Men and Wives Page 4

  “Pray don’t stop, Godfrey. Don’t pull yourself up as if you were doing something wrong in walking on the path with Matthew. Whatever is the harm in that? I hope if it were anything to be ashamed of, you would not do it.”

  “Oh, now, Harriet! Why, I have hardly seen you since the morning, and this is how I am greeted! You scarcely spoke a word to me at luncheon. Now, now, come, my dear girl.”

  Harriet stood with her face under a cloud.

  “Well, Mother, you have spent a day out of doors?” said Matthew.

  “Yes, my boy,” said Harriet, raising her hands to his shoulders. “I have been feeling more my old self, and relied rather rashly on it, and let myself get over-tired. Have you had a satisfying day’s work?”

  “Yes, he has; I can tell you that, Harriet,” said Godfrey eagerly. “He has had a day of great scientific interest, he tells me. He came home and came up to me quite full of it. Didn’t you, Matthew?”

  “I shouldn’t put it quite in that way, Father,” said Matthew, his face darkening in imitation of his mother’s.

  “Well, well, I will leave you to each other,” said Godfrey, falling back on the only solution. “You will like to have a word together after your day apart. I was glad myself of my word with you, Matthew, and I’ll wager that your mother will be. Ah, I know just how her heart yearns over you…”

  “Here is Gregory coming out with a note,” said Matthew, making a diversion in time.

  “Ah, there is Gregory. Yes, it is Gregory,” said Godfrey, shading his eyes. “Yes, he is bringing a note to us. Now I wonder what that can be. I don’t know who should be sending us a note by hand at this hour. It quite beats me. I can’t guess at all.”

  “We need not guess. We shall know in a moment,” said Harriet, taking the note from Gregory, with her different smile for him. “Did you find this in the hall, my dear?”

  “It has just been left. Buttermere was coming out with it. I think it must be from Mr. Spong. Mrs. Calkin told me that Mrs. Spong died last night. She had had a letter from him. No doubt this is to tell you the same thing.”

  “Yes, yes, that would be it,” said Godfrey. “That is what it must be. Well, poor Lucy Spong! I was afraid of it. I had a misgiving, you know, when I heard that the illness was thought to be mortal. But one never knows. Many of us are alive to-day who have no right to be, and many of us will be dead to-morrow who haven’t an inkling of it to-day.”

  “Godfrey, stop talking for a moment and let me read the note. Yes, it is as Gregory says. It was last night at nine o’clock. These things are always a shock when they come. I must write to Mr. Spong.”

  “Yes, yes, you must, Harriet. That is what you must do. And you will do it well. Ah, you are the one to be set to a job of that description. It is a ticklish thing for some of us, but you will be up to it. Now, if I were to try to write that sort of letter, I should get a pen and ink, and I should sit down, and I should fidget and fume, and I should be thinking all the right things in my heart, I daresay, but as for getting them down …”

  “Godfrey, are you not ever going to stop?” said Harriet, smiling, but her hands to her head.

  “Oh, yes, yes, my dear; I was only saying a word about your being so up to this sort of thing, even above other things. Yes, we must leave it to you to write. Well, shall I have a look at Spong’s letter? Yes, poor Spong! It will be a great loss to him, the greatest loss a man can suffer. When the end comes, then is the time to see that loss is not all gain.”

  “’My dear Lady Haslam’”—Godfrey held the letter at arm’s length, and, less delayed by scruples than Agatha, read in a full, deep monotone—”’My beloved wife passed peacefully away yesterday evening at nine o’clock. I feel as I write to you, that I may depend upon the sympathy of true friends. I am a broken man. Yours most sincerely, Dominic Spong.’ Yes, yes, poor Spong! He is a broken man. Well, I am sure I should be in his place. All the little jars and differences he had with his wife will come back to him and crush him to the ground. The great loss he has sustained will sweep over him.” Godfrey’s eyes went down as if in sympathy with his metaphor. “I am glad he finds us true friends; I shouldn’t like to fail him at this moment. You will say a word from me in your letter, my dear?”

