BETWEEN TWO STOOLS.
In the middle of the next week the Dean went back to Brotherton. Before
starting he had an interview with Lord George which was not altogether
pleasant; but otherwise he had thoroughly enjoyed his visit. On the day
on which he started he asked his host what inquiries he intended to set
on foot in reference to the validity of the Italian marriage and the
legitimacy of the Italian baby. Now Lord George had himself in the
first instance consulted the Dean on this very delicate subject, and
was therefore not entitled to be angry at having it again mentioned;
but nevertheless he resented the question as an interference. "I
think," he replied, "that at present nothing had better be said upon
the subject."
"I cannot agree with you there, George."
"Then I am afraid I must ask you to be silent without agreeing with
me."
The Dean felt this to be intentionally uncivil. They two were in a boat
together. The injury to be done, if there were an injury, would affect
the wife as much as the husband. The baby which might some day be born,
and which might be robbed of his inheritance, would be as much the
grandchild of the Dean of Brotherton as of the old Marquis. And then
perhaps there was present to the Dean some unacknowledged feeling that
he was paying and would have to pay for the boat. Much as he revered
rank, he was not disposed to be snubbed by his son-in-law, because his
son-in-law was a nobleman. "You mean to tell me that I am to hold my
tongue," he said angrily.
"For the present I think we had both better do so."
"That may be, as regards any discussion of the matter with outsiders. I
am not at all disposed to act apart from you on a subject of such
importance to us both. If you tell me that you are advised this way or
that, I should not, without very strong ground, put myself in
opposition to that advice; but I do expect that you will let me know
what is being done."
"Nothing is being done."
"And also that you will not finally determine on doing nothing without
consulting me." Lord George drew himself up and bowed, but made no
further reply; and then the two parted, the Dean resolving that he
would be in town again before long, and Lord George resolving that the
Dean should spend as little time as possible in his house. Now, there
had been an undertaking, after a sort, made by the Dean,--a compact
with his daughter contracted in a jocose fashion,--which in the
existing circumstances was like to prove troublesome. There had been a
question of expenditure when the house was furnished,--whether there
should or should not be a carriage kept. Lord George had expressed an
opinion that their joint means would not suffice to keep a carriage.
Then the Dean had told his daughter that he would allow her L300 a-year
for her own expenses, to include the brougham,--for it was to be no
more than a brougham,--during the six months they would be in London,
and that he would regard this as his subscription towards the
household. Such a mode of being generous to his own child was pretty
enough. Of course the Dean would be a welcome visitor. Equally, of
course, a son-in-law may take any amount of money from a father-in-law
as a portion of his wife's fortune. Lord George, though he had suffered
some inward qualms, had found nothing in the arrangement to which he
could object while his friendship with the deanery was close and
pleasant. But now, as the Dean took his departure, and as Mary, while
embracing her father, said something of his being soon back, Lord
George remembered the compact with inward grief, and wished that there
had been no brougham.
In the mean time he had not been to Berkeley Square; nor was he at all
sure that he would go there. A distant day had been named, before that
exciting interview in the square, on which the Houghtons were to dine
in Munster Court. The Mildmays were also to be there, and Mrs.
Montacute Jones, and old Lord Parachute, Lord George's uncle. That
would be a party, and there would be no danger of a scene then. He had
almost determined that, in spite of his promise, he would not go to
Berkeley Square before the dinner. But Mrs. Houghton was not of the
same mind. A promise on such a subject was a sacred thing, and
therefore she wrote the following note to Lord George at his club. The
secrecy which some correspondence requires certainly tends to make a
club a convenient arrangement. "Why don't you come as you said you
would? A." In olden times, fifteen or twenty years ago, when telegraph
wires were still young, and messages were confined to diplomatic
secrets, horse-racing, and the rise and fall of stocks, lovers used to
indulge in rapturous expressions which would run over pages; but the
pith and strength of laconic diction has now been taught to us by the
self-sacrificing patriotism of the Post Office. We have all felt the
vigour of telegrammatic expression, and, even when we do not trust the
wire, we employ the force of wiry language. "Wilt thou be mine?--M.
N.," is now the ordinary form of an offer of marriage by post; and the
answer seldom goes beyond "Ever thine--P. Q." Adelaide Houghton's
love-letter was very short, but it was short from judgment and with a
settled purpose. She believed that a long epistle declaratory of her
everlasting but unfortunate attachment would frighten him. These few
words would say all that she had to say, and would say it safely. He
certainly had promised that he would go to her, and, as a gentleman, he
was bound to keep his word. He had mentioned no exact time, but it had
been understood that the visit was to be made at once. He would not
write to her. Heaven and earth! How would it be with him if Mr.
Houghton were to find the smallest scrap from him indicating improper
affection for Mrs. Houghton? He could not answer the note, and
therefore he must go at once.
