A Country Gentleman and his Family

"And you promised to stand by her?" he said.

Lady Markland had been a woman full of dignity and composure. She was so still to all outward appearance, and the darkness concealed the flush that rose to her face; But it could not conceal the slight tremor with which she replied after a pause: "I promised not to be against her at least."

A flood of angry words rose to Theo's lips, the blood mounted to his head. He had taken the bias so fatal between married people of supposing when his wife disagreed with him that she did it on purpose, not because she herself thought so, but because it was opposition. Perhaps this was because of that inherent contempt for women which is a settled principle in the minds of so many men, perhaps because he had been used to a narrow mind and opinions cut and dry in the case of his sister, perhaps even because of his hot adoration and faith in Lady Markland as perfect. To continue perfect in his eyes, after their marriage, she would have needed to agree always with him, to think his thoughts. He exacted this accord with all the susceptibility of a fastidious nature, which would be content with no forced agreement, and divined in a moment when an effort was required to conform her opinions to his. He would not tolerate such an effort. He would have had her agree with him by instinct, by nature, not even by desire to please him, much less by policy. He could not endure to think of either of these means of procuring what he wanted. What he wanted was the perfect agreement of a nature which arrived at the same conclusions as his by the same means, which responded before he spoke, which was always ready to anticipate, to give him the exquisite satisfaction of feeling he was right by a perpetual seconding of all his decisions and anticipation of his thoughts. Had he married a young creature like Chatty, ready to take the impress of his more active mind, he might have found other drawbacks in her to irritate his amour propre, and probably would have despised her judgment in consequence of her perpetual agreement with him. But the fact was that he was jealous of his wife, not in the ordinary vulgar way, for which there was no possibility, but for every year of additional age, and every experience, and all the life she had led apart from him. He could not endure to think that she had formed the most of her ideas before she knew him: the thought of her past was horrible to him. A suspicion that she was thinking of that, that her mind was going back to something which he did not know, awoke a sort of madness in his brain. All this she knew by painful intuition now, as at first by discoveries which startled her very soul, and seemed to disturb the pillars of the world. She was aware of the forced control he kept over himself, not to burst forth upon her, and she would have fled morally, and brought herself round to his ideas and sworn eternal faith to him, if it would have done any good. But she knew very well that his uneasy nature would not be satisfied with that.

"I might have divined," he said, after a long pause, during which they went quickly along, he increasing his pace unawares, she losing her breath in keeping up with him, "that you would see this matter differently. But I must ask, at least, that you won't circumvent us, and neutralise all our plans. The only thing for Chatty to do is to drop it altogether, to receive no more letters, to cut the whole concern. It is a disreputable business altogether. It is better she should never marry at all than marry in that way."

"I feel sure, Theo, that except in this way she will never marry at all – if you think that matters."

"If I think that matters! It is not very flattering to me that you should think it doesn't matter," he said.

And then they reached their house, and he followed her into the drawing-room, where one dim lamp was burning, and the room had a deserted look. Perhaps that last speech had been a little unkind. Compunction visited him not unfrequently. He seated himself at the little table on which the lamp was standing, as she took off her hat and recovered her breath. "Since we are at home, and alone for once in a way," he said, more graciously, "which happens seldom enough, I'll read to you for an hour, if you like, Frances; that is, if you have no letters to write."

There was a little irony in the last words, for Lady Markland had, if the truth must be told, a foible that way, and liked, as so many women do, the idea of having a large correspondence, and took pleasure in keeping it up. She answered eagerly that she had no letters to write (though not without a glance at her table where one lay unfinished) and would like his reading above everything: which was so far true that it was a sign of peace, and an occupation which he enjoyed. She got her work while he got the book, not without a horrible sense that Geoff, always wakeful, would have heard her come in, and would call for her, nor without a longing desire to go to him, if only for a moment, which was what she had intended to do. Perhaps it was to prevent this that Theo had been so ready with his offer, and so sensitive was he to every impression that the poor lady felt a thrill of terror lest her half-formed intention, or Geoff's waking, might thrill through the atmosphere to her husband's mind, and make him fling down the book with impatience. She got her work with a nervous haste, which it seemed he must divine, and seated herself opposite to him. "Now, I am ready," she said.