  “Yes, I will write it from us both,” said his wife.

  Gregory followed his mother into the house.

  “Father is a delicate piece of work,” he said, bringing his face down to hers.

  “Yes, dear,” said Harriet, her voice trembling with different feelings. “I can’t say I don’t know what you mean. But it is better for you and me to look at his fine qualities, as he has so many. Your father is a good man, Gregory.”

  “I spend my whole life in contemplation of his fine qualities. Of course he is a good man,” said Gregory.

  “My dear, of course he is,” said Harriet with instant self-reproach. “He is, indeed, my dear, generous husband. Try to let him see how you feel to him.”

  “Well, Buttermere,” said Gregory, strolling into the dining-room, “so there you are, as always, at your duty?”

  “I have not had great opportunity to sit down to-day, sir.”

  “And do you like sitting down?”

  “I can do with a respite, sir.”

  “Yes, I suppose we all can.”

  “That is, we all could, sir.”

  “You did not know that Mrs. Spong was dead?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Jermyn and Grisel!” Gregory called, as his brother and sister passed through the hall. “You did not know that Mrs. Spong died last night?”

  “No,” said the two together, while a nervous tendency to smile appeared on Griselda’s face.

  “Buttermere knew,” said Gregory. “He takes great interest in his fellow creatures, don’t you, Buttermere?”

  “Well, not to say that, sir. Mrs. Spong was a Miss Dufferin, as I understood.”

  “You don’t take any interest in Smithson, your lieutenant?” said Jermyn.

  “I have seen no reason to remark any cause of interest in him, sir.”

  “No? Well, I believe neither have I,” said Jermyn.

  “Does it command your sympathy, that two of us have visited Sir Percy?” said Gregory.

  “He is a gentleman I always like to have a glimpse of, sir.”

  “Do you like to have a glimpse of his clothes?” said Gregory.

  “’Manners makyth man,’ I believe, sir.”

  “Has Sir Percy any particular manners?” said Griselda.

  “It is that point to which I was referring, miss,” said Buttermere.

  “Well, what do you think of the resurrection of my old suit?” said Godfrey, striding into the room. “Renovation I mean, of course, not resurrection. Do you think it does me for ordinary nights? Your mother was for sending it to the charity sale, but I said I could do better with it than that. I am not much of a one for clothes for myself; and my new suit would only get to be the same if I took it for every evening; and there should I be with nothing for an occasion when people expect you to lead the way, to be of those conforming to a standard. Don’t gape and grin, Gregory. What do you think of it, Buttermere?”

  “Her ladyship has gone into the drawing-room, Sir Godfrey.”

  “Oh yes, has she? Then we will go in. Don’t sound the gong for a minute, Buttermere. Hold back until we have got across the hall. Don’t hurry us into a nervous illness, I tell you. If her ladyship is in the drawing-room, we have to get in to her, haven’t we? Didn’t you say so yourself? Gregory, you little, unbelievable blackguard! That is a fit way to appear before ladies in the evening! I wonder Griselda can look at you; I can hardly look at you myself.”

  “Well, my three men and one girl,” said Harriet, who was standing with Matthew on the hearth. “My Grisel is looking very sweet to-night. Gregory, I think that is going a little far.”

  “By taking no steps at all,” said Jermyn.

  “Yes, so I told him, Harriet. I hope you will keep your eyes off
him. I have just begged Griselda to. Gregory, I ask you not to let this occur again. It implies an attitude to your mother that you do not intend. Why does not Buttermere sound that gong?” Godfrey retraced his steps and raised his voice. “Buttermere, sound the gong at once.”

  “I understood you wished it delayed, Sir Godfrey.”

  “You understood nothing of the sort. I told you to sound it when we were in the drawing-room. Do it this instant.”

  A subdued version of the usual summons gave the opposite quality to the master’s steps.

  “Buttermere, sound that gong in the proper manner immediately. And don’t make that booming that will shatter the roof. Sound it as we always have it, or leave the house.”

  When a normal volume of sound had ensued, Godfrey followed his wife, settling his shoulders and resuming an easy expression.

