MARRIED FOR LOVE.
Mrs. Streightley met Gordon Frere frequently during the remainder of
the month of June. She met him at balls and dinner-parties, at fêtes
and promenades, and riding in the Park. She was distantly civil on
these occasions; and he carefully, but reluctantly, modelled his
demeanour on hers. "She is so awfully stiff and standoffish," he would
say to himself, when Katharine had bowed to him coldly or spoken in a
tone of icy indifference; "it seems almost as if she couldn't forgive
herself. I'm sure I forgive her; more than that,--by Jove! I'm very
much obliged to her. We should both have been up a tree by this time
if we had been married, Treasury appointment notwithstanding. What a
beauty she is, though! and Streightley's not half a bad fellow either,
though we used to make such fun of him. 'The City man' she called him,
like a deceitful minx as she was, and she going to marry him all the
time! However, I must not think of that, or I shall be getting angry
again." And from this soliloquy, and from others like it, in which he
indulged, it would appear that Mr. Gordon Frere's sentiments were not
of the deep and lasting order, and that his friend Yeldham had formed
a tolerably correct estimate of his character. He was of that
constitution, and at that time of life, when a few months seem like an
eternity; and he had come back to London fancy-free, and if a little
wiser, a little more capable of acting from interested motives, not
materially corrupted. He would not, probably, allow himself to fall in
love with any woman for the future whom it would be imprudent to
marry; but neither would he marry any woman, no matter how rich, whom
he could not love.
Katharine's demeanour towards Gordon Frere was an unspeakable relief
to Robert Streightley, whose first impulsive feeling on seeing Frere
was dread of an explanation, which might lead to a discovery. His
brief vision of happiness was dispelled by the sight of the young
man's face, and he shrunk with a painful reluctance from the
interchange of the ordinary civilities of society with one whom he had
so deeply injured. In vain did he try to find relief in the
remembrance of all that Katharine had gained by her marriage with him;
in vain did he watch the happy _insouciance_, the heart-whole gaiety
of Frere, and argue from them the lightness and instability of the
sentiment with which he had regarded Katharine. His conscience was
awake, and not any sophistry could lull it to sleep again.
Mr. Guyon had been among the earliest of Gordon Frere's former
acquaintances to hear of his abandonment of diplomatic life, and his
return to London. He was aware of these circumstances before he
received one of cousin Hetty's confidential little notes, in which she
mentioned, in a tone of alarm and judicious warning, having seen Mr.
Frere at Mrs. Pendarvis's ball. Mr. Guyon had met his young friend a
day before that festivity; had joked with him pleasantly about his
"butterfly" qualities; had congratulated him upon his return to the
centre of civilisation; and had asked him whether he had met the
Streightleys,--all with a pleasant impudence which Gordon Frere was
fairly forced to admire, and found it impossible to resent. Mr. Guyon
was not for a moment visited by the misgivings which had disturbed his
more sensitive son-in-law; but he divined that Robert, for whom he
entertained, in certain respects, a good-natured contempt, would be
uncomfortable about Frere's return; and he resolved to console him, at
the risk of offending his pride by the momentary revival of a subject
never mentioned between them. Accordingly he dropped in to breakfast
at Portland Place two days after the ball and the meeting, and found,
as he expected, his son-in-law alone.
"Katharine not down? Nothing wrong, I hope?" asked the affectionate
parent.
"O no; she is a little tired after the Opera and a couple of parties,
and she is going to Richmond to-day; so she is resting this morning."
"Indeed! very sensible of her. She stayed late at Mrs. Pendarvis's,
didn't she?"
"Yes," replied Robert, shortly and uneasily.
Mr. Guyon looked at him, and their eyes met.
"So Frere was there?" said the indomitable Mr. Guyon, as airily and
pleasantly as if he were mentioning the most agreeable trifle. "Rather
awkward, on the whole; and yet, I don't know--all for the best
perhaps. He will probably marry well, and the sooner the better for
him and for us."
