Читать книгу Spinster of This Parish - W. B. Maxwell - Страница 6

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ON the morning after the day on which the two girls watched the polo and drank tea with Mr. Dyke, Margaret went back to her kind husband and two sweet little children at Hindhead, where they lived in a red-brick catastrophe of the largest size that Pratt had brought about among the beeches and pines only a few years previously. On the afternoon of that day Mr. Dyke called in Prince’s Gate for the purpose of offering thanks by word of mouth for the invitation which he had already accepted with pen and ink. Mrs. Verinder said that he was amiable but untidy, and a sticker. She thought he would never go.

At dinner a night later—when only Eustace had been claimed by society and the other three remained at home—Mr. Verinder talked again of Anthony Dyke.

It appeared, said Mr. Verinder, that Dyke began his career as a hunter of big game in Africa, where, together with his companion, the eccentric Duke of Ravenna, he had been badly mauled by lions.

“The other night, while we were talking, I noticed some disfiguring marks on both cheekbones, and I should not be surprised if they were the signs of the clawing to which I allude. Whatever they were, he will carry them to his grave.” And Mr. Verinder went on to say that Dyke’s next scene of operations was Australia, where he had penetrated the unknown desert country in all directions.

Then he told them some more. He did not, of course, know that one of his hearers could have told it to him, had she been willing to display her knowledge.

The fact was that Mr. Verinder, desirous of being well posted by the twelfth of next month, when the man would be here as his guest for dinner, had searched tables and shelves at the Reform Club in order to put things together. That most useful of all volumes, Who’s Who, did not as yet exist, but a sort of popular dictionary of biography gave Mr. Verinder all that he wanted, and very much in the modern style. In this compendium he gleaned such essential details as: “Emerged at Shark Bay on the northern coast, sole survivor of the party; Thanked by the Government of Queensland, 1885; Thanked by Governments of South Australia and New South Wales, gold medal of Royal Geographical Society, 1886; First Antarctic cruise, resulting in discovery of the island since named Anthony Dyke Land, and charting of coast-line for five hundred miles, 1888; Establishing Furthest South record”—and so on.

Also Mr. Verinder had been to Mudie’s Library and borrowed that book, A Walk in the Andes. He read it after dinner.

They sat upstairs in what they called the music-room—the room that comprised the full width of the house, the largest and best room, with the pictures by Long, Poynter, and Alma Tadema. The Leaders were in the room behind; you reached it through those folding doors, now of course closed. Naturally all the light was not turned on, but there was full and sufficient radiance throughout the little camp that the diminished family formed on the stretching desert of parquetry.

Mrs. Verinder, wearing mauve brocade, occupied a sofa and dozed over the newspaper; Mr. Verinder had taken the very easiest chair and settled himself in it with many changes of position, as if determined to perform the impossible task of making it still easier; Emmeline sat upon a lowish stool, her pretty hair darkly lustrous in the soft orange glow of the lamps as she bent her head over a piece of embroidery and made minute stitches slowly and very neatly. From time to time she raised her eyes to glance at the book in her father’s hands, noticing how old and shabby it looked with the edge of the cloth binding broken and the librarian’s ugly label loose at one corner. She had a lovely clean new copy upstairs in her room—with the portrait-cover intact, and her own name and the author’s compliments written in a slap-dash hand on the title page.

“They told me at the club,” said Mr. Verinder, half closing his book, “that there’s a strong touch of Baron Munchausen about this.”

“Did you speak?” said Mrs. Verinder, raising herself and stooping to pick up the newspaper.

Mr. Verinder repeated his words.

“Munchausen,” murmured Mrs. Verinder drowsily.

He went on reading and Emmeline watched him while he read.

As she knew or had learned involuntarily, it was not great literature, a modest affair compared with the works of Thackeray, Carlyle, or Ruskin—but why bother about style when you have such a tale to tell? The matter not the manner grips. Was it gripping father? He had assumed a dogged, almost aggressive air, he frowned; but this did not really indicate that he was quarrelling with the book, it only meant that as he was very little used to book-reading as a pastime, he felt that a superior concentration of the intellect was necessary.

Watching him, she had again that odd sense of strangeness; as though he had not been really her father, but somebody that she scarcely knew and did not in the least care for. How strange! Certainly she had never seen him or understood him as now, suddenly, unexpectedly.

