The ten days before Christmas we spent on the whole happily. Mrs.
Ellmer burst into tears on my informing her of the allowance I
proposed to make to her daughter, and sobbed out hysterically, 'My own
child to be able to keep a carriage! Oh! if poor mamma could have
known!'
This announcement, when made to Babiole by her mother, was the one
drawback to her happiness. She implored me to change my mind, little
guessing, poor child, what other change that would have involved. I
was very angry with Mrs. Ellmer for spoiling the girl's perfect bliss
by this vulgar detail, which it had been necessary to impart to the
mother, but which I had particularly desired to withhold for the
present from the daughter's more sensitive ears. I had hard work to
comfort her, but I succeeded at last by reminding her that she was
under my guardianship, and that it was my pride to see my ward cut a
handsome figure in the world.
I almost think, if it does not sound far-fetched to say so, that the
girl enjoyed those ten days with me, prattling about her lover and
endowing him with gifts of beauty and nobility and wisdom which
neither he nor any man I ever met possessed, more than the fortnight
of feverish joy in his actual presence which followed. Not that Fabian
was disappointing as a _fiance_; far from it. He had the gift of
falling into raptures easily, and he fell in love with his destined
bride as promptly as heart could desire. But the imaginative quality,
which formed so important a feature of the young girl's romantic
passion, caused her at first to shrink from his vehement caresses as
at a blow to her ideal, while on the other hand the light touch of his
fingers would send a convulsive shiver through her whole frame.
How did I know all this? I can scarcely tell. And yet it is true, and
I learnt it early in Fabian's short visit. As the savage knows the
signs of the sky, so did I, living by myself, study to some purpose
the gentle nature whose smiles made my happiness.
When Fabian left us at the end of a fortnight, it was settled that the
wedding was to take place in six weeks' time at Newcastle. I had a
prejudice against my ward's being married in Scotland, where I
conceived, rightly or wrongly, that a certain looseness of the
marriage-tie prevailed. On the other hand, I would not let her go to
London to be married, being of opinion that such a bride was worth a
journey. So Mrs. Ellmer having some relations at Newcastle, she and
her daughter spent there the three weeks immediately preceding the
ceremony. I missed them dreadfully during those three weeks, and was
not without a vague hope somewhere down in the depths of my heart that
something unforeseen might happen to prevent the marriage. But when I
arrived at Newcastle on the evening before the appointed day, Fabian
was already there, everybody was in the highest spirits; and Mrs.
Ellmer's Newcastle cousins, rather proud of the position in 'society'
which they were assured the bride was going to hold, had undertaken to
provide a handsome wedding breakfast.
I gave her away next morning, in the old church with its crowned tower
which they now call a cathedral. I think perhaps she guessed something
more than I would have had her know in the vestry when the service
was over, when I asked her for a kiss and fell a-trembling as she
granted it; at any rate she turned very white and grave in the midst
of her happiness, and thenceforth dropped her voice to a humble
half-whisper whenever she spoke to me. She had been married in her
travelling dress, an innovation rather alarming to Newcastle; but she
looked so pretty in her first silk gown--a dark brown--and in the long
sealskin mantle that had been my wedding present, that I think some of
the damsels at the breakfast decided that this fashion was one to be
followed.
The bride and bridegroom left us early, more, I think, because Fabian
found both breakfast and speeches heavy than because there was any
need to hurry for the train. I having no such excuse, and being
treated as a great personage with a Monte-Christo-like habit of
dowering marriageable maidens, was forced to remain. I made a speech,
I forget what about, which was received with laughter and enthusiasm.
The only things I remember about the people were the strong impression
of dull and commonplace provincialism which their speech and manner
made upon me, and that on the other hand, a little quiet maiden of
seventeen or so, who wore a very rusty frock and was awkwardly shy,
astonished me by quoting Tacitus in the original, and proved to be
quite an appallingly learned person.
When I could get away I bade farewell to Mrs. Ellmer, who touched my
heart by crying over my departure. She had made arrangements to stay
in Newcastle with an aunt who was getting old, and who felt inclined
for the cheap charity of discharging her servant and taking the active
and industrious little woman to live with her. Mrs. Ellmer was to take
care of Ta-ta till my return. Outside the door Ferguson met me with
my old portmanteau ready on a cab. In five minutes I was off on my
travels again.
