Afterall this record of thinkings it will be a relief to do something: which is generally the very best way, if not to settle a problem, at least to distract the attention from it. Mr. Rowland could not now do anything to alter the fact, that he had allowed his children to grow up in a different sphere from that which he intended them to occupy, and that probably the first meeting with them would contain many disenchantments and disappointments. No amount of thinking could now alter this fact, and dwelling upon it was not a way of making himself happier or adding in any way to the advantages of the moment. Like most men who have a great deal to do, and who must keep their brains clear for inevitable work, he had the power of putting disagreeable things away and declining to lookat them. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” is always the maxim of philosophy, whether we take it in its highest meaning or in a lower sense; and it appeared to Mr. Rowland that the best thing he could do was to carry out his marriage with all the speed that was practicable, and to wind up his affairs (already prepared for that end) so that his return home might be accomplished as soon, and with as much pleasure to everybody concerned, as possible. As he was a very direct man, used to acting in the most straightforward way, his first step was to call on Mrs. Stanhope, who stood in the place of Evelyn’s relations, in order to settle with her the arrangements he wished to make.
“I should like, with Miss Ferrars’ consent—which I have not asked till I should have talked over the matter with you—that the marriage should take place as soon as possible. I can trust to her excellent sense to perceive that we can have no possible reason to wait.”
“Oh, Mr. Rowland!” said Mrs. Stanhope. “Of course it is quite reasonable on your part: but I don’t think that Evelyn would like it to be hurried. It is not as if you might be ordered off at a moment’s notice, like us poor military people. There is no reason to wait of course; but you can afford to take your time.” She said this more from the natural feminine impulse of holding back in such matters, and not allowing her friend to be held cheap, than from any other reason.
“If you mean that you want some time to fill Miss Ferrars’ place——”
“Mr. Rowland!” said Mrs. Stanhope again, this timewith great indignation, “what do you mean by Miss Ferrars’ place? I have known Evelyn all my life, and she is my dearest friend. Do you think I could fill up her place if I were to try?—and I certainly don’t mean to try.”
“I meant, of course, in respect to your children,” said Mr. Rowland dryly. “You may do without your dearest friend by making an effort; but you can’t do without a governess. Excuse me, I am a plain man, and call a spade, a spade.”
This brutality of expression reduced Mrs. Stanhope to tears. “I have never treated her like a governess,” she said. “If Evelyn’s good heart made her help me with the children, it was not my asking, it was her own idea. She did it because she liked it. I implored her not to take them out, feeling that you might imagine something of that sort. Men like you, Mr. Rowland, who have made a great deal of money, always, if you will excuse me, impute interested motives. I foresaw as much as that.”
“Yes,” he said cheerfully, “we are given to think of the money value of things. Not of friendship, you know, and all that, but of time and work, and so forth. We needn’t enter into that question, for I’m sure we understand each other. And I don’t want to put you to inconvenience. How much time will it take you to fill Miss Ferrars’ place?”
Mrs. Stanhope was a clever little woman. She thought for a moment, in natural exasperation, of dismissing him summarily, and refusing to have anything to say to a man who had treated her so; and thenshe thought she would not do that. He was rich—he might be useful some time or other to the children; it would be foolish to make a breach with a friend who would remember nothing but the best of her (she did Evelyn this justice), and who would be kind to the children when they went home, and invite them for their holidays. So she subdued the natural anger that was almost on her lips, and gave vent to a harsh little laugh instead.
“You do always take such a prosaic view, and reduce everything to matter of fact,” she said. “I can’t afford to have any one in Evelyn’s place, if you desire to speak of it so. Evelyn has helped me with the children for love—I must do the best I can for them by myself when you take her away.”
“Ah well,” said Mr. Rowland, “then it is a real sacrifice, and you will suffer. I dare say you have a great deal to do. Would not little Molly Price be a help to you? She is a nice little girl, and she has nobody belonging to her, and I don’t know what the poor little thing is to do.”
Mrs. Stanhope made a pause before she replied, looking all the time keenly in the engineer’s face as if she would have read his meaning in that way. But he was impassible as a wooden image. “Molly Price is a very nice little girl,” she said slowly, trying all the time to make out what he meant, “and she would be of use, though far different from Evelyn. But how could I take up a girl like that, without any means of providing for her. I had thought of it,” Mrs. Stanhope admitted, “but to take up her time just when she mightbe doing better for herself, and to give her false expectations as to what I could do for her—when it only can be for a few years, till we send the children home.”
“I see,” said Mr. Rowland; “but the fact is that Molly has a little income of her own, and all she wants is a home.”
“A little income of her own!”
“Yes,” he said, meeting with the most impenetrable look the lady’s eager scrutiny. “Did you not know? enough to pay for her board if necessary. She only wants a home.”
“I don’t know what you can think of me,” said Mrs. Stanhope with a little haste. “I should never ask her for any board. She would have her share of whatever was going; and of course if she liked to help me with the children’s lessons—”
“You would allow her to do it, without any compensation? Don’t explain, my dear lady—I know the situation perfectly. And in return for that little arrangement you will help me in getting Evelyn to consent to a speedy marriage. As soon as we understand each other, everything will be perfectly straight.”
“You are such a dreadful man of business. I am not accustomed to such summary ways,” said Mrs. Stanhope, with again a half hysterical laugh. She was very much afraid of him after this experience. No doubt everybody in the station had seen through her actions so far as Evelyn Ferrars was concerned, attributing design and motive where none had existed, and not making any allowances for the unconscious, oronly half conscious way in which she was led into taking an advantage of her friend. But nobody had ever ventured to put it into words. She was overawed by clear sight and the courage, and also a little by the practical help of this downright man.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m nothing if not a man of business. Well now, there is another matter. I want it to be a very grand affair.”
She looked at him with eyes more wide open than ever, and with perceptions more fine than his, and a little gasp of restrained horror in the thought—what would Evelyn say?—Evelyn who hoped it would be got over so quietly, that it might not be necessary to let people know: as if everything was not known from one end to another of the station almost before it was fully shaped in the brain from which it came!
“Yes,” he said, “I see you’re horrified—and, probably, so would Miss Ferrars be: so I want you to take the responsibility of everything, and put it on the ground of your gratitude to her, which must take some shape. I need not add, Mrs. Stanhope, if you will do this for me, that a cheque is at once at your disposal—to any amount you may think necessary.”
