CHAPTER VII.
“MARY, IT IS MY HUSBAND!”
Alice and Mary were to be found under the cedars, a very favourite resort of theirs those August evenings. A round wicker table stood between them, upon which were all the requirements of afternoon tea. Alice, leaning back in a low garden-chair, was reading to Mary, who was knitting, “A Princess of Thule.” How pretty she looked! The sun, glancing through the sombre branches, fell in stray flecks on her hair and dress—a white cambric trimmed with quantities of lace and knots of pale-blue ribbon. She was twirling a carnation in her fingers as she read. But there was a grave melancholy expression in her downcast face, sad to see in one so young. Coming to the end of a chapter, she paused and exclaimed, looking up:
“Well, I must confess, the Princess of Thule ran away from her husband on very small provocation. Don’t you think so, Molly?”
Molly, instead of replying, said, as she gazed intently over Alice’s head:
“Why, who is this young man coming over here with Miss Saville?”
“Young man?” echoed Alice indifferently, and without turning her head; “oh, it must be the postmaster. Auntie promised him a quantity of geranium and carnation cuttings.”
“Does the postmaster wear well-cut clothes and a dark moustache? Is the postmaster a gentleman?”
“No, you ridiculous girl,” turning and looking over her shoulder. After a minute’s dead silence, “Mary,” she gasped, “it is my husband!”
Her face was deadly pale as she raised it to her friend’s, and letting the book slip from her knees, she rose and leant against the tree with both her hands pressed to her heart. The cedar was between her and the house, and she had time to recover herself a little before her husband joined them. As he approached she looked at him keenly. Had he borne the traces of his recent wounds and fever, and looked a war-worn invalid, her woman’s heart would have melted instantly, but as he came across the grass his step was as buoyant, his eyes as keen, and his bearing as gallant as ever. A thousand thoughts seemed to crowd to her brain, her heart beat as though it would choke her, she was trembling from head to foot; as, with all the composure she could muster, and without meeting his glance, she gave him her hand in silence.
Miss Saville promptly introduced Mary Ferrars.
“You and I ought to be friends, Miss Ferrars; I was your brother’s fag at Eton, and many a thrashing he gave me. Don’t you think that that constitutes a tie between us?”
He made the above speech in order to give Alice time to compose herself; and self-possessed as he seemed, his heart was bounding wildly too.
“I hope you are now quite strong, Alice,” he said, looking at her with evident concern, for her face was as pale as ashes.
“Quite, thank you,” was her laconic reply as she seated herself. Her knees were trembling so that she dared not, and could not, stand any longer.
“Give us some tea, my dear,” said Miss Saville, who fortunately appeared to grasp the situation, and tea was made; and as it was handed about a certain amount of conversation began to circulate. London, and Reginald’s visit to the Mayhews, his passage home, the latest news from the East, formed in turn topics of discourse. Alice scarcely opened her lips. Sir Reginald might have been a casual visitor, who had just dropped in, for all the warmth, sympathy, or interest displayed by his wife. A more uncomfortable quartette seldom took tea together. No one would suppose that the pale haughty-looking girl and the dark bronzed young man, so leisurely sipping his tea, were husband and wife, and had only met within the last ten minutes after a separation of years. Mary Ferrars gazed from one to the other in silent amazement. Although outwardly calm, conflicting emotions were waging war in their bosoms.
She was thinking: “If I don’t manage to get away I shall disgrace myself—I shall burst out crying. This lump in my throat will choke me.” He was thinking: “Helen was dreaming. This notion of hers was one of her most superb flights of imagination. I was a fool to listen to her. She was dreaming,” he repeated, as he looked at his wife; and certainly in that pale set face there was no sign of either welcome or repentance.
These thoughts were interrupted by their merry bold-faced boy, who, trotting past Sir Reginald, far ahead of his grave and stately nurse, rushed up to Alice, saying: “I’ve come for cake.”
“Yes, yes, my darling!” replied his mother, stooping over his dark curls. “Presently. Go over first and speak to that gentleman, and give him a kiss.”
“Who is he, mother?” he asked, turning round and gazing at Sir Reginald with the facsimile of his own eyes—in fact the child’s face was such a striking reproduction of his own that he himself could not help seeing the likeness. He was a splendid boy, of whom his father, were he a king, might well be proud.
Leaning his upright little person against Alice, and throwing back his head with a proud gesture very entertaining in one so young, he repeated, as he looked at Sir Reginald unflinchingly:
“Who is he?”
“He is your father,” she faltered. “Go and speak to him, Maurice.”
She could not refrain a glance of motherly pride as she pushed her boy with gentle force towards his other parent. But Maurice, who had inherited all his father’s deliberation and decision of character, calmly remarked:
“He is not my father. My father,” with much pride, and hands stuck in the belt of his blouse, “is a soldier, and rides a horse with a long tail, and wears a sword and a red coat, and fights people. You,” said he, nodding his head towards Sir Reginald, “are just like anybody else.”
