Meanwhile the inscrutable Providence, whose apparent neglect of the
affairs of men is only less remarkable than its seeming interference
with them, had decreed that these affairs with which we are at present
occupied should be dignified by the participation in them of Lady
Flanders. For, at about the hour when Philip and Perdita were driving in
the Park, and discussing the former’s domestic situation, Mr. Thomas
Moore was calling upon the elderly aristocrat, and the conversation
between them was taking a similar direction.
Precisely what passed on this occasion, it is unnecessary at this moment
to inquire; but the reader may be reminded that Mr. Moore was a
gentleman, and incapable of wantonly betraying any lady’s confidence;
and he may further be informed that the genial poet’s acquaintance with
Lady Flanders was intimate and of old standing. Her attitude toward him
was, indeed, of a quasi-maternal character: and in the present instance
his communications, whatever they were, were prompted in great measure
by his recognition of her great social influence, and by the fact that
her declared opinion, favorable or unfavorable, of any person, was apt
to go a long way toward making or marring that person’s social
reputation. When Mr. Moore left her ladyship’s presence, she patted him
on the shoulder and called him a good boy; and he issued from her door
with the light of conscious virtue glistening on his ingenuous forehead.
Next morning Lady Flanders arose early, and in the course of her toilet
preparations she fell into chat, as her custom was, with her maid
Christine, an attractive young person of German extraction, deft of hand
and soothing of voice, who could design and elevate a headdress in a
manner to please the most exacting elderly aristocrat imaginable.
Christine was a great favorite with her mistress, and was the only human
being of either sex to whom that lady was uniformly indulgent and
good-humored. Christine, for her part, was much attached to Lady
Flanders; but, with the perversity and short-sightedness of persons in
her enviable condition of life, she had lately taken it into her head to
lose her heart; and the individual who had won it was a Mr. Catnip,
whose name has been once or twice mentioned in this history, as a
servant of Sir Francis Bendibow. It would appear that Christine and her
cavalier had met to enjoy each other’s society the evening previous; and
Mr. Catnip had at that time confided to Christine a curious circumstance
which had happened to come under his observation the day before at
Vauxhall. After Christine had repeated to her mistress the main points
of Mr. Catnip’s story, her ladyship interrupted her.
“Of course you understand, Christine,” she said, “that I am convinced to
begin with that your Catnip has been telling you a pack of lies, and
that there’s not a word of truth in the tale from beginning to end. ’Tis
very foolish of you to have anything at all to say to such a fellow, and
my advice to you is to drop him at once. Is he willing to make affidavit
that ’twas really the Marquise Desmoines he saw there?”
“Oh, yiss, madame! He stand close by de box on which Madame la Marquise
sit, and he recognize de ring on her finger, and her tone as she speak
with her companion. They sit on de box next to Madame Lancaster.”
“Could she and Mrs. Lancaster see each other?”
“Not whiles dey sit so; but soon Madame Lancaster get up and go out in
front, and den Madame la Marquise....”
“Aye, aye: a mighty pretty story! And so then Sir Francis fainted away,
did he, and Mrs. Lancaster got a carriage, and Catnip followed it?...
Upon my word, Christine, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to listen
to such trash: much more to repeat it to me. Take care you never open
your mouth about it to any one else, that’s all.”
“Oh, not in de least, madame.”
“There, that’ll do. Now go and tell Withers that I shall want the
carriage immediately after breakfast. And, Christine ... put in order
the bed-room and the sitting-room on the second floor: I’m expecting
some one to spend the night. Don’t forget.”
“I shall take care of it, madame.”
