The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View/The Siege of London/Chapter 7
VII.
If she was strange, he had not come to the end of her strangeness. The next day was a Sunday and uncommonly fine; he was down before breakfast, and took a walk in the park, stopping to gaze at the thin-legged deer, scattered like pins on a velvet cushion over some of the remoter slopes, and wandering along the edge of a large sheet of ornamental water, which had a temple, in imitation of that of Vesta, on an island in the middle. He thought at this time no more about Mrs. Headway; he only reflected that these stately objects had for more than a hundred years furnished a background to a great deal of family history. A little more reflection would perhaps have suggested to him that Mrs. Headway was possibly an incident of some importance in the history of a family. Two or three ladies failed to appear at breakfast; Mrs. Headway was one of them.
"She tells me she never leaves her room till noon," he heard Lady Demesne say to the general, her companion of the previous evening, who had asked about her. "She takes three hours to dress."
"She 's a monstrous clever woman!" the general exclaimed.
"To do it in three hours?"
"No, I mean the way she keeps her wits about her."
"Yes; I think she 's very clever," said Lady Demesne, in a tone in which Waterville flattered himself that he saw more meaning than the general could see. There was something in this tall, straight, deliberate woman, who seemed at once benevolent and distant, that Waterville admired. With her delicate surface, her conventional mildness, he could see that she was very strong; she had set her patience upon a height, and she carried it like a diadem. She had very little to say to Waterville, but every now and then she made some inquiry of him that showed she had not forgotten him. Demesne himself was apparently in excellent spirits, though there was nothing bustling in his deportment, and he only went about looking very fresh and fair, as if he took a bath every hour or two, and very secure against the unexpected. Waterville had less conversation with him than with his mother; but the young man had found occasion to say to him the night before, in the smoking-room, that he was delighted Waterville had been able to come, and that if he was fond of real English scenery there were several things about there he should like very much to show him.
"You must give me an hour or two before you go, you know; I really think there are some things you 'll like."
Sir Arthur spoke as if Waterville would be very fastidious; he seemed to wish to attach a vague importance to him. On the Sunday morning after breakfast he asked Waterville if he should care to go to church; most of the ladies and several of the men were going.
"It's just as you please, you know; but it's rather a pretty walk across the fields, and a curious little church of King Stephen's time."
Waterville knew what this meant; it was already a picture. Besides, he liked going to church, especially when he sat in the Squire's pew, which was sometimes as big as a boudoir. So he replied that he should be delighted. Then he added, without explaining his reason—
"Is Mrs. Headway going?"
"I really don't know," said his host, with an abrupt change of tone—as if Waterville had asked him whether the housekeeper were going.
"The English are awfully queer!" Waterville indulged mentally in this exclamation, to which since his arrival in England he had had recourse whenever he encountered a gap in the consistency of things. The church was even a better picture than Sir Arthur's description of it, and Waterville said to himself that Mrs. Headway had been a great fool not to come. He knew what she was after; she wished to study English life, so that she might take possession of it, and to pass in among a hedge of bobbing rustics, and sit among the monuments of the old Demesnes, would have told her a great deal about English life. If she wished to fortify herself for the struggle she had better come to that old church. When he returned to Longlands—he had walked back across the meadows with the canon's wife, who was a vigorous pedestrian—it wanted half an hour of luncheon, and he was unwilling to go indoors. He remembered that he had not yet seen the gardens, and he wandered away in search of them. They were on a scale which enabled him to find them without difficulty, and they looked as if they had been kept up unremittingly for a century or two. He had not advanced very far between their blooming borders when he heard a voice that he recognized, and a moment after, at the turn of an alley, he came upon Mrs. Headway, who was attended by the master of Longlands. She was bareheaded beneath her parasol, which she flung back, stopping short, as she beheld her compatriot.
"Oh, it 's Mr. Waterville come to spy me out as usual!" It was with this remark that she greeted the slightly embarrassed young man.
"Hallo! you 've come home from church," Sir Arthur said, pulling out his watch.
Waterville was struck with his coolness. He admired it; for, after all, he said to himself, it must have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He felt a little like a fool, and wished he had kept Mrs. April with him, to give him the air of having come for her sake.
