Five years ago he told me his father insisted on his marrying,--would
not hear of his putting it off any longer. Sir Edmund had been harping
on this string ever since he came back from Germany, had made it both
a general and a particular request, not only urging him to matrimony in
the abstract, but pushing him into the arms of every young woman in the
country. Ambrose had promised, procrastinated, temporized; but at last
he was at the end of his evasions, and his poor father had taken the
tone of supplication. “He thinks immensely of the name, of the place and
all that, and he has got it into his head that if I don’t marry before
he dies, I won’t marry after.” So much I remember Ambrose Tester said to
me. “It’s a fixed idea; he has got it on the brain. He wants to see me
married with his eyes, and he wants to take his grandson in his arms.
Not without that will he be satisfied that the whole thing will go
straight. He thinks he is nearing his end, but he isn’t,--he will live
to see a hundred, don’t you think so?--and he has made me a solemn
appeal to put an end to what he calls his suspense. He has an idea some
one will get hold of me--some woman I can’t marry. As if I were not old
enough to take care of myself!”
“Perhaps he is afraid of me,” I suggested, facetiously.
“No, it is n’t you,” said my visitor, betraying by his tone that it was
some one, though he didn’t say whom. “That’s all rot, of course; one
marries sooner or later, and I shall do like every one else. If I marry
before I die, it’s as good as if I marry before he dies, is n’t it? I
should be delighted to have the governor at my wedding, but it is n’t
necessary for the legality, is it?”
I asked him what he wished me to do, and how I could help him. He knew
already my peculiar views, that I was trying to get husbands for all the
girls of my acquaintance and to prevent the men from taking wives. The
sight of an ummarried woman afflicted me, and yet when my male friends
changed their state I took it as a personal offence. He let me know that
so far as he was concerned I must prepare myself for this injury, for
he had given his father his word that another twelvemonth should not see
him a bachelor. The old man had given him _carte blanche_; he made no
condition beyond exacting that the lady should have youth and health.
Ambrose Tester, at any rate, had taken a vow and now he was going
seriously to look about him. I said to him that what must be must be,
and that there were plenty of charming girls about the land, among
whom he could suit himself easily enough. There was no better match in
England, I said, and he would only have to make his choice. That however
is not what I thought, for my real reflections were summed up in the
silent exclamation, “What a pity Lady Vandeleur isn’t a widow!” I hadn’t
the smallest doubt that if she were he would marry her on the spot; and
after he had gone I wondered considerably what _she_ thought of this
turn in his affairs. If it was disappointing to me, how little it must
be to _her_ taste! Sir Edmund had not been so much out of the way
in fearing there might be obstacles to his son’s taking the step he
desired. Margaret Vandeleur was an obstacle. I knew it as well as if Mr.
Tester had told me.
I don’t mean there was anything in their relation he might not freely
have alluded to, for Lady Vandeleur, in spite of her beauty and
her tiresome husband, was not a woman who could be accused of an
indiscretion. Her husband was a pedant about trifles,--the shape of his
hatbrim, the _pose_ of his coachman, and cared for nothing else; but
she was as nearly a saint as one may be when one has rubbed shoulders
for ten years with the best society in Europe. It is a characteristic
of that society that even its saints are suspected, and I go too far
in saying that little pinpricks were not administered, in considerable
numbers to her reputation. But she did n’t feel them, for still
more than Ambrose Tester she was a person to whose happiness a good
conscience was necessary. I should almost say that for her happiness it
was sufficient, and, at any rate, it was only those who didn’t know
her that pretended to speak of her lightly. If one had the honor of her
acquaintance one might have thought her rather shut up to her beauty
and her grandeur, but one could n’t but feel there was something in her
composition that would keep her from vulgar aberrations. Her husband was
such a feeble type that she must have felt doubly she had been put upon
her honor. To deceive such a man as that was to make him more ridiculous
than he was already, and from such a result a woman bearing his name
may very well have shrunk. Perhaps it would have been worse for Lord
Vandeleur, who had every pretension of his order and none of its
amiability, if he had been a better, or at least, a cleverer man. When a
woman behaves so well she is not obliged to be careful, and there is
no need of consulting appearances when one is one’s self an appearance.