Poor Lady Markland! He had not read a page – a page to which she gave the most painful attention, trying not to think that the door might open any moment, and the nurse appear begging her to speak a word to Lord Markland – when a faint cry reached her ears. It was faint and far away, but she knew what it was. It was the cry of "Mamma," from Geoff's bed, only given forth, she knew, after much tossing and turning, and which a year ago she would have heard from any corner of the house and flown to answer. She started when she heard it, but she had been so much on the alert, and prepared for some interruption of the kind, that she hoped Theo did not see the little instinctive movement "Mamma!" She sat with a nervous thrill upon her, taking no notice, trying to listen, seeing in the dark the little sleepless boy tossing upon his uneasy pillow, and calling in vain for his mother, but resisting all the impulses both of heart and habit. If only Theo might not hear! After a while, however, Theo's ear caught the sound. "What's that?" he said sharply, stopping and looking at her across the table. Alas! the repressed agitation in her smile told its own story to Theo. He knew that she pretended to listen, that she knew very well what it was. "That" she said, faltering. "What? Oh! it sounds like Geoff calling – some one."

"He is calling you; and you are dying to be with him, to rush upstairs and coax and kiss him to sleep. You are ruining the boy."

"No, Theo. It is probably nurse he is calling. He sleeps so badly," she said, with a broken voice, for the appeals to mamma came quicker, and she felt as if the child was dragging at her very heart-strings.

"He would have slept better, had he been paid less attention to; but don't let me keep you from your boy," he said, throwing down the book on the table. She made an attempt at an appeal.

"Theo! please don't go away. I will run for a moment, and see what is the matter."

"You can do what you please about that: but you are ruining the boy," said Warrender. And then he began to hum a tune, which showed that he had reached a white heat of exasperation, and left the room. She sat motionless till she heard the street door closed loudly. Her heart seemed to stand still: yet was there, was it possible, a certain relief in the sound? She stole upstairs noiselessly and into Geoff's room and threw herself down by the bedside. "Oh, Geoff, what is the matter?" she asked: though her heart had dragged her so, there was in her tone a tender exasperation too.

"I can't sleep," the boy said, clinging to her, with his arms round her neck.

"But you must try to sleep – for my sake. Don't toss about, but lie quite still, that is far the best way."

"I did," said Geoff, "and said all the poetry I knew, and did the multiplication table twice. I wanted you. I kept quiet as long as I could – but I wanted you so."

"But you must not want me. You are too big to want your mother."

"I shall never be too big, I want you always," said Geoff, murmuring in the dark, with his little arms clinging close round her neck.

"Oh, Geoff, my dearest boy! but for my sake you must content yourself – for my sake."

"Was he angry?" the child asked, and in the cover of the darkness he clenched his little hands and contracted his brows; all of which she guessed, though she saw not.

"That is not a question to ask," she said. "You must never speak to me so; and remember, Geoff, – they say I am spoiling you – I will never come when you call me after to-night."

But Lady Markland's heart was very heavy as she went downstairs. She had put her child away from her; and she sat alone in the large still drawing-room all the evening, hearing the carriages come and go outside, and hansoms dashing up which she hoped might be coming to her own door. But Theo did not come back. This was one of many evenings which she spent alone, in disgrace, not knowing how to get her pardon, feeling guilty, yet having done nothing. Her second venture had not brought her very much additional happiness so far.

CHAPTER XLVIII

"Two little girls. He came over to tell us yesterday. Poor Theo! He is pleased, of course, but I think half ashamed too. It seems a little ridiculous to have twins, and the first."

"I can't think how you can say it is ridiculous. It is very interesting. But nowadays people seem to be ashamed of having children at all. It used to be thought the strength of a country, and doing your duty to the state. But people have different notions now."

"Well," said the rector, "I should have thought Theo would be pleased; for he likes to be original in everything, and two little girls are as unlike as possible to one little boy."