“Come here, sir,” said his father, stretching out an arm; and, much to everyone’s amazement, the boy went quietly over and stood at his knee.
“I am a soldier; but I have got a holiday. You don’t know what that is yet, do you? I have done with soldiers for awhile, and have put away my sword and my coat; but I’ll show them to you some day, if you like.”
“Will you?” said the child with awe-struck eyes; “and will you lend me your sword to play with, for I’m going to be a soldier too some day?”
“Are you indeed? I’m afraid I can’t lend you my sword; but perhaps I might buy you a little one instead. Suppose you come and sit on my knee and tell me all about yourself?”
So Master Maurice, nothing loath, climbed up; and Alice, with a beating heart, saw her child in her husband’s arms for the first time. The two faces were so alike, and yet so different; she could now compare together, if she dared; but she shrank from meeting her husband’s eyes.
Maurice was completely fascinated by the strange gentleman, and regarded him with mingled curiosity and delight.
“Are you my father?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes.”
“And why did you not come to see me before?”
Here was an embarrassing question.
“Because I have been in India,” was the evasive reply.
“And are you come to stay at home now?” Momentary pause. Without waiting for a reply he pursued: “I’ve seen your picture often. Alice keeps it in a locket; that one,” pointing a firm brown finger at his unfortunate mother, and raising a scorching blush to her hitherto pale face. “She says I am to love you very much—as much as her.”
“Do you love her?” continued this pitiless innocent; “do you love Alice?”
Reginald, painfully embarrassed, cast about for a reply. In desperation he answered:
“Of whom are you speaking, Maurice? It is not possible that you call your mother Alice!”
“Yes, sometimes; and so do Aunt Mary and Miss Ferrars.”
“Well, you are not to do it any more, remember. Now tell me your name?” said his father, catechising in his turn.
“Maurice Reg—nald Fairfax.”
So he had not been wholly forgotten.
“And how old are you?”
“Past two, long time. How old are you?”
“Past twenty this long time. Are you a good boy, do you think?”
“Alice knows,” he replied, nodding with easy confidence towards his mother.
“Yes, Alice knows,” said she, rising quickly and stretching out her hand; “Alice knows that it’s your bedtime, so say ‘Good-night’ and come along.”
“No! no! no! not yet!” he cried, clinging tightly to Sir Reginald and burrowing under his arm.
“Maurice, listen to me,” said his father gravely, setting him down. “You told me just now that you intended to be a soldier, did you not?”
“Yes,” returned Maurice eagerly.
“Well, you will never do for a soldier if you go on like this; his first duty is obedience. Now give me a kiss, and go with your mother at once.”
Maurice, whose forte was certainly not obedience, raised his eyes and looked at his father. Seeing that he was perfectly in earnest, he climbed once more on his knee, imprinted an experimental kiss on his moustache, and reluctantly departed with many regretful backward glances, Reginald watching the retreating pair till they were out of sight. Were they really his wife and son? He could scarcely realise it; for, after all, he had had a very few months of married life and twenty-seven years of bachelor liberty. He felt much more like a bachelor than a Benedict.
Miss Saville, following his eyes, said: “You may well look proud of him. Is he not a splendid boy? But he wants a father’s hand over him sadly. Alice is his slave, and has been so ever since he was born. She gives up to him in every way, and he treats her more as his playfellow—as you may see—than his mother.”
Alice, having deposited Maurice in the nursery, ran quickly down to her own room, to be alone for a little time to think and to compose herself.
She leant her hot forehead against the frame of the open window and gave way to a feeling of utter and undivided joy—joy that he was home, alive, and well, and under the very same roof as herself—at least within earshot. She paused as she heard Mary’s gay musical laugh. They were all walking about the grounds; she could see them. He was standing on the gravel path, telling them something very amusing evidently, for as he concluded Miss Saville and Miss Ferrars both laughed immoderately. With this laugh came a revulsion of feeling. “He could joke; he could be exceedingly entertaining. This meeting was nothing to him. He had not shown the smallest signs of emotion or agitation. He had merely come to see if she was sufficiently meek and humble to be reinstated in his good graces. No, she was not,” she said to herself, as she thought over the utter neglect with which he had treated her for the last three years. “He thinks he has only to extend the top of his sceptre and I shall be only too thankful to approach. But he is mistaken; I shall be ‘Vashti’ to the end of the chapter. I shall never humble myself again. Pleased as he is with Maurice now, he has never taken any direct notice of him all these years.”
Alice dressed rapidly, hardening her heart with bitter recollections at every moment. Just as she had completed her toilette, and was arranging some flowers in her dress, the door opened and Mary hurried in.
