GRANVILLE ON THE SITUATION
It was in the forenoon of the same day that Granville entered abruptly
his mother's sanctum. Lady Bligh was busily writing at the great
office-table, but she looked up at once and laid down her pen.
Granville threw himself into her easiest chair with an air of
emancipation.
'They have gone!' he ejaculated. If he had referred to the British
workman or to the bailiffs he could not have employed more emphatic
tones of relief; so Lady Bligh naturally asked to whom he did refer.
'To the happy pair!' said Granville.
'They have gone to town, then?'
'To town for the day.'
Lady Bligh took up her pen again, but only to wipe it, deliberately.
'Now, Granville,' she said, leaning back in her chair, 'I want you to
tell me the truth about--about whatever happened before breakfast. I
don't know yet quite what did happen. I want to get at the truth; but
so far I have been able to gather only shreds and patches of the
truth.'
Granville rose briskly to his feet and took his stand upon the
hearthrug. Then he leant an elbow on the chimney-piece, adjusted his
eyeglass, and smiled down upon Lady Bligh. One easily might have
imagined that the task imposed upon him was congenial in the extreme.
Without further pressing he told the story, and told it succinctly and
well, with a zest that was vaguely felt rather than detected, and with
an entire and artistic suppression of his usual commentaries. The mere
story was so effective in itself that the most humorous parenthesis
could not have improved it, and Granville had the wit to tell it
simply. But when he reached the point where the Judge appeared on the
scene Lady Bligh stopped him; Granville was disappointed.
'I think perhaps I have been told what happened then,' said Lady
Bligh; 'at all events I seem to know, and I don't care to hear it
again. Oh! it was too scandalous! But tell me, Gran, how did your
father bear it?--at the time, I mean.'
'Like a man!' said Granville, with righteous warmth. 'Like a man! With
that vile whip cracking under his very nose, he did not flinch--he did
not stir. Then she whipped his hat from his head; and then she saw
what she had done, and went down on her knees to him--as if _that_
would undo it!'
'And your father?'
'My father behaved splendidly; as no other man in England in his
position and--in _that_ position--would have behaved. He told her at
once, when she said she had not seen it was he, that he quite
understood that; that, in fact, he had seen it for himself from
the first. Then he told her to get up that instant; then he
smiled--actually smiled; and then--you will hardly believe this, but
it is a fact--he gave his arm to Mistress Gladys and took her in to
breakfast!'
Lady Bligh sighed, but made no remark.
'It was more than she deserved; even Alfred admitted that.'
Lady Bligh did not answer.
'Even Alfred was knocked out of time. I never saw a fellow look more
put out than he did at breakfast. He had warned us to prepare for
"mannerisms," but----'
Granville made a tempting pause. Lady Bligh, however, refused to fill
it in. She was engrossed in thought. Her line of thought suddenly
flashed across Granville, and he caught it up dexterously.
'As for the Judge,' said he, 'what the Judge feels no one can say. As
I said, he behaved as only he could have behaved in the infamous
circumstances. But I did see him steal a quiet glance at Alfred; and
that glance said plainer than words: "_You've_ done it, my boy; this
is irrevocable!"'
Lady Bligh was drawn at last.
'This is very painful,' she murmured; 'this is too painful, Granville!'
'Painful?' cried Granville. 'I grant you it's painful; but it's the
fact; it's got to be faced.'
'That may be,' said Lady Bligh, sadly; 'that may be. But we ought not
to be hasty; and we certainly ought not to make too much of this one
escapade.'
Granville shook his head wisely, and smiled.
'I don't think there is much fear of _that_. On the contrary, I doubt
if our eyes are even yet fully open to the enormity of this morning's
work. I don't think we any of us realise the hideous indignity to
which my father has been subjected. But we should. We should think of
it--and of him. Here we have one of the oldest and ablest of Her
Majesty's judges--a man of the widest experience and of the fairest
fame, whose name is a synonym for honour and humanity, not only in the
Profession, but throughout every section of the community--a man, my
dear mother, with whom the very smartest of us--I tell you
frankly--would fight shy of a tilt in court, yet whom we all respect
and honour; in very truth, "a wise and upright judge," though I say it
who am his son. And what has happened to him? How has he been
treated?' cried Granville. 'Well, we know. No need to go into that
again. Only _try_ to realise it, dear mother; try to realise it. To me
there is, I confess, something almost epic in this business!'
'I don't wish to realise it; and I don't know, I am sure, why you
should wish to make me.'
'For no reason,' said Granville, shrugging his shoulders, and also
looking hurt; 'for no kind of reason, except that it _did_ strike me
that my father's character had never--never, that is, in his home
life--come out more strongly or more generously. Why, I should like to
lay ruinous odds that he never refers to the matter again, even to
you; while, you shall see, his manner to her will not suffer the
slightest change in consequence of what has happened.'
