THE EARL AND THE COUNTESS
Events moved quickly; as, at certain crises of our lives, they have a
knack of doing. During twenty years very little had really happened to
Nora; in a few crowded, bewildering days for her the whole world was
turned upside down. On the Friday--the day after the funeral--Nora
told Dr. Banyard that she was inclined to be of his opinion, that the
creditors had better be called together, and matters left in their
hands. She did not tell him that her faith in her father remained
unshaken. It was made clear to her that this was a question of hours,
possibly even of minutes, if something was not done to appease the
creditors at once then the worst would befall; it was no use
delivering herself of pious expressions of faith when action was
required. So she authorized the doctor to do his best for her, and
left everything to his discretion.
Throughout that day she was puzzled by the singularity of Miss
Harding's behaviour; she had cares enough of her own to occupy her
mind, yet she could not help but notice that there was something very
strange the matter with Elaine. The young lady's outburst of the
evening before had not been explained. All day long she was in a state
of nervous tremor which was almost hysterical; such conduct was
unusual in Elaine, who had been wont to laugh at the idea both of
nerves and of hysterics. Nora did not know what to make of her. So far
as she could gather, from the cryptic utterances which the girl now
and then let fall, she was troubled about three things. First, because
of the poverty which apparently was in store for Nora; then because of
the various amounts, which together did not amount to a very large
sum, and most of which, to tell the truth, the creditor had herself
forgotten, in which she was indebted to Nora; and, in the third part,
because of a nebulous scheme she had for endowing Nora with unnamed,
but seemingly immense supplies of ready money. It was this scheme
which, apparently, was worrying her more than anything else; though
what it really was, was beyond Nora's comprehension. Elaine
talked--vaguely, it is true, but passionately, none the less--of being
in possession of funds which Nora knew perfectly well she never had
had, and probably never would have; and about which she waxed quite
warm when Nora smilingly asked if she was quite sure she was not
dreaming.
"You're not to laugh!" she cried. "You're not to laugh! You are to
have it! you shall have it!"
"I shall have what?"
"The money I'm telling you about!"
"But what money are you telling me about? Elaine, you don't seriously
wish me to believe that you have money. Only this week you were crying
because of what you said you owed me; though I say you owe me nothing,
since all that has been between us has been for love's sake. And only
last week you told me that your pockets were empty, and you didn't
know where you were going to get something to put in them; don't you
remember?"
"But I may know where money is!"
"Yes, and so may I; there's money in the bank, but it's neither yours
nor mine; and I'm sure--don't you know I'm sure? you must be a goose
if you don't--that you've no more idea how, honestly, it's to be wooed
and won than I have; so what's the use of our pretending?"
To the speaker's surprise Miss Harding glared at her for some moments
in silence; then, as if in sudden rage, she flung herself out of the
room without a word; sounds were audible as if she were sobbing as she
went.
"What," inquired Nora of herself, not by any means for the first time
that day, "can be the matter with Elaine?"
On the Saturday the storm broke on her from a quarter for which, at
the moment, she was unprepared. Word had been brought that the Earl
and Countess of Mountdennis were in the drawing-room, waiting to see
her. Her first impulse was to send an excuse; the mere announcement of
their presence made her conscious of a sinking heart; but it was not
her way to excuse herself because she feared unpleasantness; second
thoughts prevailed. She recognized that, from their point of view,
they were entitled to see her, even in these first days of her
bereavement. She needed none to tell her that the purport of their
presence was not likely to be an agreeable one; that they probably had
not come upon an errand of love; she had too shrewd a notion of their
characters. Under the circumstances the last thing she might expect
from them was sympathy; she was aware that they had a standard of
their own; and that according to that the more a person stood in need
of sympathy the less likely they were to vouchsafe it. Still they were
Robert's parents; it was for her to consider him rather than herself;
so, for the first time since her father was taken ill she ventured
into the drawing-room.
The frigidity of the reception which they accorded her was ominous;
she knew at once that so far from having deserved their sympathy she
had incurred their displeasure. The last time they had met they had
both of them taken her, not only metaphorically, but literally, to
their bosoms; showering oh her tokens of affection which erred, if
anything, on the side of redundance. Now the lady permitted her to
touch a fish-like hand, taking care not to allow her to approach too
near; while the gentleman merely bowed. It was he who spoke first, as
if he were addressing some one whose behaviour had both pained and
shocked him.
"We only learnt this morning, actually by the merest accident, that
your father was not only dead, but buried."
"Not only dead but buried!"
This was the Countess. It was a standing joke that, if they were both
engaged in the same conversation, when he did not echo her she echoed
him. If they ever differed it must have been in private; in public
their agreement was so complete as sometimes to approach almost to the
verge of the exasperating.
