I reflected on this description. My wife’s youngest sister was little, certainly, but she could scarcely, in justice, be called a “scrub.” She had beautiful eyes — not so beautiful in colour as in their dreamy expression of tenderness; she had a sweet, soft, kissable face, a charming fairy-like figure, and a very gentle, yet fascinating, manner. There was nothing decidedly “striking” about her, and yet she was about to make a more brilliant match than could have been possibly hoped for an entirely portionless girl in her position. Honoria went on meditatively —
“Yes, he might have had me, and just think of the difference! Look at me, and look at Georgie! One would scarcely take us for sisters.”
“Scarcely, indeed!” I assented, with a muffled sigh. “Your ways are rather opposed to hers, Honoria. For instance, she does not smoke!”
“No, poor little thing!” and Honoria threw away the end of her cigarette and immediately lit another. “She thinks it horrid.”
“So do I,” I said with marked emphasis—” Honoria, so do I think it horrid!”
She glanced at me, smiling.
“I know you do,” she cheerfully admitted; “you’ve said so often enough.” She smoked a little in silence, and then resumed, “Now look here, Willie, listen to me! I’ve been thinking over things lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we must talk it out! That’s the term — talk it out.”
“Talk what out, Honoria?” I stammered nervously.
“The marriage question,” she replied. “There’s no doubt whatever that it has been, and that it is, a ghastly mistake!”
“Our marriage a mistake, dear?” I began anxiously. “Surely you—”
But she checked me with a slight gesture of her hand.
“I don’t wish to say that I think ours a greater mistake than anybody else’s,” she went on. “Not a bit of it. I think all marriages are mistakes — the institution itself is a mistake.”
I gazed at her blankly. My mind recoiled upon itself and wandered drearily back through long vistas of back numbers of the Daily Telegraph (that glorious and ever-to-be-praised journal is everybody’s discussion-ground), and there beheld, set forth in large capitals, “Is Marriage a Failure?” attended by masses of correspondence from strong-minded ladies and woeful-spirited men. Was Honoria of the former class, as I most assuredly was of the latter?
“The institution of marriage is itself a mistake,” repeated Honoria firmly. “It ties a man to a woman, and a woman to a man, for the rest of their mortal lives, regardless of future consequences. And it doesn’t work. The poor wretches get tired of always trotting along cheek by jowl in the same old road, and there’s no way of breaking loose unless one or the other elects to become a scamp. There’s not change enough. Now, take us two, for example. You want a change, and I want a change — that’s plain!”
The time had come for me to speak my mind out manfully, and I did so.
“I do want a change, Honoria,” I said gently, and with all the earnestness I felt, “but not the sort of change you hint at. I want a change, not away from you, my dear, but in you. I want to see the womanly side of your nature — the gentleness, softness and sweetness that are all in your heart, I am sure, if you would only let these lovely qualities have their way, instead of covering them up under the cloak of an assumed masculine behaviour, which, as I have often said to you before, is highly unbecoming to you, and distresses me greatly. I suffer, Honoria, I really suffer, when I see and hear you, my wife, aping the manners, customs, and slang-parlance of men. It is surely no disgrace to a woman to be womanly; her weakness is stronger than all strength; her mildness checks anger and engenders peace. In her right position, she is the saving-grace of men; her virtues make them ashamed of their vices, her simplicity disarms their cunning, her faith and truth inspire them with the highest, noblest good. Honoria, dear Honoria! I know there are many women now-a-days who act as you do, and think no shame or harm of it — who hunt and fish and shoot and smoke and play billiards, and who are the declared comrades of men in all their rough sports and pastimes — but, believe me, no good can come of this throwing down of the barriers between the sexes; no advantage can possibly accrue to a great nation like ours from allowing the women to deliberately sacrifice their delicacy and reserve, and the men to resign their ancient code of chivalry and reverence! No, Honoria, it is not in keeping with the law of nature, and whatever is opposed to the law of nature must in time be proved wrong. It will be a bad, a woeful day for England when women as a class assert themselves altogether as the equals of men — for men, even at their best, have vile animal passions, low desires, and vulgar vices that most of them would be bitterly sorry to see reflected in the women whom they instinctively wish to respect. Believe me, dear, I speak from my heart! Give me a little of that self-abnegation which so gloriously distinguishes your sex in times of sickness and trouble! Be a true woman, Honoria; leave off smoking and betting, and let me find in you the sweet wife I need to encourage and cheer me on my way through the world! You are precious to me, Honoria; I want to see you at your best — I want—”
Here my voice failed me. I was sincerely moved; a foolish lump rose in my throat, and I could not go on. Honoria, too, was serious. She had listened with admirable patience, and now, taking her cigarette from her lips, she flicked the ash off and looked at it reflectively.
