Vivienne
Of all the old women that ever I saw,
Sweet bad luck to my mother in law.--Irish Song
The Parliamentary Session had reached the stage that is ended by no
power save that of grouse, and the streets were full of vans
fantastically decorated with baths, chairs, bedsteads, and nursery
gear.
Cecil could see two before different house-doors as she sat behind
her muslin curtains, looking as fresh and healthful as ever, and
scarcely more matronly, except that her air of self-assertion had
become more easy and less aggressive now that she was undisputed
mistress of the house in London.
There was no concern on her part that she was not the mother of
either of the two latest scions of the house of Charnock. Certainly
she did not like to be outdone by Rosamond; but then it was only a
girl, and she could afford to wait for the son and heir; indeed, she
did not yet desire him at the cost of all the distinguished and
intellectual society, the concerts, soirees, and lectures that his
non-arrival left her free to enjoy. The other son and heir
interested her nearly, for he was her half-brother. There had been
something almost ludicrous in the apologies to her. His mother
seemed to feel like a traitor to her, and Mr. Charnock could hardly
reconcile his darling's deposition with his pride in the newcomer.
Both she and Raymond had honestly rejoiced in their happiness and
the continuance of the direct line of Dunstone, and had completed
the rejoicing of the parents by thorough sympathy, when the party
with this unlooked-for addition had returned home in the spring.
Mrs. Charnock had insisted on endowing his daughter as largely as he
justly could, to compensate for this change in her expectations, and
was in doubt between Swanmore, an estate on the Backsworth side of
Willansborough, and Sirenwood itself, to purchase and settle on her.
Raymond would greatly have preferred Sirenwood, both from its
adjoining the Compton property and as it would be buying out the
Vivians; but there were doubts about the involvements, and nothing
could be done till Eleonora's majority. Mr. Charnock preferred
Swanmore as an investment, and Raymond could, of course, not press
his wishes.
A short visit had been made at Dunstone to join in the festivities
in honour of the little heir, but Cecil had not been at Compton
since Christmas, though Raymond had several times gone home for a
Sunday when she had other companionship. Charlie had been with them
preparing his outfit for India whither he had been gone about a
month; and Frank, though living in lodgings, was the more frequently
at his sister-in-law's service, because wherever she was the Vivian
sisters might be looked for.
No sooner had Raymond taken the house in --- Square than Lady
Tyrrell had engaged the opposite one, so that one household could
enjoy evening views of the other's interior, and Cecil had chiefly
gone into society under her friend's auspices. Her presentation at
Court had indeed been by the marchioness; she had been staying with
an old friend of Mrs. Poynsett's, quite prepared to be intimate with
Raymond Poynsett's wife, if only Cecil would have taken to her. But
that lady's acceptance of any one recommended in this manner was not
to be thought of, and besides, the family were lively, merry people,
and Cecil was one of those who dislike and distrust laughter, lest
it should be at themselves. So she remained on coldly civil terms
with that pleasant party, and though to a certain degree following
her husband's lead as to her engagements, all her ways were moulded
by her friend's influence. Nor was the effect otherwise than
becoming. Nothing could be in better taste than all in Mrs.
Charnock Poynsett's establishment, and London and Lady Tyrrell
together had greatly improved her manners. All her entertainments
went off well, and she filled her place in the world with grace and
skill, just as she had always figured herself doing.
Yet there was a sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction, which
increased upon her as the time drew nearer for returning to be again
only a guest in her married home. It was a tangible grievance on
which her mind could fix itself. Surely it was hard on her that her
husband should require it of her, and yet she perceived that he
could not avoid it, since his mother was mistress. She knew too
that he was unfailingly kind, attentive, and indulgent, except on
that one occasion when he had sharply reproved her for her behaviour
in the Tallboys matter; and strange to say, a much stronger feeling
towards him had been setting in ever since that one time when she
had seen him thoroughly angry. She longed and craved to stir that
even, gentle courtesy to frowns or smiles; and yet there was a
perversity in her nature that seem to render it impossible to her to
attempt to win a smile from him, far more so to lay aside any device
or desire of her own to gratify him. All she did know was, that to
be all that her ambition had sought, a Charnock by marriage as well
as birth, and with a kind, considerate husband, was not enough to
hinder a heartsickness she had never known or supposed possible.
