'MRS. JIMMY'
Colonel Faversham set out one morning in November after prolonged
hesitation. A year ago he would not have thought twice, but of late he
had grown much more careful of himself. The day was misty and the air
struck raw and cold. He made no protest when Carrissima suggested that
he should wear a scarf, although after she had wound it around his neck
he, somewhat irritably, rearranged it in order to expose his necktie.
"Bless me!" he exclaimed, with something of his former energy, "you
seem to want to make me look like an infernal invalid. Thank goodness
I haven't got to that yet by a long shot. Molly-coddling a man in this
way!"
"I don't see much use in wearing a scarf if you tuck it down beneath
your coat," said Carrissima.
"Who wants to wear one?" he demanded, pulling it off and flinging it on
to the hall table. "I won't wear it. I won't be bothered and
interfered with!"
He selected a walking-stick from the stand, but when Carrissima opened
the door for him, returned to exchange it for an umbrella; at last,
setting forth at a quarter to twelve, walking rather slowly in the
direction of his club. As he made his way along Piccadilly Colonel
Faversham came almost to a standstill. Good heavens! that must be
Bridget coming towards him. He fixed his eye-glass and saw that he had
not make a mistake; in fact, it was difficult to be mistaken. She was
as becomingly dressed as ever, and carried an enormous muff, with a
great many of some small animals' tails depending from it.
Colonel Faversham's thoughts at once flew back to that last time he had
seen her in Golfney Place, when he had insisted that she should name
the date for their marriage--a week or two hence, as he had egregiously
hoped! And she had seemed to promise that she would gratify him when
he came the following morning, and he arrived with exuberant
anticipations only to find the bird flown! Everything stood out
clearly in his mind, and now that she was within a few yards he wished
he had not passed Half Moon Street, so that he might have slipped down
the turning in order to avoid a meeting.
Had he done so in all probability Bridget would have pursued him!
Quickening her pace she bore down upon the colonel with her right hand
outstretched, while with the left she held the enormous muff. He had
no alternative; it seemed inevitable that he should meet her half-way.
Although he had always admired her, she had never appeared quite so
enticing as this dull November morning; looking into his face with
merry eyes, while yet the corners of her mouth were drawn down as if to
express the penitence, which he knew that no one in the world could
have been farther from feeling.
"Oh, Colonel Faversham, how delighted I am to see you again!" she
cried, and the provoking part of it was that he could not avoid a
sensation of pleasure on seeing her at closer quarters. He did not
imagine for an instant that she wished to see him, although for the
time her manner might carry conviction. "I have positively been
longing to meet you," said Bridget.
"It is very kind to say so," muttered Colonel Faversham.
"And," she continued, with her eyes on his face, "how splendidly well
you are looking!"
"Ah, you think I am?" he answered. "Well, thank Heaven, I feel pretty
well. How long have you been in London?" he asked rather hastily,
because no one could feel more anxious to omit any allusion to the
painful past.
"Only a couple of days," said Bridget. "We had the loveliest time
abroad, and the best of it was that I really knew my way about far
better than Jimmy."
Well, Colonel Faversham, for his part, did not doubt that she knew her
way about better than most people.
"Now, tell the truth!" she exclaimed, as they stood in the middle of
the pavement, "don't you think you ought to feel immensely grateful to
me?"
"Bless my soul, I had not thought of that!" he answered, with a laugh.
"Well, you can recognize the fact now it's pointed out to you. Admit
you had a happy release, as they sometimes say in different
circumstances."
"Now I have seen you again," said Colonel Faversham gallantly, "it
becomes much more difficult than ever to believe anything of the sort."
"I hope," replied Bridget, "you mean to come and see me often. Jimmy
will be delighted. We have taken the duckiest little furnished flat
while we look about for a house of our own."
"You are not going to settle down in Upper Grosvenor Street?" suggested
the colonel.
"Oh dear, no! We should never dream of disturbing Sybil, nor of living
with her. You don't know what a good fellow Jimmy is! Now he has a
wife to keep him up to the mark he will do the most wonderful and
unexpected things. You will see! He is going to stand for
Atlinghurst, and I assure you I intend to get him in. Don't you think
I shall make an excellent canvasser? Now, please, understand," she
added, "I expect you to come and see me!"
"Where is the flat?" he inquired.
