MARRIED TO MONEY.
The time, so often deferred, at which Mr. Guyon was to pay his first
visit to his daughter in her country-house had at length arrived; and
the old gentleman made his appearance at Middlemeads with all the
advantages of a very juvenile toilet and a new stock of those adjuncts
to his personal beauty which he was in the habit of carrying about
with him. It was not without reluctance that Mr. Guyon bade adieu to
London, which he was accustomed to speak of as "the little village,"
and its delights; but he felt it absolutely necessary to make himself
personally acquainted with that country-house which he had so often
depicted to his boon companions in the most glowing terms, and with
those country families whom, to the same confidants, he had
represented as revelling in the elegant and unostentatious hospitality
of the British merchant. He had been a little chaffed by these
friends about the calm manner in which his daughter had borne his
long-continued separation from her. Some of them compared him to King
Lear, some to Captain Costigan; and Mr. Guyon, who knew very little
about either of the historical personages between whom and himself a
comparison was instituted, thought it was "dam' low," and that the
sooner all chance of a repetition of such joking was put a stop to the
better.
So the old gentleman came down to Middlemeads, and took up his
quarters in one of the best spare-rooms, and strove to make himself
agreeable to other people and to enjoy himself simultaneously. This
was not very difficult, for he had a grand capacity for living; and
his small-talk and geniality, and stories of grand people, made quite
an impression amongst the neighbouring families, who thought Mrs.
Streightley rather conceited, and Mr. Streightley very dull. Mr. Guyon
in a very short time had made himself thoroughly at home, and had
taken upon himself--not without Katharine's tacit consent; indeed the
whole affair rather amused her than otherwise--the direction of
affairs at Middlemeads, and the regulation of the manner in which the
day should be spent. He it was who organised the tableaux to which the
whole county was invited, which were such a grand success, and which
were commemorated in the _Morning Post_. He it was who arranged for
the first meet of the season of the stag-hounds on the Middlemeads
lawn, and for the hunt-breakfast at his son-in-law's expense. Robert
Streightley was unfortunately compelled to be away in London on
business on that interesting occasion; but in his absence Mr. Guyon
took the chair, in which he comported himself with the greatest
dignity and hospitality; and when the deer was uncarted, waved his hat
to the ladies, and rode away after it on one of his son-in-law's
horses, to his own intense satisfaction.
Robert Streightley was very frequently compelled to be away in London
on business just at that time; and when he was at home, he seemed to
have left his mind behind him among the ledgers and the invoices and
the share-lists, and to have left his spirits--God knows where! He was
thoroughly preoccupied and gloomy, never speaking except when spoken
to, and then replying with an obvious effort at the collection of his
wandering thoughts. Mr. Guyon noticed this immediately after his
arrival, and tried to rally his son-in-law, commencing with much
pleasant badinage about the accumulation of wealth by the sale of
oneself to the Evil One; an oft-used joke, which he had never known to
miss fire hitherto, but which on this occasion was received with
perfect silence. Over the quiet dinner, which, as it once or twice
happened, Mr. Guyon ate with Katharine and her husband, or in the
midst of a large party, it was all the same,--Robert never entered
into any thing that was going on, but always remained in the same
gloomy, silent, preoccupied state.
Mr. Guyon could never, even in his most amiable moods, have been
called a patient man, long-suffering was not one of his virtues; and
under his son-in-law's long face and absent manner he suffered
acutely. His little _mots_ passed unsmiled at, his anecdotes of the
aristocracy evidently had not been listened to; he felt that he was
throwing the pearls of his West-end refinement before City swine; and
he was highly indignant. But not with Streightley--or at least he
dared not openly declare his indignation to his son-in-law--it was on
Katharine that he turned the heavy-guns of his wrath, and rebuked his
daughter with an acrimony which might have had serious effect on a
less self-possessed young lady.
