REBELLION.
Lady George never forgot that slow journey home in the cab,--for in
truth it was very slow. It seemed to her that she would never reach her
own house. "Mary," he said, as soon as they were seated, "you have made
me a miserable man." The cab rumbled and growled frightfully, and he
felt himself unable to attack her with dignity while they were
progressing. "But I will postpone what I have to say till we have
reached home."
"I have done nothing wrong," said Mary, very stoutly.
"You had better say nothing more till we are at home." After that not a
word more was said, but the journey was very long.
At the door of the house Lord George gave his hand to help her out of
the cab, and then marched before her through the passage into the
dining-room. It was evident that he was determined to make his harangue
on that night. But she was the first to speak. "George," she said, "I
have suffered very much, and am very tired. If you please, I will go to
bed."
"You have disgraced me," he said.
"No; it is you that have disgraced me and put me to shame before
everybody,--for nothing, for nothing. I have done nothing of which I am
ashamed." She looked up into his face, and he could see that she was
full of passion, and by no means in a mood to submit to his reproaches.
She, too, could frown, and was frowning now. Her nostrils were dilated,
and her eyes were bright with anger. He could see how it was with her;
and though he was determined to be master, he hardly knew how he was to
make good his masterdom.
"You had better listen to me," he said.
"Not to-night. I am too ill, too thoroughly wretched. Anything you have
got to say of course I will listen to,--but not now." Then she walked
to the door.
"Mary!" She paused with her hand on the lock. "I trust that you do not
wish to contest the authority which I have over you?"
"I do not know; I cannot say. If your authority calls upon me to own
that I have done anything wrong, I shall certainly contest it. And if I
have not, I think--I think you will express your sorrow for the injury
you have done me to-night." Then she left the room before he had made
up his mind how he would continue his address. He was quite sure that
he was right. Had he not desired her not to waltz? At that moment he
quite forgot the casual permission he had barely given at Lady
Brabazon's, and which had been intended to apply to that night only.
Had he not specially warned her against this Captain De Baron, and told
her that his name and hers were suffering from her intimacy with the
man? And then, had she not deceived him directly by naming another
person as her partner in that odious dance? The very fact that she had
so deceived him was proof to him that she had known that she ought not
to dance with Captain De Baron, and that she had a vicious pleasure in
doing so which she had been determined to gratify even in opposition to
his express orders. As he stalked up and down the room in his wrath, he
forgot as much as he remembered. It had been represented to him that
this odious romp had been no more than a minuet; but he did not bear
in mind that his wife had been no party to that misrepresentation. And
he forgot, too, that he himself had been present as a spectator at her
express request. And when his wrath was at the fullest he almost forgot
those letters from Adelaide Houghton! But he did not forget that all
Mrs. Montacute Jones' world had seen him as in his offended marital
majesty he took his wife out from amidst the crowd, declaring his
indignation and his jealousy to all who were there assembled. He might
have been wrong there. As he thought of it all he confessed to himself
as much as that. But the injury done had been done to himself rather
than to her. Of course they must leave London now, and leave it for
ever. She must go with him whither he might choose to take her. Perhaps
Manor Cross might serve for their lives' seclusion, as the Marquis
would not live there. But Manor Cross was near the deanery, and he must
sever his wife from her father. He was now very hostile to the Dean,
who had looked on and seen his abasement, and had smiled. But, through
it all, there never came to him for a moment any idea of a permanent
quarrel with his wife. It might, he thought, be long before there was
permanent comfort between them. Obedience, absolute obedience, must
come before that could be reached. But of the bond which bound them
together he was far too sensible to dream of separation. Nor, in his
heart, did he think her guilty of anything but foolish, headstrong
indiscretion,--of that and latterly of dissimulation. It was not that
Caesar had been wronged, but that his wife had enabled idle tongues to
suggest a wrong to Caesar.
He did not see her again that night, betaking himself at a very late
hour to his own dressing-room. On the next morning at an early hour he
was awake thinking. He must not allow her to suppose for a moment that
he was afraid of her. He went into her room a few minutes before their
usual breakfast hour, and found her, nearly dressed, with her maid. "I
shall be down directly, George," she said in her usual voice. As he
could not bid the woman go away, he descended and waited for her in the
parlour. When she entered the room she instantly rang the bell and
contrived to keep the man in the room while she was making the tea. But
he would not sit down. How is a man to scold his wife properly with
toast and butter on a plate before him? "Will you not have your tea?"
she asked--oh, so gently.
