When Lady Rossiter indulged, in the presence of her husband, in a
space of silent reverie, it was always her intention to meet with
interruption and enquiry that should lead to a mutually beneficial
discussion upon the subject of her thoughts. In spite of the many
disappointments inflicted upon her by Sir Julian in this respect, it
was also her custom to return good for evil by never allowing him more
than ten consecutive minutes of reflectiveness without some sympathetic
reminder that he was not alone.
Accordingly, when he had smoked two cigarettes after dinner in complete
silence, gazing the while, with obvious preoccupation, into the fire,
Lady Rossiter lifted up her voice and spoke.
"I saw the first little, wee, wonderful sign of spring this afternoon.
A patch of snowdrops, just outside the gates."
"Did you?"
"Such brave little white sentinels! I always love the French
name--_perce-neige_," said Lady Rossiter, who, like many another
cultured soul, generally saw more beauty and expressiveness in the
vocabulary of languages other than her own.
"I am afraid there was no _neige_ for them to _percer_ on this
occasion," observed Sir Julian, with very languid interest in the
horticultural vagaries of these harbingers of spring.
"There very well might be, by to-morrow. I thought it bitterly cold.
Were you out this afternoon?"
"I was. I heard Cooper being extremely eloquent and long-winded in the
distance, and I thought that everything pointed to my taking a long
walk."
"They came to consult me about a presentation--a wedding-present for
Iris."
"I hope you told them they had much better let it alone."
"Julian, how could I? Poor things, it is rather touching of them--a sum
which would seem little enough to ourselves, must mean a great deal to
them--perhaps a question of actual bread and butter."
"Then why encourage them to throw it away?"
"I told them that of course it was the thought that she would value.
But they'd set their hearts on having some sort of little ceremony--you
know how they love anything of that kind--with speeches and an excuse
for a gathering."
"Where do they want to gather? Fuller will never allow them to
desecrate the College. You remember how sulky he was when they got up
that party there, this time last year."
Edna uttered her usual lenient "Poor Mr. Fuller! He is heart and soul
devoted to the College. But I think perhaps if I talked to him, it
might be possible to soften his hard heart. He really only needs a
little management, and I've practically undertaken to go and see him
about it. Why shouldn't the poor things have a little pleasure in their
lives? I sometimes think there's very little gaiety in the world,
Julian."
"I hope you may add to it by paying Fuller a visit, but I do not feel
particularly sanguine."
"I don't think I shall have much trouble with him, somehow," said
Edna, with a little laugh. "Only the whole thing will need rather
tactful handling, as it may be a shade difficult for Iris, if she's not
expecting it. She'll have to say a few words, unless Mark says them for
her."
"Of course, the whole thing is really a tribute to Mark," said Julian.
"He's extraordinarily popular--as well he may be."
"Yes, they practically admitted that they hoped it would please him.
But after all, Julian, 'all the world loves a lover.'"
"Does it?" said Sir Julian expressively. "Did all this conversation
take place at tea this afternoon, may I ask, in the presence of the
smirking Iris herself?"
Lady Rossiter looked pained at the extreme unkindness of the adjective
selected by her husband.
"Iris didn't come in till later, though, as a matter of fact, her
arrival interrupted us when there were several points still unsettled.
One thing, though, rather vexed me."
"What was that?" asked Sir Julian, rather wearily, aware that he
would be told whether he enquired or whether he did not, and for once
choosing the less unamiable course.
"There was some idea," Lady Rossiter understated the case, "of getting
the actual presentation itself made by the most unsuitable person they
could very well have selected--that unfortunate courtesan _manquée_,
the superintendent woman."
If Lady Rossiter wished to see the effect of her pleasant epithet upon
her husband, she was doomed to disappointment. The complete silence in
which he received it impelled her to continue.
"It is a very disagreeable word to apply to any woman, but I fail to
see what else one can call her. We know that she entangled one, very
young, man, with money and position, and then threw him over in a
peculiarly heartless manner, and that she is now taking every advantage
of poor Mark's miserable situation to try and involve him in an affair
that can only mean scandal and misery, however it ends."
"I fail to see how the reckless career which you impute to Miss
Marchrose, Edna, can possibly affect the quality of the silver
salt-cellars, or whatever it is, that she is to present to Iris."
"Ah, Julian--a young girl, pure, innocent, unsullied! How could one see
it, without a sense of profanation? Call it fanciful if you like, but
there is something in me that could never bear to allow _that_."
