SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE.
"Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her
room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and
then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs.
Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon
you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr.
Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's."
"And what else will you do, Emily?"
"Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to
find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he
chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put
off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you."
"Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should
be such a quarrel."
"What can I do? Have I been wrong?"
"Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's
right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your
fault."
"That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know
it's unreasonable."
"I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it
you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see
Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be
admitted."
"I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me
to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that
any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh
dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an
accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would
defy him to do his worst."
On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the
husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been
effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave
way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification
which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had
urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied.
Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether,
if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It
is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever
such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If
they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would
be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a
reconciliation.
"Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband,
walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms.
[Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.]
"I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she,
very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly.
"We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that
the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that
it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she
had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand
on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and
dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge,
either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the
promise which I ask from you."
"I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me."
"I think it right to ask it; I do indeed."
"Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again
after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I
do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will
encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It
would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman."
"That is all that I ask."
"I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any
formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That
you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here
is of course a different thing."
"Quite a different thing," said he.
"I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears.
I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from
supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought
to me."
"Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband.
"That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the
wife.
"But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks."
"The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?"
"Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself."
"Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so,
but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound
to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear
from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your
honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt
that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise
which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the
matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission.
So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by
the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate,
to seem to be well pleased.
"Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs,
"when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at
home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which
he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it.
Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there
had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two
days, no doubt understood all about it.
While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there
came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to
his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her
plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and
understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the
servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the
room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?"
she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover."
"Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so
horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?"
"If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this?
The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees
that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the
room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence.
It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the
dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a
few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited,
standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was
quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:--
House of Commons, Saturday.
DEAR EMILY,--
Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth.
DEAR EMILY,
I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you
will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you
should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that
Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent
now till the middle of June, and that he could not be
in London, let him do what he would, till the end of
July. They hope to have the session over by that time,
and therefore the committee is to be put off till next
session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada,
and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the
winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next,
and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months.
All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley
could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a
day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll
call to-morrow at luncheon time.
Yours always,
F. O.
There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the
"Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne
to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must
now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife.
But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He
must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of
it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what
was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday
morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at
that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He
had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should
understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been
then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so
definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece,
thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the
drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she
was sitting, "you had better read that letter."
"I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily.
"Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally."
Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are
not to come after all," said she, "till next February."
"And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan.
"Something about the session. I don't quite understand."
"Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he
would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would."
"But what has that to do with papa?"
"I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora.
"I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan.
"I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all
is so much of a favour that it is almost a job."
"I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody
is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does.
But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he
say anything about mamma, Nora?"
"You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was
desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit.
"No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too.
Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's
letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed
them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them."
This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who
had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her
submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora
now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He
laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his
eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne
says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him,
if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this
matter."
"I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs.
Trevelyan.
There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon
Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his
chair and walked round to the sofa on which his wife was sitting. "I
presume," said he, "that your wishes and mine in this matter must be
the same."
"I cannot tell what your wishes are," she replied. "I never was more
in the dark on any subject in my life. My wishes at present are
confined to a desire to save you as far as may be possible from the
shame which must be attached to your own suspicions."
"I have never had any suspicions."
"A husband without suspicions does not intercept his wife's letters.
A husband without suspicions does not call in the aid of his servants
to guard his wife. A husband without suspicions--"
"Emily," exclaimed Nora Rowley, "how can you say such things,--on
purpose to provoke him?"
"Yes; on purpose to provoke me," said Trevelyan.
"And have I not been provoked? Have I not been injured? You say now
that you have not suspected me, and yet in what condition do I find
myself? Because an old woman has chosen to talk scandal about me, I
am placed in a position in my own house which is disgraceful to you
and insupportable to myself. This man has been in the habit of coming
here on Sundays, and will, of course, know that we are at home. You
must manage it as you please. If you choose to receive him, I will go
up-stairs."
"Why can't you let him come in and go away, just as usual?" said
Nora.
"Because Louis has made me promise that I will never willingly be
in his company again," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I would have given the
world to avoid a promise so disgraceful to me; but it was exacted,
and it shall be kept." Having so spoken, she swept out of the room,
and went up-stairs to the nursery. Trevelyan sat for an hour with his
book before him, reading or pretending to read, but his wife did not
come down-stairs. Then Nora went up to her, and he descended to his
solitude below. So far he had hardly gained much by the enforced
obedience of his wife.
