The Earl also supposed not. But even in that very improbable event the resources of human ingenuity would not be exhausted. He could, for instance, go downstairs to speak to her. But other considerations intervened. Was her ladyship's information unimpeachable? Was it absolutely impossible that she should have been misled in any particular? Could he, in fact, consider his information official?
The Countess showed unexampled forbearance under extreme trial. "My dear," she said, "how perfectly absurd you are! How can there be any doubt of the matter? Listen to me for one moment and think. When a girl insists on talking to her mother when both are late for dinner, and have hardly five minutes to dress, and says flatly, 'Mamma dear, I am going to marry So-and-so, or So-and-so'--because it's exactly the same thing, whoever it is--how can there be any possibility of a mistake?"
"Very little, certainly," says the Earl reflectively. He seemed to consider the point slowly. "But it can hardly be said to be exactly the same thing in all cases. This case is peculiar--is peculiar."
"I can't see where the peculiarity comes in. You mean his eyes. But a girl either is, or is not, in love with a man, whether he has eyes in his head or not."
"Indisputably. But it complicates the case. You must admit, my dear, that it complicates the case."
"You mean that I am unfeeling? Wouldn't it be better to say so instead of beating about the bush? But I am nothing of the sort."
"My dear, am I likely to say so? Have you ever heard me hint such a thing? But one may be sincerely sorry for the victim of such an awful misfortune, and yet feel that his blindness complicates matters. Because it does."
"I'm not sure that I understand what you are driving at. Perhaps we are talking about different things." This is not entirely without forbearance--may show a trace of uncalled-for patience, as towards an undeserved conundrum-monger.
"Perhaps we are, my dear. But as to what I'm driving at. Can you recall what Gwen said about his eyes?"
"I think so. Let me see.... Yes--she said did I know anything against him. I said--nothing except his eyes. And then she said--I recollect it quite plainly--'Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!'"
"What did you answer to that?"
"I refused to talk any longer, and said you and she must settle it your own way."
"Nothing else?"
"Oh--well--nothing--nothing to speak of! Lutwyche came worrying in with hot water."
The Earl sat cogitating until her ladyship roused him by saying "Well!"
rather tartly. Then he echoed back:--"Well, Philippa, I think possibly you are right."
"Only possibly!"
"Probably then. Yes--certainly probably!"
"What about?"
"I thought I understood you to say that, in your opinion, Gwen had got it into her head that ..."
"Oh dear!... There--never mind!--go on." She considered her husband a prolix Earl, sometimes.
"... That the accident was _our_ fault, and that it was _her_ duty to make it up to him."
"Of course she has. What did you suppose?"
"I supposed she might have--a--fallen in love with him. I thought you thought so, too, from what you said."
"My dear Alexander, shall I never make you understand?" Her ladyship only used the long inconvenient name to emphasize rhetoric, which she did also in this instance by making every note _staccato_. "Gwen, has, fallen, in, love, with, Mr. Torrens, because, we, _did it_? _Now_ do you see?"
"She has a--mixture of motives, in fact?"
"Absolutely none whatever! She's over head and ears in love with him _because_ his eyes are out. No other reason in life! What earthly good do you think the child thinks she could do him if she _didn't_ love him?
Men will never understand girls if they live till Doomsday."
The Earl did not grapple with the problems this suggested; but reflected, while her ladyship waited explicitly. At last he said:--"It certainly appears to me that if Gwen's ... predilection for this man depends in any degree on a mistaken conviction of duty, the only course open to us is to--to temporise--to deprecate rash actions and undertakings. Under the circumstances it would be impossible to condemn or find fault with either. It is perfectly inconceivable that poor Torrens--should have--should have taken any initiative...."
"Oh, my dear, what nonsense! Of course, Gwen did that. She proposed to him when I was away at the flower-show...."
"Philippa--how _can_ you? How would such a thing be _possible_?
Really--_really!_ ..."
"Well, _really really_ as much as you like, but any woman could propose to a blind man--a little way off, certainly--only I don't know that Gwen ..." However, the Countess stopped short of her daughter's reference to a respectful distance and card-leaving.
It was at this point that Gwen and Irene were audible on the stairs, suggesting the lateness of the hour. The Earl said:--"I think I shall go and see Torrens as soon as there's quiet. I have gone to him every evening till now. I may speak to him about this." To which her ladyship replied:--"Now mind you put your foot down. What I am always afraid of with you is indecision." He made no answer, but listened, waiting for the last disappearance couchwards. Then he went to his room for his hand-lamp, as described, and after satisfying himself about that conflagration's non-existence, was just in time to cross Miss Dickenson, a waif overdue, and wonder what on earth had made that very spirit and image of all conformity guilty of such a lapse.
