A DEAD FAINT.
By reason of favourable winds and propitious currents Mrs. Mortomley had
almost sailed out of sight of those heavily-freighted merchant ships
which hold on one accustomed course too calmly to suit the vagaries of
such craft as she, when the death of Richard Halling and arrival of his
son and daughter at Homewood threw her once again amongst people who
were never likely to take kindly to or be desired by her.
Miss Halling was engaged to a middle-aged, or, indeed, elderly
gentleman, who stood high in the estimation of City folks, and who
himself had the highest opinion possible of individuals who, after
making fortunes on Change, in Mincing Lane, or any other typical London
Eldorado, did not turn their backs on the place where they gained their
money as if ashamed of it, but were content to associate with their
equals, and felt as much "honoured by an invitation to the Mansion House
as dukes and duchesses might to an invitation to the Court of St.
James's."
This was literally Mr. Dean's style of conversation, and the reader who
has been good enough to follow this story so far may comprehend the
favour it found with Mrs. Mortomley. He had a comfortable old-fashioned
house situated in the midst of good grounds. His gardens were well kept
up; but were a weariness, if not to him, at least to Dolly, by reason of
his being unable to find honest men to till the ground and his perpetual
lamentations concerning the shortcomings of those he did employ.
There was not a picture hanging on his walls, not a horse in his
stables, not a cow in his meadows, not a tree about his place that Dolly
did not hate with the detestation born of utter weariness and mental
exhaustion.
And in this case she had no choice but to suffer patiently. Antonia
Halling had not been at Homewood three months before Mrs. Mortomley
would have given her entire fortune to see her depart. Her friends
filled the house. She herself simply deposed Dolly; and Dolly, though no
saint, loved peace far too well to fight for the possession of a throne
she knew she must ultimately re-ascend.
When Mr. Dean married Antonia, but not before. Judge, therefore, how
anxious Dolly was to stand well with Mr. Dean; but she failed in her
endeavour.
Mr. Dean "could not see anything in her." "She was not his style." "Her
manners might please some people, apparently they did, but they did not
recommend themselves to him." "Of course the fortune she had left her
was one not be despised by a man in Mr. Mortomley's position, but he was
doubtful whether a managing, steady, careful, sensible woman might not
have proved a better-dowered wife than the one he had chosen."
For all of which remarks--that sooner or later reached her ears--Dolly
cared not a groat. Slowly, however, it dawned upon her by degrees she
never could recall--by a process as gradual as that which is effected
when night is changed to day--that Mr. Dean and men like him not merely
disapproved of her, which was nothing and to be expected, but looked
down upon her husband, which was much and astounding.
By imperceptible degrees she arrived at the knowledge of the fact. More
rapidly she grasped the reason, and came at the same time to a vague
comprehension of the cause why between her soul and the souls of Mr.
Dean and men and women like him, there lay an antagonism which should
for ever prevent their knitting into one.
All Christianity, all genius, all talent, all cleverness, all striving
after an ideal, all industry; all patience, all bearing and forbearing,
they held not as things in themselves intrinsically good, but as good
only so far as they were available for money getting.
Unless the sermon, or the book, or the invention, or the philanthropy or
the hard work, or the vague yet passionate yearnings after a higher life
which shy and self-contained natures possess and keep silence
concerning--produced money, and a large amount of it, too--they despised
those products of the human mind.
They had made their money or their fathers had done so before them, and
having made it they were to speak justly as they themselves could state
their case, willing to subscribe to charities and missions, and put down
their fifties, their hundreds, and their thousands at public meetings,
and even to send anonymous donations when they thought such a style of
giving might approve itself to God.
But of that swift untarrying generosity which gives and forgets itself
has given--of that Christian feeling which seeing a brother in need
relieves him and omits to debit the Almighty with a dole--Mr. Dean and
his fellows having no knowledge, they accounted Mortomley foolish
because he had not considered himself first and the man who had need
second.