Anger, humiliation, injured pride, a quick perception of advantage, a rapid gleam of pleasure, the thrill of delightful excitement at the thought of a great deal of money to spend, all darted through Mrs. Stanhope’s mind, and glittered in her eager eyes. The disagreeable sentiments finally died away in the others which were more rational. To have the ordering of a great entertainment regardless of expense, and everybody ather feet, the providers of the same, and the guests, and indeed the whole community eager either for commissions or invitations! This was a temptation more than any woman could resist.
“Mr. Rowland,” she said, “you are a very extraordinary man. But I must warn you that Evelyn will not like it, and she knows that we cannot afford it. Oh, I will try, if you have set your heart upon it, and just say as little to her as possible. I suppose something like what Mrs. Fawcett had when Bertha was married? And you must give me a list of all the people you want to invite.”
“The Fawcetts’ was a very humdrum affair,” said Rowland critically, “quite an ordinary business. We must do a great deal better than that. And as for the invitations, ask everybody—beginning with the Governor. He’ll be at Cumsalla about that time, and it will be a fine opportunity for him to visit the station in a semi-official way: and the General commanding, and the Head of the district, and——”
“The Governor and the General!” Mrs. Stanhope gasped. She lay back in her chair in a half-fainting condition, yet with a keen conviction running through her mind like the flash of a gold thread, that to receive all these people in his own house, at a magnificent entertainment, would be such a chance as never could have been anticipated for Fred!
“Carte blanche,” said Mr. Rowland, pressing in his enthusiasm her limp and hesitating hand.
Evelyn Ferrars came in a moment after with the children. She gave a smile to her future husband, anda glance of surprise at her friend, who had not yet recovered that shock of emotion. “What are you plotting?” she said: but did not mean it, though it was so near their real occupation. As for Mr. Rowland he was equal to the occasion, his faculties being so stirred up and quickened by the emergency that he was as clear about it as if it had been a railway or a canal.
“We are plotting against you,” he said, “and I think I have got Mrs. Stanhope to enter into my cause.”
She looked from one to another with a little rising colour, divining what the subject would be. For once in her life Mrs. Stanhope was the dull one, not understanding her ally’s change of front. She thought he was about to betray the conspiracy into which he had just seduced her, and that Evelyn’s dislike and opposition would put an end to the delightful commotions of the marriage feast. “Oh,” she cried, “don’t tell her. She will never consent.”
“She is so very reasonable that I hope she will consent,” said Rowland. “My dear, it is just this, that there is no reason in the world why we should wait. I would like to be married as soon as the arrangements can be made. I think you won’t refuse to see all the arguments in favour of this: and that there are very few against it.”
Evelyn grew red and then grew pale, and finally with a little catch in her breath asked how long that would be?
“About three weeks,” said Rowland, holding her hand and patting it as if to soothe a child.
Her limbs trembled a little under her, and she sat down in the nearest chair. “It is a little sudden,” she said.
“My dear——let’s get it over,” said Rowland, his excitement showing through his usual sobriety like a face through a veil. “It’s a great change, but it is the first that is the worst. You and I, as soon as we’re together, will settle down into each other’s ways, and be very happy. I knowIshall, and some of it’ll rub off upon you. There’s nothing in the world you can wish for that I shan’t be ready to do. It is only the first step that will be a trouble. Let’s get it over,” he cried, with a quiver in his voice.
This is not the usual way in which a man speaks to his bride of their marriage, but it is a very true way if people would be more sincere. And especially in the circumstances in which he and she stood, not young either of them, and taking fully into consideration all the mingled motives that go to make a satisfactory union of two lives. Mrs. Stanhope, to whom the conventional was everything, listened in horror, wondering how Evelyn would take this; but Evelyn took it very well, agreeing in it, and seeing the good sense of what her betrothed said. It was the first step that would be the worst. After that habit would come in and make them natural to each other. And to get over that first step, and to settle down quietly to the mutual companionship in which she too felt there was every prospect of satisfaction and content, would no doubt be a good thing. It was somewhat overwhelming to look forward to such a tremendous change so soon. Butshe agreed silently that there was no reason for delay, and that all he said was perfectly reasonable. “I cannot say anything against it,” she said quietly. “I have no doubt you are right. It seems a little sudden. I could have wished a little more time.”
“To think of it?” he said quietly. “Yes, my dear, if you had not made up your mind, that would be quite reasonable. But you have quite made up your mind.”
“Yes,” she said, “I have made up my mind.”
“Then thinking of it is no longer of any use—because it is in reality done, and there’s no way out of it. So the best thing is to carry the plan into execution, and think no more. Come,” said Rowland with an air of great complaisance, “I’ll yield a little I’ll say a month—that will leave quite time enough for everything,” he said, with a glance at Mrs. Stanhope to which she replied with a slight, scarcely perceptible nod of the head. And then it was all arranged, without difficulty and without any knowledge on Miss Ferrars’ part of the negotiations that had gone on before. Evelyn was much overwhelmed by the present her friend insisted upon making her, of her wedding dress, which turned out to be of the richest satin, and trimmed with the most beautiful lace, to the consternation of the bride, who remonstrated strongly. “How could you think of spending so much money? it is robbing the children—and it is far too grand for me.” “My dear,” said Mrs. Stanhope, the little hypocrite, “if you think how much you have done for the children, and saved me loads of money! I can afford that and more tooout of what I have saved through you.” Evelyn was confounded by this generosity, both of gift and speech; but as the dress did not arrive until the day before the ceremony, there was not much time to think about it, and her mind was naturally full of many subjects more important. The same cause kept her even from remarking the extraordinary fuss in the station on the wedding day—the flags flying, the carpets that were put down for the bride’s procession, the decorations of the chapel. She scarcely saw them indeed, her mind being otherwise taken up. And when the Governor was brought up to her to be introduced, and the General followed him, both with an air of being royal princes at the least, amid the obsequious court of officers, Evelyn was easily persuaded that it was because they had chosen this day to make their inspection, and that their presence at the station was quite natural. “How fortunate for you that they are both here together,” she said to Mrs. Stanhope. “Now surely Fred will get what you want so much for him.” “Oh, he will get it, he will get it!” Mrs. Stanhope cried, hysterically. “Thanks to you, you darling, thanks to you!” “What have I to do with it?” said Evelyn. She was now Mrs. Rowland, and her mind was full of many things. It was a nuisance to have so many people about, all drawn, she supposed, in the train of the great men. As for the great men themselves, they were, of course, like any other gentlemen to Evelyn: they did not excite her by their greatness. She was a little surprised by all the splendour, the sumptuous table, the crowd of people; but took it for grantedthat one half at least was accidental, and that though it was quite unappropriate to an occasion so serious as a middle-aged marriage, it might be good for Fred Stanhope, who had so long been after an appointment, which always eluded his grasp.
