Poetry, Lord Cantacute was saying at dinner, is like a wind-egg—aberration in the producer, useless for consumption. You don’t attempt to eat a wind-egg. It is remarkable, perhaps; but, once gaped at, you had best leave it to the parent fowl that will be glad of it. “You encourage cannibalism?” asked the Rector, with a lifting eyebrow. Really, Lord Cantacute saw nothing against it. Perhaps it was a matter of taste—but so was poetry. And who else could thrive upon the stuff? Since all this was apropos of the absent Tristram, whose talents and fluency were admitted while their trend was deplored, Mrs. James could not fail to remember a thriving consumer of his wares. Had she not caught him administering wind-egg by spoonfuls to a hatless young lady? The excursion was closed with a flash by Miss Hertha de Speyne, who, from her golden throne, said that poetry was very well if the mortal poet did not practise what he sang. No other art, she thought, had that grain of vice in it. Now, we were not ready to practise poetry.
Mr. Germain contributed nothing to the game, but ate his dinner, or gazed solemnly at one speaker after another. This was unusual; he was fond of abstract discussion, and had his ideas about poetry. He had his favourite practitioners, too—Virgil, Pope, Gray; poetry, for him, must be elegant above all things. Elegant, fastidious, deliberately designed. Dante he could not admire. Petrarch and Tasso were the Italians, their conceits not conceited, for him. He had even—but this was a profound secret—pitched a slender pipe of his own, and was now resuming the exercise. His vein was the courtly-pastoral. The nymph Mero, let us say, was sought by the God Sylvanus, who wooed her in a well-watered vale. Or a young shepherdess—call her Marina—was the dear desire of Cratylus the mature, who offered her with touching diffidence, the well-found hearth, the stored garners, the cellar, for whose ripe antiquity (alas!) he himself could vouch. The maid was not cold; it was himself who doubted whether he were not frigid. He besought her not to despise his silvering beard, the furrow on his brow. Boys, urged he, are hot and prone; but the wood-fire leaps and dies, while the steady glow of the well-pressed peats endures until the morning, and a little breath revives all its force. Thus Cratylus to Marina in his heart.
The inexpert poet is not content with numbers; as Miss de Speyne had said, he is apt to probe what he expounds. Also, by a merciful provision of our mother, no man is permitted to think himself ridiculous, nor indeed is necessarily so. The poets are right there. The intentions of mature Cratylus may be as honourable, his raptures as true, his sighs as deeply fetched as any of beardless Corydon’s. Only, when desire fades in us, o’ God’s name let us die. Our friend here cried in his heart that his had never bloomed before. Spell-bound to a beautiful vision, he walked enraptured in the light of it, travelling up the path of its beam, sighing, not that it should be so long, but that his steps should lag so short of his urgency. And to the lips of his heart—as it were—recurred and recurred the dear, familiar phrases, true once and true now to who so love. The well-found hearth, and One beside it: surely, happily there! Denied him for so long; now in full sight! The buffeting, windy world outside, the good door barred, the ruddy fire, the welcoming arms, the low glad voice! Happy, studious evenings—an arm within an arm, a petition implied, and a promise—a held-out hand, a little hand caught within it—a prayer, an exchange of vows, a secret shared—a secret, a wonderful hope! Happy Cratylus, happy poet! Nay, it was not too late for that—not too late, please God!
In his now exalted mood, every faculty shared the high tension. His reasoning was exalted, and told him that his deep distrust of his own class proceeded from deep experience. The fierce, querulous, and dead beauty of Lady Diana passed over the scene; palely and feverishly she hunted her pleasures; and Ægisthus stalked behind, attentive, to whisper in her ear at the offered moment. No hopes could be justified under the white light of that torturing memory. He knew very well, he told himself, that no woman of his daily acquaintance could give him what he longed for. In her degree each and every one must be for him a Diana Wymondesley—with her friendships, connexions, thousand calls this way, that way, every way, any way; with her flying, restless crowded life, winters in Cairo, summers in Cowes, Scottish autumns, Sicilian springs. When could she be at home? And he, with his longings for the hearth, that infinitely holy place, must stand, be courteous, play the great gentleman, flog himself to Cairo, Biarritz, Algiers, and feel behind the mask he wore the taloned bird rake at his vitals. Never, never more! Life is to be lived once, and to each his appointed way; appointed if you must, chosen if you can. Ah, me, if choice were his at this late hour! His heart was beating high as he rose in his place for the ladies to leave the dining-room. Miss de Speyne, presuming on familiar use or her prerogative, sailed out first, a very Juno; Mrs. James lingered for a parting shot at her Rector.
“You may be right, James—it is not for me to contradict you. But Tristram is better at Pau than here; and I have good reasons for saying so.” The Rector bowed to his wife, and for once approved Hertha’s easy manners.
Returned to the Rectory, when the Rector had gone to smoke his cigar, Mr. Germain had a little conversation with Mrs. James. If he did not deliberately seek, he deliberately provoked the turn it took. But it began innocently enough.
She asked him his time of departure on Monday, supposing that he must go, and tailed off into to-morrow’s engagements. It was now that his face went a thought greyer, and that a shade more stiffening thrilled his spine. A visit to certain Manwarings was proposed for the afternoon. “Your morning you claim, I imagine?” she had said.
“No,” he replied, “I gladly make it yours. To-morrow’s, that is,” and there he paused, and she waited.
He took up his tale greatly. “On Saturday my morning is arranged for. I have, as you know, taken upon myself to be interested in the concerns of your Miss Middleham”—he marked, but chose not to remark, the flash in the lady’s eyes. Her Miss Middleham! “To-morrow I am to be allowed yet further into them; matters of moment, perhaps—I know not. That is for Saturday, at eleven.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. James—and the vowel held a volume, held it tightly. “Really she ought to be very much obliged to you.”
“Not at all. The obligation, in my view, is quite the other way. At my time of life, my dear Constantia, we are apt to plume ourselves upon the confidences of the young. I should not venture——”
“The confidences of that particular young person,” said Mrs. James with point—a dry point—“are likely to be modified on this occasion. But if she should happen to be unreserved, I could wish you would use your influence for her good.”
“Doubtless,” he agreed, “that is my sincere desire. If you could suggest to me any direction in which my services——”
Mrs. James looked at him, and he, while meeting her gaze, must needs remark upon her hard-rimmed eyes. It was as if they had been set in metal. “We spoke of Tristram at dinner—I don’t know whether you heard. I said that he was better even at Pau with poor Lord Bramleigh just now, than here. You may not have heard me.”
Mr. Germain blinked. “I am not sure that I should have conceived you, had I overheard the remark. You paint Misperton in dark colours, if what I have heard of young Bramleigh be true. And—to resume the first subject of our conversation——”
“Unfortunately the subjects are connected,” said Mrs. James, and saw him flinch. “Tristram is old enough to look after himself; but surely you will agree that his companionship is not the best for a girl in her position.”
He had not for nothing worn a mask some twenty years of his life. Wearers of these defences become very expert by use, and can turn them against themselves at will. Mrs. James got no joy out of her revelation, and he little pain; he gave her a stately bow.
