The brotherhood of wisdom

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BY

FRANCES J. ARMOUR

NEW YORK

JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVIII

CHAPTER I “ Really, Dane, you are incorrigible ! ”

Lady Saltaire shut her fan with a petulant gesture and turned one white shoulder towards the offender.

Danefield Mottram looked down at his sister-in-law with an amused air, much as a benevolent St. Bernard might regard an impertinent female lapdog.

“ I own that I am an incorrigible bachelor,” he said, laughing. “But then I have not the same inducement to change my state as Harold had.”

Lady Saltaire frowned.

“It is of no use trying to get out of it by paying me idle compliments,” she said. “ The fact is that you and Lord Roby care for nothing in the world except shooting bears or stalking deer. As if that were any good to anybody! ” she added contemptuously.

Mottram laughed outright ; the big hearty laugh of a perfectly sound, perfectly goodtempered man,

“ Well,” he said, “ there is some truth in that accusation, I admit. But what remedy do you suggest? What do you advise?”

Lady Saltaire turned round and lifted a pair of earnest dark eyes to his face.

“ I want you to settle down and do something useful,” she said. “You could stand for Greygarth, or Harold could put you up for Harlesden at the next election. You would be certain to get in with his support, and then — ”

“ Surely,” said Mottram, “ If I were in Parliament. you would let me off the rest.”

Lady Saltaire shook her pretty head doubtfully.

“I cannot understand you men nowadays,” she remarked reflectively. “ You seem to be made of stone — or wood ; ” with a sparkling glance at the brown face beside her “It is not the fault of the women,” she continued. “|They are ever so much improved lately, in looks and dress and mind and figure and taste, and all that sort of thing. And there are plenty of heiresses too. And yet you and Lord Roby go off into Central Africa or somewhere, and shoot bears ! ”

She curved her red upper lip with unutterable scorn.

“I never shot a bear in Central Africa in my life,” laughed Dane. “And I am not conceited enough to think that the beauties and heiresses would care about an idle fellow like me, with nothing but a tumbledown old house and a few acres of moor to bless himself with.”

“ Greygarth does want doing up, badly,” remarked her ladyship. “But anyway I know that you will not listen to a word I say.”

“ Indeed I am listening with both ears,” protested Mottram. “That is what I came into the conservatory for. I knew you had a rod in pickle for me, and I wanted to get the swishing

THE BBOTHEEHOOD OF WISDOM 9 over as soon as possible.”

Lady Saltaire put one little gloved hand affectionately on his coat sleeve.

“ You are the dearest fellow in the world,” she said. “ And you are just splendid to take my lectures as you do. The fact is, Harold and I are so perfectly happy that we want you to be the same. He quite agrees with me that a wandering life does not give you all you need. If you had a home and a settled occupation — ” she broke off as a couple from the ballroom beyond came into the conservatory and, after a glance round, went through into the anteroom on the left.

“ That was Mr. Castellane,” she said.

“ I know,” said Mottram. “ Fine chap. They say he will be in the Cabinet before long.”

“You are just as clever as he is,” observed Lady Saltaire. “ But of course he is ten years older than you are.”

“Well, he has not married,” said Dane, with a touch of triumph in his tone.

“ No. But he will when the time comes,” answered his sister-in-law crushingly. “ Besides, he was in the House when he was your age, and working hard, instead of wandering about the world, — shooting bears.”

“ Someone has to shoot bears,” said Mottram plaintively. “ Otherwise they would multiply and overrun the globe and eat the promising young statesmen.”

Lady Saltaire rose and shook out her train.

“ I knew I should not do any good,” she said. “I told Harold so. But he only laughed and said you were one of the finest fellows in England. So you are to look at, but — ”

Mottram got up from the low basket chair where he had been lounging.

