MRS. CARDEN drove home in a hansom, a strange and unusual extravagance.
At Launa’s she had been bewildered—the conversation was so difficult to
understand, so full of proverbs and of Solomon.
In the hansom Mrs. Carden would think well. She turned the situation
over in her mind and stopped at a telegraph office to send Charlie a
telegram. He was fishing with some uninteresting cousins in Kent. Mrs.
Carden sent for her friend and confidante, Miss Sims. Miss Sims had been
fat, she now was thin, and weighed only seven stone—she gloried in thin
arms and a scraggy neck, and told everybody about herself in a sad
voice. It is better to be poor and lean than poor and fat, the rich ask
one to dine more frequently.
Mrs. Carden told her lean friend as much of the subject as was necessary
for her to know.
Mrs. Carden’s principles were good—on principle. She was firmly
persuaded that Charlie was deeply, virginly in love with Launa, and that
Launa was wandering—was being attracted by strange men who talked of
books and pianos with intimacy, and of proverbs. At first she had an
idea that Mr. George was a leader of some kind. From the sheltered
seclusion of beyond Bayswater she had read the papers, and had heard
that at one fashionable church the clergyman lectured on dress in the
pulpit, while his wife wore a becoming cassock in the chancel. Miss Sims
and Mrs. Carden took counsel together, and the result thereof was that
Charlie loved Launa, and Launa must see the advantage of such affection.
Mrs. Carden sent Launa a post-card, saying she would go to lunch the
next Sunday at two o’clock. If Launa was obliged to go out, she must
leave lunch for her relative, and empty rooms—Mrs. Carden adored rooms
without their owners.
Mrs. Phillips was still staying at Marlow; Mr. Herbert, too, was there.
She was in the uncomfortable situation of indecision; he in an equally
uncomfortable one. He had made up his mind, but a solitary mind which
has determined on its own course of action is weariness, because for
happiness it requires the acquiescence of the other person, and Lily
would not agree that what would make him happy would necessarily make
her so.
Her doubt had not spoiled her appetite, the arrangement of her neckties,
nor any one of those details to which a well-dressed woman is always
attentive, but it did spoil the sunshine and the river; the wind in the
rushes made her shiver, and the backwaters were lonely and too
convenient for episodes. The locks and people were delightful; the
puffing of steam launches was a sound of joy. She took to rowing, and
suffered tortures afterwards from stiff arms and a stiffer back. When
she did not row, Mr. Herbert did; she sat in the stern and discoursed to
him, and he enjoyed her conversation. The boat was delightful: it was
quite cranky, and neither person dared to move about; conversation with
three yards between them must be of the day and not of the feelings, or
if feelings are mentioned, one means those delightful, unexplainable
sensations which are merely useful as subjects of conversation, and do
not agitate one sufficiently to make one uncomfortable.
At the end of a month Mrs. Phillips went up to Paddington. Mr. Herbert
accompanied her; they sat in opposite corners of the carriage, and she
read the _Lady’s Pictorial_ while he smoked. At Paddington they parted,
and she drove to Victoria Mansions to stay with Launa.
Mr. Wainbridge was there, and they were having tea. Mrs. Phillips found
it cool and restful, and the sensation of being not the first and only
woman was novel and possessed a reposeful charm. They were arguing about
music, and the room was full of flowers.
When Launa received Mrs. Carden’s post-card she threw it to her friend
Lily.
“There,” she said.
Mrs. Phillips groaned.
“I cannot endure that woman. Who are you having to lunch as well?”
“Mr. Herbert, Mr. Wainbridge, you and I.”
“Shall I ask papa? He is so cheerful.”
“Do, if you think he will not be bored.”
“My dear, he admires you immensely.”
Sir John Bloomfield was a cheerful old gentleman; he took this world as
it treated him, and that was well. He had been married twice. The second
lady, Lily’s stepmother, had money, and did not live long. She had taken
life seriously, and it killed her. Sir John’s curly hair was white, and
also his moustache; he wore his hat with a gentle incline to one side of
his head. It gave him a rakish air of joviality; he affected the society
of young married women, all except his daughters—he took no interest in
either of them. He came to lunch on Sunday, fresh from a stroll with a
delightful young woman, after an hour’s contemplation of the smartest
bonnets in church, and having listened to the cleverest preacher in
London, whose sermons lasted ten minutes only. He was a brilliant man.
They were all in the drawing-room when Mrs. Carden rustled in.
Sir John attached himself to Launa as he objected to elderly ladies,
because they were so apt to take it for granted that his opinions were
like theirs—middle-aged—and Sir John was quite modern.
