At her mother’s the next day she was absent from luncheon, and Lady
Canterville mentioned to him—he didn’t ask—that she had gone to see a
dear old great-aunt who was also her godmother and who lived at
Roehampton. Lord Canterville was not present, but Jackson learned from
his hostess that he had promised her he would come in exactly at three
o’clock. Our young man lunched with her ladyship and the children, who
appeared in force at this repast, all the younger girls being present,
and two little boys, the juniors of the two sons who were in their teens.
Doctor Lemon, who was fond of children and thought these absolutely the
finest in the world—magnificent specimens of a magnificent brood, such as
it would be so satisfactory in future days to see about his own
knee—Doctor Lemon felt himself treated as one of the family, but was not
frightened by what he read into the privilege of his admission. Lady
Canterville showed no sense whatever of his having mooted the question of
becoming her son-in-law, and he believed the absent object of his
attentions hadn’t told her of their evening’s talk. This idea gave him
pleasure; he liked to think Lady Barb was judging him for herself.
Perhaps indeed she was taking counsel of the old lady at Roehampton: he
saw himself the sort of lover of whom a godmother would approve.
Godmothers, in his mind, were mainly associated with fairy-tales—he had
had no baptismal sponsors of his own; and that point of view would be
favourable to a young man with a great deal of gold who had suddenly
arrived from a foreign country—an apparition surely in a proper degree
elfish. He made up his mind he should like Lady Canterville as a
mother-in-law; she would be too well-bred to meddle. Her husband came in
at three o’clock, just after they had risen, and observed that it was
very good in him to have waited.
“I haven’t waited,” Jackson replied with his watch in his hand; “you’re
punctual to the minute.”
I know not how Lord Canterville may have judged his young friend, but
Jackson Lemon had been told more than once in his life that he would have
been all right if he hadn’t been so literal. After he had lighted a
cigarette in his lordship’s “den,” a large brown apartment on the
ground-floor, which partook at once of the nature of an office and of
that of a harness-room—it couldn’t have been called in any degree a
library or even a study—he went straight to the point in these terms:
“Well now, Lord Canterville, I feel I ought to let you know without more
delay that I’m in love with Lady Barb and that I should like to make her
my wife.” So he spoke, puffing his cigarette, with his conscious but
unextenuating eyes fixed on his host.
No man, as I have intimated, bore better being looked at than this noble
personage; he seemed to bloom in the envious warmth of human
contemplation and never appeared so faultless as when most exposed. “My
dear fellow, my dear fellow,” he murmured almost in disparagement,
stroking his ambrosial beard from before the empty fireplace. He lifted
his eyebrows, but looked perfectly good-natured.
“Are you surprised, sir?” Jackson asked.
“Why I suppose a fellow’s surprised at any one’s wanting one of his
children. He sometimes feels the weight of that sort of thing so much,
you know. He wonders what use on earth another man can make of them.”
And Lord Canterville laughed pleasantly through the copious fringe of his
lips.
“I only want one of them,” said his guest, laughing too, but with a
lighter organ.
“Polygamy would be rather good for the parents. However, Luke told me
the other night she knew you to be looking the way you speak of.”
“Yes, I mentioned to Lady Beauchemin that I love Lady Barb, and she
seemed to think it natural.”
“Oh I suppose there’s no want of nature in it! But, my dear fellow, I
really don’t know what to say,” his lordship added.
“Of course you’ll have to think of it.” In saying which Jackson felt
himself make the most liberal concession to the point of view of his
interlocutor; being perfectly aware that in his own country it wasn’t
left much to the parents to think of.
“I shall have to talk it over with my wife.”
“Well, Lady Canterville has been very kind to me; I hope she’ll
continue.”
Lord Canterville passed a large fair hand, as for inspiration, over his
beard. “My dear fellow, we’re excellent friends. No one could
appreciate you more than Lady Canterville. Of course we can only
consider such a question on the—a—the highest grounds. You’d never want
to marry without knowing—as it were—exactly what you’re doing. I, on my
side, naturally, you know, am bound to do the best I can for my own poor
child. At the same time, of course, we don’t want to spend our time
in—a—walking round the horse. We want to get at the truth about him.”
