We have been married nearly three months, and are going on very
comfortably. As yet no cross or angry words have arisen between
us; all is smooth as unruffled waters. Though Marmaduke is, if
anything, fonder of me than at first, he is perhaps a shade less
slavishly attentive. For example, he can now enjoy his _Times_ at
breakfast and read it straight through without raising his eyes
between every paragraph, to make sure I am still behind the
teapot and have not vanished into mid air, or to ask me tenderly
if I would wish to do this or care to go there.
He has also learned--which is more satisfactory still--that it is
possible to know enjoyment even when I am out of sight.
Two months of delicious thoughtless idleness we spend in Spain
and Switzerland, and then--we pine for home. This latter
secretly, and with a sworn determination that each will be the
last to confess it.
One calm glorious evening, however, after dinner, as I stand at
the window of our hotel, gazing over the Lake of Geneva,
something within me compels the following speech:
"How beautiful Strangemore must be looking now!"---
I feel slightly doubtful of the wisdom of my words when they were
uttered, and would have recalled them; but the encouraging
amiability with which Marmaduke receives my remark speedily
reassures me.
"Yes," he says, with energy, "it never looks so well as just at
this time of year."
"So I should think."
A long pause.
"English scenery is always at its best in the autumn. After all,
there is no place like England--I mean, of course for a
continuance. Don't you agree with me, darling?"
"I do indeed. Dear Briersley Wood! How fond Billy and I were of
it. You remember the clump of nut-trees, 'Duke?"
"Is it likely I should forget it?" sentimentally. "For my own
part, I think the wood on the other side of Strangemore handsomer
than Briersley; but of course it was too far away from Summerleas
for you to know it well."
Another pause, longer than the last, and more eloquent.
"How I should like to see it--_now!_" I murmur, with faint
emphasis and a heroically suppressed sigh.
"Would you really?" rising eagerly, and coming into the embrasure
of the window. "Would you like to get back, darling? Not yet for
a little while, of course," with quick correction, "but later on,
when---"
"I would like to start at once," I cry, frankly, flinging
hesitation to the winds; "as soon as possible. I am longing to
see every one; and you know, 'Duke," sweetly, "I have yet to make
a near acquaintance with _our_ home."
I smile up to him, and am satisfied my words have caused nothing
but the extremest content.
"Very good. It is easily arranged; and next year we can come and
get through what we now leave undone. They must be wanting us at
home, I fancy; there are the birds and everything," concludes
Marmaduke, in a reflective tone, which is the nearest approach to
a return of reason he has yet shown.
We spend a fortnight in London on our way back, when I am
presented to some of my husband's relations. His sister, Lady
Handcock, I do not see, as she has been in Canada for the last
two years with Sir James, and, though now travelling homewards
and expected every day, does not arrive during our stay in the
Great Babylon.
Cousins and aunts and friends, however, are numerous, and for the
most part so kind that restraint vanishes, and I tell myself
people-in-law are not so formidable as I have been led to
believe. One thorn, however, remains among my roses and pricks me
gently.
Lady Blanche Going--with whom we stay a week--of all the cousins
interests me most; though it must be confessed the interest is of
a disagreeable nature. She has a charming house in Park Lane, and
the softest, most fascinating manners; she is in every point such
as a well-bred woman ought to be, yet with her alone I am not
happy. For the most part looking barely twenty-five, there are
times--odd moments when the invariable smile is off her
face--when I could fancy her at least seven years older. Now and
then, too, a suspicious gleam--_too_ warm, as coming from a
decorous matron--falls from her sleepy almond-shaped eyes upon
some favorite among the "stronger" sex, and I cannot forgive her
in that she makes me appear the most unsophisticated, childish
bride that ever left a nursery. So that I am glad when we leave
her and move farther south to our beautiful home.
Oh, the delight, the rapture, of the first meeting, when the
first day after our return, I drive over to Summerleas: The
darling mother's tearful welcome, the "boy Billee's" more
boisterous one. Even Dora, for a moment or two forgets her
elegance and her wrongs, and gives me a hearty embrace. And how
well I am looking, and how happy! And how pretty my dress is, and
how becoming! And how they have all missed me! And just fancy!
Roland is _really_ engaged to the "old boy's" daughter, after
all; and the colonel himself writes about it, as though quite
pleased, in spite of her having such a good fortune. Though,
indeed, why should he not? for where could he find any one
handsomer, or dearer, or more charming than our Roly? and so on.
All too swift in its happiness flies the day, and Marmaduke comes
to reclaim me. Yet the strange senses of rest and completeness
that fills me, in the presence of the old beloved, distresses me.
Why can I not feel for Marmaduke that romantic, all-sufficing
devotion of which I have read? I certainly _like_ him immensely.
He is everything of the dearest and best, and kind almost to a
fault; therefore I ought to adore him; but somehow I cannot quite
make up my mind to it. One should love a husband better than all
the rest of the world put together; so I have heard, so I
believe; but do I?
I lay little plans; I map out small scenes, to try how far my
affection for my husband will go.
For instance, I picture to myself Billy or he condemned to start
in the morning for Australia, never to return; one or other must
go, and the decision rests with me. Which shall I let go, which
shall I keep? I send Marmaduke, and feel a deep pang at my heart;
I send Billy--the pang becomes keenest torture.
Again, supposing both to be sentenced to death, and supposing
also it is in my power to save one of them: which would I rescue?
Marmaduke of course! I haul him triumphantly from his gloomy
cell; but as I do so my Billy's beautiful eyes, filled with mute
despair, shine upon me from out the semi-darkness, and I cease to
drag Marmaduke: I cannot leave my brother.
When this last picture first presents itself to my vivid
imagination I am in bed, and the idea overcomes me to such a
degree that I find myself presently in floods of tears, unable
altogether to suppress my sobs.
In a minute or two Marmaduke wakes and turns uneasily.
"What is the matter, Phyllis," he asks, anxiously. "Is anything
wrong with you, my darling?"
"No, no, nothing," I answer hastily, and bury my nose in the
pillow.
"But you are crying," he remonstrates, reaching out a kindly hand
in the darkness that is meant for my face, but alights
unexpectedly upon the back of my head. "Tell me what is troubling
you, my pet."
"Nothing at all," I say again; "I was only thinking." Here I
stifle a foolish sigh born of my still more foolish tears.
"Thinking of what?"
"Of Billy," I reply reluctantly. And then, though he says
nothing, and though I cannot see his face, I know my husband is
offended.
He goes back to his original position, and is soon again asleep,
while I lie awake for half an hour longer, worrying my brain with
trying to discover what there can be to vex Marmaduke in my
weeping over Billy.
Still I am happy, utterly so, as one must be who is without care
or sorrow, whose lightest wish meets instant fulfilment, and less
and less frequently am I haunted by the vague fear of
ingratitude--by the thought of how poor a return I make for all
the good showered upon me, as I see how sufficient I am for my
husband's happiness: while only on rare occasions does he betray
his passionate longing for a more perfect hold upon my heart by
the suppressed but evident jealousy with which he regards my love
for my family.