"I come here," said Mr. Guyon one morning in the library, where he had
gone to write a letter, and where he found Katharine similarly
employed,--"I come here to your house, and I find your husband an
altered man. He has lost that cheerfulness, that energy, that buoyancy
which distinguished him, and, in fact, he's become a doosid unpleasant
dreary bird. How's this? Cheerful before marriage, and miserable
after; looks as if marriage was the cause, doesn't it, Kate? And to
think that my daughter has not--not striven to--to what d'ye
call--bless the lot of the man who--doubles his joys and halves his
sorrows, and all that kind of thing? Am I to think that you--but no,
that could not be! I must remember----"
"You must remember, papa, if you please," said Kate, looking him full
in the face, and speaking in a low stern voice,--"you must remember
the manner in which and the conditions under which I married my
husband! And, remembering them, you must be good enough never to
dare--it is a strong word to use to one's father, but I repeat
it--never to dare to address me in this way again. I know my duty to
my husband, and--according to my lights, and under the peculiar
circumstances of our union--I do it!"
It was not to be supposed that Katharine, however devoid of that
instinctive perception of love which will make the dullest of women
quick to see when trouble is hanging over one dear to her, was either
blind or indifferent to the depression of Robert's spirits and the
change in his appearance. Towards her, individually, he was always the
same,--studious and eager to forward her wishes, and bounding his to
making her happy; but he was preoccupied and gloomy. He was beginning
to look old, too; the vigorous upright look which had been the first
thing in his appearance to strike an observer, was less conspicuous
than it had been, and his step was slower and heavier. His wife was
not blind to the alteration, and she put it all down to the account of
"business." In this general conclusion she was quite right; but
Katharine had not the remotest glimmering of a suspicion that
misfortune and loss were constituents of this "business." She believed
her husband to be a very rich man, whose ambition it was to become
very much richer, and whose life was devoted to the realisation of
that ambition. She had never ceased to regard him as the "City man" of
their first acquaintance; and though her ideas respecting the
transactions carried on by City men had undergone considerable
alteration since that time, she was as far as ever from a real
comprehension of the risks and the anxieties which her husband's life
included. The making of money in larger or smaller sums Katharine
understood to be his calling; and so far as the variation was between
larger and smaller, she comprehended anxiety being involved; but as to
serious loss, as to ruin, she had not the faintest notion of such a
possibility. Of Mr. Guyon's transactions with her husband Mrs.
Streightley was also profoundly ignorant. Robert had taken care she
should be so, for his sake as well as for her own. He knew Katharine's
delicacy of feeling and her pride perfectly, and he also appreciated
her acuteness and keenness as they deserved. From hurt and indignant
mortification at discovering that her father had taken such means to
"_exploiter_" her marriage, to questioning why a clever and shrewd man
of business, such as Katharine well knew Robert to be, should admit
such unscrupulous demands on her father's part, would be an easy and
natural transition; and Robert shrunk with terror from the idea that
any such clue should ever find its way to his wife's hands. No symptom
of such danger had shown itself; the feelings with which Katharine
regarded her father had ceased to be of a kind to prompt her to much
personal interest in his affairs, and by nature she was not
inquisitive. That Mr. Guyon's pursuits were frivolous in the extreme;
that he presented that most contemptible of spectacles--an old man
aping the dissolute manners of an objectionable order of youth,
Katharine was becoming more and more painfully aware; but she looked
no deeper into his life than the surface, from which she turned away
with a feeling which, had she investigated it, she must have
acknowledged to be contempt.
