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diff --git a/2436-h/2436-h.htm b/2436-h/2436-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02ac1e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/2436-h/2436-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1888 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Marriages, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARRIAGES*** +</pre> +<p>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.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>THE MARRIAGES<br /> +by Henry James</h1> +<h2>I</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Won’t</span> 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.</p> +<p>“Of course every one’s going on to something +else,” he said. “I believe there are a lot of +things to-night.”</p> +<p>“And where are <i>you</i> going?” Mrs. Churchley +asked, dropping her fan and turning her bright hard eyes on the +Colonel.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>you</i>,” were the words that +issued from behind it. “<i>Do</i> 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 <i>sauve qui peut</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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 <i>am</i>, if that’s what you want to know!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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 +<i>his</i>. Beatrice and Muriel would care, but they were +too young to speak, and this was just why her own responsibility +was so great.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>She saw his poor pink face turn pale. “How do you +know?”</p> +<p>“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 +<i>him</i>. They’ll arrange it.”</p> +<p>“Oh I say!” Godfrey exclaimed, incredulous.</p> +<p>“He will, he will, he will!” cried the girl; and +with it she burst into tears.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Oh think of mamma—think of mamma!” she +wailed almost louder than was safe.</p> +<p>“Yes, he ought to think of mamma.” With +which Godfrey looked at the tip of his cigarette.</p> +<p>“To such a woman as that—after +<i>her</i>!”</p> +<p>“Dear old mamma!” said Godfrey while he +smoked.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“They were awfully happy,” Godfrey agreed.</p> +<p>“Think what she was—think how no one else will +ever again be like her!” the girl went on.</p> +<p>“I suppose he’s not very happy now,” her +brother vaguely contributed.</p> +<p>“Of course he isn’t, any more than you and I are; +and it’s dreadful of him to want to be.”</p> +<p>“Well, don’t make yourself miserable till +you’re sure,” the young man said.</p> +<p>But Adela showed him confidently that she <i>was</i> 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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“All right to come and take darling mamma’s +place—to sit where <i>she</i> used to sit, to lay her +horrible hands on <i>her</i> things?” Adela was +appalled—all the more that she hadn’t expected +it—at her brother’s apparent acceptance of such a +prospect.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Cheeky to plead for <i>her</i> memory?”</p> +<p>“He’ll say it’s none of my +business.”</p> +<p>“Then you believe he’ll do it?” cried the +girl.</p> +<p>“Not a bit. Go to bed!”</p> +<p>“<i>I’ll</i> speak to him”—she had +turned as pale as a young priestess.</p> +<p>“Don’t cry out till you’re hurt; wait till +he speaks to <i>you</i>.”</p> +<p>“He won’t, he won’t!” she +declared. “He’ll do it without telling +us.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“I haven’t the least idea. What on earth has +that to do with it?”</p> +<p>Godfrey puffed his cigarette. “Does she live as if +she were?”</p> +<p>“She has a lot of hideous showy things.”</p> +<p>“Well, we must keep our eyes open,” he +concluded. “And now you <i>must</i> 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.</p> +<p>A wave of emotion surged through her, and again she quavered +out: “Ah why did she leave us? Why did she leave +us?”</p> +<p>“Yes, why indeed?” the young man sighed, +disengaging himself with a movement of oppression.</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Adela</span> 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. <i>She</i> 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.</p> +<p>“No indeed, why should I?” Adela knew that he knew +she hadn’t been, since Mrs. Churchley would have told +him.</p> +<p>“Don’t you call on people after you dine with +them?” said Colonel Chart.</p> +<p>“Yes, in the course of time. I don’t rush +off within the week.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>Adela stared. “To a dinner-party?”</p> +<p>“It’s not to be a dinner-party. I want them +to know Mrs. Churchley.”</p> +<p>“Is there to be nobody else?”</p> +<p>“Godfrey of course. A family party,” he said +with an assurance before which she turned cold.</p> +<p>The girl asked her brother that evening if <i>that</i> +wasn’t tantamount to an announcement. He looked at +her queerly and then said: “<i>I’ve</i> been to see +her.”</p> +<p>“What on earth did you do that for?”</p> +<p>“Father told me he wished it.”</p> +<p>“Then he <i>has</i> told you?”</p> +<p>“Told me what?” Godfrey asked while her heart sank +with the sense of his making difficulties for her.</p> +<p>“That they’re engaged, of course. What else +can all this mean?”</p> +<p>“He didn’t tell me that, but I like +her.”</p> +<p>“<i>Like</i> her!” the girl shrieked.</p> +<p>“She’s very kind, very good.”</p> +<p>“To thrust herself upon us when we hate her? Is +that what you call kind? Is that what you call +decent?”</p> +<p>“Oh <i>I</i> don’t hate her”—and he +turned away as if she bored him.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>fiancée</i>—the word was +grotesque to Adela; it was already as if the place were her +home.</p> +<p>“What did you say to him?” our young woman asked +when her brother had told her.</p> +<p>“I said nothing.” Then he added, +colouring—the expression of her face was +such—“There was nothing to say.”</p> +<p>“Is that how it strikes you?”—and she stared +at the lamp.</p> +<p>“He asked me to speak to her,” Godfrey went +on.</p> +<p>“In what hideous sense?”</p> +<p>“To tell her I was glad.”</p> +<p>“And did you?” Adela panted.</p> +<p>“I don’t know. I said something. She +kissed me.”</p> +<p>“Oh how <i>could</i> you?” shuddered the girl, who +covered her face with her hands.</p> +<p>“He says she’s very rich,” her brother +returned.</p> +<p>“Is that why you kissed her?”</p> +<p>“I didn’t kiss her. Good-night.” +And the young man, turning his back, went out.</p> +<p>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 <i>pour rire</i>; 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 <i>him</i> happy, and convinced that he would be +if they were and that they would be if he was.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>She waited three days and then conveyed her sisters to the +<i>repaire</i>, 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 <i>their</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>bouderie</i> 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.