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diff --git a/2436-0.txt b/2436-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0f13eb --- /dev/null +++ b/2436-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1728 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Marriages, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Marriages + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: February 1, 2015 [eBook #2436] +[This file was first posted on February 23, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARRIAGES*** + + +Transcribed from the 1922 Macmillan and Co. “Daisy Miller, Pandora, The +Patagonia and Other Tales” edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofing by Elizabeth Manzelli and Vanessa Mosher. + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + THE MARRIAGES + by Henry James + + +I + + +“WON’T you stay a little longer?” the hostess asked while she held the +girl’s hand and smiled. “It’s too early for every one to go—it’s too +absurd.” Mrs. Churchley inclined her head to one side and looked +gracious; she flourished about her face, in a vaguely protecting +sheltering way, an enormous fan of red feathers. Everything in her +composition, for Adela Chart, was enormous. She had big eyes, big teeth, +big shoulders, big hands, big rings and bracelets, big jewels of every +sort and many of them. The train of her crimson dress was longer than +any other; her house was huge; her drawing-room, especially now that the +company had left it, looked vast, and it offered to the girl’s eyes a +collection of the largest sofas and chairs, pictures, mirrors, clocks, +that she had ever beheld. Was Mrs. Churchley’s fortune also large, to +account for so many immensities? Of this Adela could know nothing, but +it struck her, while she smiled sweetly back at their entertainer, that +she had better try to find out. Mrs. Churchley had at least a high-hung +carriage drawn by the tallest horses, and in the Row she was to be seen +perched on a mighty hunter. She was high and extensive herself, though +not exactly fat; her bones were big, her limbs were long, and her loud +hurrying voice resembled the bell of a steamboat. While she spoke to his +daughter she had the air of hiding from Colonel Chart, a little shyly, +behind the wide ostrich fan. But Colonel Chart was not a man to be +either ignored or eluded. + +“Of course every one’s going on to something else,” he said. “I believe +there are a lot of things to-night.” + +“And where are _you_ going?” Mrs. Churchley asked, dropping her fan and +turning her bright hard eyes on the Colonel. + +“Oh I don’t do that sort of thing!”—he used a tone of familiar resentment +that fell with a certain effect on his daughter’s ear. She saw in it +that he thought Mrs. Churchley might have done him a little more justice. +But what made the honest soul suppose her a person to look to for a +perception of fine shades? Indeed the shade was one it might have been a +little difficult to seize—the difference between “going on” and coming to +a dinner of twenty people. The pair were in mourning; the second year +had maintained it for Adela, but the Colonel hadn’t objected to dining +with Mrs. Churchley, any more than he had objected at Easter to going +down to the Millwards’, where he had met her and where the girl had her +reasons for believing him to have known he should meet her. Adela wasn’t +clear about the occasion of their original meeting, to which a certain +mystery attached. In Mrs. Churchley’s exclamation now there was the +fullest concurrence in Colonel Chart’s idea; she didn’t say “Ah yes, dear +friend, I understand!” but this was the note of sympathy she plainly +wished to sound. It immediately made Adela say to her “Surely you must +be going on somewhere yourself.” + +“Yes, you must have a lot of places,” the Colonel concurred, while his +view of her shining raiment had an invidious directness. Adela could +read the tacit implication: “You’re not in sorrow, in desolation.” + +Mrs. Churchley turned away from her at this and just waited before +answering. The red fan was up again, and this time it sheltered her from +Adela. “I’ll give everything up—for _you_,” were the words that issued +from behind it. “_Do_ stay a little. I always think this is such a nice +hour. One can really talk,” Mrs. Churchley went on. The Colonel +laughed; he said it wasn’t fair. But their hostess pressed his daughter. +“Do sit down; it’s the only time to have any talk.” The girl saw her +father sit down, but she wandered away, turning her back and pretending +to look at a picture. She was so far from agreeing with Mrs. Churchley +that it was an hour she particularly disliked. She was conscious of the +queerness, the shyness, in London, of the gregarious flight of guests +after a dinner, the general _sauve qui peut_ and panic fear of being left +with the host and hostess. But personally she always felt the contagion, +always conformed to the rush. Besides, she knew herself turn red now, +flushed with a conviction that had come over her and that she wished not +to show. + +Her father sat down on one of the big sofas with Mrs. Churchley; +fortunately he was also a person with a presence that could hold its own. +Adela didn’t care to sit and watch them while they made love, as she +crudely imaged it, and she cared still less to join in their strange +commerce. She wandered further away, went into another of the bright +“handsome,” rather nude rooms—they were like women dressed for a +ball—where the displaced chairs, at awkward angles to each other, seemed +to retain the attitudes of bored talkers. Her heart beat as she had +seldom known it, but she continued to make a pretence of looking at the +pictures on the walls and the ornaments on the tables, while she hoped +that, as she preferred it, it would be also the course her father would +like best. She hoped “awfully,” as she would have said, that he wouldn’t +think her rude. She was a person of courage, and he was a kind, an +intensely good-natured man; nevertheless she went in some fear of him. +At home it had always been a religion with them to be nice to the people +he liked. How, in the old days, her mother, her incomparable mother, so +clever, so unerring, so perfect, how in the precious days her mother had +practised that art! Oh her mother, her irrecoverable mother! One of the +pictures she was looking at swam before her eyes. Mrs. Churchley, in the +natural course, would have begun immediately to climb staircases. Adela +could see the high bony shoulders and the long crimson tail and the +universal coruscating nod wriggle their horribly practical way through +the rest of the night. Therefore she _must_ have had her reasons for +detaining them. There were mothers who thought every one wanted to marry +their eldest son, and the girl sought to be clear as to whether she +herself belonged to the class of daughters who thought every one wanted +to marry their father. Her companions left her alone; and though she +didn’t want to be near them it angered her that Mrs. Churchley didn’t +call her. That proved she was conscious of the situation. She would +have called her, only Colonel Chart had perhaps dreadfully murmured +“Don’t, love, don’t.” This proved he also was conscious. The time was +really not long—ten minutes at the most elapsed—when he cried out gaily, +pleasantly, as if with a small jocular reproach, “I say, Adela, we must +release this dear lady!” He spoke of course as if it had been Adela’s +fault that they lingered. When they took leave she gave Mrs. Churchley, +without intention and without defiance, but from the simple sincerity of +her pain, a longer look into the eyes than she had ever given her before. +Mrs. Churchley’s onyx pupils reflected the question as distant dark +windows reflect the sunset; they seemed to say: “Yes, I _am_, if that’s +what you want to know!” + +What made the case worse, what made the girl more sure, was the silence +preserved by her companion in the brougham on their way home. They +rolled along in the June darkness from Prince’s Gate to Seymour Street, +each looking out of a window in conscious prudence; watching but not +seeing the hurry of the London night, the flash of lamps, the quick roll +on the wood of hansoms and other broughams. Adela had expected her +father would say something about Mrs. Churchley; but when he said nothing +it affected her, very oddly, still more as if he had spoken. In Seymour +Street he asked the footman if Mr. Godfrey had come in, to which the +servant replied that he had come in early and gone straight to his room. +Adela had gathered as much, without saying so, from a lighted window on +the second floor; but she contributed no remark to the question. At the +foot of the stairs her father halted as if he had something on his mind; +but what it amounted to seemed only the dry “Good-night” with which he +presently ascended. It was the first time since her mother’s death that +he had bidden her good-night without kissing her. They were a kissing +family, and after that dire event the habit had taken a fresh spring. +She had left behind her such a general passion of regret that in kissing +each other they felt themselves a little to be kissing her. Now, as, +standing in the hall, with the stiff watching footman—she could have said +to him angrily “Go away!”