Mrs. Prendergast had heard of Chudleigh Wilmot's accession to fortune before the news had reached that more than ever "rising" man. Though she was not among Mr. Foljambe's intimates, and though that sprightly old gentleman found less favour in her eyes than in those of most of his acquaintance, she knew when his illness commenced, when it had assumed a dangerous form; and she was one of the earliest outsiders to learn its fatal and rapid termination. She was indebted for all this information to Dr. Whittaker, whom she had assiduously cultivated, and who was very fond of talking of all and everything that nearly or remotely concerned Wilmot. The little professional jealousy which had sometimes interfered with Dr. Whittaker's genuine and generally irrepressible admiration of the genius and the success of his confrère and superior had given way to the influence of the superior's loftiness and liberality of mind; and with Dr. Whittaker also there was, as old Mr. Foljambe had said, on an occasion destined to affect many destinies, "nothing like Wilmot."
Dr. Whittaker was not aware that Mrs. Prendergast valued his visits chiefly because they afforded her an opportunity, which otherwise she could not have enjoyed, of hearing of Wilmot. She had too much tact to permit him to make any such mortifying discovery, and he had too much vanity to permit him to suspect the fact, except under extreme provocation. So Mrs. Prendergast accounted his visits as among her most agreeable glimpses of society; and he regarded her as one of the most sensible and unaffected women of his acquaintance. Thus, when Dr. Whittaker's attendance on Mr. Foljambe came to a close with the sprightly and débonnaire old gentleman's life, he brought the news to his friend in Cadogan-place, and they lamented together Wilmot's untimely absence. But Dr. Whittaker had previously conveyed to Mrs. Prendergast information of another sort, which had largely influenced the feelings with which she heard of Mr. Foljambe's death.
It was the same welcome messenger who had brought her the tidings of Madeleine Kilsyth's marriage; and never had he been more welcome. She had steadily persevered in denying to herself that the young Scotch girl could possibly count for anything, one way or another, in the matter in which she was so vividly interested; but she had not succeeded in feeling such complete conviction on the point as to render her indifferent to any occurrence which effectually disposed of that young lady before Wilmot's return. That he should have come back to London, to all the former prestige of his talent and success, with the new and brilliant addition that he had acquired the whole of Mr. Foljambe's large fortune, to find Madeleine Kilsyth unmarried, and to be brought upon an equality with her by the agency of his wealth,--this would not have appeared to Henrietta by any means desirable. The obstacles which the social pride of her relations might have opposed to a penchant for Wilmot on the part of Miss Kilsyth--and Mrs. Prendergast had always felt instinctively that such a penchant, if it did not actually exist, would arise with opportunity--would be considerably modified, if not altogether removed, by Wilmot's becoming a rich man by other than professional means. Altogether there were many new sources of danger to her project, which did not relax in its intensity and fixedness by time, silence, or leisure for consideration, in the possibility of Madeleine Kilsyth's being again brought within Wilmot's reach, which presented themselves very unpleasantly to the clear perception of Mrs. Prendergast.
"And so you had not heard of Miss Kilsyth's intended marriage at all, knew nothing of it until after the event?" said Dr. Whittaker, after he had imparted the intelligence to Mrs. Prendergast. To him it was merely an item in the gossiping news of the day; nor had he any suspicion that it was more to his hearer.
"No; I had not heard a word of it. And I wonder I had not, for I have seen Miss Charlton several times; and I know Mrs. M'Diarmid has been at their house frequently. She must have known all about it, and I can't fancy her knowing anything and not talking about it."
"No," said Dr. Whittaker. "Reserve is not her forte, good old lady. But they say--the omnipresent, omniscient, and indefinable they--that Miss Kilsyth expressly stipulated that the engagement was to be kept a profound secret. She is troubled, I understand, with rather more delicacy and modesty than most young ladies at present; and she disliked the pointing and talking, the giggling and speculation which attend the appearance of an engaged young lady in what is politely called 'high life' on such occasions."
"The engagement was not a long one, I suppose?" said Henrietta.
"Only a few weeks, I understand. They say Lady Muriel Kilsyth was rather anxious to get her stepdaughter off her hands--"
"And into those of her not particularly rich cousin, I fancy," said Henrietta. Dr. Whittaker laughed.
"I daresay I shall hear a great deal about it at the Charltons'," she continued; "I am going to dine there to-morrow. I know Mrs. M'Diarmid will be there, and she will have plenty to tell, no doubt. I shall hear much more about the wedding than I shall care for."
Mrs. Prendergast dined at Mrs. Charlton's on the following day, and she did hear a great deal about the wedding, which Mrs. M'Diarmid was of opinion had not been quite worthy of the occasion either in style or in publicity, and whereat she could not say Madeleine had conducted herself altogether to her satisfaction. Not that she had been too emotional, or in the least bold in her manner, but she had taken it all so very quietly.
"I assure you it was quite unnatural, in my opinion," said the old lady, with a homely heartiness of manner calculated to convert other people to her opinion too. "Madeleine was as quiet and as unconcerned as if it was somebody else's wedding, and not her own. She positively seemed to think more of little Maud's dress and appearance than of her own, and she was as friendly as possible with Mr. Caird."
