"Excellent," said the general. "I'll expect you and your mother and
father to dinner Sunday night. Is that satisfactory?"
"Yes," said Mildred.
A longish pause. Then the general: "You seem to be a little--afraid
of me. I don't know why it is that people are always that way with
me." A halt, to give her the opportunity to say the obvious flattering
thing. Mildred said nothing, gave no sign. He went on: "It will wear
away as we know each other better. I am a simple, plain man--kind and
generous in my instincts. Of course I am dignified, and I do not like
familiarity. But I do not mean to inspire fear and awe."
A still longer pause. "Well, everything is settled," said the general.
"We understand each other clearly?--not an engagement, nothing binding
on either side--simply a--a--an option without forfeit." And he
laughed--his laugh was a ghoulish sound, not loud but explosive and an
instant check upon demonstration of mirth from anyone else.
"I understand," said Mildred with a glance toward the door through
which Presbury and his wife had disappeared.
"Now, we'll join the others, and I'll show you the house"--again the
laugh--"what may be your future home--one of them."
The four were soon started upon what was for three of them a weariful
journey despite the elevator that spared them the ascents of the
stairways. The house was an exaggerated reproduction of all the
establishments of the rich who confuse expenditure with luxury and
comfort. Bill Siddall had bought "the best of everything"; that is,
the things into which the purveyors of costly furnishings have put the
most excuses for charging. Of taste, of comfort, of discrimination,
there were few traces and these obviously accidental. "I picked out the
men acknowledged to be the best in their different lines," said the
general, "and I gave them carte blanche."
"I see that at a glance," said Presbury. "You've done the grand thing
on the grandest possible scale."
"I've looked into the finest of the famous places on the other side,"
said the general. "All I can say is, I've had no regrets."
"I should say not," cried Mrs. Presbury.
With an affectation of modest hesitation--to show that he was a
gentleman with a gentleman's fine appreciation of the due of maiden
modesty--Siddall paused at the outer door of his own apartments. But
at one sentence of urging from Mrs. Presbury he opened the door and
ushered them in. And soon he was showing them everything--his Carrara
marble bathroom and bathing-pool, his bed that had been used by several
French kings, his dressing-room with its appliances of gold and
platinum and precious stones, his clothing. They had to inspect a room
full of suits, huge chiffoniers crowded with shirts and ties and
underclothes. He exhibited silk dressing-robes and pajamas, pointed out
the marks of the fashionable London and Paris makers, the monograms,
the linings of ermine and sable. "I'm very particular about everything
that touches me," explained he. "It seems to me a gentleman can't be
too particular." With a meaning glance at Mildred, "And I'd feel the
same way about my wife."
"You hear that, Mildred?" said Presbury, with a nasty little laugh. He
had been relieving the tedium of this sight-seeing tour by
observing--and from time to time aggravating--Mildred's sufferings.
The general released his mirth-strangling goat laugh; Mrs. Presbury
echoed it with a gale of rather wild hysterics. So well pleased was
the general with the excursion and so far did he feel advanced toward
intimacy that on the way down the majestic marble stairway he ventured
to give Mildred's arm a gentle, playful squeeze. And at the parting he
kissed her hand. Presbury had changed his mind about returning to the
country. On the way to the hotel he girded at Mildred, reviewing all
that the little general had said and done, and sneering, jeering at it.
Mildred made not a single retort until they were upstairs in the hotel.
At the door to her room she said to Presbury--said it in a quiet, cold,
terrible way:
"If you really want me to go through with this thing, you will stop
insulting him and me. If you do it again, I'll give up--and go on the
streets before I'll marry him."
Presbury shrugged his shoulders and went on to the other room. But he
did not begin again the next day, and from that time forth avoided
reference to the general. In fact, there was an astonishing change in
his whole demeanor. He ceased to bait his wife, became polite, even
affable. If he had conducted himself thus from the outset, he would
have got far less credit, would have made far less progress toward
winning the liking of his wife, and of her daughter, than he did in a
brief two weeks of change from petty and malignant tyrant to
good-natured, interestingly talkative old gentleman. After the manner
of human nature, Mildred and her mother, in their relief, in their
pleasure through this amazing sudden and wholly unexpected geniality,
not merely forgave but forgot all they had suffered at his hands.