—planted near her, she looked with unspeakable +pain at her father’s back while he mounted, the effect was of his having +withheld from another and a still more slighted cheek the touch of his +lips. + +He was going to his room, and after a moment she heard his door close. +Then she said to the servant “Shut up the house”—she tried to do +everything her mother had done, to be a little of what she had been, +conscious only of falling woefully short—and took her own way upstairs. +After she had reached her room she waited, listening, shaken by the +apprehension that she should hear her father come out again and go up to +Godfrey. He would go up to tell him, to have it over without delay, +precisely because it would be so difficult. She asked herself indeed why +he should tell Godfrey when he hadn’t taken the occasion—their drive home +being an occasion—to tell herself. However, she wanted no announcing, no +telling; there was such a horrible clearness in her mind that what she +now waited for was only to be sure her father wouldn’t proceed as she had +imagined. At the end of the minutes she saw this particular danger was +over, upon which she came out and made her own way to her brother. +Exactly what she wanted to say to him first, if their parent counted on +the boy’s greater indulgence, and before he could say anything, was: +“Don’t forgive him; don’t, don’t!” + +He was to go up for an examination, poor lad, and during these weeks his +lamp burned till the small hours. It was for the Foreign Office, and +there was to be some frightful number of competitors; but Adela had great +hopes of him—she believed so in his talents and saw with pity how hard he +worked. This would have made her spare him, not trouble his night, his +scanty rest, if anything less dreadful had been at stake. It was a +blessing however that one could count on his coolness, young as he +was—his bright good-looking discretion, the thing that already made him +half a man of the world. Moreover he was the one who would care most. +If Basil was the eldest son—he had as a matter of course gone into the +army and was in India, on the staff, by good luck, of a +governor-general—it was exactly this that would make him comparatively +indifferent. His life was elsewhere, and his father and he had been in a +measure military comrades, so that he would be deterred by a certain +delicacy from protesting; he wouldn’t have liked any such protest in an +affair of _his_. Beatrice and Muriel would care, but they were too young +to speak, and this was just why her own responsibility was so great. + +Godfrey was in working-gear—shirt and trousers and slippers and a +beautiful silk jacket. His room felt hot, though a window was open to +the summer night; the lamp on the table shed its studious light over a +formidable heap of text-books and papers, the bed moreover showing how he +had flung himself down to think out a problem. As soon as she got in she +began. “Father’s going to marry Mrs. Churchley, you know.” + +She saw his poor pink face turn pale. “How do you know?” + +“I’ve seen with my eyes. We’ve been dining there—we’ve just come home. +He’s in love with her. She’s in love with _him_. They’ll arrange it.” + +“Oh I say!” Godfrey exclaimed, incredulous. + +“He will, he will, he will!” cried the girl; and with it she burst into +tears. + +Godfrey, who had a cigarette in his hand, lighted it at one of the +candles on the mantelpiece as if he were embarrassed. As Adela, who had +dropped into his armchair, continued to sob, he said after a moment: “He +oughtn’t to—he oughtn’t to.” + +“Oh think of mamma—think of mamma!” she wailed almost louder than was +safe. + +“Yes, he ought to think of mamma.” With which Godfrey looked at the tip +of his cigarette. + +“To such a woman as that—after _her_!” + +“Dear old mamma!” said Godfrey while he smoked. + +Adela rose again, drying her eyes. “It’s like an insult to her; it’s as +if he denied her.” Now that she spoke of it she felt herself rise to a +height. “He rubs out at a stroke all the years of their happiness.” + +“They were awfully happy,” Godfrey agreed. + +“Think what she was—think how no one else will ever again be like her!” +the girl went on. + +“I suppose he’s not very happy now,” her brother vaguely contributed. + +“Of course he isn’t, any more than you and I are; and it’s dreadful of +him to want to be.” + +“Well, don’t make yourself miserable till you’re sure,” the young man +said. + +But Adela showed him confidently that she _was_ sure, from the way the +pair had behaved together and from her father’s attitude on the drive +home. If Godfrey had been there he would have seen everything; it +couldn’t be explained, but he would have felt. When he asked at what +moment the girl had first had her suspicion she replied that it had all +come at once, that evening; or that at least she had had no conscious +fear till then. There had been signs for two or three weeks, but she +hadn’t understood them—ever since the day Mrs. Churchley had dined in +Seymour Street. Adela had on that occasion thought it odd her father +should have wished to invite her, given the quiet way they were living; +she was a person they knew so little. He had said something about her +having been very civil to him, and that evening, already, she had guessed +that he must have frequented their portentous guest herself more than +there had been signs of. To-night it had come to her clearly that he +would have called on her every day since the time of her dining with +them; every afternoon about the hour he was ostensibly at his club. Mrs. +Churchley _was_ his club—she was for all the world just like one. At +this Godfrey laughed; he wanted to know what his sister knew about clubs. +She was slightly disappointed in his laugh, even wounded by it, but she +knew perfectly what she meant: she meant that Mrs. Churchley was public +and florid, promiscuous and mannish. + +“Oh I daresay she’s all right,” he said as if he wanted to get on with +his work. He looked at the clock on the mantel-shelf; he would have to +put in another hour. + +“All right to come and take darling mamma’s place—to sit where _she_ used +to sit, to lay her horrible hands on _her_ things?” Adela was +appalled—all the more that she hadn’t expected it—at her brother’s +apparent acceptance of such a prospect. + +He coloured; there was something in her passionate piety that scorched +him. She glared at him with tragic eyes—he might have profaned an altar. +“Oh I mean that nothing will come of it.” + +“Not if we do our duty,” said Adela. And then as he looked as if he +hadn’t an idea of what that could be: “You must speak to him—tell him how +we feel; that we shall never forgive him, that we can’t endure it.” + +“He’ll think I’m cheeky,” her brother returned, looking down at his +papers with his back to her and his hands in his pockets. + +“Cheeky to plead for _her_ memory?” + +“He’ll say it’s none of my business.” + +“Then you believe he’ll do it?” cried the girl. + +“Not a bit. Go to bed!” + +“_I’ll_ speak to him”—she had turned as pale as a young priestess. + +“Don’t cry out till you’re hurt; wait till he speaks to _you_.” + +“He won’t, he won’t!” she declared. “He’ll do it without telling us.” + +Her brother had faced round to her again; he started a little at this, +and again, at one of the candles, lighted his cigarette, which had gone +out. She looked at him a moment; then he said something that surprised +her. “Is Mrs. Churchley very rich?” + +“I haven’t the least idea. What on earth has that to do with it?” + +Godfrey puffed his cigarette. “Does she live as if she were?” + +“She has a lot of hideous showy things.” + +“Well, we must keep our eyes open,” he concluded. “And now you _must_ +let me get on.” He kissed his visitor as if to make up for dismissing +her, or for his failure to take fire; and she held him a moment, burying +her head on his shoulder. + +A wave of emotion surged through her, and again she quavered out: “Ah why +did she leave us? Why did she leave us?” + +“Yes, why indeed?” the young man sighed, disengaging himself with a +movement of oppression. + + + + +II + + +ADELA was so far right as that by the end of the week, though she +remained certain, her father had still not made the announcement she +dreaded. What convinced her was the sense of her changed relations with +him—of there being between them something unexpressed, something she was +aware of as she would have been of an open wound. When she spoke of this +to Godfrey he said the change was of her own making—also that she was +cruelly unjust to the governor. She suffered even more from her +brother’s unexpected perversity; she had had so different a theory about +him that her disappointment was almost an humiliation and she needed all +her fortitude to pitch her faith lower. She wondered what had happened +to him and why he so failed her. She would have trusted him to feel +right about anything, above all about such a question. Their worship of +their mother’s memory, their recognition of her sacred place in their +past, her exquisite influence in their father’s life, his fortune, his +career, in