“It’s a bad job,” she said at last with a short sigh— “a regular bad job! I’m — I’m awfully sorry for you, old boy!”
And she held out her hand to me with a sort of manly candour that was simply indescribable.„ I clasped that hand, I kissed it, whereupon she hastily withdrew it.
“Don’t do that,” she laughed. “It gives me the creeps! Fact, really! can’t bear it! Now listen, Willie! The case is as clear as daylight. You’ve married the wrong sister!”
“Married the wrong sister!” I echoed bewilderedly.
“Of course you have, you dear old dunderhead! You should have taken Georgie while you had the chance of a choice. She would have sat on your knee, cuddled in your arms, curled your hair with her fingers, and kissed you on the tip of your nose! That’s Georgie all over! Turtle-dove and ‘Mary’s lamb’ in one! That’s what you wanted, and that’s what you haven’t got, poor dear! I’m not a dove, and I’m certainly not a lamb. I’m — I’m a fair specimen” — she smiled candidly—” a fair specimen of the woman of the future, and you, old boy, you want a woman of the past. Now haven’t I hit it off exactly?”
I leaned back in my chair with a half groan, and she continued —
“You see, Willie, you want me to change my nature and become a big transformation scene like they have in those pantomimes, when the old witch of the piece turns into a fairy perched on the edge of a rainbow. Those things are all very well on the stage, but they can’t be done in real life. You know I was at school at Brighton?”
I assented, wondering what was coming next.
“Well, there, among other accomplishments, we learnt how to ride, and our riding-master (a dashing sort of fellow, full of fun) taught us how to smoke, lessons gratis. Fact! We all learnt it — on the sly, of course, just as he flirted with us all on the sly; but we became proficients in both arts. We were fifty girls at that place, and we all smoked whenever we had the chance, and got to like it. We ate loads of scented bonbons afterwards to kill the smell, and we were never found out. Brighton schools are not celebrated for strictness, you know; the young women do pretty much as they like in every way, and get into no end of scrapes often. But that’s wide of the mark.
The point is, that I learnt to smoke at school, and when I came home I met lots of women who smoked also, and naturally I went on with it till the habit became second nature. Why, you might as well ask a washerwoman to give up her tea as ask me to give up my cigar!”
“Is it so bad as that?” I stammered weakly. “Yes, it is ‘so bad as that’ — or so good!” she laughed amiably. “You used not to have such violent prejudices, Willie! You’ve smoked
enough yourself, I’m sure!”
“But, Honoria, I am different—” I began.
“Pardon me,” she interposed smilingly; “that is just what I cannot see! I do not understand why there should be any difference between the customs of men and the customs of women.”
“Good God!” I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and speaking with some excitement. “Do you mean to say that women are capable of doing everything that men do? Can you contemplate a battle being fought by women? Could they undertake a naval engagement? Are women fit to lay down railways, build bridges and construct canals? Will they break stones on the road and drive hansom-cabs and omnibuses? Will they become stokers and porters? Will they dig wells and put up telegraph wires? I tell you, Honoria, this craze, this mania for striving to make women the equals of men, is as wicked as it is unnatural, and can engender nothing but misery to the nation as well as to the individual!”