Thus the bride accepted, without knowing it, the extraordinary honours that were done her, while all the station stood amazed by the number and greatness of the guests. The Lieutenant-Governor came without a murmur to compliment the great engineer. He would not have done it for Fred Stanhope, who was Brevet-Major, and thought himself a much greater man than Rowland. Neither would the General commanding have come to Fred unless he had known him in private, or had some special interest in him. But they all collected to the wedding of the man who had made the railroads and ditches—a proof, the military people thought, how abominably they were neglected by Government, though it could not sustain itself without them, not for a day! They were, however, all of them deeply impressed by the greatness that had come upon Miss Ferrars, whom they had pitied and patronised, or even snubbed during her humiliation—by the splendour of her dress, and of the breakfast, and of the bridegroom’s presents to her—and still more, by the manner in which she received the congratulations of the big wigs without the least excitement, as if she had been all her life in the habit of entertaining the great ones of the earth. “Give you my word,” said the little subaltern Bremner, who was an ugly little fellow, and had not much to recommend him, “she was not a bit more civil to the best of themthan she was to me.” “Looked as if she had been used to nothing but swells all her life,” said another. “And as if she thought one just as good as another.” On the whole, it was this that struck the company, especially the gentlemen, most—that she was just as civil to a little lieutenant as she was to the General commanding. The ladies had other things to distract their minds, the jewels, the bridal dress, the table. Such a commotion had never been made in the Station before by any marriage: the Colonel’s daughter’s wedding feast was nothing in comparison: and that this should all be for the poor lady who had been nothing more than nursery governess to the Stanhopes, was quite bewildering. When the pair went away, the whole Station turned out. It was, of course, quite late when they started, as they were only going as far as Cumsalla. The Station was lit with coloured lamps, which blazed softly in the evening dusk, turning that oasis in the sand into a magical place. And the big moon got up with a bound into the sky, as she sometimes does when at the full, thrusting her large round lustrous face into the centre of all, as if to see what it meant. “By Jove, she’s come out to look at you too,” said the bridegroom to his bride. He was considerably excited, as was but natural—enchanted with the success of all his plans, and theéclatof the whole performance. It was altogether a trying moment—for perhaps something of a vulgar fibre in the man was betrayed by his eagerness that it should be “a grand affair,” and his delight in its success.
But fortunately Evelyn was not in possession of herusual clear-sightedness, and she was still of opinion that the presence of the great people had been accidental, and the extraordinary sumptuousness of all the preparations a piece of loving extravagance on the part of the Stanhopes, which should not, if she could help it, go without its reward. “I hope,” she said, “the moon is loyal, and means it as a demonstration for the Lieutenant-Governor, as all these rejoicings have been already to-day.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Rowland; “all the demonstrations have been for you. The Governor and the General were only my—I mean, Fred Stanhope’s guests.”
Evelyn thought her husband must have had too much champagne: but she would not let this vex her or disturb her, seeing that it was so great an occasion. She calmed him with her soothing voice, and did not show the faint movement of fright and alarm that was in her breast.
“I am very glad they were there, anyhow,” she said, “for Fred’s sake. I hope he will get that appointment now. It was a fortunate chance for him.”
“It was no chance at all,” said Rowland, half piqued at her obtuseness. “I dare say it will be good for him as well: but it was all to do honour to you, my dear. I was determined that you should have all the honour and glory a bride could have. These swells came for you, and all that is for you, the illuminations, and everything. But when I saw you among them, Evelyn, I just said—how superior you were to everything ofthe sort. Talk about women’s heads being turned! You went from one place to another, and looked down upon it all like a queen.”
“Hush! hush!” she said; “indeed I did not look down upon anything. I did not think of it. I am very different from a queen. I am setting out upon a great voyage, and my mind is too full of that to think of swells, as you call them. You are the swell that occupies me most.”
“You aremyqueen,” said Rowland in his pride and delight, “and I am not good enough to tie your shoe: for I’ve been thinking of a great flash to dazzle them all, while you were thinking of—look back, there’s the bouquet going off! nobody in this presidency has seen such fireworks as they’ve got there to-night. I wanted every black baby of them all to remember the day of Miss Ferrars’ wedding. And now when I look at you, I’m ashamed of it all, to think such folly as that should be any honour to you!”
These devoted sentiments, however, were not the prevalent feeling at the Station, where there was a ball after the fireworks with everything of the most costly and splendid description, and where the health of the bride and bridegroom was drank with acclamations in far too excellent champagne. The ladies who had daughters looked out contemptuously over the heads of the subalterns to see if there was not another railway man in the background who would give a similar triumph to one of their girls. But young railway men are not any more satisfactory than young soldiers, and there was not another James Rowland far or near.When it was all over, Helen Stanhope rushed into her husband’s arms with tears of joy, “You have got it, Fred,” she said, “you have got it! and it’s all on account of that kind thought you had (for it was your thought) when you went and fetched Evelyn Ferrars home out of her misery. It’s brought a blessing as I knew it would.”
Fred pulled his long moustache, and was not very ready in his reply. “I wish we hadn’t got so tired of it, Nelly. It might be a kind thought at the first, but neither you nor I kept up to the start. God Almighty didn’t owe us much for that.”
“Oh, don’t be profane,” cried his wife, “taking God’s name in vain! She didn’t think so. What would she have done without us? And it’s all thanks to her that we have got it at last.”
Rowlandwas able to carry out the programme which he had made for himself. He was a man to whom pieces of what is called luck are apt to come. Luck goes rather against the more serious claims of deserving, and is a thing which many of us would like to ignore—but it is hard to believe there is not something in it. One man who is just as worthy as another gets little that he wants, while his neighbour gets much; one who is just as unworthy as another gets all the blows while his fellow sinner escapes. Mr. Rowland had always been a lucky man. The things he desiredseemed to drop into his mouth. That white house on the peninsula looking down upon Clyde, with its noble groups of trees, its fine woods behind, its lochs and inlets, and the great noble estuary at its foot, proved as soon as he set his heart upon it procurable. Had you or I wanted it, it would have been hopeless. Even he, though his luck was so great and he possessed that golden key which opens so many doors, was not able to move the noble proprietor to a sale; but he was permitted to rent it upon a long lease which was almost as satisfactory. “I should have preferred to buy it outright and settle it upon you, Evelyn,” he said to his wife as they sat at breakfast in their London hotel, and he read aloud the lawyer’s letter about this coveted dwelling. “But when one comes to think of it, you might not care for a big house in Scotland after I am out of the way. It was to please me, I know, that you fixed on Scotland first. And then you might find it a trouble to keep up if you were alone.”