the whole history of the family and welfare of the +house—accomplished clever gentle good beautiful and capable as she had +been, a woman whose quiet distinction was universally admired, so that on +her death one of the Princesses, the most august of her friends, had +written Adela such a note about her as princesses were understood very +seldom to write: their hushed tenderness over all this was like a +religion, and was also an attributive honour, to fall away from which was +a form of treachery. This wasn’t the way people usually felt in London, +she knew; but strenuous ardent observant girl as she was, with secrecies +of sentiment and dim originalities of attitude, she had already made up +her mind that London was no treasure-house of delicacies. Remembrance +there was hammered thin—to be faithful was to make society gape. The +patient dead were sacrificed; they had no shrines, for people were +literally ashamed of mourning. When they had hustled all sensibility out +of their lives they invented the fiction that they felt too much to +utter. Adela said nothing to her sisters; this reticence was part of the +virtue it was her idea to practise for them. _She_ was to be their +mother, a direct deputy and representative. Before the vision of that +other woman parading in such a character she felt capable of ingenuities, +of deep diplomacies. The essence of these indeed was just tremulously to +watch her father. Five days after they had dined together at Mrs. +Churchley’s he asked her if she had been to see that lady. + +“No indeed, why should I?” Adela knew that he knew she hadn’t been, since +Mrs. Churchley would have told him. + +“Don’t you call on people after you dine with them?” said Colonel Chart. + +“Yes, in the course of time. I don’t rush off within the week.” + +Her father looked at her, and his eyes were colder than she had ever seen +them, which was probably, she reflected, just the way hers appeared to +himself. “Then you’ll please rush off to-morrow. She’s to dine with us +on the 12th, and I shall expect your sisters to come down.” + +Adela stared. “To a dinner-party?” + +“It’s not to be a dinner-party. I want them to know Mrs. Churchley.” + +“Is there to be nobody else?” + +“Godfrey of course. A family party,” he said with an assurance before +which she turned cold. + +The girl asked her brother that evening if _that_ wasn’t tantamount to an +announcement. He looked at her queerly and then said: “_I’ve_ been to +see her.” + +“What on earth did you do that for?” + +“Father told me he wished it.” + +“Then he _has_ told you?” + +“Told me what?” Godfrey asked while her heart sank with the sense of his +making difficulties for her. + +“That they’re engaged, of course. What else can all this mean?” + +“He didn’t tell me that, but I like her.” + +“_Like_ her!” the girl shrieked. + +“She’s very kind, very good.” + +“To thrust herself upon us when we hate her? Is that what you call kind? +Is that what you call decent?” + +“Oh _I_ don’t hate her”—and he turned away as if she bored him. + +She called the next day on Mrs. Churchley, designing to break out +somehow, to plead, to appeal—“Oh spare us! have mercy on us! let him +alone! go away!” But that wasn’t easy when they were face to face. Mrs. +Churchley had every intention of getting, as she would have said—she was +perpetually using the expression—into touch; but her good intentions were +as depressing as a tailor’s misfits. She could never understand that +they had no place for her vulgar charity, that their life was filled with +a fragrance of perfection for which she had no sense fine enough. She +was as undomestic as a shop-front and as out of tune as a parrot. She +would either make them live in the streets or bring the streets into +their life—it was the same thing. She had evidently never read a book, +and she used intonations that Adela had never heard, as if she had been +an Australian or an American. She understood everything in a vulgar +sense; speaking of Godfrey’s visit to her and praising him according to +her idea, saying horrid things about him—that he was awfully +good-looking, a perfect gentleman, the kind she liked. How could her +father, who was after all in everything else such a dear, listen to a +woman, or endure her, who thought she pleased him when she called the son +of his dead wife a perfect gentleman? What would he have been, pray? +Much she knew about what any of them were! When she told Adela she wanted +her to like her the girl thought for an instant her opportunity had +come—the chance to plead with her and beg her off. But she presented +such an impenetrable surface that it would have been like giving a +message to a varnished door. She wasn’t a woman, said Adela; she was an +address. + +When she dined in Seymour Street the “children,” as the girl called the +others, including Godfrey, liked her. Beatrice and Muriel stared shyly +and silently at the wonders of her apparel (she was brutally +over-dressed) without of course guessing the danger that tainted the air. +They supposed her in their innocence to be amusing, and they didn’t know, +any more than she did herself, how she patronised them. When she was +upstairs with them after dinner Adela could see her look round the room +at the things she meant to alter—their mother’s things, not a bit like +her own and not good enough for her. After a quarter of an hour of this +our young lady felt sure she was deciding that Seymour Street wouldn’t do +at all, the dear old home that had done for their mother those twenty +years. Was she plotting to transport them all to her horrible Prince’s +Gate? Of one thing at any rate Adela was certain: her father, at that +moment alone in the dining-room with Godfrey, pretending to drink another +glass of wine to make time, was coming to the point, was telling the +news. When they reappeared they both, to her eyes, looked unnatural: the +news had been told. + +She had it from Godfrey before Mrs. Churchley left the house, when, after +a brief interval, he followed her out of the drawing-room on her taking +her sisters to bed. She was waiting for him at the door of her room. +Her father was then alone with his _fiancée_—the word was grotesque to +Adela; it was already as if the place were her home. + +“What did you say to him?” our young woman asked when her brother had +told her. + +“I said nothing.” Then he added, colouring—the expression of her face +was such—“There was nothing to say.” + +“Is that how it strikes you?”—and she stared at the lamp. + +“He asked me to speak to her,” Godfrey went on. + +“In what hideous sense?” + +“To tell her I was glad.” + +“And did you?” Adela panted. + +“I don’t know. I said something. She kissed me.” + +“Oh how _could_ you?” shuddered the girl, who covered her face with her +hands. + +“He says she’s very rich,” her brother returned. + +“Is that why you kissed her?” + +“I didn’t kiss her. Good-night.” And the young man, turning his back, +went out. + +When he had gone Adela locked herself in as with the fear she should be +overtaken or invaded, and during a sleepless feverish memorable night she +took counsel of her uncompromising spirit. She saw things as they were, +in all the indignity of life. The levity, the mockery, the infidelity, +the ugliness, lay as plain as a map before her; it was a world of gross +practical jokes, a world _pour rire_; but she cried about it all the +same. The morning dawned early, or rather it seemed to her there had +been no night, nothing but a sickly creeping day. But by the time she +heard the house stirring again she had determined what to do. When she +came down to the breakfast-room her father was already in his place with +newspapers and letters; and she expected the first words he would utter +to be a rebuke to her for having disappeared the night before without +taking leave of Mrs. Churchley. Then she saw he wished to be intensely +kind, to make every allowance, to conciliate and console her. He knew +she had heard from Godfrey, and he got up and kissed her. He told her as +quickly as possible, to have it over, stammering a little, with an “I’ve +a piece of news for you that will probably shock you,” yet looking even +exaggeratedly grave and rather pompous, to inspire the respect he didn’t +deserve. When he kissed her she melted, she burst into tears. He held +her against him, kissing her again and again, saying tenderly “Yes, yes, +I know, I know.” But he didn’t know else he couldn’t have done it. +Beatrice and Muriel came in, frightened when they saw her crying, and +still more scared when she turned to them with words and an air that were +terrible in their comfortable little lives: “Papa’s going to be married; +he’s going to marry Mrs. Churchley!” After staring a moment and seeing +their father look as strange, on his side, as Adela, though in a +different way, the children also began to cry, so that when the servants +arrived with tea and boiled eggs these functionaries were greatly +embarrassed with their burden, not knowing whether to come in or hang +back. They all scraped together a decorum, and as soon as the things had +been put on table the Colonel banished the men with a glance. Then he +made a little affectionate speech to Beatrice and Muriel, in which