"Aberdeen Mansion," she answered. "Jimmy took it while we were
abroad----"
"Without seeing it? Good gracious!" said Colonel Faversham. That was
just like Jimmy--and Bridget.
"Oh dear, yes," she said. "We left it to an agent, and, really,
nothing could have turned out better. It is only a few yards from Hyde
Park Corner. Will you come and have lunch this morning? I know Jimmy
will be at home--not that it matters if he isn't."
"Some other time, if you will allow me," said Colonel Faversham,
offering his right hand.
"I wish," cried Bridget, as she stood holding it, "you would promise me
one thing!"
"Upon my word," he replied, "it's difficult to refuse to promise you
anything."
"Well, then, please make Carrissima pay me a visit at once--at once,
you understand?"
As Colonel Faversham walked on to his club, hastening because he had
grown cold standing still so long, he doubted whether or not he should
mention Mrs. Jimmy's name at Grandison Square. He never ceased to
congratulate himself, inasmuch as the fact of his abortive engagement
had been kept secret. Even if Carrissima suspected anything of the
kind, she could not possibly know for certain! Colonel Faversham
realized, however, that his relationship to Bridget in former days
might still be raked up as food for scoffers, and he shrank from
anything of the nature of ridicule. Mrs. Jimmy, indeed, was a delicate
topic, and he would probably have kept his own counsel concerning the
meeting in Piccadilly, if he had not feared lest she should
subsequently come into contact with Carrissima, when his silence might
defeat his own end.
"Whom do you think I saw this morning?" he asked, after dinner that
evening.
"Not--not Bridget?" she exclaimed.
"Yes--Mrs. Jimmy! They have been in London only a couple of days."
"Then you spoke to her?"
"Good gracious!" answered the colonel, "why on earth shouldn't I speak
to her. As a matter of fact there was no getting out of it. She
insisted on speaking to me. She is living in a furnished
flat--Aberdeen Mansion, close to Hyde Park Corner, you know, and she
made me promise that you should pay her a visit as soon as possible. I
don't know whether you will care to go."
"Oh yes," said Carrissima, "I am bound to call sooner or later."
"Well, well, you know best," was the answer. "She thought I was
looking uncommonly well--at least she said so. Goodness knows whether
she meant it. Anyhow, I feel pretty fit!"
Although anything resembling an intimacy with Bridget might be out of
the question, it seemed absolutely necessary to pay Jimmy's wife an
ordinary, complimentary visit. Deep down in Carrissima's mind,
perhaps, was an idea that Bridget might prove capable of an
intervention as auspicious as her previous alarums and excursions had
been unfortunate.
If this were the case, Carrissima scarcely admitted the impeachment
even to herself; but two afternoons after the meeting with Colonel
Faversham near Half Moon Street his daughter set out to Aberdeen
Mansion, where she found Mrs. Clynesworth at home, and at once came to
the conclusion that until the present, at least, she believed
everything had turned out for the best in the best of all possible
worlds.
She at once broke through Carrissima's reserve. Paying no attention to
her proffered hand, she leaned forward and demonstratively kissed her
first on the right cheek, then on the left.
"So glad you have come," she cried effusively. "And how extremely
fortunate that Jimmy is out."
"Is he all right?" asked Carrissima.
"Oh yes, quite all right," was the answer. "You will say he looks
splendid, though I don't take any credit to myself for that, because he
always did. I thought so the very first time I saw his photograph at
your house. I haven't the remotest notion where he has gone and I
never inquire. That's my theory of matrimony. Perhaps you are
surprised to hear I have a theory of any kind; but no," said Bridget,
"of course you're more likely to go to the opposite extreme. You can't
help regarding me as a horrid sort of schemer!"
"All's well that ends well," returned Carrissima, with a smile.
"Ah! but, you see, it isn't the end!" said Bridget. "It's only the
beginning. We're not living in one of those novels where marriage is
the end of all things. But Jimmy and I always go our separate ways and
the consequence is when we meet we're generally quite glad to see each
other. Such an immense mistake to imagine that any two people can tell
one another everything."
"Is it?" murmured Carrissima, who clung to a vastly different ideal.
"What bores we should become!" said Bridget. "And, you know, whatever
you do to a man you must never bore him--poor fellow! But, please,
don't encourage me to talk about myself--not that I really need much
encouragement. I feel so perfectly delighted with everything!--how is
Mark?" she added, abruptly changing her tone.