"No, I don't think I should call it fanciful, Edna," said her husband
slowly.
"You think me prejudiced!" exclaimed Edna. "But _indeed_, Mark is very
dear to me, and for his sake--and for womanhood's sake--I can't bear
that the--the delicate bloom should be brushed from any token connected
with his sister's wedding."
"Then you had better arrange to have a bonfire of the remaining copies
of 'Why, Ben! A Story of the Sexes,'" imperturbably replied her husband.
Julian had for so long been in the habit of protecting himself against
those peculiar shafts that are only launched by really and professedly
good women, with indifferent satire, that the small, cheap fleer came
almost automatically to his lips. It certainly interfered not at all
with his intimate realisation that Lady Rossiter could hardly have
chosen a worse moment for an endeavour to enlist his sympathies on her
side in the indirect contest that she had elected to wage against Miss
Marchrose.
"I would sooner make the presentation myself, absurd though it would
be, than feel that _she_ was making it."
"It would, however, as you say, be absurd," replied Sir Julian coldly.
"Of course, it must be made by a representative of the College staff.
Fairfax Fuller is the proper person."
"The misogynist!"
Sir Julian wondered, not for the first time, why his wife clung so
persistently to the libel attached by her to Mr. Fuller, and came
to his habitual conclusion, that she had found it necessary to her
self-respect to deduce a wholesale hatred of the female sex from the
Supervisor's taciturn reception of her own advances.
"I will talk to Mr. Fuller, Julian, and see what can be arranged. I
thought of going in one afternoon next week. There is not too much time
for arranging details now. The wedding is to-day fortnight."
"I hadn't realised it was so near. However, all the better. It'll be
over the sooner, and Iris can remove her Douglas from hence before he
has time to begin talking about 'we married men.'"
Lady Rossiter laughed discreetly, but after a little pause she
interjected quietly:
"Mr. Garrett is a good sort, really, in spite of his mannerisms."
She had no particular grounds for this charitable assertion, but she
made it a matter of principle to utter some kind little phrase on
behalf of anybody whom her interlocutor of the moment had verbally
slighted or condemned. This peace-making habit was not unapt to have
the singular effect of promoting a lively desire on the part of the
first speaker to abuse the absent one a good deal more vigorously than
before.
Sir Julian, however, was either too old a hand, or else too little
interested in Mr. Garrett, to find himself similarly moved.
"I cannot imagine why Iris insists upon being married down here at
all," he said, without hostility.
"She couldn't have been married from that tiny flat of hers, and I
think it's natural she should want it to be from her brother's house.
It will have to be very quiet, as they won't have room for any sort of
reception. Besides, it would be very unsuitable, and I'm glad to say
that Mark has made her see it."
"How many of 'we Garretts' are going to grace the scene?"
"Mr. Garrett only has a father," said Edna repressively. "He is to stay
at the cottage."
"Tell Mark that we can put up anyone he likes, for a night or two."
"Indeed, yes. In a household where every item must count, a guest is
rather a serious consideration, I'm afraid. Mark will probably be
thankful when it's all over."
Sir Julian felt no doubt of it.
His sympathies with Mark, already lively, became acute the following
morning when bride and bridegroom-elect suddenly appeared in his
study with the purpose of expressing their gratitude for the
extremely liberal cheque that had been Sir Julian and Lady Rossiter's
wedding-gift to Iris.
"Douglas and I have been nearly quarrelling the whole way here as to
how we'll spend it," said Miss Easter candidly.
"Hardly _quarrelling_, have we?" reproachfully asked Mr. Garrett, as
usual addressing himself exclusively to his betrothed.
"Oh, we've never really quarrelled yet, have we? At least," said Iris
archly, "unless you count the copper tea-kettle time."
"Ah! The copper tea-kettle!" responded Mr. Garrett meaningly.
At which reference they both, according to their wont, indulged in the
hearty laughter, naturally unshared by Sir Julian, of those to whom
some perfectly obvious allusion is amusingly intelligible.
"We've actually settled the great question of bridesmaids, Sir Julian,"
observed Iris, an easy victim to the not uncommon bridal delusion that
such details must be of major interest to all alike.
"Your friend in London?"
