He broke off confused, and exchanged uneasy glances with his friend. I watched his discomfort keenly, in that special way that the snake, according to novelists, watches the fascinated sparrow.
“I overheard your remarks, my lord,” I said in a sort of stage whisper, accentuated by much stuttering severity. “I overheard — unintentionally and with pain — your remarks concerning my — my wife! I need scarcely say that they were not agreeable to me. I consider — I most emphatically consider, sir, that you owe me an apology!”
“My dear Tribkin,” and the young man eagerly extended his hand, “pray let me make it at once! I apologise most sincerely, most penitently. I am awfully sorry, really! My friend here, Mr. Herbert Vaughan, is as sorry as I am, I’m sure, aren’t you, Vaughan?” The gentleman appealed to, who had been diligently sorting crumbs on the table-cloth, looked up with a burning blush, bowed low, and acquiesced. “It’s very foolish to get talking about — about people, you know; one can never be certain that they are not close at hand.
I hope you forgive me! I really didn’t mean—”
Here I cut him short; he was evidently so sincerely grieved and vexed that my anger cooled down completely, and I pressed his proffered hand.
“That’s enough,” I said dismally, but gently too. “I know people will talk, and I suppose Mrs. Tribkin” — here I brightened up a bit—” is handsome enough and clever enough to be talked about!”
“Exactly,” and the young earl looked immensely relieved at this way of putting it. “That’s what Georgie always says. You know I’m going to marry Georgie?”
“I know,” I replied, “and I congratulate you!”
“Thanks! Now do have a glass of wine, won’t you? Here, waiter, bring another bottle of Beaune.”
I was half disposed to decline this invitation, but he pressed me so cordially that I could not very well refuse. I therefore sat down, and we all, including the young gentleman named Vaughan, conversed for some time on the subject of Woman generally — woman judged from two points of view, namely, the high and dignified position which Nature evidently intended her to occupy, and the exceedingly cheap and low level at which she, in these modern days, seems inclined to place herself. It may and it will no doubt surprise many fair readers of these unpretending pages to learn that, taken the majority of opinion held by the best and bravest men of England (and by the best and bravest I mean those who have their country’s good at heart, who revere their Queen, and who have not yet trampled chivalry in the dust and made a jest of honour), it will be found that they are unanimous in wishing to keep sweet woman in her proper sphere; a sphere, I may add, which is by no means narrow, but, on the contrary, wide enough to admit all things gracious, becoming and beautiful; inspiring things both in art and loftiest literature; things that tend to refine, but not to degrade and vulgarize. Men have no sort of objection to make when women, gifted with a rare and subtle power of intellect, take to the study of high philosophy and glorious science; if, like Mary Somerville, they can turn their bright eyes undismayed on the giddy wonders of the firmament and expound in musical phrase the glittering riddles of astronomy, we hear them with as much reverence and honour as though they were wise angels speaking. If, like Elizabeth Barrett, they pour from a full sweet heart such poetry as is found in the “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” we listen entranced and moved to the lovely music that “Gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.” Who does not admire and revere the woman who wrote the following exquisite lines which, with all their passion, are still true womanly:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My son can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace;
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight;
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right,
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death!”
In fine, we — I speak for the men — we do not want to shut out woman from what she can becomingly do without destroying the indefinable soft attraction of her womanhood. But when she wishes to vulgarize herself; when instead of a queen she elects to be a street scavenger or the driver of a dust-cart, we object. We object for her sake quite as much as for our own; because we know what the direful result of such a state of topsy-turvy-dom must infallibly be. When women voluntarily resign their position as the silent monitors and models of grace and purity, down will go all the pillars of society, and we shall scarcely differ in our manners and customs from the nations we call “barbaric,” because as yet they have not adopted Christ’s exalted idea of the value and sanctity of female influence on the higher development of the human race.
