THE TWO RADICALS.
Mrs. Mallory came into her drawing-room twenty minutes before the
dinner-hour, and found her son already there, alone, already dressed,
and stretched, in an attitude of extreme laziness, in an arm-chair by
the fire.
There was likeness between the mother and son--strong likeness; and
there was also, what most people forget in comparing relations with
one another, strong unlikeness. Mrs. Mallory was an elegant-looking
and a young-looking woman. She had an impassive, pale face, with thin
lips and a high nose; pale, flaxen hair, without a grey streak in its
glossy abundance; and the elegant trifle of lace and feathers which she
wore upon it made her look still younger and handsomer. She was dressed
in pale lavender silk and white lace, and she looked a very handsome,
prosperous person, as she came in, casting a glance at Sebastian--a
sharp, keen, calculating glance. Mrs. Mallory loved power, and had long
exercised it; she did not realise that her son had grown from a boy
into a man since she had known him. She had the lowest possible opinion
of the natural penetration of men; and circumstances had fostered that
impression. There is a great deal in having once lived for a term of
years in close intercourse with a person very decidedly one’s inferior
in intellect, as in the case of Mrs. Mallory and her late husband.
There is nothing like it for giving one an overweening idea of one’s
own capacities, and for fostering an attitude of contemptuous tolerance
towards the opinions of every one else. Mrs. Mallory’s experience of
her husband had entailed, as one of its indirect sequences, that she
was completely deceived now by the lazy, languid manner of her son.
In this most agreeable of convictions, that of mental supremacy over
the rest of the company, let her tranquilly abide, until her hour of
disillusion arrives.
‘Mother, it is too absurd that I should have to go about representing
myself as your son! Couldn’t you pass as my sister?’
‘Nonsense! Where is your friend?’
‘Dressing, I suppose. He was greatly excited at hearing that a young
lady was expected to dine with us.’
Mrs. Mallory had some remarks to make _à propos_ of the young lady, but
she deferred them for a moment in order to inquire,
‘What have you been doing all day?’
And she placed herself in an easy-chair opposite to his, and held a
feathery screen between her face and the fire.
‘I have been, like a good little boy, attending to my lessons,’ said
her son, lazily.
‘Ah, don’t speak in parables! I have forgotten how. In this dreadful
place every one says the most disagreeable things they can think of,
in the most disagreeable way they can think of, and then call it being
honest and candid. And if you can contrive to drop a few h’s, and speak
in a broad Lancashire dialect at the same time, you are thought very
honest and candid indeed. I detest the place!’
‘Do you really, mother? I wonder you have remained here so long.’
‘I have tried to do my duty, Sebastian, to you and your property. A
woman must make up her mind to sacrifice herself--a mother above all
others.’
‘I am infinitely obliged to you, mother, but I trust that now you will
have a long and complete rest. I am going to learn my business----’
‘Very proper, but I think it will take you some time. With your habits,
I am afraid you will find it a frightful bore.’
‘Do you know my habits, mother?’ he inquired in the very quietest of
voices.
Mrs. Mallory looked at him in some surprise. As a matter of fact, she
did not know his habits in the very least. But, looking at him as he
lounged in his easy-chair, with the newspaper across his knees, she
said within herself, and prided herself upon her discernment,
‘His father all over: weak and idle, though he has more surface
quickness. I don’t think I shall have much trouble with him.’
‘At least I know, dear, that your habits have not been those of
Thanshope business men. But I suppose your first object will be to go
over the works and see your people?’
‘I have been over the works, and have seen my people, and spoken to
them.’
‘When--why did you not tell me?’ she asked vivaciously, and with no
little vexation. ‘You should not be so impetuous, Sebastian.’
He laughed.
‘The first time I was ever accused of impetuousness. It shows indeed
that you don’t know my habits.’
This was annoying, though it was impossible to complain about it.
‘These people will not bear to be treated unceremoniously, though they
are such bears themselves.’
‘I am not aware that I did treat them unceremoniously.’
‘What did you say to them?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better
of vexation. ‘I wish you had not been so hasty. A speech of that kind
requires both consideration and careful management I hope you did
not commit yourself. They are such frightful people for taking up
one’s most innocent remarks and construing them into something quite
different from what one intended.’
