Читать книгу The Child Wife - Reid Mayne - Страница 6

“Married for love! Hach! fool that I’ve been!”

The man who muttered these words was seated with elbows resting upon a table, and hands thrust distractedly through his hair.

“Fool that I’ve been, and for a similar reason!” The rejoinder, in a female voice, came from an inner apartment. At the same instant the door, already ajar, was spitefully pushed open, disclosing the speaker to view: a woman of splendid form and features, not the less so that both were quivering with indignation.

The man started, and looked up with an air of embarrassment. “You heard me, Frances?” he said, in a tone half-surly, half-ashamed.

“I heard you, Richard,” answered the woman, sweeping majestically into the room. “A pretty speech for a man scarce twelve months married – for you! Villain!”

“That name is welcome!” doggedly retorted the man. “It’s enough to make one a villain?”

“What’s enough, sir?”

“To think that but for you I might have had my thousands a year, with a titled lady for my wife!”

“Not worse than to think that but for you I might have had my tens of thousands, with a lord for my husband! ay, a coronet on my crown, where you are barely able to stick a bonnet?”

“Bah! I wish you had your lord.”

“And bah to you! I wish you had your lady.” The dissatisfied benedict, finding himself more than matched in the game of recrimination, dropped back into his chair, replanted his elbows on the table, and resumed the torturing of his hair.

Back and forth over the floor of the apartment paced the outraged wife, like a tigress chafed, but triumphant.

Man and wife, they were a remarkable couple. By nature both were highly endowed; the man handsome as Apollo, the woman beautiful as Venus. Adorned with moral grace, they might have challenged comparison with anything on earth. In the scene described, it was more like Lucifer talking to Juno enraged.

The conversation was in the English tongue, the accent was English, the speakers apparently belonging to that country – both of them. This impression was confirmed by some articles of travelling gear, trunks and portmanteaus of English manufacture, scattered over the floor. But the apartment was in the second storey of a second-class boarding-house in the city of New York.

The explanation is easy enough. The amiable couple had but lately landed from an Atlantic steamer. The “O.K.” of the Custom House chalk was still legible on their luggage.

Looking upon the pair of strange travellers – more especially after listening to what they have said – one skilled in the physiognomy of English life would have made the following reflections: —

The man has evidently been born “a gentleman,” and as evidently brought up in a bad school. He has been in the British army. About this there can be no mistake; no more than that he is now out of it. He still carries its whisker, though not its commission. The latter he has lost by selling out; but not until after receiving a hint from his colonel, or a “round robin” from his brother officers, requesting him to “resign.” If ever rich, he has long since squandered his wealth; perhaps even the money obtained for his commission. He is now poor. His looks proclaim him an adventurer.

Those of the woman carry to a like conclusion, as regards herself. Her air and action, the showy style of her dress, a certain recklessness observable in the cast of her countenance, bring the beholder, who has once stood alongside “Rotten Row,” back to the border of that world-renowned ride. In the fair Fan he sees the type of the “pretty horse-breaker” – the “Anonyma” of the season.

It is an oft-repeated experience. A handsome man, a beautiful woman, both equally heart-wicked, inspiring one another with a transient passion, that lasts long enough to make man and wife of them, but rarely outlives the honeymoon. Such was the story of the couple in question.

The stormy scene described was far from being the first. It was but one of the squalls almost daily occurring between them.

The calm succeeding such a violent gust could not be continuous. A cloud so dark could not be dissipated without a further discharge of electricity.

It came; the last speaker, as if least satisfied, resuming the discourse.

“And supposing you had married your lady – I know whom you mean – that old scratch, Lady C – , what a nice time the two of you would have had of it! She could only have kissed you at the risk of losing her front teeth, or swallowing them. Ha! ha! ha!”

“Lady C – be hanged! I could have had half a score of titled ladies; some of them as young, and just as good-looking, is you!”

