He waited for her to speak. But she was silent. Anger, humiliation and wounded pride, mingled with a certain struggling respect and admiration for his boldness, held her mute. She little knew how provocatively lovely she looked as she stood haughtily immovable, her eyes alone flashing eloquent rebellion; — she little guessed that John committed the picture of her fairness to the innermost recording cells of his brain, there to be stored up preciously, and never forgotten.
“I am sorry,” — he resumed— “that I spoke as I did just now at your table — because you are angry with me. But I cannot say that I am sorry for any other reason—”
At this Maryllia found her voice suddenly.
“You have insulted my guests—”
“Ah, no!” said John, almost with a smile— “Women who are habitual smokers are not easily insulted! They are past that, believe me! The fine susceptibilities which one might otherwise attribute to them have been long ago blunted. They do not command respect, and naturally, they can scarcely expect to receive it.”
“I do not agree with you!” retorted Maryllia, with rising warmth, as she regained her self-control, and with it her deep sense of irritation— “You were rude, — and rudeness is unpardonable! You said as much as to imply that none of the women present were ladies—”
“None of those who smoked were!” — said John, coolly.
“Mr. Walden! I myself, smoked!”
“You did,” — and he moved a step or two nearer to her, his whole face lighting up with keen emotion— “And why did you? The motive was intended to be courteous — but the principle was wrong!”
“Wrong!” she echoed, angrily— “Wrong?”
“Yes — wrong! Have you never been told that you can do one thing wrong among so many that you do right, Miss Vancourt?” he asked, with great gentleness— “You had it in your power to show your true womanliness by refusing to smoke, — you could, in your position as hostess, have saved your women friends from making fools of themselves — yes — the word is out, and I don’t apologise for it!” — here a sudden smile kindled in his fine eyes— “And you could also have given them all an example of obedience.”
“Obedience!” exclaimed Maryllia, astonished,— “What do you mean? Obedience to whom?”
“To me!” replied John, with perfect composure.
She gazed at him, scarcely believing she had heard aright.
“To you?” she repeated— “To you?”
“Why certainly!” said John, wondering even as he spoke at his own ease and self-assurance— “As minister of the parish I am the only person here that is set in authority over you — and the first thing you do is to defy me!”
His manner was whimsical and kindly, — his tone of voice playfully tender, as though he were speaking to some naughty child whom, notwithstanding its temper, he loved too well to scold, — and Maryllia was completely taken aback by this unexpected method of treating her combative humour. Her pretty mouth opened like a rosebud, — she seemed as though she would speak, but only an inarticulate murmur came from her parted lips; while the very faintest lurking suspicion of a smile crept dimpling over her face, to be lost again in the hostile expression of her eyes.
“You say I was rude,” — he went on,— “If I was, need you have been rude too?”
She found utterance quickly.
“I was not rude—” she began.
“Pardon me, — you were! Rude to me — and still more rude to yourself! The last was the worst affront, in my opinion!”
“I do not understand you,” she said, impatiently— “Your ideas of women are not those of the present day—”
“Thank God, they are not!” he replied— “I am glad to be in that respect, old-fashioned! You say you do not understand me. Now that is not true! You do understand! You know very well that if I was rude in my UNpremeditated speech, you were much more rude in your premeditated act! — that of deliberately spoiling your womanly self by doing what you know in your own heart was — will you forgive me the word? — unwomanly!”
Maryllia flushed red.
“There is no harm in smoking,” she said, coldly;— “it is quite the usual thing nowadays for ladies to enjoy their cigarettes. Why should they not? It is nothing new. Spanish women have always smoked — Austrian and Italian women smoke freely without any adverse comment — in fact, the custom is almost universal. English women have been the last, certainly, to adopt it — but then, England is always behind every country in everything!”
She spoke with a hard flippancy, — and she knew it. Walden’s eyes darkened into a deeper gravity.
“Miss Vancourt, this England of ours was once upon a time not behind, but BEFORE every nation in the whole world for the sweetness, purity and modesty of its women! That it has become one with less enlightened races in the deliberate unsexing and degradation of womanhood does not now, and will not in the future, redound to its credit. But I am prolonging a discussion uselessly,—” He waited a moment. “I shall trouble you no more with my opinions, believe me, — nor shall I ever again intrude my presence upon yourself or your guests,” — he continued, slowly,— “As I have already said, I am sorry to have offended YOU, — but I am not sorry to have spoken my mind! I do not care a jot what your friends from London think of me or say of me, — their criticism, good or bad, is to me a matter of absolute indifference — but I had thought — I had hoped—”
He paused, — his voice for the moment failing him. Maryllia looked at his pale, earnest face, and a sudden sense of shamed compunction smote her heart. Her anger was fast cooling down, — and with the swift change of mood which made her so variable and bewitching, she said, more gently:
“Well, Mr. Walden? You thought — you hoped?”
“That we might be friends,” — he answered, quietly— “But I see plainly that is impossible!”