"Friendly with Mr. Caird, Mrs. M'Diarmid!" said Henrietta. "Why should you be surprised at that? Why should she not be friendly with him?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know, my dear," answered Mrs. M'Diarmid, who called everyone 'my dear;' "it did seem odd to me somehow--there, I can't explain it; and I daresay I'm an old fool--very likely; but they did seem more like friends to me, that is, Madeleine did, than lovers--that's the truth."
Miss Charlton remarked to Mrs. Prendergast, with a sentimental sigh, that she perfectly understood Mrs. M'Diarmid,--that Miss Kilsyth's manner had had too little of the solemnity and exaltation of such a \serious and important event. "At such a moment, Henrietta," said the young lady, raising her fine eyes towards the ceiling, "earth and its restraints should fade, and the spirit be devoted to the heavenly temple, Which is the true scene of the marriage."
"All I can say, then," said Mrs. M'Diarmid, by no means touched by the high-flown interpretation placed upon her remarks, "is, that if anyone can be reminded of a heavenly temple by St. George's, Hanover-square, they must have a lively imagination; for a duller and heavier earthly one I never was in in my life."
"I suppose the wedding-party was numerous?" said Mrs. Charlton, who never could endure anything like a verbal passage-at-arms; and who was moreover occasionally beset by a misgiving that her daughter was rather silly.
"Not what the Kilsyths would consider large, my dear; only their immediate connections and a few very intimate friends. Miss Kilsyth would have it so; and indeed the whole thing was got up in a hurry. It was announced in the Morning Post on Monday, and the marriage came off on Wednesday."
"I suppose the bride had some splendid presents?" said Miss Charlton, whose curiosity was agreeably irrepressible.
"O yes, my dear, lots. Some beautiful and expensive; some ugly and more expensive; Several cheap and pretty; and a great many which could not possibly be of use to any rational being. You know Mr. Foljambe, don't you, Mrs. Prendergast?"
"Yes," said Henrietta; "I know him slightly."
"He is an old friend of Kilsyth's; poor man, he's very ill indeed--could not come to the wedding because he was ill then, and he is much worse since; he gave Madeleine the handsomest present of the lot--a beautiful set of pearls, and he sent her such a nice, kind, old-fashioned letter with them. He is a real old dear, though I always feel a little afraid of him somehow."
"Is Mr. Foljambe really very ill?" said Mrs. Charlton.
"I am sorry to say he is," said Henrietta; "I saw Dr. Whittaker to-day, and he gave a very bad account of him."
"Dr. Whittaker?" said Mrs. Charlton inquiringly. "I don't know him; I--"
"No," interrupted Henrietta with a smile; "he is not yet famous; he is only just beginning to be a rising man. He is a great friend of Dr. Wilmot's, who, when he went abroad, placed several of his principal patients in his hands."
As Henrietta mentioned Wilmot's name, she glanced keenly at Mrs. M'Diarmid, and perceived at once that the mention of him produced an effect on the old lady of no pleasing kind. Her face became overcast in a moment.
"I hope Miss Kilsyth's--I beg her pardon, Mrs. Caird's health is sufficiently restored to make any such provision in her case unnecessary," said Henrietta to Mrs. M'Diarmid in her best manner; which was a very good manner indeed.
"Yes, yes," the old lady said absently; then recovering herself, she continued, "Madeleine has been much better latterly; but Sir Saville Rowe has been looking after her. Dr. Wilmot recommended her specially to his care."
The conversation then turned on other matters, and did not again revert to the Kilsyths; but Mrs. Prendergast carried away with her from the substance of what had passed two convictions.
The first, that Wilmot had entertained sufficient feeling of some kind for Madeleine Kilsyth to render him averse to bringing her into contact with the man who attended his wife's deathbed, and who might therefore have been inconveniently communicative, or even suspicious.
The second, that there was some painful impression or association in the kind, honest, and simple mind of Mrs. M'Diarmid connected with Dr. Wilmot and Madeleine Kilsyth.
On that evening Mrs. Prendergast settled the point, in consultation with herself, that Madeleine's marriage was an important advantage gained. How important, or precisely why, she had no means of ascertaining, but she felt that it was so; and she experienced a comfortable feeling, compounded of hope and content, at the occurrence.
A week later Dr. Whittaker called on Henrietta and communicated to her the intelligence of Mr. Foljambe's death; and in a few days later the accession of Wilmot to his faithful old friend's large fortune was made known to her in the same way.
And now Henrietta felt the full importance of the removal of Madeleine Kilsyth from Wilmot's path. He would return to London of course--perhaps to abandon his professional pursuits, though that she thought an unlikely step on his part. His sphere of life would, however, certainly be changed; and the best chance for the success of her project would consist in her being able to induce him to form habits of intimacy and companionship with her before the increased demands of society upon him should whirl him away out of her reach. Even supposing, which she--though more capable than most women of taking a contingency which she disliked into sensible and serious consideration--did not think likely, that Dr. Wilmot would contemplate a second marriage, and that marriage purely of affection, he would certainly return to London heart-whole. If Madeleine Kilsyth had indeed possessed for him attraction which he could not disavow to himself, nor avow to the world, so much the better now as things had turned out. Madeleine would have held his fancy captive until such time as fate had set between them a second inviolable barrier; and this new and keen disappointment, even supposing he had never distinctly formulated his hope, would have turned his heart, and brought him: back irresistibly to the realties of life.