At lunch Mrs. Carden sat between Mr. Herbert and Sir John, who devoted
himself to Launa. There was another reason to account for his youthful
air—he had not the gluttonous enjoyment of food the middle-aged and old
acquire.
Mr. Herbert was absorbed in his lunch. Mrs. Carden began to talk. She
was hungry, but the waves of Sir John’s anecdotes threatened to engulf
her and to reduce her to silence.
She talked of music halls and of morality. In those days both were
subjects of conversation and of argument.
“I hate morality,” said Launa. “It means nothing. It is only a name.
Maud is so fond of talking of it. Maud is very vulgar.”
Mrs. Carden pushed away her plate with impatience. She ate the pudding
afterwards, for it was excellent. She was horrified.
Sir John helped himself to cream with deliberation. Mr. Wainbridge
looked at Launa. Mrs. Phillips saw the look and interpreted it.
“My dear Miss Archer,” said Sir John, “the world is very hard; its rules
are firm and not easily broken.”
“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs. Carden. “They are broken with
impunity very easily.”
“Probably you do not agree with me,” said Sir John. “I haven’t tried to
break any. I do not speak from experience.”
“The world does not mind its rules being broken,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“It minds only when it discovers the hole and is obliged to notice it.”
“There are saints to whom the good people would not, could not speak,”
said Sir John.
“Purity and morality are often mistaken,” said Launa, “by the world. It
is unjust, and justice is cruelty.”
“It is law,” observed Mr. Wainbridge, with a sigh.
“Law and the promises,” said Sir John.
“Prophets,” corrected Mrs. Carden.
“Promises are interesting,” he continued, talking rapidly because he
knew he had made a mistake. “A man should always keep a promise.”
“No,” said Launa.
“Yes,” said Mr. Wainbridge.
“I would rather hear the truth,” said Launa, “even if it hurt. One
moment’s pain would be better than days of regret.”
Mrs. Carden shook her head and waved her hands. Pantomime was her only
resource.
Sir John assumed his spritely air.
“We are too sad; we are discussing such uninteresting subjects. No man
ever breaks a promise to such charming ladies as there are here. Lily,
tell us about your river adventures.”
“Ask Jack.”
Mr. Herbert smiled.
“We went out in the boat every day—Lily rowed occasionally and I rowed
frequently. We disagreed on various subjects every day, on the marriage
question and on—on—”
“On what?” said Launa.
“On that—”
They laughed together.
“What is ‘that’?” said Mrs. Carden.
“A preposition,” answered Mr. Herbert shortly.
“Oh, no,” said Lily, “it’s a pronoun.”
“‘That’ is an adverb,” said Mrs. Carden. “Launa, I shall tell Maud that
you called her—vulgar.”
“Oh! do.”
“Women always tell,” said Mr. Herbert. “I told a woman something once
and she told. She—”
“I am not a woman,” said Mrs. Carden, “who carries tales.”
“But you are going to tell someone what Miss Archer said of her,”
observed Mr. Herbert. “Men don’t do that.”
“Ah!”
“Nobody tells, really.”
“_I_ did not tell, Jack,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“Tell us now,” said Sir John. “If you get the credit of telling we may
as well derive some amusement from the story. Miss Archer, what do men
usually tell you.”
“Different things. They do not confide in me. I am not sympathetic
enough.”
“Are you not?” inquired Mr. Wainbridge. “I think you are. I should love
to confide in you.”
He looked again at her, so did Mr. Herbert, and Lily observing both
looks concerned herself with Mr. Herbert’s, which was one of
admiration—developing admiration.
It was then that marriage with him appeared desirable, or rather the
owning of him would be pleasant. Mrs. Phillips imagined her wedding and
the wedding dress! He could admire another woman!
They got up from the table, and Mrs. Phillips stayed with the men to
smoke. After his cigarette Sir John went to the Club. Mrs. Carden seated
herself on a sofa and demanded a footstool, then when Launa announced an
engagement for the afternoon, Lavinia arose and took her departure.
Launa and Mr. Wainbridge drove off in a hansom.
“Do you think they are really going to hear music?” asked Mr. Herbert,
when Lily and he were alone.
“Why not?”
“Because it is so hot, and because _I_ would much rather talk to you
here, so I naturally suppose every other man would rather talk to the
woman he loves than listen to any music. I have made up my mind to marry
you in a month.”
She smiled enigmatically.