Mrs. Mallory spoke feelingly, as if from experience.
‘Are they? Well, I don’t know that I committed myself to anything from
which I should wish to back out later. Indeed, I am not a fellow who
is given to backing out of his promises--but then I make so few,’ he
added, thoughtfully. ‘I simply told them I was afraid there were bad
times coming, and that we must stand by each other in them. And I said
a few words on politics.’
‘My dear boy! how foolish! Excuse me, but it was. They are rabid
Radicals, and have a prejudice against you already--one of their
horrid, narrow-minded prejudices, and to mention that you were a
Conservative would certainly not improve your situation.’
Sebastian looked a little surprised.
‘How odd it is! Why should I tell them I was a Conservative when I am a
Radical? I spoke the truth of course.’
Not Mrs. Transome herself could have been more horrified at Harold’s
declaration of his views than was Mrs. Mallory at this avowal by
her son. She forgot to shade that complexion, which was not as the
complexions of other women of six-and-forty. She laid her screen
down, sat bolt upright, without the pretence of any amiability in her
expression, and said sharply,
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
‘I am truly sorry that I cannot oblige you by feeling so.’
‘You have no respect for your father, or your grandfather--for any of
your forefathers,’ said she, sullenly. ‘Every man here who can boast of
a grandfather, much more a man of good old family like yours, ought to
be a Conservative out of pure self-respect. No! You have no respect for
your ancestors or for yourself.’
‘_Mon Dieu!_ I think I have as much respect for them as they deserve.
Do you think ancestors are really of much use? But at least I have more
respect for their memories than to imagine that they would wish me
simply to sit down and hobnob with the first opinions that happened to
be offered to me. Since I have inherited my name and my tendencies of
mind from them, I must also have inherited my brains and my reasoning
powers from them. I have an inquiring mind, a thing, my dear mother,
which is not spontaneously generated, but developed.’
‘That is wicked nonsense, Sebastian. I won’t allow it.’
‘But you will allow me to explain my opinions to you, I am sure. That
is always better, and saves so many misunderstandings.’
‘I see without explanation that you are a renegade to your fathers, and
have degraded yourself to the level of these horrid, insolent Radicals;
yes, to the level of these grasping, dirty, presuming work-people.
I hate them, Sebastian; I cannot tell you how I hate all Radicals.
How can you refuse any of the demands of these odious people now,
professing, as you do, their own opinions?’
‘I don’t know what their opinions may be, I am sure. Probably not at
all the same as mine. But I was going to mention that, in my quite
early youth, I once read a little sentence which made a deep impression
upon my mind. It ran thus: “Those who believe that heaven is what earth
has been--a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few, would do well to
reconsider their opinion; if they find that it came from their priest
or their grandmother, they could not do better than reject it.”’
‘I call that impiety,’ said she, her lips tightening.
‘Allow me to finish,’ said he, courteously. ‘I read between the
lines of that little remark, and applied the principle contained in
it to a great many other things beside those mentioned in the text;
and the result of my continued use of that principle, as a test of
institutions, opinions, and customs, has been that I am a Radical.’
‘It is an odious and an impious principle,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with
cold and bitter anger in her voice, ‘and it is a principle to which I
will never give my countenance.’
The shock had been not a small one of finding that Sebastian called
himself by the name she hated, as the formula of the sum of the
opinions of Thanshope--Radical. But a yet greater shock was that
of finding, that though he seemed so soft and pliable, spoke so
indifferently, smiled so languidly, yet that she could no more bend
him, nor apparently impress him, than she could stem the incoming tide
of the ocean.
Sebastian had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece. Mrs. Mallory
glanced at him once, sideways, and caught his eye. That was annoying in
itself: it vexed and angered her because he was smiling.
‘I am sorry you don’t like it, mother,’ he said quite pleasantly and
cheerfully, but not in the least apologetically; ‘and yet, do you
know, considering the letters you have had from me, and my perfect
frankness as to the society I have most sought and enjoyed, I think
you might have been prepared for it, even if I never explicitly stated
my convictions.’
This was also true. He had a most annoying way of being in the right.
‘Convictions? Oh, I dislike that talk about convictions. When people
want to annoy their best friends, they call their conduct the result of
convictions.’
