his partners know he was
no longer able to do them, nor the affairs of the firm, full
justice. He dreaded to tell them, he had had the fatigue
and doubt before, but he had put off telling them, for
he could not contemplate life without P. and A. Rendall.
He had always travelled for the firm, both in town, and
in the provinces, and if he were not fit to travel. . . .
To-day the stairs had tried him more than ever be-
fore, his breathing was more difficult, he had pins and
needles round his heart when he reached his room. A
"little inconvenience" he called it to himself, but never-
theless it terrified him. It terrified him because, once
or twice before, the pricking sensation, the pins and
needles, had, as it were, gathered themselves together,
in a sort of cramp. He bore pain well, but this pain was
almost unbearable; it made him helpless, and, not for
his own sake, he feared helplessness.
Vanessa, with her fine health, and strong brain, and
clear, sane outlook, shrank from weakness and help-
lessness; she felt them as a degradation, something of
which to be ashamed. He knew that, for Vanessa was
very open about her likes and dislikes, there was no
subtlety nor disguise, about her. It was only Stella
to whom she accorded her suffrages in illness. Stella's
unmistakable delicacy hurt Vanessa, got beneath the
surface of her hardness, and made her uncomfortable.
She met her trouble by denying its existence, for that
was her way.
60 SEBASTIAN
David concealed his illness, whenever possible; for
he knew how it was with her. He was sorry, for her
sake, that he felt out of health and feeble. He looked
round his room now that he had managed to get up
there. It was bare, and chill, and sparsely furnished.
Vanessa liked colour and drapery and ornamentation;
her own rooms were luxurious. He thought how she
would hate to climb up here, and sit with him if he were
to have another illness. She would do it, she ever strove
to fulfil her duties toward him, he saw and appreciated
her struggle. She would come up here, and help to
nurse him, but she would do it with a sense of impatience,
luminous to him behind the cloak of her kind words and
service. She would never suspect that David saw the
impatience behind the words. Because David said so
little, she always thought David saw little. But, as a
matter of fact, he saw everything, as God may see our
human struggle, with infinite pity and forgiveness.
David had never been a strong man since he had had
typhoid, he knew exactly what Vanessa would do if he
became ill. She would get in nurses, and superintend
them, and twice, or even three times, a day she would
come into his room, and enquire how he felt. She
would sit with him when the nurses were at their meals,
trying to find subjects of conversation. She would
read to him. But even there their tastes were diametri-
cally opposed. Outside P. and A. Kendall, and the
paper trade, it was only science that interested David.
Vanessa's mind was essentially unscientific, yet she read
Huxley or Tyndal to him, conscientiously.
She would question him as to his symptoms, insisting
SEBASTIAN 61
always that he was getting better. He would answer
her gratefully, reassuringly. After her task was over
she would go away, trying not to resent that he made
this dumb claim upon her.
In the years Sebastian spent at school, Vanessa's moral
growth had stopped. She had become, always more
definitely, an imaginative phrase-maker. She felt that
her life lay in her library, bending over her desk, pen in
hand, outside affairs. She created epigrammatists, the
real men and women she met, were too coarsely human;
they had not sufficient ideality for her. When she was
not writing, she found toys to play with; anything was
better than crude humanity. Her toys were needlework
pictures, she copied them exquisitely, prints and china,
ivories, and jade. She preferred them to everything
save Stella and Sebastian. She ought never to have
married. David heard her say this often, and she never
noticed that he winced whenever she said it.
Alone in that big, bare room, this afternoon, with the
pricking sensation round his heart, and some little fore-
sight of what it meant, David could feel, through his
fear and pain, a little hopeful, for Vanessa, that some day
she would be free from this burden of matrimony. He
found no fault with her, with her view of life and its
responsibilities. He had taken advantage of her youth,
ignorance of the world, of her sudden orphanhood, to
force his suit upon her. She was never like other girls.
No man had come into her life to make him jealous,
all she knew of love was her feeling for Stella. It was
her ambition, only, that the boy materialised, Sebastian
had not required tenderness from her; although his
62 SEBASTIAN
days had not lacked tenderness. As yet, it seemed, he
was his mother's son, neither of them quite ripe in the
sun.
David, finishing his notes slowly, his dressing yet
more slowly, avoiding, however, that climax of pain that
he dreaded, thought, as ever, very lovingly, of Vanessa's
peculiarities. She was straightforward and honest, this
one partner of his who did not value him, she was beauti-
ful, brilliant, famous. How should she feel interest in a
middle-aged business man, tired, awkward, dull !
The drawing-room, where he waited for her later on,
was an environment in which David never felt himself
at home. He had a knack, or habit, of stumbling over
anything that was in his way, and in Vanessa's drawing-
room everything was in his way ; lac screens, footstools,
and Chinese seats, Japanese dwarf trees in blue and
white dishes, small tables overladen with jade, with
famille verte vases, and famille rose plates. All these
things David Kendall dreaded; more than once he had
done irreparable injury to irreplaceable treasure. He
was out of place in his wife's drawing-room, he always
felt it; the very fact that he felt it so acutely, accen-
tuated it.
It was nearly eight o'clock when Vanessa came home.
"Oh, you are there," she said, opening the drawing-
room door, hurriedly. "I am sorry I am so late. I
have been at a matinee, and afterwards to tea with the
Robinsons, practically a suffrage meeting, with many
dissentients. I will be ready in ten minutes. Are you
all right?"
She was too anxious about the dinner hour to wait
SEBASTIAN 63
for an answer. It was not a figure of speech; the re-
gret that she was late on the evening of David's return
to London was quite genuine.
She hurried over her dressing, hurried down to dinner,
determining to compensate him in some way for her
tardiness, to make the evening pleasant, to talk to him.
But it was always an effort to Vanessa to know what
to say to David, and this occasion proved no different
from any other. He knew that so well, he would have
helped her, had he been able. But subjects between
them were limited, mutual interests they had but one.
Over the soup she asked him,
"Did you have a good journey?"
"Fairly well, as things go. There's nothing much
doing just now, the paper trade is dull."
"What a pity! But anyway, it is a change for you,
getting away from London, interviewing a different set
of people."
" Oh, yes, there's something in that : and tell me, how
have you been getting on? What is the news here?"
" Nothing very new, I have been working all the week,
and Stella has absorbed most of my afternoons. There
were three first nights, but no good play."
"That must have been very disappointing."
They relapsed into silence until the next course ap-
peared.
"And what is the matter with Stella?" David asked
then. "I am sorry to hear she has been ill again."
"Dr. Gifford calls it influenza. I have been there a
good deal; in fact, I think if you do not mind I will go
to her this evening. Do you mind?"
64 SEBASTIAN
"Oh, of course not, if she is not well, you must not
leave her alone."
For what did the prospect of a solitary evening matter
to him, whose life was solitary ?
Glancing at him across the flower-laden dinner table,
the thought of his loneliness may have struck her, for
she said, as if to find occupation for that dull evening
of his,
"You have not read the paper, yet."
"Yes, I did, in the train, coming up. But it doesn't
matter, don't mind me; I am not feeling up to much
this evening, I shall probably go to bed early."
The dinner dragged on.
"Sebastian wants to leave Eton," she announced,
abruptly, when the servants had withdrawn.
"Yes, I know. He wrote to me to Manchester."
"Why did he write to you? What did he say?" she
asked, quickly.
"I have got the letter somewhere."
It was a way he had, to forget where he put things,
one of his many ways that irritated her. He felt in all
his pockets now, wondered whether he had dropped it
anywhere, was flustered at her obvious impatience, yet
sympathised with it.
"No, I believe, after all, I must have left it upstairs."
"You might have known I should want to see it,"
she exclaimed, impatiently.
"But you saw him recently; you spent a whole day
with him!"
"That doesn't make any difference, I like to see what
he writes to you."
SEBASTIAN 65
"He was quite well, I suppose?"
"Oh, of course he was well, quite well, he always is,
he inherits my constitution. But what was in the letter ?
What made him write to you at all?"
He got up :
"I will go and fetch it."
She could not but note the slowness of his movement,
the almost unwillingness.
"Let John fetch it," she said, much more gently.
It was not that she was deficient in heart, it was only that
David had ever abstained from making appeal to it, and
that it was not yet full grown, a little atrophied for want
of use.
"Oh, no, he would not be able to find it, I don't quite
know what I did with it."
"You never do know what you do with anything,"
she murmured. She had not meant him to hear, but
he heard.
He looked grey when he came down with the letter,
his lips colourless.
"Dear Pupsie," the boy had written, in his irregular
schoolboy's hand, " I am seeing the mater on Wednesday,
so she will be able to tell you all my news when you come
back; this is only just to cheer you on your beastly
business journey. I'm sorry things are not as brisk as
you would like them to be. I knew you had the hump
at half-term. I hope you've sold stacks, and got cheery
since then. You must come down for the Fourth, there
are lots of things I want to talk to you about. I am
going to leave, for one thing ! ! ! !
"Sparkes got the Harvey. Poor beggar! I don't
66 SEBASTIAN
grudge it him, his people think he's a genius, and they
may as well remain of that opinion whilst he's here. Can
I have a couple of change suits and a proper shooting-
coat? It will save a lot of time if I get my things at
Brown's. I want a new dress-suit, too. I hope you
don't think I'm very extravagant. By the way, I used
a lot of paper over my Harvey poem, so I suppose we got
something out of it after all. I was sick about it at
first, but I don't care much now, it was rather footle any-
way, though the mater thought a lot of it. Buck up,
"So long,
"Always loving son, S. R."
Vanessa had no pleasure out of the letter. Nobody
else would have -called it a sentimental letter, but to
Vanessa it read in this way.
"It is such a pity you allow yourself to be depressed
when you are with Sebastian, it is very bad for him.
He asked me if we could afford to let him go abroad for
a year or two ! I don't think you ought to let him know
when business is bad. I suppose all businesses are bad,
at times. Stella tells me her dressmaker was complain-
ing just in the same way. I should not be surprised if
it were that talk of yours about bad times that has
induced Sebastian to give up trying for the Newcastle,
insist on leaving Eton, and not going up to Oxford."
"What's that?" said David, surprised for once out of
silence.
"Sebastian does not want to go on to Oxford." Her
heart sank as she said it ; it seemed the end of all things.
There was a pale dawn of hope, of relief, in David's
dull eyes ; as if of light on a dark horizon.
SEBASTIAN 67
"He is seventeen. I was in the office when I was
fifteen."
"You!" she said, quickly, and then checked herself.
She must not tell her husband that he could not compare
himself with Sebastian. "Sebastian has such excep-
tional gifts," she added, almost apologetically.
David admitted there was little analogy. Sebas-
tian's scholastic capacities were out of the common, and
his had been but ordinary. But Sebastian had other
qualities, qualities of which David knew more than
Vanessa.
"What does he want to do?"
"He wants to go abroad for a year or two, to study
modern languages. I don't quite know his plans."
She was already sorry she had been impatient over
the letter, that David should have had to mount to the
top of the house for it.
"That is why I was so anxious to see his letter. I
thought he might have given you some hint, some clue."
He solaced her pride.
"It is not likely he would have told me anything he
had kept from you."
"No," she answered. "No, of course not. But I am
very anxious."
She tried to talk to him about Sebastian, but David
was unfortunate in saying he was not sure that Eton had
ever been Sebastian's proper environment. Vanessa
could not bear criticism from David, and it was she who
had selected Sebastian's school. She tried not to show
her irritation, but it was a complete failure. David
saw her effort, and the difficulty she had, after that, in
making conversation.
68 SEBASTIAN
The constraint between them was always growing;
Vanessa could not be natural, or at ease, with her hus-
band; she had allowed herself first to despise, then to
ignore, finally, to be sorry for him, and this was the
worst stage. Her conscience was never clear as to her
conduct toward him, yet all the efforts to alter it resulted
in failure. She could not but realise his qualities. But
her eyes were critical of his contours, and her ears were
impatient of his cough. It was absurd that he should
deem himself qualified to judge of what was best for
Sebastian.
Presently he suggested that if she were going to
Weymouth Street it was time to start. He offered to
walk round with her, but she preferred to drive. She
hesitated about leaving him alone, but he reassured her,
he said he was tired from the journey, he would soon be
going to bed.
And, indeed, when she had been persuaded that he
really did not desire her to stay at home with him, she
felt glad.
David, when he was alone again, dozed over his cigar,
for half an hour, in the easy-chair. When the servants
woke him, coming in to clear the dinner things away,
he roused himself sufficiently to go, very slowly, up to
bed.
But he felt happier this evening than he had for some
time. Sebastian was leaving Eton; it had never been
the right place for him. David's compunction for having
made Vanessa his wife prevented him opposing her
wishes. But he knew his own weakness, and his con-
science, even more sensitive than Vanessa's, sometimes
tortured him with the fear lest he sacrifice Sebastian to it.
CHAPTER V
WHEN Sebastian came home at the end of the summer
half, with his leaving book, a presentation volume from
his tutor, an autographed, slender folio of indifferent
poems from one of the masters, and the usual quantum
of prizes, he had only a few days at home before him,
for he had accepted an invitation to Scotland for the
12th, from a school friend.
That first night at dinner he talked, not of his school
triumphs, for to them he had always been indifferent,
but with boyish swagger, about grouse. He aired some
newly acquired information, and was voluble on the
subject of a Harris tweed shooting-coat, with leather
on the shoulders, and a particular make of pocket.
His mother had promised him a gun, and this gun,
for which he had already been carefully measured, filled
the foreground of his talk. He told his father, inciden-
tally, that he should want a "pot of money" for travel-
ling and tips, as he must "do the thing well."
David smiled his assent.
"You can have what you want, of course," he said.
But before the evening was over, somehow or other ;
Sebastian's spirits had sunk, and his loquacity faltered.
David announced himself as "rather tired," about
ten o'clock, and went off to bed.
69
70 SEBASTIAN
" Doesn't the pater look seedy, or is it my idea ? "
he asked his mother, when they were alone.
"Seedy? does he? I had not noticed," Vanessa
answered, indifferently.
And then she began to question the boy on his future
plans, to probe quietly for his confidence. She could not
pretend to undue interest in David's health, with Se-
bastian to hold her. She was glad David's short cough
was no longer in the room. It checked conversation,
punctuating it in the wrong places, it was supremely
irritating.
The next day was Friday. The office in Queen Vic-
toria Street was closed until after the Bank Holiday.
David said it was a treat to be at home, to have nothing
to do. He walked about the house, restlessly. Yet
he had no place there, no hobby, no occupation ! The
boy sympathised with him.
"It must be a fag, going every day to the same place,
at the same time, doing the same thing."
David told him there was never monotony in business,
there was endless variety. He grew quite animated
talking of the shifting kaleidoscope of commerce, of
detail and organisation.
"He likes talking about Queen Victoria Street,"
Sebastian said, almost reproachfully, to Vanessa.
"Why did you interrupt him? It is very interesting,
I like hearing about it, too."
"I thought you were being bored; it bores me un-
utterably, to hear what Hopkins ordered, or Hayling
sent back."
"It is his whole life."
SEBASTIAN 71
Before the end of that three days Sebastian found
himself, involuntarily, watching his father, jumping up
when he came into the drawing-room, insisting on his
resting on easy-chair, or sofa. With some gentle sort
of roughness he began ordering his father about, and
"bullying him" as he put it.
"What have you been rushing for, pater?" he would
ask, when the quick breathing made him think that
David had been hurrying. "You have got lots of time;
you have got all the time that is ! What is the good of
sprinting, and playing you are a two-year-old? Take
it easy; it's weight for age, you know."
"I'm all right, don't mind me." That was David's
response, it had become a mechanical one with him.
But, nevertheless, he was glad of the young arm;
proud, and moved, by the slangy, indefinite sympathy.
If that Saturday to Monday was not a gay time for
Sebastian, David at least had some happy moments. He
would obey the boy, lie down on sofa or easy-chair, and
watch him whilst he talked, or read, or lounged.
Vanessa was little at home. Stella was in the throes
of her quarterly attack of influenza. She considered
herself neglected if Vanessa spent less than half the day
with her. Vanessa felt herself justified in leaving David,
even if he were "rather run down, "since she was leaving
the boy with him. It was comparatively a free time
with her. "Persimmon and the Fig Tree" had been pub-
lished just after Easter. A new idea was germinating,
but she had got little further than a title. She could
lend herself to her ties. It was fortunate that Stella
needed her now.
72 SEBASTIAN
Whilst Vanessa was occupied with Stella's varying
symptoms, her husband and son were together for many
hours. Sebastian became more uncomfortable, less
certain about his immediate future ; he grew deeper into
his father's confidence. Not that David told him things,
but the boy really had remarkable perception, and he
began dimly to see the things that David left untold.
It struck him, that his mother had stood between him
and at what he ought to look. And the thing at which
he had to look, although he saw it dimly, being very
young, and very self-absorbed, was that his father was
not in good health, and felt the strain of business, of
earning the income upon which he and his mother lived
luxuriously.
He had expected to enjoy these holidays, but the be-
ginning of them, at least, he found anything but enjoy-
able. His father was only fifty-one, other fellows'
fathers, older than his, still played cricket, and golf,
laughed heartily, were full of their own pleasures, lived
selfishly. His father had no pleasure but in him; he
was always tired, and his cough seemed to shake him.
He said he was all right, that there was nothing the
matter with him, that Sebastian must go away, and enjoy
himself. But Sebastian was never quite like other boys.
The cough that only vexed Vanessa, stirred something
in him that made him doubt, and question, and feel
depressed.
At the end of the three days of holiday David went
back to business, and Sebastian took advantage of the
occasion to visit the Gun Club, and try his new acquisi-
tion.
SEBASTIAN 73
Dining together that evening, at first, the little party,
of three was unusually animated. Sebastian was full
of his exploits, his parents of appreciation. They had
even exchanged sympathetic looks. One of the instruc-
tors had told the boy he had "all the makings of a fine
shot, "and he said he had made up his mind that he would
show the Aspreys something, when he got among the
grouse. He made reckless plans for the disposal of his
bags of game. His spirits had risen again suddenly,
for no apparent reason, and he kept up a continual flow
of conversation.
Neither he, nor Vanessa, noticed that David, since the
soup, had eaten nothing, that the colour in his face
was rather deeper than usual, and his lips bluish. The
flow of Sebastian's conversation, for once, seemed end-
less to his father, the dinner interminable. If he were
only alone, he could bear what was coming. He wanted
to ask Sebastian to help him to his room, or to go out
of this, and leave him to himself, but no words came.
The throes of a physical terror were fastening upon
David. The pricking sensation that he knew so well
began its ominous warning. He filled his wine-glass
with trembling hand, some of the spirit was spilled on
the table-cloth; Vanessa looked up, and he felt she was
criticising his awkwardness. He could not even apolo-
gise, he was absorbed in trying to avert the impending
attack, the brandy seemed to help a little, and he reached
out for more.
"What are you doing?" asked Vanessa. "Isn't
that your third glass ? "
There had been times lately when a faint suspicion
74 SEBASTIAN
had dawned in Vanessa's mind ; David was so curiously
unsteady, and now he kept a bottle of brandy in his room !
His hand stopped mechanically in the act of filling his
glass, his eyes were dim and strained.
"Are you not accustoming yourself - to stimulants ?"
she said gently, uneasily.
He could not answer, the pain was deepening its hold,
he feared, he feared horribly what was coming.
"Hullo! taken to drink?" Sebastian turned to him,
smiling, but what he saw made him call out quickly:
"What's the matter?" His young shrill voice was
full of fear ; he ran to his father, and put thin arms about
him. "What is it ? Lean on me. Ring the bell, mater,
quickly, he's ill, he's awfully ill. . . . Oh, Pupsie !"
The boy's strength was not equal to the man's weight.
David slid through his arms to the floor ; the pain went
beyond disguise, presently beyond consciousness.
The sudden change in Sebastian's tone brought
Vanessa to them.
"You stay where you are," she said, hurriedly, her
own heart suddenly palpitating. "Lower him gently."
Her hand was on the bell. " Go at once for the doctor,"
she told the man.
"Oh! can't you do something for him? Can't you
do anything, mater?" The anguish in the boy's voice
distressed her. She tried to get a teaspoon of brandy
through the closed lips. She felt wretchedly, that she
was only resenting this call on her, she tried to overcome
her repugnance, to be of use. Sebastian could do nothing
but try and hold his father in his arms, fling himself be-
side him on the floor, and hold to him, as if he could hold
SEBASTIAN 75
the pain away. David was not so far gone, but that he
could feel the thin arms. Before the paroxysm of agony
had passed, he even tried to smile reassuringly.
"Oh, don't!"
Sebastian burst into tears; for he saw the effort his
father was making, and he held him closer.
"Oh, pater, pater!" Feebly through the dimness of
his subsiding anguish, David murmured :
"I'm all right," — breathlessly he got out: "don't
cry, I'm . . . getting better ..."
"He is swallowing the brandy, his colour is coming
back. Try what you can do, he will take it from you."
But Sebastian's left hand was shaky, and his right arm
was round his father's neck.
"You go on, mater," he said, in his broken voice.
Vanessa held the glass to her husband's lips, wishing she
could feel anything but repulsion, feel differently. He
smiled at her, and tried to thank her, he could hear the
vibration of the boy's sobs.
"I'm sorry ... to be ... so troublesome."
And after another pause, when a little more strength
returned :
"Don't stay with me, I'm all right. Sebastian, . . .
your mother, she can't bear this, send her away."
All the time it was of them, not of himself, he was
thinking. It was the worst attack he had had, the
agony had been unbearable. But he kept murmuring
that it had passed, that he was better now, they were
not to mind . . . His exhaustion did not make him,
for a moment, oblivious of Sebastian's grief, hardly of
his wife's pallor.
76 SEBASTIAN
Dr. Gifford's arrival was like air and sunshine in the
room; the awful shadow they had seen on David's face
seemed no longer there.
"Ah, he has had one of his attacks of indigestion?"
the doctor said, coolly, rapidly taking in the state of
affairs. He knelt down beside the patient, displacing
Vanessa, putting Sebastian, too, gently aside. He had
.his hand on David's pulse.
"You've given him brandy, quite right. Lie still,
dear fellow, you'll be all right in a few minutes, now.
Here, Sebastian, just you put your hand in my pocket,
and give me a case you'll find there. That's it, now
open it."
The doctor broke a little glass ball ; there was a curi-
ous, pungent smell in the room. Almost before they
had got used to it, David's breathing was easier, and his
face had grown flushed. Dr. Gifford unfastened his
waistcoat, then his collar. "Open the window, give me
that cushion, here, put it just under his head, gently
now," for Sebastian, in his anxiety to be of use, lost some-
thing of his deftness. "He will do all right now, don't
you move, don't you dare to move;" David was trying
to get up. "No, no; I know all about it; you want to
apologise for being such a trouble to us all. Well, it is
an unconscionable hour to call me out; and just when I
had sat down to dinner, too ! But your wife is going to
order me up something to eat. And you will lie where
you are, and entertain me, whilst I sample a glass of your
best champagne."
Dr. Gifford's tact was not cultivated, it was the efflo-
rescence of a large heart, kept constantly informed by
SEBASTIAN 77
a clear brain. He knew the danger of David RendalFs
condition, and what it indicated; but nothing was to
be gained by alarming the invalid or those who would
have to minister to him.
Therefore he sat until he thought it was safe for his
patient to be taken upstairs, making a pretence of dining;
talking of himself, and his day's engagements, his hurried
breakfast and missed lunch, interrupted dinner, and the
inroads he was making into his capacity for supper.
He brought into the excited atmosphere that sense of
security that comes from commonplace things. The
figure on the floor was no longer tragic, when Dr. Gifford,
with a mouthful of chicken, was telling an anecdote of
two sisters who had come to his consulting room that
morning to induce him to take their cases at reduced fee,
because they would both require his services at about
the same time, and "there was always a reduction for
quantity." He made it seem quite absurd and amusing.
Although Vanessa considered it rather a coarse story,
and was sorry Sebastian should hear it, she recovered
her wonted serenity under it, and, after all, that had been
the result at which the narrator aimed.
"You will have to give up rushing through your
meals," he told David, who was lying on the floor, getting
flushed, and easier, under the rug that had been flung
over him. "Indigestion plays the very deuce with a
man of your age. The food presses on the thorax;
before you know where you are, an irritation is set up;
pain comes on, and a man thinks he has heart disease,
when it is only a rump steak in the wrong place."
It was very reassuring Jo the two listeners, who knew
78 SEBASTIAN
nothing of medicine, and had unbounded confidence in
their doctor. Almost before David had been got up-
stairs, with the help of a carrying chair, borrowed from
a neighbouring doctor, Vanessa was thinking of the dra-
matic value of the scene, and Sebastian had remembered
to be ashamed of his tears.
"I will give him a few of those glass things to carry
about with him," Dr. Gifford said, on the steps, to Sebas-
tian, as he bade him good-night. "And never hesitate
about the brandy if he gets an attack whilst you are with
him; carry a flask about with you."
" Is he, is he very ill ? " Sebastian had not quite re-
covered his self-possession. "Is it really only indi-
gestion ? "
Dr. Gifford threw a kindly arm across the boy's
shoulder.
"He wants all we can do for him, poor fellow. But
he is all right for to-night, I think. Come round and see
me in the morning, and we will have a chat about him."
"I think, after all, it will be a bit slow in Scotland,"
Sebastian said to his mother at breakfast the next day.
"The journey is an awful fag. I am really getting great
fun at the Gun Club. In fact, I've made up my mind
not to go, anyhow for another week or two."
"I am glad to have you here," was all she said, and
even that was a little perfunctory. For she had just
found a wonderful title, and was longing to get at her
first chapter. It was a pity she had so many ties. She
had satisfied herself already that David was all right,
SEBASTIAN 79
climbing up the stairs, even before breakfast, to dutifully
inquire. He told her he had had a good night, and he
felt quite himself, and there was nothing in an attack of
indigestion to keep him at home. He quoted Dr. Gifford.
She strongly advised him to remain in bed. But he
wanted to go out, he was overburdened with a sense of
hurry, so many things required putting in order.
"Don't you mind about me, there's a good dear,"
he said. And again it was the phrase, and not David,
she found arresting. She wanted to edit it. Anyway he
said he was well again, and she accepted his statement.
After breakfast it was necessary she should go round
to Stella. Heaven only knew when she could get a
couple of uninterrupted hours in her study. But she
had found her title. "Between the Nisi and the Abso-
lute" a strange time of waiting, emotion in suspense, a
wonderful subject.
Every morning, during all his adult life, punctually
at a quarter to nine, David had gone to the mills, or to
Queen Victoria Street. " Don't try and make me change
now," he urged, and she acquiesced. He did his best,
too, to reassure Sebastian, who breakfasted with him,
and scolded him for getting up, and for contemplating
going out. But David gained his point.
"Do you think the pater is really right in going out
to-day?" the boy asked Vanessa. He had put on his
hat, and was walking round with her to Weymouth Street.
" He seems to me to look jolly seedy. I think you ought
to make him chuck the office for a bit; stay at home,
and take care of himself, he has a beast of a cough, and
he gets those pains now and then, you know."
80 SEBASTIAN
"Oh, don't worry about your father, dear," she an-
swered, "he is always the same, he always has been the
same; illness is merely a habit he has contracted, a
hobby with him. It stands him in place of golf, or stamp
collecting. He says he is always quite well in the City.
You heard Dr. Gifford tell us the attack we saw was
nothing but indigestion. And he worries unnecessarily
about business. There seem to be good and bad seasons
in the paper trade; that, and not taking any exercise,
is what has upset him. I hope, by the way," she turned
to him, abruptly, "it is not through any idea about your
father that you have given up your visit to Scotland?"
" Oh, no, of course not," he answered, quickly. The
boyish shyness at the thought that any sentimentality
should be attributed to him, naturally taking alarm.
"It is such a rotten journey."
"Yes, it is long. Of course I am glad to have you
with me a few days more. I am only sorry I cannot be
with you all the time, but Aunt Stella's condition worries
me. This is the third attack of influenza she has had this
year; she has a bad throat, and she eats nothing, and
altogether I am not satisfied about her. I think I shall
have another doctor for her this afternoon."
He walked by her side, rather silently, through the
wide gloom of Harley Street, to the narrow quiet of
Weymouth Street. Just before they came to Stella's
door he said :
"I am not so abso-bally-lutely certain about going
abroad, mater."
She stopped suddenly at that, and eagerly.
"You are going to work at home. You are going to
SEBASTIAN 81
have a coach, you are going up to Oxford, after all.
Oh, Sebastian, you do not know what it means to me."
"You think I should get a scholarship?" he said,
vaguely.
" Not a scintilla, not a shadow of doubt of it, there is
nothing you could not do. Well, we will talk about it at
tea-time. Father won't be in by then, so we shall be
quite undisturbed." Her face was bright, her interest
eager, and somehow that hurt him.
"She is jolly anxious about Aunt Stella, who has the
flue, a common thing that every one gets; she doesn't
seem to think about the governor," the boy commented,
as he followed her into his aunt's house. But all he
answered was :
"As I am here, I may as well come in, and see what
Bice is doing to-day."
"We shall be quite undisturbed at tea-time, we can
talk things over," Vanessa said again^ from the door.
"Your father won't be in by then."
The boy thought that it was a long day's work for a
man, for any man. He counted it up; nine to seven,
ten full hours ! And his father's face, on which he had
never seen anger, nor reproach, nor anything but affec-
tion, would persistently intrude. It was a plain face,
lined, and tired, and old, but it rose before him, and there
was something in it that made a lump in his throat.
Was his mother blind, or was he fussing about
nothing ? Damn it ! it was hard on a fellow when his
father looked like that.
He did not care to be alone, thinking over these things.
In the last few days he had almost forgotten Miss
82 SEBASTIAN
Pleyden-Carr, but now he went to seek her and Bice in
the schoolroom. Because he was restless and unhappy
himself, he teased Bice, until she rushed from the room
in tears.
"Now we can talk comfortably," he said, flinging him-
self on the sofa. He wanted something to distract his
mind.
"I don't know that I ought to let you stay," Miss
Pleyden-Carr replied, hesitatingly.
Bice's companion-governess, Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's
daughter, was blonde cendre, almost an albino. Masses
of pale hair surmounted a childish face, with blue in-
genuous eyes, her nose and mouth were too small, and
all her features insignificant. But nine people out of ten
would have called her a very pretty girl, delicately and
exceptionally pretty. She prided herself on an eighteen-
inch waist that needed no compression, and a straight
back. Her toilette occupied many hours, her looking-
glass had absorbed her vitality. She was about twenty
years of age, and without an interest in the world beyond
her own feeble personality.
"I don't think you ought to stay, since Bice has
rushed away. I think I ought to go after her "
"Oh! Come now, there's no harm in our being to-
gether." He was very flattered at the suggestion that
it was not safe for him to be alone with her. "We don't
get much talk together, that little vixen is always in
the way. Tell me, now, if I stayed in London, would a
fellow have a chance with you ? I suppose* it isn't true
that you are engaged? Bice tried to get a rise out of
me by saying you were."
SEBASTIAN 83
There was a beastly time in front of him, everything
was beastly, he might as well get any compensation that
was possible.
"Are you going to stay in London?"
"Well, what inducement will you give me?"
"What inducement could / give you?"
"You might say you wanted me, that you liked being
with me, for instance."
"Bice doesn't care for you to pay me much attention."
"But what is your view? that is the question; not
what Bice thinks. You get a day out now and then,
don't you ; we might do a Greenwich dinner, or Rich-
mond, together?"
He was cutting rather a dash here after all ; his mer-
curial spirits began to rise.
"Ought I to?" she answered, with encouraging hesi-
tation.
There was really much of the child in Pleasey, not-
withstanding her position. She had a child's greed,
although not for childish things. Her life was dull,
work of any sort was uncongenial to her, and she was
vaguely bored with Bice's activities.
"I don't think I ought to promise to go out with you.
Bice would not like it if she knew."
"She won't know, nobody will know. That is where
the fun will come in. You leave it up to me. We'll
have a ripping time."
"But I heard you were going abroad."
" Never you mind what you heard. I might be going
abroad, if you were going with me."
He felt himself a very Lothario when he had said
84 SEBASTIAN
that, and the colour flushed into his cheek. He came
over to where she was sitting, and stood beside her chair.
Further than that he would scarcely have ventured with-
out more encouragement. But his heart was beating
rather fast, and in his brain thronged a hundred ro-
mantic incidents. "After all, a fellow must have some
fun," summarising them.
"You know you are awfully good-looking," he went
on.
"I wish you wouldn't say such things."
"And what a ripping lot of hair you have got. I'd
like to see it down."
" I don't like my hair, I wanted it to be dark and curly,
like Bice's."
" Bice ? She's a perfect little gipsy ! "
"She is very fond of you."
"I wish you were."
"Do you?"
"Do you think you could get fond of a fellow?"
"I know how clever you are."
"Oh! bar rot now."
He came quite close to her, not quite sure what was
stirring in him.
She was demure, but not discouraging.
"I say "
He wanted to kiss her, and she knew he did. It was
a pretty game, and Pleasey had played it often. This
time she had to be the teacher, and the lesson led but
a little way. But even that little way took the boy,
momentarily, out of that shadow-land of fear and mis-
giving in which he had been moving the last few days.
SEBASTIAN 85
He thrilled with some unrecognised emotion, the sap
rising in his veins brought the promise of manhood to
him. In long, dim distance he had been gazing fearfully,
ignorantly, at death. Now, not less ignorantly, but with-
out fear, he gazed at life.
"How good you are to me," he said to her. "I've
been jolly miserable lately." For in the end, after much
fencing and demureness, she had let him kiss her, one
shy boy's kiss, on her pale cheeks, and then she played
at being ashamed, and lit his chivalry.
"Let me come and talk to you sometimes; you are
so different from everybody else. I am awfully in love
with you."
"You must not be that."
"Why?"
" I don't know, but I know you must not. Bice "
"Never mind about Bice; she is only a kid. I say,
you know, I feel different about you to what I have ever
felt before. You won't throw me over, or say I'm too
young, or anything like that ? Let me call you Pleasey
when we are alone."
Sebastian was a little bewildered by his new emotions,
and a little proud of them. Of course he had fallen in
love; he always knew it would happen to him one day,
but it had come so quickly. His self-possession left him,
the rush of words in which to tell her how wonderful
she was, became congested in his throat.
Perhaps he was glad that Bice came back at this junc-
ture. His love was, as yet, too slender and frail a struc-
ture to bear further experience. Bice looked at the two,
suspiciously.
86 SEBASTIAN
"Oh! you are still here! I was not sure. Aunt
Vanessa wants you to go round to Dr. Gifford's; she
thinks nurse has made a mistake over his directions.
I am to go with you to explain."
Bice brought back into the room its familiar atmos-
phere. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He knew
he must chaff Bice before she began on him.
" I have got to be seen out with you — have I ? That's
rather rough on a fellow, isn't it?"
"Oh! don't be unkind to poor Bice," exclaimed the
gentle Pleasey.
"I don't want you to interfere between me and Se-
bastian," was Bice's rude retort.
"I was only rotting her," Sebastian explained.
After all, why tease Bice? She was awfully fond
of him, people had a way of getting fond of him. " Come
along then, is that mane of yours going to stick out like
that all your life?"
Bice's hair was very curly and unruly, but she gave
him the retort discourteous that he expected, and they
went out together fairly peacefully.
The cousins were not as unsympathetic as their dia-
logue suggests. They had many pursuits and memories
in common, the intimacies of childhood, hereditary
predispositions.
Dr. Gifford saw them immediately, and reassured Bice
as to her mother. He confirmed the nurse's report on
the directions he had given her. And then he detained
Sebastian, with a friendly hand on his shoulder.
"You wait ten minutes for your cousin, will you?"
he said to the girl. "You will find plenty to amuse you
SEBASTIAN 87
in the dining-room, illustrated papers, and some picture
books." He, too, teased her a little, kindly; Bice
resented her size, and the implication that it kept her
still a child, but no one could resent Dr. Gifford.
The Sebastian Kendall who emerged from the doctor's
sanctum a quarter of an hour later was not the same
lad who had entered it. The colour had gone out of
his cheeks, and something like fear was in his eyes.
Lightly as he had let him down, Dr. Gifford had told him
that which made the incident in the Weymouth Street
schoolroom dwindle into unimportance. He walked
quite silently by Bice's side, trying to regain his courage.
It was she who broke the silence.
" I heard Aunt Vanessa tell mother you had changed
your mind about going abroad," she began.
"Well, I wish she wouldn't mag about my affairs;
that is the worst of you women, you can't keep your
mouths shut."
" It would have been splendid though, travelling about.
I wish I were going. I wouldn't have given it up for
anything. But I suppose you want to show the Eton
people you can get a Balliol Scholarship without them."
"Don't be such a fool. I wouldn't have it if they
offered it to me."
"Then what are you going to do?"
He must have a confidant. He turned to her, suddenly.
" Can you keep a secret ? "
"Oh ! Sebastian !" He knew she could, he had tried
her more than once.
"Well, then, I have made up my mind to go into
business — to join the pater."
88 SEBASTIAN
"Oh! Sebastian!" The tears in her eyes, the dis-
may in her voice, soothed him.
"Pretty shocked, aren't you?"
"How will aunt bear it? Oh! Sebastian, how can
you?"
"You don't suppose I like it, do you?" he answered,
gloomily.
"Then why "
"Why? Why? Because I am not so blind as some
people, that's all !"
" I don't understand. Sebastian, don't be so — so
unkind, tell me, explain. You can't do it, you, that were
going to be everything, that we all thought — Oh !
Sebastian!"
" Leave off yelling out ' Oh ! Sebastian/ half across
the street. Good heavens ! you are not going to begin
to cry?"
But she was, she had begun already. Sebastian was
her hero, for him she dreamed her dreams, the world grew
dark when the glowing figure sank ; Sebastian in business,
Sebastian buying and selling !
"I am not crying: I've got a cold," she sniffed.
It was something to have Bice on whom to work off
his feelings. After all Dr. Gifford had only told him what
he had already guessed. And as for his decision, had
he not been making it all these long three days ?
"You can't howl all the way home, we had better
turn into the Park. If you are so jolly dense you can't
see I have no choice, I'll show it you."
They were silent until they were in the comparative
quiet of Regent's Park. Beatrice accomplished a certain
SEBASTIAN 89
amount of self-control, and Sebastian began to talk
again, as soon as the green was about them.
"The governor is ill; the mater doesn't see it. She
must not be made anxious, she' has a new book simmering.
He is working eight hours a day, so that I can have all I
want, and she can have her china, and prints, and things.
I can't go on watching him struggle out at nine o'clock
in the morning, come home, dead beat, at seven, with both
hands in his pockets, ready to give us all he has made.
I can't stand by, and see that going on, and then go off,
shooting grouse, and enjoying myself — letting him grind
on. It takes the guts out of everything. I feel like a
beast every time I look at him. Why should a man of
fifty work for a man of eighteen? "
"But you can work later, you can make money,
writing, or at the bar, you can get scholarships, you can
coach — and you're only seventeen. You are the only
grandson of Hepplewight-Ventom. Sebastian ! you can't
just buy and sell, you can't be a shopkeeper, like Uncle
David ! " The child's grief and rage could not be sup-
pressed.
"I can't be a cur," he kicked the gravel up with his
feet, dug vicious holes in it with his gold-headed cane.
"She can't see it. He can't even stand the stairs —
he is not fit to go out and about by himself. He has al-
ways been a brick to me — the mater is a wonder, of
course, but some one has to take care of the pater."
She got closer to him, he liked the instinctive sympathy,
and for once did not repel her.
"I meant to go abroad, to study philology, the origin
of language, to make a name, but there is no use going
90 SEBASTIAN
into that now. I have got to give it up, to give up every-
thing but sticking to the governor. Whatever he does in
the City I must learn, and I must do it instead of him.
After all, I suppose it would be something if I grew like
him."
"Like Uncle David!" There was only one transla-
tion of her exclamation, and he turned on her, almost
savagely.
"There you go, just like the rest, half blind. Can't
you see what kind of man the governor is ? He doesn't
swagger about, or amuse himself, but did you ever hear
of his doing a selfish thing, or a mean one ? Did you crver
hear him talking about his feelings, or his individuality;
do you think he hasn't got any ? I tell you he is the best
man in the world and — I believe he is— Oh ! damn it."
Sebastian had turned his head away from his cousin,
and she could not see his eyes, but his voice startled her !
"I believe he is going to die."
That hard young Sebastian whom Vanessa thought she
knew so well, got out the words with quivering lips.
Bice had never seen Sebastian cry. She was tingling
all over, hot and ashamed, and sat by his side in silence.
He brushed away his tears in a minute, they were painful
ones.
" Isn' t it ghastly ? The mater doesn' t know anything. ' '
"Did Dr. Gifford tell you?"
" I have been miserable about him all the time. Just
now, when you'd gone out of the room, I said :
" ' The pater looks queer, doctor, can't you buck him
up ? ' He said : ' Not for long, I'm afraid, dear boy.' '
Bice remembered, now, that Sebastian had left the house
SEBASTIAN 91
quickly, she had to run to catch him up. Dr. Gifford was
the family doctor, the friend of all of them. If he had not
spared Sebastian, it was because he knew the boy had
strength, and could bear his burdens.
"Has any one told Aunt Vanessa?" Bice asked,
presently, when she had had time to grow quiet, and
dared to speak to him.
" No, and don't you open your mouth until I give you
leave. I'm going down this afternoon to see Uncle Will ;
the governor said he would not be at the office, he is at
the mills to-day. When I have arranged with the uncles,
and told the pater what I'm going to do, I'll let her know.
She will be glad I am going to stay at home, and that will
make things easier."
Very few words had passed between the boy and the
doctor. He had known his father was ill, from the be-
ginning of the vacation. He could see, anybody could
see, that his daily work was trying him beyond his strength.
David told the boy he had obligations to the firm, that
what he did in the City could be done by neither of his
brothers. What could a fellow do? Sebastian had it
borne in upon him gradually in these few days, and now
he felt, convincingly, overwhelmingly, that it was he
who must meet his father's obligations.
The truth about his health he nevertheless tried to put
away from him.
"Would it do him good to rest?" he had asked Dr.
Gifford.
"All the good in the world. But there is little chance
of such a thing, under present circumstances. I cannot
even get him to take a week's holiday."
92 SEBASTIAN
" If some one else could do his work "
"Ah! if anybody could!"
Dr. Gifford knew what he was about. Sebastian had
been growing too selfish, too self-absorbed, his mother
had nearly succeeded in making a prig of him. But there
was good stuff in the lad ; there could not fail to be with
such parents. They had perhaps brought him up too
luxuriously, made him too much the centre of his little
world. But the doctor had great hopes of him, and was
doing his share towards his fulfilment of them.
CHAPTER VI
THAT very afternoon, to the surprise of Messrs. P. A.
Kendall and Co., and for the edification of the whole
establishment, Mr. Sebastian Kendall called at No. 1130
Queen Victoria Street. He was resplendent in a well-
brushed top hat, the black coat that made his slenderness
so apparent, grey striped trousers turned up over his
patent leather boots, tan waistcoat, and grey suede
gloves. He was known to the clerks, who resented rather
than admired him ; it was almost with difficulty he found
one willing to inform Mr. William Kendall that he wished
for an interview.
The warehouse looked very dull and dreary to the boy
on this August day, half empty, save for a few stacks of
sample papers on the dusty shelves. There was no bustle,
or movement, the clerks and warehousemen looked only
half alive, the gloom was complete. He knew he would
have to learn all about paper, but what was on the shelves
seemed very grey, and ugly, and untempting.
"Well, young Admirable Crichton, and what can I
do for you?" was his uncle's greeting.
Mr. William Kendall had a red beard and wore glasses.
He was the head of the firm, a man about sixty-five. The
other partner, John, was also carroty, but in an inferior,
pink-eyed way. Both of them eyed Sebastian critically,
not unkindly, although they always had disapproved, in
93
94 SEBASTIAN
their bachelor superiority, of his education, and up-
bringing, and literary mother.
He greeted them with an easy nod; he liked them
both; they were associated in his mind with "tips,"
and handsome birthday presents. He thought they
were rum old buffers, and not equal to his father. It was
difficult to begin what he had to say to them.
" How do, Uncle Will. How do, Uncle John."
He subsided into a chair, talked about the weather,
commented on the state of the streets.
"How's business?" he asked presently. The question
irritated them both. As a matter of fact, it was pretty
slack, and it seemed an impertinence that he should en-
quire.
"Is that what you came into the City for?" John
asked, in a way that was intended to be satirical, "to
enquire how we were doing ? Because I should think you
might have waited until the evening, when your father
came home, and asked him."
"Very smart," answered Sebastian. "You have
guessed it at once. If that is what I had come for, I'd
have stopped at home. Where did you get that tie,
Uncle Jack?"
John instinctively put up his hand and straightened
out the bow. He was more dressy than either of his
brothers, younger-looking, too, for all his sixty years.
Although he disapproved, on principle, of Sebastian, he
had some secret family pride in him. So indeed had
William, although they never admitted it to each other.
John was rather pleased his dandy nephew admired his
tie, for of course he took the enquiry to mean admiration.
"At Hope's, do you like it?"
SEBASTIAN 95
"M'yes, it's all right. Pretty stuffy here, isn't it?"
The windows were closed, the outlook of the partners'
office was on to a similar block of buildings, high enough
to obscure the light, a reflector arrangement only suc-
ceeded in obstructing air; the electric lamps had to be
kept burning all day.
" We have not been spoilt in a palatial establishment
at Eton/' said William. " It is good enough for us, and
good enough for your father."
Sebastian grinned at the remembrance of his " palatial
room" at Eton, eight feet by ten, with iron bars to the
windows, a door that would not shut, and walls that sloped
to the ceiling. Both Uncle Will and Uncle John had been
to tea with him there on successive fourths of June, and
both of them had thought, as business men, that David
was getting bad value for his £300 a year.
The conversation kept at the same level for a few
moments. As a matter of fact, the boy was embarrassed,
found it difficult to say what he had come for, and cov-
ered his difficulty with flippancy, until he succeeded in
thoroughly irritating the two whose suffrages he was
seeking.
" Well, young sir, I can't waste any more of the busiest
time in the day," said William, at length. "I quite
appreciate your condescension in looking us up, but I've
got work to do."
He took up a pile of letters, waiting for signature
in a basket on the table, and the hint was followed by
John, whose own desk, on the other side of the room,
was distinguished by sheets of writing, checked in red ink,
rather more interesting, Sebastian thought. He knew
96 SEBASTIAN
they meant him to go, but he sat on, watching one uncle
rapidly scanning the post, adding his neat signature;
watching the other, referring to his ledger, comparing his
sheets.
"I say, couldn't the clerks do that work?" he asked
John, presently.
"No, they couldn't/' he answered, sharply.
Why did not the boy go, what on earth was he linger-
ing there for, what did he want ?
"Couldn't I?"
"You?"
John paused in handling his ledger. William looked up
from his correspondence.
"You?" said John again, and William listened.
"Yes, I; why not? I'm not exactly a fool. I learn
things pretty easily."
The brothers' eyes met.
"Sebastian, my boy, what did you come down here for
to-day ? Did anybody send you ? Had you any obj ect in
coming ? ' William's voice was encouraging. Sebastian
flushed a little, but took the plunge.
"Would I be any good, do you think ? Could you use
me ? Uncle Will, Uncle John ; I'm a Kendall, too. The
firm has been here nearly one hundred years, the pater
tells me."
He was shy, and his usual glibness failed a little.
"One hundred and eighteen, we celebrated our
centenary the year your father married. We were one
of the first firms of paper merchants in London. The
Kendall Mills were -
"I know; I know all about the firm. Well, is there
room for me ? "
SEBASTIAN 97
It was not what he had meant to say, it was not the
way he intended to put it.
"Did your father tell you to come to us ?"
They were more than pleased. It had been a grievance,
it had been their only grievance against David, that he
had brought up his son to consider himself too good for
the old business; the business made by three generations
of Kendalls.
"No, it's my own idea; I thought if I could settle it
up with you, I would announce it at home afterwards. I
want to come down of a day with the pater. I might
begin by going about with him, if you don't mind. I
suppose there is some one goes round with him. Carries
the samples, or whatever it is. I don't care what I start
upon."
The brothers smiled at Sebastian's idea of his father's
work, travelling about, accompanied by some one with
samples, like a pedlar with his pack. But he had come
to them in the right spirit.
" We will talk about your work later on, we must have a
chat together, and with your father. It is enough for us
to say now, at once — I think I may speak for you, John,
as well as for myself — you are very heartily welcome,
we shall be glad to have you with us."
He added some trite phrases about work, and responsi-
bility, but they did not efface the effect of his welcome.
The welcome touched Sebastian; he was quick to take
in what the business meant to them, and that they
were glad he would be a part of it. He said the right
thing, that he would be proud of it, too ; and then was
half ashamed, for, after all, it was only business.
98 SEBASTIAN
But William got up and solemnly shook hands with
him, and John followed suit. They were, perhaps, old-
fashioned people; but the little ceremoniousness of it
pleased the boy's taste, and he talked with them after-
wards more easily. Their point of view was quite clear
to him, a great pride in their good name in the City,
and established credit. They talked of David, too, in a
way that he thought would make Bice " sit up." To
them, David was the pivot of the business, he had ever
been the brain of the firm. He it was who interviewed
the clients, and practically ran the mills. Hand-made
paper was their speciality, the Mildenhall Press used none
but Rendall paper; every famous copy of the limited
editions of the Ewelme Press bore the imprint of the firm.
They were in touch with the first publishing houses in
London. All this, and more, Sebastian heard.
William and John superintended the office, and the
detail of distribution, but it was David who brought in
the business. He was rather venturesome in their
eyes, almost too go-ahead, but he had proved himself
right again and again, and they had reaped the profit
of his greater foresight, keener vision. Hitherto Sebastian
had not thought of his father as a clever, or particularly
able man, only as a good one. He began to realise that
the John Hepplewight-Ventom traditions of art and of
scholarship, his mother's clique of literary and newspaper
people, left outside their consideration, any appreciation
of a talent for generalship in business. If Uncle Will was
the nominal, his father, it appeared, was the actual, head
of the firm. And it was obvious, too, that his father had
been right in thinking himself indispensable, in finding
it impossible to abandon his responsibilities.
SEBASTIAN 99
It did not seem so certain now that he could do his
father's work for him. He would have to learn his way
first, and that might prove a slower affair than he had
contemplated. Work, however, appealed to Sebastian;
he liked it, a rare quality in the very young. But then
Sebastian was rare, it was only a pity that he knew it so
well. He was greatly upheld at the moment by the
thought of the career that he was sacrificing. It was
impossible to do otherwise, after what he had learnt from
Dr. Gifford, but there was no doubt he was rather a fine
fellow. Languages were his forte, and philology — but
there was no use thinking of that now.
He took a hansom from the City; work was in his
scheme of life, but economy held no place in it. Rather,
as the hansom took him further from the crowded, sordid
City, nearer the restful, luxurious West End, did he
begin to think, as Sebastian always thought, of the re-
wards of labour.
Of course, if he went into business he would make
money, a fortune; his greater brain must conduce to
a greater success than Uncles John or William, even than
his father, could accomplish. He would run a motor;
from Holborn to Oxford Circus he was weighing the
merits of various cars. Then he would reorganise the
office, brighten it up a bit, sack the old clerks, get young
fellows about him, brisk things up. By the time he had
reached Harley Street, he had the finest premises in the
City, plate glass and mahogany, commissionaires in uni-
form, everything, and more, that he had seen at the
private bank when he had cashed cheques. He had in-
herited the novelist's imagination, a dangerous gift for the
business man into which he saw himself develop.
100 SEBASTIAN
He had not said a word to his uncles about his father's
health. He could not bring the words to his lips. Then,
too, ever since he had made his decision, hope, those high
fallacious hopes integral to his youth, grew strong,
that when he was with his father, looking after him,
sharing his work, David would improve in health, grow
happier, healthier. It was difficult to say when or how
Sebastian had first realised that his father was not a
happy man, but certainly the knowledge was there.
CHAPTER VII
SEBASTIAN had to break the news of his decision to
his parents. He planned to do it at dinner, he even
arranged a little scene. He would announce it care-
lessly, he mentally rehearsed the exact shade of careless-
ness, he looked forward to his mother's dismay, and how
he would meet it, to his father's surprise. David must
never know the true reason ; it was then he felt a throb
of heroism again, and a sickening reaction of anxiety.
But his schemes fell through.
Stella had announced herself convalescent, and had
released Vanessa from the attendance that she saw was
irksome. Stella knew her sister. When Vanessa's eyes
wore that far-off look, and her answers came slowly,
sometimes unreasonably, Vanessa should be in her
library.
Stella knew Vanessa would not have written novels
had she been a happy woman; happy women do not
write. But, ignorant of all she missed, she found the
world that suited her, when she was alone, with her pen
in her hand. And the -necessity for the anodyne was
upon her now, when her disappointment over Sebastian's
relinquishment of Eton was acute, and her physical
consciousness was warring with her speech, on the
subject of David's health.
Stella released her from attendance on the condition
101
102 SEBASTIAN
that she wrote her first chapter. And Vanessa was grate-
ful for the sympathy and understanding.
Therefore when Sebastian came home, full of his
announcement, he was met by the news that his mother
was in her study, and not to be disturbed; that his
father had come home with a bad headache, and gone
straight to his room.
Sebastian dined alone, and felt rather flat. He
lounged about, and criticised his mother's china, tried
the paper, and found it dull, took up a novel, pitched it
away again, and was just about to go round to Wey-
mouth Street, when the servant came in to tell him if
he wouldn't mind going upstairs his father would like
to see him.
Sebastian was little fonder of a sick room than Va-
nessa, although his sensitiveness was of a different order,
more natural, and less cultivated. He was ashamed of
that of which Vanessa was proud.
But David had the window open, there was a full
moon, and there was no other light in the room. In
its pallor, David looked very grey, he was lying on his
back, and he smiled at Sebastian. The boy thought it
a dear face, a rush of emotion seized him, wordless.
"I hope you didn't mind coming up," David began.
"Feeing better?"
"Oh, yes, I'm all right again. I could have come
down, but I always think you and your mother talk
better without me."
"The mater didn't turn up. She has got an attack
of inspiration on, and has sported her oak."
"So I just heard. I'm sorry you had to dine alone."
SEBASTIAN 103
"I would have had it up here with you if you'd have
sent down word."
"I only wanted a little soup. Were you doing any-
thing this evening? I don't want to keep you."
" No ! I rather wanted to talk to you. But are you
fit to talk? Pain gone?"
