Men and Wives Read online

  “They do not always leave home for the same reasons. My boy left to make his career.”

  “That is why Matthew is leaving,” said Rachel. “I remember now. So they do sometimes leave for the same reasons. I am glad it was not for your reason.”

  “Are we not going to begin working?” said Agatha.

  “I don’t know,” said Rachel. “I noticed you didn’t begin. I haven’t been here very often. I am only here to-day to take Lady Haslam’s place.”

  “That was hardly her spirit,” said Agatha.

  “I did not mean in spirit,” said Rachel.

  “At any rate you are in her seat,” said Geraldine.

  “Yes, that is what I said,” said Rachel.

  “Are the things we are doing in the drawer?” said Agatha.

  “I will put them out, Lady Hardisty,” said Mrs. Christy, directing her words in accordance with discipline, and hastening across the room. “I am a person who never minds what I do. Usefulness to my mind gives dignity to everything. I am at one with Lady Haslam there. Come and help me to give the things round, Camilla.”

  “No, I am a humble person; I won’t share the dignity. Mine is the embroidered thing, Mother, not the petticoat. I don’t feel any ambition to adhere to this apparel, in spite of my claim to it.”

  “Now I think that was such a good thought of Lady Haslam’s, to have some of the things embroidered,” said Mrs. Christy. “It shows a true sympathy with those less fortunate than ourselves, an understanding that they too may like a little touch of the beauty of life. There was something about the whole of her attitude with which I am so much in sympathy.”

  “Poor Mother, you do cling to your illusions,” said her daughter.

  “I direct that everything shall be embroidered,” said Rachel.

  “Even the aprons?” said Geraldine, holding one up.

  “Aren’t they always embroidered?” said Rachel. “How like Lady Haslam to right a wrong! Yes, they must all be done.”

  “These for standing at the wash-tub especially!” said Kate.

  “Yes,” said Rachel. “Washing is so hard on clothes.”

  “Is this thing finished, Mater?” said Polly, throwing a garment to her stepmother.

  “Yes, my dear, except for the embroidery.”

  “I can’t embroider,” said Polly.

  “But, my dear, you must. You are working for the poor.”

  “The cutting out of things is more our problem than embroidering them,” said Agatha, adjusting her work.

  “We must give that up, with Lady Haslam away,” said Rachel. “Things can’t be cut out now, only embroidered.”

  “They won’t last us long on that basis,” said Geraldine.

  “Won’t they last for ninety minutes?” said Rachel, looking at the clock.

  “Are we not to have the working parties after to-day?” said Geraldine with eyebrows raised.

  “We can’t, with Lady Haslam ill,” said Rachel.

  “Of course not,” said Kate.

  “How about the people who need the things?” said Geraldine.

  “They can make shift without them,” said Camilla. “I have proved that it can be done.”

  “Ought we to think of the poor as needing things?” said Rachel. “Isn’t that rather out of the spirit of embroidery?”

  “I think this spirit of embroidery is a wrong one,” said Agatha, seeming to call up her courage to speak. “There is nothing questionable in making necessary things for those who find them necessary. It is our duty to go on working as steadily as if Lady Haslam were with us. She is only a single member of our society, and as its founder would not wish us or allow us to think of her as anything else.”

  “Oh, don’t do what she would not allow,” said Rachel. “Whatever would be the good of my being here instead of her?”

  “So we have to consider several things if we are to plan to continue,” said Agatha.

  “But we are not to continue!” said Geraldine, keeping her mouth open after her words.

  “Not in Lady Haslam’s house of course,” said Agatha. “Lady Hardisty has one sincere supporter in me there. It would not be suitable, or congenial to any of us. We must wait to use her house again until she is in it. But in the meantime we should continue our efforts for those who are dependent upon them. I don’t know if anyone will volunteer to hold the meetings? Of course there is the cutting out to be considered. Will anyone volunteer for one thing or both?”