Lady Flanders went down to breakfast, ate with a good appetite, and
having put on her bonnet and cloak, she got into her carriage and was
driven to the Marquise Desmoines’. The latter received her august
visitor with some surprise, for Lady Flanders had not hitherto shown
much disposition to cultivate intimate relations with the beautiful
widow. But her ladyship was notorious for indulging in whims of which no
one but herself could divine the reason: and in the present instance she
was evidently laying herself out to be exceptionally polite and
entertaining. After ten minutes’ desultory chat on things in general,
the name of Philip Lancaster happened to fall, quite by accident, from
Lady Flanders’ lips, and after a moment’s pause she said:
“By-the-by, my dear, I was quite upset yesterday. I don’t know whether
to believe it or not. I’ve taken such a fancy to the young gentleman, I
should be sorry to see his domestic felicity destroyed. I have always
disapproved of man’s marrying beneath him ... the girl may be very
attractive in some ways, but such persons lack training, and a proper
realization of their social duties. Bless you, I don’t expect women to
be saints--that would put an end to society in six weeks--but there is
everything in savoir-faire, tact, the way a thing is managed. Let a
woman do anything but make a vulgar exhibition of herself. And that is
just what this unfortunate creature seems to have done--that is, if the
story is to be believed: and I have it on pretty good authority. What do
you think about it?”
Perdita had been on her guard from the beginning of Lady Flanders’
speech. She was startled (more perhaps, than distressed) to find that
her visitor knew anything about the matter; and anxious to discover why
the old lady should suppose that she had any information. For there was
one reason why Perdita had need to be cautious here; and that was, lest
it should transpire that she herself had been at Vauxhall. That was the
weak point in her position; but for that, she had nothing to apprehend.
She was quite certain that no one among those whom she had recognized
there, had recognized her: as for Catnip,--well as he knew her,--she
scarcely knew that such a person existed, she being, herein, at the
disadvantage in which all persons of higher rank are liable to stand
toward those in the lower. Lady Flanders, therefore, (she argued) could
have no knowledge of her own presence at Vauxhall: and admitting that,
it was impossible to suppose that her ladyship should, of her own
motion, conjure up the imagination of so wildly improbable a thing. No;
she must have been influenced by some other idea; and it was at this
juncture that the Marquise bethought herself, with a feeling of relief,
that it would be natural for Lady Flanders to infer that Philip himself
had been her informant. In fact, it was Philip who had first introduced
the subject. Her apprehensions thus relieved, Perdita no longer saw in
Lady Flanders anything more than an old scandal-monger greedy for the
last new scrap of her favorite wares; and she consequently felt it
necessary to observe no more than ordinary discretion.
“You have not yet told me,” she remarked, “what it is you refer to.”
“Dear me! sure enough!” exclaimed the other innocently. “Well, I’m glad
to see it has not been more talked about. Why, you must know, my dear,
that our friend Mrs. Lancaster, who seemed so precious straight-forward
and artless, has been guilty of the most outrageous rashness--not to
call it by a worse name! She has been....” and here Lady Flanders
lowered her voice, and told the story which Perdita already knew, with
much vivacity, and in a way to put Marion’s conduct in a most ungainly
light. “ ’Tis impossible to be sorry for her,” she continued; “such a
brazen creature puts herself outside the pale of pity; but one can’t
help being sincerely concerned for that poor boy, Philip Lancaster. It
will be a terrible blow for him; and knowing the friendly interest you
have shown in him, I thought it likely he might have sought your advice
on the subject.”
“Since you have spoken on the subject, my dear Lady Flanders,” said
Perdita, gravely, “I may follow your example, though otherwise I should
have kept silence. Mr. Lancaster has opened his mind to me, to some
extent; and I counseled him to put the best construction possible on his
wife’s conduct, and rather to secure her safety in the future than
inquire too curiously into the past. She is young and inexperienced, and
will no doubt reform her behavior when she realizes its true character.”
“Aye, aye, you little serpent!” said Lady Flanders to herself, “ ’tis
just as I thought, you and master Philip have been feathering your own
nest with what you’ve plucked from my poor little Marion’s reputation.
I’ll catch you yet--see if I don’t!” Aloud she added, “Indeed, my dear,
your advice was most sensible, and you’re a deal more charitable than I
should have been in your place. Well, and how did your advice affect
him? I hope he won’t lose his head and make a disturbance!”