On the next morning the three went to church together, and as they
were walking home Trevelyan's heart was filled with returning
gentleness towards his wife. He could not bear to be at wrath with
her after the church service which they had just heard together.
But he was softer-hearted than was she, and knowing this, was
almost afraid to say anything that would again bring forth from her
expressions of scorn. As soon as they were alone within the house he
took her by the hand and led her apart. "Let all this be," said he,
"as though it had never been."
"That will hardly be possible, Louis," she answered. "I cannot forget
that I have been--cautioned."
"But cannot you bring yourself to believe that I have meant it all
for your good?"
"I have never doubted it, Louis;--never for a moment. But it has hurt
me to find that you should think that such caution was needed for my
good."
It was almost on his tongue to beg her pardon, to acknowledge that
he had made a mistake, and to implore her to forget that he had ever
made an objection to Colonel Osborne's visit. He remembered at this
moment the painful odiousness of that "Dear Emily;" but he had to
reconcile himself even to that, telling himself that, after all,
Colonel Osborne was an old man,--a man older even than his wife's
father. If she would only have met him with gentleness, he would have
withdrawn his command, and have acknowledged that he had been wrong.
But she was hard, dignified, obedient, and resentful. "It will, I
think," he said, "be better for both of us that he should be asked in
to lunch to-day."
"You must judge of that," said Emily. "Perhaps, upon the whole, it
will be best. I can only say that I will not be present. I will lunch
up-stairs with baby, and you can make what excuse for me you please."
This was all very bad, but it was in this way that things were
allowed to arrange themselves. Richard was told that Colonel Osborne
was coming to lunch, and when he came something was muttered to him
about Mrs. Trevelyan being not quite well. It was Nora who told the
innocent fib, and though she did not tell it well, she did her very
best. She felt that her brother-in-law was very wretched, and she was
most anxious to relieve him. Colonel Osborne did not stay long, and
then Nora went up-stairs to her sister.
Louis Trevelyan felt that he had disgraced himself. He had meant to
have been strong, and he had, as he knew, been very weak. He had
meant to have acted in a high-minded, honest, manly manner; but
circumstances had been so untoward with him, that on looking at his
own conduct, it seemed to him to have been mean, and almost false
and cowardly. As the order for the exclusion of this hated man from
his house had been given, he should at any rate have stuck to the
order. At the moment of his vacillation he had simply intended to
make things easy for his wife; but she had taken advantage of his
vacillation, and had now clearly conquered him. Perhaps he respected
her more than he had done when he was resolving, three or four days
since, that he would be the master in his own house; but it may be
feared that the tenderness of his love for her had been impaired.
Late in the afternoon his wife and sister-in-law came down dressed
for walking, and, finding Trevelyan in the library, they asked him to
join them,--it was a custom with them to walk in the park on a Sunday
afternoon,--and he at once assented, and went out with them. Emily,
who had had her triumph, was very gracious. There should not be a
word more said by her about Colonel Osborne. She would avoid that
gentleman, never receiving him in Curzon Street, and having as little
to say to him as possible elsewhere; but she would not throw his name
in her husband's teeth, or make any reference to the injury which had
so manifestly been done to her. Unless Louis should be indiscreet,
it should be as though it had been forgotten. As they walked by
Chesterfield House and Stanhope Street into the park, she began to
discuss the sermon they had heard that morning, and when she found
that that subject was not alluring, she spoke of a dinner to which
they were to go at Mrs. Fairfax's house. Louis Trevelyan was quite
aware that he was being treated as a naughty boy, who was to be
forgiven.
They went across Hyde Park into Kensington Gardens, and still the
same thing was going on. Nora found it to be almost impossible to say
a word. Trevelyan answered his wife's questions, but was otherwise
silent. Emily worked very hard at her mission of forgiveness, and
hardly ceased in her efforts at conciliatory conversation. Women
can work so much harder in this way than men find it possible to do!
She never flagged, but continued to be fluent, conciliatory, and
intolerably wearisome. On a sudden they came across two men together,
who, as they all knew, were barely acquainted with each other. These
were Colonel Osborne and Hugh Stanbury.
"I am glad to find you are able to be out," said the Colonel.
"Thanks; yes. I think my seclusion just now was almost as much due to
baby as to anything else. Mr. Stanbury, how is it we never see you
now?"
"It is the D. R., Mrs. Trevelyan;--nothing else. The D. R. is a most
grateful mistress, but somewhat exacting. I am allowed a couple of
hours on Sundays, but otherwise my time is wholly passed in Fleet
Street."
