The Man Between: An International Romance

“I am waiting for Justice Manningham,” she answered with a calm subsidence of passion that angered Mostyn more than her reproaches. “I have sent for him. He will be here in five minutes now. That brute”—pointing to Mostyn—“must be kept under guard till I reach my mother. The magistrate will bring a couple of constables with him.”

“This is a plot, then! You hear it! You! You, Tyrrel Rawdon, and you, Saint Ethel, are in it, all here on time. A plot, I say! Let me loose that I may strangle the cat-faced creature. Look at her hands, they are already bloody!”

At these words Dora began to sob passionately, the servants, one and all, to comfort her, or to abuse Mostyn, and in the height of the hubbub Justice Manningham entered with two constables behind him.

“Take charge of Mr. Mostyn,” he said to them, and as they laid their big hands on his shoulders the Justice added, “You will consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Mostyn.”

And when nothing else could cow Mostyn, he was cowed by the law. He sank almost fainting into his chair, and the Justice listened to Dora’s story, and looked indignantly at the brutal man, when she showed him her torn dress and bruised shoulder. “I entreat your Honor,” she said, “to permit me to go to my mother who is now in London.” And he answered kindly, “You shall go. You are in a condition only a mother can help and comfort. As soon as I have taken your deposition you shall go.”

No one paid any attention to Mostyn’s disclaimers and denials. The Justice saw the state of affairs. Squire Rawdon and Mrs. Rawdon testified to Dora’s ill-usage; the butler, the coachman, the stablemen, the cook, the housemaids were all eager to bear witness to the same; and Mrs. Mostyn’s appearance was too eloquent a plea for any humane man to deny her the mother-help she asked for.

Though neighbors and members of the same hunt and clubs, the Justice took no more friendly notice of Mostyn than he would have taken of any wife-beating cotton-weaver; and when all lawful preliminaries had been arranged, he told Mrs. Mostyn that he should not take up Mr. Mostyn’s case till Friday; and in the interval she would have time to put herself under her mother’s care. She thanked him, weeping, and in her old, pretty way kissed his hands, and “vowed he had saved her life, and she would forever remember his goodness.” Mostyn mocked at her “play-acting,” and was sternly reproved by the Justice; and then Tyrrel and Ethel took charge of Mrs. Mostyn until she was ready to leave for London.

She was more nearly ready than they expected. All her trunks were packed, and the butler promised to take them immediately to the railway station. In a quarter of an hour she appeared in traveling costume, with her jewels in a bag, which she carried in her hand. There was a train for London passing Monk-Rawdon at eight o’clock; and after Justice Manningham had left, the cook brought in some dinner, which Dora asked the Rawdons to share with her. It was, perhaps, a necessary but a painful meal. No one noticed Mostyn. He was enforced to sit still and watch its progress, which he accompanied with curses it would be a kind of sacrilege to write down. But no one answered him, and no one noticed the orders he gave for his own dinner, until Dora rose to leave forever the house of bondage. Then she said to the cook:

“See that those gentlemanly constables have something good to eat and to drink, and when they have been served you may give that man”—pointing to Mostyn—“the dinner of bread and water he has so often prescribed for me. After my train leaves you are all free to go to your own homes. Farewell, friends!”

Then Mostyn raved again, and finally tried his old loving terms. “Come back to me, Dora,” he called frantically. “Come back, dearest, sweetest Dora, I will be your lover forever. I will never say another cross word to you.”

But Dora heard not and saw not. She left the room without a glance at the man sitting cowering between the officers, and blubbering with shame and passion and the sense of total loss. In a few minutes he heard the Rawdon carriage drive to the door. Tyrrel and Ethel assisted Dora into it, and the party drove at once to the railway station. They were just able to catch the London train. The butler came up to report all the trunks safely forwarded, and Dora dropped gold into his hand, and bade him clear the house of servants as soon as the morning broke. Fortunately there was no time for last words and promises; the train began to move, and Tyrrel and Ethel, after watching Dora’s white face glide into the darkness, turned silently away. That depression which so often follows the lifting of burdens not intended for our shoulders weighed on their hearts and made speech difficult. Tyrrel was especially affected by it. A quick feeling of something like sympathy for Mostyn would not be reasoned away, and he drew Ethel close within his arm, and gave the coachman an order to drive home as quickly as possible, for twilight was already becoming night, and under the trees the darkness felt oppressive.

The little fire on the hearth and their belated dinner somewhat relieved the tension; but it was not until they had retired to a small parlor, and Tyrrel had smoked a cigar, that the tragedy of the evening became a possible topic of conversation. Tyrrel opened the subject by a question as to whether “he ought to have gone with Dora to London.”