She observed his bushy yet straggling grey eyebrows, his inch of close-cropt whisker, his bald head with long strands of hair idiotically plastered across it from the fat neck, his leathery complexion, the creases and furrows of his chin and cheeks. He was well dressed, in a suitable manner—but suitable to what? The well-starched shirt, the black satin tie, the glossy dinner jacket gave him no true dignity, concealed not one of his defects. He was a ruin, a man run to seed; large without being strong, too stout about the middle, too slack about the knees, no steel and whipcord anywhere about this sprawling unimpressive bulk. No force of any sort behind that stupid frown! But he was kindly by nature, well-intentioned, thoroughly good according to his lights; only stupid—stupid, stupid as the Albert Hall is round, as Exhibition Road is wide, as Queen’s Gate straight and Kensington Gore flat.

Then she thought how cruel it was that she should thus judge him instead of pitying him—she, with this immense gladness in her heart.

She glanced at her mother, from whose relaxed grasp the newspaper was again slipping, and a yearning compassion for both parents came in response to the call. Poor dears.

The book had gripped father; he read on resolutely, but as yet of course he was only at the beginning, still in Patagonia. Stitching very slowly she thought about it. It was so simple, yet so wonderful, so very wonderful.

He had been “messing about” among the gold-diggings of Cape Horn. “The Gold-diggings of Cape Horn”—inaudibly she re-articulated the words to herself, just to feel them again on her vocal cords. Like all other words that concerned him, they had magic in them. For instance, Tierra del Fuego—the Land of Fire—Tierra del Fuego. And beyond all else, the Andes. The Andes—it seemed to her that the very first time she heard that word when she was a child, she should have thrilled through and through. The word should have taken possession of her by reason of its mystery and might.

Well then, he was moving northward among those islands, trying his luck at the gold-digging, and doing no good. “I don’t think I am a lucky man, Miss Verinder. No, I have never been very lucky. How I go on warning you against myself, don’t I? But, just as I have been frank to you about important matters, I won’t deceive you about small ones. Never mind. Hang it, the luck turns. I shall get my luck one day.” Well then—while her father read the book she talked to herself about it: Since he was at a loose end, no big thing on hand, the idea had come to him to land on the mainland, and go along the gigantic spine of the Andes in its entire length from south to north, say four thousand miles. And he had achieved his purpose, alone and on foot—seeing marvellous things, doing marvellous things all the way.

She thought of the lure that danger exercises over the bravest hearts. It is the same to-day as it was hundreds of years ago. It was that—the lure—which drew the brave hearts over the bars of Devon rivers in Elizabeth’s time; out, out to the Spanish main. Not the glitter of the gold, but the danger behind the flash and glow—the danger. She quite understood.

The newspaper had fallen with a gentle rustle upon the parquetry. Mrs. Verinder leaned further back, opened her mouth, and, after it had been open for a little while, made the faint sound of a snore. The snoring of Mrs. Verinder was like a terrible family secret, never to be spoken of or even hinted at in any manner to anybody—least of all, to Mrs. Verinder herself. This evening, however, it did not distressfully afflict either her husband or her daughter.

Emmeline ceased to stitch, folded her hands on her lap with a gesture that had become habitual to her even at this distant date, and her eyes grew soft and dreamy. Large as the room was, it was too small for her; with a few dreamlike thoughts she broke the westward wall of it, swept it clean away—the five windows, the rich curtains, the gilded, moulded panels, and all the rest of it—and passed out through the gap, merely leaving behind the graceful external shape of herself to keep her parents company and answer questions, if necessary, during her absence. She went a long way; westward, half across the world. Then she came back again, and was once more in the neighbourhood, although not yet in the house itself. She was walking under the trees, not far from sunlit water, listening to a voice.

The entrance of butler and footmen with the silver tray and the cut glass brought her right home, and she resumed her stitching.

Quite late the book wrung a chuckle and an expostulation from Mr. Verinder. “Oh, I say. Really—upon my word;” and he stood up. “If Dyke actually means what I think! And I don’t see what else he can mean. Listen to this. I want to read it to you.”

Mrs. Verinder, in the absurd sprightly tone of a person whom sleep has intoxicated, begged him to give them the passage; and Mr. Verinder, standing close to a tall standard lamp, with all available light on the page, read it, after first explaining the context.