"I'm all right."
David wanted to talk to Sebastian ; he had been think-
ing, and thinking. His conscientiousness was suffering.
Business was contracting, instead of expanding, his best
energies had been used up; John and William were
growing old. Expenses seemed always increasing.
Vanessa bought china, Sebastian was luxurious in his
tastes. He could grudge neither of them anything.
But he was a business man, and he saw rocks ahead.
For months, perhaps years, it had been in his mind that
Sebastian should know how things stood. He did not
think Dr. Gifford was right in his diagnosis, it was more
than indigestion that was robbing him of his strength,
the future was not clear. He was troubled about many
things, and sleep was more and more difficult. In the
long nights he was wearied with anxiety, and the doubt
as to what course to pursue. He came nearer, and ever
nearer, to the decision to take the boy into his confidence.
Yet ever he hesitated to trouble his youth. To-night
the pain had so weakened him, his solitude of thought,
and hours of indecision, had so unnerved him, that he
had sent for Sebastian to tell him everything.
Sebastian tilted back his chair, put his feet on the bed,
and talked. David lay and looked at him, at the slip
of a boy so vivid and egotistic, with a great pride in his
104 SEBASTIAN
eyes, and a greater love. If only he could keep him
untroubled ! Already he was feeling better, stronger.
After all, there might be years of work in front of him.
"When do you go to Scotland?"
"I am not so sure I'm going at all. I have rather
changed my plans."
"Tell me about them; it does me good to listen."
"Sure you ought not to be quiet?"
" I have so many hours quiet ; I don't sleep very well."
"The mater can't stand a sick-room," Sebastian said,
apologetically.
But not a shadow of reproach must rest on Vanessa.
David was quick to answer :
" I like to be alone when I am not well. Your mother
knows that, she has her work to do, and your Aunt
Stella leans on her, looks to her for companionship."
"She has Bice."
"Well, haven't I got you?"
"You are going to have rather more of me than you
bargained for."
Now he could bring out his bomb-shell. He did not
want that his heart should ache for his father. It must
be pretty awful lying by himself in this dingy room;
perhaps what he was going to tell him would cheer him
up.
" I went down to Queen Victoria Street this afternoon,"
he began, abruptly.
"Queen Victoria Street? Did you? I'm glad of
that. I didn't go back to the office. You were quite
right to call on your uncles. I'm sure they were pleased.
Did Uncle William say anything to you," there was a
shade of anxiety in his voice, "about business?"
SEBASTIAN 105
"I said something to him."
"You?"
" I told him I wanted to join them."
"You told them "
David sat up in his surprise, in his excitement. Se-
bastian was quite satisfied with his effect.
"You lie down," he said, patronisingly, "and I'll
tell you all about it."
He proceeded to describe the interview with his uncles.
David was nervously excited, and interested in every
detail of the conversation. He forgot everything, for
the moment, but that the secret dream of his heart was
to be realised, a son of his would carry on the tradition
of the old firm ! He thanked the boy over and over
again, it was pathetic to see his gladness in it. But
quickly he began to doubt, to question. Did Sebastian
realise what he was doing? Was he sacrificing himself
because William or John had suggested it; was it his,
David's, fault, that Sebastian had guessed his hopes ?
David, as the moments went by, and he realised what
the boy was telling him, tried to banish himself, and his
wishes, from the whole matter, and impersonally, to
make Sebastian think again of the step he contemplated.
David talked of difficulties, and disappointments. Se-
bastian, with ingenuous candour, pointed out that chaps
of his calibre so seldom went into business. He had not
the slightest doubt that when that was taken into account
difficulties would disappear. Listening to him, David,
perhaps, thought so too. It was, probably, the best
hour in David's married life. His secret pride in the •
firm, his great pride in Sebastian, the vision of the future
106 SEBASTIAN
with the boy by his side, compensated him for so much
that he had suffered and feared. He saw himself intro-
ducing the young Etonian to customers, hearing him
argue, and persuade, he allowed himself to be carried
away by Sebastian's optimism; it was only new blood
that was needed, new vigour and enthusiasm.
And then David began to talk, he had not talked so
much for years; he opened himself out to the boy, told
him business secrets, of negotiations that had been
brought to satisfactory conclusion, of orders pending or
given. For the moment, he saw the bright side of every-
thing. He forgot that but an hour ago he had seen the
necessity of exposing a dwindling clientele, a diminished
profit, a shrinking of capital value, and commercial
possibility. There were no orders nowadays for books
like Walter Rothschild's, or Millais' "Wild Game," no
unlimited commissions. But Sebastian's announcement
made everything appear more hopeful. The days of
hand-made paper no longer seemed numbered, no Amer-
ican enterprise seemed now to be knocking at the door
of established interests.
David had his hour; it was characteristic of him to
shorten it through consideration of others than himself.
"But what will your mother say?" There was the
question that took the savour from his new happiness.
Sebastian met it easily.
"There will be a row, of course," he said, easily; the
"row" would be half the fun. Sebastian understood,
little less clearly than David, with what contempt Va-
nessa regarded the source of her luxuries. And her
ambitions for her son were a no less open secret.
SEBASTIAN 107
"But she has got a lot of common sense," he urged.
"She will give in when she knows my mind is made up.
She had set her heart on my staying on at Eton, and
going in for the Newcastle, but I soon brought her over
to my way of thinking. Don't you worry about the
mater, you leave it to me; I can manage her."
But David had his misgivings, his deep misgivings.
Vanessa despised P. and A. Kendall and Co. He could
not help being cheered and encouraged by Sebastian,
but his great content was troubled.
It was finally decided between the two that Vanessa
was not to be told for the moment. Her mind was full
of the new book, and it was not fair to distract her
further. The news could wait. Meanwhile David
thought Sebastian should pay his visit to Scotland, he
should take some holiday before starting work, the new
gun must be used.
Before Sebastian left his father that night, David
tried to tell him what he had been to him. Sebastian
wanted his father to know he was glad of the chance
of showing his love and his gratitude. But neither of
them found the right words.
"We'll work the old show into a boom, won't we?"
said Sebastian, as he leant over and kissed him good-
night. "You'll call it P. and A. Kendall and Son? I
suppose I shall be a partner?"
"Well, not all at once." David smiled again, but
he was very moved. "We mustn't hurt your uncles'
feelings."
"They will be jolly glad to have me, they said."
"The partnership will come in time."
108 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian fortunately spared him the motor, the
mahogany, and the commissionaires, so that David,
in another sleepless night, had only Vanessa's reception
of the news to trouble him.
For the next few days, however, the matter remained
in abeyance. The first chapter progressed, Stella's con-
valescence required all of Vanessa that could be spared
from the book, and father and son were practically left
to each other.
Sebastian grew in intimacy with his father in these
days. The deeper he saw into David's mind, the more
definite grew his allegiance. David expounded his com-
mercial creed. Sincerity, punctuality, an open and
honest profit, were the basis of it. Commercial integ-
rity was religion to him. No consideration of gain
must alter the standard, the name must shine clear.
The word of P. and A. Kendall stood, and must stand,
for more than the bond of any other firm. Proudly he
told of connections of thirty years where there had
never been a contract, nor pen put to paper.
"It is enough when we say we will undertake to
supply a certain quality, or on a certain date. They
never bind us down, none of our customers treat us as
they do other people with whom they have dealings."
He mentioned various houses, and dilated upon his
standing with them. Vanessa might have despised all
this talk and pride, but it held Sebastian.
He went twice with his father to the City, and en-
joyed his new consequence at the office, and the new
interest of his uncles. He liked them to talk before
him, to handle the samples of paper, to feel he was
SEBASTIAN 109
being treated as a man, and one who must eventually
inherit all the knowledge and interests they had ac-
cumulated. That which had at first been an honest
sacrifice of inclination assumed a different aspect. He
was enjoying himself in his unaccustomed position. His
father and uncles grew at times quite enthusiastic over
the diplomacy that was required, the tact in reconciling
conflicting interests, and satisfying exacting clients.
He heard of the intrigues of competitors, and the way
to combat them, the intricacies of finance, and the
mysteries of bills of exchange. And the relation of this
trade warfare made a new man of David, his eyes
brightened, his figure was more alert, he grew ani-
mated, almost well. The boy wanted to begin at once.
That whatever they could do, he would do better, was
ingrained in him. And what an audience they would
make ! Already he saw them in the background, ap-
plauding.
Vanessa, waking to mundane things a few days later,
found this intimacy between father and son. It hurt,
or vexed her, somehow.
She was dining out that night, and whilst she was
dressing, she analysed her feelings. She recognised
that her jealousy of David and Sebastian was rather
mean. After all, they were father and son. She
must not allow her pride in the boy, and his Ventom
inheritance, to hurt David. She had been careless of
them both these last few days. There is something
wonderful about a first chapter. She knew it had ab-
sorbed more of her than she could justly spare. But
out of her library she was unaccountably worried.
110 SEBASTIAN
Stella's illness had sapped her nervous system. Stella
understood Vanessa. Vanessa prided herself that she
knew Stella. It must be the nervous system, because
Stella, who had borne all her troubles with gaiety of
spirit, and light humour, had been depressed this time,
had admitted to secret weeping, had asked Vanessa to
give her what time she could spare.
Stella's pride had usually forborne to urge what
Vanessa was always glad to give. But lately she had
not forborne to show that she needed her sister's love.
Vanessa thought of all these things as she dressed.
She became even more convinced that a novelist should
have no human ties ! And then, with an irrational
satisfaction, she remembered Sebastian was going with
her to the St. Maurs'. She would have him all to her-
self in the brougham, note him among the other guests,
feel her pride in possession. She thought he was dis-
tinguished-looking, his evening-clothes became him.
She had refused the invitation for herself and David.
But when Mrs. St. Maur had written that her son would
like to renew his acquaintance with Sebastian, she had
cancelled her, refusal.
"It will be rather a bore, won't it?" Sebastian asked
in the brougham.
"I don't think so. I think you may enjoy it. The
St. Maurs are lion-hunters in a small way, and the
asses' skins are generally humorously prominent. What
have you been doing all day ? I am sorry I have been
so uncompanionable."
"I've been to the City with the pater."
"To the City !" she repeated in surprise. "I thought
you were there last week."
SEBASTIAN 111
" Well ! the pater has been going every day for thirty
odd years."
" The pater!"
But the brougham had drawn up at the St. Maurs',
and he had no time to tell her more.
CHAPTER VIII
THE St. Maurs lived in Devonshire Place, in a large
over-decorated, over-furnished house permeated by
servants. There was a butler, stout as an archbishop,
many powdered footmen, velvet breeched, every ap-
purtenance that could proclaim the wealth of the St.
Maurs was supplied with a lavish hand. They were
very modern, even their name was new. Twelve or
fourteen years ago it had been Isaacs. They were not,
however, typically Isaacs; any more than they were
typically St. Maur. They were cousins, and had married
for love, spending their first years together in poverty.
How they had acquired wealth was something of a
mystery. A sewing-machine syndicate that went into
bankruptcy can hardly have accounted for the whole
of it. Yet it was after the collapse of the only specu-
lation in which Moritz Isaacs was known to have been
engaged, that he became Hilary St. Maur, and moved
from Portsdown Road, to Devonshire Place, where the
comedy of their social progress was played to an ever-
increasing audience.
Mrs. St. Maur started with the idea that their medi-
cal neighbours must be propitiated. She underwent
an operation for an appendicitis the necessity for which
a dose of salts might have obviated. She took a rest
cure later on, on the advice of a heart specialist who
112
SEBASTIAN 113
had captured the organ of a popular novelist, and be-
come the hero of one of her books. Mrs. St. Maur had
the harmless tonsils of her children removed, and even
invented adenoids for them, in an ambitious moment.
She was contemplating inoculation with a brand-new
microbe, to cure a fortunate boil of Hilary St. Maur,
when she discovered that, socially, the Harley Street
medicos had no status, and that their wives had no
style !
Then she joined a Bridge club, and revelled for a
few months among obscure titles, deeming herself very
smart, delighted at the censure of Father Vaughan.
The air of the club was thick with scandal, the rela-
tions between the lady and gentleman secretary more
than suspect — and the upshot was in the Law Courts,
unsavoury and conclusive. This cured Mrs. St. Maur
of Bridge, but nothing could cure her of the wish to
rise.
The ambitions of the St. Maurs were wholly ad-
mirable. They desired to be considered artistic, liter-
ary, and above all things, cultured. Probably the
extraordinary stupidity of Mrs. St. Maur accounted
for the final illusion that they had attained their desire.
She talked house decoration with a specious gentleman,
representing an Oxford Street firm, and the white walls
and carton pierre decorations of the Devonshire Place
house were the disastrous result.
She bought pictures and bronzes on the same advice,
and often quoted his dicta on contemporary art, and
artists. He had a very high opinion of the Hon. John
Collier, whose flamboyant portrait of Mrs. St. Maur
114 SEBASTIAN
pervaded the dining-room, but he thought nothing at
all of William Nicholson, or James Pryde, whose price-
less drawings of the two children were consequently
banished to the schoolroom !
The Jew is always a collector, however. And now
the St. Maurs collected guests. They had apparently
no friends, and they had risen beyond their relations.
The people they gathered around their hospitable table
were a heterogeneous set of disconnected individuals,
bearing names one knew vaguely. They had generally
to be introduced to host or hostess, coupled with an
explanation.
What then brought Vanessa Kendall here?
Sebastian, in his very early days, had been sent to a
day school in Somerset Street, where Reginald St.
Maur was a pupil. Sebastian had been asked to tea,
to a children's party, Mrs. St. Maur had called upon
Vanessa. But the acquaintance had made little prog-
ress, the desire for it was so completely one-sided.
Dr. Gifford attended both households, and that was
something of a link. The boys were together again at
their preparatory school. They were not friends, there
was as little in common between them as between their
parents, but they knew each other. And it became
increasingly difficult to decline invitations, couched in
terms such as these:
"I am sure, dear Mrs. Rendall, you would like to
meet your sister novelist, Mrs. D'Ekroyd Baker, who
is longing to make your acquaintance ..." or, "I do
hope you are disengaged this day month. Mr. Grotz,
who, as you know, has painted the great religious picture
SEBASTIAN 115
of the century, is honouring us with his company ..."
or, "We have been so unfortunate until now with our
dates. Can you join us on the 15th? Reggie is home
from Harrow and would so like to meet Sebastian again.
You say your husband is an invalid, and rarely dines
out, will you not bring your son instead? Lady de
Cliffe is coming, her husband is the great pigeon
shot. . . ."
The velvet-breeched, powdered footman passed the
names from one to another, and Mrs. and Mr. Kendall
were duly announced to a drawing-room of which the
prevailing feature was white plaster ornamentation.
The walls were panelled in crimson satin, and formed
the background for a number of people in the wrong
clothes, awkward in their carriage, disconnected in their
grouping, giving a general impression of being hired for
the occasion, of not being "society" in the ordinary
acceptation of the word. From these groups there
emerged a fluffy hostess in glasses, an extravagantly
thin host, also in glasses, a diminutive dark son, and
an extraordinarily fat girl of about sixteen, who, it
may be incidentally mentioned, was banished to the
schoolroom before dinner was served.
Mrs. St. Maur was a little overwhelming in her grati-
tude to Vanessa for honouring them with her presence.
Mrs. St. Maur had an affected voice, and too much
manner. Arthur St. Maur was so gentlemanly that one
would have taken him for a gentleman if he would have
misbehaved himself ever so slightly. He, too, had
adopted his wife's high falsetto voice, and he shook
hands from an angle that had been fashionable in '94.
116 SEBASTIAN
Sportsmanship was his speciality ; having skated several
times at Olympia, he considered himself an Olympian
athlete.
"Do you play golf?" he asked Vanessa, as he offered
her his arm. " No ? Then I suppose you hunt, or per-
haps you play croquet; croquet is becoming quite a
fashionable amusement? I saw the other day that
Lady Aline Summers had taken part in a tournament !"
"Mind you keep Mrs. Rendall amused," Mrs. St.
Maur had said.
Vanessa, taking stock of her surroundings, began to
think he need not make much effort.
Sebastian and Reggie had nodded to each other with
the non-committal air of the public school boy, taking
in each other's "get up," at a glance.
"He is sidey, a regular Etonian," Reggie thought,
being an Harrovian, and used to having his thoughts
ready made for him.
" Got his- father's beak, and promises to inherit his
mother's figure; poor little beast! I must be civil to
him," was Sebastian's reflection. They went in to
dinner together, and hated it.
The table was laden with exotic flowers, a miniature
fountain sent up continual sprays of scent. There was
a bouquet of pink roses for every lady, and a button-
hole of lilies for every gentleman. The table linen was
heavily inlaid with lace, all the glass was Venetian, and
the dinner service was of gold, luxury seemed to have
said its last word.
The company upon which it was lavished seemed
strange in such surroundings. Vanessa listened to her
SEBASTIAN 117
host, his dark face inclined deferentially to her; he
was trying to find her taste. He was ready to enthuse
on any subject, would meet her views, or opinions,
speak in praise of Catholicism, or of the ingenuity of
the three card trick. He was there to make himself
agreeable to the guest of the evening. He tried every-
thing but silence. Yet that would have best pleased
Vanessa, who was interested in the mise en scene. She
could just see Sebastian at the other end of the table.
He was not talking to Reggie; he looked bored, but
nodded to her, and raised his wine glass.
There was an Irish novelist who looked like a lob-
worm, and a minor poet, long-haired and hungry.
Both these Vanessa knew, but the majority of the
other diners were strange to her. When she found her
host liked to be asked who was this, or the other, and
was proud of his guests, she had no hesitation in satis-
fying her curiosity. She learned that the lady with a
red nose, and a number of gold hairpins holding to-
gether an untidy yellow wig, wrote wonderful serials for
the Evening Meteor, and that the little fair man with
the waxed moustache was the author of the most suc-
cessful novel of the season. She had never heard of
this successful novel, but surveyed its author with the
interest her host seemed to expect. There was a lady
in an 1889 tea-gown, who, she was told, composed
acrostics, and an Indian in native dress who, it was
understood, would presently recite. Mr. and Mrs.
George S terry were stars, in their way, and so was
Miss Margaret Stiltson. But the St. Maurs knew now
that the social vogue of the actor and actress was no
118 SEBASTIAN
greater than that of the doctors' wives, and her host
mentioned these apologetically.
Vanessa became aware, presently, of a pair of green,
iridescent eyes surveying her with some interest. She
saw a fair head, that had evidently been dressed by a
good hairdresser, a green and gold bodice that meant
Jay's or Paquin, of a superb chain of uncut emeralds.
"Who is the little lady in green, with the emeralds?"
"That is Lady Hilda de Cliff e. Her husband is a
famous shot, she is a great favourite with a Royal
Prince !" He dropped his voice when he conveyed this
information.
After the long dinner was over, all the extravagance
of the menu discussed and ended, Vanessa found herself
interested only in the Prince's favourite.
Lady Hilda had preceded her hostess into the drawing-
room, and lent but a careless ear to her gush. She
sank into the most luxurious chair the room commanded,
and said, so that anybody might hear:
" Who is the woman in black cr&pe de chine f I want
to talk to her; bring her over to me."
It was superfluous for Mrs. St. Maur to explain to
Vanessa that Lady Hilda desired an introduction. It
was a custom of the house for the host and hostess to
find themselves ignored. Vanessa and Hilda smiled at
each other, the rapprochement was effected without
words.
"It is a treat to meet a frock like yours in this rag-
bag, or to see a woman walk across the room as if she
had a parr of legs that matched," was Lady de Cliff e's
unconventional beginning.
SEBASTIAN 119
Vanessa had indeed a charming figure, and held her
well-shaped head erect, her dark eyes were very bright,
and she looked young for her years. The dark hair,
with its one white strand, was surmounted by a diamond
coronet, of exquisite workmanship. Vanessa nad the
dress instinct, although her attractiveness was inde-
pendent of her clothes. She liked none but simple
things, and by definitely adopting, and keeping true to
her standard, she achieved an asceticism informed by
distinction. Hilda admired her, and told her so, quite
frankly, after a few commonplaces had been exchanged.
But Hilda de Cliffe had little traffic with the common-
place.
"Mrs. St. Maur has just told me who you are. Do
you know that I have all your books, bound in very
light grey, undressed leather, with hammered silver
corners? I never can read a novel until it has been
rebound, can you?"
"I am your exact antithesis. I must have my
modern literature quite fresh, preferably in MSS., at the
worst in proof. All my publishers indulge my idio-
syncrasies, and send me their books before publication."
"I should like to talk to you about your books; are
you very sensitive about them? "
"Not inordinately, I think."
"The woman novelist bores me to tears. But your
novels are so extraordinarily sexless that they interested
me. I only came here to-night because I heard you were
coming, and I wanted to talk to you, to get at your
secret."
"My secret?"
120 SEBASTIAN
"Yes! I suppose you did not know you had one!
Looking at you, I find it fairly simple to guess. You
are demi vierge; you have never loved, nor suffered, nor
lived intensely for one single hour. You are virtuous,
simple. . . ."
She uttered her impertinences with such a charming
air that Vanessa, although she flushed, was not really
offended.
"Did my books tell you all this?"
"They told me a great deal of it. It is unusual to
find so much paradox, and so little humanity, in an
English novel. Of course it is all right for me, I like
that sort of thing, it is such a change. You see, 7 live,
all the time I live." One could not look at her red lips,
and smiling eyes, the invitation of her, and doubt it.
"I believe you are worse than innocent, you are ig-
norant." She laughed delightedly at having discovered
it.
Vanessa had not had much to endure in the way of
criticism. She had ever been one of the spoilt children
of the press. In the first place, she knew the right
people, in the second, it had become a habit with the
literary journals to praise the finished workmanship,
the undeniable style, and technique, of the daughter of
John Hepplewight-Ventom. Her small, eclectic public
remained always faithful. There was intellect in her
novels. Hilda described them:
" They are morally restful ; all phrase and no feeling.
We smile, but we never laugh, we are told of emotions,
but there is no throb, the refinement of your men and
women characterises every conversation, and cramps
SEBASTIAN 121
every situation. It is extraordinarily clever of you to
have avoided dulness. For nothing is so dull in real
life as well-bred men and women who 'retain their
composure under any stress of feeling.' " She quoted
the words mockingly.
"Stressful moments are few. Good manners tell all
the time."
"You are quite good-looking," the other said, medi-
tatively. "I wonder ... I wonder no man has ever
startled, or taught you the things that are not in your
books."
Vanessa flushed again:
" I ought to have told you, I thought you knew ; I am
married; I have a grown-up son, he is here with me to-
night."
Hilda de Cliffe burst out laughing.
"I believe you must have been to Girton. There is
nothing between that, and suburbanism, to account for
you ! And your clothes redeem you from the last
reproach. Dear woman, I like you, I want to see more
of you. You must come and visit me in Curzon Street."
"I should like to," Vanessa answered, impulsively,
although already her circle of acquaintances was very
large, and she was not given to promiscuous calling.
"And introduce me to your son. You are much too
young to have a grown-up son. I suppose he has been
neglected, and is gauche and impossible, hairy and ill-
mannered. I am always so sorry for the children of
clever women. I knew two girls once, whose mother
was an M.D. and a militant suffragette. They came to
a party at Lord Pomfort's, my step-father-in-law, you
122 SEBASTIAN
know. Good Heavens ! I can see them now; in filthy,
dirty dresses that looked as if they came out of a theatri-
cal wardrobe, white cotton stockings, one with a hole,
green satin slippers down at heel. Ugh ! Yes, I must
see your son."
Vanessa could afford to smile. She stayed beside her
strange fellow-guest until the men came up.
Hilda caught the quick glance that flashed between
her and Sebastian.
"Impossible!" she exclaimed.
"It really is."
" But he has quite an air."
"His grandfather was John Hepplewight-Ventom,"
she answered, simply.
"I know. But he has been brought up by a female
novelist!"
Sebastian, slender and graceful, his clothes well put
on, and his manner completely assured, approached.
"And so you really are Mr. Kendall," Hilda began,
caressingly, putting out a jewelled hand.
"Was there ever any doubt about it? " he answered,
dropping easily into a chair beside her.
"Lady de Cliffe thinks you must have been neglected."
"I have suffered just the other way," he said lightly.
"I have had too much attention."
"Unlike your mother," she said, mischievously, "who
tells me she has had none."
Sebastian looked up inquiringly. But Arthur St.
Maur bore down upon them.
"I want you to come into the other room with me.
Mademoiselle Nigaska is just going to begin; she is
giving us an Indian love song." »
SEBASTIAN 123
Hilda refused to move. She said she wanted to talk
to Mr. Kendall. Sebastian was more than satisfied to
remain. Lady Hilda reminded him of Pleasey. He
wished he could see Pleasey dressed like this; he was
sure she had more hair, a better figure.
On their way home Vanessa asked him what had been
the subject of their conversation.
"She talks like the people in your books," was his
summary, after attempting a synopsis, and failing to
satisfy himself. He added: "I rather like it. Who is
she? she asked me to come and see her. Thundering
good dinner, wasn't it? Reggie is Harrow all over, a
regular little bounder."
"You were not bored then? "
" No ! I liked that hot lobster stuff in the gold sauce-
pans. The asparagus ice was good, too. I say, they
must have tons of money. I suppose Reggie will get
the lot. He talks of nothing but girls. I promised to
introduce him to Bice; she'll teach him what he looks
like." Then he yawned.
"I wonder what the pater has been doing? "
"Also yawning, probably," she replied, smiling.
CHAPTER IX
SEBASTIAN had not yet broken his great news to his
mother. It was difficult to obtain her undivided atten-
tion, she was absorbed in the opening chapters of the
new book. He might have told her on the night of the
St. Maurs' dinner, but the moment seemed inappropriate.
He talked about it with his father, and David, weak
himself, and dreading the moment, counselled delay.
"You are going to take a few days' shooting before
you start work. Wait until you come back. There is
no hurry. Perhaps by then Aunt Stella will be out of
town, the first chapters finished, and everything easier."
"What are you going to do? "
" Oh ! never mind about me. I am all right again,
perhaps I will go away for a little, later on. Uncle Will-
iam is having a fortnight now. Uncle John ought to
have a change."
"The mater is going on a round of visits in Sep-
tember, she tells me. Why don't you go with her?
I'll be back by then; I'll take your place in Queen
Victoria Street. I shall know all about it in next to no
time."
"We shall see."
David was nervously anxious for Sebastian to take a
holiday, nervously anxious to put off the communication
to his mother ; full of thought for every one but himself.
124
SEBASTIAN 125
Sebastian was stocked, and over-stocked, with clothes
and money. He had ammunition enough to decimate
a moor. Waterproof leggings were purchased, and all
the necessities and gear for duck shooting, and grouse
driving, deer stalking, and every conceivable form of
sport ! That he eventually missed a rabbit, and peppered
a keeper, never became public. But at least he re-
frained from boasting of his exploits.
Vanessa used his absence to finish her first and second
chapters. She was habitually a slow writer. When
she had packed off Stella to the Isle of Wight, and Se-
bastian to the moors, she could devote herself with an
easy mind to the embroglio she was bringing about in
"Between the Nisi and the Absolute." David knew how
to keep out of her way.
Only one incident disturbed her working hours. And
that was a visit to Lady de Cliffe. She had called, the
day after the party at the St. Maurs', leaving her own
and Sebastian's cards. A week later she received a
hurried scrawl, saying the writer was ill, and yearned to
see Vanessa again, begging her to come and sit with her.
She added, naively, that every one else was out of town.
It was the candour of it that appealed to Vanessa.
She walked to Curzon Street that afternoon. Lady
de Cliffe lived in a narrow, ill-built house, with a blue
door. It was next but one to a public-house, and the
aroma from the licensed premises came to Vanessa as she
stood on the step. A foreign man-servant let her in,
with apparent reluctance. She was shown into the
white-painted, meretricious drawing-room, to find her
hostess alone, huddled up over the fire, looking ill,
126 SEBASTIAN
rather dishevelled, altogether different from her expecta-
tions. The house, too, was a shock, everything about the
narrow hall, and the staircase, hung with caricatures
and sporting prints, seemed out of keeping with the
brilliant little woman, who had talked so entertainingly
of modern literature.
Lady de Cliffe, however, was undoubtedly pleased to
see her visitor; she made her sit by the fire, and in-
structed the soiled foreigner to bring up tea imme-
diately, and to say she was out, should any one call.
"Isn't this house dreadful?" she asked Vanessa,
almost in the first breath. "We took it, furnished,
five years ago. I dislike it so much that I have never
been able to give it up. It belongs to that woman
who kidnapped Lord Loftus; you know who I mean,
Rothwell's eldest son. She was forty something, and
he was nineteen. Her first husband was a brewer,
but she is not even wealthy. Rothwell was delighted,
there is something wrong about the boy, I don't know
exactly what, and she takes care of him. He is never
likely to have children, so the succession is secured for
the second son, whom his father adores. Loftus gets an
infinitesimal allowance, and she travels about with the
title, and keeps him out of mischief, and always en
evidence. This is her house. Did you notice the cari-
catures? they are cut out of illustrated papers. In my
bedroom there are some Christmas numbers, framed,
and all 'dear Marie Corelli's ' books are in that case! "
She indicated a white painted cupboard, the top
decorated with modern Dresden figures. The white,
machine-made furniture was upholstered in light blue
SEBASTIAN 127
damask. The curtains matched it, the carpet had a
blue centre, and a border of pink roses. Everything was
hideously en suite.
"I suppose you wonder how I can live here? Hugh
cannot bear the place, he has only slept one night in it,
in five years."
"That must be dull for you."
Vanessa was out of her surroundings, a little at sea,
it was all new to her. She was attracted, repelled, but
above all things interested. She had never before met
any one so like the people she invented. Hilda, al-
though she was shivering over the fire, obviously de-
pressed and out of spirits, roused herself to laugh at the
suggestion that she must be dull without her husband.
" Oh ! Hugh and I hardly ever meet ; we agree so
marvellously that we are afraid to spoil it. He is gen-
erally racing, when I'm in London; or, perhaps, it is
baccarat, and pigeons. He is always busy. I met him
last year at Monte Carlo. I rather think he had a lady
with him, for he was horribly distrait, and afraid lest my
feelings should be hurt ! I lent him my jewellery to pay
her off, he told me she was spoiling his shooting average."
The advent of tea for the time stopped the confi-
dences. The tea was abominably served, and of in-
ferior quality. Every time Vanessa got up to go Hilda
begged her to remain. She went on talking:
"No, I'm not really ill," this was in response to a
question, "but I got hopelessly bored at Newmarket,
and Hugh insisted on calling in the village idiot, who
practises medicine in that part. He practised on me to
such an extent that I ran away. He took the liberty of
128 SEBASTIAN
suggesting I had appendicitis. I believe he would have
insisted on that disfiguring operation if I had stayed in
bed another hour. I came to town, and saw Dr. Gif-
ford. . . ."
"My Dr. Gifford?"
"I don't know whether he is yours, I rather thought
he was mine. He asked me whether I had ever been a
victim of the morphia habit." She shot an enquiring
glance at Vanessa, but obviously no whisper had reached
her. "I was in bed, but he said he would have me on
the sofa in a day or two. Wasn' t it enterprising of him ? ' '
Half of Hilda's talk went over Vanessa's head, but the
other half proved stimulating. It was a new sensation
to meet her brain children in the flesh. Hilda seemed
only that, and she liked hearing her talk.
Lady de Cliffe said she had only once before met a
living English novelist. She was full of anecdotes
about this poor lady. The wife of a surgeon, deaf,
and a "typsomaniac," she lived in lodgings in a back
street in Mayfair, and rented a room, occasionally, at
Westgate-on-Sea. Her cards were -printed "Mrs. Her-
bert Mathieson-Barnes, Howard House, Mayfair. Ab-
botsford, Isle of Thanet."
This woman, red-haired, ungrammatical, and unsuc-
cessful, was of course well known to Vanessa, who had
often felt sorry for her idiosyncrasies, pretensions, and
poverty. She had not known of the cards, and the
assumption of a house in Mayfair, an estate in the
country, although she knew that, having neither birth
nor breeding, Mrs. Barnes laid large claim to both.
Hilda posed her in a new light, much more entertaining.
SEBASTIAN 129
After that day, Vanessa and Lady de Cliffe fell into
something approaching intimacy, their incompatibility
of temperament making their superficial congeniality
more piquant. Hilda discovered the puritan under the
paradoxist, anticipating a day of shock. Vanessa
found herself on strange ground, with which she felt
herself mysteriously, or half, familiar, as if she had been
there in dreams.
It was the first fortnight in August. Parliament
had risen late, and London was practically empty. With
Sebastian and Stella both away, Vanessa had unoc-
cupied afternoons, and twice she drove out with Lady
de Cliffe, once she went to the theatre with her. The
mornings were taken up with the book.
David had no such compensation.
David Kendall, all through that hot and exhausting
August, remained in Harley Street, making his daily
journey to the City, spending his solitary hours face to
face with an emergency that taxed, to the uttermost
extent, his moral and his physical strength. He knew,
far better than Sebastian, what it would mean to Vanessa
to hear that all her ambitions for Sebastian were Dead
Sea fruit, that the dreams she had dreamed, and the
brilliant edifices she had built in the air, were to be
demolished ; that the heir of all the ages, the pride of the
Ventoms, the fine flower and culmination of them, as
she deemed, and rightly deemed, Sebastian, was to
follow in the despised footsteps of his father, was to buy
and sell in the market-place, and use his gifts to chaffer
in goods. David's love for her, that had taught him to
stand out of her path, taught him also how hardly she
130 SEBASTIAN
would take her disappointment. Vanessa was still a
girl to him, and it was true there was no maturity of
knowledge, or suffering in her. She had only lived
in books and dreams. So much would be taken from
her when Sebastian's future, which had been her bright-
est phantasmagoria for eighteen contented years, faded
into obscurity. David had wanted to give her every-
thing, instead, he would take from her that which made
her life complete, the pride and joy of her maternity.
He knew the measure of Vanessa's love for Sebastian.
North, south, east, and west it was bounded by her am-
bition for him, and the unstable foundation of it had been
the Hepplewight-Ventom tradition.
David had an intense longing for the boy's com-
panionship, a yearning that was almost painful, to have
him for the house of Kendall. He guessed how short a
time was before him in which to wind up his affairs.
And they were not prosperous, they were not as they
seemed on the surface. Business was altering, growing
more difficult, there were new methods, and new men,
with whom to compete. P. and A. Kendall had not
moved with the times, and now the rushing feet of time
would not lag for them to make fresh headway.
Vanessa must have her luxuries, and Sebastian his.
David Kendall, in his bachelor days, had been a man of
large charities, and these he could never abandon.
The income to meet expenditure had been earned, but
little or nothing had been added to capital. And his
days were numbered. No man knew the number of them.
He had demanded the truth of Dr. Gifford. Reluctantly,
for it was not the nature of David Kendall to be peremp-
SEBASTIAN 131
tory, and here he had been insistent, Dr. Gifford had
been forced to admit that it was not indigestion from
which David Kendall was suffering, nor premature old
age, but a well-known, easily diagnosed, lesion of the
heart.
" You may live until you are seventy, you may die at
any moment. You force me to tell you, and that is the
exact truth. You can see as many consultants as you
like. I will go with you to Sir Thomas Barlock, or Dr.
Badminton, or Greentree, or you can go alone. But
none of them will tell you anything different, if they are
honest with you. Valvular disease, that is the name by
which the public know your complaint," he gave him a
brief technical description. "I have seen a man, with
valvular disease of the heart, live to be seventy-four.
I've known another, differing from him in no appreciable
way, die in his carriage on the way home from my
consulting room; fortunately before my prescription
was made up!"
"I am grateful to you for your candour," David had
said, steadily, after a moment's pause. He looked at
grey death, but the shadowy one had no terror for him.
Only in the depths lay reflected the faces of his beloved,
of Vanessa and Sebastian, it was they death must not
hurt.
"You are a brave man, David Kendall."
"No! it isn't that. I know she will be as well, or
better, without me, I have done nothing for her. But
the boy . . . " his eyes were a little dim, he did not want
to leave the boy.
"That boy of yours will grow into a fine fellow if you
132 SEBASTIAN
let him share responsibility with you ; you will attenuate
him if you give him nothing but himself for nourish-
ment."
"But there is his mother to think of first."
Dr. Gifford had never seen eye to eye with David
as to Vanessa's claims.
" I should not let his mother's views weigh too heavily
with me," he said, drily, "you cannot make men out of
paper and ink. Mrs. Kendall is a novelist."
"I must think what is best for her," he persisted.
It ended, the long sleepless nights, the long solitary
evenings, all the thought, and well-nigh desperate, desire
to do what was right and best for them both, in David
opening his heart fully to his son.
He wrote Sebastian a letter, the boy has it now, it
made a man of him, although, of course, the material
was always there. It told him his mother had the first
claim upon him, and reminded him of little tender,
childish things. It said that if, by accident or illness,
his own life were shortened, it was true he could not
leave them enough to live as they lived now, and very
humbly it entreated Sebastian's pardon for this. He
had been weak, but it had been a great thing for him when
Vanessa had consented to be his wife, she needed some
compensation, it had been his pride and happiness to
minister to her; Sebastian must ever feel the same.
Now it came to him that Vanessa would miss her ambi-
tion more than she would miss any other luxury, and it
was only luxuries of which his death would deprive them,
not necessities. He had therefore decided to take a
short holiday, and rest, as Dr. Gifford had advised;
SEBASTIAN 133
after which he felt he would be able to work again, for
both of them. He was " not done yet" ; he would work
better for the knowledge that Sebastian had wished to be
with him.
" We can talk together better now, my dear boy, and I
shall often consult you, and tell you all I am doing.
But you must not sacrifice your career, nothing could
make up to your mother for that, we will find a way
out of the money difficulties ..." and he added some-
thing of what Sebastian's sympathy and offer had meant
to him.
Sebastian had a fresh glimpse into the love his father
bore to him and to his mother, the chivalry, the utter
unselfishness of it.
He wrote back, in his unfinished scrawl, Etonian,
and illiterate.
"DearGov.
"Don't rot about my career; it's bound up in P.
and A. Kendall and Co. (I suppose I'm the Co. until I
get to be a partner?) I'll be at the office 9.30 on the
25th as arranged, and I expect to boss the show in about
a fortnight.
"Don't funk about the mater, leave that up to
me; get away as soon as you like. What about Nor-
way ? The mater has never laid a scene on one of these
steamers. I should think she'd like something new.
She could chuck her autumn visits; she doesn't shoot.
You can get salmon in Norway — ripping fun, salmon
fishing.
" By the way, a fellow I've met here says if I'm going
134 SEBASTIAN
in the City I ought to have a rolled-top desk, and some
Shannon files. I suppose you'll see to all that.
" Love to the firm. So long !
"Yours,
"SEBASTIAN KENDALL.
" (Pro Messrs. P. and A. Rendall and Co.)
"Pretty quick at the jargon, aren't I?"
CHAPTER X
VANESSA would not leave London until Sebastian
returned. David did not really intend to go away at all.
Always the refrain beat itself in his brain that his time
was short; there was so much to do.
Lady de Cliffe left London, at last, for Newmarket,
after exacting a promise from Vanessa that she would visit
her there in the late autumn. Husband and wife were
left to the intercourse that meant a greater loneliness
for each of them than if they had been alone. Their
strained silences, their yet more strained conversation,
set a note of gloom about the house. And yet there was
no ill will in either of them. The word incompatibility
covers it all. Vanessa wished David would go away
and enjoy himself. David wished every good thing for
his wife ; fame and fortune, even love. But for Sebastian,
he had had no gift for her. Her kindness hurt him, the
unspoken criticisms that he read in her eyes, when he
coughed, or moved awkwardly, or spoke of what could
not interest her, made life well-nigh intolerable to him.
But for Sebastian ! There was always Sebastian's
return to which to look forward.
Vanessa announced it at breakfast. It was already
the 22nd.
"Sebastian will be home the day after to-morrow.
He writes me he has something to tell me, some news
135
136 SEBASTIAN
that will surprise me. I suppose you have no idea
what it is?"
David was not very good at equivocation; but
Vanessa fortunately did not press her question. It had,
in fact, occurred to her, almost in the act of speaking,
that Sebastian had not mentioned his father, and it was
possible he did not wish him to know what the matter
was that he would confide in her, until they had talked it
over together.
Vanessa was waiting to hear about the year or two of
foreign travel, and the essential acquisition of modern
languages, and to what it was to lead. She had not
pressed for Sebastian's confidence, but she felt it must be
diplomacy he was contemplating. Already she had been
wondering if Lord Saighton's influence was still of value,
and thinking how pleased Stella would be if she could be
the medium to obtain it for the boy. Vanessa knew
Lord Saighton had been an intimate friend of Jack
Ashton's, and was still an occasional visitor in Weymouth
Street. That was all she knew.
On Sunday evening, Sebastian returned.
"Hallo, mater, not gone yet? I thought you were
due at the Cowers'/' was his greeting to his mother.
He stooped to kiss his father.
"Told her all about it?" he asked him.
Vanessa looked from one to another. She and David
had been sharing the drawing-room, awaiting Sebastian's
arrival. David had been even more than usually rest-
less, and Vanessa had found it difficult to control her
irritation.
" There is no sense in walking backward and forwards
SEBASTIAN 137
to the window," she had said. " He will probably be an
hour late."
David's restlessness irritated and fidgeted her. She
could not know its source. His time was so short,
there was so much still to do.
And Sebastian, here almost before it was possible,
stopped the rush of pleasure that always came to her
with his mere presence, by his confidential smile, and
quick question :
"Have you told her?"
What was there David could tell her of him ?
The boy was too full of it to wait. He was boy enough
to 3iijoyin anticipation the effect he was going to produce.
In his Harris tweed travelling suit, brown tie and boots,
tan gloves, every detail of his toilette studied and correct,
he satisfied her eye and taste.
"Let us have tea; there wasn't a Pullman on the
train, and I hate the stuff they give you at stations.
Been all right, pater?"
"I'm all right, glad to see you back again. You've
had a good time?"
"Simply ripping."
Vanessa was already out of tune. It was difficult to
recognise that she was jealous of Sebastian's love for his
father, for hers was truly not an ignoble nature. David
dreaded, for her, what was to follow. When the man
was bringing in the tray, he took the opportunity to
ask Sebastian to wait with his news. David was very
nervous ; Sebastian grinned, and thought it good fun.
"That's not half enough buttered toast. I am simply
famished. Bring another stack, and look sharp," he
138 SEBASTIAN
said to the butler. "Four lumps of sugar, mater. So
the pater hasn't sprung our bomb shell on you! I'm
going into business, joining that fine old firm, P. and A.
Kendall and Co. I'm a City man from to-morrow."
She looked from one to another.
"Isn't the joke rather vulgar," she asked, "rather in
bad taste?"
She poured out his tea with hands not quite steady.
But it was jealousy of the smile Sebastian threw to his
father, not the uncredited news, that unsteadied them.
She passed him the cup.
" You ought not to make fun of your father's occupa-
tion," she said, "there is nothing to be ashamed of in
business."
"That is why I'm not ashamed. What makes you
think I am making fun of the pater, or joking? I'm
in dead earnest; we settled it all up before I went away,
didn't we, governor? I've seen Uncle William, and
John too. Why, mater, you've turned quite pale.
You don't mean to say you really mind ?"
She had turned quite pale now. There was some
understanding or conspiracy between them, Sebastian
could not know how he was hurting her. David, watch-
ing, interposed quickly:
"It was not my wish. Sebastian went on his own
account, to see his uncles. ..."
" I do not know what you are both trying to tell me ;
about what you are talking. You don't suppose I am
going to submit to this degradation of my boy ? "
"Degradation! What rot, mater! Come down off
the high horse; if it's good enough for the pater, it's
more than good enough for me; you'll admit that."
139
Vanessa lost her sense of proportion, and her self-
possession :
"You are in a very different position," she said,
quickly. " You are my son."
"So I have always heard."
David got up from his chair :
"I think I'll go upstairs a little."
David could not bear to see Vanessa in this mood, to
think of her in her conflict with Sebastian.
" No ! don't go away, governor. Mater will see my
point of view in a minute. I am eighteen, the governor
is fifty. He works ten hours a day so that you and I
can have all we want."
"My dear boy!"
"Oh! do let me finish. Well! I'm not taking any
more. You are a woman, and entitled to it, I'm a man,
and I'm not. So I am going to do my share, that is all."
She turned a bitter glance on David. All the revul-
sion of her marriage, all her hatred of its old disregarded
claim, was in it.
"So that is the meaning, and the intrigue, of your
attacks of illness?"
David's heart warned him. But he must think of her
first, he must keep steady, and not lose sight of her
point of view.
"Don't say anything more," he pleaded, "don't let us
discuss it before the boy. Sebastian, wait, your mother
is always right, perhaps you have been too hasty in your
decision."
Vanessa must not say words she might regret, bitter
things that might one day come back to her. He pleaded
140 SEBASTIAN
to her for silence, and with an effort she regained a meas-
ure of control.
Sebastian had actually finished his tea. He pushed
his cup away, and stood up.
"Don't you go, pater, stay and talk it over with her,
whilst I put myself in some other togs. I suppose she
knows all you've told me ?"
He looked quickly from one to another of his parents,
he knew little of the position between them, children are
slow to recognise a division between mother and father,
if both hold their parenthood sacred, but his brain was of
exceptional quality, and his instincts acute.
"Don't bully the pater. After all, it's my own wish,
and not his. You will realise your ambitions, right
enough, mater. 'The Napoleon of the Paper Trade'
they'll call me. See if they don't ! "
From the door, still not quite satisfied at what he was
leaving behind, he added, good-humouredly :
"You know, mater, Milton had a jolly poor time com-
pared to Vanderbilt."
There was nobility in Vanessa, the future proved it.
Also, one in whom the elements were lacking could hardly
have inspired all David felt for her. Had he been able
to speak to her, even then, as he had written Sebastian,
had he been able to make her realise what she was doing,
it had been well for both of them. But he was never
quite at ease, or fluent before her. She had written
novels, inventing puppets, and endowing these, whilst
other women were sharing human thoughts with men
and women. He had thought, by leaving her leisure for
her puppets, standing between her and the world, he had
been feeding her greatest need.
SEBASTIAN 141
Now she used her cultured gift of phrase to bite into
him her intolerance and anger.
"When was the foundation stone of this conspiracy
first laid ? " she asked, when the door had closed. Since
she and David were antagonists, she would fight him
with her own weapons. "I suppose you were corre-
sponding with him all this last term at Eton, with the
view to shortening his stay there?"
Vanessa might be antagonistic to him, but he was
no match for her in speech; and if he had been, there
was no feeling but sympathy with which to point his
weapon.
"It was almost as great a surprise to me as to you;
don't take it too hardly. Let him try it, we shall not
bind him to anything."
"You will not chain him physically to the desk,"
she replied, bitterly. " You have chained him with gifts,
entangled him with sentimental appeals to some childish
feeling he had for you; you move him with an affecta-
tion of physical weakness, and incapacity."
"Affectation!"
"And because of your claim on him, you would drag
him down, selfishly, to your own level."
David's eyes were a little dim. How she must
be hurt, to try and wound him, to voice that which she
had tried always to conceal. The contempt hardly
touched him, he had always known it there, and in his
fine humility accepted it as reasonable.
"I make no claim on him, on either of you," he
answered.
That touched her a little, and she wavered in her
142 SEBASTIAN
indictment. She tried now, in her own way, to hold
the scale even.
"He is only half educated. I have been laying the
foundation on which to erect a scholar. To under-
mine my influence, all I have been working for all these
years, was mean, mean. Now I know why he gave up
the Newcastle."
"No."
"Not directly perhaps. But you have appealed to
his feelings."
"Not consciously."
"That is possible. I do not want to be unjust,"
she was softening a little. David was making no fight :
she would have him on her side, she thought, quickly,
if she would bring her argument down to the level of
his intelligence.
"I do not want to be unjust," she repeated. "I see
what has occurred. You have been run down, not in
your normal health. Instead of recuperating, you have
followed the line of least resistance, you have thought
of getting help, some one to do your work for you;
and Sebastian was the nearest. I am sorry if I spoke
too harshly, you will understand it was a great shock
to me that Sebastian should even think of abandoning
his career, in order to buy and sell paper in the City.
I don't suppose, for a moment, you can see things from
my point of view. To you, it was a strong young arm
upon which to lean, a prop for your old age. But to
me . . . Sebastian is so much more than that."
She really thought Sebastian was dearer to her than
he was to his father ! Her voice was lowered, and
SEBASTIAN 143
full of genuine feeling, as she went on: "To me, he is
almost more my father's son than mine, the son of
John Hepplewight-Ventom ! I could give my father so
little, I was so young when he died, and my own talent
is but small."
She would be generous in taking David into her
confidence, showing him the impossibility of what he
proposed.
"Stella and Bice can do nothing for the name. Se-
bastian has all the gifts, music and song, the eye of a
true artist, extraordinary power of acquiring knowledge,
the genius to use it . . ." She broke off; she even
smiled at him, making his poor heart beat more
unevenly.
"When my father came to you to make the paper
for his book, you never suggested you would write the
monograph, and he might make the paper. Sebastian,
in some ways, is greater than my father; and will. go
further. His perception is quicker, for one thing."
David could not sit still whilst Vanessa talked; he
moved restlessly about the room, and Vanessa eyed,
watched him.
She was critical of his hands, his feet, in their square-
toed boots, his want of smartness. Involuntarily she
added :
"He and I are so different to you."
On flie surface it was true. There seemed little in
common with the light and grace of Sebastian's move-
ment, in David's springless step, nor in the boy's clear-
cut Ventom features and bright eyes, with David's
dulness of vision. But looking a little more intelli-
144 SEBASTIAN
gently from one to another, one became conscious of
the same width of brow, and something of the same
shaped head. Vanessa saw only herself, or her father,
in the boy, but David was there, nevertheless. For-
tunately, perhaps, for the intellectual type, and Se-
bastian certainly had that for heritage, sinks to deca-
dence when like marries like.
Vanessa used all the weapons in her armoury against
David, phrase, and feeling, argument and allusion.
She thought she had fought a good, and winning, fight
when, at length, she left him. He was very wearied,
exhausted, and he had said she was probably quite
right, she was always right. He remained on in the
drawing-room when the door closed after her, he was
too tired to go upstairs just yet. He would not go to
dinner, he would leave her and Sebastian to talk things
out. Perhaps she would persuade the boy to change
his mind; to go on with his studies, en route for the
University. The University would be essential to al-
most any career that Vanessa would select for him.
That meant at least four years.
In his present condition David could not look four
years ahead. But it might be that she was right.
Perhaps he had been selfish in wanting the boy, oblivious
of his higher interests. It was difficult to gauge the ad-
vantages of a classical education if you have never had
one, and at fifty years of age to create a new ideal. In
David's youth, commercial integrity, and the good
name of P. and A. Kendall in the City, had stood to
him for all ambition. After his marriage, the effort to
make Vanessa happy, content, and free, had absorbed
his mind. He had none of the class sense which cramped
SEBASTIAN 145
his wife's vision. He did not appreciate the differences
between the finished product of Eton, Harrow, or Win-
chester; the University, and perhaps the army; and
the men, in so many instances superior, who were
tumbled out of rough schools into City offices, and grew
to hold their citizenship and their homes, higher than
the exotic civilisation of Society's convention.
Apart from the greatness that was Sebastian's birth-
right, Vanessa incidentally insisted he must be a gen-
tleman. David missed this distinction in her eyes. It
is only when eyes have cried that vision grows clear.
Vanessa had not yet cried.
Tears of passion wash away no illusions. She fought
Sebastian passionately over his defection, and he met
argument with ridicule, immovable standards with
irreconcilable illustration.
As long as he could carefully conceal from his mother
the real reason for his abrupt decision, so long as he
need not touch on his father's health, nor what he felt
about it, he could hold his own against her. Of course
he was ashamed of anything approaching sentiment.
He cared for both his parents, he was, what he called,
thoroughly "pally" and intimate with them. But if
there were a sentimental side to his mother's nature,
he had not struck it; what he liked always about her
was her quick intelligence, and appreciation of his.
They were intellectually akin. They shared an un-
practical, limited view of life, and an esoteric consid-
eration of literature. Also they both had egotism, a
faculty for criticism, and a disproportionate apprecia-
tion of paradoxical phrase.
146 SEBASTIAN
But when a boy like Sebastian is moved through his
secret sentiment to a certain course, none of these
things count, they fall into their right place.
Vanessa fought her son through a short dinner, and
a long evening. David did not appear again. She
used rhetoric, she appealed to his pride, she talked of
what his friends at Eton would say, his tutors, and the
world generally. She argued of the disgrace to her,
and of the value her position in the world of letters
would have been to him had he decided more worthily.
But she could not move him in his determination.
She even let him see her cry, she shed a hot tear or
two of baffled anger.
If he must "peddle" he must, she said, finally, there
was possibly a strain of hereditary vulgarity in him.
He could not believe that it was to his father she was
alluding, and she was quickly ashamed of having said it.
She could make him flush, she could get pin-pricks
into the sensitiveness of his young Eton-softened skin,
but she could not touch his decision, nor arrive at its
source in this way. The feeling for David, at which
she could not guess, and was not herself capable, made
him immune to her assaults.
"What is the use of talking any more about it?" he
said, at length. " I have absolutely made up my mind
that I am going into the City, that I am going to work
with the pater. But I wish you wouldn't take it the
way you do. We've never been like this before."
There had been in truth a beautiful sympathy be-
tween them. In a flash of painful intuition, gone almost
as it came, she saw the blank place in her life if she
should lose him.
SEBASTIAN 147
"That is the point I am labouring," she got out
with difficulty. "I have never crossed you, contra-
dicted you, hardly argued with you. I have never
opposed my maternity to your intelligence."
She had long ago composed the phrase, but now it
sounded flat, and the rounded period held no comfort.
But she had no other method of expression. She went
on: "I see you sinking into the slough of commer-
cialism, tarnishing all your brightness, voluntarily put-
ting out your light, extinguishing the spark of genius
in you. ... I cannot keep silence, my conscience will
not let me. Heaven knows with what argument he has
plied you. ..."
"You know he has not influenced me by a word,
except a word to consider you, before him, or myself,
or anybody," he said, reproachfully.
"You have ranged yourself with him, and against
me," she cried. "I have no longer part, or share, or
interest in you. League yourself with him if you insist,
but leave me out of your thoughts. I have nothing in
common with the life you choose."