“Dora opposed the idea strongly when I named it to her,” answered Ethel. “She said it would give opportunities for Mostyn to slander both herself and you, and I think she was correct. Every way she was best alone.”

“Perhaps, but I feel as if I ought to have gone, as if I had been something less than a gentleman; in fact, as if I had been very un-gentle.”

“There is no need,” answered Ethel a little coldly.

“It is a terrible position for Mostyn.”

“He deserves it.”

“He is so sensitive about public opinion.”

“In that case he should behave decently in private.”

Then Tyrrel lit another cigar, and there was another silence, which Ethel occupied in irritating thoughts of Dora’s unfortunate fatality in trouble-making. She sat at a little table standing between herself and Tyrrel. It held his smoking utensils, and after awhile she pushed them aside, and let the splendid rings which adorned her hand fall into the cleared space. Tyrrel watched her a few moments, and then asked, “What are you doing, Ethel, my dear?”

She looked up with a smile, and then down at the hand she had laid open upon the table. “I am looking at the Ring of all Rings. See, Tyrrel, it is but a little band of gold, and yet it gave me more than all the gems of earth could buy. Rubies and opals and sapphires are only its guard. The simple wedding ring is the ring of great price. It is the loveliest ornament a happy woman can wear.”

Tyrrel took her hand and kissed it, and kissed the golden band, and then answered, “Truly an ornament if a happy wife wears it; but oh, Ethel, what is it when it binds a woman to such misery as Dora has just fled from?”

“Then it is a fetter, and a woman who has a particle of self-respect will break it. The Ring of all Rings!” she ejaculated again, as she lifted the rubies and opals, and slowly but smilingly encircled the little gold band.

“Let us try now to forget that sorrowful woman,” said Tyrrel. “She will be with her mother in a few hours. Mother-love can cure all griefs. It never fails. It never blames. It never grows weary. It is always young and warm and true. Dora will be comforted. Let us forget; we can do no more.”

For a couple of days this was possible, but then came Mrs. Nicholas Rawdon, and the subject was perforce opened. “It was a bad case,” she said, “but it is being settled as quickly and as quietly as possible. I believe the man has entered into some sort of recognizance to keep the peace, and has disappeared. No one will look for him. The gentry are against pulling one another down in any way, and this affair they don’t want talked about. Being all of them married men, it isn’t to be expected, is it? Justice Manningham was very sorry for the little lady, but he said also ‘it was a bad precedent, and ought not to be discussed.’ And Squire Bentley said, ‘If English gentlemen would marry American women, they must put up with American women’s ways,’ and so on. None of them think it prudent to approve Mrs. Mostyn’s course. But they won’t get off as easy as they think. The women are standing up for her. Did you ever hear anything like that? And I’ll warrant some husbands are none so easy in their minds, as my Nicholas said, ‘Mrs. Mostyn had sown seed that would be seen and heard tell of for many a long day.’ Our Lucy, I suspect, had more to do with the move than she will confess. She got a lot of new, queer notions at college, and I do believe in my heart she set the poor woman up to the business. John Thomas, of course, says not a word, but he looks at Lucy in a very proud kind of way; and I’ll be bound he has got an object lesson he’ll remember as long as he lives. So has Nicholas, though he bluffs more than a little as to what he’d do with a wife that got a running-away notion into her head. Bless you, dear, they are all formulating their laws on the subject, and their wives are smiling queerly at them, and holding their heads a bit higher than usual. I’ve been doing it myself, so I know how they feel.”

Thus, though very little was said in the newspapers about the affair, the notoriety Mostyn dreaded was complete and thorough. It was the private topic of conversation in every household. Men talked it over in all the places where men met, and women hired the old Mostyn servants in order to get the very surest and latest story of the poor wife’s wrongs, and then compared reports and even discussed the circumstances in their own particular clubs.

At the Court, Tyrrel and Ethel tried to forget, and their own interests were so many and so important that they usually succeeded; especially after a few lines from Mrs. Denning assured them of Dora’s safety and comfort. And for many weeks the busy life of the Manor sufficed; there was the hay to cut in the meadow lands, and after it the wheat fields to harvest. The stables, the kennels, the farms and timber, the park and the garden kept Tyrrel constantly busy. And to these duties were added the social ones, the dining and dancing and entertaining, the horse racing, the regattas, and the enthusiasm which automobiling in its first fever engenders.

