But, nevertheless, he tried to love Alexandrina, or rather to persuade himself that he loved her. If he could only get her away from the De Coucry faction, and especially from the Gazebee branch of it, he would break her of all that. He would teach her to sit triumphantly in a street cab, and to cater for her table with a plentiful hand. Tech her! – at some age over thirty; and with such careful training as she had already received! Did he intend to forbid her ever again to see her relations, ever to go to St John’s Wood, or to correspond with the countess and Lady Margaretta? Teach her, indeed! Had he yet to learn that he could not wash a blackamoor white? – that he could not have done so even had he himself been well adapted for the attempt, whereas he was in truth nearly as ill adapted as a man might be? But who could pity him? Lily, whom he might have had in his bosom, would have been no blackamoor!
Then came the time of Lady De Courcy’s visit to town, and Alexandrina moved herself off to Portman Square. There was some apparent comfort in this to Crosbie, for he would thereby be saved from those daily dreary journeys up to the north-west. I may say that he positively hated that windy corner near the church, round which he had to walk in getting to the Gazebee residence, and that he hated the lamp which guided him to the door, and the very door itself. This door stood buried as it were in a wall, and opened on to a narrow passage which ran across a so-called garden, or front yard, containing on each side two iron receptacles for geraniums, painted to look like Palissy ware,7 and a naked female on a pedestal. No spot in London was, as he thought, so cold as the bit of pavement immediately in front of that door. And there he would be kept five, ten, fifteen minutes, as he declared – though I believe in my heart that the time never exceeded three – while Richard was putting off the trappings of his work and putting on the trappings of his grandeur.
If people would only have their doors opened to you by such assistance as may come most easily and naturally to the work! I stood lately for some minutes on a Tuesday afternoon at a gallant portal, and as I waxed impatient a pretty maiden came and opened it. She was a pretty maiden, though her hands and face and apron told tales of the fire-grates. ‘Laws, sir,’ she said, ‘the visitors’ day is Wednesday; and if you would come then, there would be the man in livery!’ She took my card with the corner of her apron, and did just as well as the man in livery; but what would have happened to her had her little speech been overheard by her mistress?
Crosbie hated the house in St John’s Wood, and therefore the coming of the countess was easily to be reached, and the hospitalities of the countess would not be pressed upon him so strongly as those of the Gazebees. When he first called he was shown into the great family dining-room, which looked but towards the back of the house. The front windows were, of course, closed, as the family were not supposed to be in London. Here he remained in the room for some quarter of an hour, and then the countess descended upon him in all her grandeur. Perhaps he had never before seen her so grand. Her dress was very large, and rustled through the broad doorway, as if demanding even a broader passage. She had on a wonder of a bonnet, and a velvet mantle that was nearly as expansive as her petticoats. She threw her head a little back as she accosted him, and he instantly perceived that he was enveloped in the fumes of an affectionate but somewhat contemptuous patronage. In old days he had liked the countess, because her manner to him had always been flattering. In his intercourse with her he had been able to feel that he gave quite as much as he got, and that the countess was aware of the fact. In all the circumstances of their acquaintance the ascendancy had been with him, and therefore the acquaintance had been a pleasant one. The countess had been a good-natured, agreeable woman, whose rank and position had made her house pleasant to him; and therefore he had consented to shine upon her with such light as he had to give. Why was it that the matter was reversed, now that there was so much stronger a cause for good feeling between them? He knew that there was such change, and with bitter internal upbraidings he acknowledged to himself that this woman was getting the mastery over him. As the friend of the countess he had been a great man in her eyes – in all her little words and looks she had acknowledged his power; but now, as her son-in-law, he was to become a very little man – such as was Mortimer Gazebee!
‘My dear Adolphus,’ she said, taking both his hands, ‘the day is coming very near now; is it not?’
‘Very near, indeed,’ he said.
‘Yes, it is very near. I hope you feel yourself a happy man.’
‘Oh, yes that’s of course.’
‘It ought to be. Speaking very seriously, I mean that it ought to be a matter of course. She is everything that a man should desire in a wife. I am not alluding now to her rank, though of course you feel what a great advantage she gives you in this respect.’
Crosbie muttered something as to his consciousness of having drawn a prize in the lottery; but he so muttered it as not to convey to the lady’s ears a proper sense of his dependent gratitude. ‘I know of no man more fortunate than you have been,’ she continued; ‘and I hope that my dear girl will find that you are fully aware that it is so. I think that she is looking rather fagged. You have allowed her to do more than was good for her in the way of shopping.’
‘She has done a good deal, certainly,’ said Crosbie.
‘She is so little used to anything of that kind! But of course, as things have turned out, it was necessary that she should see to these things herself.’
‘I rather think she liked it,’ said Crosbie.
‘I believe she will always like doing her duty. We are just going now to Madame Millefranc’s, to see some skills – perhaps you would wish to go with us?’
