Mrs. Ramsay Caird at Home.
Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay Caird lived, it is needless to say, in a
fashionable quarter of the town. They could not have lived in any
other. Their lot being essentially cast among fashionable people, it
was necessary for them to reside somewhere within fashionable people's
ken; and that ken is, to say the least of it, limited. It is known to
vulgarians and common persons that there are buildings beyond
Oxford-street on the north side; but it is not known to fashionable
people. They, to be sure, know that some "old families"--and this is
said with an emphasis which conveys that the families in question are
almost pre-Adamite in their age--reside in Portman-square. The
fashionable world allows this as a kind of old-world eccentricity, as
it allows male members of said families to appear in the evening in
blue tailcoats and brass buttons, and to swathe their necks in rolls of
cravat, instead of donning the ordinary small tie. It is a respectable
eccentricity; but it is an eccentricity after all. North of
Oxford-street is as much "the other side" to the fashionable world as
is Suez to the Eastern travellers by the Peninsular and Oriental route.
The fashionable world has heard of the big terraces of splendid
mansions which Messrs. Kelk and Austin have built in the Bayswater-road
facing the Park; they have seen them occasionally when they have been
driving to Kensington-gardens; they believe them to be inhabited by a
respectable moneyed class; but the idea of looking upon them as
residences for themselves has never once struck them. These houses are
such an enormous distance from "anywhere," which to the fashionable
world is bounded by the Regent-circus on the east, Belgrave-square on
the south, the Marble Arch on the west, and Oxford-street on the
north.
It is possible that if the choice of district had been left to
Madeleine herself, poor child, she, never particularly caring about
such matters, and not being in a very critical or very argumentative
state of mind at the period of her marriage, would have fixed upon
some comfortable pleasant house, cheerful, roomy, airy, but in a wrong
situation. If the choice had been left to her father, there is no
doubt that he would have made some tremendous blunder of the like
kind; for Kilsyth when in London was always opening his arms and
expanding his chest and gasping for air. Accustomed to the free
atmosphere of his native Highlands, the worthy gentleman suffered
torture in the dull, dead, confined and vitiated air of the London
street; and amidst the many sufferings which he underwent for the sake
of society of during the few weeks when he remained in town during the
few weeks when he remained in town was the martyrdom which he was put
to in the tiny ill-ventilated rooms in which he had occasionally to
dine or pass a ghastly half-hour "assisting" at a reception. But Lady
Muriel and Mr. Ramsay Caird took this matter in hand. Of their own
express wish as it was to them the task of selecting the residence of
the about-to-be-married couple was to be confided; and there was no
doubt that they would take care that their choice should not be open
to question.
On Squab-street, Grosvenor-place, that choice fell. A curious
street Squab-street; a street in a progressive state; a street which
was feeling the ad immediate vicinity of Cubitopolis, but which was
yielding to the advancing conquest piecemeal and by slow degrees; a
street of small houses originally occupied by small people--doctors,
clerks well-up in the West-end government offices, a barrister or two
with fashionable proclivities, and several lodging-houses, always
filled with good visitors from the country or eligible regular tenants;
a quiet street, looked upon for many years as being a long way off, but
suddenly awaking to find itself in the centre of fashion. For while
the doctors had been paying their ordinary seven-and-sixpenny visits
within what was then almost their suburban neighbourhood; while the
West-end government-office clerks had been plodding to and fro from
their offices; while the barristers had been pluming themselves on the
superiority of their position to that of their brethren, who, true to
old tradition, had set up their Lares and Penates in the neighbourhood
of Russell-square and the Foundling Hospital; while the
lodging-house-keeper had vaunted as recommendations the quietude of
the vicinity and the freshness of the air, the great district now
known as Belgravia was being reclaimed from its native mud, the wild
meadow called the Field of Forty Footsteps was being drained and built
on, the desolate track over which our ancestors pursued their
torchlighted way to Ranelagh and Vauxhall was being spanned by arches
and undermined with gas-pipes; and when all these grand improvements
were complete Squab-street, which had held a respectable but
ignominious existence as Squab-street, Pimlico, blossomed out in the
_Post-Office Directory_ and the _Court-Guide_ as Squab-street, S.W.,
and thenceforward emerged from its chrysalis state, and became a
recognisable and appreciated butterfly.