Then followed his interview with Mr. Torrens already detailed. Perhaps the foregoing should have come first. If ever you retell the tale you can make it do so. But whatever you do be careful to insist on that point of not talking before the servants. Dwell on the fact that Miss Lutwyche went straight to the Servants' Hall, after putting a finishing touch on her young ladyship, and said to the housekeeper:--"You'll be very careful, Mrs. Masham, to say nothing whatever about her young ladyship and Mr. Torrenson"; it being one of her peculiarities to alter the names of visitors on the strength of alleged secret information, to prove that she was in the confidence of the family. To which Mrs. Masham replied:--"Why not be outspoken, Anne Lutwyche?" provoking, or licensing, further illumination on the subject; with the result that in half an hour the household was observing discreet silence about it, and exacting solemn promises of equal discretion from acquaintances as discreet as itself. But there were words between Mrs. Starfield, the Countess's abettor in dressing, and Miss Lutwyche; the former having found herself forestalled in her theory of the argument in the Lib'ary, which she had reported as the cause of delay, by the latter's prompt expression of cautious reserve, and having accused her of throwing out hints and nothing to go upon. Whereupon the young woman had indignantly repudiated the idea that a frank nature like hers could be capable of an underhand _insinuendo_, and had felt a great and just satisfaction with her powers of handling her mother-tongue.
CHAPTER XXIII
PSYCHOLOGIES ABOUT THE COUNTESS. HOW GWEN WOULDN'T GO TO ATHENS, OR ROME, OR TO STONE GRANGE. BUT SHE WOULD GO WITH HER COUSIN CLO TO CAVENDISH SQUARE. HOW THEY DROVE OVER TO GRANNY MARRABLE'S, AND DAVE'S LETTER WAS TALKED ABOUT. HIS AMANUENSIS. OH, BUT HOW STRANGE THAT PHOEBE SHOULD READ MAISIE'S WRITING AGAIN! AN ODIOUS LITTLE GIRL, WITH A STYE IN HER EYE. AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE. HOW MICHAEL'S FRIENDS SHOULD BE ESCHEWED, IF NOT HIMSELF. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE AND HER SISTER HAD MADE SLIDES ON ICE THAT THAWED SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A LADY AND GENTLEMAN JUMPED FARTHER OFF
The Countess of Ancester was mistaken when she said to Gwen's mother that that young lady was sure to cool down, as other young ladies, noteworthily her own mother's daughter, had done under like circumstances. The story prefers this elaborate way of referring to what that august lady said to herself, to more literal and commonplace formulas of speech; because it emphasizes the official, personal, and historical character of the speaker, the hearer, and the instance she cited, respectively. She spoke as a Countess, a Woman of the World, one who knew what her duty was to herself and her daughter, and had made up her mind to perform it, and not be influenced by sentimental nonsense.
She listened as a parent, really very fond of this beautiful creature for which she was responsible, and painfully conscious of a bias towards sentimental nonsense, which taxed her respect for her official adviser.
She referred to her historical precedent--her own early experience--with a confidence akin to that of the passenger in sight of Calais, who dares to walk about the deck because he knows how soon it will be safe to say he was always a very good sailor.
But just as that very good sailor is never quite free from painful memories of moments on the voyage, over which he might have had to draw a veil, so this lady had to be constantly on her guard against recurrent images of her historical precedent, during her periods of wavering between her two suitors. Could she not remember--could she ever forget rather?--Romeo's passionate epistles and Juliet's passionate answers, during that period of enforced separation; when the latter had not begun to cool down, and was still able to speak of Gwen's father--undeveloped then in that capacity--as a tedious, middle-aged prig whom her ridiculous aunt wanted to force upon her? Was it a sufficient set-off against all this fiery correspondence that she had burned one preposterous--and red-hot--effusion, and started seriously on cooling, because a friend brought her news that Romeo was not pining at all, but had, on the contrary, danced three waltzes with a fascinating cousin of hers? Of course it was, said the Countess officially, and she had behaved like a good historical precedent, which Gwen would follow in due course. Give her time.
Nevertheless her unofficial self was grave and reflective more than once over the likeness of this young Adrian to Hamilton, his father, especially in his faculty for talking nonsense. Some people seemed to think his verses good. Perhaps the two things were not incompatible.
Hamilton had never written verses, as far as she knew. No doubt that Miss Abercrombie his father married was responsible for the poetry. If he had married another Miss Abercrombie it might have been quite different. She found it convenient to utilise a second example of the same name; some suppositions are more convenient than others. She shirked one which would have cancelled Gwen, as an impossibility. One _must_ look accomplished facts in the face.
