MY LORD SPEAKS OUT
Mary had passed through twenty minutes of tense excitement. The risk
had been slight, after the first moment of intervention, but she had
not known this, and she was still trembling with indignation, a
creature all fire and passion, when the door of The Butterflies opened
to admit her. Leaving Ben Bosham on the threshold she lost not a
moment, but with her story on her lips, hurried up the stairs, and on
the landing came plump upon Lord Audley.
From the window he had seen something of what was afoot below. He had
recognized Mary and the tattered Bosham, and he had read the riddle,
grasped the facts, and cursed the busybody, all within thirty seconds.
“D—n it! this passes everything,” he had muttered to himself as he
turned from the window in disgust. “This is altogether too much!” And
he had opened the door—ready also to open his mind to her!
“What in the world is it?” he asked. He held the door for her to enter.
“What has happened? I could not believe my eyes when I saw you in
company with that wretched creature!” he continued. “And all the tagrag
and bobtail in the place behind you? What is it, Mary?”
She felt the check, and the color, which excitement had brought to her
cheeks, faded. But she thought that it was only that he did not
understand, and, “That wretched creature, as you call him,” she cried,
“has just escaped from death. They were going to murder him!”
“Murder him?” Audley repeated. He raised his eyebrows. “Murder him?”
coldly. “My dear girl, don’t be silly! Don’t let yourself be carried
away. You’ve lost your head. And, pardon me for saying it, I am afraid
have made a fool of yourself! And of me!”
“But they were going to throw him into the canal!” she protested.
“Going to wash him!” he replied cynically. “And a good thing too! It’s
a pity they left the job undone. The man is a low, pestilent fellow!”
he continued severely, “and obnoxious to me and to all decent people.
The idea of bringing him, and that pleasant tail, to my house—my dear
girl, it’s absurd!”
He made no attempt to soften his tone or suppress his annoyance, and
she stared at him in astonishment. Yet she still thought, or she strove
to think, that he did not understand, and tried to make the facts
clear. “But you don’t know what they were like,” she protested. “You
were not there. They had torn the clothes from his back——”
“I can see that.”
“And he was so terrified that it was dreadful to see him! They were
handling him brutally, horribly! And then I came up and——”
“And lost your head!” he said. “I dare say you thought all this. But do
you know anything about elections?”
“No——”
“Have you ever see an election in progress before?”
“No.”
“Just so,” he replied dryly. “Well, if you had, you would know that
brawls of this kind are common things, the commonest of things at such
a time, and that sensible people turn their backs on them. You’ve
chosen to turn the farce into a tragedy, and in doing so you’ve made
yourself ridiculous—and me too!”
“If you had seen them,” she said, “I do not think you would speak as
you are speaking.”
“My dear girl,” he replied, and shrugged his shoulders, “I have seen
many such things, many. But there is one thing I have never seen, and
that is a man killed in an election squabble! The whole thing is
childish—silly! The least knowledge of the world—”
“Would have saved me from it?”
“Exactly! Would have saved you from it!” he answered austerely. “And me
from a very annoying incident! Peers have nothing to do with elections,
as you ought to know; and to bring this mob of all sorts to my door as
if the matter touched me, is to compromise me. It is past a joke!”
Mary stared. She was trying to place herself. Certainly this was the
room in which she had taken tea, and this was the man who had welcomed
her, who had hung over her, whose eyes had paid her homage, who had
foreseen her least want, who had lapped her in observance. This was the
man and this the room, and there was the chair in which good Mrs.
Wilkinson had sat and beamed on her.
But there was a change somewhere; and the change was in the man. Could
it mean that he, too, had made a mistake and now recognized it? That
he, too, had found that he did not love? But in that case this was not
the way to confess an error. His tone, his manner, which held no
respect for the woman and no softness for the sweetheart, were far from
the tone of one in the wrong. On the contrary, they presented a side of
him which had been hitherto hidden from her; a phase of the strength
that she had admired, which shocked her even while, as deep calls to
deep, it roused her pride. She remembered that she was his betrothed,
and that he had wooed her, he had chosen her. And on slight provocation
he spoke to her in this strain!
She sought the clue, she fancied that she held it, and from this moment
she was on her guard. She was quiet, but there was a smouldering fire
in her eyes. “Perhaps I was wrong,” she said. “I have had little
experience of these things. But are not you, on your side, making too
much of this? Too much of a very small, a very natural mistake? Isn’t
it a trifle after all?”
“Not so much of a trifle as you think!” he retorted. “A man in my
position has to follow a certain line of conduct. A girl in yours
should be careful to guide herself by my views. Instead, out of a
foolish sentimentality, you run directly counter to them! It is too
late to consider your relation to me when the harm is done, my dear.”
“Perhaps we have neither of us considered the relation quite enough?”
she said.
“I am not sure that we have.” And again, “I am not sure, Mary, that we
have,” he repeated more soberly.