Dyke, he said, had accepted a night’s hospitality from three savages, who at first appeared friendly, but soon aroused his suspicion. Acting a naïve admiration of the weapon, they had withdrawn his rifle before he lay down to sleep; and now the three of them sat at the fire with their heads close together, planning mischief, as he surmised. At their feet was a great stone axe, and not far from him a horse-hair lasso. “Dyke says that while still pretending to sleep, he moved inch by inch towards the lasso, till he got it and opened the noose. Ah, here we are. Now listen.” And Mr. Verinder read slowly, amazedly, fearfully. “ ‘By good fortune I noosed them all three, so that their greased and painted faces crashed together with a nasty bang. Borrowing the stone axe, I used it freely. Then I lay down and slept comfortably, feeling confident that my late hosts would never plot against a visitor again.’ He means—doesn’t he?—that he killed them. He says his late hosts. What! He can’t mean anything else?”

“No,” said Mrs. Verinder, successfully shaking off the dregs of torpor; “that’s what he means, of course.”

Mr. Verinder chuckled feebly. “But, upon my word If you think of it, wasn’t it—”

“It was in self-defence,” said Mrs. Verinder tolerantly.

“Yes, I suppose it was. But doesn’t it show—”

Of a truth he scarcely knew what it showed. Unless the obvious fact that there are wide expanses of land and water on this big planet where life does not run as smoothly as it does in Prince’s Gate; that when once you go outside the boundaries of civilization, when once you begin to disregard the rules that bind society together—He stood there in the strong lamp-light, with the reluctant confused facial expression of a comfort-loving, peaceable, sheltered person who is confronted with ferocity—legitimate ferocity, perhaps; as when, standing in an hotel balcony during a riot, one sees limbs broken by a baton charge of mounted police. However much one dislikes it, one cannot hinder or interfere. One can do nothing—except to make light of the incident afterwards, and, so to speak, laugh it off.

Mr. Verinder laughed and closed the book. “That’s enough for to-night,” he said, putting the book down, and feeling the back of his neck.

After this the name of Anthony Dyke faded out of the family conversation, and for a few days at least was mentioned no more. Then Miss Marchant came and made a communication to Mrs. Verinder, saying that she had been sent to do it by Mrs. Pryce-Jones.

Mrs. Jones lived in the large stone house at the western end of Kensington Gore, and Miss Marchant lived with her as a kind of lady companion, assisting her with household management.

Mrs. Jones thought that Mrs. Verinder ought to be told that Miss Marchant, happening to be in Kensington Gardens not long before dinner time, had seen Miss Verinder walking alone with a man there. They were quite alone, without the shadow of a chaperon. Just together—like that. They never saw Miss Marchant, who had observed them until obliged herself to leave the gardens. As Mrs. Verinder knew, they dined rather early at the stone house. As Mrs. Verinder knew also, Mrs. Jones was very fond of Miss Emmeline, and she felt it only right to send Miss Marchant; bearing in mind that the very nicest girls do need a little looking after.

Mrs. Verinder did not at all relish this turn of phrase, and she allowed Miss Marchant to perceive her distaste for it; but Miss Marchant, continuing the narrative after an apology, threw Mrs. Verinder into a state of flabby perturbation which she could ill conceal, by saying that the impression made by Miss Emmeline’s male companion had been so very unfavourable. He had seemed altogether a most undesirable person—objectionable even. One did read such dreadful things in the newspapers nowadays—about slight indiscretions of young ladies leading to painful entanglements. Indeed, as she confessed, she had been haunted by the idea of blackmailers—the sort of ruffians who possess themselves of a perhaps quite innocent secret, then distort it and make you pay them to hide it. In these circumstances Mrs. Pryce-Jones and Miss Marchant had both felt that it would be really wicked not to speak about it to Mrs. Verinder.

“Do you imply,” asked Mrs. Verinder breathlessly, “that it was a common ragged sort of person?”

Oh, no. The person was adequately, if queerly dressed; a great big tall man, wearing a grey suit and a slouch hat. It was rather his commanding air, the way he brandished his arms, and so on, that had displeased and frightened Miss Marchant.

Then—what was exceedingly rare with her—Mrs. Verinder had an inspiration, or an intuition.

“A bearded man?”

“Yes.”

“A man with a red beard, and rather high cheekbones—a great big man?”

“Yes, yes.”

It was that Dyke—the explorer. Although no worse, Mrs. Verinder was, of course, very much upset by it; but she displayed a satisfaction that she was very far from feeling.