"We were not even aware that your father was unwell; we had received
positively no information on the subject whatever."
"Positively none whatever!"
"It seems to me--to us--a most extraordinary thing that you should not
have apprised us of the condition of your father's health; that you
should have given us no intimation of any kind; that you should have
kept us in utter ignorance."
"In utter ignorance!"
"May I ask, may we ask, Miss Lindsay, why you have not treated us with
at least some approximation to that consideration which our position
obviously demanded?"
"Our position obviously demanded!"
"To begin with, it was all very sudden; and then I didn't know where
you were.
"But you might have made inquiries, anybody would have told you;
almost, one might say, the first person you met in the street. We are
not the kind of people who hide ourselves in holes."
"No, not in holes!"
"The moment we learnt what had occurred--learnt, as I have observed,
by the sheerest accident,--we rushed back to Holtye, that very moment;
though to do so involved us in the most serious inconvenience; but we
had no option."
"We had no option."
"Because, not only were we informed, by accident, that your father was
dead and buried, but we were also told, at the same time, what struck
us as being so surprising as to be almost incredible, that he had not
left behind him even so much as a sixpence."
"Not even so much as a sixpence!"
"You will remember, Miss Lindsay--that is, I take it for granted that
information was given to you to that effect, that before sanctioning
my--our--son Robert's engagement to you I made a special point of
calling upon your father, who then and there informed, I may say,
assured, me that, on the occasion of your marriage, he would present
you with a house and furniture, and settle on you five thousand pounds
a year. On the strength of that positive and definite assurance
I--we--gave our consent, which, without it, we never should have
dreamt of doing. We have our duty to perform, not only to our son, but
to ourselves, and I may say, to our family, of which we are the
representatives; I therefore offer no excuse for taking advantage of
the first opportunity which arises to ask if your father has left his
affairs in a condition which will enable you to carry out that
assurance. On behalf of the Countess of Mountdennis, and of myself, I
beg you, Miss Lindsay, in answering that question, to be perfectly
plain and perfectly candid."
"Perfectly plain and perfectly candid!"
The Earl, very tall, very straight, very thin, waved his hard felt hat
in one hand, and his gold-knobbed malacca cane in the other, in a
manner which was hardly so impressive as he perhaps intended; the
Countess, her gloved hands clasped in front of her, wagged not only
her head, but her whole body, as if to punctuate, and notify her
approval, of his remarks as they fell from him. Nora was silent. At
the back of her mind had been the consciousness that, sooner or later,
this question would have to be confronted; but she had not anticipated
that it would be addressed to her so suddenly, so brusquely, with such
a stand-and-deliver air. When she began to speak her lips were
tremulous; and, though she might not have been aware of it, her eyes
were moist; the feeling was strong upon her how different it all was
from what she had expected.
"I--I'm sorry to say that, so far as we have been able to ascertain,
the state of my father's affairs is not--not altogether satisfactory."
It was the Countess who took up the running then; the Earl who played
the part of echo; but as her volubility was much greater than his she
did not give him so many opportunities to shine as he had given her.
"Not altogether satisfactory! my good young woman, what do you mean? I
suppose all ideas of a house and furniture and five thousand a year
must be given up, though your father led us to expect that there would
be much more than that after he was dead; but the Earl has asked you a
plain question and what we want is a plain answer; how much has he
left you? If you can't give us the exact sum let's have it
approximately, in pounds, shillings and pence."
"I'm afraid that I'm not yet in a position which enables me to do
that."
"Not in a position? what do you mean, you're not in a position? are
you in a position to say that he has left you anything, except debts?"
"I'm certain that when he said he had that money he had it; I believe
he was a rich man when he died. Only he was very reserved; and, in
consequence, we have not been able to find where the money is."
"Stuff and nonsense! you'd have found the money if there'd been any to
find; it's only when there is none that none's found! Have you any
sort of solid foundation for thinking that he did leave money?"
"He gave me to understand that I should be left well off; and I can't
believe he would have done so if it had not been true."
"Some people can't believe anything; I know a woman who can't believe
that her husband committed murder, though he was found guilty on the
clearest possible evidence, confessed his guilt, and was hung ten
years ago. Husbands and wives can't exist on the incomes they believe
they have; tradesmen want coin of the realm. I'm informed that by the
time everything's sold, and everything will have to be sold, and the
debts paid, there'll be nothing left for you; I want you to tell me,
plainly, please, if that's true."
At last the Earl had his chance.
"Yes, plainly, please, if that's true!"