She was angered in her pride, and jealousy, past
reasonable thought, or self-restraint. All the evening,
she had fought and argued, now her strength broke
suddenly.
"I don't know how the future will shape for me.
But I will have no part in this sacrilege you contem-
plate, nor countenance it with my presence. I shall go
away to-morrow, and in the winter I shall go abroad.
I will fill my days with work, and try what I can do
that your grandfather shall not be forgotten. Ever
148 SEBASTIAN
since you were born, I have dreamed, and longed to
make you worthy of your intellectual inheritance, I
have thought of little else."
"It never was me you cared for then, only the am-
bitions you had for me, your dreams for me."
"Perhaps. I don't know. I only know you have
never been out of my thoughts. I have subordinated
myself where you have been concerned, that you should
expand. Now I must cut you out of my life. I shall
live only for literature."
"Mater, you are angry now, disappointed. You
don't mean all this, you can't !"
"I mean a thousand times more. I know now that
my ambition for you has given colour to all my days;
that but for these dreams had all been grey. But you
don't care for that, you forget all we have been to each
other, you dissociate yourself from me. ..."
"You are thrusting me away as quickly as you
can," he murmured, half amused, incredulous.
"Not you, David Kendall's worthy son. I had never
anything in common with him. In the very first year
of our marriage I asked him to let me go, to release
me from such an unnatural tie. I wish I had been
firm about it, and had gone before I bore him a child
of whom he could rob me ! "
" Oh ! isn't that rot, just because I am going to
make paper, instead of staining it !"
"I can't expect you any longer to look at things in
the same way I do, not at this, nor anything. William
and John Kendall will form your mind, not I."
She believed every word she uttered, she believed
incredible things.
SEBASTIAN 149
All that night, when she lay awake, in rage and grief,
she reiterated she had lost her only son, and that now
nothing was left her but the children of her brain.
Sebastian had said she thrust him away from her.
Well ! it was true. She did not want to mother a City
man, David's son. But her heart ached, ached, ached.
She had not known one could suffer so. She must get
away from him, begin life again, write — travel —
study. She had been wrong in surrendering her place
to Sebastian; she had felt that, whilst she had only
talent, he had genius. Always in the background of
her mind had been the day when the critics should
write that his "grandfather's incomparable style" and
his mother's "delicate talent" had culminated in him.
And now she told herself that all the burden borne
for posterity must be hers. She was unfit to bear it,
what Hilda de Cliffe said was true, it. was puppets she
created, not men and women. She had not known
there was suffering in the world such as she felt now,
then how could she write with only inexperience to be
her guide? Yet had she but been able to analyse
what shook her, and kept her sleepless, she would have
known it was but jealousy, and a faint doubt of herself,
the knowledge, that was never spared her, of David's
goodness, the dim truth on the horizon that what she
felt for the name of Hepplewight-Ventom was inherently
the same instinct as his pride in the unbroken succes-
sion of City Kendalls. She was almost as young as her
son, undisciplined to meet disappointment.
She would leave them both, dissociate herself from
them, go away, and freed from ties, would make her
150 SEBASTIAN
new book more worthy of her and her father's name
than any she had yet written. The world would hold
her justified. In that white night, sleepless, she cried
that Sebastian should be proud of her, since she needs
must be ashamed of him.
She thought it was all true, and that the ache in
her heart would go, if she wrote books, and lived on in
dreamland, moving the world with words. She thought
that so she could recapture happiness. It is incredible,
one whom many critics had praised, could believe that
this was all for which God had given her a son. That
she might dream of his future, plan for him, and dis-
card him when his individuality outstripped her dreams !
CHAPTER XI
IT is possible David and Sebastian had heartache
too, for Vanessa Kendall was not a woman whom one
could part with easily from life and home. She had
too much personality; she had the gift, or defect, of
being the centre of her circle.
And she kept to her determination. She went away
the next day on a round of visits, without bidding
them good-bye, without giving them any indication
when she would return.
David and Sebastian started their work together,
getting what happiness and satisfaction they could
from it. But it was all flat and savourless, because
of her action. They both loved her, and this way she
taught them; David had known that love can em-
bitter life, and now Sebastian saw a glimmer of the
same sad truth.
David spent much time, in those journeys to and
from Queen Victoria Street, in talking to the boy
about his mother, mutely asking sympathy and for-
giveness for her, dwelling on generous traits, if he could
not dwell on tender ones, speaking of Vanessa's loyalty,
single-heartedness, devotion to her father's memory;
reminding him how he and Stella filled her thoughts,
and that she had never failed either of them.
"Until now," Sebastian interrupted.
151
152 SEBASTIAN
He missed her, and resented her defection. He
wanted sympathy, to talk about himself, and all that
he was doing, and planning. There is no doubt that
David's slowness of speech, and thought, awkwardness
of expression, and movement, affected Sebastian almost
as it affected Vanessa. The only difference was that
Sebastian loved his father. He wanted his mother.
All his years she had been part of him, they had lived
in a real intimacy. She could not mean to cut him off
like this. Yet his pride and her pride were alike.
He sent her no line, but plodded to the City with his
father, learning his trade. And she wrote him no word
of encouragement, nor help, nursing her grievance.
Vanessa's first visit was to the Gowers. Their place
was in Ireland, the post-town Bray. Lord Gowers was
a man of seventy, bearded, taciturn, irascible. Her
hostess was his second wife, the mother of sons. This
had been her raison d'etre, and remained her only claim
to consideration. But the boys themselves seemed
unworthy of the trouble that had been taken to secure
them. Mervyn had failed to get into the Army, and
Ren ton had been sent down from Oxford. Both were
in debt, and in awe of their father. The two days she
was there, before the rest of the party arrived, and the
grouse-shooting began, Vanessa spent in mentally com-
paring her boy with these two gentlemanly young
loafers. They were finished products of the schools
she admired, they had little or no brains, hearts, nor
consciences; but their manners and appearance were
excellent. Lady Gowers thought they were both well-
nigh perfect, and that their father was unconscionably
SEBASTIAN 153
harsh to them. That, too, gave Vanessa food for
thought, although she tried to keep thought away from
her, and to banish that persistent heartache.
Lord Gowers had been a friend of John Hepple-
wight-Ventom. A disagreeable and cantankerous father
and husband he might be, but he was no mean scholar,
and the daughter of his old friend was a congenial com-
panion to him. He had most of Ventom's books in
original editions, autographed by their author. "Um-
brian Hills and Valleys," for instance, had been dedi-
cated to him "in affectionate memory of three months'
fellowship." They had journeyed together, and he
liked to talk of those old days. The "Etruscan Re-
searches," too, had pencil notes, and many reminiscences.
Lord Gowers' troubles had not begun until after his
second marriage, and the adolescence of the much-desired
heir. Their twinship was the first complication. He
said it was an extraordinary coincidence that both he
and his old friend should have had twin children. In-
cidentally he always touched Vanessa's small sense of
humour when he dilated on this subject. She had often
stayed at the Towers. When Sebastian was a very
little boy he had been here with her. But the twins had
been uncongenial companions to him, and she had never
repeated the experiment.
Lord Gowers asked after him.
"He must be getting a big boy now," he said, forget-
ting how quickly the years passed. " I suppose you have
packed him off to Eton; and begun to hear he is no
good," he added, with an impatient sigh. He was full
of his own disappointments, bad reports, requests to
154 SEBASTIAN
remove, superannuation, and all the rest of it. Bad
training at home was Vanessa's secret explanation, but
she was able to successfully conceal her view. She was
not able to conceal her very different experience with
her son, nor to refrain from boasting of it. Was it
boasting, or only common fairness, and loyalty, to
the boy who was not to count with her any more, whom
she had discarded for ever?
She told Lord Gowers of what Sebastian had achieved,
of scholarships, prizes, and laudatory letters. Lord
Gowers was rather bored by the relation.
"Well, well," he said, "so you are quite proud of him ?
He had a look of his grandfather, I thought, when I last
saw him. What are you doing with him now ? Balliol
was your father's college, was it not, or New College?
He had left Oxford before my day. It was later on,
when I was in Rome, that we became intimate."
"Sebastian does not wish to go to the University,"
she answered, slowly. She hated to have to say it.
In that beautiful old library, lofty, vellum-scented,
its deep mullioned windows giving on to the wooded
park, she seemed so far, and so apart, from David
Kendall. She and Lord Gowers had talked of Italy;
suddenly she envisaged monasticism, and the middle
ages, her father, and his absorption in mediae valism.
Why had Sebastian left her by herself in this world
that belonged to both of them?
Her host did not question her further as to where
Sebastian was going. He preferred to talk with her of
olden days. And she, too, thought such reminiscences
would help her to escape from the pull of the cord that
SEBASTIAN 155
would not let her forget that half of her was in Harley
Street.
The house filled, and there was much talk of grouse.
There were motor drives, and dinner parties, bridge,
politics, and religion. There was the well-bred circle,
boring and bored, that the autumn always brings to-
gether. The cord vibrated painfully all the time.
Vanessa found herself awake at night, wondering what
Sebastian was doing, how he was faring, what City people
were thinking of him. She could not banish him, try as
she would. And always it was herself she doubted.
She was learning, in the hardest of schools, that to be at
war with one's own heart, and conscience, robs even
victory of its triumph, leaves the taste of ashes in the
mouth, and the field of battle desolate.
From Sebastian there came no line ; but David
wrote her. There was little he could say. If he told
her of Sebastian's quick powers of assimilation, of what
customers said to, or of, him, of what difference his daily
companionship, his ignorant, happy business optimism
made, of how all the colours seemed brightened, and the
future more promising, she might have resented it.
David, fearful of hurting her, left out, therefore, in his
short letters, all the things she was longing to hear. He
wrote about the weather, or news that she could have
read in the papers. He ignored that there was any
estrangement between them. He hoped she was having
a good time, and asked if she was making progress with
the new book.
For a week or two she did not answer these letters.
Then she told herself it was her duty to give them her
156 SEBASTIAN
address, and she wrote that she was leaving the Gowers,
and would be with the Harlands until such and such a
date, after that, with the Bowrings.
She altered her plans again, and yet again, and paid
many short, restless visits. But she could not get away
from her thoughts, they persistently followed the boy,
followed him into the City, home to long dull evenings.
She ached for him, yet still succeeded in persuading her-
self that it was only over his lost chance of greatness that
she was grieving!
She moved from place to place, and among different
circles of people. She made long journeys — unneces-
sary, fatiguing. From Ireland to Scotland, and to the
South of England, before going into Wales. She stayed
with land owners, who cared only for the agrarian ques-
tion, and with those to whom nothing was vital but the
ritualistic movement, and the Catholic Church. She
found herself in country parsonages where the smallest
of local gossip filled dull conventional days ; and once in
a ducal castle where nobody cared for anything, or
anybody, but the concealment of the fact that the host
was a cripple, more than half an idiot, and that wife,
majordomo, valet, and doctor were little else than so
many keepers.
She had many friends, and to some she wrote and
offered herself, and many wrote to her. She was always,
and everywhere, a welcome guest. But all her friends
noted her changing looks. She had been extraordinarily
young in her appearance, fresh and vivid, now the sleep-
less nights and the tug, tug, at her heart-strings were
telling.
SEBASTIAN 157
Always, before this, she had had Sebastian's childish
letters to read and answer, then his boyish ones. At
first there had been picture post-cards, and foreign
stamps, then money, cakes, and parcels generally. At
Eton he had wanted more from her. She had fallen in
the way of remembering for him all the good stories she
heard, all the interesting things. The tit-bits of each
day were reserved for him, and much of her intelligence
went into her letters. They had been almost daily, her
sweetest tasks, her imagination had played with them
more happily than with her literary puppets, for she
could always see the boy reading, laughing, commenting,
or questioning. Everything she saw or heard, read, or
discovered, were for his amusement or needs. Now
there was nothing.
By the end of October, her friends all palled, the days
were even more tedious. And, worst trouble of all, the
book dragged on her hands. The boy, whom she had
discarded, came between her and her bloodless hero,
between her and her paradoxical heroine. Their for-
tunes seemed hardly worth following.
The De Cliffes were her last resource. If any one
could cure her of, what she told herself constantly was,
merely "sentimentality," it would be Hilda de ClifTe.
Hilda would find the phrases to rescue her from
mundanity, from a commonplace, unworthy longing
for a boy, who, with his father, was "engaged in the
City"! "
Vanessa arrived late in Newmarket. She was not
disappointed to find her hostess was absent from the
platform, but was surprised to be accosted by a big,
158 SEBASTIAN
thick-set man, clean-shaven, with a North Country
accent, who had got out of the next carriage, and been
obviously watching her movements, listening to the ques-
tions she put to the guard.
" Is there any one waiting for me ? Is there a carriage
from Seaton House? "
"Are you going to Seaton House? You are Mrs.
Kendall, I think."
"But how did you know? "
"Well! you sent me your photograph once, and I
have a good memory," he answered, quite simply.
"I sent you my photograph?" she repeated, in
astonishment.
"You did indeed. Come along with me, we'll find
the carriage, or one of the motors, waiting outside for us.
I know their ways."
"To whom am I speaking? "
"My name is Wallingford."
"Joseph Wallingford!" she exclaimed.
"That's right. That you, Leeward ? Find Mrs. Ken-
dall's maid, and help her with the luggage. I thought
so, here is De Cliffe's motor. Oh! the brougham
is there too. I suppose they weren't sure you would
want to come with me. What will you do? "
Vanessa elected for the motor, she was quite ready to
share it with Joseph Wallingford. She had wished to
meet him, although her literary friends had dissuaded
her, and told her that he was "impossible." For what
she knew of him interested her.
He was a power in the North of England, the owner
of a big syndicate of newspapers. He had given her,
SEBASTIAN 159
through an agent, the largest price she had ever re-
ceived for a book, and having bought, he had advertised
it so extensively that for some weeks she had been
positively ashamed to open a newspaper, or stop at a
bookstall. The portrait of which he spoke had stared at
her from literary supplements, on scattered leaflets, and
in blurred pulls in daily papers.
It was difficult for them to hear each other speak in
the motor.
"I don't like these big machines," he said, and named
the maker, "they are noisy. What is the good of a
sixty horse-power machine with a twenty miles an hour
speed limit?" He talked of motors, with obvious
knowledge, until they pulled up at Seaton House, op-
posite the heath. It was a modern, unpretentious villa,
behind big pretentious iron gates.
Vanessa had not met her host before. Lord de Cliffe
was clean-shaven, stolid, he looked sufficiently stupid
to be a soldier, and he wore an eye-glass, as if to accen-
tuate the vacuity of his expression. Sir George Chitter-
ing was of the same type, but taller, thinner, and more
elegant. Tony Hawthorn was a stable boy, grown
stout, but having ridden in races, and been dubbed a
jockey, his social inequality was overlooked. All three
men were in the hall, smoking, and drinking whiskies
and sodas. They greeted "Joe" with enthusiasm. But
Vanessa seemed somewhat of a surprise to them. Lord
de Cliffe was equal to the occasion, although he had
forgotten, or never been told, that she was expected.
He explained that Lady de Cliffe was lying down; she
had complained of headache. He introduced the others,
160 SEBASTIAN
and said he "supposed she knew Joe." Then he talked
vaguely of tea, and engineered her quickly to a house-
keeper, and her own room.
After which he and his friends said she " was a devilish
fine woman, and they would never have guessed she was
one of the 'scribbling crowd.' ' They then began to
talk horses, form, and the stud book, and continued
doing so until it was time to dress for dinner.
Vanessa was rather chilled by her reception. Also
she had expected to find a letter from David, and little
as there was ever hi his letters, she had begun to find
herself awaiting them eagerly. But tea was brought up
to her, she rested, and made her usual careful toilette.
Seaton House was less ostentatiously inharmonious
than the Curzon Street establishment. It was roomy,
comfortable, and only negatively ugly, in a modern,
leather chair, and saddle-backed sofa manner. Lady
de Cliffe came to her before dinner, and Vanessa had
never seen her look more beautiful, nor more fragile.
Her manner was excitable, and she talked continuously.
She was almost overwhelming in her welcome of Vanessa,
and admired everything she was wearing. She stayed
until it was nearly eight o'clock, and, in consequence,
was twenty minutes late in making her appearance in
the drawing-room, keeping dinner, and everybody wait-
ing. She took it quite airily :
"I am not late, am I? " was all she said, in apology.
" I am so awfully hungry, let us go down at once. The
soup will be cold anyhow, it always is. You are going
to take me down, aren't you, Sir George? "
She went in first, talking eagerly.
SEBASTIAN 161
Lord de Cliff e offered his arm to Vanessa. Joe Wal-
lingford, and Tony Hawthorn, brought up the rear.
Vanessa was adaptable, and quite useful at society
small talk. But she found her host difficult, and mono-
syllabic. It was not that he was not used to the society
of women, but he had just been given so many instruc-
tions as to what he was to say, and avoid saying, he had
just been told so much about Vanessa's talents, and
more about her ingenuousness, that he was nervous.
He floundered hopelessly, and, as he expressed it after-
wards, chucked it altogether, and let Joe take it on.
Joe Wallingford was typical of an interesting class,
rare in London, fairly common in the Midlands. His
father had been a journeyman printer, and invented a
contrivance for facilitating his labour. He patented it,
and made a small fortune by dint of almost incredible
exertions, first in developing, and then in pushing his
discovery. But it was not until young Joe came on the
scene that the fortune grew to any considerable dimen-
sions.
The father had invented a printing machine, but the
son found how to put it to account. It was many years
ago, before the linotype, or the monotype, came into use,
and it may be said the Wallingford was a very ingenious
precursor of both. Young Joe found it difficult to per-
suade the contented owner of the Workington Gazette to
use the Wallingford. So he set up a press, and brought
out a weekly sheet of his own. A very small venture, at
first, for providing up-to-date sporting news in a sporting
district, it grew and grew, until money and advertise-
ments began to roll in. Then a Sunday paper edition,
162 SEBASTIAN
with Saturday's football news, was added, and finally a
halfpenny daily.
At the present moment, Joe Wallingford, young Joe,
as he was still called by the fellow-townsmen who had
known his father, had inherited the fortune he had helped
his father to make, and possessed another for which he
was wholly responsible. There was a Workington
Chronicle that brought him in something like £40,000
a year, and the Millborough Express, worth another
£28,000. And there was also the Imperial Syndicate
which financed a dozen daily, evening, and weekly
papers, magazines, monthlies, and cheap editions of
popular novels, incidentally securing to Joe further
annual £50,000 or so.
Joe Wallingford provided literature for the million.
But when he heard from Vanessa, or gathered from her,
that she was not dependent for her living upon her pen,
he questioned her with surprise as to her motive in
writing. He did not understand it. It seemed a
strange, small, mercenary thing to do. Literature had
no aspect for him but the pecuniary one.
"Why don't you give it up," he urged, "if your
husband can earn enough for both of you?"
He did not perhaps put this in actual words, but he
amused Vanessa by letting her see his point of view.
That he did not think there was anything beyond the
money question in her work, amused, whilst it made her
feel small. So did Joe Wallingford, himself, his slow,
deliberate speech, and entire simplicity of self-betrayal.
He spoke no language but his own, and that indifferently
well. He told her he had left school when he was thir-
teen and he seemed to think he had learned quite enough.
SEBASTIAN 163
He knew nothing of John Hepplewight-Ventom,
and was quite unimpressed when, in answer to a ques-
tion, Vanessa described him as the great stylist of the
Victorian Era. But he was interested when Vanessa
mentioned that she had a grown-up son, and, for the
first time, she found herself saying Sebastian had chosen
a mercantile career, without being ashamed, or dis-
tressed.
There was no apparent reason Joe Wallingford should
have been more congenial to her than David Kendall,
neither of them possessed the external qualities that she
deemed so essential. But, without any apparent reason,
she was indefinably attracted by the millionaire news-
paper proprietor, and for the first time in all these in-
tolerable weeks she talked of Sebastian, and the dinner
hour proved all too short.
Joe Wallingford had spent over thirty, of his forty odd,
years, in making money. Incidentally he had met pro-
vincial women of the prosperous middle classes, and a
variety of those in a different strata altogether, poor
daughters of pleasure. Lately he had met Hilda de
Cliffe, after having a deal or two in horses with her hus-
band, and been introduced by him to a private club in
London, where they illegally played baccarat far into the
small hours.
Hughie de Cliffe, Tony Hawthorn, and all that clique
of racing men, thought they had got hold of rather a good
thing in Joe. But then it was like their half-sharpness
not to realise how little of a flat he was. He liked the
experience they gave him. He was willing to pay some-
thing for it, although of course he would pay as little as
164 SEBASTIAN
he could. But he had no illusions about them at all, and
he could have given them points, and a beating, in know-
ledge of a horse. In his part of the world, the very gutter
children talk horse-flesh, and spot winners, betting their
halfpennies on the stables they fancy.
This was the second, or third time, Joe had been to
Seaton House. He played poker, and auction bridge,
and baccarat, there. Tony Hawthorn was training
some horses, and Joe had registered his colours on
the turf. Hilda had been very charming to Joe Walling-
ford, very charming indeed, but she had made no prog-
ress. He came for the horses, not for Hilda. It was
true he was, at first, at the very first, impressed with
rank and title. He was only now beginning to realise
the purchasing power of his money. But his strong
common sense saved him from over-rating anything
that was, so to speak, for sale, and Lord and Lady de
Cliffe, Seaton House, and the rest of it, had already
quickly assumed their proper place in his estimation.
He had come down to-night because the great sale
of yearlings was to-morrow, and Tony had written him
that he should make a certain purchase. Then he met
Vanessa Rendall, and to both of them it proved a mo-
mentous meeting.
After dinner, in the drawing-room, Hilda chaffed
Vanessa a little about her conquest. Vanessa had
always accepted the slight vulgarity, it was impos-
sible to disregard, about Lady de Cliffe. She was the
daughter of the Earl of Wargrave, and had not a drop of
blood in her veins that was not as blue as Burke could
prove it ; but the vulgarity was unmistakably there also.
SEBASTIAN 165
It jarred upon Vanessa to-night, perhaps because her
nerves were out of order, but possibly because she recog-
nised that there was a substratum of truth in the implica-
tion she had been absorbed by her companion at dinner,
and she disliked the complexion her friend was putting
upon it.
"I found him interesting. He neither poses nor
boasts; he seems quite unaware he is remarkable."
" Is he remarkable ? "
Hilda yawned indifferently, she had curled herself up
on the sofa, and her spasmodic vivacity died suddenly
away. "I am glad you like him. I found him im-
possible, but I always knew you would fall in love some
day, and with some one ludicrously inappropriate.
You have as much jewellery as you can carry," she
added, irrelevantly. " I don't know what you'll do with
him."
"What has altered your mood?" Vanessa asked,
quietly. "You were not like this before dinner."
"No ! before dinner," Hilda sighed, "I was so happy.
I was happier, I think, than I had ever been in my life
before. Now — now," she was quite tragic, "I am
wretched, tourmentee, miserable ! " She sat up suddenly.
"Look at me, Vanessa, look at me. Am I ugly, old,
dull?" and vehemently she answered herself. "I am
not, I know I am not. My nose is too small, I have
always admitted that, and some men like tall women best ;
but I looked lovely to-night when I came down, you know
I did. This green satin suits me, it is the colour of the
second circle in my eyes. The middle is black, and there
is a line of dark outside. Every one has told me about
166 SEBASTIAN
that, and about my beautiful hair. And, to-night —
to-night of all nights, I have grown pale, I look washed
out ! I was so good, too, I told Hugh what he must talk
to you about, and that he must make himself agreeable,
because you were the only woman I had ever known
that I really and truly liked. I said he wasn't to tell
you anecdotes from the Winning Post. . . ."
"But what has happened, what has upset you?"
Vanessa knew Hilda as a woman of moods, with some-
thing in her of the poet, and something of the child.
Vanessa's imagination invested Hilda de Cliff e with a
thousand qualities that were foreign to her, and missed
the essential one that set her apart.
"Can't you guess?"
"No."
"How dull you are."
Vanessa smiled, she knew she was not dull. "Can't
you see that I've fallen madly in love, that I shall die
if I don't get him ? Didn't you see that I've no eyes nor
ears for anything else? And he doesn't care for me,
you know he doesn't. They will play bridge after dinner,
they won't come up for hours."
Many weeks later when Stella, speaking of Lady de
Cliffe, said she was a disease, and not a woman at all,
Vanessa recalled this outpouring, about which there was
no reticence, and little modesty. Hilda had fallen in
love with Sir George Chitterling. She wanted Vanessa
to talk to Hugh, to talk to every one, she said she wanted
the coast left clear for her ! She had begun the conver-
sation by chaffing Vanessa about Joe Wallingford, she
ended up by a reckless betrayal of the lowest moral
SEBASTIAN 167
standard; and an abandonment, scarcely sane, to an
emotion that had seized her some three days since.
Vanessa was repelled, amazed, incredulous. Then she
became analytic, and played the psychological novelist.
And Hilda liked to have her feelings dissected, and to help
in the dissection. Vanessa, who prided herself on being
broad-minded, tried to hide her repulsion. Hilda was
hysterically confidential, and unashamed.
When the men came up, the party fell easily into
their places. Sir George Chitterling sat on the sofa, and
murmured in a low voice to his hostess ; who began to
revive, and become animated, under the stimulus. Joe
Wallingford sought Vanessa, and the others sat down to
icarte.
Vanessa, anxious to leave her hostess, and the card
players, undisturbed, talked freely; and Joe listened,
sympathetically. He was amazingly shrewd. She
thought she had said little about Sebastian, or her dis-
appointment in him, yet that was Joe's text. In their
corner of the big drawing-room they were as isolated as
if it had been a t&te-h-tete they were enjoying.
"I should think he will do very well in business,"
Joe told her. He had, somehow or other, quickly
found out the subject that interested her. "I've had a
lot of young fellows from public schools, and licked them
into shape. It is not the public schools that do the harm,
it's the loafing at the University for three years, after-
wards. They are not much good after that," he said.
"I was disappointed," she admitted.
" At his going into the City ? What did you want him
to do?"
168 SEBASTIAN
She hesitated.
"Almost anything."
"But you had something in view for him?"
"No, not definitely. The bar, literature, or politics,
perhaps, if he had not preferred diplomacy."
"Ten years idling, and a crowd in front of him,
difficult to get past, hustling him out. As for politics,
a successful business man has the best chance there.
Whyl-
He paused, she could not want to hear what had
happened to him. But she did, and pressed for it.
" I have been asked to stand for my division ; it's not
worth talking about. Tell me more about your son.
It is his father's business, the hand-made paper, isn't it,
the Kendall Mills?"
" Yes ! They were trying material for my father's book
when I first met Mr. Kendall."
"Were you helping him to write it ?"
"Oh, no. How could I help him? Except perhaps
by a little research work, and arranging his notes."
From the beginning, Joe found'no difficulty in talking
to Vanessa Kendall, such as had barred his speech in other
drawing-rooms. He told her, presently, all about his
own political chances, they were not aspirations, they
were opportunities that were being pressed upon him.
She was genuinely interested, and he found her most
encouraging. The party, there was only one party in
Vanessa's eyes, and none at all, until lately, in Joe's,
wanted Press influence, to spread their Protection tenets.
London was safe, but there was doubt, hesitation, and
appalling ignorance, in provincial trade centres. Joe
SEBASTIAN 169
Wallingford's seven or eight papers meant two or three
million readers. And Joe was being bribed to make them
read the truth about English merchandise, and the
failure of Free Trade.
Not all at once, not only in that first evening, did Joe
Wallingford unbosom himself to the first woman he had
met in whom he found companionship, understanding,
and something that he read for sympathy.
The Seaton House atmosphere was undoubtedly un-
congenial to Vanessa. In London, Hilda had been an
interesting novelty, a marionette, mouthing paradox
and epigram ; humanly speaking, something of an abstrac-
tion. At close quarters she was weird, corrupt, unwhole-
some. Lady de Cliffe was everything of which Vanessa
had no experience, and was unable to place. She was
a morphia-maniac, to begin with. If she had ever had
a moral fibre, it had become loose and coarse from the
drug. She was given, in the intervals of super-intelli-
gent analysis of her indulged emotions, to becoming
quite uncontrollably enamoured, now of this, and now of
the other, man.
It was, perhaps, unfortunate, that Vanessa should
have timed her visit at the beginning of one of these
erotic attacks. Hilda ate, slept, and dressed with only
Sir George Chitterling in her mind. She talked of
nothing else, she said inconceivable things that bewildered
and startled her guest.
Vanessa's visit was timed for a week, and she could not,
without discourtesy, of which she was incapable, cut it
short. But she could, and did, make it obvions to Joe
Wallingford that she was out of her element, and
170 SEBASTIAN
thoroughly ill at ease. And Joe, who had a hundred calls
on his time, engagements and business of every descrip-
tion to which he should have been attending, dismissed
them all easily by letter, telegrams, and telephone, and,
with the exception of two hurried visits to London,
remained at her disposal.
It was an easy-going, hospitable house, and Joe knew
how to make himself welcome to his host. He rode out
on the heath in the mornings and saw the "young 'uns"
gallop. He bought a horse from Hugh, and two yearlings
at Tony's instigation. After the ladies had retired for
the night, he played bridge, or poker, or anything that
they suggested. One evening he took De Cliff e on at
billiards. But there was no profit for Hughie in that !
It is probable there would have been little, or none, in
the other games if Joe had so minded. The position to
which Joe Wallingford had attained, is not won by a
fool, or a flat. The big provincial was neither, but this
week at Newmarket was worth paying for, so, although
he was not fond of wasting his well-earned money, he
paid for it.
He grew, in that week, into a very strange intimacy
with a woman who had a hundred acquaintances, and
only her sister and her son for friends. There was Stella,
and there had been Sebastian. These and her pen had
sufficed Vanessa. She had taken her politics from the
newspapers, and the world from books. Her acquaint-
ances, other than the St. Maurs, were literary people,
old friends of her father's; men and women to whom
pictures, or Cloisonne", Chippendale furniture, eighteenth-
century mezzotints, china and miniatures, were more
vital than humanity.
SEBASTIAN 171
Joe Wallingford did not know an oleograph from an
oil-painting, nor Battersea enamel from Lowestoft china,
but she did not weary of his conversation. Joe was on the
eve of great things, on the threshold of a career that
might lead to power. Lord Lenham wished to come on
the board of the Imperial Syndicate. It had been
suggested by him that the proprietor of the Workington
Chronicle would find the party grateful for a correct
interpretation of their views, and that the gratitude that
commenced with a baronetcy, might easily expand to a
peerage.
Joe was being tempted to partizanship, and many
lures were being spread before him. The boy, who had
stood beside his father in shirt sleeves at the printing
press, who had been taken away from school at thirteen
years of age because the few shillings he could earn were
of importance to the family exchequer, had found himself
an honoured guest at the Earl of Tatterton's. He told
Vanessa that Lord Tatterton was very genial to him,
and Lenham, the eldest son and heir, who had been in the
last Cabinet, and was active now in Opposition, hardly
talked to any one else whilst Joe Wallingford had been
the guest of the moment at Wroxford.
All this Vanessa heard. Joe did not stop to explain to
himself his feeling for Vanessa, why he stayed on at
Seaton House, why he, who had all his life been reticent,
became communicative, why he, who had been attracted
by no lure spread before him, found them all alluring
when he was telling her of what might accrue. He had
looked for none of the things that were being dangled
before him. His ambitions had been to " sell a few more
172 SEBASTIAN
papers," for so he worded his business instinct for rival-
ling his competitors in his own trade. He had had, and
this was Vanessa's phrasing, little interest in his own
personality. And his sense of citizenship had been con-
fined to local affairs. But Free Trade or Protection
was a national matter. So was the growing political
power of labour, woman's suffrage, and socialism.
Vanessa had always, it now appeared, been semi-
conscious of the nearness of these things to herself.
She had always resented the limitations of her immediate
interests, blaming Stella's health, her duty to David, the
absorption of Sebastian, for her practical ineptitude.
She grew momentarily absorbed in the man through
whom she saw them close to her — just at the juncture
when life was so amazingly empty. His perfunctory,
slighting allusions to Imperial matters awoke in her an
almost passionate desire to bring his responsibilities
home to him. The ambitions, Sebastian had so thwarted,
knew a strange, hot, recrudescence after these talks with
Joe Wallingford. She knew how she could have helped,
and quickened him, had he been son or brother. And
she did quicken him by her eager intelligence, and insist-
ence that he must go where he was being impelled, that
he was the man for the hour.
For she had the mind to see, long before the world saw,
that Joe Wallingford was a force, a strong man who had
as yet shouldered no burden. The Conservatives were
waiting for a leader, vainly surveying the political hori-
zon for something, some one, to stem the rising tide of
democracy and Fabianism. They were looking in recog-
nised quarters, to great houses, for worthy scions. But
SEBASTIAN 173
as before, in times of stress, it was from the people the
leader would arise.
Vanessa's enthusiasm led Joe Wallingford to accept
the offer that had been made to him to stand for the
southern division of Workington, but it had a far stranger
effect than that.
"You are not very happy here. Why are you staying
on?" Joe asked her, bluntly, one afternoon, when Sir
George and Hilda occupied the drawing-room, the men
monopolised the hall, and the dull library, with its stale
smoke, and air of disuse, was the only refuge from her
bedroom. She flushed, she was so completely honest.
"I do not want to go home."
"Why?"
He was blunt, and she was honest. It was because she
had said she would not go back, because Sebastian had
disappointed her by going into business ! How poor,
and trivial, and absurd, it suddenly seemed. Her heart
ached with longing for him; grew sick with longing for
him, when even his spoken name was in the room. This
week had solaced it, she knew in a flash of intuition, gone
almost as quickly as it came, how she had been solaced.
Joe Wallingford was a successful business man. And
her Sebastian was second to none in talent or industry.
"They will be looking for you," he said, shrewdly,
" a boy knows his mother won't stop away from him for
long because he has chosen his career for himself."
Joe did not speak of David, he did not want to re-
member she had a husband. But her son was part of
her, no intimacy with, or knowledge of, Vanessa could
ignore it. Estranged from him as she imagined herself,
his name was daily, hourly, on her lips.
174 SEBASTIAN
"You don't look as if you had a boy of eighteen/'
he went on. They very seldom touched intimate per-
sonal things. But the uttermost limit of his visit had
been reached. He was going to leave her behind him,
and take up the life of which they had talked. Meetings
and men loomed before him, indefinably lacking in in-
terest. "You must have married very young."
"I was barely eighteen."
"That means you are about thirty-eight."
It was involuntary ; it came to his mind he was forty-
three. He was the right age for her, and she was the
only woman he had ever seen that he could have married.
Not a man of sentiment, knowing little of women, and
not given to thinking of his personal needs, it had not
struck him until now that he was alone in the world.
They had been out together, and she was more femi-
nine than usual in her motor hat and flowing veil. Her
cheeks were flushed and her eyes softly bright. In the
glow of the firelight, she stood, warm, companionable,
and desirable.
Her upright figure was slim as a girl's, the dark tailor-
made coat defined its lines.
"You ought to be at home," he went on, slowly.
"Because?"
"Because it's your place. And they'll be wanting
you, they'll both be wanting you all the time."
"I have nothing in common with them," she repeated,
anxious to be contradicted, wanting to be persuaded.
" I am primarily, and above all things, a literary woman.
Books absorb me, the printed page, my own, and other
people's. You asked me once why I write? I cannot
SEBASTIAN 175
help writing. Since I can remember, I have translated
feeling into phrase, that is my life's essence. I cannot
explain it, nor," and she smiled, "excuse it, for to you it
needs excuse. Even now " she hesitated.
"Even now, you were going to say, when you are
suffering from having separated yourself from the boy
and your home, when you are restless, and conscious
of the wrong surroundings, you think you can make a
story of it, and so get right?"
She could not be uncandid.
"It has always been true, but now it is not quite true.
I cannot write " She flushed slightly. Why
should she be talking so openly to this comparative
stranger ?
"You see him, he comes between the pen and the
paper?"
"Yes! between me and my book, between me and
my thoughts." And then she added, impulsively, "It
is only when I am talking about him that I get over it
a little, that — that my heart does not ache." She
put her hand involuntarily to her side. "The heart-
ache stops then. Otherwise, all the time, day and night,
at meals, when I try to write, in the midst of talking,
all the time, I am conscious of nothing so acute as
my longing for him, the emptiness of my days and
dreams. ..."
Her voice broke a little, and she was ashamed. There
was more sympathy, more softness in his eyes, when she
raised hers to meet them, than she had expected to see.
She had never met any one so understanding, with
whom she could talk so freely. She went on, a little
breathlessly :
176 SEBASTIAN
"It is possible I am exaggerating. Perhaps, talking
to you like this, is another form of literary self-indul-
gence, insincerity?"
"No, it isn't, you mean every word you say, and feel
it. You don't know yourself, that's all. There is a
woman in you, you've clouded her with ink, but she's
there all the same. I wish "
But she did not hear what he wished, for he dismissed
it with an impatient sigh, and went on :
"You are out of place here, out of your element.
This woman, Lady Hilda, is not your sort. You go
home. Home is the place for a woman like you, it don't
much matter what you do there. Scribble, or leave it
alone, but go back to the boy. You're loose from your
moorings without him. When a boat's loose from its
moorings, it drifts "
He stopped ; and she said, lightly :
"I should not drift very far."
"There are many might like to tow you to port/'
he rejoined, rather irritably. She looked up in surprise,
and some amusement.
"Don't you be offended with me. You know I'm
plain spoken. You're too good-looking to go about by
yourself."
"Absurd!" she answered quickly, reddening a little,
nevertheless.
"Too attractive."
"But I am not at all that sort of woman," she inter-
polated, interested, all the same, in a new view of herself.
"No ! and I have never been at all that sort of man,
nevertheless. . . ." Their eyes met.
"Absurd," she said again, averting hers.
SEBASTIAN 177
"I knew it would seem like that to you," he answered,
quietly, one might have thought, indifferently. "You
don't care whether I'm dead or alive, I'm naught to you,
your whole mind is on the boy. But it wouldn't be
absurd if you did what you talk of doing, freed yourself
from your ties, lived alone."
"I can take care of myself."
" Every woman can take care of herself until she likes
the man who likes her."
So desirable she looked, in her surprise, and growing
interest, the firelight red on her ebon hair, and warm
about her warmth, that he said, harshly :
"Go home. You are not safe out of your home."
It struck her, quite suddenly, that he was telling her
something of what she had never known, of some power
or possibility in herself of which she had never dreamed.
She had had no love, or lovers, in her life. She wanted
to dwell on the literary value of the situation. But,
instead, the personality of the man held her, and his
next words arrested her.
"Are you going home?" he asked, brutally. "Be-
cause, if not, there is Workington."
"You mean?"
"I mean "
He changed his intention in the middle of his speech.
He was cool and level-headed, habitually, and there had
been only a momentary lapse from his habit.
"That if you are not going back to your home, you
had better come to Workington. You can write at your
novel, or you can come in with us in this campaign.
There will be articles, manifestos, speeches."
178 SEBASTIAN
He had visions, a quick thought of companionship
in twilight hours, a room warm, like this one, with fire-
light, and she there, always, to meet him after the day's
work.
"Will you come?" he asked her, quite plainly.
And for a moment she stood silent, contemplating a
new prospect. He had a great future in front of him,
and she could help him. He would not thwart her, nor
break from her influence. His massive strength made
some appeal to her, the strangeness of her sensations
held, or compelled, her interest.
A subtle something, fear or feeling, thrilled her. She
looked up to meet enquiring eyes ; he was uncertain still,
he had known her but a short week. Now she hesitated,
when he expected quick rejection.
"Is it to be Workington?"
"Wait! Wait! I am trying to think what your
offer means." But she was unconsciously embarrassed
when she said the words, that, almost involuntarily,
brought him nearer to her. She went on, hurriedly,
getting, as she thought, on to safe ground, "You mean
that if I am genuine, serious; if I really intend dis-
sociating myself permanently from husband and son,
you" — her speech grew slow, hesitating, it was absurd
to feel embarrassed, but the absurdity came to pass —
"you would offer me a political career, polemics to write,
the Anti-Suffrage Movement to direct in your publica-
tions?"
He interrupted her, quite unceremoniously :
"I am offering you whatever you want. Work,
or "
SEBASTIAN 179
He was standing directly in front of her now, and again
they looked into each other's eyes. His was a very
steady look, and it was Vanessa's eyes that fell. She
drew in her breath suddenly, and again she said :
"Wait!"
"You may as well be frank with me," he answered,
after a short pause. "Speak what is in your mind;
you must know what is in mine. I am in no hurry,
take your own time. If you are in earnest that you
have severed yourself from home, come to Workington.
Leave it at that; you can do as you like when you get
there — I'd like to see you often."
She shaded her eyes with her hands, she was indeed
out of her element. She felt as stupid as a schoolgirl,
and as shy. Of course she was misunderstanding him,
and there was no meaning in his eyes, such as had lowered
hers. Out of the confusion of her thoughts, after a few
difficult moments, sprang sincerity of speech.
"I have been trying to do the impossible. How
stupid I have been ! How blind ! Sebastian is — is
me," she said, slowly. "I have been contemplating life
without him, and there has become a hollow where was
my heart. I feel faint, physically faint. It could not
be, it is impossible. I have mistaken myself, my
strength. You have shown me my way, I have been so
horribly wrong."
Silence fell again. She uncovered her eyes, looking
into the fire, ignoring that which she did not wish to
understand.
"I have been horribly wrong, and unreasonable. At
this moment, I don't know why, I suddenly see it all
180 SEBASTIAN
quite clearly. It has been only temper, my bad temper,
that I have been indulging, because I could not get my
own way ! One name or another, the trade of literature,
or the trade of paper making ; what does it really matter ?
Through your clear eyes one is no finer than the other.
How you belittle the things I revere — unconsciously,
of course. The dead past is all dead to you, and there
is only the present, and a short future, for us to play in.
You have bought my books, but you have never read
them. You have heard my father's name, but it has no
meaning for you. And yet you, how strange, have made
everything so clear to me. How little I count "
"No. No."
"How little my work matters, my motherhood counts
more "
"Call it your womanhood."
She was really thinking aloud. She said, quite slowly :
"I have never been sure about that. Stella, my
sister, has queried it, and Lady de Cliffe, I myself, too,
sometimes!"
"It's there, right enough," said Joe.
" Perhaps I should never have written novels, divided
myself from the living?" she asked him, hesitatingly.
"You've had no call to do it."
"It has always seemed to me that I have had no
genuine call to do anything else, that that alone is in-
herent, uncontrollable. I think so much more clearly,
and easily, with a pen in my hand."
"Well, it has come to this. It is the first time you
are in trouble, and your pen has not helped you. You've
got a heart- — "
SEBASTIAN 181
"Small, narrow "
"Give it a chance."
"Go back?"
"Or go . forward. There's Workington, and — and
the movement." He had almost added, instead, "and
me."
"You want to test me?"
"Don't you make a mistake. I want to put things
before you. You told me you'd left home for good, you
had done with your husband and your son. I've told
you where, and how, you can get into a new groove.
I'm not disinterested "
"You think I could be of use to you?" She wanted
to be assured that she was on safe ground, that nothing
had occurred to startle her.
He had no subtlety.
"I don't think anything of the sort," he answered,
plainly. "I think I could have been of use to you."
" You ! " And her face flushed.
"Well!" he said. "Well, it seems you don't get on
well with your husband. ..."
CHAPTER XII
IT was not coincidence, but the parlourmaid, that
brought Sebastian's irregular scrawl on the silver
salver.
"An express letter, Madam."
She took it with a quick beat of the heart, and a thrill
of apprehension, or pleasure. He had written, it had
come at last, the call of her boy ; nothing was vital but
that, he had written to her, at last !
"Dear Mater," — the words struck coldly to her:
in his letters he had used always the childish pet name.
He had always before written "Mumsy," but now she
had estranged him. Her eyes ravished the page :
"Uncle John has had an accident, and it has knocked
the pater out of time. I thought you ought to know.
Sebastian."
With pale lips she turned to Joe :
"Bad news?" he asked, briefly, reading her face.
" I must get home, quickly, at once. How right you
were!"
He did not stay to argue, or tell her it was not he
who had said it. He set himself to help her.
"We'll have the motor round again. Your maid
can follow with the things ; I'll take you up. You shall
tell me all about it as we go along."
He was a man upon whom to lean. Vanessa had
182
SEBASTIAN 183
prided herself on needing no strength but her own ; but,
from the first, she found Joe Wallingford reliable. It
seemed no time at all from the moment the servant
brought her the letter on the salver, to when she found
herself back again in the familiar Harley Street drawing-
room, listening to what had occurred in her absence.
Joe Wallingford was with her, and that made it dif-
ferent somehow. He had brought her up in the motor,
and she had let him come upstairs. She heard that no
one was at home. "Mr. Sebastian is at the office, the
master is with Mr. John; and so is Mr. William." It
seemed that Mr. John had been knocked down by a
motor-omnibus yesterday evening, they thought he
would not live through the night, but Mr. Sebastian said
this morning he was still alive. The master had been
with him all the time.
Vanessa pressed eager questions as to how Mr. Sebastian
was looking; the man could only say he seemed very
distressed about his father.
Joe Wallingford, listening, was taking in his surround-
ings. The beautiful, over-full drawing-room reflected
the personality of the woman with whom he had fallen
in love. There was no good disguising from himself
what had happened; he made no attempt to do so.
All the fine china, and prints, and miniatures were toys,
and she a child, who played with them. But the note
in her voice when she spoke of the boy was a woman's
note. It convinced him that here indeed was her heart ;
and it seemed to him, in a dull moment of disappoint-
ment, that she had given all of it.
"I am sorry Sebastian is not at home yet; he may
184 SEBASTIAN
come in any minute. I expect he has gone on to Clap-
ham," she said to Joe.
"Mr. John is not at Clapham, ma'am," the man in-
terrupted. "He is close round here, at Dr. Gifford's;
they took him to the hospital, but Dr. Gifford had him
fetched away. Mr. Sebastian is coming home; he
ordered cold supper, so as he could be in when convenient.
He said he would fetch the master along with him, if
he could."
Vanessa hesitated. Should she go to Dr. Gifford's?
Should she wait? The boy was unused to trouble,
and she knew not what might be happening. David
was wrapped up in his brothers.
"You will be wanting to get your things off. I'll
go in the motor, if you give me the address, and bring
you back the latest news, or your son —
She was quickly grateful; but Sebastian forestalled
him. He was in the room, the knowledge of his presence
was in her glad, satisfied eyes !
Joe's heart felt cold and heavy. How near he had
been to making a fool of himself ; to believing that this
woman had ever seriously thought to cut herself adrift
from home, that he could have stood to her for anything
but an outsider. . . .
There was no sentiment in the greeting between mother
and son, and yet it told him all this.
"That you, mater?"
"I came as quickly as possible. I only got your letter
an hour and a half ago."
"You've come too late," he said, "it's all over."
Then he threw himself on the sofa, and she went over
SEBASTIAN 185
to him, knelt by him, put her head down beside his,
said a word or two in his ear — broken words. She was
so sorry. Neither of them noticed Joe Wallingford.
He was no part of them, an unconsidered stranger. He
went softly away, rather sore.
She had never had tender words for any man. She
could not find them even for Sebastian; but she knelt
beside him.
"Don't cry; I can't bear it," she said in a low voice,
"it is not like you."
He soon exhausted his emotion. Outwardly every-
thing between them was as it had always been. It was
she to whom he could always talk.
" It has been awful, too awful ! Thank God you've
come. Uncle William is off his head. He just sits and
moans, and rocks himself and gets out : ' I'm the eldest.
It ought to have been me ; it isn't fair, it ought to have
been me.' The governor tries to comfort him. He says :
'Pull yourself together, Bill, pull yourself together.'
He repeats it over and over again. And then he lies on
John's bed, and cries."
Sebastian's voice broke.
"Uncle John only spoke about once. He said: 'It's
all right, Will, it's all right, Dave; we've got the boy,
you won't miss me."
"Can anything be done?"
Sebastian gradually regained his composure. He
had an awed sense of responsibility ; he knew there was
a great deal to do. Uncle William was off his head, and
his father was dazed with grief. He would not have
broken down in this way, but for finding his mother wait-
186 SEBASTIAN
ing for him, but for her familiar eyes and speech, and the
knowledge that nothing need be said, that all was right
between them once more.
"He died half an hour ago. The governor is still
sitting by him, all stunned and quiet. But they can't
quiet Uncle Will ; he goes on talking to him — "he broke
off again. " It's awful ! I've got to go out to Clapham,
and tell them there. The pater will be in presently,
you'll look after him."
"But you must have something to eat first."
She took practical command at once. He was glad
to be taken care of, made to eat, to drink a pint of cham-
pagne, to tell what he knew, to talk. He was so young.
He said: "Aren't you glad now that I'm in the busi-
ness ? I suppose it's some sort of Providence made me
obstinate about it. I can take something off the pater's
shoulders."
But all of her heart was with him hi the immediate
present, and she was feeling acutely her past disloyalty.
" I will go out to Clapham instead of you. You have
been with your father all through, and it will be no fresh
excitement for him to see you when he comes back."
"I expect he would rather have you."
Before, however, they had got through with supper
or plans, Dr. Gifford arrived in Harley Street, bringing
David with him. David was very grey and quiet. He
did not seem surprised at seeing Vanessa there.
"Sebastian has wanted you," he said, dully.
Vanessa made him sit down; she pressed food and
drink upon him; she tried, wordlessly, to comfort him.
Dr. Gifford soon left the three together. He was taking
SEBASTIAN 187
William home later, he thought the old housekeeper, and
the people to whom he was accustomed, would be best
able to meet his needs.
Vanessa went out in the hall with the doctor, and
was told the truth. William Kendall had had a shock
from which he might not recover. He was over sixty,
and had been failing somewhat, lately, in many ways.
"Put your husband to bed; keep him there, warm,
lightly fed, as quiet as possible. He has taken it better
than I could have expected, and will probably be all
right, if we get through the next few hours. Sebastian
can make the arrangements for the funeral. Tell him
to come round in the morning, about ten. I'll have the
certificate ready."
"He is so young."
"He is quite able to do all that is necessary. And at
the office — it's a good thing he is there. It is the only
chance of keeping Kendall in bed."
Vanessa went back to the dining-room. Both hus-
band and son were very silent, awaiting her. Sebastian,
with the recuperative power of youth, was almost cheer-
ful. And exhausted as he was, and desperately miser-
able, David wanted Vanessa to know they were glad of
her presence. He exerted himself to eat a little, to drink
what was urged upon him. It seemed natural presently
that they should both of them be going upstairs with
him, mother and son conveyed a message to each other,
simultaneously. David must have Sebastian's room,
the one that opened into Vanessa's; he would want
company that night, comfort, the sound of a human
voice. They would not heed his protests. And he was
almost too broken to urge that they must not mind him.
188 SEBASTIAN
After he had been got to bed, Vanessa sat talking in
her own room to Sebastian, far into the night. They
said little of what had divided them. The intimacy
between them was still there, but, perhaps, it was a
different intimacy. There was remorse, and a new
tenderness in Vanessa. Before this, Sebastian had only
loved and admired his mother; now he judged her.
It was for his father, and not for himself only, he had been
resentful. He could not forget it all at once, yet he
was himself unconscious of the change. If he never
again accepted her quite so unreservedly, on the surface,
all was as before. She needed the assurance of his love ;
the knowledge he had missed her was bitter-sweet and
poignant. There was no long-winded explanation. She
did not try to palliate her conduct. All he told her was :
"I was sorry you took it that way, my going into
business. I had to do it. We have always talked things
out before, and it made everything rotten."
"I was wrong, I was mistaken, unreasonable, illogical:"
her heart cried how wrong she had been. She was gen-
erous and passionate in her admission of it, there was no
hesitation or reserve.
"The pater had the hump over you."
"I was fearfully depressed the whole time, homesick
for you. Don't reproach me more than you can help !"
"Of course I know it was only because you thought
such a lot of me."
"I do still." They smiled at each other. Things
were very nearly as they had always been between
them, the sense of companionship, and comprehension
was still there.
SEBASTIAN 189
"I daresay you are right. Uncle John said he'd
never seen any one take to the accountancy like I did :
figuring is awfully easy to me. Mater, isn't it funny
when you think it was classics brought me up in every-
thing at Eton ; and now it's only my mathematics that
are any good. And the mill too ; there's simply nothing
left for me to learn in the way of making hand-made
paper."
"Then you like it?"
"Well ! I wouldn't go as far as that." He sat silent
for a minute. But he was used to letting her see into his
thoughts.
"I suppose I am a bit of a snob. I hate selling the
stuff. I went round to Wroughton's with the governor ;
they are going to have a new magazine, archaeological,
and they are doing it top-up. Well, it happens Wrough-
ton minor was at my tutor's. He was still in remove
when I was in first hundred — Sebastian paused, and
then went on, with a short laugh :
"The little beast patronised me. 'I'll give you a leg
up with the governor/ he said, whilst the pater was talk-
ing; 'there are three of you in it for quality and price,
but you'll get the order, you see.' "
"Irritating!"
"Sickening, wasn't it? I wanted to tell him to go
to the devil. But when we came out of the office the
pater said I seemed quite friendly with young John
Wroughton, and that he thought it would be of use !"
" I don't know how you bear it all."
"The governor has been ever so much better, in a lot
of ways. Dr. Gifford says he is pounds stronger."
190 SEBASTIAN
"There was never such a son."
"That's rot ! " But he was quite pleased with himself,
nevertheless, and ready to sit up any length of time,
hearing Vanessa expatiate upon the theme.
David rallied from the shock of his brother's death,
but William Kendall never rallied, passing, by slow
stages, from feeble misery to happier vacuity, and second
childhood.
David and Sebastian were all that were left to maintain
the prestige, and the status, of P. and A. Kendall and
Co. It was pitiful during the next few months to note
David's efforts to guard the boy from overwork, from
over-anxiety, to make things easy for him, to take burden
after burden from the young shoulders, to press upon his
own. And always he belittled his efforts :
"You have no idea how that boy works," he told
Vanessa, often. "You should make him take a day
off now and again. Can't you think of some way of
persuading him away from the City?"
"I have never been able to persuade you away from
it," she would answer, drily. But indeed with her new,
softer vision she had heartache over both of them, her
first consciousness of a heart was the pain she felt there.
Sebastian was a man before he had grown out of boyhood.
That man and boy warred in him, to the advantage of
neither, she saw dimly.
The year that John Kendall died, and William Kendall
began to die, Vanessa Kendall relinquished her pen.