“I entirely agree,” he said.
“Of course, of course.” She accepted him, but went on; “we cannot but regret it, those of us who take an interest. Unfortunately I can hardly speak to her upon such a subject, since I have no authority over her—and James will not. He is pleased to be diverted at what I have to tell him—you know his way. I don’t know how far your kindly inquiries——”
“We have hardly reached her matrimonial projects,” said Mr. Germain, so simply that Mrs. James lost her head.
“Matrimony! A nursery governess! My dear John, pray don’t misunderstand me.” He continued to blink urbanely at her, master now of the position.
“I wish to avoid precisely that. Little claim as I have to discuss such matters with Miss Middleham, I should certainly ask her to pause if I believed that she could accept the addresses of a young man like Tristram. Perhaps I am prejudiced—but——”
“Tristram,” said Mrs. James tartly, “is as likely to marry Mary Middleham as you are.”
“Is he, though?” he said, with a little jocularity. But he blinked again.
From the chamber of the beglamoured Cratylus I may pass to that of his Mero—or Marina, if you prefer it—who (with no Manwarings in prospect to afford distraction) had a day of routine to go through before the interview could be reached. There was little in this to fix her mind or woo it back from straying into the vague. It is not surprising, therefore, to find her on the morrow of her midnight adventure—a note of apology and excuse despatched to The Sanctuary—snug in her bed at an unwonted hour, nursing her cheek and remembrances together, as much alive to the fact that she had been interested yesterday as to those which promised her that she was to be absorbed to-morrow.
And then, as she lay wide-eyed, dreaming, wondering, softly-smiling, quick-breathing, her wide horizons opened up to her by flashes, or were clouded up suddenly, enfolded in the rosy mists of conscious pursuit. To know, as she must, that her company was desired, courted, deeply considered by a considerable gentleman could not but give a tinge of rose to her dream-senses. The warm fleeces enwrapped her, hugged her; they could be felt, they made her cheeks tingle as her blood coursed free. Against this passive ecstasy—this rapture of the chase—there rose in strife a new feeling, a dawning sense of power to judge and weigh, a discretion imparted, a dignity of choice. And as this prevailed and her mind leapt back to her friend of the night, see the mists thin and part and grow pallid; see her caught breath and brightening eyes as she strained to watch the far-stretching plains of life, the distant seas, blue hills—wonderful vistas, beholding which she seemed to lay her hand upon the pivot of the world. The battle raged over her form supine. Like a dormouse in her nest she lay, but within her breast, within her mind, the armies engaged swept forward and back.
A day of this must not be, and could not. She must have stimulant, she must have excitants, must do something or go mad. She recollected with a thumping heart that she might see her friend again. She was to report herself and her ankle; he had asked her and she had promised to come. There was an appointment. True, it had been for Sunday—but what were Sundays to him? It might be to-day. As she dressed she dallied with the temptation, and before she had finished she knew that she had fallen.
Early in the afternoon she sprang into her saddle, eager for the encounter. Her ankle was forgotten; she felt strong and, exulting in her strength, cleared the miles with that sense of delighted effort which a bicycle only can give—because it replies so readily. Her heart beat high as from Chidiocks, that suburb of Misperton, she saw the white hill atop of which the Common began. She walked it deliberately, holding herself back that she might play with the pleasure promised—a pleasure none the worse, mind you, for being perfectly lawful. This man was her friend, and she had never had a man for a friend before. She felt good, and very strong.
There, then, was the white peak of the tent. There, too, was the tilt-cart! So he was waiting for her promise to be kept! There again was the back of the prowling Ghost. Bingo ran on three legs across the road—dear Bingo! And there was her friend! Yes, but he was not alone. She was dismayed—had not expected that. A horseman talked to him from the road—a horseman? Ah, no, it was a horsewoman; and her friend (if she might continue to think him so) stood there in an animated discussion, and declaimed upon a paper in his hand. Her heart fell far, but she pressed on. Nothing in the world—neither tact, nor delicacy, nor fear of detection—could have stopped her. She must know more at any cost.
She went as far as she dared by the road, and then, dismounting, moved on to the turf and dropped her bicycle. Screened by furze-bushes she got to within fifty, thirty, twenty yards, and there stopped, knelt down, and watched with intensely bright eyes. The mounted lady was Miss de Speyne, the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, proud daughter of the Cantacutes, a personage so far out of her reach that her least act was acceptable as a stroke of great Fate—a sunstroke or a thunderbolt. Alas, for her joys!
But her friend, no less easy by day than by night, in one company than another, held in his hand a drawing—as she guessed—and talked vehemently of it. She could hear his words—“It’s not bad—it’s not at all bad—I admit it; and thanks very much for allowing me. But if you say that of a drawing, you say the cruellest, worst—unless you call it clever. It wants breadth, it wants maîtrise; it wants, as all half-art wants, the disdainful ease of Nature, to produce what Nature can never produce. There’s a fine line in Baudelaire—well, never mind that. No—I’ve done better than this. I did some Savernake things which pleased me—trees and glades, evening things. We had some yellow skies, shot green—wonderful, wonderful! I got some poetry into them. But this”—he gave it a flick of the fingers—“this is rather smug, you know.”
“I don’t think it smug,” said Miss de Speyne, with her great air of finality. “I like it.”
“Glad of that, anyhow,” was the artist’s thanksgiving. “Your praise is worth having.”
“I’ve worked very hard,” the lady said; “but I’m afraid I can talk better than I paint.”
“Ah, we all do that.”
“Yes,” she said, “that’s the worst of it.” They paused: she patted her horse, he looked with narrowed eyes into the weather. Presently she said, “I suppose you couldn’t come and see my things—and bring some of your own—could you, do you think? My people would be delighted.” He looked at her, considering.
“So should I be—charmed. Yes, I’ll come if you mean it. When?”
“Of course I mean it,” Miss de Speyne rejoined. “Could you come to luncheon, the day after to-morrow? That’s Sunday.”
“I know it is,” he said with a laugh. “What a heathen you think me! Yes, I’ll certainly come. But—where are you, exactly?”
“Misperton Brand—Misperton Park. You go through the village, and a little way beyond the Rectory you come to a lodge.”
“Oh, I know it!” Then he laughed at his memories. “I’ll tell you afterwards—after luncheon. Thanks, I’ll come. But I must be back pretty early in the afternoon.”
“Your own time, of course.” She gathered up her reins. “Till Sunday,” she said with a nod. He bowed—hatless as before. Miss de Speyne pushed homeward; and Mary Middleham, with hot splashes of colour in her cheeks, returned to her fallen bicycle, and never looked behind.
How much the grave benevolence of Mr. Germain may have gained by this little contretemps we may guess. Broad vistas, after all, are very well indeed for the robust; they are bracing and tonic. But if I am to be snug, give me rosy mists.
Upon the day designed by highest Heaven—as we are led to suppose—they took the way of Misperton Park, the enamoured gentleman and the lady. They sat under the famous Royal Oak—a shade with which she was, we know, familiar—Cratylus talked, Marina sat modestly listening. If he saw her the spirit of the tree—the peering Dryad Mero caught and held to his words, it’s all one. Her simple allure, her dainty reserves had ravished his senses; the tinge of sunburn in her cheeks, the glint of conscious pride in her eyes, beat back like blown flame upon his blood. That fired his brain. In a word, he loved, therefore he believed.