He went into a deserted corner of a drawing-room at his club, and there
seated himself for half an hour's meditation. How should he extricate
himself from this dilemma? In what language should he address a young
and beautiful woman devoted to him, but whose devotion he was bound to
repudiate? He was not voluble in conversation, and he was himself aware
of his own slowness. It was essential to him that he should prepare
beforehand almost the very words for an occasion of such
importance,--the very words and gestures and action. Would she not fly
into his arms, or at least expect that he should open his own? That
must be avoided. There must be no embracing. And then he must at once
proceed to explain all the evils of this calamitous passion;--how he
was the husband of another wife; how she was the wife of another
husband; how they were bound by honour, by religion, and equally by
prudence to remember the obligations they had incurred. He must beg her
to be silent while he said all this, and then he would conclude by
assuring her that she should always possess his steadiest friendship.
The excogitation of this took long, partly because his mind was greatly
exercised in the matter, and partly through a nervous desire to
postpone the difficult moment. At last, however, he seized his hat and
went away straight to Berkeley Square. Yes, Mrs. Houghton was at home.
He had feared that there was but little chance that she should be out
on the very day on which she knew that he would get her note. "Oh, so
you have come at last," she said as soon as the drawing-room door was
closed. She did not get up from her chair, and there was therefore no
danger of that immediate embrace which he had felt that it would be
almost equally dangerous to refuse or to accept.
"Yes," he said, "I have come."
"And now sit down and make yourself comfortable. It's very bad out of
doors, isn't it?"
"Cold, but dry."
"With a wretched east wind. I know it, and I don't mean to stir out the
whole day. So you may put your hat down, and not think of going for the
next hour and a half." It was true that he had his hat still in his
hand, and he deposited it forthwith on the floor, feeling that had he
been master of the occasion, he would have got rid of it less
awkwardly. "I shouldn't wonder if Mary were to be here by and by. There
was a sort of engagement that she and Jack De Baron were to come and
play bagatelle in the back drawing-room; but Jack never comes if he
says he will, and I daresay she has forgotten all about it."
He found that his purpose was altogether upset. In the first place, he
could hardly begin about her unfortunate passion when she received him
just as though he were an ordinary acquaintance; and then the whole
tenour of his mind was altered by this allusion to Jack De Baron. Had
it come to this, that he could not get through a day without having
Jack De Baron thrown at his head? He had from the first been averse to
living in London; but this was much worse than he had expected. Was it
to be endured that his wife should make appointments to play bagatelle
with Jack De Baron by way of passing her time? "I had heard nothing
about it," he said with gloomy, truthful significance. It was
impossible for him to lie even by a glance of his eye or a tone of his
voice. He told it all at once; how unwilling he was that his wife
should come out on purpose to meet this man, and how little able he
felt himself to prevent it.
"Of course dear Mary has to amuse herself," said the lady, answering
the man's look rather than his words. "And why should she not?"
"I don't know that bagatelle is a very improving occupation."
"Or Jack a very improving companion, perhaps. But I can tell you,
George, that there are more dangerous companions than poor Jack. And
then, Mary, who is the sweetest, dearest young woman I know, is not
impulsive in that way. She is such a very child. I don't suppose she
understands what passion means. She has the gaiety of a lark, and the
innocence. She is always soaring upwards, which is so beautiful."
"I don't know that there is much soaring upwards in bagatelle."
"Nor in Jack De Baron, perhaps. But we must take all that as we find
it. Of course Mary will have to amuse herself. She will never live such
a life as your sisters live at Manor Cross. The word that best
describes her disposition is--gay. But she is not mischievous."
"I hope not."
"Nor is she--passionate. You know what I mean." He did know what she
meant, and was lost in amazement at finding that one woman, in talking
of another, never contemplated the idea that passion could exist in a
wife for her husband. He was to regard himself as safe, not because his
wife loved himself, but because it was not necessary to her nature to
be in love with any one! "You need not be afraid," she went on to say.
"I know Jack au fond. He tells me everything; and should there be
anything to fear, I will let you know at once."
But what had all this to do with the momentous occasion which had
brought him to Berkeley Square? He was almost beginning to be sore at
heart because she had not thrown herself into his arms. There was no
repetition of that "But you do love me?" which had been so very
alarming but at the same time so very exciting on the steps of the
Albert Memorial. And then there seemed to be a probability that the
words which he had composed with so much care at his club would be
altogether wasted. He owed it to himself to do or to say something, to
allude in some way to his love and hers. He could not allow himself to
be brought there in a flurry of excitement, and there to sit till it
was time for him to go, just as though it were an ordinary morning
visit. "You bade me come," he said, "and so I came."
"Yes, I did bid you come. I would always have you come."
"That can hardly be; can it?"