It was settled between them after a little that the truth about Lemon’s
business was that he knew to a certainty the state of his affections and
was in a position to pretend to the hand of a young lady who, Lord
Canterville might say without undue swagger, had a right to expect to do
as well as any girl about the place.
“I should think she had,” Doctor Lemon said. “She’s a very rare type.”
His entertainer had a pleasant blank look. “She’s a clever well-grown
girl and she takes her fences like a grasshopper. Does she know all
this, by the way?”
“Oh yes, I told her last night.”
Again Lord Canterville had the air, unusual with him, of sounding, at
some expense of precious moments, the expression of face of a visitor so
unacquainted with shyness. “I’m not sure you ought to have done that,
you know.”
“I couldn’t have spoken to you first—I couldn’t,” said Jackson Lemon. “I
meant to; but it stuck in my crop.”
“They don’t in your country, I guess,” his lordship amicably laughed.
“Well, not as a general thing. However, I find it very pleasant to have
the whole thing out with you now.” And in truth it was very pleasant.
Nothing could be easier, friendlier, more informal, than Lord
Canterville’s manner, which implied all sorts of equality, especially
that of age and fortune, and made our young man feel at the end of three
minutes almost as if he too were a beautifully-preserved and somewhat
straitened nobleman of sixty, with the views of a man of the world about
his own marriage. Jackson perceived that Lord Canterville waived the
point of his having spoken first to the girl herself, and saw in this
indulgence a just concession to the ardour of young affection. For his
lordship seemed perfectly to appreciate the sentimental side—at least so
far as it was embodied in his visitor—when he said without deprecation:
“Did she give you any encouragement?”
“Well, she didn’t box my ears. She told me she’d think of it, but that I
must speak to you. Naturally, however, I shouldn’t have said what I did
if I hadn’t made up my mind during the last fortnight that I’m not
disagreeable to her.”
“Ah, my dear young man, women are odd fish!” this parent exclaimed rather
unexpectedly. “But of course you know all that,” he added in an instant;
“you take the general risk.”
“I’m perfectly willing to take the general risk. The particular risk
strikes me as small.”
“Well, upon my honour I don’t really know my girls. You see a man’s time
in England is tremendously taken up; but I daresay it’s the same in your
country. Their mother knows them—I think I had better send for their
mother. If you don’t mind,” Lord Canterville wound up, “I’ll just
suggest that she join us here.”
“I’m rather afraid of you both together, but if it will settle it any
quicker—!” Jackson said. His companion rang the bell and, when a servant
appeared, despatched him with a message to her ladyship. While they were
waiting the young man remembered how easily he could give a more definite
account of his pecuniary basis. He had simply stated before that he was
abundantly able to marry; he shrank from putting himself forward as a
monster of money. With his excellent taste he wished to appeal to Lord
Canterville primarily as a gentleman. But now that he had to make a
double impression he bethought himself of his millions, for millions were
always impressive. “It strikes me as only fair to let you know that my
fortune’s really considerable.”
“Yes, I daresay you’re beastly rich,” said Lord Canterville with a
natural and visible faith.
“Well, I represent, all told, some seven millions.”
“Seven millions?”
“I count in dollars. Upwards of a million and a half sterling.”
Lord Canterville looked at him from head to foot, exhaling with great
promptitude an air of cheerful resignation to a form of grossness
threatening to become common. Then he said with a touch of that
inconsequence of which he had already given a glimpse: “What the deuce in
that case possessed you to turn doctor?”
Jackson Lemon coloured a little and demurred, but bethought himself of
his best of reasons. “Why, my having simply the talent for it.”
“Of course I don’t for a moment doubt your ability. But don’t you,” his
lordship candidly asked, “find it rather a bore?”
“I don’t practise much. I’m rather ashamed to say that.”