"I am afraid that, as matters stand at present, it does seem as if it
were likely to be true."
The Countess, putting up her lorgnettes, surveyed her fixedly, and
severely.
"You must allow me to remark, Miss Lindsay, that you have a way of
fencing with a plain question which, under the circumstances, seems
peculiar, and which compels me to wonder if it can be possible that
you knowingly obtained my son's consent to marry you under false
pretences."
At this Nora did fire up.
"How dare you say such a thing! I did not obtain his consent, he
obtained mine."
"We know very well what that means. I have not arrived at my time of
life without understanding what are the wiles with which a young woman
of no position lures a handsome young fellow of good family; I have
not the slightest doubt that my son would never have asked you to be
his wife had you not made it quite clear to him that you wished him
to."
Nora stood up; one could see that the colour kept coming and going in
her cheeks; that she was trembling; that she seemed to be panting for
breath.
"I--I think you'd better go."
The Countess went calmly on; the girl's agitation seemed to make the
elder woman calmer, and more corrosive.
"I am going when it suits me; I assure you I have no wish to stay a
moment longer in this abode of misrepresentation than I am compelled
to. But before I go I wish to appeal to your sense of decency, if you
have any sense of decency----"
"How--how dare you! how dare you speak to me like this!"
"I say, if you have any sense of decency, to release him from the most
unfortunate position in which your father's misrepresentations, and
your own peculiar behaviour, have entangled him."
"Has--has he sent you here?"
"If you persist in putting such a question I shall understand that you
have no sense of decency; surely any young woman with a spark of
honour in her composition, must perceive that in such a situation the
man would not be likely to send--that the initiative must come from
her, not from him."
"I simply wish to learn if Mr. Robert Spencer knows that you have come
to me upon this errand."
"He does not know; which gives you an opportunity to free him
gracefully before the true state of affairs does come to his
knowledge."
"If he wishes to be what you call 'free,' do you suppose that for one
moment I would stand in his way?"
"It is not so much a question of what he wishes, as of what you wish.
If you wish, though ever so slightly, to hold him to his bargain, I
dare say he'll be held, even to the extent of making you his wife;
though he will regret it ever afterwards, and will probably live to
curse the day on which you first placed yourself in his path. Young
men have married undesirable women, who were in no way fitted to be
their wives, and who were thinking only of themselves, before to-day,
and will again; I have seen examples of it in my own family, to my
great sorrow. I intend, if I can, to save my son Robert from such a
fate, whatever you may say or do; the purport of my presence here is
merely to learn if you are, or are not, possessed of a shred of
principle."
"I cannot conceive why you talk to me like this; what makes you think
yourself entitled to take up such an attitude towards me; what I have
done which causes you to address me in such a strain."
"That's high-faluting, it's talk of that sort which makes me suspect
that you must be even worse than I supposed. Your father held you out
to the world as a young woman who was rich already, and who would be
still richer later on, and you tacitly endorsed his positive
statements; then he dies just in time to save himself from being made
a fraudulent bankrupt, leaving you worse than a pauper, and you have
the assurance to pretend to wonder why I and the Earl regard you--I
will be as civil as I can--askance. Talk sense, Miss Lindsay; don't
presume on our simplicity any longer. You are perfectly well aware
that, had we been aware of the truth from the first, we should never
have countenanced you in any way whatever. Your father's lies,
with which you went out of your way to associate yourself--I
know!--deceived us; and they deceived my son; there's the truth for
you, if you never heard it before."
Nora looked as if she could have said many things; but she only asked
a question.
"What, precisely, is it that you wish me to do?"
"I wish you to do something to, at least in part, undo the mischief
which you have done already, to atone for the evil of which you have
been the cause; I wish you to show by your demeanour your
consciousness of the miserably false position in which you have been
placed by others, or in which you have placed yourself, it doesn't
matter which. In other, and plainer words, I wish you to hand me my
son's letters and presents, and to sit down at once and write a
letter, which I will hand him, in which you express your appreciation
of the fact that he asked you to become his wife under an entire
misapprehension, and that now, since circumstances have turned out so
wholly different to what they were represented to be, your own
self-respect forbids you to allow any association to continue between
you; and that, in short, all is over between you, in every possible
sense of the phrase. I want you to put that down, as plainly, and as
finally, as it can be put, in black and white, because, Miss Lindsay,
I wish to save my son Robert, at the earliest possible, from the
danger in which he stands, and to do it while he is still absent."
"But, my dear mother," exclaimed the voice of some new-comer, "your
son Robert is not still absent, he is here."
Looking round the trio saw that the Honourable Robert Spencer was
standing at the open window.