  “Well, Harriet, so you have written your letter to Spong,” he said, as Buttermere pulled out his chair with an appearance of unusual interest. “I can tell that you have a little sense of accomplishment. And no wonder, I am sure. It does you good to have a little something to get through.”

  “My dear Godfrey, one small thing cannot fill a human being’s horizon.”

  “Yes, well, but we are all concerned about poor Spong. I am afraid you have tired yourself, my dear.”

  “I don’t know why. It is you who have put an unusual strain on yourself.”

  “Oh, what? An unusual strain on myself! That is what you call it, when I take it upon myself to see that things are going right for you all! I am not sure it is not a strain. Oh, well, have it that way. I have put a strain on myself. I never do anything, do I? Well, I do then. Who keeps the peace, and adapts himself first to one mood and then to anotner, and let’s himself be passive or be active, or be taken up the wrong way or the right, just as it is all wanted? Who does it? I should like to ask. I don’t know who else would do it. I don’t indeed.”

  “Would you like Matthew or Buttermere to carve for you?” said Harriet.

  “No, I shouldn’t like Matthew or Buttermere to carve for me. And neither would any of you like it. It has been tried before, hasn’t it? Matthew hacks the joint as if he were cutting a quarry in a cliff, and Buttermere gives little, lady’s slices that are cold before they are seen, whether it it is the kind of meat to be cut thin or not, and takes a time about it that would see us all into our graves. And I am a fine carver!” The speaker withdrew for a moment from his task, and continued with his mouth opening wide. “I can carve any kind of joint as a gentleman should carve it. And it isn’t everybody’s job, I can tell you.”

  “Well, well, my dear, get on,” said his wife.

  “Get on! I have finished,” said Godfrey grimly, laying down his implements and giving an adjusting touch to his own plate.

  “A result worthy of a life-work,” said Jermyn.

  “Life-work! Yes, well, that may be what it all is,” said his father. “Why, I was quite offended for a moment. I declare that I was. Well, how did you get on with your old ladies, Gregory?”

  “We had a long talk,” said Gregory in a serious tone.

  “What did you talk about, darling?” said Harriet.

  “Yes, that is what beats me,” said Godfrey, taking something from a handed dish. “It passes my understanding.”

  “We talked about you,” said Gregory to his mother. “And about Spong and his wife. Agatha had just had her letter from him. She wrote her answer, and gave it to me to post. Kate was rather out of form in her talk to-day.”

  “Agatha! Kate!” said his father. “Well, I declare. Agatha, Kate! Do you call them that to their faces, may I ask?”

  “Only Kate,” said Gregory. “But I think of the others by their Christian names. Kate is a good deal younger than you are, Father.”

  “Well, that may be,” said Godfrey. “But she put off her pinafore some time before you did.”

  “Twenty-six years,” said Gregory in a satisfied tone.

  “Twenty-six years!” said his father. “Agatha and Kate!”

  “What have you said in your letter to Spong?” said Gregory to Harriet. “It is so subtle to write things that have no meaning.”

  “They were not without meaning to me, my dear. I said simply that my thoughts were with him in his trouble, as they were. There is no need to be subtle in saying the simple truth.”

  “Ah, it is your mother you take after in your knack with a pen, Jermyn,” said Godfrey.

  “Poor Mother is hoist with her own petard indeed,” said Jermyn.

  “I have always known that, my son,” said Harriet. “There is nothing unnatural in your resembling one of your parents. I am only anxious that you should direct your talents towards a certain result.”

  “The higher the thing, the less certain the result must be,” said Jermyn.

  “Yes, there is something in that, Harriet,” said Godfrey, looking up with a serious face from peeling some fruit.

  “Perhaps you put your aims too high,” said Harriet. “The years may slip away with nothing done.”

  “‘This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

  Dies ere he knows it,’”

  quoted Gregory.

  “He may die in simple ignorance that he has done nothing,” said Harriet.

  “Ah, so he may,” said Godfrey, dropping his fruit and recovering it.

  “There is something to be said for doing that,” said Griselda.