Just at this moment Alexandrina came into the room, and looked as though she were in all respects a smaller edition of her mother. They were both well-grown women, with handsome, large figures, and a certain air about them which answered almost for beauty. As to the countess, her face, on close inspection, bore, as it was entitled to do, deep signs of age; but she so managed her face that any such close inspection was never made; and her general appearance for her time of life was certainly good. Very little more than this could be said in favour of her daughter.
‘Oh dear, no, mamma,’ she said, having heard her mother’s last words. ‘He’s the worst person in a shop in the world. He likes nothing, and dislikes nothing. Do you, Adolphus?’
‘Indeed I do. I like all the cheap things, and dislike all the dear things.’
‘Then you certainly shall not go with us to Madame Millefranc’s,’ said Alexandrina.
‘It would not matter to him there, you know, my dear,’ said the countess, thinking perhaps of the suggestion she had lately made to Mr Gazebee.
On this occasion Crosbie managed to escape, simply promising to return to Portman Square in the evening after dinner. ‘By-the-by, Adolphus,’ said the countess, as he handed her into the hired carriage which stood at the door, ‘I wish you would go to Lambert’s, on Ludgate Hill, for me. He has had a bracelet of mine for nearly three months. Do, there’s a good creature. Get it if you can, and bring it up this evening.’
Crosbie, as he made his way back to his office, swore that he would not do the bidding of the countess. He would not trudge off into the city after her trinkets. But at five o’clock, when he left his office, he did go there. He apologized to himself by saying that he had nothing else to do, and bethought himself that at the present moment his lady mother-in-law’s smiles might be more convenient than her frowns. So he went to Lambert’s, on Ludgate Hill, and there learned that the bracelet had been sent down to Courcy Castle full two months since.
After that he dined at his club, at Sebright’s. He dined alone, sitting by no means in bliss with his half-pint of sherry on the table before him. A man now and then came up and spoke to him, one a few words, and another a few, and two or three congratulated him as to his marriage; but the club was not the same thing to him as it had formerly been. He did not stand in the centre of the rug, speaking indifferently t
o all or any around him, ready with his joke, and loudly on the alert with the last news of the day. How easy it is to be seen when any man has fallen from his pride of place, though the altitude was ever so small, and the fall ever so slight. Where is the man who can endure such a fall without showing it in his face, in his voice, in his step, and in every motion of every limb? Crosbie knew that he had fallen, and showed that he knew it by the manner in which he ate his mutton chop.
At half-past eight he was again in Portman Square, and found the two ladies crowding over a small fire in a small back drawing-room. The furniture was all covered with brown holland,8 and the place had about it that cold comfortless feeling which uninhabited rooms always produce. Crosbie, as he had walked from the club up to Protman Square, had indulged in some serious thoughts. The kind of life which he had hitherto led had certainly passed away from him. He could never again be the pet of a club, or indulged as one to whom all good things were to be given without any labour at earning them on his own part. Such for some years had been his good fortune, but such could be his good fortune no longer. Was there anything within his reach which he might take in lieu of that which he had lost? He might still be victorious at his office, having more capacity for such victory than others around him. But such success alone would hardly suffice for him. Then he considered whether he might not even yet be happy in his own home – whether Alexandrina, when separated from her mother, might not become such a wife as he could love. Nothing softens a man’s feelings so much as failure, or makes him turn so anxiously to an idea of home as buffetings from those he meets abroad. He had abandoned Lily because his outer world had seemed to him too bright to be deserted. He would endeavour to supply her place with Alexandrina, because his outer world had seemed to him too harsh to be supported. Alas! alas! a man cannot so easily repent of his sins, and wash himself white from their stains!
When he entered the room the two ladies were sitting over the fire, as I have stated, and Crosbie could immediately perceive that the spirit of the countess was not serene. In fact there had been a few words between the mother and child on that matter of the trousseau, and Alexandrina had plainly told her mother that if she were to be married at all she would be married with such garments belonging to her as were fitting for an earl’s daughter. It was in vain that her mother had explained with many circumlocutional phrases, that the fitness in this respect should be accommodated rather to the plebeian husband than to the noble parent. Alexandrina had been very firm, and had insisted on her rights, giving the countess to understand that if her orders for fiery were not complied with, she would return as a spinster to Courcy, and prepare herself for partnership with Rosina.
‘My dear,’ said the countess, piteously, ‘you can have no idea of what I shall have to go through with your father. And, of course, you could get all these things afterwards.’
‘Papa has no right to treat me in such a way. And if he would not give me any money himself, he should have let me have some of my own.’
‘Ah, my dear, that was Mr Gazebee’s fault.’
‘I don’t care whose fault it was. It certainly was not mine. I won’t have him to tell me’ – him was intended to signify Adolphus Crosbie – ‘that he had to pay for my wedding-clothes.’
‘Of course not that, my dear.’
‘No; nor yet for the things which I wanted immediately. I’d much rather go and tell him at once that the marriage must be put off.’