The effect of the change on the street itself was immediate. Two or
three leases fell in about that time, and the householders, in whose
families the leases had been for a couple of generations, made no
doubt of their renewal. Lord Battersea was the ground landlord--not a
liberal man, not a generous man; in short, a screw, and the driver of
a hard bargain, but still a good landlord. He would be all right, of
course. Would he? When the leaseholders went to Lord Battersea's man
of business, an apple-faced old gentleman with a white head and a kind
of frosty wire for beard, they learned that his lordship had fully
comprehended the change in the state of affairs in Squab-street, and
was prepared to act accordingly. As each lease fell in, the house
which was vacant was to be increased by a couple of stories, and to
have its rent trebled. Squab-street was to be a fitting accessory to
Grosvenor-place. In vain the dispossessed ex-tenants declared that
none of his lordship's then holders could pay the new rent: the
apple-faced old gentleman was sorry; but he thought his lordship could
find plenty of tenants who would. The tenants grumbled; but the man of
business was firm. So were the tenants: they yielded up their leases;
and so the houses were improved, and the rents were raised, and other
tenants came of a class hitherto unknown to Squab-street. Married
officers of the Guards, who found the situation convenient for
Wellington, and not inconvenient for Portman barracks; members of
parliament, who found it handy for the House; railway engineers and
contractors of fabulous wealth, who could skurry to and fro their
offices in Great George-street; and City magnates, who walked to
Westminster-bridge, and went humbly in to the Shrine of Mammon by the
penny-boat. All these new-comers lived in the enlarged houses,
gorgeous stucco-fronted edifices, with porticoes which looked as if
they did not belong to the house, but were leaning up against it by
accident, and plate-glass windows and conservatories about the size of
a market-gardener's hand-lights.
But the other houses in Squab-street, the leases of which had not run
out, remained in their normal condition, and were the same little
brisk, cheery, cleanly, snug common brick edifices that they had been
ever since they were built. The new style of buildings had grown up
round about them, and was dotted here and there amongst them; so that
the range of houses in Squab-street looked like a row of uneven teeth.
The original settlers, who at first had been rather overawed by the
immigrants, had in time come to look upon their arrival as rather a
benefit than otherwise; the doctors extended the number and the
importance of their patients; the government clerks bragged
judiciously of the "swells" who lived in their street; and the
lodging-housekeepers, secure with leases of many unexpired years,
raised their prices season after season, and found plenty of fish to
swallow their hooks.
The house which Lady Muriel and Ramsay Caird, after much driving
about, worrying of house-agents, search of registers, obtaining of
cards to view, and general soul-depression and leg-weariness,--the
house which they eventually decided upon was represented in the
sibylline books of the agent as an "eligible bachelor's residence, in
that fashionable locality Squab-street, S. W." Such indeed it had been
for several previous years; the Honourable Peregrine Fluke, known
generally as Fat Fluke, from his tendency to obesity, or Fishy Fluke,
from a card transaction in which he had once been mixed up, having
been its respected occupant. The Honourable Peregrine Fluke was a very
eligible bachelor indeed, and led the life of the gay young fellow and
the sad dog until he had passed sixty years of age. Then pale Death,
knocking away with impartial rat-tat at the doors of all, the huts of
the poor and the castellated turrets of kings, stopped at 122
Squab-street, and called for the Honourable Peregrine Fluke. The
eligible bachelor succumbing to the summons, his executors came upon
the scene; and wishing to do the best for the lieutenant in the
Marines, who was understood to be the eligible bachelor's nephew, but
who was clearly proved to be his illegitimate son, put up the lease of
the house--the only available thing belonging to the deceased--to
auction, and found a purchaser in Kilsyth. Lady Muriel's clever tact
also secured the furniture at a comparatively cheap rate. It was not
first-rate furniture--a little rococo and old-fashioned; but a few
things could be imported into the drawing-rooms; and, after all, Ramsay
and his wife were not rich people--young beginners, and that kind of
thing, and the place would do very well to commence their married life
in. Lady Muriel always spoke of "Ramsay and his wife" when any monetary
question was under debate, ignoring utterly that all the money came
from Madeleine's side. For not only was there Madeleine's twenty
thousand pounds, but Kilsyth, when the marriage was settled, announced
his intention of making the young couple such an allowance as would
prevent his favourite child from missing any of the comforts, any of
the luxuries to which she had become accustomed.
