"Do you mean that the engagement will become real?"
Again the good lady said nothing until she broke out: "My dear boy,
can't you trust your poor old mummy?"
"Is _that_ your speculation? Is that Mary's? I never heard of anything
so odious!" Hugh Gosselin cried. But she defended his sister with
eagerness, with a gloss of coaxing, maternal indignation, declaring that
Mary's disinterestedness was complete--she had the perfect proof of it.
Hugh was conscious as he lighted another cigar that the conversation was
more fundamental than any that he had ever had with his mother, who
however hung fire but for an instant when he asked her what this
"perfect proof" might be. He didn't doubt of his sister, he admitted
that; but the perfect proof would make the whole thing more luminous. It
took finally the form of a confession from Mrs. Gosselin that the girl
evidently liked--well, greatly liked--Mr. Bolton-Brown. Yes, the good
lady had seen for herself at Bosco that the smooth young American was
making up to her and that, time and opportunity aiding, something might
very well happen which could not be regarded as satisfactory. She had
been very frank with Mary, had besought her not to commit herself to a
suitor who in the very nature of the case couldn't meet the most
legitimate of their views. Mary, who pretended not to know what their
"views" were, had denied that she was in danger; but Mrs. Gosselin had
assured her that she had all the air of it and had said triumphantly:
"Agree to what Lord Beaupré asks of you, and I'll _believe_ you." Mary
had wished to be believed--so she had agreed. That was all the
witchcraft any one had used.
Mrs. Gosselin out-talked her son, but there were two or three plain
questions that he came back to; and the first of these bore upon the
ground of her aversion to poor Bolton-Brown. He told her again, as he
had told her before, that his friend was that rare bird a maker of money
who was also a man of culture. He was a gentleman to his finger-tips,
accomplished, capable, kind, with a charming mother and two lovely
sisters (she should see them!) the sort of fellow in short whom it was
stupid not to appreciate.
"I believe it all, and if I had three daughters he should be very
welcome to one of them."
"You might easily have had three daughters who wouldn't attract him at
all! You've had the good fortune to have one who does, and I think you
do wrong to interfere with it."
"My eggs are in one basket then, and that's a reason the more for
preferring Lord Beaupré," said Mrs. Gosselin.
"Then it _is_ your calculation--?" stammered Hugh in dismay; on which
she coloured and requested that he would be a little less rough with his
mother. She would rather part with him immediately, sad as that would
be, than that he should attempt to undo what she had done. When Hugh
replied that it was not to Mary but to Beaupré himself that he judged
it important he should speak, she informed him that a rash remonstrance
might do his sister a cruel wrong. Dear Guy was _most_ attentive.
"If you mean that he really cares for her there's the less excuse for
his taking such a liberty with her. He's either in love with her or he
isn't. If he is, let him make her a serious offer; if he isn't, let him
leave her alone."
Mrs. Gosselin looked at her son with a kind of patient joy. "He's in
love with her, but he doesn't know it."
"He ought to know it, and if he's so idiotic I don't see that we ought
to consider him."
"Don't worry--he _shall_ know it!" Mrs. Gosselin cried; and, continuing
to struggle with Hugh, she insisted on the delicacy of the situation.
She made a certain impression on him, though on confused grounds; she
spoke at one moment as if he was to forbear because the matter was a
make-believe that happened to contain a convenience for a distressed
friend, and at another as if one ought to strain a point because there
were great possibilities at stake. She was most lucid when she pictured
the social position and other advantages of a peer of the realm. What
had those of an American stockbroker, however amiable and with whatever
shrill belongings in the background, to compare with them? She was
inconsistent, but she was diplomatic, and the result of the discussion
was that Hugh Gosselin became conscious of a dread of "injuring" his
sister. He became conscious at the same time of a still greater
apprehension, that of seeing her arrive at the agreeable in a tortuous,
a second-rate manner. He might keep the peace to please his mother, but
he couldn't enjoy it, and he actually took his departure, travelling in
company with Bolton-Brown, who of course before going waited on the
ladies in Chester Street to thank them for the kindness they had shown
him. It couldn't be kept from Guy Firminger that Hugh was not happy,
though when they met, which was only once or twice before he quitted
London, Mary Gosselin's brother flattered himself that he was too proud
to show it. He had always liked old loafing Guy and it was disagreeable
to him not to like him now; but he was aware that he must either quarrel
with him definitely or not at all and that he had passed his word to his
mother. Therefore his attitude was strictly negative; he took with the
parties to it no notice whatever of the "engagement," and he couldn't
help it if to other people he had the air of not being initiated. They
doubtless thought him strangely fastidious. Perhaps he was; the tone of
London struck him in some respects as very horrid; he had grown in a
manner away from it. Mary was impenetrable; tender, gay, charming, but
with no patience, as she said, for his premature flight. Except when
Lord Beaupré was present you would not have dreamed that he existed for
her. In his company--he had to be present more or less of course--she
was simply like any other English girl who disliked effusiveness. They
had each the same manner, that of persons of rather a shy tradition who
were on their guard against public "spooning." They practised their
fraud with good taste, a good taste mystifying to Bolton-Brown, who
thought their precautions excessive. When he took leave of Mary Gosselin
her eyes consented for a moment to look deep down into his. He had been
from the first of the opinion that they were beautiful, and he was more
mystified than ever.
