Chapter VIII.During the Interval.
Saturday morning, the day after that on which Joyce had sent off the eventful letter to Marian. Twelve o'clock, and no appearance as yet of Lady Caroline Mansergh, who had sent word that she had a slight headache, and would take her breakfast in her room. Lady Hetherington hated people having breakfast in their rooms; it did not, of course, inconvenience her in the least; she herself was never particularly lively in the morning, and spoke very little, and disliked being spoken to; so that it was not the loss of companionship that she regretted; it was merely what people called a "fad" of hers, that the household generally should assemble at the breakfast-table, and she was annoyed when anything occurred to prevent it.
Her ladyship was generally out of temper that morning, several things having conspired to disturb her equanimity. They were about to move the establishment to London; which was always a sore trial for her at the best of times; but now that they were going up before Easter, it was specially hard to bear. She had told Lord Hetherington, as she pathetically narrated both orally and by letter to all her friends, that it was useless their going to Hetherington House at that time of the year, when they would find no one in town but members' wives who have come up for the session, and the wretched people who live there all their lives; there wouldn't be a soul they knew, and the draughts at Hetherington House were perfectly awful; and yet Lord Hetherington would go; she could not imagine what had come to him. The last morning's post had brought her a letter from her milliner, asking for money; and even the greatest ladies sometimes not merely dislike being asked for money, but have difficulty in finding it; and the countess's stock of ready cash happened to be very low at that moment. And the new housekeeper who had come from Lady Rundell Glasse's, and who was so highly recommended, had turned out a complete failure, and must be got rid of before they go to town; and old Mrs. Mason, the town housekeeper, must be telegraphed to to look out for some one else; and, altogether, her ladyship was thoroughly upset, and, wanting some one to vent her ill-humour on, and having lost her judgment as well as her temper, thought she would find that some one in Lady Caroline. So, when twelve o'clock arrived, and her sister-in-law had not put in an appearance, the countess went to her room, entered upon her knock, and found Lady Caroline buried in a huge chair in front of the fire, reading a book, while her maid was combing her hair. There was scarcely anything which Lady Caroline liked better than having her hair combed—not dressed, that she hated—but quietly combed and brushed alternately. She almost purred under the sensation, like a cat whose fur is smoothed the right way; it was pleasant, it was refreshing, it soothed her, and put her on good terms with the world; so that when she looked up and saw Lady Hetherington to whom she was not very partial, she received her with a smile, and expressed her delight at the visit.
"It is really immensely good of you to come and see me, Margaret, especially when I know you're not fond of taking trouble in a general way," she said, putting her book on to her lap and looking up languidly.
"They told me you were ill, or I don't know that I should have come," retorted Lady Hetherington, with some asperity.
"Ah, that was quite right of them; I told them to say that. You can go, Phillips"—to the maid—"I'll ring when I want you. I don't suppose there's any harm in sending mendacious messages by the servants, do you? It would be far more demoralising to them if one were to tell the truth and say one was lazy, and that kind of thing, because it would provoke their contempt instead of their pity, and fill them with horrible revolutionary ideas that there was no reason why they shouldn't be lazy as well as we, and all sorts of dreadful things."
"If I had thought it was mere laziness that kept you to your room this morning, Caroline, I think my 'dislike of taking trouble in a general way' would have influenced me in this particular instance, and saved you the bore of my interrupting you."
"That's where you're so ungenerous, Margaret! Not the smallest bore in the world; the stupidity of this book, and Phillips's action with the hair-brush, combined, were sending me off to sleep, and you interfered at an opportune moment to rescue me. How is West, this morning?"
"Very much as he was last night. Intent on distinguishing himself on this—what do you call it? irrigation scheme."
"Oh dear, still harping on those channels and pipes and all the rest of it! Poor Mr. Joyce, there is plenty of work in store for him, poor fellow!"
"Dreadful, will it not be? for that charming young man to be compelled to work, to earn his wages!" said Lady Hetherington, with a sneer.
Lady Caroline looked up, half-astonished, half-defiant. "Salary, not wages, Margaret!" she said, after a moment's pause.
"Salary, then!" said her ladyship, shortly; "it's all the same thing!"