"Put it down," he said. According to her custom, she got up and brought
it round to his place. When they were alone she would kiss his forehead
as she did so; but now the servant was just closing the door, and there
was no kiss.
"Do come to your breakfast, George," she said.
"I cannot eat my breakfast while all this is on my mind. I must speak
of it. We must leave London at once."
"In a week or two."
"At once. After last night, there must be no more going to parties."
She lifted her cup to her lips and sat quite silent. She would hear a
little more before she answered him. "You must feel yourself that for
some time to come, perhaps for some years, privacy will be the best for
us."
"I feel nothing of the kind, George."
"Could you go and face those people after what happened last night?"
"Certainly I could, and should think it my duty to do so to-night, if
it were possible. No doubt you have made it difficult, but I would do
it."
"I was forced to make it difficult. There was nothing for me to do but
to take you away."
"Because you were angry, you were satisfied to disgrace me before all
the people there. What has been done cannot be helped. I must bear it.
I cannot stop people from talking and thinking evil. But I will never
say that I think evil of myself by hiding myself. I don't know what you
mean by privacy. I want no privacy."
"Why did you dance with that man?"
"Because it was so arranged."
"You had told me it was some one else?"
"Do you mean to accuse me of a falsehood, George? First one arrangement
had been made, and then another."
"I had been told before how it was to be."
"Who told you? I can only answer for myself."
"And why did you waltz?"
"Because you had withdrawn your foolish objection. Why should I not
dance like other people? Papa does not think it wrong?"
"Your father has nothing to do with it."
"If you ill-treat me, George, papa must have something to do with it.
Do you think he will see me disgraced before a room full of people, as
you did yesterday, and hold his tongue? Of course you are my husband,
but he is still my father; and if I want protection he will protect
me."
"I will protect you," said Lord George, stamping his foot upon the
floor.
"Yes; by burying me somewhere. That is what you say you mean to do. And
why? Because you get some silly nonsense into your head, and then make
yourself and me ridiculous in public. If you think I am what you seem
to suspect, you had better let papa have me back again,--though that is
so horrible that I can hardly bring myself to think of it. If you do
not think so, surely you should beg my pardon for the affront you put
on me last night."
This was a way in which he had certainly not looked at the matter. Beg
her pardon! He, as a husband, beg a wife's pardon under any
circumstances! And beg her pardon for having carried her away from a
house in which she had manifestly disobeyed him. No, indeed. But then
he was quite as strongly opposed to that other idea of sending her back
to her father, as a man might send a wife who had disgraced herself.
Anything would be better than that. If she would only acknowledge that
she had been indiscreet, they would go down together into Brothershire,
and all might be comfortable. Though she was angry with him, obstinate
and rebellious, yet his heart was softened to her because she did not
throw the woman's love-letter in his teeth. He had felt that here would
be his great difficulty, but his difficulty now arose rather from the
generosity which kept her silent on the subject. "What I did," he said,
"I did to protect you."
"Such protection was an insult." Then she left the room before he had
tasted his tea or his toast. She had heard her father's knock, and knew
that she would find him in the drawing-room. She had made up her mind
how she would tell the story to him; but when she was with him he would
have no story told at all. He declared that he knew everything, and
spoke as though there could be no doubt as to the heinousness, or
rather, absurdity, of Lord George's conduct. "It is very sad,--very
sad, indeed," he said; "one hardly knows what one ought to do."
"He wants to go down--to Cross Hall."
"That is out of the question. You must stay out your time here and then
come to me, as you arranged. He must get out of it by saying that he
was frightened by thinking that you had fallen."
"It was not that, papa."
"Of course it was not; but how else is he to escape from his own
folly?"
"You do not think that I have been--wrong--with Captain De Baron?"
"I! God bless you, my child. I think that you have been wrong! He
cannot think so either. Has he accused you?"
Then she told him, as nearly as she could, all that had passed between
them, including the expression of his desire that she should not waltz,
and his subsequent permission given at Lady Brabazon's. "Pish!" he
ejaculated. "I hate these attempted restrictions. It is like a woman
telling her husband not to smoke. What a fool a man must be not to see
that he is preparing misery for himself by laying embargoes on the
recreations of his nearest companion!" Then he spoke of what he himself
would do. "I must see him, and if he will not hear reason you must go
with me to the Deanery without him."