“Boasting braggart! ’Tis false, and you know it! Good-looking as me! How you’ve changed your tune! You know I was called the ‘Belle of Brompton!’ Thank heaven, I don’t need you to satisfy me of my good looks. Men of ten times your taste have pronounced upon them; and may yet!”

The last speech was delivered in front of a cheval glass, before which the speaker had stopped, as if to admire her person.

Certainly the glass gave out an image that did not contradict what she had said.

“May yet!” echoed the satiated rake in a drawl, that betokened either indifference, or its assumption. “I wish some of them would!”

“Indeed! Then some of them shall!”

“Oh! I’m agreeable. Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Thank God! we’ve got into a country whose people take a common-sense view of these questions, and where divorce can be obtained, not only on the quiet, but cheaper than the licence itself! So far from standing in your way, madam, I’ll do all I can to assist you. I think we can honestly plead ‘incompatibility of temper’?”

“She’d be an angel that couldn’t plead that with you.”

“There’s no danger, then, of your being denied the plea, unless fallen angels be excepted.”

“Mean insulter! Oh, mercy! to think I’ve thrown myself away on this worthless man?”

“Thrown yourself away? Ha! ha! ha! What were you when I found you? A waif, if not worse. The darkest day of my life was that on which I picked you up!”

“Scoundrel!”

The term “scoundrel” is the sure and close precursor of a climax. When passed between two gentlemen, it not unfrequently leads to a mutual pulling of noses. From a lady to a gentleman the result is of course different, though in any case it conducts to a serious turn in the conversation. Its effect in the present instance was to end it altogether.

With only an exclamation for rejoinder, the husband sprang to his feet, and commenced pacing up and down one side of the room. The wife, already engaged in like perambulation, had possession of the other.

In silence they crossed and recrossed; at intervals exchanging angry glances, like a tiger and tigress, making the tour of their cage.

For ten minutes or more was this mute, unsocial promenade continued.

The man was the first to tire of it, and once more resuming his seat, he took a “regalia” from his case, set fire to the weed, and commenced smoking.

The woman, as if determined not to be outdone in the way of indifference, produced her cigar-case, selected from it a tiny “queen,” and, sinking down into a rocking-chair, sent forth a cloud of smoke that soon rendered her almost as invisible as Juno in her nimbus.

There was no longer an exchange of glances – it was scarce possible – and for ten minutes more not any of speech. The wife was silently nursing her wrath, while the husband appeared to be engaged on some abstruse problem that occupied all his intellect. At length an exclamation, escaping involuntarily from his lips, seemed to declare its solution; while the cheerful cast of his countenance, just perceptible through the smoke, told of his having reached a conclusion that was satisfactory to him.

Taking the regalia from between his teeth, and puffing away the cloud that intervened, he leant toward his wife, at the same time pronouncing her name in diminutive —

“Fan!”

The form, with the accent in which it was uttered, seemed to say that on his side the storm had blown over. His chafed spirit had become tranquillised under the influence of the nicotine.

The wife, as if similarly affected, removed the “queen” from her lips; and in a tone that smacked of forgiveness, gave out the rejoinder:

“Dick!”

“An idea has occurred to me,” said he, resuming the conversation in a shape entirely new. “A grand idea!”

“Of its grandeur I have my doubts. I shall be better able to judge when you’ve imparted it. You intend doing that, I perceive.”

“I do,” he answered, without taking notice of the sarcasm.

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“Well, Fan, if there’s anything in this world clearer than another, it’s that by getting married we’ve both made a mucker of it.”

“That’s clear as daylight – to me at least.”

“Then you can’t be offended if I take a similar view of the question. We married one another for love. There we did a stupid thing, since neither of us could afford it.”

“I suppose I know all that. Tell me something new.”

“More than stupid,” pursued the worthless husband; “it was an act of absolute madness!”

“Most certainly, on my part.”

“On the part of both of us. Mind you, I don’t say I repent making you my wife. Only in one way, and that is because I’ve spoiled your chances in life. I am aware you could have married richer men.”