The world had gone on and the Mortomleys had stood still; but though
they had not compassed their fair share of earthly prosperity, who shall
say they were not "nearer the Kingdom" for that very reason.
Those traits in Mortomley's character which had won for him golden
opinions from Mrs. Trebasson, and something more from her daughter, and
which unconsciously to herself knit Dolly's heart to her husband firmer
and closer as the years went by, would simply have been accounted
foolishness by those who had done so remarkably well for themselves and
their families. Their ideal of a good man was Henry Werner, who, upon a
small business inherited from his father, had built himself a great
commercial edifice; who was a "shrewd fellow" according to his admirers,
and who, if he ever lapsed into generosity, took care to be generous
wisely and profitably. No man would have caught that clever gentleman
dispensing alms with only his left hand for audience. If there was a
famine in the East, or a bad ship-wreck, or an hospital in want of
funds, or any other calamity on sufficiently large a scale to justify
the Lord Mayor in convening a public meeting on the subject, I warrant
that Mr. Werner would be present on the occasion and put down his name
for a sum calculated to prove that business with him was flourishing.
But all the private almsgiving which was done in his family was done by
Mrs. Werner, and to "remember the poor and forget not" she had to manage
her allowance with prudence. Unlike Dolly she had no private fortune;
unlike Dolly she could not go to her husband and say she wanted money to
give to that widow or this orphan, or some poor old man laid up with
cold and rheumatism and the burden of years superadded.
Mr. Werner was in the world's eyes a prosperous man, but although his
wife did her duty by, she did not grow to love, him. Mortomley, on the
contrary, was a man who did not prosper as he might have done; and Dolly
did not do her duty by him; but then she loved him, not perhaps as
Leonora Trebasson might have done, but still according to her different
nature wholly and increasingly.
Was there nothing to be put to the credit side of the last account, do
you suppose? nothing of which the world with its befrilled and
bejewelled wife failed to take notice.
Although, however, Mrs. Mortomley came to understand that in the opinion
of his acquaintances her husband had made nothing of the opportunities
offered him by fortune, she did not comprehend that what they thought
was literally true.
She did not know that in business as in everything else it is simply
impossible for a man to remain stationary. If he is not advancing he
must be retrograding, if he is not increasing his returns his profits
must be decreasing, if he is not extending his connexion he must be
losing it, if he is not keeping ahead of the times he must be lagging
behind the footsteps of progress.
Of all these matters Mrs. Mortomley was profoundly ignorant. From Mrs.
Werner she knew that Richard Halling's death had embarrassed her
husband; but she attached little importance to this information, first
because it came from a source she had always distrusted, and second
because she had only the vaguest idea of what embarrassment meant in
trade. Her notion, if she had any, was that her husband would have to
put off some payment--as she sometimes deferred paying her
milliner--that was all.
The first hint of things being at all "difficult" came to her in this
wise.
She had not been very well. Perhaps, Miss Halling's friends, or Mr.
Dean's instructive remarks on the subject of his business had proved
exhausting. Let that be as it may, one evening when a few guests were
present she had just walked into the drawing-room after dinner when,
without the slightest premonitory warning, she fell back in a dead
faint.
She soon recovered, however, and not without a certain spice of malice
laid her illness at the door of a scent which Miss Dean thought an
appropriate odour to carry about with her everywhere--musk.
"I never can remain in a room with musk," said Dolly defiantly, "without
feeling faint. Out of politeness to Miss Dean, I have latterly ceased
speaking of a weakness she considers mere affectation, but now I suppose
I may feel myself at liberty to do so."
And without further apology Dolly, still looking very white and
terrified, for that inexplicable transition from consciousness to
insensibility was a new sensation to her, walked through into the
conservatory followed by Mrs. Werner and another lady who chanced to be
present.