Mrs. Headway looked adorably fresh, in a toilet which Waterville, who had his ideas on such matters, was sure would not be regarded as the proper thing for a Sunday morning in an English country house: a négligé of white flounces and frills, interspersed with yellow ribbons—a garment which Madame de Pompadour might have worn when she received a visit from Louis XV., but would probably not have worn when she went into the world. The sight of this costume gave the finishing touch to Waterville's impression that Mrs. Headway knew, on the whole, what she was about. She would take a line of her own; she would not be too accommodating. She would not come down to breakfast; she would not go to church; she would wear on Sunday mornings little elaborately informal dresses, and look dreadfully un-British and un-Protestant. Perhaps, after all, this was better. She began to talk with a certain volubility.
"Is n't this too lovely? I walked all the way from the house. I 'm not much at walking, but the grass in this place is like a parlor. The whole thing is beyond everything. Sir Arthur, you ought to go and look after the Ambassador; it's shameful the way I 've kept you. You did n't care about the Ambassador? You said just now you had scarcely spoken to him, and you must make it up. I never saw such a way of neglecting your guests. Is that the usual style over here? Go and take him out for a ride, or make him play a game of billiards. Mr. Waterville will take me home; besides, I want to scold him for spying on me."
Waterville sharply resented this accusation. "I had no idea you were here," he declared.
"We were n't hiding," said Sir Arthur quietly. "Perhaps you 'll see Mrs. Headway back to the house. I think I ought to look after old Davidoff. I believe lunch is at two."
He left them, and Waterville wandered through the gardens with Mrs. Headway. She immediately wished to know if he had come there to look after her; but this inquiry was accompanied, to his surprise, with the acrimony she had displayed the night before. He was determined not to let that pass, however; when people had treated him in that way they should not be allowed to forget it.
"Do you suppose I am always thinking of you? " he asked. "You're out of my mind sometimes. I came here to look at the gardens, and if you had n't spoken to me I should have passed on."
Mrs. Headway was perfectly good-natured; she appeared not even to hear his defence. "He has got two other places," she simply rejoined. "That 's just what I wanted to know."
But Waterville would not be turned away from his grievance. That mode of reparation to a person whom you had insulted which consisted in forgetting that you had done so, was doubtless largely in use in New Mexico; but a person of honor demanded something more. "What did you mean last night by accusing me of having come down here to watch you? You must excuse me if I tell you that I think you were rather rude." The sting of this accusation lay in the fact that there was a certain amount of truth in it; yet for a moment Mrs. Headway, looking very blank, failed to recognize the allusion. "She 's a barbarian, after all," thought Waterville. "She thinks a woman may slap a man's face and run away!"
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Headway, suddenly, "I remember, I was angry with you; I did n't expect to see you. But I did n't really care about it at all. Every now and then I am angry, like that, and I work it off on any one that 's handy. But it 's over in three minutes, and I never think of it again. I was angry last night; I was furious with the old woman."
"With the old woman?"
"With Sir Arthur's mother. She has no business here, any way. In this country, when the husband dies, they 're expected to clear out. She has a house of her own, ten miles from here, and she has another in Portman Square; so she 's got plenty of places to live. But she sticks—she sticks to him like a plaster. All of a sudden it came over me that she didn't invite me here because she liked me, but because she suspects me. She 's afraid we 'll make a match, and she thinks I ain't good enough for her son. She must think I 'm in a great hurry to get hold of him. I never went after him, he came after me. I should never have thought of anything if it had n't been for him. He began it last summer at Homburg; he wanted to know why I did n't come to England; he told me I should have great success. He does n't know much about it, any way; he has n't got much gumption. But he 's a very nice man, all the same; it 's very pleasant to see him surrounded by his—" And Mrs. Headway paused a moment, looking admiringly about her "Surrounded by all his old heirlooms. I like the old place," she went on; "it 's beautifully mounted; I 'm quite satisfied with what I 've seen. I thought Lady Demesne was very friendly; she left a card on me in London, and very soon after, she wrote to me to ask me here. But I 'm very quick; I sometimes see things in a flash. I saw something yesterday, when she came to speak to me at dinner-time. She saw I looked pretty, and it made her blue with rage; she hoped I would be ugly. I should like very much to oblige her; but what can one do? Then I saw that she had asked me here only because he insisted. He did n't come to see me when I first arrived—he never came near me for ten days. She managed to prevent him; she got him to make some promise. But he changed his mind after a little, and then he had to do something really polite. He called three days in succession, and he made her come. She 's one of those women that resists as long as she can, and then seems to give in, while she 's really resisting more than ever. She hates me like poison; I don't know what she thinks I 've done. She 's very underhand; she 's a regular old cat. When I saw you last night at dinner, I thought she had got you here to help her."