“There is no occasion for thinking what I should do when I am alone, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Rowland; “there is little likelihood of that.”
“We must be prepared for everything,” he said with a beaming face, which showed how little the possibility weighed upon him. “However, perhaps it is just as well. Now, my dear, I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going up to the North to see after it all. You shall stay comfortably here and see the pictures and that sort of thing, and I shall run up and prepare everything for you, settle about Rosmore on the longest term I can get, look after the furniture abit: well—I should like, you know, to look after the children a bit, too.”
“To be sure you would,” she said cheerfully. “You know I wanted you to have them here to meet us; but I understand very well, my dear James, that you would rather have your first day with them alone.”
“It’s not that,” he said rising and marching about the room—“it’s not that. I’d rather see you with them, and taking to them than anything else in the world—but—perhaps I’d better go first and see how the land lies. You don’t mind my leaving you—for a few days.” He said this with a sort of timid air which sat strangely on the otherwise self-confident and consciously fortunate man, so evidently inviting an expression of regret, that Evelyn could scarcely restrain a smile.
“I do mind very much,” she said: and he was so genial, so kind, even so amusing in his simplicity, that it was strictly true. “I don’t like at all to be left alone in London; but still I understand it perfectly, and approve—though I’d rather you stayed with me.”
“Oh, if you approve,” he said with a sort of shame-faced laugh of satisfaction, “that is all I want; and you may be sure I’ll not stay a moment longer than I can help. I never saw such a woman for understanding as you are. You know what a man means before he says a word.”
It was on his wife’s lips to tell him that he said innumerable words of which he was unaware, about quite other matters, on every kind of subject, but all showing the way his thoughts were tending, but she forbore; for sweet as it is to be understood, it is notso sweet to be shown how you betray yourself and lay bare your secrets unwittingly to the eye of day. It was not difficult to divine that his mind was now very much taken up by the thought of his children, not merely in the way of love and desire to see them, but from an overmastering anxiety as to how they would bear his wife’s inspection, and what their future place in his life would be. In his many thoughts on the subject, he had decided that he must see them first and judge of that. During the three months in which he had been seeing with Evelyn’s eyes and perceiving with her mind, various things had changed for James Rowland. He was not quite aware of the agency, nor even that a revolution had taken place in him, but he was conscious of being more and more anxious about the effect which everything would produce on her, and specially, above all other things, of the effect that his children would produce. And he had said and done many things to make this very visible. For his own part he thought he had concealed it completely, and even that she gave him credit for too much feeling in imputing to him that eagerness to see them, to take his boy and his girl into his arms, which she had just said was so natural. He preferred to leave that impression on her mind. The feelings she imputed to him would have been her feelings, she felt sure, had she been coming home to her children after so long a separation. He could not say even to himself that this was his feeling. He had done without them for a very long time, perhaps he could have gone on doing without them. But what would Evelyn say to them? Would they be fit for hernotice? Would they shock and startle her? What manner of beings would they seem in her eyes? It was on the cards that did she show any distaste for them, their father, who was their father after all, might resent it secretly or openly—for the claims of blood are strong; but at the present moment this was not at all in his thoughts. His thoughts were full of anxiety to know how they would please her, whether they were worthy to be brought at all into her presence. Mrs. Rowland would fain have assured him that his anxiety was unnecessary, and that, whatever his children were, they would be her first duty; but she was too understanding to do even this. All that she could do to help him in the emergency, was to accept his pretext and give him her approval, and tell him it was the most natural thing in the world. Useless to say that she was anxious too, wondering how the experiment would turn out. Whether the lowly upbringing would be so great a disadvantage as she feared, or whether the more primitive laws of that simpler social order would develop the better faculties, and suppress the conventional, as many a theorist believes. She was no theorist, but only a sensible woman who had seen a good deal of the world, and I fear that she did not believe in that suppression of the conventional. But whatever it was, she was anxious, as was natural, on a matter which would have so large an influence upon her entire life.
“I’ll tell you what you can do to amuse yourself,” he said, “when you’re tired of the pictures and all that. Go to Wardour Street, Evelyn, and if you see anythingthat strikes your fancy, buy it. Buying is a great amusement. And we shall want all sorts of handsome things. Yes, I know. I’d put it into the best upholsterer’s hands and tell him to spare no expense. But that’s not your way: I’ve learnt as much as that. And then there are carpets and curtains and things. Buy away—buy freely. You know what is the right thing. What’s the name of the people in Regent Street, eh? Well go there—buy him up if you please—the whole shop.Idon’t care for those flimsy green and yellow things. I like solid, velvet and damask, and so forth. But what does that matter if you do? I like what you like.”
“Do you want me to ruin you, James?” she said.
He laughed with that deep laugh of enjoyment which moneyed men bring out of the profoundness of their pockets and persons. “If it pleases you,” he said. He was not afraid. That she should ruin him, was a very good joke. He had no desire for an economical wife. He wanted her to be extravagant, to get every pretty thing that struck her fancy. He had a vision of himself standing in the drawing-room which looked out upon the Clyde, and saying to everybody, “It’s my wife’s taste. I don’t pretend to know about this sort of thing, except that it costs a lot of money. It’s she that’s responsible.” And this anticipation pleased him to the bottom of his heart.