If Guy Firminger had failed to ask Hugh Gosselin whether he had a fault
to find with what they were doing, this was, in spite of old friendship,
simply because he was too happy now to care much whom he didn't please,
to care at any rate for criticism. He had ceased to be critical himself,
and his high prosperity could take his blamelessness for granted. His
happiness would have been offensive if people generally hadn't liked
him, for it consisted of a kind of monstrous candid comfort. To take all
sorts of things for granted was still his great, his delightful
characteristic; but it didn't prevent his showing imagination and tact
and taste in particular circumstances. He made, in their little comedy,
all the right jokes and none of the wrong ones: the girl had an acute
sense that there were some jokes that would have been detestable. She
gathered that it was universally supposed she was having an
unprecedented season, and something of the glory of an enviable future
seemed indeed to hang about her. People no doubt thought it odd that she
didn't go about more with her future husband; but those who knew
anything about her knew that she had never done exactly as other girls
did. She had her own ways, her own freedoms and her own scruples.
Certainly he made the London weeks much richer than they had ever been
for a subordinate young person; he put more things into them, so that
they grew dense and complicated. This frightened her at moments,
especially when she thought with compunction that she was deceiving her
very friends. She didn't mind taking the vulgar world in, but there were
people she hated not to enlighten, to reassure. She could undeceive no
one now, and indeed she would have been ashamed. There were hours when
she wanted to stop--she had such a dread of doing too much; hours when
she thought with dismay that the fiction of the rupture was still to
come, with its horrid train of new untrue things. She spoke of it
repeatedly to her confederate, who only postponed and postponed, told
her she would never dream of forsaking him if she measured the good she
was doing him. She did measure it however when she met him in the great
world; she was of course always meeting him: that was the only way
appearances were kept up. There was a certain attitude she could allow
him to take on these occasions; it covered and carried off their
subterfuge. He could talk to her unmolested; for herself she never spoke
of anything but the charming girls, everywhere present, among whom he
could freely choose. He didn't protest, because to choose freely was
what he wanted, and they discussed these young ladies one by one. Some
she recommended, some she disparaged, but it was almost the only subject
she tolerated. It was her system in short, and she wondered he didn't
get tired of it; she was so tired of it herself.
She tried other things that she thought he might find wearisome, but his
good-humour was magnificent. He was now really for the first time
enjoying his promotion, his wealth, his insight into the terms on which
the world offered itself to the happy few, and these terms made a
mixture healing to irritation. Once, at some glittering ball, he asked
her if she should be jealous if he were to dance again with Lady
Whiteroy, with whom he had danced already, and this was the only
occasion on which he had come near making a joke of the wrong sort. She
showed him what she thought of it and made him feel that the way to be
forgiven was to spend the rest of the evening with that lovely creature.
Now that the phalanx of the pressingly nubile was held in check there
was accordingly nothing to prevent his passing his time pleasantly.
Before he had taken this effective way the diplomatic mother, when she
spied him flirting with a married woman, felt that in urging a virgin
daughter's superior claims she worked for righteousness as well as for
the poor girl. But Mary Gosselin protected these scandals practically by
the still greater scandal of her indifference; so that he was in the odd
position of having waited to be confined to know what it was to be at
large. He had in other words the maximum of security with the minimum of
privation. The lovely creatures of Lady Whiteroy's order thought Mary
Gosselin charming, but they were the first to see through her falsity.