"To help her?" Waterville asked.
"To tell her about me. To give her information, that she can make use of against me. You may tell her what you like!"
Waterville was almost breathless with the attention he had given this extraordinary burst of confidence, and now he really felt faint. He stopped short; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps, and then, stopping too, turned and looked at him. "You 're the most unspeakable woman!" he exclaimed. She seemed to' him indeed a barbarian.
She laughed at him—he felt she was laughing at his expression of face—and her laugh rang through the stately gardens. "What sort of a woman is that?"
"You've got no delicacy," said Waterville, resolutely. She colored quickly, though, strange to say, she appeared not to be angry. "No delicacy?" she repeated.
"You ought to keep those things to yourself."
"Oh, I know what you mean; I talk about everything. When I 'm excited I 've got to talk. But I must do things in my own way. I 've got plenty of delicacy, when people are nice to me. Ask Arthur Demesne if I ain't delicate—ask George Littlemore if I ain't. Don't stand there all day; come in to lunch!" And Mrs. Headway resumed her walk, while Rupert Waterville, raising his eyes for a moment, slowly overtook her. "Wait till I get settled; then I 'll be delicate," she pursued. "You can't be delicate when you 're trying to save your life. It 's very well for you to talk, with the whole American Legation to back you. Of course I 'm excited. I 've got hold of this thing, and I don't mean to let go!" Before they reached the house she told him why he had been invited to Longlands at the same time as herself. Waterville would have liked to believe that his personal attractions sufficiently explained the fact; but she took no account of this supposition. Mrs. Headway preferred to think that she lived in an element of ingenious machination, and that most things that happened had reference to herself. Waterville had been asked because he represented, however modestly, the American Legation, and their host had a friendly desire to make it appear that this pretty American visitor, of whom no one knew anything, was under the protection of that establishment. "It would start me better," said Mrs. Headway, serenely. "You can't help yourself—you 've helped to start me. If he had known the Minister he would have asked him—or the first secretary. But he don't know them."
They reached the house by the time Mrs. Headway had developed this idea, which gave Waterville a pretext more than sufficient for detaining her in the portico. "Do you mean to say Sir Arthur told you this?" he inquired, almost sternly.
"Told me? Of course not! Do you suppose I would let him take the tone with me that I need any favors? I should like to hear him tell me that I 'm in want of assistance!"
"I don't see why he should n't—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to every one."
"To every one? I say it to you, and to George Littlemore—when I 'm nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I 'm afraid of him. I 'm not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I 'm all alone—I have n't got any one. I must have some comfort, must n't I? Sir Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that was what made me guess his idea."
"I 'm much obliged to him," said Waterville, rather bewildered.
"So mind you answer for me. Don't you want to give me your arm, to go in?"
"You 're a most extraordinary combination," he murmured, as she stood smiling at him.
"Oh, come, don't you fall in love with me!" she cried, with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, passed in before him.
That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, Waterville wandered into the library, where he felt sure that he should find some superior bindings. There was no one in the room, and he spent a happy half-hour among the treasures of literature and the triumphs of old morocco. He had a great esteem for good literature; he held that it should have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself standing face to face with Lady Demesne. He was startled for a moment, for her tall, slim figure, her fair visage, which looked white in the high, brown room, and the air of serious intention with which she presented herself, gave something spectral to her presence. He saw her smile, however, and heard her say, in that tone of hers which was sweet almost to sadness, "Are you looking at our books? I'm afraid they are rather dull."
"Dull? Why, they are as bright as the day they were bound." And he turned the glittering panels of his folio towards her.