The situation was undoubtedly fashionable; but that the house itself
might have been more comfortable could not be denied. What was
complimentarily called the hall, but was really the passage, was so
small, that the enormous footmen, awaiting the descent of their
employers from the little drawing-rooms above, dared not house
themselves therein. Two of them would have filled it to overflowing;
so they were compelled either to remain with the carriages, or to run
the chance of being out of the way when required, and solace
themselves in the tap of the Battersea Arms, down the adjacent mews.
The door was so small and so low, that these great creatures rubbed
their cockades and ruffled their coats in passing through it. The
house stood at the corner of the mews, and every vehicle that drove in
or out caused an earthquake-like sensation as it passed. Doors
creaked, china rocked, floors groaned, walls trembled. The little
dining-room was like a red-flocked tank; the little drawing-rooms
encumbered with the newly-imported extra furniture, were so choke-full,
that it was with the utmost difficulty that visitors could thread their
way between table and couch and ottoman and _étagère_. It required a
knowledge of the science of navigation to tack round the piano; and the
visitor, when once he had reached a seat by the hostess near the
fireplace, could scarcely devote himself to conversation, owing to the
trouble which filled his mind as to how he would ever get away again.
It was not advisable to open any of the side-windows, even in the
hottest weather, or a stably odour at once pervaded the house, and the
forcible language addressed by the grooms to the horses, whose toilet
was performed in the open yard, was a little too audible. It was
impossible for guests to go through the ceremony of "taking down" to
dinner. The steep little ladder-like staircase was only passable by
one person at a time; and in the narrow little tank of a dining-room
the people who sat with their backs to the fire were roasted alive,
and had the additional pleasure of having to eat their meat
vegetable-less and sauce-less, there being no approach to them and no
passing them. Still everyone said that the situation was delightful,
and the house was "quite charming;" and Lady Muriel and Ramsay Caird
took great credit to themselves for having secured it.
Madeleine herself was but little impressed by it. It was immaterial to
her where she lived, or in what style of house. She shrugged her
shoulders when they told her the rooms were charming; she raised her
eyebrows when her servants complained of darkness and inconvenience.
"It did very well," was her highest commendation, and she never found
fault. If this girl's life had not been strangely solitary and without
companionship, she would have had all sorts of confidences to exchange
with some half-dozen intimates as to her new life, her new home, her
new career. As it was, she dropped into it quietly, with scarcely a
remark to any one. After her little and short-lived daydream had
dissolved, after she had awakened to the exact realities which were
about her, her period of suspense was very short. What passed between
her and her brother Ronald at the interview which, as settled with
Lady Muriel, he sought at his sister's hands was never known. The
result was satisfactory to the prime movers in the scheme; and the
result was that Madeleine was to marry Ramsay Caird. There was another
interview connected with the matter which neither Lady Muriel nor
Ronald ever heard of. When the news was first announced to him by his
wife, Kilsyth received it very quietly. The next morning, before my
lady had risen, the fond father, in pursuance of an appointment made
in a note secretly sent up by the maid the night before, went to his
darling's room, and had a half-hour's long and earnest conversation
with her. Earnest on his side at all events: he asked her whether this
engagement had been brought about of her own free will; if she had
thought over it sufficiently; if she would wish the time of betrothal
to be lengthened beyond the usual period; if there were anything, in
fact, in which she would wish to make reference to him, and in which
he could aid her. To all these inquiries, urged in the warmest and
most affectionate manner, he got but the same kind of reply. Madeleine
kissed her father fondly. She hated the thought of leaving him, she
said; but it would do very well. It would do very well! She had not
even the heart to be deceitful--to feign delight when she did not feel
it. It would do very well! Kilsyth's warm heart beat more slowly as he
istened to this lukewarm appreciation of the expected joys of his
daughter's future; he scarcely comprehended anything so _fade_ and so
spiritless from a young girl about to undergo such an important change
in all the phases of her existence. He again pressed his question home,
and received the same answer; and then he made up his mind, for the
thousandth time in his life, that women were extraordinary creatures,
and that there was no dealing with them. This was a very favourite
axiom of his, and had been enounced with much solemnity frequently. On
this occasion, however, he kept silence, shaking his head in a very
thoughtful and prophetic manner as he descended the stairs to his own
dressing-room. It would do very well! Madeleine thought of the reply
which she had given to the most important question ever put to her,
after her father had left her and when she was alone. She knew her
father well enough to be certain that a word spoken at that time by her
to him would have stopped the engagement, and left her free. And what
would then have ensued? She would have made an enemy of Lady Muriel,
with whom she had to live; she would have deeply annoyed Ronald, who
had always, in his odd way, shown the greatest love for her and the
keenest interest in her welfare; and in the great question of her life
she would have advanced not one whit. Chudleigh Wilmot was gone--gone
for ever. An alliance--a continuance even of the friendship, such as
it had been, with him was impossible; her friends wanted her to marry
Ramsay Caird. Well, then, it would do very well!