Sebastian taught her, or perhaps in some indefinable
way, Joe Wallingford had taught her, how little of value
she was abandoning. This was the year that she began
SEBASTIAN 191
to grow toward womanhood, opening her heart, widening
her sympathies. Her pen lay idle, but her eyes began
to see.
Not very clearly at first, nor very quickly. They
had been blind eyes so long, focused to MSS., lost to a
larger perspective.
If puppets, and prints, and china were to be displaced,
what was she to put in their stead ? Always there had
been Sebastian and Stella, and the uneasy knowledge
of David's worth : none of this was new. Was Joe Wal-
lingf ord to supply the answer ?
He was constantly in Harley Street, coming up from
Workington on Saturday, and staying in London over
the week, becoming an habitue of her house, taking in
Sebastian and David with his quick intelligence, helpful
to them all in a way, and impressing his personality.
Stella, temporarily restored to her normal indifferent
health, became cognisant of the newcomer, and his in-
fluence. She jeered at it gently, but not without a little
jealousy. She could not bear that any one should have
a serious place in her sister's interest. Sebastian was
the only rival she tolerated, and that not without reser-
vations.
Stella was a little irritable with her sister these days :
the source of it lay deep.
"You still think Sebastian is a genius, I suppose," she
said to Vanessa, " although he is selling paper in the City,
and adopting a City attitude toward life?"
Vanessa had to admit that her opinion of Sebastian's
talents had not altered, and almost humbly she added
that her opinion of his character was higher than it had
192 SEBASTIAN
ever been. She realised now how finely and quickly
he had seen his duty to his father, how loyally he was
performing it; she saw her own inferiority to him both
in perception and action.
And this canonisation of Sebastian at the mother's
expense, was a little exasperating to Stella, who loved
her sister and only tolerated her nephew. She said
little jeering things about him on every occasion. Va-
nessa, always conscious of Stella's loneliness in life, of
her unhappy marriage, restrained her replies, made
every possible allowance for a temper embittered by
circumstance. But she was conscious of a growing
estrangement, conscious that now she oftener sought her
sister's companionship from a sense of duty than of
pleasure.
CHAPTER XIII
SEBASTIAN took little advantage of his father's
solicitude. He worked his eight or ten hours a day
in the City, or at the mills, conscientiously learning the
intricacies of the paper trade, and incidentally of the
weakness in the methods of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall,
a weakness he saw a hundred easy ways of remedying !
But he was not yet twenty, and play, of a sort, was
as essential to his growth as work. Pleasey Pleyden-
Carr, and his cousin Bice, each took their separate
place. With the first, his intimacy grew. His idealism
gilded the pale hair, made queenly and beautiful the
slight figure, rare and delicate the reserve that found
their friendship always at the same level. That secret
sentimentality, that never wholly left him, made the
girl's poverty and dependence part of her charm, light-
ing and keeping warm his chivalry, deepening his feel-
ing for her. And Bice was ever his confidante, although
they talked in ellipsis, finding together illuminative
love passages from Browning and Shakespeare, letting
it be understood, almost without words between them,
how it was with him.
And the St. Maurs added zest to the lives of the
young people. They were always getting up enter-
tainments, giving dinner parties, theatre parties, im-
promptu dances. Mrs. St. Maur had now got it well
o 193
194 SEBASTIAN
into her frizzled head, and established behind her beam-
ing glasses, that the Kendalls and the Ashtons " mattered"
that they were really amongst the most distinguished of
her acquaintances ! She had even little obvious schemes,
and intrigues, about Bice and Reggie, about Sebastian
and the fat Viola. If the young St. Maurs knew what
was in store for them, Sebastian and Bice were igno-
rant. They lived on a higher plane of feeling than the
others, love itself was a sacrament, marriage dazzling,
inchoate, dim in the distance, a little beyond their
young vision.
Bice would willingly, cheerfully, at any time have
given her life for her cousin. All that he took from
her, however, was her tireless sympathy for his love of
Pleasey Pleyden-Carr.
It was, nevertheless, in pursuance of the matrimonial
schemes, doomed to prove abortive, that the St. Maurs
decided to devote their autumn to private theatricals.
This was Sebastian's second year in business. He was
twenty years of age, and there was a little down on his
upper lip, dark and becoming. Viola's frocks were hur-
riedly lengthened, and the theatricals suddenly decided
upon.
Naturally, with a Sebastian and Viola in the caste,
Twelfth Night was selected. The incongruity of the fat
and auburn-haired Viola with her suppositious twin, was
of no moment to Mrs. St. Maur.
"They can both be dressed alike, and Mr. Clarkson
will see about the wigs," she said, comfortably, when
it was brought before her, overriding all difficulties,
talking volubly, quoting the absurd dicta of insig-
SEBASTIAN 195
nificant people, beginning already to get out a list of
guests who might attend the performance.
But it was Bice who did all the real work, organising
everything admirably, arranging rehearsals, settling
costumes, casting the parts among her college friends
and their brothers. Mrs. St. Maur wanted Reggie to
play Orsino, and at first he agreed with her, could not
see himself as anything but the love-sick Duke of
Illyria ! It was Bice who reminded him, and that
without offence, of his height, and of his glasses; who
finally persuaded him to Sir Andrew, where, incidentally
it may be noted, he achieved a well-merited success.
It was she, too, who preserved Olivia for Pleasey,
fighting for her, with almost incredible obstinacy, as
she would never have fought for herself. And thus
securing Sebastian his great opportunity.
The rehearsals brought the families together as they
could never otherwise have been brought. Mrs. St.
Maur was one continual beam of malapropos delight.
She called everybody by their wrong name, and dis-
played a most naive, and to the young people, other
than her own, delightful, ignorance of the play, the
characters, and the appropriate scenery. Viola, for in-
stance, had a pretty little voice; Mrs. St. Maur re-
ported that her music-master said it was just like
Patti's, but more refined ! It was Bice, no one but
she could have done it, who put Viola into motley,
cast her for the part of the clown, promising her be-
wildered mother that she would bring down the house
in that comic barcarolle, "Come away, death."
Sebastian was urgent that Viola should wear page's
196 SEBASTIAN
costume, and exhibit her legs. Mrs. St. Maur was
quite flattered, almost looking upon it as a proposal,
when he said that she would look like one of his mother's
colour prints, like the Morland, that hung on the stair-
case. It was only Bice who knew that it was the
"Girl with Calves" to which he was alluding, and who
enjoyed his ribald merriment !
Everybody had incredible fun out of Mrs. St. Maur;
there was hardly anything they could not make her
believe that Shakespeare had written, in his directions
to the players. Bice and Sebastian talked learnedly of
the second folio, or the fourth, arguing divers readings.
Mrs. St. Maur became confused between the folios and
the Follies, and actually took the whole party to the
Hippodrome to hear how the songs went !
Of course both Stella and Vanessa heard what was
going on. At first they were, amused, afterwards their
sense of justice made them think the St. Maurs were
being hardly used. Their hospitalities were endless,
the young people were entertained almost daily, suppers
following the rehearsals. There were impromptu dances,
the whole house given up to their pleasure.
"We ought really to do something for them," Stella
said. " It is all very well making fun of Mrs. St. Maur,
and doing imitations of her husband; but they are
giving the children the time of their lives. I do not
see what they are getting hi return."
Vanessa suggested, somewhat hesitatingly, that she
could secure press notices.
"If they did it for a charity, took one of the smaller
theatres, and advertised it properly, they would obtain
SEBASTIAN 197
what they would like better than anything in the world
— recognition paragraphs. We could get some of the
right people to go. For once, they would have guests
such as they seek. I believe we do owe it to them."
The St. Maurs were easily persuaded to take the
"Coronet Theatre," to undertake the whole expense of
the entertainment, costumes, and the house, for the
benefit of the "Infant Orphan Asylum" that Stella
suggested. Both Stella and Vanessa worked, in the
end, for the success of the show, although Stella could
not refrain once or twice from querying the complete
purity of Vanessa's motive.
"Why do you bother about writing round to the
editors? Don't you know as well as I do that Sebas-
tian will get his headlines without any trouble? The
merest tyro in journalism — even the old drunkards
who are kept on the staff to report on amateur per-
formances — know that it is better copy to allude to
'the talented grandson of John Hepplewight-Ventom,
the son of the brilliant novelist, Vanessa Kendall/ than
to seriously consider Twelfth Night."
"The grandchildren of John Hepplewight-Ventom,"
she corrected.
Vanessa was in very good spirits these days. She
had put "Between the Nisi and the Absolute" on one
side, but Joe Wallingford was taking articles from her,
and keeping her mind employed. Also, her conscience
was resting. She had given Sebastian to his father,
and so was out of debt to him. Joe never let her lose
sight of the possibilities attached to a commercial
career. There was hardly a day but some question or
198 SEBASTIAN
answer of Sebastian's, some narration or allusion,
proved to her that his intellectuality was alive. She
thought little, or nothing, of the flirtation between
him and Miss Pleyden-Carr. To her, pale Pleasey pre-
sented herself unattractively, and she magnified the
slight difference in their ages.
The great night of the performance arrived. A cer-
tain number of pressmen had been secured, and an
unprecedented audience. The St. Maurs were more
than prominent. Mrs. St. Maur appeared to pervade
at least two boxes, resplendent in violet satin, nodding
plumes, and volubility. Hilary St. Maur was in all
the stalls at once, telling everybody who everybody
else was, generally wrong, and wearing the white flower
of his blameless life, large in his buttonhole, usually
entangled in the string of his glasses, as he stooped
officiously over inoffensive people, and assumed inti-
macy when there was hardly acquaintanceship.
Stella was hi the lower box, level with the stalls.
Behind her was Lord Saighton. Lord Saighton was her
contribution to the show. Both of them were enter-
tained by the St. Maurs; afterwards, when the curtain
had risen, in considering Vanessa.
"Do you think she really does believe that boy of
hers to be Irving, and Tree, and George Alexander,
rolled into one?" she asked him.
Lord Saighton had no doubt at all about it.
"Yes! I have been watching her, and it is quite
obvious there is no one else on all the stage, no play,
and no performers. Her eyes follow him, and when he
is off the stage, all her interest goes. She sits back,
SEBASTIAN 199
she has forgotten the play, and the stage, she is think-
ing of something else. I see Kendall is with her to-
night. I don't know when I have seen them out to-
gether before. He looks very ill. And who is the
rough-hewn giant beside them? It can't be Walling-
ford, can it?"
"Yes, that is the Colossus of Workington. As for
David Kendall, he is Vanessa's new rdle. Some one has
told her he is going to die. Or else she has fallen in
love, and her conscientiousness takes it that way. But
love, I should imagine to be impossible to Vanessa."
She gave a quick sigh. Would it had been impos-
sible to her too ! Her companion looked at her :
"Are you unhappy?" he asked, gently.
"No! Quite happy," she answered, cynically, "how
could I be otherwise, with you beside me, the cynosure
of all eyes, and our positions so secure!"
"You are always haunted by the fear of Jack's
return, and what he might say or do!"
"Is there any other reason why you banished your-
self from the House?" she answered.
But they had threshed it out a score of times, and
nothing could be done or altered.
To-night was the first time it entered Vanessa's
head that Lord Saighton was a very attractive man,
and Stella still young, and perhaps susceptible. It is
possible it was Joe who drew her attention to it. But
if so, it was quite unconsciously:
"Isn't that Lord Saighton with your sister?" he
asked. "The last place in the world I should have
expected to find him ! I suppose, one way and an-
200 SEBASTIAN
other, no public career has ever been quite as inex-
plicable as Saighton's. He had the ball at his feet,
and he would not kick it. There must have been a
reason."
"The public ascribed the usual one," she answered,
lightly.
"But it was scarcely sufficient."
Then it was that it struck her about Stella's possible
susceptibility. And her conscience troubled her that
she had been less affectionate, less attentive to Stella
lately. She was her sister's natural defence against
the world. She became, all at once, indefinitely un-
easy, and her pleasure in the performance was damped.
Whenever Sebastian was not on the stage, her thoughts
wandered to Stella. Lord Saighton had been right in
thinking her mind was only on the stage when the boy
was there, but he was far from suspecting where it had
wandered.
She must warn Stella against Lord Saighton, she
must throw the bulwark of her constant companion-
ship around the defencelessness of the deserted wife.
Once more she doubted if she had ever been justified in
writing novels.
These thoughts possessed her through Sebastian's
enthusiastic reception and the excitement of the trium-
phant finale. For of course it appeared to her as a
triumph. Surely his acting stood out among the others,
his voice carried, and his love-making scene with Olivia
had both grace and conviction! No one seemed to
touch him in talent or consequence, and it was his per-
sonality that dominated the stage.
SEBASTIAN 201
The announcement, made by Mr. St. Maur, that the
"Charity had benefited to the extent of one hundred
and seventeen pounds, and that Mrs. St. Maur had
added a subscription to make up the amount to one
hundred and fifty pounds," was received with a burst
of applause.
Then came calls for the actors, and Sebastian's ap-
pearance with Pleasey. Bice, too, had her meed of
praise. Both mothers might be proud and satisfied.
There was to be a ball and supper at the Grafton
Galleries; everybody hurried to get away, invitations
had been liberally scattered. Lady de Cliffe intercepted
Vanessa to give forth a sparkling witticism or two. Sir
George was with her; she had accomplished all her
desires, and was alight with flashes of miasmic bril-
liancy.
"Sir George is coming on with me to supper. Keep
a table, we shall make a charming party. How quiet
you have kept your affair with the Wallingford ! Every-
body says you are only trying to sell him your next
book ! Your discretion is an absolute byword. And
your sister is here with Saighton, the St. Maurs
as proud as if they had invented the liaison. I
haven't seen Saighton since he made love to me in
the schoolroom, and pretended it was paternal. Do
get him!"
Vanessa tried to reach her sister, but the crowd
divided them. She wanted to speak to Stella; the
impression of discomfort, uneasiness had deepened.
Joe seemed to realise it, instinctively, or perhaps a
whisper had reached him.
202 SEBASTIAN
"They are old friends," he said, following her thought.
"Slander hurts no one but the slanderer."
"He was an intimate friend of her husband's/' was
the quick reply.
But all that evening, watching Sebastian dance,
thinking no one danced so gracefully, receiving con-
gratulations, talking, supping, it was in the back-
ground of Vanessa's mind that Stella was threatened
by some danger, and was unhappy; that she had neg-
lected her responsibilities, allowed herself to be mo-
mentarily estranged by a verbal flippancy that might
be covering some new dilemma or distress.
David had gone home straight from the theatre.
Late nights, dances, and suppers were not for him.
He had seen Sebastian act, and that was sufficient.
Joe Wallingford was with Vanessa the greater part of
the evening; she did not dance, but she was continu-
ally surrounded by friends whose voices warred with
the band. Joe had little of her mind. As much of it
as she could spare from Sebastian was following Stella
into the night. Stella's face came back to Vanessa
amid gyrating figures, the music, the talk and laughter
around her. It was an unhappy face, haunting. Some
of Stella's prettiness was going. Vanessa had a quick
pang when she recalled it; the revealing pink in the
lids of the blue eyes had struck her to-night. She was
full of self-reproach that she had resented sharp speech,
or failed in kindness.
Poor Joe ! He had always known he had set his
heart on a woman who had not room for him, and
to-night she made it clearer than ever. He could do
SEBASTIAN 203
nothing for her, and be nothing to her. And there was
no other woman for him. If he underrated her literary
importance, or her lineage, he was supremely conscious
of her social grace.
Stella, like David, had gone straight home from the
theatre. Vanessa was supposed to be chaperoning
Bice, and, at least, she succeeded in keeping Lady de
Cliffe from their table. Joe took them all home in the
motor he had kept waiting. The boy talked inces-
santly of the events of the evening, of Pleasey Pleyden-
Carr's dancing, and her acting. Vanessa listened with
only half an ear. But Bice was whole-hearted in praise
of "Olivia." None of them paid much heed to Joe
Wallingford, notwithstanding that he was Workington's
great man, and already of some consequence in a larger
sphere.
"Good-night, and thanks," Vanessa said to him at
the door, holding out her hand. They had dropped
Bice, he might have expected her attention now.
" It was awfully good of you to come up. I hope you
were not bored," Sebastian added, politely.
But they had forgotten him before the street
door shut them into their warm companionship, for-
gotten him before the sough of the motor had died in
the street. He knew it, but he knew it without bitter-
ness; not without envy, perhaps.
Vanessa was not quite in the mood for Sebastian.
He wanted to talk about the "show," about the scenery,
about the St. Maurs. It was with difficulty Vanessa
persuaded him to bed.
"It is nearly three o'clock, and you have got to be up
204 SEBASTIAN
at eight. Go to bed now, there's a dear boy. We will
talk of it to-morrow. You had a great success, a great
triumph. And Bice too. There were no waits, the
whole thing was admirably done, unlike any other
amateur performance. We will talk it over to-morrow.
I am tired now. Good-night."
CHAPTER XIV
IT was Stella haunted her night.
It was still early in the morning of the next day,
hardly noon, when she was in Weymouth Street, seek-
ing words, embarrassed, she hardly knew at what.
Always Stella was surrounded by flowers, to-day
her room was full of violet and yellow orchids, rare and
costly. She wore a tea-gown, made out of an em-
broidered cre~pe de chine kimona, many coloured and
quaint. She looked singularly attractive to Vanessa,
and was for once in high spirits, and humour.
" Well ! did I ever see such a Sebastian as Sebastian ?
No ! I never did. And have I seen the press notices ?
Yes ! I have, and I think they are wonderful, and he is
wonderful, and you are more wonderful than either, to
think they matter. Sit down, I haven't seen you for an
age. It went off well, didn't it ? Bice is delighted with
Sebastian, and incidentally with herself. Anything the
matter?" Stella could read her sister like a book;
"you look worried, or anxious. Has anything happened
to the paragon? Did he drink too much champagne
last night, or dance too often with Pleasey ? "
"Look here, Stella."
"Where?"
"I want to speak to you."
"I thought perhaps you did not come round to re-
main entirely silent."
205
206 SEBASTIAN
"About something — rather serious." She was em-
barrassed, even with Stella it seemed a liberty she was
about to take. Stella was interested and curious.
" Go on, don't make too much fuss about it, whatever
it is."
"I won't. You know you are rather an attractive
woman. . ."
"Why only 'rather' attractive?"
"And Lord Saightori is in many ways a remarkable
man."
" Oh ! that's it, is it ? Your text is Lord Saighton !
Go on with the sermon. I am in the rare position of
being able to answer its argument. You have not all
the best of it, like the parson in his ungetatable pulpit."
Stella, suddenly grave, felt she must treat the matter
lightly. How blind Vanessa had been all these years !
Who, or what, had opened her eyes, and what had she
seen?
" I am fascinating, and Lord Saighton is remarkable !
Where is there a connection, or isn't there a connection ?
You remember, I suppose," she added, with a touch of
bitterness under the lightness, "that Jack is not dead.
He is only living with another woman, and honouring
the Argentine Republic, until he has spent all they have
taken with them that was mine."
" I know, I know."
She knew how desperately Stella had been treated,
and how little she deserved it. " I don't talk about it,
but I never really forget."
They were twins, and she never forgot in what differ-
ent lines to her own, her sister's life had been cast,
SEBASTIAN 207
"But although only by an hour, I am older than you.
Perhaps, too, I have seen more of the world."
Stella laughed. She could not help it, Vanessa
thought herself the more worldly of the two, the more
experienced, and practical, all because she wrote novels,
and invented paradoxes. But Vanessa ignored the
laugh, and went on earnestly.
"It seems a joke to you. But it is not really humor-
ous. People judge from what they see on the surface ;
and it struck me last night that, that, in a way, he was
being very attentive to you. And his being there at
all "
"He is on the council of the orphanage."
"Oh! I did not know that. But anyway "
she grew a little red, and went on :
" I know, I happen to know, that being married does
not make so much difference to what a man thinks of a
woman."
Stella wondered how Vanessa had acquired that
strange piece of information, and she put her wonder
into an exclamation.
" A man thinks a woman can be a companion to him.
He grows to like talking to her," she explained, with
some embarrassment, and a reserve, new between her and
Stella. "Even I "
"Tell me all about it, who was it ? "
Vanessa ignored that. It was not of herself she came
to speak. She could not put Joe Wallingford quite out
of her mind, but David was reaping the benefit in a new
consideration, and Sebastian in a remorseful absorption.
She had been disloyal to both of them, she felt her
208 SEBASTIAN
responsibilities acutely, surprised and ashamed that
anything, except literature, should have come, even
momentarily, between her and them.
" No ! — it — it was of no consequence. Only it
taught me something of how men talk, feel, and act in
given circumstances, almost without encouragement. I
felt I must warn you. Lord Saighton was Jack's friend,
and of course he has that in his mind. Probably so have
you; but there comes a moment, there might come a
moment, when either of you, both of you — " she
hesitated again, really exciting Stella's curiosity.
"This is quite a new development. You want to
tell me that there might come a moment when I re-
membered I was a young woman, or Saighton reminded
me that he was not an old man. And then ..." All
at once her patience broke :
" How ridiculous you are ! Why should we both re-
member? To whom are we in thraldom? Conven-
tionality, Mrs. Grundy, you? Or do you think I owe
Jack anything? "
"You have never spoken to me like this, don't do
it, Stella. Of course, I know you do not mean it, but
surely it is a bad habit to get into. You know, as well
as I do, that we can write about light conduct, and read
about immorality, more or less gross. But we cannot
live it; you nor I."
She was quite hot at the thoughts that arose.
"The word morality has no meaning for me," answered
Stella, almost sullenly, but not meeting Vanessa's eyes,
busying herself with the orchids. "Here, leave off
preaching. I'm tired of it. Saighton and I are very
SEBASTIAN 209
good friends. He is very kind to me. I suppose it is
because of Jack. Talk of something else, I'm sick of it."
For a moment, a wild moment, she had thought
Vanessa knew, or guessed, and that she could unburden
her over-burdened mind. For a wild moment she felt
the relief, the wonderful relief it would have been, if she
might have spoken of what her life had been these last
few years. What had filled, and emptied it. How
well she knew that they, neither she nor Vanessa, were
of the type that could live happily where shame lay
ambushed. But she and happiness had parted com-
pany since many years. Now she only wanted again
that Vanessa should not divine her trouble. Had love
come into her sister's life, to soil it? It seemed im-
possible, Vanessa was as nearly as possible sexless.
Marriage with such a man as David Kendall kept her
where she stood.
"Who has been making love to you?" she asked,
nevertheless. "It cannot be that Wallingford per-
son ; he is too bourgeois not to recognise the divinity
of your household gods. It must have been some one
you met at Hilda de Cliffe's, some one she asked there on
purpose. She would hate to know a dog that had not
lost its tail."
"Why do you call Joe Wallingford bourgeois?"
Vanessa was glad to change the subject. She had said
too much, or too little. She had given her warning, yet
had been unable to word her sympathy.
"So it is Joe Wallingford? "
" I am disappointed you and he find no common
ground."
210 SEBASTIAN
"My dear ! Everything about him is common ground,
very common ground ! "
It is possible both sisters were glad to switch the talk
into a different channel. Vanessa's fears had been
vague and formless. Her frankness was part of her
character. She could not keep back what had been in
her mind, but having delivered herself of it, she was glad
to be free of the whole subject.
She could speak of Joe Wallingford warmly, and
without reserve. If at Newmarket she had misled him,
or he had misled her, it had been merely an experience
for her, she told herself, something literary, removed
from life, a moment's revelation. She liked the man, he
interested her. She had not the least realised how much
he had taught, or was teaching her, she had no interpre-
tation of the message, save as it affected Stella. Va-
nessa, knowing so little, was ashamed of what she knew.
She could not tell Stella more than she had told her.
Lord Saighton had looked at Stella as Joe Walling-
ford had once looked at her. But it had been, perhaps,
unnecessary to warn her. The sudden fear had swift
banishment.
She began to talk easily of Joe, and of his powers and
prospects. Stella said :
" What on earth does it matter if one more demagogue
gets into a House hopelessly vulgarised by Liberal and
Labour members? Who cares? And anyway, why
are you bothering about it? Let us talk about Sebas-
tian. Joe Wallingford bores me."
And, of course, Vanessa was always willing, even eager,
to talk of Sebastian.
SEBASTIAN 211
There was something to talk about. If Vanessa had
been sure of Stella's sympathy she would have told her
before.
Sebastian wanted to go abroad. Already he was
restless in business. But there was reason in his rest-
lessness, Sebastian's ability was no figment of his
mother's brain. He was working loyally with his father,
but he could see so many things that escaped the routine-
blinded vision of the older man. Young as he was, and
ignorant, he saw everywhere new machinery of trade,
and in Queen Victoria Street, old, inoperative, out-of-
date methods. It is incredible, but nevertheless true,
that John and William Kendall kept their own books,
wrote their own letters, and prided themselves on a
traditional secrecy from their clerks as to the detail and
management of the business; also on the smallness of
their office expenses. Sebastian had already intro-
duced typewriting machines, and shorthand clerks, a
Dictophone, an installation of telephones, an adding-up
machine, and everything which an enterprising, and
specious, firm of American manufacturers could persuade
him was essential to modern enterprise.
The thousand pounds or so, he spent on necessities,
or wasted on business toys, was of little moment. But
having procured the machinery for the office, human and
otherwise, it became necessary to find grist to keep it
working. The grist was new accounts ; new accounts
meant extended credits. David, watching Sebastian's
growth with ever-quickening pride, toiling after him
loyally, found himself soon apprehensive of where the
enterprise would land them.
212 SEBASTIAN
A few months, David Kendall had, of watching and
teaching this strange young duckling that took so freely
to the water. Then he began to fear for the depths, for
the treacherous currents, swooping birds of prey, sports-
men with reckless guns. And fear was not good for
David's health.
And now Sebastian had made the startling announce-
ment that he wanted to go away for a year or two ; that
he was not going on making and selling hand-made
paper when fortunes were being piled up on all sides of
them by distributers of cheap grades of foreign machin-
ised goods.
He argued, and Vanessa repeated these convincing
arguments to Stella.
"He says that we would have been willing to send
him to the 'Varsity to waste three years in lounging over
the Classics, getting a degree that would have been no
earthly use to P. and A. Kendall, even if it had been a
First. He says he wants less than half that time to
educate himself in the paper trade. He wants to go to
Denmark and Sweden, and then over to America."
Sebastian had begun by pleading, gone on to urge,
ended by taking it for granted that his request would be
met, as his requests had ever been met. All this Vanessa
told Stella.
It is only fair to Sebastian to say he had completely
forgotten that he had originally decided to go into
business because he had learned the precariousness of
his father's health. He had got used to David's indefi-
nite delicacy. Seeing him active in town travelling, and
taking his bi-weekly journey to the mills with regularity,
SEBASTIAN 213
it was perhaps natural in so young a man as Sebastian,
and one of so sanguine a disposition, to take it for granted
that if David had been ill he was cured, and that all he
had been unhappy about was the continuance of the firm
of P. and A. Kendall and Co.
And now Sebastian, himself, thought that was suffi-
cient career. Only he saw it large, the megalomania of
youth already cast an extraordinary glamour over the
small trade. He felt he must have it all. He must
supply England with paper; he would keep the hand-
made as a nucleus, but already, whilst he was talking
of acting as agent, of buying and distributing, he was
seeing plant and machinery, he was building and manu-
facturing; great castles in the air were erecting them-
selves in his over-active brain.
"He thinks it right to leave us for a time; to study
foreign markets, to learn all that is being done."
"But you! won't you miss him horribly?" Stella
asked, forgetting herself and her troubles, for a mo-
ment, in the consideration of Vanessa's.
But to sacrifice themselves for Sebastian came natu-
rally both to David and Vanessa. So that although
the idea of losing his companionship was devastating
to David, and made heartache for Vanessa, it had
been agreed almost without argument. When the
theatricals were over, and Twelfth Night out of the
way, Sebastian would go.
David knew that, in a way, the boy was right in
wishing to go outside their own business to learn what
was being done, and how to do it. The very fear he
had of everything that was new made him more fear-
214 SEBASTIAN
ful lest he err in checking it. He could think of the
business and consider if it would suffer more by Sebas-
tian's absence now, than it would benefit by his return
more fully armed. He could think of Vanessa, and
realise how she would miss the daily sight, and expec-
tation, of the boy, pity her that she should be con-
demned to a long spell of his own society; he could
think of Sebastian, dread strangers, home-sickness,
temptation for him. But he wasted no time at think-
ing, though it loomed heavy and dark before him, of
what his own loneliness would be now he had almost
forgotten to be lonely.
CHAPTER XV
WHAT passages or promises there had been between
Sebastian, not yet twenty, and Pleasey Pleyden-Carr,
some two or three years his senior, was never quite
clear.
At the very end, when they were already at South-
ampton, steam up, and the boat about to start, the
boy said something to his mother, which at the mo-
ment she regarded lightly. They were walking up and
down on the quay; she had come to see him off; and
David, too, was here. Everything had been said, and
said again. Money, clothes, home letters, Sebastian's
important instructions to his father as to the office
work, had all been threshed out. David was on board,
counting over the luggage. It was for a whole year
they were parting with him; he had never before been
out of their protecting care. And all their hearts were
heavy.
"Don't make it worse than it is, mater. You don't
suppose I like it, do you? But I know it has to be
done. I must keep Kendall's on the top; I've got to
learn about things; I want to make money. You'll
neither of you stand in my way when I get back, will
you? It isn't as if I were a boy."
"I don't think we have stood in your way," she
answered. "I have made mistakes," she was thinking
215
216 SEBASTIAN
of Eton, she had not forgotten, either, how she had
opposed his going into business, " but it is difficult, all
at once, to learn to be a mother. You have a profess-
orship thrust upon you, as it were, before you are
through with your preliminary. I have always wanted
to do the best for you."
"I know," already there was the whistle, and David
had come down the gangway, and was making for
them: "you've been a good sort, never a better; and
the pater, too; don't think I don't know it. But —
there is something I want to tell you. It is about
Pleasey Pleyden-Carr. I don't want you to be hurt
about it; it won't make any difference between you
and me, she hasn't exactly promised anything, but
we are going to write to each other. She is going to
wait "
Then there was David, out of breath, and nervous
lest Sebastian should miss the boat. There were kisses,
and the last good-byes, and no time for more words or
confidences.
Vanessa heard, later on, from Stella, that there had
been, apparently, some sort of love-making between
Sebastian and Bice's governess. But neither sister
looked upon it as very serious.
Bice, of course, was passionately loyal, and serious,
and secretive over it. Everything was to be kept a
secret until Sebastian came back. In the meantime
Bice was to be their best friend. She knew that he
meant to marry Pleasey when business was on the
right footing, when he was on the high road to fortune.
Pleasey had not actually promised to wait, but she
SEBASTIAN 217
would write to him, and he would answer; and above
all things, Bice was to keep him fully informed, and
well supplied with news. If Pleasey had already a
second string to her bow, neither of the honest cousins
knew it. Her amiability and pale prettiness, her plain-
tiveness and poverty, had captured them both.
Sebastian Rendall remained away from England for
rather less than a year. Vanessa filled the blank
caused by his absence, by completing the abandoned
"Between the Nisi and the Absolute,1' Incidentally,
too, it may be related that, when published, it proved
almost a complete failure. The paradoxes were forced,
laboured, and the humanity that was her new objec-
tive, failed of vraisemblance. The fact was that she
was learning something new, but she did not yet know
enough of it to teach. The book was disjointed, un-
convincing, weak. But, whilst it absorbed her, Stella
had only a perfunctory attention, and David was again
neglected, Joe Wallingford had become a mere model.
That was all he had done for her in the first year
of their acquaintanceship. He had confused her artistry,
set her to work from the life. She had endeavoured
to reproduce him, and what he had tried to convey to
her, on paper. But, not fully informed of what she
wrote, she wrote badly. Even the most amiable re-
viewer could not say she had increased her reputation
by the publication of "Between the Nisi and the Abso-
lute."
Meanwhile Sebastian was studying the paper trade,
and David was feeling the burden of running an old
business on new methods. The boy visited Sweden
218 SEBASTIAN
and Norway and Denmark, Switzerland and remote
parts of Germany, becoming conversant with the jargon
of his subject, with cellulose, and half-stuff, with felting
and fibre, with esparto, and mechanical woods.
Then he had crossed the Atlantic, and wrote that
he found himself strangely and immediately at home.
He had, indeed, become enamoured of New York be-
fore he landed, inspired by the talk of a gentleman
who talked enthusiastically about the prohibition
States, and showed his appreciation by drinking deeply
to their prosperity. Sebastian liked the bustle of it,
and its utilitarian ugliness. The breathless, restless,
business atmosphere suited him; the men, who always
had time to tell him they had none to spare attracted
him ; and he picked up Yankee phrases, and an accent-
uated twang, before he had been a week on American
soil.
He had useful introductions, and in the course of
four to six months he visited the chief paper-mills in
the States. At Washington he found the trade all
agley with a new discovery, the manufacture of a pulp,
superior to that produced from wood, and extraordi-
narily cheaper, from cornstalks; and he journeyed to
Culpepper, where the experiments were being made.
In an access of enthusiasm he was induced to give a
large order, which incidentally, it may be noted, seri-
ously embarrassed David, and the Kendall mills, when,
some time afterwards, it arrived in London.
Outside Culpepper he visited a big truck farm, and
familiarised himself with American petit culture, with-
out bell glasses, but nevertheless profitable. "Truck
SEBASTIAN 219
farm" was a new word for Sebastian. He found it
picturesque, and filled up half a letter with it.
But before the last of these letters arrived, that had
happened in Harley Street which made Sebastian's
return imperative.
Vanessa cabled as considerately as the circumstances
permitted. The message reached him when he was
still lingering in Washington.
"Should like you to return as soon as possible, Mater."
Sebastian showed the cable to the man who had put
him up at the Metropolitan Club.
"They can't get along any longer without me, you
see. I should not be surprised if it were my last letter
that has made them keen. The pater is sharp enough
to see we ought to have something in this new Com-
bine. I guess, too, he wants to talk over that Stock
proposition."
But even before he had finished his speech, his face
grew clouded.
"It is such rot they don't say what I'm wanted for,"
he went on more slowly, interrogatively.
"Ay," said John P. Tibenham, who had put through
the cornstalk deal.
John P. Tibenham's expression was enigmatic.
"Your boss keen on Combines?" he drawled out.
"You don't suppose there is anything wrong, do
you?" said the boy.
"No-o; but they seem in a mighty hurry."
Sebastian's quickness realised what was in the other's
mind.
And John P. went on to speak of trains, without
220 SEBASTIAN
going into the question of what the summons might
mean. Sebastian did not argue it.
The next few hours passed in expediting his depar-
ture, in drinking rye whisky with men who wished
him good luck, in a dream or a nightmare of good-byes.
But it was John P. who sent the cable to Vanessa,
in order that the answer should meet the boy in New
York:
"Starting Mauretania cable necessity."
Vanessa found it difficult to answer. She did not
want the boy to have his long week at sea with a great
grief to bear him company on the voyage. She could
not tell him all the truth, nor withhold it.
Sebastian had the long railway journey in which to
grow more and more anxious, in which fear knocked
day and night at his heart. He would not let it in,
his brain worked to keep it out. Aphorisms haunted
his sleeplessness: "III news travels apace." If there
was ill news, he would have known it. Besides, the
pater was all right ; every letter had assured him of it.
Aunt Stella might be ill, or Uncle William worse. He
fixed upon Uncle William finally and definitely. Of
course there would be things to settle up if Uncle Will-
iam were to die. He could not help thinking that it
would be a good thing for the business if some of the
capital locked up in Uncle William were released. No
one knew the contents of Uncle William's will; it was
probable that the pater would benefit largely by it.
It had been made many years ago: John's was ten
years old. Secretly Sebastian thought John might have
been less liberal to the Paper Trade Benevolent Fund,
SEBASTIAN 221
and more so to him. But then John had not expected
to die.
Death was the intruder into Sebastian's thoughts
during all that tedious journey to the coast. Vanessa's
cable drove it away, but only for a time. Sebastian
could not stupefy himself, even to become content.
"Pater seriously ill."
There had been no death. But the pater would
never have so cabled, if the pater's hand or brain had
been free to write or dictate. The Pater, Father, the Gov-
ernor, Pupsy; loving words, and thoughts, chased with
grey death, and peopled the Mauretania with shadows.
Sebastian found himself starting in his sleep at night,
finding his pillow wet. Fear had knocked and knocked,
and now found full admission. Sleeping and waking,
his father's face was before his eyes. The boat made
slow, crawling progress, the hours hung, and the hands
of the clock lagged. Empty chatter went on, and a
monotonous routine. If he were only sure he would
be in time ! There was no longer faltering before fear,
he was enveloped in it ; it chilled him, froze him, over-
whelmed him. He found himself recalling, with sudden
anguish, an impatient or disrespectful word; he had,
ever and again, an overwhelming, sickening rush of
longing for one more chance, another look at that dear
face. He must be in time; he could not bear it else.
The dear pater, how generous he was, how unselfish !
He must see him again, he must tell him.
Vanessa was on the dock at Liverpool. She had
been there since seven. The clinging, cold mist of the
winter morning had got in front of her courage, and
222 SEBASTIAN
dimmed it a little. She was not in weeds; the boy
must have no shock. She did not even now know
what she would shout to him across the narrowing
channel of water that so slowly closed between them.
He was on the upper deck; she had her glasses with
her and picked him out, before it had seemed possible.
Her heart went out to him, leapt the waters and was
with him.
He would guess, when he saw her, that her work at
home was done. How slowly the big boat moved;
with what incredible dilatoriness they swung out the
stage for landing !
If it had not been for Joe Wallingford, there 'had
been an hour or two more of this straining, she from
the shore, and Sebastian from the upper deck, and no
words between them. For officers of health, and from
the office of the steamship, and the customs, must first
go on board; then the big luggage must precede the
passengers. But Vanessa's "pass" overrode all these.
The officials, at foot of the gangway, could not under-
stand it when it was first shown them.
"Well, all the years I've been here, I've never seen
one like this," one said to the other, showing it. But
they had to let her up, reluctantly. And on the big
boat, too, they looked at it with surprise. It was all
right, however, apparently, for one of the stewards
was called, and bidden to find Mr. Rendall.
Sebastian was walking the upper deck, smoking
overwhelmingly, trying to be patient. He had not ex-
pected her here. He had informed himself of the pro-
cedure, and the delay in landing.
SEBASTIAN 223
When the man told him he was " wanted in the
cabin," his mind leapt at once to keys and customs,
and he felt in his pockets as he descended leisurely.
His face flushed, then went white, when he saw her.
"Oh! it's you!" and his voice faltered in speaking.
"How is he?" But he knew; he knew before she
answered.
"I took the first boat," he went on, dully.
" It was absolutely sudden. He had no pain ; he was
asleep."
"He had not asked for me?"
"He had been talking about you the evening before.
We talked about you every evening."
It was difficult to hold back his anguish. He had
feared, but hope had been there too. He had only
wanted one more look, a last word, just to tell him
there had never been such a father; and that he knew
it, even if he had not always been respectful, or shown
what he felt.
"It's — it's damned hard lines/' he said, and burst
into tears.
She tried to comfort him. It was new to him, but
nearly two weeks old to her. And here was Sebastian,
taller, more manly to look upon, but her boy, Sebas-
tian, all her boys in one. The little one of whose future
she had dreamed, and the big one of whom she had
been so proud, and the one who had cast in his lot
with his father: perhaps she had become proudest of
all of that one. And now the one who was here, his
head in her lap, her hand on his dear, dark hair. She
bent and kissed it; time and the failure of her book
had softened her, taught her a few tender words.
224 SEBASTIAN
"It is worse for you/' he said, when he had a little
recovered himself, and began to be ashamed of his
breakdown, getting up from his knees. "Poor old
mater! You must have had an awful time. I'll hear
all about it presently. I suppose I ought to be getting
my things together. How did you manage to get on
board?"
The tears started again, quite naturally. It was
wonderful what a boy he was still, although so tall, and
travelled.
"I will take care of you. We'll stick together."
The words were almost irrelevant. But she saw that
he was filled with tenderness for her, picturing her deso-
late, never having quite known how it had been between
her and David.
She told him much that he wanted to hear on their
way back to London. By mutual consent they avoided
sentiment, and confined themselves to business. She
did not want him to be hurt by the contents of his father's
will. It was contained in three lines, he had left every-
thing he possessed to "his dear wife." She was his sole
trustee and executrix. In telling Sebastian of it,
presently, she said that he and she were one, and that
his father knew this, and that their interests were identi-
cal. The will was made recently, after the trouble over
John's executors, and the legal questions that had arisen.
"He wanted to avoid taking capital from the business,
or investing in trust stocks for you, or for me. He
thought it over, and over again; it worried him a good
deal. In the end he said he knew all I cared for was you,
and that I would not hamper you in anything." She
SEBASTIAN 225
was almost apologetic, but Sebastian took it from a lofty
standpoint.
"My dear mater, the money is a mere fleabite, it
doesn't even count. The pater was satisfied with a
competence. I am going to make a fortune. Of course,
you will leave all the capital in the business, and we shall
probably have to get some more from somewhere or other.
I have made up my mind to rebuild the mills, to have at
least two new machines. It will take a few years, but
I'll make a rich woman of you. I have learnt a lot since
I've been away; we are asleep over here, gone to seed,
played out. I am going to make things hum."
It was advisable to keep him on the business note, to
lead him to talk of what he had seen and learnt. He had
another breakdown on getting to Harley Street. She
found him, late in the evening, lying on the bed, face
downward, sobbing his heart out.
"He was so good to me I never half told
him "
It was strange to Vanessa that any one could grieve
so for David. For herself, she felt as if her chains were
struck off. No sense of duty unfulfilled now hung about,
and depressed her. She was acutely conscious of her
new freedom, and it was difficult to suppress the sense of
it before Sebastian.
" But he knew what a good son you had always been.
He said so often, and that if he never saw you again,
I was to tell you."
"Did he feel ill?"
"No. But it seems he knew his life was precarious."
She sat by his bedside many nights, talking to him,
226 SEBASTIAN
of his father, and other things. He made her leave his
door open, to feel the sense of companionship with her,
a childish trick. He could not bear to be alone.
Death filled the house, chilling and trying his nerve.
Sebastian had been nervous as a child, he could never
bear darkness, nor solitude. All his childish habits,
reviving, supplied some craving in her, filled some place
she had not known was empty. She was surprised at her
happiness, his need of her. And love grew. He had the
softer heart of the two; in some few ways was the
weaker. So he leant upon her, and she gave him all her
strength, and was very happy in giving, and in realising
just where his need lay.
He was young for the burden thrust upon him. The
old business, the old name, John's executorship, and
William's trusteeship, all seemed to fall at once into
Sebastian's hands. That was a burden he grew quickly
to meet. No one hearing them discussing money matters
would have guessed that it was she, and not he, to
whom everything belonged. She was glad he felt this,
and that he had no resentment that David's will had
made no mention of him.
Sebastian decided no money was to be withdrawn from
the business, no settlement was to be made upon her.
"You draw a jolly good income," he said; "I suppose
it will not be long before you get double what you had in
the pater's time. I shall not want much for myself,
living at home with you. I will take £500 per annum,
and you can have the rest," he told her, magnanimously.
And they vied with each other in their mutual generosity.
Apart from business, invested in trust stocks, the
SEBASTIAN 227
money David had left would hardly give her £2000
a year. But in business, in Sebastian's able hands,
he said it could not pay her less than 20 per cent. ; it
would rise to 100 per cent. ! His optimism was complete,
his faith in himself unbounded.
CHAPTER XVI
IT is extraordinary how little difference David's
death made to the house in Harley Street. The clean,
sweet, unselfish life dropped out of it as if it had never
been. Sebastian soon ceased weeping for him. David
Kendall left an influence, hardly a memory, he had never
made himself felt in the house . Remorse touched Vanessa
sometimes, grief never. Sebastian had little with which
to reproach himself, but his father's ways had irked him
sometimes. David's beautiful unselfishness had tempted
both of them into negligence. It was many years before
Vanessa really realised the character of the man by
whose side she had lived for twenty years. He passed
silently into the great silence, but everywhere his feet
had trodden was the better for his passing. His secret
charities, his fine integrity, his loving kindness to friends
and brothers, wife and son, became gradually clear, and
ever clearer. To his son, who had dimly divined him,
the memory of him became as a holy place where feet
trod softly.
Sebastian was a boy when he left England, he was still
a boy when he returned to it. Bice and Pleasy Pleydon-
Carr soon consoled him for the loss of his father. He
talked largely to them of his responsibilities, of the burden
of his mother's interests, of the reforms he had effected,
or would effect in the firm.
228
SEBASTIAN 229
Almost immediately after his return home he started
putting into execution some of his plans for the extension
of the business. He was really a young man of great
parts, the future proved, or is proving it, it was his mis-
fortune that he had to control capital and expenditure
before he had learnt their relations.
In the meantime there were new agencies, and travel-
lers to push them, the enlargement of the mills, and the
acquisition of new machinery. P. and A. Kendall had
quietly, almost privately, disposed of their own hand-
made paper for four generations. Young Rendall, as he
was called, began to compete in other branches, in all
branches. He would be a paper-maker, and an agent
representing foreign 'mills, he announced himself as a
"wholesale stationer" and would have accepted printing,
or any other contract that was offered to him ; going out
of his way to look for illegitimate business. There was
resentment, indignation in the trade. For the firm
had held a unique place, and there was much shaking of
heads, and prophecies of disaster. But above all
things there was what Sebastian most enjoyed. There
was talk about him; the City discussed him, and his
plans.
The boy's vanity was excited by his competitors,
by the old men who came in to tell him of the old tradi-
tions, and seriously to urge him to walk in the same path
as his grandfather and father, his uncles and great-uncles ;
by young and middle-aged men, who explained to him
how inexperienced he was, or he would not have done this
or that, directing his attention to business etiquette. It
was pure enjoyment to him to spread out in the places he
230 SEBASTIAN
was told were barred to him. He had little or no ex-
perience, that was perfectly true, but he had an extra-
ordinary energy, a vanity and faith in himself that were
alike unbounded.
There had been, at the very beginning, some necessary
talk with his mother about income and expenditure.
She quite saw that all the money David left should re-
main in the business, and that Sebastian should have
the full use of it and full authority. He told her candidly
it was not her subject, and she agreed with him. She
was quite content to leave herself and her income in his
hands.
Everything Sebastian did, he did, in a sense, dramati-
cally. He told Vanessa if she had every necessity
during his father's lifetime, she would have more than
that, she would have luxuries, and great wealth, soon
after he had gathered the reins properly in his own hands,
and was driving full speed. In the meantime he arranged
that she should draw £4000 per annum, and he should
take £500.
Money had never interested Vanessa, she had all she
wanted materially, rather more, from David, and her own
income, earned and inherited, went in bibelots. She
had no extravagances such as perplex smaller women in
their daily life. She did not gamble, nor dress beyond
her station, she had a horror of debt, and paid her bills
when they came in. She was generous, but that was a
luxury she could afford. Her quarter's allowance
covered the quarter's expenses, the rest was for those
who needed it.
But Sebastian made money, or, rather, the acquisition
SEBASTIAN 231
of it, the topic at breakfast and the topic at dinner,
and through evenings that at last grew wearisome on the
one note. It seemed sordid to her, and a little vulgar.
Had it been any one but Sebastian who held forth in such
a manner, she would have checked, and resented it. As it
was, she tried to meet his views by putting the household
on a more lavish scale. David never quite accustomed
himself to extravagant expenditure, either in the City,
or in his private life ; he had frugal tastes and inherited
instincts. In Queen Victoria Street, and at home,
expenses grew at a proportionate rate.
There was no display, neither Sebastian nor Vanessa
had to buy society. In truth they neither of them cared
for ordinary social functions. Their individualities were
too strong. They had to be the guests, or found them-
selves bored. As host, too, although Vanessa never
acknowledged it even to herself, the boy was scarcely
an improvement on his father. It was the right and
proper thing, sometimes even it was an interesting thing,
to hear Sebastian, when alone with her of an evening,
relate all the details and embroglio of the paper trade.
He told her of the new "Association of Wholesale
Stationers" that he boasted was as a Trust, or Combine
against him personally, and he schemed how he should
meet it. But it was quite another matter when she
entertained her friends, and he dashed, relentlessly,
into congenial talk of Fabianism, or Free Trade,
with irrelevant personal information as to how he was
pushing P. and A. Kendall! It was always the "paper
trade" with Sebastian; she grew bored with the very
name of P. and A. Kendall, but disguised it, for its ex-
232 SEBASTIAN
ponent was very dear to her, although now he satisfied
her critical taste so much less fully than she had hoped.
She even detected a gradual alteration in his speech, a
shade, or intonation that vexed her ear. She forced her-
self from this mentally critical attitude, surely she loved
him, and Stella ? For all her self-communings and analy-
sis, she could never quite persuade herself she had any
capacity of great affection outside these two.
Joe Wallingford had lost no time after David's death
in asking her to share his millions. With a man like Joe,
having a shrewd idea of the terms on which Vanessa
lived with her husband, there was no need for delicacy,
or restraint, in putting forward his suit.
He had written to her, even before Sebastian returned
from America. She answered, quite candidly and un-
reservedly, that married life had no lure for her, she was
glad of her freedom, and meant to retain it; Sebastian
and Stella were sufficient ties. She told him again that
she was primarily an authoress, and because her last
book had been badly received she was keener than ever
about the next. The correspondence between them
began before David had been dead a month. Joe was
not dissatisfied with the progress he was making. He
never deceived himself into thinking she would be easy
to woo.
After Sebastian's return, Joe came again to Harley
Street. She had refused to marry him, but she was glad
of his proffered friendship, she valued it, too, for the boy.
Joe Wallingford was the one habitue of the house, which
had so soon resumed its normal aspect and hospitality,
before whom the boy's talk never appeared intrusive or
SEBASTIAN 233
banal. It might be egotistic, but it was not any longer
incongruous. The rest of the circle were cultivated, or
literary, people. Sebastian found no interest at the
moment save in himself or his work. Thus it came about
that to both mother and son, Joe was their most wel-
come visitor.
"He is getting on all right?" Joe asked her one even-
ing, some eight or nine months after David's death.
"He seems to take a great interest in the business.
You don't think he is going a bit too fast?"
"Oh, no, everything is very flourishing."
She laughed.
"He tells me I am to buy as much china as I want,
he begs me to deny myself nothing. He is such a good
son, he wants me not to miss David's generosity. But
really, David never encouraged me to spend as Sebastian
does. I am quite ashamed sometimes of the amount I
draw. But he says there is no reason to save."
"You have left all your money in the business?"
Joe asked, with apparent carelessness. He had a lurking
doubt or two, but was content with the position, honest
nevertheless. "It is a great responsibility for so young
a man, without much experience."
"He learnt a great deal whilst he was away. He
is really not to be judged by any standard that applies
to ordinary young men," she answered, easily.
Once or twice, on other occasions, Joe tried to convey
to her his sense that Sebastian was playing a big game
before he had learnt the rules. But she was deaf, or
careless, to any hint. And, after all, Joe had nothing
to gain by forcing that view upon her.
234 SEBASTIAN
Vanessa could not feel anxiety or uneasiness about the
present, or the future, of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall;
she was only rather bored by it. But she could grow
anxious or worried about other matters in connection
with the boy, and her ever-deepening sense of responsi-
bility toward him took on a new complexion about this
time.
Miss Pleasey Pleyden-Carr was the fons et origo mali
of the change.
Pleasey, with a second string to her bow, intriguing
behind Bice's back, looking upon Sebastian as a boy,
but a boy who might one day be rich, played him with
more cleverness than one could have credited to her.
Sebastian was encouraged one moment, and held at arm's
length the next. He found it difficult to get at close
quarters with his lady love. She would not hear of an
engagement, she was not sure if she cared for him enough !
She was coy, and sometimes amenable, but she was never
definite. She came between him and his business,
distracting his mind, but entertaining his evenings, and
many of his Sundays.
The room behind the dining-room in Weymouth
Street belonged still to the young people. No one
interfered if Bice chose to leave it to Sebastian and
Pleasey, to curl herself up with a novel in the dining-room,
and let them be undisturbed. That a certain amount
of love-making went on is indubitable; Bice was an
accessory before the act, as the legal phrasing runs.
Bice knew nothing of Bob Hayling. Pleasey had
leisure and many opportunities, whilst Bice attended
classes at Queen's College, performed a limited number
SEBASTIAN 235
of social duties, filled her mother's unoccupied hours,
playing the part of the only daughter of the house.
She was loyal to Sebastian. She was as limited as her
Aunt Vanessa in her affections, her delicate mother,
and Sebastian, absorbed them all. Pleasey shone with
a reflected glory. Bice knew nothing of Bob Hayling,
of the second string to Pleasey's bow.
Then came a day when Pleasey discovered that she
was not "doing right" in encouraging Sebastian's at-
tentions, when she began to avoid tete-a-tetes, and make
a display of prudery. The thing grew. She said she
was too old for him, she resorted to tears, and repented
she should ever have allowed him to kiss her. The
episode ended by her seeking an interview with Stella, and
tendering a month's notice. She was agitated, and trem-
ulous, and vaguely candid. She told Stella all about
Sebastian's love-making. She said she thought she had
better go home to her father and mother. They were
so anxious about it, they were so particular.
"I shouldn't worry about it," Stella told her, sooth-
ingly. "He is only a boy, he is not twenty-one yet.
You are three or four years older than he —
"Two," interposed Pleasey, mendaciously. "Well!
hardly more than eighteen months. My birthday is in
May," she added, thinking she had perhaps gone too far
on the road to veracity.
"What is the harm of his making love to you? He
has always done it, more or less, hasn't he?" Stella
went on, carelessly. She thought Miss Pleyden-Carr was
making too much of the circumstance.
"It — it isn't only his making love to me." Pleasey
236 SEBASTIAN
became indefinitely confidential. Stella had always
liked her for her prettiness, and tact, for her gift of put-
ting her clothes on well, and keeping Bice content.
Stella thought things had better go on as they were,
it would keep Sebastian out of mischief. Stella had a
very definite notion of how much mischief a boy could
get into, if he set his mind to it.
Pleasey suddenly confessed that he wanted her to
promise to marry him !
Stella laughed.
"But surely you are not bound to do it because he
asks you ! And you have always Bice with you. Don't
make a fuss, there's a good girl. I have not time to
get any one else to be with Bice. What is the good of
bothering? All young men fall in love with women
older than themselves. But they get over it, you need
not give him any great encouragement, very little will
satisfy him, and he is sure to eventually like some
one else even better. Boys are not very constant; you
have nothing to fear from him, the 'young Lochinvar'
days are out of fashion."