  “I think you and I are both too far away, Lady Hardisty,” said Mrs. Christy.

  “I felt we were somehow prevented,” said Rachel.

  “There are some of us nearer of course,” said Agatha.

  “Do you not cut out yourself, Mrs. Calkin?” said one of the members. “I am sure I remember seeing you.”

  “I have had to do so many things in my life, that I have not been able to do quite without it. And anything that I can do, is at the service of the community of course. It goes without saying. But it is very likely that other people have had more experience.”

  “Surely it is not,” said Rachel, “if you have not been able to do without it. Most people have definitely less in their lives. And if what you can do is at the service of the community, if that really goes without saying—it is the only instance of it I have met—surely the community had better behave naturally about it. Its going without saying will save them from embarrassing obligation. I wish services always went in that way.”

  “Well, we will see what other people say,” said Agatha, with folded hands and an air of by no means hurrying the matter.

  “We say we are most grateful,” someone said.

  “You need not be that, you see,” said Rachel.

  “You need not indeed,” said Agatha.

  “It seems to be our duty to do it, as there are three of us,” said Geraldine.

  “Qualities do run in families,” said Rachel.

  “Don’t let there be three of us. Let us leave it all on Agatha,” said Kate.

  “You are a half-sister of course, my dear,” said Rachel.

  “We shall have to be there,” said Geraldine almost absently.

  “It is not at all necessary, if you do not wish to be,” said Agatha. “In taking something upon myself, I am not involving anyone else. That would be a most unreasonable thing. Well, shall we say then a week to-day at my house at the same time, and tea as usual after the two hours’ work? I don’t think we can better Lady Haslam’s custom.”

  “Yes, we will say that,” said Rachel. “About myself, you know I can’t cut out, and I am sure you felt it right to discourage me about embroidery, so I had better just come to tea.”

  “That will be very nice indeed, if we cannot have any more of you,” said Agatha, in a cordial tone.

  “It will be better than wasting you over the work,” said Geraldine, going further. “Will Gregory come to tea as well?”

  “I think perhaps he won’t, as his mother cannot,” said Rachel.

  “I can quite understand that,” said Agatha. “I know how my son would feel, if he had to see my place empty, Gregory will prefer to come and see us when we are alone. That will be what he has been accustomed to. He made that habit quite by himself. I shall be doubly anxious to do what I can for him now. I always say he is my boy, when my own is away.”

  “I wish I could be that, Mrs. Calkin,” said the rector of the parish, looking round appealingly before he relinquished his hat to a willing hand. “I know you will say I am too old, and that you want Gregory for a boy and not me. And I am left to wish I could be a boy to someone.”

  “You are in too responsible a position,” said Agatha.

  “I wish that were true,” said Bellamy, taking his cup, and a moment after giving a bright smile to the donor. “I would not mind not being a boy, if I could have a man’s compensations. But a parson goes to a wedding and marries somebody else! He won’t even be able to bury himself, though burying is his profession. He goes to a working party and
does not do any work! He drinks the tea that somebody else has made.” He held out his cup with another smile to a hand prepared to replenish it. “Well, I know what I shall do. I shall learn to sew.”

  “To cut out?” cried Geraldine.

  “To cut out and to buttonhole and to featherstitch. That will be real work, and help to qualify me as a human being.”

  He turned from the hilarity that the idea of his sharing these human occupations produced in those engaged in them, and began to talk to Kate, whom he was inclined to make a friend.

  “A clergyman is a clown, Miss Kate, and a deal less respectable a clown than one on the stage. That clown amuses people as a life work, and what more useful work could there be? A parson amuses people because he is a man among women. A man among men and a woman among women are natural. No one who thinks that women do not like being with women has any knowledge of life; and no one does think that a man does not like being with men. And a woman among men has pathos and human interest. But a man among women is simply—oh yes, I know I am this—the thread that goes through their lives. I would much rather be an ordinary man than a thread. A thread is such a good word for me.”