“Oh, really!” she said, tittering effectively. “You may be quite at ease, Miss Marchant. It is quite all right, thank you. He is a valued friend of the family. No more a friend of Emmeline’s than the rest of us. But I don’t think I shall tell you his name,” she added, acting playful reproachfulness. “I don’t think you deserve it—No, I am not in the least offended. I’ll at least tell you this—” and for a moment hesitating whether to cloak herself with cold dignity or put on a mask of cordialness, she chose the smiles—“he is dining with us on the twelfth, and although unfortunately, our table is made up, so that I cannot ask you to meet him at dinner, I shall be very glad indeed if you and Mrs. Jones will look in afterwards. That is, if you have nothing better to do.”

Miss Marchant withdrew, puzzled and crestfallen.

Immediately Mrs. Verinder despatched a message upstairs requesting Miss Emmeline to come down to the morning-room. She had determined to talk to her daughter without delay, but quite lightly, with a simulation of unconcern. It is always wisest with young people not to show them that you have been fluttered by any act of theirs.

Afternoon tea was done, and trays of cut flowers, the contents of a hamper sent by Margaret from Hindhead, had been brought into the room for Mrs. Verinder to arrange in glass vases and dishes. It was a little task that she liked to do herself—perhaps because she did it with so extraordinary a clumsiness and ineptitude. She seized upon these flowers now—lovely long-stalked roses, pink and red—feeling that they would aid her and keep her in countenance; and as she moved about, dabbing the delicious blooms into obviously improper receptacles, breaking a stalk here or there, and slopping a little water on the choice furniture, she looked like a large over-blown actress playing a part in a highly artificial comedy.

“Ah, Emmeline, is that you?” she cried, with a tone so jarringly spurious that Emmeline stopped short on the threshold and understood at once that the trouble was beginning.

“Shut the door, dear. What was I going to say?” And Mrs. Verinder caused a slop-over and a shower of petals with the same brisk movement of her dimpled hand. “Oh, yes. I could not tell you why, but our friend Mr. Anthony Dyke came into my mind just now; and thinking about him, I thought I’d give you a little hint.”

“Yes, mother?”

“To begin with, we scarcely know him.”

“We have not known him very long,” said Emmeline, gently.

“I say, we don’t really know him at all”; and Mrs. Verinder gave a harshly nervous laugh as she mutilated some maidenhair fern. “I mean, nothing about him—who he is, or what he is, himself, outside his notoriety. Then the point is this. Because—I don’t say so, but I thought it might be—because he may have interested you as rather striking, a bizarre figure, and so forth—” Watching Emmeline’s face, she rapidly abandoned a difficult rôle and became more like herself. “I don’t want you to indulge in any silliness about him.”

“What do you mean by silliness?” said Emmeline quietly.

“Well, I don’t want you to fall in love with him.”

“I’m afraid I’ve done that already,” said Emmeline, still more quietly.

Her mother flung down a bunch of wet La Frances on the satin seat of the nearest chair, and became entirely natural.

“Oh, what nonsense—what utter nonsense! Emmeline, how can you talk such rubbish? Really—upon my word. A total stranger—and a man old enough to be your father.”

“Oh, no. He is considerably under forty.”

“Then he doesn’t look it. And such an untidy creature.” Ruffled, bothered, angry, Mrs. Verinder was speaking without plan, uttering scattered thoughts as they presented themselves, and she continued volubly to do so. “I never saw such an untidy man. That night at Mrs. Clutton’s. His crumpled shirt—and he kept running his hands through his hair till it was all anywhere.” Emmeline was gently shaking her head, as though to imply that she did not mind, that she rather liked the untidy appearance. “You of all people, too—you who’ve always had such a sense of fitness and niceness. How can you for a moment harbour such silliness? Besides, the time! There’s been no time for it. What night was it, that night at Mrs. Clutton’s? Surely not a week ago!” And Mrs. Verinder steadied herself, speaking slower and with weight. “Emmeline, tell me the truth. How many times have you actually seen him?”

“Let me think,” said Emmeline, with dreamy introspective eyes, deeply interested by the question and vibrating with anxious care as she answered it. How many times, how few times? Of course, it was so immeasurably more wonderful to her than it could be to her mother. “At Mrs. Clutton’s,” she said gravely. “At Hurlingham next day. Next morning at Waterloo.”

“At Waterloo?” ejaculated Mrs. Verinder loudly. “What’s that? Waterloo!”

“When Margaret was going home. He came to see her off.”

