The most natural sequel to a mutual understanding, such as this between
the two lovers, would be that they should get married with the least
possible delay; and, as a matter of fact, that is what happened. The
legacy having been handed back at Marion’s instance and with Philip’s
consent, Marion would hardly be justified in opposing any unreasonable
delay to the personal claims of so obedient a lover. It is not every
man, however much in love he may be, who will surrender twenty thousand
pounds without a murmur. But Philip, in the first place, was not of a
specially avaricious disposition; and the unexpected success of his poem
had impressed him with a belief in the pecuniary possibilities of a
literary career, such as rendered him comparatively indifferent to
extraneous resources. Beyond this, however, he had the insight to
discern that the fundamental motive of Marion’s action had not
transpired in her arguments. What really moved her was some lurking
tinge of jealousy with regard to the past relations between himself and
Perdita. What basis there may have been for such jealousy, if there were
any basis for it, Philip may have known; but he had always avoided any
reference to it, and he probably did not care to risk the opening of the
subject which would be likely to follow Marion’s enforced acceptance of
the legacy. Marion would never be happy under the persuasion that she
was in possession of money which, in the natural course of things,
should have gone to Perdita. Philip, therefore, capitulated with less
parley than he might otherwise have attempted.
They were married in the course of three or four weeks, and went to
spend their honeymoon on the Continent; the chief goal of their
pilgrimage being the field of Waterloo, where Marion saw her father’s
grave. There was no drawback to the enjoyment of the journey; it was a
period of serene and profound happiness on which it would be pleasant to
dwell at more length. But happiness has few events, nor any apparent
movement; it is like a chapter from eternity, which is the infinite
development of the present moment. Time loses its semblance of reality,
and the discovery that it does, nevertheless, continue to pass, comes as
a surprise. The time arrived when Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster were
constrained to set their faces homeward: but they did so with unshadowed
hearts. Life had begun for them with the sweetest auspices, and there
seemed no reason to anticipate that it would not proceed to still
brighter issues.
The home of the newly-wedded couple was to be, for the present, in the
old house in Hammersmith, which, with some alterations in the way of
furniture, would be commodious enough, and which was endeared by
association to Marion and her mother, and to Philip also, as being the
place where he had first met his bride. It was now the “little season”
in London; Parliament was to sit early, and the town was rapidly filling
up. The excitement of war being over, every one was set upon getting the
largest possible amount of excitement out of society, and the next few
months promised to be brilliant ones. Among the literary celebrities of
the day, no man’s reputation stood higher at this moment than that of
Philip Lancaster. He was mentioned in the same breath with Byron and
Shelley, and there were not wanting persons who professed to find in him
qualities quite equal to those of the latter poets. It was rumored,
also, that his personal advantages were on a par with his mental ones;
that he had married a great heiress; that he was the younger son of an
earl; that his past career had been distinguished by many romantic and
mysterious episodes, involving the reputation of more than a few
personages of rank both in England and on the Continent; together with a
score of other reports, true, half true and untrue, such as invariably
herald the appearance in a prominent position of any one whom nobody
ever heard of before.
It was the custom at this period for men and women who happened to have
achieved distinction either by their brains or by some equally uncommon
means, to be invited to social entertainments at the house of Lady
Flanders. To be seen there conferred the insignia of a kind of nobility
which had nothing to do with the peerage, but which was, perhaps,
scarcely the less valued by the recipients of it. Accordingly it was not
without satisfaction that Philip, a few days after his return to
Hammersmith, received a communication from her ladyship, conveying her
compliments, and an urgent desire to have the honor of welcoming the
author of “Iduna” at her abode on the following Wednesday evening, at
seven o’clock. Mrs. Lancaster was included in the invitation (not an
invariable corollary in similar cases); and, indeed, her ladyship’s
carriage had left cards the day before Philip’s return from abroad, as
Mrs. Lockhart testified.
Of course, they could have no hesitation in availing themselves of this
first social recognition, in the capital of the world, of Philip’s
genius; and Marion prepared herself for the occasion with a sentiment of
wifely pride, at the thought that the world should so soon confirm that
opinion of her husband, which she herself had more or less avowedly
entertained ever since the first moment she beheld him. The young people
attired themselves in a manner which would excite less remark in the
present day than it might have done ten or twenty years ago, but which,
at all events, at the period we write of, was altogether in the mode.
