The dinner was quite a cheerful meal at Wradisbury that night. The
master of the house was exactly as he always was. Punctilious in every
kindness and politeness, perfect in his behavior. To see him take his
mother in as he always did, as if she were the queen, and place her in
her own chair, where she had presided at the head of that table for over
forty years, was in itself a sight. He was the king regnant escorting a
queen dowager--a queen mother, not exactly there by personal right, but
by conscious delegation, yet supreme naturalness and reverence, from
him. He liked to put her in her place. Except on occasions when there
were guests he had always done it since the day of his father’s death,
with a sort of ceremony as showing how he gave her all honor though
this supreme position was no longer her absolute due. He led her in with
special tenderness to-night. It perhaps might not last long, this reign
of hers. Another and a brighter figure was already chosen for that
place, but as long as the mother was in it, the honor shown to her
should be special, above even ordinary respect. I think Ralph was a
little fretted by this show of reverence. Perhaps, with that subtle
understanding of each other which people have in a family, even when
they reach the extreme of personal difference or almost alienation, he
knew what was in his brother’s mind, and resented the consciousness of
conferring honor which moved Reginald. In Ralph’s house (or so he
thought) the mother would rule without any show of derived power. It
would be her own, not a grace conferred; but though he chafed he was
silent, for it was very certain that there was not an exception to be
taken, not a word to say. It is possible that Mrs. Wradisley was aware
of it too, but she liked it, liked her son’s magnanimous giving up to
her of all the privileges which had for so long been hers. Many men
would not have done that. They would have liked their houses to
themselves; but Reginald had always been a model son. She was not in any
way an exacting woman, and when she turned to her second son, come back
in peace after so many wanderings, her heart overflowed with content.
She was the only one in the party who was not aware that the master of
the house had left his library in the darkening. The servants about the
table all knew, and had formed a wonderfully close guess as to what was
“up,” as they said, and Lucy knew with a great commotion and trouble of
her thoughts, wondering, not knowing if she were sorry or glad, looking
very wistfully at her brother to see if he had been fortunate or
otherwise. Was it possible that Nelly Nugent might be her sister, and
sit in her mother’s place? Oh, it would be delightful, it would be
dreadful! For how would mamma take it to be dethroned? And then if Nelly
would not, poor Reginald! Lucy watched him covertly, and could scarcely
contain herself. Ralph and Mr. Bertram, I fear, did not think of Mrs.
Nugent, but of something less creditable to Mr. Wradisley. The mother
was the only one to whom any breach in his usual habits remained
unknown.
“You really mean to have this garden party to-morrow, mother?” he said.
“Oh, yes, my dear, it is all arranged--the last, the very last of the
season. Not so much a garden party as a sort of farewell to summer
before your shooting parties arrive. We are so late this year. The
harvest has been so late,” Mrs. Wradisley said, turning toward Bertram.
“St. Swithin, you know, was in full force this year, and some of the
corn was still out when the month began. But the weather lately has been
so fine. There was a little rain this morning, but still the weather has
been quite remarkable. I am glad you came in time for our little
gathering, for Raaf will see a number of old friends, and you, I hope,
some of the nicest people about.”
“I suspect I must have seen the nicest people already,” said Bertram,
with a laugh and a bow.
“Oh, that is a very kind thing to say, Mr. Bertram, and, indeed, I am
very glad that Raaf’s friend should like his people. But no, you will
see some very superior people to-morrow. Lord Dulham was once a Cabinet
Minister, and Colonel Knox has seen an immense deal of service in
different parts of the world; not to speak of Mr. Sergeant--Geoffrey
Sergeant, you know, who is so well known in the literary world--but I
don’t know whether you care for people who write,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
“He writes himself,” said Ralph, out of his beard. “Letters half a mile
long, and leaders, and all sorts of things. If we don’t look out he’ll
have us all in.”
The other members of the party looked at Bertram with alarm. Mr.
Wradisley with a certain half resentment, half disgust.