Lady Vandeleur accepted Ambrose Tester’s attentions, and Heaven knows
they were frequent; but she had such an air of perfect equilibrium that
one could n’t see her, in imagination, bend responsive. Incense was
incense, but one saw her sitting quite serene among the fumes. That
honor of her acquaintance of which I just now spoke it had been given me
to enjoy; that is to say, I met her a dozen times in the season in a
hot crowd, and we smiled sweetly and murmured a vague question or two,
without hearing, or even trying to hear, each other’s answer. If I knew
that Ambrose Tester was perpetually in and out of her house and always
arranging with her that they should go to the same places, I doubt
whether she, on her side, knew how often he came to see me. I don’t
think he would have let her know, and am conscious, in saying this, that
it indicated an advanced state of intimacy (with her, I mean).
I also doubt very much whether he asked her to look about, on his
behalf, for a future Lady Tester. This request he was so good as to make
of me; but I told him I would have nothing to do with the matter. If
Joscelind is unhappy, I am thankful to say the responsibility is not
mine. I have found English husbands for two or three American girls, but
providing English wives is a different affair. I know the sort of men
that will suit women, but one would have to be very clever to know the
sort of women that will suit men. I told Ambrose Tester that he must
look out for himself, but, in spite of his promise, I had very little
belief that he would do anything of the sort. I thought it probable that
the old baronet would pass away without seeing a new generation come
in; though when I intimated as much to Mr. Tester, he made answer in
substance (it was not quite so crudely said) that his father, old as he
was, would hold on till his bidding was done, and if it should not be
done, he would hold on out of spite. “Oh, he will tire me out;” that
I remember Ambrose Tester did say. I had done him injustice, for six
months later he told me he was engaged. It had all come about very
suddenly. From one day to the other the right young woman had been
found. I forget who had found her; some aunt or cousin, I think; it had
not been the young man himself. But when she was found, he rose to the
occasion; he took her up seriously, he approved of her thoroughly, and
I am not sure that he didn’t fall a little in love with her, ridiculous
(excuse my London tone) as this accident may appear. He told me that his
father was delighted, and I knew afterwards that he had good reason to
be. It was not till some weeks later that I saw the girl; but meanwhile
I had received the pleasantest impression of her, and this impression
came--must have come--mainly from what her intended told me. That proves
that he spoke with some positiveness, spoke as if he really believed he
was doing a good thing. I had it on my tongue’s end to ask him how Lady
Vandeleur liked her, but I fortunately checked this vulgar inquiry. He
liked her evidently, as I say; every one liked her, and when I knew her
I liked her better even than the others. I like her to-day more than
ever; it is fair you should know that, in reading this account of her
situation. It doubtless colors my picture, gives a point to my sense of
the strangeness of my little story.
Joscelind Bernardstone came of a military race, and had been brought
up in camps,--by which I don’t mean she was one of those objectionable
young women who are known as garrison hacks. She was in the flower of
her freshness, and had been kept in the tent, receiving, as an only
daughter, the most “particular” education from the excellent Lady Emily
(General Bernardstone married a daughter of Lord Clandufly), who looks
like a pink-faced rabbit, and is (after Joscelind) one of the nicest
women I know. When I met them in a country-house, a few weeks after the
marriage was “arranged,” as they say here, Joscelind won my affections
by saying to me, with her timid directness (the speech made me feel
sixty years old), that she must thank me for having been so kind to Mr.
Tester. You saw her at Doubleton, and you will remember that though she
has no regular beauty, many a prettier woman would be very glad to look
like her. She is as fresh as a new-laid egg, as light as a feather,
as strong as a mail-phaeton. She is perfectly mild, yet she is clever
enough to be sharp if she would. I don’t know that clever women are
necessarily thought ill-natured, but it is usually taken for granted
that amiable women are very limited. Lady Tester is a refutation of the
theory, which must have been invented by a vixenish woman who was _not_
clever. She has an adoration for her husband, which absorbs her without
in the least making her silly, unless indeed it is silly to be modest,
as in this brutal world I sometimes believe. Her modesty is so great
that being unhappy has hitherto presented itself to her as a form of
egotism,--that egotism which she has too much delicacy to cultivate. She
is by no means sure that if being married to her beautiful baronet is
not the ideal state she dreamed it, the weak point of the affair is not
simply in her own presumption. It does n’t express her condition, at
present, to say that she is unhappy or disappointed, or that she has a
sense of injury. All this is latent; meanwhile, what is obvious, is that
she is bewildered,--she simply does n’t understand; and her perplexity,
to me, is unspeakably touching. She looks about her for some
explanation, some light. She fixes her eyes on mine sometimes, and on
those of other people, with a kind of searching dumbness, as if there
were some chance that I--that they--may explain, may tell her what it is
that has happened to her. I can explain very well, but not to her,--only
to you!