Shortly before the carriage was announced, Marion, being ready, went
down stairs, and saw lying on the hall table a letter addressed to
Philip Lancaster, Esquire, in Mr. Fillmore’s handwriting. Now Marion had
a day or two before written to Fillmore, inquiring whether there were
any formalities to be observed in relation to her rejection of the
legacy; and she took it for granted that this letter, although addressed
to her husband, was the answer to her question. She and Philip had not
as yet had occasion to come to any understanding as to their liberty to
open each other’s letters; and, though Marion would probably, in an
ordinary case, have let the letter alone, in this instance she had no
hesitation in appropriating it. But at this juncture Mrs. Lockhart came
into the hall and detected something about Marion’s dress that needed
readjustment. Marion put the letter in her pocket and forgot all about
it.
They arrived safely at their destination, and were ushered into the
presence of their hostess, an immensely tall old lady, with a turban,
overhanging eyebrows and a prominent chin. She was of noble descent, and
was now recognized as among the most eminent encouragers of literature
and the liberal arts; but there were terrible stories told about her
youth, when she was said to have traveled in Europe in male attire, to
have fought a duel and killed her man, and to have lived several years
in some part of Asia under circumstances known only to herself. At this
stage of her career, however, she was a great card-player, sternly
religious in the way of forms and etiquette, and reputed to have one of
the wittiest and sharpest tongues in London. To Philip she contented
herself with saying: “Young gentleman, I used to know your grand-uncle.
He was not so handsome a man as you. ’Tis a dangerous thing, sir, to be
handsome and to write poetry. People who see you will expect your poetry
to be as well as you are, and, if they find it is not, they’ll call you
both humbugs. I haven’t read your poem, Mr. Lancaster, but now that I
have seen you I mean to, and then I shall tell you just what I think of
it! Mrs. Lancaster, I like you better than your husband; he’s not good
enough for you, though he’ll try and make you believe the contrary.
Never let him print anything that you don’t like--else he’ll make a
failure. There--run along now and enjoy yourselves, and you may come
here again as often as you like.”
The rooms were full of people, many of whom one would be glad enough to
see now-a-days, after seventy years’ vicarious acquaintance with them,
through books and tradition. There is no need of naming them here, nor
were their appearance and casual conversation (temporary costumes and
customs aside) any more remarkable than would be the case in a similar
gathering in the London of our times. Philip, indeed, was quite as well
worth noticing as any other person there; and he certainly was noticed
to the full extent of his deserts. There were murmurs on every side of
“That’s he!”--“Which?”--“There--tall, short curling hair and white
forehead.”--“What splendid eyes!”--“Oh, did he write ‘Iduna’?”--“Yes,
madam: looks like his own hero, doesn’t he?”--“Is he
married?”--“No.”--“Yes, I assure you: two hundred thousand pounds and a
beauty.”--“Is she like ‘Iduna’?”--“She’s sixty and a fright!”--“Have you
read the poem?”--“Yes--very pretty: vastly entertaining, indeed.”--“Here
he comes!”--“Oh, pray introduce me!” Amidst such comments and
exclamations the poet of the hour found himself adrift, with a tolerably
calm and impassive exterior, and within, a voice, half sad, half
comical, repeating, “This is fame!”
Meanwhile, Marion had been deployed in another direction, her heart and
thoughts remaining with Philip; and in this condition she was able to
pay but imperfect attention to the curly-haired and bright-eyed little
gentleman who had just been presented to her, and whose name she had not
caught. He spoke with a slight Irish brogue, and there was a kind of
vivacious sentimentality in the tone of his remarks, which had a
tendency, moreover, to become inconveniently high-flown and figurative.
At length, to be rid of him, she got him to conduct her to a chair, and
then sent him off to fetch her a glass of water. “Who’s that girl Tom
was talking to just now?” said one man to another, as she sat alone.