"No, dear, it isn't! Salary isn't wages; just as the pin-money which West allows you isn't hire! You see the difference, dear?"
"I see that you're making a perfect fool of yourself, with regard to this man!" exclaimed Lady Hetherington, thoroughly roused.
"What man?" asked Lady Caroline, in all apparent simplicity.
"What man? Why this Mr. Joyce! And I think, Caroline, that if you choose to forget your own position, you ought to think of us, and have some little regard for decency, at all events so long as you're staying in our house!"
"All right, dear!" said Lady Caroline, with perfect coolness. "I'm sorry that my conduct gives you offence, but the remedy is easy: I'll tell West how you feel about it at luncheon, and I'll leave your house before dinner!"
A home thrust, as Lady Caroline well knew. The only time that Lord Hetherington during his life had managed to pluck up a spirit, was on the occasion of some real or fancied slight offered by his wife to his sister. Tail-lashings and roarings, and a display of fangs are expected from the tiger, if, as the poet finely puts it, "it is his nature to." But when the mild and inoffensive sheep paws the ground and makes ready for an onslaught with his head, it is the more terrible because it is so unexpected. Lord Hetherington's assertion of his dignity and his rights on the one occasion in question was so tremendous that her ladyship never forgot it, and she was extremely unwilling to go through such another scene. So her manner was considerably modified, and her voice considerably lowered in tone, as she said:
"No, but really, Caroline, you provoke me in saying things which you know I don't mean! You are so thoughtless and headstrong"
"I never was cooler or calmer in my life! You complain of my conduct in your house! It would be utterly beneath me to defend that conduct, it requires no defence, so I take the only alternative left, and quit your house!"
"No; but Caroline, can't you see"
"I can see this, Lady Hetherington, and I shall mention it once for all! You have never treated that gentleman, Mr. Joyce, as he ought to be treated. He is a gentleman in mind, and thought, and education; and he comes here, and does for poor dear stupid West what West is totally unable to do himself, and yet is most anxious to have the credit of. The position which Mr. Joyce holds is a most delicate one, one which he fills most delicately, but one which any man with a less acute sense of honour and right might use to his own advantage, and to bring ridicule on his employer. Don't fancy I'm hard on dear old West in saying this; if he's your husband, he's my brother, and you can't be more jealous of his name than I am! But it's best to be plainspoken about the matter now, it may save some serious difficulties hereafter. And how do you treat this gentleman? Until I spoke to you some months since, you ignored his presence; although he was domesticated in your house, you scarcely knew his personal appearance. Since then you bow and give him an occasional word, but you're not half so polite to him as you are to the quadrille-bandsman when he is in much request, or to the Bond-street librarian when stalls for some particular performance are scarce. I am different; I am sick to death of 'us' and 'our set,' and our insipid fade ways, and our frightful conventionality and awful dulness! Our men are even more odious than our women, and that's saying a good deal; their conversation varies between insolence and inanity, and as they dare not talk the first to me, they're compelled to fall back on the second. When I meet this gentleman, I find him perfectly well-bred, perfectly at his ease, with a modest assurance which is totally different from the billiard-table swagger of the men of the day; perfectly respectful, full of talk on interesting topics, never for an instant pressing himself unduly forward, or forgetting that he is, what he is, a gentleman! I find a charm in his society; I acknowledge it; I have never sought to disguise it! The fact that he saved my life, at the hazard of his own, does not tend to depreciate him in my eyes! And then, because I like him and have the honesty to say so, I am bid to 'think of' my relations, and 'have regard for decency!' A little too much, upon my word!"
People used to admire Lady Caroline's flashing eyes, but her sister-in-law had never seen them flash so brilliantly before, nor had her voice, even when singing its best, ever rung so keenly clear. For once in her life, Lady Hetherington was completely put down and extinguished; she muttered something about "not having meant anything," as she made her way to the door, and immediately afterwards she disappeared.
"That woman is quite too rude!" said Lady Caroline to herself, ringing the bell as soon as the door closed behind her sister-in-law. "If she thinks to try her tempers on me, she will find herself horribly mistaken. One sufferer is quite enough in a family, and poor West must have the entire monopoly of my lady's airs! Now, Phillips, please to go on brushing my hair!"
