For three years it was uneventful. I lived much alone, and made a few
friends, with one or another of whom I took a holiday every year on
the Continent. Then an event occurred which gave birth to the
startling incidents and experiences of my life.
Ten years ago this month Barbara Landor and I were married. I was
twenty-four, and Barbara was three years my senior. To a young man
in love--as I must have been at that time, though my feelings for my
wife soon underwent change, and I look back upon them now with
amazement--such a disparity is not likely to cause uneasiness. It did
not cause me any. I was swayed entirely by my passionate desire to
make the woman with whom I was infatuated my wife.
I had known her only a short time before I proposed, and was accepted.
Our engagement was of but a few weeks' duration, and during our
courtship I observed nothing in Barbara's manner to disturb me. No one
warned me; no friend bade me pause before I bound myself irrevocably
to a woman who was to be my ruin. Occasionally her face was rather
flushed, and she was eager and nervous, which I ascribed to the
excitement of our engagement. Her sparkling eyes, her rapid speech,
the occasional trembling of her hands--all this I set down to love.
She confided to me that she had no fortune, and that she had thought
of seeking employment as a governess or as a companion to a lady. She
possessed great gifts, which, of course, I magnified; she was a good
musician, could speak French, German and Italian fluently, and sang to
me in those languages with a rich contralto voice.
"Had it not been for you," she said, "I might even have got into the
chorus at the opera."
"Is not this better?" I asked, embracing her.
"Much better," she replied, returning my embrace.
She was a handsome woman, dark, tall, and commanding, and her nearest
relative was a half-brother, Maxwell, much older than she, for whom I
had no special liking. Naturally, after I had drawn from Barbara an
avowal of her love, I addressed myself to him. He stood towards her in
the light of a guardian, and she was living in his house. In reply to
his questions I was very candid as to my worldly position and
prospects, and he professed himself satisfied; but I remembered
afterwards that when I came courting his sister he would look at me
with an expression of amusement on his features, as though he was
enjoying a joke he was keeping to himself. He was in the habit of
boasting that he was a man of the world, and knew every trick on the
board. It was chiefly at his urging that the marriage was
precipitated.
"Long engagements are a mistake," he said. "Don't you think so?"
I replied that I was entirely of his opinion.
"That simplifies matters," he said, "because I am going abroad. I
shall not take a sister with me, you may depend upon that."
It was a plain hint, and the wedding day was fixed. Soon after this,
when I called to do my wooing, he told me that Barbara was not well
enough to see me.
"She has a frightful headache," he said, "and is not in a condition to
see anybody."
I was much distressed, and I asked if she had a doctor.
"Not necessary," he said. "She will get over it. When she is in that
state best leave her alone, old fellow. There's a hint for you in your
matrimonial campaign. Barbara hates the sight of doctors; she is a
delicate creature, very highly strung, something of the full-blooded
racer about her, the kind of woman that requires managing."
"I shall be able to manage her," I said confidently.
"I should think you would," he said, with a mocking smile. "Barbara
and you are going to have a high old time of it. By the way, can you
lend me a tenner for a few days?"
It was not the first time he had asked me for a loan, which was always
to be paid in a few days; but he never returned a shilling of the
money he borrowed from me. I gave him the ten pounds, and inwardly
resolved to have as little as possible to do with him after my
marriage.
I debated with myself whether I should communicate the news of my
engagement to my stepmother and Louis, and acting upon the advice of
Barbara--to whom I gave a truthful relation of my child-life--I wrote
to them in affectionate terms. To me no answer was returned, but
Barbara received a letter which she told me she tore up the moment she
read it.
"Your stepmother must be an awful woman," she said, "but we can do
without her and her beautiful son."
It was very considerate of Barbara, I thought, not to show me the
letter, the tenor of which it was not difficult to guess, but I could
not help looking grave.
"No long faces, you dear boy," cried Barbara. "Do you think I believe
a word she says? Do you think I care for any one but you? If she
hadn't been the meanest creature living she would at least have sent a
wedding present."
The wedding was a very quiet one. A friend acted as my best man, and a
few other of my friends were present. On Barbara's side there was only
Maxwell, who gave his sister away. She looked beautiful, and was in
high spirits. The ceremony over we hastened to Maxwell's house, where
I and my friends expected to sit down to a wedding breakfast. To my
surprise there was nothing on the table but the bridecake and a couple
of bottles of wine. It was not a time to ask for an explanation of
this inhospitable welcome to the wedding guests, but I was deeply
mortified, and I saw that my friends were angry and offended. Maxwell
made light of the matter; he filled the glasses, and in a florid
speech proposed the health of bride and bridegroom, to which I
responded very briefly.
"There is nothing else to wait for, I suppose," said my best man, in a
sarcastic tone.
No one answered him, and with shrugs and halfhearted wishes for
happiness he and the other guests took their departure, leaving
Barbara and me and Maxwell alone.
"Don't quarrel with him," Barbara whispered to me; "he has the most
awful temper."
For her sake I put the best face I could upon the slight that had been
passed upon me. Maxwell appeared to be unconscious that he had behaved
in any way offensively; he drank a great deal of wine, and urged
Barbara to drink, but she refused.