"How very unpleasant."
"Well; yes. The unpleasantness of this world consists chiefly in the
fact that when a man wants wages, he must earn them. The Christian
philosophers have a theory about it. Don't they call it the primeval
fall, original sin, and that kind of thing?"
"Mr. Stanbury, I won't have irreligion. I hope that doesn't come from
writing for the newspapers."
"Certainly not with me, Mrs. Trevelyan. I have never been put on
to take that branch yet. Scrubby does that with us, and does it
excellently. It was he who touched up the Ritualists, and then the
Commission, and then the Low Church bishops, till he didn't leave one
of them a leg to stand upon."
"What is it, then, that the Daily Record upholds?"
"It upholds the Daily Record. Believe in that and you will surely be
saved." Then he turned to Miss Rowley, and they two were soon walking
on together, each manifestly interested in what the other was saying,
though there was no word of tenderness spoken between them.
Colonel Osborne was now between Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan. She would
have avoided the position had it been possible for her to do so.
While they were falling into their present places, she had made a
little mute appeal to her husband to take her away from the spot, to
give her his arm and return with her, to save her in some way from
remaining in company with the man to whose company for her he had
objected; but he took no such step. It had seemed to him that he
could take no such step without showing his hostility to Colonel
Osborne.
They walked on along the broad path together, and the Colonel was
between them.
"I hope you think it satisfactory,--about Sir Rowley," he said.
"Beggars must not be choosers, you know, Colonel Osborne. I felt a
little disappointed when I found that we were not to see them till
February next."
"They will stay longer then, you know, than they could now."
"I have no doubt when the time comes we shall all believe it to be
better."
"I suppose you think, Emily, that a little pudding to-day is better
than much to-morrow."
Colonel Osborne certainly had a caressing, would-be affectionate mode
of talking to women, which, unless it were reciprocated and enjoyed,
was likely to make itself disagreeable. No possible words could have
been more innocent than those he had now spoken; but he had turned
his face down close to her face, and had almost whispered them. And
then, too, he had again called her by her Christian name. Trevelyan
had not heard the words. He had walked on, making the distance
between him and the other man greater than was necessary, anxious to
show to his wife that he had no jealousy at such a meeting as this.
But his wife was determined that she would put an end to this state
of things, let the cost be what it might. She did not say a word to
Colonel Osborne, but addressed herself at once to her husband.
"Louis," she said, "will you give me your arm? We will go back, if
you please." Then she took her husband's arm, and turned herself and
him abruptly away from their companion.
The thing was done in such a manner that it was impossible that
Colonel Osborne should not perceive that he had been left in anger.
When Trevelyan and his wife had gone back a few yards, he was obliged
to return for Nora. He did so, and then rejoined his wife.
"It was quite unnecessary, Emily," he said, "that you should behave
like that."
"Your suspicions," she said, "have made it almost impossible for me
to behave with propriety."
"You have told him everything now," said Trevelyan.
"And it was requisite that he should be told," said his wife. Then
they walked home without interchanging another word. When they
reached their house, Emily at once went up to her own room, and
Trevelyan to his. They parted as though they had no common interest
which was worthy of a moment's conversation. And she by her step,
and gait, and every movement of her body showed to him that she was
not his wife now in any sense that could bring to him a feeling of
domestic happiness. Her compliance with his command was of no use
to him unless she could be brought to comply in spirit. Unless she
would be soft to him he could not be happy. He walked about his room
uneasily for half-an-hour, trying to shake off his sorrow, and then
he went up to her room. "Emily," he said, "for God's sake let all
this pass away."
"What is to pass away?"
"This feeling of rancour between you and me. What is the world to us
unless we can love one another? At any rate it will be nothing to
me."
"Do you doubt my love?" said she.
"No; certainly not."
"Nor I yours. Without love, Louis, you and I can not be happy. But
love alone will not make us so. There must be trust, and there must
also be forbearance. My feeling of annoyance will pass away in time;
and till it does, I will shew it as little as may be possible."
He felt that he had nothing more to say, and then he left her; but he
had gained nothing by the interview. She was still hard and cold, and
still assumed a tone which seemed to imply that she had manifestly
been the injured person.
Colonel Osborne, when he was left alone, stood for a few moments on
the spot, and then with a whistle, a shake of the head, and a little
low chuckle of laughter, rejoined the crowd.