Meantime, the cause of all this commotion and outbreak between these two ladies, Walter Joyce, utterly unconscious of the excitement he was creating, was pursuing the even tenor of his way as calmly as the novel circumstances of his position would admit. Of course, with the chance of an entire change in his life hanging over him—a change involving marriage, residence in a foreign country, and an occupation which was almost entirely strange to him—it was not possible for him to apply his mind unreservedly to the work before him. Marian's face would keep floating before him instead of the lovely countenance of Eleanor de Sackville, erst maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, who had this in common with Marmion's friend, Lady Heron, that fame "whispered light tales" of her. Instead of Westhope, as it was in the old days, with its fosse, drawbridge, portcullis, ramparts, and all the mediævalisms which it was in duty bound to have, Walter's fancy was endeavouring to realise to itself the modern city of Berlin, on the river Spree, while his brain was busied in conjecturing the nature of his forthcoming duties, and in wondering whether he possessed the requisite ability for executing them. Yes! he could get through them, and not merely that, but do them well, do anything well, with Marian by his side. Brightened in every possible way by the prospect before him, better even in health and certainly in spirits, he looked back with wonder on his past few months' career; he could not understand how he had been so calm, so unexpectant, so unimpassioned. He could not understand how the only real hopes and fears of his life, those with which Marian was connected, had fallen into a kind of quiescent state, which he had borne with and accepted. He could not understand that now, when the hopes had been aroused and sent springing within him, and the fears had been banished, at least for a while. For a while! for ever! the mere existence of any fear was an injustice to
Marian! She had been true, and steadfast, and good, and loving. She had proved it nobly enough. The one weakness which formed part of her character, an inability to contend with poverty—a venial failing enough, Walter Joyce thought, especially in a girl who must have known, more particularly in one notable instance, the sad results of want of means—would never now be tried. There would be no need for her to struggle, no necessity for pinching and screwing. Accustomed since his childhood to live on the poorest pittance, Joyce looked at the salary now offered to him as real wealth, position-giving, and commanding all comforts, if not luxuries. The thought of this, and the knowledge that she would be able to take her mother with her to share her new home, would give Marian the greatest pleasure. He pictured her in that new home, bright, sunny, and cheerful; the look of care and anxiety, the two deep brow-lines which her face had worn during the last year of their residence at Helmingham, quite obliterated; the old, cheerful, ringing tone restored to her voice, and the earnest, steadfast, loving gaze in her quiet eyes, and the thought almost unmanned him. He pulled out his watch-chain, took from it the locket containing Marian's portrait (but a very poor specimen of photography, taken by an "arteeste" who had visited Helmingham in a green van on wheels, and who both orally and in his printed bills laid immense stress on the fact that not merely the portrait, but a frame and hook to hang it up by, were in certain cases "given in"), and kissed it tenderly. "In a very little time now, my darling!" he murmured—"in a very little time we shall be happy."
Pondering on his coming meeting with Marian actively suggested the thought of the severance of existing ties, and the parting with the people with whom he was then domesticated. He had been very happy, he thought, all things considered. He was in a bright pleasant mood, and thus indisposed to think harshly of anything, even of Lady Hetherington's occasional fits of temper or insolence. Certainly Lady Hetherington had always treated him with perfect courtesy, and since the great day of the ice-accident had evinced towards him a marked partiality. As for Lady Caroline—he did not know why his cheek should flush as he thought of her, he felt it flush, but he did not know why—as for Lady Caroline, she had been a true friend, nothing could exceed the kindness which she had shown him from the day of his arrival among the family, and he should always think of her with interest and regard. It was clearly his duty to tell Lord Hetherington of the offer he had received, and of the chance of his leaving his secretaryship. Or, as Lord Hetherington was scarcely a man of business, and as Lady Hetherington cared but little about such matters and might not be pleased at having them thrust under her notice, it would be better to mention it to Lady Caroline. She would be most interested, and, he thought, with the flush again rising in his face, most annoyed at the news; though he felt sure that it was plainly a rise in life for him, and his proper course to pursue, and would eventually give her pleasure. He would not wait for the receipt of Marian's reply, there was no need for that, his bounding heart told him, but he would take the first opportunity that offered of telling Lady Caroline how matters stood, and asking her advice as to how he should mention the fact to her brother. That opportunity came speedily; as Joyce was sitting in the library, his desk an island in a sea of deeds and papers and pedigrees, memorials of bygone Wests, his pen idly resting in his hand, his eyes looking steadfastly at nothing, and his brains busy with the future, the door opened, and Lady Caroline entered. Joyce looked up and for the third time within an hour the flush mounted to his face.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, Mr. Joyce," said her ladyship, "but I have two or three notes for to-night's post, and the house is so upset with this coming departure for London, that there's not a quiet place where one can write a line but here, I'll sit down at West's writing-table, and be as mute as a mouse."