he +described Mrs. Churchley as the kindest, the most delightful of women, +only wanting to make them happy, only wanting to make _him_ happy, and +convinced that he would be if they were and that they would be if he was. + +“What do such words mean?” Adela asked herself. She declared privately +that they meant nothing, but she was silent, and every one was silent, on +account of the advent of Miss Flynn the governess, before whom Colonel +Chart preferred not to discuss the situation. Adela recognised on the +spot that if things were to go as he wished his children would +practically never again be alone with him. He would spend all his time +with Mrs. Churchley till they were married, and then Mrs. Churchley would +spend all her time with him. Adela was ashamed of him, and that was +horrible—all the more that every one else would be, all his other +friends, every one who had known her mother. But the public dishonour to +that high memory shouldn’t be enacted; he shouldn’t do as he wished. + +After breakfast her father remarked to her that it would give him +pleasure if in a day or two she would take her sisters to see their +friend, and she replied that he should be obeyed. He held her hand a +moment, looking at her with an argument in his eyes which presently +hardened into sternness. He wanted to know that she forgave him, but +also wanted to assure her that he expected her to mind what she did, to +go straight. She turned away her eyes; she was indeed ashamed of him. + +She waited three days and then conveyed her sisters to the _repaire_, as +she would have been ready to term it, of the lioness. That queen of +beasts was surrounded with callers, as Adela knew she would be; it was +her “day” and the occasion the girl preferred. Before this she had spent +all her time with her companions, talking to them about their mother, +playing on their memory of her, making them cry and making them laugh, +reminding them of blest hours of their early childhood, telling them +anecdotes of her own. None the less she confided to them that she +believed there was no harm at all in Mrs. Churchley, and that when the +time should come she would probably take them out immensely. She saw +with smothered irritation that they enjoyed their visit at Prince’s Gate; +they had never been at anything so “grown-up,” nor seen so many smart +bonnets and brilliant complexions. Moreover they were considered with +interest, quite as if, being minor elements, yet perceptible ones, of +Mrs. Churchley’s new life, they had been described in advance and were +the heroines of the occasion. There were so many ladies present that +this personage didn’t talk to them much; she only called them her +“chicks” and asked them to hand about tea-cups and bread and butter. All +of which was highly agreeable and indeed intensely exciting to Beatrice +and Muriel, who had little round red spots in _their_ cheeks when they +came away. Adela quivered with the sense that her mother’s children were +now Mrs. Churchley’s “chicks” and a part of the furniture of Mrs. +Churchley’s dreadful consciousness. + +It was one thing to have made up her mind, however; it was another thing +to make her attempt. It was when she learned from Godfrey that the day +was fixed, the 20th of July, only six weeks removed, that she felt the +importance of prompt action. She learned everything from Godfrey now, +having decided it would be hypocrisy to question her father. Even her +silence was hypocritical, but she couldn’t weep and wail. Her father +showed extreme tact; taking no notice of her detachment, treating it as a +moment of _bouderie_ he was bound to allow her and that would pout itself +away. She debated much as to whether she should take Godfrey into her +confidence; she would have done so without hesitation if he hadn’t +disappointed her. He was so little what she might have expected, and so +perversely preoccupied that she could explain it only by the high +pressure at which he was living, his anxiety about his “exam.” He was in +a fidget, in a fever, putting on a spurt to come in first; sceptical +moreover about his success and cynical about everything else. He +appeared to agree to the general axiom that they didn’t want a strange +woman thrust into their life, but he found Mrs. Churchley “very jolly as +a person to know.” He had been to see her by himself—he had been to see +her three times. He in fact gave it out that he would make the most of +her now; he should probably be so little in Seymour Street after these +days. What Adela at last determined to give him was her assurance that +the marriage would never take place. When he asked what she meant and +who was to prevent it she replied that the interesting couple would +abandon the idea of themselves, or that Mrs. Churchley at least would +after a week or two back out of it. + +“That will be really horrid then,” Godfrey pronounced. “The only +respectable thing, at the point they’ve come to, is to put it through. +Charming for poor Dad to have the air of being ‘chucked’!” + +This made her hesitate two days more, but she found answers more valid +than any objections. The many-voiced answer to everything—it was like +the autumn wind round the house—was the affront that fell back on her +mother. Her mother was dead but it killed her again. So one morning at +eleven o’clock, when she knew her father was writing letters, she went +out quietly and, stopping the first hansom she met, drove to Prince’s +Gate. Mrs. Churchley was at home, and she was shown into the +drawing-room with the request that she would wait five minutes. She +waited without the sense of breaking down at the last, and the impulse to +run away, which were what she had expected to have. In the cab and at +the door her heart had beat terribly, but now suddenly, with the game +really to play, she found herself lucid and calm. It was a joy to her to +feel later that this was the way Mrs. Churchley found her: not confused, +not stammering nor prevaricating, only a little amazed at her own +courage, conscious of the immense responsibility of her step and +wonderfully older than her years. Her hostess sounded her at first with +suspicious eyes, but eventually, to Adela’s surprise, burst into tears. +At this the girl herself cried, and with the secret happiness of +believing they were saved. Mrs. Churchley said she would think over what +she had been told, and she promised her young friend, freely enough and +very firmly, not to betray the secret of the latter’s step to the +Colonel. They were saved—they were saved: the words sung themselves in +the girl’s soul as she came downstairs. When the door opened for her she +saw her brother on the step, and they looked at each other in surprise, +each finding it on the part of the other an odd hour for Prince’s Gate. +Godfrey remarked that Mrs. Churchley would have enough of the family, and +Adela answered that she would perhaps have too much. None the less the +young man went in while his sister took her way home. + + + + +III + + +SHE saw nothing of him for nearly a week; he had more and more his own +times and hours, adjusted to his tremendous responsibilities, and he +spent whole days at his crammer’s. When she knocked at his door late in +the evening he was regularly not in his room. It was known in the house +how much he was worried; he was horribly nervous about his ordeal. It +was to begin on the 23rd of June, and his father was as worried as +himself. The wedding had been arranged in relation to this; they wished +poor Godfrey’s fate settled first, though they felt the nuptials would be +darkened if it shouldn’t be settled right. + +Ten days after that performance of her private undertaking Adela began to +sniff, as it were, a difference in the general air; but as yet she was +afraid to exult. It wasn’t in truth a difference for the better, so that +there might be still a great tension. Her father, since the announcement +of his intended marriage, had been visibly pleased with himself, but that +pleasure now appeared to have undergone a check. She had the impression +known to the passengers on a great steamer when, in the middle of the +night, they feel the engines stop. As this impression may easily sharpen +to the sense that something serious has happened, so the girl asked +herself what had actually occurred. She had expected something serious; +but it was as if she couldn’t keep still in her cabin—she wanted to go up +and see. On the 20th, just before breakfast, her maid brought her a +message from her brother. Mr. Godfrey would be obliged if she would +speak to him in his room. She went straight up to him, dreading to find +him ill, broken down on the eve of his formidable week. This was not the +case however—he rather seemed already at work, to have been at work since +dawn. But he was very white and his eyes had a strange and new +expression. Her beautiful young brother looked older; he looked haggard +and hard. He met her there as if he had been waiting for her, and he +said at once: “Please tell me this, Adela—what was the purpose of your +visit the other morning to Mrs. Churchley, the day I met you at her +door?” + +She stared—she cast about. “The purpose? What’s the matter? Why do you +ask?” + +“They’ve