“See her off! How did he know her train?”

“She told him—or I did. I don’t remember.”

“More fools, the pair of you.”

Emmeline made a deprecating gesture, as of one who pleads not to be interrupted in a difficult mental effort, and for a moment or so looked about her vaguely.

“Then of course he came here that same afternoon,” she said, with a brightening face. “And the next afternoon he came again.”

“Not two afternoons!” cried Mrs. Verinder. “Not again, behind my back, without my seeing him. Oh, but, Emmeline, that is shameful; that is underhand.”

“He is not underhand. How could you see him? You were out.”

“Then he oughtn’t to have come in. Besides, why didn’t he leave his cards? There were no cards on the table. I looked.”

“He left cards the day before.”

“He should have left them again,” said Mrs. Verinder, not really meaning it, only feeling muddled and angry.

Emmeline made another gesture.

“That brings us to Thursday. And the three times in Kensington Gardens. I have met him there, mother, by appointment. That’s seven times, isn’t it? No, eight—eight!” Her voice faded away as she said the number, as though she was lost in the wonder of it. Could it be possible? Only eight times—all told!

“Well. Well,” said Mrs. Verinder, pulling herself together. In the midst of her irritation she could not avoid a feeling of pride because of the silly child’s absolute truthfulness and candour. “Of course you understand that there must be no more of such meetings.”

Emmeline let that remark go, as if it had been a ball at tennis that was not worth moving to—so obviously out of court.

“And your father must be told about it.”

“Yes, I suppose he had better know,” said Emmeline dreamily.

Left alone, Mrs. Verinder polished off the flowers in a very rough and ready fashion, thinking the while. If Emmeline insisted on making an imprudent marriage, it was doubtful if one could prevent her. No, why not be honest about it? One couldn’t prevent her. The only way you can keep grown-up girls in check is by holding their purse-strings—and Emmeline had her own money. And she thought that, nice as it is to belong to the third or even fourth generation of families enriched by the highest form of trade, it is perhaps a pity that grandfathers should leave money to female grandchildren—absolutely, on their attaining the age of twenty-one. Wiser and better to leave it in the control of parents—or make the age thirty—or forty. Margaret had gone off so easily and pleasantly with Lionel Pratt. A nice well-dressed rich young fellow, able to build quite a palace for his wife, and send flowers to his mother-in-law.

Leaving out maternal feeling altogether, she could not bear this idea of a quite attractive if rather reserved girl marrying an uncouth stranger—a man who had come from the ends of the earth and would probably want to go back there. Of course if it must be, it must be. “But, oh,” she said to herself with a sigh, “it is all too weird; for I don’t understand what she has seen in him to captivate her.”

She determined that she would talk to her husband about it directly after dinner, not before dinner. It was now half-past six o’clock; and, while giving her very last dabs to the flowers, she fancied that she heard the front door open and shut. Going out to the hall presently and seeing one of the footmen, she inquired if it had been Mr. Verinder coming in.

“No, ma’am, it was Miss Verinder going out.”

“Oh, yes, quite so.”

Mrs. Verinder went slowly up the stairs, feeling seriously perturbed. In spite of all that had been said just now, had Emmeline gone out to meet that man? But Mrs. Verinder held to her determination of postponing her chat with Mr. Verinder till after dinner. If you cannot avoid worry, it is better to take it on a full stomach.

Emmeline gave one glance back at the house, noticed that it too had changed, and hurried on.

Open carriages with a footman as well as a coachman on each box seat were streaming up the road. Quite young ladies in the carriages wore bonnets with strings tied under their chins, daintily small bonnets of delicate colours, primrose, heliotrope, and peach; those that wore hats had them perched in the queerest manner, on the back of the head, sideways, at angles; all of them held up flounced or laced parasols of rich dark tints, and their great sleeves ballooned so widely as almost to conceal gentlemen who were accompanying them—elderly gentlemen, these, like father, in top hats and open frock coats; or comparatively youthful gentlemen, like our brother Eustace, in top hats and buttoned frock coats. A horn sounded joyously, and round the corner from Prince’s Gardens there came a four-in-hand—four beautiful grey horses prancing, the whole coach shining in the sunlight, a bevy of ladies, a flower-bed of female elegance, on top; and the two grooms, one standing up to blow the horn and the other sitting down with folded arms. There was another, a plain-clothes groom, concealed within the shuttered doors, but ready to pop out should the gentleman driving meet any difficulties. “So-ho, there. Steady.”