And yet there were times when Tyrrel looked bored, and when nothing but Squire Percival’s organ or Ethel’s piano seemed to exorcise the unrest and ennui that could not be hid. Ethel watched these moods with a wise and kind curiosity, and in the beginning of September, when they perceptibly increased, she asked one day, “Are you happy, Tyrrel? Quite happy?”

“I am having a splendid holiday,” he answered, “but–”

“But what, dear?”

“One could not turn life into a long holiday—that would be harder than the hardest work.”

She answered “Yes,” and as soon as she was alone fell to thinking, and in the midst of her meditation Mrs. Nicholas Rawdon entered in a whirl of tempestuous delight.

“What do you think?” she asked between laughing and crying. “Whatever do you think? Our Lucy had twins yesterday, two fine boys as ever was. And I wish you could see their grandfather and their father. They are out of themselves with joy. They stand hour after hour beside the two cradles, looking at the little fellows, and they nearly came to words this morning about their names.”

“I am so delighted!” cried Ethel. “And what are you going to call them?”

“One is an hour older than the other, and John Thomas wanted them called Percival and Nicholas. But my Nicholas wanted the eldest called after himself, and he said so plain enough. And John Thomas said ‘he could surely name his own sons; and then Nicholas told him to remember he wouldn’t have been here to have any sons at all but for his father.’ And just then I came into the room to have a look at the little lads, and when I heard what they were fratching about, I told them it was none of their business, that Lucy had the right to name the children, and they would just have to put up with the names she gave them.”

“And has Lucy named them?”

“To be sure. I went right away to her and explained the dilemma, and I said, ‘Now, Lucy, it is your place to settle this question.’ And she answered in her positive little way, ‘You tell father the eldest is to be called Nicholas, and tell John Thomas the youngest is to be called John Thomas. I can manage two of that name very well. And say that I won’t have any more disputing about names, the boys are as good as christened already.’ And of course when Lucy said that we all knew it was settled. And I’m glad the eldest is Nicholas. He is a fine, sturdy little Yorkshireman, bawling out already for what he wants, and flying into a temper if he doesn’t get it as soon as he wants it. Dearie me, Ethel, I am a proud woman this morning. And Nicholas is going to give all the hands a holiday, and a trip up to Ambleside on Saturday, though John Thomas is very much against it.”

“Why is he against it?”

“He says they will be holding a meeting on Monday night to try and find out what Old Nicholas is up to, and that if he doesn’t give them the same treat on the same date next year, they’ll hold an indignation meeting about being swindled out of their rights. And I’ll pledge you my word John Thomas knows the men he’s talking about. However, Nicholas is close with his money, and it will do him good happen to lose a bit. Blood-letting is healthy for the body, and perhaps gold-letting may help the soul more than we think for.”

This news stimulated Ethel’s thinking, and when she also stood beside the two cradles, and the little Nicholas opened his big blue eyes and began to “bawl for what he wanted,” a certain idea took fast hold of her, and she nursed it silently for the next month, watch-ing Tyrrel at the same time. It was near October, however, before she found the proper opportunity for speaking. There had been a long letter from the Judge. It said Ruth and he were home again after a wonderful trip over the Northern Pacific road. He wrote with enthusiasm of the country and its opportunities, and of the big cities they had visited on their return from the Pacific coast. Every word was alive, the magnitude and stir of traffic and wrestling humanity seemed to rustle the paper. He described New York as overflowing with business. His own plans, the plans of others, the jar of politics, the thrill of music and the drama—all the multitudinous vitality that crowded the streets and filled the air, even to the roofs of the twenty-story buildings, contributed to the potent exhilaration of the letter.

“Great George!” exclaimed Tyrrel. “That is life! That is living! I wish we were back in America!”

“So do I, Tyrrel.”

“I am so glad. When shall we go? It is now the twenty-eighth of September.”

“Are you very weary of Rawdon Court”’

“Yes. If a man could live for the sake of eating and sleeping and having a pleasant time, why Rawdon Court would be a heaven to him; but if he wants to DO something with his life, he would be most unhappy here.”

“And you want to do something?”

“You would not have loved a man who did not want TO DO. We have been here four months. Think of it! If I take four months out of every year for twenty years, I shall lose, with travel, about seven years of my life, and the other things to be dropped with them may be of incalculable value.”

“I see, Tyrrel. I am not bound in any way to keep Rawdon Court. I can sell it to-morrow.”

“But you would be grieved to do so?”

“Not at all. Being a lady of the Manor does not flatter me. The other squires would rather have a good man in my place.”