‘The impertinence of circumstances is certainly very great sometimes,’
assented Sebastian, leaning against the mantelpiece, and she, as she
tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor, would hardly have been
flattered to find that he was thinking:
‘I must let her rail against it until it begins to be tiresome--perhaps
she may see the wisdom of stopping before then. I suppose one must
make allowances for the disappointment of a woman whose prejudices (or
convictions?) have been offended; but it would be wasting words to
reason with her about it, and soon, I suppose, she will learn to accept
the circumstances and make the best of it.’
He had no wish or intention of being disrespectful. Simply, he had
‘beaten his music out’ with more difficulty than any one knew, save
himself, and was mildly surprised to find that the resulting harmony,
which sounded not ill in his own ears, should cause his mother such
shuddering, should fall so discordantly upon her perceptions. He had
no more idea of interrupting the flow of that harmony than he had of
sharing his ample estate with all the paupers in Thanshope.
Fortunately, at this juncture, Hugo came into the room, his odd,
original young face looking still more peculiar in contrast with his
careful evening dress, and before many words had been exchanged ‘Miss
Spenceley’ was announced.
Sebastian turned, with the story of Frederick Spenceley and his already
conceived contempt for him strong in his mind, to confront Frederick
Spenceley’s sister. His glance softened as it fell upon the girl
advancing towards his mother.
Had he wandered through all the cities of Europe and seen their lovely
women, in order to come home and find in a provincial manufacturing
town a daughter of the people more beautiful than any of them?
‘Helena, my love, let me introduce my son, who has arrived sooner than
I expected. Sebastian, Miss Spenceley.’
A profound bow on his part, and a rather careless, not very
sophisticated inclination of her beautiful head on hers, was the result
of these phrases of politeness.
‘My son’s friend, Mr. von Birkenau,’ was then introduced, and received
the same notice exactly, a notice graceful and even dignified, because
she could not help all her movements being graceful and dignified.
‘Like my daughter,’ Mrs. Mallory had said, and as she spoke to Helena
Spenceley her voice assuredly took a tender accent; she glanced over
the young lady’s costly dress, and smoothed down a lace ruffle with
the affectionate familiarity of a very intimate friend or much-loved
relative.
Miss Spenceley remained standing on the hearthrug, talking to Mrs.
Mallory--a lovely, noble figure, tall, slim, and shapely, with the
exquisite elasticity of perfect health in every line.
‘Splendid!’ said Sebastian, in his own mind; and splendid expressed her
appearance and her character both. From her great dark, soft eyes, her
dusky hair, in its delicate unruly little rings and tendrils, her ripe
red lips, set in a delicious curve of mirth, frankness, and wilfulness,
down to her rich dress and sparkling rings, she was all splendid,
without being in the least vulgar.
‘Dear child, what a long time it is since I saw you!’ said Mrs. Mallory.
‘Yes. I have been busy. How nice this fire is, Mrs. Mallory. I do
believe we have not had one at our house yet. Perhaps it is lighted on
your behalf?’ she added, turning to Sebastian with a somewhat malicious
smile.
‘Mine? Not so far as I am aware. What makes you think so?’
‘You have been living in warm countries lately, and Thanshope is not a
warm place, but one of those towns where we have to use a lot of coals
to make up for the want of sunshine!’
‘Yes, indeed!’ said Mrs. Mallory, shivering.
‘I have not had time to miss the sunshine, or to enjoy it, if there had
been any, since I came,’ said Sebastian, his glance dwelling almost
involuntarily upon her as she stood there, her eyes flashing back the
firelight, and looking herself (he thought) like some bright living
flame, or some tropical flower.
He could not understand her. There was nothing vulgar about her; her
voice was pleasant and, though distinctly northern in its clear accent,
was not in the least uneducated in its pronunciation of words; she had
ease, grace, self-possession of carriage; apparently she was devoid
altogether of self-consciousness; all of which things were surely
signs of good breeding; and yet she was not in the least like the many
well-bred girls whom he had met in society up and down the world--in
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other places. He wondered what she could
talk about, and whether she talked well.
Dinner was announced, and he led her into the dining-room. Hugo von
Birkenau was talking with much animation to Mrs. Mallory, as was
his wont, though she did not appear to find him a very interesting
companion.