A phrase significant of a state of mind in which marriages are often
undertaken, but surely an unlucky and a pitiable state of mind.
Something more than a tacit acquiescence is meant by the vows of the
marriage-service; and though cynics endeavour to persuade us that
these vows are far more frangible and far more often broken than they
used to be, it is as well to believe in the whole force of them while
we stand before the altar-rails, and before the priest utters his
benediction. And the worst of it all was that the phrase expressed
Madeleine's feelings thoroughly--her feelings as regarded her
marriage, her feelings towards her husband. It _was_ Ramsay Caird--it
might have been Clement Penruddock, or Frank Only, or Lord Roderick
Douglas, or half-a-dozen others. She had an equal liking for all these
men; no love for any one of them. In her earlier girlish days, some
year or two beforehand, she had wondered which of the young men who
frequented the house would propose to her, and which of them she would
marry. None of them had ever proposed to her. They saw long before she
did that she was marked down for Ramsay Caird. These sort of things
are concealed with the utmost discretion by long-headed mothers, are
never suspected by daughters, and are discussed between male friends
of the family with much openness and freedom. She had been a favourite
with all these pleasant youths; but they knew perfectly well why
Ramsay Caird was always at the house, and why he inevitably had the
best chance; and their regard for Lady Muriel was by no means
diminished by the clever manner in which she aided and assisted her
protégé.
After marriage, at least during the first few months after marriage,
it was very much the same. Madeleine "liked" her husband; he was quite
gentlemanly, genial, cheery, very hospitable, very fond of pleasure,
very fond of spending money on her, on himself, on anyone. He never
interfered with her in the smallest degree, and never was happier than
when she was under the chaperonage of her mother, and his attendance
on her was not required. During the first few months of her married
life she received a vast number of callers; all of whose visits she
duly repaid; went out constantly to dinners, balls, receptions of all
kinds, to operas and theatres, private and public fêtes,--everywhere,
in short, where people can go--with decency and enjoy themselves. Not
that Madeleine enjoyed herself. "It would do very well," seemed to be
the keynote no less in her pleasures than in the rest of her life. In
company she sat with the same ever-blank look until she was roused.
Then she responded with the same smile. O, so unlike her old smile!
With an upward glance of her blue eyes, where there was no light now,
and with the little society-laugh which she had recently learned, and
which was so different from the hearty ringing burst which used to
greet her father's ears at Kilsyth in the old days before her
illness--those days which seemed to her, to them all, but to her most of
all, so long ago.