I was out of England altogether for four years, during which, among
other little expeditions, I traversed America from the southernmost
point of Terra del Fuego to the land of the Eskimos. I heard nothing
of Babiole or her husband, nor did I make any efforts to hear anything
about them, being of opinion that a man and his wife settle down to
life together best without any of that outside interference which it
is so difficult for those who love them to withhold, when they see
things going amiss with the young household. At the end of four years,
I had said to myself, they will have obtained a rudimentary knowledge
of each other's character. Babiole will be a woman and will no longer
see the reflex of the divinity in any man; the experiment of marriage
will be in working order, and one will be able to judge the results.
I had not forgotten them, indeed I had thought of them continually. I
had taken care that Babiole's allowance was regularly paid; but my
second sentimental disappointment having found me some sort of a
misanthrope, had cured me of my misanthropy; and a freer intercourse
with men and women, and a particular study of such married couples as
I met convinced me that the mutual attraction of man and woman towards
each other is so great that merely negative qualities in the one sex
count as virtues in the eyes of the other, and that a husband and wife
who will only abstain from being actively disagreeable to one another
are in a fair way towards attaining a gentle mutual enthusiasm which
will make the grayest of human lives seem fair. Now Babiole could
never be actively disagreeable to anybody; and surely not even a
disappointed artist, and no artist is so disappointed as he who is
all but the most successful, could be actively disagreeable to
Babiole.
But my philosophy had weak points, which I was soon abruptly to
discover.
It was in the month of March that I came back to England and put up at
the Bedford Hotel, Covent Garden. Fabian and his wife lived in a flat
at Bayswater, the address of which I had taken care to obtain.
Although I was much excited at the thought of seeing them, I was by no
means anxious to anticipate the meeting, which I had decided should
not take place until tailor and hatter and hair-dresser had done their
best to remove all traces of barbarism. My beard I had decided to
retain, but it must be now the beard of Bond Street, and not that of
the prairies. In the meantime I took a solitary stall at the theatre
where Fabian was playing, with some vague idea of gaining a
premonitory insight into the course of his matrimonial career.
A keen sensation of something which I regret to say was not wholly
disappointment shot through me as I perceived that, so far from having
acquired any touch of the comfortable and commonplace which is the
outward and visible sign of an inward domestic tranquillity, Fabian
was leaner, more haggard than ever. He had grown more petulant and
irritable, too, as I gathered from his annoyance with a large and
lively party of very well dressed people who sat in one of the boxes
nearest the stage, and who, without transgressing such lax bonds of
good breeding as usually control the occupants of stalls and boxes,
evidently found more entertainment in each other than in the people on
the stage.
I glanced up at the box, following instinctively the direction of
Fabian's eyes, and saw an ugly but clever-looking young man very much
occupied with a pale sad-faced lady; two very young men and two other
ladies, both with the dead-white complexions and black dresses which
have been of late so popular with the half world and its imitators,
formed the rest of the occupants.
Before the end of the first scene in which he was engaged, Fabian had
recognised me, and in the pause between the acts a note from him was
brought to me by one of the attendants asking me to 'go and speak to
Babiole, and to come home to supper with them.'
Speak to Babiole! Why, then, she must be in the theatre! I got up and
peered about with my glasses; but though I could see well into every
part of the house, I could discover no one in the least like my little
witch of the hills. After a careful inspection, I decided that she
must be one of three or four ladies who were hidden by the curtains of
the boxes in which they sat. In this belief I had resumed my seat and
given up the search when, just as the curtain was rising upon the
next act, and I glanced up again at the people who had excited
Fabian's wrath, a look, a movement of the pale sad-looking lady
suddenly attracted my attention. I raised my glasses again in
consternation; for, changed as she was, with all her pretty colour
faded, the bright light gone from her eyes, the soft outlines of her
little face altered and sharpened, there was now no possibility of
mistaking the melancholy and listless lady who was still absorbing the
attention of the clever-looking man beside her for any other than my
old pupil.