Pleasey omitted to state how much encouragement
she had already administered. She played her game
very well indeed, and eventually converted Stella from
an active, to a passive, opponent of her going home for
a few months.
"I cannot be here, and not see him. I do not want
to deprive Bice of his companionship. I really think
I ought to go, you don't know how impetuous he is
Pleasey could even blush to command.
It was agreed she should rejoin her family circle for
SEBASTIAN 237
six months. Stella gave her a handsome present. Lord
Saighton sent her father an additional cheque. He and
Stella agreed she had behaved extremely well.
"It won't do to have that young fellow hanging about
her here; it is not good for Bice, nor for any of them,"
Saighton said, authoritatively.
Stella, who was only reticent about her own affairs,
could not resist sharing Pleasey's confidences with
Vanessa.
"Your Bayard has been making love to Bice's com-
panion," was the way she started the conversation, the
very afternoon that it had been decided Pleasey should
go home with her cheques.
"That is an old story, is it not?" Vanessa answered,
indifferently. "I thought I heard something about it
before he went abroad. Has it begun again?"
"Begun again ! It appears it never left off; they cor-
responded all the time."
"He never speaks of her to me."
"That is a bad sign."
"It is a sign he does not deem the affair important."
Vanessa could not be uneasy. Sebastian was still
exceptional and significant to her. Ambrose Pleyden-
Carr's daughter seemed an emasculate young person,
quite unworthy of serious consideration in such a con-
nection.
Stella did not like her news accepted so indifferently.
"You may say it is unimportant, but Sebastian is
madly in love with her."
"Calf love!" said Vanessa, looking again at Stella's
array of orchids. "I should not dream of interfering
238 SEBASTIAN
with him, nor forcing his confidence. She is a feeble
young person with a habit of saying, ' Oh ! really ! ' She
varies it sometimes with, 'Fancy that!' Unless you
mind them meeting here, I do not see any harm in it.
She will soon tire him. I find five minutes of her vague
insincerity quite enough for me; so will he, presently."
"You under-rate her. She has a lovely figure, puts
on her clothes like a Parisian, and has at least a yard and
a half of fair hair."
"She is an albino, mentally and morally anaemic. I
have only seen her a few times, but I am sure she is not
going to be seriously dangerous. Besides, Sebastian is
absorbed in business. Really, Stella, this is a hare you
have started."
"I have not started it."
"Or are pursuing. The boy is serious-minded."
"Pleasey told me, herself."
"She is at an age when she must invent adventures
if she fail in encountering them."
"Well, don't say you have not been warned."
"In another five years I may begin to take Sebastian's
love affairs seriously. You don't understand him."
Stella laughed.
"He is not very difficult."
"He is fonder of his cousin than of her companion.
He has really a very fine appreciation of Bice. He
was only saying the other day -
There was no use urging the matter any further.
Vanessa was determined not to see, and after all, no
harm had been done. Pleasey indulged herself in a last
scene with the boy before returning to that shabby home
SEBASTIAN 239
in Wimbledon, and the easy rendez-vous with Bob Hay-
ling. She contrived to put Sebastian completely in the
wrong. He had certain privileges, and it appeared he had
exceeded them. He thought he was engaged, whereas
it transpired he had only been on probation. Cer-
tainly an early marriage had not been in his mind. He
must wait until affairs were on a more settled basis in
Queen Victoria Street. But he wanted the privileges of
a lover. At a hint that she was going away, that he
would not see her again for some months, his ardour
broke through some new bonds that she had imposed on
herself, or him. She resented it most plaintively, and
distracted him beyond words. What he had done he
never quite knew. But it was all over, his love rejected,
his pride hurt, his intelligence bewildered. Whatever
was between them was at an end. He had misunder-
stood her, apparently, from the very beginning.
"She has done with me," he told Bice.
And for the moment she meant it. He was only a
boy, dependent on his mother. Pleasey knew all about
the will. Mr. Robert Hayling had a motor-car, and a
pretty lavish way of ordering luncheons and dinners.
She had been meeting him now and again for over a year,
but their opportunities had been limited. It was he who
had suggested that she should give up her situation, and
go home. He must mean something by it, and she
wanted to find out exactly what he meant. Sometimes
she fancied herself in love with Bob Hayling. He was
really a fine man, somewhere about forty, with expressive
eyes, his hair grey on the temples, his manner with
women extraordinarily confident. One could get a thrill
240 SEBASTIAN
out of a man like that. There was no thrill to be had
from Sebastian Kendall's boyish passion for her.
But she had prevision, she kept her retreat open,
parting from Bice with tears and promises of constant
visits, dismissing Sebastian with a vague promise of
future friendship, impressing even the amused Stella
with the belief that she was really acting from conscien-
tious motives.
CHAPTER XVII
VANESSA, when she heard that Miss Pleyden-Carr
had left the Ashtons, only observed that she thought
it was "a very good thing." She did not immediately
ascribe the change in Sebastian's habits to Pleasey's
absence from Weymouth Street. She was ever a writer
of romance, rather than an interpreter of human motives
and actions.
Business became now Sebastian's only objective.
Pleasey Pleyden-Carr may have obscured his outlook,
but such as she could not definitely affect the mainspring
of his character. He told his mother, about this time,
that "things were beginning to move." In truth, Se-
bastian was reaping the benefit of the name that had been
built up, and the principles with which his father had
imbued him. Competitors resented him, but new clients
liked the long credits, and the reliable quality. And
when they came in contact with him, they liked the eager
youngster, who was really a good salesman, and keen to
do business against his rivals, at almost any price that
offered. He talked very freely about "turnover," he
took the world into his confidence. He felt he had had
a good day when he had made a big contract, even if he
had accepted it at a loss, or if he had sold old stock at
or under cost, without taking into consideration that it
had been accumulating interest.
R 241
242 SEBASTIAN
The defection of Pleasey but accelerated the activity
at the mills and in Queen Victoria Street. Incidentally
perhaps she necessitated it. The business was widening
and extending, the purely clerical work growing heavier
and heavier; humming and buzzing filled the office,
no trace was left of the prosperous, leisurely quietude
that had reigned there in the time of Sebastian's father
and uncles. The business, the capital, the income, were
all in the boy's young hands. He had none to interfere
with nor hamper him, and he could start one large
scheme after another without old-fashioned caution
cramping or paralysing his action. The very word
"overtrading" was outside his commercial dictionary,
it had been a figment of his father's brain, part of his
illness. Sebastian felt the necessity for enlarging the
mills, importing more machinery, trying every new pulp,
and combination of pulps, putting a hundred eggs in a
hundred baskets, relying on his brain to market them all
safely, counting cost neither of baskets nor eggs. Re-
action from the disappointment over Pleasey took the
immediate first form of an added vanity in his City
success, or that which looked so like success, on the
surface.
"You don't meet men of my calibre in the City,"
he told his mother, quite simply.
"I shall sweep the board, they don't understand a
business policy over here, it is all just buying and selling
with them. I am going for monopolies. When I have
put everything in order at the mills, I shall have a go
at the wall paper trust; we are making long elephant
already ! I am getting it out at a wonderful price, with
SEBASTIAN 243
that new machine of mine. They don't like it at Green-
hithe, I can tell you that. J. D. Rockefeller cornered oil
when he had more against him than I have."
He still talked continuously of the one subject. He
did not want to discuss anything else. He made no con-
fidences about his love affair, and Vanessa did not press
for them. Even Bice's sympathy had to remain word-
less. She was furious with Pleasey's betrayal. But the
boy's sensitiveness covered itself with P. and A. Kendall,
as with a garment.
There were difficulties ahead, and these, too, he
doubled, for distraction.
"I am plunging a bit," he admitted to Vanessa, "you
don't mind a fair trading risk, do you, mater?"
She had very little idea what was a fair, or unfair,
trading risk; she was satisfied, without being curious,
so long as the boy was content in what seemed to her,
nevertheless, very uncongenial work. Joe Wallingford's
warning had reached no further than her external ear.
She had resented the failure of her last book more than
she admitted, even to herself. She was laying down
the foundations of another. Perhaps that was why
she was slow in associating Pleasey's defection with a
certain development in Sebastian's conduct.
Sebastian's subsequent few months had many excuses.
His father's death, Pleasey's unreasonable dismissal,
chilled for the moment what was warmest and best in
him. The sentient parts, that remained unaffected,
were occupied entirely in mundane things. He saw
City men, and heard the talk of City men, at luncheons,
in private offices, in interchange of "drinks" at the con-
244 SEBASTIAN
elusion of a bargain. And often it was coarse talk and
anecdote he heard.
Years of compulsory football at school had given him
a distaste for all forms of exercise, so there was no outlet
there. Both the spiritual side of him, for the boy had
ideals and a spiritual side, and the intellectual side of
him, and that too is undeniable, suffered temporary
eclipse. Materialism was what he had brought back
from America, not dogma perhaps, but a careless accept-
ance. There was no real viciousness, but some curiosity,
and an absence of creed. Quite deep down, unconfessed,
the ever-aching wound of Pleasey's rejection affected
his moral health.
By the time a new book was planned, and Vanessa
fully awakened, she discovered that Sebastian was no
longer content to spend his evenings alone with her in
the drawing-room. He had found that "life" was part
of the equipment of a business man, and had decided
upon penetrating its mysteries.
Reticence was no part of the scheme, quite the con-
trary. After all, "the mater is a woman of the world,"
he argued, and "a novelist." The new side of life he
was learning was bound to interest her.
He talked about it at brekafast, and through dinner.
It is far more difficult to lead a fast life in London than
it is in Paris, or Vienna, in Buda Pesth, or Simla, for in-
stance, but it is not impossible. Sebastian's curiosity was
gratified long before he became in any way entangled,
or individually held, by what he saw and learnt.
Vanessa's instinctive purity shrank from what Se-
bastian told her, but she thought it was right that she
SEBASTIAN 245
should listen. The unhappiness that lurks in wait for
all loving mothers of adolescent sons sprang upon her
presently, fastening claws of apprehension in all her
tender parts.
At first he skated over thin ice, and she missed seeing
that there were depths. It was this wide, misty vision
of hers that made her an indifferent novelist, she always
saw surfaces. Sebastian, however, only needed a listener,
it did not matter to him how much, or little, she saw,
or misunderstood. All his instincts were good, he was
not David's son for nothing. But he had been chaffed
by his City friends, comments were made, and doubts
thrown on his manhood, when he abstained from taking
part in loose talk, or found no food for laughter in coarse
anecdote. Vanity overrode his own secret antipathy
to impure things. He only wanted to know, it was only
curiosity he had, not evil instinct.
He met a woman who quoted Euripides, spoke three
or four modern languages, yet supped by herself at a table
at the Continental Hotel, and shared it with any one
who would pay for her society. He could not but talk
to Vanessa of this woman, and he described her flat,
and sought for the clue to her downfall.
There was another, French or Russian, who took a
fancy to him, and invited him to her house in Mayfair.
Sebastian described how, when he called, he was shown
up to her room, and how calmly she continued her toi-
lette before him. It was her lost attribute of modesty
that interested him, and her utter want of moral sense,
not the woman, not Sacha, herself.
"It is so jolly to be able to talk to you about every-
246 SEBASTIAN
thing," he said to Vanessa, "you are so sensible. It
is the psychology of the thing that interests me. You
don't mind hearing about it, do you? I shall write
about it myself, one day, if you don't take it up, ' Autour
du demi-monde,1 I shall call the book. I suppose my
French is good enough, and if not, you could polish it
up for me. It wouldn't do in English, the British public
like their powders in jam."
This was in the beginning. And to his Aunt Stella
he said :
"I am helping the mater to a lot of new copy. There
are a number of tilings she knows nothing whatever
about. Come to think about it, Stella," - for he refused
the prefix "Aunt" since he had become a man, and she
liked the impertinence, — "I suppose I ought not to tell
her, but there are ripping stories that have never been
written, and she seems rather to have slackened off in
her writing. ' Between the Nisi and the Absolute1 was
a frost. She doesn't know enough, that's the trouble.
Sometimes one would think she had never grown up,
nor had her eyes opened, she seems so curiously remote.
I used to take her for granted, but now I think about
her," he added, ingenuously. "I believe it will do her a
lot of good to hear about the things I am seeing."
"I should think the stories you tell her might prove
unpublishable."
" No ! what can be lived can be written."
"Theoretic, French, and untenable."
"Well, they ought to be written."
"You don't tell them to Bice, I hope?"
"What do you take me for?"
SEBASTIAN 247
"I am not quite sure that your mother knows more
than Bice," she murmured.
"She is extraordinarily innocent, isn't she?" he went
on, confidentially. "I test her now and then, and she
takes my breath away.' But she thinks she knows life
backward, that is the funny thing about it."
" I'm not quite sure you ought to discuss your mother."
"It is all right if I only do it with you," he said, easily,
" there is something about twins — besides I am not
saying anything I shouldn't. We both know there is
no one like her. She came down to Queen Victoria
Street the other day, and Hayling was there, — you've
heard of Hayling, haven't you? — senior partner in
Hayling and Johnson. They never did a stroke with us
until I came on, they were rather by way of being com-
petitors, they've got their own mills. But now I do a lot
of business with them, and I shall do more before long.
He met the mater, and I introduced them. He said he
didn't know I had a sister! Never could believe she
was my mother. Don't you think she is looking younger
than ever?"
"Happier." Stella knew Vanessa was happy in her
freedom.
"That's rot; she is lonely, I suppose," he had never
got close to the truth about Vanessa's attitude toward
his father, "but I think she is going on all right. We
talk of starting a book, or play, in collaboration. Not
that our talents march together. I am really quicker,
you know, up and dressed, so to speak, before she's
out of bed. Besides I'm so dog tired of an evening, that
business of mine is a fearful strain •"
248 SEBASTIAN
Vanessa was exerting herself now that Sebastian should
miss nothing in her companionship. Always she had
intended to be father and mother to him, and had been
full of theories. At this juncture she felt it might be a
father he needed. In truth she hated the nights he was
out, and feared the things he would tell her in the morn-
ings. She concealed her feelings, she was ashamed of
them. She, too, thought a knowledge of "life" might
be essential, and sought for the cause of her late failure
in her ignorance of ugly things. But she began to be
haunted by ugliness, and to dread always more Sebas-
tian's revelations. It was impossible to conceal her
distress of mind. Stella laughed at her when a few halt-
ing words revealed the cause of a growing restlessness,
and anxiety of demeanour.
"Are you worrying yourself into a shadow, because
Sebastian is stopping out late, or going out of town from
Friday until Monday ? What did you expect of him ?
you did not want him to be a saint, I suppose ? How
can you make yourself so ridiculous about that boy ? I
can't make it out."
And Hilda de Cliffe, who had her own quick way of
gratifying a curiosity, was no more sympathetic.
"Do tell me, I am just like Rosa Dartle, I always
want to know. Is it true that Sebastian is getting up
London life for you? Has he made any wonderful dis-
coveries ? Are they going to be in your next book ?"
Vanessa found curiosity, sympathy, and comment
equally hard to bear. And indeed Sebastian's im-
petuosity, and way of flinging himself entirely into the
affair of the moment, made the position dangerous.
SEBASTIAN 249
Sometimes he gave, at breakfast or dinner, a lurid glimpse
into his evening life. But she never could quite grasp
if he coloured or cleared it of colour.
Whilst he remained curious only, and a student, she
was completely in his confidence. There came a time,
however, when he penetrated the arcana, and what he
saw he had no wish to tell her. But she had glimpses.
" Mater, could you let me have £250 ? I made a bit
of an ass of myself last night," he said to her one morning,
"without inconvenience, I mean."
" Whatever I have is yours, of course. I think there
is more than that in the bank, doing nothing."
He looked rather pale, his eyes were not quite as
bright as they had been, and there were shadows under
them. He was very thin.
"I am keeping awful hours," it was at breakfast, but
he was yawning. "I never got home until four this
morning; three hours' sleep isn't enough for a fellow, is
it ? But I have not been late in the City any morning,
have I?" He wanted her commendation. "A fellow
must live through this sort of thing."
She, too, was tired this morning, having listened for
his footstep, and given rein to her imagination, through
a lurid night.
"Shall I write you the cheque now?"
" You don't ask what it is for ?"
" Why should I ? You will tell me if you want me to
know."
"You can hear, if you like. I rather hate having
been such an ass."
"You said you were going to the American ball."
250 SEBASTIAN
"So I did. I met some people I knew."
"Some one you knew in America?"
"Not a bit of it. It isn't Americans who go to this
sort of function, they want to get away from their own
people. I can't tell you now, I must be off. This
damned office is getting on my nerves. I feel like a
galley slave, chained to the oar. I'll tell you all about it
this evening; I shan't go out, I'm tired of it all."
His morning mood dismayed her. She thought noth-
ing of the cheque. Vanessa's generosity was not even
admirable, she always had more than she wanted.
But the boy left behind him that morning almost every
species of misgiving. He was tired of City work ! She
had anticipated the moment; but now it seemed a
weakness. Joe had warned her of a possible failure.
And she wanted to have been able to boast to him of an
overwhelming success. The boy was overstraining
himself, physically, through want of sleep. He had
eaten no breakfast, and admitted he had drank more
than was good for him last night. He had admitted,
too, that he had made a fool of himself, and this was the
first time she had heard him self-condemnatory.
The day was full of fears, and she tortured herself
with questions. She had had such fine material en-
trusted her. The boy had brain, and heart, and capacity.
What had she done, or left undone, that he should have
come to this pass ? And of course she exaggerated the
nature of the u pass," dreaming of crevasse and precipice,
whilst as yet, it was only that the sky was slightly over-
cast, and the air cold.
That same evening, enervated, slack, and sorry for
SEBASTIAN 251
himself, Sebastian gave her an outline of what had oc-
curred to him. She was glad to have him at home, and
made him drink champagne with his dinner. Now she
bade him lie on the sofa, she adjusted the pillows, and
turned the lamp low.
"You are not looking well," was an involuntary state-
ment, although it was so obviously true. He took a
little pride in his dissipated appearance, and went over
to the mirror, before he accepted the sofa and the
cushions.
" I am thin, aren't I ?" he said, ingenuously, " you can't
burn the candle at both ends without feeling it. Isn't
that four nights running that I've been on the go ? I
shall have to pull up."
But it was clear he was not really ashamed. All these
months he had only been a looker-on. He remained an
idealist, and, true to his ideals, it was only knowledge
that he sought. On the subject of the cheque that had
been required, however, he was a little ashamed.
"I ought to have tumbled to it, of course. I was
cheated. I played poker before, in the States, but that
was among friends, dollar rises."
She was listening with all her ears and intelligence.
It was a gambling debt then that she had discharged.
He flung himself on the sofa, and went on :
"Hayling was at the ball, with rather a rowdy party.
We really had quite a good time," he began to recall the
events of the evening with a certain relish, notwithstand-
ing the climax. "I danced a lot, and there was plenty
of champagne. Hayling rather flung it about, I was tired
before I started, and wanted bucking up. It was In-
252 SEBASTIAN
dependence Day, and we strained the point, perhaps;
American songs and choruses, waving flags and so on,
you know the sort of thing. A little woman that I'd
been dancing with most of the evening, she had reddish
hair, and a ripping figure, asked me to get her out of it.
She said it was getting too hot; it was rather hot."
He smiled reminiscently at a rowdyism in which he
had been rather spectator than actor. "Of course I
couldn't do less than see her home. She has a flat in
Victoria Street. Nothing could have been more domes-
ticated ; I stumbled over a perambulator in the passage.
She asked me to come in, she said her husband would be
sitting up, would like to thank me for my kindness to
her. She told me he was an Englishman, an old Etonian,
so of course he would not celebrate an Independence Day.
Well, mater, he was a very nice chap, and he had been in
Luxmore's house. We had a whisky and soda together,
and talked about the place. He had been rather good at
racquets ; and he agreed with what I said, that we only
really begin to care for Eton after we have left it. I
would not give up my memories of Eton for anything,
now, and I hated it all the time I was there, and so had
he. It was too early to turn in ! I think it was her sug-
gestion to send into the other flat, and finish up the
evening with a game of poker. Anyway he went to see
if there was any one there, and I got on all right with her
alone."
His smile, at the remembrance of the few moments
he had with this attractive, red-haired young woman,
was rather that of a mischievous schoolboy, than of a
dissipated young man.
SEBASTIAN 253
"He brought back two pals of his, or hers, they were
both in the army, oldish men. I didn't care for either.
They had to teach me the game, I had forgotten the
values, although I knew all about the 'rises' and ' blinds.'
I don't think we fixed any limit. To make a long story
short, I won at first, and then I lost. I got the needle,
and played it up. Then I drew four kings, and went
up to £150. There were four aces against me ! I had
had enough of it then. They were very nice about it,
I must say that for them, they were sorry I'd lost, and
said I could have my revenge any time. I hadn't the
money on me, so I gave an I.O.U. for it."
"It was very unlucky."
She did not know anything at all about the game,
but gathered that the four kings should have been suc-
cessful.
"Well! that is what gives me the sick." Sebastian
had obviously renewed his acquaintanceship with Amer-
ican phraseology. "I started telling Hayling about it
to-day; we lunched together. He says they are card-
sharpers, known to the police, known to everybody.
Captain Villiers, Major Elers, they call themselves;
there is a regular gang of them."
"And the red-haired lady?"
"God knows." He stretched himself, and yawned.
" What I can't get over is having been such a mug. They
must have stacked the cards, of course."
She wanted to restore his belief in himself, to comfort
him for having been cheated.
" You could not possibly have known. I do not under-
stand how such a person could have got in to the dance.
254 SEBASTIAN
Several people I know attend it regularly; the American
Ambassador is one of the patrons."
"The tickets are only ten bob, anybody can get in.
The strange part is that she really is a nice little woman,
and there is no doubt her husband was at Eton."
"You will not go there again, you will not pursue
the acquaintance?" she asked, anxiously.
"I am not so bally sure. Forewarned is forearmed,
I shan't play cards there again, but she is rather an
attractive little donah !"
This incident became one of many. Letters and
telegrams came to the house. Sebastian seemed to be in
great, and ever greater, request amongst a whole section
of people who were unknown to his mother. Out of a
shifting kaleidoscope of names, and places, and personal-
ities, one or two began to grow clear. Hayling, for in-
stance, was brought home, apparently at his own request.
She found herself distrustful of him, and resented the
familiarity of his manner. He was a partner in "John-
son and Hay lings," one of the leading firms in the paper
trade. They had been doing, for many years, the bulk
of the trade that Sebastian was keen on obtaining for
Kendalls. Mr. Hayling dropped into confidential talk
with Vanessa, the first evening he dined with them.
"Your son and I are great friends; I try to be of a
little assistance to him now and again. I am so much
older than he is."
"He has had the benefit of his father's experience,"
she answered, stiffly. She was up in arms at once at the
note of patronage she detected, or suspected.
"Of course, but I wasn't alluding "
SEBASTIAN 255
"The pater only had experience of an out-of-date
branch/' Sebastian struck in, "hand-made has gone pop.
No one uses it. Nobody cares for quality now, except
half a dozen firms, that we have got stone cold, firms
we have done business with for centuries. There isn't
a living in it, not enough to persuade a bank clerk from
his stool."
Hayling protested against such a sweeping statement,
and argument ensued.
Mr. Hayling, Robert, or "Bob," as his friends called
him, familiarly, was what is generally known as a " man
about town." His family were business people, origi-
nally Quakers, and they had been rich for three genera-
tions. Bob had been to a public school, and graduated
at Cambridge, taking a respectable second class. At
twenty-two he married a young woman he met in a tea-
shop, and at twenty-three he had grown tired of her.
Her early death left him free to indulge his tastes, which
were eclectic, and untrammelled save by his own con-
venience. He was justified in representing himself as
capable of benefiting Sebastian by his business expe-
rience, for he worked well in the City, in the intervals
of his self indulgence in the West End. But there was
an absence of moral consciousness about him that led
one to doubt even his commercial integrity.
Vanessa did not like her son's friend, and found it
difficult to understand the genesis of the intimacy,
although the whole of that first evening, and for many
months to follow, Bob Hayling devoted himself strenu-
ously to the task of making himself as acceptable to the
mother as he had to the son.
256 SEBASTIAN
He was undeniably good-looking, in a grey-haired,
exhausted way. There was no more colour in his face
than in his hair, his complexion was grey, his face clean
shaven, and all the lines exposed. His figure was good,
and his height over six feet, he was undoubtedly what
the majority of women would call "a fine man." He
wore an eyeglass, on a moire silk ribbon, and dressed
with extreme care. He pursued adventure, as other
men pursue foxes, or kill game. It was the only sport
he knew. Already past his fortieth year, he had grown
perhaps a little languid in his pleasures. He sometimes
thought, now, that there might be an attraction in
domesticity, and one's own hearth. But he had been
too long used to play the cuckoo for him to lightly con-
template building a nest. His particular charm, and
what he considered the cause of his almost infallible
success with women, was a confidential tone, and a
caressing manner. He meant to have a "success" with
Sebastian's mother, but it would seem that it was long
in coming.
"You don't like Hayling, mater?" Sebastian said to
her, at breakfast. " Now I wonder why ? He is quite
a good sort. It was his idea my bringing him home.
He has asked me about it two or three times since that
day when he first saw you in the City. You were not
very civil to him last night. I can't think why."
"I thought I was quite civil, I tried to be, but I admit
he did not impress me favourably."
"His manners are good? "
"Y-e-es, perhaps. But there seems to be rather too
much of them."
SEBASTIAN 257
"He puts things in my way."
"That is what I fear- -"
The boy reddened.
"Of course you know what I mean/' he interrupted
shortly, "in the City. He took a stack of stuff off my
hands when I collared that contract from Pierce's, and
then couldn't place it. You're prejudiced against him,
because he is in trade."
"Or because he introduces you to undesirable people
at American balls ! "
Nevertheless, and without her being able to avoid,
or perhaps to justify, her desire to avoid him, Hayling
became a frequenter of the Harley Street house ; Se-
bastian brought him home to dinner two or three times
a week. It seemed that, in all the dissipations in which
Sebastian took part, Hayling was an active, or passive,
participant. And he insisted on being confidential
with Vanessa, sometimes vexing her by a knowledge of
the boy's doings, by being more completely in his con-
fidence than she, sometimes reassuring her to the im-
pression that he was genuinely fond of the boy, and
anxious to pilot him safely through a difficult tide.
But she would not receive the other impression he
wished to convey, that it was his interest in her that
prompted, or deepened, his interest in Sebastian. Bob
Hayling was more or less a professional lover, with
conventional compliments and cliches. Sometimes he
irritated Vanessa, and often he bored her. Eventually
she came to look upon him as mere material, and the
interest she then extended to him was used to elicit
stock phrases of which she kept notes.
SOME few weeks after the poker incident, Vanessa
became aware that a new interest, or absorption, held
Sebastian's leisure hours. She had a prevision of fresh
trouble. She still refrained from questioning him, but
his ingenuousness gave her the clue to an acquaintance
that, the moment they touched upon the subject, he
admitted he found extraordinarily exciting. There was
mystery in it, and romance. It was not his heart that
was involved, it was his imagination.
"You remember, mater, lending me the Victoria for
a couple of hours last Thursday ? I meant to go up to
the Albert Hall to see about those tickets for you. But
just as I got halfway through the park ; it was by the
water, before we got to the gate ; a lady bowed to me, a
ripping-looking woman. She was in a very smart turn-
out, a fine pair of bays, quite the right thing in liveries,
and cockade, and the rest of it. I returned the bow,
although I did not know her from Adam. I wanted to
have another look, so I told John to turn. We got
stopped by the traffic, side by side. She had bowed to
me, so I didn't see any harm in smiling at her. Then
she leaned forward, and said:
" ' It is a long time since we have met. I do not be-
lieve you even recognised me at first ? '
"I had never set eyes on the woman before. So I
258
SEBASTIAN 259
protested that I could not possibly have forgotten her,
that I remembered her perfectly.
"'How long are we going to be held up here?' she
asked. I told her I 'couldn't think.' 'Well, it seems
absurd we should be in two carriages, when we could talk
so much better in one,' she answered. And it did not
take me long to be sitting beside her, talking as if we had
known each other all our lives."
He went on to say that her conversation was most
interesting, and it was obvious she moved in select
circles. For she knew, and bowed, to many people, and
she spoke familiarly of the royalties, calling them by
their Christian names. She accepted an invitation,
which she prompted Sebastian to issue, that they should
dine together. She became suddenly doubtful, however,
if the proprieties were being observed, and she tried to
"cry off." Sebastian admitted that he was insistent,
and pleaded their old acquaintanceship ! And that pres-
ently the plea prevailed.
Vanessa heard this part of the story from Sebas-
tian. He related incidents of the dinner and evening,
how the waiter called his guest "your ladyship," and
how she rebuked his indiscretion !
Sebastian was really ingenuous, at twenty-one illusion
had not yet vanished, and he was imaginative by in-
heritance.
After the dinner, he had seen the woman home to a
luxurious flat in St. James's, where two men-servants,
and a French maid, completed the impression she con-
veyed. He thought now that either a fancied resem-
blance to some one else, or his own beaux yeux, had at-
260 SEBASTIAN
tracted to him one of the leaders of society ! He respected
her anonymity, accepting a nom de guerre she gave, but
which she owned was not her own.
She admitted, too, it appeared, that she found his
society attractive, and deplored that she was not free
to indulge herself in it openly.
The wildest conjectures floated in the liquidity of
Sebastian's mind. He conferred peerages upon her,
sometimes even crediting her with royal blood.
Before he was disillusioned, however, he became,
for some reason or another, firmly convinced that she
was a very well-known lady, not of the blood royal, but
"daughter of a hundred earls," and recently involved in
a complicated divorce suit, from which she had emerged
with sufficient reputation to make it possible that the
co-respondent should deem it his duty to marry her !
Sebastian took the theme of his mother's last book
for his inspiration. If he were right in his identification,
then she was living in that strange period "Between the
Nisi and the Absolute." Sebastian thought it was pos-
sible her lover was abroad. He did not find it strange that
she should wish to give him her unoccupied hours, nor
hesitate to avail himself of them.
At the beginning of this entanglement, Sebastian
voiced to Vanessa his interest, doubts, and amazing,
imaginative conclusions. As his interest deepened, and
the toils gathered round him, Bob Hayling dropped
her a hint or two. By the time the boy's infatuation
was patent to all London, Vanessa was conscious of a
change in his manner toward her. It was not that he
was a less good son, but her instinct taught her that she
SEBASTIAN 261
was somewhat of a tie to him, that she had better not
claim his time, that what had been pleasure, the inter-
course between them, and familiar talk, was now an
irksome duty. His mind was elsewhere, and it was
difficult for him to conceal it. Even Bob was no longer
fully in his confidence :
"I suspect what is going on, but I can't make him
talk about it," he admitted to Vanessa. "Don't allow
yourself to be unhappy about it. I don't suppose there
is going to be trouble, although this secrecy is a bad sign.
Would you like me to investigate? "
"I should not like to pry upon him," she hesitated.
Again she was distracted by fears. If she, too, had
not been full of false theory, and impossible councils of
perfection, it would have been easier to meet the situa-
tion. As it was, she hesitated, and suffered.
But Bob, without a commission, urged by his own
curiosity, took the matter up, and soon found the way to
meet Sebastian's new reticence.
"You are such a beastly cynic," the boy admitted,
"I don't want to have her picked to pieces."
" Well, you need not keep her such a secret, you might
introduce me, for instance."
"I haven't the privilege. I am not sure she would
like it."
"You see her nearly every day ? " he asked, curiously.
"It is not a bit what you think. She is going through
a difficult time."
"Costing you something? " he asked, brutally.
"There you go. I swear the mater is right, there is
something inherently coarse about you."
262 SEBASTIAN
"Did your mother say that?" he asked, with a slow
flush. Sebastian was sorry he had said it. For Bob
changed colour under his grey skin. He scored it up
against Vanessa, the total of these scores was getting
high.
"Why do you ask me if she was costing me anything?
It shows such a beastly mind."
"You are a lucky fellow, it doesn't matter to you what
you spend on women," Bob sighed. It was his method to
endow Sebastian with supposition wealth, to credit him
with a great and growing business, to envy his luck
generally. The boy liked this, it added to his impor-
tance.
"You know, Bob," he went on, reluctantly, he did
not want to talk of that which obsessed him, but they
were lunching together in the City, and the occasion lent
itself to philosophy, "that is a rotten phrase of yours,
' spending money on women ' ! We spend it with women,
because we cannot spend it without them. There is
not much fun having the best dinner in the world, if we
dine by ourselves, is there ? I don't think we are doing
women a favour by taking them out, they are doing us
one, by coming."
" She has taught you a lot, eh ! "
"Oh! Go to hell!"
Sebastian pushed his chair back, and rose impatiently.
He was dwelling in a region of romance. But very
close to his new domain there might be ugly realism and
slumland. He did not want to see them. Bob was
spectroscopic.
It was a mood difficult, of course, or impossible, of
SEBASTIAN 263
continuance. He was young, idealistic, sentimental.
But he was no fool. The woman began to make pulls on
his credulity, and, incidentally, on his purse. Then her
conduct varied from that of a princess in disguise to
that of Lai's. To be her protector appealed to his
chivalry ; to be her lover would have spoiled everything
that had appealed to him. She had met nothing as fine
as Sebastian, and she did not understand the way to keep
him. The illusion would have survived the arrears of
rent at the flat, the stories of the large sum of money
that had been expected, but had failed to come ; he could
even have commiserated, and accepted, the moments
when he found her the worse for drink. Had not her
husband divorced her, her lover left her ? Was she not
alone in the world, save for him? But some of the
scales fell from his eyes when she would have paid his
liberality with caresses. She did not understand his
flush to be of repulsion, his rejection to be distaste.
She rallied him on his innocency, and completed the
disenchantment. But unfortunately, not sufficiently
soon, nor definitely. The matter was brought to a
climax after one desperate night when Vanessa lay
awake until the dawn, listening for the boy's footsteps.
He came in toward four; she heard him moving about,
and restless. Neither of them had slept, it appeared,
and even before breakfast he knocked at the door.
"I want to tell you something," he said. "Send
Marie away, do your own hair."
"Must I? I do it so badly," she answered, ner-
vously; her bad night had demoralised her, and she
was fearful of what she would hear.
264 SEBASTIAN
"You had better know before you get the papers. I
got into a row last night. . . ."
"The papers?"
" You know about the Princess ? " Vanessa had given
her that name when, in the early days of his confidences,
Sebastian had been so convinced of blood royal in the
veins of his incognito. "I was there last night, rather
late. She had been bothered ; she was out of sorts, and
begged me not to go, she was fearfully nervous." He
did not say that she had been drinking all day, but in
any case it appeared she had dreaded her own company.
It was a sordid, ugly story that came out. The boy
was distressed and worried, yet even in the morning
light he did not see how he could have acted differently.
A man had demanded admittance to the flat at one in
the morning. The Princess had appealed to Sebastian
for protection, she had represented her untoward visitor
as an insistent creditor ! The boy had taken a high hand,
and ordered the man out. He retorted with unpardon-
able words; he was obviously drunk, and Sebastian
had knocked him down. There was a scrimmage, a
great deal of unnecessary noise, and occupants of the
other flats had sent the night porter to investigate the
cause of the tumult. The upshot was that the police
were called in. The man was charged with " breaking and
entering " ; and he brought a counter charge of assault
against Sebastian. The whole degrading business must
be threshed out this morning, at eleven o'clock, in the
Marylebone Street Police Court.
Of course, both mother and son took an exaggerated
view of the incident. In the first flush of it, Vanessa
SEBASTIAN 265
thought she could never hold up her head again among
the friends to whom she had so often spoken of Sebas-
tian, who knew how she regarded him ; she was shamed,
humiliated. Sebastian himself fluctuated uncertainly
between the doubt whether he would be considered by
his City friends and clients as a hero, or merely as a
brawler !
"I don't see what else I could have done," he re-
peated. "I don't think it will do me any harm in
business. I shall 'phone Bob to come and see me
through. The man came there to make a row, and she
asked me to get rid of him. What would you have had
me do?"
What Vanessa would have really liked was that he
should avoid the company of bad women. But it had
seemed to him part of the necessary equipment of life.
And to this view Bob Hayling persuaded him, and al-
most succeeded in persuading her, when he arrived,
hot foot, in time to accompany Sebastian to the police
station. He was really helpful and alive to the situa-
tion. He made Sebastian send for a lawyer, and
whilst he was out of the room, telephoning to the one
Bob recommended, Bob put the situation tersely before
Vanessa :
"He must sow his wild oats. Of course I didn't
know it was the 'Princess of Pilsenstein' who had got
hold of him, or I might have stopped it," he said. "I
know all about it now. The Nawaab brought her out
about fifteen years ago, spending money on her like
water. When his claim on the Government was got
rid of, and he was left with two thousand a year, and a
266 SEBASTIAN
recommendation to go back to Nepaul, she took up
with Oldcastle, the eldest son of the Duke of Thanet.
He is supposed to have said to her, 'I can't give you
wonderful gems like the Nawaab/ and she to have
replied, coolly, 'Don't worry, I'll rough it on the Thanet
diamonds.' There are any number of stories about her,
more or less true. She is a wonderful-looking woman for
her age, I'm not surprised she took hi Sebastian."
Bob said there would be no doubt now about freeing
Sebastian from the entanglement without any further
damage. The police would have her dossier, he would
learn all that was necessary.
"But what will happen?"
"Prosecutor and defendant will both be bound over.
You will be surprised to find how quickly the magis-
trate will understand what is behind the case."
"And will it be hi all the papers?"
"I should think so. But there is nothing much in it."
"We have different points of view."
Bob was putting her under an obligation to him, but
she could not be grateful. It seemed to her that his
whole perspective was awry.
"You can't expect a young fellow to sit at home,
evening after evening, twiddling his thumbs."
"We won't discuss ethics." She had poured Mr.
Hayling out a cup of coffee. He had hurried out, with-
out breakfast, in response to Sebastian's hasty sum-
mons. But now she rose to leave him. He put his
cup down. He intercepted her at the door:
"Just wait one minute."
She had no choice, for he had not opened the door
SEBASTIAN 267
for her, only guarded it. "You've set yourself against
me. You think I've a bad influence on Sebastian.
But you are wrong. I'd do anything for him, or for
you. I want you to like me."
"Before he knew you, Sebastian was all and more
than a boy should be," she answered, deliberately.
"He wasn't twenty-one, he hadn't begun to live.
Look facts in the face. All young fellows have to pass
this stage. Sebastian is going through all right, he
won't come a mucker, I promise you that. His head
is screwed on the right way, he doesn't care for drink,
he is no gambler. I'll see no one gets right hold of
him, if you'll only trust me."
He wanted to make love to her, it had gone home
to him that she found him coarse. Her aloofness was
unbearable to him.
"Leave the boy alone a minute. Let us talk of our-
selves. You've never given me a chance." He did the
wrong thing, the inevitably wrong thing, he tried to
prevent her going, to keep the door against her. "Give
me a chance."
"Let me pass, please," she said, inconsiderately, she
was in no mood to be tolerant this morning, nor careful
of her words.
"I'm not to have a hearing?"
"You are to open the door. I want to go out."
"You would rather not have me as a friend?"
"It is absolutely indifferent to me."
She was so distracted by Sebastian's position that
she could not conciliate, nor parley. The sordid vul-
garity of the police court proceedings assumed quite an
exaggerated importance in her eyes.
268 SEBASTIAN
Afterwards her social conscience told her she had
been rude. It was not necessary for Sebastian to rub
it in, as he did, frankly, a few days later. He had only
heard Mr. Hayling's version, she told him. But what
other could she give? A woman of sensitive feeling
cannot tell her son that she has had to rebuff a gallantry.
The seance at the police station, as Bob had foretold;
ended in both combatants being bound over to keep
the peace. It was made quite clear that the intruder
had at least an equal right with the boy to consider
himself a welcome visitor at the St. James's Place flat.
It is almost impossible to overestimate, perhaps, for
any one but his mother, to understand, how Sebastian
suffered, when the region of romance in which he had
dwelt these weeks was suddenly invaded and devas-
tated by an old, disorderly population. And for the
moment, there was no romance nor poetry left in the
world for him, the effluvia of dead and rotting things
was in his nostrils.
The crisis was spiritual as well as mortal. He ac-
cused himself of having neglected his duties to his
mother, and to both names he bore. If, in truth, he
had not sinned, as, in light acceptance and scoffing, sin
was attributed to him, he knew he had dwelt in evil
places. The depths of him shrank from what he had
seen, and the surfaces suffered from what people might
be saying of him. He was shaken as if disaster had
overtaken him, he looked wan, and too fine-drawn.
He could not let Vanessa help him, nor touch his open
wounds. He worked harder than ever in the City, the
evenings were given over to misanthropy.
CHAPTER XIX
JOE WALLINGFORD, who had never taken her letter
rejecting his offer of marriage as final, and would never
so take it, failed to understand what was .troubling
Vanessa.
He was, of course, often in London, pursuing his
suit in his own leisurely but definite way, making
Vanessa write articles for him, interest herself in his
enterprises, urge him to greater seriousness in his
political aspirations, or movements. It was Sebastian
who stood between him and his desires, he knew that.
It could not escape him, either, that not only the
mother, but the son, now looked depressed, and out
of tune. Naturally, a man of his calibre, even had he
known of it, would not have taken the Pilsenstein inci-
dent very seriously. It was to business, therefore, that
Joe attributed the causes of the heaviness in the Harley
Street atmosphere.
He spent a whole evening trying to draw the boy
out. Sebastian, weary of introspection and self-re-
proach, gladly talked of new engines, and raw material.
Joe was well up in the various pulps, and always in-
terested in machinery. Sebastian told Vanessa after-
wards that he "tapped the magnate's brain." If that
were so, there is no doubt Joe, quite consciously, allowed
the spigot to remain in, and dropped his valuable
comment.
269
270 SEBASTIAN
"We had quite a good evening, didn't we?" Sebas-
tian said to Vanessa, lingering in the drawing-room
after Joe's departure, more like his old self than she
had seen him for some time.
"You know, mater, he could be quite useful to me,
I get things out of him as it is, he is up to a lot of busi-
ness dodges. He likes talking to me, too. You see, I
have got all the up-to-date stuff at my ringers' ends.
I did not waste my time abroad. He seemed to think
very well of my new treatment of that cornstalk pulp.
I am going to produce paper, as thick as vellum, and
as light as tissue, see if I don't."
Sebastian had great recuperative powers, and there
was no doubt Joe's visit had done him good.
Joe stayed in town to see the new buildings, and
Sebastian brought him back the next evening to tell
Vanessa how much he had been struck with what he
had seen. The walls were up, and much of the ma-
chinery in place. The old mill, with its limited water-
power, one vat, and small accommodation, was still
turning out the Kendall specialities. The old foreman,
and three other workmen, were still leisurely dipping
their wire frames into the bluish mixture, stagnant in
the receptacle that looked like a horse trough. Ap-
prentices were making the paper, sheet by sheet, lay-
ing it between felt, or blanket, examining each piece
as if time had been no object. Joe had never seen
paper made in this way, and it had great interest for
him. But Sebastian was full of the new machinery,
and was eager to confide a secret that he half felt he
should conceal. Joe understood that, and he put
SEBASTIAN 271
cautious questions. Sebastian's own questions, how-
ever, were more illuminative than his answers. He
was curious about the books Joe published, the weight
and size of them, the paper he used, and where he
bought it.
Joe knew Sebastian wanted an order from him. He
was really ingenuous in his business methods. Joe
wondered if, by any chance, by any possible chance,
Vanessa was worrying at the possibility of his becom-
ing entangled in Sebastian's business schemes, or being
asked to help him. Joe was very cautious, and wait-
ing his time. He would not expedite the moment
when Sebastian might ask him for help. Only Vanessa
must not be worried, nor allowed to fear or fret.
Yet it seemed he was guessing wrongly; for Sebas-
tian asked nothing, wanted nothing, but praise and
appreciation. Both of these Joe could give freely.
Stella, although she did not like him, had become
in a measure reconciled to Joe Wallingford since David's
death. She had trafficked in love, and knew its values.
Joe might stand hi the background of Vanessa's life,
doing little kindnesses for her, adding something to it,
admiring, or worshipping, her from the distance. So
long as he did not attempt to get close, Stella would
tolerate him there. But in speaking of him to Vanessa
she was for ever attempting to widen the distance, or
keep it impregnable, by contemptuous word, or speech.
She made it ever obvious that she looked down upon
him, and thought him ignorant, bucolic, unworthy.
But Vanessa had no thought of marrying Joe Wal-
lingford. Sebastian held her thoughts ever more
272 SEBASTIAN
securely. And her friends would not let her off the
discussion of his latest escapade.
Lady de Cliffe spent a long afternoon in Harley
Street, and in the intervals of admiring the china, be-
littling the eighteenth-century prints, and appraising
the jade, she found time to congratulate Vanessa, on
what she was pleased to call her son's matinee at the
police station.
"He had a splendid house, I hear, and such good
notices. It was really clever of him to be taken in by
the Princess of Pilsenstein, so beautifully ingenuous.
You must make him come and see me, I want to hear
all about it. I wonder what he will do next. You
are so unlike other people, you and your son. I was
afraid he was going to be quite good, and dull. That
terrible woman, Mrs. St. Maur, told me he had engaged
himself to his cousin's governess, that he meant to
marry her. Ridiculous ! I said it was ridiculous ! He
is much too attractive to marry. But I shouldn't be
surprised if he had a short attack of virtue. The
Princess must have been an exhausting experience!"
And Lord Saighton told Stella, carelessly:
"That boy of your sister's wants looking after. He
has made a confounded young ass of himself with the
Pilsenstein; it's a pity his father died so early. A
boy could not have gone far wrong with a man like
David Kendall at the back of him."
However carefully Stella conveyed the gist of this to
Vanessa, it was hard to bear.
Mrs. St. Maur, too, had an insatiable curiosity, and
Hilary St. Maur an inherent tactlessness. Vanessa could
SEBASTIAN 273
not deny herself to callers. She had to meet the situa-
tion the proceedings at the police court revealed.
Mrs. St. Maur asked if Sebastian were going to marry
the Princess ! She repeated anecdotes about her. She
was, perhaps, a little spiteful, at seeing Viola's matri-
monial chances imperilled. Hilary St. Maur said he
was glad to say that their Reggie did not care about
women ! Vanessa was tempted to retort that perhaps
that was fortunate.
To Sebastian, reaction came intermittently. He
refused all invitations, he would not go out any more
of an evening. Like Reggie St. Maur, he, too, for-
swore women. He read a great deal, theology held
him for the moment, but that, too, soon palled.
A casual remark from Vanessa, that whenever things
went awry with her, she always found peace in the
world of creative fiction, or in composing verse, started
him on a new tack. There was no doubt he had as
much talent as his mother, or more. She said so her-
self. Then why should he not devote his evenings to
literary pursuits? There was no vital incompatibility
between a paper merchant and a poet. He had always
been good at verses, rhythm presented no difficulties to
him at any time.
The very moment the idea came to him he put it
into execution; although it was eleven o'clock at night,
and before the suggestion had been made he was con-
templating bed.
He boasted to his mother, in the morning, that he
had thought of a subject, began, finished and polished
it off, in less than three-quarters of an hour !
274 SEBASTIAN
"You know, mater," he said, "that is almost a
record. It was under the forty-seven minutes by the
pater's watch, and you know how he always swore by
that. It just came to me, as fast as I could write it.
What does one get for a sonnet? A tenner, or fiver?
Take it at the lowest figure, and let us reckon it at an
hour, it means forty pounds a day. You have never
made anything like that, have you?"
She admitted that she never had.
The Sebastian who spent the next few evenings at
the writing-table in the corner of the drawing-room was
still a boy. This quality of youth was the deodoriser
which purified him so quickly of the past. Vanessa
took pains to conceal from him that the quality of
literary work counts more highly than the speed at
which it is produced.
Sebastian gave her a rhymed version of the corre-
spondence column of a lady's paper, several short
stories, and the first chapter of his autobiography, all
within a fortnight. With infinite difficulty Vanessa
succeeded in placing one of the short stories. It had
been necessary to improve the literary form, and that
had been a labour of love for her. But Sebastian up-
braided her:
"I consider you've spoilt it. I suppose that is why
the others were not snapped up. You see, mater, your
style and mine are so different. You labour your
stories, and I just dash off mine. It's Impressionism,
that is my school. If you do not mind, for the future,
when I give you my things to sell, I would rather not
have a word altered."
SEBASTIAN 275
Sebastian bore failure badly. And he was too sharp
for Vanessa to be able to conceal from him that his
output was not marketable.
He conceived a bad opinion of editors, and a worse
one of literary agents. He discovered the incompetency
of both :
"You have only got to give either of them some-
thing a little out of the way, something with a dash of
originality about it, for them to jib at it altogether,"
he complained. "You know, yourself, that telephone
story of mine, when the line got entangled, and the
Johnny found himself switched on to Hell, talking to a
woman he had known when she was alive, was abso-
lutely new. You laughed like anything, when I read it
you."
She laughed again.
"But I begged you not to send it to The Evangelist!"
"That is where you are all such a narrow-minded
lot, all you literary people. It may have been lurid,
but it was absolutely moral."
Sebastian said he should not write any more, until
literature was on a very different footing in England.
He lost spirits over it; business, too, seemed trying
him beyond his strength, or perhaps it was the spring
weather. Anyway, Vanessa knew him restless and
feverish at nights, languid in the mornings, exhausted
in the evenings, and took quick alarm. She sent for
Dr. Gifford, for Sebastian acknowledged that his intel-
lectual and physical vigour were both at ebb tide.
With Dr. Gifford he played the tired roue:
"I've gone the pace too fast. I've burned the candle
276 SEBASTIAN
at both ends. After all, doctor, it isn't every fellow
under two-and-twenty who has seen and done as much
as I have."
He went over his Continental and American experi-
ences, he said he had built up a big business, and he
would have boasted, had not something quizzical in the
doctor's eyes restrained him, of how wide and deep was
his knowledge of human frailty.
It was certain that all this vaunted strenuousness
of life and labour had a temporary constitutional
effect. Dr. Gifford, with David in his mind, was per-
emptory in ordering change of air and scene, complete
rest, a strict regime, and the simple life.
Sebastian said, flatly, he would not stir; his hands
were full in the City, he was in no mood for a holiday,
he would stay where he was, but he did not mind swal-
lowing the beastly maltine. Sebastian was rather proud
of his breakdown in health, and made the most of it.
"I have lost nearly seven pounds," he told Bice.
"I wouldn't let the mater know for the world. I
never sleep the night through, my cough keeps me
awake. I suppose it's the beginning of the end. I
don't care, I've had a good time. It's hard luck on
the mater, but as far as I am concerned, what is the
odds?"
Bice could not bear it, simply could not bear that
Sebastian should pine away. He might think it was
consumption, she knew it was love ! She put her
pride in her pocket, she could not believe that Pleasey
would hold out if she knew how it was with him. Gen-
erous and unselfish herself, she honestly believed that
SEBASTIAN 277
Pleasey had given Sebastian up because she deemed it
best for him ; because of the disparity of years, and the
difference in position. She had not been in the secret
of their final parting, but she saw its effect on Sebastian,
and thought Pleasey, too, might be unhappy.
She went by train to Wimbledon, she walked to
Cleeve Row, a mean street of lodging houses. The
shabby, sordid poverty did not repel her, as later on
it repelled Vanessa. She was full of her mission, she
thought of nothing else.
And Pleasey was glad to see her. There was no
doubt Pleasey was glad. She had just had her head
washed, all her fair hair was hanging over her shoulders,
and she sat before the fire drying it. She was all alone,
her mother had gone out with Zuley; her father was
away. Pleasey was wavering now in her belief at her
wisdom in having left Wey mouth Street. Certainly
when Mr. Hayling asked her to drive or dine with him,
she was free to go. She had had some wonderful
hours. But Mr. Hayling was intermittent in his atten-
tions, indefinite in his love-making, there was often a
long hiatus between his visits. And in all the intervals
there was the grinding perpetual poverty, the humilia-
tions at the hands of the exacting landlady. She was
exacting in requiring her rent to be paid punctually,
and both Pleasey and her parents resented this attitude
of hers! Pleasey had to listen to her mother's plaint
at the poor response to Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's begging
letters; stimulants were essential to solace the disap-
pointments. Always there were Zuley's vagaries to be
kept under control. Zuley was not sufficiently imbecile
278 SEBASTIAN
to be locked up, nor sufficiently normal to be left un-
guarded. They were all four, shiftless, idle, unpractical
people. Pleasey's care for her appearance was a sav-
ing grace; the others were self-neglectful, slovenly.
Bice saw nothing, stopped to see nothing; she was
full of her subject.
"I know you only left him because you thought it was
for his good; you will have to come back. He is going
into a decline, nobody but me knows what is really
the matter with him, and the only thing that can save
him."
"Does he know you have come to me? Are you
sure he cares about me still? What about that story
I read in the paper? I thought he had forgotten
poor me."
"He never cared about anybody else, the Princess
was nothing to him ; it was only because she was lonely,
and in trouble, that he spent so much time with her.
He was just good to her, nothing else, he was always like
that."
" But what am I to do, if he did not ask you to come to
me, nor say anything?"
"/ know; you must believe I know my own cousin.
He is just pining after you, that is what he is doing,
pining."
Pleasey was only half reluctant to be persuaded Se-
bastian still idolised her. She had not been touched
by it, but she realised that he was unlike any other boy,
or man, whom she had met. Mr. Hayling suited her
better. But then Mr. Hayling was so indefinite. Bice
was certain to carry her point with Pleasey. for she was
SEBASTIAN 279
deeply in earnest. She would have shed her own heart's
blood for Sebastian ; but it was Pleasey, alone, who could
cure him.
"I can't come back with you to-night, it is impossible.
I must wait until mother comes home. And then my
hair is not dry, it takes such a long time to dry," pro-
tested Pleasey, irresolutely.
"But I must take back a message."
"Tell him I am sorry to hear he is ill."
"Give me a note for him."
"Shall I?"
Pleasey was uncertain, but Bice had no uncertainty,
she found pencil and paper, she stood over her until it
was done. Pleasey would promise nothing, bind herself
to nothing. But Bice was sure she had been interested,
she asked so many questions, she almost promised she
would come back to Weymouth Street, temporarily, at
least. She would spend a few days there, to-morrow,
next day, next week, sometime.