Thus, knowing nothing of the actual circumstances of the case, unaware of the twofold shock which Chudleigh Wilmot had received by the events which she calmly regarded as equally fortunate; unconscious of the storm of passion, rage, grief, and helplessness in which Wilmot was wrapped and tossed, even while she was quietly discussing the matter with herself, Henrietta Prendergast arranged the present before her eyes, and questioned the future in her thoughts. But had she known all of which she was ignorant--had she been able to see Chudleigh Wilmot as he really was, while she was thus thinking of him, the revelation would hardly have changed the current of her thoughts, though it might have robbed her of much of her composure. In that case she would have reflected that she had but mistaken the quality and the depth of his feelings, that circumstances remained unchanged. Wilmot had been passionately in love with Madeleine Kilsyth; but he was now none the less certainly, irrevocably, and eternally separated from her.
Thus, the facts which she knew, the facts which she guessed, and the facts which were effectually concealed from her, all bore encouragingly upon the projects of Henrietta Prendergast. It is only just to acknowledge that the increase to his wealth did not intensify or sharpen Mrs. Prendergast's wish to marry Wilmot; indeed it rather depressed her. She felt that it might create new obstacles as strong as those which fate had removed; she would have preferred his being in his former position. "If I could have won him as he was," she thought, "and then this fortune had come, that would have been better. However, ever so poor he would have been a man worth winning; it makes no difference in that respect his being ever so rich."
After all, this appreciation, calm and passionless, yet just, clear-sighted, and true, was not a gift to be despised by a sensible man, who had had the gilding pretty nearly taken off the gingerbread of his life, but it was not likely to be valued as it deserved by a man pining desperately for the impossible love of a brilliant young beauty like Madeleine Kilsyth.
One immediate purpose which Henrietta set strongly before her was to see Wilmot as soon as possible after his return, of the time of which event she would be duly informed by Dr. Whittaker. She had had no communication with him since the puzzling interview which had preceded his departure; he had neither written nor gone to take leave of her; but this omission, which would have been extremely discouraging to a less keen-sighted woman, was not discouraging to Henrietta. She knew that, as far as she was concerned, it meant simply nothing. Wilmot was deeply distressed and preoccupied; that was the cause of it. She also knew that at present, in his life, she meant nothing, and she was satisfied, so that the future should afford her a fair opportunity of coming to mean much. But she must attain and begin to profit by that opportunity as soon as possible--she must endeavour to anticipate other impressions; and for this purpose she resolved to seek an interview with him immediately on his return.
"I will write to him at once," she said to herself "He has no reason to wish to avoid me; and if he had, he would conquer it at an appeal made in the name of poor Mabel."
And this strange yet matter-of-fact woman paused in the busy current of her thoughts and plans to bestow affectionate remembrance and true regret on her dead friend! Henrietta Prendergast was neither inconsistent nor insincere.
* * * * *
"I hope you did not think me intrusive in asking you to call on me so soon," said Henrietta to Chudleigh Wilmot, when he had duly presented himself in answer to a note from her, which she had written on the day Dr. Whittaker had told her Wilmot had returned to London.
"You have seen him, of course?" she had asked Dr. Whittaker.--"Yes, I have seen him. He looks extremely ill--wretchedly ill, in fact. As unlike a man who has just come in for a tremendous stroke of luck as any man I ever saw. I fancy he was more cut up about his wife's death than either you or I gave him credit for--eh, Mrs. Prendergast?"
And now, holding Wilmot's hand in hers, and looking into his sunken eyes, marking his sallow cheek, the rigidity of the expression of his face, the thinness of his hand, she thought that Dr. Whittaker's first impressions were correct. He did look ill, wretchedly ill. He did indeed look little like a favourite of fortune.
He assured her, very kindly, that her note had only forestalled his intention of calling upon her immediately, and apologised for his former omission.
"I ought to have come to say good-bye," he said; "but I could not indeed. I made no adieux possible to be avoided."
"And have you benefited by your absence? Have you gained health and spirits to enjoy the good fortune which has befallen you?"
She asked him these questions in a tone of more than conventional kindness; but her face told him she read the answer in his.
"I am quite well," he said quickly; "but perhaps I don't enjoy my good fortune very much. I am alone in the world, Mrs. Prendergast; and my fortune has been gained by the loss of the best friend I ever had in it."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "that is very true. Poor Mr. Foljambe! He missed you very much; but," she added, for she saw the painful expression of self-reproach which she had noticed in their first interview after Mabel's death settle down upon his face, "you must not grieve about that. He expressed the utmost confidence in Dr. Whittaker."
"I know--I know," said Wilmot. "Still I wish--however, that is but one of many far heavier griefs. I did not come to talk about my troubles," he said with a faint smile. "You had something to say to me--what is it? Not only to congratulate me on being a rich man now that it is too late, I am sure."
"It is not altogether too late, I think," said Henrietta in a low impressive voice; "and I wanted to speak to you of something connected alike with your grief and your fortune."
"Indeed!" said Wilmot in a tone of anxious surprise.