“Very well. You know my bargain. I cannot live with my sister; she
swamps me. Her mind and her life are like a bog. It is dull living
alone; you would provide an element of excitement.”
“You say marriage is not love. Is it exciting?” he asked.
“A husband should be reviving,” she answered, “and should endeavour to
be—a lover—always.”
Mr. Herbert came over to her.
“I shall always be your lover.”
“And you agree to my conditions?”
“You are to keep your rooms; I am to keep mine. Is that it?”
“Yes. What else?”
“We are seldom to have breakfast together.”
“Very seldom,” she answered.
“After our honeymoon?”
“After our—after that—yes,” she said.
“But dinner always.”
“Dinner often,” she corrected.
“Take off your rings,” he said.
Mrs. Phillips frowned.
“You are too commanding.”
“Please.”
“You do it,” and she held out her hand.
He gravely pulled off first one with two large turquoises—he had given
it to her—next a small one with a diamond, then her wedding ring which
he put in his pocket, and replaced it with one almost exactly like it.
“With my body I thee worship,” he said, and he added a ring with three
large sapphires in a light gold setting. The stones were set high and
they shone.
“You do not wear his ring now.”
“How beautiful the stones are,” she answered.
“I have always been jealous of that ring,” he said.
“Have you? ‘Jealousy is as cruel as the grave,’ saith Solomon. Do not be
cruel.”
“I could not be anything with you but kind,” he replied, with a sort of
unsteadiness, for though she was not lovely she was alluring,
fascinating. He could have followed her away from everything, through
disasters and fire without feeling it, until she left him.
“The honeymoon was invented for Adam and Eve before the Fall,” she said
slowly, “and before the appearance of the serpent. Is there necessarily
a serpent now?”
“You spoil everything by analysing it,” he replied. “You should look on
things as a whole, and not dissect them; that is one of your own maxims.
You told it to me when I asked of what your new hat was made. You said
it was a whole and a creation.”
“But honeymoons are not wholes, nor are emotions. Everything is largely
constituted of them.”
“They are moments. Live for one moment.”
“It passes so quickly,” she said, and sighed.
“Then, in a month,” he suggested, with an outward air of boldness,
though inwardly he was doubtful and quaking, “you will marry me.”
“In a month! How soon!”
“How far away. Where shall we go for our tour?”
“Not to Paris. I hate Paris.”
“Shall we stay in London?”
“No, no! How commonplace! We shall live in London. Suggest something
new.”
“Shall we go into the country? To the real country, where there are
nightingales and roses?”
She sang softly:
“The nightingale in fervent song
Doth woo the rose the whole night long.”
“Rubinstein, isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, will you come?”
“Yes, it is risky, but I will for once hear the nightingales and feel
young again.”
“I love you.”
“Do you? Love—it is so old, so new, so impossible.”
“For always,” he said, not answering her, only following the train of
thought in his own mind.
“No, not for always,” she said sadly, “Love me really for a week, a day,
a year—while the nightingales sing. I would rather have a man’s whole
love for _one_ day, than his toleration for years, his agreeable
acceptation of my presence.”
“A man usually loves his wife.”
“Does he? Does he? You know that is rubbish. You love me now, and you
think you will always. A wife is associated with a man’s disagreeable
pleasures, his duty dinners, his dull breakfasts. When he goes to dine
at his Colonel’s, or with the man who has influence, and runs the
papers, she goes and bores him too. If you were compelled to take the
other man’s wife out to dinner you would appreciate the attributes of
your own when you returned to her.”
“A man loves his future wife before matrimony. But, Lily, afterwards I
think it is your own fault.”
“Mine?” she exclaimed. “Mine—you forget—you—”
“Dearest, I did not mean you. I meant indefinite woman. It will never be
your fault.”
She looked at him.
“You apologised in time—I was haughty. Sit there, near, but not too
near me.”
He seated himself in a little chair.
“That chair will break. Sit somewhere else.”
“To return to the subject of matrimony,” she said.
“Of breakfast.”
“A woman lets her husband see too much of her, and know too much about
her. She frequently looks ugly. Oh, Dr. Jaegar, thou art answerable for
much woe! Breakfast is a disturbing meal, for we sometimes are weary at
breakfast and—you may have yours alone.”
“I would like it better with you.”
“That is it,” she exclaimed. “Now you would. Soon you would not. You
must make a man do without what he loves, to keep his love. Men are so
unreasonable.”
“Do you believe in anyone, Lily?”
“No. Yes, I do.”
“Tell me,” he asked eagerly, “in whom do you believe?”
“In myself.”