"A glass with me, darling," I said. "To our future."
She raised the glass to her lips, and set it down, untasted, with a
shudder. I had noticed at the meals we three had together that she
drank nothing but water.
"You do not like wine?" I said.
"I detest it," she replied.
"I'll drink your share whenever you call upon me," shouted Maxwell.
"She is quite right, isn't she, John? Milk for women, wine for men."
He was getting intoxicated, and began to troll out a song about wine
and women. I strove to quiet him, but he went on laughing hilariously.
Excited and enraged, I quickly emptied my glass, and was about to
drink again, when Barbara laid her hand upon my arm. I put the full
glass upon the table, at which Maxwell, who had been observing us,
laughed louder still.
"Maxwell!" cried Barbara, angrily.
"Barbara!" cried Maxwell, with his bold eyes upon her. "Well, my lady?"
They looked strangely at one another, and it was Barbara who first
lowered her eyes. There was something threatening in Maxwell's glance,
and she seemed to be frightened of him. I was not sorry, for I
accepted it as an indication that she would side with me in my desire
not to court his society when we returned from our honeymoon trip. We
were to start for the Continent in the evening, and there were still
two or three hours before us. To pass this interval of time in
Maxwell's company was not a pleasant prospect, but I scarcely knew how
to avoid it. He evinced no disposition to leave Barbara and me
together, and I felt awkward and out of place, and really as if it was
I who was intruding. The house was his, and in a certain sense we were
his guests. A bright idea occurred to me. I proposed that Barbara
should dress for our journey, and that we should go and lunch at an
hotel. Barbara, however, said she could not eat, and Maxwell cried
boisterously:
"What are you thinking of, brother-in-law? A newborn bride sitting
down to eat at an hotel on her wedding day. She would sink to the
ground in shame, wouldn't she, Barbara? But I accept your invitation
with pleasure, my boy. I am famished, and you must be. I insist upon
you fortifying yourself; it is a duty you owe to Barbara and to
society at large. With what is before you, it is absolutely necessary
that you should keep up your strength. Take my word for it; I'm an
older bird than you. Let us go. Barbara will nibble a biscuit, or make
a meal off a butterfly's wing, if she can catch one."
I turned to Barbara, and she whispered that it would be best. She was
tired and would lie down while we were away. I saw that she was weary,
and disgusted with her brother's behavior, so to save her from further
annoyance, I consented to go with Maxwell.
"I don't like to leave you for a moment, darling," I said, "but I must
get him away. I shall be back in good time; be sure you are ready."
I said this smilingly, as if I referred to woman's proverbial failing
in seldom being ready at an appointed time when she has to dress for a
journey or a dinner, or anything, in fact.
She did not return smile for smile. In a weak, helpless way she clung
to me for a moment, and then abruptly left the room.
"Oh, turtle doves, turtle doves!" exclaimed Maxwell, hooking his arm
in mine, as we walked along. "Oh, golden day, with love's fetters
binding one fast! Auspicious epoch in a man's career when he is strung
up for life! Love, honor, and obey, and all that sort of thing.
Connubial bliss, Darby and Joan, till death doth us part. Not for me,
my boy, not for me; but every man to his taste. Fol-de-riddle! Chorus
of infatuated bridegrooms--fol-de-riddle, fol-de-riddle!"
"Hold your tongue," I said, between my teeth, "or I'll not stay with
you another moment."
"Right you are, my sensitive plant," he returned. "I'm mum as the
inside of a screwed down coffin."
But he continued to sing softly to himself, and to chuckle as he cast
furtive glances at me. In such circumstances it was not likely that I
could enjoy my meal, and I sat for the most part doing nothing, while
Maxwell disposed of the various courses he ordered. Drinking did not
affect his appetite, and he would have kept at the table all the day
had I not called for the bill.
"Time to go, eh? Love's call must be obeyed," he said, rising, and
pouring out the last glass of wine in the bottle. With his left hand
on the table he steadied himself, and held up the glass.
"You're not half a bad sort, John, but you're a bit soft. You want
hardening, my boy, and you'll get it."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"What do I mean? Why, that Barbara's all your own now, all your own.
Well, here's a happy honeymoon to the fond couple." He drained the
glass.
I hardly knew how to take his words, and I did not answer him. On our
way back he borrowed twenty pounds of me, and I determined it should
be the last he would ever get from me. I was strongly inclined at
first to refuse, but I was afraid he would make a scene, and so for
Barbara's sake I gave him the money.
"Thank you, John," he said, pocketing the notes. "You're a trump, but
a trifle green. Here we are at the house. What a jolly wedding-day!"
I could have struck the mocking devil in the face, for by this time I
was thoroughly out of temper; but, again for dear Barbara's sake, I
refrained from uttering the hot words that rose to my lips.
The carriage was at the door and my wife was ready. Maxwell opened his
arms for a parting embrace, but Barbara slipped from him and entered
the carriage. As it moved away I caught a last glimpse of him standing
on the doorstep laughing immoderately, and I almost fancied I heard
him call after us, "What a jolly wedding day!"