Mildred was not without a suspicion of the truth that this change,
inaugurated in his own good time, was fresh evidence of his contempt
for both of them--of his feeling that he could easily make reparation
with a little kindness and decency and put himself in the way of
getting any possible benefits from the rich alliance. But though she
practically knew what was going on in his mind, she could not prevent
herself from softening toward him.
Now followed a succession of dinners, of theater- and opera-goings, of
week-ends at the general's new country palace in the fashionable region
of Long Island. All these festivities were of the same formal and
tedious character. At all the general was the central sun with the
others dim and draggled satellites, hardly more important than the
outer rim of satellite servants. He did most of the talking; he was
the sole topic of conversation; for when he was not talking about
himself he wished to be hearing about himself. If Mildred had not been
seeing more and more plainly that other and real personality of his,
her contempt for him and for herself would have grown beyond control.
But, with him or away from him, at every instant there was the sense of
that other real William Siddall--a shadowy menace full of terror. She
dreamed of it--was startled from sleep by visions of a monstrous and
mighty distortion of the little general's grotesque exterior. "I shall
marry him if I can," she said to her self. "But--can I?" And she
feared and hoped that she could not, that courage would fail her, or
would come to her rescue, whichever it was, and that she would refuse
him. Aside from the sense of her body that cannot but be with any
woman who is beautiful, she had never theretofore been especially
physical in thought. That side of life had remained vague, as she had
never indulged in or even been strongly tempted with the things that
rouse it from its virginal sleep. But now she thought only of her body,
because that it was, and that alone, that had drawn this prospective
purchaser, and his eyes never let her forget it. She fell into the
habit of looking at herself in the glass--at her face, at her
shoulders, at her whole person, not in vanity but in a kind of wonder
or aversion. And in the visions, both the waking and the sleeping, she
reached the climax of horror when the monster touched her--with clammy,
creepy fingers, with munching lips, with the sharp ends of the mustache
or imperial.
Said Mrs. Presbury to her husband, "I'm afraid the general will be
irritated by Mildred's unresponsiveness."
"Don't worry," replied Presbury. "He's so crazy about himself that he
imagines the whole world is in the same state."
"Isn't it strange that he doesn't give her presents? Never anything but
candy and flowers."
"And he never will," said Presbury.
"Not until they're married, I suppose."
Presbury was silent.
"I can't help thinking that if Milly were to rouse herself and show
some--some liking--or at least interest, it'd be wiser."
"She's taking the best possible course," said Presbury. "Unconsciously
to both of them, she's leading him on. He thinks that's the way a lady
should act--restrained, refined."
Mildred's attitude was simple inertia. The most positive effort she
made was avoiding saying or doing anything to displease him--no
difficult matter, as she was silent and almost lifeless when he was
near. Without any encouragement from her he gradually got a deep
respect for her--which meant that he became convinced of her coldness
and exclusiveness, of her absolute trustworthiness. Presbury was more
profoundly right than he knew. The girl pursued the only course that
made possible the success she longed for, yet dreaded and loathed. For
at the outset Siddall had not been nearly so strongly in earnest in his
matrimonial project as he had professed and had believed himself. He
wished to marry, wished to add to his possessions the admirable
show-piece and exhibition opportunity afforded by the right sort of
wife; but in the bottom of his heart he felt that such a woman as he
dreamed of did not exist in all the foolish, fickle, and shallow female
sex. This girl--so cold, so proud, beautiful yet not eager to display
her charms or to have them praised--she was the rare bird he sought.
In a month he asked her to marry him; that is, he said: "My dear, I
find that I am ready to go the limit--if you are." And she assented.