“Don’t know: nice fresh young creature; oh, let Tom alone for being
first in the field with whatever’s going: and in a week he’ll have put
her in the Irish melodies, and then the next man may take what is left!”
This dialogue was so little to Marion’s taste that she rose from her
seat and established herself under the wing of an elderly dowager with
whom she happened to have some acquaintance; and there, putting her hand
in her pocket to find her smelling-salts, she felt the letter that she
had forgotten: whereupon she drew it forth and opened it, and was
actually absorbed in its contents at the very moment when the author of
“Lallah Rookh” was searching for her everywhere with a glass of water in
his hand.
The letter was not long, but Marion found it unexpectedly interesting,
insomuch that she read it over three or four times, with a constantly
expanding sense of its importance. It was not the answer to her own
letter, nor had it any reference to that; it was addressed to Philip
throughout, and treated of business which was as new as it was
surprising. After having considered the written words from every point
of view, Marion sat with the letter in her lap and her eyes gazing at
nothing, in a state of mingled bewilderment and distress. She had
contended against destiny, and had seemed at first to win; but now her
flank was turned, and the day was against her.
Through the midst of her perplexity she presently became aware of a
dapper little figure standing before her with a glass of water in its
hand: she gazed at him uncomprehendingly. Just then, however, another
face, which she immediately recognized, appeared amidst the crowd, and
not only restored her self-possession, but set all her faculties on
edge. She rose quickly, and eluding the astonished water-carrier, she
reached Fillmore’s side and touched him on the arm.
“Mr. Fillmore, will you please give me your arm? I have read your
letter. I wish to talk to you. Take me somewhere where we can be
uninterrupted for a few minutes.” Fillmore complied without asking any
questions, and without showing any particular symptoms of surprise.
Philip, the lion of the evening, was, in the meantime, getting on very
agreeably. After running the gauntlet of numerous promiscuous admirers,
who besought him to tell them whether Iduna was drowned, whether the
sea-god were real or only a fancy of hers, whether she married her
mortal lover, and whether the latter managed to get safe off on the
wreck of the castle, and much more to the same effect--after he had been
parrying such inquiries as these, with what ingenuity and good humor he
might, for some time, he happened to raise his eyes, and saw the eyes of
Perdita directed upon him from a little distance, with a beckoning
expression. In a few minutes he succeeded in placing himself, with a
feeling of genuine relief, by her side. And indeed he had no reason to
be dissatisfied with his position. If there were, in that assembly, any
woman more classically handsome than Perdita, there was certainly no one
who could compare with her in brilliance and subtle attractiveness; nor
any who knew so well how to say what a man would like to hear; nor any
who, in the present instance, was better disposed to say it. She touched
his shoulder lightly with her hand as he sat down, with an air and smile
as if she were conferring upon him a well-earned knighthood.
“This is the hardest part, you know,” she said. “Men who do great things
are always beset by little people, with their discordant little
adulations. It is like what you see on the stage; when Kean or Kemble
has given a great passage, and your ears are ringing with it, there
comes a flat racket of hand-clapping. That is the world’s applause!”
“We must take the deed for the will,” said Philip laughing, “and be glad
to get it.”
“And so you wish me to believe,” pursued Perdita, “that love is a vision
that cannot be realized in this world?”
“I don’t know that I mean that,” he replied; “and I don’t want to
undertake the responsibility of my own poetical morals. But love is like
life, perhaps, never to be found by any dissection of mortal hearts or
brains. It is above what can be seen or touched, though that may embody
it. You see I am as great a fool as any of my readers. I don’t know, any
more than the young lady I just was talking with, whether Iduna was
drowned or married. But neither do I care.”
“There is more than one man in every real poet,” remarked Perdita,
looking at him intently for a moment, and then looking down; “and the
one who appears in the flesh is not always, I suspect, the one best
worth having. And yet he may be worth breaking one’s heart for. What do
you think?”
“I don’t remember having made any experiments,” said Philip, rather
awkwardly.
“Well, it is hardly worth remembering,” she rejoined with one of her
ambiguous smiles. “If we remembered everything we should never do
anything, probably; and that may be one reason why women do so little.
And so you are married, Philip?”
“Yes,” he said, a little reluctant to follow up this turn of the
conversation.