But I am getting serious — too serious to be borne with by the impatient readers of to-day. All the same, we must be serious sometimes; we cannot always be grinning about like apes among cocoa-nut trees. There’s too much grinning now-a-days — false grinning, I mean. We grin at our friends, grin straight through the length and breadth of an “at home,” grin in church and out of church, grin at scandals, grin at suicides, grin at everything, everywhere. We might as well be death’s heads at once and have done with it. We shall be some day; but I fancy we are rather anticipating the pleasure!
When I got home that evening I did not fail to report to my wife the faithful account of my meeting with the Earl of Richmoor and his friend Mr. Vaughan, and what they had said, and what I had said about her and about her sex generally. She heard me with that admirable equanimity which always distinguished her, but it made no effect upon her.
“Richmoor’s a prig,” she said curtly. “He always was, you know. One of those dreadfully stuck-up, blue-blood, long-lineage fellows. Bobbie is nothing to him.” (“Bobbie” was the “boy” with the moustaches; scrape his gills and cook him for dinner, I mused dreamily.) “And so you said I was handsome and clever enough to be talked about, did you?”
“I did.”
“Well now, old boy, that was awfully nice of you,” and she gave me a bright smile. “Husbands are not always so complimentary behind their wives’ backs. You deserve a reward, and I’m going to give it to you! You shall get rid of me for a whole six weeks: there!”
“Get rid of you, Honoria?” I faltered amazed. “What do you—”
“Look here,” she went on rapidly, “I’ve arranged it all. Mother will take baby — she’s quite agreeable — and you can shut up the house and go where you like and do what you like, and have a real jolly good time. I sha’n’t ask what you’ve been up to! This is the fourth of August; well, say we meet again here about the twentieth of September, or later if you like; that’ll give us a good long swing apart.”
“But, Honoria,” I exclaimed in utter bewilderment, “what do you mean? Where are you going? What do you propose to do?”
“Shoot,” she replied promptly. “I’m booked to Trottie Stirling for the Twelfth, and mean to bag more game than any of the male duffers she’s asked down to Glen Ruach this season. She’s invited you! — Poor dear! it would never suit yoil to see me blazing away over the heather and tramping across the moors in leggings; but it’s awful fun though!”
“No, you are right! It would not suit me!” I vociferated, giving way to the wrath I could no longer restrain. “It would not, and it will not suit me! Honoria, I am master in my own house; you are my wife, and I expect you to obey me. I have never exacted my right of obedience from you till now, Honoria; but now, now I do exact it! You will not go to this horrible woman at Glen Ruach (wretch! she ought to be asham
ed of herself),you will not, Honoria! You will remain with me and the child, as it is your duty to do. I will not permit you to indulge in these unladylike sports any longer; you will become the laughing-stock of the town and make me a laughing-stock too! And no wonder; no man with any spirit would allow you to make such a fool of yourself — yes, a fool, Honoria, whether you like the expression or not; you must look a fool with a gun in your hand, ‘blazing away,’ as you call it; and in leggings too — good God!”
And I laughed bitterly, and flung myself into a chair, trembling with excitement. She surveyed me quite coolly, showing no sign of temper.
“Thanks!” she said. “Thanks awfully! You are polite, upon my word! You don’t want a six-penny handbook on etiquette, evidently! But you’re old-fashioned, Willie — frightfully old-fashioned! Behind the time altogether — miles and miles behind! You don’t suppose I’m going to disappoint all my ‘set’ down at Glen Ruach just to gratify your middle-ages prejudices, do you? Not a bit of it! I advise you to run across Channel for a while — take the waters at Homburg or something — you’ll feel twenty per cent, better afterwards. I’ve arranged to leave here on the tenth, so you can make your plans accordingly.” She was imperturbable, and I flared round upon her once more.
“Honoria, I shall speak to your mother!”
“What for?” she calmly enquired.
“I shall tell her of your unwomanly — your unwifely — your impossible conduct!”
“Good gracious! That will be funny! Poor old Mammy! She knows all about me, and so did you know all about me before you married me — what in the world are you grumbling at?”