"Yes," said Henrietta; "I did not know how long or how short a time you might be within my reach; and so I determined to lose no time in endeavouring to gain your assent to a wish of poor Mabel's."
The conscious blood rushed into Wilmot's face. This, then, was the double connection of his present visit with his grief and his fortune. And he had not been thinking of Mabel! His dead wife's friend believed him indifferent to the wealth that had come too late to be shared by her; and except for the first sudden remembrance which the sight of Henrietta had produced, he had not thought of his dead wife at all. He thought of her now with keen remorse--keener because it had not occurred to him to think of her before, in connection with his wealth. Yes, the life which had had so dark an ending might have been very bright and prosperous now, with all this useless money to gild it. He shrunk from Mrs. Prendergast's steady eyes with all the shame and uneasiness of a candid nature when given credit for motives or deeds superior to the truth. No vision of the dead face he had seen, awfully white and still, in his little loved home, had arisen to blot out the prospect of a future rich in all that wealth can give, to teach him how infinitely little is that all, how poor that richness! But he carried about for ever between him and the sunshine a vision of a fair girlish face, with pleading innocent blue eyes, with golden hair and faintly flushing cheeks, with sweet sensitive lips, and over all a look which he knew well and interpreted only too accurately. And that face, it did not lie in a coffin indeed, but as far, as hopelessly away from him--it lay on another man's breast This was his grief; the other--well, the other was his shield from suspicion, from observation, his defence. He seized upon it, feeling unutterably the degradation of the evasion, and answered:
"I will be more than grateful, Mrs. Prendergast, if you can show me any way in which I can fulfil any wish of hers. If there is anything within the power of any effort of mine, let me know it."
Then Henrietta, in her turn, putting the dead woman forward as a pretext, began to discuss with Wilmot the provisions of a certain charitable institution, to which she knew it had been Mrs. Wilmot's wish to contribute, but which she had not felt entitled by her means to assist. Wilmot acceded to all her suggestions with the utmost readiness, besought her to tax her memory for any other resource for doing honour to Mabel's memory, and prolonged his visit considerably beyond Henrietta's expectation. In her softened manner there was now no reproach, and her sense and calmness refreshed his jaded spirits. It was a relief to him to be in the company of a woman who did not expect him to be anything but sorrowful, and who yet had no suspicion of the cause and origin of his sorrow. So thought Wilmot, as he left Henrietta, having asked her permission to call on her again speedily.
And at the same moment Henrietta was thinking--
"He knows something of the torture of love unrequited and in vain now. It won't last, of course; but for the present, if she could only know it, poor Mabel is avenged!"
Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay Caird lived, it is needless to say, in a fashionable quarter of the town. They could not have lived in any other. Their lot being essentially cast among fashionable people, it was necessary for them to reside somewhere within fashionable people's ken; and that ken is, to say the least of it, limited. It is known to vulgarians and common persons that there are buildings beyond Oxford-street on the north side; but it is not known to fashionable people. They, to be sure, know that some "old families"--and this is said with an emphasis which conveys that the families in question are almost pre-Adamite in their age--reside in Portman-square. The fashionable world allows this as a kind of old-world eccentricity, as it allows male members of said families to appear in the evening in blue tailcoats and brass buttons, and to swathe their necks in rolls of cravat, instead of donning the ordinary small tie. It is a respectable eccentricity; but it is an eccentricity after all. North of Oxford-street is as much "the other side" to the fashionable world as is Suez to the Eastern travellers by the Peninsular and Oriental route. The fashionable world has heard of the big terraces of splendid mansions which Messrs. Kelk and Austin have built in the Bayswater-road facing the Park; they have seen them occasionally when they have been driving to Kensington-gardens; they believe them to be inhabited by a respectable moneyed class; but the idea of looking upon them as residences for themselves has never once struck them. These houses are such an enormous distance from "anywhere," which to the fashionable world is bounded by the Regent-circus on the east, Belgrave-square on the south, the Marble Arch on the west, and Oxford-street on the north.
It is possible that if the choice of district had been left to Madeleine herself, poor child, she, never particularly caring about such matters, and not being in a very critical or very argumentative state of mind at the period of her marriage, would have fixed upon some comfortable pleasant house, cheerful, roomy, airy, but in a wrong situation. If the choice had been left to her father, there is no doubt that he would have made some tremendous blunder of the like kind; for Kilsyth when in London was always opening his arms and expanding his chest and gasping for air. Accustomed to the free atmosphere of his native Highlands, the worthy gentleman suffered torture in the dull, dead, confined and vitiated air of the London street; and amidst the many sufferings which he underwent for the sake of society of during the few weeks when he remained in town during the few weeks when he remained in town was the martyrdom which he was put to in the tiny ill-ventilated rooms in which he had occasionally to dine or pass a ghastly half-hour "assisting" at a reception. But Lady Muriel and Mr. Ramsay Caird took this matter in hand. Of their own express wish as it was to them the task of selecting the residence of the about-to-be-married couple was to be confided; and there was no doubt that they would take care that their choice should not be open to question.