"For us?" asked Robert timidly. And there was a shade of pain, and
something like shame on his face, which would have hurt a sensitive
observer, but which merely annoyed Mr. Guyon, who found it difficult
to repress a sneer, as he replied:
"And us, of course--that is, if we need care about the matter one way
or the other, which I don't see that we need."
"But if Katharine should have any conversation, any confidence with
him?" faltered Robert.
"There is not the faintest possibility of any such danger," said Mr.
Guyon, with equal composure and decision. "I understand Katharine
much better than you do, Robert, and I know that our invulnerable
safety"--the younger man flushed and winced a little at the
words--"consists in her indomitable pride. The one individual of all
her acquaintance who will never exchange a confidential sentence with
Katharine is Mr. Gordon Frere." And then Mr. Guyon promptly dropped
the subject, and talked of money, racing, betting, and other serious
pursuits of life; and after a short time took his leave of Robert,
leaving him reassured, but with a fresh and bitter sense of
humiliation.
The time which had wrought so rapid a change in Gordon Frere, which
had taught him to regard with forgiveness, which almost bordered on
approbation, the fickleness and treachery of the woman against whom he
had delivered the valedictory philippic,--which Charles Yeldham
remembered with wonder and bewilderment,--had worked considerable
alteration in Katharine's mood as well. Her fine nature had been
hardened, her generous temper had been warped; a crust of worldliness
and selfishness had formed over the hot heart, and the trustful
impulses of youth were dead within her; but the maddening anger, the
intolerable mortification, had subsided. A momentary thrill of these
former emotions, mingled with the yearning of the heart towards the
object of a passion, or even a fancy, had passed over her, when, in
the crush and whirl of the ball-room, she had recognised Frere. But
her strength of will and self-command had effectually put it down
before the moment came when she found herself obliged to speak to him.
Something like the tumult of the past renewed itself in her mind when
she found herself alone that night, and at liberty to think of the
occurrences of that evening; but it did not last. Mr. Guyon was right.
Any calculation founded on Katharine's pride could not fail; and that
pride helped her in the very first hour of the resuscitation of the
past. Believing as she did that there never had been any sincerity in
the sentiment which Gordon Frere had affected towards her, she did not
recognise change in the gay and unembarrassed manner which she had
immediately observed; she imputed it to the discarding of the mask,
the abandonment of the comedy; and so thinking, she wondered that she
felt so little anger, so little disdain, so little emotion of any
kind, all things considered. She recalled to memory every circumstance
of that terrible day which had undeceived her; she recollected it,
hour by hour, in its anguish of suspense, in its paroxysms of grief
and anger; she remembered the faint deadly sickness which had come
over her, and the dreadful despairing hours of the night. But she only
remembered these things; she did not feel them again; and Katharine
knew that with the last throbs of anger had passed away the last
lingerings of her love for Gordon Frere. It had been real, very true,
and fervent; and no doubt, had he returned it, as he had taught her to
believe he did, it would have lasted through all the chances and
changes of this mortal life; but it was dead and gone now, and the
sight of him taught her that it was so. Before Katharine's eyes closed
that night, after her long vigil of remembrances and reflections, she
knew that she should, in all the future, meet Gordon Frere without any
painful emotion, beyond a little irrepressible contempt.
She was soon put to the test; for the acquaintance between Frere and
Lady Henmarsh progressed rapidly; and Katharine was not spared the
sight or the mention of him. Lady Henmarsh would not have put herself
out of her way to annoy Katharine, but she was not unwilling to do so
when it happened to come in her way; and she took an early opportunity
of confiding to her her impression that Hester Gould was decidedly
smitten with the good-looking young fellow, who really had no harm in
him, and whose only fault was want of money.
"He is really charming, Kate," Lady Henmarsh observed, with an air of
candidly admitting a former error in judgment. "I was quite too hard
on him in old times--an age ago--and I am ready to admit it. Of course
_that_ would never have done; but every thing is all right now, and I
am sure you are the happiest girl in the world; and as for that dear
Mr. Streightley, he is a perfect prince."