“Ah well, of course in your country it’s different. I daresay you’ve got
a door-plate, eh?”
“Oh yes, and a tin sign tied to the balcony!” Jackson laughed.
Here the joke was beyond his friend, who but went on: “What on earth did
your father say to it?”
“To my going into medicine? He said he’d be hanged if he’d take any of
my doses. He didn’t think I should succeed; he wanted me to go into the
house.”
“Into the House—a—?” Lord Canterville just wondered. “That would be into
your Congress?”
“Ah no, not so bad as that. Into the store,” Jackson returned with that
refinement of the ingenuous which he reserved for extreme cases.
His host stared, not venturing even for the moment to hazard an
interpretation; and before a solution had presented itself Lady
Canterville was on the scene.
“My dear, I thought we had better see you. Do you know he wants to marry
our second girl?” It was in these simple and lucid terms that her
husband acquainted her with the question.
She expressed neither surprise nor elation; she simply stood there
smiling, her head a little inclined to the side and her beautiful
benevolence well to the front. Her charming eyes rested on Doctor
Lemon’s; and, though they showed a shade of anxiety for a matter of such
importance, his own discovered in them none of the coldness of
calculation. “Are you talking about dear Barb?” she asked in a moment
and as if her thoughts had been far away.
Of course they were talking about dear Barb, and Jackson repeated to her
what he had said to her noble spouse. He had thought it all over and his
mind was quite made up. Moreover, he had spoken to the young woman.
“Did she tell you that, my dear?” his lordship asked while he lighted
another cigar.
She gave no heed to this inquiry, which had been vague and accidental on
the speaker’s part; she simply remarked to their visitor that the thing
was very serious and that they had better sit down a moment. In an
instant he was near her on the sofa on which she had placed herself and
whence she still smiled up at her husband with her air of luxurious
patience.
“Barb has told me nothing,” she dropped, however, after a little.
“That proves how much she cares for me!” Jackson declared with instant
lucidity.
Lady Canterville looked as if she thought this really too ingenious,
almost as professional as if their talk were a consultation; but her
husband went, all gaily, straighter to the point. “Ah well, if she cares
for you I don’t object.”
This was a little ambiguous; but before the young man had time to look
into it his hostess put a bland question. “Should you expect her to live
in America?”
“Oh yes. That’s my home, you know.”
“Shouldn’t you be living sometimes in England?”
“Oh yes—we’ll come over and see you.” He was in love, he wanted to
marry, he wanted to be genial and to commend himself to the family; yet
it was in his nature not to accept conditions save in so far as they met
his taste, not to tie himself or, as they said in New York, give himself
away. He preferred in any transaction his own terms to those of any one
else, so that the moment Lady Canterville gave signs of wishing to
extract a promise he was on his guard.
“She’ll find it very different; perhaps she won’t like it,” her ladyship
suggested.
“If she likes me she’ll like my country,” Jackson Lemon returned with
decision.
“He tells me he has a plate on his door,” Lord Canterville put in for the
right pleasant tone.
“We must talk to her of course; we must understand how she feels”—and his
wife looked, though still gracious, more nobly responsible.
“Please don’t discourage her, Lady Canterville,” Jackson firmly said;
“and give me a chance to talk to her a little more myself. You haven’t
given me much chance, you know.”
“We don’t offer our daughters to people, however amiable, Mr. Lemon.”
Her charming grand manner rather quickened.
“She isn’t like some women in London, you know,” Lord Canterville
helpfully explained; “you see we rather stave off the evil day: we like
to be together.” And Jackson certainly, if the idea had been presented
to him, would have said that No, decidedly, Lady Barb hadn’t been thrown
at him.
“Of course not,” he declared in answer to her mother’s remark. “But you
know you mustn’t decline overtures too much either; you mustn’t make a
poor fellow wait too long. I admire her, I love her, more than I can
say; I give you my word of honour for that.”
“He seems to think that settles it,” said Lord Canterville, shining
richly down at the young American from his place before the cold
chimney-piece.