Visitors she had in plenty. Scarcely a morning passed without a call
from Lady Muriel, who, still priding herself upon the admirable manner
in which by her tact her stepdaughter had been "settled," looked in to
see how she was getting on, to learn who had been to see her during
the preview day, what parties she had been to, who she had met, what
their reception of her had been, and what invitations for forthcoming
gaieties she had received. A comparison of notes on these last
matters, now a favourite occupation of Lady Muriel's, with whose great
name the world of fashion had begun to busy itself, proclaiming her as
one of its leaders,--and she, always equal to the occasion, had
accepted the tribute gracefully, and, as in everything else,
conscientiously discharged the duties of her position,--then luncheon,
to which meal Lady Muriel would frequently remain, and when some of
the more intimate friends of the family, notably Mrs. M'Diarmid, would
drop in; not that Mrs. M'Diarmid's accession added much to the comfort
of the meal. The dear old lady, when her favourite project of marrying
Madeleine to Wilmot had been untimely nipped in the bud, and when she
saw that Ramsay Caird, whom she cordially disliked, was the accepted
suitor, relinquished all opposition in silence, and contented herself
with sniffing loudly, as the sole demonstration of her displeasure.
That marriage-service, which she had pictured to herself with so many
different "eligibles" as bridegrooms, might, but for the presence of
mind of his Right Reverence of Boscastle, have been sorely interrupted
by the defiant sniffs which came from the right-hand pew close by the
altar-rails, where Mrs. Mac, dressed in the brown _moire_ which had so
often filled her dreams, had bestowed herself, to the deep indignation
of the pew opener. But she did not allow her disapproval of the
marriage to interfere with her love for "her dear child;" she came
constantly to Squab-street; and the pleasantest hours of Madeleine's
life were passed in the society of this good old woman, when she knew
that there was no call upon her to exert herself in any way, or to
show herself otherwise than she really was; when she could lie back in
her chair, and indulge herself with the sweet sad daydream of "what
might have been," which contrasted so harshly and unsatisfactorily
with what was.
A drive in her stepmother's carriage, or a round of calls in her own
brougham, filled up the afternoon, until it was time to return home to
preside at her tea-table and receive her friends. After her engagement
had been regularly announced there had been a good deal of fuss made
about that five-o'clock tea-table; the young men who were intimate at
Brook-street had vowed that they would make it the pleasantest in
London; that more news should be heard there than anywhere else; and
that the men who write in the _Cotillon_--a charming amateur journal
of political _canards_ and society gossip, published during the
season--should go on their knees and implore invitations. The
tea-table had been established in due course, but it had not been such
a success as had been anticipated. Madeleine was _triste_ and quiet to
a degree. The men could not understand it, she had always been so
pleasant before her marriage; unlike most women, who are always a
doosid sight pleasanter after it. They had been in the habit of
finding their old partners of the two or three previous seasons, now
married, by no means indisposed to listen to the compliments which
they had been erst in the habit of addressing to them; and the
practice had derived additional piquancy from the fact of the change
of condition in the person addressed. There was Lady Violet
Penruddock, for instance, only married to old Clem--O, within a few
weeks of Miss Kilsyth's marriage; and how jolly she was! Looked as
fresh as possible--fresh as paint, some fellow said; but that was a
confounded shame, don't you know,--only a little powder and that kind
of thing, what all girls use, don't you know--doosid cruel you women are
to one another! There was Lady Vi, jolly as a sand-boy! Old Clem was at
his club, or some place, and didn't come home till late, and there was
always tearing fun at Grosvenor-gate. Charmin' woman, Lady Vi; and
very wise of old Clem to like to read the evening papers, and that kind
of thing. Not that there was anything to be complained of Caird in this
matter; never thought much of Caird, eh, did you? he was never at home;
but his wife had grown so confoundedly dull, hipped, and that kind of
thing--bored, don't you know? sits still and don't say a word except
yes and no; don't help a feller out a hit, you know, and looks rather
dreary and dull.
Poor Madeleine! she was beginning to be found out by her friends. If
you live in society you must contribute your quota, according to your
means--either your rank, your money, your talent--towards the general
stock; but unless your birth will warrant it, you must never be dull;
and in no case must you differ from the ordinary proceedings of your
order. Madeleine was very unlike Lady Violet Penruddock, she
felt--very unlike indeed. But that was her misfortune, not her fault. She
would have been very glad to laugh and flirt with all her old friends,
to talk nonsense and innocent scandal, and all the society chit-chat,
if she had been able; but she was not able. Under all her quiet manner
and shyness and girlishness Madeleine Caird possessed what Lady Violet
Penruddock had never pretended to--a heart. That heart had been hurt
and torn and lacerated; and as in the present day it is not possible
to explain this, or rather it is considered essential to hide it,
Madeleine was obliged to put up with the imputation of dulness, when
in reality she was merely suffering from having loved someone who, as
she thought, did not care for her, and having been compelled to marry
somebody for whom she had no real affection.
