LADY AGATHA'S STORY
It was with the greatest difficulty that Cleggett repressed a start.Another man might have shown the shock he felt.But Cleggett had the iron nerve of a Bismarck and the fine manner of a Richelieu.He did not even permit his eyes to wander towards the box in question.He merely sat and waited.
Lady Agatha, having brought herself to the point of revelation, seemed to find a difficulty in proceeding.Cleggett, mutely asking permission,lighted a cigarette.
"Oh--if you will!" said Lady Agatha, extending her hand towards the case.He passed it over, and when she had chosen one of the little rolls and lighted it she said:
"Mr.Cleggett, have you ever lived in England?" "I have never even visited England.""I wish you knew England." She watched the curling smoke from her tobacco as it drifted across the table."If you knew England you would comprehend so much more readily some parts of my story.
"But, being an American, you can have no adequate conception of the conservatism that still prevails in certain quarters.I refer to the really old families among the landed aristocracy.Some of them have not changed essentially, in their attitude towards the world in general, since the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
They make of family a fetish.They are ready to sacrifice everything upon the altar of family.They may exhibit this pride of race less obviously than some of the French or Germans or Italians; but they have a deeper sense of their own dignity, and of what is due to it, than any of your more flighty and picturesque continentals.There are certain things that are done.Certain things are not done.One must conform or--"She interrupted herself and delicately flicked the ash from her cigarette.
"Conform, or be jolly well damned," she finished, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back in her chair."This, by the way, is the only decent cigarette I have found in America.I hate to smoke perfume-- I like tobacco--and most of your shops seem to keep nothing but the highly scented Turkish and Egyptian varieties.""They were made in London," said Cleggett, bowing.
"Ah! But where was I? Oh, yes--one must conform.Especially if one belongs to, or has married into, the Claiborne family.Of all the men in England the Earl of Claiborne is the most conservative, the most reactionary, the most deeply encrusted with prejudice.He would stop atlittle where the question concerned the prestige of the aristocracy in general; he would stop at nothing where the Claiborne family is concerned.
"I am telling you all this so that you may get an inkling of the blow it was to him when I became a militant suffragist.It was blow enough to his nephew, Sir Archibald, my late husband.The Earl maintains that it hastened poor Archibald's death.But that is ridiculous.Archibald had undermined his constitution with dissipation, and died following an operation for gravel.He was to have succeeded to the title, as both of the Earl's legitimate sons were dead without issue--one of them perished in the Boer War, and the other was killed in the hunting field.
"Upon Archibald's death the old Earl publicly acknowledged Reginald Maltravers, his natural son, and took steps to have him legitimatized.For all of the bend sinister upon his escutcheon, Reginald Maltravers was as fanatical concerning the family as his father.Perhaps more fanatical, because he secretly suffered for the irregularity of his own position in the world.
"At any rate, supported at first by the old Earl, he began a series of persecutions designed to make me renounce my suffragist principles, or at least to make me cease playing a conspicuous public part in the militant propaganda.As my husband was dead and there were no children, I could not see that I was accountable to the Claiborne family for my actions.But the Claibornes took a different view of it.In their philosophy, once a Claiborne, always a Claiborne.I was bringing disgrace and humiliation upon the family, in their opinion.Knowing the old Earl as I do, I am aware that his suffering was genuine and intense.But what was I to do? One cannot desert one's principles merely because they cause suffering; otherwise there could be no such thing as revolution.
"Reginald Maltravers had another reason for his persecution.After the death of Sir Archibald he himself sought my hand in marriage.I shall always remember the form of his proposal; it concluded with these words: 'Had Archibald lived you would have been a countess.You may still be acountess--but you must drop this suffragist show, you know.It is all bally rot, Agatha, all bally rot.' I would not have married him without the condition, for I despised the man himself; but the condition made me furious and I drove him from my sight with words that turned him white and made him my enemy forever.'You will not be my countess, then,' he said.'Very well--but I can promise you that you will cease to be a suffragist.' I can still see the evil flash of his eye behind his monocle as he uttered these words and turned away."Lady Agatha shuddered at the recollection, and took a cup of tea.
"It was then," she resumed, "that the real persecution began.I was peculiarly helpless, as I have no near relations who might have come to my defense.Representing himself always as the agent of his father, but far exceeding the Earl in the malevolence of his inventions, Reginald Maltravers sought by every means he could command to drive me from public life in England.