She was silent. He stood very still, — his eyes wandering involuntarily to the painted beauty of ‘Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt,’ which he had admired and studied so often for many lonely years, and back again along the dimly lit gallery to that unveiled portrait of the young bride who never came home, the mother of the little proud creature who confronted him with such fairy-like stateliness and pretty assertion of her small self in combat against him, and upon whom his glance finally rested with a lingering sadness and pain. Then he said in a low tone:
“Good-night, Miss Vancourt — good-bye!”
At this a cloud of distress swept across her mobile features. “There now!” she said to herself— “He’s going away and he’ll never come to the Manor any more! I intended to make him quite ashamed of himself- -and he isn’t a bit! So like a man! He’d rather die than own himself in the wrong — besides he ISN’T wrong, — oh dear! — he mustn’t go away in a huff!”
And with a sudden yielding sweetness and grace of action of which she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands to him —
“Oh, no, Mr. Walden!” she said, earnestly— “I am not so angry as all that! Not good-bye!” Hardly knowing what he did, he took her offered hands and held them tenderly in his own.
“Not good-bye!” she said, trembling a little, and flushing rose-red with a certain embarrassment— “I don’t really want to quarrel — I don’t indeed! We — we were getting on so nicely together — and it is so seldom one CAN get on with a clergyman!” — here she began to laugh— “But you know it was dreadful of you, wasn’t it? — at any rate it sounded dreadful — when you said that English ladies never smoked-—”
“Neither they do,” — declared John resolutely, yet smilingly, “Except by way of defiance!”
She glanced up at him, — and the mirthful sparkle in his eyes was reflected in her own.
“You are very obstinate!” she said, as she drew her hands away from his— “But I suppose you really do think smoking is wrong for women?”
His heart was beating, his pulses thrilling under the influence of her touch, her appealing look and sudden change of
manner, — but he was not to be moved from his convictions, though all the world should swim round him in a glamour of blue eyes and gold hair.
“I think so, most certainly!”
“But why?”
He hesitated.
“Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong — but the associations of the habit are unfit for womanhood. I know very well that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke, — most unfortunately — but there are many habits and customs in this country as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the less, but rather the more, pernicious. I confess to a strong prejudice against smoking women.”
“But men smoke — why should not women smoke also?” persisted Maryllia.
Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.
“Men, — a very large majority of them too — habitually get drunk. Do you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following the men’s example?”
“Why no, of course not!” — she answered quickly— “But drunkenness is a vice—”
“So is smoking! And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are. There have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever known before. I don’t believe in any human being who turns his brain into a chimney. And. — pardon me! — when YOU deliberately put that cigarette in your mouth—”
“Well!” and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she looked up— “What did you think of me? Now be perfectly frank!”
“I will!” he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his eyes— “I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise! But if I tell you what I thought — and what I may say I know from long experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman smoking — you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my thoughts were only momentary. I knew that your better, sweeter self would soon reassert its sway!”
Her head drooped a little — she was quite silent.
“I thought,” — he went on, “when I saw you actually smoking, that something strange and unnatural had happened to you! That you had become, in some pitiful way, a different woman to the one that walked with me, not so long ago, and showed me her old French damask roses blossoming in the border!” — he paused an instant, his voice faltering a little, — then he resumed, quietly and firmly— “and that you had, against all nature’s best intentions for you, descended to the level of Lady Beaulyon—”
She interrupted him by a quick gesture —
“Eva Beaulyon is my friend, Mr. Walden!”
“No — not your friend!” — he said steadily— “Forgive me! You asked me to speak frankly. She is a friend to none except those of her own particular class and type—”
“To which I also belong,” — said Maryllia, with a sudden flash of returning rebellion— “You know I do!”
“I know you do NOT!” replied Walden, with some heat— “And I thank God for it! I know you are no more of her class and type than the wood lily is like the rank and poisonous marsh weed! Oh, child! — why do you wrong yourself! If I am too blunt and plain in what I say to you, let me cease speaking — but if you ask ME as your friend — as your minister!” — and he emphasised the word— “to tell you honestly my opinion, have patience with my roughness!”
“You are not rough,” she murmured, — and a little contraction in her throat warned her of the possible rising of tears— “But you are scarcely tolerant!”
“I cannot be tolerant of the demoralisation of womanhood!” — he said, passionately— “I cannot look on with an easy smile when I see the sex that SHOULD be the saving purity of the world, deliberately sinking itself by its own free will and choice into the mire of the vulgarest social vice, and parting with every redeeming grace, modesty and virtue that once made it sacred and beautiful! I am quite aware that there are many men who not only look on, but even encourage this world-wide debasement of women in order to bring them down on a par with themselves — but I am not one of these. I know that when women cease to be womanly, then the sorrows of the world, already heavy, will be doubled and trebled! When men come to be ashamed of their mothers — as many of them are to-day — there will be but little hope of good for future generations! And the fact that there are many women of title and position like your guest, Lady Beaulyon, who deliberately drag their husband’s honour through the dust and publicly glory in their own disgrace, does not make their crime the less, but rather the more criminal. You know this as well as I do! You are not of Lady Beaulyon’s class or type — if you were, I should not waste one moment of my time in your presence!”
