The tale of Germain’s posthumous disposition of his chattels ran, as such tales will, all about town, and lost nothing in the running. Women took it complacently, after their kind. Of course it was odd; and yet, in its way, was it not a tribute? One or two pretty young wives told each other that it was touching; a Miss Lavender shed tears. In the clubs they said plainly that Duplessis had been bought off. Palmer Lovell, with his back to the fireplace, cried out in his strident boy’s voice, “If that’s not compounding a felony, it’s compounding a felon. But what the devil of a right has old Germain, alive or dead, to whip his wife in public?” No clubman had an answer to this. The best thing of all was said by Lord Kesteven in Paris: “God be good to us, what Turks we all are! Here’s old Germain taking the harem-key into the grave with him.” That keen-faced old lord came to London and called on Mary in Hill-street. He observed her pale in her black weeds, but with a haunted kind of beauty upon her which she had never had before. Her eyes were enormous, he said. She was very quiet in her manner, seemed dazed, but not cowed—apprehensive, you might think. She looked up at him in a mutely expectant way, as if she expected him momentarily to hit her, and was too tired even to flinch at the impending blow. He felt deeply for her—all sorts of things, and after his manner, therefore, was more bluff and direct than usual. “Well, my young friend, and what are you going to do with yourself? I should advise you to get out of this. No woman can be expected to stand it.”
She flushed at the bold attack, but did not avoid it. “I hear nothing of what is being said. I am sure he did not mean to be unkind. That is not like him. I was to blame.”
“I won’t talk about it, or I shall get angry. Cant—in a man’s will—to disguise something worse, and nastier—pouf! Look here, my dear, try France—try Paris. My sister Margaret de Guiche would like you to pay her a visit. She said so. She’s alone, and you need see nobody. De Guiche is in Petersburg. You couldn’t have a better due?a than Margaret. It will be a kindness to her—and a kindness to me. I wish you’d think of it.”
She listened with hanging head, and veiled eyes. Her eyelids, always heavy, seemed now as if they were of intolerable weight. She watched her twisting fingers as she thanked him for the proposal. She would think of it, she told him—she had everything to think of.
“I know that very well,” Kesteven said; “but there are some things which I hope you need not consider. One of them is the great regard I have for you.”
Oh, yes, she was sure of that. He had shown her so much kindness.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he continued; “and I’ll go as far as this. If you decide to renounce your legacy—on reflection—I should claim the privilege of helping you to do it. I can hardly go further—but so far I am ready to go. Remember that. Remember that I am allowed to call myself your friend. Remember, if you choose, that I am five-and-sixty, and take heart—if you need heart.”
It was clear what was implied in this speech; but she did not feel equal to quieting the anxiety which underlay it. She made no remark.
“At any rate,” said his lordship, “I tell you that you may command the H?tel de Guiche. Margaret may be trusted—and perhaps I need not add that you may trust me, too.” But he couldn’t get her to say more than she would think of it, so took his leave. He kissed her hand.
So far she had not seen Duplessis, nor heard from him; but the sense that an interview with him was impending, was, as it were, swinging like a sword over her head, fretted her nerves so badly that she was incapable of thinking what she could say to him when he came to her—as of course he would—with an offer of instant marriage. That would be, in his view, the only possible answer to the public affront he had received. But as the days went on and he made no sign she began to wonder dimly whether, after all, she might not escape—and from such faint sighings thrown out into the vague she came by degrees to hopes—and from hopes to plans and shifts.
Everything in town conspired together to make her position impossible. The chill reserve of Mrs. James—whose frozen civility was worse than any rebuke; the letters of her parents from Blackheath, kind, repining, half-informed letters which said in effect, We don’t know what is being cried against you, but be sure that we are on your side; and the terrible letters of Jinny (almost Mrs. Podmore by now, and vigorously on the side of decorum)—“the disgrace which has been cast upon our family . . . your unfortunate liaison, . . . One can only hope that you will let them be a warning, child. . . . Let us be thankful that things are no worse . . .”—all this made the poor girl so self-conscious that she could hardly lift her head. She thought that the very servants were judging her—as, no doubt, they were; she felt beaten to the earth; and the fund of common-sense, the fund of charity, which she had at her call—through mere panic—suspended payment.
If she had been left to herself she would have borne her husband no grudge for seeking to tie her publicly to his name. She would have pitied, not blamed him, for supposing that three thousand or thirty thousand a year could have held her. And certainly that midnight confession absolved her in her own conscience. If she had looked back upon her dealings with Duplessis it would have been to see what a little fool she had been—to blush at her ignorance, not at her shame. But now her world insisted on her disgrace; she was made to stand in a sheet like a Jane Shore; the straight, clinging, disgraceful robe imprisoned her body and soul. She felt that she must die if she stayed where she was, a public mock; but until Duplessis delayed so obviously his coming she had felt bound in honour to see him.
To be just to Duplessis, he kept himself away by violence, obeying an instinct—which was a true one. He had no doubt but that she would marry him now—he could not for the life of him see how any two people could otherwise reply to posthumous impudence of the sort. Indeed, he felt in his heart of hearts that she owed him that. But his instinct told him that that could not be put to her for the present, and that to be seen in her society, to visit her, even to write to her, would make her burden heavier to bear. He contented himself by renouncing his legacy in the most precise terms—in a letter to Dockwra the lawyer, and in another to James Germain. If this act came to Mary’s ears, as he hoped it would, no harm would be done to his affair. Rather, she would see in it a plain declaration of his feelings. But, unfortunately for him, it did not. James Germain was at Misperton by this time, and Dockwra communicated directly with him, not through his wife. James Germain, true to his fastidious sense, thought it no business of Mary’s—and was thankful it was none of his.
The delay of a week, ten days, a fortnight, gave her courage. Her feverish dreams, hopes of a release, left her. She knew now that she was to be free, and, once resolved, schemes began to gather in her brain, to develop; her mind went to work, and she became happy. There was no doubt at all where she would go. All her ideas of freedom were centred in one place—Land’s End. The sea, the rocks, the birds—and the low white cottage facing them all—open-doored to them all. Her dream of nearly three years; now to come true! If Senhouse was at the back of her mind, he was kept rigorously there. She felt virginal now when she thought of Senhouse, found herself blushing, and put the image away as not lawful. Freedom from the intolerable eyes about her—the butler’s—her maid’s—Mrs. James’s—this ghastly mummery of clothes and ceremony—she agonized to be quit of it all; but now she intended to be, and could not afford time to agonize. She turned all her quick wits to the work, applied method and deliberation to it, and could almost fix a day, so plain did everything seem.
Method cautioned her to go slowly to work; the first thing to do was to accustom Mrs. James to her walks abroad. She devoted a week to this—went alone, deeply veiled, into the park every day, and spent gradually increasing hours there, doing nothing more.
Then, one morning, she went circuitously to the Bank in Burlington-gardens, and asked for her pass-book. There was some ￡300 to her credit—the remains of her ............