Revolt is, as it always has been, within easy reach of the great; but a Rector’s wife should attend upon her lord. The Hon. Mrs. Germain watched her James’s eyebrow, waiting for the lift. It came, and her cry broke from her. “James, James, this cannot be possible!” She saw her fair realm in earthquake and eclipse. The Rector, no less disturbed, could not for the life of him avoid his humour. “Alas, my dear”—one eyebrow made a hoop in his forehead—“all things are possible to amorous man.”
“Amorous!” she whistled the word. “John—and that minx! You use horrible words.”
“Hardly so, my dear. Not horrible in a man’s regard for his wife. The state is sanctioned.”
She was beyond his quibbles. “What are we to do? Heavens and earth, what can we do?”
He eyed his brother’s letter ruefully. “Upon my word,” he said, “this is a facer. I could have believed anything of any man sooner than this of him. Old John! Exactly double her age—and she a quiet little mouse of a girl out of a cottage. Woodbine Cottage, eh? That’s it, you know. Woodbine Cottage and white muslin have done it. Do you remember the valentines of our youth—gauffred edges, a pathway to a porch—the linked couple, and the little god in the air, pink as a shell? White muslin—fatal wear! He sees her so to all eternity; enskied and sainted, in muslin and a sash! Confound it, Constantia, I feel old.”
She was beyond his whimsies. “You may be thankful that you do. This appears to me disgusting. Have we used him so ill that he should slap our faces?”
The Rector indulged his eyebrows again. “Diana!” he said.
She did not defend that dead lady, but even another Lady Diana seemed more tolerable to Mrs. James. Pecca fortiter, she could have said, had she had a head for tags. Lady Diana, sinning de race, would have been intelligible, say, to the Cantacutes. But here was no sin, but merely a squalid enchantment. A doting gentleman, a peering little nobody in muslin—How should this be put, say, to the Cantacutes? Aberration? Chivalry? Romance? Never Romance, precisely because that was just what it was—pitiful romance. James had hit it off exactly; it was the washy, facile romance of a sixpenny valentine, of a thing that housemaids drink with their eyes. Saponaceous—Heavens and earth! Mrs. James lifted her hands, and let them fall to her lap. “I simply cannot hold up my head in the village,” she said. “James think of the Cantacutes.”
“Why on earth should I think of the Cantacutes?” He was testy under his trouble. “I have my brother to think of. He’s been hasty over this—which is most unlike him—and secret as well. I had no notion any such thing was going on, not the least in the world.”
It was Mrs. James’s duty to confess that some notion ought to have been hers. And she did confess. “It so happens that I was speaking to him of this girl the night we dined at the Park. He told me that he was interesting himself in her and I asked him to say something about Tristram.”
“About Tristram?” says the Rector sharply. “What about Tristram, pray?”
She could not but remember former warnings. “I think you will do me the justice, James. You have been told that Tristram has chosen to amuse himself with her. Who has not? I remember telling you about it, when, as usual, you laughed at me. I begged John to influence the girl—to induce her to respect herself—and with this result!” The Rector pushed his chair away.
“You speak more truly than you know,” he said, rose and took a turn about the room. “Now I understand the haste. He had been hovering, poor, foolish fellow—singeing his grey wings; but it was you, Constantia, drove him to plunge. Take my word for it. Dear, dear, dear, this is really a great bore. I don’t know what to do, upon my word I don’t.”
“I shall speak to the girl, of course,” said Mrs. James, gathering up letters and keys. It is doubtful if her husband heard her. He had stepped through the window into the garden before she had risen. “The Rector’s Walk,” a pleached alley of nut trees, received him; for more than an hour he might have been observed pacing it, with lowered head and hands behind his back. But Mrs. Germain went about her duties of the day with tight lips and eyes aglitter. At intervals her anguish betrayed itself in cries. “Monstrous! Monstrous!”
To her it was monstrous, for she saw the girl without glamour, standing amid the wreckage of a fair realm—a little governess, wickedly demure. The Germain banner was rent, the Germain character blotted; that carefully contrived dual empire which she shared with the Cantacutes was threatened; her authority as a county lady, as Rector’s wife, toppling, her throne wanting a leg. She saw herself pitied, her husband’s family the object of lifted brows. And she had been a loyal wife, and knew it, because she had honestly admired the marks of race in the Germains. Herself a Telfer, she was of that famous Norman house which lost first blood at Hastings; and she never forgot it, least of all when she had married into the Germains, who were county and good blood, but not noble. She remembered, she always remembered that—but she was a loyal wife. Without and within, he and she were a strong contrast—he frosty, dry, and deliberate, she fiery, impulsive, storm-driven, not above the aid of tears; he lean and pale, she a plump woman and a pink. His instinct was to approve at first blush, hers to disapprove. They were good friends, and had never been more; there were no children. That had been a grievance of hers until she got into the way of saying that the Germains were a dwindling race, and—“look at poor John Germain!” I wish the reader to note the subtle change from complaint to complacency in Mrs. James’s outlook. It marks her character. To be a barren wife through no fault of your own and to take comfort in saying that your husband comes of a dwindling stock shows that you have an eye for outline in a family. It is rather like excusing your Black Wyandottes, which give you no breakfast eggs—“Yes, but that’s the mark of the breed.” So here—“either I have children, or my husband is no Germain.” Here was strong character exhibited; and all may be forgiven to strength. But weakness—mere dotage—mere desire; a landed gentleman of fifty and a girl in muslin—“Monstrous! Monstrous!” cried Mrs. James in her bitterness.