“What a delightful thing a true marriage must be,” she went on,
“especially when a poet is the bridegroom. For he must know, better than
any other man, what woman to choose. You have seen the world, my friend,
and studied the human heart; and I congratulate you on having found the
woman best suited to make you happy.”
“I’m not so difficult as you seem to think,” returned Philip; “but if I
were ten times more so than I am, I should be more than content.”
“I am sure of that,” said Perdita, smiling again; “if all men were as
fortunate as you, _mon ami_, the world would be the happier. Marion is a
poet’s wife. She comprehends you. She reverences your genius even more
than you do, and she will do more than your genius to make you
illustrious. She has the simplicity and the unsuspiciousness that one
finds only in the highest natures; she will never harass you with
foolish doubts and questions: she will never do anything whimsical or
arbitrary: she will never make you appear absurd. She makes me wish that
I were like her.”
Perdita uttered the last sentences in a low and serious tone. She was
looking her loveliest; fit to be the consort of a king or the heroine of
an epic. She was warm, exquisite, tinted like a flower and sparkling
like the gems upon her bosom; she had all the grace of a woman, and more
than a woman’s substance and individuality, and she was telling Philip
that she wished she were like his wife! Philip, though not exactly
destitute of vanity or of liability to infatuation, was not readily to
be deceived. He was quite able to believe that Perdita might be making
game of him. And yet, hearing the tones of her voice and looking in her
face, he did not believe it. Her words, indeed, could be taken with more
than one signification; but there must be genuineness in them somewhere.
She wished that she were like Philip’s wife. Did that mean that she
really considered Marion’s qualities of mind and person were more
desirable than her own? Or did she mean that there was some cause,
unavowed but not unimaginable, why she should desire them more? Some
cause not unimaginable: what? She had just expressed her conviction, in
tones unusually earnest for an assemblage like Lady Flanders’, that
Marion’s qualities were such as must command Philip’s love. What then
was the significance of her wishing they might be hers? It was plain
enough; indeed it was its very plainness that was the strongest obstacle
in the way of Philip’s so understanding it. And yet, thorough as was his
love for Marion, he recognized too clearly the wonderful charms and
fascinations of Perdita to believe that she could compare herself with
his wife to her own disadvantage. No: what she had said was, at least,
an implicit censure of his blindness in having preferred Marion or any
other woman to Perdita herself.
It is to Philip’s credit that he did not allow himself to appear in the
least conscious of the unavoidable inference in the matter; but only
laughed, and said that he had no doubt any one would like his wife
better than his poetry, if they could be afforded the opportunity. And
before anything else could be said, who should appear before them but
Marion herself, leaning on Merton Fillmore’s arm, looking very pale, and
with a peculiar satirical touch to her expression which Philip had not
seen there since the early days of his acquaintance with her, and which
made him a little uneasy. As for Fillmore, his demeanor was, as usual,
admirably composed; but Philip fancied that there was something in the
glance he bestowed upon him that seemed to say, “Can a honeymoon be
eclipsed?”
“Good evening, Madame Desmoines,” said Marion, lightly; “I hope I see
you well in health? Do you like my husband?”
“His poetry has made me rather disappointed with himself; but he is all
the better for having such a wife,” returned the Marquise, with engaging
courtesy.
“I am only afraid of his being too fortunate ... in some things!” Marion
said laughingly; “so, to make the balance even, I am going to inflict on
him the misfortune of taking me home. That is, if he will.”
“That misfortune is the best of all his fortunes this evening,” was
Perdita’s reply; “and I am enough his friend to be glad of it.”
While these courtesies were passing between the ladies, Philip, who
perceived that something serious was the matter, had risen and placed
himself by Marion’s side, and they now moved away together, while
Fillmore appropriated Philip’s vacated chair. When the young poet and
his wife went to make their adieux to Lady Flanders, her ladyship said
to Marion, “I saw your husband flirting with that little Marquise. Don’t
you let him do it! She’s the most dangerous woman in this room, and the
only one who is cleverer than I am. But I’m clever enough to see through
her, and I hope you are!”
And with this benediction the young couple set out homewards.