Mrs. Nugent had been very unwilling to fulfill her promise and appear at
Mrs. Wradisley’s party. She had put off her arrival till the last
moment, and as she walked up from the village with her little girl she
had flattered herself that, arriving late under shelter of various other
parties who made much more commotion, she might have escaped
observation. But if Bertram, of whom she knew nothing, had been intent
on finding Tiny, Mr. Wradisley was much more intent on finding Tiny’s
mother. He had been on the watch and had not missed her from the first
moment of her appearance, carefully as she thought she had sheltered it
from observation. And even her appearance, though she had condemned it
herself as excited and sullen, when she gave herself a last look in the
glass before coming away, did not discourage him. Excitement brightens a
woman’s eye and gives additional color to her face, or at least it did
so to Nelly. The gentle carelessness of the ordinary was not in her
aspect at all. She was more erect, carrying her animated head high.
Nobody could call her ordinary at any time. She was so full of life and
action. But on that day every line of her soft, light dress seemed to
have expression. The little curls on her forehead were more crisp, the
shining of her eyes more brilliant. There was a little nervous movement
about her mouth which testified to the agitation in her. “Is there
anything wrong, dear?” asked Mrs. Wradisley, pausing, holding her by the
hand, looking into her face, startled by this unusual look, even in the
midst of her guests.
“Oh, no--yes. I have had some disturbing news, but nothing to take any
notice of. I will tell you afterwards,” Mrs. Nugent said. Lucy too hung
upon her, eager to know what was the matter. “Only some blunders--about
my affairs,” she had replied, “which I can set right.”
“Oh, if that is all!” Lucy had cried, running off to salute some other
new-comers and carrying Tiny in her train. “Affairs” meant business to
Lucy, and business, so far as she was aware, touched only the outside,
and could have nothing to do with any one’s happiness. Besides, her mind
was in a turmoil for the moment with that strange story of Mrs. Bertram
which her mother had just told her by way of precaution, filtered from
Ralph. “Mr. Bertram is married, it appears; but he and his wife don’t
get on,” was what Mr. Wradisley had said. Lucy’s imagination had, as we
are aware, been busy about Bertram, and she was startled by this strange
and sudden conclusion to her self-inquiry whether by any chance he might
be the Ideal man.
It was thus that Mrs. Nugent had been suddenly left without even the
protection of her child, and though she had managed for some time to
hide herself, as she supposed (though his watchful gaze in reality
followed her everywhere), from her host amid the crowd of other people
assembled, there came the inevitable moment when she could keep herself
from him no longer. He came up to her while the people who surrounded
dispersed to examine his collection or to go in for tea.
“But I have seen your collection, Mr. Wradisley,” she said; “you were so
kind as to show me everything.”
“It is not my collection,” he said; “it is--a flower I want to show you.
The new orchid--the new--Let me take you into the conservatory. I must,”
he said, in a lower tone. “You must be merciful and let me speak to
you.”
“Mr. Wradisley,” she cried, almost under her breath, “do not, for pity’s
sake, say any more.”
“I must,” he said, impetuously. “I must know.” And then he added in his
usual tone, “Stevenson is very proud of it. It is a very rare kind, you
know, and the finest specimen, he says.”
“Oh, what is that, Mr. Wradisley?--an orchid? May I come too?” said
another guest, without discrimination.
“Certainly,” he said; “but all in its order. Simmons comes first,
Stevenson afterwards. You have not seen my Etruscan collection.” Mrs.