Katharine had to bear this sort of thing, and she bore it well,
wondering sometimes that it did not pain her more keenly. She gave
little heed to Lady Henmarsh's hints about Hester Gould, which she
imputed to a general impulse of spite; and simply contented herself
with smiling rather bitterly as she thought how accurately they would
once have hit their mark. When she met Gordon Frere now, there was no
glamour between her eyes and him. He was not invested with the golden
halo of a girl's fancy. The time which had gone over Katharine's head,
though brief in duration, had been long in meaning, and she was no
longer the slave of her imagination. She saw him as he really was--a
pleasant, kindly, genial, well-bred, well-looking, shallow young man,
with brains enough and heart enough for the exigencies of society, and
admirably fitted to be rich and idle, with distinction and popularity.
She knew now that he was not a man who would ever accomplish any great
or noble purpose in life; not a man on whom a woman's heart could stay
itself in trouble. Somehow she felt that she had outgrown and outlived
Gordon Frere.
While one woman, to whom he had been the incarnation of the fondest
and fairest visions of youth, was thus thinking of Mr. Frere, he
had assumed a position of immense importance in the estimation of
another--a woman widely different from Katharine in every thing. When
Hester Gould met him at Mrs. Pendarvis's ball, she had been attracted
towards him chiefly by curiosity. She remembered him well as the
fair-haired young man whom she had seen at the memorable promenade, and
whom she had immediately discerned to be Katharine Guyon's lover. She
strongly suspected that he and the girl had both been victims of some
foul play, the full details of which her subsequent acquaintance with
the affairs of Mr. Guyon and his son-in-law had not enabled her to
ascertain; but that he, at least, had suffered at Mr. Guyon's
unscrupulous hands she did not doubt. Gordon had heard that the "old
cat," as he had irreverently called Lady Henmarsh on a former
occasion, was "taking a new heiress about with her;" for such was the
simple phrase in which the ingenuous youth of his set described
Hester's relations with her friend; and when, on his paying his
respects to Lady Henmarsh at Mrs. Pendarvis's ball, she had presented
him to Miss Gould, he concluded, as he led his partner to the
dancing-room, that she was the "new heiress" in question. Thus he too
felt some curiosity about the girl, whose tranquil easy manner, keen
dark eyes, elegant and tasteful dress, and conversation utterly free
from the missishness and the vapidity common to young ladies just
"out," made her an interesting person, apart from the very large
fortune which she undoubtedly possessed, and which was multiplied by
rumour with its accustomed liberality. Gordon would have been
considerably astonished, had he known that Miss Gould saw the glance
in which his eyes and Katharine's met, and perfectly understood and
appreciated the position; had he known that she marked the short
dialogue which passed between them on the staircase, and noted the
coldness and distance of its tone with distinct satisfaction. He and
she talked with more animation, and of subjects of more worth and
interest, than those usually discussed at a ball; for even a shallow
man like Gordon Frere was forced to think a little when he found
himself talking to a woman like Hester Gould; and they got on together
very well indeed; but the unconscious accord of their thoughts was
greater and closer still.
Curiosity, interest, and the spontaneous admiration which he was
certain to excite in every woman whom he addressed, had been the first
feelings with which Hester Gould had regarded Gordon Frere on that
evening. Before she entered the carriage to which he escorted her and
Lady Henmarsh, her admiration had increased, her interest had
deepened. The calm, well-governed heart, which held itself aloof from
passion, and had never loved any living being entirely without
calculation and caution, had been surprised, like the weakest, like
the least-guarded. Hester Gould had fallen in love--ay, like the
veriest sentimental school-girl--at first sight, with Gordon Frere.
She did not deny the fact to herself; she did not deceive herself. It
was characteristic of her to be perfectly conscious that she was weak,
but not to disguise from herself the weakness. Hester Gould had never
been visited by even the most transient feeling to which she could
assign the name of love before; and now, when it came, she knew it,
she recognised it, she acknowledged it--not with misgiving, not with
despair, not with self-contempt. When she was alone that night, or
rather in the early summer morning, her ball-dress laid aside, her
maid dismissed, she threw open the window of her dressing-room, and
sat down where the cool morning air came in and fanned her dark but
radiant face. The time wore on, and the sun came out strongly, and the
stir of life began, but still Hester sat, gazing out towards the
stately leafy trees in Kensington Gardens, and thinking. For the first
time in her life she suffered the tide of strong emotion to sweep over
her unchecked; for the first time in her life she felt its fulness.