"Don't separate us, papa."
"God forbid that there should be any permanent separation. If he be
obstinate, it may be well that you should be away from him for a week
or two. Why can't a man wash his dirty linen at home, if he has any to
wash. His, at any rate, did not come to him with you."
Then there was a very stormy scene in the dining-room between the two
men. The Dean, whose words were infinitely more ready and available
than those of his opponent, said very much the most, and by the fierce
indignation of his disclaimers, almost prevented the husband from
dwelling on the wife's indiscretion. "I did not think it possible that
such a man as you could have behaved so cruelly to such a girl."
"I was not cruel; I acted for the best."
"You degraded yourself, and her too."
"I degraded no one," said Lord George.
"It is hard to think what may now best be done to cure the wound which
she has been made to suffer. I must insist on this,--that she must not
be taken from town before the day fixed for her departure."
"I think of going to-morrow," said Lord George, gloomily.
"Then you must go alone, and I must remain with her."
"Certainly not;--certainly not."
"She will not go. She shall not be made to run away. Though everything
have to be told in the public prints, I will not submit to that. I
suppose you do not dare to tell me that you suspect her of any evil?"
"She has been indiscreet."
"Suppose I granted that,--which I don't,--is she to be ground into dust
in this way for indiscretion? Have not you been indiscreet?" Lord
George made no direct answer to this question, fearing that the Dean
had heard the story of the love-letter; but of that matter the Dean had
heard nothing. "In all your dealings with her, can you tax yourself
with no deviation from wisdom?"
"What a man does is different. No conduct of mine can blemish her
name."
"But it may destroy her happiness,--and if you go on in this way it
will do so."
During the whole of that day the matter was discussed. Lord George
obstinately insisted on taking his wife down to Cross Hall, if not on
the next day, then on the day after. But the Dean, and with the Dean
the young wife, positively refused to accede to this arrangement. The
Dean had his things brought from the inn to the house in Munster Court,
and though he did not absolutely declare that he had come there for his
daughter's protection, it was clear that this was intended. In such an
emergency Lord George knew not what to do. Though the quarrel was
already very bitter, he could not quite tell his father-in-law to leave
the house; and then there was always present to his mind a feeling that
the Dean had a right to be there in accordance with the pecuniary
arrangement made. The Dean would have been welcome to the use of the
house and all that was in it, if only Mary would have consented to be
taken at once down to Cross Hall. But being under her father's wing,
she would not consent. She pleaded that by going at once, or running
away as she called it, she would own that she had done something wrong,
and she was earnest in declaring that nothing should wring such a
confession from her. Everybody, she said, knew that she was to stay in
London to the end of June. Everybody knew that she was then to go to
the Deanery. It was not to be borne that people should say that her
plans had been altered because she had danced the Kappa-kappa with
Captain De Baron. She must see her friends before she went, or else her
friends would know that she had been carried into banishment. In answer
to this, Lord George declared that he, as husband, was paramount. This
Mary did not deny, but, paramount as the authority was, she would not,
in this instance, be governed by it.
It was a miserable day to them all. Many callers came, asking after
Lady George, presuming that her speedy departure from the ball had been
caused by her accident. No one was admitted, and all were told that she
had not been much hurt. There were two or three stormy scenes between
the Dean and his son-in-law, in one of which Lord George asked the Dean
whether he conceived it to be compatible with his duty as a clergyman
of the Church of England to induce a wife to disobey her husband. In
answer to this, the Dean said that in such a matter the duty of a
Church dignitary was the same as that of any other gentleman, and that
he, as a gentleman, and also as a dignitary, meant to stand by his
daughter. She refused to pack up, or to have her things packed. When he
came to look into himself, he found that he had not power to bid the
servants do it in opposition to their mistress. That the power of a
husband was paramount he was well aware, but he did not exactly see his
way to the exercise of it. At last he decided that he, at any rate,
would go down to Cross Hall. If the Dean chose to create a separation
between his daughter and her husband, he must bear the responsibility.
On the following day he did go down to Cross Hall, leaving his wife and
her father in Munster Court without any definite plans.