He spoke of himself to-day, of his youth and marriage. Lady Diana was not named, but her knife under the cloak was implied. Sadly, yet without complaint, he related the ossifying of all his generous hopes. “This,” he said, “was long ago, but the dead cannot all at once be hidden under the turf. I have been ten years long at a burying, and now have done. What remain to me of years, I know not truly; but they will be the more precious if they are to be few. I believe that I am very capable of happiness—perhaps even of bestowing it. My affairs are in good order; I have been fortunate, as you know, in worldly respects. A childless widower, I pick up my life again at fifty where I left it at five-and-twenty. And I tell myself—I have told myself but newly—that I may not be too late.”
To this sort of soliloquy, to the grave voice that rehearsed it, she had nothing to say. He found that he must import her bodily into his conversation.
“For one thing,” he continued, after a pause of exploration, “I now have leisure, as you have seen, to interest myself in my neighbours, and have derived so much pleasure from it that I am deeply grateful to those who have indulged me. You are one. I think that you must have remarked what happiness your society and your confidence have been to me.” Her shamefastness, which tied her tongue, compelled him to probe. “Have you not seen that?”
She murmured that he had been very kind, that she was grateful. “Not so, my dear,” said he, “but the persons must be transposed. The kindness is yours, the obligation upon me. Come! Can you not tell me that you have understood me? Can you not let me be satisfied that you realize your own benevolence? If you cannot, I must withhold what I was about to say to you. I should want for courage. I must ask for your assurance. You will not refuse it?”
Exciting, mystifying talk! She dared not look up—but she asked him, What it was that she was to tell him?
He luxuriated in her bashfulness. “Why, my dearest child,” he said, very near to her, “I want to know whether you believe me happy in your company?”
She would not look at him, but she said “I hope that you like me—I do hope that.”
Then he took her hand and held it in both of his own. He gazed tenderly down upon her hanging head—not one meek beauty of her escaped him, neither of burning cheek, curved lashes, of heavy eyelids, rising breast. “Then, dear child, I will tell you plainly that I love you most sincerely; that you have my heart, such as it is, in your little hands—just as certainly as one of those hands is here in mine. I have told you the truth about myself—what I hoped to be, what I was, what I am become. And now, if you can repay that confidence with a confidence, I shall be satisfied indeed. But I must ask you again, Can you value the love of a man twice your age? Remember, I shall not be hurt if you tell me that you cannot. I shall respect your confidence, whatever it may be; and shall never trouble you again. . . . What do you tell me now, Mary?”
She had started visibly at the word “love,” and had been revealed to him for a flash, which gave him the value of her wide eyes, and of the flying colour, which now left her very pale, then lapped her in flame again, and showed her like a red rose. A flash only; for immediately after she had bowed her head so deeply that her chin nearly touched her bosom, and she could have smelt the knot of carnations fastened there. Her hand was still his prisoner but she would have freed it if she could; for now she was startled indeed. Though she had been forewarned, her armour was not on. This word was a dart, and stabbed her deep. The incredible thing had come to pass.
She had been prepared for unbounded sentiment, for tenderness, for the captured hand; she had foreseen a breathless moment or so, a stoop, and a kiss. Such a string of episodes—just that string of them—would not have been strange to her by any means, and would have satisfied her anticipations perfectly. She would have been elated, would have made much of it in her mind, might possibly, after some interval, in some tender hour, have confided it to a bosom friend. On many dull days it would have shone like a lamp, assuring her of substantial things, of honour done, of a positive achievement of hers—to have won such condescension from a great gentleman. Here had been—you may say—a creditable triumph for the Middlehams. But a declaration in so many words—love offered and asked again; what could this mean but one astounding thing? She was frightened, and that’s a fact; frightened out of her wits. The averting of her head, which so enchanted Mr. Germain, was of a piece with ostrich strategy. If she could have run and hidden underground she would have done it. For what can that word love from such a man mean but marriage? I beg the lady’s pardon for leaving her hand in so embarrassing a case, her head so downcast, her breath so troublesome—but her difficulties must be faced.
Marriage, as she had been taught this world’s economy, is the be-all and end-all for women here. It is almost a disgrace, and quite a disaster for a girl to slip into womanhood and not be wedded. The enormous seriousness, then, of the affair! All men talk to women of love, and a girl had need be quick to discern which kind is the staple, which kind is aimed at lip-service, which at life-service. There will be both to reckon with; the two rarely coincide. Many a young man will seek the flower of a girl’s lips, sup of it at ease, and content himself—ah, and content her, too; whereas your serious wooer, with his eye upon comfort, a foothold, a mother for his children and a stay for himself, may well have other things to think of—a promotion, a partnership, a chance abroad, a legacy, a desirable corner house. Care will tighten his lips too hard for kissing. The future will be all that he reads after in your eyes. If he kisses, it will be by custom as likely as not; don’t I say that he will have other things to think of? Now, Mr. Germain had not kissed Mary, though, to be sure, he had spoken of his love. And yet—and yet—yes, he wanted to marry her. Frightened? Yes, she was frightened; but she was full of thought, too.
She knew very well that her ways were not those of the world above her, the world of the upper air, where Honourable Mrs. Germains, Cantacutes, Duplessis, and the like talked familiarly together of parties and public affairs. There, as she saw the heights the women were so obviously desirable that there was nothing for them to do but pick up their happiness as they chose, and as their due. There could surely be no anxiety there, no whispered debates over what he meant, or had looked, or was thinking. Their lives were full to brimming point from girlhood up; everything fell into their laps, or could be had for money. Nothing surprised her more in the lives of her betters than the frequency with which they bought—except the case of the transaction. One even paid for work, if one happened to be in the mood to work—as when Miss de Speyne, desiring to paint, hired an artist to go about with her, open a white umbrella here and there, and paint beside her. Grey, grey and hard seemed her outlook beside theirs, when (as now) she was driven to compare them. And here—O wonderful fate!—was this brimming, crowded life opening to her; to her, Mary Middleham, who had worked for pence a year, and fended for herself, and had adventures from her seventeenth to this her twenty-fifth summer. Terrible, wonderful thing! She had neither a word to say, nor a connected thought. She wanted to hide her burning cheeks, felt that she must never look up again—and all this while Mr. Germain held her cold hand. It felt dead to her: and what must he be thinking of her?
He was very patient. “Well, my dear, well!” was the note he harped upon, and (how he could read you!) “Poor child! So I have terrified you.” This idea seemed in some way to please him, for he expressed it several times; and, as he held her hand in one of his, patted it with the other—hoping, it would seem, to make her as comfortable as he was himself.
“Am I to be answered, Mary? Have you nothing to say to me?” She had not, for her life; she must have time. This she forced herself to explain.
“I don’t know what to say to you—I don’t, indeed.” But he seemed to find this quite as it should be.