Secretly but desperately she had rebelled against poverty and
obscurity; secretly, thirstingly, she had longed for wealth. Poverty
and obscurity were things of the past; wealth had come to her, and she
had taken it calmly. No human being could ever have guessed at the
exultation with which Hester Gould had entered upon the possession of
her fortune; no human being could ever have divined the intense secret
pleasure which every day's enjoyment of it gave her. But what was it
all to this? What was it all to the strange new delight, the sweet
subtle hope that stole upon her now? Not until she had thought long,
deeply, delightfully, over every little incident of the evening, did
Hester's mind revert to Katharine Streightley; and then, so potent was
the influence of the spell under which the calm self-possessed woman
had fallen, that there was only an acknowledgment of the strangeness
of the coincidence; there was not a single thrill of vindictive
exultation in the remembrance that they, the rivals, had changed
places; that the man whom Hester told herself she loved, told herself
she hoped to win, was the man whom Katharine had loved and lost. All
such thoughts seemed infinitely beneath her now, quite lost in the
immensity of this new interest in her life; and they could never more
have any power over her. But though passion had suddenly invaded the
well-guarded territory of Hester Gould's heart, romance had no place
in her nature; and she did not for a moment forget or undervalue the
advantages of her wealth. "_If_ he only comes to love me," she said,
"there will be no obstacle. I am rich enough to make it a wise thing
for him to marry me." And with this, the last waking thought in her
mind, Hester Gould slept, with a smile upon her face which had never
before irradiated it.
It was not until they had met several times that Gordon Frere began
to think seriously about Hester Gould. He had been asked to two
dinner-parties at Lady Henmarsh's, and had been especially
distinguished by the gracious attentions of the hostess. On neither
occasion had he met Katharine; but on both Mr. Guyon had been present,
and they had got on capitally. The convenient memory and the _savoir
vivre_ of cousin Ned were displayed to perfection in circumstances of
the kind, and Gordon Frere felt quite at his ease. They talked of the
Streightleys. Mr. Guyon described Middlemeads; hoped that his young
friend would have an opportunity of judging of its beauties for
himself; jocularly counselled his young friend to marry, provided he
could do it _well_, as soon as possible. "Never too soon, my dear
fellow,--never too soon. I was a mere boy myself," said Mr. Guyon,
with a comic sort of confidential sentiment; and discovered that he
was keeping his young friend away from the ladies.
When Mr. Gordon Frere had been seen a few times riding with Miss Gould
in the Row, and had been observed dancing with her an abnormal number
of dances, his friends began to make remarks of the kind elegantly
called "chaff" on the occurrences. It is not to be supposed, because
they have not appeared in these pages, that there were not many
aspirants to the hand and fortune of the shipowner's heiress. Their
name, indeed, was legion; but they had all fared equally ill, and not
one of the number had any reason to feel himself personally aggrieved
by the evident progress of Frere in Miss Gould's good graces. So the
chorus was rather congratulatory, the aspirants were good-natured in
the main; and though each would have been delighted to secure Miss
Gould's fortune for himself, they all agreed that Frere was a good
fellow, though an idle dog, who would never make any hand of himself,
and it would be a doosid good thing for him. As for Hester, though she
made no unfeminine or unladylike advances, she was far too sensible to
risk her happiness on punctilio. "I am not the first woman he will
have loved, if he ever comes to love me," she thought; "but he is the
only man I ever have loved, I ever can love, and that makes all the
difference." So she treated him from the first with undisguised though
unostentatious preference; and, fully acknowledging to herself that
her heart's desire and prayer was to become his wife, never endangered
her chance by the slightest coquetry or insincerity.