On Squab-street, Grosvenor-place, that choice fell. A curious street Squab-street; a street in a progressive state; a street which was feeling the ad immediate vicinity of Cubitopolis, but which was yielding to the advancing conquest piecemeal and by slow degrees; a street of small houses originally occupied by small people--doctors, clerks well-up in the West-end government offices, a barrister or two with fashionable proclivities, and several lodging-houses, always filled with good visitors from the country or eligible regular tenants; a quiet street, looked upon for many years as being a long way off, but suddenly awaking to find itself in the centre of fashion. For while the doctors had been paying their ordinary seven-and-sixpenny visits within what was then almost their suburban neighbourhood; while the West-end government-office clerks had been plodding to and fro from their offices; while the barristers had been pluming themselves on the superiority of their position to that of their brethren, who, true to old tradition, had set up their Lares and Penates in the neighbourhood of Russell-square and the Foundling Hospital; while the lodging-house-keeper had vaunted as recommendations the quietude of the vicinity and the freshness of the air, the great district now known as Belgravia was being reclaimed from its native mud, the wild meadow called the Field of Forty Footsteps was being drained and built on, the desolate track over which our ancestors pursued their torchlighted way to Ranelagh and Vauxhall was being spanned by arches and undermined with gas-pipes; and when all these grand improvements were complete Squab-street, which had held a respectable but ignominious existence as Squab-street, Pimlico, blossomed out in the Post-Office Directory and the Court-Guide as Squab-street, S.W., and thenceforward emerged from its chrysalis state, and became a recognisable and appreciated butterfly.
The effect of the change on the street itself was immediate. Two or three leases fell in about that time, and the householders, in whose families the leases had been for a couple of generations, made no doubt of their renewal. Lord Battersea was the ground landlord--not a liberal man, not a generous man; in short, a screw, and the driver of a hard bargain, but still a good landlord. He would be all right, of course. Would he? When the leaseholders went to Lord Battersea's man of business, an apple-faced old gentleman with a white head and a kind of frosty wire for beard, they learned that his lordship had fully comprehended the change in the state of affairs in Squab-street, and was prepared to act accordingly. As each lease fell in, the house which was vacant was to be increased by a couple of stories, and to have its rent trebled. Squab-street was to be a fitting accessory to Grosvenor-place. In vain the dispossessed ex-tenants declared that none of his lordship's then holders could pay the new rent: the apple-faced old gentleman was sorry; but he thought his lordship could find plenty of tenants who would. The tenants grumbled; but the man of business was firm. So were the tenants: they yielded up their leases; and so the houses were improved, and the rents were raised, and other tenants came of a class hitherto unknown to Squab-street. Married officers of the Guards, who found the situation convenient for Wellington, and not inconvenient for Portman barracks; members of parliament, who found it handy for the House; railway engineers and contractors of fabulous wealth, who could skurry to and fro their offices in Great George-street; and City magnates, who walked to Westminster-bridge, and went humbly in to the Shrine of Mammon by the penny-boat. All these new-comers lived in the enlarged houses, gorgeous stucco-fronted edifices, with porticoes which looked as if they did not belong to the house, but were leaning up against it by accident, and plate-glass windows and conservatories about the size of a market-gardener's hand-lights.
But the other houses in Squab-street, the leases of which had not run out, remained in their normal condition, and were the same little brisk, cheery, cleanly, snug common brick edifices that they had been ever since they were built. The new style of buildings had grown up round about them, and was dotted here and there amongst them; so that the range of houses in Squab-street looked like a row of uneven teeth. The original settlers, who at first had been rather overawed by the immigrants, had in time come to look upon their arrival as rather a benefit than otherwise; the doctors extended the number and the importance of their patients; the government clerks bragged judiciously of the "swells" who lived in their street; and the lodging-housekeepers, secure with leases of many unexpired years, raised their prices season after season, and found plenty of fish to swallow their hooks.
The house which Lady Muriel and Ramsay Caird, after much driving about, worrying of house-agents, search of registers, obtaining of cards to view, and general soul-depression and leg-weariness,--the house which they eventually decided upon was represented in the sibylline books of the agent as an "eligible bachelor's residence, in that fashionable locality Squab-street, S. W." Such indeed it had been for several previous years; the Honourable Peregrine Fluke, known generally as Fat Fluke, from his tendency to obesity, or Fishy Fluke, from a card transaction in which he had once been mixed up, having been its respected occupant. The Honourable Peregrine Fluke was a very eligible bachelor indeed, and led the life of the gay young fellow and the sad dog until he had passed sixty years of age. Then pale Death, knocking away with impartial rat-tat at the doors of all, the huts of the poor and the castellated turrets of kings, stopped at 122 Squab-street, and called for the Honourable Peregrine Fluke. The eligible bachelor succumbing to the summons, his executors came upon the scene; and wishing to do the best for the lieutenant in the Marines, who was understood to be the eligible bachelor's nephew, but who was clearly proved to be his illegitimate son, put up the lease of the house--the only available thing belonging to the deceased--to auction, and found a purchaser in Kilsyth. Lady Muriel's clever tact also secured the furniture at a comparatively cheap rate. It was not first-rate furniture--a little rococo and old-fashioned; but a few things could be imported into the drawing-rooms; and, after all, Ramsay and his wife were not rich people--young beginners, and that kind of thing, and the place would do very well to commence their married life in. Lady Muriel always spoke of "Ramsay and his wife" when any monetary question was under debate, ignoring utterly that all the money came from Madeleine's side. For not only was there Madeleine's twenty thousand pounds, but Kilsyth, when the marriage was settled, announced his intention of making the young couple such an allowance as would prevent his favourite child from missing any of the comforts, any of the luxuries to which she had become accustomed.
