MRS. NEVILL TYSON
Tyson took his wife abroad for six months to finish her education (as if
to be Tyson's wife was not education enough for any woman!); and Drayton
Parva forgot about them for a time.
In fact, nobody had fully realized the existence of Molly Wilcox till she
burst on them as Mrs. Nevill Tyson.
It was the first appearance of the bride and bridegroom on their return
from their long honeymoon. The rector was giving an "At Home"
(tentatively) in their honor; and a great many people had accepted,
feeling that a very interesting social experiment was about to be made.
Everybody remembers how Mrs. Nevill Tyson fluttered down into that party
of thirty women to eleven men, in an absurd frock, and with a still more
absurd air of assured welcome. Poor little woman! Her comings and goings
from one Continental watering-place to another had been the progress of a
triumphant divinity; where she found an hotel she left a temple. I
sometimes think, too, that little look of expectant gladness may have
been due to the feeling that the Rectory was in England, and England was
home. She was dressed in the most perfect Parisian fashion, from the
crown of her fur toque to the tips of her little shoes; but she had never
learned to speak three words of French correctly. She informed everybody
of the fact that afternoon, laughing with the keenest enjoyment of her
remarkable stupidity; it seemed that her _rôle_ was to be remarkable in
everything. However that may have been, in less than half an hour seven
out of those eleven men were gathered round her chair in the corner; two
out of the seven were the rector and Sir Peter Morley, and Mrs. Nevill
Tyson was talking to all of them at once.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson--she was an illusion and a distraction from head to
foot; her beauty made a promise to the senses and broke it to the
intellect. Coil upon coil, and curl upon curl of dark hair, the dark eyes
of some ruminant animal, a little frivolous curve in an intelligent nose,
a lower jaw like a boy's, the full white throat of a woman, and the mouth
and cheeks of a child just waked from sleep. Tyson had escaped one
misfortune that had been prophesied for him. His wife was not vulgar. She
sat at her ease (much more at her ease than Miss Batchelor), and
chattered away about her honeymoon, her bad French, the places she had
been to, the people she had seen, and all without any consciousness of
her delightful self. Now it was a continuous stream of minute talk,
growing shallower and shallower as it spread over a larger surface; and
now her mind had hardly settled on its subject before it was off and away
again like a butterfly. There was one advantage in this excessive
lightness of touch, that it left great things as it found them, for great
things lay lightly on her soul. She told everybody she had been to Rome;
but imagination simply, refused to picture Mrs. Nevill Tyson in Rome. Her
presence in the Eternal City seemed something less than her footprint in
its dust or her shadow on its walls. Nothing is more irritating than to
have your dream of a place destroyed by the light-hearted gabble of some
idiot who has seen it; but Mrs. Nevill Tyson spared your dreams. The most
delicate ideal would have been undisturbed by the soft sweep of her
generalities, or the graceful flight of her fancy from the matter in
hand.
"There are a great many beautiful statues in the Vatican," said Sir Peter
in his dream.
"Oh, no end. And, talking of beautiful statues, we were introduced to the
most beautiful woman in Rome, the Countess--Countess--Countess--Nevill,
what _was_ that woman's name? Oh--I forget her name, but she was the
loveliest woman I ever saw in my life. Everybody was in love with
her--down on their knees groveling, you couldn't help it. Fancy, she
was engaged to ten people at once! I suppose she had ten engagement
rings--one for each finger, one for each man. I should never have known
which was which. But oh! I oughtn't to have told you. My husband said I
wasn't to talk about her. I don't see why--everybody was talking about
her!"
There was a chorus of protestation.
"And why shouldn't they talk about her, and why shouldn't she be engaged
to ten gentlemen at once? The more the merrier."
"And you haven't told us the lady's name, so we're none the wiser."
"I forgot it. But it would have been all the same if I hadn't. I never
can remember not to tell things. Oh--Countess--Poli--Polidori! There--you
see. My husband says I'm the soul of indiscretion."
There was a sudden silence. Mrs. Nevill Tyson's last sentence seemed to
detach itself and float about the room, and Miss Batchelor perceived with
a pang of pleasure that if Tyson's wife was not vulgar she was an arrant
fool.
"I suppose you visited all the great cathedrals?" said the Rector.
Perhaps he wished to change the subject; perhaps he felt that by talking
about cathedrals to Mrs. Nevill Tyson he was giving a serious, not to say
sacerdotal, character to a frivolous occupation.
"Well, only St. Peter's and the one at Milan."
"And which did you prefer! I am told that St. Peter's is very like our
own St. Paul's--or I should say St. Paul's--"
"Oh, please don't ask me! I know no more than the man in the moon--I mean
the man in the honeymoon" (that joke was Tyson's), "and a lot _he_ knows
about it. There's the man in the honeymoon," she explained, nodding
merrily in her husband's direction.
Meanwhile Tyson was making himself agreeable to Miss Batchelor. And this
is how he did it.
"I hear, Miss Batchelor, that you are a lady of genius."
There was a rumor that Miss Batchelor was engaged on a work of fiction,
which indeed may have been true, though not exactly in the sense
intended.
"Indeed; who told you that?"
"Scandal. But I never listen to scandal, and I didn't believe it."
"I don't suppose you believe that a woman could be a genius."
"No? I have seen women who were geniuses, before now; but in every
instance it meant--I shall hurt your feelings if I tell you what it
meant."
"Not at all. I have no feelings."
"It meant either devilry or disease." Tyson's eyes twinkled wickedly as
he stroked his blonde mustache. He felt a diabolical delight in teasing
Miss Batchelor. There was a time when Miss Batchelor had admired Tyson.
He was not handsome; but his face had character, and she liked character.
Now she hated him and his face and everything belonging to him, his wife
included. But there was no denying that he was clever, cleverer than any
man she had ever met in her life.
"Even a great intellect"--here Tyson looked hard at Miss Batchelor, and
her faded nervous face seemed to shrink under the look--"is a great
misfortune--to a woman. Look at my wife now. She has about as much
intellect as a guinea-pig, and the consequence is she is not only happy
herself, but a cause of happiness to others. There--see!"
Miss Batchelor saw. She saw Sir Peter Morley contending with the rector
for the honor of handing Mrs. Nevill Tyson her tea. They were joined by
Stanistreet. Yes, Stanistreet. The rector seemed to have drawn the line
nowhere that day. There was no mistaking the tall figure, alert and
vigorous, the lean dark face, a little eager, a little hard. And that
very clever woman Miss Batchelor sat hungry and thirsty--very hungry and
very thirsty--and Tyson stood behind her stroking his mustache. He was
not looking at her now, nor thinking of her. He was contemplating that
adorable piece of folly, his wife.