  “Especially as you are going to involve yourself in sewing!” cried Geraldine from a distance.

  “I wish some woman would find a proper use for me as a thread. I might be used to sew up a gap in things for her. Do you think Griselda would ever use me, Miss Kate? Lady Haslam wanted a stronger thread for her, and one that had not been used before.”

  “It has to be a strong thread to be used twice,” said Kate in a hearty tone.

  Geraldine, who had been looking at Bellamy and her sister in surprise and almost consternation at their intimate colloquy, rose to her feet and broke the meeting.

  Rachel met Godfrey in the hall.

  “Well, did you make a success of the working party?”

  “No,” said Rachel.

  “What went wrong?” said Godfrey.

  “My personality,” said Rachel. “It went to pieces. Agatha is next to Harriet after all. It is worse than that. She is instead of Harriet.”

  Chapter XVI

  “Well, My Dear boy, welcome, welcome,” said Godfrey, entering his dining-room six months after his wife had left him. “The oftener we see you the more welcome you are.”

  “Then I must be very welcome by now,” said Bellamy. “But not to Buttermere. He looked at me with a stony eye because he had to lay another place.”

  “Your place was laid as usual, sir,” said Buttermere.

  “Buttermere, you will soon be sorry for ungenerous words. When I have carried my princess to the parsonage, and we are happy and hospitable at our own board, you will find yourself sentimental that our places know us no more. Make the most of a Chapter that will soon be closed.”

  “It is needless to go further when everything has simply to be done, sir.”

  “We will, indeed, Ernest,” said Godfrey, putting himself into a gap he was prepared to fill. “It has been one of the happiest Chapters in our lives. I would not ask for a happier, if I could be offered it. Of course there is always the one thing wanting. But we won’t keep on dwelling on it. There seems to be something grasping, almost a thought ungenerous in harping on our right to have things all our own way. We will leave that alone for a little while. But it has interrupted my welcome of you, and I wouldn’t have had it fail for the world. I am as pleased to see you as any of my other children.”

  “Whose presence has been staled by custom,” said Griselda.

  “Ah, now, Grisel! What will you do with this girl, Ernest?” said Godfrey.

  “Nothing. She will do everything with me.”

  “Ah, I’ll be bound she will. They do everything with us at first. And afterwards of course, even more until the end.”

  “Well, it is the beginning we have before us as yet,” said Bellamy.

  “Yes, yes, we all get the beginning,” said Godfrey. “Nothing that comes later can cheat us out of that.”

  “Is it permitted to ask how Griselda’s mother is?” said Bellamy.

  “My dear boy, I am grateful to answer that question, when it is asked in that spirit, and not as if I were somehow to blame for her being ill. I should be the last person, shouldn’t I, to wish it? Some people give me an actual sense of discomfort for going on my way doing my best, instead of sitting about in sackcloth, in other words for following my wife’s teaching instead of disregarding it. I am not saying which is the better course. I won’t throw up the one I am taking. It is second best, I suppose they think.”

  “Well, Ernest is not among them. You may answer him,” said Griselda.

  “Yes, well, it is all as it must be, Ernest. I am not allowed to see my wife at the moment. Dufferin has forbidden it, and I am to take that as meaning she is better. That may be the meaning; other things would encourage me more. But I have put my best foot foremost, and looked people in the face, and please God I will continue as I have begun.”

  “I trust not alone for very much longer.”

  “I trust not, Ernest; but I don’t see my way very clear before me. I have no great conviction to help me forward. Sometimes it is borne in upon me that it is just the beginning. Well, one thing is, that the certainty will creep on us unawares, and we shall be broken to the burden. But these are depressing words. We will give you no more of them. We will pass to brighter things. I find I can support this entertainment in aid of your church, settle the financial side of it, I mean.”

  “What a lovely meaning!” said Bellamy. “It is so uplifting not to be told that charity begins at home, as if that were a reason for its not continuing as far as the local church!”

