Inquisitorial.
Lady Muriel Kilsyth had carried her cherished plan into execution--had
seen her wishes as regarded Madeleine and her kinsman Ramsay Caird
fulfilled. With wonderfully little trouble, too. When she thought over
it all, she was surprised at the apparent ease and rapidity with which
the marriage, which she had regarded, after Madeleine's illness at
Kilsyth, as a difficult matter to manage, had been brought about. Time
had done it all for her--time, assisted by her own tact and skill, and
the accomplished fashion after which she had removed all removable
obstacles, and availed herself of every circumstance and indication
in favour of her cherished project. Nor had the smallest injury to her
own position resulted from manoeuvering which Lady Muriel would have
been ready to blast, if performed by anyone else, with the ruinous
epithet, "vulgar matchmaking." No, not the smallest. Indeed, Lady
Muriel Kilsyth was one of those fortunate individuals whose position
may be generally regarded as, under all circumstances, unassailable.
She stood as well with Ronald as ever; and Lady Muriel, with all her
imperturbable but never offensive pride, was more anxious about
standing well with her step-son than the world would have consented to
believe she could have been about securing the good opinion of any
human being. She stood, as she always had done, first and chief in the
love and esteem of her husband, who, if he did not "understand"
her--and he was none the less happy with her that he assuredly did
not--made up for his want of comprehension by the most uncompromising
trust, devotion, and admiration,--all manifested in his own quiet
peculiar way. As this "way" included allowing her the most absolute
liberty of action, and an apparent impossibility of questioning her
judgment on any conceivable point, it suited Lady Muriel admirably.
Kilsyth was perfectly satisfied with Madeleine's marriage. He believed
in love-matches, and it never occurred to him to doubt that this was
one. He had quietly taken it for granted, first, because Ramsay Caird
had spoken of their "mutual attachment," when he had formally asked
Kilsyth for the precious gift of his daughter. Then, Lady Muriel had
spoken so warmly of Ramsay's love for Madeleine, had shown such
generous and sensitive susceptibility to the possibility of Kilsyth's
thinking she had been wrong and injudicious in admitting to such close
household intimacy a relative of her own, who was not qualified, as
far as fortune was concerned, to pretend to his daughter's hand.
Thirdly, if he never doubted Ramsay's being in love with
Madeleine--and he never did doubt it for an instant--what could be more
natural than that all the young men who had the chance should be in
love with Madeleine? Still less could it have occurred to him to doubt
that Madeleine was in love with Ramsay. Ramsay had neither rank nor
fortune to give her--that was very certain; and Kilsyth knew of only
two motives as possible incentives to marriage--love and money. Under
any circumstances, he never could have suspected his daughter of being
actuated by the latter. The fine, gallant, unsophisticated, hearty old
fellow, who had had a fair share of happiness all his life, and whose
knowledge of human nature was as superficial as his judgment of it was
genial, had no notion that pique, thwarted love, blighted hope,
wounded pride, the strong and desperate necessity of hiding suffering
from kindred household eyes, or an infatuated yearning for the
freedom, in certain respects; whose value a man can never estimate,
and which a girl gains by her marriage, were among the not unfrequent
causes of the taking of that tremendous step. He had never talked to
Maddy about her love for Ramsay Caird, certainly; it would never have
occurred to him to "make the girl uncomfortable," as he would have
expressed it, by any such proceeding; but he would as soon have
suspected that Madeleine had brought an asp to her new home among her
wedding-clothes as believed that the girl's heart hid, ever so far
down in its depths, another image than her husband's.
So Kilsyth was satisfied, in his genial and outspoken way; and Ronald
was satisfied, after his grim undemonstrative fashion. And Lady Muriel
stood well with all concerned, especially with Madeleine. All the
petty restraints of "stepmother" authority, inevitably resented even
by the most amiable natures, however mildly exercised, were gone now.