"I 'm afraid I have n't looked at them for a long time," she murmured, going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear pane the park stretched away, with the grayness of evening beginning to hang itself on the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as if nature herself had been bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Lady Demesne was not an easy person to talk with; she was neither spontaneous nor abundant; she was conscious of herself, conscious of many things. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a noble convention. You might have pitied her, if you had seen that she lived in constant unrelaxed communion with certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem tired, like a person who has undertaken too much. She gave an impression of still brightness, which was not at all brilliancy, but a carefully preserved purity. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know that she had a certain business with him, without taking the trouble to announce it. She had been accustomed to expect that people would suppose things, and to be saved the trouble of explanations. Waterville made some hap-hazard remark about the beauty of the evening (in point of fact, the weather had changed for the worse), to which she vouchsafed no reply. Then, presently, she said, with her usual gentleness, "I hoped I should find you here—I wish to ask you something."
"Anything I can tell you—I shall be delighted!" Waterville exclaimed.
She gave him a look, not imperious, almost appealing, which seemed to say—"Please be very simple—very simple indeed." Then she glanced about her, as if there had been other people in the room; she did n't wish to appear closeted with him, or to have come on purpose. There she was, at any rate, and she went on. "When my son told me he should ask you to come down, I was very glad. I mean, of course, that we were delighted—" And she paused a moment. Then she added, simply, "I want to ask you about Mrs. Headway."
"Ah, here it is!" cried Waterville within himself. More superficially, he smiled, as agreeably as possible, and said, "Ah yes, I see!"
"Do you mind my asking you? I hope you don't mind. I have n't any one else to ask."
"Your son knows her much better than I do."
Waterville said this without an intention of malice, simply to escape from the difficulties of his situation; but after he had said it, he was almost frightened by its mocking sound.
"I don't think he knows her. She knows him, which is very different. When I ask him about her, he merely tells me she is fascinating. She is fascinating," said her ladyship, with inimitable dryness.
"So I think, myself. I like her very much," Waterville rejoined, cheerfully.
"You are in all the better position to speak of her, then."
"To speak well of her," said Waterville, smiling.
"Of course, if you can. I should be delighted to hear you do that. That's what I wish—to hear some good of her."
It might have seemed, after this, that nothing would have remained but for Waterville to launch himself in a panegyric of his mysterious countrywoman; but he was no more to be tempted into that danger than into another. "I can only say I like her," he repeated. "She has been very kind to me."
"Every one seems to like her," said Lady Demesne, with an unstudied effect of pathos. "She is certainly very amusing."
"She is very good-natured; she has lots of good intentions."
"What do you call good intentions?" asked Lady Demesne, very sweetly.
"Well, I mean that she wants to be friendly and pleasant."
"Of course you have to defend her. She 's your countrywoman."
"To defend her—I must wait till she 's attacked," said Waterville, laughing.
"That 's very true. I need n't call your attention to the fact that I am not attacking her. I should never attack a person staying in this house. I only want to know something about her, and if you can't tell me, perhaps at least you can mention some one who will."
"She 'll tell you herself. Tell you by the hour!"
"What she has told my son? I should n't understand it. My son does n't understand it. It 's very strange. I rather hoped you might explain it."
Waterville was silent a moment. "I 'm afraid I can't explain Mrs. Headway," he remarked at last.
"I see you admit she is very peculiar."
Waterville hesitated again. "It 's too great a responsibility to answer you." He felt that he was very disobliging; he knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to blight the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommodate Lady Demesne; and yet, with his active little imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feelings of this tender, formal, serious woman, who it was easy to see had looked for her own happiness in the cultivation of duty and in extreme constancy to two or three objects of devotion chosen once for all. She must, indeed, have had a vision of things which would represent Mrs. Headway as both displeasing and dangerous. But he presently became aware that she had taken his last words as a concession in which she might find help.
"You know why I ask you these things, then?"
"I think I have an idea," said Waterville, persisting in irrelevant laughter. His laugh sounded foolish in his own ears.
"If you know that, I think you ought to assist me." Her tone changed as she spoke these words; there was a quick tremor in it; he could see it was a confession of distress. Her distress was deep; he immediately felt that it must have been, before she made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry for her, and determined to be very serious.