He leaned a little towards her. “Shall I leave you?” he asked. “Would you wish to think it over? I will do all I can to make it easy for you.”
“Yes, please—no, I mustn’t trouble you. I mean—Oh, Mr. Germain, what ought I to say?” The russet wonder of her eyes was upon him, filled his being. He saw her quivering lip, wet from biting.
“Dearest child,” he urged her, “dearest child, consult your heart. If you think that you can be content with me—if you can believe what I tell you——”
She looked at him now as though he had hurt her. “I mustn’t believe you—I ought not—I know I ought not. I am not fit for you—not good enough—” She stammered, reproached him with her great eyes for a beating second—and then the storm broke and swept away her little defences.
She cried in his arms, for he took her there; he tasted her tears, for he began to kiss them away. At first she tried to disengage herself, but soon gave over the struggle, not daring to prolong a losing game. And it was a comfort, too, you see, to have strife done with. She hid her face, however, in his arm. He kissed her hair.
When she was quieted he talked to her—if you can call that talk which a man might use to a pretty dog, a leveret, or (if he were with it alone) to a baby; foolish, affectionate, happy nonsense, it was, charged full with pity for a creature so young and so simple. He soothed and touched her both; never had she dreamed of such kindness as this, nor of the comfort of it. So presently she lay still, looking wistfully out upon the green curves of the park, the dark masses of the summer trees, the tall deep bracken, and, afar a herd of deer feeding, twinkling their scuts as they moved slowly across the sunlit turf. Above her head she heard the murmur of his kind voice, hardly distinguished the words he used, but judged them generally to be all love and gentleness. What misgivings she may have had fell from her, as this peace claimed its rights. She thought that she could have stayed like this for ever; she thought that thus indeed it was to be. This, this was love, this how gentlemen loved. What a life was to be hers!
She sighed and snuggled more deeply into her luxury; his heart beat to feel the pressure of her. To doubt himself—whether he would fail of utter love and devotion for a confidence so exquisite as this—would have been a blasphemy. “My darling girl, my darling love, my Mary—” and, as she looked timidly up and shyly smiled her trust into his face, he bent over her transported, met and kissed her lips. She thrilled responsive and, smiling still, closed her eyes. “God helping me,” he said with a sob, “you shall never regret this day. . . .”
For their loitered progress homewards he put her hand into his arm, and it lay there so long as they were safe within the park. She hardly spoke, and only looked at him for seconds at a time. Her responses, when he called her by fond names or breathed some assurance of his love and happiness, were little pressures of the arm, flutterings of the eyelids, ghosts of smiles scarcely to be seen; but he was perfectly satisfied, the good man, sailing along upon his clouds, which were rosy and golden at the edges. He took her stoutly to her own door and left her there—would not venture himself within the sacred threshold. “I shall see you again before I go, my dearest. To-morrow I will come—ah, but you have given me wonderful to-morrows! You have made me happier than I ever dared hope to be. I will write to you, of course, from London—and do you write me again. Write me fully—confide in me—have no anxieties which I may not share. I call upon your parents in the course of the week. Dearest, will you not love me?”
She was now much moved; he might have seen her struggle to express herself—her bosom heaved in tumult and distress—a cry escaped her, “Oh, you are good, you are good! How can I help liking—how can I like you enough?” Love, she dared not say.
Respect for her held him in check; he must content himself with her hand, which, bare-headed, he kissed. “I am more than happy—I am exalted. Adieu, my love, adieu! Thank God, your days of servitude are over. Bid me good-bye now, and I will go.”
She hung her head, bashful again. He had to invite her once more, to draw her nearer, to stoop and to whisper her name. Blushing and glowing she swayed, caught by the hand, and then, as a sudden surge of gratitude swept over her, she put her hand upon his shoulder and leaned to him, looking up.
“I shall try to be good. I am sure that I love you—” she faltered; and he, swept out of propriety by her emotion and his own in confluence, took her in his arms and kissed her. At first she clung to him, and gave him kiss for kiss; but suddenly she stiffened and tried violently to get free. He felt that and released her at once, instantly himself again. In a flash she vanished. He kept his hat in his hand until he was beyond the wicket-gate, then walked back slowly to the Rectory luncheon. He had had no eyes for the passing of a tall, loosely clad young man, whose black, straight hair was uncovered, and his black eyes sideways upon everything, like a faun’s. He had had other things to do with his eyes—besides, he was near-sighted. But Mary had noticed, indeed, and was now standing in her little dark parlour, in a stare, her finger at her lip, her heart in full and open riot. He had seen her, he must have seen her—kissing, being kissed! Whatever happened, he must hear her explanation.
Saturday’s wonders, Sunday thrills—with her declared lover monumentally in the Rectory pew and his relatives all unconscious that they were soon to be hers (hers, Mary Middleham’s: O altitudo!)—did not release her, in her own mind, from the promise of Sunday afternoon. Not only had she promised, not only had she something to tell him, a solid base for her feet from which to regard him, and a sanctuary in which to hide, from which to emerge at will, ready for any encounter; not only so, but she must put herself right with him. He had seen her, must have seen her, in a delicate situation—nothing to him, of course, but somehow everything to her. She could not, she said, afford that he should deem her a girl of the sort—to be kissed in a doorway by anybody, gentleman or no gentleman. There were reasons—special reasons for it; and since, as the fact was, these reasons did not now seem as cogent as they had yesterday, there was nothing for it but to cry them over and over to herself. “Engaged to be married—engaged to be married—to Mr. Germain—to Mr. Germain of Southover House. And he loves me dearly—and I love him.” So she pedalled and sang.
Racing with her thoughts, the bicycle took her to the common of Mere that blazing Sunday afternoon. His eyes looked up from their work, twinkled and laughed at her. “So it’s you, then! I thought you wouldn’t come.” He was mending the sole of a shoe, and resumed his cheerful tap-tapping directly he had greeted her.
She stood leaning on her bicycle, watching his work. Her new estate sat in full possession of her eyes.
“Yes, I’ve come. I couldn’t come earlier.”
He paused, hammer in air. “It was as well you didn’t. I’ve been out lunching.”
She knew that very well, and with any other man would have pretended that she did not. Some pretty fishing would have followed—with him out of the question.
“At the Park?” she said—turning up the statement into a question by habit.
“Precisely there,” said he, and returned to his shoe. No fishing in such waters as his—but he looked up again presently with a laugh in his eyes. “I met your Mr. Germain,” he told her—and she flamed.
“I wanted to tell you—I felt that I must. I am—I was with him when you——”
He nodded over his shoe leather. “So I supposed.”
“That was Mr. Germain—you know——”
“I know. I recognized him. I had been to reconnoitre the Park——”
She could not, perhaps, have accounted to herself for her next question. “Do you like Miss de Speyne?”
He frankly considered it for a while, looking at the questioner without discomfort—to himself at least. “Yes. Yes, I think I do. She’s a fine young woman and she’s simple. She’s herself. Yes, I like her very much. She can paint flowers—nothing else. But she paints flowers well.” So much for the Honourable Hertha de Speyne.