“Oh you sly girl!” she exclaimed; “dressed already? I thought you were doing something of this kind to ensure a nice long tête-à-tête with him. Oh Alice!” she cried, taking her in her arms and kissing her warmly, “what a happy young woman you are! How very, very glad I am for your sake! Why did you never tell me your husband was so perfectly charming—so handsome, so distinguished-looking? How proud you must be of him, my dear!” holding Alice at arm’s length and looking at her with eager interrogation.
Alice, whose hair and costume were slightly disordered by her friend’s enthusiastic hugging, drew back rather flushed and out of countenance.
“Mary,” she said, averting her face as she rearranged the roses in her dress, “you are very good, and mean very kindly, but”—and she paused—“but I must tell you something I never meant to tell you. Reginald and I do not get on very well together. We—we—do not suit; but do not take any notice, please,” she entreated as she looked at her friend appealingly. “You will soon see”—and she stopped; then continued: “Reginald is my guardian, you know; and he and I thought the best thing to do was to marry. But he is far more devoted to his profession than to me. His sword is his real wife, and I—I—get on very well alone, as you have seen, and will see.”
“What shall I see?” asked Mary. “I see that you are the handsomest couple I have ever come across, and I have no doubt you are equally well matched in other respects.”
“Well, qui vivra verra,” replied Alice, as she opened the door and disappeared, anxious to avoid her friend’s inquiries. Reginald, having hurried his toilette, hastened down to the drawing-room in the hopes of seeing Alice for at least a few minutes alone. Her greeting had been cold and constrained; but she was taken by surprise. She was agitated, and his lovely shy Alice was the last to offer or accept caresses in public. It would be different when they met alone.
He stood for some time in the deep window, looking out into the park. How still and green and cool it all looked after the bustle and heat and glare in India! “There was no place like home after all,” he thought as his eyes roved over the undulating sward and the clumps of splendid timber, and he watched the rooks soaring nestwards and heard the corncrake’s discordant yet familiar “Craik-craik.” The door, which was ajar, was at this instant pushed open, and with a swish of long trailing skirts Alice advanced into the room. At first she seemed to hesitate, but on second thoughts approached the window.
“What a lovely evening it is, is it not?” she remarked, unfurling an enormous black fan with a grace all her own.
“Lovely indeed!” replied her husband, turning his back to the landscape and scanning her critically.
After a pause of thirty seconds (employed by his wife in steeling herself with recollections of the past), “Alice,” he asked with a gesture of appeal, “have you nothing to say to me?”
“To say to you?” she repeated, with raised brows and an air of most perfect indifference. “No, nothing particular; unless that I am afraid you had a very warm journey here to-day. Early in the afternoon it was absolutely broiling.”
“Well, yes, it was warm—a good deal warmer than the welcome you gave me. But you can make up for that now,” coming closer. “Alice, are you not going to say you are glad to see me?”
“Yes, I am very glad to see you,” retreating two steps and making a shield of her fan.
“And is that all?”
“I think so—what more do you expect? You are nothing but my guardian,” she replied, avoiding his eyes.
“Indeed!” with an imperceptible start.
“Yes. You made the arrangement yourself; do not blame me for holding you to it,” she answered hurriedly.
“That arrangement, as you call it, was made under utterly different circumstances, when you did not, and would not, believe that I was your lawful husband. It is different now—you know better than that.”
“It may suit you to change your mind, but I do not alter mine. You are my guardian, and nothing more; as husband and wife we are strangers.”
“Is this your matured determination?” said Sir Reginald in a transport of indignation.
“It is,” she replied firmly. “You have forgotten the existence of your wife for the last three years: continue to forget her. Do you think I have no pride?”
“Pride—no!” he exclaimed angrily. “I could not dignify it by such a name. You are consumed by a senseless besotted obstinacy, that no doubt you are pleased to consider as such.”
“You are, as usual, most flattering,” replied Alice, carelessly fanning herself, considerably but inwardly agitated.
“I will take you at your word,” said Sir Reginald in a low but steady voice. “I shall consider your decision final—as husband and wife we are strangers. But I had hoped——” and he paused.
“What did you hope?” she asked sharply.
“Never mind; it is of no consequence now,” preparing to withdraw from the window.
“Tell me,” she asked, detaining him with a movement of her fan, “did you ever get the photograph of Maurice that I sent you?”
“I did,” he replied in an icy tone.
“You did!” she echoed. “You really did!”
“I did, as I have before remarked, and what then?” looking at her sternly.