“I did not know,” I gasped, wrenching my handkerchief round and round in my hand as a sort of physical relief to my feelings. “I did not know you went to — to such lengths, Honoria!”
“As the leggings?” she demanded. “Well, they are long, there’s no doubt about that!”
And with a ringing burst of laughter she left me — left me to consume myself in as silent and impotent a fury as ever racked a long-enduring spirit of married man!
CHAPTER VI.
I KEPT my word. I did speak to Honoria’s mother, and a very dreary conversation we had of it. Mrs. Maggs was a thin, sheep-faced, flabby old lady, who impressed people at first sight as being “so sweet!” on account of the feebly-smiling chronic amiability of her expression; but those who came to know her well, as I did, grew rapidly sick of her smile, and passionately yearned to shake her into some semblance of actual vivacity. She was the most helpless, tame old woman I ever met with, watery blue eyes, and tremulous hands that were for ever busy smoothing down the folds of her black silk dress, or settling the lace she always wore about her shoulders, or playing with the loosely-flying strings of her cap. Those hands used to worry me — they were never still. When she made tea (which she did frequently and always badly) they hovered above the tray like bleached birds’ claws, shaking over the sugar and wobbling about with the cream-jug, till any enjoyment of the “cup that cheers” became impossible to me. I spoke to her, however, because I had threatened Honoria I would do so (and it is very foolish to threaten and not perform — even children find that out and despise you for it). I called on her for the express purpose of speaking to her, as I explained in a note marked “Confidential,” which I sent round to her house (three squares off from us) by my man-servant. Time was going on, and Honoria was going on too, or rather she was going off. Her portmanteau was packed and labelled for Scotland; her gun-case and sporting equipments stood prepared in the hall; she herself had been absent from home for three or four days, staying with a Mrs. Netcalf on the river — a place quite close to the spot where “Bobbie” with the moustaches had got his “little house-boat” moored. She had written to me briefly explaining that they were all having a “high old time,” and asking me (for mere form’s sake, of course) whether I would not leave my “prejudices” behind and join them? To this letter, which I thought impertinent, considering the seething state of our domestic affairs, I vouchsafed no reply; my mind was too full of my own increasing grievances. The baby — my helpless son — had already been packed off to his grandmother’s, nurses and all. He was sent away during one of my daily absences in the city, and a nice row we had about him, poor innocent, when his screams no longer cheered the silence of our dwelling. I learned then that Honoria, after all, had a temper; not precisely the sort of temper we generally credit woman with, which may be described as a swift summer hurricane — eyes flashing lightning and pouring tears at once, followed by brilliant sunshine. No! Honoria’s temper merely developed itself into a remarkable facility for saying very nasty and sarcastic things — things that riled a fellow horribly and rubbed him up entirely the wrong way. Witty, cold-blooded, “smart” remarks she threw at me; epigrammatic sentences that were about as clever as they could well be — and I knew they were clever, and was all the more hurt by them. Because, as far as her intelligence went, she was (I must really repeat it) a wonderful woman — simply wonderful! She leaped across country, metaphorically speaking, and seized a galloping idea by the mane, as though it were a horse, while others were peeping doubtfully at it under cover and round the corner — that was her way of mastering information. Men can’t do that sort of thing; they have to coax knowledge into their slow brains by degrees; clever women absorb it like sponges, without any apparent trouble. So that we had once or twice what I should freely describe as a devil of a row. I got red in the face, and she never changed colour — I swore, and she dropped me a mocking curtsey — I held on to a chair to save myself from getting lifted bodily off the ground by the honest warmth of my indignation, and she lounged on a sofa, smoked, and grinned at me. Yes! I say grinned! I would no longer call that white glistening tooth-display of hers a smile; it had a cold and snarly look that I could not conscientiously admire. And yet I was fond of her too, and I knew she was a good woman — none better, so far as honesty and straight principles were concerned. And thus it was that, torn by conflicting emotions, fagged and worn out by the constant fret of my own domestic wretchedness, I determined to appeal to Mrs, Maggs, though I instinctively felt, before I made the attempt, that it was an act of mere desperation, and that it would result in no sort of advantage or help to me in the unfortunate position I occupied.