“He does not yet know, and I hope never may know, the name of the
gentleman implicated in the affair,” said Perdita. “As you say, it could
only make bad worse to have a public outbreak; and I don’t think Philip
will go so far as that until he has seen me again....”
Perdita paused, doubting the prudence of this last sentence, which, in
fact, had vastly delighted the cynical and Machiavellian old lady. The
latter was convinced that the relations between Perdita and Philip would
not bear inspection, and that they were making Marion’s predicament a
pretext for prosecuting their own intrigue. She was determined to bring
their nefarious doings to light, and had already partly outlined to
herself a plan of operations, having that end in view. For the present,
she was satisfied at having attained the object of her visit, which was
simply to ascertain that Perdita and Philip were on a confidential
footing upon a matter so nearly affecting the latter’s honor, and that
their intimacy was such as it was expedient for them to disguise. The
rest would be revealed in due time. Meanwhile she hastened to declare
that it was a fortunate thing for Philip to have secured the friendly
interest of a woman of the world like Perdita; and that she trusted he
would show his appreciation of it.
“I was going to say,” remarked Perdita, who had her wits about her, and
was by no means prone to believe in the sincerity of her visitor’s
cordiality, “that the whole story, so far as I am aware, is mere
hearsay, and may be untrue. It would not surprise me were it to turn
out so. So that any premature allusion to it, as your ladyship yourself
suggested, might do a great deal of harm.”
“Aye, to be sure,” returned Lady Flanders, admiring the cleverness of
this stroke; and for a moment she hesitated whether or not to give her
authorities. She decided not to do so; turned the conversation into a
review of the Bendibow affair, and soon after took her leave, charmed
with the prospect of finally getting the better of the only woman in
London whom she acknowledged as her equal in subtlety and intrigue.
We will now return to Philip Lancaster. He came home late after his
interview with Perdita, and Marion having already gone to her room, he
resolved to postpone whatever he might have to say to her until the next
day. Indeed, he needed time to turn the matter over in his mind. Before
speaking to Perdita, he had not regarded it in a really serious light.
All he knew was that Marion had spent the greater part of a night away
from home; that her mother had only accidentally discovered her absence;
and that Marion had given no satisfactory account of where she had been.
When he had asked her about it, she had merely laughed, in her strange,
perverse way, had affected to treat it lightly, and had remarked that he
would know by-and-by without her telling him. He had confined himself,
at the time, to some moderate expression of displeasure; he was not
prepared to believe in anything worse than an imprudent freak,
especially while he was under the influence of Marion’s presence. She
had presently begun to speak of Bendibow’s arrest, and had expressed a
strong desire to know the details of any confession he might make: and
she had suggested that Philip should take the packet and return it to
Perdita without delay. He agreed to do this: and with that their
conversation terminated. But when Philip was alone, his reflections
became more and more uncomfortable; Marion’s refusal to explain her
escapade seemed very strange; and her sudden anxiety to hear about
Bendibow’s confession looked like a pretext for changing the subject.
Even this errand to Perdita might be a device to get him out of the way.
When, therefore, he and Perdita met, he was in a fit mood to receive the
intelligence she had ready for him: he learnt from her, for the first
time, where it was that Marion had gone, and what she had been seen to
do there; for although Perdita neither told him that she herself had
been the witness whose testimony she cited, nor mentioned Moore’s name,
she made it sufficiently evident to her auditor that it was not any
ordinary freak he had to deal with here, but a matter involving all that
is of most vital importance to a husband. And yet, though his mind was
persuaded, his heart was not so: did he not know Marion? and was it
credible that she could do such wrong? It was necessary, however, that
his mind and his heart should be put in accord, one way or the other;
and he spent the greater part of the night in trying to summon up all
his wits and energies for the interview on the morrow. The natural
consequence was, that when the morrow came he was so nervous and
discomposed as with difficulty to control even his voice. The interview,
which took place in the breakfast-room, which Marion entered just as
Philip was ready to leave it, did not last long, though its results did.
“Well,” said Marion, as she entered, “did Madame Desmoines accept the
packet? And did you see what was in it?”