"Oh, no! She doesn't approve of marriage, you know. She thinks it a
mere servile bond for the woman," explained Iris glibly. "In fact,
she's a tremendous advocate for Free Love. She's furious with me for
marrying at all."
Sir Julian glanced at Mr. Garrett, wondering how he regarded the rather
stupefying gospel preached by the chosen friend and companion of his
bride.
The young man appeared more thoughtful than dismayed.
"In a general way," he remarked detachedly, "we moderns are all in
favour of abolishing the present rather archaic marriage laws, and
re-establishing the whole thing upon the basis of a purely civil
contract; dissoluble after a term of years at the wish of either or
both of the contracting parties."
Sir Julian had a momentary vision of earnest suburban debating
societies, at which he felt sure that Mr. Garrett had formerly launched
his eloquence, in words almost, if not quite, identical with his
present text. Having no wish to fathom the young man's further views,
he merely renewed enquiry of Iris as to the question of bridesmaids.
"Only dear little Ruthie," said Iris. "It's quite odd, but I haven't
got an enormous number of girl friends. Somehow I've got heaps and
heaps more men friends. I can't imagine why, I'm sure."
Neither could Julian, but he refrained from saying so.
"At one time, I rather wanted Miss Marchrose. Of course, I know she's
not quite, absolutely, altogether one of ourselves--but still, as it's
all to be so quiet--and then I could have got hold of a cousin to match
her--but she wouldn't hear of it. Of course, she is older than I am."
"A good deal older, surely," said Sir Julian rather drily,
contemplating the youthful blend of prettiness and vulgarity in front
of him.
"Douglas," said Iris, with great suddenness, "do go away. I've just
remembered that I want to ask Sir Julian something most frightfully
particular."
"Secrets?" ejaculated Douglas, with playful reproach.
"Just a tiny, tiny little one. Now do go right away, there's a dear
boy."
Thus adjured, it was scarcely possible for Mr. Garrett to do otherwise
than to obey, but it would have shown but little knowledge of his
capabilities as an engaged young man to expect him to do so without a
last mirthful flight of fancy.
"Then I'm weel awa'," he exclaimed, in a Scotch manner that almost
compensated for the lack of relevance in his choice of idiom, and swung
his long legs over the sill of the low window, scraping the paint with
his boots as he did so and annoying Sir Julian.
"It's about Miss Marchrose," said Iris, her head even more on one side
than usual.
Sir Julian wondered whether he could possibly stop her before she said
anything more.
"At first I liked her awfully. In fact, I think she's sweet. But the
story about the poor man she threw over is perfectly dreadful. Of
course, she couldn't have cared for him _really_, because any woman----"
"I know all about that," hastily interrupted Sir Julian. "Surely we
needn't go into a thing that happened several years ago before she ever
came here, and which is no one's business but hers."
"If it had been Douglas," pursued Miss Easter, fixing an enormous pair
of melancholy eyes upon her discomfited listener, "if it had been
Douglas, _however_ much of an invalid he had to be, I should simply
want to marry him all the more. I should want to give up my whole life
to him, so as to make up a little."
"Well, I hope you may never be tried in such a terrible manner," said
Julian, unable to repress a shudder of horrified sympathy for the
invalid who should find his shattered life relegated to the devotion
of Miss Easter.
"But of course, she couldn't have loved him really," asserted Iris,
apparently unaware of a certain lack of originality in her choice of
comment.
"No."
"Or she would have felt that she _couldn't_ do enough to make up for it
all."
"Yes."
"That's what I should feel if it had been Douglas."
Sir Julian could not think of a reply that should provide any variation
upon his previous monosyllabic ones.
"And if it had been _me_, Douglas would have felt just like that, too."
Sir Julian began to wonder how much longer they were to continue this
consideration of hypothetical contingencies.
"The fact is, I'm afraid I've been too fearfully silly for anything."
It being impossible to express his own conviction that nothing could be
more probable, Sir Julian still sat speechless, looking with growing
dismay at his visitor, who was exhibiting every sign of an intention to
burst into tears.
"I am afraid," said Iris, beginning to cry, "that Mark has fallen in
love with her."
After a pause of extremely uncomfortable consideration, Sir Julian
observed, with a sententiousness of which he was perfectly aware:
"If such is unfortunately the case, why should you blame yourself?"
"Because I did everything I could to make it happen. I saw they
liked each other, ages ago--oh, long before Christmas! and I had her
to dinner and things, and made her sing 'Annie Laurie' because Mark
admired her voice, and I told him how she said she liked working at the
College with him."