put it off—they’ve put it off a month.” + +“Ah thank God!” said Adela. + +“Why the devil do you thank God?” Godfrey asked with a strange +impatience. + +She gave a strained intense smile. “You know I think it all wrong.” + +He stood looking at her up and down. “What did you do there? How did +you interfere?” + +“Who told you I interfered?” she returned with a deep flush. + +“You said something—you did something. I knew you had done it when I saw +you come out.” + +“What I did was my own business.” + +“Damn your own business!” cried the young man. + +She had never in her life been so spoken to, and in advance, had she been +given the choice, would have said that she’d rather die than be so +handled by Godfrey. But her spirit was high, and for a moment she was as +angry as if she had been cut with a whip. She escaped the blow but felt +the insult. “And _your_ business then?” she asked. “I wondered what +that was when I saw _you_.” + +He stood a moment longer scowling at her; then with the exclamation +“You’ve made a pretty mess!” he turned away from her and sat down to his +books. + +They had put it off, as he said; her father was dry and stiff and +official about it. “I suppose I had better let you know we’ve thought it +best to postpone our marriage till the end of the summer—Mrs. Churchley +has so many arrangements to make”: he was not more expansive than that. +She neither knew nor greatly cared whether she but vainly imagined or +correctly observed him to watch her obliquely for some measure of her +receipt of these words. She flattered herself that, thanks to Godfrey’s +forewarning, cruel as the form of it had been, she was able to repress +any crude sign of elation. She had a perfectly good conscience, for she +could now judge what odious elements Mrs. Churchley, whom she had not +seen since the morning in Prince’s Gate, had already introduced into +their dealings. She gathered without difficulty that her father hadn’t +concurred in the postponement, for he was more restless than before, more +absent and distinctly irritable. There was naturally still the question +of how much of this condition was to be attributed to his solicitude +about Godfrey. That young man took occasion to say a horrible thing to +his sister: “If I don’t pass it will be your fault.” These were dreadful +days for the girl, and she asked herself how she could have borne them if +the hovering spirit of her mother hadn’t been at her side. Fortunately +she always felt it there, sustaining, commending, sanctifying. Suddenly +her father announced to her that he wished her to go immediately, with +her sisters, down to Brinton, where there was always part of a household +and where for a few weeks they would manage well enough. The only +explanation he gave of this desire was that he wanted them out of the +way. “Out of the way of what?” she queried, since there were to be for +the time no preparations in Seymour Street. She was willing to take it +for out of the way of his nerves. + +She never needed urging however to go to Brinton, the dearest old house +in the world, where the happiest days of her young life had been spent +and the silent nearness of her mother always seemed greatest. She was +happy again, with Beatrice and Muriel and Miss Flynn, with the air of +summer and the haunted rooms and her mother’s garden and the talking oaks +and the nightingales. She wrote briefly to her father, giving him, as he +had requested, an account of things; and he wrote back that since she was +so contented—she didn’t recognise having told him that—she had better not +return to town at all. The fag-end of the London season would be +unimportant to her, and he was getting on very well. He mentioned that +Godfrey had passed his tests, but, as she knew, there would be a tiresome +wait before news of results. The poor chap was going abroad for a month +with young Sherard—he had earned a little rest and a little fun. He went +abroad without a word to Adela, but in his beautiful little hand he took +a chaffing leave of Beatrice. The child showed her sister the letter, of +which she was very proud and which contained no message for any one else. +This was the worst bitterness of the whole crisis for that somebody—its +placing in so strange a light the creature in the world whom, after her +mother, she had loved best. + +Colonel Chart had said he would “run down” while his children were at +Brinton, but they heard no more about it. He only wrote two or three +times to Miss Flynn on matters in regard to which Adela was surprised he +shouldn’t have communicated with herself. Muriel accomplished an upright +little letter to Mrs. Churchley—her eldest sister neither fostered nor +discouraged the performance—to which Mrs. Churchley replied, after a +fortnight, in a meagre and, as Adela thought, illiterate fashion, making +no allusion to the approach of any closer tie. Evidently the situation +had changed; the question of the marriage was dropped, at any rate for +the time. This idea gave our young woman a singular and almost +intoxicating sense of power; she felt as if she were riding a great wave +of confidence. She had decided and acted—the greatest could do no more +than that. The grand thing was to see one’s results, and what else was +she doing? These results were in big rich conspicuous lives; the stage +was large on which she moved her figures. Such a vision was exciting, +and as they had the use of a couple of ponies at Brinton she worked off +her excitement by a long gallop. A day or two after this however came +news of which the effect was to rekindle it. Godfrey had come back, the +list had been published, he had passed first. These happy tidings +proceeded from the young man himself; he announced them by a telegram to +Beatrice, who had never in her life before received such a missive and +was proportionately inflated. Adela reflected that she herself ought to +have felt snubbed, but she was too happy. They were free again, they +were themselves, the nightmare of the previous weeks was blown away, the +unity and dignity of her father’s life restored, and, to round off her +sense of success, Godfrey had achieved his first step toward high +distinction. She wrote him the next day as frankly and affectionately as +if there had been no estrangement between them, and besides telling him +how she rejoiced in his triumph begged him in charity to let them know +exactly how the case stood with regard to Mrs. Churchley. + +Late in the summer afternoon she walked through the park to the village +with her letter, posted it and came back. Suddenly, at one of the turns +of the avenue, half-way to the house, she saw a young man hover there as +if awaiting her—a young man who proved to be Godfrey on his pedestrian +progress over from the station. He had seen her as he took his short +cut, and if he had come down to Brinton it wasn’t apparently to avoid +her. There was nevertheless none of the joy of his triumph in his face +as he came a very few steps to meet her; and although, stiffly enough, he +let her kiss him and say “I’m so glad—I’m so glad!” she felt this +tolerance as not quite the mere calm of the rising diplomatist. He +turned toward the house with her and walked on a short distance while she +uttered the hope that he had come to stay some days. + +“Only till to-morrow morning. They’re sending me straight to Madrid. I +came down to say good-bye; there’s a fellow bringing my bags.” + +“To Madrid? How awfully nice! And it’s awfully nice of you to have +come,” she said as she passed her hand into his arm. + +The movement made him stop, and, stopping, he turned on her in a flash a +face of something more than, suspicion—of passionate reprobation. “What +I really came for—you might as well know without more delay—is to ask you +a question.” + +“A question?”—she echoed it with a beating heart. + +They stood there under the old trees in the lingering light, and, young +and fine and fair as they both were, formed a complete superficial +harmony with the peaceful English scene. A near view, however, would +have shown that Godfrey Chart hadn’t taken so much trouble only to skim +the surface. He looked deep into his sister’s eyes. “What was it you +said that morning to Mrs. Churchley?” + +She fixed them on the ground a moment, but at last met his own again. +“If she has told you, why do you ask?” + +“She has told me nothing. I’ve seen for myself.” + +“What have you seen?” + +“She has broken it off. Everything’s over. Father’s in the depths.” + +“In the depths?” the girl quavered. + +“Did you think it would make him jolly?” he went on. + +She had to choose what to say. “He’ll get over it. He’ll he glad.” + +“That remains to be seen. You interfered, you invented something, you +got round her. I insist on knowing what you did.” + +Adela felt that if it was a question of obstinacy there was something +within her she could count on; in spite of which, while she stood looking +down again a moment, she said to herself “I could be dumb and dogged if I +chose, but I scorn to be.” She wasn’t ashamed of what she had done, but +she wanted to be clear. “Are you absolutely certain it’s broken off?” + +“He is, and she is; so that’s as good.” + +“What reason has she given?” + +“None