All this carried our precious pair to the middle of July; but nearly a
month before that, one night under the summer stars, on the deck of the
steamer that was to reach New York on the morrow, something had passed
between Hugh Gosselin and his brooding American friend. The night was
warm and splendid; these were their last hours at sea, and Hugh, who had
been playing whist in the cabin, came up very late to take an
observation before turning in. It was in this way that he chanced on his
companion, who was leaning over the stern of the ship and gazing off,
beyond its phosphorescent track, at the muffled, moaning ocean, the
backward darkness, everything he had relinquished. Hugh stood by him for
a moment and then asked him what he was thinking about. Bolton-Brown
gave at first no answer; after which he turned round and, with his back
against the guard of the deck, looked up at the multiplied stars. "He
has it badly," Hugh Gosselin mentally commented. At last his friend
replied: "About something you said yesterday."
"I forget what I said yesterday."
"You spoke of your sister's intended marriage; it was the only time you
had spoken of it. You seemed to intimate that it might not after all
take place."
Hugh hesitated a little. "Well, it _won't_ take place. They're not
engaged, not really. This is a secret, a preposterous secret. I wouldn't
tell any one else, but I'm willing to tell you. It may make a difference
to you."
Bolton-Brown turned his head; he looked at Hugh a minute through the
fresh darkness. "It does make a difference to me. But I don't
understand," he added.
"Neither do I. I don't like it. It's a pretence, a temporary
make-believe, to help Beaupré through."
"Through what?"
"He's so run after."
The young American stared, ejaculated, mused. "Oh, yes--your mother told
me."
"It's a sort of invention of my mother's and a notion of his own (very
absurd, I think) till he can see his way. Mary serves as a kind of
escort for these first exposed months. It's ridiculous, but I don't know
that it hurts her."
"Oh!" said Bolton-Brown.
"I don't know either that it does her any good."
"No!" said Bolton-Brown. Then he added: "It's certainly very kind of
her."
"It's a case of old friends," Hugh explained, inadequately as he felt.
"He has always been in and out of our house."
"But how will it end?"
"I haven't the least idea."
Bolton-Brown was silent; he faced about to the stern again and stared at
the rush of the ship. Then shifting his position once more: "Won't the
engagement, before they've done, develop into the regular thing?"
Hugh felt as if his mother were listening. "I daresay not. If there were
even a remote chance of that, Mary wouldn't have consented."
"But mayn't _he_ easily find that--charming as she is--he's in love with
her?"
"He's too much taken up with himself."
"That's just a reason," said Bolton-Brown. "Love is selfish." He
considered a moment longer, then he went on: "And mayn't _she_ find--?"
"Find what?" said Hugh, as he hesitated.
"Why, that she likes him."
"She likes him of course, else she wouldn't have come to his assistance.
But her certainty about herself must have been just what made her not
object to lending herself to the arrangement. She could do it decently
because she doesn't seriously care for him. If she did--!" Hugh suddenly
stopped.
"If she did?" his friend repeated.
"It would have been odious."
"I see," said Bolton-Brown gently. "But how will they break off?"
"It will be Mary who'll break off."
"Perhaps she'll find it difficult."
"She'll require a pretext."
"I see," mused Bolton-Brown, shifting his position again.
"She'll find one," Hugh declared.
"I hope so," his companion responded.
For some minutes neither of them spoke; then Hugh asked: "Are you in
love with her?"
"Oh, my dear fellow!" Bolton-Brown wailed. He instantly added: "Will it
be any use for me to go back?"
Again Hugh felt as if his mother were listening. But he answered: "_Do_
go back."
"It's awfully strange," said Bolton-Brown. "I'll go back."
"You had better wait a couple of months, you know."
"Mayn't I lose her then?"
"No--they'll drop it all."
"I'll go back!" the American repeated, as if he hadn't heard. He was
restless, agitated; he had evidently been much affected. He fidgeted
away dimly, moved up the level length of the deck. Hugh Gosselin
lingered longer at the stern; he fell into the attitude in which he had
found the other, leaning over it and looking back at the great vague
distance they had come. He thought of his mother.