“She did not open it in my presence,” he answered. “We found other
things to talk about.”
“Oh, no doubt,” said Marion laughingly.
“There was nothing amusing in it, as you seem to suppose,” he continued,
hardly controlling his indignation. “I am going to ask you a serious
question, Marion: and you must answer it.”
“Must?”
“Yes--must!”
“That depends ... upon my own pleasure, Mr. Philip!” she returned, with
a nervous smile.
“You have taken your pleasure too much into your own hands already. I
must know where you were the other night, and with whom.”
“La! is your curiosity awake again so early? Ask me some other time. I’m
not ready to tell you just yet.”
“No other time will do. I must tell you, since you seem ignorant of it,
that your reputation as an honest woman is at stake. Bah! don’t try to
escape me with subterfuges, Marion. I know that you were at Vauxhall
Gardens; and that your companion was a man who--”
“Has he ... has any one been so base as to tell--”
“Any one!” thundered Philip, his eyes blazing. “Who?”
Marion lifted her head high, but she trembled all over, and her face was
white. She met Philip’s fiery glance with a scornful look; but beneath
the scorn there were unfathomable depths of pain, humiliation, appeal.
Philip saw only the scorn; he was in no mood for insight. Thus the
husband and wife confronted each other for several moments, while the
air still seemed to echo with Philip’s angry shout.
“Philip,” said Marion at length, in a thin voice, which sustained itself
with difficulty, “I have done you no wrong; and I should have been
willing, some time, to tell you all you ask. But until you go down on
your knees at my feet, and crave my pardon, I will not speak to you
again!”
“Then we have exchanged our last words together,” said he.
Marion bent her head as if in assent, and moved to one side, so that her
husband might leave the room. He paused at the door, and said:
“I give you one more chance. Will you confess? I might forgive you,
then; but if you compel me to bring home to you your ... what you have
done, on any other evidence, by God, I never will forgive you!--Oh,
Marion! will you?”
His voice faltered; tears of misery and entreaty were in his eyes.
Marion made a half-step toward him: but, by another impulse, she drew
back again, covering her eyes with one hand, while with the other she
motioned him away. Neither would yield; and so they parted.
Philip went forth, not knowing whither he was going. His world was
turned upside down, and his life looked like a desert. He walked along
the streets with wide-open but unseeing eyes--or with eyes that saw only
Marion, as she stood with her hand over her face, waving him away.
Sometimes he thought it must have been a dream: but he could not awake.
He went down to the river-bank, near Chelsea, and sat for several hours
on a bench, looking at the muddy current as it swirled by. The sky was
cloudy and the wind cold, but he did not seem aware of it. It was
already late in the afternoon when he arose, and returned towards the
north. But where should he go? Home? There was no such place.
For a couple of hours we leave Philip to himself, to meet with what
adventures destiny may provide.
* * * * *
At six o’clock in the evening we come up with him again. He is hurrying
along the street with a new light in his face--of anxiety, of suspense,
of hope! Hope is unmistakably there--the dawn of a belief in the
possibility of better things. The infrequent lamps that dimly light the
street intermittently reveal the expression of his haggard and eager
features. Arrived at the door of his house, he paused for a moment,
biting his lips and clenching his hands: then he ran up the steps and
rang the bell. The door seemed never to be going to open, and in his
impatience he rang again. It opened at last. He strode across the
threshold.
“Mrs. Lancaster up stairs?”
“No, sir,” said the servant. “She went out this afternoon in a carriage:
not your carriage, sir. She left a note she said was to be given to you,
sir. ’Tis there on the ’all table, sir.”
A singular quietness came over Philip, as he opened the letter, and
deliberately read its contents. He seemed to himself to have known that
this was coming. He put the letter in his pocket.
“That’s all right,” he said to the servant. “I had forgotten ... I shall
probably not be back to-night.” He waited an instant or two, looking
down at the ground: then, without saying anything more, he descended the
steps and walked away. The door closed behind him.