The top hat of the gentleman driving shone prodigiously; he wore a button-hole of gardenias and had a light holland cloth round his middle dividing the frock coat from the shepherd’s plaid trousers; although his face was red and anxious, he looked very grand. The whole prosperous essentially respectable neighbourhood was rolling through the slanted sunbeams to enjoy its drive of ceremony in Hyde Park.

At Alexandra Gate a mounted policeman held up his white hand and stopped the traffic of the main road, in order to allow all these equipages to roll flashing past unimpeded. The stout plebeian horses of two omnibuses had to be pulled up short with a jerk, the ponies in several tradesmen’s carts skidded a little on the macadam; a small squad of lads riding on those new safety bicycles—not the ugly high ones—jumped from the pedals and held their machines sloping to the pavement. Within the rails of the semi-private sanctuary of Hyde Park, Mayfair and Belgravia on wheels at once mingled with and absorbed Kensington on wheels. It was a gay and enchantingly polite spectacle.

But Emmeline turned her back on it and walked swiftly into the cool shadow cast by Albert Hall Mansions—the only edifice in the locality of which Mr. Verinder did not approve. Then, before she reached the Albert Hall, her heart leaped. A tall, excitable man was coming towards her, waving a slouch hat. They should have met on the Broad Walk; she had told him to wait there; but he was not able to wait.

How had he captivated her? She did not know. Was it only because he was the incarnate antithesis of Kensington; because he was individual, unlike the things on each side of him, not arranged on any pattern, not dull, monotonous, or flat; a thing alive in a place where all else was sleeping or dead? Neither then nor at any future time did she attempt mentally to differentiate between the impression he had made upon her as himself all complete, with the dark hair, the penetrating but impenetrable eyes, the record, the fame, and the impression she might have received if any of these attributes had been taken away from him. Say, if he had been an unknown Mr. Tomkins instead of a known Mr. Dyke. Absurd. The man and the name were one. So very much so indeed that yesterday morning when, at the museum, she had asked for a new map of the Antarctic, and was poring over it in order to feast herself with a sight of those magic words Anthony Dyke Land, it was not only that the little black letters of which the names was composed shone like rubies and burned like fire, she felt distinctly the man’s hand on her shoulder and heard his voice at her ear, although at this moment he was miles away. He was Anthony Dyke. He was her lord, her prince, her lover.

Yet hitherto she had not been a romantic girl. She had felt nothing irksome in her surroundings, had been content with these broad streets and platitudinous façades; her pulses had not stirred at contact with masculinity; life with the family had seemed pleasant, and the prospect of ultimate union with some good-natured nonentity like Pratt, a well-managed nursery, some humdrum babies, had not appeared repellent. She was not irregular either in thought or conduct. Indeed, she had inherited a fair portion of her father’s love of order; showing this characteristic in many ways, keeping her room very neat and tidy, liking, even when she was quite small, to have boxes and convenient places in which to keep her belongings, not leaving books on sofas or dropping her handkerchief on the stairs. Beyond the sensation of possessing latent powers and capabilities upon which there had been no call, there had not come to her herself the slightest indication of the likelihood of what was happening now. It was unexpected, miraculous. As though that Virginia creeper which was so neatly bound upon its wires from the wide area to the top of the ground floor windows of their house had been metamorphosed into an overwhelming growth, with tendrils strong enough to bind a man’s limbs, huge pulp-laden leaves, and blazing red tropical passion flowers.

They entered the Gardens by the small gate, and he plunged across the grass with her just at a point where a notice board was imploring people to keep on the paths. They walked away together under the trees, towards the water. It lay all aglow in the mellow sunlight.

When she came home a little more than an hour later she glanced at the outside of the house again. Home. It was not so much that it had changed, it had lost significance.

After dinner she went upstairs to the music-room, while her father was drawn by Mrs. Verinder into the room that they sometimes called her own. In there Mrs. Verinder told him, with a mere expression of regret and no preamble, that Emmeline had fallen in love with Dyke, the explorer.

“But, good heavens,” cried Mr. Verinder, “he’s a married man.”

Mrs. Verinder sat down. As a very broad generalisation, it might be said that there are two classes of people: those who spring to their feet when suddenly confronted with a grave crisis and those who sit down. Mrs. Verinder was of the sitting-down sort.

“Married man!” she echoed, after seating herself. “How do you know?”