Maddy was on a social level with Lady Muriel; there could never more
be any of the little discords between them there had been; and
Madeleine, as she took her own place hi the world, and felt, with a
sudden sort of shock, as if she had grown ever so much older, woke up
to a fuller consciousness of Lady Muriel's many attractions than she
had ever previously attained. She recognised her beauty, her grace,
her dignity, her perfect breeding, her thorough _savoir faire_ with
real appreciation now, and true pleasure and admiration; and one of
the happiest thoughts in which she indulged was of how she would be
such "good friends" with Lady Muriel, and how she would take her for
the model of her conduct, and in every respect her social guide. She
was perfectly aware of the dissimilarity which existed between them;
and she never would have been guilty of the absurdity of "copying"
Lady Muriel's manners, but she might be guided by her for all that. So
much the more readily now that she was not always in dread of hearing
Wilmot mentioned, of being reminded of him, of exciting a suspicion by
some inadvertence that she had been guilty of the folly of thinking he
had cared for her just a little. No fear of that now. She was married
and _safe_--poor child!
Unsuspicious by nature, ignorant of the world, and unconsciously
living a life apart, a life in her own thoughts and reveries,
Madeleine was wonderfully indifferent to the conduct of her husband.
Either she was really unconscious of it for some time after it had
begun to excite the fears of her father, the suspicions of Lady
Muriel, the anger of her brother, and the gossip of society, or she
successfully contrived to appear so. The judgment of the world leaned
to the latter hypothesis; but the judgment of the world is always
uncharitable, and frequently wrong. In the present instance it was
both. Madeleine did not know that Ramsay Caird was behaving ill. He
was always kind in his manner to her; and if he was--which there was
no denying--a good deal away from home, why, he did not differ in that
respect from many other men whom she knew or heard of, and it never
occurred to Madeleine to resent his absence. Neither did it occur to
her to ask herself whether she was not in real truth rather glad he
should be so much away from her, nor to reflect that the world, which
knew he was, would inevitably come to one of two conclusions, either
that she was a most unhappy wife, or that she had never loved her
husband.
No; Madeleine Caird thought of none of these things. She went on her
way caring very little for anything; not entirely unhappy, surprised
indeed at the variations in her own spirits, unable to account for the
overwhelming sadness which beset her at some times, and finding
equally inexplicable the ease with which she flung off this sadness at
others. She was looked at and wondered at and talked of daily by
scores of her acquaintances, and, she was entirely unconscious that
she was the subject of any such scrutiny.
Lady Muriel understood Madeleine's state of mind perfectly. She had a
clue to it, which she alone possessed; and while she regarded Ramsay
Caird's conduct with all the by no means inconsiderable strength of
indignation of which she was capable, she was quite aware that
Madeleine was only in the conventional sense an object of compassion.
Was Lady Muriel quite satisfied, was she perfectly content with her
success? Hardly so; in the first place, because she was forced to
condemn Ramsay Caird, and she did not like to acknowledge the
necessity; in the second place, because the result of this success,
personal to her, that to which it was to owe its best value, its chief
sweetness, was delayed. She chafed at Wilmot's absence now; she had
hailed it until Madeleine's marriage had been an accomplished fact;
she had tolerated it for a little time afterwards; but now--now her
impatience was undisguised to herself, now she wanted this man to
return--this man who lent her life such a strange charm, in whose
presence the common atmosphere took a vivid colouring, and every-day
things and occurrences assumed a different meaning and value.
Lady Muriel had heard of Chudleigh Wilmot's accession to fortune
reasonably soon after the occurrence of the event. Kilsyth happened to
be out of town for a few days on the occasion of Mr. Foljambe's
death, and had therefore not attended the funeral. General report, at
least in Lady Muriel's particular sphere, had not yet proclaimed the
succession of one unlinked by ties of blood to the rich banker to the
large fortune with which rumour correctly accredited Mr. Foljambe, and
it remained for Lady Muriel to learn the news from the same source
whence Henrietta Prendergast had derived the account of Madeleine's
marriage. It was from Mrs. Charlton that Lady Muriel heard the
interesting tidings, and Mrs. Prendergast was present on the occasion.