“Only that you must have also——” Here her answer was cut short by the entrance of Miss Saville and Mary; and Sir Reginald, walking to the other end of the room, remained aloof, looking out of the window till dinner was announced. During this short interval he had time to recover his composure and to collect his thoughts, and there was no trace of anger or agitation in his countenance as he took his seat at the foot of the dinner-table. No one could guess the enormous effort it had cost him to attain such self-command. How strange it looked to see Alice and her husband sitting opposite each other—host and hostess—master and mistress! A man’s voice was an agreeable acquisition to the three trebles, not that one of them was much heard. Sir Reginald had that clear high-bred speech which is so expressively authoritative and yet so musical; he spoke like a man who meant what he said. As to Alice, indifferent and uninterested as she looked, each syllable of those dear familiar tones thrilled her to the heart! Not once during dinner did he directly address her—he did not even look at her so far as she knew.
“He is very, very angry with me,” she mused as she made a feint of eating. “But it was better to let him know at once that I am not ‘the patient Griselda!’ When he cools down he will respect me all the more for respecting myself! No doubt I was too hasty, abrupt, and perhaps aggressive. I might have softened it more—but then I never can! I have no tact!” Absorbed in her own reflections, she never observed the signals Miss Saville was making to her; her eyes were steadily fixed on her plate, and her thoughts apparently miles away.
“My dear, do you not think that we had better go into the drawing-room?”
“I beg your pardon, auntie,” she exclaimed with a start. “Of course.”
Sir Reginald accompanied the ladies, and spent a considerable time in looking over photographs and talking to Miss Saville, Alice having betaken herself to a distant arm-chair and Mary to the piano. After she had played for some time, she went over to Alice, and in an audible whisper said, as she stooped to arrange a tumbled chair-back:
“Come now, it is your turn; come and sing those two new songs you got last week.”
“No, not to-night, Molly,” she replied, shaking her head very decidedly. “Do not ask me, I could not sing a note!”
In the same way when Miss Saville challenged her to their usual game of backgammon, as at night the old lady’s eyes were too weak for working or reading.
“Not to-night, please, auntie,” she said plaintively, “I really feel too stupid.”
“If you will accept me instead, Miss Saville, I will play with pleasure; but I am afraid you will find me a most contemptible foe,” remarked Sir Reginald, as he arranged the board all wrong.
The old lady accepted his offer with the greatest alacrity, and they commenced to play without further delay.
Mary felt actually ashamed of Alice, who, at some distance from her relatives, lay back in her chair composedly knitting, pausing now and then to count the stitches, and then resuming her occupation as if her bread depended on it.
“Was this the way to welcome a husband? No wonder they did not ‘get on’ if Alice conducted herself in this fashion.”
As to her husband, as far as Mary could judge, there was nothing outwardly amiss with his manners or appearance. She took the opportunity of studying him whilst he was busily puzzling his brains over the backgammon board.
About his good looks there could be but one opinion; but did not a certain curve of the nostrils speak of pride? Was not firmness almost too weak a word to convey the expression of his mouth and chin? Would not a man with less patrician beauty and a more yielding disposition be better calculated to make a woman happy?
As she thought all this with a contemplative gaze, she suddenly found a pair of dark eyes fixed on herself with evident interest and amusement.
“Am I so fortunate as to remind you of anyone, Miss Ferrars?”
“No,” she replied hastily. “Please excuse my rudeness, I had no idea that I was staring so hard; but you must remember that you are actually the first Victoria Cross I have ever seen; and pardon me.”
“Surely you did not expect to see anything unusual in my appearance on that account?” he asked with a smile. “I daresay you have seen many as deserving of the distinction, if not more so. It is all a matter of luck.”
“Is that the way you speak of your honours?” said Miss Saville, pouncing down remorselessly on a blot. “I have no doubt you are very proud of the cross all the same, and that you earned it well,” she added with conviction.
A bald desultory conversation was kept up and solely supported between Miss Saville and her nephew. Even Mary, from her opulent resources, could find but little to say, for Alice’s demeanour paralysed all efforts at sociability. Alice, leaning back in her chair with an air of serene divine beatitude, enacted the part of a blanket of the heaviest and wettest description.
A very dreary evening at last came to an end, and when the ladies had departed Reginald strolled out into the pleasure-grounds to have a smoke and a think.
As he paced moodily up and down, his reflections were anything but agreeable—very much the reverse.
“What an infernal idiot I was to have come here! Fairfax, thy name is fool,” he added with bitter emphasis. “Far from being inclined for peace, Alice does all she can to pose as the injured wife. There is nothing like taking high ground,” he muttered to himself, contemptuously kicking a fir-cone out of his way. “When the Mayhews come I’ll go, and meanwhile I’ll meet Alice on her own terms. I shall take her at her word once for all. No more halting between two opinions; no womanish caprice; we shall be strangers. I am actually talking to myself,” he exclaimed with a shrug of his shoulders; “an infallible sign that my reason is beginning to totter. Well, if the worst comes to the worst, I shan’t be the first Fairfax that has been an out-and-out fool.”