"If I could help you I would. But my position is very difficult."
"It 's not so difficult as mine!" She was going all lengths; she was really appealing to him. "I don't imagine that you are under any obligation to Mrs. Headway—you seem to me very different," she added.
Waterville was not insensible to any discrimination that told in his favor; but these words gave him a slight shock, as if they had been an attempt at bribery. "I am surprised that you don't like her," he ventured to observe.
Lady Demesne looked out of the window a little. "I don't think you are really surprised, though possibly you try to be. I don't like her, at any rate, and I can't fancy why my son should. She 's very pretty, and she appears to be very clever; but I don't trust her. I don't know what has taken possession of him; it is not usual in his family to marry people like that. I don't think she 's a lady. The person I should wish for him would be so very different—perhaps you can see what I mean. There's something in her history that we don't understand. My son understands it no better than I. If you could only explain to us, that might be a help. I treat you with great confidence the first time I see you; it's because I don't know where to turn. I am exceedingly anxious."
It was very plain that she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement; her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. "Are you very sure there is danger?" Waterville asked. "Has he asked her to marry him, and has she consented?"
"If I wait till they settle it all, it will be too late. I have reason to believe that my son is not engaged, but he is terribly entangled. At the same time he is very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a great sense of honor. He is not satisfied about her past life; he does n't know what to think of what we have been told. Even what she admits is so strange. She has been married four or five times—she has been divorced again and again—it seems so extraordinary. She tells him that in America it is different, and I daresay you have not our ideas; but really there is a limit to everything. There must have been some great irregularities—I am afraid some great scandals. It 's dreadful to have to accept such things. He has not told me all this; but it 's not necessary he should tell me; I know him well enough to guess."
"Does he know that you have spoken to me?" Waterville asked.
"Not in the least. But I must tell you that I shall repeat to him anything that you may say against her."
"I had better say nothing, then. It 's very delicate. Mrs. Headway is quite undefended. One may like her or not, of course. I have seen nothing of her that is not perfectly correct."
"And you have heard nothing?"
Waterville remembered Littlemore's assertion that there were cases in which a man was bound in honor to tell an untruth, and he wondered whether this were such a case. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his relations with that lady to make it incumbent on him to lie for her. He had not sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him to come and see her. And yet he couldn't give her away, as they said in New York; that stuck in his throat. "I am afraid I really can't say anything. And it would n't matter. Your son won't give her up because I happen not to like her."
"If he were to believe she has done wrong, he would give her up."
"Well, I have no right to say so," said Waterville. Lady Demesne turned away; she was much disappointed in him. He was afraid she was going to break out—"Why, then, do you suppose I asked you here?" She quitted her place near the window and was apparently about to leave the room. But she stopped short. "You know something against her, but you won't say it."
Waterville hugged his folio and looked awkward. "You attribute things to me. I shall never say anything."
"Of course you are perfectly free. There is some one else who knows, I think—another American—a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was there. I have forgotten his name."
"A friend of Mrs. Headway's? I suppose you mean George Littlemore."
"Yes—Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister, whom I have met; I did n't know she was his sister till to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she does n't know her. That itself is a proof, I think. Do you think he would help me?" Lady Demesne asked, very simply.
"I doubt it, but you can try."
"I wish he had come with you. Do you think he would come?"
"He is in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back."
"I shall go to his sister; I will ask her to bring him to see me. She is extremely nice; I think she will understand. Unfortunately there is very little time."
"Don't count too much on Littlemore," said Waterville, gravely.
"You men have no pity."
"Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as you?"
Lady Demesne hesitated a moment. "It hurts me to hear her voice."
"Her voice is very sweet."
"Possibly. But she 's horrible!"
This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; poor Mrs. Headway was extremely open to criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she was not horrible. "It 's for your son to pity you. If he doesn't, how can you expect it of others?"
"Oh, but he does!" And with a majesty that was more striking even than her logic, Lady Demesne moved towards the door.
Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she passed out he said, "There 's one thing you can do—try to like her!"
She shot him a terrible glance. "That would be worst of all!"