Mrs. Warrender's eyes shot forth a gleam, half of humorous acquiescence, half of irritation, that Mr. Wilberforce should have divined her son's state of mind. She had come to the Warren with Chatty for a few weeks, for what they called "change," though the change of a six miles' journey was not much. The Warren bore a very different aspect now from that which it had borne in former days. It was light and cheerful; some new rooms had been built, which broke the commonplace outlines of the respectable house. It was newly furnished with furniture as unlike as possible to the mahogany catafalques. Only the hall, which had been old-fashioned and harmonious, in which Chatty was attending to the flowers, was the same; and so far as that went, it might have been the very same day on which Dick Cavendish had paid his first visit, when Chatty with her bowl of roses had walked in, as he said, into his heart. There were still roses of the second bloom, with the heat of July in their fervent heart, and she stood at the table arranging them, changed, indeed, but not so changed as to affect the indifferent spectator, to whom she still seemed a part of the background, a figure passive though sweet, with no immediate vocation in life. Old Joseph, too, was in the depths of the hall, just visible, doing something, – something that was not of the least urgency or importance, but which kept him about and hearing all that passed. He and his old wife were in charge of the Warren, in the present changed days, and though they both half resented the fact that the young master had abandoned his own house, they were yet more than half pleased to have this tranquillity and ease at the end of their long service. To do them justice, they had been glad to receive their old mistress and her daughter, welcoming them as visitors with a sense of hospitality, and declaring that they did not mind the trouble, notwithstanding that Joseph's health was bad, and late dinners had always been an affliction to his wife.

"I hope," Mrs. Warrender said, "that the two little girls will soon make their own welcome, as babies have a way of doing – and make everybody certain that they are much sweeter than any one little boy."

This was how Theo's mother took the sting out of the rector's speech, which was not intended to have any sting, and was only a stray gleam of insight out of a confused realisation of the state of affairs; but it was so true that it was difficult to believe it was that, and no more. The Wilberforces had come to inquire, not only for Lady Markland and her babies, but into many other things, could they have found the opportunity. But Chatty's presence stopped even Mrs. Wilberforce's mouth. And when they went in to inspect all the improvements and the new decorations and furniture, Chatty came after them, and followed everywhere, which seemed very strange to the rector's wife. Did she mean to prevent them from talking? Was that her purpose? She took little part in the conversation. She was more silent than she had ever been, though she had never been given to much talk; and yet she came with them wherever they went, putting an effectual stop to the questions that quivered on the very edge of Mrs. Wilberforce's lips. Nor had the rector the sense, which he might so easily have had, to engage her in talk, to occupy her attention, and leave his wife free to speak. Anybody but a man would have had the sense to have done so, but a man is an unteachable creature, and never will divine the things that are required of him which cannot be told him in plain words. Accordingly, the whole party strolled from one room to another, commenting upon the new arrangements without a possibility of any enlightenment as to the real state of affairs. Mrs. Wilberforce was very indignant with her husband as they left, – an indignation that seemed very uncalled for to this injured man.

"What you could have done? Why, you could have talked to Chatty. You could have interested her on some subject or another, about where they were abroad, or about the parish, or – Dear me, there are always plenty of subjects. When you knew how anxious I was to find out all about it! Dick Cavendish is a great deal more a friend of yours than he was of theirs until this unfortunate business came about, and it seems very strange that we should know nothing. Why, I don't know even what to call her, – whether she is still Miss Warrender, or what she is."

"You would not call her Miss Warrender in any case," said the rector, with a little self-assertion. "And you know that is nonsense, for the moment the other wife was proved to be living, poor Chatty's marriage was as if it had not been."

"Well, that is what I cannot understand, Herbert: to be married just like anybody else, and the ring put on, and everything (by the way, I did notice that she does not wear her ring), and that it is as if it had not been. Bigamy one can understand: but how it should mean nothing! And do you mean to say she could marry somebody else, the same as if it had never happened?"

"To-morrow if she likes, – and I wish she would, poor Chatty! It would be the best way of cutting the knot."

"Then I can tell you one thing that all your superior information would never teach you," cried Mrs. Wilberforce, – "that she never will! You may take my word for it, Chatty has far too much principle. What! be married to one man in church, and then go and be married to another! Never, Herbert! Oh, you may tell me the ceremony is nothing, and that they must have nothing to say to each other, and all that: it may be quite true, but that Chatty will ever marry any one else is not true. She will never do it. For anything I can tell, or you can tell, she may never see Dick Cavendish again. But she will never marry any one else. It is very hard to be sure of anything nowadays, when all the landmarks are being changed, and the country going headlong to – But if I know anything, I hope I know Chatty Warrender, and that, you may be sure, she will never do."