He went away next day, taking the train to Glasgow, not without sundry expressions of contempt for the arrangement of the Scotch trains, and the construction of the railways. “We do things better in India,” he said. He was very compunctious about going away, very sorry to leave her, very anxious that she should have everything that was possible to amuse her while he was gone; and exceedingly proud, yet distressed, that she should insist upon coming to the railway with him. It was such an early start for her, it would tire her, it was too much trouble, he said, with a beaming countenance. But when the train started, and Mr. Rowland was alone, he became suddenly very grave. He had not consented to her wish to have the children to meet them in London, because of the fancies that had seized him. If he could only have gone on paying largely for the children, knowing nothing but that they were happy and well, he would on the whole have been very thankful to make such an arrangement. But not only would it have been impossible to do so, but his wife would not have permitted it. She it was who talked of duty in respect to them, who planned everything that would have to be done. For his part, he would have been quite content to let well alone. But how often it happens that you cannot do that, but are compelled to break up rational arrangements and make fictitious ones, visibly altering everything for the worse. Rowland in his prophetic soul felt that this was what he was about to do. He was going to take his children out of the sphere they belonged to, to transport them to another with which they had nothing to do. And his mind altogether was full of compunctions. He had not after all shown their photographs or their letters to his wife. It would be less dreadful, he thought, that they should burst upon her in their native vulgarity and commonness all at once, than that she should be able to divine what like they were, and look forward to the meeting with horror. Naturally he exaggerated the horror Evelyn would be likely to feel, as he depreciated her acuteness and power of divining the motive which made him so certain that he could not find the photographs. Evelyn knew the situation, indeed, almost as well, perhaps in some ways better, than he did. She divined what was to be expected from the two young people brought up upon a very liberal allowance by the aunt whose husband had been a working engineer in the foundry. She was sincerely sorry for them, as well as a little for herself, wondering how they would meet her, feeling it almost impossible that there should not be a little grudge and jealousy, a determination to make a stand against her, and to feel themselves injured and supplanted. She followed her husband in her mind with a little anxiety, hoping that he would not show himself too enlightened as to their deficiencies. And then there would be their aunt to reckon with, the mother’s sister, the second mother. How would she bear it if the young people whom she thought perfect failed to please their father? It would be thought to be the stepmother’s fault even before the stepmother appeared on the scene.
Evelyn returned to her hotel after seeing her husband off, with a countenance not less grave than his, and a strong consciousness that the new troubles were about to begin. She had shaken off her old ones. As for that familiar distress of not having any money, it had disappeared like last year’s snow. It is a curioussensation to be exhorted to be extravagant when you have never had money to spend during your whole life, and there are few ladies who would not like to try that kind of revolution. Evelyn felt it exhilarating enough for a short time, though she had no extravagance in her; but she soon grew tired of the attempt to ruin her husband which gave him so much pleasure. She bought a few things both in Wardour Street and in the shop in Regent Street to which he had alluded, finding with a little trouble things that were not flimsy and diaphanous. But very soon she got tired, and by the third day it was strongly impressed upon her that to be alone, even with unlimited capacity of buying, is a melancholy thing. She had said to herself when she came to London that to recall herself to the recollection of old friends was the last thing she would desire to do. There was too much sorrow in her past: she did not want to remind herself of the time when she, too, used to come to London for the season, to do as everybody did, and go where everybody went. That was so long ago, and everything was so changed. But it is strange how the firmest resolution can be overset in a moment by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about hischildren, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff, she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased? had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had occurred—to be sure, it was the first time he had communicated his sentiments to her by way of writing, and probably he had no such freedom in expressing himself that way as by word of mouth. Whatever the fact might be, Evelyn felt herself cast down, she scarcely knew why. She vaguely devined that there was no satisfaction in his own mind, and to be thrust away from his confidence in this respect would be very painful to her, as well as making an end of all attempts on her part for the good of the children.
Evelyn was in this melancholy mood, sitting alone, and with everything suspended in her life, feeling a little as if she had been brought away from India where she had at least a definite known plan and work, to be stranded on a shore which had grown cold, unknown,and inhospitable to her, when in the newspaper which she had languidly taken up she saw suddenly the name of an old friend. She had said to herself that she would not seek to renew acquaintance with her old friends: but it is one thing to say that when one feels no need of them, and another to reflect when you are lonely and in low spirits, that there is some one in the next street, round the next corner, who would probably receive you with a smile of delight, fall upon your neck, and throw open to you the doors of her heart. Evelyn represented to herself when she saw this name that here was one of whom she would have made an exception in any circumstances, one who would certainly have sought her out in her trouble, and would rejoice in her well-being. She half resisted, half played with the idea for half the morning—at one time putting it away, at another almost resolved to act upon it. And at length the latter inclination carried the day. Part of the reluctance arose from the fact that she did not know how to introduce herself. Would any one in London have heard of the wedding far away at an obscure station in India? Would any one imagine that it was she who was the bride? She took out her new card with Mrs. James Rowland upon it, in a curious shamefacedness, and wrote Evelyn Ferrars upon it with an unsteady hand. But she had very little time to entertain these feelings of uncertainty. It was so like Madeline to come flying with her arms wide open all the length of the deep London drawing-room against the light, with that shriek of welcome. Of course shewould shriek. Evelyn knew her friend’s ways better, as it proved, than she knew that friend herself.
“So it is you! At last! I meant to go out this very day on a round of all the hotels to find you; but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come, for you knew where to find me.”
“At last!” said Evelyn astonished. “How did you know I was in London at all?”
“Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did. They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.”
“Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had not the most distant idea of offending.
“Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that never happens to us poor people at home.”
“I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but, Madeline, that is not what interests memost. There are so many things I should like to hear of.”
“Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if I were you I wouldn’t inquire—not now, when everything is so changed.”
“What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised.
Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there—don’t see him. It would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well off?”
“Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.
“Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your place.”
At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen before—and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”
Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know. She thought it must be someold relative of Madeline, some one who had known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting, and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.
“Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you back to your chair.”
A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.
Oh, heaven and earth, was thishe? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in it.He!The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it——is it? I did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.
“Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my congratulations. I am not in such good case myself,—nobody is likely to congratulate me.”
“I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better than you have been.”
“That’s very true. I may be congratulated so far.I should offer to call at your hotel on Mr. Rowland, but I fear my strength is not to be trusted. I am more glad than I can tell you to have seen you looking so well and happy, after so many years. Lady Leighton, I think I will now accept your kind offer to ring for my man.” He put out the grey tremulous hand again, and enfolded that of Evelyn in it. “I am very glad, very glad,” he said with emphasis, in a low but firm tone, Lady Leighton having turned away to ring the bell, “to have seen you again, and so well, and so young, and I don’t doubt so happy. My wife is dead, and I am a wreck as you see——”
“I am very sorry, very sorry.”
“I knew you would be: while I am glad to have seen you so well. And I have two children whom I shall have to leave to the tender mercies of the world. Ah, we have trials in our youth that we are tragical about; but believe me these are the real tragedies of life,” he said.
And then there came something almost more painful still. His servant came into the room and put on his coat and buttoned him into it as if he had been a child, then raised him smartly from his chair, drew an arm within his own, and led him away. The two ladies heard them go slowly shuffling downstairs, the master leaning upon the servant. Evelyn had grown as pale as marble. She remembered now to have seen an invalid chair standing at the door. And this was he who had filled her young life with joy, and afterwards with humiliation and pain. “Oh,” she cried, “and that is he, that is he!”