“Dear little lady,” he said caressingly, “it is awfully good of you to take all this trouble about me, and I am properly grateful. It is all quite true, what you say, and I have wasted my time terribly in one way. But perhaps not altogether. One learns a good deal living outside, you know, of one thing and another, shooting, and riding, and — and cooking, and not getting rattled, and so on. But now I suppose it has got to stop. All the same I cannot stay in

London long. It chokes me. Not only the air,

but the life — and other things. Roby and I agreed the other day that we would have one more big trip; and that it should be the last. You cannot get off in the same way when you are working. Only one more, and then, I give

you my word that I will get something to do.”

He spoke earnestly and almost boyishly, as if she had the right to command him. Indeed he felt that she had some such right, for he had had a lonely boyhood, as far as the influence of women was concerned, and it was not until his elder brother, Lord Saltaire, had married the pretty, affectionate, but somewhat irresponsible daughter of a Devonshire squire, that Dane had known how sweet the home affection and interest of a good woman can be.

His mother, Leonora Danefield, had married John, sixth Baron Saltaire, whilst she was yet in her teens. And, after ten years of happiness, had died, leaving a broken-hearted husband and two little boys, nine and four years of age respectively.

Dane, the younger, had been brought up entirely amongst men therefore, which perhaps accounted for a certain shyness in his manner towards the other sex. He had not even had an aunt or a girl cousin to soften his experiences of life, for his father and mother were the only representatives of their respective families.

Until he was ready to go to Eton, he had had a private tutor, who had encouraged him in his love for sport, and at school he had distinguished himself in the playing fields, whilst later, when he went to Oxford, he was known as one of the best bats in the University eleven.

Men liked him, and it was somewhat to the surprise of his large circle of acquaintances when he formed an intimate friendship with Lord Roby, who was in most respects his opposite in character and tastes.

Their one point in common seemed to be an enthusiasm for sport, and on almost all of Mottram’s shooting expeditions Roby had been his only companion.

In fact since leaving Christ Church, they had, for the last six years been inseparable ; and their friends nicknamed them Mentor and Telemachus, David and Jonathan, or the “pious iEneas ” and “ Fidus Achates,” as the mood inclined.

Dane was not pious, but he was good, which is quite a different thing ; though many people, being shortsighted, are apt to confuse the two.

At the same time he did not fall into the error of supposing that piety and hypocrisy are synonymous in the world which he frequented. And he was inclined to despise the men of his acquaintance who were content to remain indifferent to the great questions of life and of religion, because they were afraid that if they faced them, they might feel themselves constrained to be less lazy and self-indulgent than they desired to be.

Dane was neither indolent nor self-indulgent, and he was afraid of nothing. Moreover if he felt that there was anything to be faced, whether it were a duty or a danger or a great truth, he was too strong a man to turn his back upon it, and pretend that he did not know that it was there.

From his mother he had inherited some of the stern Puritan qualities of the Danefields, and his father's stock had been fighting men since the first Henry.

At the same time he never either judged or condemned his fellows, and had a curiously humble estimate of his own qualities. “ My conduct is not a rule for yours,” he said once to a man who was chaffing him about his non-gambling propensities. “ Things that are right for you to do, may not be right for me, and vice verssL Everyone is capable of judging whether his own actions are right or wrong; that is what our brains are for. So long as one judges honestly it is all right,” he added. And his companion had nothing to answer, for he was already in difficulties about money, and had lost the sum upon the turf that had been set aside for his own professional training.

It must not be supposed that Dane always succeeded in acting up to the high ideals he had formed, and in his college days he got into and out of as many scrapes as the average undergraduate. He was also inclined to read in a rather fitful and desultory fashion, which neither satisfied his tutor nor did justice to his really fine abilities.

In fact it is doubtful whether Mottram would ever have taken Classical Honours at Oxford at all, but for the influence of his friend, Lord Roby, who was himself a brilliant scholar.

As it was, Roby’s ideals were certainly not confined to sport, much as he admired physical courage, and prowess in outdoor pursuits ; and he exercised a deep and steadying influence on the impetuous young man, all the stronger that it was quite simple and unconscious.

