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diff --git a/old/tmrgs10.txt b/old/tmrgs10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51ce056 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmrgs10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1684 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Marriages, by Henry James** +#27 in our series by Henry James + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Proofed by Elizabeth +Manzelli and Vanessa Mosher. + + + + + +The Marriages + +by Henry James + + + + +CHAPTER 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. + + + +CHAPTER 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 fiancee--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. + + + +CHAPTER 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. + + + +CHAPTER 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 +he 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 Etext of The Marriages, by Henry James** + diff --git a/old/tmrgs10.zip b/old/tmrgs10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..216707f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmrgs10.zip |