It was the first time she had ever been in the same room with Lady
Muriel Kilsyth, and she had regarded her with lively curiosity, and
much genuine, honest admiration. The finished style of Lady Muriel's
beauty--the sort of style which conveys the impression that the
possessor of so much beauty is beautiful as much by a sovereign act of
her will as by the decree and gift of nature; her grace of manner,
true stamp of the _grande dame_ set upon her, had irresistible
attractions for Henrietta, who was one of those women, by no means so
rare as the cynics would have us believe, who can heartily and
enthusiastically admire the qualities, physical and mental, of
individuals of their own sex.
"I am sure you will be glad to hear the news Mrs. Prendergast has just
told us," Mrs. Charlton had said; and then Lady Muriel learned that
Mr. Foljambe had made Wilmot his heir. She received the intelligence
with the perfection of friendly interest; she turned courteously to
Mrs. Prendergast, as though taking it for granted her congratulations
were to be addressed to her individually, as Wilmot's relative or
friend; and as she did so her heart beat rapidly, with the pulse of
one who has escaped a great danger, as she thought, "Had this happened
only a few weeks sooner, all might have been lost!"
It was on the same day and at the same hour that Wilmot learned the
same fact, from the letter of his dead friend, at Berlin.
Had Lady Muriel been a younger, a weaker, or a less experienced woman,
she must inevitably have betrayed some emotion beyond that of mere
gratification at a friend's good fortune to the keen eyes of Henrietta
Prendergast. But her _savoir faire_ was perfect, and she said and
looked precisely what she ought to have said and looked. There was a
strange accord in the impulsive thoughts of each of these women, so
different, so widely separated by circumstances. As Henrietta repeated
the intelligence for Lady Muriel's information which she had already
communicated to Mrs. Charlton, she too was thinking, "Had this
happened only a few weeks sooner, all might have been lost!"
Madeleine's marriage was of no less importance to the designs and the
hopes of Henrietta Prendergast than to those of Lady Muriel Kilsyth.
"I wonder what he will do now?" said Miss Charlton, who had some of
the advantages of silliness, among them a happy _naïveté_, which made
it always safe to calculate upon her making some remark or asking some
question which others might desire to proffer on their own behalf, but
for the restraints of good taste. Lady Muriel could not imagine; Mrs.
Prendergast could not guess. Lady Muriel remarked that Dr. Wilmot
would probably be guided by the nature of Mr. Foljambe's property, and
the terms of the bequest.
"I fancy the whole property is in money, with the exception of the
house in Portland-place," said Henrietta. "I have heard my poor friend
Mrs. Wilmot say that Mr. Foljambe hated all the responsibility of
landed property, and had none. So Dr. Wilmot will be free--perhaps he
will live altogether abroad."
"Do you think that probable?" said Lady Muriel, very courteously
implying Mrs. Prendergast's more intimate acquaintance with the object
of the discussion. "For a man of his turn of mind, I fancy there's no
place like London--certainly no country like England."
"Ah, yes, Lady Muriel, very true," said the irrepressible Miss
Charlton, making her mother wince for the twentieth time since the
commencement of the visit; "but then, you see, he has such painful
recollections of London. His poor wife dying as she did, you know,
while he was away attending to strangers."
"Very true," said Lady Muriel--with perfect self-possession, and
purposely turning her head away from Mrs. Charlton, who glanced
angrily and despairingly at her unconscious daughter, and towards
Henrietta, who shared her friend's dismay. "We all regretted that
circumstance very deeply; and I do not wonder Dr. Wilmot should have
felt it as he did: still, he is so strong-minded a man--"
"And so perfectly convinced that it had nothing to do with his wife's
death--I mean that he could not have saved her," said Henrietta
quickly.
Lady Muriel looked at her inquiringly.
"Mrs. Prendergast was Mrs. Wilmot's intimate Mend, and was with her
when she died," Mrs. Charlton said; and then another visitor came in,
and a _tête-à-tête_ established itself between Lady Muriel and
Henrietta, which caused her visit to be prolonged considerably beyond
any former experience of Mrs. Charlton, and gave her ladyship a good
deal to think of, when she had ordered her coachman to go into the
Park, and gave herself up to her thoughts, mechanically returning, the
numerous salutes which she received, and thinking sometimes how
strange it was that there was no one in all this great crowded London
whom it could interest her to see.