"He looked very well the last time I saw him," replied Carrissima, at
once on guard.
"When was that?"
"A few days ago!"
"You don't appear to have any interesting announcement to make,"
suggested Bridget, with expressive eyes on Carrissima's face. Now,
Carrissima hesitated. She could easily have answered in such a way
that her hostess, with all her audacity, would have been silenced.
"I haven't spoken to Mark," she faltered, "since your marriage."
"How disappointing!" cried Bridget. "So, after all my efforts you
didn't follow the advice I gave you."
"No," said Carrissima.
"Why not?"
"Oh well, I couldn't," said Carrissima, and Bridget shrugged her
shoulders as if to put the topic aside.
"Did the colonel tell you," she inquired, "that Jimmy is going to stand
for Atlinghurst? Between us we are going to accomplish the most
wonderful things. He always insists that his mind is too independent
for the House of Commons, but I tell him a man must expect to sacrifice
some of his independence when he marries."
"In spite of all your theories!" suggested Carrissima.
"Of course," Bridget continued, "I quite understand that most people
believe Jimmy sacrificed a great deal more than that! Your brother
Lawrence, for instance! Oh dear, I can imagine exactly what he says!
Carrissima, there's one thing which makes me angry!"
"Only one?" said Carrissima.
"The want of discrimination in the human mind. I dare say that even
yours is tainted! It's of no use to pretend you can't understand. In
a moment of self-denying effusiveness I admitted that I deliberately
angled for a husband: first for Mark Driver, then for Colonel
Faversham. Well, although one would have none of me and I didn't want
the other, the fact remains that I am the wife of the richest of the
trio! Everybody who knows Jimmy naturally thinks that was all I
thought about--his money, his position and so forth. Well, there's
only one consolation," said Bridget.
"What is that?" demanded Carrissima.
"Jimmy knows better. I can't tell you how, but there's the glorious
fact that he does. All the evidence was against me! I suppose Jimmy
is a kind of seer--oh, of course you can't help smiling at that! But,
then, neither you nor any one else has the slightest idea what there is
in Jimmy. Carrissima, my husband is a clever man who has the
misfortune--if it is really a misfortune--to see both sides of every
question too distinctly! Being a poor partisan, he appears to lack
enthusiasm. But, then, I have a boundless store!"
"I begin to think," said Carrissima, "that none of us imagined all
there was in _you_!"
"Oh, as for me," returned Bridget, "I was simply a little wretch during
the few months you saw anything of me. I honestly believe that was a
kind of interregnum. If you had met me while my father was alive you
would have taken me for a quite different woman. All that is over and
done with and for the rest--well, you will see!"
When Carrissima rose to go away Bridget clung to her hand--
"Jimmy will be immensely disappointed," she exclaimed. "I wish you
would do something to console him by dining with us one evening. Our
space here isn't sufficient for large parties."
"I should be very pleased," said Carrissima.
"Let me see," returned Bridget, knitting her brows, "we were reckless
enough to promise to go to Sandbay from Friday till Monday--my dear
little Dresden china aunts, you remember! It is really very amusing!
Jimmy paid them a visit just after I left Golfney Place and they have
taken quite a fancy to him. The odd part of it is, that he seems to
like them in return. Goodness knows how he will endure three days in a
house where tobacco has always been tabooed. Would next Friday suit
you?"
"Quite nicely," said Carrissima.
"Oh, but Friday is an unlucky day, isn't it?" cried Bridget. "I don't
know whether you are superstitious, although I believe everyone is
about something. Suppose we say Thursday, and if I can't get together
the people I should like to meet you I must write and fix another
evening. If you don't hear to the contrary I shall expect you on
Thursday--at eight o'clock. Or," Bridget added, "perhaps half-past
seven will be more convenient. Yes, please let it be half-past seven."
Carrissima walked back to Grandison Square thinking of the change which
had occurred in Bridget, who yet remained in many ways the same as she
had ever been and most likely always would be. But she had no longer
anything to disguise, anything to scheme for. Her manner was
characterized by a new and delightful air of authority, and, indeed,
Carrissima, if anybody, had become the plotter now! As far as Mrs.
Jimmy was concerned the slate had been cleaned. No, in spite of
anything that Lawrence might say, in spite of all that Bridget had
done, Carrissima could not believe that Jimmy Clynesworth was to be
very deeply pitied.