Men and Wives Page 5

  “Indeed it is good enough literary clothing!” said Mrs. Christy. “My English is of the plainest. A few good words, a few expressions sanctified by long usage, welded easily into a cultivated whole!” She bethought herself to make a disclaiming gesture. “That should be the common standard in speech.”

  “Mrs. Christy, let us look at things,” said Bellamy. “We have turned our eyes from them long enough, too long.”

  “Yes, well, people always find me such a help in setting matters on to their right basis. I put myself entirely into the place of the individual, and yet shed the light of my own view-point on the assembled facts, which is such an illuminating thing to do.”

  “Mother, do keep your hands still. You remind me of Miss Dabis. Ernest feels he has enough light in himself. It is his profession to let it shine before men.”

  “Camilla understands me. I am going to act according to that light. I am not a man to judge sternly a fellow-creature fallen by weakness, to learn no compassion from my own lack of strength. But on that very ground, neither am I a man who does not need support. God knows how I have craved for sympathy and been denied, how slow I have been in giving up faith and hope.”

  “Ernest, no one is asking you to hope for my sympathy,” said Camilla, as though her impatience just allowed her to speak. “You know quite well that I am not able to give sympathy to you, that you don’t command my sympathy. I am not imploring you to settle down with me again. The thought of it would be the end of us both. It is for that very reason that there is only one part for a man to play.”

  “You are asking me to give up my future and my hopes, when you have given me nothing. I am to consider you because you are a woman, to this extent. My feeling for women forbids me to sully the name I have a right to offer to another woman, unsullied.”

  “He is as polygamous as I am, Mother, except that ‘to the pure all things are pure’. Well, Antony finds it all the same, and we can’t expect a man to have a case trumped up against himself, who has spent his life preaching at other people. Poor Ernest!” Camilla threw herself against her husband. “I ought to have taught you that preaching is a game that two can play at. It is my fault that I have to be divorced and disgraced, and bring my mother’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.”

  Bellamy stood aloof and silent, proof against the challenge he had taken so many times.

  “Well, Mother, shall we break up the meeting? That must be Antony ringing the bell, another son coming to pay his respects to you! You will soon have quite a sizeable family if this goes on. You had better stay,. Ernest, and clasp the hand of your successor. It might be soothing to exchange a word of sympathy.”

  “Why, what is the matter with you both?” said Dufferin, addressing the women and not perceiving Bellamy.

  “Mother is weeping about my being divorced. I am the one who ought to weep, but I am showing a criminal’s courage.”

  “Why, what is there to weep about? It is my responsibility.”

  “You know it is not. You know you have done it all for Camilla’s sake,” said Mrs. Christy, weeping. “To think that this public dishonour is the end of my only child!”

  “The public part won’t take long,” said Camilla. “The case against me will be too plain for that. And it is not the end, my poor mother; you let your hopes run wild.”

  “I don’t dare to think what your father would have said.”

  “I don’t know why, as he can’t say it.”

  “Being actually divorced yourself!” said Mrs. Christy, brought to the final word.

  “Well, she need never be that again,” said Dufferin. “I have learnt the art, and if there is any more need of it, I will fall back on my acquirement.”

  “I don’t know what people will say about her, or about you, or about any of it.”

  “I do. But it won’t hurt any of us.”

  “You are not right. It will hurt you,” said Mrs. Christy. “It is not true at all that that sort of thing does no harm to people.”

  “No. I have found that it does harm,” said Dufferin. “Even Bellamy won’t escape. It takes two to make a quarrel, when of course it does not. And a man should take everything upon himself, when there isn’t anything for Bellamy to take.”

  “There is always enough for a man to take,” said Camilla. “You know you have already taken it once. I shall soon be living with a man. I am all the woman that is necessary.”

  “A good definition,” said Dufferin. “But doing a thing may make a man see the point of view of another who won’t do it. Why shouldn’t this one appear simply as he is? That is all he asks to do.”

  Bellamy stepped impressively into sight.