“May I sit down?” Mary was quite at her ease again. He jumped up with apologies, and brought her cushions. Bingo came up, wagging his back, and, being caressed, sat up stiffly beneath her hand. She watched her friend fill his pipe and collected herself for her affair. Then she lowered her eyes, and began, hardening her voice.
“I came because I wanted your opinion, as I hoped—I mean as I thought I possibly might. You remember that I said I should like to talk to you? Well, I didn’t know then—for certain—what I should have to say. But—” She stopped there.
“But now you do? Is that it?”
“Yes. Shall you think it strange of me?”
“I don’t know—but it’s very unlikely. If I do I’ll tell you. Go on.”
“It’s about Mr. Germain. Do you remember that I told you—he’d been kind to me?”
His eyes were narrow, but upon her, critically upon her. He smoked slowly, as if he enjoyed every fibre of the weed on fire.
“Yes, I remember.”
“He was so kind—he went so out of his way to be kind that I was puzzled. I could not help fancying——”
“Naturally. Well?”
She plunged. “He has asked me to marry him.”
Her friend took his pipe out of his mouth, looked long at it, and put it back again.
“I saw that he had—yesterday.” He might have seen pride shine in her eyes at that compliment. But, instead of looking for that, he asked, “And is he going to?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, pondering.
“But does he think he is?”
She fondled Bingo, who threw up his head, eyed her gratefully and accepted the compliment. Then she answered him.
“Yes—I believe he does.” During the ensuing pause their eyes met for a moment.
“He’s very much in love with the idea,” said the gentleman-tinker. “He was highly uplifted to-day—anybody could have guessed.” He added, as if to himself, “It may do. It sometimes does.”
She considered this, then threw up her head and was eloquent. “It won’t do—it can’t. That makes me unhappy, instead of happy. I know that it is not right—whatever you may say of—of there being no classes. I feel that there are classes, more than enough, perhaps; but there they are and we can’t help them. Whatever you may say about specimens in boxes, Mr. Germain is a gentleman, and my father is not; and his first wife was a lady—a Lady Diana Something—and his second, if it’s me, won’t be—but just a little ignorant person who has worked for her living since she was sixteen, and seen all sorts of people—and—and—done all sorts of things. No, no, it can’t be right—for him, at any rate. How am I to satisfy him, try as I will? Why, there’s Mrs. James at the Rectory—she terrifies me. I feel like a lump of earth beside her—and she likes me to—she looks and looks down at me until I do. And I fight against it—I try to meet her—I try to be myself, and to feel that I am as good as she is—and all the time I know I’m not. And yet—he’s extremely kind—nobody could have spoken more gently than he did. He made me cry—he did, you know. I couldn’t help it—and I had no answer for him and so—and so he thinks that I shall marry him. But I don’t know whether I dare—I promise you I don’t.”
He watched her gravely, nodding his head from time to time; and at the end he smiled doubtfully.
“Well,” he said, “and I don’t know whether you dare. I don’t know, you know, but I should say that you could dare most things you had set your heart on.”
Her eyes quickened. “My heart is not set on it. I was very excited yesterday—any girl in my position would be—oh, most wonderful! But—if I could—if I dared, I should run away. I promise you.”
He regarded her kindly. “Well, then,” he said, “Run.” She stared—their eyes met—hers fell first. “No, no. I mustn’t. He expects me now—besides, he has—No, I belong to him now—if he wants me.”
The gentleman-tinker got up—appeared to be annoyed. He took a stride or two up and down the road. “This is against conscience—good God, it’s against Nature. It’s why I loathe marriage, why I would never marry. It’s all feudal—it’s the law of Real Property. You are in a market—he buys you with a kind word and a—Look here now—” and he faced her, frowning. “Will nothing teach you your value—will nothing give you respect for yourself?” He turned away abruptly. “I beg your pardon. I’ve no right to talk to you like this.”
She forgot to be involved—forgot that she was involved—in his condemnation. “Please talk to me—please to make me understand,” she said, but he wanted a good deal of persuasion. No, no. It has nothing to do with him; he should only make mischief—had made too much already; and, said he, finally, “I can’t afford it. I am rather prone, I believe, to get interested in other people’s affairs—and it interrupts my own confoundedly.”
“I’m very sorry,” she said, prettily contrite. He bit his cheek. “Not your fault, of course—all mine. I got interested in you when I found you in the wire—highly romantic that sort of thing. And—and—so it’s gone on. Well—” He looked at her anxiously. “Well, I shall do harm, I’m certain; but I’ll tell you what I think if you insist on it.” She clapped her hands, glowed and sparkled like a diamond. She looked bewitchingly pretty.
“Please, please! I won’t speak a word until you’ve done.”
He sat, and began slowly.
“I stick to my opinion of classes, of course. You aren’t in a position to judge; you’ve never had a ghost of a chance. As far as men go, there are only two classes—men who can behave and men who can’t. My father taught me when I was a boy to call all men men, and all women ladies. There was the man who swept the crossing, and the man who sat on the Bench; but I remember that I got into a row for talking about the ‘woman’ who sold matches. ‘All women are ladies unless you know to the contrary,’ said my father. ‘Don’t you ever forget that!’ And I never did. If you’ll forgive me, there’s nothing in what you say about your own unworthiness and Germain’s magnanimity except one thing—and that is, that you, who have everything to gain, are the last person to admit what is so obviously true. And you are not quite honest. You don’t fear yourself really—you are confident in your inmost heart that you can learn what you suppose to be solemn duties. But—” He collected himself for his But, while she hung her detected head.
“But he, mind you, is persuaded—and it’s you who are helping him to believe—that he is a superior person doing you an enormous honour. He calls it kindness, of course, and so do you—oh, so do you! and that’s what he’s in love with mostly—the idea of exalting you, putting you on a pedestal, kneeling, making sacrifice, burning incense. He’s full of it—he was trembling with it to-day—and he’ll do it, I’m certain, and then retire into his inner chamber and beat his breast and cry to his soul, ‘How lovely she is—how sensitive to these wonderful honours! I put her there, O God! I did it—under Thee! Lord, I thank Thee for this glorious work which is mine.’ I suppose you think I’m a maniac. I’m frightfully sane. . . .”
“He’ll be as happy as a king, like his betters before him, Cophetua I., Cophetua II.—the whole dynasty. That’s his point of view, you know, and it’s not a bad one. It’s very artistic. Old Tennyson saw that. But before you lend yourself to it—a girl like—well, any girl you please—I do think you should ask yourself where you come in. How much worship can you stand? How long can you be sensitive to benefits and honours? How long before they become matters of course? How long before you want the real thing? Because I need not tell you that there is a real thing——”
Had he not broken off here she would not have met his eyes—nor he hers. The saying would have been merged in the general drift of his harangue, which was serious enough. But she caught at the break, caught at the words, caught at the sense, looked at him seriously, looked at him full. His eyes, being upon her, met hers, and held them. She was confounded. That moment of interconsciousness was fully charged: it is much to his credit that he slipped out without abruptness.
He took a turn up and down the road before he went on.