Presently, through the flowers in her balcony, Cecil saw the opening
and closing of the opposite house-door, and a white parasol
unfurled, and she had only time to finish and address her letter to
Mrs. Duncombe before Lady Tyrrell was announced.
"Here I am after a hard morning's work, winding up accounts, &c."
"You go to-morrow?"
"Yes, trusting that you will soon follow; though you might be a
cockney born, your bloom is town-proof."
"We follow as soon as the division on the Education Question is
over, and that will not be for ten days. You are come to look at my
stores for the bazaar; but first, what are you going to do this
afternoon?"
"What are your plans?"
"I must leave cards at half-a-dozen people's at the other end of the
park. Will you come with me? Where is Lenore?"
"She is gone to take leave of the Strangeways' party; Lady Susan
insisted on having her for this last day. Poor Frank! I confess
impartially that it does not look well for him."
"Poor Frank!" repeated Cecil, "he does look very forlorn when he
hears where she is."
"When, after all, if the silly boy could only see it, it is the most
fortunate thing that could happen to him, and the only chance of
keeping his head above water. I have made Lady Susan promise me two
of her daughters for the bazaar. They thoroughly know how to make
themselves useful. Oh, how pretty!"
For Cecil was producing from the shelves of various pieces of
furniture a large stock of fancy articles--Swiss carvings, Spa toys,
Genevese ornaments, and Japanese curiosities, which, as Lady Tyrrell
said, "rivalled her own accumulation, and would serve to carry off
the housewives and pen-wipers on which all the old maids of
Wil'sbro' were employed."
"We must put out our programmes," Cecil added; "people will not work
in earnest till the day is fixed and they know the sellers."
"Yes, the lady patronesses are most important," said Lady Tyrrell,
writing them down: "Mrs. Raymond Charnock Poynsett; Lady Rosamond,
eh?"
"Oh no, Julius won't hear of it."
"And opposition is sweet: so we lose her romantic name, and the
stall of the three brides. Mrs. Miles Charnock is too much out of
the world to be worth asking. Then myself--Mrs. Duncombe, Mrs.
Fuller, as a matter of necessity, Mrs. Moy."
"Oh!"
"Needful, my dear, to propitiate that set. Also that mayoress, Mrs.
Truelove, isn't she? Six. We'll fill up with country people!"
Six more distinguished names were soon supplied of ladies who would
give their patronage, provided neither toil nor care was required of
them; and still consulting, the two friends took their seats in the
carriage. The time of the bazaar was to be fixed by the opening of
the town-hall, which was to take place on the 12th of September--a
Thursday, the week before the races; and the most propitious days
appeared to be the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Great Backsworth
Cup Day, since the world would then be in an excited, pleasure-
seeking state, favourable to their designs.
"I shall have a party in the house," said Lady Tyrrell: "shall you
be able?"
"I can't tell; you know it does not depend on me, and I certainly
shall not ask it as a favour. Camilla, did I tell you that I tried
to make my father understand the state of things, and speak to
Raymond? But he would only say, that while I am so young and
inexperienced, it is a great advantage for me to live with Mrs.
Poynsett, and that I must be the greatest comfort to her. Papa is
an intense believer in Mrs. Poynsett, and when he once has taken up
a notion nothing will convince him."
"You can't even make capital of this purchase of a house of your
own?"
"I don't like to do that."
"My dear, I see your delicacy and forbearance, and I would not urge
you, if I did not see how deeply your happiness is concerned. Of
course I don't mean merely the authority over the wirthschaft,
though somehow the cares of it are an ingredient in female
contentment; but forgive me, Cecil, I am certain that you will never
take your right place--where you care for it more--till you have a
home of your own."