at all—or half a dozen; it’s the same thing. She has changed her +mind—she mistook her feelings—she can’t part with her independence. +Moreover he has too many children.” + +“Did he tell you this?” the girl asked. + +“Mrs. Churchley told me. She has gone abroad for a year.” + +“And she didn’t tell you what I said to her?” + +Godfrey showed an impatience. “Why should I take this trouble if she +had?” + +“You might have taken it to make me suffer,” said Adela. “That appears +to be what you want to do.” + +“No, I leave that to you—it’s the good turn you’ve done me!” cried the +young man with hot tears in his eyes. + +She stared, aghast with the perception that there was some dreadful thing +she didn’t know; but he walked on, dropping the question angrily and +turning his back to her as if he couldn’t trust himself. She read his +disgust in his averted, face, in the way he squared his shoulders and +smote the ground with his stick, and she hurried after him and presently +overtook him. She kept by him for a moment in silence; then she broke +out: “What do you mean? What in the world have I done to you?” + +“She would have helped me. She was all ready to help me,” Godfrey +portentously said. + +“Helped you in what?” She wondered what he meant; if he had made debts +that he was afraid to confess to his father and—of all horrible +things—had been looking to Mrs. Churchley to pay. She turned red with +the mere apprehension of this and, on the heels of her guess, exulted +again at having perhaps averted such a shame. + +“Can’t you just see I’m in trouble? Where are your eyes, your senses, +your sympathy, that you talk so much about? Haven’t you seen these six +months that I’ve a curst worry in my life?” + +She seized his arm, made him stop, stood looking up at him like a +frightened little girl. “What’s the matter, Godfrey?—what _is_ the +matter?” + +“You’ve gone against me so—I could strangle you!” he growled. This image +added nothing to her dread; her dread was that he had done some wrong, +was stained with some guilt. She uttered it to him with clasped hands, +begging him to tell her the worst; but, still more passionately, he cut +her short with his own cry: “In God’s name, satisfy me! What infernal +thing did you do?” + +“It wasn’t infernal—it was right. I told her mamma had been wretched,” +said Adela. + +“Wretched? You told her such a lie?” + +“It was the only way, and she believed me.” + +“Wretched how?—wretched when?—wretched where?” the young man stammered. + +“I told her papa had made her so, and that _she_ ought to know it. I +told her the question troubled me unspeakably, but that I had made up my +mind it was my duty to initiate her.” Adela paused, the light of bravado +in her face, as if, though struck while the words came with the +monstrosity of what she had done, she was incapable of abating a jot of +it. “I notified her that he had faults and peculiarities that made +mamma’s life a long worry—a martyrdom that she hid wonderfully from the +world, but that we saw and that I had often pitied. I told her what they +were, these faults and peculiarities; I put the dots on the i’s. I said +it wasn’t fair to let another person marry him without a warning. I +warned her; I satisfied my conscience. She could do as she liked. My +responsibility was over.” + +Godfrey gazed at her; he listened with parted lips, incredulous and +appalled. “You invented such a tissue of falsities and calumnies, and +you talk about your conscience? You stand there in your senses and +proclaim your crime?” + +“I’d have committed any crime that would have rescued us.” + +“You insult and blacken and ruin your own father?” Godfrey kept on. + +“He’ll never know it; she took a vow she wouldn’t tell him.” + +“Ah I’ll he damned if _I_ won’t tell him!” he rang out. + +Adela felt sick at this, but she flamed up to resent the treachery, as it +struck her, of such a menace. “I did right—I did right!” she vehemently +declared “I went down on my knees to pray for guidance, and I saved +mamma’s memory from outrage. But if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t”—she faltered +an instant—“I’m not worse than you, and I’m not so bad, for you’ve done +something that you’re ashamed to tell me.” + +He had taken out his watch; he looked at it with quick intensity, as if +not hearing nor heeding her. Then, his calculating eyes raised, he fixed +her long enough to exclaim with unsurpassable horror and contempt: “You +raving maniac!” He turned away from her; he bounded down the avenue in +the direction from which they had come, and, while she watched him, +strode away, across the grass, toward the short cut to the station. + + + + +IV + + +HIS bags, by the time she got home, had been brought to the house, but +Beatrice and Muriel, immediately informed of this, waited for their +brother in vain. Their sister said nothing to them of her having seen +him, and she accepted after a little, with a calmness that surprised +herself, the idea that he had returned to town to denounce her. She +believed this would make no difference now—she had done what she had +done. She had somehow a stiff faith in Mrs. Churchley. Once that so +considerable mass had received its impetus it wouldn’t, it couldn’t pull +up. It represented a heavy-footed person, incapable of further agility. +Adela recognised too how well it might have come over her that there were +too many children. Lastly the girl fortified herself with the reflexion, +grotesque in the conditions and conducing to prove her sense of humour +not high, that her father was after all not a man to be played with. It +seemed to her at any rate that if she _had_ baffled his unholy purpose +she could bear anything—bear imprisonment and bread and water, bear +lashes and torture, bear even his lifelong reproach. What she could bear +least was the wonder of the inconvenience she had inflicted on Godfrey. +She had time to turn this over, very vainly, for a succession of +days—days more numerous than she had expected, which passed without +bringing her from London any summons to come up and take her punishment. +She sounded the possible, she compared the degrees of the probable; +feeling however that as a cloistered girl she was poorly equipped for +speculation. She tried to imagine the calamitous things young men might +do, and could only feel that such things would naturally be connected +either with borrowed money or with bad women. She became conscious that +after all she knew almost nothing about either of those interests. The +worst woman she knew was Mrs. Churchley herself. Meanwhile there was no +reverberation from Seymour Street—only a sultry silence. + +At Brinton she spent hours in her mother’s garden, where she had grown +up, where she considered that she was training for old age, since she +meant not to depend on whist. She loved the place as, had she been a +good Catholic, she would have loved the smell of her parish church; and +indeed there was in her passion for flowers something of the respect of a +religion. They seemed to her the only things in the world that really +respected themselves, unless one made an exception for Nutkins, who had +been in command all through her mother’s time, with whom she had had a +real friendship and who had been affected by their pure example. He was +the person left in the world with whom on the whole she could speak most +intimately of the dead. They never had to name her together—they only +said “she”; and Nutkins freely conceded that she had taught him +everything he knew. When Beatrice and Muriel said “she” they referred to +Mrs. Churchley. Adela had reason to believe she should never marry, and +that some day she should have about a thousand a year. This made her see +in the far future a little garden of her own, under a hill, full of rare +and exquisite things, where she would spend most of her old age on her +knees with an apron and stout gloves, with a pair of shears and a trowel, +steeped in the comfort of being thought mad. + +One morning ten days after her scene with Godfrey, on coming back into +the house shortly before lunch, she was met by Miss Flynn with the +notification that a lady in the drawing-room had been waiting for her for +some minutes. “A lady” suggested immediately Mrs. Churchley. It came +over Adela that the form in which her penalty was to descend would be a +personal explanation with that misdirected woman. The lady had given no +name, and Miss Flynn hadn’t seen Mrs. Churchley; nevertheless the +governess was certain Adela’s surmise was wrong. + +“Is she big and dreadful?” the girl asked. + +Miss Flynn, who was circumspection itself, took her time. “She’s +dreadful, but she’s not big.” She added that she wasn’t sure she ought +to let Adela go in alone; but this young lady took herself throughout for +a heroine, and it wasn’t in a heroine to shrink from any encounter. +Wasn’t she every instant in transcendent contact with her mother? The +visitor might have no connexion whatever with the drama of her father’s +frustrated marriage; but everything to-day for Adela was part of that. + +Miss Flynn’s description had prepared her for a considerable shock, but +she wasn’t agitated by her first glimpse of the person who awaited her. +A youngish