'It would be a terrible thing if it did,' said Lady Bligh; and she
added after a pause: 'She _is_ so beautiful!'
Granville drummed with his fingers upon the chimney-piece. His mother
wanted a reply. She wanted sympathy upon this point; it was a very
insignificant point, the Bride's personal beauty; but as yet it seemed
to be the only redeeming feature in Alfred's unfortunate marriage.
'You can't deny _that_, Gran?' she persisted.
'Deny what? The young woman's prepossessing appearance? Certainly not;
nobody with eyes to see could deny that.'
'And after all,' said Lady Bligh, 'brought up as she evidently has
been, it would be astonishing indeed if her ways were _not_ wild and
strange. Consequently, Gran, there is every hope that she will fall
into our ways very soon; is there not?'
'Oh, of course there is _hope_,' said Gran, with an emphasis that was
the reverse of hopeful; 'and there is hope, too, that she will
ultimately fall into our way of speaking: her own "mannerisms," in
that respect, are just a little too marked. Oh, yes, there is hope;
there is hope.'
Lady Bligh said no more; she seemed to have no more to say. Observing
this, Granville consulted his watch, said something about an
engagement in town, and went to the door.
'Going to London?' said Lady Bligh. 'You might have gone with them, I
think.'
'I think not,' said Granville. 'I should have been out of place. They
were going to Madame Tussaud's, or the Tower of London, or the
Zoological Gardens--I don't know which--perhaps to all three. But the
Bride will tell us all about it this evening and how the sights of
London compare with the sights of Melbourne; we may look forward to
that; and, till then--good-bye.'
So Lady Bligh was once more alone. She did not at once resume her
correspondence, however. Leaning back in her chair, she gazed
thoughtfully through the open window at her side, and across the
narrow lawn to where the sunlit river was a silver band behind the
trunks and nether foliage of the trees. Lady Bligh was sad, and no
wonder; but in her heart was little of the wounded pride, and none of
the personal bitterness, that many mothers would feel--and do feel
every day--under similar circumstances. What were the circumstances?
Simply these: her eldest son had married a wife who was beautiful, it
was true, and good-tempered, it appeared; but one who was, on the
other hand, both vulgar and ignorant, and, as a daughter, in every way
impossible. These hard words Lady Bligh pronounced deliberately in her
mind. She was facing the fact, as Granville had said that it should be
faced. Yet Granville had used no such words as these; if he had, he
would have been given reason to regret them.
For, as has been said already, Lady Bligh had a tolerably just
estimate of her son Granville; she thought him only rather more
clever, and a good deal more good-natured, than he really was. She
knew that a man of any cleverness at all is fond of airing his
cleverness--and, indeed, must air it--particularly if he is a young
man. For this reason, she made it a rule to listen generously to all
Granville had to say to her. But there was another reason: Lady Bligh
was a woman who valued highly the confidence and companionship of her
sons. Sometimes, it is true, she thought Granville's cynicism both
cheap and worthless; and sometimes (though more rarely) she told him
so. Often she thought him absurd: she was amused, for instance, when
he solemnly assured her of the Judge's high standing and fair fame in
'the Profession'--as if she needed _his_ assurance on that point! But
it very seldom seemed to her that the things he said were really
ill-natured. There, in the main, she was right. There was no downright
malice (as a rule) in Granville; he was merely egotistical and vain;
he merely loved more than most things the sound of his own voice. He
did not designedly make unkind remarks--at least, not often; but he
never took any pains to make kind ones. He passed among men for a
fellow of good nature, and unquestionably he was good company.
Certainly Lady Bligh overestimated his good nature; but to a great
extent she understood Granville; and in any case--of course--she
loved him. But she loved Alfred more; and it was Alfred who had made
this marriage.
Yet it was only with grief that she could think of the marriage, at
present; she found it impossible to harbour bitter feeling against the
young handsome face and honest brave eyes that had taken poor Alfred
by storm, though they had blinded him to a hundred blemishes. The fact
is, her daughter-in-law's face was haunting Lady Bligh. As the day
wore on she found herself longing wistfully to see it again. When she
did see it again, the face was changed; its expression was thoughtful,
subdued, and even sad. Nor were there any _gaucheries_ at dinner that
night, for both Alfred and Gladys were silent and constrained in
manner.
Then Lady Bligh took heart afresh.
'It _is_ only her bringing up,' she said. 'She will fall into our ways
in time; indeed, she is falling into them already--though not in the
way I wish her to; for it must not make her sad, and it must not make
her feel ashamed. It shall not; for I mean to help her. I mean to be
to her what, indeed, I already am without choice--her mother--if she
will only let me!'