“Indeed,” he said; “I thought I had been so fortunate as to discover for
myself a most intelligent critic--but evidently I ought to have known.”
“Don’t say that,” said Bertram, “indeed I’m not here on false pretenses.
I’m not a literary man afloat on the world, or making notes. Only a
humble newspaper correspondent, Mrs. Wradisley, and only that when it
happens to suit me, as your son knows.”
“Oh, I am sure we are very highly honored,” said the lady, disturbed,
“only Raaf, you should have told me, or I might have said something
disagreeable about literary people, and that would have been so very--I
assure you we are all quite proud of Mr. Sergeant, and still more, Mr.
Bertram, to have some one to meet him whom he will--whom he is sure
to--”
“You might have said he was a queer fish. I think he is,” said Bertram,
“but don’t suppose he knows me, or any of my sort. Raaf is only playing
you a trick. I wrote something about Africa, that’s all. When one is
knocking about the world for years without endless money to spend,
anything to put a penny in one’s purse is good. But I can’t write a
bit--except a report about Africa,” he added, hurriedly.
“Oh, about Africa,” Mrs. Wradisley said, with an expression of greater
ease, and there was a little relief in the mind of the family generally.
Bertram seized the opportunity to plunge into talk about Africa and the
big game, drawing Ralph subtly into the conversation. It was not easy to
get Ralph set a-going, but when he was so, there was found to be much in
him wanting expression, and the stranger escaped under shelter of
adventures naturally more interesting to the family than any he had to
tell. He laughed a little to himself over it as the talk flowed on, and
left him with not much pride in the literary profession, which he had in
fact only played with, but which had inspired him at moments with a
little content in what he did too. These good folk, who were intelligent
enough, would have been a little afraid of him, not merely gratified by
his acquaintance, had he been really a writer of books. They were much
more at their ease to think him only a sportsman like Ralph, and a
gentleman at large. When they went into the drawing-room afterwards,
the conversation came back to the party of to-morrow, and to the pretty
widow in the cottage, of whom Mrs. Wradisley began to talk, saying they
would leave the flowers till Mrs. Nugent came, who was so great in
decoration.
“I thought,” said Ralph, “this widow of yours--was not to be here.”
Mr. Wradisley interposed at this point from where he stood, with his
back to the fire. “Ah,” he said, “oh,” with a clearing of his throat, “I
happened to see Mrs. Nugent in the village to-day, and I certainly
understood from her that she would be here.”
“You saw her--after I did, Reginald?” said Lucy, in spite of herself.
“Now, how can you say anything so absurd, Lucy--when you saw her just
before dinner, and Reginald could only have seen her in the morning, for
he never goes out late,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
Bertram felt that he was a conspirator. He gave a furtive glance at the
others who knew different. He could see that Lucy grew scarlet, but not
a word was said.
“You are mistaken, mother,” said Mr. Wradisley, with his calm voice, “I
sometimes do take a little _giro_ in the evening.”
“Oh, a _giro_;” said his mother, as if that altered the matter;
“however,” she added, “there never was any question about the party;
that she fully knew we expected her for; but I wanted her to come for
lunch that she might make Ralph’s acquaintance before the crowd came;
but it doesn’t matter, for no doubt they’ll meet often enough. Only when
you men begin to shoot you’re lost to all ordinary occupations; and so
tired when you come in that you have not a word to throw at--a lady
certainly, if you still may have at a dog.”
“I am not so bent on meeting this widow, mother, as you seem to think,”
said Ralph.
“You need not always call her a widow. That’s her misfortune; it’s not
her character,” said Lucy, unconsciously epigrammatic.
“Oh, well, whatever you please--this beautiful lady--is that better?
The other sounds designing, I allow.”
“I think,” said Mr. Wradisley, “that we have perhaps discussed Mrs.
