Floyd-Rosney had expected that the restoration of the child to the
mother would effect an immediate reconciliation with his wife.
Therefore, he attained a serenity, a renewal of self-confidence which he
had not enjoyed since the humiliating _contretemps_ at Union Station. In
the dismissal of his bill for divorce--the _retraxit_ craftily worded
and expressing with a dignity that might have seemed impossible under
the circumstances his contrition for the hasty and offensive assumptions
of his mistake, a sweeping recantation of all his charges and a complete
endorsement of his wife’s actions in every relation of life,--he
considered he had offered her an ample apology for his conduct and had
held out a very alluring olive branch. He had a relish, too, of the
surprise he had planned, partly to avoid a more personal method to court
her forgiveness, in sending the child in charge of her favorite servant,
old Aunt Dorothy, to alight unheralded from the train at Ingleside. He
imagined her delight and gratitude and awaited, in smiling anticipation,
altogether devoid of anxiety, her ebullient letter, brimming with thanks
and endearments, and taking the blame, as she was wont to do in their
differences, in that she had so misunderstood him and precipitated this
series of perverse happenings that had exposed him to such cruel public
misconstruction.
But this letter did not come.
He began to frown when the mail was brought in, and to sort the missives
with a hasty touch for something that he did not find. The servants,
always on the alert to observe, and agog about the successive phases of
the scandal which they had witnessed at such close quarters, collogued
over the fact that he laid the rest of the mail aside unopened for
hours, while he sat with a clouded brow and a reflective, unnoting eye
in glum silence, unsolaced even by a cigar. It was not good to speak to
him at these crises, and the house was as still as a tomb.
Floyd-Rosney’s ascendency in life had been so great, so fostered by his
many worldly advantages, that he could make no compact with denial,
defeat. He had not yet reached the point where he could write to his
wife and beg her forgiveness, or even reproach her with her agency in
the disasters that had whelmed their domestic life in this unseemly
publicity. He developed an ingenuity in devising reasons for her
silence. She was too proud; he had let her have her head too long. She
would not write--she would not verbally admit that she condoned his
odious charges, which he often declared he had a right to make, if he
were to believe the testimony of his eyes, witnessing her flight with
her old lover, Randal Ducie, as he was convinced, boarding the train
together. She would simply return unheralded, unexplained,--and that was
best! He had himself inaugurated this method in restoring the child
without a word. It was a subject that could not be discussed between
them, with all its sensitive nerves, with its open wounds quivering with
anguished tremors. No! She would come to her home, her hearthstone, her
husband, as she had every right to do, even paying all tribute to her
pride, to her sense of insulted delicacy. He saw to it that the papers
containing the text of his full retraction and explanation of the
circumstances were mailed to her, and then adjusted himself anew to
waiting and anticipation.
He had been spared in the details of his life all the torments of
suspense which harass men less fortunately placed. It may be doubted if
ever before he had had cause to anticipate and await an event, and hope,
and be deferred and denied. He could scarcely brook the delay. He began
to fear that he should be obliged to write and summon her home. Once he
even thought of going in person to escort her back, and but that he
shrank from meeting her eye, all unprepared as she would be, he would
have followed little Ned to Ingleside. Something might be said on the
impulse of the moment to widen the breach. He could not depend upon
her--he could not depend upon himself. She knew the state of his mind,
he argued. Those papers, most astutely, more delicately than any words
of his might compass, had depicted his whole mental status. Doubtless,
after a seemly diplomatic interval she would return. The sooner the
better, he felt in eager impatience. He had hardly known how dearly he
loved her, he declared to himself, interpreting his restiveness under
the suffocations of suspense and anxiety as symptoms of his revived
affection. He became so sure of this happy solution of the whole cruel
imbroglio that he acted upon it as if he had credible assurance of the
fact. He caused certain minor changes, which she had desired, to be made
in the house--changes to which he had no objection, but he had never
taken thought to gratify her preference. He ordered the suite of rooms
that she had occupied to be thoroughly overhauled in such a fever of
haste that the domestic force expected to see the lady of the mansion
installed in her realm before a readjustment was possible. At last
everything was complete and exquisite, and Floyd-Rosney, patrolling the
apartments with a keen and critical eye, could find no fault to
challenge his minute and censorious observation. A new lady’s maid was
engaged, of more skill and pretensions than the functionary he had
driven from his service, and had already entered upon her duties in the
rearrangement of her mistress’s wardrobe, and the chauffeur took heedful
thought of the railroad timetables, that he might not be out of the way
when the limousine should be ordered to meet Mrs. Floyd-Rosney at Union
Station.
Under these circumstances the filing of Mrs. Floyd-Rosney’s bill for
divorce and alimony fell like a bombshell upon the defenseless head of
her husband. It was a genuine and fierce demonstration, evidently
calculated to take advantage of every point that might contribute to the
eventuation of a decree. The allegations of cruelty and tyranny, of
which there were many instances that Floyd-Rosney, in his marital
autocracy had long ago forgotten, including the crafty blow which he had
given her under the cloak of the child in her arms, were supplemented
and illustrated by the secret removal of her child from her care, and
the determination to ship her out of the country against her will. Thus
she had been constrained in defense of her personal liberty to flee to
the home of her uncle, her nearest relative, although she was obliged to
borrow the money for the railroad fare from a mere stranger whom she had
met only once before. Notwithstanding the fact that her husband was
several times a millionaire, he permitted her no command of money, her
fine clothes and jewels and equipages being accorded merely to decorate
the appurtenances of his wealth and ostentation. She recounted the
indignity she had causelessly suffered in the allegations of his bill
for divorce, all baseless and unproved as was evidenced by their
complete retraction under oath in the precipitate dismissal of the bill.