When Mary, home from The Sanctuary, heard the click of the wicket, and the swish of a silk petticoat over the flagstones, she knew what was coming upon her. Her colour fled, and returned redoubled, and a scare showed in her quick eyes. In a moment she called up her defences—her more than one letter—she had received a third that morning. “I shall see your father,” that said, “an hour after you receive this, my Mary. If I know anything of his daughter he will not fail to confirm the signal trust which she has shown me.” She had not been very sure what he meant by “signal trust”; it must certainly be something which any girl might be proud to have. And she had something more wonderful than a letter—a ring, the most splendid she had ever seen—a great sapphire set in a lake of brilliants. She glanced at it now as, hearing the lady at the door, she slipped it off and put it in her pocket. Mrs. James knocked, like a postman; and with a wild heart Mary went to meet her enemy in the gate.
“Ah, good-evening, Mary. May I come in? Thank you.” She preceded her dependant into the little parlour, sat in the chair which had most the similitude of a throne, and began at once upon her subject.
“I have called to see you in consequence of a letter which the Rector received this morning from Mr. Germain. May I inquire if you guess—? No, indeed, I see that I need not.” The girl’s face told the tale; her eyes were cast down; inquiry of the sort was absurd. “I think, Mary, that you have strange ideas; I do, indeed; and am sorry to have to add that I know where you have obtained them.” But Mary had spirit, it seemed.
“I obtained them from Mr. Germain,” she said, with a certain defiance which may have been very natural, but had been better away. “I obtained them from him. They were not mine, I assure you.”
Mrs. Germain opened her mouth and shut it with a snap. She opened it again a little way to say, “The thing is impossible,” and another snap followed.
“So I told Mr. Germain,” said Mary.
“My impression is very strong,” continued Mrs. James, ignoring interruption, “that you have misunderstood Mr. Germain’s kindness, and strangely so. That being the case—” Mary’s eyes flashed.
“I beg pardon, Mrs. Germain, but that is not the case. Mr. Germain has gone to see my parents to-day. He writes me word——”
“You will kindly allow me to finish. I believe that you misunderstood something Mr. Germain may have said to you—some advice, or inquiry, or offer of help; that he may have seen your error and regretted it while he was too chivalrous to undeceive you. I consider that you may be preparing a great unhappiness for yourself and for him, and I am in a position to say——”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain,” said Mary, “but nobody is in a position to say anything to me of this but Mr. Germain himself.”
Now this was so obviously true that even Mrs. James accepted it. She had been too hasty, and while she was swallowing her chagrin Mary took her opportunity.
“I must tell you, please, that you cannot be more surprised than I was when Mr. Germain spoke to me as he did. I had never dreamed of such a thing; it is not likely that I should. He had been all that’s kind to me ever since the school-treat—even now I can hardly believe that any one could be so kind; but when he—when he spoke to me—asked me if I could care for him—in that way—I vow to you I could not answer him. I was most stupid—I was confused and could not collect my thoughts. And I never did collect them,” she cried with a sudden burst of confession, “and never answered him at all—except by crying, which any girl would have done, I think; and then he—well, then he k——”
Mrs. James shut her eyes tight. “I know what you are going to say. No! no! Be silent, I beg.”
Mary put her hand to her throat, as if she was being choked. Her eyes shone like jet. “I hope that you will be just to me, Mrs. Germain, I do hope so. I know that you put all the blame on me, but it is unfair to do that. What could I do? If he spoke to me kindly, must I not answer kindly? If he came to see me, how could I refuse to see him? If he invited me to walk with him, what could I say, or do? And then—when he asked me, Did I care for him—and—and—oh, I must say it!—kissed——”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Germain, with a spasm. “Oh, wicked, wicked!”
Mary flamed. “I am not wicked, Mrs. Germain, and I must ask you not to call me so. Mr. Germain would not like it at all. You cannot believe him to be wicked; and if he did what he did he had good reason. And now I will tell you that I never answered his question, and have not known how to answer it.”
“Answer it, girl! You prevaricate. Answer it—in the face of his letter to my husband!”
“Mr. Germain has been more than kind,” said Mary, losing ground, “and—and——”
“And Mr. Duplessis has been more than kind, I believe,” said Mrs. James—and her words were knives. The girl quailed. “Pray, how much more kindness is my family to show you?”
Mary was now very cold. “One member of it,” she said, “will show me none—will not show me even justice. Mr. Duplessis has no claim——”
“Claim!” cried the great lady, red as fire, “what claim should he wish to make? I think you have lost your senses.” She may well have lost patience, courage, and a good sense. She stamped her foot.
“I wish you would leave me alone, Mrs. Germain. You are cruel to me, and unjust. I have done you no harm—no, but always my duty, and you know that very well. You drive me into corners—you make me say things—I am very unhappy—please leave me.” She covered her eyes to hide the tears which pricked her.
Mrs. James was not to be melted by such a device. “If yo............