Dane took a first class in Greats, rather to his own surprise, and to the relief of his tutor, who, knowing Dane’s character, had told the Dean that if he had not been able to play cricket, Mottram would have done the College credit, but as it was, they might be thankful for a second or even a third in the Classical Schools.

It was, therefore, no idle promise when Dane gave his word to Lady Saltaire that he would do some good in the world.

And, looking up into his steady deep-set grey eyes, and at his open massive forehead, tanned by sun and wind, she felt sure that he would not disappoint her.

She looked at him for a moment affectionately. Then she laughed lightly and took his arm.

“Let us go and dance the rest of this waltz together to celebrate the occasion,” she said. And, as they emerged from the green coolness of the conservatory, she continued:

“ What an endless whirl it is ! Rather like life, — no rest, no peace, till the music stops.”

She looked at the crowded ballroom, hardly thinking of her words, and talking on just for the sake of saying something, as people will when they have been much in earnest, and wish to get back to the ordinary small-change of conversation.

Mottram put his arm round her waist and piloted her skilfully into the throng.

“ The battle is to the strong,” he said laughing.

The dance was nearly over, and the room grew gradually empty, people going out to secure favourite seats in halls or garden, or down to the supper-room to chatter and flirt, and criticise their neighbours, whilst they devoured ortolans and ices, pate and plovers’ eggs, as if they had not finished dinner an hour or so ago. So that at last Lady Saltaire and Mottram had the floor almost to themselves, the bandmaster prolonging the waltz a little for their benefit.

They were both beautiful dancers. Mottram moyed as only a perfectly made man can move, his great height and strength seeming subordinate to the lightness and ease of the swaying waltz motion, and his finely-shaped head, covered with short brown hair, held well up on the strong throat and shoulders.

They did not speak, and it was only when the violins began the upward rush of the coda that he looked down at his partner.

“Ripping waltz,” he said.

“ Yes. It is the best that I have had to-night,” answered Violet Saltaire.

“ Too short though. Have you not got another?”

“Not to-night. Harold and I have to go on to the Trevelyans. He was to come for me at twelve. There he is now,” she added. A red-faced man with a light brown moustache appeared in the doorway.

He was of middle height and broad. His features were well cut, and he was sufficiently like Dane to show the relationship between the two. He was, however, a good deal fairer in complexion than his brother, and, as his tastes inclined towards farming, grouse-shooting, and hunting, rather than towards a sedentary life amongst his books, his naturally fine skin had become rough and red with exposure to the sun and air; and long motoring expeditions, whilst in Town, had not mitigated the high polish on his nose, nor the many wrinkles round his eyes.

Dane took Lady Saltaire across to the curtained doorway where his brother was standing.

“ How do you do, old man ? ” he said.

“Very fit,” answered Saltaire. “Have been for a run down to Windsor on the new motor this afternoon. The Napier, you know. She runs as smooth and sweet as honey. You should get one, Dane.”

“Cannot afford motors and polo,” answered Mottram. “And I prefer horseflesh.”

“Well,” said Saltaire, “that is a fine little mare you picked up at Tattersal’s ; the bay with black points, I mean.”

“Oh yes,” asked Dane, with interest. “How did you like her?”

“Immensely. Took her in the Eow yesterday morning. A bit nervous in the traffic, but she has as easy paces as anything I have ridden. You should hunt her next season.”

“Yes, I thought of doing so,” said Mottram. “ She is a very fair jumper. An Irish mare, Tattersal’s told me.”

“ That reminds me,” remarked Lord Saltaire, “ I saw a splendid little chestnut in the Park yesterday. But, by Jove — I wish you could have seen the girl who was riding him ! Eoby was with her, and he introduced me. Mrs. Curtis used to say that there are only about three really beautiful women born in any one century. I do not know how far that is true, but, well — this is one of them.”