  “We most of us do it,” said Jermyn, looking out of the window.

  “Well, Jermyn, and have you been out with your notebook to-day?” said his father, cordially proceeding with the subject.

  “Not to-day. I have been with Griselda to luncheon with the Hardistys. But Mellicent and I had a talk that bore on my work.”

  “Oh, did you? Well, that is a mark to Mellicent. I daresay a woman would be an appreciator of poetry. Still, that is one to her.”

  Matthew gave a laugh.

  “I don’t know why you should all unite in efforts to jar upon me,” Jermyn broke out. “I can’t explain how I have called down on myself such endeavour to exasperate. I am sure it is natural that I should go and talk to a friend. It would not do to depend on my family.”

  “Oh, my boy, my dear boy!” expostulated Godfrey, leaning to touch his son’s shoulder, while Harriet sat with her head bent, seeming to wrestle with her thoughts. “We are not trying to exasperate you. We would not do it for the world. We would rather be exasperated ourselves. We have the greatest respect for all letters and science, and all the things that you and Matthew do. We know they are the greatest and the most to be respected things in the world. You have often told us so. And we know that that is the opinion of all thinking people. If you ever do anything with your poetry, there will be two proud people in the world, and those will be your mother and me. And if you do not, we shall be proud of you for having tried, prouder of you than if you had succeeded, knowing that there is more faith in honest doubt, more success in true failure, than in half the achievements we hear about. That is how we feel about it.”

  “You can’t say it is not enough, Jermyn,” said Griselda.

  “Well, perhaps I am at the height of my honour now. They say these experiences fall short,” said Jermyn.

  “My dear, good, gifted boy!” said Harriet.

  Chapter V

  The Rector Of the Haslams’ village, the Reverend Ernest Bellamy, seemed what he was, a man who had chosen the church because of its affinity to the stage in affording scope for dramatic gifts. He was a tall, dark, handsome man, with a suggestion of nervous energy and nervous weakness, who showed at forty how he had looked in his youth. As he stood at the house of his wife’s mother, a modest dwelling in the neighbouring town, his movements betrayed that he was rallying his powers with a view to a scene to be enacted within. His mother-in-law came to the door herself, a small, energetic woman of sixty, with grey hair, high-boned features, and the kind of spareness and pallor that goes with strength.

  “We
ll, Ernest, you are a living proof that absence makes the heart grow fond. I have never looked forward more to one of our stimulating wars with words. I always think that every mind, at whatever point it is situated in the mental scale, is the better for being laid on the whetstone and sharpened to its full keenness.”

  “I thank you for your welcome. I may not be undeserving of it, but it is nevertheless kind and just to give it,” said Bellamy in a sonorous voice, as he followed her. “For you have not been blind to the truth.”

  “I hope truth is always apparent to me. It makes such a good vantage ground for surveying everything from the right angle,” said Mrs. Christy, who suspected she had a remarkable brain, and found that her spontaneous conversation proved it beyond her hopes. “You and Camilla find my parlour constricted, but ‘stone walls do not a prison make’ to minds whose innocence takes them for an hermitage. I had almost taken refuge in some oft-quoted lines.”

  “It was as well you were prevented,” said her daughter, looking up from her seat by the fire, a tall, fair woman of thirty, with the family resemblance to her mother, that may lie on the surface or very deep. “Those lines don’t happen to serve as a refuge at the moment.”

  “Well, Camilla,” said Bellamy, his eyes steady on his wife’s face.

  “I fear that lines rise to my mind at every juncture,” said Mrs. Christy, moving her hand. “I must plead guilty to an ingrained habit.”

  “A harsh but just description,” said Camilla.

  “Well, quotation, description, analysis, anything is grist to my mill,” said her mother, “provided it can take on literary clothing. That is my only stipulation.”

  “She is qualified to listen to you, then, Ernest,” said Camilla, glancing at her husband’s posture as at a time-worn torment. “You need someone with a catholic spirit. Tell her you are going to put it all on to me, if you are not ashamed of it in plain English. That is good enough literary clothing, and she can understand it, though she cannot speak it.”