  “Well, pretty good for a listener,” said Camilla.

  “I repudiate that word,” said Bellamy.

  “Yes, yes, you have every right to,” said Dufferin. “She only meant that you overheard, and you don’t deny you did that. Why that face of tragedy? We are doing all you want for you.”

  “I cannot forget my eleven years of spoiled life.”

  “Well, try to forget them, and don’t spoil another minute. And I have nothing to do with ten and a half of those years. I have only known Camilla for seven months. I have done no harm to you.”

  “You could not know that,” said Bellamy.

  “Of course I knew it. Camilla was as clear about things as you were. It wasn’t a case of the one in heaven and the other somewhere else. It can’t be very often.”

  “Well, this isn’t leading us anywhere,” said Camilla. “Mother, I had better get home before my partners for life have quarrelled about me too bitterly to bear me company for an hour. There are still some things to arrange in my present consort’s house. And if I walk in the dusk alone, there may be further trouble; and the impression seems to be that I am giving enough. Which of your sons-in-law will you spare me as a protector? I leave the choice to you, as you seem to have an equal regard for them. I may be prejudiced in my judgment.”

  “I have to go home,” said Bellamy. “We need not set the scandal on foot before the moment comes for it.”

  “We will defer people’s satisfaction as long as we can,” said Camilla. “I don’t want to add to the pleasures of your flock. I have given them too much flannel and soup for them to deserve any more at my hands. Oh, yes, you paid for it, but I shall be paying for this. So honours are easy. I think I get the more expensive share. So I am to walk for the last time with you as your life-companion. Do you remember the first time? I have entirely forgotten it. Ernest, don’t scowl at me like that; don’t dare to. I have told you my nerves won’t stand it. If we are to keep the peace until the truth is known, you must make my side of it possible. I can’t be confronted with self-pity and self-righteousness and self-everything else.”

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Christy,” said Bellamy, as though saying a significant word.

  “Oh, my dear boy! How things have turned out! What am I saying? What am I to say?”

  “Poor Mother, she goes to my heart,” said Camilla. “A divorced daughter and a parlour full of sons-in-law! Poor Ernest, you go to my heart too.”

  “I am at last thinking in that way of myself.”

  “I am the last to dispute it,” said Camilla, edging herself away with her elbow. “You have a natural gift for it. It is time you recognised where your talents lie, as they are rather specialised. But I shall have you on my mind, moping in that dank rectory alone. I could welcome my successor with open arms. I could throw myself on her neck and give her wifely directions about your health.”

  “You need not have me on your mind, Camilla. I can face having nothing. I am used to less.”

  “I don’t know. There are not many things worse than nothing.”

  “Yes, many worse,” said Bellamy.

  “Oh, well, well, have it as you will. Many worse, then, many worse. We have had some desperate times together; we have had some shattering years. They have been the same to me as to you, though it has not struck you. How we have hat
ed each other at times!”

  “I think I have given you no reason to hate me, Camilla.”

  “You think that, do you? Well, that is reason enough. Oh, but you can’t help it, my poor Ernest, mine no longer. Let us go our ways apart. We shall have to sort our worldly goods, and separate my own from those with which you me endowed, and endow me with no longer. ‘Give a thing and take a thing is a wicked man’s plaything.’ What are you doing to-morrow?”

  “I have Mrs. Spong’s funeral in the early afternoon. Otherwise I am free.”

  “Oh yes. Funeral, funeral! Well, we have come to the funeral of our hopes of each other. I am not coming to Mrs. Spong’s funeral; our own is enough. I have had my fill of funerals, and mothers’ meetings and parishioners’ teas. The funerals are the best; they do get rid of somebody. We emerge from them with one parishioner less. They are better than the weddings, which promise us a further supply. Funerals have never failed us. Your flock behave at last with a decent self-effacement. The drawback is that they give you the opportunity of doing the opposite. I couldn’t cloud my last days as your wife with the spectacle of you doing yourself justice at a funeral. It would destroy the sentimental attitude I am cultivating towards you. The funerals all stand out in my memory. They are like a string of pearls to me. I couldn’t add another to them, with Mr. Spong as chief mourner. It would be a large, dark pearl in the front of the only string of pearls you ever gave me, and the little more would be too much.”