"Ah!" The responsive sound burst from the very depths of Cecil's
heart, penetrated as they had never been before; but pride and
reserve at once sprang up, and she answered coldly, "I have no
reason to complain."
"Right, my dear Cecil, I like you the better;" and she pressed her
hand.
"It is quite true," said Cecil, withdrawing hers.
"Quite, absolutely true. He would die rather than give you any
reason for the slightest murmur; but, Cecil, dearest, that very
heedfulness shows there is something he cannot give you."
"I don't know why you should say so," answered a proud but choked
voice.
"I say so," replied the clear tones, firmly, though with a touch of
pity, "because I see it. Cecil, poor child, they married you very
young!"
"I missed nothing," exclaimed Cecil; but she felt that she could
only say so in the past, and her eyes burnt with unshed tears.
"No, my dear, you were still a girl, and your deeper woman's heart
had not grown to perceive that it was not met."
"He chose me," she faintly said.
"His mother needed a daughter. It was proper for him to marry, and
you were the most eligible party. I will answer for it that he
warned you how little he could give."
"He did," cried Cecil. "He did tell me that he could not begin in
freshness and warmth, like a young man; but I thought it only meant
that we were too sensible to care about nonsense, and liked him for
it. He always must have been staid and reserved--he could never
have been different, Camilla. Don't smile in that way! Tell me
what you mean."
"My dear Cecil, I knew Raymond Poynsett a good many years before you
did."
"And--well? Then he had a first love?" said Cecil, in a voice
schooled into quiet. "Was he different then? Was he as desperate
as poor Frank is now?"
"Frank is a very mild copy of him at that age. He overbore every
one, wrung consent from all, and did everything but overcome his
mother's calm hostility and self-assertion."
"Did that stop it? She died of course," said Cecil. "She could not
have left off loving him."
"She did not die, but her family were wearied out by the continual
objections to their overtures, and the supercilious way of treating
them. They thought it a struggle of influence, and that he was too
entirely dominated for a daughter-in-law to be happy with her. So
they broke it off."
"And she--" Cecil looked up with searching eyes.
"She had acutely felt the offence, the weakness, the dutifulness,
whatever you may choose to call it, and in the rebound she married."
"Who is she?" gasped Cecil.
"It is not fair to tell you," was the gentle answer, with a shade of
rebuke. "You need not look for her. She is not in the county."
"I hope I shall never see her!"
"You need not dread doing so if you can only have fair play, and
establish the power that belongs rightly to you. She would have no
chance with you, even if he had forgiven her."
"Has not he?"
"Never!"
"And he used up all his heart?" said Cecil in a low, musing tone.
"All but what his mother absorbed. She was a comparatively young
and brilliant woman, and she knew her power. It is a great
ascendancy, and only a man's honest blindness could suppose that any
woman would be content under it."
Cecil's tongue refused to utter what oppressed her heart--those
evenings beside the sofa, those eager home expeditions for Sunday,
the uniform maintenance of his mother's supremacy.
"And you think absence from her would lessen her influence?"
"I am sure of it. There might be a struggle, but if I know Mr.
Charnock Poynsett rightly, he is too upright not to be conscious of
what is due to you, and be grieved not to be able to give you more--
that is, when his mother is not holding him in her grasp. Nor can
there be any valid objection, since Mrs Miles Charnock is always at
her service."
"She will return to Africa. I don't know why she and Rosamond have
been always so much more acceptable."
"They are not her rivals; besides, they have not your strength. She
is a woman who tries to break whatever she cannot bend, and the
instant her son began to slip from her grasp the contest necessarily
began. You had much better have it over once and for ever, and have
him on your side. Insist on a house of your own, and when you have
made your husband happy in it, then, then--Ah! Good morning--Sir
George!"