“In what rank, then, would you propose to place woman,” demanded Honoria calmly, “if she is not (as I hold she is) the equal of man? Is she his inferior or superior?”
“She is his inferior in physical strength,” I answered warmly; “his inferior in brute force and plodding power of endurance; his inferior too in consecutive far-planning and carrying out of plans; her brain is too quick, too subtle, too fine, to hold much of the useful quality of that dogged and determined patience which distinguishes so many of our greatest inventors and explorers. But, Honoria, she is (if she is true to herself) infinitely his superior in delicate tact, sweet sympathy, grand unselfishness and divinely-awful purity. I say divinely-awful, because if she be indeed ‘chaste as ice and pure as snow,’ though she may not escape the calumny of the wicked, she commands and retains the passionate reverence of men who know the worst, side of the world well enough to appreciate such angelic and queenly qualities. Compared with man, woman is therefore his inferior and superior both in one — a complex and beautiful problem, a delicious riddle which the best men never wish to have completely guessed; they prefer to leave something behind the veil — something mysterious and forever sanctified, and shut out from the vulgar gaze of the curious crowd!” Thus far I had proceeded in eloquence when Honoria interrupted me.
“That sounds all very nice and pretty,” she said, “but to speak bluntly, it won’t wash! Don’t talk of your sex, my dear boy, as though they were all romantic knights-errant of the olden time, because they’re not! They’re nasty fellows, most of them, and if women are nasty too, why, then they help to make them so! Look at them! Talk of smoke, why they’re always smoking — dirty pipes, too, full of beastly tobacco — cheap tobacco; and as for their admiration of all those womanly qualities you describe, they don’t care a bit for them! They’ll run after a ballet-dancer much more readily than they’ll say a civil word to a lady, and they’ll crowd round a woman whose name has been bandied about in a horrid divorce case, and neglect the good girl who has never made herself notorious.”
“Not always,” I interposed quickly. “You’ve got an example in your own sister, and she is to marry the Earl of Richmoor.”
“True enough,” and my wife rose from her chair, shook her skirts, and flung away the last fragment of her cigarette. “But he’s an exception — a very rare exception — to the rule. And all the same, Willie, I can’t change myself any more than the leopard can change his spots, as the Bible says. I’m a result of the age we live in, and you don’t quite like me!”
“I do like you, Honoria—” I began earnestly.
“No, you don’t — not quite!” she insisted, her eyes twinkling satirically. “And I promise you. I’ll think over the position very carefully and see what I can do. Meanwhile, you needn’t have the boys any more if they’re disagreeable to you.”
“They’re not disagreeable,” I faltered; “but—”
“Yes, I understand — want the house to yourself. All right! I’ll give them the straight tip!
I can see them elsewhere, you know; they’re not bound to come here often.”
“Elsewhere?” I questioned in some bewilderment. “Where, Honoria, if not here?”
“Oh, all sorts of places,” she answered laughingly. “On the river, at the Grosvenor, Hurlingham — heaps of old haunts we used to go to.”
“But suppose I object, Honoria,” I said with warmth. “Suppose I do not approve of your meeting the ‘boys’ at these different haunts, what then?”
“Oh, you won’t be such an old goose,” she replied cheerfully. “You know there’s no harm, no real mean lowness about me, don’t you?”
Her clear eyes met mine straightly and truthfully as star-beams.
“Yes, I know, Honoria,” I said gently but seriously; “I’m perfectly aware of your goodness and honour, my dear — but there is such a thing as gossip; and that you should go about at all with these young men seems to me like a rash laying of yourself open to society backbiting and scandal.”
“Not a bit of it,” she averred. “Lots of women do it — in fact, I’ve not yet come across a married woman who wants to set up for a prude in these days! And I couldn’t drop the boys altogether, you know — poor chaps, they’d feel it awfully! Now don’t be so down in the mouth, Willie. Cheer up! As I told you, I’m going to think over the position and see what I can do for you.”