The nobility of Katharine's nature asserted itself in the manner in
which she regarded the marriage of Gordon Frere and Hester Gould. That
the intelligence should not cost her a pang of exceeding keenness was
impossible; but she did battle with herself against the temptations to
bitterness and enmity against Hester which beset her, and she came
nobly out of the strife. Little did she dream how closely her
demeanour was scrutinised; little did she imagine that the bright dark
eyes of the obsequious Mr. Daniel Thacker, perhaps the humblest of
Mrs. Streightley's servants and the most respectful of her admirers,
were steadily directed to her face for many days during his stay at
Middlemeads, with the purpose of reading what might appear on that
fair dial indicative of storm and turmoil in her heart. She had no
suspicion that she was watched; but, as she also had nothing whatever
to hide, there was no danger in her unconsciousness. The brief sharp
pain she endured had come and passed when she was alone. She
remembered how she had envied Hester Gould her wealth, only because it
left her free to marry as she liked: she remembered her own bitter
saying, "she may buy instead of being bought," and she thought it had
been strangely realised. But she would not be unjust either to Hester
Gould or to her own false lover. She would acknowledge that Hester had
many attractions other than her wealth; she would acknowledge her fair
share of beauty, her talents, her good manners, the numerous charms
which might easily secure a genuine attachment. She was ready to
believe that Gordon Frere might really love Hester; and the more
ready, as she had reason to know the shallowness and fickleness of his
nature. "I daresay he cares for her as much as he cared for me,"
Katharine thought; "and in this case he can afford to indulge his
fancy,--in mine he could not. She is fortunate that he can love her
and marry her, otherwise she too would find that he would love her and
leave her, as he left me, to the ridicule of her friends, and a broken
heart, were she fool enough to break her heart for him. And he--he has
only done exactly what I did, even supposing he does not love her. He
has only married for money. With this difference, to be sure,--that I
would have shared poverty with him, and he would not face it for me:
with this other difference too, that I was in earnest, and he was only
amusing himself. Our positions are pretty much the same in the end; we
are both rich, we are parted from each other, and satisfied to be so,
and another has the first claim on each. I have no right to despise
him for the marriage he has made, nor dares he to despise _me_."
So Katharine wrote to Ellen Streightley, and expressed interest in the
marriage, and hope of its happiness, which were perfectly sincere, and
were most welcome to the recipient of her letter. She treated the
subject with polite indifference in her reply to Lady Henmarsh. She
understood cousin Hetty tolerably well, and disdained the spitefulness
which she perceived too thoroughly to stoop to retaliation. It was a
fortunate circumstance for Robert that his sister had remained with
her mother at the Brixton villa after Miss Gould's marriage, and thus
no occasion arose for the lengthened and frequent discussion of the
event. Had Ellen been at Middlemeads, she would have talked about the
wedding to an embarrassing extent. As it was, his reluctance to
mention Gordon Frere's name--a reluctance which Katharine did not
suspect--was seconded by her own, which Robert's state of mind
prevented him from surmising; and after a mere formal comment, whose
insufficiency, considering the intimacy subsisting between the
Streightleys and Miss Gould, did not fail to strike Mr. Thacker, the
subject was dropped. He tried to talk about the wedding, at which he
had been present, and at which his sisters had officiated as
bridesmaids; but he had not courage to persevere in the face of
Robert's silence and the well-bred coldness of Katharine's manner,
which plainly implied that the matter was one wholly devoid of
interest to her; but, of course, if Mr. Thacker chose to pursue that
topic of conversation, she was bound to listen and to reply.
Life at Middlemeads proceeded much as usual, except that the
amusements of autumn were substituted for those of spring. There was
no other change in the aspect of affairs at the stately and luxurious
country-house, over which Katharine presided with grace and dignity
which seemed to grow more and more remarkable. Her beauty was at its
zenith now; and no doubt the subsidence of all angry and impetuous
feeling, the "settling down" which had taken place within the past
year, had told upon her physically as well as morally. She had not,
indeed, acted upon Mrs. Stanbourne's advice in its spirit. She had not
faced the fact that the greatest of all her obligations towards her
husband was the obligation to love him. She had not tried to realise
that; and in so far the change in her was maimed and incomplete. But
she had kept the letter of her promise to her friend, and ruled her
life with more consideration for her husband than in the earlier days
of their marriage. Had there been no obstacle, as unfortunately there
was, in the secret bound in Robert's conscience, to a perfect
understanding between the husband and wife, it might have come about
at this period, when Gordon Frere's marriage had completed the
severance of the past from Katharine's present life.
Mrs. Stanbourne was at Middlemeads shortly after the marriage of
Gordon and Hester, and had been even more anxious than before to find
Katharine on good terms with Robert. She was about to leave England
for an indefinite time; and she would fain have gone away leaving her
young kinswoman more intent on happiness, and less intent on pleasure,
than she had found her on her first visit to Middlemeads. Observation
had but increased her respect and regard for Robert Streightley; and
she now noticed his depressed and careworn manner with sincere regret.
She was at a loss to what origin to ascribe it; for things were far
better, in a domestic point of view, than they had been in the spring.