“I wish I could have spared you the sight,” said Lady Leighton, “but when he saw your card—he looked at it, when I dropped it out of my hand: people ill like that are so inquisitive—I knew how it would be. Well, you must have seen him sooner or later. It is as well to get it over. He is a wreck, as he says. And oh the contrast, Evelyn! He could not but see it—you so young-looking, so happy and well off. What a lesson it is.”
“I don’t want to be a lesson,” said Evelyn, with a faint smile. “Don’t make any moral out of me. He was a man always so careful of himself. What has he done to be so broken down?”
“Can you ask me what he has done, Evelyn? He has thought of nothing but himself and his own advantage all his life. Don’t you think we all remember——”
“I hope that you will forget—with all expedition,” cried Evelyn quickly. “I have no stone to cast at him. I am very very sorry.” The moisture came into her kind eyes. Her pity was so keen that it felt like a wound in her own heart.
“Oh, Evelyn, I would give the world this had not happened. I did all I could to keep you from seeing he was there. Such a shock for you without any warning! I know, I know that a woman never forgets.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Rowland, hastily, “that has nothing to do with it. I never was sentimental like you; and a spectacle like that is not one to call up tender recollections, is it? But I am very sorry. And he has children, to make him feel it all the more.”
“Yes,” said Lady Leighton doubtfully, “he has children. I must tell you that he still has a way of working on the feelings. Oh, poor man, I would not say a word that was unkind; but now that he has nothing but his troubles to give him an interest, he likes, perhaps, to make the most of his troubles. I wish you had not had this shock to begin with, dear Evelyn, your first day at home.”
Doesa woman never forget? It was not true perhaps as Lady Leighton said it, but it would be vain to say that Evelyn was not moved to the bottom of her heart by the sight of her former lover. He, about whom all the dreams of her youth had been woven, who had deserted her, given her up in her need, and humiliated her before all the world. To see him at all would not have been without effect upon her, but to see him so humiliated in his turn, so miserable a wreck, while she was in all the flush of a late return to youth and well-being, happy in a subdued way, and on the height of prosperity, gave her a shock of mingled feeling, perhaps more strong than any she had experienced since he rent her life in two, and covered her (as she felt) with shame. But it was not any re-awakening of the extinguished fire which moved Evelyn. She could not forget, it was true, and yet she could easily have forgotten, the relation in which she had stood to him, and her old adoration of him, at all times the visionarylove of a girl, giving a hundred fictitious excellencies to the hero she had chosen. This was not what had occurred to her mind. Had she seen him in his ancient supremacy of good fortune—a well-preserved, middle-aged Adonis, smiling perhaps, as she had imagined, at her late marriage with a richparvenu, keeping the superior position of a man who has rejected a love bestowed upon him, and never without that complacent sense of having “behaved badly,” which is one of the many forms of vanity—the sight would not have disturbed her, except, perhaps, with a passing sensation of anger. But to see him in his downfall gave Evelyn a shock of pain. It was too terrible to think of what he had been and what he was. Instead of the sense of retribution which her friend had suggested, Evelyn had a horrified revulsion of feeling, rebellious against any such possibility, angry lest it should be supposed that she could have desired the least and smallest punishment, or could take any satisfaction from its infliction. She would have hated herself could she have thought this possible. There is an old poem in which the story of Troilus and Cressida, so often treated by the poets in its first bloom, has an after episode, an administration of poetic justice, in which all the severity of the mediæval imagination comes forth. The false Cressida falls into deepest misery in this tragic strain, and becomes a leper, the last and most awful of degradations. And while she sits with her wretched companions, begging her miserable bread by the roadside, the injured Troilus, the true knight, rides by. Evelyn, though I do not suppose she had ever seenHenryson’s poem, felt the same anguish of pity which arose in the bosom of the noble Greek. If she could have sent in secret the richest offering, and stolen aside out of the way not to insult the sufferer even by a look, she would have done it. Her pity was an agony, but it had nothing in it akin to love.
Lady Leighton, however, did not leave her friend any time to brood over this painful scene. She had no intention to confine to a mere interchange of courtesies this sudden reappearance upon the scene of a former companion whom, indeed, she could not help effectually in the period of her humiliation, but to whom now, in her newly acquired wealth, Madeline felt herself capable of being of great use. And it must not be supposed that it was purely a vulgar inclination to connect herself with rising fortunes, or to derive advantage from her friend’s new position that moved her. It was in its way a genuine and natural desire to further her old companion, whom she had been fond of, but for whom she could do nothing when she was poor and her position desperate. The love of a little fuss and pleasant meddling was the alloy of Lady Leighton’s gold, not any mercenary devotion to riches or thought of personal advantage. It was certainly delightful to have somebody to push and help on who could be nothing but a credit to you; to whom it would be natural to spend much money; and who yet was “one of our own set” and a favourite friend.
On the second day accordingly after that meeting which had been so painful an entry into the old world, Lady Leighton came in upon Evelyn as she sat alone,not very cheerful, longing for her husband and the new home in which she should find her natural place. She came with a rustle and bustle of energy, and that pretty air of having a thousand things to do, which is distinctive of a lady in the height of the season. “Here you are, all alone,” she said, “and so many people asking for you. Why didn’t you come to luncheon yesterday? We waited half an hour for you. And then we expected you at five o’clock, and I had Mary Riversdale and Alice Towers to meet you, who had bothscreamedto hear you were in town. And you never came! And of course they thought me a delusion and a snare, for they had given up half a dozen engagements. Why didn’t you come?”
“I am very sorry,” Evelyn said.
“That is no excuse,” cried her friend. “You were upset by the sight of that wretched Ned Saumarez. And I don’t wonder; but I believe he is not half so ill as he looks, and up to a good deal of mischief still. However, that is not the question. I have come about business. What are you going to do about a house?”
“About a house?”
“I came to be quite frank with you to-day. When your husband comes back you ought to have something ready for him. My dear Evelyn, I am going to speak seriously. If you want to know people, and be properly taken up, you must have a house for the rest of the season. A hotel is really not the thing. You ought to be able to have a few well chosen dinner parties, and to see your friends a little in the evening.There is nothing like a speciality. You might go in for Indian people. Let it be known that people are sure to meet a few Eastern big wigs, and your fortune would be made.”
“But——” cried Evelyn aghast.