well-dressed woman stood there, and silence was between them +while they looked at each other. Before either had spoken however Adela +began to see what Miss Flynn had intended. In the light of the +drawing-room window the lady was five-and-thirty years of age and had +vivid yellow hair. She also had a blue cloth suit with brass buttons, a +stick-up collar like a gentleman’s, a necktie arranged in a sailor’s +knot, a golden pin in the shape of a little lawn-tennis racket, and +pearl-grey gloves with big black stitchings. Adela’s second impression +was that she was an actress, and her third that no such person had ever +before crossed that threshold. + +“I’ll tell you what I’ve come for,” said the apparition. “I’ve come to +ask you to intercede.” She wasn’t an actress; an actress would have had +a nicer voice. + +“To intercede?” Adela was too bewildered to ask her to sit down. + +“With your father, you know. He doesn’t know, but he’ll have to.” Her +“have” sounded like “’ave.” She explained, with many more such sounds, +that she was Mrs. Godfrey, that they had been married seven mortal +months. If Godfrey was going abroad she must go with him, and the only +way she could go with him would be for his father to do something. He +was afraid of his father—that was clear; he was afraid even to tell him. +What she had come down for was to see some other member of the family +face to face—“fice to fice,” Mrs. Godfrey called it—and try if he +couldn’t be approached by another side. If no one else would act then +she would just have to act herself. The Colonel would have to do +something—that was the only way out of it. + +What really happened Adela never quite understood; what seemed to be +happening was that the room went round and round. Through the blur of +perception accompanying this effect the sharp stabs of her visitor’s +revelation came to her like the words heard by a patient “going off” +under ether. She afterwards denied passionately even to herself that she +had done anything so abject as to faint; but there was a lapse in her +consciousness on the score of Miss Flynn’s intervention. This +intervention had evidently been active, for when they talked the matter +over, later in the day, with bated breath and infinite dissimulation for +the school-room quarter, the governess had more lurid truths, and still +more, to impart than to receive. She was at any rate under the +impression that she had athletically contended, in the drawing-room, with +the yellow hair—this after removing Adela from the scene and before +inducing Mrs. Godfrey to withdraw. Miss Flynn had never known a more +thrilling day, for all the rest of it too was pervaded with agitations +and conversations, precautions and alarms. It was given out to Beatrice +and Muriel that their sister had been taken suddenly ill, and the +governess ministered to her in her room. Indeed Adela had never found +herself less at ease, for this time she had received a blow that she +couldn’t return. There was nothing to do but to take it, to endure the +humiliation of her wound. + +At first she declined to take it—having, as might appear, the much more +attractive resource of regarding her visitant as a mere masquerading +person, an impudent impostor. On the face of the matter moreover it +wasn’t fair to believe till one heard; and to hear in such a case was to +hear Godfrey himself. Whatever she had tried to imagine about him she +hadn’t arrived at anything so belittling as an idiotic secret marriage +with a dyed and painted hag. Adela repeated this last word as if it gave +her comfort; and indeed where everything was so bad fifteen years of +seniority made the case little worse. Miss Flynn was portentous, for +Miss Flynn had had it out with the wretch. She had cross-questioned her +and had not broken her down. This was the most uplifted hour of Miss +Flynn’s life; for whereas she usually had to content herself with being +humbly and gloomily in the right she could now be magnanimously and +showily so. Her only perplexity was as to what she ought to do—write to +Colonel Chart or go up to town to see him. She bloomed with +alternatives—she resembled some dull garden-path which under a copious +downpour has begun to flaunt with colour. Toward evening Adela was +obliged to recognise that her brother’s worry, of which he had spoken to +her, had appeared bad enough to consist even of a low wife, and to +remember that, so far from its being inconceivable a young man in his +position should clandestinely take one, she had been present, years +before, during her mother’s lifetime, when Lady Molesley declared gaily, +over a cup of tea, that this was precisely what she expected of her +eldest son. The next morning it was the worst possibilities that seemed +clearest; the only thing left with a tatter of dusky comfort being the +ambiguity of Godfrey’s charge that her own action had “done” for him. +That was a matter by itself, and she racked her brains for a connecting +link between Mrs. Churchley and Mrs. Godfrey. At last she made up her +mind that they were related by blood; very likely, though differing in +fortune, they were cousins or even sisters. But even then what did the +wretched boy mean? + +Arrested by the unnatural fascination of opportunity, Miss Flynn received +before lunch a telegram from Colonel Chart—an order for dinner and a +vehicle; he and Godfrey were to arrive at six o’clock. Adela had plenty +of occupation for the interval, since she was pitying her father when she +wasn’t rejoicing that her mother had gone too soon to know. She +flattered herself she made out the providential reason of that cruelty +now. She found time however still to wonder for what purpose, given the +situation, Godfrey was to be brought down. She wasn’t unconscious indeed +that she had little general knowledge of what usually was done with young +men in that predicament. One talked about the situation, but the +situation was an abyss. She felt this still more when she found, on her +father’s arrival, that nothing apparently was to happen as she had taken +for granted it would. There was an inviolable hush over the whole +affair, but no tragedy, no publicity, nothing ugly. The tragedy had been +in town—the faces of the two men spoke of it in spite of their other +perfunctory aspects; and at present there was only a family dinner, with +Beatrice and Muriel and the governess—with almost a company tone too, the +result of the desire to avoid publicity. Adela admired her father; she +knew what he was feeling if Mrs. Godfrey had been at him, and yet she saw +him positively gallant. He was mildly austere, or rather even—what was +it?—august; just as, coldly equivocal, he never looked at his son, so +that at moments he struck her as almost sick with sadness. Godfrey was +equally inscrutable and therefore wholly different from what he had been +as he stood before her in the park. If he was to start on his career +(with such a wife!—wouldn’t she utterly blight it?) he was already +professional enough to know how to wear a mask. + +Before they rose from table she felt herself wholly bewildered, so little +were such large causes traceable in their effects. She had nerved +herself for a great ordeal, but the air was as sweet as an anodyne. It +was perfectly plain to her that her father was deadly sore—as pathetic as +a person betrayed. He was broken, but he showed no resentment; there was +a weight on his heart, but he had lightened it by dressing as +immaculately as usual for dinner. She asked herself what immensity of a +row there could have been in town to have left his anger so spent. He +went through everything, even to sitting with his son after dinner. When +they came out together he invited Beatrice and Muriel to the +billiard-room, and as Miss Flynn discreetly withdrew Adela was left alone +with Godfrey, who was completely changed and not now in the least of a +rage. He was broken too, but not so pathetic as his father. He was only +very correct and apologetic he said to his sister: “I’m awfully sorry +_you_ were annoyed—it was something I never dreamed of.” + +She couldn’t think immediately what he meant; then she grasped the +reference to her extraordinary invader. She was uncertain, however, what +tone to take; perhaps his father had arranged with him that they were to +make the best of it. But she spoke her own despair in the way she +murmured “Oh Godfrey, Godfrey, is it true?” + +“I’ve been the most unutterable donkey—you can say what you like to me. +You can’t say anything worse than I’ve said to myself.” + +“My brother, my brother!”—his words made her wail it out. He hushed her +with a movement and she asked: “What has father said?” + +He looked very high over her head. “He’ll give her six hundred a year.” + +“Ah the angel!”