Had Mrs. Stanbourne met Mr. Guyon at Middlemeads, she might have
discerned at least a portion of the truth, bringing, as she would have
done, clearer notions of "business" than those of Katharine to aid her
observations; but that gentleman avoided her with a persistent
caution, for which, while far from divining its motives, she was
unfeignedly grateful. Mrs. Stanbourne could not have thoroughly
understood Mr. Guyon, had she had ever so favourable an opportunity of
detecting him; but she despised him intuitively, and had often taken
herself to task for the unreasoning dislike with which he inspired
her.
"My dear Kate, what quantities of money you spend on furniture!" said
Mrs. Stanbourne to Katharine, a day or two before she left
Middlemeads. She had entered the morning-room, and found Mrs.
Streightley looking over an upholsterer's pattern-book; while a "young
man" stood by, awaiting her decision and her orders. She had given
them, and the young man had taken his departure, charged by Katharine
to have certain articles ready for her inspection by a certain day of
the ensuing week.
"Do I?" asked Katharine absently. "Well, perhaps I do; but I did not
choose the things here myself, you know; and then, I like change."
"May I ask what you are changing now, Kate?"
"O dear, yes, of course. It's my dressing-room furniture. I hate that
walnut-wood, it looks so brittle; and I was quite delighted with Lady
Kilmantan's rooms; so I am going to have just the same. They will be
charming, with a conservatory and an aviary thrown out on the western
side--just the aspect, you know."
"But your present conservatory is a splendid one, Kate, to say nothing
of your acre of glass at the gardens."
"But I don't care for that great show thing; I want one of my own,
that no one can go into except I specially invite them, and where I
can choose the flowers myself, and put common flowers in if I please,
and not be dictated to by the gardeners. See, here are the plans;
charming, are they not? Here's to be a delicious little fountain, and
the floor is to be white marble."
"Very pretty, Kate; but also very expensive. Don't think me intrusive,
dear, or impertinent, if I say again I think you spend a very great
deal of money. Mr. Streightley is very rich, I believe; do you know
how rich?"
"N-not exactly," said Kate hesitatingly. "I know nothing about his
income, except that he tells me to do just as I like. People talk of
him to me as a 'City magnate,' and as if there were no end to his
money."
"Have you any idea how much you spend yourself, Kate, in a year?"
"No, I have not. Every thing of this kind"--and she waved her hand, to
indicate the room in which they were sitting, with its luxurious
appointments--"Mr. Streightley arranges for. I have nothing to do with
money except for my private expenses, dress, and that; and I have not
had any bills yet."
"I fancy they will surprise you when they arrive, Kate. But if Mr.
Streightley has said nothing, I am perhaps taking fright
unnecessarily." And then Mrs. Stanbourne rather abruptly turned the
conversation to her approaching departure from England. She was to
winter at Rome with her daughter and her son-in-law; and she and
Katharine indulged in talking about a proposed plan for the
Streightleys joining the party there. It did very well to talk about,
if nothing more came of it; and the vague prospect softened the pain
with which Katharine bade her friend adieu a few days later.
The alterations at Middlemeads went on briskly, and, like all
alterations, exhibited a tendency to extend their scope and increase
their variety. The dull wintry weather had come now, and the comfort
of the luxurious house was somewhat interfered with by the presence of
workmen and the disarrangement of some of the rooms. Under a momentary
impression created by what Mrs. Stanbourne had said, Katharine had
spoken to her husband about the cost of her intended improvements,
which had now extended far beyond the narrow sphere of her own
apartments. It was the first time the subject of money had been mooted
between them; and Katharine's manner was slightly constrained, her
pride slightly touched. She shrank from the least possibility of a
rebuke, from the shade of an imputation that she had interpreted the
_carte-blanche_ which her husband had given her too liberally. A
different and more painful kind of embarrassment possessed Robert; and
his over-eagerness to hide it from his wife, his stern resolution to
carry out to the letter the tacit contract between them, induced him
to reassure her with so much vehemence, that Katharine never gave the
subject another thought, but plunged into her plans with fresh vigour
and heedless extravagance.