She gazed at him speechlessly. And now from the drawing room came the sound of Cicely’s voice, clear, powerful, and as sweet as legends tell us the voices of the angels are —
“Luna fedel, tu chiama Col raggio ed io col suon, La fulgida mia dama Sul gotico veron!”
“You know,” he went on impetuously— “You know I told you before that I am not a society man. I said that if I came to dinner to meet your London friends, I should be very much in the way. You have found me so. A man of my age and of my settled habits and convictions ought to avoid society altogether. It is not possible for him to accommodate himself to it. For instance, — see how old-fashioned and strait-laced I am! — I wish I had been miles away from St. Rest before I had ever seen you smoking! It is a trifle, perhaps, — but it is one of those trifles which stick in the memory and embitter the mind!”
Around them the air seemed to break and divide into pulsations of melody as Cicely sang:
“Diro che sei d’argente D’opale, d’ambra e d’or, Diro che incanti il vento, E che innamori i fior!”
“You have seemed to me such an ideal of English womanhood!” — he went on dreamily, hardly aware how far his words were carrying him— “The sweet and fitting mistress of this dear old house, richly endowed as it is with noblest memories of the noble dead! Their proud and tender spirit has looked out of your eyes — or so I have fancied; — and you are naturally so kind and gentle — you have been so good to the people in the village, — they all love you — they all wish to think well of you; — for you have proved yourself practically as well as emotionally sympathetic to them. And, above all things, you have appeared so pre-eminently delicate and dainty in your tastes — so maidenly! — I should as soon have expected to see the Greek Psyche smoking as you!”
She took a swift step towards him, and laid her hand on his arm.
“Can’t you forget it?” she said.
He looked at her. Her eyes were humid, and her lips trembled a little.
“Forget what?” he asked gently.
“That I smoked!”
He hesitated a second.
“I will try!”
“You see!” — went on Maryllia, coaxingly— “we shall have to live in the same parish, and we shall be compelled to meet each other often- -and it would never do for you to be always thinking of that cigarette! Now would it?”
He was silent. The little hand on his arm gave an insistent pressure.
“Of course when you conjure up such an awful picture as Psyche smoking, I know just how you feel about it!” And her eyes sparkled up at him with an arch look which, fortunately for his peace of mind, his own eyes did not meet,— “And naturally you must hold very strong opinions on the subject, — dreadfully strong! But then — nobody has ever thought me at all like Psyche before — so you so — you see!—” She paused, and John began to feel his heart beating uncomfortably fast. “It’s very nice to be compared to Psyche anyhow! — and of course she would look impossible and awful with a cigarette in her mouth! I quite understand! She couldn’t smoke, — she wouldn’t! — and — and — I won’t! I won’t really! You won’t believe me, I expect, — but I assure you, I never smoke! I only did it this evening, because, — because, — well! — because I thought I ought to defend my own sex against your censure — and also perhaps — perhaps out of a
little bit of bravado! But, I’m sorry! There! Will you forgive me?”
Nearly, very nearly, John lost his head. Maryllia had used the strongest weapon in all woman’s armoury, — humility, — and he went down before it, completely overwhelmed and conquered. A swirl of emotion swept over him, — his brain grew dizzy, and for a moment he saw nothing in earth or heaven but the sweet upturned face, the soft caressing eyes, the graceful yielding form clad in its diaphanous draperies of jewelled gossamer, — then pulling himself together with a strong effort which made him well-nigh tremble, he took the small hand that lay in white confidence on his arm, and raised it to his lips with a grave, courtly, almost cold reverence.
“It is you to forgive ME, Miss Vancourt!” — he said, unsteadily. “For I am quite aware that I committed a breach of social etiquette at your table, — and — and — I know I have taken considerable liberty in speaking my mind to you as I have done. Even as your minister I fear I have overstepped my privileges—”
“Oh, please don’t apologise!” said Maryllia, quickly— “It’s all over, you know! You’ve said your say, and I’ve said mine — and I’m sure we both feel better for it. Don’t we?”
John smiled, but his face was very pale, and his eyes were troubled. He was absorbed in the problem of his own struggling emotions — how to master them — how to keep them back from breaking into passionate speech, — and her bewitching, childlike air, half penitent, half mischievous, was making sad havoc of his self-possession.
“We are friends again now,” — she went on— “And really, — really we MUST try and keep so!”
This, with a quaint little nod of emphatic decision.
“Do you think it will be difficult?” he asked, looking at her more earnestly and tenderly than he himself was aware of.
She laughed, and blushed a little.
“I don’t know! — it may be!” she said— “You see you’ve twice ruffled me up the wrong way! I was very angry — oh, very angry indeed, when you coolly stopped the service because we all came in late that Sunday, — and to-night I was very angry again—”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 630