Pleasey hesitated, temporised. But Bice went back,
happy in the note she carried for Sebastian, convinced
that it would benefit his health.
Pleasey, whose hair had been washed, and was pres-
ently waved, for the delectation of Mr. Robert Hayling,
was not disappointed in her expectation of seeing him.
For what else had she manoeuvred that her mother
should be absent all these hours?
He drove up to the door, in his forty horse-power
Panhard, and disentangled his length from the car,
slowly, and to the entertainment of the whole mean
street. His big coat became him, it was very well
280 SEBASTIAN
cut, and hung loose and wide, straight from his shoulders ;
he wore no unsightly goggles.
"Miss Pleyden-Carr at home?" he asked the little
maid-servant.
She heard it across the narrow passage, in the stuffy
little parlour; she thrilled at the sound of his voice, as
she would never thrill for Sebastian.
Now he was in the room, her colour rose, her pulses
bounded. His greeting may have lacked respect. Who
wants respect? Why should he not kiss her, he had
done so before?
"Come out for a drive? I am in the big car, it's a
fine evening, and we can go to Hampton Court, dine at
the Mitre, or push on to. Skindles, we could do Maiden-
head in an hour, and it isn't seven yet. Everybody out ?
how did you manage it? Don't keep me waiting, I
haven't stopped the car, I don't want the petrol to run
out halfway."
"I won't be a minute."
But she was. Pleasey must cover the light hair with
a bonnet, or hood ; the lace inside, the very latest fashion,
borrowed from the eighteenth century, framed her small
face. She had on a big coat Bob had given her in the
autumn, for just such excursions as these.
"What a devil of a time you've been. Another two
minutes, and I should have started without you. I am
going to drive, and you can sit beside me. The boy will
go inside. Coming back, I'll let him take the wheel."
Pleasey's imagination could picture that drive back,
in the dark. Bob would be kind to her, very kind. She
had another little shudder-sweet thrill, of expectation,
SEBASTIAN 281
perhaps of remembrance; she was sure he was fond of
her.
He talked of the car all the way down. At dinner he
made her drink more champagne than was good for her.
He was quite as kind as she anticipated, on the way
home, kinder even. She had no secrets from Bob, she
told him all about Bice's visit, and that Sebastian had
broken down in health. He said she was very sweet,
and he was not a bit surprised to hear that Sebastian had
been in love with her. He said Sebastian was only a
boy; he was a man, and knew a man's way of loving.
And he taught her something of what he meant, in an
after-dinner mood. She was an apt pupil, and it was not
a first lesson.
She arrived home late, her lips very hot, her heart
quite tempestuous, feeling all the emotion of which she
was capable, very excited. She had quite forgotten her
note to Sebastian.
But Bob Hayling had had too many after-dinner
moods, in his time, for this to have made any particular
impression upon him. The only memory he had of it
the next morning; beyond the vague one that Pleasey
had been very responsive, and he was not quite sure that
he would risk another similar evening; was the news
she had told him of Sebastian Kendall's health.
Robert Hayling had taken his own way of meeting
the competition that the boy's active business powers
set going. His partner cursed the young jackanapes
who cut prices, competed actively, and made them look
to their supremacy in the trade. But Bob did no curs-
ing, he thought Sebastian would soon tire of business.
282 SEBASTIAN
At twenty-one, pleasure comes before business, if one
knew where to look for pleasure. That was the job
Mr. Robert Hayling thought would suit him down to
the ground, teaching young Kendall where to look for
pleasure! But Sebastian had disappointed him, quite
seriously disappointed him; he had been more active
than ever in business lately ; there was no doubt he was
making himself felt. His partner could not speak of P.
and A. Kendall without execration. If the boy con-
tinued to stand outside the "Association," to cut prices,
and boast he was an "Independent," why then
Bob cut himself shaving in the mere contemplation of
what might occur.
But Pleasey said the boy was ill, had developed a
tendency to consumption, had been ordered to strike
work. Quite a brilliant idea struck Mr. Hayling, as he
completed his toilette. And he surveyed himself in the
glass with satisfaction, notwithstanding that little cut.
He was attractive to women, it was absurd of Sebastian's
mother not to realise it.
He put on a frock-coat, and high hat, a grey tie that
toned with his grey hair, and notwithstanding the dissi-
pated lines about his clean-shaven face, and his pallor,
he thought he cut a good figure.
The morning he gave up to business. In the after-
noon he would pay a visit to Harley Street. He saw
Sebastian in his office, and made a suggestion to him.
He told his partner, casually, that he thought of taking
a few weeks off, now, instead of in the summer.
"If that cursed young fool in Queen Victoria Street
doesn't mend his ways, there will be no holiday for any
of us," his partner growled in response.
SEBASTIAN 283
"I thought of taking him with me," Bob answered,
coolly.
"Do, and break his neck," was the rejoinder.
"I don't suppose there will be many of his plans I
shan't know by the time we get back/' Bob went on.
He bantered the other:
"You go on undercutting, and cursing. Perhaps
it does you good, eases your congested liver. But that
is not my method, and I bet you mine is the better.
Suaviter in modo, that's the ticket. If I pull off my little
scheme, we shall have the field to ourselves again in a
few weeks. You can get that Carter contract through
whilst I am away, I will give you the argument; and I
should not be surprised if you got Sadler's, too, if you go
the right way to work."
"At half the profit we used to make before David
Kendall died, and the whole trade became disorganised ! "
"How much of the money David Kendall left, do you
suppose is in the business now? "
"How should I know?"
"You shouldn't. You should not know anything;
as a matter of fact, you don't. But those new buildings
must have run away with a pot of money."
"I know as well as you do that he is up to the hilt."
"Well, drive the hilt in whilst he is away. He may drop
a bit of money at Aix. Anyway I am going to teach him
how to take the bank at baccarat. He will like to be
the cynosure of all eyes, playing the millionaire."
But he counted his chickens prematurely.
Certainly the suggestion he had dropped to Sebastian
was not unacceptable in Harley Street.
284 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian had been ordered open air, cessation from
work, change of scene and surroundings. Mr. Hayling,
it appeared, had seen him that morning, and heard of
the prescription. Well, he was just off on a motor tour,
through France and Switzerland. He would not move
in the matter without first hearing it was agreeable to
Mrs. Kendall. Was it agreeable to her that Sebastian
should accompany him, should be his guest for the tour ?
It seemed as if a way was really opening out of the
difficulty. For Sebastian came in before Bob left,
languid, with that new little cough that he had devel-
oped, and that tried Vanessa so terribly. And Sebastian
said he had changed his mind about going away. Per-
haps Gifford was right; he did feel awfully run down,
and a run across the Continent in the new car would suit
him better than any other sort of holiday.
Vanessa said she must see if Dr. Gifford approved.
But after Bob had left, with the understanding that he
should have a definite answer to-morow, she demurred a
little at the obligation ! Sebastian looked at it in quite
a different light.
"There is no obligation. I am a linguist, and he is
not ; an experienced traveller, whilst he has hardly been
further than Margate."
It seemed useless to argue, she had no legitimate
excuse to urge. She did not like Robert Hayling, but
then as Sebastian very pertinently put before her, it
was a question of health. This holiday the boy would
take, or none.
And Dr. Gifford was quite satisfied when his opinion
was asked.
SEBASTIAN 285
"There is nothing seriously the matter with the boy,"
he said, "he is as sound as a bell, organically. That
cough you are fidgeting about is nervous. His mind has
outstripped his growth, and he is a little too young for
his responsibilities, a little too young to be quite so much
his own master; that is all that's wrong. There is
nothing better than motoring as a nerve tonic in such
cases; let him go. Your mind can be quite easy. Why
don't you send his cousin with him ? She would look
after him, and see he did not get fresh cold, or over-
exert himself. And it would do her no harm to have a
change. She hangs about her mother too much, leads
altogether too confined a life."
If it were a conspiracy, everybody must have been in it.
Stella would not allow Bice to join the expedition, if
only Mr. Hay ling and Sebastian were of the party.
Pleasey seemed like an after-thought, but if Pleasey
would accompany them, Stella's maternal solicitude
would be satisfied.
Pleasey had written that little sympathetic note to
Sebastian, and he had taken it very gratefully, as a
great concession from her. Perhaps it made him think
himself worse than he was, perhaps it had something to
do with his sudden decision to obey orders, to knock off
work. After all, there was one kind, sweet girl in the
world ! He kissed the note, he slept with it under his
pillow. He did not tell his mother he had received it.
Then came Dr. Gifford's suggestion that Bice should
accompany him and Bob. A hint was whispered to him,
by Bice, that seemed too wonderful to be possible.
"Mummy won't let me go alone. She would let me go
286 SEBASTIAN
if I had a chaperon, if — if Pleasey would come with
me."
"But she wouldn't — it isn't possible !"
"I'll make her," Bice promised confidently. There
followed two or three days of great excitement, hope and
fear, with the result that Pleasey, after all, proved per-
suadable. She had one short interview with Sebastian,
which Bice engineered. She had rather been without it,
she did not know what to say to him. But she bore her-
self well. He was very agitated, and found words with
difficulty. She had nothing to say about her dismissal
of him. They were going to be friends, nothing but
friends, he must not agitate himself, she had heard he
had been ill. Bice saw they were not interrupted too
soon, but indeed they were both glad of interruption.
Sebastian's heart was too full for words, Pleasey's
too empty.
At first, when the plan of a bachelor trip was altered,
and it was settled that Sebastian was not to be his guest,
but one of a party, each paying their own expenses,
Mr. Hayling had bucked, he had nearly thrown over the
whole thing. He did not know Bice, and he was not
prepared to spend a month with Pleasey. It would be a
bore to drag two women about, it was not at all what
he intended. He had meant to push through, as quickly
as he could, to Aix-les-Bains, where baccarat and bad
women might be relied upon to keep Sebastian from
meddling with contracts, until the crucial moment had
passed when Messrs. Carter and Messrs. Sadler made
their arrangements for the year.
But Bob Hayling was only a lath and plaster Mephis-
SEBASTIAN 287
topheles. Bice diverted half his intentions, and put his
plot out of his head, when Sebastian had her down in the
City to lunch, and began to discuss the route. She was
full of the pleasures of the trip, grateful to Mr. Hayling
for having made it possible, very attractive in her enthusi-
asm.
Bice was no longer abnormally small, although she had
not grown beyond five feet two. The whilom disorder
of her curly head was reduced, now that she was grown up,
to reasonable dimensions. Her skin was soft ivory, but
the dark expressive eyes and long lashes, the red lips and
fluctuating colour lit up its shadows. When she smiled,
the lovely row of teeth, the air of animation, and one little
dimple, made the face extraordinarily attractive. She
was small, but all her proportions were perfect, from
dainty feet to rounded waist.
Bob's tastes were eclectic, and before that lunch party
had drawn to a close in the crowded City restaurant, he
had forgotten he had ever doubted the charm of the
arrangement that would give him two attractive girls to
drive, and a new sensation to enjoy. Bice was a new
sensation to Bob Hayling, younger, fresher, prettier than
any one he had met for years.
"I am awfully surprised you think Bice so good-
looking," Sebastian said. "Of course I am fond of her,
we have always been great pals. But I never looked
upon her as a pretty girl, there is nothing of her, and then
she is so dark."
"Tastes differ." Bob laughed, he was quite content
Sebastian should not admire his cousin. Bob was fresh
from another amorous interview with Pleasey ; he was
288 SEBASTIAN
glad there was something new in front of him. Ad-
venture to the adventurous !
Stella and Vanessa, together at the door in Weymouth
Street to give the motor party a send-off, commended
their children to Bob's care :
"I'll take care of them all," Bob said. "You won't
know Sebastian when he comes back. He will weigh
twelve stone, and be the colour of beet-root."
"Take care of my Mummy," were Bice's last words to
her aunt.
"And you of my Sebastian," was Vanessa's reply.
But no one asked that Pleasey should be cared for.
Sebastian silently vowed himself to it. If she would only
let him ! It had all begun over again with him, his
heart leaped under his coat when he caught her eye.
She was quite conscious of it, she was even glad that Mr.
Hayling should see it.
CHAPTER XX
FOR once Vanessa was glad of Sebastian's absence.
She needed a breathing space, she had been living in the
boy's strenuous life, she had had no room for her own.
Neither during her husband's lifetime, nor since
Sebastian had taken the reins, had Vanessa any personal
acquaintance with the business in Queen Victoria
Street, nor the Kendall mills. She was the more sur-
prised, therefore, when three weeks after the motor
party had started, she received an urgent letter, sent by
hand, asking her if she would see Mr. Jones. She knew
vaguely that Mr. Jones was head clerk to Sebastian, as
he had been to his father. Mr. Jones had been over
thirty years with the firm, she had heard that, and that
he was one of the few who had survived the new regime.
But she was astonished at his asking for an interview
with her. Her mind leaped to a quick conclusion of
illness, domestic trouble, or the inheritance of a fortune.
It seemed incredible that he should apply to her on the
affairs of the firm.
From the beginning the interview oppressed and
puzzled her.
Mr. Jones was an elderly man, unused to drawing-
rooms, nervous, embarrassed, finding speech difficult.
She endeavoured to set him at ease, but her social sense
failed to respond to his particular needs ; he declined tea,
u 289
290 SEBASTIAN
and would not part with his hat. She could not tell
him how long Mr. Sebastian intended to be away, nor
exactly where he was. It had been understood between
them that he was to be quite free, he would wire from
time to time ; no news meant that he was all right.
But Mr. Jones, floundering in some technical phrases
about "bills," was evidently seriously perturbed by this
indefiniteness. Vanessa really tried to understand what
he was endeavouring to convey to her ; but she had not
the slightest notion what "discounting bills" might
mean. If Kendalls had "drawn on" any one, or any
one had "drawn on" Kendalls, it was equally enigmatic.
And why the words " at sight" or " at sixty days " should
be reiterated, and why Mr. Jones should attach so much
importance to them, she had not the first idea.
She was very kind and reassuring :
"Of course, if anything is owing, it must be paid," she
said, peremptorily. There was no doubt about that.
How it was to be paid, was another matter. Surely
there was money in the bank ; there was always money
in the bank.
" Have you not the power to sign ? Did Mr. Sebastian
forget to leave you a cheque? If you will tell me the
amount, I can let you have it from my private account,
until he returns . Will that do ? Is that what you want ? ' '
"There are bills of lading, and the dock charges. Mr.
Sebastian has a large consignment of "
"Really, Mr. Jones, you must not give me detail, I
understand nothing whatever about business. What is
the amount you are short ? For what do you want me to
draw a cheque?"
SEBASTIAN 291
But it was impossible to get Mr. Jones to answer a
simple question. He would explain, and be apologetic,
and beg her to look into matters for herself. He
succeeded in making her slightly uncomfortable. And
when at last he named a sum that would " tide them over"
until Mr. Sebastian returned, she was more than uncom-
fortable, she was almost alarmed; she had no such
amount lying to her credit. But debt was impossible, of
course.
Mr. Jones ventured to suggest "securities." It was
he who explained to her that these might be available.
She was a very clever woman, even practical, but she
had no experience in money matters, they had not
interested her.
" If you will tell me what you want me to do," was her
final summary, "I will do it. Must I see a lawyer, or
what? Of course I have securities, my father's estate.
I believe that they are at my bankers', I am not quite sure.
Is there any immediate hurry ? "
She must ask some one else. Mr. Jones was much too
flurried, and uncertain, to be of any use to her, it was
she who reassured him. Whatever money was wanted,
would, of course, be found. He would hear from Mr.
Sebastian in a day or two, without doubt ; in the mean-
time she would see her lawyer, or her bank manager.
She sent him away considerably relieved. He did not
know her resources, but, at least, he had her word that •>
the six thousand pounds that was required on the eighth,
would be there. He was not very resourceful, Kendalls
had not had to finesse in finance in the days when he was
growing up in their employ. "Financing" spelt ruin to
292 SEBASTIAN
him, the boy had already left the old clerk far behind in
his way of running the business. Sebastian was alto-
gether modern, and full of expedients. But he ought to
have realised that his subordinates were none of them
trained to take his place.
Vanessa did the only thing that quickly occurred to
her. She drove to her bank, and asked to see the mana-
ger. He was very courteous, very courteous indeed,
but grave when he heard the amount she required. Of
course there was no difficulty about it. He sent for the
securities book. She had stock against her name
amounting to considerably more, to twelve or fourteen
thousand pounds, in fact. And six or eight hundred
pounds on her current account. They would advance
her the amount, but . . .
There were a great many bewildering "buts." And
even although she disregarded them, insisting on her
point that she must have the money at once, signing all
that was required of her, and urging expedition, she was
nevertheless not thoroughly easy in her mind.
She sent Mr. Jones the cheque she had promised him,
by the date he had named; his mind was relieved.
Hers, she thought, would be better for a little talk with a
business man. She was sure she could learn the language
Mr. Jones had talked, penetrate its mysteries; she only
wanted a teacher.
There was Joe Wallingford. He was really the only
business man she knew well. All her other friends were
literary, or artistic.
She did not accuse herself of disingenuousness when
she wrote to Joe Wallingford, asking him to come to her
when he was next in town.
SEBASTIAN 293
She was still satisfied that she had no arri&re pensee,
that there was no danger in the position, when already
the next day he was in the drawing-room.
She could not have imagined she would be so glad to
see him. It was water after long drought to talk of
anything but Sebastian. She forgot why she had sent
for him, and of what she wanted to talk. For, at once,
they were on the easy terms of intimacy and com-
panionship. The recess was over, and Joe told her he
intended^terrernain in London for the present. He had
used the time well whilst Parliament had been sitting.
y\. have noted that. You have drifted so gradually
from free trade to colonial preference, and from colonial
^reference to a differential tariff, that your readers are
hardly yet aware that your port is Protection !"
He said her articles had been of value, he wished she
had written more. There were journalistic differences
to decide.
\ "And you — you look better than when I was here
last. And the boy? Where is he?"
He heard about the breakdown in health, and the
motor tour.
Then she said:
"Which reminds me why I wrote you. I want a
lesson, I want to know what bills of exchange are, and
what happens when you do not pay them. I want to
learn something about discounting. Sebastian is away,
and his head clerk seems singularly incompetent, he came
to me for advice, or help, and I felt like a fool."
"So you sent for me to help you?"
He came a few paces nearer to her. In his eyes was
294 SEBASTIAN
that amazing consciousness of her that she had never
seen save in his. Looking at him, at the big powerful
head, and the consciousness in his eyes, a little rush of
feeling came over her, whether it were gratitude, or
personal interest, or something less definite than either,
it was amazingly new to her.
"Will you?" she asked him, "will you help me?"
"You don't suppose I ever looked upon your letter as
final?"
She waived that on one side. If her colour rose a
little, she could not help it.
"I want to ask you about business, business generally,
its intricacies, its difficulties."
"A dull subject."
"Sebastian ought not, perhaps, to have had the whole
burden of it ! I thought it was simple, now it appears
complicated, almost impossible. You cannot sympathise
intelligently with a man's daily work, if you are as
ignorant as I am of its detail. I am annoyed now that I
have shut it all out, listened with less than half an ear."
"That gift of sympathy you have "
"Don't, please, talk about me."
"Well, not at the moment. I'll wait, I don't care how
long I wait. You'll have to let me talk about you some
day. You'll not stand out against me for ever."
"I really want to speak about Kendalls."
"You shall." He sat down beside her on the sofa.
"Go on. What has roused your interest? Anything
wrong at the mills?"
She told him of the interview with Mr. Jones, relating
it humorously, but he listened gravely. Something
SEBASTIAN 295
he had suspected, perhaps hoped. He did not let her see
he regarded the matter at all seriously. He explained
bills of exchange, and bills of lading, the difference
between "sight," and "three months." He liked teach-
ing her, liked sitting with her, noting her responsive
intelligence, noting, too, the luxuriance of her dark hair,
the softness of her thin lips, the entire desirability of her
for him. There was no other woman to whom he cared
to talk, he liked the sound of her voice, it was cultured,
musical, unlike those North Country voices to which all
his life he had been used.
"Mr. Jones was incoherent, and involved. He said
some bills were falling due on the eighth. It seems, or
so I took it, people who owed us money were asking for an
extension of time; yet bills we had accepted for large
amounts had to be met. I told him, of course, that
whether we were paid or not, he must not get into debt."
Joe's grey eyes opened at this.
" But credit is the very soul of business ! What did he
say when you told him he must not get into debt? "
"He was very stupid, and looked as if he thought I
did not know what I was talking about. I suppose, as a
rule, men who spend their lives in money-getting are
stupid."
"Counting me?"
She smiled at him:
"Are newspaper proprietors who represent their
county in Parliament supposed to be business men?"
"Does Eton turn them out?"
"Sebastian is absolutely wrapt up in Kendalls. He
talks to me about the paper trade by the hour together.
296 SEBASTIAN
Have you seen this new 'feather weight/ as he calls it,
the light paper he is producing?"
"A sample was shown to me."
"It is his own invention, a new material, and a new
treatment. He says it has cost him thousands to pro-
duce and perfect it, in machinery and in chemical ex-
periments. Now it has to be advertised."
"Sebastian has been spending money like water,
apparently."
A word to that effect, brought back the boy's answer,
unconvincing through her lips :
"Spending thousands to make millions. He tells
me, in a year or two, I shall have ten thousand a year,
at least ! So you see, I do not want anything from you,
but advice. You told me once that nearly every one
who sought your acquaintance wanted something from
you. Well, at least / do not want money ! " she said,
lightly.
Joe suffered from candour.
"Perhaps it is lucky I have some, though," he an-
swered bluntly. He asked her :
"What did you do, finally, about those bills? "
"What bills?"
"That the manager came up about. Perhaps there
is not money enough in the bank ? "
She answered, quite calmly:
"I told him to let me know the amount."
That startled him.
"You wouldn't pay them yourself, without under-
standing the position, nor enquiring into it ? "
"Why not? Sebastian will give it me back."
SEBASTIAN 297
"And the amounts?"
"Five or six thousand pounds. I sent him six thou-
sand five hundred, to be on the safe side. I borrowed
it from my bank. I signed some papers, and transferred
some securities. It seems rather complicated. I wish
Sebastian had been at home. Mr. Jones gave me an
impression of incompetence, of being uneasy and ner-
vous."
" You expected the boy last week ? "
"Yes, -or to have heard from him."
He meant to take care of her, although she had not
given him the right. He suspected — he had suspected,
for some time past — that Sebastian had been over-
trading on a limited capital; riding for a fall. There
was a good deal of the Rendall paper about, but it was
not ordinary merchandise, hand-made. It was stamped,
and on narrow slips, bearing the name of P. and A.
Rendall and Co. There was no use talking to her about
it. The only thing, apparently, that her intelligence
had missed, was the comprehension of money. It did
not matter, fortunately. Nothing should matter. She
might sign away her fortune, leave herself penniless.
His money might, after all, buy him the priceless.
"Would you like me to see Mr. Jones?"
"I do not want to do anything that Sebastian would
resent, that would look to him like interference, or doubt.
But there must be no question of credit. I know my
husband paid ready money for everything. I suppose I
did right in trying to carry out his views? " she asked.
"I am a little worried. It seems like getting into debt
myself ! Whatever they call it, of course, it is a loan."
298 SEBASTIAN
He got up from beside her, took a turn or two about
the room.
"I suppose you know what you've done? You've
given away half your income, half your income that is
outside the business. You've had your eyes shut, and
I suppose you want to keep 'em shut. The boy is
running a business that wanted a quarter of a million of
capital, on less than a hundred thousand pounds. The
enlargement of the mills, and all that new plant and
machinery, is a lock-up of his resources. No one can run
a manufacturing business without liquid assets."
"Liquid assets means the water, I suppose? "
"Not exactly, though you might call it the 'driving
power.' '
"You may spare me detail," she said, as she had said
to the old clerk.
He came over to her.
"I'll spare you everything. I'll take everything on
myself, set the boy on his feet again, if he has got out of
his depth. I like his ambition, I'll put him right, and
see he keeps right. Come, is it a bargain? I want
something for it: you know what I want."
It was astounding to her that Sebastian should have
got into any difficulties in the City; it was incredible.
"I cannot believe things are as you say. I should
think you have been misinformed. I will see Mr. Jones
again to-morrow. He did not tell me anything like
that, only that we were overdrawn. There is money
coming in, large payments are expected."
"Maybe. Or maybe he was counting on being able
to renew the bills. But that's naught to me. Are you
going to let me look after you, that's the question."
SEBASTIAN 299
He stood over her, it seemed almost menacingly, wait-
ing for his answer.
"Well," he said, "well?" impatiently. It was not
gentle wooing.
She told him so, with laughter that touched hysteria.
"Really, your money-or-your-life manner is so melo-
dramatic."
" You mustn't mind my manner," he said, more gently.
"Let me get back those securities for you; let me put
things straight. I can do it easily if you say what I
want you to, if you'll take me. I shall never give up
asking you."
"I loathe married life." She grew flushed at the very
thought of it.
"You've never tried it. That wasn't married life
you lived with poor Kendall. "
"It was enough to make me know how I hate to be
tied."
He took another turn about the room:
"You don't give me any chance. You keep me at
arm's length. This City affair now . . . who else have
you got to turn to? "
" You want me to marry you for your money ? "
"What do I care what you marry me for? "
She listened to him now with ever-growing interest.
She knew that it was a great deal that he was offering
her, any woman might be proud of having inspired Joe
Wallingford with so much feeling. The incident and
his attitude toward her were outside her experience.
She searched her past for something that would help her,
but there was nothing. Nevertheless, she was irration-
300 SEBASTIAN
ally glad, and flattered. He had written to her about
his wishes, a long time ago, and she had replied without
difficulty, but this was different to a letter, more difficult
to meet. He seemed so much in earnest. For no reason
she could find, her heart began to beat quickly.
He pressed his suit. He reminded her that she had
many lonely hours, he said that there would be more of
them as the boy's interests expanded. She cared for
curios, he would give her money enough to buy the
British Museum. He was ashamed of having said that;
but it was in his mind, and he gave it speech. There
might be shortage of money if Sebastian went on as he
had been doing. She might have to give up her car-
riage.
Vanessa murmured that she "liked walking." He
saw she was genuine in not seeing any money trouble in
prospect, whatever an investigation into City matters
would show. She had never known poverty, never seen
it at close quarters, it had no terrors for her. And she
was sure when Sebastian came home, everything would
be found to be all right; she had unbounded confidence
in him.
"All right!" He ceased his perambulations, his
almost irritated insistence, and he drew up in front of
her: "You think you can do without me; the advice
you asked me for, you don't mean to take. For, mind
you, I don't go behind my advice. It is ' marry me,' and
be done with it. Well ! you won't, you're obstinate
about it. It's not that you don't like me "
" I do like you," she interposed, quickly. He stooped :
"I've half a mind to make you."
SEBASTIAN 301
He put an uncertain hand upon her shoulder. " There
is a woman in you, I swear."
She flushed, she would have risen.
" Sit you still. I am not going to hurt you. Think of
it again."
He kept his hand on her shoulder.
" You do know how I feel about you ; you know that,
anyway."
She could not get away from him without making too
much of the incident. She was greatly embarrassed by
his attitude, not quite sure what she must do ; there was
quite a light in his eyes. But she disliked his hand on her
shoulder. She put hers up to release herself; and he
caught it in his.
" Give me a hearing. What have you got against me ? "
"It is not you, it is me. I am too old, for one thing."
"You're the age I want you to be."
"I'm so — so occupied."
"Well! aren't I a busy man?"
"Then, there is Sebastian." Her flush deepened
under his regard, her confusion increased. Perhaps he
thought it was his opportunity. He put his arms
gently about her, his big arms, he kissed her.
It was incredible, impossible, unprecedented. But
there was no doubt about it having happened. She put
out both hands to ward him off; but she had no need.
He was standing up now, waiting his sentence, waiting
to hear if she would send him away, or bid him stay.
She could find no words for him, no words at all.
" Well ! Say at least you'll think it over ! you won't
forget."
302 SEBASTIAN
Could she ever forget ? She put up her shaking hands
to her outraged face, burning now. She could not
understand that she did not feel more angry.
"It — it was unpardonable," she began, helplessly.
He was glad he was not being sent away, dismissed
summarily. He would have to walk warily ; he did not
under-rate the difficulties in front of him. " What would
Stella say? Stella to whom I am all the world? "
" Yes, about Stella," he said, " tell me. Is she not any
stronger? Does she take up more of your time? "
"I wish you would sit down, or, or look out of the
window. I can't talk while you are standing up, and
staring at me."
He went to the window obediently, even turned his
back on her that she might recover her self-possession.
He was surprised himself at what he had done.
"Tell me about Stella," he said again, but added,
"I want to know everything, to share all your troubles."
It seemed as if she were arguing with herself, showing
a weakness new to her.
"I cannot abandon my responsibilities. Perhaps I
should not resent being — being cared for. But I am
not free, not free in any way. Sebastian could not live
alone, I know my companionship is much to him, vital
almost, just now. Stella is out of health, I am often
filled with anxiety about her. I try and disguise it; I
tell her, and Bice, and myself, that she gains strength.
But it is not true. She hardly goes out at all now, sur-
rounding herself with books and flowers. If I fail in
going there daily she resents it, I know she does, even
if she does not say so. Bice is not the companion to her
that I am, however much she may care about her."
SEBASTIAN 303
Vanessa was following her own thoughts, following
them aloud. A new point had been reached in her
intimacy with Joe Wallingford, she felt nearer to him, it
was even possible his wish might become hers. "Some-
times I dream — I dream that Stella is leaving me. I
cannot give you what I owe to her. I can put no one in
her place —
"And afterward — afterward?" he asked, coming
near to her again.
The unready tears were hot behind her eyes, although
they did not fall.
" Don't press me, let me think. You have said enough
for to-day, give me time."
He stooped, he kissed her hand.
"Quite right. I've said enough, you've been very
good to me. I'll go now, and you will let me see you
oftener. I'll not stand between you and your dear ones.
Tell me when I may come again."
She was glad to be alone. She had never voiced her
fears for Stella, now all at once they shook her. She
would not marry Joe Wallingford, marriage was not for
her, she had so many responsibilities, interests.
But often she remembered that Joe Wallingford had
kissed her, and that she had not been angry. She
forgot for what she had sent for him, the difficulties in
Queen Victoria Street passed out of her mind.
CHAPTER XXI
SEBASTIAN was overdue. There was no doubt about
it. The third week had gone by, and now the fourth,
and still there came no letter, and no Sebastian. She
heard no further disquieting news from the City, she
told herself that this proved Joe Wallingford to have
been wrong, there was no trouble impending there, he
had jumped to a wrong conclusion, misled perhaps by
what she had told him. She could not get Joe Walling-
ford out of her mind. He had said that he did not mean
to give up his intentions. Could it be that she was glad ?
Again, it was her writing that suffered, and the new
book, The Education of a Novelist, became subordinate
to a certain pleasure she had in recalling a moment, a
phrase, an action, reviving in herself that untoward
flush, and heat of the blood.
Perhaps — but all the possibilities that thronged her
were dependent on what Sebastian might say. What
was delaying him ? A vague uneasiness arose, was ban-
ished, persisted.
Stella had taken advantage of Bice's absence to try a
fortnight at Brighton. She returned before Vanessa's
uneasiness took concrete form.
She had brought back grapes and orchids; roses and
violets bloomed perpetually in her vases and dishes.
But she was looking no better for the change, very frail
and tired.
304
SEBASTIAN 305
"Saighton brought me up," she explained. "He has
been staying at Brighton for the week-end. Tell me all
your news. What does Sebastian write of the trip?
Bice was enthusiastic at first, but I fancy her enthusiasm
has died down considerably. I have not heard at all for
more than a week."
"Sebastian and I have a sort of unwritten contract
about letters, he hates the idea of them following him
about. And we find if we do not correspond there is
more to talk about when we see each other. He ought
to be home really, he was due last week. He is wanted
at the office, too. I believe I am getting worried about
him."
"Well! you are always more or less worried about
him, are you not ? There is nothing new in that," Stella
answered, wearily.
"Did Bice's letters say anything about Sebastian?"
"Every letter reiterated that Sebastian was an angel,
or words to that effect."
"Did she say he was quite well?"
" Of course he is quite well. Why not ? He is young,
happy. He has something to live for."
"I wish they were back," Vanessa repeated again.
" I suppose there is no cause for their delay ? I am full
of presentiment, forebodings." She wanted reassurance.
"What could have happened?" Stella asked her.
"There have been such things as motor accidents."
"Yes! But not motor annihilations. Including the
chauffeur, there were five people in the car. One must
have lived to tell the tale."
But when Stella realised that Vanessa was genuinely ill
306 SEBASTIAN
at ease, she discontinued rallying, and roused herself to
argue with her. There had been times, capable of
psychic explanation no doubt, during Sebastian's school
career, when an attack of measles, or mumps, influenza,
or a football mishap, had been known to Vanessa before
the letter announcing it arrived. In early days, Stella
had refused to acknowledge this phenomenon. If any
one had such hold on Vanessa as that, it should have
been she, her twin.
But of late years there was grey, stifling mist between
her and her sister, growing ever thicker and sadder, a
soft sea-mist of tears. Through it they no longer saw
each other clearly ; even their speech together was dulled.
All this Stella felt to-day, returning from her ever more
fruitless journey after health. Her spirits were chilled,
and the premonition of misfortune she read in Vanessa's
mind found immediate pale reflection in her own.
Could anything be wrong with the motor party ?
They began to argue with themselves, with each other,
to calculate times and distances, to discuss the French
and Swiss postal systems, to talk of possible punctures,
breakdowns.
The premonition of evil remained ; no amount of talk,
nor argument, could dissipate it.
A telegram, received a day or two later, from Bice,
lightened the disquietude, but only partially relieved
the anxiety.
"Motor party broken up. Folkestone 3.18. Home to
dinner."
Stella sent it to Vanessa, and together the sisters
awaited the arrival, and the explanation. As they sat,
SEBASTIAN 307
they exhausted conjecture. If Sebastian had been ill,
for, of course, that was the spectre Vanessa conjured up,
Bice would not have left him. There was no doubt about
that. Yet, that something ailed Sebastian, that he was
in trouble, trouble of mind or body, his mother could not
doubt. The tie between them was really close; in her
uneven heart-beats and distressful pulses she knew all
was not normal with her son. Psychic, or merely hu-
man, she could not persuade herself her fears were
groundless.
She wanted to meet Bice at the station, but it was
impossible to leave Stella. Stella had had several at-
tacks of faintness in the last forty-eight hours. Dr.
Gifford had been backwards and forwards, making light
of them.
He said to Vanessa :
"I shouldn't go to Victoria if I were you. The train
might be ten minutes late, and Mrs. Ashton would con-
jure up both of you in a collision. I should stay here,
together, until Bice comes with her story." He was
quite in their confidence, and secretly shared their anx-
iety. "It will be a very simple one, you see, you are
both of you working yourselves into a panic over noth-
ing."
Vanessa took the hint that she must not leave Stella
alone, she knew Dr. Gifford's methods, her knowledge
of him told her he was not satisfied with Stella's condi-
tion. She neglected nothing of his orders for diet, stimu-
lant, or medicine.
"There she is ! I hear the cab stop," Stella cried out,
suddenly, pale among the cushions. "You run down;
SOS SEBASTIAN
I'll stay here. Make her speak loud, I shall hear her
voice on the stairs."
Vanessa had not waited for permission. She was
down the stairs, and at the street door, before Bice had
got the cab door opened. Her voice reached Stella
through the open windows of the drawing-room.
"How is mummy?"
"Sebastian, how did you leave Sebastian?"
"All right. He was quite well all the time."
"The motor?"
"Is mummy all right?"
"She is in the drawing-room. Talk loud, she wants
to hear your voice."
"I'll rush up. I knew she had been ill."
"You are quite sure Sebastian is well?"
"He was quite well when I left him."
Vanessa let her get her first greeting over with her
mother. For a full ten minutes she restrained her im-
patience for news, for detail.
When she went upstairs again, Bice was on her knees,
her head in her mother's lap.
"I ought not to have come away," Vanessa heard her
saying. "I know I ought not to have. But I couldn't
bear it. . . ."
She did not rise when her aunt came in. Stella's
hand was on her hair, soothing her.
"There is nothing the matter with Sebastian," Stella
said, quickly. "The party was inharmonious from the
first. They did not stay long together. Bice left the
others in Zurich, more than a week ago."
"I had to," Bice whispered. But Stella went on, as
if she had not heard.
SEBASTIAN 309
"It was a series of misunderstandings. Mr. Hayling
behaved badly. Pleasey -
But Bice rose suddenly to her feet.
"Wait until Aunt Vanessa hears it from the others.
It was all horrid. But I'm home again now."
She threw herself on the sofa, pressing her head to
her mother's breast.
"I'm home again with my mummy. I'll never leave
her again, will I? You wanted me back all the time,
didn't you?"
Vanessa knew she must leave them with each other,
but she was full of a natural curiosity, still not freed
from fears. She accepted Bice's assurance that the
boy was well, but it left her unsatisfied.
She went away reluctantly; it was all very unsatis-
factory. Why did not Sebastian return, or at least
write? It was unlike him to be inconsiderate of her.
Stella never heard the full detail of that motor trip;
it is doubtful if even Vanessa penetrated all its mysteries.
Stella heard that, at first, Bice liked Mr. Hayling, and
that then — she didn't. But the reasons she gave for
her change of feeling were involved and difficult. She
was not confidential about Pleasey, either; she could
not speak freely of Pleasey, even to her mother.
Things had not been so bad until they got to Aix.
And at Aix, for a short time, she had been happier than
at any other part of the tour. Mr. Hayling taught
Pleasey to play baccarat ; he took banks with her. He
wanted Sebastian to play, but Sebastian said he had had
his lesson, he would never gamble again as long as he
lived. Mr. Hayling had chaffed him, and called him a
310 SEBASTIAN
milksop, but it had not made any difference. She and
Sebastian had had many hours together, and had ex-
plored the country, revelling in the beauty of mountain,
lake, and gorge. But one of these trips all of them had
taken together. It was to the Grande Chartreuse.
Their own motor was being repaired, and they had hired
two. It was supposed that she and her cousin were to
occupy one, and in that order they started. But Mr.
Hayling had driven back with her. . . .
There came a pause ; Bice did not want to talk about
the drive. She would say no more about Mr. Hayling.
Stella heard that Pleasey and Sebastian came back
very late from the Grande Chartreuse ; it appeared they
had had a puncture.
"Pleasey asked me what Mr. Hayling had talked to
me about in the hours we had been together, whether he
had talked about her. I told her he — he was horrid.
She said such strange things to me about him ! And I
thought she had cared always for Sebastian, mummy !"
"What sort of things?" asked Stella, holding the girl
in her weak arms, listening to her confidences, with her
heart a little cold. In this, too, had she failed? Had
she guarded her young daughter so badly; had evil
shown itself to her so soon ?
But over such as Bice, or such as Sebastian Kendall,
evil passes comparatively harmlessly.
Bice could not repeat what Pleasey had said to her
about Mr. Hayling; she did not want to remember.
But they had never been really good friends after that
conversation. And Bice had been miserable. Neither
Bice nor Sebastian had wished to remain on at Aix.
SEBASTIAN 311
Mr. Hayling had driven them to Zurich. Apparently
the drive had been pleasant, and some sort of peace
was patched up between the parties. For Bice told of
a wonderful sunset behind snow-clad mountains, snow
and sun reflection on the green waters of Lake Geneva,
of a panorama of spring loveliness in the clear air.
"In Zurich Mr. Hayling asked me to — to forgive
him. He said —
"That he had fallen in love with my baby?"
"He was horrid, mummy, horrid ! I told Sebastian."
"And Sebastian?"
"He thought he had better tell Pleasey, he said that
Pleasey knew him so well she would speak to him, and
tell him to leave me alone. Sebastian was so good
about it, so sweet."
"And then?"
"Pleasey told Sebastian I must have been imagining
things!"
"Sebastian agreed with her?"
"He believes anything Pleasey tells him. Mr. Hay-
ling told me so, he laughed about it. He said he had
led her off the scent. Mummy, aren't men beastly?
Mr. Hayling was always — was always — dodging me
about ; you know what I mean — in ... in corridors,
everywhere. I ran away, I know I ought not to have
been such a coward. Pleasey was being so nice to
Sebastian, and making him believe in her. Then when
he wasn't looking, she was being nice to Mr. Hayling.
And he was laughing at her, to me ; and — and dodg-
ing. I couldn't bear it, I ran away. I wouldn't come
straight home, I was afraid Mr. Hayling would follow
312 SEBASTIAN
me in the car. So I went on to Frankfort." (Bice had
had a year at school there.) "I went to Frau von
Schroeder. I didn't tell her anything, except that I
had been travelling with a motor party, and the party
had broken up. She wouldn't let me come home alone.
She was awfully kind and nice. She knew some people
who were coming to England in a few days, and she
made me wait for them. They brought me as far as
Folkestone — an old professor and his two sisters,
stuffy sort of people, but quite nice. Are you angry
with me ? Oughtn't I to have come away ? You don't
know how horrid it all was. And it seemed as if they
were both deceiving Sebastian, and I couldn't make him
know. I couldn't bear that, I didn't know what to
do."
That was Bice's version of the story — a sufficiently
difficult one to convey to Vanessa.
The full force of the blow, for which she had been
unconsciously waiting, fell upon her before she under-
stood the significance of what she heard.
It came in a letter from Sebastian, nearly a week
after Bice's return. It was not like his usual letters;
and it conveyed incredible news, heart-breaking news.
He had stayed in Geneva, waiting the necessary formali-
ties. He had married Pleasey Pleyden-Carr ! He said
he could not write about his happiness, his unspeakable
happiness ! His mother would forgive his not having
waited to consult her; he would explain everything
when he saw her. He was bringing his wife home, he
knew his mother would love Pleasey, would welcome
them both !
SEBASTIAN 313
It was heart-breaking, devastating, irretrievable.
She could not face Stella with her news. She kept
it for a day, like an asp in her breast it burned within
her; it was poison in the wound, that she had not fore-
seen his danger,, not guarded him against it. It was
almost unbearable that perhaps she had wandered from
him in thought, that perhaps the link between them
had been weakened, the light obscured, by Joe Walling-
ford. What had transpired between her and Joe was
secret, and now it was a secret shame. Her life be-
longed to her son; she had faltered in her trust.
With a heart like lead, with feet that lagged, she did,
nevertheless, what Sebastian asked of her in his letter.
She told the news to the household; she had rooms
prepared for them. And she went to see Pleasey's
parents, went to that sordid lodging-house in Wimble-
don, renewing a painful, half-obliterated memory.
Mrs. Pleyden-Carr was at home. Vanessa saw in a
moment that her news would be no news to Pleasey's
mother. How the old story came back, the story of
Pleyden-Carr's dismissal from the Embassy, the ru-
mours, the disgraceful truth !
The tall, gaunt woman who rose to greet her in the
stuffy parlour, redolent of mutton fat and musty poverty,
had once been accounted beautiful, and had held her
position in the inner circle of Italian society. In his
cups, Ambrose Pleyden-Carr had let out to her an
international secret. No one knew exactly what oc-
curred, but the secret was betrayed almost immediately,
and it was suspected that his wife had told it to an
Italian lover. All that followed was a nightmare of
314 SEBASTIAN
blurred remembrance. Hepplewight-Ventom had helped
them, everybody had tried to help them. But the weak-
ness of moral character was in both husband and wife,
and deterioration had been rapid.
Mrs. Pleyden-Carr held out a soiled and shaky hand,
she had lost even her self-respect, her care for her per-
son; she was one with her sordid surroundings.
"I have just heard the great news," she said; "Mr.
Carr has gone out to telegraph to them."
"You were surprised?"
"I never thought Pleasey would have married a
business man. Her father always said that when Lord
St. Clair came home from Egypt, he would see that she
had the right introductions. You would hardly believe
it, but Pleasey has not even been presented ! We were
waiting for the St. Clairs. I don't know what they will
say at having a married woman to present ! Our
Pleasey — it seems impossible ! " She laughed affectedly.
The artificiality of it all, the high falsetto voice, and
assumption that things were not as they seemed on the
surface, that they were still in their old position, turned
her sick. Anything had been better than that. Frank-
ness, simplicity, honest poverty, would not have re-
pelled her. Ambrose Pleyden-Carr did nothing to re-
lieve the situation, when he hurried in.
He was, perhaps, less completely a wreck than his
wife. Behind his shabbiness, one could see a shadowy
something, a possibility that he had once been a gentle-
man, but it was like a spirit photograph: it might be
there, or it might not, there was no substance in it.
"I have just telegraphed to that naughty girl of
SEBASTIAN 315
mine," he began. "To think of her marrying in this
way!" He had evidently been ill coached in his part.
"And before the Lechlades return from India! Lady
Lechlade mil be disappointed; she had set her heart
on bringing Pleasey out. They've no girls of their
own, you know. Pleasey would have had such oppor-
tunities. Lord Lechlade would have been sure to ad-
mire her. This sudden marriage is such a surprise to
us; you won't mind if I say something of a disappoint-
ment!"
"You anticipated a great alliance for your daugh-
ter?" Vanessa answered dully, sick at heart. Such
pin-pricks as their assumption of disappointment could
not hurt her. The poison in her veins was that she
might have saved him. Had her thoughts wandered
from him?
She tried to be courteous, to pretend to believe what
they told her, although she knew quite well that they
lived by writing begging letters to those who had met
them in reputable days. She listened whilst they used
big names, talking of those who pitied and helped them,
as if they were still intimate personal friends. Even if
it had not been for this awful, this irremediable mar-
riage of Sebastian's, they would have been alike in-
tolerable in themselves, and in the reminiscences they
evoked.
"I remember your father coming to me about his
book on missal paper. Was it ever finished? I don't
recollect his sending me a copy. I am glad to say I
was able to be of great assistance to him. I gained
him access to the Castellento Collection. You remem-
ber »
316 SEBASTIAN
She remembered. Her father had put little jobs in
his way, jobs of copying documents, making extracts.
They had not fallen so low as this then, not nearly so
low. Ambrose had still tried to get work. She recalled
her father's description of his capacity: "His mind is a
lumber-room, he cannot get at what is stored there."
Now he talked on :
"You remember our Pleasey when she was quite a
little girl? Always a great beauty; people turned
round to look at her in the streets. When the Grand
Duke "
"Mrs. Kendall could not remember Pleasey," Mrs.
Carr reminded him, with dignity. "Pleasey was the
baby in those days, it is twenty years ago since we were
in Florence. It is Violetta she would remember, our
beautiful Violetta." She put her soiled handkerchief
to her rheumy eyes. Pleasey was something older than
her bridegroom. Pleasey's age must be obscured.
Vanessa's blurred memory called up other children.
Pretty, lint-haired babies, boys and girls, four or five
of them, had been part of the pathos of the position,
that which had moved the English colony in Rome to
pity when the catastrophe happened.
She asked of these children. They had slipped
through weak, incompetent hands. One lay buried in
Florence, and one at St. Rapello. Violetta lay in
Rome. Vanessa thought bitterly it was well that they
were dead. The Pleyden-Carrs recalled who the god-
fathers and godmothers had been, reciting their names,
talking as if Grand Dukes, and Royalty, had been proud
to stand sponsors to their children. Mrs. Carr said
SEBASTIAN 317
they had had many troubles, losing their dear ones.
Now there were only Pleasey and Zuley.
All the time Vanessa's visit lasted, Zuley sat and
stared at her. She was paler even than Pleasey, her
scant hair was white, and white, too, the eyelashes of
her blinking eyes.
There was no understanding in her, and limited
speech; she had a cleft palate, and a wandering dis-
position towards forbidden things. She wore a battered
red velvet, three-cornered hat. It was horribly incon-
gruous, and absurd, this warm spring day. Afterwards
Vanessa learnt that, indoors, or out of doors, in velvet,
in plush, or in felt, she clung to this insignia. God
alone knows what it meant to her. But it was im-
possible to take it from her; she was never seen with-
out it. All through that visit Vanessa paid, Zuley
played with her three-cornered Napoleonic hat, setting
it now and again on her untidy head, posing vacantly.
CHAPTER XXII
IT was incredible he should look so radiantly well, so
extravagantly happy.
"Where is the mater?"
She heard his voice in the hall, on the stairs. She
went out to welcome him, but her eyes were misty.
"I surprised you this time, didn't I? I left Pleasey
at Victoria, she has gone off to see her people; she will
be back in time for dinner." He noticed her pallor.
"You didn't mind? You weren't sick about it, were
you? It will be ever so much cheerier for you, having
some one to be with you when I'm out." He put his
arm about her, he kissed her cheek, he was unwontedly
affectionate. "Have you missed me, old dear?"
It moved her; nothing had the power to move her
like any demonstration from Sebastian, it was so un-
usual with him. The tenderness that lay so deep in
her, trickled out painfully to meet him. She saw, not-
withstanding his flippant entry, that he was a little out-
side himself, wanting sympathy. She must wait to
hear all he would tell her. Now she had to nerve her-
self to give him something of what he wanted — reas-
surance, and evidence that it was indeed home where he
had come.
"I was right to bring her here?"
"Of course. Isn't this your home?"
318
SEBASTIAN 319
"Don't think it was only a sudden impulse. I have
always wanted her. I should never have done those
rotten things I did, gone that mucker, but that I thought
she did not care for me, that it was hopeless. She has
forgiven me, I have told her everything."
" You have had a tiring journey ? " It was so difficult
to dissimulate with him.
"Poor old mater ! Now that I know what it is to be
married myself, I am so awfully sorry for you. I have
thought of it so often lately . . . you must be beastly
lonely at times. I wish I had been different to you. I
understand now so much better than I did. . . ."
She could not bear his self-reproach, that he should
think she missed David. She said hurriedly :
"You have been everything to me, all and more than
a son could be. You would like to go upstairs, to see
what I have arranged for you ? You hav8 trie two rooms
over mine, the front one, and the one that was your
father's."
"But who will sleep next to you?"
"Don't, Sebastian, don't !" she cried out. But there
was little understanding of the source of her pain.
He wanted to talk now, he was eager to tell her all
about it, and how it had come about. He said he should
use his old bedroom as a dressing-room, and then they
could have talks together. He made her come upstairs
with him now. He had not discarded her, he still needed
her. Again his arm went about her waist.
"I want to tell you all about everything," he said.
"Did the motor go well?"
Poor Vanessa, she found words so difficult, tears so
hot behind her eyes.
320 SEBASTIAN
"I'll begin at the beginning. You haven't got any-
thing else to do, have you ? Sit with me whilst I dress."
All the time he was talking, he was changing his coat for
a lounge jacket, washing his hands and face, brushing his
hair before the mirror, interposing irrelevant matter
about shoes, the necessity of having all his clothes
pressed, and telling her the number of things he had
left behind him at different hotels.
"Pleasey is worse than I am," he said, "she never
knows where she has put anything, she has left half her
clothes between here and Zurich ! You want to know
all about everything. I'll begin at the beginning. We
did Folkestone under the three hours, slowing down three
times for police traps. He is a wonder, that chauffeur
of Bob's. We had a very good time in Paris, the girls
went nearly everywhere with us; not the Rat Mort, or
Maxim's, but everywhere else. We were a party carr£,
just the right number. Bice amused Bob, and at first
she seemed to like him. She did all the talking in shops
and places, for all of us. His French is unspeakable."
"Unspoken?"
"No ! that was the worst of it." He was as quick as
she in realising he had used the misappropriate word.
" It's really good to get back to you ! No, it wasn't
unspoken, he liked airing it."
Then followed a description of what they had done in
Paris, interspersed with splashing, and enquiry for some
soap Vanessa used to get for him, and which he had
mislaid.
"We started for Aix, after ten days in Paris, and there
was trouble with the tyres; we had three punctures
SEBASTIAN 321
in one afternoon ! The engine was knocking most of
the time, and we were running on three cylinders. ..."
Now he chatted about routes, and the French Touring
Association, then French inn accommodation, price of
petrol, something about speedometers.
"We got to Aix at last. But nothing was going well.
Bice was sulking with Bob over something or other, and
Pleasey was awfully worried about it. Bice has always
had a bad temper, you know, but she was always all
right with me. It was the day we went to the Grande
Chartreuse that she really broke. You know the Grande
Chartreuse ? — grey walls, grey corridors, grey environ-
ment, empty, piteous, appealing. Pleasey and I had a
jolly time there. We lunched at the restaurant; an
omelette, veloute de veau, and souffle potatoes. Why
don't we get that kind of cooking at Pangbourne, or
anywhere up the river? We got separated from the
others. I think Bob was all along getting fond of Bice,
although Pleasey said I was quite wrong. You know,
mater, Bice is pretty useful; she did the packing, and
unpacking for the lot of us. We never lost a thing whilst
she was with us. And she did the catering, and looked
out all the routes. But it seems there was a 'bust up'
between her and Bob on the way home from the Char-
treuse. She told Pleasey about it, and Pleasey ragged
him properly. They had long confabs about it. Pleasey
made me leave them together, she wanted to get at Bob's
intentions. But, of course, he is too old for Bice, not
quite . . . well, I suppose he really is not quite good
enough. Bice took against him, same as you did, you
recollect, mater?"
322 SEBASTIAN
"You all went on to Zurich together?"
"Yes, and that was the end of it."
He had finished dressing ; he put his arm in hers :
"Come down to the drawing-room, I'll finish the
story there. We shall have lots of time, Pleasey is sure
to be late, she's always late."
Vanessa heard of Bice's flight, and Pleasey's distress
about it. Telegrams were sent off, and Bob started
(as Bice had anticipated) in search of her in the motor.
Sebastian must look after Pleasey, of course. It was a
distressing position in which the poor girl found herself.
Pleasey, Sebastian said, had scene after scene with Bob
over his treatment of Bice, trying to get at the bottom of
it. Sebastian really believed that Pleasey's stormy
interviews with Mr. Hayling, from which she ever
emerged tear-stained and wretched, were to get a clue
to Bice's disappearance ! In the end Bob had got
ruffled by her suspicions, or her accusations, and had
started off to England without consulting their wishes,
practically without giving them an opportunity of ac-
companying him. Pleasey, by then, Sebastian said,
was quite unfit to travel, broken down by her anxieties.
"You know, mater," he said, as if it were an addition
to her charms, "she is awfully delicate, the least thing
knocks her up, she can't even pack for herself."
It was the only time Vanessa varied from the course
of conduct she had laid down for herself.
"It seems, then, she is utterly incapable. What could
Stella have been thinking of to entrust Bice to her !" she
exclaimed, not waiting to think, not calculating her
words.