Nugent was aware that he had caught a floating ribbon of the light cloak
she carried on her arm, and held it fast while he directed with his
usual grave propriety the other lady by her side. “Now,” he said,
looking up to her. If it was the only thing that could be done, then
perhaps it was better that it should be done at once. He led her through
the lines of gleaming glass, the fruit, and the flowers, for Wradisbury
was famous for its vineries and its conservatories--meeting a few
wanderers by the way, whom it was difficult to prevent from
following--till at last they got to the inner sanctuary of all, where a
great fantastic blossom, a flower, but counterfeiting something that was
not a flower, blazed aloft in the ruddy afternoon light, which of itself
could never have produced that unnatural tropical blossom. Neither the
man nor the woman looked at the orchid. She said to him eagerly before
he could speak: “This is all dreadful to me. You ought to let me go. You
ought to be satisfied with my word. Should I speak as I have done if I
had not meant it? Mr. Wradisley, for God’s sake, accept what I have
already said to you and let me go.”
“No,” he said. She stood beside the flower, her brown beauty shining
against the long leaves and strong stem of the beautiful monster, and he
planted himself in front of her as if to prevent her escape. “You think
I am tyrannical,” he said; “so I am. You are shocked and startled by
what I have said to you. It is because I understand that that I am so
pressing, so arbitrary now. Mrs. Nugent, you can’t bear that a man
should speak to you of love. You think that love only comes once, that
your heart should be buried with your husband; that is folly, it is
fancy, it is prejudice, it is not a real feeling. That is why I force
you almost to hear me. Pause a moment, and hear me.”
“Not a moment, not a moment!” she cried. “It is more than that. Take my
word for it, and let me go and say no more.”
“A widow,” he said, “you make up an idea to yourself that it’s something
sacred. You are never to love, never to think of any one again. But all
that is fiction--don’t interrupt me--it is mere fiction. You are living,
and he is dead.”
“You force me,” she cried, “to betray myself. You force me--to tell you
my secrets. You have no right to force my secret from me. Mr. Wradisley,
every word you say to me is an offense. It is my own fault; but a man
ought surely to be generous and take a woman’s word without compelling
her in self defense--”
“I know by heart all that you can say in self-defense,” he cried,
vehemently, “and you ought to be told that these are all
fictions--sentimentalisms--never to be weighed against a true
affection--a man’s love--and home and protection--both for yourself and
your child.”
The young woman’s high spirit was aroused. “I will have no more of
this,” she said. “I am quite able to protect myself and my child. Let
me go--I will go, Mr. Wradisley. I do not call this love. I call it
persecution. Not a word more.”
Mr. Wradisley was more astonished than words could say. He fell back,
and allowed her to pass. He had thought, with a high hand, in the
exercise of that superior position and judgment which everybody allowed
him, to bring her to reason. Was it possible that she was not to be
brought to reason? “I think,” he said, “Mrs. Nugent, that when you are
calm and consider everything at your leisure you will feel--that I am
justified.”
“You can never be justified in assuming that you know--another person’s
position and feelings; which you don’t, and can’t know.”
“I argue from the general,” said Mr. Wradisley, with an air almost of
meekness, “and when you think--when you take time to consider--”
“No time would make any difference,” she said, quickly; and then, for
she was now free and going back again toward the lawn, her heart smote
her. “Don’t bear me any malice,” she said. “I respect you very much; any
woman might be proud--of your love”--her face gave a little twitch,
whether toward laughing or crying it was difficult to tell--“but I
couldn’t have given you mine in any circumstances, not if I had
been--entirely free.”
“Which you are--from everything but false sentiment,” he said, doggedly.
But what did it matter?--he was following her out, her face was turned
from him, her ears were deaf to his impressive words, as her eyes were
turned from his looks, which were more impressive still. Mr. Wradisley
had failed, and it was the first time for many years that he had done
so; he had even forgotten that such a thing was possible. When they
came, thus walking solemnly one behind the other, to the outer house
where some of the other guests were lingering, Mrs. Nugent stopped to
speak to some of them, to describe the new orchid. “It is the most
uncanny thing I ever saw,” she said. And then Lady Dulham, the great
lady of that side of the county, the person whom he most disliked,
appealed to Mr. Wradisley to show her too the new wonder. It was perhaps
on the whole the best way he could have got out of this false position.