She had meant to say, "Then you win his heart," but the words would
not come, and a loathing hatred of the cold-hearted child who had a
property in Raymond so mastered her that she welcomed the
interruption, and did not return to the subject.
She knew when she had said enough, and feared to betray herself; nor
could Cecil bear to resume the talk, stunned and sore as she was at
the revelation, though with no suspicion that the speaker had been
the object of her husband's affection. She thought it must have
been the other sister, now in India, and that this gave the key to
many allusions she had heard and which she marvelled at herself for
not having understood. The equivocation had entirely deceived her,
and she little thought she had been taking counsel with the rival
who was secretly triumphing in Raymond's involuntary constancy, and
sowing seeds of vengeance against an ancient enemy.
She could not settle to anything when she came home. Life had taken
a new aspect. Hitherto she had viewed herself as born to all
attention and deference, and had taken it as a right, and now she
found herself the victim of a mariage de convenance to a man of
exhausted affections, who meant her only to be the attendant of his
domineering mother. The love that was dawning in her heart did but
add poignancy to the bitterness of the revelation, and fervour to
her resolve to win the mastery over the heart which was her lawful
possession.
She was restless till his return. She was going to an evening
party, and though usually passive as to dress, she was so changeable
and difficult to satisfy that Grindstone grew cross, and showed it
by stern, rigid obedience. And Cecil well knew that Grindstone; who
was in authority in the present house, hated the return to be merely
the visitor of Alston and Jenkins.
In the drawing-room Cecil fluttered from book to window, window to
piano again, throwing down her occupation at every sound and taking
up another; and when at last Raymond came in, his presence at first
made her musings seem mere fancies.
Indeed it would have been hard to define what was wanting in his
manner. He lamented his unavoidable delay, and entertained her with
all the political and parliamentary gossip he had brought home, and
which she always much enjoyed as a tribute to her wisdom, so much
that it had been an entire, though insensible cure for the Rights of
Woman. Moreover, he was going with her to this 'drum,' though he
would greatly have preferred the debate, and was to be summoned in
case of a division. She knew enough of the world to be aware that
such an attentive and courteous husband was not the rule. But what
was courtesy to one who longed for unity?
"Is Frank to be there this evening?" he asked.
"Yes, I believe so."
"I thought he was to have gone with us."
"He told me not to depend on him. He had made an engagement to ride
into the country with Sir Harry Vivian." And she added, though the
proud spirit so hated what seemed to her like making an advance that
it sounded like a complaint, "So you can't avoid going with me?"
"I should any way have gone with you, but I may have to leave you to
Frank to see you away," he said. "And I had rather have Frank here
than with that set."
"Breaking up one of our few tete-a-tete evenings, and they are
becoming few enough!"
This murmur gratified him, and he said, "We shall be more alone
together now. The Rectory is almost ready, and Julius means to move
in another week, and I suppose Miles will carry Anne off before the
year is over."
"Yes, we are the only ones with no home."
"Rather, we hold fast to the old home."
"Not my old home."
"Does not mine become yours?"
"Not while--." She paused and started afresh. "Raymond, could we
not live at Swanslea, if it is bought for us?"
"Swanslea! Five miles off! Impossible."
Cecil was silent.
"My dear Cecil," he said, after a few moments' consideration, "I can
understand that you felt unfortunately crowded last year, but all
that is over, and you must see that we are necessary to my mother,
and that all my duties require me to live at home."
"You could attend to the property from Swanslea."
"The property indeed! I meant my mother!"
"She has Anne."
"Anne will soon be in Africa--even if she were more of a companion.
I am sorry it is a trial to you; for my proper place is clearly with
my mother, the more in her helpless state, and with my brothers gone
out into the world. Now that the numbers are smaller, you will find
it much easier to take the part that I most earnestly wish should be
yours."
"I cannot get on with her."
"Do not say so! Do not think so! To have Rosamond there with her
Irish ease, and her reserve, kept you in the background before; I
say it, but I could not help it; and now there will be no hindrance
to your drawing together. There is nothing I so desire."