Just at that moment a wild screech from the nursery announced more sufferings on the part of Master Hatwell-Tribkin.
“Doesn’t he just yell!” remarked Honaria serenely. “Lungs of seasoned leather he must have! Ta-ta!”
And with a light wave of her hand she left me to my own reflections, which were very far indeed from being consolatory. What a strange difficulty I was in! There was not a tinge of wickedness, not the least savour of deceit, about Honoria. She was as honest and true as steel, and yet — yet I was never more dismally conscious of anything in my life than that the time was approaching when I might find it no longer possible to endure her company!
CHAPTER V.
THE next day, having business in that particular neighbourhood, I lunched at the Criterion. I had scarcely sat down to my modest chop and potatoes when two gentlemen entered and took the table just behind me, and glancing round in a casual sort of way I recognised in one of them the Earl of Richmoor. He was a good-looking fellow, with rather a thoughtful yet kindly face, and a very “winning” smile. I had only met him on one occasion at a large “at home” given by Honoria’s mother, and it was not likely he would have any very distinct recollection of me; so I kept my back carefully turned, not wishing to obtrude myself upon his notice. Presently, however, something he was saying to his friend attracted my attention. With my knife and fork suspended in air I listened anxiously.
“It’s a thousand pities,” he remarked. “She’s a handsome creature, wonderfully clever and spirited. I was half inclined to fall in love with her myself at one time, but, by Jove! I wanted a woman, you know, not a semi-man in petticoats!”
“She won’t wear petticoats long, I should say,” returned the other man with a laugh. “If report knows anything about her, she’ll be in trousers before she’s many years older.”
“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Richmoor, and I heard him pouring out wine into his glass. “If she does, I shall have to cut her, though she is Georgie’s sister!”
Down clattered my knife and fork, and I drank a large gulp of water to cool my feverish agitation. It was my wife they were talking of! and my ears tingled with shame and anger. My wife! My Honoria!
“She’s a good woman, you know,” added Richmoor presently. “Never plays a double game — couldn’t be false if she tried. In fact her only fault is that horrible masculinity of hers; she thinks it’s ‘the thing,’ unfortunately; she fancies men admire it. Poor soul! if she only knew! Of course there are some young asses who like to see women smoking and who encourage them to do it, and a few despicable snobs who urge them to shoot and go deer-stalking; but these sort of gaby fellows are in the minority, after all. It’s a most pitiable thing to see ot
herwise nice women wilfully going out of their natural sphere.”
“It is — exceedingly so,” agreed his friend energetically. “I can’t think why they do it; they only get laughed at in the long run. That woman Stirling, of Glen Ruach, helped to spoil Honoria Maggs; she’s a regular cad. Have you ever met her?”
“No.”
“Oh, she dresses as nearly like a man as is compatible with the present convenances; cuts her hair quite short, wears shirt-fronts and men’s ties, shoots, bags her game, goes after salmon (she landed two the other day weighing twelve pounds each), rides a tricycle, has a perfect mania for foxhunting (always in at the death), and smokes — ye gods, how she does smoke! She’s got a regular Turkish pipe in her boudoir, and is always at it.”
“Disgusting!” said Richmoor. “Where’s her husband?” —
“Where?” and the other laughed. “Not with her, you may depend upon it! Couldn’t stand her for long! He’s in India, beating up tigers in the jungle, I believe; most probably he thinks it better to be torn to pieces by tigers than live with such a wife.”
“Talking of husbands, I wonder how poor Hatwell-Tribkin gets on,” said Richmoor meditatively. “He must have an awful time of it, I expect!”
I could stand this no longer. Rising abruptly from my seat I seized my hat and umbrella and grasped them convulsively in one hand; then, approaching the next table, I forced a politely awful smile and laid my visiting card solemnly down beside Richmoor’s plate without a word!
He started violently and his face flushed deeply, the colour spreading to the very roots of his hair. “Tribkin!” he exclaimed. “My dear fellow, I — I — I really — Upon my word, I — I”
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.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 912