“Mrs. Clutton told me so. I asked if his wife was there, and she said no, the wife is never seen.”

“Then you ought to have told me.”

“I did.”

“Never.”

“I certainly intended to—although I never thought it could be of the slightest consequence to us. But I meant to warn you for the twelfth—to say nothing to him in conversation about married life or divorce. Oh, but this is ridiculous.” Mr. Verinder walked about the room, frowning. “Emmeline! No, no. Whatever fancy—It must be stopped at once. Emmeline must be told the facts of the case, and she must dismiss all thought about him. It can be nothing, so far.”

“I fear,” said Mrs. Verinder, “that she has been going about with him.”

“What makes you think that?”

Mrs. Verinder explained.

“It is very wrong of him,” said Mr. Verinder indignantly. “It is very wrong of him in the circumstances.” He felt alarm now as well as indignation, and he came to the front of Mrs. Verinder and spoke with frowning emphasis. “That sort of man might be very dangerous—unscrupulous—reckless of consequences. I don’t like this at all.”

Then he walked about the room again, reflecting upon the manner in which he should break the unpalatable news to Emmeline. He felt that it was a delicate business and one demanding tact; for no sensitive self-respecting young lady can fail to suffer from the sting of wounded pride when she learns that a man with no right to pay specially marked attentions to anybody has been paying them to her. On the other hand, if the attentions have not been special or marked, then in responding by any relaxment of reserve she has made a fool of herself—and she won’t like that either. However, he was soon ready for his task, and both of them went upstairs to Emmeline in the music-room.

There, in the music-room, occurred what Mrs. Verinder called “a scene.” It was the first real scene that had ever broken the tranquil atmosphere of the house since the family had occupied it; but as many other scenes were soon to follow, one may perhaps indicate the developments of this one by synopsis.

Miss Verinder, coming from the piano where she had been playing, was informed by her father of the fact—Mr. Dyke not in a position to marry, for the simple reason that Mr. Dyke is already married. In these circumstances an obvious necessity to open her eyes; and an equally obvious necessity for her and the rest of the family to drop Mr. Dyke like a hot potato.

All this he had conveyed with delicacy enough; but, observing that Miss Verinder, after her eyes had been opened, showed density, slowness of intelligence, or lack of sufficient recoil, he felt the initial touch of that cumulative irritation with which fate was about to torture him, and he amplified the argument in a heavier and less tactful style. Very, very wrong of Dyke to play the fool with her, and hold this knowledge up his sleeve. Can have so behaved for none other than a caddish motive. Very, very humiliating for her, to find out how worthless he is; but nothing to do except take the thing in proper ladylike style, wash him out, and look pleasant about it—that is, pleasant before company.

Then came the shock.

Miss Verinder, to the horror and amazement of her parents, said she had known it from the beginning. Nothing underhand or caddish about the man; best man in the world; at any rate, the only man in the world for her. As to being talked about, peril to reputation, and so on—it did not, as she implied, matter twopence-half-penny to Miss Verinder. To such questions as, Where had her pride gone? she returned evasive or unsatisfactory replies.

Mr. Verinder, talking now very freely, felt after a little while that he was making too much noise and no real progress. He broke off the interview, saying he would take Mrs. Verinder downstairs with him and go on talking to her alone in the boudoir. Emmeline offered to withdraw from the music-room, leaving them alone there; but Mr. Verinder said he needed pens, ink, and paper, and he would find them on the ground floor. He would return soon to make some final pronouncement to Emmeline; she was therefore to remain where she was.

Downstairs, he used such words as stupid hero-worship, temporary infatuation, passing fancy induced by the plausible cajolements of a man so much older than herself. Of Dyke he said he could not speak with adequate censure—and he added at once that most certainly Dyke’s invitation to dinner on the twelfth must be cancelled. But of course there should be no cancellation of the dinner itself. He would write to Dyke to-morrow; he knew exactly what to say to Dyke. That letter, however, could wait till to-morrow. The pressing thing was to decide what to do with Emmeline.

“If,” said Mr. Verinder, “she will give me her solemn promise never to see him again, then—”

“She won’t,” said Mrs. Verinder. “I could detect that, in the expression of her face just now.”

Then soon an idea occurred to one or other of them and was immediately adopted by both. They would send Emmeline on a visit to Hindhead, and thus keep her out of the way and give her time to forget this silliness. She would be very happy down there, she was devoted to Margaret’s two children, she liked all the sylvan glades that had been left standing after Pratt built his mansion.