"My idea of a friend,--of a man friend, I mean, and a real friend--is
some one to whom I can say everything, who will do everything for me,
who will come if I bid him and will like to stay and talk to me just as
long as I will let him; who will tell me everything, and as to whom I
may be sure that he likes me better than anybody else in the world,
though he perhaps doesn't tell me so above once a month. And then in
return----"
"Well, what in return?"
"I should think a good deal about him, you know; but I shouldn't want
always to be telling him that I was thinking about him. He ought to be
contented with knowing how much he was to me. I suppose that would not
suffice for you?"
Lord George was disposed to think that it would suffice, and that the
whole matter was now being represented to him in a very different light
than that in which he had hitherto regarded it. The word "friend"
softened down so many asperities! With such a word in his mind he need
not continually scare himself with the decalogue. All the pleasure
might be there, and the horrors altogether omitted. There would,
indeed, be no occasion for his eloquence; but he had already become
conscious that at this interview his eloquence could not be used. She
had given everything so different a turn! "Why not suffice for me?" he
said. "Only this,--that all I did for my friend I should expect her to
do for me."
"But that is unreasonable. Who doesn't see that in the world at large
men have the best of it almost in everything. The husband is not only
justified in being a tyrant, but becomes contemptible if he is not so.
A man has his pocket full of money; a woman is supposed to take what he
gives her. A man has all manner of amusements."
"What amusements have I?"
"You can come to me."
"Yes, I can do that."
"I cannot go to you. But when you come to me,--if I am to believe that
I am really your friend,--then I am to be the tyrant of the moment. Is
it not so? Do you think you would find me a hard tyrant? I own to you
freely that there is nothing in the world I like so much as your
society. Do I not earn by that a right to some obedience from you, to
some special observance?"
All this was so different from what he had expected, and so much more
pleasant! As far as he could look into it and think of it at the
pressure of the moment he did not see any reason why it should not be
as she proposed. There was clearly no need for those prepared words.
There had been one embrace,--an embrace that was objectionable because,
had either his wife seen it or Mr. Houghton, he would have been forced
to own himself wrong; but that had come from sudden impulse, and need
not be repeated. This that was now proposed to him was friendship, and
not love. "You shall have all observance," he said with his sweetest
smile.
"And as to obedience? But you are a man, and therefore must not be
pressed too hard. And now I may tell you what is the only thing that
can make me happy, and the absence of which would make me miserable."
"What thing?"
"Your society." He blushed up to his eyes as he heard this. "Now that,
I think, is a very pretty speech, and I expect something equally pretty
from you." He was much embarrassed, but was at the moment delivered
from his embarrassment by the entrance of his wife. "Here she is," said
Mrs. Houghton, getting up from her chair. "We have been just talking
about you, my dear. If you have come for bagatelle, you must play with
Lord George, for Jack De Baron isn't here."
"But I haven't come for bagatelle."
"So much the better, for I doubt whether Lord George would be very good
at it. I have been made to play so much that I hate the very sound of
the balls."
"I didn't expect to find you here," said Mary, turning to her husband.
"Nor I you, till Mrs. Houghton said that you were coming."
After that there was nothing of interest in their conversation. Jack
did not come, and after a few minutes Lord George proposed to his wife
that they should return home together. Of course she assented, and as
soon as they were in the brougham made a little playful attack upon
him. "You are becoming fond of Berkeley Square, I think."
"Mrs. Houghton is a friend of mine, and I am fond of my friends," he
said, gravely.
"Oh, of course."
"You went there to play that game with Captain De Baron."
"No, I didn't. I did nothing of the kind."
"Were you not there by appointment?"
"I told her that I should probably call. We were to have gone to some
shop together, only it seems she has changed her mind. Why do you tell
me that I had gone there to play some game with Captain De Baron?"
"Bagatelle."
"Bagatelle, or anything else! It isn't true. I have played bagatelle
with Captain de Baron, and I daresay I may again. Why shouldn't I?"
"And if so, would probably make some appointment to play with him."
"Why not?"
"That was all I said. What I suggested you had done is what you declare
you will do."
"But I had done nothing of the kind. I know very well, from the tone of
your voice, that you meant to scold me. You implied that I had done
something wrong. If I had done it, it wouldn't be wrong, as far as I
know. But your scolding me about it when I hadn't done it at all is
very hard to bear."
"I didn't scold you."
"Yes you did, George. I understand your voice and your look. If you
mean to forbid me to play bagatelle with Captain De Baron, or Captain
anybody else, or to talk with Mr. This, or to laugh with Major That,
tell me so at once. If I know what you want, I will do it. But I must
say that I shall feel it very, very hard if I cannot take care of
myself in such matters as that. If you are going to be jealous, I shall
wish that I were dead."
Then she burst out crying; and he, though he would not quite own that
he had been wrong, was forced to do so practically by little acts of
immediate tenderness.