If the carriage had not stopped as he spoke Cecil would not have
uttered the thought that smote her, namely, that his desire was on
behalf, not of his wife, but of his mother, to whom he was ready to
sacrifice her happiness without a pang. She did not see that he
could imagine no greater happiness for her than a thorough love of
his mother.
They certainly were not the happiest couple present as they walked
up-stairs, looking like a model husband and wife, with their name
echoing from landing to landing.
If any expression savouring of slang could possibly be applied to
Raymond, he might be said to be struck all of a heap by his wife's
proposition. He had never even thought of the possibility of making
a home anywhere but at Compton Poynsett, or of his wife wishing that
he should do so; and proverbial sayings about the incompatability of
relatives-in-law suddenly assumed a reasonableness that he could not
bear to remember.
But his courtesy and sense of protection, trained by a woman of the
old school, would not suffer him to relax his attention to his wife.
Though he was very anxious to get back to the house, he would not
quit her neighbourhood till he had found Frank and intrusted her to
him.
He was not happy about Frank. The youth was naturally of an
intellectual and poetical temperament, and had only cared for horses
and field-sports as any healthy lad growing up in a country house
must enjoy them; and Raymond had seen him introduced to the style of
men whom he thought would be thoroughly congenial to him, and not
unlikely to lead him on to make a mark in the world.
But that unfortunate Vivian attachment stood in the way; Sir Harry
and his elder daughter ignored it entirely, but did not forbid Frank
the house; though Lady Tyrrell took care, as only she could do, that
Eleonora should never have ten minutes private conversation with
him, either at home or abroad. Even in a crowd, a ball, or garden-
party, the vigilant sister had her means of breaking into any kind
of confidence; and Frank was continually tantalized by the pursuit.
It could not but unsettle him, and draw him into much more gaiety
than was compatible with the higher pursuits his mother had expected
of him; and what was worse, it threw him into Sir Harry Vivian's
set, veteran roues, and younger men who looked up to their
knowingness and listened to their good stories.
What amount of harm it was doing Raymond could not guess. He had
known it all himself, and had escaped unscathed, but he did not fear
the less for his younger brother, and he only hoped that the
inducement to mingle with such society would be at an end before
Frank had formed a taste for the habits that there prevailed.
Eleonora Vivian had been much admired at first, but her cold manner
kept every one at a distance, and her reserve was hardly ever seen
to relax. However, her one friendship with the Strangeways family
gave Raymond hopes that her constancy was not proof against the
flattering affection, backed by wealth, that seemed to await her
there. The best he could wish for Frank was that the infatuation
might be over as soon as possible, though he pitied the poor fellow
sincerely when he saw him, as he did to-night, waiting with scarcely
concealed anxiety while Miss Vivian stood listening to a long
discourse about yachting from an eager pair of chattering girls.
Then some break occurred, and Frank moved up to her. "Your last
evening! How little I have seen of you!"
"Little indeed!"
"I called, but you were at the Strangeways'."
"They are very kind to me. When is your holiday?"
"Not till spring, but I may get a few days in the autumn: you will
be at home?"
"As far as I know."
"If I thought for a moment you cared to see me; but you have shown
few signs of wishing it of late."
"Frank--if I could make you understand--"
They were walking towards a recess, when Lady Tyrrell fastened upon
Raymond. "Pray find my sister; she forgets that we have to be at
Lady Granby's--Oh! are you there, Lenore! Will you see her down,
Mr. Poynsett? Well, Frank, did you get as far as you intended?"
And she went down on his arm, her last words being, "Take care of
yourself till we meet at home. For this one year I call Sirenwood
home--then!"
Raymond and Lenore said no more to one another. The ladies were put
into the carriage. The elder brother bade Frank take care of Cecil,
and started for Westminster with the poor lad's blank and
disappointed face still before his eyes, hoping at least it was well
for him, but little in love with life, or what it had to offer.