"There's no occasion for silence, Lady Caroline," replied Joyce. "I am not specially busy just now, and indeed I was going to ask the favour of a little conversation with you."
"Conversation with me?" And Lady Caroline's voice, unconsciously, perhaps, became a little harder, her manner a little less familiar as she spoke.
"With you, if you please. I have some news to tell, and some advice to ask."
"I'm sure I shall be delighted to hear the first and to give the second—that is, if advice from me would be of any use to you, which I very much doubt." Neither voice nor manner were in the least relaxed, and Lady Caroline's face was very pale and rather hard and stern. "However," she added, after a moment's pause, finding he did not speak, and in a different tone, "under present circumstances I ought to feel very little compunction in disturbing you, for you go to town on Wednesday, and you know you prophesied for yourself the strictest seclusion when once you arrived at Hetherington House."
"That is the very matter on which I wanted to speak to you, Lady Caroline!"
"Indeed!" said Lady Caroline, with a rather disappointed air.
"I don't suppose that I shall ever set foot inside Hetherington House."
"Why, you don't mean to say you have gone back to that originally preposterous notion of remaining here after we have all gone? Do you remember the man who was going to play Othello and blacked himself all over, Mr. Joyce? There is such a thing as overdoing one's devotion to one's duty; or rather, what one imagines one's duty."
"No, I certainly do not intend to remain at Westhope."
"You are pleased to speak in enigmas, to-day, Mr. Joyce; and as I am horridly stupid at such things, and never guessed one of them in my life, I must be content to wait until you are further pleased to explain." There was an impertinence about her ladyship sometimes in look and tone which became her immensely, and was extraordinarily provoking.
"Seriously, then, Lady Caroline, I am thinking of leaving my present occupation"
"Of leaving us—I mean Lord Hetherington?" interrupted Lady Caroline.
"Yes. Not that I am not, as I ought to be, thoroughly grateful to his lordship and to everybody of his family for their kindness and consideration to me, but the fact is that I have received an offer of employment which, perhaps, will suit me better, and"
"You would be very foolish not to avail yourself of it, then, Mr. Joyce," again interrupted Lady Caroline, the chilling tone coming back to her voice and the stern look to her face.
"Will you kindly hear me out?" said Joyce. "I am not exaggerating when I say that I am so grateful for all the kindness which I have received in this house, that nothing would tempt me to leave it that did not give me the chance of being enabled to gratify the one wish of my life. The offer which has been made to me will, I think, do this. You have been good enough, Lady Caroline, to admit me to sufficient intimacy to talk of my private affairs, and when I mention the one wish of my life, you will know that I mean my marriage with Miss Ashurst."
"Certainly," said Lady Caroline, full of attention; "and the proposition which is under your consideration—or, rather, which I suppose you have accepted—will enable you to carry out this plan?"
"It will. There shall be no disguise with you. I am offered the post of Berlin correspondent to a London newspaper. The salary would not be considered large by you, or any one of yourYou know what I mean," he said, in answer to an impatient movement of her head. "But it is sufficient to enable me to offer Marian the comforts which she ought to have, and to receive her mother to live with us."
"That will be very nice—very nice indeed," said Lady Caroline, reflectively. "I'm sure I congratulate you very heartily, Mr. Joyce—very heartily. I think you said, when that man—what's his name?—Lord Hetherington's agent—said something about a boy whom you knew being killed—I think you said you had not heard from Miss Ashurst for some time?"
"Yes; I did say so."
"Have you heard since?"