This flood of eloquence silenced the rector, and indeed he had no objection to make: for he was aware of all those sacred prejudices that live in the hearts of ladies in the country, and he thought it very likely that Chatty would feel herself bound for ever by what was no bond at all.

In the meantime there had been only one letter from Dick, a short and hasty one, telling that he was better, explaining that he had not been able to let them know of his illness, and announcing that he was off again as soon as he should be able to move upon his search. Chatty and her mother wondered over this, without communicating its contents to any one. His search! – what did his search mean? There was no search wanted for those proceedings which he had declared were so easy and so certain at that far end of the world. Evidently they had not been so easy, and the words that he used were very strange to the ladies. He had no doubt, he said, of his success. Doubt! he had spoken of it before he went away as a thing which only required asking for, to have; and the idea that there was no doubt at once gave embodiment and force to the doubt which had never existed. Mrs. Warrender joined the forces of the opposing party from the moment she had read this letter. After a day or two of great depression and seriousness, she had taken Chatty into her arms and advised her to give up the lover, the husband, who was no husband, and perhaps an unfaithful lover. "I said nothing at first," Mrs. Warrender had said with tears. "I stood by him when there was so much against him. I believed every word he said, notwithstanding everything. But now, my darling, – oh, Chatty, now! He was to be gone for three months at the outside, and now it is eight: and he was quite sure of being able to do his business at once. But now he says he has no doubt, and that he is off on his search. His search for what? Oh, my dearest, I am most reluctant to say it, but I fear Theo is right. To think of a man trying, and perhaps trying in vain, to get a divorce in order to marry you! Chatty, it is a thing that cannot be; it is impossible, it is disreputable. A divorced man is bad enough, – you know how Minnie spoke even of that, – but a man who is trying for a divorce with the object – Chatty, my darling, it is a thing which cannot be."

Chatty was not a girl of many words, nor did she commit herself to argument: she would enter into no controversy with her mother. She said only that she was married to Dick. Perhaps he was not married to her: that might be: and she might never see him again: but she was bound for ever. And in the meantime, until they knew all the circumstances, how could they discuss the matter? When Dick returned and gave them the necessary information, then it would be time enough. In the meantime she had nothing to say. And nothing more could be got from her. Minnie came and quoted Eustace: but Chatty only walked out of the room, leaving her sister in possession of the field, but without any of the satisfaction of a victory. And Theo came, but he contented himself with talking to his mother. Something of natural diffidence or feeling prevented him from assailing Chatty in the stronghold of that modest determination which they all called obstinacy.

Theo came and made his mother miserable, almost commanding her to use her authority, declaring that it would be her fault if this farce went on, – this disreputable farce he called it; while poor Mrs. Warrender, now as much opposed to it as he, had to bear the brunt of his objurgations until she was driven to make a stand upon the very arguments which she most disapproved. In the midst of all this Chatty stood firm. If she wept, it was in the solitude of her own chamber, from which even her mother was shut out; if she ever wavered or broke down, it was in secret. Externally, to the view of the world, she was perfectly calm and cheerful, fulfilling all her little duties with the composure of one who has never known what tragedy means. A hundred eager eyes had been upon her, but no one had been able to tell how Chatty "bore it." She said nothing to anybody. It was thought that she held her head a little higher than usual and was less disposed for society: but then she had never loved society. She arranged her flowers, she took her walks, she carried beef-tea and port wine to the sick people. She even sat down daily at the usual hour and took out her muslin work, a height of tranquillity to which it was indeed difficult to reach. But what woman could do, Chatty would do, and she had accomplished even that. There are many in the world who must act and cannot sit still, but there are also some who, recognising action to be impossible, can wait with the whole passive force of their being, until that passiveness becomes almost sublime. Chatty was of this kind. Presumably she did not torment herself hour by hour and day by day, as her mother did, by continual re-arguments of the whole question, but if she did, she kept the process altogether to herself.