Helena Spenceley, suddenly turning to Sebastian, said,
‘I know quite well where you have been. I have followed your course
with the greatest interest Mrs. Mallory used always to tell me where
you went, and sometimes read me bits of your letters.’
‘Did she? I wish I had known.’
‘Do you? Why?’ she asked, looking at him with a certain bright
attentiveness, and waiting with evident interest for his answer.
Certainly she was not like other girls. Another girl would have known
directly that he meant a kind of vague compliment by his aimless
phrase; but she said ‘Why?’
‘If I had known, perhaps I might have written rather more carefully
considered epistles to my mother,’ he said, and felt that it was, and
sounded, a lame reply.
‘That would have been a pity, for the sake of a person you had never
seen and did not know,’ she said, the smile fading from her face.
Sebastian felt he had made a bad beginning. It began to be rather
dreadful, when she went on quite seriously,
‘Do you mean that if you had thought your letters were read aloud you
would have made them into set compositions to please an audience?’
‘I think it is a matter of no importance whatever. Letter-writing is
not my _forte_. I am too lazy.’
‘Oh, they were very interesting letters,’ said Helena, naïvely. ‘But
how can you talk about being lazy! If only I had had such chances!’ She
shook her head.
‘I should think you had the chance of doing whatever you pleased,’ he
said, smiling.
Helena did not respond to the smile. Her face, intensely expressive,
darkened visibly. Her eyes sank.
‘No,’ said she, coldly. ‘You are quite mistaken. Whatever pleasures
and enjoyments I have had in my life have been procured for me by the
kindness of Mrs. Mallory. She has been so good to me!’ She looked at
him with eyes tragic in the earnestness of their expression.
Sebastian, glancing down the table, saw that Hugo’s eyes were fixed
upon her in a perfect trance of admiration.
‘Then you have never been abroad?’ said he.
‘I--no! I have been nowhere except to London once or twice--oh, and to
Brighton with Mrs. Mallory. I don’t want to go anywhere.’
‘You are such a home-bird?’
He saw immediately that he had asked an unfortunate question. The blood
rushed over her face as she replied, again coldly,
‘Oh no! I think all that stuff about “home, sweet home,” and that, is
the most wearisome nonsense imaginable. I hate it.... Did you study the
position of women at all when you were abroad?’
Sebastian looked at her. She was perfectly grave, serious, and
judicial. The ‘Woman Question’ had not been forced so far to the front
in 1861 as in 1878, and Sebastian was proportionately surprised to hear
that question from so young, rich, and beautiful a woman as Helena
Spenceley.
‘I’m afraid I was rather remiss in that respect. But one sees their
position without studying it, I think.’
‘And what do you think about it? Is it what it ought to be? But that is
a foolish question. It is not what it ought to be, anywhere. It never
will be what it ought to be, until women themselves rise and refuse any
longer to submit to their own degradation. Don’t you think so?’
‘Really I am afraid I have not thought much at all upon the question.’
‘I suppose the idea has not yet penetrated to France and Germany. It
will have to come, though, sooner or later. The German woman, for
instance--is she in bonds, or emancipated?’
‘As how?’
‘Is the German woman the slave of the German man, or has she a position
of her own?’
A malign spirit took possession of Sebastian. Mrs. Mallory and Hugo
were both listening to the discussion, Mrs. Mallory with a shade of
anxiety on her face. Sebastian, after a pause, as if he were profoundly
considering the question, said,
‘I should say that she combined both those conditions--that she was
very decidedly the slave of the German man, and at the same time had a
distinct position of her own.’
‘Really! I wish I had brought my note-book. Pray explain!’
‘The German woman’s thoughts are, if I may use such an expression,
directed manwards, _Mann_ being, you know, her word for husband. Her
thoughts, then, are directed _Mann_-wards from her earliest youth--from
the time when she begins to go to school....’
‘Horrible!’ said Helena, her eyes fixed in grave earnest upon his face,
so that his gravity was sorely tried. ‘Horrible! Well?’
‘I don’t know how much or how little true the report maybe about her
beginning in early youth to prepare her trousseau.’
‘Disgusting!’
‘But she hears all around her and all her life long conversations on
the subject of matrimony.’