The situation was undoubtedly fashionable; but that the house itself might have been more comfortable could not be denied. What was complimentarily called the hall, but was really the passage, was so small, that the enormous footmen, awaiting the descent of their employers from the little drawing-rooms above, dared not house themselves therein. Two of them would have filled it to overflowing; so they were compelled either to remain with the carriages, or to run the chance of being out of the way when required, and solace themselves in the tap of the Battersea Arms, down the adjacent mews. The door was so small and so low, that these great creatures rubbed their cockades and ruffled their coats in passing through it. The house stood at the corner of the mews, and every vehicle that drove in or out caused an earthquake-like sensation as it passed. Doors creaked, china rocked, floors groaned, walls trembled. The little dining-room was like a red-flocked tank; the little drawing-rooms encumbered with the newly-imported extra furniture, were so choke-full, that it was with the utmost difficulty that visitors could thread their way between table and couch and ottoman and étagère. It required a knowledge of the science of navigation to tack round the piano; and the visitor, when once he had reached a seat by the hostess near the fireplace, could scarcely devote himself to conversation, owing to the trouble which filled his mind as to how he would ever get away again. It was not advisable to open any of the side-windows, even in the hottest weather, or a stably odour at once pervaded the house, and the forcible language addressed by the grooms to the horses, whose toilet was performed in the open yard, was a little too audible. It was impossible for guests to go through the ceremony of "taking down" to dinner. The steep little ladder-like staircase was only passable by one person at a time; and in the narrow little tank of a dining-room the people who sat with their backs to the fire were roasted alive, and had the additional pleasure of having to eat their meat vegetable-less and sauce-less, there being no approach to them and no passing them. Still everyone said that the situation was delightful, and the house was "quite charming;" and Lady Muriel and Ramsay Caird took great credit to themselves for having secured it.
Madeleine herself was but little impressed by it. It was immaterial to her where she lived, or in what style of house. She shrugged her shoulders when they told her the rooms were charming; she raised her eyebrows when her servants complained of darkness and inconvenience. "It did very well," was her highest commendation, and she never found fault. If this girl's life had not been strangely solitary and without companionship, she would have had all sorts of confidences to exchange with some half-dozen intimates as to her new life, her new home, her new career. As it was, she dropped into it quietly, with scarcely a remark to any one. After her little and short-lived daydream had dissolved, after she had awakened to the exact realities which were about her, her period of suspense was very short. What passed between her and her brother Ronald at the interview which, as settled with Lady Muriel, he sought at his sister's hands was never known. The result was satisfactory to the prime movers in the scheme; and the result was that Madeleine was to marry Ramsay Caird. There was another interview connected with the matter which neither Lady Muriel nor Ronald ever heard of. When the news was first announced to him by his wife, Kilsyth received it very quietly. The next morning, before my lady had risen, the fond father, in pursuance of an appointment made in a note secretly sent up by the maid the night before, went to his darling's room, and had a half-hour's long and earnest conversation with her. Earnest on his side at all events: he asked her whether this engagement had been brought about of her own free will; if she had thought over it sufficiently; if she would wish the time of betrothal to be lengthened beyond the usual period; if there were anything, in fact, in which she would wish to make reference to him, and in which he could aid her. To all these inquiries, urged in the warmest and most affectionate manner, he got but the same kind of reply. Madeleine kissed her father fondly. She hated the thought of leaving him, she said; but it would do very well. It would do very well! She had not even the heart to be deceitful--to feign delight when she did not feel it. It would do very well! Kilsyth's warm heart beat more slowly as he istened to this lukewarm appreciation of the expected joys of his daughter's future; he scarcely comprehended anything so fade and so spiritless from a young girl about to undergo such an important change in all the phases of her existence. He again pressed his question home, and received the same answer; and then he made up his mind, for the thousandth time in his life, that women were extraordinary creatures, and that there was no dealing with them. This was a very favourite axiom of his, and had been enounced with much solemnity frequently. On this occasion, however, he kept silence, shaking his head in a very thoughtful and prophetic manner as he descended the stairs to his own dressing-room. It would do very well! Madeleine thought of the reply which she had given to the most important question ever put to her, after her father had left her and when she was alone. She knew her father well enough to be certain that a word spoken at that time by her to him would have stopped the engagement, and left her free. And what would then have ensued? She would have made an enemy of Lady Muriel, with whom she had to live; she would have deeply annoyed Ronald, who had always, in his odd way, shown the greatest love for her and the keenest interest in her welfare; and in the great question of her life she would have advanced not one whit. Chudleigh Wilmot was gone--gone for ever. An alliance--a continuance even of the friendship, such as it had been, with him was impossible; her friends wanted her to marry Ramsay Caird. Well, then, it would do very well!