There had been one interview, indeed, which had tried her very much, and that had taken place a day or two after her arrival at the Warren, when she had met Lizzie Hampson on the road. Lizzie had shrunk from the young lady in whose life she had interfered with such extraordinary effect, but Chatty had insisted on speaking to her, and had called her almost imperiously. "Why do you run away? Do you think I am angry with you?" she said.

"Oh, Miss Chatty!" The girl had no breath or courage to say more.

"You did right, I believe," Chatty said. "It would have been better if you had come and told me quietly at home, before – anything had happened. But I do not blame you. I think you did right."

"I never knew till the last minute that it would hurt you so!" Lizzie cried. "I knew it might be bad for the gentleman, and that he could be tried and put in prison; but she would never, never have done that. She wanted him to be free. It was only when I knew, Miss Chatty, what it would do to you – and then it was too late. I went to Highcombe, but you had gone from there; and then when I got to London – "

A flush came over Chatty's face, as all the extraordinary scene came back to her. "It seems strange that it should be you who were mixed up with all," she said. "Things happen very strangely, I think, in life; one can never tell – If you have no objection, I should like you to tell me something of – . I saw her – do you remember? here, on this very road: and you told me – ah! that to put such people in penitentiaries would not do; that they wanted to enjoy themselves. Do you remember? It seemed very strange to me then. And to think that – " This moved Chatty more than all the rest had done. Her soft face grew crimson, her eyes filled with tears.

"To think that she – oh, Miss Chatty, I feel as if I ought to go down on my knees and ask you to forgive me for ever having anything to do with her."

"That was no fault of yours, I think," said Chatty very softly. "It can have been nobody's fault. It is just because – it has happened so: that makes it harder and harder: none of us meant any harm – except perhaps – "

"Miss Chatty, she didn't mean any harm to you. She meant no harm to any one. She was never brought up to care for what was good. She was brought up just to please her fancy. Oh, the like of you can't understand, if you were to be told ever so: nor should I if I hadn't seen it. They make a sort of principle of that, just to please their fancy. We're taught here that to please ourselves is mostly wrong: but not there. It's their religion in a kind of a way, out in these wild places, just to do whatever they like; and then when you come to grief, if you are plucky and take it cheerful – The very words sound dreadful, here where everything is so different," Lizzie said, with a shudder, looking round her, as if there might be ears in the trees.

Chatty did not ask any further questions. She walked along very gravely, with her head bent. "It makes one's heart ache," she said. There was an ease in speaking to this girl who had played so strange a part in her life, who knew her trouble as no one else did. "It makes one's heart ache," she repeated. She was not thinking of herself. "And where is she now? Do you hear of her? Do you know what has become of her?"

"Only one thing can become of her," said Lizzie. "She'll fall lower and lower. Oh, you don't think a poor creature can fall any lower, I know," for Chatty had looked at her with wonder, shaking her head; "but lower and lower in her dreadful way. One day there," said Lizzie philosophically, but sadly, pointing to the high wall of the Elms, "with her fine dresses and her horses and carriages: and the next in dirt and misery. And then she'll die, perhaps in the hospital. Oh, she'll not be long in anybody's way. They die soon, and then they are done with, and everybody is glad of it – " the girl cried, with a burst of sudden tears.

Chatty stopped suddenly upon the road. They were opposite to the gate from which so often the woman they were discussing had driven forth in her short-lived finery; a stillness as of death had fallen on the uninhabited house, and all was tranquil on the country road, stretching on one side across the tranquil fields, on the other towards the clustering houses of the village and the low spire which pointed to heaven. "Lizzie," she said, "if it is never put right, – and perhaps it will never be put right, for who can tell? – if you will come with me who know so much about it, we will go and be missionaries to these poor girls. I will tell them my story, and how I am married but have no husband, and how three lives are all ruined, – all ruined for ever. And we will tell them that love is not like that; that it is faithful and true: and that women should never be like that – that women should be – oh, I do not believe it, I do not believe it! Of her own free will no woman could ever be like that!" Chatty cried, like Desdemona, suddenly clenching her soft hands in a passion of indignation and pity. "We will go and tell them, Lizzie!"