"That young Lieutenant What's-his-name and the second Accrington girl, Gwen dear. They must have missed us and gone round by Furze Heath. I shall be in a fearful scrape with Lady Accrington, I know. Why didn't you come to the flower-show?" Thus Miss Dickenson, laying unnecessary stress on the absentees.
"I had a headache," says Gwen, "and Gloire de Dijon roses always make my headaches worse.... Yes, it's very funny. Mr. Torrens and I have been boring one another half the afternoon. But I've written some letters. Do you know this in the new Opera--Verdi's?" She played a phrase or two of the _Trovatore._ For it was the new Opera that year, and we were boys ... _eheu fugaces_!
"I really think I ought to walk back a little and see about those young people," says Aunt Constance fatuously. Thereupon Gwen finds she would like a little walk in the cool, and will accompany Aunt Constance. But just after they have left the room Achilles, whose behaviour has really been perfect all along, is seized with a paroxysm of interest in an inaudible sound, and storms past them on the stairs to meet the carriage and keep an eye on things. So they only take a short turn on the terrace in the late glow of the sunset, and go up to dress.
Adrian and the Hon. Percival spend five minutes in the growing twilight, actively ignoring all personal relations during the afternoon. They discuss flower-shows on their merits, and recent Operas on theirs. They censure the fashions in dress--the preposterous crinolines and the bonnets almost hanging down on the back like a knapsack--touch politics slightly: Louis Napoleon, Palmerston, Russian Nicholas. But they follow male precedents, dropping trivialities as soon as womankind is out of hearing, and preserve a discreet silence--two discreet silences--about their respective recencies. They depart to their rooms, Adrian risking his credit for a limited vision by committing himself to Mr. Pellew's arm and a banister.
CHAPTER XXII
THEOPHILUS GOTOBED. HOW A TENOR AND A SOPRANO VANISHED. HOW GWEN ANNOUNCED HER INTENDED MARRIAGE. PRACTICAL ENCOURAGEMENT. AUNT CONSTANCE AND MR. PELLEW, AND HOW THEY WERE OLDER THAN ROMEO, JULIET, GWEN, AND MR. TORRENS. HOW THEY STAYED OUT FIVE MINUTES LONGER, AND MISS DICKENSON CAME ACROSS THE EARL WITH A CANDLE-LAMP.
HOW GWEN'S FATHER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT. NEVERTHELESS THE EARL DID NOT KNOW BROWNING. BUT HE SUSPECTED GWEN OF QUIXOTISM, FOR ALL THAT.
ONE'S TONGUE, AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN BITING IT OFF OR HOLDING IT.
HOW GWEN HAD BORROWED LORD CUMBERWORLD'S PENCIL. MRS. BAILEY AND PARISIAN PROFLIGACY
The galaxy of wax lights had illuminated the Jacobean drawing-room long enough to have become impatient, if only they had had human souls, before the first conscientious previous person turned up dressed for dinner, and felt ashamed and looked at a book. He affected superiority to things, saying to the subsequent conscientious person:--"Seen this?--'The Self-Renunciation of Theophilus Gotobed?'--R'viewers sayts 'musing;" and handing him Vol. I., which he was obliged to take. He just looked inside, and laid it on the table. "Looks intristin'!" he said.
It was bad enough, said Mr. Norbury to Cook sympathetically in confidence, to put back three-quarters of an hour, without her ladyship making his lordship behindhander still. This was because news travelled to the kitchen--mind you never say anything whatever in the hearing of a servant!--that their two respective ships were in collision in the Lib'ary; _harguing_ was the exact expression. It was the heads of the household who were late. Lady Gwendolen apologized for them, saying she was afraid it was her fault. It was. But she didn't look penitent. She looked resplendent.
The two couples who had parted company, being anxious to advertise their honourable conduct, executed a quartet-without-music in extenuation of what appeared organized treachery. The soprano and tenor had lost sight of the alto and basso just on the other side of Clocketts Croft, where you came to a stile. They had from sheer good-faith retraced their steps to this stile and sat on it reluctantly, in bewilderment of spirit, praying for the spontaneous reappearance of the wanderers. These latter testified unanimously that they had seen the tenor assist the soprano over this stile, and that then the couple had disappeared to the right through the plantation of young larches, and they had followed them along a path of enormous length with impenetrable arboriculture on either hand, without seeing any more of them, and expected to find them on arriving. The tenor and soprano gave close particulars of their return along this self-same path. All the evidence went to show that a suspension of natural laws had taken place, the simultaneous presence of all four at that stile seeming a mathematical certainty from which escape was impossible.
Guilty conscience--so Gwen thought at least--was discernible in every phrase of the composition. This was all very fine for Lieutenant Tatham and Di Accrington, the two young monkeys. But why Aunt Constance and her middle-aged M.P.? If they wanted to, why couldn't they, without any nonsense? That was the truncated inquiry Gwen's mind made.
She herself was radiant, dazzling, in the highest spirits. But her mother was silent and pre-occupied, and rather impatient with her more than once during the evening. The Earl was the same, minus the impatience.