He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek--and was delighted to
discover that the alluring embrace made no impression upon the ice of
her "purity and ladylike dignity." Up to the very last moment of the
formal courtship he held himself ready to withdraw should she reveal to
his watchfulness the slightest sign of having any "unladylike"
tendencies or feelings. She revealed no such sign, but remained
"ladylike"; and certainly, so the general reasoned, a woman who could
thus resist him, even in the license of the formal engagement, would
resist anybody.
As soon as the engagement was formally concluded, the general hurried
on the preparations for the wedding. He opened accounts at half a dozen
shops in New York--dressmakers, milliners, dealers in fine and
fashionable clothing of every kind--and gave them orders to execute
whatever commands Miss Gower or her mother--for HER--might give them.
When he told her of this munificence and magnificence and paused for
the outburst of gratitude, he listened in vain. Mildred colored to the
roots of her hair and was silent, was seeking the courage to refuse.
"I know that you and your people can't afford to do the thing as things
related to me must be done," he went on to say. "So I decided to just
start in a little early at what I've got to do anyhow. Not that I
blame you for your not having money, my dear. On the contrary, that's
one of your merits with me. I wouldn't marry a woman with money. It
puts the family life on a wrong basis."
"I had planned a quiet wedding," said Mildred. "I'd much prefer it."
"Now you can be frank with me, my dear," said the general. "I know you
ladies--how cheated you feel if you aren't married with all the frills
and fixings. So that's the way it shall be done."
"Really," protested Mildred, "I'm absolutely frank. I wish it to be
quite quiet--in our drawing-room, with no guests."
Siddall smiled, genial and tolerant. "Don't argue with me, my dear. I
know what you want, and I'll see that you get it. Go ahead with these
shop-people I've put at your disposal--and go as far as you like. There
isn't anything--ANYTHING--in the way of clothes that you can't
have--that you mustn't have. Mrs. General Siddall is going to be the
best-dressed woman in the world--as she is the prettiest. I haven't
opened an account for you with Tiffany's or any of those people. I'll
look out for that part of the business, myself."
"I don't care for jewelry," said Mildred.
"Naturally not for the kind that's been within your means heretofore,"
replied he; "but you'll open your eyes when you see MY jewelry for MY
wife. All in good time, my dear. You and your mother must start right
in with the shopping; and, a week or so before the wedding, I'll send
my people down to transform the house. I may be wrong, but I rather
think that the Siddall wedding will cause some talk."
He was not wrong. Through his confidential secretary, Harding the
thorough, the newspaper press was induced to take an interest in the
incredible extravagance Siddall was perpetrating in arranging for a
fitting wedding for General William Siddall. For many days before the
ceremony there were daily columns about him and his romantic career and
his romantic wooing of the New Jersey girl of excellent family and
social position but of comparatively modest means. The shopkeepers gave
interviews on the trousseau. The decorators and caterers detailed the
splendors and the costliness of the preparations of which they had
charge. From morning until dark a crowd hung round the house at Hanging
Rock, and on the wedding day the streets leading to it were
blocked--chiefly with people come from a distance, many of them from
New York.
At the outset all this noise was deeply distasteful to Mildred, but
after a few days she recovered her normal point of view, forgot the
kind of man she was marrying in the excitement and exultation over her
sudden splendor and fame. So strongly did the delusion presently
become, that she was looking at the little general with anything but
unfavorable eyes. He seemed to her a quaint, fascinating, benevolent
necromancer, having miraculous powers which he was exercising in her
behalf. She even reproached herself with ingratitude in not being
wildly in love with him. Would not any other girl, in her place, have
fallen over ears in love with this marvelous man?
However, while she could not quite convince herself that she loved, she
became convinced without effort that she was happy, that she was going
to be still happier. The excitement wrought her into a state of
exaltation and swept her through the wedding ceremony and the going
away as radiant a bride as a man would care to have.
There is much to be said against the noisy, showy wedding. Certainly
love has rarely been known to degrade himself to the point of attending
any such. But there is something to be said for that sort of married
start--for instance, where love is neither invited nor desired, an
effort must be made to cover the painful vacancy his absence always
causes.
The little general's insistence on a "real wedding" was most happy for
him. It probably got him his bride.