"But why, in Heaven's name?"
"Because," sobbed Iris, "I thought it would be such a beautiful thing
for them to defy conventionality and be happy in spite of everything--a
_grande passion_--you know...."
The extreme perversion of the point of view thus disclosed left Sir
Julian, at no time eloquent, more completely deprived of utterance than
ever before.
"In those days," Iris continued, with an effect of great remoteness in
her manner, "I thoroughly and completely believed in Free Love myself.
Of course, I was younger, then."
"Only by two months," Sir Julian gloomily reminded her.
"Oh, yes, but those two months have taught me everything. Love is such
a wonderful teacher. Ever since I've been engaged to Douglas, it's been
like a new heaven and a new earth, and I can see things that I never
saw before."
She began to dab at her eyes with her handkerchief, while Sir Julian
thought of a great many observations which it was extremely improbable
that he would make aloud.
"It was only a day or two ago that I heard about her having been
engaged and then jilting the man because of his accident, and it was
the most frightful shock you can imagine. What should I feel if she did
that sort of thing to Mark one day? Of course, it shows that she's not
at all the sort of person to sacrifice herself for anybody."
"I am quite sure," said Sir Julian gently, "that you have no idea what
a terrible thing it would be for any man to fall seriously in love with
a woman to whom he could never offer marriage. Mark is a married man."
"He hasn't seen that awful creature for years and years," said Iris
resentfully.
"That has nothing to do with it. She is his wife."
"It seems so dreadfully hard."
"Yes, but it would seem a great deal harder if he cared for someone
else."
"And she for him," Iris added tenaciously.
"I hope that your imagination has misled you," said Sir Julian gravely.
"But what shall I do?"
"Nothing. If you have already ceased your extraordinarily misguided
efforts towards bringing them together, you can only leave the whole
question alone. After all, Mark knows very well that as long as his
wife is alive he's as much bound to her as though she were living at
home in the normal way. They are neither of them children, and we have
no right whatever to suppose that they cannot tell right from wrong."
"I never told her Mark was married."
"I think she knows."
"I wonder if that would stop her," said Iris, reflectively. "I
can't help feeling that if by some dreadful Kismet Douglas had been
already married when we met, I should have given myself to him just
the same. I should simply have had to. I'm sure that in some former
incarnation----"
"You know nothing about it," said Julian unceremoniously. "You have
been a foolish little girl, and the only thing left for you to do is
to forget the extremely poor taste in which you have been behaving. I
should like to know what made you come and tell _me_ about it, though."
"I thought you could talk to Mark." Miss Easter wept piteously, looking
so very youthful that Julian felt inclined to relent.
"That shows how very little you know about it. I have no intention of
insulting Mark by doing anything of the kind, and if I did, he would
very properly kick me out of the house. Stop crying, please."
"Wouldn't it be better if Miss Marchrose were to leave the College?"
"What for? Now stop being so childish and let me fetch you a glass of
water. Mr. Garrett will want to know why you have been crying."
"I always, always tell Douglas everything. We've promised never to have
any secrets from one another. Perfect confidence is the only way to
married happiness."
"You can tell me about that after you've been married a year or two.
But now I want you to listen to me."
Iris looked at him with drowned, forget-me-not eyes.
"I am going to forget what you have told me, as far as it is humanly
possible to do so, and you must do the same. Promise me that you won't
mention what we have been discussing to anybody else, ever."
"Oh, but Douglas! Oughtn't I to tell Douglas?"
"No, certainly not."
"It seems so awful to begin one's married life with a secret."
Sir Julian had perhaps never before felt so much tempted to resort to
physical violence.
"I assure you that it would be exceedingly dishonourable, and that
you couldn't do Mark a worse service, than to hint at such a thing to
anybody on earth."
"Then," said Iris heroically, "I promise."
Sir Julian relaxed his clenched hand, and opened the door for her.
"I never, never thought," said Miss Easter, "that you and I would
ever share a secret, Sir Julian! I used to be so dreadfully afraid of
you--but I never shall be again!"
Watching his departing confederate, restored once more to smiling
animation, flutter from the room, Julian returned to his seat before
the writing-table.
"For a man who professes to dislike officious interference," he
reflected ruefully, "I am the recipient of an unfortunate number of
disastrous confidences."