‘The end and aim of her existence, poor thing!’ said Helena, with
a pitying smile. ‘Go on! you have studied the subject almost
unconsciously, as every thinking man must.’
‘If she reaches the age of one-and-twenty, unmarried, she begins to
wonder what the reason can be of such a thing, and her friends, too,
begin to speculate about it....’
‘Naturally!’ said Helena, her eyes flashing and her colour rising,
while Hugo looked preternaturally solemn, except for a gleam in the
depths of his eyes, and Mrs. Mallory’s face wore a puzzled expression.
‘Naturally--she is sold, disposed of before her reasoning powers are
developed. It is very deplorable. Well?’
‘But very generally she is married at or before that age, and then----’
‘And _then_?’ echoed Helena, waving away the butler’s offer of wine
and leaning eagerly towards Sebastian. ‘And then--what is her life
afterwards, Mr. Mallory? Tell me that!’
‘A long course of bondage to husband, children, domestic affairs, and
social exactions.’
‘Hideous!’ murmured Helena. ‘What a sad, sad fate! Did you not burn
with indignation every time you witnessed it?’
‘I--I----’
‘Ah! you did, I know, or you could not have described it so
graphically. And now you will consider the subject, I don’t doubt, and
you will see it in its true light. But you said the German women had
also a distinct position of their own. How do you account for that?’
‘They have. The very fact of their bondage gives them a sort of
distinguishing rank. They have been accustomed to it for so long, that
now they glory in it. If you were to attempt to inspire them with your
enlightened notions, they would probably scoff at you; you would appear
as dark to them as they to you.’
Helena looked at him with such intense earnestness and expressiveness,
that Sebastian began to feel somewhat embarrassed.
‘What an odd girl she is!’ he thought. ‘And how, in Heaven’s name,
shall I get out of this mess that I have got into? I can’t let her go
without offering some explanation.’
‘You grieve me,’ said Helena, in a sorrowful voice. ‘I had no idea it
was so bad as that.’
Here Mrs. Mallory rose in a dignified though perplexed silence, and
they all went into the drawing-room.
Arrived there, Sebastian, as in duty bound, asked Helena to play.
‘I don’t play at all,’ said she. ‘I can’t waste my time upon
practising.’
‘_Waste_ your time upon music?’ he asked, wondering whether that were
one of the strong-minded female ideas too.
‘I have not the power of interpreting music; it would be vanity and
vexation. So I never try. I can just accompany myself in one or two
little songs; that is all.’
‘Then you will gratify us by singing one of the said little songs, I am
sure.’
Helena went to the piano, sat down, and began to play an introduction.
Sebastian looked at Hugo, with ever so slight a shrug, and they waited.
It was ‘Kathleen Mavourneen.’ But the faces of the two critics changed
gradually from an expression of painful doubt and suspense, to pleased
surprise, pleasure, and a broad smile of delight. A pure, strong,
fresh, sweet soprano voice rang out. There was no attempt at airs and
graces; the severest simplicity and the most unaffected tenderness
sounded in every one of the true, clear notes.
Mrs. Mallory watched her son covertly, but intently, and saw that
Helena’s music had power to move him. The languor disappeared from
his expression; his head was raised, and his lips parted. Song and
songstress engrossed his attention.
Mrs. Mallory’s countenance gradually cleared.
As Helena finished, both Hugo and Sebastian sprang forward, with thanks
and entreaties for something else.
She paused a moment, and then sang:
‘Since first I saw your face, I resolved
To honour and renown ye;
If now I be disdained, I wish
My heart had never known ye!
‘What! I that loved, and you that liked,
Shall _we_ begin to wrangle?
No, no, no, my heart is fast,
And cannot disentangle.
‘The sun, whose beams most glorious are,
Rejecteth no beholder;
And your sweet beauty, past compare,
Makes my poor eyes the bolder.
‘Where beauty moves, and wit delights,
And ties of kindness bind me,
There, oh! there, where’er I go,
I leave my heart behind me.’
It is a sweet, tender, quaint old song, and Helena sang it almost
perfectly. She rose when she had finished, and, looking at Hugo, asked
him if he did not play.
‘Yes,’ said the boy, flushing; ‘but after your voice----’
‘Don’t refuse, Hugo,’ put in Sebastian.