“Who is she?” asked Lady Saltaire, laughing up into her husband’s face. “ You impressionable man, how dare you admire anyone except me ? ”

Saltaire hedged.

“I do not,” he said. “At least, not in that way ; but you know what I mean.”

“No, no!” laughed Violet. “It is of no use trying to back out of it like that. I insist on knowing who she is.”

“ Well, my dear, she is a Miss Hermione Vivian, the niece of Professor Jackson, the great scientific light. She is living at his house now, and she has just come out. He is a cousin of our hostess here, I am told, and Mrs. Curtis is chaperoning

Miss Vivian more or less.”

“ Alicia would like that,” remarked Lady Saltaire. “ She has an instinct for celebrities, whether in beauty or brains.”

“ Perhaps she is here to-night,” added her husband, glancing round him.

“I dare say she is,” said Violet Saltaire, “but I do not know. I have not seen any unknown beauty this evening ; have you, Dane ? ”

“ No ; I came late, and I have not seen any beauty except you,” answered Mottram coolly.

“ Oh, Dane is incorrigible. I have just been telling him so,” said his sister-in-law, ignoring the compliment. “He would not look at Helen of Troy if he met her, — unless indeed she were wearing a bearskin, and then he would want to know where she shot the bear ! ”

Mottram laughed, and Saltaire joined in, though he did not understand the allusion. But he was quite accustomed to accept his wife’s small vivacities, without wasting much brain-power over them. This was wise, as his mind was of the heavy order, and was about as well adapted for bandying light witticisms as a steam-roller for catching butterflies.

“Well, goodbye for the present, Dane,” said Violet. “We have to go on to the Trevelyans. Come Harold. Alicia will have left the top of the stairs now, and we shall have to seek her in the garden. She will have an ambassador on one side, and a Cabinet Minister on the other. They say Edward will get a Secretaryship; at any rate it will not be her fault if he does not. That is the sort of wife for you, Dane,” she added mischievously.

“ The gods preserve me from such a fate,” exclaimed Dane fervently. “ But Mrs. Grant- Curtis is charming, nevertheless.”

He stood for a moment at the doorway, looking across the wide hall at the pretty trim figure of Lady Saltaire, leaning on her husband’s arm. She turned at the head of the stairs and blew a kiss to him from the tips of her dainty fingers, to the amusement of the various couples seated on sofas and chairs among the palms. Then a preliminary flourish from the band, announcing a set of Lancers, rang out from the flowery alcove behind him ; and as people began to move towards the ballroom, to seek partners and form sets, Dane walked across the polished floor, and escaped through one of the long windows, out on to the square balcony beyond.

The top and sides were shut in with striped canvas, but the front was open, and Dane leaned over the stone balustrade, and drank in the fresh cool air outside.

Below, there was a row of carriages standing in the middle of the road, and every now and then a brougham would leave the line and draw up to the canvas-screened doorway, with flashing of lamps, and stamping of horses; and figures, sombre or resplendent, would get in. Then the footmen would close the door, and off the equipage would go, running noiselessly on rubber tyres down the road to the next rout in one of the fashionable quarters.

But, beyond the bustle of the roadway, beyond the stone parapet and the line of iron railings, lay the massed beds of tulips and hyacinths, and the heavy-branched trees of the Park.

And on the breeze were borne a thousand scents, of earth and flowers, of dewy leaves and grass, the mysterious breath of the night, which appeals to some deep instinct in the heart of a man, and makes him long to rush out into the velvety twilight of the stars, and roam anywhere — everywhere— to the world’s end, perhaps, so long as it be far away from the haunts of his kind.

B

Maybe it is an animal instinct, some faint echo of the far-off days when our ancestors, half- wild, hunted towards night-time, and tracked and hid in the forest, and killed their prey, dragging it home to the cave, as the moon rose over the tree-tops.