  Chapter VI

  In Most Eyes Bellamy was justified in using his position at burials to do well by others and himself, and the combination was satisfying to Dominic Spong, as he stood, conspicuous and seemingly sunk in himself, at his wife’s grave. He was a ponderous man about forty-five, with a massive body and face and head, a steady, prominent gaze and a somehow reproachful expression. His aspect to-day was of emotion unashamed. When Bellamy concluded with a depth of feeling and command of it, he stood for a moment as if unable to tear himself from the spot, and left it with a bearing unaffected by human presence.

  “Spong, you will pass an hour with old friends this afternoon?” said Godfrey, intercepting him without appearance of approach, in deference to the occasion. “You will not deny me?”

  Dominic stood as if his friend’s proximity were gradually dawning on him.

  “Sir Godfrey, I have no one but old friends to turn to from now onward. In your own kind words I will not deny you.”

  Dominic always addressed his two chief clients as Sir Godfrey and Sir Percy, while answering himself to his simple surname. It was as though he acknowledged his position of one employed.

  “Thank you, Spong, thank you. My wife will be grateful to you for understanding her.”

  Dominic stood as if his balance were precarious, his hands, his handkerchief in one, just swaying, his eyes glimpsing the approach of Godfrey’s carriage without recognition.

  “Now, Spong, you will not refuse us what we ask of you?” said Sir Percy, suddenly at hand. “We shall be hurt if we do not see you at dinner this evening.”

  “Then, Sir Percy, you will see me at dinner. That is to say, if you have a welcome for a broken man?”

  “Yes, yes, always a welcome for you,” said Sir Percy, shufflling rapidly away.

  Agatha Calkin took the widower’s hand.

  “I think you will grant us the privilege of a long friendship, and spend the evening with us, and share our simple evening meal? It will be very simple, if you will take us just as we are. We do not make differences for old friends.”

  “Mrs. Calkin, if I saw my way to accepting your kindness, I should be grateful to you for not making differences. As things are with me, I will ask your permission to come in to you between the hours of six and seven. It will be all that I can manage, or you bear with.”

  “Well, we must be content with what you feel you can give us. I know it needs resolution to come out at all. Believe me, we shall not think little of it.”

  “Now, Spong, now,” said Godfrey, “the carriage is here. We shall get you home to us without your having even the effort of knowing it.”

  Dominic turned with a look of appreciation of this understanding, and walked slowly to the carriage, while Agatha stood with an expression somehow taken aback by his having a prior engagement.

  Harriet came into her hall to greet the guest.

  “Mr. Spong, I hope that some day we shall be able to do something in return for this.”

  “Lady Haslam,” said Dominic, who had a way of repeating the name of his companion as though in esteem or deference, “I cannot hope ever to see you in my present position. I will only thank you for proving indeed that you are not a fair weather friend.”

  “Ah, Spong, I hope you will never be in any doubt on that score,” said his host.

  “Sir Godfrey, I am not in doubt.”

  Dominic as he spoke was rising slowly to his feet, his eyes on the daughter of the house, whose hand he took with a smile that buried all personal feelings in a chivalry that came as a matter of course.

  “You are well, Miss Griselda?” he said, in a manner implying that in spite of himself his interest was only conscientious.

  “Yes, thank you; are you?” said Griselda, with the uneasiness of the occasion.

  “I thank you, I am well,” said Dominic, his stress on his thanks rather than his mere bodily health.

  “I am dubious about this appearance of my three great sons,” said Harriet. “They make us an overwhelming family party. Will you find them trying for you, Mr. Spong?”