It was not too late to despatch a telegram, although it might not be delivered to-night, and they could not expect an answer till the morning. They sent this off, looked in the railway guide to find an early train to Hindhead, gave the necessary instructions about the carriage which would convey Miss Verinder to the station. Then Mr. Verinder stood thinking and frowning, till he asked a question about the maid who would accompany his daughter.

“That girl who looks after her—Louisa Hodson! Can Louisa be trusted?”

“Oh, I hope so,” said Mrs. Verinder, already feeling that nobody was to be trusted, that everybody had bothering secrets which one would find out sooner or later. “Oh, yes, I think Louisa is quite trustworthy. She has been—so far.”

Then they went upstairs once more.

“It is arranged,” he said, “that you shall go to Margaret for a few weeks.”

Miss Verinder said that she would not go. Her face was white, and she spoke in a quiet but rather breathless manner.

“Oh, yes, it is all settled,” said Mr. Verinder curbing himself. Then, as he saw her shake her head negatively, he burst out. “You will do what you are told.”

“Oh, no, I assure you, father, I can’t be treated like this, as if I was a child.”

“It will do you good,” said Mrs. Verinder feebly. “You look pale and fagged. The change of air—”

“If I wanted change of air I’d sooner go to the seaside by myself. Yes, I could do that.”

“No, you couldn’t,” shouted Mr. Verinder; and he told her that if she compelled him, he would give orders that would result in total restriction of her movements. Then the servants would all know that there was something wrong in the house; they would talk, and the echo of their talk would be heard outside the house. Nevertheless, facing these risks, he would give his orders. “Understand, I am serious.”

“So am I,” said Miss Verinder, very quietly.

“The carriage will be at the door at ten minutes to ten, to take you to Waterloo,” he said, shouting. “You’ll have your things packed, and you’ll start—No, don’t leave the room.” She was going towards the door; but she stopped, and sat down by the piano. “Do you hear? You’ll have everything packed to-night, before you go to bed.”

“Except her dressing-case,” said Mrs. Verinder. “That must be kept open till the morning—to put in her small odds and ends—brush and comb—what she wants for her personal comfort.”

Nothing further of a contentious character was said. And presently Mr. Verinder tried to do a little acting in his turn; he essayed a representation of relief of mind, restored confidence, general good humour. He said he had interrupted Emmeline earlier in the evening when she was playing the piano. Would she play something to him now?

She obeyed, playing a selection from the new musical piece at the Savoy Theatre.

Mr. Verinder acted the soothing effect produced by tuneful melody, satisfaction that peace now reigned, and so forth; but, leaning back in the easy chair, he felt unexpectedly tired and shaky.

“Thank you, dear. That is very pretty.”

“And didn’t she play it prettily?” said Mrs. Verinder.

“Yes. Thank you, dear,” said Mr. Verinder again, indicating by his tone that in view of the task which lay before her upstairs he would not ask for an encore. That packing! He tried to express trunks and boxes by his firm but kindly manner; he did not wish to repeat the words themselves.

Emmeline, seeming to accept the hint, rose from the piano and bade them good-night.

“Out of the way for a month at least. That gives one time,” said Mr. Verinder, when the door had closed; and he gave his wife an oral sketch of the letter she was to write to Margaret explaining the state of affairs, putting Margaret on her guard, and telling her what precautions should be taken. He thought it ought, if possible, to be in the post-box before one a.m.

Poor Mrs. Verinder sat up late to write it.

Early next morning they received Margaret’s reply telegram—just the one word “Delighted.” Miss Emmeline had breakfast in her room, and this arrangement appeared to Mr. Verinder both natural and proper. At ten minutes to ten the single brougham with the luggage tray on top stood waiting at the door, and the footman who was to accompany it was in the hall waiting for the odd man to come through the baize doors with the luggage.

“Are Miss Verinder’s things down?” asked Mr. Verinder of somebody.

“No, sir,” said the butler, “I don’t think they are.”

“Where’s Hodson?”

Louisa Hodson leaned over the gilt balustrade on the first floor.

“Is Miss Verinder packed?”

“No, sir,” said Louisa; coming half-way down the stairs to meet him as he came up them, and speaking confidentially when they met. “Miss Verinder told me not to pack, sir. I think she has changed her mind and doesn’t intend to go.”

It was open rebellion.