And Hugo seated himself and began to play German music--deep, strange,
and expressive, _con amore_.
‘But he is a musician--he must be!’ said Helena, turning, with
wide-open eyes, to Sebastian.
‘Most certainly he is. I believe he has it in him to make a great name
as a composer.’
‘How delightful to have a talent, a genius, that gives pleasure to
yourself and every one else! Is he a very great friend of yours?’
‘Yes; he is my ward. I have been his guardian now for four years.’
‘Ah! if he can compose, he has a life before him--a career!’ sighed
Helena; and her eyes looked dreamingly and longingly before her.
Sebastian felt strangely attracted to the girl, but as yet he felt
he knew her too little to know whether he should even like her. The
explanation he had to make would serve to bring out some fresh point in
her character.
Mrs. Mallory was knitting fleecy-white wool by the fireside, and seemed
able to give up Helena’s society on this occasion. Hugo’s fingers
wandered on in one melody after another--melodies like those which
Adrienne Blisset’s fingers most readily wove.
Helena herself gave Sebastian the opportunity he wished for.
‘About the German women and their position?’ she began.
He laughed a little.
‘I had no idea you were so much in earnest,’ said he. ‘It was a joke.’
‘A joke!’
She turned to him in amaze.
‘In this way. What I said was quite true--that _is_ the the position of
the German women; but--but--I thought you would see it--isn’t it the
position of all civilised women? Are not Englishwomen in the same case?
I am sure I think so. I don’t see how any woman who marries can expect
anything else.’
The colour rushed in an angry flood over her cheek, and brow, and
throat, as she realised that he had been politely making merriment of
the subject, and that the very point of the joke lay in her having
taken it all as solemn, thoughtful earnest.
‘You were making fun of me and of the cause: that was very polite of
you!’ she said, her eyes flashing upon him in anger.
‘I am very sorry,’ he said, with a provoking smile. ‘I was only
describing the position of women in general in a picturesque manner. It
depends upon the feelings of the speaker as to the colouring he gives
to his descriptions.’
‘I see,’ said Helena, ‘you are just like any other selfish, unthinking
man--not in earnest. But I am! I think that cause is worthy the
devotion of a woman’s life; and it is what I intend to devote my life
to.’
‘Don’t!’ said Sebastian, involuntarily.
But Helena had been roused to real anger.
‘Compliments and pretty phrases are all we ever get from men on that
subject,’ she said. ‘All my life I have been sure it was women alone
who must work their own emancipation; and after what you have said
to-night, I am doubly sure of it. Oh! it is horrible to think that
a woman is not even allowed to have a serious thought upon her own
condition; or if she says she has to a man, he laughs at her! There is
one consolation--the laugh dishonours him, not her.’
‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, do let me explain. Do you think you
really have had any experience in such things? Many most accomplished
women think quite differently; the nicest girl I ever knew--I mean
the cleverest and best-informed young lady I ever knew--thought very
differently.’
‘Perhaps that was one reason why you thought her so nice. I am sure she
had not been brought up in the school of adversity and experience.’
‘Pardon me! She had been brought up in that school alone, and in no
other. I fancy she had attended more of its classes than you.’
‘I don’t see how you can know what school I have attended,’ said
Helena, the same sudden, cold, sharp look coming into her eyes and over
her face. ‘And I do not think much of any woman who is indifferent upon
that subject.’
‘I did not say she was indifferent,’ said Sebastian; and Helena,
looking at him, saw that he was, in imagination, in some very different
place from his mother’s drawing-room: perhaps thinking of ‘the nicest
girl I ever knew.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said he, breaking the angry silence which on her
part had supervened, ‘that the best way of securing your ends would be
for men and women to work together, and----’
‘I don’t believe in men’s help in that matter. They are too thoroughly
and naturally selfish ever to give real help in such a cause.’
‘Without help you can do nothing,’ he said composedly.
‘Can we not?’ she replied, setting her lips.
‘I don’t think that any number of women agitating, and making speeches,
will answer the purpose. The sort of help I mean is such as would be
given by, for instance, husband and wife practically showing how much
they had the subject at heart, by working together and giving in their
lives a specimen of their doctrines. It is not a question that will
ever be settled by public meetings and petitions. It must grow and
evolve, as other social conditions evolve--gradually!’