The light and facile nature of Gordon Frere was exactly calculated to
insure the success of such a policy, which, however, was rather the
instinct of Hester Gould's good sense. He liked her, he thought her
handsome and clever. "Not a star of beauty, not a queen of grace and
loveliness, like her, you know," said Mr. Frere to a friend of his
with whom, in times which seemed very long past now, he had been wont
to take counsel, and who listened to him with a gravely-amused
expression of countenance and much internal satisfaction--"nothing of
that kind, but a real nice girl. As sensible as a judge, sir!--a long
way more so than some of them, I believe--and really fond of me. Don't
think me a coxcomb, Charley, or an ass, as I was before. This is quite
another case; and, by Jove, I am as sure as that I am sitting here in
this everlasting old glory-hole, where I don't believe the very dust
ever changes or blows away, that if I asked Miss Gould to-morrow to
marry me, she would say yes."
"Very good, Gordon," returned his friend. "Then, if you want her to
marry you, and you are positively sure you would marry her if she
hadn't sixpence--which is the extreme proposition you have stated here
three times over, and which is one of those things of which no man can
be more than comparatively sure--ask her to-morrow, or on the first
opportunity, and come and tell me the result. And now I must turn you
out. I have an appointment with Claypole in five minutes, and some
papers to look over before he comes."
Mr. Frere went gaily away, and Charles Yeldham did not turn
immediately to the papers which lay upon his desk. He walked up and
down the room, his hands deep in his pockets, and his head bent. At
length he sat down with an impatient sigh and a muttered sentence:
"To think that fourteen months ago he considered himself madly in love
with Katharine Guyon! What a blessing it must be to a man to be
endowed with the nature of a butterfly!"
Gordon Frere's modest statement of his hopes and expectations was
justified by the result; and the flagging spirits of society at the
end of the season were raised by learning that a marriage was
"arranged" between Miss Gould, who was of course beautiful and
accomplished for the occasion, and Mr. Gordon-Frere, whose ancestral
glories and diplomatic connections were also duly paraded.
Katharine had left town some little time before this announcement had
supplied a fresh topic for discussion to the few scores of people who
knew or felt any curiosity about the respective parties. Her premature
abandonment of the delights of London arose from the condition of her
husband's health. Robert had been constantly looking, and occasionally
complaining of feeling, ill, for several weeks; and at length had
acknowledged to his sister that he exceedingly desired the rest and
tranquillity of the country.
"I don't think he is so much ill as worried," Ellen had said
to her sister-in-law. And the simple girl was right. Robert was
worried--worried about money-matters, worried about Mr. Guyon's
affairs, and his insatiable, irrepressible scheming. But, worse than
all, he was worried by self-reproach.
It was no sacrifice to Katharine to leave town; but if it had been
one, she would not have hesitated to make it. It was therefore at
Middlemeads, in the tranquil enjoyment of her beautiful home, invested
with all the first golden glory of the autumn, that Katharine learned
the news, the great news, which lent eloquence to Ellen Streightley's
pen, and caused her to "gush" on paper as she was wont to do in
speech. It was not, however, to her ingenuous sister-in-law that
Katharine owed her knowledge of the brilliancy of the marriage, the
number and importance of the guests, the details of the bride's dress,
the high spirits of the bridegroom, the _itinéraire_ of the bridal
tour, and the winter plans of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Frere. When the
event had taken place, and Lady Henmarsh's occupation as a chaperone
was for the second time gone; when she had inspected and sufficiently
admired the costly set of rubies which she had received as a parting
gift from the heiress, and had declared that she detested weddings,
and was tired to death, she could think of no more agreeable way of
passing an idle evening than in writing to Mrs. Streightley. Her
letter was very smart, clever, and skilful, as all her letters were;
and if it did not wound Katharine's feelings so much as the writer
intended, its failure was to be imputed to a change in her mind and
feelings, of which Lady Henmarsh was entirely ignorant.
The engagement had not been a long one; neither party had had any
motive for delay; but it was by quite an accidental coincidence that
Gordon Frere and Hester Gould were married on the anniversary of
Katharine Guyon's wedding-day.