Through the remaining two acts of the piece I scarcely dared to look
at her; everything seemed to indicate the total failure of the match I
had made. I wanted to escape for that night any further indictment
than my fears brought against me, but I was scarcely outside the
theatre after the performance when a hand was laid upon my shoulder
in the crowd, and Fabian, who had hurried round to meet me, led me
back into the building and presented me to his wife. The young fellow
who had been so devoted in the box was with her still, together with
one of the ladies in black. Fabian's manner to me was as emphatically
cordial as ever, and showed no trace of a grievance against me; but
Babiole's was utterly changed. She was talking to her companion when
she first caught sight of me, as I passed through the swinging doors
with her husband, and made my way toward her among footmen and
plush-enveloped ladies. The words she was uttering suddenly froze on
her lips, and the last vestige of colour left her pale face as if at
some sight at least as horrible as unexpected. Before I reached her
she had recovered herself, however, and was holding out her hand, not
indeed with the old frank pleasure, but with a very gracious
conventional welcome.
'Fancy, my dear,' said Fabian, 'the villain has been in the country
two whole days without thinking of calling upon us. These sneaking
ways must be punished upon the spot, and I pronounce therefore that he
be immediately seized and carried off to supper.'
I protested that I was too tired to do anything but fall asleep.
'Well, you can fall asleep at our place just as well as at yours. And
that reminds me that you had better sleep there. We've plenty of room,
and we can send the boy for your things.'
'Thanks. It's awfully kind of you, Scott, but I couldn't do that, I
have an appointment at----'
'There that second excuse spoils it all. A first excuse may awaken
only incredulity, a second inevitably rouses contempt. You shall sleep
where you like, but you must sup with us.'
'You will bring Mr. Maude with you in a hansom, then, Fabian,' said
his wife, who had not joined in the discussion, 'for Mrs. Capel is
coming with me.'
Fabian, who had been only coldly civil to Mrs. Capel, the lady in
black, looked annoyed, but had to acquiesce in these arrangements. We
saw the ladies into the brougham, Fabian gave a curt good-night to the
clever-looking young man, and then we jumped into a hansom and drove
towards Bayswater.
I confess I wished myself at the other end of the world, especially as
I began to think that, while my hostess certainly was not anxious for
my society, my host was chiefly actuated in his obstinate hospitality
by the desire to show that he bore me no malice. Thus when he
congratulated me on being still a bachelor it was in such a
magnanimous tone that I found myself forced to express a hope that he
did not envy me my freedom.
'I must not say that I do,' said he, with more magnanimity than ever.
'Still it is but frank to own that personal experience of marriage has
confirmed my previous convictions instead of reversing them. In short,
to put it plainly, I found soon after my marriage, as all men in my
position must sooner or later find, that I had to choose between being
my wife's ideal of a good husband or my own ideal of a good artist. I
found that a good woman is twice as exacting as a divine Art; for
while Art only demands the full and free exercise of your working
faculties in her service, a woman insists on the undivided empire of
your very thoughts; she must have a full, true, and particular account
of your dreams; you must not run, jump, sneeze, or cough but in her
honour.'
'And you chose the Art, I suppose,' I said, trying not to speak
coldly.
'My dear boy, I really had no choice. Babiole and I each wanted a
slave; but while I demanded a fellow-slave in the labours of my life,
this pretty little lady only wished for a human footstool for her
pretty little feet.'
'But I cannot understand. Babiole was always as submissive as a lamb,
a dog, anything you like that is gentle and docile.'
'My dear Maude, at the time you speak of she was unwedded. Now just as
the horse, in himself a noble animal, corrupts and depraves every man
with whom he comes in contact, from the groom to the jockey, so does
intercourse with man, the king of creatures, speedily destroy in woman
all the traces of those good qualities with which, in deference to the
poets, we will concede her to have been originally endowed.'
'I know nothing about that,' said I bluntly, 'but if Babiole Ellmer
has been anything short of a perfectly true-hearted wife, I will
stake my solemn oath that she has been harnessed to a damned bad
husband.'