“Certainly that’s what we desire, Philip,” her ladyship returned with an
equal grace.
“Lady Barb believes it; I’m sure she does!” Jackson exclaimed with
spirit. “Why should I pretend to be in love with her if I’m not?”
Lady Canterville received this appeal in silence, and her husband, with
just the least air in the world of repressed impatience, began to walk up
and down the room. He was a man of many engagements, and he had been
closeted for more than a quarter of an hour with the young American
doctor. “Do you imagine you should come often to England?” Lady
Canterville asked as if to think of everything.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that; of course we shall do whatever seems
best.” He was prepared to suppose they should cross the Atlantic every
summer—that prospect was by no means displeasing to him; but he wasn’t
prepared to tie himself, as he would have said, up to it, nor up to
anything in particular. It was in his mind not as an overt pretension
but as a tacit implication that he should treat with the parents of his
presumed bride on a footing of perfect equality; and there would somehow
be nothing equal if he should begin to enter into engagements that didn’t
belong to the essence of the matter. They were to give their daughter
and he was to take her: in this arrangement there would be as much on one
side as on the other. But beyond it he had nothing to ask of them; there
was nothing he was calling on them to promise, and his own pledges
therefore would have no equivalent. Whenever his wife should wish it she
should come over and see her people. Her home was to be in New York; but
he was tacitly conscious that on the question of absences he should be
very liberal, and there was meanwhile something in the very grain of his
character that forbade he should be eagerly yielding about times and
dates.
Lady Canterville looked at her spouse, but he was now not attentive; he
was taking a peep at his watch. In a moment, however, he threw out a
remark to the effect that he thought it a capital thing the two countries
should become more united, and there was nothing that would bring it
about better than a few of the best people on both sides pairing-off
together. The English indeed had begun it; a lot of fellows had brought
over a lot of pretty girls, and it was quite fair play that the Americans
should take their pick. They were all one race, after all; and why
shouldn’t they make one society—the best of both sides, of course?
Jackson Lemon smiled as he recognised Lady Marmaduke’s great doctrine,
and he was pleased to think Lady Beauchemin had some influence with her
father; for he was sure the great old boy, as he mentally designated his
host, had got all this from her, though he expressed himself less happily
than the cleverest of his daughters. Our hero had no objection to make
to it, especially if there were aught in it that would really help his
case. But it was not in the least on these high grounds he had sought
the hand of Lady Barb. He wanted her not in order that her people and
his—the best on both sides!—should make one society; he wanted her simply
because he wanted her. Lady Canterville smiled, but she seemed to have
another thought.
“I quite appreciate what my husband says, but I don’t see why poor Barb
should be the one to begin.”
“I daresay she’ll like it,” said his lordship as if he were attempting a
short cut. “They say you spoil your women awfully.”
“She’s not one of their women yet,” Lady Canterville remarked in the
sweetest tone in the world; and then she added without Jackson Lemon’s
knowing exactly what she meant: “It seems so strange.”
He was slightly irritated, and these vague words perhaps added to the
feeling. There had been no positive opposition to his suit, and both his
entertainers were most kind; but he felt them hold back a little, and
though he hadn’t expected them to throw themselves on his neck he was
rather disappointed—his pride was touched. Why should they hesitate? He
knew himself such a good _parti_. It was not so much his noble host—it
was Lady Canterville. As he saw her lord and master look covertly and a
second time at his watch he could have believed him glad to settle the
matter on the spot. Lady Canterville seemed to wish their aspirant to
come forward more, to give certain assurances and pledges. He felt he
was ready to say or do anything that was a matter of proper form, but he
couldn’t take the tone of trying to purchase her ladyship’s assent,
penetrated as he was with the conviction that such a man as he could be
trusted to care for his wife rather more than an impecunious British peer
and _his_ wife could be supposed—with the lights he had acquired on
English society—to care even for the handsomest of a dozen children. It
was a mistake on the old lady’s part not to recognise that. He humoured
this to the extent of saying just a little dryly: “My wife shall
certainly have everything she wants.”
