That night Lady Markland did not close her eyes. The strength of
resistance, of indignation, of self-assertion, failed her, as was
inevitable in the long and slow hours, during which she looked out, at
first with a certainty, then with a hope, that Theo would come back. He
must come back, she said to herself, even if all were over, which seemed
impossible, impossible!--all in an hour or two, in one afternoon, when
she thought no evil. Still the most prosaic of considerations, the least
important, his clothes, if nothing more, must bring him back. She went
on saying this to herself, till from a half scorn which was in it at
first it came to a kind of despair. He must come back, at all events,
for his clothes! She could scarcely bear Geoff all the afternoon, though
it was for him all this misery was. She never could, nor would, give up
her child: but his society was intolerable to her for the moment; and
she felt that if Theo came and found them together he might think--he
would have a certain right to think. It was a relief to her when at last
Geoff went to bed, silenced in all his questions, chilled, terrified,
yet still heroically restraining himself, and making up his mind that he
was to be sent away. After this she felt a kind of relief, a freedom in
being left to herself, in wandering about the rooms and looking out in
succession at every window that commanded the avenue. When the hour
came to shut up the house she gave the butler an elaborate explanation;
how Mr. Warrender had been obliged to return to the Warren about some
business, how it was possible that he might not come back that night; in
fact, she did not expect him that night, but still he might return. It
was not necessary that any one should sit up, oh no, not necessary at
all. She would hear him if he came, or he could let himself in. "But I
really do not expect him to-night. He has--business," she said, with
a smile, which the butler thought not at all like my lady. She was
not given to explanations in an ordinary way. She was very kind and
considerate; but she was always a great lady, and not expansive to her
servants. She smiled in a strange conciliatory way, as if begging him
to believe her, and explained, to make it all right. The butler was not
deceived. When was any butler ever deceived by such pretences? He knew
better,--he knew that something had happened. He told the company
downstairs that he made no doubt there had been a row, and most likely
about Master Geoff, and that they might make up their minds to see rare
changes. They were all making their comments upon this in the servants'
hall, while Lady Markland, standing at the window, looked out with a
sort of desperation, shaping the figure of Theo a hundred times in the
distance, scarcely able to restrain the impulse to go out and look for
him; saying to herself, no longer scornfully, but with the profoundest
tragic gravity, that he must come back, if only for his clothes! It
was a dim summer night, the sky veiled with clouds, and after midnight
fitfully lit by the gleam of a waning moon. She went from window to
window noiselessly, thinking that now one, now another, had the most
perfect command of the avenue; hearing a hundred sounds of footsteps,
even of distant wheels and horses' hoofs, which seemed to beat upon the
ground far off, and never came to anything; then when the dawn began to
be blue in the sky, threw herself upon her bed and hid her face, knowing
that all was over, and that he would come back no more.
Scarcely less was the consternation in the Warren when Theo, pale
and silent, wrapped in silence as in a cloak, making no reply to the
questions asked, ordering his old room to be made ready without any
explanation, came back to the already excited house. Dick and Chatty and
all their affairs were forgotten in the extraordinary new event. "Oh,
Theo, what has happened," Mrs. Warrender cried, "what has happened? Are
you not going home?"
"This is my home, I suppose," he said, "unless you have any objections,"
which closed her mouth. She thought there must have been a quarrel, and
that Lady Markland had resented Theo's treatment of Geoff, which his
mother immediately began to justify to herself; saying that of course he
did not mean to hurt the child, but that a person put in charge of the
children of another, in any case, must have some power of correcting
them when they wanted correction, and with great wonder and indignation
at his wife had yet a wondering question in her mind--what would she
herself have done if any one had corrected Theo so when he was a boy?
She did all she could to urge him to return, sitting up till very late,
keeping the groom awake for possible orders. "Frances will be very
anxious," she said to her son. "She has no reason to be anxious; she
knows where I am." "Oh, Theo, don't let it come to a quarrel," Mrs.
Warrender urged imploringly, with tears in her eyes. Her attitude put
him in mind of his wife's attitude as she stood holding out her hands,
and was intolerable to him. "Good-night, mother. I am going to bed," he
said. Mrs. Warrender was as restless as Lady Markland. She had come and
listened to his breathing outside his door, and seen that his light was
out, and that he had actually gone to bed, as he said, before she would
allow herself to be convinced. It was a quarrel, then; and what was to
come of it,--what was to come of it? Lady Markland was very yielding and
gentle, but Theo! Theo was not yielding. Mrs. Warrender, too, lay down
when it was nearly morning, as miserable as could be.
And yet none of them, not even the chief actors, who were both at the
pitch of desperation, really believed that what this meant was a breach
which should last for years. Even they would not have believed it had it
been put to them. That it should not all come right was incredible. But
as a matter of fact it did not come right. Lady Markland was not by
nature the yielding and anxious woman whom for this year of troubled
wedlock she had appeared; and everybody knew that Theo was neither
persuadable nor reasonable, but had the hottest temper, the most rigid
will, of his own, and that ingenuity in finding himself in the right which
gives a fatal character to every quarrel. Lady Markland was willing to
make any concession but the one which he required, the abandonment of
Geoff. But he would make no concession; he stood upon his rights. With
all the fervour and absolutism of inexperience he stood fast. No, nothing
less than everything, nothing but entire submission, nothing but
obedience. Alarmed and anxious friends gathered to the fray, as was
inevitable, and everything was made worse. The result was that within a
few weeks Theo Warrender had gone off with a burning sense of injury and
wrong, to travel he did not much care where, to forget himself he did
not much care how; and Lady Markland, feeling as if she had awakened
suddenly from a strange dream, a dream full of fever and unrest, of
fugitive happiness but lasting trouble, came to herself all alone
with the two little babies, in a strange solitude which was no longer
natural, and with Geoff. She had chosen, who could say wrongly?--and yet
in a way which set wrong all the circumstances of her life.
This was how for the moment her second venture came to an end. Theo
went forth upon the world for that Wanderyear in which so much of the
superfluous vigour of life is so often expended, which it would have
been so well for everybody he had taken before: and stormed about the
world for a time, no one knowing what volcanoes were exploding in his
soul. How much he gathered of better wisdom it is not within the limits
of this history to say.
The happy ones were Dick and Chatty, who began their life together as
if there had been no cloud upon it. He had fully lived out his Wanderyear,
and had paid dearly for the follies, which had been done with no evil
meaning on his part, but in all honour and good intention, bitterly
foolish though they were. And perhaps he never was very wise, nor
rose above the possibility of being taken in, which is a peculiarity
of many generous spirits. But why should we say they were the happy
ones? The really happy ones were Minnie and her Eustace, who never felt
themselves to be in the wrong, or were anything less than the regulators
of everybody's life and manners wherever they went. It was Mrs. Eustace
Thynne's conviction to the last that all the misfortunes which
temporarily befell her sister were owing to the fact that she herself
was not on the spot to regulate affairs; and that Theo, if he had taken
her advice, would never have placed himself in the way of the trouble
which had overwhelmed his life.
THE END.
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.