The cooling down did not start with the alacrity which her ladyship had anticipated. She had expected a fall of at least one degree in the thermometer within a couple of months. Time seems long or short to us in proportion as we are, so to speak, brought up against it. Only the unwatched pot boils over; and, broadly speaking, pudding never cools, and blowing really does very little good. This lady would have _blown_ her daughter metaphorically--perhaps thrown cold water on her passion would be a better metaphor--if her husband had not earnestly dissuaded her from doing so. It would only make matters worse. If Gwen was to marry a blind man, at least do not let her do it in order to contradict her parents. Fights and Love Affairs alike are grateful to bystanders who do not interfere; but interference is admissible in the former, to assist waverers up to the scratch. In the latter, the sooner time is called, the better for all parties. But if time is called too soon, ten to one the next round will last twice as long.
The Earl also interposed upon his wife's attempt to stipulate for a formal declaration of reciprocal banishment. "Very well, my dear Philippa!" said he. "Forbid their meeting, if you like! You can do it, because Adrian is bound in honour to forward it if we insist. But in my opinion you will by doing so destroy the last chance of the thing dying a natural death." Said Philippa:--"I don't believe you want it to"--a construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl let it pass, replying:--"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their brows and woven into the patterns of the garments. Among them, two images--a potential Adrian and a potential Gwen--each with one variation of parentage, but quite out of court for St. George's, Hanover Square.
Are the Countess's thoughts obscure to you? They were, to her. So she refused to entertain them.
In the Earl's mind there was an element bred of his short daily visits to the young man, whose disaster had been a constant source of self-reproach to him. If only its victim had been repugnant to him, he would have been greatly helped in the continual verdicts of the Court of his own conscience, which frequently discharged him without a stain on his character. How came it, then, that he so soon found himself back in the dock, or re-arguing the case as counsel for the prisoner? Probably his sentiments towards the young man himself were responsible for some of his discontent with his own impartial justice, however emphatically he rejected the idea. There is nothing like a course of short attendances at the bedside of a patient to generate an affection for its occupant, and in this case everything was in its favour. All question of responsibility for Adrian's accident apart, there was enough in his personality to get at the Earl's soft corners, especially the one that constantly reminded its owner that he was now without a son and heir.
For, since his son Frank was drowned, he was the father of daughters only. It was not surprising that he should enter some protest against any but a spontaneous cancelling of Gwen's trothplight. It was only fair that spontaneity should have a chance. He did not much believe that the cooling down process would be materially assisted by a spell of separation; but if Philippa would not be content without it, try it, by all means! If she could persuade her daughter to go with her to Paris, Rome, Athens--New York, for that matter!--why, go! But the Earl's shrug as he said this meant that her young ladyship had still to be reckoned with, and that pig-headed young beauties in love were kittle cattle to shoe behind. Those were the words his brain toyed with, over the case, for a moment.
The reckoning bristled with difficulties, and every unit was disputed.
Paris was not fit to be visited, with the present government; and was not safe, for that matter. Cholera was raging in Rome. Athens was a mass of ruins from the recent earthquakes. Gwen wavered a moment over New York, not seriously suggested. It was so absurd as to be worth a thought. This seems strange to us, nowadays; but it was then nearly as far a cry to Broadway as it is now to Tokio.
Appeals to Gwen to go abroad with her mother failed. She also made difficulties--good big ones--about going with her parents to Scotland.
Her scheme was transparent, though she indignantly disclaimed it. How could anything be more absurd than to accuse her of conspiring with Irene towards a visit to that young lady at Pensham Steynes? Had she not promised to live without seeing Adrian for six months, and was she not to be trusted to keep her word?
She really wished to convince her father of the reality of her attachment, apart from compensation due to loss of sight. So she agreed to accompany Cousin Clotilda to London, and to stay with her at the town-mansion of the Macganister More, who had just departed this life, leaving the whole of his property to the said Cousin, his only daughter and heiress. She rather looked forward to a sojourn in the great house in Cavendish Square, a mysterious survival of the Early Georges, which had not been really tenanted for years, though Sister Nora had camped in it on an upstairs floor you could see Hampstead Heath from. It would be fun to lead a gypsy life there, building castles in the air with Sister Nora's great inheritance, and sometimes peeping into the great unoccupied rooms, all packed-up mirrors and chandeliers and consoles and echoes and rats--a very rough inventory, did you say? But admit that you know the house! Its individuality is unimportant here, except in so far as it supplied an attraction to London for a love-sick young lady. Its fascination and mystery were strong. So were the philanthropies that Sister Nora was returning to, refreshed by a twelve-month of total abstinence, with more power to her elbow from a huge balance at her banker's, specially contrived to span the period needed for the putting of affairs in order.