Did Ramsay Caird ever fancy that his wife did not care for him, or at
least was not as romantically fond of him as are most wives of their
husbands during the first few months after marriage? If he did, did
the reflection ever cost him a moment's anxiety, a moment's distrust,
a thought that perhaps his own course of living was not precisely
adapted to enthral the affections of a young girl? Not for an instant.
Ramsay, when Lady Muriel's half-spoken hints had first enlightened him
as to the position which, for his dead brother's sake, her ladyship
proposed to him to hold, had cogitated over the matter in an
essentially business-like spirit, and had come to the conclusion that
such an opportunity ought by all means to be made the most of. He was
a calculating cautious young man, entirely devoid of impulse; and--as
had been suspected by more than one of the frequenters of the
Brook-street establishment, who, however, were much too good fellows to
hint at it openly--he was a man fond of common, not to say gross
pleasures, which his limited means prevented him from indulging in. A
marriage with Madeleine Kilsyth, herself a very nice girl, as society
girls went, would give him position, ease, and money--leave him his own
master, with power and opportunity to pursue his own devices--and was
therefore for him in every respect most desirable. With all his easy
bearing, his _laiesez-aller_ manners, and his apparent _nonchalance_,
Mr. Ramsay Caird possessed his full share of the national 'cuteness;
and having made up his mind to win, looked carefully round him to see
where his course lay straightest, and what shoals were to be avoided.
He determined to make a waiting race of it, convinced that any eagerness
or ill-timed enthusiasm might spoil his chance; he saw that his game
was to be quiet and wait upon his oars until he received the signal to
dash out into mid-stream; his complete willingness to attend to all
suggestions, and to take his time from the family, quite fascinated
Ronald Kilsyth, from whom at first Caird had apprehended opposition;
and, as we have seen, when the time came, he declared himself with so
strong a show that no other competitor dared put in an appearance.
But when the race had been run and the prize secured, Ramsay Caird
felt that the crisis was past, that the long course of tutelage under
which he had placed himself was at an end, and that henceforward he
would enjoy those benefits for the acquisition of which he had
regulated his conduct for so many months. He had not the smallest love
for his wife; he had even but small admiration for her looks.
Madeleine's blue eyes and golden hair were too cold and insipid for
his taste. In his freer moments he was accustomed to talk about
"soul"--an attribute which poor Maddy was supposed not to possess--and
"liquid eyes" and "classic features" and the "sunny South"--which, as
Tommy Toshington remarked, when told of it, accounted for his having
seen Caird on the previous Sunday afternoon ringing at the door of the
villa temporarily tenanted by Madame Favorita, the _prima donna_ of
the Opera, and situated in the Alpha-road. Tommy Toshington invariably
happened to be passing by when the wrong man was ringing at the wrong
house; and got an immense number of pleasant dinners out of the
coincidence. So that Ramsay Caird saw but little of the interior of
his own house after leaving it in the mornings. He at first had been
somewhat punctilious and deferential with Lady Muriel, taking care to
be at home when she came, and to be in attendance when he thought she
would require his presence; but after a few weeks he threw off this
restraint, and kept the hours which suited him. Kilsyth looked blank
and uncomfortable once or twice when at dinners, specially given in
honour of the new-married couple, Madeleine had appeared alone, and
Lady Muriel had proffered a story of Ramsay's toothache or business
appointment; and Ronald had looked black, and held more than one
muttered conversation with his stepmother, in the course of which his
brows contracted, and his mouth grew very rigid. But Madeleine never
uttered a word of complaint, although Lady Muriel was in daily
expectation of an outburst. She sat quietly, sadly, uninterestedly by.
Better, far better, for all concerned if she had had sufficient
feeling of her own loneliness, of her own neglected condition, to
appeal in language however forcible and strong. To labour under the
"it-will-do-very-well" feeling is to be on the high road to
destruction.