"She must have been a strange woman," thought Lady Muriel, "and
desperately uninteresting, I am sure. That Mrs. Prendergast has plenty
of character. He never mentioned her, that I can remember; but then he
talked so little of himself, he said so little from which any notion
of his daily life and its surroundings could be gathered. Yes, I am
sure his wife was a tiresome, commonplace creature, with no kind of
companionship in her--an insipid doll. What wonderful things one sees
under the sun in the way of unsuitable marriages! To think of such a
man marrying such a woman! But it is stranger still"--and here Lady
Muriel's face darkened, and a hard look came into her beautiful brown
eyes--"it is stranger still to think that such a man should be
attracted by Madeleine--such a merely 'pretty girl.' And he was--he
was; I could not be mistaken. If this fortune had come a little
sooner, what would he have done? He could not of course have proposed
to her--impossible in the time he might have told Kilsyth, and gotten
his leave, when the year should be up. What a danger! I am glad I
never thought of such a thing; I am glad the possibility never
occurred to me. Ronald, indeed, would have been a barrier; but I need
not, I must not deceive myself, Kilsyth would not have listened to
Ronald where Madeleine's happiness was concerned. When will he return?
He must come soon, I suppose, to arrange his affairs. I need not fear
his admiration of Madeleine now--he is not a man to admire the woman
who could marry Ramsay Caird. If she did betray to him that she loved
him, he would have the best and plainest proof in her marriage how
fickle and flimsy such a feeling is in her case."
Lady Muriel Kilsyth was in many respects a very superior, in many
respects a highly-principled woman; but she had dreamed a forbidden
dream, she had cherished a perverse thought, and such speculations as
she would once have shrunk from with incredulous amazement had become
not only possible but easy to her.
And then all her thoughts directed themselves towards the one
object--Wilmot's return. When would he come back? She wrote the news of
the disposition of Mr. Foljambe's will to Kilsyth; and he answered in a
few jovial lines, expressing his heartfelt satisfaction. She told the
news to Madeleine; carelessly, skilfully, opening a large parcel of
books as she spoke, and looking at the contents. Madeleine was in her
ladyship's boudoir; her bonnet lay on the sofa by her side, and she
was idly twisting the strings.
"You are going to fetch Ramsay from the club, are you, Maddy?"
"Yes," said Madeleine listlessly, and looking at the clock;
"presently, I suppose. Have you anything new there?"
"New? yes. Good? I can't say. Nothing you would care for, I fancy. All
the magazines, though. A new volume by Merivale,--not much after your
fashion. A new novel by nobody knows whom--_Squire Fullerton's Will_.
By the bye, the name reminds me--I don't think you have heard about
Mr. Foljambe's will?"
"No," said Madeleine rising, and tying on her bonnet at the
chimney-glass.
"Your father is delighted. Only fancy, Mr. Foljambe has left all his
money to Dr. Wilmot."
Madeleine did not answer for a minute. Then she said,
"I am very glad. Was Mr. Foljambe very rich?"
"I believe so. They talk of its being a very large fortune. What a
delightful change for Dr. Wilmot! Of course he will give up his
profession now, and take a place in society."
"Do you think he would give up his profession for anything, Lady
Muriel?" asked Madeleine.
Lady Muriel was standing at a table, still sorting the books; she
could not see Maddy's face.
"Give up his profession! Of course, my dear. A man of fortune is not
likely to practise as a doctor, I should think; besides, the
position."
"Everyone--I mean Mr. Foljambe always said Dr. Wilmot was so devoted
to his profession," said Madeleine hesitatingly.
"Of course he was; and of course his friends said so. It is the best
and wisest thing a man can have said of him--the best character he can
get, while he wants it, and easily laid aside when he doesn't. What's
this? _Wine of Shiraz!_ O, another book of travels with a fantastical
name! Are you going, Maddy? Will you have one of these productions to
try?"