A phrase significant of a state of mind in which marriages are often undertaken, but surely an unlucky and a pitiable state of mind. Something more than a tacit acquiescence is meant by the vows of the marriage-service; and though cynics endeavour to persuade us that these vows are far more frangible and far more often broken than they used to be, it is as well to believe in the whole force of them while we stand before the altar-rails, and before the priest utters his benediction. And the worst of it all was that the phrase expressed Madeleine's feelings thoroughly--her feelings as regarded her marriage, her feelings towards her husband. It was Ramsay Caird--it might have been Clement Penruddock, or Frank Only, or Lord Roderick Douglas, or half-a-dozen others. She had an equal liking for all these men; no love for any one of them. In her earlier girlish days, some year or two beforehand, she had wondered which of the young men who frequented the house would propose to her, and which of them she would marry. None of them had ever proposed to her. They saw long before she did that she was marked down for Ramsay Caird. These sort of things are concealed with the utmost discretion by long-headed mothers, are never suspected by daughters, and are discussed between male friends of the family with much openness and freedom. She had been a favourite with all these pleasant youths; but they knew perfectly well why Ramsay Caird was always at the house, and why he inevitably had the best chance; and their regard for Lady Muriel was by no means diminished by the clever manner in which she aided and assisted her protégé.
After marriage, at least during the first few months after marriage, it was very much the same. Madeleine "liked" her husband; he was quite gentlemanly, genial, cheery, very hospitable, very fond of pleasure, very fond of spending money on her, on himself, on anyone. He never interfered with her in the smallest degree, and never was happier than when she was under the chaperonage of her mother, and his attendance on her was not required. During the first few months of her married life she received a vast number of callers; all of whose visits she duly repaid; went out constantly to dinners, balls, receptions of all kinds, to operas and theatres, private and public fêtes,--everywhere, in short, where people can go--with decency and enjoy themselves. Not that Madeleine enjoyed herself. "It would do very well," seemed to be the keynote no less in her pleasures than in the rest of her life. In company she sat with the same ever-blank look until she was roused. Then she responded with the same smile. O, so unlike her old smile! With an upward glance of her blue eyes, where there was no light now, and with the little society-laugh which she had recently learned, and which was so different from the hearty ringing burst which used to greet her father's ears at Kilsyth in the old days before her illness--those days which seemed to her, to them all, but to her most of all, so long ago.
Visitors she had in plenty. Scarcely a morning passed without a call from Lady Muriel, who, still priding herself upon the admirable manner in which by her tact her stepdaughter had been "settled," looked in to see how she was getting on, to learn who had been to see her during the preview day, what parties she had been to, who she had met, what their reception of her had been, and what invitations for forthcoming gaieties she had received. A comparison of notes on these last matters, now a favourite occupation of Lady Muriel's, with whose great name the world of fashion had begun to busy itself, proclaiming her as one of its leaders,--and she, always equal to the occasion, had accepted the tribute gracefully, and, as in everything else, conscientiously discharged the duties of her position,--then luncheon, to which meal Lady Muriel would frequently remain, and when some of the more intimate friends of the family, notably Mrs. M'Diarmid, would drop in; not that Mrs. M'Diarmid's accession added much to the comfort of the meal. The dear old lady, when her favourite project of marrying Madeleine to Wilmot had been untimely nipped in the bud, and when she saw that Ramsay Caird, whom she cordially disliked, was the accepted suitor, relinquished all opposition in silence, and contented herself with sniffing loudly, as the sole demonstration of her displeasure. That marriage-service, which she had pictured to herself with so many different "eligibles" as bridegrooms, might, but for the presence of mind of his Right Reverence of Boscastle, have been sorely interrupted by the defiant sniffs which came from the right-hand pew close by the altar-rails, where Mrs. Mac, dressed in the brown moire which had so often filled her dreams, had bestowed herself, to the deep indignation of the pew opener. But she did not allow her disapproval of the marriage to interfere with her love for "her dear child;" she came constantly to Squab-street; and the pleasantest hours of Madeleine's life were passed in the society of this good old woman, when she knew that there was no call upon her to exert herself in any way, or to show herself otherwise than she really was; when she could lie back in her chair, and indulge herself with the sweet sad daydream of "what might have been," which contrasted so harshly and unsatisfactorily with what was.
A drive in her stepmother's carriage, or a round of calls in her own brougham, filled up the afternoon, until it was time to return home to preside at her tea-table and receive her friends. After her engagement had been regularly announced there had been a good deal of fuss made about that five-o'clock tea-table; the young men who were intimate at Brook-street had vowed that they would make it the pleasantest in London; that more news should be heard there than anywhere else; and that the men who write in the Cotillon--a charming amateur journal of political canards and society gossip, published during the season--should go on their knees and implore invitations. The tea-table had been established in due course, but it had not been such a success as had been anticipated. Madeleine was triste and quiet to a degree. The men could not understand it, she had always been so pleasant before her marriage; unlike most women, who are always a doosid sight pleasanter after it. They had been in the habit of finding their old partners of the two or three previous seasons, now married, by no means indisposed to listen to the compliments which they had been erst in the habit of addressing to them; and the practice had derived additional piquancy from the fact of the change of condition in the person addressed. There was Lady Violet Penruddock, for instance, only married to old Clem--O, within a few weeks of Miss Kilsyth's marriage; and how jolly she was! Looked as fresh as possible--fresh as paint, some fellow said; but that was a confounded shame, don't you know,--only a little powder and that kind of thing, what all girls use, don't you know--doosid cruel you women are to one another! There was Lady Vi, jolly as a sand-boy! Old Clem was at his club, or some place, and didn't come home till late, and there was always tearing fun at Grosvenor-gate. Charmin' woman, Lady Vi; and very wise of old Clem to like to read the evening papers, and that kind of thing. Not that there was anything to be complained of Caird in this matter; never thought much of Caird, eh, did you? he was never at home; but his wife had grown so confoundedly dull, hipped, and that kind of thing--bored, don't you know? sits still and don't say a word except yes and no; don't help a feller out a hit, you know, and looks rather dreary and dull.