  “No,” said Dominic, slowly shaking his head, and offering a hand and a smile to each young man in turn, as he remained in his chair. “No, it is not for me to find young people trying. The question is, Lady Haslam”—he turned with an air of sudden concern—“whether they will find my presence trying?”

  “No, no, it is only you we are to think of,” said Harriet.

  “Because,” said Dominic, leaning forward in gathering consternation, “I could not allow myself to be a damper on youthful spirits.”

  “Now, you need not give a thought to that, Spong,” said Godfrey. “You can be at your ease about that side of things. They all want to think of nothing but how they can fit themselves in with your spirit of to-day. Am I not right, my sons?”

  “Yes, certainly, Father,” said Matthew, while Jermyn’s glance at his sister resulted in a tremble of hysterical sound, and Dominic’s half-smile told of a sympathy with her natural preoccupations, that would normally have resulted in a whole one.

  “Well, now, Spong,” said Godfrey, “and what will you be doing in these next months? I mean, how will you be managing in your spare time? You won’t misunderstand an old friend’s concern?”

  “Sir Godfrey, I shall have my work. There is much in it happily that tends to the benefit of others, and so to the steadying of my own spirits. As for spare time, I must do my best to avoid it.” He had the stoicism to smile.

  “You are of a good heart and a good courage, Spong,” said Geoffrey, content, as often, with an approach to scriptural phrase.

  “Do you find that your research work continues to hold your interest, Matthew?” said Dominic, sinking himself in another.

  “Yes, I do completely,” said Matthew.

  “You find it satisfying?” said Dominic, aware of Harriet’s feeling, and ranged on the side of power.

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “It is like your work, and tends to the benefit of others; I should say to their ultimate benefit.”

  “Perhaps rather ultimate, Lady Haslam,” said Dominic with an arch smile at Harriet, his general subdued condition not extending to his intercourse with the young.

  “The risk of achieving nothing may be involved in the effort to achieve something,” said Harriet.

  “Yes,” said Dominic, his smile becoming tender.

  “Well put, my dear, “said Godfrey, with a note of surprise.

  “Do you find that you slip into the minds of your clients when you are
dealing with them, or that you hate them?” Gregory asked him with gentle interest.

  “I certainly do not find that I hate them, Gregory. Of course my work brings me into contact at times with the sordid side of humanity. But there is much to compensate, much beauty of character, much heroic effort, much sacrifice of self. All things come together in the life I have chosen.”

  “Isn’t it very dreadful to see sacrifice of self?” said Griselda.

  “Miss Griselda, sometimes very beautiful.”

  “It seems rather ruthless to be a satisfied spectator,” said Jermyn.

  “Well, Jermyn, and are you still wrapped up in your poetry?” said Dominic, reminded of Jermyn’s tendencies by his own high words, and visiting his speech in his choice of phrase.

  “Yes, wrapped up in it, absorbed in it, utterly engrossed in it to the exclusion of all juster claims.”

  “Oh, well, Jermyn, moderation in all things,” said Dominic. “But it must be very beautiful, Jermyn, to go wandering about on the moors, notebook in hand, and jot down any little poetic thoughts”—Dominic made a waving movement with his hand— “that come to the mind with the beauty of everything around. To go roaming hither and thither, with nothing to do but let the fancies crowd through one’s brain. If the real business of life had not claimed me, if I had not been vowed upon a somewhat sterner altar, I should have been happy to take my share in the more graceful side of life.”

  “Original verse must make more demand than professional work,” said Matthew, who did not cope with the problem of Dominic.

  “Matthew means writing poetry seriously like a real poet,” said Griselda.

  “Miss Griselda, I was not speaking of writing poetry seriously like a real poet. I am not confusing myself with Tennyson,” said Dominic, ending with mild laughter.

  “Oh well, but Jermyn thinks of himself in that way. That is Jermyn’s spirit,” said Godfrey, not estimating his rashness. “He doesn’t put himself down as some amateur poet, wandering about jotting things down, not Jermyn. He is to be one of those who are looked up to by future generations. And I for one believe that he will be.”