The Man Between: An International Romance

“I used to be first.”

“When a girl marries she is supposed to–”

“Please don’t talk nonsense. Basil does not take the place of everyone and everything else. I think we are often very tired of each other. This morning, when I was telling him what trouble I had with my maid, Julia, he actually yawned. He tried to smother the yawn, but he could not, and of course the honeymoon is over when your bridegroom yawns in your face while you are telling him your troubles.”

“I should think you would be glad it was over. Of all the words in the English language ‘honeymoon’ is the most ridiculous and imbecile.”

“I suppose when you get married you will take a honeymoon.”

“I shall have more sense and more selfishness. A girl could hardly enter a new life through a medium more trying. I am sure it would need long-tested affections and the sweetest of tempers to make it endurable.”

“I cannot imagine what you mean.”

“I mean that all traveling just after marriage is a great blunder. Traveling makes the sunniest disposition hasty and peevish, for women don’t love changes as men do. Not one in a thousand is seen at her best while traveling, and the majority are seen at their very worst. Then there is the discomfort and desolation of European hotels—their mysterious methods and hours, and the ways of foreigners, which are not as our ways.”

“Don’t talk of them, Ethel. They are dreadful places, and such queer people.”

“Add to these troubles ignorance of language and coinage, the utter weariness of railway travel, the plague of customs, the trunk that won’t pack, the trains that won’t wait, the tiresome sight-seeing, the climatic irritability, broiling suns, headache, loneliness, fretfulness—consequently the pitiful boredom of the new husband.”

“Ethel, what you say is certainly too true. I am weary to death of it all. I want to be at Newport with mother, who is having a lovely time there. Of course Basil is very nice to me, and yet there have been little tiffs and struggles—very gentle ones—for the mastery, which he is not going to get. To-day he wanted me to go with him and Canon Shackleton to see something or other about the poor of London. I would not do it. I am so lonely, Ethel, I want to see some one. I feel fit to cry all the time. I like Basil best of anyone in the world, but–”

“But in the solitude of a honeymoon among strangers you find out that the person you like best in the world can bore you as badly as the person you don’t like at all. Is that so?”

“Exactly. Just fancy if we were among our friends in Newport. I should have some pleasure in dressing and looking lovely. Why should I dress here? There is no one to see me.”

“Basil.”

“Of course, but Basil spends all the time in visiting cathedrals and clergymen. If we go out, it is to see something about the poor, or about schools and such like. We were not in London two hours until he was off to Westminster Abbey, and I didn’t care a cent about the old place. He says I must not ask him to go to theaters, but historical old houses don’t interest me at all. What does it matter if Cromwell slept in a certain ancient shabby room? And as for all the palaces I have seen, my father’s house is a great deal handsomer, and more convenient, and more comfortable, and I wish I were there. I hate Europe, and England I hate worst of all.”

“You have not seen England. We are all enraptured with its beauty and its old houses and pleasant life.”

“You are among friends—at home, as it were. I have heard all about Rawdon Court. Fred Mostyn told me. He is going to buy it.”

“When?”

“Some time this fall. Then next year he will entertain us, and that will be a little different to this desolate hotel, I think.”

“How long will you be in London?”

“I cannot say. We are invited to Stanhope Castle, but I don’t want to go there. We stayed with the Stanhopes a week when we first came over. They were then in their London house, and I got enough of them.”

“Did you dislike the family?”

“No, I cared nothing about them. They just bored me. They are extremely religious. We had prayers night and morning, and a prayer before and after every meal. They read only very good books, and the Honorable Misses Stanhope sew for the poor old women and teach the poor young ones. They work harder than anyone I ever knew, and they call it ‘improving the time.’ They thought me a very silly, reckless young woman, and I think they all prayed for me. One night after they had sung some very nice songs they asked me to play, and I began with ‘My Little Brown Rose’—you know they all adore the negro—and little by little I dropped into the funniest coon songs I knew, and oh how they laughed! Even the old lord stroked his knees and laughed out loud, while the young ladies laughed into their handkerchiefs. Lady Stanhope was the only one who comprehended I was guying them; and she looked at me with half-shut eyes in a way that would have spoiled some girls’ fun. It only made me the merrier. So I tried to show them a cake walk, but the old lord rose then and said ‘I must be tired, and they would excuse me.’ Somehow I could not manage him. Basil was at a workman’s concert, and when he came home I think there were some advices and remonstrances, but Basil never told me. I felt as if they were all glad when I went away, and I don’t wish to go to the Castle—and I won’t go either.”

“But if Basil wishes to go–”

“He can go alone. I rather think Fred Mostyn will be here in a few days, and he will take me to places that Basil will not—innocent places enough, Ethel, so you need not look so shocked. Why do you not ask me to Rawdon Court?”

“Because I am only a guest there. I have no right to ask you.”

“I am sure if you told Squire Rawdon how fond you are of me, and how lonely I am, he would tell you to send for me.”

“I do not believe he would. He has old-fashioned ideas about newly married people. He would hardly think it possible that you would be willing to go anywhere without Basil—yet.”

“He could ask Basil too.”

“If Mr. Mostyn is coming home, he can ask you to Mostyn Hall. It is very near Rawdon Court.”

“Yes. Fred said as soon as he had possession of the Court he could put both places into a ring fence. Then he would live at the Court. If he asks us there next summer I shall be sure to beg an invitation for you also; so I think you might deserve it by getting me one now. I don’t want to go to Mostyn yet. Fred says it needs entire refurnishing, and if we come to the Court next summer, I have promised to give him my advice and help in making the place pretty and up to date. Have you seen Mostyn Hall?”

“I have passed it several times. It is a large, gloomy-looking place I was going to say haunted-looking. It stands in a grove of yew trees.”

“So you are not going to ask me to Rawdon Court?”

“I really cannot, Dora. It is not my house. I am only a guest there.”

“Never mind. Make no more excuses. I see how it is. You always were jealous of Fred’s liking for me. And of course when he goes down to Mostyn you would prefer me to be absent.”

“Good-by, Dora! I have a deal of shopping to do, and there is not much time before the ball, for many things will be to make.”

“The ball! What ball?”

“Only one at Rawdon Court. The neighbors have been exceedingly kind to us, and the Squire is going to give a dinner and ball on the first of August.”

“Sit down and tell me about the neighbors—and the ball.”

“I cannot. I promised Ruth to be back at five. Our modiste is to see us at that hour.”

“So Ruth is with you! Why did she not call on me?”

“Did you think I should come to London alone? And Ruth did not call because she was too busy.”

“Everyone and everything comes before me now. I used to be first of all. I wish I were in Newport with dad and mamma; even Bryce would be a comfort.”

“As I said before, you have Mr. Stanhope.”

“Are you going to send for me to the ball?”

“I cannot promise that, Dora. Good-by.”

Dora did not answer. She buried her face in the soft pillow, and Ethel closed the door to the sound of her sobs. But they did not cause her to return or to make any foolish promises. She divined their insincerity and their motive, and had no mind to take any part in forwarding the latter.

And Ruth assured her she had acted wisely. “If trouble should ever come of this friendship,” she said, “Dora would very likely complain that you had always thrown Mostyn in her way, brought him to her house in New York, and brought her to him at Rawdon, in England. Marriage is such a risk, Ethel, but to marry without the courage to adapt oneself. AH!”

“You think that condition unspeakably hard?”

“There are no words for it.”