"What was Chatty saying to you? I rely upon your good sense, Frances,
not to encourage her in this sentimental folly."
"Is it sentimental folly? I think it is very true feeling, Theo."
"Perhaps these are interchangeable terms," he said, with the angry smile
she knew so well; "but without discussing that matter I am determined
that this business shall go no farther. A sister of mine waiting for a
married man till he shall be divorced! the very thought makes my blood
boil."
"Surely that is an unnecessarily strong statement. The circumstances
must be taken into consideration."
"I will take no circumstances into consideration. It is a thing which
must not be. The Cavendishes see it in precisely the same light, and my
mother,--even my mother begins to hear reason."
Lady Markland made no reply. They were walking home, as their house was
close at hand, a house taken for the season, in which there was not the
room and space of the country, nor its active interests, and which she,
having come there with much hope in the change, would already have been
glad to exchange for Markland, or the Warren, or almost any other place
in the world. He walked more quickly than suited her and she required
all her breath to keep up with him; besides that she was silenced by
what he said to her, and did not know how to reply.
"You say nothing," he continued after a moment, "from which I conclude
that you are antagonistic and mean to throw your influence the other
way."
"Not antagonistic: but I cannot help feeling very much for Chatty, whose
heart is so much in it, more perhaps than you think."
"Chatty's heart doesn't trouble me much," he said carelessly. "Chatty
will always obey whatever impulse is nearest and most continuous, if she
is not backed up on the other side."
"I don't believe you realise the strength of her feelings, Theo. That is
what she is afraid of, not to be strong enough to hold out."
"Oh! So you have been over that ground with her already!"
"She spoke to me. She was glad of the opportunity to relieve her mind."
"And you promised to stand by her?" he said.
Lady Markland had been a woman full of dignity and composure. She was so
still to all outward appearance, and the darkness concealed the flush
that rose to her face; But it could not conceal the slight tremor with
which she replied after a pause: "I promised not to be against her at
least."
A flood of angry words rose to Theo's lips, the blood mounted to his
head. He had taken the bias so fatal between married people of supposing
when his wife disagreed with him that she did it on purpose, not because
she herself thought so, but because it was opposition. Perhaps this was
because of that inherent contempt for women which is a settled principle
in the minds of so many men, perhaps because he had been used to a narrow
mind and opinions cut and dry in the case of his sister, perhaps even
because of his hot adoration and faith in Lady Markland as perfect. To
continue perfect in his eyes, after their marriage, she would have needed
to agree always with him, to think his thoughts. He exacted this accord
with all the susceptibility of a fastidious nature, which would be content
with no forced agreement, and divined in a moment when an effort was
required to conform her opinions to his. He would not tolerate such an
effort. He would have had her agree with him by instinct, by nature, not
even by desire to please him, much less by policy. He could not endure
to think of either of these means of procuring what he wanted. What he
wanted was the perfect agreement of a nature which arrived at the same
conclusions as his by the same means, which responded before he spoke,
which was always ready to anticipate, to give him the exquisite
satisfaction of feeling he was right by a perpetual seconding of all
his decisions and anticipation of his thoughts. Had he married a young
creature like Chatty, ready to take the impress of his more active mind,
he might have found other drawbacks in her to irritate his _amour propre_,
and probably would have despised her judgment in consequence of her
perpetual agreement with him. But the fact was that he was jealous
of his wife, not in the ordinary vulgar way, for which there was no
possibility, but for every year of additional age, and every experience,
and all the life she had led apart from him. He could not endure to
think that she had formed the most of her ideas before she knew him:
the thought of her past was horrible to him. A suspicion that she was
thinking of that, that her mind was going back to something which he
did not know, awoke a sort of madness in his brain. All this she knew
by painful intuition now, as at first by discoveries which startled her
very soul, and seemed to disturb the pillars of the world. She was aware
of the forced control he kept over himself, not to burst forth upon her,
and she would have fled morally, and brought herself round to his ideas
and sworn eternal faith to him, if it would have done any good. But she
knew very well that his uneasy nature would not be satisfied with that.
"I might have divined," he said, after a long pause, during which they
went quickly along, he increasing his pace unawares, she losing her breath
in keeping up with him, "that you would see this matter differently. But
I must ask, at least, that you won't circumvent us, and neutralise all
our plans. The only thing for Chatty to do is to drop it altogether, to
receive no more letters, to cut the whole concern. It is a disreputable
business altogether. It is better she should never marry at all than
marry in that way."
"I feel sure, Theo, that except in this way she will never marry at
all--if you think that matters."
"If I think that matters! It is not very flattering to me that you
should think it doesn't matter," he said.
And then they reached their house, and he followed her into the
drawing-room, where one dim lamp was burning, and the room had a
deserted look. Perhaps that last speech had been a little unkind.