“A man will go through life possessed with an idea, and be absolutely happy with it. Don’t have any fears on his account. It is all that he wants: the woman’s only business is to lend herself to it. But we’re considering the woman—and there’s this great difference. They don’t like ideas at all. They like things—that they can touch, stroke, handle, nurse, wash and dress. If you find such things, you are all right. But if you don’t——”
And then he stopped—in spite of her. She tried him with a “Well, what then?” but could get nothing more from him.
“Oh, I hope you will. Let’s hope so,” was all he would say.
She nursed her chin with her hand; he, at his length beside her, plucked at the turf. Too many confidences had passed for her to be reticent now. “You say you will never marry,” she began.
“Never,” he said. “The state’s impossible, wrong from the beginning. It puts the woman hopelessly in the wrong. It’s monstrous.”
“Then you think—Yes, I believe you are right. At any rate, I mustn’t let Mr. Germain——”
He sat up. “Look here,” he said. “Germain will make you a very good husband. He’s a true man.”
She was busy with Bingo, to Bingo’s quiet satisfaction. “Yes, I’m sure of that. But——”
Her tongue was tied, and so now was his. The ensuing silence was not comfortable to either, and the instinct of a good girl made her end it at any price. Rising sedately, she held out her hand.
“Good-bye—and thank you very much. You have made me think.”
He laughed as he shook hands. “You have made me think, too. Good-bye. All happiness.”
She did not reply to that, but said, “We meet again, I hope.”
“Sure to,” he said. “This is an island.” Then she must needs go.
Of the two of them the man was the more perturbed—but he had his remedy. After a frowning quarter-hour he was up and packing his tent. Within the hour he was on the road.
With her, no revolt against what was to be. There is no revolt visible under the sun for the poor. When Mr. Germain called the next morning to bid her farewell she received him with all the virginal airs of the consciously possessed. He measured her fourth finger. A pretty ceremony.
Revolt is, as it always has been, within easy reach of the great; but a Rector’s wife should attend upon her lord. The Hon. Mrs. Germain watched her James’s eyebrow, waiting for the lift. It came, and her cry broke from her. “James, James, this cannot be possible!” She saw her fair realm in earthquake and eclipse.
The Rector, no less disturbed, could not for the life of him avoid his humour. “Alas, my dear”—one eyebrow made a hoop in his forehead—“all things are possible to amorous man.”
“Amorous!” she whistled the word. “John—and that minx! You use horrible words.”
“Hardly so, my dear. Not horrible in a man’s regard for his wife. The state is sanctioned.”
She was beyond his quibbles. “What are we to do? Heavens and earth, what can we do?”
He eyed his brother’s letter ruefully. “Upon my word,” he said, “this is a facer. I could have believed anything of any man sooner than this of him. Old John! Exactly double her age—and she a quiet little mouse of a girl out of a cottage. Woodbine Cottage, eh? That’s it, you know. Woodbine Cottage and white muslin have done it. Do you remember the valentines of our youth—gauffred edges, a pathway to a porch—the linked couple, and the little god in the air, pink as a shell? White muslin—fatal wear! He sees her so to all eternity; enskied and sainted, in muslin and a sash! Confound it, Constantia, I feel old.”
She was beyond his whimsies. “You may be thankful that you do. This appears to me disgusting. Have we used him so ill that he should slap our faces?”
The Rector indulged his eyebrows again. “Diana!” he said.
She did not defend that dead lady, but even another Lady Diana seemed more tolerable to Mrs. James. Pecca fortiter, she could have said, had she had a head for tags. Lady Diana, sinning de race, would have been intelligible, say, to the Cantacutes. But here was no sin, but merely a squalid enchantment. A doting gentleman, a peering little nobody in muslin—How should this be put, say, to the Cantacutes? Aberration? Chivalry? Romance? Never Romance, precisely because that was just what it was—pitiful romance. James had hit it off exactly; it was the washy, facile romance of a sixpenny valentine, of a thing that housemaids drink with their eyes. Saponaceous—Heavens and earth! Mrs. James lifted her hands, and let them fall to her lap. “I simply cannot hold up my head in the village,” she said. “James think of the Cantacutes.”
“Why on earth should I think of the Cantacutes?” He was testy under his trouble. “I have my brother to think of. He’s been hasty over this—which is most unlike him—and secret as well. I had no notion any such thing was going on, not the least in the world.”
It was Mrs. James’s duty to confess that some notion ought to have been hers. And she did confess. “It so happens that I was speaking to him of this girl the night we dined at the Park. He told me that he was interesting himself in her and I asked him to say something about Tristram.”
“About Tristram?” says the Rector sharply. “What about Tristram, pray?”
She could not but remember former warnings. “I think you will do me the justice, James. You have been told that Tristram has chosen to amuse himself with her. Who has not? I remember telling you about it, when, as usual, you laughed at me. I begged John to influence the girl—to induce her to respect herself—and with this result!” The Rector pushed his chair away.
“You speak more truly than you know,” he said, rose and took a turn about the room. “Now I understand the haste. He had been hovering, poor, foolish fellow—singeing his grey wings; but it was you, Constantia, drove him to plunge. Take my word for it. Dear, dear, dear, this is really a great bore. I don’t know what to do, upon my word I don’t.”
“I shall speak to the girl, of course,” said Mrs. James, gathering up letters and keys. It is doubtful if her husband heard her. He had stepped through the window into the garden before she had risen. “The Rector’s Walk,” a pleached alley of nut trees, received him; for more than an hour he might have been observed pacing it, with lowered head and hands behind his back. But Mrs. Germain went about her duties of the day with tight lips and eyes aglitter. At intervals her anguish betrayed itself in cries. “Monstrous! Monstrous!”
To her it was monstrous, for she saw the girl without glamour, standing amid the wreckage of a fair realm—a little governess, wickedly demure. The Germain banner was rent, the Germain character blotted; that carefully contrived dual empire which she shared with the Cantacutes was threatened; her authority as a county lady, as Rector’s wife, toppling, her throne wanting a leg. She saw herself pitied, her husband’s family the object of lifted brows. And she had been a loyal wife, and knew it, because she had honestly admired the marks of race in the Germains. Herself a Telfer, she was of that famous Norman house which lost first blood at Hastings; and she never forgot it, least of all when she had married into the Germains, who were county and good blood, but not noble. She remembered, she always remembered that—but she was a loyal wife. Without and within, he and she were a strong contrast—he frosty, dry, and deliberate, she fiery, impulsive, storm-driven, not above the aid of tears; he lean and pale, she a plump woman and a pink. His instinct was to approve at first blush, hers to disapprove. They were good friends, and had never been more; there were no children. That had been a grievance of hers until she got into the way of saying that the Germains were a dwindling race, and—“look at poor John Germain!” I wish the reader to note the subtle change from complaint to complacency in Mrs. James’s outlook. It marks her character. To be a barren wife through no fault of your own and to take comfort in saying that your husband comes of a dwindling stock shows that you have an eye for outline in a family. It is rather like excusing your Black Wyandottes, which give you no breakfast eggs—“Yes, but that’s the mark of the breed.” So here—“either I have children, or my husband is no Germain.” Here was strong character exhibited; and all may be forgiven to strength. But weakness—mere dotage—mere desire; a landed gentleman of fifty and a girl in muslin—“Monstrous! Monstrous!” cried Mrs. James in her bitterness.