“Don’t tell me,” said Lady Leighton solemnly, “that you don’t want to know people, and be properly taken up again. Of course you don’t require to be pushed into society like a mere millionaire who is nobody. You are quite different. People remember you. They say to me, ‘Oh, that is the Miss Ferrars of the Gloucestershire family.’ Everybody knows who you are. You have nothing to do but to choose a nice house—and there are plenty at this time of the season to be had for next to nothing—and to give a few really nice dinners. Doing it judiciously, finding out when people are free, for of course it does happen now and then that there will be a day when there is nothing going on, you can manage it yet. And everybody knows that your husband is very rich. You could do enough at least to open the way for next season, and make it quite simple. But, my dear, in that case you must not go on wasting these precious days, without deciding on anything and living in a hotel.”
“You take away my breath,” said Mrs. Rowland. “I have not the least desire to be taken up by society. If I had, I think what I saw the other day would have been enough to cure me; but I never had the smallest thought—my husband is rich, I suppose, but he does not mean to spend his money so. He means to live—at home—among his own people.”
Evelyn’s voice, which had been quite assured, faltered a little and trembled as she said these last words.
“Among his own people!” said Lady Leighton, with a little shudder. “Do you mean to say——! Now, my dear Evelyn, you must forgive me, for perhaps I am quite wrong. I have heard about Mr. Rowland. I have always heard that he was—that he had been——” Madeline Leighton was a person of great sense. She saw in Evelyn’s naturally mild eyes that look of the dove enraged, which is more alarming as a danger signal than any demonstration on the part of the eagle. She concluded hastily, “A very excellent man, the nicest man in the world.”
“You were rightly informed,” said Mrs. Rowland, somewhat stiffly. “My husband is as good a man as ever lived.”
“But to go and settle among—his own people! perhaps they are not all as good as ever lived. They must be a little different to what you have been used to. Don’t you think you should stipulate for a little freedom? Frank’s people are as good as ever lived, and they are all of course, so to speak, in our own set. But if I were condemned to live with them all the year round, I should die. Evelyn! it is, I assure you, a very serious matter. One should begin with one’s husband seriously, you know. Very good women who always pretend to like everything they are wanted to do, and smother their own inclinations, are a mistake, my dear. They always turn out a mistake. In the first place they are not true any more than you thought me to be the other day. They are cheating, even ifit is with the best of motives. And in the end they are always found out. And to pretend to like things you hate is just being as great a humbug as any make-believe in society. Besides, your husband would like it far better if you provided him with a little amusement, and kept his own people off him for part of the year.”
“I don’t think Society would amuse him at all,” said Evelyn, with a laugh. “And besides, he has no people that I know of—so that you need not be frightened for me—except his own children,” she added, with involuntary gravity.
Lady Leighton gave vent to an “O!” which was rounder than the O of Giotto. Horror, amazement, compassion were in it. “He has children!” she said faintly.
“Two—and they, of course, will be my first duty.”
“Girls?”
“A girl and a boy.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” said Lady Leighton, giving her friend an embrace full of sympathy. “I am so sorry for you! I hope they are little things.”
Evelyn felt a little restored to herself when she was encountered with such solemnity. “You have turned all at once into a Tragic Muse,” she said; “you need not be so sorry for me. I am not—sorry for myself.”
“Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Lady Leighton severely; “of all humbugs a virtuous humbug is the worst. You hate it! I can see it in your eyes.”
“My eyes must be very false if they express any such feeling. To tell the truth,” she added smiling,“I am a little frightened—one can scarcely help being that. I don’t know how they may look upon me. I shouldn’t care to be considered like the stepmother of the fairy tales.”
“Poor Evelyn!” said Lady Leighton. She was so much impressed as to lose that pliant readiness of speech which was one of her great qualities. Madeline’s resources were generally supposed by her friends to be unlimited: she had a suggestion for everything. But in this case she was silenced—for at least a whole minute. Then she resumed, as if throwing off a load.
“You should have the boy sent to Eton, and the girl to a good school. You can’t be expected to take them out of the nursery. And for their sakes, Evelyn, if for nothing else, it ismost importantthat you should know people and take your place in society. It makes all my arguments stronger instead of weaker: you must bring Miss Rowland out—when she grows up.”
Evelyn could not but laugh at the ready advice which always sprang up like a perpetual fountain, in fine independence of circumstances. “Dear Madeline,” she said, “there is only one drawback, which is that they are grown up already. My stepdaughter is eighteen. I don’t suppose she will go to school, if I wished it ever so much—and I have no wish on the subject. It is a great responsibility; but provided they will accept me as their friend——”
“And where have they been brought up? Is she pretty? are they presentable? She must have money, and she will marry, Evelyn; there’s hope in that. But instead of departing from my advice to you on thataccount, I repeat it with double force. Youmustbring out a girl of eighteen. She must see the world. You can’t let her marry anybody that may turn up in the country. Take my word for it, Evelyn,” she added solemnly, “if it was necessary before, it is still more necessary now.”
“She may not marry at all—there are many girls who do not.”
“Don’t let us anticipate anything so dreadful,” said the woman of the world. “A stepdaughter who does not marry is too much to look forward to. No, my dear, that is what you must do. You must bring her out well and get her off. Is she pretty? for, of course, she will be rich.”
“I don’t know. I know little about the children. My husband has been in India for a long time. He does not himself know so much of them as he ought.”
A shiver went through Lady Leighton’s elegant toilette. She kissed her friend with great pity. “I will stand by you, dear,” she said, “to the very utmost of my ability. You may be sure that anything I can do to help you;—but put on your bonnet in the meantime I have a list of houses I want you to look at. You can look at them at least—that does no harm; if not for this season, it will be a guide to you for the next. And it is always more or less amusing. After that there are some calls I have to make. Come, Evelyn, I really cannot leave you to mope by yourself here.”
And Evelyn went. She was lonely, and it was a greater distraction after all than buying cabinets in Wardour Street, and looking over even the most lovelyold Persian rugs. Looking at houses, especially furnished houses, to be let for the season, is an amusement which many ladies like. It is curious to see the different ideas, the different habits of the people who want to let them, and to contrast the house that is furnished to be let and the house that is furnished to be lived in, which are two different things. Lady Leighton enjoyed the afternoon very much. She pointed out to her friend just how she could arrange the rooms in every house, so that the liveliest hopes were left in the mind of each householder; and by the time they got back to Madeline’s own house to tea, she declared herself too tired to do anything but lie on the sofa, and talk over all they had seen. “It lies between Wilton Place and Chester Street,” she said. “The last is the best house, but then the other is better furnished. That boudoir in Wilton Place is a little gem: or you might make the drawing-room in Chester Street exceedingly pretty with those old things you are always buying. The carpets are very bad, I must allow, but with a few large rugs—and it is such a good situation. Either of them would do. And so cheap!—a mere nothing for millionaires like you.”