This was because of two very short colloquies under pressure, between Gwen's departure upstairs and the Countess's overdue appearance at dinner. The first began in the lobby outside Gwen's room, where her mother overtook her on her way to her own. Here it is in full:
"Oh--there you are, child! What a silly you were not to come! How's your headache?... I do wish your father would have those stairs altered. It's like the ascent of Mount Parnassus." Buckstone was presenting a burlesque of that name just then, and her ladyship may have had it running in her head.
"It wasn't a real headache--only pretence. Come in here, mamma. I've something to say.... No--I haven't rung for Lutwyche yet. _She's_ all right. Come in and shut the door."
"Why, girl, what's the matter? Why are you...?"
"Why am I what?"
"Well--twinkling and--breathing and--and altogether!" Her ladyship's descriptive power is fairly good as far as it goes, but it has its limits.
"I don't believe I'm either twinkling or breathing or altogether....
Well, then--I'm whatever you like--all three! Only listen to me, mamma dear, because there's not much time. I'm going to marry Adrian Torrens.
There!"
"Oh--my dear!" It is too much for the Countess after those stairs! She sinks on a chair clutching her fingers tight, with wide eyes on her daughter. It is too terrible to believe. But even in that moment Gwen's beauty has such force that the words "A blind man!--never to see it!"
are articulate in her mind. For her child never looked more beautiful--one half queenly effrontery, her disordered locks against the window-light making a halo of rough gold round a slight flush its wearer would resent the name of shame for; the other half, the visible flinching from confession she would resent still more for justifying it.
"Why--do you know anything against him?"
"Darling!--you might marry anybody, and you know it."
"Oh yes; I know all about it. I prefer this one. But _do_ you know anything against him?"
"Only ... only his _eyes_!... Oh dear! You know you said so yourself yesterday--that the sight was destroyed...."
"Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!"
"If you are going to take that tone, Gwendolen, I really cannot talk about it. You and your father must settle it between you somehow. It was an accident--a very terrible accident, I know--but I must go away to dress. It's eight.... Anyhow, _one_ thing, dear! You haven't given him any encouragement--at least, I _hope_ not...."
"Given him any what?"
"Any practical encouragement ... any ..."
"Oh yes--any quantity." She has to quash that flinching and brazen it out. One way is as good as another. "I didn't tell him to pull my hair down, though. I didn't mind. But if he had been able to see I should have been much more strict."
"Gwen dear--you are perfectly ... _shameless_!... Well--you are a very odd girl...." This is concession; oddity is not shamelessness.
"Come, mamma, be reasonable! If you can't see anybody and you mayn't touch them, it comes down to making remarks at a respectful distance, and then it's no better than acquaintance--visiting and leaving cards and that sort of thing.... Come in!" Lutwyche interrupted with hot water, her expression saying distinctly:--"I am a young woman of unimpeachable character, who can come into a room where a titled lady and her daughter are at loggerheads, no doubt about a love-affair, and can shut my eyes to the visible and my ears to the audible. Go it!"
Nevertheless, the disputants seemed to prefer suspension of their discussion, and the elder lady departed, saying they would both be late for dinner.
This was the first short colloquy. The second was in the Earl's dressing-room, from which he was emerging when his wife, looking scared, met him coming out in _grande tenue_ through the district common to both, the room Earls and Countesses had occupied from time immemorial.
He saw there was some excitement afoot, but was content to await the information he knew would come in the end. Tacit reciprocities of misunderstanding ensuing, he felt it safest to say:--"Nothing wrong, I hope?" This is what followed:
"I think you might show more interest. I have been very much startled and annoyed.... But I must tell you later. There's no time now."
"I think," says his lordship deferentially, "that, having mentioned it, it might be better to ..."
"I suppose you mean I oughtn't to have mentioned it.... Starfield, I cannot possible wear that thick dress to-night. It's suffocating. Get something thinner.... Oh, well--if I must tell you I must tell you! Go back in your room a minute while Starfield finds that dress.... Oh no--_she's_ not listening ... never mind _her_! There, the door's shut!"
"Well--what _is_ it?"
"It's Gwen. However, I dare say it's only a flash in the pan, and she'll be off after somebody else. If only my advice had been taken he never would have come into the house...."
"But who _is_ he, and what is _it_?"
"My dear, I'll tell you if you'll not be so impatient. It's this young Torrens.... Yes--now you're shocked. So was I." For no further explanations are necessary. When one hears that "it" is John and Jane, one knows.
"But, Philippa, are you sure? It seems to me perfectly incredible."
"Speak to her yourself."
"She's barely seen him; and as for him, poor fellow, he has never seen _her_ at all." The rapidity of events seems out of all reason to a constitutionally cautious Earl.
"My dear, how unreasonable you are! If he could _see_ her, of course, she wouldn't think of him for one moment. At least, I suppose not."
"I _cannot_ understand," says the bewildered Earl. And then he begins repeating her ladyship's words "If--he--could ..." as though inviting a more intelligible repetition. This is exasperating--a clear insinuation of unintelligibility.