When Mary, home from The Sanctuary, heard the click of the wicket, and the swish of a silk petticoat over the flagstones, she knew what was coming upon her. Her colour fled, and returned redoubled, and a scare showed in her quick eyes. In a moment she called up her defences—her more than one letter—she had received a third that morning. “I shall see your father,” that said, “an hour after you receive this, my Mary. If I know anything of his daughter he will not fail to confirm the signal trust which she has shown me.” She had not been very sure what he meant by “signal trust”; it must certainly be something which any girl might be proud to have. And she had something more wonderful than a letter—a ring, the most splendid she had ever seen—a great sapphire set in a lake of brilliants. She glanced at it now as, hearing the lady at the door, she slipped it off and put it in her pocket. Mrs. James knocked, like a postman; and with a wild heart Mary went to meet her enemy in the gate.
“Ah, good-evening, Mary. May I come in? Thank you.” She preceded her dependant into the little parlour, sat in the chair which had most the similitude of a throne, and began at once upon her subject.
“I have called to see you in consequence of a letter which the Rector received this morning from Mr. Germain. May I inquire if you guess—? No, indeed, I see that I need not.” The girl’s face told the tale; her eyes were cast down; inquiry of the sort was absurd. “I think, Mary, that you have strange ideas; I do, indeed; and am sorry to have to add that I know where you have obtained them.” But Mary had spirit, it seemed.
“I obtained them from Mr. Germain,” she said, with a certain defiance which may have been very natural, but had been better away. “I obtained them from him. They were not mine, I assure you.”
Mrs. Germain opened her mouth and shut it with a snap. She opened it again a little way to say, “The thing is impossible,” and another snap followed.
“So I told Mr. Germain,” said Mary.
“My impression is very strong,” continued Mrs. James, ignoring interruption, “that you have misunderstood Mr. Germain’s kindness, and strangely so. That being the case—” Mary’s eyes flashed.
“I beg pardon, Mrs. Germain, but that is not the case. Mr. Germain has gone to see my parents to-day. He writes me word——”
“You will kindly allow me to finish. I believe that you misunderstood something Mr. Germain may have said to you—some advice, or inquiry, or offer of help; that he may have seen your error and regretted it while he was too chivalrous to undeceive you. I consider that you may be preparing a great unhappiness for yourself and for him, and I am in a position to say——”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain,” said Mary, “but nobody is in a position to say anything to me of this but Mr. Germain himself.”
Now this was so obviously true that even Mrs. James accepted it. She had been too hasty, and while she was swallowing her chagrin Mary took her opportunity.
“I must tell you, please, that you cannot be more surprised than I was when Mr. Germain spoke to me as he did. I had never dreamed of such a thing; it is not likely that I should. He had been all that’s kind to me ever since the school-treat—even now I can hardly believe that any one could be so kind; but when he—when he spoke to me—asked me if I could care for him—in that way—I vow to you I could not answer him. I was most stupid—I was confused and could not collect my thoughts. And I never did collect them,” she cried with a sudden burst of confession, “and never answered him at all—except by crying, which any girl would have done, I think; and then he—well, then he k——”
Mrs. James shut her eyes tight. “I know what you are going to say. No! no! Be silent, I beg.”
Mary put her hand to her throat, as if she was being choked. Her eyes shone like jet. “I hope that you will be just to me, Mrs. Germain, I do hope so. I know that you put all the blame on me, but it is unfair to do that. What could I do? If he spoke to me kindly, must I not answer kindly? If he came to see me, how could I refuse to see him? If he invited me to walk with him, what could I say, or do? And then—when he asked me, Did I care for him—and—and—oh, I must say it!—kissed——”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Germain, with a spasm. “Oh, wicked, wicked!”
Mary flamed. “I am not wicked, Mrs. Germain, and I must ask you not to call me so. Mr. Germain would not like it at all. You cannot believe him to be wicked; and if he did what he did he had good reason. And now I will tell you that I never answered his question, and have not known how to answer it.”
“Answer it, girl! You prevaricate. Answer it—in the face of his letter to my husband!”
“Mr. Germain has been more than kind,” said Mary, losing ground, “and—and——”
“And Mr. Duplessis has been more than kind, I believe,” said Mrs. James—and her words were knives. The girl quailed. “Pray, how much more kindness is my family to show you?”
Mary was now very cold. “One member of it,” she said, “will show me none—will not show me even justice. Mr. Duplessis has no claim——”
“Claim!” cried the great lady, red as fire, “what claim should he wish to make? I think you have lost your senses.” She may well have lost patience, courage, and a good sense. She stamped her foot.
“I wish you would leave me alone, Mrs. Germain. You are cruel to me, and unjust. I have done you no harm—no, but always my duty, and you know that very well. You drive me into corners—you make me say things—I am very unhappy—please leave me.” She covered her eyes to hide the tears which pricked her.
Mrs. James was not to be melted by such a device. “If you are to be impertinent, I shall certainly leave you,” she said. “This matter, however, cannot be left as it is. The Rector must see you about it. Good-evening.”
But when the unaccountable Rector received the report from his wife he was pleased to show temper. “I think you have acted foolishly, Constantia, and more—I think you have acted with great want of consideration, I had almost said with want of respect for my brother. You have read his letter; you know how he stands towards Mary; and you rate her as if she were a servant caught in a fault. Really, that won’t do. I must make amends. Preposterous! That my brother’s affianced wife should be treated like a kitchenmaid! You have no right—no earthly right—to say to her what you would not dream of saying to my brother. Heavens! to John Germain! head of one of the best families in England! Tst, tst! I am very vexed.”
He must have been, for he went early to the cottage and asked for Mary. When she appeared before him, flushed and with all her defences out, he held out his hand to her, drew her towards him and kissed her. “So we are to know you in a new capacity, my dear,” he said. “I shall be very ready for that.” Her tears gathered; one brimmed over and fell, but did not scald.
“Oh, Mr. Germain—” she began—and ended there with a choke.
“My dear, I’ll tell you this—you have won a true man. I know my brother better than you do, at present, and you may take my word for that.”
“Thank you, thank you,” was all that she could say.
“One thing more: you will be welcome at the Rectory. You mustn’t take anything that has been said to you amiss. You know that when we are taken aback sometimes we don’t always—well, I’ll ask you. Has anybody ever made you jump? Eh? Somebody has? Very well, weren’t you rather cross for a minute? Confess that you were. My dear, we all are; but it don’t mean anything.”
“No, no, indeed. Oh, Mr. Germain, I don’t know what to do about all this!”
“Your duty, my dear, to God and man. It’ll be before you every day: all you have to do is to take it up.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But—Mr. Germain, I’m frightened—really. I’m ignorant and stupid—and of course I’m different from——”
“You’ve a pretty way of confessing it, at any rate,” said the Rector. “It will all come right, I hope. You are very quick, I can tell—you’ll learn your lesson in no time. I know you are a charming young lady, and believe a good one. There’s not much more than that in any one that I’ve ever seen in these parts. Now don’t be offended with me if I say that you are going to have a good husband, and ask you to deserve him.”