Her petition concluded by praying for an absolute divorce with alimony
and the custody of the child.
This document was not filed without many misgivings on the part of Major
Majoribanks and of horrified protest from his wife. Ingleside was remote
from modern progress and improvements, and such advantages as might
accrue from successfully prosecuting a suit for divorce won but scant
consideration there. The worthy couple were firm in their own conviction
that marriage should not be considered a temporary connection. It was,
to their minds, a lifelong and holy joining together, and should not be
put asunder. Mrs. Majoribanks made some remarks so very old-fashioned as
almost to excite Paula’s laughter, despite the seriousness of the
subject. It was a wife’s duty to put up with her husband’s foibles, to
overlook little unkindnesses; the two should learn to bear and forbear
in their mutual imperfections. Had she ever remonstrated gently, with
wifely lovingness, with Mr. Floyd-Rosney’s harshness?
“I didn’t dare,” said Paula. And the mere phrase was an instance in
point.
A woman’s craft in reading hearts is a subtle endowment. Mrs.
Majoribanks had not kept step with the onward march of the world, but
she struck a note that vibrated more in accord with Paula’s temperament
when she said:
“It is often a hardship in point of worldly estimation to be a divorced
woman.”
She looked cautiously at Paula over her spectacles, for in the old days
no one had been more a respecter of the opinions of smart people than
her husband’s niece.
“Oh, that isn’t the case any more,” said Paula lightly, with a little
fleering laugh, “it is quite fashionable now to have a divorce decree.”
“You may depend upon it,” Mrs. Majoribanks said in private to her
husband, “Paula is reckoning on winning back Randal Ducie! And, to my
mind, that is the worst feature of the whole horrible affair.”
Major Majoribanks did not altogether concur in his wife’s views of the
possible efficacy of gentle suasion on Mr. Floyd-Rosney’s
irascibilities. Perhaps he knew more of the indurated heart of that type
of man. The Major had been greatly impressed by the attempt upon his
niece’s personal liberty, as he interpreted the insistence on the
Oriental tour and, although he welcomed little Ned with an enthusiasm
that might have befitted a grandfather, he was apprehensive concerning
the child’s return as an overture of reconciliation. He felt his
responsibility in the situation very acutely. He did not favor the plan
of seeking merely a legal separation and maintenance, which his wife
advocated, because it was not conclusive; it would be regarded by
Floyd-Rosney as temporary and would render Paula liable to pressure to
recur to their previous status. He did not consider his niece safe with
her arrogant and arbitrary husband, as the attempt to enforce a tour
alone with casual acquaintances to the Orient amply proved. The extreme
measure of secretly removing the child from her companionship and care
as means of subjugation might be repeated when circumstances of public
opinion did not coerce his restoration. Mrs. Majoribanks had not a more
squeamish distaste for divorce than her husband, nor did she entertain a
deeper reverence for the sacredness of the bonds of matrimony. But he
reflected with a sigh of relief that it was not his duty to seek to
impose his own views on his niece. Paula was permitted by law to judge
and act for herself, and she had had much experience which had aided in
determining her course. He could not bring himself to urge her to
condone the insupportable allegations in the bill of divorce which
Floyd-Rosney had filed and allowed to be made public, and to trust
herself and the child once more in his clutches. She had now the wind of
public favor in her sails. Her husband had committed himself so openly
and so irretrievably that it was probable that the custody of the child
would be awarded to her in view of his tender years. Later, when time
should have somewhat repaired the tatters of Floyd-Rosney’s status in
the estimation of the world, when the inevitable influence and
importance of so rich a man should begin to make themselves felt anew,
it might be more difficult for her to contend against him. If ever she
could hope to free herself from him and his tyrannies, and his
unimaginable machinations in the future, now was the opportunity and
this the cause of complaint. He might not again give her so palpable and
undeniable an occasion of insupportable affront. Major Majoribanks, even
in the seclusion of Ingleside, took note of the penniless estate of the
wife of the millionaire as she fled from her richly appointed home, and
gave due weight to the fact that the decree would assure her future
comfort by requiring alimony in proportion to the husband’s means. There
was no obligation on him to deprive her of her due maintenance and
protection by the urgency of his advice, although his wife goaded him
with her strict interpretations of his duty, and his brow clouded
whenever she mentioned her belief of the influence of the expectation of
winning back Randal Ducie upon Paula’s determination.
Paula had thus the half-hearted support of her relatives in her
proceedings, and she was grateful even for this, saying to herself that
with their limitations she could hardly have expected more. She was
eager and hopeful, and, to Mrs. Majoribanks’s displeasure, not more
sensitive to the mention of the proceedings than if they had involved a
transaction concerning cotton or corn. The three Majoribanks boys were
excited on the possibility of an attempt to kidnap little Edward, since
the filing of the bill, and they kept him, in alternation, under close
and strict surveillance night and day.
“It would be impossible to spirit him away from Ingleside,” they
bluffly contended, and to their mother’s great though unexpressed
displeasure their father did not rebuke their bluster.
“We all talk of getting the decree,” she said in connubial privacy, “as
if it were a diploma.”
He nodded ruefully. But he was the more progressive of the two.
And in this feeble and sorry wise the influence of modern civilization
began to impinge on the primitive convictions and traditions of
Ingleside.