If she was strange, at any rate he hadn’t come to the end of her
strangeness. The next day was a Sunday and uncommonly fine; he was down
before breakfast and took a walk in the park, stopping to gaze at the
thin-legged deer on the remoter slopes, who reminded him of small
pin-cushions turned upside down, and wandering along the edge of a large
sheet of ornamental water which had a temple in imitation of that of
Vesta on an island in the middle. He thought at this time no more of
Mrs. Headway; he only reflected that these stately objects had for at
least a hundred years furnished a background to a great deal of heavy
history. Further reflexion would perhaps have suggested to him that she
might yet become a feature in the record that so spread itself. Two or
three ladies failed to appear at breakfast; the well-known Texan belle
was one of them.
“She tells me she never leaves her room till noon,” he heard Lady Demesne
say to the General, her companion of the previous evening, who had asked
about her. “She takes three hours to dress.”
“She’s a monstrous clever woman!” the General declared.
“To do it in three hours?”
“No, I mean the way she keeps her wits about her.”
“Yes; I think she’s very clever,” said Lady Demesne on a system in which
our young man flattered himself he saw more meaning than the General
could. There was something in this tall straight deliberate woman, who
seemed at once to yearn and to retire, that Waterville admired. With her
delicate surface, her conventional mildness, he made out she was strong;
she had set her patience upon a height and carried it like a diadem. She
had the young American little visibly on her mind, but every now and then
she indulged in some vague demonstration that showed she had not
forgotten him. Sir Arthur himself was apparently in excellent spirits,
though he too never bustled nor overflowed; he only went about looking
very fresh and fair, as if he took a bath every hour or two, and very
secure against the unexpected. Waterville had exchanged even fewer
remarks with him than with his mother; but the master of the house had
found occasion to say the night before, in the smoking-room, that he was
delighted this friend had been able to come, and that if he was fond of
real English scenery there were several things about that he should like
very much to show him.
“You must give me an hour or two before you go, you know; I really think
there are some things you’ll care for.”
Sir Arthur spoke as if Waterville would be very fastidious; he seemed to
wish to do the right thing by him. On the Sunday morning after breakfast
he inquired if he should care to go to church; most of the ladies and
several of the men were going. “It’s just as you please, you know; but
there’s rather a pretty walk across the fields and a curious little
church—they say of King Stephen’s time.”
Waterville knew what this meant; it was already a treasure. Besides, he
liked going to church, above all when he sat in the Squire’s pew, which
was sometimes as big as a boudoir and all fadedly upholstered to match.
So he replied that he should be delighted. Then he added without
explaining his reason: “Is Mrs. Headway going?”
“I really don’t know,” said his host with an abrupt change of tone—as if
he inquired into the movements of the housekeeper.
“The English are awfully queer!” Waterville consoled himself with
secretly exclaiming; to which wisdom, since his arrival among them, he
had had recourse whenever he encountered a gap in the consistency of
things. The church was even a rarer treasure than Sir Arthur’s
description of it, and Waterville felt Mrs. Headway had been a fool not
to come. He knew what she was after—she wished to study English life so
that she might take possession of it; and to pass in among a hedge of
bobbing rustics and sit among the monuments of the old Demesnes would
have told her a great deal about English life. If she wished to fortify
herself for the struggle she had better come to that old church. When he
returned to Longlands—he had walked back across the meadows with the
archdeacon’s lady, who was a vigorous pedestrian—it wanted half an hour
of luncheon and he was unwilling to go indoors. He remembered he had not
yet seen the gardens, and wandered away in search of them. They were on
a scale that enabled him to find them without difficulty, and they looked
as if they had been kept up unremittingly for a century or two. He
hadn’t advanced very far between their blooming borders when he heard a
voice that he recognised, and a moment after, at the turn of an alley,
came upon Mrs. Headway, who was attended by the master of the scene. She
was bareheaded beneath her parasol, which she flung back, stopping short
as she beheld her compatriot.
“Oh it’s Mr. Waterville come to spy me out as usual!” It was with this
remark she greeted the slightly-embarrassed young man.
“Hallo, you’ve come home from church?” Sir Arthur said, pulling out his
watch.