She knew what he meant now—knew what was in his mind almost as clearly
as if, instead of grasping his conclusion, she had been a party to his
reasons. And she closed her lips, a spot of color in each cheek. In
other circumstances she would have taken on herself a full, nay, the
main share, of the blame. She would have been quick to admit that she,
too, had made a mistake, and that no harm was done.
But his manner opened her eyes to many things that had been a puzzle to
her. Thought is swift, and in a flash her mind had travelled over the
whole course of their engagement, had recalled his long absence, the
chill of his letters, the infrequency of his visits; and she saw by
that light that this was no sudden shift, but an occasion sought and
seized. Therefore she would not help him. She at least had been honest,
she at least had been in earnest. She had tricked, not him only, but
herself!
She closed her lips and waited, therefore. And he, knowing that he had
now burned his boats, had to go on. “I am not sure that we did think
enough about it?” he said doggedly. “I have suspected for some time
that I acted hastily in—in asking you to be my wife, Mary.”
“Indeed?” she said.
“Yes. And what has happened to-day, proving that we look at things so
differently, has confirmed my suspicion. It has convinced me—” he
looked down at his table, avoiding her eyes, but continued firmly—“that
we are not suited to one another. The wife of a man, placed as I am,
should have an idea of values, a certain reserve, that comes of a
knowledge of the world; above all, no sentimental notions such as lead
to mistakes like this.” He indicated the street by a gesture. “If I was
mistaken a while ago in listening to my feelings rather than to my
prudence, if I gave you credit for knowledge which you had had no means
of gaining, I wronged you, Mary, and I am sorry for it. But I should be
doing you a far greater wrong if I remained silent now.”
“Do you mean,” she asked in a low voice, “that you wish it to be at an
end between us? That you wish to—to throw me over?”
He smiled awry. “That is an unpleasant way of putting it, isn’t it?” he
said. “However, I am in the wrong, and I have no right to quarrel with
a word. I do think that to break off our engagement at once is the best
and wisest thing for both of us.”
“How long have you felt this?” she asked.
“For some time,” he replied, measuring his words, “I have been coming
slowly—to that conclusion.”
“That I am not fitted to be your wife?”
“If you like to put it so.”
Then her anger, hitherto kept under, flamed up. “Then what right,” she
cried, “if that was in your mind, had you to treat me as you treated me
at Beaudelays—in the garden? What right had you to kiss me? Rather,
what right had you to insult me? For it was an insult—it was an insult,
if you were not going to marry me! Don’t you know, sir, that it was
vile? That it was unforgivable?”
She had never looked more handsome, never more attractive than at this
moment. The day was failing, but the glow of the fire fell on her face,
and on her eyes sparkling with anger. He took in the picture, he owned
her charm, he even came near to repenting. But it was too late, and “It
may have been vile—and you may not forgive it,” he answered hardily,
“but I’d do it again, my dear, on the same provocation!”
“You would——”
“I would do it again,” he repeated coolly. “Don’t you know that you are
handsome enough to turn any man’s head? And what is a kiss after all?
We are cousins. If you were not such a prude, I would kiss you now?”
She was furiously angry—or she fancied that she was. But it may be
that, deep down in her woman’s mind, she was not truly angry. And,
indeed, how could she be angry when in her heart a little bird was
beginning to sing—was telling her that she was free, that presently
this cloud would be behind her, and that the sky would be blue? Already
the message was making itself heard, already she was finding it hard to
keep up appearances, to frown upon him and play her part.
Yet she flashed out at him. Was he not going too fast, was he not
riding off too lightly? “Oh!” she cried, “You dare to say that! Even
while you break off with me!”
But his selfish, masterful nature had now the upper hand. He had eaten
his leek and he was anxious to be done with it. “And what then?” he
said. “I believe that you know that I am right. I believe that you know
that we are not suited to one another.”
“And you think I will let you go at a word?”
“I think you will let me go,” he said, “because you are not a fool,
Mary. You know as well as I do that you might be ‘my lady’ at too high
a price. I’m not the most manageable of men. I’d make a decent husband,
all being well. But I’m not meek and I’d make a very unhandy husband
_malgré moi_.”
The threat exasperated her. “I know this at least,” she retorted, “that
I would not marry you now, if you were twenty times my lord! You have
behaved meanly, and I believe falsely! Not to-day! You are speaking the
truth to-day. But I believe that from the start you had this in your
mind, that you foresaw this, and were careful not to commit yourself
too publicly! What I don’t understand is why you ever asked me to be
your wife—at all?”
“Look in the glass!” he answered impudently.
She put that aside. “But I suppose that you had a reason!” she
returned. “That you loved me, that you felt for me anything worthy of
the name of love is impossible! For the rest, let me tell you this! If
I ever felt thankful for anything I am thankful for the chance that
brought me to your house to-day—and brought me to the truth!”