“Oh, you admit that, do you?”

“I do. And you must admit I could have married richer women.”

“Lady Scratch, for example.”

“No matter. Lady Scratch could have kept me from this hard scratch for a living, which promises to be still harder. You know there’s no resource left me but the little skill I’ve acquired in manipulating pasteboard. I’ve come over here under the pleasant hallucination I should find plenty of pigeons, and that the hawks only existed on our side of the Atlantic. Well, I’ve been round with my introductions, and what’s the result? To discover that the dullest flat in New York would be a sharp in the saloons of London. I’ve dropped a hundred pounds already, and don’t see much chance of taking them up again.”

“And what do you see, Dick? What’s this grand idea?”

“Are you prepared to listen to a proposal?”

“How condescending of you to ask me! Let me hear it. Whether I may feel inclined to agree to it is another thing.”

“Well, my dear Fan, your own words have suggested it, so you can’t reproach me for originating it.”

“If it be an idea, you needn’t fear that. What words, may I ask?”

“You said you wished I had married my lady.”

“I did. What is there in that?”

“More than you think for. A whole world of meaning.”

“I meant what I said.”

“In spite only, Fan.”

“In earnest.”

“Ha, ha! I know you too well for that.”

“Do you? You flatter yourself, I think. Perhaps you may some day find your mistake.”

“Not a bit of it. You love me too well. Fan, as I do you. It is just for that I am going to make the proposal.”

“Out with it! I shan’t like you any the better for thus tantalising me. Come, Dick; you want me to grant something? What is it?”

“Give me your permission to – ”

“To do what?”

“To get married again!”

The wife of twelve months started, as if struck by a shot. In her glance there was anger and surprise, only subdued by interrogation.

“Are you in earnest, Dick?”

The inquiry was mechanical. She saw that he was.

“Wait till you’ve heard me out,” he rejoined, proceeding to the explanation.

She waited.

“What I propose, then, is this: You leave me free to get married again. More than that, give me your help to accomplish it – for our mutual benefit. It’s the very country for such a scheme; and I flatter myself I’m the very man who may bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. These Yankees have been growing rich. There are now scores – hundreds of heiresses among them. Strange if I can’t pick one of them up! They must either be daintier than you, Fan, or else I’ve lost my attractions.”

The appeal to her vanity, skilful though it was, failed to elicit a rejoinder. She remained silent, permitting her husband to continue his explanation. He continued:

“It’s no use shutting our eyes to the situation. We’ve both been speaking the truth. We’ve made fools of ourselves. Your beauty has been the means of spoiling my chances in life; and my – well, good looks, if I must say it – have done the same for you. It’s been a mutual love, and a reciprocal ruin – in short, a sell on both sides.”

“True enough. Go on?”

“The prospect before us! I, the son of a poor prebend; you – well, it’s no use to talk of family affairs. We came over here in hopes of bettering our condition. The land of milk and honey turns out to be but gall and bitterness. We’ve but one hundred pounds left. When that’s gone, what next, Fan?”

Fan could not tell.

“We may expect but slight consideration for gentility here,” continued the adventurer. “Our cash once spent, what can I do – or what you? I know of nothing, except to take hold of the delicate ribbons of a street hack; while you must attune your musical ear to the tinkle of a sewing-machine, or the creaking of a mangle. By heaven! there’ll be no help for it?”

The ci-devant belle of Brompton, appalled by the prospect, started up from the rocking-chair, and once more commenced pacing the room.

Suddenly she stopped, and, turning to her husband, inquired:

“Do you intend to be true to me, Dick?”

The question was put in an eager, earnest tone.

Equally earnest was the answer:

“Of course I do. How can you doubt me, Fan? We’re both alike interested in the speculation. You may trust me as steel!”

“I agree to it, then, Dick. But dread steel if you betray me!”

Dick answered the threat with a light laugh; at the same time imprinting a Judas kiss on the lips that had pronounced it!