Poor Madeleine! she was beginning to be found out by her friends. If you live in society you must contribute your quota, according to your means--either your rank, your money, your talent--towards the general stock; but unless your birth will warrant it, you must never be dull; and in no case must you differ from the ordinary proceedings of your order. Madeleine was very unlike Lady Violet Penruddock, she felt--very unlike indeed. But that was her misfortune, not her fault. She would have been very glad to laugh and flirt with all her old friends, to talk nonsense and innocent scandal, and all the society chit-chat, if she had been able; but she was not able. Under all her quiet manner and shyness and girlishness Madeleine Caird possessed what Lady Violet Penruddock had never pretended to--a heart. That heart had been hurt and torn and lacerated; and as in the present day it is not possible to explain this, or rather it is considered essential to hide it, Madeleine was obliged to put up with the imputation of dulness, when in reality she was merely suffering from having loved someone who, as she thought, did not care for her, and having been compelled to marry somebody for whom she had no real affection.
Did Ramsay Caird ever fancy that his wife did not care for him, or at least was not as romantically fond of him as are most wives of their husbands during the first few months after marriage? If he did, did the reflection ever cost him a moment's anxiety, a moment's distrust, a thought that perhaps his own course of living was not precisely adapted to enthral the affections of a young girl? Not for an instant. Ramsay, when Lady Muriel's half-spoken hints had first enlightened him as to the position which, for his dead brother's sake, her ladyship proposed to him to hold, had cogitated over the matter in an essentially business-like spirit, and had come to the conclusion that such an opportunity ought by all means to be made the most of. He was a calculating cautious young man, entirely devoid of impulse; and--as had been suspected by more than one of the frequenters of the Brook-street establishment, who, however, were much too good fellows to hint at it openly--he was a man fond of common, not to say gross pleasures, which his limited means prevented him from indulging in. A marriage with Madeleine Kilsyth, herself a very nice girl, as society girls went, would give him position, ease, and money--leave him his own master, with power and opportunity to pursue his own devices--and was therefore for him in every respect most desirable. With all his easy bearing, his laiesez-aller manners, and his apparent nonchalance, Mr. Ramsay Caird possessed his full share of the national 'cuteness; and having made up his mind to win, looked carefully round him to see where his course lay straightest, and what shoals were to be avoided. He determined to make a waiting race of it, convinced that any eagerness or ill-timed enthusiasm might spoil his chance; he saw that his game was to be quiet and wait upon his oars until he received the signal to dash out into mid-stream; his complete willingness to attend to all suggestions, and to take his time from the family, quite fascinated Ronald Kilsyth, from whom at first Caird had apprehended opposition; and, as we have seen, when the time came, he declared himself with so strong a show that no other competitor dared put in an appearance.
But when the race had been run and the prize secured, Ramsay Caird felt that the crisis was past, that the long course of tutelage under which he had placed himself was at an end, and that henceforward he would enjoy those benefits for the acquisition of which he had regulated his conduct for so many months. He had not the smallest love for his wife; he had even but small admiration for her looks. Madeleine's blue eyes and golden hair were too cold and insipid for his taste. In his freer moments he was accustomed to talk about "soul"--an attribute which poor Maddy was supposed not to possess--and "liquid eyes" and "classic features" and the "sunny South"--which, as Tommy Toshington remarked, when told of it, accounted for his having seen Caird on the previous Sunday afternoon ringing at the door of the villa temporarily tenanted by Madame Favorita, the prima donna of the Opera, and situated in the Alpha-road. Tommy Toshington invariably happened to be passing by when the wrong man was ringing at the wrong house; and got an immense number of pleasant dinners out of the coincidence. So that Ramsay Caird saw but little of the interior of his own house after leaving it in the mornings. He at first had been somewhat punctilious and deferential with Lady Muriel, taking care to be at home when she came, and to be in attendance when he thought she would require his presence; but after a few weeks he threw off this restraint, and kept the hours which suited him. Kilsyth looked blank and uncomfortable once or twice when at dinners, specially given in honour of the new-married couple, Madeleine had appeared alone, and Lady Muriel had proffered a story of Ramsay's toothache or business appointment; and Ronald had looked black, and held more than one muttered conversation with his stepmother, in the course of which his brows contracted, and his mouth grew very rigid. But Madeleine never uttered a word of complaint, although Lady Muriel was in daily expectation of an outburst. She sat quietly, sadly, uninterestedly by. Better, far better, for all concerned if she had had sufficient feeling of her own loneliness, of her own neglected condition, to appeal in language however forcible and strong. To labour under the "it-will-do-very-well" feeling is to be on the high road to destruction.