SEBASTIAN 323
He flushed with anger, or perhaps pride.
"Bice has always looked after her; Aunt Stella never
knew, but that is how it has always been. She is really
only a child, she is not fit to take care of herself, and —
and I want to do it. Mater, I care about her, I am so
glad when she lets me do things for her, so proud." He
faltered a little on this last, the tone of his voice was a
revelation — a pain. " I feel differently about her to
what I have ever felt for any one before. She has had
such a rotten time. Old Pleyden-Carr is an impracticable
person, they have never had any fixed home, she has had
to work for her living, been awfully poor, even hungry."
His voice dropped, he broke off. In his own way, he was
entreating his mother's sympathy.
"I want her to have a good time. You have made
me rather selfish, mater." His tone grew tender,
affectionate, even. This was not the boyish Sebastian,
it seemed he had at last grown to some new manhood.
" You have always been so good to me, you and the
pater. And Pleasey has had nothing !"
"Would nothing less than my son content her?"
"You will try and care for her, won't you? I — I
love her, like the pater did you. I know now that he
never thought of anybody else, except, sometimes per-
haps, of me. Nothing was too good for you; he told
me once that loving a woman, as he hoped I should one
day, made one humble. I know what he meant now.
He wasn't like other men. I don't think I am, perhaps,
but we have both of us been lucky in finding the one
woman."
She knew loyalty and fidelity were inherent in him, and
324 SEBASTIAN
that it had been so, too, with David. Perhaps then, for
the first time, she had sharp realisation of what her in-
difference might have meant to her husband. Something
it seemed of retribution, this marriage of Sebastian's;
it made it worse, not better, if he must suffer for her sins.
And what but suffering must ensue of a union between
the fine spirit, the strength, and brain power, of such as
he, with the feeble personality, and thin incompetency
she divined in the wife that had been foisted on him. It
all surged over her as she listened to him, the hopeless-
ness of it, the irremediableness of it.
Pleasey was late. She came in about ten minutes to
eight. The boy had been listening for some time, mak-
ing excuses for her to his mother. Vanessa liked an
orderly and punctual house, it was the one excuse that
may be made for any subsequent mistake in her treat-
ment of Sebastian's wife, that it was never punctual nor
orderly from the moment Pleasey came into it. To-
night, perhaps, was pardonable, accounted for by the
reunion with her family, and all she must have had to
tell them.
Vanessa looked at her critically, when some five-
and-twenty minutes late, the three of them sat down
to a spoiled meal. She had done, and said, the con-
ventional thing, made her son's wife welcome. Perhaps
she had regarded Bice's companion with perfunctory
interest until now. Now all her heart was in her eyes.
Pleasey, never very natural, had adopted a new
affectation with her marriage. Vanessa heard the echo
of her mother's voice in her italics. And all her story,
as she spoke it, was tainted with poor untruth.
SEBASTIAN 325
After dinner, when they left Sebastian over his wine,
Pleasey said, with an attempt at impulsive spontaneity :
"I think it was perfectly sweet of you to let us come
here. Sebastian was so keen on it."
And Vanessa, out of the fulness of her aching heart,
asked a question. There was only one anodyne, she
asked for it, almost humbly:
"Do you care for my boy?"
"I simply adore him," came unconvincingly.
It was many months before the climax was reached,
but the daily impossibilities of a life led under one roof
for these two, revealed themselves from the very begin-
ning.
Pleasey would not breakfast with Sebastian and his
mother, neither would she, as her hostess suggested,
have her meal sent up to her bedroom. She came down
when the coffee was cold, the bacon congested, and a
disorder of plates and dishes gave her a familiar atmos-
phere. And then she would have liked Vanessa to sit
with her, listening to aimless, staccato, empty gossip.
She had nothing to do, she did nothing. She had no
hatred of her mother-in-law, such as, unfortunately,
Vanessa so soon conceived for her. But all her slovenly
habits proved uncongenial, and to play hostess to her,
be courteous, and not critical, became an ever more
intolerable burden.
Pleasey idled an hour over her breakfast; she had
no appetite, took one thing or another on her plate,
and left it there, filled her cup, but forgot to drink,
hindered the servants in their duty, kept Vanessa from
her desk.
326 SEBASTIAN
After breakfast, she sat on, doing nothing, talking
about her hair, or her dress, or some shopping she
must accomplish, until nearly noon. At noon she
would suddenly discover she wanted something in a
great hurry. She would "rush away" to dress; she
called it "rushing," but more irrelevant talk delayed
her. She would be something like an hour adjusting
her hat, preparing for the street, during which time
Vanessa sat thinking of her, in exasperated expectancy,
unable to settle until she had gone. Then she would
"rush" in again, on her way here, or there, to enquire
the hour for lunch, would find she was short of time,
and sit down, whilst a cab was whistled for her. Al-
though her admitted destination might be only five
minutes off, she must have a cab. And she never suc-
ceeded hi returning in time for the meal. It is no
exaggeration to say that until the hour Vanessa's pa-
tience broke, Pleasey had never once managed to sit
down to any one meal at the same moment as her
hostess.
Of course, the deep temperamental differences be-
tween the two women was at the root of the trouble.
Vanessa was ever conscious of her injustice, of the
triviality of the things she found unbearable in Sebas-
tian's wife. Pleasey was conscious of nothing, save that
she had done very well for herself.
It was rarely Sebastian asked Pleasey to do any-
thing for him, repair a hole hi a torn dressing-gown,
put a button on a new glove, order hair lotion, or theatre
tickets. But rare as they were, Pleasey never succeeded
in executing them. She said, alternately, that she had
SEBASTIAN 327
been "feeling so seedy," or that she had been "so
busy." And of course those critical clear eyes of
Vanessa's saw that she was never too ill nor too tired
to shop, or dress, or amuse herself, and that she did
nothing whatever from morning until evening, for her
people, nor for Bice, nor for herself, except wear out
each looking-glass in the house by her intent regard,
grow daily idler, vainer, more extravagant, and artificial.
Vanessa was intolerant, and critical; and "beggar on
horseback" was the phrase that bored her with its
recurrent inevitability.
As the days wore on, Pleasey grew indefinitely aware
of Vanessa's attitude toward her, and bore herself more
uneasily. She ceased to use a paste stick to her pale
lips when she met Vanessa's contemptuous regard,
even her powder-puff became something of a surrepti-
tious indulgence. Pleasey was never too delicate to try
on clothes, or trapse the streets, or park, decked in
showy finery; but to Vanessa she appeared sickly and
unwholesome, by dint of her feebleness of character.
It was true that she was amiable, as Stella and Bice had
so often repeated. That is to say, she never argued,
she only cried when one failed to admire a new dress,
or commend a purchase, when Sebastian, overtired,
would beg off from a theatre or entertainment, or
queried an extravagance.
She neither worked, nor read, nor wrote; sometimes,
and this but rarely, she scanned a novel, but it never
held her, it lay in her lap whilst she planned new cos-
tumes. She cared for her body, that was the begin-
ning, and end of her day. She lavished endless hours
328 SEBASTIAN
in supplementing nature's kindness to her. Her eye-
lashes blacked, and standing out stickily, the waved
and shaded abundance of her lint hair, became the
entire woman to Vanessa, and Sebastian's wife a mere
mannequin, or less still, a padded and wired dress-
stand, surmounted by a hair-dresser's waxen face.
Mechanically Vanessa found herself watching to see her
fade.
And, as Pleasey became more and more conscious of
Vanessa's attitude towards her, she exhibited herself
always less attractively. She evaded t&te-b-t&tes now,
and came in, and went out, unpunctually, with little
lying excuses.
Her untruthfulness was ingrain, it seemed to Vanessa
to make all conversation impossible. If she were asked
casually if she had been shopping, she would say "No,"
and ten minutes afterwards would talk of her purchases.
If she said she had been in the West End, it almost
certainly turned out that she had been seen hi the
East.
Vanessa spoke to Sebastian once about this untruth-
fulness. It was slow in dawning upon him that his
mother and his wife were uncongenial. It was possible
that by this time his wife had also made her comment.
"Well, mater, you ought not to question her ! She is
nervous with you. She does not know what you are
trying to get at."
"But why should I be trying to get at anything?
I want nothing except that you should be happy; but
can you, or any one, be happy with a woman upon
whose lightest word you cannot rely? I think you
SEBASTIAN 329
might suggest this to her ! I won't say anything more,
perhaps I should not have said so much. But I wish
you would beg her not to tell me these silly little lies.
I am trying to carry out your wishes. I try to talk to
her, but she cannot even concentrate her mind to
answer consistently ! She grows vaguer, and vaguer,
and repeats her ' Oh ! really,' until the mere iteration
paralyses my brain. She wanders from any of the
things in which I try to interest her, to the size of her
waist, the condition of her hair, her dress, or some new
scent "
"Mater, you know you don't mean what you are
saying. She is all right with me. You don't under-
stand her, she is nervous with you. The pater used
to be the same."
He did his best to make the home life pleasant or
possible, poor boy, wavering neither in love nor loyalty,
to either wife or mother. He was going through a
hard and difficult time in the City. Trouble had been
waiting for him, and he braced himself to meet it.
Already he had thanked Vanessa for her loan, for what
she had done for him in his absence. He had been
diffident in asking if she minded that the repayment
should be left over for the present. He admitted diffi-
culties, but said they would be overcome. He was
obviously full of cares, working eight and ten hours a
day. Pleasey yawned and found the evenings dull.
Every single day, she went out, to spend in extravagant
gew-gaws, for the adornment of her person, the money
he worked so hard to gain. Always Vanessa's resent-
ment of her grew. She was so unnecessary, her staccato
330 SEBASTIAN
speech so hollow and mechanical. These months were
full of a sense of foreboding, of mental discomfort, and
of incidents, like blind alleys, that seemed to lead no-
where. Sebastian's wife had no sympathy nor under-
standing of Sebastian's anxieties, she had no interest
beyond fashion plates and unguents. She was a strange,
unnatural intruder into strenuous lives.
Stella, whose society was the one haven of refuge
Vanessa had from the home permeated by Pleasey's
clothes and person, the mental and moral twilight of
her atmosphere, tried to make her sister look more
leniently on the disastrous marriage. It was Stella's
state of health, by the way, that had been the burden
of Vanessa's last letter to Joe Wallingford. She told
him what he wished was yet impossible, notwithstand-
ing Sebastian's marriage. Wait, was what he read be-
tween the lines of finality, and he had infinite patience.
He ignored his dismissal, he asked her of the business.
She had nothing to tell him, the boy had told her noth-
ing; he was working very hard.
She was glad he did not attempt to reverse her deci-
sion, yet still wrote to her. He stood beyond the dis-
tress and uneasiness of her days like firm ground beyond
quicksand. She saw no way to get to it, engulfment
and disaster were at her feet, but beyond, out of reach,
hopeless of attainment, was solid earth and safety.
Stella was sympathetic, in her own way, of the minor
troubles; they became minor in Stella's sick-room.
"You take her wrongly," she said, wearily, "you
don't see her good points. She is pretty, and amiable,
and the boy adores her. She looks well in her clothes,
SEBASTIAN 331
and will look better in better clothes. What more do
you want?"
"Qualities, capacity. I should like her simple,
sincere, truthful; even if she is without ideals."
"Hasn't she ideals? How do you know?"
"I have never heard her serious and concentrated
but once, and then she said : ' I'd give anything on earth
for a long ermine coat ! Do you think I'll ever have
an ermine coat, Sebastian?'"
''Well, she would look better in it than any one else;
why shouldn't she want an ermine cloak? You can't
complain of want of simplicity in her expression of her
wishes. Put her in a Paquin get-up, with a bunch of
gardenias, or violets, at her waist, and let her wander
up and down Bond Street, looking into the shop-win-
dows, and she will be as happy as the day is long, and
surely she will not be in your way. You don't want
to walk up and down Bond Street, do you?"
"She will be happy until she sees something she
cannot afford," Vanessa interpolated, bitterly, " and
then she will buy it, nevertheless, and try it on before
every glass in the house."
All the things that irritated Vanessa seemed so small
to Stella.
"Does it matter? It seems to me, these days, that
nothing matters. I have worried over so many things.
And now they all seem trivial."
She had lived her years, unsafely, in the haunted
shadows that veil the figure of naked shame. And the
fear that had shaken her heart was lest the veil should
be rent asunder by pitiless hands, and the figure be
332 SEBASTIAN
betrayed to the incredulous, and horrified, eyes of the
two who loved her. What were any troubles in com-
parison with what she had gone through? But it was
nearly over, the time had nearly come for frankness.
" I hate you to be annoyed, but I really think you are
taking this too seriously. It was not probable you
would have liked any one Sebastian selected."
"I would have cared for anybody that cared for him.
I would have left him in any hands that moved about
him lovingly," Vanessa said, passionately.
Stella looked at her enquiringly.
"Left him, left him?"
" Joe Wallingford "
"Oh!"
"But how can I leave him? She does not care if he
be well or ill. He had a headache one night, and she
said vaguely, when he told her, 'Poor darling.' Then
there was quiet ; it was after dinner, and he lay on the
sofa. I hoped he would fall asleep. You know he has
always had these headaches, and just now he is overwork-
ing himself. He was looking a trifle better, his breath-
ing deeper, as if he were easier, growing drowsy, when
her staccato voice roused him, roused us both :
"'Sebastian, did I tell you? I saw such an exquisite
gold bag at Phillips's to-day. I must have a gold bag,
every one has one. This is all wrinkled and full, little
diamonds and rubies in the chains. . . .' He roused
himself, his rest was broken. But what did she care?
She had forgotten he had a headache. And then, when
he said wearily, that he supposed it was 'expensive/ and
money was tight, and wouldn't she wait, she, she begged
SEBASTIAN 333
for it ! Neither dignitj^ nor his condition, nor my
presence restrained her. She wanted it, 'Pleasey wants
it/ she begged, with an affectation of childishness. It
turned out afterwards she had actually sent it home !
She said it was for him to see, but of course she had
bought it. She has inherited the paternal, or maternal,
notions of honour. My boy went so white. 'The throb-
bing has come back, mater/ he said to me. 'Can't you
get me anything, phenacetin, or something ? ' Oh ! it is
piteous, piteous to see how little she cares for anything
but herself! And I, it seems to me I never cared so
much for him as now, nor in the same way. There are
times when I don't know how to bear the way she be-
haves."
"You ought to leave them to each other."
"And know him without companionship, in bondage
to a doll." And then came the final cry : "Living, side
by side, with a light woman who does not even know
that he is in difficulties, nor care to help him through
them, who will always be a burden, and never a help-
mate."
Vanessa knew it, she could not shut out the knowledge
that was borne in upon her all the time. He would not
speak to her of what was amiss. But, at last, they were
real mother-eyes that watched, eyes cleared by tears.
CHAPTER XXIII
AFTERWARDS it seemed as if all the troubles came at
once, the blind alleys converging, and opening on to
one waste space. The very afternoon that she voiced
her troubles to Stella, and Stella had made light of them,
Sebastian came home early from the City, and went at
once to his room; the room that was peculiarly his,
next to her own.
She entered the hall, with heavy heart, to hear that
"Mr. Sebastian came home with a bad headache, he
would be glad if you would go up to him when you came
in."
Pleasey had been in, but had gone out again, leaving
no message.
Sebastian was lying on the bed, fully dressed ; he saw
his mother come in, but did not rise, nor, for the mo-
ment, speak. The afternoon sun was flooding the room ;
the first thing she did was to pull down the blinds, very
quietly. If he were ill, or in trouble, the dark was best.
Then she sat down by the bedside. She put an unaccus-
tomed finger on his pulse, then her hand on his forehead.
"I'm not ill," he said.
"Thank God for that."
"I don't know how to tell you."
She found his hand again, and held it; it was quite
dusk in the room.
334
SEBASTIAN 335
"I've made a hopeless muddle of everything."
"Not of everything, dear." How dear he was to her,
how dear ! She wished she could tell him.
"I meant to make you rich, it was never for myself I
wanted money."
"I know."
"Now I can't see my way." He had rolled over on
the pillow, discarding her hand, his voice came muffled.
"Don't go away. I want to tell you. I never thought
it possible anything could go wrong. Business was
widening and broadening all the time. We had three
hundred and seventy accounts in the pater's time; I've
got nearly three thousand now. The new mills are
finished, and I was right after all about the cornstalks,
the pulp is the very thing for the 'feather-weight.'
We've worked it all up. Everything looked flourishing
when I went away."
"What has happened, tell me?"
"Everything, the unexpected."
He got off the bed now, then sat down, weakly, on the
side of it. "I have been fighting ill-luck ever since I
came back; to-day has been simply awful. I could not
stand the City any more, I came home. My head is
only a machine for aching. I couldn't use it to think."
"How long have you been home?"
"About half an hour. Those blinds were a good idea
of yours, I can bear it better now."
"Lie down again. I will bring you some phenacetin."
"What is the good of drugging myself? I've got to
see it through. Mater, what a conceited young ass you
must have thought me all the time ! "
336 SEBASTIAN
"I?"
"Well, it is the truth. I thought I knew a thousand
times more than the pater, that I could keep on our
specialities, run the agencies, manufacture the 'feather-
weight/ be independent of the Association. Nobody
knew, or guessed, all that I was doing, not even in the
office. Then came that breakdown of mine, and having
to be away."
She sat quietly on in her chair by the bed. It was
only money, he was not ill, that would have been un-
bearable.
"Cannot I help? There are still more securities, or
they could be sold. There are Stella's, too. Stella
would do anything for either of us."
" I am not going to drag anybody down with me, least
of all you two. I wish now I had never touched your
capital."
"What is mine is yours."
"You don't understand, mater. I'm up to my neck,
I don't know where to turn. I had a mortgage on the
mills, and the mortgagees have given notice to call it in.
That was the first thing after I got to the City yesterday
morning. I didn't tell you, I thought I could transfer
it, I still think I can. Then you know we do a very big
business with Hayling's firm; they've got some bills of
ours "
"But Mr. Hayling! surely Mr. Hayling would not
press you?"
"He has a partner, a dead nailer. It looks as if they
have got to know I am in a mess for money. Yet how
could they have got to know? The raw material keeps
SEBASTIAN 337
pouring in, one thousand pounds' worth yesterday, and
the shippers have drawn on us at sight. I had to get the
money from somewhere, so I asked Bob's partner if he
would renew one of our bills. But instead of doing it as
a matter of course, he made a fuss about it. He funked
me, mater. What could they have heard? Excepting
to Pleasey, I haven't breathed a word how I was placed."
"You told Pleasey?"
"She wanted a pair of ear-rings she saw, old ones,
Brazilian diamonds, she looked beautiful in them. I
seem always to be saying ' No ' to her. Poor girl ! I
had to explain I was in a tight place — it is rotten luck
on her!"
Then the natural bent of his nature began to assert
itself. His aching head had become easier in the quiet
room, tea was brought to him. Depression, the imp that
lies in ambush for all young optimists, had leaped on
him, and fastened its claws in the softness of his mood.
Now he made an effort to throw it off.
"It is overtrading, nothing worse than that. I am
full up to the eyes with schemes and business; they are
all good. I swear I have not made one mistake. I may
have produced too much of the 'feather-weight,' per-
haps; but I can place that if I have time. It is only
capital of which I am so desperately short. If I could
get hold of twenty thousand pounds at once — even ten
would tide me over. Do you know anybody with a liquid
ten thousand?"
"Hilary St. Maur?" she suggested, after a moment's
thought.
"He is chairman of the Mortgagee Association, and
338 SEBASTIAN
they would not want a registered debenture. Besides,
no one on earth must know, it would be fatal. We
should have all our creditors on us at once. Our agen-
cies would be jeopardised. The whole position is crit-
ical, it is like a new business I have built up. If our
competitors got to know the position we are in they
could do us no end of harm. Credit is the very life of
the concern, a breath on it spells ruin."
Something — she did not know what — prevented
her, at that moment, uttering Joe Wallingford's name.
"Say something, even if it is only to tell me what an
ass I have been; what an overwhelming, conceited fool !
And yet, I have been right. I have got a twelfth of the
whole trade of the United Kingdom; outside the news-
papers, I mean, and wall-paper trust. It is nothing
going to break me now but want of capital."
Vanessa tried to follow him as he went into figures
and calculations. He showed her that fortune waited
for him, round the corner, and that only the obstructing
void at the bank made it impossible to turn it. She
believed in him implicitly, she said, and that raised his
courage. They soon began to persuade each other
that things must come right.
"How about Mr. Wallingford, Joe Wallingford?"
She hesitated, but went on: "Would you mind his
knowing? He is a good friend of mine, and of yours."
"He does a little with us. He would never do an-
other stroke if he thought we were shaky."
"You wrong him there," she answered, quickly. But
he would not have it.
"I know him better than you do, mater. He will
SEBASTIAN 339
crow over me ; he has always said I was going too fast.
No ! I won't have any interference from Wallingford."
If Stella were not so critical of Sebastian, so naturally
satirical about his talents ! She knew that whatever
Stella had, she would lend to her, or to the boy.
"It all seemed to come over me at once. Panic is
the word, I got into a panic. And then a number of
little things happened. Spurlings cancelled an order,
we made a big bad debt, one of our best travellers
gave notice. I am getting better now, you have done
me good. I'm afraid I frightened Pleasey's life out of
her, coming in as I did. My head was splitting, I saw
nothing but ruin before us. Kendalls in the Bank-
ruptcy Court ! I don't know what got hold of me.
Suddenly everything went black."
" Pleasey was .at home ? "
"I met her in the hall. She was just going out, I
talked blue ruin, wildly. I could hardly see to get up-
stairs, it was the worst sort of pain."
"She went out all the same?"
"I daresay she thought I would be best alone. You
recollect the pater liked to be alone when he had his
headaches?"
Had he? Had he? Memories, like winged insects,
set about her, stung her.
"Pleasey will not mind if we have got to pull in a
bit. She has never had any money, she has often
said she doesn't care about money. The way she buys
things is nothing, she is like a child with a hole in its
pocket. One gets that way if there has never been
anything regular; it doesn't seem worth while to try
340 SEBASTIAN
and save on an income of a fiver to-day, and nothing
to-morrow! You could help her more than you do,
mater, help both of us."
He could not know how his mother felt toward the
girl he had married.
"I know you have done a lot, the trousseau, and
everything." Indeed Vanessa had paid, and paid, and
paid; and yet heard Pleasey beg from Sebastian, hu-
miliating both of them. "You have always been won-
derful about money, it is that that breaks me — your
great trust in me, the way you left everything in my
hands, all that the pater meant for you. That is where
I got frightened. Not that it isn't safe "
His eyes sought hers, entreated her. "It is that
that breaks me," he said, again. "I am in an awful
funk, panic if you like to call it. I can't have muddled
things past help, I can't have, mumsy," the old name
came to his lips, "tell me it is only this beastly head-
ache. Things could not have looked so right, and sud-
denly gone so wrong. The stock is good, the book
debts sound, the mortgage secured."
How she wished she knew the language he was speak-
ing. But her faith in him never wavered, and that
steadied him again when the fresh paroxysm had passed.
He was only twenty-one, little more than a boy, and
his responsibilities, of which he had been so proud,
now crushed down upon him.
She lent him her strength and courage, they were
his birthright, her calm certainty of faith in him soothed
him, her capacity growing with his need.
He had worked himself into fever. It was with diffi-
SEBASTIAN 341
culty that she persuaded him presently to undress and
go properly to bed. She said she would see Pleasey,
and explain, she would undertake his wife should not
be unduly alarmed about him. She even got him to
swallow the cachet of phenacetin, she dared to tell him
it was that, yet substituted veronal, a light sleeping
powder. He must have rest, sleep. Meanwhile she
must think, work for him, plan.
She had not got very far, either with working or
planning, when Pleasey came home. The two ought
not to have been together at such a juncture, it was
too much to expect of any woman, even of Vanessa
Kendall.
"I am sorry I'm late."
She glanced into the drawing-room, she was still in
her afternoon clothes, looking very smart, the grub of
Bice's governess had developed into a very butterfly
as Sebastian's wife. It did not matter to her who
paid for her clothes, or if they were unpaid for, so long
as she got new clothes. She was greedy for them, she
could never have enough, it was an obsession, ever
growing, a very madness of greed. "I have had to
try that velours gris of mine on to-day. I am tired to
death. I stood for nearly an hour. You don't know
how tall it makes me look ! And now my waist is only
eighteen and a half inches. Isn't that good news?"
"Sebastian has gone to bed with a headache," Vanessa
began, coldly.
"A headache! How awful, poor darling! But we
are going to the Alstons' to-night. I told Mason,"
Mason was Vanessa's maid, "I told Mason to put out
342 SEBASTIAN
my mauve. I wonder whether you would lend me your
amethysts? Sebastian will be all right after dinner, I
suppose ! It doesn't begin until ten ; we needn't get
there until half-past. I mean the amethyst necklace.
But it would be simply darling of you, if I could have
the brooches as well."
Vanessa kept herself fairly well in hand.
"He will be quite unable to go out to-night. He
was ill when he came home this afternoon."
"Oh, yes, poor darling. I quite forgot." Pleasey
was always vague about other people. "He said he
had lost a lot of money, or something like that. But
I knew about it all along, there is nothing new to-day,
is there? I really must go, it's half-past seven now.
Shall I dine in a tea-gown, and dress afterwards? Is
Sebastian in the bedroom?"
"No, in his dressing-room."
"I'm so glad. I should have hated to disturb
him. Bob said yesterday that he was looking seedy
again."
Vanessa felt a little cold shiver; a chill.
"Bob?" she said, "Bob?" as if uncertain who the
other meant.
"Bob Hayling. I had tea with him at the Carlton
yesterday. He said Sebastian didn't seem like him-
self, as if married life was not agreeing with him!"
She actually tittered. Vanessa's self-control was al-
most at breaking-point. "I said it was nothing to do
with me; he was bothered about money, about not
being able to meet some bills. I said that was all that
was the matter with Sebastian."
SEBASTIAN 343
"You told him that?"
Of course she had told him that, loosened the ava-
lanche under which the boy lay crushed! Vanessa
could not speak for the moment, she was so over-
whelmed by indignation, rage. And before words came,
Pleasey had left the room.
She came down to dinner, when soup had been twenty
minutes on the table, her lint hair admirably disposed,
the amethyst brooch supporting a violet aigrette. She
had on a white crepe-de-chine tea-gown, and another
amethyst brooch held together the folds.
"I am so sorry I am late. Mason was so long over
my hair, I told her you said I might have the brooches.
You did say so, didn't you? I said she was to leave
Sebastian quite alone until half-past nine. He will
have had a good sleep by then. He can dress in half
an hour."
"John," said Vanessa, dangerously calm, "tell Mason
she is not to go near Mr. Sebastian, no one is to go near
him. You understand?"
"Yes, 'm."
Pleasey looked up, she flushed a little, half opened
her feeble mouth, as if to speak, thought better of it,
and said nothing. From time to time, as that now
silent dinner made its slow uncomfortable progress, she
glanced surreptitiously at Vanessa's face, set, angry, or
contemptuous, wholly uncongenial.
Vanessa could wait, now, until dessert was on the
table, and the servants out of the room. Pleasey
would not rebel against her ruling that Sebastian must
be left undisturbed, she was as incapable of riot or re-
344 SEBASTIAN
bellion as a sheep; she could scurry this way and that
if she were prodded, but she could not butt back.
"You don't think Sebastian is really ill?" she asked,
propitiatingly. "He was at the office all day. Bob
said-
"You met Mr. Hayling again to-day?"
"He motored me to Wimbledon. There was no
harm in that, was there?"
"And did you tell him any more of your husband's
secrets?"
"What do you mean?"
Then the storm broke, Vanessa could contain her
feelings no longer. Perhaps much that she said was
over-harsh, bearing in view that she had no argument
to encounter, and no defence. Perhaps she might have
omitted to remind her son's wife that, even as she had
betrayed Sebastian's secrets to Robert Hayling, so had
her mother ruined the diplomatic career of Ambrose
Pleyden-Carr. Every biting word was true, that they
sank into the nebulous resilence of Pleasey's conscious-
ness stifled, without falsifying, them.
"He took you practically from the gutter, you were
without clothes, or means, or character. He set you
on the throne of his great heart, and you drum your
light heels against it, like a ballet girl."
"You are very unkind." Pleasey soon began to sob.
She dabbed her eyes with her lace-edged handkerchief.
She looked to see if the black had come off her eye-
lashes. Even then she wondered feebly, how it was
that nobody could invent an eyelash dye that was fast.
"I don't know what I've done, you never did like me."
SEBASTIAN 345
" Like you ! Like you ! Who could like you, except
my poor besotted boy. What is there in you, or of
you, to excite any emotion but contempt? You don't
work with your hands, or brain, or heart. You can-
not help having feeble brain power, and limited ca-
pacity of feeling, but you have hands ! Mason takes
hours a day mending your laces, your torn clothes that
lie about your untidy room, putting ribbons into your
extravagant, flimsy underclothes. You give more
trouble in this house than three decent women. You
are disorderly in your habits, unprincipled in your ex-
travagances, selfish to the last degree ! Four or five
solid hours every day you spend before your glass !
And what do you see there ? A doll face, vacuous, not
worth the labour you spend on its adornment."
"Sebastian thinks I am pretty."
"He also thinks you loyal, honest."
She dried her eyes, she tried to be indignant.
"What do you mean by honest? I — I won't be
insulted."
"You will listen until I have finished, you can think
it over afterwards. I have had it in my mind ever since
you have been in the house to show you to yourself as
you are. There is such a thing as technical honesty, it
is possible you have not yet transgressed its laws. But
when your husband, who is also your benefactor, your
protector, and your lover, is ill and in trouble, you spend
his money recklessly, you go out to tea with his trade
rival, all powdered and painted "
"I don't paint, it isn't true, I don't."
"You are rouged, your lips are daubed with paste,
346 SEBASTIAN
your eyelashes are blacked. However slightly, and
cleverly you do all these things, in the long hours you
devote to them, any intelligent person can see it is art,
not nature, that supplies colour to your albinoism. You
dally with this man in public places, betraying your
husband's confidences, disloyal "
"I did not know it was a secret that Sebastian was
short of money. How should I know it was a secret?
We were talking about those ear-rings. Mr. Hayling
said he made sure Sebastian would have given them to
me. I have never said a word against Sebastian, it is
not true what you say of me. You have made me look
a perfect sight, my eyes are all red. I don't know what
the Alstons will think "
"You will go to this ball!"
She was in a hurry to escape out of the room, she had
been in a hurry all the time. It was Pleasey's way, it
was the Pleyden-Carrs' characteristic way, to hurry
from unpleasantness, to hide it shakily, gloze it over,
pretend it was not there.
"I am not sure now, I feel quite ill. I must go up-
stairs, you have been very unkind to me," she got away
as soon as she could, holding her handkerchief to her
smudged eyes.
But it was Vanessa who was the more shaken, the more
agitated, by what had passed. Anger was so rare with
her, hot, articulate anger like this had never before
assailed her. It had overleaped the bounds of hospi-
tality, of something more, of the respect that was due
to Sebastian's wife, because she was his wife. Some-
thing of Vanessa's own self-respect suffered through her
SEBASTIAN 347
candour. Hatred was so rare, so unknown to her.
Everything about her was black and bitter through
its expression. She had darkened the waters of inter-
course by this emission, and was ashamed, humiliated,
unhappy.
CHAPTER XXIV
IT was then Bice telephoned her mother was worse
to-night, was desperately ill. Could Aunt Vanessa
come over at once ?
It was from herself that Vanessa was so glad to escape.
She reiterated her orders that no one must disturb Mr.
Sebastian. She could not bear to think she might have
hurt him through his unworthy wife. She had never
been so at war with herself, and uncertain. What good
could her outspoken comment do, save embitter future
intercourse, make impossible that the lives of the three
of them should be lived out together ?
All those gulfs of silence between her and Stella were
bridged, at last, to-night; speech flooded them.
Stella had gone to bed, early in the afternoon, and had
awakened feeling faint; she thought she must be sink-
ing ! She had taken the tablet that lay on the table by
her bedside, and scribbled on it in pencil — "Died at
eight-forty, send for your aunt." And then had sunk
back upon her pillows, and slept again. But Bice, never
long away from the bedroom, had come in softly, and
read the message. The next time Stella opened her eyes
they fell upon Dr. Gifford and Vanessa, in bewilderment.
There were twinkles in the doctor's eyes, but Vanessa
and Bice were pale and apprehensive.
"Your message seems to have been a little premature,"
348
SEBASTIAN 349
Dr. Gifford said. "I won't prescribe a coffin this time.
We will try some chicken, and a glass of champagne,
instead."
"I wrote a note, didn't I?"
"You gave us the last bulletin."
"I must have felt very seedy. Poor Bice, poor
Vanessa! But you knew it was not true, surely you
could see for yourselves that I was not dead."
Bice swallowed her tears, and felt she had been very
stupid. She, too, had been going to the Alstons', and
had already cancelled her appointment. Dr. Gifford
enjoyed the joke, and promised Stella a long resuscita-
tion. Later on, when the matter had been cleared up,
and the momentary faintness explained, Stella and Va-
nessa united in persuading Bice to dress, and go out.
It was Stella who said, when they were alone :
"Pleasey and Sebastian are going, are they not?" and
so loosed the flood-gates. But the stream came gradu-
ally, not all at once.
"Sebastian is not at all well. He is worried about
things, overworked."
Always the quicker-witted of the two, even if her
quick wits were shallow, Stella asked:
"Worried in business?"
"You won't speak of it, I know. Yes, he is worried
about business. He wants more capital. Stella, I
wonder if you would mind ? I have been thinking, these
last few hours, that money father left, is ours absolutely.
I have lent him some of mine, if you would do the same
thing ?"
She expected ready response. As children she and
350 SEBASTIAN
Stella had held their goods in common. Now Stella's
eyes puckered, and she answered nothing.
"There is not the least risk. I know my boy. He is
marked for success. The machine is in a rut, money
will give it the push it needs."
"But you know, you know as well as I do, that he
should have it, if it were mine to give."
"Bice would -
"Bice would give her soul for Sebastian; it isn't that.
Don't you know, can't you guess? I haven't got it, I
haven't got anything. Jack made away with it."
"But — but — " she was quite bewildered, "you have
lived just the same."
Stella flushed painfully, she could not speak for a
minute or two.
It had come, it had come at last. Now Vanessa must
know. How could she make her understand, all her
secret life, and the burden of it, all that her days had
hidden, and that had eaten away her strength and
courage? She had been silent, and silence had sapped
slowly, like salt sea-waves against her coast of life, lap,
lap, in silence making inroad.
"You have never guessed?"
"I don't understand."
"I haven't anything; Jack left me without anything."
"Then, then "
"Saighton has given me "
"Don't say it -
"All I needed. More, he would have given me so
much more."
" It cannot be true. And I, knowing nothing."
SEBASTIAN 351
"You wrote your books, you had your Sebastian.
You have never known anything about real men and
women."
It was earthquake shaking Vanessa's world, buildings
were crumbling, landmarks disappearing, howling wind
was in her ear, and the sound of many waters.
"You have not been his "
"It doesn't matter what word you use. I don't know
why you have never guessed it, I think all the world
knows or guesses it, but you ! Jack went away with
another woman. I had a child I could not keep, lonely
days and nights. And I was only twenty-three. Don't
go on being blind, and deaf, and dumb. Try and feel
what other women suffer. I could not live alone, that
was the beginning; I wanted love, I needed it. I took
what was offered me. And you went on writing your
books, not noticing anything. I have never been happy,
not a day, not an hour. Look from you to me, and you
will see."
And indeed there might have been years, instead of
minutes, between them. Vanessa's face had grown a
little hard these few months, and the lips were thinner,
and tight. But still there were no wrinkles round her
eyes. Stella's face was lined, and tired; all that had
been beauty was soft and blurred, it was as a tale that
had been told.
Quite suddenly tears rose in Vanessa's eyes, tears that
could not fall. She stooped and kissed the dear tired
face. They clung to each other a moment.
" You have had nothing out of life ; I have had every-
thing," were the words that broke forth involuntarily.
352 SEBASTIAN
David's goodness, his generosity, Sebastian's school
successes, happy hours with her pen, even her pleasures
in prints, and china, rose in her mind. Stella had had
nothing.
All these years Stella had kept a secret from her. And
such a secret ! That she had lived on Lord Saighton's
bounty, been Lord Saighton's mistress — Vanessa's
cheeks went hot with shame, she felt a terrible repul-
sion, at which she was even more terribly ashamed.
Was it true that she was unlike other women, looked at
such things from a different standpoint? Hilda de
Cliffe had told her so. But Stella had not been happy,
she had never been happy in it, and it was this that had
aged her.
Now Stella began to talk, such sad talk ! Vanessa
had, at last, a glimpse into Jack Ashton's conduct; a
thrill of appreciation, understanding, came to her as she
heard of Saighton's sympathy. Stella, so young and
pretty, made for love and luxury, had been bereft of
both.
"You were absorbed in your second book. The first
had been well received. You told me, yourself, your
whole life seemed to hang on making the second better,
more worthy of father. You came to see me with your
body, but your mind was in your library. And he was
so good to me, so patient with me, unselfish, he has al-
ways been good to me. I wanted petting, he said, and
he wanted to give it to me. There are some things you
have never known. Petting is one of them, caresses,
tenderness. . . . You have been a good mother, but
you could not give even Sebastian what you never knew.
SEBASTIAN 353
You cannot see what Sebastian finds in Pleasey; it is
what he has missed from you, the traffic of love, love's
expression. Whether we are men or women, boys or
girls, there are times when each of us wants the other,
close, when we need a hand in our hand, a cheek upon
our cheek, arms about each other; that is the half of
life you have missed."
Now she threw aside the reticence of years. She told
her listening, bewildered, unhappy sister of all Lord
Saighton had given up for her sake. Jack had had
money from him again and again, threatening pub-
licity, he, who had nothing to lose ! Other politicians
had had their careers ruined by women, dragging the
women down with them when they fell. O'Shaughnessy
and Fenwick were given as instances, and the names of
the women were by- words. Saighton would never ex-
pose her to this, he had sacrificed everything to avoid
it. She dwelt on his kindnesses, his devotion to her.
Again and again she reverted to Vanessa's blindness,
convicting her of lapses of interest, or carelessness of
detail.
"You spoke sometimes of my extravagance, my
flowers, or my tea-gowns. Did you really think they
represented only five hundred pounds a year?"
"I did not think," Vanessa answered, humbly enough.
"You pride yourself on being a woman of the world.
I have been away six or seven times every year. Do
you think you can travel about, go to the best hotels,
on five hundred pounds a year?"
Vanessa sat on as one half stunned. It was all un-
real, it was something that must separate her from her
2A
354 SEBASTIAN
sister. She could not hurt Stella, she could hurt no
one again with bitter words that recoiled. But it was
horrible, horrible! And then she reproached herself
for intolerance, trying to put herself in the other's posi-
tion, to recall her pleas. But Vanessa would never
have done it, could never have done it. She thought
of Joe Wallingford, flushed at the thought of Joe Wal-
lingford. But she had not needed love or petting, she
had been strong until now. Now she broke down a
little, and cried, with her face against the pillow on
which Stella lay.
Stella saw only her softening, thought only how well
she had taken the story, how much better than had
seemed possible.
It is easy to talk of conventional laws, to despise
and belittle them. But these poor women who live
outside the pale, live in a sad country. From their
windows, every morning as they rise they see loneli-
ness and desolation, every wind that blows has menace
in it, the wolves howl, and their security is threatened.
Always, she had feared lest Vanessa should hear the
howling of the wolves, and recognise in what country
her sister had set foot. It had been always this fear
that had lurked miserably on the cold threshold of her
solitary hours. And now, at last, it was no longer there !
She talked, and talked, far into the night. The bur-
den of it was that now she could get better, stronger,
it was the secrecy from Vanessa that had been so wear-
ing. Stella gave her sister a rare, occasional insight
into wonderful moments. She wished Vanessa had
known love. Vanessa could not bear that talk, her
SEBASTIAN 355
sensitiveness, perhaps a distant dawn of knowledge, or
premonition, shrank from it. There is no doubt Joe
Wallingford was in her mind. She changed the subject.
Presently she found herself talking of Sebastian's
wife, confessing her breakdown, not excusing it.
Stella's morality had inevitably suffered; she could
not conceal that she thought Sebastian's wife would
serve a phase for him. Vanessa knew that this was
not Sebastian's way of love, but her sister could not
credit him with his virtues of fidelity and continence,
hereditary virtues.
"I know I said unjustifiable things to her. I am
intolerant of her," Vanessa admitted.
"You don't understand what need of Sebastian's it
is that she serves. You live in blinkers. She is an
idle, unprincipled little thing, and he will outgrow her,
but in the meantime, she is an improvement on the
Princess. Leave them alone, and let him find her out
for himself. From the first, I thought it could never
answer for you to live together. Pleasey's extravagant
habits are easy to understand, if you look at them
sympathetically. If you have nothing, it is not worth
while to try and save it ! Until now she has never had
anything, and as she has neither creed, nor conscience,
now that the opportunity offers, she is snatching at
anything she can get. But I thought Sebastian was
doing so well — what has happened?"
Vanessa tried to explain the situation.
"Well, why doesn't your provincial millionaire come
to the rescue? It is all that kind of man is good for.
Make him give Sebastian anything he wants."
356 SEBASTIAN
"And cheat him of return?"
"Not necessarily, why not marry him? You can-
not go on living with Sebastian and his wife. I would
withdraw my opposition at once, if you would only
tell me you have at last realised that you have missed
something, and that Joe Wallingford can give it you."
"A hand in my hand, a cheek against my cheek,"
Vanessa quoted, jestingly, trying to take it lightly.
Stella answered :
"For me, for Sebastian, for Pleasey, for nearly every-
body, love is vital to life. But not for you, perhaps;
you are so strong, there is so little feminine about you.
Perhaps you are the one exception, the one woman
who can stand alone, without feeling lonely. But, if
so, don't be proud about it, be sorry. I have been
wretched — but I have had my moments. You have
only had pen and ink; rooms without flowers, days
without sun. ..."
Was it true, was it? She wondered all through that
night. She was still wondering when the morning
dawned.
*******
She had gone into the boy's room when she got home ;
he was still sleeping, heavily, peacefully. She left the
door open between them, watching him through the
remaining few hours of that long night. Pleasey was
late at the ball; Vanessa heard her come in, about
three, she pictured her opera cloak lying about the
hall, a glove dropped on the stairs. That is what
Pleasey Pleyden-Carr had brought into their lives,
frivolity, disorder, indifference.
SEBASTIAN 357
And Stella! Vanessa could not yet think of Stella,
it was all pain and confusion there. She must believe
it, bear it, bear with it. But she was mentally and
morally all bruised and tired. She could not think
clearly, nor find solid foothold amid the ruins.
CHAPTER XXV
PLEASEY was later than ever next morning. She did
not want to meet Vanessa, and sent down word that
she was seedy, and would like a tray sent up to her.
Sebastian told her that the "poor girl" had not got
home until four. He had been up to see her, and had
advised her to take the day in bed.
Sebastian felt better, in the morning things looked
less black. He said he should get down early to the
office, and see Robertson.
"Robertson?"
"An accountant, an awfully clear-headed fellow.
He does our books. I know what he will say. He
will want me to give up the manufacturing, get rid of
the new mills altogether. He thinks he could get me
an offer. All I've been working for must go by the
board ! "
"Let me see Mr. Wallingford."
"No! I would rather let everything go. I don't
want any outsiders consulted, I'll get through in my
own way, or not at all. Your money shall not be lost.
I can always make an income. I wish I knew how
Hay ling heard we were short. And the curse of it is,
the damned hard lines is, that if we liquidated, we
could pay forty shillings in the pound, that everything
is as right as rain. Except, perhaps, for the 'feather-
358
SEBASTIAN 359
weight/ every ounce of stock is worth what it cost,
or more. We are selling more hand-made than we sold
in the pater's time; the two machines are working
full time, and the travellers are doing more turnover
than ever. It is the curse of having to stick to the
old tradition. I pay spot cash, and give twelve months'
credit."
He meant to say that is what he had started by
doing ! And yet it is not as if the boy had only talked.
He had honestly worked like three ordinary men. He
had often been out by eight o'clock in the morning, to
return, utterly exhausted, twelve hours later. She did
not know where lay the flaw; but all through break-
fast, as all through last evening, and in the night, she
remembered he was only one-and-twenty, and that
Stella said he had missed something essential from her.
He had built up a large business. She watched his
strained face, and knew that if the foundation was
weak, and the building toppling, like Atlas, he would
support it with his shoulders. But then she criticised
the simile and found it jejune. She could not help her
limitations. She was no more womanly than her
daughter-in-law. Felicitous phrase-making occupied her,
as making up her face occupied the other. Vanessa was
entirely dissatisfied with herself this morning.
She went into the hall with her son that morning,
to help him on with his coat, to try for a last word
with which to comfort him. When he ran up once
more to say good-bye to his wife, she waited for him.
Never inconsiderate or careless to her, he thanked
her, when he came down again. "Don't you worry,
360 SEBASTIAN
old dear; you have helped me. You have been a
brick, as usual. We shall pull through all right. Pleasey
is going to Eastbourne, this afternoon, until Monday;
she feels the strain. I told her to go, for I may be
late all this week. You and I can talk things over
again, this evening, after I have seen Robertson."
She was satisfied that she was to be spared Pleasey's
company, that for the next few days there would be
breathing space. It was she the boy wanted, his
mother, not his wife ! How mean she was, and un-
worthy. She could not make peace with herself, since
that scene with Sebastian's wife.
Pleasey went off by the morning train, there was no
meeting between them, and evidently nothing had been
said to Sebastian.
Vanessa had lunch by herself. The relief of feeling
there was no one for whom to wait, no hurried entry
to expect, no coat or furs strewn about the room, was
like harbour after a tossing sea. Her writing-table
tempted her, but it was too soon; life was pressing her
too close, too insistently, she could not get back yet to
the happy world of unreality, and brilliant, subtle
shadows. She prepared instead for an idle afternoon.
Idleness with Vanessa meant needlework, a piece of
embroidery, the regular stitch, stitch that left her free
to dream. She sat over the drawing-room fire, the
needlework in her hands, thinking; thinking only one
thought. What had she missed; was it too late?
And Joe Wallingford thought he had stayed away
from her quite long enough.
They had constantly exchanged letters, she had dis-
SEBASTIAN 361
couraged his visits. But now he had a legitimate busi-
ness excuse for an interview. The Messina earthquake
was but a few hours old. It was strange how insig-
nificant it had been in face of her personal cares. But
when Joe Wallingford was in the drawing-room, inter-
fering between her and her needlework, bigger than
ever, she found herself moved by his narration of the
appalling calamity, lifted out of herself.
He had his special correspondent out there, his early
wires had kept him on a level with the London papers.
But he wanted detail, local colour, and she, he knew,
was familiar with every rood of the ground, could give
life and substance to the leading articles. At first, for
fully half an hour, it was only of the earthquake he
talked.
.But it must not be forgotten that he cared for her,
that he had not seen her since Sebastian's marriage, that
she was ever a woman whose subtlety lay only in her pen,
who was easy to read.
Should she tell him he had been right about Sebas-
tian's business difficulties, should she go behind her
boy's wishes, and tell him of the need of further capital,
should she confide in him? She counted her stitches,
and talked of the earthquake, but this was at the back
of her brain.
It was all taken out of her hands. He asked her,
quite bluntly :
"What's the matter? What has happened since I
was here last ? Have you been ill ? "
"No."
"Worried?"
362 SEBASTIAN
"More or less." Her hands trembled, and she laid
the work down. She was really glad to see him, to talk
to him. He seemed so strong, and decided, so reliable.
Perhaps he held the key to all her mysteries.
"Sebastian well?"
"Yes; somewhat overworked."
"Stella?"
"She is not in very good health, feeble rather."
"Worse than usual?"
"No — hardly."
"Well ! if it isn't Stella, and it isn't Sebastian, it can
only be — me!"
She laughed, it did her good to laugh.
"I really have not been worrying about you."
"Forgotten all about me?"
"I don't say that."
A slightly heightened colour encouraged him. He sat
down beside her on the sofa. Although she moved away
from him, shrank a little into the corner, he spread him-
self at ease. Somehow, or other, it was impossible to
explain his impression, but it was certainly there, he
felt that her attitude was more favourable to him than
it had ever been before; that her reluctance now was
but the reluctance of habit; that she remembered he
had kissed her, and had ceased to resent it, that she was
really glad of his presence, and presently should tell
him so.
"Will you have tea, whisky-and-soda, or a cigarette?"
"I would rather talk."
"The tea will not interfere with your conversation."
"You were angry with me the last time I was here?"
SEBASTIAN 363
The colour was rather warm in her cheeks, but she felt
a new uneasiness in his presence, a restlessness.
"Not very," she said, in a low voice, hardly realising
what she was admitting.
She had had weeks of stress, of sinking her own in-
dividuality in that of other people's. Since last night
she had known herself no longer indispensable to Stella's
life, and that she had never filled it; she had been sup-
planted with Sebastian. It had been for them only she
cared, and nothing could displace them with her. But
it was good at such a moment to know herself first with
some one.
And Joe Wallingford made no immediate capital out
of her admission. He had a hundred things to tell her,
interesting things, and she lost herself in them for a
contented hour. Her personal perplexities had loomed
large because she had ceased to compare them. Joe
brought air into the close spaces of her narrowed days, a
breath from the outer world, where great tragedies were
being enacted, and smaller international complications,
yet made her own seem infinitesimal.
He talked of Austria and Servia, of the Sicilian earth-
quakes, of American promptitude in voting help, and
something of Little Italy in New York City. Then of
the King's message to the Navy, the Government grant
it suggested, of home politics, and the possibilities of a
general election in the ensuing autumn, of his own seat,
and what he hoped to do. It was a pleasant hour,
giving her a sense of companionship, of mutual interests,
if not of tastes. And when at length he came to the
point, to close quarters, what he said seemed reasonable.
364 SEBASTIAN
"Why should I have to come all the way from Work-
ington to talk to you? Haven't you held out long
enough? I told you from the beginning I was never
going to take 'No' for an answer. Come, own you are
hesitating ; it is only the pluck to cross the line that you
need. Put your foot over it, there is firm ground here."
"I want to be candid with you," she said, hesitatingly.
"It — it tempts me."
"Well, succumb to temptation. This isn't one of
those we pray against."
She laughed, as he meant her to. They were both
standing up again now, on the rug, in front of the fire.
She was older than she had been on the day that it had
first come to him she was the woman for him, the day in
the library at Seaton House. There was more grey in
her hair, there were more lines in her face. But he was
just as certain.
"Talk it over with me. Is it that I'm not refined
enough for you, that you want a scholar?"
" It is nothing in you."
He put a tentative arm about her, and the flush
mounted her cheek.
" You'll have to give yourself to me this time. You've
come to the end of your excuses."
She watched herself to see if she resented the arm
about her waist. Her colour rose, her pulses throbbed,
but again there was no resentment in her.
"I am not going to press you." He saw the smile
at the corner of her lips, the smile that died before it
was born. "You say you don't like married life. And
you've posed yourself cold " — the arm tightened. " I'll
SEBASTIAN 365
make you feel different. There's more than words bind
a man and woman. I'll give you time, though the Lord
knows you've had time enough. Will you marry me?
I'll care for you, and hold you, I won't stand between
you and him, nor between you and your sister; only
don't set yourself against me."
She tried to disentangle herself from him.
"Let me speak, hear me. I like you, I have never
liked any one better. But you are not really wooing a
woman. It isn't in me to — to feel as you would have
me. I am analysing it all the time, phrasing it."
"Not you. I know you better than you know your-
self. I'll make you care." Both his arms were about
her shoulders now, but he held her very gently, looking
down at her from his height. He was outside himself,
speaking words that in the dusk caressed her ears like
warm gusts of wind.
"You've grown where you are, without ever having
had a shoulder to lean on, or an arm that dared tighten
about you. But that is what counts, when you're reck-
oning up." For a second he put his cheek against her
soft one, hot, almost ashamed. "You've grown up
without ever knowing it, and so, you are still a child.
Love, it is love that fills the world. You talk of married
life ! You think you know married life, because you
lived a few months, when you were a girl, with a man that
didn't suit you. I know more than that; give me a
chance to show you. I don't know French nor German,
but I know that if you're not as young as you were, you'll
want the more care." Now he was really holding her to
him, and she was leaning against him, a little glad of his
366 SEBASTIAN
size, and realising the gentleness. "I love you; it
means a thousand things more than you dream of, it
isn't in any of your books. I'll teach you something
you have never felt, for all I'm uneducated. . . ."
A strange half-hour ! Before it had ended he had
gained his point, and she had promised that when Stella
was better, when business was easy, and her boy happy,
she would make venture with him, leaving the issue in
his hands.
"You are taking all the risk," she told him. "I still
do not think any woman who writes, and must write, is
fit for married life. She only gives half herself, at best."
"I'll take the risk. A half's better than nothing,
I'm grateful for half."
But she was disingenuous, and happier than she
would admit, questioning herself, perhaps, still lagging
on the threshold of a new kingdom, but not without the
wish to enter. It had grown from shadowland to some
dim brightness; now at least she had the curiosity, the
desire to explore, to venture in.
Joe stayed with her until Sebastian came home.
They had not dwelt on the topic, but he gathered Ren-
dalls needed help. Sebastian looked pale, tired; but
better than he had looked yesterday. At the moment,
he resented Joe Wallingford's presence. He wanted
Vanessa's sympathy, her entire attention, the restful-
ness that his mother alone could give him. And he was
a little fearful lest she should have been talking of him,
of his affairs, his confidence had been shaken since Hay-
ling had queried the renewal of his bills.
"Had a good day?" she asked, making room for him
on the sofa, settling the cushions.
SEBASTIAN 367
" Not bad. I'm dog tired. Pleasey go off all right ? "
"Yes, she went quite early; I think she must have
caught the 11.40."
"Well, I'm glad of that, anyway. You heard of my
marriage?" he asked Joe, after the usual greetings.
Joe said he had heard, and that it was wonderful good
news, amazing news. His congratulations were un-
stinted, cordial. He said he must find him a proper
wedding present.
"Where have you set up your tent?"
"We're living with the mater for the present, it was
rather a sudden affair."
Vanessa supplied a lame explanation.
"And your wife?"
He heard that young Mrs. Kendall was delicate, had
gone out of town for a few days. But from the moment
of Sebastian's entry, the conversation grew a little
strained, a little difficult.