Be that as it may, many have felt that strange restlessness, and the keen joy of the escape from the crowded rooms and streets into the free air, to wander alone through the cool shadowy softness of the night.

Dane drew himself up to his full height, and opened his broad chest to the breeze ; and in his heart there rose again that strong distaste for the town life he had been leading, with all its tawdry pleasures ; and the longing to get away became almost intolerable.

He would go to-morrow ; or perhaps, if that were impossible, the next day.

There was a trout stream at Greygarth, and the May-fly would be out. Or perhaps he would run across to Norway, where there was a mountain farm he knew of, far away from tourists and sightseers. He could take his rods and his books there, till Roby should be ready to start on their last big shooting-trip together.

He sighed as he thought of the years that he had spent so contentedly with his friend. But after all, perhaps Violet was right. Perhaps there was something else, something that he had not found yet, and that would satisfy him as mere shikar could not.

The struggle for a good cause, the knowledge of power, the sense of a great responsibility, the keen satisfaction of victory — all these.

And then that other thing of which Violet had spoken — love.

He wondered if the thing really existed, or if it were a mere hallucination a creation of fancy.

He had been in love, as it was called, scores of times ; but a word, a look, had disillusioned him ; or perhaps, a short journey, a change of scene and environment, had obliterated the impression. He could look back now on the women he had known and liked, but not one was there with whom he could have passed a month of his life without feeling unutterably bored, not one whom he could think of as the noble, pure-minded and loving companion that in his heart he knew his wife must be to him.

No; he was too modern. He knew too much, and felt too little.

Love was for the middle ages, the time of strong contrasts and extreme passions, when all women were goddesses or devils, and all men were heroes or brutes.

He would never love any woman, it was better to shoot and hunt and — yes — work.

He turned away from the balcony with an impatient sigh ; and then his face lit up suddenly, for on the other side of the ballroom, he caught sight of his best friend, Roby, whom he had come to find.

The set of Lancers was over, and Roby was walking down the room towards the folding doors at the end. These, Dane knew, led to an anteroom, adjoining the library, and a smoking lounge completed the suite on that side.

There was a knot of people standing at the balcony window, discussing a new play, produced that evening, and Mottram had some difficulty in getting away from them. Eventually he succeeded, and made his way down the ballroom, treading carefully on the polished parquet floor.

The library was halt full of dancers, lounging in the deep chairs, fluttering jewelled fans, and flirting in low tones. His friend was not amongst them. Dane knew the house well and threaded his way between the leather-covered tables, and saddleback chairs, towards a small door let into the panelling on the left.

As he was about to open it, he heard his name called softly behind him; he turned to see to whom the voice belonged, and smiled as he recognised his hostess standing by a low divan, and beckoning him to come to her.

He both liked and admired Mrs. Grant-Curtis, as did the majority of men, and he went across willingly enough, inwardly resolving to go and find Roby at his house in Upper Brook Street, should he have left before Dane could speak to him. It would make no difference whether they met here or there, at midnight or at half-past two in the morning.

So he let his eyes rest pleasantly on the slender figure of his friend, and pressed the little gloved hand she gave him, with more warmth than he usually bestowed on his greetings of the opposite sex.

Mrs. Grant-Curtis was a little, dark woman, with a thin face, full red lips, and a mass of soft brown hair, piled high above a square forehead. Her eyes, belying the full curves of her lips, were brilliant rather than languorous and were set somewhat close together ; indeed her enemies said that she squinted; undoubtedly in some lights, or in some moods, as the case may be, there was a slight cast in the left, and this, added to her languishing smile, and contradictory air of suppressed energy, gave her an unusual appearance.

Some people, especially amongst the English, find an attraction in strangeness of any kind. An exhibition of eccentricity is often thought to be the sign of strength of character, or of some particular gift. And there are not wanting those who, lacking the gift, have yet the wit to assume the eccentricity, thus deceiving the superficial observer.