</p> +<p>“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’!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>III</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">She</span> 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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>She stared—she cast about. “The +purpose? What’s the matter? Why do you +ask?”</p> +<p>“They’ve put it off—they’ve put it off +a month.”</p> +<p>“Ah thank God!” said Adela.</p> +<p>“Why the devil do you thank God?” Godfrey asked +with a strange impatience.</p> +<p>She gave a strained intense smile. “You know I +think it all wrong.”</p> +<p>He stood looking at her up and down. “What did you +do there? How did you interfere?”</p> +<p>“Who told you I interfered?” she returned with a +deep flush.</p> +<p>“You said something—you did something. I +knew you had done it when I saw you come out.”</p> +<p>“What I did was my own business.”</p> +<p>“Damn your own business!” cried the young man.</p> +<p>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 <i>your</i> business then?” she +asked. “I wondered what that was when I saw +<i>you</i>.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“A question?”—she echoed it with a beating +heart.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>She fixed them on the ground a moment, but at last met his own +again. “If she has told you, why do you +ask?”</p> +<p>“She has told me nothing. I’ve seen for +myself.”</p> +<p>“What have you seen?”</p> +<p>“She has broken it off. Everything’s +over. Father’s in the depths.”</p> +<p>“In the depths?” the girl quavered.</p> +<p>“Did you think it would make him jolly?” he went +on.</p> +<p>She had to choose what to say. “He’ll get +over it. He’ll he glad.”</p> +<p>“That remains to be seen. You interfered, you +invented something, you got round her. I insist on knowing +what you did.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“He is, and she is; so that’s as good.”</p> +<p>“What reason has she given?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Did he tell you this?” the girl asked.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Churchley told me. She has gone abroad for a +year.”</p> +<p>“And she didn’t tell you what I said to +her?”</p> +<p>Godfrey showed an impatience. “Why should I take +this trouble if she had?”</p> +<p>“You might have taken it to make me suffer,” said +Adela. “That appears to be what you want to +do.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“She would have helped me. She was all ready to +help me,” Godfrey portentously said.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>She seized his arm, made him stop, stood looking up at him +like a frightened little girl. “What’s the +matter, Godfrey?—what <i>is</i> the matter?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“It wasn’t infernal—it was right. I +told her mamma had been wretched,” said Adela.</p> +<p>“Wretched? You told her such a lie?”</p> +<p>“It was the only way, and she believed me.”</p> +<p>“Wretched how?—wretched when?—wretched +where?” the young man stammered.</p> +<p>“I told her papa had made her so, and that <i>she</i> +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.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“I’d have committed any crime that would have +rescued us.”</p> +<p>“You insult and blacken and ruin your own father?” +Godfrey kept on.</p> +<p>“He’ll never know it; she took a vow she +wouldn’t tell him.”</p> +<p>“Ah I’ll he damned if <i>I</i> won’t tell +him!” he rang out.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>IV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">His</span> 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 +<i>had</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Is she big and dreadful?” the girl asked.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“To intercede?” Adela was too bewildered to +ask her to sit down.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>you</i> were annoyed—it +was something I never dreamed of.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“My brother, my brother!”—his words made her +wail it out. He hushed her with a movement and she asked: +“What has father said?”</p> +<p>He looked very high over her head. “He’ll +give her six hundred a year.”</p> +<p>“Ah the angel!”—it was too splendid.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“My brother, my brother!” she yearningly +repeated.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Thank God you passed!” she cried. +“You were wonderful!”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“<i>He’s</i> wonderful too!” Adela +murmured.</p> +<p>“Wonderful too!” Godfrey echoed.</p> +<p>“Did <i>she</i> tell him?” the girl went on.</p> +<p>“She came straight to Seymour Street from here. +She saw him alone first; then he called me in. <i>That</i> +luxury lasted about an hour.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Told him what?”</p> +<p>“What you said you would—what <i>I</i> +did.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>She clasped her hands. “You thought of +mamma!”</p> +<p>“Oh don’t speak of mamma!” he cried as in +rueful tenderness.</p> +<p>It was indeed not a happy moment, and she murmured: “No; +if you <i>had</i> thought of her—!”</p> +<p>This made Godfrey face her again with a small flare in his +eyes. “Oh <i>then</i> it didn’t prevent. +I thought that woman really good. I believed in +her.”</p> +<p>“Is she <i>very</i> bad?”</p> +<p>“I shall never mention her to you again,” he +returned with dignity.</p> +<p>“You may believe <i>I</i> won’t speak of +her! So father doesn’t know?” the girl +added.</p> +<p>“Doesn’t know what?”</p> +<p>“That I said what I did to Mrs. Churchley.”</p> +<p>He had a momentary pause. “I don’t think so, +but you must find out for yourself.”</p> +<p>“I shall find out,” said Adela. “But +what had Mrs. Churchley to do with it?”</p> +<p>“With <i>my</i> misery? I told her. I had to +tell some one.”</p> +<p>“Why didn’t you tell me?”</p> +<p>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 <i>you</i> cut in of course it spoiled everything. +That’s why I was so furious with you. She +couldn’t do anything then.”</p> +<p>Adela dropped her hands, staring; she felt she had walked in +darkness. “So that he had to meet it +alone?”</p> +<p>“<i>Dame</i>!” said Godfrey, who had got up his +French tremendously.</p> +<p>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 <i>her</i> +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>perfect</i> 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 <i>me</i>. 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.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARRIAGES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2436-h.htm or 2436-h.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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