"I never could forgive the first Napoleon for divorcing Josephine until
I read that she liked--musk," said Dolly leaning against the open door
and looking out over the lawns, from which already came the sad perfume
of the fallen Autumn leaves. "Fancy a man whose family traditions were
interwoven with violets having that horrible odour greet him every time
he entered her apartments."
"But it never made you faint before," remarked Mrs. Werner, ignoring
Josephine's peculiarities, and reverting to her friend's sudden illness.
"I never had so large a dose at one time before," retorted Mrs.
Mortomley; "Miss Dean must have taken a bath of it I should think, this
afternoon."
"Hush! dear," expostulated Mrs. Werner, and she put her arm round
Dolly's waist and kissed her. Not even in the pages of old romance was
there ever anything truer, purer, more perfect, than the love Lord
Dassell's niece bore for Archibald Mortomley's wife.
Meantime, within the drawing-room, Miss Dean remarked to Antonia
penitently,
"I really did think it was--not affectation exactly you know, but her
way; I am so sorry."
Miss Halling raised her white shoulders with a significant gesture.
"She attributes it to the musk, but it was not really that, though I do
think, remember, many perfumes are disagreeable to her. For instance, I
have often known her order hyacinths, lily of the valley, lilac and
syringa to be taken out of a room where she wished to sit, and I
remember once when we were going to London together by train, her
getting into another compartment at Stratford, merely because a fat old
lady who was our fellow-traveller had thought fit to deluge her
handkerchief with patchouli. But it was not the musk which made her
faint. She takes too much out of herself. She is never still, she visits
and talks enough for a dozen people. She was at a wedding yesterday
morning, at a kettledrum in the afternoon, and then she came home and we
all dined with the Morrisons. No constitution could endure such
treatment," finished Miss Halling.
"The constitutions of fashionable ladies endure more than that," replied
Miss Dean, who might perhaps have liked Antonia better than was the case
had that young person not assumed the shape of a future sister-in-law.
"Yes," agreed the other, "but then they do nothing else, and
Dolly--excuse me for calling her by that ridiculous name, but we have
got into the habit of it--is never at rest from morning till night, she
rises early and she goes to bed late, and she is here there and
everywhere at all hours of the day."
This was true at any rate. It was precisely what a solemn old doctor
told her when by Mr. Mortomley's request she sent next day for "some one
to give her something."
He said she had better go out of town to some quiet place, and
accordingly Dolly accompanied by Lenore and her maid left Homewood
before the week was over.
It was when Mortomley was saying his last words of farewell that the
first drop of rain indicating foul weather to come, fell on her upturned
face.
"Dolly dear, you won't spend more money than you can help," said her
husband in the tone of a man who would just have liked about as well to
cut his throat as utter the words.
Dolly opened her eyes. It had been a childish habit of hers, and time
failed to cure her of it.
"Do I spend too much?" she asked.
"Not half enough, if we had it to spend," was the answer; then he added
hurriedly, "you are not vexed, you do not mind my speaking." At that
moment, 'Take your seats. Now, sir, if you please,' was shouted out, and
Dolly could only reply from her corner in the carriage,
"I will tell you when you come down," but there was not a shade on her
face. Her look was bright as ever, while she put her hand in his.
A whole chapter of assurances could not have lightened her husband's
heart one half so effectually.
Even if the words he had uttered bore no immediate fruit, what did it
matter? The ice was broken. Hereafter he could talk to her again and
explain his meaning more fully. All the way to the station he had felt
miserable. He had treated her always like a child, and now when he was
forced to tell her she must do without any fresh toy to which she took a
fancy, he imagined himself little better than a brute.
But Dolly had been told and was not vexed. Why, oh! why, had he not
spoken to her before!
By the sad sea waves Mrs. Mortomley thought those last words over and
over and over. She put two and two together. She estimated the amount
the interest her own modest fortune brought back to the common fund, and
then she reckoned as well as a woman who never professed to keep any
accounts could reckon, the total of their annual expenditure.