Waterville was struck with his coolness. He admired it; for, after all,
he noted, it must have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He
felt rather an ass, and wished he had kept hold of Mrs. April, to give
him the air of having come for her sake. Mrs. Headway was looking
adorably fresh in attire that Waterville, who had his ideas on such
matters, felt sure wouldn’t be regarded as the proper thing for a Sunday
morning in an English country-house: a négligé of white flounces and
frills interspersed with yellow ribbons—a garment Madame de Pompadour
might have sported to receive Louis XV., but probably wouldn’t have worn
for a public airing. The sight of this costume gave the finishing touch
to his impression that she knew on the whole what she was about. She
would take a line of her own; she wouldn’t be too accommodating. She
wouldn’t come down to breakfast; she wouldn’t go to church; she would
wear on Sunday mornings little elaborately informal dresses and look
dreadfully un-British and un-Protestant. Perhaps after all this was
best. She began to talk with a certain volubility.
“Isn’t this too lovely? I walked all the way from the house. I’m not
much at walking, but the grass in this place is like a parlour. The
whole thing’s driving me wild. Sir Arthur, you ought to go and look
after the Ambassador; it’s shameful the way I’ve kept you. You don’t
trouble about the Ambassador? You said just now you had scarcely spoken
to him, and you must make that right up. I never saw such a way of
neglecting your guests. Is it the usual style over here? Go and take
him out to ride or make him play a game of billiards. Mr. Waterville
will take me home; besides, I want to scold him for spying on me.”
Our young man sharply resented her charge. “I had no idea whatever you
were here.”
“We weren’t hiding,” said Sir Arthur quietly. “Perhaps you’ll see Mrs.
Headway back to the house. I think I ought to look after old Davidoff.
I believe luncheon’s at two.”
He left them, and Waterville wandered through the gardens with Mrs.
Headway. She at once sought again to learn if he had come there to “dog”
her; but this inquiry wasn’t accompanied, to his surprise, with the
acrimony she had displayed the night before. He was determined not to
let that pass, however; when people had treated him in that way they
shouldn’t be allowed to forget it.
“Do you suppose I’m always thinking of you?” he derisively demanded.
“You’re out of my mind _sometimes_. I came this way to look at the
gardens, and if you hadn’t spoken to me should have passed on.”
Mrs. Headway was perfectly good-natured; she appeared not even to hear
his defence. “He has got two other places,” she simply rejoined.
“That’s just what I wanted to know.”
He wouldn’t nevertheless be turned from his grievance. That mode of
reparation to a person whom you had insulted which consisted in
forgetting you had done so was doubtless largely in use on back piazzas;
but a creature of any spirit required a different form. “What did you
mean last night by accusing me of having come down here to watch you?
Pardon me if I tell you I think you grossly rude.” The sting of the
imputation lay in the fact that there was a certain amount of truth in
it; yet for a moment Mrs. Headway, looking very blank, failed to recover
it. “She’s a barbarian, after all,” thought Waterville. “She thinks a
woman may slap a man’s face and run away!”
“Oh,” she cried suddenly, “I remember—I was angry with you! I didn’t
expect to see you. But I didn’t really mind about it at all. Every now
and then I get mad like that and work it off on any one that’s handy.
But it’s over in three minutes and I never think of it again. I confess
I was mad last night; I could have shot the old woman.”
“‘The old woman’?”
“Sir Arthur’s mother. She has no business here anyway. In this country
when the husband dies they’re expected to clear out. She has a house of
her own ten miles from here and another in Portman Square; so she ain’t
in want of good locations. But she sticks—she sticks to him like a
strong plaster. It came over me as I kind of analysed that she didn’t
invite me here because she liked me, but because she suspects me. She’s
afraid we’ll make a match and she thinks I ain’t good enough for her son.
She must think I’m in a great hurry to make him mine. I never went after
him, he came after me. I should never have thought of anything if it
hadn’t been for him. He began it last summer at Homburg; he wanted to
know why I didn’t come to England; he told me I should have great
success. He doesn’t know much about it anyway; he hasn’t got much
gumption. But he’s a very nice man all the same; it’s very pleasant to
see him surrounded by his—” And Mrs. Headway paused a moment, her
appreciation ranging: “Surrounded by all his old heirlooms. I like the
old place,” she went on; “it’s beautifully mounted; I’m quite satisfied
with what I’ve seen. I thought Lady Demesne well-impressed; she left a
card on me in London and very soon after wrote to me to ask me here. But
I’m very quick; I sometimes see things in a flash. I saw something
yesterday when she came to speak to me at dinner-time. She saw I looked
pretty and refined, and it made her blue with rage; she hoped I’d be some
sort of a horror. I’d like very much to oblige her, but what can one do?