THE BBOTHEBHOOD OE WISDOM 21

Mrs. Grant-Curtis, however, was not of this type.

She was undoubtedly clever, and was at no pains to hide her keen interest in the world, and more especially in the world of humanity around her.

Her chief delight was to gather together at her house all or any who were of mark. Titles she did not care for, though the possession of one did not constitute a bar to her society. But unlike most hostesses she valued her guests not for what they possessed, but for what they in themselves were.

Thus, the welcome that she extended to Lord Boby, who had explored in Patagonia, and on his return had produced several notable articles on that country, besides his volume of essays on the psychology of animals, magnetism, and mental suggestion, was several appreciable shades warmer than her greeting of the Earl of Morningdon, whose grandfather had acquired an immense fortune on the Stock Exchange, and who kept an important racing stable.

She herself had done nothing in art or literature, but she was a born critic, and, unlike many critics, she possessed the talent of appreciation to a large extent. She also had the instinct of a hostess, and understood the art of making people talk well, which is much more valuable than being able to talk oneself.

Her own sex thought her interesting, and men found her attractive, though possibly she was too independent, and too palpably intellectual a woman to be loved in the same degree that she was admired. However that may be, her husband, the Hon. Edward Grant-Curtis, M.P., loomed large in the forefront of her world ; and though the ill-natured said that she wrote his more important speeches for him, yet she always sat on the platform at political meetings or behind the grille of the Ladies’ Gallery, and listened to them with smiling appreciation and interested reticence.

She was the only daughter of a country squire and millowner in Lancashire, and had been brought up in an old manor house about five miles from one of those manufacturing towns, which, in the absence of a mayor and corporation, are still known as “ villages ” by the practical weavers and spinners who populate them.

The atmosphere of Lancashire is strenuous, and it is hard, in the midst of the great manufacturing districts, where keen thought, hard work, and strength of character, are the prevailing characteristics, to remain untouched by the magnetic energy of the people, with whom one is brought more or less closely into contact.

Alicia Molyneux was no exception to the rule, and her keen rather than deep intellect was stimulated by the problems and difficulties presented in her father’s relations to his “hands.”

When she was twenty, the squire woke up to the fact that his daughter was becoming too much engrossed in the political questions of the district to please his somewhat old-fashioned tastes.

He had no wish to see Alicia join the ranks of the “strong-minded sisterhood,” as he classed all those women who cultivated public speaking, or even took an active interest in the position of their sex. He therefore took counsel with his sister-in-law, Lady Wynne; and the consequence was, that Alicia was removed from the Manor for a time, and was introduced into London society, under the care of her aunt.

She had a certain measure of success, though most men were usually afraid of cleverness in an unmarried woman ; and Alicia’s keen dark eyes soon fathomed the depths, or rather the shallows, of the fashionable world.

“When I marry,” she exclaimed to Lady Wynne; “I shall choose my friends for their brains, not for their position ! ”

“ My dear,” answered her aunt, “ you must marry position, and then you may do as you please.”

It was not, however, till Alicia had reached her twenty-fifth year that she decided to change her maiden state at the instance of Mr. Grant-Curtis.

She had canvassed in his behalf amongst her father’s operatives, and had succeeded so well, that it was said that Miss Molyneux had practically carried the constituency. The labour member was defeated, and Mr. Grant-Curtis was declared in by a narrow majority.

That night, as they parted in the old hall of the Manor, the new member asked Alicia to be his wife, and was accepted.

On this particular evening, the occasion of her “ small dance,” she was looking her best, attired in soft rose chiffon and old lace, with a magnificent tiara of diamonds in her hair.

The consciousness of this, combined with the undoubted fact that the dance had been an unqualified success, and that she had secured the interest of at least two of the Ministry in her schemes, tended to soften the somewhat sharp edges of her conversation, and added a kindly beam to her brilliant dark eyes. The cast was now scarcely perceptible.