Alexandrina of course carried her point, the countess reflecting with a maternal devotion equal almost to that of the pelican,9 that the earl could not do more than kill her. So the things were ordered as Alexandrina chose to order them, and the countess desired that the bills might be sent in to Mr Gazebee. Much self-devotion had been displayed by the mother, but the mother thought that none had been displayed by the daughter, and therefore she had been very cross with Alexandrina.
Crosbie, taking a chair, sat himself between them, and in a very good-humoured tone explained the little affair of the bracelet. ‘Your ladyship’s memory must have played you false,’ said he, with a smile.
‘My memory is very good,’ said the countess; ‘very good indeed. If Twitch got it, and didn’t tell me, that was not my fault.’ Twitch was her ladyship’s-maid. Crosbie, seeing how the land lay, said nothing more about the bracelet.
After a minute or two he put out his hand to take that of Alexandrina. They were to be married now in a week or two, and such a sign of love might have been allowed to him, even in the presence of the bride’s mother. He did succeed in getting bold of her fingers, but found in them none of the softness of a response. ‘Don’t,’ said Lady Alexandrina, withdrawing her hand; and the tone of her voice as she spoke the word was not sweet to his ears. He remembered at the moment a certain scene which took place one evening at the little bridge at Allington, and Lily’s voice, and Lily’s words, and Lily’s passion, as he caressed her: ‘Oh, my love, my love, my love!’
‘My dear,’ said the countess, ‘they know how tired I am. I wonder whether they are going to give us any tea.’ Whereupon Crosbie rang the bell, and, on resuming his chair, moved it a little farther away from his lady-love.
Presently the tea was brought in them by the housekeeper’s assistant, who did not appear to have made herself very smart for the occasion, and Crosbie thought that he was de trop.10 This, however, was a mistake on his part. As he had been admitted into the family, such little matters were no longer subject of care. Two or three months since, the countess would have fainted at the idea of such a domestic appearing with a tea-tray before Mr Crosbie. Now, however, she was utterly indifferent to any such consideration. Crosbie was to be admitted into the family, thereby becoming entitled to certain privileges – and thereby also becoming subject to certain domestic drawbacks. In Mrs Dale’s little household there had been no rising to grandeur; but then, also, there had never been any bathos of dirt. Of this also Crosbie thought as he sat with his tea in his hand.
He soon, however, got himself away. When he rose to go Alexandrina also rose, and he was permitted to press his nose against her cheekbone by way of a salute.
‘Good-night, Adolphus,’ said the countess, putting out her hand to him. ‘But stop a minute; I know there is something I want you to do for me. But you will look in as you go to your office tomorrow morning.’
CHAPTER 41
DOMESTIC TROUBLES
WHEN CROSBIE was making his ineffectual inquiry after Lady De Courcy’s bracelet at Lambert’s, John Eames was in the act of entering Mrs Roper’s front door in Burton Crescent.
‘Oh, John, where’s Cradell?’ were the first words which greeted him, and they were spoken by the divine Amelia. Now, in her usual practice of life, Amelia did not interest herself much as to the whereabouts of Mr Cradell.
‘Where’s Caudle?’ said Eames, repeating the question. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know. I walked to the office with him, but I haven’t seen him since. We don’t sit in the same room, you know.’
‘John!’ and then she stopped.
‘What’s up now?’ said John.
‘John! That woman’s off and left her husband. As sure as your name’s John Eames, that foolish fellow has gone off with her.’
‘What, Caudle? I don’t believe it.’
‘She went out of this house at two o’clock in the afternoon, and has never been back since.’ That, certainly, was only four hours from the present time, and such an absence from home in the middle of the day was but weak evidence on which to charge a married woman with the great sin of running off with a lover. This Amelia felt, and therefore she went on to explain. ‘He’s there upstairs in the drawing-room, the very picture of disconsolateness.’
‘Who – Caudle?’
‘Lupex is. He’s been drinking a little, I’m afraid; but he’s very unhappy, indeed. He had an appointment to meet his wife here at four o’clock, and when he came he found her gone. He rushed up into their room, and now he says she has broken open a box he had and
taken off all his money.’
‘But he never had any money.’
‘He paid mother some the day before yesterday.’
‘That’s just the reason he shouldn’t have any today.’
‘She certainly has taken things she wouldn’t have taken if she’d merely gone out shopping or anything like that, for I’ve been up in the room and looked about it. She’d three necklaces. They weren’t much account; but she must have them all on, or else have got them in her pocket.’
‘Caudle has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool –’
‘Oh, he is, you know. I’ve never seen such a fool about a woman as he has been.’
‘But he wouldn’t be a pretty to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets, or taking her husband’s money. Indeed, I don’t think he was anything to do with it.’ Then Eames thought over the circumstances of the day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since the morning. It was that public servant’s practice to saunter into Eames’s room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and cheese and beer – in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had not done so. ‘I can’t think he has been such a fool as that,’ said Johnny.
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