I was cold and wet with overmastering indignation, or I should not
have blurted out my opinion so coarsely. Fabian was on fire directly,
gesticulating with his hands, glaring with his eyes, in his old
impulsive style.
'Do you mean to accuse me of telling you lies? Do you mean to
insinuate that I have not treated your ward as a gentleman should
treat his wife, especially when she is the adopted daughter of his
best friend? Do you think I should dare to look you in the face if I
had failed in my duty towards her?'
'If you were one of the "common rabble of humanity" you despise so
much, I should tell you you had failed in your duty very much. As you
belong to a clique which considers itself above such rules, I tell
you frankly that Art wouldn't suffer a jot if you did neglect her,
while this poor child does; and that if you were to act like Garrick,
write like Shakespeare, and paint like Raphael, it wouldn't excuse you
for the change between your wife on her wedding day and your wife
to-night.'
'You are very severe,' said Fabian, who was shaking with excitement
and passion. 'If you are really so lost to a man's common sense as to
take it for granted already that the fault is all on one side, you
must pardon me if I set your remarks down to the ravings of
infatuation.'
There was a pause. This thrust told, for indeed a great wave of bitter
and passionate regret at the loss beyond recall of my pretty witch of
the hills was drowning my calmer reason and making me rude and savage
beyond endurance. We had just self-control enough left to remain
silent for the remaining few minutes of the drive, both quaking with
rage, and both ashamed, I of my explosion, he, I hope, of the lameness
of his explanations. The hansom stopped at the mansions, on the third
floor of one of which Mr. and Mrs. Scott lived. I jumped out first,
raised my hat, and excusing myself coldly and formally, was hurrying
away, when Fabian, regardless of the cabman, who thought it was a
dodge, and hallooed after him, followed me at a run, put his arm
through mine, and dragged me back again.
'Can't quarrel with you, Harry,' he said affectionately. 'Say it's all
my fault if you like, but hear both sides first. Come in, come in I
tell you.'
And having given vent to his feelings in a volley of eloquent abuse to
the shouting cabman, he tossed him his fare and led me into the
house.
Curiously enough, the emotion which seemed to choke me as I mounted
the stairs and stood outside the door of Babiole's home, disappeared
entirely as soon as the door was opened to admit us. For there,
standing in the little entrance hall, at the open door of the
drawing-room, was the slim pale lady with pleasant conventional
manners, and the pretty little meaningless laugh of a desire to
please. We followed her into the room, which was charmingly furnished,
lighted by coloured lights, scented by foreign perfumes, and hung with
drawings and engravings of which the mistress of the house was very
proud. She was so lively and bright, criticised the piece in which her
husband was playing so unmercifully, and said so many witty and
amusing things during supper, that I forgot Babiole in Mrs. Scott, and
was only recalled to a remembrance of her identity by an occasional
gesture or a tone of the voice. If I had not seen her in the theatre
first I might have thought she was a happy wife, as, if I had not
remembered the round rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes of the little maid
of Craigendarroch, I might have admired the piquant delicacy of the
small white face before me, in which the gray eyes looked abnormally
large and dark.
After enjoying myself greatly, though not quite unreservedly, I had
risen to take leave, when Fabian, suddenly remembering that he had
some proofs to send off which were already overdue at a publisher's,
asked me if I would mind waiting while he finished correcting them. It
wouldn't take a minute. He had his hand upon the door which led from
the dining-room to the little den he called his study, when his wife,
in almost terror-struck entreaty, rushed towards him and begged him to
leave it till next day.
'I can't, Bab; they must go by the first post, and you know very well
I shan't be up in time to do them.'
'I'll do them for you,' she said eagerly.
'No, no, don't tease,' said her husband authoritatively, 'take Mr.
Maude into the drawing-room and play him something,' and he pushed her
off and left the room.
She turned to me with a smiling shrug of the shoulders, and said
playfully, 'See what it is to be a down-trodden wife.' Then, leading
the way into the drawing-room, and seating herself at once at the
piano, she dashed into a lively waltz air. But it suddenly occurred to
me that she was possessed with some strange fear of being alone with
me, and this idea broke the spell of her brilliant manner, and reduced
me to shy and stupid silence.