“Anything more to say?” he asked flippantly. The way she was taking it
suited him better than if she had wept and appealed. And then she was
so confoundedly good-looking in her tantrums!
“Nothing more,” she said. “I think that we understand one another now.
At any rate, I understand you. Perhaps you will kindly see if I can
leave the house without annoyance.”
He looked into the street. Dusk had fallen, the lamplighter was going
his rounds. Of the crowd that had attended Mary to the house no more
than a handful remained; the nipping air, the attractions of free beer,
the sound of the muffin-bell, had drawn away the rest. The driver of
the gig was moving to and fro, now looking disconsolately at the
windows, now beating his fingers on his chest.
“I think you can leave with safety,” Audley said with irony. “I will
see you downstairs.”
“I will not trouble you,” she answered.
“But, surely, we may still be friends?”
She looked him in the face. “We need not be enemies,” she answered.
“And, perhaps, some day I may be able to think more kindly of you. If
that day comes I will tell you. Good-bye.” She went out without
touching his hand. She went down the stairs.
She drove through the dusky, dimly-lighted streets in a kind of dream,
seeing all things through a pleasant haze. The bank was closed and to
deliver up her papers she had to go into the bank-house. The glimpse
she had of the cheerful parlor, of the manager’s wife, of his two
children playing the Royal Game of Goose at a round table, enchanted
her. Presently she was driving again through the darkling streets,
passing the Maypole, passing the quaint, low-browed shops, lit only by
an oil lamp or a couple of candles. The Audley Arms, the Packhorse, the
Portcullis, were all alight and buzzing with the voices of those who
fought their battles over again or laid bets on this candidate or that.
What the speaker had said to Lawyer Stubbs and what Lawyer Stubbs had
said to the speaker, what the “Duke” thought, who would have to pay for
the damage, and the odds the stout farmer would give that wheat
wouldn’t be forty shillings a quarter this day twelvemonth if the
Repeal passed—scraps of these and the like poured from the doorways as
she drove by.
All fell in delightfully with her mood and filled her with a sense of
well-being. Even when the streets lay behind her, and the driver
hunched his shoulders to meet the damp night-fog and the dreary stretch
that lay beyond the canal-bridge, Mary found the darkness pleasant and
the chill no more than bracing. For what were that night, that chill
beside the numbing grip from which she had just—oh, thing
miraculous!—escaped! Beside the fetters that had been lifted from her
within the last hour! O foolish girl, O ineffable idiot, to have ever
fancied that she loved that man!
No, for her it was a charming night! The owl that, far away towards the
Great House, hooted dolefully above the woods—no nightingale had been
more tuneful. Ben Bosham—she laughed, thinking of his plight—blessings
on his bare, bald head and his ragged shoulders! The old horse plodding
on, with the hill that mounts to the Gatehouse sadly on his mind—he
should have oats, if oats there were in the Gatehouse stables! He
should have oats in plenty, or what he would if oats failed!
“What do you give him when he’s tired?” she asked.
“Well,” the driver replied with diplomacy, “times a quart of ale, Miss.
He’ll take it like a Christian.”
“Then a quart of ale he shall have to-night!” she said with a happy
laugh. “And you shall have one, too, Simonds.”
Her mood held to the end, so that before she was out of her wraps, Mrs.
Toft was aware of the change in her. “Why, Miss,” she said, “you look
like another creature! It isn’t the bank, I’ll be bound, has put that
color in your cheeks!”
“No!” Mary answered, “I’ve had an adventure, Mrs. Toft. And briefly she
told the tale of Ben Bosham’s plight and of her gallant rescue. She
began herself to see the comic side of it.
“He always was a fool, was Ben!” Mrs. Toft commented. “And that,” she
continued shrewdly, “was how you come to see his lordship was it,
Miss?”
“How did you know I saw him?” Mary asked in surprise. “But you’re
right, I did.” Then, as she entered the parlor, “Perhaps I’d better
tell you, Mrs. Toft,” she said, “that the engagement between my cousin
and myself is at an end. You were one of the very few who knew of it,
and so I tell you.”
Mrs. Toft showed no surprise. “Indeed, Miss,” she answered, stooping to
the hearth to light the candles with a piece of wood. “Well, one
thing’s certain, and many a time my mother’s drummed it into me,
‘Better a plain shoe than one that pinches!’ And again, ‘Better live at
the bottom of the hill than the top,’ she’d say. ‘You see less but you
believe more.’”
Neither she nor Mary saw Toft. But Toft, who had entered the hall a
moment before, was within hearing, and Mary’s statement, so coolly
received by his wife, had an extraordinary effect on the man-servant.
He stood an instant, his lank figure motionless. Then he opened the
door beside him, slipped out into the chill and the darkness, and
silently, but with extravagant gestures, he broke into a dance, now
waving his thin arms in the air, now stooping with his hands locked
between his knees. Whether he thus found vent for joy or grief was a
secret which he kept to himself.