"No, I have not. But I can perfectly understand her silence, and you would, if you knew her. Marian is one of those persons who, on occasions like this—of illness and death, I mean—are the mainstay of the place wherever they may happen to be, and have to take the whole burden of management on to their own shoulders."
"Of course—certainly—no doubt," said Lady Caroline. "And she has not written since the boy's death?"
"No, not since."
"It must have been a sad blow for the old father to bear. I don't know why I call him old, though. What age is he?"
"Mr. Creswell? About fifty-five, I should think."
"Ah, poor man! poor man!" said Lady Caroline, with much greater expression of pity for Mr. Creswell than when she first heard of Tom's death. "You have written to Miss Ashurst, informing her of this proposition, you say, Mr. Joyce?"
"Yes, I wrote directly the offer assumed a tangible form."
"And as yet you have not had her reply?"
"No; there has not been time. I only wrote yesterday; she will not get the letter until to-morrow."
"True, a two days' post from here to—where she is staying. Then you will look for her answer on Wednesday. Are you entirely depending on Miss Ashurst's reply?"
"I scarcely understand you, Lady Caroline?"
"I mean you are waiting until you hear from Miss Ashurst before you send your acceptance of this offer? Exactly so! But—suppose Miss Ashurst thought it unadvisable for her to leave this place where she is staying just now"
"That is an impossible supposition."
"Well then, put it that her mother's health—which you told me was ailing—was such as to prevent her from undertaking so long and serious a journey, and that she thought it her duty to remain by her mother"
"'Forsaking all other, and cleaving only unto him,'" quoted Joyce, with gravity.
"Yes, yes, my dear Mr. Joyce, very proper; but not the way of the world now-a-days; besides, I'm sure you would not be selfish enough to have the old lady left behind amongst strangers. However, grant it hypothetically—would you still take up this appointment?"
"I cannot possibly say," replied Joyce, after a moment's pause. "The idea is quite new to me. I have never given it consideration."
"I think I should, under any circumstances, if I were you," said Lady Caroline, earnestly, and looking hard at him. "You have talent, energy, and patience, the three great requisites for success, and you are, or I am very much mistaken, intended for a life of action. I do not advise you to continue in the course now opening to you. Even if you start for it, it should be made but a stepping-stone to a higher and a nobler career."
"And that is?"
"Politics! Plunged in them you forget all smaller things, forget the petty disappointments and discouragements which we all have equally to contend with, whatever may be our lot in life, and wonder that such trivial matters ever caused you annoyance! Wedded to them, you want no other tie; ambition takes the place of love, is a thousand times more absorbing, and in most cases offers a far more satisfactory reward. You seem to me eminently suited for such a career, and if you were to take my advice, you will seek an opportunity for embracing it."
"You would not have me throw away the substance for the shadow? You forget that the chance of my life is now before me!"
"I am by no means so certain that it is the chance of your life, Mr. Joyce! I am by no means certain that it is for the best that this offer has been made to you, or that the result will prove as you imagine. But, in any case, you should think seriously of entering on a political career. Your constant cry has been on a matter on which we have always quarrelled, and a reference to which on your part very nearly sent me off just now, you will harp upon the difference of social position; now distinction in politics levels all ranks. The two leaders of political parties in the present day, who really have pas and precedence over the highest in the land, who are the dispensers of patronage, and the cynosures of the world, are men sprung from the people. There is no height to which the successful politician may not attain."
"Perhaps not," said Joyce. "But I confess I am entirely devoid of ambition!"
"You think so now, but you will think differently some day, perhaps. It is a wonderfully useful substitute."
"Would you advise me to speak to Lord Hetherington about my intentions?"
"I think not, just yet, seeing that you scarcely know what your intentions are. I think I would wait until after Wednesday. Good-bye, Mr. Joyce; I have gossiped away all my spare time, and my letters must wait till to-morrow. You will not fail to let me know when you receive your reply. I shall be most anxious to know."
"This country beauty is playing fast and loose with him," said Lady Caroline to herself, as the door closed behind her. "She is angling for a bigger fish, and he is so innocent, or so much in love—the same thing—as not to perceive it. Poor fellow! it will be an awful blow for him, but it will come, I feel certain."