Evelyn allowed, not without interest, that the houses were very nice. She allowed herself to discuss the question. Visions floated before her eyes of old habits resumed, and that flutter of movement, of occupation, of new things to see and hear, which forms the charm of town, caught her with its fascination. To step a little, just a little, not much, into the living stream, to feel the movement, though she was not carried awayby it, was a temptation. At a distance it is easy to condemn the frivolity, the hurry, the rush of the season; but to touch its glittering surface over again after a long interval of banishment, and feel the thrill of the tide of life which is never still, which quickens the pulse and stimulates the mind, has a great attraction in it. Evelyn forgot for the moment the shock which had so driven her back from all pleasant projects. She allowed herself to see with Madeline’s eyes. No doubt it might be pleasant. It was now June, and a month of society in the modified way in which a late arrival, so long separated from all old acquaintances can alone hope to enjoy it, would not be too great an interruption to the home life, and it would leave time to have everything done at Rosmore. And it would postpone a little the introduction to many new elements of which she was afraid. She had been disappointed when her husband left her, to have the entrance upon her new life postponed at all, and the period of suspense prolonged. But that feeling began to give way to other feelings—feelings more natural. After the unutterably subdued life she had led in India, and before the novel and strange existence which was now waiting for her as the mother and guide of human creatures unknown to her, might not a moment of relaxation, of individuality, be worth having? She had been Mrs. Stanhope’s friend without any identity, with a life which was all bound up in the obscure rooms of the bungalow; and she was Mr. Rowland’s wife, the mother of his children, the head of his house, in an atmosphere altogether novel to her, and which of her, in her naturalpersonality, knew nothing. Society was not her sphere, yet it was the nearest to any sphere in which she could stand as herself. And she allowed herself to be seduced. She thought that perhaps for a little James might enjoy it. Chester Street is very near the Park. To walk out in the June mornings, when even the London air is made of sunshine, to the Row and see the dazzling stream flow by—the beautiful horses, the beautiful people—girls and men whom it was a sight to see—to meet every five minutes an old acquaintance, to hear once more that babble about people and personal incidents which is so trivial to the outsider, but always attractive to those who know the names and can understand the situations about which everybody talks! And in the evening, to sit at the head of the table with perhaps a statesman, perhaps a poet, somebody of whom the whole world has heard, at her right hand, penetrating even the society chatter with a thread of meaning! Evelyn forgot for the moment various things that would not be so pleasant—that her husband would like to entertain a lord, but would not probably know much more about him, however great he might be—that he might be inclined to tell the price of his wine, and laugh the rich man’s laugh of satisfaction at the costliness of everything, and the ruin that awaited him in London. These little imperfections Evelyn was perhaps too sensitive of, but on this occasion they stole out of her mind. She began to discuss Chester Street with a gradually growing satisfaction. Or Park Lane? There was a house in Park Lane—and for a hundred pounds or two of rent, if he liked the schemeat all, James would not hesitate. She was quite sure of him so far as that was concerned.
“Chester Street has its advantages,” said Lady Leighton. “It is such a capital situation; and yet quite modest, no pretension. It is more like you, Evelyn. So far as Mr. Rowland is concerned, I feel sure, though I don’t know him, that he would prefer Belgrave Square, and the biggest rent in London.”
“How do you know that?” said Evelyn with an uneasy laugh.
“Because I know my millionaires,” said Lady Leighton gravely. “But for the end of the season, and an accidental sort of thing as it will be, I should not recommend that. Next year if you come up in May, and on quitelancé; but for this year, when you are only feeling your way—Chester Street, Evelyn! that’s my idea—and a few small parties, quite select, to meet some Indian man. I don’t want you to have just a common success like the vulgar rich people. Dear, no! quite a different thing—a successd’estime—a real good foundation for anything you might like to do after. You might take Marlborough House then—if you could get it—and stick at nothing.”
“We shall not attempt to get Marlborough House,” said Evelyn, with a laugh, “nor even anything more moderate. Mr. Rowland does not care for town. But I confess that you have beguiled me, Madeline, with your flattering tongue. I think—I should rather like—if he approves of the idea.”
“My dear, it is surely enough if you approve of the idea. He is not going to make you a black slave.”
“My husband is sure to approve of what I do,” said Evelyn, with a little dignity. “But I prefer to consult him all the same. He may have formed other engagements. It may be necessary to go up to Rosmore at once. But I confess that I should like—if there is nothing else in the way.”
“And that is all,” cried Lady Leighton, “after all my efforts! Well, if it must be so, telegraph to him—or at least tell him to answer you by telegraph: for that house might still be swept up while you are hesitating. Oh, I know it is rather late for a house to be snapped up. But when you want a thing it immediately becomes a chance that some one else will want it too. I shall look for you to-morrow to luncheon, Evelyn: now, mind that you don’t fail me, and we’ll go out after and settle about it, and do all that is necessary. Shouldn’t you like now to go and look at a few more Persian rugs? and that little Chippendale set you were telling me of? The next best thing to spending money one’s self is helping one’s friend to do it,” said Lady Leighton. “Indeed, some people think it is almost more agreeable: for you have the pleasure, without the pain of paying. Come, Evelyn, and we can finish with a turn in the Park before dinner. I always like to get as much as possible into every day.”
It was indeed a necessity with the town lady to get as much as she could into her day. If she had not gone to choose the rugs on her friend’s account, she would have had to make for herself some other piece of business equally important. There was not an hour that had not its occupation. Looking at the houseshad filled the afternoon with bustle and excitement: and doing all that was necessary,i.e., rearranging all the furniture, covering up the dingy carpets, choosing new curtains, etc., would furnish delightful “work” for two or three. Lady Leighton had never an hour that was without its engagement, as she said with a sigh. She envied her friends who had leisure. She had not a moment to herself.
And Evelyn wrote a hurried letter to her husband about the Chester Street house, and the pleasure of staying in town for a week or two, as she put it vaguely, and introducing him to some of her friends. She even in her haste mentioned Lord and Lady Leighton, knowing that he had a little weakness for a title—a thing she was sadly ashamed of when she came to think. But the best of us are so easily led away.