“He tells me he’s disgustingly rich,” Lord Canterville added, pausing
before their companion with his hands in his pockets.
“I’m glad to hear it; but it isn’t so much that,” she made answer,
sinking back a little on her sofa. If it wasn’t that she didn’t say what
it was, though she had looked for a moment as if she were going to. She
only raised her eyes to her husband’s face, she asked for inspiration. I
know not whether she found it, but in a moment she said to Jackson Lemon,
seeming to imply that it was quite another point: “Do you expect to
continue your profession?”
He had no such intention, so far as his profession meant getting up at
three o’clock in the morning to assuage the ills of humanity; but here,
as before, the touch of such a question instantly stiffened him. “Oh, my
profession! I rather wince at that grand old name. I’ve neglected my
work so scandalously that I scarce know on what terms with it I shall
be—though hoping for the best when once I’m right there again.”
Lady Canterville received these remarks in silence, fixing her eyes once
more upon her husband’s. But his countenance really rather failed her;
still with his hands in his pockets, save when he needed to remove his
cigar from his lips, he went and looked out of the window. “Of course we
know you don’t practise, and when you’re a married man you’ll have less
time even than now. But I should really like to know if they call you
Doctor over there.”
“Oh yes, universally. We’re almost as fond of titles as your people.”
“I don’t call that a title,” her ladyship smiled.
“It’s not so good as duke or marquis, I admit; but we have to take what
we’ve got.”
“Oh bother, what does it signify?” his lordship demanded from his place
at the window. “I used to have a horse named Doctor, and a jolly good
one too.”
“Don’t you call bishops Doctors? Well, then, call me Bishop!” Jackson
laughed.
Lady Canterville visibly didn’t follow. “I don’t care for _any_ titles,”
she nevertheless observed. “I don’t see why a gentleman shouldn’t be
called Mr.”
It suddenly appeared to her young friend that there was something
helpless, confused and even slightly comical in her state. The
impression was mollifying, and he too, like Lord Canterville, had begun
to long for a short cut. He relaxed a moment and, leaning toward his
hostess with a smile and his hands on his little knees, he said softly:
“It seems to me a question of no importance. All I desire is that you
should call me your son-in-law.”
She gave him her hand and he pressed it almost affectionately. Then she
got up, remarking that before anything was decided she must see her
child, must learn from her own lips the state of her feelings. “I don’t
like at all her not having spoken to me already,” she added.
“Where has she gone—to Roehampton? I daresay she has told it all to her
godmother,” said Lord Canterville.
“She won’t have much to tell, poor girl!” Jackson freely commented. “I
must really insist on seeing with more freedom the person I wish to
marry.”
“You shall have all the freedom you want in two or three days,” said Lady
Canterville. She irradiated all her charity; she appeared to have
accepted him and yet still to be making tacit assumptions. “Aren’t there
certain things to be talked of first?”
“Certain things, dear lady?”
She looked at her husband, and though he was still at his window he felt
it this time in her silence and had to come away and speak. “Oh she
means settlements and that kind of thing.” This was an allusion that
came with a much better grace from the father.
Jackson turned from one of his companions to the other; he coloured a
little and his self-control was perhaps a trifle strained. “Settlements?
We don’t make them in my country. You may be sure I shall make a proper
provision for my wife.”
“My dear fellow, over here—in our class, you know—it’s the custom,” said
Lord Canterville with a truer ease in his face at the thought that the
discussion was over.
“I’ve my own ideas,” Jackson returned with even greater confidence.
“It seems to me it’s a question for the solicitors to discuss,” Lady
Canterville suggested.