“Oh, Mr. Germain!”—her tears fell freely—“I do want to be good—I do mean to try!”
“Bless you, my dear, I’m quite sure of that,” said he, and gave her another kiss.
He told his wife that evening definitely that they must make the best of it, and gave her to understand that John’s wife must be taken at John’s valuation. If John chose to marry a kitchenmaid, that kitchenmaid was ipso facto on the Germain level; so also if John had selected an archduchess. A Germain could pick up or pull down, said the Rector in effect. But he also announced that he should go to town on the morrow—which weakened his decree.
So he did, and was away two days—an interval of time during which Mary went grimly about her duties and Mrs. Germain faced the problem of the Cantacutes. This lady may be pitied, who felt her crown slipping and throne rocking on its degrees. Her loyalty to the family into which she had been married was sapped; she did not see how Germain character was to be admired if it betrayed a Germain into such a vagary. Her husband, her temperate, frosty James, was involved; for the first time in her life she was tempted to work against him. She could do that, mind you; she had the weapon to her hand, a double-edged tool—Tristram. A hint to Tristram at Pau and he would be here—and once here, should he look upon Mary as she believed he would, as the lion on a lamb printed by his paw, why, what chance had John Germain against him? That villainy she could practise if she chose; but she knew it was a villainy, and that she was no villain. Then there was another way, not villainous—nay, was it not a duty? She could tell John Germain what she knew of Tristram and hint at more than she knew. A Germain would shiver at such a tarnish on his ideal—she could see John shut his eyes as the spasm passed over him; but there was this difficulty about it, that she could not write to him without her husband’s knowledge—nay, without his approbation—whereas, what more natural than that she should deplore with her cousin Laura Duplessis this miserable state of affairs? Mrs. James was no villain; she was merely a proud woman touched on a raw. Her security, her comfort, her authority, her self-esteem were all threatened by an act of dotage; what else was this infatuation of John Germain’s, pray? And there are sophistries to help the very best of us. Had there been nothing between Tristram and Mary, Mrs. Duplessis would have been invited to sympathize; and there was nothing, after all. Tristram, with his high connexions, his talents, and his superb air—and a little sly teacher! The thing was absurd! Fully convinced of its absurdity, Mrs. James marched down to the Cottage, and found her cousin Duplessis arranged on a sofa with a white lace mantilla over her head; her hand-bell in easy call, and a smelling-bottle attached to her wrist by a little chain.
Mrs. Duplessis had been handsome, and remembered it. Everything about her person reminded her of that—her languor, her elegance, her thin hands, her fine complexion, her tall son. “How I survived the birth of that great boy passes my comprehension. My nerves, you know! My dear Hector, all fire as he was, had the tact of a woman. ‘M’amie,’ he said, ‘never again; or I accuse myself of murder. Hence-forward I am a monk.’ He kept his word, but it killed him. Do not men die for women? My poor, brave Hector!” Apart from these tender reminiscences, she had her poverty to cherish, to tinge with dignity, to show burnished—with a lovely patina like old lacquer. “We live wretchedly, as you can see, my dear soul; but we pay our way and hold our heads up. We only owe to ourselves, and are indulgent creditors. Tristram, I suppose will marry: il doit se ranger, vraiment. But he says that we can afford leisure—our only luxury! The good Cantacutes are most kind, and Hertha a really charming girl. . . . Why is it that young men cannot see where their fortune lies? Cynicism? Arrogance? Ingratitude? I ask myself these questions.”
She was enormously interested in the news, and gratified. “My poor soul, what a blow! John Germain, of all humdrum persons in the world—and the girl not even pretty, you say. Clever, though. Have you broken it to Emily Cantacute? I don’t envy you that task.”
“It’s not done yet,” said Mrs. James grimly.
“Oh, my dear, but it is,” her cousin replied acutely. “John Germain is just the man to be in opposition. Pride, you know. We all have that. He would call it chivalry.”
“Do you know how far Tristram might be concerned in this?” Mrs. James inquired shortly; Mrs. Duplessis narrowed her eyes and slowly shut them.
“Tristram never gives confidences,” she said, in a carefully fatigued voice. “On such a matter I had rather he did not.”
Mrs. James would have none of this.
“My dear Laura, we are alone. I think I know Tristram well enough to say that he has interested himself in the girl. No doubt he has flattered her; I think she has been grateful. It would not be surprising if he were unprepared for such a change of affairs.”
“On the contrary,” said Mrs. Duplessis, “judging by what you seem to think of her, I should imagine that he might be prepared for anything. To be sure, there is John Germain——”
“John Germain and Tristram are not good friends; I happen to know.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Duplessis, “that throws some light.”
“Perhaps it does,” Mrs. James returned; “but I should not like to say where it throws it.” She had a shrewd suspicion that she and her cousin might be in the beam. There was a taint in all this.
The Rector came back that night greatly bothered. More than once in the course of the evening he threw up his hands. “My poor, good brother! Heaven help us all!”
“I found him inalterably fixed,” he told his wife, “and perfectly complacent. His serenity confounded me, put me to shame. He sees his happiness as clearly before him as you see his misery. He loves the child for the very things which you dislike in her. You say that she is common, and I cannot contradict you. He says that simplicity can grace any station. Ignorant we call her—he says, It shall be my privilege to teach. You call her sly; he protests. But so is the hunted hare. He says that the thought of a young girl struggling single-handed with a world of satyrs from her sixteenth year freezes his blood. You class her with them: all satyrs together, you say. Constantia, I tell you that his folly is more noble than our wisdom. I boast myself a Christian, but what am I in truth if not a very Pharisee? ‘Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as one of these’! Is this Christian?”
“It seems to me common gratitude,” said his wife. “Pray, did you tell him that the girl was compromised?” The Rector frowned.
“Naturally, I did not, since I neither knew it, nor believed it. Compromised, Constantia! That is a dangerous word to use. That involves a good name.”
“It does indeed, James. It involves ours. I tell you that the girl is stale.” She might as well have shot him—she had never done herself more fatal mischief.
He seemed hardly able to look at her, nor did she know him when he did. “Do you dare speak so of any woman born? To the brother of this girl’s—do you dare? You have shocked me beyond expression.”
She was certainly frightened—but she had her duty to do. “I am sorry to have displeased you. I spoke advisedly. I hope that I always do that.”
His pride was stinging him. He spoke now as if he were her enemy—coldly, as if he hardly knew the woman.
“If, as I am bound to believe, you are speaking with knowledge which I do not possess, I must ask you to let me share it. This is a very serious matter both to John and to Mary. With whom do you say she is compromised?”
Two and two make four, of course—but two shadows and two cannot make four plump facts. Mrs. James knew that she had gone too far. She had little but suspicion behind her. “I think that Tristram has made love to her,” she said, and rehearsed the scene of the garden. As she put it now, the Rector made a wry face.
“This, at its worst, is discreditable to Tristram. I see your point now. Mary, you suggest, has had experiences. All girls have them, I suppose, and certainly are not always the worse for them. You must have something worse than this to excuse your strong words.”