"No, thank you," said Madeleine; and she took leave of Lady Muriel,
and did not call for Ramsay at the club, but went home, and passed the
evening with a book lying open on her knee--a book of which she never
turned a page, and wondered when Chudleigh Wilmot would come home. She
wondered whether his wealth would make him happy. She wondered
whether, if he had been a rich man and not a hard-working doctor, he
would have cared a little about her when his wife died; and whether it
was really as Lady Muriel had said, or whether his devotion to his
profession was genuine and true. She wondered whether he ever
thought of her; she felt sure he knew of her marriage. Well, not
_ever_--something forbade her using that word in her thoughts,
something told her it would be unjust and unkind; but much? Ronald
would hear about this bequest of Mr. Foljambe's; would be glad--or
sorry--or neither? Supposing it had come earlier, and he, Wilmot, had
cared for her! would things have been different? would Ronald--But no,
no; she must not think of that. Let her still believe he had seen in
her only a patient, only a case of fever, only an occasion for the
exercise of his skill. She wondered, if "things had been
different"--which was the phrase by which she translated to herself "if
she had married Wilmot"--whether it would have harmed anyone; she did
not dare to think how happy it would have made her. Ramsay? But no; not
all the simplicity, not all the credulous egotism of girlhood--and
Madeleine had her fair share of those natural qualities--could persuade
her that Ramsay's life would have been marred if their marriage had
never taken place. And so she wondered and wondered, recurring often in
her thoughts solemnly to the dead woman who had been Wilmot's wife, and
thinking sadly, wonderingly, over that life, all unknown to her; and yet
concerning which some mysterious instinct had whispered to her vaguely
and unhappily. She hoped people would not talk much to her, or before
her, of this bequest of Mr. Foljambe's. It embarrassed her, though she
knew it ought not; who ought to be so ready as she to speak of him, to
whom no one owed so much?
Henrietta Prendergast wondered too when Dr. Wilmot would return to
London; and questioned Dr. Whittaker, who had contrived in a
wonderfully brief space of time to accumulate an extraordinary
quantity of information relative to the nature and extent of Wilmot's
inheritance. The worthy man possessed an inherent talent for gossip,
which was likely to be of great service to him in his career, being
admittedly an immense recommendation for a physician, especially when
his practice lies in a class of society largely productive of _malades
imaginaires_. Wilmot was left at perfect liberty, except in the matter
of the house in Portland-place. It was not to be sold; and Wilmot had
instructed the solicitors to keep up the establishment, and retain the
old housekeeper and butler permanently in his service. As for his old
house in Charles-street, Wilmot had behaved most generously
indeed--Dr. Whittaker would say he had placed it entirely at his
disposal nobly: for the remainder of his lease; and by the time that should
expire, he had expressed his conviction that Dr. Whittaker would be
making his fortune.
"All the more chance of it, Mrs. Prendergast," said Whittaker with his
smoothest smile, "that Wilmot will be out of my way; he's a
wonderfully clever fellow, wonderfully; and I can't imagine a more
popular physician. I assure you he reminds me, in his way of dealing
with a case, of Carlyle's description of Frederick the Great's eyes,
'rapidity resting upon depth.' Quite Wilmot--quite Wilmot, I assure
you." And Dr. Whittaker, considering that he had made a remarkably
good hit, took himself off, leaving Henrietta with new matter for her
thoughts.
The three women who thus pondered and thought and speculated about
Chudleigh Wilmot had plenty of time during which to indulge in these
vain occupations. Time passed on, and Mr. Foljambe's heir did not
present himself to the tide of congratulations which awaited him. The
first, interest of the intelligence died out. Other rich men died, and
left their wealth to other heirs expectant or non-expectant
"Foljambe's will" and "Wilmot's luck" had almost ceased to be talked
about when Chudleigh Wilmot ventured into society. Henrietta
Prendergast was the first of the three who saw him. As for Lady Muriel
and Madeleine, they were less likely to meet him than any women in
London; for the good reason that Wilmot sedulously avoided them. And
for a time successfully; but that was not always to be. He believed
that the page of the book of his life on which "Madeleine Kilsyth" was
written was closed for ever; Fate had written upon another, "Madeleine
Caird."