“They may discuss it as much as they please”—the young man showed
amusement. He thought he saw his solicitors discussing it! He had
indeed his own ideas. He opened the door for his hostess and the three
passed out of the room together, walking into the hall in a silence that
expressed a considerable awkwardness. A note had been struck which
grated and scratched a little. A pair of shining footmen, at their
approach, rose from a bench to a great altitude and stood there like
sentinels presenting arms. Jackson stopped, looking for a moment into
the interior of his hat, which he had in his hand. Then raising his keen
eyes he fixed them a moment on those of Lady Canterville, addressing her
instinctively rather than his other critic. “I guess you and Lord
Canterville had better leave it to me!”
“We have our traditions, Mr. Lemon,” said her ladyship with a firm grace.
“I imagine you don’t know—!” she gravely breathed.
Lord Canterville laid his hand on their visitor’s shoulder. “My dear
boy, those fellows will settle it in three minutes.”
“Very likely they will!” said Jackson Lemon. Then he asked of Lady
Canterville when he might see Lady Barb.
She turned it spaciously over. “I’ll write you a note.”
One of the tall footmen at the end of the impressive vista had opened
wide the portals, as if even he were aware of the dignity to which the
small strange gentleman had virtually been raised. But Jackson lingered;
he was visibly unsatisfied, though apparently so little conscious he was
unsatisfying. “I don’t think you understand me.”
“Your ideas are certainly different,” said Lady Canterville.
His lordship, however, made comparatively light of it. “If the girl
understands you that’s enough!”
“Mayn’t _she_ write to me?” Jackson asked of her mother. “I certainly
must write to her, you know, if you won’t let me see her.”.
“Oh yes, you may write to her, Mr. Lemon.”
There was a point, for a moment, in the look he returned on this, while
he said to himself that if necessary he would transmit his appeal through
the old lady at Roehampton. “All right—good-bye. You know what I want
at any rate.” Then as he was going he turned and added: “You needn’t be
afraid I won’t always bring her over in the hot weather!”
“In the hot weather?” Lady Canterville murmured with vague visions of the
torrid zone. Jackson however quitted the house with the sense he had
made great concessions.
His host and hostess passed into a small morning-room and—Lord
Canterville having taken up his hat and stick to go out again—stood there
a moment, face to face. Then his lordship spoke in a summary manner.
“It’s clear enough he wants her.”
“There’s something so odd about him,” Lady Canterville answered. “Fancy
his speaking so about settlements!”
“You had better give him his head. He’ll go much quieter.”
“He’s so obstinate—very obstinate; it’s easy to see that. And he seems
to think,” she went on, “that a girl in your daughter’s position can be
married from one day to the other—with a ring and a new frock—like a
housemaid.”
“Well that, of course, over there is the kind of thing. But he seems
really to have a most extraordinary fortune, and every one does say they
give their women _carte blanche_.”
“_Carte blanche_ is not what Barb wants; she wants a settlement. She
wants a definite income,” said Lady Canterville; “she wants to be safe.”
He looked at her rather straight. “Has she told you so? I thought you
said—” And then he stopped. “I beg your pardon,” he added.
She didn’t explain her inconsequence; she only remarked that American
fortunes were notoriously insecure; one heard of nothing else; they
melted away like smoke. It was their own duty to their child to demand
that something should be fixed.
Well, he met this in his way. “He has a million and a half sterling. I
can’t make out what he does with it.”
She rose to it without a flutter. “Our child should have, then,
something very handsome.”
“I agree, my dear; but you must manage it; you must consider it; you must
send for Hardman. Only take care you don’t put him off; it may be a very
good opening, you know. There’s a great deal to be done out there; I
believe in all that,” Lord Canterville went on in the tone of a
conscientious parent.
“There’s no doubt that he _is_ a doctor—in some awful place,” his wife
brooded.
“He may be a pedlar for all I care.”
“If they should go out I think Agatha might go with them,” her ladyship
continued in the same tone, but a little disconnectedly.
“You may send them all out if you like. Goodbye!”
The pair embraced, but her hand detained him a moment. “Don’t you think
he’s greatly in love?”
“Oh yes, he’s very bad—but he’s a sharp little beggar.”
“She certainly quite likes him,” Lady Canterville stated rather formally
as they separated.