He offered the old lady his arm with a deeply wounded, hotly offended
heart.
Mrs. Nugent lingered a little with the others in the great relief and
ease of mind which, though it was only momentary, was great. She had not
after all been obliged to reveal any of her secrets, whatever they might
be. If he had been less peremptory, more reasonable, she would have been
obliged to explain to him; and that she had very little mind to do.
After the first relief, however, she began to feel what a blow had been
struck at her temporary comfort in this place by so untoward an
accident. His mother and sister were her chief friends; they had
received her so generously, so kindly, with such confidence. Her secret
was no guilty one, but still it had made her uncomfortable, it had been
the subject of various annoyances; but none of these kind people had
asked her any questions; they had received her for herself, never
doubting. And now it seemed that she had only appeared among them to do
harm. She was a pretty and attractive young woman, and not altogether
unaware that people liked her on that account; but yet she never had
been one of those women with whom everybody is acquainted, in novels, at
least, before whom every man falls down. She had had her share, but she
had not been persecuted by inopportune lovers. And she had not
entertained any alarm in respect to Mr. Wradisley. She hoped now that
his pride would help him through it, and that nobody would be the wiser;
but still she could not continue here under the very wing of the family
after so humiliating its head, either meeting him, or compelling him to
avoid her. She went on turning over this question in her mind, pausing
to talk to this one and that one, to do her duty to Mrs. Wradisley still
by amusing and occupying her guests, putting on her smiles as if they
had been ribbons to conceal some little spot or rent beneath. Indeed,
it was no rent. She had not been very long at Wradisbury. It would be no
dreadful business to go away. She was neither without friends nor
protectors, and London was always a ready and natural refuge, where it
would be so simple to go. But this fiasco, as she called it to herself,
vexed her. She wanted to get away as soon as possible, to think it over
at leisure, to find Tiny, who no doubt was hanging on Lucy Wradisley’s
skirts somewhere, or else playing with the other children, and to steal
home as soon as there was any pretext for departure. She felt that she
would prefer not to meet his mother’s eye.
She was beginning to get very impatient of waiting when at last she
caught sight of Tiny being set down on the ground from somebody’s
shoulders. She did not pay any attention for the moment to the man. Tiny
had so many friends; for the child was not shy; she had no objection to
trust herself to any one who pleased her, though it was not every one
who had this advantage and pleased Tiny. The mother saw at once that
Tiny’s best frock had suffered, and a momentary alarm about the pond,
which was one of her favorite panics, seized her. But the child was
evidently quite right, which settled that question. She went to meet
Tiny with a word of playful reproof for her disheveled condition on her
lips. The child and her guardian were coming round a clump of trees
which hid them for a moment, and toward which Mrs. Nugent turned her
steps. She heard the small voice running on in its usual little
sing-song of monologue.
“Have zoo dot a little girl? Have zoo dot a little girl?”
What an odd question for Tiny to ask! The child must really be trained
to be a little more like other children, not to push her little
inquiries so far, not to ask questions. Mrs. Nugent could not help
smiling a little at the sound of her small daughter’s voice, especially
as there was no reply made to it. The man had a big beard, that was all
she had observed of him; perhaps it was the other son, the brother Raaf,
the adventurer, or perhaps prodigal, who had newly come home.
These were her thoughts as she turned round the great bole of that big
tree of which the Wradisleys were so proud. Bertram was coming on the
other side, half smiling, too, at Tiny’s little song; while she, spying
some children in the distance, swayed backward from his hold to call to
them, and then detaching herself from his hand altogether, ran back a
few paces to show them her treasures. His face half averted for a moment
looking after her thus, gave Mrs. Nugent one breath of preparation, but
none to him, who turned round again half conscious of some one coming to
meet him, with still that half smile and the tender expression in his
eyes. He stood still, he wavered for a moment as if, strong man as he
was, he would have fallen.
“My God--Nelly!” he cried.