  “Yes, I find myself in a position to do so. I have seen Spong, and he makes it clear that that is the case. I should say, he lets it out because he can’t help it, because I can see it for myself. I am getting an eye for business matters. However, we won’t speak about Spong; he will be here for luncheon in a moment. He rather looked at me, old Spong, when I said I was to finance a play in support of a church. It seemed to him a contradiction in terms. The church part he swallowed pretty well; it was the play that stuck in his gullet. ‘Ah, well, Spong,’ I said, ‘anything done for a good purpose is done for that end.’ I quoted a bit out of your theories to him. And he said not another word. I think he saw my mind was made up. So things are shaping as you fancied them, Ernest?”

  “All my life is perfect,” said Bellamy. “Perhaps it is partly because I have a patron. I believe that parsons have always needed patrons.”

  “Oh well, my boy, patron! I don’t know anything about that. You are to be my son, you know.”

  “Indeed I do know. All my life has been leading up to it. It is just the right finish to Griselda that she has parents worthy of her.”

  “Yes, yes, my boy, you think of both her parents, don’t you?”

  “It seems that there is to be a reversal of the old order of things, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, coming smiling to the table, “and that it is no longer to be a question of children being worthy of their parents, but of parents adopting that relation to their children.”

  “Oh well, Spong, the old order passeth,” said Godfrey, condoning general change.

  “Ah, I am of those, Sir Godfrey, who view with a sentimental regret the passing of things established.”

  “Camilla, my dear!” said Godfrey. “We had given you up. How are you?”

  “A thought shaken for the moment. Having brought a message from my lately intended husband to my now intended husband, I find myself confronted by my former husband as a fellow guest! And by our common legal adviser, who knows what would be called the unsavoury details of the case. I am sure I may depend upon Mr. Spong, and that the court is closed. Matthew, Antony is summoned to a patient and will not be working at his house to-day. He sent the message to Mother’s door, as he knew I was coming here. He puts me to any use he can, now I am not to serve my former purpose. Ernest, it is utterly congenial to me to
meet you as a brother. We exercise quite a choice of ways of becoming one flesh. Matthew, when you glower at me like that, I cease to be your future wife. I am your slave, I am a bondswoman, a squaw.”

  “I hope, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, “that that is your eldest son’s ideal in his life-companion.”

  “Well, haven’t you come at all to see me, Camilla?” said Godfrey, his eyes undetained by Dominic. “Haven’t you a word for your future father-in-law? Don’t you think I am any man at all beside Matthew?”

  “Dear Sir Godfrey, I have come with the express purpose of feasting my eyes on you. I had to pass from alliance to alliance until I came to the one that provided me with you.”

  “Father, let Camilla begin her luncheon. She is behind already,” said Matthew.

  “Mother was convinced that being so late would destroy my character for ever. Being divorced was nothing to it. The second is less inconvenient for other people. It provides them with an excitement instead of a trial.”

  “We must call that a cynical speech,” said Dominic, in a tone that seemed expressionless through doubt how to meet the speaker.

  “I am known to be a cynic,” said Camilla.

  “Quite wrongly then,” said Gregory.

  “But it is wonderful to have brought that off,” said Jermyn.

  “Jermyn, am I to understand,” said Dominic, “that it is your aim and object to be regarded as a cynic?”

  “I am a very ordinary young man,” said Jermyn.

  “Jermyn, you cannot expect us to subscribe to that.”

  “No. Of course I should be aghast if you did.”

  “Sir Godfrey, frankness is not a quality in which the modern generation is lacking.”

  “I believe it is not. I am thankful to say I have found it is not,” said Godfrey. “My children keep nothing from their father.”

  “You could not have a greater compliment,” said Dominic.

  “I could not. I value my sons’ and daughter’s confidence above everything. If there is any little thing I can do for them, I count myself already repaid.”