The old lady was in a more than usually nervous state when I arrived, and came fluttering to meet me at the drawing-room door with that anxious propitiatory smile I abhorred, more pronounced than ever.
“My dear William!” she murmured, her hands waving about me like the hands of a very stagey mesmerist. “It is so nice of you to come and see me, so very nice and kind of you!” Here she caught her breath and sighed. She was fond of doing that — her pet idea was that she had heart-disease. “Dear baby is doing so well, and is quite happy upstairs! Georgie goes and sits on the floor and lets him play with her back hair, and he does tear it so” — her pale eyes watered visibly at this—” I tell her she’ll have none left on her scalp to be married with. Dear girl! You’ve heard about Richmoor? Yes, such a brilliant match, and he’s such a nice man; not very communicative, but very gentlemanly. And he plays with baby too; isn’t it pretty of him? He goes upstairs with Georgie constantly, and I hear them laughing together, dear things! It is so nice of him, you know, being a man, to like stopping up in the nursery, which must be dull — no newspapers or anything — and he can’t smoke, or he won’t, on account of Georgie’s being there; he’s very particular about that sort of thing; besides smoke would be bad for baby’s eyes.” Here she stopped for breath again, pressing her hand on her side, while I gazed at her and forced a politely-soothing smile. (I was obliged to smile, because she thought everybody who didn’t smile at her was cross or ill, and I did not wish to pose as either one or the other.) “Yes, baby is quite a boon,” she went on in plaintively cheerful tones. “A positive boon! keeps everybody employed, and is such a darling! I’m so glad you’ll let us take care of him while Honoria is away.”
> “It is just about Honoria that I came to speak to you,” I said, clearing my throat and edging past those ghostly fingers of hers that seemed to give me Honoria’s favourite malady, “the creeps.”
“I am sorry to say we’ve had a little difference—”
“Oh, dear!” faltered Mrs. Maggs, gliding nervously to the tea-tray, which stood ready as usual, and beginning to make a feeble noise with the cups and saucers, “Oh, dear me, William! don’t say so! One cannot have all sunshine, you know, dear William, in one’s married life. I’m sure when Mr. Maggs was alive — ah! it seems only the other day he died, poor darling! (Lord bless the woman, he had been mouldering in his grave for eighteen years!) — we used often to have a little quarrel about things, especially about blue ties! I never could bear blue neckties, and he always would wear one on Sundays! It was really very tiresome, because we used to find the Sundays so disagreeable, you know — so — so unchristian! Of course it was my fault as much as it was his; both were to blame, and that is the way always with married people, dear William; both are to blame, it is never all on one side — it can’t be — you must bear and forbear—”
Here she let fall the sugar-tongs with a clatter, and trailed off into unintelligible nothings.
“Yes, I know — I know all about that,” I said, making a desperate effort to be patient with this trembling, pale jelly of a woman, who always seemed on the point of dissolving into tears. “But the present matter is very serious, and it is becoming more and more serious every day. You see, when a man marries he wants a home—”
“Oh, my dear William, I’m sure you’ve got a home,” moaned Mrs. Maggs, turning her weak eyes reproachfully upon me. “You can’t say you haven’t — you really can’t, William! A beautiful home! Why, the carpets alone in it cost a small fortune, and as for the drawing-room curtains, they’re good enough to make court-trains of — they positively are, William! Every bit pure silk, and all the flower-pattern raised! I can’t imagine what you can want better! And I remember when that overmantel was bought at Salviati’s, all Venetian glass! I couldn’t sleep a wink for nights and nights, thinking of it, and I went myself to see the men put it up, for I was so afraid they would break it, and it was so expensive! Why, you’ve got lovely things everywhere, William, and how can you say you want a home?”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 913