Then I saw she had asked me only because he insisted. He didn’t come to
see me when I first arrived—he never came near me for ten days. She
managed to prevent him; she got him to make some promise. But he changed
his mind after a little, and then he had to do something really polite.
He called three days in succession, and he made her come. She’s one of
those women who holds out as long as she can and then seems to give in
while she’s really fussing more than ever. She hates me as if I knew
something about her—when I don’t even know what she thinks I’ve done
myself. She’s very underhand; she’s a regular old cat. When I saw you
last night at dinner I thought she had got you here to help her.”
“To help her?” Waterville echoed.
“To tell her about me. To give her information she can make use of
against me. You may give her all you like!”
Waterville was almost breathless with the attention he had paid this
extraordinary burst of confidence, and now he really felt faint. He
stopped short; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps and then, stopping too,
turned and shone at him in the glow of her egotism. “You’re the most
unspeakable woman!” he wailed. She seemed to him indeed a barbarian.
She laughed at him—he felt she was laughing at his expression of face—and
her laugh rang through the stately gardens. “What sort of a woman’s
that?”
“You’ve got no delicacy”—he’d keep it up.
She coloured quickly, though, strange to say, without further irritation.
“No delicacy?”
“You ought to keep those things to yourself.”
“Oh I know what you mean; I talk about everything. When I’m excited I’ve
got to talk. But I must do things in my own way. I’ve got plenty of
delicacy when people are nice to me. Ask Arthur Demesne if I ain’t
delicate—ask George Littlemore if I ain’t. Don’t stand there all day;
come on to lunch!” And Mrs. Headway resumed her walk while her
companion, having balanced, slowly overtook her. “Wait till I get
settled; then I’ll be delicate,” she pursued. “You can’t be delicate
when you’re trying to save your life. It’s very well for _you_ to talk,
with the whole State Department to back you. Of course I’m excited.
I’ve got right hold of this thing, and I don’t mean to let go!” Before
they reached the house she let him know why he had been invited to
Longlands at the same time as herself. Waterville would have liked to
believe his personal attractions sufficiently explained the fact, but she
took no account of this supposition. Mrs. Headway preferred to see
herself in an element of ingenious machination, where everything that
happened referred to her and was aimed at her. Waterville had been asked
then because he represented, however modestly, the American Legation, and
their host had a friendly desire to make it appear that his pretty
American visitor, of whom no one knew anything, was under the protection
of that establishment. “It would start me better,” the lady in question
complacently set forth. “You can’t help yourself—you’ve helped to start
me. If he had known the Minister he’d have asked him—or the first
secretary. But he don’t know them.”
They reached the house by the time she had developed her idea, which gave
Waterville a pretext more than sufficient for detaining her in the
portico. “Do you mean to say Sir Arthur has told you this?” he inquired
almost sternly.
“Told me? Of course not! Do you suppose I’d let him take the tone with
me that I need any favours? I’d like to hear him tell me I’m in want of
assistance!”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to
every one.”
“To every one? I say it to you and to George Littlemore—when I get
nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I’m
afraid of him. I’m not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I’m all
alone—I haven’t got any one. I must have some comfort, mustn’t I? Sir
Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that
was what made me guess his idea.”
“I’m much obliged to him,” said Waterville rather bewildered.
“So mind you answer for me. Don’t you want me to take your arm to go
in?”
“You’re a most extraordinary combination!” he gave to all the winds as
she stood smiling at him.
“Oh come, don’t _you_ fall in love with me!” she cried with a laugh; and,
without taking his arm, she passed in before him.
That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, he wandered into the
library, where he felt certain he should find some superior bindings.
There was no one in the room and he spent a happy half-hour among
treasures of old reading and triumphs of old morocco. He had a great
esteem for good literature, he held that it should have handsome covers.
The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking
dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the
volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just
finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about
to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself face to face with
Lady Demesne. He was sharply startled, for her tall slim figure, her
preserved fairness, which looked white in the high brown room, and the
air of serious intention with which she presented herself, all gave
something spectral to her presence. He saw her countenance dimly light,
however, and heard her say with the vague despair of her neutrality: “Are
you looking at our books? I’m afraid they’re rather dull.”
“Dull? Why they’re as bright as the day they were bound.” And he turned
on her the glittering panels of his folio.