It was an inspiration of Vanessa's to leave the boy
with the millionaire after dinner, to hope — she hardly
knew what. It would be wonderful if Sebastian could
unbosom himself; she had faith in the older man's
power. She truly believed that Sebastian was exag-
gerating the state of affairs in the City, and that the situ-
ation was bound to straighten itself out.
She made her excuses, saying she must see Stella before
she went to bed. And Joe fell in quickly with her inten-
tion.
"If Mr. Kendall will let me, I would like to stay, and
have a smoke with him," he said.
"I am bad company for anybody," Sebastian an-
368 SEBASTIAN
swered, almost ungraciously. "I've got a beast of a
headache again. I shouldn't be surprised if I'm getting
a tumour on the brain ! "
"Humour?" she interjected, and got the smile from
him for which she had tried.
"Well! I'll try not to make your headache worse,"
Joe said, good-humouredly. He had not heard, until
an hour ago, that Sebastian had brought his bride to
Harley Street. Was it this that had graven those lines
on Vanessa's face, precipitated the cloud into her eyes ?
He would soon know.
He had tact, and definite intention. Sebastian had
no arms against it. He was untowardly depressed,
although his day of desperate work had not been fruit-
less.
Joe began by talking about cigarettes. After he had
persuaded Sebastian to try a new variety, a wonderful
nerve-soothing Sandorides Lucana, the boy's tongue
became a little loosened. After all, any company was
better than his own, just then. And he had always
liked Joe Wallingford.
Joe felt the moment to be propitious, and he also
knew he had waited long enough. He smoked, and he
looked into the fire, dreaming happily, although dream-
ing had not hitherto been his way. Sebastian smoked,
and thought of business, and incidentally of Joe's
possibilities as a customer.
"I have been thinking of getting married, myself,"
Joe began, "you know, I suppose," smiling at him,
"that I am fairly well-to-do."
"I don't know it through your orders to P. and A.
SEBASTIAN 369
Kendall/' the boy answered, irritably, following his own
line of thought. "You ought to have done your whole
one-shilling series in that new 'feather-weight' of mine.
I relied on your using it, you told the mater it was a
good idea, and you were interested in it; the books
would have weighed nothing."
"I did consider it, but it took the illustrations very
badly," Joe replied. He was startled by the sudden
turn the conversation had taken, but not entirely dis-
satisfied. It might make things easier, there was much
he could put in the boy's way. He had many irons in
the fire, and all these fires were lit, more or less, with
paper. He wanted the boy to be reconciled to his
mother's marriage. If this was the way to reconcile
him, well ! he was glad of the opportunity.
"Your first scheme was for only one illustration,"
Sebastian was full of his grievance, and went on airing
it, "the title-page; and that could have been on art
paper. I could have done you that at three-three
farthings. You are paying more."
Joe was really entertained at Sebastian knowing so
much about his business; he would not interrupt him.
"You go to Hayling for your office paper, and circu-
lars, and to Seaton's for your sixpenny and one-shilling,
you get the stuff for your newspapers from abroad.
Come to talk business, I don't know why I haven't
had a turn."
"I don't quite like the texture of your 'feather-
weight.' And you probably know, as well as I do,
that there is no substance in it. It's too soft, and will
fall to pieces if it is handled."
2B
370 SEBASTIAN
"Nobody reads the books twice; and if they do.
they can buy a second copy."
"Yes, that's true. There is something in that."
"Not that I care. You can buy your paper where
you like; it was you started the subject."
"I suppose you have placed the first run?"
"No, I haven't. There is between four and five
thousand pounds locked up in the new boiler, pulp,
and all the experiments."
"Have you tried Drivers?"
"They are stocked, we filled them up in the spring."
Joe got up, and stretched himself. He would rather
have got what he wanted by other means. He had
misread the boy, after all, and Sebastian sank in his
estimation. But it was the goal he was playing for,
how he got there was of minor importance.
"I'll take all you have made off your hands if you
like," he said. "You can invoice it to me. I'll use it
for a spring number of the magazine, and print the
advertisements and pictures on the art, as you suggest."
Sebastian sprang to his feet, his pale face flushed.
"Will you really?" he said.
The relief was too great, too immediate. Joe's order
meant the turning-point; he had, with almost incon-
ceivable trouble, arranged the matter of the mortgage,
and to meet the bills in Hayling's hands. It all meant
financing, and everywhere there was loss. He had
given big discounts to get in cash, paying heavily for
accommodation. He was almost in sight of land, but
had shed sails, dropped valuable cargo overboard, seen
himself seriously disabled in the process. Talking to
SEBASTIAN 371
Joe had been mere idleness, the salvage from the de-
struction that had been wrought.
Now here was an offer that made everything easier,
that meant at least a respite, perhaps more. His eyes
were bright on Joe as he stood up, and repeated his
query :
" Do you mean it ? Will you take all we have made ?"
"I shall want quite that, I should think, if not
more. I reckon to sell over two hundred and fifty
thousand of the spring number," and he calculated the
reamage.
The next half hour was occupied with detail; bulk,
weight, and finish must be discussed. Joe wanted to
know how the new paper was maturing, the first sample
he had seen had not impressed him. Then there was
the question of guaranteeing dates for delivery, and an
undertaking there should be no variation in the repeats.
It was impossible for Joe not to appreciate Sebastian's
quickness and resource. And he dealt well. If Joe had
not known beforehand, he would not have learnt from
Sebastian, when price came to be considered, that it
mattered in the least whether the transaction was cash
or credit.
"Take your own time," he said, cheerfully, when
everything else had been settled; "we know the ac-
count is all right, and that is all P. and A. Kendall
look to."
"Which reminds me," said Joe, perhaps with too
obvious carelessness. "I said something to you about
over-trading the last time I was in town. And you
resented it. I don't want you to resent what I'm
372 SEBASTIAN
going to say now. About that order, of course, we
pay cash for everything, and take all the discount we
can get. But a rumour did reach me, some few weeks
since, that cash was short with you "
Sebastian was in arms at once.
"A trade canard! We've got unscrupulous com-
petitors, like most people."
"Don't get mad. It is no secret that a business,
expanding too quickly, sometimes gets too big for its
capital. I like to have a good many irons in a good
many fires. Could you pay a decent interest on a few
thousand pounds ? Say on twenty-five thousand pounds ?
Are you open?"
Nothing could have been put more carefully, more
delicately. Sebastian, who saw himself, all at once,
sailing into haven, sky blue, sun shining, all sails set,
white and beautiful in the breeze, could only maintain
his dignity by absolute silence. He had been through
great stress; his natural buoyancy and optimism had
had a shock that had sent both reeling, had almost
submerged them. Now he had to hold his breath; his
equilibrium was established with difficulty.
"Well ! you don't say yes? I am not proposing im-
possible terms; a small sleeping partnership, exclusive
use of anything I want."
Considering the real position of affairs, Sebastian's
self-possession under such circumstances must be con-
sidered exceptional.
"Kendalls never have had a partner who was not
one of the family," he answered, with all the calm that
he could command. "Kendall has succeeded Kendall
SEBASTIAN 373
since the first hand-made paper mill was put up in
England."
Joe squared his shoulders. His smile was really
attractive.
"Well! you know/' he said, "that is part of my
proposition. I propose to become one of the family."
CHAPTER XXVI
SEBASTIAN came into Vanessa's bedroom that night,
after she had retired. He wanted to talk. As usual,
he was slow in beginning. He played with the toilet
things, he spoke disparagingly of the portraits of him-
self and Stella that stood upon the dressing-table;
silver-framed, conspicuous. But he was a long time
getting to what brought him here.
She tried to help him:
"Did Mr. Wallingford stay long after I went out?"
"Long enough."
"I had rather you put that photograph down; it is
the only one I have of Stella in that particular pose, I
don't want the glass broken."
"You have not got a photo of the pater here."
"He disliked having his portrait taken."
"I suppose Joe Wallingford has himself painted in
oils?"
" I should not be surprised."
"He is not much to look at."
"Rather a fine man, in his way, I think. It is a
rugged head, but full of power."
Sebastian shot a glance at her. The psychology of
Sebastian, at the moment, seemed to Vanessa the most
interesting thing in the world. What Joe had said to
him, or he to Joe, what effect their talk would have on
her own future, was very insignificant hi comparison.
374
SEBASTIAN 375
"You don't like him, I suppose?" He could not get
the stronger word over his lips. His mother could not
be in love with the fellow !
"Yes, I do. I have always liked him."
There was a longer pause.
"I suppose I am a selfish beast. I can't bear the
thought of this fellow in the pater's place."
"In a way, it would make things simpler."
"You mean in the City?"
"You could be working for yourself, not for me."
"That is just it; all the motive, all the heart would
go out of it. I don't really care for money; what is
the use of it to me? I have no time to spend it. I
like the fight of it, and seeing Kendalls going up. But
the real thing was making it for you, pouring it into
your banking account, hearing you say, one day, you
were glad I took it on, and that I was right in joining
the pater ! You have never quite said that."
"But you will be glad of Mr. Wallingford's help?"
" I shall simply hate it. You don't understand. I've
been going through an awful time ever since I came
back, worse than I can tell you. But still it was be-
tween you and me, and you stood by me. And I had
begun to see my way. I meant to have told you about
it to-night. I wanted you to give up this house for a
year or two, live in the country; you could write as
well, or better in the country, Pleasey and I would
have kept you from being dull. We could have managed
on very little, say one thousand five hundred a year.
You don't know how good the business really is, I went
through it all with Robertson; he does the books for a
376 SEBASTIAN
number of other houses in our line. He thinks awfully
well of it. It's — I'll give you a literary simile, you'll
see it better. It is like an extraordinary fertile coun-
try, only wanting irrigation; capital is the irrigation.
I have been hoeing, digging, planting fields, when there
was not enough water for those already sown; in the
result the crops were poor, uncertain, some failing alto-
gether. But the land is rich, richer than the pater
guessed, richer than any one knows but me "
He walked about; she waited, patiently. She was
in the midst of her night toilette. She looked in the glass
now, as Pleasey looked so often, and she thought Mr.
Wallingford's taste was not bad, after all. Her hair
was thick and abundant, and everything about her fresh,
natural, unstained by unguents; surely she was more
worthy of all that Stella wished for her, than was Pleasey,
whom Sebastian adored.
Then she said :
"But if Mr. Wallingford will do the irrigation?"
"The fun is gone, the savour out of everything. I
was working for you, and I had found the way. It is
only a question of saving, not spending too much either
in business, or private, for a few years, rearranging the
credits. Mater, when I came home to-day I was full of
it. I had worked it all out, I wanted to show you my
papers, and the calculations. Then I found that fellow
here. He gave me a good order. The 'feather-weight'
was my pet field, and he opened the sluice-gate. But
then he let this cataract loose on me. I — I don't like
it. You are only doing it for me ?"
"No."
SEBASTIAN 377
"I know you are. If I thought you were doing it
because you liked him, I'd put my feelings on one side.
But I know what you do care about. Me, and Stella,
your writing, buying those prints and things, doing your
embroidery. It is not as if you had any temperament
— even the pater wasn't — wasn't really necessary to
you. You said yourself -
Sebastian was very moved. He could not bear to
think of his mother with a new husband, to think of his
father as replaced. He did not want Joe Wallingford's
money flowing through his business. He wanted to
build up, hold up, extend, push Rendalls, all by himself.
The pride in it was rooted in him, as it had been in his
father. But she was more tolerant of him than she had
ever been of her husband. Rendalls had ceased to be
contemptible since Sebastian spent his energies there.
"You would never have thought of doing it if I had
not made this one mistake of overtrading. Give me
another chance, mater, don't — " he turned his back
so that she should not see his eyes — "don't desert a
fellow."
She was greatly moved, the boy held the ultimate
core of her heart, and it would never be different .
What Joe offered her, tempted her with, left this un-
touched. If Sebastian had stopped then, had said no
more, she would then and there have promised anything
he asked, given up the kingdom into which she had
glanced ; it was still dim, and Joe's figure too large.
But now he began to speak again, of Pleasey, and of a
new hope that had come to him.
"Mater, she is so young, in some ways. I want you
to be with her. If it should happen to be a boy "
378 SEBASTIAN
She was incredulous, startled, irrationally angered.
The words she had spoken crowded back upon her, more
bitter now in their staleness. Perhaps Stella was right,
all of them had been right, and she was unwomanly.
It seemed an outrage that Pleasey should be the mother
of Sebastian's son. No feeling stirred in her but anger.
Yet she knew he was standing there, waiting for sym-
pathy, expectant. Must she fail him? She made a
strong effort, an effort that robbed her of eloquence, and
she said, f alteringly :
"That is great news. Is it certain ?"
"Great, isn't it? We've always been pretty intimate,
more than most mother and sons, but this will make a
difference "
"You will want me less?"
"I shall understand you better. I know, even now,
more of how I must have disappointed you than I ever
did before. Already I want him to be something out
of the way. I wish I could wipe out that bad time of
mine. The pater would never have done the things I
did. I wish he could think of me as I think of the pater."
"You have nothing with which to reproach yourself.
I have had a better son than I deserved."
"You will like having a grandson?"
A hundred conflicting feelings took her conscience for
battle-ground, and fought silently. She saw she was
disappointing him.
"You are glad about it, aren't you?"
"I think it is what your Aunt Stella says sometimes
— I am not soft enough, feminine enough. I ought to
be glad — but you are so young — it is another respon-
SEBASTIAN 379
sibility for you." She was floundering in words, and
words were always so much to Vanessa.
"I like responsibility. And you will help us, won't
you? Pleasey is frightfully excited about it."
She tried to tell him of her unkindness to his wife,
but of that Sebastian was incredulous.
"Pleasey would have told me if she had thought any-
thing of it. But she never said a word, she doesn't
know how to bear malice. I daresay you have felt it,
she and me, you know, a sort of jealousy ! But it will
be different now. Mater, of course, we must call him
David -
"Or after your grandfather "
"Well, you see I never knew him. But about Walling-
ford. This makes it impossible, doesn't it? That is
why I told you to-night, although Pleasey wanted it
kept a secret. You will see her through, won't you ?
If I can get the money part right, you won't leave us ? "
"No."
He went on talking for some time. She answered
him mechanically, the future had become darkened to
her, and she must grope her way. He stood between
her and her kingdom. But perhaps he was right, and
Stella was right, and it was not her kingdom at all, but
one set apart for other women, who had no gift of ex-
pression save this. They could express themselves in
loving speeches and caresses. For her there was the
pen. But to-night it seemed a dreary road she traversed,
and even her boy was indistinct.
CHAPTER XXVII
IT was agreed that Sebastian should tell Joe Walling-
ford he could not spare his mother. If it cost him the
order for the " feather- weight," dried up the source of
that river of capital, the boy was prepared to face it.
He was rather worried when the morning came, because
he had no letter from his wife, but he had no doubt any
longer of his capacity to meet the situation in Queen
Victoria Street. The pendulum had swung out again,
again optimism was the note. He had not forgotten his
plans; the figures, and notes the accountant had pre-
pared.
"We will put this house in the agents' hands, and let
it furnished, just as it is."
She was quite as ready as he to do whatever was neces-
sary, or advisable, but more ignorant as to how to pro-
ceed. They had carriages, and horses, motors, and men ;
it was difficult to rid herself quickly of her large establish-
ment. She offered to send the curios to Christie's, to
abandon china, prints, ivories, miniatures. She had
no fear of what the world might say, and a passionate
desire to get everything settled, to find herself again.
It was he who understood that they must not manage
affairs in this way, that they had more at stake than the
few hundreds, or few thousands, such a sale might bring.
"You must not do that, you must not make any
380
SEBASTIAN 381
move that cannot be easily explained. To dismiss
some of the servants, and let the house furnished, is
quite enough to begin with. We don't want to set the
City talking, and have Kendalls in every one's mouth.
We will have to keep the motor anyhow, you can't live
in the country without a motor. You are not going to
be a pauper, only to live on a smaller income for a year
or two. You mustn't part with anything you care for,
only just be without them for a bit. I wish Pleasey had
written, I am afraid she is seedy. I shall run down my-
self if I don't hear by to-night. I wish now you or Bice
had gone with her. ..."
Vanessa offered, a little half-heartedly, to journey to
Eastbourne. If only she had not been so outspoken
that evening !
"I am sure she isn't ill," she said. "The Alstons'
dance knocked her up, perhaps, and those few
words "
" Oh ! that is simply nonsense. Pleasey would not
take anything you said badly, after all you've done.
No, it is not that. I think I'll wire."
Vanessa undertook the wire, and to telephone the reply
to him to the City. She did not want to hear him talk
of Pleasey, would rather he had spoken of Joe ; she was
interested as to what Joe Wallingford's attitude would
be when Sebastian told him he would not hear of her
remarriage.
She need not have been anxious, Sebastian's decision
would not affect Wallingford's, but that, of course, she
only learnt later.
Joe came to the office in Queen Victoria Street soon
382 SEBASTIAN
after Sebastian arrived there. He saw no sign of dif-
ficulties, or lack of money. Sebastian, ostentatiously
busy, perhaps a little dramatic, but that was instinct
with him, was giving and taking orders through the
telephone, dictating letters; an array of clerks waited
instructions and signatures, the whole place was shiny
with polished mahogany and brass, on the surface every-
thing reflected prosperity.
It was not in the boy to avoid posing to Joe, the older
man could smile on it, since he did not know all that the
pose concealed.
"Awfully good of you to come; get a chair for Mr.
Wallingford, Haines. You'll excuse me, won't you, if
I just finish off these letters, and set them all going?
Everything is on my shoulders, we don't do a small
trade here. Ever seen the telewriter at work? There
it is, in the corner, this is my private instrument."
The machinisation of the business was really admir-
able, but a scrap of conversation, here and there, enlight-
ened Joe, if he had needed enlightenment, as to the
underlying weakness. "Who? Draper. Oh, yes. Sell
it him at cost, we must get in there at any price."
"Jones and Taylor. Tell them we'll hold it for them,
they can call it up when they want it. Plenty of room
at the mills."
As far as it went, the boy was quite candid to Joe,
after the clerks had left the room, when they were alone.
" I hate any one else to get an order. I would rather
a thousand times give them the stuff, than hear of them
going elsewhere, once we have got a foot in with a good
firm. If I had enough capital at my back, I would
SEBASTIAN 383
undersell the whole market. And from mill wrapping
to best hand-made, I would sell at cost. Wouldn't the
trade hum with me, you bet ? "
"If you are really convinced that would be a wise
plan, I don't think there need be any difficulty about
capital," the other answered, quietly, meaningly.
That brought Sebastian up rather sharply, and he
flushed.
"Oh! I say, that reminds me " he began, but
was interrupted by the buzz of the instrument on the
table, "excuse me a minute."
"That you, Bob? Mr. Hayling out of town? What
a bore ! Where's he gone ? Got a woman with him !
Good for him. I wanted to speak to him about these
bills. What the devil did he mean You! No
thanks. I'll wait until Bob is through with his spree.
So long." He hung up the telephone.
"You can't play the prude in the City," he explained,
apologetically, "there is no real harm in Bob, though he
likes to pose as Don Juan. It is really about that stuff
you said you'd take that I want to see him." He was
uncomfortable, and a little embarrassed. "I believe
you didn't really need it, you only wanted to do me a
turn. It won't do, you know. There is no such thing
as friendship in business. The mater made a mistake,
we talked it out last night "
"Oh! you talked it out last night?" Joe sat quiet
for a minute ; he was vexed, if not overwhelmed. This
might mean delay, although nothing would alter his
determination. But he would rather have had the boy
with him, than against him; he had, perhaps, misun-
derstood him, he did not want to make another mistake.
384 SEBASTIAN
"She doesn't want to do it," Sebastian went on, em-
phatic, though obscure. "It was only me she was
thinking of, and Kendalls. I am short of cash, I'll go
as far as that, I'll admit that, but nothing serious, noth-
ing I can't get out of "
"I never thought there was. I never doubted but
that you were solvent."
"So you see "
"I see no reason why you should refuse a good order."
"You mean "
"I mean I am going to print the autumn number on
the 'feather-weight.' Don't mix up one thing with
another. Now this limited partnership, this twenty-
five thousand pounds?"
"That is out of the question," he answered, shortly.
"Why?"
"I don't want it."
"Don't want to lay yourself under an obligation to
me?"
"Something like that."
"You think I'd use the position to force your mother's
hand?"
"Not exactly that."
"Then exactly what?"
Sebastian's discomfort passed away. After all, he
had always liked the fellow, and the mater was not
going to marry him. Sebastian grew his natural ego-
tistic self under Joe's influence. He told him he was
not afraid any longer of his "getting at" the mater, but
he liked to be on his own ; Kendalls was Kendalls, he did
not want a partner in it.
SEBASTIAN 385
"You are fighting against odds, when you might have
the odds on your side; going into battle without am-
munition, when the arsenal is stocked."
"You can pay too dear for ammunition. I have
found that out already," he answered, ingenuously.
He did not want to talk any more about "obligation,"
least of all did he want to talk about his mother. He
wished Joe would stick to business; to further his
wishes, he sent for the order clerk.
Joe saw samples of his purchase, and was satisfied as
to its maturing. He was also shown the "heavily
coated chromo," the imitation "art," produced by
water finish, and the "highly glazed super-calendered."
Sebastian was proud of his extensive stock, and he did
not get a customer like Joe Wallingford every day in
Queen Victoria Street. He kept him talking, plying
him ably. At last Joe rose to go. This was when the
telephone rang again :
"Wait a second," said Sebastian; "I want to show
you Yes, yes, I'm there, hurry up, we're Kendalls.
Who are you ? Oh ! Good God ! not Bob, not Bob !
What! Where "
He stood at the telephone, irresolutely, and with
blanching cheeks.
"It is my friend Hayling, Bob Hayling. They have
just heard he has had a motor smash, they say, they
say "
Clerk, Joe, office routine, notwithstanding, Sebastian's
eyes filled. "I must go round; he was such a good
fellow, I can't believe it is hopeless."
But again the instrument was alive.
2o
386 SEBASTIAN
"You answer it, Haines, I am done for the minute.
They say, they say it is ... all over with him !" His
eyes asked for sympathy, and his voice was husky.
"I'll get my hat," he said to Joe; "I daresay I seem
an awful ass to you, but Bob and I, old Bob " He
was not ashamed to show his emotion. They had told
him that Bob was hopelessly injured, and Bob had been
his friend.
The clerk, secretly unsympathetic, for Hayling's firm
had done them some nasty turns, held the receiver :
"It's Mrs. Kendall, sir, your mother. She says she
would like to speak to you herself, she says it's very
important."
Sebastian made an effort, and recovered himself. He
took the receiver again :
"That you, mater? Like me to come home at once?
Me ! Why ! what's the matter, you're not ill, are you ?
Blast it, they've cut us off. Are you there? Are you
there ? Are you there ? "
The thing buzzed, but nothing came through.
Joe said :
"If she said she would like you to come straight home,
what is the use of trying to get on, it only means delay,
and more delay. We can get to Harley Street in fifteen
minutes, if the roads are fairly clear."
Sebastian did not resent the "we," he was quite weak
for the moment, full of apprehension.
"They will put us on again in a minute," he answered,
uncertainly.
" It won't alter the fact she asked you to come straight
home."
SEBASTIAN 387
The men's eyes met. It is possible, in that moment,
Sebastian forgot he had opposed his mother's remarriage.
Joe hurried him into the car, gave his instructions.
"Perhaps it is Aunt Stella?"
"I hope so," Joe said, fervently. But he did not
mean it, he did not know what he hoped, or feared, as
they crawled through Cheapside, dashed along a side
street, got held up in Holborn, and yet reached Harley
Street within twenty minutes of that hasty summons.
Joe made no pretence of letting Sebastian go into the
house alone. Sebastian was seized with a horrible fear,
he was glad not to be alone. He had said half a dozen
times, "The mater must be all right," he could swear it
was her own voice he had heard. And yet he was white
with fear, sick with fear.
Vanessa met them both in the hall ; she, too, was glad
of Joe's presence. That it was no light matter he saw
in her eyes, and in the white set of her lips. And yet, it
was rather rage than grief, it was a whole tempest of
feeling he read there. It was shipwreck and death to
Sebastian ; and Sebastian was the innermost core of her
heart.
Of course there leapt from her to him, intuition, a
flash of certainty. He held out his hands as to if ward
it off:
"I can't bear it," he said, "mater, I can't bear it, it
— it is Pleasey."
For half a second the hall went dark before his eyes,
reeled about him.
"Be a man," Joe said. Joe kept him from falling.
"Bring him in here." The dining-room was quite
near. Sebastian found it was steadier than the hall.
388 SEBASTIAN
" Go on, drink it up." Joe made him swallow a liqueur
glass of brandy, and that brought his colour back, and
his full consciousness with it. Joe stood by his chair,
Vanessa behind it ; she did not know how to tell him her
news.
"I'm better now," he said, "go on. What has hap-
pened to her? Don't keep me in suspense. What
have you heard?"
"They must have been on the way to Folkestone,"
she hesitated.
"They!"
"Mr. Hayling was with her."
"Hayling?" He needed Joe's support, the dining-
room was darker than the hall, and the beastly place
swayed. He was very glad of Joe's arm.
Vanessa went on, she had to break it to him :
"They were motoring together, had been together all
the time. There was a bad accident. Mr. Hayling
was practically killed on the spot. It is in the papers
already, that is why I asked you to come straight
home."
"Pleasey?" His eyes implored her, he must have
reassurance.
It was cruel of her to blurt out :
"What does it matter?"
Cruel, it was cruel of her, and yet she could not help it.
He put his hand on her dress.
"You didn't mean that, mater." His senses were
coming back to him, and his manhood. "You don't
know what you are saying. Why shouldn't they have
been together? You dare not think '
SEBASTIAN 389
She knelt down by him, she could not bear to see his
face, to add to what was written there.
" I don't think, I won't think. My son, my son, teach
me to help you. What must we do ?"
" I must get to her as quickly as possible. Let me see
the paper, have you had a telegram? Wallingford will
lend us his car. I don't know what came over me, what
you have got hold of. Read it out."
She read it out, the brief newspaper account, shouted
in the streets, justifying the early second edition. She
heard them shouting even before the telegram had come
for Sebastian, never connecting it with herself, never
dreaming it was the knell of his happiness.
"Fatal motor accident. London gentleman killed
on the spot. Chauffeur unconscious. Lady dragged
from under car."
But she had more direct news than that. Pleasey
had been taken to the Cottage Hospital, at Rye. She
had been able to give her name and address, and the
authorities had telegraphed to her husband, never heed-
ing who she was with, nor why. And Vanessa had been
on the telephone to them since she sent for Sebastian.
Vanessa had no pity for Pleasey, although she heard
the shock had been severe, and that her courage had been
great ; nothing but indignation, too deep for words, and
a great horror. Those hopes, those hopes that now
would know no fruition ; were they, too, part of the dis-
simulation that had been practised on her son ? There
was no room for pity, and now, at last, she was glad she
had uttered those bitter words, even if they had pre-
cipitated the catastrophe.
390 SEBASTIAN
But Sebastian would not listen, nor understand. The
mere physical shock of the news of the accident had
shaken him, but he recovered quickly. He thrust right
into the background anything surprising, or unexpected,
in his wife having been motoring with Bob. They might
have met at Eastbourne, why should she not drive with
him to Folkestone ? A hundred coincidences might have
brought about their meeting. Once his brain had
cleared, his loyalty stood firm, no shock could under-
mine that.
The accident had taken place between Winchelsea
and Rye; he knew the place well. His head might still
be swimming, and his legs unsteady, but what he wanted
was an A B C.
"Will it be any quicker if I motor you down?" Joe
said.
"You don't mean to say you are going?" she asked.
The boy's pallor now was indignant.
"The mater has got something in her head "
Joe's eyes met Vanessa; they said as clearly as if they
had been lips :
"This is not the moment . . . leave him alone. Let
it come to him gradually, if it must come."
And for once Vanessa obeyed. She busied herself in
getting wraps together, having a flask filled. None of
them wanted to think; action is the only relief in such a
crisis.
Bice, too, had seen the papers; now they heard her
voice in the hall. And she was as staunch as Sebastian,
although she knew Bob Hayling differently. She, too,
wanted to go to Pleasey, was proud and touched that
SEBASTIAN 391
Sebastian asked it of her. Her mother was better this
morning, well enough to be left ; Aunt Vanessa could go
round to her. Bice was as practical as Vanessa. It was
quickly decided that train was easier, and more certain
than motor. Mr. Wallingford would take them to Vic-
toria; they had to hurry to catch the 12.14.
It was so completely taken out of Vanessa's hands that
she could only move in one direction, ignore as they ig-
nored, treat the accident as the beginning and end, what
led to it of no moment. Again and again Sebastian
made her repeat that Pleasey was not dangerously hurt,
that the hospital people who telephoned had con-
firmed the telegram.
"Mr. Hayling killed. Chauffeur's injuries severe.
Mrs. Kendall suffering shock." And this had been am-
plified verbally, but not altered.
"She is not seriously hurt," Vanessa repeated, "she
has not broken anything, and is quite conscious."
She could not say more. She was overwhelmed at
Sebastian's attitude. It was a relief when Joe had
driven off with him and Bice. At the last moment,
Sebastian called to her to have everything in readiness,
he shouted, "I shall try to get her back here as quickly
as possible. Ask Gifford to keep on the qui vive."
It was a relief to be left alone, not to have to feign
interest in Pleasey's state.
CHAPTER XXVIII
VANESSA did not hear for some days that Pleasey's
injuries were of a more serious nature than had been at
first diagnosed, not in fact until the invalid was in-
stalled in those upstairs rooms, with a nurse and Dr.
Gifford in attendance. If there had been an explana-
tion between husband and wife, she was shut out of
Sebastian's confidence, and heard nothing of it. That
the boy was unhappy, desperately unhappy, his face
showed, that his unhappiness was due alone to his wife's
condition of health it was impossible to believe. For
the first time in his life he wanted to avoid a t&te-b-t&te
with his mother. In the evenings he sat in his wife's
room, in the mornings he came down late, and hurried
away to business.
People came and went in these strange days. The
Pleyden-Carrs filled the house, taking their meals there
as a matter of course, asking for perpetual brandies, or
whiskies and sodas, "keeping up their strength," as they
expressed it, talking disconnectedly of their troubles,
dilating on Pleasey's beauty and virtue, for ever explain-
ing, and explaining, that to which there was but one ex-
planation. And they were doing it all so blunderingly,
so badly ! " Mr. Hayling and Pleasey had been prac-
tically brought up together," was their unnecessary story.
They told lying, easily refuted anecdotes to prove the
392
SEBASTIAN 393
fraternal nature of the regard that existed between them.
They made vague, unintentional admissions of an in-
timacy that had warranted presents of jewellery, of
clothes. They talked of Mr. Hayling's generosity to
Ambrose Pleyden-Carr, and of the great loss he would
be to them. Their wandering, unsteady eyes for ever
questioned Vanessa, for ever answered the doubts she
might be disposed to have, for ever attempted to obtain
some assurances that they, at least, should not lose if
Pleasey had made a mistake !
It came to that before the inquest on Robert Hayling
was held, "if Pleasey had made a mistake!" The posi-
tion was so inexplicable, they were so desperately fright-
ened of having their daughter again on their hands.
They feared lest her fine position, and the benefits that
incidentally accrued to them therefrom should be lost
beyond recall. They could not rest away from Harley
Street. Often they brought with them the idiot girl in
the three-cornered hat; she was horribly like Pleasey,
making effort to attract attention from Sebastian, or
from Dr. Gifford, or from any one who came to the house,
unhappy in the manner of her infirmity.
Vanessa tried again and again to get speech with Se-
bastian, but something had for the moment stifled their
intimacy. She wanted to cry to him: "If I was harsh
that morning, have I not been justified?" But he gave
her no opening. Bice, too, who came in and out, for
whom Pleasey asked continuously, had no reassurance
for Vanessa; all her loyalty was up in arms for Pleasey,
and all her sympathy was for Sebastian. Here, in her
own house, Vanessa felt an intruder, or that they were
394 SEBASTIAN
all intruders. It was grotesque and impossible; the
presence of the Pleyden-Carrs, Sebastian's reticence, his
unhappy face, younger, not older, in its misery, but
shutting her out of his confidence. She knew how it
was, of course. Whether pleading for herself, or in ex-
tenuation, his erring wife would have repeated to Se-
bastian some of the phrases that, she must have alleged,
had driven her forth ! And he was aching to hear ex-
tenuation, to be deceived, to believe anything that could
exonerate her.
"She was driven to it," he said, in one moment of
revealing agony; "if she did anything that she should
not, she was driven to it. You told her she was drag-
ging me down, useless and unwelcome here, that she had
ruined me by her extravagances — " And then he had
got away. For his love of his mother warred with his
love for his wife, and, painfully throbbing in his open
wound, was an incredulous horror of unbelief that he
had been so mistreated by the girl to whom he had given
his love, and the name that had never been tarnished.
Joe Wallingford was invaluable to him at this juncture.
Joe kept out of Vanessa's way, this was not his moment.
But he saw that the Kendalls were properly represented
at the inquest on Robert Hayling, and, in truth, that
they had been well served beforehand.
The Pleyden-Carrs, Vanessa, Sebastian himself, could
hardly breathe until it was over, until they knew what
must be said, and what might be reported. And in the
end there was nothing to hurt them. The accident was
gone into, the steep hill outside Hastings, the climb
towards Winchelsea, the flock of sheep that caused the
SEBASTIAN 395
swerve, the quick descent, the impetus that flung Mr.
Hayling from his seat; everything was described in
detail. The chauffeur had recovered; his injuries had
been greatly exaggerated. His evidence proved all that
was necessary; it scarcely transpired that there had
been a party of three. Good taste, good feeling, charac-
terised the reports. Newspapers do these things some-
times, give up " good copy " to save a good name. There
is free-masonry among reporters, and among newspaper
proprietors. Joe had never known his powers, nor used
them, as he used them in the Kendall interest. It was
doubtful if Vanessa knew what had been done for her,
but Sebastian knew.
And Joe was not inactive, either, in the City. It got
about, quite mysteriously, that Joe Wallingford was
"backing" Kendalls. Without a shilling changing
hands, nor any fresh capital introduced, difficulties
melted away. And Joe learnt to appreciate the boy,
whilst he helped him without touching his pride. It
was really a big thing he had been laying out, showing
invention, resource, energy, the highest order of business
ability.
"When I first offered you that twenty-five thousand
pounds, and asked if you would take me in, I admit it
was for other than business reasons," Joe said, bluntly,
some weeks later. "But, to-day, when I ask you again,
it is only as one business man to another. I see a great
future for Kendalls, a future in which I should be glad
to share."
It seems strange, now, when "Kendalls, Ltd.," have
stood the test of Stock Exchange valuation, and stand
396 SEBASTIAN
at four times their par value, to think that there should
ever have been hesitation on one side, or another, over
the amalgamation that presently took place. But this
belongs to the region of history, rather than romance, and
Sebastian's talents have received their recognition. For
the moment, he was only glad that he had to work harder
than ever, that he could throw off in Queen Victoria
Street the troubles that lay in wait for him at home.
He knew it was with his wife that Bob had played Don
Juan for the last time, and he was tortured by doubts
and jealousy. And yet he could not part with her, nor
condemn her. She was ill, she might never be well again,
and between her and the world stood only himself. For
better or worse he had taken her. But it was not that
alone, it was that there was no condemnation of her in
him. She was weak, and the mater had been harsh to
her. His soul was one white fire of love for both women
who had betrayed him. He had his duty to both of
them. But it was not duty that paralysed his tongue
when he would tell Vanessa she must be hand in hand
with him in helping his weak wife back to her place, and
it was not duty that made him sit long, silent hours by
Pleasey's difficult bedside. It was love.
As the weeks went by, and Pleasey grew no better, the
agony of jealousy gave way to an almost equally unbear-
able pity. She had no one but him, he grudged the
hours now, as they stole her from him, he remembered
nothing but that he had always loved her.
It was Stella who advised Joe to wait no longer. The
time seemed ripe, for the position in Harley Street must
be intolerable, and the way out doubtful. Sebastian
SEBASTIAN 397
had set the seal on his condonation. It was still not
clear what injuries Pleasey had sustained. But there she
was, installed in his mother's house, new doctors being
called in consultation, day and night nurses engaged to
help her, everything that money could do, or science
could suggest, surrounding her sick bed.
"I cannot keep Bice from going to her," Stella told
Joe: "if Sebastian is satisfied, and Vanessa quiescent,
they create a position we are bound to accept."
Bice knew nothing, suspected nothing, it was enough
for her that Pleasey clung to her, that Sebastian said
she was the only comfort he had.
No one could doubt Bice's devotion to Sebastian, call
it by what name they would — cousinly love or sisterly
love, or sweetest love of all, the love that has friendship
for its sound base, mutual intimacies for its brickwork,
and for ornamentation, carven, imperishable moments
of sympathy and tenderness.
Bice loved Sebastian this way, or the other. She
vowed herself passionately to his service, even Stella
went a little short of attention in those worst days of
the illness.
It is possible that if Joe had been able to take im-
mediate advantage of Stella's suggestion, if he had
pressed home to Vanessa the expediency of getting
away at once from her surroundings, and the ease with
which she could accomplish it by means of a special
licence, and a commission to him to save her explana-
tion or argument, he would have achieved his desire.
For Vanessa was nearly at the end of her power of for-
bearance with all the Pleyden-Carrs.
398 SEBASTIAN
She stayed away from the sick room, she could not
find it in her to show sympathy with what lay there,
and she was bitterly wounded and distressed at the
estrangement between herself and her son. Self-
reproach, the worst trouble of all, lay at the bottom
of all her other troubles. Her feelings toward Pleasey
never altered, were unalterable. But seeing, daily,
what parents she had had, what upbringing, and ex-
ample, she could not condemn as unreservedly as she
would have liked. The girl had had little chance to
live a decent life until her marriage. Then, what help
or incentive had Vanessa given? She had met her
with daily criticism, and harsh judgment. It was
justified, it was justified, it was justified, she said to
herself a dozen tunes a day, but never proved it. At
the greatest time of need in his life she had failed her
son. She knew it. And her eyes grew even as Stella's
eyes, and burned behind their lids with hot, continuous
tears, unshed, perhaps, but rising, rising in an ever-
gathering tide.
She might have taken Joe Wallingford had he asked
her then. There seemed no light in the horizon, and
alone in the cold and dark, one grasps at any warm
human hand. But Joe hesitated. And it was Sebas-
tian's hand she felt at length, putting her face down
upon it, that the tears might flow, and wash away what
had been between them.
That day yet another doctor had been called to say
why Pleasey made no move toward recovery, what
vital nerve had been attacked, why her strength ebbed,
and ebbed, and what would be the end. And that
SEBASTIAN 399
verdict brought Sebastian to his mother when the
house was all quiet, and the Pleyden-Carrs had bor-
rowed their cab fare, and gone home with it, when
dreary day was succeeded by dreary evening, and
courage and patience were at their lowest ebb.
He came to her, as he had been wont to come to her,
silent at first of what was nearest to him.
"Business is waking up," was the way he began;
"they seem to have begun to believe in me again."
She was so glad of his presence here ; she hardly dared
answer lest the wrong words came.
"Money is coming in every day. Joe Wallingford's
order for the 'feather-weight' has practically cleared
us."
" He — he was of use ? "
"Rather" — and then a pause. "Mater, was I
selfish in hating to see him in the governor's place?
He is a good fellow, white all through. If — if you
feel you could be happy with him —
Sebastian stood up, he was leaning against the mantel-
piece, those sad young eyes of his seemed to see more
clearly than they had seen before. "I have filled up
your house, you hate all the Pleyden-Carrs. You hate
poor Pleasey ! I want to speak to you about that.
This is your house, and we are both here —
"That is not fair, it is hardly fair. You know," she
did not mind now if he saw her hot eyes, "it is the
only comfort I have, that you should be here, that I
see you daily."
"You heard what the doctors said?"
"Months, perhaps, even years !"
400 SEBASTIAN
"Yes!" There was hopelessness in his acquiescence.
"She can't get well, it is something to do with her
spine. God!" he broke down for a minute, "how
ghastly it is ! living death, the first time she ever had
a chance . . . and you, you sit and judge her!"
"She had been with him the three days."
"That makes no difference, it makes it worse for
her. She has lost Bob, too. Who am I, that I should
condemn her, or you? Nothing is as you see it, you
criticised her all the time, and it was love she needed,
poor little girl ! I ought never to have brought her
here. In your eyes she had a hundred little faults,
and those were all you saw. But they were so unim-
portant to me. I never thought I had married a woman
like you, strong, self-reliant, clever. I couldn't have
done that. That was the charm, she leaned on me.
Mater, she would have come more and more to lean on
me. She wouldn't have told me lies, she would have
understood in time that I loved her whatever she did.
If she spent too much money, I would have earned it
for her. You don't know how to care like I do. You
said bitter things to her, she was lonely and frightened.
And I was full of Queen Victoria Street. Bob had
always been kind to her. She has told me everything.
She went down to Eastbourne by herself, she was
frightened to face you again, after all you said. She
knew suddenly how you felt about her. Poor girl !
And she thought of me; she did not want to tell me
about you, and so come between us. She felt so lonely,
she had no one to speak to. She wrote Bob, and asked
him if she had said anything about me, about my
SEBASTIAN 401
affairs, she had not meant to harm me, and he was
to promise her not to use it. Mater, she was getting
to care for me. It was of me she was thinking, and
she was always sweet to me, always. She wrote from
Eastbourne, and Bob drove down to reassure her. He
was my best friend — neither of them meant to wrong
me. You have the novelist's imagination; that is
what has led you away. And I have got to see too
much through your eyes. If it had even been true . . .
what you think, and if," his voice sank, "if, afterwards
it was God speaking, I — I am silenced. Bob was on
his way to Paris. We had all been the Folkestone part
of the journey together. It was natural she should
want to go over the old ground. He had not arranged
to take the car to Paris, she was coming back to East-
bourne in it. You do believe this, don't you?"
What was she to say to him? He, too, flung it at
her that she was a novelist first, and only a woman
after that. Had she indeed wasted more than half
her life, her heart divided? Novelist, or mother, she
must speak now. Nothing but truth could clear the
clouds from between them, and let them see each other
face to face.
"And if I cannot believe it?" she asked.
The young face was grey with unhappiness, but it
was set on rigid lines.
"You must," he said, "you must."
"It will serve your purpose if I act as if I believed it."
"God! how hard you are, mater. Sometimes,
lately, since I have grown so uncertain of myself, so un-
happy, I have wondered about the pater, and you. . . ."
SB
402 SEBASTIAN
"You think I — I failed him too?"
"No, no. Only that, perhaps, he missed it. I can-
not quite explain myself. Loving any one as I love
Pleasey, teaches one such a lot. If you have not ever
felt just this love "
The speech that came was not the one she meant
to make:
"Whatever I have had, or missed, leaves the essen-
tials unchanged, my hatred of unchastity -
"Don't say it, mater, don't make things irrevocable
between us. You have been good to me, if it has
been from duty, as I sometimes thought, lately, or
from ambition, where I have thwarted, or disappointed
you, it hasn't seemed to matter until now. But now,
if you really care for me —
It was hard, and difficult, after what he had said.
For she had loved him always, had loved nothing so
well, and he was questioning it. She told him that he
wronged her, with quivering lips. It did not need
many words. Then he was kneeling, with his face in
her lap:
" Forgive me, I am more unhappy than words can say."
She put her lips a moment to the black hair.
"I will help you. You know I will help you."
"It must make no difference, even, even if it is all
true. She — she's never going to get well."
"But if she does, if she does?"
"It would make no difference. She belongs to me,
she gave herself to me. I swore to cherish her. I —
I love her, nothing can alter it, nothing else matters."
"But years "
SEBASTIAN 403
He got up from his knees, the moment was over,
was past, but they were nearer to each other through it.
"You are going to say she may linger for years."
"Be a burden round your neck, between you and
any other marriage, between you and such hopes as
those of which you told me so proudly. Sons, to carry
on the name "
He burst out :
"What would you have me do? My wife, she is
my wife, young, and in such trouble ! I pray to be
able to help her. Do you know, she calls out for me,
night after night? The nurse wakes me then, for she
is frightened, terrified lest I turn against her. I wouldn't
turn against her, if — if even I knew everything was true.
You know I am right."
"All the hopes of your youth, all the joys of your
manhood, your right of life " It was almost a
moan.
"She sleeps more peacefully when I sit by her, she
calls for me when she is in her worst pain. Mater,"
and the word was a cry, "I see you criticise me, judg-
ing, condemning both of us. I cannot bear it." And
again he came over to her, sat down beside her, leant
his head against her shoulder.
"Be like other fellows' mothers for once. I am so
done, so tired, so beat." She knew it was as Stella
had said, he wanted tenderness, petting. And she
took his hand, cold, not quite steady, in hers, she warmed
it against her face.
It is not to be supposed her judgment went with her
404 SEBASTIAN
actions. She had to keep the love of her son. She
went into the sick room that very evening to make her
peace with the invalid.
"Here is the mater/' Sebastian announced. "She
has been wanting to see you these three weeks, but
the nurses make such a fuss about keeping you quiet."
It was not so difficult as Vanessa had feared. With-
out the paint, and without the powder, it was a puny
face that lay on the pillow, the blue eyes larger than
before, dull and pathetic, it was the face of a poor
sinner.
"You have not been up to see me before," Pleasey
complained.
"I did not know you would care to have me," Vanessa
answered, quietly, laying an uncertain hand on the pillow.
"It is dull, lying here so many hours alone," she
said, plaintively.
She had not grown more candid, she had known quite
well why Vanessa stayed away.
"I am glad you have come. It is lucky I am not
disfigured, isn't it?" It was not she who had altered,
it was Vanessa who must grow pitiful. "Dr. Gifford
said to-day even illness did not make me look like other
people." She looked to Sebastian for confirmation,
and he lay down beside her, and took her in his arms,
murmuring that she was more beautiful than ever, and
dearer. Vanessa found it hard to bear, any mother
would have found it hard to bear. But she won him,
she won both of them.
Within a week, Pleasey would have no day without
her, would be nursed, read to, comforted only by her
SEBASTIAN 405
mother-in-law. She clung to these two, their strength
lifting her from where she had sunk. It was not in her to
be grateful, or really penitent, or ever frank, to face the
future, or repent the past. She made many poor ad-
missions, whenever pain, fatigue, or fear prompted her.
But the truth was not in her. And perhaps it was
best. For Sebastian had no wish to know anything but
that his mother and he were united in their tendance.
"Neither do I condemn thee; neither do I condemn
thee!" How often Vanessa said it, and it was never
true. She would leave them together sometimes, when
it became unbearable to think Sebastian's youth was
to be spent at the feet of this violated shrine, this poor
stale idol. She had to go through with her struggle alone.
But she did not misunderstand; she saw that he was
growing all the time. He, who had been an egoist,
now was proudest above all things when he alone could
soothe poor Pleasey to sleep. He, who had been selfish,
now found happiness when she kept him from work,
and from play, chaining him to the close room. His
heart was the heart of his father. What dumb distress
fell upon Vanessa when she knew that even so had David
been to her, had her need been the same. And yet she
could not even bear with him when he stumbled, or
coughed. Father and son, she was unmeet for either of
them. Not perhaps as Pleasey was unmeet, but yet
unloving. It was retribution that she suffered. But
in suffering she, too, grew slowly wise.
She would stay with them until the end, although Joe
urged his suit. He urged it too late; for, now, neither
Pleasey nor Sebastian were willing to give her up.
406 SEBASTIAN
"I like to know you are in the house when I am in
the City, that if anything were wanted you are on the
spot," Sebastian pleaded.
And Pleasey, too, put in her plaint :
"Are you going out? Don't go out when mother is
here, she always wants something."
And, indeed, even the emergency bottle of brandy
by the bedside was not safe when Mrs. Pleyden-Carr's
emotion over her "dear daughter" became acute at sight
of the spirit. "Don't let them bring Zuley up to see
me; keep father downstairs."
Pleasey wanted none of her own people. She did not
wish to hear their troubles, nor relieve them. She wanted
to bask in comforts, with no thoughts for the morrow.
She liked her lace and silk new dressing-jackets, the
peaches, and grapes, and flowers Sebastian sent home,
the gold-backed hand-mirror Vanessa bought her to
keep under her pillow. She was greedy of gauds that
ceased to deck her, food for which she had small appetite,
attentions of which she grew ever more exacting.
Vanessa saw all that. Bice and Sebastian only saw,
and told each other, how bravely Pleasey bore her pain,
how little querulous she was, or fearful.
Joe tried argument. He came to Vanessa, straight
from the House, the day the Woman's Suffrage Bill had
been read for the first time, and the Government defeat
made a general election imminent.
"Your word was as good as given to me," he said.
"You promised that if the boy was satisfied, you would
not keep me waiting any longer. The boy said to me
only to-day: 'If it will make the mater happy, well,
SEBASTIAN 407
that is all I care for. She is being an angel to me, and
to my poor girl, but I'll do without her, if she wants to
go.'"
"He said that!"
"What have you got if you stay? She may linger for
years "
"Weeks, Dr. Gifford says, not even months. He
thinks none of the consultants they have called in have
taken into consideration her feeble physique, bad family
history, the rapidity with which one symptom follows
another, and never a step gained."
"Well ! and then, and then? What afterwards?"
"Comforting him a little, please God."
" But for you, for yourself ? What are you going to
get out of it?"
She smiled then. She was content since the old con-
fidence was re-established between herself and Sebastian,
happier, perhaps, than she had been since the tragedy
of his marriage. She was helping him daily, hourly,
and often he said a grateful, or a tender, word to her,
a word that touched her more nearly than Joe's love-
making, although that, too, was not unwelcome.
"I am getting a great deal, learning so many things
I never knew before. I have missed what you would
give me, do not think I underrate it any longer." She
could blush, and she held out her hand to him, "You
have taught me something, too."
"Let me teach you more."
"No, no, no. I have not really altered. Characters
do not alter, they only develop. I want to write
what I have learned, I shall write so much better, you
408 SEBASTIAN
know I shall write better, it is my mission, my only
strength."
*******
She had learnt a great deal; and further knowledge
was not spared her. The thin tallow candle of poor
Pleasey's life spluttered out, as Dr. Gifford had predicted,
within a few short weeks. But it was in Bice's arms,
not his mother's, that Sebastian found his chiefest com-
fort. Both of them cried for Pleasey, they sobbed out
little stories of the courtship, and kissed, and cried, to-
gether. Vanessa was outside their reminiscences.
She comforted herself in her isolation:
" Who gives the best account of the feast ?
He who has none, and enjoyed it least — "
and started on her masterpiece, almost before the heavy
scent of the funeral flowers had faded from the house.
And it proved her masterpiece. She had learnt some-
thing of human nature, and that paradoxes were not
its expression. "Earth's Crammed Full of Heaven" was
on a different plane to her other books, and the critics
were able to praise it unreservedly.
What she found strange, overwhelming even, was that
there was some savour lacking even in a literary success.
It was absurd to feel lonely, and isolated from life, when
a fourth edition was in the press ! But the absurdity
came to pass.
She had to admit as much to Joe Wallingford.
If he forced the syllogism home, in his own direct
way, he at least took care that she never was able to
completely controvert it. And the argument supplies
the salt of their daily intercourse.
BY FRANK DANBY
The Heart of a Child
BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE
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" Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that
stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after it has
passed the palate. ... As for Victoria, she has that quality of vivid fresh-
ness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern
American heroines delightful." — The Times, London.
The Celebrity. An Episode
" No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for
years. ... It is the purest, keenest fun." — Chicago Inter-Ocean.
Richard Carvel Illustrated
". . . In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and
rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an
American romance." — Chicago Tribune.
The Crossing Illustrated
" ' The Crossing ' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting
adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in
detail and in spirit." — The Dial.
The Crisis Illustrated
" It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest. . . . The intense
political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown under-
standingly." - Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia.
Coniston Illustrated
" ' Coniston ' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch than
Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before. . . . It is one of the truest and
finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fic-
tion." — Chicago Record-Herald.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PTTBLISHEBS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE
By AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE
Each in decorated cloth cover, $ 1.50
Wroth
The first novel, as distinguished from more or less connected episodes,
by these authors since their charming " If Youth But Knew " appeared
some three years ago.
The Pride of Jennico
It is a story of brisk adventure and eager love amid unaccustomed scenes;
and it is told with such freshness and sincerity and breezy vigor of word
and sentiment as to captivate all readers, whether critical or careless.
"This lively story has a half-historic flavor which adds to its interest . . .
told with an intensity of style which almost takes away the breath of the
reader." — Boston Transcript.
Young April
It is a delightful story of a runaway month, when the young Duke, care-
fully reared in every punctilio of his position, escapes into an atmosphere
of freedom, youth, and an April love, that knows nothing of lords. At
the end it is a very grave young Duke who comes into his title, because
"noblesse oblige" and yet one who sometimes wears with all his quiet
dignity a gently reminiscent smile.
If Youth But Knew
"One of the most spirited, moving, colorful, and fairly enchanting novels
written in many a day — a book that moves one to be optimistic of the
quality of modern fiction." — Republic (St. Louis).
"My Merry Rockhurst"
" In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are here
gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the fragrant
charm of those books, like 'The Pride of Jennico,' in which they first
showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances.
" It is not the romance of mere intrigue and sword-play that the authors
make their leading motive. . . . The book is absorbing, and it is, into
the bargain, as spontaneous in feeling as it is artistic in execution." —
New York Tribune.
Flower of the Orange and
Other Tales of By-gone Days
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE
NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA"
(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)
Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50
The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated
" Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is the
proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love of
nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of ' folks.' ... It is a
charming book." — The Interior.
People of the Whirlpool Illustrated
" The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just per-
spective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of people and
customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in general." —
Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.
The Woman Errant
" The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an interest-
ing fictional presentation of an important modern question, treated with
fascinating feminine adroitness." — Miss JEANNETTE GILDER in The Chi-
cago Tribune.
At the Sign of the Fox
" Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of
nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural character. A
travelling pieman is one of her most lovable personages ; another is Tatters,
a dog, who is humanly winsome and wise, and will not soon be forgotten
by the reader of this very entertaining book." — New York Tribune.
The Garden, You and I
"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too deli-
ciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain. . . . The
delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and without which
Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its poignancy, and
would make ' The Garden, You and I ' pleasant reading even to the man
who doesn't know a pink from a phlox or a Daphne cneorum from a
Cherokee rose." — Congregationalist.
The Open Window* Tales of the Months.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK
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