Mrs. Streightley found the distance from London inconvenient, when
each day required her to pronounce a judgment upon some new pattern in
furniture or hangings, or to decide for or against some piece of
_virtù_ or ornament of a rare and costly description. The season was
dull down in Buckinghamshire; and though London was in a certain
sense, the fashionable one, dull also, it would at least offer that
dear delight to all who lead such lives as hers--a change. So she
assented very gladly to a proposition which Robert made to her at the
beginning of November, that they should remove to the house in
Portland Place for a month. The reason he assigned for this
arrangement, on his own part, was the plea of "business," which
Katharine never inquired into; and in a few days, with the ease and
celerity with which rich people make even the most out-of-the-way
arrangements, Katharine found herself settled in her town-house, if
not with all the luxury and completeness of "the season," in very
perfect comfort. She had not thought it necessary to apprise Mr. Guyon
of her intention of coming up to town; nor did she let him know
immediately that she had done so. On the second afternoon after her
arrival in London she called at his house, but without any expectation
of finding him at home. She was, however, shown into the dingy
dining-room--more dingy than ever; and there her father joined her
after a few minutes. He expressed all the fit and appropriate
sentiments on beholding her, with his usual fluency; but he did not
express surprise quite successfully. This did not strike Katharine at
the time; but as she drove back to Portland Place, having invited her
father to dinner on the following day, she thought of it, and felt
sure that he had not been surprised,--in fact, that he knew she was in
town.
"How very odd!" she thought; "has Robert been to see him? And if he
has, why should papa not have mentioned it, and said at once he had
been expecting to see me?"
"I called on papa this afternoon," she said to her husband that day at
dinner, at which meal she could not help observing Robert's unusual
gloom and thoughtfulness. "He is coming to dine with us to-morrow.
Have you seen him yet?"
"Yes," said Robert; "he came to the office yesterday."
Some feeling like anger, but which she could not precisely define,
caused Katharine to turn red and hot for a moment. Her husband said no
more, and seemed lost in thought. Had their mistress chanced to look
towards them, she would have seen a very expressive glance exchanged
between the servants in attendance. The "situation" was not quite a
mystery for the servants' hall, and the opinion there for some time
had been that "the old 'un was a-comin' of it a deal too strong, and
he'd find Streightley wouldn't stand it much longer."
Katharine felt uncomfortable, she did not know why; and she
watched her father on the following day with a degree of attention she
had seldom bestowed upon him of late. His manner was as jaunty, his
conversation was as fluent, his juvenility was as marked, as
well-preserved, as ever. He was delightfully facetious; and when he
told Katharine that he had all sorts of messages in charge for her
from Cousin Hetty, and that--gad! he had nearly forgotten the chief
news of all--sentence of death against Sir Timothy; couldn't live a
month, the doctors said; and as they had the power of proving the
soundness of their own judgment, of course he wouldn't live a
month,--he made the little joke quite fascinating. Still there was
something about him, and about Robert, who was a poor dissembler,
which Katharine did not like, did not understand, and which made her
uncomfortable. There was a fourth person present; a circumstance which
each felt to be a relief. This was Ellen Streightley. Katharine had
gone that afternoon to the Brixton villa, and had paid Robert's mother
a visit, during which she had been as charming and agreeable as she
could be when she chose. She had brought Ellen home with her; and an
instinct now made her doubly glad she had done so. Robert had thanked
her warmly and gratefully for her prompt attention to his mother and
to Ellen, and had looked as happy as ever for a little. Somehow
Katharine liked his thanks, liked his kind words; and when she
wondered what was amiss, found herself hoping it was nothing involving
any distress of mind to Robert.
Mr. Guyon went away early, having told his daughter he should come to
breakfast on the morrow. "But I daresay I shall not see you, my dear,"
he added; "for Robert and I have business to talk over, and we mean to
shut you out,--don't we, Robert?" And the affectionate father-in-law
nodded in his most airy and jovial way to Mr. Streightley. But Robert
only bowed. He was immovably grave, and Katharine almost made up her
mind that she would ask him what was the cause of his restraint and
gloom. She never did ask the question, however; for the following day
found her full of all the delightful occupations which she had planned
for herself in town--found her bent on enjoying all that London had to
offer during its partial eclipse, and also found her father and Robert
apparently on as good terms as ever. Robert had noticed his wife's
transient uneasiness, and, determined to adhere to his fatal
resolution of concealment, he had applied himself to the task of
hiding the truth, this time with success.