“I’m afraid I haven’t looked at them for a long time,” she murmured,
going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the
clear pane the park stretched away, the menace of night already mantling
the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the
trees had an air of conscious importance, as if Nature herself had been
bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Her ladyship was no
easy person for talk; spontaneity had never come to her, and to express
herself might have been for her modesty like some act of undressing in
public. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a
noble convention. You might have pitied her for the sense of her living
tied so tight, with consequent moral cramps, to certain rigid ideals.
This made her at times seem tired, like a person who had undertaken too
much. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of
design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know she had appealed
to him without the trouble of announcing it. She had been accustomed to
expect people would suppose things, to save her questions and
explanations. Waterville made some haphazard remark about the beauty of
the evening—in point of fact the weather had changed for the worse—to
which she vouchsafed no reply. But she presently said with her usual
gentleness: “I hoped I should find you here—I should like to ask you
something.”
“Anything I can tell you—I shall be delighted!” the young man declared.
She gave him a pleading look that seemed to say: “Please be very
simple—very simple indeed.” Then she glanced about her as if there had
been other people in the room; she didn’t wish to appear closeted with
him or to have come on purpose. There she was at any rate, and she
proceeded. “When my son told me he should ask you to come down I was
very glad. I mean of course we were delighted—” And she paused a
moment. But she next went on: “I want to ask you about Mrs. Headway.”
“Ah, here it is!” cried Waterville within himself. But he could show no
wincing. “Ah yes, I see!”
“Do you mind my asking you? I hope you don’t mind. I haven’t any one
else to ask.”
“Your son knows her much better than I do.” He said this without
intention of malice, simply to escape from the difficulties of the
situation, but after he had spoken was almost frightened by his mocking
sound.
“I don’t think he knows her. She knows _him_—which is very different.
When I ask him about her he merely tells me she’s fascinating. She _is_
fascinating,” said her ladyship with inimitable dryness.
“So I think, myself. I like her very much,” Waterville returned
cheerfully.
“You’re in all the better position to speak of her then.”
“To speak well of her,” the young man smiled.
“Of course—if you can. I should be delighted to hear you do that.
That’s what I wish—to hear some good of her.”
It might have seemed after this that nothing could have remained but for
our friend to break out in categoric praise of his fellow guest; but he
was no more to be tempted into that danger than into another. “I can
only say I like her,” he repeated. “She has been very kind to me.”
“Every one seems to like her,” said Lady Demesne with an unstudied effect
of pathos. “She’s certainly very amusing.”
“She’s very good-natured. I think she has no end of good intentions.”
“What do you mean by good intentions?” asked Lady Demesne very sweetly.
“Well, it strikes me she wants to be friendly and pleasant.”
“Indeed she does! But of course you have to defend her. She’s your
countrywoman.”
“To defend her I must wait till she’s attacked,” Waterville laughed.
“That’s very true. I needn’t call your attention to the fact that I’m
not attacking her,” his hostess observed. “I should never attack a
person staying in this house. I only want to know something about her,
and if you can’t tell me perhaps at least you can mention some one who
will.”
“She’ll tell you herself. Tell you by the hour!”
“What she has told my son? I shouldn’t understand it. My son doesn’t
understand it.” She had a full pause, a profusion of patience; then she
resumed disappointedly: “It’s very strange. I rather hoped you might
explain it.”
He turned the case over. “I’m afraid I can’t explain Mrs. Headway,” he
concluded.
“I see you admit she’s very peculiar.”
Even to this, however, he hesitated to commit himself. “It’s too great a
responsibility to answer you.” He allowed he was very disobliging; he
knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to
blight the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommodate her; and yet, with
his cultivated imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feelings of
this tender formal serious woman who—it was easy to see—had looked for
her own happiness in the observance of duty and in extreme constancy to
two or three objects of devotion chosen once for all. She must indeed
have had a conception of life in the light of which Nancy Beck would show
both for displeasing and for dangerous. But he presently became aware
she had taken his last words as a concession in which she might find
help.
“You know why I ask you these things then?”
“I think I’ve an idea,” said Waterville, persisting in irrelevant
laughter. His laugh sounded foolish in his own ears.
“If you know that, I think you ought to assist me.” Her tone changed
now; there was a quick tremor in it; he could feel the confession of
distress. The distress verily was deep; it had pressed her hard before
she made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry for her and
determined to be very serious.