The result was that when her husband did come down and ask her in his
usual fashion, if she wanted money, (for indeed he was as much gratified
as surprised at having heard no mention of that one thing needful in her
short notes), she opened her purse and turned out its contents
gleefully.
"Haven't I been good?" she asked; and then went on to ask,
"Archie, have you really and truly been troubled about these things?"
"A little," he answered.
"Then why did you not tell me sooner?"
"Why should I trouble you about such matters, love?"
"Because till I married you, the want of money and I were close
acquaintances; perhaps that is the reason why I have always hated
considering money since, but I can consider for all that, and I intend
to make what you hold in your hand last until I get home again."
He put the notes and gold back into her purse slowly and thoughtfully,
folding each note by itself, with nervous absent carefulness, dropping
each sovereign singly into the little netted bag she kept, with her
childish love for pretty things, for them.
"My poor Dolly," he said at last. Was it a prevision? Knowledge _could
not_ have come to him then, and it must have been a prevision that made
the souls of both husband and wife grow for some reason, inexplicable to
themselves, sad and sorrowful for a moment.
As for Dolly, his three words had sent her eyes out seaward with tears
welling in them; but she was the first to recover herself.
"We will spoil our pleasure by talking of horrid money matters at the
sea side," she remarked, "but when I go home again you must give me a
full, true, and particular account of all that is troubling you. Do you
hear, sir."
"Yes; I hear," he answered, "and I can give you an account of what is
troubling me, at once. I have been foolish and I am suffering for my
folly. I did not consider the crop I was planting and I am among
stinging nettles in consequence; but we shall 'win through it yet,' to
quote an old saying, dear, 'we shall win through it yet,' please God."
"I wish I was at home again," she said.
"So do I love, but you must not think of returning till you are quite
strong and well again."
"No," she answered; "I think a sick wife is as bad in a house as a
scolding wife, or worse, because at least the latter cannot excite
anxiety, although it _was_ only Miss Dean made me ill."
Mortomley shook his head, "Never mind what made you ill, dear, so as you
only get well," he answered, and then, for the twilight had closed upon
them and the place was empty of visitors, they paced slowly back along
that walk by the sea hand clasped in hand.
If--nine years husband though he was--he had known more of Dolly,
possessed much insight into the windings and subtleties of any woman's
nature, it would have struck him as curious that after the confidence
given, his wife did not at once pack up her dresses and return to
Homewood. Happily for him he did not understand her, did not comprehend
the light words she had spoken apparently in jest were uttered in real
earnest.
"A sick wife,"--Dolly's imagination could present even to itself few
more terrible pictures than that, and she knew and some one else knew it
was needful for her to take practical measures to avert so fearful a
misfortune.
With the solemn old doctor Dolly had jested about her illness, had
laughed at advice, had grudgingly consented to take his medicine. It was
all very pleasant, very easy, very non-alarming. Even Mortomley was
satisfied when the old simpleton with a wise face assured him all his
wife wanted was a month at the sea-side and entire repose.
Dolly knew better. With no flourish of trumpets, saying nothing to
any-body, she went off quietly by herself to a celebrated physician and
told him about that little swoon.
He did not say much, indeed he did not say anything at first; then he
asked carelessly, almost indifferently, as was his fashion,
"And what do you suppose made you faint." Mrs. Mortomley did not answer,
she looked him straight in the face, as women sometimes can look, evil
and danger.
There ensued a dead silence, then she said,
"I came here expecting you to tell me the cause."
"I will answer your question hereafter, and write you a prescription
meantime," he answered confusedly.
"Neither is necessary at present," she replied, and laying down her
guinea left the room before he could recover from his astonishment.
"Now I should like to know the future of that woman," he said, "She
understands all about it as well as I do."
Perhaps she did, but then she possessed a marvellous buoyancy of temper,
and disbelief in the infallibility of doctors.
Fortunately for her, and somebody else.