Compunction visited him not unfrequently. He seated himself at the
little table on which the lamp was standing, as she took off her hat
and recovered her breath. "Since we are at home, and alone for once
in a way," he said, more graciously, "which happens seldom enough, I'll
read to you for an hour, if you like, Frances; that is, if you have no
letters to write."
There was a little irony in the last words, for Lady Markland had, if
the truth must be told, a foible that way, and liked, as so many women
do, the idea of having a large correspondence, and took pleasure in
keeping it up. She answered eagerly that she had no letters to write
(though not without a glance at her table where one lay unfinished) and
would like his reading above everything: which was so far true that it
was a sign of peace, and an occupation which he enjoyed. She got her
work while he got the book, not without a horrible sense that Geoff,
always wakeful, would have heard her come in, and would call for her,
nor without a longing desire to go to him, if only for a moment, which
was what she had intended to do. Perhaps it was to prevent this that
Theo had been so ready with his offer, and so sensitive was he to
every impression that the poor lady felt a thrill of terror lest her
half-formed intention, or Geoff's waking, might thrill through the
atmosphere to her husband's mind, and make him fling down the book with
impatience. She got her work with a nervous haste, which it seemed he
must divine, and seated herself opposite to him. "Now, I am ready," she
said.
Poor Lady Markland! He had not read a page--a page to which she gave the
most painful attention, trying not to think that the door might open any
moment, and the nurse appear begging her to speak a word to Lord
Markland--when a faint cry reached her ears. It was faint and far away,
but she knew what it was. It was the cry of "Mamma," from Geoff's bed,
only given forth, she knew, after much tossing and turning, and which a
year ago she would have heard from any corner of the house and flown to
answer. She started when she heard it, but she had been so much on the
alert, and prepared for some interruption of the kind, that she hoped
Theo did not see the little instinctive movement "Mamma!" She sat with a
nervous thrill upon her, taking no notice, trying to listen, seeing in
the dark the little sleepless boy tossing upon his uneasy pillow, and
calling in vain for his mother, but resisting all the impulses both of
heart and habit. If only Theo might not hear! After a while, however,
Theo's ear caught the sound. "What's that?" he said sharply, stopping
and looking at her across the table. Alas! the repressed agitation in
her smile told its own story to Theo. He knew that she pretended to
listen, that she knew very well what it was. "_That_" she said, faltering.
"What? Oh! it sounds like Geoff calling--some one."
"He is calling _you_; and you are dying to be with him, to rush upstairs
and coax and kiss him to sleep. You are ruining the boy."
"No, Theo. It is probably nurse he is calling. He sleeps so badly," she
said, with a broken voice, for the appeals to mamma came quicker, and
she felt as if the child was dragging at her very heart-strings.
"He would have slept better, had he been paid less attention to; but
don't let me keep you from your boy," he said, throwing down the book on
the table. She made an attempt at an appeal.
"Theo! please don't go away. I will run for a moment, and see what is
the matter."
"You can do what you please about that: but you are ruining the boy,"
said Warrender. And then he began to hum a tune, which showed that he
had reached a white heat of exasperation, and left the room. She sat
motionless till she heard the street door closed loudly. Her heart
seemed to stand still: yet was there, was it possible, a certain relief
in the sound? She stole upstairs noiselessly and into Geoff's room and
threw herself down by the bedside. "Oh, Geoff, what is the matter?" she
asked: though her heart had dragged her so, there was in her tone a
tender exasperation too.
"I can't sleep," the boy said, clinging to her, with his arms round her
neck.
"But you must try to sleep--for my sake. Don't toss about, but lie quite
still, that is far the best way."
"I did," said Geoff, "and said all the poetry I knew, and did the
multiplication table twice. I wanted you. I kept quiet as long as I
could--but I wanted you so."
"But you must not want me. You are too big to want your mother."
"I shall never be too big, I want you always," said Geoff, murmuring in
the dark, with his little arms clinging close round her neck.
"Oh, Geoff, my dearest boy! but for my sake you must content
yourself--for my sake."
"Was he angry?" the child asked, and in the cover of the darkness he
clenched his little hands and contracted his brows; all of which she
guessed, though she saw not.
"That is not a question to ask," she said. "You must never speak to me
so; and remember, Geoff,--they say I am spoiling you--I will never come
when you call me after to-night."
But Lady Markland's heart was very heavy as she went downstairs. She
had put her child away from her; and she sat alone in the large still
drawing-room all the evening, hearing the carriages come and go outside,
and hansoms dashing up which she hoped might be coming to her own door.
But Theo did not come back. This was one of many evenings which she
spent alone, in disgrace, not knowing how to get her pardon, feeling
guilty, yet having done nothing. Her second venture had not brought her
very much additional happiness so far.