Nugent as much as is called for. She is a lady--for whom we all have the
utmost respect.” He spoke as if that closed the question, as indeed it
generally did; and going across the room to what he knew was the most
comfortable chair, possessed himself of the evening paper, and sitting
down, began to read it. Mrs. Wradisley had by no means done with her
evening paper, and that Reginald should thus take it up under her very
eyes filled her soul with astonishment. She looked at him with a gasp,
and then, after a moment, put out her hand for her knitting. Nothing
that could have happened could have given her a more bewildering and
mysterious shock.
All this, perhaps, was rather like a play to Bertram, who saw everything
with a certain unconscious exercise of that literary faculty which he
had just found so little impressive to the people among whom he found
himself. They were very kind people, and had received him confidingly,
asking no questions, not even wondering, as they might have done, what
queer companion Ralph had picked up. Indeed, he was not at all like
Ralph, though circumstances had made them close comrades. Perhaps if
they could have read his life as he thought he could read theirs, they
might not have opened their doors to him with such perfect trust. He had
(had he?) the ruin of a woman’s happiness on his heart, and the
destruction of many hopes. He had been wandering about the world for a
number of years, never knowing how to make up his mind on this question.
Was it indeed his fault? Was it her fault? Were they both to blame?
Perhaps the last was the truth; but he knew very well he would never get
her, or any one, to confess or to believe that. There are some cases in
which the woman has certainly the best of it; and when the man who has
been the means of bringing a young, fair, blameless creature into great
trouble, even if he never meant it, is hopelessly put in the wrong even
when there may be something to be said for him. He was himself
bewildered now and then when he thought it all over, wondering if
indeed there might be something to be said for him. But if he could not
even satisfy himself of that, how should he ever satisfy the world? He
was a little stirred up and uncomfortable that night, he could scarcely
tell why, for the brewing troubles of the Wradisleys, if it was trouble
that was brewing, was unlikely to affect a stranger. Ralph, indeed, had
been grumbling in his beard with complaints over what was in fact the
blamelessness of his brother, but it did not trouble Bertram that his
host should be too perfect a man. He had quite settled in his own mind
what it was that was going to happen. The widow, no doubt, was some
pretty adventuress who, by means of the mother and sister, had
established a hold over the immaculate one, and meant to marry him and
turn her patronesses adrift--the commonest story, vulgar, even. And the
ladies would really have nothing to complain of, for Wradisley was
certainly old enough to choose for himself, and might have married and
turned off his mother to her jointure house years ago, and no harm
done. It was not this that made Bertram sleepless and nervous, who
really had so little to do with them, and no call to fight their
battles. Perhaps it was the sensation of being in England, and within
the rules of common life again, after long disruption from all ordinary
circumstances of ordinary living. He to plunge into garden parties, and
common encounters of men and women! He might meet some one who knew him,
who would ask him questions, and attempt to piece his life together with
guesses and conjectures. He had a great mind to repack his portmanteau
and sling it over his shoulder, and tramp through the night to the
nearest station. But to what good? For wherever he might go the same
risk would meet him. How tranquil the night was as he looked out of the
window, a great moon shining over the openings of the park, making the
silence and the vacant spaces so doubly solitary! He dared not break the
sanctity of that solitude by going out into it, any more than he dared
disturb the quiet of the fully populated and deeply sleeping house. He
had no right, for any caprice or personal cowardice of his, to disturb
that stillness. And then it gave him a curious contradictory sensation,
half of relief from his own thoughts, half of sympathy, to think that
there were already here the elements of a far greater disturbance than
any he could work, beginning to move within the house itself, working,
perhaps, toward a catastrophe of its own. In the midst of all he
suddenly stopped and laughed to himself, and went to bed at last with
the most curiously subdued and softened sensation. He had remembered the
look of the child whom he had lifted from the ground at the little gate
of Greenbank--how she had suddenly been stilled in her childish
mischief, and fixed him with her big, innocent, startled eyes. Poor
little thing! She was innocent enough, whatever might be the nest from
which she came. This was the thought with which he closed his eyes.