‘Husband and wife!’ said Helena, with a sneer--a sneer so bitter and
unmistakable as to startle him. ‘That is a relation I have put entirely
out of my calculations in this matter. I don’t believe in the existence
of husbands who will give up, and help their wives. I have been able to
study the subject remarkably well....’
(‘Mr. Spenceley sits upon Mrs. Spenceley, and the redoubtable Frederick
sits upon them all,’ thought Sebastian.)
‘And the women who wish to improve their condition must put all such
foolish ideas aside, and feel, as I do, that they can never be tempted
into accepting any such delusory fancies.’
‘You feel that?’ he said, smiling.
‘Yes, I do--to the bottom of my heart.’
Helena spoke with emphasis; her eyes flashing, her cheek flushing.
She was very handsome; she was more, splendidly beautiful; ‘but how
untrained, how unreasonable,’ thought Sebastian. ‘How different this
heat and prejudice from the calm, well-balanced judgment, the clear,
philosophical mind, of that other girl, scarcely older than herself.
This raging against the weakness and selfishness of men was very
short-sighted, and rather vulgar, was it not?’ All he said, however,
was,
‘I am glad you feel so independent. It must give you a sense of
superiority.’
‘I never think about such things. I call it vanity to be always
wondering whether you are superior to other people.’
She rose and went across the room to talk to Mrs. Mallory. Very soon
she was discussing the merits of a new knitting-pattern, just as if no
such thing as women’s rights had ever been heard of.
When she had gone, and Hugo had retired, after fervently expressing
his opinion that she was the loveliest, most fascinating, _schönste,
herrlichste_ person he had ever seen, Mrs. Mallory introduced her
intended remarks upon her favourite. Did not Sebastian think her very
lovely? Yes; she certainly was an exquisitely beautiful girl. And
intelligent, too? Undoubtedly; but there was a certain sameness about
her animation. She seemed to rave a good deal upon one subject.
‘If you knew her surroundings, Sebastian, you would not be surprised, I
assure you. Such a brother! With her high spirit, and rather strained
ideas as to what is honourable and gentlemanly, it must be a bitter
cross to her to have that brother constantly disgracing himself in one
way or another.’
‘Yes, that is true.’
‘And her father and mother too----’
‘Ha! what about them?’
‘Her mother is a mere cipher--a handsome, helpless, vulgar woman;
kind-hearted, but absolutely weak in intellect, and the father is a
hard, coarse man, who bullies that unfortunate woman in a disgraceful
manner. He is proud of his daughter, but in a tyrannical, despotic way.
Fortunately for her (I may say it without boasting), he thinks me the
best friend she could have, and places no restraint on her visits to
me. Otherwise, she has not a congenial companion.’
‘The benefit must have been immense to her,’ he said. ‘I wondered,
after all I had heard of her family, how she came to be even
so--well-behaved.’
‘She ought to marry soon. She would soon calm down if she had a kind
husband, whom she loved.’
Sebastian remarked drily that she had forcibly expressed her
determination to eschew any such relationship.
Mrs. Mallory shook her head, smiling with gentle pity.
‘So she may say, but her father has very different views for her. She
would be very helpless, cast upon the world, with her beauty, her hasty
disposition, and her large fortune.’
‘Has she a fortune, then?’ he asked, with provoking indifference.
‘Sebastian, that young, warm-hearted girl, with all her enthusiasms and
crotchets, ready to fall into the hands of any adventurer, will have at
least a hundred thousand pounds.’
Mrs. Mallory spoke with solemn, impressive manner and tones. She was
watching her son, who seemed to view the matter with a seriousness that
promised well, for he stood, his hands folded behind him, his eyes
fixed upon the carpet, profoundly silent and profoundly grave, till,
looking up with a sudden, humorous smile, he said,
‘_Ma foi!_ The adventurer who won her, and her hundred thousand pounds,
and her frantic ideas on women’s rights, and the execrations of all the
other adventurers who had tried, and failed to win her--and her family,
who must be most delightful people, I am sure--that adventurer would
have driven the very hardest bargain that could well be imagined. I
pity him, whoever he may be.... Good night, mother. You must excuse me;
I have several things to do to-night. I have my business to learn, you
know.’