“If I could help you I would. But my position’s very difficult.”
“It’s not so difficult as mine!” She was going all lengths; she was
really appealing to him. “I don’t imagine you under obligations to Mrs.
Headway. You seem to me so different,” she added.
He was not insensible to any discrimination that told in his favour; but
these words shocked him as if they had been an attempt at bribery. “I’m
surprised you don’t like her,” he ventured to bring out.
She turned her eyes through the window. “I don’t think you’re really
surprised, though possibly you try to be. I don’t like her at any rate,
and I can’t fancy why my son should. She’s very pretty and appears very
clever; but I don’t trust her. I don’t know what has taken possession of
him; it’s not usual in his family to marry people like that. Surely
she’s of _no_ breeding. The person I should propose would be so very
different—perhaps you can see what I mean. There’s something in her
history we don’t understand. My son understands it no better than I. If
you could throw any light on it, that might be a help. If I treat you
with such confidence the first time I see you it’s because I don’t know
where to turn. I’m exceedingly anxious.”
It was plain enough she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement;
her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. “Are you very sure
there’s danger?” Waterville asked. “Has he proposed to her and has she
jumped at him?”
“If I wait till they settle it all it will be too late. I’ve reason to
believe that my son’s not engaged, but I fear he’s terribly entangled.
At the same time he’s very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a
great sense of honour. He’s not satisfied about her past life; he
doesn’t know what to think of what we’ve been told. Even what she admits
is so strange. She has been married four or five times. She has been
divorced again and again. It seems so extraordinary. She tells him that
in America it’s different, and I dare say you haven’t our ideas; but
really there’s a limit to everything. There must have been great
irregularities—I’m afraid great scandals. It’s dreadful to have to
accept such things. He hasn’t told me all this, but it’s not necessary
he should tell me. I know him well enough to guess.”
“Does he know you’re speaking to me?” Waterville asked.
“Not in the least. But I must tell you I shall repeat to him anything
you may say against her.”
“I had better say nothing then. It’s very delicate. Mrs. Headway’s
quite undefended. One may like her or not, of course. I’ve seen nothing
of her that isn’t perfectly correct,” our young man wound up.
“And you’ve heard nothing?”
He remembered Littlemore’s view that there were cases in which a man was
bound in honour to tell an untruth, and he wondered if this were such a
one. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality
of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing
little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish
not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing
in his relations with that lady to hold him down to lying for her. He
hadn’t sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him
to come and see her. And yet he couldn’t give her away—that stuck in his
throat. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything. And it wouldn’t
matter. Your son won’t give her up because I happen not to like her.”
“If he were to believe she had done wrong he’d give her up.”
“Well, I’ve no right to say so,” said Waterville.
Lady Demesne turned away; he indeed disappointed her and he feared she
was going to break out: “Why then do you suppose I asked you here?” She
quitted her place near the window and prepared apparently to leave the
room. But she stopped short. “You know something against her, but you
won’t say it.”
He hugged his folio and looked awkward. “You attribute things to me. I
shall never say anything.”
“Of course you’re perfectly free. There’s some one else who knows, I
think—another American—a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was
there. I’ve forgotten his name.”
“A friend of Mrs. Headway’s? I suppose you mean George Littlemore.”
“Yes—Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister whom I’ve met; I didn’t know she
was his sister till to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she
doesn’t know her. That itself is a proof, I think. Do you think _he_
would help me?” Lady Demesne asked very simply.
“I doubt it, but you can try.”
“I wish he had come with you. Do you think he’d come?”
“He’s in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back.”
She took this in with interest. “I shall go to his sister; I shall ask
her to bring him to see me. She’s extremely nice; I think she’ll
understand. Unfortunately there’s very little time.”
Waterville bethought himself. “Don’t count too much on George
Littlemore,” he said gravely.
“You men have no pity,” she grimly sighed.
“Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as
you?” he asked.
Lady Demesne cast about. “It hurts me to hear her voice.”
“Her voice is very liquid.” He liked his word.
“Possibly. But she’s horrible!”
This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; Nancy Beck was open to
criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she
wasn’t horrible. “It’s for your son to pity you. If he doesn’t how can
you expect it of others?”
“Oh but he does!” And with a majesty that was more striking even than
her logic his hostess moved to the door.
Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she passed out he said:
“There’s one thing you can do—try to like her!”
She shot him a woeful glance. “That would be—worst of all!”