—it was too splendid. + +“On condition”—Godfrey scarce blinked—“she never comes near me. She has +solemnly promised, and she’ll probably leave me alone to get the money. +If she doesn’t—in diplomacy—I’m lost.” He had been turning his eyes +vaguely about, this way and that, to avoid meeting hers; but after +another instant he gave up the effort and she had the miserable +confession of his glance. “I’ve been living in hell.” + +“My brother, my brother!” she yearningly repeated. + +“I’m not an idiot; yet for her I’ve behaved like one. Don’t ask me—you +mustn’t know. It was all done in a day, and since then fancy my +condition; fancy my work in such a torment; fancy my coming through at +all.” + +“Thank God you passed!” she cried. “You were wonderful!” + +“I’d have shot myself if I hadn’t been. I had an awful day yesterday +with the governor; it was late at night before it was over. I leave +England next week. He brought me down here for it to look well—so that +the children shan’t know.” + +“_He’s_ wonderful too!” Adela murmured. + +“Wonderful too!” Godfrey echoed. + +“Did _she_ tell him?” the girl went on. + +“She came straight to Seymour Street from here. She saw him alone first; +then he called me in. _That_ luxury lasted about an hour.” + +“Poor, poor father!” Adela moaned at this; on which her brother remained +silent. Then after he had alluded to it as the scene he had lived in +terror of all through his cramming, and she had sighed forth again her +pity and admiration for such a mixture of anxieties and such a triumph of +talent, she pursued: “Have you told him?” + +“Told him what?” + +“What you said you would—what _I_ did.” + +Godfrey turned away as if at present he had very little interest in that +inferior tribulation. “I was angry with you, but I cooled off. I held +my tongue.” + +She clasped her hands. “You thought of mamma!” + +“Oh don’t speak of mamma!” he cried as in rueful tenderness. + +It was indeed not a happy moment, and she murmured: “No; if you _had_ +thought of her—!” + +This made Godfrey face her again with a small flare in his eyes. “Oh +_then_ it didn’t prevent. I thought that woman really good. I believed +in her.” + +“Is she _very_ bad?” + +“I shall never mention her to you again,” he returned with dignity. + +“You may believe _I_ won’t speak of her! So father doesn’t know?” the +girl added. + +“Doesn’t know what?” + +“That I said what I did to Mrs. Churchley.” + +He had a momentary pause. “I don’t think so, but you must find out for +yourself.” + +“I shall find out,” said Adela. “But what had Mrs. Churchley to do with +it?” + +“With _my_ misery? I told her. I had to tell some one.” + +“Why didn’t you tell me?” + +He appeared—though but after an instant—to know exactly why. “Oh you +take things so beastly hard—you make such rows.” Adela covered her face +with her hands and he went on: “What I wanted was comfort—not to be +lashed up. I thought I should go mad. I wanted Mrs. Churchley to break +it to father, to intercede for me and help him to meet it. She was +awfully kind to me, she listened and she understood; she could fancy how +it had happened. Without her I shouldn’t have pulled through. She liked +me, you know,” he further explained, and as if it were quite worth +mentioning—all the more that it was pleasant to him. “She said she’d do +what she could for me. She was full of sympathy and resource. I really +leaned on her. But when _you_ cut in of course it spoiled everything. +That’s why I was so furious with you. She couldn’t do anything then.” + +Adela dropped her hands, staring; she felt she had walked in darkness. +“So that he had to meet it alone?” + +“_Dame_!” said Godfrey, who had got up his French tremendously. + +Muriel came to the door to say papa wished the two others to join them, +and the next day Godfrey returned to town. His father remained at +Brinton, without an intermission, the rest of the summer and the whole of +the autumn, and Adela had a chance to find out, as she had said, whether +he knew she had interfered. But in spite of her chance she never found +out. He knew Mrs. Churchley had thrown him over and he knew his daughter +rejoiced in it, but he appeared not to have divined the relation between +the two facts. It was strange that one of the matters he was clearest +about—Adela’s secret triumph—should have been just the thing which from +this time on justified less and less such a confidence. She was too +sorry for him to be consistently glad. She watched his attempts to wind +himself up on the subject of shorthorns and drainage, and she favoured to +the utmost of her ability his intermittent disposition to make a figure +in orchids. She wondered whether they mightn’t have a few people at +Brinton; but when she mentioned the idea he asked what in the world there +would be to attract them. It was a confoundedly stupid house, he +remarked—with all respect to _her_ cleverness. Beatrice and Muriel were +mystified; the prospect of going out immensely had faded so utterly away. +They were apparently not to go out at all. Colonel Chart was aimless and +bored; he paced up and down and went back to smoking, which was bad for +him, and looked drearily out of windows as if on the bare chance that +something might arrive. Did he expect Mrs. Churchley to arrive, did he +expect her to relent on finding she couldn’t live without him? It was +Adela’s belief that she gave no sign. But the girl thought it really +remarkable of her not to have betrayed her ingenious young visitor. +Adela’s judgement of human nature was perhaps harsh, but she believed +that most women, given the various facts, wouldn’t have been so +forbearing. This lady’s conception of the point of honour placed her +there in a finer and purer light than had at all originally promised to +shine about her. + +She meanwhile herself could well judge how heavy her father found the +burden of Godfrey’s folly and how he was incommoded at having to pay the +horrible woman six hundred a year. Doubtless he was having dreadful +letters from her; doubtless she threatened them all with hideous +exposure. If the matter should be bruited Godfrey’s prospects would +collapse on the spot. He thought Madrid very charming and curious, but +Mrs. Godfrey was in England, so that his father had to face the music. +Adela took a dolorous comfort in her mother’s being out of that—it would +have killed her; but this didn’t blind her to the fact that the comfort +for her father would perhaps have been greater if he had had some one to +talk to about his trouble. He never dreamed of doing so to her, and she +felt she couldn’t ask him. In the family life he wanted utter silence +about it. Early in the winter he went abroad for ten weeks, leaving her +with her sisters in the country, where it was not to be denied that at +this time existence had very little savour. She half expected her +sister-in-law would again descend on her; but the fear wasn’t justified, +and the quietude of the awful creature seemed really to vibrate with the +ring of gold-pieces. There were sure to be extras. Adela winced at the +extras. Colonel Chart went to Paris and to Monte Carlo and then to +Madrid to see his boy. His daughter had the vision of his perhaps +meeting Mrs. Churchley somewhere, since, if she had gone for a year, she +would still be on the Continent. If he should meet her perhaps the +affair would come on again: she caught herself musing over this. But he +brought back no such appearance, and, seeing him after an interval, she +was struck afresh with his jilted and wasted air. She didn’t like it—she +resented it. A little more and she would have said that that was no way +to treat so faithful a man. + +They all went up to town in March, and on one of the first days of April +she saw Mrs. Churchley in the Park. She herself remained apparently +invisible to that lady—she herself and Beatrice and Muriel, who sat with +her in their mother’s old bottle-green landau. Mrs. Churchley, perched +higher than ever, rode by without a recognition; but this didn’t prevent +Adela’s going to her before the month was over. As on her great previous +occasion she went in the morning, and she again had the good fortune to +be admitted. This time, however, her visit was shorter, and a week after +making it—the week was a desolation—she addressed to her brother at +Madrid a letter containing these words: “I could endure it no longer—I +confessed and retracted; I explained to her as well as I could the +falsity of what I said to her ten months ago and the benighted purity of +my motives for saying it. I besought her to regard it as unsaid, to +forgive me, not to despise me too much, to take pity on poor _perfect_ +papa and come back to him. She was more good-natured than you might have +expected—indeed she laughed extravagantly. She had never believed me—it +was too absurd; she had only, at the time, disliked me. She found me +utterly false—she was very frank with me about this—and she told papa she +really thought me horrid. She said she could never live with such a +girl, and as I would certainly never marry I must be sent away—in short +she quite loathed me. Papa defended me, he refused to sacrifice me, and +this led practically to their rupture. Papa gave her up, as it were, for +_me_. Fancy the angel, and fancy what I must try to be to him for the +rest of his life! Mrs. Churchley can never come back—she’s going to +marry Lord Dovedale.” + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARRIAGES*** + + +******* This file should be named 2436-0.txt or 2436-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/2436 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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